Trix sighed deeply. It was all terribly perplexing, and Tibby's letter was quite horribly pathetic. Anyhow she would go down to Woodleigh as soon as she possibly could.

She had been so entirely engrossed with her reflections, that she had quite forgotten the pa.s.sing of time. It was with a start of surprise, therefore, that she heard the door open. At the selfsame moment the clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of midnight. Trix got to her feet.

"My dearest," exclaimed Mrs. Arbuthnot, "not gone to bed yet! And all the beauty sleep before midnight, they tell us. Not that you need it except in the way of preservation, dearest. For I always did tell you, regardless of making you conceited which I do not think I do do, that I have admired you from the time you were in your cradle. Well, food is the next best thing to sleep, so come and have a sandwich and some sherry. I am famished, positively famished. And I ate an excellent dinner, I know; but Bridge is always hungry work. Bring the tray to the fire, dearest. I see James has put it all ready. And ham, which I adore. It may be indigestible, though I never believe it with things I like. Not merely because I like to think so, but because it is true. Nature knows best, as she knew when I was a child, and gave me a distaste for fat which always upset me, and a great appreciation for oranges which doctors are crying up tremendously nowadays."

Mrs. Arbuthnot sank down in an armchair, and threw back her cloak. Trix brought the tray to a small table near her.

"And how have you been amusing yourself, dearest? Not dull, I hope? But the fire and a book are always the best of companions I think, to say nothing of one's own thoughts, though some people do consider day-dreaming waste of time. So narrow-minded. They read novels which are only other people's day-dreams, and their own less expensive, as saving library subscriptions and the buying of books, besides a certain superiority in feeling they are your own. On the whole more satisfactory, too. Even though you know the end before you come to it, it can always be arranged as you like, and sad or happy to suit your mood. Though for my part it should always be happy. If you're happy you want it happy, and if you're not, you still want it to make you. If it weren't for the difficulty of dividing into chapters, I'd write my own day-dreams, and no doubt have a big sale. But publishers have an absurd prejudice in favour of chapters, and even headings, which means an average of thirty t.i.tles.

Quite brain-racking. A dear friend of mine who wrote, told me she always thought the t.i.tle the most difficult part of a book."

She helped herself to a gla.s.s of sherry and two sandwiches as she concluded her speech.

"And did you really have a pleasant evening?" said Trix, politely interrogative.

Mrs. Arbuthnot surveyed her sandwich reflectively.

"Well, dearest, on the whole, yes. But unfortunately Mrs. Townsend was there. An excellent Bridge player, and I am always pleased to see her myself, but some people are so odd in their manner towards her. Quite embarra.s.sing really, in fact awkward at times. Absurd, too, with so good a player. And though her father was a grocer it was in the wholesale line, which is different from the retail. Besides, she married well, and doesn't drop her aitches."

Trix's chin went up. "I hate cla.s.s distinctions being made so horribly obvious," said she with fine scorn.

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked thoughtful.

"Well, dearest, in Mrs. Townsend's case, perhaps. But not always. I remember a girl I knew married a farmer. Most foolish."

"But why, if he was nice?" demanded Trix, exceedingly firmly.

"Oh, but dearest," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Arbuthnot, "it was so unsuitable. He wasn't even a gentleman farmer. He had been a labourer."

"He might have been a nice labourer," contended Trix.

Mrs. Arbuthnot sighed. "In himself, possibly. But it wouldn't do. The irritation afterwards. We are told to avoid occasions of sin, and it would not be avoiding occasions of ill-temper if you married a man like that. Beer and muddy boots, to say nothing of inferior tobacco. The glamour pa.s.sed, though for my part I cannot see how there ever would be any glamour, probably infatuation, the boots--you know the kind, dearest, great nails and smelling of leather--the beer and the tobacco would be so terribly obvious. No, dearest, it doesn't do."

Trix was silent. After all wasn't she again arguing on a point regarding which she had had no real experience? Pia had tried the experiment, and declared it didn't work; and that, in the case of a man who _was_ of gentle birth, though posing as a labourer. In her own mind she felt it ought to work,--of course under certain circ.u.mstances. It was not the birth, but the mind that mattered. And, if there were the right kind of mind, there most certainly would not be the boots, the beer, and the tobacco. Trix was perfectly sure there wouldn't be. But it evidently was no atom of good trying to explain to other people what she meant, because they entirely failed to understand, and she was not certain that she could explain very well to herself even what she did mean.

It was not in the least that she had ever had the smallest desire to run counter to these conventions in any really important way, but she did hate hard and fast rules. Why should people lay down laws, as rigid as the laws of the Medes and Persians on matters that did not involve actual questions of right and wrong! There were enough of those to observe, without inventing others which were not in the least necessary.

It was all horribly muddling, and rather depressing, she decided. She finished her sandwich and gla.s.s of sherry, swallowing a little lump in her throat at the same time. Then she spoke.

"Aunt Lilla," she said impulsively, "I want to go down to Woodleigh."

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked up.

"Woodleigh, dearest. You were there only a little time ago, weren't you?"

"It was in August," said Trix. "And, anyhow, I want to go again. You don't mind, do you?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot took another sandwich.

"That's the fifth," she said. "Disgraceful, but all the fault of Bridge.

Why, of course not, if you want to go. But what made you think of it to-night?"

Trix leant back in her chair. "I had a letter from Miss Tibb.u.t.t," she said.

