Olive was anxious to go. She had not intended remaining in England so long, and wished to take up some course of study at home, to return later when she might make herself more useful.
Jack was torn between her desire to make a visit to her own home, to get away for a breath of freedom and the chance to decide what she ought to do in the future when Frank opposed her right to decide important issues for herself and the thought that, perhaps, Frieda was right and that she was not playing fair in leaving her husband at so trying a time. But Frank had not opposed her going, had really said he thought it might be a good thing, and she did not know whether he meant this from her standpoint or from his own. It might be that Frank also would enjoy a certain relief from the presence of a wife who would not trust his judgment. Certainly Frank's affection had never seemed the same since that time. He had been wonderfully good in agreeing to her new wish, but there were moments when, womanlike, Jack wondered if she would not have liked it better had he shown more opposition.
So there was only Frieda who unqualifiedly stormed against leaving. Of course she put it all on disapproving of her sister's action, but naturally her family wondered if the fact that Frieda wished to be near her husband, whom she believed to be fighting in France could have anything to do with her point of view. However, no one dared to make this suggestion to her. It would have done no good in any case since she would probably have promptly denied it.
However, Frieda would not remain in England without her sister and Jack was unwilling that she should. Nevertheless, insisting on maintaining the attitude of an aggrieved character, Frieda separated herself from her own family whenever she could.
Twice a week for instance she went into Granchester to tea with Mrs. Huggins. Frieda had a private reason for this. One day she had overlooked the fact that her own "Dame Quick" had not been her nurse or foster mother and had confided to the old woman some of the things which were troubling her. She did not want advice, what she wanted was to say those things aloud which she had been saying to herself, and she knew her old friend would simply listen and be kind to her. One might think she would have feared that the old woman, with her passion for spreading news, would have gossiped about her, but Frieda knew better than this.
One afternoon, about ten days before their sailing time, Frieda started off alone to walk to Granchester. She was earlier than need be since Olive had asked her a question which had offended her and she had been irritable. She thought she had caught the suggestion of a lecture in her sister's expression and so had hurried off before Jack had a chance to speak.
Frieda recognized the fact that she was a little difficult to live with these days. But then she excused herself by saying that no one knew how worried and nervous she was. There were times when Frieda was afraid she might be losing her prettiness through worry, until her mirror reassured her. For Frieda understood her own appearance, just as she understood a great many things. She knew that Jack had developed into a beauty from a merely handsome girlhood and that she was only pretty. But she also realized that prettiness often makes more appeal, especially to men, than a higher type of loveliness. Therefore, Frieda had no idea of not preserving her own charms as long as she possibly could.
She walked slowly so as not to arrive too early and because she was enjoying the country more than she usually did. The quietness of the English landscape, its look of a carefully kept garden, appealed to Frieda more than the vastness of her own windswept western prairies. It was one of the many odd ironies of fate that Jack, who loved the prairies must live in England, while until lately Frieda's life had been cast at least on the edge of the western country.
The old English laborers passing back and forth from their ploughing of the spring fields were almost the only persons she met.
When Frieda reached the little house at the edge of the village, of which Mrs. Huggins had once told her some story, she stopped for a moment without any particular motive.