The Making of a Prig Part 32

"Talking of babies," observed the Rector, looking up from his book, "I heard this morning that some one was going to be married. Now, whoever could it have been, I wonder!"

"I didn't know," said Katharine, "that any one was left to be married in this village, above the age of sixteen."

"Ah, to be sure," continued the Rector, smiling at his unusual effort of memory, "it was your cousin Marion. You remember Alicia Keeley, do you not, Esther? Well, this is her daughter; they both came to stay with us some years ago, if you remember; and she is to be married to a barrister, whose name--my child, that is the third time I have pa.s.sed you the b.u.t.ter, and you have already helped yourself twice--whose name is Paul Wilton. It's very odd," he added, with his nervous laugh, "but, although the name is perfectly familiar to me, I do not seem to recollect the man in the least. The only Wilton I can recall with certainty is the exceedingly able and scholarly author of our best work on copper tokens; but--"

"Well, this is his son, of course, Cyril," interrupted Miss Esther impatiently. "I should not have thought it required much effort to remember the man who enjoyed your hospitality for at least two months. A very nice young man he was, too,--of an excellent family, and with a delicate regard for propriety which was most fortunate considering the embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances in which we were placed at the time. So he is going to marry into the family? What a coincidence!

I don't remember much about Marion, she was so young when she stayed here; but if she has grown up at all like that terribly advanced mother of hers, poor Mr. Wilton will have his hands full. How did he meet her, I wonder? Did you ever see him in Curzon street, Katharine?"

"Sometimes; they were engaged early in the summer. But it isn't a bit important, is it?" said Katharine.

"You knew they were engaged, and you have kept it to yourself all this time?" exclaimed her aunt. "I really think you are the most exasperating girl, Katharine!"

"Why? I suppose it is rather cruel, though, to rob any one of the smallest piece of gossip, in a place like this," observed Katharine sarcastically.

"To be sure! to be sure! I remember him perfectly," the Rector was chuckling gleefully. "A delightful young fellow, with some knowledge of Oriental china. We must send them a little present, my dear,--something he would be able to appreciate. There is a delightful Elizabethan chest at Walker's--"

"I see no necessity for a wedding present at all," interrupted Miss Esther. "We only know him very slightly, and we haven't seen the Keeleys for years. If Katharine likes to send her cousin a little remembrance, that is her own affair and she can do as she likes," she added, with a princely condescension. "I really wonder, Cyril, that you can make such an extravagant suggestion, with the poor crying out at your very doors!"

The Rector reflected on the beauty of the old oak chest he had coveted for weeks, and sighed deeply. Katharine roused herself, and laughed in a distinctly forced manner.

"Send them your blessing, auntie," she said; "and congratulate Mr.

Wilton on his good fortune in entering our particular family. I am sure it must be an alliance he has coveted ever since he first made our acquaintance! It will only cost a penny stamp, and I am sure the poor of the village will not grudge that for such a laudable object.

Hey-day, do let us talk about something else! Do you know the Grange is put up for sale?"

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Miss Esther, who was as easily diverted as a child. "Dear me! and poor Mrs. Morton hardly laid to her last rest! The want of feeling that that young Edward has shown throughout is almost incredible. To requite the lifelong devotion of his mother by selling her old home a month after her death! Ah, well, I suppose we have all done our work here, and it is time for us to follow her!"

"What rubbis.h.!.+" cried Katharine hotly. "Why should he pretend to be fond of his mother just because she is dead? She was never a bit fond of him, when she was alive, and he wanted her affection badly enough then. Besides, it can't matter to her whether the house is sold or not, and I expect he wants the money."

"Money? Why, she has left him every penny she had,--so what more can he want? I know she did, for a fact, because the housekeeper told me so."

"I shouldn't dream of disputing such an excellent authority, but I do know her generosity was purely accidental, and that she would have made another will if she had not been taken ill so suddenly," said Katharine, getting up and walking to the window. The view outside, with the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, was as cheerless as the conversation within.

"The house ought not to be allowed to stand," said the Rector, with an indignation that he never bestowed on the human imperfections so bitterly deplored by his sister. "A wretched modern thing, belonging to the very worst period of domestic art!"

"They are doing it up," said Katharine from the window. "I wonder,"

she added softly to the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, "if he knows that they have mended the gap in the hedge?" Perhaps it was only the dulness of the weather that was depressing her, but her eyes, as she laid her cheek against the window-pane, were full of tears. Miss Esther continued her speculations unconsciously.

"I suppose he will travel," she said. "It amounts to seven hundred a year, the housekeeper told me; and I'm sure it's seven hundred more than he deserves, the unfeeling fellow!"

"It isn't his fault that he didn't get on with his mother," said Katharine. "People can't choose their relations, can they? And I'm sure, under the present system, every obstacle is put in the way of our hitting it off with our own people."

She was almost surprised at her own vehemence in Ted's defence. She had never seen him since the day he had called on her in Queen's Crescent and rejected the affection she so tardily offered him, and the smart of that rejection was still present with her, gently as he had expressed it; but she could no more suppress her old instinct of protection for him than she could control her thoughts.

