Chapter VII: Et Cetera (2)

Dinner progressed slowly. The pheasant appeared, three small slices of breast were eaten by the three ladies, it was removed and the peach tart took its place. Mrs. Hugh, for courtesy's sake, toyed with a minute piece of pastry, Miss Dorset enjoyed a reasonable helping, but Mrs. Greene lacked the energy even to taste it. It was succeeded by a savoury, which again for courtesy's sake all three ladies made an effort to eat.

At last the interminable meal was ended. A little food had been eaten, a little wine drunk, and a prolonged exhibition of fortitude and good manners had been given by Mrs. Greene, whose weakness clamoured for the easy comfort of a tray by the fire, but whose instincts and training drove her to endure the full ceremony prescribed by the laws of good society.

She was very tired when they went through to the drawing-room. She sat relaxed and huddled in her armchair, stretching out her chill hands to the fire, which leaped and spluttered.

"The logs are green," she said dreamily. "But I like to hear them hiss like that."

"I like all country sounds and sights," answered Mrs. Hugh.

"That's what you live on, Sarah, I understand very well; Lynton is what you live on from day to day; and you've got Hugh and your past for a background."

There was a pause, broken presently by Mrs. Hugh who spoke quickly and jerkily in her insistency.

"I find Lynton very lovely," she said. "It's to satisfying and complete. I turn over the earth and take out things and plant other things, and they grow and flower, and when they die, I plant something else. And it all goes on round and round, so that I feel quite confident that beauty renews itself even if it doesn't last, and so I'm able to be happy."

Her credo ended abruptly.

"We're optimists, Sarah," said Mrs. Greene. "You know, only this morning I was thinking something like that, but I don't remember now what it was. I forget things; I forget the simplest things sometimes."

"Don't let that worry you," advised Mrs. Hugh, gently. "We all forget things when we're tired."

"I worry when I'm tired," confided Mrs. Greene. "Everything worries me; the thought of Edith's party next week worries me. I don't feel I can face it."

She relapsed into silence. In the glow of the fire her face looked pinched and wan. Suddenly it sharpened into irritation.

"I must go to bed, Sarah," she said. "I'm sorry to leave you so early, but I've talked enough for to-night, and I'll see you in the morning."

She stood up, tremulous and uncertain.

"Miss Dorset," she called querulously, "help me to bed, Miss Dorset, I'm tired."

MRS. HUGH GREENE

MRS. HUGH GREENE

I

"What are you doing this morning, Aunt Sarah?" asked Mary Dodds on the first morning of Mrs. Hugh Greene's visit. "I have to do some shopping, but I'd love it if you would come with me."

"No thank you, dear," answered Mrs. Greene. "I have an appointment at 12 o'clock, and if you'll excuse me, I won't come back to lunch."

"You're sure you won't be too tired if you stay out both morning and afternoon?"

Young Mrs. Dodds was genuinely solicitous, and her husband, Roger, added quietly, "You're not looking too well, Aunt Sarah; why not see a doctor while you are in town?"

"That is just what I'm doing at 12 o'clock, but you needn't worry, my dears; I'm a little run down perhaps, and don't forget that I'm seventy this year so I can hardly expect to be quite as active as I used to be. But I shall come quietly back and have a rest before tea, if I may."

"Let me bring tea up to your room and have it there with you," suggested Mary, "Ellen is out this afternoon, and I shall be getting tea myself anyhow, and it would be nice for you to have it in bed and then rest on till dinner-time."

Mrs. Greene turned to Roger.

"Your wife is the most thoughtful young woman I know," she said briskly, "You did very well for yourself when you married her."

Roger laughed, kissed Mary, who was pink and flustered, and left for his office.

"You can't think how much nicer you are than most relations-in-law, Aunt Sarah," said Mary impulsively, "you're so much easier than my mother-in-law somehow. She expects so much of me that I just get futile and incompetent when she is about."

"I've never had any children, you know, and I think perhaps that makes me less exacting than Elinor. She has always made too many demands on Roger, and that leads to difficulties.

"You're awfully wise," said Mary slowly, "I think all old people are much wiser than middle-aged ones, especially women; perhaps in ten years' time Mrs. Dodds will be quite sensible."

She smiled at Mrs. Greene who thought of her uncertain, irritable, dissatisfied sister-in-law, and smiled back at the improbability of her developing into the type of tranquil old lady that Mary seemed to hope for. Then, looking more closely at Mary, she noticed that there was an expression of strain and fatigue on her usually pink and healthy face.

"You're not looking very well yourself, Mary," she said.

Mary hesitated for a moment.

"I'd like to tell you," she said uncertainly; "Roger thought I oughtn't to because I haven't told his mother yet, but after all you're very discreet, aren't you? We're having a baby in about six months, and he is rather worried about it because we can't really afford it."

Her lip trembled a little, but she steadied her voice and went on, "I'm really glad about it even though it does mean getting rid of Ellen and only having a cook and economising a lot, but of course it isn't much fun for Roger, and he does work hard."

"Well, I think that is a very nice piece of news," said Mrs. Greene warmly, "I shall thoroughly enjoy having a grandnephew or niece, and you must let me pay your doctor and help you in any way I can. As a matter of fact I get tired sometimes of hearing my sister-in-law talking of her great-grandchild and all her grandchildren. You don't know old Mrs. Greene do you? She's a delightful woman, but sometimes I feel she forgets there are other young couples in the world besides Lavinia and Martin and the young Geoffreys, and now the Hughs."

