Lady Garribardine was unable to spare her secretary from the Easter
party, so it had been arranged that she was to have a few days holiday
from the Saturday following the dinner-party, but she must catch the
three o'clock train from Paddington on the Thursday before Easter, and
return then.
Katherine did not go home to Bindon's Green. She went off alone to a
little place by the sea on the east coast, and there she set herself to
review events, and think out her plans while she lay upon the sands
unheeding the east wind.
Gerard Strobridge had served her loyally--the interest which she had
meant to kindle was kindled. The Duke now had made a mental picture of
her, unmarred by possible qualifications which, if he had known she was
his friend's humble secretary and typist, he would have been bound to
have made. Not that he was in the least a snob, but that he would have
naturally considered it unbefitting his situation to go about looking
for interesting companions among his friend's dependents. He would
simply not have observed her at all when he came to Blissington, any
more than she herself had observed either of the footmen at Gerard
Strobridge's dinner. Not that she despised footmen as footmen, or the
Duke secretaries as secretaries; they were worthy and necessary
servants; but guests did not remark them except in their professional
capacities, people who were there to serve at table or write letters
and attend to business.
Not the slightest irritation or resentment mingled with these
reflections of Katherine's. She was much too wise and just, and never
under the influence of hurt vanity or dramatic instinct, so this point
of view, that she knew the Duke would naturally take, seemed to her
perfectly right, and instead of resenting it, she had used her brain to
nullify it, knowing full well that if she played her part at the dinner
effectually, interest would be aroused which no barrier of different
statuses could entirely obliterate afterwards. Now on this last
afternoon at Bayview, she must think out what she would do next, for the
Duke would be arriving at Blissington by a train from the west which got
in a few minutes after her own from Paddington. She had known before the
dinner-party that he was coming for Easter, and that morning had
received a command from her mistress that she was to look out for him,
and tell him he was to take the small coupé and not get into the other
motor, which would await her and be loaded up with fragile hat-boxes
which were coming by Katherine's train. There would be the luggage car
for his servant and his trunks as well. All the rest of the guests were
arriving by motors or by the express an hour later.
Thus the plunge from equal to humble secretary would have to be made at
once, and she must see to it that it was done with tact and skill, so as
not to mar the effect already produced, but rather enhance it. There was
only one drop in her cup. She did not feel altogether happy in keeping
this secret from her beloved mistress. A secret, too, which concerned
her, perhaps, most valued guest. But it was absolutely impossible that
she could frankly avow her intentions to Lady Garribardine, as she had
done to Gerard; so much she would keep to herself, but she would speak
of her enjoyment at meeting the Duke, if Her Ladyship did not herself
begin the subject, and she had not reason to believe Mr. Strobridge had
told his aunt of the encounter. She had not seen Lady Garribardine since
the dinner, having left for her holiday very early on the Saturday
morning. All the way down in the train to Blissington she was conscious
of suppressed excitement. She had been most careful about her
appearance, and looked as charming and yet unobtrusive as it was
possible to look.
She waited, when once arrived, at the entrance where the subway from the
departure platform emerged--and she felt a quiver when she saw the top
of the Duke's hat and then his face.
How attractive he looked! And how unlike other people! Among a crowd he
was a magnificent personality, one to whom porters and officials and
strangers naturally showed deference. Peers could look like very humble
and sometimes even vulgar people, she knew, but no man, woman or child
could mistake His Grace of Mordryn for anything but a great noble.
When he caught sight of Katherine standing just at the inside of the
stream of passengers, his whole stern face changed, and an illuminating
smile came over it, while he stretched out his hand cordially.
"Miss Bush! Are we to be fellow guests? You are coming to Blissington?
How delightful!"
Katherine made as though she did not see the hand, and with deference
and lowered lids, she said:
"Yes, I am going to Blissington, but Your Grace is under a
misapprehension which I must correct. I am Her Ladyship's typist and
secretary, and I am here now to give you a message, that you are to take
her Ladyship's own small coupé and not the motor which is waiting for
the bandboxes and me."
But with all her demureness, she could not prevent an irresistible and
humorous quiver from dimpling round her lips, and then she raised her
steady eyes and looked at him suddenly as she bowed and moved off
quickly, leaving him for the first time in his life completely
nonplussed! What was the meaning of this comedy? He felt rather angry.
