Chapter V

MAGGIE was very content and resigned (as she would have called it) as she sat in the Standing garden, a fortnight later: and indeed there are many things that call for more resignation than does a Hertfordshire garden in the middle of July, especially when one had no reason to hope for anything other than London at that time.

The garden was not very broad: but it was very long, to make up. Here, near the house, between the long side of the music-room and the apse and skirting wall of the tiny church, was plain lawn, coming right up to the boundaries without a single gravel path, since nothing looks better than grass against stone. To be sure it required not only a boy with a mowing machine but a boy with a clippers also to make all tidy right up to the edge: but really that did not take so very much longer, after all. Then came a flagged walk straight across the garden, beyond the end of the music-room: this path led nowhere, but wa3 plainly meant for walking up and down upon — (" Like Satan," Miss Brent had said in one of her daring moods) — and beyond the flagged path and a little grass slope lay the rose-garden.

Now in all England there is no country that grows roses with less trouble than Hertfordshire; and Miss Brent had taken a great deal of trouble on the top of that. The square was divided into a pattern of great beds by grass-paths; and in those beds swarmed the roses — white, yellow, pink and crimson — while Cramonsie Superieure, and Dorothy Perkins, and Waltham Bride, and Madame d'Arblay ran up fences and apple-trees and posts in a riot of colour and scent. The roses in the middle were better drilled: General Jacqueminot, Frau Karl Druschki, Captain Hayward and a score of others faced one another resolutely, like Continental Powers, over low bushes of S. Reynolds Hole, Early Blush, Moss, and above all and everywhere, China Pink. Penzance Briars and Scarlet Ramblers occupied all the spaces on the fences that the aristocrats would permit to them.

After that the garden was not so interesting. There was another oblong of turf; a herbaceous border and a low yew-hedge; and beyond that, plebeian cabbages and peas and broad beans and potatoes. Hence the boy, Charlie, issued, morning by morning, with vegetables for the day. At the remotest end of all, three hundred yards from the house was a patch of rough turf, with marigolds and Michaelmas daisies all ready for the autumn, and then the broken hedge and the little stream.

In the middle of the roses sat Maggie, in a holland dress, with a large straw hat, under a garden umbrella: and about her were her little luxuries. These were rather numerous, considering she had only come out for a few minutes until Marion came down.

There was first Rhadamanthus in his cage; because the sun was supposed to be good for him. For the first few minutes he always liked it and chuckled aloud at some secret joke, like a disagreeable and egotistical old man. Then he scratched the back of his head with his foot several times: then he whistled so shrilly that the hearer's head sang and throbbed: and then he sulked, with his feathers on edge.

Maggie's other luxuries were chiefly devotional in character. They comprised two prayer-books, and three rosaries, because she was never quite sure when she came out which of them she wished to use; and it was better to be on the safe side. She also had with her a small basket full of bits of linen which she was gradually preparing for the service of the altar: she hated, she said, to sit with her hands before her. Yet this was precisely what she was doing this morning; she had so much to think about that she had no time even to pray — at any rate with any formality.

She was in a very mixed frame of mind.

On the official side, so to speak, as the protector and friend of Miss Tenterden, she was of course extremely grieved and upset at the sudden breach in the operatic career. It really was intensely annoying that just the last month of her season had been ruined by this trouble in the throat. The bi-weekly houses, before which Miss Tenterden sang, showed no signs of falling off either in numbers or enthusiasm; and it is never good for the future of a singer to begin with the reputation of being the kind of person who is suddenly ill.

Yet, on the domestic side, the pleasure that Marion's friend had in the turn events had taken, far more than compensated for the distress of Miss Tenterden's protector. It was, first, simply delightful to have her all to herself, out of the rush of London: and it was, next, delightful, because it really gave her an opportunity of winning back, in a sense, the intimacy that she had thought herself to be losing; or, if that was too strong an expression, of getting into that particular kind of touch with her friend which the excitements of London had overlaid.

