Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/72

62 had no time to herself. But now, not only, in spite of the menacing imminence of the alternate Tuesdays, did girls come in after lunch, and stayed to tea, and talked French or sketched or played duets, but Aunt Cathie herself took part in these delirious entertainments. She had on hand at the present day a majestic water-colour sketch of the railway embankment seen over the pear-trees, with a perfect sunset of colour on the right to portray the blaze of the flower-bed, and hardly, so to speak, had she sat down to put in more of the pear-tree touch, than Miss; Wilson arrived from the Close, to talk French with Lucia. Aunt Cathie herself rarely ventured on a vocal exhibition of that elusive tongue, but she understood quite three-quarters of what the two girls said, and sometimes put in a parfaitement, in quite the right place. Then almost before she had recovered from the shock of understanding so much French, Miss Majendie would arrive for duets, and here Aunt Cathie was again in request, and stood beside the piano, beating time with a paper-knife, since Lucia and Miss Majendie did not always agree as to the beginnings of bars. They were learning Tschaikowsky's "Pathetique" for four hands, and here Aunt Cathie had a much-needed rest in the middle, since, when Mr. Tschaikowsky chose (as no doubt he had a perfect right to do) to compose music with five crochets in the bar, it was really impossible to follow him, not to say conduct him; and as Cathie sometimes beat six, but oftener four, it had been arranged that the five-four time should be unbeaten since it was unbeatable.

Faint signs of returning animation could also be seen by the careful observer in the conduct of Aunt Elizabeth. She had learned a new stitch, and she was learning a new patience. Otherwise, she was much the same, and still extremely difficult.

Lucia had followed Lord Brayton on foot to the cricket-ground, and so busy were her thoughts that she noticed neither the heat of the day nor the dust of the road. A month age she had made some careful plans, and the careful plans were, and had been, rewarded in a manner that it was profane not to consider providential. She had had only to bestir herself and beckon, and lo, as in the vision of Ezekiel, the dry bones of Brixham began to rattle and come together, and if it was not an exceeding great army that stood up, certainly the officers in the garrison, and the houses in the Close, and the inhabitants of the Hollies and the Laburnums and the Cedars and the Fig-trees, instantly showed