She raised her eyes a moment. ‘I always was,’ she murmured, with, she hoped, blood-curdling significance.
‘Older?’ repeated Mrs. Colquhoun, whose hearing, as she often told her friends, was still, she was thankful to say, unimpaired. ‘That, my young friend, is what may be said daily of us all. No doubt Mrs. Cumfrit notices a change even in you. Have you not met for a long while?’
‘Not for an eternity,’ said Christopher, in the sort of voice a man swears with.
A motor-cycle with a side-car was in the road outside the gate, and Mrs. Colquhoun paused on seeing it.
‘Yours, of course, Mr. Monckton,’ she said. ‘This is the machine in which you have dropped out of the skies on us. And with a side-car, too. An empty one, though. I don’t like to think of a young man with an empty side-car. But perhaps the young lady has merely gone for a little stroll?’
‘I have brought it to take Mrs. Cumfrit back to London in,’ said Christopher stiffly; but of what usestiffness, of what use dignity, when one was being made to look and be such a hopeless fool?
‘Really?’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, excessively surprised. ‘Only, she doesn’t go back till Monday—do you, dear Mrs. Cumfrit. Ah, no—don’t talk. I forgot.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Christopher.
‘Really?’ said Mrs. Colquhoun again; and was for a moment, in her turn, silent.
A side-car seemed to her a highly unsuitable vehicle for a person of Mrs. Cumfrit’s age. Nor could she recollect, during all the time she had, off and on, known her, ever having seen her in such a thing. Instinct here began to warn her, as she afterwards was fond of telling her friends, that the situation was not quite normal. How far it was from normal, however, instinct in her case, being that of a decent elderly woman presently to become a grandmother, was naturally incapable of guessing.
‘You didn’t tell us, dear Mrs. Cumfrit,’ she said, turning to her pale and obviously not very well companion, ‘that this was to be your mode of progress. Delightful, of course, in a way. But personally I should be afraid of the shaking. Young people don’t feel these things as we do. Are you, then,’ she continued, turning to Christopher, ‘staying in the neighbourhood over Sunday?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher, taking a rug out of the side-car and unfolding it.
‘I wonder where. You’ll think me an inquisitive old woman, but really I wonder where. You see, I know this district so well, and there isn’t—oh, I expect you’re with the Parkers. They usually have a houseful of young people for the week-end. You’ll enjoy it.The country round is—What, are you going on, dear Mrs. Cumfrit? Then good-bye for the present. I shall see you at lunch. Virginia always likes me to come in on these Lenten Saturdays while Stephen is away. It has become a ritual. Now take my advice, and lie down for half an hour. I’m a very sensible person, Mr. Monckton, and know that one can’t go on for ever as if one were still twenty-five.’
Christopher stepped forward, intercepting Catherine. ‘I’ll drive you back,’ he said.
‘I’d rather walk,’ she said.
‘Then I’ll walk with you.’ And he threw the rug into the side-car again.
‘What? And leave your motor-cycle and rug and everything unprotected?’ exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun, who had listened to this brief dialogue with surprise. Mr. Monckton, whoever he might be, was neither Mrs. Cumfrit’s son, for she hadn’t got one, nor her nephew, for he had himself said, with the emphasis of the male young, that he wasn’t, and his masterfulness seemed accordingly a little unaccountable.
‘You’d better let me drive you,’ he persisted to her pale companion, taking no notice of this exclamation. ‘You oughtn’t to walk.’
Was he, perhaps, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, a doctor? A young doctor? Mrs. Cumfrit’s London medical adviser? If so, of course.... Yet even then, her not having mentioned his expected arrival, and her plan for motoring up with him on Monday, was odd. Besides, nobody except the very rich had doctors dangling after them.
‘Let me drive you,’ said the young man again.
And Mrs. Cumfrit said—rather helplessly, Mrs.Colquhoun thought, as if she were seriously lacking in backbone, ‘Very well.’
It was all extremely odd.
‘Virginia will wonder,’ remarked Mrs. Colquhoun, looking on with a distinctly pursed expression while her colleague was being rolled into the rug as carefully as if she were china,—rolled right up to her chin in it, as if she were going thousands of miles, and at least to Lapland. ‘But no doubt you have told her Mr. Monckton was coming down.’
‘I shall only drive part of the way,’ answered Mrs. Cumfrit—there was a tinge of colour in her face now, Mrs. Colquhoun noticed; perhaps the tight rug was choking her—‘but I shall get back quicker like this.’
‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun grimly.
She watched them disappear in a cloud of dust, and then turned to go home, where she had several things to see to before lunching at the Manor; but, pausing, she decided that she would walk round into the village instead, and see if she could meet Stephen. Perhaps he would be able to explain Mr. Monckton.
And Catherine did not, after all, get back quicker. No sooner was she off, at what seemed to her a great pace, than she began to have misgivings about it, for it occurred to her that on her feet she could go where she liked, but in Christopher’s side-car she would have to go where he did.
‘That’s the turning,’ she called out—she found she had to speak very loud to get heard above the din the thing made—pointing to a road to the right a short distance ahead.
‘Is it?’ Christopher shouted back; and rushed past it.
Thenoise, the shaking, the wind, made it impossible to say much. Perhaps up there above her on his perch he really didn’t hear; he anyhow behaved as if he didn’t. Getting no answer to any of the things she said, she looked up at him. He was intent, bent forward, his mouth tight shut, and his hair—he had nothing on his head—blown backwards, shining in the sun.
The anger died from her face. It was so absurd, what was happening to her, that she couldn’t be angry. All the trouble she had taken to get away from him, all she had endured and made Stephen and Virginia endure that week as a result of it, ending like this, in being caught and carried off in a side-car! Besides, there was something about him sitting up there in the sun, something in his expression, at once triumphant and troubled, determined and anxious, happy and scared, that brought a smile flickering round the corners of her mouth, which, however, she carefully buried in her scarf.
And as she settled down into the rug, for she couldn’t do anything at that moment except go, except rush, except be hurtled, as she gave herself up to this extraordinary temporary abduction, a queer feeling stole over her as if she had come in out of the cold into a room with a bright fire in it. Yes, she had been cold; and with Christopher it was warm. Absurd as itwas, she felt she was with somebody of her own age again.
They were through the village in a flash. Stephen, still on his way to the sick-bed he was to console, was caught up and passed without his knowing who was passing. He jumped aside when he heard the noise of their approach behind him,—quickly, because he was cautious and they were close, and without looking at them, because motor-cycles and the ways of young men who used them were repugnant to him.
