I wish I were there."
Alicia was not there because the doctor had strongly advised country air and the simple inaction of country life. Alicia had lost her baby only three weeks after its birth--two months ago--and had herself been very ill.
"But I think I shall write to some people and ask them to take pity on me," she added, as they walked slowly through the woods. "Sir John, and Mr. and Mrs. Damian, Gladys le Breton, and Lord Calverly."
"Well!" Peter spoke in his usual tone of easy acquiescence.
Mary walked on a little ahead. What good did it do to trouble her brother uselessly by her impatient look? But how could Peter yield so placidly? Mary respected him too much to allow herself an evil thought of his wife; but Alicia was a person to be talked about. Mary did not doubt that she had been talked about already, and would be more so if she were not careful.
Lord Calverly and Sir John dangling attendance would infallibly cause comment on any woman--let alone the beautiful Mrs. Odd. Yet Peter said, "Well!"
CHAPTER V
The evening did not pa.s.s pleasantly at the Priory. Captain Archinard"s jolliness did not extend to family relationships; he often found family relationships a bore, and the contrasted stodginess of his own surroundings seemed greater after Mrs. Odd"s departure.
He muttered and fumed about the drawing-room after dinner.
He was confoundedly pinched for money, and upon his word he would not be surprised if he should have to sell the horses. "And what my life will be stuck down here without the hunting, I can"t imagine. d.a.m.nable!"
The Captain growled out the last word under his breath in consideration of Katherine and Hilda, who had joined their father and mother after their own tea and a game of lawn-tennis. But Mrs. Archinard was not the woman to allow to pa.s.s unnoticed such a well-founded cause of grievance.
With a look of delicate disgust she laid down the volume of Turgenieff that she was reading.
"Shall I send the children away, Charles? Either they or you had best go, if you are going to talk like that."
"Beg pardon," said the Captain shortly. "No, of course they don"t go."
"I am sure I have few enough enjoyments without being made to suffer because you are to lose one of yours."
"Who asks you to suffer, Kate? But you don"t wait for the asking. You"re only too willing to offer yourself as a _souffre-douleur_ on all occasions."
Then Mrs. Archinard retired behind her book in scornful resignation and, after twenty minutes of silence, the little girls were very glad to get away to bed.
Hilda was just undressed when Mrs. Archinard sent for her to come to her room. Her head ached, and Hilda must brush her hair; it was early yet.
This was a customary task, and one that Hilda prided herself upon accomplishing with sovereign beneficence. Taylor"s touch irritated Mrs.
Archinard; Hilda only was soothing.
In dressing-gown and slippers she ran to her mother"s room.
Mrs. Archinard"s long hair--as black and as fine as Hilda"s--fell over the back of the large arm-chair in which she reclined.
"Such a headache!" she sighed, as Hilda took up the brush and began to pa.s.s it slowly and gently down the length of hair. "It is really brutal of your father to forget my head as he does."
Hilda"s heart sank. The unideal att.i.tude of her father and mother toward one another was one of her great sorrows. Papa was certainly fond of his pretty wife, but he was so fretful and impatient, and mamma so continually grieved. It was all wrong. Hilda had already begun to pa.s.s judgment, unconsciously, on her father; but her almost maternal tenderness for her mother as yet knew no doubt.
"It would be very dreadful if the horses had to go, wouldn"t it?" she said. Her father"s bad temper might be touching if its cause were suggested.
"Of course it would; and so are most things dreadful. I am sure that life is nothing but dreadfulness in every form." Yet Mrs. Archinard was not at all an unhappy woman. Her life was delicately epicurean. She had few wants, but those few were never thwarted. From the early cup of exquisite tea brought to her bedside, through all the day of dilettante lounging over a clever book--a day relieved from monotony by pleasant episodes--dainty dishes especially prepared, visits from acquaintances, with whom she had a reputation for languid cynicism and quite awesome literary and artistic cleverness--to this hour of hair-brushing, few of her moments were not consciously appreciative of the most finely flavored mental and physical enjoyment. But the causes for enjoyment certainly seemed so slight that Mrs. Archinard"s graceful pessimism usually met with universal sympathy. Hilda was very sorry for her mother. To lie all day reading dreary books; condemned to an inaction that cut her off from all the delights of outdoor life, seemed to her tragic. Mrs. Archinard did not undeceive her; indeed, perhaps, the most fascinating of Mrs. Archinard"s artistic occupations was to fancy herself very tragic. Hilda went back to her room much depressed.