"Thank you ever so much, Aunt Sarah, it's lovely of you, and it will be a weight off Roger's mind. He does work so hard, and he earns so little."

Mary's voice rose almost to a wail, but Aunt Sarah only said crisply:

"Oughtn't you to go and see the cook now? You mustn't bother about me; I'll write a letter or two before I go out."

Young Mrs. Dodds gulped a little and blew her nose, but as the parlourmaid came in, cast an injured glance at the two ladies still sitting over the breakfast table and then swept out with pursed lips, she was sufficiently in command of herself to laugh and say, "I shan't mind getting rid of her anyhow. She's horribly haughty."

Mrs. Greene left alone, sat for a moment in thought before she crossed the hall to the small living room. She wondered how Roger's inadequate income was going to be stretched to meet the demands of the unborn child which was already beginning to assume a definite importance in her mind.

I'm as bad as Margaret, she thought; I didn't really care so very much when her great-grandchild was born, and yet it was my great-grandnephew after all. But there is something more intimate about this one; it's a Dodds, and I feel possessive about it. Odd that after being Mrs. Hugh Greene for nearly fifty years, I should still be Sarah Dodds.

Her thoughts turned back to Roger; something ought to be done for him; his position in the rather depressing solicitor's office where he worked was unsatisfactory.

As Ellen again entered the room, armed with a formidable frown and a tray, Mrs. Greene went across the hall and sat down to write. She found herself unable to concentrate on her letters. Either the thought of the impending interview was draining her of her usually resolute vitality, or the news that Mary had given her had provoked an emotional reaction.

Her heart stirred almost painfully as she thought of Roger, his enduring good qualities, his affection for her, his social inadequacy and uncouthness that concealed a good brain and a sense of humour. She had been pleased with his marriage to Mary, the least exacting of women, unaware of most of her husband's deficiencies, and tolerant of those she recognised.

A small sinister idea insinuated itself into Mrs. Greene's mind. Unaware that she spoke aloud she formulated her fear in words.

"Perhaps on this bright November day I shall have to make my will, and then Mary need not economise over her baby."

The rich autumn sun struck a shaft across the desk that warmed her chill hand, but Mrs. Greene shivered as she looked across the narrow street and steadied herself to accept the immediate future.

II

Dr. Stiff looked at the quiet elderly woman who was sitting on the other side of his desk, and chose his words carefully.

"I'm afraid, Mrs. Greene, that I shall have to call upon your courage and fortitude to listen to what I cannot avoid telling you. I gather that your suspicions amounted almost to a certainty before you consulted me, and I am unfortunately forced to confirm them. There is a considerable growth in the left breast, which, owing to the state of your heart, can't be removed. That being so, we can only regard it as a definite signal which must not be ignored."

He spoke gently, but the crude fact implicit in his words stuck out clearly. There was a moment's pause. Mrs. Greene's hands were folded in her lap; her throat felt a little dry, and for a moment the walls of the room wavered uncertainly towards her and the motes dancing in a streak of sun across the floor seemed to swell gigantically and overpoweringly. But as she cleared her throat and prepared to speak, they diminished and the room resumed its normal proportions.

"Thank you," she said steadily. "I quite understand. You mean that I have cancer and you are not able to operate. How long can I expect to live?"

Dr. Stiff looked distressed at the uncompromising question, and his hand hovered over the bell as he answered:

"The disease is in its final stage, Mrs. Greene. You must have had many attacks of pain recently, and there won't be very many more."

He pressed the bell as he spoke, and almost immediately a nurse appeared with a little tray containing a glass and a decanter of brandy.

Mrs. Greene smiled. "No, thank you, Nurse," she said, and her voice had its natural buoyancy as she turned to Dr. Stiff. "My husband never liked me to drink spirits of any sort, and this has not been a shock to me. Indeed in some ways it is almost convenient."

She thought of Roger and then asked abruptly.

"Shall I live for six months?"

Dr. Stiff shook his head.

"It's impossible for me to give a definite date," he said. "But I think not more than three."

Mrs. Greene pressed her hand to her treacherous breast as she thought of Mary and Roger's child that would be born in the Spring.

"That is a disappointment to me," she said, "but only a very trivial one. My husband died eight years ago; we were very devoted to each other and since then I have often felt as if I were waiting with my hat and jacket on for some vehicle to take me to him. Now that fancy is gone; I see that the vehicle is my illness which will soon come to a conclusion, and I thank you very much for your consideration and kindness to me."

She rose to go. For a moment Dr. Stiff held her hand as he said:

"It's I who thank you, Mrs. Greene. My work is very often both trying and depressing, and to meet with such courage and control as yours is a great stimulus to me."

"I'm afraid I'm very old-fashioned," said Mrs. Greene. "I've never learnt to take life so vehemently and rebelliously as young people do nowadays. I sometimes think they lack a sense of humour and proportion. Goodbye and thank you again."

She left the room, unhurried and untroubled, oblivious of the fact that she left behind her a man filled with amazement at the dignity and decorum of her generation.

