The Splendid Folly Part 7

"And why not?" he would say, when charged with pampering them by some starchy member of his congregation who considered that parochial visitation should be embellished solely by the delivery of appropriate tracts. "And why not pamper them a bit, poor souls? A pipe of baccy goes a long way towards taking your thoughts off a bad leg--as I found out for myself when I was laid up with an attack of the gout my maternal grandfather bequeathed me."

Whilst the Rector paid his visits, Diana waited outside the various cottages, driving the pony-trap slowly up and down the road, and stopping every now and again to exchange a few words with one or another of the village folk as they pa.s.sed.

She was frankly delighted to be home again, and was experiencing that peculiar charm of the Devonshire village which lies in the fact that you may go away from it for several years and return to find it almost unchanged. In the wilds of Devon affairs move leisurely, and such changes as do occur creep in so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. No brand-new houses start into existence with lightning-like rapidity, for the all-sufficient reason that in such spa.r.s.ely populated districts the enterprising builder would stand an excellent chance of having his attractive villa residences left empty on his hands. No; new houses are built to order, if at all. In the same way, it is rare to find a fresh shop spring into being in a small village, and should it happen, in all probability a year or two will see the shutters up and the disgruntled proprietor departing in search of pastures new. For the villagers who have always dealt with the local butcher, baker, and grocer, and whose fathers have probably dealt with their fathers before them, are not easily to be cajoled into transferring their custom--and certainly not to the establishment of any one who has had the misfortune to be born outside the confines of the county, and is therefore to be briefly summed up in the one d.a.m.ning word "vurriner." [1]

So that Diana, returning to Crailing for a brief holiday after a year's absence, found the tiny fishing village quite unchanged, and this fact imparted an air almost of unreality to the twelve busy, eventful months which had intervened. She felt as if she had never been away, as though the Diana Quentin who had been living in London and studying singing under the greatest master of the day were some one quite apart from the girl who had pa.s.sed so many quiet, happy years at Crailing Rectory.

The new and unaccustomed student's life, the two golden visits which she had paid to Italy, the introduction into a milieu of clever, gifted people all struggling to make the most of their talents, had been such an immense change from the placid, humdrum existence which had preceded it, that it still held for her an almost dreamlike charm of novelty, and this was intensified at the present moment by her return to Crailing to find everything going on just in the same old way, precisely as though there had been no break at all.

As though to convince herself that the student life in London was a substantial reality, and not a mere figment of the imagination, she hummed a few bars of a song, and as she listened to the deep, rich notes of her voice, poised with that sureness which only comes of first-cla.s.s training, she smiled a little, reflecting that if nothing else had changed, here at least was a palpable outcome of that dreamlike year.

"Bravo!" The Rector's cheery tones broke in upon her thoughts as he came out from a neighbouring gateway and swung himself up into the trap beside her. "Di, I've got to hear that voice before long. What does Signor Baroni say about it?"

"Oh, I think he's quite pleased," she answered, whipping up the fat pony, who responded reluctantly. "But he's a fearful martinet. He nearly frightens me to death when he gets into one of his royal Italian rages--though he's always particularly sweet afterwards! Pobs, I wonder who my man in the train was?" she added inconsequently.

The Rector looked at her narrowly. He had wondered more than a little why the shock of the railway accident had apparently affected her so slightly, and although he had joked with Joan about some possible "gallant rescuer" who might have diverted her thoughts he had really attributed it partly to the youthful resiliency of Diana's nature, and partly to the fact that when one has narrowly escaped a serious injury, or death itself, the sense of relief is so intense as frequently to overpower for the moment every other feeling.

But now he was thrown back on the gallant rescuer theory; obviously the man, whoever he was, had impressed himself rather forcibly on Diana's mind, and the Rector acknowledged that this was almost inevitable from the circ.u.mstances in which they had been thrown together.

"You know," continued the girl, "I'm certain I've seen him before--the day I first went to Baroni to have my voice tested. It was in Grellingham Place, and all my songs blew away up the street, and I'm positive M.E. was the man who rescued them for me."

"Rescuing seems to be his hobby," commented the Rector dryly. "Did you remind him that you had met before?"

"Yes, and he wouldn't recollect it."

"_Wouldn't_?"

"No, wouldn't. I have a distinct feeling that he did remember all about it, and did recognise me again, but he wouldn't acknowledge it and politely a.s.sured me I must be mistaken."

The Rector smiled.

"Perhaps he has a prejudice against making the promiscuous acquaintance of beautiful young women in trains."

Diana sniffed.

"Oh, well, if he didn't think I was good enough to know--" She paused. "He _had_ rather a superior way with him, a sort of independent, lordly manner, as though no one had a right to question anything he chose to do. And he was in a first-cla.s.s reserved compartment too."

"Oh, was he? And did you force your way into his reserved compartment, may I ask?"

Diana giggled.

