Orientations

'I'm sure we don't want you to come to church in that spirit, Mrs Griffith. That's not the spirit with which you can please God, Mrs Griffith. I can quite imagine now why dear Daisy ran away. You're no Christian.'

'I'm sure I don't care what you think, Mrs Gray, but I'm as good as you are.'

'Will you open the door for me, Mrs Griffith?' said Mrs Gray, with outraged dignity.

'Oh, you can open it yourself, Mrs Gray!' replied Mrs Griffith.

XI

Mrs Griffith went to see her daughter-in-law.

'I've never been spoken to in that way before,' she said. 'Fancy me not being a Christian! I'm a better Christian than Mrs Gray, any day. I like Mrs Gray, with the airs she gives herself--as if she'd got anything to boast about!... No, Edith, I've said it, and I'm not the woman to go back on what I've said--I'll not go to church again. From this day I go to chapel.'

* * * * *

But George came to see his mother a few days later.

'Look here, mother, Edith says you'd better forgive Daisy now.'

'George,' cried his mother, 'I've only done my duty all through, and if you think it's my duty to forgive my daughter now she's going to enter the bonds of holy matrimony, I will do so. No one can say that I'm not a Christian, and I haven't said the Lord's Prayer night and morning ever since I remember for nothing.'

Mrs Griffith sat down to write, looking up to her son for inspiration.

'Dearest Daisy!' he said.

'No, George,' she replied, 'I'm not going to cringe to my daughter, although she is going to be a lady; I shall simply say, 'Daisy.''

The letter was very dignified, gently reproachful, for Daisy had undoubtedly committed certain peccadilloes, although she was going to be a baronet's wife; but still it was completely forgiving, and Mrs Griffith signed herself, 'Your loving and forgiving mother, whose heart you nearly broke.'

But the letter was not answered, and a couple of weeks later the same Sunday paper contained an announcement of the date of the marriage and the name of the church. Mrs Griffith wrote a second time.

'MY DARLING DAUGHTER,--I am much surprised at receiving no answer to my long letter. All is forgiven. I should so much like to see you again before I die, and to have you married from your father's house. All is forgiven.--Your loving mother,

'MARY ANN GRIFFITH.'

This time the letter was returned unopened.

'George,' cried Mrs Griffith, 'she's got her back up.'

'And the wedding's to-morrow,' he replied.

'It's most awkward, George. I've told all the Blackstable people that I've forgiven her and that Sir Herbert has written to say he wants to make my acquaintance. And I've got a new dress on purpose to go to the wedding. Oh! she's a cruel and exasperating thing, George; I never liked her. You were always my favourite.'

'Well, I do think she's not acting as she should,' replied George. 'And I'm sure I don't know what's to be done.'

But Mrs Griffith was a woman who made up her mind quickly.

'I shall go up to town and see her myself, George; and you must come too.'

'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.'

That had been her great ambition, and she would have crawled before Daisy to be asked to the ceremony.... But George dissuaded her from going uninvited. There were sure to be one or two Blackstable people present, and they would see that she was there as a stranger; the humiliation would be too great.