She had been pretty short with him, she remembered now,—had implied, whilst busy commenting upon Machell’s “cheek,” that there had been “cheek” on Luke’s part as well. He had only laughed in his cheerful way, and the dream had melted and changed, but the flame of her indignation was still at work within her. She had not known that she could care so much about a thing like that, or that she could resent so bitterly a slight on Kirkby. And not only Kirkby himself, but Kirkby’s job, which she had always imagined that she despised and hated!... She was surprised by her own attitude, and lay for some time brooding over it. It was only with difficulty that she reminded herself that it was “only a dream,” and that in all probability Machell had never applied at all.
Joe’s questions had been much the same as Luke’s, with now and then a family resemblance to some of Maggie’s. He, too, had wanted to know about the staff, and who was now at the Home Farm. But he had also wanted information about some of his old-time sweethearts, and that with his wife sitting by and not looking over-suited!
“Where’s Bessie Dale, these days, Mother, and Carrie Sharpe? Married long since, both of them, I’ll be bound,—nay, don’t tell me you’ve never heard! Carrie was a school-teacher, you’ll think on, and Bessie in Morton’s office. There was Dolly Dale, as well, but, of course, she married Len Machell....” It was queer how the Machells kept coming into the dream!
She had done her best to suppress Joe, both because of his wife’s crab-apple look, and because of the hot little ache at the heart which mothers feel at the mention of girls who have wanted their sons. But he had refused to be silenced, at first, and had gone on chattering about Dolly. “Dolly was the best of the bunch,” he had said, laughing, “and more than a bit fond of yours truly. Len would never have got her, I know that, if I’d stopped at home instead of hitting the trail!”
But They had got tired at last of asking her about England,—even Joe, who saw it sunned by the bright smiles of his lost lasses. They had understood that she did not want to talk about it, and had stopped teasing her, realising also that she had very little to tell them. But it had been impossible to explain that it had ceased to be real to her as soon as she had left it,—that she had clean forgotten such things as that Machell had married Dolly!
It was Ellen, amazingly, who had been the worst of all, because it was Ellen who had asked about the house and gardens. This was the more surprising because she had been the one child who had seemed to share her mother’s dislike of them. Many a pleasant chat they had had together, abusing the dull, shut-in place, and feeling greatly enlivened. And now it was Ellen who was bringing it back to mind, tying her down to it again when at last she was safely shot of it!
“Have you got that extra window put in, Mother, you were always so keen on? Does the kitchen fire still smoke in a west wind? Privet hedge’ll have grown to a grand size, nowadays, I expect? Does the dad still grow ‘Creeping Jenny’ over the front door?”
She had tried hard to find answers for Ellen, sitting on a stool at her knee, and fondly fingering her skirt. There had been a distant look in her eyes as she put her questions, as if her mind had jumped to her mother’s side of the ocean, as her mother’s had jumped to hers. Mattie had felt it a trifle disloyal of Ellen to have gone away, so to speak, the moment she arrived. It was almost as if they had been nearer together when those heaving miles of Atlantic had lain between them....
But those were the only shadows which had blurred the exquisiteness of the dream, and the effect of them, after all, had been to make it even more real. For, as she had to admit, those were the very questions that They would ask, Over There, until their excitement over their parents’ arrival had sobered down a little. Later on, too, they would ask, at intervals, again, for even in the busiest lives there are hours when, the body quiet, the mind insists upon travelling. But she would not mind it so much, then.... It was only Ellen who had given her something of a shock,—whose questions, now that she came to think of them, did not seem quite real.
The rest of the experience, however, had been pure joy, so full of laughter and sweet looks and tender touches that it seemed as if the sensation of them must last for ever. There were the grandchildren, too,—but she must give an hour or two, later, to thinking about them. They were too many, and too dear, to be hurried over when she ought to be getting up and seeing to Kirkby’s breakfast.