An Unofficial rose

Chapter Ten

'HUMPHREY is so disappointed, said Mildred. 'It seems that young Pe

She was drinking sherry with Hugh at his flat in Brompton Square.

It was raining a little and the great dome of Brompton Oratory could be seen standing out against a grey sky which intermittent sunshine made to glow with an u

Since her remarks to Humphrey on the subject of Hugh, Mildred's imagination had been active. She was indeed surprised and almost pla

But since she had, with a gay casualness which was not at the time quite misleading, summed up these ideas for the benefit of her husband, she had been startled by the growth of a much more positive need. It was as if saying these things had in itself set something off. She had, through the years, grown used to imperfect sympathies. Her intimacy with Humphrey lacked warmth, her intimacy with Felix, owing to his peculiar muteness, lacked detail. Her daughter, whom she secretly admired, was now almost a stranger. She had for long had, she reflected, no one to whom she could open her heart. And with surprise, fear and joy she noted now the extent to which, after all, she still had a heart. She, the clever, capable, sardonic Mildred Finch, the elderly philosophical Mildred, so very much the mistress of herself, the captain of her very private soul, was shaken. It was, she thought, almost as if she were falling in love. And then she thought, but I am falling in love!

When she had thus put it she felt so pleased with herself that it almost put her anxieties at rest. She had said to Humphrey that she wanted the impossible, to have her youth back. Yet in a sense these feelings were the very stuff of youth and their occurrence again, after so many years of quietness, seemed a sort of miracle. That she would, so inspired, be able, as she had put it to Humphrey, to 'bring Hugh up to it', she had little doubt, though she was cheerfully vague about what 'it' was towards which Hugh was so shortly to be elevated. For the present her own state of mental activity so much gratified her that she felt that if Hugh would only acquiesce she had love enough for both. All the same, she waited with increasing nervousness for his promised summons, and when it came; and when she stood at last outside his door, she found herself trembling like a young girl.

As she looked round Hugh's drawing-room, which she had not visited now for some time, she reflected how delicious it was to have him a bachelor once again. She had been used to come to these rooms to take tea with Fa

She felt delightfully at home in Hugh's drawing-room, and reflecting on this she felt how few places there now were where she did feel warmly and positively at home. Even her special boudoir at Seton Blaise, or the library at Cadogan Place; or Felix's rooms in Ebury Street, had not this quality of receiving her and soothing her spirit. She felt completely at ease. She felt as if, already, she a little bit owned the place. As she looked round at the familiar objects they looked at her with new obedient faces: the walnut writing-table, the oval card table with the alabaster vase, the pair of Kazak rugs, the green glass shell from Murano which Fa

Most of all the Tintoretto glowed upon her with a jewelled beneficence. It lighted the room now, like a small sun. It was not a very large picture: it represented a naked woman and was almost certainly an earlier version of the figure of Susa

'There was in Mildred's apprehension of the things about her nothing grossly predatory. They were like servants who run ahead of their master, symbols of a presence, almost sacraments. And still half amused at finding herself so elevated Mildred turned her gaze again to the worried preoccupied infinitely to-be-Iooked-after bald-headed Hugh. Slow old Hugh, she thought, and her heart dissolved in tenderness. Mine.

In answer to Mildred's question about Pe

Mildred looked at Hugh affectionately and patted her fluffy pepper coloured hair into place. Her mind reverted to Felix and his problem, a matter which had also considerably occupied her imagination. She had expressed to Felix a 'confidence' in Randall; but she had discovered nothing since to increase her hopes of Randall's positively 'going off'.

It was obvious that Hugh really knew nothing about what A

'No, said Hugh. He seemed unable to keep his mind on these topics and answered in a distracted ma

'Do you think now he'll stay in London? said Mildred. 'I mean, he must have a girl friend here or something.

'A girlfriend? said Hugh. 'I've no idea. I don't know what he does. Mildred groaned to herself. Hugh was always the last person to hear the gossip which concerned him most. Yet she loved this in him, his inability to attract gossip. There was, in his obliviousness, in his litter failure to discover what was going on, a kind of positively beautiful stupidity.