“There’s a train at a quarter to three, gets to Knype at ten minutes past,” said Amy, officiously. “But supposing it was only three minutes late and the London train was prompt, then you might miss her. Happen you’d better take the two fifteen to be on the safe side.”
“Let me look,” said Constance, firmly. “Please put all this paper in the wardrobe.”
She would have preferred not to follow Amy’s suggestion, but it was so incontestably wise that she was obliged to accept it.
“Unless ye go by tram,” said Amy. “That won’t mean starting quite so soon.”
But Constance would not go by tram. If she took the tram she would be bound to meet people who had read the Signal, and who would say, with their stupid vacuity: “Going to meet your sister at Knype?” And then tiresome conversations would follow. Whereas, in the train, she would choose a compartment, and would be far less likely to encounter chatterers.
There was now not a minute to lose. And the excitement which had been growing in that house for days past, under a pretence of calm, leapt out swiftly into the light of the sun, and was unashamed. Amy had to help her mistress make herself as comely as she could be made without her best dress, mantle, and bonnet. Amy was frankly consulted as to effects. The barrier of class was lowered for a space. Many years had elapsed since Constance had been conscious of a keen desire to look smart. She was reminded of the days when, in full fig for chapel, she would dash downstairs on a Sunday morning, and, assuming a pose for inspection at the threshold of the parlour, would demand of Samuel: “Shall I do?” Yes, she used to dash downstairs, like a child, and yet in those days she had thought herself so sedate and mature! She sighed, half with lancinating regret, and half in gentle disdain of that mercurial creature aged less than thirty. At fifty-one she regarded herself as old. And she was old. And Amy had the tricks and manners of an old spinster. Thus the excitement in the house was an “old” excitement, and, like Constance’s desire to look smart, it had its ridiculous side, which was also its tragic side, the side that would have made a boor guffaw, and a hysterical fool cry, and a wise man meditate sadly upon the earth’s fashion of renewing itself.
At half-past one Constance was dressed, with the exception of her gloves. She looked at the clock a second time to make sure that she might safely glance round the house without fear of missing the train. She went up into the bedroom on the second-floor, her and Sophia’s old bedroom, which she had prepared with enormous care for Sophia. The airing of that room had been an enterprise of days, for, save by a minister during the sittings of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Bursley, it had never been occupied since the era when Maria Insull used occasionally to sleep in the house. Cyril clung to his old room on his visits. Constance had an ample supply of solid and stately furniture, and the chamber destined for Sophia was lightened in every corner by the reflections of polished mahogany. It was also fairly impregnated with the odour of furniture paste—an odour of which no housewife need be ashamed. Further, it had been repapered in a delicate blue, with one of the new “art” patterns. It was a “Baines” room. And Constance did not care where Sophia came from, nor what Sophia had been accustomed to, nor into what limited company Sophia had been transformed—that room was adequate! It could not have been improved upon. You had only to look at the crocheted mats—even those on the washstand under the white-and-gold ewer and other utensils. It was folly to expose such mats to the splashings of a washstand, but it was sublime folly. Sophia might remove them if she cared. Constance was house-proud; house-pride had slumbered within her; now it blazed forth.
A fire brightened the drawing room, which was a truly magnificent apartment, a museum of valuables collected by the Baines and the Maddack families since the year 1840, tempered by the latest novelties in antimacassars and cloths. In all Bursley there could have been few drawing rooms to compare with Constance’s. Constance knew it. She was not afraid of her drawing room being seen by anybody.
She passed for an instant into her own bedroom, where Amy was patiently picking balls of paper from the bed.
“Now you quite understand about tea?” Constance asked.
“Oh yes, ’m,” said Amy, as if to say: “How much oftener are you going to ask me that question?” “Are you off now, ’m?”
“Yes,” said Constance. “Come and fasten the front door after me.”
They descended together to the parlour. A white cloth for tea lay folded on the table. It was of the finest damask that skill could
