Chapter XXXV

To get up of a winter's morning to see his cows milked was not a usual diversion with Chalfont, but to please Maggy he turned out at seven and took her to the home farm to witness that process. She was absorbed by it. She had never before been nearer to a cow than the average hedge permits of; and to see them, as she did now, in the family circle, so to speak, was a delightful novelty to her. Her love of animals was very real. She went into raptures over Chalfont's velvety-nosed prize Jerseys.

In her hurry to get up she had neglected to use any of the creams and unguents which she deemed necessary for the adornment of her face. It had been too dark for Chalfont to notice this omission at first, but on their way back he became aware of it, and also of the flawlessness of her complexion. Without stopping to think, he said:

"What have you done to yourself?"

"You mean, what have I not done?" she laughed. "I've forgotten my face. Left it out."

He was on the point of apologizing for his blunder, but said instead: "I like you much better as you are."

"That's what Lexie's always saying. But it's habit. When a girl makes-up year in and year out she feels undressed without it. Savages have that feeling, I suppose," she added comically. "I haven't wished you a happy Christmas yet. I do hope you will be very happy--later on."

"Thank you. And I hope you will be happy always."

"I'm happy now, at any rate. I believe this is going to be the most heavenly day of my life. I feel it in my bones."

A few moments later she burst into Alexandra's bedroom.

"Oh, Lexie dear, happy Christmas! I've been saying it to the cows and the horses and the lodge-keeper's children ever since seven. Give me a hug. I haven't got your Christmas present with me, because it's an eider-down quilt. You'll find it on your bed when you get back. Don't let's think of getting back though. It's so perfect here. What time will church be? I suppose I mustn't take Onions to church? He chased the fowls all over the farmyard this morning. Lord Chalfont says I can leave him here if I like. It would be nice for Onions, but not for the fowls. There's a bell! It must be for breakfast. Come along; I'm famished."

Church followed on the heels of breakfast. Maggy had never been to a Christmas service before. She was tremendously impressed by it. The maternal instinct, always very strong in her, tugged at her heart strings. Once, as she knelt, Alexandra noticed that she was quietly crying. So did Chalfont.

Mrs. Pardiston and Alexandra stopped for Communion. Leaving the motor for them, the other two walked back. Maggy was very quiet. With the latent understanding that made Chalfont attune himself to her mood he too refrained from speech. Presently she burst out:

"Why does the world only appreciate people after they're dead? What is the good of birthdays when you're not alive? That poor little baby! If He came down from Heaven again they'd let Him be born in a manger just the same. Only children ought to go to church on Christmas day. They're good enough. We're not. Do you know, I wondered I wasn't struck dumb for being anywhere near to God. God was in church this morning. I felt Him. I'm not religious, but I believe in God now. Oh, I wish I was good, like Lexie. I wish I didn't know what love is. I wish I'd never been wicked!"

She was wrought-up. She had forgotten the necessity for reticence. Her confession had to come. The restraint of sex was forgotten. If she thought of Chalfont at all at that moment, it was as a brother rather than a man.

"Hush," he said. "You're not wicked."

"I am, I am," she reiterated. "_I_ ought to have had a baby.... People must have thought the usual things of Mary because of hers.... But she had Him."

"You poor little woman," he said unsteadily.

That he should express compassion where most men would have shown despisement filled her with almost dog-like gratitude.

"I _do_ like you," she said with sudden vehemence. "If I had been dear Mrs. Lambert I would have loved you."

"Thank you," he said very seriously.

Like a passing cloud, the strange emotional mood soon left her. Her volatile spirits rose again. By the time she had taken Onions for a scamper in the grounds she was quite her old self. Chalfont, watching her flitting here and there, thought only of her rapturous enjoyment of innocent pleasures, and succeeded for a little while in forgetting that such a person as Woolf with his sullying associations was in existence.

The day passed with dream-like swiftness for the two girls. They snatched at its fleeting pleasures according to their temperaments. To Alexandra it was a delightful break in a life which she was beginning to loathe, one for which she could not be too grateful. Its very evanescence caused her to enjoy it with temperate zest. Maggy's livelier feelings made her grasp at all it brought forth with both hands. To her it was a glimpse into fairyland, or at least a world in which she classed herself a complete outsider.

Chalfont had not forgotten her desire for a Christmas tree and the presence of children to enjoy it. All the youngsters on the estate had been bidden to the treat. There were small boys, rosy of cheek, in their best; small girls, eager-eyed, in the whitest of pinafores. Maggy, at Mrs. Pardiston's request, presided over the feast arranged for them. She it was who afterwards distributed the gifts from the loaded Christmas tree. Within five minutes the children were under her spell; in ten she seemed to know all their names and a great deal about each of them. When at last the tree was stripped of all but its candles she started games and joined in them. She romped. She was a child among children.

When they had all gone, Chalfont suggested that before dressing for dinner the two girls should inspect the picture-gallery, which they had not yet seen, and as soon as it was lighted up he led the way there. Maggy's interest at once centered in the many portraits that lined the walls. The landscapes and genre pictures that interspersed them she passed by. Individualities only concerned her, and to these, in the canvasses of dead and gone Chalfonts she gave a rapt attention, stopping at each that appealed to her and asking for its history. One portrait in particular, that of a very beautiful girl, she looked at for a long time.

"Who was she?" she inquired.

"My grandmother," replied Chalfont. "It was painted just after her marriage. She was only nineteen when she died, a year later."

"Oh, what a pity! Why?"

Chalfont passed to the next portrait.

"Her son," he said. "My father."

Maggy understood. She glanced back sadly at the youthful face of the mother.

Chalfonts in armor, in uniform, in silk and velvet and in lace, confronted her everywhere. She flitted from one to the other, admiring, impressed.

"How proud of them all you must be," she said finally. "Fancy having--ancestors!"

As she spoke she paused before the portrait of a woman, perceiving in it something different from the rest. The face was handsome, yet lacked a high-bred look.

"Another ancestress," said Chalfont. "An actress, a contemporary of Mrs. Siddons."

"How did she come here?" wondered Maggy, almost jealous for the honor of his house.

"She married the fourth Viscount."

"Married him!" She stared at the painted lady. "It was a mistake," she said, as though to herself, and in so odd a tone that the others laughed.

When Chalfont set the two girls down at the stage-door on Boxing night Maggy pressed a note into his hand. He read it at his club, where he went to dine before returning to the theater.

"'Thank you very much' sounds so beastly ordinary in words, so I must write it, because I want you to know that I am ever so grateful for the way you have treated me. It's proper for a darling saint like Lexie to be asked to stay at Purton Towers. But me--that's another thing. I shall get into hot water with Mr. Woolf for coming, and I don't suppose he'll allow it again if you ask me, or even let me see you. But don't ever think that I can forget your kindness. Although you know what I am you have had me down to your beautiful home, with your sweet honorable aunt just as if I wasn't a common girl, which I am. The only thing I can say is that perhaps if I had been properly brought up and had a name to be proud of I shouldn't have dragged it in the mud like I have my own silly name which can't belong to me because it's the classy kind actresses make up. Don't laugh. I'm not often serious, but I do say God bless you and I mean it.

"MAGGY."

The overture was coming to an end when Chalfont took his seat in the stalls. As the curtain swished up his eyes went to Maggy, scantily clad in diaphanous chiffon. He was thinking of the golden heart of the girl, not at all of her compulsorily over-exposed beauty.

But Maggy was blushing beneath her grease paint. A sudden access of modesty had come over her. It was as baffling to herself as was the remark she flung to the girl dancing beside her--one, two, three and a kick.

"What wouldn't I give for a blanket!"