What business had Gerard Strobridge to trick him so? But had he tricked
him? He recollected now that Miss Bush had not been mentioned by Gerard
at all one way or another. She was simply treated as any other guest,
and had come apparently with Gwendoline d'Estaire. That she was a
high-bred lady his own senses had told him, whether she were a typist or
no!--Highly bred and educated and exceptionally cultivated and refined.
She must certainly be the daughter of some friend of Sarah's who had met
with financial misfortune, poor charming girl! And he hurried after
her--but only got outside the station to see her disappear in a motor
already piled up inside with milliner's boxes. So, baffled and still
deeply interested, he entered the coupé awaiting him and was whirled
off. Seraphim would, of course, tell him all about it, and so he
dismissed the matter from his mind; but his first thought when he got
into the hall was to wonder if Katherine would be at tea. She was not.
Tea was a _tête-à-tête_ affair in his old friend's boudoir, where a
hundred thousand things of interest had to be discussed between them,
and no time or chance was given for reference to obscure secretaries.
After tea on her way down to receive the guests, who would continue to
arrive in relays until dressing time, Lady Garribardine went into the
schoolroom to see Katherine.
They spoke of business, and Katherine received orders, and took down
notes, and then she said:
"Your Ladyship will be amused to hear that I met the Duke at dinner at
Mr. Strobridge's. He did not know my position, and I am afraid at the
time I did not undeceive him. It was such a very great pleasure to me to
be taken for a lady and a guest just for once. Of course, I told him at
the station my real position, and he appeared much surprised."
Lady Garribardine walked to the window and pretended to be looking out
at something. She wanted to hide all the expression which might come
into her eyes. The simple words, "It was such a very great pleasure to
be taken for a lady and a guest just for once," had deeply touched her.
She seemed to realise what such a spirit as Katherine's must feel,
always in a subordinate position of no particular status--And with what
dignity she carried it off!
"Child," she answered, without looking round, "no one who knows you
would ever take you for anything else--the theory of blood being
absolutely necessary for this, you have proved to be nonsense. The Duke
is one of my oldest friends and a very fine gentleman. I am glad you had
a chance of talking freely to him."
After she had left the room, Katherine folded and unfolded a bit of
paper, a very unusual agitation moving her.
"Oh! I wish I could tell her outright, my dear lady!" she cried to
herself. "I almost believe she would sympathise with me, but if I see
that she would not, and that it would hurt and anger her, I will give
up even this, my ambition."
* * * * *
Gerard Strobridge was not of this party; he had been obliged to go to
his brother's, so Katherine would have no collaborator and would be
forced to act alone.
She did not dine downstairs, but was required in the drawing-room
afterwards, and until ten o'clock she stayed alone in her sitting-room,
wondering what the Duke had thought, and if it would have been wiser to
have stayed for a minute after firing her bomb.
Had she known it, nothing to chain his interest could have been better
than her swift disappearance, for he was now thinking of her, and at the
first opportunity between the soup and fish, he said to his hostess:
"Seraphim, I met your secretary, it seems, the other night at
Gerard's--a very intelligent girl. I had no idea at the time that she
was in any dependent position--and was greatly surprised when she
addressed me at the station to-day as 'Your Grace'! She is some
misfortunate friend's daughter, I suppose. Anyone I knew?"
Lady Garribardine's eyes beamed with a momentary twinkle which she
suppressed--She thought of the auctioneer father and the butcher
grandfather and then she said casually:
"No--she came from an advertisement, but she is a splendid creature,
with more sense in her little finger than most of us have in our entire
bodies--What do you think of my grey locks, Mordryn?"
The Duke assured her he found them bewitching; he saw that she did not
mean to speak of her secretary.
"They cause you to look ten years younger, dear friend. I could find it
in my heart to make love to you once more--and be repulsed with unabated
violence, I fear!"
"Love was good when we were young, Mordryn; ten or twelve years do
not matter when a man is twenty-five and a woman thirty-five to
thirty-eight--that is, if they are not married. The discrepancy in age
only becomes grotesque later. We loved and laughed and lived then, and
should be grateful--I am--As for you, you will love again--fifty-three
for a man is nothing. You are abominably attractive, you know, Mordryn,
with your weary, aloof air--and your Dukedom--And now that you are
altogether free from anxieties, you should take the cup of joy in both
hands and quaff it--Look round the table. Have I not provided some sweet
creatures for you?"
"You have indeed--Which one in particular have you destined for the
cup-bearer?"
