"But I've told Mother definitely that I intend to go in August."
"Yes, I know you have."
"But you're doubtful? You think I shall go back on you again?"
"You won't mean to do that, but so many things happen, don't they? I
think I'm getting superstitious."
"Nothing is going to happen this time," said Joan, in a voice which she
tried vainly to make firm. "I'm not the weak sort of thing that you seem
to think me, and in August I go to London!"
Elizabeth took her hand and held it. "I could weep over you!" she said.
2
The days were slipping by. It was now June and Mrs. Ogden still
persisted in her refusal to leave Seabourne. On this point Joan found
herself up against an opposition stronger than any she had had to meet
before. Gently but firmly, her mother stuck to her decision.
"You go, my dear," she said constantly now. "You go, and God bless you
and take care of you, my Joan." She seemed to be all gentleness and
resignation. "After all, I'm not as young as I was, and I'm dull and
tiresome, I know."
She had grown thinner in the past few weeks, and her stoop was more
pronounced. Joan knew that she must be sleeping badly, for she could
hear her moving about her room well into the small hours. Her appetite,
always poor, appeared to fail completely.
"Oh! Mother, do try to eat something. Are you ill?"
"No, no, my dear, of course not, but I don't feel very hungry."
"Mother, I must know; is your head worrying you again?"
"I didn't say it was; what makes you ask?"
"Because you sit pressing it with your hand so often. Does it ache?"
"A little, but it's nothing at all; don't worry, darling; go on with
your studying."
Joan often discovered her now crying quietly by herself, but as she came
in her mother would make as though to whisk the tears away.
"Mother, you're crying!"
"No, I'm not, dearest; my eyes are a little weak, that's all."
Towards Elizabeth she appeared to have changed even more completely. Now
she was always urging her to come to meals. "You'll want to talk things
over with Joan," she would say. "Please stop to lunch to-day, Elizabeth;
you two must have a thousand plans to discuss."
She spoke quite openly to Elizabeth about Joan's chances of taking a
scholarship at Cambridge, and what their life together would be in
London. She sighed very often, it is true, and sometimes her eyes would
fill with tears, but when this happened she would smile bravely. "Don't
take any notice of me, Elizabeth; I'm just a foolish old woman."
Joan's heart ached with misery. This new, submissive, gentle mother was
like the pathetic figure of her childhood; a creature difficult to
resist, and still more difficult to coerce. Something so utterly
helpless that it called up all the chivalry and protectiveness of which
her nature was capable.
She found a little parcel on her dressing-table one evening containing
six knitted ties and a note, which said: "For my Joan to wear at
Cambridge. I knitted them when I couldn't sleep." Joan laid down her
head and cried bitterly.
In so many little ways her mother was showing thought for her. She found
her going through her clothes one day. "Mother, what on earth are you
doing?"
"Just looking over your things, dearest. I see you'll need new stockings
and a new hat or two. Oh! and, Joan, do you really think these vests are
warm enough? I believe Cambridge is very damp."
She began to seek out Elizabeth, and whereas, before, she had contented
herself more or less with generalities regarding Cambridge and Joan's
life with her friend, she now appeared to want a detailed description of
everything.
"Elizabeth," she said one day, "come and sit here by me. I want you to
tell me all about your flat. Describe it to me, tell me what it looks
like, and then I can picture you two to myself after Joan's gone. Is it
sunny? Where is the flat? Isn't it somewhere near the Edgware Road?"
"In Bloomsbury," said Elizabeth rather shortly; then she saw that Joan
was listening, and added hastily: "Let me see, is it sunny? Yes, I think
it is, rather; it's a very tiny affair, you know."
"Oh, but big enough for you two, I expect; I wonder if I shall ever see
it."
"Of course you will, Mother," said Joan eagerly. "Why we expect you to
come up and stay with us; don't we, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth assented, but Mrs. Ogden shook her head. "No, not that, my
dear, you won't want to be bothered with me; but it's a darling thought
of yours all the same. And now, Elizabeth, tell me all about Cambridge.
When I'm alone here in the evenings I shall want to be able to make
pictures of the place where my Joan is working."
Elizabeth felt uncomfortable and suspicious; was Mrs. Ogden making a
fool of her, of them both? She tried to describe the town and then the
colleges, with the Backs running down to the river, but even to herself
her voice sounded hard and unsympathetic.
