Part 23 (1/2)
”Well, hardly that,” I said, marking off with my pen the names of the people on my list who were away and not to be counted on for help with the bazaar. ”She badly needed some clothes and couldn't afford expensive places; so I took her to my little woman. She was able to carry out Mollie's ideas perfectly. She has charming ideas, hasn't she? She knows so exactly what suits her.”
”Carry out her ideas? She hasn't an idea in her head. Carry out yours, you mean, you funny creature. I can't conceive why you took the pains to dress up the deadly little dowd.” Vera drummed with her fingers on the window-pane. Mrs. Travers-Cray had joined Mollie and Sir Francis, and they sat down in a shady corner of the terrace. Mrs. Travers-Cray, sweet, impa.s.sive, honey-coloured woman, was one of the few people for whose opinions and tastes Vera had a real regard.
”Oh, you're mistaken there, Vera, just as you've been mistaken about her looks,” I said, all dispa.s.sionate limpidity. ”She has heaps of ideas, I can a.s.sure you, and I saw it from the beginning; just as I saw that she was enchanting looking.”
”Enchanting! Help! Help! That little skim-milk face, with those great calf's eyes! Who is the poor dear martyr thing who carries her eyes on a plate? St. Lucia, isn't it? She makes me think of that--as much expression. You may have succeeded in making her less of a dowd, but you'll never succeed in making her less of a bore.”
”Well, Mrs. Travers-Cray doesn't find her a bore,” I remarked, casting a glance of quiet, satisfied possessors.h.i.+p at the group outside.
”Oh, Leila always was an angel,” said Vera, ”and your little protegee has made a very determined set at her.”
”Sir Francis is an angel, too, then. He delights in her; that's evident.” It was perhaps rather indiscreet of me to goad Vera like this, but I could not resist taking it out of her and rubbing it into her, and I knew that Sir Francis would vex her almost as much as Mrs.
Travers-Cray. ”And look at Milly,” I added. ”You can't say that Milly is an angel. The fact is that Mrs. Thornton is a very charming young woman, and that if you don't see it you are the only person who doesn't.”
”Another person who doesn't see it is her husband,” said Vera. She was determined not to show that she was angry, but I could see how angry she was. ”Sir Francis, of course, old goose, thinks any one charming if they are young and dress well and look at him with appealing eyes. It is her husband I'm really sorry for. It's evident that he never spoke to a civilized woman in his life till he came here. He doesn't show much signs of finding his wife interesting, does he? Poor fellow! It's pitiful the way men fall into these early marriages with the first curate's daughter they find round the corner. And now that she's pus.h.i.+ng herself forward like this, he is done for.” Vera, I saw, was very angry to be goaded so far.
”Surely she is the more interesting of the two,” I blandly urged.
”Neither of them has a spark of ambition if it comes to pus.h.i.+ng; they'll be quite happy on their chicken-farm. But if it were a question of getting on and getting in with the right people, it would, I imagine, be she rather than he who would count. This last day or two has made that evident to my mind. In her soft, strange way little Mollie is unique, whereas he is only an honest young soldier, and there are thousands more just like him, thank goodness!”
Vera at this turned her head and looked at me for a moment. After all, even if I wasn't angry, I, too, had given myself away. And it evidently pleased her to recognize this--to recognize that she wasn't being worsted merely by Mollie's newly revealed charm, but by my diplomacy as well. And it is rather a good mark to Vera, I think, that I don't believe it ever crossed her mind for a moment that she had the simplest method of speedy vengeance in her hands--had simply to send me packing.
Of course we should both have known that to use such a method would have been to reveal one's self as crude and vulgar; yet a cattish woman who is very angry may easily become both. Vera didn't. There are things I always like about her.
She took up now one of my lists, and while she scanned it said, smiling with cousinly good-humour:
”Ah, but you can hardly expect me to look upon you as a judge of that, Judith darling--how much a man counts, I mean, and how much he doesn't.
You are so essentially a woman's woman, aren't you? I suppose it's just because you are so crisp and clever and unromantic that men don't feel drawn to you, foolish creatures! So that you never get a chance, do you, of finding out anything about them except their way of brus.h.i.+ng their hair and the colour of their ties. You're a first-rate woman's woman, I grant you, and you're very clever and you've succeeded in foisting your little friend on silly Sir Francis and on Leila Travers-Cray, and it's all rather dear and funny of you, and I've quite loved watching it all and seeing you at work; but you won't succeed in foisting Mrs. Thornton on her husband, and he'll hardly give you an opportunity of finding out whether he's anything more than an honest young soldier. I have found him,”--and Vera now spoke with a simple candour,--”quite, quite a dear; with a great deal in him--sensitiveness, tact, flavour. So much could have been made of him! I, in my little way, could have taken him up and started him. But what can one do for a man who has a wife who doesn't know how to dress without help and who will push herself forward? No; I'm afraid Mrs. Mollie, after she's left your hands, Judith dear, will tumble quite, quite flat again. _Would_ you mind, darling, getting all the invitations off to-day? We mustn't be slipshod about it. And don't forget to write to the merry-go-round man, and to Mark Hammond to see if he'll sing.” So, having delivered what she hoped might be a somewhat stinging shaft at my complacency, Vera trailed away.
If I hadn't so goaded her I don't believe, really, that she'd have taken the trouble that she did take to prove herself right and me wrong. There had been, before this, little conscious malice or intended unkindness.
But now the claws were out. During the next day or two it at once justified and infuriated me to watch the manifold little slights and snubs of which poor Mollie was the victim, the dexterity with which, while seeming all sweetness, Vera essayed to belittle and discompose her, to display her as ignorant or awkward or second-rate. Only a woman can be aware of what another woman is accomplis.h.i.+ng on these lines, and though Captain Thornton once or twice showed a puzzled brow, her skill equalled her malice, and he never really saw. I was prepared for it when Mollie came to my study one morning and shut the door and said:
”I'm afraid I can't stand it any longer, Judith.”
”It has been pretty bad,” I said. ”She's been so infernally clever, too.”
”Our time is really nearly up,” said Mollie, ”and I'm trying to think of some excuse for getting Clive to feel we'd better go before it comes.
Only now she's telling him that I am jealous of her.”
Pen in hand, I leaned back and looked up at my poor little accomplice.
This, I recognized, was indeed Vera's trump-card, but I certainly hadn't foreseen that she would use it.
”Has he told you so?” I asked.
”Oh, no, he wouldn't. He couldn't, could he? But I know it. Men are very transparent, aren't they, Judith? He is always urging me to see more of her, and telling me that she is so kind, so clever, such a dear, and that I'd really think so, too, if I'd try to see more of her. And when I say that I'm sure she is, and that I hope I shall see more of her, he thinks--I can see it--that I'm only playing up, and between us, her and me, he is rather wretched and uncomfortable. What shall I do, Judith?
You saw the way at tea yesterday, when she was talking about pictures, she was really sneering at father's, and when I tried to answer,--because I felt I had to answer about that,--making me seem so rude and sullen. Clive knows nothing about pictures; so he didn't understand. And it's all the time like that. I have to pretend not to see and be bland and silent; or, if I try to answer, she turns everything against me.”
”Be patient. Give her a little more time,” I said. ”She'll run to earth if you give her a little more time.”