Mistress of Brown Furrows (16 page)

“I really would hate to miss our rides,” she told him. “After all, I—we—we don’ t see a great deal of each other during the rest of the day, do we—?’’

“Don’t we?” She read surprise, complete and unconcealed, in his blue eyes as he gazed down at her. “It hadn’t occurred to me that it would strike you that way,” he remarked, a little obscurely. And then once again he ruffled her fair curls. “Well, get to bed, and if you enjoy the rides of course we’ll carry on with them. Pleasant dreams, my sweet! ” and he went away with his quick and purposeful tread and shut the door very securely after him.

Carol gazed down at the hand which had recently come in contact with his lips and it seemed to her that it tingled a little—or the backs of her fingers, which he had so lightly saluted, contained a sudden, nervous tremor. She studied them in silence for several seconds, and then carried them thoughtfully up to her cheek.

To Carol those daily morning canters became more and more enjoyable. At that early hour, with the magic of the morning sky above them, the cool mists of morning all around them, Timothy beside her on his rangy roan, she felt that she could really be herself.

Beauty was entirely the right sort of mare for her, without any special kind of prowess, but obedient to the lightest touch of her hands or the sound of her voice, and with the power occasionally to go like the wind. Timothy usually outdistanced her by a good many lengths, but when he got to the top of a hill or a craggy tip of moorland he drew rein and waited for her, and when she came up he would be watching with admiration her wind-ruffled hair and the flaming peach-like color in her cheeks.

There was no doubt about it, it
was
admiration, and that always did so much more than warm Carol’s heart. She felt her blood sing, and all her pulses clamored as if the most wonderful thing in life that could possibly happen to her
had
happened to her.

Their ride usually ended with a grand gallop downhill, and the discovery, before they reached home, of some new piece of enchanting moorland scenery, such as a hidden dell, a watercourse reflecting all the glory of the sunrise, or a clump of unknown wild flowers blooming tenaciously in a hollow and defying the encroachments of winter. Sometimes they rode past Aunt Harry s house, perched against its background of purple hills, and with its gardens—becoming faded now—running down to the smooth edge of the lake.

Aunt Harry had sent them an invitation to lunch with her shortly after their first visit, but Timothy had been away on a brief trip to London, and Carol had accepted alone. Aunt Harry had not been slow in making the most of the opportunity to find out all that she wanted to find out about their romance.

“So there isn’t any romance at all!” she remarked, when Carol had confessed to her how she came to be married, and why Timothy had behaved as he had. “Well, my dear, you don’ t altogether surprise me. I must say I suspected that everything was not quite as it should be between you when you first came to visit me. But a bad beginning does not necessarily mean that a marriage will not turn out well in the end. There is such a thing as marrying in haste and repenting at leisure, but in your case and Timothy’ s it might well prove to be the other way about. Marry without love— find that you are both very much in love before you are either of you very much older! ’’

“Oh, do you—do you think so?’’ Carol, who already looked to the Marchesa considerably older than when she had seen her first, such a short time ago, and with a look in her eyes when she mentioned Timothy which told the older woman a great deal, gazed at her with sudden open anxiety.

“Do you think I did wrong in allowing him to marry me?” she asked, her relief in being able to discuss the matter with someone who could take a purely academic interest in her affairs and advise her impartially making her voice shake a little. “Was it—was it a mistake?”

The Marchesa shook her head. Her wonderful brown eyes were quite convinced.

“Not at all, my child,” she said. “Haven’t I just said that there is every hope of the greatest happiness for you in the future? It is true that from your point of view you have already missed so much—the early joy of being married to a man who accepts and returns your love—but love takes time to foster. It blossoms very seldom overnight. But when it does blossom..” A far-away look crept into her eyes. “I myself was married at seventeen, but I married a man who adored me, and whom I adored. But you have merely got to wait—you will have to be very patient....” Carol’s face blanched a little. Her eyes said unhappily that she was not even certain of the future, for what she felt in her own innermost being was possibly not even mildly reflected in Timothy’s. He had never given her the slightest cause to believe that it was.

“You are in love with Timothy, aren’ t you?” the Marchesa asked very gently. “Indeed, I think you are already very much in love with him! ”

Carol did not answer her immediately, but she felt as if someone had suddenly switched on a light in a darkened room and that for the first time she saw its contents clearly. Yes; that was it—she was
in love
with Timothy! She must have fallen in love with him from the very moment she set eyes on him—contrary to the Marchesa’s expressed belief than an emotion of that sort took time to mature—but she had never properly realized it until today—until this moment! She had known that she loved to be with him. She had known that her thoughts centred round him constantly, that these few days of separation while he was in London were a kind of refined torture, but—in love!...

Her extraordinary limpid eyes mirrored so clearly all that she was thinking and feeling just then that the Marchesa merely nodded, as if she quite understood, and informed her in the same gentle tone:

“You don’ t need to tell me that you are, because I know! And I know also that Timothy is not such a fool as to marry you for purely quixotic reasons—there
must
have been some other reason, and in time you’ ll find it out. You’ re not, I understand, an heiress, so he didn’t marry you for your money, even if he was the type to marry heiresses, and he certainly didn’ t need a housekeeper, being already blessed with an excellent one in the shape of his sister Meg! So why did he marry you? I might possibly be able to guess! ”

Carol gazed at her as if she would have loved, if she could have found the courage, to ask her what that guess would be. But somehow she could not find the courage, and her eyes grew even more wistful.

Aunt Harry suddenly smiled at her hearteningly, and leaned forward and patted her hands.

