Next morning a fine mist covered the peninsula.The weather promised well,and the outline of the castle mound grew clearer each moment that Margaret watched it.Presently she saw the keep,and the sun painted the rubble gold,and charged the white sky with blue.The shadow of the house gathered itself together and fell over the garden.Acat looked up at her window and mewed.Lastly the river appeared,still holding the mists between its banks and its overhanging alders,and only visible as far as a hill,which cut off its upper reaches.
Margaret was fascinated by Oniton.She had said that she loved it,but it was rather its romantic tension that held her.The rounded Druids of whom she had caught glimpses in her drive,the rivers hurrying down from them to England,the carelessly modelled masses of the lower hills,thrilled her with poetry.The house was insignificant,but the prospect from it would be an eternal joy,and she thought of all the friends she would have to stop in it,and of the conversion of Henry himself to a rural life.Society,too,promised favourably.
The rector of the parish had dined with them last night,and she found that he was a friend of her father's,and so knew what to find in her.
She liked him.He would introduce her to the town.While,on her other side,Sir James Bidder sat,repeating that she only had to give the word,and he would whip up the county families for twenty miles round.
Whether Sir James,who was Garden Seeds,had promised what he could perform,she doubted,but so long as Henry mistook them for the county families when they did call,she was content.
Charles and Albert Fussell now crossed the lawn.
They were going for a morning dip,and a servant followed them with their bathing-dresses.She had meant to take a stroll herself before breakfast,but saw that the day was still sacred to men,and amused herself by watching their contretemps.In the first place the key of the bathing-shed could not be found.Charles stood by the riverside with folded hands,tragical,while the servant shouted,and was misunderstood by another servant in the garden.Then came a difficulty about a spring-board,and soon three people were running backwards and forwards over the meadow,with orders and counter orders and recriminations and apologies.If Margaret wanted to jump from a motor-car,she jumped;if Tibby thought paddling would benefit his ankles,he paddled;if a clerk desired adventure,he took a walk in the dark.But these athletes seemed paralysed.
They could not bathe without their appliances,though the morning sun was calling and the last mists were rising from the dimpling stream.
Had they found the life of the body after all?Could not the men whom they despised as milksops beat them,even on their own ground?
She thought of the bathing arrangements as they should be in her day--no worrying of servants,no appliances,beyond good sense.Her reflections were disturbed by the quiet child,who had come out to speak to the cat,but was now watching her watch the men.
She called,"Good-morning,dear,"a little sharply.Her voice spread consternation.Charles looked round,and though completely attired in indigo blue,vanished into the shed,and was seen no more.
"Miss Wilcox is up--"the child whispered,and then became unintelligible.
"What's that?"
It sounded like,"--cut-yoke--sack back--"
"I can't hear."
"--On the bed--tissue-paper--"
Gathering that the wedding-dress was on view,and that a visit would be seemly,she went to Evie's room.All was hilarity here.Evie,in a petticoat,was dancing with one of the Anglo-Indian ladies,while the other was adoring yards of white satin.They screamed,they laughed,they sang,and the dog barked.
Margaret screamed a little too,but without conviction.
She could not feel that a wedding was so funny.Perhaps something was missing in her equipment.
Evie gasped:"Dolly is a rotter not to be here!
Oh,we would rag just then!"Then Margaret went down to breakfast.
Henry was already installed;he ate slowly and spoke little,and was,in Margaret's eyes,the only member of their party who dodged emotion successfully.She could not suppose him indifferent either to the loss of his daughter or to the presence of his future wife.
Yet he dwelt intact,only issuing orders occasionally--orders that promoted the comfort of his guests.He inquired after her hand;he set her to pour out the coffee and Mrs.Warrington to pour out the tea.When Evie came down there was a moment's awkwardness,and both ladies rose to vacate their places."Burton,"called Henry,"serve tea and coffee from the side-board!"It wasn't genuine tact,but it was tact,of a sort--the sort that is as useful as the genuine,and saves even more situations at Board meetings.Henry treated a marriage like a funeral,item by item,never raising his eyes to the whole,and "Death,where is thy sting?Love,where is thy victory?"one would exclaim at the close.
After breakfast she claimed a few words with him.
It was always best to approach him formally.She asked for the interview,because he was going on to shoot grouse tomorrow,and she was returning to Helen in town.
"Certainly,dear,"said he."Of course,I
have the time.What do you want?"
"Nothing."
"I was afraid something had gone wrong."
"No;I have nothing to say,but you may talk."Glancing at his watch,he talked of the nasty curve at the lych-gate.She heard him with interest.Her surface could always respond to his without contempt,though all her deeper being might be yearning to help him.She had abandoned any plan of action.
