The Shadow of the Lynx

One

Tonight as I sat in my room looking down on the lawn I decided that I would write down what had happened. To do so would be to keep the memory of the days with me for ever. One forgets so quickly; impressions become hazy; one’s mind distorts, colouring events to make them as one would like them to have been, high-lighting what one wants to preserve, pushing away what one would rather not remember. So I would keep a sort of journal and write down everything truthfully and unvarnished just as i^i took place.

What prompted me to do this was that afternoon’s adventure, the day Stirling came. It was ridiculous really. He had come briefly into my life and there was no reason why he should appear again. It was absurd to feel this urge to write down what had happened. It was an ordinary enough incident. I knew his name was Stirling and the girl’s was Nora because they had addressed each other so—perhaps only once, but my mind had been receptive. I was more than usually alert, so I remembered every detail.

Her scarf had blown over the wall and they came to retrieve it. I had a notion that the incident was contrived. A foolish thought really.

Why should it have been?

I was on the lawn with Lucie and it was one of Mamma’s more fretful days. Poor Mamma, she would never be happy, I knew. She was looking back into a past which could not have been so wonderful as she made it out to be. It seemed that she had missed great happiness. One day she would tell me about it. She had promised to do so.

Lucie and I sat on the lawn. Lucie was working at her tapestry; she was making covers for one of the chairs in the dining-room. My father had dropped his cigar ash on the seat of one of these and burned a hole in the tapestry, which had been worked in 1701. How like Lucie to decide that she would copy the Jacobean design and provide a cover which would be indistinguishable from the rest. In her quiet way Lucie was clever and I was so glad that she was with us. Life would have been very dull without her. She could do most things; she could help my father with his work; she would read the latest novel or from the magazines and newspapers to Mamma; and she was a companion for me. I was marvelling at the similarity of her work to the existing chair seats.

“It’s almost exact,” I cried.

“Almost!” she replied in dismay.

“That won’t do. It has to be exact in every detail.”

“I’m sure we shall all be satisfied with something slightly less,” I comforted.

“Who is going to peer into it for discrepancies?”

“Some people might … in the future.” Lucie’s eyes grew dreamy.

“I want people a hundred years hence to look at that chair and say, “Which was the one which was done towards the end of the nineteenth century?”

But why? “

Lucie was a little impatient.

“You don’t deserve to belong to this house, Minta,” she scolded.

“Think what it means. You can trace your family back to the Tudors’ day and beyond. You have this wonderful heritage … Whiteladies! And you don’t seem to appreciate it.”

“Of course I love Whiteladies, Lucie, and I’d hate to live anywhere else, but it’s only a house after all.”

“Only a house!” She raised her eyes to the top of the chestnut tree.

“Whiteladies! Five hundred years ago nuns lived their sheltered lives here. Sometimes I imagine I hear the bells calling them to comp line and at night I fancy I hear their voices as they say their prayers in their cells and the swish of their white robes as they mount the stone staircases.”

I laughed at her.

“Why, Lucie, you care more for the place than any of us.”

“You’ve just taken it for granted,” she cried vehenemently and her mouth was grim. I knew she was thinking of that little house in a grimy town in the Black Country. She had told me about it, and when I thought of that I could understand her love for Whiteladies; and I was so glad that she was with us. In fact she had made me appreciate the home which had been in my family for hundreds of years.

It was I who had brought Lucie into the house. She had taught English literature and history at the boarding-school to which I had been sent, and she had taken rather special care of me during my first months there. She had helped to alleviate the inevitable homesickness; she taught me to adjust myself and be self-reliant; all this she had done in her unobtrusive manner. During my second term we had been told to write an essay on an old house we had visited and naturally I chose Whiteladies. She was interested and asked me where I had seen this house.

“I live in it,” I answered; and after that she often questioned me about it. When the summer holidays came and the rest of us were so excited about going home, I noticed how sad she was and I asked her where she was spending the vacation.

She had no family, she told me. She expected she would try to get a post with some old lady. Perhaps she would travel with her. When I said impulsively, “You should come to Whiteladies!” her delight was touching.

So she came and that was the beginning. In those days the tiresome subject of money was never mentioned. The house was large; there were many unoccupied rooms and we had plenty of servants. Often we had a house full, so Lucie Maryan was just one more. But there was a difference. She made herself so useful. Mamma liked her voice and she did not tire easily; she could listen to Mamma’s accounts of her ailments with real sympathy, for she knew a great deal about illnesses and could entertain Mamma with accounts of people who had suffered in various ways. Even my father became interested in her. He was writing a biography of a famous ancestor who had distinguished himself under Marlborough at Oudenarde, Blenheim and Malplaquet. In his study were letters and papers which had been found in a trunk in one of the turrets. He used to say, “It’s a lifetime’s work. I often wonder if I shall live long enough to complete it.” I suspected that he dozed most of the afternoon and evening when he was supposed to be working.

On that first visit I remember Lucie’s walking with Papa under the trees in the grounds, discussing those battles and Marlborough’s relationship with his wife and Queen Anne. My father was delighted with her knowledge and before the end of the visit he had accepted her help in sorting out some of the letters and papers.

That was the beginning. After that it became a matter of course that Lucie should spend her holidays with us. She was so interested in Whiteladies itself that she urged my father to write a study of the house. This appealed to him and he declared that as soon as he had finished with General Sir Harry Dorian he would begin his researches on the history of Whiteladies.

Lucie was passionately fascinated by his work; and I was amused that Papa and Lucie should be so much more interested in the house than Mamma and myself, when my father had merely married into it and Lucie was not connected with it at all.

When I left school my mother suggested that Lucie join us. We knew what her circumstances were; she was alone in the world, forced to earn her own living; and life at school was not easy. There was so much she could do at Whiteladies.

So Lucie was paid a salary and became a member of our household; we were all fond of her and she was so useful that we could not imagine what we should do without her. She had no specific duties—she was my father’s secretary, my mother’s nurse and my companion; moreover she was the friend of us all.

I was seventeen on that day when Stirling and Nora came; Lucie was twenty-seven.

One of the servants had brought Mamma’s chair into the garden and Lucie put down her work and went over to it. We had chosen a pleasant spot near the Hermes pond under a tree for shade. Mamma could walk quite easily but she liked her invalid’s chair and used it frequently.

I sat idly watching Lucie wheel Mamma across the lawn, wondering whether it was one of her peevish days. One could often tell by the expression on her face. Oh dear, I thought, I do hope not. It’s such a lovely day.

“Do make sure we’re not in the sun,” said Mamma.

“It gives me such a headache.”

“This is a very shady spot. Mamma,” I told her.

“The light is so bright today.” Yes, it was one of her bad days.

“I will place your chair so that the light is not on your face, Lady Cardew,” said Lucie.

“Thank you, Lucie.”

Lucie brought the chair to a standstill and Jeffs, the butler, appeared with Jane, the parlour maid who carried the tray on which was bread and butter, scones with jam and honey, and fruit cake.

Lucie busied herself with making Mamma comfortable and I sat at the table waiting for one of the servants to bring out the tray with the silver teapot and spirit lamp. When it came I poured out the tea, which Mamma said was too strong. Lucie immediately watered it and Mamma sat sipping in silence. I understood.

Her thoughts were in the past.

I glanced at the house. The window on the first floor which belonged to my father’s study was open a little. There he would be sitting at his desk, papers spread out round him, dozing I could be certain. He never liked to be disturbed when working; secretly I suspected he was afraid someone would catch him sleeping. Dear Papa, he was never cross with anyone. He was the most easygoing man in the world; he was even patient with Mamma, and it must have required a great deal of forbearance to be constantly reminded that she regretted her marriage.

“Lucie,” she was saying now, “I want an extra cushion for my back.”

“Yes, Lady Cardew. I think’ I'll go indoors for one of the larger ones.

In any’ case I’m always afraid the garden ones may be a little damp.”

Mamma nodded and as Lucie went off she murmured:

“She’s such a good creature.”

I didn’t like Lucie’s being referred to as a ‘creature’. I was so fond of her. I watched her walking across the grass-rather tall, very straight-backed, her dark hair smoothed down on either side and made into a knot at the nape of her neck. She wore dark colours—mulberry today—and they became her rather olive skin; she had a natural elegance so that not very expensive clothes looked quite modish on her.

“She’s a good friend to us all,” I said with slight reproof. I was the only one who occasionally reproved Mamma. My father, hating any sort of fuss, was invariably gentle and placating. I have known him take endless trouble to avoid the smallest unpleasantness. And Lucie, because after all she was employed—a fact which my father and I always strove to make her forget—was quick to respond to my mother’s whims, for she was proud and determined that her job should be no sinecure.

“Good heavens, Lucie,” I often said, ‘you needn’t fear that. You are guide, comforter and friend to us and all for the price of a housekeeper! “

Lucie’s reply to that was: “I shall always be grateful for being allowed to come here. I hope you will never regret taking me in.”

Mamma was saying that the wind was cold and the sun too hot and that the headache she had awakened with had grown worse throughout the day. Lucie came back with the cushion and settled it behind Mamma, who thanked her languidly.

Then they were coming across the lawn. They looked a little defiant as indeed they might, being uninvited and unannounced. He was tall and dark; she was dark, too—not exactly pretty but there was a vitality about her which was obvious as soon as one saw her, and that was very attractive.

“Good afternoon,” said Stirling, ‘we have come to get my ward’s scarf.”

It seemed an odd announcement. It struck me as strange that he should be her guardian. I thought she was about my age and he perhaps Lucie’s. Then I noticed the green scarf lying on the grass. She said something about its blowing from her neck and sailing over the wall.

“By all means …” I began. Mamma was looking on in astonishment; Lucie was unruffled. Then I noticed that the girl’s hand was bleeding and I asked if she were hurt. She had grazed it, she told me. It was nothing. Lucie said it should be dressed and she would take her to Mrs. Glee’s room where they could bandage it.

