Afterwards I remembered the fervour of my longing and thought how strange it was that on that day life should change so drastically.

Looking into the starry faces of the daisies, I saw his face, the green eyes, the arrogant features. It was absurd to go on remembering a stranger whom I had met by chance and very likely would never see again.

One of the maids came in to carry the flowers away and put them in the places I had chosen. It was an hour before luncheon would be served, normally I should have taken a walk round the garden but it was such a damp and dismal morning. So I stayed in my room and my thoughts went back and back again to the incident of the girl with the scarf, and I thought of Mamma who in this house had been toved and had loved, and consequently must have been quite unlike the woman she was today. I wondered if I should grow old and peevish, looking back resentfully because life had passed me by.

Dr. Hunter called and was with Mamma for half an hour. Before he left he asked to see me and said he would like to have a little talk with Papa as well so we went up to Papa’s study and he and the doctor drank a glass of sherry while Dr. Hunter talked to us of Mamma.

“You must realize,” said Dr. Hunter, ‘that there is no reason at all why Lady Cardew should not lead a reasonably normal life. She is breathless, yes—because she is out of condition. She stays in her room nursing a non-existent heart trouble. I am of the opinion that we have all been pandering to her whims, and I think we should now try different tactics. “

As I was listening I was visualizing him in tastefully furnished rooms in Harley Street treating rich patients and going home to Lucie, who would entertain brilliant doctors and learn enough of her husband’s profession to join intelligently in the very learned conversation. It pleased me to think of her as the school teacher she had been before I had discovered her. I wondered why she did not give Dr. Hunter his answer.

“We will try a little experiment,” he said.

“Not so much sympathy, please.”

Dr. Hunter went on to expound his theories. He was going to start a new line of healing. He grew very animated talking of the experiments he intended to make. I was sure we should lose him to Harley Street very soon—and Lucie too to some extent if she married him. If! But of course she would.

“Just a little gentle reproof,” he went on.

“Don’t be too harsh at first.”

Papa asked him to stay to luncheon but he was too busy. He finished his sherry and left us.

Mamma came down to luncheon in one of her more difficult moods.

“This weather brings on all my pains,” she grumbled. The damp seeps into my bones. You can’t imagine the pain. “

Papa, eager to put into practice the doctor’s suggestions replied: “We don’t need to employ our imaginations, my dear, because you have described it in such detail so often.”

Mamma was completely taken aback. That my usually tolerant and easygoing father should criticize her in such an unsympathetic manner was a great shock to her.

“So I am a nuisance, am I?” she demanded.

“My dear, you misconstrue.”

“It was what you implied. Oh, I know I am ill, and to those of you who have the great gift of good health, that makes me dull and useless.

How unkind you are! K only you knew how I suffer! I could almost wish that you were afflicted with one hundredth part of the pain that I feel—then you might have some understanding. But no, I wouldn’t wish that for anyone. What has my life been but one long bed of pain. Ever since you were born, Mima, I have suffered. “

“I’m sorry. Mamma, that I am responsible.”

“Now you are jeering at me. I never thought you would do that openly although I have long known that I was a burden and a nuisance to you.

Oh, if only my life had been different. If only I had had the good fortune . “

It was an old theme. My father had half risen in his chair, his face pink, his usually mild eyes clouded with distress. I knew that there must have been vague references over the years to what mig tit have been it she had had the good fortune to marry the man of her choice instead of him.

My sympathies were entirely with him and I said: “Why, Mamma, you have had a very happy life with the best husband in the world.”

She silenced me, looking wildly about the room and staring beyond my father as though she saw something of which we were not aware. I know she was thinking of that man and it was almost as though he were in the room, he who had been taken away and shipped abroad as a thief, as though he were taunting her with what might have been if she had been bolder and insisted on marrying him.

“The best husband in the world!” she cried mockingly.

“What has he done to make him that? He sits in his study working … working, he says! Sleeping his life away! His book, his famous book! That is like him. He is nothing, nothing. And I might have had a very different life.”

