“I can’t think,” he said. “Unless Mrs. Vale puts a shilling a week on the rent and we take the rest of our lives to pay it off.”
“Oh of course, you are Mrs. Vale’s daughter,” Mrs. Archer exclaimed to Mona. “I wondered vaguely who you might be. We heard you were coming home, in fact everybody’s been talking about your return.”
“I’m gratified,” Mona replied.
“I was so looking forward to seeing you, too,” Mrs. Archer said, “and now I have blotted my copybook – or rather Gerry has for me – the very first moment of our acquaintance.”
“Gerry could never blot his own copybook,” Mona answered lightly. “He’s the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen, even when he’s screaming he has a unique charm. In fact, when you are tired of him, I’ll adopt him.”
“There’s not a hope, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Archer smiled. “Both Bill and I are crazy about him, in spite of the fact that at times I’d give the whole three away with a pound of tea. That’s when I’m trying to write.”
“But can you – here?” Mona asked. “It must be almost impossible. I mean the noise and being so cramped.”
“It is rather difficult,” Mrs. Archer confessed, “except on fine days when I push them all into the garden and tell them to stay there.”
“You’ve hit on rather a sore subject, as a matter of fact,” Bill said. “Lynn is stuck for a new book and unless some sort of inspiration comes to her, we shall all find ourselves camping in the park, being unable to pay the rent.”
“I must come and inspire you,” Mona suggested gaily, “but tonight you must be longing to see the last of us. I’ll come and call formally tomorrow.”
She got to her feet and held out her hand. Dr. Howlett looked at his watch.
“I think I’ll stay another quarter of an hour. Tell Dorothy if your mother’s bored with her she can start to walk down the drive.”
“Oh, Mother won’t be,” Mona replied. “Besides, it’s quite early.”
“If she’s ready to leave,” Michael said, “I’ll bring her back in my car. If not, we’ll expect you when we see you.”
“Good,” Dr. Howlett approved.
Mona and Michael said goodnight to the Archers and Mona got into the front of Michael’s car. He started up the engine and drove slowly up the drive. She was silent and after a moment he spoke first.
“I’m going to apologise,” he said.
She fancied that there was a note of humour in his tone.
“Why?” she inquired.
She suddenly felt terribly tired and sad. There was something about the Archers, cosy and together in that tiny house with their three babies, which had brought her a new and tender sorrow, a yearning for what might have been, for a quiet domestic peace that had never before entered into her longings for Lionel.
“For losing my temper,” Michael answered.
With an effort Mona dragged her thoughts back to what he was saying.
“Did you lose your temper?” she asked. “What a funny way of showing it!”
“I’ve got no excuse, merely that you infuriated me. I thought that many years ago I’d grown immune to your teasing, but apparently I haven’t. Still, I had no right to behave as I did, even if you deserved it,” he added with a flash of humour.
Quite suddenly Mona laughed.
“I’m bewildered,” she confessed. “I don’t quite know where I am. All my ideas of you have undergone a revolution. I suppose I’m angry with you, I ought to be anyway, at the same time, as you’ve so rightly pointed out, I deserved it.”
“Why can’t we be friends?” Michael asked.
“We can be,” Mona replied. “I want to be, really, but Michael – I can’t explain – it’s some devil within me. I’m so low, so utterly miserable, that I am trying to drag down on top of me all the solid pillars of security and strength that I admire and envy in you.”
Before he answered, Michael drew up the car and stopped the engine. He had made no attempt to get out or to open the door, instead he turned a little in his seat so that he could see Mona’s face faintly in the light from the dashboard.
“What’s gone wrong?” he asked.
“Everything,” she answered, and there was a throb in her voice. “I can’t talk about it Michael, to you or to anyone else, but I’ve come to the end of everything, to the end of the world, to the end of my faith, and I think to the end of my courage.”
“Oh no, you haven’t,” Michael said soothingly.
He reached out and took both her hands in his.
“Listen,” he said. “When things seem like that it’s only because it’s the end of a chapter. Tomorrow you start a new one.”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“A new chapter will be starting.”
Mona gave a little sob.
“Oh, Michael, if only one could die when one wished to.”
“It would be too easy.”
“Too easy!” she echoed, surprised at his choice of words.
