Indeed, Mrs. Fanshawe was afraid that she had not been far astray when, on first marrying, she had formed the conclusion that Elizabeth was a selfish sort of girl. She had believed then that she had a great affection for her father (who really rather spoiled her) and had tried, the dear fellow, to spoil his wife as well; but now, so quietly did Elizabeth take her bereavement, she was afraid that, after all, her affection for her father was not so very deep. Otherwise she must have found the writing of the memoir a work at which it was an agonizing yet exquisite pleasure to assist. Otherwise, again, Elizabeth could not have been so remarkably industrious in her music; she could not, within a couple of months of her father's death, begin a course of instruction in the piano at the Royal Institute. She would have been unable to give her mind, as she was undoubtedly doing, to this very nice accomplishment of playing the piano, but have immured herself in the privacy of Oakley Street, and refused to see anybody but her stepmother, to whom she must have been irresistibly drawn by the bond of their common sorrow. Incidentally, too, these music lessons seemed to Mrs. Fanshawe very expensive for the gratification of a mere luxurious whim, and the thought of them often impelled her to distant economical expeditions, implying a huge expense in taxi-cabs. It was on one of these that she had gone out this afternoon, the object being to purchase large quantities of violet soap, so cheap if you bought a large box of it, and other little things that would probably occur to her, from a shop in High Holborn. Though the distance was considerable, Elizabeth was surprised she was not back by the time the servant brought up tea; but since she might return any moment, and be querulous over the fact that tea was not made, she prepared it, risking the other possibility that it might be cold when her stepmother returned, who would then drink it with the air of a martyr, or be compelled, though she hated extravagance and unnecessary trouble to servants, to order a fresh teapot. One of the two was likely, since, as has been mentioned, the open space at the back of the house had been for the last fortnight the horrid little backyard.
But an agreeable surprise was in store. Mrs. Fanshawe came in before long in the most excellent spirits, full of affection and tenderness.
"And my dear little musical Cinderella has made tea," she said, "all ready for her wicked stepmother! Darling, you should have come out with me, it is the loveliest day; you are too industrious. Perhaps this evening you will play to me something you have been so diligently practising."
Elizabeth poured out tea.
"I'm afraid I haven't been so very industrious, mamma," she said. "I've been sitting in the window nearly an hour doing nothing."
"Ah, it is not doing nothing to enjoy this sweet breeze and look at the daffodils in our sweet little garden. My dear, what a good cup of tea! Nobody makes tea like you. I often say it."
She often did, though with quite a different nuance. But clearly the days of the horrid little backyard were over for the present.
"Such an afternoon as I have had, dear," she continued. "You would never guess all the things that have happened to me. Who should I meet, for instance, in Isaacs and Redford's but your Aunt Julia, so pleasant and full of welcome! And nothing would content her but that I must promise to bring you down to stay with her next Friday over the Sunday. Her dear little Elizabeth, she called you. We quite quarrelled over that. I said you were my dear little Elizabeth. She has been so busy, she said, since her return from Egypt in February, getting things straight after her long absence or she would have asked me many times before. I never thought it odd, I am glad to say, that she had not done so; I always refrained from wondering at it, though, to be sure, three months is a long time to take putting things straight after an absence of two. But now she quite insists on it; she simply would not let me go until I had promised, and she will send her motor to the station to meet whatever train we settle to travel by."
Here was a prospect that had long daunted Elizabeth to look forward to, yet of necessity it must sometime come close to her. She had not so much as seen Edward since he handed her the telegram last August in Mrs. Hancock's drawing-room; he and she, tacitly contriving together in sundered co-operation had averted that. Her heart leaped and sank and leaped again; she shrank from seeing him, and had not known till now, when in the natural course of events she must see him, how much she longed to. On her side there was no reasonable excuse to urge against the plan, and had there been she hardly knew whether she would have urged it. On his side, he might escape the meeting, say that he had arranged to take Edith away for the Sunday, but she felt sure that if he understood that she had consented to go down to her aunt's he would not absent himself. He waited, so she instinctively knew, for a sign that she was willing to meet him. Otherwise he would long ago have been to see her. She quite understood his absence and his silence.
Any sign of emotion that might have escaped her was certainly not seen by her stepmother, who was full of the wonders of this afternoon. But Elizabeth felt that something beyond this invitation to Heathmoor had occurred to send Mrs. Fanshawe's mental barometer up to such exhilarated serenity of fair weather, and she waited for it to be told her. It did not come at once; she mentioned first the other objects on which some ray had beamed which gilded and transfigured them.