Christopher rushed past him with a loud hoot. It sounded defiant. Catherine gathered, from its special violence, that her son-in-law had been recognised.
The road beyond Chickover winds sweetly among hills. If one continues on it long enough, that is for twenty miles or so, one comes to the sea. This was where Christopher took Catherine that morning, not stopping a moment, nor slowing down except when prudence demanded, nor speaking a word till he got there. At the bottom of the steep bit at the end, down which he went carefully, acutely aware of the preciousness of his passenger, where between grassy banks the road abruptly finishes in shingle and the sea, he stopped, got off, and came round to unwind her.
This was the moment he was most afraid of.
She looked so very small, rolled round in the rug like a little bolster, propped up in the side-car, that his heart misgave him worse than ever. It had been misgiving him without interruption the whole way, but it misgave him worse than ever now. He felt she was too small to hurt, to anger, even to ruffle; that it wasn’t fair; that he ought, if he must attack, attack a woman more his own size.
And she didn’t say anything. She had, he knew, said a good many things when they passed that turning, none of which he could hear, but since then she had been silent. She was silent now; only, over the top of her scarf, which had got pushed up rather funnily round her ears, her eyes were fixed on him.
‘There. Here we are,’ he said. ‘We can talk here. If you’ll stand up I’ll get this thing unwound.’
For a moment he thought she was going to refuse to move, but she said nothing, and let him help her up. She was so tightly rolled round that it would have been difficult to move by herself.
He took the rug off, and folded it up busily so as not to have to meet her eyes, for he was afraid.
‘Help me out,’ she said.
He looked her suddenly in the face. ‘I’m glad I did it, anyhow,’ he said, flinging back his head.
‘Are you?’ she said.
She held out her hand to be helped. She looked rumpled.
‘Your little coat——’ he murmured, pulling it tidy; and he couldn’t keep his hand from shaking, because he loved her so—‘your little coat——’ Then he straightened himself, and looked her in the eyes. ‘Catherine, we’ve got to talk,’ he said.
‘Is that why you’ve brought me here?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘Do you imagine I’m going to listen?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘You don’t feel at all ashamed?’
‘No,’ said Christopher.
She got out, and walked on to the shingle, and stood with her back to him, apparently considering the view.It was low tide, and the sea lay a good way off across wet sands. The sheltered bay was very quiet, and she could hear larks singing above the grassy banks behind her. Dreadful how little angry she was. She turned her back so as to hide how little angry she was. She wasn’t really angry at all, and she knew she ought to be. Christopher ought to be sent away at once and for ever, but there were two reasons against that,—one that he wouldn’t go, and the other that she didn’t want him to. Contrary to all right feeling, to all sense of what was decent, she was amazingly glad to be with him again. She didn’t do any of the things she ought to do,—flame with anger, wither him with rebukes. It was shameful, but there it was: she was amazingly glad to be with him again.
Christopher, watching her, tried to keep up a stout heart. He had had such a horrible week that whatever happened now couldn’t anyhow be worse. And she—well, she didn’t look any the happier for it, for running away from him, either.
He tried to make his voice sound fearless. ‘Catherine, we must talk,’ he said. ‘It’s no use turning your back on me and staring at the silly view. You don’t see it, so why pretend?’
She didn’t move. She was wondering at the way her attitude towards him had developed in this week. All the while she was so indignant with him she was really getting used to him, getting used to the idea of him. Helped, of course, by Stephen. Immensely helped by Stephen, and even by Virginia.
‘I told you you’d never get away from me,’ he said to the back of her head, putting all he had of defiance into his voice. But he had so little; it was bluff,sheer bluff, while his heart was ignominiously in his boots.
‘Your methods amaze me,’ said Catherine to the view.
‘Why did you run away?’
‘Why did you force me to?’
‘Well, it hasn’t been much good, has it, seeing that here we are again.’
‘It hasn’t been the least good.’
‘It never is, unless it’s done in twos. Then I’m all for it. Don’t forget that next time, will you. And you might also give the poor devil who is run from a thought. He has the thinnest time. I suppose if I were to try and tell you the sort of hell he has to endure you wouldn’t even understand, you untouched little thing,—you self-sufficing little thing.’
Silence.
Catherine, gazing at the view, was no doubt taking his remarks in. At least, he hoped so.
‘Won’t you turn round, Catherine?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, when you’re ready to take me back to Chickover.’
‘I’ll be ready to do that when we’ve arrived at some conclusion. Is it any use my coming round to your other side? We could talk better if we could see each other’s faces.’
‘No use at all,’ said Catherine.
‘Because you’d only turn your back on me again?’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
‘Aren’t we silly,’ said Christopher.
‘Idiots,’ said Catherine.
Silence.
‘Of course I know you’re very angry with me,’ said Christopher.
‘I’ve been extraordinarily angry with you the whole week,’ said Catherine.
‘That’s only because you will persist in being unnatural. You’re the absurdest little bundle of prejudices, and musty old fears. Why on earth you can’t simply let yourself go——’
Silence.
She, and letting herself go! She struggled to keep her laughter safe muffled inside her scarf. She hadn’t laughed since last she was with Christopher. At Chickover nobody laughed. A serious smile from Virginia, a bright conventional smile from Mrs. Colquhoun, no smile at all from Stephen; that was the nearest they got to it. Laughter—one of the most precious of God’s gifts; the very salt, the very light, the very fresh air of life; the divine disinfectant, the heavenly purge. Could one ever be real friends with somebody one didn’t laugh with? Of course one couldn’t. She and Christopher, they laughed. Oh, she had missed him.... But he was so headlong, he was so dangerous, he must be kept so sternly within what bounds she could get him to stay in.
She therefore continued to turn her back on him, for her face, she knew, would betray her.
‘You haven’t been happy down here, that I’ll swear,’ said Christopher. ‘I saw it at once in your little face.’
‘You needn’t swear, because I’m not going to pretend anything. I haven’t been at all happy. I was very angry with you, and I was—lonely.’
‘Lonely?’
‘Yes. One misses—one’s friends.’
‘But you were up to your eyes in relations.’
Silence.
Then Catherine said, ‘I’m beginning to think relations can’t be friends—neither blood relations, nor relations by marriage.’
‘Would you,’ asked Christopher after a pause, during which he considered this remark, ‘call a husband a relation by marriage?’
‘It depends,’ said Catherine, ‘whose.’
‘Yours, of course. You know I mean yours.’
