Now that she was awake she was still partly in the dream. She was Ann the girl, a creature standing at the beginning of life. Those undiscovered rooms! Fancy never knowing about them all these years! When had they been found? Lately? Or years ago?
Reality seeped slowly through the confused pleasurable dream state. All a dream, a very happy dream. Shot through now with a slight ache, the ache of nostalgia. Because one couldn’t go back. And how odd that a dream of discovering additional ordinary rooms in a house should engender such a queer ecstatic pleasure. She felt quite sad to think that these rooms had never actually existed.
Ann lay in bed watching the outline of the window grow clearer. It must be quite late, nine o’clock at least. The mornings were so dark now. Sarah would be waking to sunshine and snow in Switzerland.
But somehow Sarah hardly seemed real at this moment. Sarah was far away, remote, indistinct …
What was real was the house in Cumberland, the chintzes, the sunlight, the flowers—her mother. And Edith, standing respectfully to attention, looking, in spite of her young smooth unlined face, definitely disapproving as usual.
Ann smiled and called: ‘Edith!’
Edith entered and pulled the curtains back.
‘Well,’ she said approvingly. ‘You’ve had a nice lay in. I wasn’t going to wake you. It’s not much of a day. Fog coming on, I’d say.’
The outlook from the window was a heavy yellow. It was not an attractive prospect, but Ann’s sense of well-being was not shaken. She lay there smiling to herself.
‘Your breakfast’s all ready. I’ll fetch it in.’
Edith paused as she left the room, looking curiously at her mistress.
‘Looking pleased with yourself this morning, I must say. You must have enjoyed yourself last night.’
‘Last night?’ Ann was vague for a moment. ‘Oh, yes, yes. I enjoyed myself very much. Edith, when I woke up I’d been dreaming I was at home again. You were there and it was summer and there were new rooms in the house that we’d never known about.’
‘Good job we didn’t, I’d say,’ said Edith. ‘Quite enough rooms as it was. Great rambling old place. And that kitchen! When I think of what that range must have ate in coal! Lucky it was cheap then.’
‘You were quite young again, Edith, and so was I.’
‘Ah, we can’t put the clock back, can we? Not for all we may want to. Those times are dead and gone for ever.’
‘Dead and gone for ever,’ repeated Ann softly.
‘Not as I’m not quite satisfied as I am. I’ve got my health and strength, though they do say it’s at middle life you’re most liable to get one of these internal growths. I’ve thought of that once or twice lately.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t got anything of the kind, Edith.’
‘Ah, but you don’t know yourself. Not until the moment when they cart you off to hospital and cuts you up and by then it’s usually too late.’ And Edith left the room with gloomy relish.
She returned a few minutes later with Ann’s breakfast tray of coffee and toast.
‘There you are, ma’am. Sit up and I’ll tuck the pillow behind your back.’
Ann looked up at her and said impulsively:
‘How good you are to me, Edith.’
Edith flushed a fiery red with embarrassment.
‘I know the way things should be done, that’s all. And anyway, someone’s got to look after you. You’re not one of these strong-minded ladies. That Dame Laura now—the Pope of Rome himself couldn’t stand up to her.’
‘Dame Laura is a great personality, Edith.’
‘I know. I’ve heard her on the radio. Why, just by the look of her you’d always know she was somebody. Managed to get married too, by what I’ve heard. Was it divorce or death that parted them?’
‘Oh, he died.’
‘Best thing for him, I daresay. She’s not the kind any gentleman would find it comfortable to live with—although I won’t deny as there’s some men as actually prefer their wives to wear the trousers.’
Edith moved towards the door, observing as she did so:
‘Now don’t you hurry up, my dear. You just have a nice rest and lay-a-bed and think your pretty thoughts and enjoy your holiday.’
‘Holiday,’ thought Ann, amused. ‘Is that what she calls it?’
And yet in a way it was true enough. It was an interregnum in the patterned fabric of her life. Living with a child that you loved, there was always a faint clawing anxiety at the back of your mind. ‘Is she happy?’ ‘Are A or B or C good friends for her?’ ‘Something must have gone wrong at that dance last night. I wonder what it was?’
She had never interfered or asked questions. Sarah, she realized, must feel free to be silent or to talk—must learn her own lessons from life, must choose her own friends. Yet, because you loved her, you could not banish her problems from your mind. And at any moment you might be needed. If Sarah were to turn to her mother for sympathy or for practical help, her mother must be there, ready …
Sometimes Ann had said to herself: ‘I must be prepared one day to see Sarah unhappy, and even then I must not speak unless she wants me to.’
The thing that had worried her lately was that bitter and querulous young man, Gerald Lloyd, and Sarah’s increasing absorption in him. That fact lay at the back of her relief that Sarah was separated from him for at least three weeks and would be meeting plenty of other young men.
Yes, with Sarah in Switzerland, she could dismiss her happily from her mind and relax. Relax here in her comfortable bed and think about what she should do today. She’d enjoyed herself very much at the party last night. Dear James—so kind—and yet such a bore, too, poor darling! Those endless stories of his! Really, men, when they got to forty-five, should make a vow not to tell any stories or anecdotes at all. Did they even imagine how their friends’ spirits sank when they began: ‘Don’t know whether I ever told you, but rather a curious thing happened once to—’ and so on.
One could say, of course: ‘Yes, James, you’ve told me three times already.’ And then the poor darling would look so hurt. No, one couldn’t do that to James.
That other man, Richard Cauldfield. He was much younger, of course, but probably he would take to repeating long boring stories over and over again one day …
She considered … perhaps … but she didn’t think so. No, he was more likely to lay down the law, to become didactic. He would have prejudices, preconceived ideas. He would have to be teased, gently teased … He might be a little absurd sometimes, but he was a dear really—a lonely man—a very lonely man … She felt sorry for him. He was so adrift in this modern frustrated life of London. She wondered what sort of job he would get … It wasn’t so easy nowadays. He would probably buy his farm or his market garden and settle down in the country.
She wondered whether she would meet him again. She would be asking James to dinner one evening soon. She might suggest he brought Richard Cauldfield with him. It would be a nice thing to do—he was clearly lonely. And she would ask another woman. They might go to a play.