‘What quick ears,’ she smilingly congratulated her daughter-in-law; but Virginia was on her feet, and running out to meet her mother.
She ran through the hall and on to the steps, expecting to see the motor-cycle careering along the avenue; and there was nothing to be seen, and the noise had left off too. It must have been some one else’s. The avenue was empty.
She stood staring down it, thrown back on her fears. Then in the distance, round the bend, she saw a small figure walking quickly towards the house. It was her mother, safe and sound.
Virginia’s immediate impulse in her glad relief was to run down the steps to meet her and hug her, but instantly the reaction set in. Nothing had happened, her mother was unharmed, and it was really too bad that she should have gone in the foolish side-car. One surely had a right to expect at least dignity in one’s mother, a sense of the suitable; especially when she belonged, too, to Stephen, a man in a public position, with a sacred calling.
Sore and puzzled, Virginia stood stiffly on the steps. Her mother came along very quickly and lightly, like a little leaf being blown up the avenue; and when she got nearer, and began to wave her hand with what appeared to be, and no doubt was, forced gaiety, Virginia noticed her face had the look on it she had seen once before during this unfortunate visit, the look of a child caught by its elders stealing the jam.
XIX
Catherine had walked very fast up the avenue, afraid she was late. Her face was hot with exercise, and her eyes bright with Christopher. She didn’t look like the same person who had set out that morning, listless and pale, with Stephen for church. She had somehow entirely wiped out Christopher’s behaviour in London, and felt she had started again with him on a new footing. She was happy, and wanted to tell Virginia of her new arrangements quickly, before their naturalness and desirability, so evident and clear while she was with Christopher, had faded and become obscure. She felt they might do that rather easily without him, especially as Mrs. Colquhoun was going to be at lunch.
She must be quick, while she still saw plain. Everybody wanted her to go, and she wanted to go; then why not go? Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to let her go without criticism, without disapproval. Dear me, she thought, how pleasant to be quite simple and straight. How pleasant to be free from sentimentalism, and all its grievances and tender places. How very pleasant not to mind if one’s children did sometimes get bored with one, and for them not to mind if you sometimes got bored with them.
She laughed a little at these aspirations, as she hurried towards her tall, unmoving daughter and waved her hand in greeting, because they sounded so very like a desire to be free of family life altogether. And she didn’t desire to be free of it, she clung to what remained of it for her, she clung to Virginia, her last shred of it, however different they were, however deeply they didn’t understand each other. Blood; strange, compelling, unbreakable link. Could one forget that that tall creature there, so aloof, so critical, had once been tiny and helpless, depending on her for her very life?
A fresh wave of love for her daughter washed over her. She felt so able to love and be happy at that moment. ‘I’m late—I know I’m late,’ she said breathlessly, running up the steps and kissing her. ‘Did you think I was lost, darling?’