She was swinging higher, higher, higher—swinging with that delightful rhythm that one knows best in dreams, lazily, idly, and yet with purpose and resolve. She was swinging far above the pain, the rebellion, the surrender. That was left for ever; the time of her tears, of her loneliness was over. Above her, yet distant, was a golden cloud, soft, iridescent, and in the heart of this lay, she knew, the solution of the mystery; when she reached it the puzzle would be resolved, and in a wonderful tranquillity she could rest after her journey. Nearer and nearer she swung; the cloud was a blaze of gold so that she must not look, but could feel its warmth and heat already irradiating about her. Only to know! ... to connect the two worlds, to find the bridge, to destroy the gulf!
Then suddenly the rhythm changed. She was descending again; slowly the cloud diminished, a globe of light, a ball of fire, a dazzling star. The air was cold, her eyes could not penetrate the dark; with a sigh she awoke.
It was early morning, and a filmy white shadow pervaded the room. For a moment she did not know where she was; she saw the ghostly shadows of chairs, of the chest of drawers, of a high cupboard. Then the large picture of "The Crucifixion," very, very dim, reminded her. She knew where she was; she turned and saw her husband sleeping at her side, huddled, like a child, his face on his arm, gently breathing, in the deepest sleep. She watched him. There had been a moment that night when she had hated him, hated him so bitterly that she could have fought him and even killed him. There had been another moment after that, when she had been so miserable that her own death seemed the only solution, when she had watched him tumble into sleep and had herself lain, with burning eyes and her flesh dry and hot, staring into the dark, ashamed, humiliated. Then the old Maggie had come to her rescue, the old Maggie who bade her make the best of her conditions whatever they might be, who told her there was humour in everything, hope always, courage everywhere, and that in her own inviolable soul lay her strength, that no one could defeat her did she not defeat herself.
Now, most strangely, in that early light, she felt a great tenderness for him, the tenderness of the mother for the child. She put out her hand, touched his shoulder, stroked it with her hand, laid her head against it. He, murmuring in his sleep, turned towards her, put his arm around her and so, in the shadow of his heart, she fell into deep, dreamless slumber.
At breakfast that morning she felt with him a strange shyness and confusion. She had never been shy with him before. At the very first she had been completely at her ease; that had been one of his greatest attractions for her. But now she realised that she would be for a whole fortnight alone with him, that she did not know him in the least, and that he himself was strangely embarrassed by his own discoveries that he was making.
So they, both of them, took the world that was on every side of them, put it in between them and left their personal relationship to wait for a better time.
Maggie was childishly excited. She had, for the first time in her life, a house of her own to order and arrange; by the middle of that first afternoon she had forgotten that Paul existed.
She admitted to herself at once, so that there should be no pretence about the matter, that the house was hideous. "Yes, it's hideous," she said aloud, standing in the middle of the dining-room and looking about her. It never could have been very much of a house, but they (meaning Paul and Grace) had certainly not done their best for it.
Maggie had had no education, she had not perhaps much natural taste, but she knew when things and people were sympathetic, and this house was as unsympathetic as a house could well be. To begin with, the wall-papers were awful; in the dining-room there was a dark dead green with some kind of pink flower; the drawing-room was dressed in a kind of squashed strawberry colour; the wall-paper of the staircases and passages was of imitation marble, and the three bedrooms were pink, green, and yellow, perfect horticultural shows.
It was the distinctive quality of all the wall-papers that nothing looked well against them, and the cheap reproductions in gilt frames, the religious prints, the photographs (groups of the Rev. Paul at Cambridge, at St. Ermand's Theological College, with the Skeaton Band of Hope) were all equally forlorn and out of place.
It was evident that everything in the house was arranged and intended to stay for ever where it was, the chairs against the walls, the ornaments on the mantelpieces, the photograph-frames, the plush mats, the bright red pots with ferns, the long blue vases, and yet the impression was not one of discipline and order. Aunt Anne's house had been untidy, but it had had an odd life and atmosphere of its own. This house was dead, utterly and completely dead. The windows of the dining-room looked out on to a lawn and round the lawn was a stone wall with broken glass to protect it. "As though there were anything to steal!" thought Maggie. But then you cannot expect a garden to look its best at the beginning of April. "I'll wait a little," thought Maggie. "And then I'll make this house better. I'll destroy almost everything in it."
About mid-day with rather a quaking heart Maggie penetrated the kitchen. Here were gathered together Alice the cook, Emily the housemaid, and Clara the between maid.
