herbaceous borders, but you can. And so many of them are making rock-gardens, and you're expected to poise on boulders and be intelligent. . . . The Maynards spare one nothing. We trailed, quite a party of us, along hot ashy paths, while Mrs. Maynard pointed out how large this blossom was, and what a wonderful colour the other. . . . I managed to ooze away before we reached the vegetables, and rushed home hoping to have tea with the children, but some people arrived--Americans--Doria Manson brought them. They asked to see over the house, and were nice, and interested, but it took so long that I only saw the babes at bed-time. . . . After dinner I sat here and wrote letters--worked off quite a heap--and thought of you in airless, August London.'
Her husband lit a cigarette and remarked: 'It's a very good imitation of the Sahara.'
'And poor Tim lying in that grim Home!' Jean went on. 'I do think if he would only make the effort and come here it would do him good. He could come in an ambulance with his own nurse, and he'd have perfect quiet. This house is so big the noise of the children would never reach him. And at least he would smell roses instead of disinfectants. Don't you think you could persuade him, Biddy?'
Lord Bidborough smoked for a minute in silence.
'No,' he said at last, 'he won't come here. I did suggest it, but I don't think he even listened. He was too full of his own plan. Yes. Something--nobody seems to know what--has roused him from the state of apathy he's been lying in all these weeks. He's taken the most tremendous desire to be on a ship. He would be well, he thinks, if he could wake up and hear the water swishing past. And of course the doctors are only too glad to encourage him in his idea.'
Jean lifted a delighted face to her husband.
'Why, Biddy, that's splendid news! It means that now he will recover, for the sun and the sea will do wonders for him. Of course he'll take a nurse with him, and a doctor too, if he's wise. Oh, Biddy, how glad you must be! And I was thinking from something in your voice that he must be worse.'
Lord Bidborough carefully placed the end of his cigarette in an ashtray as he said: 'You haven't heard it all. Tim's idea is not only to get away from London--you can't wonder he loathes the place--but to get away also from doctors and nurses and everything that would remind him of his illness.'
'But he can't go alone,' Jean said, her hands clenching in her lap.
'No,' said her husband, 'he can't go alone; he wants me to go with him.' He got up and looked out of the window, and came back and sat down beside Jean.
'. . . You know how desperately unselfish Tim always was, never thought half enough about himself, but now it didn't seem to occur to him that I'd even hesitate. As a matter of fact I believe he's forgotten the years between, forgotten your existence and the children's; to him there's only the two of us again--and he needs me.'
Jean leant forward and straightened a rose in a bowl on the gate-table. Presently she said:
'Tim is quite right to forget everything but that, Biddy: I'd hate that he should remember me as an obstacle and a hindrance. Of course you must go with him. Will it--will it be for long?'
'All winter, I'm afraid. The doctors are keen on a long voyage, and he mustn't be back in England until spring. His own idea is to go to Canada, then on to New Zealand. . . . Of course if he improved rapidly I might be able to leave him, but----'
There was silence in the room. Lord Bidborough smoked by the open window, staring at a scene he did not see, while Jean gradually realised what this would mean. She grudged even a day away from Biddy, and this would mean a whole winter out of their lives. A winter. Summer was delicious, but it was a restless time: they were much away, and when at home streams of people came and went. Winter was their own. How she loved the falling of the leaves, the first frosty mornings, the chilly grey-blue mists at twilight, the whistling wind! Mintern Abbas was such a perfect place in winter, she thought, so cunningly lighted; warm, with central heating for comfort and huge log fires for show; smelling deliciously of apples and chrysanthemums and burning wood.
The burden of a great house lay but lightly on Jean's shoulders. True, Miss Hart, the housekeeper, kept her place less because of her efficiency than because her mistress's heart was tender. She sat in her room and wrestled with accounts, but the house was really run by Mrs. Watts, the cook. Not only did Mrs. Watts keep everything going smoothly indoors, her beneficent influence extended to the village, where she was everyone's friend and comfort. Very large, very placid, nothing upset her, nothing was a trouble. She spoke little but listened with intelligence. With two such women as Mrs. Watts and Ninny, Jean always felt that she was armed against all slings and arrows of domestic misfortune. They had made such plans for the winter, she and Ninny and Mrs. Watts, plans to give every one a good time. . . . Already Jean was looking forward to the Christmas Tree and storing away gifts for it. . . . And the gully below the lily-pond that she and Biddy had meant to work at in the autumn and transform. And the--Oh, but there were a hundred things that would not be worth doing if Biddy were away. . . .
And as Jean realised all it meant she drooped so pathetically that her husband cried:
'Don't look like that, Jean, girl. After all, it mayn't be for long. I may be home for Christmas.'
Jean sat up straight, and, though her face looked pinched, she smiled bravely.
'Of course you may,' she said. 'Why, this is only August. When d'you sail?'
'Oh, there's nothing fixed. I had to see you first, of course. Probably September. I suppose I ought to be jolly glad to get the chance to do something for Tim, and I am glad, but----'
'There are no buts, Biddy. I'm glad, too. It was just when I remembered all we'd planned for next winter. . . . But we'll do them yet--if we're spared. (Great-Aunt Alison always made us add that. Why, I don't know, because if we weren't spared no one would expect us to do anything!) Anyway, nothing would have been much fun with Tim lying lonely and ill. That he should get strong again is what matters most. And now, let's go to the Crow-Wood where the babes are picnicking, and let's try to forget that there are such things as partings in the world.'
She took his hand and they went out together.
CHAPTER II
'Women never have half an hour that they can call their own.'
Florence Nightingale.
'Biddy,' Jean said to her husband as they sat at breakfast next morning, 'Biddy, let's get all the plans for your going away made at once, and then we can banish the thought of it, so that the time we have together won't be spoiled.'
'All right, darling. There'll be the deuce of a lot to arrange. . . . Sausage? Bacon? Mushroom omelette? Cold ham?'
'Sausage, please. Yes, a tiny bit of bacon. One thing I know, you won't taste anything so good as sausages made by Mrs. Watts till you get home again.'
Lord Bidborough came back from the sideboard and sat down to enjoy his breakfast, remarking as he unfolded his napkin, 'That's a true word. But to me everything at Mintern Abbas is perfect, so whatever the wide world has to offer me will be second best.'
'Very nicely said, but it's the wrong spirit to go travelling in. Besides, you know you love wandering. Confess that the very idea of taking a steamer ticket thrills you! It always amazes me that you're content to be a stay-at-home. Have I tethered
