The Making of a Soul Part 22

Reading she disliked. Music appealed to her, for Toni was emotional, with the quick, facile emotionalism of the South; but she was no musician herself, and the grand piano in the drawing-room was silent through these suns.h.i.+ny days. She had rather a talent for housekeeping, and in a smaller establishment would doubtless have been a success; but at Greenriver there was little for her to do, and she knew quite well that the housekeeper resented any interference with her particular province. Toni's household duties, therefore, were confined to the arrangement of the flowers and the care of her husband's desk--a labour of love which she performed with so much good will that Owen felt it would be churlish to find fault with any inconvenience arising therefrom.

Owen often wondered how his wife managed to fill the days which must be so terribly empty. He himself was working harder than usual, since beside the review he was contributing articles, by invitation, to several well-known journals; and he often worked till late into the night; but Toni had no work, no hobbies, nothing with which to fill the long, sunny hours.

She did not complain. Indeed, she seemed happy enough in her idleness; and by this time she knew a good many people in the neighbourhood, though she had not made many friends.

At the Vicarage she was not looked upon with much favour, owing to an unfortunate conversation with the Vicar's wife, when in response to various leading questions Toni had shown a lamentable ignorance of the great gulf which yawns between Church and Chapel--a quite conceivable ignorance on the part of the London tradesman's niece, who had attended Chapel with her aunt and uncle on Sunday evenings as cheerfully as she joined in the more attractive service in the Church which the genteel f.a.n.n.y generally patronized on Sunday mornings.

When, further, Toni innocently admitted that, although baptized into the Church of England, she had usually attended the Roman Catholic Church and Sunday School during her Italian childhood, the wife of the Vicar was appalled; and ever afterwards she spoke of Mrs. Rose as unsound in her views, a condemnation which in the somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned neighbourhood carried full weight.

Lady Martin also strongly disapproved of the young mistress of Greenriver, though probably only she herself and her spinster daughter could have adduced any reason for their dislike of Toni and all her works.

The story of the shrimps had long since amused Lady Martin's large circle of acquaintances; and although no one had ventured to breathe a word before either Owen Rose or his wife, it was hardly surprising that Toni came to be considered rather amusingly unsophisticated; so that the slightest _gaucherie_ into which the unconscious Toni was betrayed during those first weeks of her introduction into the society of the district was eagerly noted and joyfully magnified in a dozen drawing-rooms.

There was the laughable story of the Roses' late arrival at an important dinner-party, and Mrs. Rose's ingenuous explanation to her rather irascible host that she had torn her frock at the last moment while playing with her dog, and had been obliged to change it for another--and this to an elderly man who "liked dogs in their proper place," by which statement one may measure the depth of his liking very accurately.

There was the occasion on which Mrs. Rose, being pressed by a mischievous fellow-guest, had accepted a cigarette under the impression the other ladies were about to do likewise--an impression quickly dispelled by the stony glare of her hostess and the ominous whispers of the other women.

The hostess, indeed, had uttered one short, biting comment which had reduced Toni, already overwhelmed by the magnitude of her offence, almost to tears; but though it is only fair to say that her tempter apologized most handsomely, and was her firm friend and defender ever afterwards, the description of Mrs. Rose as a half-foreign and wholly-Bohemian young woman, of cigarette-smoking tendencies, was duly retailed at several dinner-tables during the following weeks.

At first Toni took her social failures very much to heart; but Owen, who was no sn.o.b, rea.s.sured her valiantly; and since Toni was only too anxious to be comforted she did her best to dismiss these unpleasant experiences from her mind.

Presently, indeed, she found two congenial spirits. The doctor's pretty old house, known locally as Cherry Orchard, harboured two lively and athletic young women who were only too pleased to be friends with the merry and vivacious Toni. They were honest, unintellectual girls, enthusiastic over all sports and excelling in most; and they took Toni to their sporting hearts and promised to introduce her to the local tennis and golf clubs without loss of time.

On her part, Toni felt at ease with them immediately, and when once she had learned to distinguish between Molly and Cynthia--a distinction made the more difficult owing to their peculiar habit of addressing each other as Toby--she thoroughly enjoyed their companions.h.i.+p.

