Chapter 45
"He will, if it's really bad! You've no idea what it can be like up there once it starts to be wet."
Marie and Feathers had motored together a great deal since that first day.
"There'll be time enough for theatres when the winter comes,"
Feathers said. "I don't suppose you've seen much of the country, have you?"
"No."
"Then we'll have a run to the New Forest some day."
Marie looked up hesitatingly.
"Would you mind if Aunt Madge came?"
During the last few days she had been vaguely conscious of Miss Chester's silent disapproval.
"I shall be delighted if Miss Chester will come," Feathers said readily.
But Miss Chester refused. She did not mind a short run, she said, but it was too far into Hamps.h.i.+re, so they must go without her.
She watched them drive away, and then sat down to write to Chris.
She marked the letter "Private," and underlined the word twice to draw attention to it. She wrote:
"My dear Chris,--Don't you think it's time you came home? Soon it will be five weeks since you went away, and it is a little hard on Marie, though she has not said one word of complaint to me. Mr.
Dakers is very kind, taking her for drives, and looking in to cheer us up, but the child must want her own husband, and you have been married such a little time. She does not know I am writing to you, and she would be very angry if she ever discovered it but take an old woman's advice, my dear boy, and come back."
She felt much happier when the letter had been despatched; she went back to her knitting quite happily to wait events.
But events came sooner than she had antic.i.p.ated, for the morning post brought a letter, which had evidently crossed hers, to say that Chris was already on his way home, but was breaking the journey at Windermere for a few days to stay with friends.
"So he cannot have had my letter!" Miss Chester thought in dismay.
She hoped it would eventually reach him.
If she had been uneasy about young Atkins, she was much more perturbed about Feathers. She fully recognized the strength of the man
"Chris ought never to have gone away alone," was her distressed thought. "If he had taken Marie with him, it would have been all right."
And down in the Hamps.h.i.+re woods Marie was just then saying to Feathers: "I do wish Aunt Madge had come! Wouldn't she have loved it?"
"I think she would. Perhaps she will come some other time."
They had brought their own lunch and had camped at the foot of a mossy bank on the shady side of the road.
It was very peaceful--the silence was hardly broken save for the occasional flutter of wings in the trees overhead or the distant sound of a motor horn from the main road.
Feathers was lounging on the gra.s.s beside Marie, his hat thrown off and his hair rumpled up anyhow.
There was a little silence, then Marie said:
"I don't think I've ever seen anything so lovely. I wonder why Chris didn't came to a place like this, instead of---" She broke off, realizing that she was speaking her thoughts aloud.
"Instead of to that Tower of Babel by the sea, eh?" Feathers asked casually.
"Yes, that is what I meant."
"I suppose he thought you would find it more amusing."
"Or that he would," said Marie bitterly.
Feathers did not answer. He was clumsily threading bits of gra.s.s through the ribbon of Marie's hat, which lay beside him.
"What's become of young Atkins?" he asked abruptly.
The unexpectedness of the question sent the color to Marie's face.
"I don't know," she said guiltily. "He hasn't been around lately. I liked him so much," she added wistfully.
She looked down at Feathers with thoughtful eyes. He was a big, clumsy figure lying there, and she smiled as she watched him busily tucking the blades of gra.s.s into the ribbon of her hat.
"Do you think you are improving it?" she asked suddenly.
He looked up, and their eyes met.
Feathers did not answer. He was clumsily threading up with sudden energy.
"Shall we go on?" he asked, "or would you prefer to stay here?"
"We might stay a little while, don't you think?"
"For ever, if you like!"
She made a little grimace.
"We should hate it if it began to rain."
He looked up at the thick branches above their heads.
"Rain would not easily get through here. Chris and I camped somewhere near this place a couple of years ago."
"It must have been lovely."
"It wasn't so bad. We slept out in the open air on warm nights."
Marie leaned back against the great trunk of the tree under which they had lunched, and looked away into the avenue of green arches before them.
During the last day or two she had not thought so often of Chris, and to-day the mention of him had not brought that little stab of pain to her heart. Neither did she wish for him so pa.s.sionately, nor think what happiness it would be to have him beside her instead of Feathers.
She was always glad to be with Feathers. His strong, ugly face had lost all its ugliness for her. She only saw his kindliness and heard the gentleness of his voice.
Her eyes dwelt on him seriously. Some woman was losing a kind husband, she thought, and impulsively she said: