But whether the result of this awaking would have told for anything in
Katherine’s life had it not been for another incident which happened
shortly after, it would be impossible to say. She forgot the impression
of that sudden stroke of nature, and when she went back to her father,
who was a little excited by his first outing, there revived again so
strong an impression of the need there was of the doctor and his care,
and the importance of his position in the house as a sort of _deus ex
machinâ_, always ready to be appealed to and to perform miracles at
pleasure, that the former state of acquiescence in whatever he might
demand as the price of his services, came back strongly to her mind, and
the possibility was that there would have been no hesitation on her
part, though no enthusiasm, had he seized the opportunity during one of
the days of that week, and put his fate to the touch. But a number of
small incidents supervened; and there is a kind of luxury in delay in
these circumstances which gains upon a man, the pleasure of the
unacknowledged, the delightful sense of feeling that he is sure of a
favourable response, without all the responsibilities which a favourable
response immediately brings into being. The moment that he asked and
Katherine consented, there would be the father to face, and all the
practical difficulties of the position to be met. He would have to take
“the bull by the horns.” This is a very different thing from those
preliminaries, exciting but delightful, which form the first step. To
declare your sentiments to the girl you love, to receive that assent and
answering confession of which you are almost sure--only so much
uncertainty in it as makes the moment thrilling with an alarm and
timidity which is more sweet than confidence. That is one thing; but
what follows is quite another; the doctor a little “funked,” as he
himself said, that next important step. There was no telling what might
come out of that old demon of a father. Sometimes Dr. Burnet thought
that he was being encouraged, that he had become so necessary to Mr.
Tredgold that the idea of securing his attendance would be jumped at by
the old man; and sometimes he thought otherwise. He was, in fact, though
a brave man, frightened of the inevitable second step. And therefore he
let the matter linger, finding much delight in the happy unconsciousness
that he was risking nothing, that she understood him and all his
motives, and that his reward was certain, when he did make up his mind
to ask for it at last.
Things were in this condition when one day, encouraged by her father’s
improvement, Katherine went to town, as everybody in the country is
bound to do, to go through that process which is popularly known as
“shopping.” In previous years Stella’s enterprise and activity had
provided clothes for every season as much in advance as fashion
permitted, so that there never was any sudden necessity. But Katherine
had never been energetic in these ways, and the result was that the
moment arrived, taking her a little unawares, in which even Katherine
was forced to see that she had nothing to wear. She went to town,
accordingly, one morning in the beginning of June, attended by the maid
who was no more than an elderly promoted upper housemaid, who had
succeeded Stevens. Katherine had not felt herself equal to a second
Stevens entirely for herself, indeed, she had been so well trained by
Stella, who always had need of the services of everybody about her, that
she was very well able to dispense with a personal attendant altogether.
But it was an admirable and honourable retirement for Hannah to give up
the more active work of the household and to become Miss Katherine’s
maid, and her conscientious efforts to fulfil the duties of her new
position were entertaining at least. A more perfect guardian, if any
guardian had been necessary, of all the decorums could not have been
than was this highly respectable person who accompanied her young
mistress to London with a sense of having a great responsibility upon
her shoulders. As a matter of fact, no guardian being in the least
necessary, it was Katherine who took care of her, which came to exactly
the same thing and answered all purposes.
The train was on this occasion rather full, and the young lady and her
maid were put into a compartment in which were already two passengers, a
lady and gentleman, at the other extremity of the carriage, to all
appearance together. But it soon turned out that they were not together.
The lady got out at one of the little stations at which they stopped,
and then, with a little hesitation, the gentleman rose and came over to
the side on which Katherine was. “It is long since we have met,” he said
in a voice which had a thrill in it, noticeable even to Hannah, who
instinctively retired a little, leaving the place opposite Katherine at
his disposition (a thing, I need not remark, which was quite improper,
and ought not to have been done. Hannah could not for a long time
forgive herself, when she thought it over, but for the moment she was
dominated by the voice). “I have not seen you,” he repeated, with a
little faltering, “for years. Is it permitted to say a word to you, Miss
Tredgold?”
The expression of his eyes was not a thing to be described. It startled
Katherine all the more that she had of late been exposed to glances
having a similar meaning, yet not of that kind. She looked at him almost
with a gasp. “Mr. Stanford! I thought you were in India?”
