Chapter XVIII: Doreen's Home

"GOOD morning! I am working my round in this part of the world, and I have a message for you from old Martha Tubbs. 'Tell her to come along and hearten me up a bit, for I be terrible lonesome in bed'!"

It was Dr. Merton who stood outside Tomina's window. There was a breath of spring in the air. Tomina had opened the window and was leaning out of it, with somewhat wistful eyes, when the doctor had marched in at her gate, and now was speaking to her.

He glanced at her with his keen professional eye.

"You are not looking well. What have you been doing to yourself?"

"I am not your patient any longer," said Tomina, with a little of her old gay humour, "so don't ask inquisitive questions. And may I in return ask you what you have been doing to yourself? You look as if you had had a fortune left you!"

Dr. Merton certainly was in the best of spirits; there was an alert spring in his bearing, a joyousness in his eyes that was not usually there.

"Well, don't you think a fortune has befallen me?" he asked. "I hear that you have been told, so I await your congratulations."

"I have been told nothing," said Tomina, looking at him in a puzzled way.

"Surely Mrs. Francis came to see you yesterday?"

"Yes, she did."

But still Tomina remained mystified.

Dr. Merton looked at her, and his eyes began to twinkle.

"You think her wasted upon a country doctor?"

"You don't mean to say that you are the man? That she is engaged to you?"

"Didn't she tell you so? We have known each other for a long time."

Tomina had been well trained from childhood in self-control. Her gay life in London had been good discipline in that way. She looked up at the doctor and smiled.

"I have been very stupid. You need not mention it to her, but I quite misunderstood her when she was trying to tell me about it. I am delighted, Dr. Merton. I don't know which of you I feel I ought to congratulate more. You will make an ideal couple. And, oh, what an amount of goodness there will be in one house! It will be almost heaven! Or the courts of it at least."

Dr. Merton laughed.

"I assure you, we are both very human. But I felt you would be glad."

He remained talking some little time.

But when he had left her, Tomina felt almost as stupefied now by the revulsion of feeling that passed through her, as she had before, when she had first received the communication from Mrs. Francis which she had so absurdly misunderstood. She went over in her mind the conversation of the day before, and could only conclude that Mrs. Francis's remark about Colonel Norman was quite irrelevant to the announcement of her engagement.

"She must have thought I knew all about it, and I never had any idea! How extraordinary that Susan should not have undeceived me! I suppose she knows."

In she called Susan, who promptly said—

"I knew the doctor would come and tell you himself, ma'am. I saw him coming up the path. He does deserve her, doesn't he? We've said a long time ago they ought to make a match of it!"

"It is delightful," said Tomina.

She did not let Susan know of her mistake, but after her anguish of the evening before, she felt she could hardly bear the relief and happiness that came to her now.

She put on her hat and coat and, calling Thor, took a long walk. It did her good, both mentally and physically. She came home with a soft fresh colour in her cheeks and such light and sparkle in her eyes, that Susan told a neighbour that Miss Gavin was getting more beautiful every day.

On the following Friday a lively discussion took place in the van upon the merits of masterfulness in married life. Of course, the doctor's engagement was the beginning of the discussion.

"I do say," said Mrs. Capper, "that they be a proper suited couple. Mrs. Francis is just as gentle as the doctor be firm. There'll be no fallin' out atween 'em!"

"Well, now," said Tomina, looking back over her shoulder at her passengers, "do you think that the husband or the wife should rule in the house?"

There was a good deal of laughter.

"Why, miss, the man ought to be master, Bible says."

"But if he drinks like a beast," said one young woman, sharply; "'tis according to the natures of 'em!"

"There be Tom Lorrimer," said old Mrs. Capper, "who be under his wife's thumb and afraid to wink his eye unless she gives 'im leave. The only time he do be able to stand up to her is when he's had a drop too much, and he told me he took it on purpose so as to master her!"

"I'd master him!" said another woman, vindictively.

