The Three Sisters Part 52

"And who," said Rowcliffe, "is Lady Frances Gilbey?"

"She's a cousin of my stepmother's."

He considered it.

"And Mrs.--er--Cartaret lives in London, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yes."

Mary's tone implied that you couldn't expect that brilliant lady to live anywhere else.

There was a moment in which Rowcliffe again evoked the image of the third Mrs. Cartaret who was "the very one." If anything could have depressed him more, that did.

But he pulled himself together. There were things he had to know.

"And does your sister like living in London?"

Mary smiled. "I imagine she does very much indeed."

"Somehow," said Rowcliffe, "I can't see her there. I thought she liked the country."

"Oh, you never can tell whether Gwenda really likes anything. She may have liked it. She may have liked it awfully. But she couldn't go on liking it forever."

And to Rowcliffe it was as if Mary had said that wasn't Gwenda's way.

"There's no doubt she's done the best thing. For herself, I mean."

Rowcliffe a.s.sented. "Perhaps she has."

And Mary, as if doubt had only just occurred to her, made a sudden little tremulous appeal.

"You don't really think Garth was the place for her?"

"I don't really think anything about it," Rowcliffe said.

Mary was pensive. Her brooding look said that she laid a secret fear to rest.

"Garth couldn't satisfy a girl like Gwenda."

Rowcliffe said no, he supposed it couldn't satisfy her. His dejection was by this time terrible. It cast a visible, a palpable gloom.

"She's a restless creature," said Mary, smiling.

She threw it out as if by way of lightening his oppression, almost as if she put it to him that if Gwenda was restless (by which Rowcliffe might understand, if he liked, capricious) she couldn't help it. There was no reason why he should be so horribly hurt. It was not as if there was anything personal in Gwenda's changing att.i.tudes. And Rowcliffe did indeed say to himself, Restless--restless. Yes. That was the word for her; and he supposed she couldn't help it.

The study door opened and shut. Mary's eyes made a sign to him that said, "We can't talk about this before my father. He won't like it."

But Mr. Cartaret had gone upstairs. They could hear him moving in the room overhead.

"How is your other sister getting on?" said Rowcliffe abruptly.

"Alice? She's all right. You wouldn't know her. She can walk for miles."

"You don't say so?"

He was really astonished.

"She's off now somewhere, goodness knows where."

"Ha!" Rowcliffe laughed softly.

"It's really wonderful," said Mary. "She's generally so tired in the spring."

It _was_ wonderful. The more he thought of it the more wonderful it was.

"Oh, well----" he said, "she mustn't overdo it."

It was Mary he suspected of overdoing it. On Ally's account, of course. It wasn't likely that she would give the poor child away.

At that point Mrs. Gale came in with the tea-things. And presently the Vicar came down to tea.

He was more than courteous this time. He was affable. He too greeted Rowcliffe as if nothing had happened, and he abstained from any reference to Gwenda.

But he showed a certain serenity in his restraint. Leaning back in his armchair, his legs crossed, his hands joined lightly at the finger-tips, his forehead smoothed, conversing affably, Mr. Cartaret had the air of a man who might indeed have suffered through his outrageous family, but for whom suffering was pa.s.sed, a man without any trouble or anxiety. And serenity without the memory of suffering was in Mary's good and happy face.

The house was very still, it seemed the stillness of life that ran evenly and with no sound. And it was borne in upon Rowcliffe as he sat there and talked to them that this quiet and tranquillity had come to them with Gwenda's going. She was a restless creature, and she had infected them with her unrest. They had peace from her now.

Only for him there could be no peace from Gwenda. He could feel her in the room. Through the open door she came and went--restless, restless!

He put the thought of her from him.

After tea the Vicar took him into his study. If Rowcliffe had a moment to spare, he would like, he said, to talk to him.

Rowcliffe looked at his watch. The idea of being talked to frightened him.

The Vicar observed his nervousness.

"It's about my daughter Alice," he said.

And it was.

The Vicar wanted him to know and he had brought him into his study in order to tell him that Alice had completely recovered. He went into it. The girl was fit. She was happy. She ate well. She slept well (he had kept her under very careful supervision) and she could walk for miles. She was, in fact, leading the healthy natural life he had hoped she would lead when he brought her into a more bracing climate.

Rowcliffe expressed his wonder. It was, he said, _very_ wonderful.