Chapter V: Unwelcome News

MAGDA, having removed her snowy garments, found the family round the breakfast-table; and she did not disdain a second course of tea and toast after her early outing.

She certainly looked no worse for the walk. Her face glowed with delight.

"Letters—letters!" quoth Merryl, next in age to Magda, and a complete child still, despite her fifteen years—plump and rosy, unformed in feature, but with a look of beaming good-nature and pure happiness, which must have transformed the plainest face into pleasantness. She was busily engaged in buttering her father's toast. From early infancy she had been his especial pet; and her seat was always by his side. Mr. Royston without Merryl was like a ship without its rudder—a helpless object.

"Lots of letters for everybody except Magda," piped Francie's small treble.

"So much the better for me! I haven't the bother of answering them," Magda said joyously.

"Seem to have liked your walk," Mr. Royston remarked in puzzled accents. For Magda, after parting with Rob, was usually what he described as "in the dumps" for hours.

"I just love a fight with the snow. And I've seen Patricia Vincent. She was at the station too. And she has asked me to tea to-morrow."

There was a note of triumph in the tone, for Magda was aware that Pen had been counting on some such invitation for herself.

"How did you manage to bring that about?" asked Pen, obviously not pleased.

"I didn't manage at all. She simply asked me."

"You must have said something. It is not the Claughton Manor way to invite people informally."

"I suppose it's her way. Now she has come to live there—"

"She has not."

"Well, anyhow, to stay for a long while—"

Penrose demurred again, and Mrs. Royston put in a word.

"Yes, dear. Mrs. Framley told me, and I forgot to mention it. Miss Vincent has lived for years with some London cousins; but the eldest daughter was lately married; and things now are not so comfortable. I fancy she and the second daughter do not much care for one another. And Mr. and Mrs. Framley have proposed that she should make the Manor her headquarters. The plan is to be tried."

"She has plenty of money. Why doesn't she live in a house of her own?"

"Too young, Pen. She is only twenty-two."

"She is the very sweetest—" began Magda rapturously, and checked herself at the sound of Pen's little laugh. Magda crimsoned.

"Heigh-ho! What's wrong now?" Mr. Royston stopped in the act of turning his newspaper inside-out, and fixed inquiring eyes upon his second daughter.

"Pen is so disagreeable."

"Come, come! You needn't complain of other people. Pen is a good girl—always was! I wish other girls were as good."

Pen wore an air of pretty and appropriate meekness.

"I know! I'm always the one in the wrong."

"Then, if I were you, I wouldn't be—that's all. I would take care to be in the right."

Mrs. Royston wisely rose, and a general move followed. Magda fled upstairs, only to find her room in process of being "done;" so she caught up a rough-coat and a tam-o'-shanter, and escaped into the garden. Already the snow had ceased to fall, and the sky was clearing.

To and fro on a white carpet in the kitchen garden she paced, pitying herself at first for home grievances, but turning soon to the thought of Patricia, going over the past interview, seeing again the dainty flower-like face, hearing afresh the pretty voice, picturing the joys of coming intimacy.

Now at last she would have a real friend, the sort of friend she had always wanted, a satisfying friend, one who would meet her needs, one who would understand her feelings, one who would enter into her dreams and aspirations, one to whom she could look up with unbounded admiration—different altogether from good little Beatrice Major, who was well enough in her way, but totally unlike this!

That word—"aspirations"—pulled up the recollection of Rob and of all that he had said. She was to begin at once to make ready for her future life with him.

Yes, of course; and she meant to do it. She was not going to "drift" any longer. She would hunt out her neglected plan of study, and would start with it afresh. That was all right. If once she really made up her mind, of course she would do it. She was not one of those weak creatures who could not carry out a resolution.

Only—not this morning. There was so much to think about!—and Pen was so annoying!—and she felt so unsettled! To seat herself down to a French translation or a German exercise in her present condition was impossible.

"You've got to get the upper hand over yourself. Not to be a victim to moods!" So Rob had said.

Oh, bother! what did Rob know about moods? He never had any. He was always the same—always calm and composed and steady; the dearest old fellow, but without a notion of what it meant to be made up of all sorts of opposite characteristics, and never in the same state for two consecutive quarters of an hour. People could not help being what they were made! She meant to get the upper hand of herself—in time. But it was absurd to expect impossibilities.