"Oh, dear, I'm afraid I've bored you," said Mrs. Ogden apologetically.
And Elizabeth, looking across at Joan, saw an angry light in her eyes.
3
Mrs. Ogden gave the maid-servant notice, without consulting her
daughter, who knew nothing about it until the girl came to her to
protest. "The mistress has given me a month's notice, and I'm sure I
do no what I've done. It's a hard place and she's awful to please, but
I've done my best. I have indeed!"
Joan went in search of her mother. "Why on earth have you given Ellen
notice?" she demanded. "She's the best girl we've ever had."
"I know she is," said Mrs. Ogden, who was studying her bank book.
"Then why----?"
"Well, you see, darling, I shan't be able to afford a servant when
you've gone, so I thought it better to give her notice at once. Of
course I couldn't very well tell her why I was sending her away, could
I?"
Joan collapsed into a chair. "But, good heavens, Mother! You can't do
the housework. Surely with a little management you might have kept her
on; she only gets nineteen pounds a year!"
"Ah! but there's her food and washing," said Mrs. Ogden patiently.
"But what do you propose to do? You can't sweep floors and that sort of
thing; this is awful!"
"Now don't begin to worry, Joan. I shall be perfectly all right; I can
have a charwoman twice a week."
"But what about the cooking, Mother?"
"Oh, that will be easy, darling; you know how little I eat."
Joan began walking about the room, a trick she had acquired lately when
worried. "It's impossible!" she protested. "You'll end by making
yourself very ill."
Mrs. Ogden got up and kissed her. "Do you think," she said softly, "that
I can't make sacrifices for my girl, when she demands them of me?"
"Oh, Mother, I do beg of you to come to London! I know I could make you
comfortable there."
Mrs. Ogden drew herself away. "No, I can't do that," she said. "I've
lived here since you and Milly were little children, my husband died
here and so did your sister; you mustn't ask me to leave my memories,
Joan."
In July the servant left. "No, darling, don't do the housework for me; I
must learn to do things for myself," said her mother, as Joan was going
into the kitchen as a matter of course.
A period of chaos ensued. Mrs. Ogden struggled with brooms and
slop-pails as a mosquito might struggle with Cleopatra's Needle. The
food she prepared came out of tins, for the most part, and what was
fresh was spoilt before it reached the table. Their meals were
tragedies, and when on one occasion Joan's endurance gave out over a
particularly nasty stew, Mrs. Ogden burst into tears.
"Oh! and I did try so hard!" she sobbed.
Joan put her arms round her. "You poor darling," she comforted, "don't
cry; it's not so bad, really; only I don't see how I'm ever to leave
you."
Mrs. Ogden dried her eyes. "But you must leave me," she said steadily.
"I want you to go, since you've set your heart on it."
"Well, I do believe you'll starve!" said Joan, between laughter and
tears.
Every evening Mrs. Ogden was worn out. She could not read, she could not
sew; whenever she tried her eyelids drooped and she had to give it up.
In the end she was forced to sit quietly with closed eyes. Joan,
watching her apprehensively from the other side of the lamp, would feel
her heart tighten.
"Mother, go to bed; you're tired to death."
"Oh, no, darling, I'll sit up with you; I shall have plenty of evenings
to go to bed early when you've gone."
Not content, apparently, with moderate hours of work, Mrs. Ogden bought
an alarm clock. The first that Joan knew of this instrument of torture
was when it woke her with a fearful start at six-thirty one morning. She
could not exactly locate whence the sound came, but rushed instinctively
into her mother's room.
"What is it? Are you ill? What was that bell?" she panted.
Mrs. Ogden, already out of bed, pointed triumphantly to the alarm. "I
had to get it to wake me up," she explained.
"But, my dear mother, it's only half-past six; you can't get up at this
hour!"
"There's the kitchen fire to light, darling, and I want you to have a
really hot bath by half-past seven."
Joan groaned. "Go back to bed at once," she ordered, giving her a gentle
push. "I'll light the kitchen fire; this is ridiculous!"
4
It was the middle of July; only a few weeks more and then freedom.
"Freedom, freedom, freedom!" repeated Joan to herself in a kind of
desperation. "I'm going to be free at last." But something in her shrank
and weakened. "No, no," she thought in terror. "I will leave her; I
_must_."