The outside of the Houses of Parliament had always affected Katherine.
They looked stately and English--and when they--herself and old Arabella
d'Estaire and Gerard--walked through the corridors of the House of
Lords, and came at last to the huge vaulted chamber itself, and so to
the pen where they might stand to hear the debate, her heart began to
beat with some strange excitement.
They went into the left side enclosure, and so could have a facing view
of the Opposition benches.
Some member of the Government had just begun a speech as they entered,
and Katherine had time to look about her. What types to study! And what
an atmosphere of calm, after the scene in the House of Commons she had
witnessed on her visit there! A din of angry voices and uncontrolled
emotion. Here if people felt anything it did not appear on the surface.
Katherine leaned upon the second carved griffin which helps to adorn the
partition which separates the pen from the sacred floor of the House
itself. From there her eyes travelled from face to face opposite her.
She recognised several, indeed many whom she had seen either in London
or at Blissington--but who were those others, some with features far
from aristocratic?
She now examined the Ministerial benches, and made many reflections,
while she only half listened to the rather lame string of sentences
which were falling from a very refined-looking, carefully preserved
gentleman, who seemed little interested in his subject, and almost
ashamed to be speaking from that side of the House.
Then from the end by the throne two newcomers entered, and took their
seats, one on the front Opposition bench.
For the moment, Katherine's eye had followed the younger of the two who
went towards the back, so that she did not become conscious of the
personality of the other until, at the conclusion of the Minister's
speech, he rose and laid some papers down upon the table in front of him
amidst a sudden thrill of interest which noticeably ran through the
assembly.
He was a very tall and arrogant-looking person, rather thin and upright;
and in everything about him there was a strange old-world suggestion,
which characterised even the cutting and brushing of his hair and the
shape of his coat. The brow was lofty and broad, and the thin iron-grey
locks were combed straight back from it, and seemed to be perhaps rather
longer than those of the young men. He had very large eyes deeply set,
probably dark blue, Katherine thought, and his nose was prominently
aquiline. He was clean-shaven, all but a small pair of close-cut
whiskers, and this with some peculiarity about the shirt, and the
frockcoat he wore, as well as a black satin stock, stamped him as
someone of an altogether different generation--century, Katherine had
almost said to herself!
Who could he be?
There was some picture she had seen which he reminded her of. She
thought for a minute. Yes, it was a certain print which hung in a
passage at Blissington, of the Duke of Wellington in evening dress, a
profile, with the ribbon of the Garter across his breast. This man had
something of the same personality.
His whole appearance was so unusual, so almost startling, that had
anyone else attempted to achieve the same result he would have looked
either vulgarly dramatic or quite grotesque, but with this man even the
old-fashioned clothes with their suspicion of a by-gone dandyism seemed
to add to his immense distinction. Katherine thought that if she could
have drawn a picture of a typical aristocrat of the Tory persuasion, of
perhaps a hundred years ago, this man would have made a perfect model.
And now he began to speak!
And of all the voices she had ever heard or admired from beyond the
half-high glass screen at Liv and Dev's, or listened to in her present
situation, none had ever struck her as so ultra refined as the perfectly
modulated tones now vibrating through the house.
His words were selected with judgment and grace, and showed the command
of an uncommon vocabulary. She had thought Gerard Strobridge's sentences
were well-chosen, and cultivated, but they would sound quite modern and
almost colloquial, she felt, compared with the highly-polished flow
of language which poured forth from this clear-cut mouth. The whole
mien of the man expressed intense pride and dignity, and a perfect
unself-consciousness. He gesticulated very little and kept one hand with
the thumb resting above a button of his fastened coat, so that she could
see his hand plainly, and its shape, which was in keeping with the rest
of his appearance, and on his little finger was a great graven emerald,
or some green stone in a ring, which caught a ray of light and sparkled
for a second.
How was it that so noticeable a personage had never been to Berkeley
Square or Blissington?
He was of Her Ladyship's political convictions, too, and must be of
importance to occupy so prominent a place. And presently she began to
take in the words he was saying, and gathered from a sentence which
remarked upon his "long absence from your Ladyship's House" that he must
have been for some time out of England.
Then she grew fascinated with the speech itself, it was so witty and
filled with an exquisite sarcasm. Such must have been the speeches of
Chesterfield, she thought, in this same House of Lords more than a
century and a half ago.
How old could he be? Fifty--forty-five--forty? It was impossible to say.
Suddenly she was conscious of a deep enthralled interest affecting her,
and she turned and whispered to Mr. Strobridge at her side:
"Who is that man speaking now--I would so much like to know?"
"The Duke of Mordryn--is he not a type? The last real Tory left in this
age."
