Chapter V: Renunciation

THE dinner at the Hall went off very well. Cecil was quite happy, seated between Derrick and a young soldier, Captain Harry Clavering, who took her in. Joan's lot was Wilmot Gascoigne. He was a tall, intellectual-looking man, with dreamy eyes and a slight sarcastic curl to his lips. But when he talked and smiled he was an attractive personality. He certainly did not appear to despise women's society, for he turned to Joan at once.

"You are our organist, are you not? I have never had the chance before of coming to near quarters with you, but I study your profile in church."

"How dreadful!" laughed Joan. "I hope you are not a physiognomist?"

"No," he said audaciously; "but you are good to look at, and too feminine in appearance to be a college student. I hear you were at Girton?"

"Yes. I wonder why men always imagine that the cultivation of the intellect alters the sex of a woman?"

"Please don't let us discuss any sex questions. They are so stale nowadays."

Joan would not be snubbed; but he suddenly plunged into the subject of architecture as seen in the university colleges, and Joan, who was devoted to that subject, forgot everything else. From the delicate fan tracery in King's Chapel, Cambridge, they wandered off to continental cathedrals, and Joan held her breath as she listened, entranced by his clever and rapid talk. Then he came back to literature, and here Joan could hold her ground. She and he were so absorbed in discussing Horace Walpole's letters, as compared with Pope's, that their dinner was forgotten. Joan could not say afterwards which courses she had taken and which she had left. She only felt profound regret when the ladies left the table. In the drawing-room Banty stalked up to her.

"What on earth was Motty saying to you? He hasn't been so lively since he's been with us."

"Oh, I think he is so interesting," said Joan. "I envy you having him in the house. He must be a mine of knowledge. I should be always digging some of it out of him."

"Why, he doesn't know a hen from a pheasant!" gasped Banty. "And would as soon ride a cart horse as a hunter. He's simply impossible!"

When the gentlemen came in, Joan was taken possession of by Derrick.

"No," he said; "don't you cast sheep's eyes at old Motty. I've introduced him to your mother, and they'll go ahead like a house afire. I was ashamed to look at you at dinner. You were hanging on his words like a fish on a hook. Just hang on mine like it, will you? It's extraordinary what a gift of the gab will do."

"You are so very mediocre," said Joan, smiling, and showing her dimple. "I never feel with you that I can improve my opportunity. I learn nothing by being in your society."

"That is because you're so book-proud. Don't tell me you learnt anything from Motty. He loves to pose as a literary swell; but I know he reads up for conversation like mad. Because he impresses a certain small, stodgy set in town, and fails to impress us, he thinks he isn't appreciated down here; and he'd discourse with pleasure to an open-mouthed goose if he thought that goose admired him."

"Do you insinuate—"

"I never insinuate. I hated to see his self-satisfied smirk and your animated and fervent homage to his intellect."

"How I wish you would grow up," said Joan.

"I've heard that remark before. Aren't we all a scratch lot to-night?"

He nodded towards a little circle round the fire, which contained Banty and her father.

"That's our hunting set," he said. "Cecil is trying to do the smart town set. She has two of the most go-ahead chaps talking to her now. Lady Gascoigne and those three dowagers are gossiping over that poor chap who is shutting himself away from his kind. 'So wrong of him,' I heard one of them say. She and her daughters run to earth every fresh bachelor. Your mother and Motty are the literary clique."

"And what are we?" asked Joan. "I don't think our conversation is very uplifting at present."

"Don't interrupt me. Your father and the Miss Grays and those two parsons represent the clerical section; and you and I, Joan, we are just chums."

His glance down at her had something more than affection in it.

Joan would not notice it, and she moved over to Lady Gascoigne, deliberately avoiding Derrick for the rest of the evening.

Mrs. Adair returned home with a great liking for Wilmot Gascoigne.

"The first intelligent man I have met for a long time," she said. "I suppose it sounds conceited of me to say so, but these country squires are, as a rule, very slow-witted, and the clergy have minds as narrow as their stipends."

"My dear Cecilia," said her husband good-temperedly, "you are very severe on the poor clergy, but I am glad you enjoyed yourself. I thought you would. These social gatherings are very pleasant."

