Meanwhile Wemyss had gone into the drawing-room till such time as his wife should choose to allow him to have his own library to himself again.
For a long while he walked up and down it thinking bitter things, for he was very angry. The drawing-room was a big gaunt room, rarely used of recent years. In the early days, when people called on the newly arrived Wemysses, there had been gatherings in it,—retaliatory festivities to the vicar, to the doctor, to the landlord, with a business acquaintance or two of Wemyss's, wife appended, added to fill out. These festivities, however, died of inanition. Something was wanting, something necessary to nourish life in them. He thought of them as he walked about the echoing room from which the last guest had departed years ago. Vera, of course. Her fault that the parties had left off. She had been so slack, so indifferent. You couldn't expect people to come to your house if you took no pains to get them there. Yet what a fine room for entertaining. The grand piano, too. Never used. And Vera who made such a fuss about music, and pretended she knew all about it.
The piano was clothed from head to foot in a heavy red baize cover, even its legs being buttoned round in what looked like Alpine Sport gaiters, and the baize flap that protected the keys had buttons all along it from one end to the other. In order to play, these buttons had first to be undone,—Wemyss wasn't going to have the expensive piano not taken care of. It had been his wedding present to Vera—how he had loved that woman!—and he had had the baize clothes made specially, and had instructed Vera that whenever the piano was not in use it was to have them on, properly fastened.
What trouble he had had with her at first about it. She was always forgetting to button it up again. She would be playing, and get up and go away to lunch, or tea, or out into the garden, and leave it uncovered with the damp and dust getting into it, and not only uncovered but with its lid open. Then, when she found that he went in to see if she had remembered, she did for a time cover it up in the intervals of playing, but never buttoned all its buttons; invariably he found that some had been forgotten. It had cost £150. Women had no sense of property. They were unfit to have the charge of valuables. Besides, they got tired of them. Vera had actually quite soon got tired of the piano. His present. That wasn't very loving of her. And when he said anything about it she wouldn't speak. Sulked. How profoundly he disliked sulking. And she, who had made such a fuss about music when first he met her, gave up playing, and for years no one had touched the piano. Well, at least it was being taken care of.
From habit he stooped and ran his eye up its gaiters.
All buttoned.
Stay—no; one buttonhole gaped.
He stooped closer and put out his hand to button it, and found the button gone. No button. Only an end of thread. How was that?
He straightened himself, and went to the fireplace and rang the bell. Then he waited, looking at his watch. Long ago he had timed the distances between the different rooms and the servants' quarters, allowing for average walking and one minute's margin for getting under way at the start, so that he knew exactly at what moment the parlourmaid ought to appear.
She appeared just as time was up and his finger was moving towards the bell again.
'Look at that piano-leg,' said Wemyss.
The parlourmaid, not knowing which leg, looked at all three so as to be safe.
'What do you see?' he asked.
The parlourmaid was reluctant to say. What she saw was piano-legs, but she felt that wasn't the right answer.
'What do younotsee?' Wemyss asked, louder.
This was much more difficult, because there were so many things she didn't see; her parents, for instance.
'Are you deaf, woman?' he inquired.
She knew the answer to that, and said it quickly. 'No sir,' she said.
'Look at that piano-leg, I say,' said Wemyss, pointing with his pipe.
It was, so to speak, the off fore-leg at which he pointed, and the parlourmaid, relieved to be given a clue, fixed her eye on it earnestly.
'What do you see?' he asked. 'Or, rather, what do you not see?'
The parlourmaid looked hard at what she saw, leaving what she didn't see to take care of itself. It seemed unreasonable to be asked to look at what she didn't see. But though she looked, she could see nothing to justify speech. Therefore she was silent.
'Don't you see there's a button off?'
The parlourmaid, on looking closer, did see that, and said so.
'Isn't it your business to attend to this room?'
She admitted that it was.
'Buttons don't come off of themselves,' Wemyss informed her.
The parlourmaid, this not being a question, said nothing.
'Do they?' he asked loudly.
'No sir,' said the parlourmaid; though she could have told him many a story of things buttons did do of themselves, coming off in your hand when you hadn't so much as begun to touch them. Cups, too. The way cups would fall apart in one's hand——
She, however, merely said, 'No sir.'
'Only wear and tear makes them come off,' Wemyss announced; and continuing judicially, emphasising his words with a raised forefinger, he said: 'Now attend to me. This piano hasn't been used for years. Do you hear that? Not for years. To my certain knowledge not for years. Therefore the cover cannot have been unbuttoned legitimately, it cannot have been unbuttoned by any one authorised to unbutton it. Therefore——'
He pointed his finger straight at her and paused. 'Do you follow me?' he asked sternly.
The parlourmaid hastily reassembled her wandering thoughts. 'Yes sir,' she said.
'Therefore some one unauthorised has unbuttoned the cover, and some one unauthorised has played on the piano. Do you understand?'
'Yes sir,' said the parlourmaid.
'It is hardly credible,' he went on, 'but nevertheless the conclusion can't be escaped, that some one has actually taken advantage of my absence to play on that piano. Some one in this house has actually dared——'
'There's the tuner,' said the parlourmaid tentatively, not sure if that would be an explanation, for Wemyss's lucid sentences, almost of a legal lucidity, invariably confused her, but giving the suggestion for what it was worth. 'I understood the orders was to let the tuner in once a quarter, sir. Yesterday was his day. He played for a hour. And 'ad the baize and everything off, and the lid leaning against the wall.'
True. True. The tuner. Wemyss had forgotten the tuner. The tuner had standing instructions to come and tune. Well, why couldn't the fool-woman have reminded him sooner? But the tuner having tuned didn't excuse the parlourmaid's not having sewn on the button the tuner had pulled off.
He told her so.
'Yes sir,' she said.
'You will have that button on in five minutes,' he said, pulling out his watch. 'In five minutes exactly from now that button will be on. I shall be staying in this room, so shall see for myself that you carry out my orders.'
'Yes sir,' said the parlourmaid.
He walked to the window and stood staring at the wild afternoon. She remained motionless where she was.
What a birthday he was having. And with what joy he had looked forward to it. It seemed to him very like the old birthdays with Vera, only so much more painful because he had expected so much. Vera had got him used to expecting very little; but it was Lucy, his adored Lucy, who was inflicting this cruel disappointment on him. Lucy! Incredible. And she to come down in that blanket, tempting him, very nearly getting him that way rather than by the only right and decent way of sincere and obvious penitence. Why, even Vera had never done a thing like that, not once in all the years.
