She faced the conclusion that her vague exhilaration of thought had brought her to. She did not only serve him in his office: she served him here in The Cedars. Neither Mrs Keeling nor his daughter could make his book-catalogue for him. Irrespective of their inability, he would not have allowed them to attempt it. But she could do it: he gave her access to his library and a free hand to do as she liked there.
She turned in at the gate and went up the drive to the Gothic porch. He gave her more than that: he gave her his need of her. He had expressed that when he had said her catalogue work was a pure matter of business. What he meant and what she understood was that it was not.
The boy covered with buttons opened the door to her. She hoped that Mrs Keeling would not be richly crossing the Gothic hall. She wanted only to get quietly into the library and go on with letter M. Letter M implied a quantity of cardboard slips.
She wanted to be left alone in the library, working for him. It did not matter whether he paid her for her work or not. She only wanted to go on working for him.
CHAPTER VII
Alice Keeling had arrived at that stage of convalescence after her influenza when there is dawn on the wreck, and it seems faintly possible that the world will again eventually prove to contain more than temperature thermometers and beef-tea. She was going to leave Bracebridge with her mother next day for the projected fortnight at Brighton, and had tottered up and down the gravel path round the garden this morning for half an hour to accustom herself to air and locomotion again. While she was out, she had heard the telephone bell ring inside the house, a sound that always suggested to her nowadays an entrancing possibility, and this was confirmed when Parkinson came out to tell her that Mr Silverdale would like to speak to her. At that she ceased to totter: her feet positively twinkled on their way to the little round black ear of the machine. And the entrancing possibility was confirmed. Might Mr Silverdale drop in for the cup that cheered that afternoon? And was she better? And would she promise not to be naughty and get ill again? Indeed, she was vastly better on the moment, and said down the telephone in a voice still slightly hoarse, ‘I’m not naughty: me dood,’ in the baby-dialect much affected by her and Mr Silverdale.
Alice was not of a prevaricating or deceptive nature, but having suddenly remembered that her mother was opening a bazaar that afternoon, and would not be back for tea, she gaily hastened to forget that again, for the chance of having tea alone with Mr Silverdale must not be jeopardised by such infinitesimal proprieties. She hastened also to forget to tell her mother that he had proposed himself, and only remembered to change her dress after lunch for something more becoming. She choose with a view to brightening herself up a daring red gown, which made her, by contrast, look rather whiter than the influenza had really left her. But she did not mind that: it was obviously out of the question to look in rosy and blooming health, and the best alternative was to appear interestingly pale. She remembered also to order hot buns for tea, though the idea of eating one in her present state was provocative of a shuddering qualm, and having her mother safely off the premises, sat waiting in Mrs Keeling’s boudoir ready to ring for tea as soon as her visitor appeared. Punctually the sound of the front-door bell, and according to his custom, he came running across the drawing-room, tapped at the boudoir door, and peeped in, his head alone appearing.
‘May me come in?’ he said. ‘And how are us?’
He took her hand and playfully pretended to feel her pulse.
‘Now this is doctor’s orders,’ he said. ‘You are to sit cosily by the fire, and talk to any poor parson who comes to see you. The dose is to be taken at exactly half-past four!’