Mrs. Lauderdale went slowly upstairs, thinking over what she should say,
as she climbed from one story to another. At the door she knocked
softly, and Katharine’s voice bade her enter.
Katharine was standing at the window, looking out, and did not turn
round as her mother entered. The evening light was on the houses
opposite, and the glow was gently sinking into the darker street.
Katharine watched the horse-cars go by, and listened mechanically to the
jingle of the bells, hardly conscious of either.
“What is it?” she asked, as she heard the door close.
Her voice had that peculiar reedy sound which comes of speaking through
the closed teeth by the lips only. It seems to mean that the speaker is
on the defensive and not to be trifled with.
“Your father--Katharine--he’s so angry! He wanted me to speak to you.”
“Oh--it’s you, mother?” The girl’s tone changed a very little, and she
turned and came forward. “Well--I’m sorry,” she said, after a short
pause. “It can’t be helped, I suppose.”
Mrs. Lauderdale sat down in the one small arm-chair, by the
toilet-table, and clasped her hands over her knee, leaning back, and
looking up rather wistfully at Katharine.
“I think--in a way--it can be helped,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, in a
conciliatory manner. “If you would go downstairs now, and just say
quietly that you’re sorry, you know. Just as you said it now. I’m sure
he’d be willing to accept that as an apology.”
“Apology?” Katharine laughed bitterly. “I--make an apology to him? No,
mother--I won’t.”
“You ought to--really,” objected Mrs. Lauderdale, earnestly. “Why, my
dear child! Have you any idea of what you’ve been saying downstairs?
Some of the things you said were dreadful.”
“They were all true, and he knows it,” answered Katharine, stubbornly.
She leaned against the chest of drawers, and looked down into her
mother’s upturned face.
“Oh, no! they weren’t all true, dear,” protested the latter. “You
exaggerated very much. It’s quite possible that your father may have
saved something in all these years--he’s so careful! But as for having a
million, as you said--”
“But, dear mother--there isn’t a doubt of it! I didn’t promise uncle
Robert that I wouldn’t tell that--”
“What? Did uncle Robert tell you?”
“Yes! Of course! Did you suppose I was inventing?”
“Well--not exactly. But I thought you might have heard some gossip--or
something Jack Ralston said--”
“Not at all. Uncle Robert told me that he knew it to be a positive
fact--a million, at least, he said. And he’s quite as truthful as
papa--”
“More so,” said Mrs. Lauderdale, absently; “I mean,” she added, very
quickly, with a frightened look, for she had not realized what she was
saying--“I mean--quite as truthful. They’re both perfectly truthful--”
“Yes,” answered Katharine in a doubtful tone, and smiling in spite of
herself. “Not but that, if it came to believing, you know, I’d believe
uncle Robert sooner than papa--”
“Hush, child--don’t!”
Katharine said nothing, but still leaned back, resting both elbows on
the high chest of drawers on each side behind her, and looking down
thoughtfully at the points of her shoes. Mrs. Lauderdale was silent,
too, for several seconds.
“Well?” Katharine uttered the convenient word interrogatively, without
looking up.
“Well--yes,” responded Mrs. Lauderdale. “I was going to say that--” She
hesitated. “My dear,” she continued, at last, “you’ll have to say
something to your father, after all this.”
“Something like what I’ve said already?” asked Katharine, raising her
black eyebrows and glancing at her mother.
“No, no! I’m serious, my dear.”
“So am I--very. You began to talk of an apology. It’s quite useless,
mother--I can’t and I won’t apologize.”
“But, Katharine, darling--he says he won’t see you unless you do--he’s
dreadfully angry still!”
“Oh--he won’t see me? What does that mean? That I’m to stay in my room?”
She laughed a little.
“He’s in earnest about it,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “That’s what he
said--he--I don’t like to say it--but I must, I suppose. That’s just it.
He means you to stay in your room whenever he’s in the house.”
“How childish!” exclaimed Katharine, scornfully. “What do I care? I
don’t want to see him particularly. But, just for curiosity--if he
happens to meet me on the stairs, for instance, what will he do? Throw
things at me? Box my ears? He’s quite capable of it--as you saw just
now--”
“Please don’t talk like that, dear,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “He was
terribly angry--and you were saying the most dreadful things--he only
meant to stop you from speaking.”
