PART I DULCE DOMUM (continued 3)

Mrs. Maxwell said slowly: “Yes—I’ll talk to Ursula. But I think I know.... A sort of shyness—some girls are like that. Oh, I wasn’t—not I!” and she laughed heartily.

“Look here, Ursula, my dear”—it was always easiest to approach a significant interview with “look here”—“I’m not going to mince words with you. If the trouble is that you don’t like undressing right down in front of Nina, because you’re not used to it—well, it’s false modesty, my dear, that’s what it is, but you can’t help your feelings.” And, very red in the face, but determined not to be put off either from her theory or her remedy, she described how Ursula could put on her nightgown over all her underclothes, and undress decently beneath it, manœuvering unseen knots and buttons until each garment flapped from concealment on to the floor; and, in the same way, could dress completely underneath her nightgown, and then only take it off—“It’s just a knack, and you’re not clumsy, so with a bit of practice—though, mind you, Ursula, you may say I’m too broad-minded, but it’s better than being morbid, which you are when you act as though your body’s something to be ashamed of.”

“Darling Mummie, I don’t care twopence if Nina or anybody else sees me stark naked.”

Florrie Maxwell collapsed on to the ledge of the landing-window. For though the Laburnums was now in its wonted pleasant humour, it still gave father the advantage of a study for “serious talks” with his offspring, and left mother to be despised for her less successful efforts in the uncertain privacy of the landings or the stairs.

Mrs. Maxwell was annoyed with Ursula. She had enjoyed being broad-minded and advanced, in a wind-on-the-open-heath voice, to a prim, shy, absurd little daughter ... but Ursula’s “stark naked” had at once reversed their positions, and discouragingly forced her back into the distasteful attitude of a slightly shocked parent.... For why “stark” naked? “Stark” nakedness contains an impropriety beyond the mere heartiness of a body unclothed.

“Then if it’s not that that’s upsetting you, what is it?” bluntly.

Ursula became impenetrable. Oh, Nina with her “What did you hope to get out of it?” and now the grown-ups with “Why do you mind not sleeping alone?” hinting at—Ursula did not know what they were hinting at; and nor, as a matter of course, did they, except for an uneasy conviction that it was unnatural.

But Aunt Lavvy understood. That was what so exasperated Ursula. Of all of them, Aunt Lavvy, who did not belong to them, who did not love them (not really), and who was, moreover, her enemy, should alone possess subtle mastery of whatever situation arose at the Laburnums. She did not want to be understood by Aunt Lavvy. But in truth she was, and to herself she owned it.

When—when would it begin ... the glorious transformation of the commonplace, reward of sacrifice? Would it never begin? Not today? Not tomorrow? If there were any place to cry and cry and cry out the fulness of her heart and the tightness of her throat, the disappointment might not press so heavily. The room had been a lovely place to cry in.

[XVIII]

“SHE’D be best at boarding-school,” said Mr. Maxwell one evening in the drawing-room, after Ursula had gone to bed. His wife and Aunt Lavvy and Grace and Nina and Stanley and Miss Roberts all agreed. Grace, because she had liked school, and was sure Ursula would like it, and had always pitied her for being cheated of it; Nina, because she honestly believed it would supply some qualities lacking in her young sister—sporting Winborough qualities; Miss Roberts, because Ursula was growing beyond her in temperament, intelligence and impertinence—and anyway, Lottie would suffice to keep her in employment until Honor Rose was old enough to require a governess; and Aunt Lavvy for a reason dissimilar to Grace’s, and also from a feeling not dissimilar to Ursula’s—that she disliked a presence at the Laburnums that understood where it did not love her. But the main reason for agreement with all of them was not mentioned; that it was impossible for the scar of recent conflict to be properly healed, or for the Laburnums to settle down to its former complacency, while the main reminder of the unusual was still in the house—reminding them. Metaphorically, they still twitched their shoulders when Ursula was about. Ursula was a dear, quaint kid, but—when people took to sacrifices you could never be sure what would be their next out-of-the-way freak. Something higher, nobler still perhaps, and even more uncomfortable.... They did not see that there was nothing to be frightened of in poor little Ursula, who was just not big enough to carry it off. If, indeed, she had followed up her lapse from the average by letting them all forget it—ah, then their spirits might well have been awed by the sudden distance separating her from the rest of them.

