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it was done so naturally that it

bred no resentment in Mary; on the contrary, she found herself putting

her hand on Katharine’s knee, affectionately, for an instant. Was

there something maternal in this assumption of control? And thinking

of Katharine as one who would soon be married, these maternal airs

filled Mary’s mind with a new tenderness, and even with awe. Katharine

seemed very much older and more experienced than she was.

 

Meanwhile Rodney talked. If his appearance was superficially against

him, it had the advantage of making his solid merits something of a

surprise. He had kept notebooks; he knew a great deal about pictures.

He could compare different examples in different galleries, and his

authoritative answers to intelligent questions gained not a little,

Mary felt, from the smart taps which he dealt, as he delivered them,

upon the lumps of coal. She was impressed.

 

“Your tea, William,” said Katharine gently.

 

He paused, gulped it down, obediently, and continued.

 

And then it struck Mary that Katharine, in the shade of her

broad-brimmed hat, and in the midst of the smoke, and in the obscurity

of her character, was, perhaps, smiling to herself, not altogether in

the maternal spirit. What she said was very simple, but her words,

even “Your tea, William,” were set down as gently and cautiously and

exactly as the feet of a Persian cat stepping among China ornaments.

For the second time that day Mary felt herself baffled by something

inscrutable in the character of a person to whom she felt herself much

attracted. She thought that if she were engaged to Katharine, she,

too, would find herself very soon using those fretful questions with

which William evidently teased his bride. And yet Katharine’s voice

was humble.

 

“I wonder how you find the time to know all about pictures as well as

books?” she asked.

 

“How do I find the time?” William answered, delighted, Mary guessed,

at this little compliment. “Why, I always travel with a notebook. And

I ask my way to the picture gallery the very first thing in the

morning. And then I meet men, and talk to them. There’s a man in my

office who knows all about the Flemish school. I was telling Miss

Datchet about the Flemish school. I picked up a lot of it from him—

it’s a way men have—Gibbons, his name is. You must meet him. We’ll

ask him to lunch. And this not caring about art,” he explained,

turning to Mary, “it’s one of Katharine’s poses, Miss Datchet. Did you

know she posed? She pretends that she’s never read Shakespeare. And

why should she read Shakespeare, since she IS Shakespeare—Rosalind,

you know,” and he gave his queer little chuckle. Somehow this

compliment appeared very old-fashioned and almost in bad taste. Mary

actually felt herself blush, as if he had said “the sex” or “the

ladies.” Constrained, perhaps, by nervousness, Rodney continued in the

same vein.

 

“She knows enough—enough for all decent purposes. What do you women

want with learning, when you have so much else—everything, I should

say—everything. Leave us something, eh, Katharine?”

 

“Leave you something?” said Katharine, apparently waking from a brown

study. “I was thinking we must be going—”

 

“Is it to-night that Lady Ferrilby dines with us? No, we mustn’t be

late,” said Rodney, rising. “D’you know the Ferrilbys, Miss Datchet?

They own Trantem Abbey,” he added, for her information, as she looked

doubtful. “And if Katharine makes herself very charming to-night,

perhaps’ll lend it to us for the honeymoon.”

 

“I agree that may be a reason. Otherwise she’s a dull woman,” said

Katharine. “At least,” she added, as if to qualify her abruptness, “I

find it difficult to talk to her.”

 

“Because you expect every one else to take all the trouble. I’ve seen

her sit silent a whole evening,” he said, turning to Mary, as he had

frequently done already. “Don’t you find that, too? Sometimes when

we’re alone, I’ve counted the time on my watch”—here he took out a

large gold watch, and tapped the glass—“the time between one remark

and the next. And once I counted ten minutes and twenty seconds, and

then, if you’ll believe me, she only said ‘Um!’”

 

“I’m sure I’m sorry,” Katharine apologized. “I know it’s a bad habit,

but then, you see, at home—”

 

The rest of her excuse was cut short, so far as Mary was concerned, by

the closing of the door. She fancied she could hear William finding

fresh fault on the stairs. A moment later, the door-bell rang again,

and Katharine reappeared, having left her purse on a chair. She soon

found it, and said, pausing for a moment at the door, and speaking

differently as they were alone:

 

“I think being engaged is very bad for the character.” She shook her

purse in her hand until the coins jingled, as if she alluded merely to

this example of her forgetfulness. But the remark puzzled Mary; it

seemed to refer to something else; and her manner had changed so

strangely, now that William was out of hearing, that she could not

help looking at her for an explanation. She looked almost stern, so

that Mary, trying to smile at her, only succeeded in producing a

silent stare of interrogation.

 

As the door shut for the second time, she sank on to the floor in

front of the fire, trying, now that their bodies were not there to

distract her, to piece together her impressions of them as a whole.

