The other shrugged and ran out in the wind to the cab. It drove off, the maid came in, the door shut, an unusual silence settled over the house. Pamela went into the dining-room and sat by the window, not even a newspaper in her hand. She felt more lonely, more unwanted than she had ever felt at any moment in her varied life. Barbara had been in such a frenzy to get to her husband that she hadn’t given her a thought—hadn’t even asked her, as a matter of form, to see her off at the railway station.
She lunched alone and meagerly. After lunch she sat by the dining-room window until tea came in. The maid set the tray down with a bang and moved across to the door flouncing her black skirts.
Pamela set her mouth grimly. She knew the ways of servants; they had decided, in the absence of their mistress, to give her a rough time. But she was equal to any servant. She amused herself by scheming out an elaborate house-cleaning—and then abandoned it wearily because the house wasn’t hers. She went to bed almost directly she had eaten her dinner. She was awake all night, lying flat and long in the bed, her eyes open, her thoughts forced to consideration of Edred. What was he doing? She didn’t feel much curiosity. His tenderness didn’t make her heart throb. His brutalities no longer made it blaze and ache.
It had really come—indifference: a body, a soul of stone. She turned on the pillow and cried from sheer loneliness.
It rained next morning. Rain—a high fog! The most miserable morning imaginable. She had her breakfast in the little room at the back of the house, with a French window leading to the long, suburban garden. She didn’t know why she turned the hasp of that window and stepped out under the gloomy sky, into the dreary rain.
It was a very uninteresting garden; a ghastly, heart-breaking travesty of a garden. The limp creeper on the blackened wall smutted her hand when she touched it. The narrow borders were bare and smut-laden. From the top of the wall a lean, gray cat looked at her with a sinister mournfulness in its yellow eyes. The fog was in her eyes and down her throat, the rain fell coldly on her bare head. Peals of coarse, hearty laughter rang up from the kitchen, where the maids were romping with the man who came every morning to fill the scuttles and clean the boots. The gray cat stole along the wall.
She turned back to the window, not knowing why she came into the garden, not knowing what to do with this sad day. There was a rockery near the French window—the usual rockery, rich in clinkers. But some blue thing stared up into the brown air boldly. She uttered a sudden glad cry and stooped, letting her skirt brush the wet gravel. It was a delicate blue periwinkle. There was a patch of blue periwinkle at Folly Corner, just by the granary. Periwinkle! What nonsense was it that Gainah told her about periwinkle? Ah, yes! If a man and his wife eat the leaves they will ever be faithful each to the other. The blue flower with its trail of glistening leaves was in her hand. She bit one leaf, laughing—yet more a sob than a laugh—as she did it. She would never be Jethro’s wife—nor any man’s. She was a tainted thing.
She stared at the flower, a long, thoughtful stare. Then she laughed again and clapped her hands—the heavy, blinding tears in her eyes. The world was to her one wide delicate flower of cold blue. She went through the window, laid the trail on the table, looked at it questioningly. Once she said to it, “Shall I? Dare I?” Then, with a clumsy movement, she dragged herself up, hurried to the door, went up the stairs two at a time.
The maids were making her bed. She said abruptly:
“I am going away—a visit. I may be back to-night—I cannot say. You’ll see to everything just as if Mrs. Clutton and I were at home.”