“The house is too big for me, alone with poor old Minnie, and for the matter of that I simply can’t afford it now. My dear old man’s pension went with him, and has made a big hole in the exchequer. Besides, I don’t know that I could altogether stand it. No, no, some rich American shall buy Porthlew. Hazel doesn’t want it now, and there’s no one to make a home for. One must just strike fresh roots somewhere, that’s all, and hope for work. It’s the only thing, Rosamund, my dear, for an old woman left by herself. Find a lame dog that wants helping over stiles.”
But both Rosamund and Bertha were sufficiently awake to the obvious course for it to come to life between them without even any very definite suggestion or discussion.
“Could I leave Cornwall?” said Bertha wistfully. “I be a Carnish woman thrü and thrü, ma dear.”
It was Rosamund’s need of Bertha that clinched it. Rosamund, strangely, felt it to exist, and the sincerity of her urgency broke down Bertha’s indifferent defences. The deepest craving that Mrs. Tregaskis knew was that of being needed, and for that she left Cornwall and went with Rosamund to the Wye Valley.
It was there, with her halved memories and strangely shared sanctities, that Rosamund’s quest suddenly and consciously came to an end.
In the last and most subtle renunciation, she found the solution to which that final relinquishment held the only key, and at the same time the one enduring link that was to bring her nearest to Frances.
XXVIII
“SO you came here, my dear—after all?”
“After all, Nina. That just expresses the whole thing. Poor little Rosamund had to go through the mill, and learn her own lesson, and then after it was all over—well, she just wanted me—and there it was!”
“You were there when she wanted you.”