And Trix wrote:
“Darling Pia,
“You’re twenty-eight. Trix.”
After which there was a cessation of correspondence for a time, neither having anything further to say on the subject, or at all events, nothing further they felt disposed to set down in writing.
Trix spent her mornings, and the afternoons, till tea time, in her Aunt’s company. After that, Mrs. Arbuthnot being engrossed in Bridge till bedtime, Trix was free to do exactly as she liked. What she liked was walking till it was time to dress for dinner, and spending the evenings in the garden.
Even before her father’s death, Trix had stayed frequently with her aunt. Her mother had died when Trix was three years old and Mrs. Arbuthnot, a widow with no children of her own, would have been quite ready to adopt Trix. But neither Mr. Devereux, nor, for that matter, Trix herself, were in the least disposed to fall in with her plans. Trix was merely lent to her for fairly lengthy periods, and it had been during one of these periods that Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken her to a farm near Byestry, in which place Mr. Devereux had spent most of his early years.
In those days Mrs. Arbuthnot’s one hobby had been photography. People used to say, of course unjustly, that she never beheld any view with the naked eye, but merely in the reflector of a photographic apparatus. Yet it is entirely obvious that she must first have regarded it in the ordinary way to judge of its photographic merits. Anyhow it is true that quite a good deal of her time was spent beneath the folds of a black cloth (she never condescended to anything so amateurish as a mere kodak), or in the seclusion of a dark room.
Veritable dark rooms being seldom procurable on her travels, she invariably carried with her two or three curtains of thick red serge, several rolls of brown paper, and a bottle of stickphast. The two last mentioned were employed for covering chinks in doors, etc. It cannot be said that it was entirely beneficial to the doors, but hotel proprietors and landladies seldom made any complaint after the first remonstrance, as Mrs. Arbuthnot was always ready to make handsome compensation for any damage caused. It is to be feared that at times her generosity was largely imposed upon.
In addition to the red curtains, the brown paper, and the stickphast, two large boxes were included in her luggage, one containing all her photographic necessaries, and they were not few, the other containing several dozen albums of prints.
Of late years Bridge had taken quite as large a place in her affections as photography. Not that she felt any rivalry between the two; her pleasure in both pastimes was quite equally balanced. Her mornings and early afternoons were given to photography. The late afternoons and evenings Mrs. Arbuthnot devoted to Bridge.