together and hug our delicious solitude. We often laughed, your father and I, at our own unsociableness, and then our consciences would prick us and we would invite a lot of people to stay, and ask people to meet them, and work hard to entertain them and enjoy it all quite immensely. But when the last guest departed what thankful sighs we heaved! Once more the place was our own. It wasn’t that we were inhospitable so much as that we were so happy alone we couldn’t bear to spoil it.”
The very thinking of past happiness, the telling of it, had changed Lady Jane. Her blue eyes, that looked as if the colour had been washed out with much weeping, deepened and brightened, a flush that was almost girlish came into her thin cheeks; she smiled tenderly.
“But, Aunt Jane, you did sometimes go away from home,” her niece reminded her. “I can remember you and Uncle Walter setting off, rather like two victims mounting the tumbril, to pay visits. We children were quite pleased to be without you for a little, for we had always a lot of nefarious schemes in our heads that needed your absence for accomplishment, but we soon got tired of it and welcomed you back with joy. Nicole, do you remember when Ronnie locked Johnson into his own pantry and lost the key? And the day when Mrs. Asprey said Archie might have one bun out of the batch she was baking if he would go out of the kitchen, and instead, he took a bite out of each!”
“And the strawberry-wine we made,” said Nicole, “and the feasts. I don’t think they ever told of us when you came home, did they, Mums?—about all our ill-done deeds?”
Lady Jane shook her head. “They wouldn’t have done anything to spoil my home-coming. . . . When we went away on a visit I always looked up the train we would come home by before we left, and that somehow seemed to make the time shorter, and anchor me to you all. Of course it was quite different when we took you all with us, our glorious holidays in Switzerland . . . and when we had the fishing in Norway. . . . Don’t let me grumble. For more than twenty years my life was altogether lovely. I’ve had far more than most people. Why, I’ve no right to complain though I should never have another happy minute. It’s as you say, Nikky, we must plan what we are to do. The sight of Mrs. Jackson has made me realise things. Do you think, Barbara dear, you could make me understand just where we stand? You have got such a much tidier mind than I have, and I get so confused when Mr. Haynes explains things, though I’m sure the poor man is most lucid.”
Barbara settled herself at her aunt’s feet and tried to make her see the situation so far as the lawyer had made it plain to her, and Lady Jane fixed her eyes on her instructor like a child anxious to please, but when Barbara stopped, she sighed.
“It sounds very complicated,” she said, “though you do explain very nicely, Babs dear. Then, what exactly have we got to live on?”
“That depends,” said Barbara, “on how things go—on Mrs. Jackson, perhaps. But you will have quite a good income, and Nicole, of course, has her own money from Grandfather. What does it bring you in, Nik? about £500 a year? And I have about the same, so we aren’t exactly penniless, dearest.”
“Yes—but—if we have a good income, why need we leave Rutherfurd? If we lived very simply and spent almost nothing. . . .”
Nicole took her mother’s hand and kissed it. “You want both to have your cake and eat it, my dear. Your income will come largely from the sale of it. We can’t run Rutherfurd on a few hundreds a year. Think of servants’ wages alone! No, I’m afraid there is nothing for it but to leave our Eden, and the question is, where are we to go? The whole wide world is before us. What are your ideas on the subject, Babs?”
“I haven’t any. So long as I am with you two I don’t much care where it is. What about a flat in London? . . .”
“A flat?” said Nicole. “Somewhere in Kensington, I suppose? I’ve got very little idea of how much money one needs to do things well, but I fear our combined incomes wouldn’t go far in the way of a fashionable flat. Besides—would Mother like being cooped up in town? I doubt it. For myself I couldn’t stand more than a month or two of London at a time, and it’s not a place to be poor in.”
“We might travel for a bit,” Barbara suggested.
“We might!” Nicole agreed. She had perched herself on the arm of her mother’s chair. “What about going round the world? I read in the ‘personal’ column of the Times the other day that a General, a K.C.B., was offering to take a party round the world at £950 a head, or something like that. Can’t you see us staggering about Japan with the K.C.B.!—Babs, Mother smiled. Did you see? Well, you made a very good impression on Mrs. Jackson, anyway, Mums.”
“Nonsense, Nicole.”
“Oh, I assure you, as she left she said to me, ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you, and I just love your mother.’ After all my unwearied efforts to be nice to her and show her everything, it was galling to see you romp in and win her approval with no trouble at all. Why are mothers always nicer than their daughters? If this deterioration goes on, if every daughter is inferior in every way to her mother, what of the future of the British Race? I confess it weighs on me a good deal. But, seriously, Mums, what would you like to do? Now, don’t say you don’t care, you’re bound to have some preference.”
“I haven’t, my dear, you must believe me when I say it. I shall be happy if you are happy. We must see to it that we go to a place where you and Babs can have a good time. Nancy Gordon—did you read her letter?—suggests that we go to them in Somerset. She says the dower-house is empty, and Tom would gladly let us have it. Nancy lives in a constant whirl of entertaining, so you wouldn’t be dull. Then, Aunt Constance wants us to go to her at once. She says Ormhurst feels so large and empty now, that it would be a real kindness to go and help to fill it. Constance was always my favourite sister. . . . But, perhaps—d’you think—we’d better have a place of our own?”
“Yes,” said Nicole. “I doubt if it would be wise to plant ourselves on friends or relations, no matter how willing they are. They might easily tire of us or we of them. We must make our own niche. I’ve been thinking”—she looked from her mother to her cousin with a quick laughing glance—“I’ve been thinking that since Mrs. Jackson and her kind are all rising in the world, they must be leaving vacant places. Well, why shouldn’t we, ousted from our own place, take theirs? Why shouldn’t we become dwellers in a suburban villa, and taste the pleasures of suburban society? I think myself it would be highly interesting.”
“Interesting!” Barbara ejaculated, but Nicole hurried on. “I don’t mean, of course, that we should go making a fuss about ourselves. The time for that is past. Pooh-Bah could no longer dance at middle-class parties—for a consideration. There are none so low now as do us reverence! You and I, Mums, would get on all right, but Barbara”—she glanced affectionately at her cousin—“is so hopelessly aristocratic.”
Barbara flushed, for she knew that what her cousin said was true. Social distinctions meant almost nothing to Nicole; to Barbara they stood for much. Nicole never thought of her position; Barbara gloried in belonging to Rutherfurd. When they were all children together they had played with other children about the place. There had been quite a colony of large families belonging to servants on the estate, and they had had splendid games. But Barbara had always been the Little Lady from the Big House, had held herself aloof, allowed no familiarities. Her cousins were different, their whole hearts were in the play, they had no thought of themselves. Barbara often felt that Nicole should have been the Burt, and she the daughter of a hundred earls. To see Nicole playing at “houses” with a shawl wrapped round her supporting a doll, as she saw cottage-women carrying their babies, making believe to stir porridge in a pot while she addressed her playmates in broadest Border Scots! It had been the summit of her ambition to live in a cottage—a but and ben—and carry a real baby in a shawl. She startled
