He found her, however, very trying that night, the way she would keep on turning round, and it reached such a pitch of discomfort to sleep with her, or rather endeavour to sleep with her, for as the night went on she paid less and less attention to his requests that she should keep still, that at about two o'clock, staggering with sleepiness, he got up and went into a spare room, trailing the quilt after him and carrying his pillows, and finished the night in peace.
When he woke at seven he couldn't make out at first where he was, nor why, on stretching out his arm, he found no wife to be gathered in. Then he remembered, and he felt most injured that he should have been turned out of his own bed. If Lucy imagined she was going to be allowed to develop the same restlessness at night that was characteristic of her by day, she was mistaken; and he got up to go and tell her so.
He found her asleep in a very untidy position, the clothes all dragged over to her side of the bed and pulled up round her. He pulled them back again, and she woke up, and he got into bed and said, 'Come here,' stretching out his arm, and she didn't come.
Then he looked at her more closely, and she, looking at him with heavy eyes, said something husky. It was evident she had a very tiresome cold.
'What an untruth you told me,' he exclaimed, 'about not having a cold in the morning!'
She again said something husky. It was evident she had a very tiresome sore throat.
'It's getting on for half-past seven,' said Wemyss. 'We've got to leave the house at nine sharp, mind.'
Was it possible that she wouldn't leave the house at nine sharp? The thought that she wouldn't was too exasperating to consider. He go up to London alone? On this the first occasion of going up after his marriage? He be alone in Lancaster Gate, just as if he hadn't a wife at all? What was the good of a wife if she didn't go up to London with one? And all this to come upon him because of her conduct on his birthday.
'Well,' he said, sitting up in bed and looking down at her, 'I hope you're pleased with the result of your behaviour.'
But it was no use saying things to somebody who merely made husky noises.
He got out of bed and jerked up the blinds. 'Such a beautiful day, too,' he said indignantly.
When at a quarter to nine the station cab arrived, he went up to the bedroom hoping that he would find her after all dressed and sensible and ready to go, but there she was just as he had left her when he went to have his breakfast, dozing and inert in the tumbled bed.
'You'd better follow me by the afternoon train,' he said, after staring down at her in silence. 'I'll tell the cab. But in any case,' he said, as she didn't answer, 'inanycase, Lucy, I expect you to-morrow.'
She opened her eyes and looked at him languidly.
'Do you hear?' he said.
She made a husky noise.
'Good-bye,' he said shortly, stooping and giving the top of her head a brief, disgusted kiss. The way the consequences of folly fell always on somebody else and punished him.... Wemyss could hardly give hisTimesthe proper attention in the train for thinking of it.
That day Miss Entwhistle, aware of the return from the honeymoon on the Friday, and of the week-end to be spent at The Willows, and of the coming up to Lancaster Gate early on the Monday morning for the inside of the week, waited till twelve o'clock, so as to allow plenty of time for Wemyss no longer to be in the house, and then telephoned. Lucy and she were to lunch together. Lucy had written to say so, and Miss Entwhistle wanted to know if she wouldn't soon be round. She longed extraordinarily to fold that darling little child in her arms again. It seemed an eternity since she saw her radiantly disappearing in the taxi; and the letters she had hoped to get during the honeymoon hadn't been letters at all, but picture postcards.
A man's voice answered her,—not Wemyss's. It was, she recognised, the voice of the pale servant, who with his wife attended to the Lancaster Gate house. They inhabited the basement, and emerged from it up into the light only if they were obliged. Bells obliged them to emerge, and Wemyss's bath and breakfast, and after his departure to his office the making of his bed; but then the shades gathered round them again till next morning, because for a long while now once he had left the house he hadn't come back till after they were in bed. His re-marriage was going to disturb them, they were afraid, and the pale wife had forebodings about meals to be cooked; but at the worst the disturbance would only be for the three inside days of the week, and anything could be borne when one had from Friday to Monday to oneself; and as the morning went on, and no one arrived from Strorley, they began to take heart, and had almost quite taken it when the telephone bell rang.
It didn't do it very often, for Wemyss had his other addresses, at the office, at the club, so that Twite, wanting in practice, was not very good at dealing with it. Also the shrill bell vibrating through the empty house, so insistent, so living, never failed to agitate both Twites. It seemed to them uncanny; and Mrs. Twite, watching Twite being drawn up by it out of his shadows, like some quiet fish sucked irresistibly up to gasp on the surface, was each time thankful that she hadn't been born a man.
She always went and listened at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, not knowing what mightn't happen to Twite up there alone with that voice, and on this occasion she heard the following:
'No, ma'am, not yet, ma'am.'
'I couldn't say, ma'am.'
'No, no news, ma'am.'
'Oh yes, ma'am, on Friday night.'
'Yes, ma'am, first thing Saturday.'
'Yes, it is, ma'am—very strange, ma'am.'
And then there was silence. He was writing, she knew, on the pad provided by Wemyss for the purpose.
This was the most trying part of Twite's duties. Any message had to be written down and left on the hall table, complete with the time of its delivery, for Wemyss to see when he came in at night. Twite was not a facile writer. Words confused him. He was never sure how they were spelt. Also he found it very difficult to remember what had been said, for there was a hurry and an urgency about a voice on the telephone that excited him and prevented his giving the message his undivided attention. Besides, when was a message not a message? Wemyss's orders were to write down messages. Suppose they weren't messages, must he still write? Was this, for instance, a message?
He thought he had best be on the safe side, and laboriously wrote it down.
Miss Henwissel rang up sir to know if you was come and if so when you was coming and what orders we ad and said it was very strange 12.15.
Miss Henwissel rang up sir to know if you was come and if so when you was coming and what orders we ad and said it was very strange 12.15.
He had only just put this on the table and was about to descend to his quiet shades when off the thing started again.
This time it was Wemyss.
'Back to-night late as usual,' he said.
'Yes sir,' said Twite. 'There's just been a——'
But he addressed emptiness.
Meanwhile Miss Entwhistle, after a period of reflection, was ringing up Strorley 19. The voice of Chesterton, composed and efficient, replied; and the effect of her replies was to make Miss Entwhistle countermand lunch and pack a small bag and go to Paddington.
