IX

§

Restored by the shock both of Sally’s loveliness and language to her

normal self, Mrs. Luke’s tears dried up and her emotions calmed down,

and she began to think rapidly and clearly.

This situation had to be dealt with. The only person who could deal with

it with any hope at all of success was herself. She would, then, grasp

it firmly, as if it were a nettle, and wear it proudly, as if it were a

rose. Yes, that was the line to take: wear it proudly, as if it were a

rose.

More clearly than if Jocelyn had explained for an hour she saw what had

happened, what couldn’t have helped happening, once chance had shown him

Salvatia. From those few words of Sally’s she reconstructed the Pinner

family and its conditions, and as she stood gazing at her, with one hand

still in Jocelyn’s, she grouped the whole Pinner lot into the single

word Gutter. Jocelyn had found and picked up beauty in a gutter. The

gutter was as evident as the beauty, and as impossible to hide. Accept

it, then; accept it, and make South Winch accept it. Treat it as quaint,

as amusing, as completely excused by the beauty. She had made South

Winch accept Tiepolo, when it didn’t in the least want to, and now see

into what an enthusiasm it had lashed itself! Even so would she make it

accept Salvatia; and ceaselessly every hour, every minute, she herself

would educate the girl, and train her patiently, and force her gently

into proper ways of speech and behaviour. Seventeen, was she? Mrs. Luke

felt that with seventeen all things were possible. A child. Wax. And she

was so really exquisite, so really perfect of form and colour and

movement, that it would be wonderful to watch her development, her

unfolding into at least the semblance of a lady.

Salvatia--‘No, no, dearest Jocelyn--not Sally, not Sally,’ she begged on

his calling her that, for she had a theory that names had the power of

making you be like them, and a Sally was foredoomed to unredeemable

vulgarity--should have masters (perhaps mistresses would be better,)

down from London, when once Mrs. Luke was married to Mr. Thorpe and

could afford things; regular teachers who would give her lessons at

stated hours, while she herself would give her lessons at all the

unstated ones. And she would take her everywhere, to each of the South

Winch festivities, whether tea-parties, or debates, or lectures, or

concerts or plays, and wherever she went Salvatia should be her open

glory. It would be a mistake in tactics, besides being an impossibility,

to try to hide her. She should be flaunted. For, confronted by a bull,

Mrs. Luke remembered, quite the best thing to do was to take it by the

horns.

So swiftly do thoughts gallop through minds like Mrs. Luke’s that she

had planned out her attitude in those few instants in the sitting-room,

while she stood gazing at Sally and holding Jocelyn’s hand.

‘We’re going to be _great_ friends, are we not Salvatia?’ she said,

laying her free hand on her daughter-in-law’s delicate little shoulder.

Great friends? She and the lady? The bare suggestion produced in Sally

that physical condition known to the Pinner family as fit to drop.

Directly questioned, however, she was forced to answer, so she said

faintly, ‘Right O,’ and Mrs. Luke, smiling elaborately and patting the

shoulder, said, ‘You very quaint little girl,’--and in spite of the

obvious inappropriateness of these adjectives as a description of the

noble young angel standing before her, she was determined that they

should, roughly, represent her attitude towards her.

‘Now we’ll all have tea,’ she said, suddenly becoming gaily

business-like. These children--it was she who must take them in hand. No

more emotions, she decided. Her beloved Jocelyn needed her help again,

couldn’t do without her.... ‘Won’t we, Jocelyn? Won’t we, Salvatia? I’ve

had some already, but I’ll be greedy and have some more. Jocelyn, you go

and tell Hammond----’ Hammond was the little maid’s surname, and by it,

to her great astonishment who knew herself only as Lizz, she had been

called since she entered Mrs. Luke’s service--‘to make fresh tea and

bring it in here. You must both be dying for it. And then you can say

goodbye to the Walkers for me, Jocelyn, will you?’ she called after him.

‘Tell them I’ve got a most beautiful surprise for them--quite soon,

perhaps to-morrow. _You’re_ the beautiful surprise, Salvatia,’ she said,

turning to Sally smilingly, who had made a sudden forward movement as if

to follow Jocelyn, and who, on seeing him go out of the room and leave

her alone with his mother, was so seriously alarmed that she again had a

queer conviction about her stomach, but this time that it was turning

what the Pinner family called as white as a sheet.

‘Of course you know you’re beautiful, don’t you?’ said Mrs. Luke, busily

pulling out the little table the tea was to be put on in the absence of

the proper table in the garden, and clearing Sir Thomas Browne off it,

and also two bright tulips in a clear glass vessel. ‘You must have heard

that ever since you can remember.’

‘But I can’t _’elp_ it,’ said Sally, very anxious, her eyes on the door.

‘’Elp it? You quaint child. There’s an h in help, Salvatia dear. Help

it? But why should you want to? It’s a wonderful gift, and you should

thank God who gave it you, and use it entirely----’ Mrs. Luke was quite

surprised at her own words, for she wasn’t at all religious, yet they

came out glibly, and she concluded they were subconsciously inspired by

the Canon in the garden--‘entirely to His glory.’

‘Yes, m----’

‘No--stop there, stop there,’ cried Mrs. Luke, quickly holding up her

hand and smiling. ‘You were going to say ma’am, were you not, Salvatia?

Well, you mustn’t. Not to me. Not to anybody. Except, of course,’ she

added, feeling she couldn’t begin too soon to help the child, ‘to the

Queen, and other royal ladies.’

And before her eyes floated that vision she had so often contemplated of

Sir Jocelyn Luke, of Lord Luke, and now was added to it Lady Luke, the

lovely Lady Luke, being presented at Court, and by that time as perfect

inside as out. Properly dealt with, Jocelyn’s marriage, instead of being

his ruin, might end by being one of his chief glories.

‘Sit down, little girl.’

Sally dropped as if she were shot on to the nearest chair, which was

Mrs. Luke’s.

‘Not there--not that one,’ said Mrs. Luke, smiling. ‘No, dear child--nor

that one,’ she added, as Sally having hastily got up again was about to

drop on to the next nearest one, which was Jocelyn’s--better get her

into all the little ways at once. ‘_Any_ chair, Salvatia dear, except

just those two. Yes--that’s a very comfortable one. Is not it too

strange to think that this time yesterday you and I never had seen each

other, and had no more idea----’

Sally, sitting down more cautiously on the edge of the third chair,

didn’t think that strange at all, but very natural and nice. There had

been lots of yesterdays without the lady in them, and all of them had

seemed quite natural. What really was strange was that they should have

left off and landed her here, shut up alone with somebody so happily

till then unknown. If only, thought Sally, she could now, having been

introduced and that, go somewhere where the lady wasn’t. For Mrs. Luke

terrified her more than any one she had yet in her brief life come

across. Worse, far worse, than her parents when, for her good, they used

to give her What for, and worse even than Mr. Luke when he turned and

just looked at her and didn’t say anything after she had passed some

remark, was this smiling lady who patted her. She couldn’t take her eyes

off Mrs. Luke, watching her with a fascinated apprehension, not knowing

where she mightn’t be going to be patted next.

Sitting sideways on the very edge of her chair, and still holding her

wrap tightly about her, Sally’s eyes followed Mrs. Luke’s slightest

movement. In any one else it would have been a stare, and Mrs. Luke

would have explained that she mustn’t, but there was nothing wrong to be

found with the look in Sally’s eyes,--nothing wrong, indeed, to be

found in anything she did, thought Mrs. Luke, arranging things

comfortably for everybody’s tea, so long as it wasn’t speaking.

Mrs. Luke knew she was being watched, but only, so it seemed, with a

lovely and gracious attentiveness. She also knew Sally was sitting on

the edge of her chair, with her legs drawn up under her just as if she

were trying to keep them out of something not quite nice; but no need to

disturb a position which somehow seemed sheer grace. What a pity, what a

pity, flashed across Mrs. Luke’s mind, that the child hadn’t happened to

be born dumb! Was that wicked? No, she didn’t think so. She herself

could imagine being very happy dumb, with plenty of books, and not

having to talk to bores.

‘Wouldn’t you like to take your hat off, Salvatia?’ she asked, drawing

Jocelyn’s chair closer to the little table.

Sally started. ‘No thank you, please----’ she said hastily.

‘Do,’ said Mrs. Luke. ‘I want you to.’

‘Yes, m--yes, Mrs. Luke,’ said Sally, instantly obeying.

‘Not Mrs. Luke, dear--Mother. You must call me Moth----’

Her voice died away, and she stood staring in silence. How wonderful.

How really amazingly beautiful. Like sunsets. And the girl, crowned with

that bright crown of waving light, like some royal child.

She stood staring, her hands dropped by her sides. ‘What a

_responsibility_,’ she whispered.

‘Pardon?’ said Sally, nervously.

§

The Walkers were got rid of, and Jocelyn came back frowning. They had

scolded him; him, who had been completely understood and unreproached by

his mother, the one person with either a right or a grievance. Having

known him since he was three didn’t excuse them, he considered; and it

seemed merely silly to rebuke him for leaving Cambridge when he wasn’t

going to leave it. He didn’t attempt to enlighten them; he just stood

and glowered, waiting till they should have done. What could old Walker

know of the way one was forced to react to beauty? He had probably never

set eyes on it in his life. And as for passionate love, the fiery love

that had been burning him up for the last few weeks, one had only to

look at Mrs. Walker to know he could never have felt that.

So he simply repeated, when the Canon paused a moment, that his mother

had asked him to say good-bye for her, and then, this second time, he

added, ‘She can’t come herself, because she is with my wife.’

‘Conceited young monkey,’ thought Mrs. Walker, who remembered him in

petticoats, and even then giving himself airs. ‘Wife, indeed.’ Both Mrs.

Walker’s sons were without gifts.

‘Your mother is an angel, sir,’ said the Canon sternly.

‘So is my wife,’ said Jocelyn, glowering.

‘No doubt, no doubt,’ said the Canon, who didn’t for a moment believe

it. Angels weren’t married in such a hurry. On the other hand, he was

sure young devils frequently were. They got hold of one and made one.

Jocelyn had been got hold of--lamentably, disastrously.

The Canon snatched up his hat. ‘Come along, Margaret,’ he said testily,

squaring his shoulders.

And Margaret came along, and together they marched off into the house,

along the passage, past the shut sitting-room door, accompanied by

Jocelyn who showed them out in silence.

He had said no word of that pleasant part of his mother’s message, that

part about having a beautiful surprise for the Walkers, perhaps

to-morrow, because he was annoyed with them, and they went away more

indignant with him than before, besides feeling they had been

treacherously treated by their hitherto dear friend, Mrs. Luke. And Mrs.

Walker, when they were safely out in the road, said what a very

disagreeable young man he had grown into, and the Canon said he hoped

Mr. Thorpe would lick him into shape, and Jocelyn, all unconscious of

Mr. Thorpe, went back frowning to his mother, who was in the act, when

he opened the door, of stroking Sally’s hair.

He forgot the tiresome Walkers, and his heart swelled with gratitude.

That Sally should be taken at once to his mother’s arms like this had

been outside his wildest hopes. Indeed, he had had no hopes, no clear

thoughts about it at all; he only, driven by weariness of the burden of

complications Sally brought into the simplest things, had come back to

his mother’s feet as the Christian sinner, tired of or frightened by his

sins, comes back to the feet of God. The analogy wasn’t perfect, of

course; Sally, so good and beautiful, couldn’t be compared to sin. But

he wanted to get back to his mother’s feet, he had a tremendous, almost

childish, longing to lie there and let her kick him if she chose. He had

treated her badly. He well knew he deserved it. Let her do anything in

the way of rebuke and chastisement, if only he might lie there, he and

his burden, safely cast down, both of them, at her feet. ‘_I will arise

and go to my Mother_,’ had floated frequently through his head as he set

the bonnet of the Morris-Cowley eastward towards London and South Winch.

