Her thoughts were in the past.

I glanced at the house. The window on the first floor which belonged to my father’s study was open a little. There he would be sitting at his desk, papers spread out round him, dozing I could be certain. He never liked to be disturbed when working; secretly I suspected he was afraid someone would catch him sleeping. Dear Papa, he was never cross with anyone. He was the most easygoing man in the world; he was even patient with Mamma, and it must have required a great deal of forbearance to be constantly reminded that she regretted her marriage.

“Lucie,” she was saying now, “I want an extra cushion for my back.”

“Yes, Lady Cardew. I think’ I'll go indoors for one of the larger ones.

In any’ case I’m always afraid the garden ones may be a little damp.”

Mamma nodded and as Lucie went off she murmured:

“She’s such a good creature.”

I didn’t like Lucie’s being referred to as a ‘creature’. I was so fond of her. I watched her walking across the grass-rather tall, very straight-backed, her dark hair smoothed down on either side and made into a knot at the nape of her neck. She wore dark colours—mulberry today—and they became her rather olive skin; she had a natural elegance so that not very expensive clothes looked quite modish on her.

“She’s a good friend to us all,” I said with slight reproof. I was the only one who occasionally reproved Mamma. My father, hating any sort of fuss, was invariably gentle and placating. I have known him take endless trouble to avoid the smallest unpleasantness. And Lucie, because after all she was employed—a fact which my father and I always strove to make her forget—was quick to respond to my mother’s whims, for she was proud and determined that her job should be no sinecure.

“Good heavens, Lucie,” I often said, ‘you needn’t fear that. You are guide, comforter and friend to us and all for the price of a housekeeper! “

Lucie’s reply to that was: “I shall always be grateful for being allowed to come here. I hope you will never regret taking me in.”

Mamma was saying that the wind was cold and the sun too hot and that the headache she had awakened with had grown worse throughout the day. Lucie came back with the cushion and settled it behind Mamma, who thanked her languidly.

Then they were coming across the lawn. They looked a little defiant as indeed they might, being uninvited and unannounced. He was tall and dark; she was dark, too—not exactly pretty but there was a vitality about her which was obvious as soon as one saw her, and that was very attractive.

“Good afternoon,” said Stirling, ‘we have come to get my ward’s scarf.”

It seemed an odd announcement. It struck me as strange that he should be her guardian. I thought she was about my age and he perhaps Lucie’s. Then I noticed the green scarf lying on the grass. She said something about its blowing from her neck and sailing over the wall.

“By all means …” I began. Mamma was looking on in astonishment; Lucie was unruffled. Then I noticed that the girl’s hand was bleeding and I asked if she were hurt. She had grazed it, she told me. It was nothing. Lucie said it should be dressed and she would take her to Mrs. Glee’s room where they could bandage it.

There was some protest but eventually Lucie took the girl to Mrs. Glee and I was left alone with Stirling and Mamma.

I asked if they would like tea and he declared his pleasure-He was greatly interested in the house. He was different from any man I knew, but then I knew so few. I was, I suppose, comparing him with Franklyn Wakefield. There could not have been two men less like. I asked him where he lived and was astonished when he said Australia.

“Australia,” said Mamma, leaning forward a little in her chair.

“That’s a long way off.”

“Twelve thousand miles or thereabouts.”

There was something very breezy and likeable about him and the intrusion had lifted the afternoon out of its customary monotony.

“Have you come here to stay?” I asked.

“No, I shall be sailing away the day after tomorrow.”

“So soon!’ I felt a ridiculous dismay.

“My ward and I leave on the Carron Star,” he said.

“I came over to escort her back. Her father has died and we are adopting her.”

“That’s very … exciting,” I said foolishly.

“Do you think so?” His smile was ironic and I flushed.

I feared he was thinking me rather stupid. He was no doubt comparing me with his ward who looked so lively and intelligent.

Mamma asked him about Australia. What was it like? Where did he live?

She knew someone who had gone there years ago.

That was interesting, said Stirling. What was the name of the settler she had known? “

“I … er can’t remember,” said Mamma.

“Well, it’s a big place.”

“I often wonder …” began Mamma and then stopped.

He said he lived about forty miles north of Melbourne. Was it to Melbourne her friend had gone?

“I couldn’t say,” said Mamma.

“I never heard.”

“Was it long ago?” he persisted. There was an odd quirk about his mouth as though he were very interested and perhaps a little amused about Mamma’s friend.

“I find it hard to remember,” said Mamma. Then she added quickly: “It would be such a long time ago. Thirty years … or more.”

“You never kept in touch with you^ friend?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“What a pity! I might have been able to take him … or her … news of you.”

“Oh, it was long, long ago,” said Mamma, a little flushed and quite excited. I had never known her like this. Our unexpected visitor seemed to have affected us both strangely.

I gave him tea and noticed his strong brown fingers on the Crown Derby. He smiled as he took the cup from me; there were wrinkles round his eyes, caused I supposed by the hot sun.

I asked him questions about Australia and I was very interested in the property his people owned. There was a hotel, too, in Melbourne, and a gold mine.

“What exciting lives you must lead!” I said.