Here, then, sat Maggie Brent, three days after their arrival, content at last. Her last trace of anxiety had been dispersed by the visit of the great London doctor half an hour ago, and his declaration that the throat was practically well again, although, of course, Miss Tenterden must not attempt any singing again for the present, and must on no account smoke a cigarette.

It was half-past eleven before Marion at last appeared in the doorway of the cottage. She shaded her eyes a moment with her hand: then she came slowly out, carrying a sheaf of letters, and the morning paper. Maximilian was on her shoulder.

It would have been hard to imagine anything less like the traditional idea of a famous prima donna, thought Maggie, as the girl came across the grass. She was in an absolutely simple white dress, with white shoes and stockings; she was bareheaded; and she had just the look of a rather sleepy child. Her lips smiled a little as she met Maggie's eyes: the rest of her face remained drowsily unmoved.

" Some charming letters," she said, in a voice that was certainly rather hoarse; but what can you expect after an operation in the throat?

" I should think they ought to be charming," said Maggie indignantly; " after all you've done for them. Here, sit down, my dear; and don't talk too much. You look tired."

" I'm tired with ten hours' sleep, then," said the girl.

" Look here! isn't this nice, from Sir Robert Mainwaring?"

She tossed an open letter into her friend's lap; and, as she did so, another in its envelope, though open, fell on the grass; and Maggie glanced at it.

" Yes," said Marion sedately, " it's from Mr. Merival." She stooped and picked it up. Maximilian took the opportunity to leap on to the grass. Then she sat down, while Maggie looked through the letter that had been thrown to her.

" Yes: my dearest. Most charming," she said presently, giving it back.

" And here's one from Norah. Quite nice. And a dozen from total strangers. Really, people are delightful. And five from firms that make lozenges — only five this morning: there were eleven yesterday. I shouldn't have thought there were — let's see — sixteen different firms in the world that make lozenges. And there are three separate samples too. I left them in the house. You can have them for Rhadamanthus, if you like. Kow cross he looks! "

" My dear, you mustn't talk too much."

" Oh I that's all right," said Marion. " As long as I don't talk loud. By the way, Sir John said I should be able to sing this autumn, he thought — not in public, I mean. That's rather a bore. I didn't think it would be as long as that."

" All the better," said Maggie rather savagely. " You've been overdoing it all round, my darling. I never dreamed it would mean so much work and late hours: and you know you're not strong."

" I am sorry to contradict " began the girl.

" Well; you're not what I call strong. You've got nerves; and there's nothing so exhausting. And then look how fat all other prima donnas are! They've got to be. They can't do the work without. Reserve tissues. Like starving men on a desert island."

" Dear: don't get excited. It's bad for me. Oh! look at Maximilian pretending to be a lion.... What a lot of pious books! Do you hold one in each hand, or what?"

Maggie paid no attention.

"And then all those men running after you! My dear; I'm going to give you a good talking to some day when you're better. You're getting quite worldly."

Marion smiled.

*' Do you hear that, Maximilian? " she murmured.

" However, you can't be worldly here: that's one comfort. And I'm very glad we managed to sell the motor again. Otherwise you'd 'be running about all over the place."

" Yes: by the way; I've got a word to say about that," said the girl. " What on earth do you mean by getting round me when I was, so to speak, prostrate on a bed of sickness; and selling my present to you? I've never spoken my mind about that yet. You wait till I get my voice back! "

" My dear! Not so loud! "

" And you won't gain much by it, because I've ordered a pony and a governess cart instead. It'll be here by Monday. Charlie will look after it; and I shall drive."

Maggie sat up. Marion made a long arm and snatched up Maximilian who was stalking a daisy.

" You haven't! "

" Indeed I have! Mr. Merival very kindly saw to it forme. (Don't claw so, Maximilian.) He says in this letter that it'll be here by Monday at the latest. So you see what you've got by it all."

