The next morning the new world began frankly, as if it was nothing out
of the usual, as if it had already been for years. When Katherine, a
little late after her somewhat melancholy vigils, awoke, she heard
already the bustle of the houseful of people, so different from the
stillness which had been the rule for years. She heard doors opening and
shutting, steps moving everywhere, Sir Charles’ voice calling loudly
from below, the loud tinkling of Stella’s bell, which rang upstairs near
her maid’s room. Katherine’s first instinctive thought was a question
whether that maid would look less worried--whether, poor thing, she had
dreamt of bags and bandboxes all night. And then there came the little
quaver, thrilling the air of a child’s cry; poor little dissipated Job,
after his vigil with his father, crying to be awoke so early--the poor
little boy who had tried to kick at her with his little naked feet, so
white in the dimness of the corridor, on the night before. It was with
the strangest sensation that Katherine got hurriedly out of bed, with a
startled idea that perhaps her room might be wanted, in which there was
no reason. At all events, the house had passed into new hands, and was
hers no more.
Hannah came to her presently, pale and holding her breath. She had seen
Job fly at the ayah, kicking her with the little feet on which she had
just succeeded in forcing a pair of boots. “He said as now he could hurt
her, as well as I could understand his talk. Oh! Miss Katherine, and
such a little teeny boy, and to do that! But I said as I knew you would
never let a servant be kicked in your house.”
“Neither will my sister, Hannah--but they are all tired and strange, and
perhaps a little cross,” said Katherine, apologetically. She went
downstairs to find the breakfast-table in all the disorder that arises
after a large meal--the place at which little Job had been seated next
to his father littered by crumbs and other marks of his presence, and
the butler hastily bringing in a little tea-pot to a corner for her use.
“Sir Charles, Miss Katherine, he’s gone out; he’s inspecting of the
horses in the stables; and my lady has had her breakfast in her room,
and it’s little master as has made such a mess of the table.”
“Never mind, Harrison,” said Katherine.
“I should like to say, Miss Katherine,” said Harrison, “as I’ll go, if
you please, this day month.”
“Oh, don’t be in a hurry!” she cried. “I have been speaking to Mrs.
Simmons. Don’t desert the house in such haste. Wait till you see how
things go on.”
“I’d stay with you Miss Katherine, to the last hour of my life; and I
don’t know as I couldn’t make up my mind to a medical gentleman’s
establishment, though it’s different to what I’ve been used to--but I
couldn’t never stop in a place like this.”
“You don’t know in the least what is going to happen here. Please go
now, and leave me to my breakfast. I will speak to you later on.”
A woman who is the mistress of her own house is compelled to endure
these attacks, but a woman suddenly freed from all the responsibilities
of ownership need not, at least, be subject to its drawbacks. Katherine
took her small meal with the sensation that it was already the bread of
others she was eating, which is always bitter. There had been no account
made of her usual place, of any of her habits. Harrison had hastily
arranged for her that corner at the lower end of the table, because of
the disarray at the other, the napkins flung about, the cloth dabbled
and stained. It was her own table no longer. Any philosophic mind will
think of this as a very trifling thing, but it was not trifling to
Katherine. The sensation of entire disregard, indifference to her
comfort, and to everything that was seemly, at once chilled and
irritated her; and then she stopped herself in her uncomfortable
thoughts with a troubled laugh and the question, was she, indeed, with
her strong objection to all this disorder, fitting herself, as Stella
said, for the position of maiden aunt? One thing was certain at least,
that for the position of dependent she never would be qualified.
It was a mild and bright October day: the greyness of the afternoon had
not as yet closed in, the air was full of mid-day sunshine and life. Sir
Charles had come in from his inspection of “the offices” and all that
was outside. He had come up, with his large step and presence, to the
dressing-room in which Stella, wrapped in a quilted dressing-gown and
exclaiming at the cold, lay on a sofa beside the fire. She had emerged
from her bath and all those cares of the person which precede dressing
for the day, and was resting before the final fatigue of putting on her
gown. Katherine had been admitted only a few minutes before Sir Charles
appeared, and she had made up her mind that at last her communication
must be fully made now; though it did not seem very necessary, for they
had established themselves with such perfect ease in the house believing
it to be hers, that it would scarcely make any difference when they were
made aware that it was their own. Katherine’s mind, with a very natural
digression, went off into an unconsciously humorous question--what
difference, after all, it would have made if the house and the fortune
had been hers? They would have taken possession just the same, it was
evident, in any case--and she, could she ever have suggested to them to
go away. She decided no, with a rueful amusement. She should not have
liked Sir Charles as the master of her house, but she would have given
in to it. How much better that it should be as it was, and no question
on the subject at all!
