It is very difficult to change every circumstance of your life when a
sudden resolution comes upon you all in a moment. To restless people
indeed it is a comfort to be up and doing at once--but when there is no
one to do anything for but yourself, and you have never done anything
for yourself alone in all your life, then it is very hard to know how to
begin. To resolve that this day, this very hour you will arise and go;
that you will find out a new shelter, a new foundation on which, if not
to build a house, yet to pitch a tent; to transfer yourself and
everything that may belong to you out of the place where you have been
all your life, where every one of your little possessions has its place
and niche, into another cold unknown place to which neither you nor they
belong--how could anything be harder than that? It was so hard that
Katherine did not do it for day after day. She put it off every morning
till to-morrow. You may think that, with her pride, to be an undesired
visitor in her sister’s house would have been insupportable to her. But
she did not feel as if she had any pride. She felt that she could
support anything better than the first step out into the cold, the
decision where she was to go.
The consequence of this was that the Somerses, always tranquilly
pursuing their own way, and put out in their reckoning by no one, were
the first to make that change. Sir Charles made an expedition to his own
old house of which all the Somerses were so proud, and found that it
could not only be made (by the spending of sixty thousand a year in it)
a very grand old house, but that even now it was in very tolerable order
and could receive his family whenever the family chose to inhabit it.
When he had made this discovery he was, it was only natural, very
anxious to go, to _faire valoir_ as far as was possible what was very
nearly his unique contribution to the family funds. There was some
little delay in order that fires might be lighted and servants obtained,
but it was still October when the party which had arrived from the
_Aurungzebe_ at the beginning of the month, departed again in something
of the same order, the ayah more cold, and Pearson more worried; for
though the latter had Lady Somers’ old _rivière_ in her own possession,
another _rivière_ of much greater importance was now in her care, and
her responsibilities instead of lessening were increased. It could
scarcely be said even that Stella was more triumphant than when she
arrived, the centre of all farewells and good wishes, at Tilbury Docks;
for she had believed then in good fortune and success as she did now,
and she had never felt herself disappointed. Sir Charles himself was the
member of the party who had changed most. There was no embarrassment
about him now, or doubt of that luck in which Stella was so confident.
He had doubted his luck from time to time in his life, but he did so no
longer. He carried down little Job on his shoulder from the nursery
regions. “I say, old chap,” he said, “you’ll have to give up your
nonsense now and be a gentleman. Take off your hat to your Aunt Kate,
like a man. If you kick I’ll twist one of those little legs off. Hear,
lad! You’re going home to Somers and you’ll have to be a man.”
Job had no answer to make to this astounding address; he tried to kick,
but found his feet held fast in a pair of strong hands. “Me fader’s
little boy,” he said, trying the statement which had always hitherto
been so effectual.
“So you are, old chap; but you’re the young master at Somers too,” said
the father, who had now a different meaning. Job drummed upon that very
broad breast as well as he could with his little imprisoned heels, but
he was not monarch of all he surveyed as before. “Good-bye, Kate,” Sir
Charles said. “Stay as long as ever you like, and come to Somers as soon
as you will. I’m master there, and I wish you were going to live with
us for good and all--but you and your sister know your own ways best.”
“Good-bye, Charles. I shall always feel that you have been very kind.”
“Oh, kind!” he cried, “but I’m only Stella’s husband don’t you know, and
I have to learn my place.”
“Good-bye, Kate,” cried Stella, coming out with all her little jingle of
bracelets, buttoning her black gloves. “I am sure you will be glad to
get us out of the way for a bit to get your packing done, and clear out
all your cupboards and things. You’ll let me know when you decide where
you’re going, and keep that old wretch Simmons in order, and don’t give
her too flaming a character. You’ll be sending them all off with
characters as long as my arm, as if they were a set of angels. Mind you
have proper dinners, and don’t sink into tea as ladies do when they’re
alone. Good-bye, dear.” Stella kissed her sister with every appearance
of affection. She held her by the shoulders for a moment and looked into
her eyes. “Now, Kate, no nonsense! Take the good the Gods provide
you--don’t be a silly, neglecting your own interest. At your age you
really ought to take a common-sense view.”
Kate stood at what had been so long her own door and watched them all
going away--Pearson and the soldier in the very brougham in which Stella
had driven to the yacht on the night of her elopement. That and the old
landau had got shabby chiefly for want of use in these long years. The
baby, now so rosy, crowed in the arms of the dark nurse, and Sir Charles
held his hat in his hand till he was almost out of sight. He was the
only one who had felt for her a little, who had given her an honest if
ineffectual sympathy. She felt almost grateful to him as he disappeared.
