‘Almost everybody as obedient as one would wish.’ She frowned at the Colonel.
‘My dear Effie,’ he laughed, ‘if I am a disappointment to you, it is because I am in some way deficient. You must learn to accept the deficiencies of human beings.’
‘There, at least, is your surprise,’ his cousin revealed, giving the most exquisitely tragic inflexions to flat words.
‘Why, Mary!’ boomed the Colonel, and had to embrace the vision of his niece.
The latter had forgotten that agreeable smell peculiar to her uncles, her father, and all acceptable men, and was, in consequence, taken aback. In her embarrassment and pleasure, she was warning him about her good hat.
‘What! Grown so old?’ protested Colonel Hebden.
‘And Miss Trevelyan, who has so kindly accompanied Mary from her school.’
Now he did notice the person in the grey dress, whom Mrs de Courcy had summed up — wrongly — at a glance. The Colonel, who was accustomed to walk carefully on approaching nests and waterholes, so as not to break sticks and cause alarm, proceeded to question his niece quite professionally on her scholastic achievements. He would ignore the schoolmistress for the time being.
Laura Trevelyan was perfectly at home in the environment to which she was no longer expected to belong. There were few by now who recognized her. New arrivals in the Colony, of whom invariably there seemed to be a preponderance, were unaware of her origins, and those who were safely established had too little thought for anything but their own success to point to an insignificant failure. This judgement of the world was received by Laura without shame. Indeed, she had discovered many compensations, for now that she was completely detached, she saw more deeply and more truthfully, and often loved what she saw, whether inanimate objects, such as a laborious plateful of pink meringues, or, in the case of human beings, a young wife striving with feverish elegance to disguise the presence of her unborn child.
This young woman, arranging stole, gloves, and a little, fringed parasol, did approach the schoolmistress with some defiance, and remark:
‘Why, Laura, fancy meeting you. Mamma understood from Mrs Bonner that you had renounced the world.’
‘Why, Una,’ Laura replied, ‘if Mrs Pringle understood that I had entered an enclosed order, that was misunderstanding indeed.’
Then the two friends stood and laughed together. If Mrs McAllister laughed too long, it was because she had always disliked Laura, and Laura had lost in the game of life. Now was the moment for Una to produce her husband, which Una did, as further evidence of her triumph; whereupon Laura recognized the eligible grazier of the picnic at Point Piper. So what more remained for Una Pringle to achieve? Unless the days upon days upon days.
‘How happy you must be at Camden,’ Laura said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Una was forced to admit. ‘Although there are still a great many alterations to be made. It is one of those houses. And the white ant, I do believe, is in every sash.’
Una’s orange giant stood with his fists upon his hips, and grinned. His teeth were broad, and wide-set, which fascinated Laura.
‘And lonely,’ continued Una McAllister, closely examining Laura Trevelyan. ‘You would not believe it could be lonely at Camden.’
Una’s husband almost split his excellent coat.
‘You will soon have the baby,’ Laura consoled.
Una flushed, and mentioned strawberries.
So her husband followed, with the patience of a man accustomed to coax a mob of sheep through a gateway.
After that, Laura Trevelyan remained standing, in her grey dress, in the midst of the company, and it appeared as though, for once, Mrs de Courcy had failed, it could have been deliberately, until Colonel Hebden approached, on his long and rather proppy legs, and announced without preamble:
‘Miss Trevelyan, I would be most interested to have a few words with you on a certain subject, if you would spare me ten minutes.’
Knowing that he was to be her torturer, Laura Trevelyan had not looked at Colonel Hebden until now. His face was kind, although its remaining so would perhaps depend on whether he attained his object.
‘I do not imagine I shall be able to satisfy your curiosity,’ Miss Trevelyan answered at once, clasping her hands together as they walked away. ‘I had heard that you wished to question me. It would give me great pleasure. But —’
They were marching rather than walking, and regimented words filled her mouth.
‘I do not want to open old wounds, nor intrude upon your private feelings,’ the equally stilted Colonel pursued.
Although wooden, he continued, nevertheless, to walk firmly towards a little summer-house that he had spied out beforehand, behind some tea trees. The schoolmistress, through necessity, was trying to match his gait, almost like a man. She was rather dark, but pleasant.
‘I am grateful for your concern in the matter,’ she was saying. ‘But I assure you your delicacy is misplaced. Mr Voss was an acquaintance of a few days, indeed, no more than a few hours, if one stops to consider.’
‘Quite,’ said the Colonel, putting his hand in the small of her back to guide her into the summer-house. ‘It is natural, Miss Trevelyan, to form impressions even in a few hours. But, if you are unwilling to share those impressions, who am I to force you?’
They continued to stand, although there were some benches and a small, rustic table. The furniture moved grittily as the man and woman jostled it.
‘But I know so very little,’ Miss Trevelyan protested.
If that little is not everything, the Colonel felt.
They were sitting down. They were putting their hands in front of them on the table.
‘And besides,’ she said, ‘if my memories are partly of an unpleasant nature, I do not care to tell them of somebody who is, or, rather, who could be, dead. I do know, however, that Mr Voss had some very undesirable, even horrible qualities.’
‘That is of the greatest interest,’ said the Colonel.
‘Otherwise,’ she said, ‘I do not believe that he would have been a man.’
If it had been Mrs de Courcy who had spoken, the Colonel would have understood that this was the point at which to make a joke.
But the schoolmistress was moistening her lips.
‘Such horrible qualities,’ she added, ‘one wonders whether one has not interpreted them according to what one knows of oneself. Oh, I do not mean what one knows. What one suspects!’
She was very agitated. Although still a young woman, and beautiful, she had aged, he realized, and recently. Her dark eyes were filling the little summer-house. They were brimming and swimming.
‘Do you consider the unfortunate qualities of which you speak might have grated on the men under his command and weakened his hold as a leader?’
She was looking about her. Now she was caught. The little summer-house was most skilfully constructed, of closely plaited twigs. It had a deserted smell.
She could not answer him, nor look, not even at his bony hands. The silence was stretching. Then, when it had almost broken, she shuddered, and cried out:
‘You would cut my head off, if letting my blood run would do you any good.’
‘It is not for my sake. It is for Mr Voss.’
‘Mr Voss is already history.’
‘But history is not acceptable until it is sifted for the truth. Sometimes this can never be reached.’