He gave her a swift appraising glance. He said, “You have a peaceful look, Patience. Some day, when I’m better at it, I’m going to paint you. You’ll make a good subject in those blue overalls, with your short dark hair, grey eyes and your complete lack of …” He hesitated, not wanting to hurt her feelings.
“Go on,” she urged. “It’s fun to be noticed.”
“Very well then — I’ll say what the newspapers call ‘sleek sophistication.’”
Patience made a sound of derision. “I never can hope to have that,” she said.
“Do you like it?”
“I envy it, Nooky.”
“I think it’s disgusting.”
“You say that, but you probably admire it when you see it.”
“I admired Roma before she achieved it. I didn’t admire her much, but I quite liked her looks.”
“You did three pictures of her last year.”
“Look about and see if you can discover them.”
Patience looked vaguely about her. “I don’t see them.”
“No one ever will. They’re obliterated.”
“I don’t understand you,” she said. “Roma is admired by almost everyone.”
With a frankness which brought colour to her cheeks he said, “I suppose you’re thinking of Norman Green.”
For a moment she could not speak, then she said in a consciously matter-of-fact voice, “Well, I must be going. I suppose you’ll be at the party this evening.”
“I suppose so.”
“Goodbye, Christian.”
“Goodbye, Patience. Love to Auntie Meg.”
“And Roma?”
“Of course.”
She looked back at the studio, wondering what life had been like when it was a carriage house in the old days. Rather nice, she thought, to have lived in those days and not bothered about makeup and nylons and sophistication. Not that she bothered much, but there they were, rankling at the back of her mind, especially in these last unhappy months.
The road past the church was quiet. It was quiet when she turned into her own home, through the brown wicket-gate set in the hedge. The hollyhocks against the wall of the house were just coming into bloom, shyly unfolding their pink rosettes, low down on the stalk in the shelter of the rough leaves and keeping the round green buds of the later bloom tightly curled at the top. Patience paused to look at the hollyhocks, feeling an odd affinity with them. Two robins were on the little lawn — father and son. Son was as large as father but speckle-breasted, large of beak, hungry of eye. Every movement of father was avidly watched by son, hopping close behind. Father picked up an almost invisible something and with an incredibly swift movement thrust it into son’s mouth. He then flew off, with son in wide-winged pursuit. Patience said aloud, “He’ll not keep that up much longer. He’s tired of being a parent.”
The front door opened and Meg appeared.
“Oh, here you are, dear!” she exclaimed in her warm, welcoming voice. “Did you say something?”
“Just to myself, Mummy.” The two exchanged kisses. “I was watching two robins.”
“What a wonderful time they have, after all the rain! Did you have a good day, Patience?”
Meg looked into her child’s face with solicitude. She had not very much liked young Green, but she suffered in seeing Patience deprived of him. She was conscious that Patience had been ready to devote the rest of her life to making Green happy; and if she thought the object of her devotion not worthy of Patience, she never said so. In fact Meg displayed greater tact than ever before in her life. She lived in the house with the two girls, her daughter and her niece, through a crisis that might have left them either not on speaking terms or in open antagonism. But toward both girls Meg retained her attitude of loving calm. Patience was the child of her body, her own child. But to Roma she gave a tender love. Roma was the daughter of her dead brother Eden. Eden had been a poet. He had been what Meg called “wild,” but she had loved him dearly, had nursed him through his last illness. Meg thought of herself as a poor widow bearing the responsibility of those two young lives.
Mother and daughter had just entered the house, hand in hand, when a sports car appeared on the tree-shaded road, then stopped outside the gate.
Meg said, “It’s Roma — and him.”
Patience turned toward the stairs. “I must clean myself up. What time are we expected at Jalna?”
“Oh, soon after supper. Do put on something pretty, Patience. I must tell Roma. Norman’s not getting out of the car.”
As though she had not heard, Patience went slowly up the stairs.
“Tired, dear?” her mother called after her.
“Not a bit. Just bored by having to dress up.”
Patience turned into her own room just as Roma reached the top of the stairs. Roma sang out “Hullo” in a cheerful voice but did not glance into her cousin’s room as she passed. Patience could hear her opening and shutting drawers, running water in the bathroom, then hurrying down the stairs. Not till she heard Roma’s steps running toward the gate did she move from her motionless attitude of attention. It was as though Roma’s smallest act were important to her. She was conscious of this and gave a little grimace of pain, remembering how unimportant Roma used to be to her. Now she moved slowly to the wide open door of Roma’s room and saw the usual disorder — shoes and stockings strewn on the floor; the bed littered with underclothes, hairbrush and writing pad; the dressing table strewn with so many odds and ends that Patience wondered how she ever found anything. Yet find what she wanted she did and came out of that room shining with a sleekness Patience never achieved. Her lips curling in disgust, Patience returned to her own room where she kept her possessions in almost military order. She looked dispassionately at her reflection in the glass and thought, “No wonder Norman likes her best.”
Meg was in the hall as Roma came running down the stairs. She just touched Meg’s cheek with hers and said, “Oh, Aunty Meg, I forgot to say I’ll not be at home for supper. Norman and I are going to see a friend of his in Mistwell.”
Meg put out a hand toward Roma, as though to draw the girl to her, but she was gone, running along the path, between the borders of annual stock, to join Norman in the car. Meg, from the doorway, called:
“We’re invited to Jalna this evening to meet Adeline’s friend from Ireland. I think you should be there, Roma.”
Roma consulted with Norman. She called back, “All right, Aunty Meg. I’ll come. Bye-bye.”
The car moved swiftly down the road, Norman’s lacquered head bending to Roma. Meg gave a deep sigh and slowly climbed the stairs. But she arrived soon enough to discover Patience peering out of the window after the car. There were both girls, their minds fixed on the one young man, and he, to Meg’s way of thinking, quite undesirable. It seemed hard to Meg that this rift should have come to separate the three in her house. She had, in her placid way, yearned over, planned for, the two girls.
Often she had sought to trace a resemblance to Eden in Roma’s childish face but could find none. Neither could she find a likeness in nature, for Eden had been demonstrative in his affection; and if Roma felt affection for her or for Patience, certainly she did not show it.
Meg wanted to love and be loved. Now she went to Patience, put an arm about her. Here were caresses for the asking. Patience hugged her mother almost fiercely and promised to put on her prettiest dress for the evening.
“This is quite an event,” Meg said. “Something we’ve all been looking forward