CHAPTER XXI
Time passed. A year went by after this with a gradual but unmistakable upward advance on the part of Katherine Bush. Moments of depression and discouragement came, of course, but her iron will carried her beyond them. All would go well for a while, and then would come a barrier, as it were, which was difficult to climb, and which would baffle her intentions for a week or two, and then she would surmount it, and race onward.
Her manipulation of Gerard Strobridge was masterly. She never permitted him to go beyond the bounds of friendship, and he gradually grew to entertain the deepest worship and respect for her, which influenced his whole life. She spurred him on in his career, while obtaining from him all the polish his cultivated mind could bestow. Lady Garribardine watched the passage of events with her wise old eyes, assisting them, moreover, when she deemed it necessary.
If Katherine's dominion over her beloved nephew was for his good, she must not let class prejudice stand in the way of her sympathy. The world for Sarah Garribardine was full of incredible fools, who, however strong their desire might be for a given end, were yet too stupid to see that their actions and methods – nearly always inspired by personal vanity – militated against the attainment of that end, and so they went on their blundering way, continually surprised at their own want of success!
It was the quality of reasoning and of analysis in her secretary which grew to interest her most deeply. Katherine was her perpetual study, inasmuch as she stood so far apart from the world of fools.
Their visit to Paris had been a great experience for Katherine. She took the place historically, not as she had taken it before, as the setting for a love dream. She had had a recurrence of the violent longing for Lord Algy when they arrived at the Gare du Nord, that strangely sudden seizure of passion to which she seemed periodically subject; when she knew that if at the moment Fate were to offer him to her again she would find the temptation of acceptance too strong to resist. She was afterwards always extremely thankful that this did not occur, and that she was given time to resume her self-command.
When first she drove down the Champs Elysées, a strange sense of fear came over her – what if after all that Palatial Hotel episode in her life should have power one day to raise up its ghost and destroy the fabric of her ambitions? The more she saw of the great world, the more she realised that such a breach of convention, such a frank laying aside of all recognised standards of morality, would never be forgiven if discovered. Incidents of the kind occurred every day, but must always be rigorously kept out of sight. She grew to understand that it is a much more punishable offence to hold unorthodox views and act honestly by them, than to profess orthodox, stringent virtue, and continually blink at the acting against conscience, by secret indulgences!
One day it chanced that she could discuss the point with her mistress.
"You must remember the good of the community always first, girl," Lady Garribardine had said. "If you want to benefit humanity you must not be too much occupied with the individual. For the good of the community certain standards must be kept up, and sensible people should put on blinkers when examining the frailties of human nature. Nature says one thing and civilisation and orthodox morality another; there must logically be an eternal conflict going on between the two and the only chance for souls to achieve orthodox morality is for hypocrisy to assist them by hiding bad examples given when nature has had an outburst and won the game. If you won't conform to these practical rules it is wiser and less harmful to your neighbours for you to go and live in the wilds – I am all for tenue, I am all for the uplifting of the soul where it is possible, and decency and good taste where it is not."
"I see," responded Katherine. "One must in this, as in all other things, look to the end."
"You have indeed said it!" Her Ladyship cried. "That faculty is the quintessence of statesmanship, as it is of wisdom, and one we never see displayed by a radical government!"
As the season went on in London, various peeps at society were afforded Katherine, and as her eyes opened, and the keenness of her understanding developed, she learned many useful lessons.
On rare Saturday afternoons, she visited the museums again with Gerard Strobridge, to her intense delight, and with much pain as well as pleasure to him, and when the big Saturday to Monday parties came down to Blissington, Lady Garribardine often found her secretary invaluable for the entertainment of unavoidable bores.
Thus by the autumn, when Gerard's aching soul and denied passions thought to take solace in flight on that mission to Teheran, Katherine Bush was an established institution at tea time, and had acquired the art of conversation in a degree which would have pleased Chesterfield himself!