'Let's be friends,' says Lucy. Friends! Yes, she did say something about sorry, but what about that blanket? Sorrow with no clothes on couldn't possibly be genuine. It didn't go together with that kind of appeal. It was not the sort of combination one expected in a wife. Why couldn't she come down and apologise properly dressed? God, her little shoulder sticking out—how he had wanted to seize and kiss it ... but then that would have been giving in, that would have meant her triumph. Her triumph, indeed—when it was she, and she only, who had begun the whole thing, running out of the room like that, not obeying him when he called, humiliating him before that damned Lizzie....
He thrust his hands into his pockets and turned away with a jerk from the window.
There, standing motionless, was the parlourmaid.
'What? You still here?' he exclaimed. 'Why the devil don't you go and fetch that button?'
'I understood your orders was none of us is to leave rooms without your permission, sir.'
'You'd better be quick then,' he said, looking at his watch. 'I gave you five minutes, and three of them have gone.'
She disappeared; and in the servants' sitting-room, while she was hastily searching for her thimble and a button that would approximately do, she told the others what they already knew but found satisfaction in repeating often, that if it weren't that Wemyss was most of the week in London, not a day, not a minute, would she stay in the place.
'There's the wages,' the cook reminded her.
Yes; they were good; higher than anywhere she had heard of. But what was the making of the place was the complete freedom from Monday morning every week to Friday tea-time. Almost anything could be put up with from Friday tea-time till Monday morning, seeing that the rest of the week they could do exactly as they chose, with the whole place as good as belonging to them; and she hurried away, and got back to the drawing-room thirty seconds over time.
Wemyss, however, wasn't there with his watch. He was on his way upstairs to the top of the house, telling himself as he went that if Lucy chose to take possession of his library he would go and take possession of her sitting-room. It was only fair. But he knew she wasn't now in the library. He knew she wouldn't stay there all that time. He wanted an excuse to himself for going to where she was. She must beg his pardon properly. He could hold out—oh, he could hold out all right for any length of time, as she'd find out very soon if she tried the sulking game with him—but to-day it was their first day in his home; it was his birthday; and though nothing could be more monstrous than the way she had ruined everything, yet if she begged his pardon properly he would forgive her, he was ready to take her back the moment she showed real penitence. Never was a woman loved as he loved Lucy. If only she would be penitent, if only she would properly and sincerely apologise, then he could kiss her again. He would kiss that little shoulder of hers, make her pull her blouse back so that he could see it as he saw it down in the library, sticking out of that damned blanket—God, how he loved her....
The first thing he saw when he opened the door of the room at the top of the house was the fire.
A fire. He hadn't ordered a fire. He must look into that. That officious slattern Lizzie——
Then, before he had recovered from this, he had another shock. Lucy was on the hearthrug, her head leaning against the sofa, sound asleep.
So that's what she had been doing,—just going comfortably to sleep, while he——
He shut the door and walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to it looking down at her. Even his heavy tread didn't wake her. He had shut the door in the way that was natural, and had walked across the room in the way that was natural, for he felt no impulse in the presence of sleep to go softly. Besides, why should she sleep in broad daylight? Wemyss was of opinion that the night was for that. No wonder she couldn't steep at night if she did it in the daytime. There she was, sleeping soundly, completely indifferent to what he might be doing. Would a really loving woman be able to do that? Would a really devoted wife?
Then he noticed that her face, the side of it he could see, was much swollen, and her nose was red. At least, he thought, she had had some contrition for what she had done before going to sleep. It was to be hoped she would wake up in a proper frame of mind. If so, even now some of the birthday might be saved.
He took out his pipe and filled it slowly, his eyes wandering constantly to the figure on the floor. Fancy that thing having the power to make or mar his happiness. He could pick that much up with one hand. It looked like twelve, with its long-stockinged relaxed legs, and its round, short-haired head, and its swollen face of a child in a scrape. Make or mar. He lit his pipe, repeating the phrase to himself, struck by it, struck by the way it illuminated his position of bondage to love.
All his life, he reflected, he had only asked to be allowed to lavish love, to make a wife happy. Look how he had loved Vera: with the utmost devotion till she had killed it, and nothing but trouble as a reward. Look how he loved that little thing on the floor. Passionately. And in return, the first thing she did on being brought into his home as his bride was to quarrel and ruin his birthday. She knew how keenly he had looked forward to his birthday, she knew how the arrangements of the whole honeymoon, how the very date of the wedding, had hinged on this one day; yet she had deliberately ruined it. And having ruined it, what did she care? Comes up here, if you please, and gets a book and goes comfortably to sleep over it in front of the fire.
His mouth hardened still more. He pulled the arm-chair up and sat down noisily in it, his eyes cold with resentment.
The book Lucy had been reading had dropped out of her hand when she fell asleep, and lay open on the floor at his feet. If she used books in such a way, Wemyss thought, he would be very careful how he let her have the key of his bookcase. This was one of Vera's,—Vera hadn't taken any care of her books either; she was always reading them. He slanted his head sideways to see the title, to see what it was Lucy had considered more worth her attention than her conduct that day towards her husband.Wuthering Heights. He hadn't read it, but he fancied he had heard of it as a morbid story. She might have been better employed, on their first day at home, than in shutting herself away from him reading a morbid story.
It was while he was looking at her with these thoughts stonily in his eyes that Lucy, wakened by the smell of his pipe, opened hers. She saw Everard sitting close to her, and had one of those moments of instinctive happiness, of complete restoration to unshadowed contentment, which sometimes follow immediately on waking up, before there has been time to remember. It seems for a wonderful instant as though all in the world were well. Doubts have vanished. Pain is gone. And sometimes the moment continues even beyond remembrance.
It did so now with Lucy. When she opened her eyes and saw Everard, she smiled at him a smile of perfect confidence. She had forgotten everything. She woke up after a deep sleep and saw him, her dear love, sitting beside her. How natural to be happy. Then, the expression on his face bringing back remembrance, it seemed to her in that first serene sanity, that clear-visioned moment of spirit unfretted by body, that they had been extraordinarily silly, taking everything the other one said and did with a tragicness....
Only love filled Lucy after the deep, restoring sleep. 'Dearest one,' she murmured drowsily, smiling at him, without changing her position.
He said nothing to that; and presently, having woken up more, she got on to her knees and pulled herself across to him and curled up at his feet, her head against his knee.
