Between Katharine and her mother and Ralston there remained a sort of tacit understanding. There was no formal engagement, of course, which would have had to be concealed from Mr. Lauderdale, but Mrs. Lauderdale meant that the two young people should be married if they continued to love one another, and she generally left them as much together as they pleased when Ralston came.
It was, therefore, not strange that they should both be surprised by the nature of her sudden question as she stood by the fireplace looking sideways at Ralston, with her back to the light.
“What is the use?” asked Katharine, repeating the words in astonishment and emphasizing the last one.
“Yes. What is the use? It is leading to nothing. You never can be married, and you know it by this time. You had much better separate at once. It will be easier for you now, perhaps, than by and by. You are both so young!”
“Excuse me, cousin Emma,” said Ralston, “but I think you must be dreaming.”
He spoke very quietly, but the light was beginning to gleam in his eyes. His mother was said to have a very bad temper, and John was like her in many respects. But Mrs. Lauderdale continued to speak quite calmly.
“I have been thinking about you two a great deal lately,” she said. “I have made a mistake, and I may as well say so at once, now that I have discovered it. You wouldn’t like me to go on letting you think that I approved of your engagement, when I don’t—would you? That wouldn’t be fair or honest.”
“Certainly not,” answered Ralston, in a low voice, and he could feel all his muscles tightening as though for a physical effort. “Have you said this sort of thing to Katharine before, or is this the first time?”
“No, she hasn’t said a word,” replied Katharine herself.
The girl was standing by the easy chair, her hand resting on the back of it, her face pale, her great grey eyes staring wide open at her mother’s profile.
“No, I have not,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “I thought it best to wait until I could speak to you together. It’s useless to give pain twice over.”
“It is indeed,” said Ralston, gravely. “Please go on.”
“Why—there’s nothing more to be said, Jack,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale. “That’s all. The trouble is that you’ll never do anything, and you have no fortune, nor any prospect of any—until your mother—”
“Please don’t speak of my mother in that connection,” interrupted Ralston, his lips growing white.
“Well—and as for us, we’re as poor as can be. You see how we live. Besides, you know. Old Mr. Lauderdale gets uncle Robert to subscribe thousands and thousands for the idiots, but he never suggests that they are far better off than we are. However, those are our miseries and not yours. Yours is that you are perfectly useless—”
“Mother!” cried Katharine, losing control of herself and moving a step forward.
“It’s all right, dear,” said Ralston. “Go on, cousin Emma. I’m perfectly useless—”
“I don’t mean to offend you, Jack, and we’re not strangers,” continued Mrs. Lauderdale, “and I won’t dwell on the facts. You know them as well as I do, and are probably quite as sorry that they really are facts. I will only ask one question. What chance is there that in the next four or five years you can have a house of your own, and an income of your own—just enough for two people to live on and no more—and—well—a home for Katharine? What chance is there?”
“I’ll do something before that time,” answered Ralston, with a determined look.
But Mrs. Lauderdale shook her head.
“So you said last year, Jack. I repeat—I don’t want to be unkind. How long is Katharine to wait?”
“I’ll wait all my life, mother,” said the young girl, suddenly speaking out in ringing tones. “I’ll wait till I die, if I must, and Jack knows it. And I believe in him, if you don’t—against you all, you and papa and uncle Robert and every one. Jack has never had a chance that deserves to be called a chance at all. He must succeed—he shall succeed—I know he’ll succeed. And I’ll wait till he does. I will—I will—if it’s forever, and I shan’t be tired of waiting—it will always be easy, for him. Oh, mother, mother—to think that you should have turned against us! That’s the hard thing!”
“Thank you, dear,” said Ralston, touching her hand lovingly.
Mrs. Lauderdale had turned her face quite away from him now and was looking at the clock, softly drumming with her fingers upon the mantelpiece.
“I’m sorry, Katharine,” she said. “But I think it, and I’ve said it—and I can’t unsay it. It’s far too true.”
There was a dead silence for several seconds. Then Katharine suddenly pushed Ralston gently toward the door.
“Go, Jack dear,” she said in a low voice. “She has a dreadful headache—she’s not herself. Your being here irritates her—please go away—it will be all right in a day or two—”
They had reached the door, for Ralston saw that she was right.
“No,” said Mrs. Lauderdale from the fireplace, “I shan’t change my mind.”
It was all so sudden and strange that Ralston found himself outside the library without having taken leave of her in any way. Katharine came out with him.
“There’s a difficulty,” he whispered quickly as he found his coat and stick. “After it’s done there has to be a certificate saying that—”
“Katharine! Come here!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale from within, and they heard her footstep as she left the fireplace.
“Come to-morrow morning at eleven,” whispered Katharine.
She barely touched his hand with hers and fled back into the library. He let himself out and walked slowly along Clinton Place in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
Katharine went back to the library mechanically, because Mrs. Lauderdale called her and because she heard the latter’s step upon the floor, but not exactly in mere blind submission and obedience. She was, indeed, so much surprised by what had taken place that she was not altogether her usual self, and she was conscious that events moved more quickly just then than her own power of decision. She was observant and perceptive, but her reason had always worked slowly. Ralston, at least, was out of the way, and she was glad that she had made him go. It had been unbearable to hear her mother attacking him as she had done.
She believed that Mrs. Lauderdale was about to be seriously ill. No other theory could account for her extraordinary behaviour. It was therefore wisest to take away what irritated her and to be as patient as possible. There was no excuse for her sudden change of opinion, and as soon as she was quite well she would be sorry for what she had said. Katharine was not more patient than most people, but she did her best.
“Is anything the matter, mother? You called so loud.” She spoke almost before she had shut the door behind her.
“No. Did I? I wanted him to go away, that was all. Why should he stand there talking to you in whispers?”
Katharine did not answer at once, but her broad eyebrows drew slowly together and her eyelids contracted. She sat down and clasped her hands together upon her knee.
“Because he had something to say to me which he did not wish you to hear, mother,” she answered at last.
“Ah—I thought so.” Mrs. Lauderdale relapsed into silence, and from time to time her mouth twitched nervously.
