Family pride, loyalty, and the queer little ache of love, sometimes disapproving, sometimes wistful, sometimes disappointed, sometimes pitiful, but always love, that she felt for her mother, made her not want to hear Stephen’s mother tell her what had happened. Stephen was different. If he told and blamed he had a right to, he belonged. It would be painful to her to the point of agony, seeing how much she loved them both, but he had the right. His mother, though, hadn’t. She felt she couldn’t bear to listen to even the most tactful disapproval from his mother. No, she wouldn’t go to meet her. Her mother would certainly be in in time for lunch, and get there before Stephen’s mother. Oh, all these mothers! There were too many of them, Virginia thought with sudden impatience, and then was ashamed,—she, the wife of one of God’s priests.
The drawing-room door was open, and opposite it was the widely-flung-up William and Mary window, and through the window she saw, coming across the terrace and walking with even more than her usual briskness, Stephen’s mother.
Such a thing had never happened before, that she should arrive before her time. What had her mother done?
Virginia stood in the hall, rooted, wanting to run up to her bedroom and hide, but unable to make up her mind quickly enough, and Mrs. Colquhoun saw her the minute she was through the window, and it was too late.
‘Oh, my dear Virginia,’ she cried out, ‘I am concerned for your mother. I hope she got home safely? I couldn’t rest. I had to come and hear that she wasn’t too much shaken. The young man went off at such a pace. And Stephen told me they nearly ran over him in the village. I thought it so courageous of Mrs. Cumfrit. I do hope she is none the worse?’
‘I haven’t seen mother yet,’ said Virginia, getting nearer prevarication than in her transparent life she had yet been.
But Mrs. Colquhoun was not to be put off by prevarication. ‘What? Isn’t she back?’ she exclaimed.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ said Virginia obstinately.
Mrs. Colquhoun stared at her. ‘But then, where——?’ she began.
‘I don’t see,’ said Virginia, very red, and straight of eyebrow, ‘why mother shouldn’t motor-cycle if she wants to.’