hisdesire for her was a drowsy ache, a remote emptiness, and the veil thatlay over his mother seemed to lie over him also. Once, indeed, duringthe evening, when he had played for her, the veil had lifted and for thedrowsy ache he had the sunlit, stabbing pang; but, as he left, the veildropped again, and he let himself into the big, mute house, sorry thathe had left it. In the same way, too, his music was in abeyance: hecould not concentrate himself or find it worth while to make the effortto absorb himself in it, and he knew that short of that, there wasneither profit nor pleasure for him in his piano. Everything seemedremote compared with the immediate foreground: there was a gap, a gulfbetween it and all the rest of the world.
His father wrote to him from time to time, laying stress on the extremeimportance of all he was doing in the country, and giving no hint of hiscoming up to town at present. But he faintly adumbrated the time whenin the natural course of events he would have to attend to his nationalduties in the House of Lords, and wondered whether it would not (aboutthen) be good for his wife to have a change, and enjoy the countrywhen the weather became more propitious. Michael, with an excusableunfilialness, did not answer these amazing epistles; but, having baskedin their unconscious humour, sent them on to Aunt Barbara. Weeklyreports were sent by Lady Ashbridge's nurse to his father, and Michaelhad nothing whatever to add to these. His fear of him had given placeto a quiet contempt, which he did not care to think about, and certainlydid not care to express.
Every now and then Lady Ashbridge had what Michael thought of as a goodhour or two, when she went back to her content and childlike joy in hispresence, and it was clear, when presently she came downstairs as hestill lingered in the garden, reading the daily paper in the sun, thatone of these better intervals had visited her. She, too, it appeared,felt the waving of the magic wand of spring, and she noted the signs ofit with a joy that was infinitely pathetic.
"My dear," she said, "what a beautiful morning! Is it wise to sit outof doors without your hat, Michael? Shall not I go and fetch it for you?No? Then let us sit here and talk. It is spring, is it not? Look how thebirds are collecting twigs for their nests! I wonder how they know thatthe time has come round again. Sweet little birds! How bold and merrythey are."
She edged her way a little nearer him, so that her shoulder leaned onhis arm.
"My dear, I wish you were going to nest, too," she said. "I wonder--doyou think I have been ill-natured and unkind to your Sylvia, and thatmakes her not come to see me now? I do remember being vexed at her fornot wanting to marry you, and perhaps I talked unkindly about her. I amsorry, for my being cross to her will do no good; it will only makeher more unwilling than ever to marry a man who has such an unpleasantmamma. Will she come to see me again, do you think, if I ask her?"
These good hours were too rare in their appearances and swift in theirvanishings to warrant the certainty that she would feel the same thisafternoon, and Michael tried to turn the subject.
"Ah, we shall have to think about that, mother," he said. "Look, thereis a quarrel going on between those two sparrows. They both want thesame straw."
She followed his pointing finger, easily diverted.
"Oh, I wish they would not quarrel," she said. "It is so sad and stupidto quarrel, instead of being agreeable and pleasant. I do not like themto do that. There, one has flown away! And see, the crocuses are comingup. Indeed it is spring. I should like to see the country to-day. If youare not busy, Michael, would you take me out into the country? We mightgo to Richmond Park perhaps, for that is in the opposite direction fromAshbridge, and look at the deer and the budding trees. Oh, Michael,might we take lunch with us, and eat it out of doors? I want to enjoy asmuch as I can of this spring day."
She clung closer to Michael.
"Everything seems so fragile, dear," she whispered. "Everything maybreak. . . . Sometimes I am frightened."
