On the next morning after his mother's arrival, Lord Erradeen set out
early for Birkenbraes. Everything pushed him towards a decision; even
her prompt arrival, which he had not anticipated, and the clearing away
from his path of the simpler and more easy difficulties that beset him,
by her means. But what was far more than this was the tug at his heart,
the necessity that lay before him to satisfy, one way or the other, the
demands of his tyrant. He could not send away that spiritual enemy, who
held him in his grip, as he did the vulgar influence of Underwood.
_That_ had disgusted him almost from the first; he had never tolerated
it, even when he yielded to it; and the effort he had made in throwing
it over had been exhilarating to him, and gave a certain satisfaction to
his mind. But now that was over, and he had returned again to the
original question, and found himself once more confronted by that
opponent who could not be shaken off--who, one way or other, must be
satisfied or vanquished, if life were to be possible. Vanquished? How
was he to be vanquished?--by a pure man and a strong--by a pure woman
and her love--by the help of God against a spiritual tyranny. He smiled
to himself as he hurried along the road, thinking of the hopelessness of
all this--himself neither pure nor strong; and Oona, who, if she
knew--and God, whom, as his tempter had said, he had never sought nor
thought of till now. He hurried along to try if the second best was
within his reach; perhaps even that might fail him for anything he knew.
The thought of meeting the usual party in the house of the Williamsons
was so abhorrent to him, and such a disgust had risen in his mind of all
the cheerful circumstances of the big, shining house, that he set out
early with the intention of formally seeking an interview with Katie,
and thus committing himself from the beginning. The morning was bright
and fair, with a little shrill wind about, which brought the yellow
leaves fluttering to his feet, and carried them across him as he
walked--now detached and solitary, now in little drifts and heaps. He
hurried along, absorbed in his own thoughts, shutting his eyes to the
vision of the isle, as it lay all golden, russet, and brown upon the
surface of the water which gave its colours back; Walter would not look
nor see the boat pushing round the corner, with the back of Hamish's red
shirt alone showing, as the prow came beyond the shade of the trees. He
did not see the boat, and yet he knew it was there, and hurried, hurried
on to escape all reminders. The great door at Birkenbraes stood open, as
was its wont--the great stone steps lying vacant in the sunshine, and
everything still about. It was the only hour at which the place was
quiet. The men were out on the hill, the ladies following such rational
occupations as they might have to resort to, and the house had an air of
relief and repose. Walter felt that he pronounced his own fate when he
asked to see Miss Williamson.
"Mr. Williamson is out, my lord," the solemn functionary said, who was
far more important and dignified than the master of the house. "I asked
to see Miss Williamson," Lord Erradeen repeated, with a little
impatience; and he saw the man's eyebrows raised.
So far as the servants were concerned, and through them the whole
district, Walter's "intentions" stood revealed.
Katie Williamson was alone. She was in her favourite room--the room
especially given over to her amusements and occupations. It was not a
small room, for such a thing scarcely existed in Birkenbraes. It was
full of windows, great expanses of plate glass, through which the
mountains and the loch appeared uninterrupted, save by a line of
framework here and there, with a curious open-air effect. It was in one
of the corners of the house, and the windows formed two sides of the
brilliant place; on the others were mirrors reflecting the mountains
back again. She sat between them, her little fair head the only solid
thing which the light encountered. When she rose, with a somewhat
astonished air, to receive her visitor, her trim figure, neat and alert,
stood out against the background of the trees and rocks on the lower
slopes of the hills. A curious transparency, distinctness, and absence
of privacy and mystery were in the scene. The two seemed to stand
together there in the sight of all the world.
"Lord Erradeen!" Katie said, with surprise, almost consternation. "But
if I had been told, I should have come down-stairs to you. Nobody but my
great friends, nobody but women, ever come here."
"I should have thought that any one might come. There are no
concealments here," he said, expressing the sentiment of the place
unconsciously. Then, seeing that Katie's colour rose: "Your boudoir is
not all curtained and shadowy, but open and candid--as you are."
