Part 19 (1/2)

”Monica, was your mother _unkind_ to you?” says Miss Penelope, in a voice full of anguish. After all these years, is the Katherine of their affections to be dragged in the dust?

Monica hesitates. She can see the grief in her aunt's face, and cannot bear to add to it. The truth is that the late Mrs. Beresford had _not_ been beloved by her children, for reasons which it will be possible to conceive, but which would be tiresome to enumerate here. Perhaps there seldom had been a more careless or disagreeable mother.

So Monica pauses, flushes, glances nervously from right to left, and then back again, and finally rests her loving, regretful eyes full upon Miss Penelope's agitated face.

Something she sees there decides her. Sinking to her knees, she flings her arms around the old lady's neck, and lays her cheek to hers.

”I will say nothing, but that I am happy _here_,” she says, in a low whisper.

Miss Penelope's arms close round her. The worst has come to her; yet there is solace in this clinging embrace, and in the dewy lips that seek hers. If she has lost one idol, who can say she has not gained another, and perhaps a worthier one?

Yet beyond doubt the two old ladies have sustained a severe shock: they hold down their heads, and for a long time avoid each other's eyes, as though fearing what may there be seen.

”Let us walk round the garden, Aunt Priscilla,” says Monica, feeling very sorry for them. ”The evening is lovely, and the roses so sweet.”

”Come then,” says Miss Priscilla, who is perhaps glad to escape from her own thoughts. And so they all wander to and fro in the pretty garden, bending over this flower and lingering over that in a soft, idle sort of enjoyment that belongs alone to the country.

Terence had disappeared, but, as he is not great on flowers, his presence is not indispensable, and no one takes any notice of his defection.

Presently they come upon the old gardener, who is also the old coachman, upon his bended knees beside a bed. The whole garden is scrupulously raked and scrupulously weeded till not a fault can be found. But Miss Priscilla is one of those who deem it necessary always to keep a servant up to his trumps.

Stooping over the bed, therefore, she carefully adjusts her gla.s.ses upon her nose, and proceeds to examine with much minuteness the earth beneath her. A tiny green leaf attracts her notice.

”Corney, is that a _weed_?” she asks, severely. ”I certainly remember sowing some seeds in this place; but _that_ has a weedy look.”

”It's seeds, miss,” says Corney, ”Ye'd know it by the curl of it.”

”I hope so, I _hope_ so,” says Miss Priscilla, doubtfully, ”but there's a common cast about it. It reminds me of groundsel. Corney, whatever you do, don't grow careless.”

”Faix, I'm too ould a hand for that, miss,” says Corney. ”But, to tell the truth, I think myself, now, not to desaive ye, that the leaf ye mentioned is uncommon like the groundsel. You ought to be proud of yer eyes, Miss Priscilla; they're as clear as they were twinty years ago.”

Greatly mollified by this compliment, Miss Priscilla declines to scold any more, and, the groundsel forgotten, moves onward to a smooth piece of sward on which a cartload of large white stones from the seash.o.r.e has been ruthlessly thrown.

”What is this?” she says, indignantly, eying the stones with much disfavor. ”Corney, come here! Who flung those stones down on my green gra.s.s?”

”The rector, miss. He sent his man wid a load of 'em, and 'tis there they left 'em.”

”A most unwarrantable proceeding!” says Miss Priscilla, who is in her managing mood. ”What did Mr. Warren mean by that?”

”Don't you think it was kind of him to draw them for our rookery, my dear Priscilla?” says Miss Penelope, suggestively.

”No, I don't,” says Miss Priscilla. ”To bring cartloads of nasty large stones and fling them down upon my velvet gra.s.s on which I pride myself (though _you_ may think nothing of it, Penelope) is _not_ kind. I must say it was anything but nice,--anything but gentlemanly.”

”My dear, he is quite a gentleman, and a very good man.”

”That may be. I suppose I am not so uncharitable as to be rebuked for every little word; but to go about the country destroying people's good gra.s.s, for which I paid a s.h.i.+lling a pound, is _not_ gentlemanly.

Katherine, what are you laughing at?”

”At the stones,” says Kit.

”There is nothing to laugh at in a stone. Don't be silly, Katherine. I wonder, Monica, you don't make it the business of your life to instil some sense into that child. The idea of standing still to laugh at a _stone_.”