Maggie threw up her hands; and two pious books and one rosary fell to the ground.

" I've never seen anything like it," she said. " We shall be ruined."

Ill

It was not very easy for Marion to keep up this kind of thing; and yet she knew that it must be done.

She was perfectly aware that her relations with Maggie were not altogether what they had been a year ago; and that Maggie was aware of it too; and she was quite determined that there should be a restoration, or at least that Maggie should think that there was. For a complete restoration there could not be, so long as the secret remained untold, and when it was told — Marion did not like to contemplate the result.

For the only thing in the world about which Maggie was really unbending was her religion, or rather the principles of it, in theory. On practically everything else she could be made to yield. She broke her Rule of Life continually, but she possessed one, in theory. She left bills unpaid for months and lying about her table, open, till they were thrown away; but she paid them finally. Rhadamanthus could make her do anything to which he really applied himself, in all such matters as the covering or the uncovering of his cage, but he could not make her ever really angry with him. In the same way Marion could always get a Probable Opinion from Maggie that on this or that particular Sunday she need not go to mass, but she could never get an opinion against going to mass as a practice. When she contemplated, therefore (which she did as little as possible), the necessity of telling her friend that she was going to contract a marriage which the Church declared to be no marriage at all, she was honestly perturbed by the effect it would have on her. She could even imagine Maggie solemnly packing up her things, seizing Rhadamanthus' cage in one hand and as many objects of devotion as she could carry, in the other, and departing forever. In fact she could not conceive Maggie doing anything else.

She felt so much better this morning, after her ten hours' sleep, that even as she sat with Maggie among the roses she began to think of this prospect again; and she hardly listened at all as Maggie read to her scraps from the Daily Mail. It was enough to say, " Dear me! " from time to time, to keep her going.

There was nothing new to think of: it was only the old thoughts over again, for no conceivable circumstance could alter the situation. It was impossible to demand the " promises " from Max; it was impossible not to marry him. That was all that was to be said. Her single consolation lay in the knowledge that at any rate she need not say anything just yet. This summer, at any rate, they could have in peace.

But she began to grow a little restless, and omitted the " Dear me! " so obviously on two or three occasions, that at last Maggie glanced at her with the peculiarly piercing look that eyes always have that are bent over the tops of spectacles.

" You're not listening to a word I'm reading," she said. " And it's been most interesting. All about Florida and the Chinese."

" I know I'm not. I'm bothered about something. Why hasn't Father Denny been to see us? "

" My dear, would you like to see him? " asked Maggie, all spiritual helpfulness in a moment.

Marion stood up, and began to fidget with a rose belonging to General Jacqueminot: it began to fall petal by glowing petal under her fingers.

" I don't know. Yes. No, I don't think so. Go on about the Chinese, Maggie. I like to hear it."

She sat down again.

After ten minutes or so Maggie said she had read enough, and that she must really go round to the church for her " hour." She was about forty minutes late already. But Marion was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she did not put two and two together; and it was not until she looked up, after five minutes' more solitary meditation, and saw the little priest coming out through the house, carrying his hat in his hand, that she perceived, what ought to have been evident to her from the first — that Maggie would inevitably have gone straight to the presbytery and told him to go and administer priestly consolation next door. She drew a breath. Well, here he was, anyhow. Perhaps she would talk to him as she had thought of doing just now. It was possible that the Jesuit had taken too rigorous a view of things; and that a simple little country priest might be more lax.

" Ah! Father," she said. " How kind of you to look in! Won't you come indoors? I was coming in myself."

It was a quarter of an hour later before she realised that she had, so to speak, caught another Tartar, and that this one was more prickly, if less impressive, than that perfectly brutal priest of Farm Street.

So soon as he had really grasped the situation, he had sat suddenly upright in his chair. (She had taken him into the music-room as affording less opportunity of the conversation being overheard.)

