At the same instant John Ralston struck Alexander Lauderdale a violent blow on the mouth, which sent the taller man staggering back two paces. It all happened in an instant. Alexander sprang forward again instinctively, and struck at John, who dodged the blow and closed with him. They were better matched at wrestling than with fists, for Ralston, though less strong by far, was the quicker, and had the advantage of youth. They swayed and twisted upon each other, the two lean, tough men, like tigers.
Katharine struggled to her feet. In getting up she tried to use her right hand, and uttered anothercry of pain, as her weight rested on it a moment in making the effort. It was quite powerless.
In a few seconds the room was full of people. Katharine’s scream had echoed through the open door all over the house. The butler, the footmen, and the housemaids flocked in. The cry was heard even in Robert Lauderdale’s bedroom, and he was not asleep.
The old man started, listened, and raised himself on his elbow, at the same time touching the bell by which he called his nurse. She had gone out upon the landing, to try and find out what was the matter, but ran back at the sound of the bell.
“What is it? What’s happened?” asked old Lauderdale, and there was an unwonted colour in his face.
“I don’t know, Mr. Lauderdale,” answered the nurse, a calm, ugly, middle-aged woman from New England. “It was a woman’s voice. Shall I go and ask?”
“No—no!” he cried, huskily. “It was my niece—help me up, Mrs. Deems—help me up. I’ll go as I am.”
He was clad in loose garments of white velvet—the only luxurious fancy of his old age. He got up on his feet, steadying himself by the nurse’s arm.
“Let me ring for the men, Mr. Lauderdale,” she said, rather anxiously.
“No, no! I can go so, if you’ll help me a little—oh, God! The child must be hurt! Quick, Mrs. Deems—I can walk quicker than this—hold your arm a little higher, please. Yes—we shall get along nicely so—why didn’t I have a lift in the house! I was always so strong! Quickly, Mrs. Deems—quickly.”
When Robert Lauderdale entered the drawing-room, he saw a crowd of people gathering together round something which they hid from him.
“Go away! Go away!” he cried, in his hollow, broken voice.
The servants fell back at the voice of the master, only the butler remaining at hand. Katharine was lying back in a deep arm-chair, her broken arm resting upon a little table which had been hastily pushed to her side. John Ralston was bending over it, and looking at it rather helplessly, as pale as death. Opposite him, on Katharine’s left, stood her father, his face still darkly flushed, his lips swollen and purple from Ralston’s blow.
“Clear the room—and send for Doctor Routh,” said old Lauderdale, turning his head a little towards Leek as he passed him.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m afraid it’s broken,” Ralston was saying, and his hands trembled violently as he softly passed them over Katharine’s arm.
Mrs. Deems was already undoing the buttons ofthe tight sleeve which chanced to be the fashion at that time. Robert Lauderdale pushed Alexander aside, and bent down over the chair, supporting himself with his hands.
“Katharine—little girl—you’re hurt, dear,” he said, as gently as his hoarseness would let him speak. “How did it happen?”
“It won’t be anything,” she said, in answer, shaking her head and trying to smile.
“How did it happen?” repeated the old man, standing up again, and steadying himself, as he looked anxiously at Ralston.
But Ralston did not answer at once. Across the old gentleman’s shoulder his eyes met Alexander’s for an instant.
“Are you going to tell what you did, or shall I?” he asked, fiercely.
“What? What?” asked old Robert, in surprise. “What’s this?” He looked from one to the other.
“Well—” Alexander began, “it’s rather hard to explain—”
“You’re mistaken,” interrupted Ralston, promptly. “It’s perfectly simple. You threw Katharine down, and she broke her arm.”
“You—threw Katharine—down!” repeated the old man, the first words spoken in wonder, the last in wrath.
“Not at all, uncle Robert,” protested Alexander.“Do you suppose for a moment that I’m such a man as to—”
“I don’t care what sort of man you are!” retorted Robert Lauderdale. “If you’ve laid hands on Katharine, you shall leave the house—for the last time. Tell me what happened, Jack—Katharine—both of you!”
“We quarrelled and didn’t see Katharine,” said John, his brown eyes on fire. “She thought we’d fight, and ran forward and held me round the neck to keep us apart. Her father dragged her away violently and she fell. Then I hit him.”
“I didn’t drag her violently—”
“Katharine—isn’t that what happened?” asked Ralston.
Old Lauderdale bent down towards her again—but there was no need of looking into her eyes to find the truth there. Her only thought was for Ralston, and he was speaking the truth. She loved him as few women love. She had loved him through good and evil report, with all her soul. And she was ruthless of others, as loving women are. For his sake, she would have sent her father to the gallows, if he had done murder, and if the one word which might have saved him could have done Ralston the least hurt.
“It’s exactly as Jack says,” she answered, in clear tones. “He pulled me from Jack and threw me down.”
Then the old man’s wrath broke out like flame. But there was a little pause first. The blood rushed to his pale cheeks, his bony hands were clenched, and the old veins swelled to bursting in his throat and at his temples. The broken, harsh voice thundered and crashed as he cursed his nephew.
“God damn you, sir! Leave my house this instant!”
Alexander Lauderdale Junior had got his deserts and more also, and he knew it. But he stood still where he was.
“It’s useless to argue with a man in your state—” he began.
“Are you going, you damned coward?” roared old Robert. “Ring the bell, Jack—send for the men—turn that brute out—”
He was beside himself with rage, but John glanced at Alexander, and then walked slowly towards the nearest bell. He was not inclined to spare the man who had injured Katharine. Perhaps most men in his position would have carried out the orders of the master of the house. Seeing that he was in the act to press the button, Alexander yielded. It was not at all probable that the millionaire’s half dozen Englishmen would disobey their master, and Robert was capable at the present moment of having him literally kicked into the middle of the street. He had the temper thatran through all the blood of the Lauderdale tribe, and it was up—the fierce, Lowland Scotch temper that is hard to rouse, and long controllable, but dangerous at the last. He had disliked and despised his nephew for years, but had not sought occasion against him. The occasion had come suddenly and by violence, and the wild beast in him was let loose.
Katharine’s eyes followed her father’s tall figure, as he stalked out of the room, with an odd expression. She was avenged for much in that moment.
“Brute!” growled Robert Lauderdale, as he disappeared behind the curtain.
“Infernal scoundrel!” answered Ralston, through his closed teeth.
“I’m so sorry I screamed, uncle Robert,” said Katharine. “I waked you—”
Mrs. Deems interrupted her. She had ripped the seam of the tight sleeve, for she knew that it could not be drawn over the broken arm. On the white flesh there were two sets of marks—the one red, and evidently produced in the late struggle. The others were black and blue. They were side by side, the one set a little higher than the second. The arm was already much swollen. Mrs. Deems had listened in silence to what had been said, and her womanly heart had risen in sympathy for Katharine. She touched Robert Lauderdale’s sleeve, and pointed to the old marks on Katharine’s arm, calling his attention to them.
“Those weren’t made now, Mr. Lauderdale,” she said, in a low, matter-of-fact tone.