Naturally he hadn’t said it out loud. Sally was incapable of

understanding even a simple reaction. This one, which was highly

complicated, would have completely bewildered her. Besides, one can’t

well speak of a reaction to its cause.

But how happy was Jocelyn at the moment when he opened the door, and saw

her and his mother in that attitude of mutual affection; how deeply

relieved. The cords were loosened, the weight shifted. Here this calm

room, with everything in it just right, just _so_--its restraints, its

browns and ivories, its flashes of colour, its books, its one picture;

and upstairs, up under the roof, his own attic waiting for him, with its

promise of work to be resumed, to be carried on as it used to be in the

tranquil, fruitful days before he met Sally.

Jocelyn stood a moment looking at the scene, smiling his rare smile

because he was so content. How unlike the places he had suffered in

since he last was here. How unlike the Pinner lair at the back of the

shop, where he had burnt in torment, and the hideous dwelling of the

Cupps, where he had been insulted, and the dingy expensiveness of the

Thistle and Goat, and the other three or four cynically ugly and

uncomfortable rooms through which he had trailed his passion. Impossible

not to smile, not to laugh almost, with gladness at getting home again.

He had, he knew, all his life loved his mother, but it seemed as if he

hadn’t loved her consciously till now, and he went quickly across to her

and put his arm about her, and said, ‘Mother, you must never leave me.

I can’t do without you. _We_ can’t. When I go back to Cambridge--and of

course I’m going back--you must come too. You’re going to live with us

there. Everything depends on you. All my future, all my happiness----’

And Sally, over whose head these words were being tossed, sitting very

rigid, for Mrs. Luke’s hand was still on her hair, and wholly

unaccustomed to displays of family affection, once again said to

herself, just for company’s sake and to keep her courage up, ‘Well, I’m

blest.’

§

Mrs. Luke, however, was brought back by Jocelyn’s words to a vivid sense

of Mr. Thorpe. He had sunk aside in her mind during the emotions of the

last half hour. He now became distinct; extremely distinct, and

frightfully near. That very evening he would be coming round after

supper--he had agreed that the meal itself should be given over to

reunion--in order to collect his young guests.

Jocelyn, she knew, had no idea of his existence. Mr. Thorpe, though

living in South Winch, had not till then been of it. His world had been

different. His wealth had separated him, and his obvious

disharmony--South Winch had only to look at him to perceive it--with the

things of the spirit. Also, there had been his wife. So that if

mentioned, which was rarely, it had merely been with vague uninterest as

the rich man in the big house in Acacia Avenue.

Now he had to be mentioned, and Jocelyn’s words made it difficult.

Mrs. Luke stood silent, her hand still on Sally’s head, encircled by

Jocelyn’s arm, while he told her of the plans he had been making for the

last two days, ever since it suddenly dawned on him that that was to be

their future. How could she interrupt him with Mr. Thorpe? Yet Mr.

Thorpe was, she was sure, the real solution. Salvatia was going to be

expensive, very, if the gutter was to be properly scraped off her, and

no further stretching could possibly be got out of her own income, while

Jocelyn’s, of course, would be all needed for Cambridge. Yes--Mr.

Thorpe, who had begun by being a refuge, had now become a godsend.

Jocelyn would see it himself, when he had had him properly explained.

But how difficult to explain him--now, with the sweet balm of her boy’s

dependence on her and his love being poured into her ears, her boy, who

in his whole life hadn’t shown so much of either as he had in the half

hour since he came home. Yet it wasn’t her fault, it was Jocelyn’s. It

was his marriage that had precipitated Mr. Thorpe into their lives.

Still, she didn’t blame Jocelyn, for no young man, let alone her

imaginative, beauty-appreciating son, could have resisted Salvatia.

She stood silent, smiling nervously. To have to quench this happy

hopefulness with Mr. Thorpe was most painful. She smiled more and more

nervously. Apart from everything else, it embarrassed her, her coming

marriage, it embarrassed her dreadfully, somehow, faced by her grown-up

son. The memory of that almost snapped tendon last night ... suppose

Jocelyn were to think she was marrying Mr. Thorpe for anything but

convenience, with anything but reluctance ... suppose he were to take

up a Hamlet-like attitude to her, and think--he would never, she knew,

say--rude things....

‘How delightful it all sounds,’ she said at last, removing her hand from

Sally’s head, who at once felt better. ‘Quite, quite delightful. But----’

‘Now, Mother, there mustn’t be any buts,’ interrupted Jocelyn. ‘It’s all

settled.’ And rashly--but then he felt so happy and safe--he appealed to

Sally. ‘Isn’t it, Sally,’ he said. ‘We want Mother, don’t we. And we’re

going to have her, aren’t we.’

‘Yes--and Father,’ said Sally, whose ideas were simple but tenacious.

‘Father?’ repeated Mrs. Luke, touched. ‘Dear child, your poor Jocelyn

has no----’

‘Mother, you and I must really have a good talk together,’ hastily

interposed Jocelyn, who saw Sally’s mouth opening again. She shouldn’t

_say_ anything; she really shouldn’t _say_ anything; the less she said

the better for everybody. ‘You and I. By ourselves. This evening, when

Sally----’

‘Salvatia, Jocelyn. Please, please.’

‘---- has gone up to bed.’

‘But you know, Jocelyn dear,’ said Mrs. Luke, loosening herself from his

clasp and withdrawing a little, ‘that’s just what the dear child can’t

go up to. Not here. Not in this tiny house. You didn’t think, of course,

but there isn’t an inch of room really--not for three people. So I

wanted to tell you--’ she began putting his tie straight, her eyes on

it, not looking at him--‘what I’ve arranged. You’re both going to be

taken in next door.’

‘Next door, Mother?’ said Jocelyn, much surprised, for he couldn’t at

all recollect the next door people.

‘Well, nearly next door,’ said Mrs. Luke, diligent over his tie, and

excessively annoyed to feel she was turning red. ‘At Abergeldie.’

‘Abergeldie?’ echoed Jocelyn, to whom the name was completely

unfamiliar.

‘I tell you what we’ll do,’ said Mrs. Luke, as though she had suddenly

had a brilliant idea, on the little maid’s appearing in the door bearing

a tray that seemed twice as big as she was, and all but dropping it when

she caught sight of the young lady on the chair. ‘After tea Salvatia

shall go and lie down in my bedroom and rest--won’t you, Salvatia,--and

you and I will have a quiet talk, dear Jocelyn--no, no, Hammond, not

there; here, where I’ve put the table ready--and I’ll tell you all

about--we want three cups, Hammond, not two--I’ll tell you all about----’

But she still couldn’t bring herself to mention Mr. Thorpe, and again

said Abergeldie.

‘Is that lodgings?’ asked Jocelyn, who didn’t at all like the sound of

it.

‘Oh, no--it isn’t _lodgings_,’ said Mrs. Luke brightly, giving his tie a

final pat.

§

How was she to tell him about Mr. Thorpe? In what words, once she had

got Salvatia upstairs out of the way, could she most quickly create in

Jocelyn’s mind the image she wished to have there of a good, and

honourable, and wealthy man, a man elderly and settled down, who

respected and esteemed her, and because he respected and esteemed her

wished to make her his wife? A good man, who would be a solid background

for them all. A good man, whose feeling for her--Mrs. Luke was most

anxious that Jocelyn shouldn’t suppose there was anything warm about Mr.

Thorpe--was that of a kind, and much older, brother.

Preoccupied and perturbed, she poured out the tea and drank some

herself, and hardly noticed what Sally was doing who, faced for the

first time in her life by no table to sit up to and only her lap to put

her cup and saucer and spoon and things to eat on, kept on either

dropping them or spilling them.

‘Well, Mother, you’ll just have to be very patient,’ said Jocelyn,

himself deeply annoyed when Sally’s spoon fell off for the third time,

and for the third time made a noise on the varnished floor, which only

had two rugs on it, and those far apart.

And Mrs. Luke smiled, and said ‘Of course,’ and hardly noticed, because

of her deep preoccupation with Mr. Thorpe.

But when the cup itself slid sideways on the saucer and upset, and

Sally’s frock was soaked and the cup broken, she was startled into

awareness again, and for the moment forgot Mr. Thorpe.

‘Oh, _my_!’ cried Sally, shaken into speech.

‘It really isn’t of the slightest consequence, Salvatia,’ said Mrs.

Luke, who was particularly fond of her teacups, of which none had ever

yet been broken. ‘Pray don’t try to pick up anything. Hammond will do

so. Jocelyn, ring the bell, will you? But I shouldn’t,’ she added, for

naturally she was vexed at the set being spoilt, and though breeding,

she knew, forbids vexation at such _contretemps_ being shown, yet it has

to get out in some form or other, ‘I shouldn’t say, “Oh, _my_,” when

anything unexpected happens.’

‘Right O,’ murmured Sally, shattered, all Jocelyn’s teaching vanishing

from her mind.

‘Nor,’ remarked Mrs. Luke, gently and very clearly, ‘should I say,

“Right O”.’

‘I’ve told her not to a hundred times,’ said Jocelyn, wiping Sally’s

frock with his handkerchief.

‘That’s right,’ murmured Sally, who had now lost her head, and only

wanted to admit her evil-doing and be forgiven.

‘Nor, dear Salvatia,’ said Mrs. Luke, still more gently and clearly,

‘should I, I think, say that.’

So then Sally said nothing, for there seemed nothing left to say.

‘She’ll be perfectly all right ultimately,’ said Mrs. Luke, coming down

to Jocelyn when presently she had taken her upstairs, and tucked her up

on the bed, and told her she was tired and must rest. ‘Perfectly.’

Jocelyn was waiting in the sitting-room. He and his mother were now,

having got Sally out of the way, going to have their talk.

‘You’re wonderful, Mother,’ he said.

‘Darling Jocelyn,’ smiled his mother. ‘It’s that child who is

wonderful,’ she added. ‘Or will be, when she has been properly----’ she

was going to say scraped, the word gutter coming once more into her

mind, but of course she didn’t, and substituted something milder. ‘When

she has been properly trained,’ finished Mrs. Luke.

‘It sounds like a servant,’ said Jocelyn, who was sensitive because of

the tin trunk (got rid of in Truro,) and the stiff nightgowns (got rid

of in Truro too,) and several other distinct and searing memories.

‘Servant? You absurd boy. She’s a duchess, who happens not to have been

born right--the most beautiful duchess the world would ever have seen.

Now never,’ said Mrs. Luke with much seriousness--she felt she must take

this situation thoroughly in hand--‘never, never let such a word as the

one you just used enter your mind in connection with Salvatia again, my

dear Jocelyn.’

No, he wouldn’t tell his mother about the way Sally had seemed to drift,

as if drawn, towards the Cupps, quite obviously wanting to make friends

with them, nor about the way she actually had made friends with the

spotted mechanic in the Truro garage. And as for Mr. Pinner, for whom he

had a curious distaste and of whom the remembrance was definitely

grievous to him, Jocelyn wouldn’t tell his mother about him either. He

would skim over Mr. Pinner. Why intrude him? Why dot the i’s of Sally’s

beginnings? His mother had heard for herself how she spoke, and knew

approximately what her father must be like. Let her knowledge remain

approximate.

So they went together into the garden--again Mrs. Luke instinctively

sought Nature,--Jocelyn determined to keep Mr. Pinner out of his

mother’s consciousness, and Mrs. Luke determined to get Mr. Thorpe into

his.

§

Arm in arm they paced up and down what Mr. Thorpe persisted in calling

the drying ground, in spite of Mrs. Luke’s steady reference to it as the

lawn, and Jocelyn said, ‘Her family come from Islington.’

‘Suburbans. Like ourselves,’ replied his mother, with a really heavenly

tact, Jocelyn thought.