And now to think this strange chapter in her existence was over and
could never come again! Few, very few people in the world could have
gone through such an experience--to have everything taken from you, and
yet to have as yet given up nothing. She seemed to herself a shadow as
she stood at that familiar door. She had lived more or less naturally as
her sister’s dependent for the last week or two; the position had not
galled her; in her desolation she might have gone on and on, to avoid
the trouble of coming to a decision. But Stella was not one of the
aimless people who are afraid of making decisions, and no doubt Stella
was right. When a thing has to be done, it is better that it should be
done, not kept on continually hanging over one. Stella had energy enough
to make up half a dozen people’s minds for them. “Get us out of the way
for a bit to get your packing done”--these were the words of the lease
on which Katherine held this house, very succinctly set down.
This was a curious interval which was just over, in many ways.
Katherine’s relation to Stella had changed strangely; it was the younger
sister now who was the prudent chaperon, looking after the other’s
interests--and other relationships had changed too. The sight of James
Stanford coming and going, who was constantly asked to dinner and as
constantly thrown in her way, but whom Katherine, put on her mettle, had
become as clever to avoid as Stella was to throw them together, was the
most anxious experience. It had done her good to see him so often
without seeing him, so to speak. It made her aware of various things
which she had not remarked in him before. Altogether this little episode
in life had enlarged her horizon. She had found out many things--or,
rather, she had found out the insignificance of many things that had
bulked large in her vision before. She went up and down the house and it
felt empty, as it never had felt in the old time when there was nobody
in it. It seemed to her that it had never been empty till now, when the
children, though they were not winning children, and Stella, though she
was so far from being a perfect person, had gone. There was no sound or
meaning left in it; it was an echoing and empty place. It was _rococo_,
as Stella said; a place made to display wealth, with no real beauty in
it. It had never been a home, as other people know homes. And now all
the faint recollections which had hung about it of her own girlhood and
of Stella’s were somehow obliterated. Old Mr. Tredgold and his
daughters were swept away. It was a house belonging to the Somerses, who
had just come back from India; it looked dreadfully forlorn and empty
now they had gone away, and bare also--a place that would be sold or let
in all probability to the first comer. Katherine shivered at the
disorder of all the rooms upstairs, with their doors widely opened and
all the signs of departure about. The household would always be
careless, perhaps, under Stella’s sway. There was the look of a
desecrated place, of a house in which nothing more could be private,
nothing sacred, in the air of its emptiness, with all those doors flung
open to the wall.
She was called downstairs again, however, and had no time to indulge
these fancies--and glancing out at a window saw the familiar Midge
standing before the door; the voices of the ladies talking both together
were audible before she had reached the stairs.
“Gone away? Yes, Harrison, we met them all--quite a procession--as we
came driving up; and did you see that dear baby, Ruth Mildmay, kissing
its little fat hand?”
“I never thought they would make much of a stay,” said Miss Mildmay;
“didn’t suit, you may be sure; and mark my words, Jane Shanks----”
“How’s Miss Katherine? Miss Katherine, poor dear, must feel quite dull
left alone by herself,” said Mrs. Shanks, not waiting to waste any
words.
“I should have felt duller the other way,” said the other voice, audibly
moving into the drawing-room. Then Katherine was received by one after
another once more in a long embrace.
“You dear!” Mrs. Shanks said--and Miss Mildmay held her by the shoulders
as if to impart a firmness which she felt to be wanting.
“Now, Katherine, here you are on your own footing at last.”
“Am I? It doesn’t feel like a very solid footing,” said Katherine with a
faint laugh.
“I never thought,” said Mrs. Shanks, “that Stella would stay.”
“It is I that have been telling you all the time, Jane Shanks, that she
would not stay. Why should she stay among all the people who know
exactly how she’s got it and everything about it? And the shameful
behaviour----”
“Now,” said Katherine, “there must not be a word against Stella. Don’t
you know Stella is Stella, whatever happens? And there is no shameful
behaviour. If she had tried to force half her fortune upon me, do you
think I should have taken it? You know better than that, whatever you
say.”
“Look here--this is what I call shameful behaviour,” cried Miss Mildmay,
with a wave of her hand.
The gilded drawing-room with all its finery was turned upside down, the
curiosities carried off--some of them to be sold, some of them, that met
with Stella’s approval, to Somers. The screen with which Katherine had
once made a corner for herself in the big room lay on the floor half
covered with sheets of paper, being packed; a number of the pictures had
been taken from the walls. The room, which required to be very well kept
and cared for to have its due effect, was squalid and miserable, like a
beggar attired in robes of faded finery. Katherine had not observed the
havoc that had been wrought. She looked round, unconsciously following
the movement of Miss Mildmay’s hand, and this sudden shock did what
nothing had done yet. It was sudden and unlooked for, and struck like a
blow. She fell into a sudden outburst of tears.
“This is what I call shameful behaviour,” Miss Mildmay said again, “and
Katherine, my poor child, I cannot bear, for one, that you should be
called on to live in the middle of this for a single day.”
