Over a week had gone by and Katherine Bush had completely fallen into
her duties; they were not difficult, and she continued to keep her eyes
and her intelligence on the alert, and by the second Sunday when she was
to have the afternoon to meet Matilda, she had begun to feel that a
whole ocean had rolled between the present Katherine and the creature of
the days before the outing in Paris with Lord Algy!
She had made one or two annoying mistakes and had had one or two
surprises, some pleasant ones. It was agreeable to have a cup of tea
when one woke, and one's curtains drawn back by an attentive housemaid
every morning, and a deep hot bath, instead of a scramble in a small tin
tub on Saturday nights. There was a bathroom in Laburnum Villa, but
during the week Matilda used it for keeping all sorts of things in, and
there were such a number of them to have the bath in turns on Saturday
and Sunday, that Katherine had preferred the indifferent comfort of a
makeshift in her own attic. It seemed on looking back, after ten days of
modest luxury, that it never could have been possible that she had gone
on month after month, and year after year, in the family circle.
Her heart swelled with gratitude to Lord Algy; but for him she might
never have known that there was anything different. At these moments she
knew that she could easily slip into sentiment about him again, and so
she invariably crushed her emotion and began some active work.
At nine o'clock in the morning it was her duty to go to Lady
Garribardine in her bedroom, where she would find her propped up upon
lacy pink silk pillows, a saucy cap and ribbons covering the greater
part of a more coquettish and rather lighter golden wig than the one she
wore in the day. Her face had not yet been arranged, and presented a sad
contrast to these youthful allurements. Her temper was often very
precarious.
Katherine stood by the bed, block in hand, and took down all
instructions. Lady Garribardine's voluminous correspondence was only
attended to in the morning; the accumulations of the later part of the
day before were heaped up in one basket tray, and the early posts in
another. While a third empty one awaited those communications which were
to be answered either in type or in handwriting.
Now, after ten days of service, Katherine had mastered most of Lady
Garribardine's affairs. She knew the wages of her servants, the
expenditure of the house, the phrasing of her friends' letters, their
points of views, little hatreds and little loves, their want or
possession of good English and powers of expressing themselves--she
fancied she could almost picture the faces, so vivid were these pen
portraits of the writers that the notes showed. Lady Garribardine seldom
answered even the most private with her own hand and Katherine had
grown quite accustomed to signing "Sarah Garribardine" as "yours
affectionately" or "yours sincerely." She even derived a cynical
amusement from the fictions she was instructed to invent to one and
another.
The life of a great lady, she saw, would be a very complicated affair to
a novice, and each day she felt glad she was having the opportunity of
learning its intricacies. She meant to make no mistakes when her own
turn should come.
Lady Garribardine had not continued to exploit her for her personal
diversion as she had done on the occasion of their initial meeting, she
had been too occupied, perhaps; on the contrary, she kept strictly to
her rôle of employer and hardly spoke except on business. Katherine
realised that she looked upon her much as Lord Algy had looked upon
Hanson, and far from its arousing the rageful resentment which it would
have done in Matilda's feminine breast, she saw the justice of it, and
considered it a proper arrangement.
"Some people have the luck to be born to high station," she reasoned to
herself, "and those who would attain it for themselves must make
themselves fitted for it first--besides there would be no good in it to
me, if after I had obtained it I should have to hobnob with my own
secretary. It is the distinctions and barriers that make the thing worth
having."
As yet she had only rarely come across other members of the world beyond
her employer on such occasions as, for instance, if she were sent for
suddenly to the drawing-room to take down some instruction, or bring
some charity list; but whenever she had the chance she observed them
carefully. Some of them were far from what had been her ideal of what
high birth and breeding would certainly show, but they all had that ease
of manner which polished their casualnesses, and once she was still
receiving instructions by the bedside when Stirling, the maid, came to
know if Lady Beatrice Strobridge might come up.
"Confound the woman!" Her Ladyship exclaimed in her angelic voice, its
refinement of pronunciation always a joy to Katherine's ear--whatever
the bluntness of the words might be--"No, certainly not--my face is not
done--but stay, Stirling, it may be something to do with to-night--give
me the rouge and powder and a looking-glass. Don't go, Miss Bush--it is
nothing private and she won't stay for more than a minute."