But she wasn’t thinking of what he was saying and what she was

answering; she was seeking a formula for Mr. Thorpe. And, to gain yet a

further moment’s grace,--queer how nervous she felt--she stopped a

moment in front of the Kerria japonica in the angle of the wall by the

kitchen window, and asked him if he didn’t think it was doing very well

that year.

‘Wonderful,’ said Jocelyn. ‘It’s all perfect.’

He sighed with contentment at his mother’s progressive and amazing

tactfulness. How had she not from the first moment grasped the

situation, and needed no explanation at all. Now she was grasping the

Pinners, and dismissing them without a single question. ‘Suburbans. Like

ourselves.’ At that moment Jocelyn positively adored his mother.

‘Quite perfect,’ he said, admiring the Kerria. ‘Wherever you are, things

grow as they should, and there’s peace, and order, and exact

_rightness_.’

‘Marriage has turned you into a flatterer,’ smiled Mrs. Luke, still

putting off Mr. Thorpe.

‘It has made me realise what a mother I’ve got,’ said Jocelyn, pressing

her arm.

‘Darling Jocelyn. But surely rather an unusual result?’

‘My marriage is unusual.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Luke, bracing herself. ‘Yes. I suppose--we had better

talk about it.’

‘But we _are_ talking about it.’

‘I mean the future.’

‘Well, I’ve told you my plans.’

‘But I haven’t told you mine.’

‘Yours, Mother?’

He turned his head and looked at her. Surely she was rather red?

‘You know, Jocelyn,’ she said, in a queer altered voice, ‘I was very

miserable. Very, very miserable. You mustn’t forget that. I really

_was_.’

§

How differently Mrs. Luke had meant to introduce Mr. Thorpe; how clearly

she recognised that in their present situation he was their only hope,

and that he should be explained with the appreciation and praise due to

an only hope. And here she was prefacing him by a solemn declaration of

her own unhappiness. It wasn’t at all the proper beginning. It couldn’t

but be damaging to Mr. Thorpe. Besides, her pride had always been to

appear before Jocelyn in every situation as completely content and calm.

Breeding, she had preached to him ever since he was a tot, was

invariably calm, and behaved very much like the great description of

charity in St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians. Whatever it felt

it didn’t show it. But she had had a bad time lately, a bad, bad time,

and her nerves had been tried beyond, apparently, their endurance.

‘What is it, Mother?’ asked Jocelyn, surprised and troubled. Had his

mother been speculating, and lost?

She made a great effort to recover her self-control, and tried to smile.

‘Really some very good news,’ she said, resuming their walk. ‘We’ll go

and sit under the cedar, and I’ll----’

‘Mother, what is it?’ asked Jocelyn again anxiously as she broke off, a

cold foreboding creeping round his heart. ‘You’re not going to--you’re

not going to fail me now?’

‘I’m going to help you more than I’ve ever done. In fact, if it hadn’t

been for this--’ she was going to say windfall, but found she couldn’t

think of Mr. Thorpe as a windfall,--‘if it hadn’t been for this, I could

do very little for Salvatia. She will need----’

Had his mother been speculating, and won?

But what Salvatia would need Mrs. Luke didn’t on that occasion explain,

for as on their way to the cedar they passed below the open window of

the bedroom Sally had been left in, they heard voices coming from it,

and Mrs. Luke, much astonished, stood still.

Almond Tree Cottage was a small low house, and its first floor windows

were not very far above the heads of those walking beneath them in the

garden. Standing there astonished--for who could Salvatia possibly be

talking to?--Mrs. Luke listened, her surprised eyes on Jocelyn’s face.

He too listened, but with less surprise, for from past experience he

could guess--it was painful to him--what was happening, and he guessed

that Sally was reverting to type again, and coalescing with the servant.

At first there was only a murmuring--one voice by itself, then another

voice by itself, then two voices together; and his mother’s face was

frankly bewildered. But presently Sally’s voice emerged, and it rose in

a distinct, surprising wail, and they heard it say, or rather cry, ‘Oh,

Ammond--oh, Ammond----’

Twice. Just like that.

Whereupon Mrs. Luke let go suddenly of Jocelyn’s arm, and hurried

indoors and upstairs.

§

‘Are you unwell, Salvatia?’ she asked quickly, opening the bedroom door.

On the edge of the bed, her stockinged feet trailing on the floor, sat

Sally, and beside her, also on the edge of the bed, the little maid.

Mrs. Luke couldn’t believe her eyes. Their arms were round each other.

She hadn’t realised, somehow, that Hammond had any arms; not the sort

that go round other people, not the sort that do anything except carry

trays and sweep floors.

It came upon her with an odd shock. If Salvatia were ill, of course

Hammond’s arms would be in an explainable and excusable position. But

Salvatia wasn’t ill. Mrs. Luke saw that at once. She wasn’t ill, for she

was crying; and people who are ill, she had observed, do not as a rule

cry.

The little maid jumped up, and stood, very red and scared, with alarmed

eyes fixed on her mistress. Sally did just the opposite--she lay down

quickly on the bed again, and pulled the counterpane up to her chin and

tried to look as if she hadn’t stirred from the position the lady had

tucked her into when she left her. What she was ashamed of was crying;

crying when everybody was so good to her and kind, patting and kissing

her and that, even after she had broken the cup. It was terribly

ungrateful of her to cry, thought Sally. But she wasn’t ashamed of

having put her arm round Ammond. Friendly, she was; friendly, and seemed

to know a lot for her age, which was six months less than Sally’s own. A

bit shy she had been and stand-offish at first, but soon got used to

Sally, who was feeling ever so lonely and strange, and when Ammond--of

all the names for a girl!--came in with hot water for the lady to wash

in before the next meal, Sally, taken by her friendly eye, began talking

to her, and it was as great a relief as talking to the young fellow in

the garage, only with the young fellow she had laughed, and with Ammond,

to her confusion and shame, she did nothing but cry. But then the lady

... enough to make a cat cry, that lady ... going to live with them, and

never leave them any more ... keeping on smiling smiles that looked like

smiles, and weren’t....

‘_I_ know,’ said the little maid, nodding gravely.

Knew a lot, Ammond did, for her age.

§

Sally had been very thankful when that dreadful tea was somehow

finished--they had actually tried to make her have more tea, and begin

the cup and lap business all over again, but she wasn’t to be caught a

second time,--she had been very thankful to follow Mrs. Luke upstairs,

and let herself be laid out on a bed and told she must rest till supper.

Till breakfast next day she would rest if they liked, till kingdom come.

She didn’t want any supper. There were forks for supper, which were

worse than spoons, and perhaps they had that too just sitting round with

nothing but their laps. She didn’t want anything, not anything in the

world, except to be somewhere where the lady wasn’t. And the lady had

drawn the curtains, and then covered her up with a counterpane, and

smoothed back her hair, and told her sleep would refresh her, and bent

over her and kissed her, and at last had gone away--and how thankful

Sally had been, just to be alone.

Kissed her. In spite of the cup, thought Sally, who lay still as she had

been told, and reflected upon all that had been her lot that afternoon.

They didn’t seem able to stop kissing in that family, thought Sally, in

whose own there had been a total absence of what the Pinner circle knew

and condemned as pawings about. The Pinners never pawed, nor did any of

their friends. Nice, that was, thought Sally wistfully; knew where you

were. Among these here Lukes--so ran her dejected thoughts, with no

intention of irreverence but unable, from her habit of language, to run

otherwise--one never could tell where one wasn’t going to be kissed

next. Hands, hair, face--nothing seemed to come amiss to them when they

once got going. Kept one on the hop; made one squirmy. And Mr.

Luke--_he_ was different here. But then he kept on being different.

While as for that there lady----

At this point of her meditations Sally had turned her face to the pillow

and buried it, and to her surprise she found the pillow was wet, and on

looking into this she discovered that it was her own tears making it

wet. Then she was ashamed. But being ashamed didn’t stop her crying;

once she had begun she seemed to get worse every minute. And the little

maid, coming in with the hot water, had found her crying quite hard.

§

Mrs. Luke made short work of the little maid. She merely said, in that

gentle voice before which all servants went down flat as ninepins,

‘Hammond, I am surprised at your disturbing Mrs. Jocelyn’s sleep--’ and

the little maid, very red and with downcast eyes, sidled deprecatingly

out of the room.

Then Mrs. Luke took Sally in hand, sitting in her turn on the edge of

the bed.

‘Salvatia, dear--’ she said, laying her hand on the arm outlined beneath

the counterpane, and addressing the averted face. ‘Salvatia, dear----’

Sally’s tears dried up instantly, for she was much too much afraid to

cry, but she buried her face still deeper, and kept her eyes tight shut.

‘Don’t make confidences to a servant, dear child,’ said Mrs. Luke

gently. ‘Come to Jocelyn, or to me. We’re the _natural_ ones for you to

come to in any of your little troubles. Oh, I know honeymoons are trying

for a girl, and often, without knowing why, she wants a good cry. Isn’t

it so, Salvatia? Then come to me, or to your husband, when you feel like

that, but don’t say things to Hammond you may afterwards regret. You

see, Salvatia dear, you’re a lady, aren’t you--a grown-up married lady

now, and your place is with your husband and me. What, dear child? What

did you say?’

Sally, however, hadn’t said anything; she had only gulped, trying to

choke down her misgivings at this picture of where her place was. With

the lady? ‘Shouldn’t be surprised,’ she thought, in great discomfort of

mind as she more and more perceived that her marriage was going to

include Mrs. Luke, ‘if I ain’t bitten off more as I can chew----’ and

immediately was shocked at herself for having thought it. Manners were

manners. They had to be inside one, as well as out. No good saying

Excuse me, Pardon, and Sorry, if inside you were thinking rude. God saw.

God knew. And if you were only polite with your lips, and it wasn’t

going right through you, you were being, as she remembered from her

father’s teaching, a whited sepulchre.

And Mrs. Luke, contemplating the _profil perdu_ on the pillow, the tip

of the little ear, the lovely curve of the flushed cheek, and the tangle

of bright hair, bent down and kissed it with a view to comfort and

encouragement, and Sally, trying not to shrink farther into the pillow,

said to herself, ‘At it again.’

‘Why did you cry, Salvatia?’ asked Mrs. Luke, gently.

‘Dunno,’ murmured Sally, withdrawing into the furthermost corner of her

shell.

‘Then, dear, it was simply childish, wasn’t it--to cry without a reason,

and to cry before a servant too. Things like that lower one’s dignity,

Salvatia. And you haven’t only your own dignity to consider now, but

Jocelyn’s, your husband’s.’

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Sally to herself, recognising from the tone, through

all its gentleness, that she was being given What for--a new kind, and

one which it was extremely difficult to follow and understand, however

painstakingly she listened. Which parts, for instance, of herself and

Mr. Luke were their dignities? ‘Good job I ain’t a nursin’ mother,’ she

thought, for she knew all about nursing mothers, ‘or the lady’d turn my

milk sour’--and immediately was much shocked at herself for having

thought it. Manners were manners. They had to be inside one, as well as

out. ‘Never think what you wouldn’t say,’ had been her father’s

teaching; and fancy saying what she had just thought!

‘_Oh Gawd_,’ silently prayed Sally, who had been made to repeat a

collect every Sunday to Mr. Pinner, and in whose mind bits had stuck,

‘_send down the ’Oly Spirit and cleanse the thoughts of my ’eart with

’im forasmuch as without thee I ain’t able to...._’

‘Perhaps, dear,’ said Mrs. Luke, finding it difficult in the face of

Sally’s silence to go on--not for want of things to say, for there were

so many and all so important that she hardly knew where to begin,--‘the

best thing you can do is to bathe your eyes in the nice hot water

Hammond has put ready, and tidy yourself a little, and then come

downstairs. What do you think of that? Isn’t it a good idea? It is dull

for you up here alone. But bathe your eyes well. We don’t want Jocelyn

to see we’ve been crying, do we, dear child----’

And in the act of stooping to give Sally a parting kiss she heard her

name being called, loud and cheerily, downstairs in the hall.

