“The harder she is the more I am interested in making her acquaintance,” replied Cuthbert. “I don’t care a jot about commonplace women, were they as lovely as Aphrodite. I go to see this soured widow as eagerly as Romeo scaled Juliet’s balcony. Did his lordship ever tell you what it was that soured the creature, by the way? That kind of hardness is generally in somewise the result of circumstance, even where there is the adamantine quality in the original character.”
“I never heard any details about the lady’s past life; only that her husband was in the merchant navy, upon the India and China line—that he died suddenly and left her penniless—that she was a lady by birth and education, and had married somewhat beneath her. I have often wondered how my cousin, as a barrister, came to be intimate with a captain in the merchant service.”
They were at the gates of the Park by this time, and close to the rustic steps which led up to Mrs. Porter’s garden. It was one of those tropical days which often occur towards the end of August, and the clusters of cactus dahlias in the old-fashioned border, and the tall hollyhocks in the background, made patches of dazzling colour in the bright white light, against which the cool grays of the stone cottage offered repose to the eye. One side of the cottage was starred with passion-flowers, and on the other the great waxen chalices of the magnolia showed creamy white against the scarlet of the trumpet ash. It was the season at which Mrs. Porter’s hermitage put on its gayest aspect, the crowning feast of bloom and colour before the chilling breath of autumn brought rusty reds and pallid grays into the picture.
The two young men heard voices as they approached the steps, and on looking upward, Theodore saw the curate and his wife standing on the little grass-plot with Mrs. Porter. There could hardly be a better opportunity for approaching her, as she was caught in the act of receiving visitors, and could not deny herself.
Mr. and Mrs. Kempster were young people, and of that social temperament which will make friends under the hardest conditions. Mr. Kempster belonged to the advanced Anglican school, and ministered the offices of the Church as it were with his life in his hand, always prepared for the moment when he should come into collision with his Bishop upon some question of posture or vestments. He had introduced startling innovations into the village church, and hoped to be able to paraphrase the boast of Augustus, and to say that he found Cheriton Evangelical and left it Ritualistic. Needless to say, that while he gratified one half of his congregation he offended the other half, and that old-fashioned parishioners complained bitterly of his “gewgaws fetched from Aaron’s old wardrobe or the flamen’s vestry.” Mrs. Kempster had work enough to do in smoothing down the roughened furs of these antediluvians, which smoothing process she effected chiefly by a rigorous system of polite afternoon calls, in which no inhabitant of the parish was forgotten, and an occasional small expenditure in the shape of afternoon tea and halfpenny buns toasted and buttered by her own fair hands. She was a bright, good-tempered little woman, whom her husband generally spoke of as a “body.”
The Kempsters had just accepted Mrs. Porter’s invitation to tea, and were making an admiring inspection of her garden before going into the cottage.
“I don’t believe any one in Cheriton parish has such roses as you, Mrs. Porter,” said the curate’s wife, gazing admiringly at the standard Gloire de Dijon, which had grown into gigantic dimensions in the middle of the grass-plot. “I never saw such a tree; but then, you see, you give your mind to your garden as none of us can.”
“I have very little else to think about, certainly,” said Mrs. Porter.
“Except Algernon’s sermons. I know you appreciate them,” cried Mrs. Kempster, in her chirruping little voice. “Algernon says no one listens as attentively as you do. ‘She quite carries me away sometimes with that rapt look of hers,’ he said the other day. I am half inclined to feel jealous of you, Mrs. Porter. Oh, here is Mr. Dalbrook. How d’ye do, Mr. Dalbrook?”
Mrs. Kempster shook hands with Theodore before he could approach Mrs. Porter, but having got past this vivacious lady, he introduced Cuthbert Ramsay to the mistress of the house.