"Any one of the three on that side towards the top. You can't have
brains and beauty. Lily Trevelyan has beauty, and enough tact to hide
her absence of brain. Blanche Montague has no beauty but a certain
chic--and I am told wonderful variety of talent. She does not satiate
her admirers with sameness--While Julia Scarrisbrooke is all passion so
well assumed as to be better than the real article, and always handy.
These credentials I have collected from a cohort of past admirers and
they can be vouched for. You have only to choose. Any one of them will
be enchanted. They are only waiting to spring into your arms!"
"I believe that would bore me. I want someone who is not
enchanted--someone who leaves the whole initiative to me."
Her Ladyship cast up her eyes. "My dear Mordryn, your unsophistication
pains me! Who ever heard of a Duke of fifty-three, well preserved,
good-looking, unmarried and distinguished--known to be generous as a
lover and full of charm--being allowed to take the initiative with
women--Fie!"
The Duke laughed, and by some curious turn of fancy he seemed to see the
white, perfectly composed face of the stately, slender secretary, who
had treated him as naught that night at Gerard's, and then looked almost
mockingly respectful when she called him "Your Grace!" in the station.
Would she be in the drawing-room after dinner?--Perhaps.
Yes, she was, over by the piano at the far end; but Lily Trevelyan and
Blanche Montague and Julia Scarrisbrooke had surrounded him before he
could get half-way down the long room, and escape was out of the
question. No manoeuvring enabled him to break free of them. So he had
to sit and be purred at, and see with the tail of his eye a graceful
creature in black talking quietly (and intelligently he felt sure) to
some less important guest--and then playing accompaniments--and then
slipping away through a door at that end, presumably to bed.
He cursed civilisation, he profoundly cursed beautiful ladies, and he
became sarcastic and caused Julia and Lily who were for the moment bosom
friends to confide to each other, over the latter's bedroom fire, that
Mordryn was "too darling for words" but spiteful as Her Ladyship's black
cat.
"I do hate men to be so clever--don't you, Lil? One never knows where
one is, with them."
"Oh! but Ju, dearest, he isn't deformed or deadly dull or diseased, or
tipsy, he is awfully good looking and very rich and _a Duke_--Really you
can't have everything. I thought Blanche Montague was shockingly open
in her desire to secure him, did not you? I wonder why Sarah asked her
here with us!"
Meanwhile Katherine Bush did not permit herself to wonder at His Grace's
possible feelings or his future actions at all. She had seen the eager
look in his dark blue eyes once or twice across the room and being a
wise woman left things to fate.
"I wish G. were here," the hostess said to herself as she, too, stood by
a bedroom fire--her own. "I have no one to exchange unspoken confidence
with. He would have understood and appreciated the enchanting comedy of
female purpose, male instinct to flee, and one young woman's supreme
intelligence!"
The next day the Duke, who knew the house well, and in what wing Miss
Arnott had worked, took it into his head to walk before breakfast in the
rose garden. Miss Bush saw him from the window and allowed herself to
bow gravely when he deliberately looked up; then she moved away. He felt
a distinct sensation of tantalization. After breakfast everyone would
play tennis. He played an extraordinarily good game himself, and was in
flannels ready. Katherine thought he had a very fine figure and looked
much younger in those clothes. She wanted to ask him about the emerald
ring--she wanted to ask him about a number of things. She had work to do
all the morning, but came out to the tennis lawn with a message to her
mistress just before luncheon, during an exciting single match between
the Duke and an agile young man--the last game was at 30 all--and
Katherine paused to watch the strokes--40-30--And then Mordryn
won--amidst shouts of applause.
Katherine had remarked that he ran about very little and won by sheer
style and skill and hard hitting.
She did not loiter a second when he was free to move, but flitted back
to the house before he could get near her.
She lunched alone in her schoolroom.
By the afternoon, when she did appear at tea, the Duke was thoroughly
ill-tempered, he knew not why or for what reason, merely that his mood
was so. Katherine, busy with the teapot, only raised her head to give a
polite, respectful bow in answer to his greeting. He was infinitely too
much a man of the world to single out the humble secretary and draw upon
her the wrath of these lovely guests. So he contented himself by
watching her, and noting her unconcerned air and easy grace. Some of the
people seemed to know her well and be very friendly with her.
She showed not the slightest sign of a desire to speak to him--Could it
be possible that this was the girl who only that night week had talked
with him upon the enthralling subject of love!
