"It will break Dad's heart if they go off again! I wish—I wish—Oh, why does marriage sometimes bring such a gulf between husband and wife? It makes one dread it for oneself!"
CHAPTER IV
RECTORY LIFE
SUNDAY morning was bright and clear, but Mr. Adair came to breakfast with a dejected air.
"Your mother is not very well. She is staying in bed," he said to Joan.
It was so like old times that Joan almost smiled. She was sorry for her father, for he had set his heart on seeing his wife in church that morning, and the disappointment was great. Joan was hurrying through her morning duties, for Sunday school claimed her at ten, and she went straight into church afterwards. As she was going out of the house, Cecil came down the stairs.
"Are you coming to church?" Joan asked.
"I don't feel much like it. Is the church warmed properly?"
"As warm as a toast. Do come, Cecil. Dad will be so sorry if you don't."
"Shall I see Major Armitage there?" Cecil asked, mischief in her eyes. "I rather took a liking to him abroad. I was the only woman he would speak to in the hotel."
Joan's rather impatient spirit got the better of her. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What is church for?"
"To meet one's neighbours," said Cecil, provokingly, "and criticise best hats and coats."
Joan slammed the door after her.
"She's as godless as a heathen!"
But before she got to school, she was taking herself to task for impatience.
"I shall never win her if I am so hot-tempered. How badly I have begun the day!"
Her class soothed her. Joan was a born lover of children, and they all adored her. When she went into church, and took her seat at the organ, she forgot all her vexations. The little church was full, for Mr. Adair was already winning the hearts of his people by his simple kindliness and whole-hearted interest in every individual.
Cecil came in late. She sat alone in the rectory seat, and hardly hid her curiosity about the various members of the congregation. The squire's large seat was full. Sir Joseph and Lady Gascoigne were most regular in their attendance at church. Sir Joseph was the rector's churchwarden. Their daughter Rose, or Banty as she was usually called, was with them, also Wilmot Gascoigne, Derrick, and two other men who had been asked down for shooting.
Behind them sat the doctor's wife, a pretty little woman, with two fascinating small boys. A maiden lady completed the circle of Old Bellerton society; but following Cecil's entrance came Major Armitage. He slipped into the last seat next the door, and was the first to leave the church. Cecil's hopes of speaking to him were frustrated. She was looking very pretty, dressed in a pale blue cloth coat and skirt and black furs. When Derrick came up to her after church, she greeted him warmly.
"You haven't grown much," were his first words.
"Don't make personal remarks, or I shall do the same. Do come back to lunch with us. It is so dull. I feel I could talk to a pump, I'm so bored."
"I couldn't be bored if I lived in the same house as Joan!" He tried to look severe, but failed.
Then the Gascoignes came up. Derrick did not accept the invitation to lunch, but he had a word aside with Joan.
"How are things going? Are they humming?"
Joan smiled.
"Oh, well—we've hardly shaken down yet."
"Get the little malingerer to buckle to!"
"Oh, hush, Derrick! I won't have it."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"She's a radiant picture of health and beauty."
"Yes," said Joan heartily. "I love to watch her. You know how I always have admired Cecil, though I suppose, as she belongs to me, I ought not to do it. I must speak to Mrs. Blount."
She nodded to him and crossed the road to speak to the doctor's wife. The boys, Harry and Alan, seized hold of her.
"You told us you would show us where nuts grow!"
"We're waiting for you to come out with us."
"I can't do it yet," Joan told them.
They hung upon her arms.
"You must fix a day now. She must, Mums. She promised."
"Well, I'll try next Wednesday afternoon," Joan told them.
They were pacified. Then Miss Borfield, who lived in a tiny cottage at the end of the village, came up to talk to Joan of a sick girl in whom she was interested.
When she eventually reached home, she found her mother in the drawing-room on the chintz couch.
"I have one of my headaches, Joan. I won't come into the dining-room to lunch. Send me something in here."
Cecil was quiet and a little glum at luncheon. She was a girl of many moods. When Joan asked her how she liked the Gascoignes, she said:
"That Banty is simply a great cow! 'Do you hunt? Like to join our hockey club? S'pose you don't shoot?' And when I had said 'no' to all these queries, she turned her back on me."
"She is rather awkward," said Joan, laughing. "But she is very good-natured. I have met her once or twice striding over the heath with her dogs. She loves Nature, and so do I; so we have that taste in common."
"Did you notice Major Armitage? He was like a man in a dream while you were playing the voluntary. I know he was longing to do it himself."
