by A. J. Cronin
Katharine nodded, her eyes suddenly distant and unfathomable. “Yes,” she replied, “ just these next few weeks, then we’ll be all right.”
With a powerful effort she recalled herself. She rose and threw on her hat. “Let’s go and display the Holbein. By the way, you might care to see it.”
Breuget took the miniature and studied it with a reverential, enraptured eye. “ Beautiful, beautiful,” he murmured finally.
Beside him, Katharine considered the miniature with new eyes, touched by a vague new pity. The portrait lived for her now, invested with a strangely human interest. Here, in those features which bore some resemblance to her own, lay the foretaste of an equal sadness. Here, perhaps, was a destiny of solitude and sadness which she must also follow. Insensibly Katharine felt a flowing outward of herself, as though her spirit, trembling upon the edge of light, merged with the spirit of Lucie de Quercy. It was a strange emotion, a sense of dissolving into space and time, a faint reverberation of the echoes of the past heard amidst the crashing tumult of this great city, only in the secret places of her heart.
Breuget was speaking again. “And very strange, too, Miss Lorimer; it is so remarkably like you.”
Katharine made a quick gesture which concealed the stab his words gave her. She answered almost harshly: “The next one who says that, I’m going to heave a brick at him.” She swung round and led the way abruptly towards the door.
They walked down the Avenue together towards the office, a little bandbox of a place sandwiched between a smart dressmaker’s and a fashionable florist’s. On the way, since it was after one o’clock, Katharine treated the old man to lunch; and, since no illusions lay between them on the economic situation, they went to Childs, where they each had a club sandwich with dill pickles, followed by coffee and angel cake.
Shaking off her mood, Katharine enjoyed the savoury, typically American food. The crowds of business girls about her, rushing through their midday meal, revived in her the consciousness of her own career. It stirred her, too, when they reached the office, to place the miniature in the tiny, bronze-girded window against a background of wine-coloured Genoese velvet, and to reflect how accurately this simple act epitomized her present undivided purpose.
When Ascher dropped in on a visit of inspection, she was pleased by his evident approval. He was the most expert of the New York dealers, and she saw that her purchase impressed him favourably. But later, walking back to her hotel alone, her spirits sagged, and a physical lassitude fell upon her.
Back in her apartment she found that Nancy had arrived and, having scattered her things about her bedroom—an act known to Nancy as unpacking—was now stretched upon the couch under a reading lamp with a tea tray at her side. The sight, in all its gentle hedonism, did something towards restoring Katharine. She kicked off her shoes and pulled on slippers. Another minute and she had shed her costume and, in an old soft afternoon gown of dove-grey colour, was seated beside Nancy, pouring herself tea. She observed, with a twitch of her lips, that Nancy had contemptuously rejected the standard little muslin bag usually offered by the hotel in favour of the private blend which Katharine had brought especially from London.
“Had a good time?” she inquired cheerfully.
“Marvellous, darling.” Nancy looked up from her study of the play and fixed her large, luminous eyes on Katharine. “Most successful lunch, with the most delicious oysters—blue points, I think Chris said—and a heavenly thing called squab. Then I took Chris down to the theatre. Everyone was sweet. The Imperial gets in next Thursday with Bertram, Paula Brent, and the others. We start rehearsals then. I’m loving New York, Katharine, and I bet you a new hat it’s going to love me.”
Nancy helped herself to the last macaroon and nibbled it complacently. “You haven’t seen the papers, I suppose, darling? They’re there on the floor beside you. Rather fun, on the whole. Half a column in most and four really marvellous photographs.”
Katharine picked up the news sheets and read them carefully. “Yes, they’re splendid,” she remarked when she had finished. “You’ve hit America quite hard!”
Nancy smiled, then stretched herself like a contented kitten. “Everyone is so marvellous to me, Katharine. Chris has been such a dear all day. I’m terribly in love with him, really. You know, he wants me to marry him right away, after the opening of the show. And I rather think I must. It would be rather fun, too, if I made a hit on the first night— and I may tell you, darling, I’ve got an idea I’m going to have a success!—and followed it up by getting married in the real romantic style.” She paused abruptly. “ You like Chris, don’t you, darling?”
