A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) 📖

CHAPTER XXVII

MISS CARMAGEE sat crying at the breakfasttable

over a letter that she held in her fat, white hand.

It was a letter from Catherine, and told of the last restingplace of Gwen, a narrow bed of clay amid white headstones on the Wilton hills. She had been reading the

letter aloud to her brother, whose face was a study in the

irritable suppression of his feelings.

 

“Damn that bird!”

 

The canary in its cage by the window was filling the

room with shivers of shrill sound. Porteus pushed his

chair back, jerked an antimacassar from the sofa, and

flung it over the bird’s cage.

 

“Go on, dear, go on. I am expecting Dixon to see

me in ten minutes.”

 

Miss Carmagee wiped her spectacles, and blundered

on brokenly through the letter. There were eight pages,

closely written, and whether it was the indistinctness of

Catherine’s writing, or the dimness of Miss Carmagee’s

eyes, the old lady’s progress was sluggish in the extreme.

She had forgotten to add milk to her untasted cup of tea,

and the rashers of bacon on her plate were congealing

into unappetizing grease.

 

Porteus sat fidgeting at the far end of the table. The

vitality of his interest betrayed itself in a frowning and

jerky spirit of impatience.

 

“Well, what are they going to do now, eh? Stay on

and lose the boy? Murchison ought to have more sense.”

 

Miss Carmagee’s eyes had assumed an expression of

moist surprise behind her spectacles. She appeared to

be digesting some unexpected piece of news in silence,

and with the amiable forgetfulness of a lethargic mind.

 

Porteus had handed her his empty cup. Some seconds

elapsed before his sister noticed the intrusion of the

china.

 

“Dear, what a coincidence!”

 

She took the cup and filled it mechanically, her eyes

still fixed upon the letter.

 

“Well, what is it?”

 

“If only it had happened earlier, the money would have

been of use.”

 

Mr. Porteus betrayed the natural impatience of the

energetic male.

 

“Bless my soul, are you contriving a monopoly?”

 

Miss Carmagee lifted her mild spectacles to her brother’s face.

 

“Mrs. Pentherby is dead,” she said.

 

“Dead!”

 

“Yes.”

 

“No extreme loss to the community. Ah would

you ! ” and he cast a threatening glance in the direction

of the bird-cage at the sound of an insinuating “tweet.”

 

“Well, what about the money?”

 

The lawyer’s eyes twinkled as though Mrs. Pentherby ‘s

dividends were more interesting than her person.

 

“She has left nearly all her money and her furniture

to Catherine. She died the very same day as Gwen.”

 

“Pity it wasn’t six months ago. The old lady had some

first-class china, and a few fine pictures. Does Catherine say how much?”

 

“How much what, Porteus?”

 

“Money, my dear, money.”

 

“I don’t think she says.”

 

Her brother pushed back his chair, and glanced briskly

at his watch.

 

“I’ll take it with me,” he said, stretching out a brown

and energetic hand for the letter.

 

“I haven’t quite finished it, Porteus.”

 

“Never mind; there’s your breakfast getting cold.

You had better have some fresh tea made.”

 

His sister surrendered the letter with a spirit of amiable

self-negation.

 

“The money ought to make a difference to them,” she

said, softly, taking off her spectacles and wiping them

with slow, pensive hands.

 

“Money always makes a difference, my dear, especially

when people are heroically proud.”

 

Miss Phyllis Carmagee’s thoughts were towards that

gray-skied, slaving, sordid town where Gwen was buried,

as she sipped her tea and looked at her brother’s empty

chair. She was a woman whom many of her neighbors

thought stolid and reserved, a woman not gifted with great

powers of self-expression. Friendship with many is a mere

gratification of the social ego. The vivacious people who

delight in conversationalism, take pleasure in those personalities that are new and pleasing for the moment, even

as they are interested in new and complex flowers. To

Phyllis Carmagee, however, her friends had more of the

enduring dearness of familiar trees. They were part of

her consciousness, part of her daily and her yearly life.

 

Porteus’s sister came by an idea as she sat alone at the

breakfasttable that morning. Serene and obese natures

are slow in conceiving, yet the concept may have the

greater stability for the very slowness of the progress.

The crystallization of that idea went on all day, till it was

ready to be displayed in its completeness to her brother

as he dined. Miss Carmagee had decided to go down

to Wilton, and to show that her friendship was worth a

long day’s journey. A sentimental and unctuous letter

would have sufficed for a mere worldling. But Porteus

Carmagee ‘s sister had that rare habit of being loyal and

sincere.

 

“I should like to see the child’s grave,” she said, quietly,

her round, white face very soft and gentle in the light of

the shaded lamp; “it seems hard to realize that the little

thing is dead. Gwen meant so much to her father. I

wonder what they are going to do.”

 

Porteus Carmagee stared hard at the silver epergne

full of daffodils before him on the table. They were at

dessert, and alone, with the curtains drawn, and a wood

fire burning in x the old-fashioned grate. The whole setting of the room spoke of a generation that was past. It

suggested solidity and repose, placid kindliness, prosaic

comfort.

 

“Murchison ought never to have left us,” said the

lawyer, curtly.

 

“No.”

 

“The affair might have blown over in a year.”

 

“You think so, Porteus.”

 

“If he had only stuck to his guns. People always wait

to see what a man will do. If he skedaddles they draw

their own inferences. Life is largely a game of bluff.”

 

The eyes of brother and sister met in a sudden questioning glance. Possibly the same thought had occurred

to both.

 

“Would it be possible?”

 

“Possible for what?”

 

“For James Murchison to come back to Roxton?”

 

The lawyer reached for his napkin that had slipped

down from his knees.

 

“That is the question,” he confessed, “it is not easy to

rebuild a reputation. I would rather face fire than the

sneers of my genteel neighbors.”

 

Miss Carmagee’s placid face had lost its habitual air

of contentment and repose.

 

“I know it would require courage,” she said.

 

“People would probably call it impertinence. It requires more than courage to be successfully impertinent

in this world.”

 

“Cleverness, Porteus?”

 

“Genius, the genius of patience, magnanimity, and

self-restraint.”

 

His sister pondered a moment, while Porteus sipped

his port.

 

“Then there is Catherine?”

 

Her brother’s keen eyes lit up at the name.

 

“Ah, there we have a touch of the divine fire.”

 

“She could help him.”

 

“Next to God.”

 

There was silence again between them for a season.

The dim and homely room seemed full of a quiet dignity,

a pervading restfulness that was clean and good. The

most prosaic people grow great and lovable when their

hearts are moved to succor others. The words of a beggar may strike the noblest chords of time, and live with

the utterances of martyrs and of prophets.

 

“Porteus.”

 

Brother and sister looked at each other.

 

“I might speak to them.”

 

“Perhaps, dear, better than any one.”

 

“And if they need money? Mrs. Pentherby’s property

cannot come to them at once. The law

 

Porteus’s face twinkled benignantly.

 

“The law, like a mule, is abominably slow. If I can

be of any use to them remind Kate that I am still alive.”

 

Miss Carmagee regarded her brother affectionately

across the table.

 

“Then I shall go tomorrow,” she said, with a quiet

sigh.