"I'd like to see my husband a masterin' of me. The woman should be missus of her house. She be in it an' keeps it; the man be only there nights and the evenin's!"

"It's like this, miss," said the oldest woman there; "there be some men born to be masters, but there be others that be best managed for. If a man be born and bred to rule, his wife had best give in for sake of peace, but if he be a poor weak sort o' chap, 'tis for the good of all that his wife rules for 'im!"

"I believe you are right," said Tomina, thoughtfully. "Circumstances alter cases. I used to think a man was a tyrant if he insisted upon having his own way, but if it is a good way, the woman ought to yield."

Then Mrs. Judd, of the general shop spoke. "There be grand talk now of women rulin' in Parlyment and havin' their votes. Miss Merryweather believes in that; she gave us a long talkin' to one day, but I says to 'er—

"'Miss Merryweather,' I says, 'you may be very clever-headed, but when it comes to makin' yourself heard in the Public Halls in that there Parlyment House, why, my John would roar you down easy! If the Almighty,' I says, 'wanted you to up and speak in Parlyment, he'd have given you a voice to do it,' I says.

"Then she says to me, 'Do you know some women's voices carry farther than men's; what about actresses?'

"'I don't know nothin' about actresses,' I says; 'they be not for respectable ladies to copy.'

"And, of course, 'tis not only the voice, if men have always made laws for hundreds of years, doesn't it follow that they be more clever at it than the women? 'Tis just because 'tis a new thing that these here women be wantin' to try their hand at it. They've nothin' else to do. Let 'em get married, and have a dozen children to wash and feed and clothe and a house to keep clean, an' a husband to cook for, they wouldn't have the time or thought to be wantin' to be standin' amongst the men in Parlyment!"

"But all women can't marry, Mrs. Judd," said Tomina, "and some think that they could make better laws for women than the men can do."

There was a chorus of dissent at this.

"We'd rather the gentlemen ruled us than the ladies," said one. "A gentleman—well, be he not so sharp-eyed and inquisitive as a lady?"

Here the van stopped to take up Mrs. Cayley.

Tomina greeted her warmly, and made her comfortable in the corner behind her.

"We've been talking about husbands and wives, Mrs. Cayley, and which of them ought to be the ruler. What do you think? Some of us don't like to be ruled and managed by men, and some of us do. It depends upon the man, don't you think?"

Mrs. Cayley looked round her with her sweet, gentle smile.

"I don't think there'll be any talk of ruling, where there be love for each other. When love rules, you only see the love, and not the rule."

The women were silent.

"Yes," said Tomina, "of course, you are right. It is love and trust that is wanted in married life, and then there will be no talk of rule."

Her thoughts went to Colonel Norman.

"My love was not deep enough or we should never have separated," she said to herself. "I feel now that, if he were to want me, I would never wish to have any other will but his."

The talk went on in the van, but Tomina did not join in. She gazed wistfully and dreamily in front of her, and it was only when she arrived at Damerton that she roused herself to her usual business.

A few days after this, she received a letter from Tom, the first he had sent her since he sailed.

"DEAR OLD TOMMIE,"

"I am not a good fist at yarning with my pen, but I feel I treated you a bit shabbily. My great happiness made me a selfish brute. Isn't she wonderful? Are you two real friends? I want you to be. Have you gone to stay with her yet? Take the first train and go! I want you to tell me about her. She, like myself, is a bad correspondent; she never tells what I want to know, and how can she? I charge you to do it, and you'll earn my everlasting gratitude. Write me twenty pages. Don't stint paper or ink. Tell me all about her, how she looks, where she is when you're writing, what she is doing, what gown she is wearing, whether that rare smile of hers creeps over her face. It comes so slowly and it goes so quickly, but I learnt to watch for it, and whilst it lasted it warmed my heart and made me feel I could go through fire and water to get it again. Oh, Tommie, I can tell you I feel in a desert, stranded and forlorn. My only comfort is living once again that blessed fortnight in imagination. I shall hope for continual letters from you when you get to her. Do go at once. She like's you, and she'll be lonely; she'll miss me, though she is never one to proclaim it. This postbag is being closed.