As she sat in a taxi on the way to lunch, Sarah Greene was busy with arrangements: first of all she must make an appointment with her solicitors and see to her will. A feeling of warm gratitude to her dead husband shot across her mind as she remembered that he had expressly stated that she was to leave the bulk of his considerable fortune to relations and friends for whom she cared. Lynton was her own of course, both house and land, but she was glad that she was under no moral obligation to leave Greene money to Greenes; she was perfectly free to make life as happy and tranquil as an assured income could make it, for Mary and Roger Dodds.

Then a nursing home must be considered. Mrs. Greene suppressed a slight tremor as she thought of the crudity and awkwardness of a death in the house: the embarrassed, tearful servants; the relations whose perfectly sincere grief could not prevent them feeling an intense relief at the approach of a meal, followed by an equally intense shame at the thought of enjoying food with poor Aunt Sarah lying upstairs; the desultory and spasmodic conversations; the whole painful interregnum between normal life before the death occurred and normal life resumed after the funeral. A nursing-home in London would certainly have advantages. Sarah Greene would be able to die as unobstrusively as she hoped she had lived.

Before finding her way to the restaurant of the large shop in which she intended to lunch, Mrs. Greene made a few methodical purchases. She had intended to buy half a dozen pairs of the thick woollen stockings which she usually wore for gardening, but in view of her curtailed future she mechanically reduced the order to three. She did not however hesitate to order a new mackintosh, since her old one was worn out, and a future, however short, was unthinkable if it withheld from her the promise of rainy walks on soft November afternoons with dusk dropping behind the long row of beeches that bordered the avenue up to Lynton, the house she had loved and cared for these last forty-five years.

Later while she ate her usual plain lunch she reviewed deliberately in some detail, the sentimental aspect of the situation. Not again would she see the daffodils swaying on their stems in the spring winds that every year swept Lynton; not again would she see the amazing blue of summer skies through the amazing green of beech trees; other hands would snap off the dead pansy heads and pick the lupins ranged along the mellow wall.

A moment of forlornness, grim augury of the desolate weeks ahead, fell upon Sarah Greene, sitting in the crowded restaurant, to outward seeming an elderly woman contentedly eating her lunch. Panic squeezed her heart as she thought of the creeping growth that was working even now to her undoing, but her will automatically reasserted itself. Self-pity was repugnant to her; she was of the generation that held duty to be at the same time an aim and a reward, that accepted frustrations and tragedies as part of the necessary fabric of life.

As she put down her coffee cup she dealt sharply with herself. Here I am, she thought, sitting in a ridiculous basket chair in a pink and white restaurant. I've just finished a pleasant lunch and bought a good mackintosh and now I'm letting myself get quite maudlin; I'm giving way to foolish fancies over what is only a natural event. Much better go back to Roger's little house and ring up my solicitor to make an appointment for to-morrow.

The thought of this small task was enough to re-establish Mrs. Greene's poise. There were still things to be done that only she could do, and she sighed pleasurably as she remembered that the Lynton gardens, greedy like all gardens in their demand for time, care and skilled forethought, would claim her, so long as she could respond to any claim.

As she talked to Mary a couple of hours later, Lynton was still uppermost in her mind, and her interest in the various aspects of Mary's coming maternity was kindly but perfunctory.

Mary was the perfectly conventional middle class prospective mother, enjoying all the emotions possible to a first pregnancy: pride in her own adequacy, pride in the interest and the faint spice of danger that would be attached to her for the next few months--though as she eagerly assured Aunt Sarah, "The doctor is frightfully pleased with me. He says I'm ideally fitted to be a mother,"--pride in Roger's love and anxiety, and an overwhelming pleasure at the thought of a small naked body to be intricately clothed in wools and muslins, laces and ribbons.

"I feel it's going to be a girl," she said positively. "And I'm going to make her the loveliest little frilled cloak with a tiny bonnet to match."

"As a matter of fact, Mary," answered Aunt Sarah equally positively, "I think it will be a boy."

A look of keen delight suddenly lit up her face.

"My dear," she said, "I've just had a delightful idea. Will you have your baby at Lynton? I should so much like him to be born there. It would give me the greatest pleasure to look forward to the crocuses and hyacinths coming out just about the right time. You would be very comfortable there, and I can promise you I would not inconvenience you in any way."

"It's awfully kind of you, Aunt Sarah," Mary spoke gratefully. "It would be ideal of course. I've been worried about a nursing home, they're so expensive, and this house is terribly inconvenient. It's so small, and the hot water is all downstairs, and that is awkward when you're in bed. Besides I don't believe Roger would mind my being away from him. After all it's only an hour and a half to Lynton."

"I very much hope you'll arrange it, Mary."

"I really would love it."

"Well, I want you to make a definite plan and keep to it. I have several reasons for asking this; I don't want anything that may happen to upset your plan."

"Nothing is likely to happen." Mary's thoughts were concentrated entirely on herself and her condition. "Everything is quite normal, and I'm sure it will go all right."

"I'm quite sure, too," answered Aunt Sarah. "I wasn't really thinking of that. Things do change you know, dear, and arrangements sometimes have to be altered, but I don't want anything to interfere with this. You must talk it over with Roger. Now tell me, Mary, do you feel well enough to go to a play to-night? I have a fancy for you and Roger and me to have a little celebration. If it doesn't put you out at all, I suggest that we dine at the Berkeley and go to a theatre."

