Chapter Sixteen.“Cumly,January 2, 19—.“Dear Autocrat,“IWedone it! I’ve given in, and sent off the cable. By now you will have seen it, and be either chortling with triumph, or wishing remorsefully that you’d left well alone. I hope it’s the former, because, to be candid, I’m chortling myself. Oh, I’m so glad! I wanted sobadlyto say ‘yes.’ Itwasclever of you to make it appear so clearly my duty to do just the one thing I wanted above all others!“Hurrah! For a whole year I am free. The office, the surgery, the kitchen, and the stage, can retire gracefully into the background. I’m going out to India with a box full of new clothes, to stay with my dearest friend, and have a good time. Inadvertently also to meet a nice man...“Oh, Jim, Ihopeyou are nice—my kind of nice! I hope, hope, hope with all my heart that I shall tumble right in love with you the moment we meet, and that you’ll do ditto with me, and that we’ll go on tumbling all our lives.“I’ve no pride left this morning; I’m so excited and glad. Martin put his arm round me on Wednesday when I told him of my cable, and swung me off my feet. ‘Now everything is perfect!’ he said. ‘You will be happy as well as I.’ And he has been so dear and generous, insisting that he owes me no end of money for my work for him, and I have been to town to buy clothes, Lonely Man, scrumptious clothes, with Grizel to help, because I should like—Dorothea—to see me look nice!“Grizel is the most bracing person to shop with. When you think it’s extravagant, she calls it cheap, and when you are wondering if youdarehave one, she orders a dozen, and just for once in a way, when you’ve been careful all your life, itislovely to go a bust. Besides—“My bridesmaid’s kit is Grizel’s present, and seems stretching to immense proportions. A dress for the ceremony, and a dress for the evening, and a hat and a cloak, and fal-lals of every description. Do you think the regiment will give some function to let me show them off? Now that my own future no longer casts its shadow over the whole landscape, I am immensely enjoying the engaged couple. They are so deliriously gay and young, and happy and hopeful; and the nice part about it is—it is going to last! I feelsureit will, for through his long experience of sorrow and loss Martin has learned how to give the one all-important thing that is necessary to a woman’s happiness. Have you the slightest idea what it is? You will smile at the sentiment of women, and say ‘Love, of course,’ but it isn’t love, at least it is not necessarily included in that term. Many a man honestly loves his wife, and yet succeeds in making her miserable. No! it is just a simple, homely quality without which the grandest of passions is incomplete!Tenderness! Tenderness means kindness and understanding, and sympathy, and imagination, and patience—above all,patience! When a man is in love he thinks a woman perfect, but she isn’t, she is an irrational, inconsequent creature, whose mate will have need of patience every day of his life, and sometimes many times a day. Of course theredoexist female paragons, calm, correct creatures, with smooth hair and chiselled features, who are always serene and self-contained, but then they are also independent of tenderness. This grows complicated! I’d better drop pretence and confess at once that when I talk generalities I really mean You and Me, the two people who are at the back ofallgeneralities!“I am erratic and variable... On Tuesday, for no tangible cause, I feel bubbling over with happiness; on Wednesday, for an equally logical reason, I crave for death. On occasions I can be exasperatingly contrary. I know it all the time, and am furious with myself, but that only makes me worse! On after reflection I either pray and fast, or in brazen fashion excuse myself on the score of electric influences! After all, why shouldn’t I? We are the most sensitive of machines, and if climatic disturbances affect the wires at a distance of thousands of miles, why shouldWepass unscathed? I sometimes think we are too hard on our own moods and tempers, but they are trying enough in any case for the other person. The question of the hour is this—CouldYoube tender toMe???“Only four weeks and I’m off! It will be more convenient for me to leave directly after the wedding, and if ’twere done, ’twere well done quickly. Grizel’strousseauis reaching the acute stage, and I thought I was busy enough helping her, without starting a second on my—“WhatamI saying! I must be mad. You understand that I trust to that three months’ truce, and that I promise nothing—nothing. I onlyhope!“Au revoir, Jim. To-morrow I shall be tearing my hair for writing all this, but the mail will have gone... It will be too late.“Katrine.“P.S. A happy new year, Jim,Willit be happy?”
“Cumly,January 2, 19—.
“Dear Autocrat,
“IWedone it! I’ve given in, and sent off the cable. By now you will have seen it, and be either chortling with triumph, or wishing remorsefully that you’d left well alone. I hope it’s the former, because, to be candid, I’m chortling myself. Oh, I’m so glad! I wanted sobadlyto say ‘yes.’ Itwasclever of you to make it appear so clearly my duty to do just the one thing I wanted above all others!
“Hurrah! For a whole year I am free. The office, the surgery, the kitchen, and the stage, can retire gracefully into the background. I’m going out to India with a box full of new clothes, to stay with my dearest friend, and have a good time. Inadvertently also to meet a nice man...
“Oh, Jim, Ihopeyou are nice—my kind of nice! I hope, hope, hope with all my heart that I shall tumble right in love with you the moment we meet, and that you’ll do ditto with me, and that we’ll go on tumbling all our lives.
“I’ve no pride left this morning; I’m so excited and glad. Martin put his arm round me on Wednesday when I told him of my cable, and swung me off my feet. ‘Now everything is perfect!’ he said. ‘You will be happy as well as I.’ And he has been so dear and generous, insisting that he owes me no end of money for my work for him, and I have been to town to buy clothes, Lonely Man, scrumptious clothes, with Grizel to help, because I should like—Dorothea—to see me look nice!
“Grizel is the most bracing person to shop with. When you think it’s extravagant, she calls it cheap, and when you are wondering if youdarehave one, she orders a dozen, and just for once in a way, when you’ve been careful all your life, itislovely to go a bust. Besides—
“My bridesmaid’s kit is Grizel’s present, and seems stretching to immense proportions. A dress for the ceremony, and a dress for the evening, and a hat and a cloak, and fal-lals of every description. Do you think the regiment will give some function to let me show them off? Now that my own future no longer casts its shadow over the whole landscape, I am immensely enjoying the engaged couple. They are so deliriously gay and young, and happy and hopeful; and the nice part about it is—it is going to last! I feelsureit will, for through his long experience of sorrow and loss Martin has learned how to give the one all-important thing that is necessary to a woman’s happiness. Have you the slightest idea what it is? You will smile at the sentiment of women, and say ‘Love, of course,’ but it isn’t love, at least it is not necessarily included in that term. Many a man honestly loves his wife, and yet succeeds in making her miserable. No! it is just a simple, homely quality without which the grandest of passions is incomplete!Tenderness! Tenderness means kindness and understanding, and sympathy, and imagination, and patience—above all,patience! When a man is in love he thinks a woman perfect, but she isn’t, she is an irrational, inconsequent creature, whose mate will have need of patience every day of his life, and sometimes many times a day. Of course theredoexist female paragons, calm, correct creatures, with smooth hair and chiselled features, who are always serene and self-contained, but then they are also independent of tenderness. This grows complicated! I’d better drop pretence and confess at once that when I talk generalities I really mean You and Me, the two people who are at the back ofallgeneralities!
“I am erratic and variable... On Tuesday, for no tangible cause, I feel bubbling over with happiness; on Wednesday, for an equally logical reason, I crave for death. On occasions I can be exasperatingly contrary. I know it all the time, and am furious with myself, but that only makes me worse! On after reflection I either pray and fast, or in brazen fashion excuse myself on the score of electric influences! After all, why shouldn’t I? We are the most sensitive of machines, and if climatic disturbances affect the wires at a distance of thousands of miles, why shouldWepass unscathed? I sometimes think we are too hard on our own moods and tempers, but they are trying enough in any case for the other person. The question of the hour is this—CouldYoube tender toMe???
“Only four weeks and I’m off! It will be more convenient for me to leave directly after the wedding, and if ’twere done, ’twere well done quickly. Grizel’strousseauis reaching the acute stage, and I thought I was busy enough helping her, without starting a second on my—
“WhatamI saying! I must be mad. You understand that I trust to that three months’ truce, and that I promise nothing—nothing. I onlyhope!
“Au revoir, Jim. To-morrow I shall be tearing my hair for writing all this, but the mail will have gone... It will be too late.
“Katrine.
“P.S. A happy new year, Jim,Willit be happy?”
Chapter Seventeen.“Cumly,January 7, 19—.“Dear Captain Blair,“This follows quickly to retract everything that I said last week! If I had not already spent so much on cables, and if it were not so difficult to explain, I should have sent a flying order to burn that effusion unread! It makes me hot to think of the things I wrote. I am not usually so heady and bold, but the excitement was too much for me, the brilliant shifting of the scene, the finding myself of a sudden a leading lady, instead of a forlorn super,—the new clothes!—“Honestly, I believe the clothes had as much to do with it as anything else! Do you remember a character in a book a year or two ago saying that the consciousness of being perfectly dressed imparted a peace and joy which religion can never bestow! I have quoted that saying to many women in turns, and each and all on the spur of the moment exclaimed ‘How true!’ though the serious-minded ones tried to back out afterwards. I have wondered sometimes if the difference in temperament between the two sexes isn’t after all mainly a matter of clothes. A man goes to a decent tailor, puts on a well-cut tweed or dress suit, arranges his tie with a certain amount of skill, and—kings can do no more! Never in all his life does he experience the agonising sensation of entering a room and realising at a glance that he is all wrong, while the right thing is hanging idly at home in the wardrobe; never is his heart torn by the consciousness of inferiority, or the necessity of putting up with a second best, when the first is a dream of beauty and becomingness. He knows none of these trials, but then, on the other hand, he has none of the thrills! Who could be thrilled by an old black coat, but when it is the exact shade of blue that matches your eyes, when the lines of the skirt make you blush at your own grace, when the trimmings are dreams, and the very linings a picture, then, oh, man! the elation of it mounts to the feminine head like wine, and no mere male can understand...“I imagined until now that I was superior to such folly. I never cared much about clothes, but then, as Grizel brutally explains, that was because I never had none! Now I am as susceptible as the rest...“All this chatter about clothes is simply to cover my embarrassment, because I don’t know what else to say!“You must all have made very sure of me, to write to Captain Bedford as you did! ... I had the kindest letter from him yesterday, promising every helpen voyage. I am to tip the steward to arrange that he has a seat next to me at table from Aden onward. I shall have found my sea legs by then, I suppose, and be able to turn up for meals. He—Captain Bedford—isn’t too well, I’m afraid, for he talks of feverish turns which can’t be good in his condition, but there seems no doubt of his return. I shall cross-question him (artfully!) about you, and expect to pick up some useful information. Don’t expect me to write again before sailing. I am too busy and—shy! and when Idoarrive, please arrange to meet me first among a crowd of people, and look the other way hard whenever I’m looking. I’m capable of coming home by the first boat if I’m druv!“Katrine.”“P.S.—I have no money; not a cent. ‘My face is my fortune,’ plus a pearl necklet, and a loving heart! The situation is so unusual that I think I am justified in being personal and inquisitive. Here’s an examination paper for you on certain burning points. You will have time to post answers to Port Said, and if unsatisfactory I can always drown myself, or—turn back!“Question I.“Do your ears stick out?”“NB.—This is important. Prevarication forbidden.“Question II.“When annoyed do you rage or sulk?“Question III.“Have you tiresome little ways? If so, how many? Clearly define their nature, and specify in particular whether you fidget, scatter tobacco, sneeze loudly, scrape your plate, argue, frown over bills, repeat yourself in conversation...“Question IV.“What sort of tobacco do you smoke, and how much? I don’t smoke at all. Too Cranford! Are you pleased or sorry?“Question V.“What would be your manner of proceeding under the following circumstances:—“Wife irritable. Wife hysteric. Wife homesick. Wife unreasonable and provoking? Wife all at once.”“My Dearest Katrine,“If I write at once I shall just catch you before you sail. When you are here, when I see you face to face, and after the period of truce is over, I shall tell you how I felt when that cable arrived yesterday, and I realised that in less than three months we should meet in the flesh. I have felt a new man since that hour, and Dorothea says I look it. She had already written to Bedford (at my instigation) saying that you would probably be coming by theBremen, and giving him elaborate instructions on your behalf. No fear that he won’t carry them out! Heavens! the luck some fellows have. What would I give for the opportunity of ‘looking after you’ through those long, lazy days, but I’m not jealous, Katrine—don’t imagine that! Whatever you may decide in the future, you’ll play fair to me in the present. I asked for my chance, and you’ve given it by agreeing to come out, so for the time being I hold the field. I trust you utterly, with a glad heart.“This will be the last letter you get from me, unless perhaps a line at Aden, and I can write no more to-day, dear. My heart is too full...
