Kitabı oku: «The Career of Katherine Bush», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XVI

Lady Beatrice remained until the Saturday, greatly to her husband's satisfaction and relief. He had manœuvred this arrangement with much skill, and Läo's vanity felt satisfied, and indeed gratified, by the belief that the presence of his wife was causing Gerard untold suffering and disappointment! The preliminaries of the game were so very agreeable! and when they could be prolonged by fate so that there was no fear of losing the other participant in them, nothing could be more to her taste.

Passion, like that which Katherine Bush knew, would have appeared as something absolutely shocking and horrible to her – indeed, she would have agreed with Mabel Cawber in considering it as most unladylike!

The circumstance of the Christmas night dance had left a feeling of mystery with Gerard Strobridge, which did not detract from his interest in Katherine Bush. That some strong upheaval had taken place in this strange young woman's soul he did not doubt.

But what in Heaven's name had caused it? Did it concern him? – Or was he only the medium connecting some memory? – He wished he could feel sure. Then there was the incident of his flowers; why had she worn them, and then thrown them from her as if they had burnt her?

His rather tormenting thoughts kept him too frequent company – especially as the provoking girl seemed to have retired from sight, and except on rare occasions, before everyone, he never had the chance of even a word.

Lady Garribardine's rheumatism was better, so Miss Bush had not even been required to pour out the tea.

It was with a sigh of intense relief that he returned into the hall after tucking Läo and his wife into the motor en route for London town, on Saturday morning an hour or two before lunch.

The hostess was not down to speed her parting guests; she was very much occupied in her boudoir, and they had gone thither to bid her farewell.

As Mr. Strobridge mounted the stairs, he met Katherine coming out of the room with her arms full of papers and small parcels, and a couple of big books, which she had some ado to carry.

"Let me help you," he said, eagerly – and she gave him the heavy volumes without a word.

A sense of exasperation arose in him. He would not be flouted like this! He followed her to the old schoolroom, merely remarking on the way that now all the guests, except Colonel Hawthorne, had departed, he felt there was breathing space.

Katherine seemed quite unconcerned and indifferent as to whether he did or did not; and she took his burden from him and thanked him absently, with a look towards the door evidently expecting him to go back again whence he came.

But he showed no signs of moving.

"Am I to be offered a chair on this my first call upon Miss Bush?"

"It isn't a call – you helped me to carry the books. I am very busy to-day."

"I don't care. I am here now, and I am going to stay – I shall tell my aunt how inhospitable and ungracious you are!"

"Sneak!" and she began sorting the little parcels into a row, her sullen eyes smiling. "I always hated tell-tales at school."

"So did I – but I could commit any crime to be with you. I have been tantalized all the week – Miss Bush not even seen at tea – and only glimpses of her scurrying along passages and up stairs!"

"What then do you want with Miss Bush? – Have you some more charity business to do?"

"No – The charity will be quite on the side of the fair Katherine, if she will allow a weary wayfarer to bask in the sunshine of her presence for a little while."

"Mr. Strobridge, you are talking nonsense, and I have not a moment's time to waste on you."

"I love to talk nonsense. It annoys you, and I want to see your eyes flash. I have seen them laughing – and full of pain – and snakily cold. Now I want them to flash – and then I would like them to grow tender. – They would be divine like that."

Katherine sat down and took up a pen, with a glance of withering indifference; then she began to address the labels of the packets from a list.

He came quite close to her; he was feeling a number of things.

"What a temptress you are – aren't you? – teasing me like this!"

Katherine now opened her eyes wide and stared at him, but she did not move away an inch.

"The whole thing is only in your imagination," she said, calmly. "You are a proof of my theory that personal emotion creates appearance, and hides reality."

"You understand then that I do feel emotion?"

"Why, of course. A man of your brains and cultivation could not behave in so foolish a way otherwise."

He drew back and leaned against the mantelpiece while he laughed shortly.

Katherine continued to work.

"I am merely waiting until you have finished directing those confounded parcels, which I presume are for this post – and then I am going to coax you to talk to me – May I smoke?"

"Yes, if you like – " still with lowered head.

