AWAY TO THE WARS.
[Illustration: Chapter XIV drop-cap M]
Mr. Hunt came home in good time. Katherine was an excellent
housekeeper, and she had the sort of dinner which he loved. Rich as
they were, Katherine was not by any means too proud to see after small
domestic matters herself. It is true she had a _chef_ as cook, but
that did not matter. He and she consulted every morning with regard to
the bill of fare. The man respected the girl, and the girl was not
unreasonable to the man; they pulled well together. Such was the case
with all Katherine's servants. She was free-handed, but firm; she was
liberal, not extravagant. They liked her because they respected her,
and they respected her because they liked her. The wheels of the
establishment were well oiled, and went smoothly. Katherine never
parted with her servants except for marriage or ill-health.
The father and daughter now sat down to their nicely-appointed meal.
They were alone. Hunt had resisted the temptation to bring home a
couple of his own special cronies to dinner. Katherine and her father
always dressed in the evening. Katherine's dress was simple and
girlish, but her neck was bare, and she wore short sleeves. Hunt, in
his immaculate white tie and expanse of shirt front, looked imposing,
and even handsome. He was the sort of man who may be described as
lion-like. He had a big head and a bushy beard. His eyebrows were
bushy also, and his dark, well-open eyes were very like his daughter's.
He had a firm, massive sort of appearance altogether, and looked what
he was--a John Bull of the old type. During dinner he was hungry and a
little tired, and while enjoying his meal he did not talk much.
Towards the end of dinner, however, he was sufficiently refreshed to
look across the table at his handsome daughter.
Certainly Kate was looking her best to-night--the colour in her face
was absolutely brilliant; she did not often have such a mantle of
crimson to add to her charms. Her eyes were very bright and very dark,
and her lips were remarkably firm.
"There's something in the wind," thought Hunt; "she does not wear that
mouth for nothing. What can it be?"
The uneasiness which visited him destroyed his appetite for the rest of
the dinner.
"By George," he said to himself, "if she is going to come over me with
the news of some impossible marriage, I'll--I'll oppose it tooth and
nail."
But as Hunt thought of opposing the child so like himself in all her
characteristics, he owned to himself that he would have a tough time
before him.
Dessert was placed on the table, and the servants withdrew. The moment
they had done so Hunt looked straight across at his daughter.
"Have it out, Katie," he said; "don't beat about the bush. What's up?
what's wrong? Why are you wearing your mouth in that particular angle?
I know you. You are up to mischief, Katie. But out with it, for any
sake! Don't beat about the bush."
"It isn't what you think, father," replied Katherine.
"And how do you know what I think, miss?"
"You are imagining," said Katherine, and she gave a smile which was
very sad, and which took on the instant all the hardness, and almost
all the firmness, out of her mouth--"you are imagining that I am going
to tell you that I love somebody better than you, dear old man, and
that I am going to leave you for him. But that's not the case, daddy
mine--that is by no means the case."
"Then nothing matters," said David Hunt--"nothing." He took out his
large white silk handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "I got a bit of
a fright," he said. "I will own it--I got a considerable bit of a
fright. You don't wear that mouth for nothing."
"I wish you would leave my mouth alone, father. My lips must form
themselves into any curves they like."
"They don't go down at the corners for nothing," said the obstinate old
man.
"If they were down at the corners during dinner, they had good reason
to be," she replied. "I am not going to do what you feared, but I am
going to do something else you won't like."
"You are always doing things I don't like. You are at once my worry
and my blessing. I don't like your going out so late in the evening to
visit the slums; don't like your having those old women from the
workhouse to tea once a week; I don't like your--"
"Don't go on, father. You know you do like me to visit the slums, and
you do like the old women to come to tea. And perhaps, father, we
might arrange for them to come in my absence. Marshall, my maid, knows
them almost as well as I do; and on their day out from the workhouse
they have nowhere to go, poor darlings, and they do so love their cup
of tea and their chat with me, and to sit in a warm room and look at a
bright fire."
Katherine paused abruptly; in the midst of her glowing picture she
caught sight of her father's face.
"In your absence!" he said--"your absence! What does this mean?"
Katherine paused for a moment. Hunt jumped to his feet.
"I tell you," he said, "you are not to beat about the bush. You have
got something at the back of your head. Out with it!"
