Christmas Day fell upon a Tuesday in 1911, and on the Saturday before Katherine Bush accompanied her employer, and the two dogs, down to Blissington in the motor. She had only been in one for short drives in the Bois with Lord Algy, so to tear through the frozen country was a great joy to her, although, not possessing proper wraps, she was rather cold.
"You must have a fur coat, Miss Bush! I am greatly annoyed that I did not remark that you were insufficiently clad before we started. Here, crouch down under this rug—and there is an extra one at my feet you must wrap round you."
Katherine was grateful.
"Stirling must find you some warm garment of mine while we are at Blissington. I have no patience with idiots who deliberately take cold."
Katherine agreed with her.
"Do you know the English country, or are you quite a cockney girl?" she was then asked.
"No, I hardly know it at all. I know Brighton, and a lot of seaside places, but we never chanced to go to the country for our holidays."
"It is a wonderful place, the English country, the most beautiful in the world, I think; it will interest me immensely to hear your impressions of it; after a week you must tell me."
"I shall be very pleased to do so."
"We pass Windsor; you must go over it some day—it is only twenty miles from Blissington—. Are you interested in historical associations?"
"Extremely—any places which are saturated with the evolution of man and nations are interesting, I think. I am afraid I would not care to go to Australia, or a new country."
Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her secretary. The creature evidently had a brain, and this would be a good opportunity to draw her out.
"You feel the force of tradition, then?"
"Oh, yes—in everything. It acts for generations in the blood—it makes people do all sorts of things, good and bad, quite without reason."
Lady Garribardine chuckled—she loved discussions.
"How does it act in yourself, for instance?"
"I have tried to stop its action in myself, because I saw the effects of the traditions of my class in my brothers and sisters, and how stultifying it was."
"You certainly seem to have emerged from them in an extraordinary manner—how did you set about it?"
Katherine thought a little and then answered deliberately.
"I always wanted to know the reason why of everything and I soon felt sure that there was no such thing as chance, but that everything which happened was part of some scheme—and I always desired to be able to distinguish between appearance and reality, and I got to understand that personal emotion distorts all reality and creates appearance, and so I began to try to dissociate things from personal emotion in my judgments of them."
"Yes, but how about tradition?"
"Tradition suggested certain views and actions tome—but looked at without emotion, I saw that they were foolish. I analysed my brothers' and sisters' ideas and instincts because I wanted to see if what I did not like in them was inevitable in myself too from the force of tradition or if there was any way to get rid of stupidities."
"And you found?"
"Of course, that everything, even instincts, can be eradicated if only their origins can be traced and the will is strong enough to overcome them."
"Yes, everything depends upon will. And you found time for all this reasoning while you kept the accounts at the pork-butcher's?"
Lady Garribardine's eyebrows ran quizzically up into her forehead, and there was a twinkle in her eye. She was greatly amused.
"Yes—in the evenings."
"No wonder you have emerged! You do not allow yourself to have any emotions then?"
Katherine looked away demurely.
"I try not to indulge in them; it is more prudent to watch their action in others."
"Have you ever been in love, child?"
"It depends upon what one calls love." The tone was dignified. Katherine did not think this quite a fair question.
Lady Garribardine laughed appreciatively.
"You are quite right. I should not have asked you that, since we were up upon a plane of discussion in which even women do not lie to one another!"
"If Your Ladyship will permit me to say so, women have very little notion of truth, I think!"
"Oh! that is too bad. You must always stand up for your sex."
"Forgive me for differing, but I should be acting from good nature in that case, not from justice."
Lady Garribardine was delighted.
"So you think we are not truthful as a company?"
"Oh, no, we have no love of abstract truth, truth for itself. When we are truthful in our general dealings with people, it is either because we have decent characters or religious views, or for our own ends, not from a detached love of truth."
"What a cynic! And how about men?"
"A man is truthful because he likes truth, and to tell lies he feels would degrade himself."
"And yet men always lie to women—have you remarked that, girl?"
"Yes—that seems to be the one exception in their standard of truth."
"How do you account for this? Have you found the 'reason why' of this peculiarity?"
"It seems presumptuous of me to give my views to Your Ladyship."
"I think I am the best judge of that matter," and Lady Garribardine frowned a little. "I asked a question."
Katherine answered then immediately. She was not quite pleased with herself for her last remark, it had laid her open to a snub.
"Original man had no regard for women—they were as the animals to him—he would not have felt degraded in lying to animals—because such a thing could not occur. He would not consult animals—he simply ordered them."
"Well?"
"Then as soon as he had to consider women at all he found it easier to lie to them because of their want ofunderstanding, and chattering tongues, and as he did not consider that they were his equals in anything, no degradation was entailed in making things easy for himself with them, by lying to them."
"How ingenuous!"
"That is how it seems to me, and so things have gone on—tradition and instinct again! Until even now when man is forced to consider women, the original instinct is still there making him feel that it does not matter lying to them."
"I believe you are right. You are not a suffragette?"
"Oh, no! I like women to advance in everything, but unless you could destroy their dramatic instinct, and hysteria, I think it would be a pity for a country if they had votes."
"You despise women and respect men, then?"
"Not at all; it would be like despising bread and respecting water. I only despise weakness in either sex."
"Well, Miss Bush, I think you have a wonderfully-stored mind. I don't feel that ninety pounds a year and drudgery is the right thing for you. What is to be done?"
Katherine gave one of her rare soft laughs.
"Believe me, madam, the lessons I am learning in Your Ladyship's service are worth more to me than my salary. I am quite contented and enjoy my drudgery."
"So you are learning lessons—are you!" Lady Garribardine chuckled again. "Of the world, the flesh or the devil?"
"A little of all three, perhaps," Katherine answered with shy demureness.
