There was no doubt about it. Granny Grimshaw was not satisfied. Deeper furrows were beginning to appear in her already deeply furrowed face. She shook her head very often with pursed lips when she was alone. And this despite the fact that she and the young mistress of the Mill House were always upon excellent terms. No difficulties ever arose between them. Doris showed not the smallest disposition to usurp the old housekeeper's authority. Possibly Granny Grimshaw would have been better pleased if she had. She spent much of her time out-of-doors, and when in the house she was generally to be found in the little sitting-room that Jeff had fitted up for her.
She had her meals in the parlour with Jeff, and these were the sole occasions on which they were alone together. If Doris could have had her way, Granny Grimshaw would have been present at these also, but on this point the old woman showed herself determined, not to say obstinate. She maintained that her place was the kitchen, and that her presence was absolutely necessary there, a point of view which no argument of Doris's could persuade her to relinquish.
So she and Jeff breakfasted, dined, and supped in solitude, and though Doris became gradually accustomed to these somewhat silent meals, she never enjoyed them. Of difficult moments there were actually very few. They mutually avoided any but the most general subjects for conversation. But of intimacy between them there was none. Jeff had apparently drawn a very distinct boundary-line which he never permitted himself to cross. He never intruded upon her. He never encroached upon the friendship she shyly proffered. Once when she somewhat hesitatingly suggested that he should come to her sitting-room for a little after supper he refused, not churlishly, but very decidedly.
"I like to have my pipe and go to bed," he said.
"But you can bring your pipe, too," she said.
"No, thanks," said Jeff. "I always smoke in the kitchen or on the step."
She said no more, but went up to her room, and presently Jeff, moodily puffing at his briar in the porch, heard the notes of her piano overhead. She played softly for some little time, and Jeff's pipe went out before it was finished--a most rare occurrence with him.
Only when the piano ceased did he awake to the fact, and then half-savagely he knocked out its half-consumed contents and turned inwards.
He found Granny Grimshaw standing in the passage in a listening attitude, and paused to bid her good-night.
"Be you going to bed, Master Jeff?" she said. "My dear, did you ever hear the like? She plays like an angel."
He smiled somewhat grimly, without replying.
The old woman came very close to him. "Master Jeff, why don't you go and make love to her? Don't you know she's waiting for you?"
"Is she?" said Jeff, but he said it in the tone of one who does not require an answer, and with the words very abruptly he passed her by.
Granny Grimshaw shook her head and sighed, "Ah, dear!" after his retreating form.
It was a few days after this that a letter came for Doris, one morning, bearing the Squire's crest. Her husband handed it to her at the breakfast-table, and she received it with a flush. After a moment, seeing him occupied with a newspaper, she opened it.
"Dear Doris," it said. "You asked me to come and see you, but I have not done so as I was not sure if, after all, you meant me to take the invitation literally. We have been friends for so long that I feel constrained to speak openly. For myself, I only ask to go on being your friend, and to serve you in any way possible. But perhaps I can serve you best by keeping away from you. If so, then I will do even that.--Yours ever,
"Hugh."
Something within moved Doris to raise her eyes suddenly, and instantly she encountered Jeff's fixed upon her. The flush in her cheeks deepened burningly. With an effort she spoke:
"Hugh Chesyl wants to know if he may come to see us."
"I thought you asked him," said Jeff.
A little quiver of resentment went through her; she could not have said wherefore. "He was not sure if I meant it," she said.
There was an instant's silence; then Jeff did an extraordinary thing. He stretched out his hand across the table, keeping his eyes on hers.
"Let me have his letter to answer!" he said.
She made a sharp instinctive movement of withdrawal. "Oh, no!" she said. "No!"
Jeff said nothing; but his face hardened somewhat, and his hand remained outstretched.
Doris's grey eyes gleamed. "No, Jeff!" she repeated, more calmly, and with the words she slipped Hugh's envelope into the bosom of her dress. "I can't give you my letters to answer indeed."
Jeff withdrew his hand, and began to eat his breakfast in utter silence.
Doris played with hers until the silence became intolerable, and then, very suddenly and very winningly, she leaned towards him.
"Dear Jeff, surely you are not vexed!" she said.
He looked at her again, and in spite of herself she felt her heart quicken.
"Are you, Jeff?" she said, and held out her hand to him.
For a moment he sat motionless, then abruptly he grasped the hand.
"May I say what I think?" he asked her bluntly.
"Of course," she said.
"Then I think from all points of view that you had better leave Chesyl alone," he said.
"What do you mean?" Quickly she asked the question; the colour flamed in her face once more. "Tell my why you think that!" she said.
"I would rather not," said Jeff.
"But that is not fair of you, Jeff," she protested.
He released her hand slowly. "I am sorry," he said. "If I were more to you, I would say more. As it is--well, I would rather not."
She rose impetuously. "You are very--difficult," she said.
To which he made answer with that silence which was to her more difficult than speech.
Yet later, when she was alone, her sense of justice made her admit that he had not been altogether unreasonable. She recalled the fact that he had overheard that leisurely proposal of marriage that Hugh had made her in the cornfield on the occasion of their first meeting, and her face burned afresh as she remembered certain other items of that same conversation that he must also have overheard. No, on the whole it was not surprising that he did not greatly care for Hugh--poor Hugh, who loved her and had so narrowly missed winning her for himself. She wondered if Hugh were really very miserable. She herself had passed through so many stages of misery since her wedding-day. But she had sufficient knowledge of herself to realize that it was the loneliness and lack of sympathy that weighed upon her most.
Her feeling for Hugh was still an undeveloped quantity, though the certainty of his love for her had quickened it to keener life. She was not even yet absolutely certain that he could have satisfied her. It was true that he had been deeply stirred for the moment, but how deeply and how lastingly she had no means of gauging. Knowing the indolence of his nature, she was inclined to mistrust the permanence of his feeling. And so resolutely had she restrained her own feeling for him during the whole length of their acquaintance that she was able still to keep it within bounds. She knew that the sympathy between them was fundamental in character, but she had often suspected--in her calmer moments she suspected still--that it was of the kind that engenders friendship rather than passion.
But even so, his friendship was essentially precious to her, all the more so for the daily loneliness of spirit that she found herself compelled to endure. For--with this one exception--she was practically friendless. She had known that in marrying Jeff Ironside she was relinquishing her own circle entirely. But she had imagined that there would be compensations. Moreover, so far as society was concerned, she had not had any choice. It had been this or exile. And she had chosen this.
Wherefore? Simply and solely because Jeff, of all she knew, had wanted her.
Again that curious little tremor went through her. Had he wanted her so very badly after all? Not once since their wedding-day had he made any friendly overture or responded to any overture of hers. They were as completely strangers now as they had been on the day he had proposed to her.
A sharp little sigh came from her. She had not thought somehow that Jeff would be so difficult. He had told her that he loved her. She had counted on that for the foundation of their friendship, but no structure had she succeeded in raising thereon. He asked nothing of her, and, save for material comforts, he bestowed nothing in return. True, it was what she had bargained for. But yet it did not satisfy her. She was not at her ease with him, and she began to think she never would be.
As to Hugh, she hardly knew how to proceed; but she finally wrote him a friendly note, concurring with his suggestion that they should not meet again for a little while--"only for a little while, Hugh," she added, almost in spite of herself, "for I can't afford to lose a friend like you."
And she did not guess how the heart-cry of her loneliness echoed through the words.