And then Katherine remembered that letters addressed to this name, and
written in Lady Garribardine's own hand, had often gone with the rest to
be posted, always to addresses abroad, ever since she had been in her
service. And often, too, she recalled, the Duke had been spoken of as
being here or there, and gradually on his way home, but nothing about
him had particularly interested or struck her, except the name
Mordryn--it was a perfect name!
She began piecing together what she knew about him. At Liv and Dev's she
had been obliged to know a good deal about all Dukes; their sub-titles,
son's courtesy titles, and family names. This string came back to her
mechanically--"Duke of Mordryn, Marquis of Valfreyne, Earl of Rievaulx"
and a number of Baronies, while the family appellation was Monluce, and
the chief place of several residences Valfreyne in Dorsetshire. She
remembered too that the Duchess had died less than two years ago.
After this her absorbed interest concentrated upon the man himself and
she almost felt a little breathless when he sat down; and a moment or
two after, when he seemed to have leisure to look about him, she met his
eyes and she could see that they were indeed a very dark blue and that
his gaze consciously rested upon her.
She did not turn hers away; she was fascinated, and slowly there came a
thought to her:
"This is what fate means for me--" And for a few seconds she felt faint
and icy cold, so great was her emotion.
The unknown goal of all her striving was revealed at last! The position
of this man's wife would be the greatest to be achieved in England, for
prestige and influence. _And it should be hers._
She heard and saw and knew nothing which happened after this, only what
was spoken and done by the Duke, and presently, Miss Arabella d'Estaire
growing tired, they went out, their exit accelerated by Katherine who
saw that His Grace had risen and was coming their way. They stopped for
a second just at the place where the hats are left and he caught them up
and shook hands with Mr. Strobridge and Miss d'Estaire.
"I am very glad to see you, Gerard," he said, "it is good to be at home
again," and then he gave some gallant greeting to Miss d'Estaire, and
paused, absently looking at Katherine, who stood by demurely, presenting
an attractive picture in her grey suit and hat. All care was now taken
of her ample tresses, which were arranged to show the smallness of her
head, and every article of her garments was chosen to express
unobtrusive distinction. For many months her astute intelligence had
been turned upon the enhancing of her attractions, with wonderful
result.
"Miss Bush--the Duke of Mordryn," Mr. Strobridge was obliged to murmur,
and Katherine bowed and waited to see if the Duke would speak. He did,
with that aloof but gracious courtesy which he showed to all women.
"You have come to hear our highly futile debate in this mutilated
chamber--I hope you were not too bored."
"I was very much interested," and she looked straight into his eyes in
the way she did when she intended to compel attention.
As Gerard Strobridge watched her, he suddenly felt a twinge of fear. He
refused to acknowledge the thought which presented itself, but indicated
that they should go on.
The Duke meanwhile had not been unaffected by Katherine's magnetic
eyes--he felt a spark of interest and so continued the conversation for
a minute, but finally had to give way to Gerard's evident desire to move
forward.
"Tell Her Ladyship that I am coming to lunch to-morrow. I only crossed
last night, and have had no time to answer her note awaiting me. I hope
she is well and has not allowed this modern rush and turmoil to spoil
her enchanting wit."
When they got out into the open air, Katherine noticed that Mr.
Strobridge had a fierce and rather hunted expression on his face. He got
into the taxi after the two ladies without a word, and said very little
as they drove to Miss d'Estaire's tiny flat in Knightsbridge.
"Perhaps as it is so fine you will let me dismiss the cab and we might
walk across the Park," he suggested as he rejoined Katherine after
seeing Miss Arabella in at the door. And she consented.
The air was crisp and fresh and the dusk was gathering. It was a quarter
to six o'clock.
They turned towards Stanhope Gate and walked in silence. Then Mr.
Strobridge stopped suddenly and drew Katherine to a chair.
"Katherine," he said, and his voice was husky. "Is it so?"
"Is what so?" she questioned, to be quite certain what he meant.
"Is the Duke to be your objective?"
She did not answer. She was weighing things. Gerard's assistance would
be necessary for the pursuance of a plan which had been forming in her
head since she had left the Houses of Parliament. She was swift to
decide, and swift to act at critical moments in her life.
"Do you think you have any right to ask me such a question?"
"Yes."
"What right?"
"I love you."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"No, I will never admit it."
"It is true enough--Oh! Katherine, there is nothing I would not do for
you and you know it, only I cannot help wanting to be certain if I am to
expect the worst. I feared it at once when you looked into his eyes. Has
my doom come at last then?"
"You are paying me a great compliment; you seem to think that the matter
lies only in my hands."
"You will accomplish anything you desire."
She did not speak.