"Adieu.

"Your devoted Twin,

"Tom."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" sighed Tomina. "How foolish young husbands are! He little knows, poor boy, how indifferent Doreen is to both of us. And how can I force myself upon her before she asks me? Is that all the use I can be to him now, a kind of mirror reflecting for his benefit all she says and does?"

But she was not surprised to get a letter from Doreen in a week's time to ask her for a "short visit."

She once again placed Joe in charge of her van, and went to the Dower House at Walburton.

Doreen met her at the station in a pretty little pony-trap. She told Tomina it was her cousin's wedding gift to her. She was looking brighter and happier, and talked away about her house and garden the whole time. It was a drive of two and a half miles, and they arrived at the house just before dusk. The last rays of the setting sun were gilding all the windows as they entered.

"It's a good omen for your visit," said Doreen, pleasantly. "Now you must not expect perfection, though I have aimed at it, and some of the rooms are still in rather an unfinished state. But don't you think I have a sweet house?"

Tomina could quite satisfy her on that point. Indeed, the quaint, old-fashioned cottage, with its low, long irregular rooms, and beautiful oak beams and panelling would have satisfied any artist's heart. Doreen had good taste; and every room was a picture of dainty freshness and comfort. They had a cosy tea in the drawing-room, and as it was still early spring, a bright wood fire was very acceptable.

Tomina tried to feel that this was Tom's home, but she could not picture it.

When Doreen took her into the third sitting-room, she looked at the rose-covered chintzes, and the fragile Chippendale chairs and tables, and asked—

"Is this Tom's smoking-room?"

Doreen raised her eyebrows.

"This is the morning room. I write and work here, of course. I dare say Tom will be able to bring his pipe in when he likes."

"But have you no man's room?" questioned Tomina, persistently. "When he is home, where is he to sit?"

"With me, I should think," said Doreen, and a cold inflection was in her tone. "Considering how much he will be away, I have not, I confess, furnished a room for his sole and absolute use."

Tomina was silent.

"There is a room—the housekeeper's," went on Doreen, in milder tones, "that I dare say Tom may like to use. My maids will not want it. I only keep two, and they have such a beautiful kitchen that they do not need a servants' hall. But there will be plenty of time to furnish that later."

"Oh yes," said Tomina, quickly, "you will be able to do that, of course. I know Tom's ways when he is at home, and he would be bound to have a den of his own."

After dinner they sat over the fire and talked. But Tomina wisely kept off the subject of her brother as long as she could.

"What will you do with yourself when your house and garden is in perfect order, and you have no more planning and contriving?" she asked Doreen.

Doreen sat back in her chair with clasped hands in her lap. She was always composed and still, her face was a striking contrast to Tomina's sparkling vivacious one. Her eyes were clear and steady, as she answered slowly—

"I shall live in my books when I am not gardening."

"What kind of books do you live in?"

"It depends on my mood," said Doreen. "Poetry when I am feeling flat and dull. Philosophy when I want to think."

"You read to take yourself away from your surroundings?"

"Yes, always."

"I don't. I like to get knowledge for practical purposes. But then it is only lately that I have tried to do useful things, and I am so ignorant! You would laugh to see some of my purchases in the Damerton book shop. Handbooks on cookery, of course, and medicine in the home, and the first course in nursing and ambulance, and dog diseases, and scientific dressmaking, and bee keeping, and gardening."

"But why have you so many hobbies?"

"Oh, they're not hobbies exactly, only I don't feel so lamentably ignorant when I drive my van. My passengers appeal to me on every kind of topic. Two of them had a dispute on the efficacy of onions for poultices the other day. I had never heard of the onion cure. They expect me to be a regular encyclopædia of knowledge. And I don't like disappointing them."