“You know I do.”
“He likes you,” Nancy continued. “ He likes you a lot. He talked of you at lunch to-day. He wants you to have a meal with us to-morrow or the next day in his rooms at the Waldorf.”
Katharine stared at Nancy in surprise.
“Do you mean he’s staying at the Waldorf?”
“Yes, darling. Why not? Oh, I know Chris likes a quiet little pub,” she smiled, “but I prefer the bright lights. And I persuaded him.”
“But it’s frightfully expensive there.” A sudden resolution took hold of Katharine. “ Listen, Nancy, are you sure Chris can afford all this running around, flowers, presents, expensive hotels? If he can’t, it isn’t fair to demand it of him.”
“He hasn’t complained,” Nancy answered coolly.
“Do you think he would complain? He’s not that sort. I hate saying this, Nancy, but we do want to be honest about it!”
Nancy smiled her ingenuous smile. “Don’t worry, darling. Chris is all right. He’s what they call a big shot in Cleveland. A little bird has told Nancy. Now don’t look cross. I’m not going to argue about it. I’ve argued enough this afternoon over this Vermont trip.”
There was a silence. Nancy was clearly in her airiest, most superficial mood, a mood which Katharine always found most trying.
Katharine said eventually: “ You mean Chris wants you to go down to meet his mother?”
“Yes,” said Nancy with a resigned nod. “And all the uncles and forty-second cousins. And a chorus of villagers, I suppose. He’s asked us to leave on Thursday. For two days or even three. Just when I’m getting all wound up to begin rehearsals. Can you imagine it? In the dead of winter, too, chucking New York for some God-forsaken spot in the country.”
“Some people like the country.”
“They can have it.”
“You must go,” Katharine said seriously. “You really must.”
“Then you must come with me,” pouted Nancy.
Katharine’s brow gathered into lines of deep perplexity. She saw she must go, or Nancy might not go at all.
“I can’t come on Thursday,” she said slowly. “But if you wish, I’ll follow you the next day.”
“All right,” Nancy rejoined with a smile. “ That’ll have to do. And now let’s stop talking about it. Turn on the radio and let’s have some snappy music.”
Chapter Eleven
On Friday morning Katharine sat in the express for Vermont en route for Graysville. She was alone, since Madden and Nancy had gone up the day before, and, sunk in the cushioned upholstery of the warm Pullman, she rubbed the steamy window with her gloved fingers and let her gaze absorb the frigid landscape which breathlessly flashed past her. Outside it was bitter cold. The train rocked through the frozen countryside, on and on, faster, louder, devouring distances which still reached illimitably onward.
The day wore on. Towards evening Katharine had to change to a local. Then on again, into a red haze of sunset which saddled the bleak earth with a strange celestial glory. Half an hour later the conductor padded along the aisle.
“Graysville in five minutes, ma’am,” he murmured gently.
A little rush of emotion came over Katharine—the sense of her approaching destination, mingled with anticipation, curiosity, and a certain touch of dread. Swiftly came a quick hiss of steam and a harsh grinding of br
akes, then the train rumbled to a stop, and she was out on the small bare platform, the sole passenger alighting, her suitcase beside her, her cheeks whipped by the keen wind, her eyes searching the deserted station with a kind of nervous expectation.
Immediately a man detached himself from the dark background of the empty station shed and came towards her. He was elderly, sinewy, and bandy-legged, with a short leather jacket and a chauffeur’s peaked cap, beneath which his weathered face wore a grin of amiable welcome.
“You’ll be Miss Lorimer,” he declared with a broadening of his grin. “I’m Hickey.” He picked up her case. “ Come along. I’ve got the automobile outside the depot.”
She followed the little man outside the station to the car, a high green coupé of a model at least ten years old, but so marvellously preserved and spotless that its coachwork shone like lustre and its metalwork like glass. Even the tyres were pipe-clayed immaculately. Hickey’s pride in the machine was apparent as he handed Katharine in, whirred the old pistons to life, and bowled sedately down Main Street. There were few people about, but for such as stamped along the sidewalk Hickey had a wave of a hand, a genial and wholly comprehensive salute.