"I couldn't get any innings with Motty, as they call him," said Cecil. "But I suppose he will find his way round here, if you like him, Mother."

Joan said nothing. She felt that she would see little more of Wilmot whilst her mother was interested in him. Mrs. Adair was a very fascinating woman, and she knew it.

Joan received a letter the next morning which sent her about her household duties with an absent mind and clouded brow. It was to remind her that there were other applicants waiting for the post which had been offered her, and that she must delay no longer in sending her reply.

At luncheon the rector said in his genial way:

"Cecilia, my dear, I want to have a small parish gathering soon—a kind of house warming. I want my parishioners to know you; there are farmers' wives scattered over the heath, and many who used to know us in the old days. It would be nice to gather them together and make them feel that we are their friends. Joan suggests Christmas, but that is a long way off. What do you think about it? And do you think you could manage to say a few words to them? You are so clever at expressing yourself that I am sure you would not find it difficult. It would please me very much if you would."

Mrs. Adair slowly shook her head.

"No, John, I have never interfered with your province, and I have some visits I must make to some of my own people. My brother in Edinburgh has asked me to take Cecil there for a few weeks. It is a long time since I have seen him, so I should like to go."

"It is an expensive journey," said Mr. Adair in disconsolate tones; "but we must postpone our gathering till you come back."

"Pray don't think of such a thing. Joan and you are quite equal to entertaining them. You know how I loathe parish functions of any sort!"

There was a little silence. The rector was bitterly disappointed that his wife was thinking of leaving him again so soon. In a few moments he said:

"I hoped, my dear, after your long sojourn abroad you were going to settle down quietly here for the winter."

"I am never going to give up seeing my own people."

Mrs. Adair's tone was proud and cold.

The rector heaved a sigh.

"Well, well, a few weeks will soon pass; and we shall have you back again."

Then Joan spoke, though she knew it was an unpropitious moment.

"I am wondering if I must decline this post of teaching that has been offered me. I told you about it, Mother. It is a chance that may never come to me again."

"Your father and you must settle that together," said Mrs. Adair; "if he can spare you, I have no objection to offer."

"He must have one of us here," said Joan slowly.

Cecil looked up laughing.

"My dear Joan, there is tragedy in your tone. Be thankful that your duties keep you here, instead of going out to earn your bread. You know quite well that you are the only one of us that is cut out for parish work. I should make a pretty hash of it if tried to step into your shoes!"

"Such a possibility is not to be considered," her mother said quickly and a little sharply. "You have not the health to do it."

Joan pushed back her chair and left the room abruptly. Her soul was turbulent and rebellious. She went up to her little whitewashed room, and sinking on her knees laid her hot head on the broad window ledge.

"Oh, God! It is hard. Am I cut out for parish work? Has not my training been for a wider sphere? Why should my talents be buried? An open door before me, with a vista of influence and power, and—and success. Yes, I know I could fill it. I know it is in me to mould, and organise, and rule, and yet I must shut this door and turn my back on it. And Cecil is doing nothing, absolutely nothing with her life. It would give her a new lease of life if she left her health alone and thought of others more. Oh, it is hard! It is unfair! I feel inclined to break away from it all!"

Hot tears rose to her eyes. She clenched her hands convulsively. Though she had known instinctively she could not leave home, she had hoped against hope that her circumstances might change. She could not bring herself to write the necessary refusal, and knelt there battling with her lifelong desires, and the duty that was crushing them into dust.

But in about half an hour's time her brow smoothed, and the light returned to her eyes. If joy was at present in abeyance, resignation and content had become the victor.

"I will be strong in patience, that is as far as I can see at present." Then a twinkle shot into her eye. "Perhaps if I can't teach and rule on this earth, I may do it in the Millennium!"

She got out her writing-case and wrote her letter in a firm hand. After she had sealed it, she sat looking out of her window.

"A great renunciation," she said to herself; "and yet nobody will believe it. Cecil laughs at the notion. But I have not done it very willingly. Now I must look forward, and never back at it. That phase in my life is over. Thank God, I can still impart knowledge, though of a different kind, to my small Sunday scholars. And I dare say from above it looks the highest class after all. What a lovely afternoon! I will go and get the apples in."

