And while she was thinking this, Stephen was saying to Virginia: ‘We must make allowances.’
He had just been describing what he had seen in the garden. ‘No one,’ he had finished thoughtfully—‘no one would have supposed, from their general appearance and expression, that your mother was not the mistress and Burroughs her servant. Burroughs, indeed, might easily have been mistaken for a particularly devoted servant. I was sorry, my darling, because of you. I was, I confess, jealous on my Virginia’s behalf.’
‘And there’s Ellen, too,’ said Virginia, her brow puckered. ‘She’s always in mother’s room.’
At this fresh example of injudiciousness Stephen was silent. He couldn’t help thinking that perfect tact would have avoided, especially under the peculiar and delicate circumstances, long and frequent conversations with some one else’s servants. He didn’t say so to Virginia, for had he not often, and with sincerity, praised precisely this in his mother-in-law, her perfect tact? She appeared after all not to possess it in quite the quantity he had believed, but that was no reason for hurting his Virginia’s feelings by pointing it out. Virginia loved her mother; and perhaps the lapse was temporary.
‘We must make allowances,’ he repeated presently.
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, who would have given much not to have been put by her mother in a position in which allowances had to be made. After having been so proud and happy in the knowledge that Stephen considered her mother flawless as a mother-in-law, was it not hard?
On Wednesday night, when Catherine went to bed, her reflections were definitely darker. This was the day she had, at Mrs. Colquhoun’s invitation, looked in at the Rectory after lunch, bearing with her a message from Virginia to the effect that she hoped her mother-in-law would come back with her mother to tea.
Mrs. Colquhoun had refused.
‘No, no, dear Mrs. Cumfrit,’ she had said. ‘We must take care of our little girl. She mustn’t be overtired. Too many people to pour out for aren’t at all good for her just now.’
‘But there wouldn’t be anybody but us,’ Catherine had said. ‘And Virginia says she hasn’t seen you for ages.’