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Flaming June

<h3>Chapter Ten.</h3> Geoffrey was lounging about in the hall as the two girls descended the wide staircase. His attitude gave the impression that he had been impatiently awaiting their advent, and, as he took in Elma’s changed looks in one comprehensive sweep, his eyes brightened with an expression before which her lids drooped in embarrassment. He came forward eagerly to lead the way into the drawing-room, where Madame sat reading by an open window, and a sofa had been pulled forward and banked with cushions in readiness for the invalid. She smiled a welcome as the little procession entered the room, and looked on with an amused scrutiny while Cornelia shook out the cushions, skilfully altering their position so that the blue brocade should form the background for Elma’s fair head. She did not attempt to rise, but her words were kindly enough, if a trifle patronising. “Well, dear, and how are you now after your rest? We must take care of you, and not let you get overtired. Sure you are comfortable? You look too sweet in that gown! I shall never have the heart to wear it after you. Isn’t it wicked that a woman is obliged to live on after her complexion has faded? I could bear any affliction better than watching myself growing uglier every day. ... I should have a little pillow tucked into your back. ... Sure you won’t feel the draught? That’s right! And you really must leave us, Miss Briskett? Couldn’t possibly stay to dinner? I suppose it would be unkind! The dog-cart is waiting for you. I told them to have it round by seven. Geoffrey will drive you home, of course. After your adventure this afternoon we should not be happy to leave you to a groom. He’ll see you safely to the door, and report to us on your safe arrival.” Geoffrey’s face clouded involuntarily. He had mapped out a much more interesting programme for himself, deciding to slip upstairs and dress for dinner so early that he should be able to descend the moment that his mother was securely shut into her own room. Madame’s evening toilette was a matter of three-quarters of an hour at least, during which time he would have Elma all to himself—to speak to, to look at, to make her look at him. Lovely creature! He had not realised how beautiful she was, and so sweet, and gentle, and shy. What a marvel to meet a shy girl in these days of loud-voiced, smoking, tailor-made women! A man may appreciate the society of a twentieth-century damsel whom he designates as a “rattling good sort,” but he wants a womanly woman for his wife. Elma was womanliness personified—a sweet pink-and-white, softly-curved creature, whose eyes regarded the masculine creature with an unspoken tribute of homage. “You are so big!” they seemed to say; “I am so little! Oh, please be kind to me!” Inspired by that look, Geoffrey was capable of fighting dragons on her behalf! And now he was consigned to drive home a tiresome American girl, who was remarkably well able to take care of herself! Mentally he fumed; outwardly, being a man of the world, he smiled, and murmured “Delighted!” with an imitation of enthusiasm which won Cornelia’s admiration. “One to you, Mr Greville! You played up real well,” was the mental comment, as she dropped a kiss on Elma’s brow and listened to her anxious messages. “Tell mother not to be anxious. Tell her I’m not really ill—only silly and nervous. Tell her I shall soon be well—” “That’s all right, my dear. I’ll cool her fevered brow. ... Your mother’ll be a circumstance compared with Aunt Soph! I’ll have to promise never to look at a horse again while I’m in this country.” She turned towards Mrs Greville with easy self-possession. “It’s real good of you to send me back, and take such care of us both. Good-afternoon. So pleased to have met you!” Madame extended her thin, ringed hand, laughing softly the while. As she had said, she loved to be amused, and this American girl was quite too ridiculously audacious! Actually one might have supposed that she believed herself to be speaking to an equal! Cornelia and Geoffrey Greville passed along the hall, with its great oak fireplace filled in with branches of spreading beech, its decorations of tapestry, of armour, of stags’ heads, of cases of stuffed birds. The ceiling was beamed with oak, the floor was polished to a dangerous brightness, and covered in the centre by an ancient Persian rug. Cornelia had never seen such an interior except as it is imitated on the stage. Her own tessellated, be-fountained entrance hall in New York was as far removed from it on the one side, as on the other was the square of oil-cloth, decorated with a hat-stand and two mahogany chairs, which at The Nook was dignified by the same title. She admired, but admired with reservations. “Kinder mouldy!” summoned up the ultimate verdict. Geoffrey moved moodily towards the doorway. Though bitterly annoyed at his mother’s interference, he was too much of a gentleman to wreak his vengeance on the innocent cause of his exile. As a mitigation of the penance, it occurred to him that he might occupy the time of absence by talking of Elma since he might not talk to her; but Providence was merciful, and