Kirsteen alone was in, and, having sent Nedda into the orchard to look for her uncle, Frances Freeland came at once to the point. It was so important, she thought, that darling Nedda should see more of dear Derek. They were very young, and if she could stay for a few weeks, they would both know their minds so much better. She had made her bring her bag, because she knew dear Kirsteen would agree with her; and it would be so nice for them all. Felix had told her about that poor man who had done this dreadful thing, and she thought that if Nedda were here it would be a distraction. She was a very good child, and quite useful in the house. And while she was speaking she watched Kirsteen, and thought: 'She is very handsome, and altogether ladylike; only it is such a pity she wears that blue thing in her hair--it makes her so conspicuous.' And rather unexpectedly she said:
"Do you know, dear, I believe I know the very thing to keep your hair from getting loose. It's such lovely hair. And this is quite a new thing, and doesn't show at all; invented by a very nice hairdresser in Worcester. It's simplicity itself. Do let me show you!" Quickly going over, she removed the kingfisher-blue fillet, and ****** certain passes with her fingers through the hair, murmured:
"It's so beautifully fine; it seems such a pity not to show it all, dear. Now look at yourself!" And from the recesses of her pocket she produced a little mirror. "I'm sure Tod will simply love it like that. It'll be such a nice change for him."
Kirsteen, with just a faint wrinkling of her lips and eyebrows, waited till she had finished. Then she said:
"Yes, Mother, dear, I'm sure he will," and replaced the fillet. A patient, half-sad, half-quizzical smile visited Frances Freeland's lips, as who should say: 'Yes, I know you think that I'm a fuss-box, but it really is a pity that you wear it so, darling!'
At sight of that smile, Kirsteen got up and kissed her gravely on the forehead.
When Nedda came back from a fruitless search for Tod, her bag was already in the little spare bedroom and Frances Freeland gone. The girl had never yet been alone with her aunt, for whom she had a fervent admiration not unmixed with awe. She idealized her, of course, thinking of her as one might think of a picture or statue, a symbolic figure, standing for liberty and justice and the redress of wrong. Her never-varying garb of blue assisted the girl's fancy, for blue was always the color of ideals and aspiration--was not blue sky the nearest one could get to heaven--were not blue violets the flowers of spring? Then, too, Kirsteen was a woman with whom it would be quite impossible to gossip or small-talk; with her one could but simply and directly say what one felt, and only that over things which really mattered. And this seemed to Nedda so splendid that it sufficed in itself to prevent the girl from saying anything whatever. She longed to, all the same, feeling that to be closer to her aunt meant to be closer to Derek.
Yet, with all, she knew that her own nature was very different; this, perhaps, egged her on, and made her aunt seem all the more exciting. She waited breathless till Kirsteen said:
"Yes, you and Derek must know each other better. The worst kind of prison in the world is a mistaken marriage."
Nedda nodded fervently. "It must be. But I think one knows, Aunt Kirsteen!"
She felt as if she were being searched right down to the soul before the answer came:
"Perhaps. I knew myself. I have seen others who did--a few. I think you might."
Nedda flushed from sheer joy. "I could never go on if I didn't love. I feel I couldn't, even if I'd started."
With another long look through narrowing eyes, Kirsteen answered:
"Yes. You would want truth. But after marriage truth is an unhappy thing, Nedda, if you have made a mistake."
"It must be dreadful. Awful."
"So don't make a mistake, my dear--and don't let him."
Nedda answered solemnly:
"I won't--oh, I won't!"
Kirsteen had turned away to the window, and Nedda heard her say quietly to herself:
"'Liberty's a glorious feast!'"
Trembling all over with the desire to express what was in her, Nedda stammered:
"I would never keep anything that wanted to be free--never, never!
I would never try to make any one do what they didn't want to!"
She saw her aunt smile, and wondered whether she had said anything exceptionally foolish. But it was not foolish--surely not--to say what one really felt.
"Some day, Nedda, all the world will say that with you. Until then we'll fight those who won't say it. Have you got everything in your room you want? Let's come and see."
To pass from Becket to Joyfields was really a singular experience.
At Becket you were certainly supposed to do exactly what you liked, but the tyranny of meals, baths, scents, and other accompaniments of the 'all-body' regime soon annihilated every impulse to do anything but just obey it. At Joyfields, bodily existence was a kind of perpetual skirmish, a sort of grudged accompaniment to a state of soul. You might be alone in the house at any meal-time.
You might or might not have water in your jug. And as to baths, you had to go out to a little white-washed shed at the back, with a brick floor, where you pumped on yourself, prepared to shout out, "Halloo! I'm here!" in case any one else came wanting to do the same. The conditions were in fact almost perfect for seeing more of one another. Nobody asked where you were going, with whom going, or how going. You might be away by day or night without exciting curiosity or comment. And yet you were conscious of a certain something always there, holding the house together; some principle of life, or perhaps--just a woman in blue. There, too, was that strangest of all phenomena in an English home--no game ever played, outdoors or in.