"That last has saved you," said Katie, with a laugh. "I know what you
mean--and that is that my room (for it is not a boudoir--I never
_boude_) is far too light, too clear for the fashion. But this is my
fashion, and people who come to me must put up with it." She added,
after a moment: "What did you say to Sanderson, Lord Erradeen, to induce
him to bring you here?"
"I said I wanted to see Miss Williamson."
"That was understood," said Katie, once more with an increase of colour,
and looking at him with a suppressed question in her eyes. Her heart
gave a distinct knock against her breast, but did not jump up and
flutter, as hearts less well regulated will do in such circumstances;
for she too perceived what Sanderson had perceived, that the interview
was not one to take place amid all the interruptions of the
drawing-room. Sanderson was a very clever person, and his young
mistress agreed with him; but, nevertheless, made a private memorandum
that he should have notice, and that she would speak to papa.
"Yes, I think it must be easily understood. I have come to you with a
great deal that is very serious to say."
"You look very serious," said Katie; and then she added, hurriedly, "And
I want very much to speak to you, Lord Erradeen. I want you to tell
me--who was that gentleman at Kinloch Houran? I have never been able to
get him out of my mind. Is he paying you a visit? What is his name? Has
he been in this country before? But oh, to be sure, he must have been,
for he knew everything about the castle. I want to know, Lord
Erradeen----"
"After you have heard what I have got to say----"
"No, not after--before. I tremble when I think of him. It is ridiculous,
I know; but I never had any such sensation before. I should think he
must be a mesmerist, or something of that sort," Katie said, with a pale
and nervous smile; "though I don't believe in mesmerism," she added,
quickly.
"You believe in nothing of the kind--is it not so? You put no faith in
the stories about my family, in the influence of the past on the
present, in the despotism--But why say anything on that subject. You
laugh."
"I believe in superstition," said Katie somewhat tremulously, "and that
it impresses the imagination, and puts you in a condition to
believe--things. And then there is a pride in having anything of the
sort connected with one's own family," she said recovering herself. "If
it was our ghost I should believe in it too."
"Ghost--is not a word that means much?" Walter said. And then there was
a pause. It seemed to him that his lips were sealed, and that he had no
longer command of the ordinary words. He had known what he had meant to
say when he came, but the power seemed to have gone from him. He stood
and looked out upon the wide atmosphere, and the freedom of the hills,
with a blank in his mind, and that sense that nothing is any longer of
importance or meaning which comes to those who are baffled in their
purpose at the outset. It was Katie who with a certain sarcasm in her
tone recalled him to himself. "You came--because you had something
serious to say to me, Lord Erradeen." She was aware of what he intended
to say; but his sudden pause at the very beginning had raised the
mocking spirit in Katie. She was ready to defy and provoke, and silence
with ridicule, the man whom she had no objection to accept as her
husband--provided he found his voice.
"It is true--I had something very serious to say. I came to ask you
whether you could--" All this time he was not so much as looking at her;
his eyes were fixed dreamily and rather sadly upon the landscape, which
somehow seemed so much more important than the speck of small humanity
which he ought to have been addressing. But at this point Walter
recollected himself, and came in as it were from the big, silent,
observing world, to Katie, sitting expectant, divided between mockery
and excitement, with a flush on her cheeks, but a contraction of her
brows, and an angry yet smiling mischief in her eyes.
"To ask you," he said, "whether you would--pass your life with me. I am
not much worth the taking. There is a poor title, there is a family
which we might restore and--emancipate perhaps. You are rich, it would
be of no advantage to you. But at all events it would not be like asking
you to banish yourself, to leave all you cared for. I have little to say
for myself," he went on after a pause with a little more energy, "you
know me well enough. Whether I should ever be good for anything
would--most likely--rest with you. I am at present under great
depression--in trouble and fear--"
Here he came to another pause, and looked out upon the silent mountains
and great breadths of vacant air in which there was nothing to help:
then with a sigh turned again and held out his hand. "Will you have
me--Katie?" he said.
Katie sat gazing at him with a wonder which had by degrees extinguished
the sarcasm, the excitement, the expectation, that were in her face. She
was almost awestricken by this strangest of all suits that could be
addressed to a girl--a demand for herself which made no account of
herself, and missed out love and every usual preliminary. It was serious
indeed--as serious as death: more like that than the beginning of the
most living of all links. She could not answer him with the indignation
which in other circumstances she might have felt. It was too solemn for
any ebullition of feeling. She felt overawed, little as this mood was
congenial to her.