came to his aid at the eleventh hour. The inner door opened, and Captain Guest appeared upon the threshold, cap in hand, evidently returning from a solitary ramble, and by no means overjoyed to have arrived at such an inopportune moment. He bowed, murmured some inarticulate greeting, and would have passed by had not Geoffrey eagerly blocked the way. For the moment the claims of friendship were non-existent; he did not care whether Guest were pleased or annoyed; he was simply a means of escape, to be seized on without compunction. “Halloa, here you are! Just the man I wanted,” he cried genially. “You shall have the privilege of driving Miss Briskett home. I was going to take her myself, but I’ve got some rather—er—pressing business to attend to before dinner”—he chuckled mentally over the application of the words—“so I’ll stand aside in your favour. We are not going to trust her out of our sight until she is delivered safely into her aunt’s keeping. Awfully sorry, Miss Briskett, but we shall meet again! You’ll come up to see Miss Ramsden, won’t you? Do come! Come on Saturday—we could make up a game of tennis if she is fit enough by that time.” He helped Cornelia to her seat courteously, yet with an underlying haste which could not be concealed. Captain Guest gave him one look—a murderous look—and murmured, “Delighted, I’m shaw!” in tones of ice. Cornelia felt “ugly,” and looked delightful; head erect, lips pursed, eyes a-flash. “Just as mad as he can be, to be obliged to be civil to ‘the girl’ for a short half hour! Guess there’s one or two, several sizes bigger than him, who would cross the ocean to-morrow for the chance! He’s English—real English!—the sort that’s fixed up with liquid prejudice for blood, and eye-glasses made to see nothing on earth but the British Empire. Rather skeery at the present moment at being set down beside a bold American hussy, with only a groom as chaperon! ... Well! I always was tender-hearted. I’ll pile it on all I know, to fix him in his opinions. I’m made so’s I ken’t endoore to disappoint anyone in his expectations!” She turned deliberately to stare at the silent figure by her side. Certainly he was a fine figure of a man! Her own countrymen who would have travelled so far as to take his place, would have to be giants if the “several sizes” bigger were to be taken in literal earnest. The lean cheek showed the square formation of the jaw, the lips were clean shaven, the eyes dark, deep-set, thickly lashed and browed, the only handsome feature in the face. Cornelia mentally pulled herself together, as Guest turned his head, and cast a fleeting glance at her beneath his drooping lids. “I was sorry to hear that your friend is too ill to be moved. I imagined at the time that she was worse than you realised.” “She thinks she is, anyhow, and that’s about as good as the real thing—perhaps better, where health’s concerned. Some people don’t need much to upset ’em—Elma’s one! I guess there’s never much snap to her!” The dark brows arched expressively. “Really! I am afraid I hardly—er—understand the expression!” “You wouldn’t!” returned Cornelia, calmly. “It don’t seem to flourish in this part of the country. At home we reckon no one is much use without it.” “So I have heard!” Captain Guest’s understanding of the term seemed to have been more complete than he would acknowledge. “Our standards differ, however. ‘Snap’ may be a useful commodity in the business world, but one resents its intrusion into private life. The very name is objectionable in connection with a girl like Miss Ramsden—with any English girl!” Cornelia curled her red lips. “Yes, they flop; and you like ’em floppy! Kind of ivy round a stalwart oak, or a sweet, wayside rose. A m–o–oss rose!” No amount of description could convey the intonation which she threw into that short word. The “o” was lengthened indefinitely, giving a quaint, un-English effect to the word, which sounded at the same time incredibly full of suggestion. Guest flushed with annoyed understanding, even before Cornelia proceeded to enlarge. “The m–o–oss makes a nice, soft wadding all round, to keep the little buds safe and hidden. We use it quite a good deal at home for packing curios. Dried moss! It’s apt to get a bit stale with keeping, don’t you think?” “No doubt; but even so it retains some of its fragrance. In its worst state I should be sorry to exchange it for”—it was now the Captain’s turn to throw all his power of expression into one short word—“snap!” Cornelia’s laugh held a curious mingling of irritation and pleasure. It was poor fun having a quarrel all to herself, and it whetted her appetite to find a combatant who was capable of “hitting back.” She sat up very straight in her seat, tossing her head backward in quick, assertive little jerks, and clasping her bare hands on her lap. Guest glanced at her curiously from his point of vantage in the rear. She was like no other girl whom he had met, but somewhere, in pictured form, he must surely have seen such a face, for it struck some sleeping chord of memory. A fantasy perhaps of some Norse goddess or Flame Deity; a wild, weird head, painted in reds and whites, with wonderful shaded locks, and small white