“Cumly,January 7, 19—.
“Dear Captain Blair,
“This follows quickly to retract everything that I said last week! If I had not already spent so much on cables, and if it were not so difficult to explain, I should have sent a flying order to burn that effusion unread! It makes me hot to think of the things I wrote. I am not usually so heady and bold, but the excitement was too much for me, the brilliant shifting of the scene, the finding myself of a sudden a leading lady, instead of a forlorn super,—the new clothes!—
“Honestly, I believe the clothes had as much to do with it as anything else! Do you remember a character in a book a year or two ago saying that the consciousness of being perfectly dressed imparted a peace and joy which religion can never bestow! I have quoted that saying to many women in turns, and each and all on the spur of the moment exclaimed ‘How true!’ though the serious-minded ones tried to back out afterwards. I have wondered sometimes if the difference in temperament between the two sexes isn’t after all mainly a matter of clothes. A man goes to a decent tailor, puts on a well-cut tweed or dress suit, arranges his tie with a certain amount of skill, and—kings can do no more! Never in all his life does he experience the agonising sensation of entering a room and realising at a glance that he is all wrong, while the right thing is hanging idly at home in the wardrobe; never is his heart torn by the consciousness of inferiority, or the necessity of putting up with a second best, when the first is a dream of beauty and becomingness. He knows none of these trials, but then, on the other hand, he has none of the thrills! Who could be thrilled by an old black coat, but when it is the exact shade of blue that matches your eyes, when the lines of the skirt make you blush at your own grace, when the trimmings are dreams, and the very linings a picture, then, oh, man! the elation of it mounts to the feminine head like wine, and no mere male can understand...
“I imagined until now that I was superior to such folly. I never cared much about clothes, but then, as Grizel brutally explains, that was because I never had none! Now I am as susceptible as the rest...
“All this chatter about clothes is simply to cover my embarrassment, because I don’t know what else to say!
“You must all have made very sure of me, to write to Captain Bedford as you did! ... I had the kindest letter from him yesterday, promising every helpen voyage. I am to tip the steward to arrange that he has a seat next to me at table from Aden onward. I shall have found my sea legs by then, I suppose, and be able to turn up for meals. He—Captain Bedford—isn’t too well, I’m afraid, for he talks of feverish turns which can’t be good in his condition, but there seems no doubt of his return. I shall cross-question him (artfully!) about you, and expect to pick up some useful information. Don’t expect me to write again before sailing. I am too busy and—shy! and when Idoarrive, please arrange to meet me first among a crowd of people, and look the other way hard whenever I’m looking. I’m capable of coming home by the first boat if I’m druv!
“Katrine.”
“P.S.—I have no money; not a cent. ‘My face is my fortune,’ plus a pearl necklet, and a loving heart! The situation is so unusual that I think I am justified in being personal and inquisitive. Here’s an examination paper for you on certain burning points. You will have time to post answers to Port Said, and if unsatisfactory I can always drown myself, or—turn back!
“Question I.
“Do your ears stick out?”
“NB.—This is important. Prevarication forbidden.
“Question II.
“When annoyed do you rage or sulk?
“Question III.
“Have you tiresome little ways? If so, how many? Clearly define their nature, and specify in particular whether you fidget, scatter tobacco, sneeze loudly, scrape your plate, argue, frown over bills, repeat yourself in conversation...
“Question IV.
“What sort of tobacco do you smoke, and how much? I don’t smoke at all. Too Cranford! Are you pleased or sorry?
“Question V.
“What would be your manner of proceeding under the following circumstances:—
“Wife irritable. Wife hysteric. Wife homesick. Wife unreasonable and provoking? Wife all at once.”
“My Dearest Katrine,
“If I write at once I shall just catch you before you sail. When you are here, when I see you face to face, and after the period of truce is over, I shall tell you how I felt when that cable arrived yesterday, and I realised that in less than three months we should meet in the flesh. I have felt a new man since that hour, and Dorothea says I look it. She had already written to Bedford (at my instigation) saying that you would probably be coming by theBremen, and giving him elaborate instructions on your behalf. No fear that he won’t carry them out! Heavens! the luck some fellows have. What would I give for the opportunity of ‘looking after you’ through those long, lazy days, but I’m not jealous, Katrine—don’t imagine that! Whatever you may decide in the future, you’ll play fair to me in the present. I asked for my chance, and you’ve given it by agreeing to come out, so for the time being I hold the field. I trust you utterly, with a glad heart.
“This will be the last letter you get from me, unless perhaps a line at Aden, and I can write no more to-day, dear. My heart is too full...
Chapter Eighteen.The new house had been found; a sunny, airy, sufficiently spacious house, and the bride-elect having graciously expressed her approval, an army of workmen were busy with the decorations. Grizel had come to pay a flying visit to The Glen to superintend their efforts, explaining that though she possessed sufficient strength of character to bear with equanimity such trial as Providence might please to send, to live with a wrong shade of paint passed the limits of her endurance.“If it were even the tiniest degree wrong, I’d nag at Martin till his life was a burden,” she announced, smiling the while the slow, imperturbable smile which gave so emphatic a contradiction to her words.“But it wouldn’t be my fault!” protested Martin, trying to show sufficient distress at the threat to satisfy Grizel’s sense of dignity, but his thanks for the effort were a grimace, and an emphatic: “It willalwaysbe your fault!” which silenced him once for all.Grizel indeed was in her most irresponsible mood, scandalising Katrine by refusing to be serious even on that most solemn of subjects, the ordering of Martin’s food.“I couldn’t possibly think of food beforehand. It’s disgusting! If I knew what was coming to table, I couldn’t eat a bite! The cook must do it. What are cooks for?”“Plaincooks at under thirty pounds a year don’t consider menus within their province. They stare into space, and twirl their fingers whileyouplan. And even then they need directing.”Grizel sighed.“But I don’tlikeplain cooks! I’ll have a fancy one. Forty pounds,—fifty—whatever she asks, and a kitchen maid to do the work.”“Then,” prophesied Katrine gloomily, “Martin will be ruined. She’ll fry up all his royalties.”“I’ll tell her she’s not to. And besides,” Grizel’s voice swelled with importance; she had caught the sneer on Katrine’s lips at those first words, and now she had a really sensible addenda. “I’ll bribe her! In reverse ratio. The smaller the bills, the bigger the bribe.”“Then,” pursued Katrine relentlessly, “she’ll give you bad qualities. Salt butter; dripping instead of lard; cheap jams; rank tea!”“Oh, my gracious!” Grizel grimaced again, more violently than before, but the next moment she smiled triumphant. “I’ll buy a vidder! A gentle, domesticated little vidder who’s redooced, and seeks a home. She shall have two rooms, and kind treatment, and be paid by results. Good food, small bills,—big salary. Small food, big bills,—out she goes! Don’t tell me I can’t! There arethousandsof vidders. It will be a pious deed.”“And what,” queried Katrine the practical, “will you do?”“Interfere, of course! What d’you expect?” Grizel turned her head toward herfiancé, who had been a delighted listener to the discussion. “Andmake love to Martin. I shan’t have time for anything else.”Katrine left the room, head in air, whereupon Martin made haste to take his bride in his arms.“Happy?” she asked softly, tilting her head so as to look into his face. “Content?”“Ah, Grizel, not quite... When I have you always... when you are my wife!”“No qualms at all—no doubt? Because there’s still time... Sure you realise exactly what you are getting? An expensive wife, impracticable and lazy. And I’m twenty-eight. I shan’t change. And not a bit clever, except in one way!”“What way, Grizel?”“You know—”“I want to be told!”The golden eyes grew dark, the pale face glowed. Ah! Grizel’s lover needed no telling. Not one woman in a thousand could love like this soft, sweet thing, whose outer appearance was so calm and still. She who had contrived to love with tenderness a cantankerous old woman, lavished a very flood of devotion on the man of her choice. His starved nature absorbed it like a thirsty plant, but his delight in her was still fearful, incredulous; the sudden transformation of his life had the perilous radiance of a dream.The engagement had been a veritable nine days’ wonder. English newspapers had published more or less accurate life histories of the interesting couple; American journals had excelled themselves in imaginative details. Blurred caricature portraits of the prospective bride and bridegroom had appeared side by side, to the amusement of the one, and the helpless fury of the other. The outer world labelled Grizel, fool, and Martin, knave; envied the unsuspecting distant relations, to whom would come the news of a great inheritance; and then promptly, mercifully, forgot. Friends also ceased in due time to forward notes of ostensible congratulation, behind which the real amaze was plainly stamped; only one effect was of any lasting nature, and regarding this Martin felt an odd mixture of chagrin and elation. His agent reported a large increase in the sale of his books, and publishers bid against each other for the privilege of publishing his new novel. The artist in him resented so spurious a success; the lover rejoiced in the prospect of increased prosperity which would make it possible to provide more luxuries for his bride.Grizel was whole-hearted in her choice of love rather than riches, but when one has been accustomed to think in thousands, it is difficult to grasp the importance of fractional amounts. She thought it absurd to weigh the matter of an extra hundred a year in so important a matter as the rent of the house in which one would have to live; she took for granted the existence of a carriage, as simply as that of a table, and had not dimly imagined the possibility of existence without a maid. Martin did not delude himself that the financial future was free from difficulty, but as for years past he had been living well below his income, he was prepared to meet the exigencies of a period of adjustment. Meantime Grizel’s suggestion of the “vidder” seemed an admirable solution, and he told himself cheerfully that with such a check on household expenses, things could not go far wrong. In a few years’ time Grizel would have adapted herself to the new conditions and be able to take over the reins; in the meantime he was well content that she should devote herself to a more attractive rôle!But one shadow had clouded the sun of Martin’s content, and within the last weeks that also had been removed, for after having obstinately refused all overtures from himself and her friends, after proclaiming by day or by night that she must go out into the world and fight her own battles, Katrine had shown a sudden and mysteriousvolte-face. One Thursday morning she had retired upstairs to digest her Indian mail, and half an hour later, knocking at his study door, had announced her intention of cabling an immediate acceptance of the Middletons’ invitation! She was trembling as she spoke, and her eyes were moist, but Martin did not need to be told that it was joy and not sorrow which caused her emotion. A woman would have pondered the why and wherefore of the sudden change; Martin merely told himself with a sigh of relief that she had “come to her senses,” embraced her affectionately, and proffered money for the cable. Later on he came to the conclusion that Katrine must all along have intended to accept, and had been merely indulging in a little feminine fuss, since it appeared all cut and dried that she was to be looked afteren voyageby a member of Middleton’s regiment, now invalided in Egypt, Well! everything was turning out in the most delightful fashion. In a hill station, which was a health resort even in the hottest months, the question of climate was practically non-existent. After the marriage Katrine would stay behind superintending final arrangements in the new home, then travel overland to Marseilles, where he and Grizel would meet her and give her a good send-off. A visit of a year was mentioned, but when a girl so handsome and striking went out to India, one could never tell... “Perhaps she’ll marry this Bedford,” soliloquised Martin happily, Jim or Bedford, what did it matter, so long as he was a good, straight fellow, and made the girl happy!