"Katherine," he pleaded, and there was anguish in his voice, "tell me
the truth, whether I have the right to ask it or no. The idea has come
to you that this would be worth winning, this position--has it not?"
"Yes."
"He is fifty-three years old, Mordryn--but a fifty-three which women
adore--You would probably fall in love with him also."
"It is possible."
"Can you expect me to be anything but pained then?"
"I have always told you that I consider you only as a friend, and that I
only view your emotions for me as those of friendship; therefore there
should be no pain even in such an idea according to my view."
"There is."
"I am sorry."
"But it does not change your determination?"
"No."
"I understand a man's killing a woman sometimes," and he clenched his
hands passionately.
"So do I--when she deceives him, never because she is honest and
unvarying. I have never deceived you or led you to hope for anything but
friendship--that you have in full, and you have hundreds of times
promised me yours; if you meant it I now ask you to give me a proof of
it."
"What proof?"
"I wish to meet the Duke--not as Lady Garribardine's secretary; that
would prejudice him too much, naturally! I want to meet him in the
evening at dinner as a guest. I want to talk to him and see for myself
what he is like, and if he is as wonderful as he looks. Only you could
arrange this. If you asked him to dinner and asked me and Miss Arabella
or Miss Gwendoline d'Estaire it would be possible, would it not?"
He was staring at her now, overcome by her masterly frankness. No--she
would never deceive him, he realised that and also that nothing of his
will could ever impose upon hers. He knew he was impotent as a factor in
the determining of her plans; all he could do to keep her favour was to
fall in with them.
Her face, white as a lily in the growing dusk, was calm and cold and
beautiful. He had never desired her more--but that fastidiousness in
him, that power of detachment which could appreciate skill even when
exercised against his own interests, asserted itself, and helped him.
She was so wonderful a character, he must assist her even to his own
pain.
"I suppose it would be possible--Beatrice goes down to Allerton
to-morrow until after Easter. I expect I could arrange it for Friday
night if I can only get the Duke--he will be awfully busy these
days--but perhaps if I ask him at once I might catch him--" Then he
thought a moment--"Yes--I've got a new case of miniatures I bought last
week at an odd sale. I could beguile him on the pretext of giving me his
opinion as to whether or no two of them are really Cosways. You see to
what a state of abject slavery you have reduced me."
"No, I have not--you are being merely a loyal friend."
"To-night at dinner I will ask my aunt if you may dine--I have some
boring country friends coming in any case that night and she will let
me have you to help to entertain them, I expect. You are supposed to be
extraordinarily talented as an entertainer of bores!"
He could not keep some of the bitterness he was feeling out of his
voice. Katherine looked at him reproachfully.
"I thought you would perhaps have understood--and been kind."
He responded at once to her tone.
"Darling--I will--you know it. I will show you that I am indeed your
devoted friend; will that please you?"
She inwardly appreciated his sacrifice and her eyes shone softly upon
him.
His face was haggard and looked hungry--its expression would have
surprised the many women who had loved him, and on whom he had turned a
transient smile.
"Yes, that will please me," and her voice was sweet. "Now tell me about
him. I remember to have read in the papers some time ago that the
Duchess had died."
"He has had an awful life--the Duchess was mad. She was a Thorval, a
cousin of my wife's, and went more or less off her head soon after they
were married about twenty-eight years ago. Then for more than fifteen
years she was extremely peculiar, but not quite bad enough to be
entirely shut up. Only of course it made it impossible for him to have
friends or to entertain and enjoy his great position. Then she became
quite mad and had to be isolated and by this time Adeliza, the only
child, began to show signs of derangement, too, and so he had the horror
of seeing the same thing occurring over again. About two years ago the
Duchess died and fortunately soon after Adeliza caught scarlet fever and
died also, just before you came to my aunt's--and then Mordryn started
on a long voyage round the world to try and make a break and forget--and
he has been abroad ever since, and only returned last night."
"Poor man, then he did not obtain much pleasure from his great
position?"
"Not in England--but one must suppose that he has had some kind of
consolations in all these years. He was often in Paris and has always
been extremely attractive, but he is a great gentleman, and there have
never been any scandals about him."
"And now all those ugly shadows have been removed from his life and he
is free--" Katherine drew in her breath a little.
"Yes, he is free," Gerard concurred gloomily. "He is a most intimate
friend of my aunt's; you will see him constantly at Blissington."
"Where I am the secretary--yes. Ah! if you knew how I long sometimes to
be--myself--and not to have to act meekness--Ah! you would know then how
grateful I shall be if you can give me this one evening of happiness."
He was touched, she so seldom showed any emotion. He felt rewarded for
some of his sufferings.