In the matter of tennis, Toni, who had only played occasionally at a third-rate suburban club, was at first no match for them; but the two Tobies, who were the essence of good nature, coached her so well and so vigorously that before long she was a capital player; and when once Toni realized that Owen wished her to be as hospitable as she could possibly desire to be, she rejoiced in giving little impromptu tea-parties on the lawn, under the shade of one of the n.o.ble elms which were a feature of Greenriver.

Sometimes she took the girls motoring; and between tennis, golf, river picnics and motor excursions, the days simply flew for Toni; so that at last even Owen began to realize that he need not pity her, since she was living a life which exactly suited her.

Once he realized this, his pity was directed towards himself.

This was not the sort of married life he had contemplated; and although he was too just to blame his wife for her lack of sympathy with his aims and ideals, he began to wish that Toni would sometimes lay aside her frivolity and exchange her light and ceaseless chatter about trifling matters for a slightly more profitable style of conversation.

Owen had called upon James Herrick at his bungalow, the Hope House, to thank him for rescuing Toni; and the other man had duly returned his call; but although Owen gave Herrick a very cordial general invitation to Greenriver the two men had not much in common save a mutual love of good books.

Owen thought Herrick peculiar, eccentric in his ways. It seemed odd for a man to live alone as he lived, doing his own work except for the occasional aid of a woman whom he called Mrs. Swastika. If he had had any particular work or hobby which necessitated solitude Owen could have understood it; but Herrick seemed to spend his days as idly, as aimlessly, as Toni herself.

He went on the river a good deal, took long walks with his dog, but beyond that he seemed to do nothing but lounge in a chair on the lawn, shabbily clad, with a pipe between his lips and a book, generally unopened, on his knee. His political views seemed to Owen to be as vague as were Toni's; and he had an irritating habit of setting aside any recognized standard of perfection as though the world's seal of approval meant less than nothing.

He would demolish a given inst.i.tution in a few lazy words, but he never attempted to set up another in its place. He seemed content to put his finger on the weak spot in any system without troubling to point out a remedy; and to Owen, whose eager mind was ever ready to remedy abuses, this att.i.tude of half-pitying, half-amused toleration was vaguely irritating.

Herrick seemed to view life, indeed, with a kind of large detachment, as though from the height of some soaring pinnacle one might watch, with only half-awakened interest, the doings of the dwellers on the plain; and Owen, who liked to be in the midst of things, to add his quota to the world's doings, found in this att.i.tude of mind a pose, a half-insolent pretence at superiority, which was galling.

Without saying a disparaging word Herrick appeared to belittle the efforts made by Owen and his fellows to enlighten the world; and since everyone knows that the criticism of a non-worker is a hundred times more irritating than that of a co-operator, Owen may be excused for finding Herrick uncongenial.

And yet by nature Herrick was a kindly, cheery soul enough, who had been fired in his youth by an excessive love for humanity--for all the humanities. But shortly after his marriage he had faced a tremendous crash; and though, when the first shock was over, he had pulled himself together, and gathered up, as best he might, the fragments of his life, he had lost for ever that eager, humane, half-Quixotic spirit which had made his young manhood pa.s.s like a joyous race.

As time went on Owen got into the habit of spending most of his days in town, where he found it easier to work than at home. He begged Toni to tell him honestly whether she found herself lonely in his absence, but Toni a.s.sured him truthfully that she was perfectly happy sitting in her beautiful old garden or taking lunch and tea on the river, either alone, or in the company of her friends, Molly and Cynthia Peach. Punting alone was forbidden, but seeing Toni's disappointment, her husband had purchased for her a stout little dinghy in which she was perfectly safe, and this same craft was a source of delight to its owner.

At first Owen had asked Toni to come up to town with him, to do some shopping or go to a _matinee_, but London in summer was no novelty to Toni, and she infinitely preferred to stay at Willowhurst and amuse herself in her own way.

One night it chanced that Owen arrived home much earlier than usual. The weather had broken a day or two previously, and the air was heavy with thunder. Consequently Owen's head ached furiously, with one of the neuralgic headaches which since his accident he had good cause to dread; and the fact that he had an important piece of work to finish without loss of time fretted his nerves to racking-point.

