At the table Mrs. Edis betrayed a little of the joy she felt at the return of her prodigal, by talking far more than her wont. She told Julia the gossip of the islands, mostly mortuary, as all the old women of her own generation had died; but although she anathematized Bath House and the idle rheumatics it would bring to Nevis, she permitted herself to express hope regarding the future of the islands. She went to her room immediately after the meal finished, but it was long before Julia could enjoy the seclusion of her own. Fanny, who barely opened her mouth before her grandmother, burst into speech the moment that august presence was withdrawn, and Julia for quite three hours was obliged to answer her questions regarding the great world of London, when not sympathizing with the dynamic maiden’s hatred of life on Nevis.
“Good heaven!” she thought. “That I ever could have imagined a girl of eighteen interesting!”
She locked herself in her own room at last, but not to sleep. Her homecoming had proved a bitter disappointment. Fanny she might have forgiven, for all girls were more or less alike, wrapped up in themselves, happy in the delusion of their supreme importance. But her mother! She had always remembered her as the most wonderful of her sex, a tower of strength, no matter how hard, a superwoman isolated on a rock in the Caribbean Sea. What was she, after all, but an obstinate old woman? Was she to find strength in no one but herself? Well, why not? Hadn’t it been her cherished ideal to stand alone?
But what, in heaven’s name, was she to do with Tay?
The rooms opened upon a corridor, but her window was only a few feet above the large garden in front of the house. She unlatched the jalousie and sprang to the ground. Here she could decide his fate without sentiment, for here was the shadow of France. But the shadow had departed and ignored her summons. The renaissance of old impressions is fleeting. It rarely comes twice, and never at command. And Nevis and all things on it were changed! Only one of the old servants, Denny, was alive. She had visited the outbuildings before dinner, eager for familiar faces. The girls of her youth were fat old women. There were many of them, and the pic’nies swarmed as of yore. The court, no doubt, was still full of color by day, but everything was orderly and clean; there were few of the old evidences of congenital laziness. Fanny, for all her romantic notions, was an admirable overseer—and a tyrant. Since this duty had been thrust upon her by her inexorable grandparent, she would use it as an outlet for her energies; and Julia suspected that she found a decided gratification in ruling her subjects with an iron hand.
The white cloud on Nevis had slipped down the mountain, enveloping it in a fine white mist. The garden was full of enchanting shapes, of heavy intoxicating odors. Where was Tay? Why had he not come to shake her jalousie? She longed to find him hiding under one of the heavy trees. But he was probably asleep at Bath House; and his temporary quiescence inspired her reason with gratitude. For the first time she feared him. He had come to Nevis for no such indefinite object as an episodical romance. He meant to take her with him when he left, possibly to forge the strongest of all bonds in the earlier phases of love. This thought made her angry once more, roused the subtle antagonism of sex. If it came to an actual contest of strength, here was her chance to prove to him what the years and much else had made of her.
She went to bed, and her thoughts turned contritely to Fanny. Was she really disappointed in this girl who seemed to be the embodiment of soulless, unimaginative, brutal youth? Or might not she still find her so interesting as a study, and companion, that the old fond image would be undeplored? The last, no doubt. She had been just as soulless, and her true imagination as unawakened. She went to sleep determined to love Fanny whatever befell.
IV
She slept until late in the day, Mrs. Edis having given orders that she should not be disturbed. Otherwise the routine of Great House was not altered. Fanny took her daily ride over the estate. Mrs. Edis sat in her chair in the living-room, making a feint of sewing, in reality listening for Julia’s footfalls. So she had sat listening for sixteen years.
But it was a lagging, almost elderly step that she finally heard approaching along the terrace at the back of the house. A moment later Mrs. Winstone entered, flushed, damp, but with her eyes full of malicious amusement.