The Soldier and the Gentlewoman Read online

  “In a moment,” Frances replied. She was on her knees beside the bookshelf, turning over the leaves of an old picture book.

  “Don’t forget your cigarette,” Gwenllian said. It was smouldering on the edge of the table. It might start a blaze not easy to put out.

  Chapter VII

  HE ACCEPTS HER DECISION

  Throughout the summer Dick spent many instructive hours in Gwenllian’s company and was grateful to her for teaching him a landowner’s craft. Their relationship was easy and unruffled. In a motherly way she showed affection for him, and it did not seem to him at all strange that she should stay all these months at the Vicarage and have reason to visit Plâs Einon every day. She was a well-informed, sensible woman, and he was always glad to see her.

  It was Lewis Vaughan, the noisy tenant of Llanddwy Hall, who disturbed his peace of mind.

  “She’s set her cap at you,” Vaughan assured him.

  “Rot—at her time of life!”

  “She’s only forty. A dangerous age. You’d better look out.”

  “Oh, you go to hell,” Dick replied. He enjoyed using such familiar speech to other country gentlemen. But few were as friendly as Vaughan, whom Gwenllian considered a bounder. “I ought to know my own cousin. She’s harmless enough. Fond of the old place, that’s all.”

  “And of its new owner, so they were saying at the County Club yesterday.”

  Dick made a gesture of impatience but he was secretly flattered. “We get on pretty well,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. And why shouldn’t we? We’re interested in the same things and we’re first cousins.”

  “You’ll look more like aunt and nephew, if she catches you.”

  “D’you think I’m such a fool as to be caught?” Dick raised his voice because his confidence was a little shaken. “I shall marry a peach, I can tell you, when I’ve had time to look round.”

  He put away drink that night. Vaughan’s cellar was well stocked and there were no ladies present. Next morning, when he awoke with a headache, he was ashamed of having boasted of his experience of women more freely than would have been possible if he had been sober… Poor old Gwen! He ought not to have discussed her with that cad. She was quite right to despise the fellow; he wasn’t of the same class as the Einon-Thomases. He didn’t even own the house he lived in, and his people had made their money in trade. Gwen’s my own flesh and blood, said Dick to himself. I won’t have it said that she’s husband-hunting.

  But it’s true, he reflected, that she has taken to dressing better since she went into half-mourning, and he remembered, almost with alarm, that he had lately begun to admire her hair. Had it always been waved? Surely not. Why, then… That simpering goose, the vicar’s wife, must think there was something between them, for whenever he visited the Vicarage she would leave them alone together. But Mrs. Evans was a busybody; and as for the County Club—well, the Army had been bad enough, but, for malicious gossip, a quiet country district was hard to beat! He’d pay no attention to any of ’em. Still, what Vaughan had said wasn’t pleasant. Perhaps for Gwenllian’s sake, he had better clear out for a bit. So he went to London, and did not reply to her letters.

  For a week after his return, he avoided meeting her. Staring at her pretty grey hat in church on Sunday morning, he wondered whether he had been unkind. She might not understand that he was protecting her from gossip. A new hat? he thought during the Creed. It was the smartest he had ever seen her wear. Poor Gwen, how she’d hate leaving the neighbourhood! Her becoming hat and the handsome, decisive profile beneath it consoled him for a dull sermon. He’d miss her when she was gone. After the service, he found her in the graveyard. “Hullo, Gwen!”

  “Hullo, Dick. You’ve been a long time in ‘ foreign parts.’ Weeks and weeks.”

  “Oh, I say. It was only two.”

  She did not say that it had seemed longer to her, but he had little doubt of what was in her mind. She had missed him, and it was years since anyone had missed him. Her unanswered letters smote his conscience.

  “And why haven’t you called on poor Mrs. Parson Evans and me, and given us your news of London?”

  He grinned. “I never thought there were two ladies in the world who took so much interest in my doings.”

  “You knew there was one,” she said so that he did not know whether she was still teasing him or in earnest; and when the doctor’s wife came up with a gush of enquiry for his adventures, though he was glad that her coming relieved him of embarrassment, he was annoyed with her for having inter- rupted Gwenllian.