To make herself liked by women was the immediate objective she had laid down for herself. Of what use to gain the little pleasure by the way, of the gratification of her vanity from the incense of men? She must wait until some one man appeared upon the scene, the securing of whom would be her definite goal – then she could pursue her aims without the stumbling-block of female antagonism.
She learned many things from her employer: tolerance – kindness of heart – supreme contempt for all shams, apart from that of necessary moral hypocrisy, which seeming paradox she grew to realise was a sensible assistance to the attainment of a general moral ideal. Her wits sharpened, her brain expanded, her cultivation increased and her manners assumed an exquisite refinement and graciousness; and when the second Christmas came and the New Year of 1913, no one could possibly have discovered the faintest trace of Bindon's Green, or of the lower middle class from which she had sprung.
Lady Garribardine had materially augmented her salary, and substantial cheques found their way to poor Gladys, whose baby was born dead, much to Matilda's disappointment.
"But it is often like that," she told Katherine as they walked in the park one Sunday, "with a seven months' child, and Glad don't take on about it as I should."
Mrs. Robert Hartley was firmly determined to go to America.
"We've had enough hell in these few months, Bob," she informed her husband as she was getting better, "and I am going to be like Katherine and make a career for myself. I'm tired of your grumbling and your rudeness to me, and every bit of love I had for you is gone – We've no baby – There's nothing to keep us chained up together like a pair of animals, and I'm off to make my fortune – so I tell you flat."
Mr. Robert Hartley asserted the rights of an English husband, but to no avail. Gladys had the money from her sister in her hand to start herself with, and a warm recommendation from Madame Ermantine, and so in the early autumn sailed for New York and almost immediately obtained lucrative employment.
Thus the family at Bindon's Green was reduced to Matilda, Ethel, and the two young men, and still further diminished in the New Year by the marriage (and retirement to a villa of his own!) of Mr. Frederick Bush with the genteel Mabel Cawber!
The wedding of the pair was a day of unalloyed pleasure to Matilda. Katherine had manœuvred so that she could not possibly be spared to attend it; thus the festivities were unclouded by the restraint which her presence – quite undesired by herself – always imposed upon her relations. They were all admittedly uncomfortable with her, not she with them. They felt in some vague way that they were of less account in their own eyes when in her company, and that an impassable gulf now separated them. They had nothing to complain of, Katherine gave herself no airs, she neither patronised them nor talked over their heads, but a subtle something divided them, and all were glad of her seemingly enforced absence. All except the bride, who was sorry the poor secretary sister-in-law should not be chastened by witnessing her triumph!
For was she not having four bridesmaids dressed in pink pongee silk with blue sashes, and two pages to carry her court train! Pages in "Renaissance" costume. The Lady Agatha Tollington's were so described in the Flare, and why should not hers be also? "Renaissance!" She did not know what the word meant, but it had such a nice sound and seemed so well to fit the picturesque suits advertised as copied from Millais' immortal Bubbles which had been secured at the local emporium to adorn the two smug-faced infants who would carry – very shamefacedly it must be admitted – the confection of cheap satin and imitation lace which would depend from Miss Cawber's angular shoulders.
If Katherine could have seen all that! Miss Cawber felt that a humbler mien in this obstreperous creature might have resulted!
But Katherine never saw it, and when Matilda recounted all the glories to her, she had the awkwardness to ask why Mabel had indulged in a court train?
"Bridesmaids were natural enough," she said, "if you all wanted to have some gaiety and a jolly party, but Fred's wife will never go to Court, so why pages and a train?"
"Oh – well," Matilda returned in annoyance, "who's to know that at Bindon's Green? And it has given her ever such a tip-top position to begin her home upon. The Perkins girls and Bob Hartley's mother and cousins were just mad with envy, and Fred as pleased as Punch to have such a stunning turn-out at his side to down the aisle with."
"I am so glad you are all happy then," Katherine said kindly.
How merciful, she reflected when she had left her sister at Stanhope Gate, that their ambitions were so easily satisfied! How merciful also that only Matilda's affection for her need count in her future connection with the family – and Matilda might at no distant date be a bride too! The bride of Katherine's old devoted admirer, Charlie Prodgers! While Ethel announced her intention of following Gladys' example and migrating to America the moment she was seventeen, in the spring.