London was particularly hot and malodorous to-day; and it was with a sigh of relief that Owen steered his car away from the stuffy streets towards the green and fragrant valley of the Thames. There was a coppery glow in the sky which presaged a storm, and puffs of hot air blew gustily into his face; but it would be fresher at Willowhurst, and if the storm should break there would be a delightful hour or two afterwards, when the earth, cooled by the rain, would send up its incense of sweet odours into the summer darkness, and the evening breeze would bring refreshment to weary, throbbing brows.

True, the work must be done, if human endurance could do it; and with a sigh of relief Owen remembered that Toni would be disengaged and able to help him in some way, if only by typing the ma.n.u.script when he had brought it to a close. There was also a little research work to be done, one or two quotations to be verified, a few short extracts to be made--work which came well within the scope of Toni's powers; and he knew that she would be only too pleased to give him what help she could.

But he had reckoned without his host. On leaving home in the morning he had told his wife he would probably be late in returning, and had apologized for leaving her so long alone. So far from feeling aggrieved at his absence, however, Toni seized the opportunity of inviting Mollie and Cynthia over for tennis; and the girls accepted blithely, bringing over with them a young cousin, just through Sandhurst, who was an adept at the game.

Toni welcomed the boy happily; and the four young people played tennis vigorously, with an interval for tea, until the elder Toby began regretfully to talk of going home.

There were already rumblings of thunder, and the sky behind the big cedar trees looked strangely lurid; and Toni, who hated a storm, was loth to let them go.

An idea striking her, she begged them all to stay and have a late supper with her; after which Mr. Cooper and Mollie, being musical, might give the others an impromptu concert--a plan to which, after a little decent hesitation, the trio a.s.sented gaily.

Toni, pleased that she was not to be left alone to face the storm, took them indoors to get tidy, and then danced off to the kitchen to interview the cook.

Mrs. Blades, lighting the Ten Little Ladies earlier than usual on account of the gloom, was inclined to look askance at the invasion; but Martha and Maggie--the latter filling the place of Kate, enjoying her "evening off"--fell into the plan with alacrity; and while the former brought out the cold chickens and the galantine intended for the morrow's lunch, Maggie bustled round the oval table laying extra places and making such preparations as commended themselves to her ever-fertile mind.

Owing to the stormy dusk it was necessary to light the candles on the supper-table, where bowls of great crimson roses made pools of colour on the white cloth; and very attractive the table looked to the four hungry people who presently sat down to eat and chatter.

There was plenty of gay laughter over the meal. Jokes were bandied hither and thither, shocking puns were made and greeted with shrieks of mirth, and if the conversation was eminently frivolous, at least it was good-humoured, hearty, wholesome frivolity.

Yet when Owen reached home in his car and entered the hall with rather a weary step, the somewhat noisy merriment which greeted him brought a frown to his forehead.

He questioned Andrews as to what was going on, and the young butler informed him, with a complacency which Owen in his present mood found irritating, that Mrs. Rose was entertaining the two Misses Peach and a gentleman to supper.

"Oh!" Owen paused in his walk towards the dining-room door. "In that case, I think I will just have a whisky and soda in the library--and a few sandwiches."

"Very good, sir," the man was beginning, when there was a peal of laughter from behind the closed door; and the next moment, Toni came flying out of the room, holding aloft a large bunch of grapes, while Mr.

Cooper pursued her hotly, making grabs at the fruit as he did so.

Unable to stop herself, Toni cannoned violently into her husband, and the unfortunate youth from Sandhurst, brought to an unexpected halt, found himself face to face with an unknown man whose expression was not exactly inviting.

"Owen, is it you? How you startled me!" Toni lifted two sparkling eyes to her husband's face. "When did you come? You said you wouldn't be home till after ten!"

"I've just arrived," he said, striving hard to keep any hint of annoyance out of his tone. "You were making such a noise you didn't hear the car! Well, Toni, won't you introduce me to your friend?"

On being presented, Mr. Cooper, held out his hand rather awkwardly.

"I'm afraid we were making an awful din," he said, apologetically. "We got ragging over the dessert and Mrs. Rose stole my grapes----?"

"Oh, you fibber!" Toni was not going to stand that. "They were mine, and you took them off my plate when I wasn't looking!"

"I'm afraid they aren't much good to anyone now," said Owen with a smile. "They are pretty well squashed, Toni, and I fancy your frock's got the worst of the encounter!"