Antony Gray-Gardener Part 17

"You dear old Tibby," smiled the d.u.c.h.essa, "I'm sure he didn't. n.o.body thinks you're a gossip. Gossiping is talking about things people don't want known, and generally things that are rather unkind, to say the least of it. You're the soul of honour and charity, and Father Dormer knows that as well as everyone else."

"Oh, my dear!" expostulated Miss Tibb.u.t.t. "But I'm glad you think he didn't----"

The d.u.c.h.essa got up from the table.

"Of course he didn't. Let us go into the garden, and have coffee out there. The fresh air will blow away the cobwebs."

Miss Tibb.u.t.t followed the d.u.c.h.essa through the French window and across the wide gravel path, on to the lawn. The d.u.c.h.essa led the way to a seat beneath the lime trees. The bees were droning among the hanging flowers.

"Have you any cobwebs in your mind, my dear?" asked Miss Tibb.u.t.t as they sat down.

"Why do you ask?" queried the d.u.c.h.essa.

"Oh, my dear! I don't know. You said that about cobwebs, you see. And I thought you seemed--well, just a little preoccupied at dinner."

There was a little silence.

"Tell me," said Miss Tibb.u.t.t.

"There's nothing to tell," said the d.u.c.h.essa lightly. "A rather pretty soap-bubble burst and turned into an unpleasant cobweb, that's all.

So--well, I've just been brus.h.i.+ng my mind clear of both the cobweb and the memory of the soap-bubble."

"You're certain it--the cobweb--isn't worrying you now?" asked Miss Tibb.u.t.t.

"My dear Tibby, it has ceased to exist," laughed the d.u.c.h.essa.

It was a very rea.s.suring little laugh. Miss Tibb.u.t.t knew it to be quite absurd that, in spite of it, she still could not entirely dispel that vague sense of uneasiness. It spoilt the keen pleasure she ordinarily took in the garden, especially in the evening and most particularly in the month of June. She had a real sentiment about the month of June. From the first day to the last she held the hours tenderly, lingeringly, loath to let them slip between her fingers. There were only three more days left, and now there was this tiny uneasiness, which prevented her mind from entirely concentrating on the happiness of these remaining hours.

And then she gave herself a little mental shake. It was, after all, a selfish consideration on her part. If there were cause for uneasiness, she ought to be thinking of Pia rather than herself, and if there were no cause--and Pia had just declared there was not--she was being thoroughly absurd. She gave herself a second mental shake, and looked towards the house, whence a young footman was just emerging with a tray on which were two coffee cups and a sugar basin. He put the tray down on a small rustic table near them, and went back the way he had come, his step making no sound on the soft gra.s.s.

"I wonder what it feels like to be a servant, and have to do everything to time," she said suddenly. "It must be trying to have to be invariably punctual."

Now, as a matter of fact, Miss Tibb.u.t.t was exceedingly punctual, but then it was by no means absolutely inc.u.mbent upon her to be so; she could quite well have absented herself entirely from a meal if she desired.

That, of course, made all the difference.

"You are punctual," said the d.u.c.h.essa laughing.

"I know. But it wouldn't in the least matter if I were not. You could go on without me. You couldn't very well go on if Dale had forgotten to lay the table, or if Morris had felt disinclined to cook the food."

"No," agreed the d.u.c.h.essa. And then, after a moment, she said, "Anyhow there are some things we have to do to time--Ma.s.s on Sundays and days of obligation, for instance."

Miss Tibb.u.t.t nodded. "Oh, of course. But that's generally only once a week. Besides that's different. It's a big voice that tells one to do that--the voice of the Church. The other is a little human voice giving the orders. I know, in a sense, one ought to hear the big voice behind it all; but sometimes one would forget to listen for it. At least, I know I should. And then I should simply hate the routine, and doing things--little ordinary everyday things--to time. I'd just love to say, if I were cook, that there shouldn't be any meals to-day, or that they should be an hour later, or an hour earlier, to suit my fancy."

The d.u.c.h.essa laughed again.

"My dear Tibby, it's quite obvious that your vocation is not to the religious life. Fancy you in a convent! I can imagine you suggesting to the Reverend Mother that a change in the time of saying divine office would be desirable, or at all events that it should be varied on alternate days; and I can see you going off for long and rampageous days in the country, just for a change."