"Look here, young woman, I have remarked more than once that you possess a quality—almost unknown in ninety-nine females out of a hundred, and non-existentin the middle classes—a fine sense of humour. It is quite out of place—and like the royal rose imprinted upon the real queen's left shoulder, I expect we shall discover presently that the butcher and baker forebears are all moonshine, and that you are a princess in disguise.—See, that is Windsor—isn't it fine?"
"Ah! Yes!" cried Katherine. "It makes one think."
They were rushing along the road from Staines where they could see the splendid pile standing out against the sky.
"All those old grey stones put together by brutes and fools and brains and force. I will take you there myself some day."
"I shall love to go."
Then Her Ladyship became quite silent as was her custom when she felt inclined so to be. The obligation to make conversation never weighed upon her. This made her a delightful companion. They arrived at the park gates of Blissington Court about one o'clock, and Katherine Bush felt again a delightful excitement. She had never seen a big English country home except in pictures.
The lodge-keeper came out. He was an old man in a quaint livery.
"I cannot stand the untidy females escaping from the washtub who attend to most people's gates. This family of Peterson have opened those of Blissington for two hundred years, and have always worn the same sort of livery, from father to son. Their intelligence is at the lowest ebb, and they make capital gate-keepers. There is generally a 'simple' boy or two to carry on the business. The women folk keep out of sight, it is a tradition in the family—they take a pride in it. I give them unusually high wages, and whatever else growsmore and more idiotic, the gate-keeping instinct survives in full force. There are three lodges—all kept by Petersons."
"How wonderful," said Katherine.
"Good day, Jacob!—The family well? Jane quite recovered from the chicken-pox, eh?"
"Quite well, Your Ladyship," and the old man's wandering eyes were fixed in adoration upon his mistress's face. "And Your Ladyship's godchild, Sarah, is growing that knowing my daughter can hardly keep her from the front garden."
"I am delighted to hear it. I shall be stopping in to see you to-morrow, tell Mrs. Peterson. This is my new secretary, Miss Bush, Jacob—you will know her again, won't you?"
"I'll try to, Your Ladyship," a little doubtfully, and he bowed deeply as the motor rolled on along a beautiful drive through the vast park, with its groups of graceful deer peering at them from under the giant trees.
Katherine was taking in the whole scene, the winter day, and the brown earth, and the blue sky, and the beauty of it all!
Yes—this sort of thing was what must be hers some day when she had fitted herself to possess it. They came to another gate—and yet another—iron ones with no lodges, and then they swept through a wide avenue with sprucely kept edges and so on up to the front door.
It was a long irregular building which Katherine saw, principally built in the middle of the seventeenth century, and added to from time to time. It was very picturesque, and when they were inside, the hall proved to be very fine. It was huge and square and panelled with some good Grinling Gibbons carving, and quantities ofindifferently painted ancestors, for the most part in stiff peers' robes.—They had been a distinguished crew, not of the fox-hunting type.
"These are my people, Miss Bush, not Garribardines," Her Ladyship said, pointing to the portraits. "They were not handsome, as you see, and evidently did not encourage the best artists—the few who did are in the other rooms and the picture gallery. Come, we will go straight in to lunch; I am as hungry as a schoolboy—You will lunch with me."
Bronson had gone down much earlier and was awaiting them with two footmen, as dignified as usual.
The dining-room was in a panelled passage to the right and was a long, low room of much earlier date.
"A relic incorporated later in the present structure," Katherine was told.
It was perfectly beautiful, she thought, with its deep brown oak, wax polished to the highest lustre, and its curtains of splendid Venetian velvet in faded crimson and green, on a white satin ground all harmonious with age and mellowing.
"I had a terrible struggle to oust the Victorian horrors I had been brought up with, and which had insinuated themselves, as all vulgar things do, into almost every room among their betters—taste was quite dead sixty years ago in my father's day. I had to combat sentiment in myself and ruthlessly condemn the whole lot."
"It is most beautiful." Katherine's admiration was indeed sincere.
"Yes—it has been a great pleasure to me getting it perfect. You shall see the whole house presently, but now food is the only important matter.—Bronson—I distrust the look of that ham soufflé—are you sure ithas not been kept waiting? A second or two alters its consistency. Take it away at once, man!"—with an indignant sniff—"and tell François never to hazard so precarious a dish again for arrivals by motor!"
"Very good, Your Ladyship."
"One can eat bread and cheese, but one cannot stomach an indifferent soufflé—it is like an emotional woman, its charm is just as capricious and just as ephemeral!"
The rest of the lunch was to her taste and no further disapproval was expressed.
It was the first time Katherine had broken bread with her mistress, or indeed had even assisted at a whole luncheon. Coffee was the extent of her knowledge hitherto. It interested her to see the varied dishes, to watch the perfect service, the style of the placing and removing of the plates—the rapidity and noiselessness of it all. She thought of the pressed beef and the stout and the cheese-cakes and the frightful untidiness of everything at Laburnum Villa. That was the strange difference, the utter want of method and order which always rendered the home table a mass of litter and miscellaneous implements towards the end of a repast, plates and cups pushed here and there and everywhere.
How very good to be out of it all!
To her great surprise, Her Ladyship drank beer—clear golden stuff poured from a lovely crystal and silver jug into a chased silver tankard.
"The best beverage in Christendom!" that epicure said, as she quaffed it. "Have some, Miss Bush. You are young enough to have no dread of gout. It is a vice with me, the worst thing in the world for my rheumatism, and yet I cannot resist the temptation! The day I return home I must fall to my tankard! To-morrow, Bronson removes the accursed thing to the sideboard,out of sight, and I keep up my courage on ridiculously thin Zeltinger."
Katherine tasted it; it was delicious, and as different from what she knew as beer as the tea had been from her original idea of tea.
"Isn't it a heavenly drink, girl! I am glad to see you like it."
Then Lady Garribardine chatted on, giving crisp, witty descriptions of the village and the inhabitants, in language which would often have shocked the genteel sensibilities of Mabel Cawber, but the tones of her voice, whether loud or soft, were the dulcet tones of angels. She had indeed that "excellent thing in woman."