"I'd love it. Thank you very much. Shall I go and telephone to Roger and tell him not to be late?"

"Yes do, Mary; and ask him to get three stalls for any good play that we will all enjoy."

"I'll get tea, too, when I'm downstairs," said Mary happily, "I do hope you don't mind my having to do it; I really didn't dare ask Ellen to stay in, and there's never any use expecting cook to do anything extra."

At the thought of Ellen and cook, Mary nervously wrinkled her forehead, but the frown was chased away by an expression of amazed relief as a new idea dawned on her.

"Aunt Sarah, if I have my baby at Lynton, I shan't have to bother the least bit about servants or dust or Roger's meals or anything. How perfectly marvellous."

As Mary closed the door rather noisily, Sarah Greene's sensibilities shrank from such a robustly common-sensible point of view being applied to her romantic project. The idea of new life in Lynton house coinciding with so much vigorous new life in Lynton gardens was compensation to her for her own death. It struck the right balance; more, it pleased her always fastidious sense of the fitness of things, that she, an old woman, should die before the turn of the year when sap springs in the bough, and that her grandnephew should be born in her house at the time when apple trees blossom and lambs play in the field.

This pastoral conception sustained a rude shock when Mary translated it into terms of dust and domestics.

Mary is a genuinely good capable girl, she told herself, not imaginative, perhaps, but with courage and intelligence, and most of the qualities that Roger needs in a wife. Even so, it was difficult to see Mary at Lynton, ordering the household, planning new effects for the misty herbaceous border, lavishly stocking the formal beds, attentive to the diurnal duties towards flowers and trees and shrubs.

Sarah Greene thought of her other young relations: Lavinia, mondaine, vivid, with a delicate certainty of touch that enabled her to cover her essential sophistication with a delightful veneer of country simplicity.

Lavinia in green linen stooping over the rose beds in the sunlight was perfect; Lavinia in scarlet silk stepping out of the French window to the moonlit terrace was perfect; her clothes for a country weekend were admirable. But Lavinia waking day after day to the sound of steady rain, was unimaginable. She would find herself without interests and without resources.

Mrs. Greene decided quite firmly that Lavinia would not do for Lynton.

Helen and Geoffrey were not more promising candidates. Geoffrey's manifest uneasiness in tweeds, his distaste for country pursuits no less than Helen's restlessness and impatience, rendered them ineligible.

Helen really paints well, thought Mrs. Greene. It's a pity she so seldom finishes anything, and that when she does, she just tosses it aside and begins at once on something new.

A vision of Helen frenziedly digging up week-old bulbs to see if they had sprouted crossed Mrs. Greene's mind and she smiled.

Only Hugh and Jessica remained. But Jessica, the youngest Mrs. Greene, with her small creamy face, her cool incisiveness to the world and her passionate gentleness to Hugh could never belong to Lynton. She was too slight and too brittle. At moments she seemed as vibrant as spun glass, at moments she dimmed into a moony vagueness. There was no stability about her; she would never move with Lynton through the steady roll of the seasons, taking note of the almost imperceptible signs that herald growth and decay.

Thinking it over, Mary was really much the most suitable. There was something slow-moving and deep-rooted about her; she, was practical but not trivial; she did not spend herself on details but she never ignored them, and she could take a long view of things. She was free from petty spites and envies, and she and Roger would do very well. As Sarah Greene reached this conclusion the door opened to admit Mary with the tea-tray and a letter, addressed in Mrs. Rodney Greene's unmistakable writing.

"Oh, Mary, I knew that letter was coming, but I'd forgotten all about it."

"Is it something tiresome?"

"No, not exactly. It's an invitation to dinner next week at the Rodneys but I don't feel like meeting people just at present."

Sarah Greene drew the letter rather reluctantly from its envelope and read it.

207, Sussex Square.
9th Nov.

My dear Aunt Sarah,

Many thanks for your kind letter after the wedding. I am so glad you thought it all went off nicely and that you weren't too tired.

I expect you have heard that Hugh and Jessica get back on Tuesday after a delightful honeymoon apparently. We have had several very happy post-cards from them, though I must say I should have liked a letter.

I have planned a little dinner-party for them for Friday the 18th, to-morrow week, at 7.45, which I do hope will suit you. It is only a family affair, but I am anxious that all six Mrs. Greenes should meet and enjoy each other, so I very much hope you will be able to come.

With love from Rodney and myself,

Yours affectionately,
EDITH GREENE.

"Mrs. Rodney is having her party next Friday," said Mrs. Greene slowly. "I hadn't meant to stay in town quite so long."

"Oh, do stay, Aunt Sarah," urged Mary. "We love having you and if you don't want to go to Mrs. Rodney's we can easily think of something. Why not invent an engagement for that evening?"

Mrs. Greene shook her head.

"No," she said decisively. "You know I almost think I shall enjoy it, and I think it will be salutary too."

"How do you mean, salutary?"

"Well, you know, my dear, one begins to think oneself and one's own affairs too important; and then being plunged into a family dinner party like that, one finds how relatively unimportant one is. The young people are taken up with their own lives, and Mrs. Rodney is busy about her arrangements, and poor Mrs. Edwin is always very pre-occupied and so I shall forget about my own troubles."