She ran lightly downstairs, and sang her way down the garden into the orchard. Cecil heard her. She was in an easy chair before the drawing-room fire, a novel in her hand.

"What a happy creature Joan is," she said to her mother, who as usual was at her writing-desk. "She is like father, easily satisfied in her small surroundings."

Mrs. Adair looked thoughtfully out into the garden. "I never have understood Joan," she said, more to herself than to Cecil, "but the present weighs more than the future in her calculations. Her apples at this moment are the most important things in the world."

When Joan and the odd man had finished their task, she came into the house to find that Cecil had gone out, and her mother was lying down in her room. The drawing-room fire was out; she ran into the kitchen and sent Jenny in to relight it. Then Sophia, who was plucking a chicken, detained her.

"Sit you down, Miss Joan, I want a word with ye. There's no getting a bit of talk with you these days."

Joan dropped into a rocking chair by the fire.

"I would like to sit here for an hour, Sophia. You have the knack of making the kitchen the pleasantest place in the world. When I marry—if ever I do—I shall live in my kitchen."

"Stuff! We'll wish you a grand match, Miss Joan; may you be one of they who gives orders only and has the staff to carry 'em out. Do ye know where Miss Cecil be off to?"

"No; where?"

"She have taken a note from me to Maria. Aye, she would have it, she be just wild to get into that house, so she tells me, and, Miss Joan, 'tis no house for a lady, and what is more, no lady is to cross the threshold."

"You sound very mysterious. What has Maria been telling you?"

"A good deal not to be repeated. But I'll tell you this, Miss Joan, Major Armitage be wrong in his head. There be no doubt of that."

"Why do you think so?"

"You'll keep a still tongue over it? I wouldn't let the mistress hear it nor yet Miss Cecil. He be quite unkenny as the Scotch say. You must know Maria do a lot of waitin' on him at times. She says at a certain hour every afternoon in the gloaming—from six to seven—he sits in his big room, the music-room he calls it, because of the big pianny, but Maria calls it the library, for the walls be pretty well covered with books. He takes a big chair by the fire, and he pulls another, a soft ladyish cushioned one, which no one never sits on, opposite him, then he smokes his pipe and he talks in a low tone which makes your blood curdle, not all at once on end, Maria says, but just a word here an' there, and a soft tender like whisper at times."

Joan laughed at Sophia's awed face.

"Why, lots of lonely people talk to themselves; I do very often when I'm out walking."

"Miss Joan, 'tis this way, and Maria says it as knows, he be talkin' to someone not to be seen, 'a-sittin' in that chair!'"

"Good gracious! What do you mean?"

"Well, I be charitable and say the poor man be not right in his head. There be people who might say he were temperin' and playin' with spirits. Maria come in one evenin', and he never heard her, and he leant across to the chair, and he says quite distinct, 'Will you listen, sweet, and tell me how you like it?' And then he walks to the pianny and he plays, Maria said, like an angel. And once he looks back over his shoulder at the chair and smiles, such a smile as a man gives the one he dotes on."

Joan began to look interested.

"Go on, Sophia, tell me more. But I don't think Maria ought to spy on him."

"'Twas by accident, but he have given orders that nobody disturbs him from six to seven every night. And there be other things, Miss Joan. He have told Maria that any gentlemen who call on him must be shown into the smokin'-room, but no lady on any pretence whatever is to put her foot over the threshold of the big front door. And he goes up to the little boudoir which he keeps the key of himself, and he puts fresh flowers every two or three days in it. But Maria dursn't ask a question. Maybe the lady be dead, and he be keepin' communion with her spirit, but 'tis a heathenish thing, and I think his poor mind be disturbed."

Joan did not answer.

"So, Miss Joan," pursued Sophia, "I want you to keep Miss Cecil out of his way, and you know what she always was like when a body wanted her to do or not to do, so determined to do contrariwise. The less a young lady has to do with such a man the better. Not but what Maria says he be kind and considerate and sensible in all other ways. And he be lookin' into his estate in the right sort of way, and talkin' friendly with the tenants. But he must have a kink in his brain, or be in league with spirits."

"I wish you hadn't told me, Sophia. Maria ought not to have spied upon him. His private life has nothing to do with us. You won't let this gossip get about the village?"