face aglow with the fire within. His lips twisted in an involuntary smile. Could anything be more aggressively unlike “the sweet m–o–oss rose” of which she had spoken? “I guess if you go to the root of things, a man’s picture of a woman is cut out to fit into his own niche! If he’s very big himself, there’s only a little corner left for her—a nookey little corner where the moss can grow, but the plant don’t have much scope to spread. If he don’t take much stock of himself, he kind-er stands back, and gives her the front place. Then she gets her chance, and shoots ahead!” Guest laughed in his turn; an exasperating little laugh, eloquent of an immense superiority and disdain. “You speak in an allegory—an allegory of English and American life. I am quite aware that with you the sexes have reversed positions, that the man has sunk into a money-making machine, who slaves so that his wife may spend, while the woman devotes her whole life to dress and frivolity—” “Have you ever been in my country?” Cornelia was brought up short and sharp by an unexpected assent. To disparage America was an unforgivable offence, and she was prepared to denounce the judgment of ignorance in words of flame. Her anger was not abated, but merely turned in another direction, by the discovery that it was not ignorance, but blindness which she had now to denounce—the blindness of the obtuse Englishman who had been granted a privilege which he was incapable of appreciating. “Some people travel about with such a heap of prejudice as baggage that they might as well stay at home and be done with it. Englishmen pride themselves on being conservative, and if they’ve once gotten an idea into their heads, it takes more’n they’ll ever see with their eyes to get it out. I guess you spent your time in my country seeing just exactly what you’d calculated on from the start. It’s big enough to rear all sorts, and enlightened enough to hold ’em!” “It is certainly very big,” assented Guest, in a tone of colourless civility. Cornelia hated him for his indifference, his patronage, his thinly-veiled antagonism. She was accustomed to a surfeit of masculine attention, and cherished a complacent faith in her own fascinations. It was a new and disagreeable experience to meet a man who, so far from exhibiting the well-known symptoms of subjugation, was honestly anxious to avoid her society. To feel herself disliked; to be a bore to two men—the one eager to hand her over to his friend, the other furious at being so trapped—can the world contain a deeper degradation for feminine three-and-twenty? Cornelia’s mood changed before it. The excitement which had tided her over the events of the afternoon died away, to be succeeded by a wave of sickening home-sickness. She was lonesome—she wanted her poppar! She hated this pokey place, and everyone in it. She guessed she’d take a cabin in the first boat and sail away home. ... Her lips quivered, and she blinked rapidly to suppress a threatening tear. She would rather shoot herself than cry before this patronising Englishman, but it was almost past endurance to play second fiddle all the afternoon, be snubbed on the way home, and look forward to an evening spent in propitiating two nervous old ladies! “I don’t get any bou-quets in this play!” soliloquised Cornelia, sadly. “’Far’s I can see, there isn’t a soul in Great Britain that cares a dump about me at the present moment, except, maybe, Aunt Soph, and she’d like me a heap better at a distance!” She sighed involuntarily, and Captain Guest, watching her from beneath his lowered lids, was visited by an uncomfortable suspicion that while criticising another, his own behaviour had not been above reproach. Now that the girl had lost her aggressive air, and looked tired and sad, the feminine element made its appeal. Arrogance gave place to sympathy, prejudice to self-reproach. ... She was only a little thing after all, and as slim as a reed. Rapidly reviewing the incidents of the afternoon, he was as much surprised as shocked at the recollection of his own discourtesy. This stranger had overheard his frank declaration of dislike, had probably also seen the glance of reproach which he had cast upon Greville in the porch before starting out on this drive. Twice in a few hours had he overstepped the bounds of politeness, he, who flattered himself on presenting an unimpeachable exterior, whatever might be the inward emotions! The explanation of the lapse was a suddenly conceived prejudice at the moment of first meeting. The girl’s jaunty self-possession had struck a false note, and he had labelled her as callous and selfish. Now, looking at her afresh, he realised that this was not the face of a cold-hearted woman. This girl could fed! She was feeling now—feeling something painful, depressing. His eyes fell once more on her ungloved hands; he noticed that she held the right wrist tightly grasped, and even as he did so memory flashed back a picture of her as she had stood above him on the bank, her hands held in the same strained position. Afterwards he marvelled at the accuracy of that brain picture, but for the moment concern overwhelmed every other feeling. The inquiry came in quick, almost