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Title: The Unlit Lamp (1924)
Author: Radclyffe Hall
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eBook No.: 0701131.txt
Language:  English
Date first posted: November 2007
Date most recently updated: December 2007

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Title: The Unlit Lamp (1924)
Author: Radclyffe Hall





'And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin.'

Browning THE STATUE AND THE BUST




BOOK ONE



Chapter One


1


The dining-room at Leaside was also Colonel Ogden's study. It contained,
in addition to the mahogany sideboard with ornamental brackets at the
back, the three-tier dumb waiter and the dining-table with chairs _en
suite_, a large roll-top desk much battered and ink-stained, and bleached
by the suns of many Indian summers. There was also a leather arm-chair
with a depression in the seat, a pipe-rack and some tins of tobacco. All
of which gave one to understand that the presence of the master of the
house brooded continually over the family meals and over the room itself
in the intervals between. And lest this should be doubted, there was
Colonel Ogden's photograph in uniform that hung over the fireplace; an
enlargement showing the colonel seated in a tent at his writing-table,
his native servant at his elbow. The colonel's face looked sternly into
the camera, his pen was poised for the final word, authority personified.
The smell of the colonel's pipes, past and present, hung in the air, and
together with the general suggestion of food and newspapers, produced an
odour that became the very spirit of the room. In after years the
children had only to close their eyes and think of their father to
recapture the smell of the dining-room at Leaside.

Colonel Ogden looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock, He pushed back
his chair from the breakfast table, a signal for the family to have done
with eating.

He sank into his arm-chair with a sigh; he was fifty-five and somewhat
stout. His small, twinkling eyes scanned the columns of _The Times_ as if
in search of something to pounce on. Presently he had it.

'Mary.'

'Yes, dear.'

'Have you seen this advertisement of the Army and Navy?'

'Which one, dear?'

'The provision department. Surely we are paying more than this for
bacon?'

He extended the paper towards his wife; his hand shook a little, his face
became very slightly suffused. Mrs. Ogden glanced at the paper; then she
lied quickly.

'Oh, no, my love, ours is twopence cheaper.'

'Oh!' said Colonel Ogden. 'Kindly ring the bell.'

Mrs. Ogden obeyed. She was a small woman, pale and pensive looking; her
neat hair, well netted, was touched with grey, her soft brown eyes were
large and appealing, but there were lines about her mouth that suggested
something different, irritable lines that drew the corners of the lips
down a little. The maid came in; Colonel Ogden smiled coldly. 'The
grocer's book, please', he said.

Mrs. Ogden quailed; it was unfortunately the one day of all the seven
when the grocer's book would be in the house.

'What for, James?' she asked.

Colonel Ogden caught the nervous tremor in her voice, and his smile
deepened. He did not answer, and presently the servant returned book in
hand. Colonel Ogden took it, and with the precision born of long practice
turned up the required entry.

'Mary! Be good enough to examine this item.'

She did so and was silent.

'If', said Colonel Ogden in a bitter voice, 'if you took a little more
trouble, Mary, to consider my interests, if you took the trouble to
ascertain what we _are_ paying for things, there would be less for me to
worry about, less waste of money, less...' He gasped a little and pressed
his left side, glancing at his wife as he did so.

'Don't get excited, James, I beg; do remember your heart.'

The colonel leant back in his chair. 'I dislike unnecessary waste, Mary.'

'Yes, dear, of course. I wonder I didn't see that notice; I shall write
for some of their bacon to-day and countermand the piece from
Goodridge's. I'll go and do it now--or would you like me to give you your
tabloids?'

'Thanks, no', said the colonel briefly.

'Do the children disturb you? Shall they go upstairs?'

He got up heavily. ‘No, I'm going to the club.'

Something like a sigh of relief breathed through the room; the two
children eyed each other, and Milly, the younger, made a secret face. She
was a slim child with her mother's brown eyes. Her long yellow hair hung
in curls down her back; she looked fragile and elfish; some people thought
her pretty. Colonel Ogden did; she was her father's favourite.

There were two years between the sisters; Milly was ten, Joan twelve.
They were poles apart in disposition as in appearance. Everything that
Milly felt she voiced instantly; almost everything that Joan felt she did
not voice. She was a silent, patient child as a rule, but could, under
great provocation, display a stubborn will that could not be coped with,
a reasoning power that paralysed her mother and infuriated Colonel Ogden.
It was not temper exactly; Joan was never tearful, never violent, only
coldly logical and self-assured and firm. You might lock her in her
bedroom and tell her to ask God to make her a good child, but as likely
as not she would refuse to say she was sorry in the end. Once she had
remarked that her prayers had gone unanswered, and after this she was
never again exhorted to pray for grace.

It was what she considered injustice that roused the devil in Joan. When
the cat had been turned out to fend for itself during the summer
holidays, when a servant had been dismissed at a moment's notice for some
trifling misdemeanour, these and such-like incidents, which were
fortunately of rare occurrence, had been known to produce in Joan the
mood that her mother almost feared. Then it was that Joan had spoken her
mind, and had remained impenitent until finally accorded the forgiveness
she had not asked for.

Joan was large-boned and tall for her age, lanky as a boy, with a pale
face and short black hair. Her grey eyes were not large and not at all
appealing, but they were set well apart; they were intelligent and frank.
She escaped being plain by the skin of her teeth; she would have been
plain had her face not been redeemed by a short, straight nose and a
beautiful mouth. Somehow her mouth reassured you.

They had cut her thick hair during scarlet fever, and Joan refused to
allow it to grow again. She invariably found scissors and snipped and
snipped, and Mrs. Ogden's resistance broke down at the final act of
defiance, when she was discovered hacking at her hair with a pen-knife.


2


As the front door slammed behind Colonel Ogden the sisters smiled at each
other. Mrs. Ogden had gone to countermand the local bacon, and they were
alone.

'Rot!' said Joan firmly.

'What is?' asked Milly.

'The bacon row.'

'Oh, how dare you!' cried Milly in a voice of rapture. 'Supposing you
were heard!'

'There's no one to hear me--anyhow, it is rot!'

Milly danced. 'You'll catch it if Mother hears you!' Her fair curls
bobbed as she skipped round the room.

'Mind that cup', warned Joan.

But it was too late; the cup fell crashing to the floor. Just then Mrs.
Ogden came in.

'Who broke that cup?'

There was silence.

'Well?' she waited.

Milly caught Joan's eye. Joan saw the appeal in that look. Milly began.

'It was my fault', said Joan calmly.

'Then you ought to be more careful, especially when you know how your
father values this breakfast set. Really it's too bad; what will he say?
What possessed you, Joan?'

Mrs. Ogden put her hand up to her head wearily, glancing at Joan as she
did so. Joan was so quick to respond to the appeal of illness. Mrs. Ogden
would not have admitted to herself how much she longed for this quick
response and sympathy. She, who for years had been the giver, she who had
ministered to a man with heart disease, she who had become a veritable
reservoir of soothing phrases, solicitous actions, tabloids, hot soups
and general restoratives. There were times, growing more frequent of
late, when she longed, yes, longed to break down utterly, to become
bedridden, to be waited upon hand and foot, to have arresting symptoms of
her own, any number of them.

India, the great vampire, had not wrecked her, for she was wiry, her
little frame could withstand what her husband's bulk had failed to
endure. Mrs. Ogden was a strong woman. She did not look robust, however;
this she knew and appreciated. Her pathetic eyes were sunken and somewhat
dim, her nose, short and straight like Joan's, looked pinched, and her
drooping mouth was pale. All this Mrs. Ogden knew, and she used it as her
stock-in-trade with her elder daughter. There were days when the desire
to produce an effect upon someone became a positive craving. She would
listen for Joan's footsteps on the stairs, and then assume an attitude,
head back against the couch, hand pressed to eyes. Sometimes there were
silent tears hastily hidden after Joan had seen, or the short, dry cough
so like her brother Henry's. Henry had died of consumption. Then as
Joan's eyes would grow troubled, and the quick: 'Oh, Mother darling,
aren't you well?' would burst from her lips, Mrs. Ogden's conscience
would smite her. But in spite of herself she would invariably answer:
'It's nothing, dearest; only my cough', or 'It's only my head, Joan; it's
been very painful lately.'

Then Joan's strong, young arms would comfort and soothe, and her firm
lips grope until they found her mother's; and Mrs. Ogden would feel mean
and ashamed but guiltily happy, as if a lover held her.

And so, when in addition to the fuss about the bacon, a cup of the valued
breakfast set lay shattered on the floor, Mrs. Ogden felt, on this summer
morning, that life had become overpowering and that a headache, real or
assumed, would be the relief she so badly needed.

'It's very hard', she began tremulously. 'I'm quite tired out; I don't
feel able to face things to-day. I do think, my dear, that you might have
been more careful!' Tears brimmed up in her soft brown eyes and she went
hastily to the window.

'Oh, darling, don't cry.' Joan was beside her in an instant. 'I _am_
sorry, darling, look at me; I will be careful. How much will it cost? A
new one, I mean. I've still got half of Aunt Ann's birthday money; I'll
get a cup to match, only please don't cry.'

The slight gruffness that was characteristic of her voice grew more
pronounced in her emotion.

Mrs. Ogden drew her daughter to her; the gesture was full of soft,
compelling strength.

'It's a shame!'

'What is, dear?' said Mrs. Ogden, suddenly attentive.

'Father!' cried Joan defiantly.

'Hush, hush, darling.'

'But it is; he bullies you.'

'No, dear, don't say such things; your father has a weak heart.'

'But you're ill, too, and father's heart isn't always as bad as he makes
out. This morning--'

'Hush, Joan, you mustn't. I know I'm not strong, but we must never let
him know that I sometimes feel ill.'

'He ought to know it!'

'But, Joan, you were so frightened when he had that attack last
Christmas.'

'That was a real one', said Joan decidedly.

'Oh well, dearest--but never mind, I'm all right again now--run away, my
lamb. Miss Rodney must have come; it's past lesson time.'

'Are you sure you're all right?' said Joan doubtfully.

Mrs. Ogden leant back in the chair and gazed pensively out of the window.
'My little Joan', she murmured.

Joan trembled, a great tenderness took hold of her. She stooped and
kissed her mother's hand lingeringly.

But as the sisters stood in the hall outside, Joan looked even paler than
usual, her face was a little pinched, and there was a curious expression
in her eyes.

'Oh, Joan, it was jolly of you', Milly began.

Joan pushed her roughly. 'You're a poor thing, Milly.'

'What's that?'

'What you are, a selfish little pig!'

'But--'

'You haven't got any guts.'

'What are guts?'

'What Alice's young man says a Marine ought to have.'

'I don't want them then', said Milly proudly.

'Well, you ought to want them; you never do own up. You are a poor
thing!'



Chapter Two


1


Seabourne-on-Sea was small and select. The Ogdens' house in Seabourne was
small but not particularly select, for it had once been let out in
apartments. The landlord now accepted a reduced rent for the sake of
getting the colonel and his family as tenants. He was old-fashioned and
clung to the gentry.

In 1880 the Ogdens had left India hurriedly on account of Colonel Ogden's
health. When Milly was a baby and Joan three years old, the family had
turned their backs on the pleasant luxury of Indian life. Home they had
come to England and a pension, Colonel Ogden morose and chafing at the
useless years ahead; Mrs. Ogden a pretty woman, wide-eyed and melancholy
after all the partings, especially after one parting which her virtue
would have rendered inevitable in any case.

They had gone to rooms somewhere in Bayswater; the cooking was execrable,
the house dirty. Mrs. Ogden, used to the easy Indian service and her own
comfortable bungalow, found it well-nigh impossible to make the best of
things; she fretted. That winter there had been bad fogs which resulted
in a severe heart attack for Colonel Ogden. The doctor advised a house by
the sea, and mentioned Seabourne as having a suitable climate. The result
was: Leaside, The Crescent, Seabourne. There they had been for nearly
nine years and there they were likely to remain, in spite of Colonel
Ogden's grumbling and Mrs. Ogden's nerves. For Leaside was cheap and the
air suited Colonel Ogden's heart; anyhow there was no money to move, and
nowhere in particular to go if they could move.

Of course there was Blumfield. Mrs. Ogden's sister Ann had married the
now Bishop of Blumfield, but the Blanes were, or so the Ogdens thought,
never quite sincere when they urged them to move nearer to them. They
decided not to try crumb-gathering at the rich man's table in Blumfield.

It was her children's education that now worried Mrs. Ogden most. Not
that she cared very much what they learnt; her fetish was how and where
they learnt it. She had been a Routledge before her marriage, a fact which
haunted her day and night. 'Poor as rats, and silly proud as peacocks',
someone had once described them. We Routledges'--'The Routledges never do
that'--'The Routledges never do this'!

Round and round like squirrels in a cage, treading the wheel of their
useless tradition, living beyond their limited means, occasionally
stooping to accept a Government job, but usually finding all work _infra
dig_. Living on their friends, which somehow was not _infra dig._,
soothing their pride by recounting among themselves and to all who would
listen the deeds of valour of one Admiral Sir William Routledge said to
have been Nelson's darling--hanging their admiral's picture with laurel
wreaths on the anniversary of some bygone battle and never failing to ask
their friends to tea on that occasion--such were the Routledges of
Chesham, and such, in spite of many reverses, had Mary Ogden remained.

True, Chesham had been sold up, and the admiral's portrait by Romney
bought by the docile Bishop of Blumfield at the request of his wife Ann.
True, Ann and Mary had been left penniless when their father, Captain
Routledge, died of lung haemorrhage in India. True, Ann had been glad
enough to marry her bishop, then a humble chaplain, while Mary followed
suit with Major Ogden of The Buffs. True, their brother Henry had failed
to distinguish himself in any way and had bequeathed nothing to his
family but heavy liabilities when his haemorrhage removed him in the nick
of time--true, all true, and more than true, but they were still
Routledges! And Admiral Sir William still got his laurel wreaths on the
anniversary of the battle. He had moved from the decaying walls of
Chesham to the substantial walls of the bishop's palace, and perhaps he
secretly liked the change--Ann his descendant did. In the humbler
drawing-room at Leaside he received like homage; for there, in a
conspicuous position, hung a print of the famous portrait, and every year
when the great day came round, Mary, his other descendant, dutifully
placed her smaller laurel wreath round the frame, and asked her friends
to tea as tradition demanded.

