by Jane Ashford
They reached the house late in the afternoon and spent the time before dinner settling in. Katharine was given a pleasant bedroom in the same wing as Elinor’s, looking out over a garden bursting with flowers. She unpacked her few things quickly, noting that she would have to send to town for more of her wardrobe, and then went to the window seat and stared blankly out, trying to decide what she should do. She could not continue living in London after what had happened these last weeks. Even if she stopped going out and returned to her former habits, she could not force herself to forget Lord Stonenden and his new wife. And, more than likely, she would sometimes encounter them, for she could not become a hermit—she had never wished that. No, it would be best for her to leave the city.
Perhaps she could travel. She had always wanted to see Italy, and Paris. Mary would accompany her; they could make a grand tour. But even as she thought this, Katharine sighed. A plan which once would have thrown her into ecstasies now seemed without attractions. In fact, nothing seemed right at this moment, and she could think of nothing she wanted to do or see in the entire world.
There was a tap on her door, and Elinor looked in. “I wanted to make sure you were comfortable,” she said. “Do you like this room? Would you prefer another?”
“No, this is fine,” replied Katharine.
Her cousin came farther into the room. “I also wanted to thank you again for coming, Katharine. It is so good of you. It will make a vast difference to me to have you here.” She eyed Katharine’s dour expression anxiously. “We need not stay in the house all the time, you know. We can go walking and riding, just the two of us. I hardly see Lady Agnes during the day; she is always busy with her housekeeping or one of her committees. She…she is very active in the neighborhood.”
Katharine smiled a little. “If I know Lady Agnes, she runs the neighborhood.”
Elinor giggled. “Well, she does. Or she would like to, at least. Her great rival, Lady Munsbury, is continually trying to outdo her.”
Katharine grimaced. “Well, we need not become entangled in that, at least. But I must certainly call on your family while I am down here, Elinor.”
“Oh, yes. Mama would be so happy to see you. We can go tomorrow, if you like. It is only six miles.”
“You will be glad to see your mother,” suggested Katharine.
“Oh, yes. Particularly if George has recovered; she is so distracted when one of the children is ill, she doesn’t hear one word in three.”
There was a pause. Both girls were lost in their own thoughts. Then a gong sounded below, and Elinor jumped. “That is the first bell for dinner. We must be down in half an hour. Oh, dear, Lady Agnes hates unpunctuality, and I have still to change.”
“I too. I will meet you downstairs.”
“Yes.” At the door, Elinor turned back. “It really was splendid of you to come, Katharine,” she said, and went out.
Katharine shook her head as she went to the wardrobe to get out her dinner dress. If Elinor knew the true reason for her coming, she would not, perhaps, think her so splendid. She might even, as Katharine herself did, label her cousin as sadly inept.
Dinner was stiff. Lady Agnes and Sir Lionel sat at opposite ends of a long polished table, saying little and eating heartily. Tom, on one side, did not speak at all, and Elinor, on the other, was very subdued. Katharine tried at first to start some uncontroversial conversation, but no one responded, and she soon subsided into silence as well. Her position was decidedly awkward. Her hostess clearly did not welcome her presence, and though Elinor certainly had some right to invite guests of her own, Lady Agnes made the imposition very evident in her manner. Katharine was relieved when the older woman rose and signaled the departure of the ladies. In the drawing room, one could at least read or try the pianoforte, away from Lady Agnes’s piercing eye.
She and Elinor played a duet, and then Elinor played while Katharine sang a ballad. In this way, they managed to pass the time until the gentlemen came in. The strain between Tom Marchington and his father kept them from lingering over their wine.
Tom came directly to Elinor when he walked in. “Would you like to walk in the garden a little?” he said to her.
“Oh.” Elinor looked at Katharine. “Well, I…”
“What a good idea,” responded the latter. “I was just going upstairs to write a letter to Mary. Good night.”
Both of the young people looked at her gratefully, and Katharine preceded them out of the room, saying good night to the older Marchingtons as she went. But when she reached her bedchamber, she did not go to the writing desk; rather, she sat again in the window and gazed out.
She saw Tom and Elinor strolling arm in arm down one of the paths. Tom was talking very earnestly. They sat down on a bench, and he leaned forward, occasionally punctuating his discourse with a gesture. Elinor answered at intervals, briefly. After about a quarter of an hour, Tom paused and took his wife’s hand, looking down at her. Elinor hesitated, then flung her arms around Tom’s neck.
Katharine rose and turned away, at once happy that the two had reached a new understanding and dispirited by her own solitary state. She shook herself and went resolutely across to the desk. She had promised to write to Mary, and she would do so. Self-pity did no one any good; it was far better to keep occupied.
The following day passed very slowly for Katharine. She went with Elinor to call on her family, and enjoyed the visit with her rather absentminded aunt, walked in the garden, tried to read two different novels, walked again, down to a stream behind the house, and finally returned to her bedchamber, amazed to find that it was only four o’clock. Boredom, added to unhappiness, was insupportable, and she berated herself for leaving her painting things behind in London. She could have sketched and done watercolors, at least, if she had them. She determined to ask Elinor if they had any paints in the house. But she also realized that she could not remain with the Marchingtons very long. A week was the most she could stand; she would break the news to Elinor tomorrow.