Katherine discreetly turned her eyes from the bed to the window, and
when she looked round again, two blooming rose-coloured cheeks balanced
the girlish curls, and Lady Garribardine was reposing languidly upon her
pillows.
"Dearest Aunt Sarah, I had to come," cried Lady Beatrice in her
plaintive discontented voice, "Gerard has been perfectly impossible,
actually has refused to let me go to the Artist Model's ball as
Ganymede, and I have got the most ducky dress, a pendant to Hebe
Vermont's Iris."
"A few rags of chiffon, a cup and bare legs, I suppose," Lady
Garribardine retorted not unkindly, as her niece sat upon the bed.
"You may describe it like that if you want to, Aunt Sarah! I assure you,
though, it is most becoming, and it is too ridiculous when everyone we
know is going, and all the Thorvils have such tiny ankles, too."
"The more reason for you not to expose them to the common herd. Go
naked if you so desire to a ball in a private house among your own
class--you'll lay yourself open only to criticisms of your charms
there--but to let hoi polloi gaze at you undressed is to lower your
order; I am with Gerard about that."
Lady Beatrice pouted.
"I really thought you were so up to date, Aunt Seraphim, darling, that
you would be sure to side with me--of course I shall go, all the same; I
should not think of paying any attention to Gerard--only it would be so
much nicer if you had consented to scold him for me."
"I am up to date, I hope, in so far as I try to move with the
times"--Lady Garribardine's face was good-naturedly contemptuous--"only,
I consider that all of you who throw your bonnets over the windmills are
cutting your own throats--You are destroying values, cheapening
pleasures, breaking down hedges, and letting in the swine to feed upon
your grapes--you are often very vulgar, you modern people."
Lady Beatrice got off the bed.
"Then there is no use talking, Aunt Sarah--I dare say we are--but what
matter? I wish I knew what _does_ matter? I am bored all the time; I get
some momentary pleasure out of my poetry, and some out of my dear
precious friends--but the rest of the day is one long yawn. You ought
not to grudge my being Ganymede; every sort of quaint creature is at
this ball, and I get quite amused each year when I go."
"Why don't you take a box, then, and watch them? I could quite
understand that, and intend to do so myself--Miss Bush, by the way, did
you write to say I would have number five?"
Katherine replied in the affirmative and Lady Beatrice suddenly became
aware of her presence as she resumed her place on the bed.
"Oh, this is your new secretary, Aunt Sarah! I am sure you have a
frightfully difficult time--er--Miss Bush!" And she laughed, "Her
Ladyship expects perfection."
"Her Ladyship has quite a right to as good as can be got--since she pays
for it."
Katherine's voice was deep and level, and contained no impertinence,
only a grave statement of fact.
Lady Garribardine chuckled among her pillows.
"Miss Bush is much nearer the truth of things than any of you so-called
psychological philosophers, Bee--analysing matters with little
dilettante methods all day to the laughter of the gods. Miss Bush
realises her obligations as a secretary, but you very often don't
perceive yours as a duke's daughter, and a rising Foreign Office
official's wife."
Lady Beatrice was not the least crushed. She laughed frankly.
"Dear, sweet Aunty! There never has been a scandel about me in my
life--I am a model of circumspectness, demureness and present-day
virtuous wifeliness. Why, I never interfere with Gerard--we hardly meet
in the whole week--and I merely like my own simple friends, my own
simple clothes, and my own simple pleasures!"
"Artless creature!" And the youthful curls shook. "Well, what did you
come for, in so many words? To try to get me to influence Gerard not to
play for once the ineffectual part of husband in authority, and so let
you disgrace the name of Thorvil and Strobridge in peace?"
Lady Beatrice seized and stroked the fat hand lying upon the pink silk
coverlet.
"You darling, ducky Aunt Seraphim! Just that! I want to wear my
enchanting boy's dress--I must be Ganymede, the cupbearer!"
"Well, I'll be no party to it--be off with you. I have serious affairs
to settle with Miss Bush and have no further time to waste."
Lady Beatrice saluted her obediently and got off the bed once more; she
was laughing softly.