“So I was,” he said, “and so I am going to be in a few months more. What
a curious unexpected happi--I mean occurrence--that I should have met
you--quite by accident.”
“Oh yes, quite by accident,” she said.
“I have been in the island,” he said, “and near Sliplin for a day or
two, where it would have been natural to see you, and then when I was
coming away in desp--without doing so, what a chance that of all places
in the world you should have been put into this carriage.”
He seemed so astonished at this that it was very difficult to get over
it. Katherine took it with much more composure, and yet her heart had
begun to beat at the first sound of his voice.
He asked her a great many questions about her father, about Stella;
even, timidly, about herself, though it soon became apparent that this
was not from any need of information. He had heard about Stella’s
marriage, “down there,” with a vague indication of the point at which
their journey began; and that Mr. Tredgold had been ill, and that----
But he did not end that sentence. It was easily to be perceived that he
had acquired the knowledge somewhere that Katherine was
still--Katherine--and took a great satisfaction in the fact. And then he
began to tell her about himself. He had done very well, better than
could have been expected. He had now a very good appointment, and his
chief was very kind to him. “There are no fortunes to be made now in
India--or, at least, not such as we used to hear were once made. The
life is different altogether. It is not a long martyrdom and lakhs of
rupees, but a very passable existence and frequent holidays home. Better
that, I think.”
“Surely much better,” said Katherine.
“I think so. And then there are the hills--Simla, and so forth, which
never were thought of in my father’s time. They had to make up their
minds and put up with everything. We have many alleviations--the ladies
have especially,” he added, with a look that said a great deal more. Why
should he add by his looks so much importance to that fact? And how was
it that Katherine, knowing nothing of the life in India, took up his
meaning in the twinkling of an eye?
“But the ladies,” she said, “don’t desert the plains where their--their
husbands are, I hope, to find safety for themselves on the hills?”
“I did not mean that,” he said, with a flush of colour all over his
brown face (Katherine compared it, in spite of herself, to Dr. Burnet’s
recent blush, with conclusions not favourable to the latter). “I mean
that it is such a comfort to men to think that--what is most precious
to them in the world--may be placed in safety at any critical moment.”
“I wonder if that is Charlie Somers’ feeling,” Katharine said with an
involuntary laugh. It was not that she meant to laugh at Charlie Somers;
it was rather the irrestrainable expression of a lightening and rising
of her own heart.
“No doubt every man must,” James Stanford said.
And they went on talking, he telling her many things which she did not
fully understand or even receive into her mind at all, her chief
consciousness being that this man--her first love--was the only one who
had felt what a true lover should, the only one to whom her heart made
any response. She did not even feel this during the course of that too
rapid journey. She felt only an exhilaration, a softening and expansion
of her whole being. She could not meet his eyes as she met Dr. Burnet’s;
they dazzled her; she could not tell why. Her heart beat, running on
with a tremulous accompaniment to those words of his, half of which her
intelligence did not master at the time, but which came to her after by
degrees. He told her that he was soon going back to India, and that he
would like to go and see Stella, to let her know by an independent
testimony how her sister was. Might he write and give her his report?
Might he come--this was said hurriedly as the train dashed into the
precincts of London, and the end of the interview approached--to Sliplin
again one day before he left on the chance of perhaps seeing her--to
inquire for Mr. Tredgold--to take anything she might wish to send to
Lady Somers? Katherine felt the flush on her own face to be
overwhelming. Ah, how different from that half-angry confused colour
which she had been conscious of when the Rector offered his
congratulations!
“Oh no,” she said with a little shake of her head, and a sound of pathos
in her voice of which she was quite conscious; “my father is ill; he is
better now, but his condition is serious. I am very--sorry--I am
distressed--to say so--but he must not be disturbed, he must not. I have
escaped for a little to-day. I--had to come. But at home I am
altogether taken up by papa. I cannot let you--lose your time--take the
trouble--of coming for nothing. Oh, excuse me--I cannot----” Katherine
said.
And he made no reply, he looked at her, saying a thousand things with
his eyes. And then there came the jar of the arrival. He handed her out,
he found a cab for her, performing all the little services that were
necessary, and then he held her hand a moment while he said goodbye.
“May I come and see you off? May I be here when you come back?”