Trains to Strorley at that hour were infrequent and slow, and it wasn't till nearly five that she drove down the oozy lane in the station cab and, turning in at the white gate, arrived at The Willows. That sooner or later she would have to arrive at The Willows now that she was related to it by marriage was certain, and she had quite made up her mind, during her four weeks' peace since the wedding, that she was going to dismiss all foolish prejudices against the place from her mind and arrive at it, when she did arrive, with a stout heart and an unclouded countenance. After all, there was much in thatmotof her nephew's: 'Somebody has died everywhere.' Yet, as the cab heaved her nearer to the place along the oozy lane, she did wish that it wasn't in just this house that Lucy lay in bed. Also she had misgivings at being there uninvited. In a case of serious illness naturally such misgivings wouldn't exist; but the maid's voice on the telephone had only said Mrs. Wemyss had a cold and was staying in bed, and Mr. Wemyss had gone up to London by the usual train. It couldn't be much that was wrong, or he wouldn't have gone. Hadn't she, she thought uneasily as she found herself uninvited within Wemyss's gates, perhaps been a little impulsive? Yet the idea of that child alone in the sinister house——
She peered out of the cab window. Not at all sinister, she said, correcting herself severely; all most neat. Perfect order. Shrubs as they should be. Strong railings. Nice cows.
The cab stopped. Chesterton came down the steps and opened its door. Nice parlourmaid. Most normal.
'How is Mrs. Wemyss?' asked Miss Entwhistle.
'About the same I believe, ma'am,' said Chesterton; and inquired if she should pay the man.
Miss Entwhistle paid the man, and then proceeded up the steps followed by Chesterton carrying her bag. Fine steps. Handsome house.
'Does she know I'm coming?'
'I believe the housemaid did mention it, ma'am.'
Nice roomy hall. With a fire it might be quite warm. Fine windows. Good staircase.
'Do you wish for tea, ma'am?'
'No thank you. I should like to go up at once, if I may.'
'If you please, ma'am.'
At the turn of the stairs, where the gong was, Miss Entwhistle stood aside and let Chesterton precede her. 'Perhaps you had better go and tell Mrs. Wemyss I am here,' she said.
'If you please, ma'am.'
Miss Entwhistle waited, gazing at the gong with the same benevolence she had brought to bear on everything else. Fine gong. She also gazed at the antlers on the wall, for the wall continued to bristle with antlers right up to the top of the house. Magnificent collection.
'If you please, ma'am,' said Chesterton, reappearing, tiptoeing gingerly to the head of the stairs.
Miss Entwhistle went up. Chesterton ushered her into the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.
Miss Entwhistle knew Lucy was small, but not how small till she saw her in the treble bed. There really did appear to be nothing of her except a little round head. 'Why, but you've shrunk!' was her first exclamation.
Lucy, who was tucked up to her chin by Lizzie, besides having a wet bandage encased in flannel round her throat, could only move her eyes and smile. She was on the side of the bed farthest from the door, and Miss Entwhistle had to walk round it to reach her. She was still hoarse, but not as voiceless as when Wemyss left in the morning, for Lizzie had been diligently plying her with things like hot honey, and her face, as her eyes followed Miss Entwhistle's approach, was one immense smile. It really seemed too wonderful to be with Aunt Dot again; and there was a peace about being ill, a relaxation from strain, that had made her quiet day, alone in bed, seem sheer bliss. It was so plain that she couldn't move, that she couldn't do anything, couldn't get up and go in trains, that her conscience was at rest in regard to Everard; and she lay in the blessed silence after he left, not minding how much her limbs ached because of the delicious tranquillity of her mind. The window was open, and in the garden the birds were busy. The wind had dropped. Except for the birds there was no sound. Divine quiet. Divine peace. The luxury of it after the week-end, after the birthday, after the honeymoon, was extraordinary. Just to be in bed by oneself seemed an amazingly felicitous condition.
'Lovely of you to come,' she said hoarsely, smiling broadly and looking so unmistakably contented that Miss Entwhistle, as she bent over her and kissed her hot forehead, thought, 'It's a success. He's making her happy.'
'You darling little thing,' she said, smoothing back her hair. 'Fancy seeing you again like this!'
'Yes,' said Lucy, heavy-eyed and smiling. 'Lovely,' she whispered, 'to see you. Tea, Aunt Dot?'
It was evidently difficult for her to speak, and her forehead was extremely hot.
'No, I don't want tea.'
'You'll stay?'
'Yes,' said Miss Entwhistle, sitting down by the pillow and continuing to smooth back her hair. 'Of course I'll stay. How did you manage to catch such a cold, I wonder?'
She was left to wonder, undisturbed by any explanations of Lucy's. Indeed it was as much as Lucy could manage to bring out the most necessary words. She lay contentedly with her eyes shut, having her hair stroked back, and said as little as possible.
'Everard—' said Miss Entwhistle, stroking gently, 'is he coming back to-night?'
'No,' whispered Lucy contentedly.
Aunt Dot stroked in silence.
'Has your temperature been taken?' she asked presently.
'No,' whispered Lucy contentedly.
'Oughtn't you—' after another pause 'to see a doctor?'
'No,' whispered Lucy contentedly. Delicious, simply delicious, to lie like that having one's hair stroked back by Aunt Dot, the dear, the kind, the comprehensible.
'So sweet of you to come,' she whispered again.
Well, thought Miss Entwhistle as she sat there softly stroking and watching Lucy's face of complete content while she dozed off even after she was asleep the corners of her mouth still were tucked up in a smile—it was plain that Everard was making the child happy. In that case he certainly must be all that Lucy had assured her he was, and she, Miss Entwhistle, would no doubt very quickly now get fond of him. Of course she would. No doubt whatever. And what a comfort, what a relief, to find the child happy. Backgrounds didn't matter where there was happiness. Houses, indeed. What did it matter if they weren't the sort of houses you would, left to yourself, choose so long as in them dwelt happiness? What did it matter what their past had been so long as their present was illuminated by contentment? And as for furniture, why, that only became of interest, of importance, when life had nothing else in it. Loveless lives, empty lives, filled themselves in their despair with beautiful furniture. If you were really happy you had antlers.
In this spirit, while she stroked and Lucy slept, Miss Entwhistle's eye, full of benevolence, wandered round the room. The objects in it, after her own small bedroom in Eaton Terrace and its necessarily small furniture, all seemed to her gigantic. Especially the bed. She had never seen a bed like it before, though she had heard of such beds in history. Didn't Og the King of Bashan have one? But what an excellent plan, for then you could get away from each other. Most sensible. Most wholesome. And a certain bleakness about the room would soon go when Lucy's little things got more strewn about,—her books, and photographs, and pretty dressing-table silver.
Miss Entwhistle's eye arrived at and dwelt on the dressing-table. On it were two oval wooden-backed brushes without handles. Hairbrushes. Men's. Also shaving things. And, hanging over one side of the looking-glass, were three neckties.
