Ivingdon was one of those villages, common to the chalk district, that
cease to possess any charm in the wet weather. The small ranges of
round-topped hills which formed the only feature in the flat green
stretches of country entirely lost the few characteristics they
possessed, in the absence of sunshine, and presented neither charm nor
majesty in the heavy grey atmosphere that surrounded them. The
landscape appeared even less inspiriting than usual to Katharine, on a
rainy day in the late autumn, as she plodded through the most squalid
part of the village, and prepared to walk home through a kind of mist
that had none of the exhilarating qualities of the stormy rain that
always appealed to her. After four months of dull and virtuous
renunciation, such a day as this was likely to hasten the reaction
that had become inevitable. It was tea time when she reached the
Rectory; and the aspect of the precisely arranged table, with its
rigid erection of double dahlias in the middle, and the starched
figure of Miss Esther at the head of it, completed the feeling of
revulsion in her mind.
"My dear," said her aunt, as Katharine flung herself into a chair,
"have you no intention of making yourself tidy before we begin?"
"My only intention is that of having tea as speedily as possible,"
replied Katharine. "If Peter Bunce, or any other depressing personage
is likely to turn up, he may as well see me in my wet weather hat as
in anything else. Besides, I rather like myself in my wet weather hat,
in spite of the disapproval it has excited among the gods of the
neighbourhood."
She waited instinctively for the reproof that usually came as an
accompaniment to her criticism of the neighbourhood; but Miss Esther
for once was preoccupied, and allowed her to go on undisturbed. "Mrs.
Jones has got another baby," continued Katharine. "That's the seventh.
And Farmer Rickard seems to have seized the opportunity to turn her
husband off for the winter. There positively isn't another scrap of
news,--so may I have some tea?"
"Talking of babies," observed the Rector, looking up from his book,
"I heard this morning that some one was going to be married. Now,
whoever could it have been, I wonder!"
"I didn't know," said Katharine, "that any one was left to be married
in this village, above the age of sixteen."
"Ah, to be sure," continued the Rector, smiling at his unusual effort
of memory, "it was your cousin Marion. You remember Alicia Keeley, do
you not, Esther? Well, this is her daughter; they both came to stay
with us some years ago, if you remember; and she is to be married to a
barrister, whose name--my child, that is the third time I have passed
you the butter, and you have already helped yourself twice--whose name
is Paul Wilton. It's very odd," he added, with his nervous laugh,
"but, although the name is perfectly familiar to me, I do not seem to
recollect the man in the least. The only Wilton I can recall with
certainty is the exceedingly able and scholarly author of our best
work on copper tokens; but--"
"Well, this is his son, of course, Cyril," interrupted Miss Esther
impatiently. "I should not have thought it required much effort to
remember the man who enjoyed your hospitality for at least two
months. A very nice young man he was, too,--of an excellent family,
and with a delicate regard for propriety which was most fortunate
considering the embarrassing circumstances in which we were placed at
the time. So he is going to marry into the family? What a coincidence!
I don't remember much about Marion, she was so young when she stayed
here; but if she has grown up at all like that terribly advanced
mother of hers, poor Mr. Wilton will have his hands full. How did he
meet her, I wonder? Did you ever see him in Curzon street, Katharine?"
"Sometimes; they were engaged early in the summer. But it isn't a bit
important, is it?" said Katharine.
"You knew they were engaged, and you have kept it to yourself all this
time?" exclaimed her aunt. "I really think you are the most
exasperating girl, Katharine!"
"Why? I suppose it is rather cruel, though, to rob any one of the
smallest piece of gossip, in a place like this," observed Katharine
sarcastically.
"To be sure! to be sure! I remember him perfectly," the Rector was
chuckling gleefully. "A delightful young fellow, with some knowledge
of Oriental china. We must send them a little present, my
dear,--something he would be able to appreciate. There is a delightful
Elizabethan chest at Walker's--"
"I see no necessity for a wedding present at all," interrupted Miss
Esther. "We only know him very slightly, and we haven't seen the
Keeleys for years. If Katharine likes to send her cousin a little
remembrance, that is her own affair and she can do as she likes," she
added, with a princely condescension. "I really wonder, Cyril, that
you can make such an extravagant suggestion, with the poor crying out
at your very doors!"
