He seized and shook her savagely as if she had been confessing a theft of her own, and then rose up with his habitual chuckle in his throat. “George, she’s done me,” he said. “She’s got her fortune on her back. She’s—she’s a chip of the old block, after all.” He dropped down again heavily in his chair, and then with a calm voice, looking at Katherine, said tranquilly, “God damn her” once more.
Itwas afterwards discovered that Stella had calculated her elopement in a way which justified most perfectly the unwilling applause elicited from her father—that she was a chip of the old block. She had over-decorated herself, as had been remarked, it now appeared, by everybody at the ball, on the night of her flight, wearing all the diamonds she had got from her father as an equivalent for her lover—and other things besides, everything she had that was valuable. It was ridiculous enough to see a girl blazing in all those diamonds; but to have her pearl necklace as well, adjusted as an ornament on her bodice, and bracelets enough to go up almost to the elbow, was more absurd still, and Katherine, it now appeared, was the only person who had not observed this excess of jewellery. She remembered now vaguely that she had felt Stella to be more radiant, more dazzling than ever, and had wondered with a sort of dull ache whether it was want of heart, whether it was over-excitement, or what it was which made her sister’s appearance and aspect so brilliant on the very eve of her parting from her lover. “Partings which press the life from out young hearts.” How was it possible that she could be so bright, so gay, so full of life, and he going away? She had felt this, but she had not noticed, which was strange, the extraordinary number of Stella’s bracelets, or the manner in which her pearls were fastened upon the bosom of her dress. This was strange, but due chiefly perhaps to the fact that Stella had not shown herself, as usual, for her sister’s admiration, but had appeared in a hurry rather late, and already wrapped in her cloak.
It was found, however, on examining her drawers, that Stella had taken everything she had which was of any value. It wasalso discovered later that she had taken advantage of her father’s permission to get as many new frocks as she pleased—always to make up for the loss of Charlie—by ordering for herself an ampletrousseau, which had been sent to await her to a London hotel. She had all these things now and the lover too, which was so brilliant a practical joke that it kept the regiment in laughter for a year; but was not so regarded at home, though Mr. Tredgold himself was not able to refrain from a certain admiration when he became fully aware of it, as has been seen. It afflicted Katherine, however, with a dull, enduring pain in the midst of her longing for her sister and her sense of the dreadful vacancy made by Stella’s absence. The cheerful calculation, the peaceful looks with which Stella had hid all her wiles and preparations gave her sister a pang, not acute but profound—a constant ache which took away all the spring of her life. Even when she tried to escape from it, making to herself all thosebanalexcuses which are employed in such circumstances—about love, to which everything is permitted, and the lover’s entreaties, to which nothing can be refused, and the fact that she had to live her own life, not another’s, and was obeying the voice of Nature in choosing for herself—all these things, which Katherine presented to herself as consolations, were over and over again refused. If Stella had run away in her little white frock and garden hat, her sister could have forgiven her; but thetrousseau, the maid, the diamonds, even the old pearls which had been given to both of them, and still remained the chief of Katherine’s possessions—that Stella should have settled and arranged all that was more than Katherine could bear. She locked away her own pearls, with what she felt afterwards to be a very absurd sentiment, and vowed that she would never wear them again. There seemed a sort of insult in the addition of that girlish decoration to all her other ornaments. But this, the reader will perceive, was very high-flown on Katherine’s part.
A day or two after this tremendous crisis, which, I need not say, was by far the most delightful public event which had occurred in Sliplin for centuries, and which moved the veryisland to its centre, Lady Jane called with solemnity at the Cliff. Lady Jane was better dressed on this occasion than I believe she had ever been seen to be in the memory of men. She was attired in black brocade with a train, and wore such a mantle as everybody said must have been got for the occasion, since it was like nothing that had ever been seen on Lady Jane’s shoulders before. The furs, too, were unknown to Sliplin; perhaps she wore them in more favoured places, perhaps she had borrowed them for the occasion. The reason of all this display was beyond the divination of Katherine, who received her visitor half with the suppressed resentment which she felt she owed to everyone who could be supposed privy to Stella’s plans, and half with the wistful longing for an old friend, a wiser and more experienced person, to console herself. Katherine had abandoned the young ladies’ room, with all its double arrangements and suggestions of a life that was over. She sat in the large drawing-room, among the costly, crowded furniture, feeling as if, though less expensive, she was but one of them—a daughter needed, like the Italian cabinets, for the due furnishing of the house.
Lady Jane came in, feeling her way between the chairs and tables. It was appropriate that so formal a visit should be received in this formal place. She shook hands with Katherine, who held back visibly from the usual unnecessary kiss. It marked at once the difference, and that the younger woman felt herself elevated by her resentment, and was no longer to be supposed to be in any way at Lady Jane’s feet.
“How do you do?” said Lady Jane, carrying out the same idea. “How is your father? I am glad to hear that he has, on the whole, not suffered in health—nor you either, Katherine, I hope?”
“I don’t know about suffering in health. I am well enough,” the girl said.
“I perceive,” said Lady Jane, “by your manner that you identify me somehow with what has happened. That is why I have come here to-day. You must feel I don’t come as I usually do. In ordinary circumstances I should probably havesent for you to come to me. Katherine, I can see that you think I’m somehow to blame, in what way, I’m sure I don’t know.”
“I have never expressed any blame. I don’t know that I have ever thought anyone was to blame—except——”
“Except—except themselves. You are right. They are very hot-headed, the one as much as the other. I don’t mean to say that he—he is a sort of relation of mine—has not asked my advice. If he has done so once he has done it a hundred times, and I can assure you, Katherine, all that I have said has been consistently ‘Don’t ask me.’ I have told him a hundred times that I would not take any responsibility. I have said to him, ‘I can’t tell how you will suit each other, or whether you will agree, or anything.’ I have had nothing to do with it. I felt, as he was staying in my house at the time, that you or your father might be disposed to blame me. I assure you it would be very unjust. I knew no more of what was going on on Wednesday last—no more than—than Snap did,” cried Lady Jane. Snap was the little tyrant of the fields at Steephill, a small fox terrier, and kept everything under his control.
“I can only say that you have never been blamed, Lady Jane. Papa has never mentioned your name, and as for me——”
“Yes, Katherine, you; it is chiefly you I think of. I am sure you have thought I had something to do with it.”
Katherine made a pause. She was in a black dress. I can scarcely tell why—partly, perhaps, from some exaggerated sentiment—actually because Mrs. Simmons, who insisted on attending to her till someone could be got to replace Stevens, had laid it out. And she was unusually pale. She had not in reality “got over” the incident so well as people appeared to hope.
“To tell the truth,” she said, “all the world has seemed quite insignificant to me except my sister. I have had so much to do thinking of her that I have had no time for anything else.”
“That’s not very complimentary to people that have taken so great an interest in you.” Lady Jane was quite discomposed by having the word insignificant applied to her. She was certainly not insignificant, whatever else she might be.
“Perhaps it is not,” Katherine said. “I have had a great deal to think of,” she added with a half appeal for sympathy.
“I dare say. Is it possible that you never expected it? Didn’t you see that night? All those jewels even might have told their story. I confess that I was vaguely in a great fright; but I thought you must have been in her confidence, Katherine, that is the truth.”
“I in her confidence! Did you think I would have helped her to—to—deceive everybody—to—give such a blow to papa?”
“Is it such a blow to your papa? I am told he has not suffered in health. Now I look at you again you are pale, but I don’t suppose you have suffered in health either. Katherine, don’t you think you are overdoing it a little? She has done nothing that is so very criminal. And your own conduct was a little strange. You let her run off into the dark shrubberies to say farewell to him, as I am told, and never gave any alarm till you saw the yacht out in the bay, and must have known they were safe from any pursuit. I must say that a girl who has behaved like that is much more likely to have known all about it than an outsider like me!”
