Chapter VII: Two Visitors

BUT in a day or two, Tomina was quite herself again, and Harry stayed on. Everything that was softest and best in her came to the surface when she had him by her side. Miss Merryweather called one afternoon, and found her seated on the floor with a pack of cards. Harry and she were erecting towers, to be demolished with a pop-gun as soon as they were erected.

Tomina rose from the floor with reluctance.

"I have always enjoyed a game of cards, but I think this is the most engrossing one I have ever played," she said. "Now, Harry, I am going to rest for a little. Will you run out into the garden and tell Thor, with my love, that he must take his turn at amusing you now?"

"And he'll shake his head and say, 'No.' Susan says he likes an afternoon nap. But I'll tell him what you say, and if he doesn't do it, I'll—I'll make him!"

He trotted away with flying curls; and Miss Merryweather looked her astonishment.

"I have heard about your 'protégé.' You are rather a marvel to me!"

"Am I? I think you would have acted in the same way had you been in my shoes."

Alice Merryweather shook her head.

"No, I should know I could not make him happy. You told me you had come down here to get away from your fellow-creatures, but on all sides I hear of the friends you are making. Allow me to congratulate you upon your enterprise. You are turning into a successful philanthropist."

"You mean my van? My dear Miss Merryweather, that is pure amusement and delight to me, and so is Harry. I have never done anything yet that I dislike doing."

"But did I not tell you when you talked about my work that I found work a pleasure. All people do who throw their hearts into it. You have turned into the busy bee down here, I into the drone."

Tomina looked at her keenly.

"You are really ill," she said.

"I'm never without a headache," confessed Alice; "and my very limbs seem powerless. You don't know what a helpless wretched creature I have become. The only solace to me is my books, and those are a forbidden indulgence."

"Forbidden by our tyrant the doctor, I suppose? Oh, I would snap my fingers at him! Doesn't he interfere in everybody's concerns? Even Harry here may be at any moment snatched away by him. He wants him now, but I want him too, so our wills are in conflict."

Alice laughed.

"I think your will will come uppermost," she said. "Dr. Merton is very kind at heart. Tell me about your carrier's cart. I feel inclined to come with you one day."

"Do; it is most entertaining! Do you know two old ladies called Seaton? I had such a quaint old-fashioned note from one of them this morning.

"'The Misses Seaton will be much obliged if Miss Gavin will kindly reserve two seats together for them in her van next Friday when she goes to Damerton. They are obliged to go into Damerton on business, otherwise they would not trouble her, and will she kindly see that the two seats are under cover, and out of the draught. If very wet, they will not attempt the journey; but if fine, D.V., * they would like her to stop at their gate as she passes.'

"They are such old dears! But they told me, with heads in the air, that they had never used a carrier's cart for their personal convenience."

* D.V.—Deo Volente ["God willing."]

"Oh, I know them well," said Alice, smiling; "they are awfully afraid of letting themselves slip down from the station in life to which they were called, and most of their conversations are sandwiched with, 'Our late father, the Rector of Twistham,' or, 'When we lived in Twistham Rectory.' You cannot get them off it.

"I asked them once if they would like the post of librarians in a country town not far from London. They are fond of books, and are well-read women. I could have got it for them, and as they're so very badly off, I thought they would have jumped at it, but they were quite shocked at the idea. They are very early Victorian, and think women ought never to work out of their homes."

"I don't like the type of working women I have met in town," said Tomina, "they're so sure of themselves, and so argumentative and dictatorial!"

"What class of woman have you met?"

"A lady doctor or two, and some Poor Law Guardians, and an American barrister; she was the best of the lot, she knew how to dress herself!"

Alice laughed.

And Tomina joined her, adding—

"I don't care; women have no business to make themselves into seedy caricatures of men. They generally despise them; why should they ape their dress and manners?"

"You are talking of the aggressive style of woman. The hardest workers are not that sort."

"Don't let us talk of women," said Tomina. "I'm not very fond of my own sex. Men are, as a rule, bigger-minded and more interesting. I see rather a scornful glint in your eye? The person I like best in the world is a man who is now in Australia."

"I suppose you are engaged to him?"