He still said nothing. He waited. He would give her time. Her words had been familiar, but not penitent. They had hardly been the right beginning for an expression of contrition; but he would see what she said next.
What she said next was, 'Haven't we been silly,'—and, more familiarity, she put one arm round his knees and held them close against her face.
'We?' said Wemyss. 'Did you say we?'
'Yes,' said Lucy, her cheek against his knee. 'We've been wasting time.'
Wemyss paused before he made his comment on this. 'Really,' he then said, 'the way you include me shows very little appreciation of your conduct.'
'Well,I'vebeen silly then,' she said, lifting her head and smiling up at him.
She simply couldn't go on with indignations. Perhaps they were just ones. It didn't matter if they were. Who wanted to be in the right in a dispute with one's lover? Everybody, oh, but everybody who loved, would passionately want always to have been in the wrong, never, never to have been right. That one's beloved should have been unkind,—who wanted that to be true? Who wouldn't do anything sooner than have not been mistaken about it? Vividly she saw Everard as he was before their marriage; so dear, so boyish, such fun, her playmate. She could say anything to him then. She had been quite fearless. And vividly, too, she saw him as he was when first they met, both crushed by death,—how he had comforted her, how he had been everything that was wonderful and tender. All that had happened since, all that had happened on this particular and most unfortunate day, was only a sort of excess of boyishness: boyishness on its uncontrolled side, a wave, a fit of bad temper provoked by her not having held on to her impulses. That locking her out in the rain,—a schoolboy might have done that to another schoolboy. It meant nothing, except that he was angry. That about sexual allure——oh, well.
'I've been very silly,' she said earnestly.
He looked down at her in silence. He wanted more than that. That wasn't nearly enough. He wanted much more of humbleness before he could bring himself to lift her on to his knee, forgiven. And how much he wanted her on his knee.
'Do you realise what you've done?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Lucy. 'And I'm so sorry. Won't we kiss and be friends?'
'Not yet, thank you. I must be sure first that you understand how deliberately wicked you've been.'
'Oh, but I haven't been deliberately wicked!' exclaimed Lucy, opening her eyes wide with astonishment. 'Everard, how can you say such a thing?'
'Ah, I see. You are still quite impenitent, and I am sorry I came up.'
He undid her arm from round his knees, put her on one side, and got out of the chair. Rage swept over him again.
'Here I've been sitting watching you like a dog,' he said, towering over her, 'like a faithful dog while you slept, waiting patiently till you woke up and only wanting to forgive you, and you not only callously sleep after having behaved outrageously and allowed yourself to exhibit temper before the whole house on our very first day together in my home—well knowing, mind you, what day it is—but when I ask you for some sign, some word, some assurance that you are ashamed of yourself and will not repeat your conduct, you merely deny that you have done anything needing forgiveness.'
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, his face twitching with anger, and wished to God he could knock the opposition out of Lucy as easily.
She, on the floor, sat looking up at him, her mouth open. What could she do with Everard? She didn't know. Love had no effect; saying she was sorry had no effect.
She pushed her hair nervously behind her ears with both hands. 'I'm sick of quarrels,' she said.
'So am I,' said Wemyss, going towards the door thrusting his pipe into his pocket. 'You've only got yourself to thank for them.'
She didn't protest. It seemed useless. She said, 'Forgive me, Everard.'
'Only if you apologise.'
'Yes.'
'Yes what?' He paused for her answer.
'I do apologise.'
'You admit you've been deliberately wicked?'
'Oh yes.'
He continued towards the door.
She scrambled to her feet and ran after him. 'Please don't go,' she begged, catching his arm. 'You know I can't bear it, I can't bear it if we quarrel——'
'Then what do you mean by saying "Oh yes," in that insolent manner?'
'Did it seem insolent? I didn't mean—oh, I'm so tired of this——'
'I daresay. You'll be tireder still before you've done.Idon't get tired, let me tell you. You can go on as long as you choose,—it won't affect me.'
'Oh do, do let's be friends. I don't want to go on. I don't want anything in the world except to be friends. Please kiss me, Everard, and say you forgive me——'
He at least stood still and looked at her.
'And do believe I'm so, so sorry——'
He relented. He wanted, extraordinarily, to kiss her. 'I'll accept it if you assure me it is so,' he said.
'And do, do let's be happy. It's your birthday——'
'As though I've forgotten that.'
He looked at her upturned face; her arm was round his neck now. 'Lucy, I don't believe you understand my love for you,' he said solemnly.
'No,' said Lucy truthfully, 'I don't think I do.'
'You'll have to learn.'
'Yes,' said Lucy; and sighed faintly.
'You mustn't wound such love.'
'No,' said Lucy. 'Don't let us wound each other ever any more, darling Everard.'
'I'm not talking of each other. I'm talking at this moment of myself in relation to you. One thing at a time, please.'
'Yes,' said Lucy. 'Kiss me, won't you, Everard? Else I shan't know we're really friends.'
He took her head in his hands, and bestowed a solemn kiss of pardon on her brow.
She tried to coax him back to cheerfulness. 'Kiss my eyes too,' she said, smiling at him, 'or they'll feel neglected.'
He kissed her eyes.
'And now my mouth, please, Everard.'
He kissed her mouth, and did at last smile.
'And now won't we go to the fire and be cosy?' she asked, her arm in his.
'By the way, who ordered the fire?' he inquired in his ordinary voice.
'I don't know. It was lit when I came up. Oughtn't it to have been?'
'Not without orders. It must have been that Lizzie. I'll ring and find out——'
'Oh, don't ring!' exclaimed Lucy, catching his hand,—she felt she couldn't bear any more ringing. 'If you do she'll come, and I want us to be alone together.'
'Well, whose fault is it we haven't been alone together all this time?' he asked.
'Ah, but we're friends now—you mustn't go back to that any more,' she said, anxiously smiling and drawing his hand through her arm.
He allowed her to lead him to the arm-chair, and sitting in it did at last feel justified in taking her on his knee.
'How my own Love spoils things,' he said, shaking his head at her with fond solemnity when they were settled in the chair.
And Lucy, very cautious now, only said gently, 'But I nevermeanto.'
She sat after that without speaking on his knee, his arms round her, her head on his breast.
She was thinking.