“I did not know anything about it,” cried Katherine—“nothing! Stella did not confide in me. If she had done so—if she had told me——”
“Yes; what would you have done then?” Lady Jane asked with a certain air of triumph.
Katherine looked blankly at her. She was wandering about in worlds not realised. She had never asked herself that question. And yet perhaps her own conduct, her patience in that moonlight scene was more extraordinary in her ignorance than it would have been had she sympathised and known. The question took her breath away, and she had no answer to give.
“If she had told you that she had been married to Charlie Somers that morning; that he was starting for India next day; that whatever her duty to her father and yourself might have been (that’s nonsense; a girl has no duty to her sister), her duty to her husband came first then. If she had told you that at the last moment, Katherine, what would you have done?”
Katherine felt every possibility of reply taken from her. What could she have done? Supposing Stella that night—that night in the moonlight, which somehow seemed mixed up with everything—had whisperedthatin her ear, instead of the lie about wishing to bid Charlie farewell. What could she have done; what would she have done? With a gasp in her throat she looked helplessly at her questioner. She had no answer to make.
“Then how could you blame me?” cried Lady Jane, throwing off her wonderful furs, loosening her mantle, beginning, with her dress tucked up a little in front, to look more like herself. “What was to be done when they had gone and taken it into their own hands? You can’t separate husband and wife, though, Heaven knows, there are a great many that would be too thankful if you could. But there they were—married. What was to be done? I made sure when you would insist on driving home with her, Katherine, that she must have told you.”
“I was not expected, then, to drive home with her?” Katherine said sharply. “It was intended that I should know nothing—nothing at all.”
“I thought—I sincerely thought,” said Lady Jane, hanging her head a little, “that she would have told you then. I suppose she was angry at the delay.”
Katherine’s heart was very sore. She had been the one who knew nothing, from whom everything had been kept. It had been intended that she should be left at the ball while Stella stole off with her bridegroom; and her affectionate anxiety about Stella’s headache had been a bore, the greatest bore, losing so much time and delaying the escape. And shut up there with her sister, her closest friend, her inseparable companionof so many years, there had not been even a whisper of the great thing which had happened, which now stood between them and cut them apart for ever. Katherine, in her life of the secondary person, the always inferior, had learned unconsciously a great deal of self-repression; but it taxed all her powers to receive this blow full on her breast and make no sign. Her lips quivered a little; she clasped her hands tightly together; and a hot and heavy moisture, which made everything awry and changed, stood in her eyes.
“Was that how it was?” she said at last when she had controlled her voice to speak.
“Katherine, dear child, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Nobody thought that you would feel it——” Lady Jane added after a moment, “so much,” and put out her hand to lay it on Katherine’s tightly-clasped hands.
“Nobody thought of me, I imagine, at all,” said Katherine, withdrawing from this touch, and recovering herself after that bitter and blinding moment. “It would have been foolish to expect anything else. And it is perhaps a good thing that I was not tried—that I was not confided in. I might perhaps have thought of my duty to my father. But a woman who is married,” she added quickly, with an uncontrollable bitterness, “has, I suppose, no duties, except to the man whom—who has married her.”
“He must always come first,” said Lady Jane with a little solemnity. She was thunderstruck when Katherine, rising quickly to her feet and walking about the room, gave vent to Brabantio’s exclamation before the Venetian senators:
“Look to her, thou: have a quick eye to see.She hath deceived her father and may thee.”
“Look to her, thou: have a quick eye to see.She hath deceived her father and may thee.”
“Look to her, thou: have a quick eye to see.She hath deceived her father and may thee.”
Lady Jane was not an ignorant woman for her rank and position. She had read the necessary books, and kept up a kind of speaking acquaintance with those of the day. But it may be excused to her, a woman of many occupations, if she did not remember whence this outburst came, and thought it exceedinglyridiculous and indeed of very doubtful taste, if truth must be told.
“I could not have thought you would be so merciless,” she said severely. “I thought you were a kind creature, almost too kind. It is easy to see that you have never been touched by any love-affair of your own.”
Katherine laughed—there seemed no other reply to this assumption—and came back and sat down quietly in her chair.
“Was that all, Lady Jane?” she said. “You came to tell me you had nothing to do with the step my sister has taken, and then that you knew all about it, and that it was only I who was left out.”
“You are a very strange girl, Katherine Tredgold. I excuse you because no doubt you have been much agitated, otherwise I should say you were very rude and impudent.” Lady Jane was gathering on again her panoply of war—her magnificent town-mantle, the overwhelming furs which actually belonged to her maid. “I knew nothing about the first step,” she said angrily. “I was as ignorant of the marriage as you were. Afterwards, I allow, they told me; and as there was nothing else to be done—for, of course, as you confess, a woman as soon as she is married has no such important duty as to her husband—I did not oppose the going away. I advised them to take you into their confidence; afterwards, I allow, for their sakes, I promised to keep you engaged, if possible, to see that you had plenty of partners and no time to think.”
Katherine was ashamed afterwards to remember how the prick of injured pride stung her more deeply than even that of wounded affection. “So,” she said, her cheeks glowing crimson, “it was to your artifice that I owed my partners! But I have never found it difficult to get partners—without your aid, Lady Jane!”
“You will take everything amiss, however one puts it,” said Lady Jane. And then there was a long pause, during which that poor lady struggled much with her wraps without any help from Katherine, who sat like stone and saw her difficulties without lifting so much as a little finger. “You are to beexcused,” the elder lady added, “for I do not think you have been very well treated, though, to be sure, poor Stella must have felt there was very little sympathy likely, or she certainly would have confided in you. As for Charlie Somers——” Lady Jane gave an expressive wave of her hand, as if consenting that nothing was to be expected from him; then she dropped her voice and asked with a change of tone, “I don’t see why it should make any difference between you and me, Katherine. I have really had nothing to do with it—except at the very last. Tell me now, dear, how your father takes it? Is he very much displeased?”
“Displeased is a weak word, Lady Jane.”
“Well, angry then—enraged—any word you like; of course, for the moment no word will be strong enough.”
“I don’t think,” said Katherine, “that he will ever allow her to enter his house, or consent to see her again.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Lady Jane. “Then what in the world is to become of them? But I am sure you exaggerate—in the heat of the moment; and, of course, Katherine, I acknowledge you have been very badly used,” she said.