"I wonder how soon you will tire of that van?"

"Not just yet."

"But you will not want to spend the rest of your life in that part of the country?"

"I shall never go back to London."

"You will stagnate there."

"That is what Alice Merryweather always says. But I find I am always making new discoveries and learning new things."

"You ought to marry," Doreen said, looking at her with sombre eyes. "You have taken up a 'rôle' that does not suit you. A woman carrier to my mind ought to be a gaunt, big-limbed, hard-featured person. You don't look as if you could weather a puff of wind!"

"There I am a fraud, for I've weathered many storms, and have never been in better health all my life. And marriage is not necessarily the sole aim and object of a woman's life. I could not undertake it without real love!"

The words slipped out of her lips before she thought. But Doreen looked at her with a calm smile.

"Love is tempestuous, and uncertain, it never lasts. I do not think I know a single couple amongst my married friends who keep their love after ten years of married life. They get accustomed to each other, indifferent I should say. Love is 'not' necessary, Tomina. It is a waste of one's heart's blood often."

Tomina shook her head.

"I can't argue with you. A married life without love must be like—well, like bread without any butter."

"Bread is very wholesome," said Doreen, with the shadow of a smile. Then she rose from her seat and stood with her back to the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. Looking at Tomina almost tenderly, she said: "I feel so many years older than you, Tomina. It is difficult to kindle a fire when it has burnt out and there are only ashes left. It will never be kindled again in my heart. It is of no use us uttering all these platitudes; you are not pleased with my attitude towards your brother, but you need not be afraid. I mean to be serene, and helpful; he will never find that I shall fail him."

"But he does love you so intensely," said Tomina; "it is such waste on his part, is it not?"

"No, I think I like it. It soothes and comforts me."

"But why should he give you so much and you give him so little?"

Tomina's tone vibrated with feeling.

"I am giving him a great deal, and he knows it. As you said just now, marriage is not the sole aim and object of a woman's life. It was not mine, and I told him so. I warned him beforehand what I could give him and what I could not. And if you leave us alone, you will find we shall be as united a couple as the majority are."

"I shall never mention the subject again," said Tomina, quietly.

And she did not.

The following morning she was shown the quaint old garden, and Tomina fell in love with it at once. Crocuses and early daffodils were springing under the old red brick walls, the brown buds on trees and shrubs were swelling visibly, and birds were singing ecstatically as they flew here and there collecting for their nests. Doreen pointed out the wooden seats in sheltered corners, and said she meant to bring her writing and books out of doors as soon as the weather became warm.

"Do you know where I first got my love for a garden?" she said. "It was about six years ago before I went out to Australia. I visited a convent in France, and they took me into the garden, where some of them were gardening, and some of them walking about and reading their books. It was summer-time, and the peace and stillness under the shady trees, and the sweet scent of the lilies and heliotrope and lemon verbena followed me for years. It made me wish to be a nun. And when I came into this legacy, my cup of happiness seemed full. I shall wander round and imbibe all the scents and sounds and sweetness that will be here. You see it in spring now. You have no idea of the wealth of bloom and beauty that will come by-and-by!"

"You are making one envy you," said Tomina, with her gay laugh. "I can see you on a summer's morning. It seems to suit you. You must always wear a white gown rather long in the skirt, so that you can trail properly over the green lawns, with a basket of roses hanging on your arm, and a book in your hand. Then you can pose by a sundial, and follow with your eyes the flight of rooks or doves from a dovecote. Oh, it will be charming! But there must be an observer somewhere, or your dream-garden will never be described in the orthodox fashion."

"You are laughing at me! I shall welcome no intruder. It is the peace and privacy that I shall value. Can't you understand a little? I have been at every one's beck and call since I left school, always making myself agreeable when I did not feel so, always entertaining, always talking small talk, paying empty compliments, making friends with people I thoroughly despised, accepting their hospitality, joining in empty chatter, in gay trivialities, never having a moment to myself, smiling when my heart was aching, pretending and posing and acting day after day, till my soul sickened and withered under it all!"

