Windyridge Part 16

Where did we not go! And neither of us suffered from surfeit.

"Grace," said Rose, as we lay on our backs in my paddock, and gazed upon the white c.u.mulus clouds which floated above, "I withdraw all I have said about your madness, and I now declare you to be particularly sane. If ever I go back to town, which is doubtful, I will describe your sanity in terms which will relieve the fears of all at No. 8. My personal appearance will give colour to my statements, and I shall probably observe, with the originality which is a mark of genius, that G.o.d made the country and man made the town. But I have not yet decided to return, although I took a ten days' ticket. Your studio seems to have served its purpose: is there any opening in Windyridge for a talented stenographer and typist?"

"The prospects would not appear to be exactly dazzling," I replied, "but I'm willing to keep you here on the off-chance that something may turn up."

"Some_body_'s turning up," said Rose, hurriedly a.s.suming a sitting posture, "and we had better get up."

I imitated her example, and saw that the Cynic had leaped the wall and was coming towards us.

I did the necessary introductions and we sat down again. "I called,"

said the Cynic, "in the hope that there might be a clock to regulate or a creeper to nail up, in which case I might earn a cup of tea. Also, to make arrangements for my photograph."

"I couldn't expect you to do any work in those clothes," I replied.

"Is this a visit of ceremony, or have you come in your Sunday best in order to have your portrait taken? All my local sitters insist upon putting on the clothes in which they feel and look the least comfortable."

"No," he said, with a glance at his black trousers--the rest of him was hidden by a light dust-coat--"the fact is, I am dining with the vicar and spending the night at the vicarage. I must go to town on Sat.u.r.day, but to-day and to-morrow are free. I propose, with your gracious permission, to spend an hour here, walk on to Fawks.h.i.+ll, and return to-morrow for the dread operation to which I have referred."

"I am afraid it will not be convenient to-morrow," I said; "really I am very sorry to upset your plans, but Miss Fleming returns to town on Sat.u.r.day, and we have promised ourselves a full day on the moors. Of course, if you could come very early----"

Rose interrupted. "Don't let me hinder business, my dear Grace, or I shall have you on my conscience, and that will be no light burden. We can modify our arrangements, of course."

"What about my conscience, in that case?" said the Cynic. "I am not really very particular about the photograph, especially in my 'Sunday best,' and I can easily come up some other day. But--who is going to carry the luncheon basket?"

"There is no basket," I returned; "our arrangements are much more primitive, and the burden grows lighter as the day proceeds. Moreover, I don't think it is very nice of you to suggest that the photograph is of slight importance. Don't you realise that it is my living?"

"I realise the truth of the poet's a.s.sertion that woman is 'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.' A moment ago you were declining business--declining it with an air of polite regret, it is true, but quite emphatically. Now, when I not only refuse to disturb your arrangements, but actually hint an offer of a.s.sistance, you scent a grievance."

Rose was looking very hard at me, and I felt vexed with the man for placing me in such an awkward position. And to make matters worse the consciousness of Rose's stare upset my self-possession, and it was she who spoke first.

"If Mr. Derwent would join us I think it would be very nice," she said, so demurely that I stared at her in my turn, "and it would be an--education for him. And he certainly could carry the sandwiches and our wraps, which are a bit of a nuisance."

What could I say? I was annoyed, but I could only mutter something incoherent which my companions construed into an a.s.sent, and Rose instructed the Cynic to be at the cottage at ten o'clock in the morning.

To add to my confusion, Mother Hubbard was manifestly excited when we went in to tea, and she telegraphed all sorts of meaning messages to Rose when the Cynic's back was turned. I was cross with myself for becoming embarra.s.sed, but I hate to be placed in a false position.

What on earth is the Cynic to me?

I thought he was rather subdued and not quite as satirical as usual, but he was obviously very much taken with Rose, who was quite brilliant in her cuts and thrusts. She soon took the Cynic's measure, and I saw how keenly he enjoyed the encounter. I left them to it very largely, much to the disappointment of Mother Hubbard, who developed a series of short, admonitory coughs, and pressed my foot beneath the table a score of times in a vain effort to induce me to s.h.i.+ne. It was not my "night out," and her laudable endeavours simply resulted in a sore foot--the injured member being mine!

We accompanied him a little way along the road, and when we left him Rose turned upon me:

"Now 'fess!" she said.

"Rose, don't be a goose!" I replied, whilst the stupid colour flooded my face; "there is nothing to confess. I have seen Mr. Derwent only twice before in my life. He is little more than a stranger to me."

"A remarkable circ.u.mstance, however, my dear Grace, is that you have never mentioned his name in your rather voluminous correspondence, and yet you seem to be on familiar and even friendly terms; and our good friend Mother Hubbard----"

"Mother Hubbard, Rose, is romantic. The moment the man turned up at Easter she designated him as my lover. Let me be quite candid with you. If I was not so const.i.tuted that blus.h.i.+ng comes as naturally to me as to a ripe cherry you would have had no reason to suspect anything. It is the innocent, I would remind you, who blush and look guilty. Mr. Derwent is a barrister--a friend of the vicar and of the squire--and he amuses himself by calling here when he is in the village--that is all. And if you are going to be as silly as Mother Hubbard it is too bad of you."

