Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/37

Rh again, in the first hour of relaxation she had enjoyed since she got up, she permitted herself a game of patience, and since she never cheated, it was often ten o'clock before her game was over, and it was necessary to go to bed. She might be late for tea, but there was no trifling with bedtime—"bed" and "ten" were terms practically synonymous, and the exception that proved this rule was that when the Misses Grimson dined at the Deanery or at three other houses, or went to the Mayor's evening party, on his accession to office, bed was synonymous with eleven. On that occasion breakfast next morning meant nine instead of half-past eight.

To-day Aunt Elizabeth had to go to the draper's, which was at the farther end of the town, to match a particular shade of brown in the woollen head-rest on the American cloth sofa in the dining-room. Jane had managed to spill a plateful of soup over it, and the last three days had passed for Aunt Elizabeth in a tempest of perplexity as to what had better be done, so copious had been the soup, and so extensive the stain. It had been hung out to dry on the top of the tennis-net, and this morning her time for the perusal of the paper had been sadly eaten into by the need for a thorough inspection of it. She found, however, that by cutting away some third part of it, a patch could be reconstructed, and it was therefore necessary to get brown wool of a particular shade in large quantities. The original shade, no doubt, could be easily procured, but this head-rest was of some antiquity, and its rich original brown had mellowed to a greyish-yellow tinge, which she felt would be hard to match. It might have been easier, perhaps, to get the draper to send to Fair View Cottage samples of all the bilious browns in his possession, but this was not Aunt Elizabeth's way. Instead she wrapped the mutilated head-rest in whity-brown paper, and set off with it down the sun-baked road. This would certainly take up the hours till tea, and she could begin to work, supposing the right shade was obtainable, immediately afterwards. It was extremely tiresome and wearing to have this extra burden thrown on her in all the rush and bustle of July, and it seemed to her that this spilling of the soup was equivalent to a robbery of a week of her life. She had told Jane so, and Cathie's offer to repair it herself was a ridiculous proposal, since her wool-work was no more than a fortuitous collection of running knots. No doubt Catherine knew when she made the offer that it would be declined.