As soon as her actual duties were over, Katherine said respectfully:
"If Your Ladyship has no more need of me, I must get some letters finished before the post goes."
And when a nod of assent was given, she quietly left the room.
So Gerard Strobridge knew he would see her no more that night; and there would be a boring dinner with the parson, and his wife and daughter, to be got through, and on the morrow he was returning to town!
For the first time in their lives he felt resentful towards his aunt. That Seraphim should not have been more sympathetic, and have made some opportunity for him to talk again to Katherine, was quite too bad!
She, who usually understood all his moods and wants! Her silence upon the subject of her secretary, ever since her return from that drive, was ominous, now that he thought about it. Evidently he need hope for no further coöperation from her, and because he was feeling so deeply, he could not act in the casual and intelligent way to secure his ends which he would have used on other occasions. So the incredibly wearisome evening passed. The guests left early, and Lady Garribardine went gladly to bed, leaving her nephew and Colonel Hawthorne to drink in the New Year together – the New Year of 1912.
But the old gentleman was fatigued with his day's shooting and when half-past eleven came he was glad to slink off to his friendly couch.
Thus Gerard was alone.
He lit a cigar and stretched himself in a huge leather armchair, an untouched drink close at hand.
The house was quite silent. He had told Bronson that he would put out the lights in the smoking-room when they left. No one was about and not a breath of wind stirred a tree outside.
He sat there for some minutes – and then his heart began to beat violently.
Whose was that soft footfall directly overhead? With the departure of the grandchildren from the old nurseries there was no one left in the wing but Katherine Bush!
All sorts of visions came to him; she had not yet gone to bed – perhaps she, too, was waiting for the New Year?
He got up and listened, his pulses bounding so that he seemed to hear his heart thumping against his side.
There was the sound again!
It was not to be endured. Fierce emotion shook him, and at last all restraint fell from him, and passion became lord.
Then he extinguished the lights and softly crept up the stairs.
CHAPTER XVIII
Katherine had that instant removed her dressing-gown after the brushing of her hair, which now hung in two long plaits. She was in the act of slipping into bed. The carpet in the passage was thick, and she heard no sounds, so that the first thing which startled her was the actual opening of the door of her room, which it had not been her custom to lock.
For one second a blind terror shook her, and then all her nerve and resource returned. She stood there magnificent in her anger and resentment. She had no female instinct instantly to seize the dressing-gown to cover herself. She stood straight up in her cheap nainsook nightgown, all the beautiful lines of her tall, slender figure showing in the soft shaded light.
Gerard Strobridge was like a man drunk with wine. His eye flamed and he trembled with excitement. The bed, a small old wooden one, was between them with a writing-table at the foot. So that to reach her he must go round by the fire.
This he did, while he whispered hoarsely:
"Katherine – I love you – madly – I had to come to you, darling girl!" Then he stopped within a few feet of her, literally sobered by the expression of her face. It showed not an atom of fear – rather the proud contempt of an empress ordering the death of a presuming slave.
She did not speak for a moment; she seemed to draw up to her full height, and even to grow taller; she was only an inch or two less than himself. And if the scorn of eyes could kill, he would have lain there dead.
"Darling!" he cried, and went forward to take her in his arms.
She stepped back only one step and spoke at last, her deep tones low.
"If you dare to touch me, I will kill you – I am not afraid of you, you know – You are only a beast, after all – and I am the man with the club."
"Beautiful fiend!" – but he hesitated – He was no coward, and cared not a jot for her threats, only his fastidiousness was assailed by the thought of a struggling, fighting woman in his embrace, when he had come there for – Love! It would be wiser, perhaps, to cajole her. He was too intoxicated with passion to realise that it would also seem more dignified!
"Katherine, do not be so horribly unkind, darling girl! I love you wildly, I tell you, and I want you to be mine."
"What for?" She was perfectly calm still, and never moved from her place.
"That we may be happy, you sweet thing. I want to hold you in my arms and caress you, and make us both forget that there is anything else in the whole wide world but our own two selves!"
