Plashers Mead Part 48

"Hazlewood, that kid's been.... Well, I can't express myself, you know, but I'd.... Well, I really can't talk about her."

"I understand, though," said Guy. "Look here, you'll stay and have lunch with me, and then we can go across to the Rectory afterwards."

Emotional subjects were tacitly put on one side to talk of the birds and b.u.t.terflies that one might expect to find round Wychford, of Miss Verney and G.o.dbold and other local characters, or of the prospects of the cricket team that year. After lunch Guy put the unbound set of proofs in his pocket and, launching the canoe, they floated down to the Rectory paddock. Mrs. Grey and the girls were all in the garden picking purple tulips, and Guy, taking Pauline aside, told her on what momentous quest Richard was come, suggesting that he should occupy the Rector's attention, while Pauline lured away her mother and Monica.

The Rector was sitting in the library, hard at work rubbing the fluff from the anemone seeds with sand.

"And what can I do for you, sir?" he asked.

"I thought you'd like to see the proofs of my poems," said Guy.

He laid the duplicates on the dusty table, and tried to thank his patron for what he had done. The Rector waved a clay pipe deprecatingly.

"You must thank Constance ... you must thank my wife, if you thank anybody. But if I were you I shouldn't thank anybody till you find out for certain that she's done you a service," he recommended, with a twinkle.

Guy laughed.

"Worrall doesn't want to publish until the Autumn."

The Rector made a face.

"All that time to wait for the verdict?"

"Time seems particularly hostile to me," Guy said.

"You'll have to tweak his forelock pretty hard."

"That's what I've come to consult you about. Do you think I ought to go to Persia with Sir George Gascony? Mrs. Grey thought I oughtn't to take so drastic a step until I had first tested my poems in public. But I've been reading them through, and they don't somehow look quite as important in print as they did in ma.n.u.script. I can't help feeling that I ought to have a regular occupation. What do you really advise me to do, Mr. Grey?"

The Rector held up his arms in mock dismay.

"Gracious goodness me, don't implicate a poor country parson in such affairs! I can give you advice about flowers and I can pretend to give you advice about your soul, but about the world, no, no."

"I think perhaps I'll get some journalistic work in town," Guy suggested.

"Persia or journalism!" commented the Rector. "Well, well, they're both famous for fairy tales. I recommend journalism as being nearer at hand."

"Then I'll take your advice."

"Oh, dear me, you must not involve me in such a responsibility. Now, if you were a nice rational iris I would talk to you, but for a talented young man with his life before him I shouldn't even be a good quack.

Come along, let's go out and look at the tulips."

"You _will_ glance through my poems?" Guy asked, diffidently.

The Rector stood up and put his hand on the poet's shoulder.

"Of course I will, my dear boy, and you mustn't be deceived by the manner of that shy old boor, the Rector of Wychford. Do what you think you ought to do, and make my youngest daughter happy. We shall be having her birthday before we know where we are."

"It's to-morrow!"

"Is it indeed? May Day. Of course. I remember last year I managed to bloom _Iris lorteti_. But this year, no! That wet May destroyed _Iris lorteti_. A delicate creature. Rose and brown. A delicate, lovely creature."

Guy and the Rector pored over the tulips awhile, where in serried borders they displayed their somber sheen of amaranth and amethyst; then Guy strolled off to hear what was the news of Margaret and Richard.

Pauline came flying to meet him down one of the long, straight garden paths.

"Darling, they are to be married early in August," she cried.

He caught her to him and kissed her, lest in the first poignant realization of other people's joy she might seem to be escaping from him utterly.

Guy had a few minutes with Margaret before he went home that evening, and they walked beside the tulip borders, she tall and dark and self-contained in the fading light, being strangely suited by a.s.sociation with such flowers.

"Dear Margaret," he said, "I want to tell you how tremendously I like Richard. Now that sounds patronizing. But I'm speaking quite humbly.

These sort of Englishmen have been celebrated enough, perhaps, and lately there's been a tendency to laugh at them, but, my G.o.d! what is there on earth like the Richards of England? Margaret, you once very rightly reproved me for putting Pauline in a silver frame, do let me risk your anger and beg you never to put yourself in a silver frame from which to look out at Richard."

"You do rather understand me, don't you?" she said, offering him her hand.

"Help Pauline and me," he begged.

"Haven't I always helped you?"

"Not always, but you will now that you yourself are no longer uncertain about your future. The moment you find yourself perfectly happy you'll be longing for every one else to be the same."

"But how haven't I helped you?" she persisted.

"It would be difficult to explain in definite words. But I don't think my idea of your att.i.tude towards us could have been entirely invented by my fancy."

"What att.i.tude? What do you mean, Guy?"

He shook his head.

"My dear, if you aren't conscious of it, I'm certainly not going to attempt to put it into words and involve myself in such a net."

"How tantalizing you are!"

"No, I'm not. If you have the least inclination to think I may be right, then you know what I mean and you can do what I ask. If you haven't the least notion of what I mean, then it was all my fancy, and I'm certainly not going to give my baseless fancies away."

"This is all too cryptic," she murmured.

"Then let it remain undeciphered," he said, smiling; and he led the conversation more directly towards their marriage and the strangeness of the Rectory without Margaret.

Richard spent the night at Plashers Mead, and Guy heard the halting account of two years' uncertainty, of the bungalow that had been taken and embowered against Margaret's coming, and of the way in which his bridge had spanned not merely the river, but the very ocean, and even time itself.

Pauline's birthday morning was cloudless, and Guy, though to himself he was inclined to blame the action as weak, went to church and knelt beside her. Then afterwards there was the scene of breakfast on the lawn that already, with only this first repet.i.tion, wore for him an immemorial air, so that he could no longer imagine a May Day that was not thus inaugurated. The presentation of his poems in proof had not a bit less wonderful effect than he had hoped, for Pauline could never finish turning over the pages and loving the ludicrously tumble-down binding.

"Oh, it's so touching! I wish they could all be bound like this. And how I adore Richard's paper-knife."

The four lovers disappeared after breakfast to enjoy the flas.h.i.+ng May Day, and Monica, left alone with her mother, looked a little sad, she, the only one of those three lovely daughters of the Rectory still undisturbed by the demands of the invading world.