She quickly recovered. Most friendly. Most companionable. But a feeling of not being in Lucy's room at all took possession of her, and she fidgeted a little. With no business to be there whatever, she was in a strange man's bedroom. She averted her eyes from Wemyss's toilet arrangements, they were the last things she wanted to see; and, in averting them, they fell on the washstand with its two basins and on an enormous red-brown indiarubber sponge. No such sponge was ever Lucy's. The conclusion was forced upon her that Lucy and Everard washed side by side.
From this, too, she presently recovered. After all, marriage was marriage, and you did things in marriage that you would never dream of doing single. She averted her eyes from the washstand. The last thing she wanted to do was to become familiar with Wemyss's sponge.
Her eyes, growing more and more determined in their benevolence, gazed out of the window. How the days were lengthening. And really a beautiful look-out, with the late afternoon light reflected on the hills across the river. Birds, too, twittering in the garden,—everything most pleasant and complete. And such a nice big window. Lots of air and light. It reached nearly to the floor. Two housemaids at least, and strong ones, would be needed to open or shut it,—ah no, there were cords. A thought struck her: This couldn't be the room, that couldn't be the window, where——
She averted her eyes from the window, and fixed them on what seemed to be the only satisfactory resting-place for them, the contented face on the pillow. Dear little loved face. And the dear, pretty hair,—how pretty young hair was, so soft and thick. No, of course it wasn't the window; that tragic room was probably not used at all now. How in the world had the child got such a cold. She could hear by her breathing that her chest was stuffed up, but evidently it wasn't worrying her, or she wouldn't in her sleep look so much pleased. Yes; that room was either shut up now and never used, or—she couldn't help being struck by yet another thought—it was a spare room. If so, Miss Entwhistle said to herself, it would no doubt be her fate to sleep in it. Dear me, she thought, taken aback.
But from this also she presently recovered; and remembering her determination to eject all prejudices merely remarked to herself, 'Well, well.' And, after a pause, was able to add benevolently, 'A house of varied interest.'
Later on in the dining-room, when she was reluctantly eating the meal prepared for her—Lucy still slept, or she would have asked to be allowed to have a biscuit by her bedside—Miss Entwhistle said to Chesterton, who attended her, Would she let her know when Mr. Wemyss telephoned, as she wished to speak to him.
She was feeling more and more uneasy as time passed as to what Everard would think of her uninvited presence in his house. It was natural; but would he think so? What wasn't natural was for her to feel uneasy, seeing that the house was also Lucy's, and that the child's face had hardly had room enough on it for the width of her smile of welcome. There, however, it was,—Miss Entwhistle felt like an interloper. It was best to face things. She not only felt like an interloper but, in Everard's eyes, she was an interloper. This was the situation: His wife had a cold—a bad cold, but not anything serious; nobody had sent for his wife's aunt; nobody had asked her to come; and here she was. If that, in Everard's eyes, wasn't being an interloper Miss Entwhistle was sure he wouldn't know one if he saw one.
In her life she had read many books, and was familiar with those elderly relatives frequently to be met in them, and usually female, who intrude into a newly marriedménageand make themselves objectionable to one of the parties by sympathising with the other one. There was no cause for sympathy here, and if there ever should be Miss Entwhistle would certainly never sympathise except from a neutral place. She wouldn't come into a man's house, and in the very act of being nourished by his food sympathise with his wife; she would sympathise from London. Her honesty of intention, her single-mindedness, were, she knew, complete. She didn't feel, she knew she wasn't, in the least like these relatives in books, and yet as she sat in Everard's chair—obviously it was his; the upholstered seat was his very shape, inverted—she was afraid, indeed she was certain, he would think she was one of them.
There she was, she thought, come unasked, sitting in his place, eating his food. He usedn't to like her; would he like her any the better for this? From a desire not to have meals of his she had avoided tea, but she hadn't been able to avoid dinner, and with each dish set before her—dishes produced surprisingly, as she couldn't but observe, at the end of an arm thrust to the minute through a door—she felt more and more acutely that she was in his eyes, if he could only see her, an interloper. No doubt it was Lucy's house too, but it didn't feel as if it were, and she would have given much to be able to escape back to London that night.
But whatever Everard thought of her intrusion she wasn't going to leave Lucy. Not alone in that house; not to wake up to find herself alone in that house. Besides, who knew how such a chill would develop? There ought of course to have been a doctor. When Everard rang up, as he would be sure to the last thing to ask how Lucy was, she would go to the telephone, announce her presence, and inquire whether it wouldn't be as well to have a doctor round in the morning.
Therefore she asked Chesterton to let her know when Mr. Wemyss telephoned; and Chesterton, surprised, for it was not Wemyss's habit to telephone to The Willows, all his communications coming on postcards, paused just an instant before replying, 'If you please, ma'am.'
Chesterton wondered what Wemyss was expected to telephone about. It wouldn't have occurred to her that it might be about the new Mrs. Wemyss's health, because he had not within her recollection ever telephoned about the health of a Mrs. Wemyss. Sometimes the previous Mrs. Wemyss's health gave way enough for her to stay in bed, but no telephoning from London had in consequence taken place. Accordingly she wondered what message could be expected.
'What time would Mr. Wemyss be likely to ring up?' asked Miss Entwhistle presently, more for the sake of saying something than from a desire to know. She was going to that telephone, but she didn't want to, she was in no hurry for it, it wasn't impatience to meet Wemyss's voice making her talk to Chesterton; what was making her talk was the dining-room.
For not only did its bareness afflict her, and its glaring light, and its long empty table, and the way Chesterton's footsteps echoed up and down the uncarpeted floor, but there on the wall was that poor thing looking at her, she had no doubt whatever as to who it was standing up in that long slim frock looking at her, and she was taken aback. In spite of her determination to like all the arrangements, it did seem to her tactless to have her there, especially as she had that trick of looking so very steadily at one; and when she turned her eyes away from the queer, suppressed smile, she didn't like what she saw on the other wall either,—that enlarged old man, that obvious progenitor.
Having caught sight of both these pictures, which at night were much more conspicuous than by day, owing to the brilliant unshaded lighting, Miss Entwhistle had no wish to look at them again, and carefully looked either at her plate or at Chesterton's back as she hurried down the room to the dish being held out at the end of the remarkable arm; but being nevertheless much disturbed by their presence, and by the way she knew they weren't taking their eyes off her however carefully she took hers off them, she asked Chesterton what time Wemyss would be likely to telephone merely in order to hear the sound of a human voice.
Chesterton then informed her that her master never did telephone to The Willows, so that she was unable to say what time he would.
'But,' said Miss Entwhistle, surprised, 'you have a telephone.'
'If you please, ma'am,' said Chesterton.
Miss Entwhistle didn't like to ask what, then, the telephone was for, because she didn't wish to embark on anything even remotely approaching a discussion of Everard's habits, so she wondered in silence.
