Mrs. Thompson Part 38

"I'm so sorry for poor Charles."

"So am I, dear," said Mrs. Marsden. "But we must be glad that he himself escaped without injury."

"Oh, I wasn't riding her," said Charles.

"No," said Enid. "Tom was riding her--and he has broken his collar bone."

"Yes," said Charles, plunging his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. "That's another bit of luck. My second-horseman laid up, just when I most wanted him."

"It was the frost in the ground," said Enid sadly. "All the frost seemed to be gone;" and she turned to her husband. "Charlie, it wasn't your fault. Mrs. Bulford _can't_ blame you."

"No, I don't believe she will. She's a stunner--but Bulford may kick up a fuss."

"Oh, how can he? He knew that the mare had to be trained."

Mrs. Marsden made this first visit a very short one. The host and hostess were too much perturbed and agitated to entertain visitors.

Next time she came out, Enid was less preoccupied with her husband's affairs, and able to talk freely of her own hopes. She clung to her mother affectionately, and once again was the new Enid who had knelt by the sofa and sobbed her grat.i.tude for past kindness.

Each kept up the pretence of being satisfied and contented in her married life. Enid never had a bad word to say of Charles; and Mrs.

Marsden spoke of Richard with as yet unabated courage. In fact there was probably no one with whom she was so very careful to maintain a decorous appearance of connubial happiness as with the daughter who, by the light of her own experience, would most surely detect the imposture.

But behind the dual reticences there was an ever increasing sympathy.

The hard facts which neither would admit were drawing them nearer and nearer together. So that it seemed sometimes that on all subjects except the two forbidden subjects they were now absolutely of the same mind.

When Enid noticed the careworn, hara.s.sed look in her mother's face, she used at once to think, "That brute has committed some fresh villainy during the week."

But what she said was something after this style: "Mother dear, I'm afraid you have been working too hard"; or "Mother dear, you ought to have had a fly from the station. I am afraid the walk has fatigued you."

And when Mrs. Marsden saw Enid's worried, nervous manner, the traces of more tears about the pretty grey eyes, she thought, "This selfish beast has been tormenting her again. I suppose he does everything short of beating her; and perhaps he'll do that before very long."

But she merely said, "Enid, my dear, I hope you have had no more bother about the horses. You mustn't let Charles' worries set you fretting--especially _now_."

The indications of Mr. Kenion's selfishness were so painfully plain that little penetration was required to understand the discomfort that they caused. No wife, however loyal, could feel any peace or comfort with such a self-centred, insensible, shallow-pated companion.

Whenever he appeared he made Mrs. Marsden supremely uncomfortable. When indoors he was always restless. He wandered aimlessly about the house, coming in and out of rooms, fidgetting and bothering about trifles--behaving generally like the spoilt and rather vicious child who on wet days renders existence intolerable to all the grown-up people compelled to remain under the same roof with him.

"Hullo! More tea!" And he would come lounging after the maid who was bringing in the tea-things. "It seems as if you are having tea from morning to night. What? I tell Enid she drinks a lot too much tea--and it only makes her jumpy and peevish."

He himself drank very little tea; and Mrs. Marsden gathered that not the least of Enid's anxieties was occasioned by his intemperance. But this was a summer trouble. In the hunting season men who regularly ride hard can also regularly drink hard without apparently hurting themselves.

Once when Mrs. Marsden was about to set out for her lonely tramp to the station, Enid with some very pretty words asked her for a photograph.

"There's not one of you in all the house, mother--and I want one now badly.... If it is to be a girl, I want her to be like you--in all things, mother--and not like me."

Mrs. Marsden was more deeply touched by this request than she cared to show. She kissed Enid smilingly, patted her hand, and promised to send out a portrait.

There was one in the drawing-room at home, which no doubt Mr. Marsden could spare.

Then, while putting on her gloves and talking cheerfully, she glanced at Enid's collection of photographs in the silver frames.

"Who is that lady, Enid?"

"Oh, that's Mamie Bulford."

Several of the frames contained pictures of this important personage, who appeared to be a hard-visaged but rather handsome woman of thirty or thirty-five. She was enormously rich, Enid said, and madly keen about hunting; and she and her husband lived at a beautiful place called Widmore Towers, two miles the other side of Linkfield village. This year Charlie was acting as her pilot in the hunting field; and four horses were kept at the Towers solely for the pilot's use.

"Charlie," said Enid, "is such a magnificent pilot--for anyone who means going. And Mamie _will_ be there, or thereabouts, don't you know, all the time."

"Does not Mr. Bulford go out hunting?"

"Major Bulford! Yes, but he's crocked--stiff leg--so he hunts on wheels--follows in a dog-cart. That's rather fun, you know. You see a lot of sport that way."

"Yes, dear, I remember you said you were going to do that, yourself."

And Mrs. Marsden asked about the pony-cart that was to have been procured for Enid.

But the pony-cart had become impossible--and Enid vaguely hinted at hard times, difficulty of finding spare cash for expenses that were not urgently necessary, and so on. Besides, it was a perambulator and not a pony carriage that Mr. Kenion must now buy.

The baby--a girl--was born early in April.

Mrs. Marsden tried but failed to get a fly at Haggart's Road station, and almost ran for the mile and a half that still separated her from her daughter.

Everything was all right; mother and child were doing well; it was the finest and most beautiful infant that had ever been seen. The grandmother, eagerly scanning its tiny features, was gratified by recognizing the mother's grey eyes and what might be taken for the first immature sketch of her long nose. She was, if possible, more pleased by her inability to trace the faintest resemblance to the father.

When in a few days she came again, it was to find Enid radiantly happy and picking up strength delightfully. And at this visit Mrs. Marsden's heart was made to overflow by the things that Enid said to her.

Amongst the things was the emphatic statement that the child should be called Jane, and that her grandmother should also be her G.o.dmother.

Mr. Kenion accepted his blessing phlegmatically.

"Pity it isn't a boy," he said to Mrs. Marsden.

Enid said he hid his delight. It was a pose. He was really revelling in the joy of being a father.

But he had not yet bought the perambulator. He asked his mother-in-law's advice--because, as he said, she was "up in that sort of thing." Did people hire perambulators, or buy them right out? Could one get a decent perambulator in Mallingbridge, or would one have to go f.a.gging up to London?

Mrs. Marsden bought the perambulator, and sent it with her love in the carrier's cart; and Mr. Kenion told Enid that he hoped her mother hadn't given much for it, because it didn't look worth much.

Once, before the christening, Enid slightly attacked those diplomatic barriers of reserve that had been established by tacit consent between her and her mother.

She nervously and timidly asked if Mr. Marsden would mind not coming to the little feast.

But Mrs. Marsden was on the defensive in a moment. Even at this auspicious and sentimental time she could not permit any breach in her barrier. She said that her husband was generally considered very good company, and he would have no wish to go where he was not wanted.

"It is only," said Enid, "because I should be afraid of Charles and him not getting on well together--and I do so want everything to go off happily. You know, he wrote Charles a very indignant letter about the County Club."