“Jack, come away from the door, dear,” said the mother, dexterously turning the shiny wet baby on to her towelled knee, then glancing round: “Go and tell Auntie Louisa about the train.”
Louisa, also afraid to open the door, was watching the scene on the hearth. Mr. Massy stood holding the baby’s flannel, as if assisting at some ceremonial. If everybody had not been subduedly angry, it would have been ridiculous.
“I want to see out of the window,” Jack said. His father turned hastily.
“Do you mind lifting him on to a chair, Louisa,” said Mary hastily. The father was too delicate.
When the baby was flannelled, Mr. Massy went upstairs and returned with four pillows, which he set in the fender to warm. Then he stood watching the mother feed her child, obsessed by the idea of his infant.
Louisa went on with her preparations for the meal. She could not have told why she was so sullenly angry. Mrs. Lindley, as usual, lay silently watching.
Mary carried her child upstairs, followed by her husband with the pillows. After a while he came down again.
“What is Mary doing· Why doesn’t she come down to eat·” asked Mrs. Lindley.
“She is staying with baby. The room is rather cold. I will ask the girl to put in a fire. ”He was going absorbedly to the door.
“But Mary has had nothing to eat. It is she who will catch cold,”said the mother, exasperated.
Mr. Massy seemed as if he did not hear. Yet he looked at his mother-in-law, and answered:“I will take her something.”
He went out. Mrs. Lindley shifted on her couch with anger. Miss Louisa glowered. But no one said anything, because of the money that came to the vicarage from Mr. Massy.
Louisa went upstairs. Her sister was sitting by the bed, reading a scrap of paper.
“Won’t you come down and eat·” the younger asked.
“In a moment or two,” Mary replied, in a quiet, reserved voice, that forbade anyone to approach her.
It was this that made Miss Louisa most furious. She went downstairs, and announced to her mother:
“I am going out. I may not be home to tea.”
Ⅷ
No one remarked on her exit. She put on her fur hat, that the village people knew so well, and the old Norfolk jacket. Louisa was short and plump and plain. She had her mother’s heavy jaw, her father’s proud brow, and her own grey, brooding eyes that were very beautiful when she smiled. It was true, as the people said, that she looked sulky. Her chief attraction was her glistening, heavy, deep-blonde hair, which shone and gleamed with a richness that was not entirely foreign to her.