“I’ll go and see Miss Luther tomorrow,” said Florrie Maxwell. “As you say, Nina, the term will have started, but it’s too long to wait for the half-term, so perhaps they’ll make an exception, as you and Grace were there, and let her enter at once.”

Then Stanley broke it to them. “I may as well tell you now, Mother and Father”—he only called them thus when on the brink of some significant announcement—“that I’ve been negotiating for the remainder of the lease of ‘The Kopje’—we shan’t call it that, naturally. Old Gurney wants to move out at once; it’s too small for him. I think it’s fairly certain that we’ll get it. It’s time Grace and the babies had the run of their own house; and, quite frankly, sir”—turning with good-humour to his father-in-law—“from something you said to me the other day, I gathered you’d prefer it.”

“Well, well.” Mr. Maxwell remembered with regret that he had been irritable in the matter. “Perhaps we are rather tumbling over each other’s toes in the old Laburnums. And as long as you’re still in the same road—we can’t let our grandchildren go too far away, can we, mother?”

Mrs. Maxwell nodded absently, for her thoughts were already bustling about the rooms, re-arranging them. It really seemed as though the sudden exodus would be like releasing a spring, and that they would all reel out into spaciousness, rather crumpled and breathless from having been packed so close. Lottie and Miss Roberts could now have an undisputed schoolroom, and also move down into their old bedroom, where Nurse and the Watson babies had been sleeping. Because an attic was much more suitable for boys—she had always known it, and if Hal were going to college next year, that was the signal that he was grown-up—her grown-up son!—and ought to have a room to himself. Bunny and William would be perfectly happy, rampaging about the attic. And Mrs. Maxwell realized with pride that at last they would actually be able to boast a spare-room, at present Grace and Stanley’s bedroom. “And that makes Nina’s room much more hers as well—I must say she’s been very good about visitors in it—but now she won’t be plagued except during Ursula’s holidays. And the spare-room will do splendidly if Hal wants to bring home his college pals.”

[XIX]

MISS Luther, headmistress of Regina Hall, Tunbridge Wells, had just said good-bye to Mrs. Maxwell; and was discussing the prospective new pupil with Miss Greyling, her second in command:

“Her sisters were both thoroughly nice girls, and Nina, I remember, was one of our best hockey captains. But there seems to be something mysterious about this one—Ursula. At all events, they’re in a special hurry to get rid of her. As far as I can gather from the mother’s manner, she had got herself into some sort of a scrape at home....”

[XX]

THINGS were not different after a sacrifice. Things were exactly the same—only horrider. Ursula knew now.

The taxi sprang away from the open front door of the Laburnums. Sitting on a back seat, she was able to see, through the rain-blurred windows, her mother in the porch, and Aunt Lavvy and Lottie.... They drew in out of the wet, their last smiles still encouraging her with the formula: “You’ll love it when the first homesickness is over.”

Nina and Grace were taking her down, both eager for a glimpse of their old school.

Ursula’s beautiful mouth was set and grave, her eyelids downcast, her hands, as usual, clenched in the deep pockets of her coat. It was simply not worth while to be good. At Regina Hall would be dozens of girls, eating, working, sleeping together. Herded even in thought. There would be confidences and slop and brimming-over affection.... “Oh, a mess of girls!”

But after all, Hal was all right. She had given him back to the world as a complete specimen of hero—a careless, lordly, invulnerable being, good-natured, with a voice of lazy authority. Anything so complete was surely precious, though it was said that only suffering and humiliation enriched the soul ... but so many people with doubtlessly enriched souls, yet dragged about, to all appearances maimed and burdened and spoilt. So might not an occasional Hal remain splendidly poised, neither fretted by consciousness, nor torn by imagination? And Ursula had achieved that for him. She had power. There was sudden dazzlement in the thought.... She lifted her head proudly.... To have secret vision, and to act on it, swiftly, clearly, successfully ... why, she was almost God!

The luminous moment was swept into grey commonplace again, and only a disconsolate little girl in a taxi was on her way to the station.

But she broke into a happy gurgle of laughter, remembering how Lottie had tried to deal with the situation by arranging pins in a pattern on Aunt Lavvy’s cushion.