Katherine's workroom was the old schoolroom up in a wing which contained rooms as ancient as the dining-room, and her bedroom adjoined it; and from this a little passage led to a narrow staircase going down to a door which opened into the small enclosed rose garden. Up another set of steps from her corridor you were brought into the splendid gallery which ran round two sides of the hall, and into which Her Ladyship's own rooms gave. But in Katherine's corner she was isolated and could come and go abroad without ever passing the general living rooms—what an advantage, she felt!
And when, later in the afternoon, her things were unpacked, and she was sitting before a glorious wood fire in the old chimney, sniffing the scent of the burning logs and taking in the whole picture of quaint chintz and shining oak, she felt a sense of contentment and satisfaction.
Fate was indeed treating her handsomely.
Katherine saw nothing more of her employer on the Saturday, but on the Sunday morning a message came to say she would expect her to go to church with her. As no mention of church had ever been made in London, Katherine was quite unprepared for this, and was obliged to scurry to be ready.
"In the country and at one's home, one must always go to church, Miss Bush," she was informed when they were in the motor. "It is tradition again."
Then there was silence until they were almost at the door.
"It is rather a fine little church, with some good tombs of my ancestors in it, prolific people who seemed to have married either widows with like proclivities, or to have commemorated their own marital achievements.—There are two very curious monuments, one of a marriage with about seven or eight children behind both the man and the woman, proofs of their former activities, and another of a second pair with numerous olive branches owned mutually. They were of an enchanting ingenuousness in those days. You will face these figures during the sermon. You can examine them, a not unpleasing pastime I used to find it in my youth."
Lady Garribardine's walk from the church was a kind of triumphal progress. All the faces of the clustering local groups beamed with joy and welcome for her—she had a word and a nod for everyone and to Katherine's amusement stopped threateningly in frontof a biggish boy who was handling a bandanna handkerchief.
"If I hear one sniffle, Thomas Knoughton—out you go!—It is a habit you have got into, flaunting these colds every time I get home. I won't put up with it!"
"Very good, Yer Leddyship," the boy returned stolidly, pulling his forelock.
It was evident to be seen that their Lady Bountiful was held in deep respect by her tenants. The service was quite cheerful and merry with Christmas music from a fine organ, one of the patroness's gifts, and the monuments were certainly diverting, Henry VII and Edward VI costumes carved in stone adorning meek-faced women and grave men.
When they came out, a number of the local farmers and their wives had to be greeted. Lady Garribardine seemed to know all their domestic affairs, and to wield an absolute dominion over them. She was kindly and autocratic, and not in the least condescending; they evidently loved her dearly.
Katherine stood by respectfully, and once or twice her mistress said, "This is my new secretary, Miss Bush," with a wave of her hand.
Apparently the bounties and teas and Christmas feasting being prepared for everyone knew no bounds by what Katherine heard discussed.
As they motored back Her Ladyship said:
"Now, before lunch I want you for an hour to explain the country duties to you as I explained the London ones—and this afternoon you must see over the house. Mrs. Illingworth will show you round, and to-morrow I have to start very early to see my poor people—You have those lists copied out, have you not?"
Katherine lunched alone in her sitting-room and before her inspection of the house began she went for a little walk. The old park delighted her, the sense that it was not public property gave her pleasure. She could go for miles, it seemed, upon the soft turf, or along the smooth avenues, without meeting a soul. There was something in her nature which enjoyed this isolation from the common herd.
"I believe if it were mine I should dislike even a right of way!" she said to herself.
She stopped close to some deer; they were so tame they hardly started from her. The whole place, when she came to a rising ground and could look back at the house, exalted her in some strange way. The atmosphere of it was so different from anything which she had been accustomed to. It was no wonder that people living in such houses should have wider scopes of imagination than the inhabitants of Bindon's Green with every little semi-detached villa watching the habits of its neighbour. She made up her mind that she would study Lady Garribardine's methods with her people for her own future guidance. The perfect certainty with which she looked forward to obtaining the same sort of situation was almost sublime!
When her inspection of the house came her feelings were further stirred; there was a great bump of veneration in her for ancient things. Her artistic sensibilities which had not yet been as awakened as her practical ones now began to assert themselves. She felt she must read books upon architecture, and learn the dates and styles of furniture. She admired, but she was conscious that she had not yet sufficiently cultivated critical faculties to appreciate fully. Her tour opened a new field of study for her—a new consciousness of herown ignorance, and a new determination to acquire the necessary knowledge on these points.
Ever since her outing with Lord Algy, she had been aware that mere book-learning is not enough. There were many things of interest in life that she would never have heard of or realised the existence of but for that first opening to her imagination.
Mr. Strobridge would be an invaluable teacher, but she must get up a few technical points first. She would at once ask her mistress if she might take some books from the library, up to her sitting-room for the evening. She would immediately look up the bald facts in the Encyclopedia to begin with, and then study individual volumes. Then there were the painters and the sculptors to learn about more fully, although she had often gone to the galleries and museums in London, but not with what—she now knew, after her inspection of this home where for hundreds of years the owners had been cultivated collectors—was a critical eye. She felt as if the key to understanding had only just been given to her. Even the housekeeper (not Mrs. Pepperdon of Berkeley Square, but this elderly, portly Mrs. Illingworth) knew more about the beauties that she was showing off than she did. This state of ignorance must not continue for even a week!
Permission was accorded about the books when Lady Garribardine looked into the secretary's room before her tea—and until three o'clock in the morning this indefatigable young woman kept her lights on, cramming facts into her head—and then when her work was over before lunch next day she walked again through the picture gallery and the big drawing-rooms to see if she had mastered anything. The picture gallery was filled with early and late Italian works, and some fine specimensof Spanish Renaissance as well as English portraits. She found that with even this much knowledge gained she had already grown more appreciative, but she realised that it was a question of training her eye as well as her brain.
