“I don’t think, Mother, that Arthur finds it so.”
“Well, well, you may know more about that than I do. Here, at any rate, ways have to be adjusted to means. And the ways seem to increase as the means diminish.”
She ended with a sigh. Cicely, sensible that her mother was expecting from her some sort of positive declaration, sensible also that if she spoke her mind freely she would wound and amaze a devoted mother, hesitated. Had her mother purposely used Arthur’s name? Did she contemplate estate management made easy by a rich son-in-law? She was well aware that Tiddy had predicted aright. Brian’s death had cut short a second proposal. Absence, she felt assured, had not cooled Arthur’s feelings for her. Twice he had written. And every sentence in his letters seemed to end with a note of interrogation: “Will you?” When they met, in a day or two, he would exact the answer categorical. Did a fond mother take for granted what that answer would be?
“You love the old ways, Mother?”
“Of course I do. Don’t you?”
Cicely felt herself sinking into Upworthy clay, deeper and deeper.
“Can we go on walking in them?”
“I shall walk in them to the end.”
The finality of her tone petrified Cicely into silence. All power of resistance seemed to ooze from her, leaving her invertebrate. The tentacles of tradition and heredity enwrapped her. What was the use of struggling? She stole a glance at her mother’s face, now an impenetrable mask. Obviously, the mere suggestion that the old ways were overgrown by the new vegetation and becoming impassable had irritated Lord Saltaire’s sister. It had never occurred to Cicely before that her mother was not a Chandos. Now, furtively examining Lady Selina’s features, the likeness to Lord Saltaire came out strikingly. Before the war her uncle had presented the same gracious personality to a world that acclaimed him as a distinguished ornament. To-day—and even Lord Saltaire recognised this—manners were at a discount. Tiddy had said pertly: “Lords have slumped.” More, Cicely had to confess to herself that her mother and uncle seemed to have lost something almost indefinable, that assured sense of position and rank. Out of heads still held high smouldered anxious eyes, mutely asking questions which the owners of the eyes refused to answer for themselves. Lord Saltaire no longer moved as Agamemnon amongst his people. . . . And “pinching” had pinched him, making him petulant, fractious, and “gey hard to live wi’.” With dismay Cicely confronted the fact that she was half Chandos and half Danecourt. Incredible that such high breeding might be reckoned a disability——
Her trembling lips refused their office. And the words that fluttered into her perplexed mind seemed wholly inadequate. Being half Chandos, she held her tongue, wondering miserably what Tiddy would have said. She had wit enough to realise that protest would be futile. If she allowed her mother one penetrating glance into her heart, civil war must be declared between them. And her mother would suffer more than herself. Swiftly she came to the conclusion that mother must be “spared.” She decided that she would consult her old friend, Dr. Pawley. He, of course, had held his tongue; so had Goodrich. And if of late she had begun to wonder at and condemn their policy of laissez faire, now—in one illuminating moment—she understood and condoned fully their seeming moral cowardice.