“He hurt my mouth, and he hurt my arm--there’ll be black and blue marks
here to-morrow, I’m sure, by the way it feels.” She laid her left hand
on her right forearm at the point where her father had seized it.
“That’s rather like violence, you know, mother.”
Katharine turned perceptibly paler as she spoke of it. Mrs. Lauderdale
was pained at the recollection, and looked away from her, clasping her
hands a little more tightly over her knee.
“Did he ever touch you in that way, mother?” asked the young girl,
slowly.
“Me?” cried Mrs. Lauderdale. “Oh--child! How can you think of such a
thing! No, indeed! Fancy!”
“Well--I’m just as sensitive as you are,” answered Katharine. “Put
yourself in my place.”
The unexpected answer silenced the elder woman.
“I think it’s his place to apologize to me--and very humbly,” added
Katharine. “It was a cowardly piece of violence to a woman. I’m willing
to believe--for the honour of the family, and men generally--that he
didn’t mean to strike, exactly. But it felt very much like it, and I
told him so. I’ll tell him so again, if he mentions the thing.”
Mrs. Lauderdale was in great difficulties. Her husband and her daughter
were both stronger than she, they had no intention of making up their
quarrel, and yet, by her position, she was forced to act as
intermediary. It was not easy. Her husband dominated her by his strong
personality. Katharine had the better of her in argument. She turned
away a little, in thought, resting one elbow on the toilet-table beside
her, and covering her eyes with her hand for a moment. The beautiful,
tired features were pale and drawn.
“It’s very hard for me,” she said, wearily. “You’re both partly wrong
and partly right.”
“I think I’m altogether right,” said Katharine.
“I know--so does he. But you’re not--either of you--nor I, either, for
that matter. Oh, dear! I wish I knew what to do!”
“There’s nothing to be done, I’m afraid,” answered the young girl, more
gently, for she was somewhat pacified by her mother’s owning a share in
the blame. “Not that I’m going to make a fuss about it, if he doesn’t.
I’m not that kind. I won’t come down to dinner to-night, because it
would be unpleasant for everybody. As for to-morrow--we’ll see what
happens. The idea of shutting me up in my room so long as he’s in the
house, because the sight of me is disagreeable to him, it’s silly--it’s
perfectly childish! Just like an angry man! I’m not sure that I should
mind it very much, so far as not seeing him’s concerned. I don’t want to
see him, any more than he wants to see me. But it’s the principle of the
thing that sticks in my throat. It’s as though he had the right to treat
me like a small child, to be sent to bed in a dark room at discretion,
until I change my mind. It’s the tyranny of the thing, the arrogance of
it--and when I’m altogether right, as you both know.”
“No--not altogether,” objected Mrs. Lauderdale.
“I won’t go over it again, mother. I’ll sum it up in these words. He’s
rich, and he’s told us that he was poor, and he’s stood looking on and
letting you work to give us small luxuries that amount to necessities.
He’s wilfully calumniated Jack for months. He’s wilfully misled Archie
Wingfield--”
“My dear--about that--he assures me that he only said you might
ultimately accept him--”
“Well--he knew that I mightn’t, and he had no business to say I might,”
interrupted Katharine, decidedly. “Besides, I can hear just his tone of
voice, and his way of slurring over the ‘might’ till Mr. Wingfield felt
it was ‘may’--oh, it’s abominable! As for his pestering me with
questions about uncle Robert’s will, it’s natural enough, considering
how he loves money, as a cat loves cream. Oh, I know! You’re going to
say it’s disrespectful to say such things. Perhaps it is--I don’t
know--he seems to lap it up--with that smile of his--and it disappears,
and we have to live on the drops. No--I don’t feel respectful. Why
should I? I’ve respected him for nineteen years, and I can’t respect
him any longer. It’s over, once and for all. When a man deliberately
sets to work to destroy his daughter’s chances of being happy--oh, well!
