Page:Dark Hester.djvu/59

was sitting there on the gravel path, her book on her knee, her thoughts busy with ways and means, a harassed but happy woman. Little Jemima, Jeremy’s mother, sat beside her, watching the players with a dog’s disinterested melancholy. Monica was far, far away, deep in the fragrance of the banksia rose when Bowditt came to let her in. Bowditt had been Celia’s nurse, then her maid, and now with the aid of a village girl she ran the little house for the two friends. She was a gaunt, sad-eyed woman and Monica always felt that she held her in some way responsible for the devastation of her young mistress’s life. All the same, under the resentment, if that it were, she knew that she could rely upon a fundamental sympathy in Bowditt, for she and Bowditt both cherished Celia.

‘Is Miss Celia in the drawing-room?’ she asked.

‘She’s gone out, to Chelmsford, with Captain Ingpen,’ said Bowditt surprisingly and with evident satisfaction. ‘Captain Ingpen said he would do some shopping for us, and Miss Norah thought the drive would do Miss Celia good.’

Monica now observed the various masculine belongings that altered the aspect of the apple-green little entry. A faded silk scarf, russet striped with grey, lay on the table beside the salver of visiting