Miss Silver said,
‘And now he has come back again?’
Althea looked at her with a heartbreak in her eyes.
‘After five years. He said he wouldn’t write, and he didn’t. He said I would have to choose between him and my mother, and I had chosen. He went to all sorts of wild places. I didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing. His aunt sold her house and went down to Devonshire to live with a sister. After that I didn’t even know whether he was alive or dead. Then one day I picked up a copy of the Janitor on the railway bookstall. There was an article in it signed “Rolling Stone”, and I was sure that it was Nicholas who had written it. There were more articles – at irregular intervals. They were about the sort of places that are right off the map. They were odd and exciting, and brilliant. People began to talk about them and look out for them. When I read one I did know at least that he was alive when it was written. And then after five years he came back.’
Miss Silver’s gaze rested upon her compassionately. Althea said,
‘Five years is a long time. I didn’t know whether he would be the same person. I knew that I wasn’t. Being unhappy does things to you – it makes you dull. He never could do with people being dull. I didn’t feel as if there was anything left that he could possibly care about. But I did feel I had got to put up as good a show as I could.’ She took her hands off the arms of the chair. They were numb with the pressure that she had put on them. She folded them in her lap and felt the blood come tingling back. She said, ‘His aunt Emmy Lester had left a lot of his things in the attic of her house when she sold it to a cousin. Nicholas had to come down to sort them out. I didn’t think I should see him – I didn’t think he would want to see me. But he was at Mrs Justice’s cocktail party, and the minute we saw each other across the room it was just as if he hadn’t ever been away. I went out into the hall – I couldn’t trust myself. He came after me, and we went into Sophy’s little room and talked…’ Her voice stopped, her eyes remembered.
Miss Silver pulled on the pale pink ball in her knitting-bag. The silence had lasted quite a long time before she broke it.
‘And now?’
‘He wants me to marry him at once without saying anything to my mother. He has got a licence. I think we ought to tell her. But it will be the same thing all over again if we do.’
‘Miss Graham, what is the real state of your mother’s health?’
Althea lifted a hand and let it fall again. The acanthus leaf had marked the palm. She said,
‘I don’t know. If she upsets herself she has an attack. Dr Barrington says she mustn’t be allowed to upset herself.’
Miss Silver said gravely,
‘It is a doubtful kindness to encourage a selfish course of action. May I inquire whether the cousin you spoke of would still be available as a companion for your mother?’
‘I should think she would. I know that she has had losses and is finding things difficult. She has a couple of rooms in a friend’s house, but I don’t think the arrangement is being a great success. The friend has recently taken up table-turning and automatic writing, and my cousin doesn’t approve of it. We could pay her a salary, and I think she would be quite good with my mother. The trouble is that if I write to her and wait for her to make up her mind and let me know, it will get round the family and come back to my mother. Cousin Bertha writes reams to all the relations every week. None of them could keep a secret if they tried, and of course they don’t try.’
Miss Silver found her sympathies warmly engaged. She stopped knitting, rested the now considerably lengthened pink frill upon her lap, and said,
‘Emily Chapell!’
Althea repeated the name in an inquiring voice.
‘Emily Chapell?’
Miss Silver beamed.
‘She would be extremely suitable.’
‘I don’t think…’
The knitting was resumed. Miss Silver inclined her head.
‘She is not a trained nurse, but she has had a good deal of nursing experience. A very dependable person and, most fortunately, disengaged. If you decided on an immediate marriage, she would be able to move in as soon as you had broken the news to Mrs Graham.’
Althea could say nothing but ‘Oh…’
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
‘I have known her for twenty years, and I have never known her to fail in tact and good temper.’
Althea had a picture of Miss Silver and Emily Chapell as twin angels shooting back the bolts of her prison doors and throwing them wide. She heard Miss Silver say,
‘Your cousin would naturally require a little time to consider your offer and to give notice to her friend. Miss Chapell would, I am sure, be prepared to remain with Mrs Graham until her arrangements had been made.’
Althea leaned forward. The doors were opening, but could she – might she step across the threshold? She looked at Miss Silver with piteous intensity and said,
‘Oh, do you really think I could do it?’
THIRTEEN
ALTHEA RETURNED HOME to find Mrs Graham in an extremely fretful mood. She held forth for some time on the congenial theme of selfishness in the young, with particular application to a daughter who left her mother alone whilst she wasted time and money on going to town.
‘And if it was to shop, I am sure there are very good shops here in the High Street.’
‘I didn’t go up to shop.’
Mrs Graham looked at her suspiciously.
‘Then what did you go up for?’
‘To see a friend of Sophy’s.’
‘A friend of Sophy Justice’s – of course she’s Sophy Harding now, but it seems so much easier to say Sophy Justice – why on earth should you go and see a friend of Sophy’s?’
‘I thought I should like to see her again.’
‘Oh, you’ve met her before?’
Althea said, ‘Yes, I’ve met her,’ and then hurried on with, ‘I thought Nettie Pimm was lunching with you. You told me she was, and I left everything ready.’
‘She rang up at the last moment and said she couldn’t come. She said she wasn’t feeling well.’ A delicate sniff expressed Mrs Graham’s opinion of Nettie’s ailment. ‘Most inconsiderate I call it, and I let her see I wasn’t pleased. And then on the top of that Mr Jones rang up again about the house. He said Mr Worple had withdrawn his offer of seven thousand five hundred. You know, there’s something about Mr Jones that I don’t like at all. He sounded quite pleased about the price having come down. And I told him that it wasn’t any good his going on worrying us, because I didn’t like Mr Worple and I didn’t feel at all inclined to sell to him. He reminds me of someone we saw in a film. I can’t remember who he was, but Mr Worple reminds me of him, and in the film he really wasn’t at all the sort of person I should care to sell a hosue to. After all, one does owe a certain duty to the neighbourhood, and we have been here for more than twenty years. And with my health what it is, I shouldn’t like to feel that I hadn’t got a home to come back to. I did think the cruise we were planning might be good for us both, but one couldn’t be sure of congenial companionship, so I have really given up the idea. A few weeks in a nice hotel by the sea would be quite a different thing. One would have one’s own comfortable home to come back to at any time. I really think that is a necessity. I am sorry that you should be disappointed about the trip, but my mind is quite made up. For one thing I shouldn’t care to have to call in a strange doctor. Dr Barrington understands me, and that is everything. So I told Mr Jones it wasn’t any good thinking I would sell, and I rang up Mr Martin and told him too.’
She had talked herself into a better humour, and Althea left it at that.