When he had given her half an hour to rest he made his way to the blue corridor, where a certain room was always kept for her, who never occupied it long enough at a time to get tired of it. She was lying on a sofa in a loose gray cashmere gown. The windows were open, and the light breeze just moved in the folds of the chintz curtains and stirred perfume from a bowl of pinks--her favorite flowers. There was no bed in this bedroom, which in all respects differed from any other in Clara's house, as though the spirit of another age and temper had marched in and dispossessed the owner. Felix had a sensation that one was by no means all body here. On the contrary. There was not a trace of the body anywhere; as if some one had decided that the body was not quite nice. No bed, no wash-stand, no chest of drawers, no wardrobe, no mirror, not even a jar of Clara's special pot-pourri. And Felix said:
"This can't be your bedroom, Mother?"
Frances Freeland answered, with a touch of deprecating quizzicality:
"Oh yes, darling. I must show you my arrangements." And she rose.
"This," she said, "you see, goes under there, and that under here; and that again goes under this. Then they all go under that, and then I pull this. It's lovely."
"But why?" said Felix.
"Oh! but don't you see? It's so nice; nobody can tell. And it doesn't give any trouble."
"And when you go to bed?"
"Oh! I just pop my clothes into this and open that. And there I am. It's simply splendid."
"I see," said Felix. "Do you think I might sit down, or shall I go through?"
Frances Freeland loved him with her eyes, and said:
"Naughty boy!"
And Felix sat down on what appeared to be a window-seat.
"Well," he said, with slight uneasiness, for she was hovering, "I think you're wonderful."
Frances Freeland put away an impeachment that she evidently felt to be too soft.
"Oh! but it's all so ******, darling." And Felix saw that she had something in her hand, and mind.
"This is my little electric brush. It'll do wonders with your hair. While you sit there, I'll just try it."
A clicking and a whirring had begun to occur close to his ear, and something darted like a gadfly at his scalp.
"I came to tell you something serious, Mother."
"Yes, darling; it'll be simply lovely to hear it; and you mustn't mind this, because it really is a first-rate thing--quite new."
Now, how is it, thought Felix, that any one who loves the new as she does, when it's made of matter, will not even look at it when it's made of mind? And, while the little machine buzzed about his head, he proceeded to detail to her the facts of the state of things that existed at Joyfields.
When he had finished, she said:
"Now, darling, bend down a little."
Felix bent down. And the little machine began severely tweaking the hairs on the nape of his neck. He sat up again rather suddenly.
Frances Freeland was contemplating the little machine.
"How very provoking! It's never done that before!"
"Quite so!" Felix murmured. "But about Joyfields?"
"Oh, my dear, it IS such a pity they don't get on with those Mallorings! I do think it sad they weren't brought up to go to church."
Felix stared, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry that his recital had not roused within her the faintest suspicion of disaster. How he envied her that single-minded power of not seeing further than was absolutely needful! And suddenly he thought: 'She really is wonderful! With her love of church, how it must hurt her that we none of us go, not even John! And yet she never says a word. There really is width about her; a power of accepting the inevitable. Never was woman more determined to make the best of a bad job. It's a great quality!' And he heard her say:
"Now, darling, if I give you this, you must promise me to use it every morning. You'll find you'll soon have a splendid crop of little young hairs."
"I know," he said gloomily; "but they won't come to anything. Age has got my head, Mother, just as it's got 'the Land's.'"
"Oh, nonsense! You must go on with it, that's all!"
Felix turned so that he could look at her. She was moving round the room now, meticulously adjusting the framed photographs of her family that were the only decoration of the walls. How formal, chiselled, and delicate her face, yet how almost fanatically decisive! How frail and light her figure, yet how indomitably active! And the memory assailed him of how, four years ago, she had defeated double pneumonia without having a doctor, simply by lying on her back. 'She leaves trouble,' he thought, 'until it's under her nose, then simply tells it that it isn't there. There's something very English about that.'
She was chasing a bluebottle now with a little fan made of wire, and, coming close to Felix, said:
"Have you seen these, darling? You've only to hit the fly and it kills him at once."
"But do you ever hit the fly?"
"Oh, yes!" And she waved the fan at the bluebottle, which avoided it without seeming difficulty.
"I can't bear hurting them, but I DON'T like flies. There!"
The bluebottle flew out of the window behind Felix and in at the one that was not behind him. He rose.
"You ought to rest before tea, Mother."
He felt her searching him with her eyes, as if trying desperately to find something she might bestow upon or do for him.
"Would you like this wire--"
With a feeling that he was defrauding love, he turned and fled.
She would never rest while he was there! And yet there was that in her face which made him feel a brute to go.