"Oh, Tibby, you angel, that's so like you. You always want to shoulder the blame for every speck of wrong-doing or depression that appears in your little universe. Women like you always do. It's an odd sort of responsible unselfishness. That doesn't in the very least express to any one else what I mean, but it does to myself. You never allow that any one else has any responsibility when things go wrong, and you never take the smallest share of the responsibility--or the praise, rather--when things go right."

Miss Tibb.u.t.t laughed. In spite of her queer earnestness over what seemed--at all events to others--very little things, and her quite extraordinary conscientiousness--some people indeed might have called it scrupulosity--she had really a keen sense of humour. She was always ready to laugh at her own earnestness as soon as she perceived it. She was not, however, always ready to abandon it, unless it were quite, quite obvious that she had really better do so. And then she did it with a quick mental shake, and put an odd little mocking humour in its place.

"But, my dear, one generally is responsible, and that just because my universe is so small, as you justly pointed out. But I always believe literally what any one says. I don't in the least mean that Pia said what was not true. Of course she thought she had swept away the cobweb and the bubble, and I've no doubt she did. But it left a gap, as you said. I ought to have seen the gap and tried to fill it."

Trix shook her head.

"You couldn't, Tibby, if the bubble were the colour I fancy. Only the bubble itself, consolidated, could do that."

"Oh, my dear, you mean--?" said Miss Tibb.u.t.t.

"Just that," nodded Trix. "It was bound to happen some time. Pia is made to give and receive love. She was too young when she married to know what it really meant. And, well, think of those years of her married life."

"I thought of them for seven years," said Miss Tibb.u.t.t quietly. "You don't think I've forgotten them now?"

Trix's eyes filled with quick tears.

"Of course you haven't. I didn't mean that. What I do mean is that I suppose she thought she had got the real thing then, and all the young happiness in it was destroyed in a moment. Then came those seven terrible years. For an older woman perhaps there would have been a self-sacrificing joy in them; for Pia, there was just the brave facing of an obvious duty. She was splendid, of course she was splendid, but no one could call it joy. Now, somehow, she's had a glimpse of what real joy might be. And it has vanished again. I don't know how I know, but it's true. I feel it in my bones."

Again there was a silence. Then:

"What can we do?" asked Miss Tibb.u.t.t simply.

Trix laughed, though her eyes were grave. "You, angel, can pray. Of course I shall, too. But I'm going to do quite a lot of thinking, and keeping my eyes open as well. And now I am going right round this perfectly heavenly garden once more, and then, I suppose, it will be time to dress for dinner."

Swinging herself off the table, she departed waving her hand to Miss Tibb.u.t.t before she turned a corner by a yew hedge.

"Dear Trix," murmured Miss Tibb.u.t.t.

CHAPTER XX

MOONLIGHT AND THEORIES

The little party of two men and two women were a.s.sembled in the drawing-room. Trix had not yet put in an appearance. But, then, the dinner gong had not sounded. Trix invariably saved her reputation for punctuality by appearing on the last stroke.

Miss Tibb.u.t.t and Father Dormer were sitting on the sofa; Pia was in an armchair near the open window, and Doctor Hilary was standing on the hearthrug. His dress clothes seemed to increase his size, and he did not look perfectly at home in them; or, perhaps, it was merely the fact that he was so seldom seen in them. Doctor Hilary in a shabby overcoat or loose tweeds, was the usual sight.

Father Dormer was a tallish thin man, with very aquiline features, and dark hair going grey on his temples. At the moment he and Miss Tibb.u.t.t were deep in a discussion on rose growing, a favourite hobby of his.

Deeply engrossed, they were weighing the advantages of the scent of the more old-fashioned kinds, against the shape and colour of the newer varieties, with the solemnity of two judges.

"They're pretty equally balanced in my garden," said Father Dormer. "I can't do without the old-fashioned ones, despite the beauty of the newer sorts. I've two bushes of the red and white--the York and Lancaster rose.

I was a Lancashire lad, you know."

And then the first soft notes of the gong sounded from the hall, rising to a full boom beneath the footman's accomplished stroke.

There was a sound of running steps descending the stairs, and a final jump.

"Keep it going, Dale," said a voice without. And then Trix entered the room, slightly flushed by her rapid descent of the stairs, but with an a.s.sumption of leisurely dignity.

"I'm not late," she announced with great innocence. "The gong hasn't stopped."

Doctor Hilary, who was facing the door, looked at her. He saw a small, elf-like girl in a very shimmery green frock. The green enhanced her elf-like appearance.

"Deceiver," laughed Pia. "We heard you quite, quite distinctly."

Obviously caught, Trix echoed the laugh.

"Well, anyhow I'd have been in before the echo stopped," she announced.

They went informally into the dining-room, where the light of shaded wax candles on the table mingled with the departing daylight, for the curtains were still undrawn.

"I like this kind of light," remarked Trix, as she seated herself.

Trix almost always thought aloud. It meant that conversation in her presence seldom flagged, since her brain was rarely idle; though she could be really marvellously silent when she perceived that silence was desirable.

"Do you know this garden?" she said, addressing herself to Doctor Hilary, by whom she was seated.

He a.s.sented.

"Well, isn't it lovely? That's what made me nearly late,--going round it again. I've been round five times since yesterday. It's just heavenly after London. Roses _versus_ petrol, you know." She wrinkled up her nose as she spoke.

"You ought to see the gardens of Chorley Old Hall, Miss Devereux," said Father Dormer. "Not that I mean any invidious comparison between them and this garden," he added, with a little smile towards the d.u.c.h.essa.

"Chorley Old Hall," remarked Trix. "I used to go there when I was a tiny child. There was a man lived there, who used to terrify me out of my wits, his eyes were so black. But I liked him, when I got over my first fright. What has become of him?"

"He died a short time ago," said the d.u.c.h.essa quietly. "Oh," said Trix regretfully. Possibly she had contemplated a renewal of the acquaintanceship.

"He'd been an invalid for a long time," explained the d.u.c.h.essa. She was a little, just a trifle anxious as to whether the conversation might not prove embarra.s.sing for Doctor Hilary. There was a feeling in the village that the journey, which Doctor Hilary had permitted--some, indeed, said advocated--had been entirely responsible for the death.

But Doctor Hilary was eating his dinner, apparently utterly and completely at his ease.

"Anyhow the gardens aren't being neglected," said Father Dormer. "They've got a new under-gardener there who is proving rather a marvel in his line. In fact Golding confesses that he'll have to look out for his own laurels. He's a nice looking fellow, this new man, and a cut above the ordinary type, I should say. I used to see him in church after Ma.s.s on Sundays at one time. But he has given up coming lately."

"Really," said the d.u.c.h.essa.

Trix looked up quickly, surprised at the intonation of her voice.

"Oh, he isn't a Catholic," smiled Father Dormer. "Perhaps curiosity brought him in the beginning, and now it has worn off."

Trix was still looking at the d.u.c.h.essa. She couldn't make out the odd intonation of her voice. It had been indifferent enough to be almost rude. But, if it were intended for a snub, Father Dormer had evidently not taken it as such. Yet there was a little pause on the conclusion of his remark, almost as if Doctor Hilary and Miss Tibb.u.t.t had had the same idea as herself. At least, that was what Trix felt the little pause to mean. And then she was suddenly annoyed with herself for having felt it.

Of course it was quite absurd.

She looked down at her plate of clear soup. It had letters of a white edible substance floating in it.

"I've got an A and two S's in my soup," she remarked pathetically. "I don't think it is quite tactful of the cook."