"NO."
Next morning's post brought a letter from Bertie, which was a kind of
complement to Katherine's reflections of the night before. After
explaining that he had hitherto been unable to take a holiday from his
various avocations, he promised to spend the following week with his
sister and Miss Liddell. He then described the success of Mrs. Needham's
bazar, and proceeded thus:
"Meeting my old friend Mrs. Dodd a few days ago, I was sorry to find
from her that your favorite, Rachel Trant, had been very unwell. She had
had a great deal of work, thanks to your kind efforts on her behalf, and
sat at it early and late; then she took cold. I went to see her, and
found her in a state of extreme depression, like that from which you
succeeded in rousing her. I think it would be well if she could have a
little change. Are there any cheap, humble lodgings at Sandbourne, where
she might pass a week or two? I shall pass this matter in your hands."
"I am sure old Norris's wife would take her in. They have a nice
cottage, almost on the beach, close to the point."
"No doubt. Really that Rachel of yours is in great luck. I wonder how
many poor girls in London are dying for a breath of sea-air?"
"Ah, hundreds, I fear. But then, you see, they have not been brought
under my notice, and Rachel has; so I will do the best I can for her. I
am sure she is no common woman."
"At all events she has no common luck."
Katherine lost no time in visiting Mrs. Norris, and found that she was
in the habit of letting a large, low, but comfortable room upstairs,
where the bed was gorgeous with a patchwork quilt of many colors, and
permitting her lodgers to dine in a small parlor, which was her own
sitting-room.
The old woman had not had any "chance" that season, as she termed it,
and gladly agreed to take the young person recommended by her husband's
liberal employer. So Katherine walked back to write both to Bertie and
their _protegee_.
During her absence De Burgh had called, but left no message. And
Katherine felt a little sorry to have missed him, as she thought it
probable he would go on to town that afternoon, and she wanted to hear
some tidings of Errington, yet could hardly nerve herself to ask.
The evening was gloriously fine, and as Miss Payne did not like boating,
the pony-carriage was given up to her, the boys, and Miss North the
governess, for a long drive to a farm-house where the boys enjoyed
rambling about, and Miss Payne bought new-laid eggs.
When they had set out, Katherine took a white woolen shawl over her
arm--for even in July the breeze was sometimes chill at sundown--and
strolled along the road, or rather cart track, which led between the
cliffs and the sea to the boatman's cottage. She passed this, nodding
pleasantly to the sturdy old man, who was busy in his cabbage garden,
and pursued a path which led as far as a footing could be found, to
where the sea washed against the point. It was a favorite spot with
Katherine, who was tolerably sure of being undisturbed here. The view
across the bay was tranquilly beautiful; the older part of Sandbourne
only, with the pretty old inn, was visible from her rocky seat among the
bowlders and debris which had fallen from above, while the old tower at
the opposite point of the bay stood out black and solid against the
flood of golden light behind it. She sat there very still, enjoying the
air, the scene, the sweet salt breath of the sea, thinking intently of
Rachel Trant's experience, of her fatal weakness, of the unpitying
severity of that rule of law under which we social atoms are
constrained to live; of the evident fact that were we but wise and good
we might always be the beneficent arbiters of our own fate; that there
are few pleasures which have not their price; and after all, though she,
Katherine, had paid high for hers, it had not cost too much, considering
she had been groping in the dimness of imperfect knowledge. Oh, hew she
wished she had never attempted to act providence to her mother and
herself, but trusted to Errington's sense of generosity and justice! Of
course it would have been humiliating to beg from a stranger, yet before
that stranger she had been compelled to lower herself to the dust, and--
The unwonted sound of approaching feet startled her. She turned, to see
De Burgh within speaking distance. "I am like Robinson Crusoe in my
solitude here," she said, smiling. "I turn pale at the sound of an
unexpected step, as he did at the print of Friday's foot."
"And to continue the smile," he returned, leaning against a rock near
her, "the footprint or step, as in Crusoe's case, only announces the
advent of a devoted slave." He spoke lightly, and Katherine scarce
noticed what seemed to her an idle compliment.
