Robert Elsmere
fanciful skill in Japanese pots of her own providing--suggested the same
family qualities as the room. Frugality, a dainty personal self-respect,
a family consciousness, tenacious of its memories and tenderly careful
of all the little material objects which were to it the symbols of those
memories--clearly all these elements entered into the Leyburn tradition.
And of this tradition, with its implied assertions and denials, clearly
Catherine Leyburn, the elder sister, was, of all the persons gathered in
this little room, the most pronounced embodiment. She sat at the head
of the table, the little basket of her own and her mother's keys beside
her. Her dress was a soft black brocade, with lace collar and cuff,
which had once belonged to an aunt of her mother's. It was too old for
her both in fashion and material, but it gave her a gentle, almost
matronly dignity, which became her. Her long thin hands, full of
character and delicacy, moved nimbly among the cups; all her ways were
quiet and yet decided. It was evident that among this little party she,
and not the plaintive mother, was really in authority. To-night,
however, her looks were specially soft. The scene she had gone through
in the afternoon had left her pale, with traces of patient fatigue round
the eyes and mouth, but all her emotion was gone, and she was devoting
herself to the others, responding with quick interest and ready smiles
to all they had to say, and contributing the little experiences of her
own day in return.
Rose sat on her left hand in yet another gown of strange tint and
archaic outline. Rose's gowns were legion. They were manufactured by a
farmer's daughter across the valley, under her strict and precise
supervision. She was accustomed, as she boldly avowed, to shut herself
up at the beginning of each season of the year for two days' meditation
on the subject. And now, thanks to the spring warmth, she was entering
at last with infinite zest on the results of her April vigils.
Catherine had surveyed her as she entered the room with a smile, but a
smile not altogether to Rose's taste.
'What, another, Roeschen?' she had said, with the slightest lifting of
the eyebrows. 'You never confided that to me. Did you think I was
unworthy of anything so artistic?'
'Not at all,' said Rose calmly, seating herself. 'I thought you were
better employed.'
But a flush flew over her transparent cheek, and she presently threw an
irritated look at Agnes, who had been looking from her to Catherine with
amused eyes.
'I met Mr. Thornburgh and Mr. Elsmere driving from the station,'
Catherine announced presently; 'at least there was a gentleman in a
clerical wideawake, with a portmanteau behind, so I imagine it must have
been he.'
'Did he look promising?' inquired Agnes.
'I don't think I noticed,' said Catherine simply, but with a momentary
change of expression. The sisters, remembering how she had come in upon
them with that look of one 'lifted up,' understood why she had not
noticed, and refrained from further questions.
'Well, it is to be hoped the young man is recovered enough to stand Long
Whindale festivities,' said Rose. 'Mrs. Thornburgh means to let them
loose on his devoted head to-morrow night.'
'Who are coming?' asked Mrs. Leyburn eagerly. The occasional tea parties
of the neighbourhood were an unfailing excitement to her, simply
because, by dint of the small adornings, natural to the occasion, they
showed her daughters to her under slightly new aspects. To see
Catherine, who never took any thought for her appearance, forced to
submit to a white dress, a line of pearls round the shapely throat, a
flower in the brown hair, put there by Rose's imperious fingers; to sit
in a corner well out of draughts, watching the effect of Rose's
half-fledged beauty, and drinking in the compliments of the
neighbourhood on Rose's playing or Agnes's conversation, or Catherine's
practical ability--these were Mrs. Leyburn's passions, and a tea party
always gratified them to the full.
'Mamma asks as if really she wanted an answer,' remarked Agnes drily.
'Dear mother, can't you by now make up a tea party at the Thornburghs
out of your head?'
'The Seatons?' inquired Mrs. Leyburn.
'_Mrs._ Seaton and Miss Barks,' replied Rose. 'The rector won't come.
And I needn't say that, having moved heaven and earth to get Mrs.
Seaton, Mrs. Thornburgh is now miserable because she has got her. Her
ambition is gratified, but she knows that she has spoilt the party.
Well, then, Mr. Mayhew, of course, his son, _and_ his flute.'
'You to play his accompaniments?' put in Agnes slily. Rose's lip curled.
'Not if Miss Barks knows it,' she said emphatically, 'nor if I know it.
The Bakers, of course, ourselves, and the unknown.'
'Dr. Baker is always pleasant,' said Mrs. Leyburn, leaning back and
drawing her white shawl languidly round her. 'He told me the other day,
Catherine, that if it weren't for you he should have to retire. He
regards you as his junior partner. "Marvellous nursing gift your eldest
daughter has, Mrs. Leyburn," he said to me the other day. A most
agreeable man.'
'I wonder if I shall be able to get any candid opinions out of Mr.
Elsmere the day after to-morrow?' said Rose, musing. 'It is difficult to
avoid having an opinion of some sort about Mrs. Seaton.'
'Oxford dons don't gossip and are never candid,' remarked Agnes
severely.
'Then Oxford dons must be very dull,' cried Rose. 'However,' and her
countenance brightened, 'if he stays here four weeks we can teach him.'
Catherine, meanwhile, sat watching the two girls with a soft elder
sister's indulgence. Was it in connection with their bright attractive
looks that the thought flitted through her head, 'I wonder what the
young man will be like?'