"Armitage," said Mr. Adair, rousing himself out of a fit of abstraction. "He came to me in the vestry; asked if he might have the key of the organ sometimes. I asked him if he was a good enough musician to warrant my turning over our beautiful little organ to him, but he seemed to think he was."
"Really, Dad!" protested Joan. "You need not have put it so badly. But I don't feel inclined to give him my key, for I am so often in the church at odd times. The organ is becoming rather dear to me!"
"My dear, I have a duplicate in the vestry. I gave it to him on the spot. I liked the man, and mean to call on him as soon as I can."
Cecil brightened up.
"Ask him to dinner, Dad. I like him too, and you know mother's weakness for soldiers."
Joan was off again to afternoon school after lunch. Cecil and her mother spent the afternoon by the drawing-room fire. Neither of them attended the evening service, and when Mr. Adair hoped to have a little rest, and quiet talk with his wife after supper, she went up to bed.
It was always the way. For years his wife had eluded his company, though in public she was bright and engaging.
On Monday came an invitation to dine at the Hall. But only one daughter was asked, and Cecil pouted with discontent.
"I'm sure I don't want to go," Joan said good-temperedly. "You can take my place, Cecil."
Mrs. Adair wished to refuse.
"These country people bore me so Sir Joseph's conversation is only on sport, Lady Gascoigne's on needlework and servants."
But her husband wanted her to go, and said so very emphatically. She smiled at his eagerness, but gave way.
"The position of a parson's wife is pitiful," she said to the girls when her husband had left the room.
"Then why did you become one?" laughed Cecil.
"I know what you mean," said Joan sympathetically; "but I think the Gascoignes like people for themselves. They're too well bred to patronise."
Later that day Joan crossed the heath with her little terrier Bob; she was going to see a sick person. As her feet trod the dead heather underfoot, and she breathed the fresh keen pine-laden air, her spirits rose. The day had been full of small pinpricks; the daily routine of a quiet household had been upset; the rector and his wife had been having long discussions over ways and means, and accounts generally brought him distress of mind.
At the back of Joan's thoughts, through everything that was said and done, was, "Shall I be able to leave home?"
She could not see the way out. Every fresh hour convinced her that her place could not and would not be taken by Cecil. She was loth to acknowledge it. Now as she lifted up her head and surveyed the wide expanse above and around her, the words again came to her mind:
"Strengthened with all might . . . unto all patience and long-suffering
with joyfulness."
"I dare say," she mused; "that may be the life God has in store for me, not out in the world doing the work which seems big in my short-sighted eyes, but just the humdrum life at home which makes such demands on one's patience. How glad I am that I can leave it to Him. If He closes the outer gate, I can work within. And I will, oh! I will, if I can, do it joyfully."
Yet she wiped away some smarting tears as she walked.
Presently she met Banty Gascoigne, who was also alone.
Banty was a fresh-coloured, rather plain young person, and had that slightly roughened and hardened look about her face that comes of being continually out of doors.
"Weatherproof and waterproof," she called herself. She had fair hair and blue eyes, with rather a wide mouth and square chin. She was always dressed in the severest tailor tweeds, and wore very short skirts.
She waved her stick to Joan as she approached. Though they were not at present very intimate friends, Banty was thoroughly unconventional.
"I do like to meet a walker like myself," she said; "and you walk as if you liked it."
"Of course I do," said Joan; "it takes years off my life when I'm out of doors."
Banty laughed appreciatively.
"Where are you going? I am 'de trop' this afternoon. They had enough guns without me, which was distinctly nasty of them; and mother has a tea-party. I expect you wonder who can be at it, but it is three old cousins who have motored over, and the Irwins from Chesterbrook; and they're every one of them so Early Victorian that I am a fish out of water; and they're, of course, shocked and disgusted with me."
Joan explained her errand.
"Isn't it a bore to trudge out on such visits?"
Joan shook her head happily.
"You're a proper parson's daughter in principles; but you oughtn't to have that dimple; it gives you a flighty look."
"I'm so sorry," Joan said, laughing.
"I'll walk a bit of the way with you," announced Banty. "Are you coming to dinner with us?"
"The family is. I dare say Cecil will come instead of me."
"Oh, no; you were asked, and you must come. Derrick will be furious if you don't."
"That won't distress me," said Joan, laughing. Then she stood still for a moment, watching a flock of curlews overhead.
"Could you bring one of them down?" said Banty with gleaming eyes. "I could, if I had my gun."
"I suppose it is the sense of skill in aim that pleases," said Joan, looking at her thoughtfully; "it can't be shedding blood."
