Part 5

"I took up work because I was tired of living at home. A good many girls are like that. However, in our case there was very little money, and it was just as well that I should do something. I thought I should like secretarial work; it all sounded interesting, and I had always cared for books and writing. I didn't know in the least what it was going to be like. I'd never even been to school. The six months at the training institute wasn't bad; it was all quite new, and I liked learning the things, and doing well in the shorthand tests. At the end of the course, the training institute undertook to find one a post--and they got me a job with a firm in London. It was supposed to be a very good one--short hours and decent pay. My mother--my father was dead--was upset at the thought of my staying on in London alone, but I wrote and said that I'd been able to manage perfectly while I was at the institute--one lived 'in' there, as a matter of fact--and that anyway I'd made up my mind to do it, and to make a success of it. After all, I was twenty-two--and she could give me a small allowance, and I thought that with that and my salary it wouldn't be very difficult."

"I should imagine that by yourself, in London, at twenty-two, it might, on the contrary, be very difficult indeed," said Julian significantly.

"Not in the way you mean," Miss Marchrose remarked candidly. "From what one reads in novels, girls who work have to be on their guard from morning till night against--undesirable attentions. It was the one thing I thought I should have to beware of.... And all I can say is, that unless one asks for trouble of that sort, it simply doesn't happen to the average woman."

Julian thought of his own inward verdict on a beauty that had probably been very much too subtle and unvivid for universal recognition, and said nothing.

"I was five years working in London," Miss Marchrose told him simply, "and I have never in my life been spoken to or followed in the street. And no one has ever tried to make love to me."

Julian noted with a flash of appreciation that she did not add, "against my will."

"All the difficulties and all the miseries were quite different. Things I'd never thought of, or realised at all...."

"Tell me about them."

"I was ashamed of minding it so much--but the difference between being a girl living at home, however poor, and a girl going out every day to earn her own living. There were such a lot of things I didn't know. For instance, I had to be told, at that first office I went to, about calling the manager 'sir' when I spoke to him, and his son was 'Mr. Percy' to the clerks and typists, always.

"And then I'd never lived in London, and at first I used to go to Slater's Restaurant for lunch, and think how economical I was, and all the time the other typists were laughing at me and thinking I was giving myself airs because, of course, I ought to have gone to Lyons or an A.B.C. or bought sandwiches and eaten them in the office. And another thing I hadn't realised beforehand was the deadly monotony of it--day after day, sitting in the clatter of all those machines, and typing as hard as one could go. Nothing to look forward to, except Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and then I was dead tired, and I hated my rooms, because they were cheap and ugly and uncomfortable. They weren't really, you know--I had a bedroom and a sitting-room, that first year, and a fire whenever I wanted it--most people have a bed-sitting-room and go to bed when they want to keep warm--but I'd come straight from my home."

She paused.

"How long did you stand it?"

"Eight months. And then I knew I'd been a fool, and I thought that if my mother would forgive me and let me come home, I'd try again. She had a small business and I could have helped her--she always wanted me to. But of course my pride didn't like giving in, and after I'd once made up my mind that I _was_ going back, it seemed easier to bear it all, and so I kept on putting off writing the letter, thinking I'd at least have done a year of it before collapsing. And then my mother died, quite suddenly, and so I never went home at all, except just to settle everything up--it wasn't even our own house. And there was not much more money than before, so when I'd sold the business, which was luckily quite easy, I took another post."

"Was that the only alternative?" asked Julian, his voice as matter-of-fact as hers had been throughout.

"There was an aunt, but she had two daughters of her own, and they seemed to think it extremely providential that I _could_ do something for myself. They are very kind, and I generally spend my holidays with them. They live near London."

"You don't like London," Julian affirmed, guided by something in her tone.

"No, not much. However, the aunt's husband got me the offer of a post as shorthand teacher at that big place in Southampton Row, and I went there, and it was a success. I got a lot of private tuition work, and they raised my salary every year, and I actually saved money. That's why I'm here now."

Julian remembered Mark Easter: "She comes here for love of the country, I think."

"But I've never liked any work better than this," said Miss Marchrose warmly, "and I wanted to be in the country. In some ways, I'm happier here than I've been anywhere in my life."

"I'm glad. Only I'm afraid perhaps it's lonely, if you don't know anyone here. Do they make you comfortable at the farm?"

"Very, and I've always wanted to live on a farm."

Julian stopped the car as they came in sight of the shelving declivity of fine, powdery sand, lying in uneven hillocks, with tufts of stiff grasses amongst the boulders.

A broken line of white, flecking the darkness, showed the receding tide.

"Would you like to go down to the edge of the sea?" Julian asked her.

"I'd like to very much."

She did not ask whether he meant to accompany her, but after a moment moved away, and Julian remained in the car, feeling the sting of the salt on his lips and listening to the faint sound of the water on the grey expanse of gleaming sand.

