"_Mrs. Samuel Harfield presents her compliments to Miss Katherine
Grey and wishes to point out that under the circumstances Miss Grey
may not be aware--_"
Mrs. Harfield, having written so far fluently, came to a dead stop,
held up by what has proved an insuperable difficulty to many other
people--namely, the difficulty of expressing oneself fluently in the
third person.
After a minute or two of hesitation, Mrs. Harfield tore up the sheet of
notepaper and started afresh.
"_Dear Miss Grey--Whilst fully appreciating the adequate way you
discharged your duties to my Cousin Jane (whose recent death has
indeed been a severe blow to us all), I cannot but feel--_"
Again Mrs. Harfield came to a stop. Once more the letter was consigned
to the wastepaper-basket. It was not until four false starts had been
made that Mrs. Harfield at last produced an epistle that satisfied her.
It was duly sealed and stamped and addressed to Miss Katherine Grey,
Little Crampton, St. Mary Mead, Kent, and it lay beside that lady's
plate on the following morning at breakfast-time in company with a more
important looking communication in a long blue envelope.
Katherine Grey opened Mrs. Harfield's letter first. The finished
production ran as follows:
"_Dear Miss Grey--My husband and I wish to express our thanks to
you for your services to my poor cousin, Jane. Her death has been
a great blow to us, though we were, of course, aware that her mind
has been failing for some time past. I understand that her latter
testamentary dispositions have been of a most peculiar character,
and they would not hold good, of course, in any court of law. I
have no doubt that, with your usual good sense, you have already
realized this fact. If these matters can be arranged privately
it is always so much better, my husband says. We shall be pleased
to recommend you most highly for a similar post and hope that you
will also accept a small present. Believe me, dear Miss Grey, Yours
cordially,_
_Mary Anne Harfield._"
Katherine Grey read the letter through, smiled a little, and read it
a second time. Her face as she laid the letter down after the second
reading was distinctly amused. Then she took up the second letter.
After one brief perusal she laid it down and stared very straight in
front of her. This time she did not smile. Indeed, it would have been
hard for any one watching her to guess what emotions lay behind that
quiet, reflective gaze.
Katherine Grey was thirty-three. She came of good family, but her
father had lost all his money, and Katherine had had to work for her
living from an early age. She had been just twenty-three when she had
come to old Mrs. Harfield as companion.
It was generally recognized that old Mrs. Harfield was "difficult."
Companions came and went with startling rapidity. They arrived full of
hope and they usually left in tears. But from the moment Katherine Grey
set foot in Little Crampton, ten years ago, perfect peace had reigned.
No one knows how these things come about. Snake-charmers, they say, are
born, not made. Katherine Grey was born with the power of managing old
ladies, dogs, and small boys, and she did it without any apparent sense
of strain.
At twenty-three she had been a quiet girl with beautiful eyes. At
thirty-three she was a quiet woman, with those same grey eyes, shining
steadily out on the world with a kind of happy serenity that nothing
could shake. Moreover, she had been born with, and still possessed, a
sense of humour.
As she sat at the breakfast-table, staring in front of her, there was a
ring at the bell, accompanied by a very energetic rat-a-tat-tat at the
knocker. In another minute the little maid-servant opened the door and
announced rather breathlessly:
"Dr. Harrison."
The big, middle-aged doctor came bustling in with the energy and
breeziness that had been foreshadowed by his onslaught on the knocker.
"Good morning, Miss Grey."
"Good morning, Dr. Harrison."
"I dropped in early," began the doctor, "in case you should have heard
from one of those Harfield cousins. Mrs. Samuel, she calls herself--a
perfectly poisonous person."
Without a word, Katherine picked up Mrs. Harfield's letter from the
table and gave it to him. With a good deal of amusement she watched his
perusal of it, the drawing together of the bushy eyebrows, the snorts
and grunts of violent disapproval. He dashed it down again on the table.
"Perfectly monstrous," he fumed. "Don't you let it worry you, my dear.
They're talking through their hat. Mrs. Harfield's intellect was as
good as yours or mine and you won't get any one to say the contrary.