And exalted by this enchanting picture, he drew a little closer and held out his hands.
"I tell you plainly – if you come one step nearer to me, you do so at your own risk. I will tear the flesh from your face with my nails, and strangle you." Her voice was absolutely deadly in its icy intentness. "I am not weak, and I despise your mean action in coming here to-night too greatly to have any fear."
The breeding in him responded to this sting.
"My mean action – !" but his voice faltered a little, and she interrupted him before he could argue further.
"Yes – I am a dependent in your aunt's house here, earning my living, and you chance my being disgraced and sent away for your own shamefully selfish ends. Indeed, you are teaching me the lesson of the depth to which an aristocrat can sink."
He drew back, and some of the fire died out of him. Her words cut him like a knife, but he was too overwrought with emotion yet to give in and leave her.
"Katherine – my darlings – forgive me!" he cried, brokenly. "I admit I am mad with love, but you shall never suffer for it – give yourself to me, and I will take you away from all drudgery. You shall have a house where you like. I will protect you and teach you all you desire to know. You shall lead an intellectual life worthy of your brain. We can travel in Italy and France, and I shall worship and adore you – Katherine, my sweet!"
The tones of his cultivated voice vibrated with deep feeling, and he looked all that was attractive as he stood there in his faultless evening clothes, pleading to her as though he were but a humble suppliant for grace, and she a queen.
But Katherine was not in the least touched, although her awakened critical faculties realised fully the agreeable companion he would probably make as a lover, with his knowledge of the world, and his polished homage to women. There was something fierce and savagely primitive at this moment in her faithfulness to Algy. For all the strongly sensuous side of her nature, any other man's caresses appeared revolting to her. It was the man, not men, who could arouse her passionate sensibility.
"You ask me to be your mistress, then – is that it?" her voice was coldly level, like one discussing a business proposition.
His whole face lit up again – there was hope perhaps after all.
"Of course, darling – What else?"
"It is an insult – but I am not concerned with that point. My views are perhaps not orthodox. I am merely interested in my side of the affair, which is that I have not the slightest wish for the post. I will be no man's mistress – do you hear?"
"Katherine, can I not make you love me, sweet?"
She laughed softly. It was a dangerous sound, ominous as that which a lioness might make when she purrs.
"Not if you stayed on your knees for a thousand years! I have loved one man in my life with the kind of love which you desire – I know exactly what it means, and probably I shall never love another in that way – I sacrificed him for my idea. I had will enough to leave him, feeling for him what perhaps you feel for me. So do you think, then, that you could move me in the least! – You whom I do not love, but – despise!"
All this time, she stood there utterly desirable in her thin raiment, which she had never sought to cover. Indeed, now that she saw that she was going to win the game, she took joy that he should understand what he had lost, so that his punishment should be the more complete: there was nothing pitiful or tender about Katherine Bush. Her strange, strong character had no mercy for a man who had shown her that he was not master of himself – above all things, she admired self-control.
Gerard Strobridge suffered, as she spoke, as perhaps he had never done in his life before. If he had been one whit less of a gentleman, he would not now have conquered himself; he would have seized her in his arms, and made her pay for her scalding words. The effect of tradition for centuries, however, held him even beyond the mad longing which again thrilled through his blood as he looked at her.
He flung himself into the armchair and buried his head in his hands.
"My God!" he cried, hoarsely, "how you can torture – can you not? I knew when I watched you in church that you could be cruel as the grave – but I thought to-day when you looked at me there in my aunt's sitting-room, that to me perhaps you meant to be kind; your face is the essence of passion – it would deceive any man."
"Then it is well that you should be undeceived – and that we should understand one another. What did you think you would gain by coming here to-night? – My seduction? And some pleasure for yourself." She was horribly scornful again. "You never thought of me – It does not matter what my personal views are about such relations; you do not know them, and I do not believe that I have given you reason to think that you might treat me with want of respect; but your action shows that you do not respect me, I can only presume, because of my dependent position, and because you despise my class – since you would certainly not have behaved so to any of your aunt's guests."