She glanced at her daughter once or twice. The young girl’s straight features could look almost stolid at times. Her patience had given way once, but she got hold of it again and tried to set it on her face like a mask. She was thinking now and wondering whether this strange mood were a mere caprice of her mother’s, though Mrs. Lauderdale had never been capricious before, or whether something had happened to change her opinion of Ralston suddenly but permanently. In the one case it would be best to bear it as quietly as possible, in the other to declare war at once. But that seemed impossible, when she tried to realize it. She was deeply, sincerely devoted to her mother. Hitherto they had each understood the other’s thoughts and feelings almost without words, and in all the many little domestic difficulties they had been firm allies. It was not possible that they were to quarrel now. The gap in life would be too deep and broad. Katharine suddenly rose and came and sat beside her mother and drew the fair, tired face to her own, very tenderly.
“Mother dear,” she said, “look at me! What is the matter? Have I done anything to hurt you—to displease you? We’ve always loved each other, you and I—and we can’t really quarrel, can we? What is it, dearest? Tell me everything—I can’t understand it at all—I know—you’re tired and ill, and Jack irritated you. Men will, sometimes, even the very nicest men, you know. It was only that, wasn’t it? Yes—I knew it was—poor, dear, darling, sweet, tired little mother, just let your dear head rest—so, against me—yes, dear, I know—it was nothing—”
It was as though they had changed places, the mother and the daughter. The older woman’s lip quivered, as her cheek rested on Katharine’s breast. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, two tears gathered just within the shadowed lids, and grew and overflowed and trembled and fell—two crystal drops. She saw them fall upon the rough grey stuff of her daughter’s frock, and as she lay there upon the girl’s bosom with downcast eyes, she watched her own tears, in momentary apathy, and noticed how they ran, then crawled along, then stopped, caught as it seemed in the stiff little hairs of the coarse material—and she noticed that there were a few black hairs mixed with the grey, which she had not known before.
Then quite suddenly, just as they were shrinking and darkening the wool with two small spots, a great irresistible sob seemed to come from outside and run through her from head to foot, and shook her and hurt her and gripped her throat. A moment more and the flood of tears broke. Those storms of life’s autumn are chill and sharp. They are not like the showers of spring, quick, light and soft, that make blossoms fragrant and woods sweet-scented.
Katharine did not understand, and her face was gentle and full of pain as she pressed her mother to her bosom.
“Don’t cry, mother—don’t cry!” she repeated again and again.
“Ah, Katharine—child—if you knew!” The few words came with difficulty, as each sob rose and would not be forced back.
“No, darling—don’t! There, there!” And the young girl tried to soothe her.
Suddenly it all ceased. With an impatient movement, as though she despised herself, Mrs. Lauderdale drew back, steadied herself with one hand upon the end of the sofa, turned her head away and rose to her feet.
“Go out, child—leave me to myself!” she said indistinctly, and going quickly towards the door. “Don’t come after me—don’t—no, don’t,” she repeated, not looking back, as she went out.
Left to herself, and understanding that it was better not to follow, Katharine stood still a moment in the middle of the room, then went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing. She did not know what it all meant, but she felt that some great change which she could not comprehend had come over her mother, and that they could never be again as they had been. A mere headache, the mere fatigue from overwork, could not have produced such results. Nor was Mrs. Lauderdale really ill, as the girl’s womanly instinct had told her within the last five minutes. The trouble, whatever it might be, was mental, and the tears had given it a momentary relief. But it was not over.
Katharine went out, at last, and was glad to breathe the keen air of the wintry afternoon; glad, too, to be alone with herself. She even wished that she were not obliged to go into Fifth Avenue, where she might meet an acquaintance, or at all events to cross it, as she decided to do when she reached the first corner. Going straight on, the next street was University Place, and the lower part of that was quiet, and Waverley Place and the neighbourhood of the old University building itself. She could wander about there for half an hour without going so far as Broadway, nor southwards to the precincts of the French and Italian business colonies. So she walked slowly on, and then turned, and turned again, round and round, backwards and forwards, meeting no one she knew, thinking all the time and idly noticing things that had never struck her before, as, for instance, that there is a row of stables leading westward out of University Place which is called Washington Mews, and that at almost every corner where there is a liquor-shop there seems to be an Italian fruit-stand—the function of the ‘dago’ being to give warning of the approach of the police, in certain cases, a fact which Katharine could not be expected to know.
Just beyond the aforesaid Mews, at the corner of Washington Square, she came suddenly upon little Frank Miner, his overcoat buttoned up to his chin and a roll of papers sticking out of his pocket. His fresh face was pink with the cold, his small dark mustache glistened, and his restless eyes were bright. The two almost ran against one another and both stopped. He raised his hat with a quick smile and put out his hand.
“How d’ye do, Miss Lauderdale?” he asked.
In spite of the family connection he had never got so far as to call her Katharine, or even cousin Katharine. The young girl shook hands with him and smiled.
“Are you out for a walk?” he asked, before she had been able to speak. “And if so, may I come too?”
“Oh, yes—do.”
She had been alone long enough to find it impossible to reach any conclusion, and of all people except Ralston, Miner was the one she felt most able to tolerate just then. His perfectly simple belief in himself and his healthy good humour made him good company for a depressed person.
“You seemed to be in such a hurry,” said Katharine, as he began to walk slowly by her side.
“Of course, as I was coming to meet you,” he answered promptly.
“But you didn’t know—”
“Providence knew,” he said, interrupting her. “It was foreordained when the world was chaos and New York was inhabited by protoplasm—and all that—that you and I should meet just here, at this very minute. Aren’t you a fatalist? I am. It’s far the best belief.”
“Is it? Why? I should think it rather depressing.”
“Why—no. You believe that you’re the sport of destiny. Now a sport implies amusement of some kind. See?”
“Is the football amused when it’s kicked?” asked Katharine, with a short laugh.
“Now please don’t introduce football, Miss Lauderdale,” said Miner, without hesitation. “I don’t understand anything about it, and I know that I should, because it’s a mania just now. All the men get it when the winter comes on, and they sit up half the night at the club, drawing diagrams and talking Hebrew, and getting excited—I’ve seen them positively sitting up on their hind-legs in rows, and waving their paws and tearing their hair—just arguing about the points of a game half of them never played at all.”
“What a picture!” laughed Katharine.