Thus, visits to Bindon's Green were no longer desired by the inhabitants of Laburnum Villa, nor of Talbot Lodge, where Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Bush were installed, and Katherine felt she could drift from them all without hurting their feelings, indeed, with mutual satisfaction.
So the winter of 1912 drew to a close, and the spring of 1913 came, and with it Gerard Strobridge.
He was well and sunburnt and seemed more resigned on his first visit after he returned to Blissington accompanied by Lady Beatrice.
Katherine was pouring out the tea – now her daily task – when he came in, and a glad thrill ran through her. Would he see any change in her? Would he be pleased with her advancement? He was her friend, and her helpmate in literature, and never by word or look did she recognise that he could feel any other emotion but a platonic one for her.
Her attractions always struck Gerard afresh after his absences, and made him remark upon them each time he returned.
"How beautiful you have grown, Katherine," he said when presently they had a chance of talking a little apart. "You are the most wonderful thing in the world – I came back hoping to find you less attractive, and you are just as fascinating as ever – more so – Oh! shall I never make you care the least for me?"
"Never."
"It is a wonder that I should love you so madly, when you are as cold as ice to me, and never melt – I believe you could see me on the rack without turning a hair – if it suited your purpose!"
"Probably."
But she smiled softly, so he asked eagerly:
"Is it so, Katherine?"
"Will you never understand even after the hundreds and hundreds of talks we have had? I have marked out a settled, determined path in life which I intend to follow – so that even if I loved you I would crush all emotion out of myself, since indulging in it would ruin my aims, and drag us both to social perdition meanwhile. It is extremely fatiguing to have to recommence explaining our positions every time you come back from abroad. As a friend I delight in you – I love our talks, our discussions and controversies. I have tried in every way to improve under your tuition, but if you will be weak and give way to other feelings – it is you who put yourself on the rack – And if you do it I cannot help it, it cannot change my determination, even if I see you suffering."
"How can a man worship anything so logical?"
"I don't know; what I do know is that I never mean to admit that you have any feelings for me but those I have for you, of warm friendship. I shall always act as if you were only my friend, and only consider any of my actions as affecting you from that point of view. If you are hurt it is your own fault, I cannot be responsible for the pain."
He clenched his hands with sudden violence.
"And if I refused to bear it – if I broke all friendship and never spoke to you again – what then?"
"You would be quite right to do so if it gave you any satisfaction. I should miss you – but I should understand."
He gave a faint groan.
"Well, I have not the strength to throw off your influence. I always think I have done it when I go to foreign climes, and I dwell upon the pleasure that your intellect gives me. I come back quite resigned, but the first sight of you, the sight of those red, wicked lips and that white skin drives me mad once more, and I feel I do not care whether you have any brain or no, in the overwhelming desire to hold you in my arms."
Katherine gave an exclamation of weariness.
"Oh, it is tiresome that you must always have these scenes when you return, they spoil everything. You force me to seem cruel. Why can't you accept the situation?"
"Because I am a man and you are a woman," and his eyes sought hers with passion, "and all the rest of emotion is but make-believe; the only real part is the tangible. To have and to hold, to clasp and to kiss, to strain the loved one next the heart – Katherine, you make me suffer the tortures of the damned."
"No – you permit yourself to suffer them, that makes all the difference. If I made you, then I should feel as wicked as you say my lips look."
Here Lady Beatrice interrupted them in her plaintive, drawling voice.
"Gerard, can you imagine it! Aunt Sarah has just had a letter from Tom Hawthorne by the evening's post, announcing that Läo has quietly married that boy in Paris, and they are going to Monte Carlo for their honeymoon! Isn't it quite too tragic for them, poor things!"
Lady Garribardine joined the group, with the epistle in her hand.
"Läo was always a fool, but I believed even the sense of a rabbit would have kept her from this!"
