With the return of the children her oppression lifted. Later Billy’s key would grate in the latch. She was in the hall to meet him before he had crossed the threshold. “Any news?” The servants must not hear her; she spoke beneath her breath.
“Nothing. Nothing yet.”
The children no longer called to one another as they went about their play. They tiptoed and looked up anxiously when addressed. No urging was necessary to send them to bed—bed was escape to a less ominous world.
Muffled, muffled! Everything was cloaked and muffled.
As Peter put two and two together, pain grew into his eyes; even when others seemed to have forgotten, the expression in his eyes was judging.
Only Romance was unaffected by the sense of foreboding. The servants felt it and discussed it in the kitchen, wondering whether the master was losing money. But Romance, with cat-like self-satisfaction, went on bearing kittens and so did her daughter, Sir Walter Scott, who came by her name through an accident regarding her sex.
A month had gone by.
“Should I write to Jehane?” she asked her husband.
“I wouldn’t. If you do, we shall have Ocky back on our hands. Perhaps he may pull things together now that he knows that he stands by himself. If he does, it’ll make a man of him. Anyhow, if she finds out and needs our help, she’ll send for us.”
But the silence proved too much for Nan. One morning, on the spur of the impulse, she packed a bag, left a note for her husband and set off for Sandport. On the journey through sodden country and mud-splashed towns, she fought for courage, straining out into eternity to pluck the hem of God’s mantle which, when her faith had touched, was continually withdrawn beyond reach of her hand.