Читать книгу The Window - Alice Grant Rosman - Страница 10

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Patricia Eden walked over the fields to Dorne one summer morning, with a feeling of pleased excitement. She was thirty, but she looked a girl, unconsciously however, which is the best way for any woman to retain her youth. Patricia rarely thought of her age, but this neglect of a distressful subject was unconscious too, there being other and more urgent problems to engross her.

The field path was embroidered on each side with daisies, standing tall and still among the grasses, but she liked better the golden sea of buttercups that was the Rectory meadow, with the dark splendor of the woods beside it, shutting off the Manor inviolate from the common gaze.

"Particularly from my gaze," she thought, with humor, "and Michael's." (But there was no humor in the second thought.)

She cut through the churchyard, past the bright lances of Mary Winter's herbaceous border and into the Rectory, where at a window Mrs. Winter was doing accounts and getting them wrong as usual.

"Which shows my vocation," she always said, "for no one capable of getting them right would be the wife of a mere country rector. Not that I shouldn't have married you just the same," she would console her husband, "but, being clever, I should have converted you into a Bishop, Austin."

"Yes, my dear, horrible," he would reply sincerely.

"We are an absurd couple," Mary would continue, revelling in such expositions, "but what foresight of Providence to marry Austin to an unchristian wife like me. Otherwise he would be far too good for human nature's daily food. As it is I hate my enemies and skirmish about the village, liking the villains and annoying the godly. Coping with me keeps Austin almost human."

"By showing the fallibility of all human aims," was the rector's usual answer to this.

Patricia, invading the study where Mary was at work this morning, greeted her eagerly.

"I've come begging," she said.

Mrs. Winter looked up, revealing an attractive, weather-beaten face from which shone out a pair of very bright blue eyes.

"You are beginning rather late in life, aren't you?" she said. "And I'd have you to know that I am the only authorized beggar in this parish."

"Oh, Mary, I've let the fishing. Isn't it splendid, with Michael coming home to-morrow and so terribly little money in the world?"

"That is good news," said Mrs. Winter cordially. "But where did you find this Isaak Walton?"

"I didn't. I haven't even seen him. It was Towner, and his name is Royle, so Towner says. He came to the Inn yesterday inquiring about fishing prospects, and Towner immediately thought of me and fixed it all up. It was very decent of the old man for he might have sent him to the Manor."

"Um, yes," said Mrs. Winter dryly, "but why, if this Mr. Royle has done him no harm? No, my dear, Towner has his likes and dislikes and cherishes them faithfully. I like old Towner. How long will your fisherman stay, do you suppose?"

"I don't know and that's where the begging comes in. No doubt it will depend upon the sport, partly, and whether he's happy and amused, and I thought that if Austin could meet him and be nice to him, providing he's the right sort, it would make all the difference ... another man to talk to ... and he might even take it on for the rest of the season."

"Why, of course Austin will. He must." Mrs. Winter was delighted with such feminine strategy, and quickly considered the position. "Austin will have been at Cambridge with him, or his cousin or his uncle or someone. I shall insist upon it. Failing that, he can develop a passion for fishing and that will be a tie."

"Who can?" inquired the rector, coming in at this moment.

Patricia greeted him with a smile.

"I'm afraid it's you," she said.

"But, my dear girl, I don't know one end of a fly from another."

"Then it is quite time you did," retorted his wife.

"Good gracious, Austin, don't tell me you were never a horrid little boy."

She explained the situation at length and the rector listened, amused but understanding.

"Royle? There was a Royle at Caius," he said reflectively when she had finished, then stood amazed at the sudden laughter of the two women.

"Austin, you are a gem. Didn't I say there would have been?" cried Mary. "Well, there you are, then."

"But," proceeded Austin, imperturbably, "I can't imagine his fishing anybody's waters, except perhaps his own."

"You didn't like him," said Mary, with wifely intuition. "But never mind, the name will at least form a bond to introduce you to old Towner's guest."

"You don't expect me to call at the Inn and present the bond, I hope?" expostulated the rector mildly.

"No, you must lurk about ... in a dignified, clerical manner, of course ... and find an opportunity to speak to him. And if he is a suitable acquaintance for your innocent wife, ask him to tea or something. It is all right, Patricia, he'll do it. When does Michael come home, did you say ... to-morrow? I'll drive you over to meet him and we'll come back for the last of the strawberries. I've been saving them for him."

"You are a dear!" exclaimed Patricia.

"By the way," observed the rector after a moment, "I have just seen Mrs. Willingdon and she tells me the Window is really on the way at last."

There was a sudden silence. Patricia looked out into the garden; Mary Winter's mouth set in a grimace.

"Oh, well, I daresay she only dreamt it," she said at length.

"Mary!"

"But she does dream, Austin. You know she does. Oh, it's no good. I can't like this Window and neither I am sure can Patricia."

"I don't mind it," said Patricia soberly. "I don't mind twenty windows. But memorials come too late."

"Not all, my dear," said the rector.

She looked at him gratefully, yet with a faint alarm, and turned to the door.

"I must fly," she said. "I have so much to do before Michael comes home. Thanks awfully about my fisherman."

She was gone and they saw her walking away among the flowers.

"I don't mind your having twenty windows either," said Mary stormily, "if they could simply grow up in the night. But there will be all the fuss and parade of it and the Dedication and they won't ask her, of course."

"She wouldn't come, I fancy, if they did."

"No, and that Doris, I suppose, will be trailing about as chief mourner."

"Mary, Mary!"

Mrs. Winter laughed and returned to her accounts.

"You had better go away," she said, "or I shall say something worse."