George Medwall wrote now and then, but less frequently as the months went by. He was getting on. He was saving money. He was sick of boarding-houses. He hoped she was keeping well. He had seen her father, who looked okay. Far, far better were the very rare epistles which Kevin and Alex wrote together, and illustrated with funny pictures. But they were tactful, and urged her not to think it necessary to write in return, though she did so.

Worst of all, when it came to answering them, were the letters from Aunt Ellen, so long, so kind, so loaded with a tremulous curiosity about the richly musical world in which Monica was now living. Aunt Ellen was dying to know all about it and to share it as far as possible. But everything she said made it so plain that Aunt Ellen had hold of the wrong end of the stick, and that the musical world she imagined was that intense, genteely romantic world of The First Violin. And she wanted Monica’s life to be cast in that mould, wanted it so badly that it would have been inexcusable cruelty to disillusion her. There was the danger, too, that nothing must be told to Aunt Ellen which had not also been told to Ma, for Ma was sure to find out, and make trouble. Thus Monica was forced to deny Aunt Ellen the romantic crumbs which she might otherwise have afforded her. If Aunt Ellen knew that Monica was in daily association with a man who was writing an opera, she would be transported; it would give her a real and abiding joy. But if Ma knew, Ma would simply want to know why she saw him every day, and if he slept at the same place that he worked. It was bitter hard work writing to Aunt Ellen.

As Canada drew nearer, however, all of these considerations gave way to excitement and anticipation. Coming down at Gander—wonderful! The coffee was not what the McCorkills would have called “real Canadian coffee”, being that characterless grey drink common to lunch counters in all countries; the Quebec carved figures, and the factory-made beaded moccasins, spoke of no Canada which Monica had ever known; but the genuine uncivil Canadian fat woman behind the counter, and the excellent quality of toilet paper in the Ladies were home-like indeed. And the air, the cool, clear air, which had not been breathed and re-breathed by everybody since the time of Alfred the Great—that was best of all.

On to Montreal and Dorval airport. On to Montreal’s Windsor Station, that massive witness to the love-affair between Canada and its railways. Thence to a train which would carry her to Salterton—a real Canadian train, smelling of carpets and stale cigar-smoke, which toiled and rumbled through the country-side whistling, and ringing its bell, and puffing defiance at anyone who might dare to suggest that it was not really going very fast. Monica rode in the parlour-car, gazing rapturously at the snowy landscape, even while eating her luncheon of leathery omelet and cardboard pie. Yet to her it was the food of the gods, for this was an omelet of Canadian leatheriness, a pie of real Canadian cardboard!

Salterton! But nobody at the station to greet her. Well, of course telegrams which you sent to announce your arrival did have a way of appearing, with every show of smart efficiency, after you had well and truly arrived. She took a taxi to her home.

Dad answered her ring at the bell. He looked older, thinner and very weary.

“Oh God, Monny, it’s good to have you here,” he said. And then, breaking into the tears which he had so long held back—”It looks like we’re goin’ to lose your Ma!”

If it were still the fashion to see ghosts (and it may be asked if such revelations are not a matter of fashion or, if a more pretentious phrase is demanded, of intellectual climate) Veronica Bridgetower would very often have seen the ghost of her mother-in-law, Louisa Hansen Bridgetower. While she had lived, Mrs Bridgetower had worn her large, ugly house close about her, like a cloak. Her spirit was in every room; her will in some way influenced every thought and action on her premises. In his bachelor days Solly had tried to escape her by making an eyrie for himself in the attic; there his bedroom and his workroom and a little washroom had provided him with a complete kingdom; he had but to close the door at the foot of the stair and his mother could not pursue him; her ailing heart had prevented her from mounting those stairs for ten years before she died. But she was there, none the less, and he had always known that every creak of a bedspring and every scrape of a chair was heard and considered by her sharp ears. When he had married, he had brought Veronica to this house. Mrs Bridgetower had pleaded, with the sweet self-abasement possible only to those who are completely sure of their power, that her son and his wife should make their home with her—for if they were to leave her, might she not be frightened in that large house, alone except for her two old servants?

Alone; yes, she would have been alone in the sense that one is alone in a familiar, comfortable garment. She, frightened, there? She had Solly and Veronica in her pocket, and well she knew it. They had lived with her. How, they asked each other, could they refuse?

I have never had a home of my own, thought Veronica, as she lay beside the sleeping Solly. The January wind roared around the house, making the storm-window outside the bedroom rattle fiercely, as though to rebuke this rebellion against Fate. Though of course I’ve been terribly lucky, she added, hastily placating whatever, or whoever, might be listening to her thoughts.

Lucky? Oh, yes, for was she not the daughter of Professor Walter Vambrace, who had written a book on the Enneads of Plotinus? And was it not a privilege to grow up in the atmosphere of strenuous thought which that austere scholar created? And to realize that Father was a cousin of the Marquis of Mourne and Derry, and if eight people had died young and childless Father would have had the title? It was true that Father and Mother never quite got on together, chiefly because he was such an aggressive free-thinker, whereas Mother was a devout Catholic. But Mother had always been so sweet, so abstracted, so truly kind. It was sad that since her marriage she saw her parents so seldom, though they lived not much more than a mile away.

But then, her marriage with Solly had been so beset with difficulties on both sides. And although the Vambraces and Mrs Bridgetower had made the best of it when it was plain that it could not be prevented, there had been clear indications that they were doing precisely that—making the best of it. Solly had tried to keep it secret from her that his Mother thought their marriage a great mistake. How like him it was to try to spare her! But of course she knew. How could anyone who lived with Mrs Bridgetower help knowing? Her mother-in-law’s opinions were as palpable in that house as was the smell of heavy upholstery.

It could not be pretended that she had been made at home in Mrs Bridgetower’s house. She had learned all the rules—what chairs not to sit in, what doors to close and which to leave open, what books and papers might be read, and when, and her mother-in-law’s long rosary of pills, which had to be worked through every day—but she had never learned the spirit of the house, because it was Mrs Bridgetower’s spirit. She had tried with uttermost patience and submission to be a good daughter-in-law. She had even dressed Mrs Bridgetower’s body for burial, arranged her hair and painted her face—Ah, there it was again, the thought that would not down! Years ago, at a children’s party, Veronica had been blindfolded and asked to identify a group of objects on a tray; one of these was a kid glove which had been stuffed with paper, and thoroughly soaked; she had dropped the chill, damp object with a shudder, and only the self-control which her father had instilled in her had kept her from weeping with fright. Painting the face of her dead mother-in-law had revived and hideously prolonged that sensation, and she had not wept on that occasion, either. She had done her best to be a good daughter-in-law because it was part of being a good wife, part of her love for Solly. Why, then, would his mother not leave her alone, even after death?