  “I haven’t been to London for seven years,” Mrs. Roberts cooed complacently. “They poison you in the hotels and restaurants. I do like to know what I’m eating, don’t you? Weren’t you glad to escape from the horrid place alive?”

  “Can’t say I was,” Dick answered. “I wish I could have stayed for a few more shows.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said looking very knowing and holding her head on one side. “We’re sure he couldn’t bear to stay away any longer from the charming society he enjoys down here, aren’t we, Gwenllian?”

  Silly ass! Dick thought. Here was yet another of them on the same track! And when she had trotted away, pleased to have caused embarrassment of the kind that was supposed to forward match making, he was left cross and ill at ease.

  “Dick,” Gwenllian said simply, “you know I’m leaving this week?”

  “No! So soon? That’s too bad.”

  “It won’t be any easier two months hence—or two years,” she answered. “I’m determined at last to get it over, and not to trade on your kindness by hanging about the place like a ghost any longer.” He made deprecating noises. “No,” she insisted, “you’ve been a brick.” He liked her best when she talked like this, with a frank affection that seemed to ask no return. But her next remark was disconcerting. “I’d like, though, to spend the afternoon taking a last look round with you.”

  “Today?” he asked.

  “If you don’t mind. I mayn’t have the heart as the time for going draws nearer.”

  “But I’m afraid I’ve got the Williamses—the old lady and those two pretty daughters from the place with the unpronounceable name—coming to tea. Lewis Vaughan threatened to drop in too. He’s keen on the younger one, Megan.”

  “Is he?” asked Gwenllian, her dark brows raised ironically. “I heard that you were.”

  “Oh, rot! Who told you?”

  “Never mind. I heard all about your playing tennis with her and no-one else at Lady Llangattoc’s.”

  “She’s a good player.”

  “Was that why you took her into the kitchen garden to gather gooseberries after tea?”

  Dick was flattered by any woman’s jealousy, even though he supposed it to be no more than half serious. “Sorry the lovely Megan’s being there this afternoon will spoil the party for you,” he grinned.

  “I don’t want a party at all,” Gwenllian said gravely. “Don’t you understand? I want to say good-bye.”

  His mood of complacency was dashed. “I understand,” he murmured. “I say, I’m awfully sorry, my dear.”

  For a minute or two they were silent, nodding to the villagers who passed the churchyard on their way home from the chapels. Then she asked, “May I walk back with you now to lunch, and leave before your guests come?”

  “Of course you may,” Dick had to answer.

  As they walked together towards Plâs Einon, he admired the courage with which she recounted anecdotes it must have hurt her to recall.

  “I remember so well the first time I played hostess at a shooting party,” she said. “Mother was ill. She was a great invalid, you know, but Father wouldn’t have the guests put off. And it was to be a married couples’ party—lots of formidable wives. I was only just sixteen. I put up my hair for the occasion, and was terrified of its falling down and giving me away. Of course they all knew that I wasn’t out, but they played up with great gravity, and so did I. I wore a gown of Mother’s
—lavender moiré with black velvet bows at intervals down the front. There was a vast difference between a school- girl’s dress and a grown-up lady’s in those days. What trouble I had with the train! And I hung myself, like a Christmas tree, with all the family amethysts.” She had made Dick laugh, and his suspicions were lulled. “I sat up half the night before, getting people’s relations off by heart in Burke, in case I should make a mistake in precedence, and I nearly drove the poor old cook out of her wits with last minute improvements of the menu. The servants tried to treat me as a joke, but I put that down with a firmness which has stood me in good stead ever since. Can’t one take oneself seriously at sixteen?” Dick had a vision of himself at that age, very secretly and ineffectually, trying to grow the first blond hairs of his moustache. He used still to be caned at a time of life when she was learning to be a hostess.

  “How did your tamasha go off?” he enquired.

  “So well that father gave me a whole half-sovereign—a golden half-sovereign! It was riches to me, I can tell you. I had only twenty-four pounds a year to dress on even after I came out.”

