For the rest of that day she let it wash; unresistingly. She couldn't
think any more. She couldn't feel any more,--not that day. She really
had a headache; and when the dusk came, and Wemyss turned on the lights,
it was evident even to him that she had, for there was no colour at all
in her face and her eyes were puffed and leaden.
He had one of his sudden changes. 'Come here,' he said, reaching out and
drawing her on to his knee; and he held her face against his breast, and
felt full of maternal instincts, and crooned over her. 'Was it a poor
little baby,' he crooned. 'Did it have a headache then----' And he put
his great cool hand on her hot forehead and kept it there.
Lucy gave up trying to understand anything at all any more. These swift
changes,--she couldn't keep up with them; she was tired, tired....
They sat like that in the chair before the fire, Wemyss holding his hand
on her forehead and feeling full of maternal instincts, and she an
unresisting blank, till he suddenly remembered he hadn't shown her the
drawing-room yet. The afternoon had not proceeded on the lines laid down
for it in his plans, but if they were quick there was still time for the
drawing-room before dinner.
Accordingly she was abruptly lifted off his knee. 'Come along, little
Love,' he said briskly. 'Come along. Wake up. I want to show you
something.'
And the next thing she knew was that she was going downstairs, and
presently she found herself standing in a big cold room, blinking in the
bright lights he had switched on at the door.
'This,' he said, holding her by the arm, 'is the drawing-room. Isn't it
a fine room.' And he explained the piano, and told her how he had found
a button off, and he pointed out the roll of rugs in a distant corner
which, unrolled, decorated the parquet floor, and he drew her attention
to the curtains,--he had no objections to curtains in a drawing-room, he
said, because a drawing-room was anyhow a room of concessions; and he
asked her at the end, as he had asked her at the beginning, if she
didn't think it a fine room.
Lucy said it was a very fine room.
'You'll remember to put the cover on properly when you've finished
playing the piano, won't you,' he said.
'Yes I will,' said Lucy. 'Only I don't play,' she added, remembering she
didn't.
'That's all right then,' he said, relieved.
They were still standing admiring the proportions of the room, its
marble fireplace and the brilliancy of its lighting--'The test of good
lighting,' said Wemyss, 'is that there shouldn't be a corner of a room
in which a man of eighty can't read his newspaper'--when the gong began.
'Good Lord,' he said, looking at his watch, 'it'll be dinner in ten
minutes. Why, we've had nothing at all of the afternoon, and I'd planned
to show you so many things. Ah,' he said, turning and shaking his head
at her, his voice changing to sorrow, 'whose fault has that been?'
'Mine,' said Lucy.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face, gazing at it and
shaking his head slowly. The light, streaming into her swollen eyes,
hurt them and made her blink.
'Ah, my Lucy,' he said fondly, 'little waster of happiness--isn't it
better simply to love your Everard than make him unhappy?'
'Much better,' said Lucy, blinking.
There was no dressing for dinner at The Willows, for that, explained
Wemyss, was the great joy of home, that you needn't ever do anything you
don't want to in it, and therefore, he said, ten minutes' warning was
ample for just washing one's hands. They washed their hands together in
the big bedroom, because Wemyss disapproved of dressing-rooms at home
even more strongly than on honeymoons in hotels. 'Nobody's going to
separate me from my own woman,' he said, drying his hands and eyeing her
with proud possessiveness while she dried hers; their basins stood side
by side on the brown mottled marble of the washstand. 'Are they,' he
said, as she dried in silence.
'No,' said Lucy.
'How's the head?' he said.
'Better,' she said.
'Who's got a forgiving husband?' he said.
'I have,' she said.
'Smile at me,' he said.
She smiled at him.
At dinner it was Vera who smiled, her changeless little strangled smile,
with her eyes on Lucy. Lucy's seat had its back to Vera, but she knew
she had only to turn her head to see her eyes fixed on her, smiling. No
one else smiled; only Vera.
Lucy bent her head over her plate, trying to escape the unshaded light
that beat down on her eyes, sore with crying, and hurt. In front of her
was the bowl of kingcups, the birthday flowers. Just behind Wemyss stood
Chesterton, in an attitude of strained attention. Dimly through Lucy's
head floated thoughts: Seeing that Everard invariably spent his
birthdays at The Willows, on that day last year at that hour Vera was
sitting where she, Lucy, now was, with the kingcups glistening in front
of her, and Everard tucking his table napkin into his waistcoat, and
Chesterton waiting till he was quite ready to take the cover off the
soup; just as Lucy was seeing these things this year Vera saw them last
year; Vera still had three months of life ahead of her then, three more
months of dinners, and Chesterton, and Everard tucking in his napkin.
How queer. What a dream it all was. On that last of his birthdays at
which Vera would ever be present, did any thought of his next birthday
cross her mind? How strange it would have seemed to her if she could
have seen ahead, and seen her, Lucy, sitting in her chair. The same
chair; everything just the same; except the wife. '_Souvent femme
varie_,' floated vaguely across her tired brain. She ate her soup
sitting all crooked with fatigue ... life was exactly like a dream....
Wemyss, absorbed in the scrutiny of his food and the behaviour of
Chesterton, had no time to notice anything Lucy might be doing. It was
the rule that Chesterton, at meals, should not for an instant leave the
room. The furthest she was allowed was a door in the dark corner
opposite the door into the hall, through which at intervals Lizzie's arm
thrust dishes. It was the rule that Lizzie shouldn't come into the room,
but, stationary on the other side of this door, her function was to
thrust dishes through it; and to her from the kitchen, pattering
ceaselessly to and fro, came the tweeny bringing the dishes. This had
all been thought out and arranged very carefully years ago by Wemyss,
and ought to have worked without a hitch; but sometimes there were
hitches, and Lizzie's arm was a minute late thrusting in a dish. When
this happened Chesterton, kept waiting and conscious of Wemyss
enormously waiting at the end of the table, would put her head round the
door and hiss at Lizzie, who then hurried to the kitchen and hissed at
the tweeny, who for her part didn't dare hiss at the cook.