"I fancied you had gone to town," she said.
"No; I am not going to town; I don't know or care where I am going. Some
kind friends might say I am on my way to the dogs."
"I hope not," said Katherine, gravely. "I imagine, Mr. De Burgh, that if
you had some object of ambition--"
"I should become an Admirable Crichton? I don't think so. There are such
dreary pauses in the current of all careers!"
"Of course. You would not live in a tornado!"
"I am not so sure"--laughing. "At all events I shall never be satisfied
with still life like our friend Errington."
"Do you know anything of him? Mrs. Ormonde never mentions his name."
"Of course not; when a fellow can't keep pace with his peers, away with
him, crucify him."
"As long as a few special friends are true----"
"If they are," interrupted De Burgh; and Katherine did not resume,
hoping he would continue the theme, which he did, saying: "He has left
his big house, gone into chambers somewhere, and has I believe, taken up
literature, politics, and social subjects. So Lady Mary Vincent says. I
fancy he is a clever fellow in a cast-iron style."
"What a change for him!"
"I believe there was something coming to him out of the wreck, and I
think he is a sort of man who will float. I never liked him myself,
chiefly, I fancy, because I know he doesn't like me. Indeed, I don't
care for people in general." There was a pause, during which Katherine
glanced at her companion, and was struck by his sombre expression, the
stern compression of his lips.
"Did you call at the cottage?" she asked.
"No; you were out this morning, and I did not like to intrude again," he
laughed. "Growing modest in my sere and yellow days, you see; so I
thought I should perhaps find you here, as I saw your numerous party
drive past the hotel."
"I like this corner, and often come here. But, Mr. De Burgh, you look as
if the times were out of joint."
"So they are"--suddenly seating himself on a flat stone nearly at
Katherine's feet, leaning his elbow on another, and resting his head on
his hand, so as to look up easily in her face.
"What gloomy dark eyes he has!" she thought.
"I should like to tell you why," he went on.
"Very well," returned Katherine, who felt a little uneasy.
"I am pretty considerably in debt, to begin with. If I paid up I should
have about three half-pence a year to live on. Besides my debts I have
an unconscionably ancient relative whose title and a beggarly five
thousand a year must come to me when he dies, if he ever dies. This
venerable impediment has some hundred or more thousands which he can
bequeath to whom he likes. Hitherto he has not considered me a credit to
the family. Well, I went to him the other day, on his own invitation,
and to my amazement he offered to pay my debts--on one condition."
"I do hope he will," cried Katherine, as De Burgh paused. She was quite
interested and relieved by the tone of his narrative.
"Ay, but there's the rub. I can't fulfil the condition, I fear. It is
that I should marry a woman rich enough to replace the money my debts
will absorb; a particular woman who doesn't care for me, and whom,
knowing the hideous tangle of motives that hangs round the central idea
of winning her, I am almost ashamed to ask; but a woman that any man
might court; a woman I have loved from the first moment my eyes met
hers, who has haunted and distracted me ever since, and who is, I dare
say, a great deal too good for me; but a creature I will strive to win,
no matter what the cost of success. This girl or rather (for there is a
richness and ripeness of nature about her which deserves the term) this
fair, sweet woman--I need not name her to you." He stopped, and his
passionate pleading eyes held hers. Katherine grew white, half with
fear, half with sincere compassion. She tried to speak. At last the
words came.
"You make me terribly sad, Mr. De Burgh," she said, with trembling lips.
"You make me _so_ sorry that I cannot marry you; but I cannot--indeed I
cannot. Will Lord De Burgh not pay your debts if he knows you have done
your best to persuade me to marry you?"
De Burgh laughed a cynical laugh. "You are infinitely practical,
Katherine. (I am going to call you Katherine for the next few minutes.
Because I think of you as Katherine, I love to speak your name to
yourself; it seems to bring me a little nearer to you.) Listen to me.
Don't you think you could endure me as a husband? I am a better fellow
than I seem, and mine is no foolish boy's fancy. I am a better man when
I am near you. Then this old cousin of mine will leave me all he
possesses if you are my wife, and the Baroness de Burgh, with money
enough to keep her place among her peers, would have no mean position;
nor is a husband passionately devoted to you unworthy of
consideration."