"Lord Erradeen," she said, "you seem to be in great trouble."
He made an affirmative movement of his head, but said no more.
"--Or you would not put such a strange question to me," she went on.
"Why should I have you? When a man offers himself to a girl he says it
is because he loves her. You don't love me--"
She made a momentary breathless pause with a half-hope of being
interrupted; but save by a motion of his hand, Walter made no sign. "You
don't love me," she went on with some vehemence, "nor do you ask me to
love you. Such a proposal might be an insult. But I don't think you mean
it as an insult."
"Not that. You know better. Anything but that!"
"No--I don't think it is that. But what is it then, Lord Erradeen?"
Her tone had a certain peremptory sound which touched the capricious
spring by which the young man's movements were regulated. He came to
himself. "Miss Williamson," he said, "when you ran away from me in
London it was imminent that I should ask you this question. It was
expected on all sides. You went away, I have always believed, to avoid
it."
"Why should it have been imminent? I went away," cried Katie, forgetting
the contradiction, "because some one came in who seemed to have a prior
right. She is here now with the same meaning."
"She has no prior right. She has no right at all, nor does she claim
any," he said hurriedly. "It is accident. Katie! had you stayed, all
would have been determined then, and one leaf of bitter folly left out
of my life."
"Supposing it to be so," she said calmly, "I am not responsible for your
life, Lord Erradeen. Why should I be asked to step in and save you
from--bitter folly or anything else? And this life that you offer me,
are you sure it is fit for an honest girl to take? The old idea that a
woman should be sacrificed to reform a man has gone out of fashion. Is
that the _rôle_ you want me to take up?" Katie cried, rising to her feet
in her excitement. "Captain Underwood (whose word I would never take)
said you were bad, unworthy a good woman. Is that true?"
"Yes," he said in a low tone, "it is true."
Katie gazed at him for a moment, and then in her excitement sat down and
cried, covering her face with her hands. She it was, though she was not
emotional, who was overcome with feeling. Walter stood gazing at her
with a sort of stupefaction, seeing the scene pass with a sense that he
was a spectator rather than an actor in it, his dark figure swaying
slightly against the clearness of the landscape which took so strange a
part in all that was happening. It had passed now altogether out of his
hands.
As for Katie, it would be impossible to tell what sudden softening, what
pity, mingled with keen vexation and annoyance, forced these tears from
her eyes. Her heart revolted against him and melted towards him all at
once. Her pride would not let her accept such a proposal; and yet she
would have liked to accept him, to take him in hand, to be his
providence, and the moulder of his fate. A host of hurrying thoughts and
sentiments rushed headlong through her mind. She had it in her to do it,
better than any silly woman of the world, better than a creature of
visionary soul like Oona. She was practical, she was strong, she could
do it. But then all her pride rose up in arms. She wept a few hot
impatient tears which were irrestrainable: then raised her head again.
"I am very sorry for you," she said. "If you were my brother, Lord
Erradeen, I would help you with all my might, or if I--cared for you
more than you care for me. But I don't," she added after a pause.
He made an appealing, deprecating movement with his hands, but did not
speak.
"I almost wish I did," said Katie regretfully; "if I had been fond of
you I should have said yes: for you are right in thinking I could do it.
I should not have minded what went before. I should have taken you up
and helped you on. I know that I could have done it; but then I am
not--fond of you," she said slowly. She did not look at him as she
spoke; but had he renewed his claim upon her, even with his eyes, Katie
would have seen it, and might have allowed herself to be persuaded
still. But Walter said nothing. He stood vaguely in the light, without a
movement, accepting whatever she might choose to say. She remained
silent for a time, waiting. And then Katie sprang to her feet again, all
the more indignant and impatient that she had been so near yielding, had
he but known. "Well!" she said, "is it I that am to maintain the
conversation? Have you anything more to say, Lord Erradeen?"
"I suppose not," he answered slowly. "I came to you hoping perhaps for
deliverance, at least partial--for deliverance--Now that you will not,
there is nothing for it but a struggle to the death."