"You shall have as perfect a time as I can secure for you, Katherine,
dear girl--" and he bent forward and took her hand. "You would adorn any
position in the world--but if Mordryn were not a most splendid character
I would not help you to meet him--He is--One of the finest in the
world--and I will try--I promise you I will try not to let any jealous
envy stand in your way."
"You are a dear after all," and she returned the pressure of his fingers
before she drew hers away.
There was a strange light in her eyes as she walked up the stairs to her
room in Berkeley Square. A wonderful vista had suddenly opened itself
before her, with a mountain in the distance all of shining gold. It
seemed that it must always have been there but that some mist had hidden
it which was now rolled away.
What if she should be able to reach this splendid gilded mountain
top--some day?----
A glorious end to aim at in any case, and she shut her white teeth
firmly--and sitting down by her open window began steadily to think.
That night fate held a surprise in store for her. She was going to the
theatre with Matilda, a periodical treat which that sister greatly
enjoyed. They went in the dress circle and saw the show, two unobserved
units in the crowd. As it was for Matilda's pleasure she was left to
choose what she would see. It was always either a Lyceum melodrama or a
musical comedy, and this night it chanced to be the latter, and one
newly put on, so the audience was less remarkably homely than usual.
Who and what were the audiences at theatres? This Katherine often asked
herself. And while Matilda enjoyed what was happening on the stage, she
studied the types around her.
Who invented such hairdressing? Who designed such clothes? Whence came
they and whither did they go?
This particular night Katherine and Matilda were rather at the side of
the dress circle a row or two back, so that they could see a good deal
of the stalls; and towards the end of the first act Katherine's languid
attention suddenly became riveted upon two particularly well brushed
male heads in the front row. Their owners must have come in while she
had been looking at the stage. There was something quite uniquely spruce
about young Englishmen's heads, she knew, and they were all very much
alike of a certain class, but the fairer of these two was painfully
familiar; it belonged to Lord Algy and to no one else. He had returned
from Egypt then! He was there within a few yards of her. Oh! why was it
such pain to see him again?
Her heart beat to suffocation, she felt every pulse in her body tingle
with excitement, and then she felt a little sick--and for a few minutes
she could not have risen from her seat.
Matilda turned for a moment and exclaimed:
"Oh, my goodness gracious! Kitten! Whatever is the matter, dear?"
Then Katherine recollected herself and answered a little shakily:
"I don't know--the heat I suppose--I am all right now though, and isn't
this a funny scene! Don't let us talk and spoil it."
And Matilda, reassured, gladly again turned to the stage. So Katherine
sat on, fighting her battle alone. She forced herself to look at her
whilom lover with calm--and watch every movement of his attractive head.
He appeared well and bronzed and handsomer than ever, she could see as
he turned to speak to his companion, and she almost fancied she could
hear the tones of his voice. Then she made herself analyse things. Did
she really love him still?
Then gradually she became more controlled as she realised that if she
kept her eyes fixed upon him like this the magnetic power of her gaze
would certainly cause him to look round presently and see her, and that
above everything she did not want this to occur.
So she turned her attention to the stage and forced herself to listen to
what was being sung.
The act was soon over, and then she saw Lord Algy's perfect figure rise
to go out. That was "Jack Kilcourcy" she thought, probably, with him,
about whom she had so often heard--and perhaps they had come to see some
special beauty in the chorus, and would go on to supper later at the
Savoy or elsewhere. Oh, no!--she would not allow herself to feel any
more; she had surely passed beyond such things!
The second act came and went, and the third, and when it was over she
hurried Matilda out, in a desire to escape before the stall crowd could
mingle with theirs in the doorway.
It was raining a little when they came to the door, and there stood Lord
Algy talking with his caressing devoted air to a lovely woman in black,
whom Katherine had noticed in one of the boxes. He did not see her, as,
clutching Matilda's arm, she shrank away among the bedraggled people
beyond the lights, and there she paused and turned for a last look at
him, and saw him follow the lady into a smart car, the door of which was
being held open by a motor groom; it had just driven up.
"We will have a taxi, Tild," she said. "Let us walk on and find one. I
can't stand an omnibus to-night."
She drove Matilda to Victoria first, and then went back to Berkeley
Square, a rather damp creature in body and soul. And when she was in
bed, the tears would trickle down her cheeks. It was all hateful! The
dress circle--the rain--the cab--the dependence--and last of all Lord
Algy and the lovely woman in black!
Then her sense of the value of things came back again; her indomitable
spirit revived, and before she fell asleep she knew that once for all
she had banished any lingering regrets and that she would play for the
great stakes in the game of her ambition with a zest as strong as the
desire for love--that love which she now realized had been mainly an
affair of the senses and which was over and dead.