1
Two days later Anna Gordon sent for her daughter. Stephen found her sitting quite still in that vast drawing-room of hers, which as always smelt faintly of orris-root, beeswax and violets. Her thin, white hands were folded in her lap, closely folded over a couple of letters; and it seemed to Stephen that all of a sudden she saw in her mother a very old woman—a very old woman with terrible eyes, pitiless, hard and deeply accusing, so that she could but shrink from their gaze, since they were the eyes of her mother.
Anna said: ‘Lock the door, then come and stand here.’
In absolute silence Stephen obeyed her. Thus it was that those two confronted each other, flesh of flesh, blood of blood, they confronted each other across the wide gulf set between them.
Then Anna handed her daughter a letter: ‘Read this,’ she said briefly.
And Stephen read:
Dear Lady Anna,
With deep repugnance I take up my pen, for certain things won’t bear thinking about, much less being written. But I feel that I owe you some explanation of my reasons for having come to the decision that I cannot permit your daughter to enter my house again, or my wife to visit Morton. I enclose a copy of your daughter’s letter to my wife, which I feel is sufficiently clear to make it unnecessary for me to write further, except to add that my wife is returning the two costly presents given her by Miss Gordon.
I remain, Yours very truly,
Ralph Crossby.