I try to tell you? I don't think I've ever tried to tell
anybody, but I shouldn't mind you."
The flush that at these words rose in Miss Flora's face
was so bright, so beautiful, that something stirred in his
chest and burned in his eyes at the sight of it. Just so
had she flushed nearly half a century before when he had
talked to her. She said nothing, and he began.
364
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
"Have you ever wondered," he asked, "how I could so
hurt you and your sister as to do what I did?"
Miss Flora bent over her hands. "Yes," she said, "I
have wondered."
"Then I will tell you, and that will perhaps help you
to understand what I mean by saying that I've hurt Nico-
leta. Flora, I didn't know until after our marriage, that
she was Bob Blundell's daughter."
"You didn't know!"
"No. I never saw her name written, and assumed that
it was Locksley. She never mentioned her family; she
said very little about her husband, and it was two or three
days after our wedding that I happened to ask her her
father's name. This seems incredible, but it's perfectly
true. You see, we had been traveling all the time of the
divorce. I was very happy in making her happy; she's
a born traveler, a born sight-seer, of the best kind. She
was never tired, and the world was full of things that I
wanted her to see. I was," he added slowly, "deeply in
love with her. I was also bent on putting out of my mind
a fact that I had only recently discovered the fact that,
in spite of my health, my muscular strength, and what I
suppose is my irresistible love of life, I was really, by
God's will, an old man. So thus it happened that for
over a year I didn't know who she was."
"Did she did she never mention us ?" asked poor Miss
Flora.
"Often; but only as 'my two aunts.' I asked her who
her father had been, and when she told me, I think it was
the greatest shock I had ever had in my life. I was very,
very sorry, Flora."
Miss Flora sighed deeply.
"Even if you had known, dear Peregrine," she said,
"you couldn't have helped falling in love with her."
"Yes, ah, yes, I could. If I had known in Paris I should
365
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
never have seen her again. Her father, though he was in
a way a friend of mine, didn't so much matter. But I
loved jour mother, when I was a little chap, and I've al-
ways regarded Effie and you as among my few real
friends."
"I'm glad," said Miss Fiona softly.
"Besides," he went on in a musing voice, speaking as
much to himself as to her, "I didn't, as you say, fall in
love with Nicoleta; I walked in deliberately, waded out
to my armpits and then plunged; and the wrong that I
have done her "
"And poor George," suggested Miss Flora.
Janeways rose and walked up and down, his arms folded,
his head bent.
"George, or someone else. Nicoleta," he said, "isn't
really alive yet. She has none of the faults and none of
the virtues of her age. She never loved me, to do her
justice she never said she did. She didn't run away to
me, she ran away from poverty and poor Loxley."
"That makes it worse," said Miss Flora unexpectedly.
"We always thought she loved you."
"You don't think so now, do you?" he asked with a
whimsical smile, devoid of all bitterness or hurt vanity.
"No," she said, "and I'm sorry. You must never tell
Erne this, you know: Effie is the clever one of the family
and she doesn't know, and it would shock her to have me
know ; but there has always been something dreadful about
Cuckoo, and I first learned it when she was a little child.
I love her and I am sorry for her, but I think it my duty
to tell you that I do not believe you to have wronged her
as you might have wronged, in doing what you did, a dif-
ferent kind of girl "
"Dear Flora, don't say any more, I understand. So
you've known all these years what I have known only a
few months."
366
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
Miss Flora's face was very white and drawn.
"Oh, Peregrine," she said, "it has always been dreadful
to me. I've never been able to help seeing things, though
everybody always thought I didn't see anything, and it
makes me feel so guilty towards Effie." She wrung her
hands gently, and her eyes were full of tears. After a
moment's hesitation she went on, "At the time that every-
one was saying how wicked it was of you to run away
with her and that she was so young, I always felt, al-
though it seemed ridiculous, that you were more to be
pitied than she. It seemed to me that, in a way, you were
the young and innocent one. And now you are unhap-
py. Oh, Peregrine, I do wish you didn't love her so
much."
He sat down and put his arms round her bent, hard
shoulders.
"Dear Flora," he murmured, "don't be troubled about
me. You spoke just like your mother then. Ah, I re-
member her so well ! As to poor little Nicoleta, the fault
isn't hers, and about my love, well, it was a thing of vanity
and selfishness. I deliberately encouraged it to prove to
myself that I was still young. The thing that troubles
me now is not myself, but the fact that I have taken from
a human creature her right to develop and grow on natural
lines. It's as if I had bent a rose-tree and fastened it
down to the earth and forced it to grow that way "
Miss Flora said nothing.
