Mistress of Brown Furrows (14 page)

After dinner he had some business to attend to, and Meg took the car out and paid a call upon a friend in the village. Carol escaped into the garden, thankful for the sweet scents, and the warmth, and the magic stillness of the evening. It was a large, old-fashioned garden, and there were many flowers. Judson kept the lawns in perfect trim, and they were pleasant to walk upon at this late hour of the day, with the slanting shadows falling athwart them. In the little rose-garden Meg’s favorite mauvish-red roses filled the air with a quite intoxicating perfume.

Carol made her way through the rose-garden to the orchard, and the long orchard grass caressed her ankles as she moved. It was a little wet with falling dew, and her shoes were thin, but small matters of that sort never bothered her. Kate, who had accompanied her, and who was playing hide-and-seek in the grass, barked up at her when she decided to seat herself on a rustic bench and gaze upwards through the gnarled branches at the quiet sky above her head. But when she saw that the girl had no intention of moving she came and lay down quietly at her feet.

Carol talked to her in a gentle voice.

“It’s peaceful here, Kate,” she said, on a kind of sigh. “Very peaceful! ”

Kate showed that she agreed with her by wagging her feathery tail.

Carol stooped and tickled her silken ears.

“It’s all right for you,” she said, “You belong here! But I—!”

Again that rather ragged little sigh, and Kate’s golden eyes implored her to explain. After all, the animal tried to reassure her, it’s your home as well as mine, and I’ m perfectly willing to belong to you as well as anybody else. You know that!

But Carol could have told her differently. Kate was Meg’s dog. Captain, the parrot, was Meg’s parrot, the huge Siamese cat Benedict showed a definite preference for Meg. The roses blooming in the adjoining rose-garden were Meg’s roses, the very bench on which Carol was reclining had been carpentered especially for Meg by the handy Judson because the orchard was one of her favorite places in which to relax. But not as Carol was doing now, with empty hands. Always with a little fine sewing or embroidery, or perhaps a book, or a column of household accounts to add up. For Meg disapproved of complete idleness.

The light faded gradually out of the sky, and the night shadows deepened around her. In the orchard it was very dim and cool. Carol could see stars twinkling rather hazily in the blue above her head. She was feeling a little tired after her unusually well-filled day, and the making of new acquaintances, and although she was becoming aware of a faint chill in the air, and her frock was thin, and she was quite sure now that her feet were wet, she drifted into a kind of a tranquil little doze. But when she opened her eyes her husband was standing in front of her, and his face was dark in the gloom of the trees.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding yourself!” he said. “Go indoors at once, Carol, and in future do exercise a little ordinary common sense! ”

Carol started up guiltily.

Oh, I’m sorry! ’ she exclaimed. “Have you been wanting me?”

“I’ve been wondering where on earth you had got to,” he answered rather dryly. “Were you feeling tired?”

“A little,” she confessed. She followed him like a pale shadow across the lawn, up the worn stone steps to the terrace and in through the open french window to the drawing-room. She was thankful that Meg was still absent.

“I'm so sorry you had to come and look for me,” she repeated.

“Sit down,” he ordered, and almost thrust her on to one of the spindly-legged chairs, “and take your shoe off.”

She complied at once, and as he had suspected her thin brocade shoe was sodden and stained.

“You see?” he said, and held it out to her. “Do you want to collect pneumonia?”

“Of course not,” she answered.

His lips seemed to tighten a little, and something about the rest of his face made her heart sink a little. He went and turned on the electric fire, stimulating a basket of glowing logs, and then instructed her to hold her feet close to the warmth while he obtained another pair of shoes for her.

“Where do you keep them?” he asked rather curtly, before he reached the door. “In the wardrobe?”

Carol nodded.

“But there's no need for you to go and get them! I can get them myself—”

“I daresay you could,” he agreed; “but you’ll do what I tell you!” When he had left the room Carol sat waiting in the dim drawingroom, with the comforting glow from the electric fire warming her chilled feet, and the scent of the flowers in the many bowls and vases lying heavily in the air around her. She reached over and switched on a little table-lamp, and in its pale amber light the faded beauties in the Persian rug before the fireplace came suddenly to life, and so did the colors in a porcelain vase upon the mantelpiece. Her own fair hair assumed the effect of a delicate nimbus surrounding the creamy pallor o f her face, and her eyes looked deep and dark and slightly mournful. Her white georgette frock was stained with its contact with the orchard seat, and in one place it was torn a little.

When Timothy returned he bore in his hands her bedroom slippers, feather-trimmed mules from which her pink heels protruded. He also handed her a little fleecy angora wrap he had found lying over the back of a chair.

“Put it on,” he ordered her, “and in future do have the sense not to go sitting about in the orchard when the dew is falling. It’ s never particularly hot in there, and at this time of night you could easily catch a chill. Do you feel rather shivery? You look it! ”

“I did,” she admitted, “but I’m warmer now,” snuggling into the angora wrap.

He went through into the dining-room and came back with an inch of amber fluid at the bottom of a tumbler. It was whisky, she knew, and she drank it to please him, but heartily disliking the taste. As he took the glass from her she noticed that his face was still stern.

“I wish, Carol,” he remarked, when he had lighted a cigarette, and was standing gazing down at her with a reflective and faintly impatient look in his eyes, “that you were not quite so youthful. So
extremely
youthful, I ought to say!”

Carol felt as if he was accusing her of something, and her expression grew vaguely anxious.

“What—what do you mean by that?” she asked.

He flicked away the ash from his cigarette into a china ashtray.

“What do I mean? Well, simply that you were not quite so young in your ways. After all, there are many young women of your age—eighteen and a half! —who have not only been earning their living for a year or so, but have more wisdom tucked away in their quite businesslike heads than you appear to have in yours after years of careful and expensive tuition. Even Miss Hardcastle thought you were a little young for your age.”

