During the time he was away Lettie was moody and cross-tempered. She did not mention George nor the mill; indeed, she preserved her best, most haughty and ladylike manner.
On the evening of the fourth day of Leslie’s absence we were out in the garden. The trees were “uttering joyous leaves”. My mother was in the midst of her garden, lifting the dusky faces of the auriculas to look at the velvet lips, or tenderly taking a young weed from the black soil. The thrushes were calling and clamouring all round. The japonica flamed on the wall as the light grew thicker; the tassels of white cherry-blossom swung gently in the breeze.
“What shall I do, Mother?” said Lettie, as she wandered across the grass to pick at the japonica flowers. “What shall I do? There’s nothing to do.”
“Well, my girl — what do you want to do? You have been moping about all day — go and see somebody.”
“It’s such a long way to Eberwich.”
“Is it? Then go somewhere nearer.”
Lettie fretted about with restless, petulant indecision.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, “And I feel as if I might just as well never have lived at all as waste days like this. I wish we weren’t buried in this dead little hole — I wish we were near the town — it’s hateful having to depend on about two or three folk for your — your — your pleasure in life.”
“I can’t help it, my dear — you must do something for yourself.”
“And what can I do? — I can do nothing.”
“Then I’d go to bed.”
“That I won’t — with the dead weight of a wasted day on me. I feel as if I’d do something desperate.”
“Very well, then,” said Mother, “do it, and have done.”
“Oh, it’s no good talking to you — I don’t want —” She turned away, went to the laurestinus, and began pulling off it the long red berries. I expected she would fret the evening wastefully away. I noticed all at once that she stood still. It was the noise of a motor-car running rapidly down the hill towards Nethermere — a light, quick-clicking sound. I listened also. I could feel the swinging drop of the car as it came down the leaps of the hill. We could see the dust trail up among the trees. Lettie raised her head and listened expectantly. The car rushed along the edge of Nethermere — then there was the jar of brakes, as the machine slowed down and stopped. In a moment with a quick flutter of sound, it was passing the lodge gates and whirling up the drive, through the wood, to us. Lettie stood with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes. She went towards the bushes that shut off the lawn from the gravelled space in front of the house, watching. A car came racing through the trees. It was the small car Leslie used on the firm’s business — now it was white with dust. Leslie suddenly put on the brakes, and tore to a standstill in front of the house. He stepped to the ground. There he staggered a little, being giddy and cramped with the long drive. His motor-jacket and cap were thick with dust.
Lettie called to him, “Leslie!”— and flew down to him. He took her into his arms, and clouds of dust rose round her. He kissed her, and they stood perfectly still for a moment. She looked up into his face — then she disengaged her arms to take off his disfiguring motor-spectacles. After she had looked at him a moment, tenderly, she kissed him again. He loosened his hold of her, and she said, in a voice full of tenderness:
“You are trembling, dear.”
“It’s the ride. I’ve never stopped.”
Without further words she took him into the house.
“How pale you are — see, lie on the couch — never mind the dust. All right, I’ll find you a coat of Cyril’s. Oh, Mother, he’s come all those miles in the car without stopping — make him lie down.”
She ran and brought him a jacket, and put the cushions round, and made him lie on the couch. Then she took off his boots and put slippers on his feet. He lay watching her all the time; he was white with fatigue and excitement.
“I wonder if I shall be had up for scorching — I can feel the road coming at me yet,” he said.
“Why were you so headlong?”
“I felt as if I should go wild if I didn’t come — if I didn’t rush. I didn’t know how you might have taken me, Lettie when I said — what I did.”
She smiled gently at him, and he lay resting, recovering, looking at her.
“It’s a wonder I haven’t done something desperate — I’ve been half mad since I said — Oh, Lettie, I was a damned fool and a wretch — I could have torn myself in two. I’ve done nothing but curse and rage at myself ever since. I feel as if I’d just come up out of hell. You don’t know how thankful I am, Lettie, that you’ve not — oh — turned against me for what I said.”
She went to him and sat down by him, smoothing his hair from his forehead, kissing him, her attitude tender, suggesting tears, her movements impulsive, as if with a self-reproach she would not acknowledge, but which she must silence with lavish tenderness. He drew her to him, and they remained quiet for some time, till it grew dark.
The noise of my mother stirring in the next room disturbed them. Lettie rose, and he also got up from the couch.
“I suppose,” he said, “I shall have to go home and get bathed and dressed — though,” he added in tones which made it clear he did not want to go, “I shall have to get back in the morning — I don’t know what they’ll say.”
“At any rate,” she said, “You could wash here —”
“But I must get out of these clothes — and I want a bath.”
“You could — you might have some of Cyril’s clothes — and the water’s hot. I know. At all events, you can stay to supper —”
“If I’m going I shall have to go soon — or they’d not like it, if I go in late; — they have no idea I’ve come; — they don’t expect me till next Monday or Tuesday —”
“Perhaps you could stay here — and they needn’t know.” They looked at each other with wide, smiling eyes — like children on the brink of a stolen pleasure.
“Oh, but what would your mother think! — no, I’ll go.”
“She won’t mind a bit.”
“Oh, but —”
“I’ll ask her.”
He wanted to stay far more than she wished it, so it was she who put down his opposition and triumphed.
My mother lifted her eyebrows, and said very quietly: “He’d better go home — and be straight.”
“But look how he’d feel — he’d have to tell them . . . and how would he feel! It’s really my fault, in the end. Don’t be piggling and mean and Grundyish, Matouchka.”
“It is neither meanness nor Grundyishness —”
“Oh, Ydgrun, Ydgrun —!” exclaimed Lettie, ironically. “He may certainly stay if he likes,” said Mother, slightly nettled at Lettie’s gibe.
“All right, Mutterchen — and be a sweetling, do!”
Lettie went out a little impatient at my mother’s unwillingness, but Leslie stayed, nevertheless.
In a few moments Lettie was up in the spare bedroom, arranging and adorning, and Rebecca was running with hot-water bottles, and hurrying down with clean bedclothes. Lettie hastily appropriated my best brushes — which she had given me — and took the suit of pyjamas of the thinnest, finest flannel and discovered a new tooth-brush — and made selections from my shirts and handkerchiefs and underclothing — and directed me which suit to lend him. Altogether I was astonished, and perhaps a