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Speaking of this time later on, Mrs. Luke was accustomed to say, ‘It was a mauvais quart d’heure,’ and to smile; but in her heart, when she thought of it, there was no smile.
She never forgot that coming down to breakfast on the morning of Sally’s flight, so unconscious of anything having happened, pleased that it was a fine day for her party, pleased with the pretty frock she had had sent from Harrods for the child to wear, excited at the prospect of presenting her to a dazzled South Winch, confident, somehow, with that curiously cloudless confidence that seems to lay hold of those about to be smitten by fate, that her beautiful daughter-in-law would behave perfectly, and the whole thing be a great success. Fate was about to smite her; and with more than the disappearance of a daughter-in-law, for that disappearance was but the first step to having to give up, renounce entirely and for always, her son.
Jocelyn came down to breakfast in a good humour too. He had slept like a log, after his series of interrupted nights.
‘Sally’s late,’ he said presently.
‘She is, isn’t she,’ said his mother. ‘You won’t call her Sally this afternoon, will you, dearest,’ she added, giving him his coffee.
‘Sorry, Mother. No. I’ll remember.’
And soon after that they made their discovery.
‘Now what,’ Mrs. Luke asked herself, pressing her cold hands together, when an hour or two later it became evident beyond doubt that Sally hadn’t merely gone, unaccountably, for an early walk, but had gone altogether, ‘now what, what have I done to deserve this?’
And the period of torment began, the period of distress and anxiety, of anger at first which soon flickered out, and of ever-growing, sickening fear, which she afterwards spoke of quietly as a mauvais quart d’heure.
It took some time before she and Jocelyn could be convinced that this wasn’t just a before breakfast walk. They clung to the hope that it was, in spite of their knowledge of Sally’s lack of initiative. Yet how much more initiative would be needed, they thought, looking at each other with frightened eyes, to do that which it became every moment more and more apparent that she had done.
‘But why? But why?’ Mrs. Luke kept on asking, pressing her cold hands together.
Jocelyn said nothing.
At eleven o’clock, when it was plain she wasn’t coming back, he went out and fetched his car.
‘She’s gone to her father,’ he said.
‘But why? Oh, Jocelyn—why?’
‘We’ve made her unhappy,’ he said, pulling on his gloves, his face set.
‘Unhappy?’
‘I have, anyway. I’ve been an infernal cad—I tell you I have,’ he said, turning on his mother. ‘It’s no good your telling me I haven’t—I have.’
And he drove off, leaving her at the gate pressing her cold hands together, and staring after him with wide-open eyes.
But his coming back was worse than his going. It was after six before he got home, tired and dusty, at the fag end of the terrible party.
Mrs. Luke hadn’t seen how not to have the party, and had told her friends—ah, how much she shrank from them—when they trooped in punctually at half-past four, eager to see Jocelyn’s bride, that her daughter-in-law very unfortunately had had to go that morning to her father, who had suddenly fallen ill.
‘An old man,’ said poor Mrs. Luke—after dreary and painful thought she had come to the conclusion that if she said it was Sally who had fallen ill, Hammond would be sure sooner or later to give her away,—‘an old man, I’m afraid, and liable to—liable to——’
What was he liable to? Mrs. Luke’s brain wouldn’t work. Her lips, forced into the continual smile of the hostess, trembled. She wanted to cry. How badly, how badly she wanted just to sit down in a corner alone, and cry.
Then Jocelyn came back. There were still the Walkers there, and Miss Cartwright, and old Mrs. Pugh. Why wouldn’t they go? Why did they hang on, and hang on, and never, never go?
They all heard the car. They all knew it was his, because it made so much more noise than anybody else’s, and they all knew, because Mrs. Luke had told them, that he had motored his wife himself that morning to her sick father.
‘Ah. Now we shall have the bulletin,’ said the Canon cheerfully; for the illness, probably slight, of an unknown young lady’s almost certainly inglorious father couldn’t be regarded, he felt, as an occasion for serious gloom. ‘No doubt it is a good one, and Jocelyn has been able to bring his wife back with him.’
‘I’ll go and see,’ said Mrs. Luke, getting up quickly, and almost running out of the room.
‘What a lot of trouble there is in the world, to be sure,’ said old Mrs. Pugh, shaking her head, ‘what a lot of trouble.’
‘Do you mean the father?’ asked Mrs. Walker.
‘Who is the father?’ asked Miss Cartwright.
‘Nobody knows,’ said the Canon.
‘Not really?’ said Miss Cartwright.
‘Hush——’ said the Canon, raising his hand.
Outside the window, which was open, Jocelyn was speaking, and holding their breaths they heard him say, ‘Well, Mother? What time did she get back?’