“No—it was last night,” said Katharine, rather faintly. “Jack, dear—get me a cup of tea. I don’t feel well.”
Ralston hurried away, saying something to himself which was not audible to the others, and which may as well be omitted here. The black and white of paper and ink make youth’s blood seem too red. Old Lauderdale’s anger was still at the boiling-point, and broke out again.
“Do you mean to say that he’s been maltreating you, child?” he asked, his face reddening again. “If he has—”
“No—not exactly, uncle dear—I’ll tell you—but—I’m a little faint. Don’t worry.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, as she finished speaking. She was in great pain now that the arm was swelling.
“Best not talk, Mr. Lauderdale,” said Mrs. Deems. “I’ll get some ice and napkins.”
And she also left the room. The old man, alone with Katharine, bent over her with difficulty, and kissed her white forehead. His old head trembled as he raised himself again and looked shyly round, as though he had done something to be ashamed of. The young girl opened her eyes, smiled a little, and closed them again at once.
“Do you feel very ill, little girl?” asked Robert Lauderdale.
There was something pathetic in the evident attempt to make his unnatural, hollow voice sound gentle and kind, and he stroked her thick black hair with one bony hand, while the other rested on the back of the chair.
“Oh, no—it’s nothing—only the pain in my arm. Don’t be frightened, uncle Robert—I’m not going to die!”
She tried to laugh to reassure him. Then a sharp twinge from the broken limb drew her face. The expression of her suffering was instantly reflected in the old man’s features, and his bushy white eyebrows bent themselves.
“Routh will be here in a minute,” he said, as though reassuring her. “I’ve sent for him.”
She nodded her thanks, but said nothing. Then with her left hand she found one of his, and pressed it affectionately. He lifted hers, and pressed his bearded lips to it softly.
“It will be the worse for him,” he said, consoling her, as many men console women, with the promise of vengeance.
In his mouth the words might mean much. There are few things which a just man, justly angry, cannot accomplish against an offender, with the aid of eighty millions of working capital, so to say. Moreover, Robert Lauderdale was not deadyet, and could so change his will, if he pleased, as to keep Alexander from ever receiving any share whatsoever of the great fortune.
But Katharine was avenged already, and wished no further evil to her father. She had seen him humiliated and driven from the house, and she had felt that he was not her father, but the man who had insulted and cruelly wronged John Ralston, her lawful husband. She had not seen the blow Ralston had struck, for at that moment she had just fallen to the floor. But all the rest had happened before her eyes, and she had neither spoken word nor made sign to spare him. So far, she had been utterly merciless.
Afterwards, she wondered how she could have been so utterly hard and unforgiving, and tried to remember what she had felt, but she found it impossible. It is hard to recall an old scald when one is floating in cool water. Not that she ever forgave her father for what he did and said during those twenty-four hours—that is, in the sense of forgiving entirely and thinking of him as though nothing had happened. That would have been impossible—perhaps it would have been scarcely human. The virtue that turns the other cheek to be smitten is in danger of having its head broken by the second buffet, for cowardice takes arms of charity. But they did not quarrel to the end of their natural lives, and it seemed strange to Katharine,at a later period, that she should have looked on with a calm satisfaction that soothed her bodily pain while Robert Lauderdale ordered her father to be forcibly turned out of the house. But that is not strange, for humanity’s hardest present problem is almost always the problem of yesterday, which is in black and white, rather than the expectation of to-morrow, confusedly shadowed upon the mist of what is not yet, by the light of the hope of what may be.
There was a sort of justice, too, in the fact that Robert Lauderdale, who had once quarrelled with John during the winter, should now be taking his side, and be forced to take it by every conviction of fairness. The only thing which Katharine could not understand was her father’s own behaviour towards his uncle. It was in accordance with his temper that he should behave to her as he had behaved, and to John Ralston also. But it would have seemed more natural that he should have controlled himself, even by a great effort, rather than have risked offending the possessor of the fortune. On that afternoon he had seemed from the first to be braving the old man’s anger. This was a mystery to Katharine. It seemed almost like premeditation. Yet she knew her father’s limitations, and was sure that he was not able to form a deep scheme and carry it out, while mystifying every one who looked on. He was dull, he wasmethodical, he was exact. He was also miserly, as she had lately discovered. But he was a man to keep a secret, rather than to produce one which should need keeping, and she almost suspected that he had lost his senses out of sheer anger, though she knew that he was able to control his temper longer than most men, when he pleased.
So far as the present was concerned, she felt, as she might well feel, that she was amply avenged, and when Robert Lauderdale seemed to be threatening further vengeance, she protested.
“Don’t make it any worse, uncle Robert,” she said, with an effort, for she was growing very faint. “But you must keep me here till I’m well, if you will. I can’t go home to him now.”
“Of course, child—of course! Should you like your mother to come and take care of you?”
“Oh, no—thank you—let me be with you. We’ll be invalids together, you know.” She smiled again, opening and closing her eyes. “Don’t forget yourself, now,” she continued. “You’ve had too much exertion—too much excitement—sit down and rest—here they come with the tea and things.”
John and Mrs. Deems entered in close succession. John had insisted upon bringing the tea-tray himself, after overcoming Leek’s objection with the greatest difficulty. But Leek appeared, nevertheless, playing footman to Ralston as butler,so to say, and bearing a folding stand, which he set down beside Katharine. Mrs. Deems had a bowl of ice and a pile of napkins, with which she intended to cool Katharine’s arm until Dr. Routh arrived.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Leek to the old gentleman. “The old brougham was just in with the bays, from exercise, William said, sir, so I sent him as he was for Doctor Routh, sir. I hope I did right, sir?”
“Quite right, Leek—very sensible of you,” answered the old gentleman. “Just help me to a chair, will you? I’m a little stiff from standing so long. And get us some light. It’s growing dark.”
Leek and Ralston installed him in a comfortable chair on the other side of the tea-table. Mrs. Deems was packing Katharine’s arm in ice. The young girl’s face twitched nervously at first, but grew calmer as the cold began to overcome the inflammation.
Old Lauderdale watched the operation with interest and sympathy. No one but Mrs. Deems knew what Katharine must have suffered before she began to feel the effects of the ice. Ralston stood by in silence, looking at Katharine’s face and ready to help if he were needed, which was far from probable. He was still pale, and the passions so furiously roused were still at work within him.He could not help dreaming of his next meeting with Alexander Junior, wondering when it would take place and what would happen; but he had the deep and incomparable satisfaction of an angry man who has dealt his enemy one successful blow. There had been nothing wrong about that blow—it had gone straight from the shoulder, it had not been parried, and it had crushed the mouth he hated. And even afterwards, in the struggle that had followed, Alexander had not thrown him, in spite of size and weight in his favour—these had been matched by youth and quickness. The moment the two men had seen that Katharine was hurt, they had loosed their hold on one another and gone to her, just as the servants had rushed into the room. But John was not satisfied, as Katharine was. He had tasted blood, and he thirsted for more—to have his fight out, and win or be beaten without interference. He meant to win, and he knew he could make even defeat dangerous, for he was quick of his hands and feet, and tough.
