CHAPTER V
IN WHICH DICKIE IS INTRODUCED TO A LITTLE DANCER WITH BLUSH-ROSES IN HER HAT
"Her ladyship's inquired for you more than once, sir." This from Winter meeting the pony-carriage and the returning prodigal at the bottom of the steps.
The sun was low. Across the square lawn—whereon the Clown had found death some thirteen years before—peacocks led home their hens and chicks to roost within the two sexagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses that fill in the angles of the red-walled enclosure. The pea-fowl stepped mincingly, high-shouldered, their heads carried low, their long necks undulating with a self-conscious grace. Dickie's imagination was aglow like that rose-red sunset sky. The virile sentiment of all just heard and seen, and the exultation of admitted ownership were upon him. He felt older, stronger, more secure of himself than ever before. He proposed to go straight to his mother and confess. In his present mood he entertained no fear but that she would understand.
"Is Lady Calmady alone?" he asked.
"Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart are with her, Sir Richard." Winter leant down, loosening the rug. His usual, undemonstrative speech took on a loftiness of tone. "Mrs. William Ormiston and her daughter have driven over with Mrs. Cathcart."—The butler was not without remembrance of that dinner on the day following Dickie's birth. Socially he had never considered Lady Calmady's sister-in-law quite up to the Brockhurst level.
Richard leaned back, watching the mincing peacocks. It was so fair here out of doors. The scent of the may hung in the air. The flame of the sunset bathed the façade of the stately house. No doubt it would be interesting to see new people, new relations; but he really cared to see no one just now, except his mother. From her he wanted to receive absolution, so that, his conscience relieved of the burden of his disobedience, he might revel to the full in the thought of the inheritance upon which—so it seemed to him—he had to-day entered. Still, in his present humour, Dickie's sense ofnoblesse obligewas strong.
"I suppose I've got to go in and help entertain everybody," he remarked.
"Her ladyship'll think something's wrong, Sir Richard, and be anxious if you stay away."
The boy held out his arms. "All right then, Winter," he said.
Here Chaplin again gave that admonitory cough. Richard, his face hardening to slight scorn, looked at him over the butler's shoulder.
"Oh! You need not be uneasy, Chaplin. When I say I'll do a thing, I don't forget."
Which brief speech caused the butler to reflect, as he bore the boy across the hall and up-stairs, that Sir Richard was coming to have an uncommonly high manner about him, at times, considering his age.
An unwonted loudness of conversation filled the Chapel-Room. It was filled also by the rose-red light of the sunset streaming in through the curve of the oriel-window. This confused and dazzled Richard slightly, entering upon it from the silence and sober clearness of the stair-head. A shrill note of laughter.—Mr. Cathcart's voice saying, "I felt it incumbent upon me to object, Lady Calmady. I spoke very plainly to Fallowfeild."—Julius March's delicately refined tones, "I am afraid spirituality is somewhat deficient in that case."—Then the high flute-like notes of a child, rising clearly above the general murmur, "Ah! enfin—le voilà, Maman. C'est bien lui, n'est-ce pas?" And with that, Richard was aware of a sudden hush falling upon the assembled company. He was sensible every one watched him as Winter carried him across the room and set him down in the long, low armchair near the fireplace. Poor Dickie's self-consciousness, which had been so agreeably in abeyance, returned upon him, and a red, not of the sunset, dyed his face. But he carried his head proudly. He thought of Chifney and the horses. He refused to be abashed.
And Ormiston, breaking the silence, called to him cheerily:—
"Hello, old chap, what have you been up to? You gave Mary and me the slip."
"I know I did," the boy answered bravely. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Cathcart?" as the latter nodded and smiled to him—a large, gentle, comfortable lady, uncertain in outline, thanks to voluminous draperies of black silk and black lace. "How d'ye do, sir?" this to Mr. Cathcart—a tall, neatly-made man, but for a slight roundness of the shoulders. Seeing him, there remained no doubt as to whence Mary inherited her large mouth; but matter for thankfulness that she had avoided further inheritance. For Mr. Cathcart was notably plain. Small eyes and snub nose, long lower jaw, and gray forward-curled whiskers rendered his appearance unfortunately simian. He suggested a caricature; but one, let it be added, of a person undeniably well-bred.
"My darling, you are very late," Katherine said. Her back was towards her guests as she stooped down arranging the embroidered rug across Dickie's feet and legs. Laying his hand on her wrist he squeezed it closely for a moment.
"I—I'll tell you all about that presently, mummy, when they're gone. I've been enjoying myself awfully—you won't mind?"
Katherine smiled. But, looking up at her, it appeared to Richard that her face was very white, her eyes very large and dark, and that she was very tall and, somehow, very splendid just then. And this fed his fearlessness, fed his young pride, even as, though in a more subtle and exquisite manner, his late experience of the racing-stable had fed them. His mother moved away and took up her interrupted conversation with Mr. Cathcart regarding the delinquencies of Lord Fallowfeild. Richard looked coolly round the room.
Every one was there—Julius, Mary, Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, while away in the oriel-window Roger Ormiston stood talking to a pretty, plump, very much dressed lady, who chattered, laughed, stared, with surprising vivacity. As Dickie looked at her she stared back at him through a pair of gold eye-glasses. Against her knee, that rosy light bathing her graceful, little figure, leant a girl about Dickie's own age. She wore a pale pink and blue frock, short and outstanding in the skirts. She also wore a broad-brimmed, white hat, with, a garland of blush-roses around the crown of it. The little girl did not stare. She contemplated Richard languidly, yet with sustained attention. Her attitude and bearing were attractive. Richard wanted to see her close, to talk to her. But to call and ask her to come to him was awkward. And to go to her—the boy grew a little hot again—was more awkward still.
Mrs. Ormiston dropped her gold eye-glasses into her lap.
"It really is ten thousand pities when these things happen in the wrong rank of life," she said. "Rightly placed they might be so profitable."
"For goodness sake, be careful, Ella," Ormiston put in quickly.
"Oh! My dear creature, don't be nervous. Everybody's attending to everybody else, and if they did hear they wouldn't understand. I'm one of the fortunate persons who are supposed never to talk sense and so I can say what I like." Mrs. Ormiston gave her shrill little laugh. "Oh! there are consolations, depend upon it, in a well-sustained reputation for folly!"
The laugh jarred on Richard. He decided that he did not quite like his aunt Charlotte Ormiston. All the same he wished the charming, little girl would come to him.