Try as she might to empty herself of everything except acceptance and love, she found that only her body was controllable. That lay quite passive in Wemyss's arms; but her mind refused to lie passive, it would think. Strange how tightly one's body could be held, how close to somebody else's heart, and yet one wasn't anywhere near the holder. They locked you up in prisons that way, holding your body tight and thinking they had got you, and all the while your mind—you—was as free as the wind and the sunlight. She couldn't help it, she struggled hard to feel as she had felt when she woke up and saw him sitting near her; but the way he had refused to be friends, the complete absence of any readiness in him to meet her, not half, nor even a quarter, but a little bit of the way, had for the first time made her consciously afraid of him.
She was afraid of him, and she was afraid of herself in relation to him. He seemed outside anything of which she had experience. He appeared not to be—he anyhow had not been that day—generous. There seemed no way, at any point, by which one could reach him. What was hereallylike? How long was it going to take her really to know him? Years? And she herself,—she now knew, now that she had made their acquaintance, that she couldn't at all bear scenes. Any scenes. Either with herself, or in her presence with other people. She couldn't bear them while they were going on, and she couldn't bear the exhaustion of the long drawn-out making up at the end. And she not only didn't see how they were to be avoided—for no care, no caution would for ever be able to watch what she said, or did, or looked, or, equally important, what she didn't say, or didn't do, or didn't look—but she was afraid, afraid with a most dismal foreboding, that some day after one of them, or in the middle of one of them, her nerve would give out and she would collapse. Collapse deplorably; into just something that howled and whimpered.
This, however, was horrible. She mustn't think like this. Sufficient unto the day, she thought, trying to make herself smile, is the whimpering thereof. Besides, she wouldn't whimper, she wouldn't go to pieces, she would discover a way to manage. Where there was so much love there must be a way to manage.
He had pulled her blouse back, and was kissing her shoulder and asking her whose very own wife she was. But what was the good of love-making if it was immediately preceded or followed or interrupted by anger? She was afraid of him. She wasn't in this kissing at all. Perhaps she had been afraid of him unconsciously for a long while. What was that abjectness on the honeymoon, that anxious desire to please, to avoid offending, but fear? It was love afraid; afraid of getting hurt, of not going to be able to believe whole-heartedly, of not going to be able—this was the worst—to be proud of its beloved. But now, after her experiences to-day, she had a fear of him more separate, more definite, distinct from love. Strange to be afraid of him and love him at the same time. Perhaps if she didn't love him she wouldn't be afraid of him. No, she didn't think she would then, because then nothing that he said would reach her heart. Only she couldn't imagine that. Hewasher heart.
'What are you thinking of?' asked Wemyss, who having finished with her shoulder noticed how quiet she was.
She could tell him truthfully; a moment sooner and she couldn't have. 'I was thinking,' she said, 'that you are my heart.'
'Take care of your heart then, won't you?' said Wemyss.
'We both will,' said Lucy.
'Of course,' said Wemyss. 'That's understood. Why state it?'
She was silent a minute. Then she said, 'Isn't it nearly tea-time?'
'By Jove, yes,' he exclaimed, pulling out his watch. 'Why, long past. I wonder what that fool—get up, little Love—' he brushed her off his lap—'I'll ring and find out what she means by it.'
Lucy was sorry she had said anything about tea. However, he didn't keep his finger on the bell this time, but rang it normally. Then he stood looking at his watch.
She put her arm through his. She longed to say, 'Please don't scold her.'
'Take care,' he said, his eyes on his watch. 'Don't shake me——'
She asked what he was doing.
'Timing her,' he said. 'Sh—sh—don't talk. I can't keep count if you talk.'
She became breathlessly quiet and expectant. She listened anxiously for the sound of footsteps. She did hope Lizzie would come in time. Lizzie was so nice,—it would be dreadful if she got a scolding. Why didn't she come? There—what was that? A door going somewhere. Would she do it? Would she?
Running steps came along the passage outside. Wemyss put his watch away. 'Five seconds to spare,' he said. 'That's the way to teach them to answer bells,' he added with satisfaction.
'Did you ring, sir?' inquired Lizzie, opening the door.
'Why is tea late?'
'It's in the library, sir.'
'Kindly attend to my question. I asked why tea was late.'
'It wasn't late to begin with, sir,' said Lizzie.
'Be so good as to make yourself clear.'
Lizzie, who had felt quite clear, here became befogged. She did her best, however. 'It's got late through waiting to be 'ad, sir,' she said.
'I'm afraid I don't follow you. Do you?' he asked, turning to Lucy.
She started. 'Yes,' she said.
'Really. Then you are cleverer than I am,' said Wemyss.
Lizzie at this—for she didn't want to make any more trouble for the young lady—made a further effort to explain. 'It was punctual in the library, sir, at 'alf-past four if you'd been there to 'ave it. The tea was punctual, sir, but there wasn't no one to 'ave it.'
'And pray by whose orders was it in the library?'
'I couldn't say, sir. Chesterton——'
'Don't put it on to Chesterton.'
'I was thinking,' said Lizzie, who was more stout-hearted than the parlourmaid and didn't take cover quite so frequently in dumbness, 'I was thinking p'raps Chesterton knew. I don't do the tea, sir.'
'Send Chesterton,' said Wemyss.
Lizzie disappeared with the quickness of relief. Lucy, with a nervous little movement, stooped and picked upWuthering Heights, which was still lying face downward on the floor.
'Yes,' said Wemyss. 'I like the way you treat books.'
She put it back on its shelf. 'I went to sleep, and it fell down,' she said. 'Everard,' she went on quickly, 'I must go and get a handkerchief. I'll join you in the library.'
'I'm not going into the library. I'm going to have tea here. Why should I have tea in the library?'
'I only thought as it was there——'
'I suppose I can have tea where I like in my own house?'
'But of course. Well, then, I'll go and get a handkerchief and come back here.'
'You can do that some other time. Don't be so restless.'
'But I—Iwanta handkerchief this minute,' said Lucy.
'Nonsense; here, have mine,' said Wemyss; and anyhow it was too late to escape, for there in the door stood Chesterton.
She was the parlourmaid. Her name has not till now been mentioned. It was Chesterton.
'Why is tea in the library?' Wemyss asked.
'I understood, sir, tea was always to be in the library,' said Chesterton.
'That was while I was by myself. I suppose it wouldn't have occurred to you to inquire whether I still wished it there now that I am not by myself.'
This floored Chesterton. Her ignorance of the right answer was complete. She therefore said nothing, and merely stood.
But he didn't let her off. 'Would it?' he asked suddenly.
'No sir,' she said, dimly feeling that 'Yes sir' would land her in difficulties.