The new house had been found; a sunny, airy, sufficiently spacious house, and the bride-elect having graciously expressed her approval, an army of workmen were busy with the decorations. Grizel had come to pay a flying visit to The Glen to superintend their efforts, explaining that though she possessed sufficient strength of character to bear with equanimity such trial as Providence might please to send, to live with a wrong shade of paint passed the limits of her endurance.
“If it were even the tiniest degree wrong, I’d nag at Martin till his life was a burden,” she announced, smiling the while the slow, imperturbable smile which gave so emphatic a contradiction to her words.
“But it wouldn’t be my fault!” protested Martin, trying to show sufficient distress at the threat to satisfy Grizel’s sense of dignity, but his thanks for the effort were a grimace, and an emphatic: “It willalwaysbe your fault!” which silenced him once for all.
Grizel indeed was in her most irresponsible mood, scandalising Katrine by refusing to be serious even on that most solemn of subjects, the ordering of Martin’s food.
“I couldn’t possibly think of food beforehand. It’s disgusting! If I knew what was coming to table, I couldn’t eat a bite! The cook must do it. What are cooks for?”
“Plaincooks at under thirty pounds a year don’t consider menus within their province. They stare into space, and twirl their fingers whileyouplan. And even then they need directing.”
Grizel sighed.
“But I don’tlikeplain cooks! I’ll have a fancy one. Forty pounds,—fifty—whatever she asks, and a kitchen maid to do the work.”
“Then,” prophesied Katrine gloomily, “Martin will be ruined. She’ll fry up all his royalties.”
“I’ll tell her she’s not to. And besides,” Grizel’s voice swelled with importance; she had caught the sneer on Katrine’s lips at those first words, and now she had a really sensible addenda. “I’ll bribe her! In reverse ratio. The smaller the bills, the bigger the bribe.”
“Then,” pursued Katrine relentlessly, “she’ll give you bad qualities. Salt butter; dripping instead of lard; cheap jams; rank tea!”
“Oh, my gracious!” Grizel grimaced again, more violently than before, but the next moment she smiled triumphant. “I’ll buy a vidder! A gentle, domesticated little vidder who’s redooced, and seeks a home. She shall have two rooms, and kind treatment, and be paid by results. Good food, small bills,—big salary. Small food, big bills,—out she goes! Don’t tell me I can’t! There arethousandsof vidders. It will be a pious deed.”
“And what,” queried Katrine the practical, “will you do?”
“Interfere, of course! What d’you expect?” Grizel turned her head toward herfiancé, who had been a delighted listener to the discussion. “Andmake love to Martin. I shan’t have time for anything else.”
Katrine left the room, head in air, whereupon Martin made haste to take his bride in his arms.
“Happy?” she asked softly, tilting her head so as to look into his face. “Content?”
“Ah, Grizel, not quite... When I have you always... when you are my wife!”
“No qualms at all—no doubt? Because there’s still time... Sure you realise exactly what you are getting? An expensive wife, impracticable and lazy. And I’m twenty-eight. I shan’t change. And not a bit clever, except in one way!”
“What way, Grizel?”
“You know—”
“I want to be told!”
The golden eyes grew dark, the pale face glowed. Ah! Grizel’s lover needed no telling. Not one woman in a thousand could love like this soft, sweet thing, whose outer appearance was so calm and still. She who had contrived to love with tenderness a cantankerous old woman, lavished a very flood of devotion on the man of her choice. His starved nature absorbed it like a thirsty plant, but his delight in her was still fearful, incredulous; the sudden transformation of his life had the perilous radiance of a dream.
The engagement had been a veritable nine days’ wonder. English newspapers had published more or less accurate life histories of the interesting couple; American journals had excelled themselves in imaginative details. Blurred caricature portraits of the prospective bride and bridegroom had appeared side by side, to the amusement of the one, and the helpless fury of the other. The outer world labelled Grizel, fool, and Martin, knave; envied the unsuspecting distant relations, to whom would come the news of a great inheritance; and then promptly, mercifully, forgot. Friends also ceased in due time to forward notes of ostensible congratulation, behind which the real amaze was plainly stamped; only one effect was of any lasting nature, and regarding this Martin felt an odd mixture of chagrin and elation. His agent reported a large increase in the sale of his books, and publishers bid against each other for the privilege of publishing his new novel. The artist in him resented so spurious a success; the lover rejoiced in the prospect of increased prosperity which would make it possible to provide more luxuries for his bride.
Grizel was whole-hearted in her choice of love rather than riches, but when one has been accustomed to think in thousands, it is difficult to grasp the importance of fractional amounts. She thought it absurd to weigh the matter of an extra hundred a year in so important a matter as the rent of the house in which one would have to live; she took for granted the existence of a carriage, as simply as that of a table, and had not dimly imagined the possibility of existence without a maid. Martin did not delude himself that the financial future was free from difficulty, but as for years past he had been living well below his income, he was prepared to meet the exigencies of a period of adjustment. Meantime Grizel’s suggestion of the “vidder” seemed an admirable solution, and he told himself cheerfully that with such a check on household expenses, things could not go far wrong. In a few years’ time Grizel would have adapted herself to the new conditions and be able to take over the reins; in the meantime he was well content that she should devote herself to a more attractive rôle!
But one shadow had clouded the sun of Martin’s content, and within the last weeks that also had been removed, for after having obstinately refused all overtures from himself and her friends, after proclaiming by day or by night that she must go out into the world and fight her own battles, Katrine had shown a sudden and mysteriousvolte-face. One Thursday morning she had retired upstairs to digest her Indian mail, and half an hour later, knocking at his study door, had announced her intention of cabling an immediate acceptance of the Middletons’ invitation! She was trembling as she spoke, and her eyes were moist, but Martin did not need to be told that it was joy and not sorrow which caused her emotion. A woman would have pondered the why and wherefore of the sudden change; Martin merely told himself with a sigh of relief that she had “come to her senses,” embraced her affectionately, and proffered money for the cable. Later on he came to the conclusion that Katrine must all along have intended to accept, and had been merely indulging in a little feminine fuss, since it appeared all cut and dried that she was to be looked afteren voyageby a member of Middleton’s regiment, now invalided in Egypt, Well! everything was turning out in the most delightful fashion. In a hill station, which was a health resort even in the hottest months, the question of climate was practically non-existent. After the marriage Katrine would stay behind superintending final arrangements in the new home, then travel overland to Marseilles, where he and Grizel would meet her and give her a good send-off. A visit of a year was mentioned, but when a girl so handsome and striking went out to India, one could never tell... “Perhaps she’ll marry this Bedford,” soliloquised Martin happily, Jim or Bedford, what did it matter, so long as he was a good, straight fellow, and made the girl happy!