"Gerard is coming to lunch," Lady Garribardine called to her, "and Läo
Delemar, and they are going to see a winter exhibition afterwards."
"I can't stand Läo," Lady Beatrice cooed from the doorway; "she
pretends to be so full of sex and other dreadful natural things, she
makes my innocent aesthetic flesh creep--Gerard always had fruity
tastes--Bye-bye, dear Aunt Sarah!" And kissing her finger-tips she was
at last gone, leaving Katherine wondering.
They had said very severe things to each other and neither was the least
angry really--Gladys and Fred were not wont to bicker so.
"Call up Mr. Strobridge, Miss Bush--he will not have left home yet--you
know his number--ask him to speak to me at once."
Katherine obeyed--she was an expert with the telephone and never raised
her voice. Mr. Strobridge was soon at the other end of it, and she was
about to hand the receiver to her employer when that lady frowned and
told her to give the message herself.
"My right ear is troublesome to-day," she said, "you must do the
business for me, Miss Bush."
"Hello! Her Ladyship wishes me to give you a message--will you wait a
moment until I take it?"
"Hello! Yes."
"Say he is to come half an hour earlier to lunch to-day. I have things
to talk over with him about to-night--He is to go to this ridiculous
ball in my box--tell him so."
Katherine repeated the exact message.
"Tell her I am very much annoyed about the whole thing," Mr. Strobridge
returned, "and have decided not to be present myself."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Lady Garribardine, when she was told, and,
seizing the receiver from Katherine's hand, she roared:
"Don't be a fool, G.--it is too late in the day to stand upon your
dignity--I'll tell you the rest when you come to lunch."--Upon which she
closed the communication and called for Stirling.
"Take all this rubbish of letters away, Miss Bush--I must get up and
cope with the humiliating defects of old age--you may go."
Katherine had a very busy morning in front of her. She sat steadily
typing and writing in the secretary's room, until her lunch was brought
and even then she hardly stopped to eat it, but on her own way to the
dining-room Lady Garribardine came in. She looked at the hardly tasted
food and blinked her black eyes:
"Tut, tut! You must eat, child--_pas trop de zèle_--Finish your
pudding--and then bring me those two letters upon the report of the
Wineberger charity--into the dining-room--You can have your coffee with
us--Mr. Strobridge and I are alone, Mrs. Delemar is not coming, after
all--By the way, do you have everything you want? The coffee they give
you is good, eh? Servants always skimp the beans when left to
themselves."
"I have everything I want, thank you--but I have not been offered
coffee," Katherine replied.
Lady Garribardine's face assumed an indignant expression, and she
sharply rang the bell.
"These are the things that happen when one does not know of them--you
ought to have complained to me before, Miss Bush!"
Thomas answered the bell and whitened perceptibly when he saw his
mistress's face. He was asked why Miss Bush had not been served with
coffee, in a voice which froze his tongue, and the only excuse he could
give was a stammering statement that Miss Arnott had not taken any,
which aroused further wrath.
"Pampered wretches!" Lady Garribardine exclaimed. "Anything to save
themselves trouble! I will speak to Bronson about this--but see that it
never happens again, Thomas!" And the trembling footman was allowed to
leave the room.
"I am glad you did not try to defend them, as the foolish Arnott would
have done," Her Ladyship flashed. "She was always standing between my
just wrath and the servant's delinquencies, always shielding them--one
would have thought she was of their class. The result was no one in the
house respected her--good creature though she was. See that you are
respected, young woman, and obeyed when obedience is your due."
"I will try to be"--and an inscrutable expression played round
Katherine's full red mouth. "I would never shield anyone from what he
deserved."
"It seems to me you understand a good deal, girl!--Well, come into the
dining-room in half an hour," and, smiling her comprehending smile, Lady
Garribardine left the room.
"G., that is a wonderful creature, that new secretary of mine--have you
noticed her yet?" she said later on to her nephew when they had finished
the serious part of their luncheon, and she had rung her enamelled bell
for the automatic entrance of the servants from behind the screen--they
were only allowed in the room to change the courses at this meal.
Numbers of politicians and diplomats frequently dropped in and preferred
to discuss affairs with their hostess alone.
"No--not much," Mr. Strobridge admitted when they were again by
themselves and coffee had come. "I thought she did my letter to the
_Times_ remarkably well, though."
