_The_ CAREER _of_
KATHERINE BUSH
[Illustration: "'After all, I understand you--and I forgive you.'"
[PAGE 204]]
THE CAREER OF
KATHERINE BUSH
BY
ELINOR GLYN
AUTHOR OF
THE MAN AND THE MOMENT, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
EDMUND FREDERICK
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'After all, I understand you--and I forgive
you'" _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
"'You must ... go on and make something of your
life, as I mean to do.'" 50
"'No man is an impossible husband if he is a
Duke.'" 102
"'You are ready for the great adventure?'" 274
THE CAREER OF KATHERINE BUSH
CHAPTER I
Dusk was coming on when Katherine Bush left the office of the Jew money
lenders, Livingstone and Devereux, in Holles Street. Theirs was a modest
establishment with no indication upon the wire blind of the only street
window as to the trade practised by the two owners of the aristocratic
names emblazoned upon the dingy transparency. But it was very well known
all the same to numerous young bloods who often sought temporary relief
within its doors.
Katherine Bush had been the shorthand typist there since she was
nineteen. They paid her well, and she had the whole of Saturday to
herself.
She sat clicking at her machine most of the day, behind a half-high
glass screen, and when she lifted her head, she could see those who came
to the desk beyond--she could hear their voices, and if she listened
very carefully, she could distinguish the words they said. In the three
years in which she had earned thirty shillings a week sitting there, she
had become quite a connoisseur in male voices, and had made numerous
deductions therefrom. "Liv" and "Dev," as Mr. Percival Livingstone and
Mr. Benjamin Devereux, were called with undue familiarity by their
subordinates, often wondered how Katherine Bush seemed to know exactly
the suitable sort of letter to write to each client, without being
told. She was certainly a most valuable young woman, and worth the rise
the firm meant to offer her shortly.
She hardly ever spoke, and when she did raise her sullen greyish-green
eyes with a question in them, you were wiser to answer it without too
much palaver. The eyes were darkly heavily lashed and were compelling
and disconcertingly steady, and set like Greek eyes under broad brows.
Her cheeks were flat, and her nose straight, and her mouth was full and
large and red.
For the rest she was a colourless creature, with a mop of ashen-hued
hair which gleamed with silvery lights. She was tall and slight, and she
could at any moment have been turned by a clever dressmaker and
hairdresser into a great beauty. But as it was, she gave no thought to
her appearance, and looked unremarkable and ordinary and lower
middle-class.
She had wonderful hands--Where they came from the good God alone knew!
with their whiteness and their shape. They were strong, too, and perhaps
appeared boyish rather than feminine. She did not inherit them from that
excellent mother, retired to a better world some ten years before; nor
from that astute auctioneer father, who, dying suddenly, had left that
comfortable red-brick semi-detached villa at Bindon's Green, Brixton, as
a permanent home for his large family.
But from whence come souls and bodies and hands and eyes?--and whither
do they go?--Katherine Bush often asked herself questions like these,
and plodded on until she could give herself some kind of answer.
Not one single moment of her conscious hours had ever been wasted. She
was always learning something, and before she had reached sixteen, she
had realised that power to rule will eventually be in the grasp of the
man or woman who can reap the benefit of lessons.
She had enjoyed her work at the night schools, and the wet Sundays,
curled up with a book in the armchair in the tiny attic, which she
preferred to a larger bedroom, because she could have it alone unshared
with a sister.
Her mind had become a storehouse of miscellaneous English literature, a
good deal mispronounced in the words, because she had never heard it
read aloud by a cultivated voice. She knew French grammatically, but her
accent would have made a delicate ear wince. Her own voice was
singularly refined; it was not for nothing that she had diligently
listened to the voices of impecunious aristocrats for over three years!
For the moment, Katherine Bush was in love. Lord Algy had happened to
glance over the glass screen upon his first visit to Liv and Dev to be
accommodated with a thousand pounds, and his attractive blue eyes had
met the grey-green ones.
He had spoken to her when she came out to luncheon. But he had done it
really intelligently, and Katherine was not insulted. Indeed, accustomed
as she was to weigh everything in life, she accorded him a mead of
praise for the manner in which he had carried out his intention to make
her acquaintance. She had flouted him and turned him more or less inside
out for over a month, but she had let him give her lunch--and now she
had decided to spend the Saturday to Monday with him.
For the scheme of existence which she had planned out for herself, she
decided her experience must be more complete. One must see life, she
argued, and it was better to make a first plunge with a person of
refinement, who knew the whole game, than with one of her own class who
would be but a very sorry instructor.
