Here, as the door opened to admit some belated visitors, I effected my escape.
All the way home in the dark, although I might still be “youthful and vivid,” I was no longer a “happy” creature; my mind was tormented with the problem of my parents’ story, and it exercised my thoughts for many a day.
I struggled to recall what I could from misty memories of long ago. There was an impression of a great deal of bright sunshine, of being carried up long streets with steps, of a tall lady in white, and a dark man with gold buttons on his coat—and that was all!
CHAPTER VIII
“AN OPEN DOOR”
Two days after my visit to the Dower House, Aunt Mina arrived home. Her return occasioned an extraordinary commotion; what conscientious dusting, what airing of rooms, and what extravagant fires! She was accompanied by my cousins, her future son-in-law, and various guests, also by several maids—including her kennel-maid and four tiny griffons. We had not met for nearly two years, and the deadly fear I entertained of her in childhood and flapperdom had waned. My nerves were stronger, I felt more independent, I looked on my aunt dispassionately, fought hard to smother my sense of personal antipathy and distaste, and to put myself in the place of a stranger, meeting her for the first time. If my uncle was well featured, and of short stature, his wife was his opposite in appearance; tall and bony, with high square shoulders, a pair of bluish green eyes, a large domineering nose, and a sunken, bitter mouth. A plain woman, who made the utmost of her appearance, had admirable taste in dress, and carried herself with dignity. I am glad to state that I did not quail when we met in the library, and she accorded me a smudgy kiss.
“Delighted to see you, Eva,” she said. “Hubert,” turning to an elderly gentleman with an eyeglass, “this is my niece, or rather my husband’s niece, Eva Lingard.”
Sir Beaufort Finsbury bowed, carefully rearranged his eyeglass, and, on second thoughts, offered me his hand.
“Hallo, Eva!” exclaimed Clara, “Here you are! And so you’ve been hobnobbing with the pater all this time? You look as if you’d grown a foot, but, my dear girl, how abominably you do your hair!”
“She’s got stacks of it, anyhow,” put in her sister; “no pads, nothing put on, eh, Eva?” Dora had always befriended me.
Clara was my senior by seven or eight years. When I was a small child in the nursery she had been a well-grown girl in the schoolroom, and a cruel and merciless bully. She was tall, with a stoop, and had pale reddish hair, a thick white skin, and heavy white eyelids, half concealing her pale prominent eyes. As Clara had a sharp, merciless tongue, wore glasses and subscribed to the London Library, she was generally spoken of as “the clever Miss Lingard.” Dora, on the other hand, was dull and indolent, but good looking, in a lazy dark style, and much more amiable than her sister. She was fond of bridge, and did a little betting on the sly! Was the hereditary failing to reappear in her?