She was quiet a moment, then she said cautiously, ‘I’d call him George.’
He took a quick step forward, before she had time to turn away, and looked at her.
‘You’re laughing,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘I felt you were. Why, I don’t believe you’re angry at all—I believe you’re glad I’ve come. Catherine, youareglad I’ve come. You’re fed up with Stephen and Virginia, and the old lady with the profile, and I’ve come as a sort of relief. Isn’t it true? Youareglad?’
‘I think they’re rather fed up, as you put it, with me,’ said Catherine soberly.
‘Fed up with you? They? That ancient, moulting, feathered tribe?’
He stared at her. ‘Then why do you stay till Monday?’ he asked.
‘Because of Virginia.’
‘You mean she, of course, isn’t fed up.’
‘Yes, she is.’
‘She too?’
He tried to take this in. ‘Then why on earth stay?’ he asked again.
‘Because I don’t want her to know I know sheisfed up. Christopher, how catching your language is——’
His face broadened into a grin. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘these twists-up one gets into with relations.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Catherine.
‘Thank heaven I haven’t got any.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Catherine; and added with a faint sigh, her eyes on the distant sea, ‘I oughtn’t to have come at all.’
‘Well, as though that wasn’t abundantly clear from the first.’
‘I mean, because young people should be left undisturbed.’
‘Young people! Stephen?’
‘Well, young couples.’
‘He isn’t a young couple.’
‘Virginia has made him young. They ought to be left to themselves. It isn’t that Virginia doesn’t love me—it’s that she loves Stephen more, and wants to be alone with him.’
‘She’s a horrid girl,’ said Christopher with conviction.
‘She’s mine,’ said Catherine, ‘and I love her. Don’t forget that, please. It’s very important in my life.’
He took her hands and kissed them. ‘I adore you,’ he said simply.
‘Well, it’s not much good doing that,’ she said.
‘Doing what?’
‘Adoring somebody old enough to be your mother.’
‘Mothers be damned,’ said Christopher.
‘Oh, that’s what I’ve been thinking all the week!’ cried Catherine,—and then looked so much shocked at herself that Christopher burst out laughing, and so, after a minute, did she, and they stood there laughing, heholding both her hands, and happiness coming back to them in waves.
‘Aren’t we friends,’ she said, looking at him in a kind of glad surprise.
‘Aren’t we,’ said Christopher, kissing her hands again.
They wandered along the sands for a little after that, after their simultaneous laughter had loosened them from their reserves and fears, both feeling that an immense stride had been made in intimacy. Catherine, as they wandered, expounded her view of the nature and manifestations of true friendship, as other women have done on similar occasions, and Christopher, even as other men on such occasions, pretended that he thought just like that too.
He wasn’t going to frighten her away again. She had been flung back to him in this unexpected frame of mind, this state of relief and gladness, because it happened that Stephen was Stephen and Virginia was Virginia,—but suppose she had chanced to run to appreciative friends, friends delighted to have her, who petted her and made her happy, to the enthusiastic Fanshawes, for instance, he would have had a poor hope of anything but being avoided for the rest of his life. And he had suffered, suffered. It had been the blackest week of misery. He wasn’t going to risk any more of it. He would walk along the sands with her and talk carefully with her of friendship.
And Catherine, used only to George, and without experience of the endless variety of the approaches and disguises of love, was delighted with Christopher, and felt every minute more reassured and safe. He agreed, it appeared, completely with her that in a world where nobody can get everything it is better to take somethingrather than have nothing, and that friendship between a man and a woman, even a warm one, is perfectly possible,—only reverting to his more violent way of speech when she added, ‘Especially at our unequal ages,’ upon which he said, in his earlier manner, ‘Oh, damn unequal ages.’
For a moment he had difficulty in not holding forth on this subject, and her ridiculous obsession by it, but stopped himself. He wasn’t going to spoil this. It was too happy, this wandering alone together on those blessed solitary sands,—too, too happy, after the dark torments of the week, to risk spoiling it. Let her say what she liked. Let her coo away about being friends; in another moment she would probably assure him that she would like to be his sister, his own dear sister, or his mother to whom he could always turn in trouble, or some absurd female relation of that sort. He wouldn’t stop her. He would only listen and laugh inside himself. His Catherine. His love. As sure as she walked there, as sure as there behind her, reaching farther and farther back, was a double ribbon of her little wobbly footprints in the sand, she was his love. And presently she too would know it, and all the sister and mother and friend talk go the way such talk always went, and be remembered some day only with wonder and smiles.
‘Catherine,’ he said, ‘just to walk with you makes me so happy that it’s as clear as God’s daylight we’re the wonderfullest, most harmonious of friends.’
Thereliefof being with Christopher! To be wanted again, to have some one pleased to be with her, preferring to be with her than anywhere else in the world,—what a contrast to her recent experiences at Chickover. She no longer had the amused feeling of gratified vanity thathad warmed her in London before he began to behave badly; what she felt now was much simpler and more sincere,—not trivial like that. They had both been through their rages, and had come out into this fresh air, these sunlit waters. They were friends.
‘I’m so glad I came away,’ she said, smiling up at him; and she very nearly added, as she looked at him and saw him such a part of the morning, and of the fresh sea and the clear light, so bright-haired and young-limbed, ‘I doloveyou, Christopher——’ but was afraid he would misunderstand. Which he certainly would have.
They arranged, before they turned back, that he should drive her up to London that afternoon. Her luggage could be sent by train. It seemed silly, he said, to stay till Monday when she didn’t want to, and Virginia didn’t want her to, and nobody wanted her to, while in London there were her friends, all wanting her——
‘One friend,’ she smiled.
‘Well, one friend is enough to change the world.’
‘Ohyes,’ she agreed, her eyes shining.
Still, it would be difficult, she said. Virginia would be astonished at the motor-cycle——
‘She knows all about that by now,’ said Christopher. ‘You bet the old lady has told her about it long ago. Rushed straight round on purpose.’
Well then, in that case, on the principle of being hung for a whole sheep while one was about it, Catherine thought she might as well drive up with him that day. Especially——
‘Now don’t say especially at our ages.’
‘I wasn’t going to. I was going to say, especially as it will make everybody happy all round.’
‘Yes, my love—I mean, my friend. Even though they won’t admit it,’ said Christopher.
He was to leave her, they decided, at the Chickover gates, and at lunch she would explain him to Virginia, and then he would call for her at two o’clock and take her away. Introduced, however, to Virginia first.
