FullReads

“The only bad news was when I learned–through your nephew’s note to Linda–that you were coming to us.”

“Ah then he wrote?”

“Certainly he wrote.”

“You take it all harder than I do,” I returned as I sat down beside her. And then I added, smiling: “Have you written to his mother?”

Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. “Take care, take care, or you’ll have been more brutal than you’ll afterwards like,” she said with an air of patience before the inevitable.

“Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when Linda wrote.”

She had an hesitation. “Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn’t have done anything else. I let it go because I didn’t know what course was best. I’m afraid to oppose her to her face.”

“Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?”

“That girl? Much you know about her! It didn’t follow you’d come. I didn’t take that for granted.”

“I’m like you,” I said–“I too am afraid of my nephew. I don’t venture to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do–once he wished it–was to come with him.”

“I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I’m glad,” she rather inscrutably added.

“Oh I was conscientious about that! But I’ve no authority; I can neither drive him nor stay him–I can use no force,” I explained. “Look at the way he’s pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me.”

“You could tell him she’s a bad hard girl–one who’d poison any good man’s life!” my companion broke out with a passion that startled me.

At first I could only gape. “Dear lady, what do you mean?”

She bent her face into her hands, covering it over with them, and so remained a minute; then she continued a little differently, though as if she hadn’t heard my question: “I hoped you were too disgusted with us– after the way we left you planted.”

“It was disconcerting assuredly, and it might have served if Linda hadn’t written. That patched it up,” I gaily professed. But my gaiety was thin, for I was still amazed at her violence of a moment before. “Do you really mean that she won’t do?” I added.

She made no direct answer; she only said after a little that it didn’t matter whether the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few weeks later, since it was destined to come at the first chance, the favouring moment. Linda had marked my young man–and when Linda had marked a thing!

“Bless my soul–how very grim–” But I didn’t understand. “Do you mean she’s in love with him?”

“It’s enough if she makes him think so–though even that isn’t essential.”

Still I was at sea. “If she makes him think so? Dear old friend, what’s your idea? I’ve observed her, I’ve watched her, and when all’s said what has she done? She has been civil and pleasant to him, but it would have been much more marked if she hadn’t. She has really shown him, with her youth and her natural charm, nothing more than common friendliness. Her note was nothing; he let me see it.”

“I don’t think you’ve heard every word she has said to him,” Mrs. Pallant returned with an emphasis that still struck me as perverse.

“No more have you, I take it!” I promptly cried. She evidently meant more than she said; but if this excited my curiosity it also moved, in a different connexion, my indulgence.

“No, but I know my own daughter. She’s a most remarkable young woman.”

“You’ve an extraordinary tone about her,” I declared “such a tone as I think I’ve never before heard on a mother’s lips. I’ve had the same impression from you–that of a disposition to ‘give her away,’ but never yet so strong.”

At this Mrs. Pallant got up; she stood there looking down at me. “You make my reparation–my expiation–difficult!” And leaving me still more astonished she moved along the terrace.