He writhed a little at her taunt, and his face was haggard now as he looked up at her.
"There is no use in my asking you to forgive me – but it is not true that I do not respect you, or that I have acted as I have for the reason that I despise your class – That is a hateful thought. I came here to-night because I am a man – and was simply mad with longing for you after the tantalization of the last two days, and never being able to speak a word to you." His breath came rather fast, and he locked together his hands. "I love you – I would have come had you been the highest lady in the land. My action was not premeditated – it was yielding to a sudden strong temptation because I was sitting there in the smoking-room thinking of you, and I heard the noise of your soft footfall overhead, and suddenly all the furious passion in me would no longer be denied and cried out for you!"
He rose and came over to her, and sitting down on the edge of the bed, he held out his arms to her in supplication. "It swept away all the civilisation in me. Nature breaks asunder all barriers in the best of us at times – and you are so adorably dear – Katherine – darling – I have done this thing, and now it is too late for me to plead for your pardon – but I love you more wildly than I have ever loved a woman in my life. – You could make me your slave, Katherine, if you would only give yourself to me. I would chase away the memory of that other and teach you all the divine things of love there are to learn in life."
She moved and stood by the fireplace. She was shivering a little, half from cold.
"I forbid you to say another word on this subject," she said gravely, but with less of her former scorn. "Neither you nor any other man could rob me of the memory of my once dear lover – but I would rather not hate you – so I appeal to that part of you that I still think is a gentleman to go at once out of my room."
He followed her to the fire almost overcome again by the picture she presented in her straight thin garment, virgin white and plain. He wildly desired to unplait that thick soft hair and bury his face in it – he longed to hold her to his heart. But he restrained himself.
There was complete silence for a second or two, and then across the park in the church tower, midnight pealed, tolling the dying year.
They both lifted their heads to listen, unconsciously counting the strokes, and then when the last one struck, and the joyous bells rang out, something in their sound melted the anger and contempt in Katherine's soul. She looked at him, his refined, distinguished face very pale and utterly dejected now. And the broad-minded, level-headed judgment which she brought to bear on all matters told her that she had no right to great anger and made her realise for the first time that she was actually to blame perhaps for this situation having developed since she had not sufficiently considered what might be the possible result of arresting a man's attention through the eyes and ears.
"Listen," she said gently, holding out her beautiful hand. "Here is the New Year – I do not want to begin it with any hard thoughts – After all, I understand you – and I forgive you. I believe I have been in some measure to blame. I cannot ever be your love – but I am very lonely – won't you be my true knight and friend?"
She had touched the deepest chord of his being. The tears sprang to his fine grey eyes; he knelt down upon the rug and bent and kissed her knees.
"Indeed, I will – I swear it, darling – And whatever suffering it brings to me, I will never make you regret your sweet forgiveness of me, and your resumed trust in me to-night."
She leaned forward, and for an instant smoothed his thick brown hair in blessing.
He took her hands and kissed the palms, and then without another word, he rose and went towards the door. There he turned and looked at her, standing in the firelight, the dark oak-panelled room only lit by the one small electric-shaded lamp by the bed. He looked and looked, as though his famished eyes must surfeit themselves with the vision. It was fair enough to see!
And then he noiselessly quitted the room and went on down the stairs to the smoking-room as silently as he had come.
CHAPTER XIX
The months went by. It was Easter time before Katherine Bush again saw Gerard Strobridge. He went off to Egypt about the middle of January, and Lady Garribardine was up in London for a few days alone before he left seeing her grandchildren off. Katherine missed him, and unconsciously his influence directed her studies. She remembered isolated sentences that he had used in their talk that day in the picture gallery. He had certainly shown a delightfully cultivated mind, and she wished that things had not reached a climax so soon between them. She regretted deeply that she had caused him any pain and determined never to deviate from loyal friendship so that he should have no cause to suffer further. He had not forgotten about the books, and she was now the proud possessor of several volumes on the Renaissance, including, of course, Symonds and Pater. They opened yet another door in her imagination, and on days when she was not very busy, she would wander in the picture gallery and go over all the examples of the Italian masters again and again, and try to get the atmosphere of the books.