It isn’t only that. It’s the whole thing, the meanness, the miserliness,
the Sunday-go-to-meeting-and-sit-up-straight sort of virtuous
superiority outside--and all this other inside. It’s revolting. It’s
upset all my ideas. I don’t feel as though I could ever believe in
anything again. I don’t mean to shock you, mother, but I can’t help
saying it, just now.”
“It’s dreadful!” Mrs. Lauderdale spoke in a low voice and earnestly.
Katharine was silent for a few moments, and looked out of the window. It
was almost dark by this time.
“You know, mother,” she said, suddenly, “I used to admire papa--very
much, in a certain way. I don’t think you ever quite realized that. Of
course I’ve been brought up in his church, though I’ve much more
sympathy with yours. It always seems to me that his is a man’s religion,
and yours is a woman’s. But then--Mr. Griggs says the world is a woman,
in a sort of way, so yours ought to be the religion of the world. Never
mind--I don’t know enough to talk about these things. What I mean is
this. I used to admire papa’s uncompromising way of looking at life, and
the way I thought he’d tell the truth and shame the devil at any price,
and his cold, unreasoning, settled certainty about heaven and hell--and
the way I thought that he took his flinty goodness down town with him,
and did right, when one knows that ever so many business men don’t. It
all seemed so strong, and cool, and manly. I couldn’t help admiring it.
And I believed that he was poor, and that although he wouldn’t say much,
he’d fight for us, and die for us, if necessary. And then--he’s
handsome, too, and straight, and steely, and formal. I’ve always liked a
little formality. Do you see what I mean?”
“Of course,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale, thoughtfully, and nodding her
head with a far-away look in her eyes.
Katharine had enumerated the very qualities that had once appealed so
strongly to her mother.
“Well--” Katharine paused a second. “It’s all a sham. That’s all.”
Mrs. Lauderdale started at the abrupt, rough words.
“Oh, Katharine, dear, don’t say that!”
“It’s true. It’s broken to pieces. It began to crack just before
Charlotte was married. It’s all broken to bits. I can see the inside of
it, and it’s not what I thought. There’s only one idea, and that’s
money. It would need a miracle to make me admire him again. It’s broken
to atoms, and what’s so strange is, that it’s taken everything with it
in the last few months--and it’s taken the last bit to-day. It’s all
gone. I can’t help it. It’s dreadful--but it’s a sort of confession,
like your confessions. I don’t believe in God any more.”
“My child, my child!”
Mrs. Lauderdale looked up at her with scared eyes and rising hands,
which sought Katharine’s, found them, and gripped them in a frightened
way. The devout woman, good at heart with her one big fault, felt as
though the world were quaking under her feet as she heard the last
words. Not that Katharine spoke them lightly, for she was in earnest,
and the declaration of unbelief was more solemn from its strangeness
than almost any confession of rigid faith could have been.
“Yes, mother--I know--we won’t talk about it. I only want you to
understand me--we’ve been so much together in our lives.”
She spoke sadly now.
“And we shall be, dear, I hope,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale.
“I don’t know--perhaps. I don’t believe we shall ever be just as we used
to be. You’re not the same--nor am I, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes we are--in our hearts. But, Katharine, darling--what you said
just now--if you knew how it hurts me--”
“It’s not your fault, mother. If anybody’s to blame, it’s papa, and I
think he is. Oh, no! You’re different. After all, we’re only a pair of
women, you and I. We can quarrel and make up, and nobody will be hurt in
the end. We’re not each other’s ideals--not that papa was mine, or
anything like it. But you naturally believe in a thing more when a
strong man stands up and asserts it and fights for it, than if it turns
out that he only says that he believes in it, out of prejudice and
family tradition and a sort of impression that after all he may go to
the wrong place if he doesn’t. He’s always talking about setting an
example--it seems to me that the example lies in the effect of the thing
upon the person one’s to imitate. If this is the effect of religion on
him, I don’t want it. I’d rather talk to Teddy Van De Water, who
chatters about Darwin and Spencer without knowing anything particular
about them, and sticks his glass in his eye and makes bad jokes about
the future state, but who’d burn his hand to the wrist rather than do
anything he thought mean. Men have done that sort of thing before
now--they’re not the men who talk about God over the soup, and try to
sell their daughters at dessert!”
