IV

Mrs. Hugh Greene arrived with a characteristic absence of fuss and

impedimenta. She greeted Miss Dorset in the hall with a friendly

smile, chatted to her for a moment and then said:

"I'll find Mrs. Greene in the drawing-room, I suppose?"

"Wouldn't you like to take your coat off, and have a little rest?"

suggested Miss Dorset.

"No thank you. I'm not tired; it's nothing of a journey; less than

two hours in the train."

Mrs. Hugh spoke briskly and appeared quite fresh and trim in her

small, old-fashioned hat and the neat dark coat and skirt of a mode

which she had first worn ten years ago, and had simply caused to be

repeated ever since.

Eight years younger than her sister-in-law, she was at a different

stage of life; still active and independent, able to make plans,

carry out her arrangements, and work indefatigably in her garden

regardless of wind and weather. Miss Dorset, however, looking at her

with an eye trained by experience to note each subtle stage of

increasing frailty, thought that Mrs. Hugh was beginning to show her

age, and watching her walk through to the drawing-room she decided

that her air of youthfulness was deceptive; it was more an effect of

manner than of physique. Later, when she rejoined the two old ladies

for tea, she was confirmed in her opinion. They were both quite

definitely old ladies; one apparently well, the other obviously in

broken health, but certainly of the same generation.

She placed a little table beside each of their chairs and busied

herself with the tea things.

As she poured out, she was keenly aware of Mrs. Greene's mood,

sensitive to the incisive alertness of her speech without actually

hearing what she was saying. All this expenditure of energy would

have to be paid for by extra rest. Mrs. Greene's personality might

over-ride her bodily ills and lend her a moment of spurious strength,

but the consequent nervous reaction would be all the more merciless.

Miss Dorset sighed as she refilled the tea cups. The alternatives

were so clear. Mrs. Greene could either relax her grip on life and

slide into a state of comfortable coma, with no ups and down, no

painful efforts and no particular alleviations, or she could live on

for a few years paying a heavy toll for her good moments in hours of

depression and physical malaise. There was no choice; the first was

temperamentally impossible.

Miss Dorset sighed again, and then resolutely set herself to join in

the conversation.

Mrs. Greene's expression was so deliberately blank as to be

provocative.

"Yes," she was saying, "Jessica and Hugh get home on Tuesday, but I

shan't be seeing them till the party on Friday, I expect."

"What party do you mean?" asked Mrs. Hugh innocently.

"Oh, you haven't had your invitation yet?" Mrs. Greene replied with

feigned surprise. "Well, it's a little dinner Edith is giving for

the six Mrs. Greenes. It will be so nice to have a reunion that we

can all enjoy."

Mrs. Hugh looked aghast.

"I never heard you say anything so fantastic in all your life," she

said decisively. "You may have something in common with your

daughters-in-law, but I certainly have not. I never agree with

Edith, and I disapprove of Dora."

"I knew you would say that," said Mrs. Greene triumphantly. "You've

got some sense, Sarah. It's a shocking plan, but when Edith gets an

idea into her head you know very well nothing will get it out again."

"Do you mean to say you're taking the trouble to go up to town just

to fall in with a whim of Edith's?"

Mrs. Greene looked a little helpless, and Miss Dorset interposed

quickly.

"Mr. Rodney is coming in the car to fetch Mrs. Greene. He is very

anxious to have her up in town again, even if it's only for a night."

Mrs. Hugh's rather stern face softened.

"Rodney is a good boy," she said. "You know, Margaret, the last time

I saw him it struck me that he was looking very like Geoffrey did at

that age."

"Do you think so?" asked Mrs. Greene eagerly. "I sometimes see it,

and then sometimes I can't see it, but I think Hugh is very like his

grandfather."

"Not nearly so good-looking. Geoffrey was very good-looking,

Margaret; he had a fine scholarly head."

"Hugh was handsome, too, Sarah. We were two fine couples in the old

days. Lavinia is like what I used to be."