To-night, however, nothing happened that was not perfect. From the way
Chesterton had behaved about the tea, and the way Lizzie had behaved
about the window, Wemyss could see that during his four weeks' absence
his household had been getting out of hand, and he was therefore more
watchful than ever, determined to pass nothing over. On this occasion he
watched in vain. Things went smoothly from start to finish. The tweeny
ran, Lizzie thrust, Chesterton deposited, dead on time. Every dish was
hot and punctual, or cold and punctual, according to what was expected
of it; and Wemyss going out of the dining-room at the end, holding Lucy
by the arm, couldn't but feel he had dined very well. Perhaps, though,
his father's photograph hadn't been dusted,--it would be just like them
to have disregarded his instructions. He went back to look, and Lucy,
since he was holding her by the arm, went too. No, they had even done
that; and there was nothing further to be said except, with great
sternness to Chesterton, eyeing her threateningly, 'Coffee at once.'
The evening was spent in the library reading Wemyss's school reports,
and looking at photographs of him in his various stages,--naked and
crowing; with ringlets, in a frock; in knickerbockers, holding a hoop; a
stout schoolboy; a tall and slender youth; thickening; still thickening;
thick,--and they went to bed at ten o'clock.
Somewhere round midnight Lucy discovered that the distances of the
treble bed softened sound; either that, or she was too tired to hear
anything, for she dropped out of consciousness with the heaviness of a
released stone.
Next day it was finer. There were gleams of sun; and though the wind
still blew, the rain held off except for occasional spatterings. They
got up very late--breakfast on Sundays at The Willows was not till
eleven--and went and inspected the chickens. By the time they had done
that, and walked round the garden, and stood on the edge of the river
throwing sticks into it and watching the pace at which they were whirled
away on its muddy and disturbed surface, it was luncheon time. After
luncheon they walked along the towpath, one behind the other because it
was narrow and the grass at the sides was wet. Wemyss walked slowly, and
the wind was cold. Lucy kept close to his heels, seeking shelter under,
as it were, his lee. Talk wasn't possible because of the narrow path and
the blustering wind, but every now and then Wemyss looked down over his
shoulder at her. 'Still there?' he asked; and Lucy said she was.
They had tea punctually at half-past four up in Vera's sitting-room, but
without, this time, a fire--Wemyss had rectified Lizzie's tendency to be
officious--and after tea he took her out again to show her how his
electricity was made, while the gardener who saw to the machinery, and
the boy who saw to the gardener, stood by in attendance.
There was a cold sunset,--a narrow strip of gold below heavy clouds,
like a sullen, half-open eye. The prudent cows dotted the fields
motionlessly, lying on their dry bits of grass. The wind blew straight
across from the sunset through Lucy's coat, wrap herself in it as
tightly as she might, while they loitered among outhouses and examined
the durability of the railings. Her headache, in spite of her good
night, hadn't gone, and by dinner time her throat felt sore. She said
nothing to Wemyss, because she was sure she would be well in the
morning. Her colds never lasted. Besides she knew, for he had often told
her, how much he was bored by the sick.
At dinner her cheeks were very red and her eyes very bright.
'Who's my pretty little girl,' said Wemyss, struck by her.
Indeed he was altogether pleased with her. She had been his own Lucy
throughout the day, so gentle and sweet, and hadn't once said But, or
tried to go out of rooms. Unquestioningly acquiescent she had been; and
now so pretty, with the light full on her, showing up her lovely
colouring.
'Who's my pretty little girl,' he said again, laying his hand on hers,
while Chesterton looked down her nose.
Then he noticed she had a knitted scarf round her shoulders, and he
said, 'Whatever have you got that thing on in here for?'
'I'm cold,' said Lucy.
'Cold! Nonsense. You're as warm as a toast. Feel my hand compared to
yours.'
Then she did tell him she thought she had caught cold, and he said,
withdrawing his hand and his face falling, 'Well, if you have it's only
what you deserve when you recollect what you did yesterday.'
'I suppose it is,' agreed Lucy; and assured him her colds were all over
in twenty-four hours.
Afterwards in the library when they were alone, she asked if she hadn't
better sleep by herself in case he caught her cold, but Wemyss wouldn't
hear of such a thing. Not only, he said, he never caught colds and
didn't believe any one else who was sensible ever did, but it would take
more than a cold to separate him from his wife. Besides, though of
course she richly deserved a cold after yesterday--'Who's a shameless
little baggage,' he said, pinching her ear, 'coming down with only a
blanket on----' somehow, though he had been so angry at the time, the
recollection of that pleased him--he could see no signs of her having
got one. She didn't sneeze, she didn't blow her nose----
Lucy agreed, and said she didn't suppose it was anything really, and she
was sure she would be all right in the morning.
'Yes--and you know we catch the early train up,' said Wemyss. 'Leave
here at nine sharp, mind.'
'Yes,' said Lucy. And presently, for she was feeling very uncomfortable
and hot and cold in turns, and had a great longing to creep away and be
alone for a little while, she said that perhaps, although she knew it
was very early, she had better go to bed.
'All right,' said Wemyss, getting up briskly. 'I'll come too.'