  “Good Lord! I thought girls in your position spent that on a single frock.”

  “Not when they have two brothers at Eton and a mortgaged estate.”

  “But there’s no mortgage on it now.”

  “No.”

  He bit his lip, realising, as never before, how much she had sacrificed for the home from which he, a stranger, had turned her out.

  “You might let me come back to sit at the head of the table once in a way,” she said giving him a wistful look, “if you give any but stag parties in the shooting season. I’d come from wherever I was.” He promised to send for her, and together they turned in through the drive gates under a golden shower of falling beech leaves. Dick was reminded with half humorous misgiving of the flowers that used to be strewn before a bride and bridegroom; and like a small boy he shuffled through the dead leaves, kicking them aside. The lodge-keeper, seeing his former mistress pass, darted out after her, crying, “Well indeed, Miss Gwennie, ’tis good to catch a sight o’ your dear face again! We’ve all o’ us old ’uns been moping here the last few days, like a lot o’ poor sheep with the rot and no shepherd. Wherever was you gone, Miss?”

  “I was only shut up in the Vicarage, Isaac, hardening my heart to go.”

  “Oh duwch!” he wailed, raising gnarled hands to heaven. And there he stood disregarding his new master, throwing his arms about like a thorn tree in a gale. “Oh, goodness gracious!” And he broke into a lament in his own tongue. Gwenllian could speak Welsh as fluently as he. Her voice became more resonant and flexible when she spoke the language of her race. Dick had often been amused to hear her in dramatic conversation with the people.

  Now as he listened to the dirge to which she was supplying mournful responses, he grew ashamed of being present. “I damned well ought to marry her,” he told himself, “or give her back this place. She’s a right to it—almost.” He tried to put the idea from him, but throughout luncheon it persisted, making him uneasy.

  The meal was not a good one. When Powell, the parlourmaid, was handing a burnt sago pudding, she murmured in Gwenllian’s ear, “Cook’s terrible upset, Miss, she didn’t have warning you were expected. She’d have had something more suitable, if she’d known.”

  “Tell her I expect her to do as well for her new master as she did for me,” Gwenllian answered.

  Powell flushed, and Dick scowled at his plate. He wished that he knew, as Gwen did, just how to be friendly with servants when it was expedient, and how to put them again in their place.

  When he and she were in the drawing-room, drinking coffee out of the fluted Worcester cups, she remarked, “You’ve changed the blend.”

  “Not my orders,” he grumbled. “The coffee’s been rotten lately. I don’t know why.”

  She sipped, wrinkling her nose. “They’ve palmed off some cheap ready-ground blend on you.”

  “D’you think that’s it?”

  She gave him a pitying smile. “I’m sure of it… I always think it takes a lady to arrange flowers,” she added.

  He looked sheepishly at the dahlias, crushed into vases by a servant’s hands. “Perhaps I ought to try and do ’em myself now,” he said.

  “But you’re far too busy with the estate,” she answered. “You will have to employ a responsible woman to relieve you of all household cares. By the way, I hear you’re losing Annie?”

  “Yes,” he said, frowning. And the thought crossed his mind that a fellow need not regard himself as specially quixotic who married a good housekeeper, even though she were a few years older than himself. A good housekeeper was needed as mistress of such an old-fashioned place as Plâs Einon, he thought, and he wondered whether a young girl like Megan Williams would ever be able to cope with it. The lamps had smelt and smoked abominably since he had come to live here. When he rang for a fire in his study on cold evenings, the logs were damp and would not kindle. Powell was for ever coming to tell him that cook had forgotten to order this or that. Neither the grocer’s nor the butcher’s cart would be calling again for three days: would he please send the car seven miles into Llanon for five mutton chops or an ounce of pepper?

  “Annie’s gone to pieces since you left,” he told Gwenllian. “I used to think her a rattling good cook.”

  “So she is, with judicious management.”

  “That’s all very fine,” he growled. “But when I tried to ginger her up, she burst into tears and gave notice.”

  Gwenllian smiled. “You need firm but very light hands with these spirited Welsh cobs.”