"But to return. It's a waste. To some poor family it might have been a perfect fortune. And I hate waste. Perhaps you have never discovered that?"
Ormiston let his glance rest on the somewhat showy figure.
"I doubt if William has discovered it either," he remarked.
"Oh! as to your poor brother William, heaven only knows what he has or has not discovered!—Now, Helen, this conversation becomes undesirable. You've asked innumerable questions about your cousin. Go and make acquaintance with him. I'm the best of mothers of course, but, at times, I really can do quite well without you."
Now surely this was a day of good fortune, for again Dickie had his desire. And a most surprisingly pretty, little desire it proved—seductive even, deliciously finished in person and in manner. The boy gazed at the girl's small hands and small, daintily shod feet, at the small, lovely, pink and white face set in a cloud of golden-brown hair, at the innocent, blue eyes, at the mouth with upturned corners to it. Richard was not of age to remark the eyes were rather light in colour, the lips rather thin. The exquisite refinement of the girl's whole person delighted him. She was delicate as a miniature, as a figure carved in ivory. She was like his Uncle Roger, when she was silent and still. She was like—oh, poor Dick!—some bright glancing, small, saucy bird when she spoke and her voice had those clear, flute tones in it.
"Since you did not come to me, I had to come to you," she said. "I have wanted so much to see you. I had heard about you at home, in Paris."
"Heard about me?" Dickie repeated, flattered and surprised. "But won't you sit down. Look—that little chair. I can reach it."
And leaning sideways he stretched out his hand. But his finger-tips barely touched the top rail. Richard flushed. "I'm awfully sorry," he said, "but I am afraid—it isn't heavy—I must let you get it yourself."
The girl, who had watched him intently, her hands clasped, gave a little sigh. Then the corners of her mouth turned up as she smiled. A delightful dimple showed in her right cheek.
"But, of course," she replied, "I will get it."
She settled herself beside him, folded her hands, crossed her feet, exposing a long length of fine, open-work, silk stocking.
"I desired enormously to see you," she continued. "But when you came in I grew shy. It is so with one sometimes."
"You should use your influence, Lady Calmady," Mr. Cathcart was saying. "Unquestionably the condition of the workhouse is far from satisfactory. And Fallowfeild is too lenient. Thatlaisser-allerpolicy of his threatens to land us in serious difficulties. The place is insanitary, and the food is unnecessarily poor. I am not an advocate for extravagance, but I cannot bear to see discomfort which might be avoided. Fallowfeild is the most kind-hearted of men, but he has a fatal habit of believing what people tell him. And those workhouse officials have got round him. The whole matter ought to be subjected to the strictest investigation."
"It is very nice of you to have wanted so much to see me," Dickie said. His eyes were softly bright.
"Oh! but one always wants to see those who are talked about. It is a privilege to have them for one's relations."
"But—but—I'm not talked about?" the boy put in, somewhat startled.
"But certainly. You are so rich. You have this superbchâteau. You are"—she put her head on one side with a pretty, saucy, birdlike movement—"enfin," she said, "I had the greatest curiosity to make your acquaintance. I shall tell all my young friends at the convent about this visit. I promised them that, as soon as mamma said we should probably come here. The good sisters also are interested. I shall recount a whole history of this beautiful castle, and of you, and your——"
She paused, clasped her hands, looking away at her mother, then sideways at Richard, bowing her little person backwards and forwards, laughing softly all the while. And her laughing face was extraordinarily pretty under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat.
"It is a great misfortune we stay so short a time," she continued. "I shall not see the half of all that I wish to see."
Then an heroic plan of action occurred to Richard. The daring engendered by his recent act of disobedience was still active in him. He was in the humour to attempt the impossible. He longed, moreover, to give this delectable little person pleasure. He was willing even to sacrifice a measure of personal dignity in her service.
"Oh! but if you care so much, I—I will show you the house," he said.
"Will you?" she cried. "You and I alone together. But that is precisely what I want. It would be ravishing."
Poor Dickie's heart misgave him slightly; but he summoned all his resolution. He threw off the concealing rug.
"I—I walk very slowly, I'm afraid," he said rather huskily, looking up at her, while in his expression appeal mingled pathetically with defiant pride.
"But, so much the better," she replied. "We shall be the longer together. I shall have the more to observe, to recount."
She was on her feet. She hovered round him, birdlike, intent on his every movement.
Meanwhile the sound of conversation rose continuous. Lady Calmady, calling to Julius, had moved away to the great writing-table in the farther window. Together they searched among a pile of papers for a letter of Dr. Knott's embodying his scheme of the new hospital at Westchurch. Mr. Cathcart stood by, expounding his views on the subject.
"Of course a considerable income can be derived from letters of recommendation," he was saying, "in-patient and out-patient tickets. The clergy come in there. They cannot be expected to give large donations. It would be unreasonable to expect that of them."
Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, Mrs. Cathcart, and Mary had drawn their chairs together. The two elder ladies spoke with a subdued enthusiasm, discussing pleasant details of the approaching wedding, which promised the younger lady so glad a future. Mrs. Ormiston chattered; while Ormiston, listening to her, gazed away down the green length of the elm avenue, beyond the square lawn and pepper-pot summer-houses, and pitied men who made such mistakes in the matter of matrimony as his brother William obviously had. The rose of the sunset faded in the west. Bats began to flit forth, hawking against the still warm house-walls for flies.
And so, unobserved, Dickie slipped out of the security of his armchair, and rose to that sadly deficient full height of his. He was nervous, and this rendered his balance more than ever uncertain. He shuffled forward, steadying himself by a piece of furniture here and there in passing, until he reached the wide open space before the door on to the stair-head. And it required some fortitude to cross this space, for here was nothing to lay hold of for support.
Little Helen Ormiston had kept close beside him so far. Now she drew back, leaving him alone. Leaning against a table, she watched his laborious progress. Then a fit of uncontrollable laughter took her. She flew half-way across to the oriel-window, her voice ringing out clear and gay, though broken by bursts of irrepressible merriment.
"Regardez, regardez donc, Maman! Ma bonne m'avait dit qu'il était un avorton, et que ce serait très amusant de le voir. Elle m'a conseiller de lui faire marcher."
She darted back, and clapping her hands upon the bosom of her charming frock, danced, literally danced and pirouetted around poor Dickie.
"Moi, je ne comprenais pas ce que c'était qu'un avorton," she continued rapidly. "Mais je comprends parfaitement maintenant. C'est un monstre, n'est-ce pas, Maman?"
