Christmas Day fell upon a Tuesday in 1911, and on the Saturday before
Katherine Bush accompanied her employer, and the two dogs, down to
Blissington in the motor. She had only been in one for short drives in
the Bois with Lord Algy, so to tear through the frozen country was a
great joy to her, although, not possessing proper wraps, she was rather
cold.
"You must have a fur coat, Miss Bush! I am greatly annoyed that I did
not remark that you were insufficiently clad before we started. Here,
crouch down under this rug--and there is an extra one at my feet you
must wrap round you."
Katherine was grateful.
"Stirling must find you some warm garment of mine while we are at
Blissington. I have no patience with idiots who deliberately take cold."
Katherine agreed with her.
"Do you know the English country, or are you quite a cockney girl?" she
was then asked.
"No, I hardly know it at all. I know Brighton, and a lot of seaside
places, but we never chanced to go to the country for our holidays."
"It is a wonderful place, the English country, the most beautiful in the
world, I think; it will interest me immensely to hear your impressions
of it; after a week you must tell me."
"I shall be very pleased to do so."
"We pass Windsor; you must go over it some day--it is only twenty miles
from Blissington--. Are you interested in historical associations?"
"Extremely--any places which are saturated with the evolution of man and
nations are interesting, I think. I am afraid I would not care to go to
Australia, or a new country."
Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her secretary. The creature
evidently had a brain, and this would be a good opportunity to draw her
out.
"You feel the force of tradition, then?"
"Oh, yes--in everything. It acts for generations in the blood--it makes
people do all sorts of things, good and bad, quite without reason."
Lady Garribardine chuckled--she loved discussions.
"How does it act in yourself, for instance?"
"I have tried to stop its action in myself, because I saw the effects of
the traditions of my class in my brothers and sisters, and how
stultifying it was."
"You certainly seem to have emerged from them in an extraordinary
manner--how did you set about it?"
Katherine thought a little and then answered deliberately.
"I always wanted to know the reason why of everything and I soon felt
sure that there was no such thing as chance, but that everything which
happened was part of some scheme--and I always desired to be able to
distinguish between appearance and reality, and I got to understand that
personal emotion distorts all reality and creates appearance, and so I
began to try to dissociate things from personal emotion in my judgments
of them."
"Yes, but how about tradition?"
"Tradition suggested certain views and actions to me--but looked at
without emotion, I saw that they were foolish. I analysed my brothers'
and sisters' ideas and instincts because I wanted to see if what I did
not like in them was inevitable in myself too from the force of
tradition or if there was any way to get rid of stupidities."
"And you found?"
"Of course, that everything, even instincts, can be eradicated if only
their origins can be traced and the will is strong enough to overcome
them."
"Yes, everything depends upon will. And you found time for all this
reasoning while you kept the accounts at the pork-butcher's?"
Lady Garribardine's eyebrows ran quizzically up into her forehead, and
there was a twinkle in her eye. She was greatly amused.
"Yes--in the evenings."
"No wonder you have emerged! You do not allow yourself to have any
emotions then?"
Katherine looked away demurely.
"I try not to indulge in them; it is more prudent to watch their action
in others."
"Have you ever been in love, child?"
"It depends upon what one calls love." The tone was dignified. Katherine
did not think this quite a fair question.
Lady Garribardine laughed appreciatively.
"You are quite right. I should not have asked you that, since we were up
upon a plane of discussion in which even women do not lie to one
another!"
"If Your Ladyship will permit me to say so, women have very little
notion of truth, I think!"
"Oh! that is too bad. You must always stand up for your sex."
"Forgive me for differing, but I should be acting from good nature in
that case, not from justice."
Lady Garribardine was delighted.
"So you think we are not truthful as a company?"
"Oh, no, we have no love of abstract truth, truth for itself. When we
are truthful in our general dealings with people, it is either because
we have decent characters or religious views, or for our own ends, not
from a detached love of truth."
"What a cynic! And how about men?"
"A man is truthful because he likes truth, and to tell lies he feels
would degrade himself."
"And yet men always lie to women--have you remarked that, girl?"
"Yes--that seems to be the one exception in their standard of truth."
"How do you account for this? Have you found the 'reason why' of this
peculiarity?"
"It seems presumptuous of me to give my views to Your Ladyship."
"I think I am the best judge of that matter," and Lady Garribardine
frowned a little. "I asked a question."