"I shouldn't have thought you had any troubles or worries," was Mary's naïve comment, to which Mrs. Greene responded briskly and quite genuinely, "Well, no, Mary, I haven't many. One thing on my mind is my second gardener. He isn't turning out as well as I expected. He has bad hands for planting."

There was a pause as Mary poured out a cup of tea and handed it to her Aunt who thanked her and added:

"You know it's very nice and luxurious to be here like this and have tea brought to me. Now tell me about this evening; what did Roger say?"

"He was delighted," said Mary. "He says he can get away fairly early from the office, and he'll get the tickets on the way home. And he asked me to give you his love and ask what it was you were celebrating?"

Mrs. Greene's heart missed a beat. She felt that she could hardly say, "I'm celebrating my death sentence," and yet the melodramatic little phrase nearly escaped her. She hesitated for a second and then said quite naturally:

"We're celebrating the very good news you told me this morning, my dear Mary. I'm very happy about it; I shall enjoy having a grand-nephew."

Mary's face glowed with pleasure.

"I never thought you'd be so pleased. Would you like us to call him Hugh if he's a boy?"

Sarah Greene took her hand and held it for a moment.

"It's kind of you to think of it," she said, "but no, Mary, I don't really think I'd like it. I've never quite believed in calling children after people; it doesn't seem to me to mean very much; I'd rather you just called your boy any name you liked."

"I had thought of Roger, but I'm not sure."

"Well, don't be influenced by anyone; just decide what name you like and keep to it. It's only a convention to name children after their relations, and I don't quite believe in conventions that are based on sentiment. Perhaps we get harder as we get older; I'm not sure. But it seems to me that my generation has a good deal in common with yours. We were very differently brought up, of course, but we arrived at rather the same conclusions as you young people have now: a distaste for anything too easy, or flabby, as you might call it."

She turned questioningly to Mary, who reflected for a moment in the struggle to assemble her thoughts.

"I know what you mean," she said at last. "I do feel we've much more in common with people of your age than people about forty-five or fifty. We're harder than they are, and we take things in our stride like your generation did. I always think you were awfully brave. And we're a greedy generation, but I don't think we're greedy in such a soft way as middle-aged people are."

She stopped again to think, and then added:

"Your generation doesn't strike me as being greedy at all. You were all so awfully good at self-sacrifice."

Mrs. Greene laughed.

"My dear Mary," she expostulated, "that sounds terrible--as if we were all would-be martyrs. Yes, indeed, we were just as greedy as you are, but we wanted different things, and I think we very often wanted them for other people. As wives, we were contented to be a good deal in the background; we liked our husbands to shine and we didn't need so much personal success as women do nowadays. But it wasn't so very different after all; I know you want things for Roger more than for yourself, for instance."

"I do want a lot for Roger," agreed Mary eagerly and Mrs. Greene exulted in the thought of how much her death would do for this satisfactory and devoted young couple. Money she could give them in her life-time, but what was money compared to Lynton whose lovely perfection was solace enough for the bitterness of life and the fear of death?

She switched abruptly off this trend of thought.

"If we are dining early and going out," she said, "it's certainly time I got up and began to think about dressing. And we've never taken the tray down. Let me help you, Mary, like a good child."

But Mary refused help, piled the tray up competently and left the room.

Mrs. Greene found herself strangely comforted by this short and uneventful conversation. Later, as she dressed, she thought about the young Dodds and their contemporaries. They have good points, these young people, she decided finally; lots of courage and spirit; and how pleasant it is to think that I, who was brought up a model of deportment, at the end of my life should find myself able to take things in my stride.

She smiled over the phrase. Uncouth and slangy as it was, it seemed to her to show a good enough standard, and when she went downstairs she said gaily, "Roger, your wife's been teaching me modern slang and I like it."

III

The evening was a very happy one. There was a distinct air of festivity about the elderly woman and her two young companions as they sat in the restaurant enjoying dinner, liking and admiring each other and full of pleasurable anticipations of the play.

Mary looked pretty. The lamps were becomingly shaded and softened her too pronounced features. Roger's naturally sober manner never lapsed into heaviness and much of his anxiety had been allayed by the way in which his aunt had not only welcomed the news of his prospective son, but was determined to help at what was undoubtedly a crisis in his affairs. Sarah Greene was lost in the pleasure of the moment. As she looked at Roger and Mary and thought of them at Lynton, her heart was warm and her mind at peace.

"My dear children," she said towards the end of the dinner, "I'm very pleased with you both; I want you to be very happy."

"This really is a celebration," said Mary excitedly, "we are enjoying ourselves."

But Roger lifted his glass, and looking at Mrs. Greene smiled charmingly.

"I'd like you to drink to our friendship, Aunt Sarah," he said. "I'm thirty-two now, and I've appreciated you for quite twenty years. Our relationship is something I value very highly."

For a moment the emotional tension was high. Rare tears sprang to Sarah Greene's eyes.

"My dear Roger," she stammered, "my dear boy. It is so sweet of you to say that; I'm getting old and I need your affection."

She stopped uncertainly and Roger saw that her usually imperturbable face was blurred and twisted; the face of an old woman.

Before he had clearly taken in her sudden change of feature Mary intervened.

