Free The Way Home by Henry Handel Richardson Page B

him Mahony caught being kicked by his wife under the table.
    He felt so sore on Mary's behalf that, by the time he had escorted the last guest through the sentry-box porch, he was fairly boiling over. Flinging downstairs to the dining-room, where he found his wife disconsolately regarding her table -- it looked almost as neat as when she first arranged it -- he flashed out: "Well, you've done it now! What in heaven's name possessed you to sit people down to a spread like this?"
    Mary had begun to collect her tartlets -- dozens of them -- on one large dish, and was too preoccupied to lend him more than half an ear. To herself she said: "What shall I do with them?"
    "Do? Bury 'em, my dear, in a corner of the garden -- hide 'em away out of sight! I wish you could get the memory out of people's minds as easily. Our supper-party will be the talk of Buddlecombe for many a day to come!"
    "Just because I tried to make it as nice as I knew how? I think you judge every one by yourself, Richard. Because you didn't enjoy it . . ."
    "Then why was nothing touched?"
    "Perhaps they didn't feel hungry. I oughtn't to have had it till an hour later."
    "Nothing of the sort! Though you had given it to 'em at five in the morning, they would still have walked home on empty stomachs. This kind of thing isn't done here, and the sooner you get that into your head the better!"
    "Never will I descend to their starvation-diet!" cried Mary warmly.
    "Another thing: what in heaven's name induced you to mix those Perkeses up with Mrs. Challoner and her set? That was faux pas of the first water."
    "I do declare I never seem to do anything right! But you said nothing: you didn't know. For if it comes to that, Richard, you make mistakes, too."
    "Indeed and I should like to know how?" -- Mahony was huffed in a second.
    "I didn't mean to say anything about it. But it appears the vicar took it very badly, the other Sunday, that you went to hear that London preacher at the Methodist Chapel. I overheard something that was said at the last sewing-party -- about your perhaps being really a dissenter."
    "Well, of all the. . . objects to my going to hear a well-known preacher, just because he belongs to another sect? Preposterous!"
    "Yes, if it's anything to do with yourself, it's preposterous. But when it's me, it's mistakes, and faux pas, and all the rest of it. Sometimes I really feel quite confused. To remember I mustn't shake hands here or even bow there. That in some quarters I must only say 'Good afternoon,' and not 'How do you do?' -- and then the other way round as well. That nice Mrs. Perkes is not the thing and ought to be cold-shouldered; and when I have company I'm not to give them anything to eat. Oh, Richard, it all seems to me such fudge! How grown-up people can spend their lives being so silly, I don't know. Out there, you had to forget what a person's outside was like -- I mean his table-manners and whether he could say his aitches -- as long as he got on and was capable . . . or rich. But here it's always: 'Who is he? How far back can he trace his pedigree?' -- and nothing else seems to matter a bit. I do believe you might be friends with a swindler or a thief, as long as his family-tree was all right. And the disgrace trade seems to be! Why, looked at this way there wasn't any one in Ballarat who was fit to know. Just think of Tilly and old Mr. Ocock. Here they would be put down as the vulgarest of the vulgar. One certainly wouldn't be able even to bow to them! And then remember all they were to us, and how fond I was of Tilly, and what a splendid character she had. No, this kind of thing goes against the grain in me. I'm afraid the truth is, I like them vulgar best. And I'm too old, now, to change."
    "You too old!" cried Mahony, amazed to hear this, his own dirge, on his wife's lips. "Why, Mary love," -- and from where he sat he held out his hand to her across the table, over the creams and jellies standing like flowers in their cups. "You but a