Chesterton, however, presently elucidated. She coughed a little first, conscious that to volunteer a remark wasn't quite within her idea of the perfect parlourmaid, and then she said, 'It's owing to local convenience, ma'am. We find it indispensable in the isolated situation of the 'ouse. We gives our orders to the tradesmen by means of the telephone. Mr. Wemyss installed it for that purpose, he says, and objects to trunk calls because of the charges and the waste of Mr. Wemyss's time at the other end, ma'am.'
'Oh,' said Miss Entwhistle.
'If you please, ma'am,' said Chesterton.
Miss Entwhistle said nothing more. With her eyes fixed on her plate in order to avoid those other eyes, she wondered what she had better do. It was half-past eight, and Everard hadn't rung up. If he were going to be anxious enough not to mind the trunk-call charge he would have been anxious enough before this. That he hadn't rung up showed he regarded Lucy's indisposition as slight. What, then, would he say to her uninvited presence there? Nothing, she was afraid, that would be really hospitable. And she had just eaten a pudding of his. It seemed to curdle up within her.
'No,nocoffee, thank you,' she said hastily, on Chesterton's inquiring if she wished it served in the library. She had had dinner because she couldn't help herself, urged to it by the servants, but she needn't proceed to extras. And the library,—wasn't it in the library that Everard was sitting the day that poor smiling thing ... yes, she remembered Lucy telling her so. No, she would not have coffee in the library.
But now about telephoning. Really the only thing to do, the only way of dignity, was to ring him up. Useless waiting any more for him to do it; evidently he wasn't going to. She would ring him up, tell him she was there, and ask—she clung particularly to the doctor idea, because his presence would justify hers if the doctor hadn't better look in in the morning.
Thus it was that, sitting quiet in their basement, the Twites were startled about nine o'clock that evening by the telephone bell. It sounded more uncanny than ever up there, making all that noise by itself in the dark; and when, hurrying up anxiously to it, Twite applied his ear, all that happened was that an extremely short-tempered voice told him to hold on.
Twite held on, listening hard and hearing nothing.
'Say 'Ullo, Twite,' presently advised Mrs. Twite from out of the anxious silence at the foot of the kitchen stairs.
''Ullo,' said Twite half-heartedly.
'Must be a wrong number,' said Mrs. Twite, after more silence. ''Ang it up, and come and finish your supper.'
A very small voice said something very far away. Twite strained every nerve to hear. He hadn't yet had to face a trunk call, and he thought the telephone was fainting.
''Ullo?' he said anxiously, trying to make the word sound polite.
'It's a wrong number,' said Mrs. Twite, after further waiting. ''Ang it up.'
The voice, incredibly small, began to talk again, and Twite, unable to hear a word, kept on saying with increasing efforts to sound polite, ''Ullo?'Ullo?'
''Ang it up,' said Mrs. Twite, who from the bottom of the stairs was always brave.
'That's what it is,' said Twite at last, exhausted. 'It's a wrong number.' And he went to the writing-pad and wrote:
A wrong number rang up sir believed to be a lady 9.10.
A wrong number rang up sir believed to be a lady 9.10.
So Miss Entwhistle at the other end was defeated, and having done her best and not succeeded she decided to remain quiescent, at any rate till the morning. Quiescent and uncritical. She wouldn't worry; she wouldn't criticise; she would merely think of Everard in those terms of amiability which were natural to her.
But while she was waiting for the call in the cold hall there had been a moment when her fixed benevolence did a little loosen. Chesterton, seeing that she shivered, had suggested the library for waiting in, where she said there was a fire, but Miss Entwhistle preferred to be cold in the hall than warm in the library; and standing in that bleak place she saw a line of firelight beneath a door, which she then knew must be the library. Accordingly she then also knew that Lucy's bedroom was exactly above the library, for looking up she could see its door from where she stood; so that it was out of that window.... Her benevolence for a moment did become unsteady. He let the child sleep there, he made the child sleep there....
She soon, however, had herself in hand again. Lucy didn't mind, so why should she? Lucy was asleep there at that moment, with a look of complete content on her face. But there was one thing Miss Entwhistle decided she would do: Lucy shouldn't wake up by any chance in the night and find herself in that room alone,—window or no window, she would sleep there with her.
This was a really heroic decision, and only love for Lucy made it possible. Apart from the window and what she believed had happened at it, apart from the way that poor thing's face in the photograph haunted her, there was the feeling that it wasn't Lucy's bedroom at all but Everard's. It was oddly disagreeable to Miss Entwhistle to spend the night, for instance, with Wemyss's sponge. She debated in the spare-room when she was getting ready for bed—a small room on the other side of the house, with a nice high window-sill—whether she wouldn't keep her clothes on. At least then she would feel more strange, at least she would feel less at home. But how tiring. At her age, if she sat up all night—and in her clothes no lying down could be comfortable—she would be the merest rag next morning, and quite unable to cope on the telephone with Everard. And she really must take out her hairpins; she couldn't sleep a wink with them all pressing on her head. Yet the familiarity of being in that room among the neckties without her hairpins.... She hesitated, and argued, and all the while she was slowly taking out her hairpins and taking off her clothes.
At the last moment, when she was in her nightgown and her hair was neatly plaited and she was looking the goodest of tidy little women, her courage failed her. No, she couldn't go. She would stay where she was, and ring and ask that nice housemaid to sleep with Mrs. Wemyss in case she wanted anything in the night.
She did ring; but by the time Lizzie came Miss Entwhistle, doubting the sincerity of her motives, had been examining them. Was it really the neckties? Was it really the sponge? Wasn't it, at bottom, really the window?
She was ashamed. Where Lucy could sleep she could sleep. 'I rang,' she said, 'to ask you to be so kind as to help me carry my pillow and blankets into Mrs. Wemyss's room. I'm going to sleep on the sofa there.'
'Yes ma'am,' said Lizzie, picking them up. 'The sofa's very short and 'aid, ma'am. 'Adn't you better sleep in the bed?'
'No,' said Miss Entwhistle.
'There's plenty of room, ma'am. Mrs. Wemyss wouldn't know you was in it, it's such a large bed.'
'I will sleep on the sofa,' said Miss Entwhistle.
In London Wemyss went through his usual day, except that he was kept longer than he liked at his office by the accumulation of business and by having a prolonged difference of opinion, ending in dismissal, with a typist who had got out of hand during his absence to the extent of answering him back. It was five before he was able to leave—and even then he hadn't half finished, but he declined to be sacrificed further—and proceed as usual to his club to play bridge. He had a great desire for bridge after not having played for so long, and it was difficult, doing exactly the things he had always done, for him to remember that he was married. In fact he wouldn't have remembered if he hadn't felt so indignant; but all day underneath everything he did, everything he said and thought, lay indignation, and so he knew he was married.
