Part 7 (1/2)

”Put your hair up, my child? Why, how old are you? I don't like little girls to be in a hurry to turn into big ones”

”I'm not a little girl,” said Isabel shortly. ”I'm nineteen.”

”Nineteen? no, surely not!”

”Twenty next December.”

”Dear me!” said Mr. Stafford, quite overcome. ”How time flies!”

He set her down from his knee and went to his cash box. ”If Val tells you to put your hair up, no doubt you had better do it.” He paused. ”I don't know whether Val said you ought to have a new frock, though? I can't bear spending money on fripperies when even in our own parish so many people--” Some glimmering perception reached him of the repressed anguish in Isabel's eyes.

”But of course you must have what you need. How much is it?”

”1. 11. 6.”

”Oh, my dear! That seems a great deal.”

”It isn't really much for a best dress,” said poor Isabel.

”But you mustn't be extravagant, darling,” said Mr. Stafford tenderly. ”I see other girls running about in little cotton dresses or bits of muslin or what not that look very nice--much nicer on a young girl than 'silksand fine array.' Last time Yvonne came to tea she wore a little frock as simple as a child's”

”She did,” said Isabel. ”She picked it up in a French sale. It was very cheap--only 275 francs.”

”Eleven pounds!” Mr. Stafford held up his hands. ”My dear, are you sure?”

”Quite,” said Isabel. Mr. Stafford sighed. ”I must speak to Yvonne. 'How hardly shall they...'” He took a note out of his cash box. ”Can't you make that do--?” he was beginning when a qualm of compunction came upon him. After all it was a long time since he had given Isabel any money for herself, and there must be many little odds and ends about a young girl's clothing that an elderly man wouldn't understand. He took out a second note and pressed them both hurriedly into Isabel's palm. ”There! now run off and don't ask me for another penny for the next twelvemonth!” he exclaimed, beaming over his generosity though more than half ashamed of it. ”You extravagant puss, you! dear, dear, who'd have a daughter?”

Isabel gave him a rather hasty though warm embrace (she was terribly afraid that his conscience would p.r.i.c.k him and that he would take the second note away again), and flew out of the window faster than she had come in. The clock was striking a quarter past one, and she had to scamper down to Chapman's to buy the dress, and a length of lilac ribbon for a sash, and a packet of bronze hairpins, and be back in time to lay the cloth for two o'clock lunch. If it is only for idle hands that Satan finds mischief, he could not have had much satisfaction out of Isabel Stafford.

Soon after four Mrs. Clowes stepped from her car, shook out her soft flounces, and led the way across the lawn, Lawrence Hyde in attendance. The vicarage was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house too large for the living, its long front, dotted with rosebushes, rising up honey-coloured against the clear green of a beech grove. There are grand houses that one sees at once will never be comfortable, and there are unpretentious houses that promise to be cool in summer and warm in winter and restful all the year round: of such was Chilmark vicarage, sunning itself in the afternoon clearness, while faded green sunblinds filled the interior with verdant shadow, and the smell of sweetbrier and j.a.panese honeysuckle breathed round the rough-cast walls.

Isabel had laid tea on the lawn, and Mrs. Clowes smiled to herself when she saw seven worn deck chairs drawn up round the table; she was always secretly amused at Isabel in her character of hostess, at the naive natural confidence with which the young lady scattered invitations and dispensed hospitality. But when Isabel came forward Laura's covert smile pa.s.sed into irrepressible surprise. She raised her eyebrows at Isabel, who replied by an almost imperceptible but triumphant nod. In her white and mauve embroidered muslin, her dark hair accurately parted at the side of her head and drawn back into what she called a soup plate of plaits, Isabel no longer threatened to be pretty. Impelled by that singularly pure benevolence which a woman who has ceased to hope for happiness feels for the eager innocence of youth, Laura drew her close and kissed her. ”My sweet, I'm so glad,” she whispered. A bright blush was Isabel's only answer.

Then Mrs. Clowes stepped back and indicated her cavalier, very big and handsome in white clothes and a Panama hat: ”May I introduce-- Captain Hyde, Miss Stafford,” with a delicate formality which thrilled Isabel to her finger-tips. Let him see if he would call her a little girl now!

Lawrence recognized Isabel at a glance, but he was not abashed.

He scarcely gave her a second thought till he had satisfied himself that Val Stafford was not present. Lawrence smiled, not at all surprised: he had had a presentiment that Val, the modest easy-going Val of his recollections, would be detained at Countisford: too modest by half, if he was shy of meeting an old friend! Rowsley Stafford was doing the honours and came forward to be introduced to Lawrence, a ceremony remarkable only because they both took an instantaneous dislike to each other. Lawrence disliked Rowsley because he was young and well-meaning and the child of a parsonage, and Rowsley disliked Lawrence because a manner which owed some of its serenity to his physical advantages, and his tailor, and his income, irritated the susceptibilities of the poor man's son.

Poor men's sons were often annoyed by Lawrence Hyde's manner.

Not so Jack Bendish, sprawling in a deck chair which had no sound pair of notches: not so his wife, Laura's sister, Yvonne of the Castle, curled up on a moth-eaten tigerskin rug, and clad in raiment of brown and silver which even Mr. Stafford would not have credited to Chapman's General Drapery and Grocery Stores.

Isabel was innocently surprised when the Bendishes found they had met Captain Hyde in town. Laura's smile was very faintly tinged with bitterness: she knew of that small world where every one meets every one, though she had been barred out of it most of her life, first by her disreputable father and then by the tragedy of her marriage: Rowsley pulled his tooth-brush moustache and said nothing. He was young, but not so young as Isabel, and there were moments when he felt his own footing at the Castle to be vaguely anomalous.

However, the talk ran easily. Lawrence, as was inevitable, sat down by Yvonne Bendish: she did not raise an eyelash to summon him, but it seemed to be a natural law that the rich unmarried man should sit beside her and talk cosmopolitan scandal, and show a discreet appreciation of her clothing and her eyes. Meanwhile the other four conversed with much greater simplicity upon such homely subjects as the coming school treat and the way Isabel had done her hair, Rowsley's regimental doings, and a recent turn-up between Jack Bendish as deputy M. F. H. and Mr. Morley the Jew.

Bernard Clowes had described Mrs. Jack Bendish as a plain little devil, but as a rule the devilry was more conspicuous than the plainness. She was a tall and extremely slight woman, her features insignificant and her complexion sallow, but her figure indecorously beautiful under its close French draperies. And yet if she had let Lawrence alone he would have gone over to the other camp. How they laughed, three out of the four of them, and what marvellous good tea they put away! The little Stafford girl had a particularly infectious laugh, a real child's giggle which doubled her up in her chair. Lawrence had no desire to join in the school treat and barnyard conversation, but he would have liked to sit and listen.

”If no one will have any more tea,” said Isabel, jumping up and shaking the crumbs out of her lap, ”will you all come and eat strawberries?”

”Isn't Val coming in?” asked Laura.

”Not till after five. He said we weren't to wait for him: he was delayed in getting off. He sent his love to you, Laura, and he was very sorry.”