“I daresay,” said Cyril. “Your sex amuse me very much, and I am very fond of a great many of you. But I wish you didn’t all think so much. It keeps one for ever tripping about for fear of disturbing a valued plan. That’s a thing I detested during the war, having to make arrangements. You see a thing to do and you do it or don’t. That’s the only reasonable way.”
About a fortnight later Evangeline went to London to meet Evan. They were to stay there for a few days while he went to see Mr. Price’s engineering works. They were then to take rooms in Millport until after Teresa’s wedding, and make arrangements for the future. There was not much money to spare for the moment, and Susie had urged Evangeline to economise by staying with them until Evan began to receive his new income. But the sisters decided between themselves that the suggestion held too many risks. “He does so hate being looked at,” Evangeline had said, at the conclusion of her remarks on the subject in Teresa’s bedroom one night.
“There is too much of what Father calls ‘damned noticing’ in this family, isn’t there?” said Teresa. “And yet Mother never tells you she has seen anything; she only points out what someone else has seen. And Father never seems to see anything unless you ask him, and I don’t spy round, but still I understand. I should hate not to be away with David. I am so glad we are going away into another continent before we end up among neighbours.”
“But this isn’t a honeymoon, so it ought not to matter,” said Evangeline. “But I know you will all look so nervous if we disagree, and since the Vachell episode I feel that Evan will suspect the devil in every female eye he sees for a long time.”
“Mrs. Vachell is the only person I know from whom I feel absolutely cut off,” said Teresa. “I don’t mean since the episode, but always. You and I have thought she wasn’t human, but that is not true. She is fond—I mean fond really—of that little Vachell. He fainted one day at his lecture and was brought home in a cab; I don’t know if I ever told you; and I happened to be there. She didn’t say anything hardly, but you can’t mistake. That is all I know about her. I think from something she said once that her father ill-treated her mother, but I am not sure. If you had left Evan I have an idea she would have carried the luggage—taken the blame and all that—and you would have kept Ivor even if she had to seduce Evan and all the jury, so if you come to principles——! She would have been burnt in the Middle Ages and Evan would have burnt her and been burnt himself. Isn’t it a mercy there is nothing worse than Fisk to make opinions unpleasant in this country.” The hour was very late and honest Robert’s footsteps could be heard coming down the street. “Certainly not; certainly not,” they said. But neither Teresa nor Evangeline was aware of him. “But I don’t know her in the very least,” Teresa added.
“I was a fool,” said Evangeline, reflecting. “As if it mattered!”
“As if what mattered?”
“Whether Evan understood either her or me. Things come out in the wash. But it would be nice to live with someone whom one could say just anything to, instead of only being in love with them, wouldn’t it? But I suppose that hardly ever happens.”
Teresa didn’t answer.
A day arrived when Evangeline stood waiting for the train that was to bring Evan. She was shivering and impatient, like a swimmer about to dive on a rough day; anticipating the joy of achievement and the thrill after stale security, but aware also of what would happen if she failed. The noise of the station was deafening; other trains came in, discharging crowds that pushed past her in their search for relatives and luggage. An engine let off steam close behind her and then thudded and puffed interminably, it seemed, until the noise added to her nervousness and the smell of smoke and the pushing of unlovely strangers gave her an utter revulsion against the thought of contending with Evan’s sunlessness. She forgot everything except the weariness of contention. All of a sudden the platform was magically clear except for a line of porters drawn up at intervals along it. The engine was still screeching somewhere near and now a second one appeared before her in a rush of smoke and noise. The powerful movement of the axle, bringing the inexorable moment, was the only thing she noticed, and then she was fairly in the crowd, trying to remember what Evan looked like. She caught sight of him at last, standing a little apart, with a drawn, chilly expression of disappointment. She ran up to him, pushing porters and passengers out of her way and caught his arm. “Here——” she said breathlessly, “I’m here—I couldn’t find you for ages.” He smiled, and she began to feel less at the mercy of events. He said something not very distinctly, that was drowned in a blast from the engine. She made a sign to him to look for his luggage, and after a time they drove away to the hotel. Poor Evan felt as though he had been washed ashore right into his own home after a shipwreck. He wanted to hear everything, to pick up lost threads of small events; to hear about this new job, and Teresa’s marriage. Evangeline found plenty to talk about over their meal, but she was conscious all the time of the strength of the sea and that she would have to swim again presently. She longed for a sunny beach and warm blue ripples with no danger lurking in them. She was tired with excitement, and all her natural distaste for effort oppressed her with a wish that the man she loved were in charge of the situation, and not she. She wanted to bask in the certainty that nothing she could say would matter, and yet she knew that his face might cloud at any moment and become chilled by a chance slip of her speech.