“Isn’t it? But it’s just true. I’m going to write a book about it and call it ‘The Kicker Kicked’—you know, like Sartor Resartus—all full of philosophy and things. Can you say ‘Kicker Kicked’ twenty times very fast, Miss Lauderdale? I believe it’s impossible. I just left my three sisters—they’re slowly but firmly turning into aunts, you know—I left them all trying to say it as hard as they could, and the whole place clicked as though a thousand policemen’s rattles were all going at once—hard! And they were all showing their teeth and going mad over it.”
“I should think so—and that’s another picture.”
“By the bye, speaking of pictures, have you seen the Loan Collection? It’s full of portraits of children with such extraordinary expressions—they all look as though they had given up trying to educate their parents in despair. I wonder why everybody paints children? Nobody can. I believe it would take a child—who knew how to paint, of course,—to paint a child, and give just that something which real children have—just what makes them children.”
She was silent for a moment, following the unexpected train of thoughts. There were delicate sides to his nature that pleased Katharine as well as his nonsense.
“That’s a pretty idea,” she said, after thinking of it a few seconds.
“Everybody tries and fails,” answered Miner. “Why doesn’t somebody paint you?” he asked suddenly, looking at her.
“Somebody means to,” she replied. “I was to have gone to sit to Mr. Crowdie this morning, but he sent me word to come to-morrow instead. I suppose he had forgotten another engagement.”
“Crowdie is ill,” said Miner. “Bright told me so this morning—some queer attack that nobody could understand.”
“Something serious?” asked Katharine, quickly.
“Oh, no—I suppose not. Let’s go and see. He lives close by—at least, not far, you know, over in Lafayette Place. It won’t take five minutes to go across. Would you like to go?”
“Yes,” answered the young girl. “I could ask if he will be able to begin the picture to-morrow.”
They turned to the right at the next crossing and reached Broadway a few moments later. There was the usual crowd of traffic in the great thoroughfare, and they had to wait a moment at the crossing before attempting it. Miner thought of what he had seen on the previous afternoon.
“Did you hear of Jack Ralston’s accident yesterday?” he asked.
Katharine started violently and turned pale. She had not realized how the long hours and the final scene with her mother had unstrung her nerves. But Miner was watching the cars and carts for an opening, and did not see her.
“Yesterday?” she repeated, a moment later. “No—he came to see us and stayed almost till dinner time. What was it? When did it happen? Was he hurt?”
“Oh—you saw him afterwards, then?” Miner looked up into her face—she was taller than he—with a curious expression—recollecting Ralston’s condition when he had last seen him.
“It wasn’t serious, then? It had happened before he came to our house?”
“Why—yes,” answered the little man, with a puzzled expression. “Was he all right when you saw him?”
“Perfectly. He never said anything about any accident. He looked just as he always does.”
“That fellow has copper springs and patent joints inside him!” Miner laughed. “He was a good deal shaken, that’s all, and went home in a cab. I should have gone to bed, myself.”
“But what was it?”
“Oh—what he’d call nothing, I suppose! The cars at the corner of Thirty-second and Broadway—we were waiting, just as we are now—two cars were coming in opposite ways, and a boy with a bundle and a dog and a perambulator, and a few other things, got between the tracks—of course the cars would have taken off his head or his heels or his bundle, or something, and the dog would have been ready for his halo in three seconds. Jack jumped and picked up everything together and threw them before him and fell on his head. Wonder he wasn’t killed or crippled—or both—no, I mean—here’s a chance, Miss Lauderdale—come along before that van stops the way!”
There was not time to say anything as Katharine hastened across the broad street by his side, and by the time they had reached the pavement the blood had come back to her face. Her fears for Ralston’s safety had been short-lived, thanks to Miner’s quick way of telling the story, and in their place came the glow of pride a woman feels when the man she loves is praised by men for a brave action. Miner glanced at her as he landed her safely from the crossing and wondered whether Crowdie’s portrait would do her justice. He doubted it, just then.
“It was just like him,” she said quietly.
“And I suppose it was like him to say nothing about it, but just to go home and restore his shattered exterior and put on another pair of boots and go and see you. You said he looked as though nothing had happened to him?”
“Quite. We had a long talk together. I should certainly not have guessed that anything had gone wrong.”
“Ralston’s an unusual sort of fellow, anyhow,” said Miner, enigmatically. “But then—so am I, so is Crowdie—do you like Crowdie? Rude question, isn’t it? Well, I won’t ask it, then. Besides, if he’s to paint your picture you must have a pleasant expression—a smile that goes all round your head and is tied with a black ribbon behind—you know?”
“Oh, yes!” Katharine laughed again, as she generally did at the little man’s absurd sayings.
“But Crowdie knows,” he continued. “He’s clever—oh, to any extent—big things and little things. All his lions roar and all his mosquitoes buzz, just like real things. The only thing he can’t do is to paint children, and nobody can do that. By the bye, I’m repeating myself. It doesn’t take long to get all round a little man like me. There are lots of things about Crowdie, though. He sings like an angel. I never heard such a voice. It’s more like a contralto—like Scalchi’s as it was, though she’s good still,—than like a tenor. Oh, he’s full of talent. I wish he weren’t so queer!”
“Queer? How do you mean?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. There’s something different from other people. Is he a friend of yours? I mean, a great friend?”
“Oh, no—not at all. I’m very fond of Mrs. Crowdie. She’s a cousin, you know.”
“Yes. Well—I don’t know that I can make you understand what I mean, though. Besides, he’s a very good sort of fellow. Never heard of anything that wasn’t all right about him—at least—nothing particular. I don’t know. He’s like some kind of strange, pale, tropical fruit that’s gone bad at the core and might be poisonous. Horrid thing to say of a man, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I know just what you mean!” answered Katharine, with a little movement of disgust.
Miner suddenly became thoughtful again, and they reached the Crowdies’ house,—a pretty little one, with white stone steps, unlike the ordinary houses of New York. Lafayette Place is an unfashionable nook, rather quiet and apparently remote from civilization. It has, however, three dignities, as the astrologers used to say. The Bishop of New York has his official residence on one side of it, and on the other is the famous Astor Library. A little further down there was at that time a small club frequented by the great publishers and by some of their most expensive authors. No amateur ever twice crossed the threshold alive.