"Nicoleta is only twenty-three now; I am forty years
older than she is. I have made her rich and given her
the things she thinks she loves best in the world, but I
have taken from her the right to love the right things and
to live the right way. What ought to be to her the beau-
tiful accomplishment of her youth I have made into a
potential sin. I declare to you, Flora," he added, "that
I am sincere in saying that I wish I could die now and
367
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
leave that poor child free honorably to fulfil her natural
destiny."
Miss Flora's eyes were still full of tears tears that
fell slowly down her delicate, faded face. "But you are
so good to her," she cried, "so good."
"I'm kind to her," he said, "I'm fond of her. The
women I have really loved in my life, and," he added with a
whimsical but rather sad little smile, "they have been
many, Flora, might have been her grandmothers so far
as age goes. I was in love with Nicoleta at first, but I
did not love her, and now it would not be true to say that
I love her as a wife or anything but a friend, or a
grandfather! I am fond of her, and I believe I am the
only person in the world who can see in her the poor little
cramped, undeveloped germ of a soul that is all she has.
And that," he added quietly, "is my trouble, Flora."
He took out his fine cambric handkerchief and gave
it to the old lady, who was vainly struggling to find the
pocket that in her smart London frock did not exist.
"Wipe your eyes, my dear," he said. "I wonder if
you would have married me if I had asked you forty years
ago. You were the right age and perhaps we might have
been happy, and then your Cuckoo would have been my
niece, too."
He spoke with a whimsical gaiety, smiling down on the
weeping Miss Flora.
Suddenly she looked up, having wiped her eyes, which
shone as brightly as any girl of twenty's.
"We are so old now, Peregrine Janeways," she said,
"that I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'd have married
you and thanked God on my knees for you, when I was
young."
Sir Peregrine raised her hands and kissed them gal-
lantly.
"My dear, my dear," he said in a voice that main-
368
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
tained her feeling of perfect composure. "Would you,
indeed? And to think that I never knew it! I should
like," he added, "to have had you wear the Bag of Saf-
fron."
Then he gave her his arm and they walked slowly back
to the house.
Perhaps that was the happiest day of Miss Flora's
life.
CHAPTER XXXI
LATE one afternoon, a few days later, Cuckoo and
Rachel were sitting in a boat in the middle of the
little lake; the sky was gray, but there was no
menace of rain, and the oppressive air seemed less heavy
here than anywhere else.
Cuckoo had rowed to the middle of the lake and an-
chored the boat, and on the middle seat stood the contents
of a small tea-basket.
The two girls were lying on cushions very comfortably,
their hats off, their tea-cups waiting for the water to boil.
For a long time Rachel, who, as she grew older, was
developing the pleasant indolence of her mother, lay
quiet, her head on her hand, watching the blue flame
under the kettle that stood on the middle seat, without
speaking. Cuckoo, who had never been lazy, had divided
the bread and butter and the little cakes on two of the
enamel plates and arranged everything for the tea-making.
It was so still that the blue flame under the shining kettle
was as motionless as if carved out of a bit of stone, and
the dwarf birches that grew round the north end of the
small lake were reflected in water so quiet that it was
impossible to see where the reflection began and where
the real leaves stopped.
Every now and then Cuckoo looked at her friend, half
expectantly, but it was some time before Rachel spoke.
Then she burst out suddenly, looking fixedly at the bot-
tom of the boat:
"Cuckoo, will you lend me two hundred pounds?"
Cuckoo burst out laughing. "Is that all? And here
370
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
was I expecting you to tell me that you had slain the
twins and buried them somewhere in the rose-garden!
Of course I will, you goose ; that is, I'll ask Pere-
grine."
Rachel sat up and clasped her knees.
"Oh, no. You mustn't tell anyone. If Alison were
to hear of it I don't know what he'd do to me."
The kettle was boiling, and Cuckoo, before answering,
took it off and quenched the little flame.
"Debts?" she asked concisely.
Rachel nodded. "Yes."
"Bridge or clothes?"
"Forty pounds for Bridge I won at first, you know;
I made quite a lot last summer; and the rest, clothes for
me and the children; and then I bought some shares in a
silver mine in Arizona that Freddie Welbeck told me
about. He lost hundreds, poor dear, and I about seventy
pounds. Wasn't it disgusting?"
Very deftly and quickly Cuckoo made the tea. Then
she sat back and looked at Rachel.