No one knew how many nights in the year he came to the edge of Culmouth sands and paid silent, involuntary tribute there.

He came nearer to making a confidence than perhaps ever before when Miss Marchrose came back again, and took her place beside him.

"I always wanted to go to sea," said Sir Julian Rossiter slowly. "It wasn't practicable because I was the only son, and my father wouldn't hear of it, on account of the place. But that was what I wanted."

"Yes, I see," said Miss Marchrose.

And something underlying the note of beauty which he had before admired in her voice carried to Sir Julian the conviction that she did see.

He drove her to the gate of the farm, and they talked a little, with comfortable inconsequence, on the way.

When she got out of the car, Miss Marchrose thanked him cordially, and her movements, as she crossed the yard and went up the stone steps to the house door, were no longer eloquent of weariness.

Julian drove back to Culmhayes through the dark lanes.

It was characteristic of him that he should observe, as he took his place opposite to his wife at the end of the dinner-table that evening:

"I took Miss Marchrose back in the car this evening. She came out of the College just as I was going past."

He was quite aware, without looking at her, of the exact angle to which Edna's eyebrows raised themselves.

"I thought she stayed at the College working till all hours, and then had to be escorted home by unfortunate Mark?"

"Apparently the procedure is not invariable."

Edna waited until the servants were out of the room, and then spoke again.

"Julian--about that girl--I couldn't leave it at that, you know. God knows how much I dislike any form of interference, but then it's for Mark Easter--I can never feel that Mark hasn't a very real claim on me."

"In the name of fortune, Edna, what are you talking about?"

"You mean," said Edna, fixing him with a coldly thoughtful eye, and perfectly aware that he meant nothing of the sort. "You mean that, with my ideals, _all_ humanity has a claim on me. I do hold that it is so, and, as you know, I am always ready to give what I can, though it may not be silver or gold. I was rather struck by a curious little incident this morning, Julian, which illustrates my meaning. I think I must tell you."

Edna placed her white arms upon the table and leant a little forward, her handsome face full of the absorption that is the expression common to most faces, handsome or otherwise, of which the owner is talking freely about him or herself.

"For the last week or two I have been having a poor woman out from Culmouth in here to do some sewing, because Miss Brown is ill. I went in to talk to her for a minute or two, the first day she came. I hate them to feel as though they weren't of the same flesh and blood as oneself--and I was struck by the sort of hard dreariness in her face, as though she had never known the meaning of love or gladness. I asked no questions, of course, but just laid my hand on her shoulder and said quietly, 'I don't know if you've ever read Browning--perhaps not--but there is a line of his that I want you to think about while you're mending those curtains: "God's in His Heaven--all's right with the world!"' And then I left her.

"Well, she didn't make very much response, poor thing, but every time I saw her when she came here I've just, in my own thoughts, thrown a little Cloak of Love round her. It seemed to me all that I could do. And this morning--after all these weeks, when one just went quietly on without any visible sign of success--this morning, Julian, when I came into the sewing-room--she looked up and smiled."

Julian looked as though this consummation struck him as being in the nature of an anti-climax.

"Day after day, I'd thrown my little Cloak of Love round her--and she'd come to feel the warmth of it at last. It has made me very happy, Julian. You will smile at me, very likely, but the winning of that poor little seamstress to a brighter, truer outlook seems to me--well, just extraordinarily worth while."

There was silence, while Lady Rossiter's softened expression denoted that she was devoting her reflections to the recent conquest. But presently she went back to her original ground of departure.

"About Mark, though--I care for him too much to see him take any risks. And I find--would to God I hadn't!--that my original instinct was correct."

Lady Rossiter waited, but her husband showed no disposition to ask for elucidation, and she was obliged to go on unquestioned.

"It was this very girl--Pauline Marchrose--who threw over Clarence Isbister because of his accident."

For once, Sir Julian displayed astonishment in the right place.

"Good Lord!" he said, in a startled voice. "I'd forgotten all about that business."

There was a long pause. Then Julian remarked slowly:

"Yes--I should rather like to hear the rights of that story. Perhaps, after all, Clarence Isbister wasn't quite such an ass as I always thought him."

VI

"How's the 'Tale of Two Sexes,' or whatever it's called, getting on?" flippantly enquired Sir Julian of his agent.

"Coming out any day now," said Mark, with a grin, "and the gifted authoress is coming to stay with us next month. Will you and Lady Rossiter come and dine one night? I'm afraid you'll get a very poor dinner, but you know what to expect of Sarah. I should like to make it rather more amusing for Iris, if you can face it."

"Delighted," said Sir Julian untruthfully.

The proposed entertainment was one which he had sampled before, and for which he had conceived a profound distaste.

An element of novelty was introduced, however, at the eleventh hour, when the evening of the dinner-party arrived. Mark greeted Sir Julian and Lady Rossiter on the threshold.

