The Helpmate Part 65

"I think it's time for lunch," said Majendie.

They ate their lunch; and when it was ended, Majendie went to the cottage to find water, for Peggy was thirsty. He returned, carrying water in a pitcher, and followed by a red-cheeked, rosy little girl who brought milk in a cup for Peggy.

Anne remembered the cup. It was the same cup that she had drunk from after her husband. And the child was the same child whom he had found sitting in the gra.s.s, whom he had shown to her and taken from her arms, whose little body, held close to hers, had unsealed in her the first springs of her maternal pa.s.sion. It all came back to her.

The little girl beamed on Peggy with a face like a small red sun, and Peggy conceived a sudden yearning for her companionship. It seemed that, at the cottage, there were rabbits, and a new baby, and a litter of puppies three days old. And all these wonders the little girl offered to show to Peggy, if Peggy would go with her.

Peggy begged, and went through the wood, hand in hand with the little beaming girl. Majendie and Anne watched them out of sight.

"Look at the two pairs of legs," said Majendie.

Anne sighed. Her Peggy showed very white and frail beside the red, l.u.s.ty-legged daughter of the woods.

"I'm not at all happy about her," said she.

"Why not?"

"She gets so terribly tired."

"All children do, don't they?"

Anne shook her head. "Not as she does. It isn't a child's healthy tiredness. It doesn't come like that. It came on quite suddenly the other day, after she'd been excited; and her little lips turned grey."

"Get Gardner to look at her."

"I'm going to. He says she ought to be more in the open air. I wish we could get a cottage somewhere in the country, with a nice garden."

Majendie said nothing. He was thinking of Three Elms Farm, and the garden and the orchard, and of the pure wind that blew over them straight from the sea. He remembered how Maggie had said that the child would love it.

"You could afford it, Walter, couldn't you, now?"

"Of course I can afford it."

He thought how easily it could be done, if he gave up his yacht and the farm. His business was doing better every year. But the double household was a drain on his fresh resources. He could not very well afford to take another house, and keep the farm too. He had thought of that before. He had been thinking of it last night when he spoke to Maggie about giving him up. Poor Maggie! Well, he would have to manage somehow. If the worst came to the worst they could sell the house in Prior Street. And he would sell the yacht.

"I think I shall sell the yacht," he said.

"Oh no, you mustn't do that. You've been so well since you've had it."

"No, it isn't necessary. I shall be better if I take more exercise."

Peggy came back and the subject dropped.

Peggy was very unhappy before the picnic ended. She was tired, so tired that she cried piteously, and Majendie had to take her up in his arms and carry her all the way to the station. Anne carried the doll.

In the train Peggy fell asleep in her father's arms. She slept with her face pressed close against him, and one hand clinging to his breast. Her head rested on his arm, and her hair curled over his rough coat-sleeve.

"Look--" he whispered.

Anne looked. "The little lamb--" she said.

Then she was silent, discerning in the man's face, bent over the sleeping child, the divine look of love and tenderness. She was silent, held by an old enchantment and an older vision; brooding on things dear and secret and long-forgotten.

CHAPTER x.x.x

Though Thurston Square saw little of Mrs. Majendie, the glory of Mrs.

Eliott's Thursdays remained undiminished. The same little procession filed through her drawing-room as before. Mrs. Pooley, Miss Proctor, the Gardners, and Canon Wharton. Mrs. Eliott was more than ever haggard and pursuing; she had more than ever the air of clinging, desperate and exhausted, on her precipitous intellectual heights.

But Mrs. Pooley never flagged, possibly because her ideas were vaguer and more miscellaneous, and therefore less exhausting. It was she who now urged Mrs. Eliott on. This year Mrs. Pooley was going in for thought-power, and for mind-control, and had drawn Mrs. Eliott in with her. They still kept it up for hours together, and still they dreaded the disastrous invasions of Miss Proctor.

Miss Proctor rode roughshod over the thought-power, and trampled contemptuously on the mind-control. Mrs. Gardner's att.i.tude was mysterious and unsatisfactory. She seemed to stand serenely on the sh.o.r.e of the deep sea where Mrs. Eliott and Mrs. Pooley were for ever plunging and sinking, and coming up again, bobbing and bubbling, to the surface.

Her manner implied that she would die rather than go in with them; it also suggested that she knew rather more about the thought-power and the mind-control than they did; but that she did not wish to talk so much about it.

Mr. Eliott, dexterous as ever, and fortified by the exact sciences, took refuge from the occult under his covering of profound stupidity. He had a secret understanding with Dr. Gardner on the subject. His spirit no longer searched for Dr. Gardner's across the welter of his wife's drawing-room, knowing that it would find it at the club.

Now, in October, about four o'clock on the Thursday after Peggy's birthday, Canon Wharton and Miss Proctor met at Mrs. Eliott's. The Canon had watched his opportunity and drawn his hostess apart.

"May I speak with you a moment," he said, "before your other guests arrive?"

Mrs. Eliott led him to a secluded sofa. "If you'll sit here," said she, "we can leave Johnson to entertain Miss Proctor."

"I am perplexed and distressed," said the Canon, "about our dear Mrs.

Majendie."

Mrs. Eliott's eyes darkened with anxiety. She clasped her hands. "Oh why?

What is it? Do you mean about the dear little girl?"

"I know nothing about the little girl. But I hear very unpleasant things about her husband."

"What things?"

The Canon's face was reticent and grim. He wished Mrs. Eliott to understand that he was no unscrupulous purveyor of gossip; that if he spoke, it was under constraint and severe necessity.

"I do not," said the Canon, "usually give heed to disagreeable reports.

But I am afraid that, where there is such a dense cloud of smoke, there must be some fire."

"I think," said Mrs. Eliott, "perhaps they didn't get on very well together once. But they seem to have made it up after the sister's death.

_She_ has been happier these last three years. She has been a different woman."

"The same woman, my dear lady, the same woman. Only a better saint. For the last three years, they say, he has been living with another woman."

"Oh--it's impossible. Impossible. He is away a great deal--but--"

"He is away a great deal too often. Running up to Scarby every week in that yacht of his. In with the Ransomes and all that disreputable set."