The Rector reflected on the beauty of the old oak chest he had coveted
for weeks, and sighed deeply. Katharine roused herself, and laughed in
a distinctly forced manner.
"Send them your blessing, auntie," she said; "and congratulate Mr.
Wilton on his good fortune in entering our particular family. I am
sure it must be an alliance he has coveted ever since he first made
our acquaintance! It will only cost a penny stamp, and I am sure the
poor of the village will not grudge that for such a laudable object.
Hey-day, do let us talk about something else! Do you know the Grange
is put up for sale?"
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Miss Esther, who was as easily diverted
as a child. "Dear me! and poor Mrs. Morton hardly laid to her last
rest! The want of feeling that that young Edward has shown throughout
is almost incredible. To requite the lifelong devotion of his mother
by selling her old home a month after her death! Ah, well, I suppose
we have all done our work here, and it is time for us to follow her!"
"What rubbish!" cried Katharine hotly. "Why should he pretend to be
fond of his mother just because she is dead? She was never a bit fond
of him, when she was alive, and he wanted her affection badly enough
then. Besides, it can't matter to her whether the house is sold or
not, and I expect he wants the money."
"Money? Why, she has left him every penny she had,--so what more can
he want? I know she did, for a fact, because the housekeeper told me
so."
"I shouldn't dream of disputing such an excellent authority, but I do
know her generosity was purely accidental, and that she would have
made another will if she had not been taken ill so suddenly," said
Katharine, getting up and walking to the window. The view outside,
with the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, was as cheerless as the
conversation within.
"The house ought not to be allowed to stand," said the Rector, with an
indignation that he never bestowed on the human imperfections so
bitterly deplored by his sister. "A wretched modern thing, belonging
to the very worst period of domestic art!"
"They are doing it up," said Katharine from the window. "I wonder,"
she added softly to the sodden lawn and the dripping trees, "if he
knows that they have mended the gap in the hedge?" Perhaps it was only
the dulness of the weather that was depressing her, but her eyes, as
she laid her cheek against the window-pane, were full of tears. Miss
Esther continued her speculations unconsciously.
"I suppose he will travel," she said. "It amounts to seven hundred a
year, the housekeeper told me; and I'm sure it's seven hundred more
than he deserves, the unfeeling fellow!"
"It isn't his fault that he didn't get on with his mother," said
Katharine. "People can't choose their relations, can they? And I'm
sure, under the present system, every obstacle is put in the way of
our hitting it off with our own people."
She was almost surprised at her own vehemence in Ted's defence. She
had never seen him since the day he had called on her in Queen's
Crescent and rejected the affection she so tardily offered him, and
the smart of that rejection was still present with her, gently as he
had expressed it; but she could no more suppress her old instinct of
protection for him than she could control her thoughts.
"I find it quite impossible to understand you, when you are in these
heartless moods," said her aunt crossly.
"Am I heartless?" said Katharine, with her eyes still full of tears.
"I suppose that must be it; I wondered what was the matter with me
this afternoon. Of course I am in one of my heartless moods. Oh, dear,
how stupid it all is!" She sighed desperately, and turned away from
the dreary outlook. "I'm sorry I didn't gather any more news in my
excursion to the village," she went on presently, with an obvious
effort to be agreeable. "Oh, I forgot,--I met the doctor."
"Yes? What had he to say for himself?" asked Miss Esther, whose
dignity was always subject to her curiosity.
"He asked me to marry him, and I refused," answered Katharine; and she
broke into a peal of laughter at the immediate effect of her words.
"What? Really, Katharine, you are perfectly incorrigible," said Miss
Esther, in a tone that was expressive rather of incredulity than of
disapproval.