Of the three, old Robert was the first to regain his equanimity. Of all the Lauderdale tempers, his was the least hard to rouse and the soonest to expend itself, and therefore the least dangerous. It was commonly said among them that Katharine Ralston, John’s mother, who had hardly ever been seen angry, had the most deadly temper in thefamily, though it was not easy to tell on what the tradition rested. John and Alexander had certainly not the best, and it was safe to predict that when they met again there would be war.
The old gentleman had made very unwonted exertions that afternoon, and before she had finished doing what she could for Katharine’s arm, Mrs. Deems became anxious about him. His cheeks grew hollow, and as the blood sank away from them his face became almost ghastly. Ralston looked at him attentively and then glanced at the nurse. She nodded, and got a stimulant and gave it to him, and felt his pulse, and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“How long is it since the doctor was sent for?” she asked of Ralston, in a low voice.
“It must be twenty minutes, I should think.”
“Oh—longer than that, I’m sure!” exclaimed Katharine, whose suffering lengthened time.
“He’ll be here presently, then,” said Mrs. Deems, somewhat reassured. “How do you feel, Mr. Lauderdale? A little weak?”
“All right,” growled the broken voice. “Take care of Katharine.”
But he did not open his eyes, and spoke rather as though he were dreaming, than as if he were awake.
“Provided he’s at home,” said Ralston, half aloud and thinking of the doctor. “Hadn’t we better send for some one else, too?”
He addressed the question to everybody, in a general way.
“Best wait till the carriage comes back,” suggested Mrs. Deems.
This seemed sensible, and a silence followed which lasted some time. Ralston stood motionless beside the nurse. Katharine had swallowed some tea and lay quietly in her chair, while the skilful woman did her best with the ice and napkins. The old man’s jaw had dropped a little, and he was breathing heavily, as though asleep. Mrs. Deems did not like the sound, for she glanced at him more and more uneasily.
“There, Miss Katharine,” she said, at last, “that’s the best we can do till the doctor comes. I think it’s only the small bone that’s broken, but I don’t like to handle it. I guess it’s better to leave it so till he comes. Best not try to move yourself.”
Then she went round the table to old Lauderdale again, listened attentively to his breathing and felt his pulse.
“Are you asleep, Mr. Lauderdale?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
The jaw moved, and he spoke some unintelligible words.
“I can’t hear what you say,” said Mrs. Deems, bending down anxiously.
He cleared his throat, coughed a little and spoke louder.
“Take care of Katharine,” he said, still without opening his eyes.
“Don’t worry about me, uncle Robert,” said Katharine, looking at him with anxiety.
Both she and Ralston turned enquiring glances to Mrs. Deems. She merely shook her head sadly and said nothing. Ralston beckoned to her to come and speak with him. She poured out another dose of the old man’s stimulant and set it to his lips. He swallowed it rather eagerly and without difficulty. Then she glanced at Ralston and left the room. A moment later he followed her, and found her waiting for him on the other side of the curtain.
“You’re very anxious, aren’t you, Mrs. Deems?” he enquired, in a whisper.
“Well,” she answered, “I suppose I am. I guess he’s had a strain with this trouble. I do wish the doctor’d come, though. It’s a long while since they went for him.”
“Don’t you think he’s in danger now—that he might go off at any moment?” asked Ralston.
“Well—they do—with heart failure. That’s the danger. But it’s a strong family, Mr. Ralston, and he’s been a strong man, old Mr. Lauderdale, though he’s as weak as a babe now. You just can’t tell, in these cases, and that’s the fact.”
There was a sound of wheels. A moment later Leek appeared.
“Doctor Routh can’t be found, sir,” he said. “They’ve been to his house and to two or three other places, but he can’t be found, sir. So I’ve sent for Doctor Cheever. He’s always on call, as they say in this country, sir.”
“Quite right, Leek,” answered Ralston.
He looked round for Mrs. Deems, but she had gone back into the drawing-room. She was evidently very anxious.
RobertLauderdale’scondition was precarious, and Mrs. Deems was well aware of the fact as the minutes passed and neither of the doctors who had been sent for appeared. It was Doctor Routh’s custom to come a few minutes before dinner time, as well as in the morning, and his visit at that hour was almost a certainty. As ill-luck would have it, Doctor Cheever was also out when the carriage reached his house, having been called away a few moments previously. Urgent messages were left for both, and the brougham returned empty a second time. So far as the old gentleman was concerned, Mrs. Deems knew well enough how to do what lay in her power, and she could do nothing more than she had done for Katharine already. But she knew how the least delay in setting a broken bone increased the difficulty and the pain when it came to be done at last, and her anxiety about Robert Lauderdale did not prevent her from feeling nervous about the young girl.
No one spoke in the great drawing-room where the old man and Katharine lay with closed eyes in their chairs, while the nurse and Ralston satwatching them. But when Leek came with the news that Doctor Cheever could not be found, either, Mrs. Deems was roused almost to anger.
“You’ve got to get a surgeon, anyway,” she said, sharply, to Ralston. “If you don’t, they’ll have a bad time when it comes to setting her arm. Mr. Lauderdale I can manage, perhaps, till the doctor comes, but I’m no bone-setter.”
Ralston left the room, took the carriage, and went himself in search of a surgeon, and returned with one in less than a quarter of an hour. A few minutes later Doctor Routh appeared, and last of all came young Doctor Cheever. Then everything was done quickly and well. The three practitioners understood one another without words, and the machinery of the great house of the old millionaire did their bidding.
But Doctor Routh shook his head when he was alone with John Ralston half an hour later.
“I don’t like the look of things,” he said. “Of course, there’s no telling about you Lauderdales. You’re pretty strong people all round. I don’t want any confidences. I don’t want to know what’s happened. I can see the results, and they’re enough for me. You’re a quarrelsome set, but you’d better have managed to fight somewhere else. I’m afraid you’ve killed him this time. However—there’s no telling.”
“How about Miss Lauderdale?” asked John, anxiously. “How long will she be laid up?”
“Oh—three or four weeks. But they must keep her quiet for a day or two, until the inflammation goes down. When the bone’s begun to heal and the arm’s immobilized, she can be about. It’s no use your staying here. You can’t see either of them. But if I were you—I don’t say anything positive, I’m only giving you a hint—if I were you, I’d be at home this evening. If things get worse, I’ll send for you.”
“Are you going to stay yourself?” asked Ralston.
“Of course. Practically, as far as one can judge, your uncle’s dying. You may just as well be here as any one else. He’s very fond of you, in spite of your little tiff last winter. You’re the only man in the family he’d like to see, and you won’t be in the way.”
It was his manner of putting it. At any other time Ralston would have smiled at the idea of being ‘in the way’ of death.
“I suppose there’s really no hope,” he answered, gravely. “But the only person he’d really wish to have with him is Miss Lauderdale.”
“Well—that’s impossible, my dear boy. She can’t be running about the house in the middle of the night with her arm just broken. It might be dangerous.”
