Part 27 (1/2)

There was in the world, indeed, another personality rarely or never absent from Alice Puttenham's consciousness. One face, one problem, more or less acutely realized, haunted her life continuously. But this afternoon they had, for the moment, receded into the background. Hester had been, surely, more reasonable, more affectionate lately. Philip Meryon had now left Sandford; a statement to that effect had appeared in the _Post_; and Hester had even shown some kindness to poor Stephen. She had at last declared her willingness to go to Paris, and the arrangements were all made. The crisis in her of angry revolt, provoked apparently by the refusal of her guardian to allow her engagement to Stephen, seemed to be over.

So that for once Alice Puttenham was free to think and feel for her own life and what concerned it. From the events connected with Judith Sabin's death--through the long history of Meynell's goodness to her--the mind of this lonely woman travelled on, to be filled and arrested by the great new fact of the present. She had made a new friend. And at the same moment she had found in her--at last--the rival with whom her own knowledge of life had threatened her these many years. A rival so sweet--so unwitting! Alice had read her. She had scarcely yet read herself.

Alice opened her eyes--to the quiet room, and the windy sky outside. She was very pale, but there were no tears. ”It is not renouncing”--she whispered to herself--”for I never possessed. It is accepting--loving--giving--all one has to give.”

And vaguely there ran through her mind immortal words--”_good measure--pressed down, and running over_.”

A smile trembled on her lip. She closed her eyes again, lost in one of those spiritual pa.s.sions accessible only to those who know the play and heat of the spiritual war. The wind was blowing briskly outside, and from the wood-shed in the back garden came a sound of sawing. Miss Puttenham did not hear a footstep approaching on the gra.s.s outside.

Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed eyes, the hands holding the miniature.

Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for sleep.

”Auntie! Aunt Alsie!”

With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had perceived her loss.

”Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?” she asked, wondering. ”I got tired of that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away”--the clear high voice had grown conscious--”and I looked in here, because I left a book behind me--Auntie, who is it?” She bent eagerly over the miniature, trying to see it in the dim light.

Miss Puttenham's face had faded to a gray-white.

”Give it to me, Hester!” She held out her hand imperiously.

”Mayn't I know even who it is?” asked Hester, as she unwillingly returned it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.

Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked up at her with an expression half mockery, half sweetness, while Alice, with unsteady fingers, replaced the case and locked the drawer.

”What an awfully handsome fellow!” said Hester in a low voice, ”though you wouldn't let me see it properly. I say, Auntie, won't you tell me--?”

”Tell you what?”

”Who he was--and why I never saw it before? I thought I knew all your things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!” The girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. ”You know how you scold _me_ when you think I've got a secret.”

”That is quite different, Hester.”

Miss Puttenham tried to rise, but Hester, who was leaning against her knee, prevented it.

”Why is it different?” she said, audaciously. ”You always say you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from me--and I--”

She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her knees, and spoke with extraordinary animation and sparkling eyes.

”Why, I should have loved you twice as much, Aunt Alice--and you know I _do_ love you!--if you'd told me more about yourself. The people _I_ care about are the people who _live_--and feel--and do things! There's verse in one of your books”--she pointed to a little bookshelf of poets on a table near--”I always think of it when mamma reads the 'Christian Year'

to us on Sunday evenings--

Out of dangers, dreams, disasters _We_ arise, to be your masters!”

”_We_--the people who want to know, and feel, and _fight_! We who loathe all the humdrum _bourgeois_ talk--'don't do this--don't do that!' Aunt Alsie, there's a German line, too, you know it--' _Was uns alle bandigt, das Gemeine'_--don't you hate it too--_das Gemeine?_” the word came with vehemence through the white teeth. ”And how can we escape it--we women--except through freedom--through a.s.serting ourselves--through love, of course? It all comes to love!--love that mamma says one ought not to talk about. I wouldn't talk about it, if it only meant what it means to Sarah and Lulu--I'd scorn to!”