It was about a fortnight later that Katherine got Matilda to meet her at
a Lyons' popular café for tea on a Wednesday afternoon. Livingstone and
Devereux had given her a half holiday, being on country business bent;
and having matured her plans, and having set fresh schemes in train, she
thought she might as well communicate them to the one sister who
mattered to her. Matilda loved an excuse to "get up to town," and had
come in her best hat, with smiling face. Katherine was always very
generous to her, though she was no more careless about money than she
was about other things.
"It is all very well, Tild," she said, in her deep voice, after they had
spoken upon indifferent subjects for a while. "But I am tired of it. I
am absolutely tired of it, so there! I am tired of Liv and Dev--tired of
the hateful old click of the machine with no change of work--I am tired
of seeing the people of another class through the glass screen--and I
mean to get out of it."
"Whatever are you talking of, Kitten!" the elder Miss Bush exclaimed, as
she stirred her cocoa. "Why, Liv and Dev's as good a berth as you'd
get--thirty bob a week, and a whole holiday on Saturday--to say nothing
of off times like this--you must be mad, dearie!" Then something further
in her sister's remark aroused comment.
"And what do you mean by people of 'another class'? Why, aren't we as
good as anyone--if we had their money?"
Katherine Bush put down her empty cup before she replied:
"No, we're not--and if you weren't as ignorant as you are, dear old
Tild, you'd know it. There are lots and lots of classes above us--they
mayn't be any cleverer--indeed, they are often fools, and many aren't
any richer--but they're ladies and gentlemen."
Matilda felt personally insulted.
"Upon my word, Kitten!--If you are such a poor thing that you don't
consider yourself a young lady--I am not. I always did say that you
would pick up rubbishly ideas bothering after those evening lectures and
French classes--instead of coming with Glad and Bert and me to the
cinema, like a decent Christian--it was a low sort of thing to do, I
think, and looked as if we'd none of us had a proper education--and all
they have done for you is to unsettle your mind, my dear--so I tell
you."
Katherine Bush smiled complacently and looked at her sister straight in
the eyes in her disconcerting way, which insured attention. Matilda
knew that she would now have to listen probably to some home truths.
She could manage Gladys very well in spite of her giggles and
irresponsibility, but she had never been able to have the slightest
influence upon Katherine from the moment of their mother's death, years
before, when she had taken her place as head of the orphaned household.
Katherine had always been odd. She had a vile temper as a child, and
was silent and morose, and at constant war with that bright boy Bert,
loved of the other sisters: Matilda remembered very well many scenes
when Katherine had puzzled her. She was so often scornful and
disapproving, and used to sit there with a book scowling at them on
Sundays when a rowdy friend or two came in to tea, and never once
joined in the chorus of the comic songs they sang, while she simply
loathed the gramophone records.
"You say awfully silly things sometimes, Tild," Katherine announced
calmly. "There would not be any good in my considering myself a young
lady, because at my present stage anyone who really knew would know that
I am not--but I mean to become one some day. You can do anything with
will."
Matilda bridled.
"I don't know what more of a lady you could be than we all are--Why,
Mabel Cawber always says that we are the most refined family of the
whole lot at Bindon's Green--and Mabel ought to know surely!"
"Because her father was a solicitor, and she has never done a stroke of
work in her life?" Katherine smiled again--it made Matilda feel
uncomfortable.
"Mabel is a perfect lady," she affirmed indignantly.
"I will be able to tell you about that in a year's time, I expect,"
Katherine said, reflectively. "At present, I am not experienced enough
to say, but I strongly feel that she is not. You see, Tild, you get your
ideas of things from the trash you read--and from the ridiculous
nonsense Fred and Albert talk after they come home from those meetings
at the National Brotherhood Club--fool's stuff about the equality of all
men----"
"Of course we are all equal!" broke in Matilda, still ruffled.
Katherine Bush smiled again. "Well, I wish you could see the difference
between Fred and Bert and those gentlemen I see through the glass
screen! They have all got eyes and noses and legs and arms in common,
but everything else is different, and if you knew anything about
evolution, you'd understand why."