Katherinewas perhaps not in very good condition after Lady Jane’s visit, though that great personage found it, on the whole, satisfactory, and felt that she had settled the future terms on which they were to meet in quite a pleasant way—to receive the first letter which Stella sent her, an epistle which arrived a day or two later. Stella’s epistle was very characteristic indeed. It was dated from Paris:
“Dearest Kate,—I can’t suppose that you have not heard everything about all that we have done and haven’t done. I don’t excuse myself for not writing on the plea that you couldn’t possibly be anxious about me, as you must have known all this by next morning, but I can’t help feeling that you must have been angry, both you and papa, and I thought it would perhaps be better just to let you cool down. I know you have cause to be angry, dear; I ought to have told you, and it was on my lips all the time; but I thought you might think it your duty to make a row, and then all our plans might have been turned upside down. What we had planned to do was to get across to Southsea in the yacht, and go next morning by the first train to London, and on here at once, which, with little divergencies, we carried out. You see we have never been to say out of reach; but it would have done you no good to try to stop us, for, of course, from the moment I was Charlie’s wife my place was with him. I know you never would have consented to such a marriage; but it is perfectly all right, I can assure you—as good as if it had come off in St. George’s, Hanover Square. And we have had a delightful time. Stevens met me at Southsea with the few things I wanted (apologies for taking her from you, but you nevermade so much use of her as I did, and I don’t think you ever cared for Stevens), and next day we picked up our things at London. I wish you could see my things, they are beautiful. I hope papa won’t be dreadfully angry that I took him at his word; and I am quite frightened sometimes to think what it will all cost—the most lovelytrousseauall packed in such nice boxes—some marked cabin and some—but that’s a trifle. The important thing is that the clothes are charming, just what you would expect from Madame’s tastes. I do hope that papa will not make any fuss about her bill. They are not dear at all, for material and workmanship (can you say workmanship, when it’s needlework, and all done by women?) are simply splendid. I never saw such beautiful things.“And so here I am, Kate, a married woman, off to India with my husband. Isn’t it wonderful? I can’t say that I feel much different myself. I am the same old Stella, always after my fun. I shouldn’t wonder in the least if after a while Charlie were to set up a way of his own, and think he can stop me; but I don’t advise him to try, and in the meantime he is as sweet as sugar and does exactly what I like. It is nice, on the whole, to be called my Lady, and it is very nice to see how respectful all the people are to a married person, as if one had grown quite a great personage all at once. And it is nicer still to turn a big man round your little finger, even when you have a sort of feeling, as I have sometimes, that it may not last. One wonderful thing is that he is always meeting somebody he knows. People in society I believe know everybody—that is, really everybody who ought to be known. This man was at school with him, and that man belongs to one of his clubs, and another was brother to a fellow in his regiment, and so on, and so on—so we need never be alone unless we like: they turn up at every corner. Of course, he knows the ladies too, but this is not a good time in the year for them, for the grandees are at their country houses and English people only passing through. We did see one gorgeous person, who was a friend of his mother’s (who is dead, Heaven be praised!), and to whom he introduced me,but she looked at me exactly as if she had heard that Charlie had married a barmaid, with a ‘How do you do?’ up in the air—an odious woman. She was, of course, Countess of Something or Other, and as poor as a Church mouse. Papa could buy up dozens of such countesses; tell him I said so.“You will wonder what we are doing knocking about in Paris when the regiment is on the high seas; but Charlie could not take me, you know, in a troopship, it would have been out of the question, and we couldn’t possibly have spent our honeymoon among all those men. So he got his leave and we are going by a P. and O. boat, which are the best, and which we pick up at Brindisi, or at Suez, or somewhere. I am looking forward to it immensely, and to India, which is full of amusement, everybody tells me. I intend to get all the fun I can for the next year, and then I hope, I do hope, dear Katie, that papa may send for us home.“How is poor dear papa? You may think I am a little hypocrite, having given him such a shock, but I did really hope he would see some fun in it—he always had such a sense of humour. I have thought of this, really, truly, in all I have done. About thetrousseau(which everybody thinks the greatest joke that ever was), and about going off in the yacht, and all that, I kept thinking that papa, though he would be very angry, would see the fun. I planned it all for that—indeed, indeed, Kate, I did, whatever you may think. To be sure, Charlie went for half in the planning, and I can’t say I think he has very much sense of humour, but, still, that was in my mind all the time. Was he very, very angry when he found out? Did you wake him in the night to tell him and risk an illness? If you did, I think you were very, very much to blame. There is never any hurry in telling bad news. But you are so tremendously straightforward and all that. I hope he only heard in the morning, and had his good night’s rest and was not disturbed. It was delicious this time in the yacht, as quiet almost as a mill-pond—just a nice soft little air that carried us across the bay and on to Southsea; such a delightful sail! I ought to have thought of youpromenading about in the cold waiting for me without any companion, but I really couldn’t, dear. Naturally we were too much taken up with ourselves, and the joy of having got off so nicely. But I do beg your pardon most sincerely, dear Katie, for having left you out in the cold, really out in the cold—without any figure of speech—like that.“But my thoughts keep going back constantly to dear papa. You will miss me a little, I hope, but not as he will miss me. What does he say? Was he very angry? Do you think he is beginning to come round? Oh, dear Kate, I hope you take an opportunity when you can to say something nice to him about me. Tell him Charlie wanted to be married in London, but I knew what papa would think on this subject, and simply insisted for his sake that it should be in the little Steephill Church, where he could go himself, if he liked, and see the register and make sure that it was all right. And I have always thought of him all through. You may say it doesn’t look very like it, but I have, I have, Kate. I am quite sure that he will get very fond of Charlie after a time, and he will like to hear me called Lady Somers; and now that my mind is set at rest and no longer drawn this way and that way by love affairs, don’t you know? I should be a better daughter to him than ever before. Do get him to see this, Kate. You will have all the influence now that I am away. It is you that will be able to turn him round your little finger. And, oh, I hope, I hope, dear, that you will do it, and be true to me! You have always been such a faithful, good sister, even when I tried you most with my nonsense. I am sure I tried you, you being so different a kind from such a little fool as Stella, and so much more valuable and all that. Be sure to write to me before we leave Paris, which will be in a week, to tell me how papa is, and how he is feeling about me—and,oh, do be faithful to us, dear Kate, and make him call us back within a year! Charlie does not mind about his profession; he would be quite willing to give it up and settle down, to be near papa. And then, you see, he has really a beautiful old house of his own in the country, which he nevercould afford to live in, where we could arrange the most charmingappartement, as the French say, for papa for part of the year.“Do, dearest Kate, write, write! and tell me all about the state of affairs. With Charlie’s love,“Your most affectionate sister,“Stella (Lady) Somers.”
“Dearest Kate,—I can’t suppose that you have not heard everything about all that we have done and haven’t done. I don’t excuse myself for not writing on the plea that you couldn’t possibly be anxious about me, as you must have known all this by next morning, but I can’t help feeling that you must have been angry, both you and papa, and I thought it would perhaps be better just to let you cool down. I know you have cause to be angry, dear; I ought to have told you, and it was on my lips all the time; but I thought you might think it your duty to make a row, and then all our plans might have been turned upside down. What we had planned to do was to get across to Southsea in the yacht, and go next morning by the first train to London, and on here at once, which, with little divergencies, we carried out. You see we have never been to say out of reach; but it would have done you no good to try to stop us, for, of course, from the moment I was Charlie’s wife my place was with him. I know you never would have consented to such a marriage; but it is perfectly all right, I can assure you—as good as if it had come off in St. George’s, Hanover Square. And we have had a delightful time. Stevens met me at Southsea with the few things I wanted (apologies for taking her from you, but you nevermade so much use of her as I did, and I don’t think you ever cared for Stevens), and next day we picked up our things at London. I wish you could see my things, they are beautiful. I hope papa won’t be dreadfully angry that I took him at his word; and I am quite frightened sometimes to think what it will all cost—the most lovelytrousseauall packed in such nice boxes—some marked cabin and some—but that’s a trifle. The important thing is that the clothes are charming, just what you would expect from Madame’s tastes. I do hope that papa will not make any fuss about her bill. They are not dear at all, for material and workmanship (can you say workmanship, when it’s needlework, and all done by women?) are simply splendid. I never saw such beautiful things.
“And so here I am, Kate, a married woman, off to India with my husband. Isn’t it wonderful? I can’t say that I feel much different myself. I am the same old Stella, always after my fun. I shouldn’t wonder in the least if after a while Charlie were to set up a way of his own, and think he can stop me; but I don’t advise him to try, and in the meantime he is as sweet as sugar and does exactly what I like. It is nice, on the whole, to be called my Lady, and it is very nice to see how respectful all the people are to a married person, as if one had grown quite a great personage all at once. And it is nicer still to turn a big man round your little finger, even when you have a sort of feeling, as I have sometimes, that it may not last. One wonderful thing is that he is always meeting somebody he knows. People in society I believe know everybody—that is, really everybody who ought to be known. This man was at school with him, and that man belongs to one of his clubs, and another was brother to a fellow in his regiment, and so on, and so on—so we need never be alone unless we like: they turn up at every corner. Of course, he knows the ladies too, but this is not a good time in the year for them, for the grandees are at their country houses and English people only passing through. We did see one gorgeous person, who was a friend of his mother’s (who is dead, Heaven be praised!), and to whom he introduced me,but she looked at me exactly as if she had heard that Charlie had married a barmaid, with a ‘How do you do?’ up in the air—an odious woman. She was, of course, Countess of Something or Other, and as poor as a Church mouse. Papa could buy up dozens of such countesses; tell him I said so.
