‘What brought you down on a Sunday, dear Mrs. Cumfrit?’ asked Mrs. Colquhoun, sitting on the end of the sofa, and patting Virginia’s feet, reassuringly to show they were not in her way, and approvingly because they were, as she daily told her daughter-in-law they should be, up.
Catherine wanted to say ‘A train,’ but discarded this as childish. In her conversations with Mrs. Colquhoun she was constantly being impelled towards the simple truth, and constantly discarding it as unsuitable.
She really didn’t know what to give as a reason. She looked at her fellow-mother-in-law helplessly.
Mrs. Colquhoun was struck by an air of dilapidation about her. ‘Ageing,’ she commented to herself.
‘I had a longing to see Virginia,’ said Catherine at last; and it seemed a lame sort of reason, in spite of its being true.
Mrs. Colquhoun privately hoped this mightn’t be the first of a series of such longings, for it was in her opinion essential that a young couple should be left undisturbed by relations, and especially should they not be allowed to get a feeling that at any moment they might unexpectedly be descended upon. It made them jumpy; and what could be worse for a young married woman than to be made jumpy? For three months Virginia’s mother had left her most properly alone, only coming down occasionally for a night, and never without being asked. Was she now going to inaugurate an era of surprise visits? Stephen wouldn’t like it at all, and Mrs. Colquhoun couldn’t help feeling, even as Virginia had felt, a little uneasy. If she had seen the luggage she would have felt still more so, for it was not, as Virginia had already noticed, the luggage of a mere week-end.
‘How natural,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun. ‘And dear Virginia will, I am sure, have been delighted.’
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, removing her pile of papers out of reach of the jam to which her mother seemed to be helping herself a little carelessly; Stephen did so much dislike stickiness.
‘But I hope you weren’t worried about her,’ Mrs. Colquhoun continued. ‘She is in very good hands here, you know, and you may be sure that when her husband is away I look after her—don’t I, Virginia.’
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, anxiously watching her mother, who seemed about to put her cup down on the top of the pile of papers. She got up, and quietly drew the table away into safety; Stephen did so much dislike smudges.