To see Lanty pass to Brixton was a signal to start to his house, there to talk to Mabella until such time as Lanty returned; and poor Mabella, all her old-fashioned wifely fidelity up in arms, talked to them bravely. They had sharp ears these mothers in Israel, but not so sharp as to outstrip Mabella’s love-quickened senses.
When Lanty came back she heard his horse afar—before he came to the fork in the road even—and making some simple excuse to her visitor, she would speed out at the back door, see him, know if all was well. If his gait was unsteady and his blue eyes dazed, she would persuade him to go quietly up the back way. Happily at such times he was like wax in her hands. Then she would return to her visitor with some little lie about straying turkeys or depredating cows.
Oh, Eternal Spirit of Truth! Are not these lies writ in letters of gold for our instruction amid the most sacred precepts?
Once indeed Lanty did come into the room where Mrs. Simpson sat. His eyes were blurred; he swayed a little and asked loudly for the baby.
“I will find her,” said Mabella quietly, though her heart sickened within her, and rising she led him from the room.
“Lanty, dear, you’ll go upstairs and lie down?”
He looked at her white face; the truth gradually struggling in upon him; without a word he turned and crept up the back stairs like a beaten dog going to hide.
Mabella returned to the sitting-room taking her baby with her; she felt that she needed some fount of strength whilst encountering Mrs. Simpson’s talk. When she entered, Mrs. Simpson greeted her with an indescribable pantomime of pursed-up lips, doleful eyes, uplifted hands and lugubrious shakes of the head. Even Mrs. Simpson dared not seek in words to break down Mabella’s reticence, so baffling and forbidding was its wifely dignity.
Mabella regarded Mrs. Simpson’s pantomime quietly.
“Are you not feeling well, Mrs. Simpson?” she asked. “Are you in pain?”