The Daughters of Mrs Peacock by Gerald Bullet Page B

rising, would always say: ‘We shall meet again at teatime, I hope, Mr Crabbe?’ And he, with a bow, would answer: ‘Thank you, Mrs Peacock. You are most kind.’ But today, his first Sunday after the Manor Park affair, the ritual question evoked a different, an unprecedented response.
    â€˜Forgive me, but I fear not. So very sorry. I have to be back at Newtonbury by four o’clock.’
    Five pairs of astonished eyes were turned upon him, seeming to demand an explanation. He offered none. Edmund, cutting in on his wife’s polite protest, said quickly: ‘Very well, my dear Robert. But you needn’t go for half an hour. Come into my study and have atalk.’ He shepherded his womenfolk into the drawing-room and left them there.
    The two men left behind them a speculative silence, which Catherine was the first to break.
    â€˜I wonder if Papa will get it out of him,’ she said: half to herself, half to Sarah.
    â€˜Get what out of him?’ asked Sarah.
    â€˜Where he’s going. Who he’s going to see.’
    â€˜Your father,’ said Mrs Peacock, ‘is too much the gentleman to be inquisitive. I wish his daughters may take after him.’
    â€˜Would you wish us to be gentlemen too, Mama?’
    â€˜I would wish you to be ladies, Sarah, and not trouble your heads about what doesn’t concern you. Mr Crabbe is not our property, remember. He comes and goes as he pleases.’
    â€˜But he
always
stays for tea, Mama,’ said Catherine. ‘Ever since I can remember, he has.’
    â€˜You’re young, my dear. Your memory is short. And why this sudden interest in Mr Crabbe, pray? You realize, I hope, that he’s old enough to be your father?’
    â€˜Is he really, Mama?’ asked Sarah, who knew he was not. ‘And ought that to make him less interesting to us? Kitty’s like me. She prefers old gentlemen. Young men are so insipid, aren’t they, Kitty?’
    â€˜I said nothing about old gentlemen, Sarah. You deliberately twist my words.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean to, Mama. For my part I like Mr Crabbe, however old he is. Why don’t you marry him, Kitty? I daresay he’ll have you if you ask him. He’ll read Browning to you in the long winter evenings.Think of that.’ Seeing with astonishment the beginnings of a blush in Catherine’s cheeks she hastened to add: ‘Or perhaps Julia ought to as, she’s the eldest.’
    â€˜That’s enough, Sarah. Your jokes go too far. They are very unsuitable, especially on the Lord’s Day.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Mama.’ Sarah refrained from asking whether the Lord had no sense of humour. It was a question that sometimes seriously exercised her.
    Catherine contrived to be out of the room when Mr Crabbe returned to take formal leave of Mrs Peacock: a circumstance that made it imperative, she argued, that she should join him and her father in the yard, watch him mount, and wave good-bye to him. He looked well on a horse: easy, upright, quietly masterful. His hired nag was restive almost to friskiness, but he handled her expertly and with style. ‘Steady, girl! Steady!’ His long grave face relaxed into a smile. His voice was dark and gentle.
    But for her father’s presence Catherine would have spoken to him, to make him aware of her. She wanted to ask him if he would lend her a book, one of his many books, whether Browning or another, that she might learn to share his interests and improve her butterfly mind. A month ago, had such an impulse moved her, she would not have hesitated to announce her request in full view and hearing of the whole family. What had happened to her that she should shy away from so simple a thing? And what made her, in the total absence of evidence, so sure that it was Olive Stapleton’s steel-bright eyes and avid mouth that were drawing him untimely back to Newtonbury? As he rode away, transfigured by herfancy into