'Once a Routledge always a Routledge', Mrs. Ogden was fond of saying on
such occasions. And if the colonel happened to feel in a good temper he
would murmur, 'Fine old chap, Sir William; looks well in his laurels,
Mary. Who did you say was coming in this afternoon?' But if on the other
hand his heart had been troubling him, he might turn away with a scornful
grunt. Then, Mary, the ever tactless, would query, 'Doesn't it look nice
then, dear?' And once, only once, the colonel had said, 'Oh, hell!'

The school at Seabourne was not for the Routledge clan, for to it went
the offspring of the local tradespeople. Colonel Ogden was inclined to
think that beggars couldn't be choosers, but Mary was firm. Weak in all
else, she was a flint when her family pride was involved, a knight-errant
bearing on high the somewhat tattered banner of Routledge. The colonel
gave way; he would always have given way before a direct attack, but his
wife had never guessed this. Even while she raised her spiritual
battle-cry she thought of his weak heart and her conscience smote her,
yet she risked even the colonel's heart on that occasion; Joan and Milly
must be educated at home. The Routledges never sent their girls to
school!


2


In the end, it was Colonel Ogden who solved the difficulty. He frequented
the stiff little club house on the esplanade, and in this most unlikely
place he heard of a governess.

Every weekday morning you could see him in the window. _The Times_ held
in front of him like a shield, his teeth clenched on his favourite pipe;
a truculent figure, an imperial figure, bristling with an authority that
there were now none to dispute.

Into the club would presently saunter old Admiral Bourne who lived at
Glory Point, a lonely man with a passion for breeding fancy mice. He had
a trick of pulling up short in the middle of the room, and peering over
his spectacles with his pleasant blue eyes as if in search of someone. He
was in search of someone, of some tolerant fellow-member who would not be
too obviously bored at the domestic vagaries of the mice, who constantly
disappointed their owner by coming into the world the wrong colour. If
Admiral Bourne could be said to have an ambition, then that ambition was
to breed a mouse that should eclipse all previous records.

Other members would begin to collect, Sir Robert Loo of Moor Park, whose
shooting provided the only alternative to golf for the male population of
Seabourne. There was Major Boyle, languid and malarial, with a doleful
mind, especially in politics; and Mr. Pearson, the bank manager, who had
found his way into the club when its funds were alarmingly low, and had
been bitterly resented ever since. Then there was Mr. Rodney the
solicitor, and last but not least, General Brooke, Colonel Ogden's hated
rival.

General Brooke looked like Colonel Ogden, that was the trouble; they were
often mistaken for each other in the street. They were both under middle
height, stout, with grey hair and small blue eyes, they both wore their
moustaches clipped very short, and they both had auxiliary whiskers in
their ears. Added to this they both wore red neckties and loose, light
home-spuns, and they both had wives who knitted their waistcoats from
wool bought at the local shop. They both wore brown boots with rubber
studded soles, and worst of all, they both wore brown Homburg hats, so
that their backs looked exactly alike when they were out walking. The
situation was aggravated by the fact that neither could accuse the other
of imitation. To be sure General Brooke had lived in Seabourne eighteen
months longer than Colonel Ogden and had never been seen in any other
type of garments; but then, when Colonel Ogden had arrived in his
startling replicas, his clothes had been obviously old and had certainly
been worn quite as long as the general's.

It was Mr. Rodney, the solicitor, who offered Colonel Ogden a solution to
his wife's educational difficulties. Mr. Rodney, it seemed, had a sister
just down from Cambridge. She had come to Seabourne to keep house for
him, but she wanted to get some work, and he thought she would probably
be glad to teach the Ogdens’ little girls for a few hours every day. The
colonel engaged Elizabeth Rodney forthwith.



Chapter Three


1


The schoolroom at Leaside was dreary. You came through the front door
into a narrow passage covered with brown linoleum and decorated with
trophies from Indian bazaars. On one side stood a black carved wood table
bearing a Benares tray used for visiting cards, beside the table stood an
elephant's foot, adapted to take umbrellas. To your right was the
drawing-room, to your left the dining-room, facing you were the stairs
carpeted in faded green Brussels. If you continued down the passage and
passed the kitchen door, you came to the schoolroom. Leaside was a sunny
house, so that the schoolroom took you by surprise; it was an unpleasant
room, always a little damp, as the walls testified.

It was spring and the gloom of the room was somewhat dispelled by the
bright bunch of daffodils which Elizabeth had brought with her for the
table. At this table she sat with her two pupils; there was silence
except for the scratching of pens. Elizabeth Rodney leant back in her
chair; what light there was from the window slanted on to her strong
brown hair that waved persistently around her ears. Her eyes looked
inattentive, or rather as if their attention were riveted on something a
long way away; her fine, long hands were idly folded in her lap; she had
a trick of folding her hands in her lap. She was so neat that it made you
uncomfortable, so spotless that it made you feel dirty, yet there was
something in the set of her calm mouth that made you doubtful. Calm it
certainly was, and yet...one could not help wondering...

Just now she looked discouraged; she sighed.

'Finished!' said Joan, passing over her copy-book.

Elizabeth examined it. 'That's all right.'

Milly toiled, the pen blotted, tears filled her eyes, one fell and made
the blot run.

'Four and ten and fifteen and seven, that makes--'

'Thirty-six', said Elizabeth. 'Now we'll go out.'

They got up and put away the books. Outside, the March wind blew briskly,
the sea glared so that it hurt your eyes, and around the coast the white
cliffs curved low and distinct.

'Let's go up there', said Elizabeth, pointing to the cliffs.

'Joan, Joan!' called Mrs. Ogden from the drawing-room window, 'where is
your hat?'

'Oh, not to-day, Mother. I like the feel of the wind in my hair.'

'Nonsense, come in and get your hat.'

Joan sighed. 'I suppose I must', she said. 'You two go on, I'll catch you
up.' She ran in and snatched a tam-o'-shanter from the hall table. 'Don't
forget my knitting wool, dear.'

'No, Mother, but we were going on to the downs.'

'The downs to-day? Why, you'll be blown away.'

'Oh, no, Miss Rodney and I love wind.'

'Well, as you come home, then.'

'All right. Good-bye, Mother.'

'Good-bye, darling.'


2


Joan ran after the retreating figures. 'Here I am', she said
breathlessly. 'Is it Cone Head or the Golf Course?'

'Cone Head to-day', replied Elizabeth.

There was something in her voice that attracted Joan's attention, a
decision, a kind of defiance that seemed out of place. It was as if she
had said: 'I _will_ go to Cone Head, I want to get out of this beastly
place, to get up above it and forget it.' Joan eyed her curiously. To
Milly she was just the governess who gave you sums and always, except
when in such a mood as to-day, saw that you did them; but to Joan she was
a human being. To Milly she was 'Miss Rodney', to Joan, privately at all
events, 'Elizabeth'.

They walked on in silence.

Milly began to lag. ‘I'm tired to-day, let's go into the arcade.'

'Why?' demanded Joan.

'Because I like the shops.'

'We don't', said Joan. Milly lagged more obviously.

'Come, Milly, walk properly, please', said Elizabeth.

They had passed the High Street by now and were trudging up the long
white road to Cone Head. Over the point the wind raged furiously, it
snatched at their skirts and undid Milly's curls.

'Oh! oh!' she gasped.

Elizabeth laughed, but her laughter was caught up and blown away before
it could reach the children; Joan only knew that she was laughing by her
open mouth.

'It's glorious!' shouted Joan. 'I want to hit it back!'

Elizabeth battled her way towards an overhanging rock. 'Sit here', she
motioned; the rock sheltered them, and now they could hear themselves
speak.

'This is hateful', said Milly. 'When I'm famous I shall never do this
sort of thing.'

'Oh, Miss Rodney', exclaimed Joan, 'look at that sail!'

'I have been looking at it ever since we sat down--I think I should like
to be under it.'

'Yes, going, going, going, you don't know and you don't care where--just
anywhere, so long as it isn't here.'

'Already?' Elizabeth murmured.

'Already what?'

'Nothing. Did I say already?'

'Then I was thinking aloud.'

She looked at the child curiously; she had taught the girls now for about
two years, yet she was not even beginning to understand Joan. Milly was
reading made easy. Delicate, spoilt by her father and entirely
self-centred; yet she was a good enough child as children go, easier far
to manage than the elder girl. Milly was not stupid either. She played
the violin astonishingly well for a girl of ten. Elizabeth knew that the
little man who taught her thought that she had genius. Milly was easy
enough, she knew exactly what she wanted, and Elizabeth suspected that
she'd always get it. Milly wanted music and more music. When she played
her face ceased to look fretful, it became attentive, animated, almost
beautiful. This then was Milly's problem, solved already; music,
applause, admiration, Elizabeth could see it all, but Joan?--Joan
intrigued her.

Joan was so quiet, so reserved, so strong. Strong, yes, that was the
right word, strong and protective. She loved stray cats and starving dogs
and fledgelings that had tumbled out of their nests, such things made her
cry; stray cats, starving dogs, fledgelings and Mrs. Ogden. Elizabeth
laughed inwardly. Mrs. Ogden was so exactly like a lost fledgeling,
with her hopeless look and her big eyes; she was also rather like a
starving dog. Elizabeth paused just here to consider. Starving, what for?
She shuddered. Had Mrs. Ogden always been so hungry? She was positively
ravenous, you could feel it about her, her hunger came at you and made
you feel embarrassed. Poor woman, poor woman, poor Joan--why poor Joan?
She was brilliant; Elizabeth sighed; she herself had never been
brilliant, only a very capable turner of sods. Joan was quietly,
persistently brilliant; no flash, no sparks, just a steady, glowing
light. Joan at twelve was a splendid pupil; she thought too. When you
could make her talk she said things that arrested. Joan would go--where
would she go? To Oxford or Cambridge probably; no matter where she went
she would make her mark--Elizabeth was proud of Joan. She glanced at her
pupil sideways and sighed again. Joan worried her, Mrs. Ogden worried
her, they worried her separately and collectively. They were so
different, so antagonistic, these two, and yet so curiously drawn
together.

Elizabeth roused Joan sharply: 'Come on, it's late! It's nearly tea
time.' They hurried down the hill.

'I must get that wool at Spink's', said Joan.

'What wool?'

'Mother's--for her knitting.'

Won't tomorrow do?'

'No.'

'But it's at the other end of the town.'

'Never mind, you and Milly go home. I'll just go on and fetch it.' They
parted at the front door.

'Don't be long', Elizabeth called after her.

Joan waved her hand. Half an hour later she was back with the wool. In
the hall Mrs. Ogden met her.

'My darling!'

'Here it is, Mother.'

'But, my darling, it's not the same thickness!'

'Not the same--' Joan was tired.

'It won't do at all, dearest, you must ask for double Berlin.'

'But I did!'

'Then they must change it. Oh, dear; and I wanted to get that waistcoat
finished and put away tonight; it only requires such a little wee bit of
wool!' Mrs. Ogden sighed.

Her face became suddenly very sad. Joan did not think that it could be
the wool that had saddened her.

'What is it, Mother?'

'Nothing, Joan--'

'Oh, yes, you're unhappy, darling; I'll go and change the wool before
lessons tomorrow.'

'It's not the wool, dear, it's--Never mind, run and get your tea.' They
kissed.

In the schoolroom Joan relapsed into silence; she looked almost morose.
Her short, thick hair fell angrily over her eyes--Elizabeth watched her
covertly.



Chapter Four


1


The five months between March and August passed uneventfully, as they
always did at Seabourne. Joan was a little taller, Milly a little fatter,
Mrs. Ogden a little more nervous and Colonel Ogden a little more
breathless; nearly everything that happened at Leaside happened 'little',
so Joan thought.

But on this particular August morning, the usual order was, or should
have been, reversed. One was expecting confusion, hurry and triumph, for
to-day was sacred to the memory of Admiral Sir William Routledge, gallant
officer and Nelson's darling. To-day was the day of days; it was Mrs.
Ogden's day; it was Joan's and Milly's day--a little of it might be said
to be Colonel Ogden's day, but very little. For upon this glorious
Anniversary Mrs. Ogden rose as a phoenix from its ashes. She rose, she
grew, she asserted herself, she dictated; she was Routledge. The colonel
might grunt, might sneer, might even swear; the overworked servants might
give notice, Mrs. Ogden accepted it all with the calm indifference
befitting one whose ancestor had fought under Nelson. Oh, it was a
wonderful day!

But this year a cloud, at first no larger than a man's hand, had floated
towards Mrs. Ogden before she got up. She woke with the feeling of
elation that properly belonged to the occasion, yet the elation was not
quite perfect. What was it that oppressed her; that somehow took the edge
off the delight? She sat up in bed and thought. Ah! She had it! Assuredly
this was the longed-for Anniversary, but--it was also Book Day, Wednesday
and Book Day! Could anything be more unjust, more unbearable? Here she
had waited a whole year for this, her one moment of triumph, and it had
come on Book Day. Ruined--spoilt--utterly spoilt and ruined--the thing she
dreaded most was upon her; the household books would be waiting on her
desk to be tackled directly after breakfast, to be gone over and added
up, and then met somehow out of an almost vanished allowance; it was
scandalous! We Routledges! She leapt out of bed.

'What the devil is it?' asked Colonel Ogden irritably.