“Oh, no, no!” Katherine said, she did not know why. “I don’t know when
we go back; it perhaps might not be till to-morrow--it might not be
till--that is, no, you must not come, Mr. Stanford--I--cannot help it,”
she said.
Still he held her hand a moment. “It must still be hope then, nothing
but hope,” he said.
She drove away through London, leaving him, seeing his face wherever she
looked. Ah, that was what the others had wanted to look like but had not
been able--that was--all that one wanted in this world; not the Tredgold
money, nor the fortune of the great City young man, nor the Rector’s
dignity, nor Dr. Burnet’s kindness--nothing but that, it did not matter
by what accompanied. What a small matter to be poor, to go away to the
end of the earth, to be burned by the sun and wasted by the heat, to
endure anything, so long as you had _that_. She trembled and was
incoherent when she tried to speak. She forgot where to tell the cabman
to go, and said strange things to Hannah, not knowing what she said. Her
heart beat and beat, as if it was the only organ she possessed, as if
she were nothing but one pulse, thumping, thumping with a delicious
idiocy, caring for nothing, and thinking of nothing. Thinking of
nothing, though rays and films of thought flew along in the air and made
themselves visible to her for a moment. Perhaps she should never see him
again; she had nothing to do with him, there was no link between them;
and yet, so to speak, there was nothing else but him in the world. She
saw the tall tower of the Parliament in a mist that somehow encircled
James Stanford’s face, and broad Whitehall was full of that vapour in
which any distinctions of other feature, of everything round about her,
was lost.
How curious an effect to be produced upon anyone so reasonable, so
sensible as Katherine! After a long time, she did not know how long, she
was recalled to common day by her arrival at the dressmaker’s where she
had to get out and move and speak, all of which she seemed to do in a
dream. And then the day turned round and she had to think of her journey
back again. Why did she tell him not to come? It would have harmed
nobody if he had come. Her father had not forbidden her to see him, and
even had he forbidden her, a girl who was of age, who was nearly
twenty-four, who had after all a life of her own to think of, should she
have refrained from seeing him on that account? All her foundations were
shaken, not so much by feeling of her own as by the sight and certainty
of his feeling. She would not desert her father, never, never run away
from him like Stella. But at least she might have permitted herself to
see James Stanford again. She said to herself, “I may never marry him;
but now I shall marry nobody else.” And why had she not let him come,
why might they not at least have understood each other? The influence of
this thought was that Katherine did not linger for the afternoon train,
to which Stanford after all did go, on the chance of seeing her, of
perhaps travelling with her again, but hurried off by the very first,
sadly disappointing poor Hannah, who had looked forward to the glory of
lunching with her young mistress in some fine pastrycook’s as Stevens
had often described. Far from this, Hannah was compelled to snatch a bun
at the station, in the hurry Miss Katherine was in; and why should she
have hurried? There was no reason in the world. To be in London, and yet
not in London, to see nothing, not even the interior of Verey’s, went to
Hannah’s heart. Nor was Katherine’s much more calm when she began to
perceive that her very impetuosity had probably been the reason why she
did not see him again; for who could suppose that she who had spoken of
perhaps not going till to-morrow, should have fled back again in an
hour, by a slow train in which nobody who could help it ever went?
By that strange luck which so often seems to regulate human affairs, Dr.
Burnet chose this evening of all others for the explanation of his
sentiments. He paid Mr. Tredgold an evening visit, and found him very
well; and then he went out to join Katherine, whom he saw walking on the
path that edged the cliff. It was a beautiful June evening, serene and
sweet, still light with the lingering light of day, though the moon was
already high in the sky. There was no reason any longer why Dr. Burnet
should restrain his feelings. His patient was well; there was no longer
any indecorum, anything inappropriate, in speaking to Katherine of what
she must well know was nearest to his heart. He, too, had been conscious
of the movement in the air--the magnetic communication from him to her
on the day of Mr. Tredgold’s first outing, when they had met the Rector,
and he had congratulated them. To Katherine it had seemed almost as if
in some way unknown to herself everything had been settled between them,
but Dr. Burnet knew different. He knew that nothing had been settled,
that no words nor pledge had passed between them; but he had little
doubt what the issue would be. He felt that he had the matter in his own
hands, that he had only to speak and she to reply. It was a foregone
conclusion, nothing wanting but the hand and seal.
