Nightfall Part 7

"Put your hair up, my child? Why, how old are you? I don't like little girls to be in a hurry to turn into big ones"

"I'm not a little girl," said Isabel shortly. "I'm nineteen."

"Nineteen? no, surely not!"

"Twenty next December."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Stafford, quite overcome. "How time flies!"

He set her down from his knee and went to his cash box. "If Val tells you to put your hair up, no doubt you had better do it." He paused. "I don't know whether Val said you ought to have a new frock, though? I can't bear spending money on fripperies when even in our own parish so many people--" Some glimmering perception reached him of the repressed anguish in Isabel's eyes.

"But of course you must have what you need. How much is it?"

"1. 11. 6."

"Oh, my dear! That seems a great deal."

"It isn't really much for a best dress," said poor Isabel.

"But you mustn't be extravagant, darling," said Mr. Stafford tenderly. "I see other girls running about in little cotton dresses or bits of muslin or what not that look very nice--much nicer on a young girl than 'silksand fine array.' Last time Yvonne came to tea she wore a little frock as simple as a child's"

"She did," said Isabel. "She picked it up in a French sale. It was very cheap--only 275 francs."

"Eleven pounds!" Mr. Stafford held up his hands. "My dear, are you sure?"

"Quite," said Isabel. Mr. Stafford sighed. "I must speak to Yvonne. 'How hardly shall they...'" He took a note out of his cash box. "Can't you make that do--?" he was beginning when a qualm of compunction came upon him. After all it was a long time since he had given Isabel any money for herself, and there must be many little odds and ends about a young girl's clothing that an elderly man wouldn't understand. He took out a second note and pressed them both hurriedly into Isabel's palm. "There! now run off and don't ask me for another penny for the next twelvemonth!" he exclaimed, beaming over his generosity though more than half ashamed of it. "You extravagant puss, you! dear, dear, who'd have a daughter?"

Isabel gave him a rather hasty though warm embrace (she was terribly afraid that his conscience would p.r.i.c.k him and that he would take the second note away again), and flew out of the window faster than she had come in. The clock was striking a quarter past one, and she had to scamper down to Chapman's to buy the dress, and a length of lilac ribbon for a sash, and a packet of bronze hairpins, and be back in time to lay the cloth for two o'clock lunch. If it is only for idle hands that Satan finds mischief, he could not have had much satisfaction out of Isabel Stafford.

Soon after four Mrs. Clowes stepped from her car, shook out her soft flounces, and led the way across the lawn, Lawrence Hyde in attendance. The vicarage was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house too large for the living, its long front, dotted with rosebushes, rising up honey-coloured against the clear green of a beech grove. There are grand houses that one sees at once will never be comfortable, and there are unpretentious houses that promise to be cool in summer and warm in winter and restful all the year round: of such was Chilmark vicarage, sunning itself in the afternoon clearness, while faded green sunblinds filled the interior with verdant shadow, and the smell of sweetbrier and j.a.panese honeysuckle breathed round the rough-cast walls.

Isabel had laid tea on the lawn, and Mrs. Clowes smiled to herself when she saw seven worn deck chairs drawn up round the table; she was always secretly amused at Isabel in her character of hostess, at the naive natural confidence with which the young lady scattered invitations and dispensed hospitality. But when Isabel came forward Laura's covert smile pa.s.sed into irrepressible surprise. She raised her eyebrows at Isabel, who replied by an almost imperceptible but triumphant nod. In her white and mauve embroidered muslin, her dark hair accurately parted at the side of her head and drawn back into what she called a soup plate of plaits, Isabel no longer threatened to be pretty. Impelled by that singularly pure benevolence which a woman who has ceased to hope for happiness feels for the eager innocence of youth, Laura drew her close and kissed her. "My sweet, I'm so glad," she whispered. A bright blush was Isabel's only answer.

Then Mrs. Clowes stepped back and indicated her cavalier, very big and handsome in white clothes and a Panama hat: "May I introduce-- Captain Hyde, Miss Stafford," with a delicate formality which thrilled Isabel to her finger-tips. Let him see if he would call her a little girl now!

Lawrence recognized Isabel at a glance, but he was not abashed.

He scarcely gave her a second thought till he had satisfied himself that Val Stafford was not present. Lawrence smiled, not at all surprised: he had had a presentiment that Val, the modest easy-going Val of his recollections, would be detained at Countisford: too modest by half, if he was shy of meeting an old friend! Rowsley Stafford was doing the honours and came forward to be introduced to Lawrence, a ceremony remarkable only because they both took an instantaneous dislike to each other. Lawrence disliked Rowsley because he was young and well-meaning and the child of a parsonage, and Rowsley disliked Lawrence because a manner which owed some of its serenity to his physical advantages, and his tailor, and his income, irritated the susceptibilities of the poor man's son.