"A creature called Douglas Garrett has turned up, by what he and Iris call a coincidence. Of course, I had to ask the chap to dinner, and he's gone to the 'King's Head' to get his things."

"The more the merrier," said Julian rather gloomily.

"I've got Miss Marchrose to come, so we shall be even numbers," said Mark cheerfully.

"Good."

"You should have let me know," murmured Edna gently. "She may perhaps want keeping in countenance a little, as regards evening dress. I could so easily have put on a high gown."

Regrets on the score of Edna's modest and extremely becoming _décolletage_, half shrouded in tulle, proved unnecessary.

Miss Iris Easter was in full dinner-dress, of a rose colour that enhanced her extreme fairness and prettiness.

Small as was Julian's admiration for her personality, he was always struck afresh at the sight of her, at the size of her enormous eyes--as nearly violet as any eyes outside the pages of a novel--her crinkled, fluffy hair, her general delicacy of form and feature. Even the misguided instinct which had led her to outline a charming upper lip with sealing-wax red could not detract from her porcelain prettiness.

She was the possessor of a high, youthful, lisping voice that always reminded Julian of the adjective "fluted," and a pronunciation that is best indicated by the fact that she always pronounced her own name as though it were spelt "heiress."

At the sight of Lady Rossiter she cried:

"Eoh! _heow_ blessed to see you again, dear Lady Rahsittur!" and almost similarly greeted Sir Julian, with her head very much on one side.

Lady Rossiter said "My dear!" in a tone which simultaneously conveyed protest at Miss Easter's excessive effusion and the unspoken admission that any lesser enthusiasm would never have met the case, and Julian laughed a little, simply because Iris was so pretty and her monstrous affectation had not yet had time to produce its usual effect upon his temper.

"Where's your young man?" Mark asked her, with a laugh. "He ought to be back by this time."

"Douglas?" said Iris, in a careless and interrogatory way, as though the enquiry might refer to any number of attendant swains. "Oh, he'll be here directly. I can hear the dear kiddies, Mark."

So could everyone else, as Ruthie and Ambrose whined, argued, and stampeded their way downstairs.

The usual violent onslaught on the door-handle ensued, but after it had been wrenched from Ambrose by Ruthie's superior height and strength of muscle, they effected a decorous entry into the drawing-room hand-in-hand.

"Oh, you sweet pets!" was the misguided exclamation of their Auntie Iris. Julian wondered if it were provoked by the unwonted starchy whiteness of Ruthie's skirts, which had a look of having been outgrown by her some months previously, or by the long, pale sausage of hair that had been forced into an unwilling curl on the extreme top of her brother's head.

"Say how do you do," Mark admonished them, with a rather puzzled look as he took in the cleanly aspect for once presented by his progeny.

"How fast Ruthie is growing!" said Lady Rossiter, in a slightly disparaging tone. Mark gazed regretfully at the legs of his daughter and muttered under his moustache:

"They want someone to see to their clothes. Sarah does her best, but servants can't be expected----"

Lady Rossiter turned upon him a deepened gaze expressive of compassion, comprehension, and much else that was destined to remain unappreciated, as further sounds of arrival took Mark to the door.

"That was a cab, surely," said Lady Rossiter. "I suppose it's Miss Marchrose. That seems rather an expensive item for her."

"How dear of you, Lady Rossiter! I do believe you always think of every little thing."

On this extravagant assertion of Miss Easter's her brother returned to the drawing-room with his two remaining guests.

Mr. Douglas Garrett was a tall, saturnine youth, whose conversation principally consisted in emphasising the gulf separating the rest of humanity from himself and some persons unspecified, but amalgamated under the monosyllable "we."

"We poor motor-cyclists can't hope to be as punctual as the rest of the world," he observed to Lady Rossiter, to whom he was presented by Iris as "My great friend, Mr. Garrett, dear Lady Rossiter, but everyone calls him Douglas."

"You will hardly need to be told that I have Scotch blood in me, after that," gravely said Mr. Garrett. "We Kelts are faithful to the traditional old names of the Clan."

"Oh," said Iris, her head more on one side than ever. "Isn't there some poem about, 'Douglas, Douglas, tender and true'?"

Mr. Garrett inclined his head towards her in acknowledgment and murmured something about "we lovers of the dear old bard" which nobody seemed quite to catch.

The room, not over large, now appeared to be rather uncomfortably crowded, and pervaded, moreover, by a growing consciousness that something must be happening to the dinner.

Lady Rossiter said to Mark, "I always love a _little_ house, especially in winter. They are so much warmer," at the same time holding a newspaper between herself and the fire, the size of which was out of all proportion to the room and to the number of its occupants.

"I know you love kiddies," Auntie Iris remarked in a general sort of way to Miss Marchrose, Julian, and Mr. Garrett. "These little people are too quaint for words; aren't you, children?"

