The Three Sisters Part 51

Not that there seemed to be any such awful need.

For Ally, in those five weeks, had got gradually better. And now, in the first week of May, which had always been one of her bad months, she was marvelously well. It looked as if Gwenda had known what she was talking about when she said Ally would be all right when she was gone.

And of course it was just as well (on Ally's account) that Rowcliffe should not have seen her until she was absolutely well.

n.o.body could say that she, Mary, was not doing it beautifully. n.o.body could say she was not discreet, since she had let five weeks pa.s.s before she asked him.

And in order that her asking him should have the air of happy chance, she must somehow contrive to see him first.

Her seeing him could be managed any Wednesday in the village. It was bound, in fact, to occur. The wonder was that it had not occurred before.

Well, that showed how hard, all these weeks, she had been trying not to see him. If she had had an uneasy conscience in the matter (and she said to herself that there was no occasion for one), it would have acquitted her.

n.o.body could say she wasn't playing the game.

And then it struck her that she had better go down at once and see Essy's baby.

It was only five and twenty past four.

XLI

The Vicar was right. Rowcliffe did not want to be seen or heard of at the Vicarage. He did not want to see or hear of the Vicarage or of Gwenda Cartaret again. Twice a week or more in those five weeks he had to pa.s.s the little gray house above the churchyard; twice a week or more the small shy window in its gable end looked sidelong at him as he went by. But he always pretended not to see it. And if anybody in the village spoke to him of Gwenda Cartaret he pretended not to hear, so that presently they left off speaking.

He had sighted Mary Cartaret two or three times in the village, and once, on the moor below Upthorne, a figure that he recognised as Alice; he had also overtaken Mary on her bicycle, and once he had seen her at a shop door on Morfe Green. And each time Mary (absorbed in what she was doing) had made it possible for him not to see her. He was grateful to her for her absorption while he saw through it. He had always known that Mary was a person of tact.

He also knew that this preposterous avoidance could not go on forever.

It was only that Mary gave him a blessed respite week by week.

Presently one or other of the two would have to end it, and he didn't yet know which of them it would be. He rather thought it would be Mary.

And it _was_ Mary.

He met her that first Wednesday in May, as he was leaving Mrs. Gale's cottage.

She was coming along the narrow path by the beck and there was no avoiding her.

She came toward him smiling. He had always rather liked her smile. It was quiet. It never broke up, as it were, her brooding face. He had noticed that it didn't even part her lips or make them thinner. If anything it made them thicker, it curved still more the crushed bow of the upper lip and the pensive sweep of the lower. But it opened doors; it lit lights. It broadened quite curiously the rather too broad nostrils; it set the wide eyes wider; it brought a sudden blue into their thick gray. In her cheeks it caused a sudden leaping and spreading of their flame. Her rather high and rather prominent cheek-bones gave character and a curious charm to Mary's face; they had the effect of lifting her bloom directly under the pure and candid gray of her eyes, leaving her red mouth alone in its dominion. That mouth with its rather too long upper lip and its almost perpetual brooding was saved from immobility by its alliance with her nostrils.

Such was Mary's face. Rowcliffe had often watched it, acknowledging its charm, while he said to himself that for him it could never have any meaning or fascination, any more than Mary could. There wasn't much in Mary's face, and there wasn't much in Mary. She was too ruminant, too tranquil. He sometimes wondered how much it would take to trouble her.

And yet there were times when that tranquillity was soothing. She had always, even when Ally was at her worst, smiled at him as if nothing had happened or could happen, and she smiled at him as if nothing had happened now. And it struck Rowcliffe, as it had frequently struck him before, how good her face was.

She held out her hand to him and looked at him.

And as if only then she had seen in his face the signs of a suffering she had been unaware of, her eyes rounded in a sudden wonder of distress. They said in their goodness and their candor, "Oh, I see how horribly you've suffered. I didn't know and I'm so sorry." Then they looked away, and it was like the quiet withdrawal of a hand that feared lest in touching it should hurt him.

Mary began to talk of the weather and of Essy and of Essy's baby, as if her eyes had never seen anything at all. Then, just as they parted, she said, "When are you coming to see us again?" as if he had been to see them only the other day.

He said he _would_ come as soon as he was asked.

And Mary reflected, as one arranging a mult.i.tude of engagements.

"Well, then--let me see--can you come to tea on Friday? Or Monday?

Father'll be at home both days."

And Rowcliffe said thanks, he'd come on Friday.

Mary went on to the cottage and Rowcliffe to his surgery.

He wondered why she hadn't said a word about Gwenda. He supposed it was because she knew that there was nothing she could say that would not hurt him.

And he said to himself, "What a nice girl she is. What a thoroughly nice girl."

But what he wanted, though he dreaded it, was news of Gwenda. He didn't know whether he could bring himself to ask for it, but he rather thought that Mary would know what he wanted and give it him without his asking.

That was precisely what Mary knew and did.

She was ready for him, alone in the gray and amber drawing-room, and she did it almost at once, before Alice or her father could come in.

Alice was out walking, she said, and her father was in the study.

They would be in soon. She thus made Rowcliffe realise that if she was going to be abrupt it was because she had to be; they had both of them such a short time.

With admirable tact she a.s.sumed Rowcliffe's interest in Ally and the Vicar. It made it easier to begin about Gwenda. And before she began it seemed to her that she had better first find out if he knew. So she asked him point-blank if he had heard from Gwenda?

"No," he said.

At her name he had winced visibly. But there was hope even in his hurt eyes. It sprang from Mary's taking it for granted that he would be likely to hear from her sister.

"We only heard--really," said Mary, "the other day."

"Is that so?"

"Of course she wrote; but she didn't say much, because, at first, I'm afraid, there wasn't very much to say."

"And is there?"

Rowcliffe's hands were trembling slightly. Mary looked down at them and away.

"Well, yes."

And she told him that Gwenda had got a secretaryship to Lady Frances Gilbey.

It would have been too gross to have told him about Gwenda's salary.

But it might have been the salary she was thinking of when she added that it was of course an awfully good thing for Gwenda.