At last Tomina saw something of the fire beneath Doreen's still serene exterior. She slipped her arm into hers and gave it a little squeeze.

"Of course, I understand, dear," she said. "Haven't I gone through it myself? Aren't hundreds of women doing it still? And yet half of them don't realise the pitiful slavery of it, and how they could break away and call their souls their own if they choose. I broke away, and I am never going back to it again. You and I are fortunate. We have no obligations to make us do so. I know that some are nobly doing their duty towards husbands and parents and children, and could not make a fresh life for themselves. They must stay in it, and endure. But there are others who could do as we have done."

Tomina's eyes were misty as she spoke. She went on—

"I seem to feel so much more for people than I used to do. I think it is my van. I hear and see so much of human life as we go trundling along. Sometimes I wonder, if I went back to my London life, whether I could help any girls to escape from it, and see what a much bigger purpose might be in their lives; and how we were sent into the world for that purpose. But, of course, I might not succeed in making them see it, and might only do more harm than good."

"I don't think the modern girl would stand much preaching," said Doreen.

"Perhaps not. And we are all led differently, are we not? I remember telling my doctor that I felt like a traveller leaving the busy high-road and turning down a green bye-lane. That was when I first arrived in the country. Now, as I look back, what a beautiful country my green lane has led me into, and what vistas and views I have got!"

"Views of what?" Doreen asked, looking down upon her curiously.

"Of the Golden Unseen Land," said Tomina, softly.

And Doreen said no more.

Tomina enjoyed this visit of hers. She and Doreen gardened industriously every morning.

They drove out in the afternoon, and occasionally had to receive callers. Long letters went out to Tom, but Tomina was the one who wrote most, and she described her life in every detail.

Now and then in talking together over the fire in the evening, they would touch the fringe of deep subjects. Tomina was quite ready to talk of what she had lately experienced, but she was also ready to wait, and draw back, if Doreen showed impatience or distaste of such talk.

Time slipped away, and then Tomina said she must return home. As London was on her way, she determined to stay with her stepmother for a few days before returning to Little Honeycombe.

Doreen parted from her with sincere regret. She drove her to the station in her pony-trap.

They had been rather silent for some time, when she suddenly startled Tomina by saying abruptly—"You spoke the other day of every one having a high purpose in their lives. What is yours?"

"To be a carrier," said Tomina, slowly and sweetly. "Wasn't it strange that I tumbled upon my vocation in real carelessness of soul? I mean with God's help to be a carrier to the end of my life. The legend of St. Christoforos has helped me so much."

Doreen looked interested.

"I used to be so fond of that story when I was a child," she said. "I think you would always help people with their burdens, Tomina. You are so sympathetic, and yet so gay. I am a very grave person, as you know, and as such appreciate brightness so very much. Sometimes people crudely imagine that the sober-looking cannot enjoy fun. Why, it is those that feel cold that enjoy the sunshine most!"

"It's a lovely thought, isn't it?" said Tomina, with glowing eyes. "Life does seem so hard to so many, it is like struggling through rushing water; and if one can help each other through, it is glorious. I have been so awfully selfish. I have sat with folded hands, refusing to put my little finger out to help anybody. Our Rector's wife is quite overwhelmed sometimes. I refused to go near her because she was 'good' and tried to do me good. Oh, how I did dislike her at first, and how much I like her now!"

"Do you? I should never like any one who 'tried to do me good.' But I should like some one who shouldered my burden with me and stepped along a bit of my way. And you have done that, Tomina. Life has been better and sweeter since you came."

Tomina could not speak. When she kissed her in parting, she said—

"I shall often think of you in your retreat. We are real friends, are we not? The recluse and the carrier!"

And at Tomina's happy laugh, Doreen gave one of her rare sweet smiles. Tomina carried that away with her, and thought that, after all, Tom was a lucky man.