"Poor old Ray, but where are the clothes?" she asked.
Rachel blushed, her face, which had kept its early
promise of heaviness and was too thick about the jaw
and throat, a little sulky.
"Oh, they weren't much, anyhow only a couple of
smart frocks I had for the Billington-Sykes' house-party
last August."
Cuckoo poured out the tea.
"You don't take sugar, do you? I see. Lady Pelter
and Alison weren't at the Sykes', and Captain Gascoyne
was. H'm!"
"Oh, Nicky, don't be nasty to me. If you had the
slightest idea how dull and disgusting my life is, you
wouldn't grudge me a little pleasure once in a while."
"I don't grudge you pleasure; and I think I do know
371
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
how dull life can be, my dear. Nobody in this world
was ever more bored than I."
"Of course you were, darling. I'm quite sure George
was worse even than Alison. Poor Alison at least
works."
"George worked, too," flashed out Cuckoo angrily, "he
worked like a black, and don't you say he didn't. And if
I was bored then, Lord knows, I'm bored enough now."
"Nicky!"
There was a little pause, and Cuckoo drained her cup
of boiling tea, which was so hot that it brought tears to
her eyes.
"Oh, well, of course I didn't mean that, and I know
it sounds ridiculous for me to express moral sentiments
of any kind, but I do wish, Rachel, you'd drop that dis-
gusting Billy Gascoyne. However, it's only a matter of
time, so I needn't lose my temper; he'll be dropping you
before long."
Rachel looked sulky. "You're a cat this afternoon.
However, there's no harm in Billy; he's a dear thing
and I'm not a bit in love with him, if that's what you
mean."
"That is what I mean one of the things. If you
were I shouldn't mind half so much, but pretending
working oneself up to emotion, playing games with one's
own feelings I think it's perfectly loathsome. However,
you must let me ask Peregrine for the money; he'll lend
it you like a shot and never tell a soul. He'll forget all
about it in a day or two "
"Thanks very much," Rachel said slowly, "but
couldn't you possibly let me have it without telling him,
Nicky?"
"No." Cuckoo's voice was very gruff and harsh. "I
haven't a penny of my own. Whenever I want money
he gives it to me, no matter how much, but I have no
372
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
allowance, and he made me promise him once never to
lend a penny to anyone without telling him."
"Oh. All right," Rachel went on reluctantly, "if I
don't pay that brute of a woman, she'll summon me, and
I must pay Billy "
"Rachel!" barked Cuckoo, her eyebrows meeting in
her old hideous frown. "You don't mean to say you've
done that ! Borrowing money of a man you are having
a love-affair with. My God !"
Rachel began to cry. Cuckoo put the tea-cups away
hastily. "It's perfectly disgraceful of you," she said. "I
don't wonder you're afraid to have Alison know. I believe
Peregrine would kill me if I did such a thing."
"Oh, would he?" Rachel snapped. "7 didn't run away
from my husband, and make a disgusting scandal, and be
in all the papers, anyhow."
Cuckoo closed the lid of the tea-basket very softly and
put it in the bottom of the boat. Then she rose, seated
herself, and took the oars in her hands.
"I think, as your hostess," she said, "that this picnic
has lasted long enough."
In unbroken silence she pulled back to the little boat-
house, and when she had fastened the boat, stepped out
with the tea-basket and held out her hand.
"Be careful," she said, "the boat is very unsteady.
Are you going back to the house, Rachel? I'm not com-
ing just yet."
Rachel stood and watched her as she went off to the
left, towards the greenhouses, light-footed and trim in
her well-cut coat and skirt.
Before dinner Cuckoo asked her husband for two hun-
dred pounds to lend Rachel.
"I hope Rachel hasn't been playing cards," Janeways
said gravely, as he stood in front of the library fire.
Cuckoo didn't answer.
373
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
"May I have it?" she repeated.
"Yes, my dear. Rachel is your friend and I like to
have you help her, but for her sake and poor Jackson's
you must make her understand that it had better not
occur again."
He sat down at the writing-table and, unlocking a
drawer, took out a check-book. It was not the great
library with the famous collection of books, but a smaller
room, which, though lined with books, partook more
of the nature of a study or a smoking-room than of a
retreat for book-lovers.
"Why do you call Alison 'poor Jackson,' Peregrine?"
Janeways signed his name carefully, blotted the
check and glanced up at her before filling in the counter-
foil.
"Because I'm sorry for him, aren't you?"
"I don't know, I'm sorry for Rachel, most certainly,
but I hadn't thought of Alison."