"I find it quite impossible to understand you, when you are in these heartless moods," said her aunt crossly.

"Am I heartless?" said Katharine, with her eyes still full of tears.

"I suppose that must be it; I wondered what was the matter with me this afternoon. Of course I am in one of my heartless moods. Oh, dear, how stupid it all is!" She sighed desperately, and turned away from the dreary outlook. "I'm sorry I didn't gather any more news in my excursion to the village," she went on presently, with an obvious effort to be agreeable. "Oh, I forgot,--I met the doctor."

"Yes? What had he to say for himself?" asked Miss Esther, whose dignity was always subject to her curiosity.

"He asked me to marry him, and I refused," answered Katharine; and she broke into a peal of laughter at the immediate effect of her words.

"What? Really, Katharine, you are perfectly incorrigible," said Miss Esther, in a tone that was expressive rather of incredulity than of disapproval.

"It's very odd," observed Katharine, "that one has only to tell the truth to be disbelieved. And I'm sure I was very sorry to be obliged to refuse him, because I felt there was no one else in the place he could possibly ask. Poor doctor!"

Miss Esther said a rapid grace to show how outraged she felt, and walked out of the room without another word. Katharine sighed once more and looked across at her father, who was apparently absorbed in his book and oblivious of what had been pa.s.sing. But Katharine's acquaintance with the world, short as it had been, had considerably widened her vision, and she knew somehow as she looked at him that he was not reading at that moment.

"Daddy, dear daddy!" she cried, impetuously, "I couldn't help it this afternoon, I couldn't, really! I believe I have a devil in me some days, and this is one of them. Daddy, forgive me for being so selfish and horrid; I hate myself for my abominable temper, I do indeed. I think I have never been so miserable in my whole life before!"

"My child, what is it? I don't think I quite understand," said the Rector gently. She came and sat on the arm of his chair, and he stroked her hair mechanically.

"Of course you don't,--how should you?" she exclaimed, half laughing to hide the shake in her voice. "But I wish I knew why I have these bad fits; I would do just anything to get better, but _I can't_! When I don't feel wretched I feel absurd, and that's ever so much worse.

Why is it that I feel like this, daddy?"

"Shall we send for the doctor?" asked the Rector innocently; and he wondered why she seemed amused.

"I don't fancy he would care to come just yet," she said, demurely.

They were silent for a few moments. The Rector asked her presently if she would like to go away again.

"I don't know; I don't seem to want anything. Ivingdon is intolerable; but I said I would endure it for your sake, and it seems so feeble merely to have failed again. After all, I haven't done the least atom of good by giving up my work and coming home, have I?"

The Rector remembered many incidents in the last four months, and did not contradict her; but his silence was so habitual to him that she hardly noticed it.

"Self-sacrifice is all very well in theory," she went on disconsolately, "but if n.o.body wants you to sacrifice yourself, what's the good of it? I don't believe there is a single Christian virtue that works properly, when you come to practise it; and I've wasted four good months in finding it out. Oh, dear, what a mortal idiot I've been! I wish you understood, daddy," she added wistfully.

"I'm not sure that I don't, Kitty," he said tentatively, and waited to be contradicted.

"I believe you do; I believe you always have understood!" she cried.

"But I always expect too much from people, and I never can take any one on trust. How I can be so unlike you is a mystery to me."

"You are like your dear mother, bless her," said the Rector with unconscious humour; and they became silent again.

"Do you know," she went on presently, "if you'd promise not to mind, daddy, I half think I'd like to go away again, for a while. I've still got some money, you know, and I might try Paris, or some new place.

It seems hopeless to stay on here, and worry Aunt Esther by everything I do or say; I know she considers me the cross she has to bear, but it seems a waste of Christian resignation, doesn't it?"

"Paris?" said the Rector with animation. "By all means go to Paris,--the most delightful place in the world! When I was a boy in Paris-- Dear, dear, how it all comes back to me! That was before I was ordained, to be sure; ah, those were days to be remembered! I can give you an introduction to a friend of mine in Paris, Monsieur--Monsieur-- Ah, it's gone now. But I can tell you the names of all his books. A charming fellow; knew everything and did everything; there was nothing too daring for him in those days. You'll get on with him, Kitty; the most delightful companion a man could have, in fact!" The old Rector was laughing like a schoolboy at his reminiscences.

"That's all very well," said Katharine rather cruelly; "but what will Aunt Esther say?"

"Ah," said the Rector, looking about him apprehensively, "there is certainly Esther to be considered."

"Yes, there is!" sighed Katharine. And she added impetuously, "Poor daddy! what a saint you must have been all these years! I wonder why I never realised it before?"

"Oh, no," said the Rector, smiling. "I'm nothing but an old fool, who was never fit to have a daughter at all. Your mother ought to have left me to vegetate among my books, bless her heart!"

Katharine looked at him reflectively.

"I am beginning to understand," she said, in her quaint, thoughtful manner. "It has puzzled me all these months, but you have made it come quite clear at last. I see now what they meant by calling me a prig: it is because I have none of the qualities that would prevent you from ever becoming one."