Alice was large, florid, and genial. Nevertheless at once Maggie distrusted her. No servant had any right to appear so wildly delighted to see a new mistress. Alice had doubtless her own plans. Emily was prim and conceited, and Clara did not exist. Alice was ready to do everything that Maggie wanted, and it was very apparent at once that she had not liked "Miss Grace."
"Ah, that'll be much better than the way Miss Grace 'ad it, Mum. In their jackets, Mum, very well. Certainly. That would be better."
"I think you'd better just give us what seems easiest for dinner, Cook," said Maggie, thereby handing herself over, delivered and bound.
"Very well, Mum—I'm sure I'll do my best," said Alice.
Early on that first afternoon she was taken to see the Church. For a desperate moment her spirits failed her as she stood at the end of the Lane and looked. This was a Church of the newest red brick, and every seat was of the most shining wood. The East End window was flaming purple, with a crimson Christ ascending and yellow and blue disciples amazed together on the ground. Paul stood flushed with pride and pleasure, his hand through Maggie's arm.
"That's a Partright window," he said with that inflection that Maggie was already beginning to think of as "his public voice."
"I'm afraid, Paul dear," said Maggie, "I'm very ignorant."
"Don't know Partright? Oh, he's the great man of the last thirty years—did the great East window of St. Martin's, Pontefract. We had a job to get him I can tell you. Just look at that purple."
"On the right you'll see the Memorial Tablet to our brave lads who fell in the South African War—Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—very appropriate. Brave fellows, brave fellows! Just behind you, Maggie, is the Mickleham Font, one of the finest specimens of modern stone-work in the county—given to us by Sir Joseph Mickleham—Mickleham Hall, you know, only two miles from here. He used to attend morning service here frequently. Died five years ago. Fine piece of work!"
Maggie looked at it. It was enormous, a huge battlement of a font in dead white stone with wreaths of carved ivy creeping about it.
"It makes one feel rather shivery," said Maggie.
"Now you must see our lectern," said Paul eagerly.
And so it continued. There was apparently a great deal to be said about the Lectern, and then about the Choir-Screen, and then about the Reredos, and then about the Pulpit, and then about the Vestry, and then about the Collecting-Box for the Poor, and then about the Hassocks, and finally about the Graveyard ... To all this Maggie listened and hoped that she made the proper answers, but the truth of the matter was that she was cold and dismayed. The Chapel had been ugly enough, but behind its ugliness there had been life; now with the Church as with the house there was no life visible. Paul, putting his hand on her shoulder, said:
"Here, darling, will be the centre of our lives. This is our temple. Round this building all our happiness will revolve."
"Yes, dear," said Maggie. She was taken then for a little walk. They went down Ivy Road and into Skeaton High Street. Here were the shops. Mr. Bloods, the bookseller's, Tunstall the butcher, Toogood the grocer, Father the draper, Minster the picture-dealer, Harcourt the haberdasher, and so on. Maggie rather liked the High Street; it reminded her of the High Street in Polchester, although there was no hill. Out of the High Street and on to the Esplanade. You should never see an Esplanade out of the season, Katherine had once said to Maggie. That dictum seemed certainly true this time. There could be no doubt that this Esplanade was not looking its best under the blustering March wind. Here a deserted bandstand, there a railway station, here a dead haunt for pierrots, there a closed and barred cinema house, here a row of stranded bathing-machines, there a shuttered tea-house—and not a living soul in sight. In front of them was a long long stretch of sand, behind them to right and left the huddled tenements of the town, in front of them, beyond the sand, the grey sea—and again not a living soul in sight. The railway line wound its way at their side, losing itself in the hills and woods of the horizon.
"There are not many people about, are there?" said Maggie. Nor could she wonder. The East wind cut along the desolate stretches of silence, and yet how strange a wind! It seemed to have no effect at all upon the sea, which rolled in sluggishly with snake-like motion, throwing up on the dim colourless beach a thin fringe of foam, baring its teeth at the world in impotent discontent.
"Oh! there's a boy!" cried Maggie, amazed at her own relief. "How often do the trains come in?" she asked.
"Well, we don't have many trains in the off-season," said Paul. "They put on several extra ones in the summer."
"Oh, what's the sand doing?" Maggie cried.