Janeways rose and handed the check to her.
"There, my dear. So you are more sorry for Rachel?"
"Thanks, Peregrine. Yes, I am, it's dreadful for her
to be so poor."
"Sometimes I wonder," he said, looking down at her
in the grave, thoughtful way that she had noticed seemed
to grow with him, "whether it's right that everything
should be judged by the standard of money."
''I thought," she returned indifferently, "that it was
generally conceded that that standard is undoubtedly bad ;
bad," she added with a little laugh, "but universal, like
drink."
He did not laugh and the intentness of his gaze em-
barrassed her.
"Thanks so much for this," she said hurriedly. "I'll
go and give it to her."
She left the room, and he stood for a while just where
374
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
she had left him, his fine old face heavy with thought.
Very little had been said between them about the ques-
tion of Adrian Taylor. Janeways was a man who asked
very few questions, and Cuckoo was a woman who gave
very little unsolicited information. A few hours after
the young man's departure, Janeways had gone to his
wife's room and told her briefly that Taylor had gone.
"You sent him?" she asked, her little face looking
very small and white amid her loosened hair as she lay
back on her pillows.
"Yes, he was a nuisance, wasn't he?"
"He was, Peregrine."
"Is it true," he said, "that you slipped getting out of
the boat?"
Cuckoo closed her eyes, arching her eyebrows in faint
disgust at the memory of the incident.
"No," she returned; "is that what he said?"
"Yes, that's why I sent him away."
That was all, but as she went up to Rachel's room
with the check, Cuckoo recalled the little scene. Some
dim idea about her husband was beginning to stir at the
back of her mind, but she didn't look into it closely, for
she was training herself, half unconsciously, half delib-
erately, in self-defence, to avoid even mentally anything
that might disturb her.
"Here's the money, Rachel," she said, going into her
friend's room.
Lady Rachel was sitting at her glass, putting the fin-
ishing touches to her hair. Cuckoo laid the check on
the table and there was a short silence, which she herself
broke with a little laugh.
"You owe me an apology," she said. "You were abom-
inably rude ; but I hate apologies, so don't make one. To
get even with you, I'll tell you that the tops of your arms
are entirely too fat. You must exercise more, Ray."
375
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
"I can't exercise," Rachel returned fretfully, "only
the rich can afford exercise. I am much obliged for the
money, Nicky, and I'll pay it back as soon as I can, little
by little."
"I shouldn't if I were you," Cuckoo answered care-
lessly. "I don't think Peregrine would like you to." She
looked round the room as she spoke, and the discontent
that had been hanging over her all day gave way to a
feeling of satisfaction. Rachel's silver and crystal dress-
ing-table things were scratched and dented; her silk
petticoat was of the kind seen hanging in bunches like
monstrous grapes, all exactly alike, in big stores; the
dressing-gown over the back of her friend's chair looked
almost, if not quite, dirty, and the evening frock on the
bed had, Cuckoo knew, for the second time undergone the
usually depressing process of freshening up. And she,
Cuckoo, had everything in the world she had always
wanted !
"Do you remember, Ray, the green sunshade you gave
me, the first day we met?"
"I don't know ; no. What was it ?"
And even this small fact of Lady Rachel's having
forgotten what to her had been so unimportant and to
Cuckoo so remarkably vital, added, without her knowing,
to Cuckoo's sudden sense of well-being and self-congratu-
lation. Poor Rachel ! Poor, shabby, untidy Rachel, with
no beautiful "things."
Cuckoo was very gay that evening, laughing and jest-
ing in a way that pleased Miss Effie and Miss Flora, and
after dinner Miss Flora tripped across the room to
Janeways in a little flutter of excitement.
"You see, Peregrine," she whispered, flushing her pretty,
shell-pink flush, "she's glad that foolish 'young man has
gone. Did you see the smile she gave you as we left the
dining-room?"
376
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
Janeways' own smile was very kind and pleasant as he
looked down at the old lady.
"I am going to give her a ruby," he said, "and she likes
rubies."
The next day the house-party began to break up, and
on the Monday no one was left except Miss Flora and Miss
Effie, and Mantepop, who was going back to London with
Janeways.
At the last minute Cuckoo, to everybody's surprise
and to the real pleasure of the aunts, had announced her
intention of not accompanying her husband and his
friend.
"I'm going to Roseroofs for a couple of days, if the
aunts will have me," she said at dinner. "I'll join yon
in town Thursday or Friday."
