Robert Elsmere | Page 8

Catherine's eyes caught it there was a quick response in the fine
Madonna-like face.
'Any news for me from the Backhouses this afternoon?' she asked Rose.
'No, I heard of none. How is she?'
'Dying,' said Catherine simply, and stood a moment looking out. Rose
did not interrupt her. She knew that the house from which the light was
shining sheltered a tragedy; she guessed with the vagueness of nineteen
that it was a tragedy of passion and sin; but Catherine had not been
communicative on the subject, and Rose had for some time past set up
a dumb resistance to her sister's 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, Röschen?'
'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.