Grey?’ The doctor was honestly surprised. ‘She’s got very nice eyes, I know.’
‘Oh, you men!’ cried his wife. ‘Blind as bats. Katherine’s got all the makings of a beauty in her. All she wants is clothes!’
‘Clothes? What’s wrong with her clothes? She always looks very nice.’
Mrs Harrison gave an exasperated sigh, and the doctor rose preparatory to starting on his rounds.
‘You might look in on her, Polly,’ he suggested.
‘I’m going to,’ said Mrs Harrison, promptly.
She made her call about three o’clock.
‘My dear, I’m so glad,’ she said warmly, as she squeezed Katherine’s hand. ‘And everyone in the village will be glad too.’
‘It’s very nice of you to come and tell me,’ said Katherine. ‘I hoped you would come in because I wanted to ask about Johnnie.’
‘Oh! Johnnie. Well—’
Johnnie was Mrs Harrison’s youngest son. In another minute she was off, retailing a long history in which Johnnie’s adenoids and tonsils bulked largely. Katherine listened sympathetically. Habits die hard. Listening had been her portion for ten years now. ‘My dear, I wonder if I ever told you about the naval ball at Portsmouth? When Lord Charles admired my gown?’ And composedly, kindly, Katherine would reply: ‘I rather think you have, Mrs Harfield, but I’ve forgotten about it. Won’t you tell it me again?’ And then the old lady would start off full swing, with numerous corrections, and stops, and remembered details. And half of Katherine’s mind would be listening, saying the right things mechanically when the old lady paused…
Now, with the same curious feeling of duality to which she was accustomed, she listened to Mrs Harrison.
At the end of half an hour, the latter recalled herself suddenly.
‘I’ve been talking about myself all this time,’ she exclaimed. ‘And I came here to talk about you and your plans.’
‘I don’t know that I’ve got any yet.’
‘My dear—you’re not going to stay on here.’
Katherine smiled at the horror in the other’s tone.
‘No; I think I want to travel. I’ve never seen much of the world, you know.’
‘I should think not. It must have been an awful life for you cooped up here all these years.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Katherine. ‘It gave me a lot of freedom.’
She caught the other’s gasp, and reddened a little.
‘It must sound foolish—saying that. Of course, I hadn’t much freedom in the downright physical sense—’
‘I should think not,’ breathed Mrs Harrison, remembering that Katherine had seldom had that useful thing, a ‘day off’.
‘But in a way, being tied physically gives you lots of scope mentally. You’re always free to think. I’ve had a lovely feeling always of mental freedom.’
Mrs Harrison shook her head.
‘I can’t understand that.’
‘Oh! you would if you’d been in my place. But, all the same, I feel I want a change. I want—well, I want things to happen. Oh! not to me—I don’t mean that. But to be in the midst of things—exciting things—even if I’m only the looker-on. You know, things don’t happen in St Mary Mead.’
‘They don’t indeed,’ said Mrs Harrison, with fervour.
‘I shall go to London first,’ said Katherine. ‘I have to see the solicitors, anyway. After that, I shall go abroad, I think.’
‘Very nice.’
‘But of course, first of all—’
‘Yes?’
‘I must get some clothes.’
‘Exactly what I said to Arthur this morning,’ cried the doctor’s wife. ‘You know, Katherine, you could look possibly positively beautiful if you tried.’
Miss Grey laughed unaffectedly.
‘Oh! I don’t think you could ever make a beauty out of me,’ she said sincerely. ‘But I shall enjoy having some really good clothes. I’m afraid I’m talking about myself an awful lot.’
Mrs Harrison looked at her shrewdly.
‘It must be quite a novel experience for you,’ she said drily.
Katherine went to say goodbye to old Miss Viner before leaving the village. Miss Viner was two years older than Mrs Harfield, and her mind was mainly taken up with her own success in outliving her dead friend.
‘You wouldn’t have thought I’d have outlasted Jane Harfield, would you?’ she demanded triumphantly of Katherine. ‘We were at school together, she and I. And here we are, she taken, and I left. Who would have thought it?’
‘You’ve always eaten brown bread for supper, haven’t you?’ murmured Katherine mechanically.
‘Fancy your remembering that, my dear. Yes; if Jane Harfield had had a slice of brown bread every evening and taken a little stimulant with her meals she might be here today.’
The old lady paused, nodding her head triumphantly; then added in sudden remembrance:
‘And so you’ve come into a lot of money, I hear? Well, well. Take care of it. And you’re going up to London to have a good time? Don’t think you’ll get married, though, my dear, because you won’t. You’re not the kind to attract the men. And, besides, you’re getting on. How old are you now?’
‘Thirty-three,’ Katherine told her.
‘Well,’ remarked Miss Viner doubtfully, ‘that’s not so very bad. You’ve lost your first freshness, of course.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Katherine, much entertained.
‘But you’re a very nice girl,’ said Miss Viner kindly. ‘And I’m sure there’s many a man might do worse than take you for a wife instead of one of these flibbertigibbets running about nowadays showing more of their legs than the Creator ever intended them to. Goodbye, my dear, and I hope you’ll enjoy yourself, but things are seldom what they seem in this life.’
Heartened by these prophecies, Katherine took her departure. Half the village came to see her off at the station, including the little maid of all work, Alice, who brought a stiff wired nosegay and cried openly.
‘There ain’t a many like her,’ sobbed Alice when the train had finally departed. ‘I’m sure when Charlie went back on me with that girl from the dairy, nobody could have been kinder than Miss Grey was, and though particular about the brasses and the dust, she was always one to notice when you’d give a thing an extra rub. Cut myself in little pieces for her, I would, any day. A real lady, that’s what I call her.’
Such was Katherine’s departure from St Mary Mead.
‘Well,’ said Lady Tamplin, ‘well.’
She laid down the continental Daily Mail and stared out across the blue waters of the Mediterranean. A branch of golden mimosa, hanging just above her head, made an effective frame for a very charming picture. A golden-haired, blue-eyed lady in a very becoming négligée. That the golden