Rose and Rose

by E. V. Lucas

I could not leave instantly, and while I was making the preparations I was amused to see, out of the window, Mrs. Stratton stealthily approaching the kitchen door. She knew that Suzanne ruled there, and her mind had by no means relinquished France as an ally!

I discovered afterwards that my guess had been right. But Suzanne had as little practical sympathy as Mrs. Stratton had colloquial French, and the interview was a complete failure. There are delicacies of situation beyond Ollendorff’s range.

If Mrs. Stratton assured me once on the journey, she assured me thirty times, that she would never be able to hold up her head again.

“Nonsense!” I replied; and I was right. She is holding it fairly high still, but with far less self-righteous aloofness. Angelica’s illicit bantling, whose existence we were able to conceal from the world, did more to humanize its grandmother than anything else could have done. As for Angelica, she is now married and a respected matron, with sons and daughters born in as lawful a form of wedlock as Church and State can provide.

But that has nothing to do with my story, and I apologize for the digression. My reconciliation with the Fergussons also is not precisely in the direct line of this narrative, but having described the earlier stages of the coolness, I must be permitted to record the later.

Coming back along the Lowcester road one afternoon, I found a big car at such an angle across it that it could not be passed; and on approaching closer I discovered it to be the Fergussons’, with Lady Fergusson inside. So they had returned! I had become accustomed to looking fixedly in front of me when we had chanced to meet before they took refuge in town; but the present situation would have rendered such a manœuvre impossible, even if, directly I pulled up, the Fergussons’ chauffeur had not come to ask if I would do her Ladyship the kindness of speaking to her for a moment.

I went to the door and she extended her hand.

“Do come in for a few moments,” she said. “I want very much to speak to you.” Here she groaned.

“But—” I began. There was something very offensive, after being cast off as I had been, in the assumption that I should be ready to be taken on again whenever the relenting mood occurred to them. Nor had I shaken her hand.

She burst forthwith into tears and I entered the car. I could not (as she knew) allow her to make an exhibition of herself at the window, with the chauffeur looking on.