“You’d better not let her know if anything happens, then—or she will.”
John Ralston left the house very reluctantly at last, and returned to his home, feeling broken and helpless, as people who have nervous organizations do feel when they have been under great emotion and are left in anxiety. Naturally enough, Katharine’s present condition was uppermost in his mind, and every step which took him further from her was an added pain. But a multitude of other considerations thrust themselves upon him at the same time, and he asked himself what was to happen on the morrow.
He had made up his mind, before Alexander Junior had left the house, that it was absolutely necessary to put an end to the present situation at once, and to declare his marriage without delay. He had never wished it to be kept a secret, and he had now the best of reasons for insisting that it should be made public. He might have been willing to believe that Katharine’s fall had been an accident, and that her father had not meant to hurt her, but the fact remained that the accident had occurred through his brutal roughness, with the result that John had struck the elder man in the face. It was not safe for Katharine to stay any longer in her father’s house.
On the other hand, it seemed clear that Robert Lauderdale was near his end. It was hardly to be hoped that he could survive the strain of his late fit of passion, weakened as he was and old. EvenDoctor Routh thought it improbable. What would happen if he died that night? If Katharine had to be moved,—she could scarcely stay in the house after the old man was dead,—to whose house should she go? John swore, inwardly, that she should not return to her father’s. And he thought, too, of his next meeting with the latter. Society would be amazed and horrified to hear that they had actually come to blows. Society, especially in our country, detests the idea of personal violence. Its verdict is against any use of such means to settle difficulties. Society, therefore, must be kept in ignorance of what had happened. No one had seen the blow, not even Katharine, who had just fallen to the floor. She alone had seen John and her father struggling, for they had loosed their hold on seeing that she was hurt, and the servants had found them bending over her. Consequently, a great part of what had happened would be kept secret. Robert Lauderdale would not speak of it, and Mrs. Deems was bound to secrecy by her profession. John wondered how Alexander Junior would meet him, however, and whether there was to be any renewal of hostilities.
Altogether, when he let himself into his own house, he was in need of counsel and advice. There was no one but his mother to whom he cared to appeal for either. She had known all along of his devotion to Katharine Lauderdale, though sheknew nothing of the secret marriage. She knew how hard Katharine’s life was made in the girl’s own home, by her father’s determined opposition to the match, and John had told her something of other matters—how old Robert had confided to Katharine what he meant to do with his money, and how her father had tried to force her to betray the confidence. Ralston was puzzled, too, by Alexander Junior’s evident willingness to quarrel with his uncle, or at least by his determination to make no concessions whatever to him, and wondered whether his mother could not suggest some explanation.
Mrs. Ralston was, in some ways, very like her son, and the two understood one another perfectly. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that she had made him like herself, not intentionally, but by force of example, a result very unusual in the relations between mother and son. She was by no means a manlike woman, but she possessed many of the qualities which make the best men. She was fearless and truthful, and she was more than that—she had a man’s sense of honour from a man’s point of view, and admitted to herself that honour was the only religion in which she could believe. Like Katharine, she, the elder Katharine Lauderdale, had been brought up amidst contradictory influences, and had then married the Admiral, a brave officer, a man of considerable scientificattainments, and a determined agnostic, of the school of thirty years ago, when many people believed that science was to bring about a sort of millennium within the next few years. In that direction she went further than her son. Her sense of fairness had shown her how unfair it would be to make an unbeliever of him before he was old enough to judge for himself, and in this idea she had made him go to church like other boys, and had persuaded his father not to talk atheism before him. The result had been to produce, more or less, the state of mind typical in these last years of the century, amongst a certain class of people who are collectively described as cultured, though they cannot always be spoken of individually as cultivated. John felt that he believed in something, but he had not the slightest idea what that something might be, and did not take the smallest trouble to find out. In this respect he differed from Katharine. Under very similar conditions, the young girl vacillated between a set of undefinable but much discussed beliefs, which included pseudo-Buddhism, Psychological Research, the wreck of what was for a few years Theosophy, and the latest discoveries in hypnotism, taken altogether and kneaded into an amorphous mass, on the one hand, while, on the other, she was attracted by the rigid forms of actual Christianity, widely opposed, but nearest in whole-heartedness,which are found in the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic churches. But John’s mother was a peaceable agnostic, who had transferred the questions of right, wrong, and ultimate good before the tribunal of honour which held perpetual session in her heart.
She never discussed such points if she could avoid doing so, and if drawn into discussion against her will, she said frankly that she wished she might believe, but could not. In dealing with the world, her strength of character, her directness and her humanity stood her in good stead. In her heart’s dealings with itself, she thought of Musset’s famous lines—‘If Heaven be void, then we offend no God. But if God is, let God be pitiful!’ And she offended no one, nor desired to offend any. She had in life the advantage, the only one, perhaps, which the agnostic has over the believer—the safety of her own soul was not in the balance when the humanity of others appealed to her own. He who believes that he has a soul to save can be unselfish only with his bodily safety.
Mrs. Ralston was eminently a woman of the world in the best sense of an expression which many think can mean no good. She had never been beautiful and had never been vain, but she had much which attracts as beauty does, and holds as no beauty can. Of the Lauderdales now living, she was undeniably the most gifted. Katharinemight have rivalled her, had she developed under more favourable circumstances. But with the education she had received, good as it had been of its kind, it was not probable that the young girl would grow up into such a woman.
Yet Mrs. Ralston had no accomplishments, in the ordinary sense of the word. Her husband used to say that this was one of her chief attractions in his eyes—he hated women who played the piano, and sang little songs, and made little sketches, for the small price paid by cheap social admiration, and greedily accepted by the performer of such tricks. There were people who did such things well, and whose business it was to do them. Why should any one do them badly? Mrs. Ralston never attempted anything of the sort.
On the other hand, she was well acquainted with a number of modern languages, and knew enough of the classics not to talk about ‘reading Horace in the original Greek,’ which is as much knowledge in that direction, perhaps, as a woman needs, and as most men have occasion to use in daily life. She had read very widely, and her criticism, if not that of pure reason, was that of a clear judgment. She had found out early what most people never learn at all, that she could widen her experience of life vicariously by assimilating that of other people, in fact and even in fiction. Good fiction is very like reality. Bad fiction is generally madeup of fragments of reality unskilfully patched together. She picked out truths wherever she found them, and set them in their places in the body of all truth.
She was, in a way, the least American of all the Lauderdales. She herself would have said, on the contrary, from her own point of view, that she was the most really American in the tribe. She loved the country, she especially loved New York, and she loved her own people better than any other with which she was acquainted. This strong attachment to everything American was in itself contrary to the ideas of most persons with whom she was brought into close relations. What calls itself society, pre-eminently, and numbers itself by hundreds, and shuts itself off as much as possible, requiring those who would be counted with it to pass a special examination in the subjects about which it happens to be mad at the time—Society with a capital letter, in fact, is tired of work, it associates home with hard labour and a bad climate, and Europe with fine weather, idleness, and amusement. ‘They manage those things better in France,’ expresses New York society’s opinion of things in general apart from business. Mrs. Ralston differed from Society, and thought that many things were managed quite as well in America.
