Amnesiacs -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction
Rosalind was glad to see her husband in good spirits again. He was
quite like himself before that unfortunate little galvanic battery
upset everything. Perhaps its effect would go off, and all he had
remembered of the past grow dim again. It was a puzzle, even to
Rosalind herself, that her natural curiosity about all Gerry's
unknown history should become as nothing in view of the unwelcome
contingencies that history might disclose. It spoke well for the
happiness of the _status quo_ that she was ready to forego the
satisfaction of this curiosity altogether rather than confront its
possible disturbing influences. "If we can only know nothing about
it, and be as we are!" was the thought uppermost in her mind.
It certainly was a rare piece of good luck that, owing to Sally's
leaving the house before Fenwick appeared, and running away to her
madcap swim before he could join her and the doctor, she had just
avoided seeing him during the worst of his depression. Indeed, his
remark that he had not slept well seemed to account for all she had
seen in the morning. And in the afternoon, when the whole party, minus
the doctor, walked over to St. Egbert's Station for the honeymoon
portion of it to take its departure for town, and the other three to
say farewells, Fenwick was quite in his usual form. Only his wife
watched for any differences, and unless it was that he gave way rather
more freely than usual to the practice of walking with his arm round
herself or Sally, or both, she could detect nothing. As the road they
took was a quiet one, and they met scarcely a soul, no exception on
the score of dignity was taken to this by Rosalind; and as for Sally,
her general attitude was "Leave Jeremiah alone--he shall do as he
likes." Laetitia's mental comment was that it wasn't Oxford Street
this time, and so it didn't matter.
* * * * *
"I shall walk straight into papa's library," said that young married
lady in answer to an inquiry from Sally, as they fell back a little
to chat. "I shall just walk straight in and say we've come back."
"What do you suppose the Professor will say?"
"My dear!--it's the merest toss up. If he's got some very interesting
Greek or Phoenician nonsense on hand, he'll let me kiss him over
his shoulder and say, 'All right--I'm busy.' If it's only the
Cosmocyclopaedia work--which he doesn't care about, only it pays--he
may look up and kiss me, or even go so far as to say: 'Well!--and
where's master Julius?' But I don't expect he'll give any active help
in the collision with mamma, which is sure to come. I rather hope she
won't be at home the first time."
"Why? Wouldn't it be better to have it over and done with?" Sally
always wants to clinch everything.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account