At last she slid to her father’s side.
“Daddie—” she said.
“What, my precious?”
But she hung back, the tears almost coming to her eyes, in her sensitive confusion. Her father looked at her, and his heart ran hot with tenderness, an anguish of poignant love.
“What do you want to say to me, my love?”
“Daddie—!” her eyes smiled laconically—“isn’t it silly if I give Miss Brangwen some flowers when she comes?”
The sick man looked at the bright, knowing eyes of his child, and his heart burned with love.
“No, darling, that’s not silly. It’s what they do to queens.”
This was not very reassuring to Winifred. She half suspected that queens in themselves were a silliness. Yet she so wanted her little romantic occasion.
“Shall I then?” she asked.
“Give Miss Brangwen some flowers? Do, Birdie. Tell Wilson I say you are to have what you want.”
The child smiled a small, subtle, unconscious smile to herself, in anticipation of her way.
“But I won’t get them till tomorrow,” she said.
“Not till tomorrow, Birdie. Give me a kiss then—”
Winifred silently kissed the sick man, and drifted out of the room. She again went the round of the greenhouses and the conservatory, informing the gardener, in her high, peremptory, simple fashion, of what she wanted, telling him all the blooms she had selected.
“What do you want these for?” Wilson asked.
“I want them,” she said. She wished servants did not ask questions.
“Ay, you’ve said as much. But what do you want them for, for decoration, or to send away, or what?”
“I want them for a presentation bouquet.”
“A presentation bouquet! Who’s coming then?—the Duchess of Portland?”
“No.”
“Oh, not her? Well you’ll have a rare poppy-show if you put all the things you’ve mentioned into your bouquet.”
“Yes, I want a rare poppy-show.”
“You do! Then there’s no more to be said.”
The next day Winifred, in a dress of silvery velvet, and holding a gaudy bunch of flowers in her hand, waited with keen impatience in the schoolroom, looking down the drive for Gudrun’s arrival. It was a wet morning. Under her nose was the strange fragrance of hothouse flowers, the bunch was like a little fire to her, she seemed to have a strange new fire in her heart. This slight sense of romance stirred her like an intoxicant.
At last she saw Gudrun coming, and she ran downstairs to warn her father and Gerald. They, laughing at her anxiety and gravity, came with her into the hall. The manservant came hastening to the door, and there he was, relieving Gudrun of her umbrella, and then of her raincoat. The welcoming party hung back till their visitor entered the hall.
Gudrun was flushed with the rain, her hair was blown in loose little curls, she was like a flower just opened in the rain, the heart of the blossom just newly visible, seeming to emit a warmth of retained sunshine. Gerald winced in spirit, seeing her so beautiful and unknown. She was wearing a soft blue dress, and her stockings were of dark red.
Winifred advanced with odd, stately formality.
“We are so glad you’ve come back,” she said. “These are your flowers.” She presented the bouquet.
“Mine!” cried Gudrun. She was suspended for a moment, then a vivid flush went over her, she was as if blinded for a moment with a flame of pleasure. Then her eyes, strange and flaming, lifted and looked at the father, and at Gerald. And again Gerald shrank in spirit, as if it would be more than he could bear, as her hot, exposed eyes rested on him. There was something so revealed, she was revealed beyond bearing, to his eyes. He turned his face aside. And he felt he would not be able to avert her. And he writhed under the imprisonment.
Gudrun put her face into the flowers.
“But how beautiful they are!” she said, in a muffled voice. Then, with a strange, suddenly revealed passion, she stooped and kissed Winifred.
Mr. Crich went forward with his hand held out to her.
“I was afraid you were going to run away from us,” he said, playfully.
Gudrun looked up at him with a luminous, roguish, unknown face.
“Really!” she replied. “No, I didn’t want to stay in London.” Her voice seemed to imply that she was glad to get back to Shortlands, her tone was warm and subtly caressing.
“That is a good thing,” smiled the father. “You see you are very welcome here among us.”
Gudrun only looked into his face with dark-blue, warm, shy eyes. She was unconsciously carried away by her own power.
“And you look as if you came home in every possible triumph,” Mr. Crich continued, holding her hand.
“No,” she said, glowing strangely. “I haven’t had any triumph till I came here.”
“Ah, come, come! We’re not going to hear any of those tales. Haven’t we read notices in the newspaper, Gerald?”
“You came off pretty well,” said Gerald to her, shaking hands. “Did you sell anything?”
“No,” she said, “not much.”
“Just as well,” he said.
She wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception, carried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf.
“Winifred,” said the father, “have you a pair of shoes for Miss Brangwen? You had better change at once—”
Gudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand.
“Quite a remarkable young woman,” said the father to Gerald, when she had gone.
“Yes,” replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation.
Mr. Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and
