"What you say is very suggestive," he commented."It strikes me as true, too.You have seen something of her also, at least more than I have.""I did not think these things when I saw her--though I suppose Ifelt them unconsciously.I have reached this way of summing her up by processes of exclusion and inclusion.One hears of her, as you know yourself, and one thinks her over.""You have thought her over?"
"A lot," rather grumpily."A beautiful female creature inevitably gives an unbeautiful male creature something to think of--if he is not otherwise actively employed.I am not.
She has become a sort of dawning relief to my hopeless humours.
Being a low and unworthy beast, I am sometimes resentful enough of the unfairness of things.She has too much."When they rode through Stornham village they saw signs of work already done and work still in hand.There were no broken windows or palings or hanging wicket gates; cottage gardens had been put in order, and there were evidences of such cheering touches as new bits of window curtain and strong-looking young plants blooming between them.So many small, but necessary, things had been done that the whole village wore the aspect of a place which had taken heart, and was facing existence in a hopeful spirit.A year ago Mount Dunstan and his vicar riding through it had been struck by its neglected and dispirited look.
As they entered the hall of the Court Miss Vanderpoel was descending the staircase.She was laughing a little to herself, and she looked pleased when she saw them.
"It is good of you to come," she said, as they crossed the hall to the drawing-room."But I told him I really thought you would.I have just been talking to him, and he was a little uncertain as to whether he had assumed too much.""As to whether he had `butted in,' " said Mr.Penzance.
"I think he must have said that."
"He did.He also was afraid that he might have been `too fresh.' " answered Betty.
"On our part," said Mr.Penzance, with gentle glee, "we hesitated a moment in fear lest we also might appear to be `butting in.' "Then they all laughed together.They were laughing when Lady Anstruthers entered, and she herself joined them.But to Mount Dunstan, who felt her to be somehow a touching little person, there was manifest a tenderness in her feeling for G.
Selden.For that matter, however, there was something already beginning to be rather affectionate in the attitude of each of them.They went upstairs to find him lying in state upon a big sofa placed near a window, and his joy at the sight of them was a genuine, human thing.In fact, he had pondered a good deal in secret on the possibility of these swell people thinking he had "more than his share of gall" to expect them to remember him after he passed on his junior assistant salesman's way.Reuben S.Vanderpoel's daughters were of the highest of his Four Hundred, but they were Americans, and Americans were not as a rule so "stuck on themselves" as the English.And here these two swells came as friendly as you please.And that nice old chap that was a vicar, smiling and giving him "the glad hand"!
Betty and Mount Dunstan left Mr.Penzance talking to the convalescent after a short time.Mount Dunstan had asked to be shown the gardens.He wanted to see the wonderful things he had heard had been already done to them.
They went down the stairs together and passed through the drawing-room into the pleasure grounds.The once neglected lawns had already been mown and rolled, clipped and trimmed, until they spread before the eye huge measures of green velvet;even the beds girdling and adorning them were brilliant with flowers.
"Kedgers!" said Betty, waving her hand."In my ignorance I thought we must wait for blossoms until next year;but it appears that wonders can be brought all ready to bloom for one from nursery gardens, and can be made to grow with care--and daring--and passionate affection.I have seen Kedgers turn pale with anguish as he hung over a bed of transplanted things which seemed to droop too long.They droop just at first, you know, and then they slowly lift their heads, slowly, as if to listen to a Voice calling--calling.Once I sat for quite a long time before a rose, watching it.When I saw it BEGIN to listen, I felt a little trembling pass over my body.
I seemed to be so strangely near to such a strange thing.It was Life--Life coming back--in answer to what we cannot hear."She had begun lightly, and then her voice had changed.It was very quiet at the end of her speaking.Mount Dunstan simply repeated her last words.
"To what we cannot hear."
"One feels it so much in a garden," she said."I have never lived in a garden of my own.This is not mine, but I have been living in it--with Kedgers.One is so close to Life in it--the stirring in the brown earth, the piercing through of green spears, that breaking of buds and pouring forth of scent! Why shouldn't one tremble, if one thinks? I have stood in a potting shed and watched Kedgers fill a shallow box with damp rich mould and scatter over it a thin layer of infinitesimal seeds; then he moistens them and carries them reverently to his altars in a greenhouse.The ledges in Kedgers' green-houses are altars.I think he offers prayers before them.Why not? I should.And when one comes to see them, the moist seeds are swelled to fulness, and when one comes again they are bursting.And the next time, tiny green things are curling outward.And, at last, there is a fairy forest of tiniest palegreen stems and leaves.And one is standing close to the Secret of the World! And why should not one prostrate one's self, breathing softly--and touching one's awed forehead to the earth?"Mount Dunstan turned and looked at her--a pause in his step--they were walking down a turfed path, and over their heads meeting branches of new leaves hung.Something in his movement made her turn and pause also.They both paused --and quite unknowingly.