boyish tones, strangely different from his previous utterances. “I say! have you hurt your wrist? You are holding it as if it were painful.” Cornelia turned to see a face as altered as the voice, elevated her brows in involuntary surprise, and drawled an indifferent assent. “I guess I ricked it, hanging on to those reins. It was pulled half out of the sockets.” “Didn’t you have anything done for it at the house?” “No.” “Or tell anyone about it?” “No.” “But why not?” “I never yelp!” said Cornelia, proudly. She tilted her chin, and her eyes sent out a golden flash. “There was enough of that business going on without my joining in the chorus. If you’re hurt, it don’t mend it any to make a fuss.” Guest looked at her curiously. “You certainly did not yelp! I thought you had escaped entirely, and that your friend had come in for all the knocking about. I’m awfully sorry. Sprains are beastly things. Look here, if you don’t want to be crippled, it ought to be massaged at once! I’m knowing about sprains. Had an ankle cured in a couple of days by a Swedish fellow, which would have laid me up for weeks on the old methods. The great point is to keep the blood from congealing in the veins. Of course, it must be done in the right way, or it will do more harm than good. You set to work directly above the joint. Er—would you allow me?—might I show you for just a moment?” The horse was ambling peacefully along a quiet lane, and as he spoke Captain Guest twisted the reins loosely round his own wrist and half held out his hands, then drew them back again in obvious embarrassment. The shyness was all on his own side, however, for Cornelia cried, “Why, suttenly!” in frank response, and pulled back the loose lawn sleeve to leave her wrist more fully exposed. She watched with keen interest while he rubbed upward with gentle pressure, increased gradually as she showed no sign of pain or shrinking. “That’s the way—upward, always upward. Follow the line of the blood vessels—you see!” He traced a fine blue line with the end of a big finger, while the groom rolled curious eyes from behind, rehearsing a dramatic recital in the servants’ hall. “After that has been done once or twice, tackle the joint itself, and you’ll be astonished at the effect. Is there anyone in the house who can do it for you? You could do a good deal for yourself, you know, if the worst comes to the worst. Like this—give me the left hand, and I’ll show you how to work the joint itself!” Cornelia edged round in her seat to adopt a more convenient position, and laid her hand in his with the simplicity of a child. Such a slip of a thing it looked lying on his big brown paw, soft and white, with carefully manicured nails—almond-shaped, transparent, faintly pink. Guest loved a pretty hand, and held theories of its value as an exponent of character. The future Mrs Guest might or might not be handsome, as Fate decreed, but it was inconceivable that he could ever marry a woman with red fingers, or bitten nails. A pure artistic delight possessed him at the sight of Cornelia’s little hand, but the soft confident touch of it against his palm brought with it a thrill of something deeper. He gave his demonstration with a touch of awkwardness, but the girl herself was as placidly self-possessed as if he had been a maiden aunt buttoning up a glove. She put question after question, requested him to “show her again,” and gripped his own wrist to prove that she had mastered the desired movements. A more business-like manner it was impossible to imagine. Guest doubted if another girl of his acquaintance would have shown such an utter absence of self-consciousness. It was admirable, of course, quite admirable, but— He took up the reins with a little rankle of disappointment mingling with his approval. Barely a mile now remained to be traversed, as the horse was trotting up the long hill into Norton; at the top was the High Road, at the end of the High Road the gates leading into the park. If anything remained to be said, it would be wise to say it now, but Cornelia seemed to have nothing to say. She sat in erect, straight-backed fashion, her right hand lying on her knee, the fingers of the left rubbing softly up the arm, serenely oblivious of his presence. Guest cleared his throat once, cleared it again, cleared it a third time, but the words would not come. They passed through the lodge-gates and drew up before The Holt, where the groom stood ready to assist Cornelia to alight. Before Guest could throw down the reins she had jumped to the ground, and was standing facing him on the curb. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun fell on her as she stood, a slim white slip of a girl whom he could lift with one hand—a spirit as of tempered steel, which might bend, but never break. “I thank you for your courtesy!” said Cornelia, clearly, as she inclined her head towards him in formal, old-world fashion. Captain Guest watched her progress up the narrow path, biting hard at his lower lip. Courtesy! The word stung. The big man felt uncommonly small as he turned his horse and drove slowly home. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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