Part 58 (1/2)
”Straighten the edges ...” (she carefully cut all round the dough on the stone with the handle of the fork); ”bang it with your hand and it will come straight” (she banged the dough with the palm of her hand); ”then spread a little water over it ... and there!” She sighed and took a fresh mouthful of hair.
”Well, I shall just make a pudding like that,” said Poppy determinedly.
The gentle slurring of a silk petticoat was heard on the dry gra.s.s, and Mrs. Cap.r.o.n joined them, smiling mischievously.
”The committee meeting is over,” she said, ”and Clem has gone to see Lady Mostyn off on _The Scot_ and taken Miss Allendner with her. She hopes she will be back for lunch, but is not sure; if not, we are to go on without her. She gave me leave to come and look for you two in the garden, so you can't very well kick me out, even if you don't want me.
Hyacinthie, your nurse is walking about with two baked bananas smothered in cream, asking everyone if they've seen you.”
”Ooh!” Cinthie slashed the hair out of her mouth in antic.i.p.ation of her favourite eleven-o'clock lunch. ”Mind my babies!” she commanded Poppy with a menacing eye, and sped up the lawn, disappearing into the trees surrounding the house. The two women looked after her with entirely different emotions in their eyes. Mrs. Cap.r.o.n sighed.
”Fleet of foot, but, alas! that one should have to say it of Clem's child--flat of foot also.” She seated herself daintily upon the rock which had served for Cinthie's kitchen-table; her eyes fastened themselves upon the emerald ring. She had never seen a ring on Poppy's hand before.
”Her feet are scarcely formed yet,” said the latter; ”and Clem has perhaps let her wear sandals too long.”
Mrs. Cap.r.o.n withdrew her fascinated eyes from the ring and shook her head sadly.
”She will grow up ugly in every way; and it is just as well. If she had Clem's temperament and charm and Bill's beauty she might wreck the world.”
”Oh, no--only herself,” said Poppy, with a tinge of bitterness. ”The world goes gaily on, whatever befalls. But I don't agree with you at all about Cinthie's looks!”
”Most people do. Someone was saying to me the other day--I forget who--Mr. Abinger, perhaps--that Cinthie looks like the incarnation of all the deviltries Clem and Bill have left undone, all the wickedness they have kept under.”
”Mr. Abinger is a better judge of deviltries than of good women,” said Poppy drily.
”He is a rip, of course. But, then, rips always unerringly recognise other rips,” smiled Mary Cap.r.o.n, and Poppy smiled too, though she was not extremely amused.
”Are you accusing Clem of being a rip?”
”Of course not, though Bill is so charming he must have been one some time, don't you think?”
”I think he is nearly nice enough to be Clem's husband,” said Poppy curtly, ”and too entirely nice for any other woman.” It was an old suspicion of hers that Mary Cap.r.o.n was not as real as she pretended to be in her friends.h.i.+p for Clem.
”You are a very loyal friend, Miss Chard; and I hope you don't think that I am _not_, just because I find it intensely interesting to talk about the people I care for?” Mrs. Cap.r.o.n spoke with a quiet sincerity that made Poppy feel ashamed of her thought, for, of course, most women do find it interesting to talk of people they care for. The best of friends do it. After all, Mrs. Cap.r.o.n had said nothing that a friend might not lightly say.
”I would never talk about her to anyone but you,” continued Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, ”and I know that you love her as much as I do. But I see that you think I am wrong.”
”I think, Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, that one would be a stock or a stone to know Clem, and yet not be intensely interested in her husband, her child, and everything that concerns her,” Poppy answered warmly. ”I could sit all day and watch her face, wondering how she came to know so much about life without being old, or bitter, or uncharitable about anything in the world.”
”She will tell you that the deep lines she has on her face are only little mementos of Africa--that Africa always puts her marks on the faces of those who love her. But”--Mary Cap.r.o.n's voice was very gentle and sad--”I happen to know that she has been _pounded in the mortar_.”
Poppy sat silent, thinking how great must be a nature that could be pounded in the mortar of life, and come out with nothing but a few beautiful marks on the face. Further, her thought was that if Mary Cap.r.o.n knew Clem's sorrows, Clem must love her very much indeed, and she must be worthy of that love.
She determined that she would never again allow herself to feel jealous of the bond of friends.h.i.+p existing between the two women. Mary Cap.r.o.n spoke again in a very low voice.
”What I am terribly afraid is that her suffering is not over, but only beginning.”
Poppy stared at her startled, and saw that the beautiful brown eyes were filled with tears.
”Sorrow has her elect!” said the girl gently. ”Dear Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, do not let your sympathy for Clem beguile you into telling me anything that she would not wish me to know; I believe you have her confidence. I wish I had too. But I would rather not hear anything ... of her inward life ...