Regiment Of Women Part 64

"I expect you've guessed that I intend--that I want to marry Alwynne,--with her permission," he added hastily, smiling down at her.

Elsbeth envied him his inches. For Alwynne's sake she did not intend to be dominated; but she found his mere masculinity a little overpowering, and did not guess that her frail dignity had made its own impression.

She smiled back at him.

"I'm glad you put that in. You should respect grey hairs."

"But I do."

"No. You imply that I'm a very blind and foolish guardian! My dear boy,"

her pretty voice shook a little, "I've hoped and prayed for this. You, John's boy, and--and dear Rosemary's, of course--and Alwynne, who's dearer to me than a daughter! Why, that's why I sent her down to Dene!"

She blushed the rare blush of later middle age. "Oh, my dear--it was shameless! I was matchmaking! I was! And I've always considered it so indelicate. But I wished so strongly that you two might come together.

When Alwynne wrote of you so often, I hoped: and then your letters made me sure. You had got on so well without me these twenty-five years--and then to feel the ties of kins.h.i.+p so very strongly all of a sudden--it was transparent, Roger."

He laughed.

"I hadn't forgotten really--though it's the vaguest memory. You gave me a rabbit in a green cabbage that opened. And one Sunday we shared Prayer Books. You had a blue dress--a pale blue that one never sees nowadays, and very pink cheeks."

"Ah! the _crepe de Chine_," said Elsbeth absently.

"I always remembered--though I'd forgotten I did. Alwynne brought it back. She's like you in some ways, you know. She made me awfully curious to see you again. From the way she talked I knew you'd be decent to me."

He smiled. "Elsbeth--I'm tremendously in love."

"Have you told her so?"

"Alwynne's rather difficult to get hold of. She doesn't understand anything but black and white."

"Clare Hartill--I suppose you've heard of Clare Hartill?"

"Have I not!"

"Clare Hartill says she has an uncanny ear for nuances."

"Also that she's thick-skinned! The woman's a fool."

"Oh, she's quite right, Roger, though I expect she was in a temper when she said it. But it only means that Alwynne has been trained to listen to women. She can't follow men yet. She has been advised that they are grown-up children and that her role is to be superior but tactful."

He chuckled.

"Yes. When Alwynne's tactful--she's tactful! You can't mistake it, can you? Have you ever seen her sidling out of a room when she thought she wasn't wanted? Still, she can hold her own, on occasion. She simply walked through my hints. But--how does she talk of me, Elsbeth, if she does at all, that is?"

"She likes you, in the 'good old Roger' fas.h.i.+on."

"But you do think I have a chance?"

"That's why I wanted to see you. Frankly, at present I don't think you have."

He looked at her coolly, not at all depressed.

"Why not?"

"Clare Hartill."

"Ah!" He sat down at the table again, his chin in his fist. "You think her the obstacle?"

"I taught her once. Alwynne has been absorbed in her for two years.

Alwynne talks----" they both smiled. "I could compare. I ought to know her pretty well."

"Yes. But how can she affect Alwynne and me? Of course I know what a lot Alwynne thinks of her. She's rather delightful on the subject. Thinks her perfection, and so on. Alwynne is nave; conveys more than she knows or intends, sometimes. And she never looks at her G.o.d's feet, does she?

'Clare' and 'Clare' and 'Clare.' Personally, I imagine her a bit of a brute."

"I try to be fair. She is fond of Alwynne."

"Why not? But what's that got to do with Alwynne's caring for me, if I am lucky enough to make her? And I'm--conceitedly sure--that it's only a question of waking Alwynne up."

"You don't know Clare. If once she knows, she'll never let the child go."

"But if Alwynne were engaged to me?"

"She'll never allow it. She'll play on Alwynne's affection for her."

"But why? I shouldn't interfere with their friends.h.i.+p."

"My dear Roger--marriage ends friends.h.i.+p automatically. Clare would be shrewd enough to see that. And even--otherwise--she would never share.

You don't guess how jealous women are."

Roger leant back in his chair with a gesture of bewilderment.

"My dearest cousin! The age of sorcery is over. You talk as if Alwynne were under a spell."

"Practically she is. Of course Clare would put it on the highest grounds--unsuitability--a waste of talents. She pretends to despise domesticity. Alwynne would be hypnotised into repeating her arguments as her own opinion."

"Hypnotism?"

"Oh, not literally. But she really does influence some women, and young girls especially, in the most uncanny way. I've watched it so often."

"She's not married?"

"She hardly ever speaks to a man. I've seen her at gaieties, when she was younger. She was always rather stranded. Men left her alone.

Something in her seems to repel them. I think she fully realised it. And she's a proud woman. There's tragedy in it."

"Does she repel you?"

"Not in that way. I dislike her. I think her dangerous. I'm intensely sorry for her. And I do understand something of the attraction she exercises, better than you can, though it has never affected me. You see--eccentricity--abnormality--does not affect women as it does men.

And she's brilliantly clever."

"So is Alwynne--you wouldn't call her abnormal?"