Epilogue

Alice was sitting just as Miss Godwin had left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun through the branches of the little willow.

'It's really time for us to be getting back, mademoiselle. It's a long drive, and we've stayed later than we intended.'

Alice stood up, with a queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering golden hair that would always get into her eyes. 'Oh, not yet! Just five more minutes? Because this is the very nicest time to be here.'

'Five minutes, then. But you know how your mother worries.'

'Oh, Mother!' Alice replied loftily. (She had been reading Oscar Wilde today.) 'Mother wouldn't be happy unless she could worry.'

'Five minutes,' Miss Godwin repeated, ignoring the epigram with iron sternness. She walked up the gravel path, punctuating her steps with little jabs of her parasol. Lately she had had to trade upon her delegated authority more and more often; Alice was coming to look upon her almost in the light of a parent, which was from Alice's point of view not the best of lights. Mrs. Raleigh, on the other hand, seemed quite pleased with this development, finding an ally rather than a rival now in Miss Godwin. There was a deeper motive behind this entente, of course: since Roderick's confinement to the asylum, she had had to find, as she put it, 'Someone to lean on.' Miss Godwin's shoulder had been conveniently at hand, and it had proved in the long run to support Delphinia's weight more firmly than any other.

At the crest of the hill she turned round to look at Alice. She was shocked anew at how tall the child had grown. She was within four inches of being as tall as herself, and already at twelve and a half her breasts were beginning to form—not, to Alice's immense distress, quite simultaneously. She stood at just that stage of life represented by the young willow at the foot of the hill, uncertain whether it was a tree or a shrub.

To think that if had been only a year ago ...

To think, Alice thought, that it was only a year!

A year exactly—since this was July the 8th. Already a few of the details of that day a year ago were beginning to fade from memory. What song, for instance, had the organist played at the end? Ah yes—Bringing in the Sheaves. Alice knew what sheaves were by now, of course (How naive one would have to be not to know a simple thing like that!), but why harvesting should be considered a suitable subject for a hymn was something she could not understand. It was a symbol perhaps. She had to find out what Symbolism was all about. She made a mental note to ask Miss Godwin to recommend a book on the subject.

Though it was quite possible that Miss Godwin wouldn't know of any. Alice had discovered only this summer that there were some things of which Miss Godwin knew nothing at all. Dutch painting, for instance. Alice knew far more about Dutch painting (after having read a book about it) than Miss Godwin.

'Come along,' Miss Godwin called out. 'They'll lock us up inside if we don't get back to the gate.'

'Just one last visit,' Alice promised. She broke into a graceless, tomboy spring along the path back to the stone. It was just round the bend of the little stream. The stone cross, which had been so bright and pink and Italian all that afternoon, had fallen into the lengthened shadow of a poplar and looked rather gloomy now.

A year! She remembered, with a smile, how at the ceremony Fay had broken out suddenly into such a cataclysm of tears that her husband, the old man with the spiky white hair, had had to take her outside. The idea of Bessy's death had not reached Fay until just that moment.

It hasn't reached me yet, Alice thought. Death was such an impossible thing to understand at her age. She looked forward impatiently to being eighteen and understanding death. Even at sixteen one would undoubtedly possess much deeper insights into things.

'Come along! This is the last time I'll ask you.' And Alice could tell by her tone that she meant it.

She returned to look at the stone. 'It was a nice funeral, wasn't it?' she whispered. 'It was very expensive, and everything was the way you said you'd want it. I had to go into hysterics with my uncle and again with my mother before they agreed to pay for it. So I hope it's what you wanted.

But the stone cross had nothing to say in reply, unless the inscription on its base were to be construed as in some way an answer: O Lord, I am not worthy!

Then I don't know who is!' Alice remarked.

She kissed the cross, which was still warm from standing all day in the sun, and climbed up the hill towards her impatient governess. They left the cemetery holding hands.