Two or three days after Philip’s departure Mrs. Trenchard, alone with Katherine in the dining-room before breakfast, said:
“I’ve written to Philip, my dear, to ask him to go down with us to Garth.”
Katherine’s eyes shone with pleasure.
“Mother!... How delightful of you! I was hoping that perhaps you might ask him later. But isn’t it tiresome to have him so soon?”
“No—my dear—no. Not tiresome at all. I hope he’ll be able to come.”
“Of course he’ll be able to come,” laughed Katherine.
“Yes—well—I’ve written to ask him. We go down on the fifth of March. Your father thinks that’s the best day. Griffiths writes that that business of the fences in Columb meadow should be looked into—Yes. No, Alice, not the ham—tell Grace to boil two more eggs—not enough—I’m glad you’re pleased, Katherine.”
Katherine looked up, and her eyes meeting her mother’s, the confidence that had been clouded ever since that fatal affair with the hot-water bottles seemed to leap into life between them. Mrs. Trenchard put out her hand, Katherine moved forward, but at that moment Aunt Aggie and Aunt Betty entered; breakfast began.
“I believe,” thought Katherine, “Aunt Aggie waits outside the door and chooses her moment. She’s always interrupting....” The fact that there was now some restraint between her mother and herself was only emphasised the more by the feeling of both of them that an opportunity had been missed.
And why, Katherine wondered afterwards, had her mother asked Philip? If he had been invited to come to them after Easter—but now, to go down with them, as one of the family! Was not this exactly what Katherine had been desiring? And yet she was uncomfortable. She felt sometimes now that her mother, who had once been her other self, in whose every thought, distress, anxiety she had shared, was almost a stranger.