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“Well, I was passing-”
“How did you know there was anything to pass, or anyone to come and see? Did you know my father and mother? If it was my father, Aunt Lydia wouldn’t be at all pleased. She has always been angry because my mother was a girl, and because my father wouldn’t change his name when he married her. If he had, we should have been Crewes and carried on the family, and now there’s no one. It makes her wild to think of Maxwells living in Crewe House, so perhaps she’ll just leave it to the nation, and Rosamond and I won’t have anywhere to go-like Vera Vavasour and her child in Passionate Hearts. Have you read Passionate Hearts? It’s by Gloria Gilmore.”
“I don’t think I have.”
“Oh, you would know if you had. It’s marvellous! I cried so much over the seventeenth chapter that Rosamond took it away. But she had to give it back again, because I wouldn’t stop crying until she did!”
He controlled his face.
“Why do women always like something that makes them cry?”
He had nearly said girls, but perceived that it would have been a mistake. Je
“That’s the sort of thing you like?”
She was flushed and eager.
“Oh, yes! Haven’t you read any of them?”
He shook his head.
“They’re not very much in my line.”
“What a pity! They’re lovely! But it’s so fu
So Rosamond was not responsible for Gloria Gilmore. He experienced a ridiculous sense of relief. As he enquired, “Who is Nicholas?” Je
“Cu
“He is a friend of yours?”
She sat up straight and pulled in her chin.
“I used to think he was, but now I’m not so sure-because of his giving in to Rosamond like that. He’s in love with her, you know. At least I suppose he is, because he looks at her that way, and it’s all right in a book. Gloria Gilmore and Mavis la Rue make it sound lovely, but when it’s someone you thought was your friend, and then you find out he is nothing but a trampled worm, it just looks sloppy.”
So Nicholas was sloppy about Rosamond. Craig was finding Miss Je
“There’s a general consensus of opinion that people in love are apt to look silly-except to each other.”
“Rosamond isn’t in love,” said Je
Craig laughed.
“Cheer up-it will pass! ‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure’.”
She made a child’s face at him.
“That’s what people always say about the things they don’t have to put up with themselves! What was I saying? Oh, about Henry Cu
It was at this rather embarrassing moment that Rosamond Maxwell opened the door. Her quiet ma
“My aunt would very much like to see you, Mr. Lester.”
Je
“What on earth for! He’s come to see me, hasn’t he!”
“I’ll bring him back, Je
Je
A little way along the passage he stopped.
“She seems to think I’m a doctor.”
Rosamond said, “Oh-” And, “You haven’t talked to her then?”
“Oh, yes, we’ve talked.”
He wondered what she would say if she knew how frank that talk had been.
“But not about her writing-”
“Mostly about how much she admires the great works of Miss Gloria Gilmore.”
Rosamond threw up a hand.
“What can I do! She does love them so, and they are really quite harmless. It is Nicholas Cu
He made a wry face.
“Children like sugar.”
Her smile came and went. It was a little tremulous.
“Don’t say that to Je
She took him along to the door which she had opened before, went a little way in, stood aside for him to pass her, and said,
“Mr. Lester, Aunt Lydia.”
He was never to forget his first impression of Miss Crewe’s room. At a glance two things emerged-it was grey, and it was crowded. He was to discover later on that the original colour of the hangings, the striped wall-paper and the faintly patterned carpet had been a delicate shade of blue. Under this light and lapse of years they were now as grey as dust. And so was Miss Lydia herself.