Poor men's sons were often annoyed by Lawrence Hyde's manner.

Not so Jack Bendish, sprawling in a deck chair which had no sound pair of notches: not so his wife, Laura's sister, Yvonne of the Castle, curled up on a moth-eaten tigerskin rug, and clad in raiment of brown and silver which even Mr. Stafford would not have credited to Chapman's General Drapery and Grocery Stores.

Isabel was innocently surprised when the Bendishes found they had met Captain Hyde in town. Laura's smile was very faintly tinged with bitterness: she knew of that small world where every one meets every one, though she had been barred out of it most of her life, first by her disreputable father and then by the tragedy of her marriage: Rowsley pulled his tooth-brush moustache and said nothing. He was young, but not so young as Isabel, and there were moments when he felt his own footing at the Castle to be vaguely anomalous.

However, the talk ran easily. Lawrence, as was inevitable, sat down by Yvonne Bendish: she did not raise an eyelash to summon him, but it seemed to be a natural law that the rich unmarried man should sit beside her and talk cosmopolitan scandal, and show a discreet appreciation of her clothing and her eyes. Meanwhile the other four conversed with much greater simplicity upon such homely subjects as the coming school treat and the way Isabel had done her hair, Rowsley's regimental doings, and a recent turn-up between Jack Bendish as deputy M. F. H. and Mr. Morley the Jew.

Bernard Clowes had described Mrs. Jack Bendish as a plain little devil, but as a rule the devilry was more conspicuous than the plainness. She was a tall and extremely slight woman, her features insignificant and her complexion sallow, but her figure indecorously beautiful under its close French draperies. And yet if she had let Lawrence alone he would have gone over to the other camp. How they laughed, three out of the four of them, and what marvellous good tea they put away! The little Stafford girl had a particularly infectious laugh, a real child's giggle which doubled her up in her chair. Lawrence had no desire to join in the school treat and barnyard conversation, but he would have liked to sit and listen.

"If no one will have any more tea," said Isabel, jumping up and shaking the crumbs out of her lap, "will you all come and eat strawberries?"

"Isn't Val coming in?" asked Laura.

"Not till after five. He said we weren't to wait for him: he was delayed in getting off. He sent his love to you, Laura, and he was very sorry."

"His love!" said Yvonne Bendish.

"My dear Isabel, I'm sure he didn't," said Laura laughing.

"Kind regards then," said Isabel: "not that it signifies, because we all do love you, darling. Val's always telling me that if I want to be a lady when I grow up I must model my manners on yours.

Not yours, Yvonne."

"After that the least I can do is to wait and give him his tea when he does appear," said Laura. "It's very hot among the strawberry beds, and I'm a little tired: and I haven't seen Val for days."

"No more have I," said Yvonne in her odd drawl, "and I'm tired too." Mrs. Jack Bendish was made of whipcord: she had been brought up to ride Irish horses over Irish fences and to dance all night, after tramping the moors all day with a gun. "I'll stay with you and rest. Jack, you run on. Bring me some big ones in a cabbage leaf. And, Captain Hyde, you'll find them excellent with bread and b.u.t.ter." By which Lawrence perceived that his interest in the other camp had not gone un.o.bserved, and that was the worst of Yvonne: but--and that was the best of Yvonne: there was no tinge of spite in her jeering eyes.

So the sisters remained on the lawn, and Jack Bendish, a perfectly simple young man, walked off with Rowsley to pick a cabbage leaf. Isabel was demureness itself as she followed with Captain Hyde. The embroidered muslin gave her courage, more courage perhaps than if she could have heard his frank opinion of it. "The trailing skirt of the young girl," said Miss Stafford to herself, "made a gentle frou-frou as she swept over the velvet lawn." A quoi revent les junes filles? Very innocent was the vanity of Isabel's dreams. She was not strictly pretty, but she was young and fresh, and the spotless muslin fell in graceful folds round her tall, lissome figure. To the jaded man of the world at her side . . . . Alas for Isabel! The jaded man of the world was a trifle bored: he was easily bored. He liked listening to Miss Stafford's artless merriment but he had no desire to share in it; what had he to say to a promoted schoolgirl in her Sunday best?