"Don't talk like a Quaker! I thought you were a good sort! Derrick swears you are."
There was a little silence between the two; then Banty said abruptly:
"I should die of the dumps if I were in your shoes, and yet you look so jolly."
"What is the matter with my shoes? They fit me well." Then a quick sigh escaped her. "Don't try to make me discontented; some people put their feet into the wrong shoes, and then comes disaster. I think, personally, I should like to exchange mine for a bigger pair. But if it's not to be, it is not."
"I only meant I couldn't stand pottering about the village and teaching village children and visiting the sick."
"Teaching is glorious!" said Joan with sudden enthusiasm. "There is nothing equal to it. Fancy being able to take a hand in moulding or forming a character. That is work that will last for an eternity."
Banty stared at her. She always dropped a subject which she did not understand, and she did so now.
Then Joan began to talk about the country and dogs and horses. Banty waxed eloquent at once. They talked and walked together, and when Banty eventually turned back and Joan went on her way alone, Banty, for one, determined to pursue the acquaintance already begun.
An hour later Joan was returning in the dusk. As she was passing a rather lonely group of pines her small terrier dashed forward, barking furiously. She saw in the gloom a man's stooping figure, and as Bob would not obey her call, she stepped over to see what was the matter. She could not recognise the man in the dusk, but his voice was that of a gentleman, and he was extricating his own dog from a gin. There was a clump of gorse and brambles in which one had been set for rabbits.
"Can I help at all?" Joan asked sympathetically. "I do hope he isn't much hurt."
"One of his legs, poor little brute. I don't think it is broken; but he is awfully frightened. These confounded gins ought not to be set in the open."
"No; it is very wrong. I'm afraid it is some of the village boys."
Then, seeing the poor little leg was bleeding, she took out her handkerchief.
"Do let me bind him up. I ought to be good at bandages, as I've passed all the exams. in ambulance classes that I can."
"I shall be much obliged. Men are always clumsier than women."
Together they bent over the small dog, who had been snapping at everybody and everything in his pain, but, once released, was now lying exhausted and panting on the ground.
Joan did not take long to bandage the wounded leg, and then advised his master to bathe it well on reaching home. He thanked her courteously, evidently did not want to accompany her to the village, for he turned off at right angles, the dog in his arms; and Joan knew perfectly well that there was no house in the direction which he took. She smiled to herself.
"I shouldn't wonder if that was Major Armitage. I wish I could have seen his face."
When she reached home, she found Derrick making himself very agreeable to Mrs. Adair and Cecil.
"Ah, here you are!" he said, jumping up and bringing a low chair to the fire. "Sit down and give an account of yourself. Your mother and I have been hard on at politics. We don't agree, of course; but we've agreed to differ. I wish I knew as much about our Constitution and its laws as Mrs. Adair does."
Joan sat down and told them about the stranger and his dog.
"That's Armitage, right enough," said Derrick. "Old Jossy asked him to shoot. He came out one day; not a bad shot, but a regular dumb dog. We each had a try at him. He is too cussedly indifferent to us to open his lips, and declines all invitations to meals. What is he making himself into a hermit for, I'd like to know?"
"Artistic temperament," said Cecil. "You must make allowances. Mother, can't we call upon him? I want to see his house. I'm quite curious to see it."
"Your father will call," Mrs. Adair said.
"I'll bet you a fiver you won't get inside his door," Derrick said, turning to Cecil.
"Done!" said Cecil. "And I'll do it within this next week!"
"I don't think you will do anything that a lady ought not to do," Mrs. Adair said very quietly; and then she took up a book, and the young people chatted on.
Joan began relating her visit to an old woman who had sent a message to her that she wished to see her "very special."
"''Tis me dyin' wishes, me dear,' she said to me when I got there, 'an' if your mem'ry b'ain't bettern mine, you'd best write of it down.' So, of course, I got pen and ink and prepared to do it in style.
"''Tis short, me dear. Fust and last, me savin's, in me best chiny teapot, must be spent on me grave, so's to spite Tom's nephews, which be chucklin' over me departure. An' me monyment must be a tasty bit o' stone what will attrac' the toury folk. 'Twill be comfortin' to think on 'em hangin' over me wi' admirin' eyes; not to mention bein' the envy o' that stuck-up Lizzie White, who did have a wooden cross with two doves, and went an' whitewashed it ev'ry Sat'dy; an' all for a drinkin' rascal who oughter be lyin' lowest of the low!' I tried to get her into a better state of mind before I left."