She started to her feet.

‘Margery! Margery!’ called the voice, with the cheerful insistence of

one who, being betrothed, has the right to be cheerful and insistent in

his fiancée’s hall.

Edgar. Come hours before his time.

§

‘Oh, hush, _hush_----’ besought Mrs. Luke, hurrying down to him.

‘Hush, eh?’

‘Jocelyn----’

She glanced fearfully along the passage to the backdoor.

‘He’s arrived,’ said Mr. Thorpe, not hushing at all. ‘Know that. Saw

his--well, you can hardly call it a car, can you--his contraption,

outside the gate.’

‘But I haven’t had time yet to tell him----’

‘That he’s been a fool?’ interrupted Mr. Thorpe.

‘Come in here,’ said Mrs. Luke, taking him by the arm and pressing him

into the parlour, the door of which she shut.

‘Brought you this,’ said Mr. Thorpe, holding up a fish-basket, a big

one, in front of her face. ‘Salmon. Prime cut. Thought it would be a bit

of something worth eating for your--well, you don’t have dinner, do

you--meal, then, to-night. Came back early from the City on purpose to

get it here soon enough.’

‘How kind, how kind,’ murmured Mrs. Luke distractedly.

‘Plenty of it, too,’ said Mr. Thorpe, slapping the basket.

‘Too much, too much,’ murmured Mrs. Luke, not quite sure whether it were

the salmon she was talking about.

‘Too much? Not a bit of it,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘I hate skimp.’

And he was going to put down his present on the nearest chair and then,

she knew, fold her in one of those strong hugs that scrunched, when she

bent forward and hastily took the basket from him. She couldn’t, she

simply couldn’t, on this occasion be folded--not with Jocelyn sitting

out there, all unsuspecting, under the cedar.

‘Never mind the basket,’ said Mr. Thorpe, who felt he had deserved well

of Margery in this matter of the fish.

‘I must take it to the kitchen at once,’ said Mrs. Luke, evading his

wide-opened arms, ‘or it won’t be ready in time for supper.’

‘What? No thanks, eh?’

‘Yes, yes--afterwards,’ said Mrs. Luke, slipping away to the door.

‘Jocelyn doesn’t know yet. About us, I mean. I haven’t had time----’

‘Time, eh? Not had time to tell him, you’ve netted me?’

Mr. Thorpe took out his watch. ‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘Two would be

enough, but I’ll give you five. Trot along now, and come back to me

sharp in five minutes. If you don’t, I’ll fetch you. Trot along.’

Trot along....

Mrs. Luke, shutting him into the parlour, asked herself, as she went

down the passage bearing the heavy basket in both her delicate hands,

how long it would take after marriage to weed out Mr. Thorpe’s language.

To be told to trot along, however, was so grotesque--she to trot, she,

surely the most dignified of South Winch’s ladies!--that it seemed to

restore her composure. She would not trot. Nor would she, in the

emotional sphere, do anything that corresponded to it. She would neither

trot nor hurry; neither physically, nor spiritually. She declined to be

bound by five minutes, and a watch in Edgar’s hand. Really he must,

somehow, come up more to her level, and not be so comfortably certain

that she was coming down to his. And what a way to speak of their

marriage--that she had netted him!

Frozen, then, once more into calm by Mr. Thorpe’s words, she proceeded

down the passage with almost more than her usual dignity, and as she

passed the kitchen door she held out the fish-basket to the little maid,

who came out of the shady corner where the sink was with reluctance,

merely saying, ‘Boil it.’ Then, with her head held high as the heads of

those are held who face the inevitable, she went out into the garden,

and crossed the grass to where Jocelyn was waiting for her on the seat

beneath the cedar.

This took her one minute out of the five. In another four Mr. Thorpe

would come out too into the garden, to see why she didn’t return. Let

him, thought Mrs. Luke, filled with the courage of the cornered. This

thing couldn’t be done in five minutes; it couldn’t be fired off at

Jocelyn’s head like a pistol. Foolish Edgar.

§

‘Well, Mother?’ said Jocelyn, getting up as she approached.

He had been smoking, content to leave whatever it was Sally had been

doing in his mother’s capable hands, yet wishing to goodness Sally

hadn’t done it. This trick of wanting to be with servants must revolt

his mother. It revolted him; how much more, then, his fastidious mother.

‘I can guess what it is, I’m afraid,’ he said, as she sat down beside

him.

‘No,’ said Mrs. Luke. ‘You haven’t any idea.’

‘_What_ has she been doing, Mother?’ he asked, seriously alarmed, and

throwing away his cigarette.

‘Salvatia? Nothing. Nothing that matters, poor dear child. It’s not

about her I want to talk. It’s about Mr. Thorpe.’

‘Mr. Thorpe?’

‘Yes. Abergeldie. That’s Mr. Thorpe’s. That’s why you are going

there--because it is Mr. Thorpe’s.’

‘But why should we----?’

‘Now Jocelyn,’ she interrupted, ‘please keep well in mind that Mr.

Thorpe is the most absolutely reliable, trustworthy, excellent, devoted

man. I can find no flaw in his character. He is generous to a

fault--really to a fault. He has a perfect genius for kindness. Indeed,

I can’t tell you how highly I think of him.’

Jocelyn’s heart went cold and heavy with foreboding.

There was a little silence.

‘Yes, Mother. And?’ he said, after a minute.

‘And he is rich. Very.’

‘Yes, Mother. And?’ said Jocelyn, as she paused.

‘When I got your first letter I was, of course, very much upset,’ said

Mrs. Luke, looking straight in front of her.

‘Yes, Mother. And?’ said Jocelyn, for she paused again.

‘Everything seemed to go to pieces--all I had believed in and hoped

for.’

There was a longer pause.

‘Yes, Mother. And?’ said Jocelyn at last, keeping his voice as level as

possible.

‘I’m not a religious woman, as you know. I hadn’t got God.’

‘No, Mother. So?’

‘So I--I turned to Mr. Thorpe.’

‘Yes, Mother. Quite.’

The bitterness of Jocelyn’s soul was complete. A black fog of anger,

jealousy, wounded trust, hurt pride and cruellest disappointment

engulfed him.

‘Why not say at once,’ he said, lighting another cigarette with hands he

was grimly determined should be perfectly steady, ‘that you are going to

marry him?’

‘If it hadn’t been for your marriage it never would have happened,’ said

Mrs. Luke.

‘Quite,’ said Jocelyn, very bitter, pitching the newly-lit cigarette

away. ‘Oh, quite.’

Sally again. Always, at the bottom of everything, Sally.

Then he thought, ashamed, ‘My God, I’m a mean cur’--and sat in silence,

his head in his hands, not looking up at all, while his mother did her

best to make him see Mr. Thorpe as she wanted him to be seen.

In her low voice, the low, educated voice Jocelyn had so much loved, she

explained Mr. Thorpe and his advantages, determined that at this

important, this vital moment she would not allow herself to be vexed by

anything Jocelyn said.

He, however, said nothing. It simply was too awful for speech--his

mother, who never during his whole life had shown signs of wanting to

marry, going now, now that she was at an age when she might surely, in

Jocelyn’s twenty-two year old vision, be regarded as immune, to give

herself to a complete stranger, and leave him, her son who needed her,

God knew, more than ever before, to his fate. That he should hate this

Thorpe with a violent hatred seemed natural. Who cared for his damned

money? Why should Sally--his mother kept on harping on that--be going to

be expensive? As if money, much money, according to what his mother was

saying, now that Sally had come on the scene, Sally who was used to

being penniless, was indispensable. Masters? What need was there for

masters? His mother could teach her. Clothes? Why, whatever she put on

seemed to catch beauty from her--he had seen that in the shop in London

where he bought the wrap: every blessed thing the women tried on her,

however unattractive to begin with, the minute it touched her body

became part of beauty. And how revolting, anyhow--marriage. Oh, how he

hated the thought of it, how he wanted now beyond anything in the world

to be away from its footling worries and complications, away from women

altogether, and back at Cambridge, back in a laboratory, absorbed once

more in the great tranquil splendours of research!

‘He is in the sitting-room,’ said Mrs. Luke, when she had said

everything she could think of that she wished Jocelyn to suppose was

true.

‘Who is?’ said Jocelyn.

‘Ah, I was afraid you would be angry,’ she said, putting her hand on his

arm, ‘but I hoped that when it was all explained you would understand,

and see the great, the immense advantages. Apparently you don’t, or----’

she sighed--‘won’t. Then I must be patient till you do, or will. But

Mr. Thorpe is waiting.’

‘Who cares?’ inquired Jocelyn, his head in his hands; and it suddenly

struck Mrs. Luke that Mr. Thorpe was waiting very quietly. The five

minutes must have been up long ago; she must have been sitting there

quite twenty, and yet he hadn’t come after her as he had threatened.

Knowing him, as she did, for a man absolutely of his word, this struck

her as odd.

‘Dear Jocelyn,’ she said, remembering the fits of dark obstinacy that

had at times seized her boy in his childhood, and out of which he had

only been got by the utmost patience and gentleness, ‘I won’t bother you

to come in now and see Mr. Thorpe. But as he is going to be your host

to-night----’

‘He isn’t,’ said Jocelyn, his head still in his hands, and his eyes

still fixed on the grass at his feet.

‘But, _dearest_ boy----’

‘I decline to go near him.’

‘But there’s _positively_ no room here for you both----’

‘There’s London, and hotels, I suppose?’

‘Oh, Jocelyn!’

She looked at him in dismay. He didn’t move. She again put her hand on

his arm. He took no notice. And aware, from past experiences, that for

the next two hours at least he would probably be completely

inaccessible to reason, she got up with a sigh and left him.

Well, she had told him; she had done what she had to do. She would now

go back to Mr. Thorpe.

And she did go back; and opening the parlour door slowly and gently, for

she was absorbed in painful thought, she found Mr. Thorpe sitting on the

sofa, busily kissing Sally.

X

§

The following brief dialogue had taken place between him and Sally,

before he began to kiss:

‘Crikey!’ he exclaimed, on her appearing suddenly in the doorway.

‘Pardon?’ said she, hesitating, and astonished to find a strange old

gentleman where she had thought to find the Lukes.

‘It’s crikey all right,’ he said, staring. ‘Know who I am?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Sir, eh?’

He took a step forward and shut the door.

‘Father--that’s who I am. Yours. Father-in-law. Same thing as father,

only better,’ said he. ‘What does one do to a father, eh? Kisses him.

How do, daughter. Kiss me.’

Sally kissed him; or rather, having no reason to doubt that the old

gentleman was what he said he was, docilely submitted while he kissed

her, regarding his behaviour as merely another example of the inability

of all Lukes to keep off pawings; and though she was mildly surprised at

the gusto with which this one gave himself up to them, she was pleased

to notice his happy face. If only everybody would be happy she wouldn’t

mind anything. She hadn’t felt that the lady’s kisses were expressions

of happiness, and Mr. Luke’s, when he started, made her think of a

funeral that had got the bit between its teeth and couldn’t stop running

away, more than of anything happy. Father-in-law, on the contrary,

seemed as jolly as a sand-boy. And anyhow it was better than having to

talk.

This was the way the situation arose in which Mrs. Luke found them.

‘Making friends with my new daughter,’ said Mr. Thorpe, not without

confusion, on perceiving her standing looking on.

‘Quite,’ said Mrs. Luke, who sometimes talked like Jocelyn.

