'I'm so glad, said Ann, and she sounded very glad. She had obviously been crying, but seemed calm now. 'I'd better make some coffee, she added. 'There's quite a rout!
'You'll do no such thing, said Douglas Swann. 'Coffee indeed! He was standing close behind her and lightly resting his hand on her shoulder. — ’Douglas, dear, would you just go and see what's going on outside?
Did Mildred come with you, Felix? Douglas, would you go and ask Mildred to sit in the drawing-room? And thank you for being so sweet and helpful and for coming so soon. I'll just talk a bit with Felix now, I think.
Douglas Swann murmured obediently and retired. Ann flopped back into her chair. 'Oh, Felix —’
'My dear, he said. 'My dear. He took the chair, drawn close to hers, which Swann had vacated, and took her hand. He felt her grief as something small and precious in the midst of his own joy. He wanted to embrace her and cry out with emotion. He was so far on in his thoughts, it was strange to think that she was not yet with him.
Ann pushed her hair back behind her ears. 'I didn't know you were a. t Seton Blaise. I suppose Clare told you. I feel such a fool. I rang up Douglas at once, and now Clare has told everyone and it seems as if I'm making a sort of public fuss.
'Well, you have something to make a fuss about, I should think! aid Felix. He squeezed her hand rhythmically.
'It was such a shock, the letter, said Ann. She released herself and put both hands to her brow. 'And it was such a horrid letter. I suppose I'd been half expecting something like that for ages. But when it comes it's different. Randall did write sometimes and ask me to send things, books and things. Quite nice letters. But my heart always turned over when I saw his writing.
Felix could not trust himself to speak in case his feelings about Ann's husband should come pouring out in a vitriolic flood. He contented himself with touching her arm in a timid way.
'You see, he always came back for Christmas and for Miranda's birthday and was here a lot of the time really. I liked to feel it was his base, that he needed it. This last time he was home was terrible, of course. But it wasn't usually so bad. It's extraordinary what one can. urvive in a marriage. And I kept thinking things might get better. They did get better when Fanny was ill. Oh, Felix, all that long road, all those hopes and struggles, to lead us here —’
'Well, it's not your fault, said Felix.
'It is, it is, she said with a groan. 'These things are never unjust!
'I can't agree, he said. 'But did you not — somehow expect it now?
'Why now more than another time? No. But I might have known, ns he came secretly last week to see Miranda. Nancy Bowshott told me.
'Didn't Miranda tell you?
'No. And I didn't say anything to her. God! how painful! She put one hand to her side. 'He took his toys away, she added. 'I should have known then that it was the end!
'His toys?
'Yes, it sounds so silly, but he had them beside his bed, things he'd had as a child, a toy dog and a —’ She became silent, breathing hard. Then great copious tears rolled down her cheeks and she hid her face with a cry.
Felix was overwhelmed. He put his arms right round Ann and drew her close against his shoulder. With a sigh he lowered his face into her cold pale hair. He had waited years for this.
Miranda came into the room and shut the door sharply behind her.
Felix quietly released the sobbing Ann. Ann found a handkerchief, blew her nose and said' Sorry'. Miranda approached, and after looking for some time at her mother's red damp face, leaned against her shoulder and transferred her gaze to Felix. He moved his chair back and got up.
'Felix, said Ann, putting her Ann round Miranda, 'would you mind going to tell Douglas to tell everyone to go away?
'All right. Is Douglas to go away too?
'Yes. Tell him I'll ring him.
'Am I to go away too?
'Yes, please. I'll ring you later.
Felix moved reluctantly towards the door. He would have liked to have held Ann's hand again before he left. As he reached the door he heard a curious sound and turned about. Miranda had started to cry hysterically, her head buried in her mother's shoulder. He left them locked together.
Chapter Twenty-five
ANN looked, for the twentieth time, out of the window, and her heart staggered as she saw, at last, the very dark blue Mercedes coming through the gate.
Randall had now been gone a week, rather more than a week. It seemed to her a century of experience. She had been amazed, frightened, at the intensity of her pain. Envisaging beforehand the situation she was now in, Ann had thought that at least whatever else there was there would be an element of relief. But there was no relief: only a blank misery of loss shot through with the most terrible jealousy. She was astonished at her sudden capacity to be jealous; she had somehow, and she saw stupidly, imagined herself to be above jealousy. But now she was positively brought to the ground by it. Randall, for all his tiresomeness and badness, had always been her Randall, and she had thought of him as such even when she half knew, even when she knew, that he was going to another woman. He was hers as a mild chronic illness might be hers, when one knows all its strange ways and it has become a part of the personality. He belonged to her and in her, this was loving him, for better or worse she was Randall. And she had really believed that however broken down and odd things became, at best they would continue. But Randall had gone, Randall referring her to his solicitor, this was fearful and dreadful, and she was not prepared for bearing it.
She missed him hideously, and yearned for him with a violent fruitless yearning which was a kind of maimed falling in love. His absence had not so much mattered, had not so much been felt, before. I h d not been real absence. But now the house gaped and rattled with it. She began to be afraid of the house, especially at night. It was as if its old indifference, now that Randall's protection was removed, had begun to reveal itself as something more sinister. She felt, upon dark stairways and in quiet empty rooms, a brooding hostility. She wished she could leave it.
Mildred Finch, who with a rather sham-faced Felix had in fact still been waiting around when Anne had emerged after comforting Miranda on that first day, had most cordially invited her to stay at Seton Blaise. The idea of the comfortable friendliness, of the sheer beautiful orderliness, of the other house, the idea of being taken charge of and looked after, tempted Ann extremely; but she said no. She had her reasons for not wanting to go to Seton Blaise at present. Mildred had then offered to have the children to stay, but Ann had refused that too. She did not want to be separated from Miranda, and it seemed cruel to send Penny away at a time when, rightly or wrongly, he might feel that he could be of some service to his cousin. Miranda, after her early hysterics, had retired into a moody taciturnity, and Ann could only conjecture what she thought and suffered. Hugh had been down twice, each time for the inside of a day, but had seemed restless and self-absorbed and could not be persuaded to stay.
Ann had written to Randall at Chelsea saying that she did not want to divorce him. She wrote this coldly, as the situation seemed to leave her no other way of writing it. It would have been inconceivable to wail or entreat. But the coldness chilled her all through and she felt herself already in the grip of some machine-like necessity. She had never in the past, however violent and unpleasant Randall had been, met him with coldness, and only rarely with anger. Even now she did not feel resentment against Randall. Perhaps she would yet have to learn it in order to survive. She had written to the solicitor saying she had no. wish to discuss divorce proceedings at present. She did not exactly expect Randall back, and she certainly did not intend to go on refusing him a divorce. But she could not suddenly, and however great the shock of his departure, give up all her old hopes.