More than once, on one and the same day, the Captain had been guilty of a weakness which would have taken his oldest friends by surprise, if they had seen him at the moment. He hesitated.
A man who has commanded ships and has risked his life in the regions of the frozen deep, is a man formed by nature and taught by habit to meet emergency face to face, to see his course straight before him, and to take it, lead him where it may. But nature and habit, formidable forces as they are, find their master when they encounter the passion of Love.
At once perplexed and distressed by that startling change in Catherine which he had observed when her child approached her, Bennydeck’s customary firmness failed him, when the course of conduct toward his betrothed wife which it might be most becoming to follow presented itself to him as a problem to be solved. When Kitty asked him to accompany her nursemaid and herself on their return to the hotel, he had refused because he felt reluctant to intrude himself on Catherine’s notice, until she was ready to admit him to her confidence of her own free will. Left alone, he began to doubt whether delicacy did really require him to make the sacrifice which he had contemplated not five minutes since. It was surely possible that Catherine might be waiting to see him, and might then offer the explanation which would prove to be equally a relief on both sides. He was on his way to the hotel when he met with Sydney Westerfield.
To see a woman in the sorest need of all that kindness and consideration could offer, and to leave her as helpless as he had found her, would have been an act of brutal indifference revolting to any man possessed of even ordinary sensibility. The Captain had only followed his natural impulses, and had only said and done what, in nearly similar cases, he had said and done on other occasions.
Left by himself, he advanced a few steps mechanically on the way by which Sydney had escaped him—and then stopped. Was there any sufficient reason for his following her, and intruding himself on her notice? She had recovered, she was in possession of his address, she had been referred to a person who could answer for his good intentions; all that it was his duty to do, had been done already. He turned back again, in the direction of the hotel.
Hesitating once more, he paused half-way along the corridor which led to Catherine’s sitting-room. Voices reached him from persons who had entered the house by the front door. He recognized Mrs. Presty’s loud confident tones. She was taking leave of friends, and was standing with her back toward him. Bennydeck waited, unobserved, until he saw her enter the sitting-room. No such explanation as he was in search of could possibly take place in the presence of Catherine’s mother. He returned to the garden.
Mrs. Presty was in high spirits. She had enjoyed the Festival; she had taken the lead among the friends who accompanied her to the Palace; she had ordered everything, and paid for nothing, at that worst of all bad public dinners in England, the dinner which pretends to be French. In a buoyant frame of mind, ready for more enjoyment if she could only find it, what did she see on opening the sitting-room door? To use the expressive language of the stage, Catherine was “discovered alone"—with her elbows on the table, and her face hidden in her hands—the picture of despair.
Mrs. Presty surveyed the spectacle before her with righteous indignation visible in every line of her face. The arrangement which bound her daughter to give Bennydeck his final reply on that day had been well known to her when she left the hotel in the morning. The conclusion at which she arrived, on returning at night, was expressed with Roman brevity and Roman eloquence in four words:
“Oh, the poor Captain!”
Catherine suddenly looked up.
“I knew it,” Mrs. Presty continued, with her sternest emphasis; “I see what you have done, in your face. You have refused Bennydeck.”
“God forgive me, I have been wicked enough to accept him!”
Hearing this, some mothers might have made apologies; and other mothers might have asked what that penitential reply could possibly mean. Mrs. Presty was no matron of the ordinary type. She welcomed the good news, without taking the smallest notice of the expression of self-reproach which had accompanied it.
“My dear child, accept the congratulations of your fond old mother. I have never been one of the kissing sort (I mean of course where women are concerned); but this is an occasion which justifies something quite out of the common way. Come and kiss me.”
Catherine took no notice of that outburst of maternal love.
“I have forgotten everything that I ought to have remembered,” she said. “In my vanity, in my weakness, in my selfish enjoyment of the passing moment, I have been too supremely happy even to think of the trials of my past life, and of the false position in which they have placed me toward a man, whom I ought to be ashamed to deceive. I have only been recalled to a sense of duty, I might almost say to a sense of decency, by my poor little child. If Kitty had not reminded me of her father—”
Mrs. Presty dropped into a chair: she was really frightened. Her fat cheeks trembled like a jelly on a dish that is suddenly moved.
“Has that man been here?” she asked.
“What man?”
