CATHARINE KNOLLYS
"You mistake, sir! I am no light o' love, John Law!"
Thus spoke Catharine Knollys. She stood near the door of the great
drawing-room of the Knollys mansion, her figure beseeming well its
framing of deep hangings and rich tapestries. Her eyes were wide and
flashing, her cheeks deeply pink, the sweet bow of her lips half
a-quiver in her vehemence. Her surpassing personal beauty, rich, ripe,
enticing, gave more than sufficient challenge for the fiery blood of the
young man before her.
It was less than two weeks since these two had met. Surely the flood of
time had run swiftly in those few days. Not a day had passed that Law
had not met Catharine Knollys, nor had yet one meeting been such as the
girl in her own conscience dared call better than clandestine, even
though they met, as now, under her own roof. Yet, reason as she liked,
struggle as she could, Catharine Knollys had not yet been quite able to
end this swift voyaging on the flood of fate. It was so strange, so new,
so sweet withal, this coming of her suitor, as from the darkness of some
unknown star, so bold, so strong, so confident, and yet so humble! All
the old song of the ages thrilled within her soul, and each day its
compelling melody had accession. That this delirious softening of all
her senses meant danger, the Lady Catharine could not deny. Yet could
aught of earth be wrong when it spelled such happiness, such
sweetness--when the sound of a footfall sent her blood going the faster,
when the sight of a tall form, the ring of a vibrant tone, caused her
limbs to weaken, her throat to choke?
But ah! whence and why this spell, this sorcery--why this sweetness
filling all her being, when, after all, duty and seemliness bade it all
to end, as end it must, to-day? Thus had the Lady Catharine reflected
but the hour before John Law came; her knight of dreams--tall,
yellow-haired, blue-eyed, bold and tender, and surely speaking truth if
truth dwelt beneath the stars. Now he would come--now he had come again.
Here was his red, red rose once more. Here, burning in her ears, singing
in her heart, were his avowing, pleading words. And this must end!
John Law looked at her calmly, but said nothing. One hand, in a gesture
customary with him, flicked lightly at the deep cuff of the other
wrist, and this nervous movement was the sole betrayal of his
uneasiness.
"You come to this house time and again," resumed Catharine Knollys, "as
though it were an ancient right on your part, as though you had always
been a friend of this family. And yet--"
"And so I have been," broke in her suitor. "My people were friends of
yours before we two were born. Why, then, should you advise your
servant, as you have, fairly to deny me admission at the door?"
"I have done ill enough to admit you. Had I dreamed of this last
presumption on your part I should never have seen your face again."
"'Tis not presumption," said the young man, his voice low and even,
though ringing with the feeling to which even he dared not give full
expression. "I myself might call this presumption in another, but with
myself 'tis otherwise."
"Sir," said Lady Catharine Knollys, "you speak as one not of good mind."
"Not of good mind!" broke out John Law. "Say rather of mind too good to
doubt, or dally, or temporize. Why, 'tis plain as the plan of fate! It
was in the stars that I should come to you. This face, this form, this
heart, this soul--I shall see nothing else so long as I live! Oh, I
feel myself unworthy; you have right to think me of no station. Yet some
day I shall bring to you all that wealth can buy, all that station can
mean. Catharine--dear Lady Kitty--dear Kate--"
"I like not so fast a soothsaying in any suitor of mine," replied Lady
Catharine, hotly, "and this shall go no further." Her hand restrained
him.
"Then you find me distasteful? You would banish me? I could not learn to
endure it!"
Lady Catharine looked at him curiously. "Actually, sir," said she, "you
cause me to chill. I could half fear you. What is in your heart? Surely,
this is a strange love-making."
"And by that," cried John Law, "know, then the better of the truth.
Listen! I know! And this is what I know--that I shall succeed, and that
I shall love you always!"
"'Tis what one hears often from men, in one form or another," said the
girl, coolly, seating herself as she spoke.
"Talk not to me of other men--I'll not brook it!" cried he, advancing
toward her a few rapid paces. "Think you I have no heart?" His eye
gleamed, and he came on yet a step in his strange wooing. "Your face is
here, here," he cried, "deep in my heart! I must always look upon it, or
I am a lost man!"
"'Tis a face not so fair as that," said the Lady Catharine, demurely.
