Mistress of Brown Furrows (11 page)

“Madame will be delighted to see you,” he assured him, and accorded Carol an additional little bow and smile. “If you will come this way, there is no need for me to announce your arrival! ”

The Marchesa had been enjoying an afternoon rest in her low chair by the open drawing-room window, but she had not noticed the car beside the lake—perhaps because she had been nodding a little, although she was instantly awake when the servant threw open the door. She looked up, her silvery-white head erect on her plump shoulders, her once devastatingly handsome eyes looking inquiringly at her oldest retainer.

“What is it, Hughes?” she demanded. And then:
“Timothy!”
she exclaimed.

He went forward at once and bent over her and kissed her on her delicately powdered cheek. The rings positively blazed on her white hand as she put it up and almost convulsively seized his wrist.

“Oh, Timothy, you
naughty, naughty
boy to neglect me so long! ”

“Darling Aunt Harry,” he returned very gently, “I may have neglected you, but at least I have never forgotten
you!”

“Which is a back-handed compliment if ever there was one,”

she commented.

He reached behind him to draw Carol forward, and the girl slid her cool fingers into his with the odd feeling that he now possessed her.

“This is Carol, Aunt Harry! Say ‘how-do-you-do’ to Aunt Harry, Carol! ”

“How do you do, Aunt Harry?” Carol murmured obediently.

“Well, well!...” Aunt Harry lay back in her carved elbow chair and studied her as if this was something she really enjoyed. Carol noticed that her white hair was ornamented with an exquisite fan-shaped comb, encrusted with brilliants, and a black lace mantilla was draped about her shoulders, over her rich velvet gown of almost a royal purple. She even wore a rose, scarlet as a young girl’s lips, tucked into the lace of the mantilla, and diamonds flashed, too, sparkling like water on her broad bosom.

“Well, well...” she repeated. And then all at once her brown eyes softened miraculously, and she smiled almost tenderly at Carol. “I’ m so glad you chose such a pretty wife, Timothy— such a really lovely wife! Why, my dear, your hair is like sunshine, and you’ ve got eyes that will never grow old! Come here and kiss me, child,” she commanded. “Come and tell me how you and Timothy fell in love!...”

There was a somewhat awkward silence in the room after Carol had obediently kissed her, but Aunt Harry did not even notice it, for she was too busy patting the cushions of the seat beside her, and insisting that Carol should sit as close to her as possible. Timothy took up his position in the window, and Carol avoided looking at him while his godmother got ready to enjoy herself.

“Now, my dear—now, Timothy!... If there’s one thing I really do love to hear it’ s the romantic story of someone else’ s love affair! ” she declared with enthusiasm. “All love affairs are exciting—my own was the most thrilling thing in the world! — but in these days people are all so dull and so terribly, rational that they marry for almost any reason you can think of except love! It’s not even fashionable any longer. Any amount of scandals, yes! but tender affairs of the heart? —no! ”

She leaned towards Carol and looked into her eyes, and her hands that were becoming knotted and veined went out and clasped the girl’ s.

“You’re very young, child... ” she murmured.

Timothy was about to produce his pipe and absent-mindedly

set it alight, but her eagle eye caught sight of it.

“Not in here, Timothy!” she said sharply. “You know I can’t
bear
anything like that in my drawing-room! But if you wish to smoke you can choose a cigarette from the table over there. They are Italian, and therefore good! ”

Timothy repressed a shudder.

“No, thank you, Aunt,” he returned with a smile which she took to be a smile of gratitude. “I will call upon my fortitude and do without.”

“Dear boy! ” said his godmother fondly, looking lovingly at him; but she did not give him permission to smoke his pipe.

“Now, my dear! —now, Timothy! ” she began again. “Now, why in the world didn’ t you let me know you were going to be married, and I would have arranged for you to spend your honeymoon at my house in Venice! It is the one place in the world where a honeymoon should be spent, and I would have been delighted to place it at your disposal. Such romance! —the Grand Canal, the Lido, a gondolier to sing for you every evening after dinner!... Oh,
why
didn’t you let me know?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Timothy, hoping the amusement was not too plainly revealed in his eyes, and wondering whether the tips of Carol’s small, shell-like ears would grow much pinker in the next few seconds, “there wasn’ t time.”