There was some protest but eventually Lucie took the girl to Mrs. Glee and I was left alone with Stirling and Mamma.

I asked if they would like tea and he declared his pleasure-He was greatly interested in the house. He was different from any man I knew, but then I knew so few. I was, I suppose, comparing him with Franklyn Wakefield. There could not have been two men less like. I asked him where he lived and was astonished when he said Australia.

“Australia,” said Mamma, leaning forward a little in her chair.

“That’s a long way off.”

“Twelve thousand miles or thereabouts.”

There was something very breezy and likeable about him and the intrusion had lifted the afternoon out of its customary monotony.

“Have you come here to stay?” I asked.

“No, I shall be sailing away the day after tomorrow.”

“So soon!’ I felt a ridiculous dismay.

“My ward and I leave on the Carron Star,” he said.

“I came over to escort her back. Her father has died and we are adopting her.”

“That’s very … exciting,” I said foolishly.

“Do you think so?” His smile was ironic and I flushed.

I feared he was thinking me rather stupid. He was no doubt comparing me with his ward who looked so lively and intelligent.

Mamma asked him about Australia. What was it like? Where did he live?

She knew someone who had gone there years ago.

That was interesting, said Stirling. What was the name of the settler she had known? “

“I … er can’t remember,” said Mamma.

“Well, it’s a big place.”

“I often wonder …” began Mamma and then stopped.

He said he lived about forty miles north of Melbourne. Was it to Melbourne her friend had gone?

“I couldn’t say,” said Mamma.

“I never heard.”

“Was it long ago?” he persisted. There was an odd quirk about his mouth as though he were very interested and perhaps a little amused about Mamma’s friend.

“I find it hard to remember,” said Mamma. Then she added quickly: “It would be such a long time ago. Thirty years … or more.”

“You never kept in touch with you^ friend?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What a pity! I might have been able to take him … or her … news of you.”

“Oh, it was long, long ago,” said Mamma, a little flushed and quite excited. I had never known her like this. Our unexpected visitor seemed to have affected us both strangely.

I gave him tea and noticed his strong brown fingers on the Crown Derby. He smiled as he took the cup from me; there were wrinkles round his eyes, caused I supposed by the hot sun.

I asked him questions about Australia and I was very interested in the property his people owned. There was a hotel, too, in Melbourne, and a gold mine.

“What exciting lives you must lead!” I said.

He admitted it; and for the first time I felt restive. It hadn’t occurred to me before how uneventful life was at Whiteladies. Lucie was constantly implying that I should be grateful; he had the opposite effect on me. But it seemed that he, too, was fascinated by Whiteladies. He asked a great many questions about it and we were on this subject when the girl came back with Lucie. Her hand had been bandaged. I poured out tea for her and we continued to talk of the house.

Then Franklyn arrived. There was something very charming about Franklyn. He was so calm. I had known him all my life and never had I seen him ruffled. On the rare occasions when it was necessary for him to reprimand anyone or assert himself in some way, one felt he brought a judicial attitude to the matter and that it was done from a sense of the rightness of things rather than in anger.

Some people might have called Franklyn dull. He was far from that.

The contrast between him and Stirling was marked. Stirling might have appeared clumsy if he had been a different kind of man; but Stirling was completely unaware of any disadvantage. He clearly was not impressed by the immaculate cut of Franklyn’s suit—if he noticed it at all.

It was difficult to make introductions, so I explained to Franklyn that the scarf had blown over the wall and that they had come to retrieve it.

Then Nora rose and said they must be going and thanked us for our kindness. Stirling was a little put out, and I was pleased because he obviously would have liked to stay; but there was nothing I could do to detain them and Lucie went with them to the gates.

That was all. A trivial incident in a way and yet I could not get them out of my mind; and because I wanted to remember it exactly as it happened, I started this journal.

We sat on the lawn until half past five then my father came down. His hair was ruffled, his face slightly flushed. I thought:

He’s had a good sleep.

“How did the work go. Sir Hilary?” asked Lucie.

He smiled at her. When he smiled his face lit up and it was as though a light had been turned on behind his eyes. He loved talking about his work.

“It was hard going today,” he said.

“But I tell myself I’m at a difficult stage.”

Mamma looked impatient and Franklyn said quickly:

“There are, I believe, always these stages. If the work went too smoothly there might be a danger of its being facile.”

Trust Franklyn to say the right thing! He sat back in the gardfil chair looking immaculate, bland and tolerant of us all. I knew that Mamma and my father had decided that Franklyn would make a very good son-in-law. We would join up Wakefield Park and Whiteladies. It would be very convenient, for the two houses were moderately close and the grounds met. Franklyn’s people were not exactly rich but, as it was said, comfortable; and in any case we were not rich either.

I believe that something had happened to our finances during the last two years, for whenever money was mentioned Papa would assume a studied vagueness which meant that this was a subject he did not wish to hear of because it bothered him.

However, it would be very convenient if Franklyn and I married. I had even come to regard this as an inevitability. I wondered whether Franklyn did too. He always treated me with a delightful courtesy; but then he extended this to everyone. I had seen the village post mistress flush with pleasure when he exchanged a few words with her. He was tall-all the Wakefields had been tall—and he managed his father’s estate with tact and efficiency, being a very good landlord to all the tenants. But behind Franklyn’s easygoing charm there was an aloofness.

His eyes were slaty grey rather than blue; there was a lack of warmth in them and one felt that if he was never angry, he was never really delighted either. He was equable; and therefore, though a comforting person to be with, hardly an exciting one. Everything about him was conventional: his immaculate dress; his courteous manners; his well-ordered life.

These facts had not occurred to me before. It was because of those two people who had invaded my afternoon that I had begun this assessment.

Well, they had gone. I never expected to see them again.

“Exactly,” Papa was saying.

“I always tell myself that I must accept this hard task for the sake of posterity?

“I am sure,” added Franklyn, ‘that you will complete it to the satisfaction of the present generation and those to come. “

My father was pleased, particularly when Lucie added earnestly: “I am sure you will, too. Sir Hilary.”

Then Lucie and Franklyn began to talk with Papa, and Mamma yawned and said her headache was coming on again, so Lucie took her to her room where she would lie down before dinner.

“Franklyn, you’ll dine with us?” said my father; and Franklyn graciously accepted.

Mamma did not appear for dinner. She sent for Lizzie, her maid, to rub eau-de-Cologne on her forehead. Dr. Hunter had been invited to dine with us but he would first spend half an hour or so with Mamma discussing her symptoms before joining us.

Dr. Hunter had come to us only two years ago and seemed young to have the responsibility of our lives and deaths, but perhaps that was because we compared him with old Dr. Hedgling whose practice he had taken over. Dr. Hunter was in his early thirties; he was a bachelor and had a housekeeper who was supposed to look after his material comforts. He was, I fancied, over anxious for our good opinion, while being aware that we considered him a trifle inexperienced. He was an amusing young man and Mamma liked him, which was an important point.

Dinner was quite lively. The young doctor had an amusing way of describing a situation and Franklyn could cap his stories often in a coolly witty manner. I was rather glad that Mamma had decided to have dinner sent up on a tray, for with her constant repetitions of her symptoms she could be a little tiresome and she most certainly would indulge in the recital of them if the doctor were present.

H I think my father was pleased, too. He was always different when she was absent; it was almost as though he revelled in his freedom.

The doctor was talking of one or two of his patients, how old Betty Ellery who was bedridden refused to see what she called ‘a bit of a boy’. “While confessing to my youth,” said the doctor, “I had to insist that my person was intact, and that I was whole and certainly not a bit of myself.”

“Poor Betty!” I said.

“She’s been in bed since I was a little girl. I remember going to her with blankets every Christmas, plus a chicken and plum pudding. When the carriage pulled up at her door and we alighted, she would cry out: ” Come in, madam, and you’re almost as welcome as the gifts you’ve brought. ” I used to sit solemnly in the chair beside her bed and listen to the stories she told of when Grandpapa Dorian was alive and Mamma used to go visiting with her Mamma.”

“The old customs remain,” said Pranklyn.

“And a good thing, too, don’t you agree, Franklyn?” asked my father.

Franklyn said that in some cases it was good to cling to the old customs; in others better to discard them. And so the conversation continued.

After dinner Lucie and the doctor sat talking earnestly while I chatted with Franklyn. I asked him what he thought of the people who had come that afternoon.

“The young lady of the scarf, you mean.”

“Both of them. They seemed unusual.”

“Did they?” Franklyn clearly did not think so and I could see that he had almost forgotten them. I felt faintly annoyed with him and turned to Lucie and the doctor. The doctor was talking about his housekeeper, Mrs. Devlin, whom he suspected of drinking more than sobriety demanded.

T hope,” said Lucie, ‘that you lock up your spirits.”

“My dear Miss Maryan, if I did I should lose the lady.”

“Would she be such a loss?”

“You clearly have no idea of the trials of a bachelor’s existence when he is at the mercy of a couple of maids. Why, I should starve and my house would resemble a pigsty without the supervision of my Mrs. Devlin. I have to forgive her her love of strong drink for the sake of the comfort she brings into my life.”

I smiled at Franklyn. I wondered whether he was thinking the same as I was. Dear Lucie! She must be nearly thirty and if she were ever going to marry she should do it soon and what a good doctor’s wife she would make! I could picture her dealing with the patients, helping him along. It was an ideal situation, although we should lose her, and what should we do without her? But we must not, of course, be selfish.

This was Lucie’s chance; and if she married the doctor, she would be living close to me for the rest of her life.

