"I must be running away, Mrs Beverley. My husband is hoping to call upon you very soon. This afternoon he has a cla.s.s for confirmation. I must hurry home to give him tea. He comes in so tired. Good afternoon.

So pleased to welcome you among us! I hope we may often meet."

Her voice rang true, there was a kindliness written on the large, plain face to which Grizel's heart made instant response. She brought her own left hand to join the right, clasping the grey glove with an affectionate pressure, and smiled back the while with a winsome friendliness. There was silence in the room while the onlookers looked with critical eyes at the two figures, so typical of youth and age. The bulky woman, with her jet bonnet and capacious black silk coat, the nymph-like form of the bride. Every ear listened for the response.

"Oh, you will; indeed you will! I shall often be running over to the Vicarage to see you."

"That will be very nice." Mrs Evans smiled complacently. "I hope you will. And I must not forget--I made a note to ask you before I left.-- It would give us great pleasure if you could see your way to take up a little work. We are sadly in need of helpers. I was going to ask if you would join our Mothers' Meeting?"

"Oh, give me time!" cried Grizel reproachfully. "Give me time!"

In answer to after reprisals she justified herself by the a.s.sertion that she had spoken on the impulse of the moment, and in absolute good faith.

Besides, what else could the old thing have meant? And even if she didn't, why need the silly creatures be shocked? She did not attempt to deny that they were shocked, the flutter of dismay had indeed been so real a thing as to obtrude itself on ears, as well as eyes. Gasps of astonishment, of horror, of dismay, sounded to right and left; rustling of silk; hasty, inoperative coughs. Grizel still saw in remembrance the petrifaction on the large kind face looking down into her own, the scarlet mounting swiftly into Teresa's cheeks. Only one person laughed, and that laugh had had the effect of heightening the general condemnation. It was Ca.s.sandra Raynor who laughed.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"TWO OF A KIND."

Mrs Evans's departure gave the start to what was virtually a general stampede. As one woman rose to make her adieux, another hastily joined her, offering a seat in a carriage, or companionship on the walk home.

Mrs Mallison collected her daughters with the flutter of an agitated hen. Mrs Ritchards forgot even to refer to the kitchen-maid. Grizel beamed upon them with her most childlike smiles, but there was no staying the flight: feebly, obstinately, as a flock of sheep each one followed her leader. In three minutes Ca.s.sandra alone was left, and Martin having escorted the last sheep to the door, took the opportunity to escape to his study, and shut himself in with a sigh of relief.

Alone in the drawing-room the two women confronted each other in eloquent silence. Ca.s.sandra's eyes were dancing, her cheeks were flushed to their brightest carmine; Grizel was pale, and a trifle perturbed. "Now I've been and gone and done it!"

"You have indeed!" Ca.s.sandra laughed. It was delightful to be able to laugh, to feel absolutely at home, and in sympathy with another woman.

There was reproach in her words, but none in her tone. "How _could you_ say it?"

"Because I thought she meant it,--honestly I did, for the first second, and I always act on the first second. And why need the silly things be shocked? They've all got dozens. What _is_ the old Meeting, anyway?"

"I think it's... Mothers!" volunteered Ca.s.sandra illuminatingly. "Poor ones. They have plain sewing and coal clubs. I subscribe. You were invited to join the Committee. In the parish room. They--I believe they cut out the plain clothes."

"Fancy me cutting out plain clothes!" cried Grizel, and gave a complacent pat to her lace gown. "I'll subscribe too, and stay at home, but I'll apologise to the dear old thing. She meant to be kind, and I'm sorry I shocked her. I'm going to ring for fresh tea, and we can have a nice talk, and shock each other comfortably. Have _you_ any children?"

"I have a son," said Ca.s.sandra. The brilliance of her smile faded as she spoke. She was conscious of it herself and laboriously endeavoured to keep her voice unchanged. "He is nine years old. At a preparatory school. Quite a big person."

Grizel also ceased to smile. There was an expression akin to reverence in the hazel eyes as they dwelt on the other's face. The deep note was in her voice.

"You look so young, just a girl, and you have a son nearly ten! Old enough to be a companion,--to talk with you, and to understand. How wonderful it must be!"

There was a moment of silence during which Ca.s.sandra's thoughts flew back to those never-to-be-forgotten days when a tiny form lay elapsed to a heart overflowing with the glory of motherhood, and then reproduced before her a stocky figure in an Eton suit, with a stolid, freckled face. She smiled with stiff lips.

"He is a dear thing, quite clever too, which is satisfactory. You must see him in the holidays, but unless you can talk cricket I'm afraid he may bore you. It is not, of course, a responsive age."

"It will come! It will come! It's storing up. These undemonstrative natures are the richest deep down," Grizel said softly.

The maid came in with the tea at that moment, and she said no more, but it was enough. Ca.s.sandra felt an amazed conviction that if she had spoken for hours, the situation could not have been more accurately understood.

Grizel poured out tea, talking easily the while.

"Having a son must mean educating oneself all over again. Cricket now!

It's the deadliest game. One goes to Lord's for the frocks, and to meet friends and have tea, and see all the dear little top hats waved in the air at the end. I dote on enthusiasm; it goes to my head like wine.

