To tell the truth, Henry laboured under the same difficulty; he did not wish to introduce Katharine’s name, and, therefore, he replied vaguely that he had always heard that Rodney was a great rider. In truth, he had heard very little about him, one way or another, accepting him as a figure often to be found in the background at his aunt’s house, and inevitably, though inexplicably, engaged to his cousin.
‘I don’t care much for shooting,’ Rodney continued; ‘but one has to do it, unless one wants to be altogether out of things. I dare say there’s some very pretty country round here. I stayed once at Bolham Hall. Young Cranthorpe was up with you, wasn’t he? He married old Lord Bolham’s daughter. Very nice people—in their way.’
‘I don’t mix in that society,’ Henry remarked, rather shortly. But Rodney, now started on an agreeable current of reflection, could not resist the temptation of pursuing it a little further. He appeared to himself as a man who moved easily in very good society, and knew enough about the true values of life to be himself above it.
‘Oh, but you should,’ he went on. ‘It’s well worth staying there, anyhow, once a year. They make one very comfortable, and the women are ravishing.’
‘The women?’ Henry thought to himself, with disgust. ‘What could any woman see in you?’ His tolerance was rapidly becoming exhausted, but he could not help liking Rodney nevertheless, and this appeared to him strange, for he was fastidious, and such words in another mouth would have condemned the speaker irreparably. He began, in short, to wonder what kind of creature this man who was to marry his cousin might be. Could any one, except a rather singular character, afford to be so ridiculously vain?
‘I don’t think I should get on in that society,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think I should know what to say to Lady Rose if I met her.’
‘I don’t find any difficulty,’ Rodney chuckled. ‘You talk to them about their children, if they have any, or their accomplishments—painting, gardening, poetry—they’re so delightfully sympathetic. Seriously, you know I think a woman’s opinion of one’s poetry is always worth having. Don’t ask them for their reasons. Just ask them for their feelings. Katharine, for example—’
‘Katharine,’ said Henry, with an emphasis upon the name, almost as if he resented Rodney’s use of it, ‘Katharine is very unlike most women.
‘Quite,’ Rodney agreed. ‘She is—’ He seemed about to describe her, and he hesitated for a long time. ‘She’s looking very well,’ he stated, or rather almost inquired, in a different tone from that in which he had been speaking. Henry bent his head.
‘But, as a family, you’re given to moods, eh?’
‘Not Katharine,’ said Henry, with decision.
‘Not Katharine,’ Rodney repeated, as if he weighed the meaning of the words. ‘No, perhaps you’re right. But her engagement has changed her. Naturally,’ he added, ‘one would expect that to be so.’ He waited for Henry to confirm this statement, but Henry remained silent.
‘Katharine has had a difficult life, in some ways,’ he continued. ‘I expect that marriage will be good for her. She has great powers.’
‘Great,’ said Henry, with decision.
‘Yes-but now what direction d’you think they take?’
Rodney had completely dropped his pose as a man of the world and seemed to be asking Henry to help him in a difficulty.
‘I don’t know,’ Henry hesitated cautiously.
‘D’you think children—a household—that sort of thing—d‘you think that’ll satisfy her? Mind, I’m out all day.’
‘She would certainly be very competent,’ Henry stated.
‘Oh, she’s wonderfully competent,’ said Rodney. ‘But—I get absorbed in my poetry. Well, Katharine hasn’t got that. She admires my poetry, you know, but that wouldn’t be enough for her?’
‘No,’ said Henry. He paused. ‘I think you’re right,’ he added, as if he were summing up his thoughts. ‘Katharine hasn’t found herself yet. Life isn’t altogether real to her yet—I sometimes think—’
‘Yes?’ Rodney inquired, as if he were eager for Henry to continue. ‘That is what I—’ he was going on, as Henry remained silent, but the sentence was not finished, for the door opened, and they were interrupted by Henry’s younger brother Gilbert, much to Henry’s relief, for he had already said more than he liked.
CHAPTER XVII
WHEN THE SUN SHONE, as it did with unusual brightness that Christmas week, it revealed much that was faded and not altogether well-kept-up in Stogdon House and its grounds. In truth, Sir Francis had retired from service under the Government of India with a pension that was not adequate, in his opinion, to his services, as it certainly was not adequate to his ambitions. His career had not come up to his expectations, and although he was a very fine, white-whiskered, mahogany-coloured old man to look at, and had laid down a very choice cellar of good reading and good stories, you could not long remain ignorant of the fact that some thunder-storm had soured them; he had a grievance. This grievance dated back to the middle years of the last century, when, owing to some official intrigue, his merits had been passed over in a disgraceful manner in favour of another, his junior.
The rights and wrongs of the story, presuming that they had some existence in fact, were no longer clearly known to his wife and children; but this disappointment had played a very large part in their lives, and had poisoned the life of Sir Francis much as a disappointment in love is said to poison the whole life of a woman. Long brooding on his failure, continual arrangement and rearrangement of his deserts and rebuffs, had made Sir Francis much of an egoist, and in his retirement his temper became increasingly difficult and exacting.
His wife now offered so little resistance to his moods that she was practically useless to him. He made his daughter Euphemia into his chief confidante, and the prime of her life was being rapidly consumed by her father. To her he dictated the memoirs which were to avenge his memory, and she had to assure him constantly that his treatment had been a disgrace. Already, at the age of thirty-five, her cheeks were whitening as her mother’s had whitened, but for her there would be no memories of Indian suns and Indian rivers, and clamour of children in a nursery; she would have very little of substance to think about when she sat, as Lady Otway now sat, knitting white wool, with her eyes fixed almost perpetually upon the same embroidered bird upon the same firescreen. But then Lady Otway was one of the people for whom the great make-believe game of English social life has been invented; she spent most of her time in pretending to herself and her neighbours that she was a dignified, important, much-