Mrs. Ogden began to hurry. She pattered round the room like a terrier on
a scent; garments fell from her nerveless fingers, the hairbrush
clattered on to the floor. She eyed her husband in a scared way; her
conscience smote her, she had felt too tired to use proper economy last
week. The books, the books, the books, what would they come to? She began
cleaning her teeth. Colonel Ogden watched her languidly from the bed. His
red, puffy face looked ridiculous against the pillow; a little smile
lifted his moustache. She turned and saw him, and stopped with the
tooth-brush half-way to her mouth. She felt suddenly disgusted and
outraged and shy. In a flash her mind took in the room. There on the
chair lay his loose, shabby garments, some of them natural coloured
Jaeger. And then his cholera belt! It hung limply suspended over the arm
of the chair, like the wraith of a concertina. On the table by his side
of the bed lay a half-smoked pipe. His bath sponge was elbowing her as
she washed; his masculine personality pervaded everything; the room
reeked of it.

She went on cleaning her teeth mechanically, taking great care to do as
her dentist bade her--up and down and then across and get the brush well
back in your mouth; that was the way to preserve your teeth. Up and down
and then across--disgusting! What she was doing was ugly and detestable.
Why should he lie in the bed and smile? Why should he be in the bed at
all--why should he be in the room at all? Why hadn't they taken a house
with an extra bedroom, or at least with a room large enough for two beds?
What was he doing there now? He ought not to be there now; that sort of
thing was all very well for the young--but for people of their age! The
repellent familiarities!

She gathered her dressing-gown more tightly around her; she felt like a
virgin whose privacy had suffered a rude intrusion. Turning, she made to
leave the room.

'Where are you going, Mary?' Colonel Ogden sat up.

'To have my bath.'

'But I haven't shaved yet.'

'You can wait until I have had my bath.'

She heard herself and marvelled. Would the heavens fall? Would the ground
open and swallow her up? She hurried away before her courage failed.

In the bath-room she slipped the bolt and turned the key, and sighed a
sigh of relief. Alone--she was alone. She turned on the water. A reckless
daring seized her; let the hot water run, let it run until the bath was
full to the brim; for once she would have an injuriously hot bath; she
would wallow in it, stay in it, take her time. She never got enough hot
water; now she would take it _all_--let his bath be tepid for once, let
him wait on her convenience, let him come thumping at the door, coarse,
overbearing, foolish creature!

What a life--and this was marriage! She thought of Colonel Ogden, of his
stertorous breathing, his habits; he had a way of lunging over on to her
side of the bed in his sleep, and when he woke in the morning his face
was a mass of grey stubble. Why had she never thought of all these things
before? She _had_ thought of them, but somehow she had never let the
thoughts come out; now that she had ceased to sit on them they sprang up
like so many jacks-in-the-box.

And yet, after all, her James was no worse than other men; better, she
supposed, in many respects. She believed he had been faithful to her;
there was something in that. Certainly he had loved her once--if that
sort of thing was love--but that was a long time ago. As she lay
luxuriously in the brimming bath her thoughts went back. Things had been
different in India. Joan had been born in India. Joan was thirteen now;
she would soon be growing up--there were signs already. Joan so quiet, so
reserved--Joan married, a year, five years of happiness perhaps and then
this, or something very like it. Never! Joan should never marry. Milly,
yes, but she could not tolerate the thought of it for Joan. Joan would
just go on loving her; it would be the perfect relationship, Mother and
Child.

'Mary!'

'What is it?'

'Are you going to stay there all day?' The handle of the door was;
rattled violently.

'Please don't do that, James; I'm still in my bath.'

'The devil you are!' Colonel Ogden whistled softly. Then he remembered
the date and smiled. 'Poor old Mary, such a damned snob poor dear--oh
well! We Routledges!'


2


Breakfast was late. How could it be otherwise? Had not Mrs. Ogden sat in
the bath for at least half an hour? There had been no hot water when at
last Colonel Ogden got into the bath-room, and a kettle had had to be
boiled. All this had taken time. Milly and Joan watched their mother
apprehensively. Joan scented a breakdown in the near offing, for Mrs.
Ogden's hands were trembling.

'Your father's breakfast, Joan; for heaven's sake ring the bell!' Joan
rang it. 'The master's breakfast, Alice?'

'The kidneys aren't done.'

'Why not, Alice?'

'There 'asn't been time!'

'Nonsense, make haste. The colonel will be down in a minute.'

Alice banged the door, and Mrs. Ogden's eyes filled. Her courage had all
run away with the bath water. She had been through hell, she told herself
melodramatically; she had at last seen things as they were. Thump--thump
and then thump--thump--that was James putting on his boots! Oh, where was
the breakfast! Where were James's special dishes, the kidneys and the
curried eggs; what _was_ Alice doing? Thump--thump--there it was again!
She clasped her hands in an agony.

'Joan, Joan, do go and see about breakfast.'

'It's all right, Mother, here it is.'

'Put it on the hot plate quickly--now the toast. Children make your
father's toast--don't burn it whatever you do!' Thump--thump--thump--that
was three thumps and there ought to be four; would James never make the
fourth thump? She thought she would go mad if he left off at three. Ah!
There it was, that was the fourth thump; now surely he must be coming.
The toast was made; it would get cold and flabby. James hated it flabby.
If they put it in the grate it would get hard; James hated it hard. Where
was James?

'Children, put the toast in the grate; no, don't--wait a minute.'

Now there was another sound; that was James blowing his nose. He must be
coming down, then, for he always blew his nose on his soiled pocket
handkerchief with just that sound, before he took his clean one. What was
that--something broken!

'Joan, go and see what Alice has smashed. Oh! I hope it's not the new
breakfast dish, the fire-proof one!'

Thump, thump, on the stairs this time; James was coming down at last.
'Joan, never mind about going to the kitchen; stay here and see to your
father's breakfast.'

The door opened and Colonel Ogden came in. He was very quiet, a bad sign;
there was blood from a scratch on his chin to which a pellet of cotton
wool adhered.

'Coffee, dear?'

'Naturally. By the way, Mary, you'll oblige me by leaving a teacupful of
hot water for me to shave with another time.' He felt his scratch
carefully.

'Joan, get your father the kidneys. Will you begin with kidneys or
curried eggs?'

'Kidneys. By the way, Mary, I don't pay a servant to smear my brown boots
with pea soup; I pay her to clean them--to clean them, do you hear? To
clean them properly.' The calm with which he had entered the room was
fast disappearing; his voice rose.

'James, dear, don't excite yourself.'

The colonel cut a kidney viciously; as he did so, tell-tale stains
appeared on the plate.

'Damn it all Mary! Do you think I'm a cannibal?'

'Oh, James!'

'Oh, James, oh, James! It's sickening, Mary. No hot water, not even to
shave with, and now raw kidneys; disgusting! You know how I hate my food
underdone. Damn it all Mary, I don't run a household for this sort of
thing! Give me the eggs!'

'Joan, fetch your father the eggs!'

'What's the matter with the toast, Mary? It's stone cold!'

'You came down so late, dear.'

'I didn't get into the bath-room until twenty minutes past eight. I can't
eat this toast.'

'Joan, make your father some fresh toast; be quick, dear, and Milly, take
the kidneys to Ellen and ask her to grill them a little more. Now James
here's some nice hot coffee.'

'Sit down!' thundered the colonel.

Joan and Milly sat down hastily. 'Keep quiet; you get on my nerves,
darting about all round the table. Upon my word, Mary, the children
haven't touched their breakfast!'

'But, James--'

'That's enough I say; eat your bacon, Milly. Joan, stop shuffling your
feet.'

Milly, her face blotched with nervousness, attempted to spear the cold
and stiffening bacon; it jumped off her fork on to the cloth as though
possessed of a malicious life energy. Colonel Ogden's eyes bulged with
irritation, and he thumped the table.

'Upon my word, Mary, the children have the table manners of Hottentots.'

Now by all the laws of the Medes and Persians, Mrs. Ogden, on this Day of
Days, should have remained calm and disdainful. But to-day had begun
badly. There had been that little cloud which had grown and grown until
it became the household books; it was over her now, enveloping her. She
could not see through it, she could not collect her forces. 'We
Routledges!' It didn't ring true, it was like a blast blown on a cracked
trumpet. She prayed fervently for self-control, but she knew that she
prayed in vain. Her throat ached, she was going fast, slipping through
her own fingers with surprising rapidity.

Colonel Ogden began again: 'Well, upon my--'

'Don't, don't!' shrieked Mrs. Ogden hysterically. 'Don't say it again,
James. I can't bear it!'

'Well upon my word.'

'There! You've said it! Oh, Oh, Oh!' She suddenly covered her face with
her table napkin and burst into loud sobs.

Colonel Ogden was speechless. Then he turned a little pale, his heart
thumped.

'Mary, for heaven's sake!'

'I can't help it, James! I can't, I can't!'

'But, Mary, my dear!'

'Don't touch me, leave me alone!'

'Oh, all right; but I say, Mary, don't do this.'

'I wish I were dead!'

'Mary!'

'Yes I do, I wish I were dead and out of it all!'

'Nonsense--rubbish!'

'You'll be sorry when I am dead!'

He stretched out a plump hand and laid it on her shoulder. 'Go away,
James!'

'Oh, all right! Joan, look after your mother, she don't seem well.'

He left the room, and they heard the front door bang after him. Mrs.
Ogden looked over the table napkin. 'Has he gone, Joan?'

'Yes, Mother. Oh, you poor darling!' They clung together.

Mrs. Ogden dried her eyes; then she poured out some coffee and drank it.

'I'm better now, dear.' She smiled cheerfully.

And she was better. As she rose from the table the dark cloud lifted, she
saw clearly once more; saw the Routledge banner streaming in the breeze.

‘And now for those tiresome books', she said almost gaily.

She went away to the drawing-room and Joan collapsed; she felt sick,
scenes always upset her.

She thought: 'I wish I could hide my head in a table napkin and cry like
Mother did.' Then she thought: 'I wonder how Mother manages it. I
wouldn't have cried, I'd have hit him!'

She could not eat. In the drawing-room she heard her mother humming, yes,
actually humming over the books!

'That's all right', thought Joan, 'they must be nice and cheap this week,
that's a comfort anyhow.'

Presently Mrs. Ogden looked into the dining-room.

'Joan!'

'Yes, Mother?'

'No lessons to-day, dear.'

'No, Mother.'

'Come and help me to place the wreath.'

They fetched it, carrying it between them; a laurel wreath large enough
to cover the frame of the admiral's picture.

'Tell Alice to bring the steps, Joan. Now, dear, you hold them while I
get up. How does it look?'

'Lovely, Mother.'

'Joan, never forget that half of you is Routledge. Never forget, my dear,
that the best blood in your veins comes from my side of the family. Never
forget who you are, Joan; it helps one a great deal in life to have
something like that to cling to, something to hold on to when the dark
days come.'


3


All day long the house hummed like a beehive. There was no luncheon; the
children snatched some bread and butter in the kitchen, and if Mrs. Ogden
ate at all, she was not observed to do so. Colonel Ogden, wise man, had
remained at the club. Alice, her mouth surreptitiously full, hastened
here and there with dust-brushes and buckets; Milly begged to do the
flowers, and cut her finger; Joan manfully polished the plate, while Mrs.
Ogden, authoritative and dignified, reviewed her household as the colonel
had once reviewed his regiment.

Presently Alice was ordered to hasten away and dress. 'And', said Mrs.
Ogden, ‘let me find your cap and apron spotless, if you please, Alice.'

At last Joan and Milly went upstairs to put on their white cashmere
smocks, and Mrs. Ogden, left to herself, took stock of the preparations.
Yes, it was all in order, the trestle table hired from Binnings',
together with the stout waiter, had both arrived, so had the coffee and
tea urns and the extra cups and saucers. On the sideboard stood an array
of silver. Cups won at polo by Colonel Ogden, a silver tray bearing the
arms of Routledge, salvage this from the family wreck, and numerous
articles in Indian silver, embossed with Buddhas and elephants' heads.
The table groaned with viands, the centre piece being a large sugar
cake crowned with a frigate in full sail. This speciality Binnings was
able to produce every year; the cake was fresh, of course, but not the
frigate.

But the drawing-room--that was what counted most. The drawing-room on
what Mrs. Ogden called 'Anniversary Day' was, in every sense of the word,
a shrine. Within its precincts dwelt the image of the god, the trophies
of his earthly career set out about him, and Mary, his handmaiden, in
attendance to wreathe his effigy with garlands.

Poor old Admiral Sir William, a good fellow by all accounts, an honest
sailor and a loyal friend in his day. Possibly less Routledge than his
descendants, certainly, according to his biographer, a man of a retiring
disposition; one wonders what he would have thought of the Ancestor
Worship of which he had all unwittingly become the object.

But Mary was satisfied. The drawing-room, which always appeared to her to
be a very charming room, was of a good size. The colour scheme was pink
and white, broken by just a splash of yellow here and there where the
white chrysanthemums had run out and had been supplemented by yellow
ones. The wall-paper was white with clusters of pink roses; the curtains
were pink, the furniture was upholstered in pink. The hearth, which was
tiled in turquoise blue, was lavish in brass. Mrs. Ogden drew the
curtains a little more closely together over the windows in order to
subdue the light; then she touched up the flowers, shook out the cushions
for the fifth time and stood in the door to gauge the effect.

'Now', said Mrs. Ogden mentally, 'I am Lady Loo, I am entering the
drawing-room, how does it strike me?'

The first thing that naturally riveted the attention was the 
laurel-wreathed print of Admiral Sir William. What a pity James had been too
poor to buy the painting--for a moment she felt dashed, but this phase
passed quickly, the room looked so nice. The colour, so clean and dainty,
just sufficiently relieved by the blue tiled grate and the Oriental piano
cover; this latter and the Benares vases certainly seemed to stamp the
room as belonging to people who had been in the Service. On the whole she
was glad she had married James and not the bishop. The flowers
too--really Milly had arranged them quite nicely. But what a pity that it
would be too light to light the lamp; still, the shade certainly caught
the eye, she was glad she had taken the plunge and bought it at that
sale. It was very effective, pleated silk with bunches of artificial
iris. Still, she was not sure that a plain shade would not have looked
better after all. When one has so unusually fine a stuffed python for a
standard lamp, one did not wish to detract from it in any way. She
considered the photographs next; there was a goodly assortment of these
in silver frames; she had carefully selected them with a view to effect.
The panel of herself in court dress, that showed up well; then James in
his full regimentals--James looked a trifle stout in his tunic, still,
it all showed that she had not married a nobody. Then that nice picture
of her brother Henry taken with his polo team--poor Henry! Oh, yes, and
the large photograph of the bishop--really rather imposing. And
Chesham--the prints of Chesham on the walls; how dignified the dear old
place looked, very much a gentleman's estate.