I turned to Franklyn. I was about to whisper that I thought it would be wonderful if Lucie and Dr. Hunter made a match; but one did not say things like that to Franklyn. He would think it bad taste to whisper of such a matter—or even talk of it openly—when it concerned only the two people involved. Oh dear, how tiresome he could be! And what a lot of fun he was missing in life!

I contrived it so that we talked in one group and Dr. Hunter told us some amusing stories of his life in hospital before he came to the district; and he was very entertaining. But he and Wakefield left soon after ten and we retired for the night.

When I went in to say goodnight to my mother she was wide awake.

There was a change in her.

She said: “Sit down, Minta, and talk to me for a while. I shall never sleep tonight.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“You know, Minta,” she said reproachfully, ‘that I never sleep well.”

I thought then that we were going to have an account of her sufferings, but this was not so. She went on quickly:

“I feel I must talk to you. There is so much I have never told you. I hope, my child, that your life will be happier than mine.”

When I thought of her life with an indulgent husband, a beautiful home, servants to attend to every whim, and freedom to do everything she wanted—or almost—I could not agree that she was in need of commiseration. But, as always with Mamma, I made a pretence of listening. I’m afraid that my attention often wandered and I would murmur a sympathetic ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘how terrible without really knowing what it was all about.

Then my attention was caught and held because she said:

“It was those people coming this afternoon that brought it all back.

The man came from Australia. That was where he went all those years ago. “

“Who, Mamma?”

“Charles. I wish you could have known Charles. There was no one quite like him ever.”

“And who was he?”

“How could you say who Charles was? He came here as a drawing-master, my drawing-master. But he was more than that. I remember the day he arrived. I was in the schoolroom then. I was sixteen—younger than you are now. He was a few years older. He came in looking bold and arrogant—not in the ‘least like a drawing-master and said: ” Are you Miss Dorian? I’ve come to teach you. ” And he taught me so much, Minta, so very much.”

“Mamma,” I said, ‘what made those people remind you of him? “

“Because they came from Australia and that was where he went—where they sent him. And that young man reminded me of him in a way. There was an air about him. Do you know what I mean? He didn’t care what people thought of him. He knew he was as good—no, better—than anyone. Do you know what I mean?”

Yes, I do. “

“It was cruel,” she went on.

“I hated your grandfather after that.

Charles was innocent. As if he cared about my jewels! He wanted me . not what I could bring him. I’m sure of that, Minta. “

She had changed. The peevish invalid bad disappeared. She even looked beautiful as she must have been years ago. I knew there was something significant about that visit this afternoon and I was enormously interested.

“Tell me about it,” I begged.

“Oh, my dear Minta, it seems like yesterday. I wish I could describe Charles to you.”

“You were in love with him, I suppose.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And I have been all my life.”

I felt this was disloyal to my father and I protested.

“Isn’t that because he went out of your life when he was young and handsome and you’ve always seen him like that? If you could see him now you might have a terrible shock.”

“If I could see him now …” Her eyes were dreamy.

“That young man reminded me so much … it brought it all back. Those days when we were in the schoolroom; and then he said we must work out of doors. We would sit under the chestnut tree … where we were sitting this afternoon and he would sketch the flowers or a bird and I would have to copy it. Then we went for walks together, studying wild life and trying to put it on paper. He used to talk about Whiteladies as Lucie does. It’s strange how people are impressed by the house. He never tired of talking of it. And then we were in love and going to be married, and of course your grandfather would not allow it.”

“You were only about seventeen. Mamma. Perhaps you were carried away.”

“There are some things one can be sure of however young. I was sure of this. Once having known Charles, I was certain that no one else would ever mean to me what he did. He said we must not tell your grandfather, that he would forbid our marriage and something dreadful would happen, for your grandfather was a very powerful man. But he discovered what was going on. Someone must have told him, and Charles was dismissed. We planned to elope. My father was afraid of Charles for he knew he was no ordinary young man. I was guarded all the time but the notes were smuggled in and we made our arrangements. He climbed to my room on the night we were going away together. I gave him my jewellery to put in his pockets and keep for me while we climbed down.” Her lips began to tremble.

“We were betrayed. The jewellery was found on him and he was transported for seven years.

Your grandfather was a hard man and my heart was broken. “

“Poor Mamma, what a sad story! But would you have been happy with him? “

“If you had ever known him you would understand. I could be happy with no one else. He thought that if we married, my father would forgive us in time. I was after all his only daughter. Our children would be his grandchildren. Charles used to say: ” Our children will play on the lawns of Whiteladies, never fear. ” But they sent him away and I never saw him again. I shall never, never forget.”

I understood then the reason for all those peevish years. She believed life had cheated her. Her love for this man she had chosen had turned into discontent with the husband who had been chosen for her. I should have been more tolerant towards her. I should try to be now.

“And at the back of my mind,” she went on, in an unusually revelatory manner, “I always thought there was something I should have done. I was my father’s only child. I could have threatened to run away, to kill myself—anything. I believe now that if I had, something would have been done. But I was afraid of your grandfather and I let them take him away without protest and five years later I married your father because that was what my father wished.”

“Well, Mamma,” I reminded her, “Papa is a very good man. And this drawing-master might not have been all you imagined him to be.”

“Life with him might not always have been easy, but it would have been wonderfully worth while. As it is …”

“You have a great deal to be thankful for. Mamma,” I reminded her again; and she smiled at me rather wanly.

“I was a little reconciled when you were born, Minta. But that was a long time after our marriage. I thought we should never have a child.

Perhaps if you had arrived earlier . and then of course your birth had such an effect on my health. “

She was her wan self again recalling the terrible period of gestation, the fearful ordeal of my arrival. I had heard it before and was not eager to do so again.

“And because those people came this afternoon you were reminded of the past,” I said quickly.

“I wish I knew what happened to him, Minta. To be sent away as a convict. That proud man!”

“I daresay he was ingenious enough to find a niche for himself.”

She smiled.

“That was a thought I consoled myself with.”

There was a knock on the door and Lizzie came in. Lizzie was about a year or so older than my mother. She had been nurse to me and before that my mother’s maid. She treated me still as though I were a baby and was more familiar with my mother than any of the servants were. She had thick grey hair which was a riot of curls about her head; it was her only beauty but striking enough even now to make people look twice at her.

“You’re keeping your mother from her sleep. Miss Minta,” she said.

“I thought she was tired out. “

“We’ve been talking,” I said.

Lizzie clicked her tongue.

“I know.” She turned to my mother.

“Shall I settle you for the night?”

My mother nodded so I kissed her good night and went out.

As I shut the door I heard her say eagerly and with the rare excited note in her voice: “When I saw that young man this afternoon, it took me back years. You remember how he used to sit on the lawn with his sketching pad …”

I went to my room. Lizzie would have been here at the time, I thought.

She would have seen it all.

Poor Mamma! How dreadful to live one’s life in discontent, constantly dreaming of what might have been.

I found it difficult to sleep. The afternoon visitors had affected me as they had my mother.

The memory of that visit stayed with me for days afterwards. I should have liked to discuss it with Lucie but I felt that what my mother had told me had been in confidence. There was a painting of her which had been done about two years after the abortive elopement and she certainly appeared very beautiful. I looked at it differently now and saw the haunting sadness in her eyes. I thought of Grandfather Dorian, whom I vaguely remembered as a great power in the house, whose gruff commands used to send shivers of alarm down my young spine. I could imagine how stem he would have been with his own daughter. He approved of Papa-as a husband, of course. Papa had been a titled gentleman of some means and highly suitable; he would have been gentle and submissive and have agreed to take up residence at Whiteladies. He had had a house nearby and an estate in Somerset which had come into his family’s possession in 1749 when they had sprung into prominence through their loyalty to the Hanoverian cause. After that they had begun to build their fortune. We used to visit Somerset sometimes twice a year, but Papa had sold the estate two years ago as he had his other house. It was expensive to run them and we needed the money, he said. I wondered how poor Mamma had felt when she knew she was to be married. But she must have known she had lost her Charles for ever. I wondered, too, whether she had made any pretence of loving Papa.

I was in the garden picking flowers for the vases when Dr. Hunter came out of the house. I called to him and he stood smiling at me.

“You have just been to see Mamma?” I asked. He said that he had, and I went on; “I’d like to talk to you about her. Don’t let her see us, though. She may look out from the window. She would immediately imagine that we were discussing some terrible new disease she had contracted.”

“Why not show me the roses?” he suggested.

“A good idea, but better still, come into the pond garden. We’ll be really out of sight there.”

The pond garden was surrounded by a pleasant alley which, in summer, made a luxuriantly green arch. I loved the pond garden; it seemed shut away from the rest of the house. I was sure that Mamma and her artist lover had sat there by the water making their plans, feeling shut away from the world. The flowers used to be much more colourful when I was a child. We had more people working in the garden then, and gardeners would change overnight the spring tints for the rich shades of summer.

I remember particularly vivid blue delphiniums and the heavy scent of pinks and carnations-and later the bronze and purples of chrysanthemums and the unmistakable odour of the dying year. But now, because it was late summer, the flowers were plentiful. There was a white statue in the pond and waxen-petalled lilies floated on the water. This garden had been copied. Papa told me, two hundred years ago from that one in Hampton Court where it was said Henry VIII had walked with Anne Boleyn.

“How ill is my mother?” I asked the doctor.

“Her illness is within herself,” he answered.

“You mean imaginary?”

“Well, she does have her headaches. She does suffer from lassitude and vague pains.”

“You mean there is nothing really wrong with her.”

“Nothing organically wrong.”

“So her illness is in her mind and she could be better to morrow if she wanted to. “

“It’s not as simple as that. This is a genuine state of sickness.”

“Something happened recently. Some people came and reminded her of the past. She seemed almost young again.”

He nodded.

“She needs an interest in life. She needs to think of something other than herself, past excitements and present boredoms.

That’s all. “

“What can she be interested in, I wonder?”

