The Three Sisters Part 57

It was three now.

And as he pa.s.sed along the narrow path he saw Mary Cartaret in the doorway with the baby in her lap.

She smiled at him as he went by.

"I'm making myself useful," she said.

"Oh, more than that!"

His impression was that Mary had made herself beautiful. He looked back over his shoulder and laughed as he hurried on.

Up till now it hadn't occurred to him that Mary could be beautiful.

But it didn't puzzle him. He knew how she had achieved that momentary effect.

He knew and he was to remember. For the effect repeated itself.

As he came back Mary was standing in the path, holding the baby in her arms. She was looking, she said, for Essy. Would Essy be coming soon?

Rowcliffe did not answer all at once. He stood contemplating the picture. It wasn't all Mary. The baby did his part. He had been "short-coated" that month, and his thighs, crushed and delicately creased, showed rose red against the white rose of Mary's arm. She leaned her head, brooding tenderly, to his, and his head (he was a dark baby) was dusk to her flame.

Rowcliffe smiled. "Why?" he said. "Do you want to get rid of him?"

As if unconsciously she pressed the child closer to her. As if unconsciously she held his head against her breast. And when his fingers worked there, in their way, she covered them with her hand.

"No," she said. "He's a nice baby. (Aren't you a nice baby? There!) Essy's unhappy because he's going to have blue eyes and dark hair. But I think they're the prettiest, don't you?"

"Yes," said Rowcliffe.

He was grave and curt.

And Mary remembered that that was what Gwenda had--blue eyes and dark hair.

It was what Gwenda's children might have had, too. She felt that she had made him think of Gwenda.

Then Essy came and took the baby from her.

"'E's too 'eavy fer yo', Miss," she said. She laughed as she took him; she gazed at him with pride and affection unabashed. His one fault, for Essy, was that, though he had got Greatorex's eyes, he had not got Greatorex's hair.

Mary and Rowcliffe went back together.

"You're coming in to tea, aren't you?" she said.

"Rather." He had got into the habit again of looking in at the Vicarage for tea every Wednesday. They were having tea in the orchard now. And in June the Vicarage orchard was a pleasanter place than the surgery.

It was in fact a very pleasant place. Pleasanter than the gray and amber drawing-room.

When Rowcliffe came to think of it, he owed the Cartarets many pleasant things. So he had formed another habit of asking them back to tea in his orchard. He had had no idea what a pleasant place his orchard could be too.

Now, though Rowcliffe nearly always had tea alone with Mary at the Vicarage, Mary never came to tea at Rowcliffe's house alone. She always brought Alice with her. And Rowcliffe found that a nuisance.

For one thing, Alice had the air of being dragged there against her will, so completely had she recovered from him. For another, he couldn't talk to Mary quite so well. He didn't know that he wanted to talk to Mary. He didn't know that he particularly wanted to be alone with her, but somehow Alice's being there made him want it.

He was to be alone with Mary to-day, in the orchard.

The window of the Vicar's study raked the orchard. But that didn't matter, for the Vicar was not at home this Wednesday.

The orchard waited for them. Two wicker-work armchairs and the little round tea-table were set out under the trees. Mary's knitting lay in one of the chairs. She had the habit of knitting while she talked, or while Rowcliffe talked and she listened. The act of knitting disposed her to long silences. It also occupied her, so that Rowcliffe, when he liked, could be silent too.

But generally he talked and Mary listened.

They hadn't many subjects. But Mary made the most of what they had.

And she always knew the precise moment when Rowcliffe had ceased to be interested in any one of them. She knew, as if by instinct, all his moments.

They were talking now, at tea-time, about the Widow Gale. Mary wanted to know how the poor thing was getting on. The Widow Gale had been rather badly shaken and she had bruised her poor old head and one hip. But she wouldn't fall out of bed again to-night. Rowcliffe had barricaded the bed with a chest of drawers. Afterward there must be a rail or something.

Mary was interested in the Widow Gale as long as Rowcliffe liked to talk about her. But the Widow Gale didn't carry them very far.

What would have carried them far was Rowcliffe himself. But Rowcliffe never wanted to talk about himself to Mary. When Mary tried to lead gently up to him, Rowcliffe shied. He wouldn't talk about himself any more than he would talk about Gwenda.

But Mary didn't want to talk about Gwenda either now. So that her face showed the faintest flicker of dismay when Rowcliffe suddenly began to talk about her.

"Have you any idea," he said, "when your sister's coming back?"

"She won't be long," said Mary. "She's only gone to Upthorne village."

"I meant your other sister."

"Oh, Gwenda----"

Mary brooded. And the impression her brooding made on Rowcliffe was that Mary knew something about Gwenda she did not want to tell.

"I don't think," said Mary gravely, "that Gwenda ever will come back again. At least not if she can help it. I thought you knew that."

"I suppose I must have known."

He left it there.

Mary took up her knitting. She was making a little vest for Essy's baby. Rowcliffe watched it growing under her hands.

"As I can't knit, do you mind my smoking?"

She didn't.

"If more women knitted," he said, "it would be a good thing. They wouldn't be bothered so much with nerves."

"I don't do it for nerves. I haven't any," said Mary.