And while he was doing these things Priscilla was having calls paid her. Nothing could exceed her astonishment when about four o'clock, as she was sitting deep in thought and bored on the arm of a horsehair chair, Mrs. Pearce opened the door and without the least warning let in Mrs. Morrison. Priscilla had promised Fritzing for that one day to stay quietly at the farm, and for the last two hours, finding the farm of an intolerable dulness, she had been engaged in reflections of an extremely complex nature on subjects such as Duty, Will, and Personality. Her morning in the Baker fields and by the banks of that part of the Sym that meanders through them had tuned her mind to meditation. The food at one o'clock and the manner of its bringing in by Annalise—Priscilla had relieved Mrs. Pearce of that office—tuned it still more. The blended slipperiness and prickliness of all the things she tried to sit on helped surprisingly; and if I knew how far it is allowable to write of linen I could explain much of her state of mind by a description of the garments in which she was clothed that day. They were new garments taken straight from the Gerstein box. They were not even linen,—how could they be for Fritzing's three hundred marks? And their newness had not yet been exposed to the softening influence of any wash-tub. Straight did they come, in all their crackling stiffness, out of the shop and on to the Princess. Annalise had been supposed to wash them or cause them to be washed the day before, but Annalise had been far too busy crying to do anything of the sort; and by four o'clock Priscilla was goaded by them into a condition of mind so unworthy that she was thinking quite hard about the Kunitz fine linen and other flesh-pots and actually finding the recollection sweet. It was a place, Priscilla mused, where her body had been exquisitely cared for. Those delicate meals, served in spotlessness, surely they had been rather of the nature of poems? Those web-like garments, soft as a kiss, how beautiful they had been to touch and wear. True her soul had starved; yes, it had cruelly starved. But was it then—she started at her own thought—was it then being fed at Baker's?
And into the middle of this question, a tremendous one to be asked on the very threshold of the new life, walked Mrs. Morrison.
"How d'y do," said Mrs. Morrison. "The vicar asked me to come and see you. I hope the Pearces make you comfortable."
"Well I never," thought Mrs. Pearce, lingering as was her custom on the door-mat, and shaking her head in sorrow rather than in anger.
Priscilla sat for a moment staring at her visitor.
"You are Miss Schultz, are you not?" asked Mrs. Morrison rather nervously.
Priscilla said she was,—her name, that is, was Neumann-Schultz—and got up. She had the vaguest notion as to how Miss Schultz would behave under these trying circumstances, but imagined she would begin by getting up. So she got up, and the sofa being a low one and her movements leisurely, Mrs. Morrison told her husband afterwards there seemed to be no end to the girl. The girl certainly was long, and when at last unfolded and quite straightened out she towered over Mrs. Morrison, who looked up uneasily at the grave young face. Why, Mrs. Morrison asked herself, didn't the girl smile? It was the duty of a Miss Schultz called upon by the vicar's wife to smile; so profound a gravity on such an occasion was surely almost rude. Priscilla offered her hand and hoped it was all right to do so, but still she did not smile. "Are you Mrs. Morrison?" she asked.
"Yes," said Mrs. Morrison with an immense reserve in her voice.
Then Priscilla suggested she should sit down. Mrs. Morrison was already doing it; and Priscilla sank on to her sofa again and wondered what she had better say next. She wondered so much that she became lost in mazes of wonder, and there was so long a silence that Mrs. Pearce outside the door deplored an inconsiderateness that could keep her there for nothing.
"I didn't know you had a double name," said Mrs. Morrison, staring at Priscilla and trying to decide whether this was not a case for the application of leaflets and instant departure. The girl was really quite offensively pretty. She herself had been pretty—she thanked heaven that she still was so—but never, never pretty—she thanked heaven again—in this glaringly conspicuous fashion.