Mrs. Arbuthnot laid down her sandwich. She regarded Trix with anxious and almost reproachful eyes.

"Oh, my dearest, nothing wrong I hope? So inconsiderate of me to talk of Bridge. I saw a letter in your hand, but no black edge. Unless there is a black edge, one does not readily imagine bad news. Not like telegrams.

They send my heart to my mouth, and generally nothing but a Bridge postponement. So trivial. But it is the colour of the envelope, and the possibility. Ill news flies apace, and telegrams the quickest mode of communicating it. Except the telephone. And that is expensive at any distance." Mrs. Arbuthnot paused, and took up her sandwich once more.

"Oh, no," responded Trix, answering the first sentence of the speech.

Experience, long experience had taught her to seize upon the first half-dozen words of her aunt's discourses, and cling to them, allowing the remainder to float harmlessly into thin air. Later there might be the necessity to clutch at a few more, but generally the first half-dozen sufficed. "Oh, no; no bad news. But Miss Tibb.u.t.t is not quite satisfied about Pia."

That was true, at all events.

Mrs. Arbuthnot made a little clicking sound with her tongue, expressive of sympathy.

"Oh, my dearest, I know that term 'not quite satisfied.' So vague. It may mean nothing, or it may mean a good deal. And we always think it means a good deal, when it is probably only influenza. Depressing, but not at all serious if taken in time. And ammoniated quinine the best thing possible.

Not bitter, either, if taken in capsule form. But I quite feel with you, and go-by all means if you wish. And take eucalyptus, with you to avoid catching it yourself. So infectious, they say, but not to be shirked if one is needed. I would never stand in the light of duty. The corporal works of mercy, inconvenient at times, and I have never been to see a prisoner in my life, but perhaps easier than the spiritual, except the three last. You always run the risk of interference with the first of the spiritual, so wiser to leave them entirely to priests. When do you want to go, dearest?"

Trix came to herself with a little start. She had lost the thread of Mrs.

Arbuthnot's discourse.

"The day after to-morrow, I think," she said, reflectively. "I can wire to-morrow and get a reply."

Mrs. Arbuthnot got up.

"Then that's settled. Don't look anxious, dearest, because there is probably no cause for it. Though I know how easy it is to give advice, and how difficult to take it, even when it is oneself. Though perhaps that is really harder, being often half-hearted. And now we will go to bed, and things will look brighter in the morning, especially if it is fine. And the gla.s.s going up as I came through the hall. Quite time it did. I always had sympathy with the boy in the poem--Jane and Anne Taylor, wasn't it?--who smashed the gla.s.s in the holidays because it wouldn't go up. It always seems as if it were its fault. Though I know it's foolish to think so. And there is the clock striking one, and I shall eat more sandwiches if I stay, so let us put out the light, and go to bed."

CHAPTER x.x.x

A QUESTION OF IMPORTANCE

It had been chance pure and simple which happened to take Doctor Hilary to Woodleigh on the day the d.u.c.h.essa received Trix's telegram, but it cannot be equally said that it was chance which took him to Exeter on the following day, and which made him travel down again to Kingsleigh by the four o'clock train. Also it was certainly not chance which induced him to be on the platform at least a quarter of an hour before the train was due at the station, ready to keep a careful lookout on all the pa.s.sengers in it.

Trix had had an uneasy journey from London. She had re-read Miss Tibb.u.t.t's letter at least a dozen times. At first she had allowed herself to be almost unreasonably depressed by it; afterwards she had been almost more unreasonably depressed because she had allowed herself to be depressed in the first instance. Quite possibly it was all a storm in a tea-cup, and this man had nothing whatever to do with Pia's unhappiness.

Of course the chance meeting and the overheard conversation had fitted in so neatly as to make Miss Tibb.u.t.t think it had, and she had easily communicated the same idea to Trix. But quite probably it had nothing more to do with it than her own surmise regarding Doctor Hilary had had.

And that had proved entirely erroneous, though at the time it had appeared the most sane of conclusions. Also Miss Tibb.u.t.t might quite conceivably be wrong as to Pia's being now unhappy at all, whatever she had seemed to be in the summer.

Trix's visit began to appear to her somewhat in the light of a wild-goose chase. Anyhow she had not given Pia the smallest hint as to why she was coming. Naturally she could not possibly have done that. She had still to invent some tangible excuse for her sudden desire to visit Woodleigh again. Sick of London greyness would be quite good enough, though certainly not entirely true. But possibly a slight deviation from truth would be excusable under the circ.u.mstances. And she _was_ sick of London greyness. The fog yesterday had got on her nerves altogether, though quite probably it would not have done so if it had not been for Miss Tibb.u.t.t's letter, which had made her feel so horribly restless. But then there was no need to say why the fog had got on her nerves.

Yes; the fog would be excuse enough. And it was not an atom of good worrying herself as to whether Miss Tibb.u.t.t had been right or wrong regarding the idea communicated in her letter. If she were right it made Trix unhappy to think about it, and if she were wrong it made Trix cross to think she _had_ thought about it. So the wisest course was not to think about it at all. But the difficulty was not to think about it.

Trix knew perfectly well that absurd little things had this power of depressing her, and she wished they had not. She knew, also, that other quite little things had the power of cheering her in equal proportion, and she wished that one of these other things would happen now. But that was not particularly likely.