And so she missed altogether the usual last day excitement. She did not wake on that first morning happy with the delicious thought that she could lie in bed for an extra ten minutes if she liked. She had not yet begun her holidays.
But two days later she was in a fever of expectation. In twenty-four hours’ time Roland would be home. How slowly the day passed. In the evening she said she was tired and went to bed before dinner, so that the next day might come quickly for her. But when she got to bed she found that she could not sleep, and though she repeated the word “abracadabra” many hundred times and counted innumerable sheep passing through innumerable gates, she lay awake till after midnight, hearing hour after hour strike. And when at last sleep came to her it was light and fitful and she awoke often.
Next day she did not know what to do with herself. She tried to read and could not. She tried to sew and could not. She ran up and down stairs on trifling errands in order to pass the time. In vain she tried to calm herself. “What are you getting so excited about? What do you think is going to happen? What can happen? The most that can happen is that he will come round with his father in the evening, and you know well enough by now what that will mean. Your mother will talk and his father will say, ‘Yes, Mrs. Curtis,’ and ‘Really, Mrs. Curtis,’ and you and Roland will hardly exchange a word with one another. You are absurdly excited over nothing.”
But logic was of no avail, and all the afternoon she fidgeted with impatience. By tea-time she was in a state of repressed hysteria. She sat in the window-seat looking down the road in the direction from which he would have to come. “I wonder if he will come without his father. It would be so dear of him if he would, but I don’t suppose he will. No, of course he won’t. It’s silly of me to think of it. He’ll have to wait for his father; he always does. That means he won’t be here at the earliest till after six. And it’s only ten minutes to five now.”
And to make things worse, seldom had she found her mother more annoying.
“Now, why don’t you go for a walk, April, dear?” she said. “It’s such a lovely evening and you’ve been indoors nearly all day. It isn’t good, and I was saying to your father only the other day, ‘Father, dear, I’m sure April isn’t up to the mark. She looks so pale nowadays.’ ”
“I’m all right, mother.”
“No, but are you, dear? You’re looking really pale. I’m sure I ought to ask Dr. Dunkin to come and see you.”
“But I’m all right—really, I’m all right, mother. I know when anything is wrong with me.”
“But you don’t, April, dear. That’s just the point. Don’t you remember that time when you insisted on going to the tennis party and assured us that you were quite well, and when you came back we found you had a temperature of 101° and that you were sickening for measles? I was saying to Dr. Dunkin only this morning: ‘Dr. Dunkin, I’m really not satisfied about our little April. I think I shall have to ask you to give her a tonic’; and he said to me: ‘Yes, that’s right, Mrs. Curtis; you bring me along to her and I’ll set her straight.’ ”