The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight Part 13

Then Priscilla suggested she should sit down. Mrs. Morrison was already doing it; and Priscilla sank on to her sofa again and wondered what she had better say next. She wondered so much that she became lost in mazes of wonder, and there was so long a silence that Mrs.

Pearce outside the door deplored an inconsiderateness that could keep her there for nothing.

"I didn't know you had a double name," said Mrs. Morrison, staring at Priscilla and trying to decide whether this was not a case for the application of leaflets and instant departure. The girl was really quite offensively pretty. She herself had been pretty--she thanked heaven that she still was so--but never, never pretty--she thanked heaven again--in this glaringly conspicuous fas.h.i.+on.

"My name is Ethel Maria-Theresa Neumann-Schultz," said Priscilla, very clearly and slowly; and though she was, as we know, absolutely impervious to the steadiest staring, she did wonder whether this good lady could have seen her photograph anywhere in some paper, her stare was so very round and bright and piercing.

"What a long name," said Mrs. Morrison.

"Yes," said Priscilla; and as another silence seemed imminent she added, "I have two hyphens."

"Two what?" said Mrs. Morrison, startled; and so full was her head of doubt and distrust that for one dreadful moment she thought the girl had said two husbands. "Oh, hyphens. Yes. Germans have them a good deal, I believe."

"That sounds as if we were talking about diseases," said Priscilla, a faint smile dawning far away somewhere in the depths of her eyes.

"Yes," said Mrs. Morrison, fidgeting.

Odd that Robin should have said nothing about the girl's face. Anyhow she should be kept off Netta. Better keep her off the parish-room Tuesdays as well. What in the world was she doing in Symford? She was quite the sort of girl to turn the heads of silly boys. And so unfortunate, just as Augustus Shuttleworth had taken to giving Netta little volumes of Browning.

"Is your uncle out?" she asked, some of the sharpness of her thoughts getting into her voice.

"He's gone to Minehead, to see about things for my cottage."

"Your cottage? Have you got Mrs. Shaw's, then?"

"Yes. She is being moved out to-day."

"Dear me," said Mrs. Morrison, greatly struck.

"Is it surprising?"

"Most. So unlike Lady Shuttleworth."

"She has been very kind."

"Do you know her?"

"No; but my uncle was there this morning."

"And managed to persuade her?"

"He is very eloquent," said Priscilla, with a demure downward sweep of her eyelashes.

"Just a little more," thought Mrs. Morrison, watching their dusky golden curve, "and the girl would have had scarlet hair and white-eyebrows and ma.s.ses of freckles and been frightful." And she sighed an impatient sigh, which, if translated into verse, would undoubtedly have come out--

"Oh the little more and how much it is, And the little less and what worlds away!"

"And poor old Mrs. Shaw--how does she like being turned out?"

"I believe she is being put into something that will seem to her a palace."

"Dear me, your uncle must really be very eloquent."

"I a.s.sure you that he is," said Priscilla earnestly.

There was a short pause, during which Mrs. Morrison staring straight into those unfathomable pools, Priscilla's eyes, was very angry with them for being so evidently lovely. "You are very young," she said, "so you will not mind my questions--"

"Don't the young mind questions?" asked Priscilla, for a moment supposing it to be a characteristic of the young of England.

"Not, surely, from experienced and--and married ladies," said Mrs.

Morrison tartly.

"Please go on then."

"Oh, I haven't anything particular to go on about," said Mrs.

Morrison, offended. "I a.s.sure you curiosity is not one of my faults."

"No?" said Priscilla, whose attention had begun to wander.

"Being human I have no doubt many failings, but I'm thankful to say curiosity isn't one of them."

"My uncle says that's just the difference between men and women. He says women might achieve just as much as men if only they were curious about things. But they're not. A man will ask a thousand questions, and never rest till he's found out as much as he can about anything he sees, and a woman is content hardly even to see it."

"I hope your uncle is a Churchman," was Mrs. Morrison's unexpected reply.

Priscilla's mind could not leap like this, and she hesitated a moment and smiled. ("It's the first time she's looked pleasant," thought Mrs.

Morrison, "and now it's in the wrong place.")

"He was born, of course, in the Lutheran faith," said Priscilla.

"Oh, a horrid faith. Excuse me, but it really is. I hope he isn't going to upset Symford?"

"Upset Symford?"

"New people holding wrong tenets coming to such a small place do sometimes, you know, and you say he is eloquent. And we are such a simple and G.o.d-fearing little community. A few years ago we had a great bother with a Dissenting family that came here. The cottagers quite lost their heads."

"I think I can promise that my uncle will not try to convert anybody,"

said Priscilla.

"Of course you mean pervert. It would be a pity if he did. It wouldn't last, but it would give us a lot of trouble. We are very good Churchmen here. The vicar, and my son too when he's at home, set beautiful examples. My son is going into the Church himself. It has been his dearest wish from a child. He thinks of nothing else--of nothing else at all," she repeated, fixing her eyes on Priscilla with a look of defiance.

"Really?" said Priscilla, very willing to believe it.

"I a.s.sure you it's wonderful how absorbed he is in his studies for it.

He reads Church history every spare moment, and he's got it so completely on his mind that I've noticed even when he whistles it's 'The Church's One Foundation.'"

"What is that?" inquired Priscilla.

"Mr. Robin Morrison," announced Mrs. Pearce.