“Philip isn’t like anyone else,” she said.
And Millie was dismissed.
But when Katherine was alone she sat down and wrote a letter. This was it:
My darling Rachel,
Do you remember that a long time ago, one day when I came to see you in London, you said that if I were ever in trouble I was to tell you and you’d understand anything? Well, I’m in trouble now—bad trouble. Things are growing worse and worse, and it seems now that whichever way I act, something’s got to be hopelessly spoiled. To any ordinary outsider it would mean such a small business, but really it’s the whole of my life and of other people’s too. You’re not an outsider, and so I know that you’ll understand. I can’t tell you more now—I don’t know what will happen, how I’ll act, or anything. But I shall know soon, and then I shall want your help, dreadfully. I’m sure you’ll help me when I ask you to.
You do like Philip better now, don’t you? I know that you didn’t at first, but that was because you didn’t really know him. I didn’t really know him either then, but I know him now, and I love him twice as much as ever I did.
This will seem a silly letter to you, but I want to feel that I’ve got someone behind me. Millie’s a dear, but she isn’t old enough to understand. Don’t be frightened by this. If anything happens I’ll write at once.
Your loving
K.
Meanwhile the family life proceeded, outwardly, on its normal way. August was always a month of incident—picnics to Rafiel and St. Lowe and Damen Head, sometimes long expeditions to Borhaze or Pelynt, sometimes afternoons in Pendennis or Rothin Woods. There were expeditions in which relations from Polchester or Clinton, or friends from Liskane and Polewint shared, and, in the cover of them, the family supported quite successfully the Trenchard tradition of good manners, unruffled composure, and abundant leisure. As members of a clan so ancient and self-reliant that no enemy, however strong, however confident, could touch them, they sat about their luncheon baskets on the burning sand, whilst the fat pony cropped in the dark hedges above the beach and the gulls wheeled and hovered close at hand.