The Climber/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II
The Misses Grimson were at home from four to seven on alternate Tuesdays in July, beginning with the second one, and July was consequently rather a busy time in Brixham, since the Dean's wife also gave alternate Wednesdays (luckily in different weeks to those marked by the fêtes of the Misses Grimson, or the strain might have been too severe); the Bishop's wife might be counted upon for two garden-parties, and there was also a cricket week given by the officers of the regiment stationed there, with tea and a band provided every day. In addition, the usual amount of entertaining went on, but during July the Misses Grimson never went out to dinner, since the evenings had to be kept free. And when July was over, they retired to Sea View Cottage at Littlestone, in order to rest during the month of August, previous to resuming activities again in September.
Their house lay a little outside the town, on a hill commanding a pleasant view over it. It lay a little back from the road, and the front door was approached by a "carriage-sweep" which led in at one gate and out at another, and its privacy was further enhanced by a row of laurels which lay between the entrance and the exit, thus screening the lower windows of the house. There was no mistaking which gate was which, because by the railings at one gate was painted the word "In," and though the corrosion of the elements had obliterated the word "Out" at the other, leaving only "T," it was clear that if one gate was "In," the other must be "Out," so that there was no need to have it repainted. Matters were further facilitated by the fact that a single conveyance filled up nearly the whole of the carriagesweep, so that any intelligent driver, by observing out of which gate the horse's nose was protruding, could easily gather that he must make his entrance at the other one, in order to obviate the inconvenience of the earlier arrival going backward when he should have entered, since there was not room for two carriages to pass. Two wheelbarrows might have done so without collision, but no wheeled vehicle of larger size.
Inside, on the ground-floor, were three sitting-rooms, drawing-room, and dining-room, looking out on to the carriage-sweep, while behind was what was known as the writing-room, where the aunts read the paper. This looked on to the garden, where the lawn was of sufficient size just to hold a tennis-court, with one pole of the net planted at the edge of the flower-border, while the other pole was so near the path that in going round it, it was necessary to step on to the gravel. Farther away a privet-hedge screened the kitchen garden from view, which stretched a distance of some fifty yards to the foot of the railway embankment, which ran parallel to it. Thus the garden was not overlooked except by the windows of the houses on each side of it, unless a train happened to be stopped by signal immediately behind—"a thing," as Aunt Cathie remarked once to an inquiring tenant for the month of August, when the family would be at the seaside, "did not happen once in a Blue Moon." What a Blue Moon might be (the capitals represent the peculiar emphasis that Aunt Cathie put on the words) neither she nor the tenant were exactly aware, but as a train did not stop there once in one, there was no need to establish its precise nature.
Aunt Cathie at this moment was doing two things at once, which she always recommended Lucia never to attempt—she was waiting for Lucia's arrival from town, and she was contemplating the flower-bed with rather magisterial severity, as if she expected flowers to open if she looked at them hard enough. Certainly the garden was very backward; one cold week had succeeded another, and unless the sun did something decent in the next month, there would not be the "blaze of colour" which ought to dazzle their guests when they came for the first alternate Tuesday in July. The "blaze of colour" was not her own word. The Bishop had said the garden was a blaze of colour to Elizabeth two years ago, and the very next Sunday after that he had preached in the cathedral, drawing a parallel between the gardens of men's houses and the gardens of men's souls, again using that vivid expression, so that it was fair to conclude that this flower-bed had inspired him, which was a very gratifying thought.
Aunt Cathie might have been fifty, but she was not. Instead, she was nearly sixty, while Aunt Elizabeth, who might have been sixty, was more nearly the age that Aunt Cathie might have been. In other respects, too, each of the two sisters seemed confusingly like what the other might be expected to be, for Aunt Cathie, with an almost truculent appearance and abrupt demeanour, was of an extraordinarily tender heart, while Aunt Elizabeth, who appeared soft and aged and effete, was gifted with a nature of almost incredible obstinacy, and, to put the matter quite frankly, was as hard as nails.
It was over Elizabeth's hardness that Cathie was pondering as she looked at the garden-bed. They had had some discussion about it earlier in the morning, considering it in its relation to the tennis-court.
