“George.”
“He told you?”
“He told Lady Scilly.”
“Did he, then? He deserves that I should make it true.” She laughed, a laugh I did not like at all. It wasn’t her laugh, but I have said she was quite changed.
“Oh, Mother, don’t laugh like that!”
“You are like the good little girl in the play, who preaches down a wicked mother’s heart! Well, my dear, I’ll promise you one thing. I will never run away without you. Will that be all right?”
“That will be all right,” I answered, much relieved. For although I am so much more “pally” with George and sorry for him, I don’t want to be left with him. Perhaps I shall be allowed to run over in the Marguerite from Boulogne sometimes on a visit? Then I could darn and mend for him, as Mr. Aix would not be able to spare Mother from doing for him. I did not mention Mr. Aix to her. I thought she would rather tell me all in her own time.
I often wonder if we three will be happy in Boulogne, or wherever it is social ostracism takes you to? I fancy the inconvenience of running away is chiefly the want of society.
That is the only want Mother will not feel after all those years buried away in Isleworth. Ariadne is now happily married, so it won’t affect her, though I suppose that if this had happened a year ago, a mother-in-law spending her days in social ostracism would not have suited Simon’s stiff relations. It might have prevented him from proposing. I see it all; Mother unselfishly waited.
One thing really troubles me. Why does not Mother do some packing? I hope that she is not going to run away in that uncomfortable style when you only throw two or three things into a bag? A couple of bottles of eau-de-cologne, and some hair-pins, like Laura in To Leeward? I, at any rate, have some personal property, and I shall do very badly without it in a dull, dead-alive place like Boulogne. But I will be patient. Whatever Mother does is sure to be right, even running away, which gets so dreadfully condemned in novels.