THE TRAVELLERS

JOAN was having a busy day. Her mother and sister were expected that afternoon. She had been up since daybreak; both she and her father were nervously anxious that the old rectory should make a good impression upon the travellers. With the assistance of the odd man, Joan had swept and rolled the lawn and paths, tied up straggling chrysanthemums, and brought a fair amount of order and tidiness into the sweet old-fashioned garden.

Sophia, after cleaning and scouring everything in the kitchen that she could lay her hands upon, was now immersed in cooking. The house fairly revelled in smells of hot cakes, hot tarts, hot bread, and a variety of other indications that the oven was doing its work in a satisfactory manner. Derrick had been as good as his word. A brace of pheasants had arrived at two o'clock, and Sophia seized them with a cook's delight. When Joan remonstrated, telling her they were too fresh, she triumphantly showed her the label with the date attached.

"Three days old, Miss Joan, and just what is wanted for the mistress. The joint of beef will come in hot to-morrow and will eat cold on Sunday."

So Joan let her have her way. She herself was in every room, assisted by the young housemaid; there were beds to make, linen and plate to be brought out of store cupboards; fresh cushions, and curtains, and tablecloths to take the place of shabby ones, flowers to be arranged, brass to be brightened, furniture to be polished. By half-past three in the afternoon Joan's feet were aching, but her heart dancing. As she piled the wood logs on the drawing-room fire, and looked round the dainty little home-like room, she said to herself, "Mother will fall in love with it. We have never lived in such a sweet house before!"

She had worked hard at the drawing-room. She had bought some faded chintz curtains and hangings cheap at a country sale a few weeks before, and her clever fingers had cut out and made covers for the shabby, old, town furniture they had brought with them.

Bowls of red and gold chrysanthemums brightened the dark corners; some framed water-colours, the handiwork of Mrs. Adair when a girl, covered the walls, which had been freshly hung with a delicate cream paper; the high, narrow, white marble mantelpiece held a few choice bits of china, and all the newest and brightest books filled the low bookcases in the recesses on either side of the fireplace. Joan's work-basket, the local paper, and some loose magazines on a small table gave a sense of homeliness to the room.

Joan pulled up two easy chairs to the fire; she rearranged the cushions on the chintz couch; then she glanced out of the window, and saw her father pacing up and down the gravel path. He was waiting for the country fly which was to take him to the station to meet his wife. He looked very bent and old, and leaned more on his stick than he had ever done before; and yet she knew, although she could not see his face, that his eyes were shining with hope and expectancy, that the wrinkles were smoothed out upon his brow, that his soul was having one of the happiest times in his life. They had had several home-comings of this kind before, but never one under such favourable circumstances as this. As Joan watched him, sudden tears filled her eyes.

"Why, oh why are there so many unfulfilled desires!" she exclaimed passionately. "Why are we such an ill-assorted family? Oh, God!"—And her whole soul rose up in its breathless longing—"Oh, God, don't let him be disappointed this time!"

Mr. Adair, walking up and down with a smile upon his lips, was living in the past. Step by step he was watching himself as a young man from the time he went to his first curacy. How well he remembered the beautiful old abbey church in which he was so fortunate as to find himself! Would he ever forget the first time he was introduced by his rector, at a little evening gathering, to old General Lovell and his three beautiful and clever young daughters? He remembered now the little thrill that ran through him when, after some conversation in which the General did most of the talking and he the listening, he was clapped heartily on the shoulder by the old soldier, with the words:

"Quite glad to speak with a black coat or two; am sick of the red ones. Come and see me, young fellow—come and dine with us to-morrow night!"

How shyly and delightedly he had gone! How his simple soul was dazed at first by the bright brilliance of the Misses Lovell, and then attracted and then bewitched by the fascination of the one who always seemed to understand him and to make allowances for his awkwardness! Cecilia Lovell had been very good to him in those days.

At first he had felt he was an outsider, a stranger in their set. The Lovells had always been a race of soldiers, and very distinguished ones. His forbears for centuries had been quiet churchmen, not very clever, not very gifted, but men of simple gentle lives and unselfish aims—perhaps of narrow prejudices and small, one-sided views. He could not look at life as the Lovells did; they could not look at life as he did. But Cecilia always seemed to fill the breach; and then, on one unforgettable day, he had breathed in her ear the old, old question, and, with shy averted face, she had given him his answer and the desire of his heart.

