CHAPTER IV

JIM PAGET

THE next morning Mrs. Wharnecliffe took Gentian over to St. Anselm's Vicarage. Thorold's old housekeeper was already there. They spent a very happy two hours in the house, for Mrs. Wharnecliffe was never happier than when arranging and beautifying rooms; and Gentian was like a joyous child, dancing in and out, and singing gay little Italian songs under her breath.

By the time they were obliged to return home, chintz curtains were hanging in the windows, pretty rugs were underfoot upon the stained floors, and the whole house wore a habitable aspect.

As they were walking away from the door, Thorold passed down the road. Mrs. Wharnecliffe called to him.

"I hope everything is all right?" he asked.

"Yes," responded Gentian, turning towards him her glowing radiant face. "It's the dearest little house in the world, and I've discovered that there are swallows building under the eaves. Does not that bring us luck? I am longing for Waddy to see it."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe turned to speak to her chauffeur, and Gentian's eyes suddenly became soft and grave.

"I want to speak to you alone," she said to Thorold.

"We will walk down the road," he said. "I hope you have no fresh difficulties about the house?"

She shook her head.

"No, no. It is this. I have taken advantage of your kindness. I have claimed cousinship with you in a letter to a friend, and I thought I had better tell you."

"That is what I hoped you would do," said Thorold.

She clasped and reclasped her hands rather nervously. "It is Mr. Paget who has made it necessary. He is too rapid, too dictatorial, he sweeps me off my feet, and he wrote to me as if I were quite alone and forlorn in the world, and he said he wanted me to meet his parents, that they were very anxious to make my acquaintance, that they were staying in London and he was much disappointed that I had left town so soon. He expected me to come up at once and see him—to-morrow—and then he hoped I would come and stay with them in the North, but though he did not say it, I felt his parents would not invite me on a visit, unless they saw me and liked me; and I am not accustomed to that sort of thing. It is not for me to go to them for inspection, I prefer they come to me, and I do not want to be bothered with his parents at present. I am very happy here, and I shall be too busy earning my living soon to be paying visits in the North. So I wrote and said I might not be visiting London again for a long while; that I had a cousin down here, and that I was making my home here for the time. Do you mind? I hope not. I shall be using you as a buffer when occasion requires."

Thorold smiled.

"Ah, yes! I told you that, did I not? Very wise of you. I think I had better make acquaintance with this young fellow, and let him see that you must be treated with respect."

"Oh," said Gentian airily; "that is not necessary. I can keep him in his place. I would be friends with no one who did not show me respect."

Her little head rose a good inch higher as she spoke.

"Mrs. Wharnecliffe must invite him down," Thorold said in his quiet determined manner. "I forget whether you are formally engaged to him or not?"

"You cannot forget, for you have never been told," flashed forth Gentian; and then she made him a little graceful foreign bow, and turned back to the car.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe saw from Thorold's amused eyes and the girl's heightened colour, that there had been a few words between them, and Gentian soon enlightened her.

"My cousin Thorold is a little too inquisitive," she said presently. "He thinks he has a right to know all my friends. And I see no reason for it. But I would like you to know Jim Paget, he is an Englishman and has a home I think something like yours. And he wants to see me, but it is not comme il faut for me to fly to him. He must fly to me. Would it be presuming on your kindness to ask you to receive him one day? And I could fetch him from the station in my car."

"No, I would not like that. Certainly, dear, we will ask him down, but I will send our car for him. I was going to suggest having him here if you want to see him."

"Thank you very much. I will write to him at once."

In the afternoon Mrs. Wharnecliffe drove her over to see her old blind friend, Sir Gilbert Winnington.

Gentian looked with interest at the old Tudor house as they approached it. The green leaves and shrubberies surrounding it with the spring flowers again evoked her admiration.

"You have not the colour we have in Italy, but you are cool and green and shady and your trees are so big and old, that they look as if they've been here for hundreds of years."

"And so they have," replied Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "And this house is five hundred years old."

"Has your friend always been blind?"

"No, only about seven years. He lives quite alone with a secretary who is devoted to him. But he often has nieces staying with him, and he is the most cheery contented being in the world."

