Chapter X: A Surprise Visit

"WELL, I never!" ejaculated Jane Morris. "If that isn't a sell!"

She had donned her yellow silk blouse and a gorgeous hat, and was about to cycle to a gathering of Lynnbrooke cronies, when checked by a sudden downpour of rain. Till within the last twenty minutes the sun had shone, and nothing had been farther from her thoughts than weather.

In a trice the outer scene was transformed. Beneath a blackened sky trees bent low before the gale, and water poured in sheets. Miles of cycling under such conditions would reduce her to the drowned-rat stage.

She stood at the window in disgust.

"Plague take it! Always the way! Just the very afternoon when I was most set on going!"

"Why this afternoon?" asked Winnie. Each change in the atmosphere affected her fragile frame, and she was full of aches from head to foot. The soft eyes looked out from dark rings of pain; and a thick shawl could not keep her warm. The two were alone.

"Why? I like that! Anything to get away from this beastly hole. Nothing to do, and nobody to see! That's why."

"But why to-day particularly?"

"Oh, because—because there's a tea-party. You needn't tell mother. She only bothers."

"A tea-party where?"

"Some people I've got to know. Doesn't matter who. You don't know one from another, always mewed up here. I can't think how you put up with it. The life would drive me crazy. Well, I don't mind if I tell, only you're not to blab." Since Jane could not escape, she felt the need for a confidante. "It's at the Sparks'—Mr. Andrew Sparks and his wife. They've got a dairy, and the Parkinses are their cousins. That's how I've got to know them."

"You said there was a young Parkins."

Jane giggled.

"Well, so there is. And a young Mr. Jones. I shouldn't wonder if they'd both be there."

"Jones is the butcher."

Jane nodded.

"And there's a Mr. Winter too. I like him best. He's as clever as anything."

"You know what the Squire said," murmured Winnie.

Jane snapped derisive fingers.

"I wouldn't give that for the Squire!" she declared. "I say!—here come folks. Caught in the storm, I suppose. Goodness me—it's Miss Stirling and Miss Winton, and that fine new widow-lady—Mrs. Brutt." Jane knew by sight pretty nearly everyone within a compass of ten miles.

A ring demanded admittance; and the three ladies crowded into the narrow passage, thankful to escape from a fresh downpour. They had left the carriage at the beginning of the grass-path; and when half-way through the meadow had been overtaken by such a pelt, that they had found shelter in a shed. A slight lessening had encouraged them to hurry on; and Mrs. Brutt was breathless with the final rush.

"What a deluge!" she panted, glancing ruefully down at her handsome silk. "Really, it is quite a mercy that we were so near the farm. We should have been soaked to the skin in the open carriage,—without even umbrellas."

"I hope Thomas will find shelter somewhere till the storm is over," Katherine said in her gentle indifferent voice, as she turned to meet a woman coming downstairs. "Mrs. Morris?" she asked.

Mrs. Morris's "Yes" was sufficiently curt.

Katherine held out a hand, with her distant graciousness, and it was taken slowly.

"I have only just heard of your being here. Once, long ago, you nursed me, I think, through a long illness, when I was a little child. You were—Nurse Molly."

"That's the name I went by."

"I came this way on purpose to see you—not thinking that we should be so glad to escape from the rain. It was fine when we started." Katherine smiled kindly; but no response was visible on the expressionless face. "I cannot of course remember you, but—" she hesitated, thrown back by the other's immobility—"I have always heard that I owed my life to your care; and I wished to thank you." As she said the words, Katherine silently wondered—was it a thing to be thankful for, this life which meant such a stretch of pain lying ahead, if things went as she feared? Then she rebuked herself for the thought.

"I suppose so." No look of pleasure lighted up the dull plain features; and Mrs. Brutt was deciding that reports of Nurse Morris's good looks were pure romance. "You'd like to come in," Mrs. Morris said, and she led the way into the long low sitting-room. Jane followed, and Winnie stood up, having thrown aside her shawl.

"Are these your daughters?" Katherine glanced from the freckled Jane to the delicately fair Winnie.

"Yes."

"I hope Farmer Paine is well."

"He's quite well."

Katherine's conversational powers, never great, were at an end. Doris, still in a retiring mood, had retreated to a window. Mrs. Brutt saw her opportunity, and came forward.

"What a perfectly charming spot this must be, when the sun shines! One always needs sunshine, doesn't one?—especially in the country." She beamed round upon them all. "Dear me, what glorious sunsets you must see from this window!"

"Looks east," stolidly remarked Mrs. Morris.

"Ah—sunrises, I should have said. And of course you are all up by sunrise. So different, farm-life from town-life, isn't it? Six o'clock in winter; four o'clock in summer. So deliciously primitive! So patriarchal! The Simple Life, in fact. Exactly what I should love to do myself." She breakfasted between half-past nine and ten; but that was a detail.

Katherine, relieved to have the burden of talk-making lifted from her shoulders, sat near in her attitude of gentle reserve, chiming in with an occasional murmur of assent. Mrs. Brutt was delighted to take the lead.

"You seem so out of the world here! So forgetting and forgot. A perfect Arcadia. Plenty of time for thought and study."

"Beastly dull," muttered Jane. For once the elder girl was under a curb; the curb of Miss Stirling's presence. She might snap her fingers at the Squire behind his back; but she could not do so at the Squire's niece. Katherine, despite shyness and humility, had it in her to abash others; and with no apparent effort on her part, but simply because she meant it, Jane was abashed.

Mrs. Brutt felt round for a fresh topic.

"Dear me, what a charming old cabinet!" She started up. "I really must look at it more closely. How interesting! Real old oak!—and such exquisite carving! Quite a treasure. At the very least two hundred years old, I should say."

"It isn't oak."

"Not oak!" Mrs. Brutt seemed rather taken aback. "But really I think you must be mistaken. Such a genuine piece of old work. It must have been in the family from time immemorial."

Mrs. Morris said "Yes" to this, perhaps misunderstanding. She added, "I saw it made, thirty years ago."

"Really! Not more than thirty years! Extraordinary! But one comes across such wonderfully clever imitations in these days. Quite deceptive." Mrs. Brutt quitted rather hastily the immemorial cabinet, moving towards Winnie. "Your daughter looks very delicate. Not lungs, I hope."

"Rheumatism." Mrs. Morris seemed bent on wasting no needless words.

"Is that all? Trying, no doubt, but not a thing to be anxious about. I have a remedy at home which never fails to cure rheumatism. It is most efficacious. I shall bring it with me the first day I can manage to get so far."

Winnie smiled. She had tried so many infallible remedies. Mrs. Brutt glanced from the one girl to the other. "And these are your only daughters, Mrs. Morris?"

"Yes."

"And no son?"

The indistinct response might have been either "Yes" or "No." Mrs. Brutt decided to accept it as a negative.

"But how nice for you to have two dear good girls, able to look after you, and to help in all the farm work. It must be so charming. Quite idyllic!" When Mrs. Brutt came across what she counted an impressive word, she was apt to work it to death; and for the time being "idyllic" was in the ascendant. "So interesting!—with all the animals about—dear dumb creatures! I dote on animals, don't you? So delightful to study their pretty little ways!"

Doris, recalling the speaker's dread of cattle, supposed that the pretty little ways of cows were not included.

Rain still poured without intermission, and Mrs. Brutt began to feel exhausted. Making conversation to an unresponsive world uses one's energies fast. Katherine, too, was tired of her present position, and both were glad when the footman appeared, in a dripping condition.

"Would Miss Stirling go home in the carriage—or would she prefer a closed fly from the village?"

"A fly certainly, and as soon as possible," decided Katherine.