Being extremely methodical he had long ago divided his life inside and out into compartments, each strictly separate, each, as it were, kept locked till the proper moment for its turn arrived, when he unlocked it and took out its contents,—work, bridge, dinner, wife, sleep, Paddington, The Willows, or whatever it was that it contained. Having finished with the contents, the compartment was locked up and dismissed from his thoughts till its turn came round again. A honeymoon was a great shake-up, but when it occurred he arranged the date of its cessation as precisely as the date of its inauguration. On such a day, at such an hour, it would come to an end, the compartments would once more be unlocked, and regularity resumed. Bridge was the one activity which, though it was taken out of its compartment at the proper time, didn't go into it again with any sort of punctuality. Everything else, including his wife, was locked up to the minute; but bridge would stay out till any hour. On each of the days in London, the Mondays to Fridays, he proceeded punctually to his office, and from thence punctually to his club and bridge. He always lunched and dined at his club. Other men, he was aware, dined not infrequently at home, but the explanation of that was that their wives weren't Vera.
The moment, then, that Wemyss found himself once more doing the usual things among the usual surroundings, he felt so exactly as he used to that he wouldn't have remembered Lucy at all if it hadn't been for that layer of indignation at the bottom of his mind. Going up the steps of his club he was conscious of a sense of hard usage, and searching for its cause remembered Lucy. His wife now wasn't Vera, and yet he was to dine at his club exactly as if she were. His wife was Lucy; who, instead of being where she ought to be, eagerly awaiting his return to Lancaster Gate—it was one of his legitimate grievances against Vera that she didn't eagerly await—she was having a cold at Strorley. And why was she having a cold at Strorley? And why was he, a newly-married man, deprived of the comfort of his wife and going to spend the evening exactly as he had spent all the evenings for months past?
Wemyss was very indignant, but he was also very desirous of bridge. If Lucy had been waiting for him he would have had to leave off bridge before his desire for it had been anything like sated,—whatever wives one had they shackled one,—and as it was he could play as long as he wanted to and yet at the same time remain justly indignant. Accordingly he wasn't nearly as unhappy as he thought he was; not, at any rate, till the moment came for going solitary to bed. He detested sleeping by himself. Even Vera had always slept with him.
Altogether Wemyss felt that he had had a bad day, what with the disappointment of its beginning, and the extra work at the office, and no decent lunch 'Positively only time to snatch a bun and a glass of milk,' he announced, amazed, to the first acquaintance he met in the club. 'Just fancy, only time to snatch——' but the acquaintance had melted away and losing rather heavily at bridge, and going back to Lancaster Gate to find from the message left by Twite that that annoying aunt of Lucy's had cropped up already.
Usually Wemyss was amused by Twite's messages, but nothing about this one amused him. He threw down the wrong number one impatiently,—Twite was really a hopeless imbecile; he would dismiss him; but the other one he read again. 'Wanted to know all about us, did she. Said it was very strange, did she. Like her impertinence,' he thought. She had lost no time in cropping up, he thought. Of how completely Miss Entwhistle had, in fact, cropped he was of course unaware.
Yes, he had had a bad day, and he was going to have a lonely night. He went upstairs feeling deeply hurt, and winding his watch.
But after much solid sleep he felt better; and at breakfast he said to Twite, who always jumped when he addressed him, 'Mrs. Wemyss will be coming up to-day.'
Twite's brain didn't work very fast owing to the way it spent most of its time dormant in a basement, and for a moment he thought—it startled him that his master had forgotten the lady was dead. Ought he to remind him? What a painful dilemma.... However, he remembered the new Mrs. Wemyss just in time not to remind him, and to say 'Yes sir,' without too perceptible a pause. His mind hadn't room in it to contain much, and it assimilated slowly that which it contained. He had only been in Wemyss's service three months before the Mrs. Wemyss he found there died. He was just beginning to assimilate her when she ceased to be assimilatable, and to him and his wife in their quiet subterraneous existence it had seemed as if not more than a week had passed before there was another Mrs. Wemyss. Far was it from him to pass opinions on the rapid marriages of gentlemen, but he couldn't keep up with these Mrs. Wemysses. His mind, he found, hadn't yet really realised the new one. He knew she was there somewhere, for he had seen her briefly on the Saturday morning, and he knew she would presently begin to disturb him by needing meals, but he easily forgot her. He forgot her now, and consequently for a moment had the dreadful thought described above.
'I shall be in to dinner,' said Wemyss.
'Yes sir,' said Twite.
Dinner. There usedn't to be dinner. His master hadn't been in once to dinner since Twite knew him. A tray for the lady, while there was a lady; that was all. Mrs. Twite could just manage a tray. Since the lady had left off coming up to town owing to her accident, there hadn't been anything. Only quiet.
He stood waiting, not having been waved out of the room, and anxiously watching Wemyss's face, for he was a nervous man.
Then the telephone bell rang.
Wemyss, without looking up, waved him out to it and went on with his breakfast; and after a minute, noticing that he neither came back nor could be heard saying anything beyond a faint, propitiatory ''Ullo,' called out to him.
'What is it?' Wemyss called out.
'I can't hear, sir,' Twite's distressed voice answered from the hall.
'Fool,' said Wemyss, appearing, table-napkin in hand.
'Yes sir,' said Twite.
He took the receiver from him, and then the Twites—Mrs. Twite from the foot of the kitchen stairs and Twite lingering in the background because he hadn't yet been waved away—heard the following:
'Yes yes. Yes, speaking. Hullo. Who is it?'
'What? I can't hear. What?'
'Miss who? En—oh, good-morning, How distant your voice sounds.'
'What? Where?Where?'
'Oh really.'
Here the person at the other end talked a great deal.
'Yes. Quite. But then you see she wasn't.'
More prolonged talk from the other end.
'What? She isn't coming up? Indeed she is. She's expected. I've ordered——'
'What? I can't hear. The doctor? You're sending for the doctor?'
'I daresay. But then you see I consider it isn't.'
'I daresay, I daresay. No, of course I can't. How can I leave my work——'
'Oh, very well, very well. I daresay. No doubt. She's to come up for all that as arranged, tell her, and if she needs doctors there are more of them here anyhow than—what? Can't possibly?'
'I suppose you know you're taking a great deal upon yourself unasked——'
'What? What?'
A very rapid clear voice cut in. 'Do you want another three minutes?' it asked.
He hung up the receiver with violence. 'Oh, damn the woman, damn the woman,' he said, so loud that the Twites shook like reeds to hear him.
