“Where’s the ‘have’ about it, Giles?” Ruth inquired, helping herself to mustard with her kedgeree. “She’ll go if she likes, I suppose; and not otherwise. For my part I don’t see why she should be at the beck and call of Lady Hamble, or whatever her name is. She’s forgotten Alix for long enough.”
“What’s to the point is that she’s remembered her for long enough,” said Giles, “and that Alix has remembered her. Of course, you’re going, Alix.”
“Alix will be bored stiff among all those swells,” cried Rosemary; “and, besides, she’ll miss the Eustaces’ dance. Do refuse, Alix.”
“But I do not think they will bore me,” said Alix. “I should like to go.”
It was arranged that Giles was to motor her to Hampshire; the cross-country journey was too difficult by train, and while the map was brought and spread out over the jam-pots and butter-dishes and they all made suggestions as to the best route, Alix had time to wonder why, despite her assertion, her old eagerness about Cresswell Abbey and Lady Mary was much faded. Was it that she had grown fonder of Heathside? Yes; undoubtedly; but that was not the reason. It was not to lose Heathside to pay Cresswell Abbey a visit. But, with a new, unwonted shyness, she shrank from the thought of the environment that had, in Lady Mary herself, so reminded her of Maman. Maman would want her to go. She would want it more than Giles did; and did he not want it because he knew that it would be Maman’s desire for her? It was almost to suspect them of planning it for her and it affected her with almost a sense of grief to see his dark head bent above Ruth’s golden one while, so earnestly, he scanned the road that was to lead her away from them. Did he—with Maman to help him—believe that it would lead to an English marriage for her? The blood rose faintly in her cheeks as she sat there, silent.
But her disquiet was even deeper than this. She had no longer her old sense of security. It was Giles’s presence that lent her what security she had and he would not be at Cresswell Abbey.
She was very silent on the morning they set out for their long drive. It was nearly mid-day, yet the hoar frost still made the woods thick and white against the sky, and the twigs were like antlers in their mossy branching outlines. When they passed into the open country the buffs and cinnamons and mole-colours of the fields and uplands were all powdered to paleness. The beauty of the day was like a promise, but Alix felt it like a farewell.
“You’ll be back in the fortnight at most, you know,” said Giles. He saw that she was sad and said it to reassure her.
“But of course I shall not stay for a fortnight, Giles,” she said.
“Lady Mary didn’t fix any time; but I do hope you’ll stay for as long as she asks you,” Giles returned. She made no reply. That, of course, was what Maman would wish him to say to her.