Faversham had succeeded in
writing them himself; and in the exhilaration of what seemed to him a
much-quickened convalescence, he made arrangements the following morning
to part with his nurse within a few days. "Do as you like, in
moderation," said Undershaw, "no railway journey for a week or two."
VII
Melrose had gone to Carlisle. The Cumbria landscape lay in a misty
sunshine, the woods and fields steaming after a night of soaking rain.
All the shades of early summer were melting into each other; reaches of
the river gave back a silvery sky, while under the trees the shadows
slept. The mountains were indistinct, drawn in pale blues and purples, on
a background of lilac and pearl. And all the vales "were up," drinking
in the streams that poured from the heights.
Tatham and his mother were walking through the park together. He was in
riding-dress, and his horse awaited him at the Keswick gate. Lady Tatham
beside him was attired as usual in the plainest and oldest of clothes.
Her new gowns, which she ordered from time to time mechanically, leaving
the whole designing of them to her dress-maker, served her at Duddon, in
her own phrase, mainly "for my maid to show the housekeeper." They lay in
scented drawers, daintily folded in tissue paper, and a maid no less
ambitious than her fellows for a well-dressed mistress kept mournful
watch over them. This carelessness of dress had grown upon Victoria
Tatham with years. In her youth the indulgence of a taste for beautiful
and artistic clothes had taken up a great deal of her time.
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