He admitted it; and for the first time I felt restive. It hadn’t occurred to me before how uneventful life was at Whiteladies. Lucie was constantly implying that I should be grateful; he had the opposite effect on me. But it seemed that he, too, was fascinated by Whiteladies. He asked a great many questions about it and we were on this subject when the girl came back with Lucie. Her hand had been bandaged. I poured out tea for her and we continued to talk of the house.

Then Franklyn arrived. There was something very charming about Franklyn. He was so calm. I had known him all my life and never had I seen him ruffled. On the rare occasions when it was necessary for him to reprimand anyone or assert himself in some way, one felt he brought a judicial attitude to the matter and that it was done from a sense of the rightness of things rather than in anger.

Some people might have called Franklyn dull. He was far from that.

The contrast between him and Stirling was marked. Stirling might have appeared clumsy if he had been a different kind of man; but Stirling was completely unaware of any disadvantage. He clearly was not impressed by the immaculate cut of Franklyn’s suit—if he noticed it at all.

It was difficult to make introductions, so I explained to Franklyn that the scarf had blown over the wall and that they had come to retrieve it.

Then Nora rose and said they must be going and thanked us for our kindness. Stirling was a little put out, and I was pleased because he obviously would have liked to stay; but there was nothing I could do to detain them and Lucie went with them to the gates.

That was all. A trivial incident in a way and yet I could not get them out of my mind; and because I wanted to remember it exactly as it happened, I started this journal.

We sat on the lawn until half past five then my father came down. His hair was ruffled, his face slightly flushed. I thought:

He’s had a good sleep.

“How did the work go. Sir Hilary?” asked Lucie.

He smiled at her. When he smiled his face lit up and it was as though a light had been turned on behind his eyes. He loved talking about his work.

“It was hard going today,” he said.

“But I tell myself I’m at a difficult stage.”

Mamma looked impatient and Franklyn said quickly:

“There are, I believe, always these stages. If the work went too smoothly there might be a danger of its being facile.”

Trust Franklyn to say the right thing! He sat back in the gardfil chair looking immaculate, bland and tolerant of us all. I knew that Mamma and my father had decided that Franklyn would make a very good son-in-law. We would join up Wakefield Park and Whiteladies. It would be very convenient, for the two houses were moderately close and the grounds met. Franklyn’s people were not exactly rich but, as it was said, comfortable; and in any case we were not rich either.

I believe that something had happened to our finances during the last two years, for whenever money was mentioned Papa would assume a studied vagueness which meant that this was a subject he did not wish to hear of because it bothered him.

However, it would be very convenient if Franklyn and I married. I had even come to regard this as an inevitability. I wondered whether Franklyn did too. He always treated me with a delightful courtesy; but then he extended this to everyone. I had seen the village post mistress flush with pleasure when he exchanged a few words with her. He was tall-all the Wakefields had been tall—and he managed his father’s estate with tact and efficiency, being a very good landlord to all the tenants. But behind Franklyn’s easygoing charm there was an aloofness.

His eyes were slaty grey rather than blue; there was a lack of warmth in them and one felt that if he was never angry, he was never really delighted either. He was equable; and therefore, though a comforting person to be with, hardly an exciting one. Everything about him was conventional: his immaculate dress; his courteous manners; his well-ordered life.

These facts had not occurred to me before. It was because of those two people who had invaded my afternoon that I had begun this assessment.

Well, they had gone. I never expected to see them again.

“Exactly,” Papa was saying.

“I always tell myself that I must accept this hard task for the sake of posterity?

“I am sure,” added Franklyn, ‘that you will complete it to the satisfaction of the present generation and those to come. “

My father was pleased, particularly when Lucie added earnestly: “I am sure you will, too. Sir Hilary.”

Then Lucie and Franklyn began to talk with Papa, and Mamma yawned and said her headache was coming on again, so Lucie took her to her room where she would lie down before dinner.

“Franklyn, you’ll dine with us?” said my father; and Franklyn graciously accepted.

Mamma did not appear for dinner. She sent for Lizzie, her maid, to rub eau-de-Cologne on her forehead. Dr. Hunter had been invited to dine with us but he would first spend half an hour or so with Mamma discussing her symptoms before joining us.

Dr. Hunter had come to us only two years ago and seemed young to have the responsibility of our lives and deaths, but perhaps that was because we compared him with old Dr. Hedgling whose practice he had taken over. Dr. Hunter was in his early thirties; he was a bachelor and had a housekeeper who was supposed to look after his material comforts. He was, I fancied, over anxious for our good opinion, while being aware that we considered him a trifle inexperienced. He was an amusing young man and Mamma liked him, which was an important point.

Dinner was quite lively. The young doctor had an amusing way of describing a situation and Franklyn could cap his stories often in a coolly witty manner. I was rather glad that Mamma had decided to have dinner sent up on a tray, for with her constant repetitions of her symptoms she could be a little tiresome and she most certainly would indulge in the recital of them if the doctor were present.

H I think my father was pleased, too. He was always different when she was absent; it was almost as though he revelled in his freedom.

The doctor was talking of one or two of his patients, how old Betty Ellery who was bedridden refused to see what she called ‘a bit of a boy’. “While confessing to my youth,” said the doctor, “I had to insist that my person was intact, and that I was whole and certainly not a bit of myself.”