‘Must I be?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ said Catherine.
With what different feelings did Christopher pack her up in the rug this time. There was no fear now, no anxiety. She laughed, and was the Catherine of the afternoon at Hampton Court,—only come so much nearer, come so close up to him, come indeed, and of her own accord, almost right into his heart.
‘My blessed little angel,’ he thought, propping her up in the seat when she was wound round and couldn’t move her arms; and her eyes were so bright, and her face so different from the face that he had seen in church two hours before, that he said, ‘You looked ten years older this morning than you did in London, and now you look twenty years younger than you did then.’
‘What age does that make me?’ she asked, laughing up at him.
‘So you see,’ he said, ignoring this, ‘how wholesome, how necessary it is to be with one’s friend.’
Meanwhilethe morning at the Manor was passing in its usual quiet yet busy dignity. Virginia attended to her household duties, while her mother and Stephen were at church, and herself cut the sandwiches that Stephen was to take up with him to London, because the ones the week before had been, he told her, highly unsatisfactory.
The cook looked on with the expression natural to cooks in such circumstances, and Virginia, who had never made sandwiches, but knew what they ought to taste like, was disconcerted by their appearance when she had done.
‘It’s how the master likes them,’ she said rather uncertainly, as she herself arranged the strange-shaped things in the aluminium box they were to travel in.
‘Yes, m’m,’ said the cook.
She came out of the kitchen and into her own part of the house with a sigh of relief. It was always a relief to get through those baize doors. The servants made her shy. She wasn’t able, somehow, to get into touch with them. What she aimed at in her relations with them was perfect justice and kindness, combined with dignity. She most earnestly wished to do her duty by them, and in return it seemed merely fair to demand that they should do their duty by her. Her mother’s reign had been lax. She had found, on looking into things on her marriage, many abuses. These she had removed one by one, and after much trouble had put the whole household on a decent economic footing.
Up to now the servants hadn’t quite settled down to it, but her mother-in-law, who was experienced in frugalities, assured her they would in time, and be all the happier and the better for it. She had gone so far as to explain to them, her serious young face firm in the belief that once they were told they would understand and even co-operate, that the more carefully the house was run the more would the poor, the sick, and the aged of the parish benefit. ‘No one,’ she said, earnestly striving to make herself clear, ‘has more than a certain amount of money to spend, and if it is spent in one way it can’t possibly be spent in another.’
The servants were silent.
She even tried, overcoming her shyness, to talk to them of noble aims, and love for one’s fellow-creatures.
The servants continued silent.
She went further, and in a voice that faltered because of her extreme desire to run away and hide, talked to them of God.
The servants became really terribly silent.
Carrying her aluminium box, she passed on this Saturday morning, with her customary sigh of relief, through the baize doors that separated the domestic part of the house from the part where one was happy, and went into the study to put the sandwiches in Stephen’s suit-case, along with his sermons and pyjamas. He, she knew, would only be back a short time before starting for the station, because of the sick-bed he had to visit, poor Stephen, but her mother would be back.
Virginia had made up her mind to devote herself entirely this week-end to her mother, and do her best to remove any suspicion she might have that she had not been, perhaps, quite wanted; and having shut the sandwiches in the suit-case she went in search of her.
Poor mother. Virginia wished, with a sigh, that she need never be hurt. She was so kind, and so often so sweet. But what problems mothers were after a certain age! Unless they were as perfectly sensible as Stephen’s, or else were truly religious. Religion, of course, was what was most needed, especially when one was old. Virginia had, however, long felt that her mother was not truly religious—not truly and seriously, as she and Stephen were. No doubt she thought she was, and perhaps she was, in some queer way; but were queer ways of being religious permissible? Weren’t they as bad, really, as no ways at all?
Virginia sighed again. One did so long to be able to look up to one’s mother, to revere....
The house seemed empty. All the big rooms, glanced into one after the other, were empty. Nothing in them but the mild spring sunshine, and furniture, and silence.
She went upstairs, but in her mother’s bedroom was only Ellen, arranging another bunch of flowers—another, when yesterday’s were still perfectly good—on the writing-table. Stephen disliked flowers in bedrooms, but suppose he hadn’t, would Ellen so assiduously see that they were always fresh? Virginia thought she wouldn’t, and very much wished at that moment to point out the extravagance of picking flowers unnecessarily at a time of year when they were scarce; but she was handicapped by their being for her mother.
She said nothing, therefore, and went away, andEllen was relieved when she went. Just as Virginia was relieved when she got away from the servants, so were the servants relieved when they saw her go.
She fetched a wrap from her bedroom—the room already looked forlorn, as if it knew it was to be empty of Stephen for two whole nights—and went downstairs and out on to the terrace. Probably her mother was lingering in the garden this mild morning, and Virginia took two or three turns up and down, expecting every moment to see her approaching along some path.
Nobody approached, however: the garden remained as empty as the house. And time was passing; Stephen would be due soon to come back; her mother would want to say good-bye to him, and couldn’t have gone for a walk on this morning of departure. She would particularly want to say good-bye, quite apart from the fact that she would be gone before his return on Monday, because she wasn’t letting him stay in Hertford Street over the week-end. Stephen did so hate hotels. It seemed hard when no one was in the flat that he couldn’t use it. Her mother had made excuses—said something or other about Mrs. Mitcham having a holiday, but Virginia didn’t think she had felt quite comfortable about it. She would therefore certainly wish to make him some parting little speech of more than ordinary gratitude for his hospitality, seeing how from him she was withholding hers. And here was Stephen, coming across the grass, and in a few minutes he would have started, and her mother still nowhere to be seen.
‘What has become of mother?’ she called, when he was within earshot.
He didn’t answer till he was close to her. Then he said, looking worried, ‘Isn’t she back yet?’
‘No. Where is she?’
He stared at Virginia a moment, then made a gesture of extreme impatience. ‘I can’t imagine,’ he said, pulling out his watch and beginning to walk quickly across the terrace to the open windows of the drawing-room, for he hadn’t much time, he saw, before his train left, ‘what possessed your mother.’
‘Possessed her?’ echoed Virginia, her eyes and mouth all astonishment.
‘Anything more unsuitable——’ said Stephen, quickly going through the drawing-room, followed by Virginia. ‘Tut, tut,’ he finished, in a most strange way.
Virginia’s heart gave a queer kind of drop. ‘Unsuitable?’ she repeated faintly.
