Tante Part 40

"How'd you sleep, honey?" Mrs. Talcott inquired. The term hardly expressed endearment, yet it was such an unusual one from Mrs. Talcott that Karen could only surmise that her tears had touched the old woman.

"Very, very well," she said.

"How'd you like me to bring up some mending I've got to do and sit by you till Mercedes comes?" Mrs. Talcott pursued.

"Oh, please do, Mrs. Talcott," said Karen. She felt that she would like to have Mrs. Talcott there with her very much. She would probably cry unless Mrs. Talcott stayed with her, and she did not want Tante to find her crying.

So Mrs. Talcott brought her basket of mending and sat by the window, sewing in silence for the most part, but exchanging with Karen now and then a quiet remark about the state of the garden and how the plants were doing.

At eleven the sound of the piano ceased and soon after the stately tread of Madame von Marwitz was heard outside. Mrs. Talcott, saying that she would come back later on, gathered up her mending as she appeared. She was dressed for motoring, with a long white cloak lined with white fur and her head bound in nun-like fashion with a white coif and veil.

Beautiful she looked, and sad, and gentle; a succouring Madonna; and Karen's heart rose up to her. It clung to her and prayed; and the realisation of her own need, her own dependence, was a new thing. She had never before felt dependence on Tante as anything but proud and glad. To pray to her now that she should never belie her loveliness, to cling to that faith in her without which all her life would be a thing distorted and unrecognisable, was not pride or gladness and seemed to be the other side of fear. Yet so gentle were the eyes, so tender the smile and the firm clasp of the hands taking hers, while Tante murmured, stooping to kiss her: "Good morning to my child," that the prayer seemed answered, the faith approved.

If Madame von Marwitz had been taken by surprise the night before, if she had had to give herself time to think, she had now, it was evident, done her thinking. The result was this warmly cherishing tenderness.

"Ah," she said, still stooping over Karen, while she put back her hair, "it is good to have my child back again, mine--quite mine--once more."

"I have slept so well, Tante," said Karen. She was able to smile up at her.

Madame von Marwitz looked about the room. "And now it is to gather the dear old life closely about her again. Gardening, and reading; and quiet times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?"

Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew had never entered her thoughts. "No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?"

"Yes, he came with me," said Madame von Marwitz. "I had promised him that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others.

Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must all work, _ma cherie_. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our only nourishment in the desert places." Again she looked about the room.

"You came without boxes?"

"Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me."

"Ah, yes. When," said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, "did you leave? Yesterday morning?"

"No, Tante. The night before."

"The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs.

Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton."

"No. I went to the Lippheims."

"The Lippheims? So?"

"The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind."

"I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am sorry to have missed Lise."

"And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much to do."

"Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the quartette,"--Madame von Marwitz smiled--she was in a mildly merry mood.

"But on they go--four, five, six, seven, eight--how many are there--_bon Dieu!_ of how many am I the G.o.d-mother? One grows bewildered. It is almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the small round eye and the fat body."

"Oh--not a rat, Tante," Karen protested, a little pained.

"A rabbit, you think? And a rabbit, too, is prolific. No; for the rabbit has not the sharpness, not the pointed nose, the anxious, eager look--is not so the mother, indeed. Rat it is, my Karen; and rat with a golden heart. How do you find Tallie? She has been with you all the morning?

You have not talked with Tallie of our calamities?"

"Oh, no, Tante."

"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old is Tallie now?" she mused.

Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed a signal for release. "Tallie is, _mon Dieu_," she computed, rising--"she was twenty-three when I was born--and I am nearly fifty"--Madame von Marwitz was as far above cowardly reticences about her age as a timeless G.o.ddess--"Tallie is actually seventy-two. Well, I must be off, _ma cherie_. We have a long trip to make to-day. We go to Fowey. He wishes to see Fowey. I pray the weather may continue fine. You will be with us this evening? You will get up? You will come to dinner?"