They were shown into a long low room which struck Gentian as one of the most comfortable she had seen in England. Books and pictures abounded; the easy chairs and couches were, all covered with soft blue leather, blue velvet curtains hung from the tall narrow windows, and thick Persian rugs were under foot.

At a table near an open window sat Sir Gilbert and his young secretary. Gentian was introduced to them both, and then Mr. George Damers slipped away, and Sir Gilbert made his visitors comfortable beside him.

"I am so glad you have brought your young friend to see me," Sir Gilbert said in a cheerful tone; "I always do like to have young people round me."

"How do you know I am young?" asked Gentian.

"By your voice," was the quick reply. "And you are quicksilvery by nature, and a little impatient."

"You are a wizard! Waddy is always telling me the same."

Then Gentian criticized her host. He was a tall, good-looking man, with a short grey beard, and rather delicately cut features. But there was a wonderfully peaceful look upon his face; he reminded Gentian of some of the saints in the pictures she had seen abroad. He and Mrs. Wharnecliffe talked together for some time and then he turned to Gentian.

"I hear you play the organ. Come and see mine. It is in the hall."

He led the way without a falter in his step, and it was not difficult to persuade him to play. Gentian sat back in an old carved chair in a dark corner of the hall, and as she listened, her whole soul was moved within her.

Sir Gilbert played as she had heard few play before. The sweetness of the notes thrilled her through and through. Mrs. Wharnecliffe listened for some time, and then slipped away. She wanted to speak to Mr. Damers, and also wanted to leave Gentian alone with Sir Gilbert.

When he at last ceased playing Gentian was at his elbow, and tears were in her voice.

"Oh, it is beautiful! How can you play so! You touch my heart. It is like the angels must play in Paradise. Some people move to laughter and gaiety with their music, and some awe one, and some move to tears, but you draw one up and away to God himself. How do you do it?"

He turned round on the organ stool and smiled at her.

"Ah!" he said. "You respond to music, you love it. And do you love God, little one?"

"When I am in church I do, and when I listen to music; and sometimes when I make it myself."

"And never when you are quiet and still? Or do you never give yourself time to be quiet?"

"Oh, I am quiet when I see a beautiful sky, or the moonlight over a lake, or the afterglow of the sunset on the snow mountains."

He placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Thank God every day of your life that you can see these things. He has given you much. What have you given Him? When we love we give."

Gentian looked up at him with a wistful gleam in her blue eyes.

"Oh, I don't love like that. I give a little money in church sometimes."

Sir Gilbert smiled.

"It isn't your pocket God wants, but your soul, the little soul that is still fresh and young and full of life and energy."

Gentian was silent. She laid her hand on his sleeve and after a minute she said:

"I like people to talk to me like that. No one ever has. And I want to get near Heaven. How can I give God my soul when I am alive? I hope He will take it when I die. When I think of Our Lord on the Cross I love Him, but I do not think often enough. I forget! There is so very much to interest me in the world. I want to see all I can, and know all I can, and do all I can. It does not give me time for thinking much."

"Will you spare half an hour every evening before you go to sleep, to think about these things?"

"I will try," was Gentian's sober reply.

"If you live your life in touch with God, you will make a success of it. If not, you are one of this world's failures."

"I do not like being a failure, but I love to be happy. I could not go into a convent and stay there as so many good women do."

"God forbid. He wants you to enjoy life abundantly, but to enjoy it with Him, and in His service."

"Play again to me, it helps me to think."

So the blind man turned to his organ, and soon Handel's beautiful "Comfort ye my people" was pealing through the silent hall.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe slipped back to listen to it.

When it was over Gentian's eyes were full of tears. But when they moved into another room to have tea, she exerted herself to talk. George Damers came back; he was a tall grave-looking youth, with something of Sir Gilbert's sweet expression about his face. He was very attentive to Sir Gilbert's wants, but when the meal was over Sir Gilbert asked him to show Gentian the conservatory. The brilliancy and variety of flowers there delighted her.

"What a pity Sir Gilbert can't see his flowers. Why does he have them?"

"He can smell them. He loves flowers. His life has not narrowed since he became blind. I think, on the contrary, it has widened."

