So, one morning, the cottage windows were open to the Virginia creeper outside them. Nelly whispered the news to Alexina at breakfast, and the child could not eat for hurry to be through and go over.
It was as if King William had been watching for her, for he came running to the gate and took her hand to conduct her in. He was taller and thinner, and looked different, and neither could find anything to say on the way.
Charlotte was sitting in the parlour, her wraps half-removed. They had only just arrived, and the stillness and closeness of a newly opened house was about. “How does one pack furniture for moving, Willy?” Charlotte began as he appeared.
But he was bringing Alexina. “Tell her about it, mother,” he said, “so she’ll know.”
Charlotte, brightening, held out her arms. Then, having lifted the child to her lap and kissed her, her face grew wan again. “There was no fleece for Jason, little Mab; there is no Land of Colchis, never believe it. And those seeking, like Willy and me, are like to wander until youth and hope and opportunity are gone.”
She was crying against a little cropped head. King William stood irresolute, then put an arm around her. “Not that way, mummy; don’t tell it that way.”
But control had given way. “And there is nothing for little Jason. He must go and fight with his bare hands like any poor churl’s child—oh, Willy, Willy, my little son—”
Alexina, in her lap, sat very still; King William was staring hard into space.
Charlotte went on. “We are going away, little Mab, Willy and his father and I; going away for good. Everything that ever was ours, this cottage and all, is gone. We are going to a place in the South called Aden, where there are a few acres that still are ours only because they would not sell.”
A moment they all were still. Then the little breast of Alexina began to heave. The Leroys had never seen her this way. Sally Ann had, many times, and Nelly once or twice. She threw herself upon Charlotte. “I want to go, too; I want to go; I hate it—there,” with a motion of self toward the big, white house visible through the window. “I hate it, and I want to go too.”