"Should I!" indignantly.
"Yes. It is the something inside the head, something in the ideas,
produced by hundreds of years of different environment and a wider point
of view--and it is immensely in the little customs and manners of speech
and action. If you had ever seen and spoken to a real gentleman, Tild,
you would grasp it."
Matilda was quite unmollified and on the defensive.
"You can't have two more honourable, straightforward young fellows than
our brothers in no family in England, and I expect lots of your gents
borrowing money are as crooked as can be!"
Katherine became contemplative.
"Probably--the thing I mean does not lie in moral qualities--I suppose
it ought to--but it doesn't--We had a real sharp last week, and to look
at and to hear him talk he was a perfect gentleman, with refined and
easy manners; he would never have done anything in bad taste like Fred
and Bert often do."
"Bad taste!" snorted Matilda.
"Yes--we all do. No gentleman ever tells people in words that he is
one--Fred and Bert say it once a week, at least. They lay the greatest
stress on it. No real gentlemen get huffy and touchy; they are too sure
of themselves and do not pretend anything, they are quite natural and
you take them as they are. They don't do one thing at home at ease, and
another when they are dressed up, and they aren't a bit ashamed of
knowing anyone. Fred does not speak to Ernie Gibbs when he is out with
Mabel, although they were at school together!"
"Ernie Gibbs! Why, Kitten, he is only a foreman in the Bindon Gas Works!
Of course not! Mabel _would_ take on!"
Matilda thought her sister was being too stupid!
"Yes, I am sure she would--that is just it----"
"And quite right, too!"
Katherine shrugged her shoulders. There was not much use in arguing with
Matilda, she felt, Matilda who had never thought out any problem for
herself in her life--Matilda who had not the privilege of knowing any
attractive Lord Algys!--and who therefore could not have grasped the
immeasurable gulf that she, Katherine, had found lay between his class
and hers!
"They say Fred is a capable auctioneer because father and grandfather
were--you hear people saying 'it is in the blood'--Well, why is it,
Tild?--Because heredity counts just as it does in animals, of course. So
why, if a man's father and grandfather, and much further back still,
have been gentlemen commanding their inferiors, and fulfilling the
duties of their station, should not the traits which mean that show as
plainly as the auctioneer traits show in Fred----?"
Matilda had no answer ready, she felt resentful; but words did not come,
so Katherine went on:
"You can't jump straight to things; they either have to come by instinct
through a long line of forebears, or you have to have intelligence
enough to make yourself acquire the outward signs of them, through
watching and learning from those who you can see for yourself have what
you want."
Matilda called for another cup of cocoa--she disliked these views of
Katherine's.
"You see," that young woman went on, "no one who is a real thing ever
has to tell people so in words. Liv and Dev don't have to say they are
two of the sharpest business men in London--anyone can realise it who
knows them. You, and all of us, don't have to tell people we belong to
the lower middle class, because it is plain to be seen, but we would
have to tell them we were ladies and gentlemen, because we are not. Lord
Al--oh! any lord who comes to our office--does not have to say he is an
aristocrat; you can see it for yourself in a minute by his ways. It is
the shams that always keep shouting. Mabel Cawber insists upon it that
she is a tip-top swell; Fred thinks he is deceiving everyone by telling
them what a gentleman he is, and by not speaking to Ernie Gibbs, who is
an awfully good fellow. Emily says she is a splendid general, and can't
even light a fire, and won't learn how to. George Berker in our office
says he is a first-class clerk, and muddles his accounts. Everything
true speaks for itself. I always mean to be perfectly true, and win out
by learning."
Matilda, though somewhat crushed, was still antagonistic.
"I'm sure I hope you'll succeed then, my dear!" she snapped.
"Yes, I shall." Katherine fired her bomb. "It may take me some time, but
that does not matter, and the first step I have already taken is that I
am leaving Liv and Dev's on Friday--and, I hope, going to be secretary
to Sarah Lady Garribardine, at a hundred and ten Berkeley Square, and
Blissington Court, Blankshire!"
