Regiment Of Women Part 46

"You can't be one without the other," she instructed her. "I don't pretend to be a saint. And you'll see how much better Alwynne will be next term."

But the spring term came, and Alwynne was no better. She flagged like a transplanted tree. She went about her business as usual, but even Clare, not too willing to acknowledge what interfered with her scheme of things, realised that her efficiency was laborious, that her high spirits were forced, her comicalities not spontaneous, that she was in fact, not herself, but merely an elaborate imitation.

But where Elsbeth grew anxious Clare grew irritated. She spied a mystery. Some obscure, yet powerful instinct prevented her from probing it, but she was none the less piqued at being left in the dark. It annoyed her too, that Alwynne should be obviously and daily losing her health and good looks. Clare required above all vitality in her a.s.sociates. It had been, in her eyes, one of Alwynne's most attractive characteristics. This changing Alwynne, whitened, quieted, submissive, the sparkle gone from her eyes and the snap from her tongue, was less to her taste. Alwynne, very conscious of her shortcomings and of Clare's irritation at them, grew daily more nervously propitiatory--ever a fatal att.i.tude to Clare. It roused the petty tyrant in her. There were jarrings, misunderstandings, exhausting scenes and more exhausting reconciliations. Yet the two were always together. Clare, viciously adroit as she grew in those days in piercing the armour of Alwynne's peace, exacted nevertheless her incessant service. And never had Alwynne so strained every nerve to please her.

Elsbeth, guessing at the situation, could give thanks when influenza, sweeping over the school, claimed Alwynne as its earliest victim. Her turn had come. She nursed Alwynne through the attack, prolonged her convalescence, excluded all enquirers, censored messages and letters.

When Alwynne grew better, and talked, restless yet unwilling, of fixing the date of her return, Elsbeth, lips firmly set, went out one afternoon to pay a call upon Miss Marsham, and returning, sat down to write a letter. She busied herself for the rest of that day and all the next over Alwynne's wardrobe, mending and pressing and freshening.

Alwynne protested.

"Elsbeth dear, do leave my things alone. I'll mend them some time--honestly. They're all right. I wish you wouldn't fuss."

But Elsbeth fussed placidly on.

In the evening came letters for them both. Alwynne read hers hurriedly.

"Elsbeth, it's from Clare! She wants to know why I'm not coming back.

What does she mean? Of course I'm coming back. Mademoiselle Charette is already, and she was ill after I was!"

Elsbeth sniffed.

"She was only in bed two days--Miss Marsham said so. You're not going back this term, Alwynne. I've seen Miss Marsham myself. I told her what the doctor said. I've arranged things. She agrees with me--you're not fit to. It's only a month to end of term. They can manage. You've simply got to have a change. So I wrote to Dene--to the Lumsdens, and Alicia's answer has just come. They're delighted to have you. I knew they would be, of course. They have asked us so often. Such a lovely place. Now, my dear, be a sensible child and don't argue, because I've made up my mind.

It'll do you good to get away."

For in Alwynne's face astonishment had been succeeded by indignation.

Elsbeth prepared herself resignedly to face a storm of protest, if not a blank refusal. To be arranged for as if she were a child--unconsulted--Clare--the school--the coaching--leaving Elsbeth alone--Dene--utter strangers--perfectly well--simply ridiculous. Elsbeth saw it all coming.

"My dear Elsbeth! What a preposterous----" began Alwynne. Then the weakness of convalescence swamped her. She sank back in her chair.

"Perhaps it will," said Alwynne wearily. "All right, Elsbeth! I'll go if you want me to. Anyway, I don't much care."

CHAPTER XXIX

A week later Alwynne was sitting in a diminutive go-cart drawn by a large pony, and driven by a large lady with a wide smile and bulgy knees, with which, as the little cart jolted over the stony road, she unconsciously nudged Alwynne, imparting an air of sly familiarity to her pleasant, formal talk. This, Alwynne supposed, was Alicia. She liked her, liked her fat kind face, her comfortable rotundity, and her sweet voice. She liked her cool disregard of her own comical appearance, wedged in among portmanteaux and Alwynne and a basket of market produce, with an old sun-hat tied bonnet-fashion to shade her eyes, and her scarf ends fluttering madly, as she thwacked and tugged at the iron-mouthed pony.

