Kitabı oku: «The Career of Katherine Bush», sayfa 5

"That is frightful English!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I never can dictate properly, I must always write myself or my ideas do not flow."

"If the substance is all right and it is just the English you want regulated, I can do that when I copy it out."

He looked at her in doubt, and Katherine smiled to herself – this flattered her.

"It would be awfully kind of you if you would, though," he went on, hesitatingly. "I have kept them waiting a quarter of an hour as it is. Could you do it immediately and send it in to the dining-room by one of the footmen? I have my fountain-pen with me, I will sign it there. It is to be addressed to the Editor of the Times."

"Yes, I will."

Mr. Strobridge thanked his aunt's new secretary courteously as he went towards the door, and then he left the room. At the moment of his exit, Katherine Bush heard the sound of voices, male and female; they were evidently going in to dinner without waiting for him. She looked up at the clock, it was ten minutes to nine; then she smiled again and, going to the writing-table, she began her task, a very simple one to her who was accustomed to frame euphonious sentences. And when she had completed it, she went back into the secretary's room and rang the bell.

"This is to be taken to Mr. – is his name Strobridge? – Lady Garribardine's nephew," she told the astonished Thomas.

"Yes, miss. Her Ladyship's nephew is the Honourable Mr. Gerard Strobridge – if you mean him."

"Yes, I do – he is dining here and wants it at once."

She made no further explanation, but took up the paper and reseated herself in her chair by the fire; and Thomas could but obey orders.

"A cool card," he whistled to himself, as he disappeared.

Meanwhile, Gerard Strobridge was saying to the lady at his side:

"I had to repudiate Warrington's insolence in the Central Gazette to-night. I have written to the Times– that is what made me keep even you waiting, dearest lady. My aunt's new shorthand typist took it down, and I shall send it off in a few minutes. I hope it will not be too late."

"You look quite serious, G.," the lady laughed. "It is too attractive to see you in earnest over something!"

"I am always in earnest – especially when I tell you that I love you – why did you not come this afternoon, Läo, I stayed late on purpose and you never turned up."

"I knew I should meet you to-night, G. – and I do not want soon to grow bored!"

Mr. Strobridge looked at her reproachfully. She was extremely pleasant to the eye, with her marvellous skin and dark hair, and her curly affected mouth. He was a cynic and an epicurean. He was not in the least disenchanted by his knowledge that the whole woman was a mass of affectation, from the conscious pouting of her red lips to the way she held her soup spoon. He rather admired the skill she showed in it all. She pleased his senses, had just enough wit to chirp like a parrot good things others had said, and was full of small talk – while she knew the game to her finger-tips. He did not want the repetition of a serious affair since he had so happily escaped by the skin of his teeth from Alice Southerwood. Läo Delemar, widowed and rich and circumspect, promised an agreeable winter to him, with few complications.

Women were more or less necessities to Gerard Strobridge's life; they were his choruses, his solaces, his inspirations.

In a few minutes a footman brought the large envelope, and amidst general chaff he read aloud the letter, his astonishment momentarily growing at the apt rearrangement of his words.

"She is no fool, your new secretary, Seraphim," he called down the table to his aunt. "I do thank you for her services to-night."

Sarah Lady Garribardine laughed complacently.

"I told you, G., I had found a treasure in Miss Katherine Bush!"

CHAPTER VII

Over a week had gone by and Katherine Bush had completely fallen into her duties; they were not difficult, and she continued to keep her eyes and her intelligence on the alert, and by the second Sunday when she was to have the afternoon to meet Matilda, she had begun to feel that a whole ocean had rolled between the present Katherine and the creature of the days before the outing in Paris with Lord Algy!