“The man who may break off your marriage if he meets with the Captain. Has Herbert Linley been here?”
“Certainly not. The one person associated with my troubles whom I have seen to-day is Sydney Westerfield.”
Mrs. Presty bounced out of her chair. “You—have seen—Sydney Westerfield?” she repeated with emphatic pauses which expressed amazement tempered by unbelief.
“Yes; I have seen her.”
“Where?”
“In the garden.”
“And spoken to her?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Presty raised her eyes to the ceiling. Whether she expected our old friend “the recording angel” to take down the questions and answers that had just passed, or whether she was only waiting to see the hotel that held her daughter collapse under a sense of moral responsibility, it is not possible to decide. After an awful pause, the old lady remembered that she had something more to say—and said it.
“I make no remark, Catherine; I don’t even want to know what you and Miss Westerfield said to each other. At the same time, as a matter of convenience to myself, I wish to ascertain whether I must leave this hotel or not. The same house doesn’t hold that woman and ME. Has she gone?”
“She has gone.”
Mrs. Presty looked round the room. “And taken Kitty with her?” she asked.
“Don’t speak of Kitty!” Catherine cried in the greatest distress. “I have had to keep the poor innocent affectionate child apart from Miss Westerfield by force. My heart aches when I think of it.”
“I’m not surprised, Catherine. My granddaughter has been brought up on the modern system. Children are all little angels—no punishments—only gentle remonstrance— ’Don’t be naughty, dear, because you will make poor mamma unhappy.’ And then, mamma grieves over it and wonders over it, when she finds her little angel disobedient. What a fatal system of education! All my success in life; every quality that endeared me to your father and Mr. Presty; every social charm that has made me the idol of society, I attribute entirely to judicious correction in early life, applied freely with the open hand. We will change the subject. Where is dear Bennydeck? I want to congratulate him on his approaching marriage.” She looked hard at her daughter, and mentally added: “He’ll live to regret it!”
Catherine knew nothing of the Captain’s movements. “Like you,” she told her mother, “I have something to say to him, and I don’t know where he is.”
Mrs. Presty still kept her eyes fixed on her daughter. Nobody, observing Catherine’s face, and judging also by the tone of her voice, would have supposed that she was alluding to the man whose irresistible attractions had won her. She looked ill at ease, and she spoke sadly.
“You don’t seem to be in good spirits, my dear,” Mrs. Presty gently suggested. “No lovers’ quarrel already, I hope?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“Can I be of any use to you?”
“You might be of the greatest use. But I know only too well, you would refuse.”
Thus far, Mrs. Presty had been animated by curiosity. She began now to feel vaguely alarmed. “After all that I have done for you,” she answered, “I don’t think you ought to say that. Why should I refuse?”
Catherine hesitated.
Her mother persisted in pressing her. “Has it anything to do with Captain Bennydeck?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Catherine roused her courage.
“You know what it is as well as I do,” she said. “Captain Bennydeck believes that I am free to marry him because I am a widow. You might help me to tell him the truth.”
“What!!!”
That exclamation of horror and astonishment was loud enough to have been heard in the garden. If Mrs. Presty’s hair had been all her own, it must have been hair that stood on end.
Catherine quietly rose. “We won’t discuss it,” she said, with resignation. “I knew you would refuse me.” She approached the door. Her mother got up and resolutely stood in the way. “Before you commit an act of downright madness,” Mrs. Presty said, “I mean to try if I can stop you. Go back to your chair.”
Catherine refused.
“I know how it will end,” she answered; “and the sooner it ends the better. You will find that I am quite as determined as you are. A man who loves me as he loves me, is a man whom I refuse to deceive.”
“Let’s have it out plainly,” Mrs. Presty insisted. “He believes your first marriage has been dissolved by death. Do you mean to tell him that it has been dissolved by Divorce?”
“I do.”
“What right has he to know it?”
“A right that is not to be denied. A wife must have no secrets from her husband.”
Mrs. Presty hit back smartly.
“You’re not his wife yet. Wait till you are married.”
“Never! Who but a wretch would marry an honest man under false pretenses?”
