Alice Sit-By-The-Fire Part 15

STEVE. 'Only a cupboard.'

ALICE. 'What do you keep in it?'

STEVE. 'Merely crockery--that sort of thing.'

ALICE. 'I should like to see your crockery, Steve. Not one little bit of china? May I peep in?'

COLONEL, who is placidly smoking, with his back to the scene of the drama, 'Don't mind her, Steve; she never could see a door without itching to open it.'

Alice opens the door, and sees Amy standing there with her finger to her lips, just as they stood in all the five plays. Ginevra could not have posed her better.

'Well, have you found anything, memsahib?'

It has been the great shock of Alice's life, and she sways. But she shuts the door before answering him.

ALICE, with a terrible look at Steve, 'Just a dark little cupboard.'

Steve, not aware that it is her daughter who is in there, wonders why the lighter aspect of the incident has ceased so suddenly to strike her. She returns to the fire, but not to her chair. She puts her arms round the neck of her husband; a great grief for him is welling up in her breast.

COLONEL, so long used to her dear impulsive ways, 'Hullo! We mustn't let on that we are fond of each other before company.'

STEVE, meaning well, though he had better have held his tongue, 'I don't count; I am such an old friend.'

ALICE, slowly, 'Such an old friend!' Her husband sees that she is struggling with some emotion.

COLONEL. 'Worrying about the children still, Alice?'

ALICE, glad to break down openly, 'Yes, yes, I can't help it, Robert.'

COLONEL, petting her, 'There, there, you foolish woman. Joy will come in the morning; I never was surer of anything. Would you like me to take you home now?'

ALICE. 'Home. But, yes, I--let us go home.'

COLONEL. 'Can we have a cab, Steve?'

STEVE. 'I'll go down and whistle one. Alice, I'm awfully sorry that you--that I--'

ALICE. 'Please, a cab.'

But though she is alone with her husband now she does not know what she wants to say to him. She has a pa.s.sionate desire that he should not learn who is behind that door.

COLONEL, pulling her toward him, 'I think it is about Amy that you worry most.'

ALICE. 'Why should I, Robert?'

COLONEL. 'Not a jot of reason.'

ALICE. 'Say again, Robert, that everything is sure to come right just as we planned it would.'

COLONEL. 'Of course it will.'

ALICE. 'Robert, there is something I want to tell you. You know how dear my children are to me, but Amy is the dearest of all. She is dearer to me, Robert, than you yourself.'

COLONEL. 'Very well, memsahib.'

ALICE. 'Robert dear, Amy has come to a time in her life when she is neither quite a girl nor quite a woman. There are dark places before us at that age through which we have to pick our way without much help. I can conceive dead mothers haunting those places to watch how their child is to fare in them. Very frightened ghosts, Robert. I have thought so long of how I was to be within hail of my girl at this time, holding her hand--my Amy, my child.'

COLONEL. 'That is just how it is all to turn out, my Alice.'

ALICE, s.h.i.+vering, 'Yes, isn't it, isn't it?'

COLONEL. 'You dear excitable, of course it is.'

ALICE, like one defying him, 'But even though it were not, though I had come back too late, though my daughter had become a woman without a mother's guidance, though she were a bad woman--'

COLONEL. 'Alice.'

ALICE. 'Though some cur of a man--Robert, it wouldn't affect my love for her, I should love her more than ever. If all others turned from her, if you turned from her, Robert--how I should love her then.'

COLONEL. 'Alice, don't talk of such things.'

But she continues to talk of them, for she sees that the door is ajar, and what she says now is really to comfort Amy. Every word of it is a kiss for Amy.

ALICE, smiling through her fears, 'I was only telling you that nothing could make any difference in my love for Amy. That was all; and, of course, if she has ever been a little foolish, light-headed--at that age one often is--why, a mother would soon put all that right; she would just take her girl in her arms and they would talk it over, and the poor child's troubles would vanish.' Still for Amy's comfort, 'And do you think I should repeat any of Amy's confidences to you, Robert?'

Gaily, 'Not a word, sir! She might be sure of that.'

COLONEL. 'A pretty way to treat a father. But you will never persuade me that there is any serious flaw in Amy.'

ALICE. 'I'll never try, dear.'

COLONEL. 'As for this little tantrum of locking herself into her room, however, we must have it out with her.'

ALICE. 'The first thing to-morrow.'

COLONEL. 'Not a bit of it. The first thing the moment we get home.'

ALICE, now up against a new danger, 'You forget, dear, that she has gone to bed.'

COLONEL. 'We'll soon rout her out of bed.'

ALICE. 'Robert! You forget that she has locked the door.'

COLONEL. 'Sulky little darling. I daresay she is crying her eyes out for you already. But if she doesn't open that door pretty smartly I'll force it.'

ALICE. 'You wouldn't do that?'

COLONEL. 'Wouldn't I? Oh yes, I would.'