Mrs. George knew who Lucinda was — a cousin of the second generation, and, in spite of her thirty-five years, the acknowledged beauty of the whole Penhallow connection.
She was one of those rare women who keep their loveliness unmarred by the passage of years. She had ripened and matured, but she had not grown old. The older Penhallows were still inclined, from sheer force of habit, to look upon her as a girl, and the younger Penhallows hailed her as one of themselves. Yet Lucinda never aped girlishness; good taste and a strong sense of humour preserved her amid many temptations thereto. She was simply a beautiful, fully developed woman, with whom Time had declared a truce, young with a mellow youth which had nothing to do with years.
Mrs. George liked and admired Lucinda. Now, when Mrs. George liked and admired any person, it was a matter of necessity with her to impart her opinions to the most convenient confidant. In this case it was Romney Penhallow to whom Mrs. George remarked sweetly:
“Really, don’t you think our Lucinda is looking remarkably well this fall?”
It seemed a very harmless, inane, wellmeant question. Poor Mrs. George might well be excused for feeling bewildered over the effect. Romney gathered his long legs together, stood up, and swept the unfortunate speaker a crushing Penhallow bow of state.
“Far be it from me to disagree with the opinion of a lady — especially when it concerns another lady,” he said, as he left the blue room.
Overcome by the mordant satire in his tone, Mrs. George glanced speechlessly at Lucinda. Behold, Lucinda had squarely turned her back on the party and was gazing out into the garden, with a very decided flush on the snowy curves of her neck and cheek. Then Mrs. George looked at her sisters-in-law. They were regarding her with the tolerant amusement they might bestow on a blundering child. Mrs. George experienced that subtle prescience whereby it is given us to know that we have put our foot in it. She felt herself turning an uncomfortable brick-red. What Penhallow skeleton had she unwittingly jangled? Why, oh, why, was it such an evident breach of the proprieties to praise Lucinda?
Mrs. George was devoutly thankful that a summons to the tea-table rescued her from her mire of embarrassment. The meal was spoiled for her, however; the mortifying recollection of her mysterious blunder conspired with her curiosity to banish appetite. As soon as possible after tea she decoyed Mrs. Frederick out into the garden and in the dahlia walk solemnly demanded the reason of it all.
Mrs. Frederick indulged in a laugh which put the mettle of her festal brown silk seams to the test.
“My dear Cecilia, it was SO amusing,” she said, a little patronizingly.
“But WHY!” cried Mrs. George, resenting the patronage and the mystery. “What was so dreadful in what I said? Or so funny? And WHO is this Romney Penhallow who mustn’t be spoken to?”
“Oh, Romney is one of the Charlottetown Penhallows,” explained Mrs. Frederick. “He is a lawyer there. He is a first cousin of Lucinda’s and a second of George’s — or is he? Oh, bother! You must go to Uncle John if you want the genealogy. I’m in a chronic muddle concerning Penhallow relationship. And, as for Romney, of course you can speak to him about anything you like except Lucinda. Oh, you innocent! To ask him if he didn’t think Lucinda was looking well! And right before her, too! Of course he thought you did it on purpose to tease him. That was what made him so savage and sarcastic.”
“But WHY?” persisted Mrs. George, sticking tenaciously to her point.
“Hasn’t George told you?”
“No,” said George’s wife in mild exasperation. “George has spent most of his time since we were married telling me odd things about the Penhallows, but he hasn’t got to that yet, evidently.”
“Why, my dear, it is our family romance. Lucinda and Romney are in love with each other. They have been in love with each other for fifteen years and in all that time they have never spoken to each other once!”
“Dear me!” murmured Mrs. George, feeling the inadequacy of mere language. Was this a Penhallow method of courtship? “But WHY?”
“They had a quarrel fifteen years ago,” said Mrs. Frederick patiently. “Nobody knows how it originated or anything about it except that Lucinda herself admitted it to us afterwards. But, in the first flush of her rage, she told Romney that she would never speak to him again as long as she lived. And HE said he would never speak to her until she spoke first — because, you see, as she was in the wrong she ought to make the first advance. And they never have spoken. Everybody in the connection, I suppose, has taken turns trying to reconcile them, but nobody has succeeded. I don’t believe that Romney has ever so much as THOUGHT of any other woman in his whole life, and certainly Lucinda has never thought of any other man. You will notice she still wears Romney’s ring. They’re practically engaged still, of course. And Romney said once that if Lucinda would just say one word, no matter what it was, even if it were something insulting, he would speak, too, and beg her pardon for his share in the quarrel — because then, you see, he would not be breaking his word. He hasn’t referred to the matter for years, but I presume that he is of the same mind still. And they are just as much in love with each other as they ever were. He’s always hanging about where she is — when other people are there, too, that is. He avoids her like a plague when she is alone. That was why he was stuck out in the blue room with us to-day. There doesn’t seem to be a particle of resentment between them. If Lucinda would only speak! But that Lucinda will not do.”
“Don’t you think she will yet?” said Mrs. George.
Mrs. Frederick shook her crimped head sagely.
“Not now. The whole thing has hardened too long. Her pride will never let her speak. We used to hope she would be tricked into it by forgetfulness or accident — we used to lay traps for her — but all to no effect. It is such a shame, too. They were made for each other. Do you know, I get cross when I begin to thrash the whole silly affair over like this. Doesn’t it sound as if we were talking of the quarrel of two schoolchildren? Of late years we have learned that it does not do to speak of Lucinda to Romney, even in the most commonplace way. He seems to resent it.”
“HE ought to speak,” cried Mrs. George warmly. “Even if she were in the wrong ten times over, he ought to overlook it and speak first.”
“But he won’t. And she won’t. You never saw two such determined mortals. They get it from their grandfather on the mother’s side — old Absalom Gordon. There is no such stubbornness on the Penhallow side. His obstinacy was a proverb, my dear — actually a proverb. What ever he said, he would stick to if the skies fell. He was a terrible old man to swear, too,” added Mrs. Frederick, dropping into irrelevant reminiscence. “He spent a long while in a mining camp in his younger days and he never got over it — the habit of swearing, I mean. It would have made your blood run cold, my dear, to have heard him go on at times. And yet he was a real good old man every other way. He couldn’t help it someway. He tried to, but he used to say that profanity came as natural to him as breathing. It used to mortify his family terribly. Fortunately, none of them took after him in that respect. But he’s dead — and one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. I must go and get Mattie Penhallow to do my hair. I would burst these sleeves clean out if I tried to do it myself and I don’t want to dress over again. You won’t be likely to talk to Romney about Lucinda again, my dear Cecilia?”
“Fifteen years!” murmured Mrs. George helplessly to the dahlias. “Engaged for fifteen years and never speaking to each other! Dear heart and soul, think of it! Oh, these Penhallows!”
Meanwhile, Lucinda, serenely unconscious that her love story was being mouthed over by Mrs. Frederick in the dahlia garden, was dressing for the wedding. Lucinda still enjoyed dressing for a festivity, since the mirror still dealt gently with her. Moreover, she had a new dress. Now, a new dress — and especially one as nice as this — was a rarity with Lucinda, who belonged to a branch of the Penhallows noted