They wouldn't have a leg to stand upon, and they know it. All that talk
of taking it into court is pure bluff. Hence, this attempt to get round
you in a hole-and-corner way. And look here, my dear, don't let them
get round you with soft soap either. Don't get fancying it's your duty
to hand over the cash, or any tomfoolery of conscientious scruples."
"I'm afraid it hasn't occurred to me to have scruples," said Katherine.
"All these people are distant relatives of Mrs. Harfield's husband, and
they never came near her or took any notice of her in her lifetime."
"You're a sensible woman," said the doctor. "I know, none better, that
you've had a hard life of it for the last ten years. You're fully
entitled to enjoy the old lady's savings, such as they were."
Katherine smiled thoughtfully.
"Such as they were," she repeated. "You've no idea of the amount,
doctor?"
"Well--enough to bring in five hundred a year or so, I suppose."
Katherine nodded.
"That's what I thought," she said. "Now read this."
She handed him the letter she had taken from the long blue envelope.
The doctor read and uttered an exclamation of utter astonishment.
"Impossible," he muttered. "Impossible."
"She was one of the original shareholders in Mortaulds. Forty years ago
she must have had an income of eight or ten thousand a year. She has
never, I am sure, spent more than four hundred a year. She was always
terribly careful about money. I always believed that she was obliged
to be careful about every penny."
"And all the time the income has accumulated at compound interest. My
dear, you're going to be a very rich woman."
Katherine Grey nodded.
"Yes," she said, "I am."
She spoke in a detached, impersonal tone, as though she were looking at
the situation from outside.
"Well," said the doctor, preparing to depart, "you have all my
congratulations." He flicked Mrs. Samuel Harfield's letter with his
thumb. "Don't worry about that woman and her odious letter."
"It really isn't an odious letter," said Miss Grey tolerantly. "Under
the circumstances, I think it's really quite a natural thing to do."
"I have the gravest suspicions of you sometimes," said the doctor.
"Why?"
"The things that you find perfectly natural."
Katherine Grey laughed.
Doctor Harrison retailed the great news to his wife at lunch-time. She
was very excited about it.
"Fancy old Mrs. Harfield--with all that money. I'm glad she left it to
Katherine Grey. That girl's a saint."
The doctor made a wry face.
"Saints I always imagine must have been difficult people. Katherine
Grey is too human for a saint."
"She's a saint with a sense of humour," said the doctor's wife,
twinkling. "And, though I don't suppose you've ever noticed the fact,
she's extremely good looking."
"Katherine Grey?" The doctor was honestly surprised. "She's got very
nice eyes, I know."
"Oh, you men!" cried his wife. "Blind as bats. Katherine's got all the
makings of a beauty in her. All she wants is clothes!"
"Clothes? What's wrong with her clothes? She always looks very nice."
Mrs. Harrison gave an exasperated sigh, and the doctor rose preparatory
to starting on his rounds.
"You might look in on her, Polly," he suggested.
"I'm going to," said Mrs. Harrison promptly.
She made her call about three o'clock.
"My dear, I'm so glad," she said warmly, as she squeezed Katherine's
hand. "And every one in the village will be glad too."
"It's very nice of you to come and tell me," said Katherine. "I hoped
you would come in because I wanted to ask about Johnnie."
"Oh! Johnnie. Well--"
Johnnie was Mrs. Harrison's youngest son. In another minute she was
off, retailing a long history in which Johnnie's adenoids and tonsils
bulked largely. Katherine listened sympathetically. Habits die hard.
Listening had been her portion for ten years now. "My dear, I wonder if
I ever told you about that naval ball at Portsmouth? When Lord Charles
admired my gown?" And composedly, kindly, Katherine would reply: "I
rather think you have, Mrs. Harfield, but I've forgotten about it.
Won't you tell it me again?" And then the old lady would start off
full swing, with numerous details. And half of Katherine's mind would
be listening, saying the right things mechanically when the old lady
paused....
