‘We have forgotten the picnic, Mrs Bonner.’ Una Pringle returned in disgust to the prime reason for their visit.
This man would be good enough for Laura, she decided with the brutality of which refinement is capable.
‘Ah, the picnic,’ said Mrs Bonner. ‘Why, Una, you may tell your mother it will be delightful. For all of us.’
It did seem as though she had reserved her decision, in order to enjoy the subtle pleasure of making it at last.
Laura did not comment, although everybody expected it.
There was little more to discuss, beyond the final arrangements for meeting. Then, as silences were growing, Una Pringle rose, with the two men, to whose respectability her company was tribute. However, she ignored them thoroughly, on principle, and because her thoughts were more profitably engaged.
‘Till Thursday, then.’
To this extent Laura expressed her approval of what had been arranged.
‘Till Thursday,’ repeated Una, laying her check against that of her friend.
Miss Abbey had to admire Laura’s dress. She had to touch it.
‘What a sweet dress,’ she had to say. ‘And the dearest little sprigs. Could they be heliotrope?’
The other women bore with the governess. Poor thing, she was the fourth daughter of a Bristol clergyman.
Laura made some excuse not to accompany their guests to the steps, leaving them to Belle, whose amiability seldom failed her, and to Aunt Emmy, who would have loved to receive the whole world.
Everyone seemed gratified by the general situation, although the midshipman was, in addition, relieved.
Arrived outside, this relief escaped from him in his funny, clumsy, recently acquired man’s voice, in remarks addressed exclusively to his shipmate. There was also the voice of the surgeon as he followed at the heels of the two ladies, along the wing, and round the corner of the house. Laura listened to them all talking. But it was the men, it was Dr Badgery who predominated. His rather rough, burry voice seemed unable to tear itself out of the thorny arms of the rosebushes which lined the path.
So that Laura Trevelyan was persuaded, guiltily, to lay aside her belt of nails, and to recline upon the most comfortable upholstery the room had to offer.
In passing to the front gate, the surgeon touched the creamy, if not the creamiest rose. The heat of the sun had saturated his thick clothes, and he was wondering a good deal.
‘Did you care for that Mr Badgery?’ Aunt Emmy asked at a later occasion — it was, in fact, the Wednesday, the Pringles’ picnic almost upon them.
‘One could not dislike him,’ Laura replied.
‘By some standards, not quite a gentleman.’ Aunt Emmy sighed. Then, seeming to remember, she added: ‘We must not decide too hastily, however, that those standards are desirable. Men, you will learn, I think, because you are a practical girl, Laura dear, men are what women make them.’
Mrs Bonner, who was at that moment counting the silver, was very pleased with her estimation.
‘Then, are we to assume that poor Dr Badgery’s wife did not quite finish him off?’ Laura asked, who loved to tease her aunt at moments when she most loved her.
‘Such an assumption would be most foolish,’ Aunt Emmy returned.
She was very angry with the forks.
‘A young girl, provided she is a lady, may safely assume that a gentleman is a bachelor, until such times as those who are in a position to discover the truth inform her to the contrary.’
Then Mrs Bonner, who had made it quite clear, was again pleased.
But, on the Thursday, she was dashed.
For Belle had come downstairs alone, in a bonnet that made her dreamier.
‘Where is Laura?’ asked the aunt and mother, kissing from habit, but distractedly.
‘I do not know,’ answered Belle.
She would not tell. She was drifting upon her own cloud. She was separate now.
‘Laura!’ Mrs Bonner called. ‘How provoking! Laura, wecannotexpectthehorsestostandindefinitelyyouknowwhatitleadsto!’
‘Has Tom come?’ inquired Belle, who was fitting the old gloves she wore for picnics. Her cheeks were lovely.
‘As if she has not experienced the incivility of servants who are kept waiting! It is the worst of all risks. Laura!’ persisted Mrs Bonner.
‘Yes, Aunt,’ said the niece, appearing with miraculous meekness. ‘I shall not keep anyone waiting a second longer.’
‘But you are not ready.’
‘Because I am not going.’
‘You will deprive us of such pleasure?’ asked Tom Radclyffe, who had just arrived, and who was looking not at this thorny cousin, but at his own precious property.
‘When we are all expected!’ protested Mrs Bonner.
The latter would have gone with her leg sawn off rather than diverge by one inch from the intended course.
‘My baby is suffering from the wind, and I must stay with her for the very good reason that she needs me,’ Laura answered gravely.
‘Have you really also learnt to deflate babies?’ Tom Radclyffe asked.
But Mrs Bonner’s mind had conceived a tragedy grander than the detail of the baby’s wind at first suggested.
‘Your baby,’ she gulped. ‘Give me your arm, Tom, please. I will need it.’
Then she burst into tears, and they led her to the carriage.
Laura was now free. She wiped upon her apron those hands which the observant Dr Badgery had seen to be too red, and with which she had just been washing various small articles of the baby’s clothing, for she had decided in the beginning that this was a duty she must take upon herself. Now she returned upstairs.
The healthy baby had been no more than passingly fretful that afternoon. The young woman stood looking at her. No longer could anybody have doubted their relationship. They were looking at each other in the depths of their collusion, fingering each other’s skin and face. They were covered with the faintest silvery webs of smiles, when the blood began to beat, the shadow swept across the mother’s face, and suddenly she took up her child, and was walking up and down.
The young woman was going up and down, but, in the familiar room, amongst the stolid furniture, the two beings had been overtaken by a storm of far darker colours than human passions. As they were rocked together, tossed, and buffeted, helplessness and desperation turned the woman’s skin an ugly brown. What could she do? The baby, on beginning to sense that she had been sucked into some whirlpool of supernatural dangers, could at least let out a howl for her mother to save her, and was probably convinced she would be saved. The mother, however, was unable to enjoy the comfort of any such belief and, for the moment, must be presumed lost.
‘My darling, my darling,’ Laura Trevelyan whispered, kissing. ‘I am so afraid.’
Kisses did drug the child with an illusion of safety, and she calmed down, and eventually slept. The mother saw this mercy descend as she watched. Then it seemed to the young woman that she might pray to God for love and protection of greater adequacy, but she hesitated on realizing her own incapacity to save her trusting child. Only later in the afternoon did she become aware of the extent of her blasphemy, and was made quite hollow by it.
When finally she could bring herself to pray, she did not kneel, but crouched diffidently upon the edge of an upright chair. She formed the words very slowly and distinctly, hoping that, thus, they would transcend her mind. If she dared hope. But she did pray. Not for herself, she had abandoned herself, nor for her baby, who must, surely, be exempt at the last reckoning. She prayed for that being for whom the ark of her love was built. She prayed over and over, for JOHANN ULRICH VOSS, until, through the ordinary bread of words, she did receive divine sustenance.