Robert Elsmere | Page 8

most characteristic ways of life and thought, which prevented her now from asking questions. She wished nervously to give Catherine's extraordinary moral strength no greater advantage over her than she could help.
Presently, however, Catherine threw her arm round her with a tender protectingness.
'What did you do with yourself all the afternoon, R?schen?'
'I practised for two hours,' said the girl shortly, 'and two hours this morning. My Spohr is nearly perfect.'
'And you didn't look into the school?' asked Catherine, hesitating; 'I know Miss Merry expected you.'
'No, I didn't. When one can play the violin and can't teach, any more than a cuckatoo, what's the good of wasting one's time in teaching?'
Catherine did not reply. A minute after Mrs. Leyburn called her, and she went to sit on a stool at her mother's feet, her hands resting on the elder woman's lap, the whole attitude of the tall active figure one of beautiful and childlike abandonment. Mrs. Leyburn wanted to confide in her about a new cap, and Catherine took up the subject with a zest which kept her mother happy till bedtime.
'Why couldn't she take as much interest in my Spohr? thought Rose.
Late that night, long after she had performed all a maid's offices for her mother, Catherine Leyburn was busy in her own room arranging a large cupboard containing medicines and ordinary medical necessaries, a storehouse whence all the simpler emergencies of their end of the valley were supplied. She had put on a white flannel dressing-gown and moved noiselessly about in it, the very embodiment of order, of purity, of quiet energy. The little white-curtained room was bareness and neatness itself. There were a few book-shelves along the walls, holding the books which her father had given her. Over the bed were two enlarged portraits of her parents, and a line of queer little faded monstrosities, representing Rose and Agnes in different stages of childhood. On the table beside the bed was a pile of well-worn books--Keble, Jeremy Taylor, the Bible--connected in the mind of the mistress of the room with the intensest moments of the spiritual life. There was a strip of carpet by the bed, a plain chair or two, a large press; otherwise no furniture that was not absolutely necessary, and no ornaments. And yet, for all its emptiness, the little room in its order and spotlessness had the look and spell of a sanctuary.
When her task was finished Catherine came forward to the infinitesimal dressing-table, and stood a moment before the common cottage looking-glass upon it. The candle behind her showed her the outlines of her head and face in shadow against the white ceiling. Her soft brown hair was plaited high above the broad white brow, giving to it an added stateliness, while it left unmasked the pure lines of the neck. Mrs. Thornburgh and her mother were quite right. Simple as the new arrangement was, it could hardly have been more effective.
But the looking-glass got no smile in return for its information. Catherine Leyburn was young; she was alone; she was being very plainly told that, taken as a whole, she was, or might be at any moment, a beautiful woman. And all her answer was a frown and a quick movement away from the glass. Putting up her hands she began to undo the plaits with haste, almost with impatience; she smoothed the whole mass then set free into the severest order, plaited it closely together, and then, putting out her light, threw herself on her knees beside the window, which was partly open to the starlight and the mountains. The voice of the river far away, wafted from the mist-covered depths of the valley, and the faint rustling of the trees just outside, were for long after the only sounds which broke the silence.
When Catherine appeared at breakfast next morning her hair was plainly gathered into a close knot behind, which had been her way of dressing it since she was thirteen. Agnes threw a quick look at Rose; Mrs. Leyburn, as soon as she had made out through her spectacles what was the matter, broke into warm expostulations.
'It is more comfortable, dear mother, and takes much less time,' said Catherine, reddening.
'Poor Mrs. Thornburgh!' remarked Agnes dryly.
'Oh, Rose will make up!' said Catherine, glancing, not without a spark of mischief in her gray eyes, at Rose's tortured locks; 'and mamma's new cap, which will be superb!'

CHAPTER II
.
About four o'clock on the afternoon of the day which was to be marked in the annals of Long Whindale as that of Mrs. Thornburgh's 'high tea,' that lady was seated in the vicarage garden, her spectacles on her nose, a large _couvre-pied_ over her knees, and the Whinborough newspaper on her lap. The neighborhood of this last enabled her to make an intermittent pretence