She threw back her head, her white throat convulsed by laughter.
"Ah! mon Dieu, qu'il est drôle!" she cried.
Silence fell on the whole room, for sight and words alike were paralysing in their grotesque cruelty. Ormiston was the first to speak. He laid his hand somewhat roughly on his sister-in-law's shoulder.
"For God's sake, stop this, Ella," he said. "Take the girl away. Little brute," he added, under his breath, as he went hastily across to poor Dick.
But Lady Calmady had been beforehand with him. She swept across the room, flinging aside the dainty, dancing figure as she passed. All the primitive fierceness, the savage tenderness of her motherhood surged up within her. Katherine was in the humour to kill just then, had killing been possible. She was magnificently regardless of consequences, regardless of conventionalities, regardless of every obligation save that of sheltering her child. She cowered down over Richard, putting her arms about him, knew—without question or answer—that he had heard and understood. Then gathering him up against her, she stood upright, facing them all, brother, sister, old and tried friends, a terrible expression in her eyes, the boy's face pressed down upon her shoulder. For the moment she appeared alienated from, and at war with, even Julius, even Marie de Mirancourt. No love, however faithful, could reach her. She was alone, unapproachable, in her immense anger and immense sense of outrage.
"I will ask you to go," she said to her sister-in-law,—"to go and take your daughter with you, and to enter this house no more."
Mrs. Ormiston did not reply. Even her chatter was for the moment stilled. She pressed a handkerchief against the little dancer's forehead, and it was stained with blood.
"Ah! she is a wicked woman!" wailed the child. "She has hurt me. She threw me against the table.Maman quel malheur ça se verra. Il y aura certainement une çicatrice!"
"Nonsense," Ormiston said harshly. "It's nothing, Kitty, the merest scratch."
"Yes, my dear, we will have the carriage at once,"—this from Mr. Cathcart to his wife. The incident, from all points of view, shocked his sense of decency. Immediate retirement became his sole object.
Lady Calmady moved away, carrying the boy. She trembled a little. He was heavy. Moreover, she sickened at the sight of blood. But little Helen Ormiston caught at her dress, looked up at her.
"I hate you," she said, hissing the words out with concentrated passion between her pretty even teeth. "You have spoilt me. I will hate you always, when I grow up. I will never forget."
Alone in the great state-bedroom next door, a long time elapsed before either Richard or Katherine spoke. The boy leaned back against the sofa cushions, holding his mother's hand. The casements stood wide open, and little winds laden with the scent of the hawthorns in the park wandered in, gently stirring the curtains of the ebony bed, so that the trees of the Forest of This Life thereon embroidered appeared somewhat mournfully to wave their branches, while the Hart fled forward and the Leopard, relentless in perpetual pursuit, followed close behind. There was a crunching of wheels on the gravel, a sound of hurried farewells. Then in a minute or two more the evening quiet held its own again.
Suddenly Dickie flung himself down across Katherine's lap, his poor body shaken by a tempest of weeping.
"Mother, I can't bear it—I can't bear it," he sobbed. "Tell me, does everybody do that?"
"Do what, my own precious?" she said, calm from very excess of sorrow. Later she would weep too in the dark, lying lonely in the cold comfort of that stately bed.
"Laugh at me, mother, mock at me?" and his voice, for all that he tried to control it, tore at his throat and rose almost to a shriek.
CHAPTER VI
DEALING WITH A PHYSICIAN OF THE BODY AND A PHYSICIAN OF THE SOUL
History repeats itself, and to Katherine just now came most unwelcome example of such repetition. She had foreseen that some such crisis must arise as had arisen. Yet when it arose, the crisis proved none the less agonising because of that foreknowledge. Two strains of feeling struggled within her. A blinding sorrow for her child, a fear of and shame at her own violence of anger. Katherine's mind was of an uncompromising honesty. She knew that her instinct had, for a space at least, been murderous. She knew that, given equal provocation, it would be murderous again.
And this was, after all, but the active, objective aspect of the matter. The passive and subjective aspect showed danger also. In her extremity Katherine's soul cried out for God—for the sure resting-place only to be found by conscious union of the individual with the eternal will. But such repose was denied her. For her anger against God, even while thus earnestly desiring Him, was even more profound than her anger against man. The passion of those terrible early days when her child's evil fortune first became known to her—held in abeyance all these years by constant employment and the many duties incident to her position—returned upon her in its first force. To believe God is not, leaves the poor human soul homeless, sadly desolate, barren in labour as is a slave. But the sorrow of such belief is as a trifle beside the hideous fear that God is careless and unjust, that virtue is but a fond imagination of all-too-noble human hearts, that the everlasting purpose is not good but evil continually. And, haunted by such fears, Katherine once again sat in outer darkness. All gracious things appeared to her as illusions; all gentle delights but as passing anodynes with which, in his misery, man weakly tries to deaden the pain of existence for a little space. She suffered a profound discouragement.
And so it seemed to her but as part of the cruel whole when history repeated itself yet further, and Dr. Knott, pausing at the door of Richard's bedroom, turned and said to her:—
"It will be better, you know, Lady Calmady, to let him face it alone. He'll feel it less without you. Winter can give me all the assistance I want." Then he added, a queer smile playing about his loose lips:—"Don't be afraid. I'll handle him very gently. Probably I shan't hurt him at all—certainly not much."
"Ah!" Katherine said, under her breath.
"You see it is done by his own wish," John Knott went on.
"I know," she answered.
She respected and trusted this man, entertained for him, notwithstanding his harsh speech and uncouth exterior, something akin to affection. Yet remembering the part he had played in the fate of the father, it was very dreadful to her that he should touch the child. And Dr. Knott read her thought. He did not resent it. It was all natural enough! From his heart he was sorry for her, and would have spared her had that been possible. But he discriminated very clearly between primary and secondary issues, never sacrificing, as do feeble and sentimental persons, the former to the latter. In this case the boy had a right to the stage, and so the mother must stand in the wings. John Knott possessed a keen sense of values in the human drama which the exigencies of his profession so perpetually presented to him. He waited quietly, his hand on the door-handle, looking at Katherine from under his rough eyebrows, silently opposing his will to hers.
Suddenly she turned away with an impatient gesture.
"I will not come with you," she said.
"You are right."
"But—but—do you think you can really do anything to help him, to make him happier?" Katherine asked, a desperation in the tones of her voice.
"Happier? Yes, in the long run, because certainty of whatever kind, even certainty of failure, makes eventually for peace of mind."