Part 2— Chapter XIX.Katrine came slowly up the companion-way, and looked around the deck in search of her labelled chair. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was blazing out of a cloudless sky. Yesterday in Marseilles it had been grey and chill. The only cheerful thing had been Grizel’s face, fresh, pink-cheeked, unashamedly aglow. The secret of her happiness was patent to the most casual eye. Tired men and work-worn women looked at her as she passed, and glowed in sympathy, and from her their glance passed on to the tall man with the deep-set eyes, who walked by her side. Martin’s happiness was as great as his wife’s, but man-like he was at pains to conceal it. The consciousness of being observed was enough to extinguish his smiles, and Katrine was amusedly conscious that he was making an effort to appear depressed at the prospect of her own departure. The newly-married pair had accompanied her on board the steamer, armed with flowers, with fruit, with scent and bonbons, with cushions and medicines, until the small cabin had been blocked to overflowing, and the passengers who had braved the rigours of the Bay, debated among themselves as to the identity of the handsome girl who had such a luxurious send-off.Standing on the deck amid the roar and bustle of approaching departure, the three had spoken their farewell words.“I won’t say good-bye,” Grizel declared. “En avant! Katrine! There’s a good time coming!”But the tears stood in Katrine’s eyes. She was leaving the known, the safe, and the sure, and sailing forth into the unknown. Fear seized her, and with it regret.“If—if I come home soon... You won’t be cross if I turn up like a bad penny? You will take me in, until I find some work?”“My dear girl, you know it! If you are not happy; if you don’t want to go, come back with usnow! Never mind the clothes... We’ll arrange all that. You shan’t go one step against your will...”Grizel laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Her cool, calm voice was like a tonic, bracing the hearers into composure.“She is going of herownwill, and ifYouwould take her back with you now,I won’t, so you can choose between us! We’re ready for you, Katrine dear, when you’ve tried it, and grown tired, but not before. I’m just afraid we’ll have too long to wait! ... Now smile this minute! Would you leave me stranded on a foreign shore with a lugubrious spouse!”Then Katrine laughed, and they kissed and embraced, and Grizel slipping her hand through her husband’s arm, drew him towards the gangway.“Belovedest!” she whispered softly. “I’m here!” and Katrine looking down from her towering perch watched the lift of the charming face, caught the swift, mutual glance, and realised that no outside anxiety could mar the perfection of that love. She sighed, but the predominant sensation was relief, not pain. A chapter of her life was turned. She thanked God that it closed in sunshine!And now it was the morning of her first day at sea. Tired after her long overland journey, she had retired to bed while her fellow-passengers were at dinner, and had slept so soundly in her narrow bunk that on waking there had been a moment’s blank bewilderment before she could realise her position. A stewardess stood before her bearing the early cup of tea; on the berth opposite a gaunt, grey-haired woman was sitting, cup in hand, staring at her with curious eyes.“Mornin’!” she said tersely. “First introduction. You were asleep when I turned in last night. Glad you don’t snore!”“Goodness! I never thought of that. How awful!” exclaimed Katrine, laughing in her turn. She sipped at her cup, and grimaced eloquently. “Ugh. What is it? Tea or coffee?”“Mixed,” replied the other gravely. “To suit all tastes.”She drank again with apparent enjoyment. “Always drink it myself out of principle. Charge you too much to leave out a meal... First trip?”“First time in my life I ever slept in a berth. I’d no idea they were so comfortable.”The grey-haired lady fumbled beneath her pillow, placed a pair of spectacles on her nose, and stared across with frank curiosity.“Bride?”“I beg your pardon!”“Unnecessary, thank you. It’s my tenth voyage. Met shoals of brides. You look the type.”Katrine ostentatiously displayed her left hand.“I hope that’s a compliment. As a matter of fact, I am going out to join some friends in North Bengal.”“Missionaries?”Katrine jumped till the cup rattled in a threatening manner.“No! Cer-tainly not.”“Humph!” said the grey-haired woman, and scraped the sugar from her cup. “I’m sorry foranygirl,” she announced tentatively between the spoonfuls, “who goes out to one of those lonely plantations... No fun. No chances. Fifty times worse than at home.”“Is that so? Really? I’m sorry!” Katrine shook her head, and endeavoured to look perturbed.The good sleep, the novelty of the surroundings, the glimpse of blue through the port-hole, combined to produce an exhilarating effect. She felt gay and mischievous, too light-hearted to resent her companion’s curiosity, but none the less determined not to gratify it. She ate bread and butter, and sipped at the compound liquor in silence, the while the spectacled eyes continued their scrutiny.“Odd thing—the Indian climate,” continued the stranger in ruminating fashion. “Changes the constitootion. Never knowwhichway you’ll go, but it’s bound to be one.You’llgrow fat!”That roused Katrine. Her head twisted round, indignant colour stained her cheeks.“Ishan’t! I shouldn’t dream of such a thing... Far more likely—”“Excuse me—no! I’ve had experience. Some dwindle to skeletons, but not your build. Niece of mine sailed with me two years ago. Twenty-two-inch waist. Put on a stone in three months. All her bodices altered. Two stones more since then, and a double chin. Looks like her own mother. But of course if you take much exercise... Some of the civil appointments are quite good. If you keep horses, and ride each morning—”“Just so,” assented Katrine. “Just so.” She was discomposed by the prospect of obesity, the more so as Dorothea’s excessive thinness would seem to confirm the assertion that the climate was extreme in its effects. A moment passed in the earnest consideration of the disadvantages of fatversuslean, then the grey-haired one plunged boldly into autobiography:“My husband was a judge. Mannering. Bombay. Thousand a year pension, but not a penny to leave behind. No use any one making up tome!Got a boy in the Indian Cavalry. Going out now to pay him a call. Nice boy. Was, at least, when I saw him last. May have changed, of course.”Katrine’s looks became suddenly infused with interest.“Then our destinations are not far apart. Do you know—have you any friends in the — Regiment?”“Not—one—soul!” said the stranger emphatically, and in a manner which seemed to imply that nothing would induce her to consent to such an entanglement. She hunched up the pillows behind her back, and continued forcibly. “Detest the military. Always did. Quite against my wishes that the boy went in; but there I am—silly fool! proud as any one of ’em, when I see him dressed up... Stinting myself for his gold lace! Well, well, we’re all fools at heart, my dear, every man jack of us, and women too... When are you going to take your bath?”The catechism was over for the moment. Katrine staggered out of bed, robed herself in a dainty blue dressing-gown and smoothed her dark locks, uneasily conscious that not a ribbon, a lace, or a French knot itself escaped the scrutiny of the watching eyes. When she returned, fresh and rosy, her companion departed in her turn, and returned just as Katrine was finishing her hair in time to announce briskly:“Warm sunny day! Seen three girls in white frocks. Sport one yourself, and cut ’em out! Great thing to make a good impression!”“I don’t care,”—began Katrine haughtily, then the spirit of the hour choked the words in her throat. “Yes, after all, Ido!” she laughed, and kneeling before her cabin trunk lifted a fresh white frock from the tray. “I’ll put on this, and do credit to our cabin!”“Cheers!” cried the stranger, and with a pleasing frankness extracted her false teeth.Katrine mounted the steps to the deck. There was still half an hour to spare before breakfast, but she wished it had been twice as long, as she paced slowly down the shining deck, and tasted for the first time the deep salt brine of the breeze. Only fifteen hours before she had shivered in rain and chill; now the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and the breeze was warm and sweet. The exhilaration of it all! The great vessel in its shining order, the air, the spray, the lap of the great green flood, the kaleidoscopic procession of passengers, strolling like herself, bareheaded, white-robed, revelling in the first taste of heat after the Northern cold!Katrine was loath to tear herself away from the fascinating scene, but the duty of interviewing the steward lay before her. She descended, armed with a golden key, proffered her request, and met with a gracious consent.Nothing could be easier. A party of three were landing at Port Said; Miss Beverley could be given a place at the same table, and Captain Bedford could also be accommodated on arrival.So far so good! Katrine ate her breakfast with an enjoyment heightened by her fast of the night before, came to the conclusion that she should not grieve over the departure of the Port Said trio, and armed with a book and a sunshade, mounted once more to the deck.The first business was to find her chair, and a difficult search it promised to be. She was wandering aimlessly to and fro reading the names attached to the backs of the serried rows, when a voice spoke in her ear:“Can I help?” it asked. “You are looking for a chair, I think. If you give me the name, I’d be delighted to find it for you.”The speaker was a tall, strikingly handsome man of some twenty-four or five years. Katrine had noticed him at an adjacent table during the lengthy breakfast; had also been conscious that he had noticed herself. She expressed her thanks, and in an incredibly short time the chair was produced, and placed in a comfortable position.“May I bring mine alongside?” enquired the stranger, and Katrine bowed assent. She had anticipated the request, and was gratified thereby. On shipboard one need not trouble about conventional introductions, and it would be agreeable to have a companion who knew the ropes, and who could enliven the morning with agreeable tit-bits of information concerning her fellow-travellers.She smiled therefore at the handsome fellow in her most friendly manner; whereupon he smiled back, and glibly burst into autobiography:“Austin Murray is my name, England is my nation, Engineering is my game, Bombay my destination.”“Thanks very much,” returned Katrine gravely. “Katherine Beverley is my name—”“Any relation to the author chap who robbed that poor girl of her cash?”“I am!”The terse affirmative had a disturbing effect on Mr Murray’s composure. He had evidently not expected it, and had the grace to look confused.“I say, you know, I didn’t know... ’Pologise! Didn’t really mean it like that!” He pondered, and pondering was struck with a brilliant inspiration. “Isay! The couple who came on board with you yesterday! You don’t mean to say—”“I didn’t mean to say,” corrected Katrine calmly, “but yes! you have guessed correctly. That was my brother and his wife!”“Brother!” Mr Murray whistled softly, but made no attempt to apologise a second time. Katrine diagnosed him as being little in the habit of eating humble pie.“Isay,” he exclaimed once more, “if a girl like that gave up all that forme, I should be ruined for life! Bowled over! Eaten up with conceit. She’s a corker!Isn’tshe a corker, now?”“She is generally considered to be excessively—corking!” agreed Katrine demurely, and then suddenly she laughed; a gay, light-hearted laugh. What a change it was! To sit on this wide shining deck among a crowd of strangers, to exchange frivolities with one of the handsomest of men, also a stranger, to feel the sun beat on her neck, on her outstretched feet, to have nothing to do, and nothing to care for, but her own ease and enjoyment! She laughed, leaning her head against the back of her chair; the sun flecked her hair with gold, the clear healthy tints of her skin seemed to gain in colour in the dancing light. Mr Murray hitched his chair a degree nearer, and spoke in a lower voice:“I say... You don’t know any one on board?”“Not yet. No.”“How would it be if—what would you say to fixing up a steamship flirtation?”Katrine straightened herself with a jerk.“Ibegyour pardon! I don’t quite understand—”“Oh, it’s simple enough. Always do it myself on a long voyage. Much more satisfactory and amusin’ than just trustin’ to luck... Spot some one you like, and agree to sit together on deck, be partners at sports, moon about,—underthe moon!—confide your woes, comfort and soothe, sentimentalise a bit—especially towards the end—”Katrine threw him a glance, beneath lids haughtily dropped.“Tha-anks. It sounds very interesting. And then—?”“Oh, then?” Mr Murray twisted his moustache. “Then—you’re there, you know, and er—you say good-bye!”