"I don't doubt that," said Derrick, joining in Cecil's clear laugh; "but I reckon you failed."
"I'm afraid I did."
Joan's laughing face grew grave.
"What must it feel like to lie on a bed waiting for death?"
"For mercy's sake, Joan, don't be so gruesome," said Cecil; "and don't talk any more about your old women; we get so sick of them."
"You're both to come to dinner on Thursday," announced Derrick, looking at Joan very straightly. "Old Jossy has too many men, and I've come to get another lady."
"Lady Gascoigne has written to me," said Cecil. "I wrote a refusal first, and then I tore it up. I want to see this Wilmot Gascoigne. Are he and Banty going to make a match of it?"
"Surely never!" ejaculated Derrick. "Why, Banty wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs; and he doesn't know she's in the universe. He's in the clouds all his days. He reeks of fusty musty books and parchment, and is a walking encyclopædia of the Gascoigne ancestors. Their present descendants he regards as clods of earth. The only word he's spoken to me was when he was watching us depart after the hunt breakfast last week. He had been listening to Banty's conversation with one of her hunting pals. I can't say she shone on that occasion; she never does in conversation.
"'Great Scott!' he ejaculated. 'And is that a specimen of a civilised and educated woman? She's a brainless savage, and is living seventeen or eighteen centuries too late!'"
"What a nasty little man!" said Cecil.
"His inches are not few, let me tell you. He tops me by a good many."
"He doesn't sound pleasant," said Joan. "Banty is his own cousin, and her parents are giving him a home."
"He thinks no small beer of himself, I can tell you."
"I will reduce him, if I get a chance," said Cecil, nodding her head determinedly.
The talk went on till Derrick took his departure. Joan went off to her father's study to discuss parish matters, and Cecil turned to her mother a little plaintively.
"Derrick seems to think Joan is overworked and I am a lazy malingerer."
"Is Derrick's opinion of any value to you?"
Mrs. Adair shut up her book and looked down upon her daughter with smiling tolerance.
"I value everybody's liking," said Cecil thoughtfully.
"I think you are rather lazy," her mother said. "I wish you would interest yourself more in the topics of the day. There is so much to read and learn of what is taking place. We are all a part of our Empire's history, and ought to have knowledge of the different currents that form and make it."
"Oh, Mother, don't be prosy," said Cecil, a little impatiently. "I dare say Banty and I are in the same category, only sport is her life, and pleasure—society—is mine. I know I shall get hipped before long. I can't think why father and Joan are so enchanted to live here. It is an awful little hole. I can't breathe, and the grey cold is appalling!"
"Are you not feeling well?"
"I never feel fit in England. I hate the winters, and this poky little village is worse than living in a town. Of course, the house is better. It seems to me that even Joan is getting cramped in her ideas. She can talk of nothing but the village."
"It is a small life—a country parson's," her mother admitted; "but you should occupy yourself with books."
Cecil gave a little impatient sigh.
"Joan is the good daughter and I'm the wicked one," she said; "and father's happiness and content in his small sphere makes me feel impatient with him."
Her mother made no reply. Cecil often voiced her own discontent.
CHAPTER V
RENUNCIATION
THE dinner at the Hall went off very well. Cecil was quite happy, seated between Derrick and a young soldier, Captain Harry Clavering, who took her in. Joan's lot was Wilmot Gascoigne. He was a tall, intellectual-looking man, with dreamy eyes and a slight sarcastic curl to his lips. But when he talked and smiled he was an attractive personality. He certainly did not appear to despise women's society, for he turned to Joan at once.
"You are our organist, are you not? I have never had the chance before of coming to near quarters with you, but I study your profile in church."
"How dreadful!" laughed Joan. "I hope you are not a physiognomist?"
"No," he said audaciously; "but you are good to look at, and too feminine in appearance to be a college student. I hear you were at Girton?"
"Yes. I wonder why men always imagine that the cultivation of the intellect alters the sex of a woman?"
"Please don't let us discuss any sex questions. They are so stale nowadays."
Joan would not be snubbed; but he suddenly plunged into the subject of architecture as seen in the university colleges, and Joan, who was devoted to that subject, forgot everything else. From the delicate fan tracery in King's Chapel, Cambridge, they wandered off to continental cathedrals, and Joan held her breath as she listened, entranced by his clever and rapid talk. Then he came back to literature, and here Joan could hold her ground. She and he were so absorbed in discussing Horace Walpole's letters, as compared with Pope's, that their dinner was forgotten. Joan could not say afterwards which courses she had taken and which she had left. She only felt profound regret when the ladies left the table. In the drawing-room Banty stalked up to her.