"That is a hard saying."
"This is a hard world." Dr. Knott looked down at the floor, shrugging his unwieldy shoulders. "The sooner we learn to accept that fact the better, Lady Calmady. I know it is sharp discipline, but it saves time and money, let alone disappointment.—Now as to all these elaborate contrivances I've brought down from London, they're the very best of their kind. But I am bound to own the most ingenious of such arrangements are but clumsy remedies for natural deficiency. Man hasn't discovered how to make over his own body yet, and never will. The Almighty will always have the whip-hand of us when it comes to dealing with flesh and blood. All the same we've got to try these legs and things——"
Katherine winced, pressing her lips together. It was brutal, surely, to speak so plainly? But John Knott went on quietly, commiserating her inwardly, yet unswerving in common sense.
"Try 'em every one, and so convince Sir Richard one way or the other. This is a turning-point. So far his general health has been remarkably good, and we've just got to set our minds to keeping it good. He must not fret if we can help it. If he frets, instead of developing into the sane, manly fellow he should, he may turn peevish, Lady Calmady, and grow up a morbid, neurotic lad, the victim of all manner of brain-sick fancies—become envious, spiteful, a misery to others and to himself."
"It is necessary to say all this?" Katherine asked loftily.
Dr. Knott's eyes looked very straight into hers, and there were tears in them.
"Indeed, I believe it is," he replied, "or, trust me, I wouldn't say it. I take no pleasure in giving pain at this time of day, whether mental or physical. All I want is to spare pain. But one must sacrifice the present to the future, at times, you know—use the knife to save the limb. Now I must go to my patient. It isn't fair to keep him waiting any longer. I'll be as quick as I can. I suppose I shall find you here when I've finished?"
As he opened the door Dr. Knott's heavy person showed in all its ungainliness against the brightness of sunlight flooding Dickie's room. And to Katherine he seemed hideous just then—inexorable in his great common sense, in the dead weight of his personality and of his will, as some power of nature. He was to her the incarnation of things as they are,—not things as they should be, not things as she so passionately desired they might be. He represented rationalism as against miracle, intellect as against imagination, the bitter philosophy of experience as against that for which all mortals so persistently cry out—namely, the all-consoling promise of extravagant hope. As with chains he bound her down to fact. Right home on her he pressed the utter futility of juggling with the actual. From the harsh truth that, neither in matters practical nor spiritual is any redemption without shedding of blood he permitted her no escape.
And all this Katherine's clear brain recognised and admitted, even while her poor heart only rebelled the more madly. To be convinced is not to be reconciled. And so she turned away from that closed door in a veritable tempest of feeling, and went out into the Chapel-Room. It was safer, her mind and heart thus working, to put a space between herself and that closed door.
Just then Julius March crossed the room, coming in from the stair-head. The austere lines of his cassock emphasised the height and emaciation of his figure. His appearance offered a marked contrast to that of the man with whom Katherine had just parted. His occupation offered a marked contrast also. He carried a gold chalice and paten, and his head was bowed reverentially above the sacred vessels. His eyes were downcast, and the dull pallor of his face and his long thin hands was very noticeable. He did not look round, but passed silently, still as a dream, into the chapel. Katherine paced the width of the great room, turned and paced back and forth again some half-dozen times, before he emerged from the chapel door. In her present humour she did not want him, yet she resented his abstraction. The physician of the soul, like the physician of the body, appeared to her lamentably devoid of power to sustain and give comfort at the present juncture.
This, it so happened, was one of those days when the mystic joy of his priestly office held Julius March forcibly. He had ministered to others, and his own soul was satisfied. His expression was exalted, his short-sighted eyes were alive with inward light. Tired and worn, there was still a remarkable suavity in his bearing. He had come forth from the holy of holies, and the vision beheld there dwelt with him yet.
Meanwhile, brooding storm sat on Katherine's brow, on her lips, dwelt in her every movement. And something of this Julius perceived, for his devotion to her was intact, as was his self-abnegation. Throughout all these years he had never sought to approach her more closely. His attitude had remained as delicately scrupulous, untouched by worldliness, or by the baser part of passion, as in the first hour of the discovery of his love. Her near presence gave him exquisite pleasure; but, save when she needed his assistance in some practical matter, he refused to indulge himself by passing much time in her society. Abstinence still remained his rule of life. But just now, strong with the mystic strength of his late ministrations, and perceiving her troubled state, he permitted himself to remain and pace beside her.
"You have been out all day?" Katherine said.
"Yes, I stayed on to the end with Rebecca Light. They sent for me early this morning. She passed away very peacefully in that little attic at the new lodge looking out into the green heart of the woods."
"Ah! It's simple enough to die," Katherine said, "being old. The difficult thing is to live, being still young."
"Has my absence been inconvenient? Have you wanted me?" Julius asked.—Those quiet hours spent in the humble death-chamber suddenly appeared to him as an act of possible selfishness.
"Oh no!" she answered bitterly. "Why should I want you? Have I not sent Roger and Mary away? Am I not secretly glad dear Marie de Mirancourt is just sufficiently poorly to remain in her room? When the real need comes—one learns that among all the other merciless lessons—one is best by oneself."
For a while, only the whisper of Lady Calmady's skirts, the soft, even tread of feet upon the thick carpet. Then she said, almost sharply:—
"Dr. Knott is with Richard."
"Ah! I understand," Julius murmured.
But Lady Calmady took up his words with a certain heat.
"No, you do not understand. You none of you understand, and that is why I am better by myself. Mary and Roger in their happiness, dear Marie in her saintly resignation, and you"—Katherine turned her head, smiled at him in lovely scorn—"you, my dear Julius, of all men, what should you know of the bitter pains of motherhood, you who are too good to be quite human, you who regard this world merely as the antichamber of paradise, you, whose whole affection is set on your Church—your God—how should you understand? Between my experience and yours there is a very wide interval. How can you know what I suffer—you who have never loved."
Under the stress of her excitement Katherine's pace quickened. The whisper of her skirts grew to a soft rush. Julius kept beside her. His head was bent reverently, even as over the sacred vessels he had so lately carried.
"I too have loved," he said at last.
Katherine stopped short, and looked at him incredulously.
"Really, Julius?" she said.
Raising his head, he looked back at her. This avowal gave him a strange sense of completeness and mastery. So he allowed his eyes to meet Katherine's, he allowed himself to reckon with her grace and beauty.