Miner rang the bell, and the door was opened by an extremely smart old man-servant in livery. The Crowdies were very prosperous people. Katharine asked if Hester were at home. The man answered that Mrs. Crowdie was not receiving, but that he believed she would wish to see Miss Katharine. He had been with the Ralstons in the Admiral’s lifetime and had known Katharine since she had been a baby. Crowdie was very proud of him on account of his thick white hair.
“I’ll go in,” said the young girl. “Good-bye, Mr. Miner—thank you so much for coming with me.”
Miner trotted down the white stone steps and Katharine went into the house, and waited some minutes in the pretty little sitting-room with the bow-window, on the right of the entrance. She was just thinking that possibly Hester did not wish to see her, after all, when the door opened and Mrs. Crowdie entered. She was a pale, rather delicate-looking woman, in whose transparent features it was hard to trace any resemblance to her athletic brother, Hamilton Bright. But she was not an insignificant person by any means. She had the Lauderdale grey eyes like so many of the family, but with more softness in them, and the eyebrows were finely pencilled. An extraordinary quantity of silky brown hair was coiled and knotted as closely as possible to her head, and parted low on the forehead in heavy waves, without any of the ringlets which have been fashionable for years. There were almost unnaturally deep shadows under the eyes, and the mouth was too small for the face and strongly curved, the angles of the lips being very cleanly cut all along their length, and very sharply distinct in colour from the ivory complexion. Altogether, it was a passionate face—or perhaps one should say impassioned. Imaginative people might have said that there was something fatal about it. Mrs. Crowdie was even paler than usual to-day, and it was evident that she had undergone some severe strain upon her strength.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you, dear!” she said, kissing the young girl on both cheeks and leading her to a small sofa just big enough to accommodate two persons, side by side.
“You look tired and troubled, Hester darling,” said Katharine. “I met little Frank Miner and he told me that Mr. Crowdie had been taken ill. I hope it’s nothing serious?”
“No—yes—how can I tell you? He’s in his studio now, as though nothing had happened—not that he’s working, for of course he’s tired—oh, it has been so dreadful—I wish I could cry, but I can’t, you know. I never could. That’s why it hurts so. But I’m so glad you’ve come. I had just written a note to you and was going to send it, when Fletcher came up and said you were here. It was one of my intuitions—I’m always doing those things.”
It was so evidently a relief to her to talk that Katharine let her run on till she paused, before asking a question.
“What was the matter with him? Tell me, dear.”
Mrs. Crowdie did not answer at once, but sat holding the young girl’s hand and staring at the fire.
“Katharine,” she said at last, “I’m in great trouble. I want a friend—not to help me, for no one can—I must bear it alone—but I must speak, or it will drive me mad.”
“You can tell me everything if you will, Hester,” said Katharine, gravely. “It will be quite safe with me. But don’t tell me, if you are ever going to regret it.”
“No—I was thinking—”
Mrs. Crowdie hesitated and there was a short silence. She covered her eyes for an instant with one small hand—her hands were small and pointed, but not so thin as might have been expected from her face—and then she looked at her companion. The strong, well-balanced features apparently inspired her with confidence. She nodded slowly, as though reaching a conclusion within herself, and then spoke.
“I will tell you, Katharine. I’d much rather tell you than any one else, and I know myself—I should be sure to tell somebody in the end. You’re like a man in some things, though you are only a girl. If I had a man friend, I think I should go to him—but I haven’t. Walter has always been everything to me. Somehow I never get intimate with men, as some women do.”
“Surely—there’s your brother, Hester. Why don’t you go to him? I should, in your place.”
“No, dear. You don’t know—Hamilton never approved of my marriage. Didn’t you know? He’s such a good fellow that he wouldn’t tell any one else so. But he—well—he never liked Walter, from the first, though I must say Walter was very nice to him. And about the arrangements—you know I had a settlement—Ham insisted upon it—so that my little fortune is in the hands of trustees—your father is one of them. As though Walter would ever have touched it! He makes me spend it all on myself. No, dear—I couldn’t tell my brother—so I shall tell you.”
She stopped speaking and leaned forward, burying her face in her hands for a moment, as though to collect her thoughts. Then she sat up again, and looked at the fire while she spoke.
“It was last night,” she said. “He dined with you, and I stayed at home all by myself, not being asked, you see, because it was at a moment’s notice—it was quite natural, of course. Walter came home early, and we sat in the studio a long time, as we often do in the evening. There’s such a beautiful light, and the big fireplace, and cushions—and all. I thought he smoked a great deal, and you know he doesn’t usually smoke much, on account of his voice, and he really doesn’t care for it as some men do. I wish he did—I like the smell of it, and then a man ought to have some little harmless vice. Walter never drinks wine, nor coffee—nothing but Apollinaris. He’s not at all like most men. He never uses any scent, but he likes to burn all sorts of queer perfumes in the studio in a little Japanese censer. I like cigars much better, and I always tell him so,—and he laughs. How foolish I am!” she interrupted herself. “But it’s such a relief to talk—you don’t know!”
“Go on, dear—I’m listening,” said Katharine, humouring her, and speaking very gently.
“Yes—but I must tell you now.”
Katharine saw how she straightened herself to make the effort, and sitting close beside her, so that they touched one another, she felt that Hester was pressing back against the sofa, while she braced her feet against a footstool.
“It was very sudden,” she said in a low voice. “We were talking—I was saying something—all at once his face changed so—oh, it makes me shudder to think of it. It seemed—I don’t know—like—almost like a devil’s face! And his eyes seemed to turn in—he was all purple—and his lips were all wet—it was like foam—oh, it was dreadful—too awful!”
Katharine was startled and shocked. She could say nothing, but pressed the small hand in anxious sympathy. Hester smiled faintly, and then almost laughed, but instantly recovered herself again. She was not at all a hysterical woman, and, as she said, she could never cry.
“That’s only the beginning,” she continued. “I won’t tell you how he looked. He fell over on the divan and rolled about and caught at the cushions and at me—at everything. He didn’t know me at all, and he never spoke an articulate word—not one. But he groaned, and seemed to gnash his teeth—I believe it went on for hours, while I tried to help him, to hold him, to keep him from hurting himself. And then—after a long, long time—all at once, his face changed again, little by little, and—will you believe it, dear? He was asleep!”