“That’s because you’ve been abroad so much, my dear,” said her friends. “Wait till you’velived ten years at a stretch in New York. You’ll think just as we do. You won’t like it half so much. And besides—think of clothes and things!”
Now Mrs. Ralston did think of ‘clothes and things.’ She had never been beautiful, but she had in a high degree the strength and grace distinctive in many of the Lauderdales. She was tall, long-limbed, slight as a girl, at five and forty years of age, less strong than Katharine, perhaps, though that might be doubted, and certainly lighter and much thinner. She, too, was dark—a keen, strong face, like her son’s, with the same bright brown eyes, and the same fine hair, though not nearly so black, but her face was kindlier than his, and far less sad. She had possessed the power of enjoying things for their own sake as long as Mrs. Lauderdale, Katharine’s mother, who had kept her faculty of enjoying the world subjectively, with little interest in it for itself, but with the intensely strong attachment of easily satisfied personal vanity. The difference was, that the one form of enjoyment was doomed to destruction with the beauty which was its source, while the other increased with the ever broadening and deepening humanity in which it found its dominant interest. If Mrs. Lauderdale had been shut off from the gay side of social existence for a time, as Mrs. Ralston had been in the first years of her widowhood, she would have become sour anddiscontented. Mrs. Ralston had seen where the real bitterness of life lay, and the bitterness had appealed to her heart almost as much as ever the sweetness had. She had suffered in some ways much, but not long; she had been disappointed more than once, but had been repaid.
Above all, she was her son’s friend. She had lived a woman’s life, and in him she was living a man’s life, too. She had felt a mother’s fears for him, a mother’s sympathy in his failures, in his downheartedness, in the love for Katharine which had met with such bitter opposition. She had almost known a mother’s despair in believing him lost and truly worthless, and when she had found out her mistake, a mother’s triumph had made her heart beat fast. And little by little through the last months she had seen the man’s real character coming to the surface in its strength and boldness, outgrowing the boyish weakness, the youthful faults that were not vices yet and never would be now, and it was as though the growth had been in her own heart, giving to herself new interest, new life, and new vitality.
And John Ralston had forgotten that one hour in which she had doubted him, though at the time he had found it hard to say that he ever should. She was his best friend and was becoming his closest companion. Even Katharine could not understand him so well, for she knew too littleof the world yet. She had given him her heart, and her sympathy was all his, but neither the one nor the other was yet quite grown.
John and his mother dined alone together that evening, and afterwards went upstairs and sat in a room which was called John’s study, by courtesy, as it had been called the Admiral’s study when his father was alive. It was a quiet, manlike room, with a small bookcase and a large gun-rack, huge chairs covered with brown leather, an unnecessarily large writing-table, a certain number of trophies of the chase, a well-worn carpet and curtains that smelled of cigars. Mrs. Ralston had been accustomed all her life to the smell of tobacco, and rather liked it than otherwise. She settled her graceful figure comfortably in one of the chairs, and Ralston sat down opposite to her in another and began to smoke.
“There’s been a row, mother,” he began. “I couldn’t tell you before the servants, but I’m going to tell you all about it now. I want your advice and your help—all sorts of things of you. I’m rather worried.”
“Do you think I couldn’t see that in your face, Jack?” asked Mrs. Ralston, smiling as she met his eyes. “There’s a certain line in your forehead that always comes when there’s trouble. What is it, boy?”
John told his story briefly and accurately, withoutsuperfluous comment, and as much of what had happened in Katharine’s life as she had confided to him. He made it clear enough that she was being tormented to give up Robert Lauderdale’s secret, and if he dwelt unduly upon any point, it was upon this. Mrs. Ralston listened attentively. When he came to the scene which had taken place on that afternoon, she leaned forward in her chair, breathless with interest.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried. “You always seem to be fighting somebody!”
“Yes—but wasn’t I right, mother?” he asked, quickly. “What could I do? He acted like a madman, and he dragged Katharine from me and whirled her off upon the floor as though he’d been handling a man in a free fight. I couldn’t stand that.”
“No—of course you couldn’t,” answered Mrs. Ralston. “I don’t see what you could have done but hit him, I’m sure. And yet it’s a shocking affair—it is, really. I’m afraid it’s cost uncle Robert his life, poor, dear old man!”
“Poor man!” echoed Ralston, thoughtfully. “Routh didn’t seem to think he could live through the night. We may get word at any moment.”
“The wonder is that he didn’t die then and there. And there’s no one with him, either—Katharine laid up in her room—why didn’t you stay in the house, Jack?”
“Routh wouldn’t let me. He’s there. He told me I should only be in the way and that he’d send for me, if anything happened. It’s an odd thing, mother—but there’s no one to go to uncle Robert but you and I and cousin Emma. He’d have a fit if he saw cousin Alexander. And of course the old gentleman can’t go.” He meant Robert’s brother.
“No—of course not.”
A short silence followed, and Mrs. Ralston seemed to be thinking over the situation.
“Well, Jack,” she said, at last, “what are we going to do? This state of things can’t go on.”
“No. It can’t. It shan’t. And I won’t let it. Mother—you know we talked last winter—you said that if ever I wanted to marry Katharine—wanted to! Well—that we could manage to live here—”
It would be hard to give any adequate idea of the reluctance with which John approached the subject. Short of the consideration of Katharine’s personal safety, which he believed to be endangered by the life she was made to lead, nothing could have induced him to think of laying the burden of his married life upon his mother’s comparatively slender fortune. Although half of it was his, for she had made it over to him by a deed during the previous winter, out of a conviction that he should feel himself to be independent, yet he had neverquite accepted the position, and still regarded all there was as being, morally speaking, her property. But now she met him more than half way.
“Jack,” she said, almost authoritatively, “if Katharine will marry you, marry her to-morrow and bring her here.”
“Thank you, mother,” he answered, and was silent for a moment.
“We can live perfectly well—just as well as we do now. One person more—what difference does it make?”
“It would make a difference—more than you think,” answered John. “But there’s another thing about it, mother—there’s a secret I’ve kept from you for a long time. I must tell you now. You must be the first to know it. But I want to ask you first not to judge what I’ve done until I’ve told you all about it.”
“Is it anything bad, Jack?” asked Mrs. Ralston, with quick anxiety, bending far forward in her chair, while all her expression changed.
“No, mother—don’t be frightened. It’s this. Katharine and I were married last winter.”
“Married!” cried Mrs. Ralston, in amazement. “Married!” she repeated in a tone which showed that she was deeply hurt. “And you did not tell me!”
She said nothing more for a few moments, and John was silent, too, giving her time to recoverfrom her astonishment. She was the first to speak.
“Either Katharine made you marry her, or you must have had some very good reason for doing such a thing, Jack,” she said. “It’s not like you to get married secretly. When was it?”