Every Eton and Harrow I wave and enthuse as wildly as if I'd ten sons on the winning side. But how on earth they _can_ enjoy that everlasting running about over the same few yards, between the same old posts, hour after hour, day after day!" She shrugged expressively. "Well! I never _look_."

"It's worse when they talk about it!" Ca.s.sandra said. "When my boy is at home, he and his father talk cricket steadily through every meal. I am hopelessly out in the cold. I suppose it will grow worse as time goes on, and more masculine tastes develop."

Grizel paused, cup in hand, to stare reflectively at the fire.

"Do you know that's a subject which is exercising me very much! All my life until now I've lived with women, and been conversationally on my own ground, and now there's Martin! We've got to have meals together, and depend on each other for conversation until death doth us part, and it's a big proposition. Suppose he gets bored? Suppose _I_ get bored?

At present it's such delight just to be together, that it doesn't matter what we say. I could talk hats by the hour, and he would be patient, and he could prose about golf, and I'd murmur sympathetically in the pauses, and be quite happy just watching him, and thinking what a dear he was, but"--she put down her cup--"I'm not a child; I _know_ that that stage must pa.s.s! It may be just as sweet to be together--it may be sweeter, but the novelty will pa.s.s... Tell me!" she bent forward, gazing in Ca.s.sandra's face. "How soon does it pa.s.s?"

Again Ca.s.sandra was conscious of stiffened lips, of making a pretence at the answering smile.

"The time varies, but even in exceptional cases it is horribly soon. I was very young when I married. We were a big family at home, and very hard up. It was a revolutionary change to come almost straight from the schoolroom, and an allowance of a few shillings a week, to be mistress of the Court. I was wild with excitement, it seemed impossible that I could ever get _blase_."

"But you did?"

"Oh, yes."

"How soon?"

"Very soon, I'm afraid. Incredibly soon."

Grizel tossed her head.

"I am never _blase_. It's impossible that I ever could be. Life interests me too much. The more difficult it is, the more absorbing it becomes. But I'm sorry for the poor little ignorant brides who believe so implicitly in the 'happy-ever-after' theory, that they take no trouble to make it come true. I'm twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and I've no illusions on the point. My husband and I are gloriously happy, but I know we shan't go on at the same level, unless I work hard to keep it up."

"I! Why not _we_? Surely it's a mutual affair?"

"Yes, but bless 'em! men are _not_ adaptive, and most of them are so busy making the bread and b.u.t.ter, and too tired when that's over, to bother about anything more! It's the women who have to do the fitting in. That brings us back to where we started. I'm trying to think ahead, and prepare myself for the horrible moment when Martin wants to talk sense!"

They both laughed, but Ca.s.sandra was conscious of a p.r.i.c.king of conscience. It had never occurred to her to "work hard" to preserve her husband's love. Like many another woman she had taken for granted that once secured, it would automatically remain her own; she had grieved over a divergence of interest, as a calamity beyond her control. How could one "prepare" against such a contingency?

"I'm not at all sure that I agree with you," she said restlessly. "The 'happy-ever-after' theory has its drawbacks, but it's very sweet while it lasts, and your other seems prosaic from the start. To have to work hard, to 'struggle' for one's husband's love!"

"Well, why not? Is there _any_ big thing in life which one gains, or keeps without a fight? And this is the biggest of all, and the most fragile and easily lost. Think! among all your friends how many could come to stay in your house for one month, that you wouldn't be thankful to part from at the end? I don't say you stop caring for them, but you've had enough! You say to yourself: 'Emmeline is an angel, but that giggle of hers drives me daft. Thank the G.o.ds she's leaving to-day!' or 'Emmeline's a perfect dear, I'm devoted to her, but _have_ you noticed the way she wriggles her nose? It's got on my nerves to such an extent that I can't bear it an hour longer.' And you stand on the platform and wave your hand, and draw a great big sigh of relief as the train puffs away, and within the railway carriage Emmeline is sighing too, and feeling unutterably relieved to be rid of you! ... You know it's true!"

"Oh!" laughed Ca.s.sandra, "don't talk of a month. A week is enough for me. Less than a week!"

"Then why wonder at the difficulties of marriage? There's no magic in a few words spoken at the altar, to make two people impervious to each other's faults. It's the most wonderful and beautiful of miracles when they manage to live tied together for twenty, thirty, even fifty years, and to be decently civil until the end. It's worth any amount of effort to accomplish. I adore my husband, I adore myself, but we are mortal...

we have failings; and as we grow older they'll grow worse. At present we are both blind, but there will come a time when our eyes are opened.

I know. I've seen. I've watched. I've taken warning. I'm going to prepare myself in advance."

"What, _par exemple_, are you going to do?"

"Study the brute! Study his _fads_. Join the golf club, for one thing, and learn to listen intelligently, at the cost of a few miserable afternoons. I detest sports, and sporting clothes, and strong boots, and a red face, and tramping about mile after mile over rough ground.

If we'd been intended to walk we should have had four legs; but I shall very soon pick up all that is necessary!"

"Why not go a little further, while you are about it, and play with your husband? You might take lessons from the pro. to get up your game, and then you could go to the links together in the afternoons. If you are determined to sacrifice yourself, you may as well do it thoroughly.