I rode over. It was a dampish day with a reluctant sun glinting out now and then through the clouds. I glanced up at nests in the elms and passed under the porch with the golden jasmine trailing over it and rang the bell.
It was opened by Maisie who said: "Come in, Miss Grant. We're expecting you."
Marcia Martindale rose to greet me; she was dressed in black, soft and clinging; she had a magnificent figure; and about her neck was a heavy golden chain; and she wore gold bracelets, three on each wrist.
She looked like a character from a play but I could not think which. She took both my hands in hers. "Miss Grant, how good of you to call."
"I reckon my lady needs a bit of cheering up," said Maisie grinning at me. "She's in mourning today."
"Mourning?" I said and my heart beat with fear. I thought something had happened to Jason Verringer. "For er ..."
Maisie winked. "For the past," she said.
"Oh, Maisie, you are a fool," said Marcia. "Get off with you and tell Mrs. Gittings to bring us tea."
"She's doing that," said Maisie. "She heard Miss Grant come."
"Do sit down, Miss Grant. I am sorry you fend me in this sad state. It is an anniversary."
"Oh dear, would you rather I went and came another time?"
"Oh no, no. It is so cheering to have you. I hate being shut in, which is what happened with all that snow. I was nostalgic for London. It is rather quiet here; all this waiting."
I replied that the snow had been restricting but that the girls had enjoyed it.
She sighed. "It is five years ago that it happened." "Oh?"
"A great tragedy. I'll tell you about it after they've brought the tea."
"How is the little girl?"
She looked rather vague. "Oh... Miranda. She is well, Mrs. Gittings is so good with her."
"I thought she was. I've seen them once or twice in the lanes. She took her away for Christmas, didn't she?"
"Yes. I was in London. I had to have Maisie with me. One needs a maid. And for all her faults Maisie is very good with hair and clothes. She's devoted to me, though sometimes you wouldn't think it. And Mrs. Gittings just loves having Miranda. She takes her to some relations on Dartmoor. She says the moorland air is good for the child."
"I am sure it is."
"Ah, here is the tea."
Mrs. Gittings wheeled in the trolley as she had on an earlier occasion, nodded to me and I asked if she were well and had enjoyed Christmas.
"It was wonderful," she said. "Miranda loved it and you should have seen my sister. She loves little ones. Always asking when we're coming again."
"I have promised Mrs. Gittings that she shall take Miranda soon," said Marcia.
Mrs. Gittings smiled and went out.
"Such a good soul," said Marcia. "I can trust her absolutely with Miranda."
She poured the tea and said: "Well, you have discovered me in the midst of my mourning. I am sorry if I am a little depressing. It was so tragic."
"Yes?"
"Five years today when I said goodbye to Jack."
"Jack?"
"Jack Martindale."
"Was he your ...?"
"My husband. We were so young ... very very young ... striving then, both of us. I had had my successes. It was in East Lynne that we met. He was Archibald to my Isabel. Young love is rather beautiful, don't you think, Miss Grant?"
"I cannot speak from experience, but I expect it is."
"Oh, you must be a late starter."
"I probably am."
"Well, my dear, be thankful for that. When one is young, one can be so impulsive. But between Jack and me it was right from the very beginning. We were married. I was just seventeen. It was idyllic. We played many roles together. We brought something to our parts. Everyone said so. But then I began to surpass him. Jack loved me passionately but he was a little hurt. You see I was the one the audiences came for. Without me he could not draw audiences at all."
She rose and stood with her back to the window, her arms across her breast. She looked very dramatic.
"So he went away. I didn't try to stop him. I knew he had to make his own way. There was this chance to go to America. It was for him alone. Some manager had seen him ..."
"And he didn't want you too?"
She looked at me coldly. "It was a male lead he was searching for."
"Oh, I see."
"You wouldn't understand about the theatre, Miss Grant." She was still rather cold. "However Jack went." She stood for a moment tense. It was like the end of the act when the curtain is about to fall and the time has come to deliver the last telling line.
"The ship was struck by an iceberg ... three days out from Liverpool."
She dropped her hands and walked to the tea trolley.
"It's a very sad story," I said, stirring my tea.
"Miss Grant, you can have no idea. How could you ... living as you do so quietly ... teaching .. . You can't imagine how an artist feels ... shut up here ... after such a tragedy."
"I can very well imagine how anyone would feel after such a tragedy. One does not necessarily have to be an artist to feel grief."
"Jack was lost. I went on working. Nothing could stop that. And then ... it must have been two years later I became friendly with Jason. He has a pleasant house in London. In St James's ... and he was always interested in the theatre. He used to come often to watch me. He's a very exciting man ... when you get to know him. He was crazy about me. Well, you can guess how it happened. Of course I shall never forget Jack, but Jason is here and that place of his is very attractive. He seemed a little tragic too. That family of his, always living in that mansion for hundreds of years and then there were no heirs and that disastrous marriage of his. Then there are only two girls. You know what I mean. Of course it was a sacrifice for me. A child is so restricting. There is all the time while you're waiting for it to be born, to say nothing of the discomforts. And then when it comes ... But I did it ... for Jason ... and I think I can be happy when everything is settled."
"You mean when you marry Sir Jason?"
She smiled at me. "It can't be just yet, of course. There had to be this interval. People in a place like this ... you know, so narrow. They say all sorts of cruel things. I said to Jason, `What do we care?' But he said we had to step warily. There was a lot of talk, you know, and most unpleasant talk."
"Gossip can be dangerous," I said, with a touch of conscience, having so recently indulged in it with Mrs. Baddicombe.
"Devastating," she said. "I was in a play once about a man whose wife died ... rather as Lady Verringer did. There was Another Woman."
"I suppose it is a not unusual situation."
"Men being men."
"And women women," I said, perhaps a trifle coolly.
"I agree. I agree." She rose from the trolley and paced to the window. She stood there for a few moments, and when she turned she was in a different role. She was no longer mourning a husband. She had become the bride of a new one.
"Well," she said, turning to me and smiling. "The wheel turns. Now I have to make Jason happy. He dotes on little Miranda."
"Oh does he?"
"When he is here. Of course, he has been away such a long time. But when he returns we shall have wedding bells. The waiting is irksome. But he had to go. It is not easy with me being here ... so close ... and all the talk."
"No, I suppose not."
"I might even join him before he comes back. He can be very persistent and he is trying to persuade me to go to him."
"All I can do is wish you well."
"There will be horrid gossip, but one lives that sort of thing down, doesn't one?"
"I suppose one does."
There was a tap on the door and Mrs. Gittings appeared with Miranda.
"Come here, my darling," said Marcia, now the doting mother.