Then when he kissed her she thought how big he was. She hadn’t sat with her arms round him and his great muscles round her since the honeymoon, and even then she had been thinking about her trousseau.
And breakfast was quite an extraordinary meal. The girls were amazed. They had never seen their father in this kind of mood before. They had always rather cautiously disliked him, as far as they’d had any feeling for him at all, but their attitude had in the main been negative. But now, here he was joking, telling funny stories, and mother laughing. Cutting the tops off their eggs too, and paying them quite a lot of attention.
He found the meal delightful, too, although he realised that there was still a good deal of the old Mrs. Maradick left. Her voice was as shrill as ever; she was just as cross with Annie for spreading her butter with an eye to self-indulgence rather than economy. She was still as crude and vulgar in her opinion of things and people.
But he didn’t see it any longer in the same way. The knowledge that there was really the other Mrs. Maradick there all the time waiting for him to develop, encourage her, made the things that had grated on him at one time so harshly now a matter of very small moment. He was even tender about them. It was a good thing that they’d both got their faults, a very fortunate thing.
“Now, Annie, there you go, slopping your tea into your saucer like that, and now it’ll drop all over your dress. Why can’t you be more careful?”
“Yes, but mother, it was so full.”
“I say,” this from Maradick, “what do you think of our all having this afternoon down on the beach or somewhere? Tea and things; just ourselves. After all, it’s our last day, and it’s quite fine and warm. No more rain.”
Everyone thought it splendid. Annie, under this glorious new state of things, even found time and courage to show her father her last French exercise with only three mistakes. The scene was domestic for the next half-hour.
Then he left them. He wanted to go and make his farewell to the place; this would be the last opportunity that he would have.
He didn’t expect to see the Gales again. After all, there was nothing more for him to say. They had Tony’s address. It only remained for Sir Richard to get over it as quickly as he could. Lady Gale would probably manage that. He would like to have spoken to her once more, but really it was as well that he shouldn’t. He would write to her.