“Oh, what does it matter?” cried Katherine, with a laugh that was half
hysterical, through her tears. “Why should it be kept up when, perhaps,
they are not coming back to it? And why shouldn’t they get the advantage
of things which are pretty things and are their own? I might have
thought that screen was mine--for I had grown fond of it--and carried it
away with my things, which clearly I should have had no right to do, had
not Stella seen to it. Stella, you know, is a very clever girl--she
always was, but more than ever,” she said, the laugh getting the
mastery. It certainly was very quick, very smart of Lady Somers to take
the first step, which Katherine certainly never would have had decision
enough to do.
“You ought to be up with her in another way,” said Miss Mildmay.
“Katherine, there’s a very important affair, we all know, waiting for
you to decide.”
“And oh, my dear, how can you hesitate?” said Mrs. Shanks, taking her
hand.
“It is quite easy to know why she hesitates. When a girl marries at
twenty, as you did, Jane Shanks, it’s plain sailing--two young fools
together and not a thought between them. But I know Katherine’s mind.
I’ve known James Stanford, man and boy, the last twenty years. He’s not
a Solomon, but as men go he’s a good sort of man.”
“Oh, Ruth Mildmay, that’s poor praise! You should see him with that poor
little boy of his. It’s beautiful!” cried Mrs. Shanks with tears in her
eyes.
“You’ve spoilt it all, you----” Miss Mildmay said in a fierce whisper in
her friend’s ear.
“Why should I have spoilt it all? Katherine has excellent sense, we all
know; the poor man married--men always do: how can they help it, poor
creatures?--but as little harm was done as could be done, for she died
so very soon, poor young thing.”
Katherine by this time was perfectly serene and smiling--too smiling and
too serene.
“Katherine,” said Miss Mildmay, “if you hear the one side you should
hear the other. This poor fellow, James Stanford, came to Jane Shanks
and me before he went back to India the last time. He had met you on the
train or somewhere. He said he must see you whatever happened. I told
Jane Shanks at the time she was meddling with other people’s happiness.”
“You were as bad as me, Ruth Mildmay,” murmured the other abashed.
“Well, perhaps I was as bad. It was the time when--when Dr. Burnet was
so much about, and we hoped that perhaps---- And when he asked and
pressed and insisted to see you, that were bound hand and foot with your
poor father’s illness----”
“We told him--we told the poor fellow--the poor victim. Oh, Ruth
Mildmay, I don’t think that I ever approved.”
“Victim is nonsense,” said Miss Mildmay sharply; “the man’s just a man,
no better and no worse. We told him, it’s true, Katherine, that the
doctor was there night and day, that he spared no pains about your poor
father to please you--and it would be a dreadful thing to break it all
up and to take you from poor Mr. Tredgold’s bedside.”
“No one need have given themselves any trouble about that,” said
Katherine, very pale; “I should never have left papa.”
“Well, that was what _I_ said,” cried Mrs. Shanks.
“So you see it was us who sent him away. Punish us, Katherine, don’t
punish the man. You should have seen how he went away! Afterwards,
having no hope, I suppose, and seeing someone that he thought he could
like, and wanting a home--and a family--and all that----”
“Oh,” cried Mrs. Shanks with fervour, “there are always a hundred
apologies for a man.” Katherine had been gradually recovering herself
while this interchange went on.
“Now let us say no more about Mr. Stanford,” she cried with a sudden
movement. “Come into the morning room, it is not in such disorder as
this, and there we can sit down and talk, and you can give me your
advice. I must decide at once between these two lodgings, now--oh,” she
cried, “but it is still worse here!” The morning room, the young ladies’
room of old, had many dainty articles of furniture in it, especially an
old piano beautifully painted with an art which is now reviving. Sir
Charles had told his wife that it would suit exactly with the old
furniture of his mother’s boudoir at Somers, and with Stella to think
was to do. The workmen had at that moment brought the box in which the
piano was to travel, and filled the room, coaxing the dainty instrument
into the rough construction of boards that was to be its house.
Katherine turned her visitors away with a wild outbreak of laughter. She
laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks--all the men, and one or two
of the servants, and the two ladies standing about with the gravest
faces. “Oh, Stella is wonderful!” she said.
They had their consultation afterwards in that grim chamber which had
been Mr. Tredgold’s, and which Somers had turned into a smoking-room. It
was the only place undisturbed where his daughter, thrown off by him
upon the world, could consult with her friends about the small maidenly
abode which was all she could afford henceforward. The visitors were
full of advice, they had a hundred things to say; but I am not sure that
Katherine’s mind had much leisure to pay attention to them. She thought
she saw her father there, sitting in his big chair by the table in which
his will was found--the will he had kept by him for years, but never had
changed. There she had so often seen him with his hands folded, his
countenance serene, saying “God damn them!” quite simply to himself. And
she, whom he had never cared for? Had he ever cursed her too, where he
sat, without animosity, and without compunction? She was very glad when
the ladies had said everything they could think of, although she had
derived but little benefit by it; and following them out of the room
turned the key sharply in the door. There was nothing there at least
which anyone could wish to take away.