"It's very odd," observed Katharine, "that one has only to tell the
truth to be disbelieved. And I'm sure I was very sorry to be obliged
to refuse him, because I felt there was no one else in the place he
could possibly ask. Poor doctor!"
Miss Esther said a rapid grace to show how outraged she felt, and
walked out of the room without another word. Katharine sighed once
more and looked across at her father, who was apparently absorbed in
his book and oblivious of what had been passing. But Katharine's
acquaintance with the world, short as it had been, had considerably
widened her vision, and she knew somehow as she looked at him that he
was not reading at that moment.
"Daddy, dear daddy!" she cried, impetuously, "I couldn't help it this
afternoon, I couldn't, really! I believe I have a devil in me some
days, and this is one of them. Daddy, forgive me for being so selfish
and horrid; I hate myself for my abominable temper, I do indeed. I
think I have never been so miserable in my whole life before!"
"My child, what is it? I don't think I quite understand," said the
Rector gently. She came and sat on the arm of his chair, and he
stroked her hair mechanically.
"Of course you don't,--how should you?" she exclaimed, half laughing
to hide the shake in her voice. "But I wish I knew why I have these
bad fits; I would do just anything to get better, but _I can't_! When
I don't feel wretched I feel absurd, and that's ever so much worse.
Why is it that I feel like this, daddy?"
"Shall we send for the doctor?" asked the Rector innocently; and he
wondered why she seemed amused.
"I don't fancy he would care to come just yet," she said, demurely.
They were silent for a few moments. The Rector asked her presently if
she would like to go away again.
"I don't know; I don't seem to want anything. Ivingdon is intolerable;
but I said I would endure it for your sake, and it seems so feeble
merely to have failed again. After all, I haven't done the least atom
of good by giving up my work and coming home, have I?"
The Rector remembered many incidents in the last four months, and did
not contradict her; but his silence was so habitual to him that she
hardly noticed it.
"Self-sacrifice is all very well in theory," she went on
disconsolately, "but if nobody wants you to sacrifice yourself, what's
the good of it? I don't believe there is a single Christian virtue
that works properly, when you come to practise it; and I've wasted
four good months in finding it out. Oh, dear, what a mortal idiot I've
been! I wish you understood, daddy," she added wistfully.
"I'm not sure that I don't, Kitty," he said tentatively, and waited to
be contradicted.
"I believe you do; I believe you always have understood!" she cried.
"But I always expect too much from people, and I never can take any
one on trust. How I can be so unlike you is a mystery to me."
"You are like your dear mother, bless her," said the Rector with
unconscious humour; and they became silent again.
"Do you know," she went on presently, "if you'd promise not to mind,
daddy, I half think I'd like to go away again, for a while. I've still
got some money, you know, and I might try Paris, or some new place.
It seems hopeless to stay on here, and worry Aunt Esther by
everything I do or say; I know she considers me the cross she has to
bear, but it seems a waste of Christian resignation, doesn't it?"
"Paris?" said the Rector with animation. "By all means go to
Paris,--the most delightful place in the world! When I was a boy in
Paris-- Dear, dear, how it all comes back to me! That was before I was
ordained, to be sure; ah, those were days to be remembered! I can give
you an introduction to a friend of mine in Paris, Monsieur--Monsieur--
Ah, it's gone now. But I can tell you the names of all his books. A
charming fellow; knew everything and did everything; there was nothing
too daring for him in those days. You'll get on with him, Kitty; the
most delightful companion a man could have, in fact!" The old Rector
was laughing like a schoolboy at his reminiscences.
"That's all very well," said Katharine rather cruelly; "but what will
Aunt Esther say?"
"Ah," said the Rector, looking about him apprehensively, "there is
certainly Esther to be considered."
"Yes, there is!" sighed Katharine. And she added impetuously, "Poor
daddy! what a saint you must have been all these years! I wonder why I
never realised it before?"
"Oh, no," said the Rector, smiling. "I'm nothing but an old fool, who
was never fit to have a daughter at all. Your mother ought to have
left me to vegetate among my books, bless her heart!"
