v
July passed and August; the harvest was over. And in September Jerrold went up to London to stay with Eliot for the week-end, and Anne stayed with Maisie, because Maisie didn't like being left in the big house by herself. Through all those weeks that was the way Maisie had her, through her need of her.
And on the Thursday before Anne came Maisie had called on Mrs. Hawtrey of Medlicote, and Mrs. Hawtrey had asked her to lunch with her on the following Monday. Maisie said she was afraid she couldn't lunch on Monday because Anne Severn would be with her, and Mrs. Hawtrey said she was very sorry, but she was afraid she couldn't ask Anne Severn.
And Maisie enquired in her tender voice, "Why not?"
And Mrs. Hawtrey replied, "Because, my dear, nobody here does ask Anne
Severn."
Maisie said again, "Why not?"
Then Mrs. Hawtrey said she didn't want to go into it, the whole thing was so unpleasant, but nobody did call on Anne Severn. She was too well known.
And at that Maisie rose in her fragile dignity and said that nobody knew Anne Severn so well as she and her husband did, and that there was nobody in the world so absolutely good as Anne, and that she couldn't possibly know anybody who refused to know her, and so left Mrs. Hawtrey.
The evening Jerrold came home, Maisie, flushed with pleasure, entertained him with a report of the encounter.
"So you've given an ultimatum to the county."