"Now what do you take me for? Don't I know that you're a safe person to tell things to? But Miss Cecil may get in at the back door—she certainly won't get in at the front."

Joan got up from the chair on which she had been sitting.

"I dare say Major Armitage is a child at heart, and was making believe as I used to do! I won't believe anything 'unkenny' about him, Sophia."

She met Cecil a little later coming in from the garden.

"I've bearded the hermit in his den!" she cried out gaily. "I told Derrick I would. I've been chatting in his kitchen, to Maria, who seems gloomy and mysterious. The Major was out, but I met him walking up the drive as I was coming away.

"'I haven't been to call upon you,' I said to him, 'but to take a message to your cook. Don't you remember me?'

"Fancy, he had the impertinence to say that he did not! I reminded him of the hotel abroad. He looked bored, lifted his hat and walked on. I have never been so snubbed in my life."

"I wish you hadn't gone," said Joan. "It puts you in a false position."

"Oh, don't be so conventional! He wants to be taken out of himself."

Then she sank down on a chair in the hall.

"I'm tired to death. I hate the country, Joan! I haven't met a single soul on the way there or back."

Joan stood still and looked at her with a little impatience and some tenderness in her eyes.

"I wonder," she said slowly, "what work you were meant to do when you were sent into the world?"

Cecil gazed at her in silence for a moment, then said:

"You do say such prosy things. Work! Everybody is not made for work. I am sure I wasn't. This life in a parsonage is nothing but work! You are just a slave of the village, Joan."

"It's happy slavery, then," said Joan, laughing, "for I'm getting to love them all, and, when you love, slavery isn't in it."

Cecil would vouchsafe no reply. She dragged herself up from her chair and went into the drawing-room to her mother.

Joan turned into her father's study. There was a good deal of parish work to be discussed between them. She found him now with his head in his hands, and his elbows on his writing-table, doing nothing. It was such an unusual position for him that she wondered.

"Are you asleep, Dad, dear?"

Mr. Adair turned heavy eyes and anxious brow at the sound of her voice; then his face cleared.

"Not asleep. I wish I were," he said, trying to speak lightly. "I am only thinking about ways and means, Joan. My pass book is not a pleasant sight."

Joan knelt down by his side and her tone was almost motherly.

"Don't worry. We shall be better off soon. You have had such heavy expenses coming here. We shall not have those again."

He did not answer; then a heavy sigh escaped him. "Your mother means to go abroad again in January. She told me so this morning."

This was the cause of his depression. Joan could hardly trust herself to speak.

"Perhaps she will change her mind before the time comes. We won't live in the future, Dad, dear. Leave January to take care of itself."

"I suppose you couldn't have a talk with her, Joan? Women understand each other. I always seem to bungle. I really don't know how we can afford it. I simply shall not have the money to send her this year. I withdrew almost the last of my private capital last year. I have been doing it for years, but that has come to an end, and if anything happened to me, I should leave you utterly unprovided for. Your mother's money could not support you. It is not nearly enough for herself and for Cecil."

"But I think and hope I could support myself," said Joan gently. "Don't bother over that. We will hope that you will be spared to us for many a long day yet."

Then she added in a different tone:

"I will try to have a talk with Mother again about it." She pressed a light kiss on his forehead, then persisted in talking to him about some of his parishioners, and for the time Mr. Adair laid his private trouble aside. Yet when she was about to leave him, he called her back.

"I hoped, Joan, my dear, I thought we had such a pretty, comfortable home now—I am sure you have taken such pains in making it fresh and home-like, I did think it would have been an inducement to your mother to settle down here. And there are such nice friendly people round. I have been wondering if we could not find some people who might take Cecil abroad at a slight expense—I have heard of it being done—if she would make herself useful to them, I mean, and then your mother would not be obliged to go. She could stay at home with us."

Joan almost smiled.

"No, Dad, dear; Mother will never let Cecil leave her wing. I will talk over things with her. But Mother is not dependent on house comfort. She has so many other things in her life."

"I thought a nice, pretty home would satisfy any woman," said Mr. Adair, sighing; "I told your mother so."

Joan tried to imagine her mother's feelings at hearing that sentiment. But she had an overwhelming pity for her simple, kindly old father, and when she left him, it was with tears rising in her eyes.