"But, Aunt Sarah, we never think of you as old; you have such a modern point of view."

Sarah Greene steadied herself and regained her normal tranquil expression.

"I must be getting old," she announced, "because you're making me feel quite sentimental. In fact the sooner we get off to the theatre the better."

She rose and went with Mary to fetch her cloak, perfectly in command of herself again, but a cold breath of foreboding had touched Roger.

All evening, at the theatre listening to the play, during the intervals while he talked to his aunt and his wife, even in the taxi driving home, he was teased by the recollection of Mrs. Greene's face. He felt as if he had been given a clue to some puzzle, but not a final clue that would unravel it.

Later, as he was falling asleep, he thought contentedly: well anyhow she'll be here for ten days; perhaps she'll tell me; I might be able to help, whatever it is.

IV

Sarah Greene wakened in the night straight from deep sleep to considerable pain.

She had wakened often these last few months to that same rending pain which numbed her elbow, ran up her under arm, stabbed fiercely at her arm-pit and concentrated itself in an agonising grasp of her left breast.

She had lain on her back panting and sweating, conscious of her heart thumping unevenly, waiting for the first moment of relief when she would be able to stretch out her hand for the opiate that was always ready by her bed: an opiate too mild to give sleep, but strong enough to dull the edge of the attack.

When this stage had been reached and she was no longer abandoned to the horror of the moment, Mrs. Greene almost invariably found herself betrayed into moments, and even hours, of pure panic, when speculation as to the nature of her disease forced itself on her reluctant mind.

Time and again she had brought herself to the point of deciding to see a specialist; time and again she had told herself that she knew what it was--cancer--and she would repeat the word, Cancer; cancer is what is wrong with you Sarah Greene; but always there had been an element of uncertainty to torment her with a hope too frail to build on but too tough to disregard.

These hours of desperate indecision had culminated at last in the appointment with Dr. Stiff, whose verdict left no loophole, as Mrs. Greene remembered when the pain began to subside.

Instead, she was conscious of a feeling of comfortable relaxation. The ugly possibility established as an inevitable fact, had lost its horror; it simply had to be accepted and dealt with.

Lying there with her face turned to the small window of Mary's spare bedroom Sarah Greene found that she was perfectly happy. Now that no further struggle was possible and that a conclusion had been reached, she had fallen into a condition of luxurious restfulness which she decided would probably last till her death, broken of course by successive bouts of pain, and by small variations of mood. But fundamentally she was at ease and likely to remain so.

A small wind blew along the street between the two rows of tall narrow houses, and fluttered the curtains at her window.

She sighed; it was a London wind; even in the cool of the autumn night long before dawn, it was a London wind. She got up restlessly, put on a dressing-gown and sat down in a chair beside the low window.

The house opposite seemed indecently near and indecently small. There could be no dignity of life in so cabined a space. Everywhere she saw a huddle of houses and chimneys. Wind blew along the street again and a casement curtain flapped out of the window opposite and filled her with distaste. It was so close to her, this grotesquely flapping piece of linen that belonged to people whose name she did not know, whose lives were alien to hers.

A sudden nostalgia for Lynton broke like a storm in her heart; Lynton where her windows looked out on lawns and fields and beech trees, and even the sky seemed more remote.

She stood up, her fingers pressed nervously on the window sill, and whispered, "I must go back to Lynton, I must go at once. It's impossible to spend a whole week in town. I'll go to-morrow."

There was a gentle knock at the door. Resentful of any intrusion she said sternly, "Come in," and waited, a rigid small figure at the window.

Roger came quietly round the door and shut it carefully.

"May I come in for a few minutes?" he asked, "Mary's asleep, but I wakened up and heard you moving about, and thought I'd like to come and talk to you. I've had a feeling all evening that there was something wrong, or not exactly wrong; I don't quite know."

He broke off uncertainly, then lifted a chair over to the window and said gently:

"Let's sit and talk for a little; will you tell me if there's anything on your mind?"

Mrs. Greene sat down again. Her resentment had died. Roger in pyjamas and dressing-gown looked young and tentative, and yet there was about him an air of steadfastness that suited the occasion. She looked at him and said lightly:

"My dear, this is a very funny scene. You and I sitting here at the window in the middle of a cold November night."

But Roger only answered:

"Don't put me off, Aunt Sarah. I feel there is something wrong, and I do want you to tell me."

She sat silent. It had never occurred to her to take anyone into her confidence; the thought of being pitied was too upsetting; but Roger was different. He would be able to help; he was strong and reliable and dignified. Supposing she told him, he would not obtrude his knowledge of her secret during the next few months, and indeed he must be fond of her, she decided, or he would never have guessed at the existence of trouble for he was not naturally intuitive.

She took a rapid decision and then spoke.

"I'm glad you came in to-night, Roger. I would like to tell you something rather important both to you and to me. I had never thought of telling, but now I feel I would like to do so."

She paused for a moment, looking down into the quiet street, and then continued:

"I saw a specialist to-day as you know, and he told me what I've feared for some months. I've got cancer, Roger dear, and they can't operate or do anything for it."

Unconsciously she tightened her grasp of his hand and hurried on. "And you see dear, I haven't much time left; only a few months in fact, and you can help me to arrange all sorts of things if you will."