“How strange!” exclaimed Katharine.
“Yes—wasn’t it? But it seemed so merciful, and I was so glad. And I sat by him all night and watched him. Then early, early this morning—it was just grey through the big skylight of the studio—he waked and looked at me, and seemed so surprised to find himself there. I told him he had fallen asleep—which was true, you know—and he seemed a little dazed, and went to bed very quietly. But to-day, when he got up—it was I who sent you word not to come, because he had told me about the sitting—I told him everything, and insisted upon sending for Doctor Routh. He seemed terribly distressed, but wouldn’t let me send, and he walked up and down the room, looking at me as though his heart would break. But he said nothing, except that he begged and begged me not to send for the doctor.”
“And he’s quite himself now, you say?”
“Wait—the worst is coming. At last he sat down beside me, and said—oh, so tenderly—that he had something to say to which I must listen, though he was afraid that it would pain me very much—that he had thought it would never be necessary to tell me, because he had imagined that he was quite cured when he had married me. Of course, I told him that—well, never mind what I said. You know how I love him.”
Katharine knew, and it was incomprehensible to her, but she pressed the little hand once more.
“He told me that nearly ten years ago he had been ill with inflammatory rheumatism—that’s the name of it, and it seems that it’s excruciatingly painful. It was in Paris, and the doctors gave him morphia. He could not give it up afterwards.”
“And he takes morphia still?” asked Katharine, anxiously enough, for she knew what it meant.
“No—that’s it. He gave it up after five years—five whole years—to marry me. It was hard, he said, but he felt that it was possible, and he loved me, and he determined not to marry me while he was a slave to the poison. He gave it up for my sake. Wasn’t that heroic?”
“Yes,” said Katharine, gravely, and wondering whether she had misjudged Crowdie. “It was really heroic. They say it is the hardest thing any one can do.”
“He did it. I love him ten times more for it—but—this is the result of giving it up, dear. He will always be subject to these awful attacks. He says that a dose of morphia would stop one of them instantly, and perhaps prevent their coming back for a long time. But he won’t take it. He says he would rather cut off his hand than take it, and he made me promise not to give it to him when he is unconscious, if I ever see him in that state again. He’s so brave about it,” she said, with a little choking sigh. “I’ve told you my story, dear.”
Her face relaxed a little, and she opened and shut her hands slowly as though they had been stiffened.
Katharine sat with her half an hour longer that afternoon, sympathizing at first and then trying to divert her attention from the subject which filled all her heart and mind. Then she rose to go.
As they went out together from the little sitting-room, the sound of Crowdie’s voice came down to them from the studio in the upper story. The door must have been open. Katharine and Hester stood still and listened, for he was singing, alone and to himself, high up above them, a little song of Tosti’s with French words.
It was indeed a marvellous voice, and as Katharine listened to the soft, silver notes, and felt the infinite pathos of each phrase, she wondered whether, with all his success as a painter, Crowdie had not mistaken his career. She listened, spell-bound, to the end.
“It’s divine!” she exclaimed. “There’s no other word for it.”
Hester Crowdie was paler than ever, and her soft grey eyes were all on fire. And yet she had heard him hundreds of times. Almost before Katharine had shut the glass door behind her, she heard the sound of light, quick footsteps as Hester ran upstairs to her husband.
“It’s all very strange,” thought Katharine. “And I never heard of morphia having those effects afterwards. But then—how should I know?”
And meditating on the many emotions she had seen in others during the last twenty-four hours, she hurried homewards.
Mrs. Lauderdale had met with temptations in the course of her life, but they had not often appealed to her as they would have appealed to many women, for she was not easily tempted. A number of forms of goodness which are very hard to most people had been so easy to her that she had been good without effort, as, on the whole, she was good by nature. She had been brought up in an absolutely fixed religious belief, and had never felt any inclination to deviate from it, nor to speculate about the details of it, for her intellect was rather indolent, and in most positions in life her common-sense, which was strong, had taken the place of the complicated mental processes familiar to imaginative people like Katharine. Such imagination as Mrs. Lauderdale had was occupied with artistic matters.
Her vanity had always been satisfied quite naturally, without effort on her part, by her own great and uncontested beauty. She knew, and had always known, that she was commonly compared with the greatest beauties of the world, by men and women who had seen them and were able to judge. Social ambition never touched her either, and she never remembered to have met with a single one of those small society rebuffs which embitter the lives of some women. Nobody had ever questioned her right, nor her husband’s right, nor that of any of the family, to be considered equal with the first. In early days she had suffered a little, indeed, from not being rich enough to exercise that gift of almost boundless hospitality which is rather the rule than the exception among Americans, and which is said, with some justice, to be an especial characteristic of Kentuckians. Such troubles as she had met with had chiefly arisen from the smallness of her husband’s income, from peculiarities of her husband’s character, and from her elder daughter’s headstrong disposition. And with all these her common-sense had helped her continually.
She loved amusement and she had it in abundance, in society, during a great part of the year. Her talent had helped her to procure luxuries, and she had been generous in giving a large share of them to her daughters. She had soon learned to understand that society wanted her for herself, and not for what she could offer it in her own home, and she had been flattered by the discovery. As for Alexander, he had many good qualities which she appreciated when she compared him with the husbands of other women. Generosity with money was not his strong point, but he had many others. He loved her tenaciously, not tenderly, nor passionately, nor in any way that was at all romantic—if that word means anything—and certainly not blindly, but tenaciously; and his admiration for her beauty, though rarely expressed, found expression on such occasions in short, strong phrases which left no manner of doubt as to his sincere conviction. She had not been happy with him, as boys and girls mean to be happy—for the rigidity of very great strength, when not combined with a corresponding intellect, is excessively wearisome in the companionship of daily married life. There is a coldness, a lack of expression and of sympathy, a Pharaoh-like, stony quality about it which do not encourage affection, nor satisfy an expansive nature. And though not imaginative, Mrs. Lauderdale was expansive. She had a few moments of despairing regret at first. She felt that she might just as well have married a magnificent, clean-built, iron-bodied, steel-jointed locomotive, as the man she had chosen, and that she could produce about as much impression on his character as she could have made upon such an engine. But she found out in time that, within certain limits, he was quite willing to do what she asked of him, and that beyond them he ran his daily course with a systematic and unvarying regularity, which was always safe, if it was never amusing. She got such amusement as she liked from other sources, and she often consoled herself for the dulness of the family dinner, when she dined at home, with the certainty that, during several hours before she went to bed, the most desirable men at a great ball would contest the honour of dancing with her. And that was all she wanted of them. She liked some of them. She took an interest in their doings, and she listened sympathetically to the story of their troubles. But it was not in her nature to flirt, nor to lose her head when she was flattered, and if she sometimes doubted whether she really loved her husband at all, she was quite certain that she could never love any one else. Perhaps she deserved no credit for her faithfulness, for it was quite natural to her.