“I deny the false pretenses! You talk as if you were an impostor. Are you, or are you not, the accomplished lady who has charmed him? Are you, or are you not, the beautiful woman whom he loves? There isn’t a stain on your reputation. In every respect you are the wife he wants and the wife who is worthy of him. And you are cruel enough to disturb the poor man about a matter that doesn’t concern him! you are fool enough to raise doubts of you in his mind, and give him a reproach to cast in your teeth the first time you do anything that happens to offend him! Any woman—I don’t care who she may be—might envy the home that’s waiting for you and your child, if you’re wise enough to hold your tongue. Upon my word, Catherine, I am ashamed of you. Have you no principles?”
She really meant it! The purely selfish considerations which she urged on her daughter were so many undeniable virtues in Mrs. Presty’s estimation. She took the highest moral ground, and stood up and crowed on it, with a pride in her own principles which the Primate of all England might have envied.
But Catherine’s rare resolution held as firm as ever. She got a little nearer to the door. “Good-night, mamma,” was the only reply she made.
“Is that all you have to say to me?”
“I am tired, and I must rest. Please let me go.”
Mrs. Presty threw open the door with a bang.
“You refuse to take my advice?” she said. “Oh, very well, have your own way! You are sure to prosper in the end. These are the days of exhibitions and gold medals. If there is ever an exhibition of idiots at large, I know who might win the prize.”
Catherine was accustomed to preserve her respect for her mother under difficulties; but this was far more than her sense of filial duty could successfully endure.
“I only wish I had never taken your advice,” she answered. “Many a miserable moment would have been spared me, if I had always done what I am doing now. You have been the evil genius of my life since Miss Westerfield first came into our house.”
She passed through the open doorway—stopped—and came back again. “I didn’t mean to offend you, mamma—but you do say such irritating things. Good-night.”
Not a word of reply acknowledged that kindly-meant apology. Mrs. Presty—vivacious Mrs. Presty of the indomitable spirit and the ready tongue—was petrified. She, the guardian angel of the family, whose experience, devotion, and sound sense had steered Catherine through difficulties and dangers which must have otherwise ended in utter domestic shipwreck—she, the model mother—had been stigmatized as the evil genius of her daughter’s life by no less a person than that daughter herself! What was to be said? What was to be done? What terrible and unexampled course of action should be taken after such an insult as this? Mrs. Presty stood helpless in the middle of the room, and asked herself these questions, and waited and wondered and found no answer.
An interval passed. There was a knock at the door. A waiter appeared. He said: “A gentleman to see Mrs. Norman.”
The gentleman entered the room and revealed himself.
Herbert Linley!
The divorced husband looked at his mother-in-law without making the slightest sacrifice to the claims of politeness. He neither offered his hand nor made his bow. His frowning eyebrows, his flushed face, betrayed the anger that was consuming him.
“I want to see Catherine,” he said.
This deliberate rudeness proved to be the very stimulant that was required to restore Mrs. Presty to herself. The smile that always meant mischief made its threatening appearance on the old lady’s face.
“What sort of company have you been keeping since I last saw you?” she began.
“What have you got to do with the company I keep?”
“Nothing whatever, I am happy to say. I was merely wondering whether you have been traveling lately in the south part of Africa, and have lived exclusively in the society of Hottentots. The only other explanation of your behavior is that I have been so unfortunate as to offend you. But it seems improbable—I am not your wife.”
“Thank God for that!”
“Thank God, as you say. But I should really be glad (as a mere matter of curiosity) to know what your extraordinary conduct means. You present yourself in this room uninvited, you find a lady here, and you behave as if you had come into a shop and wanted to ask the price of something. Let me give you a lesson in good manners. Observe: I receive you with a bow, and I say: How do you do, Mr. Linley? Do you understand me?”
“I don’t want to understand you—I want to see Catherine.”
“Who is Catherine?”
“You know as well as I do—your daughter.”
“My daughter, sir, is a stranger to you. We will speak of her, if you please, by the name—the illustrious name—which she inherited at her birth. You wish to see Mrs. Norman?”
“Call her what you like. I have a word to say to her, and I mean to say it.”
“No, Mr. Linley, you won’t say it.”
“We’ll see about that! Where is she?”
“My daughter is not well.”
“Well or ill, I shan’t keep her long.”
“My daughter has retired to her room.”
“Where is her room?”
Mrs. Presty moved to the fireplace, and laid her hand on the bell.
“Are you aware that this house is a hotel?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter to me what it is.”