“Perhaps when you marry and have grandchildren she will be so enchanted with them that she will find a new interest in life.

Interest! That’s what she wants. “

“I have no intention of marrying for a long time. Is she to wait for a cure until then?”

He laughed.

“We will do our best. She’ll continue with her pills and medicines and find some relief from them.”

“But if she is not physically ill does she need medicine?”

“They are placebos. They help her because she believes in them. I’m sure that is how we have to treat her.”

“What a difficult task—to attempt to cure someone of something that doesn’t exist!”

“But you are mistaken. This illness does exist. It is real. This is what I used to attempt to argue out with my predecessor. He believed that an illness was only an illness if it gave an outward and visible sign of being one. Don’t worry. Miss Minta. We have your mother’s ease well in hand. Miss Mapyan is very helpful, isn’t she?”

“Lucie is wonderful.”

“Yes,” said the doctor, smiling in such a way that he betrayed his feelings for Lucie.

“Have you explained this to her … my mother’s condition, I mean?”

“She is fully aware of it. In fact she guessed it. We were speaking of it only the other day when she came over for your mother’s medicine.”

“The placebo?” I said.

“Yes, the placebo.”

“And how is Mrs. Devlin these days ” As usual. She was a little florid of complexion with a slight pinkness at the tip of the nose when I returned home from visiting yesterday. “

“One day she may take a little too much.”

“One day! I suspect it happens most evenings. Well, we should count our blessings, we are told; and apart from one failing she is a treasure. Until I can make another arrangement I must not be too critical. “

“Oh,” I said, ‘you are thinking of making other arrangements? “

“Nothing definite … as yet.” He looked a little embarrassed and I realized I had been too inquisitive. But I was sure he was referring to Lucie.

We went back to the house and I stood talking to him while he got into his barouche and drove away.

I went to Lucie’s room. It was always so neat and tidy; she handled the furniture as though it were sacred, which amused me. This was the room which she had been given on her first visit Whiteladies and she loved it. Its ceiling was lofty and the family coat of arms was engraved on it; the hanging chandelier was small but beautifully cut; it jingled slightly like temple bells; there was a large window with a window seat padded in mulberry velvet and mulberry-coloured rugs on the floor. The bed had a canopy. It really was charming, I suppose, but we had several similar rooms in Whiteladies and it hadn’t struck me that there was anything special about this one until I noticed Lucie’s loving care of it.

“I’ve just been talking to the doctor, Lucie,” I said.

She was sitting at the dressing-table and, looking down, she began moving the toilet articles there. I sat down on the chair with the carved back and the rail on which one could put one’s feet. I studied her. She was by no means flamboyantly attractive; it was only that innate elegance which lifted her from the ordinary. Her face was too pale, her features too insignificant for beauty.

“He seems a little … unsettled in his domestic arrangements.”

“It’s that housekeeper of his.”

“We ought to persuade him to get another. You never know what she might do. She might get to his drug cabinet and help herself to something poisonous.”

“She’s not interested in drugs. It’s the wine cellar she cares about.”

“But in a mood of drunken exuberance …* ” Hers are stupors, I believe. “

“But a doctor’s housekeeper should be abstemious.”

“Everyone should be abstemious,” said Lucie gravely.

“I do like Dr. Hunter,” I commented.

“I’d like to see him with a wife to help him along. Don’t you think that’s what he needs?”

“Most professional men need a wife to help them along,” replied Lucie noncommittally.

I laughed.

“There’s a lot of the schoolmistress about you still, Lucie,” I said.

“Sometimes I could imagine you in class. Talking of marrying, if you ever decide to, I hope you won’t go too far away from us.”

But Lucie was not to be drawn.

It was a sunny afternoon. The house seemed quiet. My mother was resting; my father was, too, I suspected, although he was in his study. Lucie had driven the dogcart over to the doctor’s to collect my mother’s medicine; so I brought my embroidery out on to the lawn and sat under the oak tree, thinking as I often did of that day when the scarf had blown over the wall.

Franklyn called. He came over the lawn as he had on that other day and settled into the chair beside me.

“So you’re all alone,” he said.

I told him where everyone was.

He made one or two comments about the estate and some of the tenant farmers; this was one of his favourite subjects. He made it his business to know the details of their family life and I had heard that his tenants had nothing to fear from their landlord. He liked to talk to me about these affairs-perhaps because he shared the general view that one day they would be my affairs too, for the wife of a landlord like Franklyn would have her duties to the estate. Franklyn was such a good man, but so predictable. One knew without asking what his views would be on almost any subject one could think of.

I felt a mischievous desire to shock him, so I talked of the matter which was uppermost in my mind—that of Lucie and her relationship with Dr. Hunter.

“Lucie has gone over to Dr. Hunter’s to get Mamma’s medicine,” I said.

“She enjoys riding over. I daresay she contemplates with pleasure the day when she will be mistress of the house.”

“So they are engaged to be married?” asked Franklyn.

“Nothing has been said, but …”

“Then how can you be sure?”

“But isn’t it obvious?”

“You mean that there is an attachment? I should say there is the possibility of an engagement, but how can one be sure until it is an actuality?”

Dear Franklyn! He talked like a chairman addressing a board meeting.

That was how his mind worked—precise, completely logical. He had a set of conventions and he would adhere to them rigidly.

But, Franklyn, it will be absolutely ideal. “

“Superficially considered, yes. But one cannot really say that a marriage is ideal until there has been at least a year’s trial.”

“Still, I think we should be delighted if Dr. Hunter were to ask Lucie’s hand in marriage and she were to accept him. I should like to see Lucie happily settled. After all, Dr. Hunter is so eligible and there is no one else in the district who is suitable to be Lucie’s husband, so it will have to be Dr. Hunter. She would have a calming influence on disturbed patients who arrive at the surgery, and she could probably learn to mix medicines. She is very clever.”

“I am sure you are right and it would be an admirable arrangement.

There is something I have wanted to say to you for a long time, Araminta. “

He used my full name when he was being solemn so I knew that an important matter was about to be discussed. Is he going to propose? I asked myself. This talk of Lucie’s marriage has put ours into his head. I was wrong. Franklyn would never propose marriage on the spur of the moment. If and when he came to ask me, he would come with the appropriate ceremony, having asked Papa’s permission first.

“Yes, Franklyn,” I said, with a faint note of alarm in my voice, for I could not rid myself of the thought that he was working towards a proposal which I should be expected to accept—and I didn’t want to.

His next words brought relief.

“I have tried to talk to your father but he is not anxious to hear. I could not, of course, talk to your mother. I think that there may well be cause for anxiety concerning your family’s financial affairs.”

You mean we are short of money? “

He hesitated. Then he said: T am convinced that your father’s affairs are in an uneasy condition. I believe that it is a matter which should not be ignored. “

“Franklyn, will you tell me exactly what you mean?”

“I am a land-owner,” he said, ‘not a financier. But one does not have to be that to understand what is going on in the markets.

Your father and my father have been friends for years. They had the same man of business, similar investments. The bulk of my possessions are in land, but this is not the case with your father. He has Whiteladies and I am afraid little else. He sold the Somerset property some years ago and the money raised was invested—not wisely, I fear.

Your father is not exactly a man of business. “

“Do you mean that we have become poor, Franklyn?”

“Hardly that. But I think you should curb any extravagance in the household. I am warning you because your parents don’t seem to understand the necessity not to spend beyond their income. Forgive my candid talk, but I am a little worried. I should not like to see Whiteladies fall into disrepair.”

I felt depressed. So my father was worried about money, or at least he ought to be. He wouldn’t be, of course. He would forget what was unpleasant; as for Mamma, she would be completely vague if I broached the subject to her. And Franklyn? What was the motive behind his warning? If he married me he would come to live at Whiteladies as Papa had come. If the house could not be passed down through the male line it would have to be through the female. Mamma had inherited; so would I. The family name might have to change but the blood link was there.

So now Franklyn was thinking of Whiteladies; he was concerned because Papa’s indigence might make it impossible for him to keep up the house until he, Franklyn, took over.

I remember that when I had told Papa that there was worm in the beams of one of the turret chambers, he had shrugged it aside, and I knew that the matter should have been dealt with. There were several floorboards which were in urgent need of repair and had been neglected for months. My father shut his eyes to these things and now I was picturing ourselves living on at Whiteladies with the place gradually becoming uninhabitable. I could imagine my father shut up in his room refusing to listen while the house slowly crumbled away.

I said: “What can I do about this?”

“Try to bring in a little economy. If you get a chance talk to your father. Things are not what they were twenty years ago. Taxation has increased; the cost of living has followed; it is a changing world, and we have to adjust ourselves to it. “

“I doubt that I can do very much. If Papa won’t listen to you, he won’t to me.”

“If you tell him you are a little anxious …”

“But he won’t do anything. He just shuts himself into his study and dozes over his manuscript.”

There! I had said it. I had let out the secret of Papa’s work. But perhaps it was not really a secret and Franklyn knew as well as I did.

What I had done was mention what politeness and convention ruled as unmentionable.

“I’ll speak to Lucie,” I said.

“I daresay she would know how to institute economies far better than I. ”

“That’s an excellent idea,” agreed Franklyn. Then having done his duty, which I was sure he always would, he changed the subject and we talked of village affairs until I heard Lucie coming back with the dogcart.

After that night when she had confided in me. Mamma grew more peevish than ever. She spent a great deal of time in her room; trays were-sent up at meal-times and I knew that she did justice to the food because I saw Lizzie bringing them away empty several times.

Lizzie was in her confidence and sometimes when I visited her last thing at night, she would seem almost eager to be rid of me and before I was out of the room she would start talking to Lizzie.

