“Oh these rivalries, they are friendly enough,” said Adam Milner. “The family feeling is apart from business.”

I sat listening to him, and sensing his hostility to me, I believed he had come to try to dissuade his uncle from marrying.

Later I asked Sylvester if this was his intention.

Sylvester laughed. “He’s astonished at the thought of my marrying,” he admitted. “Clearly Adam was of the opinion that I’m in my dotage. It’s amusing that he should suddenly become so interested. However I assured him that I’m perfectly sane and that I believe my marriage to be one of the wisest steps I ever took.”

“He seems rather a dour young man.”

“He’s serious minded and I believe already has a name in the trade for a keen eye. His knowledge of the Second Great Chinese Empire is said to be greatly respected. He’s an expert on the T’ang and Sung Dynasties. Redmond used to be very proud of him. He’s really dedicated and determined to succeed, I think. He was always so much more serious than er…”

“Than Joliffe,” I said quickly. “He seems to resent me.”

Sylvester smiled. “Not you personally. I have an idea that Adam might now like me to join up with him. Clever as he is he may find the going a little difficult on his own. I have an idea that he thought that because of my accident I should be glad to have him… on his terms. But I have you to help me and I have always wanted to keep the reins firmly in my own hands. Neither of my nephews is of the kind who likes to take a back seat. I shall not amalgamate. And now that I have you to help me there is absolutely no reason from my point of view why I should. That is what he resents.”

“It seems rather an unpleasant outlook.”

“It’s business,” answered Sylvester. “As a matter of fact Adam is a very worthy young man. Serious minded, alert, knowledgeable. But since his father and I parted company I prefer to be on my own.”

“I suppose he came to see what I was like.”

“He must have found you interesting. I’m sure he did. I could tell by his manner.”

“I don’t think he altogether liked what he found.” Sylvester laughed.


* * *

I was married to Sylvester on a typical April day—the sun shone one moment and there was a downpour the next. The church was decorated with daffodils and narcissi and little bunches of violets. There was a freshness in the air.

Sylvester walked on his crutch to the altar. It must have seemed a very unconventional wedding. I was in a blue gown cut full to hide my pregnancy and a hat of the same blue with a curling ostrich feather.

Squire Merrit, who regarded himself in some measure as responsible for Sylvester’s accident and was constantly displaying a desire to make amends, gave me away. I had a strange feeling in that church as the question was asked if anyone knew of any just cause or impediment why the ceremony should not be performed; I held my breath almost expecting a voice from the church to say: “Yes, you are my wife. You know you are… and always will be.”

Joliffe, I thought in panic. Oh, where are you?

But there was no Joliffe to interrupt the ceremony.

In the pews sat the servants, headed by Mrs. Couch who wiped her eyes and declared later that it had been beautiful and she felt as though the bride was her very own daughter. “It’s so dramatic,” she had said, “when you think of Mr. Joliffe and it’s his baby and Mr. Sylvester coming in and marrying you. It’s a true romance it is really.”

Adam Milner was there, aloof, cold, and disapproving. And so I became Mrs. Sylvester Milner.


* * *

After my marriage, life went on just as it had before and in a few weeks I ceased to marvel at it.

The very ceremony of marriage had somehow created a new intimacy between us. I began to think of him as Sylvester and that made it easier for me to call him by that name.

As for him he changed a little. He seemed contented, reconciled to his disability.

I was now looking forward to the birth of my child and that tended to make me forget all else. Sylvester was very concerned about my health; I had the impression that he wanted the child almost as much as I did. I knew his philosophy of life was that of the Chinese. One accepted what the fates offered and was thankful for it and it was one’s own fault if one did not distil some goodness from it.

I must be aware of his kindness and the comfort that was given me in that house.

Often I thought of Joliffe, but the child was beginning to take up my entire thoughts. I was now very much aware of its physical existence and I was content to lie and think of it while I longed for the day of its birth. Mrs. Couch was delighted.