"Very really," he answered.
"But when?"
"Long ago—and always."
"Ah!" she said. Her expression had changed. Brooding storm no longer sat on her brow and lips. She was touched. For the moment the weight of her personal distress was lifted. Dickie and Dr. Knott together in that bedchamber, experimenting with unlovely, mechanical devices for aiding locomotion and concealing the humiliation of deformity, were almost forgotten. To those who have once loved, love must always supremely appeal. Julius appeared to her in a new aspect. She felt she had done him injustice. She placed her hand on his arm with a movement of apology and tenderness. And the man grew faint, trembled, feeling her hand; seeing it lie white and fair on the sleeve of his black cassock. Since childhood it was the first, the solitary caress he had received.
"Pardon me, dear Julius," she said. "I must have pained you at times, but I did not know this. I always supposed you coldly indifferent to those histories of the heart which mean so much to some of us; supposed your religion held you wholly, and that you pitied us as the wise pity the foolish, standing above them, looking down. Richard told me many things about you, before he brought me home here, but he never told me this."
"Richard never knew it," he answered, smiling. Her perfect unconsciousness at once calmed and pained him. He had kept his secret, all these years, only too well.
Katherine turned and began to pace again, her hands clasped behind her back.
"But, tell me—tell me," she said. "You can trust me, you know. I will never speak of this unless you speak. But if I knew, it would bring us nearer together, and that would be comforting, perhaps, to us both. Tell me, what happened? Did she know, and did she love you? She must have loved you, I think. Then what separated you? Did she die?"
"No, thank God, she did not die," Julius said. He paused. He longed to gain the relief of fuller confession, yet feared to betray himself. "I believe she loved me truly as a friend—and that was sufficient."
"Oh no, no!" Katherine cried. "Do not decline upon sophistries. That is never sufficient."
"In one sense, yes—in another sense, no," Julius said. "It was thus. I loved her exactly as she was. Had she loved me as I loved her she would have become other than she was."
"Ah! but surely you are too ingenious, too fastidious." Katherine's voice took tones of delicate remonstrance and pleading. "That would be your danger, in such a case.Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, and you would always risk sacrificing the real to the ideal. I am sorry. I would like you to have tasted the fulness of life. Even though the days of perfect joy are very few, it is well to have had them——"
She threw back her head, her eyebrows drew together, and her face darkened somewhat.
"Yes, it is well to have had them, though the memory of them cuts one to the very quick."—Then her manner changed again, gaining a touch of gaiety. "Really I am very unselfish in wishing all this otherwise," she said, "for it would have been a sore trial to part with you. I cannot imagine Brockhurst without you. I should have been in great straits deprived of my friend and counselor. And yet, I would like you to have been very happy, dear Julius."
Their pacing had just brought them to the arched doorway of the chapel. Katherine stopped, and raising her arm leaned her hand against the stone jamb of it above her head.
"See," she went on, "I want to be truly unselfish. I know how generous you are. Perhaps you remain here out of all too great kindness towards my poor Dick and me. You mustn't do that, Julius. You say she is still living. Consider—is it too late?"
Was it indeed too late? All the frustrated manhood cried aloud in Julius March. He covered his face with his hands. His carefully restrained imagination ran riot, presenting enchantments.
And Katherine, watching him, found herself strangely moved. For it was very startling to see this so familiar figure under so unfamiliar an aspect—to see Julius March, her everyday companion and assistant, his reticence, his priestly aloofness, his mild and courtly calm, swept under by a tide of personal emotion. Lady Calmady was drawn to him by deepened sympathy. Yet regret arose in her that this man proved to be, after all, but as other men. She was vaguely disappointed, having derived more security than she had quite realised from his apparent detachment and impassibility. And, as an indirect consequence, her revolt against God suffered access of bitterness. For not only was He—to her seeing—callous regarding the fate of the many, but He failed to support those few most devoted to His cause. In the hour of their trial He was careless even of His own elect.
"Ah! I think it is indeed by no means too late!" she exclaimed.
Julius March let his hands drop at his sides. He gazed at her and her expression was of wistful mockery—compassionate rather than ironical. Then he looked away down the length of the chapel. In the warm afternoon light, the solid and rich brown of the arcaded stalls on either hand, emphasised the harmonious radiance of the great east window, a radiance as of clear jewels.—Ranks of kneeling saints, the gold of whose orioles rose in an upward curve to the majestic image of the Christ in the central light—a Christ risen and glorified, enthroned, His feet shining forever upon heaven's sapphire floor. Before the altar hung three silver-gilt lamps of Italian workmanship, in the crimson cup of each of which it had so long been Julius's pleasure to keep the tongue of flame constantly alive. The habits of a lifetime are not hastily set aside. Gazing on these things, his normal attitude returned to him. Not that which he essentially was but that which, by long and careful training of every thought, every faculty, he had become, authoritatively claimed him. His eyes fell from contemplation of the glories of the window to that of the long, straight folds of the cassock which clothed him. It was hardly the garb in which a man goes forth to woo! Then he looked at Lady Calmady—she altogether seductive in her innocence and in her wistful mockery as she leaned against the jamb of the door.
"You are mistaken, dear Katherine," he said. "It has always been too late."
"But why—why—if she is free to listen?"
"Because I am not free to speak."
Julius smiled at her. His suavity had returned, and along with it a dignity of bearing not observable before.
"Let us walk," he said. And then:—"After all I have given you a very mutilated account of this matter. Soon after I took orders, before I had ever seen the very noble, to me perfect, woman who unconsciously revealed to me the glory of human love, I had dedicated my life, and all my powers—poor enough, I fear—of mind and body to the service of the Church. I was ambitious in those days. Ambition is dead, killed by the knowledge of my own shortcomings. I have proved an unprofitable servant—for which may God in His great mercy forgive me. But, while my faith in myself has withered, my faith in Him has come to maturity. I have learned to think very differently on many subjects, and to perceive that our Heavenly Father's purposes regarding us are more generous, more far-reaching, more august, than in my youthful ignorance I had ever dreamed. All things are lawful in His sight. Nothing is common or unclean—if we have once rightly apprehended Him, and He dwells in us. And yet—yet, a vow once made is binding. We may not do evil to gain however great a good."
Katherine listened in silence. The words came with the power of immutable conviction. She could not believe, yet she was glad to have him believe.
"And that vow precludes marriage?" she said at last.
"It does," Julius answered.
