Part 56 (1/2)

Perhaps they divined the intention in this intimation from Teddy. At any rate, they didn't question it, or rebel against it. It followed on visits first of one pair and then of the other, both of which had been so normal as almost to pa.s.s as gay. That is, Teddy's spirits had infected theirs, and they had parted from him smiling. That of Jennie and Gussie had been the first of the two, and he had sent them off with a joke.

”My boy, I'm proud of you,” had been Lizzie's farewell words to him.

”Walk firmly, with your head erect, and never, never be sorry for anything you've done.”

”Good old ma! The best ever! I sure am proud of _you_! What'll you bet that we don't have some good times together yet?”

A psychologist would have said that by suggestion and autosuggestion they strengthened each other and themselves; but whatever the process, the result was evident. Bob had given them the verb ”to carry on,” so that ”carrying on” became at once an objective and a driving force.

Gussie and Gladys went regularly to work; Jennie took care of the house and her mother. The latter task had become the more imperative, for the reason that, after Teddy's request that they should suspend their visits, she began to fail. It was not that she was hurt by it, but rather that she took it as a signal.

In the efforts to be strong, they were helped by the fact that, not long after Teddy's removal to Bitterwell, Edith Ayling had come to see them, all of her own initiative. She had repeated the visit many times, and had Gussie and Gladys go to see her at Cathedral Heights. Jennie had never been able to leave home.

”I didn't say anything about it to you,” Edith explained to Bob, after the occasion of her breaking the ice, ”because I wanted to do it on my own. Quite apart from you and Jennie, I feel that our lots have become involved and that we Collinghams have some responsibility. I don't say responsibility for what, because I don't know; and yet I feel-” Unable to say what she felt, she elided to the personal. ”Jennie I don't get at. She's so silent-so shut away. The mother has never been well enough to see me. But the two younger girls I'm really getting to know very well and to be very fond of. They're intelligent down to the finger-tips, and with a little guidance I'm sure they could do big things.”

”What kind of things?”

”I should train Gladys along intellectual lines, and Gussie was born for the stage. I know that Ernest and I could help them, if you thought it all right, and we should love doing it. You must read what he says in his new book, _Salvage_, as to getting people into the tasks for which they are fitted and in which they can be happy. He thinks that a lot of our nonproductiveness comes from the people who'd love doing one thing being compelled to do another, and that if we could only help the individuals we come across to find their natural jobs....”

It was Edith also who unconsciously helped her mother out of the trap in which she had found herself caught.

”Oh, by the way, whom do you think I met in the street the other day? No less a person than Hubert Wray, just back from California. And that reminds me. He told me you had bought his big picture that everyone was talking about last year. Where is it? Why did you never say anything about it?”

Edith was spending a day in May at Collingham Lodge, and was walking with her mother between rows of irises.

”Come in,” Junia said. ”I'll show you. Then you'll understand.”

But not till ”Life and Death” had been drawn from its hiding place and propped against the wall was Edith allowed to enter her mother's room.

She advanced slowly, her eyes on the canvas. Junia waited for the shock.

”So that's it,” Edith said, at last. ”It isn't a thing I should want to live and die with-I never can understand that fancy people have for nudes-but I see it's very fine.”

”And is that all you see?”

”All I see? I see it has a meaning, of course, but-”

Junia's throat felt dry.

”Don't you-don't you recognize anybody?”

”Who? The Bra.s.shead woman? I shouldn't know her from Eve.”

Junia crept nearer.

”'The Bra.s.shead woman'? Who's she? What are you talking about?”

”Why, the model who sat for it. Hubert told me all about her. He said she wasn't his ideal for the part-rather a poor lot as a woman-but he couldn't get anyone better.” She added, on examining the features, ”I don't think she's bad, considering what he wanted.”

”Doesn't she-doesn't she remind you of-of Bob's wife?”

”About as much as she does of you. Surely that's not the reason why you hid the thing away!”