She stitched and stitched, making new underclothing. It was going to
happen. Summer and Christmas and the New Year had gone. In another week
it would happen. She would be sitting with the Sutcliffes in the
Paris-Lyons-Mediterranée express, going with them to Agaye. She had to
have new underclothing. They would be two days in Paris. They would pass,
in the train, through Dijon, Avignon, Toulon and Cannes, then back to
Agaye. She had no idea what it would be like. Only the sounds, Agaye,
rose up out of the other sounds, like a song, a slender foreign song,
bright and clear, that you could sing without knowing what it meant. She
would stay there with the Sutcliffes, for weeks and weeks, in the pink
and white house on the terrace. Perhaps they would go on into Italy.
Mr. Sutcliffe was going to send to Cook's for the tickets to-morrow.
Expensive, well-fitting clothes had come from Durlingham, so that nothing
could prevent it happening.
Mr. Sutcliffe was paying for her ticket. Uncle Victor had paid for the
clothes. He had kept on writing to Mamma and telling her that she really
ought to let you go. Aunt Bella and Uncle Edward had written, and Mrs.
Draper, and in the end Mamma had given in.
At first she had said, "I won't hear of your going abroad with the
Sutcliffes," and, "The Sutcliffes seem to think they've a right to take
you away from me. They've only to say 'Come' and you'll go." Then, "I
suppose you'll have to go," and, "I don't know what your Uncle Victor
thinks they'll do for you, but he shan't say I've stood in your way." And
suddenly her face left off disapproving and reproaching and behaved as it
did on Christmas Days and birthdays.
She smiled now as she sat still and sewed, as she watched you sitting
still and sewing, making new underclothes.
Aunt Bella would come and stay with Mamma, then Aunt Lavvy, then Mrs.
Draper, so that she would not be left alone.
Stitch--stitch. She wondered: Supposing they weren't coming? Could
she have left her mother alone, or would she have given up going and
stayed? No. She couldn't have given it up. She had never wanted anything
in her life as she wanted to go to Agaye with the Sutcliffes. With Mr.
Sutcliffe. Mrs. Sutcliffe didn't count; she wouldn't do anything at
Agaye, she would just trail about in the background, kind and smiling,
in a shawl. She might almost as well not be there.
The happiness was too great. She could not possibly have given it up.
She went on stitching. Mamma went on stitching. Catty brought the lamp
in.
Then Roddy's telegram came. From Queenstown.
"Been ill. Coming home. Expect me to-morrow. Rodney."
She knew then that she would not go to Agaye.