"Indeed I am not, nor shall I ever be. He is my twin brother, and his name is Tom. I have to thank him for my ridiculous name. He is the elder by an hour, and he had to be a Thomas. His godfather insisted on it. And then they named me Tomina. We grew up together, and I don't think I could have had a nicer brother. If I could, I would follow him round the world; but he is in the Navy, and they won't have women on men-of-war."

"I should think not, indeed," said Alice, laughing. "I am afraid you won't have much men's society here. You will soon be wanting to go back to town."

"No, I feel as if I never wish to see it again. You forget that I have entered another life—or world is it? And I am getting keenly interested in the villagers. They are quite a new experience to me. You should hear the conversations in my van! They're as good, and better than a play. Five women were made to thrill last Friday by the description of a neighbour who went to church in her weekday clothes! And they're so good and generous to each other, much more so than we are! Oh, I'm in love with my burial place. I shall never want to leave it."

"I came to ask you if you would do a commission for me when next you go to Damerton. Will you bring me back a parcel of books, and let me call for them here the next day?"

"With pleasure. Oh! Who is this? Not a visitor?"

A carriage was stopping at the gate. Alice Merryweather looked out.

"Why, it is Mrs. Norman! It is not often she comes this way."

"Oh dear! I don't want visitors. I'm not at home! That wretch Susan is already at the door. Do go out and say I can't see her!"

Alice laughed.

"My dear Miss Gavin, you had better go through it with a good grace. Mrs. Norman would have forced her way in, for she saw us at the window. Nothing escapes her eyes. I am sorry for that nice son of hers who has come home to look after her. She leads him a dreadful life. She is one of those people who can never keep still; her energy is almost superhuman."

The next moment, Susan ushered in a very animated little lady dressed in the height of fashion.

She greeted Tomina almost affectionately.

"We cannot be strangers, though I have not been in town for years. We were abroad for five years before my husband died, but your stepmother and I are old friends. I am so pleased that you have come to live in this part of the world. Why did you not let me know before? You are down here for health, are you not? Leading the simple life, and so on.

"Well, we have all had our turn at that. Before we went abroad, I got my husband to rent a small cottage for week-ends, and I tried my best to adapt myself to it. But mice and earwigs conquered me, and I fled. As I say, our life at Yockley Court is a simple one, and for the present I am tied there. Between ourselves, our agent was a gentlemanly loafer, and has let the whole place go to ruin, and through mismanagement—I won't hint at any possible want of honesty—a few thousands of ours have disappeared, and we have to economise. This is what brought Gerald home. He has come to look after his mother, and bring order out of chaos. You know my son, Miss Gavin, do you not?"

Tomina's face during this long speech was a study. Alice sat still, and quite enjoyed it.

Then Tomina spoke, with her head thrown back, her eyes partly closed, and her voice very sweet, but very remote in tone.

"It is kind of you to come to see me, but I am not to have visitors, my doctor says. I am to enjoy absolute quiet. You see I am doing a rest cure. I have shed my fashionable friends with my fashionable clothes, and hours, like a skin! You will understand that as an invalid, I cannot return this kind visit. I want to regain my health, and so I am determined to follow my doctor's orders."

"My dear girl, I am indeed sorry for you! I did not know you were in such delicate health, but I see Miss Merryweather has discovered you."

"Yes," said Alice, "our doctor introduced us. We are supposed to be two invalids, and he thought we might like to discuss our respective symptoms."

"I am so thankful for my superb health," said Mrs. Norman, with pride. "I never have had a day's illness for years. I am up every morning at half-past five, and in my garden at seven. I have just started a water garden at the end of my rock garden, and it is most fascinating. Do you know any rare water plants, Miss Merryweather? I know you are a very encyclopædia for knowledge of all kinds."

Alice began telling her of a few plants by name, and it was Tomina's turn to sit silent and listen. She could not reconcile this youthful energetic mother with her stern determined son. She wondered how they got on together, whether the son or mother ruled the house.

And in a very few minutes, Mrs. Norman rose to go.

"Well, I am glad to have found you at home, my dear, and I will send the carriage over to bring you to lunch with us one day. You must not mope here. I am glad I have seen you. I heard a most ridiculous story afloat, about a young lady running a carrier's cart, and somebody said it was you. Now I have seen you, I can contradict the story. You do not look as if that 'rôle' would suit you. Do you know of any girl about here who is doing such a thing? Some farmer's daughter, I suppose. Girls will do anything nowadays! And the more unfeminine a pursuit may be, the more it appeals to them."