“I want you to let me tell you now about papa’s will.”
“Poor papa!” said Stella. “I hope he was not very bad. At that age they
get blunted, and don’t feel. Oh, spare me as many of the details as you
can, please! It makes me wretched to hear of people being ill.”
“I said papa’s will, Stella.”
“Ah!” she cried, “that’s different. Charlie will like to know. He thinks
you’ve done nicely for us, Katherine. Of course many things would have
to be re-modelled if we stopped here; but in the meantime, while we
don’t quite know what we are going to do----”
“I’d sell those old screws,” said Sir Charles, “they’re not fit for a
lady to drive. I shouldn’t like to see my wife behind such brutes. If
you like to give me _carte blanche_ I’ll see to it--get you something
you could take out Stella with, don’t you know!”
“I wish,” said Katherine, with a little impatience, “that you would
allow me to speak, if it were only for ten minutes! Stella, do pray give
me a little attention; this is not my house, it is yours--everything is
yours. Do you hear? When papa died nothing was to be found but the will
of ’seventy-one, which was made before you went away. Everybody thought
he had changed it, but he had not changed it. You have got everything,
Stella, everything! Do you hear? Papa did not leave even a legacy to a
servant, he left nothing to me, nothing to his poor brother--everything
is yours.”
Sir Charles stood leaning on the mantelpiece, with his back to the fire;
a dull red came over his face. “Oh, by Jove!” he said in his moustache.
Stella raised herself on her pillows. She folded her quilted
dressing-gown, which was Chinese and covered with wavy lines of dragons,
over her chest.
“What do you mean by everything?” she said. “You mean a good bit of
money, I suppose; you told me so yesterday. As for the house, I don’t
much care for the house, Kate. It is rococo, you know; it is in dreadful
taste. You can keep it if you like. It could never be of any use to us.”
“It isn’t a bad house,” said Sir Charles. He had begun to walk up and
down the room. “By Jove,” he said, “Stella is a cool one, but I’m not so
cool. Everything left to her? Do you mean all the money, all old
Tredgold’s fortune--all! I say, by Jove, don’t you know. That isn’t
fair!”
“I don’t see why it isn’t fair,” said Stella; “I always knew that was
what papa meant. He was very fond of me, poor old papa! Wasn’t he, Kate?
He used to like me to have everything I wanted: there wasn’t one thing,
as fantastic as you please, but he would have let me have it--very
different from now. Don’t you remember that yacht--that we made no use
of but to run away from here? Poor old man!” Here Stella laughed, which
Katherine took for a sign of grace, believing and hoping that it meant
the coming of tears. But no tears came. “He must have been dreadfully
sorry at the end for standing out as he did, and keeping me out of it,”
she said with indignation, “all these years.”
Sir Charles kept walking up and down the room, swearing softly into his
moustache. He retained some respect for ladies in this respect, it
appeared, for the only imprecation which was audible was a frequent
appeal to the father of the Olympian gods. “By Jove!” sometimes “By
Jupiter!” he said, and tugged at his moustache as if he would have
pulled it out. This was the house in which, bewildered, he had taken all
the shillings from his pocket and put them down on the table by way of
balancing Mr. Tredgold’s money. And now all Mr. Tredgold’s money was
his. He was not cool like Stella; a confused vision of all the glories
of this world--horses, race-meetings, cellars of wine, entertainments of
all kinds, men circling about him, not looking down upon him as a poor
beggar but up at him as no end of a swell, servants to surround him all
at once like a new atmosphere. He had expected something of the kind at
the time of his marriage, but those dreams had long abandoned him; now
they came back with a rush, not dreams any longer. Jove, Jupiter, George
(whoever that deity may be) he invoked in turns; his blood took to
coursing in his veins, it felt like quicksilver, raising him up, as if
he might have floated, spurning with every step the floor on which he
trod.
“I who had always been brought up so different!” cried Stella, with a
faint whimper in her voice. “That never had been used to it! Oh, what a
time I have had, Kate, having to give up things--almost everything I
ever wanted--and to do without things, and to be continually thinking
could I afford it. Oh, I wonder how papa had the heart! You think I
should be grateful, don’t you? But I can’t help remembering that I’ve
been kept out of it, just when I wanted it most, all these years----”
She made a pause, but nobody either contradicted or agreed with her.
Stella expected either the one or the other. Sir Charles went up and
down swearing by Jupiter and thinking in a whirl of all the fine things
before him, and Katherine sat at the end of the sofa saying nothing. In
sheer self-defence Stella had to begin again.
