This remark, to whose truth she assented by a vague smile, gave Eppie’s thoughts a further push that sent them seeing herself among the golden heads and white pinafores on the lawn at Cheylesford Lodge; and though the vision maintained its loving aunt relationship of the slums, there was now a throb and flutter in it, as though she held under her hand a strange wild bird that only her own will not to look kept hidden.
These dreams were followed by a nightmare little episode.
In the library, again, the talk was still an airy dialogue, Eppie, her eyes on the flames as she drank her coffee, still maintaining her ruminating silence. In the midst of her thoughts and their chatter, the door opened suddenly and Captain Palairet appeared on the threshold.
His head neatly brushed, a sumptuous dressing-gown of padded and embroidered silk girt about him, he stood there with moist eyes and lips, faintly and incessantly shaking through all his frame, a troubling and startling figure.
Gavan had been wondering all through the visit how his father was bearing the abandonment, and his appearance, he saw now, must have been the triumphant fruit of contest with the nurse whose face of helpless disapprobation hovered outside.
Gavan went to his side, and, leaning on his son’s arm, the captain said that he had come to pay his respects to Mrs. Arley and to Miss Gifford.
Taking Mrs. Arley’s hand, he earnestly reiterated his pleasure in welcoming her to his home.
“Gavan’s in fact, you know; but he’s a good son. Not very much in common, perhaps: Gavan was always a book-worm, a fellow of fads and theories; I love a broad life, men and things. No, not much in common, except our love for his mother, my dear, dead wife; that brought us together. We shook hands over her grave, so to speak,” said the captain, but without his usual sentiment. An air of jaunty cheerfulness pervaded his manner. “She is buried near here, you know. You may have seen the grave. A very pretty stone; very pretty indeed. Gavan chose it. I was in India at the time. A great blow to me. I never recovered from it. I forget, for the moment, what the text is; but it’s very pretty; very appropriate. I knew I could trust Gavan to do everything properly.”
Gavan’s face had kept its pallid calm.
“You will tire yourself, father,” he said. “Let me take you up-stairs now. Mrs. Arley and Miss Gifford will excuse us.”