"Yes, I think she is," agreed Mrs. Hugh. "And Martin is a nice

little boy, and very sensibly brought up. Tell me, Margaret," she

asked suddenly, "does it make you feel different to be a

great-grandmother? You're at the head of such a long line and I'm so

isolated in a way."

She broke off, and then added before Mrs. Greene had time to answer.

"Not that I'm not fond of Rodney and my own nephew Roger. Only not

having children and children's children makes me feel a little

stranded sometimes now that my own generation has ebbed away and left

me high and dry."

Mrs. Greene looked at her intently.

"I didn't know you felt like that, Sarah," she said. "But I tell you

this. At our age children are very little use. It's Geoffrey I

think of all the time, and I don't doubt but that Hugh is nearly

always in your mind.

"That's quite true," answered Mrs. Hugh simply. "I think it's only

natural that such happy marriages as ours were, should remain green

in our minds. I've never grown acclimatised to life without him.

Somehow familiar things don't seem so familiar."

Silence fell and Miss Dorset looked at the two quiet figures whose

silence covered so adequately their pain and rebellion.

"If you would care for a little rest before dinner, I think perhaps

we ought to go upstairs now," she suggested.

Mrs. Greene got up, waving away the proffered arm, which she would

accept only in the absence of visitors.

"Take Mrs. Hugh to her room," she ordered. "Sarah, we've put you in

the front room because of the view; the trees are lovely just now."

"I'm sure they are; it gave me quite a pang to leave Lynton even for

a week," said Mrs. Hugh conversationally as she left the room in the

wake of Miss Dorset.

Left alone Mrs. Greene walked with difficulty over to the window.

When Miss Dorset came back she found her standing there, a small

crumpled figure, darkly outlined against the orange curtains, gazing

at the gathering dusk with the inscrutability of her many years

carved round her mouth, but with a mysteriously youthful speculation

alight in her eyes.

V

Dinner was a meal of some ceremony.

The two old ladies sat at either end of the table with Miss Dorset at

Mrs. Greene's right, ready to help if her unsteady hands proved

unequal to the task of cutting her meat, or raising her wine glass,

which she insisted on having filled to the precisely correct level.

Mrs. Greene, in spite of all her modern outlook, had retained in many

ways an old-fashioned eye, and she had never been able to accustom

herself to the fashion for bare tables. It struck her as slightly

barbaric; not in keeping with the solemn tradition that had built

itself up around the ritual of dinner, a tradition that to her mind

necessitated the use of fine linen, heavy silver, and good china.

Candle-light, too, was abhorrent to her. The flicker of each

separate candle, and the alternate dark patches and uncertain pools

of light on the table which she considered should be illuminated by a

steady radiance, suggested to her something slightly decadent and

certainly grotesque. So the table was lit from directly above, by a

round brass fitting, each of whose five globes was covered by a rose

silk shade. This, with sconces on every wall, effectively dissipated

the gloominess of the severe shadowy room.

This evening one of the finest damask cloths with inlets of lace at

each corner had been put on in honour of Mrs. Hugh, and the heavy

silver bowl in the centre with its four attendant silver vases

arranged diamond-wise contained the last poor blooms from the garden,

mixed with leaves whose colours ranged from saffron through orange

and russet to flaming scarlet.

It was in keeping with Mrs. Greene's love of formality that the

conversation at dinner should run along prescribed lines. General

topics of any sort, trivial or abstruse, she welcomed--but forbade

anything of a personal nature to be discussed; gossip must be kept

for the drawing-room. This was sometimes a severe trial to Miss

Dorset who at the end of a wearisome day found herself forced to

eschew just those comfortable irrelevances which were all that

occurred to her tired mind.

Mrs. Hugh, however, like Mrs. Greene, was of that self-effacing

generation of women that had been brought up to make conversation at

dinner with the sole purpose of entertaining the gentlemen, and she

perfectly understood why clothes and personalities were permissible

in one room and taboo in another.