At the other end Miss Entwhistle was walking away lost in thought. Her position was thoroughly unpleasant. She disliked extraordinarily that she should at that moment contain an egg and some coffee which had once been Wemyss's. She would have breakfasted on a cup of tea only, if it hadn't been that Lucy was going to need looking after that day, and the looker-after must be nourished. As she went upstairs again, a faint red spot on each cheek, she couldn't help being afraid that she and Everard would have to exercise patience before they got to be fond of each other. On the telephone he hardly did himself justice, she thought.
Lucy hadn't had a good night. She woke up suddenly from what was apparently a frightening dream soon after Miss Entwhistle had composed herself on the sofa, and had been very restless and hot for a long time. There seemed to be a great many things about the room that she didn't like. One of them was the bed. Probably the poor little thing was bemused by her dream and her feverishness, but she said several things about the bed which showed that it was on her mind. Miss Entwhistle had warmed some milk on a spirit-lamp provided by Lizzie, and had given it to her and soothed her and petted her. She didn't mention the window, for which Miss Entwhistle was thankful; but when first she woke up from her frightening dream and her aunt hurried across to her, she had stared at her and actually called her Everard—her, in her meek plaits. When this happened Miss Entwhistle made up her mind that the doctor should be sent for the first thing in the morning. About six she tumbled into an uncomfortable sleep again, and Miss Entwhistle crept out of the room and dressed. Certainly she was going to have a doctor round, and hear what he had to say; and as soon as she was strengthened by breakfast she would do her duty and telephone to Everard.
This she did, with the result that she returned to Lucy's room with a little red spot on each cheek; and when she looked at Lucy, still uneasily sleeping and breathing as though her chest were all sore, the idea that she was to get up and travel to London made the red spots on Miss Entwhistle's cheeks burn brighter. She calmed down, however, on remembering that Everard couldn't see how evidently poorly the child was, and told herself that if he could he would be all tenderness. She told herself this, but she didn't believe it; and then she was vexed that she didn't believe it. Lucy loved him. Lucy had looked perfectly pleased and content yesterday before she became so ill. One mustn't judge a man by his way with a telephone.
At ten o'clock the doctor came. He had been in Strorley for years, and was its only doctor. He was one of those guests who used to dine at The Willows in the early days of Wemyss's possession of it. Occasionally he had attended the late Mrs. Wemyss; and the last time he had been in the house was when he was sent for suddenly on the day of her death. He, in common with the rest of Strorley, had heard of Wemyss's second marriage, and he shared the general shocked surprise. Strorley, which looked such an unconscious place, such a torpid, unconscious riverside place, was nevertheless intensely sensitive to shocks, and it hadn't at all recovered from the shock of that poor Mrs. Wemyss's death and the very dreadful inquest, when the fresh shock of another Mrs. Wemyss arriving on the scene made it, as it were, reel anew, and made it reel worse. Marriage so quickly on the heels of that terrible death? The Wemysses were only week-enders and summer holiday people, so that it wasn't quite so scandalous to have them in Strorley as it would have been if they were unintermittent residents, yet it was serious enough. That inquest had been in all the newspapers. To have a house in one's midst which produced doubtful coroner's verdicts was a blot on any place, and the new Mrs. Wemyss couldn't possibly be anything but thoroughly undesirable. Of course no one would call on her. Impossible. And when the doctor was rung up and asked to come round, he didn't tell his wife where he was going, because he didn't wish for trouble.
Chesterton—how well he remembered Chesterton; but after all, it was only the other day that he was there last—ushered him into the library, and he was standing gloomily in front of the empty grate, looking neither to the right nor to the left for he disliked the memories connected with the flags outside the window, and wishing he had a partner because then he would have sent him instead, when a spare little lady, bland and pleasant, came in and said she was the patient's aunt. An educated little lady; not at all the sort of relative he would have expected the new Mrs. Wemyss to have.
There was a general conviction in Strorley that the new Mrs. Wemyss must have been a barmaid, a typist, or a nursery governess,—was, that is, either very bold, very poor, or very meek. Else how could she have married Wemyss? And this conviction had reached and infected even the doctor, who was a busy man off whom gossip usually slid. When, however, he saw Miss Entwhistle he at once was sure that there was nothing in it. This wasn't the aunt of either the bold, the poor, or the meek; this was just a decent gentlewoman. He shook hands with her, really pleased to see her. Everybody was always pleased to see Miss Entwhistle, except Wemyss.
'Nothing serious, I hope?' asked the doctor.
Miss Entwhistle said she didn't think there was, but that her nephew——
'You mean Mr. Wemyss?'
She bowed her head. She did mean Mr. Wemyss. Her nephew. Her nephew, that is, by marriage.
'Quite,' said the doctor.
Her nephew naturally wanted his wife to go up and join him in London.
'Naturally,' said the doctor.
And she wanted to know when she would be fit to go.
'Then let us go upstairs and I'll tell you,' said the doctor.
This was a very pleasant little lady, he thought as he followed her up the well-known stairs, to have become related to Wemyss immediately on the top of all that affair. Now he would have said himself that after such a ghastly thing as that most women——
But here they arrived in the bedroom and his sentence remained unfinished, because on seeing the small head on the pillow of the treble bed he thought, 'Why, he's married a child. What an extraordinary thing.'
'How old is she?' he asked Miss Entwhistle, for Lucy was still uneasily sleeping; and when she told him he was surprised.
'It's because she's out of proportion to the bed,' explained Miss Entwhistle in a whisper. 'She doesn't usually look so inconspicuous.'
The whispering and being looked at woke Lucy, and the doctor sat down beside her and got to business. The result was what Miss Entwhistle expected: she had a very violent feverish cold, which might turn into anything if she were not kept in bed. If she were, and with proper looking after, she would be all right in a few days. He laughed at the idea of London.
'How did you come to get such a violent chill?' he asked Lucy.
'I don't—know,' she answered.
'Well, don't talk,' he said, laying her hand down on the quilt—he had been holding it while his sharp eyes watched her—and giving it a brief pat of farewell. 'Just lie there and get better. I'll send something for your throat, and I'll look in again to-morrow.'
Miss Entwhistle went downstairs with him feeling as if she had buckled him on as a shield, and would be able, clad in such armour, to face anything Everard might say.
'She likes that room?' he asked abruptly, pausing a moment in the hall.
'I can't quite make out,' said Miss Entwhistle. 'We haven't had any talk at all yet. It was from that window, wasn't it, that——?'
'No. The one above;'
'The one above? Oh really.'
'Yes. There's a sitting-room. But I was thinking whether being in the same bed—well, good-bye. Cheer her up. She'll want it when she's better. She'll feel weak. I'll be round to-morrow.'