Katharine looked at him reflectively.
"I am beginning to understand," she said, in her quaint, thoughtful
manner. "It has puzzled me all these months, but you have made it come
quite clear at last. I see now what they meant by calling me a prig:
it is because I have none of the qualities that would prevent you from
ever becoming one."
"A prig?" said her father inquiringly.
"Ah," said Katharine, "it is something of too modern a growth to have
come within your ken." She slipped off her seat, and began pacing
restlessly up and down the room.
"A prig," she continued, more to herself than to her father, who was
watching her narrowly nevertheless, "a prig is one who tries to break
what the ordinary person is pleased to call the law of Nature, and to
substitute the law of his own reason instead. It doesn't matter that
this is what we are brought up to do, for the ordinary person insists
on our forgetting that we are intelligent beings, and only wants us to
run in the same rut as himself. And the ordinary person is very happy,
so perhaps he is right. Education makes us all prigs, and we have to
sit and wait for the particular experience that is to undo the effects
of our education. It is great waste of time to be educated, isn't it?
We are told that it is priggish to have ideals, and that is why being
young is generally equivalent to being priggish. The world won't
tolerate ideals; it sneers at us for trying to find out new ways of
being good, and it likes to see us for ever grubbing among the same
old ways of being bad. Did you know all this before, daddy? But you
never told me, did you? Do parents ever tell their children anything
useful, I wonder? Oh, I don't think so; we just have to go on until we
find it all out, and break our hearts over it, most likely!" She
paused to give a little bitter laugh. The Rector had an intent look on
his face that was foreign to it. "I should like to know," she went on,
more gently, "if it isn't possible to be brave, or steadfast, or true,
without being a prig; it simply means that we have got to go on trying
to be better than we are, and pretending that we don't know it all
the while. It is such an anomalous position for a thinking person,
isn't it? And yet, if we are honest about it we proclaim ourselves
prigs at once. _I_ am a prig, daddy. Did you know that too? I have
gloried all my life in being above the ordinary littlenesses of
womanhood; and then, when my hour came, I just learned that I was the
same old woman after all. I was proud of knowing so much, and all the
time I did not know what every ignorant woman in the world could have
told me. Oh, the world is right, after all; I know it! But it has such
uncomfortable ways of convincing us, hasn't it? I'm not bothering you,
daddy, am I?" She stopped, and looked at him anxiously. The Rector did
not speak. "Nothing will ever make you a prig," continued Katharine as
she resumed her restless walk, "or Ted either, or Marion Keeley.
Lovable people are never priggish, are they? Oh, I am never going to
try to be anything, again. I shall become as much like the ordinary
person as I can; I will let boys like Monty make love to me, and
pretend that I like it; I will let myself go, and hide away my old
feelings which were real ones, and invent a whole set of new ones for
everyday use. Oh, dear, how absurd it all is! To make one's life a
long course of deception, in order to prove to the world that we are
real! And yet, that is the only way to avoid being called a prig. It
is ridiculous to pretend that we care for what the big people think of
us. We don't. It is the little, commonplace, ordinary folk, with the
commonplace minds and the commonplace views, who make up our audience;
and we acknowledge it all our lives by being afraid of their
criticism. We play to them, and to them only, from the moment we begin
to think for ourselves, until Providence is good enough to ring down
the curtain. We make a wretched compromise with our real selves, in
order to get through life without being laughed at for taking it
seriously. And the end of it all is that we have to suffer our own
contempt, instead of the commonplace person's. But everybody does the
same, so it must be right, mustn't it? Daddy," she added suddenly, as
she came to a standstill before him, "daddy, do you think, if I don't
try to be good any more, that I shall ever become just an ordinary
pleasant person,--someone whom people will care to fall in love with?
It would be so comforting to feel that people cared to fall in love
with me. I am so tired of being thought clever and nothing else;
cleverness seems like a kind of blight that helps one to miss the
biggest thing in life. At least, I have missed it, and everybody says
I am clever. Why don't you answer me, daddy? Why, daddy! I--I do
believe you're crying!"
