He was glad of Prudence’s company. She, as well as himself, stood outside the general activity, and conveyed by her presence something of the atmosphere of the past. He accepted her reappearance in the home without question. He was growing forgetful and, save when Edward Morgan’s name was mentioned, did not appear to remember his existence. The changes which had taken the others away had brought Prudence home; that was how he saw things; and he liked to have her there.
“I’m getting old, Prue,” he told her. “I’ve taken to falling asleep in my chair, and my memory plays me tricks. It is good to have you back. They are all so busy; the old man gets overlooked and forgotten. You’ll stay with me?”
“Yes,” Prudence answered, responding to the wistful tone in his shaky voice; “as long as you want me.”
He was the only person in all the world, she reflected, who really had need of her. His dependence on her comforted her greatly. They were both of them lonely souls, whom the rush of events left stranded beyond reach of the changing tides.
It was early spring, and the depression of those first months of war brooded like a dark cloud over everything. The garden, which in former years had blazed with bloom, seemed to have taken on an air of mourning with the rest. Only a solitary bulb here and there, left in the soil from a past season, lifted its defiant head among the empty borders. The Court was short-handed; and Agatha had deemed it unfitting to waste time and money over the planting of unnecessary flowers. But below Prudence’s window the gloire de Dijon roses were opening slowly, bringing their golden promise of warmer days to come.
In the evenings, when her father had retired early as his custom was of late, Prudence would stand at her old place and lean upon the sill and look out over the shadowy stillness upon the white riband of road beyond the walls. And her thoughts would travel back to the days when she had leaned there as a girl and watched a man go striding down the hill, whistling as he walked. She had dreamed of love in those days, and of romance: but these things too had passed her by and gone down the road of life, following the man’s destiny out of her sight. When one has voluntarily accepted the lesser gift it is vain to hunger after what might have been. There are two philosophies in life, and they both lead to definite points, and each has its followers: the one is to accept one’s lot, whatever it may be, and bear it courageously; the other is to cast off responsibility and take what offers agreeably as the opportunity presents itself. The individual can resolve for himself alone which is the better course. Temptation assails people differently. The prudent nature is not necessarily always the higher; but discretion is a wise virtue, and restraint is a proof of strength.
Not until the night of her unexpected meeting with Steele had Prudence’s fortitude been really tried. She had felt it to be unequal to battle, and had not stayed to test its strength. Safety for her lay in flight. Yet had she paused to reflect she might have realised that by her flight she betrayed her weakness to the man who had avowed in passionate terms his determination to meet and have speech with her again.
Prudence had sought only to avoid a further meeting; but while she stood at her window a few nights after her return to Court Heatherleigh a sudden conviction seized her that Steele would make inquiries, would discover her movements, might even follow her. He had been in earnest when he had said: “We’ve got to meet and talk this matter out... It’s not going to end like this. Now that I know you love me nothing else counts.”
Nothing else counts! ... So many things counted; so many conflicting interests stood between her and this reckless reasoning. It was not in his right, nor in hers, to set aside every consideration that baulked his desire.
Prudence rested her elbows on the sill and sunk her chin in her hands and remained still, lost in thought. It was late. The big clock in the hall had chimed the hour of midnight; but still she lingered there—lingered in the windy moonlight, which the dark clouds, hurrying athwart the sky, intermittently obscured. A fever of pain and unrest fired her blood, and sent the warm colour to her cheeks where it burned, two brilliant spots of crimson, that defied the cooling breath of the wind. A sense of something impending held her breathless. All that day she had felt an influence at work, an intangible something which oppressed and oddly disquieted her; the prescience of some unexpected event armed her against surprise. She stood at the window as one who watches and waits for the event to befall. She did not know what she expected, what she waited for in the silent room, that room in which she had lived through so many emotions, none more disturbing than those which swayed her now. She felt that something was about to happen. The suggestion of a presence near her was so real that she could not rest. She had no thought of going to bed. Something in the night called to her imperatively and kept her at her post.