'No. Quite so. It wouldn't. Well, you will now go and fetch that tea and bring it up here. Stop a minute, stop a minute—don't be in such a hurry, please. How long has it been made?'
'Since half-past four, sir.'
'Then you will make fresh tea, and you will make fresh toast, and you will cut fresh bread and butter.'
'Yes sir.'
'And another time you will have the goodness to ascertain my wishes before taking upon yourself to put the tea into any room you choose to think fit.'
'Yes sir.'
She waited.
He waved.
She went.
'That'll teach her,' said Wemyss, looking refreshed by the encounter. 'If she thinks she's going to get out of bringing tea up here by putting it ready somewhere else she'll find she's mistaken. Aren't they a set?Aren'tthey a set, little Love?'
'I—don't know,' said Lucy nervously.
'You don't know!'
'I mean, I don't know them yet. How can I know them when I've only just come?'
'You soon will, then. A lazier set of careless, lying——'
'Do tell me what that picture is, Everard,' she interrupted, quickly crossing the room and standing in front of it. 'I've been wondering and wondering.'
'You can see what it is. It's a picture.'
'Yes. But where's the place?'
'I've no idea. It's one of Vera's. She didn't condescend to explain it.'
'You mean she painted it?'
'I daresay. She was always painting.'
Wemyss, who had been filling his pipe, lit it and stood smoking in front of the fire, occasionally looking at his watch, while Lucy stared at the picture. Lovely, lovely to run through that door out into the open, into the warmth and sunshine, further and further away....
It was the only picture in the room; indeed, the room was oddly bare,—a thin room, with no carpet on its slippery floor, only some infrequent rugs, and no curtains. But there had been curtains, for there were the rods with rings on them, so that somebody must have taken Vera's curtains away. Lucy had been strangely perturbed when she noticed this. It was Vera's room. Her curtains oughtn't to have been touched.
The long wall opposite the fireplace had nothing at all on its sand-coloured surface from the door to the window except a tall narrow looking-glass in a queerly-carved black frame, and the picture. But how that one picture glowed. What glorious weather they were having in it! It wasn't anywhere in England, she was sure. It was a brilliant, sunlit place, with a lot of almond trees in full blossom,—an orchard of them, apparently, standing in grass that was full of little flowers, very gay little flowers, of kinds she didn't know. And through the open door in the wall there was an amazing stretch of hot, vivid country. It stretched on and on till it melted into an ever so far away lovely blue. There was an effect of immense spaciousness, of huge freedom. One could feel oneself running out into it with one's face to the sun, flinging up one's arms in an ecstasy of release, of escape....
'It's somewhere abroad,' she said, after a silence.
'I daresay,' said Wemyss.
'Used you to travel much?' she asked, still examining the picture, fascinated.
'She refused to.'
'She refused to?' echoed Lucy, turning round.
She looked at him wonderingly. That seemed not only unkind of Vera, but extraordinarily—yes, energetic. The exertion required for refusing Everard something he wanted was surely enormous, was surely greater than any but the most robust-minded wife could embark upon. She had had one small experience of what disappointing him meant in that question of Christmas, and she hadn't been living with him then, and she had had all the nights to recover in; yet the effect of that one experience had been to make her give in at once when next he wanted something, and it was because of last Christmas that she was standing married in that room instead of being still, as both she and her Aunt Dot had intended, six months off it.
'Why did she refuse?' she asked, wondering.
Wemyss didn't answer for a moment. Then he said, 'I was going to say you had better ask her, but you can't very well do that, can you.'
Lucy stood looking at him. 'Yes,' she said, 'she does seem extraordinarily near, doesn't she. This room is full——'
'Now Lucy I'll have none of that. Come here.'
He held out his hand. She crossed over obediently and took it.
He pulled her close and ruffled her hair. He was in high spirits again. His encounters with the servants had exhilarated him.
'Who's my duddely-umpty little girl?' he asked. 'Tell me who's my duddely-umpty little girl. Quick. Tell me——' And he caught her round the waist and jumped her up and down.
Chesterton, bringing in the tea, arrived in the middle of a jump.
There appeared to be no tea-table. Chesterton, her arms stretched taut holding the heavy tray, looked round. Evidently tea up there wasn't usual.
'Put it in the window,' said Wemyss, jerking his head towards the writing-table.
'Oh——' began Lucy quickly; and stopped.
'What's the matter?' asked Wemyss.
'Won't it—be draughty?'
'Nonsense. Draughty. Do you suppose I'd tolerate windows in my house that let in draughts?'
Chesterton, resting a corner of the tray on the table, was sweeping a clear space for it with her hand. Not that much sweeping was needed, for the table was big and all that was on it was the notepaper which earlier in the afternoon had been scattered on the floor, a rusty pen or two, some pencils whose ends had been gnawed as the pencils of a child at its lessons are gnawed, a neglected-looking inkpot, and a grey book withHousehold Accountsin dark lettering on its cover.
Wemyss watched her while she arranged the tea-things.
'Take care, now—take care,' he said, when a cup rattled in its saucer.
Chesterton, who had been taking care, took more of it; andle tropbeingl'ennemi du bienshe was so unfortunate as to catch her cuff in the edge of the plate of bread and butter.
The plate tilted up; the bread and butter slid off; and only by a practised quick movement did she stop the plate from following the bread and butter and smashing itself on the floor.
'There now,' said Wemyss. 'See what you've done. Didn't I tell you to be careful? It isn't,' he said, turning to Lucy, 'as if I hadn'ttoldher to be careful.'
Chesterton, on her knees, was picking up the bread and butter which lay—a habit she had observed in bread and butter under circumstances of this kind—butter downwards.
'You will fetch a cloth,' said Wemyss.
'Yes sir.'
'And you will cut more bread and butter.'
'Yes sir.'
'That makes two plates of bread and butter wasted to-day entirely owing to your carelessness. They shall be stopped out of your——Lucy, where are you going?'
'To fetch a handkerchief. I must have a handkerchief, Everard. I can't for ever use yours.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind. Lizzie will bring you one. Come back at once. I won't have you running in and out of the room the whole time. I never knew any one so restless. Ring the bell and tell Lizzie to get you one. What is she for, I should like to know?'
He then resumed and concluded his observations to Chesterton. 'They shall be stopped out of your wages. That,' he said, 'will teach you.'
And Chesterton, who was used to this, and had long ago arranged with the cook that such stoppages should be added on to the butcher's book, said, 'Yes sir.'