She had made one or two annoying mistakes and had had one or two surprises, some pleasant ones. It was agreeable to have a cup of tea when one woke, and one's curtains drawn back by an attentive housemaid every morning, and a deep hot bath, instead of a scramble in a small tin tub on Saturday nights. There was a bathroom in Laburnum Villa, but during the week Matilda used it for keeping all sorts of things in, and there were such a number of them to have the bath in turns on Saturday and Sunday, that Katherine had preferred the indifferent comfort of a makeshift in her own attic. It seemed on looking back, after ten days of modest luxury, that it never could have been possible that she had gone on month after month, and year after year, in the family circle.

Her heart swelled with gratitude to Lord Algy; but for him she might never have known that there was anything different. At these moments she knew that she could easily slip into sentiment about him again, and so she invariably crushed her emotion and began some active work.

At nine o'clock in the morning it was her duty to go to Lady Garribardine in her bedroom, where she would find her propped up upon lacy pink silk pillows, a saucy cap and ribbons covering the greater part of a more coquettish and rather lighter golden wig than the one she wore in the day. Her face had not yet been arranged, and presented a sad contrast to these youthful allurements. Her temper was often very precarious.

Katherine stood by the bed, block in hand, and took down all instructions. Lady Garribardine's voluminous correspondence was only attended to in the morning; the accumulations of the later part of the day before were heaped up in one basket tray, and the early posts in another. While a third empty one awaited those communications which were to be answered either in type or in handwriting.

Now, after ten days of service, Katherine had mastered most of Lady Garribardine's affairs. She knew the wages of her servants, the expenditure of the house, the phrasing of her friends' letters, their points of views, little hatreds and little loves, their want or possession of good English and powers of expressing themselves – she fancied she could almost picture the faces, so vivid were these pen portraits of the writers that the notes showed. Lady Garribardine seldom answered even the most private with her own hand and Katherine had grown quite accustomed to signing "Sarah Garribardine" as "yours affectionately" or "yours sincerely." She even derived a cynical amusement from the fictions she was instructed to invent to one and another.

The life of a great lady, she saw, would be a very complicated affair to a novice, and each day she felt glad she was having the opportunity of learning its intricacies. She meant to make no mistakes when her own turn should come.

Lady Garribardine had not continued to exploit her for her personal diversion as she had done on the occasion of their initial meeting, she had been too occupied, perhaps; on the contrary, she kept strictly to her rôle of employer and hardly spoke except on business. Katherine realised that she looked upon her much as Lord Algy had looked upon Hanson, and far from its arousing the rageful resentment which it would have done in Matilda's feminine breast, she saw the justice of it, and considered it a proper arrangement.

"Some people have the luck to be born to high station," she reasoned to herself, "and those who would attain it for themselves must make themselves fitted for it first – besides there would be no good in it to me, if after I had obtained it I should have to hobnob with my own secretary. It is the distinctions and barriers that make the thing worth having."

As yet she had only rarely come across other members of the world beyond her employer on such occasions as, for instance, if she were sent for suddenly to the drawing-room to take down some instruction, or bring some charity list; but whenever she had the chance she observed them carefully. Some of them were far from what had been her ideal of what high birth and breeding would certainly show, but they all had that ease of manner which polished their casualnesses, and once she was still receiving instructions by the bedside when Stirling, the maid, came to know if Lady Beatrice Strobridge might come up.

"Confound the woman!" Her Ladyship exclaimed in her angelic voice, its refinement of pronunciation always a joy to Katherine's ear – whatever the bluntness of the words might be – "No, certainly not – my face is not done – but stay, Stirling, it may be something to do with to-night – give me the rouge and powder and a looking-glass. Don't go, Miss Bush – it is nothing private and she won't stay for more than a minute."

Katherine discreetly turned her eyes from the bed to the window, and when she looked round again, two blooming rose-coloured cheeks balanced the girlish curls, and Lady Garribardine was reposing languidly upon her pillows.

"Dearest Aunt Sarah, I had to come," cried Lady Beatrice in her plaintive discontented voice, "Gerard has been perfectly impossible, actually has refused to let me go to the Artist Model's ball as Ganymede, and I have got the most ducky dress, a pendant to Hebe Vermont's Iris."