It was the word of all others she dreaded hearing applied to her mother, and applied by Stephen. She herself had felt many little things unsuitable in her mother during this visit, the first real visit since her marriage, but she had so much hoped Stephen hadn’t noticed, and she did so much want him to continue in the warm respect and admiration for her mother he had felt before. What had she done now? What could she have done to produce this fluster of annoyance in the quiet, controlled Stephen?
‘She all but ran over me in my own village street,’ he said, going into the study and hastily collecting his things.
Virginia could only again echo. ‘All but ran over you?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yes. You know how strongly I feel about motor-cycles, and the type of scallywag youth who uses them. Where is my muffler?’
‘Motor-cycles?’ said Virginia, her mouth open.
‘I naturally hadn’t the remotest idea it could be your mother, but mother—our mother—met me and told me—yes, yes, Kate, I know—I’m coming immediately. Good-bye, my love—I shall miss my train——’
‘But Stephen——’
‘Mother will tell you. Really I find the utmost difficulty in believing it. And not back yet. Still scorching——’
He was out in the hall; he was in the car; he was gone.
Virginia stood staring after him. Stephen gone, and in such a way. No good-bye hardly, no lingering, sweet farewell, nothing but hurry and upset. What had happened? What had her mother done?
His incredible last word beat on her ears—scorching. She wished she had flung herself into the car and gone with him to the station, and so at least had a little more time to be told things. But Stephen disliked impetuosity, and, for that matter, so did she. There were, however, moments in life when indulgence in it was positively right.
Virginia stood there feeling perhaps more unhappy than she had ever yet felt. One couldn’t have a mother all one’s life and not be attached to her; at least, she couldn’t. She was made up of loyalties. They differed in intensity, but each in its degree was complete. Passionately she wanted the objects of her loyalties to have the invulnerableness of perfection. Stephen had it. She had supposed, till this last visit, that her mother had it—in an entirely different line, of course, with all sorts of little things about her Virginia didn’t understand but was willing to accept as also, in their way,in their different way, good.There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, Virginia, observing her mother, had sometimes quoted to herself. Both of them glories, but different,—greater and lesser. Stephen had the glory of the sun; her mother had the moon one. During this unlucky visit, though, how had it not, thought Virginia standing on the steps, looking down the empty avenue, been obscured. And now, just at the end, just as she was going to make such an effort to set everything right again, her mother had evidently done something definitely dreadful, with a motor-cycle. Her mother, her mouse-like mother. What could shepossibly....
She turned away and went indoors, her eyes fixed on the carpet, her brows knitted in painfullest perplexity.
Should she go and meet Stephen’s mother, who was coming to lunch and evidently knew what had happened? There was still half an hour before lunch, and before Stephen’s mother, who never came a minute sooner or a minute later than the exact appointed time, would arrive. But her own mother might come back at any moment, and it would be better to hear things from her, wouldn’t it, than from Stephen’s mother. She was very fond of Stephen’s mother,—indeed, how should she not be, when he was?—and admired her many qualities excessively, but she didn’t love her as she did her own mother. One began so young with one’s own mother, of course one felt differently about her from what one did about any one else’s. She shrank from hearing, from Stephen’s mother, whatever it was her own mother had done.
Family pride, loyalty, and the queer little ache of love, sometimes disapproving, sometimes wistful, sometimes disappointed, sometimes pitiful, but always love,that she felt for her mother, made her not want to hear Stephen’s mother tell her what had happened. Stephen was different. If he told and blamed he had a right to, he belonged. It would be painful to her to the point of agony, seeing how much she loved them both, but he had the right. His mother, though, hadn’t. She felt she couldn’t bear to listen to even the most tactful disapproval from his mother. No, she wouldn’t go to meet her. Her mother would certainly be in in time for lunch, and get there before Stephen’s mother. Oh, all these mothers! There were too many of them, Virginia thought with sudden impatience, and then was ashamed,—she, the wife of one of God’s priests.
The drawing-room door was open, and opposite it was the widely-flung-up William and Mary window, and through the window she saw, coming across the terrace and walking with even more than her usual briskness, Stephen’s mother.
Such a thing had never happened before, that she should arrive before her time.Whathad her mother done?
Virginia stood in the hall, rooted, wanting to run up to her bedroom and hide, but unable to make up her mind quickly enough, and Mrs. Colquhoun saw her the minute she was through the window, and it was too late.
‘Oh, my dear Virginia,’ she cried out, ‘I am concerned for your mother. I hope she got home safely? I couldn’t rest. I had to come and hear that she wasn’t too much shaken. The young man went off at such a pace. And Stephen told me they nearly ran over him in the village. I thought it so courageous of Mrs. Cumfrit. I do hope she is none the worse?’
‘I haven’t seen mother yet,’ said Virginia, getting nearer prevarication than in her transparent life she had yet been.
But Mrs. Colquhoun was not to be put off by prevarication. ‘What? Isn’t she back?’ she exclaimed.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ said Virginia obstinately.
Mrs. Colquhoun stared at her. ‘But then, where——?’ she began.
‘I don’t see,’ said Virginia, very red, and straight of eyebrow, ‘why mother shouldn’t motor-cycle if she wants to.’
‘But ofcoursenot.Certainlynot. And Mr. Monckton is an old friend, isn’t he—that’s to say, as old a friend as one can be at such a very young age. I expect he’s your friend really, isn’t he? Though I don’t remember seeing him at Chickover before.’
‘Tell me what happened, mother,’ said Virginia, leading the way to her boudoir.
‘But is Mrs. Cumfrit safely back yet? That’s what I’m really anxious to hear,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, taking off her gloves and woollen scarf, and sitting as far from the fire as she could, so as to convey, with the delicacy of action rather than the clumsiness of words, that a fire on such a sunny morning was unnecessary.
‘No,’ said Virginia.
‘Well, you mustn’t be agitated, dearest child. Mr. Monckton is a safe rider, I’m sure. And careful. Young, of course, and in so far headstrong, but I’m sure careful. Especially when taking some one of your mother’s age with him. How long have you known him?’
‘I haven’t known him,’ said Virginia stiffly.
She wouldn’t admit to herself that all this amazedand shook her. She would let no thought get through into her mind except that it was natural and perfectly ordinary, if one wanted to, to go off motor-cycling, natural and perfectly ordinary for anybody, her mother included.
‘Not known him?’ exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun.
‘Mother has many friends I haven’t met,’ said Virginia, sitting very straight.
‘Quite. Of course. In London.’
‘Yes. You haven’t told me what happened, mother.’