“Ain’t many folks around,” he informed Katharine companionably. “Mostly gone skatin’. Season’s just started, an’ they’re all mighty set on it. Mr Chris said to tell you ’cept for the ice they’d ’a’ bin down to the depot to meet you pers’n’lly.”
“Is the skating good?” asked Katharine, half-smiling in return.
“Sure,” answered the old man with his friendly tobacco-stained grin. “If it ain’t, it ought to be. Theer’s thirty mile of lake froze’ here.”
As though to point his remark he drew up the car at this juncture and with vigorous pantomime invited a couple marching ahead with their skates, who laughingly hailed him, to clamber into the rumble seat. They were a girl and her brother, second cousins of the Maddens, Hickey confided to Katharine as they started off again. There seemed, indeed, no limit to the old fellow’s encyclopedic garrulity. While he ran on, with the privilege of an old servant who is also a local character and knows it, Katharine, listening amusedly, nevertheless found time to study the prospect of the wintry yet homely scene. The road, leaving the town behind, struck down to the lake, a lovely stretch of icebound water, and wound along its shores, fringed with willow and juniper. Far off a ridge of hills rose into the gathering dusk. The ring of skates was borne distantly. And already, floating out of the east, came a pale disc of moon.
Something of the strange enchantment of the moment and the place entered into Katharine and sang mysteriously in her blood. She was silent as, with much banter and explosive guffaws and reminders not to be late for supper, old Hickey discharged his extra passengers at a little landing stage beside a private boatshed, then turned the nose of the coupé towards a white house which stood at the end of its drive amid an orchard of twisted apple trees. It was a simple, unassuming place, an old Colonial frame house with a plain Georgian façade. A moment later and the car had crunched to rest, and the door was flung open. Then Katharine was in the hall shaking hands with Mrs Madden herself.
She knew at once it was Chris’s mother, the resemblance was so marked in this tall and gaunt-framed woman. Her face had the same repose as Madden’s. She suggested an equal calmness, and a certain constancy, as though the discipline of her life had bred in her patience, fortitude, and gentleness. Her eyes, which had a curious quality of depth, were fixed on Katharine warmly, hospitably.
“You must be frozen,” she said when the ordinary greetings were exchanged. “ Come and thaw out in your room.”
She turned and showed Katharine upstairs to a front bedroom where a vigorous fire blazed and crackled in an open Dutch stove, throwing a cheerful leaping glow upon the fourposter bed, the fine lace curtains, the heavy fruit-wood chest and solid chairs.
“I hope you’ll be comfortable here,” said Mrs Madden with a sudden shyness which went straight to Katharine’s heart. “It’s very plain. But then we’re plain people.”
“It’s lovely—lovely,” Katharine answered impulsively.
Mrs Madden smiled, a slow reserved smile which cast a kind of radiance upon her austere features. She seemed to search for words expressive of her satisfaction, but it was clear words did not come easily to her. She lingered for a moment by the doorway, seeing that everything was at Katharine’s hand, then, observing that supper would be served presently, she quietly departed.
Thirty minutes later Katharine went downstairs into the parlour, a long, brightly lit room which opened off the hall, and was now filled most unexpectedly with people. The skating party had returned, bringing with them a great many friends and village folks. It was Katharine’s first intimation of the open hospitality kept at Lakeside House.
Madden and Nancy stood by the fire with the laughing couple who had travelled in the rumble seat and who were now presented as Luke and Betty Lou. Beside them, sitting bolt upright in his rocker, was an old man with a wrinkled, humorous face. Uncle Ben Emmet, Mrs Madden’s brother. Opposite sat the Graysville schoolmaster and his sister. Then came Doc Edwards, short and shabby in a thick pilot coat; Pop Walters, fat, bald-headed, his eye shrewd and twinkling. Afterward, Sammy Emmet, Ben’s grandson, with a freckled nose and, like Luke, a college fraternity pin on his vest. And a score of others, young men and women in bright sweaters, cheeks and eyes burnished by the wind, laughing and talking at the end of the room.
