“Don’t touch!” exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, as though speaking to a child of three.
Pheasant drew back and stood still, her arms at her sides. She saw that the housekeeper was shiny and neat as the room, her grey hair flattened, a stiff white apron over her grey dress. Her hands, clasped in front of her, were her only spot of colour. They were a greyish pink from the silver cleaning powder.
“It all looks lovely,” said Pheasant, speaking loudly because Mrs. Clinch was deaf.
“It ought to,” returned Mrs. Clinch. “I’ve been rubbing and polishing for three days. You’ll have your lunch in here with him.”
“Me?” Pheasant turned pale with excitement. “I couldn’t eat. I’d be too frightened.”
“Nonsense. There’ll be no more meals with me. Your place is here from now on. You had better dress yourself now. There’s no time to spare.”
“Shall I put on my white dress?”
“Goodness, no. The plaid one. Then come to me and I’ll give your hair a good brushing.”
Pheasant flew upstairs. There was a fluttering in all her pulses. She felt that she surely must weigh less than usual. She felt as though she were blown up the stairs and into her room.
She put on the plaid dress and tried to find a pair of stockings without a hole in them, but could not. She ended by putting on one each of two different pairs. The shades were not an exact match but she thought the difference would not be noticed. She looked at herself in the glass and saw a face, two eyes that sparkled back at her and a mass of brown hair. There seemed to be more plaid stuff than features to her. But she was not dissatisfied with her appearance. She snatched up her hair brush and ran down to the kitchen.
There were agreeable smells about. Coffee was bubbling in the pot. Mrs. Clinch ignored Pheasant and the hair brush. She seemed to take a pleasure in walking about, doing things, with the child dumbly following her. Then suddenly she turned abruptly and said:
“Well, then, let’s have it.”
She swept the brush ruthlessly over smooth locks and tangled locks alike. Pheasant set her teeth and her eyes watered as a twig from the apple tree was detached from a tangle.
“No wonder the birds are building nests in your hair,” Mrs. Clinch said.
She had barely given a dozen strokes when the sound of a motor was heard and voices at the front of the house. Mrs. Clinch exclaimed:
“There he is now! Poor young gentleman!” Mrs. Clinch usually ended any remark she made about Maurice with the words “poor young gentleman,” and for some reason they always made Pheasant ashamed. Now she stood hesitating, not quite knowing what to do. The housekeeper hurried to the door.
Pheasant went slowly into the hall.
The front door had been opened wide. The fresh spring air, as though it had been shut out too long from that gloomy house, rushed in, freighted with the scents of warm earth, opening buds, and damp leaf mould. It was as though the side of the house had been taken out and all secrets, all unhappiness blown away.
Maurice, stalwart in his uniform, came in. He was followed by a small wiry man laden with luggage. Maurice shook hands with the housekeeper. He paid the taxi driver. The door closed and Pheasant felt suddenly too shy to face Maurice. But he saw her and came down the hall.
“Hello,” he said. “How you’ve grown!” He took her hand in his left hand. She saw that he wore a leather bandage about his right wrist and that the hand looked helpless.
“A piece of shell crippled my hand,” he said.
Pheasant felt weak with the love that surged over her. She longed to kiss the poor hand. She longed to draw his head down to hers and hold it close. But he moved away and began to explain to the housekeeper about John Wragge. These two went to the kitchen and Maurice up the stairs. The meeting had taken no more than a few moments and was over. Pheasant stood irresolute.
She longed to follow Maurice to his room but she dared not. She clasped her hands about the newel post and swung her body from side to side. Swinging so, she sometimes saw up the stairs and sometimes into the dining room. A strange new life had come into the house. She sniffed. It even smelt different. Then she saw the luggage mounded in the hall. It smelt of leather and strange adventure. In the dining room Mrs. Clinch was placing a platter of cold meat on the table and a glass jar of red pickled cabbage. A good smell came from some hot escalloped dish. Everything was so clean, shining, and attentive for the new life to begin. What would it be like to have a man in the house?
She heard his step above, then he came slowly toward the stairs. She loosed herself from the newel post and fled to the passage that opened into the kitchen. At that moment the kitchen door opened and Mrs. Clinch stared at her as though surprised.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Nothing. Why?”
“Your place is in the dining room now.”
The housekeeper’s tone was so final that Pheasant seemed to hear the slamming of a door. But she did not know what her place in the new life was to be.
“Lunch is ready.” Mrs. Clinch said this to Maurice who was now at the bottom of the stairs.
He glanced uncertainly at Pheasant.
“I’ve set a place for her,” said the housekeeper. “Was that right?”
“Of course.”
“I’m feeding the man you brought, in the kitchen.”
“Good.”
Mrs. Clinch gave Pheasant a slight push in the direction of the dining room. Maurice drew out a chair for her. He was embarrassed. He did not know how to talk to children.
“What will you have?” he asked, when they were at table. “Ham? Tongue? I don’t know what the other stuff is. Should you like a mixture?”
“The other meat is brawn,” answered Pheasant faintly. “I’ll just have ham, please.”
They ate in silence.
Pheasant was fascinated by Maurice’s crippled hand. She saw that he had difficulty in using his knife and fork. Her own hand felt weak, in sympathy. She longed to cut his food for him.
Her fork fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. A hot tide rose to her cheeks and she bent double, trying to retrieve it. Maurice remarked curtly:
“Well — I can do better than that.”
She felt disgraced.
Maurice was oppressed by recollections of his parents who had lived in this house. They had died years before the War but his absence from home had brought them near, on his return. They were much nearer to him than Pheasant was. He wondered what Renny Whiteoak was feeling, whose father and stepmother both had died while he was in France. Then the remembrance of Meg’s shocked look when she saw him at the station stabbed him with a chagrin so keen that he uttered an incoherent exclamation and pushed his chair back from the table. This homecoming was horrible. This house was deadly.
He rose and went to the sideboard. He was relieved to find that the whiskey decanter had been filled. He found a glass and half filled it. Pheasant watched his every movement. He went to the door of the pantry, opened it a few inches, and called loudly:
“Mrs. Clinch!”
She came running, as though he had shouted “Fire!”
“Is there