Dinner was a repetition of the previous day’s meal, though Tom and Elinor did talk a bit more. Afterward, Katharine took a shawl and went outside. She was not at all tired, and she hoped to walk until she was ready for sleep. But the solitary stroll merely gave her more time to think of her own problems, and she soon went back in to challenge Sir Lionel to a game of backgammon. She had been told that he was very fond of the game, and so it appeared from his eager acceptance; to Katharine it seemed as good a way as any to get through the evening.
The next day began for Katharine with a sense of despair. It was with her when she woke, and stayed as she washed and dressed and started down to breakfast. She was, she admitted to herself, wholly miserable.
Thus engrossed in her own unhappiness, she did not hear the sounds of a carriage outside the house, and only when the front door was opened as she descended the stairs did she look up. “Mary!” she exclaimed then. “What are you doing here?”
Mary Daltry gazed up at her. “I came to see you, of course. I must talk to you. But first, I would appreciate some breakfast. I started out before dawn. Do you think Lady Agnes would be so good?”
Katharine raised her eyebrows a little at her cousin’s truculent tone, but she said, “Of course. Leave your hat and come with me. I was just going in to breakfast. We will send the maid to tell Lady Agnes of your arrival.”
Mary laughed shortly. “That will please her, I imagine.”
Elinor was already in the breakfast room, so they had no private conversation during the meal. The girl was happy to see Mary, and chattered pleasantly; her spirits had improved a great deal since her talk with Tom in the garden. When they had finished, Mary pushed back her chair and said, “Come for a walk, Katharine. I want to talk to you.”
Mystified, Katharine got her hat, and they went out together. Mary led her to a secluded bench at the back of the garden and sat down with the air of one who means to stay awhile. “Now, then,” she said. “We shall get everything clear.”
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Sitting beside her, Katharine frowned. “Whatever do you mean, Mary?”
Her cousin looked stern. “I have kept quiet all along, because there is nothing I despise more than an interfering female, but now I must speak, because you are making a very serious mistake, Katharine.”
“Mistake?” She smiled. “If you mean by visiting the Marchingtons, I already know that.”
“I mean about Lord Stonenden.”
Katharine looked startled, then stood abruptly. “I don’t want to talk—”
“Sit down,” interrupted Mary, and Katharine was so surprised that she did so. “I shall speak, whether you wish it or not. And you will listen. Because, for once, I know more about a subject than you do.” She pressed her lips together and looked at her, as if daring her to contradict.
Katharine was so astonished that she could only return the stare, openmouthed.
“Good,” continued Mary. “Now. I realize that you believe Lord Stonenden is involved with the Countess Standen. No, don’t interrupt me until I have finished, Katharine. You are mistaken. He cares nothing at all for the countess. I know this. And I mean to prove it to you.”
Katharine remained silent, less from astonishment now than from a dawning, uncertain hope.
“I will start from the beginning,” said Mary. “You remember that when Elinor first came to us for help, Eliza Burnham suggested that we find someone more experienced to aid us. You did not care for the idea, but Eliza continued to think it wise, and she mentioned the problem to Lord Stonenden. Not directly, you understand, but through discreet hints.”
“She did not!” exclaimed Katharine. “Oh, Eliza!”
Mary nodded. “However, he admits that he dismissed the subject from his mind until he saw how gallantly you were behaving over the matter. He was struck by that and by…well, by your character altogether, and he determined to help you separate Tom and the countess.”
Katharine made an inarticulate noise.
Mary nodded again. “It was for this reason that he began to pay court to her. He thought that he could lure her away from Tom, making her lose interest in him. The countess is attracted by wealth and position, of course.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Lord Stonenden told me. Wait, and you will see how. And so, he conducted a campaign, escorting the countess to some events and hovering about her at others. But he found the thing more difficult than he had expected. The countess was flattered by Tom’s attentions, and she is a woman who likes to have a number of admirers. So the problem was not solved quickly.”
“He might have mentioned all this to me,” said Katharine.
“He was under the impression, for a long time, that you knew and understood what he was doing.”
“Nonsense! He cannot have thought anything of the kind.”
“He says he spoke to you about it.”
“That is ridiculous. He…” Abruptly Katharine remembered several of Stonenden’s remarks that had seemed quite unfathomable at the time. He could have been talking about this affair.
Mary noticed her changed expression. “He says he did think it. But at some point, he received the impression that you still had a low opinion of him, and he nearly abandoned the whole scheme.”
Katharine flushed.
“However, he later took it up again, and finally managed to bring it to a successful conclusion. He had discovered your ignorance in the meantime, and he asked me and Eliza Burnham to arrange matters so that you could observe the final outcome.”
“Is that the reason for Eliza’s odd behavior at her party?” said Katharine. “You should be ashamed, both of you, for not telling me.”