When she had gone—or rather withdrawn, for a plain word like gone doesn't justly describe the noiseless decorum with which Chesterton managed the doors of her entrances and exits—and when Lizzie, too, had gone after bringing a handkerchief, Lucy supposed they would now have tea; she supposed the moment had at last arrived for her to go and sit in that window.
The table was at right angles to it, so that sitting at it you had nothing between one side of you and the great pane of glass that reached nearly to the floor. You could look sheer down on to the flags below. She thought it horrible, gruesome to have tea there, and the very first day, before she had had a moment's time to get used to things. Such detachment on the part of Everard was either just stark wonderful—she had already found noble explanations for it—or it was so callous that she had no explanation for it at all; none, that is, that she dared think of. Once more she decided that his way was really the best and simplest way to meet the situation. You took the bull by the horns. You seized the nettle. You cleared the air. And though her images, she felt, were not what they might be, neither was anything else that day what it might be. Everything appeared to reflect the confusion produced by Wemyss's excessive lucidity of speech.
'Shall I pour out the tea?' she asked presently, preparing, then, to take the bull by the horns; for he remained standing in front of the fire smoking in silence. 'Just think,' she went on, making an effort to be gay, 'this is the first time I shall pour out tea in my——'
She was going to say 'My own home,' but the words wouldn't come off her tongue. Wemyss had repeatedly during the day spoken of his home, but not once had he said 'our' or 'your'; and if ever a house didn't feel as if it in the very least belonged, too, to her, it was this one.
'Not yet,' he said briefly.
She wondered. 'Not yet?' she repeated.
'I'm waiting for the bread and butter.'
'But won't the tea get cold?'
'No doubt. And it'll be entirely that fool's fault.'
'But——' began Lucy, after a silence.
'Buts again?'
'I was only thinking that if we had it now it wouldn't be cold.'
'She must be taught her lesson.'
Again she wondered. 'Won't it rather be a lesson to us?' she asked.
'For God's sake, Lucy, don't argue. Things have to be done properly in my house. You've had no experience of a properly managed household. All that set you were brought up in—why, one only had to look at them to see what a hugger-mugger way they probably lived. It's entirely the careless fool's own fault that the tea will be cold.Ididn't ask her to throw the bread and butter on the floor, did I?'
And as she said nothing, he asked again. 'Did I?' he asked.
'No,' said Lucy.
'Well then,' said Wemyss.
They waited in silence.
Chesterton arrived. She put the fresh bread and butter on the table, and then wiped the floor with a cloth she had brought.
Wemyss watched her closely. When she had done—and Chesterton being good at her work, scrutinise as he might he could see no sign on the floor of overlooked butter—he said, 'You will now take the teapot down and bring some hot tea.'
'Yes sir,' said Chesterton, removing the teapot.
A line of a hymn her nurse used to sing came into Lucy's head when she saw the teapot going. It was:
What various hindrances we meet—
and she thought the next line, which she didn't remember, must have been:
Before at tea ourselves we seat.
But though one portion of her mind was repeating this with nervous levity, the other was full of concern for the number of journeys up and down all those stairs the parlourmaid was being obliged to make. It was—well, thoughtless of Everard to make her go up and down so often. Probably he didn't realise—of course he didn't—how very many stairs there were. When and how could she talk to him about things like this? When would he be in such a mood that she would be able to do so without making them worse? And how, in what words sufficiently tactful, sufficiently gentle, would she be able to avoid his being offended? She must manage somehow. But tact—management—prudence—all these she had not yet in her life needed. Had she the smallest natural gift for them? Besides, each of them applied to love seemed to her an insult. She had supposed that love, real love, needed none of these protections. She had thought it was a simple, sturdy growth that could stand anything.... Why, here was the parlourmaid already, teapot and all. How very quick she had been!
Chesterton, however, hadn't so much been quick as tactful, managing, and prudent. She had been practising these qualities on the other side of the door, whither she had taken the teapot and quietly waited with it a few minutes, and whence she now brought it back. She placed it on the table with admirable composure; and when Wemyss, on her politely asking whether there were anything else he required, said, 'Yes. You will now take away that toast and bring fresh,' she took the toast also only as far as the other side of the door, and waited with it there a little.
Lucy now hoped they would have tea. 'Shall I pour it out?' she asked after a moment a little anxiously, for he still didn't move and she began to be afraid the toast might be going to be the next hindrance; in which case they would go round and round for the rest of the day, never catching up the tea at all.
But he did go over and sit down at the table, followed by her who hardly now noticed its position, so much surprised and absorbed was she by his methods of housekeeping.
'Isn't it monstrous,' he said, sitting down heavily, 'how we've been kept waiting for such a simple thing as tea. I tell you they're the most slovenly——'
There was Chesterton again, bearing the toast-rack balanced on the tip of a respectful ringer.
This time even Lucy realised that it must be the same toast, and her hand, lifted in the act of pouring out tea, trembled, for she feared the explosion that was bound to come.
How extraordinary. There was no explosion. Everard hadn't—it seemed incredible—noticed. His attention was so much fixed on what she was doing with his cup, he was watching her so carefully lest she should fill it a hair's-breadth fuller than he liked, that all he said to Chesterton as she put the toast on the table was, 'Let this be a lesson to you.' But there was no gusto in it; it was quite mechanical.
'Yes sir,' said Chesterton.
She waited.
He waved.
She went.
The door hadn't been shut an instant before Wemyss exclaimed, 'Why, if that slovenly hussy hasn't forgotten——' And too much incensed to continue he stared at the tea-tray.
'What? What?' asked Lucy startled, also staring at the tea-tray.
'Why, the sugar.'
'Oh, I'll call her back—she's only just gone——'
'Sit down, Lucy.'
'But she's just outside——'
'Sitdown, I tell you.'
Lucy sat.
Then she remembered that neither she nor Everard ever had sugar in their tea, so naturally there was no point in calling Chesterton back.
'Oh, of course,' she said, smiling nervously, for what with one thing and another she was feeling shattered, 'how stupid of me. We don't want sugar.'
Wemyss said nothing. He was studying his watch, timing Chesterton. Then when the number of seconds needed to reach the kitchen had run out, he got up and rang the bell.
In due course Lizzie appeared. It seemed that the rule was that this particular bell should be answered by Lizzie.
'Chesterton,' said Wemyss.
In due course Chesterton appeared. She was less composed than when she brought back the teapot, than when she brought back the toast. She tried to hide it, but she was out of breath.
'Yes sir?' she said.