"It is not indeed. But, Mr. De Burgh, do you honestly think that
devotion would last? These violent feelings often work their own
destruction."
"Ay: God knows they do, amazingly fast," he returned, with a sigh and a
far-away look. "But what you say applies to all men. If you ever marry
you must run the risk of inconstancy in the man you accept. I am at
least old enough and experienced enough to value a good woman when I
have found one, especially when she does not make her goodness a bore.
And you--you have inspired me with something different from anything I
have ever felt before. Yes, yes," he went on, angrily, as he noticed a
slight smile on her lips. "I see you try to treat this as only the
stereotype talk of a lover who wants your money more than yourself; but
if you listen to the judgment of your own heart, it is true and honest
enough to recognize truth in another, and it will tell you that,
whatever my faults (and they are legion), sneaking and duplicity are not
among them. It is quite true that when first I heard of you I thought
your fortune would be just the thing to put me right, as I have no doubt
my dear friend Mrs. Ormonde has impressed upon you, but from the moment
I first spoke to you I felt, I knew, there was something about you
different from other women. I also knew that in the effort to win the
heiress I was heavily handicapped by the sudden strong passion for the
woman which seized me."
"That surely ought to have been a means of success?" said Katherine, a
good deal interested in his account of himself.
"No: it made me, for the first time in my life, hesitating,
self-distrustful, and awfully disgusted at having to take your money
into consideration. Had you been an ordinary woman, ready to exchange
your fortune for the social position I could give my wife, and perhaps
with a certain degree of liking for the kind of free-lance reputation I
am told I possess, I should have carried my point, and presented the
future Baroness de Burgh to my venerable kinsman months ago."
"And suppose the unfortunate heiress had been a soft-hearted, simple
girl?" said Katherine, with a slight faltering in her tones. "Suppose
she were credulous, loving, attracted by you--you are probably
attractive to some women--and married you believing in your
disinterested affection?"
De Burgh, who had risen from half-recumbent position, and stood leaning
against a larger fragment of rock, paused before he replied: "I think
that I am a gentleman enough not to be a brute, but I rather believe a
woman of the type you describe would not have a blissful existence with
me."
"I am sure of it. You are quite capable of making the life of such a
woman too dreadful to think of." She shuddered slightly.
De Burgh looked curiously at her. "If you will have the goodness to
undertake my punishment," he said, "by marrying me without love, and
letting me prove how earnestly I could serve you and strive to win it,
I'll strike the bargain this moment. I have been reckless and
unfortunate. Now give me a chance; for I _do_ love you, Katherine. I'd
love you if you were the humblest of undowered women."
The tears stood in her eyes, for the passion and feeling in his voice
struck home to her.
"I believe it," she said, softly, "and I am almost sorry I cannot love
you. But I do not, nor do I think I ever could. You will find others
quite as likely to draw forth your affection as I am. But there are some
natural barriers of disposition, and--oh, I cannot define what--which
hold us apart. Yet I am interested in you, and would like to know you
were happy. Yet, Mr. De Burgh, I must not sacrifice my life to you. If I
did, the result might not be satisfactory even to yourself."
"Sacrifice your life! What an unflattering expression!" cried De Burgh,
with a hard laugh. "So there is no hope for me?"
Katherine shook her head.
"I felt there was but little when I began," he said, as if to himself.
"Tell me, are you free? Has some more fortunate fellow than myself
touched that impregnable heart of yours? I know I have no right to ask
such a question."
"You have not indeed, Mr. De Burgh. And if I could not with truth say
'no,' I should be vexed with you for asking it. Weighted as I am with
money enough to excite the greed of ordinary struggling men, I shall not
be in a hurry to renounce my comfortable independence."
De Burgh's eyes again held hers with a look of entreaty. "That
independence will last just as long as your heart escapes the influence
of the man whom you will love one day; for though love lies sleeping, it
is in you, and will spring to life some time, all the stronger and more
irresistible because his birth has not come early. _Then_ you will feel
more for _me_ than you do now."
