The Tower of Oblivion Part 57

"Thank you--presently perhaps."

"Did they change those flowers this morning?"

I smiled. "There won't be any flowers left in the garden soon, I get so many."

"Then there isn't anything I can do," she said helplessly.

Poor child, I don't think that I myself was entirely the object of her concern--no, not even though I was so blest as to be a link between her and a certain young Englishman who went about in French clothes and was known by a French name. I don't think she quite knew what she wanted, except that it was exquisite to be a little mournful, and to be doing something for somebody. In spite of that impulsive little gesture, I don't think her mother had her confidence. That was rather the compounding of a secrecy than a confidence. It was an atonement, a guilty little reparation that but locked up her secret the more securely. I am aware that young girls are traditionally supposed to fly instantly to their mothers with their troubles of this sort. I can only say that that is not my experience. Far more frequently they will fly to a confidante of their own age, and even once in a while to a person like myself. Her mother would be much, oh, ever so much to her; but she would not be told about that note that had been surrept.i.tiously slipped from hand to hand.

"Well, what have you been doing with yourself for the last three days, Jennie?" I asked.

A Brittany crock of genets made fragrant the room. Her eyes were fixed on the flowers.

"Yesterday I went for a bicycle ride," she said.

"Oh? I didn't know you had a bicycle here."

"I hadn't. I hired one."

"Where did you go? Anywhere nice?"

Instead of answering my question she said, with her eyes still on the flowers, "I've got something for you, Uncle George."

"And what's that?"

"Here it is."

From some tuck in the region of her waist she drew out a note, which she handed to me. With my elbow on my pillow I read it. It was on a page torn out from a sketch-book, and it ran:

"I hear you're laid up and hope you'll soon be all right again. I didn't thank you properly the other night; I couldn't; you know what I mean. Don't worry about my not keeping my promise; that's all right; everything's as-you-were till you're about again. But then I want to see you as soon as ever you can. You get well and don't worry.

"D. R."

Slowly I folded up the note and put it into the pocket of my pyjama-jacket. She seemed fully to expect my silence. The shadow of a marten fled swiftly across the sill of the window. The house-martens built at Ker Annic.

At last, "I see," I said slowly. "I see."

She did not seem to think it necessary to reply. Neither was it.

"I see," I said again. Then, "Yesterday you went cycling," I said.

"What did you do the day before?"

"I went for a walk."

"And the day before that?"

"I went for a walk too."

"Jennie ... were they supposed to know about these walks--you know who I mean?"

"Father and mother? No."

"Where did they think you were?"

"Don't know. I didn't say anything at all."

"They've no idea you went for two walks and a bicycle ride with Monsieur Arnaud?"

No reply.

That is to say, no reply in words; but for anything else her reply was plain enough. In every line of her lovely resolute short-featured little face I read that they did not know, were not to know, and that in the last resort she didn't care a straw whether they knew or not. And I remembered that in the matter of the note it was she who had taken the initiative, not he. A beautiful young woman is the devil from the moment when she gets too old to slap.

But the thing was grave. He had given me an undertaking which, his note now a.s.sured me, he was faithfully keeping; but I had no undertaking from her. And bachelor as I am, I am under no delusions as to what happens when mine, the proud, stalking, choosing s.e.x, is marked down by its demure, still and emotional opposite number. Something can be done with us; we give undertakings and abide by them; but what can be done when the Jennie Airds take the bit between those pearls of their teeth? I shook my head. I shake it over the same problem still.

"But look here, Jennie," I said quietly. "This is all very well, but is it quite--playing the game?"

This also she evidently expected. "About father and mother? I've left school. I'm old enough to think for myself. Mother says so. Anyway I'm going to. She always said I should."

"But mother doesn't know about these walks and bicycle rides."

Obstinately she contested every little point, even a casual plural.

"There's only been one bicycle ride."

"One then. She doesn't know about it."

"I can't help that."

"But of course you could----"

"No I couldn't," she rapped out. "I mean I just _can't_ help it. How can anybody help it? How can anybody do anything about it? It's a thing that happens to you, and it happened to them before, and I expect they did just as they liked about it, and didn't care a bit what anybody said! I can just see mother if anybody'd said she wasn't going for a walk with father!"

"You can't see anything of the sort, Jennie. If I remember rightly what your mother said, she had to sit still in her own carriage till her own footman opened the door. That was what happened when your mother was your age."

"Well, they don't do that nowadays, and mother knows it," she retorted.

The heartless logic of youth! It will turn your own words against you as soon as look at you. Because her mother had recognised that the world did not stand still she was to be made an accessory to this deception.

"Then," I said presently, "if they don't know, ought I to know?"

"You knew before," she said. "They didn't."

"But they're bound to find out."

"Oh, I expect everything will be settled by then!" she calmly announced.

The d.i.c.kens it would! I lay back on my pillow. Fortunately the appearance of tea at that moment gave me a little time in which to collect my thoughts. Jennie removed various objects from the bedside table, took the tray from the maid, and began to pour out.