“Yes ma’am. I’ll ask, if you’ll be good enough to wait ’ere.” And she left Charlotte standing in the hall while she scurried away.
It was not the maid who returned, but Mina herself, still dressed in what appeared to be the same black gown with its very high neck and lace-pointed cuffs. She was as tall as Charlotte but much slenderer, almost waiflike with her fair skin and impossibly fragile neck. She looked tired, bruised around the eyes, as if in the privacy of her own room she had wept herself to exhaustion, but her face was full of pleasure at the sight of Charlotte.
“How nice of you to call,” she said immediately. “You have no idea how lonely it is sitting here day after day, no one coming except to pay respects, and it isn’t seemly for me to go out anywhere.” She smiled briefly, half embarrassment, half shame, seeking Charlotte’s understanding. “Perhaps I shouldn’t even think like that, let alone say it, but grief is not helped by being by oneself in a darkened house.”
“I’m sure it isn’t,” Charlotte agreed with a wave of both sympathy and relief. “I wish society would allow people to cope with loss in whatever way is easiest for them, but I doubt it ever will.”
“Oh that would be a miracle,” Mina said hastily. “I wouldn’t look for anything so—so incredibly unlikely. But I’m delighted you have called. Please come into the withdrawing room.” She half turned, ready to lead the way. “The sun shines in there, and I refuse to lower the blinds—unless my mother-in-law should call. But that is not probable.”
“I should be happy to. It sounds a delightful room,” Charlotte accepted, following her across the hall and down a passageway. She noticed Mina walked very uprightly, almost as if she were too stiff to bend. “It is about just such a matter that I would appreciate your advice.”
“Indeed?” Mina indicated a chair as soon as they were in the room, which was indeed most attractive, and at the moment filled with afternoon sunlight. “Please tell me how I am to be of service to you. Would you care for tea while we are talking?”
“Oh that would be most welcome,” Charlotte agreed, both because she would very much like a drink after the omnibus ride and because it insured that she stay longer without having to seek an excuse.
Mina rang the bell with enthusiasm and ordered tea, sandwiches, pastries and cakes, then when the maid was gone, settled herself to give Charlotte her entire attention. She sat on the forward edge of the chair, hands folded in her lap, half concealed by the lace, but her face was full of interest.
Charlotte was acutely aware of the underlying tragedy in the house, the unnatural silence, the strain in Mina so close under the surface of her composure. However, she explained that she was moving house, and all the things that had yet to be done before that could be accomplished satisfactorily. “I simply cannot decide whether the room would be too cold if I had it papered in green,” she finished.
“What does your husband say?” Mina inquired.
“Oh nothing. I have not asked him,” Charlotte replied. “I don’t think he will have an opinion before it is done, only afterwards if it is not agreeable. Although I daresay he will not even know why he does not like it.”
Mina shrugged very slightly. “My husband had most definite opinions. I had to be careful if I chose to change anything.” A look of guilt filled her face, sudden and startlingly painful. “I am afraid my taste was sometimes vulgar.”
“Oh surely not?” Charlotte said quickly. “Perhaps he merely meant that his own taste was exceedingly traditional. Some men hate any change, no matter how much it is actually an improvement.”
“You are very kind, but I am sure I must have been in the wrong. I had the breakfast room repapered while he was at sea. I should not have done it without asking him. He was most vexed when he came home and saw it.”
“Was it very different?” Charlotte inquired, uncertain whether she should pursue a subject which seemed to cause such distress. To look back on a quarrel, perhaps unsolved, when the other person was no longer alive and so beyond reconciliation, must be one of the most terribly painful aspects of bereavement. She longed to be of comfort, and had no idea how.
“Oh yes—I’m afraid so,” Mina went on quietly, memory filling her voice, and there was pleasure in spite of the shivering pain. “I did everything in warm yellow. It looked as if it were entirely filled with sunlight I loved it.”
“It sounds very delightful,” Charlotte said sincerely. “But you speak as though it were no longer so. Did he insist that you change it?”
“Yes.” Mina turned away for a moment, averting her face. “That was what he said was vulgar, everything in tones and shades of the one color, apart from the furniture, of course. That remained mahogany. Actually”—she bit her lip as if even now it still needed some apology or explanation—“it has not yet been done. Oakley locked the door and said we should not use the room until it had been put back as it was before. Would you care to see it?”
“Oh indeed.” Charlotte rose to her feet immediately. “I should like to very much.” She meant it both for the sake of seeing what such a room would be like, and even more to find out what Oakley Winthrop had considered so offensive that he had been willing to initiate such a quarrel over it that it was still apparently unresolved.
Mina led her out of the withdrawing room, back along the passageway and out of the main hall in the opposite direction. The door to the breakfast room was apparently now unlocked, and Mina pushed it open and stood back.
Charlotte looked past her into one of the most charming rooms she had ever seen. As Mina had said, it appeared to be full of sunlight, but it was more than that which pleased, it was a sense of space and graciousness, a simplicity which was restful and yet totally welcoming.
“Oh you are most gifted,” Charlotte said spontaneously. “It’s quite lovely!” She turned to look at Mina, still standing in the doorway, but her face now filled with amazement.
“Is it?” she said with incredulity, and then a dawning pleasure. “Do you really think so?”
“Indeed I do,” Charlotte answered her. “I should love to have such a room. If this is of your creation, then you have a kind of genius. I am so glad I met you while my entire house is still undecorated, because if you will give me your permission, I will most assuredly have a yellow room too. May I? Would you consider it a compliment and not an impertinence?”
Mina was glowing with pleasure like a child given an unexpected gift.
“I should be most flattered, Mrs. Pitt. Please do not think for a moment that I should mind. It is quite the nicest
