Chapter IX: What Beryl Had Turned Out

"WHAT Beryl could talk about," seemed to Mrs. Cumming a hopeless enigma.

The girl came presently downstairs, and took a seat opposite the mother and son, with her back towards the window, her attention becoming speedily concentrated on a flat square of knitting, dingy white as to hue. She wore a dress of dust-colour, about the most unbecoming tint that could possibly have been chosen for her complexion, "trimmed with itself," as the dressmakers say, and therefore unrelieved by any other colour.

Tea was brought in, and Beryl seemed glad to make a heartier meal than usually belongs to the hour. Having disposed of so much as she wanted, she returned to her knitting and was silent.

The sparkle of the Channel waters possessed apparently less attractions for her eyes than the ins and outs of white cotton, growing into a close web beneath her fingers.

"You seem to be more of a workwoman than Pearl," remarked Millicent.

"Pearl used to like work in old days," said Beryl, in her cut-and-dried manner, with occupied eyes.

"I don't think she does now. What are you making, my dear?"

"A counterpane. This is the fourth square."

"How long will it take you to complete the whole?"

"I don't know." Beryl's manner seemed to add,—"and I don't care."

"Do you take to crewels?"

"No; I like straightforward work. I have no knack for fanciful things."

"You must be very sorry to say good-bye to all your schoolfellows," Millicent said after a pause.

Beryl did look up now, to ask,—"Why?"

"People don't generally live together for years, without the growth of a little mutual liking," observed Escott.

"I do not like any of them particularly. They are all younger than I am, and some have not been there long."

"And you have no especial friends among them, Beryl?" asked Millicent, determined to avoid the stiff "Miss Fordyce" to which she felt disposed.

"I don't dislike them."

"Negative," muttered Escott.

"But, my dear, you must have cared for somebody in the house," said Millicent.

"There was Mademoiselle Bise," said Beryl, with seeming reluctance.

"The French governess? Is she your friend?"

Beryl actually paused in her knitting to consider. "I don't know," she said at length. "We never thought about it till yesterday evening. Of course I cannot be sure yet."

"She certainly is an original!" thought the entertained Escott. "Ivor is wrong. The specimen is not precisely commonplace, except as to the outside."

"How long will it take you to be sure?" he asked.

"I don't know," Beryl answered again shortly. "People sometimes profess a great deal, and change afterwards."

"Schoolgirls do, perhaps."

"I do not mean schoolgirls."

"Your experience seems to have been more unhappy than mine," said Escott. "It is well to trust a friend, when one gains him—or her."

"I would rather not trust than be disappointed?"

Escott's look expressed dissent, but he did not carry on the conversation, and Beryl seemed quite content to work at her square in silence.

Escott went back to his book, supporting himself on one elbow, while the thin fingers strayed thoughtfully through the fair hair. Once absorbed in reading, he heeded nothing else.

His mother, presently laying down her work to watch him, thought he looked painfully frail; and he had not turned many pages before a wearied look stole over the white brow. She dreaded to tease him with over-solicitude, yet longed to see the book laid aside. In her anxiety, Beryl's presence was almost forgotten, and mother and son were alike startled to hear the blunt remark,—

"I don't think you ought to try to read."

Escott glanced up, to meet Beryl's gaze. "I beg your pardon?" he said.

"You don't look fit to read," repeated Beryl, varying her words slightly. "Are you ill?"

Millicent wondered how he would take the question. He had at all times a dislike to observations upon his health, and this dislike had of late increased to an almost morbid extent. "No," he said curtly, and he went on with his occupation.

"I don't think you ought," repeated Beryl.

Millicent would have given a silencing sign, but she could not catch Beryl's eye.

Escott evidently had a moment's struggle with himself. Then he said,—"Thanks for good advice,"—threw the book on the table, and went out of the room.

"He looks ill, whether he is or not," said Beryl. "What is the matter with him?"