Wemyss took no notice, and went on drinking his tea.
Chesterton stood.
After a period of silence Lucy thought that perhaps it was expected of her as mistress of the house to tell her about the sugar; but then as they neither of them wanted any....
After a further period of silence, during which she anxiously debated whether it was this that they were all waiting for, she thought that perhaps Everard hadn't heard the parlourmaid come in; so she said—she was ashamed to hear how timidly it came out—'Chesterton is here, Everard.'
He took no notice, and went on eating bread and butter.
After a further period of anxious inward debate she concluded that it must after all be expected of her, as mistress of the house, to talk of the sugar; and the sugar was to be talked of not because they needed it but on principle. But what a roundabout way; how fatiguing and difficult. Why didn't Everard say what he wanted, instead of leaving her to guess?
'I think——' she stammered, flushing, for she was now very timid indeed, 'you've forgotten the sugar, Chesterton.'
'Will you not interfere!' exclaimed Wemyss very loud, putting down his cup with a bang.
The flush on Lucy's face vanished as if it had been knocked out. She sat quite still. If she moved, or looked anywhere but at her plate, she knew she would begin to cry. The scenes she had dreaded had not included any with herself in the presence of servants. It hadn't entered her head that these, too, were possible. She must hold on to herself; not move; not look. She sat absorbed in that one necessity, fiercely concentrated. Chesterton must have gone away and come back again, for presently she was aware that sugar was being put on the tea-tray; and then she was aware that Everard was holding out his cup.
'Give me some more tea, please,' he said, 'and for God's sake don't sulk. If the servants forget their duties it's neither your nor my business to tell them what they've forgotten,—they've just got to look and see, and if they don't see they've just got to stand there looking till they do. It's the only way to teach them. But for you to get sulking on the top of it——'
She lifted the teapot with both hands, because one hand by itself too obviously shook. She succeeded in pouring out the tea without spilling it, and in stopping almost at the very moment when he said, 'Take care, take care—you're filling it too full.' She even succeeded after a minute or two in saying, holding carefully on to her voice to keep it steady, 'I'm not—sulking. I've—got a headache.'
And she thought desperately, 'The only thing to be done with marriage is to let it wash over one.'
For the rest of that day she let it wash; unresistingly. She couldn't think any more. She couldn't feel any more,—not that day. She really had a headache; and when the dusk came, and Wemyss turned on the lights, it was evident even to him that she had, for there was no colour at all in her face and her eyes were puffed and leaden.
He had one of his sudden changes. 'Come here,' he said, reaching out and drawing her on to his knee; and he held her face against his breast, and felt full of maternal instincts, and crooned over her. 'Was it a poor little baby,' he crooned. 'Did it have a headache then——' And he put his great cool hand on her hot forehead and kept it there.
Lucy gave up trying to understand anything at all any more. These swift changes,—she couldn't keep up with them; she was tired, tired....
They sat like that in the chair before the fire, Wemyss holding his hand on her forehead and feeling full of maternal instincts, and she an unresisting blank, till he suddenly remembered he hadn't shown her the drawing-room yet. The afternoon had not proceeded on the lines laid down for it in his plans, but if they were quick there was still time for the drawing-room before dinner.
Accordingly she was abruptly lifted off his knee. 'Come along, little Love,' he said briskly. 'Come along. Wake up. I want to show you something.'
And the next thing she knew was that she was going downstairs, and presently she found herself standing in a big cold room, blinking in the bright lights he had switched on at the door.
'This,' he said, holding her by the arm, 'is the drawing-room. Isn't it a fine room.' And he explained the piano, and told her how he had found a button off, and he pointed out the roll of rugs in a distant corner which, unrolled, decorated the parquet floor, and he drew her attention to the curtains,—he had no objections to curtains in a drawing-room, he said, because a drawing-room was anyhow a room of concessions; and he asked her at the end, as he had asked her at the beginning, if she didn't think it a fine room.
Lucy said it was a very fine room.
'You'll remember to put the cover on properly when you've finished playing the piano, won't you,' he said.
'Yes I will,' said Lucy. 'Only I don't play,' she added, remembering she didn't.
'That's all right then,' he said, relieved.
They were still standing admiring the proportions of the room, its marble fireplace and the brilliancy of its lighting—'The test of good lighting,' said Wemyss, 'is that there shouldn't be a corner of a room in which a man of eighty can't read his newspaper'—when the gong began.
'Good Lord,' he said, looking at his watch, 'it'll be dinner in ten minutes. Why, we've had nothing at all of the afternoon, and I'd planned to show you so many things. Ah,' he said, turning and shaking his head at her, his voice changing to sorrow, 'whose fault has that been?'
'Mine,' said Lucy.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face, gazing at it and shaking his head slowly. The light, streaming into her swollen eyes, hurt them and made her blink.
'Ah, my Lucy,' he said fondly, 'little waster of happiness—isn't it better simply to love your Everard than make him unhappy?'
'Much better,' said Lucy, blinking.
There was no dressing for dinner at The Willows, for that, explained Wemyss, was the great joy of home, that you needn't ever do anything you don't want to in it, and therefore, he said, ten minutes' warning was ample for just washing one's hands. They washed their hands together in the big bedroom, because Wemyss disapproved of dressing-rooms at home even more strongly than on honeymoons in hotels. 'Nobody's going to separate me from my own woman,' he said, drying his hands and eyeing her with proud possessiveness while she dried hers; their basins stood side by side on the brown mottled marble of the washstand. 'Are they,' he said, as she dried in silence.
'No,' said Lucy.
'How's the head?' he said.
'Better,' she said.
'Who's got a forgiving husband?' he said.
'I have,' she said.
'Smile at me,' he said.
She smiled at him.
At dinner it was Vera who smiled, her changeless little strangled smile, with her eyes on Lucy. Lucy's seat had its back to Vera, but she knew she had only to turn her head to see her eyes fixed on her, smiling. No one else smiled; only Vera.
