The youngest baby looked up and saw Maggie standing all alone there, and crowed.Then all the family looked up, the boys suspended their digging, father tilted back his hat, the mother shyly smiled.
Maggie smiled back, and then, overcome by so poignant a feeling of loneliness, tempted, too, almost irresistibly to run down the steps, join them on the sand, build castles, play with the babies, she hurried away lest she should give way.
"I must be pretending at being married," she thought to herself."Idon't feel married at all.I'm not natural.If I were sitting on the sand digging I'd be quite natural.No wonder Grace thinks me tiresome.But how does one get older and grown up? What is one to do?"She did not trust herself to go down to the sands again that summer.
The autumn came, the woods turned to gold, the sea was flurried with rain, and the Church began to fill the horizon.The autumn and the winter were the times of the Church's High Festival.Paul, as though he were aware that he had, during these last months, been hovering about strange places and peering into dark windows, busied himself about the affairs of his parish with an energy that surprised every one.
Maggie was aware of a number of young women of whom before she had been unconscious.Miss Carmichael, Misses Mary and Jane Bethel, Miss Clarice Hendon, Miss Polly Jones...some of these pretty girls, all of them terribly modern, strident, self-assured, scornful, it seemed to Maggie.At first she was frightened of them as she had never been frightened of any one before.They did look at her, of course, as though they thought her strange, and then they soon discovered that she knew nothing at all about life.
Their two chief employments, woven in, as it were, to the web of their church assistance, were Love and Mockery-flirtations, broken engagements, refusals, acceptances, and, on the other hand, jokes about everybody and everything.Maggie soon discovered that Grace was one of their favourite Aunt Sallies; this made her very angry, and she showed so plainly her indignation on the first occasion of their wit that they never laughed at Grace in Maggie's presence again.
Maggie felt, after this, very tender and sympathetic towards Grace, until she discovered that her good sister-in-law was quite unaware that any one laughed at her and would have refused to believe it had she been told.At the same time there went strangely with this confidence an odd perpetual suspicion.Grace was for ever on guard against laughter, and nothing made her more indignant than to come into a room and see that people suddenly ceased their conversation.
Maggie, however, did try this autumn to establish friendly relations with Grace.It seemed to her that it was the little things that were against the friendliness rather than the big ones.How she seriously blamed herself for an irritation that was really childish.Who, for instance, a grown woman and married, could do other than blame herself for being irritated by Grace's habit of not finishing her sentences.Grace would say:
"Maggie, did you remember to-oh well, it doesn't matter--""Remember what, Grace?"
"No, really it doesn't matter.It was only that--""But Grace, do tell me, because otherwise you'll be blaming me for something I ought to have done.""Blaming you! Why, Maggie, to hear you talk any one would think that I was always scolding you.Of course if that's what you feel--""No, no, I don't.But I'm so careless.I forget things so.I don't want to forget something that I ought to do.""Yes, you are careless, Maggie.That's quite true.It's one of your faults."(Strange how willing we are ourselves to admit a fault and irritated when a friend agrees about it with us.)"Oh, I'm not always careless," said Maggie.
"Often you are, dear, aren't you? You must learn.I'm sure you'll improve in time.I wonder whether-but no, I decided I wouldn't bother, didn't I? Still perhaps, after all--No, I daresay it's wiser to leave it alone."Another little thing that the autumn emphasised was Grace's inability to discover when a complaint or a remonstrance was decently deceased.One evening Paul, going out in a hurry, asked Maggie to give Grace the message that Evensong would be at 6.30instead of 7 that day.Maggie forgot to give the message and Grace arrived at the Church during the reading of the second lesson.
"Oh Grace, I'm so sorry!" said Maggie.
"It doesn't matter," said Grace; "but how you could forget, Maggie, is so strange! Do try not to forget things.I know it worries Paul.
For myself I don't care, although I do value punctuality and memory-I do indeed.What I mean is that it isn't for my own happiness that I mind--""I don't want to forget," said Maggie."One would think to hear you, Grace, that you imagine I like forgetting.""Really, Maggie," said Grace, "I don't think that's quite the way to speak to me."And again and again throughout the long winter this little episode figured.
"You'll remember to be punctual, won't you, Maggie? Not like the time when you forgot to tell me.""You'll forgive me reminding you, Maggie, but I didn't want it to be like the time you forgot to give me--""Oh, you'd better not trust to Maggie, Paul.Only the other day when you gave her the message about Evensong--"Grace meant no harm by this.Her mind moved slowly and was entangled by a vast quantity of useless lumber.She was really shocked by carelessness and inaccuracy because she was radically careless and inaccurate herself but didn't know it.
"If there's one thing I value it's order." she would say, but in struggling to remember superficial things she forgot all essentials.
Her brain moved just half as slowly as everything else.
That winter was warm and muggy, with continuous showers of warm rain that seamed to change into mud in the air as it fell.
The Church was filled with the clammy mist of its central heating.
