Part 25 (2/2)

”I have been longing to see you,” Nelly responded. ”Robin has talked so much about you.” At that moment Nelly had no doubt that he had talked.

”And I wanted to see you here, in your ordinary life. Robin says you will not be here much longer--that there will be an official position found for you. And it was here that 'Creatures of Burden' was written!”

”Nearly all here,” Mary said, smiling down at the young enthusiast.

Robin Drummond stood aside, in one of his characteristically awkward att.i.tudes, his hat in his hand, watching them. He was not thinking sufficiently of himself to feel awkward, although he looked it. He was thinking of those two dear women, as he called them to himself, objurgating himself for his unworthiness to be the kinsman and lover of one, the friend of the other.

He had never seen Nelly look like that before. Her air of wors.h.i.+p was charming. Now she let Mary Gray's hands fall while she went swiftly to the table on which she had deposited her beautiful red roses. ”I brought them for you,” she said, offering them to Mary Gray.

”How delicious! How sweet of you!”

The smell of the roses was in the room. It might have been the aura of the two exquisite women, he thought. Nelly had come in carrying a little whiff of scent that went with her, as much a part of her as the soft rustling of her garments. He closed his eyes and there came to his memory, sweet and sharp, the odour of wild thyme. Not a second of time had pa.s.sed when he opened them again. Mary was still praising her roses.

She was holding them to her face, leaning towards Nelly as she did so.

Her expression was more than kind: it was tender. She put down her basket of roses and took Nelly's hands between hers. For a moment she held them against her breast before she relinquished them. She spoke with a little tremor in her voice. Why was it that Robin Drummond thought suddenly of the nightingale who leans his breast upon a thorn?

In an instant the thrill in the atmosphere had pa.s.sed. She was bustling about to make them tea, if her soft, quiet movements could be called bustling. She brought a kettle from the unpainted deal cupboard which housed her utensils of every day. She disappeared for a few seconds and returned with the kettle full of water and set it on the gas-stove. She pushed the papers away from one end of the table and covered it with a dainty tea-cloth. She brought out cups and saucers of thin j.a.panese porcelain, some sugar, a loaf and b.u.t.ter, a box of biscuits. While she set her table she went on talking and smiling at them. The kettle began to sing on the fire.

”Ah!” she said, with a sudden thought. ”The milkman will not call for an hour yet. What are we to do?”

”Let me go and forage,” said Drummond eagerly.

”The nearest dairy is a good bit off.”

”Trust me to find one.”

When he had gone the two girls sat down and looked at each other. No wonder she was beloved, Mary thought to herself, gloating over Nelly's golden head, her blue eyes with the dark lashes, her lovely colouring, her innocent mouth. She had a poor opinion of her own beauty and rarely looked in a gla.s.s, but she was none the less generous to beauty in others.

”And you are very happy?” she asked.

She had an inclination to put her arms about Nelly Drummond as though she were a beautiful child. She was so glad Robin had remembered to bring her at last. It had been strange and lonely when he had ceased to come as he had been used to. It had been so pleasant to look up when his tap came at the door and to see his plain, pleasant face looking at her with a friendly smile. She had grown used to his visits all that winter through; and when they had ceased abruptly she had missed them more than she cared to acknowledge to herself. She had an impulse to take Nelly's hand to her breast and hold it there for comfort.

”And you are very happy?” she said again.

She was prepared for a happy girl's outpourings. What she was not prepared for was the sudden shadow that fell on Nelly's face, the weariness, as though she had been brought back to the thought of something disagreeable. A sudden wintriness went over her charming face.

The eyes drooped, the lips trembled and were steadied with an effort.

”I ought to be very happy,” she said. ”Everyone is good to me. I have the dearest old father in the world and Robin is so kind and good. I ought to be very happy and to make other people happy.”

But she was not happy! Mary stared at the golden head with incredulity.

For the moment Nelly's mask--a transparent one enough at best--with which she faced the world was down. No happy girl had ever spoken so, looked so. And it wanted only a few weeks to her marriage!

Mary, no more logical than women less intellectual than she, felt as her first impulse a coldness, chilling her heart that had been so warm towards the girl Robin Drummond had chosen. The chill must have reached Nelly's delicate apprehension, for she looked up in a startled way.

”Robin promised me your friends.h.i.+p,” she began.

”And, to be sure, it is yours,” Mary Gray said, still wondering at the inexplicable thing that Robin Drummond's promised wife could have secret cause for unhappiness. She had no further inclination to caress the girl for whom she had been pa.s.sed by. ”We are going to be great friends,” she said with a cold sweetness.

Then the kettle boiled over and created a diversion. While Mary was still mopping up the pool it had made on the floor Sir Robin returned.

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