"They are madly in love, dear Sarah!" old Gwendoline d'Estaire said sentimentally.
Her ladyship snorted.
"Tut, tut! Läo is forty-two years old and the boy not more than six and twenty, sixteen years between them! Quite an immaterial discrepancy while he remained a lover – but a menace which even the strongest brain cannot combat when the creature turns into a husband. The situation is ridiculous at once. It means that the woman has to spend her time not only fighting old age as we all have to do, but watching for every sign of weariness in the youth, trembling at every fresh wrinkle in herself, and always on the tiptoe of anxiety, so that she loses whatever charm lured the poor child into her net."
"But really Läo had made it so evident – the affair – perhaps she thought – "
"That a second wedding ring was essential! Ridiculous nonsense, Gwendoline! We are not of the bourgeoisie– there is an epidemic of these rich widows rushing these penniless young men into matrimony. No one objects to their amusing themselves, but these respectable unions offend the sensibilities at once from their obvious unsuitableness. The woman loses prestige – almost caste, I was going to say. The man grows either sheepish or intolerably insolent, and if you notice, the pair eventually drop out of all agreeable society."
"How awful to contemplate!" and Lady Beatrice sighed sadly. "To think that after one had pretended for years that one was full of emotions and sex and horrible things, one should succumb to them really – It is a cruel retribution – Gerard, aren't you interested?"
For Mr. Strobridge had raised a whimsical eyebrow.
"Perfectly thrilled. I am amply revenged for her indifference to me!"
"Is it not possible for them to be happy, then?" Katherine whispered to him in the din of a chorus of remarks the news had provoked.
"They have about a hundred to one chance for a few months; then either will suffer, probably both. Oh! the intolerable bond of matrimony! – Unless, of course – "
Katherine shrugged her shoulders.
"Yes, I suppose so, if one was not quite sure what the reason was that one was marrying for, and had not weighed it and found out if it would be worth while or no."
"What will you marry for?"
"Contentment, I expect."
"And what is contentment – only the obtaining of one's heart's desire."
"I shall not marry unless it is to obtain my heart's desire," and that sphinxlike smile grew round her mouth, which always roused Gerard Strobridge's curiosity. After all this time, he could never quite fathom what was going on inside that clever brain.
"I refuse to think about it – Let us talk about something else – books you have been reading – something I can do for you."
"There is one thing I would like you to do very much – only I do not know if it could be managed. Last week, Her Ladyship allowed me to go with Miss Arabella d'Estaire to see the House of Commons. I would so much like to see the House of Lords and hear a debate there before the Easter recess. I am trying to study politics."
"That will not be very difficult. I can get an order from Blackrod; there will be something to listen to next week, when I believe my aunt will be in town. I shall love to gratify your wish, Katherine."
"We must ask Lady Garribardine first if I may."
"Model of circumspection! Of course."
Then the company drifted from the tea table and Miss Bush returned to her sanctum, while Gerard Strobridge went up to his aunt's sitting-room.
They talked of numbers of things, and at last that lady said:
"G., – more than ever I understand your passion for my secretary. I do not even find your fidelity ridiculous; she is one of the most fascinating creatures I have ever met. A masterpiece of balance and common sense, she will rise to the highest position one day – mark my words, boy!"
"I daresay – I cannot feel interested in that. I am still horribly in love. I thought Teheran had dulled the ache for her, but it has not."
Lady Garribardine sighed as she arranged a cushion.
"I live in terror that one day she will come and tell me quite honestly that she has learned all that my situation can teach her, and that she is going on to something new."
"She could not be so ungrateful."
"It would not be ingratitude – she works for money, not for love. It would be part of her plan of life. Sentimental emotion does not enter into it – that is what makes her so interesting, and so invaluable."
"But I know, Seraphim, that she has a deep affection for you – she has expressed it to me many times. You are her model for all fine conduct and point of view."