§

Now to have caught Mr. Thorpe kissing somebody else--she didn’t like it

when he kissed her, but she discovered she liked it still less when it

was somebody else--was painful to Mrs. Luke. Every aspect of it was

painful. The very word _caught_ was an unpleasant one; and she felt that

to be placed in a position in life in which she might be liable to catch

would be most disagreeable. What she saw put everything else for the

moment out of her head. Edgar must certainly be told that he couldn’t

behave like this. No marriage could stand it. If a woman couldn’t trust

her husband not to humiliate her, whom could she trust? And to behave

like this to Salvatia, of all people! Salvatia, who was to live with

them at Abergeldie during term time, while Jocelyn pursued his career

undisturbed at Cambridge--this had been another of Mrs. Luke’s swift

decisions,--live with them, and be given advantages, and be trained to

become a fit wife for him,--how could any of these plans be realised if

Edgar’s tendency to kiss, of which Mrs. Luke had only been too well

aware, but which she had supposed was concentrated entirely on herself,

included also Salvatia?

And if the situation was disagreeable to Mrs. Luke, it was very nearly

as disagreeable to Mr. Thorpe. He didn’t like it one little bit. He knew

quite well that there had been gusto in his embrace, and that Margery

must have seen it. ‘Damn these women,’ he thought, unfairly.

The only person without disagreeable sensations was Sally, who,

unconscious of anything but dutiful behaviour, was standing wiping her

face with a big, honest-looking handkerchief, observing while she did so

that she wasn’t half hot.

‘Jocelyn is in the garden, Salvatia,’ said Mrs. Luke.

Regarding this as mere news, imparted she knew not to what end, Sally

could think of nothing to say back, though it was evident from the

lady’s eyes that she was expected to make some sort of a reply. She

searched, therefore, in her _répertoire_, and after a moment said,

‘Fancy that,’ and went on wiping her face.

‘Won’t you go to him?’ then said Mrs. Luke, speaking very distinctly.

‘Right O,’ said Sally, hastily then, for the lady’s eyebrows had

suddenly become rather frightening; and, stuffing the handkerchief yard

by yard into her pocket as she went, she exquisitely slid away.

‘I’ll be off too,’ said Mr. Thorpe briskly, who for the first time

didn’t feel at home with Margery. ‘Back on the tick of ten to fetch ’em

both----’

‘Oh, but please--wait just one moment,’ said Mrs. Luke, raising her

hand as he began to move towards the door.

‘Got to have my wigging first, eh?’ he said, pausing and squaring his

shoulders to meet it.

‘What is a wigging, Edgar?’ inquired Mrs. Luke gently, opening her clear

grey eyes slightly wider.

‘Oh Lord, Margery, cut the highbrow cackle,’ said Mr. Thorpe. ‘Why

shouldn’t I kiss the girl? She’s my daughter-in-law. Or will be soon.’

‘Really, Edgar, it would be very strange if you didn’t wish to kiss

her,’ said Mrs. Luke, still with gentleness. ‘Anybody would wish to.’

‘Well, then,’ said Mr. Thorpe sulkily; for not only didn’t he see what

Margery was driving at, but for the first time he didn’t think her

particularly good-looking. Moth-eaten, thought Mr. Thorpe, eyeing her. A

lady, of course, and all that; but having to sleep later on with a

moth-eaten lady wouldn’t, it suddenly struck him, be much fun. ‘Need a

pitch dark night to turn _her_ into a handsome woman,’ he thought

indelicately; but then he was angry, because he had been discovered

doing wrong.

‘I wanted to tell you,’ said Mrs. Luke, ignoring for the moment what she

had just witnessed, ‘that I have told Jocelyn.’

And Mr. Thorpe was so much relieved to find she wasn’t pursuing the

kissing business further that he thought, ‘Not a bad old girl, Marge--’

in his thoughts he called her Marge, though not to her face because she

didn’t like it--‘not a bad old girl. Better than Annie, anyhow.’

Yes, better than Annie; but less good--ah, how much less good--than

young beauty.

‘That’s all right, then,’ he said, cheerful again. ‘Nothing like

coughing things up.’

No--Edgar was too rough a diamond, Mrs. Luke said to herself, shrinking

from this dreadful phrase. She hadn’t heard this one before. Was there

no end to his dreadful phrases?

‘He is much annoyed,’ she said, her eyebrows still drawn together with

the pain Mr. Thorpe’s last sentence had given her.

‘Annoyed, eh? Annoyed, is he? I like that,’ said Mr. Thorpe vehemently,

his cheerfulness vanishing. Annoyed because his mother was making a

rattling good match? Annoyed because the richest man for miles round was

taking her on for the rest of her life? Of all the insolent puppies....

Mr. Thorpe had no words with which to express his opinion of Jocelyn; no

words, that is, fit for a drawing-room--he supposed the room he was in

would be called a drawing-room, though he was blest if there was a

single stick of stuff in it to justify such a name--for, having now seen

Sally, his feeling for Jocelyn, which had been one of simple

contemptuous indifference, had changed into something much more active.

Fancy _him_ getting her, he thought--him, with only a beggarly five

hundred a year, him, who wouldn’t even be able to dress her properly.

Why, a young beauty like that ought to be a blaze of diamonds, and never

put her feet to the ground except to step out of a Rolls.

‘I’m very sorry, Edgar,’ said Mrs. Luke, ‘but he says he doesn’t wish to

accept your hospitality.’

‘Doesn’t wish, eh? Doesn’t wish, does he? I like that,’ said Mr. Thorpe,

more vehemently still.

That his good-natured willingness to help Marge out of a fix, and his

elaborate preparations for the comfort of the first guests he had had

for years should be flouted in this way not only angered but hurt him.

And what would the servants say? And he had taken such pains to have the

bridal suite filled with everything calculated to make the young prig,

who thought his sorts of brains were the only ones worth having, see for

himself that they weren’t. Brains, indeed. What was the good of brains

that you couldn’t get enough butter out of to butter your bread

properly? Dry-bread brains, that’s what this precious prig’s were.

Crust-and-cold-water brains. Brains? Pooh.

This last word Mr. Thorpe said out loud; very loud; and Mrs. Luke shrank

again. It strangely afflicted her when he said pooh.

‘And I’m afraid,’ she went on, her voice extra gentle, for it did seem

to her that considering the position she had found him in Edgar was

behaving rather high-handedly, ‘that if he knew you had kissed his wife,

kissed her in the way you did kiss her, he might still less wish to.’

‘_Now_ we’ve got it!’ burst out Mr. Thorpe, slapping his thigh. ‘_Now_

we’re getting down to brass tacks!’

‘Brass tacks, Edgar?’ said Mrs. Luke, to whom this expression, too, was

unfamiliar.

‘Spite,’ said Mr. Thorpe.

‘Spite?’ repeated Mrs. Luke, her grey eyes very wide.

‘Feminine spite. Don’t believe a word about him not wanting to come and

stay at my place. You’ve made it up. Because I kissed the girl.’

And Mr. Thorpe in his anger inquired of Mrs. Luke whether she had ever

heard about hell holding no fury like a woman scorned--for in common

with other men who know little poetry he knew that--and he also called

her Marge to her face, because he no longer saw any reason why he

shouldn’t.

‘My _dear_ Edgar,’ was all she could find to say, her shoulders drawn up

slightly to her ears as if to ward off these blows of speech, violence

never yet having crossed her path.

She didn’t get angry herself. She behaved with dignity. She remembered

that she was a lady.

She did, however, at last suggest that perhaps it would be better if he

went away, for not only was he making more noise than she cared

about--really a most noisy man, she thought, gliding to the window and

softly shutting it--but it had occurred to her as a possibility that

Salvatia, out in the back garden, might be telling Jocelyn that Mr.

Thorpe had kissed her, and that on hearing this Jocelyn, who in any case

was upset, might be further upset into coming and joining Edgar and

herself in the sitting-room.

This, she was sure, would be a pity; so she suggested to Mr. Thorpe that

he should go.

‘Oh, I’m _going_ all right,’ said Mr. Thorpe, who somehow, instead of

being the one to be wigged, was the one who was wigging.

‘We’ll talk it all over quietly to-morrow, dear Edgar,’ said Mrs. Luke,

attempting to placate.

‘Dear Edgar, eh?’ retorted Mr. Thorpe, not to be shaken by fair words

from his conviction that Marge regarded herself as a woman scorned, and

therefore that she outrivalled the worst of the ladies of hell. ‘Fed-up

Edgar’s more like it,’ he said; and strode, banging doors, out of the

house.

§

Mrs. Luke stood motionless where he had left her. What an unexpected

turn things had taken. How very violent Edgar really was; and how rude.

A woman scorned? Feminine spite? Such expressions, applied to herself,

would be merely ludicrous if they hadn’t, coming from Edgar in

connection with Salvatia, been so extraordinarily rude.

In connection with Salvatia. She paused on the thought. All this was

because of Salvatia. From beginning to end, everything unpleasant and

difficult that had happened to her during the last few weeks was because

of Salvatia.

But she mustn’t be unfair. If Salvatia had been the cause of her

engagement to Edgar, she was now being the cause of its breaking off.

For surely, surely, breaking off was the only course to take?

‘Let me _think_,’ said Mrs. Luke, pressing her hand to her forehead,

which was burning.

Yes; surely no amount of money could make up for the rest of Edgar?

Surely no amount, however great, could make up for the hourly fret and

discomfort of having to live with the wrong sort--no, not necessarily

the wrong sort, but the entirely different sort, corrected Mrs. Luke, at

pains to be just--of mind? Besides, of what use could she be to Jocelyn

and Salvatia, married to Edgar, if Jocelyn wouldn’t go near him, and

Salvatia couldn’t because of his amorousness? It would merely make the

cleavage between herself and Jocelyn complete at the very moment when he

more than ever before in his life needed her. And the grotesqueness of

accusing _her_, who had remained so quiet and calm, of being a fury,

the sheer imbecility of imagining _her_ actuated by feminine spite!

Really, really, said Mrs. Luke to herself, drawing her shoulders up to

her ears again at the recollection. And then there was--no, she turned

her mind away from those expressions of his; she positively couldn’t

bear to think of cough it up, bunkum, and pooh.

She went to her little desk and sat down to write a letter to Mr.

Thorpe, because in some circumstances letters are so much the best; nor

did she want to lose any time, in case it should occur to him too to

write a letter, and it seemed to her important that when it comes to

shedding anybody one should get there first, and be the shedder rather

than the shed; and she had got as far as _Dear Edgar, I feel that I owe

it to you_--when Jocelyn appeared in the doorway, with blazing eyes.

§

What had taken place in the garden between Jocelyn and Sally was this:

She had gone out obediently to him, as she had been told. ‘Do as you’re

told,’ her father and mother had taught her, ‘and not much can go wrong

with you.’ Innocent Pinners. Inadequate teaching. It was to lead her,

before she had done, into many difficulties.

She went, then, as she had been told, over to where she saw Jocelyn, and

sat down beside him beneath the cedar.

He didn’t move, and didn’t look up, and she sat for a long while not

daring to speak, because of the expression on his face.

Naturally she thought it was his stomach again, for what else could it

be? Last time she had seen him he was smiling as happy as happy, and

kissing his mother’s hand. Clear to Sally as daylight was it that he

was having another of those attacks to which her father had been such a

martyr, and which were familiar to the Pinners under the name of the Dry

Heaves. So too had her father sat when they came on, frowning hard at

nothing, and looking just like ink. The only difference was that

Jocelyn, she supposed because of being a gentleman, held his head in his

hands, and her father held the real place the heaves were in. But

presently, when the simple remedy he took on these occasions had begun

to work, he was better; and it seemed to Sally a great pity that she

should be too much afraid of Usband to tell him about it,--a great pity,

and wrong as well. Hadn’t she promised God in church the day she was

married to look after him in sickness and in health? And here he was

sick, plain as a pikestaff.