But there was more to come; Mrs. Ogden had purposely left the best to the
last. She drew in her breath. There on an occasional table, lay the
relics of Admiral Sir William Routledge, gallant officer and Nelson's
darling. In the middle of the table lay his coat and his gloves, across
the coat, his sword. To right and left hung the admiral's decorations
mounted on velvet plaques. In front of the coat lay the oak-framed
remnants of Nelson's letter to the admiral, and in front of this again
the treasured Nelson snuff-box bearing the inscription 'From Nelson to
Routledge'.

She paused beside the table, touching the relics one by one with reverent
fingers, smiling as she did so. Then she crossed the room to where a
shabby leather-covered arm-chair looked startlingly incongruous amid its
surroundings. Very carefully she lowered herself into the chair; a small
brass plate had been screwed on to the back, bearing the inscription
'Admiral Viscount Nelson of Trafalgar sat in this chair when staying at
Chesham Court with Admiral Sir William Routledge'. Mrs. Ogden spread her
thin hands along the slippery arms, and allowed her head to rest for a
moment where supposedly Nelson's head had once rested. The chair was her
special pride and care; perhaps because its antecedents were doubtful.
Colonel Ogden had once reminded her that there never had been any proof
worth mentioning that Nelson had stayed at Chesham, much less that he had
sat in that infernally uncomfortable old chair, and Mrs. Ogden had
retorted hotly that Routledge tradition was good enough for her.
Nevertheless, from that moment the Nelson chair had, she felt, a special
claim upon her. She was like a mother defending the doubtful legitimacy
of a well-loved son; the Nelson chair had been threatened with a bar
sinister.

She gave the arms a farewell stroke, and rising slowly left the room to
dress. She trod the stairs with dignity, the aloof dignity that belonged
to the occasion, which she would maintain during the rest of the day. Her
lapse from Routledge in the morning but added to her calm as tea-time
approached.



Chapter Five


1


Admiral Bourne was the first to arrive. He liked the children, and Milly
sidled up and stood between his knees, certain of her welcome.

'Pretty hair!' he remarked thoughtfully, stroking her curls, 'and how is
Miss Joan getting on? You haven't let your hair grow yet, Miss Joan.'

Joan laughed. 'It's more comfortable short', she said. 'So it is', agreed
the admiral. 'Capital, capital!'

'You must come and see my cream mice, dozens of them--' he began. But at
that moment Elizabeth and her brother were announced and Joan hurried to
meet them. She examined Mr. Rodney with a new interest, for now he was
not just father's friend at the club, but he was Elizabeth Rodney's
brother. She thought: 'He looks old, old, old, and yet I don't believe he
is very old. His eyes are greenish like Elizabeth's, only somehow his
eyes look timid like Mother's, and Elizabeth's remind me of the sea. I
wonder what makes his back so humped, his coat goes all in ridges--' Then
she suddenly felt very sorry for him, he looked so dreadfully humble.

Elizabeth, tall and erect, was dressed in some soft green material; she
appeared a little unnatural to the children, who had grown accustomed to
her tailor-made blouses and skirts. Her strong brown hair was carefully
dressed as usual, but as usual a curl or two sprang away from the
hair-pins, straying over her ears and in the nape of her neck. Elizabeth
was always pale, but to-day she looked very vital; she was conscious of
looking her best, of creating an effect. Then she suddenly wondered
whether Joan liked her dress, but even as she wondered she remembered
that Joan was only thirteen.

Joan was thinking: 'She looks like a tree. Why haven't I noticed before
how exactly like a tree she is; it must be the green dress. But her eyes
are like water, all greeny and shadowy and deep looking--a tree near a
pool, that's what she's like, a tall tree. A beech tree? No, that's too
spready--a larch tree, that's Elizabeth; a larch tree just greening
over.'

The rooms began to fill, and people wandered in and out; it was really
quite like a reception. There was a pleasant babble of conversation.
James had come in; he had said to himself: 'Must look in and share the
Mem-Sahib's little triumph--poor Mary!' He really looked quite
distinguished in his grey frock coat and black satin tie. Here were
General and Mrs. Brooke. By common consent the two old war horses buried
their feud on 'Anniversary Day'. It was: 'How are you, Ogden?'

'Glad to see you, General!'

They would beam at each other across their black satin ties; after
all--the Service, you know!

Sir Robert and Lady Loo were shown in; good, that they had arrived when
the rooms were at their fullest. Lady Loo came forward with her vague
toothy smile. She looked like a very old hunter, long in the face, long
in the leg and knobbly, distinctly knobbly. Her dress hung on her like
badly fitting horse-clothing. To her spare bosom a diamond and sapphire
crescent clung with a kind of desperation as if to an insufficient
foothold; you felt that somehow there was not enough to pin it to, that
there never would be enough to pin anything to on Lady Loo. But for all
this there was something nice about her; the kind of niceness that
belongs to old dogs and old horses, and that had never been entirely
absent from Lady Loo.

As she sat down by Mrs. Ogden, her bright brown eyes looked inquisitively
round the room, resting for an instant on the admiral's portrait, and
then on the relics upon the occasional table. Mrs. Ogden watched her,
secretly triumphant.

'Dear Lady Loo. How good of you to come to our little gathering. _My_ Day
I call it--very foolish of me--but after all--Oh, yes, how very kind of
you--But then, why rob your hothouses for poor little me? You forgot to
bring them? Oh, never mind, it's the thought that counts, is it not? Your
speaking of peaches makes me feel quite homesick for Chesham--we had such
acres of glass at Chesham!--Yes, that is Joan--come here, Joan dear!
Naughty child, she will insist on keeping her hair short. You think it
suits her? Really? Clever? Well--run away, Joan darling--yes, frankly,
very clever, so Miss Rodney thinks. Attractive? You think so? Now fancy,
my husband always thinks Milly is the pretty one. Shall I ask Joan to
recite or shall Milly play first? What do you think? Joan first, oh, all
right--Joan, dear!'

The dreaded moment had arrived; Joan, shy and awkward, floundered through
her recitation.

'Capital, capital!' cried Admiral Bourne, who had taken a fancy to her.

Elizabeth felt hot; why in heaven's name make a fool of Joan like that?
Joan couldn't recite and never would be able to. And then the child's
dress--what possessed Mrs. Ogden to make her wear white? Joan looked too
awful in white, it made her skin look yellow. Then the dress was too
short; Joan's dresses always were; and yet she was her mother's
favourite. Curious--perhaps Mrs. Ogden wanted to make her look young;
well, she couldn't keep her a baby for ever. When would Joan begin to
assert her individuality? When she was fifteen, seventeen, perhaps?
Elizabeth felt that she could dress Joan; she ought to wear dark colours,
she knew exactly what she ought to wear. At that moment Joan came over to
her, she was flushed and still looked shy.

'Beastly rot, that poem!'

Elizabeth surveyed her: 'Oh, Joan, you're so like a colt.' And she
laughed.

Joan wanted to say: 'You're like a larch tree that's just greening over,
a tree by the side of a pool.' But she was silent.

The noise of conversation broke out afresh. Milly, longing to be asked to
play, was pretending to adjust the clasp of her violin case. Elizabeth
looked from one child to the other and could not help smiling. Then she
said: 'Joan, do you like my dress?'

'Like it?' Joan stammered; 'I think it's beautiful.'

Elizabeth wanted to say, 'Do you think me at all beautiful, Joan?' But
something inside her began to laugh at this absurdity, while she said:
'I'm so glad you like it, it was new for to-day.'

'Now, Milly, play for us', came Mrs. Ogden's voice. 'Miss Rodney will
accompany you, I'm sure.'

Milly did not blush, she remained cool and pale--small and cool and pale
she stood there in her white cashmere smock, making lovely sounds with as
much ease and confidence as if she had been playing by herself in an
empty room.

Extraordinary child. She looked almost inspired, coldly inspired--it was
queer. When she had finished playing, her little violin master came out
of the corner in which he had been hidden.

'Very good--excellent!' he said, patting her shoulder; and Milly smiled
quite placidly. Then she grew excited all of a sudden and skipped around
the room for praise.

Joan sat beside her mother; very gently she squeezed her hand, looking up
into Mrs. Ogden's face. She saw that it was animated and young, and the
change thrilled her with pleasure. Mrs. Ogden looked down into her
daughter's eyes. She whispered: 'Do you like my dress, darling; am I
looking nice?'

'Lovely, Mother--so awfully pretty!' But Joan thought: 'The same thing,
they both wanted to know if I liked their dresses, how funny! But Mother
doesn't look like a tree just greening over--what does Mother look like?
She could not find a simile and this annoyed her. Mrs. Ogden's dress was
grey, it suited her admirably, falling about her still girlish figure in
long, soft folds. No one could say that Mary Ogden never looked pretty
these days, that was quite certain; for she looked pretty this afternoon,
with the delicate somewhat faded prettiness of a flower that has been
pressed between the pages of a book. Suddenly Joan thought: 'I know--I've
got it, Elizabeth is like a tree and Mother's like a dove, a dove that
lights on a tree. No, that won't do, I don't believe somehow that Mother
would like to light on Elizabeth, and I don't think Elizabeth would like
to be lit on. What is she like then?'

People began to go. 'Good-bye, such a charming party.'

'So glad you could come.'

'Good-bye--don't forget that you and Colonel Ogden are lunching with us
next Saturday.'

'No, of course not, so many thanks.'

'Good-bye--'

'Over at last!' Mrs. Ogden leant back in her chair with a sigh that
bespoke complete satisfaction. She beamed on her husband.

He smiled. 'Went off jolly well, Mary!' He was anxious to make up for the
morning.

'Yes, it was a great success, I think. Don't you think it went off very
well, James?'

The colonel twitched; he longed to say: 'Damn it all, Mary, haven't I
just told you that I think it went off well!' But he restrained himself.

Mary continued: 'Well, dear, the Routledges always did have a talent for
entertaining. I can remember at Chesham when I was Joan's age--'


2


Sir Robert and Lady Loo were driving swiftly towards Moor Park behind
their grey cobs. 'Talent that youngster has for fiddle playing, Emma!'

'Yes, I suppose so. The mother's a silly fool of a woman, no more brains
than a chicken, and what a snob!'

'Ugly monkey, the elder daughter.'

'Joan? Oh, do you think so?'

'Awful!'

'Wait and see!' said Lady Loo with a thoughtful smile.

Elizabeth walked home between her brother and the little violin master;
she was depressed without exactly knowing why. The little violin master
waved his hands.

'Milly is a genius; I have got a real pupil at last, at last! You wait and
see, she will go far. What tone, what composure for so young a child?'

'Joan is like a young colt!' said Elizabeth to herself. 'Like a young
colt that somehow isn't playful--Joan is a solemn young colt, a
thoughtful colt, a colt wise beyond its months.' And she sighed.



Chapter Six


1


Elizabeth sat alone in her brother's study. Books lined the walls from
floor to ceiling; Ralph's books and some of her own that she had brought
with her from Cambridge.

This was Sunday. Ralph had gone to church. 'Such a good little man',
thought Elizabeth to herself; but she had not gone to church, she had
pleaded a fictitious cold. Ralph Rodney was still youngish, not more than
forty-five, and doing fairly well in the practice which he had inherited
from his uncle. But there was nothing beyond Seabourne--just Seabourne,
nothing beyond. Ralph would probably live and die neither richer nor
poorer than he was at present; it was a drab outlook. Yet it was Ralph's
own fault, he might have done better, there had been a time when people
thought him clever; he might have started his career in London. But no,
he had thought it his duty to keep on the business at Seabourne.
Elizabeth mused that it must either be that Ralph was very stupid or very
good, she wondered if the terms were synonymous.

Their life history was quite simple. They had been left orphans when she
was a year old and he was twenty. She had been too young to know anything
about it, and Ralph had never lived much with his parents in any case. He
had been adopted by their father's elder brother when he was still only a
child. After the death of her parents, Elizabeth had been carried off by
a cousin of their mother's, a kind, pleasant woman who divided her time
between Elizabeth and Rescue Work.

They had been very happy together, and when Elizabeth was twenty and her
cousin had died suddenly, she had felt real regret. Her cousin's death
left her with enough money to go up to Cambridge, and very little to
spare, for the bulk of Miss Wharton's fortune had gone to found
Recreation Homes for Prostitutes, and not having qualified to benefit by
the charity, Elizabeth was obliged to study to earn her living.

Her brother Ralph she had scarcely seen, he had gone so completely away.
This was only natural; and the arrangement must have suited their parents
very well, for their father had not been an earner and their mother had
never been strong.

Elizabeth was now twenty-six. The uncle had died eighteen months ago,
leaving Ralph his small fortune and the business. Ralph was a confirmed
bachelor; he had felt lonely after the old man's death, had thought of
his sister and had besought her to take pity on him; there it had begun
and there so far, it had ended.

Yet it need not have ended as it had done for Ralph, but Ralph was a
sentimentalist. He had loved the old uncle like a son, and had always
made excuses for not cutting adrift from Seabourne. Uncle John was
growing old and needed him in the business; Uncle John was failing--he
had been failing for years, thought Elizabeth bitterly, a selfish, cranky
old man--Uncle John begged Ralph not to leave him, he had a presentiment
that he would not last much longer. Ralph must keep an eye on the poor
old chap. After all, he'd been very decent to him. Ralph wanted to know
where he'd have been without Uncle John.

Always the same excuses. Had Ralph never wanted a change; had he never
known ambition? Perhaps, but such longings die, they cannot live on a law
practice in Seabourne and an ailing Uncle John; they may prick and stab
for a little while, may even constitute a real torment, but withstand
them long enough and you will have peace, the peace of the book whose
leaves are never turned; the peace of dust and cobwebs. Ralph was like
that now, a book that no one cared to open; he was covered with dust and
cobwebs.