"No, my child, you are mistaken," said Cyril Austen hastily. "I have
been overworking my eyes lately, that is all. You mustn't talk like
that, little girl; it--it makes me unhappy. I should never have
allowed you to go away by yourself, should I? I'm a useless old-- But
there, it is too late now. Let us talk about this Paris plan of yours.
What if I were to come too, eh?"
"It would be beautiful!" cried Katharine. "But there is still Aunt
Esther, isn't there?"
"Ah, yes!" said the Rector ruefully. "So stupid of me to forget!"
They made themselves very happy for a day or two over the Paris plan.
They met like guilty conspirators when Miss Esther was out of the way,
and amused themselves by arranging a scheme which they knew quite well
she would never allow them to carry out. Katharine's spirits recovered
something of their old vigour; and Miss Esther felt more bewildered
than ever when she suddenly appeared in this new mood, and refused to
have anything more to do with the parish.
"I am tired of good works," she announced vigorously. "They don't
answer, and they destroy one's self-respect. Some people are cut out
for that sort of thing, but I am not, and I am going to leave it to
those who are. I am never again going to make myself uncomfortable by
visiting people in their unpleasant homes. I don't want to go, for one
thing; and it isn't good for them to be patronised, for another.
Besides, they can't refuse to see me in any case, and I don't like
forcing myself upon people in that uninvited manner. I am going to be
happy in my own way, and that will give them a much fairer chance of
being happy in theirs. I've done with the whole thing." And she
returned cheerfully to the map of Paris.
But her new-found contentment was not to be allowed a long duration. A
letter came for her a few days later, which altered the whole aspect
of affairs, and finally quenched the Paris plan. The writing was
unfamiliar to her, and she had to turn to the end of the closely
written pages to discover who had sent it to her.
"Dear Miss Austen," it ran:--
"It may be a matter of great surprise to you to hear from me
in this unexpected manner. Nothing but the deep interest I
feel in one who is, I have reason to believe, as great a
friend of yours as of mine would give me the courage to take
up my pen and write to you. I have for some time past been
observing Ted's career with distress, if not with the deepest
concern. You probably know that he gave up his work in the
city on the death of Mrs. Morton, so I will not trouble you
with more details than necessity compels you to hear. Of
course you will understand the diffidence with which I
approach you on so delicate a matter; but my great friendship,
or what I might call our _mutual_ friendship, for Ted Morton
has given me the requisite courage. I do not know the reason
for what I am about to break to you; in fact, to be explicit,
I have not the slightest idea of what led him to take such a
step, but I have my own conjectures about the matter, and
these I will lay before you as briefly as the occasion
demands. For some time past, indeed, I may say for months, he
has been very depressed, and has tried to drown his trouble,
whatever it might be, in distractions of various kinds. Do not
for one moment suppose that I am making any insinuation
detrimental to Ted's reputation; far from it! But there is no
doubt that he has grown somewhat reckless in disposition,
owing possibly to this same mysterious trouble of his, and
this has hurried on the crisis which it is now my business to
communicate to you. But to avoid unnecessary details, let me
at once tell you in plain language what has happened to him.
Three days ago I met him in the Strand about seven o'clock,
and asked him to come and dine with me. He refused, with none
of the punctilious courtesy that usually characterises him,
and I left him thinking, strange as it might seem, that he
preferred to be alone. But on going to look him up at his
chambers last night, I found him in the condition which it has
become my obvious duty to describe to you. Fortunately, the
ingenuous disposition, which has made him feel his trouble
much longer than most men, has also saved him from this last
and worst step of all; for, in his ignorance, he took too
large a dose of laudanum, and the effect has mercifully been
injurious instead of fatal. He is now--"
Katharine read no more. Nothing further could be of importance after
she had learnt so much. Ted had tried to destroy himself, and it was
on her account.