She paused at the mantelpiece to adjust her veil, and Karen, in the gla.s.s, saw that her eyes were fixed on hers with a certain intentness.

"Yes, I will get up this morning, Tante," she said. "I will help Mrs.

Talcott with the garden. But dinner? Mrs. Talcott says that she has supper now. Shall I not have my supper with her? Perhaps she would like that?"

"That would perhaps be well," said Madame von Marwitz. "That is perhaps well thought." Still she paused and still, in the gla.s.s, she fixed cogitating eyes on Karen. She turned, then, abruptly. "But no; I do not think so. On second thoughts I do not think so. You will dine with us.

Tallie is quite happy alone. She is pleased with the early supper. I shall see you, then, this evening."

A slight irritation lay on her brows; but she leaned with all her tenderness to kiss Karen, murmuring, "_Adieu, mon enfant_."

When the sound of the motor had died away Karen got up, dressed and went downstairs.

The music-room, its windows open to the sea, was full of the signs of occupancy.

The great piano stood open. Karen went to it and, standing over it, played softly the dearly loved notes of the prelude in D flat.

She practised, always, on the upright piano in the morning-room; but when Tante was at home and left the grand piano open she often played on that. It was a privilege rarely to be resisted and to-day she sat down and played the fugue through, still very softly. Then, covering the keys, she shut the lid and looked more carefully about the room.

Flowers and books were everywhere. Mrs. Talcott arranged flowers beautifully; Karen recognized her skilful hand in the tall branches of budding green standing high in a corner, the gla.s.ses of violets, the bowls of anemones and the flat dishes of Italian earthenware filled with primroses.

On a table lay a pile of ma.n.u.script; she knew Mr. Drew's small, thick handwriting. A square silver box for cigarettes stood near by; it was marked with Mr. Drew's initials in Tante's hand. How kind she was to that young man; but Tante had always been lavish with those of whom she was fond.

Out on the verandah the vine-tendrils were already green against the sky, and on a lower terrace she saw Mrs. Talcott at work, as usual, among the borders. Mrs. Talcott then, had not yet gone to Helston and she would not be alone and she was glad of that. In the little cupboard near the pantry she found a pair of old gardening gloves and her own old gardening hat. The day was peaceful and balmy; all was as it had always been, except herself.

She worked all the morning in the garden and walked in the afternoon on the cliffs with Victor. Victor had come down with Tante.

Mrs. Talcott had adjourned the trip to Helston; so they had tea together. Her boxes had not yet come and when it was time to dress for dinner she had nothing to change to but the little white silk with the flat blue bows upon it, the dress in which Gregory had first seen her.

She had left it behind her when she married and found it now hanging in a cupboard in her room.

The horn of the returning motor did not sound until she was dressed and on going down she had the music-room to herself for nearly half an hour.

Then Mr. Drew appeared.

The tall white lamps with their white shades had been brought in, but the light from the windows mingled a pale azure with the gold. Mr. Drew, Karen reflected, looked in the dual illumination like a portrait by Besnard. He had, certainly, an unusual and an interesting face, and it pleased her to verify and emphasize this fact; for, accustomed as she was to watching Tante's preoccupations with interesting people, she could not quite accustom herself to her preoccupation with Mr. Drew. To account for it he must be so very interesting.

She was not embarra.s.sed by conjectures as to what, after her entry of last night, Mr. Drew might be thinking about her. It occurred to her no more than in the past to imagine that anybody attached to Tante could spare thought to her. And as in the past, despite all the inner desolation, it was easy to a.s.sume to this guest of Tante's the att.i.tude so habitual to her of the attendant in the temple, the attendant who, rising from his seat at the door, comes forward tranquilly to greet the worshipper and entertain him with quiet comment until the G.o.ddess shall descend.

"Did you have a nice drive?" she inquired. "The weather has been beautiful."

Mr. Drew, coming up to her as she stood in the open window, looked at her with his impenetrable, melancholy eyes, smiling at her a little.