"I do feel for you, Mr. De Burgh"--raising her moist eyes to his.
"Thank you"--taking her hand and kissing it. "Will you, then be my
friend, and promise not to banish me? I'll be sensible, and give you no
trouble."
"Oh yes, certainly," said Katherine, glad to be able to comfort him in
any way; and she withdrew her hand.
"I am not going to worry you with my presence now," he continued. "I
shall say good-by for the present. I am going away north. I have entered
a horse for a big steeple-chase at Barton Towers, and will ride him
myself. If I win I can hold out awhile longer. You must wish me
success."
"I am sure I do, heartily. After this, _do_ give up racing."
"Very well. But"--pressing her hand hard--"I'll tell you what I will
_not_ give up, my hope of winning _you_, until you are married to some
one else and out of my reach."
He kissed her hand again, and then, without any further adieu, turned
away, walking with long swift steps toward the town, not once looking
back.
"Thank God he is gone!" was Katherine's mental exclamation as the sound
of his foot-fall died away. She was troubled by his intensity and
determination, and touched by his unmistakable sincerity. "If I loved
him I should not be afraid to marry him. I think he might possibly make
a good husband to a woman he was really attached to; but I have not the
least spark of affection for him, though there is something very
distinguished in his figure and bearing; even his ruggedness is
perfectly free from vulgarity. Yes, he is a sort of man who might
fascinate some women; but he is terribly wrong-headed. If he keeps
hoping on until I marry, he has a long spell of celibacy before him. I
dare say he will be married himself before two years are over."
She sat awhile longer thinking, her face growing softer and sadder. Then
she rose, wrapped her shawl round her, and walked slowly back to the
cottage, where she found the rest of the party just returned, joyous and
hungry.
Bertie came down late on the following Saturday, and brought a note from
Rachel Trant to Katherine, accepting her offer of quarters at Sandbourne
with grateful readiness. Katherine was always pleased with her letters;
they expressed so much in a few words; a spirit of affectionate
gratitude breathed through their quiet diction.
Katherine was very glad to receive it, for Bertie's accounts of their
_protegee_ made her uneasy. She had at first refused to move, saying it
was really of no use spending money upon her, and seemed to be sinking
back into the lethargic condition from which Katherine had woke her.
Her kind protectress therefore set off early on Monday to tell Mrs.
Norris she was coming, and to make her room look pretty and cheerful. By
her orders the boatman's son was despatched to meet their expected
tenant on her arrival. Miss Payne having arranged a picnic for that day,
at which Katherine's company could not be dispensed with.
When they returned it was already evening; still Katherine could not
refrain from visiting her friend. "She will be so strange and lonely
with people she has never seen before," she said to Bertie. "As soon as
tea is over I shall go and see her."
"It will be rather late, yet it will be a great kindness. I will go with
you, and wait for you among the rocks on the beach."
Miss Payne expressed her opinion that it was unwise to set beggars on
horseback, but offered no further opposition.
The sun had not quite sunk as Katherine and her companion walked
leisurely by the road which skirted the beach toward the boatman's
dwelling.
"I wish we could find some occupation that could so fill Rachel Trant's
mind as to prevent these dreadful fits of depression," began Katherine.
"She had plenty of work, and seemed successful in her performance of
it," he returned; "but it does not seem to have kept her from a
recurrence of these morbid moods. Loneliness does not appear to suit
her."
"Sitting from morning till night, unremittingly at work, in silence,
alone with memories which must be very sad, is not the best method of
recovering cheerfulness, and unfortunately, Rachel is too much above her
station to make many friends in it. She wants movement as well as work,"
remarked Katherine.
"As you consider her so good a dressmaker, it might be well to establish
her on a larger scale, and give her some of the older girls from our
Home as apprentices. Looking after and teaching them would amuse as well
as occupy her."
"It is an idea worth developing!" exclaimed Katherine; and they walked
on a few paces in silence.
"So De Burgh has been paying you a visit?" said Bertie at length.
"He has been paying Sandbourne a visit. He did not stay with us."