"What on earth was Motty saying to you? He hasn't been so lively since he's been with us."
"Oh, I think he is so interesting," said Joan. "I envy you having him in the house. He must be a mine of knowledge. I should be always digging some of it out of him."
"Why, he doesn't know a hen from a pheasant!" gasped Banty. "And would as soon ride a cart horse as a hunter. He's simply impossible!"
When the gentlemen came in, Joan was taken possession of by Derrick.
"No," he said; "don't you cast sheep's eyes at old Motty. I've introduced him to your mother, and they'll go ahead like a house afire. I was ashamed to look at you at dinner. You were hanging on his words like a fish on a hook. Just hang on mine like it, will you? It's extraordinary what a gift of the gab will do."
"You are so very mediocre," said Joan, smiling, and showing her dimple. "I never feel with you that I can improve my opportunity. I learn nothing by being in your society."
"That is because you're so book-proud. Don't tell me you learnt anything from Motty. He loves to pose as a literary swell; but I know he reads up for conversation like mad. Because he impresses a certain small, stodgy set in town, and fails to impress us, he thinks he isn't appreciated down here; and he'd discourse with pleasure to an open-mouthed goose if he thought that goose admired him."
"Do you insinuate—"
"I never insinuate. I hated to see his self-satisfied smirk and your animated and fervent homage to his intellect."
"How I wish you would grow up," said Joan.
"I've heard that remark before. Aren't we all a scratch lot to-night?"
He nodded towards a little circle round the fire, which contained Banty and her father.
"That's our hunting set," he said. "Cecil is trying to do the smart town set. She has two of the most go-ahead chaps talking to her now. Lady Gascoigne and those three dowagers are gossiping over that poor chap who is shutting himself away from his kind. 'So wrong of him,' I heard one of them say. She and her daughters run to earth every fresh bachelor. Your mother and Motty are the literary clique."
"And what are we?" asked Joan. "I don't think our conversation is very uplifting at present."
"Don't interrupt me. Your father and the Miss Grays and those two parsons represent the clerical section; and you and I, Joan, we are just chums."
His glance down at her had something more than affection in it.
Joan would not notice it, and she moved over to Lady Gascoigne, deliberately avoiding Derrick for the rest of the evening.
Mrs. Adair returned home with a great liking for Wilmot Gascoigne.
"The first intelligent man I have met for a long time," she said. "I suppose it sounds conceited of me to say so, but these country squires are, as a rule, very slow-witted, and the clergy have minds as narrow as their stipends."
"My dear Cecilia," said her husband good-temperedly, "you are very severe on the poor clergy, but I am glad you enjoyed yourself. I thought you would. These social gatherings are very pleasant."
"I couldn't get any innings with Motty, as they call him," said Cecil. "But I suppose he will find his way round here, if you like him, Mother."
Joan said nothing. She felt that she would see little more of Wilmot whilst her mother was interested in him. Mrs. Adair was a very fascinating woman, and she knew it.
Joan received a letter the next morning which sent her about her household duties with an absent mind and clouded brow. It was to remind her that there were other applicants waiting for the post which had been offered her, and that she must delay no longer in sending her reply.
At luncheon the rector said in his genial way:
"Cecilia, my dear, I want to have a small parish gathering soon—a kind of house warming. I want my parishioners to know you; there are farmers' wives scattered over the heath, and many who used to know us in the old days. It would be nice to gather them together and make them feel that we are their friends. Joan suggests Christmas, but that is a long way off. What do you think about it? And do you think you could manage to say a few words to them? You are so clever at expressing yourself that I am sure you would not find it difficult. It would please me very much if you would."
Mrs. Adair slowly shook her head.
"No, John, I have never interfered with your province, and I have some visits I must make to some of my own people. My brother in Edinburgh has asked me to take Cecil there for a few weeks. It is a long time since I have seen him, so I should like to go."
"It is an expensive journey," said Mr. Adair in disconsolate tones; "but we must postpone our gathering till you come back."
"Pray don't think of such a thing. Joan and you are quite equal to entertaining them. You know how I loathe parish functions of any sort!"
There was a little silence. The rector was bitterly disappointed that his wife was thinking of leaving him again so soon. In a few moments he said:
"I hoped, my dear, after your long sojourn abroad you were going to settle down quietly here for the winter."
"I am never going to give up seeing my own people."
Mrs. Adair's tone was proud and cold.