Tomina, lying back in her chair in a daintily embroidered muslin frock and looking a picture of fragile porcelain femininity, gazed at Mrs. Norman languidly through her long eyelashes.

"Is driving not a feminine pursuit? My carrier's cart is the only thing I really enjoy."

Mrs. Norman gazed at her with horrified eyes.

"Then the report is true? My dear girl, does your stepmother know about it? You must have far more energy than your appearance credits you with. Well, good-bye; you have astonished me! I wish I had time to ask for details, but I am due at the rectory for a committee meeting. Dear me! What a tangled medley is the composition of a modern girl!"

She bustled out of the room. Alice Merryweather accompanied her to the gate, then returned to Tomina.

"You are a tangled medley," she said. "Mrs. Norman spoke truly there."

"And I seem to myself so simple!" said Tomina. "Life must be so here. I am not at all tangled in my mind. I only do the things I want to do, and leave the rest."

"You have no high ideals," said Alice, musingly. "Those are what require effort and produce restlessness and discontent."

"What are your ideals?"

"To cultivate to the fullest extent every fraction of my brain. I would not have an ounce of me lying fallow. To do work in the world that will last. Not to stagnate, and be a source of danger to others by stagnation!"

Alice spoke in a low voice, but her tone vibrated with earnest passion.

Tomina looked at her and smiled, then she sighed.

"I don't know whether I am so simple after all," she said. "I am playing a game, trying to match my environment, but simplicity means goodness, and I am not good. And I never wished to be good till—Shall I make you my father confessor? Why am I talking like this, I wonder!"

She stopped abruptly.

But Alice looked interested and sympathetic, so Tomina went on—

"Till I met an absurd little book pedlar, and he gave me a lesson on limes coming into leaf, and every time I pass those limes, they repeat his words to me. I sometimes think that unseen forces are surrounding me, making me think of religion, and compelling me to be religious. I bought a Bible the other day. Harry forced me to. He wanted some of his Bible stories. I think if I have an ideal at all, it is to have the faith of a little child. I told the quaint pedlar that I came down here to bury myself, and that eventually I meant to emerge a new creature. He at once began to talk about a new Birth, and the sap rising in the dead trees of winter. He told me I wanted the sap to rise in me.

"I laughed at his little parable, but this morning I was hunting about for a fresh Bible story and I came across this verse. Do you know it? I never remember having heard it before—

"'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed
away; behold, all things are become new.'

"You see, a part of that is my experience. Old things are passed away. I did away with them when I came down here. I don't want them back again. I'm sick of my town friends and gaieties. And I'm wondering, if I want to resurrect myself properly, whether I had not better take my soul into account, and get made a new kind of person altogether!"

Tomina paused. A wistful look was in her eyes.

For a moment Alice was speechless, then she said gently—

"Well, have a try. I'm busy cultivating my intellect; you cultivate your spiritual part. We are all of us a medley of parts, you know."

"How can I set about it?" asked Tomina.

Alice's early training saved her from making a flippant reply. After all, she argued to herself, Tomina was not a clever individual, so why should she not get the comfort of religion if she chose? She would not be the one to prevent her.

"I suppose," she said slowly, "the Bible will show you. I believe the study of it feeds the spiritual part of you. I used to be told so, I remember."

Then she got up to go. And as she shook hands, a smile flashed over her face.

"You are a tangled medley. Mrs. Norman was quite right."

"I hope something or somebody will untangle me before long," retorted Tomina. "But one thing I know, and that is that Mrs. Norman is not going to trot me out to luncheon parties, and I don't mean to return her call."

"You cannot avoid doing that."

"Oh yes; an invalid can avoid anything."

"But not an invalid who drives a carrier's cart."

Tomina laughed gaily.

"I am the queen of my van. I can sit for hours in silence if I choose. Conversation at lunch or dinner bores me to distraction. It must necessarily be so forced and artificial."

"Oh, I don't agree. Think of Dr. Johnson's breakfast table, and—"

Tomina waved her hand.

"Good-bye. Of all things, I hate a literary meal. I believe half the speeches are made up beforehand. Each one vies with the other in making the most brilliant sallies. I have been to one or two of those edifying repasts, so I know what I am talking about."

When Alice had gone, she went out into the garden.

"And now I shall refresh myself with Harry."