Mrs. Lauderdale had consoled Katharine, and Ralston too, for that matter, as well as she could, and with sincere sympathy. Ralston continued to come to the house very much as he pleased, and Mr. Lauderdale silently tolerated his presence on the rare occasions of their meeting. He had certainly said more than enough to explain his point of view, and he considered the matter as settled. It was really not possible to keep a man who was his cousin altogether away, and he suffered also from a delusion common to many fathers, which led him to think that no one would ever dare to act against his once clearly expressed wishes.
Between Katharine and her mother and Ralston there remained a sort of tacit understanding. There was no formal engagement, of course, which would have had to be concealed from Mr. Lauderdale, but Mrs. Lauderdale meant that the two young people should be married if they continued to love one another, and she generally left them as much together as they pleased when Ralston came.
It was, therefore, not strange that they should both be surprised by the nature of her sudden question as she stood by the fireplace looking sideways at Ralston, with her back to the light.
“What is the use?” asked Katharine, repeating the words in astonishment and emphasizing the last one.
“Yes. What is the use? It is leading to nothing. You never can be married, and you know it by this time. You had much better separate at once. It will be easier for you now, perhaps, than by and by. You are both so young!”
“Excuse me, cousin Emma,” said Ralston, “but I think you must be dreaming.”
He spoke very quietly, but the light was beginning to gleam in his eyes. His mother was said to have a very bad temper, and John was like her in many respects. But Mrs. Lauderdale continued to speak quite calmly.
“I have been thinking about you two a great deal lately,” she said. “I have made a mistake, and I may as well say so at once, now that I have discovered it. You wouldn’t like me to go on letting you think that I approved of your engagement, when I don’t — would you? That wouldn’t be fair or honest.”
“Certainly not,” answered Ralston, in a low voice, and he could feel all his muscles tightening as though for a physical effort. “Have you said this sort of thing to Katharine before, or is this the first time?”
“No, she hasn’t said a word,” replied Katharine herself.
The girl was standing by the easy chair, her hand resting on the back of it, her face pale, her great grey eyes staring wide open at her mother’s profile.
“No, I have not,” said Mrs. Lauderdale. “I thought it best to wait until I could speak to you together. It’s useless to give pain twice over.”
“It is indeed,” said Ralston, gravely. “Please go on.”
“Why — there’s nothing more to be said, Jack,” answered Mrs. Lauderdale. “That’s all. The trouble is that you’ll never do anything, and you have no fortune, nor any prospect of any — until your mother—”
“Please don’t speak of my mother in that connection,” interrupted Ralston, his lips growing white.
“Well — and as for us, we’re as poor as can be. You see how we live. Besides, you know. Old Mr. Lauderdale gets uncle Robert to subscribe thousands and thousands for the idiots, but he never suggests that they are far better off than we are. However, those are our miseries and not yours. Yours is that you are perfectly useless—”
“Mother!” cried Katharine, losing control of herself and moving a step forward.
“It’s all right, dear,” said Ralston. “Go on, cousin Emma. I’m perfectly useless—”
“I don’t mean to offend you, Jack, and we’re not strangers,” continued Mrs. Lauderdale, “and I won’t dwell on the facts. You know them as well as I do, and are probably quite as sorry that they really are facts. I will only ask one question. What chance is there that in the next four or five years you can have a house of your own, and an income of your own — just enough for two people to live on and no more — and — well — a home for Katharine? What chance is there?”
“I’ll do something before that time,” answered Ralston, with a determined look.
But Mrs. Lauderdale shook her head.
“So you said last year, Jack. I repeat — I don’t want to be unkind. How long is Katharine to wait?”
“I’ll wait all my life, mother,” said the young girl, suddenly speaking out in ringing tones. “I’ll wait till I die, if I must, and Jack knows it. And I believe in him, if you don’t — against you all, you and papa and uncle Robert and every one. Jack has never had a chance that deserves to be called a chance at all. He must succeed — he shall succeed — I know he’ll succeed. And I’ll wait till he does. I will — I will — if it’s forever, and I shan’t be tired of waiting — it will always be easy, for him. Oh, mother, mother — to think that you should have turned against us! That’s the hard thing!”
“Thank you, dear,” said Ralston, touching her hand lovingly.
Mrs. Lauderdale had turned her face quite away from him now and was looking at the clock, softly drumming with her fingers upon the mantelpiece.
“I’m sorry, Katharine,” she said. “But I think it, and I’ve said it — and I can’t unsay it. It’s far too true.”
There was a dead silence for several seconds. Then Katharine suddenly pushed Ralston gently toward the door.
“Go, Jack dear,” she said in a low voice. “She has a dreadful headache — she’s not herself. Your being here irritates her — please go away — it will be all right in a day or two—”
They had reached the door, for Ralston saw that she was right.
“No,” said Mrs. Lauderdale from the fireplace, “I shan’t change my mind.”
