Life moved on another fortnight, with little to vary the monotony of motor rides, luncheons, and irritating disputes, and all at once Sylvia’s reason for prolonging her visit in Springdale was removed. Lavinia Trench came home! She startled the girls by driving up to the gate in Hafferty’s lumbering old cab, her trunk toppling precariously on the driver’s seat and her trim body hemmed in between boxes and travelling bags. A letter that had arrived that very morning announced that she would yield to Ellen’s pleading that she remain another week—unless she were greatly needed at home.
Without waiting for the ceremony of the bath and a change of raiment, she hurried to Vine Cottage to present the souvenir she had brought from Rochester. Judith forgot to thank her, so amazed was she by the astounding change in the woman’s countenance. Such a change she had witnessed in her garden when Dutton, with hoe and fine-toothed rake, had obliterated the ridges and hummocks of his spading. All that had been Lavinia was gone. It was not that she looked girlish, rejuvenated. In the past few months she had made many swift changes from youth to age—had rebounded from dank depression to hysterical buoyancy. This change was different. It was, in fact, as if Lavinia had lent her body to some other woman.
“I can’t stay a minute,” she fluttered. “My precious old sweetheart is coming home early, and he thinks no one can cook chicken the way I can. You ought to have heard him when I called him on the ’phone, a minute ago. I thought he’d let the receiver fall, he was so astonished ... and pleased.”
II
During the next few days Judith forgot Eileen, well-nigh forgot Lary, in her perplexed contemplation of their mother. Some thaumaturge, endowed with more than a magician’s power, must have his habitation in Bromfield. The most audacious quack would guarantee no such cure of a sick body and a doubly sick mind in four short weeks. Lavinia had subtracted twenty years from her normal age, as neatly as a reptile discards an outworn skin. Her step was short and vigorous, with none of the stumping determination that so long marked it. Her head was carried high and the black eyes beamed with amiability. The very quality of her voice had undergone change. She no longer swung from cloying sweetness to acrid outbursts. More than all else, a half gentleness—that she still wore uncomfortably, like a fur cloak in August—held her family in puzzled wonder.
David moved as one walking in his sleep. He was afraid to breathe, lest he fall to earth and awaken to the old barren reality. When it appeared likely that the mood would remain, he accepted the goods the gods had provided. He had waited long, and the reward was justly his.
One evening Theodora sought her Lady Judith. She was agitated to the point of inarticulateness. Her little brown face was drawn with fear and two red spots burned in the thin cheeks. Twice, thrice she essayed to speak, her throat swelling and her bird-like eyes darting their mute appeal.
“Might I—might I sit in your lap?” she faltered at last. “I’m not so very heavy, and I can’t tell you unless I.... I have to tell you in your ear.”
“What are you afraid of, dearie?” Mrs. Ascott snuggled her close.
“It happened just a few minutes ago—and—I know I didn’t dream it. It was when Papa came downstairs from changing his clothes. You know, they are going to the reception for the Board of Trustees, and my daddy looked so handsome when he came in the library—with a pink carnation in his buttonhole.”