“It’s just as though there were ghosts in the house,” she thought. As she went to bed she was, for the first time in her life, lonely. She longed for Philip ... then suddenly, for no reason that she could name, began to cry and, so crying, fell asleep. She was much younger than everyone thought her....
Throughout the three weeks that followed she felt as though she were beating the air. Rachel Seddon had taken her husband abroad. There was no one to whom she could speak. She wrote to Philip every day, and discovered how useless letters were. She tried to approach Millie, but found that she had not the courage to risk Millie’s frankness. Her sister’s attitude to her was: “Dear Katie, let’s be happy and jolly together without talking about it—it’s much better....” There had been a time, not so very long ago, when they had told one another everything. Henry was the strangest of all. He removed himself from the whole family, and would speak to no one. He went apparently for long solitary walks. Even his father noticed his depression, and decided that something must really be done with the boy. “We might send him abroad for six months—learn some French or German ...” but of course nothing was done.
Aunt Betty was the only entirely satisfactory member of the family. She frankly revelled in the romance of the whole affair. She was delighted that Katherine had fallen in love “with such a fine manly fellow” as Philip. Her attention was always centred upon Katherine to the exclusion of the others, therefore she noticed no restraint nor awkwardness. She was intensely happy, and went humming about the house in a way that annoyed desperately her sister Aggie. She even wrote a little letter to Philip, beginning “My dear Boy,” saying that she thought that he’d like to know from one of the family that Katherine was in perfect health and looking beautiful. She received a letter from Philip that surprised and delighted her by its warmth of feeling. This letter was the cause of a little battle with Aggie.
They were alone together in Betty’s room when she said, half to herself:
“Such a delightful letter from the ‘dear boy’.”
“What dear boy?” said Aunt Aggie sharply.
Aunt Betty started, as she always did when anyone spoke to her sharply, sucked her fingers, and then, the colour mounting into her cheeks, said:
“Philip. He’s written to me from Manchester.”
“I do think, Betty,” Aggie answered, “that instead of writing letters to young men who don’t want them you might try to take a little of the burden of this house off my shoulders. Now that Katherine has lost all her common-sense I’m supposed to do everything. I don’t complain. They wish me to help as much as I can, but I’m far from strong, and a little help from you ...”
Then Aunt Betty, with the effect of standing on her toes, her voice quite shrill with excitement, spoke to her sister as she had never, in all her life, spoken to anyone before.