“Katharine--” Mrs. Lauderdale could not find words.
“I know--but papa’s not here--and then, I don’t mean to talk about it
any longer. You’ve come up from him, I suppose, mother, to say that he
doesn’t want to see me. Very well. I don’t want to see him. But how long
is this state of things to last? I won’t apologize, and I suppose he
won’t give in. It may go on for months, then. Supposing I refuse to be
imprisoned in this way, is he going to lock me in and take the key with
him? What’s he going to do? I want to know what to expect.”
“My dear, I don’t know--he only said that. Just what I told you.”
“Because if it’s going to be a siege, I’ll go away,” said Katharine,
calmly.
“I proposed that you should go to Washington and spend a fortnight with
Charlotte. He wouldn’t hear of it.”
“Yes--but if I just go without asking his leave? What will happen? What
do you think? Girls often go alone, and it’s only five hours by the
half-past eleven train that Charlotte always takes. She’d be glad to
have me, too.”
“Your father would be quite capable of going and bringing you back--on
Sunday.”
“On Sunday!” Katharine laughed hardly. “How you know him! He wouldn’t
lose a day at his office, to save you or me from drowning. That’s what
he calls duty. Yes--perhaps he’d come, as you say. Then we should have
an opportunity of fighting it out on the way back. Five hours, side by
side--but I suppose we should turn our chairs back to back and go to
sleep or read. But he might not come, after all. Do you know? I should
feel a sort of sense of security at the Slaybacks’. I like him, though
Charlotte makes fun of him. There’s something real about him. I didn’t
mean to go to Washington, though.”
“You couldn’t go to the Ralstons’,” observed Mrs. Lauderdale. “With Jack
at home--people would talk.”
“If I went there, I should stay,” answered Katharine, with a coolness
that startled her mother. “I should never come back at all. Perhaps I
shall some day. Who knows? No--I thought I’d go and stop with uncle
Robert. That would terrify papa. He’d suppose, in the first place, that
I’d tell uncle Robert everything that’s happened, and then that uncle
Robert would tell me a great deal more about his intentions with regard
to the will. That would make papa anxious to be nice to me when I came
home again, so as to get the secret out of me. I think it’s a very good
plan; don’t you? Uncle Robert would be delighted. He’s all alone and not
at all strong. The very last time I saw him, he begged me to come and
stay a few days. I think I will. Fancy papa’s rage! He’d scarcely dare
to come and get me there, I imagine.”
Mrs. Lauderdale did not answer at once. She saw the immense advantage
Katharine would have over her father if she carried out the plan, and it
seemed too great. Alexander would be almost at his daughter’s mercy. She
could dictate her own terms of peace. Incensed as she was against him,
she could easily use her influence against him with his uncle, who had a
lonely old man’s fondness for the beautiful girl.
“Of course you could go--I couldn’t prevent you,” said Mrs. Lauderdale,
rather helplessly.
“Of course I could. I’ve only to walk there. Uncle Robert will send for
my things.”
“I hope you won’t, dear. It wouldn’t make it easier for me--he’ll think
it’s been my fault, you know--and then--”
Katharine looked at her mother in silence for a moment, and pitied her
too much, even after what had passed between them, to leave her to
Alexander’s temper.
“I won’t go yet,” said Katharine. “I won’t go unless he’s perfectly
intractable. Go and tell him that it’s all right, mother. I’ll submit
quietly and stay in my room as long as he’s in the house--quite as much
for my own sake as for his, you can tell him. If he asks about my
apologizing, tell him that I won’t, and that I expect an apology from
him. It can’t last forever. One of us will have to give in, at the
end--but I won’t. You can put it all as mildly as you like, only don’t
give him any impression that I’m submitting to him morally, even if I’m
willing to keep out of his way.”
“Couldn’t you say something a little nicer than that, dear?” asked Mrs.
Lauderdale, pleadingly, for she anticipated more trouble. “Couldn’t you
say that you’d let by-gones be by-gones--or something of that sort?”
“It wouldn’t be true. These are not by-gones. They’re present things.
The nice by-gones will never come back.”