“Wasn’t
time?”
The Marchesa looked infinitely perplexed. “Do you mean you arranged things in such a hurry that there wasn’ t time to think about where you would spend your honeymoon? And I still don’ t know where you
are
spending it? Not at Brown Furrows with Meg! —Oh, never that! I couldn’ t endure to hear you were doing a thing like that,” and her upflung hands proclaimed so much horror that Timothy had to laugh.

“All the same, dear Aunt, that’s just what we are doing,” he had to confess. “Don’t forget that I’ve only just got home to England, and a taste of my native land was what I’ d been longing for for months. And Carol’s never seen the Lakes before — so it could be worse! ”

“Yes, but with Meg!...”

It was plain that Aunt Harriet was not to be numbered amongst the most fervent admirers of Timothy’ s sister, and she was also genuinely concerned that her favorite godson had begun his married life—with such a charming bride, for she had taken a great fancy to Carol, as Timothy had predicted—in such a hole and corner fashion.

“But perhaps later on,” she said, “perhaps towards the autumn, when it will be cooler.... You shall have the Casa Rienzi, and Carol will simply love it...”

“Perhaps,” Timothy agreed, and watched Carol’s ears turn positively carmine.

Tea was brought in, and the Marchesa was diverted for the time being, dispensing her favorite China beverage in exquisite porcelain cups and manipulating the heavy silver teapot, which bore the Rienzi coat-of-arms, with the skill of long practice. Carol offered to pour out for her, but Aunt Harry waved away her offer with the remark that although her legs had begun to fail her hands were still capable of dealing with such a simple matter as pouring out tea. And she had the air of a very grand and gracious lady indeed as she sat there at her round drawingroom table, and the flowers and the furniture and everything in the room behind her formed a most fitting background for her exceedingly dignified old age.

She smiled continually at Carol, studying her quite openly over the assortment of tiny sandwiches and little cakes until the girl felt almost acutely embarrassed, although at the same time she knew the regard was well-meant and friendly. The Marchesa’ s keen old eyes had none of the veiled hostility of Meg’ s, her questions though pertinent were put as a result of genuine interest, and if she read more into the attitude of this pair whom she considered delightful and well matched (even allowing for the fact that the man was so many years older than the girl!) towards one another than they either intended or hoped that she would, then she was careful not to reveal that she did. Not on this occasion, at any rate.

If she had any harrying remarks to make they were directed solely at Meg. And on the subject of Meg she could become at times quite caustic.

“She should have married years ago,” she said, “and not lived to be forty-something-or-other and dependent on a brother! I can’t think where her pride is.”

But Timothy wouldn’ t allow this. Meg, he pointed out quietly, had her own private income, and was not in any sense dependent on him—save, perhaps, that she clung to her old family home, and that home was legally his. But she had always looked after him well.

“Of course she has,” Aunt Harry derided her scornfully, “for

the very good reason that she hoped you would never marry and that you would go on being looked after by her—ending your lives together as a kind of brother and sister Darby and Joan! Pah! ” she exclaimed disgustedly. “Nat Marples wanted to get engaged to her years ago, but she wouldn’t have him. Lucky escape for him I always thought, but he’s got a better home than Brown Furrows. The old home of the de Laceys is something to be proud of, and when his people bought it they spent a lot of money on it. Nat could have made Meg a rich woman.”

“Meg apparently didn’t desire to become a rich woman,” Timothy pointed out rather drily.

Aunt Harry looked at him with impatience, while Carol was for the time being completely overlooked.

“Oh, don’t think I undervalue her good points! She’s a fine horsewoman—she’s got horse
sense
—she’s fond of you! But, oh, she’s so deplorably unromantic! So devastatingly practical!...”

She turned back again to Carol.

“Don’t ever become terribly practical, my dear,” she begged. “No charming woman is ever really practical.”

“I’m afraid I’m not very practical now,’’ Carol confessed, a little wryly. “Although,” she added, “I try to be.”