At forty-five he was old and contented, or if not exactly contented, then
resigned. And he had grown timid, perhaps Uncle John had made him timid.
Uncle John was said to have had a will of his own--no, Elizabeth was not
sure that it was all Uncle John, though he might have contributed. It was
Seabourne that had made Ralph timid; Seabourne that had nothing beyond.
Seabourne was so secure, how could it be otherwise when it had nothing
beyond; whence could any danger menace it? Ralph clung to Seabourne; he
was afraid to go too far lest he should step off into space, for he too
must feel that Seabourne had nothing beyond. Seabourne had him and Uncle
John had him. It was all of a piece with Uncle John to leave a letter
behind him, begging Ralph to keep the old firm together after he was
dead. Sentiment, selfish sentiment. Who cared what happened to Rodney and
Rodney! Even Seabourne wouldn't care much, there were other solicitors.
But Ralph had thought otherwise; the old man had begged him to stick by
the firm, Ralph couldn't go back on him now. Ralph was humbly grateful;
Ralph felt bound. Ralph was resigned too, that was the worst of it. And
yet he had been clever, Elizabeth had heard it at Cambridge; but
Cambridge that should have emancipated him had only been an episode.
Back he had come to Seabourne and Uncle John, Uncle John much aged by
then, and needing him more than ever.

When they had met at Seabourne, her brother had been a shock to her. His
hair had greyed and so had his skin, and his mind--that had greyed too.
Then why had she stayed? She didn't know. There was something about the
comfortable house that chained you, held you fast. They were velvet
chains, they were plush chains, but they held.

Then there was Uncle John. Uncle John's portrait looked down from the
dining-room wall--Uncle John young, with white stock and keen eyes. That
Uncle John seemed to point to himself and say: 'I was young too, and yet
I never strayed; what was good enough for my father was good enough for
me and ought to be good enough for my nephew and for you, Elizabeth.'
Then there was Uncle John's later portrait on the wall of the
study--Uncle John, old, wearing a corded black tie, his eyes rather dim
and appealing, like the eyes of a good old dog. That Uncle John was the
worse of the two; you felt that you could throw a plate at the youthful,
smug, self-assertive Uncle John in the dining-room, but you couldn't hurt
this Uncle John because he seemed to expect you to hurt him. This Uncle
John didn't point to himself, he had nothing to say, but you knew what he
wanted. He wanted to see you living in the old house among the old
things; he wanted to see Ralph at the old desk in the old office. He
needed you; he depended on you, he clung to you softly, persistently; you
couldn't shake him off. He had clung to Ralph like that, softly,
persistently; for latterly the strong will had broken and he had become
very gentle. And now Ralph clung to Elizabeth, and Uncle John clung too,
through Ralph.

Elizabeth got up. She flung open the window--let the air come in, let the
sea come in! Oh! If a tidal wave would come and wash it all away, sweep
it away; the house, Uncle John and Elizabeth to whom he clung through
Ralph! Tradition! She clenched her hands; damn their tradition; another
name for slavery, and excuse for keeping slaves! What was she doing with
her life? Nothing. Uncle John saw to that. Yes, she was doing something,
she was allowing it to be slowly and surely strangled to death, soon it
would be gone, like a drop squeezed into the reservoir of Eternity; soon
it would be lost for ever and she would still be alive--and she was so
young! A lump rose in her throat; her hopes had been high--not brilliant,
perhaps--still she had done well at Cambridge, there were posts open to
her.

She might have written, but not at Seabourne. People didn't write at
Seabourne, they borrowed the books that other people had written, from
Mr. Besant of the Circulating Library, and talked foolishly about them at
their afternoon teas, wagging their heads and getting the foreign names
all wrong, if there were any. Oh! She had heard them! And Ralph would get
like that. Get? He was like that already; Ralph had prejudices, timid
ones, but there was strength in their numbers. Ralph approved and
disapproved. Ralph shook his head over Elizabeth's smoking and nodded it
over her needlework. Ralph liked womanly women; well, Elizabeth liked
manly men. If she wasn't a womanly woman, Ralph wasn't a manly man. Oh,
poor little Ralph, what a beast she was!

What did she want? She had the Ogden children, they were an interest and
they represented her pocket money--if only Joan were older! After all,
better a home with a kind brother at Seabourne than life on a pittance in
London. But something in her strove and rent: 'Not better, not better!'
it shouted. 'I want to get out, it's I, I, I! I want to live, I want to
get out, let me out I tell you, I want to come out!'

'Elizabeth, dear, how are you?' Her brother had come in quietly behind
her.

'Better, thank you. You're not wet, are you, Ralph? It's been raining.'

'No, not a bit. I wish you'd been there, Elizabeth. Such a fine sermon.'

'What was the text', she inquired. One always inquired what the text had
been; the question sprang to her lips mechanically.

'"Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many
days!" A beautiful text, I think.'

'Yes, very beautiful', Elizabeth agreed. 'Curious that being the text
to-day.'

'Why?' he asked her, but his voice lacked interest; he didn't really want
to know.

She thought: 'I suppose I've cast my bread upon the waters, it must be a
long way out at sea by now.' Then she began to visualize the bread and
that made her want to laugh. A crust of bread? A fat slice? A thin slice?
Or had she cast away a loaf? Perhaps there were shoals of sprats standing
upright on their tails in the water under the loaf and nibbling at it, or
darting round and round in a circle, snatching and quarrelling while the
loaf bobbed up and down--there were plenty of sprats just off the coast.
Anyhow, her bread must be dreadfully soggy if it had been in the water
for more than two years. 'For thou shalt find it after many days!' Yes,
but how many days? And if you did find it, if the sprats left even a
crumb to be washed up on the beach, how would it taste, she wondered. How
many days, how many days, how many Seabourne days, how many Ralph and
Uncle John days; so secure, so decent, so colourless! The text said,
'Many days'; it warned you not to grow impatient, it was like young Uncle
John in the dining-room taking it for granted that time didn't
count--Uncle John had never been in a hurry. And yet they were beautiful
words; she knew quite well what they meant, she was only pretending to
misunderstand, it was her misplaced sense of humour.

Ralph had cast his bread upon the waters, and no doubt he expected to
retrieve it on the shores of a better land; if he went hungry meanwhile,
she supposed that was his affair. But perhaps he was expecting a more
speedy return, perhaps when Ralph looked like old Uncle John his bread
would be washed back to him; perhaps that was how it was done. She paused
to consider. Perhaps your bread was returned to you in kind; you gave of
your spirit and body, and you got back spirit and body in your turn. Not
yours, but someone else's. When Ralph was sixty she would be forty-one;
there was still a little sustenance left in you when you were forty-one,
she supposed, though not much. Perhaps she was going to be Ralph's return
for the loaf that had floated away.

It was all so pigeon-holed and so tidy. She was tidy, she had a tidy
mind, but the mind that had thought out this bread scheme was even more
tidy than hers. The scheme worked in grooves like a cogwheel, clip, clip,
clip, each cog in its appointed place and round and round, always in a
circle. Uncle John and his forebears before him had cast away their
loaves turn by turn; it was the obvious thing to do; it was the Seabourne
thing to do, Father to son, uncle to nephew, brother to sister; a slight
difference in consanguinity but none in spirit. Uncle John's bread had
gone for his father and the firm; Ralph's bread had gone for Uncle John
and the firm, and she supposed that her bread had gone for Ralph and the
firm. But where was her return to come from? In what manner would she
find it, 'after many days'? Would the spell be broken with her? She
wondered.



Chapter Seven


1


It was a blazing July, nearly a year later. Seabourne, finding at first a
new topic for conversation in the heat wave, very soon wearied of this
rare phenomenon, abandoning itself to exhaustion.

Colonel Ogden wilted perceptibly but Mrs. Ogden throve. The heat agreed
with her, it made her expand. She looked younger and she felt younger and
said so constantly, and her family tried to feel pleased. Lessons were a
torment in the airless schoolroom; Joan flagged, Milly wept, and
Elizabeth grew desperate. There was nowhere to walk except in the glare.
The turf on the cliffs was as slippery as glass; on the sea-front the
asphalt stuck to your shoes, and the beach was a wilderness peopled by
wilting parents and irritable, mosquito-bitten children. Then, when
things were at their worst at Leaside, there came from out the blue a
very pleasant happening; old Admiral Bourne met the Ogden children out
walking and asked them to tea.


2


The admiral's house was unique. He had built it after his wife's death;
it had been a hobby and a distraction. Glory Point lay back from the road
that led up to Cone Head, out beyond the town. To the casual observer the
house said little. From the front it looked much as other houses, a
little stronger, a little whiter perhaps, but on the whole not at all
distinctive except for its round windows; and as only the upper windows
could be seen from the road they might easily have been mistaken for an
imitation of the Georgian period. It was not until the house was skirted
to the left and the shrubbery passed that the character of Glory Point
became apparent.

A narrow path with tall bushes on either side wound zigzag for a little
distance. With every step the sound of the sea came nearer and nearer,
until, at an abrupt angle, the path ceased, and shot you out on to a
cobbled court-yard, and the wide Atlantic lay before you. The path had
been contrived to appear longer than it was in reality, the twists and
turns assisting the illusion; the last thing you expected to find at the
end was what you found; it was very ingenious.

To the left and in front this court-yard appeared to end in space, and
between you and the void stood apparently nothing but some white painted
posts and chains. But even as you wondered what really lay below, a sharp
spray would come hurtling over the chains and land with a splash almost
at your feet, trickling in and out of the cobbles. Then you realized that
the court-yard was built on a rock that ran sheer down to the sea.

At the side of this court-yard stood a fully rigged flagstaff with an old
figure-head nailed to its base. The figure-head gazed out across the
Atlantic, it looked wistful and rather lonely; there was something
pathetic about the thing. It had a grotesque kind of dignity in spite of
its faded and weather-stained paint. The ample female bosoms bulged
beneath the stiff drapery, the painted eyes seemed to be straining to see
some distant object; where the figure ended below the waist was a roughly
carved scroll showing traces of gilt, on which could be deciphered the
word 'Glory'.

From this side the house looked bigger, and one saw that all the windows
were round and that a veranda ran the length of the ground floor. This
veranda was the admiral's particular pride, it was boarded with narrow
planks scrubbed white and caulked like the deck of a ship; the admiral
called it his 'quarter-deck', and here, in fine weather or foul, he would
pace up and down, his hands in his pockets, his cigar set firmly between
his teeth, his rakish white beard pointing out in front.

Inside the house the walls of the passages were boarded and enamelled
white, the rooms white panelled, and the steep narrow stairs covered with
corrugated rubber, bound with brass treads. Instead of banisters a piece
of pipe-clayed rope ran through brass stanchions on either side; and over
the whole place there brooded a spirit of the most intense cleanliness.
Never off a man-of-war did brass shine and twinkle like the brass at
Glory Point; never was white paint as white and glossy, never was there
such a fascinating smell of paint and tar and brass polish. It was an
astonishing house; you expected it to roll and could hardly believe your
good fortune when it kept still. Everyone in Seabourne made fun of Glory
Point; the admiral knew this but cared not at all, it suited him and that
was enough. If they thought him odd, he thought most of them incredibly
foolish. Glory Point was his darling and his pride; he and his mice lived
there in perfect contentment. The brass shone, the decks were as the
driven snow, the white walls smelt of fresh paint, and away beyond the
posts and chains of the cobbled court-yard stretched the Atlantic, as big
and deep and wholesome as the admiral's kind heart.


3


Through the blazing sunshine of the afternoon, Joan and Milly toiled up
the hill that led to Glory Point. Now, however, they did not wilt, their
eyes were bright with expectation, and they quickened their steps as the
gate came in sight. They pushed it open and walked down the pebbled path.

'It's all white!' Joan exclaimed. She looked at the round white stones
with the white posts on either side and then at the white door. They
rang; the fierce sun was producing little sham flames on the brass
bell-pull and knocker. The door was opened by a manservant in white drill
and beyond him the walls of the hall showed white. 'More white', thought
Joan. 'It's like--it looks--is honest the word? No, truthful.'

They were shown into a very happy room, all bright chintz and mahogany.
In one of the little round windows a Hartz Mountain Roller ruffled the
feathers on his throat as he trilled. The admiral came forward to meet
them, shaking hands gravely as if they were grown up. He, too, was in
white, and his eyes looked absurdly blue. Joan thought he matched the
Delft plates on the mantelpiece at his back.

'This is capital; I'm so glad you could come.' He seemed to be genuinely
pleased to see them. They waited for him to speak again, their eyes
astray for objects of interest.

'This is my after-cabin', said the admiral, smiling. 'What do you think
of it?'

'It's the drawing-room', said Milly promptly. Joan kicked her. 'We call
it a cabin on a ship', corrected the admiral.

'Oh, I see', said Milly. 'But this isn't a ship!'

'It's the only ship I've got now', he laughed.

Joan thought: 'I wish she wouldn't behave like this, what can it matter
what he calls the room? I wish Milly were shy!'

But Milly, quite unconscious of having transgressed, went up and nestled
beside him. He put his arm round her and patted her shoulder. 'It's a
very nice ship', she conceded.

Above the mantelpiece hung an oval portrait of a girl. Joan liked her
pleasant, honest eyes, blue like the admiral's, only larger; her face
looked wide open like a hedge rose.

Joan had to ask. She thought, 'It's cheek, I suppose, but I do want to
know.' Aloud she said: 'Please, who is that?'

The admiral followed the direction of her gaze. 'Olivia', he answered, in
a voice that took it for granted that he had no need to say more.
'Olivia?'

'My wife.'

'Oh!' breathed Joan, feeling horribly embarrassed. She wished that she
had not asked. Poor admiral, people said that he had loved her a great
deal!

'Where is she?' inquired Milly.

Joan thought: 'Of all the idiotic questions! Has she forgotten that he's
a widower?' She was on tenterhooks.