"Of course, the garden is your affair, Catherine," Elizabeth had said ("Catherine" was a word used by her only in ultimatums and on other disapproving occasions); "and if you like to have it looking like the desert of Sahara and the Dead Sea when our guests come here in July, it is a matter that concerns you. I hope I never intrude my advice when it is not wanted, but there are occasions when it becomes a duty to say what is in one's mind."
Elizabeth always spoke very slowly and distinctly, and in a die-away voice, as if she had scarcely strength left for the mere enunciation. But her voice never quite died away until she had completely finished what she wished to say. She would then usually intimate with a closing of the eyes and a slight shiver that the subject might be considered as ended. She invariably, however, returned to it herself a little later, and said her say over again.
"What do you advise then, Elizabeth?" asked Cathie.
"Dismiss Johnson at once and get somebody who will condescend to garden."
"But he's so old, dear," said Catherine, "and so extremely incompetent. He would never get another place. I don't think I can dismiss him. You see, I pay his wages."
"That is a quibble, Catherine. I pay Jane's, and I hope you find your room perfectly cleaned. Otherwise pray mention it, and if fault must be found, I will find it."
"No, Jane is a good girl," said Cathie, "but short of dismissing Johnson, can't you suggest anything?"
"Well, it is absurd to let the lawn be used for a tennis-court in these few weeks before our parties. Lucia can play tennis all the year round from September till May"
"I never heard of anybody playing lawn-tennis from September till May," interpolated Catherine.
"There is no reason why it should not be played," said Elizabeth, "in the frosts. I was saying when you interrupted me, that unless you prefer to have the lawn looking like an abandoned cabbage patch in an allotment, when we entertain our friends, it would be better not to have it continually trampled down and run about on just before. Not to mention the decimation of such flowers as there are by the search for balls, and the loss of balls even when they are searched for. That is another point: you bought Lucia a set of new balls last year, and I see you have bought her another set to-day."
"They are a birthday present, Elizabeth," said Cathie.
"Indeed. May I ask what they cost?"
"Twelve shillings. It isn't extravagant. They last longer than the cheap ones."
Elizabeth took up her paper again with a little shiver.
"The kettle-holder you gave me on my last birthday is most useful to me, Catherine," she observed in a faltering voice.
These were the things that Catherine thought over as she looked at the unpromising flower-bed, and the lawn which beyond all denying showed traces of trampled usage. But it was chiefly Elizabeth's unkindness that occupied her, and the worst thing about Elizabeth's unkindness was that it always sprang from solid facts. She never imagined grievances: she took the bare bones of existence and held them up before you in their mere crude hardness of outline. It was perfectly true, for instance, that Johnson was a most incompetent gardener, besides being of almost patriarchal age; it was true also that Catherine's present to Elizabeth on her last birthday had been a kettle-holder, and a remarkably cheap one too; it was true also that she had given Lucia a set of lawn-tennis balls that cost twelve shillings. But somehow when Elizabeth did no more than state these facts without comment of any kind, it was not only Elizabeth who seemed unkind, but Cathie's own conduct that seemed unkind likewise.
"And I'm not unkind," she said to herself, in truculent bass undertones.
To have looked at her, to have talked with her, except under favourable circumstances to have even lived in the house with her, would not have convinced any of quite average intelligence that Catherine was of gentle heart and, so to speak, of a defenceless nature. She looked, as Elizabeth was, as hard as nails, and even those who most habitually visited their house at Brixham would have said that Catherine was the dominant spirit, and that the gentle Elizabeth groaned under her yoke. She was tall, a little gaunt in face and hard of feature, and a gruff masculinity of voice and an abrupt address confirmed the impression made by her appearance. Her very acts of kindness were obscured by the uncompromising character of her manners, and it is doubtful whether Johnson himself would not have said that of the two sisters Miss Cathie represented justice and Miss Elizabeth mercy. She was reticent also, and constitutionally incapable of showing her real self to others except in kind deeds so ungraciously performed as to make them of doubtful import, and she seemed ashamed of them, hastening to cover them up with gruff speeches.