Lucy bent her head over her plate, trying to escape the unshaded light that beat down on her eyes, sore with crying, and hurt. In front of her was the bowl of kingcups, the birthday flowers. Just behind Wemyss stood Chesterton, in an attitude of strained attention. Dimly through Lucy's head floated thoughts: Seeing that Everard invariably spent his birthdays at The Willows, on that day last year at that hour Vera was sitting where she, Lucy, now was, with the kingcups glistening in front of her, and Everard tucking his table napkin into his waistcoat, and Chesterton waiting till he was quite ready to take the cover off the soup; just as Lucy was seeing these things this year Vera saw them last year; Vera still had three months of life ahead of her then, three more months of dinners, and Chesterton, and Everard tucking in his napkin. How queer. What a dream it all was. On that last of his birthdays at which Vera would ever be present, did any thought of his next birthday cross her mind? How strange it would have seemed to her if she could have seen ahead, and seen her, Lucy, sitting in her chair. The same chair; everything just the same; except the wife. 'Souvent femme varie,' floated vaguely across her tired brain. She ate her soup sitting all crooked with fatigue ... life was exactly like a dream....
Wemyss, absorbed in the scrutiny of his food and the behaviour of Chesterton, had no time to notice anything Lucy might be doing. It was the rule that Chesterton, at meals, should not for an instant leave the room. The furthest she was allowed was a door in the dark corner opposite the door into the hall, through which at intervals Lizzie's arm thrust dishes. It was the rule that Lizzie shouldn't come into the room, but, stationary on the other side of this door, her function was to thrust dishes through it; and to her from the kitchen, pattering ceaselessly to and fro, came the tweeny bringing the dishes. This had all been thought out and arranged very carefully years ago by Wemyss, and ought to have worked without a hitch; but sometimes there were hitches, and Lizzie's arm was a minute late thrusting in a dish. When this happened Chesterton, kept waiting and conscious of Wemyss enormously waiting at the end of the table, would put her head round the door and hiss at Lizzie, who then hurried to the kitchen and hissed at the tweeny, who for her part didn't dare hiss at the cook.
To-night, however, nothing happened that was not perfect. From the way Chesterton had behaved about the tea, and the way Lizzie had behaved about the window, Wemyss could see that during his four weeks' absence his household had been getting out of hand, and he was therefore more watchful than ever, determined to pass nothing over. On this occasion he watched in vain. Things went smoothly from start to finish. The tweeny ran, Lizzie thrust, Chesterton deposited, dead on time. Every dish was hot and punctual, or cold and punctual, according to what was expected of it; and Wemyss going out of the dining-room at the end, holding Lucy by the arm, couldn't but feel he had dined very well. Perhaps, though, his father's photograph hadn't been dusted,—it would be just like them to have disregarded his instructions. He went back to look, and Lucy, since he was holding her by the arm, went too. No, they had even done that; and there was nothing further to be said except, with great sternness to Chesterton, eyeing her threateningly, 'Coffee at once.'
The evening was spent in the library reading Wemyss's school reports, and looking at photographs of him in his various stages,—naked and crowing; with ringlets, in a frock; in knickerbockers, holding a hoop; a stout schoolboy; a tall and slender youth; thickening; still thickening; thick,—and they went to bed at ten o'clock.
Somewhere round midnight Lucy discovered that the distances of the treble bed softened sound; either that, or she was too tired to hear anything, for she dropped out of consciousness with the heaviness of a released stone.
Next day it was finer. There were gleams of sun; and though the wind still blew, the rain held off except for occasional spatterings. They got up very late—breakfast on Sundays at The Willows was not till eleven—and went and inspected the chickens. By the time they had done that, and walked round the garden, and stood on the edge of the river throwing sticks into it and watching the pace at which they were whirled away on its muddy and disturbed surface, it was luncheon time. After luncheon they walked along the towpath, one behind the other because it was narrow and the grass at the sides was wet. Wemyss walked slowly, and the wind was cold. Lucy kept close to his heels, seeking shelter under, as it were, his lee. Talk wasn't possible because of the narrow path and the blustering wind, but every now and then Wemyss looked down over his shoulder at her. 'Still there?' he asked; and Lucy said she was.
They had tea punctually at half-past four up in Vera's sitting-room, but without, this time, a fire—Wemyss had rectified Lizzie's tendency to be officious—and after tea he took her out again to show her how his electricity was made, while the gardener who saw to the machinery, and the boy who saw to the gardener, stood by in attendance.
There was a cold sunset,—a narrow strip of gold below heavy clouds, like a sullen, half-open eye. The prudent cows dotted the fields motionlessly, lying on their dry bite of grass. The wind blew straight across from the sunset through Lucy's coat, wrap herself in it as tightly as she might, while they loitered among outhouses and examined the durability of the railings. Her headache, in spite of her good night, hadn't gone, and by dinner time her throat felt sore. She said nothing to Wemyss, because she was sure she would be well in the morning. Her colds never lasted. Besides she knew, for he had often told her, how much he was bored by the sick.
At dinner her cheeks were very red and her eyes very bright.
'Who's my pretty little girl,' said Wemyss, struck by her.
Indeed he was altogether pleased with her. She had been his own Lucy throughout the day, so gentle and sweet, and hadn't once said But, or tried to go out of rooms. Unquestioningly acquiescent she had been; and now so pretty, with the light full on her, showing up her lovely colouring.
'Who's my pretty little girl,' he said again, laying his hand on hers, while Chesterton looked down her nose.
Then he noticed she had a knitted scarf round her shoulders, and he said, 'Whatever have you got that thing on in here for?'
'I'm cold,' said Lucy.
'Cold! Nonsense. You're as warm as a toast. Feel my hand compared to yours.'
Then she did tell him she thought she had caught cold, and he said, withdrawing his hand and his face falling, 'Well, if you have it's only what you deserve when you recollect what you did yesterday.'
'I suppose it is,' agreed Lucy; and assured him her colds were all over in twenty-four hours.
Afterwards in the library when they were alone, she asked if she hadn't better sleep by herself in case he caught her cold, but Wemyss wouldn't hear of such a thing. Not only, he said, he never caught colds and didn't believe any one else who was sensible ever did, but it would take more than a cold to separate him from his wife. Besides, though of course she richly deserved a cold after yesterday—'Who's a shameless little baggage,' he said, pinching her ear, 'coming down with only a blanket on——' somehow, though he had been so angry at the time, the recollection of that pleased him—he could see no signs of her having got one. She didn't sneeze, she didn't blow her nose——
Lucy agreed, and said she didn't suppose it was anything really, and she was sure she would be all right in the morning.
'Yes—and you know we catch the early train up,' said Wemyss. 'Leave here at nine sharp, mind.'
'Yes,' said Lucy. And presently, for she was feeling very uncomfortable and hot and cold in turns, and had a great longing to creep away and be alone for a little while, she said that perhaps, although she knew it was very early, she had better go to bed.
'All right,' said Wemyss, getting up briskly. 'I'll come too.'