In the hall he attacked with a chisel the first packing-case. One by one familiar volumes winked at him with their gold lettering in the candlelight. He chose Keats to take upstairs and, having read St. Agnes' Eve, stood by the window of his bedroom, poring upon the moonlit valley.
In bed his mind skipped the stress of Miss Peasey's arrival and fled back to the meadows where he had been walking.
"Monica, Margaret...." he began dreamily. It was a pity he had forgotten to find out the name of that sister who was so like a wild rose. Never mind: he would find out to-morrow. And for the second time that day the word lulled him like an opiate.
October
IT was a blowy afternoon early in October, and Pauline was sitting by the window of what at Wychford Rectory was still called the nursery. The persistence of the old name might almost be taken as symbolic of the way in which time had glided by that house unrecognized, for here were Monica, Margaret and Pauline grown up before anyone had thought of changing its name even to schoolroom. And with the old name it had preserved the character childhood had lent it. There was not a chair that did not appear now like the veteran survivor of childish wars and misappropriations, nor any table nor cupboard that did not testify to an affectionate ill-treatment prolonged over many years. On the walls the paper which had once been vivid in its expression of primitive gaiety was now faded: but the pattern of berries, birds and daisies still displayed that eternally unexplored tangle as freshly as once it was displayed for childish fancies of adventure. Pauline had always loved the window-seat, and from here she had always seen before anyone else at the Rectory the first flash of Spring's azure eyes, the first greying of Winter's locks. So, now on this afternoon she could see the bullying Southwest wind thunderous against whatever laggards of Summer still tried to shelter themselves in the Rectory garden. Occasionally a few raindrops seemed to effect a frantic escape from the fierce assault and cling desperately to the window-panes, but since nobody could call it a really wet day Pauline had been protesting all the afternoon against her sisters' unwillingness to go out. Staying indoors was such a surrender to the season.
"We ought to practise that Mendelssohn trio," Monica argued.
"I hate Mendelssohn," Pauline retorted.
"Well, I shall practise the piano part."
"Oh, Monica, it will sound so dreadfully empty," cried Pauline. "Won't it, Margaret?"
"I'm reading Mansfield Park. Don't talk," Margaret murmured. "If I could write like Jane Austen," she went on dreamily, "I should be the happiest person in the world."