“If only I could see her without her seeing me!”
“Wait a moment,” I said, and went to the garden to look for Rose, but she
had disappeared.
I returned to her mother and began to be practical. She had come in a
car, and the first thing to do was to take her bag out and send it back.
Then she consented to eat something, and while it was being prepared I
had the story.
Ronnie and she had been on their way back to England. He had wanted to
see his mother again, and his father’s executors too. But at Marseilles
Ronnie had died. It was where her father had died thirty-six years
before—how strange a coincidence!
Ronnie’s death followed up a chill, which he had taken, she feared, on a
visit to Theodore’s grave. They had gone to see it directly after
landing, and Ronnie now lay in the same cemetery, close by. Was not that
remarkable?
Since then she had been travelling steadily towards her daughter and me.
No one knew of her presence in England but Ronnie’s mother, living now
permanently at Torquay, who had been written to.
It was at this point that Rose the other Rose—came back. I saw her
across the lawn—her dress shone among the shadows—but her mother’s back
being to the window, she could not see her too.
Making some excuse, I slipped out.
“Who is it?” Rose asked, with a startled look, and a voice almost of
fear. “Is it—?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What has happened? Is—is he dead?”
“Yes,” I said.
She gave a little wailing cry and was gone.
“Rose! Rose!” I called, but she did not reply.