It was a tragedy of elderly spinsterhood, in fact, that was daily played by her. Hypocrite she could not be called, since it was not in her power, as far as she was aware, to put into her outward appearance and manners the kindliness that was hers, though if to be a hypocrite is to conceal one's real nature, it must be confessed that it is hard to see why she should not fall under the name, unless intentional concealment is a necessary qualification. Hypocrisy, at any rate, was forced on her; she was incapable of showing her best; she habitually kept it out of sight, even as others conceal their worst, and it was this involuntary concealment that all her life had been her tragedy. As something of a hoyden when a girl, she had yearned for the soft joys of womanhood and the hard sweet duties of wifehood, yet all the time she hid herself, and though longing to embrace and welcome the common lot of womankind, she had held herself at arm's length. And as the years went by, they brought no merciful hardening to her nature; outwardly she became a little more grim, a little less cordial in manner, but the passage of time which stiffened her joints—for she suffered a good deal of silent discomfort from rheumatism—brought no stiffening to her soul. Her heart had remained, indeed, most inconveniently young, its sympathies were all with youth and its fervours, even at an age when the most cordial and expansive are beginning to withdraw into themselves a little and tell themselves, with good sense, that these things are no longer for them, and acquiesce in their limitations. But poor Aunt Catherine did not acquiesce at all; she daily rebelled, and daily, with a dreadful distinctness, showed herself ungracious to the view, but knew that she but parodied her real self. It was now a little over a year since Lucia had come to live with her aunts on the death of her father. Tragedy had been at work there also, and from being a respectable and much-trusted solicitor, he had ended his own life when a long course of systematic fraudulence was on the eve of discovery. Mad speculation had lost him both his own moderate fortune and that of his unfortunate clients, and his only daughter had been left with the small marriage portion of her mother, which he had been unable to touch. Terrible as it all was, Catherine had felt even at the time that here, though coming late, and coming tragically, was, so to speak, another chance for her who had missed so much in life—Lucia, it had been settled, was to live with her aunts, and the thought of having the girl in the house had filled her with a longing and yearning joy. But disappointment again waited for her. It had been Elizabeth who said a few choking and faltering words of welcome, while Catherine stood there, knowing herself to be looking like a Grenadier, while all the time she was longing to make the girl feel that she was coming to one who welcomed her with a passionate eagerness. Indeed, it was an evening branded into her memory—Lucia had looked so tired, so forlorn, so young to be visited with such hopeless trouble, and yet Catherine could say nothing to build a bridge whereby the girl's sorrow might step into her own heart. She had brought up a chair for her to the fire, ruffling the rug; she had poked the fire and brought down shovel and tongs in disastrous clatter, and had spilt the tea she handed her into the saucer.
Of course, these were trifling things, and the lapse of a few hours would efface the unfortunate impression, but next day it was the same thing over again. She had come down early to welcome the girl at breakfast, and again she could do no more than peck her cheek, and observe in her gruff baritone:
"Hope you slept well. Less tired? No, that's your Aunt Elizabeth's place."
And day had been added to day, till they grew to weeks, and the weeks to months, and still the barrier was between them. Not long after Lucia's arrival, as has been seen, on the occasion of her birthday, her aunt gave her a set of lawn-tennis balls, and herself helped in the mowing of the lawn, though she sheared her kindness of all graciousness by saying it was the best exercise she knew. Gradually, too, it became perfectly plain to her—as was indeed the case—that Lucia found life in Brixham very little to her taste. Coming fresh from the vivid delights and constant companionship of Newnham, she felt lonely in this new place, and, as was but natural, could not make friends of her aunt's elderly acquaintances. It was some weeks before Catherine realized that; it had not occurred to her at first that Lucia could fail to find in living with her two elderly aunts the same rapturous possibilities that one at least of the elderly aunts dreamed of. The realization dawned slowly, for poor Catherine knew well how deeply she was in sympathy with youth, and it was long before she grasped the depressing fact that to be of youthful heart is not in the least the same thing as being young, especially when, as in her case, her sympathy was a thing that she was practically unable to express in any way. Moreover, though age, crabbed or not, is perfectly capable of dwelling with youth in almost ecstatic content, youth is not capable of doing anything of the sort with age. She, at any rate, in the course of a few months saw that, and the fine inherent justice of her nature prevented her from thinking, however remotely, that this was selfish or cruel on the part of youth in general, or of Lucia in particular. Instead, she labelled herself cruel and selfish in not having perceived this sooner, and if, in that point, she did not do justice to herself, severity in our own judgment of ourselves is a far more fruitful and amiable quality than severity in our judgment of others.
