Sylvia felt that it was out of the question to stay longer at Mulberry Cottage, though Miss Dashwood, to whom the little property reverted, was very anxious for her to do so. After the funeral Sylvia joined Olive and Jack in Warwickshire.
They realized that she was feeling very deeply the death of Mrs. Gainsborough, and were anxious that she should arrange to live with them in West Kensington.
Sylvia, however, said that she wished to remain friends with them, and declined the proposal.
“Do you remember what I told you once,” she said to Jack, “about going back to the stage in some form or another when I was tired of things?”
Jack, who had not yet renounced his ambition for Sylvia’s theatrical career, jumped at the opportunity of finding her an engagement, and when they all went back to London with the babies he rushed about the Strand to see what was going. Sylvia moved all her things from Mulberry Cottage to the Airdales’ house, refusing once more Miss Dashwood’s almost tearful offer to make over the cottage to her. She was sorry to withstand the old lady, who was very frail by now, but she knew that if she accepted, it would mean more dreaming about writing books and gambling at Curzon Street, and ultimately doing nothing until it was too late.
“I’m reaching the boring idle thirties. I’m twenty-seven,” she told Jack and Olive. “I must sow a few more wild oats before my face is plowed with wrinkles to receive the respectable seeds of a flourishing old age. By the way, as demon-godmother I’ve placed one thousand pounds to the credit of Rose and Sylvius.”
The parents protested, but Sylvia would take no denial.
“I’ve kept lots for myself,” she assured them. As a matter of fact, she had nearly another £1,000 in the bank.
At the end of July Jack came in radiant to say that a piece with an English company was being sent over to New York the following month. There was a small part for which the author required somebody whose personality seemed to recall Sylvia’s. Would she read it? Sylvia said she would.
“The author was pleased, eh?” Jack asked, enthusiastically, when Sylvia came back from the trial.