Night and Day
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 mind, rather than any
gift, gave her weight in the family. When Mary wrote to say that she
had asked Ralph Denham to stay with them, she added, out of deference
to Elizabeth’s character, that he was very nice, though rather queer,
and had been overworking himself in London. No doubt Elizabeth would
conclude that Ralph was in love with her, but there could be no doubt
either that not a word of this would be spoken by either of them,
unless, indeed, some catastrophe made mention of it unavoidable.
Mary went down to Disham without knowing whether Ralph intended to
come; but two or three days before Christmas she received a telegram
from Ralph, asking her to take a room for him in the village. This was
followed by a letter explaining that he hoped he might have his meals
with them; but quiet, essential for his work, made it necessary to
sleep out.
Mary was walking in the garden with Elizabeth, and inspecting the
roses, when the letter arrived.
“But that’s absurd,” said Elizabeth decidedly, when the plan was
explained to her. “There are five spare rooms, even when the boys are
here. Besides, he wouldn’t get a room in the village. And he oughtn’t
to work if he’s overworked.”
“But perhaps he doesn’t want to see so much of us,” Mary thought to
herself, although outwardly she assented, and felt grateful to
Elizabeth for supporting her in what was, of course, her desire. They
were cutting roses at the time, and laying them, head by head, in a
shallow basket.
“If Ralph were here, he’d find this very dull,” Mary thought, with a
little shiver of irritation, which led her to place her rose the wrong
way in the basket. Meanwhile, they had come to the end of the path, and
while Elizabeth straightened some flowers, and made them stand upright
within their fence of string, Mary looked at her father, who was pacing
up and down, with his hand behind his back and his head bowed in
meditation. Obeying an impulse which sprang from some desire to
interrupt this methodical marching, Mary stepped on to the grass walk
and put her hand on his arm.
“A flower for your buttonhole, father,” she said, presenting a rose.
“Eh, dear?” said Mr. Datchet, taking the flower, and holding it at an
angle which suited his bad eyesight, without pausing in his walk.
“Where does this fellow come from? One of Elizabeth’s roses—I hope you
asked her leave. Elizabeth doesn’t like having her roses picked without
her leave, and quite right, too.”
He had a habit, Mary remarked, and she had never noticed it so clearly
before, of letting his sentences tail away in a continuous murmur,
whereupon he passed into a state of abstraction, presumed by his
children to indicate some train of thought too profound for utterance.
“What?” said Mary, interrupting, for the first time in her life,
perhaps, when the murmur ceased. He made no reply. She knew very well
that he wished to be left alone, but she stuck to his side much as she
might have stuck to some sleep-walker, whom she thought it right
gradually to awaken. She could think of nothing to rouse him with
except:
“The garden’s looking very nice, father.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Mr. Datchet, running his words together in the
same abstracted manner, and sinking his head yet lower upon his breast.
And suddenly, as they turned their steps to retrace their way, he
jerked out:
“The traffic’s very much increased, you know. More rolling-stock needed
already. Forty trucks went down yesterday by the 12.15—counted them
myself. They’ve taken off the 9.3, and given us an 8.30 instead—suits
the business men, you know. You came by the old 3.10 yesterday, I
suppose?”
She said “Yes,” as he seemed to wish for a reply, and then he looked at
his watch, and made off down the path towards the house, holding the
rose at the same angle in front of him. Elizabeth had gone round to the
side of the house, where the chickens lived, so that Mary found herself
alone, holding Ralph’s letter in her hand. She was uneasy. She had put
off the season for thinking things out very successfully, and now that
Ralph was actually coming, the next day, she could only wonder how her
family would impress him. She thought it likely that her father would
discuss the train service with him; Elizabeth would be bright and
sensible, and always leaving the room to give messages to the servants.
Her brothers had already said that they would give him a day’s
shooting. She was content to leave the problem of Ralph’s relations to
the young men obscure, trusting that they would find some common ground
of masculine agreement. But what would he think of _her?_ Would he see
that she was different from the rest of the family? She devised a plan
for taking him to her sitting-room, and artfully leading the talk
towards the English poets, who now occupied prominent places in her
little bookcase. Moreover, she might give him to understand, privately,
that she, too, thought her family a queer one—queer, yes, but not dull.
That was the rock past which she was bent on steering him. And she