She stopped, a little breathless, and looked at Roger. He was sitting very still but she could see the muscles of his throat twisting as he swallowed and swallowed again, still in silence. When at last he answered her his voice came huskily from a dry throat.

"I never guessed at anything like this, Aunt Sarah. I never dreamed of anything so terrible. I don't suppose you want me to tell you how sorry I am"--He broke off and then burst out, "It's hopelessly inadequate just to say I'm sorry; it means far more than that."

"Hush, my dear, you'll waken Mary if you talk so loud; and listen, Roger, I don't want you to feel like this. I'm an old woman and I've not got much to live for, so it seems quite natural and right to me. I don't want you to get worked up about it; I want you to help me."

"Of course I will," answered Roger. "You must tell me what to do. But you must realise, Aunt Sarah, that this is a bad knock to me; it's so awful to have you here like this, here with me now, and to know at the same time that you're so ill."

He was obviously unstrung, but Sarah Greene was too intent on her subject even to notice. Her soft untroubled voice went on:

"It isn't awful to know beforehand, Roger; it's splendid, because of Lynton. Lynton really is important, and I can make so many preparations now that I know. I'm leaving it to you, Roger--money too, of course, but that doesn't matter. It's the house and land that matter. You'll live there, you and Mary; your children will be born there, and when you die your son will have it. Are you listening Roger dear, do you understand?"

Roger relaxed his attitude of strained attention; he had caught something of the urgency of her preoccupation.

"I love Lynton," he said simply. "It will entirely change my life. You know I'm not very happy in my work and living like this, but I can be absolutely happy at Lynton, and I'll try to have things exactly as you would like them. It's absurd to thank you, Aunt Sarah; Lynton isn't a Christmas present, but I promise you I'll keep it up to standard."

"It does reassure me to hear you say that," Mrs. Greene answered happily, "I know you love it, Roger, and there will be enough money to keep it as it ought to be kept."

Her eyes were vague, her thoughts abstracted as she brooded over the years during which her life had been bound up with the life of Lynton.

"You know, I've lived there all my life," she went on, "except for the first three years after I married. There was never enough money when I was a girl; the house got shabbier and shabbier, and there were only two labourers for the gardens, and everything was over-grown; even the lawns had to be scythed and looked like rough meadows. And then I married Hugh and he loved it nearly as much as I did, and even during the three years when Mamma was still alive, he spent a little money here, and a little there, very secretly and carefully so that she shouldn't guess."

"Where were you living then, Aunt Sarah?" interrupted Roger.

"We had taken a house not far from Lynton. You know it surely; it's called Willowes, only about two miles the other side of Petworth. Of course Hugh came up to town during the week; he was very busy you know. Geoffrey had refused to go into his father's business, so Hugh stepped into old Mr. Greene's shoes when he died. I came up sometimes, but not very often. Then when Mamma died we went to live at Lynton of course, and Hugh gave me a free hand. I put the house right first; it was the easiest, but then it took a long time to work up the gardens, and the lawns didn't come right for years. And you see the tenants hadn't had anything done for them for a long time, so I had to be very judicious. The farms needed new roofs and some wanted new outbuildings, and the fences and gates were in a shocking state, but we improved it all slowly."

Mrs. Greene fell silent, thinking gratefully of all that her husband's money had been able to do for the place she loved.

"And now of course it's perfect," said Roger soberly.

She caught eagerly at the word.

"Yes, I think it is perfect, but you know it would go downhill at once if it wasn't looked after. And that's why I'm so glad to have told you all my affairs. You see dear, now I can go over everything with you, and give you all sorts of details that it would take you some time to find out for yourself, and so there need be no hitch later on when you take over."

Both were conscious that this was a reminder of the grim fact underlying the whole conversation, but to Mrs. Greene it seemed unimportant, and Roger was enough in tune with her to be able to concentrate on the one lovely aspect of the situation.

"I'd like to go with you to Lynton," he suggested.

"That's exactly what I want. I feel I must get back there at once dear. I can't stay on in town. But I don't want to hurt Mary's feelings, and I must come up again next week for Mrs. Rodney's party. What is the best thing to do?"

"Do you really want to go at once?"

"Yes, really at once. To-morrow if possible--I suppose I mean to-day------"

A sudden realisation of the time swept over Mrs. Greene.

The stars had faded and a pale dawn was creeping up the sky.

"It's cold," she said, "and it's some absurd hour in the morning. We must both go to bed. I don't know what we've been thinking of; this is all most unusual."

Roger smiled and stood up.

"I'm just going," he said, "but first about plans: We'll tell Mary that you feel it's too long to stay in town, and that you're going home to-day, and coming back next week. And I'll join you to-morrow, Saturday, and spend Sunday with you."

It was surprising that Roger should take the initiative to this extent; he seemed suddenly to have become more mature, more capable, and Sarah Greene found the effect very restful.

"Thank you, Roger dear, that will be the best possible plan," she said, enjoying to the full the rare sensation of being arranged for.

She stood up, shivering a little in the cold morning air.

"You've been the greatest comfort to me," she said, "and I don't want you to think of this talk as being at all sad. It isn't. Planning for the future is a very happy thing, and now I'm going to bed again."

Roger kissed her.

"Goodnight, my dear," he said. "Sleep well till breakfast, and rely on me. I'll take care of Lynton for you."