He began politely making conversation. "What a pretty place this is!" It seemed wiser not to refer even by way of apology to the indiscretion of the morning. "You have a beautiful view over the Plain. Rather dreary in winter though, isn't it?"

"I like it best then," said Isabel briefly. "Don't you want any strawberries?" She indicated the netted furrows among which little could be seen of Rowsley and Jack Bendish except their stern ends.

"No, thanks, I had too much tea." Isabel checked herself on the brink of reminding him that he had eaten only two cuc.u.mber sandwiches and a macaroon. In Lawrence Hyde's society her conversation had not its usual happy flow, she felt tonguetied and missish. "How close you are to the Downs here!" They were following a flagged path between espalier pear trees, and beds of broccoli and carrots and onions, and borders full of old standard roses and lavender and sweet herbs and tall lilies; at the end appeared a wis.h.i.+ng gate in a low stone wall, and beyond it, pathless and suns.h.i.+ny, the southern stretches of the Plain. "Are you a great gardener, Miss Isabel?"

"Some," said Isabel. "I look after my pet vegetables. The flowers have to look after themselves. My father has eruptions of industry." She overflowed into a little laugh. "We don't encourage him in it. He had a bad attack of weeding last spring, and pulled up all my little salads by mistake." Now that small tale, she reflected, would have tickled Jack Bendish, but Captain Hyde, though he smiled at it dutifully, did not seem to be amused.

"Oh bother you!" Isabel apostrophised him mentally. "You're not the grandson of a duke anyhow. I expect you would be nicer if you were."

She folded her arms on the gate and gazed across the Plain. The village below was not far off, but they could see nothing of it, buried as it was in the river-valley and behind a green arras of beech leaves: in every other direction, far as the eye could see, leagues of feathery pale gra.s.s besprinkled with blue and yellow flowers went away in ribbed undulations, occasionally rolling up into a crest on which a company of fir trees hung like men on march. The sun was pale and smudged, the sky veiled: on its silken pallor floated, here and there, a blot of dark low cloud, and the clear distances presaged rain.

"May I--?" Lawrence took out his cigarettes. Isabel gave a grudging a.s.sent. She could not understand how any one could be willing to taint the sweet summering air that had blown over so many leagues of gra.s.s and flowers. "Dare I offer you one?"

Lawrence asked, tendering his case. It was of gold, and bore his monogram in diamonds. Isabel eyed it scornfully. Jack Bendish's was only silver and much scratched and dinted into the bargain.

Now Jack Bendish was the grandson of a duke.

"'No thank you," said Miss Stafford. "I detest smoking."

To this Lawrence made no reply at all, no doubt, thought Isabel, because he did not consider it worth one. She was proportionally surprised and a trifle flattered when he replaced the cigarette to which he had just helped himself. "'The young girl had not realized her own power. She was only just coming into her woman's kingdom. Her heart beat faster and a vermilion blush dyed her pale cheek."' Isabel's favourite authors were Stevenson and Mr. Kipling, but her mental rubric insisted on clothing itself in the softer style of Molly Bawn.

"I don't detest other people's smoking," she explained in a rather penitent tone.

"Let's get out on the downs," said Lawrence. He swung the gate to and fro for her, then took off his hat and strolled slowly by her side through the rustling gra.s.s. "Really," he said, more to himself than to her, "there are places in England that are very well worth while."

"Worth while what?"

"Er--worth coming to see. I suppose there isn't much shooting to be had except rabbits." He swung an imaginary gun to his shoulder and sighted it at a quarry which seemed to Isabel to be equally imaginary. "See him? Under that heap of stones left of the beech ring." Isabel's vision was both keen and practised, but she saw nothing till the rabbit showed his white scut in a flickering leap to earth.

"You have jolly good eyes," she conceded, still rather grudgingly.

"So have bunnies, unluckily. Major Clowes tells me there's pretty good shooting over Wanhope. I suppose your brother looks after it, for of course Clowes can do nothing. It was a great stroke of luck for my cousin, getting hold of a fellow like Val."

"I don't know about that. It was a great stroke of luck for Val."

"I want so much to meet him. I'm disappointed at missing him this afternoon. I remember him perfectly in the army, though he was only a boy then and I wasn't much more myself. He must be close on thirty now. But when I met him this morning it struck me he hadn't altered much." Isabel, looking up eager-eyed, felt faintly and mysteriously chilled. Was there a point of cruelty in Hyde's smile? as there was now and then in his cousin's: she had seen Bernard Clowes watching his wife with the same secret glow.

"Val is old for his age," she said. "He always seems much older than my other brother, although there are only two or three years between them."