“Oh, much as usual. I couldn’t stop because I wanted to get back to you. Will you come and tell me about the mater, after you have seen her?”
Dora went back to Lady Osborne’s room, and knocked before she entered. The apparition of her sitting and crying all alone had frightened her more than she had let Claude see, for as a rule her mother-in-law’s cheerfulness was of a quality that seemed to be proof against all the minor accidents of life, and Dora remembered how, one day in Italy, when they had missed a train at Padua, and had to wait three hours, Lady Osborne’s only comment had been, “Well, now, that will give us time to look about us.” She was afraid therefore that the cause of her tears was not trivial.
And now, when she went in again, receiving a rather indistinct answer to her knock, she found Lady Osborne hastily snatching up the day’s paper, so as to pretend to be occupied. But her face wore an expression extraordinarily contorted, as if her habitual geniality found it a hard task to struggle to the surface.
“And I’m sure the paper gets more and more interesting every day,” said she, “though it’s seldom I find time to have a glance at all the curious things that are going on in the world. What a dreadful place Morocco must be; I couldn’t sleep quiet in my bed if I was there! What is it, my dear?”
On her face and in her voice the trace of tears bravely suppressed still lingered, and a great wave of pity suddenly swept over Dora. Something was wrong, something which at present Lady Osborne was bearing in secret, for it was quite clear that her husband, whose cheerfulness at breakfast had bordered on the boisterous, knew nothing, nor did Claude know. Her mother-in-law, as Dora was well aware, was not a woman of complicated or subtle emotion, who could grieve over an imagined sorrow, or could admit to a personal relation with herself the woe of the world, for with more practical wisdom she gave subscriptions to those whose task it was to alleviate any particular branch of it. Her family, her hospitalities, her comfortable though busy life had been sufficient up till now to minister to her happiness, and if something disturbed that, Dora rightly thought that it must be something tangible and personal. So she went to the sofa, and sat down by her, and did not seek to be subtle.
“What is it?” she said. “Is there anything the matter?”
The simplicity was not calculated; it was perfectly natural, and had its effect. Lady Osborne held the paper in front of her a moment longer, but it was shaken with the trembling of her hands. Then she dropped it.
“My dear, I am a selfish old woman,” she said, “but I can’t bear it any longer. I’ve not been well this long time, but I’ve tried to tell myself it was my imagination, and not bother anybody. And I could have held on, my dear, a little longer, if you hadn’t come to me like this. I warrant you, there would have been plenty of laughing and chaff at Grote this week-end, as always. But the pain this morning was so bad that I just thought I would have a bit of a cry all to myself.”
“But why have you told nobody?” said Dora. “Not Claude, nor Dad nor me?”
Lady Osborne mopped her eyes.