Lucie said: “Lady Cardew, Dr. Hunter told me that you must not get over-excited. Will you allow me to take you to your room?”

The thought of herself as an invalid soothed her. She turned almost gratefully to Lucie who led her from the room.

Papa and I looked after her. I felt so sorry for him; he looked completely bewildered.

“I don’t think Dr. Hunter’s treatment worked,” I said.

“Never mind.

Papa. We did our best. “

It was an uneasy day. Several of the servants must have heard my mother’s outburst. My father seemed to have shrunk a little; there was something shame-faced about him. We had all suspected that he dozed at his desk and that most of the work had been done by Lucie; but it had never been said to his face before—and now that it had been, the fact had a significance it had never had before.

My mother spent the day in her room declaring that she did not want to see anybody. I saw Lizzie, who told me she had slept for some part of the afternoon having worn herself out crying.

“She’ll be better tomorrow. Miss Minta,” comforted Lizzie. I talked it over with Lucie, who was very distressed.

“It’s quite clear that criticism doesn’t help Mamma.” I said.

“Your father is too gentle by nature. Perhaps he should have continued as he began. “

“He is too kind to take up a new role. It’s like changing his character.”

It was natural that Lucie would not admit that Dr. Hunter’s diagnosis was wrong. She repeated Lizzie’s words: “She’ll be better tomorrow.”

Before I retired that night I went up to my mother’s room, but hesitated before entering. As I stood at the door I heard my mother’s voice: “You’re wicked! Oh, how I wish I could go back all those years.

I’d know what to do because you’re wicked . wicked. “

I pictured my father’s mild bewildered eyes and I decided that I would not go into that room. So I went to my own and lay awake for a long time thinking of the sadness of my parents’ lives and all the lost years when they might have been happy.

Neither of them was to blame. I wished that I had been able to go in and tell them this, to implore them to forget the past and start afresh from now.

How I wished that I had gone in that night! I never saw my mother alive again.

Next morning when Lizzie went in to awaken her she found her dead.

Two

Lizzie said afterwards that she had a strange premonition; she was waiting for the bell to ring for the early morning tea and when it didn’t come she went in.

“She was lying there,” said Lizzie, “and there was something different about her. And when I went close … oh, my God!”

Lizzie had been hysterical and incoherent but she did run for Lucie and Lucie came to me. I awoke with a start to find them both standing by my bed.

Lucie said: “Minta, you have to prepare yourself for a shock.”

I scrambled up and stared at them.

“It’s your mother,” said Lucie.

“Something dreadful ..  ” Is she . dead? “

Lucie nodded slowly. She was unlike herself—her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated and her mouth quivered; I felt she was fighting hard to control herself. Lizzie started to sob.

“After all these years…. It’s not true. There’s a mistake. She’s fainted, that’s what it is.”

“I have sent for Dr. Hunter,” said Lucie.

“And my father?” I asked.

“I haven’t sent word to him yet. I thought we’d wait until the doctor came. There’s nothing he can do.”

“But he should know.”

“I went into her room,” murmured Lizzie.

“You see, she hadn’t rung.. ” Then she covered her face with her hands and continued to sob.

I snatched up my dressing-gown and said: I‘ll go to her. “

Lucie shook her head.

“Don’t,” she said.

“But I must. I don’t believe she’s dead. Only yesterday Dr. Hunter was saying …”

I had moved past Lucie to the door; she was beside me and walked with me to my mother’s room.

“Don’t, Minta,” whispered Lucie.

“Wait … wait until the doctor’s been.”

She held my hand tightly and drew me gently along the corridor to her room.

By the time Dr. Hunter arrived my father was up. Lucie had talked to him as she had talked to me, soothing us, really taking matters in hand. My father was quite willing for her to do this; so was I. It was Lucie who went with the doctor into my mother’s room.

“Take your father to the library and stay there till we come,” she said.

“Look after your father. This is a terrible shock for him.”