Something in the request touched him. He sat quite silent for a time in Edward's armchair and they looked at one another in a haunted immobility. Reddin was sorry for his violence, but would not say so.
Then they heard Mrs. Marston's slide, and she entered with a large decanter.
'This is some of the sparkling gooseberry,' she said, 'by Susan Waine's recipe, poor thing! Own cousin to my husband she was, and a good kind body. Never a thing awry in her house, and twelve children had Susan. I remember as clear as clear how the carpet (it was green jute, reversible) was rucked up at her funeral by the bearers' feet. And George Waine said, "That'll worry Susan," and then he remembered, and burst out crying, poor man! And he cried till the party was quite spoilt, and our spirits so low. Where was I? Oh yes, It's quite up, you see, and four years old this next midsummer. But I'm sure I'm quite put out at having no sherry, on account of Martha thinking to return the bottle and finishing the dregs. And there, you asked for sherry!'
'Did I? Oh, well, I like this just as much, thanks.'
He felt uncomfortable at this drinking of wine in Marston's house. It seemed unsportsmanlike to hoodwink this old lady. He had no qualms about Hazel. He was going, if Hazel would be sensible, to give her a life she would like, and things her instincts cried out for. Possibly he was right in imagining that her instincts were traitors to her personality. For Nature—that sardonic mother—while she cries with the silver cadence of ten thousand nightingales, 'Take what you want, my children,' sees to it, in the dark of her sorcery-chamber, that her children want what she intends.
'Is it to your liking, Mr.—? I didn't quite catch your name,' said
Mrs. Marston.
'Reddin, ma'am. Jack Reddin of Undern.'
The name rang in the quiet room with a startling sound, like a gunshot in a wood at night when the birds are roosting.
At that moment Edward came in, not having waited till Mr. James had affectionately counted the collection.
'Is Hazel all right, mother?' he called when he got to the front door.