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Alice, her face white and averted, shrank back in the corner of the sofa. Gwenda's face was still. Neither of them had spoken. Mary had tea alone that afternoon. Alice had dragged herself upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in. She had flung herself face downward on her bed. She lay there while the room grew gray and darkened.
Hard work might not be the cure for every kind of nervous trouble, but it was the one cure for the kind that he had got. He ought to have gone away seven years ago. It was Gwenda's fault that he hadn't gone. He felt a dull anger against her as against a woman who had wrecked his chance. He had a chance of going now if he cared to take it. He had had a letter that morning from Dr.
Early in the spring their wedding took place in London, and when one morning Morva brought from Pont-y-fro post office a packet for Ebben Owens containing a wedge of wedding cake and cards, he evinced some show of interest. On the box was written in Gwenda's pretty firm writing, "With love to Garthowen, from William and Gwenda Owen." Ebben rubbed his knees with satisfaction.
She ought not to leave him on poor Gwenda's hands. She ought, at any rate, to take her turn. But Robina couldn't face it. She couldn't leave her compact little house and go back to her husband. She couldn't even take her turn. Flesh and blood shrank from the awful sacrifice. It would be a living death. Your conscience has no business to send you to a living death.
Slowly, in the weakness of her apathy, she trailed across the floor. "Ally, what is it? Why didn't you send for me?" "It's all right. I wanted to get up. I'm coming down to supper. You can leave off packing that old trunk. You haven't got to go." "Who told you I was going?" "Nobody. I knew it." She answered Gwenda's eyes. "I don't know how I knew it, but I did.
Ebben Owens said nothing, as he walked into the house, stooping more than usual, and looking ten years older. There was dire disappointment in the kitchen, too, when the dinner came out scarcely tasted. It is not to be supposed that by such observant eyes as Gwenda's, the Garthowen car, with the waiting Ann and the old man hovering about, had escaped unnoticed. Nay!
"She's told me it's true what you think." In the silence that fell on the four Rowcliffe stayed where he stood, downcast and averted. It was as if he felt that Gwenda could have charged him with betrayal of a trust. The Vicar looked at his watch. He turned to Rowcliffe. "Is that fellow coming, or is he not?" "He won't funk it," said Rowcliffe. He turned. His eyes met Gwenda's.
And when she found that she could trust her intellect she set it deliberately to fight her passion. At first it was an even match, for Gwenda's intellect, like her body, was robust. It generally held its ground from Thursday morning till Tuesday night. But the night that followed Wednesday afternoon would see its overthrow.
"He wouldn't, Gwenda." "Ay, thot I would. An' 'e knows it, doos Johnny, t' yoong rascal." Gwenda kissed the four children; Jimmy, and Gwendolen Alice, and little Steven and the baby John. They lifted little sticky faces and wiped them on Gwenda's face, and the happy din went on. Ally didn't seem to mind it. She had grown plump and pink and rather like Mary without her subtlety.
There was a beast of a woman in Gwenda's room who simply wouldn't go. But on Friday Gwenda's room would be ready. It had been waiting for her all the time. Hadn't they settled it that Gwenda was to come and live with her if things became impossible at home? Robina supposed they were impossible? She sent her love to Alice and Mary, and she was always Gwenda's loving Mummy.
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