So the hours drifted by; and another day was added to the waste pile.

After the next night came a rapid thaw. The world around streamed with water, while a wet fog hung overhead. It made no difference to Magda. Go she would, no matter what the elements might say.

Mrs. Royston tried remonstrance, but Magda's agony at the notion of giving up was too patent, and she desisted. Bicycling was out of the question; so the train had to be resorted to and twenty minutes' walk through the soaking grounds brought her to the Manor with boots clogged in mud.

What did that matter? After an abnormal amount of boot-rubbing, she was shown upstairs into Patricia's special sanctum, a "study in blue," as she was presently informed, carpet, curtains, cretonne covers, all partaking of the same hue. Patricia, also in blue, welcomed her sweetly, exclaimed at her condition, set her down before the fire to dry, gave her tea, and gradually unlocked a tongue, which at first seemed tied.

However, once it was untied, the young hostess had no further trouble. Magda could talk; none faster! She poured out the contents of her mind for Patricia's inspection; and Patricia listened, with always those sweetly smiling eyes, and little pearly teeth just showing themselves. Once or twice a close observer might have detected a puzzled look at some of Magda's flights; but she was invariably sympathetic—or she seemed so, which did as well under the circumstances.

Magda was used to sympathy from Bee, though hardly of the same kind. Bee would sometimes differ from Magda; never otherwise than gently, yet with decision. Patricia disagreed with nothing. She had that captivating habit, possessed by some agreeable people, of managing always to say exactly what her listener would have wished to hear. Though not by birth Irish, she really might have been so; for this is one of the Green Isle's characteristics.

So, whatever Magda chose to utter, she found herself in the right; and if aught had been needed to complete the enchaining process, this was sufficient. When she went home that afternoon, she was wildly happy. In Patricia she had found an ideal friend; the dearest, the sweetest, the loveliest, ever seen. She had now all she wanted!

The fascination grew. Magda never did anything by halves; and during the next few weeks she had eyes, ears, thoughts, for Patricia only. When they parted, she could not be content unless the time and place of their next meeting were named. If she could not see her idol for two or three days, she sent rapturous notes by post. Every spare shilling of her pocket-money went in gifts for Patricia. Half her time was spent upon the road between Burwood and Claughton.

"It is getting to be a perfect craze," Mrs. Royston one day remarked to Penrose. "I really don't know what to do. The Framleys will be bored to death, if it goes on."

"Patricia herself is having rather too much of it, I suspect. I noticed her face yesterday afternoon when Magda was hanging round and would not leave her for a moment. Naturally she wanted to be free for other people."

"I thought she was affectionate to Magda. Still, the thing may go too far. Magda has no balance. Some day I shall have to give her a word of warning."

"I would, mother!"

But Mrs. Royston delayed. Magda seemed aboundingly happy; and she rather shrank from putting a spoke in the wheel. Matters might right themselves.

One morning, after an especially rapturous afternoon of intercourse with Patricia, Magda found on the breakfast-table a letter from Bee. She had not given much thought to Bee lately—had not written to her for weeks. She felt a little ashamed, and began to read under a sense of compunction.

Then a startled—"Oh!"—all but escaped her.

"Anything wrong?" asked Pen.

"Why should anything be wrong?"

"You looked the reverse of pleased."

Magda retreated into herself, and refused to discuss the question. Breakfast ended, she escaped to her favourite quarter, the kitchen garden, now a blaze of spring sunshine, and there she went through the letter a second time.

"Bother! I hoped that was all given up!" she sighed.

"Think, how lovely!" wrote Bee in her pretty ladylike hand. "We really are coming to Burwood. Do you remember my telling you that it was spoken about? My mother heard of a little house which she went to see; and she liked it so much that she made up her mind quickly. She did not tell me this till I got home; and there were one or two hitches, so I would not say any more to you till everything was arranged."

"Now papers are all signed, and the house will be ours in the end of June. It has to be painted and papered, and I suppose we shall not get in before August. It is near the Post Office in High Street—standing back in a little garden—and it is all grown over with Virginia creeper—so pretty, mother says. It is called 'Virginia Villa.'"

"I cannot hope that you will be as glad as I am; still I do feel sure that it will be a pleasure to my darling Magda to have her 'little Bee' within such easy reach. Only think of it! I often sit and dream of what it will be to have you always in and out—every day, I hope, and as often in the day as you can manage it. You will know that you cannot come too often."