Lady Garribardine watched her silently for the first few weeks after her nephew went, without increasing their intimacy. Her shrewd mind was studying Katherine, to make sure that she had made no mistake about her. Such a very deep creature might have sides which would make her regret having dropped the reserve which, accompanied by a high-handed kindliness, she showed to all her dependents.
The great event of New Year's day had been the advent of the grey wig so beautifully arranged with her ladyship's own snow-white hair, that the whole thing seemed growing together! With her dark, sparkling eyes and jet brows, she now looked an extremely handsome old lady; and Katherine who did not see her until the afternoon when they were alone, was unable to keep a faint, almost inaudible "Ah!" of admiration from escaping, when she first saw her. She was furious with herself and bit her lip, but Lady Garribardine smiled.
"You would say something, Miss Bush? Pray speak."
Katherine coloured a little; she felt this was one of those slips which she very seldom made, but frankness being always her method, she answered quietly:
"I only thought how beautiful Your Ladyship looked – just like the Nattier in the gallery."
"You find my grey locks an improvement, then?"
"Oh, yes!"
"The Nattier was an ancestress of mine. – A French entanglement of a great great-grandfather, which ended, as these affairs are seldom fortunate enough to do, in a marriage all correct with the church's blessing – the husband being most conveniently killed in a duel with another man! – So the then d'Estaire brought her here to Blissington, where she was shockingly bored, poor thing! and died a year or two after producing an heir for him. When I was young, I always went to fancy balls as the charming creature – it is amusing that you see the likeness even now."
"It is very striking."
"I always felt a great pity for her – transplanted from Versailles and all the joys of the Court, to this quiet, English home – Have you ever read Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son, girl?"
Katherine had not.
"Well, then, you had better read them; there is a good edition in the library. They are, you will find, the most instructive things in English literature. If I had had a son, I would have brought him up upon them. I was reminded of them now by thinking of my twice great-grandmother. Chesterfield always quotes the French nobles of that date as the ne plus ultra of good breeding, and rather suggests that the Englishmen were often boors or blockheads. So although d'Estaire may have satisfied her, the general company could not have done so, one feels."
"I would like to see Versailles," Katherine ventured to remark.
"You will some day – I may go to Paris after Easter – one must have clothes."
Katherine realised this necessity – her own wardrobe would require replenishing by the springtime, but she had not dreamed of Paris.
Her immediate action after this was to get from the library the Chesterfield Letters, the reading of which she always afterwards looked back upon as being the second milestone in her career. She devoured them, and learned countless advantageous lessons of the world therefrom. The first and chief being the value of graciousness and good manners. She now began to realise that her own were too sullen and abrupt, and a marked change in them was soon perceivable to anyone who would have cared to notice. This was during the time when she was still only on probation in her employer's favour, but it was not lost upon that astute lady; nothing ever escaped her eagle eye. And she often smiled to herself quietly when she watched the girl.
Now and then they would go up to the London house for a few days and "picnic," as Her Ladyship called it, which meant taking only her personal footman to wait on her, and a maid or two for the house. Katherine went with her nearly always, and was sent shopping and allowed to go and see her family, if she wished.
But she did not wish, and always met Matilda at some place for tea. The gulf between them was growing wider and wider, and while Katherine was far more agreeable than of old, Matilda stood in much greater awe of her.
She felt, although she would not have owned it for the world, that her sister had really gone into another class, and she was not quite comfortable with her. Katherine seemed to look more stately and refined each time, and Matilda gloried and grieved in secret over it.
Gladys accompanied her on one occasion.
"I suppose Kitten will be marrying one of them gentlemen, some day," Matilda said on the way home to Laburnum Villa. "You'd never know she wasn't someone tip-top now, would you, Glad?"
"No – she is quite like any of our 'real thing' lot who came into Ermantine's – they're dowdy, but you'd know they were it."
"Well, I hope she'll be happy." Matilda sighed doubtfully.