Mrs. Lauderdale rose slowly to the height of her still graceful figure,
and stood before her daughter for a moment. In the emotion of the past
hour she had forgotten for a time her envy of the girl’s blossoming
beauty. For a moment she was impelled to throw her arms round
Katharine’s neck in the old way, and kiss her, and try to make things
again what they had been. But something hard in the young grey eyes
stopped her. She felt that she herself was not forgiven yet and might
never be, altogether.
“Very well,” she said, quietly. “I’ll do my best.”
She turned and left the room, leaving Katharine still leaning back
against the chest of drawers in the position she had not abandoned
throughout the conversation.
When Katharine was alone, she stood up, turned round and pulled out the
upper drawer. Amongst her gloves and handkerchiefs lay a photograph of
John Ralston. She took it out and looked at the keen, dark face, with
its set lips, its prominent bony temples, and its nervous lines that
would be furrows too soon.
“You’re worth all the Lauderdales and the Wingfields put together!” she
said, in a low voice.
She kissed the photograph, pressing it hard to her lips and closing her
eyes.
“I wish you were here!” she said.
She looked at it again, and again kissed it. Then she put it back with
an energetic movement that was almost rough, and shut the drawer. She
sat down in the chair her mother had occupied, and gave herself up to
thinking over all that had taken place.
Her instinct was to let John Ralston know as soon as possible what had
happened, but she knew how foolish that would be. He would insist that
the moment had come for declaring their marriage, and that she must go
and live under his mother’s roof. But she felt that something must be
done soon. If she was willing to submit to her father’s sentence, absurd
as it was, she found a reason for doing so in her own disinclination to
meet him. But the situation could not last. And yet, he was obstinate
beyond ordinarily obstinate people, and it would be like him to insist
upon banishing her for a week. In such things he had no sense of the
ridiculous. Apart from the inconvenience and constant annoyance of being
expected to keep out of his way, she was young enough to feel
humiliated. It was very like a punishment--this order not to be seen
when her father was in the house. She had no intention of disregarding
it, however. To do so would have been to produce an open war of which
the rumour would fill society. It was clear that her best course was to
be patient as long as possible, and then quietly to go to uncle Robert’s
house. The world would think it natural that she should pay him a visit.
She had done so before.
Alexander Junior seemed to be satisfied with the answer his wife brought
him. He felt that if he could make Katharine stay in her own room at his
discretion, he was still master in his own house, and his injured
dignity began to hold up its head again. The old philanthropist did not
even ask after Katharine at dinner, though he was fond of her. She so
often went out to dine alone with intimate friends, that it did not
occur to him to remark upon her absence. But, as usual, when she was not
there, the family meal was dull and silent. Alexander ate without
speaking, and with the methodical, grimly appreciative appetite of very
strong men. Mrs. Lauderdale was not hungry, and stared at the silver
things on the table most of the time. The old gentleman bolted his food
in the anticipation of tobacco, which tasted best after eating. He was a
cheerful old soul when he was not dreaming, an optimist and a professed
maker of happiness by the ton, so to say, for those who had been
forgotten in the distribution. He had big hands, shiny at the knuckles
and pink where a young man’s would be white, with horny, yellowish
nails, and he was not very neat in his dress, though he had survived
from the day when men used to wear dress coats and white ties in their
offices all day. The Lauderdale tribe regarded him as a harmless member
who had something wrong in his head, while his heart was almost too much
in the right place. A certain amount of respect was shown him on account
of his age, but though he was the oldest of them all, Robert the Rich
was undisputedly the head of the family. It was generally believed, and,
as has been seen, the belief was well founded, that he was not to have
any large share of the money in case he survived his brother.
Early on the following morning Alexander Junior emerged from his
dressing-room, equipped for the day. He wore the garments of
civilization, but a very little power of imagination might have
converted his dark grey trousers into greaves, his morning coat into a
shirt of mail, and his stiff collar into a steel throat-piece. He had
slept on his wrath, and had grown more obstinate with the grey of the
morning. His voice was metallic and aggressive when he spoke to the
serving-girl, demanding why his steak was overdone. When his wife
appeared, he rose formally, as usual, and kissed her cheek with a little
click, like the lock of a safe. He said little or nothing as he finished
his breakfast, and then, without telling her what he meant to do, he
went upstairs again and knocked at Katharine’s door.