“It was on that day when I was so unlucky. When I lost my way, and everybody thought I’d been drinking.”
“Jack! Do you mean to say that you had that on your mind, too? Oh, Jack dear, why didn’t you tell me?”
“In the first place, I’d said I wouldn’t. The reasons seemed good then. They haven’t seemed so good since. I’ll tell you the idea in two words. We were to be privately married. Then we were to confide in uncle Robert, expecting that he would find me something to do, that I could do whatever he proposed well enough to earn a living without accepting money as a gift. There was where the disappointment came. I found out afterwards how true what he said was. Everybody’s on the lookout for a congenial occupation that means living out of doors and enjoying oneself. He said there was nothing to be done but to go back to Beman’s and work at a desk for a year. Then he’d push me on. He tried to make me take a lot of money, but I wouldn’t. I’m glad of that, anyhow. So we’ve never said anythingabout it, except to him. But now something must be done.”
“But you could have brought her here any time in these four months—at least, you might have told me and I would have helped you.”
“I know—but then, it would have been a burden on you, as it’s going to be now.”
“A burden! Don’t say such things.”
“Only that now—well—I don’t like to say it, but dear old uncle Robert isn’t going to live long, and then you’ll be rich, compared to what you are now, even if he only leaves you what he’d think a small legacy.”
“Yes—that’s true,” answered Mrs. Ralston, thoughtfully. “Isn’t life strange, Jack?” she continued, after a short pause. “We’re both very fond of him. We shall miss him very much more than we realize. I think either you or I would do anything we could, and risk anything, to save his life—and yet we can’t help counting on the money he’s sure to leave us when he dies. I suppose most people would call it heartless to speak about it, though they’d think about it from morning till night. But I don’t think we’re heartless, do you?”
“No,” answered John, “I don’t. Not that it would be a crime if we were. People are born so, or they aren’t. We can’t all be rough plastered with goodness and stuccoed with virtue on top ofit. We’re natural, that’s all—and the majority of people aren’t. I don’t wish uncle Robert to die, any more than you do, or than any one does, except cousin Alexander. It’s only reasonable for us who are young to think of what we may do when he’s gone, since he’s so old.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” assented Mrs. Ralston. “So you’ve been married all these months! It hurts me a little to think that you shouldn’t have told me. I’d have helped you. I’m sure I could have made it easier. But I see—you were afraid that I should have to go without my toilet water and have to wear ready made gloves, or some such ridiculous thing as that! Married! Well—I’m not exactly sentimental, but I’d rather looked forward to your wedding with Katharine. I always knew you’d marry her in the end, and I liked to think of it. I’m glad, though—I’m glad it’s done and can’t be undone, in spite of her father. Tell me all about it, since you’ve told me everything else.”
It was not a long story—how Katharine had persuaded him, much against his will, how he had found a clergyman willing to perform the ceremony, and how Katharine and he had gone to the church early in the morning.
“And now she is Katharine Ralston, too, like me—and I’ve got a daughter-in-law!” Mrs. Ralston smiled dreamily.
After the first moment of surprise and after the first sharp pain she had felt for her son’s want of confidence in her, as she regarded his secrecy, the news did not seem to disturb her much. For years she had been convinced that Katharine was destined to be her son’s wife, and for many months she had felt sure that, with his nature, his happiness and success in life depended entirely upon his marrying her. She was heartily glad that it had come, though, as she said, she had often looked forward to the wedding as to something very bright in her own existence.
“Jack,” she said, “leave it to me to set matters straight with the rest of the family, will you?”
“Why—mother—if you think you can—of course,” answered Ralston, with some hesitation. “The difficulty will be with cousin Alexander. We’re enemies for life, now.”
“Yes. Until to-day you were only enemies by circumstance. You’ll never be reconciled, now—not completely. You could never spend a night under his roof after what has happened, could you? Of course you can say to him that you acted under the impression that he was—well—what shall I say?—that he was treating Katharine brutally, but that if he wasn’t, you apologize for striking him. But after all, that’s only quibbling with honour. It wouldn’t satisfy him and wouldn’t be very dignified for you, it seems to me. And he’s not the man who would ever put out his hand and forgive you frankly and say that by-gones should be by-gones.”
“Scarcely!” assented Ralston. “Not at all that kind of man. By the bye, mother,—forgive me for going off to something else,—what do you think is the reason why he seems so ready to offend uncle Robert, instead of bowing down to him, as they all do? He wants the money more than any one. He can’t suppose that if uncle Robert were to make a new will now, after what has happened, he’d leave him anything. You should have heard the old gentleman swear at him, and turn him out of the house!”
“I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Ralston, thoughtfully, “unless he wants to irritate uncle Robert, and drive him into making some extraordinary will that wouldn’t hold. Then he’d get it broken. You see, Jack, my uncle Alexander, who’s uncle Robert’s own brother, and I, who am the only child of uncle Robert’s other brother, are the next of kin. If there were no will, or if the will were broken, we two should get the whole fortune, equally divided, half and half, and none of the rest would get anything. Mr. Brett told me that a long time ago. As it is, we don’t know how the money’s left, though uncle Robert has often told me that I should have a big share.”
“Katharine knows,” said John. “That’s the reason her father leaves her no peace.”
“And she’s not told you, Jack?”
“Mother! Do you suppose Katharine would betray a confidence like that? You don’t know her!”
“No, dear. I didn’t seriously think she would. But then—she’s your wife, Jack. She might tell you what she wouldn’t tell any one else, and yet not think that she were giving away a secret. Most women would, I think.”
“Katharine’s not like most women,” said Ralston, gravely.
A silence followed, during which his mother watched his face, and her own grew beautiful with mother’s pride in man, and woman’s gladness for woman’s dignity.
When Ralston and his mother separated, they had come to a clear understanding about the future. They had decided to say nothing about the marriage until Katharine had recovered sufficiently to leave Robert Lauderdale’s home, and then to establish her in their house, and tell the world that there had been a private wedding. If the old gentleman died,—and they were obliged to take this probability into consideration,—Katharine would have to be brought at once. If anything, this would make matters simpler. The household would be in mourning, Katharine would be unable to go out or to appear at all for some time, and society would easily believe that during the two or three weeks which must pass in this way, the marriage might have taken place.
Noone slept much during the early part of the night in the millionaire’s home. Katharine lay long awake, prevented from sleeping partly by the painful numbness in her bandaged arm, and partly by the ever recurring picture of the day’s doings which came back to her unceasingly in the stillness. Just as the picture was growing shadowy and dreamlike, some slight sound would break it and recall her to herself,—a distant foot-fall on the stairs, the opening and shutting of a door near her own, or even the occasional roll of a belated carriage in the street.
There was a soft light in the sick man’s room. The white walls and hangings took up and distributed the whiteness, so that even the remotest corners were not dark. Robert Lauderdale lay in his bed, breathing softly, his eyes not quite closed, and his bony hands lying like knotty twigs upon the white Shetland wool that covered his body. For they were like wood or stone, yellowish in colour, rough in shape, and yet oddly polished by time, as some old men’s hands are. His snowy beard and hair, too, were almost sandy again, as theyhad been in youth, by contrast with the delicate linen and the snow-white, sheeny material that was everywhere.
