Very simply and with the manliness that was part of him he held out his hand. Without hesitation the Corporal took it. They looked in the eyes of one another. “I hope you’re quite comfortable,” said Josiah. “If there’s anything you need you have only to let me know. So long, my boy, and don’t be in a hurry to get well. See you to-morrow, Melia. Wish you could have brought Bill along with you. Happy Christmas.”
With a wave of the hand for them both the Mayor went away, exuding an atmosphere of kindness and goodwill towards all men except Germans. In the Mayor’s opinion Germans were not men at all.
XLI
IT would have been ungracious of Melia not to spend Christmas Day at Strathfieldsaye. Indeed, she felt that she could hardly do otherwise. That stubborn thing, pride, might still be lurking in the corners of her heart, yet it durst not show itself openly; besides, whatever its secret machinations, she could not overlook the fact that her father was striving to wipe out the past. Perhaps the past is the only thing easier to create than to destroy, but certainly Josiah was now trying his best to undo it. And this Melia knew.
In view of the important function on Christmas Day, Melia had been taken in hand by Aunt Gerty. It would have been natural to resent the interference of that lady, but it was clear that her actions were inspired “from above.” At the same time no emissary could have been more tactful, more discreet. In situations that called for finesse she was hard to beat; and she was able to have Melia “fitted” for a really good coat and skirt by her own accomplished dressmaker, Miss Pratt, and helped her also to choose a hat at Messrs. Rostron and Merton’s, the best shop in the city, without arousing antagonism in that sensitive soul. Also she whispered in Melia’s ear that there was reason to believe that her father had a little surprise in store for her on Christmas Day.
In regard to “the surprise” Gerty’s information was correct. And as Melia, looking and feeling far more fashionable than she had ever done in her life, turned up at Strathfieldsaye at a quarter past one, “the surprise” duly materialized even before the Christmas luncheon at one-thirty. Her father gave her a check for fifty pounds.
On Melia’s last visit to Strathfieldsaye she had felt quite “out of it,” but not so now. Partly it may have been the new clothes. Formerly, she had felt self-conscious, awkward, hopelessly shabby in the midst of a grandeur to which she was unused, whereby she was thrown back upon her embittered self, but now her changing circumstances, the considered kindness of her mother and Gerty, and especially her father’s new attitude towards her gave her a sense of happiness almost.
Perhaps the fact that Ethel, Mrs. Doctor Cockburn, was unable to be present may also have ministered a little to this feeling. Ethel’s absence was much deplored. Somehow a void was created which seemed to rob the modest function of any claim to distinction it might have had; yet in her heart Melia felt that the absence of Mrs. Doctor made it easier for her personally, and even for her mother, whatever it may have done for people so accomplished in the world as her father now was, and for Aunt Gerty who somehow had learned to be genteel without being stuck-up. With Ethel, on the other hand, she had never felt quite at her ease. Nor did anybody, if it came to that. Putting people at their ease was not among Mrs. Doctor Cockburn’s many gifts. She was so much a lady that simple folk were apt to be overwhelmed by her sense of her happy condition. It was difficult for ordinary people to be their plain selves in her presence; ordinary they might be, but in social intercourse Mrs. Doctor seemed almost to resent their plainness as being in the nature of a slight upon herself.