The old General had been delighted. His motherless daughters were both a care and anxiety to him. Gout was troubling him. He was impatient to go abroad and try a cure, so he pushed on the marriage, and in three months' time, Cecilia Lovell became Mrs. Adair. Her father was generous, and gave her a liberal allowance.

In spite of a curate's pay, the young couple were very fairly comfortable, until children began to arrive. Then John Adair gave up his curacy for a better stipend, and settled in the white cottage in Old Bellerton village. Two boys and two girls played with the orphan grandson of the rector, and for a time life dealt gently with the curate and his family. But Cecilia did not make a good curate's wife; she had an impatient intolerance of a small village life, and never rested till she got her husband to one of the large Midland towns.

The rector looked back to his life there with regret that he had not been able to make his wife happy and content in the work which he loved. He was a simple man, and not a clever one; he read only theology; his wife's broader culture puzzled and distressed him. She made no secret of her dislike to the parishioners, and when her elder boy developed delicacy in one of his lungs, she took him for months at a time to her old home in the south.

Gradually she stayed less and less with her husband. An elderly governess taught the girls and looked after the house when she was away. Then the boys were placed at school. Their mother's idea was for them to enter the Army; her husband objected because of expense, and because he was a man of peace and had a horror of war.

Eventually the elder passed into Sandhurst, went out to India, and died of enteric six months afterwards. The younger one was now his mother's hope. But he developed the same delicacy of lung when nineteen, and though his mother, helped by her father, was able to take him out to Davos, he died of a rapid decline.

Mrs. Adair returned to her husband and girls like a woman without heart and hope. Joan was always strong, but Cecil was as delicate-looking as the boys had been, and, nervously fearing she would go the same way, Mrs. Adair took her continually to Switzerland and to the Riviera by turns. The taste for continental life crept into her veins; she rarely was at home for more than three months in the year, and though doctors assured her that Cecil's lungs were absolutely sound, she refused to believe them.

The death of General Lovell made it easier for her to gratify her love for sunny climes and dry, bracing air. But she had never been able to economise, and John Adair had the greatest difficulty in sending her as much money as she wanted. To ease the strain, he took pupils and coached them for college.

When Joan's education was nearly finished, her godmother, Lady Alicia Fairchild, a lifelong friend of her mother's, determined to give her a chance of making an independent career. She was brilliantly clever, and her governess could teach her nothing more. So Lady Alicia sent her to Girton, and she had worked hard and successfully there. Then, at twenty-two, she came back to her father, and took the household reins into her hands. She did not anticipate staying at home, but circumstances kept her there. The old governess had left, and the house was sadly needing a mistress.

Mr. Adair got the offer of his present living, and then Joan threw her heart and soul into the move. Mr. Adair had always been painfully conscious that his wife could not adapt herself to the shabby terraced house and the economical life of a poor parson. Now his heart swelled with thankfulness. This living was worth £500 a year, and the rectory was a roomy, comfortable house.

As he paced up and down the gravel path, he felt that good times were coming, that he and his wife would settle down in this quiet spot, and draw closer together than ever they had done before. His loyalty and admiration for his wife had never swerved. He knew she was impatient and irritable at times; he could never forget one revelation which she made to him in a moment of furious passion—and that was that she had married him partly to please her father, partly out of pique, as the man she really loved had jilted her; but in spite of this, he trusted that time and his undying love would win her and compel her to come closer to him.

Joan's clear, keen insight showed her both her father's and mother's point of view. Mrs. Adair was distinctly her husband's superior in intellect; she tried, when young, to introduce him to a wider and a higher level of thought, but a certain denseness, some obstinacy, and the firm conviction that a man: and moreover a clergyman, could not and ought not to let his wife dictate or attempt to teach him, made all such attempts a dead failure. She now treated her husband with good-natured indifference. Sometimes Joan felt angry at her mother's attitude; sometimes she felt sorry for her. Now, her sympathies were mostly with her father.

When the fly arrived, she ran out, buttoned up his greatcoat for him, and besought him not to wait about on the cold, draughty platform of the little station.

"Take care of yourself, Dad. I know you will be hours too early for the train."

Mr. Adair had a horror of being late for anything, and his daughter often told him laughingly that his waiting hours consumed a good many days in the course of a twelvemonth.

When the fly was off, Joan ran back into the house. Sophia came out of the kitchen.

"Has the master gone? He be in a dreadful rumpus to-day, Miss Joan."