“Very interesting!” commented Katrine once more, “but I’m afraid I can’t play. The idea doesn’t thrill me, and besides I have a—friend coming on board at Port Said, who will naturally expect some attention.”“Rotten luck!” sighed Mr Murray, and for sixty seconds on end looked seriously downcast. “But of course,” he added thoughtfully, “if it were only to Port Said—”“Just so. It would be a pity to break the continuity of your scheme. You have had quite a long voyage already. How is it that you have not already—” Katrine stopped short, as an expression of discomfiture flitted over the handsome face, and altered the character of her enquiry. “May I ask howmanyothers you have asked before me?”“Not—many!” stammered Mr Murray ingenuously. His gaze wandered uneasily round the deck, and Katrine’s following his, met a pair of mischievous brown eyes set in a plump girlish face. The eyes were fixed upon herself with an expression of such interest and curiosity as told its own tale, and Katrine hastily lowered her white umbrella. Simultaneously the plump girl lowered her own, but it shook! Austin Murray, looking from one wobbling frame to the other, chewed his moustache in disgust.“Perhaps,” he explained stiffly, “I am too ambitious. One needs must love the highest... There are, of course, a dozen girls who would be only too glad—”“Then,” said Katrine hastily, “pray lose no time in securing one of the number. If you don’t, they may be snapped up. Don’t let me detain—”Mr Murray leaped from his seat, bowed deeply, and walked rapidly away. To the end of the voyage he kept sedulously out of Katrine’s way.Katrine lay contentedly in her chair luxuriating in the sun and the breeze, and lazily studying the passers-by. As usual under the circumstances she dubbed the passengers dull and uninteresting. Further acquaintance might reveal hidden fascinations, but for the present she failed to discover any of the types for which she looked. The fascinating grass widow playing havoc with other hearts, while keeping her own serenely untouched; the beauteous maids sailing forth to conquer new worlds, the purple-faced and choleric colonels; the flock of interesting, unattached males!—where had they all disappeared? She saw before her a company for the most part staid and middle-aged, bearing the chastened air of the outward bound; the sprinkling of youngsters were of very ordinary attractions, the flock of children, fascinating for an hour, but becoming painfully in evidence as the day wore on. Only one figure arrested her attention, and that from a reason more painful than pleasant. He was a man approaching middle-age, with a finely-hewn face, on which consumption had deeply hewn its mark. He paced the deck wrapped in an old Inverness cape, and at intervals leaned coughing over the rail. So far as Katrine’s observation went, he spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to him. Her heart softened at his air of suffering, and she determined that if fate threw him in her way, she would open an acquaintance.After tea the grey-haired Mrs Mannering joined her room-mate for a promenade round the deck, and treated her to staccato items of information.“Sticky lot! Always are on these boats. Thank goodness there are very few soldiers on board. When there are, it’s worse than ever. Cavalry cuts Infantry, Infantry snubs civilians. Civil servants bar trade. So you go on! Don’t troubleme. I know too much about ’em!” She gave a quick, keen glance. “Like scandal?”“Thank you, no! I hate it.”“Quite right, too. At your age. I don’t mind telling you that it’s the breath of my nostrils. No pretence about me. What I think Isay! Give me a good, spicy divorce...”Katrine quickened her pace, eyelids drooped, corners of lips turned down. Never in all her twenty-six years had she listened to such a sentiment. Horror seized her at the idea of being shut up in close quarters with a woman of degraded tastes. Would it be possible to change cabins?“Bless you, my lamb.Iwon’t sully your little mind!”The kind, motherly voice spoke in such apt response to the inner thought, that Katrine jumped in her skin. She turned, rosy and shy, half-angry, half-ashamed, and saw a wrinkled hand held out towards her.“There! That’s agreed—I like you. Right sort of girl. Don’t you worry! You might do a lot worse than have old Nance Mannering as a companion. I’ve lived east of Suez too long not to be able to adapt myself to my company. You’ll get no contamination from me, and what’s more, I’ll protect you from getting it elsewhere. You have a word with me, my dear, before you take up with any of these boys, and I’ll put you on your guard. Poor lot, most of them; drinking and gambling...”“I don’t think I shall ‘take up’ with any one, thank you. A fellow-officer of my host in India is to join the ship at Port Said, and will look after me for the rest of the voyage. He is not a very young man, but I’m told he is nice. I expect to enjoy his society. There’s only one man I’ve seen on board who interests me at all. The one with the cape, who looks so ill.”“Vernon Keith. Artist. Rather a big wig in his way, or promised to be, a year or two since. Consumption of course,—andhis own folly! Going this voyage for health, if it please you! The mad folly of doctors to allow a man in that condition to start out on such a crack-brained expedition, mewed up among hundreds of people, scattering poison wherever he goes! Sea air is all very well, but what about the smoke-room, eh? What about the bars? Temptation waiting on every hand, and no one to say him nay. The passengers steer clear of him, and no wonder. By ten o’clock at night—”“Perhaps,” said Katrine quickly, “if people didnotsteer clear, things might be different.Ishan’t, if I get the chance. He is ill and weak, and I’m sure he is sad. He lookedmiserablethis morning, pacing up and down alone. Isn’t it rather Pharisaical to stand aside because a man is ill, and—weak?”The spectacled eyes twinkled humorously.“Well, well, he’ll be pleased enough, no doubt, but don’t be too kind, and raise expectations which can’t be fulfilled! Port Said’s ahead—and the nice man!”“And—Jim!” added Katrine softly to herself. When the dusk fell, she stood for an hour leaning over the rail, watching the phosphorescent glow on the darkened waves, sending out wistful, timorous thoughts toward that meeting which was growing momentarily nearer. “Jim!”
Katrine came slowly up the companion-way, and looked around the deck in search of her labelled chair. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was blazing out of a cloudless sky. Yesterday in Marseilles it had been grey and chill. The only cheerful thing had been Grizel’s face, fresh, pink-cheeked, unashamedly aglow. The secret of her happiness was patent to the most casual eye. Tired men and work-worn women looked at her as she passed, and glowed in sympathy, and from her their glance passed on to the tall man with the deep-set eyes, who walked by her side. Martin’s happiness was as great as his wife’s, but man-like he was at pains to conceal it. The consciousness of being observed was enough to extinguish his smiles, and Katrine was amusedly conscious that he was making an effort to appear depressed at the prospect of her own departure. The newly-married pair had accompanied her on board the steamer, armed with flowers, with fruit, with scent and bonbons, with cushions and medicines, until the small cabin had been blocked to overflowing, and the passengers who had braved the rigours of the Bay, debated among themselves as to the identity of the handsome girl who had such a luxurious send-off.
Standing on the deck amid the roar and bustle of approaching departure, the three had spoken their farewell words.
“I won’t say good-bye,” Grizel declared. “En avant! Katrine! There’s a good time coming!”
But the tears stood in Katrine’s eyes. She was leaving the known, the safe, and the sure, and sailing forth into the unknown. Fear seized her, and with it regret.
“If—if I come home soon... You won’t be cross if I turn up like a bad penny? You will take me in, until I find some work?”
“My dear girl, you know it! If you are not happy; if you don’t want to go, come back with usnow! Never mind the clothes... We’ll arrange all that. You shan’t go one step against your will...”
Grizel laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Her cool, calm voice was like a tonic, bracing the hearers into composure.
“She is going of herownwill, and ifYouwould take her back with you now,I won’t, so you can choose between us! We’re ready for you, Katrine dear, when you’ve tried it, and grown tired, but not before. I’m just afraid we’ll have too long to wait! ... Now smile this minute! Would you leave me stranded on a foreign shore with a lugubrious spouse!”
Then Katrine laughed, and they kissed and embraced, and Grizel slipping her hand through her husband’s arm, drew him towards the gangway.
“Belovedest!” she whispered softly. “I’m here!” and Katrine looking down from her towering perch watched the lift of the charming face, caught the swift, mutual glance, and realised that no outside anxiety could mar the perfection of that love. She sighed, but the predominant sensation was relief, not pain. A chapter of her life was turned. She thanked God that it closed in sunshine!
And now it was the morning of her first day at sea. Tired after her long overland journey, she had retired to bed while her fellow-passengers were at dinner, and had slept so soundly in her narrow bunk that on waking there had been a moment’s blank bewilderment before she could realise her position. A stewardess stood before her bearing the early cup of tea; on the berth opposite a gaunt, grey-haired woman was sitting, cup in hand, staring at her with curious eyes.
“Mornin’!” she said tersely. “First introduction. You were asleep when I turned in last night. Glad you don’t snore!”
“Goodness! I never thought of that. How awful!” exclaimed Katrine, laughing in her turn. She sipped at her cup, and grimaced eloquently. “Ugh. What is it? Tea or coffee?”
“Mixed,” replied the other gravely. “To suit all tastes.”
She drank again with apparent enjoyment. “Always drink it myself out of principle. Charge you too much to leave out a meal... First trip?”
“First time in my life I ever slept in a berth. I’d no idea they were so comfortable.”
The grey-haired lady fumbled beneath her pillow, placed a pair of spectacles on her nose, and stared across with frank curiosity.
“Bride?”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Unnecessary, thank you. It’s my tenth voyage. Met shoals of brides. You look the type.”
Katrine ostentatiously displayed her left hand.
“I hope that’s a compliment. As a matter of fact, I am going out to join some friends in North Bengal.”
“Missionaries?”
Katrine jumped till the cup rattled in a threatening manner.
“No! Cer-tainly not.”
“Humph!” said the grey-haired woman, and scraped the sugar from her cup. “I’m sorry foranygirl,” she announced tentatively between the spoonfuls, “who goes out to one of those lonely plantations... No fun. No chances. Fifty times worse than at home.”
“Is that so? Really? I’m sorry!” Katrine shook her head, and endeavoured to look perturbed.
The good sleep, the novelty of the surroundings, the glimpse of blue through the port-hole, combined to produce an exhilarating effect. She felt gay and mischievous, too light-hearted to resent her companion’s curiosity, but none the less determined not to gratify it. She ate bread and butter, and sipped at the compound liquor in silence, the while the spectacled eyes continued their scrutiny.
“Odd thing—the Indian climate,” continued the stranger in ruminating fashion. “Changes the constitootion. Never knowwhichway you’ll go, but it’s bound to be one.You’llgrow fat!”
That roused Katrine. Her head twisted round, indignant colour stained her cheeks.
“Ishan’t! I shouldn’t dream of such a thing... Far more likely—”
“Excuse me—no! I’ve had experience. Some dwindle to skeletons, but not your build. Niece of mine sailed with me two years ago. Twenty-two-inch waist. Put on a stone in three months. All her bodices altered. Two stones more since then, and a double chin. Looks like her own mother. But of course if you take much exercise... Some of the civil appointments are quite good. If you keep horses, and ride each morning—”
“Just so,” assented Katrine. “Just so.” She was discomposed by the prospect of obesity, the more so as Dorothea’s excessive thinness would seem to confirm the assertion that the climate was extreme in its effects. A moment passed in the earnest consideration of the disadvantages of fatversuslean, then the grey-haired one plunged boldly into autobiography:
“My husband was a judge. Mannering. Bombay. Thousand a year pension, but not a penny to leave behind. No use any one making up tome!Got a boy in the Indian Cavalry. Going out now to pay him a call. Nice boy. Was, at least, when I saw him last. May have changed, of course.”
Katrine’s looks became suddenly infused with interest.
“Then our destinations are not far apart. Do you know—have you any friends in the — Regiment?”