“Oh yes, it does. A hotel keeps waiters. A hotel, when it is as large as this, has a policeman in attendance. Must I ring?”
The choice between giving way to Mrs. Presty, or being disgracefully dismissed, was placed plainly before him. Herbert’s life had been the life of a gentleman; he knew that he had forgotten himself; it was impossible that he could hesitate.
“I won’t trouble you to ring,” he said; “and I will beg your pardon for having allowed my temper to get the better of me. At the same time it ought to be remembered, I think, in my favor, that I have had some provocation.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Mrs. Presty answered. She was deaf to any appeal for mercy from Herbert Linley. “As to provocation,” she added, returning to her chair without asking him to be seated, “when you apply that word to yourself, you insult my daughter and me. You provoked? Oh, heavens!”
“You wouldn’t say that,” he urged, speaking with marked restraint of tone and manner, “if you knew what I have had to endure—”
Mrs. Presty suddenly looked toward the door. “Wait a minute,” she said; “I think I hear somebody coming in.”
In the silence that followed, footsteps were audible outside—not approaching the door, however, but retiring from it. Mrs. Presty had apparently been mistaken. “Yes?” she said resignedly, permitting Herbert to proceed.
He really had something to say for himself, and he said it with sufficient moderation. That he had been guilty of serious offenses he made no attempt to deny; but he pleaded that he had not escaped without justly suffering for what he had done. He had been entirely in the wrong when he threatened to take the child away from her mother by force of law; but had he not been punished when his wife obtained her Divorce, and separated him from his little daughter as well as from herself? (No: Mrs. Presty failed to see it; if anybody had suffered by the Divorce, the victim was her injured daughter.) Still patient, Herbert did not deny the injury; he only submitted once more that he had suffered his punishment. Whether his life with Sydney Westerfield had or had not been a happy one, he must decline to say; he would only declare that it had come to an end. She had left him. Yes! she had left him forever. He had no wish to persuade her to return to their guilty life; they were both penitent, they were both ashamed of it. But she had gone away without the provision which he was bound in honor to offer to her.
“She is friendless; she may be in a state of poverty that I tremble to think of,” Herbert declared. “Is there nothing to plead for me in such anxiety as I am suffering now?” Mrs. Presty stopped him there; she had heard enough of Sydney already.
“I see nothing to be gained,” she said, “by dwelling on the past; and I should be glad to know why you have come to this place to-night.”
“I have come to see Kitty.”
“Quite out of the question.”
“Don’t tell me that, Mrs. Presty! I’m one of the wretchedest men living, and I ask for the consolation of seeing my child. Kitty hasn’t forgotten me yet, I know. Her mother can’t be so cruel as to refuse. She shall fix her own time, and send me away when she likes; I’ll submit to anything. Will you ask Catherine to let me see Kitty?”
“I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“For private reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“For reasons into which you have no right to inquire.”
He got up from his chair. His face presented the same expression which Mrs. Presty had seen on it when he first entered the room.
“When I came in here,” he said, “I wished to be certain of one thing. Your prevarication has told me what I wanted to know. The newspapers had Catherine’s own authority for it, Mrs. Presty, when they called her widow. I know now why my brother, who never deceived me before, has deceived me about this. I understand the part that your daughter has been playing—and I am as certain as if I had heard it, of the devilish lie that one of you—perhaps both of you—must have told my poor child. No, no; I had better not see Catherine. Many a man has killed his wife, and has not had such good reason for doing it as I have. You are quite right to keep me away from her.”
He stopped—and looked suddenly toward the door. “I hear her,” he cried, “She’s coming in!”
The footsteps outside were audible once more. This time, they were approaching; they were close to the door. Herbert drew back from it. Looking round to see that he was out of the way, Mrs. Presty rushed forward—tore open the door in terror of what might happen—and admitted Captain Bennydeck.
The Captain’s attention was first attracted by the visitor whom he found in the room. He bowed to the stranger; but the first impression produced on him did not appear to have been of the favorable kind, when he turned next to Mrs. Presty.
Observing that she was agitated, he made the customary apologies, expressing his regret if he had been so unfortunate as to commit an intrusion. Trusting in the good sense and good breeding which distinguished him on other occasions, Mrs. Presty anticipated that he would see the propriety of leaving her alone again with the person whom he had found in her company. To her dismay he remained in the room; and, worse still, he noticed her daughter’s absence, and asked if there was any serious cause for it.