Carol flushed quite brilliantly.

“I’m sorry if I’m rather stupid,” she said.

His expression softened a little.

“Not stupid—but irresponsible.’’

“Isn’t that the same thing?” she asked, unaware that her voice was tinged as she did so with a faint tinge of melancholy.

“No, I don’t think so at all.’’ He knew that for some reason he had felt badly irritated with her to-night—ever since, in fact, he had watched her chatting so easily with young Brian Winslow in Mrs. Featherstone’ s charming house that afternoon, and afterwards dancing with him. But he tried to get a grip of his irritation. “It’s merely that you don’t, perhaps, think enough, and you are at all times rather unsure of yourself. You must get out of the habit of deferring to people—all sorts and conditions of people! You must develop a will of your own, and not mistrust your own judgment. It’s fatal to appear uneasy and uncertain in the presence of other people, otherwise they are inclined to pity you, and you don’t give them the best picture of what you really are. I’m telling you all this because I do want you to create a good impression. ”

“Of course he did,” Carol thought, feeling as if something deep down inside her was blushing in an agony of humiliation. She was his wife, and naturally he didn’t wish to feel ashamed of her. He had bestowed the name of Carrington, much prized by Meg as well as himself, upon her, and she must behave in a way that would bring no faint shadow of disapproval, or condescension, upon it, and learn how to be worthy of such a name. In short, her childishness was beginning to annoy him, as well as other people, and it was up to her to do something about it, up to her to make herself worthy of her marriage!

“And another thing I do want you to do,” Timothy added, more gently, “it to develop a little more quite ordinary common sense—about such things as falling asleep in an orchard at dusk, and going out in unsuitable shoes. You do realize that that was rather foolish, don’ t you, risking a most unpleasant form of chill?”

Carol nodded her head dumbly. She found herself unable to say anything just then.

He caught the sound of Meg slowing her car in the drive, and he bent forward and lightly ruffled his wife’s curls.

“Get on up to bed, foolish child, and if you still feel chilly ask Agatha to bring you a hot water bottle. And some hot milk might be a good idea.”

Carol stood up automatically, as anxious as he was that she should escape the critical gaze of Meg, and without offering him any form of good night moved towards the door. He hastened to hold it open for her, and as she went up the stairs she heard Meg come in at the hall door, and the sound of Timothy greeting her.

In her own room she started mechanically to undress, but she did not ring for Agatha. Another one to know how foolish she had been, she thought, and to chide her upon it—although in a more kindly fashion, since Agatha was already fond of her—as if she was a great deal younger than eighteen and a half! Had Timothy ever thought of that, she wondered, when he took it upon himself to lecture her, or to criticize her in his own mind—as he probably often did! —and to lower her in her own esteem?

Or had he become so critical tonight because of the comparison afforded him that afternoon between his young and inexperienced wife and the beautiful and supremely poised Viola Featherstone?

It seemed very likely ...

Carol did not even put on her light to undress, and when she was in bed, lying rather miserably between the cool linen sheets, she heard someone tap lightly on her door, and she slid out of bed and turned the key silently in the lock, for she was determined to see no one else that night.

Timothy called softly to her through the door.

“Good night, Carol! ”

But Carol did not answer.

In the morning, when Agatha brought her tea she indicated a note on the tray, and whispered impressively:

“From the master! ”

Carol did not open it until Agatha had left the room, and when she did her fingers shook a little, and her heart beat rather quickly.

“I was in rather a poor humor last night,” Timothy had written, in his firm masculine hand, “and I’ m afraid you got the worst of it! If you smile at me at breakfast I shall know I am forgiven, but if you can’t forgive me I shall turn my face to the wall!

Yours, in dust and ashes.—T.C.’’

Carol felt her heart begin to sing. She went down to breakfast wearing one of her most charming cottons, and with such a radiant face that Timothy did not need to see her smile, and she accepted her seat at the table with a briskness she had seldom before exhibited. Timothy brought her crisply cooked bacon and a small golden sausage from the sideboard, and she allowed him to pour out her coffee.

“That was rather a severe lesson I read you last night,” he remarked, smiling a little quaintly. “Perhaps it was because you made me feel anxious. No sniffs or colds this morning?”

She shook her head. She had never looked more glowing. “Already you reproach me by beginning to grow up,” he told her, watching the calm, poised way in which she sat at the table, and the utter perfection of her skin in the morning sunlight, to say nothing of the clarity of her eyes. “I was very unfair to you last night, Carol.”

“It doesn’t matter in the least,” she assured him. “And I know sometimes I am rather stupid.”

“I’ve never known you to be stupid,” he told her quite honestly. “You’re frequently a little shy. You’re shy sometimes with me.”

“I know,” she confessed.

Meg had already breakfasted and gone into Dulverton, and they were alone in the dining-room. He suddenly had an idea.

“What are you doing this morning?” he asked. “If you’re not doing anything particular, how about coming and having a look over the farm with me? Would you like that?”

“Oh, I’ d love it! ” she told him truthfully, for he had never asked her before.

“Then run upstairs and change into some sensible shoes, and bring a raincoat in case it rains,” he instructed, “and meet me at the garage in ten minutes.”

She was delighted to obey his instructions, and when he handed her into the car she was thoroughly and obviously prepared to enjoy her morning.

“You’re a nice child, Carol,” he told her, gently. “And by the way, did someone knock at your door last night?” Carol hesitated. He saw the flush creep into her cheeks.

“You turned the key, didn’t you?” he accused her, with a

twinkle in his eyes.

“How—do you know?” she asked, wishing he wouldn’t look at her like that.