On the whole, therefore, her temptations had been few, in reality, and she had scarcely noticed them. She had reached the most painful moment of her life with very little experience of what she could resist—the moment when she realized that the supremacy of her beauty was at an end. Of course, she had exaggerated very much the change which had taken place, for at the crucial instant when she had caught sight of her face in the mirror she had been unusually tired, considerably bored and not a little annoyed—and the mirror had a decidedly green tinge in the glass, as she assured herself by examining it and comparing it with a good one on the following morning. But the impression once received was never to be effaced; she might look her very best in the eyes of others—to her own, the lines of age being once discovered were never to be lost again, the dazzling freshness was never to come back to her skin, nor the gold to her hair, nor the bloom to her lips. And Crowdie, who was an artist, and almost a great portrait painter, could not take his eyes from Katharine, at whom no one would have looked twice when her mother had been at the height of her beauty. At least, so Mrs. Lauderdale thought.
And now, until Katharine was married and went away from home, the elder woman was to be daily, almost hourly, compared with her daughter by all who saw them together; for the first time in her life she was to be second in that one respect in which she had everywhere been first ever since she could remember, and she was to be second in her own house. When she realized it, she was horrified, and for a time her whole nature seemed changed. She clung desperately to that beauty of hers, which was, had she known it, the thing she loved best on earth, and which had reduced in her eyes the value of everything else. She clung to it, and yet, from that fatal moment, she knew that it was hopeless to cling to it, hopeless to try and recall it, hopeless to hope for a miracle which, even in the annals of miracles, had never been performed—the recall of youth. The only possible mitigation suggested itself as a spontaneous instinct—to avoid that cruel comparison with Katharine. In the first hours it overcame her altogether. She could not look at the girl. She could hardly bring herself to speak kindly to her; though she knew that she would willingly lay down her life for the child she loved best, she could not lay down her beauty.
She was terrified at herself when she began to understand that something had overcome her which she felt powerless to resist. For she was a very religious woman, and the idea of envying her own daughter, and of almost hating her out of envy, was monstrous. When Ralston had come, she had not had the slightest intention of speaking as she had spoken. Suddenly the words had come to her lips of themselves, as it were. If things went on as they were going, Katharine would wait for Ralston during years to come—the girl had her father’s nature in that—and Katharine would be at home, and the cruel, hopeless comparison must go on, a perpetual and a keen torture from which there was to be no escape. It was simply impossible, intolerable, more than human endurance could bear. Ralston must be sent away, Katharine must be married as quickly as possible, and peace would come. There was no other way. It would be easy enough to marry the girl, with her position, and the hope of some of Robert Lauderdale’s money, and with her beauty—that terrible beauty of hers that was turning her mother’s to ugliness beside it. The first words had spoken themselves, the others had followed of necessity, and then, at the end, had come the overwhelming consciousness of what they had meant, and the breaking down of the overstrained nerves, and the sobs and the tears, gushing out as a spring where instant remorse had rent and cleft her very soul.
It was no wonder that Katharine did not understand what was taking place. Fortunately, being much occupied with her own very complicated existence, she did not attempt any further analysis of the situation, did not accidentally guess what was really the matter, and wisely concluded that it would be best to leave her mother to herself for a time.
On the morning after the events last chronicled, Mrs. Lauderdale returned to her work, and at a quarter before eleven Katharine was ready to go out and was watching for Ralston at the library window. As soon as she saw him in the distance she let herself out of the house and went to meet him. He glanced at her rather anxiously as they exchanged greetings, and she thought that he looked tired and careworn. There were shadows under his eyes, and his dark skin looked rather bloodless.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had an accident the day before yesterday?” she asked at once.
“Who told you I had?” he enquired.
“Mr. Miner. I went out alone yesterday, after you had gone, and I met him at the corner of Washington Square. He told me all about it. How can you do such things, Jack? How can you risk your life in that way? And then, not to tell me! It wasn’t kind. You seem to think I don’t care. I wish you wouldn’t! I’m sure I turned perfectly green when Mr. Miner told me—he must have thought it very extraordinary. You might at least have given me warning.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Ralston. “I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Wasn’t I all right when I came to see you?”
He looked at her rather anxiously again—for another reason, this time. But her answer satisfied him.
“Oh—you were ‘dear’—even nicer than usual! But don’t do it again—I mean, such things. You don’t know how frightened I was when he told me. In fact, I’m rather ashamed of it, and it’s much better that you shouldn’t know.”
“All right!” And Ralston smiled happily. “Now,” he continued after a moment’s thought, “I want to explain to you what I’ve found out about this idea of yours.”
“Don’t call it an idea, Jack. You promised that you would do it, you know.”
“Yes. I know I did. But it’s absolutely impossible to have it quite a secret—theoretically, at least.”
“Why?” She slackened her pace instinctively, and then, seeing that they were just entering Fifth Avenue, walked on more briskly, turning down in the direction of the Square.
Ralston told her in a few words what he had learned from the lawyer.
“You see,” he concluded, “there’s no way out of it. And, of course, anybody may go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics and look at the records.”
“But is anybody likely to?” asked Katharine. “Is the Clerk of the Records, or whatever you call him, the sort of man who would be likely to know papa, for instance? That’s rather important.”
“No. I shouldn’t think so. But everybody knows all about you. You might as well be the President of the United States as be a Lauderdale, as far as doing anything incognito is concerned.”
“There’s only one President at a time, and there are twenty-three Lauderdales in the New York directory besides ourselves, and six of them are Alexanders.”