For the moment, Mrs. Presty was unable to reply. Her presence of mind—or, to put it more correctly, her ready audacity—deserted her, when she saw Catherine’s husband that had been, and Catherine’s husband that was to be, meeting as strangers, and but too likely to discover each other.
In all her experience she had never been placed in such a position of embarrassment as the position in which she found herself now. The sense of honor which had prompted Catherine’s resolution to make Bennydeck acquainted with the catastrophe of married life, might plead her excuse in the estimation of a man devotedly attached to her. But if the Captain was first informed that he had been deceived by a person who was a perfect stranger to him, what hope could be entertained of his still holding himself bound by his marriage engagement? It was even possible that distrust had been already excited in his mind. He must certainly have heard a man’s voice raised in anger when he approached the door—and he was now observing that man with an air of curiosity which was already assuming the appearance of distrust. That Herbert, on his side, resented the Captain’s critical examination of him was plainly visible in his face. After a glance at Bennydeck, he asked Mrs. Presty “who that gentleman was.”
“I may be mistaken,” he added; “but I thought your friend looked at me just now as if he knew me.”
“I have met you, sir, before this.” The Captain made the reply with a courteous composure of tone and manner which apparently reminded Herbert of the claims of politeness.
“May I ask where I had the honor of seeing you?” he inquired.
“We passed each other in the hall of the hotel at Sandyseal. You had a young woman with you.”
“Your memory is a better one than mine, sir. I fail to remember the circumstance to which you refer.”
Bennydeck let the matter rest there. Struck by the remarkable appearance of embarrassment in Mrs. Presty’s manner—and feeling (in spite of Herbert’s politeness of language) increased distrust of the man whom he had found visiting her—he thought it might not be amiss to hint that she could rely on him in case of necessity. “I am afraid I have interrupted a confidential interview,” he began; “and I ought perhaps to explain—”
Mrs. Presty listened absently; preoccupied by the fear that Herbert would provoke a dangerous disclosure, and by the difficulty of discovering a means of preventing it. She interrupted the Captain.
“Excuse me for one moment; I have a word to say to this gentleman.” Bennydeck immediately drew back, and Mrs. Presty lowered her voice. “If you wish to see Kitty,” she resumed, attacking Herbert on his weak side, “it depends entirely on your discretion.”
“What do you mean by discretion?”
“Be careful not to speak of our family troubles—and I promise you shall see Kitty. That is what I mean.”
Herbert declined to say whether he would be careful or not. He was determined to find out, first, with what purpose Bennydeck had entered the room. “The gentleman was about to explain himself to you,” he said to Mrs. Presty. “Why don’t you give him the opportunity?”
She had no choice but to submit—in appearance at least. Never had she hated Herbert as she hated him at that moment. The Captain went on with his explanation. He had his reasons (he said) for hesitating, in the first instance, to present himself uninvited, and he accordingly retired. On second thoughts, however, he had returned, in the hope—
“In the hope,” Herbert interposed, “of seeing Mrs. Presty’s daughter?”
“That was one of my motives,” Bennydeck answered.
“Is it indiscreet to inquire what the other motive was?”
“Not at all. I heard a stranger’s voice, speaking in a tone which, to say the least of it, is not customary in a lady’s room and I thought—”
Herbert interrupted him again. “And you thought your interference might be welcome to the lady! Am I right?”
“Quite right.”
“Am I making another lucky guess if I suppose myself to be speaking to Captain Bennydeck?”
“I shall be glad to hear, sir, how you have arrived at the knowledge of my name.”
“Shall we say, Captain, that I have arrived at it by instinct?”
His face, as he made that reply, alarmed Mrs. Presty. She cast a look at him, partly of entreaty, partly of warning. No effect was produced by the look. He continued, in a tone of ironical compliment: “You must pay the penalty of being a public character. Your marriage is announced in the newspapers.”
“I seldom read the newspapers.”
“Ah, indeed? Perhaps the report is not true? As you don’t read the newspapers, allow me to repeat it. You are engaged to marry the ‘beautiful widow, Mrs. Norman.’ I think I quote those last words correctly?”
