She stared at me with her big blue eyes.
“What are your faults?”
“Well,” I laughed, “the list would take a long time! Shall we leave it for another day? What I want to know now is, why, with your temperament, did you come to marry a country parson?”
“Because I loved him, of course,” came the ready reply. “He came to take duty in our church while our own clergyman was ill, and he stayed in our house. He was so much older than I—fifteen years—that I never thought of him—like that! I just thought he was a dear, and liked to talk to him, and show him about the garden, and get him to help me in little odd ways. He was so learned and serious and staid that all the others were in awe of him, but I ordered him about, and made him wait on me, and teased him because he did it so badly. It was such fun! I enjoyed myself frightfully. Mother read me a long lecture one night, and said Mr Merrivale would be pained to see father’s daughter was such a frivolous girl. But he wasn’t. He fell in love with me instead. Doesn’t that seem queer?”
I didn’t think it was queer at all. Imagination conjured up scenes in the summer garden where the gay pretty girl had held her little court, and queened it over the grave, silent man. It was a thousand to one on his falling under the spell. The mischief of it was that he had expected the marriage ceremony to convert a butterfly into a staid, parochial wife. John Courtney Merrivale had a thousand virtues, but imagination was not his strong point.
“I think it was extremely natural. Just what I should have expected to happen. You are very pretty, you know, and I expect you made a charming task-mistress. And, of course, any sane girl must have been interested in him. But—what did you think about the life in this little place?”
“Oh! I didn’t think about it at all,” she said calmly. “I was so happy, and—excited. And so busy getting my clothes, and the presents, and arranging for the wedding. I had a lovely wedding. Eight bridesmaids carrying rose-staves. And Jacky took me to Switzerland for the honeymoon, and was so young and gay himself. Like a boy. I had a perfectly glorious three months, and then—”
She paused, and the pink and white face puckered into a grimace as she cast an expressive glance to right and left.
“We came home! That was the first shock, seeing all this dingy, hideous furniture, and realising that it had to stay. Jacky likes it because it belonged to his mother, and he thinks it would be wicked waste to sell it for nothing, and buy new. I tried to brighten things up, but—if you look round this room you will realise that a few new things made the effect worse! I gave it up in despair, and all my pretty cushions and embroideries, and pictures and ornaments are hidden away in boxes in the attic.”
“Oh, that’s hard! You have my unbounded sympathy. I should hate to live in uncongenial surroundings. Isn’t there any room in the house you could have for your own, and furnish just exactly as you like?”