No answer coming, she glanced up to find a cause,—and saw the mother's tears. Beryl drew her own conclusion immediately. "Then he is ill—very ill," she said. "I thought he must be."

Millicent regained her voice with difficulty. "No," she said; "it is weakness only. There is no positive disease, I am thankful to say."

"But why can't something be done?"

"A great deal has been done; and we hope he will be stronger by and by. My dear, you must not, if you please, remark on his health or seem to watch him."

"Why not?"

"It troubles Escott,—annoys him. You must not do it, my dear. He does not like to have his delicacy remarked upon."

"I don't see the good of making believe that a thing isn't when it is," said the downright Beryl. "But of course, if you wish it, I will try not to seem to be noticing."

Escott soon returned, going to an ordinary chair instead of the sofa, and—perversely, Beryl thought—taking up his book anew. She fully meant to follow Mrs. Cumming's directions, but somehow her attention persisted in wandering from her knitting; and so surely as her eyes were turned, though but for a moment, in his direction, those large blue eyes with their heavy lids were raised to meet them. Escott was evidently on the "qui-vive," and evidently also he was bearing up with difficulty; but no more was said.

Millicent was presently summoned into the next room, where Mr. Crosbie slept away a considerable part of the afternoon, and she came back to summon Beryl also.

"You have not been introduced to my uncle yet," she said.

A brief and not lively interview followed. The old gentleman speedily gave his niece a hint that he had had enough, and when she had taken away Beryl, she was herself immediately recalled.

"So that's the girl," said Mr. Crosbie. "That's Beryl Fordyce,—Pearl's sister, hey?"

"Yes, uncle."

"It's easy to say, yes, uncle,'" growled Mr. Crosbie. "But what is to be done with her?"

"I think we must keep her here for a few days at all events. I do not fancy we shall dislike her."

"Dislike her! There's nothing to dislike. I don't dislike a post or a stock or a stone, I hope. But what on earth is to be done with her?"

"Beryl's home will probably be with Di," suggested Millicent.

"Well, well, well," said Mr. Crosbie, moving his hands up and down. "Well—well,—keep her out of my way, my dear—keep her out of my way. That's all I have to say. I wish Di joy of her, that's all."

"She is an odd girl. I can't quite make her out yet," Escott said a few days later.

"The greater riddle to me is how you manage to feel enough interest in her, to trouble your head at all about the matter," Ivor said lightly.

"I am interested in anything that I don't understand," said Escott, half smiling.

"If that is all, I can supply you with a clue to your riddle. You say you can't make her out—but in my humble opinion, there is nothing to be made out. When you have seen the outside, you have seen all. It is a homogeneous substance—solid and respectable, not superior in quality, but the same throughout."

"Ah! Is it? I have my doubts there."

"A good substantial piece of deal boarding," laughed Ivor. "Not the least ornamental, but quite capable of being useful. It isn't mahogany or walnut, and it is more fit for kitchen or bedroom use than for the drawing-room. Nothing of veneer or polish about it,—still, quite unexceptionable of its kind. Not brilliant, of course; but who expects brilliancy in a deal board?"

"You are hard upon her, Ivor."

"Hard to call a thing by its proper name! I don't see that. But you would rather have it veneered perhaps?"

There was some excuse for Ivor. He had really tried his best with Beryl, and had failed. A handsome and gentlemanly young fellow, already accustomed, though he had not passed his twentieth birthday, to be admired and courted on all sides, he found in Beryl's staid indifference a new and not a fascinating experience. He was steady and well-principled, popular in his regiment no less than in general society, and not at all more self-satisfied than any average young man would be in a like position. His submissive devotion for his mother and his strong affection for his twin brother, would have been redeeming points in a much more faulty character. However, a touch of masculine vanity undoubtedly ranked among his faults, and being used to appreciation from ladies, he did not quite approve the lack of it from Beryl. For Beryl certainly did not trouble herself to show any particular appreciation of him. She showed a growing interest in Escott; but for Ivor, she did not care.