"Yes, she will," Gladys returned a little bitterly. "Katherine would never do anything to get herself into a mess; she is quite just, and she can be awfully kind – but she looks to the end of things and doesn't care a rush for anyone but sticks to what she wants herself. I tell you what, Tild, I used to hate her – but I don't now – I respect Katherine. She is so perfectly true."
"She seems to talk different, don't you notice, Glad?"
"She always did – but now more than ever; she is like our best lot – I suppose she did learn something extra at those evening classes she was so fond of?"
Matilda shook her head regretfully.
"I never did hold to them – she'd have been happy at home now and engaged to Charlie Prodgers all comfortable, but for that nonsense."
"Oh! but, Tild, I expect what she has got is better even than that."
"What! to be a grand lady's servant, Glad! My! I'd far rather be Mrs. Prodgers, junior, a lady myself, and keep my own general! Mabel's forever saying Katherine can't be anything but a slave – And Mabel knows – her cousin's aunt's daughter who married that gentleman with the large city business was presented at Court!"
But Mrs. Bob Hartley only sighed. Life was growing particularly grim for her just now. She felt horribly ill, and had to stand about all day, and conceal every sensation to keep up the appearances that all was fair.
Katherine reflected deeply upon the moral of the situation, after her sisters had left her. What martyrs many women were in life! and what hideous injustice it all seemed – and more than ever she saw how merciless nature is to weaklings.
About three weeks before Easter, Lady Garribardine was alone down at Blissington; she had lately taken to having her secretary with her sometimes on her frequent visits to her cottagers.
She would start in a rough, short suit, and a pair of thick boots, with a serviceable walking-stick, and would tramp for miles carrying a basket, in which were sweets and medicines. She was worshipped by her people, arrogant, commanding, kindly great lady!
On one of these occasions they had the motor to meet them at the end of the home village, and drove six or seven miles to another in her outlying property.
She was very gracious as they went along.
"What books have you been reading lately, girl? If they are the Chesterfield Letters I think I may tell you that you have profited by them. Your manners generally are greatly improved."
Katherine reddened with pleasure.
"I have read them over and over again. I have found them more instructive to me than any other book."
"In my young days they were considered highly immoral and pernicious, by most of the canting Victorian hypocrites – when, of course, everyone of the world knew that Chesterfield's advice on all points was the most sensible and sagacious that could be given – but hypocrisy had risen to a colossal height in the sixties and seventies."
"I suppose so."
"Nowadays not one person in ten thousand reads them, more's the pity. If the young men with their great personal beauty – which sport and suitable feeding have produced – could have been brought up to understand the advantage of cultivating 'the graces,' what godlike creatures they would be!"
Katherine thought of Lord Algy; he must have done so unconsciously, she felt.
"People are so apt to judge such a book upon the letter, not the spirit – naturally one must make allowances for the different customs and habits of the times; but the spirit of the advice adapted to modern requirements would make any man or woman into an eminent person if it was faithfully followed. I recommend it to you strongly, since I believe you are steadily trying to educate yourself, Miss Bush."
"I am, indeed – I hope I am not overconfident in believing that if one probes the meaning of everything, and can see the faults in oneself, including those of instinct, it is possible to do, by will, what only the evolution of centuries accomplishes by natural process. The Chesterfield Letters have encouraged me in my belief."
"Of course, it is possible, but people will hardly ever face the truth, and would not dream of examining their own instincts; it would wound their self-love; they would rather be mediocre and blinded to their stupidities, than teach themselves any useful lesson. Your determined effort interests me deeply, child."
Katherine turned a radiant face of gratitude; this was praise indeed!
"I will do all I can to merit Your Ladyship's goodness to me."
"No, I am not good – I have no altruistic or humanitarian proclivities – I would not bother with you for five minutes if you were not so intelligent that I have grown to take a kind of pride in you."
"I can't say how I appreciate Your Ladyship's kindness."
Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her for a second, and then she said slowly:
"I am going to ask you a question not strictly justifiable – and you need not answer it if you would rather not – but you may have formed some opinion of my integrity in these months, which will perhaps allow you to be frank with me – Did my nephew, Gerard Strobridge, make violent love to you when he spent Christmas with us? It seemed to me at the time, and afterwards, that he grew considerably depressed."
Katherine felt a twinge of distress.
"Mr. Strobridge showed some interest in me which I felt it wiser to discourage – He was very kind to me though, and agreed to be my friend, and sent me some books."
For a second, Lady Garribardine felt irritated. Her precious Gerard to have been a suppliant to this dependent in her house! – And then the broad justice of her nature regained its mastery; the girl was worthy of the homage of a king.
"I think he must have been extremely hard hit – I am quite devoted to him, as you know. I rely upon you not to hurt him more than you can help, when he comes back."
"I never wished to hurt him at all – I did wish to talk to him, though, because he is so clever, so at first I was glad to attract his attention. I know now that that was wrong."
Lady Garribardine looked at her secretary critically. She was astonished at this frank avowal which she realised not another woman in a million in Katherine's situation would have made.
"You deliberately attracted him then, girl, eh? – " her voice was stern.
"Yes – on the afternoon he first spoke to me when we typed the charity papers. I was so anxious to learn about books and art, and before that he had not noticed me at all."
"You did not calculate that it might hurt him?"
Lady Garribardine wondered at herself that she did not feel angry.
"No. I never thought about that – he seemed older and of the world, and able to take care of himself, and he was married."
"None of which things ever saved a man when Eve offered the apple – I suppose I ought to be very annoyed with you, child – but I believe it has done him good; he wanted rousing, he is, as you say, so clever.
"He could have done brilliantly, but he is lacking in perseverance – If he had married a woman like you, he would have risen to great things. The finest gift of God is an indomitable purpose to do. My nephew drifted, I fear."
Then their talk branched off to other things, and this proud old aristocrat, having made up her mind now once for all that Katherine possessed a character and qualities after her own heart, she from this day treated her as an equal and a valued companion whenever they were not in actual relation of employer and secretary; when in that, she would always resume her original aloof manner of one in command.
Katherine delighted in this nuance, and appreciated the subtle tribute to her own sense of the fitness of things, and never once took the ell when she was given the inch, showing in this the immeasurable distance she had risen above her class.
And so Easter came, and with it a large party – and Gerard Strobridge. At first sight, he did not appear at all changed. Katherine saw him from the window of the schoolroom just at sunset on the Thursday afternoon, when the guests arrived. He was walking in the rose garden with a tall, beautiful woman. The lowering globe of fire was making a blaze of reflected light from striking the row of mullioned windows of the picture gallery on the opposite side, and the flower-beds were a mass of daffodils and hyacinths. It was a nice background. He looked up, so Katherine saw his face plainly – then she stepped behind the curtain and the pair went on.
She felt very glad to see him, and wondered when they would meet. At these huge parties she never came down, even to pour out the tea if Her Ladyship's hand ached, as at the smaller family Christmas one. So unless he made the chance deliberately, it was quite possible no words would be exchanged.
This uncertainty added to the interest, and made her decide when Sunday should come to take especial pains with her appearance for church – Under Gladys' direction, she would be most simply and charmingly garbed, in a new blue serge suit, and becoming black hat. Before Saturday when they actually met, however, she had seen Gerard twice, once from the gallery as she was leaving Lady Garribardine's sitting-room, and he was talking to the same beautiful lady in the hall – and once from her window when he paced the rose garden alone.
Katherine was familiar with the names and characteristics of all the guests, for had she not written their invitations and read their answers? Did she not type the cards which slipped into the little plates on their doors, and those for their places at dinner? – And on Saturday night a message came for her that she was to print two more, and go immediately to Bronson with a fresh arrangement of the table, as two extra men were going to turn up by motor at the last moment, guardsmen quartered at Windsor.
She was coming from the dining-room down the passage which led to her staircase, and also the smoking-room, when Gerard emerged from there, and met her at the foot of the stairs.