"She has not done anything badly yet--when she makes a mistake in social
trifles she always realises it, and corrects herself. Her reading aloud
was grotesque at first, but I have never had to tell her how to
pronounce a word twice. I lay traps for her; she is as smart as paint
and as deep as a well."
"A treasure indeed--" but Mr. Strobridge's voice was absent, he was
uninterested and was still smarting under the annoyance of the situation
created by his wife.
Of course he could not make her stay at home by force--and he hated the
idea of Ganymede and the bare legs. He reverted to the topic once more.
"I would really rather not go to see the freakish crew to-night," he
said. "Beatrice is doing it merely from obstinacy; she is not like Hebe
Vermont, a ridiculous _poseuse_, crazy for notoriety; she is a refined
creature generally, though wearying. This is just to defy me."
"As I have always told you, G., you should never have married, you are
made for an ardent and devoted lover, with a suitable change of
inamorata every six months. In the rôle of husband you are--frankly--a
little ridiculous! You have no authority. As Miss Bush put it just now
about something else, you usually act from good nature, not from a sense
of justice; and Beatrice snaps her fingers at you and goes her own way."
"I don't mind as a rule--indeed, I am grateful to her for doing so. Can
there be anything more tedious and bourgeois than the recognised
relation of husband and wife? The only things which make intimacy with a
woman agreeable are difficulty and intermittency. Bee fortunately
expects nothing from me, and I expect nothing from her, beyond acting in
a manner suitable to her race and station, and I don't think Ganymede in
his original costume at an Artist Models' ball a harmonious part for my
wife or a Thorvil to adopt."
"You don't know how to manage her, and you are too indifferent to
try--so you had better swallow your outraged dignity and come with me in
my box after all. Läo will be there and you can sit and whisper in the
back of it." And Lady Garribardine lit her cigarette, but Mr. Strobridge
protested in whimsical distress:
"Heaven forbid! Would you kill this dawning romance, Seraphim? If Läo
and I are to be drafted off like a pair of fiancés, the whole charm is
gone. I wish to _ménager_ my emotions so that they may last over the
Easter recess; after that I shall be too busy for them to matter. Don't
be ruthless, sweet Aunt!"
Lady Garribardine laughed and at that moment Katherine Bush came in, the
finished letters in her hand.
"Give Miss Bush some coffee, G., while I look over them," and Her
Ladyship indicated the tray which had been placed by an attentive
Bronson close to her hand.
Mr. Strobridge did as he was asked. His thoughts were far away, and
beyond displaying the courtesy he used to all women, he never noticed
Katherine at all. She was quite ordinary looking still--with the screwed
up mop of ashen-hued hair, and her plain dark blouse, unless you chanced
to meet her strange and beautiful eyes.
For some reason she felt a little piqued, the man's manner and
phrasing attracted her, his voice was superlatively cultivated, and
his words chosen with polished grace. Here was a person from whom
something could be learned. She would have wished to have talked with
him unrestrainedly and alone. She remained silent and listened when
aunt and nephew again took up the ball of conversation together. How
she would love to be able to converse like that! They were so
sparkling--never in earnest seemingly, all was light as air, while Mr.
Strobridge made allusions and quotations which showed his brilliant
erudition, and Katherine hearkened with all her ears. Some of them she
recognized and others she determined to look up, but his whole
pronunciation of the sentences sounded different from what she had
imagined they would be when she had read them to herself.
This was the first time she had heard a continued conversation between
two people who she had already decided were worthy of note, and this
half-hour stood out as the first milestone in her progress.
Presently they all rose--and she went back to her work with the sense of
the magnitude of her task in climbing to the pinnacle of a great lady
and cultivated woman of the world.
For a few moments she felt a little depressed--then a thought came to
her.
"He could help me to knowledge of literature and art--he could teach
me true culture--and since he is married there can be no stupid
love-making. But for this he must first realise that I exist and for
that when my chance comes I must arrest his attention through the ears
and the eyes. He must for once look at me and see not only his aunt's
secretary--and then I can learn from him all that I desire to know."
That this course of action could possibly cause the proposed teacher
pain in the future never entered her head.