Robert Elsmere Part 21

'_Because she won't have him!_' said Mrs. Thornburgh energetically, leaning over the arm of her chair that she might bring herself nearer to her companion.

The fatuity of the answer left Mrs. Leyburn staring.

'Because she won't have him, my dear Mrs. Leyburn! And--and--I'm sure nothing would make me interfere like this if I weren't so fond of you all, and if William and I didn't know for certain that there never was a better young man born! And then I was just sure you'd be the last person in the world, if you knew, to stand in young people's way!'

'_I!_' cried poor Mrs. Leyburn--'I stand in the way!' She was getting tremulous and tearful, and Mrs. Thornburgh felt herself a brute.

'Well,' she said, plunging on desperately, 'I have been thinking over it night and day. I've been watching him, and I've been talking to the girls, and I've been putting two and two together, and I'm just about sure that there might be a chance for Robert, if only Catherine didn't feel that you and the girls couldn't get on without her!'

Mrs. Leyburn took up her knitting again with agitated fingers. She was so long in answering that Mrs. Thornburgh sat and thought with trepidation of all sorts of unpleasant consequences which might result from this audacious move of hers.

'I don't know how we _should_ get on,' cried Mrs. Leyburn at last, with a sort of suppressed sob, while something very like a tear fell on the stocking she held.

Mrs. Thornburgh was still more frightened, and rushed into a flood of apologetic speech. Very likely she was wrong, perhaps it was all a mistake, she was afraid she had done harm, and so on. Mrs. Leyburn took very little heed, but at last she said, looking up and applying a soft handkerchief gently to her eyes--

'Is his mother nice? Where's his living? Would he want to be married soon?'

The voice was weak and tearful, but there was in it unmistakable eagerness to be informed. Mrs. Thornburgh, overjoyed, let loose upon her a flood of particulars, painted the virtues and talents of Mrs. Elsmere, described Robert's Oxford career, with an admirable sense for effect, and a truly feminine capacity for murdering every university detail, drew pictures of the Murewell living and rectory, of which Robert had photographs with him, threw in adroit information about the young man's private means, and in general showed what may be made of a woman's mind under the stimulus of one of the occupations most proper to it. Mrs.

Leyburn brightened visibly as the flood proceeded. Alas, poor Catherine!

How little room there is for the heroic in this trivial everyday life of ours!

Catherine a bride, Catherine a wife and mother, dim visions of a white soft morsel in which Catherine's eyes and smile should live again--all these thoughts went trembling and flashing through Mrs. Leyburn's mind as she listened to Mrs. Thornburgh. There is so much of the artist in the maternal mind, of the artist who longs to see the work of his hand in fresh combinations and under all points of view. Catherine, in the heat of her own self-surrender, had perhaps forgotten that her mother too had a heart!

'Yes, it all sounds very well,' said Mrs. Leyburn at last, sighing, 'but, you know, Catherine isn't easy to manage.'

'Could you talk to her--find out a little?'

'Well, not to-day; I shall hardly see her. Doesn't it seem to you that when a girl takes up notions like Catherine's, she hasn't time for thinking about the young men? Why, she's as full of business all day long as an egg's full of meat. Well, it was my poor Richard's doing--it was his doing, bless him! I am not going to say anything against it. But it _was_ different--once.'

'Yes, I know,' said Mrs. Thornburgh thoughtfully. 'One had plenty of time, when you and I were young, to sit at home and think what one was going to wear, and how one would look, and whether _he_ had been paying attention to any one else; and if he had, why; and all that. And now the young women are so superior. But the marrying has got to be done somehow all the same. What is she doing to-day?'

'Oh, she'll be busy all to-day and to-morrow; I hardly expect to see her till Sat.u.r.day.'

Mrs. Thornburgh gave a start of dismay.

'Why, what _is_ the matter now?' she cried in her most aggrieved tones.

'My dear Mrs. Leyburn, one would think we had the cholera in the parish.

Catherine just spoils the people.'

'Don't you remember,' said Mrs. Leyburn, staring in her turn, and drawing herself up a little, 'that to-morrow is Midsummer Day, and that Mary Backhouse is as bad as she can be?'

'Mary Backhouse! Why, I had forgotten all about her!' cried the vicar's wife, with sudden remorse. And she sat pensively eyeing the carpet awhile.