The rector heaved a sigh.
"Well, well, a few weeks will soon pass; and we shall have you back again."
Then Joan spoke, though she knew it was an unpropitious moment.
"I am wondering if I must decline this post of teaching that has been offered me. I told you about it, Mother. It is a chance that may never come to me again."
"Your father and you must settle that together," said Mrs. Adair; "if he can spare you, I have no objection to offer."
"He must have one of us here," said Joan slowly.
Cecil looked up laughing.
"My dear Joan, there is tragedy in your tone. Be thankful that your duties keep you here, instead of going out to earn your bread. You know quite well that you are the only one of us that is cut out for parish work. I should make a pretty hash of it if tried to step into your shoes!"
"Such a possibility is not to be considered," her mother said quickly and a little sharply. "You have not the health to do it."
Joan pushed back her chair and left the room abruptly. Her soul was turbulent and rebellious. She went up to her little whitewashed room, and sinking on her knees laid her hot head on the broad window ledge.
"Oh, God! It is hard. Am I cut out for parish work? Has not my training been for a wider sphere? Why should my talents be buried? An open door before me, with a vista of influence and power, and—and success. Yes, I know I could fill it. I know it is in me to mould, and organise, and rule, and yet I must shut this door and turn my back on it. And Cecil is doing nothing, absolutely nothing with her life. It would give her a new lease of life if she left her health alone and thought of others more. Oh, it is hard! It is unfair! I feel inclined to break away from it all!"
Hot tears rose to her eyes. She clenched her hands convulsively. Though she had known instinctively she could not leave home, she had hoped against hope that her circumstances might change. She could not bring herself to write the necessary refusal, and knelt there battling with her lifelong desires, and the duty that was crushing them into dust.
But in about half an hour's time her brow smoothed, and the light returned to her eyes. If joy was at present in abeyance, resignation and content had become the victor.
"I will be strong in patience, that is as far as I can see at present." Then a twinkle shot into her eye. "Perhaps if I can't teach and rule on this earth, I may do it in the Millennium!"
She got out her writing-case and wrote her letter in a firm hand. After she had sealed it, she sat looking out of her window.
"A great renunciation," she said to herself; "and yet nobody will believe it. Cecil laughs at the notion. But I have not done it very willingly. Now I must look forward, and never back at it. That phase in my life is over. Thank God, I can still impart knowledge, though of a different kind, to my small Sunday scholars. And I dare say from above it looks the highest class after all. What a lovely afternoon! I will go and get the apples in."
She ran lightly downstairs, and sang her way down the garden into the orchard. Cecil heard her. She was in an easy chair before the drawing-room fire, a novel in her hand.
"What a happy creature Joan is," she said to her mother, who as usual was at her writing-desk. "She is like father, easily satisfied in her small surroundings."
Mrs. Adair looked thoughtfully out into the garden. "I never have understood Joan," she said, more to herself than to Cecil, "but the present weighs more than the future in her calculations. Her apples at this moment are the most important things in the world."
When Joan and the odd man had finished their task, she came into the house to find that Cecil had gone out, and her mother was lying down in her room. The drawing-room fire was out; she ran into the kitchen and sent Jenny in to relight it. Then Sophia, who was plucking a chicken, detained her.
"Sit you down, Miss Joan, I want a word with ye. There's no getting a bit of talk with you these days."
Joan dropped into a rocking chair by the fire.
"I would like to sit here for an hour, Sophia. You have the knack of making the kitchen the pleasantest place in the world. When I marry—if ever I do—I shall live in my kitchen."
"Stuff! We'll wish you a grand match, Miss Joan; may you be one of they who gives orders only and has the staff to carry 'em out. Do ye know where Miss Cecil be off to?"
"No; where?"
"She have taken a note from me to Maria. Aye, she would have it, she be just wild to get into that house, so she tells me, and, Miss Joan, 'tis no house for a lady, and what is more, no lady is to cross the threshold."
"You sound very mysterious. What has Maria been telling you?"
"A good deal not to be repeated. But I'll tell you this, Miss Joan, Major Armitage be wrong in his head. There be no doubt of that."
"Why do you think so?"
"You'll keep a still tongue over it? I wouldn't let the mistress hear it nor yet Miss Cecil. He be quite unkenny as the Scotch say. You must know Maria do a lot of waitin' on him at times. She says at a certain hour every afternoon in the gloaming—from six to seven—he sits in his big room, the music-room he calls it, because of the big pianny, but Maria calls it the library, for the walls be pretty well covered with books. He takes a big chair by the fire, and he pulls another, a soft ladyish cushioned one, which no one never sits on, opposite him, then he smokes his pipe and he talks in a low tone which makes your blood curdle, not all at once on end, Maria says, but just a word here an' there, and a soft tender like whisper at times."