"You are very fond of him, are you not?"

"He is a man in a thousand," was the quick reply. "I have reason to be grateful to him, for I was at my wits' end—I was one of those discharged soldiers after the war—incapable of continuing in the army, and I could do nothing else. He heard of me by chance, and took me in straight away. And every day the post is the medium of bringing relief to hundreds of others like myself, and every one he helps, he takes into his life. His purpose in it all is a great one, but he never talks about it."

"I think," said Gentian slowly, "that he makes every one he knows better, doesn't he? He makes them good, like himself."

"He tries to, at all events," the young secretary said.

Gentian rejoined Sir Gilbert in a thoughtful frame of mind. He talked with her about her music, made her a present of a volume of short organ voluntaries, and wanted her to try his organ, but this she declined to do.

"I could not play this afternoon," she said. "I have been listening to you, and your music and your talk is filling all my thoughts."

On their way home she told Mrs. Wharnecliffe that she was sure that Sir Gilbert would not live very long.

"He is too good to live," she asserted. "I have seen women who are good, but not men. Men leave religion to women—unless they are monks or clergymen. Sir Gilbert spends his days in pleasing God. People in the world don't do that unless they are going to die."

"Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe, smiling; "sometimes I wonder if you are six or sixty. Sir Gilbert is a very ordinary English gentleman. People call him a philanthropist, for he is very interested in all things that help and benefit young people. And he has a wonderful personal influence over them. There are many good men in the world, I'm glad to say, though you may not have met them. Goodness is not confined to dying men."

Gentian was silent. She was very quiet for the rest of that day, but the next morning seemed quite to have recovered her usual high spirits.

Two days afterwards, Jim arrived. Mrs. Wharnecliffe liked the look of him. She was amused at the determination on his part to be a big unit in Gentian's life, and at her proud aloofness and determination that he should keep his distance, and only have what she chose to give him.

He swept away at once all idea of Gentian assuming the profession of chauffeur.

"It is ridiculous, and impossible, and out of the question. You must come and stay with us, and my mother will show you why it is the last calling in the world for you."

"But I do not know your mother," said Gentian slowly, "and her views and mine might be very far apart."

Jim was a tall, muscular young fellow. Be towered over Gentian now, like some great Saxon giant.

"You alone in a car driving strange men about! Do you think your mother would have allowed it! I've seen three women chauffeurs. Thank goodness, they're of a different sort and make to you! And if you get hung up, with a burst tyre or a puncture or get run into by one of these char-à-bancs, where are you then? It's preposterous, absurd, not to be thought of! If you have a craze for motoring, you must come to us, and I'll tour you round for a bit. We'll take a run over the border into Scotland. You want to see everything and you must see that. When will you come? My people will be in town for the next fortnight, but they'll be home the end of the month. Can you come to us the first week in June?"

"I think not," said Gentian. "I am going to move into my new house with Waddy that week. I am very much occupied just now. In England we do not live the life of Italy. There the sun and the flowers help to keep you lazy. It is just a life of pleasure, of taking your ease. Here every one who is not rich works, do they not, Mrs. Wharnecliffe? Girls as well as men. We have to earn our daily bread. My car and my music and my house will take up all my time. My cousin has placed this house at my disposal, he lives near—"

"But do you mean that you will not pay us a visit?" Jim Paget's face showed great discomposure. "Your cousin, you say—you did not know he existed a few months ago. What has he to say to it? We are old friends—we are more than old friends—we—"

He glanced at Mrs. Wharnecliffe impatiently, wishing her out of the room, but she did not take the hint.

Gentian was perfectly serene and composed.

"I am very glad to see you, Jim. We are old friends, as you say, and perhaps some time later in the summer I may like to come and see your mother. But not just now. Have you a rock garden in your home? Mrs. Wharnecliffe has a beautiful one; would you like to come and see it?"

Jim Paget got up with a sigh of relief, and Wharnecliffe wisely let the two young people wander out into the garden by themselves. They were there a long time. Sitting in her drawing-room by the open window, Mrs. Wharnecliffe was at last aware by the sound of their voices that they were returning to the house.

