The Duke's face became ashen white and his hand turned icy cold, but he did not speak. So with a little break in her voice, Katherine went on:
"—Well, we went to Paris on the Saturday and came back on the Monday night; by that time I knew all the passionate side of love; he aroused all those instincts in me which I once told you about—but he never touched my soul—that slept until you came.—I never meantto stay with him or remain his mistress; it was for experience, and that was all—and we parted at Charing Cross Station, and he went to Wales to his family to shoot, and I went home. I wrote to him and told him that I would not see him again. Then I made up my mind that I would leave Livingstone & Devereux's, and begin my next rise in the world. Oh! you do not know how ignorant I was then! But I never lost sight of the goal I meant to win, to win by knowing how to fill the position desired. I had vast dreams even in those early days. I was fortunate to obtain the situation of Lady Garribardine's secretary, and on leaving the house after being engaged, I met Lord Algy by chance in the park. He was very much upset and unhappy at my determination never to see him again—and he asked me to marry him. I refused, of course, because I knew even then that he only attracted one side of me, and also I was not educated enough at that time to have been able to carry off the position with success. I explained everything to him, and made him promise to try and be a fine soldier—he was being sent to Egypt for his extravagance, and so we parted, and I have never spoken to him since. My goal now was definitely fixed; I meant to educate myself to be able to take the highest position to be obtained in England some day. I used to long for Algy sometimes, but only every now and then, when some scent or sound brought him back to me; that is why I said such love is unbalanced and animal—the memory of it is always aroused by something of the senses. Then, after I went to Lady Garribardine, Mr. Strobridge came upon the scene, and his great cultivation inspired me, and presently we became friends. I deliberately encouraged his friendship so as to polish my own brain. I knew he was inlove with me, so this may have been wrong, but since he was weak enough to allow himself to feel in that way for me knowing he was married, he must pay the price in pain, not I. He has always been a loyal friend after the beginning, when he lost his head one night and made a great scene. My determination never wavered; it was in every way to improve myself, always to be perfectly true and finally to obtain the height of my ambition. Things went on in this way for a year and a half, Lady Garribardine always helping me and encouraging my education until we became deep and intimate friends. But the goal never seemed to come in view until I went to the House of Lords that day and saw you and heard you speak. In a lightning flash the object of all my striving seemed revealed to me, and I began to lay my plans, but with some unusual excitement, because something in you had aroused an emotion in my heart, the meaning of which I could not then determine. That night I went to the theatre with my sister and there saw in the stalls Lord Algy, returned from Egypt, I suppose, on leave. The sight of him moved me, I felt cold and sick, but I realised once for all that my feeling for him had been only physical, and was passing away.
"I had arranged with Mr. Strobridge to have the dinner, and to let me meet you, not as the secretary, because I knew that your unconscious prejudice would be insurmountable then. And I thought that if you liked me that night, afterwards the prejudice might not be so deep when you did know my real position.—You will remember what followed, but the second part of the story begins with the afternoon you came into the schoolroom. Until then I had never had a backward thought or regret or worry about Lord Algy. I wasonly glad to have had the experience, that was all. But after I had told you of my life and parentage, you bent down and kissed my hand. And from that moment doubts began to trouble me. You had started the awakening of my soul. And as love grew and grew, so the blackness of the shadow increased. I knew that if I deceived you I should only draw unhappiness and never respect myself. Where love is there can be no deceit—and so at last even before I went to Valfreyne I put all thoughts of you from me. Although each day you seemed to grow more dear—until I knew that you meant everything to me and were my wild and passionate desire—I saw that my position in life held you back, and I was almost glad that it should be so—because I knew that if you should really love me, and conquer your prejudice against my class, it would come to this, that I must tell you the truth and that it would part us forever. And I have tried to prevent you from telling me of your love, I have tried to restrain my own for you, but now I am left defenceless—I love you, but I realise that what I did in the past the world could never forgive, and so I must pay the price of my own action, and say an eternal farewell."
