Matilda had been told to meet her sister, if it should be fine on this
Sunday, in the Park by the Serpentine; they would walk about and then go
and have an early tea at Victoria Station, whence Matilda could take a
train back to Bindon's Green.
They met punctually at the time appointed on the bridge, and the elder
Miss Bush was filled with joy. She had missed Katherine dreadfully, as
browbeating husbands are often missed by meek wives, and she was full of
curiosity to hear her news.
"You look changed somehow, Kitten!" she exclaimed, when they had greeted
each other. "It isn't because you'd done your hair differently; you had
it that way on the last day--it isn't a bit 'the look', but it suits
you. No, it's not that--but you are changed somehow. Now tell me
everything, dearie--I am dying to hear."
"I like it," began Katherine, "and I am learning lots of things."
This information did not thrill Matilda. Katherine's desire to be always
learning was very fatiguing, she thought, and quite unnecessary. She
wanted to hear facts of food and lodging and people and treatment, not
unimportant moral developments.
"Oh--well," she said. "Are they kind to you?"
"Yes--I am waited on like a lady--and generally the work isn't half so
heavy as at Liv and Dev's."
"Tell me right from the beginning. What you do when you get up in the
morning until you go to bed."
Katherine complied.
"I am waked at half-past seven and given a cup of tea--real tea, Tild,
not the stuff we called tea at home." (A slight toss of the head from
Matilda.) "The second housemaid waits on me, and pulls up my blind, and
then I have my bath in the bathroom across the passage--a nice, deep hot
bath."
"Whatever for--every day?" interrupted Matilda. "What waste of soap and
towels and things--do you like it, Kitten?"
"Of course, I do--we all seem to be very dirty people to me now,
Tild--with our one tub a week; you soon grow to find things a necessity.
I could not bear not to have a bath every day now."
Matilda snorted.
"Well--and then--?"
"Then I go down and have my breakfast in the secretary's room--my
sitting-room, in fact. It is a lovely breakfast, with beautiful china
and silver and table-linen, and when I have finished that I take my
block and pencil and go up to Lady Garribardine's bedroom to take down
my instructions for the day in shorthand."
"Oh, Kitten, do tell me, what's her room like?" At last something
interesting might be coming!
"It is all pink silk and lace and a gilt bed, and numbers of
photographs, and a big sofa and comfortable chairs--and when she has
rheumatism she stays there and has people up to tea."
"What! Folks to tea in her bedroom? Ladies, of course?"
"Oh! dear no! Men, too! She has heaps of men friends; they are devoted
to her."
"Gentlemen in her bedroom! I do call that fast!" Matilda was frankly
shocked.
"Why?" asked Katherine.
"Why? My dear! Just fancy--gentlemen where you sleep and dress! Mabel
would not dream of doing such a thing--and I do hope she'll never hear
you are in that kind of a house. She'd be sure to pass remarks."
"Lady Garribardine is over sixty years old, Tild! Don't you think you
are being rather funny?" and Katherine wondered why she had never
noticed before that Matilda was totally devoid of all sense of humour.
And then she realised that the conception was new even to herself, and
must have come from her book reading, though she was conscious that it
was a gift that she had always enjoyed. No one had spoken of the "senses
of humour" in their home circle, and Matilda would not have understood
what it meant or whether she did or did not possess it!
Things were things to Matilda, and had not different aspects, and for a
lady to receive gentlemen in her bedroom if she were even over sixty
years old and suffering from rheumatism was not proper conduct, and
would earn the disapproval of Mabel Cawber and, indeed, of refined and
select Bindon's Green in general.
"I don't see that age makes a difference; it's the idea of tea in a
bedroom, dearie--with gentlemen!"
"But what do you think they would do to her, Tild?" Katherine with
difficulty hid her smile.
"Oh! my! what dreadful things you do say, Katherine!" Matilda blushed.
"Why, it's the awkwardness of it for them--I'm wondering whatever Fred
and Bert and Charlie Prodgers would feel if Mabel had them up to hers
of a Sunday, supposing she had a cold--and what _would_ anyone say!"
"Yes, I am sure Bindon's Green would talk its head off, and Fred and
Bert and Charlie Prodgers would be awfully uncomfortable and get every
sort of extraordinary idea into their heads, and if a person like Mabel
did do such a thing, as to have them up there, she would be fidgety
herself--or she would be really fast and intend them to go ahead. But
Lady Garribardine is always quite sure of herself, and her friends are,
too, and they don't have to consider convention--they are really
gentlemen, you see, and not worried at all as to what others think or
say, and it seems quite natural to them to come up and see an old
rheumatic lady anywhere they want to see her. That is just the
difference in the class, Tild--the upper are perfectly real, and don't
pretend anything, and aren't uncomfortable in doing natural things."
Matilda was still disapproving, and at once became antagonistic when her
sister made reflections upon class.
"I call it very queer, anyway," she sniffed. "And wherever do they find
room to sit--in a bedroom, dearie?"