“Are there? How did you happen to know that?” asked Ralston.
“Grandpapa looked them up the other day. He’s always looking up things, you know—when he’s not asleep, poor dear!”
“That certainly makes a difference.”
“Of course it does,” said Katharine. “No doubt the Clerk of the Records has seen the name constantly. Besides, I don’t suppose he does the work himself. He only signs things. He probably looks at the books once a month, or something of that sort.”
“Even then—he might come across the entry. He may have heard my name, too—you see my father was rather a bigwig in the Navy—and then, seeing the two together—”
“And what difference does it make? It isn’t really a secret marriage, you know, Jack—at least, it’s not to be a secret after I tell uncle Robert, which will be within twenty-four hours, you know. On the contrary, I shall tell him that we meant to tell everybody, and that it will be an eternal disgrace to him if he does nothing for you.”
“He’ll bear that with equanimity, dear. You won’t succeed.”
“Something will have to be done for us. When we’re married and everybody knows it, we can’t go on living as if we weren’t—indefinitely—it would be too ridiculous. Papa couldn’t stand that—he’s rather afraid of ridicule, I believe, though he’s not afraid of anything else. So, as I was saying, something will have to be done.”
“That’s a hopeful view,” laughed Ralston. “But I like the idea that it’s not to be a secret for more than a day. It makes it look different.”
“But I always told you that was what I meant, dear—I couldn’t do anything mean or underhand. Didn’t you believe me?”
“Of course—but somehow I didn’t see it exactly as I do now.”
“Oh, Jack—you have no more sense than—than a small yellow dog!”
At which very remarkable simile Ralston laughed again, as he caught sight of the creature that had suggested it—a small yellowish cur sitting on the pavement, bolt upright against the railing, and looking across the street, grinning from ear to ear and making his pink tongue shake with a perfectly unnecessary panting, the very picture of canine silliness.
“Yes—that’s the dog I mean,” said Katharine. “Look at him—he’s behaving just as you do, sometimes. But let’s be serious. What am I to do? Who is going to marry us?”
“Oh—I’ll find somebody,” answered Ralston, confidently. “They all say it’s easy enough to be married in New York, but that it’s awfully hard to be divorced.”
“All the better!” laughed Katharine. “By the bye—what time is it?”
“Five minutes to eleven,” answered Ralston, looking at his watch.
“Dear me! And at eleven I’m due at Mr. Crowdie’s for my portrait. I shall be late. Go and see about finding a clergyman while I’m at the studio. It can’t be helped.”
Ralston glanced at her in surprise. Of her sitting for her portrait he had not heard before.
“I must say,” he answered, “you don’t seem inclined to waste time this morning—”
“Certainly not! Why should we lose time? We’ve lost a whole year already. Do you think I’m the kind of girl who has to talk everything over fifty times to make up her mind? When you came, day before yesterday, I’d decided the whole matter. And now I mean—yes, you may look at me and laugh, Jack—I mean to put it through. I’m much more energetic than you seem to think. I believe you always imagined I was a lazy, pokey, moony sort of girl, with too much papa and mamma and weak tea and buttered toast in her nature. I’m not, you know. I’m just as energetic for a girl as you are for a man.”
“Rather more so,” said Ralston, watching her with intense admiration of her strong and beautiful self, and with considerable indifference to what she was saying, though her words amused him. “Please tell me about Crowdie and the portrait.”
“Oh—the portrait? Mr. Crowdie wants to paint it for Hester. I’m going to sit the first time this morning. That’s all. Here we are at the corner. We must cross here to get over to Lafayette Place.”
“Well, then,” said Ralston, as they walked on, “there’s only one more point, and that’s to find a clergyman. I suppose you can’t suggest anybody, can you?”
“Hardly! You must manage that. I’m sure I’ve done quite enough already.”
They discussed the question as they walked, without coming to any conclusion. Ralston determined to spend the day in looking for a proper person. He could easily withhold his name in every case, until he had made the arrangements. As a matter of fact, it is not hard to find a clergyman under the circumstances, since no clergyman can properly refuse to marry a respectable couple against whom he knows nothing. The matter of subsequent secrecy becomes for him more a question of taste than of conscience.
They reached the door of the Crowdie house, and Katharine turned at the foot of the white stone steps to say good-bye.
“Say you’re glad, Jack dear!” she said suddenly, as she put out her hand, and their eyes met.
“Glad! Of course I’m glad—no, I really am glad now, though I wasn’t at first. It looks different—it looks all right to-day.”
“You don’t look just as I expected you would, though,” said Katharine, doubtfully. “And yet it seems to me you ought—” She stopped.
“Katharine—dear—you can’t expect me to be as enthusiastically happy as though it really meant being married to you—can you?”
“But it does mean it. What else should it mean, or could it mean? Why isn’t it just the same as though we had a big wedding?”
“Because things won’t turn out as you think they will,” answered Ralston. “At least, not soon—uncle Robert won’t do anything, you know. One can’t take fate and destiny and fortune and shuffle them about as though they were cards.”
“One can, Jack! That’s just it. Everybody has one chance of being happy. We’ve got ours now, and we’ll take it.”
“We’ll take it anyhow, whether it’s really a chance or not. Good-bye—dear—dear—”
He pressed her hand as he spoke, and his voice was tender and rang true, but it had not that quaver of emotion in it which had so touched Katharine on that one evening, and which she longed to hear again; and Ralston missed the wave of what had seemed like deep feeling, and wished it would come back. His nerves were perfectly steady now, though he had been late at his club on the previous evening, and had not slept much.
“I’ll write you a note this afternoon,” he said, “as soon as I’ve arranged with the clergyman. If it has to be very early, you must find some excuse for going out of the house. Of course, I’ll manage it as conveniently as I can for you.”
“Oh, there’ll be no trouble about my going out,” answered Katharine. “Nobody ever asks me where I’m going in the morning. You’ll let me have the note as soon as you can, won’t you?”
“Of course. Before dinner, at all events. Good-bye again, dear.”
“Good-bye—until to-morrow.”
She added the last two words very softly. Then she nodded affectionately and went up the steps. As she turned, after ringing the bell, she saw him walking away. Then he also turned, instinctively, and waved his hat once, and smiled, and was gone. Fletcher opened the door, and Katharine went in.
