Mrs. Brigstock, in the doorway, stood looking from one of the occupants
of the room to the other; then they saw her eyes attach themselves to a
small object that had lain hitherto unnoticed on the carpet. This was
the biscuit of which, on giving Owen his tea, Fleda had taken a
perfunctory nibble: she had immediately laid it on the table, and that
subsequently, in some precipitate movement, she should have brushed it
off was doubtless a sign of the agitation that possessed her. For Mrs.
Brigstock there was apparently more in it than met the eye. Owen at any
rate picked it up, and Fleda felt as if he were removing the traces of
some scene that the newspapers would have characterized as lively. Mrs.
Brigstock clearly took in also the sprawling tea-things and the mark as
of high water in the full faces of her young friends. These elements
made the little place a vivid picture of intimacy. A minute was filled
by Fleda's relief at finding her visitor not to be Mrs. Gereth, and a
longer space by the ensuing sense of what was really more compromising
in the actual apparition. It dimly occurred to her that the lady of
Ricks had also written to Waterbath. Not only had Mrs. Brigstock never
paid her a call, but Fleda would have been unable to figure her so
employed. A year before the girl had spent a day under her roof, but
never feeling that Mrs. Brigstock regarded this as constituting a bond.
She had never stayed in any house but Poynton where the imagination of a
bond, one way or the other, prevailed. After the first astonishment she
dashed gayly at her guest, emphasizing her welcome and wondering how her
whereabouts had become known at Waterbath. Had not Mrs. Brigstock
quitted that residence for the very purpose of laying her hand on the
associate of Mrs. Gereth's misconduct? The spirit in which this hand was
to be laid our young lady was yet to ascertain; but she was a person who
could think ten thoughts at once--a circumstance which, even putting her
present plight at its worst, gave her a great advantage over a person
who required easy conditions for dealing even with one. The very
vibration of the air, however, told her that whatever Mrs. Brigstock's
spirit might originally have been, it had been sharply affected by the
sight of Owen. He was essentially a surprise: she had reckoned with
everything that concerned him but his presence. With that, in awkward
silence, she was reckoning now, as Fleda could see, while she effected
with friendly aid an embarrassed transit to the sofa. Owen would be
useless, would be deplorable: that aspect of the case Fleda had taken in
as well. Another aspect was that he would admire her, adore her, exactly
in proportion as she herself should rise gracefully superior. Fleda felt
for the first time free to let herself "go," as Mrs. Gereth had said,
and she was full of the sense that to "go" meant now to aim straight at
the effect of moving Owen to rapture at her simplicity and tact. It was
her impression that he had no positive dislike of Mona's mother; but she
couldn't entertain that notion without a glimpse of the implication that
he had a positive dislike of Mrs. Brigstock's daughter. Mona's mother
declined tea, declined a better seat, declined a cushion, declined to
remove her boa: Fleda guessed that she had not come on purpose to be
dry, but that the voice of the invaded room had itself given her the
hint.
"I just came on the mere chance," she said. "Mona found yesterday,
somewhere, the card of invitation to your sister's marriage that you
sent us, or your father sent us, some time ago. We couldn't be
present--it was impossible; but as it had this address on it I said to
myself that I might find you here."
"I'm very glad to be at home," Fleda responded.
"Yes, that doesn't happen very often, does it?" Mrs. Brigstock looked
round afresh at Fleda's home.
"Oh, I came back from Ricks last week. I shall be here now till I don't
know when."
"We thought it very likely you would have come back. We knew of course
of your having been at Ricks. If I didn't find you I thought I might
perhaps find Mr. Vetch," Mrs. Brigstock went on.
"I'm sorry he's out. He's always out--all day long."