"Well, there! You could have knocked me over with a feather!" as Matilda
told Gladys later in the evening. "And wasn't it like Katherine never
telling us a thing about it until everything was almost settled!" But at
the moment, she merely breathed a strangled:
"Oh, my!"
"If I get it, I go to my new situation next week. I had a tremendous
piece of luck coming across it."
"Well, however did you do it, Kitten?" Matilda demanded.
"I saw an advertisement in the _Morning Post_--it was quite a
strange one, and seemed to be advertising for a kind of _Admirable
Crichton_--someone who could take down shorthand at lightning speed, and
typewrite and speak French--and read aloud, and who had a good knowledge
of English literature, and thoroughly knew the duties of a secretary."
"Oh! My!" said Matilda again, "but you can't do half of those things,
Kitten--we none of us know French, do we!"
Katherine smiled; how little her family understood her in any way!
"I wrote first and said they seemed to want a great deal, but as I had
been with Livingstone and Devereux for three years, and accustomed to
composing every sort of letter that a moneylender's business required, I
thought I could soon become proficient in the other things."
"Well, I never! What cheek!"
"Then I got an answer saying Lady Garribardine liked my communication,
and if I proved satisfactory in appearance, and had some credentials,
she would engage me immediately, because her secretary, who had been
with her for years, had gone to be married--the salary would be ninety
pounds a year with a rise, so it's a slight move up, anyway, as I am to
be kept, and live in the house."
"You are cocksure of getting it, Katherine?"
"Yes--I mean to--I am going to see her on Saturday."
"And what are your references besides Liv and Dev? Some folks don't like
moneylenders."
"I wrote and said I had no others--but they would testify to my
capacity. Liv nearly had a fit when I gave my notice--he almost cried to
get me to stay on. I like the old boy--he is a good sort, and will tell
the truth about me."
"And did they answer?"
"Yes--just to say I was to come for the interview on Saturday."
"They want to see you, anyway--what is the family, I wonder?"
Here Katherine recited the details from Debrett, in which volume she was
very proficient.
"An old lady, then," Matilda commented, "and with no children except a
married daughter! That will be easier for you--but why is she called
'Sarah'? I often have wondered about that, when I read names in the
_Flare_. Why 'Sarah Lady Something'--and not plain Lady Something?"
"It's when the man in possession is married and you are not his mother,"
Katherine told her, "and if you are, and still have your Christian name
tacked on, it is to make you sound younger. Dev says dowagers are quite
out of fashion. Every widow is 'Sarah' or 'Cordelia' now in the high
society, and when he first went to business, there were only two or
three. Queen Victoria never stood any nonsense."
Matilda was very interested.
"Whatever will you do about your clothes, Kitten? You have nothing nobby
and smart like Gladys. She could lend you her purple taffeta if you
weren't so tall."
"Oh, I manage all right. I'll have a talk with Gladys to-night; she sees
the right sort of people at Ermantine's, and can tell me what to
get--and I'll buy it to-morrow in my lunch hour."
"Well, I am just rattled," Matilda admitted. "Then you'll be leaving
home quite, dearie?"
"Yes, Tild--and I shan't be sorry except to be parted from you--but I
daresay I shall be able to come and see you now and then."
Matilda looked tearful.
"You never were one of us, Katherine."
"No, I know I never was. I often have wondered what accident pitchforked
me in among you, always the discordant note and the wet blanket. I hark
back to someone, I suppose--I've always determined to get out, when I
was ready."
"You never did care for us--never, Kitten."
Katherine Bush remained quite unmoved.
"No, never for the others--but always for you, Tild--and I'll never
forget you, dear. There, don't be a donkey and cry--the people at the
next table are looking at you."
This argument she knew would calm her sister--who was intensely
sensitive to everyone's opinion.
"And supposing they don't take you?" Matilda suggested, in a still
quavering voice, "and you've given notice to Liv and Dev--I call it
awfully risky."
"Then I will look out for something else--I am determined to make a
change, and see a new world, whatever happens."
