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Arm in arm they paced up and down what Mr. Thorpe persisted in calling the drying ground, in spite of Mrs. Luke’s steady reference to it as the lawn, and Jocelyn said, ‘Her family come from Islington.’
‘Suburbans. Like ourselves,’ replied his mother, with a really heavenly tact, Jocelyn thought.
But she wasn’t thinking of what he was saying and what she was answering; she was seeking a formula for Mr. Thorpe. And, to gain yet a further moment’s grace,—queer how nervous she felt—she stopped a moment in front of the Kerria japonica in the angle of the wall by the kitchen window, and asked him if he didn’t think it was doing very well that year.
‘Wonderful,’ said Jocelyn. ‘It’s all perfect.’
He sighed with contentment at his mother’s progressive and amazing tactfulness. How had she not from the first moment grasped the situation, and needed no explanation at all. Now she was grasping the Pinners, and dismissing them without a single question. ‘Suburbans. Like ourselves.’ At that moment Jocelyn positively adored his mother.
‘Quite perfect,’ he said, admiring the Kerria. ‘Wherever you are, things grow as they should, and there’s peace, and order, and exact rightness.’
‘Marriage has turned you into a flatterer,’ smiled Mrs. Luke, still putting off Mr. Thorpe.
‘It has made me realise what a mother I’ve got,’ said Jocelyn, pressing her arm.
‘Darling Jocelyn. But surely rather an unusual result?’
‘My marriage is unusual.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Luke, bracing herself. ‘Yes. I suppose—we had better talk about it.’
‘But we are talking about it.’
‘I mean the future.’
‘Well, I’ve told you my plans.’
‘But I haven’t told you mine.’
‘Yours, Mother?’
He turned his head and looked at her. Surely she was rather red?
‘You know, Jocelyn,’ she said, in a queer altered voice, ‘I was very miserable. Very, very miserable. You mustn’t forget that. I really was.’