Katherine laughed--she wondered if she had never had a glimpse of life
and space and comfort with Lord Algy, should she, too, have been as
ignorant and surprised at everything in her new sphere as Matilda was at
the description of it. She supposed she would have been equally
surprised, but would certainly have viewed it with an open mind. After
ten days of peeps at a world where everything new and old was looked at
and discussed with the broadest toleration, the incredible narrowness
of the Bindon's Green outlook appalled her--the forces of ignorance and
prejudice and ridiculous hypocrisy which ruled such hundreds of worthy
people's lives!
She came back from these speculations to the reality of her sister's
voice, reiterating her question as to where the visitors found place,
and she answered, still smiling:
"It is a great big room, Tild, twice as big as the drawing-room at
home--no--bigger still, and twenty people could sit in it without
crowding."
"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated Matilda; "it must be grand."
"You see, you are such an old goose, Matilda. You think the whole world
must be like Bindon's Green, although I have told you over and over
again that other places, and other grades of life, are different, but
you and Mabel and Fred and Bert, and the whole crew of you, measure
everything with your own tiny measure. You make me gasp at your outlook
sometimes."
Matilda bridled--and Katherine went on.
"Lady Garribardine's house does not seem to be a bit grand to her, nor
to any of the people who come there. They are not conscious of it; it is
just everyday to them, although some of them live in quite small houses
themselves and aren't at all rich. She has two cousins--elderly ladies,
who live in a tiny flat--but oh! the difference in it to Mabel's villa!
I had to take them a message last week and waited in their mite of a
drawing-room--it was exquisitely clean and simple, and they are probably
poorer than we are."
Matilda felt too ruffled to continue this conversation; she always hated
the way Katherine argued with her; she wanted to get back to the far
more interesting subject of carpets and curtains and arrangements in the
rooms of Lady Garribardine's house. Numbers of the people in her
serials, of course, were supposed to own such places, and she had often
seen bits of them on the stage, but until she found Katherine really
lived now in one, somehow she had never believed in them as living
actualities, or rather their reality had not been brought home to her.
So she questioned Katherine, and soon had an accurate description of her
ladyship's bedroom, and the rest of the house, then she got back to the
happenings of her sister's day.
"Well, when you have got up there, you take down orders, and then?"
"I sort everything that has come by the post and mark on the envelopes
how I am to answer them, and I sometimes read her the papers aloud if
her eyes are tired."
"Yes?"
"And then I go down and write the letters; she hardly ever answers any
herself, and I have to write them as if I were she. Her friends must
wonder how her hand and style have changed since Miss Arnott left!"
Here was something thrilling again for Matilda.
"Oh, my! What a lot you must get to know about the smart set, Kitten;
isn't it interesting!"
"Yes, as I told you, I am learning lessons."
"Oh, bother that! Well, what do they write about, do tell me--?"
"All sorts of things; their movements, their charities--invitations,
little witticisms about each other--politics, the last good story--and,
some of them, books."
"And you have to answer as if you were her? However do you do it,
Kitten?"
"She gives me the general idea--she showed me the first time for the
private letters, and now I know, but sometimes perhaps I write as if it
were me!"
"And don't they know it is not her hand?"
"Of course, but they don't care. She is a great lady and a character,
and she is very powerful in their circle of society, and it is worth
everyone's while to be civil to her."
"It is all funny. Well, what else do you do?"
"Sometimes I have to do errands--shopping and so on--and then my
luncheon comes--the food is lovely, and I am waited on by a footman
called Thomas; he is the third; and on Wednesday Lady Garribardine took
his and the butler's heads off because I had not been given coffee. She
means me to be perfectly treated, I can tell you!"
"Coffee after your lunch, how genteel! And my! what a lot of servants.
Whatever do they all do?"
"Their work, I suppose. You forget it is a big house and everything is
splendidly done and beautifully clean, and regular and orderly."
Here Matilda insisted upon a full list of all the retainers, and an
account of their separate duties; her domestic soul revelled in these
details, and at the end of the recital her awe knew no bounds. Katherine
was able to give her a very circumstantial set of statements, as all
accounts passed through her hands.
"Well, your old lady must spend pints of money," Matilda said, with a
sigh, "but we've not got to your afternoons yet, dearie. Do you work all
them, too?"
"When I am very busy--it depends how much I have to do; if I am not very
occupied and I have not been out in the morning, I go for a walk before
tea. I have to take her ladyship's two fox-terriers, Jack and Joe; they
are jolly little fellows, and I love them. We scamper in the square, or
go as far as the Park."
"And your tea? They bring you up a cup, I suppose, every day--regular?"
"Not a cup--a whole tray to myself, and lovely muffins and cream, Tild.
Lady Garribardine has a Jersey herd of cows at her place in Blankshire,
and the cream comes up each day from there."
"My! how nice!" Matilda sighed again. Her imagination could hardly take
in such luxury. It seemed to her that Katherine must be living in almost
gilded vice!
"Then after tea, if I am not sent for to do any special thing, I read to
myself. I look up anything that I don't know about that I have chanced
to hear spoken of by the people who come--I am allowed to take books
from the library."
"Then you do see people sometimes?" Matilda's interest revived again.
"What are they like, Kitten?"
