Part 26 (1/2)

”Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time,” she reminded him. ”D'_you_ like them, Rhoda?” She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of her luminous, friendly looks. ”They're Peter's favourite food, you know.”

But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into cla.s.s-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was her favourite food too.

When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring suns.h.i.+ne had stolen into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had ever had a touch of that.

Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda.

And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because her father died. She said once, ”I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was--you know, Peter?--it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off from all that sort of thing. Denis and I _are_ so well off, d'you know.

Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful and beautifully dressed. I _like_ them to be, of course; they are joys, like the sun s.h.i.+ning; only...”

”The poor are always with you,” suggested Peter. ”You can always come to Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear beautifully dressed.”

”But I _like_ Algernon's blue bow,” Lucy protested. ”I love people to be bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all.”

Obviously the remedy was to come to Greville Street. Lucy came more and more as the months went by.

Rhoda said once, ”Doesn't it bother you to come all this way, into these ugly streets?” and she shook her head.

”Oh, I _like_ it. I like these streets better than the ones round us. And I like your house better than ours too; it's smaller.”

Rhoda could have thought she looked wistful, this fortunate person who was in love with her splendid husband and lived in the dwellings of the prosperous.

”Don't you like large houses?” she asked, without much caring; for she was absorbed in her own thoughts in these days.

Lucy puckered her wide forehead.

”Why, no. No, I don't believe I do,” she said, as if she was finding it out with a little surprise.

Rhoda saw her one day in July. In a few weeks, she told Rhoda (Peter was out that afternoon), she and Denis were going up to Scotland, to stay with people.

”We shall miss you,” said Rhoda dully.

”And me you,” said Lucy, with a more acute sense of it.

”Peter'll miss you dreadfully,” said Rhoda. She was lying on the sofa, pale and tired in the heat.

”Only,” said Lucy, ”next month you'll both be feeling too interested to miss anyone.”

”Peter,” said Rhoda, ”cares more about the baby coming than I do.”

Lucy said, ”Peter loves little weak funny things like that.” She was a little sad that Rhoda didn't seem to care more about the baby; babies are such entrancing toys to those who like toys, people like her and Peter.

Suddenly Lucy saw that two large tears were rolling down Rhoda's pale cheeks as she lay. Lucy knelt by the sofa side and took Rhoda's hand in both of hers and laid her cheek upon it.

”Please, little Rhoda, not to cry. Please, little Rhoda, tell me.”

Rhoda, with her other hand, brushed the tears away.