Joan laughed at Sophia's awed face.
"Why, lots of lonely people talk to themselves; I do very often when I'm out walking."
"Miss Joan, 'tis this way, and Maria says it as knows, he be talkin' to someone not to be seen, 'a-sittin' in that chair!'"
"Good gracious! What do you mean?"
"Well, I be charitable and say the poor man be not right in his head. There be people who might say he were temperin' and playin' with spirits. Maria come in one evenin', and he never heard her, and he leant across to the chair, and he says quite distinct, 'Will you listen, sweet, and tell me how you like it?' And then he walks to the pianny and he plays, Maria said, like an angel. And once he looks back over his shoulder at the chair and smiles, such a smile as a man gives the one he dotes on."
Joan began to look interested.
"Go on, Sophia, tell me more. But I don't think Maria ought to spy on him."
"'Twas by accident, but he have given orders that nobody disturbs him from six to seven every night. And there be other things, Miss Joan. He have told Maria that any gentlemen who call on him must be shown into the smokin'-room, but no lady on any pretence whatever is to put her foot over the threshold of the big front door. And he goes up to the little boudoir which he keeps the key of himself, and he puts fresh flowers every two or three days in it. But Maria dursn't ask a question. Maybe the lady be dead, and he be keepin' communion with her spirit, but 'tis a heathenish thing, and I think his poor mind be disturbed."
Joan did not answer.
"So, Miss Joan," pursued Sophia, "I want you to keep Miss Cecil out of his way, and you know what she always was like when a body wanted her to do or not to do, so determined to do contrariwise. The less a young lady has to do with such a man the better. Not but what Maria says he be kind and considerate and sensible in all other ways. And he be lookin' into his estate in the right sort of way, and talkin' friendly with the tenants. But he must have a kink in his brain, or be in league with spirits."
"I wish you hadn't told me, Sophia. Maria ought not to have spied upon him. His private life has nothing to do with us. You won't let this gossip get about the village?"
"Now what do you take me for? Don't I know that you're a safe person to tell things to? But Miss Cecil may get in at the back door—she certainly won't get in at the front."
Joan got up from the chair on which she had been sitting.
"I dare say Major Armitage is a child at heart, and was making believe as I used to do! I won't believe anything 'unkenny' about him, Sophia."
She met Cecil a little later coming in from the garden.
"I've bearded the hermit in his den!" she cried out gaily. "I told Derrick I would. I've been chatting in his kitchen, to Maria, who seems gloomy and mysterious. The Major was out, but I met him walking up the drive as I was coming away.
"'I haven't been to call upon you,' I said to him, 'but to take a message to your cook. Don't you remember me?'
"Fancy, he had the impertinence to say that he did not! I reminded him of the hotel abroad. He looked bored, lifted his hat and walked on. I have never been so snubbed in my life."
"I wish you hadn't gone," said Joan. "It puts you in a false position."
"Oh, don't be so conventional! He wants to be taken out of himself."
Then she sank down on a chair in the hall.
"I'm tired to death. I hate the country, Joan! I haven't met a single soul on the way there or back."
Joan stood still and looked at her with a little impatience and some tenderness in her eyes.
"I wonder," she said slowly, "what work you were meant to do when you were sent into the world?"
Cecil gazed at her in silence for a moment, then said:
"You do say such prosy things. Work! Everybody is not made for work. I am sure I wasn't. This life in a parsonage is nothing but work! You are just a slave of the village, Joan."
"It's happy slavery, then," said Joan, laughing, "for I'm getting to love them all, and, when you love, slavery isn't in it."
Cecil would vouchsafe no reply. She dragged herself up from her chair and went into the drawing-room to her mother.
Joan turned into her father's study. There was a good deal of parish work to be discussed between them. She found him now with his head in his hands, and his elbows on his writing-table, doing nothing. It was such an unusual position for him that she wondered.
"Are you asleep, Dad, dear?"
Mr. Adair turned heavy eyes and anxious brow at the sound of her voice; then his face cleared.
"Not asleep. I wish I were," he said, trying to speak lightly. "I am only thinking about ways and means, Joan. My pass book is not a pleasant sight."
Joan knelt down by his side and her tone was almost motherly.
"Don't worry. We shall be better off soon. You have had such heavy expenses coming here. We shall not have those again."
