The Pool in the Desert | Page 8

admirable, that I laughed at my own expense;
while Cecily, doing her hair, considered me gravely. 'I wish you would
tell me why you laugh, mamma,' quoth she; 'you laugh so often.'
We had not to wait after all for my good offices of the next morning.
Cecily came down at ten o'clock that night quite happy and excited; she
had been talking to a bishop, such a dear bishop. The bishop had been
showing her his collection of photographs, and she had promised to
play the harmonium for him at the eleven-o'clock service in the
morning. 'Bless me!' said I, 'is it Sunday?' It seemed she had got on
very well indeed with the bishop, who knew the married sister, at
Tunbridge, of her very greatest friend. Cecily herself did not know the
married sister, but that didn't matter--it was a link. The bishop was
charming. 'Well, my love,' said I--I was teaching myself to use these
forms of address for fear she would feel an unkind lack of them, but it

was difficult--'I am glad that somebody from my part of the world has
impressed you favourably at last. I wish we had more bishops.'
'Oh, but my bishop doesn't belong to your part of the world,' responded
my daughter sleepily. 'He is travelling for his health.'
It was the most unexpected and delightful thing to be packed into one's
chair next morning by Dacres Tottenham. As I emerged from the music
saloon after breakfast--Cecily had stayed below to look over her hymns
and consider with her bishop the possibility of an anthem- -Dacres's
face was the first I saw; it simply illuminated, for me, that portion of
the deck. I noticed with pleasure the quick toss of the cigar overboard
as he recognized and bore down upon me. We were immense friends;
John liked him too. He was one of those people who make a
tremendous difference; in all our three hundred passengers there could
be no one like him, certainly no one whom I could be more glad to see.
We plunged at once into immediate personal affairs, we would get at
the heart of them later. He gave his vivid word to everything he had
seen and done; we laughed and exclaimed and were silent in a concert
of admirable understanding. We were still unravelling, still demanding
and explaining when the ship's bell began to ring for church, and
almost simultaneously Cecily advanced towards us. She had a proper
Sunday hat on, with flowers under the brim, and a church-going frock;
she wore gloves and clasped a prayer-book. Most of the women who
filed past to the summons of the bell were going down as they were, in
cotton blouses and serge skirts, in tweed caps or anything, as to a kind
of family prayers. I knew exactly how they would lean against the
pillars of the saloon during the psalms. This young lady would be little
less than a rebuke to them. I surveyed her approach; she positively
walked as if it were Sunday.
'My dear,' I said, 'how endimanchee you look! The bishop will be very
pleased with you. This gentleman is Mr. Tottenham, who administers
Her Majesty's pleasure in parts of India about Allahabad. My daughter,
Dacres.' She was certainly looking very fresh, and her calm grey eyes
had the repose in them that has never known itself to be disturbed about
anything. I wondered whether she bowed so distantly also because it

was Sunday, and then I remembered that Dacres was a young man, and
that the Farnham ladies had probably taught her that it was right to be
very distant with young men.
'It is almost eleven, mamma.'
'Yes, dear. I see you are going to church.'
'Are you not coming, mamma?'
I was well wrapped up in an extremely comfortable corner. I had 'La
Duchesse Bleue' uncut in my lap, and an agreeable person to talk to. I
fear that in any case I should not been inclined to attend the service, but
there was something in my daughter's intonation that made me
distinctly hostile to the idea. I am putting things down as they were,
extenuating nothing.
'I think not, dear.'
'I've turned up two such nice seats.'
'Stay, Miss Farnham, and keep us in countenance,' said Dacres, with his
charming smile. The smile displaced a look of discreet and amused
observation. Dacres had an eye always for a situation, and this one was
even newer to him than to me.
'No, no. She must run away and not bully her mamma,' I said. 'When
she comes back we will see how much she remembers of the sermon;'
and as the flat tinkle from the companion began to show signs of
diminishing, Cecily, with one grieved glance, hastened down.
'You