"It is wonderful that he could tame his energies even to stay here a few
days."
"He was here only two days the last time."
"_You_ cannot have much in common with such a man."
"Not much, certainly; still, he interests me. He has had such a narrow
escape of being a _good_ man."
"Narrow escape! I should say he never was in much danger of _that_
destiny."
"Perhaps if the door of every heart were opened to us we should see more
good in all than we could expect." A few words more brought them to the
boatman's house, where they parted.
Miss Trant was at home, Mrs. Norris said. Katherine ascended the steep
ladder-like stair, and having knocked at the door, entered the room.
Rachel was seated in the window, which was wide open. Her elbows rested
on a small table, and her chin on her clasped hands, while her large
blue eyes looked steadily out over the bay, which slept blue and
peaceful below; the lines of her slightly bent figure looked graceful
and refined, but there was infinite sadness in her pose.
"I am very glad to see you again," said Katherine. Rachel, who was too
deep in thought to hear her enter, started up to clasp her offered hand.
Her pale thin face was lit with pleasure, and her grave, almost stern
eyes softened.
"And so am I. You do not know _how_ glad. Do you know, I began to think
I never should see you again," and she kissed the hand she held.
"Do not!" said Katherine, bending forward to kiss her brow. "Were you so
ill, then?"
"Not physically ill, except for my cough; but for all that I felt dying,
and really I often wonder why you try to keep me alive. I am a trouble
to you, and I do very little good. Had I not been a coward I should have
left the world, where I have no particular place, long ago."
"Well, you see, I have a sort of superstition that life is a goodly gift
which must not be cast aside for a whim; and why should you despair of
finding peace? There is so much that is delightful in life!"
"And so much that is tragic!"
"Ah, yes! but if we only seek for the sorrowful we destroy our own
lives, without helping any one. You must let the dead past bury its
dead."
"How if the dead past comes and crosses your path, and looks you in the
face?"
"What do you mean, Rachel?"
"You will think me weak and contemptible, but I must confess to you the
cause of my late prostration."
"Yes, do; it may be a relief."
"About a month ago," said Rachel, sitting down by the table opposite
Katherine, and again resting her elbow on it, while she half hid her
face by placing her open hand over her eyes, "I was walking to Mrs.
Needham's with some work I had finished, when, turning into Lowndes
Square, I came face to face with--him. It is true I had a thick veil on,
and my large parcel must have partially disguised me, but he did not
recognize me. He passed me with the most unconscious composure, and he
was looking better, brighter, than I had ever seen him. The sight of him
brought back all the torturing pangs of helpless sorrow for the
sweetness, the intense happiness I can never know again; the stinging
shame, the poison of crushed hopes, the profound contempt for myself,
the sense of being of no value to any one on earth. I think if I could
have spoken to _you_, I might have shaken off these fiends of thought;
but I was alone, always alone: why should I live?"
"Rachel, you _must_ put this cruel man out of your mind. He has been the
destroyer of your life. Try and cast the idea of the past from you. Life
is too abundant to be exhausted by one sorrow. You have years before you
in which to build up a new existence and find consolation. I will not
listen to another word about your former life; let us only look forward.
I have a plan for you--at least Mr. Payne has suggested the idea--in
which you can help us and others, and which will need all your time and
energy. But I will not even talk of this business. We must try lighter
and pleasanter topics. Not another word about by-gone days will I speak.
You have started afresh under my auspices, and I mean you to float. Now
that you are here, Rachel, you must read amusing books, and be out in
the open air all day. You will be a new creature in a week. You must
come and see my cottage and my nephews; they are dear little fellows.
Are you fond of children?"
"I don't think I am. I never had anything to do with them. But I would
rather not go to your house, dear Miss Liddell. I feel as if I could not
brave Miss Payne's eyes."
"That is mere morbidness. There is no reason why you should fear any
one. You must discount your future rights. A few years hence, when you
are a new woman, you will, I am sure, look back with wonder and pity as
if reading the memoir of another. I _know_ that spells of
self-forgiveness come to us mercifully."