He did not answer; then a heavy sigh escaped him. "Your mother means to go abroad again in January. She told me so this morning."
This was the cause of his depression. Joan could hardly trust herself to speak.
"Perhaps she will change her mind before the time comes. We won't live in the future, Dad, dear. Leave January to take care of itself."
"I suppose you couldn't have a talk with her, Joan? Women understand each other. I always seem to bungle. I really don't know how we can afford it. I simply shall not have the money to send her this year. I withdrew almost the last of my private capital last year. I have been doing it for years, but that has come to an end, and if anything happened to me, I should leave you utterly unprovided for. Your mother's money could not support you. It is not nearly enough for herself and for Cecil."
"But I think and hope I could support myself," said Joan gently. "Don't bother over that. We will hope that you will be spared to us for many a long day yet."
Then she added in a different tone:
"I will try to have a talk with Mother again about it." She pressed a light kiss on his forehead, then persisted in talking to him about some of his parishioners, and for the time Mr. Adair laid his private trouble aside. Yet when she was about to leave him, he called her back.
"I hoped, Joan, my dear, I thought we had such a pretty, comfortable home now—I am sure you have taken such pains in making it fresh and home-like, I did think it would have been an inducement to your mother to settle down here. And there are such nice friendly people round. I have been wondering if we could not find some people who might take Cecil abroad at a slight expense—I have heard of it being done—if she would make herself useful to them, I mean, and then your mother would not be obliged to go. She could stay at home with us."
Joan almost smiled.
"No, Dad, dear; Mother will never let Cecil leave her wing. I will talk over things with her. But Mother is not dependent on house comfort. She has so many other things in her life."
"I thought a nice, pretty home would satisfy any woman," said Mr. Adair, sighing; "I told your mother so."
Joan tried to imagine her mother's feelings at hearing that sentiment. But she had an overwhelming pity for her simple, kindly old father, and when she left him, it was with tears rising in her eyes.
CHAPTER VI
A MOTHER'S CONFIDENCES
IT was not until the following day that Joan had an opportunity to talk with her mother, and then, as she wanted some things which the village could not produce, Joan drove her over to shop in the small town of Coppleton.
The little jingle did credit to Joan's painting, and the old pony trotted briskly along. It was a lovely still October afternoon. The woods were clothed in shimmering gold and brown, the sky was a pure pale blue, and the dark slender pines stood out in silhouettes against the horizon. A happy smile played about Joan's lips; she raised her head, and exclaimed:
"Isn't it delicious air, Mother? It is so exhilarating."
"I find it cold," Mrs. Adair said, drawing her fur cloak tightly round her.
Joan tucked the rug more completely over her knees.
And then she said a little abruptly: "I have sent in my refusal to that offer made me, Mother."
"You mean the post of teacher somewhere?"
"Yes."
"I think you are wise. I do not see how your father could get on without you here."
"No; and he tells me you are wanting to go abroad again this winter?"
"It is the beginning of the year and the early spring, that tries Cecil so," said Mrs. Adair slowly. "She is already getting back her cough again here, which I hoped she had lost altogether."
"Father and I are woefully disappointed," said Joan impulsively. "He is not so young as he was; he worships the ground you tread upon, and feels your absence keenly. His heart has been set upon keeping you at home this winter. I suppose it is not possible for Cecil to go abroad without you?"
"Hardly," said Mrs. Adair with a little laugh, "and, my dear Joan, your father will not miss us when we are gone. I cannot, as you know, throw myself into the small life of a small village. There is always an undercurrent of friction and dissatisfaction when we are home. It is my fault. You are a woman now and I suppose you have your own thoughts and ideals. They must take you farther than the horizon of Old Bellerton. Your father considers that the four walls of a house is the boundary of a woman's life work and ambition. But then he has a wrong conception of the size of a woman's intellect. And I suppose he, and the class of thinkers like him, are mainly responsible for the rebellious outbursts of many girls who are now swelling the body of militant suffragettes."
"Yes," said Joan quietly; "but you have seen a lot of life, Mother, and must feel, as even I do, that old-fashioned notions about women are not always cruel or criminal."
"Your father is one of the kindest and most tender-hearted men that I have ever known," said Mrs. Adair quickly. Then she laughed. "We are a very modern mother and daughter to be discussing the head of the house in this fashion. But in choosing a husband, Joan, goodness and kindness of heart are not everything. I suppose a broad outlook on life and intellectual aspirations are not conducive towards content and happiness, when one's companion for life is offering one crumbs from his table."