Chapter X: Meeting Again

AT breakfast, on Sunday morning, Millicent said to Beryl, without preface—

"How will you like a sight of Pearl the day after to-morrow?"

Ivor had the satisfaction of finding that Beryl could be disconcerted. She coloured, hesitated, and asked—"Am I to go so soon?"

"My sister and Pearl are coming here on Tuesday for a week."

"Mrs. Fenwick!"

"Your aunt Diana!" Millicent answered a little pointedly, noticing, as she had noticed before, that Beryl rarely used the title. "You will be pleased to see them both."

"I shall like to see Pearl, of course." The tone was not one of delight.

"But not Mrs. Fenwick," mischievously suggested Ivor.

"No," said Beryl, with decided shortness of manner. Then, after a pause: "I do not know Mrs. Fenwick well enough to care for her,—and—"

"And—what?" asked Ivor.

Beryl looked towards Millicent. "I was going to say—'and I never could;' but I thought you might not like it."

"I think you would be wise not to make up your mind until you know her better," Millicent said kindly. "People who might be friends are often kept apart for years by preconceived notions."

"Mrs. Fenwick and I could not be friends," said Beryl slowly, cutting her toast into strips.

"She has been a good friend to you."

"Yes,—I don't mean that. I mean that we do not care for one another, and that we could not—"

"Until you are better acquainted."

"No; I know her enough for 'that.' I have been with her three times for a month, and she writes to me sometimes."

Painful recollections of one kind or another seemed to come up. Beryl suddenly turned crimson, ceased speaking, and began to eat her toast with unnecessary speed.

Ivor exchanged glances with his mother, discovered that he had to speak to Escott, apologised and disappeared.

Millicent remarked quietly—

"Your acquaintance with my sister was unfortunate in its beginning, Beryl. I always think the report of your aunt's old servant did harm, and gave a false impression at the first."

"Did it? I don't know. I suppose I was a troublesome child," said Beryl, in the manner of one whose childhood lay far in the rear. "But that is no reason—"

Beryl paused, and Millicent made a sound of questioning.

"I was only going to say—that is no reason why she should be always unkind to me."

"She has not been intentionally unkind, I am sure," said Millicent.

"I don't know. Perhaps not," Beryl said with an air of incredulity.

"One must read people by their actions, at least as much as by their words," suggested Millicent.

Beryl evidently understood. "It is not words only," she said. "Cannot you see by a person's face when she dislikes you? Of course I am not a child now, and I do not forget that she has given Pearl a home, and has paid for my schooling. And I—I suppose I am grateful. Of course I am. Only, I would rather have had things different. I would rather have kept Pearl."

"You will probably be much more with Pearl in the future," said Millicent kindly.

"I don't know at all. Mrs. Fenwick—Aunt Di, I mean—does not tell me where I am to live. And she said I might have to go out as a governess. I should not mind working for my livelihood, but I don't think I am clever enough to teach. I would much rather be trained as a nurse. I think I could do 'that.' But Mrs. Fenwick said I must leave it to her to decide, and she has told me nothing lately. Sometimes she writes as if I were to live with her and Pearl. But I don't know—it would not be the same. Pearl is not mine now."

The last two sentences broke out abruptly, with no dearth of feeling in them. Beryl gathered some crumbs into a little heap on the table-cloth, and crushed them in her hand.

"The uncertainty is trying for you," Millicent said slowly, in some doubt how to answer. "I do not think my sister has quite made up her mind yet. A good deal, I suppose, depends on how you meet, and how you get on together. After all, we must have our times of uncertainty and waiting. They do not really harm us."

"It is not the uncertainty that I mind. It is the feeling—"

Beryl broke off again, and Millicent said—"I am a little afraid that this feeling of yours about my sister may prevent things from being as they should be."

"It is not my fault. Could 'you' like a person who could not bear you?" asked Beryl. "If she cared for me, I would try to care for her."

"But, my dear child, the caring must begin on one side," said Millicent persuasively. "Why should it not begin on yours? My sister has at least shown you much kindness. Can you not repay it with loving gratitude?"

