The Dull Miss Archinard Part 6

"She is rather rigid; about as hard on other people as she would be on herself. She could never do anything wrong."

"I don't quite like _that_; being hard on other people, I mean. One could be quite sure about one's own wrongness, but how can one about other people's? It is rather uncharitable, isn't it, Katherine?"

"She isn't very charitable, but she is very just. As for Lord Allan, he is a sort of type, and, therefore, not very entertaining."

"A type of what?"

"Oh, just the eldest son type; very handsome, very honest, very good, with a strong sense of responsibility. Jimmy Hope is just like him, which is a great pity, as one expects a difference in the younger son--more interest."

Katharine went to sleep with a warmly comfortable sense of competence.

She doubted whether many people saw things as clearly as she did.

She was wakened by an unpleasant dreaming scream from Hilda.

"What is the matter, Hilda?" She spoke crossly. "How you startled me."

"Oh, such a horrid dream!" Hilda half sobbed. "How glad I am that it isn't so!"

"What was it?" Katherine asked, still crossly; severity she thought the best att.i.tude towards Hilda's fright.

"About the river, down in the hole; I was choking, and my legs and arms were all tangled in roots."

"Well, go to sleep now," Katherine advised.

Hilda was obediently silent, but presently a small, supplicating voice was heard.

"Katherine--I'm so sorry--don't be angry--might I come to you? I'm so frightened."

"Come along," said Katherine, still severely, but she put her arms very fondly around her s.h.i.+vering sister, snuggled her consolingly and kissed her.

"Silly little Hilda," she said.

CHAPTER VI

Three days before the arrival of Gladys le Breton, Mrs. Marchant, Lord Calverly, and Sir John (the Damians only did not accept Alicia's invitation), Mary Odd astonished her brother.

She came into the library early one morning before breakfast. Odd was there, writing.

"Peter," she said, "last night, before going to bed, I wrote to Mr.

Apswith and accepted him."

Mary always spoke to the point. Peter wheeled round his chair in amazement.

"Accepted Mr. Apswith, Mary?"

"Yes. I always intended to at some time, and I felt that the time had come."

Mr. Apswith, a clever, wealthy M. P., had for years been in love with Miss Odd. Mary was now one-and-thirty, two years older than her brother, and people said that Mr. Apswith had fallen in love when she first came out twelve years ago. Mr. Apswith's patience, perseverance, and fidelity were certainly admirable, but Peter, like most people, had thought that as Mary had, so far, found no difficulty in maintaining her severe independence, it would, in all probability, never yield to Mr. Apswith's ardor.

Mary, however, was a person to keep her own counsel. During her father's lifetime, when much responsibility and many duties had claimed her, she had certainly doubted more than once the possibility of Mr. Apswith's ultimate success; there was a touch of the Diana in Mary, and a great deal of the Minerva. But, since her father's death, since Peter's bridal home-coming, Mary often found herself thinking of Mr. Apswith, her fundamental sympathy with him on all things, her real loneliness and his devotion. They had corresponded for years, and often saw one another.

Familiarity had not bred contempt, but rather strengthened mutual trust and dependence. A certain tone of late in Mary's letters had called forth from Mr. Apswith a most domineering and determined love-letter.

Mary had yielded to it--gladly, as she now realized. Yet her heart yearned over Peter. He got up now, and kissed her.

"Mary, my dear girl"--he could hardly find words--"may you be very, very happy. You deserve it; so does he."

Neither touched, as they talked of the wonderful decision, on the fact that by it Peter would be left to the solitary companions.h.i.+p of his wife; it was not a fact to be touched on. Mary longed to fling her arms around his neck and cry on his shoulder. Her happiness made his missing it so apparent, but she shrank from emphasizing their mutual knowledge.

"We must ask Apswith down at once," said Odd. "It's a busy session, but he can manage a few days."

"Well, Peter, that is hardly necessary. I shall go up to London within the week. Lady Mainwaring asked me to go to Paris with her on the 20th.

She stops in London for three days. I shall see Mr. Apswith there, get my trousseau in Paris, and be married in July, in about six weeks' time.

Delay would be rather silly--he has waited so long."

"You take my breath away, Mary. I am selfish, I own. I don't like to lose you."

"It isn't losing me, Peter dear. We shall see a lot of one another. I shall be married from here, of course. Mr. Apswith will stop with the Mainwarings."

When Mary left him, Peter resumed his seat, and even went on writing for a few moments. Then he put down the pen and stretched himself, as one does when summoning courage. He did not lack courage, yet he owned to himself that Mary's prospective departure sickened him. Her grave, even character had given him a sense of supporting sympathy; he needed a sympathetic atmosphere; and Alicia's influence was a very air-pump. Poor Alicia, thought Odd. The sense of his own despair struck him as rather unmanly. He looked out of the open window at the lawn, its cool, green stretches whitened with the dew; the rooks were cawing in the trees, and his thoughts went back suddenly to a certain morning in London, not two months ago, just after the baby's death and just before Alicia's departure for the Riviera.

Alicia was lying on the sofa--Peter staring at the distant trees, did not see them but that scene--her magnificent health had made lying on sofas very uncharacteristic, and Odd had been struck with a gentle sort of compunction at the sight of the bronze head on the pillow, the thin white cheek. His heart was very heavy. The paternal instincts are not said to be strong; Odd had not credited himself with possessing them in any elevated form. Yet, now that the poor baby was dead, he realized how keen had been his interest in the little face, how keen the half-animal pleasure in the clinging of the tiny fingers, and as he looked at the baby in its small white coffin, he had realized, too, with a pang of longing that the little white face, like a flower among the flowers about it, was that of his child--dead.

On that morning he bent over Alicia with something of the lover's tenderness in his heart, though Alicia had very nearly wrung all tenderness out of it.

"My dear girl, my poor, dear girl," he said, kissing her; and he sat down beside her on the sofa and smoothed back her hair. Alicia looked up at him with those wonderful eyes--looked up with a smile.

"Oh, I shall be all right soon enough, Peter."

Peter put his arm under her head and looked hard at her--her beauty entranced him as it had done from the beginning.

"Alicia, Alicia, do you love me?" His earnestness pleased her; she felt in it her own power.

"What a thing to ask, Peter. Did you ever imagine I didn't?"

"Shall it bring us together, my wife, the death of our child? Will you feel for my sorrow as I feel for yours, my poor darling?"

"Feel for you, Peter? Why, of course I do. It is especially hard on you, too, losing your heir."

Her look, her words crushed all the sudden impulse of resolve, hope, love even.

"My heir?" Peter repeated, in a stumbling tone. "That has nothing to do with it. I wasn't thinking of that."

"Weren't you?" said Alicia, rather wearily. She felt her weakness, it irked her, and her next words were more fretfully uttered--

"Of course I know you feel for me. Such a lot to go through, too, and for nothing." She saw the pain setting her husband's lips sternly. "I suppose now, Peter, that you are imagining I care nothing about baby,"