'Oh, by the way,' said Rose presently, 'I had nearly forgotten Mrs.
Thornburgh's two messages. I informed her, Agnes, that you had given up
water-colour and meant to try oils, and she told me to implore you not
to, because "water-colour is so _much_ more lady-like than oils." And as
for you, Catherine, she sent you a most special message. I was to tell
you that she just _loved_ the way you had taken to plaiting your hair
lately--that it was exactly like the picture of Jeanie Deans she has in
the drawing-room, and that she would never forgive you if you didn't
plait it so to-morrow night.'
Catherine flushed faintly as she got up from the table.
'Mrs. Thornburgh has eagle-eyes,' she said, moving away to give her arm
to her mother, who looked fondly at her, making some remark in praise of
Mrs. Thornburgh's taste.
'Rose!' cried Agnes indignantly, when the other two had disappeared,
'you and Mrs. Thornburgh have not the sense you were born with. What on
earth did you say that to Catherine for?'
Rose stared; then her face fell a little.
'I suppose it was foolish,' she admitted. Then she leant her head on one
hand and drew meditative patterns on the table-cloth with the other.
'You know, Agnes,' she said presently, looking up, 'there are drawbacks
to having a St. Elizabeth for a sister.'
Agnes discreetly made no reply, and Rose was left alone. She sat
dreaming a few minutes, the corners of the red mouth drooping. Then she
sprang up with a long sigh. 'A little life!' she said half-aloud, 'a
little _wickedness_!' and she shook her curly head defiantly.
A few minutes later, in the little drawing-room on the other side of the
hall, Catherine and Rose stood together by the open window. For the
first time in a lingering spring, the air was soft and balmy; a tender
grayness lay over the valley; it was not night, though above the clear
outlines of the fell the stars were just twinkling in the pale blue. Far
away under the crag on the farther side of High Fell a light was
shining. As Catherine's eyes caught it there was a quick response in the
fine Madonna-like face.
'Any news for me from the Backhouses this afternoon?' she asked Rose.
'No, I heard of none. How is she?'
'Dying,' said Catherine simply, and stood a moment looking out. Rose did
not interrupt her. She knew that the house from which the light was
shining sheltered a tragedy; she guessed with the vagueness of nineteen
that it was a tragedy of passion and sin; but Catherine had not been
communicative on the subject, and Rose had for some time past set up a
dumb resistance to her sister's most characteristic ways of life and
thought, which prevented her now from asking questions. She wished
nervously to give Catherine's extraordinary moral strength no greater
advantage over her than she could help.
Presently, however, Catherine threw her arm round her with a tender
protectingness.
'What did you do with yourself all the afternoon, Roeschen?'
'I practised for two hours,' said the girl shortly, 'and two hours this
morning. My Spohr is nearly perfect.'
'And you didn't look into the school?' asked Catherine, hesitating; 'I
know Miss Merry expected you.'
'No, I didn't. When one can play the violin and can't teach, any more
than a cockatoo, what's the good of wasting one's time in teaching?'
Catherine did not reply. A minute after Mrs. Leyburn called her, and she
went to sit on a stool at her mother's feet, her hands resting on the
elder woman's lap, the whole attitude of the tall active figure one of
beautiful and childlike abandonment. Mrs. Leyburn wanted to confide in
her about a new cap, and Catherine took up the subject with a zest which
kept her mother happy till bedtime.
'Why couldn't she take as much interest in my Spohr?' thought Rose.
Late that night, long after she had performed all a maid's offices for
her mother, Catherine Leyburn was busy in her own room arranging a large
cupboard containing medicines and ordinary medical necessaries, a
storehouse whence all the simpler emergencies of their end of the valley
were supplied. She had put on a white flannel dressing-gown and moved
noiselessly about in it, the very embodiment of order, of purity, of
quiet energy. The little white-curtained room was bareness and neatness
itself. There were a few book-shelves along the walls, holding the books
which her father had given her. Over the bed were two enlarged portraits
of her parents, and a line of queer little faded monstrosities,
representing Rose and Agnes in different stages of childhood. On the
table beside the bed was a pile of well-worn books--Keble, Jeremy
Taylor, the Bible--connected in the mind of the mistress of the room
with the intensest moments of the spiritual life. There was a strip of
carpet by the bed, a plain chair or two, a large press; otherwise no
furniture that was not absolutely necessary, and no ornaments. And yet,
for all its emptiness, the little room in its order and spotlessness had
the look and spell of a sanctuary.
When her task was finished Catherine came forward to the infinitesimal
dressing-table, and stood a moment before the common cottage
looking-glass upon it. The candle behind her showed her the outlines of
her head and face in shadow against the white ceiling. Her soft brown
hair was plaited high above the broad white brow, giving to it an added
stateliness, while it left unmasked the pure lines of the neck. Mrs.
Thornburgh and her mother were quite right. Simple as the new
arrangement was, it could hardly have been more effective.
But the looking-glass got no smile in return for its information.
Catherine Leyburn was young; she was alone; she was being very plainly
told that, taken as a whole, she was, or might be at any moment, a
beautiful woman. And all her answer was a frown and a quick movement
away from the glass. Putting up her hands she began to undo the plaits
with haste, almost with impatience; she smoothed the whole mass then set
free into the severest order, plaited it closely together, and then,