“You remember that day when Mr. Herrick and I were in the garden …” or “There was that occasion when Papa asked him to join us for dinner. We were a man short and he was so distinguished….” I imagined she bored poor Lizzie with her reminiscences of the past. But perhaps Lizzie could be more understanding that I since she had seen this superior gentleman who had been transported ignobly to Australia.

Poor Papa! She was so impatient with him. She seemed to have taken a great dislike to him; she was irritable and scarcely took the trouble to answer him civilly. So we were all glad when she decided to stay in her room for meals. It was a situation which I found both distressing and embarrassing. I wished that these people had never come. Once again I was grateful for Lucie’s presence for she seemed to know exactly what to do. When Mamma had been very slighting to my father, Lucie would make some comment about his work and he would forget the insult for the compliment. It was such a pity because if ever a man knew how to be happy, that man was my father, with his talent for shrugging aside what was unpleasant. He kept away from my mother as much as possible and Lucie went more frequently to his study, so I daresay the book really was making progress.

Lucie was so devoted to us that our family affairs were hers and while she tried to give my father importance she also sympathized with my mother. I think that, next to Lizzie, she was confided in more than any of us. But it was becoming a somewhat uneasy household.

One day, having been to Dr. Hunter’s to get my mother’s medicine, Lucie came back looking flushed and disturbed. She took the medicine to my mother’s room and when she came out I called her into mine.

“Come in and have a chat,” I said.

“Mamma has been in a terrible mood today.”

Lucie frowned.

“I know. I wish those people hadn’t come.”

“It seems so odd. People call like that, strangers, and things change.”

“It had begun before really,” said Lucie.

“But these people reminded your mother of the past.”

“How I wish she could see this superior being now. I daresay he is old and grey and no longer looks so handsome. Poor Papa, I’m sorry for him.”

“Yes,” said Lucie.

“It’s so easy to make him happy and such a pity that he can’t be.” Then she blurted out: “Minta, Dr. Hunter has asked me to marry him.”

“Oh, Lucie, congratulations.”

“Thanks, but I haven’t decided.”

“But, Lucie, it would be an ideal marriage.”

“How can you know?”

I laughed.

“You sound just like Franklyn. I think you will make a wonderful doctor’s wife. He’ll be able to get rid of that drunken Devlin and you will look after him perfectly. I do hope he realizes how lucky he is.”

“But I told you I haven’t decided yet.”

“You will.”

“You sound as though you’ll be glad to be rid of me.”

“How can you say that when you know that one of the reasons why I’m so pleased is that it will keep you near us.”

“But I shan’t be at Whiteladies.”

“I believe it’s the house you like, Lucie, better than us. It was the same with …” No, I was going to forget that insignificant incident. But he had been abnormally interested in the house. I could understand it, in a way, because he had lived all his life in Australia and Whiteladies must have been one of the first ancient mansions he had ever seen. But Lucie was as obsessed as he was.

“Well,” I finished, ‘you won’t be far away. “

“He’s very ambitious. I doubt that he will settle to be a country doctor all his life. He plans to go to London to specialize and set up his plate in Harley or Wimpole Street.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. Even so, you will make a wonderful doctor’s wife, Lucie, and since he is so ambitious you are just the wife for him. I hate the thought of your going, but London is not so far. We could meet often.”

“You make it all sound so simple.”

“Well, I daresay it will be, and in any case he may decide to spend the rest of his life here. What would he specialize in?”

“He’s interested in cases like your mothers’.”

“You mean people who are not really ill to begin with but imagine themselves into illness.”

“Diseases of the mind,” said Lucie.

“I shall be desolate if you go, but at the same time I think you should.”

“My dear Minta, you have to let me manage my own affairs, you know. I haven’t decided yet.”

I was surprised, realizing there was a great deal about Lucie that I didn’t understand. I had imagined her to be calm and precise, choosing the sensible way; but perhaps after all she was romantic. It was clear that she was not passionately in love with Dr. Hunter; but she must realize what a wonderful chance it would be for her to marry him.

It was a misty November day; there was not a breath of wind and everything was depressingly damp. There were countless spiders’ webs draped over the bushes, glistening with tiny globules of moisture and everything seemed unusually silent. The mist penetrated the house. It was like a vague presence. All the morning Lucie had been working about the house; it was wonderful the way she superintended everything. The servants did not mind, except perhaps Mrs. Glee who vaguely suspected that she was taking over some of her duties. Lucie would go down to the kitchen and order the meals after having submitted suggestions to Mamma through Lizzie. Mamma never looked at them but Lucie insisted on their being shown to her. Lucie was a wonderful housekeeper and should have been running a house of her own.

I spent most of the morning in the flower-room. There was not much left in the garden besides chrysanthemums, asters, dahlias and Michaelmas daisies. As I arranged them I was thinking how dull life was here, doing the same things almost at the same time every day. I sniffed the subtle autumnal smell these flowers have and I saw myself through the years ahead arranging the flowers—primroses, daffodils, and the spring sunshine-coloured flowers down to the holly and mistletoe of December—always here in the flower-room which had once been a nun’s cell with its stone floor and small high window in the wall with the three bars across it. And I longed for life to change.

Afterwards I remembered the fervour of my longing and thought how strange it was that on that day life should change so drastically.

Looking into the starry faces of the daisies, I saw his face, the green eyes, the arrogant features. It was absurd to go on remembering a stranger whom I had met by chance and very likely would never see again.

One of the maids came in to carry the flowers away and put them in the places I had chosen. It was an hour before luncheon would be served, normally I should have taken a walk round the garden but it was such a damp and dismal morning. So I stayed in my room and my thoughts went back and back again to the incident of the girl with the scarf, and I thought of Mamma who in this house had been toved and had loved, and consequently must have been quite unlike the woman she was today. I wondered if I should grow old and peevish, looking back resentfully because life had passed me by.

Dr. Hunter called and was with Mamma for half an hour. Before he left he asked to see me and said he would like to have a little talk with Papa as well so we went up to Papa’s study and he and the doctor drank a glass of sherry while Dr. Hunter talked to us of Mamma.

“You must realize,” said Dr. Hunter, ‘that there is no reason at all why Lady Cardew should not lead a reasonably normal life. She is breathless, yes—because she is out of condition. She stays in her room nursing a non-existent heart trouble. I am of the opinion that we have all been pandering to her whims, and I think we should now try different tactics. “

As I was listening I was visualizing him in tastefully furnished rooms in Harley Street treating rich patients and going home to Lucie, who would entertain brilliant doctors and learn enough of her husband’s profession to join intelligently in the very learned conversation. It pleased me to think of her as the school teacher she had been before I had discovered her. I wondered why she did not give Dr. Hunter his answer.

“We will try a little experiment,” he said.

“Not so much sympathy, please.”

Dr. Hunter went on to expound his theories. He was going to start a new line of healing. He grew very animated talking of the experiments he intended to make. I was sure we should lose him to Harley Street very soon—and Lucie too to some extent if she married him. If! But of course she would.

“Just a little gentle reproof,” he went on.

“Don’t be too harsh at first.”

Papa asked him to stay to luncheon but he was too busy. He finished his sherry and left us.

Mamma came down to luncheon in one of her more difficult moods.

“This weather brings on all my pains,” she grumbled. The damp seeps into my bones. You can’t imagine the pain. “

Papa, eager to put into practice the doctor’s suggestions replied: “We don’t need to employ our imaginations, my dear, because you have described it in such detail so often.”

Mamma was completely taken aback. That my usually tolerant and easygoing father should criticize her in such an unsympathetic manner was a great shock to her.

“So I am a nuisance, am I?” she demanded.

“My dear, you misconstrue.”

“It was what you implied. Oh, I know I am ill, and to those of you who have the great gift of good health, that makes me dull and useless.

How unkind you are! K only you knew how I suffer! I could almost wish that you were afflicted with one hundredth part of the pain that I feel—then you might have some understanding. But no, I wouldn’t wish that for anyone. What has my life been but one long bed of pain. Ever since you were born, Mima, I have suffered. “

“I’m sorry. Mamma, that I am responsible.”

“Now you are jeering at me. I never thought you would do that openly although I have long known that I was a burden and a nuisance to you.

Oh, if only my life had been different. If only I had had the good fortune . “

It was an old theme. My father had half risen in his chair, his face pink, his usually mild eyes clouded with distress. I knew that there must have been vague references over the years to what mig tit have been it she had had the good fortune to marry the man of her choice instead of him.

My sympathies were entirely with him and I said: “Why, Mamma, you have had a very happy life with the best husband in the world.”

She silenced me, looking wildly about the room and staring beyond my father as though she saw something of which we were not aware. I know she was thinking of that man and it was almost as though he were in the room, he who had been taken away and shipped abroad as a thief, as though he were taunting her with what might have been if she had been bolder and insisted on marrying him.

“The best husband in the world!” she cried mockingly.

“What has he done to make him that? He sits in his study working … working, he says! Sleeping his life away! His book, his famous book! That is like him. He is nothing, nothing. And I might have had a very different life.”

Lucie said: “Lady Cardew, Dr. Hunter told me that you must not get over-excited. Will you allow me to take you to your room?”

The thought of herself as an invalid soothed her. She turned almost gratefully to Lucie who led her from the room.

Papa and I looked after her. I felt so sorry for him; he looked completely bewildered.

“I don’t think Dr. Hunter’s treatment worked,” I said.

“Never mind.

Papa. We did our best. “

It was an uneasy day. Several of the servants must have heard my mother’s outburst. My father seemed to have shrunk a little; there was something shame-faced about him. We had all suspected that he dozed at his desk and that most of the work had been done by Lucie; but it had never been said to his face before—and now that it had been, the fact had a significance it had never had before.

My mother spent the day in her room declaring that she did not want to see anybody. I saw Lizzie, who told me she had slept for some part of the afternoon having worn herself out crying.

“She’ll be better tomorrow. Miss Minta,” comforted Lizzie. I talked it over with Lucie, who was very distressed.