Mrs. Presty suddenly got up. With an inscrutable face that told no tales, she advanced to the door. Herbert’s insane jealousy of the man who was about to become Catherine’s husband had led him into a serious error; he had driven Catherine’s mother to desperation. In that state of mind she recovered her lost audacity, as a matter of course. Opening the door, she turned round to the two men, with a magnificent impudence of manner which in her happiest moments she had never surpassed.
“I am sorry to interrupt this interesting conversation,” she said; “but I have stupidly forgotten one of my domestic duties. You will allow me to return, and listen with renewed pleasure, when my household business is off my mind. I shall hope to find you both more polite to each other than ever when I come back.” She was in such a frenzy of suppressed rage that she actually kissed her hand to them as she left the room!
Bennydeck looked after her, convinced that some sinister purpose was concealed under Mrs. Presty’s false excuses, and wholly unable to imagine what that purpose might be. Herbert still persisted in trying to force a quarrel on the Captain.
“As I remarked just now,” he proceeded, “newspaper reports are not always to be trusted. Do you seriously mean, my dear sir, to marry Mrs. Norman?”
“I look forward to that honor and that happiness. But I am at a loss to know how it interests you.”
“In that case allow me to enlighten you. My name is Herbert Linley.”
He had held his name in reserve, feeling certain of the effect which he would produce when he pronounced it. The result took him completely by surprise. Not the slightest appearance of agitation showed itself in Bennydeck’s manner. On the contrary, he looked as if there was something that interested him in the discovery of the name.
“You are probably related to a friend of mine?” he said, quietly.
“Who is your friend?”
“Mr. Randal Linley.”
Herbert was entirely unprepared for this discovery. Once more, the Captain had got the best of it.
“Are you and Randal Linley intimate friends?” he inquired, as soon as he had recovered himself.
“Most intimate.”
“It’s strange that he should never have mentioned me, on any occasion when you and he were together.”
“It does indeed seem strange.”
Herbert paused. His brother’s keen sense of the disgrace that he had inflicted on the family recurred to his memory. He began to understand Randal’s otherwise unaccountable silence.
“Are you nearly related to Mr. Randal Linley?” the Captain asked.
“I am his elder brother.”
Ignorant on his part of the family disgrace, Bennydeck heard that reply with amazement. From his point of view, it was impossible to account for Randal’s silence.
“Will you think me very inquisitive,” Herbert resumed, “if I ask whether my brother approves of your marriage?”
There was a change in his tone, as he put that question which warned Bennydeck to be on his guard. “I have not yet consulted my friend’s opinion,” he answered, shortly.
Herbert threw off the mask. “In the meantime, you shall have my opinion,” he said. “Your marriage is a crime—and I mean to prevent it.”
The Captain left his chair, and sternly faced the man who had spoken those insolent words.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
Herbert was on the point of declaring himself to have been Catherine’s husband, until the law dissolved their marriage—when a waiter came in and approached him with a message. “You are wanted immediately, sir.”
“Who wants me?”
“A person outside, sir. It’s a serious matter—there is not a moment to lose.”
Herbert turned to the Captain. “I must have your promise to wait for me,” he said, “or I don’t leave the room.”
“Make your mind easy. I shall not stir from this place till you have explained yourself,” was the firm reply.
The servant led the way out. He crossed the passage, and opened the door of a waiting-room. Herbert passed in—and found himself face to face with his divorced wife.
Without one word of explanation, Catherine stepped up to him, and spoke first.
“Answer me this,” she said—"have you told Captain Bennydeck who I am?”
“Not yet.”
The shortest possible reply was the only reply that he could make, in the moment when he first looked at her.
She was not the same woman whom he had last seen at Sandyseal, returning for her lost book. The agitation produced by that unexpected meeting had turned her pale; the overpowering sense of injury had hardened and aged her face. This time, she was prepared to see him; this time, she was conscious of a resolution that raised her in her own estimation. Her clear blue eyes glittered as she looked at him, the bright color glowed in her cheeks; he was literally dazzled by her beauty.
“In the past time, which we both remember,” she resumed, “you once said that I was the most truthful woman you had ever known. Have I done anything to disturb that part of your old faith in me?”
“Nothing.”
She went on: “Before you entered this house, I had determined to tell Captain Bennydeck what you have not told him yet. When I say that, do you believe me?”
