“No, mother. A Mr. Marston, you know the man whom Roland went to stay with last week, has offered him a post in his firm. It’s a lovely job. He’ll be traveling all over the world and he’s going to get a salary; of how much is it—yes, a hundred and fifty pounds a year and all expenses paid. Isn’t it splendid?”
Mrs. Curtis purred with reciprocated pleasure: “Of course it is, and how pleased your parents must be. Come and sit down here; yes, shut the door, please. You know I always said to Mr. Whately, ‘Roland is going to do something big; I’m sure of it.’ And now you see my prophecy has come true. I shall remind Mr. Whately of that next time he comes round to see me, and I shall remind him, too, that I said exactly the same thing about Arthur. ‘Mr. Whately,’ I said,” and her voice trailed off into reminiscences.
But though Mrs. Curtis was in many—and indeed in most—ways a troublesome old fool, she was not unobservant. She knew that a young girl does not rush into a drawing-room dragging a young man by the hand simply because that young man has obtained a lucrative post in a varnish factory. There must be some other cause for so vigorous an ebullition. And as Mrs. Curtis’s speculation was unvexed by the complexities of Austrian psychology, she assumed that Roland and April had fallen in love with each other. She was not surprised. She had indeed often wondered why they had not done so before. April was such a dear girl, and Roland could be trained into a highly sympathetic son-in-law. He listened to her conversation with respect and interest, whereas Ralph Richmond insisted on interrupting her. Roland would make April a good husband. Certainly she had been temporarily disquieted by Mr. Whately’s sudden decision to remove his son from school; but no doubt he had had this post in his mind’s eye and had not wished to speak of it till everything had been fixed.
Mrs. Curtis’s reverie traversed into an agreeable future; she pictured the wedding at St. Giles; they would have the full choir. There would be a reception afterwards at the Town Hall. April would look so pretty in orange blossom. Arthur would be the best man. He would stand beside the bridegroom, erect and handsome. “What fine children you have, Mrs. Curtis!” That’s what everyone would say to her. It would be the prettiest wedding there had ever been at St. Giles.... She collected herself with a start. She must not be premature. Nothing was settled yet; they were not even engaged. And of course they could not be engaged yet: They were too absurdly young. Everyone would laugh at her. Still, there might be an understanding. An understanding was first cousin to an engagement; it bound both parties. And then April and Roland would be allowed to go about together. It would be so nice for them.
When Roland had gone, she fixed on her daughter a deep, questioning look, under which April began to grow uncomfortable.
“Well, mother?” she said.
“You like Roland very much, don’t you, dear?”
“We’re great friends.”
“Only friends?”
April did not answer, and her mother repeated her question. “But you’re more than friends, aren’t you?” But April was still silent. Mrs. Curtis leaned forward and took April’s hand, lifted for a moment out of her vain complacency by the recollection of herself as she had been a quarter of a century ago, like April, with life in front of her. Through placid waters she had come to a safe anchorage, and she wondered whether for April the cruise would be as fortunate, the hand at the helm as steady. Her husband had risked little, but Roland would scarcely be satisfied with safe travel beneath the cliffs. Would April be happier or less happy than she had been? Which was the better—blue skies, calm water, gently throbbing engines, or the pitch and toss and crash of heavy seas?