She had seen sand often enough in her own Glebeshire, but never sand like this. Under the influence of the wind it was blowing and curving into little spirals of dust; a sudden cloud, with a kind of personal animosity rose and flung itself across the rails at Maggie and Paul. They were choking and blinded—and in the distance clouds of sand rose and fell, with gusts and impulses that seemed personal and alive.
"What funny sand!" said Maggie again. "When it blows in Glebeshire it blows and there's a perfect storm. There's a storm or there isn't. Here—" She broke off. She could see that Paul hadn't the least idea of what she was speaking.
"The sand is always blowing about here," he said. "Now what about tea?"
They walked back through the High Street and not a soul was to be seen.
"Does nobody live here?" asked Maggie.
"The population," said Paul quite gravely, "is eight thousand, four hundred and fifty-four."
"Oh, I see," said Maggie.
They had tea in the dusty study again.
"I'm going to change this house," said Maggie.
"Change it?" asked Paul. "What's my little girl going to do?"
"She's going to destroy ever so many things," said Maggie.
"You'd better wait," said Paul, moving a little away, "until Grace comes back, dear. You can consult with her."
Maggie said nothing.
Next day Mrs. Constantine, Miss Purves, and Mrs. Maxse came to tea.
They had tea in the drawing-room all amongst the squashed strawberries.
Three large ferns in crimson pots watched them as they ate. Maggie
thought: "Grace seems to have a passion for ferns." She had been
terribly nervous before the ladies' arrival—that old nervousness that
had made her tremble before Aunt Anne at St. Dreot's, before the
Warlocks, before old Martha. But with it came as always her sense of
independence and individuality.
"They can't eat me," she thought. It was obvious at once that they did not want to do anything of the kind. They were full of kindness and curiosity. Mrs. Constantine took the lead, and it was plain that she had been doing this all her life. She was a large black and red woman with clothes that fitted her like a uniform. Her hair was of a raven gleaming blackness, her cheeks were red, her manner so assured and commanding that she seemed to Maggie at once like a policeman directing the traffic. The policeman of Christian Skeaton she was, and it did not take Maggie two minutes to discover that Paul was afraid of her. She had a deep bass voice and a hearty laugh.
"I can understand her," thought Maggie, "and I believe she'll understand me."
Very different Miss Purves. If Mrs. Constantine was the policeman of Skeaton, Miss Purves was the town-crier. She rang her bell and announced the news, and also insisted that you should tell her without delay any item of news that you had collected.
In appearance she was like any old maid whose love of gossip has led her to abandon her appearance. She had obviously surrendered the idea of attracting the male, and flung on her clothes—an old black hat, a grey coat and skirt—with a negligence that showed that she cared for worthier things. She gave the impression that there was no time to be lost were one to gather all the things in life worth hearing.
If Mrs. Constantine stood for the police and Miss Purves the town-crier, Mrs. Maxse certainly represented Society. She was dressed beautifully, and she must have been very pretty once. Her hair was now grey, but her cheeks had still a charming bloom. She was delicate and fragile, rustling and scented, with a beautiful string of pearls round her neck (this, in the daytime, Maggie thought very odd), and a large black hat with a sweeping feather. Her voice was a little sad, a little regretful, as though she knew that her beautiful youth was gone and was making the best of what she had.
She told Maggie that "she couldn't help" being an idealist.
"I know it's foolish of me," she said in her gentle voice, smiling her charming smile. "They all tell me so. But if life isn't meant to be beautiful, where are we? Everything must have a meaning, mustn't it, Mrs. Trenchard, and however often we fail—and after all we are only human—we must try, try again. I believe in seeing the best in people, because then they live up to that. People are what we make them, don't you think?"
"The woman's a fool," thought Maggie. Nevertheless, she liked her kindness. She was so strangely driven. She wished to think of Martin always, never to forget him, but at the same time not to think of the life that was connected with him. She must never think of him as some one who might return. Did that once begin all this present life would be impossible—and she meant to make this new existence not only possible but successful. Therefore she was building, so hard as she could, this new house; the walls were rising, the rooms were prepared, every window was barred, the doors were locked, no one from outside should enter, and everything that belonged to it—Paul, Grace, the Church, these women, Skeaton itself, her household duties, the servants, everything and every one was pressed into service. She must have so much to do that she could not think, she must like every one else so much that she could not want any one else—that other world must be kept out, no sound nor sight of it must enter ... If even she could forget Martin. What had he said to her. "Promise me whatever I am, whatever I do, you will love me always"—and she had promised. Here she was married to Paul and loving Martin more than ever! As she looked at Mrs. Constantine she wondered what she would say did she know that. Nevertheless, she had not deceived Paul ... She had told him. She would make this right. She would force this life to give her what she needed, work and friends and a place in the world. Her face a little white with her struggle to keep her house standing, she turned to her guests. She was afraid that she did not play the hostess very well. She felt as though she were play-acting. She repeated phrases that she had heard Katherine Mark use, and laughed at herself for doing so. She suspected that they thought her very odd, and she fancied that Mrs. Constantine looked at her short hair with grave suspicion.