The guests were all to arrive on Christmas Eve and a message came for Katherine that she was to come down and pour out the tea for them, because "Her Ladyship's hand was very rheumatic."
She had been extremely occupied with the dispatching of parcels of presents and various matters all the afternoon. This would be an occasion to wear the grey blouse again, and she had discovered that the becoming waves upon her brow could be achieved also by water and combing, so she would not be at the mercy of a hairdresser in the future for her improved looks!
She was seated behind the tea-table in the library when the first batch of the visitors arrived by train. Mr. Strobridge and Lady Beatrice were motoring; the three grandchildren and their attendants had come early in the afternoon.
The party consisted of the two old maiden cousins, the Misses d'Estaire by name, and a young niece of theirs, and two or three stray men, and Mrs. Delemar. Katherine attended to their wants and watched the whole scene—no one had greeted her, but whoever chanced to be near her exchanged a friendly word; Mrs. Delemar was even gracious, it was her way always to be polite to everyone.
How easy they all were! No stiffness, no self-consciousness, and one of the men was quite witty and the young Miss d'Estaire a most lively modern girl. Katherine enjoyed herself although she never spoke unless spoken to, and then returned monosyllabic answers.
When they had all been chaffing and eating quantities of muffins and buns and blackberry jam and cream for half an hour, Gerard Strobridge and his wife came in.
"We have had the most deplorable journey, Aunt Sarah," Lady Beatrice announced plaintively. "A judgment upon one for travelling with one's husband. Gerard would drive, and of course collided with a milestone, and injured one of the wheels so that the tire, which broke, took hours to put on again and I was frozen with cold."
Everyone sympathised with her, while Mr. Strobridge only smiled complacently and asked Katherine for some tea.
"As you can guess, I shall require it very hot and very strong to keep my courage up after these reproaches," and he smiled as though to say, "I am sure you understand."
Katherine attended to him gravely; she was purposely the stiff secretary, aloof and uninterested in what was going on; Mr. Strobridge rather wondered at it, and it piqued him a little, but the lady who had been asked for his special delectation had no intention of allowing him any leisure to converse with anyone else. She gave him one of her ravishing smiles, moved her dress a little to make room for him on her sofa, and then whispered to him softly for a long time, amidst the general merry din.
Nothing escaped the eyes and intelligence of Miss Bush. She was observing behaviour, character and capability in each one of the guests and was making up her mind what she would do next for the furtherance of her plan that Gerard Strobridge should be a friend.
For one moment he looked up and met her eyes, andshe allowed hers to show that sphinxlike smile before she lowered the lids. Gerard Strobridge experienced an emotion. Läo was perhaps making him look a little ridiculous. She was overdoing her pleasure at seeing him. However, he was too old a hand at dalliance with women to allow himself to stay beside her for a moment after he felt this. So he made some forcible excuse about the post's going, and got up and left the room. He was completely at home, it was plain to be seen, at Blissington Court.
Katherine smiled again to herself.
After dinner there was to be a cinematograph show for Lady Garribardine's grandchildren, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy and girls of ten and seven, and they were dining punctually at eight. Katherine was to bring them into the hall when the entertainment began, having had them with her for dinner in the old schoolroom. She was not particularly fond of children, but she did her best to make them enjoy their meal. They were stupid, unattractive creatures with none of their grandmother's wit. They were to go on to their paternal relations for the New Year, and then with their governess and tutor were to sail to join their parents in the Antipodes.
The "dressy blouse" had to do duty as evening attire on this night (the creation of Gladys' arranging must be kept for the grand occasion of the Christmas dinner in the dining-room) but Katherine had altered it a little, the wretched thing! and cut down the neck to make it more becoming. It looked quite suitable to her station in any case, she thought, as she caught sight of herself in the long glass in her room. She was beginning to take an interest in dress which surprised herself!
She took a chair in the background, close to the staircase from which the servants were to be allowed to witness the show—Her whole demeanour was quiet and unremarkable—and no one paid any attention to her at all until the lights were turned up in the interval between one set of pictures and another, when Lady Garribardine called out to her:
"Can you see from where you are, Miss Bush? The next thing ought to be very funny."
Katherine had the kind of voice which people listen to, and one or two of the men glanced round at her when she answered with thanks that she had a capital view. And old Colonel Hawthorne said to a young guardsman friend of Miss Betty d'Estaire that, by Jove! Her Ladyship's secretary, or the children's governess, or whoever she was, had a pair of eyes worth looking at!
Gerard Strobridge had found Läo charming again! He had dined well and partaken of his aunt's promised very best champagne, and he had indulged in some obviously subtle insinuations as to his further intentions in regard to their enjoyable friendship, whispered in her shell-pink ear while the lights were low.
"Oh Gerard!—I won't allow you to!—Wait—not yet!" Mrs. Delemar had gasped prettily, expecting him to press the matter further.
But unfortunately it was just then that the lights had blazed up, and Gerard had turned round and caught sight of the provoking face of Katherine Bush as his aunt spoke.
"How attractive that confounded girl looks!" he thought. "What a nuisance she is not married and a guest, instead of the typist—it is undignified and—difficult!"
But the brief glance had disturbed him and rearousedhis interest; he found that he could not bring himself up to the desired level of enthusiasm again with Läo, and contented himself by talking enigmatically about the parrot rooms that she was in—their situation and their comfort—while he looked unutterable things with his deep grey eyes. Then presently when they all moved, and the show was over, he allowed himself to be supplanted in her favours by a promising youth of three and twenty, a distant cousin of the house, who would not have been permitted the ghost of a chance at another time! But Gerard's emotions did not show on the surface and Katherine Bush slipped up to bed presently in rather a depressed frame of mind.
She realised fully that the goal was yet a long, long way from attainment, and that it would require all her intelligence to walk warily through this coming week.