It was all so sudden and strange that Ralston found himself outside the library without having taken leave of her in any way. Katharine came out with him.
“There’s a difficulty,” he whispered quickly as he found his coat and stick. “After it’s done there has to be a certificate saying that—”
“Katharine! Come here!” cried Mrs. Lauderdale from within, and they heard her footstep as she left the fireplace.
“Come to-morrow morning at eleven,” whispered Katharine.
She barely touched his hand with hers and fled back into the library. He let himself out and walked slowly along Clinton Place in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
CHAPTER VIII.
KATHARINE WENT BACK to the library mechanically, because Mrs. Lauderdale called her and because she heard the latter’s step upon the floor, but not exactly in mere blind submission and obedience. She was, indeed, so much surprised by what had taken place that she was not altogether her usual self, and she was conscious that events moved more quickly just then than her own power of decision. She was observant and perceptive, but her reason had always worked slowly. Ralston, at least, was out of the way, and she was glad that she had made him go. It had been unbearable to hear her mother attacking him as she had done.
She believed that Mrs. Lauderdale was about to be seriously ill. No other theory could account for her extraordinary behaviour. It was therefore wisest to take away what irritated her and to be as patient as possible. There was no excuse for her sudden change of opinion, and as soon as she was quite well she would be sorry for what she had said. Katharine was not more patient than most people, but she did her best.
“Is anything the matter, mother? You called so loud.” She spoke almost before she had shut the door behind her.
“No. Did I? I wanted him to go away, that was all. Why should he stand there talking to you in whispers?”
Katharine did not answer at once, but her broad eyebrows drew slowly together and her eyelids contracted. She sat down and clasped her hands together upon her knee.
“Because he had something to say to me which he did not wish you to hear, mother,” she answered at last.
“Ah — I thought so.” Mrs. Lauderdale relapsed into silence, and from time to time her mouth twitched nervously.
She glanced at her daughter onc
e or twice. The young girl’s straight features could look almost stolid at times. Her patience had given way once, but she got hold of it again and tried to set it on her face like a mask. She was thinking now and wondering whether this strange mood were a mere caprice of her mother’s, though Mrs. Lauderdale had never been capricious before, or whether something had happened to change her opinion of Ralston suddenly but permanently. In the one case it would be best to bear it as quietly as possible, in the other to declare war at once. But that seemed impossible, when she tried to realize it. She was deeply, sincerely devoted to her mother. Hitherto they had each understood the other’s thoughts and feelings almost without words, and in all the many little domestic difficulties they had been firm allies. It was not possible that they were to quarrel now. The gap in life would be too deep and broad. Katharine suddenly rose and came and sat beside her mother and drew the fair, tired face to her own, very tenderly.
“Mother dear,” she said, “look at me! What is the matter? Have I done anything to hurt you — to displease you? We’ve always loved each other, you and I — and we can’t really quarrel, can we? What is it, dearest? Tell me everything — I can’t understand it at all — I know — you’re tired and ill, and Jack irritated you. Men will, sometimes, even the very nicest men, you know. It was only that, wasn’t it? Yes — I knew it was — poor, dear, darling, sweet, tired little mother, just let your dear head rest — so, against me — yes, dear, I know — it was nothing—”
It was as though they had changed places, the mother and the daughter. The older woman’s lip quivered, as her cheek rested on Katharine’s breast. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, two tears gathered just within the shadowed lids, and grew and overflowed and trembled and fell — two crystal drops. She saw them fall upon the rough grey stuff of her daughter’s frock, and as she lay there upon the girl’s bosom with downcast eyes, she watched her own tears, in momentary apathy, and noticed how they ran, then crawled along, then stopped, caught as it seemed in the stiff little hairs of the coarse material — and she noticed that there were a few black hairs mixed with the grey, which she had not known before.
Then quite suddenly, just as they were shrinking and darkening the wool with two small spots, a great irresistible sob seemed to come from outside and run through her from head to foot, and shook her and hurt her and gripped her throat. A moment more and the flood of tears broke. Those storms of life’s autumn are chill and sharp. They are not like the showers of spring, quick, light and soft, that make blossoms fragrant and woods sweet-scented.
Katharine did not understand, and her face was gentle and full of pain as she pressed her mother to her bosom.
“Don’t cry, mother — don’t cry!” she repeated again and again.
“Ah, Katharine — child — if you knew!” The few words came with difficulty, as each sob rose and would not be forced back.
“No, darling — don’t! There, there!” And the young girl tried to soothe her.
Suddenly it all ceased. With an impatient movement, as though she despised herself, Mrs. Lauderdale drew back, steadied herself with one hand upon the end of the sofa, turned her head away and rose to her feet.
“Go out, child — leave me to myself!” she said indistinctly, and going quickly towards the door. “Don’t come after me — don’t — no, don’t,” she repeated, not looking back, as she went out.