The girls slept together, and Katherine was sitting up in her night-gown writing her journal by candlelight and enjoying a sense of talent flowing at all costs--for writing by candlelight was strictly forbidden--as she dotted down what she felt to be a very original and pungent account of the day and the people it had introduced.
When, however, she heard the patter of Hilda"s heedless slippers in the corridor, she blew out the candle in a hurry, pinched the glowing wick, and skipped into bed. She might take an artistic pleasure in braving rules, but Katherine knew that Hilda would have shown an almost dull amazement at her occupation; and although Katherine characterized it as dull, she did not care to arouse it. She wished to stand well in Hilda"s eyes in all things. Hilda must find nothing to criticise in her either mentally or morally.
"What shall we do if the horses are sold?" she exclaimed, as Hilda got into the little bed beside hers. "Only imagine! no hunting next winter!
at least, none for us!"
"Poor papa," Hilda sighed.
"Oh, you may be sure that he will keep one hunter at least, but of course he will be dreadfully cut off from it with only one, and of course our horses will have to go if the worst comes to the worst. You won"t miss it as much as I will, Hilda; the riding, yes, no doubt, but not the hunting. Still Lord Mainwaring will give us a mount, and now that Mr. Odd is here, he will be sure to have a lot of horses. The old squire let everything of that sort run down so, Miss Odd had only two hunters. Well, Hilda, and what do you think of Mr. Odd?"
"Oh, I love him, Katherine!" Hilda lay looking with wide eyes into the soft darkness of the room. The windows were open, and the drawn chintz curtains flapped gently against the sills.
"I wouldn"t say that if I were you, Hilda," Katherine remarked, with some disapproval.
"Why not?" Hilda"s voice held an alarmed note. Katherine was, to a great extent, her mentor.
"It doesn"t sound very--dignified. Of course you are only a little girl, but still--one doesn"t say such things."
"But I do love him; how can one help loving a person who treats one so kindly. And then--anyway--even if he had not been kind to me I should love him, I think."
Hilda would have liked to be able properly to a.n.a.lyze her sensations and win her sister"s approval; but how explain clearly?
"That would be rather foolish," Katherine said, in a tone of kind but restraining wisdom; "one shouldn"t let one"s feelings run away with one like that. Shall I tell you what _I_ think about Mr. Odd?"
"Oh yes, please."
"I think he is like the river where we jumped in to-day--ripples on the top, kindness and smiles, you know--but somewhere in his heart a big hole--a hole with stones and weeds in it." Katherine was quoting from her journal, but Hilda might as well think the simile improvised: Katherine felt some pride in it; it certainly justified, she thought, the conventionally illicit act of the candle.
Hilda lay in silent admiration.
"Oh, Katherine, I never know how I feel things till you tell me like that," she said at last. "How beautiful! Yes, I am sure he has a hole in his heart." And tears came into Hilda"s eyes and into her mind the line:--
"Allone, withouten any companye."
"As for Mrs. Odd," Katherine continued, pleased with the success of her psychology, "she has no heart to make a hole in."
"Katherine, do you think so? How dreadful!"
"She is a thorough egotist. She doesn"t know much either, Hilda, for when Darwin came in she laughed a lot at the name and said she wouldn"t be paid to read him--the real Darwin."
"Perhaps she likes other things best."
"Herself," said Katherine decisively. "Miss Odd of course we have had time to make up our minds about."
"I like her; don"t you? She has such a clear, trustful face."