Those utterances of hers which had sounded so cryptic at the time were
intelligible now. How subtle had been her comprehension of the
situation. He remembered her face when he had asked her if she knew
Blissington! And again when she had told him that that night week he
would know how altogether unprofitable any investigations regarding her
would be! And now in the character of humble secretary she was just as
complete as she had been when apparently a fellow guest and social
equal. It was all annoyingly disturbing. It placed him in a false
position and her in one in which she held all the advantages! And there
she sat serene and dignified, hedged round with that barrier of ice of
which she had spoken. He had not experienced such perplexing emotions
for many years.
He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to ask her what it all meant--He
would like to know her history, and whence she had come. Gwendoline
d'Estaire had treated her, he had noticed, not as a dependent, but as a
friend. He felt himself rather awkward--he, a man of the world
accustomed to homage from women!
He did manage to say that it was a bore that the rain had come on, and
it looked as though to-morrow would be wet. And he felt humiliated at
the fine, instantly suppressed smile which flickered round her mouth at
this brilliant remark from an acknowledged wit!
Then he became angry with himself--what matter to him whether she smiled
or did not smile? It was obvious that he could not be on terms of
familiar friendship with Seraphim's secretary, at his age and with his
position. So he had strength of mind to move away from the table, and to
allow himself to be purred over by one of the trio of charmers who had
been asked for his benefit--but rage mounted in his breast. He was not
enjoying himself at all, and if he did not see more of his old friend
herself, he really would not stay over Monday as he had intended, but
would go back to town on Sunday night!
Lady Garribardine knew the signs of the times and took him off to her
sitting-room after tea when most of the others began to play bridge.
"I think modern women have less charm than they had, Seraphim," the Duke
said from the depths of an armchair, rather acidly. "They are almost as
illiterate as ladies of the ballet used to be when I was young; they are
quite as slangy and noisy, and they are full of affectations. If one
does not know the last word of their fashionable jargon and cannot keep
up a constant flow of 'back talk'--which, incidentally, it would require
the wit of the St. James Street cabmen of twenty years ago to be able to
do--one is asphyxiated by them. I shall have to become acclimated, I
feel. I have been too long away and have lost touch with the movement--I
sigh for repose and peace."
"Nonsense, Mordryn--it will do you a great deal of good to be shaken up,
you must move with the times."
"But I entirely decline to do so. To what end?"
"You must certainly marry again now that you are at last free."
"Undoubtedly it is my obvious duty, as otherwise the title will die
out--but surely you do not suggest that I should convert any of these
charming creatures who were good enough to try to lighten my mood last
night and to-day, into my wife! I had hoped they were at least safely
married, and now you make me tremble in case you are going to announce
to me that some are widows!"
"Blanche Montague is; I merely asked the others to accustom you to the
modern type. They are to break in your sensibilities, so to speak, and
next time you come, if you don't fancy Blanche I will have a selection
of suitable prospective Duchesses."
"Will they make as much noise as these '_ballons d'essai_'?"
"More--nothing modern can be dignified or quiet, so get the idea out of
your head. They are all so out of door and so hearty, such delightful,
fresh, knowing, supremely uninnocent, jolly good fellows, they can't be
silent or keep still. There are too many new _révues_ to be talked
about, and too much golf to be played, and new American nigger dances
to be learned.--Come, come, Mordryn! You do not want to be ridiculously
old-fashioned--and really Blanche Montague is most suitable. Montague
left her well provided for--and she was only thirty-two last birthday."
"But I don't like her voice, and what should we converse about in the
_entr'actes_?"
"Blanche is famous for her small talk, she will start upon any subject
under the sun you please--and change it before you can answer the first
question. No fear of stagnation there!"
"Even the description tires me. I prefer the lady who you assured me was
all simulated passion. I adore passion, though I confess I prefer it to
be real."
"How captious of you! The thing is unknown in these days, it has to be
reconstructed, like the modern rubies--lots of little ground-up
fragments pressed into a whole by scientific chemistry.--A good
imitation is all you will get, Mordryn."
"I loathe imitations," and His Grace shuddered.
"I think you had better give me an exact description of what you
do want, for, my poor old friend, you seem to be out to court
disappointment. I earnestly desire to help you into a second noose more
satisfactory than the one I originally placed around your neck--so out
with it! A full description!"
The Duke deliberately lit a cigarette, and a gleam of firelight caught
his emerald ring.