He went out pulling on his gloves, followed to the steps by Miss Entwhistle.
On the steps he paused again. 'How does she like being here?' he asked.
'I don't know,' said Miss Entwhistle. 'We haven't talked at all yet.'
She looked at him a moment, and then added, 'She's very much in love.'
'Ah. Yes. Really. I see. Well, good-bye.'
He turned to go.
'It's wonderful, wonderful,' he said, pausing once more.
'What is wonderful?'
'What love will do.'
'It is indeed,' agreed Miss Entwhistle, thinking of all it had done to Lucy.
He seemed as if he were going to say something more, but thought better of it and climbed into his dogcart and was driven away.
Two days went by undisturbed by the least manifestation from Wemyss. Miss Entwhistle wrote to him on each of the afternoons, telling him of Lucy's progress and of what the doctor said about her, and on each of the evenings she lay down on the sofa to sleep feeling excessively insecure, for how very likely that he would come down by some late train and walk in, and then there she would be. In spite of that, she would have been very glad if he had walked in, it would have seemed more natural; and she couldn't help wondering whether the little thing in the bed wasn't thinking so too. But nothing happened. He didn't come, he didn't write, he made no sign of any sort. 'Curious,' said Miss Entwhistle to herself; and forbore to criticise further.
They were peaceful days. Lucy was getting better all the time, though still kept carefully in bed by the doctor, and Miss Entwhistle felt as much justified in being in the house as Chesterton or Lizzie, for she was performing duties under a doctor's directions. Also the weather was quiet and sunshiny. In fact, there was peace.
On Thursday the doctor said Lucy might get up for a few hours and sit on the sofa; and there, its asperities softened by pillows, she sat and had tea, and through the open window came the sweet smells of April. The gardener was mowing the lawn, and one of the smells was of the cut grass; Miss Entwhistle had been out for a walk, and found some windflowers and some lovely bright green moss, and put them in a bowl; the doctor had brought a little bunch of violets out of his garden; the afternoon sun lay beautifully on the hills across the river; the river slid past the end of the garden tranquilly; and Miss Entwhistle, pouring out Lucy's tea and buttering her toast, felt that she could at that moment very nearly have been happy, in spite of its being The Willows she was in, if there hadn't, in the background, brooding over her day and night, been that very odd and disquieting silence of Everard's.
As if Lucy knew what she was thinking, she said—it was the first time she had talked of him—'You know, Aunt Dot, Everard will have been fearfully busy this week, because of having been away so long.'
'Oh of course,' agreed Miss Entwhistle with much heartiness. 'I'm sure the poor dear has been run off his legs.'
'He didn't—he hasn't——'
Lucy flushed and broke off.
'I suppose,' she began again after a minute, 'there's been nothing from him? No message, I mean? On the telephone or anything?'
'No, I don't think there has—not since our talk the first day,' said Miss Entwhistle.
'Oh? Did he telephone the first day?' asked Lucy quickly. 'You never told me.'
'You were asleep nearly all that day. Yes,' said Miss Entwhistle, clearing her throat, 'we had a—we had quite a little talk.'
'What did he say?'
'Well, he naturally wanted you to be well enough to go up to London, and of course he was very sorry you couldn't.'
Lucy looked suddenly much happier.
'Yes,' said Miss Entwhistle, as though in answer to the look.
'He hates writing letters, you know, Aunt Dot,' Lucy said presently.
'Men do,' said Miss Entwhistle. 'It's very curious,' she continued brightly, 'but mendo.'
'And he hates telephoning. It was wonderful for him to have telephoned that day.'
'Men,' said Miss Entwhistle, 'are very funny about some things.'
'To-day is Thursday, isn't it,' said Lucy. 'He ought to be here by one o'clock to-morrow.'
Miss Entwhistle started. 'To-morrow?' she repeated. 'Really? Does he? I mean, ought he? Somehow I had supposed Saturday. The week-end somehow suggests Saturdays to me.'
'No. He—we,' Lucy corrected herself, 'come down on Fridays. He's sure to be down in time for lunch.'
'Oh is he?' said Miss Entwhistle, thinking a great many things very quickly. 'Well, if it is his habit,' she went on, 'I am sure too that he will. Do you remember how we set our clocks by him when he came to tea in Eaton Terrace?'
Lucy smiled, and the remembrance of those days of love, and of all his dear, funny ways, flooded her heart and washed out for a moment the honeymoon, the birthday, everything that had happened since.
Miss Entwhistle couldn't but notice the unmistakable love-look. 'OhI'm so glad you love each other so much,' she said with all her heart. 'You know, Lucy, I was afraid that perhaps this house——'
She stopped, because adequately to discuss The Willows in all its aspects needed, she felt, perfect health on both sides.
'Yes, I don't think a house matters when people love each other,' said Lucy.
'Not a bit. Not a bit,' agreed Miss Entwhistle. Not even, she thought robustly, when it was a house with a recent dreadful history. Love—she hadn't herself experienced it, but what was an imagination for except to imagine with?—love was so strong an armour that nothing could reach one and hurt one through it. That was why lovers were so selfish. They sat together inside their armour perfectly safe, entirely untouchable, completely uninterested in what happened to the rest of the world. 'Besides,' she went on aloud, 'you'll alter it.'
Lucy's smile at that was a little sickly. Aunt Dot's optimism seemed to her extravagant. She was unable to see herself altering The Willows.
'You'll have all your father's furniture and books to put about,' said Aunt Dot, continuing in optimism. 'Why, you'll be able to make the place really quite—quite——'
She was going to say habitable, but ate another piece of toast instead.
'Yes, I expect I'll have the books here, anyhow,' said Lucy. 'There's a sitting-room upstairs with room in it.'
'Is there?' said Miss Entwhistle, suddenly very attentive.
'Lots of room. It's to be my sitting-room, and the books could go there. Except that—except that——'
'Except what?' asked Miss Entwhistle.
'I don't know. I don't much want to alter that room. It was Vera's.'
'I should alter it beyond recognition,' said Miss Entwhistle firmly.
Lucy was silent. She felt too flabby, after her three days with a temperature, to engage in discussion with anybody firm.
'That's to say,' said Miss Entwhistle, 'if you like having the room at all. I should have thought——'
'Oh yes, I like having the room,' said Lucy, flushing.
Then it was Miss Entwhistle who was silent; and she was silent because she didn't believe Lucy really could like having the actual room from which that unfortunate Vera met her death. It wasn't natural. The child couldn't mean it. She needed feeding up. Perhaps they had better not talk about rooms; not till Lucy was stronger. Perhaps they had better not talk at all, because everything they said was bound in the circumstances to lead either to Everard or Vera.