No one had been in the least slighting or unkind to her, but naturally no one had troubled to converse with her; she was just the secretary and was treated exactly as she would treat her own, when she had one, she felt. It would not be safe to attract any of the party; her employer's good will and contentment with her mattered far more than the gratification of her vanity.
Mr. Strobridge, however, was one of the chief pieces in her game, and him she would see often as long as she remained in Lady Garribardine's service, so there was no hurry—she could afford to wait.
But all the same she settled down to read "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" without the buoyant feeling of self-confidence which usually gave her such a proud carriage of head.
A message came up to Katherine next morning—the morning of Christmas Day—from Lady Garribardine to say that she could walk across the park to church with the two elder children and that she was to take them into the front pew that faced the large carved family one behind the choir at right angles.
And from this well-placed outlook Miss Bush later on observed the house party enter by a door in the chancel. They filled the whole long seat and overflowed into the pew where she and the children sat, and it happened that Gerard Strobridge was next her and knelt to say his prayers.
Propinquity is a very curious thing, and when all possibility of conversation is nil, propinquity has sometimes been known to exert a very powerful influence. Gerard Strobridge was conscious with every throb of his pulse of the nearness of Katherine Bush; there was a magnetic disturbing emanation he felt coming from her, which excited him unaccountably. He kept glancing at her regular profile from time to time. Her very pale skin and large red mouth attracted him immensely. She never once looked at him, and maintained an air of absolute unconsciousness.
"What is she thinking about, I wonder?" he mused. "I have never seen a face more sphinxlike; she could be good or devilishly bad, she could love passionately and hate coldly, she could be cruel as the grave and hardas adamant. She is a woman that a man were wiser not to know too well for his own safety."
But reflections of this sort never yet made son of Adam avoid the object of them, so when they came out and Katherine was waiting for instructions from her employer as to the disposal of the children, Mr. Strobridge came up to her.
"A happy Christmas, Miss Bush," he said. "Are you going to walk back through the Park? Here, Teddy, I will come with you."
"We are going in the motor with Grandmamma," both children cried at once as Katherine returned his greeting, and they ran off to Lady Garribardine. So Katherine started to walk on alone, while the rest of the party lingered about the porch and made up their minds as to whether or no they would drive.
She had gone some way and was on a path by a copse in the Park, when Mr. Strobridge caught her up.
"Why did you race ahead, Miss Bush?" he asked. "Did you not want any companion in your solitude?"
"I never thought about it," she returned quite simply.
"I did—I wanted to walk with you, I have been watching you all the time in church. I believe that you were in dreamland again; now will be the very moment to finish our discussion upon it."
"I don't think we had begun it."
"Well, we will."
"How are we to start?"
"You are going to tell me where yours is—in the heart or in the head?"
"Such a conversation would be altogether unprofitable." There was mischief lurking in the corner of her eye and trembling in the curves of her full mouth.
"I must judge of that."
"How so? Do I not count?"
"Enormously—that is why I want to hear of your dreamland."
"It is a place where only I can go."
"How unsociable—but you look disobliging."
"I am."
"Very well, I give up the task of trying to make you tell me about it. By the way, I have not had the chance to thank you for so kindly finishing those papers for that confounded charity. My aunt said they were in perfect order."
"I am glad of that."
He raised his head and looked away in front of them down into a dell and so up again to the house.
"Isn't this a beautiful view? I always think of 'the stately homes of England' when I walk back from church."
Katherine's eyes followed his to the gabled, irregular red brick house, with its wreath of blue smoke going straight up into the winter sky.
"I have never seen one before," she told him. "You can imagine how wonderful this appears to me after the place where I have lived. I had only seen Hampton Court, but somehow all the people there and its being a museum did not make it have the impression of a house that is inhabited."
"This pleases you, does it?"
"Naturally. I love everything about it, the space, and people not being allowed in. It is Her Ladyship's own—she can shut the gates if she wants to and have it all to herself—that must be good."
"What a strange girl! You would not like to share anything, then? I have already remarked this deplorably selfish instinct in you, in reference to your dreamland—and you would keep poor devils out of your park, too, if you could!"
"Generally—yes."
"Well, I want to be the exception to this exclusiveness. If I come up one afternoon to the old schoolroom, for instance, and ask you to talk to me, will you turn me out?"
"It depends what you want me to talk to you about. If it is upon a subject only to please you—yes—if to please me then I may let you stay for a little."
"What subjects would please you?"
"I would like to hear all about the pictures in the house, for instance—you see, before I came to Lady Garribardine I had never conversed with anyone educated in art. So I have only a very little book knowledge to go upon."
"We will talk about art then; the house is full of interesting things, part of it is so old."
For the rest of the way he did his best to entertain his aunt's insignificant secretary, and they both knew that the walk had been very charming. When they got into the shrubbery, Katherine took the path which led to the small rose-garden courtyard, on which the schoolroom staircase opened.
"Of course, I had forgotten you have a front door all to yourself."
"Yes—our roads divide here. Good morning, Mr. Strobridge."
"Are you going to shake hands with me?"
"No, it is quite unnecessary."
"Au revoir, then. To-night I shall dance with you. I have not danced for ten years."
"Then probably you will not do it well. Recollect I come from Bindon's Green where we learn the verynewest steps. I never have put up with a bad partner."
"I can't 'turkey trot,' if that is what you mean."
"Then I am afraid you are too old and too old-fashioned for my taste." And smiling demurely, she walked off to the quaint, wrought-iron gate which opened into the rose garden.
Gerard Strobridge laughed as he went on his way. Why was he attracted to this girl? He was a person of the highest fastidiousness, and had never had aliaisonwith any woman beneath him in class in his life, even in his Oxford days. It was against his idea of the fitness of things. To flirt with his aunt's secretary! But the creature was so sensible, and so intelligent it made matters appear in a different light—there surely could not be much harm in discussing pictures and sculpture with her, or a poet or two! But at this stage he did put some restraint upon himself, and made no further attempts to see her until she came down to pour out the tea again. He bravely made love to Läo, and exercised as much skill to keep matters from approaching a climax as he was wont to use in bringing on that happy occurrence. It caused him a cynical amusement.
