And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on the doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car. And they would have long, cosy evenings together in the drawing-room, as he luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they would be snug for hours, before they went warmly and deliciously to bed. And in the morning he need not rush off. He would loiter about with her, they would loiter down the garden looking at every new flower and every new fruit, she would wear fresh flowery dresses and no cap on her hair, he would never be able to tear himself away from her. Every morning it would be unbearable to have to tear himself away from her, and every hour he would be rushing back to her. They would be simply everything to one another. And how he would enjoy it! Ah!
He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take her away from him. That was his first thought. But then—! Ah well, he would have to leave it till the time. Love’s young dream is never so delicious as at the virgin age of fifty-three.
But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had put a plain question. It was August Bank Holiday, that forever black day of the declaration of war, when his question was put. For this year of our story is the fatal year 1914.
There was quite a stir in the town over the declaration of war. But most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra thrill to the all-important event of Bank Holiday. Half the world had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the Lakes or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fête, notwithstanding. And as the weather was decent, everybody was in a real holiday mood.
So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the Hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three, for tea.
“What do you think of this new war?” said Alvina.
“Oh, it will be over in six weeks,” said the doctor easily. And there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered if it would affect the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. She had never heard any more of them.
“Where would you have liked to go today?” said the doctor, turning to smile at her as he drove the car.
“I think to Windermere—into the Lakes,” she said.
“We might make a tour of the Lakes before long,” he said. She was not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech.
“How nice!” she said vaguely.
“We could go in the car, and take them as we chose,” said the doctor.
“Yes,” she said, wondering at him now.
When they had had tea, quietly and gallantly tête-à-tête in his drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms of the house. She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving chair, which he called his study: then the kitchen and the pantry, the housekeeper looking askance; then upstairs to his bedroom, which was very fine with old mahogany tallboys and silver candlesticks on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a hygienic white bed and straw mats: then the visitors’ bedroom corresponding, with its old satinwood furniture and cream-coloured chairs with large, pale-blue cushions, and a pale carpet with reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that, isn’t that beautiful, I’ve never seen anything like that! came the gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina. And he smiled and gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had impressed Ciccio and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again: a trick she thought she had happily lost.
The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big man, and he always wore navy blue suits, well-tailored and immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue suits, especially if they had reddish faces and rather big feet and if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome.
“What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and the fascinating little window!” She crouched in the hollow of the small dormer window. “Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I know I should want this room for my own.”
“Then have it,” he said. “Have it for one of your own.”
She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was leaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative, and eager. She thought it best to laugh it off.
“I was only talking like a child, from the imagination,” she said.
“I quite understand that,” he replied deliberately. “But I am speaking what I mean—”
She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling and smirking broadly at her.
“Won’t you marry me, and come and have this garret for your own?” He spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate. He smiled with curious uncertainty.
“I don’t know,” she said vaguely.
His smile broadened.
“Well now,” he said, “make up your mind. I’m not good at talking about love, you know. But I think I’m pretty good at feeling it, you know. I want you to come here and be happy: with me.” He added the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to commit himself finally.
“But