Heavens! To spend a Saturday to Monday with the counterpart of her
brothers Fred and Bert! The idea made her shudder. She disliked them and
their friends enough as it was--and the idea of marriage in that circle
never entered her level head. Of what use would be all her studies, and
the lessons she had mastered, if she buried herself forever at Brixton
with Charlie Prodgers or at Clapham with Percy Watson?
At this stage no moral questions troubled her at all, nor had she
begun really to apply the laws of cause and effect in their full
measure--although she was quite aware that what she proposed to do was
the last thing she would have considered wise or safe for another woman
to attempt. Rules of conduct were wisely made for communities she felt,
and must be kept or disaster must inevitably follow. But in her own
case she was willing to take risks, thoroughly believing in her own
cool discrimination.
The outlook for her should always be vast.
Lord Algy was passionately devoted, and it was wiser early in life to
know the nature of men. Thus she argued to herself, being totally
unaware that her point of view was altogether affected because her heart
and her senses pleaded hard, being touched for the first time in her
twenty-two years.
She was quite untroubled by what the world calls morality--and she had
no scruples. These were for a later date in her career.
The path looked clear and full of roses.
She had not been in the habit of consulting her family as to her
movements, and had many times gone by herself for holidays to the
seaside. No questions would be asked her when she returned on the
Monday. If the matter could have created scandal, she would not have
gone--to create scandal was not at all part of her game.
Lord Algy had arranged to take her to Paris by that Friday night's
train. They would have all Saturday and Sunday, and then return on
Monday night. Liv and Dev had granted her a holiday until the Tuesday.
She had put on her best blue serge suit that morning, and had taken a
small valise with what she considered necessary things. And now her
heart beat rather fast as she turned into Oxford Street in the gathering
October dusk.
For a few moments she wondered what it would have been like if she had
been going to marry Lord Algy--before all the world. Quite a great
pleasure no doubt for a month or two--But then?--He was the fourth son
of a stingy Welsh marquis, and nothing would ever induce his family to
pardon such a mésalliance. Of this she was well aware. It was the
business of "Liv" and "Dev" to make themselves acquainted with a good
deal about the peerage, and whatever her employers knew, Katherine Bush
knew.
Life for her held no illusions. Her studies had convinced her that to be
strong and perfectly honest were the only two things of any avail, and
to acquire a thorough knowledge of human beings, so as then to be able
to manipulate these pawns.
Lord Algy she believed was only a most agreeable part of her education,
but of no vital importance. She would have been horrified if anyone had
told her that she was mixing up sentiment in the affair!
To get everything down to its bedrock meaning had been her endeavour,
ever since she had first read Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
"I shall have the experience of a widow," she said to herself, "and can
then decide what is next to be done."
Lord Algy was a Guardsman--and knew, among other things, exactly how to
spend an agreeable Saturday to Monday! He was piqued by Katherine Bush,
and almost in love. He looked forward to his brief honeymoon with
delight.
He was waiting for her in a taxicab at the corner of Oxford Circus, and
when she got in with her little valise, he caught and kissed her hand.
"We will go and dine at the Great Terminus," he told her in his charming
voice, "and don't you think it would be much nicer if we stayed there
to-night, and went on by the morning train?--It is such a miserable hour
to arrive in Paris otherwise--you would be knocked up for the day."
He was holding her hand, and the nearness of him thrilled her, in some
new and delicious way. She hesitated, though, for a moment--she never
acted on impulse. She crushed down a strange sensation of gasp which
came in her throat. After all, of what matter if she stayed--or started
to-night?--since she had already cast the die, and did not mean to shirk
the payment of the stakes.
"Very well," she said, quite low.
"I hoped you would agree, pet," he whispered, encircling her with his
arm, "I meant to persuade you, and I am going to make you so awfully
happy--I sent my servant this afternoon to take the rooms for us, and
everything will be ready."
This sounded agreeable enough, and Katherine Bush permitted herself to
smile, which was a rare occurrence; she would spend hours and days
without the flicker of one coming near her red lips.
In the uncertain light, Lord Algy felt it more than he actually saw it,
and it warmed him. She was, as he had confessed to his best friend in
the battalion, an enigma to him--hence her charm.
"She treats me as though I were the ground under her feet at times," he
recounted to Jack Kilcourcy. "I don't think she cares two damned straws
for me really, but, by Jove! she is worth while! She has no nonsense
about her, and she is so awfully game!"