And, though priding herself, with all other men and women, upon an

infallible eye for character, she could not feel at all certain that

she knew what motives inspired Katharine Hilbery in life. There was

something that carried her on smoothly, out of reach—something, yes,

but what?—something that reminded Mary of Ralph. Oddly enough, he

gave her the same feeling, too, and with him, too, she felt baffled.

Oddly enough, for no two people, she hastily concluded, were more

unlike. And yet both had this hidden impulse, this incalculable force

—this thing they cared for and didn’t talk about—oh, what was it?

CHAPTER XV

The village of Disham lies somewhere on the rolling piece of

cultivated ground in the neighborhood of Lincoln, not so far inland

but that a sound, bringing rumors of the sea, can be heard on summer

nights or when the winter storms fling the waves upon the long beach.

So large is the church, and in particular the church tower, in

comparison with the little street of cottages which compose the

village, that the traveler is apt to cast his mind back to the Middle

Ages, as the only time when so much piety could have been kept alive.

So great a trust in the Church can surely not belong to our day, and

he goes on to conjecture that every one of the villagers has reached

the extreme limit of human life. Such are the reflections of the

superficial stranger, and his sight of the population, as it is

represented by two or three men hoeing in a turnip-field, a small

child carrying a jug, and a young woman shaking a piece of carpet

outside her cottage door, will not lead him to see anything very much

out of keeping with the Middle Ages in the village of Disham as it is

to-day. These people, though they seem young enough, look so angular

and so crude that they remind him of the little pictures painted by

monks in the capital letters of their manuscripts. He only half

understands what they say, and speaks very loud and clearly, as

though, indeed, his voice had to carry through a hundred years or more

before it reached them. He would have a far better chance of

understanding some dweller in Paris or Rome, Berlin or Madrid, than

these countrymen of his who have lived for the last two thousand years

not two hundred miles from the City of London.

 

The Rectory stands about half a mile beyond the village. It is a large

house, and has been growing steadily for some centuries round the

great kitchen, with its narrow red tiles, as the Rector would point

out to his guests on the first night of their arrival, taking his

brass candlestick, and bidding them mind the steps up and the steps

down, and notice the immense thickness of the walls, the old beams

across the ceiling, the staircases as steep as ladders, and the

attics, with their deep, tent-like roofs, in which swallows bred, and

once a white owl. But nothing very interesting or very beautiful had

resulted from the different additions made by the different rectors.

 

The house, however, was surrounded by a garden, in which the Rector

took considerable pride. The lawn, which fronted the drawing-room

windows, was a rich and uniform green, unspotted by a single daisy,

and on the other side of it two straight paths led past beds of tall,

standing flowers to a charming grassy walk, where the Rev. Wyndham

Datchet would pace up and down at the same hour every morning, with a

sundial to measure the time for him. As often as not, he carried a

book in his hand, into which he would glance, then shut it up, and

repeat the rest of the ode from memory. He had most of Horace by

heart, and had got into the habit of connecting this particular walk

with certain odes which he repeated duly, at the same time noting the

condition of his flowers, and stooping now and again to pick any that

were withered or overblown. On wet days, such was the power of habit

over him, he rose from his chair at the same hour, and paced his study

for the same length of time, pausing now and then to straighten some

book in the bookcase, or alter the position of the two brass

crucifixes standing upon cairns of serpentine stone upon the

mantelpiece. His children had a great respect for him, credited him

with far more learning than he actually possessed, and saw that his

habits were not interfered with, if possible. Like most people who do

things methodically, the Rector himself had more strength of purpose

and power of self-sacrifice than of intellect or of originality. On

cold and windy nights he rode off to visit sick people, who might need

him, without a murmur; and by virtue of doing dull duties punctually,

he was much employed upon committees and local Boards and Councils;

and at this period of his life (he was sixty-eight) he was beginning

to be commiserated by tender old ladies for the extreme leanness of

his person, which, they said, was worn out upon the roads when it

should have been resting before a comfortable fire. His elder

daughter, Elizabeth, lived with him and managed the house, and already

much resembled him in dry sincerity and methodical habit of mind; of

the two sons one, Richard, was an estate agent, the other,

Christopher, was reading for the Bar. At Christmas, naturally, they

met together; and for a month past the arrangement of the Christmas

week had been much in the mind of mistress and maid, who prided

themselves every year more confidently upon the excellence of their

equipment. The late Mrs. Datchet had left an excellent cupboard of

linen, to which Elizabeth had succeeded at the age of nineteen, when

her mother died, and the charge of the family rested upon the

shoulders of the eldest daughter. She kept a fine flock of yellow

chickens, sketched a little, certain rose-trees in the garden were

committed specially to her care; and what with the care of the house,

the care of the chickens, and the care of the poor, she scarcely knew

what it was to have an idle minute. An extreme rectitude of

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