The admiral gave a little sigh. 'She died a long time ago', he said, and
stared fixedly at the portrait.

Joan pulled Milly round. 'Oh, look, what a pet of a canary!' she said
foolishly. She and Milly went over to the cage; the bird hopped twice and
put his head on one side. He examined them out of one black bead.

The admiral came up behind them. 'That's Julius Caesar', he volunteered.

Joan turned with relief; he was smiling. He opened the door of the cage
and thrust in a finger, whistling softly; the canary bobbed, then it
jumped on to the back of his hand, ignoring the finger. Very slowly and
gently he withdrew his hand and lifted the bird up to his face. It put
its beak between his lips and kissed him, then its mood changed and it
nipped his thumb. He laughed, and replaced it in the cage.

'Shall we go over the ship?' he inquired.

The children agreed eagerly. He stalked along in front of them, hands in
jacket pockets. He took them into the neat dining-room, opening and
shutting the port-holes to show how they worked, then into the
smoking-room, large, long, and book-lined with the volumes of his naval
library. Then up the rubber-covered stairs and along the narrow white
passage with small doors in a row on either side. A man in more white
drill was polishing the brass handles, there was the clean acrid smell of
brass polish; Joan wondered if they polished brass all day at Glory
Point, this was such a queer time to be doing it, at four in the
afternoon. The admiral threw open one of the doors while the children
peered over his shoulder.

'This is my sleeping cabin', he said contentedly.

The little room was neat as a new pin; through the open port-holes came
the sound and smell of the sea--thud, splash, thud, splash, and the
mournful tolling of a bell buoy. The admiral's bunk was narrow and white,
Joan thought that it looked too small for a man, like the bed of a little
child, with its high polished mahogany side. Above it the port-hole stood
wide open--thud, splash, there was the sea again; the sound came with
rythmical precision at short intervals. Milly had found the washstand, it
was an entrancing washstand! There was a stationary basin cased in
mahogany with fascinating buttons that you pressed against to make the
water flow; Milly had never seen buttons like this before, all the taps
at Leaside turned on in a most uninteresting way. Above the washstand was
a rack for the water bottle and glass, and the bottle and glass had each
its own hole into which it fitted with the neatest precision. The walls
of the cabin were white like all the others in this house of surprises,
white and glossy. Thud, splash, thud, splash, and a sudden whiff of
seaweed that came in with a breath of air.

Joan thought, 'Oh it _is_ a truthful house, it would never deceive you!'
Aloud she said, 'I like it!'

The admiral beamed. 'So do I', he agreed.

'I like it all', said Joan, 'the noises and the smell and the whiteness.
I wish we lived in a ship-house like this, it's so reassuring.'

'Reassuring?' he queried; he didn't understand what she meant, he thought
her a queer old-fashioned child, but his heart went out to her.

'Yes, reassuring; safe you know; you could trust it; I mean, it wouldn't
be untruthful.'

'Oh, I see', he laughed. 'I built it', he told her with a touch of pride;
'it was entirely my own idea. The people round here think I'm a little
mad, I believe; they call me "Commodore Trunnion"; but then, dear me,
everyone's a little mad on one subject or another--I'm mad on the sea.
Listen, Miss Joan! Isn't that fine music? I lie here and listen to it
every night, it's almost as good as being on it!'

Milly interrupted. 'Tell us about your battles!' she pleaded. 'My what?'
said the admiral, taken aback.

'The ones you fought in', said Milly coaxingly.

'Bless the child! I've never been in a battle in my life; what battles.
have there been in my time, I'd like to know!'

Milly looked crestfallen. 'But you were on a battleship', she protested.

The admiral opened his mouth and guffawed. 'God bless my soul, what's
that got to do with it?'

They had made their way downstairs again now and were walking towards the
garden door. Milly clung to her point.

'It ought to have something to do with it, I should suppose', she said
rather pompously.

The admiral looked suddenly grave. 'It will, some day', he said. 'When
will it be?' asked Joan; she felt interested.

'When the great war comes', he replied; 'though God grant it won't be in
your time.'

No one spoke for a minute; the children felt subdued, a little cloud
seemed to have descended among them. Then the admiral cheered up, and
quickened his steps. 'Tea!' he remarked briskly.


4


Over the immaculate lawn that stretched to the right of the house, came
the white-clad manservant carrying a tray; the tea-table was laid under a
big walnut tree. This was the sheltered side of the house, where, as the
admiral would say, you could grow something besides seaweed. The old
clipped yews were trim and cared for; peacocks and roosters and stately
spirals. Between them the borders were bright with homely flowers. The
admiral had found this garden when he bought the place; he had pulled
down the old house to build his ship, but the garden he had taken upon
himself as a sacred trust. In it he worked to kill the green fly and the
caterpillar, and dreamed to keep memory alive. They sat down to tea; from
the other side of a battlemented hedge came the whirring, sleepy sound of
a mowing machine, someone was mowing the bowling green. They grew silent.
A wasp tumbled into the milk jug; with great care the admiral pulled it
out and let it crawl up his hand.

'Silly', he said reprovingly, 'silly creature!'

It paused in its painful milk-logged walk to stroke its bedraggled wings
with its back legs, then it washed its face, ducking its jointed head.
The old man watched it placidly, presently it flew away.

'It never said "Thank you", did it?' he laughed.

'No, but it didn't sting', said Joan.

'They never sting when you do them a good turn, and that's more than you
can say of some people, Miss Joan.'

Tea over, they strolled through the garden; at the far end was a small
low building designed to correspond with the house. 'What's that?' they
asked him.

'We're coming to that', he answered. 'That's where the mice live.'

'Oh, may we see them, please let us see them all!' Joan implored. 

'Of course you shall see them, that's what I brought you here for; there
are dozens and dozens', he said proudly.

Inside the Mousery the smell was overpowering, but it is doubtful if any
of the three noticed it. Down the centre of the single long room ran a
brick path on either side of which were shelves three deep, divided into
roomy sections.

The admiral stopped before one of them, 'Golden Agouti', he remarked.

He took hold of a rectangular box, the front of which was wired; very
slyly he lifted a lid set into the top panel, and lowered the cage so
that the children might look in. Inside, midway between floor and lid was
a smaller box five inches long; a little hole at one end of this inner
box gave access to the interior of the cage, and from it a miniature
ladder slanted down to the sawdust strewn floor. In this box were a
number of little heaving pink lumps, by the side of which crouched a
brownish mouse. Her beady eyes peered up anxiously, while the whiskers on
her muzzle trembled.

The admiral touched her gently with the tip of his little finger. 'She's
a splendid doe', he said affectionately; 'a remarkably careful mother and
not at all fussy!' He shut the door and replaced the cage. 'There's a
fine pair here', he remarked, passing to a new section; 'what about that
for colour!'

He put his hand into another cage and caught one of the occupants deftly
by the tail. Holding the tail between his finger and thumb he let the
mouse sprawl across the back of his other hand, slightly jerking the feet
into position.

The children gazed. 'What colour is that?' they inquired.

'Chocolate', replied the admiral. 'I rather fancy the Self varieties,
there's something so well-bred looking about them; for my part I don't
think a mouse can show his figure if he's got a pied pelt on him, it
detracts. Now this buck for instance, look at his great size, graceful
too, very gracefully built, legs a little coarse perhaps, but an
excellent tail, a perfect whipcord, no knots, no kinks, a lovely taper to
the point!'

The mouse began to scramble. 'Gently, gently!' murmured the admiral,
shaking it back into position.

He eyed it with approbation, then dropped it back into its cage, where it
scurried up the ladder and vanished into its bedroom. They passed from
cage to cage; into some he would only let them peep lest the does with
young should get irritable; from others he withdrew the inmates,
displaying them on his hand.

'Now this', he told them, catching a grey-blue mouse. 'This is worth your
looking at carefully. Here we have a champion, Champion Blue Pippin. I
won the Colour Cup with this fellow last year. Of course I grant you he's
a good colour; very pure and rich, good deep tone too, and even,
perfectly even, you notice.' He turned the mouse over deftly for a moment
so that they might see for themselves that its stomach matched its back.
'But so clumsy', he continued. 'Did you ever see such a clumsy fellow?
Then his ears are too small, though their texture is all right; and I
always said he lacked boldness of eye; I never really cared for his eyes,
there's something timid about them, not to be compared with Cocoa Nibs,
that first buck you saw. But there it is, this fellow won his
championship; of course I always say that Cary can't judge a mouse!'

Champion Blue Pippin was replaced in his cage; the admiral shook his
finger at him where he sat grooming his whiskers against the bars.

'A good mouse', he told Joan confidentially. 'Very tame and affectionate
as you see, but a champion, no never! As I told them at the National
Mouse Club.'

They turned to the shelves on the other side. Here were the Pied and
Dutch varieties.

'I don't care for them, as you know', said Admiral Bourne. 'Still I keep
a few for luck, and they are rather pretty.'

He showed them the queer Dutch mice, half white, half coloured. Then the
Variegated mice, their pelts white with minute streaks or dots of colour
evenly distributed over body and head. There were black and tan mice and
a bewildering assortment of the Pied variety which the admiral declared
he disliked. Last of all, in a little cubicle by itself, was a larger
cage than any of the others, a kind of Mouse Palace. This cage contained
a number of neat boxes, each with its ladder, and in addition to the
ordinary outer compartment was a big bright wheel. Up and down the
ladders ran the common little red-eyed white mice; while they watched
them a couple sprang into the wheel and began turning it.

'Oh! The white mice that you buy at the Army and Navy!' said Milly in a
disappointed voice.

'That's all', the admiral admitted. 'I just have this cage of them, you
know, nice little chaps.' And then, as the children remained silent, 'You
see, Olivia liked them; she used to say they were such friendly people.'

He spoke as though they had known Olivia intimately, as though he
expected the children to say: 'Yes, of course, Olivia was so fond of
animals!'

Reluctantly they left the Mousery and strolled towards the gates; three
tired children, one of eleven, one of thirteen and one of sixty-eight.
The sun was setting over the sea, it was very cool in the garden after
the Mousery.

The admiral turned to Joan. 'Come again', he said simply. 'Come very
often, there may be some more young ones to show you soon.'

And so they parted on the road outside the gates. The children turned
once to look back as they walked down the hill; Admiral Bourne was still
standing in the road, looking after them.



Chapter Eight


1


A new family had come to Conway House under Cone Head. The place had
stood vacant for years; now, at length, it was sold, and Elizabeth knew
who the new people were. When Elizabeth, meaning to be amiable, had
remarked one afternoon that the Bensons had been old friends of her
cousin in London, and that she herself had known them all her life, Mrs.
Ogden had drawn in her lips, very slightly raised an eyebrow and
remarked: 'Oh, really!' in what Joan had grown to recognize as 'the
Routledge voice'. It was true that Mrs. Ogden was annoyed; there was no
valid reason to produce against Elizabeth having known the Bensons, yet
she felt aggrieved. Elizabeth appeared to Mrs. Ogden to be--not quite
'governessy' enough. She had been thinking this for the last few months.
You did not expect your governess to be an old friend of people who had
just bought one of the largest places in your neighbourhood, it was
almost unseemly. Elizabeth, when closely questioned, had said that the
family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Benson, a son of twenty-two, another of
seventeen, and one little girl of fourteen. And just at the very end,
mark you at the _end_, and then only after a pressing cross-examination
as to _who_ they were, Elizabeth had said quite vaguely that Mr. Benson
was a banker, but that his mother had been Lady Sarah Totteridge before
her marriage, and that the present Mrs. Benson was a daughter of Lord
Down.

Mrs. Ogden had made it clear that she could not quite understand how
Elizabeth's cousin had come to know the Bensons, and Elizabeth had said
in a casual voice that her cousin and Mrs. Benson had had a great mutual
interest; and when Mrs. Ogden had inquired what this interest had been,
Elizabeth had replied, 'Prostitutes', and had laughed! Of course the
children had not been in the room--still, 'Prostitutes'. Such a coarse
way to put it. Mrs. Ogden had spoken to Colonel Ogden about it afterwards
and had found him unsympathetic. All he had said was, 'Well, what else
would you have her call them? Tarts? Don't be such a damn fool, Mary!'

However, there it was; Elizabeth did know the Bensons and would, Mrs.
Ogden supposed, contrive to continue knowing them now that they had come
to Conway House. She could not understand Elizabeth; it was 'Elizabeth'
now at Elizabeth's own request; she had said that Rodney sounded so like
Ralph and not at all like her. Did anyone ever hear such nonsense!
However, the children had hailed the change with delight and so far it
did not appear to have undermined discipline, so that Mrs. Ogden supposed
it must be all right. She had to confess that it was a most unexpected
advantage for Milly and Joan to have such a woman to teach them.
Cambridge women did not grow on gooseberry bushes in Seabourne.


2


Her criticisms of Elizabeth afforded Mrs. Ogden a rather tepid
satisfaction for a time, but they never quite convinced her, and one day
her thoughts stopped short in the very middle of them. She had a moment
of clear inward vision; and in that moment she realized the exact and
precise reason why, in the last few months, she had grown irritated with
Elizabeth. So irritated in fact that nothing that Elizabeth said or did
could possibly be right. It was not Elizabeth's familiarity, not the fact
that Elizabeth knew the Bensons, not Elizabeth's rather frank English, it
was none of these things--it was Joan.

Joan was fourteen now, she was growing--growing mentally out of Mrs.
Ogden. There was so much these days that they could not discuss
together. Joan was a student, a tremendously hard worker; Mrs. Ogden had
never been that sort of girl. Even James could help Joan better than she
could--James was rather well up in history, for example. But she was not
well up in anything; this fact had never struck her before. 'Don't be
such a damn fool, Mary!' James had said that for so many years that it
had ceased to mean anything to her, but now it seemed fraught with
dreadful, new possibilities. Would Joan ever come to think her
a fool? Would she ever come to think Elizabeth a fool? No, not
Elizabeth--wait--there was the menace. Elizabeth had goods for sale that
Joan could buy; how was she buying them, that was the question? Was she
paying in the copper coin of mere hard work, content if she did
Elizabeth credit? Or would she, being Joan, slip in a golden coin of
love and admiration, a coin stolen from her almost bankrupt mother?

