‘I must not quarrel with Walter’s sister. I must be polite to
her. I am sure she means to be kind.’
But I was not sure, really. I felt always that underneath there
was a fight going on, between Maud and me, for Walter. It was
not quite a personal fight; she stood for one side of life, one
attitude towards life, and I for the opposite, and Walter was
wavering between.
It was true, of course, that I had been silly to buy the pheasant,
I realized that, and it was true, too, that I was stupid over
accounts, and did not know how to manage, and organize, and yet
I felt underneath that there were some things I knew and Maud
did not, some things I could understand, that Maud never would,
only my things did not seem to count when Maud was there.
She did not go away till after tea.
Generally, Walter and I went out in the afternoon. He worked
in the morning, and again after tea, but he had kept the afternoon
free, so far, and we used to go out and walk on Hampstead Heath,
or sometimes have a ride on the top of a bus. Walter had not
been much on the tops of buses; he went by Underground because
it was quicker, and he was always in a hurry to be where he was
going. It had never occurred to him that the actual process of
going, should be enjoyed, not, he said, till he met me. Hugo
always went on the tops of buses, and I had got the habit, I
suppose, from him. He would sometimes spend a whole afternoon
on the top of a bus; getting on at random, and going wherever
the bus went, to the very end. He used to see things from the
tops of buses; he used to watch the people and the streets; different
sorts of people, and different sorts of streets, and different
sorts of houses. He used to get quite excited sometimes about
people he saw like that. Walter never looked at people or things
he passed; he could read a book in the Underground, he said,
and not on a bus, besides its being quicker.
It was a joke between us at first, and so sometimes to please
me he would come on a bus, in those first weeks of ours. But
this afternoon we did not go out at all because of Maud, and
it mattered more because it was the last day before Walter’s
term began; after that he would not be free in the afternoons.
I don’t suppose this had occurred to Maud; but I don’t think
it would have made any difference if it had.
Walter went up to the study while Maud was teaching me; he looked
worried and cross, but whether he was cross with her or with
me, I did not know. He was cross at tea too, and afterwards,
when Maud went away, he did not go with her to the tube, as he
used to when his mother came to see us, but he did not come back
to me either. He went upstairs again and worked in his study
till dinner time.
The next morning, some pheasants came from Yearsly from Cousin
John, and I was afraid to have them cooked for dinner; I was
afraid they would remind Walter of the day before, and the trouble
there had been. I gave one to the charwoman, to take home, for
that was the day she came, and I sent the other to the children’s
hospital in Chelsea, near Mollie’s flat.
Sarah was annoyed with me that time; she said it was waste to
give pheasant to Mrs. Simms, and I told her a lie, and said Walter
did not like it; and then I went up to my room and cried.
Maud had made everything horrid. I have never known anyone like
Maud for doing that.