Katherine answered then immediately. She was not quite pleased with
herself for her last remark, it had laid her open to a snub.
"Original man had no regard for women--they were as the animals to
him--he would not have felt degraded in lying to animals--because such a
thing could not occur. He would not consult animals--he simply ordered
them."
"Well?"
"Then as soon as he had to consider women at all he found it easier to
lie to them because of their want of understanding, and chattering
tongues, and as he did not consider that they were his equals in
anything, no degradation was entailed in making things easy for himself
with them, by lying to them."
"How ingenuous!"
"That is how it seems to me, and so things have gone on--tradition and
instinct again! Until even now when man is forced to consider women, the
original instinct is still there making him feel that it does not matter
lying to them."
"I believe you are right. You are not a suffragette?"
"Oh, no! I like women to advance in everything, but unless you could
destroy their dramatic instinct, and hysteria, I think it would be a
pity for a country if they had votes."
"You despise women and respect men, then?"
"Not at all; it would be like despising bread and respecting water. I
only despise weakness in either sex."
"Well, Miss Bush, I think you have a wonderfully-stored mind. I don't
feel that ninety pounds a year and drudgery is the right thing for you.
What is to be done?"
Katherine gave one of her rare soft laughs.
"Believe me, madam, the lessons I am learning in Your Ladyship's service
are worth more to me than my salary. I am quite contented and enjoy my
drudgery."
"So you are learning lessons--are you!" Lady Garribardine chuckled
again. "Of the world, the flesh or the devil?"
"A little of all three, perhaps," Katherine answered with shy
demureness.
"Look here, young woman, I have remarked more than once that you possess
a quality--almost unknown in ninety-nine females out of a hundred, and
non-existent in the middle classes--a fine sense of humour. It is quite
out of place--and like the royal rose imprinted upon the real queen's
left shoulder, I expect we shall discover presently that the butcher and
baker forebears are all moonshine, and that you are a princess in
disguise.--See, that is Windsor--isn't it fine?"
"Ah! Yes!" cried Katherine. "It makes one think."
They were rushing along the road from Staines where they could see the
splendid pile standing out against the sky.
"All those old grey stones put together by brutes and fools and brains
and force. I will take you there myself some day."
"I shall love to go."
Then Her Ladyship became quite silent as was her custom when she felt
inclined so to be. The obligation to make conversation never weighed
upon her. This made her a delightful companion. They arrived at the park
gates of Blissington Court about one o'clock, and Katherine Bush felt
again a delightful excitement. She had never seen a big English country
home except in pictures.
The lodge-keeper came out. He was an old man in a quaint livery.
"I cannot stand the untidy females escaping from the washtub who attend
to most people's gates. This family of Peterson have opened those of
Blissington for two hundred years, and have always worn the same sort of
livery, from father to son. Their intelligence is at the lowest ebb, and
they make capital gate-keepers. There is generally a 'simple' boy or two
to carry on the business. The women folk keep out of sight, it is a
tradition in the family--they take a pride in it. I give them unusually
high wages, and whatever else grows more and more idiotic, the
gate-keeping instinct survives in full force. There are three
lodges--all kept by Petersons."
"How wonderful," said Katherine.
"Good day, Jacob!--The family well? Jane quite recovered from the
chicken-pox, eh?"
"Quite well, Your Ladyship," and the old man's wandering eyes were fixed
in adoration upon his mistress's face. "And Your Ladyship's godchild,
Sarah, is growing that knowing my daughter can hardly keep her from the
front garden."
"I am delighted to hear it. I shall be stopping in to see you to-morrow,
tell Mrs. Peterson. This is my new secretary, Miss Bush, Jacob--you will
know her again, won't you?"
"I'll try to, Your Ladyship," a little doubtfully, and he bowed deeply
as the motor rolled on along a beautiful drive through the vast park,
with its groups of graceful deer peering at them from under the giant
trees.
Katherine was taking in the whole scene, the winter day, and the brown
earth, and the blue sky, and the beauty of it all!
Yes--this sort of thing was what must be hers some day when she had
fitted herself to possess it. They came to another gate--and yet
another--iron ones with no lodges, and then they swept through a wide
avenue with sprucely kept edges and so on up to the front door.
