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290
Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
246
Katie
had
shut
her
eyes,
and
clenched
her
hands.
“He
hated
her.
He
told
me
so,”
she
said.
“I
was
always
a
mother
to
him,”
sobbed
Mrs.
Batch,
rocking
to
and
fro
on
a
chair
in
a
corner.
“Why
didn’t
he
come
to
me
in
his
trouble?”
“He
kissed
me,”
said
Katie,
as
in
a
trance.
“No
other
man
shall
ever
do
that.”
“He
did?”
exclaimed
Clarence.
“And
you
let
him?”
“You
wretched
little
whipper-snapper!”
flashed
Katie.
“Oh,
I
am,
am
I?”
shouted
Clarence,
squaring
up
to
his
sister.
“Say
that
again,
will
you?”
There
is
no
doubt
that
Katie
would
have
said
it
again,
had
not
her
mother
closed
the
scene
with
a
prolonged
wail
of
censure.
“You
ought
to
be
thinking
of
ME,
you
wicked
girl,”
said
Mrs.
Batch.
Katie
went
across,
and
laid
a
gentle
hand
on
her
mother’s
shoulder.
This,
however,
did
but
evoke
a
fresh
flood
of
tears.
Mrs.
Batch
had
a
keen
sense
of
the
deportment
owed
to
tragedy.
Katie,
by
bickering
with
Clarence,
had
thrown
away
the
advantage
she
had
gained
by
fainting.
Mrs.
Batch
was
not
going
to
let
her
retrieve
it
by
shining
as
a
consoler.
I
hasten
to
add
that
this
resolve
was
only
sub-conscious
in
the
good
woman.
Her
grief
was
perfectly
sincere.
And
it
was
not
the
less
so
because
with
it
was
mingled
a
certain
joy
in
the
greatness
of
the
calamity.
She
came
of
good
sound
peasant
stock.
Abiding
in
her
was
the
spirit
of
those
old
songs
and
ballads
in
which
daisies
and
daffodillies
and
lovers’
vows
and
smiles
are
so
strangely
inwoven
with
tombs
and
ghosts,
with
murders
and
all
manner
of
grim
things.
She
had
not
had
education
enough
to
spoil
her
nerve.
She
was
able
to
take
the
rough
with
the
smooth.
She
was
able
to
take
all
life
for
her
province,
and
death
too.
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