Part 40 (1/2)

”How'd you sleep, honey?” Mrs. Talcott inquired. The term hardly expressed endearment, yet it was such an unusual one from Mrs. Talcott that Karen could only surmise that her tears had touched the old woman.

”Very, very well,” she said.

”How'd you like me to bring up some mending I've got to do and sit by you till Mercedes comes?” Mrs. Talcott pursued.

”Oh, please do, Mrs. Talcott,” said Karen. She felt that she would like to have Mrs. Talcott there with her very much. She would probably cry unless Mrs. Talcott stayed with her, and she did not want Tante to find her crying.

So Mrs. Talcott brought her basket of mending and sat by the window, sewing in silence for the most part, but exchanging with Karen now and then a quiet remark about the state of the garden and how the plants were doing.

At eleven the sound of the piano ceased and soon after the stately tread of Madame von Marwitz was heard outside. Mrs. Talcott, saying that she would come back later on, gathered up her mending as she appeared. She was dressed for motoring, with a long white cloak lined with white fur and her head bound in nun-like fas.h.i.+on with a white coif and veil.

Beautiful she looked, and sad, and gentle; a succouring Madonna; and Karen's heart rose up to her. It clung to her and prayed; and the realisation of her own need, her own dependence, was a new thing. She had never before felt dependence on Tante as anything but proud and glad. To pray to her now that she should never belie her loveliness, to cling to that faith in her without which all her life would be a thing distorted and unrecognisable, was not pride or gladness and seemed to be the other side of fear. Yet so gentle were the eyes, so tender the smile and the firm clasp of the hands taking hers, while Tante murmured, stooping to kiss her: ”Good morning to my child,” that the prayer seemed answered, the faith approved.

If Madame von Marwitz had been taken by surprise the night before, if she had had to give herself time to think, she had now, it was evident, done her thinking. The result was this warmly cheris.h.i.+ng tenderness.

”Ah,” she said, still stooping over Karen, while she put back her hair, ”it is good to have my child back again, mine--quite mine--once more.”

”I have slept so well, Tante,” said Karen. She was able to smile up at her.

Madame von Marwitz looked about the room. ”And now it is to gather the dear old life closely about her again. Gardening, and reading; and quiet times with Tante and Tallie. Though, for the moment, I must be much with my guest; I am helping him with his work. He has talent, yes; it is a strange and complicated nature. You did not expect to find him here?”

Karen held Tante's hand and her gaze was innocent of surmise. Mr. Drew had never entered her thoughts. ”No. Yes. No, Tante. He came with you?”

”Yes, he came with me,” said Madame von Marwitz. ”I had promised him that he should see Les Solitudes one day. I was glad to find an occupation for my thoughts in helping him. I told him that if he were free he might join me. It is good, in great sorrow, to think of others.

Now it is, for the young man and for me, our work. Work, work; we must all work, _ma cherie_. It is our only clue in the darkness of life; our only nourishment in the desert places.” Again she looked about the room.

”You came without boxes?”

”Yes, Mrs. Barker is to send them to me.”

”Ah, yes. When,” said Madame von Marwitz, in a lower voice, ”did you leave? Yesterday morning?”

”No, Tante. The night before.”

”The night before? So? And where did you spend the night? With Mrs.

Forrester? With Scrotton? I have not yet written to Scrotton.”

”No. I went to the Lippheims.”

”The Lippheims? So?”

”The others, Tante, would have talked to me; and questioned me. I could not have borne that. The Lippheims were so kind.”

”I can believe it. They have hearts of gold, those Lippheims. They would cut themselves in four to help one. And the good Lise? How is she? I am sorry to have missed Lise.”

”And she was, oh, so sorry to have missed you, Tante. She is well, I think, though tired; she is always tired, you remember. She has too much to do.”

”Indeed, yes; poor Lise. She might have been an artist of the first rank if she had not given herself over to the making of children. Why did she not stop at Franz and Lotta and Minna? That would have given her the quartette,”--Madame von Marwitz smiled--she was in a mildly merry mood.

”But on they go--four, five, six, seven, eight--how many are there--_bon Dieu!_ of how many am I the G.o.d-mother? One grows bewildered. It is almost a rat's family. Lise is not unlike a white mother-rat, with the small round eye and the fat body.”

”Oh--not a rat, Tante,” Karen protested, a little pained.