“You will wonder what we are doing knocking about in Paris when the regiment is on the high seas; but Charlie could not take me, you know, in a troopship, it would have been out of the question, and we couldn’t possibly have spent our honeymoon among all those men. So he got his leave and we are going by a P. and O. boat, which are the best, and which we pick up at Brindisi, or at Suez, or somewhere. I am looking forward to it immensely, and to India, which is full of amusement, everybody tells me. I intend to get all the fun I can for the next year, and then I hope, I do hope, dear Katie, that papa may send for us home.
“How is poor dear papa? You may think I am a little hypocrite, having given him such a shock, but I did really hope he would see some fun in it—he always had such a sense of humour. I have thought of this, really, truly, in all I have done. About thetrousseau(which everybody thinks the greatest joke that ever was), and about going off in the yacht, and all that, I kept thinking that papa, though he would be very angry, would see the fun. I planned it all for that—indeed, indeed, Kate, I did, whatever you may think. To be sure, Charlie went for half in the planning, and I can’t say I think he has very much sense of humour, but, still, that was in my mind all the time. Was he very, very angry when he found out? Did you wake him in the night to tell him and risk an illness? If you did, I think you were very, very much to blame. There is never any hurry in telling bad news. But you are so tremendously straightforward and all that. I hope he only heard in the morning, and had his good night’s rest and was not disturbed. It was delicious this time in the yacht, as quiet almost as a mill-pond—just a nice soft little air that carried us across the bay and on to Southsea; such a delightful sail! I ought to have thought of youpromenading about in the cold waiting for me without any companion, but I really couldn’t, dear. Naturally we were too much taken up with ourselves, and the joy of having got off so nicely. But I do beg your pardon most sincerely, dear Katie, for having left you out in the cold, really out in the cold—without any figure of speech—like that.
“But my thoughts keep going back constantly to dear papa. You will miss me a little, I hope, but not as he will miss me. What does he say? Was he very angry? Do you think he is beginning to come round? Oh, dear Kate, I hope you take an opportunity when you can to say something nice to him about me. Tell him Charlie wanted to be married in London, but I knew what papa would think on this subject, and simply insisted for his sake that it should be in the little Steephill Church, where he could go himself, if he liked, and see the register and make sure that it was all right. And I have always thought of him all through. You may say it doesn’t look very like it, but I have, I have, Kate. I am quite sure that he will get very fond of Charlie after a time, and he will like to hear me called Lady Somers; and now that my mind is set at rest and no longer drawn this way and that way by love affairs, don’t you know? I should be a better daughter to him than ever before. Do get him to see this, Kate. You will have all the influence now that I am away. It is you that will be able to turn him round your little finger. And, oh, I hope, I hope, dear, that you will do it, and be true to me! You have always been such a faithful, good sister, even when I tried you most with my nonsense. I am sure I tried you, you being so different a kind from such a little fool as Stella, and so much more valuable and all that. Be sure to write to me before we leave Paris, which will be in a week, to tell me how papa is, and how he is feeling about me—and,oh, do be faithful to us, dear Kate, and make him call us back within a year! Charlie does not mind about his profession; he would be quite willing to give it up and settle down, to be near papa. And then, you see, he has really a beautiful old house of his own in the country, which he nevercould afford to live in, where we could arrange the most charmingappartement, as the French say, for papa for part of the year.
“Do, dearest Kate, write, write! and tell me all about the state of affairs. With Charlie’s love,
“Your most affectionate sister,“Stella (Lady) Somers.”
“I have a letter from—Stella, papa,” said Katherine the same night.
“Ah!” he said, with a momentary prick of his ears; then he composed himself and repeated with the profoundest composure, “God damn her!” as before.
“Oh, papa, do not say that! She is very anxious to know how you are, and to ask you—oh, with all her heart, papa—to forgive her.”
Mr. Tredgold did not raise his head or show any interest. He only repeated with the same calm that phrase again.
“You have surely something else to say at the mention of her name than that. Oh, papa, she has done very, very wrong, but she is so sorry—she would like to fling herself at your feet.”
“She had better not do that; I should kick her away like a football,” he said.
“You could never be cruel to Stella—your little Stella! You always loved her the best of us two. I never came near her in one way nor another.”
“That is true enough,” said the old man.
Katherine did not expect any better, but this calm daunted her. Even Stella’s absence did not advance her in any way; she still occupied the same place, whatever happened. It was with difficulty that she resumed her questions.
“And you will miss her dreadfully, papa. Only think, those long nights that are coming—how you will miss her with her songs and her chatter and her brightness! I am only a dull companion,” said Katherine, perhaps a little, though not very reasonably, hoping to be contradicted.
“You are that,” said her father calmly.
What was she to say? She felt crushed down by this disapproval, the calm recognition that she was nobody, and that all her efforts to be agreeable could never meet with any response. She did make many efforts, far more than ever Stella had done. Stella had never taken any trouble; her father’s comfort had in reality been of very little importance to her. She had pleased him because she was Stella, just as Katherine, because she was Katherine, did not please him. And what was there more to be said? It is hard upon the unpleasing one, the one who never gives satisfaction, but the fact remains.
“You are very plain spoken,” said Katherine, trying to find a little forlorn fun in the situation. “You don’t take much pains to spare my feelings. Still, allowing that to be all true, and I don’t doubt it for a moment, think how dull you will be in the evenings, papa! You will want Stella a hundred times in an hour, you will always want her. This winter, of course, they could not come back; but before another winter, oh, papa, think for your own advantage—do say that you will forgive her, and that they may come back!”
“We may all be dead and gone before another winter,” Mr. Tredgold said.
“That is true; but then, on the other hand, we may all be living and very dull and in great, great need of something to cheer us up. Do hold out the hope, papa, that you will forgive her, and send for her, and have her back!”
“What is she to give you for standing up for her like this?” said the old man with his grim chuckling laugh.
“To give—me?” Katherine was so astonished this time that she could not think of any answer.
“Because you needn’t lose your breath,” said her father, “for you’ll lose whatever she has promised you. I’ve only one word to say about her, and that I’ve said too often already to please you—God damn her,” her father said.
And Katherine gave up the unequal conflict—for the moment at least. It was not astonishing, perhaps, that she spenta great deal of her time, as much as the weather would allow, which now was grim November, bringing up fog from land and sea, upon the cliff, where she walked up and down sometimes when there was little visible except a grey expanse of mist behind the feathery tracery of the tamarisk trees; sometimes thinking of those two apparitions of theStellain the bay, which now seemed to connect with each other like two succeeding events in a story, and sometimes of very different things. She began to think oftener than she had ever done of her own lover, he whom she had not had time to begin to love, only to have a curious half-awakened interest in, at the time when he was sent so summarily about his business. Had he not been sent about his business, probably Katherine might never have thought of him at all. It was the sudden fact of his dismissal and the strange discovery thus made, that there was one person in the world at least whose mind was occupied with her and not with Stella, that gave him that hold upon her mind which he had retained.
