Plashers Mead Part 10

"You've been talking about me to Pauline," said Margaret, angrily.

"Never," he declared. "But you don't suppose you can have all these mysterious allusions to Richard without my guessing that his father is Vicar of Fairfield. Dear Margaret, forgive me for guessing and tell me what you were going to tell."

"Have you heard I was engaged to Richard Ford?" she asked.

"I heard he was in love with you."

"Oh, he is, he is," she murmured, and Guy, thinking of Richard in India, wondered if he ever dreamed of Margaret walking like this in a snowy England. The clock in Fairfield church struck eleven with an icy tinkle that on the muted air sounded very thinly. "But the problem for me,"

Margaret went on, "is whether I'm in love with him, or if Richard is merely the nicest person who has been in love with me so far."

"Well, if you'd asked me that three months ago," Guy said, "I would have answered decidedly that you weren't in love with him if you had one doubt. But now ... well, you know really now I'm rather in the state of mind that wants everybody to be in love. And why do you think you're not in love with him?"

"I haven't really explained well," said Margaret. "What I'm sure of is that I'm not as much in love with him as I want to be in love."

"You're living opposite a looking-gla.s.s," said Guy. "That's what is the matter."

They had reached the stile leading over into the highroad, and Margaret gazed back wistfully at the footprints in the snow, before they crossed it and went on their way.

"Yes," she said. "I am conceited. But my conceit is really cowardice. I long for admiration, and when I am admired I despise it. I lie in bed thinking how well I play the 'cello, and when I have the instrument by me I don't believe I can play even moderately well. I am really fond of him, but the moment I think that anybody else is thinking about my being fond of him I almost hate his name. I can't bear the idea of going to live in India, and I detest bridges--you know he builds bridges--and yet I couldn't possibly write to him and say that he must think no more about me. I'm really a mixture of Monica and Pauline, and so I'm not as happy as either of them."

"Yes, I suppose Pauline is very happy," said Guy in a depressed voice.

"What am I to do?" Margaret asked.

"I'm sure you're much more in love than you think," he declared, quickly, for he had the ghost of a temptation to tell her she was foolish to think any more of a love so uncertain as hers. There was enough jealousy of his standing at the Rectory to give him the impulse to rob Richard of his foothold, but the meanness destroyed itself on this virginal morning almost before Guy realized it had tried to exist.

"Yes, I'm sure you're really in love," he repeated. "I think I can understand what you feel."

"Do you?" said Margaret, shaking her head a little sadly. "I'm afraid it's only a very willing sympathy on your part, for I'm sure I don't understand myself. That's why I'm conceited, perhaps. I'm trying to build up a Margaret Grey for other people to look at, which I admire like any pretty thing one makes oneself, and perhaps why I can't fall really in love is because I'm afraid of some one's understanding me and showing me to myself."

"You'd have to be very clever to disappoint that person," said Guy. "And why shouldn't Richard Ford be the one?"

"Oh, he'll never discover me," said Margaret. "That's what's so dull."

"Aren't you a little unreasonable?" Guy asked.

"Of course I am. Now don't let's talk about me any more; I'm really not worth discussing--only just because my family is so exquisite and because I adore them, I never talk about Richard to them. Here's the old woman's cottage. I sha'n't be more than a few minutes."

Guy felt honored by Margaret's confidence, but his heart was so full of Pauline that he transferred all the substance of what she had been saying to suit his own case. Would Pauline never know if she were in love? Would he be doomed to the position of Richard? Or worse, would Pauline fly from his love in terror of anything so disturbing to the perfection of her life at present? On the whole he was inclined to think that this was exactly what she would do; and he felt he would never have the courage to startle her with the question. When he thought of the girls to whom in the past of long vacations he had made protestations of devotion that were light as the thistle-down in the summery meadows where they were uttered, it was incredible that the asking of Pauline should speed his heart like this. With other girls he had always imagined them slightly in love with him, but for Pauline to be in love with him seemed hopeless, though he qualified his humility by a.s.suring himself that she could be in love with n.o.body. Did Margaret really have a suspicion that he was in love with Pauline? If she had, why had she not drawn his confidence before she gave her own? She came out from the cottage as he propounded this, and he told her, when their faces were set towards Wychford and a chilly wind that was rising, how he had been thinking about her confidence all the while she was in the cottage.

Moreover, he was under the impression this was the truth.

"But don't think about me any more," she commanded.

"Never?"

"Not until I speak first. Isn't it cold? You must have been frozen waiting for me."

They hurried along, talking mostly, though how the topic arose Guy never knew, about whether _Alice in Wonderland_ were better than _Alice Through the Looking-gla.s.s_ or not. The quotations that went to sustain the argument were so many that they arrived back very quickly, it seemed, at the stile leading into the snowy field.

"Will you go home the same way?" Guy suggested. "Look, n.o.body has spoiled our tracks. They're jollier than ever, and do you see those rooks farther down the field? It will snow again this afternoon and our footprints will vanish."

By the time they reached the Abbey wood Guy had made up his mind that as they walked up through the shrubbery, unless people were listening there, he would tell Margaret how deeply he was in love with Pauline.

The resolution taken, his throat seemed to close up with nervousness, and, vaulting over the fence, he tripped and fell in a snow-drift.

"Why this violent activity all of a sudden?" Margaret asked.

He laughed gloomily and vowed it was the exhilarating weather. Up the broad walk they went slowly, and every yard was bringing them dreadfully nearer to Wychford High Street and the profanation of this snowy silence. Abruptly a robin began to sing from a bough almost overhead; and Guy, realizing half-unconsciously that unless he told Margaret now, his words would die upon that robin's rathe melody, said:

"Margaret, you'll probably be angry, but I must tell you that I'm in love with your sister."

He drove his stick deep into the snow to give his eyes the excuse of looking down.

"With Pauline?" she said, softly.

He congratulated himself upon the cunning with which he had at least thrown something on Margaret of the responsibility, as he almost called it. Had she said Monica it would have killed his hope at once.

"Of course I know it must sound ridiculous, but...."

"Is she in love with me?" asked Margaret, with tender mockery. "Well, I think she may be. Perhaps I'm almost sure she is."

"Margaret," said Guy, seizing her hand. "I hope you'll be the happiest person in the world always. You know, don't you, that I'm dying for you to be happy?"

There may have been tears in her eyes as she responded with faintest pressure of her hand to his affection.

"And you won't forget all about me and take no more interest in what will seem my maddening indecision, when you and Pauline are happy?"

"My dear, as if I could!" he exclaimed.

"Lovers can forget very easily," said Margaret. "You see I've thought such a lot about being in love that I've got every one else's conduct clearly mapped out in my mind."

Guy stopped dead; and, as he stopped, the robin now far behind them ceased his song, and even the flute of the wind sounding on distant hollows and horizons cracked in the frost so that the stillness was sharp as ice itself.

"Margaret, what makes you think Pauline cares for me? How dare I be so fortunate?"

"Because you know you are fortunate," said Margaret, nor could falling snow have touched his arm more lightly than she. "Why do you suppose I told you about Richard if it was not because I thought you appreciated Pauline?"

"Ah, how I shall always love the snow," Guy exclaimed, grinding the slippery ball upon his heel to powder.

"But now I've got a disappointment for you," said Margaret. "Pauline and Monica are going into Oxford to-day for a week."

"You won't tell anybody what I've told you?" he begged.

"Of course not. Secrets are much too fascinating not to be kept as long as possible."

He opened the wicket, and presently they parted in the High Street.

"I shall come in this afternoon," he called after her. "Unless you're bored with me."

She invited him with her m.u.f.f, and seemed to float out of sight.