“Never mind, child! Don’ t probe things too far—not just at the moment. And try and possess your soul in patience. It pays, you know. No use trying to peer into the future—and a brave heart often wins a rich reward! And I think your heart is brave enough! ”

Carol herself, however, was doubtful, for despite Aunt Harry’ s consoling speeches her heart was very ready to sink into the depths of utter despondency now that she at last knew what was wrong with it. And even Aunt Harry was not prepared to guarantee her future happiness. She merely rated her chances fairly high, and at eighteen and a half that was not enough—not when she was so eager to be convinced.

A tempting plum that was out of reach—that was what her whole future life seemed to her to be just then. And if it was never to be grasped—if it was to retreat continually before her however anxiously and ardently she reached out for it, becoming ever more tantalizing and alluring with the passing of the years. ... If she was to go on reaching for the once choice specimen she desired arid her fingers were always to clasp empty air!...

Her heart sank lower, like a plummet, and touched bottom, that was chill and comfortless.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said the Marchesa, as if she felt it to be of tremendous importance, “I do think you are quite the right kind of wife for Timothy. At least you’ll love him with your whole heart—there won’ t be any reservations! ”

And Carol knew that at least was right. There never would be any reservations....

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SUMMER had no sooner merged into autumn and autumn into winter than, or so it seemed to Carol, Christmas was upon them, and she had been married exactly four months.

In the old days Christmas had been for her a time of loneliness and bleak celebration, spent in the company of a mere half dozen or so girls and perhaps a junior mistress who had all been left behind at Selbourne while the solid mass of the school had gone off blithely on holiday. On one occasion only had she been invited to a schoolfellow’ s home, and then she had felt so altogether out of the picture—aware of pitying glances from her hostess, who had certainly done her best to give her a good time, while everyone else knew everyone else present and was full of fun and jollity and the confidence engendered by being heartily sure of their welcome and the certainty of being able to return the hospitality at some not-so-distant future date—that she had vowed never to be tempted into repeating the experiment.

She had not, as she had told Timothy, been very popular at school. Her natural shyness—or reticence, rather—combined with her lack of background had prevented her from mixing freely with her fellows, and she had suffered acutely from feeling very much the ‘odd man out’ on occasion. She had had one or two friends of her own, of course, and her quiet good manners and her sincerity had made her popular with her teachers. She had even been admired for her looks, which had earned her the ‘role’ of the fair Rosamund in a play about Henry the Second. But when it came to anything more spectacular, demanding confidence and genuine ability, spirit and dash, she was altogether out of it.

Christmas had always seemed to her to pass very slowly at Selbourne, and it left few happy memories. The only memories she had were of chill dormitories at night, sitting round a fire in the daytime sharing poor jokes and oranges with kindred forlorn spirits, attending a service on Christmas Eve in the icy cold school chapel and feeling an anguish of the spirit which she could not understand at the beauty and the stark simplicity of this birthday celebration. Her own voice soaring upwards in the carols—for she was always impelled to join in—the unearthly beauty of the white-surpliced choristers who were on loan, as it were, from the village church. The stars looking in at the windows, brighter and colder than the candles burning on the white, flower-decked altar...

Awakening to the music of Christmas bells...

But there was nothing warmer or more human than that in her memories, and deep down in her heart she had felt that Christmas should be a time of warmth and happiness, of the sharing of gifts and joyousness, the bright echo of children's laughter. She had often in her dreams envisaged the kind of Christmas she could enjoy, and holly and mistletoe and warm firelit rooms were in the picture. And people she was really fond of about her, people who, like herself, believed in making it a time of merriment and simple and unaffected enjoyment.

Mince pies and turkey and Christmas-pudding—those she had had in the past. But the fairy on the Christmas tree, the tinsel ornaments, the firelight playing on the walls of a real and permanent home—those things she had never known yet.

And Brown Furrows, considered simply as a house, was the very place where Christmas could be a real Christmas-card affair if its occupants sought to make it so. It had all the mellowness of age and the charm of antiquity, a great hall with dim and distant roof-beams, wide open fireplaces created, it would seem, for the burning of Yule logs. And the kitchen where Agatha presided and Ellen James assisted was the very place for the mixing of spicy fruit puddings and the roasting of seasonal poultry.

Carol, when the first snow began to fall and the hills took on a veil of white, thought she was living in a world of indescribable beauty, but Meg eyed the skies apprehensively and hoped it would all dear away before Christmas, otherwise there would be no Boxing Day Meet. She was not in the least enthusiastic when her sister-in-law suggested bringing in the scarlet holly berries and the green shining evergreens and decking the portraits on the panelled walls of the hall, for she declared that they always made such a mess, and Agatha objected to clearing it away afterwards. Neither was she impressed by the idea of hanging up a few simple paper-chains in the small parlor, where they spent most of their time now the days were so cold, and it was so small and convenient and cosy.

“We used to do so years ago, of course,” she said, noticing that Carol’ s face looked as if someone had deliberately wiped away the sudden look of animation from it, and feeling that she ought to explain herself, “but neither Timothy nor I are of an age to think very much of that sort of thing nowadays. The war, you know... ” She broke off vaguely. “One had to do without so much—get used to doing without so much—and the habit has persisted to a certain extent. Although of course you wouldn’ t know very much about that—you were probably too young.”

“Yes, I was too young, but I’ m quite aware that everyone had to do without things then,” Carol felt forced to remark very quietly, with a faint emphasis on the last words.

“I’m glad you realize that,” Meg agreed, not, however, meeting her glance. “But it isn’t as if there were any young people here— children, I mean.... I always think Christmas is a festival for children, not grown-ups. And so long as we have a really good Christmas dinner—and Agatha will attend to that..”

“Oh, of course,” Carol said, as if she realized that the matter was closed and her suggestion dismissed. “Agatha is such a wonderful cook.”