" Miss Tenterden," he said, " have I really understood you rightly? Are you really asking me whether there is no way by which you may be permitted to live with this man, without Catholics knowing that you are not married to him. And are you really serious in saying that you mean "

" Father, that is scarcely the way to put it. You must please remember that I shall myself consider that I am married to him in... in the sight of God."

" In the eyes of the secular laws of England, you mean," he said.

" In this case I regard them as one and the same thing. Surely society, in the last resort, is the authority that decides what is a true marriage and what is not?"

" I am amazed to hear you speak like that," said the priest. " A Catholic from the cradle, educated in a convent, surely knows that marriage is one of the sacraments, and therefore the Church alone has a right to say what does or does not constitute it."

His little round eyes became pin-points of light behind his spectacles, and his mouth grew tight and severe. Marion jerked her head impatiently. What drearily narrow rubbish it all was! What a fool she had been to hope for any reasonableness from this ill-educated little man!

" I see it's no good arguing," she said. " I spoke to another priest, too, in London."

" And he told you exactly what I am telling you, did he not?"

" Of course he did. All priests say the same thing. I ought to have remembered that."

" Do you expect us to take different views of God's Truth?"

His manner was a surprising revelation to her. Hitherto he had always been a little afraid of her, a little deferential, a trifle too much disposed to wait on her moods, a shade too anxious to please. She had wished sometimes that he would appear rather more of a man. And now something had awakened within him; hard surfaces had suddenly appeared whose existence she had never suspected. It was like leaning against a familiar old cushion and finding a large brick in its centre, with angles that hurt. She lost her temper.

" It depends what one thinks God's Truth is. Personally I am inclined to think it is considerably larger than — than you do: considerably larger than any Church can make it.".

" Am I right," asked the priest, " in understanding you to imply that you no longer believe the Catholic Church to be the organ of that Truth? "

" An organ, certainly," said Marion.

He rose. She watched him with a tinge of deliberate insolence in her eyes, leaning back in her deep chair.

" I do not think," he said, " that any good can be served by continuing this conversation now. The confessional is the proper place to deal with the subject. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tenterden, that if you presented yourself in these dispositions and with these intentions, in any confessional in the world, you would be refused absolution."

" So I understood from the other priest whom I consulted," she murmured.

Then his pastoral spirit awoke. He clasped his old flat hat nervously on his breast.

" Miss Tenterden; I entreat you to reconsider the matter, before you wreck your immortal soul. I simply will not take what you have told me as final. I cannot believe it. You have been such a model, always. The little band of Catholics here have always looked up to you so much. I cannot believe it. Do not say anything more at present. I regard what you have told me as having been told under the seal, as you asked me. But think it all over once more: and then come and see me — in a day or two — in a day or two: and we can put all this right, and you will give your word to think no more of it "

He paused: there was a tone of entreaty in his voice; but she hardened her heart and would not even make him happy by a little prevarication. He had better know the truth once and for all. She said nothing, but watched him under half-raised eyelids, softly waving the palm fan she had taken from the mantelpiece just now.

" Think of it again, Miss Tenterden," he said. " Think even of what it will mean to Miss Brent, if nothing else will "

She stood up, and gave him her hand.

" Thank you, Father Denny. Good morning. You know your way out, don't you? "

" Why, who's this? " asked Maggie in a very audible voice, as a clerical figure came out from the house, preceded by Jenny, as they sat at tea that same afternoon among the roses once more, in the shade of the house. " Why: it's Mr. Cholmondeley. Whatever has he come for? "

Mr. Cholmondeley was the Rector of Standing, but Maggie was most particular not to call him so. However excellent a man, he was nothing but an interloper and a thief. There had been no Rector of Standing since the sixteenth, century: but Father Denny was the nearest that could be got. Such was her belief, and such her language. Yet she could welcome him as a man.