"Whatever is the matter, Katharine? I have asked you the same question
three times," Miss Esther was saying crossly. Katharine stared at her
in reply, with large, terrified eyes. Her aunt repeated her question,
and tried to possess herself of the letter. Katharine came to herself
with a start, and snatched it back again, and thrust it into her
father's hand.
"Read it, daddy," she tried to say, but no sound came; she seemed
possessed of a great horror that robbed her of every faculty. The
Rector smoothed out the letter silently, glanced at the florid
signature, "Barrington Montague," and began to read it without waiting
to put on his glasses. Miss Esther looked from one to the other, and
was divided between her curiosity and her annoyance.
"Really, Katharine, you are quite devoid of manners. Am I not to have
the right to ask a simple question in my own house? Who is the letter
from, and what is it all about?"
Dorcas lingered by the door as long as she dared, under pretence of
being wanted; but Miss Esther, who never relaxed her vigilance even in
a crisis, detected the subterfuge and ordered her sharply out of the
room. The accustomed tone of reproof helped Katharine to recover
herself. She drew a deep breath, and made an effort to speak.
"Ted is dying," she said. "They are afraid to tell me, but I know it
is so. And it is I who have killed him, _I_! I am going to him at
once."
The Rector was blinking his eyes as he finished reading the letter.
Miss Esther held out her hand again.
"I insist upon your giving me that letter, Cyril," she said in her
discordant voice. Katharine struck down her hand fiercely. Her
numbness was giving way to a kind of passionate frenzy.
"Leave it alone, Aunt Esther!" she cried vehemently. "It is no
business of yours; you don't understand; nobody understands. I have
made Ted take his life. I am going to him _now_."
The last sentence was the only one that reached Miss Esther's
comprehension; she at once took up her usual attitude of disapproval.
"Indeed, Katharine, you will do nothing of the kind," she exclaimed
querulously. "What are we coming to next, I wonder? I sincerely trust,
Cyril, that you will point out to your daughter that it is quite
impossible for her to visit a young man in his chambers. I really wish
that tiresome young Edward would emigrate, or marry, or do something
that would put him out of the way. What has he been doing now, I
wonder?"
Katharine paid no heed; her eyes were fixed feverishly on her father's
face.
"Ted is ill, and he wants me. You will let me go, daddy, won't you?"
she said imploringly.
"I beg you to assert your authority, Cyril, by forbidding such a mad
piece of folly," cried the shrill tones of Miss Esther. Katharine
turned upon her furiously.
"_You_, what can _you_ know about it? You have never known what it is
to want to protect some one; you don't know the awful emptiness of
having no one to care for. Daddy! you understand, don't you? I may go,
mayn't I?"
The Rector glanced from one to the other. He had not put on his
glasses, but he did not seem to want them just then. Slowly the
tyranny of twenty years was losing its terrors for him; he even forgot
to laugh nervously as the two women stood awaiting his answer; and
although there was a smile on his face as he looked at them, it had
only been called there by a reflection on his folly in the past. He
marvelled at himself, as his eyes rested on the glowing features of
his daughter, for ever having hesitated to support her.
"The child is in the right, Esther," he said, mildly. "I--I am fond of
the dear boy myself, and he must not be left in the hour of his need.
We will go together, eh, Kitty?"
Miss Esther stared at him dumbly. She had never heard him speak like
that before. After all, nothing is so convincing as the sudden
assumption of power by the oppressed; and few things are more
complete than the humiliation of the oppressor.
"Let me see," continued the Rector: "we cannot catch anything before
the 1.28. That will give us time for an early lunch, if you will
kindly see to it, Esther. Kitty, my child, do not fret over the boy;
we will soon put him to rights, eh?"
Katharine remained immovable, with Monty's letter crunched in her
hand. "Ted has tried to kill himself--for _me_," were the words that
ran remorselessly in her mind.
Cyril Austen walked out of the room with a firm step. Miss Esther
rattled her keys, muttered something to herself, and followed him
almost immediately.
She was dethroned at last.