“What name doth joy most borrow
When Life is fair?
To-morrow.
What name doth best fit sorrow
In young despair?
To-morrow.”
Bert Russell was a young man, about whom people knew extremely little.
He was taken for granted because he had well-bred manners, and was very
useful. If disagreeable things had leaked out about him, plenty of his
acquaintances would have professed themselves as not in the least
surprised; but meantime he was invited everywhere and went out a great
deal. He made no confidences about his life, partly because he found
people were more interested, in making confidences about their own, and
also because he felt quite certain no one would understand. He had been
recommended to Lady Middleton’s husband by a transatlantic Professor,
and Lady Middleton had brought him out. She generally said that he was
extremely well off. She probably thought he was, on the theory that
American men did so well at business. There were many things that this
particular American man did very well, but business was not one of them.
His father had been a consumptive New England farmer, who gave his sons
as good an education as he could afford, and a conscience of which he
had an almost over-abundant stock; then he died. The eldest brother took
on the farm, and Bert went to New York. There he passed through most
things in his attempt to get on, even through tramp shelters, and nights
in Central Park. But they were summer ones and somehow his good humour,
his conscience, and his pluck, pulled him through. At last he wrote up
his experiences rather picturesquely on borrowed paper, and was given
occasional jobs on a New York daily. This opened the way, and he was not
slow to take it.
Two years of yellow journalism, a sub-editorship, a brilliant novel, and
he was launched. Then he went back to New England, and nursed his mother
until she also died of consumption. His brother had married, his family
increased yearly—and his profits decreased every season, and his
wife—nagged him. Bert had been rather fond of her himself at one time,
but he had always been a little suspicious of her mouth which bent down
at the corners. Six years of married life had made the corners go very
far down indeed. Bert was offered a good post on an English paper,
through some English acquaintances, and it was this, which had taken him
to London.
There he made friends with everybody, from his London landlady who
smiled at him and saw that no one cheated him but herself, to the head
of his office and the conductors of busses. It paid him to go into
society, and he used to be very careful of his dress suit. He sent back
two-thirds of his income to his brother in New England.
Katherine was unlike any girl he had ever met. Society types he
understood, and the different shades of village aristocracy in America
made him famously at home with the lower middle classes; but this curt,
determined young woman who could blush so beautifully, and look at you
so steadily, who had so very little to say, and yet gave you the
impression that she could do so much, delighted and puzzled him.
He was quite aware that she had very strong prejudices, and that he
upset nearly all of them, but this only added zest to their encounters.
When he went back to Overham the Sunday after Dora’s death, he met her
at the early service, to which, through the sweetness of the morning, he
had himself been drawn. The sun was shining down on the quiet
churchyard. Weeping willows drooped over the grass, and the flowers that
grew over and around the graves were covered with dew. It was a perfect
summer morning, and as he looked at the girl in her muslin dress, and
her fair, fresh, English face, he began to wish very much he had not
come. He took her prayer-book out of her hand, and they walked in
silence to the old wood gate.
“I can carry my prayer-book quite well myself, thank you,” said
Katherine crisply as they reached the gate. His wish vanished.
“It makes me feel good to carry a prayer-book,” he said. “It reminds me
of the time when I had to learn my collect every Sunday and sit on the
hardest chair in the room. My! those Sundays, how they took the
stiffening out of one. And I wonder how much religion they managed to
insert? Do you know the story of the little girl whose dog followed her
down the street one day? ‘Jack!’ she said, ‘go home! It’s bad enough to
have God always tagging after me without _you’re_ being around!’ She was
a little American girl, you know, Miss Linton.”
“I do not think that is any excuse,” said Katherine sternly. Then the
image caught her, and she began to smile. When they reached the hill
that led up to Lady Middleton’s park, they both turned back, and looked
at the beautiful old church, and the sun-fretted, rich, green landscape.
“I got your letter,” said Katherine gently, “just after the child had
left us. It was good of you to write it.”
“Oh, no!” said the American, “my little sister died just at that age.