This period of disillusionment in regard to what she expected from Lucia's advent was bitter, but it did not infect her with its bitterness, and day by day, though she saw her hopes fade, her silent old-maid love for the girl grew. It was sad that Lucia did not understand her; it was sad that she was quite incapable of explaining herself; but it was saddest of all that Lucia found this life so dreary and tedious. It was not that Lucia ever expressed her discontent, or indeed failed in duty or gratitude to her aunts, but Catherine felt in her very bones how dull it must be for her. Their own circle, as is the way with two elderly ladies, had narrowed so imperceptibly that they had not perceived it, and now, it must be confessed, it was very narrow indeed. They still gave their "at homes" on alternate Tuesdays in July, and the smallness of the lawn made them fail to see how sparsely they were attended. And their guests—this fact Catherine had perceived at the first of the alternate Tuesdays a year ago, soon after Lucia had come to live with them—were all old or elderly, like themselves. Brixham, no doubt, had its boys and girls, its young men and maidens, but these had got shut out of the Misses Grimson's narrowing circle; and when she cast about in her own mind as to whom to ask "more of an age with Lucia," she found that she really did not know. A few names had occurred to her, and from time to time these had come to play lawn-tennis with the new box of balls in the exceedingly circumscribed court, and they again had asked the girl to parties at other houses. But among these acquaintances there was none that had ripened into anything approaching friendship. Lucia, for all her beauty and brilliance, had in this past year not got near intimacy with anyone. That Aunt Catherine knew; what she did not know was that this was entirely her niece's fault. Lucia found Brixham and the girls whom she came across stuffy. That might or might not be the case; what undoubtedly was the case was that the stuffy girls were not so dense as not to perceive her opinion of them. They survived it, and got on without her. No one could be more charming or amiable than Lucia when she thought it worth while. But she thought that nothing about Brixham was in the least worth while.
It is a popular fallacy, and one shared by Aunt Catherine, that charm, such as Lucia undeniably had, must make friends. It makes, beyond a doubt, many people willing to be friends with its fortunate possessor, but friendship is not a one-sided affair of this kind; it demands a contribution open-handed and unstinted, from both parties who go to the making of it. And among those who were willing to do their share at Brixham, Lucia was not one. She had nothing to give; there was nobody at any rate, as far as she perceived, who called forth her gift. In a word then, hitherto, she had shut it up, and turned the key on it. Brixham was dull, deadly and aged. But she could no more hide her charm than she could hide the sun, and while Aunt Catherine was still pondering over the bareness of the lawn and the colourlessness of what had been a blaze of colour the girl came into the garden.
"Dear Aunt Cathie," she said, "here I am, and you didn't hear the cab, which you were about to tell me, because there wasn't one. I walked from the station, and my luggage is coming by a van called C. P., whatever that means. Anyhow C. P. was very polite, so I said 'yes,' and it was only sixpence."
Aunt Catherine bent and kissed her somewhat magisterially.
"Glad to see you, dear," she said. "Are you glad to come back?"
Lucia's face did not fall; she still looked quite charming.
"Well, London was heavenly," she said, "so if that implies that I was glad to get away from London But the country is nice too," she added.
Catherine waited a moment to see if she would say more. But apparently that subject seemed done with.
"Lucia," she said, "I wonder if you'll mind. Hope not. But lawn-tennis does make the lawn so bare, doesn't it? Supposing you gave it up till after our parties. Give the grass a chance to grow."
Lucia turned now with an air of slight surprise.
"Oh, certainly if you like," she said with complete amiability.
"You don't mind, do you?"
