A large fire roared in the fireplace; the room seemed strangely altered since that day when Henry had read his novel and thought of his forests. In what lay the alteration? The old green carpet was still there; in front of the fireplace was a deep red Turkey rug—but it was not the rug that changed the room. The deep glass-fronted book-cases were still there, with the chilly and stately classics inside them; on the round table there were two novels with gaudy red and blue covers. One novel was entitled “The Lovely Mrs. Tempest”, the other “The Mystery of Dovecote Mill”—but it was not the novels that changed the room. The portraits of deceased Trenchards, weighted with heavy gold, still hung upon the walls; there was also, near the fireplace, a gay water-colour of some place on the Riviera, with a bright parasol in the foreground and the bluest of all blue seas in the background—but it was not the water-colour that changed the room.
No, the change lay here—the Mirror was gone.
After Henry had broken it, there was much discussion as to whether it should be mended. Of course it would be mended—but when?—Well, soon. Meanwhile it had better be out of the way somewhere ... it had remained out of the way. Until it should be restored, Sir George Trenchard, K.C.B., 1834-1896, a stout gentleman with side whiskers, hung in its place.
Meanwhile it would never be restored. People would forget it; people wanted to forget it ... the Mirror’s day was over.
It was, of course, impossible for Sir George Trenchard to reflect the room in his countenance or in his splendid suit of clothes, and the result of this was that the old room that had gathered itself so comfortably, with its faded and mossy green, into the shining embrace of the Mirror, had now nowhere for its repose; it seemed now an ordinary room, and the spots of colour—the Turkey rug, the novels, the water-colour, broke up the walls and the carpet, flung light here and light there, shattered that earlier composed remoteness, proclaimed the room a comfortable place that had lost its tradition.
The Room was broken up—the Mirror was in the cellar.
Henry came in. He had had permission to abandon—for one night—his labours at Cambridge to assist in the celebration of his grandfather’s birthday, the last, perhaps, that there would be, because the old man now was very broken and ill. He had never recovered from the blow of Katherine’s desertion.
The first thing that Henry had done on his arrival in London had been to pay a visit to Mrs. Philip Mark. Katherine and Philip lived in a little flat in Knightsbridge—Park Place—and a delightful little flat it was. This was not the first visit that Henry had paid there; George Trenchard, Millie, Aunt Betty had also been there—there had been several merry tea-parties.
The marriage had been a great success; the only thing that marred it for Katherine was her division from her mother. Mrs. Trenchard was relentless. She would not see Katherine, she would not read her letters, she would not allow her name to be mentioned in her presence. Secretly, one by one, the others had crept off to the Knightsbridge flat.... They gave no sign of their desertion. Did she know? She also gave no sign.
But Katherine would not abandon hope. The time must come when her mother needed her. She did not ask questions of the others, but she saw her mother lonely, aged, miserable; she saw this from no conceit of herself, but simply because she knew that she had, for so many years, been the centre of her mother’s life. Her heart ached; she lay awake, crying, at night, and Philip would strive to console her but could not. Nevertheless, through all her tears, she did not regret what she had done. She would do it again did the problem again arise. Philip was a new man, strong, happy, reliant, wise ... she had laid the ghosts for him. He was hers, as though he had been her child.