“It’s quite clear that criticism doesn’t help Mamma.” I said.

“Your father is too gentle by nature. Perhaps he should have continued as he began. “

“He is too kind to take up a new role. It’s like changing his character.”

It was natural that Lucie would not admit that Dr. Hunter’s diagnosis was wrong. She repeated Lizzie’s words: “She’ll be better tomorrow.”

Before I retired that night I went up to my mother’s room, but hesitated before entering. As I stood at the door I heard my mother’s voice: “You’re wicked! Oh, how I wish I could go back all those years.

I’d know what to do because you’re wicked . wicked. “

I pictured my father’s mild bewildered eyes and I decided that I would not go into that room. So I went to my own and lay awake for a long time thinking of the sadness of my parents’ lives and all the lost years when they might have been happy.

Neither of them was to blame. I wished that I had been able to go in and tell them this, to implore them to forget the past and start afresh from now.

How I wished that I had gone in that night! I never saw my mother alive again.

Next morning when Lizzie went in to awaken her she found her dead.

Two

Lizzie said afterwards that she had a strange premonition; she was waiting for the bell to ring for the early morning tea and when it didn’t come she went in.

“She was lying there,” said Lizzie, “and there was something different about her. And when I went close … oh, my God!”

Lizzie had been hysterical and incoherent but she did run for Lucie and Lucie came to me. I awoke with a start to find them both standing by my bed.

Lucie said: “Minta, you have to prepare yourself for a shock.”

I scrambled up and stared at them.

“It’s your mother,” said Lucie.

“Something dreadful .. ” Is she . dead? “

Lucie nodded slowly. She was unlike herself—her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated and her mouth quivered; I felt she was fighting hard to control herself. Lizzie started to sob.

“After all these years…. It’s not true. There’s a mistake. She’s fainted, that’s what it is.”

“I have sent for Dr. Hunter,” said Lucie.

“And my father?” I asked.

“I haven’t sent word to him yet. I thought we’d wait until the doctor came. There’s nothing he can do.”

“But he should know.”

“I went into her room,” murmured Lizzie.

“You see, she hadn’t rung.. ” Then she covered her face with her hands and continued to sob.

I snatched up my dressing-gown and said: I‘ll go to her. “

Lucie shook her head.

“Don’t,” she said.

“But I must. I don’t believe she’s dead. Only yesterday Dr. Hunter was saying …”

I had moved past Lucie to the door; she was beside me and walked with me to my mother’s room.

“Don’t, Minta,” whispered Lucie.

“Wait … wait until the doctor’s been.”

She held my hand tightly and drew me gently along the corridor to her room.

By the time Dr. Hunter arrived my father was up. Lucie had talked to him as she had talked to me, soothing us, really taking matters in hand. My father was quite willing for her to do this; so was I. It was Lucie who went with the doctor into my mother’s room.

“Take your father to the library and stay there till we come,” she said.

“Look after your father. This is a terrible shock for him.”

It seemed a long time before the doctor and Lucie came to us. It was in fact fifteen minutes.

Dr. Hunter was shaken; a good deal of his jaunty assurance had deserted him. No wonder! Since yesterday he had said my mother’s ailments were more or less imaginary, and now she was dead.

“So it’s true?” my father said blankly.

“She died of heart failure during the night,” said Dr. Hunter.

“So she had a bad heart after all. Doctor?”

“No.” He spoke defiantly.

“It could happen to any of us at any time.

There was nothing organically wrong with her heart.

Of course the invalid life she led was not conducive to good health.

This was a case of the heart’s suddenly failing to function. “

“Poor Mamma!” I said.

I was sorry for Dr. Hunter. He seemed so distressed; he kept his eyes on my father’s face as though he expected sympathy. Sympathy for what?

Making a wrong diagnosis? Suspecting his patient was a malingerer and treating her as such when she was seriously ill?

Lucie’s eyes were fixed on him but he avoided looking at her. Once or twice he turned his gaze on me and then hastily back to my father.

“This is a great shock,” I said.

“Yesterday she was her normal self . “

“It happens like this now and then,” said the doctor.

“Minta and her father are very upset, naturally,” said Lucie.

“If they’ll allow me I’ll make the necessary arrangements.”

My father looked at her with gratitude and the doctor said:

“That would be very satisfactory, I think.”

Lucie signed to him and they went out together, leaving me with my father in the library. He raised his eyes to my face and I could not help being aware that it was shock not grief I saw there. Nor could I fail to notice his relief.

Later we went to see Mamma; she was lying in bed, her eyes closed; the frills of her white nightdress were up to her chin. She looked more peaceful in death than she ever had in life.

Something strange had happened to the house. It was no longer the same. Mamma lay in the churchyard where our family had been buried for the last five hundred years. The family vault had been ceremoniously opened; and we had gone through the mournful burial service. The shutters had been opened, the blinds drawn up. Lizzie had been ill for a week or so after the funeral and had emerged among us, gaunt and subdued. ^ Lucie had changed too; there was a certain aloofness about her.

“My father was different; it was as though a burden had been removed from his shoulders, and although he had tried to, he could not altogether bide his relief.

But perhaps the most changed of us all was Dr. Hunter. Before my mother’s death he had been a sociable young man; ambitious in the extreme, he had been the friend of local families as well as their doctor. tie nau endeavored to make people forget his youth by his excessive confidence; he had clearly been eager to climb to the top of his profession. The change in him was subtle, but nevertheless marked-certainly to me.

I thought I understood. My mother had been ill. The pains she had complained of had been real; he had seen her, though, as a fractious, discontented woman—which she was—and had allowed his assessment of her character to cloud his judgment. It seemed clear to me that he had made a faulty diagnosis and that this had so upset his confidence in himself that it was having a marked effect on him. It would throw doubt on his advanced theories on which be was basing his career. I was sorry for him.

He called rarely at the house. None of us needed him professionally until I called him in to see Lizzie because I became worried about her. This was a week or so after the funeral and then I had a conversation with him.

“You’re not looking well yourself. Doctor,” I said.

“Are you saying ” Physician, heal thyself”?”

“I believe you are worrying about my mother’s death.”

I was immediately sorry that I had introduced the subject so abruptly, for a nervous twitch started in his cheek, and his head jerked sharply like a puppet’s.

“No, no,” he said quickly.

“It is not such an unusual case as you appear to think. It Can happen to completely healthy people. A clot of blood to the brain or heart and death can be the result. There is in some cases no warning. And your mother was scarcely a healthy woman, although there was nothing organically wrong, I have read of many such cases. I have encountered several when I was in hospital. No, no. It was not so very unusual.”

He was talking too fast and too persuasively. If what he said was true, why should he blame himself? It was unfortunate that the very day before she died he had told me that she had imagined her illness and we must ignore it.

“All the same,” I said, ‘you seem to reproach yourself. “

“Not in the least. It is something one cannot foresee.”

“I’m so glad I’m mistaken. We know that you took the utmost care of my mother.”

He seemed a little reconciled, but I was sure he was avoiding us for he never called socially at Whiteladies.

My father shut himself in his study for long periods. Lucie told me that he was more upset than he appeared to be, and the fact that for the first time he had spoken to his wife unsympathetically, filled him with remorse.

“I am trying to get him working really hard on the book,” said Lucie.

“I think it best for him.”

Lucie was wonderful during that time. She asked if Lizzie might be her personal maid.

“Not,” she said deprecatingly, ‘that I need one, nor in my position should have one. I think, though, that for a time it would do Lizzie good. She has had a terrible shock. “

I said she must do as she liked for I was sure she knew best.

“Dear Minta,” she said, ‘you are the mistress of Whiteladies bow. “

It was a thought which hadn’t occurred to me before.

Franklyn was with us constantly from the day of my mother’s death. He helped my father in all the ways which Lucie couldn’t. I often wondered what we should have done at that time without Lucie or Franklyn.

He rode over to Whiteladies every day and I could be sure af seeing him some time. We talked about my mother and how unhappy she had been and I said how sad it was that she had gone through life never enjoying it, apart from one little episode when her magnificent drawing-master had come to the house and she had fallen in love with him. I rather enjoyed talking about such things with Franklyn because his prosaic views and his terse way of expressing them amused me.

“I suppose,” I said, ‘that it’s better to have had one exciting experience in your life than go along at a smooth and comfortable level all the time . even though you do spend the rest of your life repining. “

“That seems to me & very unreasonable deduction,” said Franklyn.

“You would say that! I am sure your life will be comfortable and easy for ever and ever, unruffled by any incident, disturbing or ecstatic.”

“Another unreasonable deduction.”

“But you would never make any mistake; therefore the element of excitement is removed.”

“Why do you think it is only interesting to make mistakes?”

“If you know how everything is going to work out …”

“But nobody knows how everything is going to work out. You are being quite illogical, Minta.”

And I laughed tor the first time since my mother had died. I tried to explain to him the change in the household.

“It’s as though the ghost of Mamma cannot rest.”

“That’s pure imagination on your part.”

“Indeed it’s not. Everybody has changed. Haven’t you noticed it? But of course you haven’t. You never notice things like that.”

“I appear to be completely unobservant to you?”

“Only psychologically. For all practical purposes your powers of observation would be very keen.”

“How kind of you to say so.”

“Sarcasm does not become you, Franklyn. Nor is it natural to you. You are much too kind. But there is a change in the household. My father is relieved …”

“Minta!”

“Now you are shocked. But the truth should not shock anyone.”

“I think you should be more restrained in your conversation.”

“I am only talking to you, Franklyn. There is no one else in the world to whom I would say this. And how can we blame him? I know one is not supposed to speak ill of the dead and there for you never would. But Mamma was beastly to him, so it is only ‘natural that he should feel relieved. Lizzie goes round looking lost and yet she and Mamma were always quarrelling and Lizzie was always on the point of being dismissed or leaving voluntarily.”