"Won't you have a cigarette?"

"Thanks."

He handed her one from his case. She pulled a box of matches near and lit it casually, going on with her work as a boy might have done – There was no knocking off of ash or graceful movement of the hand in the fashion of Läo, who loved her white jewelled fingers to be seen to advantage.

Neither of them spoke. He might not have been in the room as far as she was concerned! He, on the contrary, was profoundly aware of her presence. Emotion such as he had not felt for years was surging through him.

She was the most damnably attractive creature, he thought, he had ever met. She awoke primitive passions, and stirred his blood. There was that intense note of reality and strength about her. She was like some dangerous lazy lioness. She made him feel that civilisation was slipping from him, and that he could willingly seize her for a jungle mate.

She, however, continued to smoke and to write for quite ten minutes, until all the parcels were addressed, and several papers examined and annotated and filed. Then she looked up. His eyes had never left her face.

"I can't think how you can stare like that," she said, with abominable matter-of-factness. "It would make me blink."

"I can enjoy looking at the sun – Now are those infernal things finished? I have been waiting with the patience of Job."

"But I can't think what for?"

"To talk to you."

"Well, talk then! I must do some typing," and she got up and went to her machine, which was on another table by the window. She knew perfectly well that she was driving him mad; it gave her a savage pleasure, and seemed a sort of balance to her own emotions on Christmas night about Algy.

He came and leant against the mantelpiece and looked down at her and quoted Dryden:

"She knows her man, and when you rant and swear

Can draw you to her with a single hair."

and stretching out his hand, he touched for an instant the faint broad waves on her forehead.

And now he saw her eyes flash brilliantly enough!

"If you are going to be impertinent, Mr. Strobridge, the staircase into the garden is quite close, and the sooner you find your way to it, the better I shall be pleased."

"I would not be impertinent for the world – the temptation was overwhelming; it is so lovely, your hair – "

His voice was quite sincere, and it was not in her plan to quarrel with him.

"Very well."

"I want to hear so many things about you, child – tell me what made you come to my aunt's? – I somehow cannot ever feel that you should be in any dependent position."

"I came to educate myself – I do not mean to be dependent always – What do you do in the Foreign Office?"

He gave her a brief sketch of his days.

"Well, then," she said, "you have to do what you are told to also – nothing matters as long as the spirit is not dependent. You will be a Chief some day, I suppose?"

"Perhaps – and are you learning here?"

"Yes – and you could teach me if you liked."

"I should quite adore it – what wages should I have?"

"None."

"Then that means, by the rules of all games, that I should be working for – love – "

She shrugged her shoulders and put in another piece of paper in the typing machine. She had no intention of talking about – love —

"You are the queerest creature – you make me feel – I do not know what – Well, if you won't discuss wages – tell me what I am to teach you?"

"Literature – Do you remember a day when I came in and had coffee in the dining-room? – It was before you knew I existed – You and Her Ladyship talked of the things then which I would like you to talk to me about."

"Yes, was it not strange? – I must have been blind all those weeks."

The sphinxlike smile hovered round Katherine's mouth; it was enigmatic and horribly tantalizing. Gerard Strobridge felt a rush of wild emotion again; the temptation to seize her in his arms and passionately kiss those mocking lips almost overcame him. It is quite doubtful what might have eventuated, if at that moment he had not caught sight of old Colonel Hawthorne in the rose garden. He had come out through the same little door which Katherine used, the passage from which, on the ground floor, led to the smoking-room. He waved his hand and beckoned to Gerard.

It broke the spell, and drove some sense into the latter's head.

"Colonel Hawthorne is calling you; had not you better go and get some air?" Miss Bush suggested graciously. "It would be most beneficial, I am sure, to you, on this fine morning!"

"I daresay you are right – Well, I will go – only some day perhaps you will pay me some wages after all!"

"Is that a threat?"

"Not in the least"; he went towards the door. "Don't be cross – and when you have time will you come and see the pictures in the gallery?"

"Yes – I would love that," and her face brightened. "But you had better ask Lady Garribardine if I may."

"All right – Leave it to me —Au revoir!" and he was gone.