She wondered now vaguely what would have happened had she done what Stella had done? (It was impossible, because she had not thought of him much, had not come to any conscious appropriation of him until after he was gone; but supposing, for the sake of argument, that she had done what Stella had done). She would have been cut off, she and he, and nobody would have been much the worse. Stella, then, being the only girl of the house, would have been more serious, would have been obliged to think of things. She would have chosen someone better than Charlie Somers, someone that would have pleased her father better; and he would have kept his most beloved child, and all would have been well. From that point of view it would perhaps have been better that Katherine should have done evil that good might come. Was it doing evil to elope from home with the man you loved, because your father refused him—if you felt you could not live without him? That is a question very difficult to solve. In the first place, Katherine, never having been, let us say, very much in love herself, thought it was almost immodestin a woman to say that she could not live without any man. It might be that she loved a man who did not love her, or who loved somebody else, and then she would be compelled, whatever she wished, to live without him. But, on the other hand, there was the well-worn yet very reasonable argument that it is the girl’s life and happiness that is concerned, not the parents’, and that to issue a ukase like an emperor, or a bull like a pope, that your child must give up the man who alone can make her happy is tyrannical and cruel. You are commanded to obey your parents, but there are limits to that command; a woman of, say, thirty for instance (which to Katherine, at twenty-three, was still a great age), could not be expected to obey like a child; a woman of twenty even was not like a little girl. A child has to do what it is told, whether it likes or not; but a woman—and when all her own life is in question?
Those were thoughts which Katherine pondered much as she walked up and down the path on the cliff. For some time she went out very little, fearing always to meet a new group of interested neighbours who should question her about Stella. She shrank from the demands, from the criticisms that were sometimes very plain, and sometimes veiled under pretences of interest or sympathy. She would not discuss her sister with anyone, or her father, or their arrangements or family disasters, and the consequence was that, during almost the whole of that winter she confined herself to the small but varied domain which was such a world of flowers in summer, and now, though the trees were bare, commanded all the sun that enlivens a wintry sky, and all the aspects of the sea, and all the wide expanse of the sky. There she walked about and asked herself a hundred questions. Perhaps it would have been better for all of them if she had run away with James Stanford. It would have cost her father nothing to part with her; he would have been more lenient with the daughter he did not care for. And Stella would have been more thoughtful, more judicious, if there had been nobody at home behind her to bear the responsibility of common life. And then, Katherinewondered, with a gasp, as to the life that might have been hers had she been James Stanford’s wife. She would have gone to India, too, but with notrousseau, no diamonds, no gay interval at Paris. She would have had only him, no more, to fill up her horizon and occupy her changed life. She thought of this with a little shiver, wondering—for, to be sure, she was not, so to speak, in love with him, but only interested in him—very curious if it had been possible to know more about him, to get to understand him. It was a singular characteristic in him that it was she whom he had cared for and not Stella. He was the first and only person who had done so—at least, the only man. Women, she was aware, often got on better with her than with her sister; but that did not surprise her, somehow, while the other did impress her deeply. Why should he have singled out her, Katherine, to fall in love with? It showed that he must be a particular kind of man, not like other people. This was the reason why Katherine had taken so much interest in him, thought so much of him all this time, not because she was in love with him. And it struck her with quite a curious impression, made up of some awe, some alarm, some pleasure, and a good deal of abashed amusement, to think that she might, like Stella, have eloped with him—might have been living with him as her sole companion for two or three years. She used to laugh to herself and hush up her line of thinking abruptly when she came to this point, and yet there was a curious attraction in it.
Soon, however, the old routine, although so much changed, came back, the usual visitors came to call, there were the usual little assemblages to luncheon, which was the form of entertainment Mr. Tredgold preferred; the old round of occupations began, the Stanley girls and the others flowed and circled about her in the afternoon, and, before she knew, Katherine was drawn again into the ordinary routine of life.
Thecompany in the house on the cliff was, however, very considerably changed, though the visitors were not much lessened in number. It became, perhaps, morebourgeois, certainly more village, than it had been. Stella, a daring, audacious creature, with her beauty, which burst upon the spectators at the first glance, and her absence of all reserve, and her determination to be “in” everything that was amusing or agreeable, had made her way among her social betters as her quieter and more sensitive sister would never have done. Then the prestige which had attached to them because of their wealth and that character of heiress which attracts not only fortune-hunters who are less dangerous, but benevolent match-makers and the mothers and sisters of impecunious but charming young men, had been much dulled and sobered by the discovery that the old father, despised of everybody, was not so easily to be moved as was supposed. This was an astonishing and painful discovery, which Lady Jane, in herself perfectly disinterested and wanting nothing from old Tredgold, felt almost more than anyone. She had not entertained the least doubt that he would give in. She did not believe, indeed, that Stella and her husband would ever have been allowed to leave England at all. She had felt sure that old Tredgold’s money would at once and for ever settle all questions about the necessity of going to India with the regiment for Charlie; that he would be able at once to rehabilitate his old house, and to set up his establishment, and to settle into that respectable country-gentleman life in which all a man’s youthful peccadilloes are washed out and forgotten.
Mr. Tredgold’s obstinacy was thus as great a blow to Lady Jane as if she herself had been impoverished by it. She feltthe ground cut from under her feet, and her confidence in human nature destroyed. If you cannot make sure of a vulgar old father’s weakness for his favourite child whom he has spoiled outrageously all her life, of what can you make sure? Lady Jane was disappointed, wounded, mortified. She felt less sure of her own good sense and intuitions, which is a very humbling thing—not to speak of the depreciation in men’s minds of her judgment which was likely to follow. Indeed, it did follow, and that at once, people in general being very sorry for poor Charlie Somers, who had been taken in so abominably, and who never would have risked the expenses of married life, and a wife trained up to every extravagance, if he had not felt sure of being indemnified; and, what was still worse, they all agreed he never would have taken such a strong step—for he was a cautious man, was Charlie, notwithstanding his past prodigalities—if he had not been so pushed forward and kept up to the mark by Lady Jane.
The thing that Lady Jane really fell back on as a consolation in the pressure of these painful circumstances was that she had not allowed Algy to make himself ridiculous by any decisive step in respect to the “little prim one,” as he called Katherine. This Lady Jane had sternly put down her foot upon. She had said at once that Katherine was not the favourite, that nothing could be known as to how the old man would leave her, along with many other arguments which intimidated the young one. As a patter of fact, Lady Jane, naturally a very courageous woman, was afraid of Algy’s mother, and did not venture to commit herself in any way that would have brought her into conflict with Lady Scott, which, rather than any wisdom on her part, was the chief reason which had prevented additional trouble on that score. Poor Charlie Somers had no mother nor any female relation of importance to defend him. Lady Jane herself ought to have been his defence, and it was she who had led him astray. It was not brought against her open-mouthed, or to her face. But she felt that it was in everybody’s mind, and that her reputation, or at least her prestige, had suffered.
This it was that made her drop the Tredgolds “like a hot potato.” She who had taken such an interest in the girls, and superintended Stella’sdébutas if she had been a girl of her own, retreated from Katherine as if from the plague. After the way they had behaved to poor dear Charlie Somers and his wife, she said, she could have no more to do with them. Lady Jane had been their great patroness, their only effectual connection with the county and its grandeurs, so that the higher society of the island was cast off at once from Katherine. I do not think she felt it very much, or was even conscious for a long time that she had lost anything. But still it was painful and surprising to her to be dismissed with a brief nod, and “How d’ye do?” in passing, from Lady Jane. She was troubled to think what she could have done to alienate a woman whom she had always liked, and who had professed, as Katherine knew, to think the elder sister the superior of the younger. That, however, was of course a merefaçon de parler, for Stella had always been, Katherine reminded herself, the attraction to the house. People might even approve of herself more, but it was Stella who was the attraction—Stella who shocked and disturbed, and amused and delighted everybody about; who was always inventing new things, festive surprises and novelties, and keeping a whirl of life in the place. The neighbours gave their serious approval to Katherine, but she did not amuse them or surprise. They never had to speculate what she would do next. They knew (she said to herself) that she would always do just the conventional proper thing, whereas Stella never could be calculated upon, and had a perpetual charm of novelty. Katherine was not sufficiently enlightened to be aware that Stella’s way in its wildness was much the more conventional of the two.