Katherine had on the dress which rather resembled his wife's, and looked almost as distinguished, and a good deal more healthy and attractive.
Her demeanour was so admirable, too; she had none of either that overhumble obsequiousness or touchy assertion, which so often distinguished these quasi-gentlefolk, he thought. She might have been a Lady Clara Vere de Vere in her quiet dignity and utter freedom from all self-consciousness.
It was evident that she was not thinking of herself at all, or wondering whether or no she was being noticedor slighted, or properly or improperly treated. She was just gravely pouring out the tea and attending to people's wants as quietly sure of herself as his aunt would have been. Indeed, it almost seemed to Gerard watching her that she stood out, if he could have selected one from the whole party, as the most perfect specimen of womanhood.
Was it her supreme will—her force of character which had overcome all class traditions? He remembered what she had said about no ordinary Radical ever being able to be a foreign minister. How she must have thought out matters! Her brain was that of a woman in a thousand.
The Christmas tea grew very merry, and old Colonel Hawthorne, friend of the family for countless years, found it his pleasant duty to be genial with the good-looking secretary. Gerard continued to watch; she answered the pleasantries with so much wit, and never the least presumption.
After a while he drifted up to his aunt's own sitting-room for a quarter of an hour before dressing time—Läo had been cajoled into thinking all was well between them, and had gone off to make herself especially beautiful for dinner.
She had been through one or two disquieting moments. Gerard had appeared all that an eager lover should be, and she felt she must have been stupid in some way to have given him the impression that she was serious in her protestation of "not yet." She had no rival—that was plain to be seen. He never spoke to Betty d'Estaire—who was the only other young woman of the party. Perhaps it was because of Beatrice! Gerard was such a perfect gentleman, perhaps in some corner of a foolishly overpunctilious heart he was deterredby—Beatrice! But fortunately Beatrice was leaving the day after Boxing Day.
In any case her usual method of rigid circumspection—until the very last moment—had not been quite successful with this would-be lover; he had been deceived by it and slightly rebuffed. It was merciful as far as her own emotions were concerned, but she knew men well enough to know that unless she herself had damped his ardour, this state of things was not altogether natural, and therefore it might imply some lack in her own charm, which was not an agreeable thought. However, she need not feel really disquieted while his attentions were still soempressé.
"Seraphim, I walked back from church with Miss Bush," Gerard said, stretching himself out in a huge chair by his aunt's fire, while he lighted a cigarette. "You are quite right, she is a most intelligent young woman; how do you account for that something about her which is not at all of her class?"
"I don't know, it has puzzled me. I was watching her to-day pouring out the tea; she is the first secretary I have ever had, not excepting poor Arnott, who on such occasions did not feel that one or other of the guests was trying to snub her—Katherine Bush is never on the defensive—it is quite unique in a person of her station."
"I watched her, too, and was struck with the same thing; and to-day she talked so well. She wanted to hear about the pictures—she is absolutely frank and tells one in the naïvest manner about what things she is ignorant of—but one finds that she must have read considerably."
"She is full of theories about tradition and evolution.I let her tell me them motoring down—she seems to have dissected herself and her family in an endeavour to eradicate what she disapproves of in the way of instincts."
"It is astonishing, isn't it, Seraphim?"
"Very—she made one or two rather dreadful gaffes when she first came, especially during the tableaux week—it was quite interesting to see her face when she realised this. She did not once try to explain them away—she drew in her lips and I could see she was registering a vow never to make the same mistake again. That kind of nature always wins any game it is playing."
"I wonder what hers is—don't you?"
"The immediate one obviously is to turn herself into a lady—She means to do in a few years consciously, what nature takes many generations to accomplish in the ordinary course of events—Her progress is quite remarkable even in these six weeks."
"What shall you do with her, Seraphim?"
"Keep her as long as she will stay with me, G., and perhaps take her education in hand myself when you all leave." And then Lady Garribardine laughed softly. "Läo is a huge joke, dear boy—I think the parrot rooms suit her, don't you? Are you pleased with my arrangements for my guests?"
There was something exquisitely whimsical in Her Ladyship's old black eyes, his met them delightedly. Aunt and nephew understood each other so well, these two perfect citizens of the world!
"Läo is charming! And I am sure she is deriving all sorts of inspirations from the blue macaw's amourettes with the yellow-crested cockatoo, which she looks at from her downy couch—Seraphim, I am going to persuadeBeatrice to stay on—Beatrice is an excellent creature in spite of her contempt for my powers as a chauffeur! She is quite amused with Victor Thistlethwaite. I paved the way by suggesting to her this morning that she should take the early train on Thursday, and she said at once, that she rather thought she was not leaving until Saturday with the rest."
Lady Garribardine chuckled delightedly; the noise was as of cream bubbling—if cream can bubble!
"Tiens!" was all she said and then went on to speak of other things. "Betty d'Estaire is going to catch young Allonby, G. I believe they will settle it to-night. For one of my blood she has a number of overmodern faults, and Gwendoline and Arabella will be glad to get her off their hands."
"She is a promising young person."
"Even blood can't stand against the total want of discipline which prevails among the present generation, G. When these impossible girls' children have grown up there won't be any ladies left."
"I don't think they will have many children—we are breeding a neuter race, Seraphim. All the games are making their bones too rigid, and all the want of discipline is weakening their nerves—very few of the future ones will be able to stand the agonies of child-bearing."
"You are not in a position to criticise, G., with no offspring of your own!"
"I am not an eldest son; there is no obligation entailed upon me! Dick has three boys, fortunately, and Alec, two."
"I consider that the poorest excuse."
Mr. Strobridge sighed.