If he had been able to look away from her, he might have foreseen what was coming; and he would have remembered that his triumph over the Captain was still incomplete. But his eyes were riveted on her face; his tenderest memories of her were pleading with him. He answered as a docile child might have answered.
“I do believe you.”
She took a letter from her bosom; and, showing it, begged him to remark that it was not closed.
“I was in my bedroom writing,” she said, “When my mother came to me and told me that you and Captain Bennydeck had met in my sitting-room. She dreaded a quarrel and an exposure, and she urged me to go downstairs and insist on sending you away—or permit her to do so, if I could not prevail on myself to follow her advice. I refused to allow the shameful dismissal of a man who had once had his claim on my respect. The only alternative that I could see was to speak with you here, in private, as we are speaking now. My mother undertook to manage this for me; she saw the servant, and gave him the message which you received. Where is Captain Bennydeck now?”
“He is waiting in the sitting-room.”
“Waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
She considered a little before she said her next words.
“I have brought with me what I was writing in my own room,” she resumed, “wishing to show it to you. Will you read it?”
She offered the letter to him. He hesitated. “Is it addressed to me?” he asked.
“It is addressed to Captain Bennydeck,” she answered.
The jealousy that still rankled in his mind—jealousy that he had no more lawful or reasonable claim to feel than if he had been a stranger—urged him to assume an indifference which he was far from feeling. He begged that Catherine would accept his excuses.
She refused to excuse him.
“Before you decide,” she said, “you ought at least to know why I have written to Captain Bennydeck, instead of speaking to him as I had proposed. My heart failed me when I thought of the distress that he might feel—and, perhaps of the contempt of myself which, good and gentle as he is, he might not be able to disguise. My letter tells him the truth, without concealment. I am obliged to speak of the manner in which you have treated me, and of the circumstances which forced me into acts of deception that I now bitterly regret. I have tried not to misrepresent you; I have been anxious to do you no wrong. It is for you, not for me, to say if I have succeeded. Once more, will you read my letter?”
The sad self-possession, the quiet dignity with which she spoke, appealed to his memory of the pardon that she had so generously granted, while he and Sydney Westerfield were still guiltless of the injury inflicted on her at a later time. Silently he took the letter from her, and read it.
She kept her face turned away from him and from the light. The effort to be still calm and reasonable—to suffer the heart-ache, and not to let the suffering be seen—made cruel demands on the self-betraying nature of a woman possessed by strong emotion. There was a moment when she heard him sigh while he was reading. She looked round at him, and instantly looked away again.
He rose and approached her; he held out the letter in one hand, and pointed to it with the other. Twice he attempted to speak. Twice the influence of the letter unmanned him.
It was a hard struggle, but it was for her sake: he mastered his weakness, and forced his trembling voice to submit to his will.
“Is the man whom you are going to marry worthy of this?” he asked, still pointing to the letter.
She answered, firmly: “More than worthy of it.”
“Marry him, Catherine—and forget Me.”
The great heart that he had so sorely wounded pitied him, forgave him, answered him with a burst of tears. She held out one imploring hand.
His lips touched it—he was gone.
Brisk and smiling, Mrs. Presty presented herself in the waiting-room. “We have got rid of our enemy!” she announced, “I looked out of the window and saw him leaving the hotel.” She paused, struck with the deep dejection expressed in her daughter’s attitude. “Catherine!” she exclaimed, “I tell you Herbert has gone, and you look as if you regretted it! Is there anything wrong? Did my message fail to bring him here?”
“No.”
“He was bent on mischief when I saw him last. Has he told Bennydeck of the Divorce?”
“No.”
“Thank Heaven for that! There is no one to be afraid of now. Where is the Captain?”
“He is still in the sitting-room.”
“Why don’t you go to him?”
“I daren’t!”
“Shall I go?”
“Yes—and give him this.”
Mrs. Presty took the letter. “You mean, tear it up,” she said, “and quite right, too.”
“No; I mean what I say.”
“My dear child, if you have any regard for yourself, if you have any regard for me, don’t ask me to give Bennydeck this mad letter! You won’t hear reason? You still insist on it?”
“I do.”
“If Kitty ever behaves to you, Catherine, as you have behaved to me—you will have richly deserved it. Oh, if you were only a child again, I’d beat it out of you—I would!”