Sophia had been with them all since they were children; her tongue was never checked, for her heart was loyal and true.

"I think you've been in the greatest fuss, Sophia. I've heard you giving it unsparingly to poor Jenny."

"She's just one of these shiftless girls, Miss Joan. It's terrible to think of the children unborn, when their parents are such worthless stuff."

Joan's laugh rang out merrily.

"You dear old soul! Go back to your kitchen. Thank goodness, I don't worry over non-existent beings. And don't begin to talk to Jenny of her children when she's still unmarried."

"What do you take me for!" said Sophia, in a shocked tone. Then she said: "Put on your pretty silk dress to-night, Miss Joan. Show the mistress your best."

Joan shook her head. "Not to-night. They'll be tired with travelling. We shall all have our dinner and go to bed."

Sophia disappeared. Joan went into the fire-lit drawing-room, and surveyed herself for a moment in a long mirror there. She was clad in a pale grey serge, rather Quakerish in style, with fine lace collar and cuffs. It served to show off her golden-brown head and bright colouring, but she shook her head at herself. "I always feel like a milkmaid beside Cecil." Then she took some pink roses out of a bowl and stuck them in her belt.

It was four miles to the station. The time of waiting seemed long. Joan could neither read nor work; but at length the carriage wheels were heard, and the next moment, Joan and the servants were out in the old porch welcoming the tired travellers.

Joan led her mother straight into the drawing-room, and undid her fur cloak before the fire.

Mrs. Adair looked about her, then held out her delicate, white hands towards the fire and shivered.

She was slim and very tall, a woman who was growing old gracefully, and more beautiful now than either of her daughters. Her snow-white hair, clustering round her brow, seemed to soften the rather hard-cut contour of her face. Her blue eyes were almost as deep and bright as Joan's, though her dark brows and lashes made them more severe. When she smiled at people, she could make them do anything, but she was hardly smiling now.

"We have had a cold journey. Cecil is very tired. We slept the night in town. Of course, we could not come right through. London welcomed us, as usual, with a thick fog. And you seem bitterly cold down here."

"It's very healthy; we are on high ground."

"Oh, I know, my dear Joan, I know. I have not forgotten the terribly long winters, when fires were a scarcity and it was doubtful whether one was justified in buying warm gloves for all the tiny chilblained hands. Your father speaks as if it is a new neighbourhood to which we are coming. He forgets that I know every inch of every road only too well."

"I suppose you remember this room?"

Joan determined to be cheerful.

Mrs. Adair looked round it in a critical sort of way.

"Yes. I give you credit for improving its looks. The poor curate's wife was invited sometimes up to dinner, and sorely was she bored as she sat in this room receiving good advice from the rector's wife!"

Then she smiled sadly.

"Don't torture me with recollections, Joan dear. When I was last here, I had my boys. It cannot be otherwise than sad, returning to this part."

Joan's hopes sank. She felt she had no heart to show her mother over the house. Was it a mistake coming back to the place which held such unpleasant memories for her?

And then through the door came Cecil, like a flash of light.

"Is Mother here? Oh, what a dear, wee, cosy room! Sophia has given me two smacking kisses, Mother, and Jenny—is that her name?—looked as if she were going to follow suit. I tried to freeze her, but I haven't the inches. Joan, you look blooming! My feet are like ice. How nice it is to be home."

Cecil had drawn a low chair up to the fire as she talked, and was now untying her shoes. Slipping them off, she held out silk-clad feet to the fire.

Joan shook her head at her. "Of course you're cold in such flimsy stockings—open-work, too! I'll lend you a pair of my sensible ones if you come upstairs."

"Oh, I can't stand thick stockings."

Cecil spoke in the accents of a spoiled child. "Tell me when the luggage is up," she said. "I'll toast myself here meanwhile."

Joan slipped away. Her father and Benson, the odd man, were struggling in the hall with trunks, hat-boxes, portmanteaus, and every kind of bundle and bag. Joan soon sorted out the light luggage, and made Jenny help her in taking it up to the rooms. The trunks were gradually brought up by the flyman and Benson. When the hall was clear, Mr. Adair went into the drawing-room.

"Welcome home, my dear!" he said, stepping forward and kissing his wife. Then, patting her shoulder, he added, with the tactlessness of a man, "And I'm hoping, please God, that you won't be wanting to run away from your poor old husband, now that you have such a pretty home as this."

"My dear John," said Mrs. Adair, moving very slightly away from him, "do you forget that our sojourn abroad has been by doctor's orders?"