It was no fault of his. He had tried walking, and he had tried talking, without success. Beryl's old love of wild-flowers seemed to have forsaken her, and her old love of scrambling had died a natural death. She liked a walk along a well-beaten track, but showed entire carelessness as to whether Ivor, Mrs. Cumming, anybody or nobody, were her companion, and to sit indoors over her slowly-growing counterpane appeared to be the more favourite occupation. In conversation, Ivor found himself nonplussed. He could make talk to any amount for all the other young ladies of his acquaintance, whether singly or collectively encountered; but he could not make talk for Beryl. She never started a subject herself; and though she answered when he spoke, her answers caused no rebound of ideas. At the best, the two played a game of shuttle-cock, wherein the counting rarely advanced beyond two or three turns. To pick up the shuttle-cock and begin anew so frequently was fatiguing, more especially as the exertions devolved chiefly on Ivor.

"It was a herculean task," he said despairingly, after one of these walks.

And though his mother laughingly patted his broad shoulders, and told him he had herculean strength to match, she fully sympathised.

For Millicent too had failed. She had been from the first anxious to delve beneath the outer shell of Beryl's mind, but she had been hitherto unsuccessful. Millicent, in her sweet attractiveness, was as little used as was Ivor to find her attractions unavailing. Diana was, perhaps, the only living person hitherto, within reach of Millicent's influence, who had not bent to it. Millicent had had in her lifetime about as much spoiling of admiration as falls to the lot of any woman in an ordinary way. She had had her counterpoising trials also, and was not spoilt. But Beryl puzzled her.

"There must be a soft spot somewhere in the nature," she said, not accepting Ivor's "homogeneous" theory. "If one could find it!"

A week had elapsed, and as yet she had not found the "soft spot." Beryl seemed disposed to pass through life in a jog-trot and uninteresting fashion, caring little for others, cared for little by others, and not unwilling to have things thus. Was she really willing?

Millicent had no definite fault to find with her visitor. Beryl was tidy, well-behaved, and punctual. She appeared good-tempered; at least, nothing had caused her to appear the contrary. She did not step out of her way, commonly, to exercise courtesy and self-denial. But if Mr. Crosbie lost his spectacles or required a book, Beryl was quite willing to put down her knitting, and to hunt for the one or fetch the other. If only there had been a touch of warmth, of spring, of gracefulness, about what she did! If only she had not been so hopelessly staid and matter-of-fact!

Millicent was direfully at a loss what to say in writing to Diana. A word too much might injure Beryl's standing for years; while a word too little might be counted untrue. She wrote and tore up three letters, having waited several days for clearer light as to Beryl's real character. Then, in despair she went to her uncle, and begged his advice,—a step which the old gentleman always approved.

"Tut, tut!" he said. "Tell the truth, my dear. No good to mince matters. Di will see with her own eyes, if not with yours. A well-meaning commonplace sort of girl. You can't describe her as anything else."

"Poor Beryl! She is very good-humoured and easy to get on with."

"Tell Di so—if you think it."

"But Di wants a full and particular account."

"Sort of diagnosis of the case! Humph! Women always want what they can't get. Why not have Di and Pearl here for a few days, and let Di judge for herself?"

"Here!" repeated Millicent. "She would not come, uncle."

"Try,—you just try," chuckled Mr. Crosbie. "I've a notion that she would. Di seems to be under a horror of committing herself. If she comes here, she can see for herself what Beryl is. The whole thing is rubbish, to my mind. She could just as well have Beryl home at once, and leave plans uncertain for a few weeks as to the future. But Di never can walk straight forward."

"There are two or three rooms in the house empty," mused Millicent; "and Di said in her last letter that Pearl looked pale, and wanted change. Yes; I think the idea is good. I will write directly."

Which she did, saying nothing to Beryl.

Diana's answer arrived late on the evening of Saturday.