"'Tis the fairest face in England, or in the world!" cried her lover;
and now he was close at her side. Her hand, she knew not how, rested in
his own. Something of the honesty and freedom from coquetry of the young
woman's nature showed in her next speech, inconsequent, illogical,
almost unmaidenly in its swift sincerity and candor.
"'Tis a face but blemished," said she, slowly, the color rising to her
cheek. "See! Here is the birth-mark of the house of Knollys. They tell
me--my very good friends tell me, that this is the mark of shame, the
bar sinister of the hand of justice. You know the story of our house."
"Somewhat of it," said Law.
"My brother is not served of the writ when Parliament is called. This
you know. Tell me why?"
"I know the so-called reason," replied John Law. "'Twas brought out in
his late case at the King's Bench."
"True. 'Twas said that my grandfather, past eighty, was not the father
of those children of his second wife. There is talk that--"
"'Twas three generations ago, this talk of the Knollys shortcoming. I am
not eighty. I am twenty-four, and I love you, Catharine Knollys."
"It was three generations ago," said the Lady Catharine, slowly and
musingly, as though she had not heard the speech of her suitor. "Three
generations ago. Yet never since then hath there been clean name for the
Banbury estate. Never yet hath its peer sat in his rightful place in
Parliament. And never yet hath eldest daughter of this house failed to
show this mark of shame, this unpurged contempt for that which is
ordained. Surely it would seem fate holds us in its hands."
"You tell me these things," said John Law, "because you feel it is right
to tell them. And I tell you of my future, as you tell me of your past.
Why? Because, Lady Catharine Knollys, it has already come to matter of
faith between us."
The girl leaned back against the wall near which she had seated herself.
The young man bent forward, taking both her hands quietly in his own
now, and gazing steadily into her eyes. There was no triumph in his
gaze. Perhaps John Law had prescience of the future.
"Oh, sir, I had far liefer I had never seen you," cried Catharine
Knollys, bending a head from whose eyes there dropped sudden tears.
"Ah, dear heart, say anything but that!"
"'Tis a hard way a woman must travel at best in this world," murmured
the Lady Catharine, with wisdom all unsuited to her youth. "But I can
not understand. I had thought that the coming of a lover was a joyous
thing, a time of happiness alone."
"Ah, now, in the hour of mist can you not foresee the time of sunshine?
All life is before us, my sweet, all life. There is much for us to do,
there are so many, many days of love and happiness."
But now the Lady Catharine Knollys veered again, with some sudden change
of the inner currents of the feminine soul.
"I have gone far with you, Mr. Law," said she, suddenly disengaging her
hand. "Yet I did but give you insight of things which any man coming as
you have come should have well within his knowledge. Think not, sir,
that I am easy to be won. I must know you equally honest with myself.
And if you come to my regard, it must be step by step and stair by
stair. This is to be remembered."
"I shall remember."
"Go, then, and leave me for this time," she besought him. But still he
could not go, and still the Lady Catharine could not bid him more
sternly to depart. Youth--youth, and love, and fate were in that room;
and these would have their way.
The beseeching gaze of an eye singular in its power rested on the girl,
a gaze filled with all the strange, half mandatory pleading of youth and
yearning. Once more there came a shift in the tidal currents of the
woman's heart. The Lady Catharine slowly became conscious of a delicious
helplessness, of a sinking and yielding which she could not resist. Her
head lost power to be erect. It slipped forward on a shoulder waiting as
by right. Her breath came in soft measure, and unconsciously a hand was
raised to touch the cheek pressed down to hers. John Law kissed her once
upon the lips. Suddenly, without plan--in spite of all plan--the seal of
a strange fate was set forever on her life!
For a long moment they stood thus, until at length she raised a face
pale and sharp, and pushed back against his breast a hand that trembled.
"'Tis wondrous strange," she whispered.
"Ask nothing," said John Law, "fear nothing. Only believe, as I
believe."
Neither John Law nor the Lady Catharine Knollys saw what was passing
just without the room. They did not see the set face which looked down
from the stairway. Through the open door Mary Connynge could see the
young man as he stepped out of the door, could see the conduct of the
girl now left alone in the drawing-room. She saw the Lady Catharine sink
down upon the seat, her head drooped in thought, her hand lying
languidly out before her. Pale now and distraught, the Lady Catharine
Knollys wist little of what went on before her. She had full concern
with the tumult which waged riot in her soul.
Mary Connynge turned, and started back up the stair unseen. She paused,
her yellow eyes gone narrow, her little hand clutched tight upon the
rail.
[Illustration]