So at last she pulled her courage together, and did tell him.

‘Father’s stomach,’ she began timidly, ‘was just like that.’

‘What?’ said Jocelyn, roused from his black thoughts by this surprising

remark, and turning his head and looking at her.

‘You got the same stomachs,’ said Sally, shrinking under his look but

continuing to hold on to her courage, ‘you and Father ’as. Like as two

peas.’

Jocelyn stared at her. What, in the name of all that was fantastic, had

Pinner’s stomach to do with him?

‘Sit just like that, ’e would, when they come on,’ continued Sally,

lashing herself forward.

‘Do you mind,’ requested Jocelyn with icy politeness, ‘making yourself

clear?’

‘Now, Mr. Luke, don’t--please don’t talk that way, begged Sally. ‘I

only want to tell you what Father did when they come on.’

‘When what comes on, and where?’

‘These ’ere dry ’eaves,’ said Sally. ‘You’d be better if you’d take what

Father did. ’Ad them somethin’ awful, ’e did. And you’d be better----’

But her voice faded away. When Jocelyn looked at her like that and said

not a word, her voice didn’t seem able to go on talking, however hard

she tried to make it.

And Jocelyn’s thoughts grew if possible blacker. This was to be his

life’s companion--his _life’s_, mind you, he said to himself. Alone and

unaided, he was to live out the years with her. A child; and presently

not a child. A beauty; and presently not a beauty. But always to the

end, now that his mother had deserted him, unadulterated Pinner.

‘There’s an h in heaves,’ he said, glowering at her, his gloom really

inspissate. ‘I don’t know what the beastly things are, but I’m sure

they’ve got an h in them.’

‘Sorry,’ breathed Sally humbly, casting down her eyes before his look.

Then he became aware of the unusual flush on her face,--one side was

quite scarlet.

‘Why are you so red?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Me?’ said Sally, starting at the peremptoriness in his tone.

‘Oh--_that_.’

She put up her hand and felt her burning cheek. ‘Father-in-law,’ she

said.

‘Father _who_?’ asked Jocelyn, astonished out of his gloom.

‘In-law,’ said Sally. ‘’Im in the ’ouse. The old gentleman,’ she

explained, as Jocelyn stared in greater and greater astonishment.

Thorpe? The man who was to be his stepfather? But why----?

A flash of something quite, quite horrible darted into his mind. ‘But

why,’ he asked, ‘are you so very red? What has that to do----?’

He broke off, and caught hold of her wrist.

‘Daresay it ain’t the gentleman’s day for shavin’,’ suggested Sally.

And on Jocelyn’s flinging away her wrist and jumping up, she watched him

running indoors with recovered complacency. ‘Soon be better now,’ she

said to herself, pleased; for her father always ran like that too, just

when the heaves were going to leave off.

§

And she was right. Next time she saw him, which was at supper, he was

quite well. His face had cleared, he could eat his food, and he kissed

the top of her head as he passed behind her to his chair.

‘Well, _that’s_ over,’ thought Sally, much relieved, though still

remaining, through her lowered eyelashes, watchful and cautious. With

these Lukes one never knew what was going to happen next; and as she sat

doing her anxious best with the forks and other pitfalls of the meal,

and the little maid came in and out, free in her movements, independent,

able to give notice and go at any moment she chose, Sally couldn’t help

comparing her lot with her own, and thinking that Ammond was singularly

blest. And then she thought what a wicked girl she was to have such

thoughts, and bent her head lower over her plate in shame, and Mrs. Luke

said gently, ‘Sit up, dear child.’

That night a bed was made for Jocelyn on the sitting-room sofa, Sally

slept upstairs in the tiny Spartan room he used to sleep in, and

Abergeldie wasn’t mentioned. Nor did they have Mr. Thorpe’s salmon for

supper, because the idea of eating poor Edgar’s gift seemed, in the

circumstances, cynical to Mrs. Luke; so Hammond ate it, and never

afterwards could be got to touch fish.

Mr. Thorpe had now become poor Edgar to Mrs. Luke. Only a few hours

before, he had been thought of as a godsend. Well, he shouldn’t have

kissed Salvatia. But indeed what a mercy that he had, for it brought

clarity into what had been troubled and obscure. Without this

action--and it wasn’t just kissing, it was enjoyment--Mrs. Luke would,

she knew, have gone stumbling on, doing her duty by him, trying to get

everybody to like each other and be happy in the way that was so

obviously the best for them, the way which would quite certainly have

been the best for them if poor Edgar had been as decent as, at his age,

it was reasonable to expect. She could, she was sure, have managed

Jocelyn, for had she not managed him all his life? And after marriage

she could, she had no doubt, have managed Edgar too; but what hard work

it would have been, what a ceaseless weeding, to take only one aspect of

him, of his language!

The enjoyment--it was the only word for it--with which he had kissed

Salvatia had spared her all these pains. Certainly it was beneath her

dignity, beyond her patience, altogether outside any possible

compensation by wealth, to marry and manage a man who enjoyed kissing

other women. That she couldn’t do. She could do much, but not that. Like

the Canon’s wife, she would have forgiven everything except enjoyment.

And she wrote an urbane letter--why not? Surely finality can afford to

be urbane?--after having had a talk with Jocelyn when he arrived with

blazing eyes in the sitting-room, a talk which began in

violence--his,--and continued in patience--hers,--and ended in

peace--theirs; and by the time they sat down to supper the letter,

sealed--it seemed to be the sort of letter one ought to seal--was

already lying in the pillar box at the corner of the road, and the last

trying weeks were wiped out as though they had never been.

At least, that was Mrs. Luke’s firm intention, that they should be wiped

out; and she thought as she gazed at Jocelyn, so content again, eating a

supper purged of the least reminder of Mr. Thorpe, that the _status quo

ante_ was now thoroughly restored. Ah, happy _status quo ante_, thought

Mrs. Luke, whose mind was well-furnished with pieces of Latin, happy

_status quo ante_, with her boy close knit to her again, more than ever

unable to do without her, and she in her turn finding the very breath of

her being and reason for her existence in him and all his concerns. Not

a cloud was now between them. She had quickly reassured him as to

Salvatia’s red cheek,--Mr. Thorpe’s greeting, she had explained, was

purely perfunctory, and witnessed by herself, but the child had such a

delicate skin that a touch would mark it.

‘You mustn’t ever bruise her,’ she had said, smiling. ‘It would show for

weeks.’

‘Oh, Mother!’ Jocelyn had said, smiling too, so happy, he too, to know

he had been lifted out of the region of angers, out of the black places

where people bruise hearts, not bodies, and in so doing mangle their

own.

Yes, she could manage Jocelyn. Tact and patience were all that was

needed. Never, never should he know of Edgar’s amorousness, any more

than he was ever, ever to know of Edgar’s other drawbacks. Let him think

of him in the future as the kind, reliable rich man who once had wanted

to marry her, but whom she had refused for her boy’s sake. She made this

sacrifice willingly, happily, for her darling son--so she gave Jocelyn

to understand, during the talk they had alone together in the

sitting-room.

The truth? No, not altogether the truth, she admitted as she sat eating

her supper, her pure, pure supper, with all those horrible gross

delicacies, under which she had so long groaned, banished out of sight,

her glance resting fondly first on her boy, and then in amazed

admiration, renewed with a start each time she looked at her, on the

flame of loveliness that was her boy’s wife. No; what she had said to

Jocelyn in the sitting-room wasn’t altogether the truth, she admitted

that, but the mutilated form of it called tact. Or, rather, not

mutilated, which suggested disfigurement, but pruned. Pruned truth.

Truth pruned into acceptability to susceptibility. Was not that tact?

Was not that the nearest one dared go in speech with the men one loved?

They seemed not able to bear truth whole. Children, they were. And the

geniuses--she smiled proudly and fondly at Jocelyn’s dark head bent over

his plate--were the simplest children of them all.

Yes, she thought, the _status quo ante_ was indeed restored, and

everything was going to be as it used to be. The only difference was

Salvatia.

§

Before a week was over Mrs. Luke left out the word ‘only’ from this

sentence, and was inclined to say--again with Wordsworth; curious how

that, surely antiquated, poet cropped up--_But oh, the difference_,

instead. Salvatia was--well, why had one been given intelligence if not

to cope, among other things, with what Salvatia was?

That first night of reunion with Jocelyn, Mrs. Luke had lain awake

nearly all of it, making plans. Very necessary, very urgent it was to

get them cut and dried by the morning. The headache she had had earlier

in the evening vanished before the imperativeness of thinking and seeing

clearly. Many things had to be thought out and decided, some of them

sordid, such as the question of living now that there was another mouth

to feed, and others difficult, such as the best line to take with South

Winch in regard to Mr. Thorpe. She thought and thought, lying on her

back, her hands clasped behind her head, staring into the darkness,

frowning in her concentration.

Towards morning she saw that the line to take with South Winch about

poor Edgar was precisely the line she had taken with Jocelyn: she had

given up the hope of marriage, she would say, so as to be able to devote

herself exclusively to her boy and his wife.

‘See,’ she would say, indicating Salvatia, careful at once to draw

attention to what anyhow, directly the child began to speak, couldn’t

remain unnoticed, ‘how this untrained, delicious baby needs me. No

mother, no education, no idea of what the world demands--could I

possibly, thinking only of myself, selfishly leave her without help and

guidance? I do feel the young have a very great claim on us.’ And then

she would add that as long as she lived she would never forget how well,

how splendidly, Mr. Thorpe had behaved.

Pruned truth, again. And truth pruned, she was afraid, in a way that

would cover her with laurels she hadn’t deserved. But what was she to

do? One needs must find the easiest and best way out of a

difficulty,--easiest and best for those one loves.

In order, however, to indicate Salvatia and explain things by means of

her, Mrs. Luke would have to produce her, have to show her to South

Winch, and in order to do that she would have to give a party. Yes; she

would give a party, a tea-party, and invite every one she knew to

it--except, of course, Mr. Thorpe.

Mrs. Luke had hitherto been sparing of parties, considering them not

only difficult with one servant, and wastefully expensive, but also so

very ordinary. Anybody not too positively poor could give tea-parties,

and invite a lot of people and let them entertain each other. She chose

the better way, which was to have one friend, at most two, at a time,

and really talk, really exchange ideas, over a simple but attractive

tea. Of course the friends had to have ideas, or one couldn’t exchange

them. But now she would have a real party, with no ideas and many

friends, the sort of party called an At Home, and at it Salvatia should

be revealed to South Winch in all her wonder.

The party, however, couldn’t be given for at least a week, because of

first having to drill Salvatia. A week wasn’t much; was, indeed,

terribly little; but if the drill were intensive, Mrs. Luke thought she

could get the child’s behaviour into sufficient shape to go on with by

the end of it.

Hidden indoors--and in any case they would both at first hide indoors

from a possible encounter with poor Edgar--she would devote the whole of

every day to exercising Salvatia in the art of silence. That was all

she needed to be perfect: silence. And how few words were really

necessary for a girl with a face like that! No need whatever to exert

herself,--her face did everything for her. Yes; no; please; thank you;

what couldn’t be done with just these, if accompanied by that heavenly

smile? Why, if she kept only to these, if she carefully refrained from

more, from, especially, the use of any out of her own deplorable stock,

it wouldn’t even be necessary for Mrs. Luke to say anything about her

having had no education; and if she could be trained to add, ‘So kind of

you,’ at the proper moment, and perhaps, ‘Yes, we are very happy,’ her

success would be overwhelming.

But almost immediately on beginning the drill, which she did the next

day, Mrs. Luke perceived that this last sentence must be dropped. Poor

Salvatia. The poor child was precluded from speaking of happiness,

because of its h. Really rather sad, when one came to think of it. She

could, relatively easily, be taught to speak of sorrow, of pain, of

misfortune, of sickness and of death, but she couldn’t be taught, not in

a week Mrs. Luke was afraid, to speak of happiness.

Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. ‘We must be patient,’ she said,

smiling at Sally, who seemed to tumble over herself in her haste to

smile back.

Almond Tree Cottage was now the scene of tireless activity. The At Home

was fixed for the following Thursday week,--eight days ahead; and Mrs.

Luke sent Jocelyn off to Cambridge the very morning after he arrived, in

order to rearrange matters with his College and look about, as he seemed

bent on it, for a suitable little house for them all, though she

privately was bent on staying where she was, and keeping Sally with

her. But it did no harm to let him look, and it kept him out of the way

for a couple of days, in case Mr. Thorpe should think fit to come round

in person, instead of writing. And, having cleared the field, she

settled down to devoting herself entirely to Sally.

But Sally, seeing Jocelyn preparing to depart--for some time she

couldn’t believe her eyes--without going to take her too, was smitten

into speech.

‘You ain’t goin’ to leave me ’ere, Mr. Luke?’ she asked in tones of

horrified incredulity, when at last it began to look exactly as if he

were.

‘Two days only, darling,’ said Jocelyn. ‘And you’ll be very happy with

my mother.’

‘But--can’t I come with you? I wouldn’t be no trouble. I--I’d do

anything sooner than--’

She looked over her shoulder; Mrs. Luke, however, was in the kitchen

giving her orders for the day.

‘--be as ’appy as all that,’ she finished, under her breath.

‘I shall be much too busy, darling,’ said Jocelyn, pleased at the way

she was taking their first separation, and not hearing the last words

because he was rummaging among coats.

‘There’s Father,’ persisted Sally anxiously. ‘_’E_ could take me in. I

wouldn’t be no trouble to nobody----’

‘Darling, I’m afraid it can’t possibly be managed,’ said Jocelyn, very

thankful to leave her safe with his mother; but she looked so enchanting

in her obvious sorrow at being parted from him that he took her in his

arms, and kissed her warmly.

‘_Kissin’s_ no good,’ said Sally. ‘Goin’ too’s what I’d like.’

‘And if I took you too, my beautiful one,’ whispered Jocelyn, flaming up

at the touch of her, ‘I’d do nothing but kiss you instead of doing my

business----’ which wasn’t true, but with Sally in his arms he thought

it was; besides, they had been separated for a whole night.

‘Turtle doves--oh, _turtle_ doves!’ exclaimed Mrs. Luke, managing to

smile, though she didn’t like it, when she came out of the kitchen and

found them locked together; for this was happening in what Mr. Thorpe

refused to call the hall.

And later on when Jocelyn had gone, she put her arm through Sally’s, who

was standing at the window staring after him as though it couldn’t be

true that he had really left her, and drew her away into the little

dining-room at the back of the house, because of its greater

privacy--she had to consider the possible movements of Mr. Thorpe--and

at once began to put the plans she had made in the night into practice,

not only taking immense pains with the child’s words and pronunciation,

but leaving no stone unturned--‘As the quaint phrase goes,’ she said,

smiling at Sally, for why hide her intentions?--in order to win her

confidence and love.

Sally was most depressed. She didn’t want to love--‘Too much of that

about as it is,’ she thought,--and she hadn’t an idea what her

confidence was.

The table was arranged with paper and ink, and Mrs. Luke began by

kissing her affectionately, and telling her that they were now going to

be very busy and happy. ‘Like bees,’ said Mrs. Luke, looking cheerful

and encouraging, but also terrifyingly clever, with her clear grey eyes

that seemed to see everything all at once and never were half as much

pleased as her mouth was. ‘You know how bees store up honey--the

bright, golden honey, don’t you, dear. Say honey, Salvatia dear. Say it

after me----’

Sally was most depressed. Mixed up with her efforts to say honey were

puzzled thoughts about her husband’s having left her. She understood,

from her study of the Bible, that one of the principal jobs of husbands

was to cleave to their wives. Till death, the Bible said. Nobody had

died. It wasn’t cleaving to go away to Cambridge and leave her high and

dry with the lady. And though Usband was often very strange, he wasn’t

anything like as strange as the lady; and though he often frightened

her, there were moments when he didn’t frighten her at all--when, on the

contrary, she seemed able to do pretty much as she liked with him. And

she had great hopes that some day she and he would get on quite nicely

together, once they had set up housekeeping and he went off first thing

after breakfast to his work, and she got everything tidy and ready for

him when he came back to his dinner. Yes; she and Usband would settle

down nicely then. And later on, when she had a little baby--Sally

thought frequently and complacently of the time when she would have a

little baby, several little babies--things would be as pleasant as could

be. All she wanted, so as to be happy, was no lady, a couple of rooms,

Usband to do her duty by, God’s Word to study, and every now and then a

little baby. It was all she asked. It was her idea of bliss. That, and

being let alone.

‘Peace an’ quiet,’ she said to herself, as she sat painfully trying, at

Mrs. Luke’s request, to discuss with her the habits of bees. She hadn’t

known they had any habits. She doubted whether she would know a bee if

she saw one. There were no bees in Islington. Wasps, now--she knew a

thing or two about wasps. Raw onion was the stuff for when they

stung.... ‘Peace an’ quiet,’ she said to herself. ‘All one asks. This

ain’t neither.’

In an agony of application Sally perspired through the two days of

Jocelyn’s absence. Lessons didn’t leave off when the paper and ink were

cleared away because of the rissoles of lunch and the poached eggs of

supper, but went on just as bad while she was eating. ‘Salvatia dear,

don’t ’old your fork like that----’ ‘Salvatia dear, don’t go makin’ all

that there noise when you drinks----’ so did Mrs. Luke’s admonishments

present themselves to Sally’s ill-attuned ear. And after that the

lessons were continued in the garden, where she was walked up and down,

up and down, till her head, as she said to herself, fair reeled. Never

before had Sally been walked up and down the same spot. She used to walk

straight sometimes to places, and then come home again and done with it,

but never up and down and keeping on turning round. No escape. The lady

had her by the arm. Exercise, she called it. And talk! Not only talk

herself, but keep on dragging her into it too. Education, the lady

called it. Lessons, that’s to say. What ones these Lukes were for

lessons, thought Sally, remembering her experience at St. Mawes. And

there, through the kitchen window every time she passed it, she could

see Ammond, washing up as free as air.

The garden was small; the turnings accordingly frequent; and Sally’s

head, strained by the excessive attention Mrs. Luke insisted on, did

indeed reel. Her head.... How was it, Mrs. Luke was asking herself by

the evening of that first day, ostensibly pleasantly chatting, but

carefully observing Sally, who, pale and beautiful, with faint shadows

under her eyes, sat looking at her lap so as not to see the lady looking

at her,--how was it that so noble a little head, with a brow so happily

formed, one would have supposed, for the harbouring of intelligence,

should apparently be without any?

Apparently. Mrs. Luke was careful not to come to any hasty conclusion,

but by this time she had been drilling Sally ceaselessly for a whole

day, and she had been so clear and patient, and so very, very simple,

that she began to think her vocation was probably that of a teacher; yet

no sign of real comprehension had up to then appeared. Goodwill there

was; much goodwill. But no real _grasp_. And, of course, most lamentably

little ear. Those h’s--it would have been disheartening, if Mrs. Luke

hadn’t refused to be disheartened, the way Salvatia didn’t even seem to

know if they were in a word or not. She simply didn’t hear them.

‘Do you like music, Salvatia?’ said Mrs. Luke, getting up and preparing

to test her ear on the clavichord at the other end of the room, an

instrument which gave her great pleasure because it wasn’t so gross as a

piano.

‘Yes,’ said Sally, who had been strictly drilled that day in naked

monosyllables.

‘Do you sing, dear child?’

‘’Ymns,’ said Sally.

‘Ah, dear, _dearest_ child!’ cried Mrs. Luke, drawing her shoulders up

to her ears, for after all the pains and labours of the day she was

tired, and she couldn’t help being, perhaps, a little less patient. ‘How

do you spell that poor small word? It is such a tiny, short word, and

can’t afford to lose any of its letters----’

And in the kitchen, Sally knew, with her hearth swept and neat, and

everything put nicely away for the day, sat Ammond, doing her sewing as

free as air.

§

Jocelyn came home on the evening of the third day. He hadn’t found a

house, and seemed dispirited about that, and looked a great deal at

Salvatia, Mrs. Luke thought,--almost as if he had never seen her before;

indeed he looked at her so much that he hardly had eyes or attention for

anything else.

Mrs. Luke didn’t like it.

Certainly the girl was quite extraordinarily beautiful that evening, and

seemed even more alight than usual with the strange, surprising

flame-effect she somehow made, but one would have supposed that these

outwardnesses, once one knew that they were not the symbols of any

corresponding inwardnesses, could hardly be sufficient for a man like

Jocelyn.

A little pang of something that hurt--it couldn’t of course be jealousy,

for the very word in such a connection was ludicrous--shot through Mrs.

Luke’s heart when she more than once caught a look in her boy’s eyes as

they rested on his wife that she had never seen in any man’s eyes when

they rested on her herself, but which she nevertheless instantly

recognised. The love-look. The look of burning, impatient passion. She

had been loved, but never like that, never with that intent adoration.

Sally sat quietly there, neither speaking nor moving, but over her face

rippled gladness. Nice, she thought, to get Usband back. It hadn’t been

half awful without him. Finished now, though; wouldn’t happen again.

‘Let’s forget it,’ she said to herself.

And that night, after every one was in bed, Mrs. Luke heard cautious

steps creaking up the stairs, and the door of the room Sally slept in

across the little landing was softly opened, and some one went in and

softly shut it again; and Mrs. Luke didn’t like it at all, and ended by

crying herself to sleep.

Next day, however, Jocelyn was restored to the self she knew, and was

reasonable and detached. They talked over the house in Cambridge

question, and he quite agreed with his mother that when he went up,

which he was due to do in nine days time, while he continued in his

spare moments there to search for one she would keep Sally with her at

Almond Tree Cottage.

‘And even if you find one, dearest,’ said Mrs. Luke, ‘remember we can’t

afford to take it till I have got rid of this one.’

‘Quite, Mother,’ said Jocelyn--so reasonable, so completely detached.

‘And meanwhile, the best thing will be for Salvatia to stay quietly here

with me.’

‘Far and away the best, Mother,’ said Jocelyn, whose thoughts had gone

off with renewed eagerness to his work, to the two spacious months of

undisturbed labour ahead of him in those quiet rooms of his in Austen’s

Court.

What was Sally’s surprise to find that Jocelyn’s return made no

difference to the lessons. They went on just the same; indeed, they

seemed every day to get worse, and he, except at meals and when he crept

into her room at night, stayed at the top of the house shut up by

himself, or went out for his daily walk after lunch and didn’t take her

with him.

At night she tried to ask him about these things, because this was the

time he was most likely to answer, but he only whispered, ‘Hush--Mother

will hear.’

‘Not if you whispers,’ whispered Sally.

‘She’d hear the whispers,’ whispered Jocelyn.

Why Mother shouldn’t hear whispers Sally was unable to make out.

And there at night was Usband, all for being friendly and loving, and in

the day didn’t seem to know she was alive. Warmed up a bit, he did,

towards evening, but else sat hardly opening his mouth, his eyes looking

at something that wasn’t there. Was this, Sally might well in her turn

have asked if she had been able to formulate such a question,

companionship? But even if she had formulated it she wouldn’t have asked

it, because she was so meek.

Strange, however, how the meek go on being meek till the very moment

when they do something from which bold persons would shrink. This is

what Sally did, after having progressed that week steadily towards

despair.

Gradually but steadily, by piecing together bit by bit the things Mrs.