“Children in the house. It’s what I’ve always wanted. No house is right without ’em, little minxes… into this and into that. But they make a home.”

Amy who had given birth to a daughter assumed great importance. She regarded herself as an oracle. She greatly enjoyed advising me as to what I should and should not do.

Jess said it made her feel like settling down.

And there was Sylvester. He behaved as though the child were his and there was no doubt that when my baby was born that was how it would be regarded. He had plans for it and he became much more human than he ever had been when he talked of it.

“He will be brought up here in this house. He will learn to love beautiful things. We will teach him together.”

“What if it should be a girl?”

“I do not think sex is a barrier. If the baby should be a girl she shall have all the advantages that a boy would have had.”

I was touched that he should want to help plan the nursery. We had turned a room next to mine into this. I had it papered in pale blue with a frieze of animals as a kind of dado, and the entire household was excited when the white wood cot arrived with its blue coverlet.

I used to go into the room and look at it with wonder. The others did too. We were constantly finding someone there, as though in silent worship of the infant who soon was to make its longed-for arrival.

We talked of it constantly. Sylvester and I grew closer to each other, I tried to thank him for his goodness to my mother and me, but he only shook his head and said he had derived nothing but comfort and pleasure from our coming to his house.

I was fond of him. I had always respected him. I used to try to tell myself that I had been fortunate. And then memories of Joliffe would come to me and I would be transported to the house in Kensington and I thought of Joliffe and myself together there—then life seemed hard to bear until my longing for my baby overcame all other emotions.

Sylvester insisted on my seeing a London gynecologist and Mrs. Couch traveled up to London with me. I was deeply touched by his joy when the report came that all was normal. However he insisted on the midwife’s staying at the house for more than a week before she was needed.

And in due course my child was born. To my great joy he was perfect in every way. I called him Jason after my father.


* * *

He dominated the household—a lively little boy with the lustiest pair of lungs imaginable.

Sometimes I used to think he would be horribly spoiled for there was not a member of that household who did not dote on him.

Mrs. Couch wanted to make special dishes for him, and I had to watch that she didn’t overfeed him. Amy and she quarreled over this, Amy for once standing out against the formidable cook.

“Poor mite,” cried Mrs. Couch. “Some people would like to starve him. But I’m not having that.”

“Babies’ digestions are not like ours,” Amy declared pontifically.

And they were off.

“Just because you’ve had a baby…”

“Which is more than you have.”

“The impertinence! You take care. Madam Amy.”

I had difficulty in making the peace.

Even Jeffers who had hitherto rarely expressed his appreciation of any but young women, put his head on one side and said, “Didums.”

Of course my son was the most intelligent baby that ever had been born. When he had his first tooth Mrs. Couch wanted to make a cake to celebrate the occasion; when he gurgled something that sounded like “Brrh” we all declared he had said “Mama.” “Chattering away he was,” said Mrs. Couch and I must confess we thought it only the slightest exaggeration. I used to take him into the sitting room when we had tea and display him in all his glory to Sylvester’s admiring gaze.

On his first birthday we had a party in the servants’ hall. A cake with one candle. His bright eyes regarded the cake with appreciation and a chubby hand had to be restrained from seizing the flame.

“Well, I never did,” said Mrs. Couch. “He knows what it’s all about, don’t you. Master Sly Boots.”

Amy’s little daughter who was present picked a piece of icing from the cake when she thought no one was looking and was pounced on by Mrs. Couch which meant further trouble with Amy.

Jess rocked Jason in her arms with a faraway look in her eyes which meant she was thinking that having a good time here and there was all very well but it was babies that counted.

And when I carried him up to his nursery and bathed him, for I would not have a nurse to look after my baby, and laid him in his blue-and-white cot I gave way to my favorite daydream which was that Joliffe stood beside me as we looked down on our son. I felt that bitter loneliness then, that longing which was sometimes so great that I felt that nothing—not even Jason—could quite make up for the loss of Joliffe.