But the thunder-shower soon broke, the blue sky showed beyond. Tears, Marjorie Bartrand shed none. What sorrows had she of her own, what sweetheart, philandering or otherwise, to weep for? In regard of Geoffrey’s unknown wife, her brief-lived cynicism shifted, ere Cassandra had been gone an hour, into most genuine, most girl-like pity. After an outburst of temper, however scornful or unjust, there was ever in Marjorie’s heart a pungent and fiery fidelity which led her back, straight as magnet to steel, to her better self.
That she should be disappointed in Geoffrey’s character was, she told herself, inevitable. What is there in any man that one should not, on close acquaintance, be disappointed in him? She had thought, judging from frank and plainly given confidences, that she knew, to a minute, how her tutor’s time was passed here in Guernsey. A little hospital work daily, Geff having met an old college friend in the house surgeon; a little study for his next Cambridge exam.; a good deal of boating; a good many walks round the island; three days a week, his reading with herself at Tintajeux. The picture had been a clear, a pleasant one in Marjorie’s sight. And now matter so alien as this of fashionable fine ladies, midnight domestic scenes, idlers speculating right and left, must come, unwelcome and ugly blots, on the canvas.
She was disappointed in Geoffrey, personally. She felt, with the certainty of her age, that she could not work under him again with the bright unblemished interest of the past days. The change of feeling should be made up, Marjorie determined, by kindness shown to his wife. On Mrs. Arbuthnot she pledged herself to call to-morrow. Meantime, yes, during the forenoon lesson, she would assume a sterner manner towards this recreant husband, this sober-mannered student who, after all one hoped of him, was so little raised at heart above the pitiful vanities of his sex.
And in the first place her own waist-ribbon must be summarily returned. This was Marjorie’s resolve when her head rested on its pillow. The waist-ribbon which, for fear of wounding Geoffrey’s feelings (his wife’s, perhaps, vicariously), she had suffered her tutor to keep, must be returned. Looking upon him in this new—alas! to Marjorie’s experienced mind, this too familiar—character of a philanderer, she could imagine him, married though he was, exhibiting that bit of ribbon among his companions as a trophy. ‘A gift, don’t you know, bestowed on one by a fair hand that shall be nameless.’ Or he might show it among the idle fine ladies—oh, the hot shame at Marjorie’s sleepy heart—the idle ladies in whose train he followed, while his wife, ignorant of Euclid or Greek, but not devoid of human nature, shed tears, not one single drop whereof the man was worthy, at home.
Marjorie Bartrand fell asleep in a state of the most pointed and virtuous indignation. Morning brought her back, as it brings back all of us, not to accidental emotion, but to the common habit of life. Her habit was to rise, the moment her eyes unclosed, open her window, and gladly welcome the new day. She did so now. Standing in her white night-dress, the elastic air blowing on her face, she looked across a corner of the orchard to the spot where Geoffrey, the crescent moon shining, plucked the briar roses above her reach. Away in the distant fields she saw the Reverend Andros, as he walked to and fro with firm slow step among his men. On her dressing-table lay an algebra paper, always her hardest work, which she intended resolutely to ‘floor’ before her tutor’s coming.
How sweet life was, thought the little girl, how full of fine things that no man’s hand can take from us! Might it not be wisdom, even in a Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, as she had committed the error of marriage, to make the best of it—enjoy the sun that shone, the wind that blew, by day, and look upon sleep, not weeping, as the state for which nature designs our race at midnight!
After a swim in the bay, a brisk run up to the manoir, Marjorie, with hunger befitting her years, kept her grandfather in excellent countenance at his breakfast, a solid country meal at which broiled fish, ham and eggs from the farmyard, home-made rolls and Guernsey buttered cake predominated. Then she went to the schoolroom, and, long before a figure she watched for rose above the moor’s horizon, had got the better of her paper.
Her wits were at their brightest this morning. Geoffrey Arbuthnot, for the first time since they had known each other, threw out a few crumbs of praise when the reading closed. Crumbs of plain household bread, be it understood—no sugar, no spice—but that caused Marjorie’s heart to beat, the blood to leap swiftly into her mobile, all-confessing face.
Geff watched her with admiration he sought not to hide. They had been working under the cedars, as was their custom in these fair summer forenoons. A solitary beam of sunlight pierced the thick and odorous shade. It fell full on Marjorie, looking more like a child than usual in an unadorned cotton frock, and with her silky raven hair spread out to dry, unconfined by comb or ribbon, over her shoulders.
‘The endowments of life certainly don’t go to those who need them most.’ Geff gave utterance to the truism with the want of preface that was his habit. ‘Many a pale-faced, hard-working village schoolmistress would have her path smoothened by possessing a tenth part of your brains. While for you——’
The words were leaving his lips in blunt fidelity. They were not well considered words, perhaps. Which of us can stand on mental tiptoe every hour of the twenty-four? But they were about as innocent of premeditated flattery as was ever speech offered by man to civilised woman.
Marjorie interrupted him shortly; dormant indignation against poor Geff as a frequenter of idle society, a midnight reveller, a careless husband, flaming forth on him, lightning wise.