After supper that evening, Gladys was invited up to the warmed attic
with Matilda, an honour she duly appreciated. They all stood in
irritated awe of Katherine.
"I want to talk about clothes, Glad," she said, when they neared the
tiny fireplace. "I have told Tild I am going about a new berth on
Saturday."
This caused the same astonishment and exclamations as Matilda had
already indulged in--and when calm was restored, Gladys was only too
pleased to show her superior knowledge.
"I don't want to hear about any of those actresses you dress, or those
ladies who look like them, I want to know what a real, quiet, well-bred
countess, say, would have, Glad."
Miss Gladys Bush smiled contemptuously.
"Oh, a regular frump, you mean--like the ones we can't persuade to have
tight skirts when they are first the fashion, or loose ones when it
changes--that is easy enough--it is to get 'the look' that is
difficult."
"They probably would not engage me if I had 'the look,'" Katherine
remarked cynically.
"You'd better have something like we made for Lady Beatrice Strobridge
last week, then," Gladys suggested. "One of our hands can copy it at
home, but there won't be time by Saturday. You'd better wear your best
blue serge and get a new hat for the first meeting."
"Lady Beatrice Strobridge must be the Hon. Gerard Strobridge's wife, my
new employer's late husband's nephew. Strobridge is the Garribardine
name." Katherine had looked up diligently the whole family, and knew the
details of each unit by heart.
"She only got married two years ago," Gladys continued. "She was
Thorvil, before--Lady Beatrice Thorvil."
"Wife of the present man's younger brother," quoted Katherine,
remembering Debrett. "He is about thirty-five; the present man is
forty."
"She is a regular dowdy, anyway," Gladys remarked. "One of those--we
have a bunch of them--that wants the things, and yet with their own
touch on them, spoiling the style. They come together generally, and do
make a lot of fuss over each other--calling 'darlings' and 'precious'
all the time--fit to make me and the girls die laughing with their
nonsense."
"What is she like--good-looking?" Katherine asked. She only questioned
when she wanted specific information, never idly, and it was as well to
know everything about her possible new employer's family.
"She would not be bad if she did not stoop so. She hasn't got 'the walk'
neither, no more than the 'look'; sometimes she's all right--at least,
the things are all right when they go home, but she adds bits herself
afterwards, and spoils them."
Here Matilda interrupted.
"Anyway, she is one of the ladies you'll see in your new place, Kitten.
I'd certainly have that same dress, it will just show them you are as
good as they, if you have an Ermantine model."
But Katherine thought differently. She agreed she would have something
in the same subdued style as Lady Beatrice would have chosen, but not
the actual copy, and after settling details the other two sisters left
her for bed.
When they had gone, she sat by the fire and looked deeply into it, while
she thought for a few moments. Then she drew a letter from her blouse
and reread it. It was from Lord Algy. A sweet little love epistle. Just
to tell her he could not possibly wait for the whole month before seeing
her--and was coming up to town the following week--and would not she
lunch with him at the old place--and perhaps stay with him again at the
Great Terminus? It ended with protestations of passionate devotion.
No--never again--she had tasted of the cup of bliss, and Fate was asking
her to pay no price. She must have courage now to renounce all further
pleasure. Once was an experience, twice would be weakness--which could
grow into a habit--and thence lead to an abyss which she shuddered to
think of.
Katherine Bush had never read Théophile Gautier's masterpiece--but there
was something in her character, as Lord Algy had remarked, which
resembled _Mademoiselle de Maupin's_.
She went to her little writing-case and got out a sheet of paper, and
then, in her firm round hand which looked like a man's, she wrote him
these few lines:
_Dear Algy_,
I want you to forget all about me--I loved our little trip, but I
am never going on another. I shall have left Liv and Dev's before
you get back, and you won't see me again. With best love always.
K. B.
She folded it, put it in the envelope--addressed it and stamped it--then
she put it ready to post in the morning.
Her face was white and set. It takes a strong will to renounce tangible
present happiness, however profound the beliefs in the future may be.