Henry was there; he arrived cheerful and full of good-will. If, coming
down in the train—three hours; how could anyone, good Lord, so bury
themselves in the country when they weren’t obliged to?—if, coming down
in the train, he had drilled himself rather deliberately into the
suitable frame of mind, at the actual moment of his arrival he found
himself unexpectedly invaded by a rush of genuine pleasure. He had been
touched by the sudden sight of his mother asleep in the porch, wrapped
in the same old cloak which he well remembered; her cheek, when he
kissed it, had been so cool and soft and naturally scented; and her
confusion and delight had both been so sweet and so candid. They went
into the house together, eagerly; he put down his hat and coat on the
same coffer which was in its unaltered place, and still the warmth of
homecoming had not deserted him. She took his arm and led him towards
the sitting-room, “Not much change, you see, Henry; I had to have new
covers for the chairs and the sofa, and I thought it would be nice to
have them a little different, but everything else is just the same. Now
I expect you’d like to go to your room and wash: I’ve had some hot water
put there for you; and luncheon will be ready in five minutes.”
He splashed over his basin, looking round his room meanwhile and
thinking how clean and fresh it was, and how jolly the view out of the
window with the river shining down in the valley, washing his hands with
an energy that brought the soap up into an instant lather, and as he
dried them on the soft huckaback of the fringed towel he smiled to
himself, for he remembered the old joke of his mother’s niceness over
such things as linen. He unpacked his brushes and brushed his hair
vigorously; it was sleek and black, and he brushed it till it shone like
a top-hat. He ran downstairs, jumping the last six steps and shouting
out to his mother. He felt quite boyish. He put his hand through her arm
and drew her out to the porch, where they stood while they waited for
luncheon. He held her arm close to his side in a possessive way. They
were both very gay, and rather tremulous.
V
“How well you look, Henry! and so brown; why, you might be twenty
instead of nearly thirty. Now what do you want to drink? claret, beer,
cider.... Try a little of our cider, it’s home-made, last season’s brew,
and I think we have got in exactly the right measure of wheat. It is so
easy to make a mistake—to put in too little or too much—but I think last
autumn we got it just right.”
But Henry did not care for cider; he preferred whisky and soda.
“Have what you like, of course, dear boy. Here are my keys, Sandford;
get the bottle of whisky out of my cupboard, please, and bring it for
Mr. Henry, and let me have the keys back. Dear me, Henry, we both have
so much to say to one another that it makes us quite silent. I scarcely
know where to begin. Never mind, it will all come out little by little,
and we have plenty of time before us. I have made a great plan of all I
want to show you this afternoon; you must come round to the farm after
luncheon and speak to Lynes, and I daresay he will like to have a whole
day with you, going over things, to-morrow or the day after that....”
She beamed at him where he sat opposite to her, at the end of the table,
and he smiled back at her; she thought how nice-looking he was, with his
lean, brown face and black hair. He had the look of hard health; she
remembered how well he had always looked in the saddle. It had, indeed,
been a great incentive to have this son to work for; to guard his
interests, to build up the perfect little estate for him to inherit. The
studious evenings she had spent had not been wasted; all that she had
learnt, conscientiously—for she would never trust wholly to Lynes’
experience—about manures, the rotation of crops, the value of luzerne,
the advantage of fat stock over dairy-produce, all that laboriously
acquired knowledge, in the service of such a son, had not been useless.
It wasn’t in the nature of women, she had decided long ago, to work
solely for the sake of the work; and this was one of the things she
often said, particularly when the subject of women’s emancipation was
mentioned. How impressed he would be, after luncheon, when she took him
out! He would expect her to know about the garden; the garden had always
been her speciality; but he should find that she wasn’t a docile
ignoramus about the farm, a mere writer of cheques to Lynes’ dictation.
She beamed at him again, hugging her satisfaction to herself. She was
glad that she had not been born a man, to work for work’s own cold,
ungrateful sake, but a woman, to work for the warm appreciation in a
fellow-being’s eyes.
And Henry was charming her, as she had expected to be charmed. He
chaffed her a little, and she fell into a little confusion, not knowing
whether to take him seriously, until she perceived that he was laughing
and then she reproached him for teasing an old woman and they laughed
happily together. He saw that he was being a success, and expanded under
the flattery. He teased her about her old cloak; she found an exquisite
thrill in the proprietary intimacy with which this man, who was like a
stranger to her, was treating her. She blushed and bridled; and the more
she bridled the more fondly he teased. His eyes were narrowed into
laughing slits; he leant over to her as he might have leant,
confidentially, over to any woman with whom he happened to be lunching.
She thought, with a queer envy, of the future Mrs. Henry; and the
thought made her ask, abruptly, “You’ve nothing to tell me about
yourself? You’re not engaged, I mean, or thinking of it?”
Henry looked taken aback by the question; then he threw back his head
and laughed.
“Good Lord, who to? You forget I’ve been in the heart of the Argentine
for five years.”
“Oh no, I don’t forget,” she said softly, thinking how little she had
forgotten, “but one finds old friends in London.... I don’t know....”
For a moment he seemed embarrassed; it passed.
“I’ve not been in London forty-eight hours and I had plenty of other
things to do there.” He said it glibly, hoping she would not wonder what
he had done with his evenings. She did not wonder, her imagination not
readily extending to restaurants or dancing places, or the bare
shoulders of women under a slipping opera cloak. She had forgotten about
those things; it was so long since they had come her way, even remotely.
And in spite of her benevolence towards Mrs. Henry she was conscious of
a fugitive relief.
“Then I needn’t feel selfish about keeping you here,” she said, “and it
will be a nice rest for you after your journey and all the business you
had to do in London. Now if you have quite finished, we might go out? It
gets dark so quickly.” They went out; already the fresh beauty of the
day was passing, it was colder, and there was more grey and less gold
between the trees. “Let us go up to the top of the garden,” said Mrs.
Martin, who felt she could not bear to keep the secret of the three
hundred acres to herself a moment longer.