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Updated: June 2, 2025
Majendie had had a family that family would have had to call on Anne. But Mr. Majendie hadn't a family, he had only Edith, which was worse than having nobody at all. And then, besides, there was his history. Mrs. Eliott looked distressed. Mr. Majendie's history could not be explained away as too ancient to be interesting. In Scale a seven-year-old event is still startlingly, unforgetably modern.
Walter Majendie's departure, Lady Cayley smiled softly to herself; tasting the first delicious flavour of success. She had made Mrs. Walter Majendie betray herself; she had made her furious; she had made her go. She had sat Mrs. Walter Majendie out. If the town of Scale, the mayor and the aldermen, had risen and given her an ovation, she could not have celebrated more triumphally her return.
She turns upon him a small vivid face, alight with indignation. "You support her," cries she. "You! Well, I shall tell you! I" defiantly "I don't want to go to churches at all. I want to go to theatres! There!" There is an awful silence. Miss Majendie's face is a picture! If the girl had said she wanted to go to the devil instead of to the theatre, she could hardly have looked more horrified.
Now, at the falling of the flame, the faint characters flashed into sight upon the blank, running in waves, as when hot iron changes from white to sullen red. Anne felt that her union with Majendie had made her one with that other woman, that she shared her memory and her shame. For Majendie's sake she loathed her womanhood that was yesterday as sacred to her as her soul.
His silence lay between them like a sword. She had rehearsed this scene many times in the five hours; but she had not prepared herself for this. Her dread had been held captive by her belief, her triumphant anticipation of Majendie's denial. Presently he spoke; and his voice was strange to her as the voice of another man. "Anne," he said, "didn't she tell you? It was before I knew you.
There might be a sense in which the child was suffering from her mother's martyrdom. He persuaded himself that the least he could do was to leave Anne in supreme possession of her. What with anxiety about his daughter and his sister, and a hopeless attachment to his wife, Majendie's misery became so acute that it told upon his health.
Majendie would take it; how the white-faced, high-handed lady would look when she was told that her husband had consoled himself for her high-handedness. She had always been possessed by an ungovernable curiosity with regard to Majendie's wife. She did not know Majendie's wife, but she knew Majendie. She knew all about the separation and its cause. That was where she had come in.
They sat down, all three, under the beech tree; and Peggy took, first Majendie's hand, then Anne's hand, and held them together in her lap. "Mummy," said she, "aren't you glad that daddy came? It wouldn't be half so nice without him, would it?" "No," said Anne, "it wouldn't." "Mummy, you don't say that as if you meant it." "Oh, Peggy, of course I meant it." "Yes, but you didn't make it sound so."
Majendie's glass, Gould, fill it fill it." She was the immortal soul of hospitality, was Mrs. Hannay. In the drawing-room Mrs. Hannay again took possession of Anne and led her to the sofa. She fairly enthroned her there; she hovered round her; she put cushions at her head, and more cushions under her feet; for Mrs. Hannay liked to be comfortable herself, and to see every one comfortable about her.
She swept down to a seat beside her hostess. "My dear Fanny," she said, "why didn't you tell me?" "Tell you " "That he was that sort. I didn't know there was such a delightful man in Scale. What have you all been dreaming of?" Mrs. Eliott tried to look both amiable and intelligent. In the presence of Mr. Majendie's robust reality it was indeed as if they had all been dreaming.
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