"Perhaps it is—the whole thing is rather played outwith us all, isn't it? Seraphim, when I talked with that balanced, healthy young woman to-day, I felt we want an admixture of new blood in a number of our families, if only to bring back our enthusiasm. Dick's children are fine enough fellows physically, but there is not half a peck o' wits among them—and as you know, Alec's little Yankee chaps are what their mother calls 'brainy' to a degree, but masses of overstrung nerves as well."
Lady Garribardine leaned forward from among her sofa cushions and looked at her nephew with a quizzical eye.
"G., if you were free and my heir, I'd marry you off to Katherine Bush just for the pleasure of the experiment!"
Then the little Sèvres clock chimed. "Why, it is striking the quarter—rush off at once, dear boy!—and don't forget to put on your hunt coat; the scarlet pleases the children."
In another part of the house, Her Ladyship's secretary, quite unaware that she was under discussion, was joyously dressing in her pretty oak-panelled room, with a delicious sense of excitement. Martha was coming in to help her presently for this wonderful first occasion in her life when she should put on a real evening dress, showing pearl white neck and arms. Gladys had given her every instruction as to its fastenings and had supervised the making of it with a zeal which she would only have bestowed upon an order from the richest customer. The frock fitted to perfection, and was astonishingly becoming in its black simplicity.
Martha had brought her in some beautiful lilies of the valley, when she came with her hot water, accompanied by the information that Mr. Strobridge's valethad handed them to her for Miss Bush, from his master.
Gerard had been robbing the hothouses evidently. The head gardener was a particular friend of his. They were just the touch wanted to complete the picture; their snowy whiteness and brilliant forced green gave the note of freshness which went so well with Katherine's skin—of an astonishing purity—by candle-light as clear as ivory and as pale in tone.
She gazed into her looking-glass and felt satisfied with what she saw, and presently she held her shoulders back and her head up, and walked down the corridor with the grace of a Comédie Française queen! So greatly does the consciousness of fine raiment affect the morale of young women!
Lady Beatrice came out of her room in the great gallery and they went down together.
"You do look so pretty, Miss Bush," she said. "What a duck of a frock! It looks like an Ermantine."
"Yes, my sister is a saleswoman there, and she had it made for me," Katherine told her.—"I am glad you think it looks well. I have never had on a real evening dress before."
"You know how to wear it so that is all right! Ah, children, come along!" as three joyous calls came from over the banisters. And Katherine slipped on alone. Lady Garribardine had told her, before she went to dress, to go to Bronson to see that a special order about the presents was carried out.
All the party were assembled in the great drawing-room when this duty was done, and so her entrance did not pass unremarked.
"By Jove!" was the significant exclamation of old Colonel Hawthorne.
"And I am to have the pleasure of taking you in todinner," said the charming young man who had so far succeeded in diverting Lady Beatrice.
Gerard Strobridge felt a strange sensation as he looked at Katherine presently, between the great bowls of camellias—there was no comparison with anyone at the table; Her Ladyship's secretary had blossomed forth into the beauty of the night.
"How clothes can alter a person!" Mrs. Delemar said without conscious spite—dependents, even pretty ones, were not things which counted.—"Look, G.—dear Sarah's typist appears quite pretty to-night, and how kind she is to her servants; see, she has let the girl have those beautiful lilies of the valley which Hawke told me to-day when you were making him give me the orchids, it just breaks his heart to have to cut!"
The sudden accession to beauty in Lady Garribardine's secretary had a double—nay, treble—result! It caused Mr. Victor Thistlethwaite plainly to show that he perceived it at dinner, and thereby considerably to annoy both the Lady Beatrice and Mr. Gerard Strobridge during that meal! Lady Beatrice considered it impertinence on the part of Miss Bush and Mr. Strobridge found it "ridiculous cheek of that insufferable puppy Thistlethwaite."
Katherine for her part enjoyed herself! She had got over the awe of servants—and the strangeness of well-bred companions—She was now sure of the methods of eating, too, and so had leisure to enjoy conversation and she was filled with that delicious sovereign complacency which only a woman discovering that she is undeniably a success can know.
While remaining exceedingly demure, she managed to arrest the exclusive attention of her partner for the feast, and Lady Garribardine watched the whole thing with a whimsical eye.
Gerard Strobridge was too good a diplomat to allow the vaguest trace of his disturbed equilibrium to show in his face, and talked to Läo with renewed passion, so that before they began to pull crackers she was feeling perfectly contented in the certain conviction that it was Beatrice's presence alone which kept him within bounds! He had not made love to women ever since he left Eton, or served his country at the Foreign Office until the ageof thirty-five, without acquiring a certain experience in feminine psychology, and a knowledge as to the best manipulation of diplomatic situations, and even though he had been irritated by Mr. Thistlethwaite's evident admiration, he saw that it would certainly cause Beatrice to stay until the Saturday, and so in it there lay good.
There were quantities of silver charms in the blazing plum-pudding, and some received omens of wealth, and some of princely mates or lengthy journeys, but Gerard Strobridge could only secure the emblem of an old maid—a thimble was his portion—and he turned the unhappy augury to much good account in a suitable reproach to Läo.
When the caps from the crackers were put on, an early English gold paper crown fell to Katherine's share, and became her mightily.
"Why, Miss Bush looks just like Queen Victoria when she came to the throne, Grandmamma!" called out the elder girl grandchild. "We have her picture on the nursery screen."
"And I wonder what her end will be," Gerard Strobridge thought; "she looks remarkably well in a crown."
The hall had been cleared for dancing and when the excitement in opening the wonderful little presents which lay hidden in a rose by each person's plate was over, the company poured in there, while three local musicians struck up a merry tune. It was a two-step and Miss Betty d'Estaire must try it with some new variations which were just coming in from America at that date (it was before tango days). Katherine was an adept in them, for was not Bindon's Green always in the forefront of modernity? And any kind of dancing she really loved. It was the one pastime of hersisters which she had shared with delight, and often practised with Ethel in their tiny drawing-room before going to bed.