'Wouldn't you like me to read aloud to you a little while before you go back to bed?' she asked, when Lizzie came in to clear away the tea-things.
Lucy thought this a very good idea. 'Oh do, Aunt Dot,' she said; for she too was afraid of what talking might lead to. Aunt Dot was phenomenally quick. Lucy felt she couldn't bear it, she simply couldn't bear it, if Aunt Dot were to think that perhaps Everard.... So she said quite eagerly, 'Oh do, Aunt Dot,' and not until she had said it did she remember that the books were locked up, and the key was on Everard's watch-chain. Then she sat looking up at Aunt Dot with a startled, conscience-stricken face.
'What is it, Lucy?' asked Miss Entwhistle, wondering why she had turned red.
Just in time Lucy remembered that there were Vera's books. 'Do you mind very much going up to the sitting-room?' she asked. 'Vera's books——'
Miss Entwhistle did mind very much going up to the sitting-room, and saw no reason why Vera's books should be chosen. Why should she have to read Vera's books? Why did Lucy want just those, and look so odd and guilty about it? Certainly the child needed feeding up. It wasn't natural, it was unwholesome, this queer attraction she appeared to feel towards Vera.
She didn't say anything of this, but remarked that there was a room called the library in the house which suggested books, and hadn't she better choose something from out of that,—go down, instead of go up.
Lucy, painfully flushed, looked at her. Nothing would induce her to tell her about the key. Aunt Dot would think it so ridiculous.
'Yes, but Everard——' she stammered. 'They're rather special books—he doesn't like them taken out of the room——'
'Oh,' said Miss Entwhistle, trying hard to avoid any opinion of any sort.
'But I don't see why you should go up all those stairs, Aunt Dot darling,' Lucy went on. 'Lizzie will, won't you, Lizzie? Bring down some of the books—any of them. An armful.'
Lizzie, thus givencarte blanche, brought down the six first books from the top shelf, and set them on the table beside Lucy.
Lucy recognised the cover of one of them at once, it wasWuthering Heights.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The next one was Emily Brontë's collected poems.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The third one was Thomas Hardy'sTime's Laughing-Stocks.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The other three were Baedekers.
'Well, I don't think there's anything I want to read here,' she said.
Lizzie asked if she should take them away then, and bring some more; and presently she reappeared with another armful.
These were all Baedekers.
'Curious,' said Miss Entwhistle.
Then Lucy remembered that she, too, beneath her distress on Saturday when she pulled out one after the other of Vera's books in her haste to understand her, to get comfort, to get, almost she hoped, counsel, had felt surprise at the number of Baedekers. The greater proportion of the books in Vera's shelves were guide-books and time-tables. But there had been other things,—'If you were to bring some out of a different part of the bookcase,' she suggested to Lizzie; who thereupon removed the Baedekers, and presently reappeared with more books.
This time they were miscellaneous, and Miss Entwhistle turned them over with a kind of reverential reluctance. That poor thing; this day last year she was probably reading them herself. It seemed sacrilege for two strangers.... Merciful that one couldn't see into the future. What would the poor creature have thought of the picture presented at that moment,—the figure in the blue dressing-gown, sitting in the middle of all the things that had been hers such a very little while before? Well, perhaps she would have been glad they weren't hers any longer, glad that she had finished, was done with them. These books suggested such tiredness, such a—yes, such a wish for escape.... There was more Hardy,—all the poems this time in one volume. There was Pater—The Child in the HouseandEmerald Uthwart—Miss Entwhistle, familiar with these, shook her head: that peculiar dwelling on death in them, that queer, fascinated inability to get away from it, that beautiful but sick wistfulness no, she certainly wouldn't read these. There was a book calledIn the Strange South Seas; and another about some island in the Pacific; and another about life in the desert; and one or two others, more of the flamboyant guide-book order, describing remote, glowing places....
Suddenly Miss Entwhistle felt uncomfortable. She put down the book she was holding, and folded her hands in her lap and gazed out of the window at the hills on the other side of the river. She felt as if she had been prying, and prying unpardonably. The books people read,—was there ever anything more revealing? No, she refused to examine Vera's books further. And apart from that horrible feeling of prying upon somebody defenceless, upon somebody pitiful, she didn't wish to allow the thought these books suggested to get any sort of hold on her mind. It was essential, absolutely essential, that it shouldn't. And if Lucy ever——
She got up and went to the window. Lucy's eyes followed her, puzzled. The gardener was still mowing the lawn, working very hard at it as though he were working against time. She watched his back, bent with hurry as he and the boy laboriously pushed and pulled the machine up and down; and then she caught sight of the terrace just below, and the flags.
This was a dreadful house. Whichever way one looked one was entangled in a reminder. She turned away quickly, and there was that little loved thing in her blue wrapper, propped up on Vera's pillows, watching her with puzzled anxiety. Nothing could harm that child, she was safe, so long as she loved and believed in Everard; but suppose some day—suppose gradually—suppose a doubt should creep into her mind whether perhaps, after all, Vera's fall ... suppose a question should get into her head whether perhaps, after all, Vera's death——?
Aunt Dot knew Lucy's face so well that it seemed absurd to examine it now, searching for signs in its features and expression of enough character, enough nerves, enough—this, if there were enough of it, might by itself carry her through—sense of humour. Yes, she had a beautiful sweep of forehead; all that part of her face was lovely—so calm and open, with intelligent, sweet eyes. But were those dear eyes intelligent enough? Was not sweetness really far more manifest in them than intelligence? After that her face went small, and then, looking bigger than it was because of her little face, was her kind, funny mouth. Generous; easily forgiving; quick to be happy; quick to despair,—Aunt Dot, looking anxiously at it, thought she saw all this in the shape of Lucy's mouth. But had the child strength? Had she the strength that would be needed equally—supposing that doubt and that question should ever get into her head—for staying or for going; for staying or for running ... oh, but running, running, for her verylife....
With a violent effort Miss Entwhistle shook herself free from these thoughts. Where in heaven's name was her mind wandering to? It was intolerable, this tyranny of suggestion in everything one looked at here, in everything one touched. And Lucy, who was watching her and who couldn't imagine why Aunt Dot should be so steadfastly gazing at her mouth, naturally asked, 'Is anything the matter with my face?'
Then Miss Entwhistle managed to smile, and came and sat down again beside the sofa. 'No,' she said, taking her hand. 'But I don't think I want to read after all. Let us talk.'
And holding Lucy's hand, who looked a little afraid at first but soon grew content on finding what the talk was to be about, she proceeded to discuss supper, and whether a poached egg or a cup of beef-tea contained the greater amount of nourishment.