The Pool in the Desert | Page 8

it Sunday?' It seemed she had got on very well indeed with the bishop, who knew the married sister, at Tunbridge, of her very greatest friend. Cecily herself did not know the married sister, but that didn't matter--it was a link. The bishop was charming. 'Well, my love,' said I--I was teaching myself to use these forms of address for fear she would feel an unkind lack of them, but it was difficult--'I am glad that somebody from my part of the world has impressed you favourably at last. I wish we had more bishops.'
'Oh, but my bishop doesn't belong to your part of the world,' responded my daughter sleepily. 'He is travelling for his health.'
It was the most unexpected and delightful thing to be packed into one's chair next morning by Dacres Tottenham. As I emerged from the music saloon after breakfast--Cecily had stayed below to look over her hymns and consider with her bishop the possibility of an anthem- -Dacres's face was the first I saw; it simply illuminated, for me, that portion of the deck. I noticed with pleasure the quick toss of the cigar overboard as he recognized and bore down upon me. We were immense friends; John liked him too. He was one of those people who make a tremendous difference; in all our three hundred passengers there could be no one like him, certainly no one whom I could be more glad to see. We plunged at once into immediate personal affairs, we would get at the heart of them later. He gave his vivid word to everything he had seen and done; we laughed and exclaimed and were silent in a concert of admirable understanding. We were still unravelling, still demanding and explaining when the ship's bell began to ring for church, and almost simultaneously Cecily advanced towards us. She had a proper Sunday hat on, with flowers under the brim, and a church-going frock; she wore gloves and clasped a prayer-book. Most of the women who filed past to the summons of the bell were going down as they were, in cotton blouses and serge skirts, in tweed caps or anything, as to a kind of family prayers. I knew exactly how they would lean against the pillars of the saloon during the psalms. This young lady would be little less than a rebuke to them. I surveyed her approach; she positively walked as if it were Sunday.
'My dear,' I said, 'how endimanchee you look! The bishop will be very pleased with you. This gentleman is Mr. Tottenham, who administers Her Majesty's pleasure in parts of India about Allahabad. My daughter, Dacres.' She was certainly looking very fresh, and her calm grey eyes had the repose in them that has never known itself to be disturbed about anything. I wondered whether she bowed so distantly also because it was Sunday, and then I remembered that Dacres was a young man, and that the Farnham ladies had probably taught her that it was right to be very distant with young men.
'It is almost eleven, mamma.'
'Yes, dear. I see you are going to church.'
'Are you not coming, mamma?'
I was well wrapped up in an extremely comfortable corner. I had 'La Duchesse Bleue' uncut in my lap, and an agreeable person to talk to. I fear that in any case I should not been inclined to attend the service, but there was something in my daughter's intonation that made me distinctly hostile to the idea. I am putting things down as they were, extenuating nothing.
'I think not, dear.'
'I've turned up two such nice seats.'
'Stay, Miss Farnham, and keep us in countenance,' said Dacres, with his charming smile. The smile displaced a look of discreet and amused observation. Dacres had an eye always for a situation, and this one was even newer to him than to me.
'No, no. She must run away and not bully her mamma,' I said. 'When she comes back we will see how much she remembers of the sermon;' and as the flat tinkle from the companion began to show signs of diminishing, Cecily, with one grieved glance, hastened down.
'You amazing lady!' said Dacres. 'A daughter--and such a tall daughter! I somehow never--'
'You knew we had one?'
'There was theory of that kind, I remember, about ten years ago. Since then--excuse me--I don't think you've mentioned her.'
'You talk as if she were a skeleton in the closet!'
'You DIDN'T talk--as if she were.'
'I think she was, in a way, poor child. But the resurrection day hasn't confounded me as I deserved. She's a very good girl.'
'If you had asked me to pick out your daughter--'
'She would have been the last you would indicate! Quite so,' I said. 'She is like her father's people. I can't help that.'
'I shouldn't think you would if you could,'