He had taken good care never to let Jack see her, though--or tell him
her name!
It was not long before they reached the hotel, and Katherine Bush was a
little angry with herself because she felt a quiver of nervousness when
they were in the big hall.
Lord Algy knew all the ropes, and his air of complete insouciance
reassured her. A discreet valet stepped forward and spoke to his master,
and they were soon in the lift, and so to a well-lighted and warmed
suite.
"These colours and this imitation Chippendale are rather awful, aren't
they," Lord Algy said, looking round, "but we must not mind, as it is
only for one night; the Palatial in Paris will be different--I am glad
Hanson saw to the flowers."
Huge bunches of roses stood upon the table and mantelpiece. Katherine
Bush thought it a splendid place, but if it appeared rather "awful" to
him, she must not show her admiration.
"Tea will come in a moment--I mean chocolate, pet--and I think we shall
be as jolly as can be. In there is your room; they will have brought up
your valise by now, I expect."
Katherine Bush moved forward and went through the door. A cheery fire
was burning, and the curtains were drawn, and on a chair there was a big
cardboard box. She looked at it, it was addressed "Mrs. Rufus."
"Who--is that--?--and what is it for?" she asked, in a voice deep as a
well.
"It is just a fur-lined coat, darling," Lord Algy answered, as he pulled
undone the string, "and a little wrap--I thought you would be so awfully
cold on the boat--and probably would not have been able to bring much
luggage."
A slight flush came into the young woman's white cheeks, something in
her loathed taking presents.
"Thanks awfully--I'll be glad to have you lend them to me for this
trip--but why is it addressed 'Mrs. Rufus'?--Mr. Devereux has got a
sister of that name."
Lord Algy laughed.
"Well, you see, I could not have it 'Fitz-Rufus,' because every one
knows that is the Merioneth name, given us poor devils by the Normans,
because we were such a red-headed lot, and I bet they found our own too
difficult to pronounce!" He began pulling out the coat and a soft pink
silk dressing-gown from the box. "I always am just 'Rufus' when I come
out like this." He laughed again a little constrainedly; it had just
struck him that the latter part of his sentence was perhaps not very
felicitously expressed--since he knew Katherine Bush was no chorus lady,
accustomed to temporary wedded appellations!
She looked him straight in the eyes with her strange, disconcertingly
steady grey-green ones--and then she smiled again--as the Sphinx might
have done before being set in eternal immobility of stone.
Lord Algy felt stupidly uncomfortable, so he folded her in his arms with
a fond caress, a far better plan he had always found than any argument
or explanation with women.
Katherine Bush realised the joy of it. She was ready for every grade of
pleasure as well as experience. This was how things were done in Lord
Algy's world, then--So be it.
Together they looked at the coat and wrap, and he helped her to take off
her hat and jacket, and try them on. They were very friendly, and Lord
Algy suggested that as the dressing-gown was almost a teagown and was
fairly pretty, she might wear it for dinner, which they would have in
the sitting-room.
"You'll look sweet in pink, darling," he lisped, as he kissed her ear,
"and it will be so soft and cosy."
Then the waiter knocked at the door and said the chocolate was ready, so
they went back to the sitting room.
He was quite adorable as he assisted her to pour in the cream--but
Katherine Bush now decided she would keep him at arm's length for a
while; the game was really so entertaining, and its moves must be made
to last as long as possible.
Lord Algy enjoyed fencing, too, so they talked in a more matter-of-fact
way for an hour or more, and then she told him she would go and change
for dinner, as it would be ready in twenty minutes.
"I'll have to be your maid, darling--I make an awfully good maid--I
never bungle with the beastly hooks--and I should love to brush your
hair!"
His eyes shone with light-hearted passion, and his good-looking face was
close to her own.
"You shall perhaps--to-morrow," Katherine Bush retorted--and slipping
into the room beyond she shut the door.
Lord Algy flung himself into an armchair, lit a cigarette and laughed
softly. He had never had such an experience as this.
"She is a wonder!" he said to himself. "Astonishing for her class--for
any class--She reminds me of some French heroine--what's her
name--fellow wrote jolly nice stuff--oh--er--_Mademoiselle de Maupin_,
of course! By Jove! I believe I am going to have a time like that chap
had--only she won't go off into limbo on Monday night!--Confound it, I
believe I'm in love!"
Then he threw away his cigarette end, and went round through the outer
passage to his room beyond hers, where he found his servant turning on
his bath in the bathroom which divided their apartments.