"I'm hoping for a most lovely treat this summer. Isn't it sweet of Amy? She has been saving and laying by money all the last year, and now she is bent on taking me to Switzerland for three weeks in July. I can hardly believe it to be true. I've always had such a longing for Swiss mountains!"

"To-morrow I am going into the country for three weeks with Aunt Belle and Aunt Emma—mother's sisters, you know. If you should write to me then, please address—'Wratt-Wrothesley, —shire.' I am longing to hear from you again."

Magda was half touched, half aggrieved. She hardly knew how to take it. She and Beatrice had been friends through two long years of school-life; and though she might make little of the tie to Miss Mordaunt, it had been a close one. Bee had loved her devotedly; and she had been really fond of Bee. Yet, somehow, she did not take to the idea of having Bee permanently in Burwood, for reasons earlier explained.

Things looked even worse to her now than when she was at school. Her mother and Pen were so awfully critical and particular. She minded Pen's little laugh of disdain almost more than she minded anything. It would be horrid if that laugh were called forth by a friend of hers.

And then the small creeper-grown house in High Street, where till now a successful dressmaker had lived—it really was too dreadful! To think of her especial friend living there—in Virginia Villa! She was certain that nothing would ever induce her mother to leave a card at that door. And if not—if Mrs. Royston declined to call—it would be quite as objectionable. To have a friend in a different stratum, so to speak, just allowed in their house on occasions, just tolerated perhaps, but looked upon as belonging to a lower level—how unbearable! And Bee's relatives might be—well, anything! They might tread upon the sensitive toes of her people at every turn. If only Bee had never thought of the plan!

Worse still—much worse!—there was this delightful new friendship with Patricia Vincent. Most certainly neither Patricia nor her aunt, Mrs. Framley, would deign to look at any human being who should live in Virginia Villa. To them it would be an impossible locality. For a dressmaker, well enough—and nothing would exceed their gracious kindness to the said dressmaker. But—for a friend! Magda went hot and cold by turns. She had not haunted Patricia for weeks, without becoming pretty well acquainted with the Framley scales of measurement.

When the Majors should have settled in, she would have to keep her two friends absolutely apart—to segregate them in water-tight compartments, so to speak. But would this be possible? Suppose, some day, they should come together! Suppose that Patricia should find her chosen friend's other friend to be a mere nobody, living in that wretched little house! Why, it might squash altogether this new glorious friendship of hers!

And the more she considered, the more certain she felt that the two must sooner or later meet. Burwood was not a large town. Everybody there knew all about everybody else. To be sure, the Framleys lived apart, and held themselves very much aloof from the townsfolk generally. Still, accidental encounters do take place, even under such conditions, just when least desired.

And Bee was so simple; she would never understand. Nobody could call so gentle a creature "pushing;" but on the other hand it would never occur to her mind that anybody could object to know her, merely because she lived in an insignificant house. She had a pretty natural way of always expecting to find herself welcome. Magda had heard that way admired; but she felt at this moment that she could have dispensed with it.

She would have to make Bee understand—somehow. She would have to explain that not all her friends and acquaintances would be likely to call—in fact, that probably very few would. It would be very difficult and horrid; but since the Majors chose to come, they must take the consequences.

Always in and out! That was very fine; but neither her mother nor Pen would stand such a state of things—considering the position of Virginia Villa. Magda had a good deal of liberty, within limits; but those limits were clearly defined.

In this direction she did not want more liberty. She could not be perpetually going after Bee. Her time was already full—of Patricia.

True, Bee was the old friend, Patricia was the new. But she had always felt that Bee could not fully meet her needs, and Patricia could—which made all the difference. Patricia was more to her—oh, miles more!—than poor little Bee.

As she felt her way through this maze of difficulties, a thought suggested itself. Why need she say anything at present about the coming of the Majors to Burwood?

Nobody in the place knew them. It was nobody's business except her own. There was plenty of time. They would not arrive for weeks and weeks. And each week was of importance to her for the further cementing of her new friendship. She could at least—wait.

By-and-by, of course, it must be told; and her mother must be asked to call; and Pen's little laugh of disdain must be endured. But there was no hurry. For a while longer she might allow herself to revel in the Patricia sunshine, without fear of a rising cloud.