“Here, half a moment,” said Burnell. “Hand me those two parcels.” And he said to Linda, “I’ve brought you back a bottle of oysters and a pineapple,” as though he had brought her back all the harvest of the earth.
They went into the hall; Linda carried the oysters in one hand and the pineapple in the other. Burnell shut the glass door, threw his hat down, put his arms round her and strained her to him, kissing the top of her head, her ears, her lips, her eyes.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” said she. “Wait a moment. Let me put down these silly things,” and she put the bottle of oysters and the pine on a little carved chair. “What have you got in your button-hole—cherries?” She took them out and hung them over his ear.
“Don’t do that, darling. They are for you.”
So she took them off his ear again. “You don’t mind if I save them. They’d spoil my appetite for dinner. Come and see your children. They are having tea.”
The lamp was lighted on the nursery table. Mrs. Fairfield was cutting and spreading bread and butter. The three little girls sat up to table wearing large bibs embroidered with their names. They wiped their mouths as their father came in ready to be kissed. The windows were open; a jar of wild flowers stood on the mantelpiece, and the lamp made a big soft bubble of light on the ceiling.
“You seem pretty snug, mother,” said Burnell, blinking at the light. Isabel and Lottie sat one on either side of the table, Kezia at the bottom—the place at the top was empty.
“That’s where my boy ought to sit,” thought Stanley. He tightened his arm round Linda’s shoulder. By God, he was a perfect fool to feel as happy as this!
“We are, Stanley. We are very snug,” said Mrs. Fairfield, cutting Kezia’s bread into fingers.
“Like it better than town—eh, children?” asked Burnell.
“Oh, yes,” said the three little girls, and Isabel added as an after-thought: “Thank you very much indeed, father dear.”
“Come upstairs,” said Linda. “I’ll bring your slippers.”
But the stairs were too narrow for them to go up arm in arm. It was quite dark in the room. He heard her ring tapping on the marble mantelpiece as she felt for the matches.
“I’ve got some, darling. I’ll light the candles.”
But instead he came up behind her and again he put his arms round her and pressed her head into his shoulder.
“I’m so confoundedly happy,” he said.
“Are you?” She turned and put her hands on his breast and looked up at him.
“I don’t know what has come over me,” he protested.
It was quite dark outside now and heavy dew was falling. When Linda shut the window the cold dew touched her finger tips. Far away a dog barked. “I believe there is going to be a moon,” she said.
At the words, and with the cold wet dew on her fingers, she felt as though the moon had risen—that she was being strangely discovered in a flood of cold light. She shivered; she came away from the window and sat down upon the box ottoman beside Stanley.
* * * *
In the dining-room, by the flicker of a wood fire, Beryl sat on a hassock playing the guitar. She had bathed and changed all her clothes. Now she wore a white muslin dress with black spots on it and in her hair she had pinned a black silk rose.
Nature has gone to her rest, love,
See, we are alone.
Give me your hand to press, love,
Lightly within my own.
She played and sang half to herself, for she was watching herself playing and singing. The firelight gleamed on her shoes, on the ruddy belly of the guitar, and on her white fingers.…
“If I were outside the window and looked in and saw myself I really would be rather struck,” thought she. Still more softly she played the accompaniment—not singing now but listening.
…“The first time that I ever saw you, little girl—oh, you had no idea that you were not alone—you were sitting with your little feet upon a hassock, playing the guitar. God, I can never forget.… ” Beryl flung up her head and began to sing again:
Even the moon is aweary…
But there came a loud bang at the door. The servant girl’s crimson face popped through.
“Please, Miss Beryl, I’ve got to come and lay.”
“Certainly, Alice,” said Beryl, in a voice of ice. She put the guitar in a corner. Alice lunged in with a heavy black iron tray.
“Well, I have had a job with that oving,” said she. “I can’t get nothing to brown.”
“Really!” said Beryl.
But no, she could not stand that fool of a girl. She ran into the dark drawing-room and began walking up and down.… Oh, she was restless, restless. There was a mirror over the mantel. She leaned her arms along and looked at her pale shadow in it. How beautiful she looked, but there was nobody to see, nobody.
“Why must you suffer so?” said the face in the mirror. “You were not made for suffering.… Smile!”
Beryl smiled, and really her smile was so adorable that she smiled again—but this time because she could not help it.
8
“Good morning, Mrs. Jones.”
“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Smith. I’m so glad to see you. Have you brought your children?”
“Yes, I’ve brought both my twins. I have had another baby since I saw you last, but she came so suddenly that I haven’t had time to make her any clothes, yet. So I left her.… How is your husband?”
“Oh, he is very well, thank you. At least he had a nawful cold but Queen Victoria—she’s my godmother, you know—sent him a case of pineapples and that cured it im—mediately. Is that your new servant?”
“Yes, her name’s Gwen. I’ve only had her two days. Oh, Gwen, this is my friend, Mrs. Smith.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Smith. Dinner won’t be ready for about ten minutes.”
“I don’t think you ought to introduce me to the servant. I think I ought to just begin talking to her.”
“Well, she’s more of a lady-help than a servant and you do introduce lady-helps, I know, because Mrs. Samuel Josephs had one.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter,” said the servant, carelessly, beating up a chocolate custard with half a broken clothes peg. The dinner was baking beautifully on a concrete step. She began to lay the cloth on a pink garden seat. In front of each person she put two geranium leaf plates, a pine needle fork and a twig knife. There were three daisy heads on a laurel leaf for poached eggs, some slices of fuchsia petal cold beef, some lovely little rissoles made of earth and water and dandelion seeds, and the chocolate custard which she had decided to serve in the pawa shell she had cooked it in.
“You needn’t trouble about my children,” said Mrs. Smith graciously. “If you’ll just take this bottle and fill it at the tap—I mean at the dairy.”
“Oh, all right,” said Gwen, and she whispered to Mrs. Jones: “Shall I go and ask Alice for a little bit of real milk?”
But someone called from the front of the house and the luncheon party melted away, leaving the charming table, leaving the rissoles and the poached eggs to the ants and to an old snail who pushed his quivering horns over the edge of the garden seat and began to nibble a geranium plate.
“Come round to the front, children. Pip and Rags have come.”
The Trout boys were