“Not—one—soul!” said the stranger emphatically, and in a manner which seemed to imply that nothing would induce her to consent to such an entanglement. She hunched up the pillows behind her back, and continued forcibly. “Detest the military. Always did. Quite against my wishes that the boy went in; but there I am—silly fool! proud as any one of ’em, when I see him dressed up... Stinting myself for his gold lace! Well, well, we’re all fools at heart, my dear, every man jack of us, and women too... When are you going to take your bath?”
The catechism was over for the moment. Katrine staggered out of bed, robed herself in a dainty blue dressing-gown and smoothed her dark locks, uneasily conscious that not a ribbon, a lace, or a French knot itself escaped the scrutiny of the watching eyes. When she returned, fresh and rosy, her companion departed in her turn, and returned just as Katrine was finishing her hair in time to announce briskly:
“Warm sunny day! Seen three girls in white frocks. Sport one yourself, and cut ’em out! Great thing to make a good impression!”
“I don’t care,”—began Katrine haughtily, then the spirit of the hour choked the words in her throat. “Yes, after all, Ido!” she laughed, and kneeling before her cabin trunk lifted a fresh white frock from the tray. “I’ll put on this, and do credit to our cabin!”
“Cheers!” cried the stranger, and with a pleasing frankness extracted her false teeth.
Katrine mounted the steps to the deck. There was still half an hour to spare before breakfast, but she wished it had been twice as long, as she paced slowly down the shining deck, and tasted for the first time the deep salt brine of the breeze. Only fifteen hours before she had shivered in rain and chill; now the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and the breeze was warm and sweet. The exhilaration of it all! The great vessel in its shining order, the air, the spray, the lap of the great green flood, the kaleidoscopic procession of passengers, strolling like herself, bareheaded, white-robed, revelling in the first taste of heat after the Northern cold!
Katrine was loath to tear herself away from the fascinating scene, but the duty of interviewing the steward lay before her. She descended, armed with a golden key, proffered her request, and met with a gracious consent.
Nothing could be easier. A party of three were landing at Port Said; Miss Beverley could be given a place at the same table, and Captain Bedford could also be accommodated on arrival.
So far so good! Katrine ate her breakfast with an enjoyment heightened by her fast of the night before, came to the conclusion that she should not grieve over the departure of the Port Said trio, and armed with a book and a sunshade, mounted once more to the deck.
The first business was to find her chair, and a difficult search it promised to be. She was wandering aimlessly to and fro reading the names attached to the backs of the serried rows, when a voice spoke in her ear:
“Can I help?” it asked. “You are looking for a chair, I think. If you give me the name, I’d be delighted to find it for you.”
The speaker was a tall, strikingly handsome man of some twenty-four or five years. Katrine had noticed him at an adjacent table during the lengthy breakfast; had also been conscious that he had noticed herself. She expressed her thanks, and in an incredibly short time the chair was produced, and placed in a comfortable position.
“May I bring mine alongside?” enquired the stranger, and Katrine bowed assent. She had anticipated the request, and was gratified thereby. On shipboard one need not trouble about conventional introductions, and it would be agreeable to have a companion who knew the ropes, and who could enliven the morning with agreeable tit-bits of information concerning her fellow-travellers.
She smiled therefore at the handsome fellow in her most friendly manner; whereupon he smiled back, and glibly burst into autobiography:
“Austin Murray is my name, England is my nation, Engineering is my game, Bombay my destination.”
“Thanks very much,” returned Katrine gravely. “Katherine Beverley is my name—”
“Any relation to the author chap who robbed that poor girl of her cash?”
“I am!”
The terse affirmative had a disturbing effect on Mr Murray’s composure. He had evidently not expected it, and had the grace to look confused.
“I say, you know, I didn’t know... ’Pologise! Didn’t really mean it like that!” He pondered, and pondering was struck with a brilliant inspiration. “Isay! The couple who came on board with you yesterday! You don’t mean to say—”
“I didn’t mean to say,” corrected Katrine calmly, “but yes! you have guessed correctly. That was my brother and his wife!”
“Brother!” Mr Murray whistled softly, but made no attempt to apologise a second time. Katrine diagnosed him as being little in the habit of eating humble pie.
“Isay,” he exclaimed once more, “if a girl like that gave up all that forme, I should be ruined for life! Bowled over! Eaten up with conceit. She’s a corker!Isn’tshe a corker, now?”
“She is generally considered to be excessively—corking!” agreed Katrine demurely, and then suddenly she laughed; a gay, light-hearted laugh. What a change it was! To sit on this wide shining deck among a crowd of strangers, to exchange frivolities with one of the handsomest of men, also a stranger, to feel the sun beat on her neck, on her outstretched feet, to have nothing to do, and nothing to care for, but her own ease and enjoyment! She laughed, leaning her head against the back of her chair; the sun flecked her hair with gold, the clear healthy tints of her skin seemed to gain in colour in the dancing light. Mr Murray hitched his chair a degree nearer, and spoke in a lower voice:
“I say... You don’t know any one on board?”
“Not yet. No.”
“How would it be if—what would you say to fixing up a steamship flirtation?”
Katrine straightened herself with a jerk.
“Ibegyour pardon! I don’t quite understand—”
“Oh, it’s simple enough. Always do it myself on a long voyage. Much more satisfactory and amusin’ than just trustin’ to luck... Spot some one you like, and agree to sit together on deck, be partners at sports, moon about,—underthe moon!—confide your woes, comfort and soothe, sentimentalise a bit—especially towards the end—”
Katrine threw him a glance, beneath lids haughtily dropped.
“Tha-anks. It sounds very interesting. And then—?”
“Oh, then?” Mr Murray twisted his moustache. “Then—you’re there, you know, and er—you say good-bye!”
“Very interesting!” commented Katrine once more, “but I’m afraid I can’t play. The idea doesn’t thrill me, and besides I have a—friend coming on board at Port Said, who will naturally expect some attention.”
“Rotten luck!” sighed Mr Murray, and for sixty seconds on end looked seriously downcast. “But of course,” he added thoughtfully, “if it were only to Port Said—”
“Just so. It would be a pity to break the continuity of your scheme. You have had quite a long voyage already. How is it that you have not already—” Katrine stopped short, as an expression of discomfiture flitted over the handsome face, and altered the character of her enquiry. “May I ask howmanyothers you have asked before me?”
“Not—many!” stammered Mr Murray ingenuously. His gaze wandered uneasily round the deck, and Katrine’s following his, met a pair of mischievous brown eyes set in a plump girlish face. The eyes were fixed upon herself with an expression of such interest and curiosity as told its own tale, and Katrine hastily lowered her white umbrella. Simultaneously the plump girl lowered her own, but it shook! Austin Murray, looking from one wobbling frame to the other, chewed his moustache in disgust.
“Perhaps,” he explained stiffly, “I am too ambitious. One needs must love the highest... There are, of course, a dozen girls who would be only too glad—”
“Then,” said Katrine hastily, “pray lose no time in securing one of the number. If you don’t, they may be snapped up. Don’t let me detain—”
Mr Murray leaped from his seat, bowed deeply, and walked rapidly away. To the end of the voyage he kept sedulously out of Katrine’s way.
Katrine lay contentedly in her chair luxuriating in the sun and the breeze, and lazily studying the passers-by. As usual under the circumstances she dubbed the passengers dull and uninteresting. Further acquaintance might reveal hidden fascinations, but for the present she failed to discover any of the types for which she looked. The fascinating grass widow playing havoc with other hearts, while keeping her own serenely untouched; the beauteous maids sailing forth to conquer new worlds, the purple-faced and choleric colonels; the flock of interesting, unattached males!—where had they all disappeared? She saw before her a company for the most part staid and middle-aged, bearing the chastened air of the outward bound; the sprinkling of youngsters were of very ordinary attractions, the flock of children, fascinating for an hour, but becoming painfully in evidence as the day wore on. Only one figure arrested her attention, and that from a reason more painful than pleasant. He was a man approaching middle-age, with a finely-hewn face, on which consumption had deeply hewn its mark. He paced the deck wrapped in an old Inverness cape, and at intervals leaned coughing over the rail. So far as Katrine’s observation went, he spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to him. Her heart softened at his air of suffering, and she determined that if fate threw him in her way, she would open an acquaintance.
After tea the grey-haired Mrs Mannering joined her room-mate for a promenade round the deck, and treated her to staccato items of information.
“Sticky lot! Always are on these boats. Thank goodness there are very few soldiers on board. When there are, it’s worse than ever. Cavalry cuts Infantry, Infantry snubs civilians. Civil servants bar trade. So you go on! Don’t troubleme. I know too much about ’em!” She gave a quick, keen glance. “Like scandal?”
“Thank you, no! I hate it.”
“Quite right, too. At your age. I don’t mind telling you that it’s the breath of my nostrils. No pretence about me. What I think Isay! Give me a good, spicy divorce...”
Katrine quickened her pace, eyelids drooped, corners of lips turned down. Never in all her twenty-six years had she listened to such a sentiment. Horror seized her at the idea of being shut up in close quarters with a woman of degraded tastes. Would it be possible to change cabins?
“Bless you, my lamb.Iwon’t sully your little mind!”
The kind, motherly voice spoke in such apt response to the inner thought, that Katrine jumped in her skin. She turned, rosy and shy, half-angry, half-ashamed, and saw a wrinkled hand held out towards her.
“There! That’s agreed—I like you. Right sort of girl. Don’t you worry! You might do a lot worse than have old Nance Mannering as a companion. I’ve lived east of Suez too long not to be able to adapt myself to my company. You’ll get no contamination from me, and what’s more, I’ll protect you from getting it elsewhere. You have a word with me, my dear, before you take up with any of these boys, and I’ll put you on your guard. Poor lot, most of them; drinking and gambling...”
“I don’t think I shall ‘take up’ with any one, thank you. A fellow-officer of my host in India is to join the ship at Port Said, and will look after me for the rest of the voyage. He is not a very young man, but I’m told he is nice. I expect to enjoy his society. There’s only one man I’ve seen on board who interests me at all. The one with the cape, who looks so ill.”
“Vernon Keith. Artist. Rather a big wig in his way, or promised to be, a year or two since. Consumption of course,—andhis own folly! Going this voyage for health, if it please you! The mad folly of doctors to allow a man in that condition to start out on such a crack-brained expedition, mewed up among hundreds of people, scattering poison wherever he goes! Sea air is all very well, but what about the smoke-room, eh? What about the bars? Temptation waiting on every hand, and no one to say him nay. The passengers steer clear of him, and no wonder. By ten o’clock at night—”
“Perhaps,” said Katrine quickly, “if people didnotsteer clear, things might be different.Ishan’t, if I get the chance. He is ill and weak, and I’m sure he is sad. He lookedmiserablethis morning, pacing up and down alone. Isn’t it rather Pharisaical to stand aside because a man is ill, and—weak?”
