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Updated: June 22, 2025
Then, too vividly again, he saw her face against the dark stuff of the curtain, the curve of her hand plucking at her blouse, heard the sound of his own horrified: "Nollie!" No illusion, no deception! The edifice of his life was in the dust.
Noel suffered the embrace without response, but when it was over, went to her own room. Gratian stayed, sorry, sore and vexed, uncertain, anxious. Her pride was deeply wounded, her heart torn; she was angry with herself. Why couldn't she have been more sympathetic? And yet, now that Noel was no longer there, she again condemned the dead. What he had done was unpardonable. Nollie was such a child!
"Yes; it's my being there that matters. Those people don't care, so long as it isn't an open scandal." "Nollie!" "But it is so, Daddy. Of course it's so, and you know it. If I'm away they'll just pity you for having a bad daughter. And quite right too. I am a bad daughter." Pierson smiled. "Just like when you were a tiny." "I wish I were a tiny again, or ten years older.
Then, with the suddenness of a blind drawn down, it vanished, and he sat on, trying to talk, and slowly getting more and more silent and restless. "Nollie gets so tired, working," Gratian said: He knew she meant it kindly but that she should say it at all was ominous. He got up at last, having lost hope of seeing Noel again, conscious too that he had answered the last three questions at random.
"Something in that, of course," he said gruffly. "All the same, the decision's with Nollie. We'll see what Thirza says. Anyway, there's no hurry. It's a thousand pities you're a parson; the trouble's enough without that:" Edward shook his head. "My position is nothing; it's the thought of my child, my wife's child. It's sheer pride; and I can't subdue it. I can't fight it down.
He slipped his hand through her arm; and, following out those thoughts of his in the concert-hall, asked: "Do you like Captain Fort, Nollie?" "Yes; he's a nice man." "He seems a nice man, certainly; he has a nice smile, but strange views, I'm afraid." "He thinks the Germans are not much worse than we are; he says that a good many of us are bullies too." "Yes, that is the sort of thing I mean."
Pierson pursued his sister-in-law to the room where she did her flowers every morning. He watched her for a minute dividing ramblers from pansies, cornflowers from sweet peas, before he said: "I'm very troubled, Thirza. Nollie came to me last night. Imagine! They want to get married those two!"
He passed into view of those within, and said: "Aren't you very hot, Nollie?" She blew him a kiss; the young man looked startled and self-conscious, and Eve called out: "It's a bet, Uncle. They've got to dance me down." Pierson said mildly: "A bet? My dears!" Noel murmured over her shoulder: "It's all right, Daddy!"
Bob Pierson, then, paced the room, so absorbed in his dismay and concern, that he was almost happy. "By Jove!" he said, "what a ghastly thing! "Nollie, of all people! I feel perfectly wretched, Thirza; wretched beyond words." But with each repetition his voice grew cheerier, and Thirza felt that he was already over the worst. "Your coffee's getting cold!" she said. "What do you advise?
At last Noel put one hand in front of her eyes, and said: "I asked her to tell you." Gratian made the movement of one who is gripped by two strong emotions, and longs to surrender to one or to the other. "It's too horrible," was all she said. Noel turned towards the door. "Stop, Nollie!" Noel stopped with her hand on the door knob. "I don't want to be forgiven and sympathised with.
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