Katherine had scarcely got beyond the condition of dreaming in which she
had spent the afternoon. She was a little impatient when she saw him
approaching. She did not want her thoughts to be disturbed. Her thoughts
were more delightful to her than anything else at this moment, and she
half resented the appearance of the doctor, whom her mind had forsaken
as if he had never been. The dreaming state in which she was, the
preoccupation with one individual interest is a cruel condition of mind.
At another moment she would have read Dr. Burnet’s meaning in his eyes,
and would have been prepared at least for what was coming--she who knew
so well what was coming, who had but a few days ago acquiesced in what
seemed to be fate. But now, when he began to speak, Katherine was
thunderstruck. A sort of rage sprang up in her heart. She endeavoured to
stop him, to interrupt the words on his lips, which was not only cruel
but disrespectful to a man who was offering her his best, who was laying
himself, with a warmth which he had scarcely known to be in him, at her
feet. He was surprised at his own ardour, at the fire with which he made
his declaration, and so absorbed in that that he did not for the first
moment see how with broken exclamations and lifted hands she was keeping
him off.
“Oh, don’t, doctor! Oh, don’t say so, don’t say so!” were the strange
words that caught his ear at last; and then he shook himself up, so to
speak, and saw her standing beside him in the gathering dimness of the
twilight, her face not shining with any sweetness of assent, but half
convulsed with pain and shame, her hands held up in entreaty, her lips
giving forth these words, “Oh, don’t say so!”
It was his turn to be struck dumb. He drew up before her with a sudden
pause of consternation.
“What?” he cried--“_what?_” not believing his ears.
And thus they stood for a moment speechless, both of them. She had
stopped him in the middle of his love tale, which he had told better and
with more passion than he was himself sensible of. She had stopped him,
and now she did not seem to have another word to say.
“It is my anxiety which is getting too much for me,” he said. “You
didn’t say that, Katherine--not that? You did not mean to interrupt
me--to stop me? No. It is only that I am too much in earnest--that I am
frightening myself----”
“Oh, Dr. Burnet!” she cried, instinctively putting her hands together.
“It is I who am to blame. Oh, do not be angry with me. Let us part
friends. Don’t--don’t say that any more!”
“Say what?--that I love you, that I want you to be my wife? Katherine, I
have a right to say it! You have known for a long time that I was going
to say it. I have been silent because of--for delicacy, for love’s sake;
but you have known. I know that you have known!” he cried almost
violently, though in a low voice.
She had appealed to him like a frightened girl; now she had to collect
her forces as a woman, with her dignity to maintain. “I will not
contradict you,” she said. “I cannot; it is true. I can only ask you to
forgive me. How could I stop you while you had not spoken? Oh no, I will
not take that excuse. If it had been last night it might have been
otherwise, but to-day I know better. I cannot--it is impossible!
Don’t--oh don’t let us say any more.”
“There is a great deal more to be said!” he cried. “Impossible! How is
it impossible? Last night it would have been possible, but to-day----
You are playing with me, Katherine! Why should it be impossible to-day?”
“Not from anything in you, Dr. Burnet,” she said; “from something in
myself.”
“From what in yourself? Katherine, I tell you you are playing with me! I
deserve better at your hands.”
“You deserve--everything!” she cried, “and I--I deserve nothing but that
you should scorn me. But it is not my fault. I have found out. I have
had a long time to think; I have seen things in a new light. Oh, accept
what I say! It is impossible--impossible!”
“Yet it was possible yesterday, and it may be possible to-morrow?”
“No, never again!” she said.
“Do you know,” said the doctor stonily, “that you have led me on, that
you have given me encouragement, that you have given me almost a
certainty?--and now to cast me off, without sense, without reason----”
The man’s lip quivered under the sting of this disappointment and
mortification. He began not to know what he was saying.
“Let us not say any more--oh, let us not say any more! That was unkind
that you said. I could give you no certainty, for I had none; and
to-day--I know that it is impossible! Dr. Burnet, I cannot say any
more.”
“But, Miss Tredgold,” he cried in his rage, “there is a great deal more
to be said! I have a right to an explanation! I have a right to---- Good
heavens, do you mean that nothing is to come of it after all?” he
cried.