"Your famous talisman is flashing, Mordryn, the lyre shows that it
approves of your thoughts!"
"The woman I should like to marry must be, and look--supremely
well-bred--but healthy and normal, not overbred like poor Laura, and
Gerard's wife, Beatrice.--She must be able to talk upon the subjects
which interest one--a person of cultivation in short. She must have a
sense of humour and fine ideals and a strong feeling about the
responsibilities of the position, and be above all things dignified and
quiet and composed.--And I should like--" and here a faint deprecatory
smile flickered about his mouth for a moment, "I should like her to love
me, and take a little interest in the human, tangible side of the
affair--if you do not think I am asking too much of fate at my age?"
"It is a large order--I only know of one woman who answers to your
requirements and she of course is entirely out of the question."
"Who is she--and why is she out of the question?"
"Useless to answer either query, since, as I say, she is altogether out
of the running. It was only an idea of mine, but I will diligently seek
for your paragon--for, Mordryn, I shall never feel my conscience clear
until I see you happily told off--and the father of at least six sturdy
boys."
The Duke raised his hands in deprecation.
"Heavens, Seraphim! You would overwhelm me with a litter, then! My wants
in that direction are modest. The 'quiver full' has never appealed to
me. I want my wife to be my loved companion--my darling if you will--but
not, not a rabbit."
When he was dressing for dinner he thought over his friend's words--He
had not insisted upon knowing who the "one woman" could be--He himself
had lately seen a creature who seemingly, as far as he could judge from
one evening's acquaintance, possessed quite a number of the necessary
qualifications--but as in the case of Seraphim's specimen, his was also
completely out of the running, and not to be thought of in any
capacity--Alas!
It was strange, with this resolution so firmly fixed in his mind, that
after dinner he should have broken loose from the bevy of ladies waiting
to entrap him, and have deliberately gone to the piano to talk to that
dull little Lady Flamborough who was leaning upon the lid, chatting with
Miss Bush!
Katherine kept her eyes fixed upon the keyboard with that meek,
deferential demureness suitable to her station when amidst such exalted
company; but her red mouth had an indefinable expression about it which
was exasperating.
Mordryn seized the first second in which Lady Flamborough's attention
was diverted by a remark from someone else, to bend down a little and
say softly,
"Are you not even going to say good evening to me, Miss Bush?--It is
'this night week.'"
She looked up with perfect composure.
"Good evening, Your Grace."
He frowned. "Is that all?"
"As Your Grace very truly remarked, it is 'this night week.'"
"And you think that has answered all the riddles?"
"Of course."
He frowned again, he knew Julia Scarrisbrooke was swooping down upon
him, there was not a moment's time to be lost.
"I do not--to-morrow I will make an opportunity in which you will have
to answer them all categorically--do you hear?"
Katherine thrilled. She liked his haughty bearing, the tone of command
in his perfect voice.
She remembered once when she and Matilda had been eating lunch at a
Lyons popular café, Matilda had said:
"My! Kitten, there's such a strange-looking young man sitting behind
you--Whatever makes him look quite different to everyone else?"
And she had turned and perceived that a pure Greek Hermes in rather
shabby modern American clothes was manipulating a toothpick within a few
feet of her--and her eye, trained from museum study, had instantly seen
that it was the balance of proportion, the set and size of the head, and
the angle of placing of eyes which differentiated him so startlingly
from the mass of humanity surrounding them. She had said to Matilda:
"You had better look at him well, Tild--You will never see such another
in the whole of your life. He is a freak, a perfect survival of the
ancient Greek type. He is exactly right and not strange-looking really.
It is all the other people who are wrong and clumsy or grotesque."
She thought of this now. The Duke stood out from everyone else in the
same way, although he was not of pure Greek type, but much more Roman,
but there was that astonishing proportion of bone and length of limb
about him, the acknowledged yet indescribable shape of a thoroughbred,
which middle age had not diminished, but rather accentuated.
She again noticed his hands, and his great emerald ring--but she did not
reply at all to his announcement of his intentions for the morrow. She
bent down and picked up a piece of music which had fallen to the floor,
and Julia Scarrisbrooke swooped and caught her prey and carried it off
into safety on a big sofa.
But as Katherine gazed from her window on that Good Friday night up into
the deep blue star-studded sky, a feeling of awe came over her--at the
magnitude of the vista fate was opening in front of her eyes.