‘Then we’ll try and get rid of her,’ said George.
‘Well, you can try…’ said Daphne.
‘I’m already feeling sorry for Mrs Kalbeck,’ said Cecil, ‘whoever she may be.’
‘She’s a big black beetle,’ said George, ‘who took Mother to Germany last year, and hasn’t let go of her since.’
‘She’s a German widow,’ said Daphne, with a note of sad realism and a pitying shake of the head. She found Cecil had spread his arms too and, hardly thinking, she did the same; for a moment they seemed united in a lightly rebellious pact.
2
While the maid was removing the tea-things, Freda Sawle stood up and wandered between the small tables and numerous little armchairs to the open window. A few high streaks of cloud glowed pink above the rockery, and the garden itself was stilled in the first grey of the twilight. It was a time of day that played uncomfortably on her feelings. ‘I suppose my child is straining her eyes out there somewhere,’ she said, turning back to the warmer light of the room.
‘If she has her poetry books,’ said Clara Kalbeck.
‘She’s been studying some of Cecil Valance’s poems. She says they are very fine, but not so good as Swinburne or Lord Tennyson.’
‘Swinburne…’ said Mrs Kalbeck, with a wary chuckle.
‘All the poems of Cecil’s that I’ve seen have been about his own house. Though George says he has others, of more general interest.’
‘I feel I know a good deal about Cecil Valance’s house,’ said Clara, with the slight asperity that gave even her nicest remarks an air of sarcasm.
Freda paced the short distance to the musical end of the room, the embrasure with the piano and the dark cabinet of the gramophone. George himself had turned rather critical of ‘Two Acres’ since his visit to Corley Court. He said it had a way of ‘resolving itself into nooks’. This nook had its own little window, and was spanned by a broad oak beam. ‘They’re very late,’ said Freda; ‘though George says Cecil is hopeless about time.’