'I'll come up with you, mother, but you'd better go to her alone, because I expect she's not forgotten the last time I saw her.'
They caught a train immediately, and having arrived at Daisy's house, Mrs Griffith went up the steps while George waited in a neighbouring public-house. The door was opened by a smart maid—much smarter than the Vicarage maid at Blackstable, as Mrs Griffith remarked with satisfaction. On finding that Daisy was at home, she sent up a message to ask if a lady could see her.
The maid returned.
'Would you give your name, madam? Miss Griffith cannot see you without.'
Mrs Griffith had foreseen the eventuality, and, unwilling to give her card, had written another little letter, using Edith as amanuensis, so that Daisy should at least open it. She sent it up. In a few minutes the maid came down again.
'There's no answer,' and she opened the door for Mrs Griffith to go out.
That lady turned very red. Her first impulse was to make a scene and call the housemaid to witness how Daisy treated her own mother; but immediately she thought how undignified she would appear in the maid's eyes. So she went out like a lamb....
She told George all about it as they sat in the private bar of the public-house, drinking a little Scotch whisky.
'All I can say,' she remarked, 'is that I hope she'll never live to repent it. Fancy treating her own mother like that!
'But I shall go to the wedding; I don't care. I will see my own daughter married.'