Timothy rewarded her with one of his friendliest smiles.

“Good for you, Carol!” he said approvingly. “Aunt Harry lives always about a century or so behind the times. She can’t help it, and I forgive her,” he added, patting one of the beringed hands which still rested on the ornate handle of the teapot.

“Nonsense!” declared his godmother, rather crossly. “And don’t,” she added to Carol, “don’t let Meg crush you. She will, you know, if you don’ t stand up to her! ”

Carol was uncomfortably silent.

“I don’t think that’s quite fair, Aunt,” Timothy objected, with a slight frown.

“It’ s fair and it’ s the truth! ” Aunt Harry insisted emphatically. She touched Carol’s arm lightly, and then her fingers closed and gripped hard. “She can’ t like you, you know!—not even if she tried! You’re pretty, for one thing, and you’re Timothy’s wife. Don’t expect her to forgive you for that! ”

“Oh, come, Aunt Harry! ”—Timothy actually sounded a little concerned—“what a thought to put into Carol’s head...!”

But Aunt Harry looked immensely sage as she sat there in

her almost regally appointed drawing-room, in the black lace mantilla with the red rose stealing all the color out of her calm, beautifully chiseled and once fantastically beautiful features. And her brown eyes were wise with the years.

Carol suddenly felt chilled and vaguely anxious.

CHAPTER TWELVE

AS it happened Viola Featherstone did not after all make one

of the little dinner-party arranged by Meg to introduce Carol to the district. She telephoned during the week with an excuse which Meg, who answered the call did not divulge to either Carol or Timothy, although when she said “I quite understand” into the mouth-piece she obviously thought that she did understand very clearly. And her eyes were not unsympathetic as she replaced the receiver on its rest.

Viola, widow of a wealthy manufacturer of essential kitchen utensils, had had a fondness for Timothy for quite a number of years now, and sometimes Meg had suspected that it was capable of developing into an even deeper emotion—given the right amount of encouragement...!

Poor Viola, thought Meg, with a fleeting sensation of pity.

But the dinner-party was quite a success despite Mrs. Featherstone’s absence. The vicar, and the vicar’s wife, were delighted to make the acquaintance of Timothy’s new wife, and so were the doctor and his wife, a friendly, sporting kind of pair who had become enamored of one another in his hospital days, and had not long been married themselves. And then there was old Colonel Dennison, who was virtually the squire of the district, and lived in the local manor-house, the local master of the hunt and his lady, and their somewhat leggy daughter, not far advanced in her ‘teens. Carol was glad of the company of one young person at least, despite her dignified married status, and she was also glad that Timothy did his best to support her on this occasion, and that Meg, without making any bones about requesting the right, took her place at the bottom of the long dining-table, in a direct line with Timothy, while Carol was placed on the vicar’ s right hand, and between him and Colonel Dennison.

Meg certainly did make some remark before the seating arrangements were arrived at to the effect that Carol would no doubt prefer her to carry on acting the position of hostess, for the time being at any rate—seeing that she, Carol, was, to say the least, a trifle inexperienced, and might be unduly nervous if too much responsibility was suddenly thrust on her. And Timothy said nothing at all, but he probably thought that Meg was acting with her customary wisdom.

Carol, in short, had to grow up at least a little more, and to exhibit some symptoms of reliability and—perhaps! —worthiness before the heavy responsibilities of a hostess in her own house could devolve upon her.

The M.F.H.’s daughter was taking up art, and she chatted blithely upon this subject to Carol in the drawing-room after dinner. The doctor was very anxious to know whether she rode, and whether Timothy had yet procured her a suitable mount, and the vicar’ s wife was anxious to rope her in for the village fete in a few week’s time, and got her to promise to help dress one of the stalls—although Carol was secretly appalled by the idea of being thrust into any prominence. Old Colonel Dennison paid her some charming compliments which caused her to blush rather wildly for a few seconds, and then aroused her interest and abated her shyness by retailing some of his early army experiences and recounting little amusing anecdotes which caused her to laugh heartily with him after a time, so that on the whole she felt when it was over that she had quite enjoyed the evening.