As he went down the stairs, he thought that it was a good idea of his aunt's to have had the smoking-room removed to this wing of the house. It had only been done that autumn, so that the shooters could go straight in if they pleased, by the side door.

Katherine did not continue her typing for a moment after she was left alone. Her brows were contracted. She was thinking deeply.

Mr. Strobridge might not be quite so easy to rule as Charlie Prodgers. She had heard that thoroughbred racers required the lightest hand, and also that there were moments when nothing would control them, neither bridle, nor whip, nor spur. She must think out her plan of action coolly. It was necessary for what she required of him that his desire to please her should surmount all other things. At the present stage it would be difficult to get him to talk sense – but she would do her best to make him do so. This point settled, she went on with her work again undisturbed.

Gerard Strobridge found old Tom Hawthorne a tiresome companion, on their prowl round the stables, and soon escaped to his aunt's sitting-room; he must somehow arrange for Katherine to see the pictures with him after lunch.

Lady Garribardine was reading the Times when he came in, and looked up delightedly. She enjoyed converse with her favourite at any hour.

They talked of many things; politics in chief. Her Ladyship's views were Tory to the backbone, but she had a speculative cynical lightness which leavened any retrogressive tendencies. Gerard often disagreed with her just to draw out her views. She loathed the Radical government. It aroused her fiercest sarcasms and contempt.

How could such a class of people, she argued, from their heredity, no matter what clever brains they had, have the right qualities in them to enable them to govern England? How could they with personal and financial axes to grind possibly concentrate honestly upon the welfare of the country above their own necessities? It was quite ridiculous in logic, whether their views were Radical or Tory. The supreme voice in the government of a country should only be in the hands of those raised by their position above all temptation for merely personal aggrandisement, so that the glory of the country could be their legitimate and undivided aim. It could not be that the little Mr. Browns and Greens with their parochial lawyer instincts and bitter class hatreds, greedy for their salaries and own advancement, could rise to the necessary heights of sublime prevision to enable them to see far enough ahead to have the final decision on any great question. She was all in favour of the most advanced views for the advantage and raising of the lower classes in freedom and education, no matter from which side they emanated. But she resented the pushing up of individuals totally unfit in integrity of character for the positions of authority they occupied, and who year after year were exposed as having in some way lowered the standard of honour in their office.

She would receive none such in her house.

"I eat with no one who lowers the prestige of my country in the eyes of other nations," she declared. "Making us a laughing-stock in Europe where we were once great!"

And for her that settled matters!

Mr. Strobridge coasted warily among the shoals of her opinions, and gradually got the conversation on the topic of the pictures in the gallery, some of which she really thought ought to be sent to London to be cleaned – had Gerard noticed lately? – particularly two early Italians? This was a most fortunate suggestion! Mr. Strobridge had noticed – and had meant to speak about them.

"We must have a critical examination to-day after luncheon while the light is good. One ought not to delay over such matters."

He knew incidently that his aunt was going to drive Tom Hawthorne into the town in her phaeton, to try a new pair of cobs which she had bought just before Christmas, and would be starting the moment that meal was finished – but he showed just the right amount of regret and surprise when she informed him of this fact.

"Never mind. I will go round alone, or better still, if you could spare Miss Bush for an hour, I will get her to make shorthand notes of what I think should be done to each picture."

Lady Garribardine looked at her nephew shrewdly; his face was innocent as a babe's.

"I believe Miss Bush would make quite an agreeable companion in a picture gallery," she remarked.

"I am sure you are perfectly right."

Then they both laughed.

"G., you won't flirt with the girl, will you, and turn her head?"

"The sad part of the affair is that it is the girl who is more likely to turn my head. Her own is far too well screwed on."

"Upon my word, I believe you! Well, then, innocent of thirty-five, don't be beguiled into idiocy by this competent séductrice of twenty-two! – If you were forty-five there would be no hope for you, but a glimmer of sanity may remain in the thirties!"

"She is attractive, Seraphim – and will love to see the pictures. She says she wants to learn about art and literature – and kindred things."

"And you have offered to teach her?"