“And nobody knows what it is beginning a house and all that without any
money. I had to part with my diamonds--those last ones, don’t you
remember, Kate? which he gave me to make me forget Charlie. Oh, how
silly girls are! I shouldn’t be so ready, I can tell you, to run away
another time. I should keep my diamonds. And I have not had a decent
dress since I went to India--not one. The other ladies got boxes from
home, but I never sent to Louise except once, and then she did so bother
me about a bill to be paid, as if it were likely I could pay bills when
we had no money for ourselves! Tradespeople are so unreasonable about
their bills, and so are servants, for that matter, going on about wages.
Why, there is Pearson--she waits upon me with a face like a mute at a
funeral all because she has not got her last half year’s wages! By the
way, I suppose she can have them now? They have got such a pull over us,
don’t you know, for they can go away, and when a maid suits you it is
such a bore when she wants to go away. I have had such experiences, all
through the want of money. And I can’t help feeling, oh how hard of him,
when he hadn’t really changed his mind at all, to keep me out of it for
those seven years! Seven years is a dreadful piece out of one’s life,”
cried Stella, “and to have it made miserable and so different to what
one had a right to expect, all for the caprice of an old man! Why did he
keep me out of it all these years?” And Stella, now thoroughly excited,
sobbed to herself over the privations that were past, from which her
father could have saved her at any moment had he pleased.
“You ought to be pleased now at least,” said her husband. “Come, Stella,
my little girl, let’s shake hands upon it. We’re awfully lucky, and you
shall have a good time now.”
“I think I ought to have a good time, indeed!” cried Stella. “Why, it’s
all mine! You never would have had a penny but for me. Who should have
the good of it, if not I? And I am sure I deserve it, after all I have
had to go through. Pearson, is that you?” she cried. “Bring me my
jewel-box. Look here,” she said, taking out a case and disclosing what
seemed to Katherine a splendid necklace of diamonds, “that’s what I’ve
been driven to wear!” She seized the necklace out of the case and flung
it to the other end of the room. The stones swung from her hand,
flashing through the air, and fell in a shimmer and sparkle of light
upon the carpet. “The odious, false things!” cried Stella. “Paris--out
of one of those shops, don’t you know? where everything is marked
‘Imitation.’ Charlie got them for me for about ten pounds. And that is
what I had to go to Government House in, and all the balls, and have
compliments paid me on my diamonds. ‘Yes, they are supposed to be of
very fine water,’ I used to say. I used to laugh at first--it seemed a
capital joke; but when you go on wearing odious glass things and have to
show them off as diamonds--for seven years!”
Sir Charles paused in his walk, and stooped and picked them up. “Yes,”
he said, “I gave ten pounds for them, and we had a lot of fun out of
them, and you looked as handsome in them, Stella, as if they had been
the best. By Jove! to be imitation, they are deuced good imitation. I
don’t think I know the difference, do you?” He placed the glittering
thing on Katherine’s knee. He wanted to bring her into the conversation
with a clumsy impulse of kindness, but he did not know how to manage it.
Then, leaving them there, he continued his walk. He could not keep still
in his excitement, and Stella could not keep silence. The mock diamonds
made a great show upon Katherine’s black gown.
“Oh, I wish you’d take them away! Give them to somebody--give them to
the children to play with. I’d give them to Pearson, but how could she
wear a _rivière_? Fancy my wearing those things and having nothing
better! You have no feeling, Kate; you don’t sympathise a bit. And to
think that everything might have been quite different, and life been
quite happy instead of the nightmare it was! Papa has a great, great
deal to answer for,” Stella said.
“If that is all you think about it, I may go away,” said Katherine, “for
we shall not agree. You ought to speak very differently of your father,
who always was so fond of you, and now he’s given you everything. Poor
papa! I am glad he does not know.”
“But he must have known very well,” cried Stella, “how he left me after
pretending to be so fond of me. Do you think either Charlie or I would
have done such a thing if we had not been deceived? And so was Lady
Jane--and everybody. There was not one who did not say he was sure to
send for us home, and see what has happened instead. Oh, he may have
made up for it now. But do you think that was being really fond of me,
Kate, to leave me out in India without a penny for seven years?”
Katherine rose, and the glittering stones, which had only yesterday been
Lady Somers’ diamonds, and as such guarded with all the care
imaginable--poor Pearson having acquired her perennial look of worry as
much from that as anything, having had the charge of them--rattled with
a sound like glass, and fell on the floor, where they lay disgraced as
Katherine went hurriedly away. And there they were found by Pearson
after Lady Somers had finished her toilet and gone downstairs to lunch.
Pearson gave a kick at them where they lay--the nasty imitation things
that had cost her so many a thought--but then picked them up, with a
certain pity, yet awe, as if they might change again into something
dangerous in her very hands.