‘Well, thisverytall andquitegood-looking Mr. Monckton was waiting in the churchyard at your poor father’s tomb, when we came out after the service——’
‘Waiting for mother?’
‘Yes. He said he had come down on purpose to drive her up to London in his side-car——’
‘But mother isn’t going till Monday.’
‘Exactly. Nor, he said, was he. His motor-cycle was outside the gate, and he persuaded your mother to get in and let him drive her back here, and she did, and off they went. Off, really, like a flash. Such courage in your dear mother. I did so admire it at her age. Perfectly splendid, I thought. It means, you know, Virginia, vitality—the most important of all possessions. Without it one can do nothing. With it one can do everything. However—to go on. I watched them, and saw they didn’t take the first turning home, and then I met Stephen in the village, and they had been through it and just missed running over him by inches. Now, now, Virginia, don’t turn pale, dear child. They didn’t run over him, or of course I wouldn’t have told you. Now, my dearest child, there’s nothing at all exciting and upsetting in this, so don’t allow yourselfto be upset. It’s very bad for you, you know——’
‘I’m not upset, mother. Why should I be?’ said Virginia, holding herself up. She hadn’t been able to help turning pale at the terrible idea of Stephen so narrowly missing being run over by her mother—oh, what a horrible combination of circumstances!—but what else, she asked herself, was there to mind in this? Why shouldn’t her mother, meeting a friend, go for a little turn in his side-car on such a fine morning?
‘I never knew your mother do anything in the least like this before,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun.
‘No,’ said Virginia. ‘But don’t you think there always has to be a beginning?’
‘A beginning?’
Mrs. Colquhoun was surprised. Virginia was almost arguing with her. Besides, it was an unexpected view to take. Beginnings were not suitable, she felt, after a certain age, especially not for women. Mothers of the married, such as herself and Mrs. Cumfrit, should be concerned rather with endings than beginnings.
But she would not be anything but broad-minded; she was determined to remain, however much surprised, broad-minded. So she said, ‘Certainly,’ with hearty agreement. And repeated, ‘Certainly. Certainly there must be a beginning. Always. To everything. Only—I was wondering whether perhaps—well, anyhow it shows a wonderful vitality, and as no one recognised your mother in the village——’
‘Is it wrong to go in a side-car?’ asked Virginia, again surprisingly.
‘My dearest child, of course not. It’s only that—well, it’s a little unusual for your mother. It’s not quite what people here are used to in her, is it. It’s a—a young thing to do. Girls go in side-cars, and otherwild young persons, but not—well, as I say, one can but admire such vitality and courage. I confess I wouldn’t have dared. I do believe there isn’t the young man living who could have induced me to.’
Virginia felt very unhappy. Fancy having to sit there defending her mother—hermother, who had always been on such a pinnacle. It was like a bad dream. And where was she? Why didn’t she come back? Suppose something had happened to her? Something must have happened to her, or surely she wouldn’t have missed saying good-bye to Stephen?
A sick little fear began to creep round Virginia’s heart. She hadn’t much imagination; she didn’t dramatically visualise an accident, her mother lying crumpled up and lifeless in some lonely lane, but she did think it possible something unpleasant might have happened, and it made her look with very wide, anxious eyes at Mrs. Colquhoun, and wonder what in the world it could matter really whether her mother got into fifty side-cars and rushed through fifty villages as long as she safely got out of them again.
The gong sounded.
‘Lunch,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun brightly, for Virginia’s expression rather startled her, and it was above all things necessary that the child should, in her present condition, be kept calm. ‘Shall you wait?’
‘Listen,’ said Virginia, holding up her hand.
In another moment Mrs. Colquhoun heard it too—the noise of a motor-cycle, far away but coming nearer.
‘What quick ears,’ she smilingly congratulated her daughter-in-law; but Virginia was on her feet, and running out to meet her mother.
She ran through the hall and on to the steps, expectingto see the motor-cycle careering along the avenue; and there was nothing to be seen, and the noise had left off too. It must have been some one else’s. The avenue was empty.
She stood staring down it, thrown back on her fears. Then in the distance, round the bend, she saw a small figure walking quickly towards the house. It was her mother, safe and sound.
Virginia’s immediate impulse in her glad relief was to run down the steps to meet her and hug her, but instantly the reaction set in. Nothing had happened, her mother was unharmed, and it was really too bad that she should have gone in the foolish side-car. One surely had a right to expect at least dignity in one’s mother, a sense of the suitable; especially when she belonged, too, to Stephen, a man in a public position, with a sacred calling.
Sore and puzzled, Virginia stood stiffly on the steps. Her mother came along very quickly and lightly, like a little leaf being blown up the avenue; and when she got nearer, and began to wave her hand with what appeared to be, and no doubt was, forced gaiety, Virginia noticed her face had the look on it she had seen once before during this unfortunate visit, the look of a child caught by its elders stealing the jam.
Catherinehad walked very fast up the avenue, afraid she was late. Her face was hot with exercise, and her eyes bright with Christopher. She didn’t look like the same person who had set out that morning, listless and pale, with Stephen for church. She had somehow entirely wiped out Christopher’s behaviour in London, and felt she had started again with him on a new footing. She was happy, and wanted to tell Virginia of her new arrangements quickly, before their naturalness and desirability, so evident and clear while she was with Christopher, had faded and become obscure. She felt they might do that rather easily without him, especially as Mrs. Colquhoun was going to be at lunch.
She must be quick, while she still saw plain. Everybody wanted her to go, and she wanted to go; then why not go? Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to let her go without criticism, without disapproval. Dear me, she thought, how pleasant to be quite simple and straight. How pleasant to be free from sentimentalism, and all its grievances and tender places. How very pleasant not to mind if one’s children did sometimes get bored with one, and for them not to mind if you sometimes got bored with them.
She laughed a little at these aspirations, as she hurried towards her tall, unmoving daughter and wavedher hand in greeting, because they sounded so very like a desire to be free of family life altogether. And she didn’t desire to be free of it, she clung to what remained of it for her, she clung to Virginia, her last shred of it, however different they were, however deeply they didn’t understand each other. Blood; strange, compelling, unbreakable link. Could one forget that that tall creature there, so aloof, so critical, had once been tiny and helpless, depending on her for her very life?
A fresh wave of love for her daughter washed over her. She felt so able to love and be happy at that moment. ‘I’m late—I know I’m late,’ she said breathlessly, running up the steps and kissing her. ‘Did you think I was lost, darling?’
