It was the last time that Eve heard the familiar clicking of the ivory pins, for Mrs. Carfax died quietly in her sleep, and was found with a placid1 smile on her face, her white hair neatly2 parted into two plaits, and her hands lying folded on the coverlet. She had died like a child, dreaming, and smiling in the midst of her dreams.
For the moment Eve was incredulous as she bent3 over the bed, for her mother’s face looked so fresh and tranquil4. Then the truth came to her, and she stood there, shocked and inarticulate, trying to realise what had happened. Sudden and poignant5 memories rose up and stung her. She remembered that she had almost despised the little old lady who lay there so quietly, and now, in death, she saw her as the child, a pathetic creature who had never escaped from a futile6 childishness, who had never known the greater anguish7 and the greater joys of those whose souls drink of the deep waters. A great pity swept Eve away, a choking compassion8, an inarticulate remorse9. She was conscious of sudden loneliness. All the memories of long ago, evoked10 by the dead face, rose up and wounded her. She knelt down, hid her face against the pillow, uttering in her heart that most human cry of “Mother.”
Canterton was strangely restless that morning. Up at six, he wandered about the gardens and nurseries, and Lavender, who came to him about some special work that had to be done in one of the glasshouses, found him absent and vague. The life of the day seemed in abeyance11, remaining poised12 at yesterday, when the moon hung over the black ridge13 of the fir woods by Orchards14 Corner. Daylight had come, but Canterton was still in the moonlight, sitting in that chair on the dew-wet grass, dreaming, to be startled again by Eve’s sudden presence. He wondered what she had thought, whether she had suspected that he had been imagining her his wife, Orchards Corner their home, and he, the man, sitting there in the moonlight, while the woman he loved let down her dark hair before the mirror in their room.
If Lavender could not wake James Canterton, breakfast and Gertrude Canterton did. There were half a dozen of Gertrude’s friends staying in the house, serious women who had travelled with batches15 of pamphlets and earnest-minded magazines, and who could talk sociology even at breakfast. Canterton came in early and found Gertrude scribbling16 letters at the bureau in the window. None of her friends were down yet, and a maid was lighting17 the spirit lamps under the egg-boiler and the chafing18 dishes.
“Oh, James!”
“Yes.”
She was sitting in a glare of light, and Canterton was struck by the thinness of her neck, and the way her chin poked19 forward. She had done her hair in a hurry, and it looked streaky and meagre, and the colour of wet sand. And this sunny morning the physical repulsion she inspired in him came as a shock to his finer nature. It might be ungenerous, and even shameful20, but he could not help considering her utter lack of feminine delicacy21, and the hard, gaunt outlines of her face and figure.
“I want you to take Mrs. Grigg Batsby round the nurseries this morning. She is such an enthusiast22.”
“I’ll see what time I have.”
“Do try to find time to oblige me sometimes. I don’t think you know how much work you make for me, especially when you find some eccentric way of insulting everybody at once.”
“What do you mean, Gertrude?”
The maid had left the room, and Gertrude Canterton half turned in her chair. Her shoulders were wriggling23, and she kept fidgeting with her pen, rolling it to and fro between her thumb and forefinger24.
“Can’t you imagine what people say when you put up wire fences, and have the gates locked on the day of our garden party?”
“Do you think that Whiteley would hold a party in his business premises25?”
“Oh, don’t be so absurd! I wonder why people come here.”
“I really don’t know. Certainly not to look at the flowers.”
“Then why be so eccentrically offensive?”
“Because there are always a certain number of enthusiastic ladies who like to get something for nothing. I believe it is a feminine characteristic.”
Mrs. Grigg Batsby came sailing into the room, gracious as a great galleon26 freighted with the riches of Peru. She was an extremely wealthy person, and her consciousness of wealth shone like a golden lustre27, a holy effulgence28 that penetrated29 into every corner. Her money had made her important, and filled her with a sort of after-dinner self-satisfaction. She issued commands with playful regality, ordered the clergy30 hither and thither31, and had a half humorous and half stately way of referring to any male thing as “It.”
“My dear Mrs. Batsby, I have just asked James to take you round this morning.”
The lady rustled32 and beamed.
“And is ‘It’ agreeable? I have always heard that ‘Its’ time is so precious.”
“James will be delighted.”
“Obliging thing.”
Canterton was reserved and a little stiff.
“I shall be ready at eleven. I can give you an hour, Mrs. Batsby.”
“‘It’ is really a humorist, Mrs. Canterton. That barbed wire! I don’t think I ever came across anything so delightfully33 original.”
Gertrude frowned and screwed her shoulders.
“I cannot see the humour.”
“But I think Mrs. Batsby does. I have a good many original plants on my premises.”
“Oh, you wicked, witty34 thing! And original sin?”
“Yes, it is still rather prevalent.”
There was no queen’s progress through the Fernhill grounds for Mrs. Grigg Batsby that morning, for by ten o’clock her very existence had been forgotten, and she was left reading the Athenæum, and wondering, with hauteur35, what had become of the treacherous36 “It.” Women like Mrs. Grigg Batsby have a way of exacting37 as a right what the average man would not presume to ask as a favour. That they should happen to notice anything is in itself a sufficient honour conferred upon the recipient38, who becomes a debtor
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CHAPTER XV LYNETTE PUTS ON BLACK
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