He was not sleeping with his eyes open, as dying persons sometimes sleep a whole day. Nor was his mind wandering. Doctor Routh could see that well enough, as he sat there hour after hour, watching his old friend. The doctor wished that he might really fall asleep, and let his weary old heart gather strength to live a little longer. But even Routh was giving up hope. The machine was running down, and the game was played out. There was not one chance in a hundred that Robert Lauderdale could live another twelve hours. From time to time the doctor gave him a little stimulant, but the failing heart reacted less and less.
Between three and four o’clock in the morning, the old man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and his sunken eyes met Routh’s in a long look—the look which those who have watched by the dying know very well.
“Routh,” said the hoarse voice, with solemn slowness, “I’m going to give up the ghost.”
Still for a few seconds the deep, mysterious, wondering look continued in the hollow eyes. Then he turned his head slowly back to the original position. The words struck the doctor as singular. He did not remember that he had ever heard a patient use just that phrase, though so manypersons when near the point of death give warning of their end in some such expression.
“You’re not going yet,” the doctor answered, mechanically, and he held a glass to the old man’s lips.
“I don’t want any false hope. I know it’s coming,” answered the dying man, speaking against the rim of the little tumbler.
Routh stood up to his vast height, and then his nervous, emaciated frame bent like a birch sapling in a gale as he leaned over the bed, and listened to the fluttering beats of the heart that had almost done its work.
“Shall I call anybody?” he asked. “Is there anything you want done?”
“How long do you think it will be?” asked Robert Lauderdale, trying to speak more rapidly.
“Half an hour, perhaps,” answered Routh.
In their voices there was that indescribable tone with which the words of brave men are uttered in the face of death. No one who has ever heard it can forget it.
“I’d like to say good-bye to Katharine.” He paused and drew breath heavily. “Will it hurt her?” he asked, presently.
“No,” answered the doctor, seeing the look of anxiety which accompanied the question.
A broken arm seemed a very slight matter to Routh, compared with the wish of his old friend.He did not hesitate, but touched the bell for Mrs. Deems, who appeared at the door.
“He wishes to see Miss Lauderdale,” he whispered. “You must help her to wrap herself up, and bring her here.”
Mrs. Deems nodded, and looked at the doctor with the grave glance of enquiry which means the one question, ‘Life or death?’ And Routh answered with the other glance, which means ‘Death.’ Mrs. Deems nodded again, and left the room. Routh returned to the bedside.
“When she comes—leave us alone—please,” said the sick man.
There was silence again for a few minutes. Again the lids were half closed, and the old eyes stared out beneath them into the soft whiteness, and perhaps beyond. But the beard moved a little from time to time, as though the lips were framing words, and Routh knew that the end was near.
Then Katharine came, waxen pale, her raven hair coiled loosely upon her shapely head, her creamy throat collarless, her left arm and hand free, the rest of her wrapped and draped in soft, dark things. She, too, looked up into Routh’s face with the glance of the question, ‘Life or death?’ And again the answer was, ‘Death.’
But Mrs. Deems had told her. Her eyes said that she knew, and her face told that she felt. Robert Lauderdale’s great head turned again,slowly and painfully, towards her. She bent down to him, and the doctor left the room, taking the nurse with him. He did not quite close the door. He could almost hear, beforehand, the low cry the young girl would utter when the end came.
Katharine bent down and laid her hand softly upon the old man’s brow.
“Uncle dear—you’re not going,” she said. “You’ll get well, after all.”
“I’m going to give up the ghost,” he said, as he had said to Doctor Routh.
“No—no—” But she could not find anything to say, so she smoothed his forehead.
She had never seen any one die, but she was not afraid. That is a matter of temperament, and neither man nor woman should be blamed who can not bear to feel a soul parting and see a body left behind. Katharine felt only that she would keep him if she could. She knelt down and took one of his hands, his left. It was cold and hard to touch, with little warmth in it, like that of a statue in a garden when the sun has gone down.
“I want to say good-bye,” said the hoarse voice, just above a whisper.
“Yes—I’m here,” answered Katharine, and there was silence again, while she gently caressed the cold hand.
“Routh said half an hour.”
The mysterious, dying eyes wandered a little,and then sought the white clock on the mantelpiece.
“Can’t see—what time it is,” said the rough whisper.
“Twenty minutes to four,” answered Katharine, glancing round quickly, and then looking again at his face.
“Poor child—little girl—ought to be in bed.” The words came indistinctly, and the breathing grew more heavy.
Then the beard moved with unspoken words, and Katharine watched, hearing nothing. She had been a little confused at first, but now she recollected that she should ask if there were anything she could do. She could not tell whence the recollection came. She had perhaps got it from a book read long ago. He might want something. He might die unsatisfied. She made anxious haste to ask the question.
“Is there anything I can do? Any one else you want, uncle?” she enquired, speaking close to his ear.
The breathing, almost stertorous now, ceased for an instant. He seemed to be trying to collect strength to say something.
“Your father—tell him from me—bear no malice—” He could get no further.
“Yes—yes—don’t think about it—don’t distress yourself,” said Katharine, quickly. “I’ll tell him.”
Again the heavy breathing blew the stiff white hairs of his beard and moustache, as his chin, raised in the effort of speaking, fell suddenly to his breast again. The breath raised the coarse white and sandy hairs and blew them to right and left. The eyelids drooped. Katharine wondered whether old men always died like that. Then the thought that he was really dying put on its reality for the first time, and struck her suddenly in the heart, and the pain she felt struck back instantly into her helpless, bandaged arm.
“Is it God?” asked the dying man, suddenly, in a louder voice and quite clearly.
Again, in the effort, his chin rose and fell. There was something awful in the question, asked with the strength of the death struggle. Then came more words, indistinct and broken.
“I shall be—a little boy again.” So much Katharine understood of what she heard.
Her tears gathered. Some of them fell upon the yellow, branch-like hand. Then she bent close to his ear again.
“There is God,” she said. “God will take you, dear—He is taking you now. Think of Him. You’re dying.”
Her tears broke her voice, as raindrops break the sighing of the breeze in summer. She wept, though she would not, and her pale face was wet. And his heavy breath filled her ears till it seemedto roar like a furnace—the furnace of life burning itself out, where all was still and white. She said prayers that took meaning in her heart and lost it as they passed her lips, meeting the great doubt on the threshold of her soul. She did not know what she said. It was not much, nor eloquent.
“I believe—God—” Then a great sigh blew the white hairs to right and left.
The breathing grew more slow, longer, harder, a great breathing of sighs. Death had life by the throat. In awe, the girl looked into the ancient face, and the stream of tears trickled and ran dry. Once more the voice burst out, articulate but rattling.
“Domine—quo—vadis?”
The great head was raised, and the mysterious eyes were wide, gazing at her, waiting upon the answer, waiting to die. She remembered the answer.
