“It requires a long time to know any one.”
SANCHO PANZA’S PROVERBS.
Daphne grew to like Overham, and indeed it would have been strange if
she had not. She carried the place by storm. The men liked her because
she was so uncommonly well up on subjects which interested them. She was
a good listener. The women, who at first were inclined to stand
off—partly because she dressed so well and was hard to snub—were quite
won over by her deprecating way of asking advice from them about
subjects on which they knew nothing.
Daphne was not consciously insincere, but mingled with an intense desire
to please lay a dramatic ability, too delightful to be subdued. She let
herself go, and afterwards she was sorry. She came too soon through all
conventions and polite barriers into the garden of souls, and when she
found potatoes instead of roses, she tried to get out again. The result
was, that sometimes she did a good deal of damage in the garden, for she
was usually disappointed—and she undervalued potatoes altogether.
One of the first things she did was to offer to play the organ, but her
uncle told her that there was a girl who did that already.
“She is a fine girl,” he said; “I should like to introduce her to you,
she is so absolutely true.”
“I’m afraid that means that she is very abrupt and wears a sailor hat,
doesn’t it?” asked Daphne smiling up at him, as she dusted the books in
his study. It was one of her gifts to handle books properly, and even
when she took them out to put them back in their proper places and right
side up.
“Yes,” said her uncle, “in this case it does mean that, but it also
means a great deal more. She is very poor, and lives with a widowed
mother, who is in some ways unfortunate. They manage to rub on somehow,
with what the girl does, training choirs, giving music lessons, and the
like. She does most of the work in the parish. She is coming to give
Dora a lesson this morning, but I want them to go out and pick primroses
instead. It is such a lovely morning, perhaps you would like to go with
them?”
Daphne nodded. “I think it would do me good,” she said.
Her uncle looked at her as if he would like to say something, but he
checked himself. He had come to the conclusion that if you wished
someone to like someone else, it is wiser not to tell them so.
A few minutes later, Daphne was formally introduced to Katherine Linton.
It was not until they had reached a certain wood, carpeted with
primroses, where Dora, silent with delight, was tremulously and
hurriedly digging her little hands into the cool, mossy home of them,
that Daphne began to take stock of her companion. She was smaller than
Daphne, and had a face and figure almost too strong to be pretty, but in
spite of this she was pretty, by reason of a complexion typically
English, and yet so rare, that not even in England does one come across
it often. She had the skin of a little child, clear white, with shades
and tints that made a wild rose, hackneyed as the comparison seems, the
only term for it; but it was her mouth that pleased Daphne most. It was
beautiful, and on it one saw her character written plainly.
“I wonder why my uncle never told me about you before?” Daphne said.
Katherine laughed. “Why should he?” she asked, “and what on earth was
there to tell you? I am his organist and he is very good to me.”
“He certainly wouldn’t be likely to tell me that!” said Daphne. “But he
might have said that you were simply delightful, and that I should be
sure to like you immensely!”
Katherine’s eyes flashed and she bit her lips. “You are simply laughing
at me!” she said, “and I don’t like it!”
Daphne felt suddenly young and abashed. There were a hundred ways in
which she might contradict this, but she used none of them. “I am so
sorry,” she said, “I am afraid that it was just my way of talking.”
“You have no business to talk that way, unless you mean it,” said
Katherine.
Daphne had never been spoken to like this before. She burst out
laughing. Katherine looked perplexed for a moment, but she soon joined
her. “And do you mean to say,” said Daphne at last, “that you never say
nice things to people?”
“I don’t think lies _are_ nice,” said Katherine firmly.
“Oh, yes, they are, awfully,” said Daphne, “and, besides, you know, nice
things aren’t always lies, anymore than rude things are always true!”
Katherine turned penitent. “Oh, Miss Fordington!” she said, “I am afraid
I was dreadfully rude.”
Daphne laughed. “I can assure you,” she said, “I liked it immensely, and
it is most bracing, but please call me Daphne, it sounds so much more
natural in a wood—and even out of it!”
“No. I shall not do that,” said Katherine Linton.
“Are you afraid you wouldn’t mean it?” said Daphne smiling.
“No,” said Katherine, “I am not.”
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, what principle does it offend?” cried Daphne.
“I am your uncle’s organist,” said Katherine.
“I am his niece,” said Daphne, “but what of it?” Their eyes met, and
they looked long and hard at each other. Then suddenly Daphne leaned
forward and kissed her. “Now, what are you going to call me?” she asked.
“You have a perfect right to call me most impertinent.”
“Well, I won’t call you that—Daphne,” said Katherine very slowly.
Katherine went home with the knowledge that life had become rich in
possibilities. She was one of those people who love, very simply, and
very entirely—and so as a natural consequence—very rarely. She thought
Daphne was wonderful.
Daphne shrugged her shoulders over the episode, that was what she called
it. “Now,” she said, “when I go away from here, I shall have to write to
that girl. I wonder why I made her call me Daphne?”
“Cousin Daphne,” said Dora very slowly, “I wish you wouldn’t pin those
primroses.”
“Why, sweetheart,” said Daphne, “don’t you think they look nice there?”
“Yes, but it must hurt them terribly,” said Dora, “and they have such
good faces.”
Daphne hesitated, but she loved children. “All right, Dora,” she said,
“put them in water with yours, and then come and lie down while Daphne
reads to you.”
“My dear Daphne,” said her Aunt, coming in, “Dora has missed her
lessons, and she must really practise a little now. I should be glad if
you would help me do the Parish library accounts.” Daphne obeyed, but
came back to find Dora in tears over her five-finger exercises.
“I can always find my fingers,” Dora explained tearfully; “but oh, I
can’t never find the keys!” Daphne shut the piano gently, and together
they arranged the primroses.