"One can't love because one ought," said Beryl.

"Not precisely; but one can look at the best instead of the worst in another, because one ought. One can cultivate the kindliness of feeling which often grows into love. And one can pray to have the wrong feelings conquered."

"I don't think the feelings are wrong. I think I have reason," said Beryl coldly. "I cannot say much to you, of course, because you are her sister—but—I 'have' reason."

"I can believe that you have in some measure. My sister is impulsive, and she may have misunderstood you. Still I do not think you are quite right to suspect her of unkind motives, or of actual dislike."

"It is not suspecting. I 'know,'" broke in Beryl.

"Know her motives?"

"No; I know she dislikes me."

"If it were so, there is such a thing as returning good for evil, and loving those who hate us,—even hate us. That goes far beyond the utmost feeling which you can accuse her of."

Beryl thought not. Her face wore a slightly defiant expression.

"And if she does not love you yet, why should you not sooner or later win her love?"

Beryl looked down. "I do not care to try," she said sullenly, her usual fence of good-humoured indifference broken down for the moment. "It is Pearl that I want,—not Mrs. Fenwick. She has stolen Pearl from me. I do not want 'her' love."

Millicent knew too well what Beryl meant. She had often grieved over Diana's management of affairs, and over the growing estrangement of the sisters. Yet she could not in so many words admit the fact to Beryl.

"There have been mistakes, no doubt," she said. "But the fact that Pearl is fond of my sister ought not to touch her affection for you. If Diana has caused you pain, you can at least forgive her. We all make mistakes, and need to be forgiven."

Beryl looked up straight in Millicent's face, the old childish glow shining in her eyes. "I never forgive Mrs. Fenwick for stealing Pearl from me," she said.

"'Forgive us—'as' we forgive," uttered Millicent.

"I cannot help it. One may talk easily enough," said Beryl. "But you don't know what it is. You don't know what it is to have no home, and nobody."

Millicent would have given much to have escaped an interruption at that moment. It came, however, as such interruptions often do come, when apparently least to be desired, in the person of Ivor. He evidently thought he had allowed ample time for exchange of confidences.

Beryl rose and went to the window, and when, two minutes later, she turned round, she had entirely regained her usual staid and collected air, and looked as if she had never in her life been farther from any display of feeling. But Millicent had obtained a glimpse of what lay beneath the smooth surface.

She had no opportunity of obtaining a second. Beryl studiously avoided another "tête-à-tête" during the remainder of the day. And in conversation, she glided persistently away from the subject of Mrs. Fenwick and Pearl.

Monday was the same. Beryl worked at her counterpane with an air of profound attention, and had another long walk with Ivor. But she gave vent to no remarks beyond the merest commonplaces, and Pearl's name scarcely passed her lips. Ivor was indignant at the seeming indifference, for Pearl's sake; and Escott would have been indignant also, but that he knew something from his mother of the Sunday morning conversation.

"It is Aunt Di's fault—not Pearl's," was his view of the matter. "Perhaps you will be able to give Aunt Di a hint some day, mother, how to manage differently. And after all—when once Beryl is thrown with Pearl—"

He flushed up, and left the sentence unfinished, evidently resting his hopes there for an improvement in the state of affairs.

Millicent was not so sanguine as regarded Pearl, and she had no confidence at all in the good effects of a hint to Diana. Advice in that direction commonly acted in a reverse fashion from what was intended.

Tuesday afternoon came, and the same train which had brought Beryl brought Mrs. Fenwick and Pearl. Ivor met them at the station, and ushered them into the drawing-room, exchanging arch nothings with Pearl, and showing himself to be on terms of brotherly intimacy.

Diana looked not a day older than five years before, and her costume was, as usual, elaborately fashionable. Bugles had gone out of use, but there was always a sheeny sparkle about Diana's dress, suiting the sparkle of her face and manner. She wore mourning no longer, though her prevalent tone of colour was subdued.

