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I wonder why she didn’t drop her harp framework over the edge of the globe, and take the handkerchief off her eyes, and have a look round! But of course she was a woman — and a man’s woman. Do you know I believe most women can sneak a look down their noses from underneath the handkerchief of hope they’ve tied over their eyes. They could take the whole muffler off — but they don’t do it, the dears.”
“I don’t believe you know what you’re talking about, and I’m sure I don’t. Sapphires reminded me of your eyes — and isn’t it ‘Blue that kept the faith’? I remember something about it.”
“Here,” said she, pulling off the ring, “you ought to wear it yourself, Faithful One, to keep me in constant mind.”
“Keep it on, keep it on. It holds you faster than that fair damsel tied to a tree in Millais’s picture — I believe it’s Millais.”
She sat shaking with laughter.
“What a comparison! Who’ll be the brave knight to rescue me — discreetly — from behind?”
“Ah,” he answered, “it doesn’t matter. You don’t want rescuing, do you?”
“Not yet,” she replied, teasing him.
They continued to talk half nonsense, making themselves eloquent by quick looks and gestures, and communion of warm closeness. The ironical tones went out of Lettie’s voice, and they made love.
Marie drew me away into the dining-room, to leave them alone.
Marie is a charming little maid, whose appearance is neatness, whose face is confident little goodness. Her hair is dark, and lies low upon her neck in wavy coils. She does not affect the fashion in coiffure, and generally is a little behind the fashion in dress. Indeed she is a half-opened bud of a matron, conservative, full of proprieties, and of gentle indulgence. She now smiled at me with a warm delight in the romance upon which she had just shed her grace, but her demureness allowed nothing to be said. She glanced round the room, and out of the window, and observed:
“I always love Woodside, it is restful — there is something about it — oh — assuring — really — it comforts me — I’ve been reading Maxim Gorky.”
“You shouldn’t,” said I.
“Dadda reads them — but I don’t like them — I shall read no more. I like Woodside — it makes you feel — really at home — it soothes one like the old wood does. It seems right — life is proper here — not ulcery —”
“Just healthy living flesh,” said I.
“No, I don’t mean that, because one feels — oh, as if the world were old and good, not old and bad.”
“Young, and undisciplined, and mad,” said I.
“No — but here, you, and Lettie, and Leslie, and me — it is so nice for us, and it seems so natural and good. Woodside is so old, and so sweet and serene — it does reassure one.”
“Yes,” said I, “we just live, nothing abnormal, nothing cruel and extravagant — just natural — like doves in a dovecote.”
“Oh! — doves! — they are so — so mushy.”
“They are dear little birds, doves. You look like one yourself, with the black band round your neck. You a turtle-dove, and Lettie a wood-pigeon.”
“Lettie is splendid, isn’t she? What a swing she has — what a mastery! I wish I had her strength — she just marches straight through in the right way — I think she’s fine.”
I laughed to see her so enthusiastic in her admiration of my sister. Marie is such a gentle, serious little soul. She went to the window. I kissed her, and pulled two berries off the mistletoe. I made her a nest in the heavy curtains, and she sat there looking out on the snow.
“It is lovely,” she said reflectively. “People must be ill when they write like Maxim Gorky.”
“They live in town,” said I.
“Yes — but then look at Hardy — life seems so terrible — it isn’t, is it?”
“If you don’t feel it, it isn’t — if you don’t see it. I don’t see it for myself.”
“It’s lovely enough for heaven.”
“Eskimo’s heaven perhaps. And we’re the angels, eh? And I’m an archangel.”
“No, you’re a vain, frivolous man. Is that —? What is that moving through the trees?”
“Somebody coming,” said I.
It was a big, burly fellow moving curiously through the bushes.
“Doesn’t he walk funnily?” exclaimed Marie. He did. When he came near enough we saw he was straddled upon Indian snow-shoes. Marie peeped, and laughed, and peeped, and hid again in the curtains laughing. He was very red, and looked very hot, as he hauled the great meshes, shuffling over the snow; his body rolled most comically. I went to the door and admitted him, while Marie stood stroking her face with her hands to smooth away the traces of her laughter.
He grasped my hand in a very large and heavy glove, with which he then wiped his perspiring brow.
“Well, Beardsall, old man,” he said, “and how’s things? God, I’m not ‘alf hot! Fine idea though —” He showed me his snow-shoes.
“Ripping! ain’t they? I’ve come like an Indian brave —”
He rolled his “r’s”, and lengthened out his “ah’s” tremendously —“brra-ave”.
“Couldn’t resist it though,” he continued.
“Remember your party last year — Girls turned up? On the war-path, eh?” He pursed up his childish lips and rubbed his fat chin.
Having removed his coat, and the white wrap which protected his collar, not to mention the snowflakes, which Rebecca took almost as an insult to herself — he seated his fat, hot body on a chair, and proceeded to take off his gaiters and his boots. Then he donned his dancing-pumps, and I led him upstairs.
“Lord, I skimmed here like a swallow!” he continued — and I looked at his corpulence.
“Never met a soul, though they’ve had a snow-plough down the road. I saw the marks of a cart up the drive, so I guessed the Tempests were here. So Lettie’s put her nose in Tempest’s nosebag — leaves nobody a chance, that — some women have rum taste — only they’re like ravens, they go for the gilding — don’t blame ’em-only it leaves nobody a chance. Madie Howitt’s coming, I suppose?”
I ventured something about the snow.
“She’ll come,” he said, “if it’s up to the neck. Her mother saw me go past.”
He proceeded with his toilet. I told him that Leslie had sent the carriage for Alice and Madie. He slapped his fat legs, and exclaimed:
“Miss Gall — I smell sulphur! Beardsall, old boy, there’s fun in the wind. Madie, and the coy little Tempest, and —” he hissed a line of a music-hall song through his teeth.
During all this he had straightened his cream and lavender waistcoat.
“Little pink of a girl worked it for me — a real juicy little peach — chipped somehow or other”— he had arranged his white bow — he had drawn forth two rings, one a great signet, the other gorgeous with diamonds, and had adjusted them on his fat white fingers; he had run his fingers delicately through his hair, which rippled backwards a trifle tawdrily — being fine and somewhat sapless; he had produced a box, containing a cream carnation with suitable greenery; he had flicked himself with a silk handkerchief, and had dusted his patent-leather shoes; lastly, he had pursed up his lips and surveyed himself with great satisfaction in the mirror. Then he was ready to be presented.
“Couldn’t