Accordingly throughout the meal the two old ladies were accustomed to

exchange a number of superficial generalisations which both were too

fatigued to pursue.

Mrs. Greene's single moment of animation was also one of indignation.

"You've not drunk your sherry," she said crossly. "It's still the

sherry that Geoffrey laid down and I've got enough palate left to

know that it's good. Why don't you drink it?"

"You know I never care much about wine," Mrs. Hugh replied, "I think

the only thing I really enjoy is a glass of good claret."

Mrs. Greene smiled.

"I remembered that," she said. "I told them to bring up a bottle of

the Pontet Canet. We had some up last time Rodney was here, and it's

got a beautiful bouquet."

"I shall enjoy that, Margaret," said Mrs. Hugh. "You know I've never

had to add anything to the cellar since Hugh died. Sometimes I've

been very sorry to think of the 1906 Veuve Clicquot going past it's

best; in fact once or twice I've thought of giving it to one of the

young couples, but young people don't seem to have cellars nowadays."

"That's true." Mrs. Greene's assent was a little morose. "They

don't go in for anything so permanent. If they want something to

drink they just ring up a shop and order a few bottles."

"There have been great changes in the last twenty years," reflected

Mrs. Hugh. "Some for the worse, no doubt, and many for the better,

but I confess I no longer find myself able to adapt very readily.

I'm too old to change."

This was dangerously like an expression of personal feeling and Mrs.

Hugh hastily covered her tracks by asking Mrs. Greene's opinion of a

new book of travel.

Dinner progressed slowly. The pheasant appeared, three small slices

of breast were eaten by the three ladies, it was removed and the

peach tart took its place. Mrs. Hugh, for courtesy's sake, toyed

with a minute piece of pastry, Miss Dorset enjoyed a reasonable

helping, but Mrs. Greene lacked the energy even to taste it. It was

succeeded by a savoury, which again for courtesy's sake all three

ladies made an effort to eat.

At last the interminable meal was ended. A little food had been

eaten, a little wine drunk, and a prolonged exhibition of fortitude

and good manners had been given by Mrs. Greene, whose weakness

clamoured for the easy comfort of a tray by the fire, but whose

instincts and training drove her to endure the full ceremony

prescribed by the laws of good society.

She was very tired when they went through to the drawing-room. She

sat relaxed and huddled in her armchair, stretching out her chill

hands to the fire, which leaped and spluttered.

"The logs are green," she said dreamily. "But I like to hear them

hiss like that."

"I like all country sounds and sights," answered Mrs. Hugh.

"That's what you live on, Sarah, I understand very well; Lynton is

what you live on from day to day; and you've got Hugh and your past

for a background."

There was a pause, broken presently by Mrs. Hugh who spoke quickly

and jerkily in her insistency.

"I find Lynton very lovely," she said. "It's to satisfying and

complete. I turn over the earth and take out things and plant other

things, and they grow and flower, and when they die, I plant

something else. And it all goes on round and round, so that I feel

quite confident that beauty renews itself even if it doesn't last,

and so I'm able to be happy."

Her credo ended abruptly.

"We're optimists, Sarah," said Mrs. Greene. "You know, only this

morning I was thinking something like that, but I don't remember now

what it was. I forget things; I forget the simplest things

sometimes."

"Don't let that worry you," advised Mrs. Hugh, gently. "We all

forget things when we're tired."

"I worry when I'm tired," confided Mrs. Greene. "Everything worries

me; the thought of Edith's party next week worries me. I don't feel

I can face it."

She relapsed into silence. In the glow of the fire her face looked

pinched and wan. Suddenly it sharpened into irritation.

"I must go to bed, Sarah," she said. "I'm sorry to leave you so

early, but I've talked enough for to-night, and I'll see you in the

morning."

She stood up, tremulous and uncertain.

"Miss Dorset," she called querulously, "help me to bed, Miss Dorset,

I'm tired."