第53章 CHAPTER XX HOLM OAKS(3)

"Poor Bunyan! he lost his wife six months ago, and was quite cheerful just at first, but now he 's really too distressin'. I 've done all I can to rouse him; it's so melancholy to see him mopin'. And, my dear Dick, the way he mangles the new rose-trees! I'm afraid he's goin' mad; I shall have to send him away; poor fellow!"It was clear that she sympathised with Bunyan, or, rather, believed him entitled to a modicum of wholesome grief, the loss of wives being a canonised and legal, sorrow. But excesses! O dear, no!

"I 've told him I shall raise his wages," she sighed. "He used to be such a splendid gardener! That reminds me, my dear Dick; I want to have a talk with you. Shall we go in to lunch?"Consulting the memorandum-book in which she had been noting the case of Mrs. Hopkins, she slightly preceded Shelton to the house.

It was somewhat late that afternoon when Shelton had his "wigging";nor did it seem to him, hypnotised by the momentary absence of Antonia, such a very serious affair.

"Now, Dick," the Honourable Mrs. Dennant said, in her decisive drawl, "I don't think it 's right to put ideas into Antonia's head.""Ideas!" murmured Shelton in confusion.

"We all know," continued Mrs. Dennant, "that things are not always what they ought to be."Shelton looked at her; she was seated at her writing-table, addressing in her large, free writing a dinner invitation to a bishop. There was not the faintest trace of awkwardness about her, yet Shelton could not help a certain sense of shock. If she--she--did not think things were what they ought to be--in a bad way things must be indeed!

"Things!" he muttered.

Mrs. Dennant looked at him firmly but kindly with the eyes that would remind him of a hare's.

"She showed me some of your letters, you know. Well, it 's not a bit of use denyin', my dear Dick, that you've been thinkin' too much lately."Shelton perceived that he had done her an injustice; she handled "things" as she handled under-gardeners--put them away when they showed signs of running to extremes.

"I can't help that, I 'm afraid," he answered.

"My dear boy! you'll never get on that way. Now, I want you to promise me you won't talk to Antonia about those sort of things."Shelton raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, you know what I mean!"

He saw that to press Mrs. Dennant to say what she meant by "things"would really hurt her sense of form; it would be cruel to force her thus below the surface!

He therefore said, "Quite so!"

To his extreme surprise, flushing the peculiar arid pathetic flush of women past their prime, she drawled out:

"About the poor--and criminals--and marriages--there was that wedding, don't you know?"Shelton bowed his head. Motherhood had been too strong for her; in her maternal flutter she had committed the solecism of touching in so many words on "things.""Does n't she really see the fun," he thought, "in one man dining out of gold and another dining in the gutter; or in two married people living on together in perfect discord 'pour encourages les autres', or in worshipping Jesus Christ and claiming all her rights at the same time; or in despising foreigners because they are foreigners; or in war; or in anything that is funny?" But he did her a certain amount of justice by recognising that this was natural, since her whole life had been passed in trying not to see the fun in all these things.

But Antonia stood smiling in the doorway. Brilliant and gay she looked, yet resentful, as if she knew they had been talking of her.

She sat down by Shelton's side, and began asking him about the youthful foreigner whom he had spoken of; and her eyes made him doubt whether she, too, saw the fun that lay in one human being patronising others.

"But I suppose he's really good," she said, "I mean, all those things he told you about were only---""Good!" he answered, fidgeting; "I don't really know what the word means."Her eyes clouded. "Dick, how can you?" they seemed to say.

Shelton stroked her sleeve.

"Tell us about Mr. Crocker," she said, taking no heed of his caress.

"The lunatic!" he said.

"Lunatic! Why, in your letters he was splendid.""So he is," said Shelton, half ashamed; " he's not a bit mad, really --that is, I only wish I were half as mad.""Who's that mad?" queried Mrs. Dennant from behind the urn--"Tom Crocker? Ah, yes! I knew his mother; she was a Springer.""Did he do it in the week?" said Thea, appearing in the window with a kitten.

"I don't know," Shelton was obliged to answer.

Thea shook back her hair.

"I call it awfully slack of you not to have found out," she said.

Antonia frowned.

"You were very sweet to that young foreigner, Dick," she murmured with a smile at Shelton. "I wish that we could see him."But Shelton shook his head.

"It seems to me," he muttered, "that I did about as little for him as I could."Again her face grew thoughtful, as though his words had chilled her.

"I don't see what more you could have done," she answered.

A desire to get close to her, half fear, half ache, a sense of futility and bafflement, an inner burning, made him feel as though a flame were licking at his heart.