‘I was afraid something might have happened, mother,’ said Virginia, very stiff and grave.
‘Darling—I’m so sorry. It didn’t upset you?’
‘I was a little afraid. But it’s all right now that you’ve come back. Lunch is ready, and mother is waiting. Shall we go in?’
‘She will have told you, hasn’t she, of my escapade,’ said Catherine a little nervously as they went indoors, for Virginia was so very grave.
‘I hope you had a pleasant drive,’ said Virginia, wincing at the word escapade. Mothers didn’t have escapades. Such things were for them, and indeed for most people who wished to live the lives of plain Christians, unsuitable.
She ached with different emotions. The only way to keep her feelings out of sight, safely hidden, was to encase herself in ice.
She sat at the head of the table, a mother on either hand, and helped them in turn icily to mince. On the Saturdays of Stephen’s absences both parlourmaids,once he had been seen off, were given a holiday, and the dishes were placed on the table by Ellen. There was always mince for lunch on these Saturdays, because mince rested the cook. Also, it didn’t have to be carved. But it is not a food to promote good-fellowship; impossible to be really convivial on mince. The three, however, wouldn’t have been convivial that day even if the table had been covered with, say, quails; for in the consciousness of each was, enormous and vivid, that side-car and the young man who belonged to it.
Both Virginia and Mrs. Colquhoun earnestly desired that neither it nor he should be mentioned during lunch, because of Ellen, and Mrs. Colquhoun did her best to talk well and brightly about everything except just that. But Catherine was anxious to tell them quickly, before she became any more congealed, what was going to happen next. She knew it was past one already, and that at two Christopher and the motor-cycle would appear to fetch her, and that the entire household would be aware of her departure in the side-car. She was obliged to talk of it, and at the very first pause in Mrs. Colquhoun’s conversation began to do so.
How difficult it was. Worse than she had feared. Her cheeks got hotter. Virginia’s face, and her grieved, astonished eyes, made her stammer. And Mrs. Colquhoun, when she heard of the drive planned for that afternoon to London, on top of the drive that morning to goodness knew where, merely raised her hands and ejaculated ‘Insatiable!’
For some reason Catherine found this brief ejaculation curiously disconcerting.
‘If you must go to-day, mother,’ said Virginia, stung and perplexed, ‘you might have gone with Stephen.’
‘Ah, but the fresh air, dear child—the fresh air,’ cried Mrs. Colquhoun, desiring to do what she could for her colleague in the eyes of Ellen. ‘Your mother looks a different creature already, after just her outing this morning. There’s nothing like fresh air. Air, air—it’s what we all need. And our windows——’ she glanced severely at Ellen, ‘openedwideat night.’
‘Besides,’ went on the wounded Virginia, ‘I thought you said Mrs. Mitcham was having a holiday.’
‘Darling, Imustgo up,’ murmured Catherine, mechanically eating mince. She couldn’t now go into what she had said about Mrs. Mitcham; she didn’t remember what she had said, and she couldn’t get involved in explanations, for if once she began there would be no end to them. ‘I—well, I must. I’ve been away from home so long this time.’
No, she didn’t know what to say. She had nothing to say. There was no reason nor explanation in the least suited to either Virginia’s or Mrs. Colquhoun’s ears. It was strange how people, when they were getting what they really wanted, yet disapproved, yet didn’t like it, she thought.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun heartily, desirous of dropping the subject as soon as possible because of Ellen. ‘Homes can’t be left. Homes are there so asnotto be left. Or why have them? I do so approve, dear Mrs. Cumfrit. We shall miss you, of course, but I do so approve.’
She leant across the table and smiled. She had put the seal on her colleague; she had wrapped her in her own cloak. The servants, in the face of such protection, would be able to notice and wonder nothing.
They had prunes to finish up with. Nobody is longover prunes, and the three were out of the dining-room twenty minutes after they had gone into it.
Catherine went upstairs to see, she said, to her things. Virginia followed her. Mrs. Colquhoun assured them she didn’t mind being left, that she was never dull alone, would wait quite happily in the drawing-room, and they were not to give her a thought.
‘Mother——’ began Virginia, when they had got into the bedroom, her eyes dark with perplexity.
‘You don’t mind, darling?’ said Catherine, putting her arm round her. ‘I mean, my going all of a sudden like this?’
Then she laughed a little. ‘I came all of a sudden, and I’m going all of a sudden,’ she said. ‘Am I a very uncomfortable sort of mother to have?’
Virginia flushed a deep red. How could she say Yes, which was the truth? How could she say No, which was a lie?
‘Mother,’ she said painfully, for the question insisted on forcing its way through her protective coating of ice, ‘you’re not going away to-day because you think—because you think——’
She stopped, and looked at her mother.
And Catherine, as unable not to lie when it came to either lying or hurting, as Virginia was unable, faced by such an alternative, to be anything but stonily silent, kissed her softly on each cheek and said, ‘No, darling, I’m not. And I don’t think anything.’
It wasn’t quite a lie. She wasn’t going away that day because of Virginia; she was going away now because of Christopher. Life was intricate. Lies were so much mixed up with truth. And as for love, it got into everything, and wherever it was one seemed to haveto lie. Ah, to be able to be simple and straight. The one thing that appeared to be really simple and straight and easy was ordinary, affectionate friendship. Not too affectionate; not, either, too ordinary; but warm, and steady, and understanding. In fact, what hers and Christopher’s was going to be.
Ellen came in and asked if she should pack. Nothing had been said to Ellen, Virginia knew, yet here she was, full of a devotion she never showed in her ordinary work.
Catherine explained that she couldn’t take her luggage with her, and Ellen said, just as if Catherine were still her mistress and Virginia still a little girl, that she would see that it went up by the next train. She then got out Catherine’s fur coat, and gave her her gloves and a thick veil, and insisted that she should wear gaiters, kneeling down and buttoning them for her.
Virginia might have been a stranger standing looking on. And her mother was laughing and talking to Ellen, rather after the fashion of a child going off for a holiday. In a way it was a relief, because it did seem as if she hadn’t noticed anything, but it was an odd mood in her mother; Virginia couldn’t remember any mood quite like it.
‘I’ll go down to mother,’ she said, taking refuge in the other one.
‘Do, darling,’ said Catherine, busy being buttoned up.
And Virginia, going down into the drawing-room, found a young man in brown leather there, being talked to by Mrs. Colquhoun, who turned round quickly when she came in, and whose face changed from eager to rather disagreeable, she thought, when he saw her.