Now, with that same curious feeling of duality to which she was
accustomed, she listened to Mrs. Harrison.
At the end of half an hour, the latter recalled herself suddenly.
"I've been talking about myself all this time," she exclaimed. "And I
came here to talk about you and your plans."
"I don't know that I've got any yet."
"My dear--you're not going to stay on _here_."
Katherine smiled at the horror in the other's tone.
"No; I think I want to travel. I've never seen much of the world, you
know."
"I should think not. It must have been an awful life for you cooped up
here all these years."
"I don't know," said Katherine. "It gave me a lot of freedom."
She caught the other's gasp, and reddened a little.
"It must sound foolish--saying that. Of course, I hadn't much freedom
in the downright physical sense--"
"I should think not," breathed Mrs. Harrison, remembering that
Katherine had seldom had that useful thing--a "day off."
"But, in a way, being tied physically gives you lots of scope mentally.
You're always free to think. I've had a lovely feeling always of mental
freedom."
Mrs. Harrison shook her head.
"I can't understand that."
"Oh! you would if you'd been in my place. But, all the same, I feel
I want a change. I want--well, I want things to happen. Oh! not to
me--I don't mean that. But to be in the midst of things, exciting
things--even if I'm only the looker-on. You know, things don't happen
in St. Mary Mead."
"They don't indeed," said Mrs. Harrison, with fervour.
"I shall go to London first," said Katherine. "I have to see the
solicitors, anyway. After that, I shall go abroad, I think."
"Very nice."
"But, of course, first of all--"
"Yes?"
"I must get some clothes."
"Exactly what I said to Arthur this morning," cried the doctor's wife.
"You know, Katherine, you could look positively beautiful if you tried."
Miss Grey laughed unaffectedly.
"Oh! I don't think you could ever make a beauty out of me," she said
sincerely. "But I shall enjoy having some really good clothes. I'm
afraid I'm talking about myself an awful lot."
Mrs. Harrison looked at her shrewdly.
"It must be quite a novel experience for you," she said drily.
Katherine went to say good-bye to old Miss Viner before leaving the
village. Miss Viner was two years older than Mrs. Harfield, and her
mind was mainly taken with her own success in outliving her dead friend.
"You wouldn't have thought I'd have outlasted Jane Harfield, would
you?" she demanded triumphantly of Katherine. "We were at school
together, she and I. And here we are, she taken, and I left. Who would
have thought it?"
"You've always eaten brown bread for supper, haven't you?" murmured
Katherine mechanically.
"Fancy your remembering that, my dear. Yes; if Jane Harfield had had a
slice of brown bread every evening and taken a little stimulant with
her meals she might be here to-day."
The old lady paused, nodding her head triumphantly, then added in
sudden remembrance:
"And so you've come into a lot of money, I hear? Well, well. Take care
of it. And you're going up to London to have a good time? Don't think
you'll get married, though, my dear, because you won't. You're not the
kind to attract the men. And, besides, you're getting on. How old are
you now?"
"Thirty-three," Katherine told her.
"Well," remarked Miss Viner doubtfully, "that's not so very bad. You've
lost your first freshness, of course."
"I'm afraid so," said Katherine, much entertained.
"But you're a very nice girl," said Miss Viner kindly. "And I'm sure
there's many a man might do worse than take you for a wife instead of
one of these flibbertigibbets running about nowadays showing more of
their legs than the Creator ever intended them to. Good-bye, my dear,
and I hope you'll enjoy yourself, but things are seldom what they seem
in this life."
Heartened by these prophecies, Katherine took her departure. Half the
village came to see her off at the station, including the little maid
of all work, Alice, who brought a stiff wired nosegay and cried openly.
"There ain't a many like her," sobbed Alice when the train had finally
departed. "I'm sure when Charlie went back on me with that girl from
the Dairy, nobody could have been kinder than Miss Grey was, and though
particular about the brasses and the dust, she was always one to notice
when you'd give a thing an extra rub. Cut myself in little pieces for
her, I would, any day. A real lady, that's what I call her."
Such was Katherine's departure from St. Mary Mead.