The rather embarrassing enquiry appeared to present no difficulty to Ruthie, who made it the ground of a sudden onslaught upon Mr. Garrett.

"Are you married?" she enquired with loudness and assurance of the astonished young man.

"Certainly not," said Mr. Garrett, with emphasis. Ruthie immediately took an uninvited seat upon his knee.

"Come here, Ambrose dear," said Auntie Iris hastily, "and talk to us."

"Eh?" said Ambrose, looking enquiringly at her through his spectacles.

It needed no intuition to recognise either the intonation or the vocabulary of Sarah in the pleasing monosyllable shot forth by Master Easter.

"What have you been doing to-day?" rather rashly pursued Auntie Iris.

"Eh?"

"Don't say 'eh' like that, darling. I can't imagine what's come over the child."

"That's Peekaboo's new bad habit," his sister gleefully proclaimed. "He says 'eh' to everything now."

Ambrose looked venomously at her, but said nothing.

"Do you know what we Scotch lads and lassies used to be taught in our nursery days?" Mr. Garrett enquired.

"Eh?"

"We used to be taught," Mr. Garrett said, with great distinctness and an air of originality, "Birds in their little nests agree."

"That's what Sarah says."

Mr. Garrett looked rather depressed at this unenthusiastic reception of his scholastic axiom.

There ensued a pause, during which Julian could hear his host and Lady Rossiter pursuing a conversation in which the last thing had long been said.

He turned to Miss Marchrose, and ill-adapted as were her twenty-eight years, her tired eyes, and her rather worn mauve foulard to bear comparison with the radiant Iris, Julian found it pleasant to look at her and to listen to her charming voice.

The satisfaction, however, was not afforded to him for long. "Auntie Iris! Shall I say my piece?" Ruthie asked in her accustomedly penetrating accents.

Everybody looked doubtful.

"Hark!" exclaimed Julian, quite involuntarily. "Isn't that----?"

Sarah, looking heated, announced dinner.

"Oh, what a pity!" said Ruthie. "But I daresay me and Ambrose will be still here when you come out from dinner. So I can say it then."

With this altruistic reassurance still ringing in the air, to an accompaniment of stubbornly reiterated "ehs" from Ambrose, the dining-room was reached.

"I see that your novel is being very well advertised," Sir Julian began conversation with his hostess. "We have it on order, but it has not yet arrived. I hope that means that the sales are going well."

"Don't hope that," said Mr. Garrett in a deep voice across the table.

"Why not?" said Mark, after giving Sir Julian due time for the enquiry which nothing would have induced him to make.

"'Why, Ben!' is not to be lightly put before the multitude. Iris has shown extraordinary courage in attacking a problem which could only present itself to thinking minds. The very title tells one that--a Story of the Sexes. By the by, Iris, we realists of the new school are inclined to wish that you had made _that_ the name of the book outright."

"No, no," said Mark, and added courageously, "Besides, I like 'Why, Ben!' It's so original."

"Is your book a novel?" Miss Marchrose enquired of Iris.

Mr. Garrett took the reply upon himself. "An extraordinarily powerful study of man's primitive needs," he explained.

"Iris--Miss Easter--has gone straight down to the very bed-rock of the soil. We present-day pagans are gradually winning our way back to Mother Nature, don't you think?"

Julian involuntarily glanced at his wife at this perverted example of her own theories.

"Perhaps," said Edna very sweetly, "Mother Nature is herself leading us home. One has only to look round one, after all. Personally, I have a tiny, tiny little nature-class which means a great deal to me. And I make everyone join who has one little spark of the Divine Fire, whoever it may be. But then I'm afraid I'm a socialist--a rank, rank democrat."

The announcement provided ample opportunity for the more strenuous form of egotism known as General Conversation.

"Oh, Lady Rossiter!" piped Iris; "but I always say that if the socialists divided everything up and made everyone equal to-day, things would all go back to the old way to-morrow!"

"I must admit that we thinkers are all in favour of democracy as a rule," said Mr. Douglas Garrett, obviously resentful at having to agree with anyone present; "but take the Keltic element alone--perhaps I shall make my point best by putting my own case to you...."

His sombre gaze was fixed upon Miss Marchrose, who brazenly ignored the whole of the last half of his sentence, and said pleasantly that she knew nothing about politics and had always been brought up to believe the whole subject quite unfit for feminine ears.

"This from an emancipated lady who has taken up a business career!" said Edna, with a hint of mockery. "I quite imagined you an advocate of woman's rights, Miss Marchrose."

"The cry of Woman's Rights, my dear Edna, was a catchword which has passed out of the language while Miss Marchrose was still in the nursery," said Sir Julian suavely; "consequently it probably conveys nothing to her generation, whatever it may do to ours."