For a time they paced again in silence. Then Lady Calmady spoke, a delicate intimacy and affection in her manner, while once more, for a moment, she let her hand rest on his arm.
"So Brockhurst keeps you—I keep you, dear Julius, to the last?"
"Yes, if you will, to the very last."
"I am thankful for that," she said. "You must forgive me if in the past I have been inconsiderate at times. I am afraid the constant struggle, which certain circumstances of necessity create, tends to make me harsh and imperious. I carry a trouble, which calls aloud for redress, forever in my arms. They ache with the burden of it. And there is no redress. And the trouble grows stronger alas. Its voice—so dear, yet so dreaded—grows louder, till it deafens me to all other sounds. The music of this once beautiful world becomes faint. Only angry discord remains. And I become selfish. I am the victim of a fixed idea. I become heedless of the suffering of those about me. And you, my poor Julius, must have suffered very much!"
"Now, less than ever before," he answered. But even as he spoke, Katherine was struck by his pallor, by the drawn look of his features and languor of his bearing.
"Ah, you have fasted all day!" she cried.
"What matter?" he said, smiling. "The body surely can sustain a trifle of hunger, if the soul and spirit are fed. I have feasted royally to-day in that respect. I am strangely at ease. As to baser sort of food, what wonder if I forgot?"
The door of Dickie's bedchamber opened, letting in long shafts of sunlight, and Dr. Knott came slowly forward. His aspect was savage. Even his philosophy had been not wholly proof against the pathos of his patient's case. It irritated him to fall from his usual relentlessness of common sense into a melting mood. He took refuge in sarcasm, desirous to detect weakness in others, since he was, unwillingly, so disagreeably conscious of it in himself.
"Well, we're through with our business, Lady Calmady," he said. "Eh! Mr. March, what's wrong with you? Putty-coloured skin and shortness of breath. A little less prayer and a little more physical exercise is what you want. Successful, Lady Calmady?—Umph—I'm afraid the less said about that the better. Sir Richard will talk it out with you himself. Upset? Yes, I don't deny he is a little upset—and, like a fool, I'm upset too. You can go to him now, Lady Calmady. Keep him cheerful, please, and give him his head as much as you can."
John Knott watched her as she moved away. He shrugged his shoulders and thrust his hands into his breeches' pockets.
"She's going to hear what she won't much relish, poor thing," he said. "But I can't help that. One man's meat is another man's poison; and my affair is with the boy's meat, even if it should be of a kind to turn his mother's stomach. He shall have just all the chance I can get him, poor little chap. And now, Mr. March, I propose to prescribe for you, for you look uncommonly like taking a short-cut to heaven, and, if I know anything about this house, you've got your work cut out for you here below for a long time to come. Through with this business? Pooh! we've only taken a preliminary canter as yet. That boy's out of the common in more ways than one, and, cripple or no cripple, he's bound to lead you all a pretty lively dance before he's done."
CHAPTER VII
AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT
The day had been hot, though the summer was but young. A wealth of steady sunlight bathed the western front of the house. All was notably still, save for a droning of bees, a sound of wood-chopping, voices now and again, and the squeak of a wheelbarrow away in the gardens.
Richard lay on his back upon the bed. He had drawn the blue embroidered coverlet up about his waist; but his silk shirt was thrown open, exposing his neck and chest. His arms were flung up and out across the pillow on either side his gold-brown, close-curled head. As his mother entered he turned his face towards the open window. There was vigour and distinction in the profile—in the straight nose, full chin, and strong line of the lower jaw, in the round, firm throat, and small ear set close against the head. The muscles of his neck and arms were well developed. Seen thus, lying in the quiet glow of the afternoon sunshine, all possibility of physical disgrace seemed far enough from Richard Calmady. He might indeed, not unfitly, have been compared to one of those nobly graceful lads, who, upon the frieze of some Greek temple, set forth forever the perfect pattern of temperance and high courage, of youth and health.
As Katherine sat down beside the bed, Richard thrust out his left hand. She took it in both hers, held and stroked the palm of it. But for a time she could not trust herself to speak. For she saw that, notwithstanding the resolute set of his lips, his breath caught in short quick sobs and that his eyelashes were glued in points by late shed tears. And seeing this, Katherine's motherhood arose and confronted her with something of reproach. It seemed to her she had been guilty of disloyalty in permitting her thought to be beguiled even for the brief space of her conversation with Julius March. She felt humbled, a little in Dickie's debt, since she had not realised to the uttermost each separate moment of his trial as each of those moments passed.
"My darling, I am afraid Dr. Knott has hurt you very much," she said at last.
"Oh! I don't know. I suppose he did hurt. He pulled me about awfully, but I didn't mind that. I told him to keep on till he made sure," Richard answered huskily, still turning his face from her. "But none of those beastly legs and things fitted. He could not fix them so that I could use them. It was horrid. They only made me more helpless than before. You see—my—my feet are in the way."
The last words came to Katherine as a shock. The boy had never spoken openly of his deformity, and in thus speaking he appeared to her to rend asunder the last of those veils with which she had earnestly striven to conceal the disgrace of it from him. She remained very still, bracing herself to bear—the while slowly stroking his hand. Suddenly the strong, young fingers closed hard on hers. Richard turned his head.
"Mother," he said, "the doctor can't do anything for me. It's no use. We've just got to let it be."
He set his teeth, choking a little, and drew the back of his right hand across his eyes.
"It's awfully stupid; but somehow I never knew I should mind so much. I—I never did mind much till just lately. It began—the minding, I mean—the day Uncle Roger came home. It was the way he looked at me, and hearing about things he'd done. And I had a beastly dream that night. And it's all grown worse since."
He paused a minute, making a strong effort to speak steadily.
"I suppose it's silly to mind. I ought to be accustomed to it by this time. I've never known anything else. But I never thought of all it meant and—and—how it looked to other people till Helen was here and wanted me to show her the house. I—I supposed every one would take it for granted, as you all do here at home. And then I'd a hope Dr. Knott might find a way to hide it and so help me. But—but he can't. That hope's quite gone."
"My own darling," Katherine murmured.
"Yes, please say that!" he cried, looking up eagerly. "I am your darling, mother, aren't I, just the same? Dr. Knott said something about you just now. He's an awfully fine old chap. I like him. He talked to me for a long time after we'd sent Winter away, and he was ever so kind. And he told me it was bad for you too, you know—for both of us. I'm afraid I had not thought much about that before. I've been thinking about it since. And I began to be afraid that—that I might be a nuisance,—that you might be ashamed of me, later, when I am grown up, since I've always got to be like this, you see."