The spectacled eyes twinkled humorously.
“Well, well, he’ll be pleased enough, no doubt, but don’t be too kind, and raise expectations which can’t be fulfilled! Port Said’s ahead—and the nice man!”
“And—Jim!” added Katrine softly to herself. When the dusk fell, she stood for an hour leaning over the rail, watching the phosphorescent glow on the darkened waves, sending out wistful, timorous thoughts toward that meeting which was growing momentarily nearer. “Jim!”
Chapter Twenty.During the second day at sea, chance arranged the introduction which Katrine had coveted with the consumptive artist, Vernon Keith. The breeze had freshened, and wrapped in a light cloak she was sitting on her chair in a sheltered corner, when a sudden gust lifted her scarf and magazine, and blew them along the deck. Involuntarily she groped in pursuit, and in so doing overbalanced and alighted in a heap, the chair, after the manner of its kind, doubling up, and following suit. It all happened with such startling unexpectedness, that for a moment Katrine sat panting and breathless, making no effort to rise. Flushed, bare-headed, white-robed, she made a charming picture, and more than one of the surrounding men dashed forward to her help, but before any one could reach her side, Vernon Keith had seized the chair, twisted it deftly into position, and held out a helping hand.“I hope you are not hurt!”“I—I really don’t know,” Katrine sat down, laid her head against the back of the chair, and smiled in vague, strained fashion. She stretched herself cautiously, and gradually regained composure. “No! I’m sure I am not. But it was startling...” She blushed a little beneath the watching eyes. “I—I had a book!”“It is here,” he said, and placed it on her knee. “Is there anything I can get for you? I am sure you have had a shock. Some wine?”“Oh, no.” The suggestion brought back the remembrance of Mrs Mannering’s hint, and awoke a determination to take advantage of the present opportunity. “I shall be quite all right, if I talk about something else, and forget myself!”The invitation was obvious, the diffidence of the accompanying smile delightfully naïve and girl-like. Vernon Keith seated himself with obvious alacrity. Seen close at hand he looked older, more worn; there were lines about his mouth with which country-bred Katrine was unfamiliar, the irises of his eyes were faintly bloodshot. For all her inexperience she recognised that these symptoms were not the result of ill-health alone.They talked for an hour, a pleasant, inconsequent talk, flitting from one subject to another; books, pictures, theatres, travel, and when they parted at the sound of the luncheon gong, he stood before her, gaunt and tall, and said gravely:“Thank you for the first happy hour I have spent for months!”“I hope we shall have many more,” Katrine had answered, confused and startled, but as she took her way to her cabin she could have found it in her heart to regret the words. “He is clever, he is interesting, he is cultivated,—but Idon’tlike him! There’s something in his face.—I am glad it is nothewho is to look after me!” During the luncheon hour, however, her ruminations carried her to a different plane. “It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. He is ill and lonely, and he—drinks! because he has nothing better to do. I’ll be kind to him. I’ll get Captain Bedford to be kind. Perhaps between us we can keep him straight...”Poor Katrine! She felt a glow of satisfaction when again that evening Vernon Keith spent an hour by her side. She paced the deck with him, acutely conscious of looks of disapproval from several elderly quarters, feeling a childish sense of elation every time that the entrance to the smoke-room was passed in safety, exerting herself to start fresh subjects of interest each time the conversation flagged, but in spite of all her efforts, by half-past nine her companion grew restless, answered at random, and finally excused himself, pleading fatigue, a letter to be begun—Well! Katrine consoled herself, at least he had had an hour in the fresh air, and could feel thatsome onewas interested, and that he was no longer ostracised... She found her cabin companion, and sat demurely by her side until after eleven o’clock, the beauty of the night making her unwilling to retire to the stuffy cabin. When at last they rose and turned towards the companion-way, Katrine felt pleasantly tired, and confident of a good night’s rest, but the most exciting incident of the day was still to come. Mrs Mannering led the way a few paces ahead, and Katrine, following in the rear, found her way suddenly blocked by a tall form with flushed face, and dulled eyes, from whose garments floated the unmistakable fumes of whisky.It was Vernon Keith, and for a moment they stood motionless, face to face, her eyes cold and stern, his lightening into recognition, then flinching with a pathetic shame.“I—thought—you—had gone,” he stammered thickly. “Getting late—for you. Ver’—late.” He was turning back in the direction of the smoke-room, when with a sudden impulse, Katrine laid her hand on his arm.“Mr Keith! Will you do me a favour? You are not well, and it is bad for you to sit up late... Won’t you say good-night now, and go straight to bed?”He straightened himself, and drew a deep breath. As if a veil had been drawn from his face, the blank look vanished, and the soul of the man looked at her through the bloodshot eyes. For the moment he was startled into sobriety.“If—if you ask it. Of course. At—at once!” he said, and turning followed in her wake.Had Mrs Mannering seen, or had she not? Katrine could not decide. She was thankful at least that she was treated to no remarks, but could hurry into bed and lie quietly in the darkness, thinking over the situation. One thing was certain—the incident had at a stride carried Vernon Keith and herself beyond the stage of conventional acquaintance. It seemed impossible that they could meet again without reference to that short, pregnant meeting. What would be said? Would he be shamed, resentful, defiant? Katrine could not guess; hardly knew for which mood to wish. Curiously enough the success of her appeal had roused a nervous mistrust, so that she regretted her own audacity, and wished helplessly that she had waited for Captain Bedford’s help. “Will he think it was bold of me?” she questioned of her own heart. “Will they tell him in the smoke-room that I walked about with a man to whom no other girl will speak? Will he think I am bold and fast, and tellJim?” Quick as a dart came the answering assurance. “Jim will understand!” and at the comfort of it she laughed softly aloud.A sleepy murmur from the opposite bunk reminded her of the existence of her room-mate. She blushed and stammered in the dark:“I—I beg your pardon. What did you say?”“Bless you!” repeated the voice distinctly. “But don’t do it again.—He’ll keep, my dear—he’ll keep!”The next morning, to Katrine’s relief, there was no sign of Vernon Keith at breakfast. She drew her chair into a quiet corner and sat with her back to the passing stream, affecting to be engrossed in her book, but shortly before noon a shadow loomed, and with a fluttering of heart she divined that the dreaded encounter was at hand. He placed his chair by her side, and fixed her with haggard eyes, but he spoke no word, not even the conventional greeting; it was left to her to open the conversation.“Oh, Mr Keith—good-morning! I was reading.—Isn’t it a nice day?”“Is it?” he queried listlessly. “I was not thinking of to-day. I was thinking of last night.” His eyes pierced her through, he bent nearer, speaking with a horrible deliberation. “Are—you—accustomed—to—drunken—men?”Katrine cowered; repulsed and frightened.“Never—never!—I have never so much as spoken to one—be—”“Before!” he concluded calmly. “Well! I am drunk, more or less, every night of my life, and shall be to the end. It’s a habit which it is difficult to break! You thought it would be satisfying for a man to walk round the deck with a beautiful girl for his companion, feeling the fresh breeze, watching the sea and the sky; more tempting than a foul room with the fumes of smoke and whisky.—Itisbetter! For an hour I was grateful and content. After that—” he hissed the words in her ear, “after that—sooner than have stayed with you, sooner than exchange your company for the bottle and the glass, do you know what I would have done?—I would have lifted you in my arms, and tossed you into that sea!”Katrine shrunk from him, aghast. For the first time in her life she faced the despair of a self-wrecked life, and realised the impotence of human help. The chains which the years had forged bound this man in his prison, and she had essayed to free him in a few light hours. If he had shown signs of excitement or emotion, the moment would have been more bearable. It was his dreadful composure which rent her heart.Her lip quivered; she shook her head in helpless distress.“Why do you tell me this? I didn’t ask—I don’t want to know. We can be friends...”“Can we?” he smiled bitterly. “Are you so brave? That’s fine of you, but it’s too late. I am a drunkard, and it has come to this—I don’t even wish to be cured! Drink is my only comfort; the thing that helps me to forget. The good people among whom you have lived (you have met only good people, I think. That shows in your face!) they have told you that it is drunkenness which causes most of the misery in the world. In future will you try sometimes to reverse the statement, and acknowledge that it is often misery which causes drink? It caused it with me,—heart-break and treachery, failure and struggle, and then, at the first promise of success,this!” he tapped his bent chest, “this demon choking my life. I have nearly a whole lung left. Would you think it? Down in that cabin, gasping for breath, it is difficult to realise that there’s so much. And they sent me this voyage, the people at home... What for? My sake, or their own? To get rid of me—to be spared the end?”“No, no!” Katrine protested, “don’t say it. It isn’t true, it can only do you harm to think it. No one could be so wicked.”His lips twisted in a sneer.“Would it be wicked? When the sheep is so black, when he refuses to be washed, and brings disgrace on innocent heads? There is no hope for me, Miss Beverley; a month more, or a month less, that’s the only question that remains. Sea air is supposed to be good, and sitting at home people thinkonlyof the air, and forget the other incidents of life on shipboard, which arenotconducive to the welfare of a man suffering from my—complaints! I am worse than when we sailed. Shall grow worse every day. Doubly infected, you see! A leper to be shunned.”He stared at her keenly, his mouth twisted by the bitter mockery of a smile. There was no sign of softening on his face, rather did he appear to sneer at the puny efforts which had been made on his behalf. He had spoken of her as a “beautiful girl,” but in a manner so impersonal as to rob the words of flattery. Katrine turned her head aside, unable to meet that gaze, and sat silent, gazing out to sea. For a long quarter of an hour neither spoke a word, but the silence was charged. Each felt the influence of the other’s thoughts, divined the other’s sentiments. At a certain moment they turned simultaneously to look into each other’s eyes, and in this last look was kindness and comprehension.“Miss Beverley,” said the man, “you are a good woman. You have done me good, though not in the way you intended. I shall drink as much as ever, understand that! but you’ve done me good. If you are brave enough to defy convention by giving a little of your time to a prodigal, I’ll take what I can get, and for the rest—keep out of your way! But you have only to say a word—”Katrine held out her hand.“I don’t want to say it. It is nothing to me what people think. Come and talk to me whenever you feel inclined. I have no friends on board, but at Port Said a man is joining the ship who is in the same regiment as my host, and he is supposed to look after me for the rest of the voyage. I hope we shallbothlike him! We could sit together and have more interesting talks. Men get tired of womaney subjects.”“Ah,” he said flatly, “that’s good! I’m glad you will have some one. You are beautiful, you know. You oughtn’t to be alone.”Again the impersonal tone minimised the words. Katrine realised that as a woman she had no personality for the man; she was merely a shape—a picture; even his gratitude was a lifeless thing; the man’s power of feeling, of resistance, was exhausted. It was indeed, as he had said, “too late.”
