THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ETHEL LINA WHITE. Ethel Lina White
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of the Sleeping Beauty, for Joan met no one in the cobbled street.
When she passed the picturesque water-fed garden of Spout Manor, however, she saw Miss Mack looking through the gate. Her placid face and smiling lips gave her an appearance of complete happiness; but there was a suggestion of bars about the ironwork through which she peered, which made the little woman seem vaguely pathetic.
"Hulloa," called Joan. "Glorious, isn't it?"
"Yes," smiled Miss Mack. "Are you going for a walk?"
"Rather. Right to the top of the Downs."
"How nice. I'd like to be a hiker—too."
"You mean—wear shorts and carry a rucksack?"
Joan glanced at the squat little figure and stilled her heartless grin.
"Where's Miss Asprey?" she asked, as she thought of the anonymous letter.
"Gardening, over there."
Miss Mack looked rather furtively to where a tall, thin form in a grey, knitted suit, stooped over a flower-border, in the distance. Then, as though eager to keep the girl a little longer, she touched Joan's safety-pin brooch.
"That's pretty," she said. "But it's not properly fastened. You'll lose it."
As her podgy fingers busied themselves with the pin, Joan—although not more tolerant of middle-aged society than the average girl—suddenly felt called upon to make a sacrifice.
"Why don't you come with me?" she asked.
"I'd like to," cried Miss Mack. "I've nothing to do for Miss Asprey."
"Fine. Now, I've got to drop some mags at St. James's House. Get ready—strong shoes and a stick—and never mind about shorts. I'll come back in a few minutes and collect you."
As the little woman pattered eagerly up the drive, Joan felt almost rewarded, even while she grumbled inwardly.
"What a fool. Dished my whole afternoon."
She carried a pile of magazines, which Dr. Perry had lent to his wealthy patient. Like most of the residents, Lady d'Arcy was meticulous in ordering only biographies and books of travel from her London Library; but she borrowed every novel and magazine that she saw in her friends' houses.
As the gates clanged behind Joan, Marianne Perry sauntered across the daisied lawn to meet her. She wore a green pyjama-suit and looked as though the doctor had blacked both her eyes; yet she managed to preserve her odd attraction.
"Oh, why did you fag with these?" she cried, as she took the magazines and threw them on the grass. "It's too marvellously hot."
"You look cool, anyway," Joan told her.
"Don't mention my pyjamas," implored Marianne. "They're my painful subject. When I first wore them I was fool enough to think I was going to shock the village; but Mrs. Scudamore merely said they were very decent and comfortable, if not exactly becoming."
"Like her," nodded Joan. "She's always on guard against any charge of prudery. But she really is terribly sensible. Where are the babes?"
"Having a sun-bath. Like to see my private Zoo? Can you stand indecent exposure?"
Marianne sauntered across the lawn to a distant corner, where two naked infants, crowned with enormous coolie straw hats, were staggering around their play-pen. Her black-ringed eyes were almost ravenous with maternal passion, but she spoke with affected detachment.
"Amusing brats, aren't they? Terribly out of proportion, although Micky's growing to his head and tummy."
Then she clasped her slim waist.
"I'm sun-bathing, too, for a cure," she explained. "I seem to have an everlasting pain. Nothing much, and the doctor will call it unripe fruit."
"It sounds rather like a grumbling appendix," declared Joan with the swift and sure touch of unprofessional diagnosis.
"Perhaps," agreed Marianne. "I accuse my husband of experimental poisoning, but I can't get him to come clean."
Although the words were intended for a joke, Joan did not feel amused. They seemed out of place on this day of burning summer, while the gracious Queen Anne house mellowed with the passing of yet another day, and babies gurgled and sprawled in the shade of pink horse-chestnuts.
She felt slightly out of tune with the glory of the year, when she reached the gates of 'The Spout'. To her surprise, Miss Mack was not ready for the walk, although she was waiting on the drive. Ada—her red-gold hair burnished by sunlight—was cutting the grass, while Miss Asprey, complete with shady hat and walking-stick, stood by the gate.
"Aren't you ready, Miss Mack?" asked Joan.
"No. I'm sorry, but I'm too busy to come this afternoon," was the placid reply.
"But I thought you said you had nothing to do," said Joan. Miss Asprey smiled in benign encouragement on her little companion.
"Miss Mack forgot she has to address envelopes for a Charity Appeal," she explained. "You like doing them, don't you, my dear?"
"Yes, indeed, I do," was the instant reply.
"Miss Mack tells me you want company on your walk," went on Miss Asprey, turning to Joan. "If I can fill the gap, I shall be very glad."
In spite of the rare fascination of her smile, Joan felt a prick of rebellion against the queen of the village.
"That's terribly nice of you," she said, without enthusiasm. "But I wanted to get up on the Downs. Won't it be too much for you in this heat?"
"I think not. Are you ready? Then shall we start?"
Joan still felt antagonistic to Miss Asprey; but they had barely gone a dozen yards before an incident occurred which made her veer round like a weathercock.
A little boy was dragging along a puppy, on a lead, with such careless jerks that a rare visitor stopped to reprove him. He merely stared at the stranger blankly, and pulled on the puppy again.
It was then that Miss Asprey commanded the situation.
"Bertie," she said, in her firm, pleasant voice, "you cannot keep that dog any longer without a licence. I promised I would buy one, if you were gentle with it. But, as you've been rough, it's going to be given to a kind little girl."
At her imperious wave, Ada ran out of the garden and listened to her instructions. Picking up the puppy, she carried it back to 'The Spout', laughing and ducking her head as the dog tried to lick her face. Miss Asprey looked down at the boy's quivering lips.
"Animals are not toys, Bertie," she said, "and you cannot treat them as such. But I am going to give you a toy dog, to teach you to be gentle with a real one, later on. I warn you that if you kick it, or throw it down, I shall take it away."
Miss Asprey walked away, having dispensed justice to the general happiness. Bertie was beaming with dumb pleasure, while Miss Mack waved a smiling farewell, from the gates. Ada made even the pup wag a paw to her mistress, and Joan repented her own disloyalty.
'She's really kind' she thought, 'but she's not sloppy. After all, Miss Mack must have known about those envelopes. I should have to stay in, to get out an Appeal. After all, we're paid to do our jobs.'
They soon passed through the sleepy village—gold-powdered, with dusty-blue shadows—and reached 'The King's Head', where the road looped to meet the highway to London. Here the rolling sea of green fields sloped, gently and imperceptibly, upwards to the low eminence of the Downs. Joan became conscious that she was leading, and fell back, with an apology.
"I'm so sorry. I'm afraid I am walking too fast for you."
"What is your usual pace?" asked Miss Asprey.
"The usual four miles an hour."
"The usual? Then I'm afraid I am a back-number. I follow the example of the Roman Legion. Their pace was three miles an hour, up hill and down dale, and they never hurried