Mr. Strobridge put on a modest air, while his humorous grey eyes met his aunt's merrily.

"I have applied for the post of tutor – with no salary attached."

"She won't put up with inefficiency; you will have to keep your wits at high-water mark, then."

"I feel that."

"Well, G., perhaps you deserve a treat. The Christmas entertainment I had provided for you in the way of Läo fell rather flat, did it not!"

"One grows tired of soufflé."

"Yes, but do not forget that more substantial food can cause shocking indigestion, unless partaken of with moderation."

"Heavens, Seraphim! I am no gourmand!"

"Gerard, my dear boy – you are at a stage of hunger, I fear, when intelligence may not guide discretion. You see, Nature is apt to break out after years of artificial repression."

"We are overcivilised, I admit."

At that moment, the luncheon-gong sounded and they both rose from their chairs.

Lady Garribardine slipped her fat hand into her nephew's arm, as they went down the stairs.

"G. – I leave the afternoon to you – only don't burn your fingers irretrievably; this young woman is no fool like poor Läo. I look upon her as a rather marvellous product of the twentieth century."

CHAPTER XVII

After lunch the two in the picture gallery passed a perfectly delightful half-hour. Mr. Strobridge had sagacity enough to know that he must stick loyally to art, and indeed after the first few minutes he found he was carried away himself, his listener was so interested, and gave such intelligent response. He almost began to believe that she had really come there to learn something; and not to flirt with himself! Her taste also surprised him, and her want of all pose.

She wrote systematically the reflections he made as to the condition of the canvases.

"It is a great thing to learn how to look at pictures," she said when they halted before a particularly primitive Madonna. "Of course I could not have seen anything to admire in this if I had come by myself, and I do not suppose that I shall ever be able really to appreciate it – except the colour – because there is something in me which likes the real so much better than the ideal; I like prose far more than poetry, for instance."

"Will you let me come up again to the schoolroom and read to you some day?"

"I should like that very much."

"I would try to make you love poetry; you are endeavouring to convince me that you are a very material young woman, you know!"

"Well, I suppose I am material. I like facts and solid things."

"And yet you spoke of dreamland once not so very long ago – do you remember!"

"Yes – but you do not know that this dreamland of mine may not be a place where wished-for facts and solid things appear realities, not fancies."

"You would not tell me if I asked you; I recollect how you eluded me before, and said it was a place which only admitted yourself."

"Even materialists must have some corner where they can be alone."

Then he questioned her. – How had she learned all that she knew? – And his interest did not diminish when she gave him a brief outline of the manner of her education.

"It was very difficult sometimes, because I never had anyone with whom to talk, and one grows one-sided if one has only oneself to argue with, and I don't really know how to pronounce numbers of words. I should be grateful if you would tell me every time I make a mistake."

"It is quite evident that we must ratify this compact that I shall be your tutor, though I am to get no wages – even love!"

"Who would be supposed to give the love?"

Her strange eyes glanced at him provokingly for a second, and then resumed their steady look. He was quite uncertain as to whether in this there lay a challenge. – He proceeded to act as if there did.

"When I come up to give my first lesson I will tell you all about the giving – and taking – of love."

"That would be of no advantage to either of us. Love is a thing which can cause only pain."

"You are quite mistaken – it is the only divine joy in this unsatisfactory world."

Her face changed; she felt this was cruelly true – and she did not wish to be reminded of the fact.

"You shall only come to the schoolroom if you talk sense. I will not listen to a word of speculation about love; it is pure waste of time – but in any case I do not see how you can come there at all. I would not receive you without Her Ladyship's permission – it was very kind of her to let me have this afternoon."

"What a circumspect darling!"

Miss Bush looked at him with scorn.

"I am not a darlings – I am a lower middle class young woman, trying to learn how to be a lady, and whatever you think, if you want to be with me, you will have to treat me as if I had arrived at my goal already."

"I think you have, but the greatest ladies are often darlings."

"Yes, but married men do not tell them so, on very short acquaintance, Mr. Strobridge."

In his case he felt this was rather true, since he never spoke to girls at all if he could help it. He suddenly wondered in what light he really did consider her? – As an abstract and quite adorably provoking woman, he supposed.