Her voice died away in a sob, and she did not then look at the Duke's face; his hand had grown nerveless in its clasp and she drew hers away from him, and rose slowly to her feet. The awful moment was over, the story was done—she had been true to herself and had lost her love—and now she must have courage to behave with dignity and go back to the house.
But she must just look at him once more, her dearly loved one! He sat there in an attitude of utter dejection, his face buried in his hands.—For long aching moments Katherine watched him, but she did not speakand life and hope and purpose died out of her, drowned in overwhelming grief.
Then after this horrible silence the blood seemed to creep back to the Duke's heart, and reaction set in. He began gradually to think. His level judgment, his faculty for analyzing things, reasserted themselves, and enabled him to view the whole subject in right perspective, and a re-awakening to happiness slowly filled him.
He looked up to Katherine at last as she stood there leaning against a pillar of the balustrade, and he read no humiliation or shame or contrition in her great eyes, but only a deep sorrow and tenderness and love.
And suddenly he realised the splendour of her courage, the glorious force of character which had enabled her to jeopardize—nay, indeed, relinquish, love and high estate and ambition, rather than be false to herself.
For she need not have told him anything of her story.That fact was the great proof of her truth. He had asked no questions about her past. She had made no dramatic virtue of necessity, she had done this thing that she might not soil her own soul with deceit.
Of what matter was a paltry venial sin! If sin it were, the shame of which lay wholly in a too rigid convention—of what matter to him were three days in the past, long before they had met! That she was altogether his now in body and soul he had no faintest doubt. Was there any man living such a fool or puritan that he would renounce life's joy for such a foolish thing! The very qualities of courage and justice which her action in telling him had shown, would wipe out any sin and give him ample guaranties for future security and peace. Such a woman was worth all the world! And ridiculous puny conventions were of noaccount. Did he dream of looking upon Seraphim as degraded because she had been his love long ago, and not his wife? Of course not! Then why should he feel scorn for Katherine who had not even betrayed a husband, but had been free? Scorn was for such women as Julia Scarrisbrooke—creatures who simulated passion for one man after another, merely as a game—people who held love cheaply and who knew not even the glimmerings of obligation to their own souls.
Away with all shams of the world! None of them should influence him! He had found a spirit strong and free and honest. Reality had won forever, and appearance had vanished away.
So he rose and came to her again and once more took her into his arms, and bending kissed her white forehead as if in blessing.
"Oh! my Beloved—And you deemed that this would part us, this long-past ugly thing! Foolish one!—You do not know how much I love you! Far beyond any of the earthly things. Darling, I honour your brave courage. I worship your truth. You shall come to me and be my adored wife, and the mistress of my home. Katherine, heart of me, whisper that all sorrows are over, and let us enter heaven together and forget all else."
But Katherine, overwrought with emotion, lay there against his breast, limp and white. She was beyond speech, only her spirit cried out in thankfulness to God for having given her the strength to tell the truth.
Joys kills not—and soon under her lover's fond caresses, warm life rushed back to her. And thus in the evening glory of sunset they found content.
For the one sublime thing in this sad, mad world is LOVE.
It was more than a month since, in the late July of 1914, the joy bells had rung out on all the Duke's estates for the birth of the heir, the infant Marquis of Valfreyne. And it was just a year since Katherine had become his Duchess!
And what a year in a woman's life!
Days and weeks and months of happiness, of ever-increasing understanding and companionship, with one whose every action and thought inspired respect and love.
The bond between the two had grown always more deep, more sacred, as the days went on, and as Katherine said one morning fondly:
"Mordryn, we are just likeRochesterandJane Eyre, not modern people, because we never want to be away from one another for a minute—only, thank God, you are not blind."
Theirs was a real marriage, and Lady Garribardine was fully content. She took personal pride in the manner in which her protégé fulfilled the rôle of Duchess, and she rejoiced to see her old love in the midst of such bliss.
For their union was divine and complete, and the coming of the baby Valfreyne had been the crowning joy.
It was a continual source of delight to the Duke to watch Katherine, and to know how absolutely his belief in her had been justified. To watch and to notewith what supreme dignity she carried out the duties of his great state. And as each occasion came when some special effort was required, after it was over she would rush into his arms, and caress him, and ask to be petted, and told that he was satisfied, and that his beggar Duchess had pleased him and done all that he would wish!
