Then for some days Penelope had found him again become strangely cold and alien. She had felt the situation between them intolerable, and suddenly she had suggested the sojourn at Kingpole Farm. And on the eve of his departure Downing again seemed to become instinct with the mysterious ardour he had shown from the first moment they had met, from the flash of time during which their eyes had exchanged their first long, intimate, probing look.
Mrs. Mote had followed, with foreboding, agonizing jealousy, this interlude of days in a drama of which she had seen the first, and of which she was beginning to divine the last, act.
It is not the apparently inevitable sin, so much as the apparently avoidable folly, which most distresses those onlookers who truly love the sinners and the foolish. During those still summer days the old nurse felt she could have borne anything but this strange beguilement of her mistress, by one whom the maid regarded as having outlived the age when men make women happy. The sight of Mrs. Robinson, with whom, to Motey's doting eyes, time had stood still, hanging on his words, having eyes only for this man, who, though no longer young, yet seemed even older than his age, struck the watcher as monstrous because unnatural.
So far, Mrs. Mote had been unselfish in her repugnance for the irrevocable step towards which she felt Penelope to be drifting, but of late a nearer and more personal terror had taken possession of the old woman. She was beginning to suspect that she herself was to have no part in Mrs. Robinson's new life, and the suspicion drove her nearly beside herself with anger and impotent distress.
Many incidents, of themselves trifling, had instilled this suspicion in her mind. Mrs. Robinson was trying to do for herself all the things that Motey, first as nurse, and later as maid, had always done for her. Sitting in her own room, next door to that of her mistress, and feeling too proud and sore to come unless sent for, Mrs. Mote would hear the opening and shutting of cupboards and drawers, the seeking and the putting away by Penelope—this last an almost incredible portent—of her own hat, veil, gloves, and shoes!
Even more significant was the fact that of late Penelope had become so considerate, so tender, of the old woman who had always been about her. How happy a sharp, impatient word would now have made Mrs. Mote! But no such word was ever uttered. Instead, Mrs. Robinson had actually suggested that her maid should have a holiday. 'Me? A holiday? and what should I do with a holiday?' Motey had repeated, bewildered, and then with painful sarcasm had added, 'I suppose, ma'am, that is why you are learning to do your own hair?'
She had watched her enemy's departure for Kingpole Farm with sombre eyes and sinking heart, wondering what this unexpected happening might portend to her mistress.
The day after that which had seen Downing leaving Monk's Eype, Mrs. Robinson had found her riding-habit, and also a short skirt she often wore when driving herself, laid out with some elaboration. 'I have everything ready,' had said the old nurse sourly, 'for there will be many rides and drives now, I reckon.' And Penelope, forgetting her new gentleness, had exclaimed angrily: 'Motey, you are intolerable! Put those things away at once!'
III
In most people's lives there has come, at times, a sequence of days, full of deep calm without, full of inward strife and disturbance within.