"Not in the least. It's hardly possible to play tennis here anyhow. There's scarcely room."
Now six feet of grass had been added last autumn to the end of the lawn, at the sacrifice of a row of lobelias, a row of yellow calceolarias, and a row of scarlet geraniums, in order to make lawn-tennis more possible. Lucia had not asked for this; it had been Aunt Catherine's original thought, and she had gruffly explained at the time why it was being done. The lawn, however, even as Lucia had said, hardly admitted of the game being played at all, and she had scarcely played half a dozen times since it had been done. Out of these times, once or twice she had only played with Aunt Catherine, who had herself proposed a game, and had proved almost incapable of sending the ball over the net at all. She had done it in the hope of amusing Lucia, and Lucia had accepted the proposal in the hope of amusing Aunt Catherine, wondering slightly all the time how anybody could find it amusing to throw up the ball for service, and fail to hit it at all. But she had played with perfect good-nature, and had allowed Aunt Catherine to serve faults almost indefinitely without counting them.
But before the pause after Lucia's speech had become prolonged, the girl remembered the incident of the lengthening of the lawn, which she had forgotten.
"Though it was delightful of you to add that extra piece, Aunt Cathie," she said.
Somewhere deep down Catherine felt she wanted to explain, but she could not explain. She felt no inclination, even, to say that the proposal of abandoning lawn-tennis originated from her sister, but she wanted somehow to say she was sorry that, in spite of her efforts, the lawn was not big enough. But that again was like an appeal to Lucia, which Lucia would not understand; it would have been a little symbol of so much.
"Very well then," she said, "if you don't mind, we won't play any more tennis till after the parties. Perhaps you would like one game first this afternoon."
Lucia smiled.
"With you?" she asked. "Yes, with pleasure. And isn't it lunch-time, don't you think? I am so hungry."
Aunt Catherine consulted a warming-pan watch which she hauled out from some receptacle in her dress like a bucket from a well.
"Just lunch-time," she said. "Elizabeth ordered cheesecake. I remembered you liked them." Then her reserve gave way a little.
"I'm glad you've come home, Lucia," she said, "whether you are sorry to leave London or not." And the moment it was said, she realized how ill-said it was.
There was a new cook at Fair View Cottage, a very godly woman, as Aunt Elizabeth so rightly desired, but her godliness did not lead to any notable results as regarded food, unless inefficiency in a supreme degree can be considered notable. But she said responses so loudly at family prayers in the morning, and followed Aunt Elizabeth's reading in the Bible with so diligent a forefinger, that, as she truly observed, it showed a small spirit to mind about the bacon, and she thought Catherine would have been above it. But to-day the cheesecakes were above Elizabeth as well; the pastry resisted the most determined assaults without showing signs of fracture, and Catherine, in whose mouth mysterious alterations had lately been made, had to conceal hers under the bowl of her spoon, after swallowing with effort and misgiving what she had in her mouth.
This did not escape Elizabeth's eye.
"I am sorry you did not like the cheesecakes that I ordered at your request, Catherine," she said. "Poor Mrs. Inglis, I am sure, did her best, but I will tell her you are dissatisfied with her cooking."
"Try one yourself," said Catherine. "See if you can make an impression on it."
"I have already eaten well and sufficiently, Catherine," said she. "It is not my habit to do more than that. No doubt Lucia agrees with you."
"The pastry is rather tough, Aunt Elizabeth," said Lucia.
"I was afraid you would find our poor house very rough and uncomfortable after staying with your grand friends in London," she said, folding her napkin and putting it back into its ring.
Lucia said nothing. It was this sort of thing which she had meant when she told Maud they talked a different language at Brixham. But what was it possible to answer when Aunt Elizabeth spoke of her "grand friends"? And seeing she said nothing, Aunt Elizabeth proceeded to follow up her advantage.