But the effect was soon made very plain. The link between the Tredgolds and the higher society of the island was broken. Perhaps it is conventional, too, to call these good people the higher society, for they were not high society in any sense of the word. There were a great many stupid people among them. Those who were not stupid were little elevated abovethe other classes except by having more beautiful mannerswhen they chose. Generally, they did not choose, and therefore were worse than the humble people because they knew better. Their one great quality was that they were the higher class. It is a great thing to stand first, whatever nation or tribe, or tongue, or sect, or station you may belong to. It is in itself an education: it saves even very stupid people from many mistakes that even clever people make in other spheres, and it gives a sort of habit of greatness—if I may use the words—of feeling that there is nothing extraordinary in brushing shoulders with the greatest at any moment; indeed, that it is certain you will brush shoulders with them, to-day or to-morrow, in the natural course of events. To know the people who move the world makes even the smallest man a little bigger, makes him accustomed to the stature of the gods.
I am not sure that this tells in respect to the poets and painters and so forth, who are what the youthful imagination always fixes on as the flower of noble society. One thinks in maturer life that perhaps one prefers not to come to too close quarters with these, any more than with dignified clergymen, lest some of the bloom of one’s veneration might be rubbed off. But one does not venerate in the same way the governors of the world, the men who are already historical; and it is perhaps they and their contemporaries from beyond all the seas, who, naturally revolving in that sphere, give a kind of bigness, not to be found in other spheres, to the highest class of society everywhere. One must account to oneself somehow for the universal pre-eminence of an aristocracy which consists of an enormous number of the most completely commonplace, and even vulgar, individuals. It is not high, but it cannot help coming in contact with the highest. Figures pass familiarly before its eyes, and brush its shoulders in passing, which are wonders and prodigies to other men. One wants an explanation, and this is the one that commends itself to me. Therefore, to be cut off from this higher class is an evil, whatever anyone may say.
Katherine, in her wounded pride and in her youth, did notallow that she thought so, I need not say. Her serious little head was tossed in indignation as scornfully as Stella’s would have been. She recalled to herself what dull people they were (which was quite true), and how commonplace their talk, and asked heaven and earth why she should care. Lottie Seton, for instance, with her retinue of silly young men: was she a loss to anyone? It was different with Lady Jane, who was a person of sense, and Katherine felt herself obliged to allow, different someway—she could not tell how—from the village ladies. Yet Lady Jane, though she disapproved highly of Mrs. Seton, for instance, never would have shut her out, as she very calmly and without the least hesitation shut out Katherine, of whom in her heart she did approve. It seemed to the girl merely injustice, the tyranny of a preposterous convention, the innate snobbishness (what other word is there?) of people in what is called society. And though she said little, she felt herself dropped out of that outer ledge of it, upon which Lady Jane’s patronage had posed her and her sister, with an angry pang. Stella belonged to it now, because she had married a pauper, a mercenary, fortune-hunting, and disreputable man; but she, who had done no harm, who was exactly the same Katherine as ever, was dropped.
There were other consequences of this which were more harmful still. People who were connected in business with Mr. Tredgold, who had always appeared occasionally in the house, but against whom Stella had set her little impertinent face, now appeared in greater numbers, and with greater assurance than ever; and Mr. Tredgold, no longer held under subjection by Stella, liked to have them. With the hold she had on the great people, Stella had been able to keep these others at a distance, for Stella had that supreme distinction which belongs to aristocracy of being perfectly indifferent whether she hurt other people’s feelings or not; but Katherine possessed neither the one advantage nor the other—neither the hold upon society nor the calm and indifference. And the consequence naturally was that she was pushed to the wall. The city people came more and more; and she had to be kind to them, to receivethem as if she liked it. When I say she had to do it, I do not mean that Katherine was forced by her father, but that she was forced by herself. There is an Eastern proverb that says “A man can act only according to his nature.” It was no more possible for Katherine to be uncivil, to make anyone feel that he or she was unwelcome, to “hurt their feelings,” as she would have said, than to read Hebrew or Chinese.
So she was compelled to be agreeable to the dreadful old men who sat and talked stocks and premiums, and made still more dreadful jokes with her father, making him chuckle till he almost choked; and to the old women who criticised her housekeeping, and told her that a little bit of onion (or something else) would improve this dish, or just a taste of brandy that, and who wondered that she did not control the table in the servants’ hall, and give them out daily what was wanted. Still more terrible were the sons and daughters who came, now one, now another; the first making incipient love to her, the other asking about the officers, and if there were many balls, and men enough, or always too many ladies, as was so often the case. The worst part of her new life was these visits upon which she now exercised no control. Stella had done so. Stella had said, “Now, papa, I cannot have those old guys of yours here; let the men come from Saturday to Monday and talk shop with you if you like, but we can’t have the women, nor the young ones. There I set down my foot,” and this she had emphasised with a stamp on the carpet, which was saucy and pretty, and delighted the old man. But Mr. Tredgold was no fool, and he knew very well the difference between his daughters. He knew that Katherine would not put down her foot, and if she had attempted to do so, he would have laughed in her face—not a delighted laugh of acquiescence as with Stella, but a laugh of ridicule that she could suppose he would be taken in so easily. Katherine tried quietly to express to her father her hope that he would not inflict these guests upon her. “You have brought us up so differently, papa,” she would say with hesitation, while he replied, “Stuff and nonsense! they are just as good as you are.”
“Perhaps,” said Katharine. “Mrs. Simmons, I am sure, is a much better woman than I am; but we don’t ask her to come in to dinner.”
“Hold your impudence!” her father cried, who was never choice in his expressions. “Do you put my friends on a level with your servants?” He would not have called them her servants in any other conversation, but in this it seemed to point the moral better.
“They are not so well bred, papa,” she said, which was a speech which from Stella would have delighted the old man, but from Katherine it made him angry.
“Don’t let me hear you set up such d—— d pretensions,” he cried. “Who are you, I wonder, to turn up your nose at the Turnys of Lothbury? There is not a better firm in London, and young Turny’s got his grandfather’s money, and many a one of your grand ladies would jump at him. If you don’t take your chance when you find it, you may never have another, my fine lady. None of your beggars with titles for me. My old friends before all.”
This was a fine sentiment indeed, calculated to penetrate the most callous heart; but it made Katherine glow all over, and then grow chill and pale. She divined what was intended—that there were designs to unite her, now the representative of the Tredgolds, with the heir of the house of Turny. There was no discrepancy of fortune there. Old Turny could table thousand by thousand with Mr. Tredgold, and it was a match that would delight both parties. Why should Katherine have felt so violent a pang of offended pride? Mr. Turny was no better and no worse in origin than she. The father of that family was her father’s oldest friend; the young people had been brought up with “every advantage”—even a year or two of the University for the eldest son, who, however, when he was found to be spending his time in vanities with other young men like himself—not with the sons of dukes and earls, which might have made it bearable—was promptly withdrawn accordingly, but still could call himself an Oxford man. The girls had been to school in France and in Germany, and hadlearned their music in Berlin and their drawing in Paris. They were far better educated than Katherine, who had never had any instructor but a humble governess at home. How, then, did it come about that the idea of young Turny having the insolence to think of her should have made Katherine first red with indignation, then pale with disgust? I cannot explain it, neither could she to herself; but so it was. We used to hear a great deal about nature’s noblemen in the days of sentimental fiction. But there certainly is such a thing as a natural-born aristocrat, without any foundation for his or her instinct, yet possessing it as potently as the most highly descended princess that ever breathed. Katherine’s grand-father, as has been said, had been a respectable linen-draper, while the Turnys sprung from a house of business devoting itself to the sale of crockery at an adjoining corner; yet Katherine felt herself as much insulted by the suggestion of young Turny as a suitor as if she had been a lady of high degree and he a low-born squire. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.