"A few rags of chiffon, a cup and bare legs, I suppose," Lady Garribardine retorted not unkindly, as her niece sat upon the bed.

"You may describe it like that if you want to, Aunt Sarah! I assure you, though, it is most becoming, and it is too ridiculous when everyone we know is going, and all the Thorvils have such tiny ankles, too."

"The more reason for you not to expose them to the common herd. Go naked if you so desire to a ball in a private house among your own class – you'll lay yourself open only to criticisms of your charms there – but to let hoi polloi gaze at you undressed is to lower your order; I am with Gerard about that."

Lady Beatrice pouted.

"I really thought you were so up to date, Aunt Seraphim, darling, that you would be sure to side with me – of course I shall go, all the same; I should not think of paying any attention to Gerard – only it would be so much nicer if you had consented to scold him for me."

"I am up to date, I hope, in so far as I try to move with the times" – Lady Garribardine's face was good-naturedly contemptuous – "only, I consider that all of you who throw your bonnets over the windmills are cutting your own throats – You are destroying values, cheapening pleasures, breaking down hedges, and letting in the swine to feed upon your grapes – you are often very vulgar, you modern people."

Lady Beatrice got off the bed.

"Then there is no use talking, Aunt Sarah – I dare say we are – but what matter? I wish I knew what does matter? I am bored all the time; I get some momentary pleasure out of my poetry, and some out of my dear precious friends – but the rest of the day is one long yawn. You ought not to grudge my being Ganymede; every sort of quaint creature is at this ball, and I get quite amused each year when I go."

"Why don't you take a box, then, and watch them? I could quite understand that, and intend to do so myself – Miss Bush, by the way, did you write to say I would have number five?"

Katherine replied in the affirmative and Lady Beatrice suddenly became aware of her presence as she resumed her place on the bed.

"Oh, this is your new secretary, Aunt Sarah! I am sure you have a frightfully difficult time – er – Miss Bush!" And she laughed, "Her Ladyship expects perfection."

"Her Ladyship has quite a right to as good as can be got – since she pays for it."

Katherine's voice was deep and level, and contained no impertinence, only a grave statement of fact.

Lady Garribardine chuckled among her pillows.

"Miss Bush is much nearer the truth of things than any of you so-called psychological philosophers, Bee – analysing matters with little dilettante methods all day to the laughter of the gods. Miss Bush realises her obligations as a secretary, but you very often don't perceive yours as a duke's daughter, and a rising Foreign Office official's wife."

Lady Beatrice was not the least crushed. She laughed frankly.

"Dear, sweet Aunty! There never has been a scandal about me in my life – I am a model of circumspectness, demureness and present-day virtuous wifeliness. Why, I never interfere with Gerard – we hardly meet in the whole week – and I merely like my own simple friends, my own simple clothes, and my own simple pleasures!"

"Artless creature!" And the youthful curls shook. "Well, what did you come for, in so many words? To try to get me to influence Gerard not to play for once the ineffectual part of husband in authority, and so let you disgrace the name of Thorvil and Strobridge in peace?"

Lady Beatrice seized and stroked the fat hand lying upon the pink silk coverlet.

"You darling, ducky Aunt Seraphim! Just that! I want to wear my enchanting boy's dress – I must be Ganymede, the cupbearer!"

"Well, I'll be no party to it – be off with you. I have serious affairs to settle with Miss Bush and have no further time to waste."

Lady Beatrice saluted her obediently and got off the bed once more; she was laughing softly.

"Gerard is coming to lunch," Lady Garribardine called to her, "and Läo Delemar, and they are going to see a winter exhibition afterwards."

"I can't stand Läo," Lady Beatrice cooed from the doorway; "she pretends to be so full of sex and other dreadful natural things, she makes my innocent aesthetic flesh creep – Gerard always had fruity tastes – Bye-bye, dear Aunt Sarah!" And kissing her finger-tips she was at last gone, leaving Katherine wondering.