Afterwards, when she told Paul this, he was rather uncomfortable.
"It'll soon be long again, dear, won't it?" he said.
"Don't you like it short then?" she asked.
"Of course I like it, but there's no reason to be unusual, is there? We don't want to seem different from other people, do we, darling?"
"I don't know," said Maggie. "We want to be ourselves. I don't think I shall ever grow my hair long again. It's so much more comfortable like this."
"If I ask you, dear," said Paul.
"No, not even if you ask me," she answered, laughing.
She noticed then, for the first time, that he could look sulky like a small school-boy.
"Why, Paul," she said. "If you wanted to grow a beard I shouldn't like it, but I shouldn't dream of stopping you."
"That's quite different," he answered. "I should never dream of growing a beard. Grace won't like it if you look odd."
"Grace isn't my teacher," said Maggie with a sudden hot hostility that surprised herself.
She discovered, by the way, very quickly that the three ladies had no very warm feelings for Grace. They showed undisguised pleasure at the thought that Maggie would now be on various Committees instead of her sister-in-law.
"It will be your place, of course, as wife of the vicar," said Mrs. Constantine. "Hitherto Miss Trenchard—"
"Oh, but I couldn't be on a Committee," cried Maggie. "I've never been on one in my life. I should never know what to do."
"Never been on a Committee!" cried Miss Purves, quivering with interest. "Why, Mrs. Trenchard, where have you been all this time?"
"I'm only twenty," said Maggie. They certainly thought it strange of her to confess to her age like that. "At home father never had any Committees, he did it all himself, or rather didn't do it."
Mrs. Constantine shook her head. "We must all help you," she said. "You're very young, my dear, for the responsibilities of this parish."
"Yes, I am," said Maggie frankly. "And I'll be very glad of anything you can tell me. But you mustn't let me be Treasurer or Secretary of anything. I should never answer any of the letters, and I should probably spend all the money myself."
"My dear, you shouldn't say such things even as a joke," said Mrs. Constantine.
"But it isn't a joke," said Maggie. "I'm terribly muddleheaded, and I've no idea of money at all. Paul's going to teach me."
Paul smiled nervously.
"Maggie will soon fit into our ways," he said.
"I'm sure she will." said Mrs. Constantine very kindly, but as though she were speaking to a child of ten.
The bell rang and Mr. Flaunders the curate came in. He was very young, very earnest, and very enthusiastic. He adored Paul. He told Maggie that he thought that he was the very luckiest man in the world for having, so early in his career, so wonderful a man as Paul to work under. He had also adored Grace, but very quickly showed signs of transferring that adoration to Maggie.
"Miss Trenchard's splendid," he said. "I do admire her so, but you'll be a great help to us all. I'm so glad you've come."
"Why, how do you know?" asked Maggie. "You've only seen me for about two minutes."
"Ah, one can tell," said Mr. Flaunders, sighing.
Maggie liked his enthusiasm, but she couldn't help wishing that his knees wouldn't crack at unexpected moments, that he wasn't quite so long and thin, and that he wouldn't leave dried shaving-soap under his ears and in his nostrils. She was puzzled, too, that Paul should be so obviously pleased with the rather naif adoration. "Paul likes you to praise him," she thought a little regretfully.
So, for the moment, these people, the house and the Church, fitted in her World. For the rest of the fortnight she was so busy that she never went on to the beach nor into the woods. She shopped every morning, feeling very old and grown-up, she went to tea with Mrs. Constantine and Mrs. Maxse, and she sat on Paul's knee whenever she thought that he would like her to. She sat on Paul's knee, but that did not mean that, in real intimacy, they approached any nearer to one another. During those days they stared at one another like children on different sides of a fence. They were definitely postponing settlement, and with every day Maggie grew more restless and uneasy. She wanted back that old friendly comradeship that there had been before their marriage. He seemed now to have lost altogether that attitude to her. Then on the very day of Grace's return the storm broke. It was tea-time and they were having it, as usual, in his dusty study. They were sitting someway apart—Paul in the old leather armchair by the fire, his thick body stretched out, his cheerful good-humoured face puckered and peevish.