"I have a very big thing," answered the girl--"the biggest thing in all
my life; and there's no going back on it, father. There's no changing
my mind. It's got to be done, and I am not prepared with any special
reasons. You've got to bear it, daddy."
"What in all the world have I got to bear?"
"I am going out to South Africa, father, as special war correspondent
to _The Snowball_."
Katherine made her announcement quietly after all. The beating about
the bush had ceased. The blow had fallen with a vengeance! As she
spoke she rose, and now she stood a foot or so away from her father,
confronting him. Her long arms hung at her sides; her slim figure was
drawn up to its fullest height; her eyes flashed defiance and
resistance into the eyes of the old man. But the hard lips were no
longer hard--they trembled. Hunt's face turned from red to white, and
from white to red again, and then he put his hand with a sudden gesture
over his heart, and sank into a chair.
"Wha--what did you say?" was his first remark.
Katherine repeated her intelligence. Then she said, after a pause,--
"We sail on Friday."
"Whom do you mean by 'we'? I cannot go with you."
"No; you must stay at home and look after the dollars. You were always
a dear old daddy, and the dollars are necessary to our existence. I
shall want a good few to take with me. 'We' means Miss Katherine
Hepworth and myself."
"Who is Katherine Hepworth?"
"A girl I met at Lady Marsden's--a girl I am interested in. She is
also going to Ladysmith, and I am going with her."
"But why to Ladysmith?"
"Because a considerable contingent of our army is assembled in that
neighbourhood. We go to be in the thick of--the fun."
"Fun, Katherine!"
"Oh, it is only a word, father. It means one thing to you and another
to me."
"And you leave me--you absolutely leave me for this?"
"For no slight thing I leave you," said the girl.
"You are of age; I don't suppose I can legally prevent you."
"You cannot. But, all the same, I would ask your blessing before I go."
"You would leave me, really?"
"For no light thing do I leave you, daddy. Our men, the flower of our
manhood, are going to encounter a tough time, and every woman who has a
spark of womanly feeling in her ought to help them if she can. I am
one of the women who can."
"You are not a nurse," he answered. "This is all tomfoolery--mere
sentiment. I am surprised at you, Katherine."
"I am not a nurse; but I have got what every nurse does not
possess--enormous health, enormous animal spirits, enormous
courage--and I won't fail; I will succeed. And oh, daddy, daddy
darling, I am going! Yes, I am going on Friday; and you can't--no,
daddy, even if you cried to me--even if you went on your knees to
me--you can't keep me back."
"Leave the room," said Hunt.
He pointed towards the door. Katherine, who had come close to him,
started back.
"What does this mean?"
"Leave the room; I cannot bear your presence just now. I will come to
you by-and-by."
Then she saw that she had caused some emotion within him too mighty to
be held down. She knew he wanted solitude, and she left him. She went
into her little private sitting-room--the one where she had seen Kitty
Hepworth that morning--and there she fell on her knees. She did not
sob, but she prayed.
In about a quarter of an hour Hunt came in. His face was quite white.
"Let us talk about _pros_ and _cons_," he said.
Katherine pushed a chair towards him.
"What a dear daddy you are!" she said. "Few would treat my wilfulness
as you are doing."
He winced when she said a tender word.
"There's a thing that I want to say," he remarked then, "and afterwards
I'll be silent."
"What is it, father?"
"You think you are doing your duty. You are very--_painfully_ modern.
The old ideas with regard to 'Honour thy father and mother' are
exploded in this end of the nineteenth century. It is a dull sort of
task to stay at home with the old man, and it is heroic, and glorious,
and grand to step out of your place and go where God knows you may not
be wanted. It is a grand thing to make a fuss, and think that you can
help, when all the time you are only hindering. It's a mistaken idea
of duty, according to my way of thinking. The old man wants you far
more than the army wants you. The old man may--break down." He paused
as he spoke, and looked full at Katherine.
She clasped her hands together, and her nails were hurting her tender
skin; but the colour in her face did not alter, nor did her eyes fall
beneath her father's gaze. He gave a quick sigh, and then resumed his
remarks.
"God knows why you go, but you yourself think it heroic--you think you
will help?"
"I shall help," she answered. "There is a task to be done, and if I do
not undertake it, two lives may be ruined."
"Why don't you confide in me fully, Katherine?"
"Because I can't. Up to the present you have always taken me on trust;
you must take me on trust now."
Hunt jumped to his feet.