He was a pleasant-looking gentleman, with a rather marked Oxford manner, clean-shaven, dressed in dark grey, with an ebony stick, and carrying a Panama hat. He would not have dreamed of describing himself as a priest, unless he were very hard pressed, when he would not explicitly deny it. He fulfilled perfectly the ideal of a Christian gentleman living in a village. He wore the old high collars and white ties, though he was still a fairly young man; and he took quite an interest in music, and therefore in Miss Tenterden. He had called once before, soon after their arrival in Standing, but never since. He was a bachelor.

" Why, Mr. Cholmondeley! " cried Maggie. " How nice of you to come in: and just at tea-time, too! "

" I thought I must just come and inquire about Miss

Tenterden," he said, shaking hands with them both. " But there doesn't seem much need."

" I am simply robust," said Marion.

" But you're rather hoarse," he said.

"Well: she only had the operation a fortnight ago. What can you expect? " demanded Maggie.

" You see, you belong to us all now," he said to Marion, with a very pleasant air. " How very delightful it must be to feel that you're a sort of national possession. I was horrified when I saw the news in the paper. Tell me: when do you mean to sing again? "

They proceeded to talk Opera; and Marion became vivacious.

But she took a distinct pleasure in contrasting this genial personage, so well shaven, so wholesome, so suitably dressed for a hot day in July, with the little priest with whom she had talked this morning. Father Denny could not be called attractive, on a hot day. He wore precisely the same cut of coat as in winter, only of alpaca: it came down to exactly the spot to which a coat should not come down, so that the observer was always in a state of tantalising doubt as to whether it were a short coat made too long, or a long coat made too short. His trousers were of a wear-resisting fabric, so stout that they had had time to become moulded to the shape of his legs. His hat was flat and shapeless, and he had been wearing this morning a celluloid collar that was perceptibly yellow: below his collar was a black stock of imitation watered silk, with three faceted buttons of jet that fastened nothing. His boots were ever longer than his feet, and were sharply turned up at the toes. All these things she considered and tasted over with a distinct sensation of pleasure, contrasting them with the appearance of this pleasant gentleman in grey — with the sight of his creased trousers, his low, well-polished shoes, the whiteness of his linen. She contrasted too the cultivated ease of this man with the abrupt timidity of the priest; she even began to make speculative contrasts between the undoubtedly broad and genial views of this man and the narrow dogmatism and unperceptiveness to which she had listened this morning.

Maggie, too, could be charming, even to a clergyman, so long as controversy did not obtrude itself; and certainly nothing seemed likely to obtrude itself in any direction whatever, under the suave influences of this visitor. She bristled a little, for a while: she inspected with great earnestness a small gold object that hung from his watch-chain until she was quite sure it was only an innocent coin and not the symbol of a heretical society; she dragged the tails of her coat, so to speak, across the conversation, by speaking with emphasis of " the church of the place " — and adding — " I mean of course our own, here — the Catholic church "; but he took it so much as a matter of course, and even used the word " Catholic " itself of his entertainer's views, that she relaxed, and settled down to amity.

It was as he was standing up to go that he finally won her heart.

" Miss Brent," he said, " you have never been up to see Standing church, yet, I think? I wish you would come, with Miss Tenterden, and let me show you over."

She instantly became alert and a little fierce.

" It would be rather painful to me, Mr. Cholmondeley. You see "

" Ah! I quite understand," he said. " You feel, very naturally, that I am something of an interloper. Well, upon my word, I'm inclined to agree with you, when I look at that broken holy-water font — I think you call it? — and the door that once led up to the rood-loft. I really do not quite see what business I have in the place at all. All those Church-Defence meetings, you know — and all that!" (His eyes twinkled a little.) " However, one must take the world as one finds it. Let me put it another way. Won't you and Miss Tenterden come up one day and look over your church — your old family property that you've been driven out of? "

" Upon my word! " exclaimed Maggie, as the garden-gate clashed after the Rector. " I shall make a Novena for that man's conversion! Did you hear what he said, my dearest? "

" I noticed he had a sense of humour," said Marion. " That's a great thing, you know. And Maximilian liked him. And that's another."