She looked at him, and took hold of his hand.
"It's quite good for your age," she said, "but you've chosen a difficult subject, one that even real artists would not find easy."
Hal bit his nails, and frowned at the picture.
"I like painting more than any other thing," he said, "but if I can't paint better than other people I'd rather not paint at all."
"That's a wrong way to think," said Katherine.
"That way of thinking makes a person narrow, and envious, and unhappy. There will always be people in the world who will do things better than you do them. All you have to think about is to do the best you can."
"It's not that I mind what people say," said Hal, "but I want to have the feeling inside me that what I do is good. If I think it's bad it makes me miserable."
Katherine put her arm round him, and held him close.
"Go on making your drawings," she said, "and make them because you are happy to make them, good or bad. And then come and show them to me, darling, and we will discuss them together."
So the summer passed, and autumn came again, and by the New Year, the architect promised, the new wing would be habitable. Already the roof and the walls were built, and the floors were laid. The partitions between the rooms were under construction. The great stairway led from the big hall to the gallery above, and Henry, with Katherine on his arm, would point out the places where they would hang their pictures. The children ran along the corridors, calling to one another, their voices echoing to the lofty ceiling.
"You are going to like it, aren't you?" said Henry anxiously. "The whole thing has been planned for you, you know that, don't you?"
Again and again he would take her through the rooms, pointing out the excellence of the fireplace in the drawing-room, the useful size of the new library, where they could house all the books he had never had room for before. Best of all he liked to show hex the boudoir, and the little balcony outside it.
"You can lie in your chair here in the summer," he said. "That is why I purposely ordered the long windows, so that the chair can be moved in and out. And in the winter you can sit here, by your fire. When I want you I shall come and stand below, and throw stones up at the window."
Katherine smiled, and, standing on the balcony, looked out across the creek to Hungry Hill.
"Yes," she said, "it's just what I have always wanted."
He put his arm round her, and they stood together, watching the workmen below.
"In the New Year, when you are up and about again," he said, "we will take three or four months abroad, in Italy and France, and we'll buy everything we fall in love with, furniture and pictures. I want a Botticelli Madonna for the head of the staircase, and there's another fellow, Filippo Lippi, who painted a Madonna exactly like you. It hung above an old altar in a church in Florence, do you remember, we saw it together, the year after Hal was born? We might have nothing but primitives in the gallery, and then, if you fancy them, you shall have your moderns in your boudoir."
"I'm afraid Henry is going to spend a vast amount of money."
"Henry wants his home to be as beautiful as his wife. I must have the best there is of everything, for my wife, for my house, for my children. Perfection or nothing. No middle course."
"Very dangerous," smiled Katherine, "and only leads to disillusion. Hal has the same idea, I'm afraid, and he will suffer many disappointments because of it."
In the middle of December Henry had to be away in Slane for four days, for the Assizes, and on the third day, on returning to his hotel from the court-house, he found Tom Callaghan waiting for him in the lounge.
"What's the Rector of Doonhaven doing in Slane?" he asked, with a laugh. "You've not come to be a witness in the case of assault, have you? Come and have some dinner."
"No, thanks, old fellow. I've come to bring you home."
"What's the matter?" He seized hold of Tom's arm. "Is it Katherine?"
"She had a bit of a chill yesterday morning," said Tom, "and rather foolishly got up, and walked in the garden with the children. By the evening it was worse, and Miss Frost called in the doctor. At any rate, he seems to think the baby is on the way, and asked me to come along and collect you. If you're ready, I suggest we go immediately."
His manner was calm and reassuring. Good old Tom, thought Henry; what a stand-by he was at all times! The best friend in the world. He had got the man at the hotel to collect his luggage; it was waiting strapped in the hall. He scribbled a note making his excuses to his fellow magistrates on the bench, and they left the city.
"The children have been spending the day at Heathmount," said Tom, "helping to make jam in the kitchen.
All in a delightful mess and very happy. We've arranged for them to spend the night, or two or three nights, if necessary."
"I don't suppose the business will be long, if you say it has already started," said Henry. "Kitty was not long coming into the world, as far as I can remember."
"It does not always follow, old boy," said Tom; "that was six or seven years ago, and Katherine hasn't been too fit since, has she?
Still, this young doctor seems a capable fellow.
Old Armstrong insists on being present too, by the way. More from affection for you all than anything else."
"Well, he brought all of us into the world," said Henry. "He probably knows a thing or two about it by this time."
It was nearly eleven o'clock when they arrived home at Clonmere. Uncle Willie Armstrong had heard the sound of the carriage, and was standing waiting for them on the steps.
"Glad to see you, Henry," he said, in his usual gruff, abrupt manner. "Young McKay is with Katherine now. Nothing much happened since you left, Rector. You had both better have a drink.
We can't any of us do anything to hurry this child into the world."
He led the way into the dining-room.
"I shall go up and see Katherine," said Henry, but old Armstrong took him by the shoulder.
"Much better not," he said; "she'd far rather see you when it's all over. They've laid some cold supper for you here. You'd better eat it."
Henry found himself surprisingly hungry. Cold beef and pickles. Apricot tart.
"Come on, Tom," he said, "my wife's having this baby, not yours. Don't look so solemn."
He began to tell them an amusing incident that had happened in court during the afternoon. They listened and smiled, not saying much. Old Doctor Armstrong puffed away at his pipe. Presently Doctor McKay came into the room.
"Well 8? said Henry. "How is she 8?
"Rather tired," said the doctor. "It's being something of an ordeal for her, but she is very patient. I wonder…" He glanced across at Armstrong. "I wonder if you would care to come upstairs with me?"
The old doctor rose from his chair without a word and followed him out of the room.
"You would think," said Henry, "that by this time someone would have invented an easier way for these things to happen.
Why can't the damn fellows do something? She can't surfer all this pain for hours on end." He began pacing up and down the room. "My mother had all five of us and never winked an eyelid," he said.
"She used to sit up and do embroidery five minutes afterwards, and give all the servants notice."
He stopped and listened a moment, and then went on walking again.
"Uncle Willie looks at me all the time with a resigned T told you so" expression in his eye," he said impatiently. "I remember his telling me only last year that Katherine should never have any more children… He had an idea she had got something twisted inside. Katherine never said anything.
She has seemed quite happy about it all. Women are so strange…? He hesitated on one foot, looking at the door, "Shall I go upstairs?" he said.
"I don't think I would, if I were you," said Tom gently.