1
COLONEL OGDEN was convalescent.
Every morning now when it was fine he went out in a bath chair, dragged
by a very old man. The dreadful bend of the old man's shoulders as he
tugged weakly with his hands behind him, struck Joan as an outrage. The
old man shuffled too, he never seemed able to quite lift his feet; she
wondered how many pairs of cheap boots he wore out in the year. It was
the starting of the bath chair that was particularly horrible, the first
strain; after that it went more easily. Muffled to the eyes and swathed
in rugs, his feet planted firmly on the footstool, his hat jammed on
vindictively, Colonel Ogden sat like a statue of outraged dignity, the
ridiculous leather apron buttoned over his knees. Above his muffler his
small blue eyes tried hard to glare in the old way, but the fire had
gone out of them, and his voice coming weakly through the folds of his
scarf, had already acquired the irritable whine of the invalid. Mrs.
Ogden would stand, fussy and solicitous, on the steps to see him off,
sometimes she would accompany him up and down the esplanade, adjusting
his cushion, tucking in his rug, inquiring with forced solicitude
whether he felt the wind cold, whether his chest ached, whether his
heart was troublesome. The colonel endured, puffing out his cheeks from
time to time as though an explosion were imminent, but it never came, or
at least if it did come it was such a melancholy ghost of its former
self as to be almost unrecognizable. And very deaf, a little rheumy in
the eyes, and terribly bent in the back, the old bath-chair man tugged
and tugged with his head shot forward at a tortoise-like angle, the
dirty seams standing out on the back of his neck.
But though Colonel Ogden required a great deal of attention now that the
nurse was gone, his wife's immediate anxiety regarding him was relieved,
which gave her the time to brood constantly over Joan. The girl was
seldom from her thoughts, she began to loom even larger than she had
done before in her mother's life, to appear ten times more valuable and
more desirable, now that Mrs. Ogden felt that a serious rival had
declared herself. Elizabeth's words burnt and rankled; she rehearsed the
scene with the governess many times a day in her mind and went to sleep
with it at nights. She felt Elizabeth's personality to be well-nigh
unendurable; she could never look at her now without remembering the
grudge which she must always bear her, though a veneer of civility was
absolutely necessary, for she did not intend to lose her just yet. She
told herself that she kept her because she was still too tired to look
for a successor, who must be found as soon as she recovered from the
strain of the colonel's illness; but in her heart of hearts she knew
that this was not her reason--she knew that she kept her because she was
afraid of the stimulus to Joan's affection for Elizabeth that might
result from an unconsidered action on her part. She was afraid to let
Elizabeth go and afraid to let her stay, afraid of Elizabeth and
mortally afraid of Joan.
She watched the girl with ever increasing suspicion, and what she saw
convinced her that she was less responsive than she used to be. Joan had
grown more silent and more difficult to understand. Now, the mother and
daughter found very little to say to each other; when they were together
their endearments were strained like those of people with a guilty
secret. Yet even now there were moments when the mother thought that she
recognized the old Joan in the almost exasperated flood of affection
that would be poured out upon her. But she was not satisfied; these
moments were of fleeting duration, spoilt by uncertainty, by lack of
comprehension. There was something almost tragic about these two at this
time, bound together as they were by a subtle and unrecognized tie,
struggling to find each for herself and for the other some compensation,
some fulfilment. But if Mrs. Ogden was deceived, even for a moment, her
daughter was not. Joan knew that they never found what they sought and
never would find it now, any more. She could not reason it out, she had
nothing wherewith to reason, she was too young to rely on anything but
instinct, but that told her the truth.
The Horror was still with her; she wanted to love Mrs. Ogden, she felt
empty and disconsolate without that love. She longed to feel the old
quick response when her mother bent towards her, the old perpetual
romance of her vicinity. She was like a drug-taker from whom all
stimulant has been suddenly removed; the craving was unendurable,
dangerous alike to body and mind.
2
Now began a period of petty irritations, petty tyrannies and miseries.
Mrs. Ogden watched! She was gentle and overtired and pathetic, but oh!
so terribly watchful. Joan could feel her watching, watching her,
watching Elizabeth. Things happened, only the merest trifles, yet they
counted. One day it was a hat, another a pair of shoes or a pattern of
knitting wool. Perhaps Elizabeth would say:
"Put your black hat on this afternoon, Joan; it suits you." Then Joan
would look up and see Mrs. Ogden standing inside the dining-room door.
"Joan!"
"Yes, dearest?"
"I dislike you in that hat, put the blue one on, darling."
A thousand little unexpected things were always cropping up to give rise
to these thinly veiled quarrels. Even Milly began to feel uncomfortable
and ill at ease, but with I characteristic decision she solved the
problem for herself.
"I shan't stay here when I'm bigger, Joan; I shall go away," she
announced one day.
Joan was startled; the words made her uneasy, they reopened the eternal
question, presenting a new facet. She began to ask herself whether she
too did not long to go away, whether she would want to stay at Seabourne
when she was older, and above all whether she loved her mother enough to
stay for ever in Seabourne. They were sitting in the school-room, and
Joan's eyes sought Elizabeth, who answered the unspoken thought. She
turned to Joan with a quick, unusual gesture.
"Joan, you mustn't stay here always either."
"Not stay here, Elizabeth? Where should I go?"
"Oh, I don't know; to Cambridge perhaps, and then--oh, well, then you
must work, do things with your life."
"But, Mother----"
Elizabeth was silent. Joan pressed her.
"Elizabeth, do you think Mother would ever consent?"
"I don't know; you have the brain to do it if you choose."
"But suppose it made her unhappy?"
"Why should it? She'll probably be very proud of you if you make
good--in any case you'll have to leave her if you marry."
"But it might--oh! can't you see that it might make her unhappy,
dreadfully unhappy?"
"What do you feel about it yourself, Joan; are you ambitious, I mean?"
Joan was silent for a moment, then she said: "I don't think I am really
ambitious. I mean I don't think that I could ever push everything aside
for the sake of some big idea; I hate being hurt and hurting, and I
think you've got to do that if you're really ambitious; but I want to go
on working, frightfully."
"Well, you'll probably get through your exam, all right."
"And if I do, what then?"
"Then your Oxford Local, I suppose."
"Yes, but then?"
"Well, then we shall have to consider. I should think Cambridge for you,
Joan--though I don't know; perhaps Oxford is better in some respects."
She paused and appeared to reflect.
Joan looked at her fixedly. She thought: "This is said to me in direct
opposition to Mother; it's being said on purpose. Elizabeth hates her
and I ought to hate Elizabeth, but I _don't_!"