I felt this was frightfully weak and unconvincing, as the truth so often is.

"U-m!" said Rose, spreading the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n over ten seconds; "I see.

Then there's nothing more to be said about it. He isn't a bad sort, is he? Why in the world you never mentioned him in your letters I cannot conceive."

It was too bad of Rose.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CYNIC SPEAKS IN PARABLES

"What makes you call me the Cynic?" he inquired.

It was Rose's fault; she is really incorrigible, and absolutely heedless of consequences! If I had dreamed that she would have done such a thing I would never have told her, but that is the worst of blanket confidences. I call them "blanket" confidences because it was after we had gone to bed, when it was quite dark and Rose was inclined to be reasonable, that I had explained to her calmly and quite seriously that I had not mentioned the Cynic in my letters because there had been no reason to do so; and Rose had accepted the explanation, like a good girl, and kissed me to show her penitence.

Then I told her of the nickname I had given him, which she thought very appropriate. But I would have held my tongue between my teeth if I had contemplated the possibility of her revealing the secret; and here she had blurted it out with a laugh, to my utter and dire confusion.

We had had a glorious day, and I must admit that the Cynic had added not a little to our enjoyment. He said he would have felt like a fool to be walking out in black West of Englands, so he had called at the Hall and got the butler to find up an old shooting jacket of the squire's, which was much too large for him, but in which he appeared quite unconcernedly a full ten minutes before the time appointed.

"It isn't a good fit," he remarked with a laugh, "but the other toggery was impossible for the moors."

Under his guidance we had gone farther than we should otherwise have ventured, and he had pointed out a hundred beauties and wonders our untrained eyes would never have seen. He had interpreted the varying cries of the curlew, and shown us how intently the gamekeeper listened to them, so that he might know whether man or beast or bird was attracting the watcher's notice. He had pointed out the trustful little twite, which I should have mistaken for a linnet, and followed it to its abode, where he told us we should find a single feather stuck conspicuously in the edge of the nest; and it had been even so. Our botanical knowledge would have been greatly increased if we had remembered all he told us, but though we did not do so we were deeply interested, for he had none of the air of the schoolmaster, and he did not expect us to take our lessons very seriously.

And now the day was spent, and our energy, though not our spirits, had flagged considerably. We were sitting on the edge of the moor, a mile or so away from home, and the flush of evening spread over the valley and the distant hills, turning the landscape into mystery. The lamp of the setting sun was flickering out in the west, but the handmaidens of the night had lit their tiny torches here and there, and they shone faintly behind the veil of twilight, giving promise of greater radiance when the time should come for them to go forth to meet the crescent bride who tarried in her coming.

I was gazing on it dreamily, and breathing out peace and goodwill towards men when Rose dropped her bomb, and shattered my complacency.

"What makes you call me the Cynic?" He turned his eyes upon me and awaited my answer with evident curiosity.

I looked at him in my turn. He had been bareheaded all day, for he had left his hat at the Hall, and he was now leaning back against a rock, his hands clasped behind his head, and the mischievous look I have so often noticed sparkling in his eyes. He really is rather a fine man, and he has certainly a good strong face. I replied, calmly enough to outward seeming:

"Because it has seemed to me an apt description."

"I hope not," he replied. "Cynicism is the small change of shallow minds. All the same, it is interesting to be criticised. I did not know when I offered to a.n.a.lyse your character that I was being subjected to the same test."

"Indeed you were not," I protested; "it was an appellation that came to me spontaneously whilst you were discoursing so luminously on woman a few months ago, and it is not to be taken seriously. It was wicked of Rose to tell you."

Rose laughed and put an arm around me. "Never mind, old girl," she said, "I'm going back to-morrow, so you must forgive me."

"I'm afraid you have not distinguished with sufficient care, Miss Holden, between satire and cynicism. I daresay there is a strain of satire in my composition, but I do not plead guilty to cynicism. A cynic is a surly, misanthropical man, with a disordered liver and a contempt for the good things of life."

"Oh, Grace!" murmured Rose in pathetic tones, "how could you!"

"Nonsense!" I said, "I am not going to allow you to pretend to take me seriously. Do you think I subjected the word to subtle a.n.a.lysis before I adopted it? I tell you it came to me as an inspiration, heaven-born, doubtless, but if you don't like it pray forget it; and for your comfort I will add that I have never attached to the word the meaning you read into it. I know you have no contempt for art and poetry and the good things of life. Now tell us what you see before you?"

I wished to change the subject, and referred simply to the view, as anyone might have known. Night was dropping her blue curtain as gently, as silently, as the nurse spreads the coverlet over the sleeping babe; but the stupid man professed to misunderstand me.

"I see before me," he replied, "two interesting specimens of the s.e.x which ruins the peace and creates the paradise of the bulk of mankind.

I would call them charming but for the fear that my candour might be mistaken for cajolery, which my soul abhorreth."