“Do you know, I never thought of that,” Evangeline remarked, “but, of course he did. That makes it a lot better.”
“No it doesn’t. It doesn’t make any difference either way. But, at least, you can both say you are sorry and start again.”
“But Dicky, I didn’t tell you—there is going to be a new one, and then everything will begin all over again. I could perhaps have held out until Ivor goes to school in the ordinary way, which of course I want him to, and after that he will be able to look after himself; but I can’t go through it all with another.” Her eyes looked large and startled.
“But he hasn’t done Ivor any harm,” Teresa protested, “and he will see by and by that he is not a tiresome little boy, and then he won’t want to interfere.”
“But the strain of perpetually smoothing things over and avoiding rows——. You don’t know what hell it is. We never laugh now except when he’s out of the house, and when I hear his latchkey it is like hearing the prison door shut again after one had escaped.”
“For the Lord’s sake don’t cry,” said Teresa, “or the nurse will never let me up here again. It is all over now, Chips. There’s months and months for things to settle, and they always do settle. Nothing ever goes on as it is. I wish it did sometimes, but life is a very restless thing, like the kind of person who is always saying, ‘Well, what shall we do next?’ You will see something will turn up.”
But months went by, and nothing did turn up. The carrier sparrows of Millport somehow disseminated the news that the Hattons had had a split. One report said that Evangeline was looking ill and went nowhere. This was contradicted by someone who had met her at the theatre, “In quite her old spirits.” Mrs. Carpenter determined to sift the matter to the bottom, and invited Evangeline to tea. She refused, so Mrs. Carpenter called on Susie and found Mrs. Gainsborough there. Evangeline had gone to stay for the week-end with her sisters-in-law, Susie announced with secret pleasure. No one but herself knew what a relief it was to have such a respectable piece of news to impart. For since Mrs. Carpenter’s visit of inquiry during the summer holiday she had been in daily dread of what the mysterious “little bird” then alluded to might not choose for its subject next time it sang songs of Araby to its kind patroness. “The Hattons are charming girls and devoted to Evangeline,” Susie added.
“I suppose she will be going out to her husband soon,” said Mrs. Carpenter. “She will get the climate at its very best about now I should think.”
“Oh dear no, she is not going to Egypt,” said Susie, with great surprise at such an idea. “She gave that up from the very first. It was really foolish of her to think of it at all, but she was so anxious to be with him. But Doctor Clark says it would never do to take the risk. It would be difficult to get a proper nurse out there, and either to keep a baby out in the heat or to bring it home such a long way would be risky. No, there is no idea of that.”
Susie had always had a lurking taste for critical situations requiring skill in manipulating censorious persons, and whenever she managed to get out of a difficult place with credit, she always felt an increased sense of safety from the snares of the stupid and downright who persist in making life difficult by wanting everything set down in black and white.