“Tendit ad astra.”
He heard it, and died.
Katharine had never seen death, but she knew him, as we all know him. Twice, thrice, the broad chest heaved under the soft, feathery woollen, and the after-breath of the storm quivered in the frost of his beard. But the girl knew he was dead. Then came her low, trembling cry, the echo of death’s voice from living heartstrings.
It was not a great sorrow, though Katharine had been very fond of the old man and was very grateful to him, as well she might be. She was, perhaps, as closely attached to him as is possible in such a relationship between the very young and the very old. But although her tears flowed plentifully, it was not one of those deep-gripped wrenches that twist the heart and leave it shapeless and bruised for a time—or forever. Hearts, too, are less often broken by those who go than by those who stay with us. The young girl’s grief was sincere, and hurt her, but it was not profound. They led her away, and when the door of her own room closed behind her, the tears were already drying on her cheeks.
Death brings confusion and leaves it in his path. Many hours passed before there was quiet in the great house, but Katharine slept, exhausted at last by all she had endured that day, beyond the possibility of being kept awake by mere bodily pain. Late in the morning her mother came to her bedside. Katharine had been awake a quarter of an hour, and had been hesitating as to whether she should ring or not. Her arm hurt her, and the hand that had been so white was purple against the tight white bandages. She longed to tear them off and have rest, if only for a moment.
“Poor uncle Robert!” said Mrs. Lauderdale, seating herself, after kissing the young girl’s forehead.
She was a little pale with natural excitement, and she was certainly not looking her best in a black frock which was far from new, but which had to do duty until she could have mourning made. Katharine said nothing in answer, but nodded her head on the pillow. She wondered whether her mother knew that she had broken her arm. But in this she did her an injustice.
“Was your wrist much hurt?” asked Mrs. Lauderdale, almost immediately.
Then she caught sight of the splints and bandages and the purple fingers, as Katharine lifted the coverlet a little. Instantly her face changed.
“Heavens, child! What have you done to yourself?” she cried, springing to her feet and bending over to look.
“Papa broke my arm,” answered Katharine, quietly.
“Your father—broke your arm?” Mrs. Lauderdale spoke with the utmost astonishment, mingled with unbelief.
“Why, yes. Didn’t you know? It was last night—that—all the confusion and trouble have killed poor uncle Robert. Didn’t papa tell you anything?” Katharine stared at her mother.
“He came home and said he had hurt his mouth. I could not get him to say what had happened to him. To tell the truth, I was rather worried. It’s so unlike him to hurt himself, or have anyaccident. He said it was a ridiculous affair, and that he didn’t choose to be laughed at, and begged me to say nothing more about it. You know how he is. But he never mentioned you.”
Katharine said nothing for a few moments. She wondered how wise it might turn to be to tell her mother all that had happened. But the instinct of child to mother overcame hesitation. Her mother had begun to take her part again, and the broken sympathy was being restored by bits and pieces, as it were.
“There was a terrible scene yesterday afternoon—late,” said Katharine. “He came here, and Jack was with me in the library.”
“Jack! Oh, Katharine! I wish you wouldn’t see him in this way—”
“It’s no use wishing, mother,” answered the young girl. “I made up my mind long ago. Well, Jack was with me in the library, when Leek came in and said that papa was here. I saw him in the drawing-room, so that they shouldn’t meet. I forget all he said. The usual thing, about being disobedient and undutiful. He was awfully angry because I got out yesterday morning. So I just went over one or two of the things he had done to hurt me. By the bye—I ought to say, that just before he came Jack had been telling me that some one had been to Mr. Beman, and had said that Jack drank, and was dissipated, and wasaltogether rather a good-for-nothing. And Mr. Beman had seen Jack the next day, doing nothing, because he had nothing to do just then, and with his head in his hand. So Mr. Beman took it into his foolish old head that Jack had been drinking, and told him to go at the end of the month. Now I knew it must be papa who had spoken, so I accused him of it, and he admitted that it was true, and began abusing Jack like a pick-pocket, at the top of his lungs. Jack heard what he said, for the door was open, and I don’t blame him for coming in. They threatened each other, and got so angry, and I thought they’d kill each other, so, like a silly idiot as I was, I threw my arms round Jack’s neck as though I meant to protect him. Papa’s so much bigger, you know. Well, he—papa, I mean—lost his head and got me by the arm. He’s horribly strong. He got me by the right arm a little above the wrist, and threw me half across the room, and when I tried to help myself up—”
“Do you mean to say that he threw you down?” cried Mrs. Lauderdale, really horrified.
“Yes—of course! With all his might, half across the room, so that I rolled on the floor. Well, when I tried to get up, my arm was broken, and Jack was wrestling with papa. I couldn’t help screaming when I fell, and that roused the house, first the servants, and then uncle Robert, in those queer white velvet clothes he wears—don’t you know? Jack told what had happened, and uncle Robert was furious and ordered papa to leave the house—he swore awfully—I never saw him so angry. So papa went. But it was the rage, I suppose, and the exertion—they used up all the dear old man’s strength—”
She stopped speaking suddenly as her thoughts went back to the dead man, and her expression changed. Her eyes filled very slowly with tears, that would not quite brim over, but dimmed her sight. When she turned her head again, she saw that her mother had hidden her face in her hands upon the edge of the bed. Katharine did not understand. A convulsive sob shook the shapely shoulders, and the golden hair trembled.
“Mother dear—don’t cry so!” said Katharine, putting out her left hand and touching the fair head with a caress. “I know—you were very fond of him—of course—”
Mrs. Lauderdale looked up suddenly with streaming eyes and a face drawn in pain. She shook her head slowly.
“It’s not that, child—it’s not that! It’s the other—”
“About me, dearest?” asked Katharine. “Don’t cry about me. I’m all right. It hurts a little now, but it will soon be over.”
“No—child—you—you don’t understand!” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, with trembling lips.
A passionate burst of weeping hindered her from saying more. Katharine tried to soothe her with voice and hand, but it was of no use. Then she just let her hand rest there, touching her mother’s cheek, and lay quite still, waiting till the storm should pass. It lasted long, for in the midst of her sorrow and indignation there was the acute consciousness of the part she herself had borne in all that had happened.
“It’s my fault, it’s all my fault!” she sobbed, at last.
“No, mother—why? I don’t understand! Try and tell me what you mean.”
Little by little the sobs subsided and Mrs. Lauderdale dried her eyes. Katharine really did not at all understand what was taking place. She thought her mother must be hysterical. Dark women rarely understand the moods of fair ones.
“You don’t know how dreadful it seems to me,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, as she grew calmer. “It seems—somehow—awful! There’s no other word. Your father treating you in such a way—and fighting with Jack! But it isn’t only that—it’s deeper. I’ve done very wrong myself. I’ve been very bad—much worse than you know—”
“You, bad? Oh, mother! You’re losing your head! Don’t say such absurd things. You—well, you did go against Jack and me rather suddenlylast winter, and I couldn’t quite forgive you at the time. But it’s going to be all right now.”