V

On Saturday morning a dense pearl-coloured mist rose about two feet above ground, so that walking along her familiar paths Sarah Greene experienced unfamiliar sensations. Trees and bushes seemed to balance lightly on the swimming vapour; the gentle slope up to the garden assumed a fiercer gradient; everything was wet to the touch, yet no rain fell.

At noon a watery sun gleamed fitfully through the stationary clouds, but at four o'clock when Roger drove along the beech avenue only occasional bare branches were dimly visible, and when the car turned the last corner he saw that the lovely sombre house was softly shrouded.

Mrs. Greene had spent the afternoon in a state of unreasonable disappointment. She knew that Roger had arrived at Lynton countless times in the full splendour of sunlight, but she had determined that this arrival, too, should have the benison of the sun. He was not coming this time only as Roger Dodds; he was coming as owner of Lynton who must also be lover of Lynton.

Proud and confident as she was of the irreproachable beauty of house and land, she had nevertheless set her heart on showing them off to their best advantage at this particular moment when Roger would be likely to see them from a new angle.

His first words dispelled her anxiety.

"Isn't this mist beautiful? I don't think I've ever seen the house look so lovely and mysterious."

"Does it really strike you like that? I've been feeling so cross with the weather all afternoon; I wanted sun for you, but it doesn't matter if you like this."

"I do. I think it's beautiful," repeated Roger emphatically.

"Come and have tea now," said Mrs. Greene, "and just tell me when you have to go back to town so that I can arrange everything to get the most value from your visit."

"I must go to-morrow evening about five, I'm afraid. There's a rotten slow train about then that'll do me quite well."

"Is Monday quite impossible?"

"I'm afraid it is, quite," Roger answered definitely.

"Very well, then," said Mrs. Greene. "After tea and this evening we'll devote to business. I'll get out the map of the estate and give you details about all the tenants and go over the books with you. That will leave us free really to enjoy to-morrow. I think it will be a lovely day; it often is after a mist like this, and we'll go for a long walk and have a late lunch.

"I'd like that immensely."

"We'll go down the grass walk to the lower fields where Lynton marches with Hurstfield and then home through the woods. And sometime I want you to talk to Hamilton. He's an excellent man and he can help you a great deal. I'm not quite satisfied with Parks, the second gardener. We'll ask Hamilton what he thinks of him."

"I've been thinking a lot about Lynton yesterday and to-day," said Roger, shyly, "and realising how much I like every detail. It's good the way the house stands four square to the winds, and I like the Portland stone it's built of. Really the exterior is a lovely combination of ornament and discretion. It's sound, don't you think?"

"That's exactly what your Uncle Hugh used to say," answered Mrs. Greene slowly. "Yes, it's sound. Houses are beautifully permanent, aren't they? I like to think that stone lasts, just as I like to remember that the beeches will be better for your son than they were for my grandfather. Lynton consolidates itself with every generation."

"It's a good point of view," said Roger soberly. "You know I like stability and soundness. I saw so much chaos in the war that I had a violent reaction in favour of settled traditional things. In fact I'm very conventional."

"You have to be conventional if you're going to be at all happy in the country," Mrs. Greene announced with decision. "I don't mean because of the people, though there's that too, of course. They are much more conventional than in town, and they'd be disappointed and puzzled if one didn't do certain conventional things. But I was thinking of Nature really. You'll find that the land and the woods and the gardens all proceed along the most orderly and conventional lines. Really, Roger, there are no surprises, except that every year I find the first tulips more lovely than I had remembered. But nothing bizarre ever happens. Things either go smoothly and the crops are good and the flowers do well, or else it's warm too early and we get frost in April and everything is nipped; but either way it goes by rote."

"Every word you say makes me like it all the more." Roger's face was serious. "You see I'm rather like that myself. I'm dull; I've no surprises."

Mrs. Greene attacked him hotly in his own defence.

"Really Roger, what nonsense you talk. It's ridiculous to say you're dull. I don't find you so at all, and you very often surprise me. I don't approve of your underrating yourself like that."

Roger laughed.

"I don't mean to underrate myself, but sometimes I feel I'm a dull dog."

"You never need feel that when you're with me, Roger," said Mrs. Greene, struggling to express an emotional fact in an unemotional manner. "You know how fond I am of you, my dear boy, and proud of you too. You touched me very much by what you said at dinner the other night about our friendship. I know it was quite true and genuine, and the more I think of it, the more I am glad to think of you and Mary living here."

She stood up abruptly.

"Come now, let's go and get out the books; I really have a great deal to tell you."

Late that night Sarah Greene drew back the curtains of her bedroom and looked out over the wide lawns to the formally cut box hedge beyond and to the meadows beyond that, sloping steeply up to the solitary woods.

A breeze had sprung up dispelling the mist, the heaped-up clouds were hurrying across the dark sky, and the young clear moon was unrimmed.

"To-morrow will be a wild and lovely day," she said softly, "Lynton will look its best for Roger."

Confident and contented she got into bed and slept till morning, when she wakened to just such a day as she had foretold. White clouds were still hurrying across the sky, but in between it was a deep and steady blue. Leaves were flying over the lawn; a branch had been blown off the lime tree near her window and lay untidily on the path below. Even the solid hedge yielded a little this way and that to the contrary wind.