Janeways face lighted with pleasure.
"Good," he said heartily, "that will be delightful. If
you like, take the big car and the luggage can all go on
it; Marsh can put it up at the 'Grouse.' If you like
you might even go as far as York in it you and Marthe."
Miss Effie and Miss Flora were very happy over this
(decision, and the next morning they started off with
Cuckoo, Cuckoo's maid sitting in front with the chauffeur.
Janeways had not forgotten his promise about the ruby
and the pearls, and as he said good-bye to his wife he
promised her that he would have them ready when she
arrived in town. She looked up at him with a new look,
which he had seen several times of late and about which
he had wondered each time, and thanked him.
"You are very good to me, Peregrine," she said,
"and " She broke off.
There was in her, as the car rolled along up over the
pass towards Wiskedale, not a vestige of the new Nicoleta
of the haughty eyelids and the cold manner she had dis-
377
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
played as hostess at her first house-party. She seemed
younger, and though not perhaps happier, yet a little
more merry, and she was honestly glad to be going back
to her old home. The aunts were delighted with her.
It chanced that she was the first to see the windows of
Roseroofs shining in the sun as they rounded the shoulder
of the hill. She stood up and pointed.
"Look, oh look! There it is, Aunt Flora, there it is,
Aunt Effie ! Oh, the dear little place !"
Miss Flora made a mental note that she would very
soon write Janeways a long letter, encouraging him to
hope for beautiful changes in his wife.
As the car passed up the Dale and through Warcop,
Cuckoo glanced about her with something of the excite-
ment of a child.
"Oh, there's Joss Skelton; I suppose that's his new
wife ; heavens ! isn't she plain ! And there's Sarah Ought-
enshaw with a new baby. Oh, how utterly unchanged it
all looks!"
"Why shouldn't it look unchanged?" asked Miss Effie
austerely ; "what do you expect to happen in Warcop in
less than three years?"
It was true that Warcop looked as if nothing but the
last trump could ever change it ; yet Cuckoo felt that she
had been away for half a century.
As they crossed the bridge she remembered the very spot
where she had slipped and fallen the day she raced down
from Thornby Lodge to catch George on his way to the
bus. Her face hardened, and she sat silent until the car
had reached the gate.
Esther Oughtenshaw, now wearing a thick, fluted white
cap, stood at the gate, welcome and delight written all
over her face. Greatly to her own surprise, Cuckoo put
her arms round the old woman's neck and gave her a
sound kiss, then she ran on into the house ahead of her
378
THE BAG OF SAFFRON
aunts and into the drawing-room. It, too, had not
changed. It looked small and shabby and faded, but,
almost to her own annoyance, it looked home to her.
Then she went upstairs to the blue room, which was to
be hers, and knelt by the window, looking out over the
Dale.
When Marthe, Lady Janeways' smart Parisian maid,
entered, she found her mistress sitting by the window with
a languid air. An English maid under similar circum-
stances might have tried to curry favor with her lady
by expressing wonder as to how that lady would be able
to make herself comfortable in such cramped and old-
fashioned quarters. But Marthe was a Frenchwoman, so
she was ecstatic over the view ; she was delighted with the
charming room; she even went to the length of admiring
Esther Oughtenshaw.
Cuckoo listened languidly, quite seeing through the
subtle flattery. But she enjoyed the quiet supper in the
old, many-windowed dining-room, and Esther's tea-cakes
were praised by her in a way that surprised that shrewd
old woman.
"Miss Coocoo's changed," she said to Nellie, who had
not married and was still with them.
"Aye, she's not so proud now, for all she's sae rich."
Aunt EfBe and Aunt Flora each, separately and with-
out expressing the thought to each other, wondered if she
had not possibly been a little hard on Cuckoo at Tarring-
Peverell. She was delightfully simple and natural now;
in a way more simple and natural than she had ever been
before. They did not know, the two old ladies, that
achievement often brings with it a simplicity unknown to
the striving that went before it.
CHAPTER xxxn
THE next day it rained and the ladies sat indoors.
Cuckoo had relapsed somewhat into her Tarring-
Peverell manner, but the day passed very pleas-
antly. She sat for a long time in the kitchen, watching
Esther make pastry and listening to the old woman's tales
of her own childhood.
"I can see ye now, Miss Coocoo my lady, I mean to
say sitting there on t' table on t' creepy stool to keep
your frock clean the day Miss Marcia came."
"I can remember that day, Esther," Cuckoo answered,
leaning her elbows on the table, and cupping her chin in