All Aggie"s visits had ended in the same way. The same letter from home, the same firm and simple statement: "Arthur wants me. I must go," and Aggie was gone before they had had a look at her.
"John and Susie will be quite offended."
"I can"t help it. Arthur comes before John and Susie, and he wants me."
She had always been proud of that--his wanting her; his inability to do without her.
"I don"t know," she said, "what he _will_ have done without me all this time."
Her mother looked at her sharply, a look that, though outwardly concentrated on Aggie, suggested much inward criticism of Aggie"s husband.
"He must learn to do without you," she said, severely.
"I"m not sure that I want him to," said Aggie, and smiled.
Her mother submitted with a heavy heart.
"My dear," she whispered, "if you had married John Hurst we shouldn"t have _had_ to say good-bye."
"I wouldn"t have taken him from Susie for the world," said Aggie, grimly.
She knew that her mother had never liked poor Arthur. This knowledge prevented her from being sufficiently grateful to John for always leaving his trap (the trap that was once to have been hers) at her disposal. It was waiting to take her to the station now.
Aggie had only seen her sister, Mrs. John Hurst, once since they had both married. Whenever Aggie was in Queningford, John and Susie were in Switzerland, on the honeymoon that, for the happy, prosperous couple, renewed itself every year.
This year it was agreed that, when the Hursts came up to Islington for the Grand Horse-Show in the spring, they were to be put up at the Gattys" in Camden Town.
Aggie was excited and a little alarmed at the prospect of this visit.
Susie was accustomed to having everything very nice and comfortable about her, and she would be critical of the villa and its ways. And, then, it would be awkward seeing John. She smiled. It always had been awkward seeing John.
But when the spring came a new terror was added to Aggie"s hospitable anxiety, a new embarra.s.sment to the general awkwardness of seeing John.
After all, the Hursts put up at a hotel in town. But Susie was to come over for tea and a long talk with Aggie, John following later.
Aggie prepared with many tremors for the meeting with her sister. She made herself quite sick and faint in her long battling with her hair. She had so little time for "doing" it that it had become very difficult to "do"
and when it was "done" she said to herself that it looked abominable. Her fingers shook as they strained at the hooks of the shabby gown that was her "best." She had found somewhere a muslin scarf that, knotted and twined with desperate ingenuity, produced something of the effect that she desired.
Up-stairs in the nursery, Catty, very wise for six years old, was minding the baby, while the little nervous maid got tea ready. Aggie sat in the drawing-room waiting for her sister. Even as she waited she dared not be idle. There was an old coat of Arthur"s that she had been lining, taking advantage of a change to milder weather; it was warmer than the one he was wearing, and she was afraid to let it go another day lest the wind should turn round to the northeast again. In such anxieties Aggie moved and had her being. For the rest, she had given the little maid a lesson in the proper way of showing Mrs. John Hurst into the room when she arrived.
Mrs. John Hurst arrived a little late. She came in unannounced (for her appearance had taken the little maid"s breath away); she came with a certain rustle and sweep which was much more important than anything Susie had ever done in the old days when Aggie was the pretty one.
Aggie was moved at seeing her. She uttered a cry of affection and delight, and gave herself to Susie"s open arms.
"Darling!" said Mrs. John Hurst. "Let me have a good look at you."
She kissed her violently, held her at arm"s-length for a moment, and then kissed her again, very gently. In that moment Aggie had looked at Susie, and Susie at Aggie, each trying to master the meaning of the other"s face.
It was Susie who understood first. Prosperity was very becoming to Susie.
She was the pretty one now, and she knew it. Marriage had done for her what maidenhood had done for her sister, and Susie was the image of what Aggie used to be.
But Aggie herself! Nothing was left now of the diminutive distinction that had caused her to be once adored in Queningford. Susie was young at two-and-thirty, and Aggie, not three years older, was middle-aged. Not that there were many wrinkles on Aggie"s face. Only a deep, crescent line on each side of a mouth that looked as if it had been strained tight with many tortures. It was as if Nature had conceived a grudge against Aggie, and strove, through maternity, to stamp out her features as an individual.
"Oh yes," said Aggie, to break the intolerable tension of that look, "it"s one of your old ones, turned and trimmed to make it look different."
"Poor darling," said Susie; but what she thought was that it did look different.
Luckily Mrs. John Hurst was full of the Horse-Show. She could talk of nothing else. It was the Horse-Show that had made her late. She had waited for the judging. John would look in as soon as he could get away. Gownboy had carried off the gold cup and the gold medal again, and the judges had been unjust, as usual, to John (John, grown prosperous, had added horse-breeding to sheep-farming.) Ladslove had only been highly commended.
Ladslove was Rosemary"s foal.
"You remember Rosemary, Aggie?"
Aggie remembered neither Rosemary nor her foal. But she was sorry for Ladslove. She was grateful to him, too, for holding Susie"s attention and diverting it from all the things she didn"t want her to see. She was afraid of Susie; afraid of her sympathy; afraid of her saying something about Barbara (_she_ couldn"t speak of little Bessie, Susie"s only child, who had died three years ago). Above all, she was afraid of Susie"s inquisitive tongue and searching eyes.
She flung herself into fict.i.tious reminiscences of the Queningford stud.
She couldn"t have done worse.
"Oh, Aggie," said her sister, "you _do_ mix them up so."
"Well," said poor Aggie, "there are so many of them, I can"t keep count."
"Never mind, dear." Aggie"s words recalled Susie to her sisterly duties.
"I haven"t asked after the children yet. How many are there? _I_ can"t keep count, either, you know."
Aggie turned away, found the old coat she had been lining, and spread it on her lap. Susie"s eye roamed and rested on the coat, and Aggie"s followed it.
"Do excuse my going on with this. Arthur wants it."
Susie smiled in recognition of the familiar phrase. Ever since he had first appeared in Queningford, Arthur had always been wanting something.
But, as she looked at the poor coat, she reflected that one thing he had never wanted, or had never asked for, and that was help.
"Aggie," she said, "I do hope that if you ever want a little help, dear, you"ll come to me."
Susie, preoccupied with the idea of liberality, could not see that she had chosen her moment badly. Her offer, going as it did, hand-in-hand with her glance, reflected upon Arthur.
"I don"t want any help, thank you," said Aggie. "Arthur"s doing very well now. Very well, indeed."
"Then," said Susie, "why on earth do you break your back over that st.i.tching, if there"s no need? That"s not my notion of economy."
Susie was a kind-hearted woman, but eight years of solid comfort and prosperity had blunted her perceptions. Moreover, she had an earnestly practical mind, a mind for which material considerations outweighed every other.
"My dear Susie, your notion of economy would be the same as mine, if you had had seven children."
"But I haven"t," said Susie, sadly. She was humbled by the rebuff she had just received. "I only wish I had."
Aggie looked up from her work with a remorseful tenderness in her tired eyes. She was sorry for poor Susie, who had lost her only one.
But Susie had already regretted her momentary weakness, and her pride was up. She was a primitive woman, and had always feared lest reproach should lie upon her among the mothers of many children. Besides, she had never forgotten that her John had loved Aggie first. Aggie, with her seven children, should not set her down as a woman slighted by her husband.
"I haven"t had the strength for it," said she; and Aggie winced. "The doctor told John I mustn"t have more than the one. And I haven"t."