The Lady of the Basement Flat Part 19

He shook his head.

"Ah, hunting is a different matter. Rather a responsibility. What? We must see what John says. In the meantime, you'll get a habit?"

"Yes." She glanced at me quickly, and glanced away. "Where shall I go?

Would Matthews--"

Matthews was the local tailor. The Squire waved aside the suggestion with masculine scorn.

"Certainly not. Do the thing properly when you are about it. Nothing worse than a badly-cut habit. Better go up to town!"

Again Delphine glanced at me. The obvious thing was for me to return her invitation and invite her to stay with me for the transaction, but obviously I couldn't do it. Moreover I did not _want_ to, so I stared blankly before me, and resigned myself to being thought a mean thing.

"Oh, well--I'll manage somehow," Delphine said in a tone of finality, which was obviously intended to stop the discussion.

Mr Maplestone looked at me and said:--

"Mrs Fane has already left, I believe. I suppose you will join her later."

"I think not. She has gone abroad. I shall remain in England."

Delphine gave a short, irritable laugh. I had annoyed her, and child-like, she wished to hit back.

"Abroad, and England! That's all the address we are vouchsafed. Mrs Fane and Miss Wastneys evidently wish to shake off the dust of this village as soon as they drive away from 'Pastimes'. Even if we wish to communicate with them, we shall not be able to do it."

"Oh, yes, Delphine, you will," I contradicted. "I have told you that letters will always reach us through our lawyers."

"Lawyers!" she repeated eloquently. "As if one could send ordinary letters in a roundabout way like that! I wouldn't dare to write through a lawyer, unless it were a matter of life and death. I must say, Evelyn, you are queer! When we have got to know each other so well, too!"

"You thought it 'queer' that Charmion and I should live here together; and now you think it 'queer' when we go away. Isn't that a little unreasonable?"

"It is 'queer' to be so mysterious about where you are going. People ordinarily--"

"Very well, then! We are _not_ ordinary. Let us leave it at that. It is much more interesting to be mysterious. Perhaps we are really two authors of world-wide fame, who but ourselves in the country for a short rest now and then between our dazzling spells of industry."

Delphine gaped, hesitated, then laughed complacently.

"Oh, well, Mrs Fane is the sort of person who might be _anything_. But not you, Evelyn; certainly not you! You are not--"

"What?"

"Clever enough!" she cried bluntly. The next minute, with one of the swift, child-like impulses which made her so lovable, she threw her arms round my neck and kissed me vehemently. "But you are good--good and kind. That's better than all the cleverness. Forgive me, Evelyn; I'm a rude, bad-tempered thing. Kiss and be friends!"

Ralph Maplestone seized his hat and marched out of the room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A STARTLING PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE.

His afternoon the Squire, in his capacity of churchwarden, spent an hour with the Vicar in his study, and then joined us for tea on the lawn. It was a hot, airless, summer afternoon, and we were all rather silent and disinclined to eat, and I felt my eyes wandering to the big grey car which stood waiting outside the gate and wishing--many things!

I wished that I had a car of my own. I wished I had my dear old Dinah, on whose back I had been wont to roam the country-side. So long as Charmion and the garden had absorbed my attention I had been contented enough, but now an overwhelming restlessness seized me. I was tired of the slow movement of my own feet. I longed to move quickly, to feel the refreshing rush of air on my cheeks once more. I wished the woman-hating, unappreciative Ralph Maplestone, had been a kind, considerate, understanding, put-your-self-in-her-place sort of man, who would have offered his time, and his car, and his services as chauffeur.

"Delphine, would you like to have a run in the car for a couple of hours or so before dinner?"

We jumped on our chairs, Delphine and I, automatically, like marionettes, the one from pleasure, the other from surprise. Had he seen? Had he noticed? The light blue eyes stared coolly ahead. For pure callous indifference their expression could not have been beaten.

Coincidence! Nothing more.

"Oh, Ralph, you dear! How angelic of you! I should love it of all things. It's so close and stuffy in this garden. It will be perfectly delicious to have a blow. Which way shall we go?"

"If you are not in a hurry we might get as far as the ponds." He paused, frowned, glanced hesitatingly towards me. "Perhaps Miss Wastneys--Is there any special place you would like to see?"

"Dearest!" the Vicar's voice broke gently into the conversation, "I'm sorry, but was not it this afternoon you arranged to meet Mrs Rawlins at the 'Hall,' to discuss the new coverings for the library books? I think you said half-past five. It is nearly five now. You would not have time."

