Mrs Gosling gave a final flick with her handkerchief and declared her relief. “It’s quite pleasant in ’ere,” she said, “after the ’eat.”
The two girls also seemed to find new vigour in the shade of the trees.
“We have got a cheek!” said Millie, with a giggle.
“Well! needs must when the devil drives,” returned Mrs Gosling, “and our circumstances is quite out of the ordinary. Besides which, there can’t be any ’arm in offerin’ to buy a glass of milk.”
Blanche tugged at the trolley handle with a flicker of impatience. Why would her mother be so foolish? Surely she must see that everything was different now? Blanche was beginning to wonder at and admire the marvel of her own intelligence. How much cleverer she was than the others! How much more ready to appreciate and adapt herself to change! They could not understand this new state of things, but she could, and she prided herself on her powers of discrimination.
“Everything’s different now,” she said to herself. “We can go anywhere and do anything, almost. It’s like as if we were all starting off level again, in a way.” She felt uplifted: she took extraordinary pleasure in her own realization of facts. A strange, new power had come to her, a power to enjoy life, through mastery. “Everything’s different now,” she repeated. She was conscious of a sense of pity for her mother and sister.
2
The road through the wood curved sharply round to the right, and they came suddenly upon a clearing, and saw the house in front of them. It was a long, low house, smothered in roses and creepers, and it stood in a wild garden surrounded by a breast-high wall of red brick. At the edge of the clearing several cows were lying under the shade of the trees, reflectively chewing the cud with slow, deliberate enjoyment, while one, solitary, stood with its head over the garden gate, motionless, save for an occasional petulant whisp of its ropey tail.
“Now, then, what are we going to do?” asked Mrs Gosling.