“Yes, you did. I am prepared for the worst. Arthur, no doubt, will insist upon my discharging this old servant. And how I shall find another bailiff in these times is a problem beyond me. However, I count upon Arthur and his agent.”
Cicely felt dazed. But one lobe of her mind worked clearly. Arthur could show her mother a way out of the wood. He would do cheerfully and splendidly everything she demanded. Nobody else could do it half as well. And her mother was well aware of this, although pride would hardly allow her to admit as much. Lady Selina smiled faintly when she mentioned Arthur, and her voice indicated maternal affection. Arthur, for the first time possibly was envisaged as a son. The other lobe of Cicely’s brain refused to function at all. Out of a welter of chaotic sensibilities arose the appalling conviction that the breaking of her engagement had become a task beyond her powers. Dare she procrastinate? Could she permit her mother to ask such a service from a prospective son-in-law only to discover afterwards that the marriage so delightfully arranged would never take place? What would Tiddy say? She could hear Tiddy speaking, as it were, through a long-distance telephone:
“You are fairly up against it.”
Then she heard her mother’s voice, leisurely continuing:
“I shall speak to Arthur myself.”
“He comes to-morrow.”
“So you told me. I hope I shan’t spoil his pleasure in giving you your pearls.”
Cicely had forgotten the pearls. At mere mention of them she contemplated flight. Why not feign indisposition and remain in bed? Wild ideas surged through her head. Could she make a personal appeal to Grimshaw? The one old friend, Dr. Pawley, to whom she might have fled, for counsel, was physically debarred. Her mother said sharply:
“Don’t look so wretched, child. I am positive that Arthur can save this abominable situation. I regard it as saved, so cheer up. After dinner to-morrow night, when he is smoking his cigar, I shall come back here and talk to him.”
Having dismissed Arthur with gracious finality, she turned once more to Grimshaw. Immediately the inflections of her soft voice became querulous. In just the same tone Lord Saltaire bewailed the passing of the old order. All the Danecourts, in fact—and there were not many left of them except Cicely’s aunts—aired certain grievances in private. As a rule Cicely listened patiently enough to a tale—long as the Cromwell Road—which concerned itself mainly with the shortcomings of gardeners, grooms and tradesmen: all the many-headed who interfered directly or indirectly with that love of ease which Grimshaw long ago had described as moss. Grimshaw, during a few minutes, had raked a lot of moss from poor Lady Selina. Cicely reflected humorously, occupied though she was with her own affairs, that her mother presented the appearance of an ancient lawn cruelly lacerated by an up-to-date gardener.