It was a long irregular building which Katherine saw, principally built
in the middle of the seventeenth century, and added to from time to
time. It was very picturesque, and when they were inside, the hall
proved to be very fine. It was huge and square and panelled with some
good Grinling Gibbons carving, and quantities of indifferently painted
ancestors, for the most part in stiff peers' robes.--They had been a
distinguished crew, not of the fox-hunting type.
"These are my people, Miss Bush, not Garribardines," Her Ladyship said,
pointing to the portraits. "They were not handsome, as you see, and
evidently did not encourage the best artists--the few who did are in the
other rooms and the picture gallery. Come, we will go straight in to
lunch; I am as hungry as a schoolboy--You will lunch with me."
Bronson had gone down much earlier and was awaiting them with two
footmen, as dignified as usual.
The dining-room was in a panelled passage to the right and was a long,
low room of much earlier date.
"A relic incorporated later in the present structure," Katherine was
told.
It was perfectly beautiful, she thought, with its deep brown oak, wax
polished to the highest lustre, and its curtains of splendid Venetian
velvet in faded crimson and green, on a white satin ground all
harmonious with age and mellowing.
"I had a terrible struggle to oust the Victorian horrors I had been
brought up with, and which had insinuated themselves, as all vulgar
things do, into almost every room among their betters--taste was quite
dead sixty years ago in my father's day. I had to combat sentiment in
myself and ruthlessly condemn the whole lot."
"It is most beautiful." Katherine's admiration was indeed sincere.
"Yes--it has been a great pleasure to me getting it perfect. You shall
see the whole house presently, but now food is the only important
matter.--Bronson--I distrust the look of that ham soufflé--are you sure
it has not been kept waiting? A second or two alters its consistency.
Take it away at once, man!"--with an indignant sniff--"and tell François
never to hazard so precarious a dish again for arrivals by motor!"
"Very good, Your Ladyship."
"One can eat bread and cheese, but one cannot stomach an indifferent
soufflé--it is like an emotional woman, its charm is just as capricious
and just as ephemeral!"
The rest of the lunch was to her taste and no further disapproval was
expressed.
It was the first time Katherine had broken bread with her mistress, or
indeed had even assisted at a whole luncheon. Coffee was the extent of
her knowledge hitherto. It interested her to see the varied dishes, to
watch the perfect service, the style of the placing and removing of the
plates--the rapidity and noiselessness of it all. She thought of the
pressed beef and the stout and the cheese-cakes and the frightful
untidiness of everything at Laburnum Villa. That was the strange
difference, the utter want of method and order which always rendered the
home table a mass of litter and miscellaneous implements towards the end
of a repast, plates and cups pushed here and there and everywhere.
How very good to be out of it all!
To her great surprise, Her Ladyship drank beer--clear golden stuff
poured from a lovely crystal and silver jug into a chased silver
tankard.
"The best beverage in Christendom!" that epicure said, as she quaffed
it. "Have some, Miss Bush. You are young enough to have no dread of
gout. It is a vice with me, the worst thing in the world for my
rheumatism, and yet I cannot resist the temptation! The day I return
home I must fall to my tankard! To-morrow, Bronson removes the accursed
thing to the sideboard, out of sight, and I keep up my courage on
ridiculously thin Zeltinger."
Katherine tasted it; it was delicious, and as different from what she
knew as beer as the tea had been from her original idea of tea.
"Isn't it a heavenly drink, girl! I am glad to see you like it."
Then Lady Garribardine chatted on, giving crisp, witty descriptions of
the village and the inhabitants, in language which would often have
shocked the genteel sensibilities of Mabel Cawber, but the tones of her
voice, whether loud or soft, were the dulcet tones of angels. She had
indeed that "excellent thing in woman."
Katherine's workroom was the old schoolroom up in a wing which contained
rooms as ancient as the dining-room, and her bedroom adjoined it; and
from this a little passage led to a narrow staircase going down to a
door which opened into the small enclosed rose garden. Up another set of
steps from her corridor you were brought into the splendid gallery which
ran round two sides of the hall, and into which Her Ladyship's own rooms
gave. But in Katherine's corner she was isolated and could come and go
abroad without ever passing the general living rooms--what an advantage,
she felt!
And when, later in the afternoon, her things were unpacked, and she was
sitting before a glorious wood fire in the old chimney, sniffing
the scent of the burning logs and taking in the whole picture of
quaint chintz and shining oak, she felt a sense of contentment and
satisfaction.
Fate was indeed treating her handsomely.