The year of perfect happiness and gratified ambition had moulded Katherine into a new and noble being, in whom graciousness and sweetness and gentleness enhanced all her old charms.
She continued to make Lady Garribardine her model for everything.
The world had experienced a nine days' wonder when the engagement was announced; but, as Her Ladyship said, there was no use in having kept her iron heel upon the neck of society for all these years, if she could not now impose upon it unquestioned what she wished. So Katherine had had a triumphant entry, and very little antagonism to surmount. She paid visits to all the Duke's relatives under Lady Garribardine's wing, and her own tact and serene dignity had conquered them all, and turned them into friends.
"She is of no particular birth," Her Ladyship was wont to say, "butI knowwho she is, so you need none of you trouble yourselves about it. I will be answerable for her fitness for the post."
Thus the most romantic and fantastic rumours got about, and Lady Garribardine wrote amusedly to Gerard in Russia, after the wedding in September, giving a description of events:
I issued stern commands to Bronson, G., that there should be no talk below stairs, no gratifying of anybody'scuriosity, and I think I can count upon their devotion to me, and their great liking for the girl herself, to feel that they will coöperate. Her family were the entertaining thing. The sisters from America wrote sensible letters, realising that the great divide had come, and fortunately the Bindon's Green remainder had themselves cut her off from their intimacy, because she was what they called a "paid servant," "living in," apparently a degraded status in that incredible class! Mordryn received a letter from her sister-in-law a few days after the news was in the papers, a most remarkable bit of feminine spite, which caused us all glee: informing him that as he had no doubt been sadly deceived by Katherine Bush, she felt it her duty to enlighten him as to who she really was! Great stress was laid upon the butcher grandfather, and regrets that she herself had contracted an alliance so far beneath her station, but having experienced the unpleasantness of it, she felt it was only right to warn the Duke!I myself wrote the reply as though I had been his secretary, announcing that His Grace was in possession of all these facts and more from Miss Bush herself, and with due appreciation for the motive which had caused the letter to be written, the Duke thanked her for it and would not require to hear from her again!So all that part is disposed of fortunately, and Katherine can go ahead.Mordryn is frantically in love and so is she. Mordryn is like a boy and looks ten years younger. He showers gifts upon her, and on the day of the wedding, when he walked down the aisle with his beautiful new Duchess on his arm, I never have seen a man so proud. And when one comes to think of it, G., he has every right to be, for I must say the creature carries out the whole thing with a perfection which justifies my greatest expectations of her, and I think they stand a very fair chance of happiness, because the girl has a logical brain. She is not one of those fools who only like the excitement of a thing's being out of reach; she has the supreme wisdom of a sense of intrinsic values. She realises that she has secured a great position which will give ample scope for her vastest schemes—all high and fine ones, G.; we shallhear of her in the future, boy, not only as a beautiful Duchess, but as a great Englishwoman. And when one reflects that she has accomplished all this, won her game, so to speak, through sheer force of character, sheer knowledge of cause and effect, sheer calculation of action and no low scheming, one cannot but deeply respect her. Force will always win, but it will bring its own retribution if it has been used ill. Katherine has had the great cleverness to use it always well. Weak virtue may draw some kind of namby-pamby heavenly halo, but perfect honesty and strong common sense secure power and a substantial reward on earth! It will be very interesting to watch her career as it goes on. She is grateful for her happiness and knows that it is only weaklings who, once having secured this joy, then let it be taken from them by their own foolishness and discontent. Her whole mind is disciplined and ruled by an astonishingly sound judgment. Impulse is her servant, not her master; every view is broad. She sees all things as they really are without the illusion which nearly every woman invests them with. And, above all, she understands Mordryn, G.—and with all her balance and level-headedness, she is as passionate and vital and living as a woman can be, and that is the one kind of being who keeps a man with his temperament forever content. After his life of restraint and abstinence and solitary grief, to have such a creature for a companion must be no mean delight. So altogether, G., my dear boy, I am satisfied. As for his age, he does not look a day more than forty; they probably will have a glorious fifteen years, and you cannot have everything in life. He suits her far better than some younger man, they are made for one another. Mordryn has perfect health and strength, and no human being could be more attractive. You have not a notion of his ways as a lover, G.! He would be a lesson to any of these uncouth, cold-blooded, barley-water drinking modern young men!Our Duchess is a fortunate creature, I assure you, in more ways than one! So we need not trouble about that or make unto ourselves a picture of a young woman and an elderly man! They are like a pair of love birds—and they will probably have that sturdy heir at once that I have always longed for, and then I can rest in peace.
