It was a spring-like, warm-looking, deceptive day, with a bright sun and a cold east wind.
Anne sat, a queer-looking figure, in an unnecessary mackintosh and a golf-cap, on a bench in a large open space in Hyde Park, looking absently at some shabby sheep. She had come here to be alone, to think. Soon she would be alone as much as she liked—much more. She had appeared quite sympathetically cheerful, almost jaunty, since her friend's engagement. She could not bear anyone to know her real feelings. Hyacinth had been most sweet, warmly affectionate to her; Cecil delightful. They had asked her to go and stay with them. Lady Cannon had graciously said, 'I suppose you will be looking out for another situation now, Miss Yeo?' and others had supposed she would go back to her father's Rectory, for a time, at any rate.
Today the wedding had been definitely fixed, and she had come out to give way to the bitterness of her solitude.
She realised that she had not the slightest affection for anyone in the world except Hyacinth, and that no-one had any for her, on anything like the same scale.
Anne was a curious creature. Her own family had always been absolutely indifferent to her, and from her earliest youth she had hated and despised all men that she had known. Sir Charles Cannon was the only human being for whom she felt a little sympathy, instinctively knowing that under all his amiable congratulations he disliked Hyacinth's marriage almost as much as she did, and in the same way.
All the strength of her feelings and affections, then, which in the ordinary course would have gone in other channels, Anne had lavished on Hyacinth. She adored her as if she had been her own child. She worshipped her like an idol. As a matter of fact, being quite independent financially, it was not as a paid companion at all that she had lived with her, though she chose to appear in that capacity. And, besides, Hyacinth herself, Anne had, in a most superlative degree, enjoyed the house, her little authority, the way she stood between Hyacinth and all tedious little practical matters. Like many a woman who was a virago at heart, Anne had a perfect passion for domestic matters, for economy, for managing a house. Of course she had always known that the pretty heiress was sure to marry, but she hoped the evil day would be put off, and somehow it annoyed her to such an acute extent because Hyacinth was so particularly pleased with the young man.
As she told Anne every thought, and never dreamt of concealing any nuance or shade of her sentiments, Anne had suffered a good deal.
It vexed her particularly that Hyacinth fancied Cecil so unusual, while she was very certain that there were thousands and thousands of good-looking young men in England in the same position who had the same education, who were precisely like him. There was not a pin to choose between them. How many photographs in groups Cecil had shown them, when she and Hyacinth went to tea at his rooms! Cecil in a group at Oxford, in an eleven, as a boy at school, and so forth! While Hyacinth delightedly recognised Cecil, Anne wondered how on earth she could tell one from the other. Of course, he was not a bad sort. He was rather clever, and not devoid of a sense of humour, but the fault Anne really found with him, besides his taking his privileges so much as a matter of course, was that there was nothing, really, to find fault with. Had he been ugly and stupid, she could have minded it less.
Now what should she do? Of course she must remain with Hyacinth till the marriage, but she was resolved not to go to the wedding, although she had promised to do so. Both Hyacinth and Cecil really detested the vulgarity of a showy fashionable wedding as much as she did, and it was to be moderated, toned down as much as possible. But Anne couldn't stand it—any of it—and she wasn't going to try.
As she sat there, wrapped up in her egotistic anguish, two young people, probably a shop-girl and her young man, passed, sauntering along, holding hands, and swinging their arms. Anne thought that they were, if anything, less odious than the others, but the stupidity of their happiness irritated her, and she got up to go back.
She felt tired, and though it was not far, she decided, with her usual unnecessary economy, to go by omnibus down Park Lane.
As she got out and felt for the key in her pocket, she thought how soon she would no longer be able to go into her paradise and find the lovely creature waiting to confide in her, how even now the lovely creature was in such a dream of preoccupied happiness that, quick as she usually was, she was now perfectly blind to her friend's jealousy. And, indeed, Anne concealed it very well. It was not ordinary jealousy either. She was very far from envying Hyacinth. She only hated parting with her.
As she passed the studio she heard voices, and looked in, just as she was, with a momentary desire to gêner them.
Of course they got up, Hyacinth blushing and laughing, and entreated her to come in.
She sat there a few minutes, hoping to chill their high spirits, then abruptly left them in the middle of a sentence.
At dinner that evening she appeared quite as usual. She had taken a resolution.