Miss Tibb.u.t.t shook her head.

"Oh, no!" she said gravely. "I should hear the big voice there."

"You'd hear it speak through quite a number of human voices, anyhow,"

returned the d.u.c.h.essa.

There was a silence. She wondered what odd coincidence had led Tibby to such a subject. If it were not a coincidence, it must be a kind of thought transference. Almost unconsciously she had been seeing a tall, thin, brown-faced man marching off in the early morning hours to his work in a garden. She had seen him busy with hoe and spade, till the bell over the stables at the Hall announced the dinner hour. She had seen him again take up his implements at the summons of the same bell, working through the suns.h.i.+ne or the rain, as the case might be, till its final evening dismissal. Above all, she had seen him taking his orders from Golding, a well-meaning man truly, and an exceedingly capable gardener, but--well, she pictured Antony as she had seen him in evening dress on the _Fort Salisbury_, as she had seen him throwing coppers to the brown-faced girl outside the Cathedral at Teneriffe, as she had seen him sitting in the little courtyard with the orange trees in green tubs, and the idea of his receiving and taking orders from Golding seemed to her quite extraordinarily incongruous.

Yet until Miss Tibb.u.t.t had introduced the subject, she had been more or less unaware of these mental pictures.

"Besides," she remarked suddenly, and quite obviously in continuation of her last remark, "it entirely depends on what you have been brought up to, I mean, of course as regards the question of being a servant. The question of a religious is entirely different."

"Oh, entirely," agreed Miss Tibb.u.t.t promptly. "You can always get another place as a servant if you happen to dislike the one you are in."

"Yes," said the d.u.c.h.essa, slowly and thoughtfully.

A sudden little anxious pang had all at once stabbed her somewhere near the region of the heart. Would that be the effect of that afternoon's meeting? Most a.s.suredly she hoped it would not be, and equally a.s.suredly she had no idea she was hoping it; verily, her feeling towards Antony was one of mingled anger, indignation, and mortified pride.

Once more there was a silence,--a silence in which Miss Tibb.u.t.t sat stirring her coffee, and looking towards the reflection of the sunset sky seen through the branches of the trees opposite. Suddenly she spoke, dismayed apology in her voice.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry, I quite forgot. A letter came for you this afternoon. I put it down on the little round table in the drawing-room window, meaning to give it to you when you came in. But you went straight to your room, and so I forgot it. I will get it at once."

"Nonsense," said the d.u.c.h.essa lightly, "I will get it. I don't suppose for an instant that it is important."

She got up and went across the lawn. In a minute or two she returned, an open letter in her hand.

"It's from Trix," she announced as she sat down again, "She wants to know if she can come down here at the beginning of August."

Miss Tibb.u.t.t literally beamed.

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "Trix has never stayed with you here.

You will like having her."

"Dear Trix," said the d.u.c.h.essa.

"I do so enjoy Trix," remarked Miss Tibb.u.t.t fervently.

"So do most people," smiled the d.u.c.h.essa.

CHAPTER XVIII

A DREAM AND OTHER THINGS

It is perfectly amazing to what a degree the physical conditions of the atmosphere appear to be bound up with one's own mental atmosphere. In the more ordinary nature of things, the physical conditions will act on the mental, sending your mind up to the point marked gaiety when the sun s.h.i.+nes, dropping it down to despair--or, at any rate, down to dulness--when the skies are leaden. Also, in more extreme cases, the mental conditions will act on the physical, if not actually, at least with so good a show of reality as to appear genuine. If you are thoroughly unhappy--no mere, light, pa.s.sing depression, mind you--it matters not at all how brilliant the suns.h.i.+ne may be, it is nothing but grey fog for all you see of it. If, on the other hand, you are in the seventh heaven of joy, the grey clouds are suffused with a golden light of radiance. But these are extreme cases.

It was an extreme case with Antony. Despite the suns.h.i.+ne which lay upon the earth, despite the singing of the birds in the early morning, and at evening, despite the flowers which displayed their colours and lavished their scents around him as he worked, the world might have been bathed in fog for all he saw of its brightness. Hope had taken unto herself wings and fled from him, and with her joy had departed.