"I have had my say," he remarked. "To me it is the reverse of filial;
to me it savours of sentiment, not of duty. But you go, I take it, in
spite of my feelings."
"I am sorry, father, but I do go in spite of your feelings."
"Then we will cease to talk over why you go. We have too little time
to talk of the way in which you go. You are a rich woman, Katherine."
"I know it, father."
"Since your mother died I have toiled for you; I have added pound to
pound, and hundred to hundred, and thousand to thousand--and all has
been for you. And if I died to-morrow, you would find yourself one of
the greatest heiresses in London. You would have a cool million of
your own--yes, a cool million--to do exactly what you liked with. And
if I live another ten years, God only knows how many millions you may
have. The American heiresses will be nothing to you. And it's money
in consols, mind you, as safe as the Bank of England. And I have done
it--I, your father, David Hunt."
"There never was such a daddy," said the girl.
"It seems to me that you don't think much of him. But there, I am
getting personal, and I don't wish to be that. But you will understand
that, as you have made up your mind to do this foolhardy, mad, and
reckless thing, you must do it comfortably--you must do it in the best
possible way. There is to be no stint, mind you. When you want to
draw on me, draw. I will give you a cheque book, and I'll sign every
cheque, and you can fill in any amount you fancy. Can I do more than
that?"
"No one else would do as much," she said.
"And you will take care of yourself, Kate? you won't run needlessly
into risk? you won't try to catch that abominable fever, which they say
tracks our armies like the plague, will you, Kate?"
"I will do my utmost to keep well for two reasons: first, because of
you--because I want to come back to you; because each single hour I
spend away from you, my heart will be drawn and drawn, as if a great
pain were pulling me to your side."
"Don't, Kate; you are abominably sentimental."
But Hunt stretched out his big hand as he spoke, and patted his
daughter on her shoulder.
"And also I will take care of myself because I honestly wish to live.
I wish to do big things if I can; if not, small ones. But anyhow I
want to live, and not to die. And I want to make my life as useful as
possible."
"Then sit down, and let us go over the list of things you will
require," said Hunt.
When Kitty Hepworth came to see Katherine Hunt the next morning,
Katherine Hunt told her that she was going with her.
"And you will never know--never to your dying day--what it has cost
me," said Katherine Hunt. "Don't keep me now. Go and make your
preparations."
Kitty's face, which had been white when she entered the room, grew rosy
as the dawn. She rushed to Katherine, clasped her hands, and kissed
them frantically.
"You are so big and so strong," she said, "you are as good as a man.
And you are going with me! There are no words in the English language
to tell you how passionately I love you!"
"Love me as much as you like, Kitty; all I ask is that, you should not
be foolish, and that you should keep yourself straight. If you mean to
marry a man like Captain Keith, you have great reason to keep yourself
straight. And now go and make your preparations. We leave here on
Friday; we have only to-day and to-morrow in which to do what is
necessary."
Kitty hurried back to Mrs. Keith, and Katherine began the arduous task
of getting ready to leave the country in about forty-eight hours.
Without unlimited money it would have been almost impossible, but with
boundless resources the task was comparatively easy. And Hunt, having
given his consent to his daughter's going, suddenly became almost mild
and certainly thoroughly amiable on the point.
He insisted on being with her during those two days. He accompanied
her from shop to shop, and made, with the marvellous common-sense which
always characterized him, and which his daughter inherited, the most
useful purchases. It was necessary to take as little luggage as
possible, so "condensation" was his favourite word. "Boil down,
condense. Do the thing in the most expensive, but also in the tiniest
compass," he would say; and he planned the sort of trunks she ought to
have, and the luggage which should go into them: and not one single
thing which was necessary to the comfort of a girl travelling through
an enemy's country did he neglect.
Finally, on Friday morning, the two girls, both bearing the same
initials, met at Waterloo Station, _en route_ for Southampton. Hunt
was there, and also Mrs. Keith. Mrs. Keith looked broken down and very
sorrowful; but whatever Hunt's feelings were, he kept them to himself.
Kitty's face was radiant, and Katherine's face was strong. Katherine
clasped Kitty's small hand, and bent towards Mrs. Keith, and said
earnestly,--
"I will take great care of her. It is a venturesome thing that she is
doing; but, on the whole, perhaps she is right."
"Her presence may keep Gavon from risking too much," said the widow;
"that fact is my only consolation."
Then the train moved out of the station, and the deed was done.