"Is there anything else to be written down?" she asked. She had become the conventional secretary. "Because if not, I must go back to my work."

"My aunt gave me full permission to keep you for two hours. I told her all we had to do would take quite that time."

"Well, you see it has not – we have come to the end of the gallery."

"Then there is a very comfortable sofa not too far from the fire, where we could sit down and discuss what we have learned."

They walked to it. As long as he was being of some use to her Katherine Bush desired his company. So they talked uninterruptedly until dusk fell, and the footmen would soon be coming to close shutters and draw curtains.

They flitted from subject to subject, Gerard Strobridge exerting his brain to interest and amuse her, in a way that he had seldom done with Englishwomen, even of his own class. Her receptive power was exceptional, and she was completely frank. She was honestly and deeply interested in all he had to say, and the subtle flattery of this was eminently soothing. He began to take pride in his pupil. They touched upon the spirit of the Renaissance and its origin – and upon all the glorious flood of light which it brought to art and learning. He was astonished to find her so advanced in certain branches of literature, and absolutely ignorant of the names even of others – showing that it had merely been chance and no helping hand which had guided her.

"I must send you some books upon the Renaissance," he said, "if you will let me."

"That will be very kind – If I had had some master to give me an idea what to read, as a kind of basis to go upon, it would have been much better, but I had no guide – only if I saw one subject that I did not know about mentioned in what I was reading, I looked it up, but of course with really educated people there must be some plan."

"Well, shall we begin upon the Renaissance; that is rather a favourite period of mine?"

"Yes – do you not wonder if we shall ever have another? – What a lot of good it would do us, would it not?"

"Probably – some learned professors think that we must go through a second series of dark ages first; when we shall get back to primitive ideas – and primitive passions."

"It may be, – nearly everything natural is distorted now; the world seems so tired to me, just looking on."

He stretched himself and threw out his arms – as it were to break some imaginary bonds.

"Yes – we have been coerced into false morals and manners – and we have suppressed most things which make life worth having – sometimes I envy the beasts."

"I never do that – it is only weaklings who are coerced; the strong do what they please, even in these days – but however strong a beast may be, he always finds, as Jack London shows with his wonderful Buck in 'The Call of the Wild,' that there is invariably 'the man with the club.'"

"You mean to conquer fate, then?"

"I shall do my very best to obtain my desires, and of course shall have to pay for all my mistakes."

He looked at her curiously – had she made any mistakes? Not many, he thought, her regard was so serene, and her clever, strong face showed no vacillation. He suddenly faced the fact that he was falling in love with her, not as he had tried to do with Läo – not even as he had once succeeded in doing with Alice Southerwood, long ago. There was a quality in his present feeling which almost frightened him, it was so lawless.

She felt his eyes searching hers burningly, and rose from the sofa.

"Now I am going to have my tea – so good-bye for to-day. I have really enjoyed the pictures."

"May not I come and have tea with you? I am all alone."

"Certainly not – Martha would be scandalised. It does seem so extraordinary that I should have to tell you such things – it shows either great disrespect to me, or else – "

"What?" eagerly. He had risen, too, and was following her as she walked down the long room.

" – That you cannot help yourself."

"Yes – that is it. You have bewitched me in some way – I cannot help myself."

"Do you want all I have taken down typewritten? I can do it after tea, if so?"

"And you will sit up there all by yourself from now until you go to bed?"

"Of course."

"You must feel awfully solitary."

"Not in the least. I have books which are the most agreeable companions. They have no independent moods – you can be sure of them, and pick up those which suit yourself. Good-night."

And she turned at the bend of the great staircase from which the gallery opened, and rapidly walked on to the entrance to her passage.

He looked after her with a rapt face, and then he went discontentedly down into the library, and waited for his aunt's return.

He was extremely disturbed; it was horribly tantalizing to feel that this girl whom he was so passionately drawn to, was there in the house with him, and that he might not talk with her further, or be in her presence.

He walked up and down the room – and those who knew the casual Gerard Strobridge, cultivated, polished and self-contained, would have been greatly surprised could they have seen his agitated pacings.

