Tenterhooks Part 30

She waited a minute, then he said:

'Mother, do let me be here when Miss Bennett brings the parcels. I'll be very useful. I can untie parcels with my teeth, like this. Look! I throw myself on the parcel just like a dog, and shake it and shake it, and then I untie it with my teeth. It would be awfully useful.'

She refused the kind offer.

Miss Bennett arrived as usual with the parcels, looking pleasantly business-like and important.

'I wonder if these things will do?' she said, as she put them out on the table.

'Oh, they're sure to do,' said Edith; 'they're perfect.'

'My dear, wait till you see them. I don't think I've completed all your list.' She took out a piece of paper.

'Where did you get everything?' Edith asked, without much interest.

'At Boots', princ.i.p.ally. Then the novels--Arnold Bennett, Maxwell--Oh, and I've got you the poem: 'What is it?' by Gilbert Frankau.'

'No, you mean, 'One of us',' corrected Edith.

'Then white serge for nurse to make Dilly's skirts--skirts a quarter of a yard long!--how sweet!--and heaps and heaps of muslin, you see, for her summer dresses. Won't she look an angel? Oh, and you told me to get some things to keep Archie quiet in the train.' She produced a drum, a trumpet, and a mechanical railway train. 'Will that do?'

'Beautifully.'

'And here's your travelling cloak from the other place.'

'It looks lovely,' said Edith.

'Aren't you going to try it on?'

'No; it's sure to be all right.'

'I never saw such a woman as you! Here are the hats. You've _got_ to choose these.'

Here Edith showed more interest. She put them on, said all the colour must be taken out of them, white put in one, black velvet in the other.

Otherwise they would do.

'Thanks, Grace; you're awfully kind and clever. Now do you know what you're going to do? You're going to the Academy with me and Aylmer.

He's coming to fetch us.'

'Oh, really--what fun!'

At this moment he arrived. Edith introduced them.

'I've been having such a morning's shopping,' she said, 'I deserve a little treat afterwards, don't I?'

'What sort of shopping? I'll tell you what you ought to have--a great cricket match when the shopping season's over, between the Old Selfridgians, and the Old Harrodians,' he said, laughing.

They walked through acres of oil paintings and dozens of portraits of Chief Justices.

'I can't imagine anyone but Royalty enjoying these pictures,' said Edith.

'They don't go to see pictures; they go to view exhibits,' Aylmer answered.

Declaring they had 'Academy headache' before they had been through the second room, they sat down and watched the people.

One sees people there that are to be seen nowhere else. An extraordinary large number of clergymen, a peculiar kind of provincial, and strange Londoners, almost impossible to place, in surprising clothes.

Then they gave it up, and Aylmer took them out to lunch at a club almost as huge and noisy and as miscellaneous as the Academy itself.

However, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Edith and Bruce were to take up their abode in their little country house at Westgate next day.

CHAPTER XXV

At Westgate

'I've got to go up to town on special business,' said Bruce, one afternoon, after receiving a telegram which he had rather ostentatiously left about, hoping he would be questioned on the subject. It had, however, been persistently disregarded.

'Oh, have you?'

'Yes. Look at this wire.'

He read aloud:

'_Wish to see you at once if possible come up today M_.'

'Who _is_ 'M'?'

'Mitch.e.l.l, of course. Who should it be?' He spoke aggressively, then softened down to explanation, 'Mitch.e.l.l's in town a few days on business, too. I may be detained till Tuesday--or even Wednesday next.'

Bruce had been to town so often lately, his manner was so vague, he seemed at once so happy and so preoccupied, so excited, so pleased, so worried, and yet so unnaturally good-tempered, that Edith had begun to suspect he was seeing Miss Townsend again.

The suspicion hurt her, for he had given his word of honour, and had been nice to her ever since, and amiable (though rather absent and bored) with the children.

She walked down to the station with him, though he wished to go in the cab which took his box and suit-case, but he did not resist her wish.

On the way he said, looking round as if he had only just arrived and had never seen it before:

'This is a very nice little place. It's just the right place for you and the children. If I were you, I should stay on here.'

It struck her he spoke in a very detached way, and some odd foreshadowing came to her.

'Why--aren't you coming back?' she asked jokingly.

'Me? _What_ an idea! Yes, of course. But I've told you--this business of mine--well, it'll take a little time to arrange. Still, I expect to be back on Tuesday. Or quite on Wednesday--or sooner.'

They walked on and had nearly reached the station.