The boy's voice broke.
"Mother, mother, you'll never despise me, who ever does, will you?" he sobbed.
And it seemed to Lady Calmady that now she must have touched bottom in this tragedy. There could surely be no further to go? It was well that her mood was soft; that for a little while she had ceased to be under the dominion of her so sadly fixed idea. In talking with Julius March she had been reminded how constant a quantity is sorrow; how real, notwithstanding their silence, are many griefs; how strong is human patience. And this indirectly had fortified her. Wrung with anguish for the boy, she yet was calm. She knelt down by the bedside and put her arms round him.
"Most precious one—listen," she said. "You must never ask me such a question again. I am your mother—you cannot measure all that implies, and so you cannot measure the pain your question causes me. Only you must believe, because I tell it you, that your mother's love will never grow old or wear thin. It is always there, always fresh, always ready. In utter security you can come back to it again and again. It is like one of those clear springs in the secret places of the deep woods—you know them—which bubble up forever. Drink, often as you may, however heavy the drought or shrunken the streams elsewhere, those springs remain full to the very lip."—Her tone changed, taking a tender playfulness. "Why, my Dickie, you are the light of my eyes, my darling, the one thing which makes me still care to live. You are your father's gift to me. And so every kiss you give me, every pretty word you say to me, is treasured up for his, as well as for your own, dear sake."
She leaned back, laid her head on the pillow beside his, cheek to cheek. Katherine was a young woman still—young enough to have moments of delicate shyness in the presence of her son. She could not look at him now as she spoke.
"You know, dearest, if I could take your bodily misfortune upon me, here, directly, and give you my wholeness, I would do it more readily, with greater thankfulness and delight than I have ever done anything in——"
But Richard raised his hand and laid it, almost violently, upon her mouth.
"Oh stop, mother, stop!" he cried. "Don't—it's too dreadful to think of."
He flung away, and lay at as far a distance as the width of the bed would allow, gazing at her in angry protest.
"You can't do that. But you don't suppose I'd let you do it even if you could," he said fiercely. Then he turned his face to the sunny western window again. "I like to know that you're beautiful anyhow, mother, all—all over," he said.
There followed a long silence between them. Lady Calmady still knelt by the bedside. But she drew herself up, rested her elbows on the bed and clasped her hands under her chin. And as she knelt there something of proud comfort came to her. For so long she had sickened, fearing the hour when Richard should begin clearly to gauge the extent of his own ill-luck; yet, now the first shock of plain speech over, she experienced relief. For the future they could be honest, she and he,—so she thought,—and speak heart to heart. Moreover, in his so bitter distress, it was to her—not to Mary, his good comrade, not to Roger Ormiston, the Ulysses of his fancy—that the boy had turned. He was given back to her, and she was greatly gladdened by that. She was gladdened too by Richard's last speech, by his angry and immediate repudiation of the bare mention of any personal gain which should touch her with loss. Katherine's eyes kindled as she knelt there watching her son. For it was very much to find him chivalrous, hotly sensitive of her beauty and the claims of her womanhood. In instinct, in thought, in word, he had shown himself a very gallant, high-bred gentleman—child though he was. And this gave Katherine not only proud comfort in the present, but cheered the future with hope.
"Look here, Dickie, darling," she said softly at last, "tell me a little more about your talk with Dr. Knott."
"Oh! he was awfully kind," Richard answered, turning towards her again, while his face brightened. "He said some awfully jolly things to me."
The boy put out his hand and began playing with the bracelets on Katherine's wrists. He kept his eyes fixed on them as he fingered them.
"He told me I was very strong and well made—except, of course, for it. And that I was not to imagine myself ill or invalidy, because I'm really less ill than most people, you know. And—he said—you won't think me foolish, mother, if I tell you?—he said I was a very handsome fellow."
Richard glanced up quickly, while his colour deepened.
"Am I really handsome?" he asked.
Katherine smiled at him.
"Yes, you are very handsome, Dickie. You have always been that. You were a beautiful baby, a beautiful little child. And now, every day you grow more like your father. I can't quite talk about him, my dear—but ask Uncle Roger, ask Marie de Mirancourt what he was when she knew him first."
The boy's face flashed back her smile, as the sea does the sunlight.
"Oh! I say, but that's good news," he said. He lay quite still on his back for a little while, thinking about it.
"That seems to give one a shove, you know," he remarked presently. Then he fell to playing with her bracelets again. "After all, I've got a good many shoves to-day, mother. Dr. Knott's a regular champion shover. He told me about a number of people he'd known who had got smashed up somehow, or who'd always had something wrong, you know—and how they'd put a good face on it and hadn't let it interfere, but had done things just the same. And he told me I'd just got to be plucky—he knew I could if I tried—and not let it interfere either. He told me I mustn't be soft, or lazy, because doing things is more difficult for me than for other people. But that I'd just got to put my back into it, and go in and win. And I told him I would—and you'll help me, mummy, won't you?"
"Yes, darling, yes," Lady Calmady said.
"I want to begin at once," he went on hurriedly, looking hard at the bracelets. "I shouldn't like to be unkind to her, mother, but do you think Clara would give me up? I don't need a nurse now. It's rather silly. May one of the men-servants valet me? I should like Winter best, because he's been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so that he might begin to-night?"
Lady Calmady's brave smile grew a trifle sad. The boy was less completely given back to her than she had fondly supposed. This day was after all to introduce a new order. And the woman always pays. She was to pay for that advance, so was the devoted handmaiden, Clara. Still the boy must have his way—were it even towards a merely imagined good.
"Very well, dearest, I will settle it," she answered.
"You won't mind, though, mother?"
Katherine stroked the short curly hair back from his forehead.
"I don't mind anything that promises to make you happier, Dickie," she said. "What else did you and Dr. Knott settle—anything else?"
Richard waited, then he turned on his elbow and looked full and very earnestly at her.
"Yes, mother, we did settle something more. And something that I'm afraid you won't like. But it would make me happier than anything else—it would make all the difference that—that can be made, you know."
He paused, his expression very firm though his lips quivered.
"Dr. Knott wants me to ride."
Katherine drew back, stood up straight, threw out her hands as though to keep off some actual and tangible object of offense.
"Not that, Richard," she cried. "Anything in the world rather than that."
He looked at her imploringly, yet with a certain determination, for the child was dying fast in him and the forceful desires and intentions of youth growing.
