But Mrs. Marble had by now become well started on the subject that absorbed so many of her few thoughts.
“You mustn’t think any the less of your father, dear, because—because—he is a little odd at times. He has a great deal to worry him, you know, and I’m sure you ought to be grateful to him for all he’s done.”
“Of course I am,” said Winnie, sweetly. It had never occurred to her to be grateful.
“I’m so glad. I—I was a little afraid that when you came back from your fine school you might find that—that—everything was not quite as you would like it.”
“Do you mean because father drinks?”
“Winnie!” Mrs. Marble showed in her expression how shocked she was at this calling of a spade a spade.
“But he does, mother, now doesn’t he?”
“Y—es, I suppose he does. But not very much, dear. Not more than you could expect, seeing how much his business worries him. And you didn’t ought to speak about it like that, Winnie. It doesn’t sound nice.”
Poor Mrs. Marble had by now nearly as much to worry her as her husband had. It might almost be worse in her case, for she did not know really what it was she had to worry about, and her not over-exuberant imagination could not allow her even to guess. And the worry of defending her husband to her children on unnamed and unguessed-at charges was nearly as great as everything else put together.
For her children were small comfort to her now. John was gawky and shy, and she could not know of the love he bore her, especially as the memory of the times when he had come to defend her from her husband stood as a barrier between them which neither of them had the moral courage to surmount at a rush. And Winnie—even Mrs. Marble felt this—was just a little bit superior nowadays.
Yet even Winnie was for the moment mollified by the announcement that they were going to stay for a month at the Grand Pavilion Hotel at a very fashionable south coast resort. That would be much nicer than staying all the holidays at Malcolm Road, and it would be something to tell the girls about when she went back to school. Some of these might go to France, some to Italy, but there would be few who would spend their holidays at such a place as the Grand Pavilion Hotel. Their parents would have more sense.
And the packing, and the preparation! Winnie helped her mother sort out her astonishing wardrobe. In the tiny cupboards of the bedroom upstairs, where the gilt cupids climbed eternally about the big bed, there were heaps of the most assorted clothes it was possible to conceive. Mingled with the frightfully expensive costumes, there were old rags dating back from the dark ages before the rise of the franc. Mrs. Marble, apparently, wore indifferently the pastel shade silk underclothes bought in Bond Street and the wool and cotton mixture garments, neither decorative nor useful, which she had had before the arrival of these others. The explanation was really simple. Never in her life before had Mrs. Marble had any clothes to give away; they were all worn to rags long before she could spare them. She could not get into the habit of disposing of her older wardrobe. In fact, it is much to be doubted whether she had ever contemplated giving away garments in which there still remained six months’ wear, according to earlier standards of economy. And all the clothes, worn and unworn, were badly looked after, unbrushed and hung on hooks without hangers.
Even one term at a boarding-school had taught Winnie to do better than this, and for two hectic days she took her mother’s clothes in hand, sorting and folding, ruthlessly relegating some to the rag-basket, wondering over others. It was beyond her powers to imagine her mother in underclothing of orange silk or eau de nile; it was almost beyond it to imagine her well dressed at all, but Winnie contrived to arrange that her mother looked more like the mothers whom she had seen at the school occasionally. Mrs. Marble was almost tearfully grateful.
“I don’t seem to have time to do all this,” she said. “And—and—it doesn’t seem worth it, sometimes. Your father is a very busy man, you know, dear.”
The cupids that climbed about the big Empire bed had climbed in vain for months now, that was what Mrs. Marble implied, although she would never have dreamed of hinting as much to her daughter.
And in all this rush to put Mrs. Marble’s wardrobe in order Winnie herself was not forgotten. She had to have new frocks as well, for her stay at the Grand Pavilion Hotel, and Winnie’s taste, which was allowed almost complete freedom, was at its best a little juvenile. Mrs. Marble was a shade frightened when she saw some of the things Winnie had chosen, but it was beyond her to protest. She had only the haziest idea as to what was the correct wear for a girl of fifteen at the Grand Pavilion Hotel.
“There’s a lot in being bobbed,” said Winnie to herself in the glass, attentively studying her features while her mother was safely out of the way. “No one can ever really tell how old you are. If I weren’t bobbed, I wouldn’t have my hair up, and then anyone could tell. But as it is, with my new frocks and everything, I think I’ll have rather a nice time this holiday. And there’ll be something to tell them about when I get back to school.”
Winnie and her mother were pleasantly excited when the cab came to take them to Victoria. John was not with them. He had