"I can send down word that I can't come. I'll meet her to-morrow at the same time."

"I think not." The Vicar's face set; his voice did not lose its gentle tone, but it was full of decision. "I think not. Mrs Rawlins is a busy woman, and she has a long distance to come. You would not wish to inconvenience her for the sake of a trifling pleasure!"

Delphine gave him a look, the look of a thwarted child, flushed to the roots of her hair, and turned hastily aside. Open rebellion was useless, but it spoke in every line of her body, every movement of the small, graceful head. I was sorry for her, for being young and feminine myself, I could understand how dull was the claim of linen covers for injured bindings, compared with that swift, exhilarating rush. I looked at the Vicar, and began pleadingly, "Couldn't I--"; then the Squire looked at me, pulled out his watch, and said sharply:--

"Ten minutes to five. Hurry up, Delphine! If you put on your hat at once you can have half an hour. It will freshen you up for your duties.

I'll land you at the 'Hall,' and"--he switched his eyes on me with a keen, gimlet-like glance--"take Miss Wastneys a little further while you are engaged."

I blinked, but did not speak; Delphine frowned; the Vicar said happily, "That will do well. That will do very well! Now, darling, we shall all be pleased!"

Deluded man! Two less-pleased-looking females it would have been difficult to find, as we made our way to the house, and up the narrow, twisting staircase. Delphine was injured at the prospective shortness of her drive; I was appalled at the length of mine. Why had he asked me? Why hadn't I refused, and what--oh! what should we ever find to say?

"It's always the same thing; if a bit of pleasure comes along, there's bound to be a committee meeting in the way! Half an hour! Pleased, indeed! I've always been longing for Ralph to take me drives, and now that he has been disappointed like this, the very first time, is he likely to try again? Of course, Evelyn" (tardy sense of hospitality!) "I am glad for you to have the change. It's awfully good of him."

"Quite heroic, isn't it?" I said tartly, as I turned into my room. No doubt the poor man was disappointed, but she need not have rubbed it in!

I leave it to psychologists to decide whether or no there was any connection between my natural annoyance at the slight, and the fact that I went to the trouble of opening a special box in order to put on my best and newest motor bonnet and coat; but there it is, I did do it, and they were all the more becoming for the accompaniment of flushed cheeks and extra bright eyes. The colour was a soft dove grey, the bonnet a delicious concoction of drawn silk, which looked as if it had begun life meaning to adorn a Quaker's head, and had then suddenly succ.u.mbed to the fascinations of a pink lining and a wreath of tiny pink roses. When Delphine came into the room a moment later, she stopped short on the threshold, and gasped with astonishment.

"Goodness!" Her face flushed, she stared with wide, bright eyes; admiring, critical, disapproving, all at once. "Evelyn, what a get up!

I never saw anything like it. You look--you look--"

"Well! How do I look?"

There was an edge in my voice. She felt it, and softened at once, in her quick lovable fashion.

"You look a duck! Simply a duck. But, my dear, it's too good! Why waste it here? Any old thing will do for these lanes. There's time to change!"

"I don't intend to change," I said obstinately, and at that very moment there sounded an imperious whistle from below. Without another word we marched downstairs and out to the front gate, where the two men stood waiting beside the car. Automatically their eyes rolled towards my bonnet; the Vicar smiled, and bent his head in a courtly little bow, which said much without the ba.n.a.lity of words. The Squire had no expression! Whether he approved, disapproved, or furiously disliked, he remained insoluble as the Sphinx. Oh, some day--somehow--some one--I hope, will wake him into life, and whoever she is, may she shake him well up, and ride rough-shod over him for a long, long time before she gives in! He _needs_ taking down!

After a faint--very faint--protest, Delphine took her seat in front, while I sat in solitary state inside, leaning back against the cushions with an outward appearance of ease, but inwardly uncomfortably conscious of a heart which beat more quickly than necessary. This was all very well, but what next? What was to happen when the half-hour was up, and Delphine went off to her library books and left us alone?

Could I sit still where I was? It would seem absurd, not to say discourteous. Would he ask me to change seats? Would he expect me to suggest it? Suppose he did? Suppose he didn't? And when we were settled, what should I find to say? My mind mentally rehea.r.s.ed possible openings. "How beautiful the country is looking."