Save for Blaise Olifant’s study, the house was little changed. The oak settle in the hall still showed the marks of the teeth of Barabbas, the bull-terrier pup. The white pane in the blue and red window of the bathroom still accused the youthful Bobby, now asleep for ever beneath the sod of Picardy. Her own old room, used by Mrs. Woolcombe, was practically unaltered. She stared into it as she rambled about the house, and felt that she had done right in not dispossessing its present occupant. All her girlhood was contained within those four walls, and she could not go back to it. The room would be haunted by its inconsiderable ghosts. She preferred her mother’s room, which, though scrupulously kept aired and dusted, had remained under lock and key. There, if ghosts counted for aught, would a spirit pervade of exquisite sympathy.
As Olifant had promised, she found herself in a strange, indefinable way, again mistress of the house, although she could take no part in its practical direction. He had spoken truth of his sister, whom she loved at first sight. Mary Woolcombe was plump, rosy, and brown-haired, with her brother’s dark blue eyes. On their first evening leave-taking, Olivia had been impelled to kiss her, and had felt the responsive warmth of a sisterly bosom.
“I do hope you feel at home,” Olifant asked one day after lunch.
“You seem like guests, not hosts,” replied Olivia.
“It’s dear of you to say so,” said Mary Woolcombe, “but I wish you’d prove it by asking your friends to come and see you.”
“I will,” replied Olivia.
But she flushed scarlet, and, as soon as she was alone, she grappled with realities. And realities nearly always have a nasty element of the ironical. She remembered the first cloud that swept over her serene soul during the honeymoon bliss of The Point. They had discussed their future domicile. Alexis had suggested the common-sense solution—“The Towers” as headquarters. She, with the schoolgirl stigma of Landsdowne House upon her, and possessed by the bitter memory of the nose-in-the-air attitude of the Blair Park crocodile—eternal symbol of social status—had revolted at the suggestion. He, the equal and companion of princes, looked on her—and, if his last crazy letter signified anything—looked still on her, as the high-born lady—the Princess of his dreams. Each, therefore, had deceived the other. She, the daughter of Gale and Trivett, auctioneers and estate agents, and so, by the unwritten law, cut off from the gentry of Medlow, had undergone agony of remorse for the sake of the son of a Tyneside operative, a boy before the mast, a common chauffeur, a man far her inferior in the social scale. No wonder he could not understand her hesitancies. Her resentment against him blazed anew. For his sake she had needlessly soiled her soul with deceit and snobbery. It was well that he had passed out of her life.
“May I invite Mr. Trivett and Mr. Fenmarch to tea?” she asked.
Mary Woolcombe smiled.
“The house is yours, dear. That’s not a Spanish courtesy but an English fact.”