IT had come. Joan lay awake and realized that this was her last night in Seabourne. She got up and lit the gas. Her eyes roved round the familiar bedroom; there was Milly's bed—they had not had it moved after her death, and there was the old white wardrobe and the dressing-table, and the crazy arm-chair off which she and Milly had torn the caster when they were children. The caster had never been replaced. "How like Seabourne," she thought, smiling ruefully. "Casters never get themselves replaced here; nothing does."
She looked at her new trunk, already locked and strapped; it had been a present from her mother, and her name, "Joan Ogden," was painted across its top in white block letters. "I thought it safer to put the full name," her mother had said.
The blind flapped and the gas flame blew sideways; it was windy, and the thud of the sea on shingles came in and seemed to fill the room. "I am happy!" she told herself; "I'm very happy."
How brave her mother had been that evening; she had smiled and talked just as though nothing unusual were about to happen, but oh! how miserably tired she had looked, and ill. Was she going to be ill? Joan's heart seemed to stop beating; suppose her mother should get ill all alone in the house! She had never thought of that before, but of course she would be alone every night, now that she had sent away the servant. What was to be done? It was dangerous, terribly dangerous for a woman of that age to sleep alone in the house. She pulled herself up sharply; oh, well, she would speak to her in the morning and tell her that she must have a maid. Of course it was all nonsense; she must afford one. But what about to-morrow night? She couldn't get a servant by that time. Never mind; nothing was likely to happen in one or two nights. No, but it might be weeks before she found a maid; what was to be done?
If her mother got ill, would she telegraph for her? Yes, of course; and yet how could she if she were alone in the house? "Oh, stop, stop!" cried Joan aloud to herself. "Stop all this, I tell you!" She had an overwhelming desire to rush into her mother's room on the instant, and wake her up, just to see that she was alive, but she controlled herself. "Perhaps she's crying," she thought, and started towards the door. "No," she said resolutely, "I will not go in and see her!"
She began to think of Elizabeth too; of her face when they had said good-bye that afternoon. "Don't be late in calling for me," she had cautioned, and Elizabeth had answered: "I shan't be late, Joan." What was it that she fancied she had seen in Elizabeth's eyes and heard in her voice? Not anger, certainly, and not actually tears; but something new, something rather dreadful, a sort of entreaty. She shuddered. Oh, why could there never be any real happiness for Joan Ogden, never any real fulfilment, never any joy that was quite without blemish? She felt that her unlucky star shed its beams over everyone with whom she came in contact, everyone she loved; those beams had touched Elizabeth and scorched her. Yet how much she loved Elizabeth; she would have laid down her life to save her pain. But she loved her mother too, not quite in the same way, but deeply, very deeply. She knew this, now that she was about to leave her; she had always known it, of course, but now that their parting was near at hand the fact seemed to blaze forth with renewed force. She began thinking about love in the abstract. Love was jealous of being divided; it did not admit of your really loving more than one creature at a time. She remembered vaguely having thought this before, years ago. Yet in her case this could not be true, for she loved them both, terribly, desperately, and yet could not serve them both. No, she could not serve them both, but she had chosen.
She lay down on her bed again and buried her face in the pillow. "Oh, Elizabeth," she whispered, "I will come, I will be faithful, I swear I will."
2
They breakfasted at Leaside at eight o'clock, for Joan's train left at ten-thirty. At ten o'clock Elizabeth would arrive with the fly. Joan could not swallow.
"Eat something, my darling," said Mrs. Ogden tenderly. She looked as though she had been crying all night, her eyes were red and swollen, but she smiled bravely whenever she saw her daughter's glance turned in her direction.