"When I listen to you, and hear in the tones of your voice more even
than in your words that you are my friend, that you really care for me,
that it will be a real joy to you to see me rise above myself, I feel
that I can live and strive and be something more than a galvanized
corpse. You give me strength. I wonder if I shall ever be able to prove
to you what you have done for me. Stand by me, and I _will_ try to put
the past under my feet. I do not wish to presume on the great goodness
you have shown me nor to forget the difference between us socially, but
oh! let me believe you love me--even me--with the kindly affection that
can forgive even while it blames."
"Be assured of that, Rachel," cried Katherine, her eyes moist and
beautiful with the divine light of kindness and sympathy, as she
stretched out her hand to clasp Rachel's. "I have from the first been
drawn to you strangely--it is something instinctive--and I have firm
belief in your future, if you will but believe in yourself. You are a
strong, brave woman, who can dare to look truth in the face. You will be
useful and successful yet."
Rachel held her hand tightly for a minute in silence; then she said, in
a low but firm voice: "I will try to realize your belief. I should be
too unworthy if I failed to do my very best. There! I have discarded the
past; you shall hear of it no more."
They were silent for a while; then a solemn old eight-day clock with a
fine tone struck loudly and deliberatedly in the room below. Katherine,
with a smile, counted each stroke. "Nine!" she exclaimed, when the last
had sounded; "and though it is 9 P.M., let it be the first hour of your
new life." She rose, and passing her arm over Rachel's shoulder, kissed
her once more with sisterly warmth. "Mr. Payne is waiting for me, so I
must leave you. I have sent you some books; I have but few here. One
will amuse you, I am sure, though it is old enough--a translation of the
_Memoirs of Madam d'Abrantes_. It is full of such quaint pictures of the
great Napoleon's court, and does not display much dignity or nobility,
yet it is an honest sort of book."
"Thank you. I don't want novels now; they generally pain me. But my
greatest solace is to forget myself in a book."
Bertie Payne's visit was a very happy one. The boys adored him, and
subjects of discussion and difference of opinion never failed between
Katherine and himself. She consulted him as to what school would be best
for Cecil, and he advised that he should be left as a boarder at the one
which he now attended, and where he had made fair progress, when Miss
Payne and Katherine returned to town.
Bertie looked a new man when he bade them good-by, promising to come
again soon.
Beyond sending a newspaper which recorded his victory in the Barton
Towers steeple-chase De Burgh made no sign, and life ran smoothly in its
ordinary grooves at Sandbourne.
Rachel Trant revived marvellously. The change of scene, the fresh
salt-air, above all the society of Katherine, who frequently visited and
walked with her, all combined to give her new life--even emboldening her
to look at the future. Her manner, always grave and respectful, won
reluctant approval from Miss Payne. And the boys were always pleased to
run to the boatman's cottage with flowers or fruit, and talk to, or
rather question, their new friend. Rachel seemed always glad to see
them, though she evidently shrank from returning their visits. She was
never quite herself, or off guard, except when alone with Katherine.
Then she spoke out of her heart, and uttered thoughts and opinions which
often surprised Katherine, and set her thinking more seriously than she
had ever done before. Finally, hearing from her good old landlady that
some of her customers had returned to town and were inquiring for her,
Rachel said it was time her holiday came to an end.
"I feel now that I can bear to live and try to be independent. Indeed
my life is yours; you have given it back to me, and I will yet prove to
you that I am not unworthy of your wonderful generosity," she said, the
morning of the day she was to start for London, as she sat with
Katherine among the rocks at the point. "The idea of an establishment
such as Mr. Payne suggests is excellent. It ought to be your property,
and good property--I need only be your steward--while it may be of great
use to others."
"I feel quite impatient to carry out the project, and we will set about
it as soon as I return to town," returned Katherine.
"Will you write to me sometimes?" asked Rachel, humbly. "I feel as if I
dare not let you go: all of hope or promise that can come into my
wrecked life centres in you. While you are my friend I can face the
world."
"Yes, Rachel, write to me as often as you like, and I will answer your
letters. Trust me: I will always be your true friend."