He knew the importance of turning away seriousness, when it cropped up at the wrong moment, with a laugh. A man as valuably rich as Mr. Thorpe shouldn’t be taken too seriously, shouldn’t be examined and pulled about. His texture simply wouldn’t stand it. He should be said grace over, thought the Canon, who fully realised what a precious addition Mr. Thorpe’s wealth in Mrs. Luke’s hands was going to be to South Winch, and gobbled up thankfully. Gobbled up; not turned over first on the plate.
Mrs. Luke hadn’t invited the Walkers to tea. On the contrary, when first they appeared at the back door, ushered through it by the little maid who each time she saw the Canon’s gaiters was thrown by them into a fresh convulsion of respectfulness, she had been annoyed. Because all day long she had been vainly trying to collect and arrange her thoughts, soothe her nerves, prepare her mind for the evening, when Jocelyn had said he would arrive—to supper, he wrote, somewhere round eight o’clock,—and define what her attitude was going to be both to him and to the girl with the utterly ridiculous Christian name; and not having one bit succeeded, and impelled by some vague hope that out of doors she might find quiet, that in Nature she might find tranquillity and composure, had said she would have tea in the garden.
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her....
Some idea like that, though she wasn’t at all a Wordsworthian and regarded him at best with indulgence, drove her out to what her corner of South Winch held of Nature,—the bit of lawn, the cedar, the Kerria japonica against the wall by the kitchen window, the meadow across the railing, full of daisies and cows, and, on that fine spring afternoon of swift shadows and sunshine, the wind, fresh and sweet with the scent of young leaves.
But once the Walkers were there she found they did her good. They distracted her. And they liked her so much. It was always pleasant and restoring to be with people who liked one. The Canon made her feel she was good-looking and important, and his wife made her feel she was important. Also, they helped with the strawberries, from which, after a fortnight of them at every meal, she had for some time turned away her eyes. Later on, when she was alone again, there would still be at least a couple of hours to decide in what sort of a way she would meet Jocelyn; quite long enough, seeing how she couldn’t, whenever she thought of the meeting, stop herself from trembling.
Oh, he had behaved outrageously to her—to her, his mother, who had given up her life to him. There had been men in past years she might have married, men of her own age and class, by whom she might have had other children and with whom she might have been happy all this time; and she had turned them down, dismissed them ruthlessly because of Jocelyn, because only Jocelyn, and his gifts and career, were to have her love and devotion. Wasn’t it a shame, wasn’t it a shame to treat her so? To behave to her as though she were his enemy, the kill-joy who mustn’t be told and mustn’t be consulted, who must be kept in the dark, shut out? And why, because he had gone mad about a girl, must he go still more mad, and ruin himself by throwing up Cambridge?
A wave of fresh misery swept over her. ‘Go on talking—please,’ she said quickly, when the Walkers, replete, fell momentarily silent.
They looked up surprised; and they were still more surprised when they saw that her face, usually delicately pale, was quite red, and her eyes full of tears.
The Canon was affectionately concerned, and his wife was concerned.
‘Are you not well, dear Mrs. Luke?’ she inquired.