I issued stern commands to Bronson, G., that there should be no talk below stairs, no gratifying of anybody'scuriosity, and I think I can count upon their devotion to me, and their great liking for the girl herself, to feel that they will coöperate. Her family were the entertaining thing. The sisters from America wrote sensible letters, realising that the great divide had come, and fortunately the Bindon's Green remainder had themselves cut her off from their intimacy, because she was what they called a "paid servant," "living in," apparently a degraded status in that incredible class! Mordryn received a letter from her sister-in-law a few days after the news was in the papers, a most remarkable bit of feminine spite, which caused us all glee: informing him that as he had no doubt been sadly deceived by Katherine Bush, she felt it her duty to enlighten him as to who she really was! Great stress was laid upon the butcher grandfather, and regrets that she herself had contracted an alliance so far beneath her station, but having experienced the unpleasantness of it, she felt it was only right to warn the Duke!
I myself wrote the reply as though I had been his secretary, announcing that His Grace was in possession of all these facts and more from Miss Bush herself, and with due appreciation for the motive which had caused the letter to be written, the Duke thanked her for it and would not require to hear from her again!
So all that part is disposed of fortunately, and Katherine can go ahead.
Mordryn is frantically in love and so is she. Mordryn is like a boy and looks ten years younger. He showers gifts upon her, and on the day of the wedding, when he walked down the aisle with his beautiful new Duchess on his arm, I never have seen a man so proud. And when one comes to think of it, G., he has every right to be, for I must say the creature carries out the whole thing with a perfection which justifies my greatest expectations of her, and I think they stand a very fair chance of happiness, because the girl has a logical brain. She is not one of those fools who only like the excitement of a thing's being out of reach; she has the supreme wisdom of a sense of intrinsic values. She realises that she has secured a great position which will give ample scope for her vastest schemes—all high and fine ones, G.; we shallhear of her in the future, boy, not only as a beautiful Duchess, but as a great Englishwoman. And when one reflects that she has accomplished all this, won her game, so to speak, through sheer force of character, sheer knowledge of cause and effect, sheer calculation of action and no low scheming, one cannot but deeply respect her. Force will always win, but it will bring its own retribution if it has been used ill. Katherine has had the great cleverness to use it always well. Weak virtue may draw some kind of namby-pamby heavenly halo, but perfect honesty and strong common sense secure power and a substantial reward on earth! It will be very interesting to watch her career as it goes on. She is grateful for her happiness and knows that it is only weaklings who, once having secured this joy, then let it be taken from them by their own foolishness and discontent. Her whole mind is disciplined and ruled by an astonishingly sound judgment. Impulse is her servant, not her master; every view is broad. She sees all things as they really are without the illusion which nearly every woman invests them with. And, above all, she understands Mordryn, G.—and with all her balance and level-headedness, she is as passionate and vital and living as a woman can be, and that is the one kind of being who keeps a man with his temperament forever content. After his life of restraint and abstinence and solitary grief, to have such a creature for a companion must be no mean delight. So altogether, G., my dear boy, I am satisfied. As for his age, he does not look a day more than forty; they probably will have a glorious fifteen years, and you cannot have everything in life. He suits her far better than some younger man, they are made for one another. Mordryn has perfect health and strength, and no human being could be more attractive. You have not a notion of his ways as a lover, G.! He would be a lesson to any of these uncouth, cold-blooded, barley-water drinking modern young men!