‘For me, Marjorie Bartrand, living on rose leaves in Tintajeux Manoir—oh! I should be equally charming with brains or without them, should not I? Thank you immensely for the compliment, sir. If I could change places I would rather be the village schoolmistress, plainly doing her day’s work for her day’s wages, than live idly on all the rose leaves, all the flatteries, the world could heap together.’ Then lifting her eyes, a look in them to pierce a guilty man’s soul, ‘At what time should I be likely to find Mrs. Arbuthnot at home?’ she asked him with cold directness. ‘I shall drive in to Miller’s Hotel. I shall call on Mrs. Arbuthnot this afternoon.’
A flush of undisguised pleasure went over Geoffrey’s face. All these days he had hoped that some offer of the kind would come from Marjorie, not doubting that in this small island rumours of Dinah’s beauty, perhaps of Dinah’s troubles, must have reached as far as Tintajeux.
‘I am afraid Mrs. Arbuthnot is to be found at home at most hours.’
‘So I am told.’
‘Dinah goes out too little in this fine June weather.’
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot must amend her ways. To-day is our Guernsey rose show. There will be military bands playing, dandies promenading,’ said Miss Bartrand witheringly, as she glanced at Geff’s undandified figure, ‘fine ladies thinking and talking of everything under God’s sun save the roses. Some of Mrs. Arbuthnot’s friends will surely tempt her to join the gay crowd in the Arsenal?’
‘Dinah has no friends. I mean, we have been too short a time in Guernsey to look for many callers. In the matter of visiting-cards, ladies, I am told, are prone to be sequacious.’
So did Geff, with single-minded good-will, seek to round off the edges of Dinah Arbuthnot’s isolation, of Gaston’s neglect.
‘And yet they say,’ cried Marjorie, her heart palpitating well-nigh to pain, ‘that Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband has acquaintance without stint.’
‘You must not believe half “they” say, when men and women’s domestic concerns are the theme of conversation. Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband chanced to meet accidentally with a Doctor and Mrs. Thorne here. The lady was a friend of former student days in Paris. It was the kind of meeting,’ added Geff apologetically, ‘in which a man has no choice but to renew an acquaintance, and——’
‘And Linda Thorne, of course, has called upon Mrs. Arbuthnot?’
The question came like a sword-thrust from Marjorie Bartrand.
‘I ... I am afraid ... not yet,’ answered Geoffrey, with hesitation.
Gaston’s careless conduct in regard of Dinah was just the one subject that could occasion straightforward Geoffrey’s tongue to stammer.
‘Ah! Linda Thorne has not called on Mrs. Arbuthnot. That lowers one’s opinion,’ mused Marjorie, ‘not too high at any time, of Linda Thorne.’
‘When you meet Dinah you will see that she is a woman to care little for the common run of morning callers.’
‘I shall endeavour, just the same, to make her care for me.’
Marjorie’s tones were icy, a swell of curiously mixed feeling was in her breast.
‘Endeavour will not be needed. I never made too sure,’ said Geff modestly, ‘that you would pay this visit. But I know that Dinah, in her heart, is more than prepared to bid you welcome.’
He rose, visibly reluctant, from the cool greensward. Then, with a sense that some subtle, intangible change had crept into his relations with his pupil, Geff prepared to take his leave.
But perilous stuff had yet to be dislodged from Marjorie Bartrand’s conscience. She would not call upon the wife while that bit of Spanish ribbon, a loan made in a moment of foolish high spirits, remained unchallenged in the husband’s possession.
‘I hope you have taken care of something I lent you, sir. A piece of coloured ribbon tied round those flowers I sent, the first evening grandpapa and I had the pleasure of knowing you, to Mrs. Arbuthnot.’
‘To Mrs. Arbuthnot! This is rough on a man,’ cried Geff. ‘Why, Miss Bartrand, you must have forgotten. Those flowers were given to me.’
‘Don’t make too certain of that.’
‘But I am certain. I can see you as you stood in the strip of moonlight by the water-lane, wishing me good-night. Your last words were, “the flowers are for yourself—your better self.”’
‘The ribbon, at least, was given to no one,’ retorted Marjorie, changing colour under his gaze. ‘It was lent to hinder you from breaking your neck. You meant to climb the Gros Nez cliffs if you could. To do that a real good Guernsey man needs his hands, both of them, and I thought it a pity——’
‘The real good Guernsey night should be disfigured by a stupid stranger leaving the world too tragically. I thank you heartily,’ went on Geff, as the girl blushed deeper and deeper. ‘I measured the extent of your sympathy to an inch at the time.’
A ring of absolute independence was in his voice; a suspicion lurked there, too, of hardly restrained laughter. For the situation was taking hold of him. Let us see, thought Geoffrey, in this feather-light matter of keeping or not keeping a morsel of sash ribbon, how far the small shrew could be tamed? Let us see which of the two should fitly, in the end, be styled conqueror?
So he thought: by no means forecasting that this feather-light matter of keeping a morsel of sash ribbon might be the pivot on which his life’s fortunes should one day turn.