TESSA WAS SO happy about Sydney’s engagement. She wrote long letters about it to her husband Anthony out in Malay; she spent less time upstairs with Baudouin lying down on the sofa and more time sitting alertly in the drawing-room, glowing at friends. She laid aside her air of a devotee and put on all the dignity of matronhood: one could never have guessed how well all this would become her. The effect on her digestion was extraordinary. She smiled indefatigably and followed Sydney about with her eyes, and remained on behalf of the abstracted Milton and the less than ever approachable Sydney a shining testimony to the efficacy for all ills of Love. For the unconscious pair her confidence, had they taken their stand on it, might have been as a rock among the tangled undercurrents of criticism, of amusement, of pity, of speculation as to whether it would ‘last’. The thing was more than suitable; it was a coming together for which Time itself might have laboured to shape the couple; one could not look in her face and deny the possibility. Her friends sighed out that they at least were glad was glad. Mrs Kerr remarked: ‘That dear little woman looks positively bridal.’

Everybody, Tessa thought, was being so nice to her Sydney; charming things were said to the girl in her presence, and many others that she happened to miss were reported. She glowed for her brilliant Sydney, loved her better than ever and became speechlessly shy of her. Of Milton she was not shy at all; she could talk to him by the hour about Elective Affinities, and about Health, which she said was very important. ‘You know there is no need,’ she would say, looking at him reproachfully, ‘for any of us to be ill at all.’ And Milton, who had scarcely ever been ill in his life, would nod back at her wisely. He had a particular softness for Sydney’s dear little cousin. She told him how wonderful it would be to her to see Sydney in a home of her own and with children, who would be, she was sure, the supreme children. ‘And I’m sure,’ she would add, ‘that you’ll both be so wise and bring them up right, quite right from the very beginning. Our health, you know, has to be built up from the very foundations. Our health –’ He began to recognize this as the recurring decimal point in her conversation.