Our Duchess is a fortunate creature, I assure you, in more ways than one! So we need not trouble about that or make unto ourselves a picture of a young woman and an elderly man! They are like a pair of love birds—and they will probably have that sturdy heir at once that I have always longed for, and then I can rest in peace.
And when Gerard read this at Moscow, where he happened to be, he was glad, and yet sad.
The wedded lovers wandered for several months in France and Italy, returning to England only in the new year, and all this interesting foreign travel expanded still further Katherine's mental gifts. Then after some triumphant weeks in London, there were long months of joy at Valfreyne, awaiting the coming of the son and heir.
And now in the early days of September, 1914, they were all again assembled there with Lady Garribardine for the christening—a great and important event!
But war and strain and sorrow lay with that black shadow over England, fallen with a suddenness which no one could realise as yet. Rumours of reverses had come—miscalculation of somebody's plans. And anxiety was tense.
Katherine was resting on the sofa in her boudoir, which looked out south over the exquisite gardens in the state suite at Valfreyne—the suite of her who should be reigning Duchess, in which she had wandered with the Duke on that Monday in Whitsuntide, when they had said their futile farewell! And now it was her own! And in an hour, they would go into the chapel and the splendid chubby baby heir would receive his many names.
Katherine felt very well and in herself supremely happy, in spite of the clouds over England. How good providence had been to her! How grateful her spirit felt!
She lay there in a peaceful dream, her half closed eyes taking in the wonderful beauty of the room, with its late seventeenth century magnificence and yet subtle touches of home.
Then the door opened, and the Duke came in with letters for her from the second post, and the openedTimeshe had been reading in his hand—He put them down upon a table near, and took a low chair close to his lady's side, and she moved a little from the sofa so that she lay half in his arms.
"My worshipped one!" he murmured fondly, kissing her hair, and smoothing it with infinite tenderness.
"Oh! Mordryn, I am so happy—are not you? What a sublime day for us, dear Love! Just to think that we have that darling little son, the very essence of us both! Tell me that he and I mean everything to you. Tell me that I have given you all you want?"
He reassured her with passionate insistence, as though he could not say enough, and then he asked her again and again if she loved him. It was as if he must have confirmation of her passion for him, and her consent.
And Katherine played with him fondly as was her wont, being altogether fascinating and full of foolish, tender love tricks, which never failed to intoxicate his senses.
But soon he held her closely to him, some shadow in his eyes—and with his free arm he reached over to the table and picked up theTimes.
Then he spoke, and his wonderful voice sounded a little strained:
"My darling, there is some news in the paper this morning, which may cause you some concern—so I have brought it to you here while we are alone. It is about the retreat from Mons."
Katherine raised herself and looked at him enquiringly, and he found the column and began to read the glorious story, and of one supremely splendid standmade by a certain Guards regiment, which is now world-famed.
Then he paused and hesitated for a moment. For the name of the bravest who would gain the V. C. was Lord Algernon Fitz-Rufus who, single-handed, had performed an act of daring courage, resourcefulness and self-sacrifice, which had saved his men, but who had paid with his life for his last supreme effort, being shot through the heart as he had returned to a wounded comrade, Lieutenant Jack Kilcourcy, to bring him in to safety from that bloody corpse-strewn wood.
"What is it, Mordryn?—Please go on."
So the Duke read to the end, and then put the paper down.
And suddenly Katherine's heart seemed to stand still, and a mist darkened the room, and when it lifted she saw only the young débonnaire face of her once dear lover gazing at her again, her gay blue eyes alight with laughter and love. And with a stifled cry, she buried her head on the Duke's shoulder and burst into tears.
Thus Algy had fulfilled her hopes for him and become a fine soldier, and had died gallantly to save a comrade—A hero indeed!
Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation and printer's errors were corrected. Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling were retained.Page reference numbers to illustrations were corrected. Links in the List of Illustrations lead to the image, not page.
Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation and printer's errors were corrected. Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling were retained.Page reference numbers to illustrations were corrected. Links in the List of Illustrations lead to the image, not page.