"I didn't force my way into it; I was pitchforked in by a porter. The train was packed, and I was late. Of course I offered to go and find another seat, but there wasn't one anywhere."

"So the young man yielded to _force majeure_ and allowed you to travel with him?" said the Rector, adding seriously: "I'm very thankful he did. To think of you--alone--in that awful smash! . . . This morning's paper says there were forty people killed."

Diana gave a little nervous shiver, and then quite suddenly began to cry.

Stair quietly took the reins from her hand, and patted her shoulder, but he made no effort to check her tears. He had felt worried all morning by her curious detachment concerning the accident; it was unnatural, and he feared that later on the shock which she must have received might reveal itself in some abnormal nervousness regarding railway travelling. These tears would bring relief, and he welcomed them, allowing her to cry, comfortably leaning against his shoulder, as the pony meandered up the hilly lane which led to the Rectory.

At the gates they both descended from the trap, and Stair was preparing to lead the pony into the stable-yard when Diana suddenly flung her arms round him, kissing him impulsively.

"Oh, Pobs, dear," she said half-laughing, half-crying. "You're such a darling--you always understand everything. I feel heaps better now, thank you."

[1] Anglice: foreigner.

CHAPTER V

THE SECOND MEETING

Diana threw hack the bedclothes and thrust an extremely pretty but reluctant foot over the edge of the bed. She did not experience in the least that sensation of exhilaration with which the idea of getting up invariably seems to inspire the heroine of a novel, prompting her to spring lightly from her couch and trip across to the window to see what sort of weather the author has provided. On the contrary, she was sorely tempted to snuggle down again amongst the pillows, but the knowledge that it wanted only half an hour to breakfast-time exercised a deterrent influence and she made her way with all haste to the bath-room, somewhat shamefully pleased to reflect that, being Easter Sunday, Pobs would be officiating at the early service, so that she would escape the long trudge down to the sea with him for their usual morning swim.

By the time she had bathed and dressed, however, she felt better able to face the day with a cheerful spirit, and the sun, streaming in through the diamond panes of her window, added a last vivifying touch and finally sent her downstairs on the best of terms with herself and the world at large.

There was no one about, as Joan had accompanied her father to church, so Diana sauntered out on to the flagged path and paced idly up and down, waiting for their return. The square, grey tower of the church, hardly more than a stone's throw distant from the Rectory, was visible through a gap in the trees where a short cut, known as the "church path" wound its way through the copse that hedged the garden. It was an ancient little church, boasting a very beautiful thirteenth century window, which, in a Philistine past, had been built up and rough-cast outside, and had only been discovered in the course of some repairs that were being made to one of the walls. The inhabitants of Crailing were very proud of that thirteenth century window when it was disinterred; they had a proprietary feeling about it--since, after all, it had really belonged to them for a little matter of seven centuries or so, although they had been unaware of the fact.

Below the slope of the Rectory grounds the thatched roofs of the village bobbed into view, some gleaming golden in all the pride of recent thatching, others with their crown of straw mellowed by sun and rain to a deeper colour and patched with clumps of moss, vividly green as an emerald.

The village itself straggled down to the edge of the sea in untidy fashion, its cob-walled cottages in some places huddling together as though for company, in others standing far apart, with s.p.a.ces of waste land between them where you might often see the women sitting mending the fishing nets and gossiping together as they worked.

Diana's eyes wandered affectionately over the picturesque little houses; she loved every quaint, thatched roof among them, but more than all she loved the glimpse of the sea that lay beyond them, pierced by the bold headland of red sandstone, Culver Point, which thrust itself into the blue of the water like an arm stretched out to shelter the little village nestling in its curve from the storms of the Atlantic.

Presently she heard the distant click of a gate, and very soon the Rector and Joan appeared, Stair with the dreaming, far-away expression in his eyes of one who has been communing with the saints.

Diana went to meet them and slipped her arm confidingly through his.

"Come back to earth, Pobs, dear," she coaxed gaily. "You look like Moses might have done when he descended from the Mount."

The glory faded slowly out of his eyes.

"Come back to heaven, Di," he retorted a little sadly, "That's where you came from, you know."

Diana shook her head.

"You did, I verily believe," she declared affectionately. "But there's only a very small slice of heaven in my composition, I'm afraid."

Stair looked down at her thoughtfully, at the clean line of the cheek curving into the pointed, determined little chin, at the sensitive, eager mouth, unconsciously sensuous in the lovely curve of its short upper-lip, at the ardent, glowing eyes--the whole face vital with the pa.s.sionate demand of youth for the kingdoms of the earth.

"We've all got our share of heaven, my dear," he said at last, smiling a little. "But I'm thinking yours may need some hard chiselling of fate to bring it into prominence."

Diana wriggled her shoulders.

"It doesn't sound nice, Pobs. I don't in the least want to be chiselled into shape, it reminds one too much of the dentist."

"The gentleman who chisels out decay? You're exactly carrying out my metaphor to its bitter end," returned Stair composedly.