They had said very severe things to each other and neither was the least angry really – Gladys and Fred were not wont to bicker so.

"Call up Mr. Strobridge, Miss Bush – he will not have left home yet – you know his number – ask him to speak to me at once."

Katherine obeyed – she was an expert with the telephone and never raised her voice. Mr. Strobridge was soon at the other end of it, and she was about to hand the receiver to her employer when that lady frowned and told her to give the message herself.

"My right ear is troublesome to-day," she said, "you must do the business for me, Miss Bush."

"Hello! Her Ladyship wishes me to give you a message – will you wait a moment until I take it?"

"Hello! Yes."

"Say he is to come half an hour earlier to lunch to-day. I have things to talk over with him about to-night – He is to go to this ridiculous ball in my box – tell him so."

Katherine repeated the exact message.

"Tell her I am very much annoyed about the whole thing," Mr. Strobridge returned, "and have decided not to be present myself."

"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Lady Garribardine, when she was told, and, seizing the receiver from Katherine's hand, she roared:

"Don't be a fool, G. – it is too late in the day to stand upon your dignity – I'll tell you the rest when you come to lunch." – Upon which she closed the communication and called for Stirling.

"Take all this rubbish of letters away, Miss Bush – I must get up and cope with the humiliating defects of old age – you may go."

Katherine had a very busy morning in front of her. She sat steadily typing and writing in the secretary's room, until her lunch was brought and even then she hardly stopped to eat it, but on her own way to the dining-room Lady Garribardine came in. She looked at the hardly tasted food and blinked her black eyes:

"Tut, tut! You must eat, child —pas trop de zèle– Finish your pudding – and then bring me those two letters upon the report of the Wineberger charity – into the dining-room – You can have your coffee with us – Mr. Strobridge and I are alone, Mrs. Delemar is not coming, after all – By the way, do you have everything you want? The coffee they give you is good, eh? Servants always skimp the beans when left to themselves."

"I have everything I want, thank you – but I have not been offered coffee," Katherine replied.

Lady Garribardine's face assumed an indignant expression, and she sharply rang the bell.

"These are the things that happen when one does not know of them – you ought to have complained to me before, Miss Bush!"

Thomas answered the bell and whitened perceptibly when he saw his mistress's face. He was asked why Miss Bush had not been served with coffee, in a voice which froze his tongue, and the only excuse he could give was a stammering statement that Miss Arnott had not taken any, which aroused further wrath.

"Pampered wretches!" Lady Garribardine exclaimed. "Anything to save themselves trouble! I will speak to Bronson about this – but see that it never happens again, Thomas!" And the trembling footman was allowed to leave the room.

"I am glad you did not try to defend them, as the foolish Arnott would have done," Her Ladyship flashed. "She was always standing between my just wrath and the servant's delinquencies, always shielding them – one would have thought she was of their class. The result was no one in the house respected her – good creature though she was. See that you are respected, young woman, and obeyed when obedience is your due."

"I will try to be" – and an inscrutable expression played round Katherine's full red mouth. "I would never shield anyone from what he deserved."

"It seems to me you understand a good deal, girl! – Well, come into the dining-room in half an hour," and, smiling her comprehending smile, Lady Garribardine left the room.

"G., that is a wonderful creature, that new secretary of mine – have you noticed her yet?" she said later on to her nephew when they had finished the serious part of their luncheon, and she had rung her enamelled bell for the automatic entrance of the servants from behind the screen – they were only allowed in the room to change the courses at this meal. Numbers of politicians and diplomats frequently dropped in and preferred to discuss affairs with their hostess alone.

"No – not much," Mr. Strobridge admitted when they were again by themselves and coffee had come. "I thought she did my letter to the Times remarkably well, though."

