When she left him and went back to the house, all the loveliness of spring, summer and autumn had been thought out and provided for.Kedgers stood on the path and looked after her until she passed through the terrace door.He chewed his lip uneasily.Then he remembered something and felt a bit relieved.It was the service he remembered.
"Ah! it's that that's upset her--and it's natural, seeing how she's helped him and Dunstan village.It's only natural."He chewed his lip again, and nodded his head in odd reflection.
"Ay! Ay!" he summed her up."She's a great lady that--she's a great lady--same as if she'd been born in a civilised land."During the rest of the day the look of question in Rosalie's eyes changed in its nature.When her sister was near her she found herself glancing at her with a new feeling.It was a growing feeling, which gradually became--anxiousness.
Betty presented to her the aspect of one withdrawn into some remote space.She was not living this day as her days were usually lived.She did not sit still or stroll about the gardens quietly.The consecutiveness of her action seemed broken.She did one thing after another, as if she must fill each moment.This was not her Betty.Lady Anstruthers watched and thought until, in the end, a new pained fear began to creep slowly into her mind, and make her feel as if she were slightly trembling though her hands did not shake.
She did not dare to allow herself to think the thing she knew she was on the brink of thinking.She thrust it away from her, and tried not to think at all.Her Betty--her splendid Betty, whom nothing could hurt--who could not be touched by any awful thing--her dear Betty!
In the afternoon she saw her write notes steadily for an hour, then she went out into the stables and visited the horses, talked to the coachman and to her own groom.She was very kind to a village boy who had been recently taken on as an additional assistant in the stable, and who was rather frightened and shy.She knew his mother, who had a large family, and she had, indeed, given the boy his place that he might be trained under the great Mr.Buckham, who was coachman and head of the stables.She said encouraging things which quite cheered him, and she spoke privately to Mr.Buckham about him.Then she walked in the park a little, but not for long.When she came back Rosalie was waiting for her.
"I want to take a long drive," she said."I feel restless.
Will you come with me, Betty?" Yes, she would go with her, so Buckham brought the landau with its pair of big horses, and they rolled down the avenue, and into the smooth, white high road.He took them far--past the great marshes, between miles of bared hedges, past farms and scattered cottages.Sometimes he turned into lanes, where the hedges were closer to each other, and where, here and there, they caught sight of new points of view between trees.Betty was glad to feel Rosy's slim body near her side, and she was conscious that it gradually seemed to draw closer and closer.Then Rosy's hand slipped into hers and held it softly on her lap.
When they drove together in this way they were usually both of them rather silent and quiet, but now Rosalie spoke of many things--of Ughtred, of Nigel, of the Dunholms, of New York, and their father and mother.
"I want to talk because I'm nervous, I think," she said half apologetically."I do not want to sit still and think too much--of father's coming.You don't mind my talking, do you, Betty?""No," Betty answered."It is good for you and for me."And she met the pressure of Rosy's hand halfway.
But Rosy was talking, not because she did not want to sit still and think, but because she did not want Betty to do so.
And all the time she was trying to thrust away the thought growing in her mind.
They spent the evening together in the library, and Betty read aloud.She read a long time--until quite late.She wished to tire herself as well as to force herself to stop listening.
When they said good-night to each other Rosy clung to her as desperately as she had clung on the night after her arrival.
She kissed her again and again, and then hung her head and excused herself.
"Forgive me for being--nervous.I'm ashamed of myself,"she said."Perhaps in time I shall get over being a coward."But she said nothing of the fact that she was not a coward for herself, but through a slowly formulating and struggled--against fear, which chilled her very heart, and which she could best cover by a pretence of being a poltroon.
She could not sleep when she went to bed.The night seemed crowded with strange, terrified thoughts.They were all of Betty, though sometimes she thought of her father's coming, of her mother in New York, and of Betty's steady working throughout the day.Sometimes she cried, twisting her hands together, and sometimes she dropped into a feverish sleep, and dreamed that she was watching Betty's face, yet was afraid to look at it.
She awakened suddenly from one of these dreams, and sat upright in bed to find the dawn breaking.She rose and threw on a dressing-gown, and went to her sister's room because she could not bear to stay away.
The door was not locked, and she pushed it open gently.
One of the windows had its blind drawn up, and looked like a patch of dull grey.Betty was standing upright near it.
She was in her night-gown, and a long black plait of hair hung over one shoulder heavily.She looked all black and white in strong contrast.The grey light set her forth as a tall ghost.
Lady Anstruthers slid forward, feeling a tightness in her chest.
"The dawn wakened me too," she said.
"I have been waiting to see it come," answered Betty."It is going to be a dull, dreary day."