She was more than middle-aged, a woman of flopping draperies and haphazard hookings, and scatter-brained grey locks, that had been a fringe in the days of fringes. She moved, as Alwynne noticed later, like a hurried cow, and tripped continually over her long skirts. Yet, in spite of her ramshackle exterior, she was not ridiculous. The good-men and stray children they encountered greeted her with obvious respect.

Alwynne, comparing the keen eyes and their cheerful crowsfeet, with the chin, firm enough in its cushion of fat, guessed her the ruling spirit of the Dene household, and wondered why she had not married a vicar.

But Alicia, though Alwynne listened politely to her flow of talk, and answered prettily when she must, did not long occupy her attention.

She was in her own country again. She loved the country--woods, fields, hedges and lanes--as she loved no city or sea-town of them all. London, Paris, Rome--Swiss mountains or Italian lakes--she would have given them all for Kent and Hampshire and the Suss.e.x Weald. But Clare would never hear of a country holiday. Alwynne took deep breaths of the clean, kindly air, and wondered to herself that she had taken the proposal of her holiday so dully. She had not realised that she was going into the country--she had not realised anything, except that she was tired, and that Elsbeth would not leave her alone. She had shrunk painfully from the idea of meeting strangers, from the exertion of accommodating herself to them. But this good air made one feel alive again....

She stared over the pony's ears at the gay spring landscape.

"Those are the Dene fields," said Alicia, following her glance. "There are two Denes, you know--Dene Village and Dene Fields. There's a couple of miles between them. We are in the hollow, where the road dips, at the foot of Witch Hill."

"Witch Hill?"

Alicia flourished her whip at the sky-line. The fields were spread over the hillside in sections of chocolate and magenta and silver-green, with here and again a parti-coloured patch, where oats and dandelions, pimpernel and sky-blue flax choked and strangled on an ash-heap. From the slopes Witch Hill lifted a brow of blank white chalk, crowned and draped in woodland, lying against pillows of cloud, for all the world like a hag abed, knees hunched, and patchwork quilt drawn up to ragged eyebrows. Round her neck the road wound like a silver riband; looped, dipped, disappeared, for two unfenced miles--to flash into view but a parrot's flight away, and swerve, with a steep little rush, round a house with French windows thatched in yellow jessamine.

Alwynne's eyes lit up.

"What a good name! Who was she before she was turned into that?" She stopped, flushing. Alicia would think her stupid.

Alicia laughed pleasantly.

"Do you like fairy tales? You've come to the right place--the country-side's full of them. There's a fairy fort--Roman I suppose, really, and a haunted barn out beyond Dene Compton, besides Witch Hill and the Witch Wood just behind our house. There's a story, of course. I don't know it--you must ask Roger. He's always picking up stories."

"Roger?"

"My nephew, Roger Lumsden. Hasn't Elsbeth----?"

"Oh yes, of course."

"He's away just now. Look, now you can see the house properly."

"Behind the hill?" Alwynne had caught sight of a group of buildings crowning a secondary slope.

"No, no--that's the school, Dene Compton."

"A school?" Alwynne screwed up her eyes to look at it. "What a big place! Girls or boys?"

"Both."

"Oh! A board school!" Alwynne's interest flagged.

"Scarcely!" Alicia laughed. "Haven't you heard of Dene Compton? And you a school-mistress!"

Alwynne was politely blank.

"The thin end of the co-educational wedge. It's unique--or was, till a few years ago. There are several now, dotted about England. You ladies'

seminaries should be trembling in your shoes."

"Boys and girls! What a mad idea! Yes, I believe Clare--I believe I did hear something about it. It's all cranks and simple lifers and socialists though, isn't it?"

"You'd better come up one day and see. I'll take you."

"Why, do you know them?"

"I teach there."

"You? Oh--I beg your pardon," cried Alwynne strickenly.

Alicia laughed.