“You ought to have had tea, mother.”
“My dear, I never mind waiting.”
“Would you like it brought out here?”
“Just as you please, dear.”
It was not daughterly, but Eve sometimes wished that her mother had a temper, and could use words that elderly gentlewomen are not expected to be acquainted with. There was something so explosively refreshing about the male creature’s hearty “Oh, damn!”
That cooing, placid voice never lost its sweetness. It was the same when it rained, when the wind howled for days, when the money was shorter than usual, when Eve’s drawings were returned by unsympathetic magazines. Mrs. Carfax underlined the adjectives in her letters, and had a little proverbial platitude for every catastrophe, were it a broken soap dish or a railway smash. “Patience is a virtue, my dear.” “Rome was not built in a day.” “The world is not helped by worry.” Mrs. Carfax had an annuity of £100 a year, and Eve made occasional small sums by her paintings. They were poor, poor with that respectable poverty that admits of no margins and no adventures.
Mrs. Carfax was supremely contented. She prayed nightly that she might be spared to keep a home for Eve, never dreaming that the daughter suffered from fits of bitter restlessness when anything seemed better than this narrow and prospectless tranquillity. Mrs. Carfax had never been young. She had accepted everything, from her bottle onwards, with absolute passivity. She had been a passive child, a passive wife, a passive widow. Life had had no gradients, no gulfs and pinnacles. There were no injustices and no sorrows, save, of course, those arranged by an all-wise Providence. No ideals, save those in the Book of Common Prayer; no passionate strivings; no divine discontents. She just cooed, brought out a soft platitude, and went on with her knitting.
Eve entered the house to put her things away, and to tell Nellie, the infant maid, to take tea out into the garden.
“Take tea out, Nellie.”
“Yes, miss. There ain’t no cake.”