The little expedition was soon moving, after a slight altercationbetween Lady Ashbridge and her nurse, whom she wished to leave behindin order to enjoy Michael's undiluted society. But Miss Baker, who hadalready spoken to Michael, telling him she was not quite happy in hermind about her patient, was firm about accompanying them, though sheobligingly effaced herself as far as possible by taking the box-seat bythe chauffeur as they drove down, and when they arrived, and Michaeland his mother strolled about in the warm sunshine before lunch, keepingcarefully in the background, just ready to come if she was wanted. Butindeed it seemed as if no such precautions were necessary, for never hadLady Ashbridge been more amenable, more blissfully content in her son'scompanionship. The vernal hour, that first smell of the rejuvenatedearth, as it stirred and awoke from its winter sleep had reached herno less than it had reached the springing grass and the heart of buriedbulbs, and never perhaps in all her life had she been happier than onthat balmy morning of early March. Here the stir of spring that hadcrept across miles of smoky houses to the gardens behind Curzon Street,was more actively effervescent, and the "bare, leafless choirs" of thetrees, which had been empty of song all winter, were once more resonantwith feathered worshippers. Through the tussocks of the grey grass oflast year were pricking the vivid shoots of green, and over the groveof young birches and hazel the dim, purple veil of spring hung mistlike.Down by the water-edge of the Penn ponds they strayed, where moor-hensscuttled out of rhododendron bushes that overhung the lake, and hurriedacross the surface of the water, half swimming, half flying, for theshelter of some securer retreat. There, too, they found a plantation ofwillows, already in bud with soft moleskin buttons, and a tortoiseshellbutterfly, evoked by the sun from its hibernation, settled on one of thetwigs, opening and shutting its diapered wings, and spreading them tothe warmth to thaw out the stiffness and inaction of winter. Blackbirdsfluted in the busy thickets, a lark shot up near them soaring andsinging till it became invisible in the luminous air, a suspendedcarol in the blue, and bold male chaffinches, seeking their mates withtwittered songs, fluttered with burr of throbbing wings. All the promiseof spring was there--dim, fragile, but sure, on this day of days,this pearl that emerged from the darkness and the stress of winter,iridescent with the tender colours of the dawning year.
They lunched in the open motor, Miss Baker again obligingly removingherself to the box seat, and spreading rugs on the grass sat in thesunshine, while Lady Ashbridge talked or silently watched Michael as hesmoked, but always with a smile. The one little note of sadness whichshe had sounded when she said she was frightened lest everything shouldbreak, had not rung again, and yet all day Michael heard it echoingsomewhere dimly behind the song of the wind and the birds, and theshoots of growing trees. It lurked in the thickets, just eluding him,and not presenting itself to his direct gaze; but he felt that he saw itout of the corner of his eye, only to lose it when he looked at it. Andyet for weeks his mother had never seemed so well: the cloud had liftedoff her this morning, and, but for some vague presage of trouble thatsomehow haunted his mind, refusing to be disentangled, he could havebelieved that, after all, medical opinion might be at fault, and that,instead of her passing more deeply into the shadows as he had beenwarned was inevitable, she might at least maintain the level to whichshe had returned to-day. All day she had been as she was before thedarkness and discontent of those last weeks had come upon her: hewho knew her now so well could certainly have affirmed that she hadrecovered the serenity of a month ago. It was so much, so tremendouslymuch that she should do this, and if only she could remain as she hadbeen all day, she would at any rate be happy, happier, perhaps, than shehad consciously been in all the stifled years which had preceded this.Nothing else at the moment seemed to matter except the preservation toher of such content, and how eagerly would he have given all the servicethat his young manhood had to offer, if by that he could keep herfrom going further into the bewildering darkness that he had been toldawaited her.
There was some little trouble, though no more than the shadow of apassing cloud, when at last he said that they must be getting back totown, for the afternoon was beginning to wane. She besoug
ht him for fiveminutes more of sitting here in the sunshine that was still warm, andwhen those minutes were over, she begged for yet another postponement.But then the quiet imposition of his will suddenly conquered her, andshe got up.
"My dear, you shall do what you like with me," she said, "for you havegiven me such a happy day. Will you remember that, Michael? It has beena nice day. And might we, do you think, ask Miss Falbe to come to teawith us when we get back? She can but say 'no,' and if she comes, I willbe very good and not vex her."
As she got back into the motor she stood up for a moment, her vague blueeyes scanning the sky, the trees, the stretch of sunlit park.
"Good-bye, lake, happy lake and moor-hens," she said. "Good-bye, treesand grass that are growing green again. Good-bye, all pretty, peacefulthings."
Michael had no hesitation