With that outburst of temper, she took the letter to Bennydeck. In less than a minute she returned, a tamed woman. “He frightens me,” she said.
“Is he angry?”
“No—and that is the worst of it. When men are angry, I am never afraid of them. He’s quiet, too quiet. He said: ‘I’m waiting for Mr. Herbert Linley; where is he?’ I said. ‘He has left the hotel.’ He said: ‘What does that mean?’ I handed the letter to him. ‘Perhaps this will explain,’ I said. He looked at the address, and at once recognized your handwriting. ‘Why does she write to me when we are both in the same house? Why doesn’t she speak to me?’ I pointed to the letter. He wouldn’t look at it; he looked straight at me. ‘There’s some mystery here,’ he said; ‘I’m a plain man, I don’t like mysteries. Mr. Linley had something to say to me, when the message interrupted him. Who sent the message? Do you know?’ If there is a woman living, Catherine, who would have told the truth, in such a position as mine was at that moment, I should like to have her photograph. I said I didn’t know—and I saw he suspected me of deceiving him. Those kind eyes of his—you wouldn’t believe it of them!—looked me through and through. ‘I won’t detain you any longer,’ he said. I’m not easily daunted, as you know—the relief it was to me to get away from him is not to be told in words. What do you think I heard when I got into the passage? I heard him turn the key of the door. He’s locked in, my dear; he’s locked in! We are too near him here. Come upstairs.”
Catherine refused. “I ought to be near him,” she said, hopefully; “he may wish to see me.”
Her mother reminded her that the waiting-room was a public room, and might be wanted.
“Let’s go into the garden,” Mrs. Presty proposed. “We can tell the servant who waits on us where we may be found.”
Catherine yielded. Mrs. Presty’s excitement found its overflow in talking perpetually. Her daughter had nothing to say, and cared nothing where they went; all outward manifestation of life in her seemed to be suspended at that terrible time of expectation. They wandered here and there, in the quietest part of the grounds. Half an hour passed—and no message was received. The hotel clock struck the hour—and still nothing happened.
“I can walk no longer,” Catherine said. She dropped on one of the garden-chairs, holding by her mother’s hand. “Go to him, for God’s sake!” she entreated. “I can endure it no longer.”
Mrs. Presty—even bold Mrs. Presty—was afraid to face him again. “He’s fond of the child,” she suggested; “let’s send Kitty.”
Some little girls were at play close by who knew where Kitty was to be found. In a few minutes more they brought her back with them. Mrs. Presty gave the child her instructions, and sent her away proud of her errand, and delighted at the prospect of visiting the Captain by herself, as if she “was a grown-up lady.”
This time the period of suspense was soon at an end. Kitty came running back. “It’s lucky you sent me,” she declared. “He wouldn’t have opened the door to anybody else—he said so himself.”
“Did you knock softly, as I told you?” Mrs. Presty asked.
“No, grandmamma, I forgot that. I tried to open the door. He called out not to disturb him. I said, ‘It’s only me,’ and he opened the door directly. What makes him look so pale, mamma? Is he ill?”
“Perhaps he feels the heat,” Mrs. Presty suggested, judiciously.
“He said, ‘Dear little Kitty,’ and he caught me up in his arms and kissed me. When he sat down again he took me on his knee, and he asked if I was fond of him, and I said, ‘Yes, I am,’ and he kissed me again, and he asked if I had come to stay with him and keep him company. I forgot what you wanted me to say,” Kitty acknowledged, addressing Mrs. Presty; “so I made it up out of my own head.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him, mamma was as fond of him as I was, and I said, ‘We will both keep you company.’ He put me down on the floor, and he got up and went to the window and looked out. I told him that wasn’t the way to find her, and I said, ‘I know where she is; I’ll go and fetch her.’ He’s an obstinate man, our nice Captain. He wouldn’t come away from the window. I said, ‘You wish to see mamma, don’t you?’ And he said ‘Yes.’ ‘You mustn’t lock the door again,’ I told him, ‘she won’t like that’; and what do you think he said? He said ‘Good-by, Kitty!’ Wasn’t it funny? He didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. If you ask my opinion, mamma, I think the sooner you go to him the better.” Catherine hesitated. Mrs. Presty on one side, and Kitty on the other, led her between them into the house.