第29章

Miss Avies is jealous as anything of her, but your aunt's so quiet that Miss Avies can't do anything.I just love your aunts.I think they're sweet.You will be a friend of mine, won't you? I like you so much.I like your being quiet and telling me when I talk too much.I sound silly, I know, but it's really mother's fault, as Ialways tell her.She never brought me up at all.She likes me to wear pretty things and doesn't care about anything else.Poor mother! She's had such a time with father; he's one of the most serious of all the Brethren and never has time to think about any of us.Then he's in a bank all the week, where he can't think about God much because he makes mistakes about figures if he does, so he has to put it all into Sunday.We will be friends, won't we?"It came to Maggie with a strange ironic little pang that this was the first time that any one had asked for her friendship.

"Of course," she said.

Miss Smith's further confidences were interrupted by the aunts and behind them, to Maggie's great surprise, Mr.Warlock and his son.

The sudden descent of these gentlemen upon the still lingering echoes of Miss Caroline Smith's critical and explanatory remarks embarrassed Maggie.Not so Miss Smith.She kissed both the aunts with an emphasis that they apparently appreciated for they smiled and Aunt Anne laid her hand affectionately upon the girl's sleeve.

Maggie, watching, felt the strangest little pang of jealousy.That was the way that she should have behaved, been warm and demonstrative from the beginning--but she could not.

Even now she stood back in the shadows of the room, watching them all with large grave eyes, hoping that they would not notice her.

With Mr.Warlock and his son also Miss Smith seemed perfectly at home, chattering, laughing up into young Warlock's eyes, as though there were some especial understanding between them.Maggie, nevertheless, fancied that he, young Warlock, was not listening to her.His eyes wandered.He had that same restlessness of body that she had before noticed in him, swinging a little on his legs set apart, his hands clasped behind his thick broad back.He had some compelling interest for her.He had had that, she now realised, since the first moment that she had seen him.It might be that the things that that girl had told her about him increased her interest and, perhaps her sympathy? But it was his strange detached air of observation that held her--as though he were a being from some other planet watching them all, liking them, but bearing no kind of relation to them except that of a cheerful observer--it was this that attracted her.She liked his thick, rough untidy hair, the healthy red brown of his cheeks, his light blue eyes, his air of vigour and bodily health.

As she waited she was startled into consciousness by a voice in her ear.She turned to find the elder Mr.Warlock beside her.

"You will forgive my speaking to you, Miss Cardinal.I saw you at our Chapel this morning."His great height towered above her short clumsy figure; he seemed to peer down at her from above his snowy beard as though he were the inhabitant of some other world.His voice was of an extreme kindliness and his eyes, when she looked up at him, shone with friendliness.She found herself, to her own surprise, talking to him with great ease.He was perfectly simple, human and unaffected.He asked her about her country.

"I spend my days in longing to get back to my own place--and perhaps I shall never see it again.I was born in Wiltshire--Salisbury Plain.My great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, they all were ministers of our Chapel there before me.They had no thought in their day of London.I have always missed that space, the quiet.Ishall always miss it.Towns are not friendly to me."She told him about St.Dreots, a little about her father.

"Ah, you're lucky!" he said."You'll return many times before you die--and you'll find no change there.Those places do not change as towns do."They were standing apart from the others near the window.He suddenly put his hand on her arm, smiling at her.

"My dear," he said."You don't mind me saying 'My dear,' but an old man has his privileges--will you come and see us whenever you care to? My wife will be so glad.I know that at first one can be lonely in this great place.Just come in when you please."He took her hand for a moment and then turned back to Aunt Anne, who was now pouring out tea at a little table by the fire.

Martin Warlock, as his father moved away, came across to her, She had known that he would do that as though something had been arranged between them.When he came to her, however, he stood there before her and had nothing to say.She also had nothing to say.His eyes searched her face, then he broke out abruptly.

"Are you better?"

"I'm all right," she answered him brusquely."Please don't say anything about yesterday.It was an idiotic thing to do.""That's what I came about to-day--to see how you were," he answered her, his eyes laughing at her."I should never have dreamed of coming otherwise, you know.I saw you in chapel this morning so Iguessed you were all right, but it seemed such bad luck fainting right off the minute you got here.""I've never fainted in my life before," she answered.

"No, you don't look the sort of girl who'd faint.But I suppose you've had a rotten time with your father and all."His eyes still searched for hers.She determined that she would not look at him; her heart was beating strangely and, although she did not look, she could in some sub-conscious way see the rough toss of his hair against his forehead; she could smell the stuff of his coat.But she would not look up.

"You're going to live here, aren't you?"

"Yes," she said.

"I've only just come back," he went on.

"I know," she said.

"Oh! of course; that girl," jerking his head in the direction of the tea-table and laughing."She told you.She's been here this afternoon, hasn't she? She chatters like anything.Don't you believe half she says."There was another pause.The voices at the tea-table seemed to come from very far away.

Then he said roughly, moving a very little nearer to her:

"I'm glad you've come."

At that she raised her eyes, her cheeks flushed.She looked him full in the face, her head up.Her heart thundered in her breast.She felt as though she were at the beginning of some tremendous adventure--an adventure enthralling, magnificent--and perilous.