That is not unusual in attachments such as theirs, and it is quite natural that she should be “lost” , as you say. She has been deprived of a mistress. “

“But poor Dr. Hunter is worse than any of them. I am sure he blames himself. He seems to avoid calling at the house.”

“It is natural that he should since the invalid is no longer there.”

“And Lucie has changed.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. She appears to be the most sensible member of the household.”

“She seems shut in, aloof, not so easy to talk to. I suppose she’s worried about Dr. Hunter. I wonder she didn’t announce their engagement when it happened.”

Why? “

“Well, as Dr. Hunter is depressed and thinks he made the wrong diagnosis… ,”

“Who said he did?”

“Well, I think he did.”

“You should not say such a thing, even to me. It’s slander when discussing a professional man.”

“But, Franklyn, yon are not a court of law.”

“You must not be frivolous, Minta. You must stop this romanticising this attempt to build up a dramatic situation.”

“It’s because you’re such a close friend that I can say anything to you. Besides, I like to shock you. But I wanted to tell you something.

Yesterday Lucie came to me and suggested we get rid of Mrs. Glee. She’s not really needed, she says. Lucie can do all that she does, for now that Mamma is dead Lucie is relieved of a lot of her duties. “

“It seems a reasonable and logical suggestion. I have tried to tell you many times that you are living beyond your means. Mrs. Glee is the most expensive of your retainers. Yes, it’s an excellent idea.”

“You would see the practical side of it. The point is, if Lucie is going to take on Mrs. Glee’s duties and run Whiteladies, what of her marriage to Dr. Hunter?”

“There was nothing arranged.”

“He had asked her. She was considering. It was just before Mamma’s death. Poor Dr. Hunter!”

“Has it occurred to you that his depression may be due to the fact that his proposal has not been accepted?”

“I still think it has something to do with Mamma’s death.”

“Minta, it’s time you grew up. I wish you would. That would be desirable in many ways.”

I guessed then that he was thinking that when I showed more maturity he would ask me to marry him; and into my mind there flashed a picture of that scene on the lawn with Stirling lolling, somewhat ungracefully, in the chair, talking about Australia and Whiteladies.

And I thought: No, I’ll not grow up yet. My immaturity is a kind of protection.

A few mornings later a rather disturbing incident occurred. I was in the flower-room splitting the stalks of some bronze-coloured chrysanthemums when Mrs. Glee burst in.

“I’d like a word with you, Miss Minta,” she said. Her face was red and her little eyes like pieces of black jet. She didn’t have to tell me she was angry.

“Certainly, Mrs. Glee. Come into the library.”

“There’s no need for that. I’ll tell you here and now. I’ve had orders to go and I’d like to know why, because these orders have come from a certain quarter and I’ve yet to learn that I take orders from that direction.”

“From Miss Maryan?” I said.

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Glee, we have become much poorer in the last few years and we have to cut our expenses in some ways.”

“And I’m chosen as the victim, eh?”

“Not a victim, Mrs. Glee. It’s simply a matter of necessity.”

“Now, miss,” she said, “I’ve nothing against you. You’re innocent of all this. A blind man could see that. But if people ought to leave this house—and I’d be the first to admit it mightn’t be a bad thing if they did—there’s some you could do better without than me.”

“It’s very sad to have to do without anyone, and only a matter of finance.”

“You’ve had the words put into your mouth. Miss Minta. There’s some funny things going on in this house. I could tell you …”

“What things?”

Mrs. Glee pressed her lips together with an air of martyrdom.

“Things it’s not my place to mention. You’re the mistress of the house now your poor mother’s gone, and it’s not for you to take a step back and let others help themselves to what’s yours by rights.”

“I shan’t do that, Mrs. Glee.”

“You might be forced into it. I don’t like the way things are going in this house and it’s not all that sorry I’ll be to pack my bags and be off. But I’m sorry for you. Miss Minta.”

“How kind of you. I’m sure I don’t deserve your sympathy.”

It was evidently the right line for her anger calmed considerably; she was changing rapidly from virago to prophet of doom.

She took a step closer to me and said: “Your poor Mamma going off like that, and that Lizzie. What of her, eh? If anyone should go, she should. The way she talked to that poor dead soul. Shouting and screaming they were, the night before. I heard your poor mother say that Lizzie was to go. It was her last wish, you might say. And now Lizzie’s to be kept on and I’m told to go. I, who never had a cross word with the dear dead lady. You see. Miss Minta, it’s a funny state of affairs, wouldn’t you say?”

“Hardly funny,” I said.

“Lizzie was very fond of my mother and my mother of her. Their quarrels meant nothing.”

The last one did. But it’s not so much Lizzie. She’s nothing. It’s Other People. “

“Which people?”

“Well, Miss Minta, have you ever thought you might soon be having a new Mamma?”

No. “

“You see!” She folded her arms across her ample chest.

“I’m telling you. Miss Minta. It’s not that I care for myself. I’ve had enough of service anyway. I’m going to my cousin once removed down Dover way.

Very comfortably off she is and her rheumatics are crippling her. She wants someone to look after her, be a companion to her, and she’ll leave me the cottage and a little bit to keep me going. So I’m not concerned for myself. But I says: There’s that innocent young lady.

And there’s some funny things going on in Whiteladies. And that’s why I’m warning you. “

“I’m so pleased, Mrs. Glee, about your cousin.”

“You’re a sweet young lady. Miss Minta, and I’ve often said so. But I’ll repeat this: There’s something peculiar going on and you should know of it. There’s someone who wants to run this household. There’s someone who has the trap set and there’s innocent people who will walk right into it. And I’m to go. Why? Because I see a bit farther than my nose.”

I sighed and picking up the pot carried it out of the flower-room. I looked over my shoulder and said: “I’m sure your cousin will be pleased to have you, Mrs. Glee.”

She stood shaking her head prophetically and I went through into the library. I put the pot down as soon as I comfortably could because my hands were shaking. I was quite upset, and relieved too, when, a few days later, declaring that she would not stay a minute longer than was necessary where she was not wanted, Mrs. Glee accepted a month’s wages and departed.

Her absence made no difference to the running of the house. Lucie was busy, but then she always had been. My mother had never been interested in household affairs, and Mrs. Glee had been mainly occupied in keeping the maids in order and preserving a certain dignity in the servants’ quarters. Lucie did this and much more besides. The maids were glad to be rid of the formidable Mrs. Glee and readily accepted Lucie in her place. I saw less of Lucie, but my father saw more of her.

I was always waiting for Lucie to confide in me about Dr. Hunter, but she didn’t. She was in my father’s study for an hour in the morning and again after tea.

“I’m urging him to get on seriously with the book,” she told me.

“It’s the best thing for him. It keeps his mind off the tragedy.”

Lizzie took her tea in the morning just as she had taken Mamma’s, and Lucie kept her busy doing her room and Papa’s, and all sorts of sewing for the household at which Lizzie was very good.

Two months passed in this way. Christmas came and went. We celebrated it very quietly. Franklyn and his parents came to dine with us on Christmas Day and they stayed to supper. We played a quiet game of whist—Papa and Lady Wakefield, Franklyn and I; and Lucie was there sitting quietly by the fire chatting with Sir Everard and at appropriate times making sure that the servants brought in refreshments and performed those duties necessary to our comforts.

I recalled the Christmas before when we had dined in the great hall under bunches of holly and mistletoe, and how one of the most merry members of the party had been Dr. Hunter. Mamma had been at one end of the table enjoying talking to the doctor of her ailments. Lucie, of course, had been present, unobtrusive and competent. I remember she had worn a dress the colour of mauve orchids and how elegant she had looked in spite of the fact that she had made the dress herself. Now Lizzie made clothes on Lucie’s instructions—Lucie designing, Lizzie stitching. It was an excellent combination.

After the guests had gone and everyone had retired for the night I slipped on my dressing-gown and went along to Lucie’s room.

“Do you mind?” I said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She offered me the chair with the mulberry cushions and she sat on the bed.

“I kept thinking of last Christmas,” I said.

“Poor Minta, you miss your mother.”

I frowned. I didn’t want to be hypocritical. I had loved Mamma, but she had made life uncomfortable from time to time and I couldn’t forget that last scene in the dining-room and the look of abject misery I had seen on my father’s face.

I said quickly: “What about you and Dr. Hunter, Lucie? You were considering marrying him.”

“Who said I was? Do you want me to go?”

“How can you ask such a thing! We should be lost without you. But I think poor Dr. Hunter is in greater need of comfort and as you love him .”

“You jump to conclusions, Minta. I’m fond of the doctor. I’m fond of you all here, and when your mother died I seemed to be needed.”

“But you mustn’t make such a sacrifice.”

“It’s willingly made … if such it is.”

“But I’m so sorry for the doctor. I think he’s very unhappy and you could help him. He feels he didn’t do the right thing … for Mamma.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“It’s obvious. He thought she was pretending and it turned out she wasn’t. Perhaps if he had believed she was really ill he would have treated her case differently. Perhaps that was what she needed.”

“But you are accusing him of incompetence!”

“I’m not. I know he’s competent. But people make mistakes.”

“Doctors can’t afford to. For heaven’s sake, don’t talk of this to anyone.”

“I wouldn’t to anyone but you … and Franklyn, who doesn’t count.”

“Not to anyone,” she said fervently.

“Promise me.”

I thought: She does love him then? I promised readily.

“And forget it, Minta,” she went on.

“Put it right out of your mind.

It’s . unhealthy. Your mother died of a stroke. It could happen to anybody. I have heard of people, healthy people, being struck down suddenly, and your mother had impaired her constitution by her invalidism. “

“I know, Lucie, I know.”

“Your mother is dead and buried. We must try to go on from there.”