"She has not done anything badly yet – when she makes a mistake in social trifles she always realises it, and corrects herself. Her reading aloud was grotesque at first, but I have never had to tell her how to pronounce a word twice. I lay traps for her; she is as smart as paint and as deep as a well."

"A treasure indeed – " but Mr. Strobridge's voice was absent, he was uninterested and was still smarting under the annoyance of the situation created by his wife.

Of course he could not make her stay at home by force – and he hated the idea of Ganymede and the bare legs. He reverted to the topic once more.

"I would really rather not go to see the freakish crew to-night," he said. "Beatrice is doing it merely from obstinacy; she is not like Hebe Vermont, a ridiculous poseuse, crazy for notoriety; she is a refined creature generally, though wearying. This is just to defy me."

"As I have always told you, G., you should never have married, you are made for an ardent and devoted lover, with a suitable change of inamorata every six months. In the rôle of husband you are – frankly – a little ridiculous! You have no authority. As Miss Bush put it just now about something else, you usually act from good nature, not from a sense of justice; and Beatrice snaps her fingers at you and goes her own way."

"I don't mind as a rule – indeed, I am grateful to her for doing so. Can there be anything more tedious and bourgeois than the recognised relation of husband and wife? The only things which make intimacy with a woman agreeable are difficulty and intermittency. Bee fortunately expects nothing from me, and I expect nothing from her, beyond acting in a manner suitable to her race and station, and I don't think Ganymede in his original costume at an Artist Models' ball a harmonious part for my wife or a Thorvil to adopt."

"You don't know how to manage her, and you are too indifferent to try – so you had better swallow your outraged dignity and come with me in my box after all. Läo will be there and you can sit and whisper in the back of it." And Lady Garribardine lit her cigarette, but Mr. Strobridge protested in whimsical distress:

"Heaven forbid! Would you kill this dawning romance, Seraphim? If Läo and I are to be drafted off like a pair of fiancés, the whole charm is gone. I wish to ménager my emotions so that they may last over the Easter recess; after that I shall be too busy for them to matter. Don't be ruthless, sweet Aunt!"

Lady Garribardine laughed and at that moment Katherine Bush came in, the finished letters in her hand.

"Give Miss Bush some coffee, G., while I look over them," and Her Ladyship indicated the tray which had been placed by an attentive Bronson close to her hand.

Mr. Strobridge did as he was asked. His thoughts were far away, and beyond displaying the courtesy he used to all women, he never noticed Katherine at all. She was quite ordinary looking still – with the screwed up mop of ashen-hued hair, and her plain dark blouse, unless you chanced to meet her strange and beautiful eyes.

For some reason she felt a little piqued, the man's manner and phrasing attracted her, his voice was superlatively cultivated, and his words chosen with polished grace. Here was a person from whom something could be learned. She would have wished to have talked with him unrestrainedly and alone. She remained silent and listened when aunt and nephew again took up the ball of conversation together. How she would love to be able to converse like that! They were so sparkling – never in earnest seemingly, all was light as air, while Mr. Strobridge made allusions and quotations which showed his brilliant erudition, and Katherine hearkened with all her ears. Some of them she recognized and others she determined to look up, but his whole pronunciation of the sentences sounded different from what she had imagined they would be when she had read them to herself.

This was the first time she had heard a continued conversation between two people who she had already decided were worthy of note, and this half-hour stood out as the first milestone in her progress.

Presently they all rose – and she went back to her work with the sense of the magnitude of her task in climbing to the pinnacle of a great lady and cultivated woman of the world.

For a few moments she felt a little depressed – then a thought came to her.

"He could help me to knowledge of literature and art – he could teach me true culture – and since he is married there can be no stupid love-making. But for this he must first realise that I exist and for that when my chance comes I must arrest his attention through the ears and the eyes. He must for once look at me and see not only his aunt's secretary – and then I can learn from him all that I desire to know."

That this course of action could possibly cause the proposed teacher pain in the future never entered her head.