"Yes – the girl is devoted to me, I think. Well, we must hope that she is content here, for I do not know how I could quite get on without her. I have had her down for a little at each party during the winter, G. She literally devours bores for me, and gets all the cranks into good tempers. And all the women like her; that shows triumphant astuteness on her part."
"Triumphant! You did not after all marry her to Sir John while I was away. I almost hoped that you would do so when I left in October."
"Sir John was willing; he wanted but a hint from me to have shown all the ardour of a young lover. One even pictured verses – it is in this way that it takes aged politicians. One imagined a discreet wedding and almost by now the inevitable preparatory layette! – But Miss Bush would have none of it! When I approached her upon the subject she looked me straight in the face and said quite respectfully, but with a hauteur befitting a D'Estaire, that she had other views, and while sensible of my kindness she must decline the honour! I was immensely diverted."
"Danger is still ahead, then – She has told me just now that she means only to marry when she can gain her heart's desire – but what that is God – or the devil – alone knows."
Lady Garribardine looked at him shrewdly for a second; she did not speak, so Mr. Strobridge went on:
"By the way, she wants me to take her and Arabella to hear a debate in the House of Lords – may I?"
"Of course."
If he had not been so preoccupied with his own thoughts he would have remarked his aunt's tone, but he was absently staring out of the window and did not even see her face with its sagacious, querying expression.
"She is greatly interested in politics, I believe; she is well up in them already – she is well up in everything. I daresay she could open a bazaar, or give an address better than I could myself. I can spare her next Wednesday afternoon when the debate on the Land Bill will be in full swing. You can arrange it."
"I will. – Seraphim, isn't it pitiful about poor Läo! – Younger or older it would not have mattered quite so much – but at forty-two – Heavens! The only thing the poor darling had – her beauty – won't be worth looking at in a year or so. The mentality of women is beyond me, so utterly unaccountable their actions are."
"Not at all, my precious G. They are as plain as a pikestaff – only any man can be bamboozled by the silliest of them. They all answer to type and sex. Läo has the brains of her type, the female guinea pig, raised under artificial conditions which have altered, but not stifled, the guinea pig's strongest instinct – prolific reproduction. It came out in Läo, not in the desire to have a numerous family, but in an intense desire to attract the male —pas pour le bon motif, bien entendu!– but for variety – Then she falls in love at a foolish age, and the emotion, being one of nature, the instinct rights itself for the moment, and swamps the effect of artificial conditions. Hence the passion for the wedding ring – vows – the male in the cage, all unconscious preparation for a family – the last thing she would desire, in fact – and all sense of proportion lost sight of."
Mr. Strobridge laughed delightedly.
"You should write a 'Guide to the Knowledge of Women,' Seraphim, for the enlightenment of your men friends."
His aunt smiled, showing all her strong, well-preserved white teeth.
"I would like to, but not one of them would speak to me again, they would tear my new grey toupée from my snowy locks, and denounce me as a liar, because I would tell the one thing they strongly dislike – the truth!"
"Yes, a thoroughly lovable feminine woman loathes the truth, doesn't she! I have always found my greatest success with her lay in a distortion of every fact to suit her personal view. Katherine Bush and yourself, sweet Aunt, are the only two of your sex that I have ever met whom a man need not humour, and can speak his real mind out to."
And with this he kissed her fat hand and took his way from her presence down the gallery to his room to dress for dinner.
But all the while Stirling was coaxing the real silver and auxiliary iron grey waves into a superbly simple triumph of hairdressing, her ladyship wore a slight frown of concentrated thought.
What did it mean, this desire on the part of her secretary to see the House of Lords?
"Vermondsay – Hankhurst – Upper Harringway." She counted over a long list of the names of peers who frequented Blissington and Berkeley Square – but at the end she shook her head. "No – none of these – Who then – and what for?"
Katherine Bush was no guinea pig answering to type. What type was she, by the way? A complicated, conglomerated mixture, not easy to dissect at any time, was this new move a manifestation of sex – or type?
Time alone would show – Until then the solution must remain in the lap of the gods. And in all cases, dinner should not wait, and it behooved a hostess to be punctual.