Douglas Swann turned from the window with an exclamation of welcome. As Ann greeted him she saw that Miranda had tiresomely taken up the whole centre of the room with what she called her 'Dolls' Durbar'. The whole gang of them was mustered, the 'little people', or the 'little princes', as Miranda sometimes called them, all sitting up in a wide-eyed semicircle. The effect was rich and rather startling, since the little people had exotic and barbarous tastes in clothes and jewellery.
'My dear Ann, said Douglas, skirting the dolls, 'my dear —’ He took her two hands and drew her with him towards one of the window-seats. He gave her an intense look of wordless sympathy.
Ann freed her hands and said briskly, 'Well, Douglas, it's nice to see you back, and sweet of you to come over so soon. Then she remembered guiltily the cause of his absence and rebuked her own self-centred condition. 'But how is your poor mother? I do hope she's a little better?
Douglas shook his head. 'I'm afraid not, he said. 'There is little possibility of improvement. Indeed it must be faced that there is now no possibility of improvement. The end of her journey is in sight. He sighed deeply.
'I am so sorry! said Ann. She pressed his hand and they both sat down.
«'Change and decay in all around we see», said Douglas. 'One must accept it. But it is terrible how one grieves over these partings. I'm afraid it shows a lack of faith.
A lack of faith, thought Ann. Had she got faith? Did she imagine that she would ever see Steve again? No. And yet she believed in God, she had to. 'Poor Douglas.
'I always found my parents such a support, he said, 'a support that never failed. I suppose I was lucky.
Ann looked out of the window. Miranda was capering across the lawn, swinging in her two hands like tambourines the white enamelled bowls in which each night she put out the milk for her hedgehogs. Did Miranda find her a 'support'? Her daughter had been exceptionally cold with her lately, and had stopped calling her 'mummy', attracting her attention when necessary by cries of 'Oh' and 'Ah'. Something had been wrong, indeed, with her relations with Miranda ever since Steve died. The same was true of her relations with Randall. It was as if everyone blamed her for Steve's death. Or as if, she sometimes a little resentfully thought, since the others wanted to blame someone and she did not, she made a vacuum into which their blame ran.
In the distance under the beech trees Ann made out a solitary figure.
It was Penny. He watched Miranda cross the lawn, and then faded back into the shifting green shadows. He seemed like a poor faun watching human affairs. To distract Douglas from his grief, and also to put off the moment of talking about Randall, she said, 'It was so kind of you to take such an interest in Penny before you went away. He's very fond of you, you know.
'He's a thoroughly decent boy, said Douglas. 'I expect you'll miss him?
'Yes, said Ann. It occurred to her that she would miss Penny dreadfully. She sighed, and then said, 'Do you know, I think he's a bit in love with Miranda. Isn't it Absurd? I believe he's positively suffering, poor child.
Douglas smiled. 'How one suffers when one's young! Then, as if thinking that this was tactless, he added. 'You wait till Miranda's old enough to be in love. Then the sparks will fly!
'That was probably why he decided not to go to London with Humphrey. He couldn't bear to leave Miranda. I couldn't understand it at all at the time.
'I imagined you'd thought otherwise of it because of Humphrey's er—
'No, no, Humphrey has plenty of sense. And Penny can see no evil. But I'm sorry for him now.
They were silent. Ann twisting her hands and sighing again in spite of herself, and Douglas leaning forward with an air of gathering solicitude, his hands dangling at his knees in the attitude of one about to rise to make a pronouncement..
He did not rise, but said in a softened voice, not looking at her, 'No news from Randall, I suppose?
'Nothing, said Ann. 'He hasn't written. I've written, of course, to Chelsea, but I don't even know if he's there. She stared at the dolls, whose ranks were drawn up facing her, little hostile presences. The fantasy occurred to her that Miranda had put the dolls there to keep an eye on her mother.
'We must have good hope, good hope, said Douglas. 'Of course, said Ann. She felt irritated. She added, 'Don't let's exaggerate, Douglas dear. You know as well as I do that all sorts of catastrophes can happen inside a marriage without destroying it.
'I most heartily believe it, said Douglas, with the slightly self-conscious accent of the happily married man who knows about such things by hearsay. 'Marriage is a sacrament. And we must believe, in such cases, a special grace assists our love.
'My love just exasperates Randall, said Ann. She wanted to bring the discussion down to earth. 'But he'll come back, for hundreds of reasons of habit and convenience. Thank God marriages don't depend on love!
Douglas seemed a little shocked. He said, 'In a purely temporal sense, perhaps not. But the marriage service contains the word «love». It is the first thing that we promise to do. The continuation of love is a duty, and it is a matter much more genuinely subject to the will than is commonly supposed nowadays. Even if we leave divine grace out of the picture.
Ann felt tired and disinclined to consider the picture with or without divine grace. She could feel Swann's attention like a plucking of many strings. It was as if he wanted to break her down. Perhaps he did, even if unconsciously, want her to break down so that he could console her. There were a hundred things that she ought to be doing. She had promised Bowshott that she would help with the spraying. The proofs of the catalogue must be corrected. Miranda's clothes needed attention. She said, 'Well, I doubt if Randall has any love left for me by now. It doesn't matter. But it did matter. What else mattered if this didn't?
'You must enclose him in a net of goodness and loving kindness, said Douglas.
The image of the enraged Randall so trammelled almost made Ann laugh, and with that an agonizing protective tenderness towards her husband brimmed up in her heart, so that at the next moment she almost wept. She said, 'I don't know about that! My love for Randall is terribly imperfect. I can't see it having any miraculous effect!
'Most of our love is shabby stuff, said Douglas. 'But there is always a thin line of gold, the bit of pure love on which all the rest depends and which redeems all the rest.
Ann thought he was talking sense, but the slight tone of exaltation wrought terribly upon her nerves. 'Perhaps, she said. 'But one can't see things like that. All that one sees is shapeless and awkward.
As she uttered the words she felt, shapeless and awkward is what I am. She had been awkward at school, and had been told that it would pass. It had not passed, and she had learnt to live with it, and it had become no easier as she grew older. She had had, she must have had, some grace when Randall first loved her and when her hair was almost as red as Miranda's: some wild grace lent her by the very fact of the dazzling, the enchanting Randall's love. But that time was hard even to imagine now. What remained was awkwardness and effort, the endless effort of confronting people with none of whom she had any sense of fitting. Had she and Randall ever' fitted'? Perhaps, in the days of their happiness, their personalities had been too hazy for the question to arise. Now the haze had cleared and they had hardened into incompatible shapes. Yet 'fitting' was still something that was possible. With Douglas, for instance, she felt almost perfectly at ease. And with Felix. Her thoughts touched this and took flight at once. It was a place where thoughts must not go. I am always saying no, said Ann to herself, all my strength has to go into saying no. I have no strength left for the positive. No wonder Randall finds me deadly, no wonder he says I kill all his gaiety. But why is it like this? And she recalled dimly and with puzzlement some quotation which said that the devil was the spirit which was always saying no.