During the second day at sea, chance arranged the introduction which Katrine had coveted with the consumptive artist, Vernon Keith. The breeze had freshened, and wrapped in a light cloak she was sitting on her chair in a sheltered corner, when a sudden gust lifted her scarf and magazine, and blew them along the deck. Involuntarily she groped in pursuit, and in so doing overbalanced and alighted in a heap, the chair, after the manner of its kind, doubling up, and following suit. It all happened with such startling unexpectedness, that for a moment Katrine sat panting and breathless, making no effort to rise. Flushed, bare-headed, white-robed, she made a charming picture, and more than one of the surrounding men dashed forward to her help, but before any one could reach her side, Vernon Keith had seized the chair, twisted it deftly into position, and held out a helping hand.
“I hope you are not hurt!”
“I—I really don’t know,” Katrine sat down, laid her head against the back of the chair, and smiled in vague, strained fashion. She stretched herself cautiously, and gradually regained composure. “No! I’m sure I am not. But it was startling...” She blushed a little beneath the watching eyes. “I—I had a book!”
“It is here,” he said, and placed it on her knee. “Is there anything I can get for you? I am sure you have had a shock. Some wine?”
“Oh, no.” The suggestion brought back the remembrance of Mrs Mannering’s hint, and awoke a determination to take advantage of the present opportunity. “I shall be quite all right, if I talk about something else, and forget myself!”
The invitation was obvious, the diffidence of the accompanying smile delightfully naïve and girl-like. Vernon Keith seated himself with obvious alacrity. Seen close at hand he looked older, more worn; there were lines about his mouth with which country-bred Katrine was unfamiliar, the irises of his eyes were faintly bloodshot. For all her inexperience she recognised that these symptoms were not the result of ill-health alone.
They talked for an hour, a pleasant, inconsequent talk, flitting from one subject to another; books, pictures, theatres, travel, and when they parted at the sound of the luncheon gong, he stood before her, gaunt and tall, and said gravely:
“Thank you for the first happy hour I have spent for months!”
“I hope we shall have many more,” Katrine had answered, confused and startled, but as she took her way to her cabin she could have found it in her heart to regret the words. “He is clever, he is interesting, he is cultivated,—but Idon’tlike him! There’s something in his face.—I am glad it is nothewho is to look after me!” During the luncheon hour, however, her ruminations carried her to a different plane. “It doesn’t matter whether I like him or not. He is ill and lonely, and he—drinks! because he has nothing better to do. I’ll be kind to him. I’ll get Captain Bedford to be kind. Perhaps between us we can keep him straight...”
Poor Katrine! She felt a glow of satisfaction when again that evening Vernon Keith spent an hour by her side. She paced the deck with him, acutely conscious of looks of disapproval from several elderly quarters, feeling a childish sense of elation every time that the entrance to the smoke-room was passed in safety, exerting herself to start fresh subjects of interest each time the conversation flagged, but in spite of all her efforts, by half-past nine her companion grew restless, answered at random, and finally excused himself, pleading fatigue, a letter to be begun—
Well! Katrine consoled herself, at least he had had an hour in the fresh air, and could feel thatsome onewas interested, and that he was no longer ostracised... She found her cabin companion, and sat demurely by her side until after eleven o’clock, the beauty of the night making her unwilling to retire to the stuffy cabin. When at last they rose and turned towards the companion-way, Katrine felt pleasantly tired, and confident of a good night’s rest, but the most exciting incident of the day was still to come. Mrs Mannering led the way a few paces ahead, and Katrine, following in the rear, found her way suddenly blocked by a tall form with flushed face, and dulled eyes, from whose garments floated the unmistakable fumes of whisky.
It was Vernon Keith, and for a moment they stood motionless, face to face, her eyes cold and stern, his lightening into recognition, then flinching with a pathetic shame.
“I—thought—you—had gone,” he stammered thickly. “Getting late—for you. Ver’—late.” He was turning back in the direction of the smoke-room, when with a sudden impulse, Katrine laid her hand on his arm.
“Mr Keith! Will you do me a favour? You are not well, and it is bad for you to sit up late... Won’t you say good-night now, and go straight to bed?”
He straightened himself, and drew a deep breath. As if a veil had been drawn from his face, the blank look vanished, and the soul of the man looked at her through the bloodshot eyes. For the moment he was startled into sobriety.
“If—if you ask it. Of course. At—at once!” he said, and turning followed in her wake.
Had Mrs Mannering seen, or had she not? Katrine could not decide. She was thankful at least that she was treated to no remarks, but could hurry into bed and lie quietly in the darkness, thinking over the situation. One thing was certain—the incident had at a stride carried Vernon Keith and herself beyond the stage of conventional acquaintance. It seemed impossible that they could meet again without reference to that short, pregnant meeting. What would be said? Would he be shamed, resentful, defiant? Katrine could not guess; hardly knew for which mood to wish. Curiously enough the success of her appeal had roused a nervous mistrust, so that she regretted her own audacity, and wished helplessly that she had waited for Captain Bedford’s help. “Will he think it was bold of me?” she questioned of her own heart. “Will they tell him in the smoke-room that I walked about with a man to whom no other girl will speak? Will he think I am bold and fast, and tellJim?” Quick as a dart came the answering assurance. “Jim will understand!” and at the comfort of it she laughed softly aloud.
A sleepy murmur from the opposite bunk reminded her of the existence of her room-mate. She blushed and stammered in the dark:
“I—I beg your pardon. What did you say?”
“Bless you!” repeated the voice distinctly. “But don’t do it again.—He’ll keep, my dear—he’ll keep!”
The next morning, to Katrine’s relief, there was no sign of Vernon Keith at breakfast. She drew her chair into a quiet corner and sat with her back to the passing stream, affecting to be engrossed in her book, but shortly before noon a shadow loomed, and with a fluttering of heart she divined that the dreaded encounter was at hand. He placed his chair by her side, and fixed her with haggard eyes, but he spoke no word, not even the conventional greeting; it was left to her to open the conversation.
“Oh, Mr Keith—good-morning! I was reading.—Isn’t it a nice day?”
“Is it?” he queried listlessly. “I was not thinking of to-day. I was thinking of last night.” His eyes pierced her through, he bent nearer, speaking with a horrible deliberation. “Are—you—accustomed—to—drunken—men?”
Katrine cowered; repulsed and frightened.
“Never—never!—I have never so much as spoken to one—be—”
“Before!” he concluded calmly. “Well! I am drunk, more or less, every night of my life, and shall be to the end. It’s a habit which it is difficult to break! You thought it would be satisfying for a man to walk round the deck with a beautiful girl for his companion, feeling the fresh breeze, watching the sea and the sky; more tempting than a foul room with the fumes of smoke and whisky.—Itisbetter! For an hour I was grateful and content. After that—” he hissed the words in her ear, “after that—sooner than have stayed with you, sooner than exchange your company for the bottle and the glass, do you know what I would have done?—I would have lifted you in my arms, and tossed you into that sea!”
Katrine shrunk from him, aghast. For the first time in her life she faced the despair of a self-wrecked life, and realised the impotence of human help. The chains which the years had forged bound this man in his prison, and she had essayed to free him in a few light hours. If he had shown signs of excitement or emotion, the moment would have been more bearable. It was his dreadful composure which rent her heart.
Her lip quivered; she shook her head in helpless distress.
“Why do you tell me this? I didn’t ask—I don’t want to know. We can be friends...”
“Can we?” he smiled bitterly. “Are you so brave? That’s fine of you, but it’s too late. I am a drunkard, and it has come to this—I don’t even wish to be cured! Drink is my only comfort; the thing that helps me to forget. The good people among whom you have lived (you have met only good people, I think. That shows in your face!) they have told you that it is drunkenness which causes most of the misery in the world. In future will you try sometimes to reverse the statement, and acknowledge that it is often misery which causes drink? It caused it with me,—heart-break and treachery, failure and struggle, and then, at the first promise of success,this!” he tapped his bent chest, “this demon choking my life. I have nearly a whole lung left. Would you think it? Down in that cabin, gasping for breath, it is difficult to realise that there’s so much. And they sent me this voyage, the people at home... What for? My sake, or their own? To get rid of me—to be spared the end?”
“No, no!” Katrine protested, “don’t say it. It isn’t true, it can only do you harm to think it. No one could be so wicked.”
His lips twisted in a sneer.
“Would it be wicked? When the sheep is so black, when he refuses to be washed, and brings disgrace on innocent heads? There is no hope for me, Miss Beverley; a month more, or a month less, that’s the only question that remains. Sea air is supposed to be good, and sitting at home people thinkonlyof the air, and forget the other incidents of life on shipboard, which arenotconducive to the welfare of a man suffering from my—complaints! I am worse than when we sailed. Shall grow worse every day. Doubly infected, you see! A leper to be shunned.”
He stared at her keenly, his mouth twisted by the bitter mockery of a smile. There was no sign of softening on his face, rather did he appear to sneer at the puny efforts which had been made on his behalf. He had spoken of her as a “beautiful girl,” but in a manner so impersonal as to rob the words of flattery. Katrine turned her head aside, unable to meet that gaze, and sat silent, gazing out to sea. For a long quarter of an hour neither spoke a word, but the silence was charged. Each felt the influence of the other’s thoughts, divined the other’s sentiments. At a certain moment they turned simultaneously to look into each other’s eyes, and in this last look was kindness and comprehension.
“Miss Beverley,” said the man, “you are a good woman. You have done me good, though not in the way you intended. I shall drink as much as ever, understand that! but you’ve done me good. If you are brave enough to defy convention by giving a little of your time to a prodigal, I’ll take what I can get, and for the rest—keep out of your way! But you have only to say a word—”
Katrine held out her hand.
“I don’t want to say it. It is nothing to me what people think. Come and talk to me whenever you feel inclined. I have no friends on board, but at Port Said a man is joining the ship who is in the same regiment as my host, and he is supposed to look after me for the rest of the voyage. I hope we shallbothlike him! We could sit together and have more interesting talks. Men get tired of womaney subjects.”
“Ah,” he said flatly, “that’s good! I’m glad you will have some one. You are beautiful, you know. You oughtn’t to be alone.”
Again the impersonal tone minimised the words. Katrine realised that as a woman she had no personality for the man; she was merely a shape—a picture; even his gratitude was a lifeless thing; the man’s power of feeling, of resistance, was exhausted. It was indeed, as he had said, “too late.”