“Katharine!” he called to her. “I wish to speak to you.”
“Well--” answered the young girl’s voice--“I’m not dressed yet. What is
it?”
“How long shall you be?” enquired Alexander, bending his brows as he
leaned against the panel to catch her answer.
“About three quarters of an hour--I should think--at least--judging from
the state of my hair. It’s all tangled.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“No--I’ve not looked. Oh--my little clock has stopped. It’s a quarter
past four by my little clock.”
“It’s nine o’clock,” said Alexander Junior, severely. “Three minutes
to,” he added, looking at his watch.
“Well--I can’t help it now. It’s only--no--it’s sixteen minutes past
four by my little clock.”
“Never mind your little clock. I must be going down town at once, and I
wish to speak to you. I can’t wait three quarters of an hour.”
“No--of course not.”
“Well--can’t I come in? Aren’t you visible?”
“No. Certainly not. You can’t come in. I’m brushing--my hair. I always
brush it--ten minutes.”
“Katharine--this is absurd!” cried Alexander, becoming exasperated. “Put
on something and open the door.”
“No. I can’t just--now.” Her phrases were interrupted by the process of
vigorous brushing. “Besides--you can talk through the door. I can
hear--every word--you say. Can’t you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you. But I don’t wish to say what I have to say in the
hearing of the whole house.”
“Oh!” The soft sound of the brushing ceased. “In that case I’d rather
not hear it at all.”
“Katharine!” Alexander felt all his anger of the previous day rising
again.
“Yes--what is it?” She seemed to have come nearer to the door.
“I told you. I wish to speak to you.”
“Yes--I know. But you can’t unless you’ll say it through the door.”
“Katharine! Don’t exasperate me!”
“I’m not trying to. I understood that you didn’t wish to see me for some
days. If you’d sent me word, I should have been ready to receive you. As
it is, I can’t.”
“You know perfectly well that you can, in ten minutes, if you please. I
shall send your mother to you.”
“Oh--very well. I’ve not seen her this morning. But you’d better not
wait till I’m dressed. It will take a long time.”
“Very well,” answered Alexander Junior, who had completely lost his
temper by this time.
A moment later Katharine heard the sharp click of the lock, and the
rattle as the key was withdrawn. She never used it, having a bolt on the
inside.
“You are at liberty to take all day if you please,” said her father. “I
have the key in my pocket. Good morning.”
Katharine’s lips parted in astonishment, as she turned her eyes towards
the door, and she stood staring at it for a moment in speechless
indignation, realizing that she was locked in for the day. Then,
suddenly, her expression changed, and she laughed aloud. Alexander was
already far down the stairs.
But presently she realized that the situation was serious, or, at all
events, something more than annoying. She was to be shut up at least
until after five o’clock in the afternoon, all alone, without food or
drink, without the books she wanted, and without any one with whom to
exchange a few words. Her face became grave as she finished dressing.
She knew also that her father had lost his temper again, and she did not
care to have all the servants know it.
She rang the bell, and waited by the door till she heard the maid’s
footsteps outside.
“Ask my mother to come here a moment, Jane,” she said. “Say that it’s
important.”
A few moments later Mrs. Lauderdale turned the handle of the lock.
“Is that you, mother?” asked Katharine.
“Yes. The door’s locked. I can’t open it.”
“This is serious,” said Katharine, speaking in a low voice, close to the
panel. “Papa’s locked it and taken the key down town with him. Didn’t he
tell you?”
“No--it’s impossible, child! You must have slipped the bolt inside.”
“But, mother, he said he meant to, and I heard him do it. He got angry
because I wouldn’t let him in. I couldn’t then, for I wasn’t dressed,
and Jane’s putting a new ribbon on my dressing-gown, so I haven’t even
got that. But I didn’t want to. Never mind that--I’ll tell you by and
by. The question is how I’m to get out! Unless he didn’t quite mean it,
and has left the key on the table in the entry, with the latch-key. You
might look.”
Mrs. Lauderdale went downstairs and searched for the key, but in vain.
Katharine was locked in.