Mr. Thistlethwaite asked her for a turn with him, and they started off.
"It is much better than a stupid old valse, isn't it?" he said to her while they careered smoothly ahead. "And by Jove! how well you dance!"
The blood was rushing in Katherine's veins; it was so good to be young and admired, and forgetful of relative positions for once in a way. She knew very well that she was a far finer performer than the other young girl, and all that was sensuous in her nature came uppermost and quivered through the rhythmic movements of her supple body. Gerard Strobridge watched her silently. He was conscious of profound and increasing emotion; it was as if some primitive, strong, vital thing was there before him, dwarfing the puny make-believes at passion which were so well assumed by Läo Delemar. She was standing beside him looking as beautiful and as artificial as the orchids in her dress.
"How that girl could love!" he breathed to himself as he watched the dancers, and Läo seemed as utterly meaningless as a wax doll!
Once was enough of this sort of thing, Katherine Bush thought; she was keenly alive to atmospheres and she felt that for a secretary to do more than show that she was proficient in these steps would be a breach of taste. So no persuasions of her partner would move her after the first few rounds, and she left him and went off with the youngest grandchild in a polka step.
Thus the Lady Beatrice recovered her whilom admirer, and when another tune had begun and Läo had been safely lured into the arms of the distant cousin,Gerard Strobridge came over casually to where Katherine stood.
"Am I to be allowed a turn of this old-fashioned valse, Miss Bush?" he asked.
But Katherine was not to be beguiled so easily—she must parley first!
"I do not know if her Ladyship expects me to dance any more," she answered. "If you think she will not mind my accepting this honour, I shall be very pleased."
"Foolish thing! Is it not Christmas night, and are you not the belle of the ball?" And he held out his arm and they whirled off. It gave him immense pleasure to hold her in his embrace—but something in the scent of the violets in his scarlet hunt coat brought back to Katherine with a sickening thrill of anguish and longing the remembrance of Lord Algy and the Saturday night in Paris when they had danced in masks and dominoes at a Bal Tabarin. Oh! the pain of it!—Suddenly the whole present melted away from her—the dreams of the future, the pride in her conquest of the past! The passionate woman in her cried aloud in wild longing for him, Algy—her darling, her dearly-loved mate! How plain were these other young men!—How tired and old Gerard Strobridge looked! At that moment she would have thrown her whole ambitions away into nothingness, to be clasped once more to Algy's heart! Her cheeks became ashen white and her strange eyes grew shadowed and fierce, and Gerard Strobridge was brought up sharply out of his intoxication of emotion by the look in her face.
"What is it, child?" he asked anxiously, holding her close.
"Let me go—let me go!" she cried wildly, breakingfrom him near the staircase recess. "I—I—cannot bear it—I would like to get out of all this!"
He was intensely astonished, but he saw that she was trembling, and well as he knew women he could not fathom the reason of this strange outburst. Katherine recovered her composure almost immediately and gave a short mirthless laugh.
"I am awfully stupid," she faltered. "I cannot think what came over me. I believe it must be because I am unaccustomed to parties, and it is getting late."
"It is not yet eleven o'clock—but come and have something to drink—I see a tray down there in the long hall," and she let him lead her to it and pour out some champagne and seltzer for her, and then they sat down.
He saw very well that something had deeply moved her, and his perfect tact would not permit him to refer to the occurrence, but caused him rather to talk soothingly of ordinary things—and in a few minutes he saw that the normal whiteness had come back to her face. But nothing would induce her to dance any more, and although she continued doing whatever was expected of her during the rest of the evening—and snatched flaming raisins in the snapdragon with dashing indifference to pain—he knew that she was doing it all as an automaton, and that the living, vital, magnetic Katherine was no longer there, and that this pale, quiet girl whose hand he held presently in the deserted corridor was only too glad to say good-night.
"Dear child," he whispered, as he kissed it with homage, "I don't know what it was that caused it, but you have evidently seen a ghost, and now go to bed, and forget everything but that we have all had an awfully happy Christmas, and I want to tell you howpleased I am that you have worn my flowers to-night."
"—Your flowers! Oh! yes, I ought to have thanked you for them before—they were lovely, but now they are dead," and she unpinned them carelessly—almost as if she did not like them any longer to touch her—and threw them in the big open grate.
"Good-night—and thank you for your kindness," and she was off down the passage and up the side stairs.
And when Gerard Strobridge joined the rest of the party in the drawing-room, he had a cigarette between his lips, as though he had been having a smoke, and it required all his polished skill to bring himself back to talking gaily, and to looking what he did not feel, into Mrs. Delemar's sparkling eyes, before they all parted for the night.
Meanwhile, Katherine Bush had reached her room and had flung herself into the armchair. This would not do—she must steel herself against giving way to weakness like this. Why had the scent of the violets in another man's coat had power to affect her so that every part of her being cried out for Algy? As though the suppressed emotions of her heart would no longer obey her will—and must proclaim themselves her master! It was shameful feebleness, and she indignantly resented the dominion that love still held over her. She sat there reasoning with herself, but nature reigned stronger than any other thing at the moment, and the memory of her lover obsessed her. She seemed to hear his voice and feel his kisses, until the agony of longing for reality grew unbearable, and she fell forward and lay there on the rug before the fire beating the floor with her hands. It was as the despair of some fierce savage caged animal crying out for its mate. Her whole face altered, the most intense passion blazed from her eyes—andwhitened her cheeks. Could Gerard Strobridge have seen her he would indeed have been moved.
"Algy! Algy—My darling, my love—Come back to me, I want you. My dear, my dear!—"
She sobbed with agony—and then worn out at last—"Oh! God!" she wailed. "Can whatever comes be worth it—after all!"
But by the morning she had crushed emotion and came down ready to assist with the huge Christmas tree for the tenants' children, with her usually composed face.
But that passion denied should have exacted this anguish frightened her a little. All her will should be used to prevent such madness ever holding sway again.