‘This, Virginia, my child,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun with even more than her usual briskness, ‘is your mother’s old friend Mr. Monckton. Mr. Monckton, this is my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Stephen Colquhoun. Conceive its falling to my lot to make you two acquainted! I should have thought you would have lisped together in infant numbers, tumbled about like puppies together on lawns, been nursed upon the self-same hill. I hope, Mr. Monckton, you admire with me the poet I am quoting from?’
No; young people could never remain shy long when she was there. Yet presently she had to admit that with these two, anyhow, it was heavy going. They couldn’t be got to talk to each other. Dear little Virginia, of course, never did go in much for small chat, and Mr. Monckton’s disposition appeared after all not to correspond with his glowing exterior. He was as silent as if he had been puny and sallow. A picture of splendid youth, standing there on the hearth-rug—he wouldn’t sit down, he wouldn’t have coffee, he wouldn’t smoke, he wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t do anything—he seemed to have really nothing in him. Except perhaps obstinacy; and possibly a hasty temper. Who and what he was, and why Mrs. Cumfrit should be friends with him, she couldn’t imagine. To all her questions—of course, tactfully put—he only made evasive answers, chiefly in monosyllables. Little Virginia was as silent as he was. Indeed, she seemed to take a dislike to him from the first. Later on, describing the meeting to her friends, Mrs. Colquhoun was fond of dwelling on the unerring instinct of that dear child.
‘We ought to be starting,’ said Christopher, looking at his wrist-watch.
It was intolerable to him being there alone with these two women, in the house that used to be Catherine’s,faced by the girl who was, he was certain, the living image of George, and who stood watching him with great critical eyes while the old lady enfiladed him with a non-stopping fire of God knew what.
‘I wish you’d tell your mother,’ he said, turning with a quick movement of impatience to Virginia.
She stared at him a moment without answering. Then she said slowly, ‘My mother will come when she is ready.’
‘Hoity toity,’ Christopher all but said aloud; and added under his breath, ‘young Miss.’
Then he remembered that she wasn’t a Miss at all, but the wife of that ancient bustard Stephen. Horrible as it was of her to go and marry anybody so moth-eaten with age, it yet gave him an argument, and a very mighty one, to use against Catherine when occasion should—and would—arise. In as far as this went, he was much obliged to Virginia; but except for this he didn’t mind admitting that he regarded her with aversion. She oughtn’t to be there at all. Unborn, she would have been perfectly all right and comfortable, and Catherine wouldn’t have had any of her ideas about being the mother of a married daughter, and what would Virginia say, and all such stuff. Directly he saw the girl, and her cold eyes and her determined mouth, he knew he was going to have trouble with Catherine when things had reached their crisis—as they were bound to do—about what Virginia would say, and think, and feel. He knew it, he knew it.
‘Oh, damn——’ he muttered; and jerked up his elbow to look at his wrist-watch again.
‘If your mother doesn’t come soon,’ he said, ‘I see no prospect of our reaching London to-night.’ And tohimself, spirit grinning, he added, ‘That’ll fetch them.’
It did.
‘Really, Virginia,’ Mrs. Colquhoun instantly said, turning to her with a kind of shocked bristling, ‘do go up and tell your mother she must hurry. Or shall I? The stairs——’
But there was Catherine, coming in like light and warmth, he thought, into a dark and frost-bound place.
‘Oh, Christopher!’ she exclaimed in her surprise at seeing him there—(‘Christopher,’ noted Mrs. Colquhoun)—‘You here already? I didn’t hear you arrive. Aren’t you very early?’
‘Far from being very early,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, rising from her chair preparatory to going into the hall to witness this unique departure, ‘Mr. Monckton says it is very late. Hardly time, indeed, to get to London.’
‘Oh, but let us go at once, then. Have you been introduced to Virginia? Oh, yes, I’ve got a fur coat—it’s in the hall. Virginia darling, take care of yourself, won’t you. Good-bye, Mrs. Colquhoun—oh yes, I know you will—I do know she is perfectly safe in your hands. And whenever you want me, dearest—wheneveryou want me, you’ve only got to send me one little word, and I’ll come.’
‘Sweet of you, mother.’
Even with her mother the girl was like a poker—a cold poker, thought Christopher, who felt he might have forgiven her being a poker if only she had been a red hot one. But how excessively he hated all this, how excessively he hated seeing Catherine in these relationships. Why had she made him come in? Why need he everhave seen Virginia, and been introduced, and have to make the fool grimaces of convention? Well, he would soon have put miles between themselves and Chickover, and he fervently hoped he might never see the beastly place again.
Once more he tucked Catherine in the rug up to her chin. This time she was laughing. The two women on the steps, watching the departure, weren’t laughing. Virginia’s face was expressionless; Mrs. Colquhoun’s had the smile on it of hospitality got down to its dregs—the fixed smile of determination not to relax one hairs-breadth of proper geniality till the door was shut and the guest round the corner. On her son’s behalf, she told herself, she saw his late guest off. Virginia, of course, was doing it on her own behalf, but Mrs. Colquhoun was even more important, for she represented the master of the house. How thankful she was that he wasn’t there to do it himself. What would he have thought of it all?
She put on her eyeglasses in order to see better what was going on down there. The young man, busy with the rug, no longer looked as he had looked in the drawing-room; his face now shone with smiles. So did Mrs. Cumfrit’s. Mrs. Colquhoun could not help being struck by this air of gaiety. And she remembered Mrs. Cumfrit’s yellowness and fatigue on her arrival the previous Sunday, and the way she had remained yellow and had got visibly older all the week, ending up in church that morning by being on the verge either of being sick or fainting—perhaps both. There was no sign of this now. On the contrary, she looked remarkably healthy. Odd; very odd.
‘Oh—good-bye.Good-bye. Now, Mr. Monckton, bevery careful, won’t you——’
They were gone. In an instant, it seemed, they were a speck down the avenue, and then the bend hid them, the sound of them died away, and she and Virginia had Chickover to themselves again.
The word harum-scarum entered Mrs. Colquhoun’s mind. She dismissed it. She couldn’t admit a word like that in connection with her Stephen’s mother-in-law.
She looked at Virginia. Virginia was staring straight in front of her at the avenue, at the afternoon sun lying along its emptiness.
‘I do think it good of your dear mother to bother about that young man,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun. ‘Let us hope she will teach him better manners. And now,’ she added briskly, laying an affectionate arm round her daughter-in-law’s shoulder, ‘isn’t it time our little Virginia put her feet up?’