“I am sorry for that. I wished to, but Lord Stonenden felt that a demonstration would be much more effective. Unfortunately, the scene was interrupted before you could see the end. Lord Stonenden broke with the countess that evening, just after our departure. So, you see, he has played a noble part. Indeed, Katharine, I think he is admirable, a true gentleman.”
“But is that all?” replied the girl. “Is there nothing about the portrait?”
“Lord Stonenden’s portrait? What do you mean? That had nothing to do with the countess.”
“No, the countess’s portrait.”
Mary frowned and shook her head.
“Did he not explain about that?”
At Mary’s denial, Katharine told her about the countess’s call on the day of her departure. “She sounded very sure of herself,” she finished. “Are you certain of what you have been told?”
“There must be some mistake,” answered Mary.
“Pardon me, but isn’t it perhaps possible that you have made a mistake?”
“But why would Stonenden tell me such a complicated story if it were not true? It makes no sense.”
“Why would the countess approach me for a portrait?”
Mary’s face cleared. “For revenge, of course. It would be just like her. She knew that Stonenden had separated her from Tom. She would connect that with you, because of the picture.”
Her implication made Katharine flush again, but she was also taken aback. It could be true.
“Katharine, is it more likely that Lord Stonenden lied to me, or that the countess deceived you? I consider myself a fair judge of character, and I would pledge my word that Stonenden was serious.”
Katharine looked distressed.
“Haven’t you perhaps judged him too harshly?” her cousin added.
“He was always so odiously unfeeling,” replied the girl defensively.
“Always?”
Katharine remembered several occasions when he had been just the opposite. “Well, but he should have told me what he meant to do, Mary. He simply does as he pleases, not caring what other people may think,” she cried, trying to recapture her anger.
“He thought you knew, Katharine.”
The girl acknowledged this by bowing her head and gazing at her clasped hands. Mary’s argument was convincing. Indeed, she was probably right, but something in Katharine remained stubbornly annoyed. She had not, after all, asked for Lord Stonenden’s bounty, and she resented her present feelings of guilt for having misjudged him. She shrugged. “Very well. I shall thank him when I am next in town.”
“But, Katharine—”
“What do you want of me? I admit that he was a great help. We could not have gotten Tom free without him. But does that mean that I must kneel in gratitude? I did not ask his help. Why did he intrude?”
“I think you know that quite well.” Mary looked steadily at her.
“I don’t. I can’t be expected to know things when he refuses to tell me. He should have explained things himself.”
“Oh, he means to. I nearly drove the servants distracted getting off before him. I decided to prepare the way because I thought he deserved a better reception than the one he was likely to get. I daresay he will arrive this afternoon.”
“What!” Katharine stood. “But he can’t come here. What shall I say to him? Oh, he is impossible! Why could he not write, or…or…?”
“He thought you would refuse to see him.”
“So I should. So I will! Oh, Mary, why did you not tell him to stay away?”
“Because I thought he should come, of course. And I think you are acting very foolishly, Katharine.”
“You don’t know how I feel. I cannot face him. Oh, what am I going to do?”
“You owe him a chance to explain.”
“I don’t! I don’t owe him anything.” Katharine laughed a little hysterically. “He owes me, for his portrait. Perhaps I shall ask him for my fee.”
“Katharine, be sensible!”
At this sharp remark, the girl regained control of herself. “I am sorry, Mary. I feel a bit unwell. I think I will lie down for a while.”
“A splendid idea. You need time to think.”
Katharine began a sharp retort, then shrugged and turned away. She hardly knew what she felt.
“I will f
ind Lady Agnes and pay my respects,” continued Mary calmly. “I don’t suppose she will be pleased to see me. I think I will stay with Elinor’s family. I haven’t seen them in an age.”
With this, she rose and walked up the path, leaving Katharine staring after her blankly.
Twenty-three
Katharine was never certain later precisely how she passed the morning after hearing Mary’s story. She walked a good deal, through the house and in the garden and finally down to the stream behind the park. She remembered seeing Elinor; the younger girl spoke, but Katharine did not stop, leaving her cousin staring after her. A kind of urgent tension made it impossible for her to be still, and she felt it was imperative that she order her thoughts before Lord Stonenden’s promised arrival. Yet the greater her efforts to do so, the more disordered they became.
What puzzled her most was that she felt little relief at Mary’s revelations. For days she had been cast down by the thought that Stonenden loved the countess, but now that she saw the falseness of this idea, she remained dissatisfied, in a state of nervous irritation. Indeed, she was, if anything, more restless. Why should this be? And why did she not feel more kindly toward the man who had taken such pains to help her? She thought of Stonenden now with angry impatience.
At last, tired out, Katharine sat down on a large flat rock beside the stream. She had missed luncheon, but she was not hungry, and she was hardly aware of the beauty of her surroundings, though this sheltered spot was one of her favorite retreats on the Marchington estate. She leaned on one hand and bent over the water, flecked with gold in the afternoon sun. It gave back the reflection of the willow which overhung the stream here, shading the rock and dappling the current with a moving pattern of light, and of Katharine herself. Her pale primrose muslin gown blended into the bright scene, but her face was tense and anxious. After a while, however, the sound of the water began to calm her. She sighed deeply and sat back.