VI.
April, May, June.
One afternoon before post-time her mother called her into the study to show her Mrs. Draper's letter.
Mrs. Draper wrote about Dora's engagement and Effie's wedding. Dora was engaged to Hubert Manisty who would have Vinings. Effie had broken off her engagement to young Tom Manisty; she was married last week to Mr. Stuart-Gore, the banker. Mrs. Draper thought Effie had been very wise to give up young Manisty for Mr. Stuart-Gore. She wrote in a postscript: "Maurice Jourdain has just called to ask if I have any news of Mary. I think he would like to know that that wretched affair has not made her unhappy."
Mamma was smiling in a nervous way. "What am I to say to Mrs. Draper?"
"Tell her that Mr. Jourdain was right and that I am not at all unhappy."
She was glad to take the letter to the post and set his mind at rest.
It was in June last year that Maurice Jourdain had come to her: June the twenty-fourth. To-day was the twenty-fifth. He must have remembered.
The hayfields shone, ready for mowing. Under the wind the shimmering hay grass moved like waves of hot air, up and up the hill.
She slipped through the gap by Morfe Bridge and went up the fields to the road on Greffington Edge. She lay down among the bracken in the place where Roddy and she had sat two years ago when they had met Mr. Sutcliffe coming down the road.
The bracken hid her. It made a green sunshade above her head. She shut her eyes.
"Kikeriküh! sie glaubten
Es wäre Hahnen geschrei."
That was all nonsense. Maurice Jourdain would never have crept in the little hen-house and hidden himself under the straw. He would never have crowed like a cock. Mark and Roddy would. And Harry Craven and Jimmy. Jimmy would certainly have hidden himself under the straw.
Supposing Jimmy had had a crystal mind. Shining and flashing. Supposing he had never done that awful thing they said he did. Supposing he had had Mark's ways, had been noble and honourable like Mark—
The interminable reverie began. He was there beside her in the bracken. She didn't know what his name would be. It couldn't be Jimmy or Harry or any of those names. Not Mark. Mark's name was sacred.
Cecil, perhaps.
Why Cecil? Cecil?—You ape! You drivelling, dribbling idiot! That was the sort of thing Aunt Charlotte would have thought of.
She got up with a jump and stretched herself. She would have to run if she was to be home in time for tea.
From the top hayfield she could see the Sutcliffes' tennis court; an emerald green space set in thick grey walls. She drew her left hand slowly down her right forearm. The muscle was hardening and thickening.
Mamma didn't like it when you went by yourself to play singles with Mr.
Sutcliffe. But if Mr. Sutcliffe asked you you would simply have to go.
You would have to play a great many singles against Mr. Sutcliffe if you
were to be in good form next year when Mark came home.