That evening she showed her smart neckties to Puddle, whose manner was most unsatisfactory—she grunted.
And now someone seemed to be always near Stephen, someone for whom these things were accomplished—the purchase of the three new suits, the brown shoes, the six carefully chosen, expensive neckties. Her long walks on the hills were a part of this person, as were also the hearts of the wild dog-roses, the delicate network of veins on the leaves and the queer June break in the cuckoo’s rhythm. The night with its large summer stars and its silence, was pregnant with a new and mysterious purpose, so that lying at the mercy of that age-old purpose, Stephen would feel little shivers of pleasure creeping out of the night and into her body. She would get up and stand by the open window, thinking always of Angela Crossby.
II
Sunday came and with it church in the morning; then two interminable hours after lunch, during which Stephen changed her necktie three times, and brushed back her thick chestnut hair with water, and examined her shoes for imaginary dust, and finally gave a hard rub to her nails with a nail pad snatched brusquely away from Puddle.
When the moment for departure arrived at last, she said rather tentatively to Anna: “Aren’t you going to call on the Crossbys, Mother?”
Anna shook her head: “No, I can’t do that, Stephen—I go nowhere these days; you know that, my dear.”
But her voice was quite gentle, so Stephen said quickly: “Well then, may I invite Mrs. Crossby to Morton?”
Anna hesitated a moment, then she nodded: “I suppose so—that is if you really wish to.”
The drive only took about twenty minutes, for now Stephen was so nervous that she positively flew. She who had been puffed up with elation and self-satisfaction was crumbling completely—in spite of her careful new necktie she was crumbling at the mere thought of Angela Crossby. Arrived at The Grange she felt over life-size; her hands seemed enormous, all out of proportion, and she thought that the butler stared at her hands.
“Miss Gordon?” he inquired.
“Yes,” she mumbled, “Miss Gordon.” Then he coughed as he did on the telephone, and quite suddenly Stephen felt foolish.
She was shown into a small oak-panelled parlour whose long, open casements looked on to the herb-garden. A fire of apple wood burnt on the hearth, in spite of the fact that the weather was warm, for Angela was always inclined to feel chilly—the result, so she said, of the English climate. The fire gave off rather a sweet, pungent odour—the odour of slightly damp logs and dry ashes. By way of a really propitious beginning, Tony barked until he nearly burst his stitches, so that Angela, who was lying on the lounge, had perforce to get up in order to soothe him. An extremely round bullfinch in an ornate, brass cage, was piping a tune with his wings half extended. The tune sounded something like “Pop goes the weasel.” At all events it was an impudent tune, and Stephen felt that she hated that bullfinch. It took all of five minutes to calm down Tony, during which Stephen stood apologetic but tongue-tied. She hardly knew whether to laugh or to cry at this very ridiculous anticlimax.
Then Angela decided the matter by laughing: “I’m so sorry, Miss Gordon, he’s feeling peevish. It’s quite natural, poor lamb, he had a bad night, he just hates being all sewn up like a bolster.”
Stephen went over and offered him her hand, which Tony now licked, so that trouble was ended; but in getting up Angela had torn her dress, and this seemed to distress her—she kept fingering the tear.
“Can I help?” inquired Stephen, hoping she’d say no—which she did, quite firmly, after one look at Stephen.
At last Angela settled down again on the lounge. “Come and sit over here,” she suggested, smiling. Then Stephen sat down on the edge of a chair as though she were sitting in the Prickly Cradle.
She forgot to inquire about Angela’s dog-bite, though the bandaged hand was placed on a cushion; and she also forgot to adjust her new necktie, which in her emotion had slipped slightly crooked. A thousand times in the last few days had she carefully rehearsed this scene of their meeting, making up long and elaborate speeches; assuming, in her mind, many dignified poses; and yet there she sat on the edge of a chair as though it were the Prickly Cradle.
And now Angela was speaking in her soft, Southern drawl: “So you’ve found your way here at last,” she was saying. And then, after a pause: “I’m so glad, Miss Gordon, do you know that your coming has given me real pleasure?”
Stephen said: “Yes—oh, yes—” Then fell silent again, apparently intent on the carpet.
“Have I dropped my cigarette ash or something?” inquired her hostess, whose mouth twitched a little.
“I don’t think so,” murmured Stephen, pretending to look, then glancing up sideways at
