Lizzie asked if she should take them away then, and bring some more; and presently she reappeared with another armful.
These were all Baedekers.
'Curious,' said Miss Entwhistle.
Then Lucy remembered that she, too, beneath her distress on Saturday when she pulled out one after the other of Vera's books in her haste to understand her, to get comfort, to get, almost she hoped, counsel, had felt surprise at the number of Baedekers. The greater proportion of the books in Vera's shelves were guide-books and time-tables. But there had been other things,—'If you were to bring some out of a different part of the bookcase,' she suggested to Lizzie; who thereupon removed the Baedekers, and presently reappeared with more books.
This time they were miscellaneous, and Miss Entwhistle turned them over with a kind of reverential reluctance. That poor thing; this day last year she was probably reading them herself. It seemed sacrilege for two strangers.... Merciful that one couldn't see into the future. What would the poor creature have thought of the picture presented at that moment,—the figure in the blue dressing-gown, sitting in the middle of all the things that had been hers such a very little while before? Well, perhaps she would have been glad they weren't hers any longer, glad that she had finished, was done with them. These books suggested such tiredness, such a—yes, such a wish for escape.... There was more Hardy,—all the poems this time in one volume. There was Pater—The Child in the House and Emerald Uthwart—Miss Entwhistle, familiar with these, shook her head: that peculiar dwelling on death in them, that queer, fascinated inability to get away from it, that beautiful but sick wistfulness no, she certainly wouldn't read these. There was a book called In the Strange South Seas; and another about some island in the Pacific; and another about life in the desert; and one or two others, more of the flamboyant guide-book order, describing remote, glowing places....
Suddenly Miss Entwhistle felt uncomfortable. She put down the book she was holding, and folded her hands in her lap and gazed out of the window at the hills on the other side of the river. She felt as if she had been prying, and prying unpardonably. The books people read,—was there ever anything more revealing? No, she refused to examine Vera's books further. And apart from that horrible feeling of prying upon somebody defenceless, upon somebody pitiful, she didn't wish to allow the thought these books suggested to get any sort of hold on her mind. It was essential, absolutely essential, that it shouldn't. And if Lucy ever——
She got up and went to the window. Lucy's eyes followed her, puzzled. The gardener was still mowing the lawn, working very hard at it as though he were working against time. She watched his back, bent with hurry as he and the boy laboriously pushed and pulled the machine up and down; and then she caught sight of the terrace just below, and the flags.
This was a dreadful house. Whichever way one looked one was entangled in a reminder. She turned away quickly, and there was that little loved thing in her blue wrapper, propped up on Vera's pillows, watching her with puzzled anxiety. Nothing could harm that child, she was safe, so long as she loved and believed in Everard; but suppose some day—suppose gradually—suppose a doubt should creep into her mind whether perhaps, after all, Vera's fall ... suppose a question should get into her head whether perhaps, after all, Vera's death——?
Aunt Dot knew Lucy's face so well that it seemed absurd to examine it now, searching for signs in its features and expression of enough character, enough nerves, enough—this, if there were enough of it, might by itself carry her through—sense of humour. Yes, she had a beautiful sweep of forehead; all that part of her face was lovely—so calm and open, with intelligent, sweet eyes. But were those dear eyes intelligent enough? Was not sweetness really far more manifest in them than intelligence? After that her face went small, and then, looking bigger than it was because of her little face, was her kind, funny mouth. Generous; easily forgiving; quick to be happy; quick to despair,—Aunt Dot, looking anxiously at it, thought she saw all this in the shape of Lucy's mouth. But had the child strength? Had she the strength that would be needed equally—supposing that doubt and that question should ever get into her head—for staying or for going; for staying or for running ... oh, but running, running, for her very life....
With a violent effort Miss Entwhistle shook herself free from these thoughts. Where in heaven's name was her mind wandering to? It was intolerable, this tyranny of suggestion in everything one looked at here, in everything one touched. And Lucy, who was watching her and who couldn't imagine why Aunt Dot should be so steadfastly gazing at her mouth, naturally asked, 'Is anything the matter with my face?'