Two or three of such suitors crossed her path within a short time. Neither of the sisters might have deserved the attentions of these gentlemen had they been likely to share their father’s wealth; but now that the disgrace of one was generally known, and the promotion of the other as sole heiress generally counted upon, this was what happened to Katherine. She was exceedingly civil in a superior kind of way, with an air noble that indeed sat very well upon her, and a dignity worthy of a countess at least to these visitors: serious and stately with the mothers, tolerant with the fathers, gracious with the daughters, but altogether unbending with the sons. She would have none of them. Two other famous young heroes of the city (both of whom afterwards married ladies of distinguished families, and who has not heard of Lady Arabella Turny?) followed the first, but with the same result. Mr. Tredgold was very angry with his only remaining child. He asked her if she meant to be an infernal fool too. If so,she might die in a ditch for anything her father cared, and he would leave all his money to a hospital.
“A good thing too. Far better than heaping all your good money, that you’ve worked and slaved for, on the head of a silly girl. Who are you, I wonder,” he said, “to turn up your dashed little nose? Why, you’re not even a beauty like the other; a little prim thing that would never get a man to look twice at you but for your father’s money at your back. But don’t you make too sure of your father’s money—to keep up your grandeur,” he cried. Nevertheless, though he was so angry, Mr. Tredgold was rather pleased all the same to see his girl turn up her nose at his friends’ sons. She was not a bit better than they were—perhaps not so good. And he was very angry, yet could not but feel flattered too at the hang-dog looks with which the Turnys and others went away—“tail between their legs,” he said to himself; and it tickled his fancy and pride, though he was so much displeased.
Perhapsthe village society into which Katherine was now thrown was not much more elevating than the Turnys, &c.; but it was different. She had known it all her life, for one thing, and understood every allusion, and had almost what might be called an interest in all the doings of the parish. The fact that the old Cantrells had grown so rich that they now felt justified in confessing it, and were going to retire from the bakery and set up as private gentlefolks while their daughter and son-in-law entered into possession of the business, quite entertained her for half an hour while it was being discussed by Miss Mildmay and Mrs. Shanks over their tea. Katherine had constructed for herself in the big and crowded drawing-room, by means of screens, a corner in which there was both a fireplace and a window, and which looked like an inner room, now that she had taken possession of it. She had covered the gilded furniture with chintzes, and the shining tables with embroidered cloths. The fire always burned bright, and the window looked out over the cliff and the fringe of tamarisks upon the sea. The dual chamber, the young ladies’ room, with all its contrivances for pleasure and occupation, was shut up, as has been said, and this was the first place which Katherine had ever had of her very own.
She did not work nearly so much for bazaars as she had done in the old Stella days. Then that kind of material occupation (though the things produced were neither very admirable in themselves nor of particular use to anyone) gave a sort of steady thread, flimsy as it was, to run through her light and airy life. It meant something if not much.Elle fait ses robes—which is the last height of the good girl’s excellence in modernFrench—would have been absurd; and to make coats and cloaks for the poor by Stella’s side would have been extremely inappropriate, not to say that such serious labours are much against the exquisite disorder of a modern drawing-room, therefore the bazaar articles had to do. But now there was no occasion for the bazaars—green and gilt paper stained her fingers no more. She had no one to keep in balance; no one but herself, who weighed a little if anything to the other side, and required, if anything, a touch of frivolity, which, to be sure, the bazaars were quite capable of furnishing if you took them in that way. She read a great deal in this retreat of hers; but I fear to say it was chiefly novels she read. And she had not the least taste for metaphysics. And anything about Woman, with a capital letter, daunted her at once. She was very dull sometimes—what human creature is not?—but did not blame anyone else for it, nor even fate. She chiefly thought it was her own fault, and that she had indeed no right to be dull; and in this I think she showed herself to be a very reasonable creature.
Now that Lady Jane’s large landau never swept up to the doors, one of the most frequent appearances there was that convenient but unbeautiful equipage called the midge. It was not a vehicle beloved of the neighbourhood. The gardener’s wife, now happily quite recovered from the severe gunshot wound she had received on the night of Stella’s elopement, went out most reluctantly, taking a very long time about it, to open the gate when it appeared. She wanted to know what was the good of driving that thing in, as was no credit to be seen anywhere, when them as used it might just as well have got out outside the gate and walked. The ladies did not think so at all. They were very particular to be driven exactly up to the door and turned half round so that the door which was at the end, not the side of the vehicle, should be opposite the porch; and they would sometimes keep it waiting an hour, a remarkable object seen from all the windows, while they sat with poor Katherine and cheered her up. These colloquies always began with inquiries after her sister.
“Have you heard again from Stella? Where is she now, poor child? Have you heard of their safe arrival? And where is the regiment to be quartered? And what does she say of the climate? Does she think it will agree with her? Are they in the plains, where it is so hot, or near the hills, where there is always a little more air?”
Such was the beginning in every case, and then the two ladies would draw their chairs a little nearer, and ask eagerly in half-whispers, “And your papa, Katherine? Does he show any signs of relenting? Does he ever speak of her? Don’t you think he will soon give in? He must give in soon. Considering how fond he was of Stella, I cannot understand how he has held out so long.”
Katherine ignored as much as she could the latter questions.
“I believe they are in quite a healthy place,” she said, “and it amuses Stella very much, and the life is all so new. You know she is very fond of novelty, and there are a great many parties and gaieties, and of course she knows everybody. She seems to be getting on very well.”
“And very happy with her husband, I hope, my dear—for that is the great thing after all.”
“Do you expect Stella to say that she is not happy with her husband, Jane Shanks? or Katherine to repeat it if she did? All young women are happy with their husbands—that’s taken for granted—so far as the world is concerned.”
“I think, Ruth Mildmay, it is you who should have been Mrs. Shanks,” cried the other, with a laugh.
“Heaven forbid! You may be quite sure that had I ever been tempted that way, I should only have changed for a better, not a worse name.”
“Stella,” cried Katherine to stop the fray, “seems to get on capitally with Charlie. She is always talking of him. I should think they were constantly together, and enjoying themselves very much indeed.”
“Ah, it is early days,” Miss Mildmay said, with a shake of her head. “And India is a very dissipated place. There are always things going on at an Indian station that keep peoplefrom thinking. By-and-by, when difficulties come—— But you must always stand her friend and keep her before your father’s eyes. I don’t know if Jane Shanks has told you—but the news is all over the town—the Cantrells have taken that place, you know, with the nice paddock and garden; the place the doctor was after—quite a gentleman’s little place. I forget the name, but it is near the Rectory—don’t you know?—a little to the right; quite a gentleman’s house.”
“I suppose Mr. Cantrell considers himself a gentleman now,” Katherine said, glad of the change of subject.
“Why, he’s a magistrate,” said Mrs. Shanks, “and could buy up the half of us—isn’t that the right thing to say when a man has grown rich in trade?”
“It is a thing papa says constantly,” said Katherine; “and I suppose, as that is what has happened to himself——”
“O my dear Katherine! you don’t suppose that for one moment! fancy dear Mr. Tredgold, with his colossal fortune—a merchant prince and all that—compared to old Cantrell, the baker! Nobody could ever think of making such a comparison!”