“How is Mr. Crowdie to-day—is he painting?” she asked of the servant.
“Yes, Miss Katharine, Mr. Crowdie’s very well, and he left word that he expected you at eleven, Miss.”
“Yes, I know—I’m late.”
And she hurried up the stairs, for she had often been to the studio with Hester and with Crowdie himself, to see his pictures, and knew her way. But she knocked discreetly at the door when she had reached the upper story of the house.
“Come in, Miss Lauderdale,” said Crowdie’s silvery voice, and she heard his step on the polished floor as he left his work and came forward to meet her.
It seemed to her that his face was paler and his mouth redder than ever, and the touch of his soft white hand was exceedingly unpleasant to her, even through her glove.
He had placed a big chair ready for her, and she sat down as she was, with her hat and veil on, and looked about. Crowdie pushed away the easel at which he had been working. It ran almost noiselessly over the waxed oak, and he turned it with the face of the picture to the wall in a corner at some distance.
The studio was, as has been said, a very large room, occupying almost the whole upper story of the house, which was deeper than ordinary houses, though not very broad on the front. The studio was, therefore, nearly twice as long as its width, and looked even larger than it was from having no windows below, and only one door. There was, indeed, a much larger exit, by which Crowdie had his pictures taken out, by an exterior stair to the yard, but it was hidden by a heavy curtain on one side of the enormous fireplace. There were great windows, high up, on the north side, which must have opened above the roof of the neighbouring house, and which were managed by cords and weights, and could be shaded by rolling shades of various tints from white to dark grey. Over it was a huge skylight, also furnished with contrivances for modifying the light or shutting it out altogether.
So far, the description might answer for the interior of a photographer’s establishment, but none of the points enumerated struck Katharine as she sat in her big chair waiting to be told what to do.
The first impression was that of a magnificent blending of perfectly harmonious colours. There was an indescribable confusion of soft and beautiful stuffs of every sort, from carpets to Indian shawls and Persian embroideries. The walls, the chairs and the divans were covered with them, and even the door which gave access to the stairs was draped and made to look unlike a door, so that when it was shut there seemed to be no way out. The divans were of the Eastern kind—great platforms, as it were, on which were laid broad mattresses, then stuffs, and then endless heaps of cushions, piled up irregularly and lying about in all directions. Only the polished floor was almost entirely bare—the rest was a mass of richness. But that was all. There were no arms, such as many artists collect in their studios, no objects of metal, save the great dull bronze fire-dogs with lions’ heads, no plants, no flowers, and, excepting three easels with canvases on them, there was nothing to suggest the occupation of Walter Crowdie—nor any occupation at all. Even the little Japanese censer in which Hester said that he burned strange perfumes was hidden out of sight when not in use. There was not so much as a sketch or a drawing or a bit of modelled clay to be seen. There was not even a table with paints and brushes. Such things were concealed in a sort of small closet built out upon the yard, on the opposite side from the outer staircase, and hidden by curtains.
The total absence of anything except the soft materials with which everything was covered, produced rather a strange effect, and for some mysterious reason it was not a pleasant one. Crowdie’s face was paler and his lips were redder than seemed quite natural; his womanish eyes were too beautiful and their glance was a caress—as warm velvet feels to the hand.
“Won’t you let me help you to take off your veil?” he said, coming close to Katharine.
“Thank you—I can do it myself,” she answered, with unnecessary coldness.
Crowdie stepped backward from her, as she laid her hat and veil upon her knee. He slowly twisted a bit of crayon between his fingers, as though to help his thoughts, and he looked at her critically.
“How are you going to paint me?” she asked, regretting that she had spoken so very coldly a moment earlier.
“That’s one of those delightful questions that sitters always ask,” answered the artist, smiling a little. “That’s precisely what I’m asking myself—how in the world am I going to paint you?”
“Oh—that isn’t what I meant! I meant—full face or side face, you know.”
“Oh, yes,—of course. I was only laughing at myself. You have no idea what an extraordinary change taking off your hat makes, Miss Lauderdale. It would be awfully rude to talk to a lady about her face under ordinary circumstances. In detail, I mean. But you must forgive me, because it’s my profession.”
He moved about with sudden steps, stopping and gazing at her each time that he obtained a new point of view.
“How does my hat make such a difference?” asked Katharine. “What sort of difference?”
“It changes your whole expression. It’s quite right that it should. When you have it on, one only sees the face—the head from the eyes downwards—that means the human being from the perceptions downwards. When you take your hat off, I see you from the intelligence upwards.”
“That would be true of any one.”
“No doubt. But the intelligence preponderates in your case, which is what makes the contrast so strong.”
“I didn’t know I was as intelligent as all that!” Katharine laughed a little at what she took for a piece of rather gross flattery.
“No,” answered Crowdie, thoughtfully. “That is your peculiar charm. Do you mind the light in your eyes? Just to try the effect? So? Does that tire you?”
He had changed the arrangement of some of the shades so as to throw a strong glare in her face. She looked up and the white light gleamed like fire in her grey eyes.
“I couldn’t stand it long,” she said. “Is it necessary?”
“Oh, no. Nothing is necessary. I’ll try it another way. So.” He moved the shades again.
“What a funny speech!” exclaimed Katharine. “To say that nothing is necessary—”
“It’s a very true speech. Nothing is the same as Pure Being in some philosophies, and Pure Being is the only condition which is really absolutely necessary. Now, would you mind letting me see you in perfect profile? I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s only at first. When we’ve made up our minds—if you’d just turn your head towards the fireplace, a little more—a shade more, please—that’s it—one moment so—”
He stood quite still, gazing at her side face as though trying to fix it in his memory in order to compare it with other aspects.
“I want to paint you every way at once,” he said. “May I ask—what do you think, yourself, is the best view of your face?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Katharine, with a little laugh. “What does Hester think? As it’s to be for her, we might consult her.”
“But she doesn’t know it’s for her—she thinks it’s for you.”
“We might ask her all the same, and take her advice. Isn’t she at home?”
“No,” answered Crowdie, after a moment’s hesitation. “I think she’s gone out shopping.”
Katharine was not naturally suspicious, but there was something in the way Crowdie hesitated about the apparently insignificant answer which struck