Elizabeth, that happy, clever young creature, with her self-assurance and
her interest in Joan, what was she doing with Joan--what did she mean to
do with Joan's mother? How much did she want Joan--the real Joan? And if
she wanted her, could she get her? Mean, oh, mean! When Elizabeth had
everything on her side--when she had youth so obviously on her
side--surely she had enough without Joan, surely she need not grow fond
of Joan?

She had fancied lately that Elizabeth had become ever so slightly
possessive, that she took it for granted that she would have a say in
Joan's future, would be consulted. Then there was the question of a
university--who had put that idea into Joan's head? Who, but Elizabeth!
Where would it end if Joan went to Cambridge--certainly not in Seabourne.
But James would never consent, he was certain to draw the line at that;
besides, there was no money--but there were scholarships; suppose
Elizabeth was secretly working to enable Joan to win a scholarship? How
dare she! How dare either of them have any secrets from Joan's mother!
She would speak to Elizabeth--she would assert herself at once. Joan
should never be allowed to waste her youth on dry bones. Elizabeth might
think that women could fill men's posts, but she knew better. Yet, after
all, Joan was so like a boy--one felt that she was a son sometimes.
Hopeless, hopeless, she was afraid of Elizabeth! She would never be able
to speak her mind to her; she was too calm, too difficult to arouse, too
thick-skinned. And Joan, Joan was moving away, not very far, only a little
away. Joan was becoming a spectator, and Joan as an audience might be
dangerous.

Mrs. Ogden trembled; she strove desperately to scourge her mentality into
some semblance of adequacy. She tried, sincerely tried, to face the
situation calmly and wisely and with understanding. But her efforts
failed pathetically; through the maze of her struggling thoughts nothing
took shape but the desperate longing, the desperate need that was Joan.
She thought wildly: 'I'll tell her how I want her, I'll tell her what my
life has been. I'll tell her the truth that I can't; simply can't live
without her, and then I shall keep her, because I can make her pity me.'
Then she thought: 'I must be mad--a child of fourteen--I must be quite
mad!' But she knew that in her tormenting jealousy she might lose Joan
altogether. Joan loved the little mother, the miserable, put upon,
bullied mother, the mother of headaches and secret tears; she would not
love the self-assertive, unjust mother--she never had. No, she must
appeal to Joan, that was the only way. Joan was as responsive as ever;
then of what was she afraid? Oh, Joan, Joan, so young and awkward and
adorable! Did she find her mother too old? After all, she was only
forty-two, not too old surely to keep Joan's love. She would try to enter
into things more, she would go for walks, she would bathe, anything,
anything--where should she begin? But supposing Joan suspected, supposing
she saw through her, supposing she laughed at her--she must be careful,
dreadfully careful. Joan was excited because Conway House was sold, and
had implored her to go and call on Mrs. Benson; very well then, she would
go, and take Elizabeth with her--yes, that would be gracious, that would
please Joan. And she would try not to hate Elizabeth, she would try with
all the will-power she had in her to see Elizabeth justly, to be grateful
for the interest she took in the child. She would try not to _fear_
Elizabeth.



Chapter Nine


1


The windows of Conway House glowed, and the winter twilight was creeping
in and out among the elms in the avenue. The air was cold and dry, the
clanking of the skates that Joan and Elizabeth were carrying made a
pleasant, musical sound as they walked. A boy joined them; he was tall
and lanky and his blunt freckled face was flushed.

'Here I am. I've caught you up!' he said.

They turned; he was a jolly boy and they liked him. Richard Benson, the
younger son of the Bensons now of Conway House, was enjoying his
Christmas holidays immensely; for one thing he had been delighted to find
Elizabeth established at Seabourne; they were old friends, and now there
was the nice Ogden girl. Then the skating was the greatest luck, so rare
as to be positively exciting. Elizabeth and Joan were very good sorts:
Elizabeth skated very well, and Joan was learning--he hoped the ice would
hold. He was the most friendly of creatures, rather like a lolloping
puppy; you expected him to jump up and put his paws on your shoulders.
They walked on together towards the house, where tea would be waiting,
they all felt happily tired--it was good to be young.

The house had been thoroughly restored, and was now a perfect specimen of
its period. The drawing-room was long and lofty, and panelled in pale
grey, the curtains of orange brocade, the furniture Chippendale--a
gracious room. Beside the fire a group of people sat round the tea-table,
over which their hostess presided. Mrs. Benson was an ample woman; her
pleasant face, blunt and honest like that of her younger son, made you
feel welcome even before she spoke; and when she spoke her voice was loud
but agreeable. Joan thought: 'She has the happiest voice I've ever
heard.' The three skaters having discarded their wraps had entered the
drawing-room together. Mrs. Benson looked up.

'Elizabeth dear!' Elizabeth went to her impulsively and kissed her. Joan
wondered; Elizabeth was not given to kissing, she felt that she too would
rather like to know Mrs. Benson well enough to kiss her. As they shook
hands Mrs. Benson smiled.

'How did the skating go to-day, Joan?'

'Oh, not badly, only one tumble.'

'She got on splendidly!' said Richard with enthusiasm.

'Elizabeth should be a good teacher', his mother replied. 'She used to
skate like an angel. Elizabeth, do you remember that hard winter we had
when the Serpentine froze?'

Mrs. Benson laughed as though the memory amused her; she and Elizabeth
exchanged a comprehending glance.

'They know each other very well', thought Joan. 'They have secrets
together.'

She felt suddenly jealous, and wondered whether she was jealous because
of Mrs. Benson or because of Elizabeth; she decided that it was because
of Elizabeth; she did not want anyone to know Elizabeth better than she
did. This discovery startled her. The impulse came to her to creep up to
Elizabeth and take her hand, but she could visualize almost exactly what
would probably happen. Very gently, oh, very gently indeed, Elizabeth
would disengage her hand, she would look slightly surprised, a little
amused perhaps, and would then move away on some pretext or another. Joan
could see it all. No, assuredly one did not go clinging to Elizabeth's
hand, she never encouraged clinging.

The group round the tea-table chattered and ate. Mrs. Ogden was among
them, but Joan had not noticed her, for she was sitting in the shadow.

'Joan!'

'Oh, Mother, I didn't see you.' She moved across and sat by her mother's
side, but her eyes followed Elizabeth.

Mrs. Ogden watched her. She wanted to say something appropriate,
something jolly, but she felt tongue-tied. There was the skating, why not
discuss Joan's tumble--but Elizabeth skated 'like an angel'. Joan would
naturally not expect her mother to be interested in skating, since she
must know that she had never skated in her life. Lawrence, the eldest
Benson boy, came towards them. He looked like his father, dark and
romantic, and like his father he was the dullest of dull good men. He
liked Mrs. Ogden, she had managed to impress him somehow and to make him
feel sorry for her. He thought she looked lonely in spite of her
overgrown daughter.

He pulled up a chair and made conversation. 'It's ripping finding you all
down here, Mrs. Ogden. I never thought that Elizabeth would settle at
Seabourne.'

Elizabeth, always Elizabeth! Mrs. Ogden forced herself to speak
cordially. 'It was the greatest good fortune for us that she did.'

'Yes--I suppose so. Elizabeth's too clever for me; I always tell her so,
I always chaff her.'

'Do you? Do you know, I never feel that I dare chaff Elizabeth, no--I
should never dare.'

'Not dare--why not? I used to tease the life out of her.'

'Well, you are different perhaps; you knew her before she was well--so
clever. You see I'm not clever, not in that way. I'm very ignorant
really.'

'I don't believe it; anyhow, I like that kind of ignorance. I mean I hate
clever women. No, I don't mean I hate Elizabeth, she's a dear, but I'd
like her even more if she knew less. Oh, you know what I mean!'

'But Elizabeth is so splendid, isn't she? Cambridge, and I don't know
what not; still, perhaps--'

'But surely a woman doesn't need to go to Cambridge to be charming?
Personally I think it's a great mistake, this education craze; I don't
believe men really care for such things in women; do you, Mrs. Ogden?'
Mrs. Ogden smiled. 'That depends on the man, I suppose. Perhaps a really
manly man prefers the purely feminine woman--'

He was very young. At twenty-two it is gratifying to be thought a manly
man; yes, decidedly he liked Mrs. Ogden.

'Oh, I don't think that--' It was Richard who spoke, he had strolled up
unperceived. His brother looked annoyed.

'Don't you?' queried Mrs. Ogden. She caught Lawrence's eye and smiled.

Richard blushed to his ears, but he went on doggedly: 'No, I don't,
because I think it's a shame that women should be shut out of things,
bottled up, cramped. Oh, I can't explain, only I think if they've got the
brains to go to college, we ought not to mind their going.'

'Perhaps when you're older you'll feel quite differently, most men do.'
Mrs. Ogden's voice was provoking.

Richard felt hot and subsided suddenly, but before he did so his eyes
turned to Joan where she sat silent at her mother's side. She wondered
whether he thought that the conversation could have any possible bearing
on her personally, whether perhaps it had such a bearing. She glanced
shyly at her mother; Mrs. Ogden looked decidedly cross.

'I hope', she said emphatically, 'that neither of my girls will want to
go to a university, they would never do so with my approval.'

'Oh, but--' Richard began, then stopped, for he had caught the warning in
Joan's eye. 'I came to say', he stammered, 'that if you'll come into the
library, Joan, I'll show you those prints of Father's, the sporting ones
I told you about.' He stood looking awkward for a moment, then turned as
if expecting her to follow him.

'May I go, Mother?'

But Joan was already on her feet, what was the good of saying 'No' since
she so obviously wanted to go? Mrs. Ogden sighed, she looked at Lawrence
appealingly. 'They are so much in advance of me', she said as Joan
hurried away.

Sympathy welled up in him; he let it appear in his eyes, together with a
look of admiration; as he did so he was thinking that the touch of grey
in her hair became Mrs. Ogden.

She thought: 'How funny, the boy's getting sentimental!' A little flutter
of pleasure stirred her for a moment. After all she was not so immensely
old and not so passée either, and it was not unpleasant to have a young
male creature sympathizing with you and looking at you as though he
admired and pitied you--in fact it was rather soothing. Then she thought:
'I wonder where Joan is', and suddenly she felt tired of Lawrence Benson;
she wished that he would go away so that she might have an excuse for
moving; she felt restless.


2


In the library Joan was listening to Richard. He stood before her with
his hair ruffled, his face flushed and eager.

'Joan! I don't know you awfully well, and of course you're only a kid as
yet, but Elizabeth says you're clever--and don't you let yourself be
bottled.'

'Bottled?' she queried.

'Don't you get all cramped up and fuggy, like one does when one sits over
a fire all day. I know what I mean, it sounds all rot, only it isn't rot.
You look out! I have a presentiment that they mean to bottle you.'

Joan laughed.

'It's no laughing matter', he said in an impressive voice. 'It's no
laughing matter to be bottled; they want to bottle me, only I don't mean
to let them.'

'Why, what do you want to do that makes them want to bottle you?'

'I'm going in for medicine--Father hates it; he hopes I'll get sick of
it, but it's my line, I know it; I'm studying to be a doctor.'

'Well, why not? It's rather jolly to be a doctor, I should think;
someone's got to look after people when they're ill.'

'That's just it. I'm keen as mustard on it, and I shan't let anyone stop
me.'

'But what's that got to do with me?'

'Nothing, not the doctor part, but the other part has; if you're clever,
you ought to do something.'

'But I'm not a boy!'

'That doesn't matter a straw. Look at Elizabeth; she's not a boy, but she
didn't let her brain get fuggy; though', he added reflectively, 'I'm not
so sure of her now as I was before she came here.'

'Why not?' said Joan; she liked talking about Elizabeth.

'Oh, just Seabourne, it's a bottling place. If Elizabeth doesn't look out
she'll be bottled next!'

At that moment Elizabeth came in. 'We were talking about you', said Joan,
but Elizabeth was dreadfully incurious.

'Your mother is waiting, it's time to go', was all she said.


3


In the fly on the way home the silence was oppressive. Mrs. Ogden seemed
to be suffering, she looked wilted. 'What is it, darling?’ Joan inquired.
She had enjoyed herself, and now somehow it was spoilt. She had hoped
that her mother was enjoying herself too.

Mrs. Ogden leant towards her and took her hand. 'My dear little girl',
she murmured, 'have you been happy, Joan?'

'Yes, very; haven't you, Mother?'

There was a pause. 'I'm not as young as you are, dearest.'

Elizabeth, sitting beside Mrs. Ogden, smiled bitterly in the dark. 'Wait
a while', she said to herself. 'Wait a while!' Her own emotions surprised
her, she was conscious of a feeling of acute anger. As if by a
simultaneous impulse the two women suddenly drew as far apart as the
narrow confines of the cab permitted. To Elizabeth it seemed as something
so intense as to be almost tangible leapt out between them--a naked
sword.

Sitting with her back to the driver, Joan was lost in thought; she was
thinking of the utter hopelessness of making her mother really happy. But
with another part of her mind she was pondering Richard's sudden outburst
in the library. She liked him, she thought what a satisfactory brother he
would be. Why was he so afraid of being caught and bottled? Lawrence, she
felt, must be bottled already; he liked it, she was sure that Lawrence
would think it the right thing to be. She wondered how Richard would
manage to escape--if he did escape. A picture of him rose before her eyes;
he made her laugh, he was so emphatic. She resolved to talk him over
with Elizabeth. Of course it was all nonsense--still, he seemed
dreadfully afraid. What was it really that he was afraid of, and why was
he so afraid for her?

The cab jolted abruptly, Joan's thoughts jolting with it. The driver had
pulled up to drop Elizabeth at her brother's house.




BOOK TWO



Chapter Ten


1


The summer in which Joan's fifteenth birthday occurred was particularly
anxious and depressing because of Colonel Ogden's health.