  “You seemed able to master ’em all right,” he sighed. “They bolt with me, whether I try the curb or the snaffle.”

  “Would you like me to make Annie stay?”

  “Indeed I would—if it’s on to do. It mayn’t be easy to find another cook who’ll stay in the depths of the country in a stone-flagged kitchen as big as a barn.”

  “Very well,” and she went towards the door with that quiet decision of movement which he most admired in her.

  While she was gone, he smoked cigarette after cigarette in nervous haste, thinking of her, now with gratitude, now with envy of her ability, now with pity, because she was poor and homeless, and sometimes with mistrust. He would look a fool if he were to marry her after his boasts to Lewis Vaughan. Yet she was handsome; she was fond of him; she’d make the place comfortable.

  When she returned, there was a becoming flush on her cheeks. Her large dark eyes were bright and soft. Dick stared at her in admiration. How her looks varied, and, with them, his feelings towards her!

  “Annie’s staying,” she exclaimed, “and she’s promised to turn over a new leaf.”

  “I say, you’re a wonder! How on earth did you do it?”

  “Oh,” Gwenllian said, “I scolded her in Welsh and made her cry. And then, at the sight of the old kitchen with its copper and brass skillets arranged as it was when I was a child, I’m afraid I cried a bit too.” She gave a husky little laugh. “Powell joined in, and the housemaids, and the kitchen-maid— like the chorus in The Trojan Women. Altogether we gave a most affecting performance.”

  She was trying to speak lightly, but he could see that she was deeply moved. His sense of obligation towards her increased. Too agitated to sit down, she went over to the French windows and stood looking out upon the lawns.

  “Don’t let them get mossy, Dick,” she entreated. “I managed to fight moss and plantains even during the war, when one felt it wasn’t right to put men on a job like that. The true patriots about here ploughed up their tennis courts to grow potatoes; but I stuck at that. I did everything else we were supposed to do, but I wasn’t going to have the beauty of Plâs Einon spoiled. Oh, and Dick,” she said, after a pause, turning to look at him with eyes still brightened by emotion, “you know that picture of father you offered to give me? I told you I’d think it over. I’m sure now I’d rather it stayed where it belongs.” The dra
wing-room faced west. At this hour of day it was radiant with October sunshine filtering in through the golden leaves of the beech trees. Close to the windows were beds of chrysanthemums, amber and orange and rich russet-red. A reflection of their colour, like warm kind firelight cast a glow on Gwenllian’s face. She is lovely still, Dick thought. In that gentle grey dress, which he liked for reasons deeply buried in his childhood, she was more feminine, and more desirable by far than he had ever supposed her to be.

  “I—I wish you’d accept a few presents from me,” he stammered. “It’s awfully unselfish of you, and all that. But, don’t you see, it makes me feel pretty rotten?”

  “I can’t spoil Plâs Einon, Dick dear,” she interrupted him with quivering lips, “not even to please you. Don’t ask me to destroy my picture of it —the picture I shall carry with me always in my heart, wherever I go, whatever I may do—my Plâs Einon—with each detail precisely as it is to-day, as it was when father was still living.”

  She could say no more. With consternation, Dick saw her handsome face crumple into a grimace of misery. She hid it in her hands. Her fingers writhed; her shoulders were shaken with sobs.

  “Gwen,” he gasped, “Gwen, for God’s sake, don’t cry like that!” He had never been able to endure a woman’s tears, even when they were facile and their cause was mere pettishness. And Gwen was not weeping for nothing. She was brave and self-controlled. Her breaking down thus, melted him to pity because she was a woman; it shocked him also, as though she had been a man. He patted her on the back and made incoherent noises of sympathy and comfort. But she continued to sob, hard sobs that tore her whole body. At last he put his arm round her.

  “Gwen,” he implored, “do stop. Do, please, please stop, there’s a dear, good girl! I’ll do anything—anything—”

  Suddenly she twisted herself round and hid her wet, distorted face against his shoulder. She had to stoop a little. He held her close. She was warm and surprisingly soft; grief-stricken and a woman. His heart began to beat fast. He felt his neck burning as though he had sat too near a fire.