"Yes, yes, my dear—of course I know. But little Cecil is getting stronger, and our bracing heath and pines will be the very thing for her."

Cecil looked up at him from her seat by the fire and laughed. "I believe, like Diogenes, you would be happy in a tub, Dad! I am sure your letters led me to expect a mansion, a country seat! You see, I never remembered the place; I was too small when we left. Mother tried to prepare me. It's a duck of a place, and, for winter, very cosy, but in summer, I should feel I couldn't breathe. The ceilings seem down on one's head."

Mrs. Adair glanced quickly and anxiously at her daughter as she spoke.

"We must have the windows open," she said. "Do you feel this room airless, Cecil? It is the contrast after our big rooms in the hotels."

"Oh, it's all right, Mother. Don't you worry. I'm too cold at present to want anything but a hot fire. Dad, dear, would you mind bringing me my handbag in the hall? I left my handkerchief in it. I'm so tired or I would fetch it myself."

Mr. Adair left the room at once, and went upstairs to find the bag.

Joan would not let him take it down again. "I'll do it, Dad, dear. Cecil is a lazy monkey not to fetch it herself. You must not spoil her. Dinner will be ready in half an hour. You will find hot water in your room."

"My dear Joan," said Mr. Adair, standing still in the passage, and speaking in a dispirited tone, "they find the rooms too small and airless!"

"Nonsense!" said Joan, laughing.

She ran downstairs, afraid to trust herself to say anything further. She chatted gaily to her mother till she had seen her comfortably established in her room upstairs. Then she went down to put final touches on the dinner-table, and then she slipped into her black evening dress.

They all met in the quaint oak-raftered dining-room, a little later, in better spirits.

Sophia's soup, her pheasants, and her sweet omelette were beyond reproach.

When dessert was on the table, Joan pointed to the apples and pears in triumph.

"Out of our own orchard! We are self-supplying. All our vegetables, chickens, eggs—and a fat pig to be made into bacon after Christmas—are our very own. Isn't it delicious, Cecil?"

"It's rather a change after that smoky, grimy Nuthampstead," said Cecil. She leant back in her chair looking exceedingly pretty. She was very slight and small, with an ivory pallor, dark eyes and hair, and delicate features. To-night a faint rose blush was on her cheeks.

"A regular little aristocrat from the top of her head to the soles of her feet," Sophia said of her; and it was true.

Cecil was a reproduction of Mrs. Adair's own mother, who had been a very noted beauty at Court. Her clothes were never anything but dainty in the extreme, though her mother and she had the good taste to dress very quietly. To-night she had a simple blue crepon gown, with old lace softening the bodice. Her dark hair was bound round with a silver braid, but her neck and arms were white as the driven snow, and her face was almost ethereal in its delicate beauty.

Joan was rather silent. She let her mother do most of the talking. Mrs. Adair had many amusing anecdotes to tell and talked of many people and things.

"It was so strange," she said. "We met General Long in town, and he brought his son to see us. He is now a captain in the 12th Hussars, and just home from India. They dined with us. It was interesting hearing about India again. But Harry Long gave an alarming account of the sedition about the Bengal district. He says it is simply seething with an undercurrent of hatred to British rule. People make light of it and refuse to believe it—just as in the days before the Indian Mutiny. I suppose we shall go on making light of it until a crisis comes, and then there will be a lot of unnecessary suffering and bloodshed."

"Oh, I hope not," said Mr. Adair, looking across at his wife with startled eyes. "I hope we shall not have another mutiny or war in India. Mrs. White's son has just gone out to India. It would break the poor old body's heart if anything happened to her boy."

A little smile flitted across Mrs. Adair's face. "We will hope young White will have his life preserved, my dear John. But there are a few more English to be considered besides him in our Indian Empire?"

"Yes, yes—of course. War is horrible. May God preserve us from it; and Indian wars always seem worse than those nearer home. How thankful we must be that we have no sons out there!"

Joan saw her mother wince and quiver as if someone had struck her across the face. She stopped talking, and left the table almost directly.

Mr. Adair was perfectly oblivious that, as usual, he had blundered. He sat on in the dining-room and smoked his pipe over the fire, smiling happily to himself.

"It's nice to have them home again. We shall be together now!"

Mrs. Adair and Cecil retired very early to rest, and Joan was nothing loath to follow their example. She had had a tiring day, and foresaw a good many tiring ones still to come.