Maggie stood up, looking at him.
"Paul, what's the matter?" she asked.
"Matter," he repeated. "Nothing."
"Oh yes, there is ... You're cross with me."
"No, I'm not. What an absurd idea!" He moved restlessly, turning half away, not looking at her. She came close up to him.
"Look here, Paul. There is something the matter. We haven't been married a fortnight yet and you're unhappy. Whatever else we married for we married because we were going to be friends. So you've just got to tell me what the trouble is."
"I've got my sermon to prepare," he said, not looking at her, but half rising in his chair. "You'd better go, darling."
"I'm not going to," she answered, "until you've told me why you're worrying."
He got up slowly and seemed then as though he were going to pass her. Suddenly he turned, flung his arms round her, catching her, crushing her in his arms, kissing her wildly.
"Love ... love me ... love me," he whispered. "That's what's the matter. I didn't know myself before I married you, Maggie. All these years I've lived like a fish and I didn't know it. But I know it now. And you've got to love me. You're my wife and you've got to love me."
She would have given everything that she had then to respond. She felt an infinite tenderness and pity for him. But she could not. He felt that she could not. He let her go and turned away from her. She thought for a moment wondering what she ought to say, and then she came up to him and gently put her hand on his shoulder.
"Be patient, Paul," she said. "You know we agreed before we married that we'd be friends at any rate and let the rest come. Wait ..."
"Wait!" he turned round eagerly, clutching her arm. "Then there is a chance, Maggie? You can get to love me—you can forget that other man?"
She drew back. "No, you know I told you that I should never do that. But he'll never come back nor want me again and I'm very fond of you, Paul—fonder than I thought. Don't spoil it all now by going too fast—"
"Going too fast!" he laughed. "Why, I haven't gone any way at all. I haven't got you anywhere. I can hardly touch you. You're away from me all the time. You're strange—different from every one ..."
"I don't know anything about women. I've learnt a lot about myself this week. It isn't going to be as easy as I thought."
She went up to him, close to him, and said almost desperately: "We MUST make this all right, Paul. We can if we try. I know we can."
He kissed her gently with his old kindness. "What a baby you are. You didn't know what you were in for ... Oh, we'll make it all right."
They sat close together then and drank their tea. After all, Grace would be here in an hour! They both felt a kind of relief that they would no longer be alone.
Grace would be here in an hour! Strange how throughout all these last days Maggie had been looking forward to that event with dread. There was no definite reason for fear; in London Grace had been kindness itself and had shown real affection for Maggie. Within the last week she had written two very affectionate letters. What was this, then, that hung and hovered? It was in the very air of the house and the garden and the place. Grace had left her mark upon everything and every one, even upon the meagre person of Mitch the dog. Especially upon Mitch, a miserable creeping fox-terrier with no spirits and a tendency to tremble all over when you called him. He had attached himself to Maggie, which was strange, because animals were not, as a rule, interested in her. Mitch followed her about, looking up at her with a yellow supplicating eye. She didn't like him and she would be glad when Grace collected him again—but why did he tremble?
She realised, in the way that she had of seeing further than her nose, that Grace was going to affect the whole of her relations with Paul, and, indeed, all her future life. She had not realised that in London. Grace had seemed harmless there and unimportant. Already here in Skeaton she seemed to stand for a whole scheme of life.
Maggie had moved and altered a good many of the things in the house. She had discovered a small attic, and into this she had piled pell-mell a number of photographs, cheap reproductions, cushions, worsted mats, and china ornaments. She had done it gaily and with a sense of clearing the air.
Now as Grace's hour approached she was not so sure.
"Well, I'm not afraid," she reassured herself with her favourite defiance. "She can't eat me. And it's my house."
Paul had not noticed the alterations. He was always blind to his surroundings unless they were what he called "queer."
There was the rattle of the cab-wheels on the drive and a moment later Grace was in the hall.
"Dear Paul—Maggie, dear ..."
She stood there, a very solid and assured figure. She was square and thick and reminded Maggie to-day of Mrs. Noah; her clothes stood cut out around her as though they had been cut in wood. She had her large amiable smile, and the kiss that she gave Maggie was a wet, soft, and very friendly one.
