She was wrapped round and round with death and death, nothing but death,
and with Jerrold's suffering. When he saw her he suffered again. And as
his way had always been to avoid suffering, he avoided Anne. His eyes
turned from her if he saw her coming. He spoke to her without looking at
her. He tried not to think of her. When he had gone he would try not to
remember.
His one idea was to go, to get away from the place his father had died
in and from the people who had seen him die. He wanted new unknown
faces, new unknown voices that would not remind him-----Ten days after his father's death the letter came from John Severn. He
wrote: "... I'm delighted about Sir Charles Durham. You are a lucky devil. Any
chap Sir Charles takes a fancy to is bound to get on. He can't help
himself. You're not afraid of hard work, and I can tell you we give our
Assistant Commissioners all they want and a lot more.
"It'll be nice if you bring Anne out with you. If you're stationed
anywhere near us we ought to give her the jolliest time in her life
between us."
"But Jerrold," said Adeline when she had read this letter. "You're not
going out _now_. You must wire and tell him so."
"Why not now?"
"Because, my dear boy, you've got the estate and you must stay and look
after it."
"Barker'll look after it. That's what he's there for."
"Nonsense, Jerrold. There's no need for you to go out to India."
"There _is_ need. I've got to go."
"You haven't. There's every need for you to stop where you are. Eliot
will be going abroad if Sir Martin Crozier takes him on. And if Colin
goes into the diplomatic service Goodness knows where he'll be sent to."
"Colin won't be sent anywhere for another four years."
"No. But he'll be at Cheltenham or Cambridge half the time. I must have
one son at home."
"Sorry, Mother. But I can't stand it here. I've got to go, and I'm
going."
To all her arguments and entreaties he had one answer: He had got to go
and he was going.
Adeline left him and went to look for Eliot whom she found in his room
packing to go back to London. She came sobbing to Eliot.
"It's too dreadfully hard. As if it weren't bad enough to lose my
darling husband I must lose all my sons. Not one of you will stay with
me. And there's Anne going off with Jerrold. _She_ may have him with her
and I mayn't. She's taken everything from me. You'd have said if a
wife's place was anywhere it was with her dying husband. But no. _She_
was allowed to be with him and _I_ was turned out of his room."