Beryl paid small heed to Diana Fenwick, though the two shook hands, and exchanged a conventional kiss. Her attention was concentrated on her sister.

Pearl Fordyce had grown into a lovely girl. Thu promise of her childhood was already richly fulfilled. She was not tall, but her slight figure was perfectly graceful; and the delicate little face, with its pensive blue eyes, was set off by ivory whiteness of complexion, and geranium tinting in cheeks and lips. The smile, too, with which she answered some gay banter of Ivor's, though not brilliant, was sweetly winning.

"The sisters are as great a contrast as ever," Diana remarked.

It was an unnecessary observation, and it jarred on more than one present. Pearl laughed faintly in a deprecatory way. Diana sat looking from one to the other, carrying on her comparison.

"I suppose one could not expect anything different; and after all, sisters are not always alike. How is Uncle Josiah? I should think he had had enough of Weston by this time. For my part, I cannot endure the place. In fact, I almost wrote yesterday morning to say we would not come, but that silly child nearly broke her heart at the idea, so I had to give it up."

"Dear auntie, you promised not to tell," murmured Pearl, with just enough heightening of colour to add to her loveliness.

Ivor stood watching her with an air of easy and undisguised admiration. Escott's hand was shading his eyes, but Millicent knew that those eyes were bent in the same direction. She could not wonder. Very few people were able to sit in the room with Pearl and not look at her. Very few would have been able to knit calmly, with downcast eyes, at a dingy white counterpane square, as Beryl was now doing. Of a certainty, no one could have supposed that these two sisters had not met for twenty months, they had so little to say to one another.

"Did I? Ah, I forgot!" Diana responded, laughing. "Little goose, was she not, Millicent! Weston seems to have more charms for her than for me. I have no predilection for mud. However, a change is a change, and we must make the best of it, though really journeys are a terrible expense in these days."

Millicent wanted to bring the sisters nearer together, but she found it not easy. A proposal that the travellers should go to their room was negatived by Diana. She was "dreadfully tired," and so she supposed was Pearl; and they would rather have tea first. Millicent did not think Diana carried her fatigue in her face, and she had rarely seen Pearl less pale, but she could not combat the assertion. She rang for tea, and dispensed it with as little delay as possible, Ivor making himself generally useful, and Escott starting up to wait upon Pearl with an air of subdued pleasure.

Pearl received the attentions of both brothers as a matter of course, paying for them with sweet smiles and little soft-toned utterances.

Beryl worked on in steady silence. Then Millicent proposed that Beryl should show Pearl her room, and Ivor met this with a counter-proposal that Pearl should take a turn in the gardens across the road, and have a nearer view of the sea. Escott protested that she would be tired, but Pearl said—

"O no, it would be delicious."

"Then Beryl must go too," Millicent said decisively.

And Beryl rose with a reluctant expression.

"Don't ask me, that is all I entreat," Diana said languidly.

But Escott volunteered to be of the party. He was not well enough for the exertion, and Millicent knew he would suffer for it afterwards; yet she would not tease him by objections. She watched the four from the window, crossing the road, Ivor and Escott on either side of Pearl, in eager conversation, and Beryl beyond Escott, walking a little apart and silently, in contemplation of the dust.

"She is not improved," Diana observed.

"Beryl, do you mean? I think she is, Di, in some respects."

"They must be hidden 'respects,'" said Diana, gaping.

"She is quiet and obliging, and gives no trouble; and I never saw a girl more uniformly busy."

"I hate people to be busy about nothing. Worse than idleness."

"Hardly, Di. Misdirected energy may be turned in a right direction, but one can make no possible use of idle tendencies."

Diana gaped again. "There's a sort of mania for making use of everything and everybody in the present day. It is quite fatiguing. Nobody shall make use of me, if I can help it."

"But, Di, you could not expect Beryl to turn out pretty."

"I don't know what I expected. All I hope is that she will not turn my house upside down. If she does, I will not keep her there."

"I do not think there is much danger. Beryl has at least learnt to control herself."

Yet even as Millicent spoke, she wondered how far this self-control would reach.