"Sometimes I do, but not often--only when I chance to be sent for, but
next week Her Ladyship has got a big charity tableaux entertainment on
hand, that she is arranger and patroness of, and I shall come across
lots of people of society, some of the ones you know the names of so
well in the _Flare_."
"The Duchess of Dashington and the Countess of Blanktown--really,
Kitten!"
This was fashion, indeed!
"Probably--but I don't know about the Duchess of Dashington. I don't
think Lady Garribardine approves of her."
"Not approve of the Duchess of Dashington!" Matilda exclaimed,
indignantly. "Her that has gentlemen to tea in her bedroom to give
herself airs like that! Well, I never!"
This particular Duchess' photographs were the joy of the halfpenny
illustrated papers, and Matilda was accustomed to see her in skating
costume waltzing with her instructor, and in golf costume and in private
theatrical costumes, almost every other week.
"No--she speaks of her very cheaply--but I will tell you all about it on
Sunday fortnight. I'll have heard everything by then, because the
tableaux will be over."
Matilda returned to her muttons.
"Then you have supper, I suppose?"
"No--I go up and dress myself and put on my best blouse and have my
dinner at eight o'clock; after that I generally read the paper or French
books--and at ten I go to bed."
"Gracious! what's the good of dressing if you don't see anyone? How
you'll use up your blouse!"
Matilda was aghast at such folly!
"I am supposed to be a lady, Tild, and a lady is expected to dress in
the evening if she is alone on a desert island."
"What stuff! Whatever for?"
"Self-respect."
"Fiddlesticks."
Presently Katherine grew reflective, her catechism over. "I wish you
could see it all, Tild; it would enlarge your brain--it is all so
different from Bindon's Green. If you could only hear their point of
view, I assure you, dear, it might be two different nations--those
barefoot urchins climbing on the rails are much nearer their level than
we are."
But Matilda could not stand this; her wrath rose.
"Those dirty boys nearer your new people than a real lady like Mabel
Cawber, and your own brothers and sisters! Katherine, how dare you!
Horrid little guttersnipes with no pride of themselves; why, they aren't
even ashamed to be here of a Sunday among decent people--they'd do
anything!"
"That is just it, Tild--so would the aristocrats if they wanted to, and
wouldn't be a bit ashamed or even think of it, and they have 'no pride
of themselves,' either--but you'll never understand, Tild, not if you
live to be a hundred years old."
"And I don't want to, there!"
"Then it is perfectly useless my talking, I see that. We had better go
and have some tea."
And so they turned out of Albert Gate and walked to Victoria.
Matilda, when she had smoothed her ruffled feelings, began now to relate
the home news. Gladys and her fiancé were not happy together; they had
not been so since that visit which Katherine would remember they had
taken to Brighton to stay with his aunt--it was nearly six weeks ago now
and both grew more and more gloomy.
"And so uppy as Glad is with Fred, too, and never a bit back on Bob
Hartley!"
Matilda felt things would be better for her sister if a little more
spirit were shown. Mabel and her betrothed had been up for church parade
as usual in the Park that morning, and this lady had also supped with
them at Laburnum Villa the night before, and they had had oysters and a
jolly time.
Katherine felt a strange emotion when she heard of this. She seemed to
see a picture of Lord Algy enjoying oysters, and all the reflections
this action had called up--oh! how long ago it all appeared!
"And have you met that gentlemen you spoke of?" Matilda asked, before
they parted at the station.
"Mr. Strobridge, you mean--Lady Garribardine's nephew. Yes--he is
husband of the lady Glad dresses, the one who had the model she wanted
me to have. He is a clever man--we have not really spoken yet, but I
mean to know him very well some day."
"Oh! Kitten, do be careful! And him a married man, too!"
"For what I want of him, it does not matter whether he is married or
single," Katherine reassured her, and soon the train moved off.
How good Matilda was! Katherine thought, as she walked briskly back to
Berkeley Square--an unselfish, worthy, honest, hopelessly stupid
creature, whom somehow she was fond of. But what could it be that made
her herself so utterly different from them all? Nothing could be
chance--everything had its reason, only we were generally too blind to
perceive it. So was there some truth in that vague story of the
great-grandmother having been someone of high family fallen low in the
world and married to the auctioneer great-grandfather, whom her own
father remembered very well? Could it be that some drop of gentle blood
flowed in her veins, transmitted from this source and concentrated in
her, having escaped the others--or was it simply from the years of her
reading that her mind had developed? But it could not be altogether
that, because she remembered instincts and tastes in uneducated early
childhood completely aloof from the family's.
"Father gave me this business capacity," she mused, "but something
beyond must have given me this will to achieve--and I _shall_
achieve--all I desire--in time! Only I must be ruthless and have no
emotions. I must follow what Bacon asserts about great spirits," and she
quoted softly: "'There is not one that hath been transported to the mad
degree of love, which shows that great spirits and great business do
keep out this weak passion.'"
Yes, she would keep out this weak passion! She had tasted its joys, and
that memory must last her a lifetime.
On the doorstep she encountered Gerard Strobridge just coming out--he
raised his hat and said politely that it was an abominably cold
day--then he passed on down the steps and so towards Hill Street.
And Katherine Bush went up to her room.