Jim's voice was raised in indignant protest. "Are you going to keep me hanging about till you see some one you may like better?"

"No, dear Jim. I will not do that, take your dismissal at once. I mean it. I will not be bullied. Every one thinks he can browbeat and manage a girl that is alone. And I have a soul and mind as well as my body, and it is my soul you do not understand. It will not lie down to be trampled upon. If I married you, it would not be my own at all; you would have it in your hands, refusing to let it breathe and slowly squeezing it to death."

"Oh, Gentian, don't be so ridiculous!"

Jim's face was hot, and his tone not too gentle.

And then Gentian came with flying steps into the drawing-room through the open French windows. She stopped short for an instant when she saw Mrs. Wharnecliffe, then she slipped into an easy chair with a little sigh.

"It is very warm in the garden. We have seen your rock garden, Mrs. Wharnecliffe, and I believe Jim has gone to his room to pack up his things."

"But he is staying with us another night, is he not?"

"I don't think he will. Urgent business will summon him to town."

There was a hint of laughter in Gentian's wonderful blue eyes. Mrs. Wharnecliffe wondered if she were heartless.

But Jim was not easily crushed. He came down to dinner that night and talked politics hard with Mr. Wharnecliffe, showing himself a keen student of his country's constitution. He almost ignored Gentian, who was very quiet and pensive, and after dinner went off to the smoking-room with his host.

Mrs. Wharnecliffe did not press for Gentian's confidence and the girl retired early to bed. Jim said nothing about leaving, but came into the drawing-room just as Mrs. Wharnecliffe was about to leave it.

"May I speak to you?" he said very earnestly.

"Come along and sit down," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe cheerfully; "Gentian has gone to bed. She was tired."

"Oh, I would not have troubled her with my company to-night," he said a little bitterly.

"I am afraid you young people have been rubbing each other up," said Mrs. Wharnecliffe. "Can I help towards smoothing matters out? First of all, I should like to know how things are between you."

"We are virtually engaged," said Jim quickly. "At least, I thought we were. Gentian has never been practical about it, she always says we don't know each other well enough to be sure whether we shall suit each other. And I—I'm desperately in love with her. I've been so for five years. You don't know her as I do. She's the sweetest-natured girl in the world, but elusive, and she lives in a dream world of her own, and thinks every one a saint, and her moods are as many as the stars in the heavens. She's angry with me now, but in the morning she'll be sorry—she always is. I cannot stand her taking up this car business. Is she fit for it? Do you consider she is?"

"Most certainly not, but though I don't know her as well as you, I know she must be persuaded and not driven, and I am going slowly. I don't think it will come to anything."

"Oh, I don't know. She has such a daring adventurous streak in her. I want you to be my friend, Mrs. Wharnecliffe. I can afford to marry. I am in business in the city, and it's doing well. I can give her a comfortable home, and at my father's death, I come into the family property. I'm the only son. Gentian has no need to earn her living. I am ready and waiting to give her a happy home. Do talk to her, and let something definite come of this visit of mine. I'm so glad to find her amongst people of her own. You're a kind of cousin, aren't you? Do, for her sake, if not mine, persuade her to be properly engaged to me, and then we'll get married as soon as possible."

Mrs. Wharnecliffe was touched by the young man's impetuosity.

"Do you think you would be really able to make her happy?" she said slowly. "You see, I place Gentian first. She is almost like a daughter to me already, and I am certain that if Gentian married where she did not really love, a very unhappy future would be in store for herself and her husband. She is a very wilful little person. I think you are the same. Would you expect her to give way to you always?"

Jim looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Oh, if she belonged to me, I would make her happy," he said; "it's the uncertainty that irritates me at times."

"Do you want me to talk to Gentian and plead your cause?"

"If you will. She's missed her mother so, and old Waddy is no good at all. You're a woman of the world, and you can make her see that we can't go on in this indefinite way any longer. It's good for neither of us."

"And you'll take your dismissal courageously and quietly, if she wishes it?"

Jim's face fell.

"Oh, she can't dismiss me after all these years. I won't think it possible."

They talked together for some little time, and finally Mrs. Wharnecliffe promised to speak to Gentian the next morning.