Then she got what particulars she could out of Mrs. Leyburn. Catherine, it appeared, was at this moment at High Ghyll, was not to return till late, and would be with the dying girl through the greater part of the following day, returning for an hour or two's rest in the afternoon, and staying in the evening till the twilight, in which the ghost always made her appearances, should have pa.s.sed into night.

Mrs. Thornburgh listened to it all, her contriving mind working the while at railway speed on the facts presented to her.

'How do you get her home to-morrow night?' she asked, with sudden animation.

'Oh, we send our man Richard at ten. He takes a lantern if it's dark.'

Mrs. Thornburgh said no more. Her eyes and gestures were all alive again with energy and hope. She had given her shake to Mrs. Leyburn's mind.

Much good might it do! But, after all, she had the poorest opinion of the widow's capacities as an ally.

She and her companion said a few more excited, affectionate, and apologetic things to one another, and then she departed.

Both mother and knitting were found by Agnes half an hour later in a state of considerable confusion. But Mrs. Leyburn kept her own counsel, having resolved for once, with a timid and yet delicious excitement, to act as the head of the family.

Meanwhile Mrs. Thornburgh was laying plans on her own account.

'Ten o'clock--moonlight,' said that contriving person to herself going home--'at least if the clouds hold up--that'll do--couldn't be better.'

To any person familiar with her character the signs of some unusual preoccupation were clear enough in Mrs. Leyburn during this Thursday evening. Catherine noticed them at once when she got back from High Ghyll about eight o'clock, and wondered first of all what was the matter; and then, with more emphasis, why the trouble was not immediately communicated to her. It had never entered into her head to take her mother into her confidence with regard to Elsmere. Since she could remember, it had been an axiom in the family to spare the delicate nervous mother all the anxieties and perplexities of life. It was a system in which the subject of it had always acquiesced with perfect contentment, and Catherine had no qualms about it. If there was good news, it was presented in its most sugared form to Mrs. Leyburn; but the moment any element of pain and difficulty cropped up in the common life, it was pounced upon and appropriated by Catherine, aided and abetted by the girls, and Mrs. Leyburn knew no more about it than an unweaned babe.

So that Catherine was thinking at most of some misconduct of a Perth dyer with regard to her mother's best gray poplin, when one of the greatest surprises of her life burst upon her.

She was in Mrs. Leyburn's bedroom that night, helping to put away her mother's things, as her custom was. She had just taken off the widow's cap, caressing as she did so the brown hair underneath, which was still soft and plentiful, when Mrs. Leyburn turned upon her. 'Catherine!' she said in an agitated voice, laying a thin hand on her daughter's arm.

'Oh, Catherine, I want to speak to you!'

Catherine knelt lightly down by her mother's side, and put her arms round her waist.

'Yes, mother darling,' she said, half smiling.

'Oh, Catherine! if--if--you like Mr. Elsmere, don't mind--don't think--about us, dear. We can manage--we can manage, dear!'

The change that took place in Catherine Leyburn's face is indescribable.

She rose instantly, her arms falling behind her, her beautiful brows drawn together. Mrs. Leyburn looked up at her with a pathetic mixture of helplessness, alarm, entreaty.

'Mother, who has been talking to you about Mr. Elsmere and me?' demanded Catherine.

'Oh, never mind, dear, never mind,' said the widow hastily; 'I should have seen it myself--oh, I know I should; but I'm a bad mother, Catherine!' And she caught her daughter's dress and drew her towards her. '_Do_ you care for him?'

Catherine did not answer. She knelt down again, and laid her head on her mother's hands.

'I want nothing,' she said presently in a low voice of intense emotion--'I want nothing but you and the girls. You are my life, I ask for nothing more. I am abundantly--content.'

Mrs. Leyburn gazed down on her with infinite perplexity. The brown hair, escaped from the cap, had fallen about her still pretty neck, a pink spot of excitement was on each gently-hollowed cheek; she looked almost younger than her pale daughter.

'But--he is very nice,' she said timidly. 'And he has a good living.

Catherine, you ought to be a clergyman's wife.'

'I ought to be, and I am your daughter,' said Catherine, smiling a little with an unsteady lip, and kissing her hand.

Mrs. Leyburn sighed and looked straight before her. Perhaps in imagination she saw the vicar's wife. 'I think--I think,' she said very seriously, 'I should like it!'

Catherine straightened herself brusquely at that. It was as though she had felt a blow.