"Though I do my best to make the house comfortable for you," she added tremulously. "If you have finished, Catherine, for what we have received"
Aunt Elizabeth had managed in the course of years and by dint of extreme ingenuity in disposing of the hours of the day to the least possible advantage, to make herself feel exceedingly busy. Every morning she had to read the paper and write her letters (or letter as the case might be), and what with ordering dinner, it was no wonder that it was lunch-time before she knew she had breakfasted. In the afternoon there was always some reason for going into the town, a distance of a mile, where, every day, she either ordered twopennyworth of worsted, or a needle, or counter-ordered something she had ordered the day before, or complained that something else had not come. Indeed, it seldom happened that she had not to go into Brixham between lunch and tea, so that the working day was already brim full. In addition she had often got to pay a call, which, by dint of much contrivance, had to be somehow wedged in, and on these occasions she was sometimes as much as a quarter of an hour late for tea, which again curtailed the hours between tea and dinner, which were dedicated to her worsted work, and this curtailment gave her the sense of being "driven." Charity in her case began at home with regard to her work, and her crochet-needle was more often than not employed in mending the voluminous wool-work with which her needle had already endowed Fair View Cottage. There were antimacassars (head-mats, she called them) over every chair, there was a woollen mat under every ornament, and over every footstool and under every lamp and candle in the place. The mats in fact were quite ubiquitous—pots of plants stood on them, books were disposed on them; whatever found place in Fairview Cottage had a mat to put it on. Thus it was usually nearly seven before she could get time to work at the shawl which at long intervals she gave to the old women of the workhouse, and since she dined at a quarter to eight their shawls got on very slowly. After dinner again, in the first hour of relaxation she had enjoyed since she got up, she permitted herself a game of patience, and since she never cheated, it was often ten o'clock before her game was over, and it was necessary to go to bed. She might be late for tea, but there was no trifling with bedtime—"bed" and "ten" were terms practically synonymous, and the exception that proved this rule was that when the Misses Grimson dined at the Deanery or at three other houses, or went to the Mayor's evening party, on his accession to office, bed was synonymous with eleven. On that occasion breakfast next morning meant nine instead of half-past eight.
To-day Aunt Elizabeth had to go to the draper's, which was at the farther end of the town, to match a particular shade of brown in the woollen head-rest on the American cloth sofa in the dining-room. Jane had managed to spill a plateful of soup over it, and the last three days had passed for Aunt Elizabeth in a tempest of perplexity as to what had better be done, so copious had been the soup, and so extensive the stain. It had been hung out to dry on the top of the tennis-net, and this morning her time for the perusal of the paper had been sadly eaten into by the need for a thorough inspection of it. She found, however, that by cutting away some third part of it, a patch could be reconstructed, and it was therefore necessary to get brown wool of a particular shade in large quantities. The original shade, no doubt, could be easily procured, but this head-rest was of some antiquity, and its rich original brown had mellowed to a greyish-yellow tinge, which she felt would be hard to match. It might have been easier, perhaps, to get the draper to send to Fair View Cottage samples of all the bilious browns in his possession, but this was not Aunt Elizabeth's way. Instead she wrapped the mutilated head-rest in whity-brown paper, and set off with it down the sun-baked road. This would certainly take up the hours till tea, and she could begin to work, supposing the right shade was obtainable, immediately afterwards. It was extremely tiresome and wearing to have this extra burden thrown on her in all the rush and bustle of July, and it seemed to her that this spilling of the soup was equivalent to a robbery of a week of her life. She had told Jane so, and Cathie's offer to repair it herself was a ridiculous proposal, since her wool-work was no more than a fortuitous collection of running knots. No doubt Catherine knew when she made the offer that it would be declined.
Lucia, meantime, managed to find the famous tennis-balls, which, as a matter of fact, were rather past their prime, and went out with Aunt Catherine to play lawn-tennis. The afternoon was broiling hot, for summer, long delayed, had come with a vengeance, and the high brick walls at the sides of the garden and the house at one end, and the railway embankment at the other, effectually prevented any breath of wind reaching the players. But the whitewash lines of the court were still faintly visible, and there were not many holes at the top of the net, so that a game was easily practicable. Aunt Cathie had put on a sun-bonnet decorated with a large black bow, and on her feet she wore that species of covering known as sand-shoes—black canvas, with shiny toes, such as she wore on the beach at Sea View—and accustomed though Lucia was to the truculence of her aspect, it struck her anew, as, cool and fresh herself, she stepped out into the blinding sunshine and found her aunt waiting for her.