Luke and Jocelyn said to each other at meals and in the evening, she

became aware of what was in store for her. First, a party; an enormous

party, at which everybody who wasn’t a gentleman was going to be a lady;

and she was to be at it too, and it was for this that her mind and

manners were being fattened up so ceaselessly by Mrs. Luke. Then, two

days after the party, Jocelyn, her husband who had promised in church to

cherish her, was going away to Cambridge, and going to stay there by

himself till the summer, just as if he weren’t married. How could he

cherish her from Cambridge? It was evident even to Sally that it

couldn’t be done. Finally, she was to be left at Almond Tree Cottage

alone with Mrs. Luke, being educated, being made fit, being fattened

inside just as you fatten animals outside. What for? She hadn’t married

Mrs. Luke. Wasn’t she able, just as she was, to be a good wife to

Usband, and a good mother later on to the little babies? What more could

a girl do than be ready to work her fingers to the bone for him? And she

could cook so nicely, give her a chance; and she could mend as well as

any one; and as for keeping the house clean, hadn’t her mother taught

her never to dream of sitting down and taking up her sewing while there

was so much as a single speck of dirt about?

With growing horror, and steadily increasing despair, Sally listened to

the talk at meals. She had learned to say nothing now but yes, no, thank

you, and please, and either kept her eyes on her plate or, through her

eyelashes, watched with pangs of envy the happy Hammond’s free entrances

and departures. She herself never moved without Mrs. Luke’s arm through

hers or round her shoulders,--‘We are quite inseparable,’ Mrs. Luke

would say, smiling at Jocelyn, when the meals were over and the time had

arrived for going somewhere else, as she either encircled Sally’s

shrinking shoulder or put her hand through her limp arm. ‘Aren’t we,

Salvatia?’

And Sally, starting--she had got into a curious habit, which Mrs. Luke

much deplored, of starting when she was spoken to, however

gently--hurriedly said, ‘Yes.’

Queer, thought Mrs. Luke, who noticed everything but was without the

power of correct deduction, seeing that the child so obviously was

anxious to please and she herself so certainly was anxious to help her,

queer how difficult it was to do anything with her in the way of

confidence and love. And to Jocelyn in the evenings, after Sally had

been told she was tired and must wish to go to bed, which she quickly

learnt meant that she was to get up at once and say goodnight and go to

it, Mrs. Luke would talk about her lovingly and humorously, and

laughingly describe what she called the intensive methods of cultivation

she was applying to the marvellous child.

‘You’ll see how beautifully she’ll behave at our little party,’ she

said. ‘And as for what she’ll be like after a few months--well, dearest,

all I can say is that I promise to hand her over to you fit to be your

real companion, and not only--’ Mrs. Luke shivered slightly at the

thought of the creaking stairs--‘just a wife.’

Two evenings before the day of the party, Mrs. Luke, who had made, she

knew, no headway at all in spite of the most untiring efforts in winning

the confidence and love she expected, remarked hesitatingly, when she

and Jocelyn were alone together after Sally’s departure for bed, that

the child appeared to have rather curious and disconcerting resistances.

‘Do you mean she doesn’t obey you?’ asked Jocelyn, much surprised.

‘Oh, with almost too much eagerness. No. I mean something mental. Or

rather,’ amended Mrs. Luke, who by this time was definitely disappointed

in Sally’s mind but was still prepared to concede her a soul,

‘spiritual. Spiritual resistances. Disconcerting _spiritual_

resistances. She seems to shut herself up. And I ask myself, what in? A

child like that, with a--well, really rather blank mind at present. What

is she withdrawing into? Where does she _go_, Jocelyn?’

And that night when, having given his mother time to go to sleep and the

house was quiet, Jocelyn stole upstairs to Sally, full of nothing but

love for her, she made a scene. He called it a scene; she called it

mentioning. She had screwed herself up to mentioning to him that it was

wrong to leave her, as she now beyond any possibility of doubt knew that

he was going to leave her, and go away by himself to Cambridge.

A scene with Sally. Jocelyn was as much amazed, and correspondingly

outraged, as if his fountain-pen had turned on him and declared that

what he was making it write was all wrong. For Sally took her stand on

the New Testament, on the Gospel of St. Mark, Chapter X, Verses 7 and 8,

and not only declared there was no mistaking the words, and that it

wasn’t his wife a man had to leave but his father and mother, and that

he had to leave them so as to cleave to his wife, and that they two were

to be one flesh, but asked him how he could either cleave or be one

flesh if he were in Cambridge and she in South Winch?

It was past midnight and pitch dark, so he couldn’t see her face, and

accordingly wasn’t bewitched. Also, he had found her waiting up for him,

not gone to bed at all, but dressed and sitting in a chair, so that,

again, he wasn’t bewitched. When one neither saw nor touched Sally it

was quite easy not to be bewitched.

‘For heaven’s sake don’t _talk_,’ he said in a low voice, when he had

got over his first astonishment. ‘Don’t you know Mother will hear?’

Sally couldn’t help that. She had got to say it. God was on her side.

His laws were going to be broken, and nothing made Sally so brave as

having to take up the cudgels in defence of God’s laws. Besides, if the

dark prevented Jocelyn from seeing her beauty it saved her from seeing

the icy displeased look on his face that made her falter off into

silence. And she was in despair. Apart from the right or the wrong of

it, she felt she couldn’t possibly be left alone with Mrs. Luke.

Therefore, having mentioned God’s laws to him, she proceeded to entreat

him to take her with him, it didn’t matter into what hole, or let her go

to her father’s, and he come and see her whenever he had time.

‘I told you--I told you the other day,’ said Sally, trying to subdue her

voice to a whisper, but it kept on breaking through, ‘when you was only

goin’ to be away for two days that I didn’t ’alf like it. ’Ow do you

suppose I’m goin’ to like weeks and weeks? And it ain’t _right_, Mr.

Luke--it ain’t _right_. You only got to read St. Mark----’

Jocelyn was amazed. Sally talking like this? Sally suddenly making

difficulties, and having an opinion, and judging? Dragging in the Bible,

too, just like somebody’s cook.

‘You don’t understand,’ he said in a low voice because of his mother,

but a voice quite as full of anger as if he had been shouting. ‘How can

you? What do you know about anything?’

‘I know what ain’t bein’ one flesh,’ persisted Sally, greatly helped in

the matter of courage by the dark.

He gathered his dressing-gown round him; it sounded exactly as if a

servant were daring to talk familiarly to him.

‘This isn’t the time,’ he whispered, infinitely disgusted, ‘to argue.’

‘P’raps you’ll tell me when the time is, then,’ said Sally, who knew she

could never be alone with him in the day because of Mrs. Luke; and

really in the dark, unable to see her, Jocelyn had the impression of

some woman of the lower classes confronting him with arms akimbo.

‘Certainly not at one in the morning,’ he said freezingly. ‘I shall go

downstairs again. I didn’t come up here to listen to outrageous rot.’

‘Mr. _Luke_! Rot? When it’s God’s Word I’m talkin’ about? Ain’t you my

’usband? Didn’t you vow----’

There was a tap at the door.

‘You see?’ said Jocelyn, starting and extraordinarily put out that Mrs.

Luke should know he was in there. ‘You _have_ disturbed my mother.’

‘What is it, Jocelyn?’ his mother’s voice asked anxiously from outside.

He opened the door. She too was in a dressing-gown, and her long hair

hung down in thick plaits.

‘What is it, Jocelyn?’ she asked again.

‘Only that Sally has gone out of her senses,’ he said shortly; and he

stalked away downstairs, ashamed to have been caught by his mother

upstairs, angry with himself for being ashamed, and seriously enraged

with Sally.

‘Salvatia, Jocelyn dearest--_do_ remember,’ called Mrs. Luke plaintively

after him.

‘Oh, Christ!’ muttered Jocelyn, banging the sitting-room door behind him

and throwing himself on the hard narrow sofa from which, only a quarter

of an hour before, he had got up, all warm with love, to go to his wife.

And in the room overhead Mrs. Luke put her arms round Sally, and did her

best, while tactfully asking no questions, to soothe and calm the child.

But how can one soothe and calm anything that behaves exactly as if it

were a very rigid, unresponsive, and entirely dumb stone?

§

There were explanations next day. Mrs. Luke put the whole situation

patiently and clearly before Sally. It wasn’t fair, she said to Jocelyn,

after a private talk with him during which he had told her the sorts of

things Sally had said in the night, it wasn’t fair to keep the child

quite in the dark as to their arrangements. Even if she weren’t

altogether able to understand, she should, Mrs. Luke said, be given the

opportunity of doing so.

So when breakfast was cleared away, and Jocelyn had withdrawn to his

attic, Mrs. Luke shut herself up as usual with Sally in the dining-room,

and spent the morning patiently explaining.

Sally said nothing. This made it difficult for Mrs. Luke to know whether

she had understood. And yet how simple it was. Jocelyn’s work, the

paramount importance of his work, on which both his and Salvatia’s

future and perhaps--who knew?--the world’s, depended; their present, but

no doubt temporary, poverty, which made it out of the question for them

to follow him to Cambridge till Almond Tree Cottage had been let; the

necessity of teaching Salvatia, during long, quiet, uninterrupted days,

all the little odds and ends, so small and yet so indispensable, that go

to make up the wife of a gentleman; and the impossibility of asking

Jocelyn to leave his rooms in College and live in anything as

uncomfortable and makeshift as the sorts of lodgings within their means

were bound to be. Of course had Salvatia been alone in the world, and

with nowhere at all to go to, some such arrangement would have had to be

made. But she wasn’t alone. She had her husband’s mother, and her

husband’s mother’s home, and affection, and sympathy, and the warmest

welcome.

‘Just a little patience, Salvatia dear,’ said Mrs. Luke, ‘and our little

problems will all quite naturally solve themselves. We shall have got a

tenant for this house, Jocelyn will have found a nice home for us in

Cambridge, you will meanwhile have learnt everything necessary to make

you able to be its perfect little mistress, and we’ll all live happily

ever after.’

Now wasn’t this kind? Surely it was very kind, thought Mrs. Luke. And

wasn’t it loving? Surely it was altogether loving. Yet Salvatia said

never a word.

Indeed, Sally was necessarily dumb. She had too few words to enter into

controversy with Mrs. Luke, and knew that if she tried to she would only

collapse into tears. But after lunch, through which she sat saying

nothing, when Mrs. Luke sent her out into the garden alone because she

herself had to go down that afternoon to the shops to see about the

cakes for her party next day, Sally went to the one corner which wasn’t

overlooked by the windows of the house, owing to an intervening

tool-shed, and, leaning against the iron rails that separated Mrs.

Luke’s property from Mr. Thorpe’s, wept bitterly.

She clutched the top rail with both hands, and laying her head on them

wept most bitterly; for it was plain now to her that her dream of two

rooms and no lady was never to come true, and that meanwhile--what was

the good of blinking facts?--her husband had deserted her. And she had

no money; only five shillings her father had given her as a wedding

present,--that was all. Handsome as a present, but not enough, she was

sure, to get her home to him. If only she could go home to him, and

escape any more of Mrs. Luke, and escape the terrible, the

make-you-come-over-all-cold-to-think-of party! Then, when Usband arrived

at his college, she could turn up there and give him a surprise, and

find a room for herself somewhere close, and live in it as quiet as a

mouse, not bothering him at all or interrupting, but near enough to feel

still married.

Sally’s body was shaken by sobs; even the rail on which she leant her

head, her head with its bright, tumbled hair, whose ends, getting into

her eyes, were wet and darkened by her grief, was shaken. She could bear

no more. She couldn’t bear any more of anything in the house behind the

tool-shed. Yet what was she to do? Five shillings would get her

nowhere----

‘Crying, eh?’ said a voice on the other side of the fence.

And looking up with a great start, Sally beheld Father-in-law.