I nodded.

“Don’t forget,” she added gently, ‘that I am here to help and comfort you. Wasn’t it always like that, from the time of our schooldays? “

I agreed that it was.

“But you shouldn’t make sacrifices, Lucie. We can look after ourselves. And you wouldn’t be far away at the doctor’s house.”

Lucie shook her head.

“I don’t think I shall ever be at the doctor’s house,” she said.

“I believe my place is here … in Whiteladies.”

“I repeat, Lucie, you must not sacrifice yourself.”

“Martyrs are tiresome people,” she said with a smile.

“I have no intention of being one. This is where I want to be, Minta. This is where I want to stay.”

I should have seen it coming but it was a shock when it did.

It was May—six months after my mother’s death—a lovely day, almost summer, with the birds singing their delighted chorus and the buds sprouting everywhere, the chestnuts in blossom and the orchard a mass of pink and white and in the air was that unmistakable feeling that life is wonderful and happiness is just round the corner. This is the miracle of the English spring.

I had been for a ride after luncheon as far out as the Wakefield estates and had come in thinking how pleasant a cup of tea would be.

It wanted another quarter of an hour to four o’clock, so I went and sat under the chestnut tree.

And there Lucie joined me. I watched her walking across the lawn. She was very different from the school teacher she had been when I first met her. There had been an air of defiance about her then. Now she walked with a springy step and the new gown which Lizzie had made to her instructions became her well. She was what the French call une jolie laide. Taken feature by feature she was decidedly plain, but there was an unusual charm in the complete picture which almost amounted to beauty.

“I want to talk to you rather specially,” she said.

“Come and sit down, Lucie.”

She did. I looked at her profile—the too long nose, the jutting chin.

“I have something very important to say to you and I am unsure how you will take it.”

“You look sure that I am going to like it.”

“I wish I were.”

“Why do you keep me in suspense? Tell me quickly. I’m impatient to hear.”

She took a deep breath and said: “Minta, I am going to marry your father.”

“Lucie!”

“There! You are shocked.”

“But … Lucie!”

“Does it seem so incongruous?”

“Well, it’s so unexpected.”

“We have been fond of each other for a long time.”

“But he’s years older than you, Lucie.”

“You are finding excuses to oppose us.”

“I’m not. It’s true that you are half his age.”

“What of it? I’m serious for my years. Don’t you agree?”

“But you and the doctor …”

“You imagined a great deal about that affair.”

“But he did ask you to marry him.”

“And I didn’t accept him.”

“And now you and Papa …”

“Does it worry you that I shall be your stepmother?”

“Of course not. And how could I not want you to be a member of the family? You are in any case. It’s just that …”

“It seems unsuitable?”

“It’s just that it hadn’t occurred to me.” I thought then: This is what Mrs. Glee was referring to. So it must have been obvious to others if not to me.

She went on: “We have grown very close during the last months when I have tried to comfort him. He reproached himself a little—unnecessarily, I have constantly to assure him. I think we shall be very happy, Minta. But I feel I want your approval. I couldn’t be happy without it.”

“But what I say is of no importance, surely?”

“It’s of the utmost importance to me. Oh Minta, please say you will welcome me as your stepmother.”

For my answer I stood up and put my arms about her.

“Dearest Lucie,” I said, ‘it’s a wonderful thing for Papa and for me.

I was thinking of you. “

She stroked my hair.

“You are so romantic. You decided that the doctor was for me and you built up a pretty picture of my launching him to success. Well, it’s not to be. What appears to be romantic does not always bring happiness. I am happy now, Minta. I want to be here. You and your father are my dear ones. This is my home. Go to your father now. Tell him I have told you the news and impress on him how happy it has made you.”

^

So Lucie and I went to Papa and I told him that it was wonderful news; and he was happy as I had never seen him before.

“We shall have to wait for the full year to pass,” said Lueie, ‘or people will talk. “

“Let them talk,” said my father.

But Lucie thought it best to wait; and already he was relying on her judgment.

She was right, of course; and they waited.

It was a misty November day, very much like the one when Mamma had died that Lucie became Lady Cardew, my stepmother.

How different was our household now! The servants knew they must obey Lucie. She never lost her temper; she was always gracious. I doubt Whiteladies had ever had a more respected chatelaine. She loved the house and the house seemed to respond to her love. I have seen her stand on the lawn looking at it with a sort of wonder, as though she couldn’t really believe that she was the mistress of it.

I used to tease her about it.

“I believe you are the reincarnation of a nun. You knew this place was your home from the moment you set eyes on it.”

“Minta’s romantic nonsense,” she said teasingly.

Very little was done about my father’s book. She had so much to occupy her now, and since he was not continually told what an unsatisfactory husband he was he did not feel the need to justify himself. He took an interest in the gardens and the house. Lucie quickly discovered that repairs were necessary.

It was soon after that that I saw her really shaken out of her usual calm. She told me about it because it was not easy to discuss such matters with Papa.

“Your father’s financial affairs are in a wretched state,” she said.

“Those lawyers of his are no good whatsoever. He has lost a great deal of money on the stock exchange lately and has been misguided enough to jeopardize the house by borrowing money on it.”

“Franklyn hinted at this some time ago.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Not interested in Whiteladies!’

“Well, now you are of course. What does it mean, Lucie?

“I’m not sure.

I must find out. Whiteladies must not be in danger. “

“I think that now you’re in command we shall be all right.”

She was pleased with that remark, but a little impatient. We were reckless. We didn’t deserve Whiteladies because we had jeopardized it.

She would sit in Papa’s study with a pile of bills and papers before her.

“We must cut down here,” she would say.

“We could economize there. We must make Whiteladies safe now and for the future.”

My father admired her greatly. He had a childish belief that now Lucie was mistress of Whiteladies everything would be all right. I shared that view. There had always been a quality about Lucie that inspired confidence.

I told her often how glad I was that she was now definitely a member of the family. I had only wanted her to marry the doctor, I pointed out, so that she could stay near us.

She was pleased.

“Stepmother is not an ugly word in this house,” she commented.

“Darling Lucie, it was a lucky day for us when you came to Whiteladies,” I told her; I knew my father told her the same.

Neither of us could openly say this, but Whiteladies was a happier and more peaceful place since my mother had died.

Then Lucie surprised us again. She told me first. I thought she had been a little subdued for a few weeks, and one day when I was sitting in my favourite spot in the pond garden, she came out there to me.

“I have something to tell you,” she said, ‘and I want you to be the first to know. Even your father doesn’t know yet. “

I turned to her, not understanding the ecstatic expression in her smoky eyes.

“I hope you’ll be pleased, but I’m not sure.”

“Please tell me … quickly.”

She laughed in a rather embarrassed way.

“I’m going to have a baby.”

“Lucie! When?”

A long time yet . in seven months’ time, I should say. “

“It’s … wonderful.”

“You think so?”

“Don’t you?”

She gripped her hands together.

“It’s what I’ve always longed for.”

I threw my arms about her neck.

“Oh, Lucie, how happy I am! Just imagine—a baby in the house! It’ll be lovely. I wonder whether it will be a girl or a boy. Which do you want?”

“I don’t know. A boy, I suppose. Most people like the first born to be a boy.”

“So you anticipate having a family!”

“I didn’t say that. But I’m so excited. But I wanted to be absolutely sure before telling your father.”

“Let’s tell him now. No, you should tell him on your own. You wouldn’t want an intruder at a time like this.”

“You are the sweetest stepdaughter anyone ever had.”

She left me sitting here, watching a dragonfly hover over the pond and settle momentarily on the statue.

This, I thought, will compensate Lucie for everything. That horrid little house in the Midlands, all the hardships of her youth. What a happy day for Lucie!

My father was bewildered at first, then delighted. I am sure he had never thought he would have other children. But Lucie, it seemed, could provide everything. There was no talk in the house now of anything but the coming baby. Lucie softened considerably; as her body grew more shapeless and she lost her elegance she gained a new beauty.

She loved to sit with me and talk about the baby. She planned the layette and Lizzie sewed it. Those were the lovely peaceful months of waiting.

We tried to coddle Lucie but she wouldn’t let us. Her baby was going to be strong and healthy, she said. He wasn’t going to have an invalid for a mother. I noticed she referred to the baby as ‘he’, which showed she wanted a boy, although I guessed that when the child came she wouldn’t care what its sex was.

Dr. Hunter was calling frequently at Whiteladies now. He told me that there was nothing to worry about whatsoever. Lucie was strong and healthy; she would produce a lusty child.

It was Franklyn who pointed out to me what a difference the birth of a child might make to me personally.

“If the child is a boy,” he said, ‘he will be your father’s heir, for when your mother married him her property passed into his possession.

Has this occurred to you? “

“I hadn’t thought of it.”

“What an impractical girl you are! Whiteladies would go to your father’s son. You would have no claim to it unless some moral duty made him leave it to you.”

“Whiteladies would always be my home, Franklyn. What would it matter if it belonged to my stepbrother … or would he be half-brother?”

Franklyn said it could make a great deal of difference to me and implied that I was most unworldly.

I laughed at him, but he was very serious.

Such pleasant days they were. During summer afternoons on the lawn and winter evenings by the fire, we eagerly awaited the birth of Lucie’s child. My father seemed younger; he was so proud of Lucie and could scarcely bear her out of his sight.

And then in November—the same month in which my mother bad died but two years later—the child was born.

It was a girl and was christened Druscilla.

I think Lucie was a little disappointed that she had not borne a son and so was my father, but the delight at finding themselves parents of a charming little girl soon dispersed that.

Druscilla quickly became the most important person in the household; we all vied for her favours; we were all delighted when she chose to crow at us.

I often marvelled at the way in which everything had changed since my mother had died.

That was the state of affairs when Stirling and Nora came back to England.