The net first required adjustment, and on Aunt Cathie's winding up the winch with too zealous a hand, the wire broke, and the net collapsed. A temporary repair was soon executed, and Aunt Cathie began to serve the slack, discoloured balls. The first two or three, being out of practice, she threw high in the air, but failed to hit altogether, and then, by a fortuitous conjunction of circumstances, she struck one so violently that it pitched among the cabbages, and had to be instantly recovered before they forgot where it had gone to. Then Aunt Cathie scored several faults of different descriptions; one hit the ground at her feet, one went into the net, a third knocked off the head of one of the few geraniums and spilled its scarlet petals as by a deed of blood. But after this, having got her hand in, she served several to the required place, and Lucia returned them as gently as she knew how. But Aunt Cathie's bolt, so to speak, was shot when she had delivered a correct service, and she was incapable of more, though with extraordinary gallantry she rushed swiftly and erratically to the places where Lucia's returns had been only a second or two before. And rarely—so rarely—did she ever send a ball into her opponent's court.
Slowly, as this parody of a game continued, Lucia's forehead gathered itself into little puckers, and the corners of her mouth got rather firm and hard, for neither her sense of humour nor, which was much worse, did any sense of compassion or tenderness come to her aid. She only knew that it was all most tiresome and ridiculous. Humour might possibly have left her kindly, and had she smiled or even laughed at the figure of Aunt Cathie, unspeakably attired, hurrying with her large flat feet and flapping sun-bonnet to where a ball had been a few moments before, and striking wildly at the innocent and empty air, her impatience and intolerance might have evaporated. But the sight did not amuse her; she was vexed and bored. And still farther from her than amusement was any feeling of tenderness. To her mind there was no pathos in the fact that Aunt Cathie should skip about like this in the sun. She knew nothing of the secret tragedy, of the lonely elderly heart that still ached for and yearned toward the youth it had never really known. Yet it was not altogether her fault, for her aunt was an adept at concealing what she longed to express, and cloaking what she pined to exhibit.
And so the dreary game went on, typical to the girl of her life here, of its unutterable tedium, of its joyless monotony, of its rare and lugubrious festivities. Tiresome though it was, she scarcely wished it to be ended, because there was nothing coming afterward. She would hold skeins while Aunt Elizabeth wound them, there would follow dinner, and afterwards she would observe Aunt Elizabeth vainly wrestling with patience, while Aunt Cathie dozed over a book, until the clock on the chimney-piece chimed a querulous ten, as if contradicting someone who denied the fact. They would all kiss each other and say goodnight, and retire with bed-candles, to recover in sleep from the effects of this annihilating day, and get strength for the next which would be exactly like this.
It all happened as Lucia had foreseen; she only had not an imagination quite vivid enough to realize the details of the monotony. Aunt Elizabeth, for instance, instead of being sour at tea, was bright and agreeable, but when the cause of her unusual sociability was declared, it seemed to Lucia that she was deadlier than ever. For it had happened that she had found exactly the bilious shade necessary for the repair of the headrest, and the spilt soup would therefore not stain the honour of the family for ever, as had once seemed probable. But this ray of brightness again had been firmly extinguished when it came to her ears that Catherine and Lucia had been playing lawn-tennis.
"After your frivolous afternoon, Lucia," she said, "I suppose you would find it intolerable to hold my skein. I shall be able to manage perfectly well with two chairs, if you want to amuse yourself again."
So the lawn-tennis was officially amusing! Lucia felt that irony had said its last word. The infinitesimal quality of it all crushed her; she almost besought to be allowed to hold the dreadful skein. And, as a favour, she was permitted to do so.
Again after dinner the patience "went out" by 9.23 p.m., which encouraged Aunt Elizabeth to tempt the laws of chance again. So engrossed was she that for the first time in Lucia's memory she did not hear the clock strike ten, while Aunt Cathie, tired with her unusual exertions, had fallen into a deeper doze than usual. So it was a momentous evening, and far more full of incident than usual.