One morning in July he had woken up with a headache and a cough;
bronchitis followed, and the strain on his already flagging heart made
the doctor uneasy. Undoubtedly Colonel Ogden was very ill. Joan, working
hard for her Junior Local, was put to it to know what to do; whether to
throw up the examination for the sake of helping her mother or to
continue to cram for the sake of not disappointing Elizabeth. In the end
the doctor solved this difficulty by sending in an experienced nurse.

Just about this time a deep depression settled on Joan, a kind of heavy
melancholy. She wondered what the origin of this might be; she was too
honest to pretend to herself that it was caused by anxiety about her
father. She wanted to grieve over him. She thought: 'Poor thing, he can't
breathe; he's lying in a kind of lump of pillows upstairs in bed; his
face looks dreadfully ugly and he can't help it.' But the picture that
she drew left her cold. Then a hundred little repulsive details of the
illness crowded in on her imagination; when she was with her father she
would watch for them with apprehension. She forced herself to show him an
exaggerated tenderness, which he, poor man, did not want; it was Milly he
was always asking for--but Milly was frightened of illness.

Mrs. Ogden, who was sharing the duties of the nurse, looked worn out, an
added anxiety to Joan. They would meet at meals, kiss silently and part
again, Mrs. Ogden to relieve the nurse, Joan to go back to her books. She
thought: 'How can I sit here grinding away while she does all the beastly
things upstairs? But I can't go up and help her, I simply can't!' And one
day, almost imperceptibly, a new misery reared its head; she began to
analyse her feelings for her mother.

She tried to be logical; she argued that because she wanted to work for
an exam there was no reason to suppose that she loved her mother less;
she thought that she looked the thing squarely in the eyes, turned it
round and surveyed it from all sides and then dismissed it. But a few
moments later the thought would come again, this time a little more
insistent, requiring a somewhat longer effort of reasoning to argue it
away.


2


One evening during this period, Joan heard her own Doubt voiced by her
mother. They had been sitting side by side on the little veranda at the
back of the house; the night was warm and from a neighbouring garden
something was smelling sweet. Neither of them had spoken for a long time;
Mrs. Ogden was the first to break the silence. Quite suddenly she turned
her face to Joan; the movement was almost lover-like.

'Joan, do you love me, dearest?' It had come. This was the thing Joan had
been dreading for weeks, perhaps it was all her life that she had been
dreading it. She felt that time had ceased to exist, there were no clear
demarcations; past, present and future were all one, welded together in
the furnace of her horrible doubt. Did she love her mother, did she--did
she? Her mother was waiting; she had always been waiting just like this,
and she always would wait, a little breathlessly, a little afraid. She
stared out desperately into the darkness--the answer; it must be found
quickly, but where--how?

'Joan, do you love me, dearest?' The answer must be somewhere, only it
was not in her tired brain--it was somewhere else, then. In her mother's
brain? Was that why her mother was a little breathless, a little afraid?
She pressed her cold cheek against Mrs. Ogden's, rubbing it gently up and
down, then suddenly she folded her in her arms, kissing her lips, seeking
desperately to awaken her dulled emotions to the response that she knew
was so painfully desired.

When at last they released each other, they sat for a long time hand in
hand. To Joan there was an actual physical distaste for the handclasp,
yet she dared not, could not let go. She was conscious in a vague way
that her mother's hand felt different. Mechanically she began to finger
it, slipping a ring up and down; the ring came off unexpectedly, it was
loose, for the hand had grown thinner. Her mind seized on this with
avidity; here was the motive she needed for love: her mother's hand,
small and white, was thinner than it had been before, it was now terribly
thin. There was pathos in this, there was something in this to make her
feel sorry; she stooped and fondled the hand. But did she love her? No,
assuredly not, for this was not love, this was a stupendous and
exhausting effort of the will. When you loved you just loved, and all the
rest followed as a matter of course--and yet, if she did not love her,
why did she trouble to exert this effort of will at all, why did she feel
so strongly the necessity for protecting her mother from the hurt of
discovery? Deception; was it ever justifiable to deceive, was it
justifiable now? And yet, even if she were sure that she did not love
her, could she find the courage to push her away? To say: 'I don't love
you, I don't want to touch you, I dislike the feel of you--I dislike
above all else the feel of you!' How terrible to say such a thing to any
living creature, and how more than terrible to say it to her mother! The
hydra had grown another head; what would her mother do if she knew that
Joan loved her less?

Away out in the darkness a bell chimed ten o'clock; Mrs. Ogden got up
wearily. 'I must see to nurse's supper.' Inside Joan's brain a voice
said: 'Go and help her, she's tired; go and get the supper yourself.' But
another and more insistent voice arose to drown it: 'Do I love her, do I,
do I?' Mrs. Ogden went into the house, but Joan remained sitting on the
veranda.



Chapter Eleven


1


THE weeks dragged on; Colonel Ogden might recover, but his illness would
of necessity be a long one, for his heart, already weak, was now disposed
to stop beating on the least provocation. Joan worked with furious
energy. Elizabeth, confident of her pupil, protested that this cramming
was unnecessary, but Joan, stubborn as always, took her own line. She
felt that work was her only refuge, the only drug that, temporarily at
all events, brought relief.

It was now the veriest torture to her to be in her mother's presence, to
be forced to see the tired body going on its daily rounds, to hear the
repeated appeals for sympathy, to see the reproach in the watchful eyes.

But if the days were unendurable, how much worse were the nights, the
nights when she would wake with a sudden start in a cold sweat of terror.
Why was she terrified? She was terrified because she feared that she did
not love her mother, and one night she knew that she was terrified
because, if she could not love her mother, she might grow to love someone
else instead--Elizabeth for instance. The hydra grew another head that
night.

Elizabeth, the ever watchful, became alarmed at her condition. Joan,
haggard and pale, distressed her; she could not get at the bottom of the
thing, for now Joan seemed to avoid her. Yet she felt instinctively that
this avoidance did not ring true; there was something very like dumb
appeal in the girl's eyes as they followed her about. What was it she
wanted? There was something unnatural about Joan these days--when she
talked now, she always seemed to have a motive for what she said, she
seemed to hope for something from Elizabeth, from Milly even; to hang on
their words. Elizabeth got the impression that she was for ever skirting
some subject of which she never came to the point. She felt that
something was being demanded of her, she did not know what.

There were good days sometimes, when Joan would get up in the morning
feeling restored after a peaceful night. Her troubles would seem vague
like a ship on a far horizon. Then the reaction would be exaggerated.
Elizabeth was not reassured by a boisterously happy Joan, and was never
surprised when a few hours would exhaust this blissful condition.
Something, usually a mere trifle, would crop up to suggest the old
Horror. Very quietly, as a rule, Joan's torments would begin, a
thought--flimsy as a bit of thistledown, would light for an instant in
her brain to be quickly brushed aside, but like thistledown it would
alight again and cling. Gradually it would become more concrete; now it
was not thistledown, it was a little stone, very cold and hard, that
pressed and was not so easy to brush aside. And the stone would grow
until it seemed to Joan to become a physical burden, crushing her under
an unendurable load, more horrible than ever now because of those hours
of respite.

Elizabeth coaxed and cajoled; she wanted at all hazards to stop Joan from
working. She let down the barrier of her calm aloofness and showed a new
aspect of herself to her pupil. She entreated, she begged, for it seemed
to her that things were becoming desperate. At last she played her trump
card, she played it suddenly without warning and without tact, in a way
that was characteristic of her in moments of deep feeling. One day she
closed her book, folded her hands and said:

'Joan! If you loved me you couldn't make me unhappy about you as you do.
Joan, don't you love me?'

For answer Joan fled from the room as if pursued by a fiend.

'Do I love her? Do I? Do I?' There it was again--this time for Elizabeth.
Did she love Elizabeth and was that why she did not love her mother? Here
was a new and fruitful source of self-analysis; if she loved Elizabeth
she could not love her mother, for one could not really love more than
one person at a time, at least Joan was sure that she could not.


2


Alone in the schoolroom Elizabeth clasped her slim hands on her lap; she
sat very upright in her chair. Suddenly she rose to her feet; she knew
what was the matter with her pupil, she had had an illuminating thought
and meant to lose no time in acting upon it. She went upstairs and
knocked softly on the door of Colonel Ogden's bedroom. Mrs. Ogden opened
it; she looked surprised.

'May I speak to you for a moment, Mrs. Ogden?'

Mrs. Ogden glanced at the bed to make certain that this intrusion had not
wakened the sleeping patient, then she closed the door noiselessly behind
her and the two faced each other on the landing. Something in Elizabeth's
eyes startled her.

'Is anything wrong?' she faltered.

'I think we had better talk in the dining-room', was all that Elizabeth
would say.

They went into the dining-room and shut the door; neither of them sat
down.

'It's about Joan', Elizabeth began, 'I'm worried about her.'

'Why, is anything the matter?'

'I think', said Elizabeth, 'that a great deal is going to be the matter
unless something is done very soon.'

'You frighten me, Elizabeth; for goodness' sake explain yourself.'

'I don't want to frighten you, but I'm beginning to be frightened myself
about Joan; she's been very queer for weeks, she looks terribly ill, and
I think something is preying on her mind.'

'Preying on her mind?'

'I think so--she seems unnatural--she isn't like Joan, somehow.'

'But, I haven't noticed all this!' Mrs. Ogden's voice was cold. 'Are you
sure that you're not over-anxious, Elizabeth?'

'I'm sure I'm right. If you haven't noticed that Joan's ill, it must be
because you have been so worried about Colonel Ogden.'

'Really, Elizabeth, I cannot think it possible that I, the child's
mother, should not have noticed what you say, were it true.'

'Still, you haven't noticed it', said Elizabeth stubbornly.

'No, I have not noticed it, but I'm glad to have an opportunity of
telling you what I have noticed; and that is that you systematically
encourage the child to overwork.'

Elizabeth stiffened. 'She does overwork, though I have begged her not to,
but I don't think it's that, entirely.'

'Then what do you think it is?'

'Do you really want me to tell you?'

'Certainly--why not?'

'Because, when I do tell you, you'll get angry. Because it is a
presumption on my part, I suppose, to say what I am going to say; because
oh! because after all I'm only the governess and you are her mother, but
for all that I ought to tell you what I think.'

'You bewilder me, Elizabeth, I can't imagine what all this means; didn't
know, you see, that Joan made you her confidante.'

'She doesn't, and possibly that's a pity; I've never encouraged her to
confide in me, and now I'm beginning to wonder whether I haven't been a
fool.'

'I think that I, and not you, Elizabeth, would be the person in whom Joan
would confide.'

'Yes, of course', said Elizabeth, but her voice lacked conviction.

'Elizabeth! I don't like all this; I should be sorry if we couldn't get
on together; it would, I frankly admit, be a disadvantage for the
children to lose you, but you must understand at once that I cannot, will
not, allow you to usurp my prerogatives.'

'I've never done so, knowingly, Mrs. Ogden.'

'But you are doing it now. You appear to want to call me to book, at
least your manner suggests it. I cannot understand what it is you are
driving at; I wish you would speak out, I detest veiled hints.'

'You don't like me, Mrs. Ogden; if I speak out you will like me even
less--' Elizabeth's mind was working quickly; this might mean losing
Joan--still, she must speak.

She continued: 'Well, then, I think it's a mistake to play on the child's
emotions as you do; Joan's not so staid and quiet as she seems. You may
not realize how deeply she feels things, but she feels them horribly
deeply--when _you_ do them. I've watched you together and I know. You've
done it for years, Mrs. Ogden, perhaps unconsciously, I don't know, but
for years Joan has had a constant strain on her emotions. She loves you
in the only way that Joan knows how to love, that is with every ounce of
herself; there aren't any half tones about Joan, she sees things black or
white but never grey, and I think, I feel, that she loves you too much.
Oh, I know that what I'm saying must seem inexcusable, perhaps even
ridiculous, but that's just it: I think Joan loves you too much. I think
that underneath her quiet outside there is something very big and rather
dangerous; an almost abnormally developed capacity for affection, and I
think that it is this on which you play without cease, day in and day
out. I feel as if you were always poking the fire, feeding it, blowing it
until it's red hot, and I can't think it's right, Mrs. Ogden, that's all;
I think it will be Joan's ruin.'

'_Elizabeth!_'

'Wait, I _must_ speak. Joan is brilliant, you know that she's brilliant,
and that she ought to do something with her life. You must surely feel
that she can't stay here in Seabourne for ever? She must--oh! if I could
only find the right words--she must fulfil herself in some way--either
marriage or work, at all events some interest outside of and beyond you.
She's consuming herself even now, and what will she do later on? Yet, how
can she come to fruition if she's drained dry before she begins to live
at all? I don't know how I dare to speak to you like this, but I want
your help. Joan is such splendid material; don't let her worry about you
as she does, don't let her see that you are not a happy woman, don't let
her spend herself on you!'

She paused, her knees shook a little, she felt that in another moment she
would begin to cry, and emotions with her came hard.

Mrs. Ogden blanched. So it had come at last! This was what she had always
known would happen; Elizabeth had dared to criticize her handling of
Joan. She felt a blind rage towards her, a sudden longing to strike her.
The barriers went down with a crash, primitive invectives sprang to her
lips and she barely checked them in time. She choked.

'You dare to say this, Elizabeth?'

'I love Joan.'

'_What!_'

'I love Joan, and I must save her, Mrs. Ogden.'

'_You?_ How dare you suggest that the child is more to you than she is to
me; do you realize what Joan means to me?'

'Yes, it's because I do realize it--'

'Then be silent.'

'I dare not.'

Mrs. Ogden stamped her foot. 'You _shall_ be silent. And understand,
please, that you will leave us when your notice expires; but in the
meantime you will not interfere again between Joan and me, I will not
tolerate it! I refuse to tolerate it!' She burst into a violent fit of
weeping.

Elizabeth grew calm at the sight of her tears. 'I am going to ask you to
reconsider your decision to dismiss me', she said. 'I want to go on
teaching Joan, I shall not accept my notice to leave unless y