Lady Garribardine had a quizzical eye when she finally came in – how had the afternoon progressed? Her opinion of the mental balance of her secretary was exceedingly high. She felt convinced that she would know exactly how to tackle her nephew, and if Gerard desired to amuse himself he would certainly do so whether she smiled upon the affair or not!

It did strike her that he was rather a dangerous creature to be left a free hand with any young woman – and that after to-day she would see that Katherine ran no more risks from too much of his company.

The pupils of his eyes were rather dilated, she noticed; otherwise he seemed his usual self at tea – and when Colonel Hawthorne left them alone, she got him to read to her, and did not mention her secretary at all.

The afternoon had been most instructive, Katherine thought, as she ate her muffin, and looked at the papers before the old schoolroom fire. She had learned a quantity of things. Mr. Strobridge was undoubtedly a charming man, and she wondered what effect he would have had upon her if she had never met Algy? As it was he mattered no more than a chair or a table, he was just part of her game. And he was rapidly approaching the state when she could obtain complete dominion over him.

"He knows quite well that he is married and that I can never honestly be anything to him. He is only coming after me because he is attracted and is not master of his passions or his will. If he is a weakling he must pay the price – I shall not care! He is not thinking in the least as to whether or no it will hurt me – he is only thinking of himself, just like Bob Hartley, only he is a gentleman and therefore does not make any hypocritical promises to try to lure me."

And then she laughed softly. "Well, whatever comes is on his own head, I need have no mercy upon him!"

So she calmly finished her tea and wrote to Matilda whose excited letter with the family news of Gladys' secret marriage she had not yet replied to. Gladys had written her a little missive also – full of thanks for her part in the affair. Bob was being rather rude and unkind to her about it, she said, but it was not altogether his fault, because on Christmas night he had had rather too much to drink, and had been quarrelsome for two days since. She was going to keep the expected event from being known as long as possible, and then she supposed they would go and live somewhere together. It would be wretched poverty and struggle, and she was miserable, but at least she felt an "honest woman," and could not be grateful enough to her sister for bringing this state of things about. Katherine stared into the fire while she thought over it all. It seemed to her too astonishing that a woman should prefer a life tied to a man who was reluctant to keep her – his drudge and the object of his scorn – to one of her own arranging in America, perhaps – along with the child, but free. Gladys had sufficient talent in her trade to have earned good wages anywhere, and must have enough money saved, could she have got it from Matilda's fond guardian clutches, to have tided over the time. But weaklings must always suffer and be other people's slaves and tools. Poor Gladys! Then she fell to thinking of Algy – why was he haunting her? For the first month the complacent satisfaction from the conquest of self had upheld her splendidly, but now the pain felt as keen as on the first day of separation.

She would crush it.

Except on the path coming out of church she had no words with Mr. Strobridge on the morrow – and then it was only a few sentences of ordinary greeting. Lady Garribardine claimed his entire attention. She did see him from the window, smoking a cigar in the rose garden in the afternoon, whither he had come from the smoking-room. She deliberately let him catch sight of her, as she stood there, and she marked the look of eager joy on his face, and then she moved away and did not appear again.

So the Monday arrived – the last day of the old year.

Lady Garribardine was having no party for it as was her usual custom; her rheumatism was rather troublesome, and she stayed in the house all the day, up in her boudoir, where Katherine was in constant attendance.

Gerard and Colonel Hawthorne were out rabbiting with the keepers in the park, and only came in to tea.

Katherine found her mistress rather exacting and difficult to please, and she felt tired and cross – so it gave her some kind of satisfaction to be as provoking as possible when she was ordered to pour out the tea for the shooters in the sitting-room. She remained perfectly silent, but every now and then allowed her magnetic eyes to meet Mr. Strobridge's with the sphinxlike smile in them.

On his side Gerard had found the hours hell. – He knew he was now madly in love with this exasperating girl, and that she was exercising the most powerful attraction upon him.

He gazed at her as she sat there, white and sensuous-looking, her red lips pouting, and her grey-green eyes full of some unconscious challenge, and gradually wild excitement grew in his blood.