“It just shows how silly it is not to make up your mind,” said Miss Mildmay. “I know the doctor was after that house—much too large a house for an unmarried man, I have always said, but it was not likely that he would think anything of what I said—and now it is taken from under his very nose. The Cantrells did not take long to make up their minds! They go out and in all day long smiling at each other. I believe they think they will quite be county people with that house.”
“It is nice to see them smiling at each other—at their age they were just as likely to be spitting fire at each other. I shall call certainly and ask her to show me over the house. I like to see such people’s houses, and their funny arrangements and imitations, and yet the original showing through all the same.”
“And does George Cantrell get the shop?” Katherine asked. She had known George Cantrell all her life—betterthan she knew the young gentlemen who were to be met at Steephill and in whom it would have been natural to be interested. “He was always very nice to us when we were little,” she said.
“Oh, my dear child, you must not speak of George Cantrell. He has gone away somewhere—nobody knows where. He fell in love with his mother’s maid-of-all-work—don’t you know?—and married her and put the house of Cantrell to shame. So there are no shops nor goodwills for George. He has to work as what they call a journeyman, after driving about in his nice cart almost like a gentleman.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay, “that even in the lower classes grades must tell. There are grades everywhere. When I gave the poor children a tea at Christmas, the carpenter’s little girls were not allowed to come because the little flower-woman’s children were to be there.”
“For that matter we don’t know anything about the doctor’s grade, Ruth Mildmay. He might be a baker’s son just like George for anything we know.”
“That is true,” said the other. “You can’t tell who anybody is nowadays. But because he is a doctor—which I don’t think anything of as a profession—none of my belongings were ever doctors, I know nothing about them—he might ask any girl to marry him—anybody——”
“Surely, his education makes some difference,” Katherine said.
“Oh, education! You can pick up as much education as you like at any roadside now. And what does that kind of education do for you?—walking hospitals where the worst kind of people are collected together, and growing familiar with the nastiest things and the most horrible! Will that teach a man the manners of a gentleman?” Miss Mildmay asked, raising her hands and appealing to earth and heaven.
At this point in the conversation the drawing-room door opened, and someone came in knocking against the angles of the furniture.“May I announce myself?” a voice said. “Burnet—Dr., as I stand in the directory. John was trying to catch the midge, which had bolted, and accordingly I brought myself in. How do you do, Miss Katherine? It is very cold outside.”
“The midge bolted!” both the ladies cried with alarm, rushing to the window.
“Nothing of the sort,” cried Mrs. Shanks, who was the more nimble. “It is there standing as quiet as a judge. Fancy the midge bolting!”
“Oh, have they got it safe again?” he said. “But you ladies should not drive such a spirited horse.”
“Fancy——” Mrs. Shanks began, but the ground was cut from under her feet by her more energetic friend.
“Katherine,” she said, “you see what a very good example this is of what we were saying. It is evident the doctor wants us to bolt after the midge—if you will forgive me using such a word.”
“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “I wish you to give me your advice, which I am sure nobody could do better. I want you to tell me whether you think the Laurels would be a good place for me to set up my household gods.”
“The Laurels! oh, the Laurels——” cried Mrs. Shanks, eager to speak, but anxious at the same time to spare Dr. Burnet’s feelings.
“The Cantrells have bought the Laurels,” said Miss Mildmay, quickly, determined to be first.
“The Cantrells—the bakers!” he cried, his countenance falling.
“Yes, indeed, the Cantrells, the bakers—people who know their own mind, Dr. Burnet. They went over the house yesterday, every corner, from the drawing-room to the dustbin; and they were delighted with it, and they settled everything this morning. They are going to set up a carriage, and, in short, to become county people—if they can,” Miss Mildmay said.
“They are very respectable,” said Mrs. Shanks. “Of course, Ruth Mildmay is only laughing when she speaks ofcounty people—but I should like to ask her, after she has got into it, to show me the house.”
“The Cantrells—the bakers!” cried Dr. Burnet, with a despair which was half grotesque, “inmyhouse! This is a very dreadful thing for me, Miss Katherine, though I see that you are disposed to laugh. I have been thinking of it for some time as my house. I have been settling all the rooms, where this was to be and where that was to be.” Here he paused a moment, and gave her a look which was startling, but which Katherine, notwithstanding her experience with the Turnys, etc., did not immediately understand. And then he grew a little red under his somewhat sunburnt weather-beaten complexion, and cried—“What am I to do? It unsettles everything. The Cantrells! in my house.”
“You see, it doesn’t do to shilly-shally, doctor,” said Miss Mildmay. “You should come to the point. While you think about it someone else is sure to come in and do it. And the Cantrells are people that know their own minds.”
“Yes, indeed,” he said—“yes, indeed,” shaking his head. “Poor George—they know their own minds with a vengeance. That poor fellow now is very likely to go to the dogs.”
“No; he will go to London,” said the other old lady. “I know some such nice people there in the same trade, and I have recommended him to them. You know the people, Katherine—they used to send us down such nice French loaves by the parcel post, that time when I quarrelled with the old Cantrells, don’t you remember, about——”
“I don’t think there is any other house about Sliplin that will suit you now, Dr. Burnet,” said Miss Mildmay. “You will have to wait a little, and keep on the look-out.”
“I suppose so,” he said dejectedly, thrusting his hands down to the depths of his pockets, as if it were possible that he should find some consolation there.
And he saw the two ladies out with great civility, putting them into the midge with a care for their comfort which melted their hearts.
“I should wait a little now, if I were you,” said Miss Mildmay, gripping his hand for a moment with the thin old fingers, which she had muffled up in coarse woollen gloves drawn on over the visiting kid. “I should wait a little, since you have let this chance slip.”
“Do you think so?” he said.
“Ruth Mildmay,” said Mrs. Shanks, when they had driven away. “This is not treating me fairly. There is something private between you and that young man which you have never disclosed to me.”
“There is nothing private,” said Miss Mildmay. “Do you think I’m an improper person, Jane Shanks? There is nothing except that I’ve got a pair of eyes in my head.”
Dr. Burnet went slowly back to the drawing-room, where Katherine had promised him a cup of tea. His step sounded differently, and when he knocked against the furniture the sound was dull. He looked a different man altogether. He had come in so briskly, half an hour before, that Katherine was troubled for him.
“I am afraid you are very much disappointed about the house,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Katherine, I am. I had set my heart on it somehow—and on other things connected with it,” he said.
She was called Miss Katherine by everybody in consequence of the dislike of her father to have any sign of superiority over her sister shown to his eldest daughter. Miss Katherine and Miss Stella meant strict equality. Neither of them was ever called Miss Tredgold.
“I am very sorry,” she said, with her soft sympathetic voice.
He looked at her, and she for a moment at him, as she gave him his cup of tea. Again she was startled, almost confused, by his look, but could not make out to herself the reason why. Then she made a little effort to recover herself, and said, with a half laugh, half shiver, “You are thinking how we once took tea together in the middle of the night.”
“On that dreadful morning?” he said. “No, I don’tknow that I was, but I shall never forget it. Don’t let me bring it back to your mind.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I think of it often enough. And I don’t believe I ever thanked you, Dr. Burnet, for all you did for me, leaving everything to go over to Portsmouth, you that are always so busy, to make those inquiries—which were of so little good—and explaining everything to the Rector, and sending him off too.”
“And his inquiries were of some use, though mine were not,” he said. “Well, we are both your very humble servants, Miss Katherine: I will say that for him. If Stanley could keep the wind from blowing upon you too roughly he would do so, and it’s the same with me.”
Katherine looked up with a sudden open-eyed glance of pleasure and gratitude. “How very good of you to say that!” she cried. “How kind, how beautiful, to think it! It is true I am very solitary now. I haven’t many people to feel for me. I shall always be grateful and happy to think that you have so kind a feeling for me, you two good men.”