‘Introduce us,’ she said briskly, with the frankness she felt her age entitled her to when dealing with young folk of the other sex. ‘I am sure,’ she said heartily, holding out her hand in its sensible, loose-fitting wash-leather glove, ‘you are one of Mrs. Cumfrit’s nephews, and our dear Virginia’s cousin.’
‘No, I’m dashed if I am,’ exclaimed the stranger. ‘I mean’—he turned an even more fiery red—‘I’m not.’
‘Mr. Monckton,’ said Catherine, in a far-away voice.
‘She doesn’t tell you who I am,’ smiled Mrs. Colquhoun, gripping his hand, still pleased with him in spite of his exclamation, for she liked young men, and there existed, besides, a tradition that she got on well with them, and knew how to manage them. ‘Have you noticed that people who introduce hardly ever do so completely? I’m the other mother-in-law.’
A faint hope began to flutter in Catherine’s heart. Christopher had the appearance of one who doesn’t know what to say next. She had never known him not know that before. If Mrs. Colquhoun could reduce him to silence, she might yet get through the next few minutes not too discreditably. ‘Mrs. Cumfrit and I,’ explained Mrs. Colquhoun, putting her arm through Catherine’s, as though elucidating her, ‘are both the mothers-in-law of the same delightful couple—I of her daughter, she of my son. We are linked together, she and I, in indissoluble bonds.’
Christopher wished to slay her as she stood. The liberal days were past, however, when one could behave simply, and as he couldn’t behave simply and slay her, he didn’t know how to behave to her at all.
‘The woman has a beak,’ he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before her. ‘She’s a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine. Linked together! Good God.’
Convention preventing his saying this out loud, or any of the other things he was feeling, he turned in silence and walked with them, on the other side of Catherine, towards the gate.
A faint desire to laugh stole like a small trickle of reviving courage through Catherine’s cowed spirit. It was the first desire of the kind she had had since she got to Chickover, and it arrived, she couldn’t help noticing, at the same time as Christopher.
Mrs. Colquhoun was a little surprised at the silence of her two companions. Mr. Monckton, whoever he might be, didn’t respond to her friendliness as instantly as other young men she had dealt with, and Mrs. Cumfrit said nothing either. Then she remembered her friend’s attack in church, and made allowances; while as for Mr. Monckton, whoever he might be, he probably was shy. Well, she knew how to manage shy young folk; they never stayed shy long with her.