Mamma said, "If their son"s coming back they"ve chosen a queer time to go away."
XIV.
It couldn"t be true.
You knew it when you dined with them, when you saw the tranquil Regency faces looking at you from above the long row of Sheraton chairs, the pretty Gainsborough lady smiling from her place above the sideboard.
As you sat drinking coffee out of the dark blue coffee cups with gold linings you knew it couldn"t be true. You were rea.s.sured by the pattern of the chintzes--pink roses and green leaves on a pearl-grey ground--by the crystal chains and pendants of the chandelier, by the round black mirror sunk deep in the bowl of its gilt frame.
They couldn"t go; for if they went, the quiet, gentle life of these things would be gone. The room had no soul apart from the two utterly beloved figures that sat there, each in its own chintz-covered chair.
"It isn"t true," she said, "that you"re going?"
She was sitting on the polar bear hearthrug at Mrs. Sutcliffe"s feet.
"Yes, Mary."
The delicate, wrinkled hand came out from under the cashmere shawl to stroke her arm. It kept on stroking, a long, loving, slow caress. It made her queerly aware of her arm--white and slender under the big puff of the sleeve--lying across Mrs. Sutcliffe"s lap.
"He"ll be happier in his garden at Agaye."
She heard herself a.s.senting. "_He_"ll be happier." And breaking out. "But I shall never be happy again."
"You mustn"t say that, my dear."
The hand went on stroking.
"There"s no place on earth," she said, "where I"m so happy as I am here."
Suddenly the hand stopped; it stiffened; it drew back under the cashmere shawl.
She turned her head towards Mr. Sutcliffe in his chair on the other side of the hearthrug.
His face had a queer, strained look. His eyes were fixed, fixed on the white, slender arm that lay across his wife"s lap.
And Mrs. Sutcliffe"s eyes were fixed on the queer, strained face.
XV.
Uncle Victor"s letter was almost a relief.
She had not yet allowed herself to imagine what Morfe would be like without the Sutcliffes. And, after all, they wouldn"t have to live in it.
If Dan accepted Uncle Victor"s offer, and if Mamma accepted his conditions.
Uncle Victor left no doubt as to his conditions. He wouldn"t take Dan back unless Mamma left Morfe and made a home for him in London. He wanted them all to live together at Five Elms.
The discussion had lasted from a quarter-past nine till half-past ten.
Mamma still sat at the breakfast-table, crumpling and uncrumpling the letter.
"I wish I knew what to do," she said.
"Better do what you want," Dan said. "Stay here if you want to. Go back to Five Elms if you want to. But for G.o.d"s sake don"t say you"re doing it on my account."
He got up and went out of the room.
"Goodness knows I don"t want to go back to Five Elms. But I won"t stand in Dan"s way. If your Uncle Victor thinks I ought to make the sacrifice, I shall make it."
"And Dan," Mary said, "will make the sacrifice of going back to Victor"s office. It would be simpler if he went to Canada."
"Your uncle can"t help him to go to Canada. He won"t hear of it.... I suppose we shall have to go."
They were going. You could hear Mrs. Belk buzzing round the village with the news. "The Oliviers are going."
One day Mrs. Belk came towards her, busily, across the Green.
She stopped to speak, while her little iron-grey eyes glanced off sideways, as if they saw something important to be done.
The Sutcliffes were not going, after all.
XVI.
When it was all settled and she thought that Dan had gone into Reyburn a fortnight ago to give notice to the landlord"s solicitors, one evening, as she was coming home from the Aldersons" he told her that he hadn"t been to the solicitors at all.
He had arranged yesterday for his transport on a cattle ship sailing next week for Montreal.
He said he had always meant to go out to Jem Alderson when he had learnt enough from Ned.
"Then why," she said, "did you let Mamma tell poor Victor--"
"I wanted her to have the credit of the sacrifice," he said.
And then: "I don"t like leaving you here--"
An awful thought came to her.
"Are you sure you aren"t going because of me?"
"You? What on earth are you thinking of?"
"That time--when you wouldn"t ask Lindley Vickers to stop on."
"Oh ... I didn"t ask him because I knew he wanted to stop altogether. And I don"t approve of him."
She turned and stared at him. "Then it wasn"t that you didn"t approve of _me_?"
"What put that in your head?"