The winters are very bad where we live. I had three sisters, and they
all died, that one stayed the longest. After all, they’re so many things
we can’t understand, perhaps it would be more of a mystery if they had
lived; and God’s side of the mystery must be the brightest.” Katherine
said nothing, but she glanced at him as if she understood. “Where is
your home, Miss Linton?” he asked her, after a silence which cost him an
effort to break.
“I do not live anywhere at present,” Katherine answered, “I am staying
with Daphne until I can go into Hospital.”
“To earn your own living?” he questioned in surprise.
“Why on earth _not_?” said Katherine angrily; “you speak as if it were
an unheard-of thing; I have always earned my own living, since I was old
enough to know what life meant!”
“Why do you know _that_?” he asked her smiling; “tell me what it means?”
“Hard work!” said Katherine, giving him her hand, “and if you happen to
be a woman, very little pay. I am going into breakfast.”
“Will you come out with me this afternoon,” he asked, “into the woods; I
must go back to-night?”
Katherine frowned. She had been indoors so much lately, and she was a
creature of the fresh outdoor world. “If I can get Daphne to go to
sleep,” she said; “the girl’s worn out!”
“I will call for you at three,” he said, “to enquire.”
“I don’t think it’s worth while you doing that,” Katherine answered
hesitatingly.
“Oh! you must leave that question for me to decide,” Bert Russell
replied laughing.
Daphne went to sleep, and Katherine went out. It was impossible for her
to realize that she had been happy, but she was too honest to deny it
even to herself. Though it was the day after little Dora’s death, and
though she had seen her home taken from her in an hour, yet in the
woods, and in the sunshine, and in the presence of her companion, she
had found a pleasure which was more than that of relief. A positive
gladness in the world and life and youth. She was not at all sure that
she liked him, but she was quite sure that she had enjoyed the day.
When he went back by train that night, Bert Russell cursed himself for a
selfish fool, and sent more than he could rightly afford to his brother
in New England. He had not seen Katherine since, but he found out from
Lady Middleton that Daphne was with her, that they both had passed the
entrance examination, and were together in the hospital.
“Why!” said poor Lady Middleton, shaking her head, “Daphne should shut
herself up in an unpleasant, positively painful place for the hottest
months of the year, when she ought to get married, or go to Scotland
with me, or stay quietly in the country with her uncle, is _more_ than I
can explain. Her friend’s mother has just married Colonel Dalgeny, a
delightful creature! It seems, things used to be said, you know, but now
of course they are married and it is quite all right. Still, Katherine
Linton would earn her own living, though I hear she could have married a
parson. What girls are coming to, I positively daren’t think! The ones
who might marry don’t, and there are such herds of those who can’t, and
_no_ nunneries to speak of! Such a pity there aren’t more nunneries, I
think, Mr. Russell, don’t you?”
“Was there a _real_ parson?” Bert asked, “or do you simply mean on
general principles she might have married one?”
“Oh, no one marries on general principles, Mr. Russell,” said Lady
Middleton smiling. “I mean that nice fellow at Overham, he quite saw my
point about teaching Sunday school teachers the harp. I wonder if he
believes in nunneries? Those High Churchmen _do_ rather, you know.”
“I do not expect he would believe in a nunnery for Miss Linton,” Bert
said gravely. “I am not altogether sure that I should myself. It seems
to me, Lady Middleton, you ought to start a scheme for emigrating the
women who can’t marry. The women who won’t, may change their minds.”
Lady Middleton looked interested. “I think I will just make a note of
that,” she said, dragging out a silver pencil and a little ivory slate.
“Emigration for women who can’t—— Oh, Mr. Russell, an idea has just
occurred to me.”
“What is it, Lady Middleton?” asked the young American.
“Well, you know,” said Lady Middleton with great concern, “perhaps they
won’t like to have it thought that they can’t marry, you see!”
“Better call it by another name then. Emigration an opening for the
unmarried?” he suggested, taking up his hat.
Lady Middleton wrote it down. “I think,” she said with much enthusiasm,
“this may lead to a really important movement, Mr. Russell.”
Bert Russell walked through Grosvenor Square and looked towards the
City. The hospital was in the City.
“I wonder if she likes that parson,” he thought; “at any rate nurses get
off sometimes, she may let me take her out.”