"Madame did not seem to require it--yet," Hanson said respectfully, "so
I have turned on Your Lordship's first."
And in a few minutes Lord Algy was splashing in the Lubin scented water,
while he gaily whistled a tune.
And Katherine Bush heard him as she was sponging her white face--and
stopped and listened surprisedly.
"Whatever can he be having a bath for at this time of day," she said to
herself, "and it is not Saturday!"
Then the thought came, it might be the custom of his class to bathe
before dinner! A scarlet spot grew in each cheek--she must never forget
to learn and profit by her lessons, so she deliberately went and knocked
on the communicating door and called out:
"Algy! you are mean to take the first!--When you have finished, turn on
mine."
And then she stood and trembled for a minute, while she piled up her
great mass of ashen hair.
"All right, darling!" he called back. "Only I must have my reward!"
"When _I_ please!" the young woman said to herself. "And not until."
At dinner, she looked quite pretty, the pink suited her pale skin, and
the unusual feminine fluffiness of the garment altered her rather stern
appearance. She had not yet begun to employ any art whatever, or to
alter the rough bundling up of her hair, but now, out to enjoy herself
under the most propitious and rose-coloured circumstances, her strange,
sullen eyes shone with a subtle fascination, and her deep voice had
tones in it which seduced the ear.
She had never dined with him before, only lunched, and now it behooved
her to observe the ways of things, as she was quite ignorant of the art
of dining out. Mr. Benjamin Devereux had made advances to her in her
first year at Liv and Dev, but she had annihilated him, and withered his
proposals for unlimited dinners and a generous settlement with scorn.
There had never been a moment when she had contemplated her charms being
wasted upon anything but an aristocrat, from whom she could acquire
"tone."
No denizen of Bindon's Green--no friend of the family--no companion in
the morning train had ever had so much as a kind word, much less the tip
of one of her strong white fingers. She was as a bunch of grapes with
perfect bloom retained.
She was taking in every line of Lord Algy as she sat there sipping her
soup. She had refused oysters, and had watched him as he devoured his
with the joy of an epicure. She had not been quite certain as to which
was the right implement to employ. She supposed it was that little fork
with the three prongs--but she determined to make no mistakes.
It was easy enough to gobble oysters soused in vinegar and red pepper,
with huge slices of bread and butter, and a bottle of stout, as her
brother Fred was wont to enjoy them at supper on Saturday nights. Or
they could be pulled about in the mincing fashion in which his fiancée,
that genteel Mabel Cawber, treated them, with little finger daintily
curved, and the first and the thumb only in use! but before she,
Katherine Bush, swallowed one, she would ascertain exactly how they were
eaten in Lord Algy's world! No good out of this trip should be wasted.
As dinner advanced, he began to make more ardent love to her--and the
champagne elevated both their spirits. He reproached her for her
hardness in not having allowed him to play the part of maid, after all.
She was a capricious little darling, but surely did not mean to go on
being unkind?
No; she did not--but she had suddenly realised, while dressing, that
some of her garments were not fine enough for the situation, and must be
kept out of sight!
She did not tell him this, however, but continued to enact the rôle of
condescending queen, while quietly she watched him as a cat watches a
mouse.
She loved the way his hair was brushed--how different from Charlie
Prodgers!--she loved the finely cut back of his head. She was perfectly
aware that he showed outwardly every mark of breeding in his weak,
handsome face, and lean well-drilled figure. These things pleased
her--especially the breeding; it was so very far from what she ever saw
at Bindon's Green!
Lord Algy had the easy, pleasant manner of his kind, with a strong
personal attraction, amply balancing absence of brain for general
purposes, and he was versed in every art for the cajoling of women.
The dinner grew more and more agreeable, until when coffee and liqueurs
came, Katherine Bush felt exalted into a strange heaven. She had
analysed almost all emotions in the abstract, but not their possible
effects upon herself. She found the ones she was experiencing now
peculiarly delightful! To be twenty-two and in love for the first time
in life, with an extremely delectable specimen of manhood--to be free as
air--answerable to no one--untroubled by backward or forward thoughts,
unworried by tormenting speculations as to whether the affair was right
or wrong--wise or unwise--This was a state of things which made the cup
worth drinking, and Katherine Bush knew it.
No possibility of bitter dregs to follow the last sip entered her
calculations.
The imp gods laughed, no doubt, and Lord Algy's blue eyes were full of
passionate delight!
Thus with all things _couleur de rose_, Katherine Bush began her brief
honeymoon.