"Don't say I mustn't, mother. Pray, pray don't, because——"
He left the sentence unfinished, overtaken by the old habit of obedience, yet he did not lower his eyes.
But Lady Calmady made no response. For the moment she was outraged to the point of standing apart, even from her child. For a moment, even motherhood went down before purely personal feeling—and this, by the irony of circumstance, immediately after motherhood had made supreme confession of immutability. But remembering her husband's death, remembering the source of all her child's misfortune, it appeared to her indecent, a wanton insult to all her past suffering, that such a proposition should be made to her. And, in a flash of cruelly vivid perception, she knew how the boy would look on a horse, the grotesque, to the vulgar, wholly absurd spectacle he must, notwithstanding his beauty, necessarily present. For a moment the completeness of love failed before pride touched to the very quick.
"But, how can you ride?" she said. "My poor child, think—how is it possible?"
Richard sat upright, pressing his hands down on the bedclothes on either side to steady himself. The colour rushed over his face and throat.
"It is possible, mother," he answered resolutely, "or Dr. Knott would never have talked about it. He couldn't have been so unkind. He drew me the plan of a saddle. He said I was to show it to Uncle Roger to-night. Of course it won't be easy at first, but I don't care about that. And Chifney would teach me. I know he would. He said the other day he'd make a sportsman of me yet."
"When did you talk with Chifney?" Lady Calmady spoke very quietly, but there was that in her tone which came near frightening the boy. It required all his daring to answer honestly and at once.
"I talked to him the day Aunt Ella and Helen were here. I—I went down to the stables with him and saw all the horses."
"Then either you or he did very wrong," Lady Calmady remarked.
"It was my fault, mother, all my fault. Chifney would have ridden on, but I stopped him. Chaplin tried to prevent me. I—I told him to mind his own business. I meant to go. I—I saw all the horses, and they were splendid," he added, enthusiasm gaining over fear. "I saw the stables, and the weighing-room, and everything. I never enjoyed myself so much before. I told Chaplin I would tell you, because he ought not to be blamed, you know. I did mean to tell you directly I came in. But all those people were here."—Richard's face darkened. "And you remember what happened? That put everything else out of my head."
A pause. Then he said: "Are you very angry?"
Katherine made no reply. She moved away round the foot of the bed and stood at the sunny window in silence. Bitterness of hot humiliation possessed her. Heretofore, whatever her trial, she had been mistress of the situation; she had reigned a queen-mother, her authority undisputed. And now it appeared her kingdom was in revolt, conspiracy was rife. Richard's will and hers were in conflict; and Richard's will must eventually obtain, since he would eventually be master. Already courtiers bowed to that will. All this was in her mind. And a wounding of feeling, far deeper and more intimate than this,—since Katherine's nobility of character was great and the worldly aspect, the greed of personal power and undisputed rule, could not affect her for long. It wounded her, as a slight upon the memory of the man she had so wholly loved, that this first conflict between Richard and herself should turn on the question of horses and the racing-stable. The irony of the position appeared unpardonable. And then, the vision of poor Richard—her darling, whom she had striven so jealously to shield ever since the day, over thirteen years ago, when undressing her baby she had first looked upon its malformed limbs—Richard riding forth for all the staring, mocking world to see, again arose before her.
Thinking of all this, Katherine gazed out over the stately home scene—grass plot and gardens, woodland and distant landscape, rich in the golden splendour of steady sunshine—with smarting eyes and a sense of impotent misery that wrapped her about as a burning garment. The boy was beginning to go his own way. And his way was not hers. And those she had trusted were disloyal, helping him to go it. Alone, in retirement, she had borne her great trouble with tremendous courage. But how should she bear it under changed conditions, amid publicity, gossip, comment?
Dickie, meanwhile, had let himself drop back against the pillows. He set his teeth and waited. It was hard. An opportunity of escape from the galling restraints of his infirmity had been presented to him, and his mother—his mother after promise given, after the sympathy of a lifetime; his mother, in whom he trusted absolutely—was unwilling he should accept it! As he lay there all the desperate longing for freedom and activity that had developed in him of late—all the passion for sport, for that primitive, half-savage manner of life, that intimate, if somewhat brutal, relation to nature, to wild creatures and to the beasts whom man by centuries of usage has broken to his service, which is the special heritage of Englishmen of gentle blood—sprang up in Richard, strong, all compelling. He must have his part in all this. He would not be denied. He cried out to her imperiously:—
"Mother, speak to me! I haven't done anything really wrong. I've a right to do what any other boy has—as far as I can get it. Don't you see riding is just the one thing to—to make up—to make a man of me? Don't you see that?"
He sat bolt upright, stretching out his arms to her in fierce appeal, while the level sunshine touched his bright hair and wildly eager face.
"Mummy, mummy darling, don't you see? Try to see. You can't want to take away my one chance!"
Katherine turned at that reiterated cry, and her heart melted within her. The boy was her own, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. From her he had life. From her he had also lifelong disgrace and deprivation. Was there anything then, which, he asking, she could refuse to give? She cast herself on her knees beside the bed again and buried her face in the sheet.
"My precious one," she sobbed, "forgive me. I am ashamed, for I have been both harsh and weak. I said I would help you, and then directly I fail you. Forgive me."
And the boy was amazed, speechless at first, seeing her broken thus; shamed in his turn by the humility of her attitude. To his young chivalry it was as an impiety to look upon her tears.
"Please don't cry, mother," he entreated tremulously, a childlike simplicity of manner taking him. "Don't cry—it is dreadful. I never saw you cry before."—Then, after a pause, he added: "And—never mind about my riding. I don't so very much care about it—really, I don't believe I do—after all."
At that dear lie Katherine raised her bowed head, a wonderful sweetness in her tear-stained face, tender laughter upon her lips. She drew the boy's hands on to her shoulders, clasped her hands across his extended arms, and kissed him upon the mouth.
"No, no, my beloved, you shall ride," she said. "You shall have your saddle—twenty thousand saddles if you want them. We will talk to Uncle Roger and Chifney to-night. All shall be as you wish."
"But you're not angry, mother, any more?" he asked, a little bewildered by her change of tone and by the passion of her lovely looks and speech.
Katherine shook her head, and still that tender laughter curved her lips.
"No, I am never going to be angry any more—with you at least, Dick. I must learn to be plucky too. A pair of us, Dickie, trying to keep up one another's pluck! Only let us go forward hand in hand, you and I, and then, however desperate our doings, I at least shall be content."