After tea they went up to the drawing-room, and in the corridor had the startling pleasure of seeing two dogs who scurried about after each other in amity. Spot had found Fossette, with the aid of Amy’s incurable carelessness, and had at once examined her with great particularity. She seemed to be of an amiable disposition, and not averse from the lighter distractions. For a long time the sisters sat chatting together in the lit drawing-room to the agreeable sound of happy dogs playing in the dark corridor. Those dogs saved the situation, because they needed constant attention. When the dogs dozed, the sisters began to look through photograph albums, of which Constance had several, bound in plush or morocco. Nothing will sharpen the memory, evoke the past, raise the dead, rejuvenate the ageing, and cause both sighs and smiles, like a collection of photographs gathered together during long years of life. Constance had an astonishing menagerie of unknown cousins and their connections, and of townspeople; she had Cyril at all ages; she had weird daguerreotypes of her parents and their parents. The strangest of all was a portrait of Samuel Povey as an infant in arms. Sophia checked an impulse to laugh at it. But when Constance said: “Isn’t it funny?” she did allow herself to laugh. A photograph of Samuel in the year before his death was really imposing. Sophia stared at it, impressed. It was the portrait of an honest man.
“How long have you been a widow?” Constance asked in a low voice, glancing at upright Sophia over her spectacles, a leaf of the album raised against her finger.
Sophia unmistakably flushed. “I don’t know that I am a widow,” said she, with an air. “My husband left me in 1870, and I’ve never seen nor heard of him since.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Constance, alarmed and deafened as by a clap of awful thunder. “I thought ye were a widow. Mr. Peel-Swynnerton said he was told positively ye were a widow. That’s why I never....” She stopped. Her face was troubled.
“Of course I always passed for a widow, over there,” said Sophia.
“Of course,” said Constance quickly. “I see....”
“And I may be a widow,” said Sophia.
Constance made no remark. This was a blow. Bursley was such a particular place. Doubtless, Gerald Scales had behaved like a scoundrel. That was sure!
When, immediately afterwards, Amy opened the drawing-room door (having first knocked—the practice of encouraging a servant to plunge without warning of any kind into a drawing-room had never been favoured in that house) she saw the sisters sitting rather near to each other at the walnut oval table, Mrs. Scales very upright, and staring into the fire, and Mrs. Povey ‘bunched up’ and staring at the photograph album; both seeming to Amy aged and apprehensive; Mrs. Povey’s hair was quite grey, though Mrs. Scales’ hair was nearly as black as Amy’s own. Mrs. Scales started at the sound of the knock, and turned her head.
“Here’s Mr. and Mrs. Critchlow, m’m,” announced Amy.