"Now I think I'll have tea at once without taking my hat off. In Paul's study? That's nice ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Such a journey! But astonishing! Just fancy! I got into Charing Cross and then—! Why! Here's the study! Fancy! ... Maggie, dear, how are you? Well? That's right. Why, there's tea! That's right. Everything just as it was. Fancy! ..." She took off her gloves, smiled, seated herself more comfortably, then began to look about the room. Suddenly there came: "Why, Paul, where's the Emmanuel football group?"
There was a moment's silence. Maggie felt her heart give a little bump, as it seemed to her, right against the roof of her mouth. Paul (so like him) had not noticed that the football group had vanished. He stared at the blank place on the wall where it had once been.
"Why, Grace ... I don't know. I never noticed it wasn't there."
"I took it down," said Maggie. "I thought there were too many photographs. It's in the attic."
"In the attic? ... Fancy! You put it away, did you, Maggie? Well, fancy! Shan't I make the tea, Maggie, dear? That tea-pot, it's an old friend of mine. I know how to manage it."
They changed seats. Grace was as amiable as ever, but now her eyes flashed about from place to place all around the room.
"Why, this is a new kind of jam. How nice! As I was saying, I got into Charing Cross and there wasn't a porter. Just fancy! At least there was a porter, an old man, but when I beckoned to him he wouldn't move. Well, I was angry. I can tell you, Paul, I wasn't going to stand that, so I-what nice jam, dear. I never knew Mitchell's had jam like this!"
"I didn't get it at Mitchell's," said Maggie. "I've changed the grocer. Mitchell hasn't got anything, and his prices are just about double Brownjohn's ..."
"Brownjohn!" Grace stared, her bread and jam suspended. "Brownjohn! But, Maggie dear, he's a dissenter."
"Oh. Maggie!" said Paul. "You should have told me!"
"Why!" said Maggie, bewildered. "Father never minded about dissenters. Our butcher in St. Dreot's was an atheist and—"
"Well, well," said Grace, her eyes still flashing about like goldfish in a pool. "You didn't know, dear. Of course you didn't. I'm sure we can put it right with Mitchell, although he's a sensitive man. I'll go and see him in the morning. I am glad I'm back. Well, I was telling you ... Where was I? ... about the porter—"
Something drove Maggie to say:
"I'd rather have a good grocer who's a dissenter than a bad one who goes to church—"
"Maggie," said Paul, "you don't know what you're saying. You don't realise what the effect in the parish would be."
"Of course she doesn't," said Grace consolingly. "She'll understand in time. As I was saying, I was so angry that I caught the old man by the arm and I said to him, 'If you think you're paid to lean up against a wall and not do your duty you're mightily mistaken, and if you aren't careful I'll report you—that's what I'll do,' and he said—what were his exact words? I'll remember in a minute. I know he was very insulting, and the taxi-cabman—why, Paul, where's mother's picture?"
Grace's eyes were directed to a large space high above the mantelpiece. Maggie remembered that there had been a big faded oil-painting of an old lady in a shawl and spectacles, a hideous affair she had thought it. That was now reposing in the attic. Why had she not known that it was a picture of Paul's mother? She would never have touched it had she known. Why had Paul said nothing? He had not even noticed that it was gone.
Paul stared, amazed and certainly—yes, beyond question—frightened.
"Grace—upon my word—I've been so busy since my return—"
"Is that also in the attic?" asked Grace.
"Yes, it is," said Maggie. "I'm so sorry. I never knew it was your mother. It wasn't a very good painting I thought, so I took it down. If I had known, of course, I never would have touched it. Oh Grace, I AM so sorry."
"It's been there," said Grace, "for nearly twenty years. What I mean to say is that it's always been there. Poor mother. Are there many things in the attic, Maggie?"
At that moment there was a feeble scratching on the door. Paul, evidently glad of anything that would relieve the situation, opened the door.
"Why, it's Mitch!" cried Grace, forgetting for the moment her mother. "Fancy! It's Mitch! Mitch, dear! Was she glad to see her old friend back again? Was she? Darling! Fancy seeing her old friend again? Was she wanting her back?"
Mitch stood shivering in the doorway, then, with her halting step, the skin of her back wrinkled with anxiety, she crossed the room. For a moment she hesitated, then with shamefaced terror, slunk to Maggie, pressed up against her, and sat there huddled, staring at Grace with yellow unfriendly eyes.
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