Left to herself, and understanding that it was better not to follow, Katharine stood still a moment in the middle of the room, then went to the window and looked out, seeing nothing. She did not know what it all meant, but she felt that some great change which she could not comprehend had come over her mother, and that they could never be again as they had been. A mere headache, the mere fatigue from overwork, could not have produced such results. Nor was Mrs. Lauderdale really ill, as the girl’s womanly instinct had told her within the last five minutes. The trouble, whatever it might be, was mental, and the tears had given it a momentary relief. But it was not over.
Katharine went out, at last, and was glad to breathe the keen air of the wintry afternoon; glad, too, to be alone with herself. She even wished that she were not obliged to go into Fifth Avenue, where she might meet an acquaintance, or at all events to cross it, as she decided to do when she reached the first corner. Going straight on, the next street was University Place, and the lower part of that was quiet, and Waverley Place and the neighbourhood of the old University building itself. She could wander about there for half an hour without going so far as Broadway, nor southwards to the precincts of the French and Italian business colonies. So she walked slowly on, and then turned, and turned again, round and round, backwards and forwards, meeting no one she knew, thinking all the time and idly noticing things that had never struck her before, as, for instance, that there is a row of stables leading westward out of University Place which is called Washington Mews, and that at almost every corner where there is a liquor-shop there seems to be an Italian fruit-stand — the function of the ‘dago’ being to give warning of the approach of the police, in certain cases, a fact which Katharine could not be expected to know.
Just beyond the aforesaid Mews, at the corner of Washington Square, she came suddenly upon little Frank Miner, his overcoat buttoned up to his chin and a roll of papers sticking out of his pocket. His fresh face was pink with the cold, his small dark mustache glistened, and his restless eyes were bright. The two almost ran against one another and both stopped. He raised his hat with a quick smile and put out his hand.
“How d’ye do, Miss Lauderdale?” he asked.
In spite of the family connection he had never got so far as to call her Katharine, or even cousin Katharine. The young girl shook hands with him and smiled.
“Are you out for a walk?” he asked, before she had been able to speak. “And if so, may I come too?”
“Oh, yes — do.”
She had been alone long enough to find it impossible to reach any conclusion, and of all people except Ralston, Miner was the one she felt most able to tolerate just then. His perfectly simple belief in himself and his healthy good humour made him good company for a depressed person.
“You seemed to be in such a hurry,” said Katharine, as he began to walk slowly by her side.
“Of course, as I was coming to meet you,” he answered promptly.
“But you didn’t know—”
“Providence knew,” he said, interrupting her. “It was foreordained when the world was chaos and New York was inhabited by protoplasm — and all that — that you and I should meet just here, at this very minute. Aren’t you a fatalist? I am. It’s far the best belief.”
“Is it? Why? I should think it rather depressing.”
“Why — no. You believe that you’re the sport of destiny. Now a sport implies amusement of some kind. See?”
“Is the football amused when it’s kicked?” asked Katharine, with a short laugh.
“Now please don’t introduce football, Miss Lauderdale,” said Miner, without hesitation. “I don’t understand anything about it, and I know that I should, because it’s a mania just now. All the men get it when the winter comes on, and they sit up half the night at the club, drawing diagrams and talking Hebrew, and getting excited — I’ve seen them positively sitting up on their hind-legs in rows, and waving their paws and tearing their hair — just arguing about the points of a game half of them never played at all.”
“What a picture!” laughed Katharine.
“Isn’t it? But it’s just true. I’m going to write a book about it and call it ‘The Kicker Kicked’ — you know, like Sartor Resartus — all full of philosophy and things. Can you say ‘Kicker Kicked’ twenty times very fast, Miss Lauderdale? I believe it’s impossible. I just left my three sisters — they’re slowly but firmly turning into aunts, you know — I left them all trying to say it as hard as they could, and the whole place clicked as though a thousand policemen’s rattles were all going at once — hard! And they were all showing their teeth and going
mad over it.”
“I should think so — and that’s another picture.”
“By the bye, speaking of pictures, have you seen the Loan Collection? It’s full of portraits of children with such extraordinary expressions — they all look as though they had given up trying to educate their parents in despair. I wonder why everybody paints children? Nobody can. I believe it would take a child — who knew how to paint, of course, — to paint a child, and give just that something which real children have — just what makes them children.”
She was silent for a moment, following the unexpected train of thoughts. There were delicate sides to his nature that pleased Katharine as well as his nonsense.
“That’s a pretty idea,” she said, after thinking of it a few seconds.
“Everybody tries and fails,” answered Miner. “Why doesn’t somebody paint you?” he asked suddenly, looking at her.
“Somebody means to,” she replied. “I was to have gone to sit to Mr. Crowdie this morning, but he sent me word to come to-morrow instead. I suppose he had forgotten another engagement.”
“Crowdie is ill,” said Miner. “Bright told me so this morning — some queer attack that nobody could understand.”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 666