She looked at him with a sort of vertigo of amazement. Not a word about
her, no regret for losing her, not a touch of sentiment, of gratitude,
not even any notice of what she had said! The sensation of awe came back
to her as she stood before this insensibility which was half sublime.
Was he mad? or a wretch, an egotist, wanting a woman to do something for
him, but without a thought for the woman?
"I am glad," she said, with irrepressible displeasure, "that it affects
you so little. And now I suppose the incident is over and we may return
to our occupations. I was busy--with my housekeeping," she said with a
laugh. "One might sometimes call a struggle with one's bills a struggle
to the death."
He gave her a look which was half-anger, half-remonstrance; and then to
Katie's amazement resumed in a moment the tone of easy intercourse which
had always existed between them.
"You will find your bills refreshing after this highflown talk," he
said. "Forgive me. You know I am not given to romantic sentiment any
more than yourself."
"I don't know," said Katie, offended, "that I am less open to the
romantic than other people when the right touch is given."
"But it is not my hand that can give the right touch?" he said. "I
accept my answer as there is nothing else for me to do. But I cannot
abandon the country," he added after a moment, "and I hope we may still
meet as good friends."
"Nothing has happened," said Katie with dignity, "to lessen my
friendship for you, Lord Erradeen." She could not help putting a faint
emphasis on the pronouns. The man rejected may dislike to meet the woman
who has rejected him, but the woman can have no feeling in the matter.
She held out her hand with a certain stateliness of dismissal. "Papa
need not know," she said, "and so there will be nothing more about it.
Good-bye."
Walter took her hand in his, with a momentary perception that perhaps
there had been more than lay on the surface in this interview, on her
side as well as his. He stooped down and kissed it respectfully, and
even with something like tenderness. "You do not refuse it to me, in
friendship, even after all you have heard?"
"It shall always be yours in friendship," Katie said, the colour rising
high in her face.
She was glad he went away without looking at her again. She sat down and
listened to his footsteps along the long corridor and down the stairs
with a curious sensation as if he carried something with him that would
not return to her again. And for long after she sat in the broad
daylight without moving, leaving the books upon the table--which were
not housekeeping books--untouched--going over this strange interview,
turning over all the past that had any connection with Lord Erradeen. It
seemed all to roll out before her like a story that had been full of
interest: and now here was the end of it. Such a fit of wistful sadness
had seldom come over the active and practical intelligence of Katie. It
gave her for the moment a new opening in nature. But by degrees her
proper moods came back. She closed this poetical chapter with a sigh,
and her sound mind took up with a more natural regret the opportunity
for congenial effort which she had been compelled to give up. She said
to herself that she would not have minded that vague badness which he
had owned, and Underwood had accused him of. She could have brought him
back. She had it in her to take the charge even of a man's life. So she
thought in inexperience, yet with the powerful confidence which so often
is the best means of fulfilling triumphantly what it aims at. She would
not have shrunk from the endeavour. She would have put her vigorous
young will into his feeble one, she thought, and made him, with her
force poured into him, a man indeed, contemptuous of all miserable
temptations, able to sail over and despise them. As she mused her eyes
took an eager look, her very fingers twitched with the wish to be doing.
Had he come back then it is very possible that Katie would have
announced to him her change of mind, her determination "to pull him
through." For she could have done it! she repeated to herself. Whatever
his burdens had been, when she had once set her shoulder to the wheel
she would have done it. Gambling, wine, even the spells of such women as
Katie blushed to think of--she would have shrunk before none of these.
His deliverance would not have been partial, as he had said, but
complete. She would have fought the very devils for him and brought him
off. What a work it was that she had missed! not a mere commonplace
marriage with nothing to do. But with a sigh Katie had to acknowledge
that it was over. She could not have accepted him, she said, excusing
herself to herself. It would have been impossible. A man who asks you
like _that_, not even pretending to care for you--you could not do it!
But, alas! what an opportunity lost! Saying this she gave herself a
shake, and smoothed her hair for luncheon, and put the thought away from
her resolutely. Katie thought of Dante's nameless sinner who made "the
great refusal." She had lost perhaps the one great opportunity of her
life.