It took Katharine some time to get around this large assembly, but, sponsored by Mrs Madden, who took the matter with an anxious gravity, she was duly introduced to everyone at last. There was nothing remarkable about the gathering, composed of ordinary and, in some instances, humble-looking people who looked as though they worked hard for a living. Yet each had a quality of open and unstudied friendliness, more disarming than all the manners in the world. Immediately, Katharine felt at home.
She had no chance to say much to Nancy or Chris, for Mrs Madden took her arm, and the whole party went in to supper at once.
Katharine, hungry from her long journey and the keen air, ate with a good appetite. Among so many it was impossible to concentrate upon her personal reactions. Madden, in a dark grey polo sweater, was at the foot of the table carving steadily. Nancy, halfway down, wore an air that was almost remote. Fork in one hand, cigarette in the other, she was smoking as she ate, barely listening to the conversation of Sammy Emmet upon her right. Instinctively Katharine’s brow gathered in perplexity. But her immediate neighbours, Walters and the Little Doc Edwards, gave her no time for reflection.
“You try some of this elderberry wine, Miss Lorimer,” Doc Edwards bent forward earnestly. “It’s all home-made by Susan Madden. I’ll promise you it keeps the cold out.”
Katharine tried the well-spiced wine and agreed that it was excellent. She smiled at the little man.
“You ought to take some on your rounds with you. It must be hard work getting about the country this bitter weather.”
He stared at her, round-eyed, then broke into genial noiseless merriment. “You got me wrong,” he intimated at last. “ The folks just call me Doc. I ain’t that much of a medico. I only keep that no-account drugstore on the corner of Main Street by the Baptist Church.”
Katharine dropped her eyes, a trifle confused to have mistaken the social status of her neighbour. But he went on, quite undisturbed, in the same modest, friendly style.
“We ain’t a stuck-up lot in these parts, ma’am. Though Chris Madden has got on so fine, he ain’t forgot Joe Edwards was the one that took him fishing when he warn’t no more than seven year old.”
“Did you?” asked Katharine with quick interest.
“Sure I did. When Chris come up to his Uncle Ben’s on the summer vacation. An’ I reckon Susan was hard enough put to it to find his railroad fare those days. But what’s the odds? Out we went trollin’ on the lake, an’, by George! you oughta seen that boy’s face when he pulled out his first big bass
.”
Katharine had a swift picture of the scene, the sun-bleached boat idling on the rippling lake, the bent hickory rod, the silver fish flopping on the centreboard, and Chris’s childish face, flushed, wildly excited, yet curiously intent. She was silent. She saw vividly the tie which bound Madden to his mother’s native place. She understood why he was known, respected, loved. Grown up now and successful though he was, he was still Susan Emmet’s boy in Graysville.
When supper was over, they went back into the parlour. A sedate bridge four was established at one table and at the other a wild round game which went by the name of Animal Crackers. Katharine was invited by young Sammy Emmet to roast chestnuts on the fire bars.
She sat on the hearthrug, with the cheerful gaiety of the room about her. The fun at the round table, where Madden was the centre of the game, waxed fast and furious. Once or twice it struck her that Chris’s voice held a note of gaiety almost forced. But she could not be sure, and the heat of the fire was making her drowsy now, deliciously tired. Half an hour later she said good-night quietly to Mrs Madden and slipped up to her room.
She had not long been there before Nancy joined her, drifting in with the inevitable cigarette between her lips.
“Glad to escape?” she inquired casually.
“Escape from what?” asked Katharine in surprise.
Nancy did not answer. But she gave a little nervous shrug.
“Nancy!” exclaimed Katharine directly. “Don’t you like it here?”
Nancy raised her brows slightly. “It’s very nice, darling. A little comic, perhaps.”
“Comic?” echoed Katharine bluntly.
Nancy nodded. She saw that Katharine did not grasp her mood, and this suddenly made her hard. She drawled:
“Too many antimacassars about, darling. And poor relations eating hard and laughing at everything. And giggling village maidens, and texts, like that one there, above the beds.”