“I’ll come as soon as possible,” he said, turning to her. “I’ll come now, if you like.”
It would have been a satisfaction to have it over at once. But Katharine shook her head.
“You must stay with the men — but — thank you, Jack.”
Her voice was very sweet and low. At that moment Ruth Van De Water nodded to her brother, and in an instant all the sixteen chairs were pushed back simultaneously, and the laughter died away in the rustle of soft skirts and the moving of two and thirty slippered feet on the thick carpet.
“No!” cried Miss Van De Water, looking over her shoulder with a little laugh at the man next to her, who offered his arm in the European fashion. “We don’t want you — we’re not in Washington — we’re going to talk about you, and we want to be by ourselves. Stay and smoke your cigars — but not forever, you know,” she added, and laughed again, a silvery, girlish laugh.
Ralston stood back and watched the fair young girls and women as they filed out. After all, there was not one that could compare with Katharine — whether he loved her, or not, he added mentally.
When the men were alone, they gathered round him under a great cloud of smoke over their little cups of coffee and their tiny liqueur glasses of many colours. He had always been more popular than he had been willing to think, which was the reason why so much had been forgiven him. He had assuredly done nothing heroic on the present occasion, unless his manly effort to fight against his taste for drinking was heroic. If it was, the majority of the seven other men did not think of it nor care. But he did not deserve such very great credit even for that, perhaps, for there was that strain of asceticism in him which makes such things easier for some people than for others. Most of them, being young, envied and admired him for having stood up to a champion prize-fighter in fair combat, heavily handicapped as he had been, and for having reached his antagonist once, at least, before he went down. A good deal of the enthusiasm young men occasionally express for one of themselves rests on a similar basis, and yet is not to be altogether despised on that account.
John warmed to something almost approaching to geniality, in the midst of so much good-will, in spite of his many troubles and of the painful interview which was imminent. When Van De Water dropped the end of his cigar and suggested that they should go into the drawing-room and not waste the evening in doing badly what they could do well at their clubs from morning till night, John would have been willing to stay a little longer. He was very tired. Three or four glasses of wine would have warmed him and revived him earlier, but he had not broken down in his resolution yet — and coffee and cigars were not bad substitutes, after all. The chair was comfortable, it was warm and the lights were soft. He rose rather regretfully and followed the other men through the house to join the ladies.
Without hesitation, since it had to be done, he went up to Katharine at once. She had managed to keep a little apart from the rest, and in the changing of places and positions which followed the entrance of the men, she backed by degrees towards a corner in which there were two vacant easy chairs, one on each side of a little table covered with bits of rare old silver-work, and half shielded from the rest of the room by the end of a grand piano. It would have been too remote a seat for two persons who wished to flirt unnoticed, but Katharine knew perfectly well that most of her friends believed her to be engaged to marry John Ralston, and was quite sure of being left to talk with him in peace if she chose to sit down with him in a corner.
Gravely, now, and with no inclination to let his lips twist contemptuously, John sat down beside her, drawing his chair in front of the small table, and waiting patiently while she settled herself.
“It was impossible to talk at table,” she said nervously, and with a slight tremor in her voice.
“Yes — with all those people,” assented John.
A short silence followed. Katharine seemed to be choosing her words. She looked calm enough, he thought, and he expected that she would begin to make a deliberate explanation. All at once she put out her hand spasmodically, drew it back again, and began to turn over and handle a tiny fish of Norwegian silver which lay among the other things on the table.
“It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding — I don’t know where to begin,” she said, rather helplessly.
“Tell me what became of my letter,” answered John, quietly. “That’s the important thing for me to know.”
“Yes — of course — well, in the first place, it was put into papa’s hands this morning just as he was going down town.”
“Did he keep it?” asked Ralston, his anger rising suddenly in his eyes.
“No — that is — he didn’t mean to. He thought I was asleep — you see he had read those things in the papers, and was angry and recognized your handwriting — and he thought — you know the handwriting really was rather shaky, Jack.”
“I’ve no doubt. It wasn’t easy to write at all, just then.”
“Oh, Jack dear! If I’d only known, or guessed—”
“Then you wouldn’t have needed to believe a little,” answered John. “What did your father do with the letter?”
“He had it in his pocket all day, and brought it home with him in the evening. You see — I’d been out — at the Crowdies’ — and then I came home and shut myself up. I was so miserable — and then I fell asleep.”
“You were so miserable that you fell asleep,” repeated Ralston, cruelly. “I see.”
“Jack! Please — please listen to me—”
“Yes. I beg your pardon, Katharine. I’m out of temper. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“No, dear. Please don’t. I can’t bear it.” Her lip quivered. “Jack,” she began again, after a moment, “please don’t say anything till I’ve told you all I have to say. If you do — no — I can’t help it — I’m crying now.”
Her eyes were full of tears, and she turned her face away quickly to recover her self-control. John was pained, but just then he could find nothing to say. He bent his head and looked at his hand, affecting not to see how much moved she was.
A moment later she turned to him, and the tears seemed to be gone again, though they were, perhaps, not far away. Strong women can make such efforts in great need.
“I went into my mother’s room on my way down to the carriage to come here,” she continued. “Papa came in, bringing your letter. He had not opened it, of course — he only wanted to show me that he had received it, and he said he would destroy it after showing it to me. I looked at it — and oh, the handwriting was so shaky, and there were spots on the envelope — Jack — I didn’t want to read it. That’s the truth. I let him burn it. I turned over the ashes to see that there was nothing left. There — I’ve told you the truth. How could I know — oh, how could I know?”
John glanced at her and then looked down again, not trusting himself to speak yet. The thought that she had not even wished to read that letter, and that she had stood calmly by while her father destroyed it, deliberately turning over the ashes afterwards, was almost too much to be borne with equanimity. Again he remembered what it had cost him to write it, and how he had felt that, having written it, Katharine, at least, would be loyal to him, whatever the world might say. He would have been a little more than human if he could have then and there smiled, held out his hand, and freely forgiven and promised to forget.
And yet she, too, had some justice on her side, though she was ready and willing to forget it all, and to bear far more of blame than she deserved. Russell Vanbrugh had told her that a man might easily be convicted on such evidence. Yet in her heart she knew that her disbelief had waited for no proofs last night, but had established itself supreme as her disappointment at John’s absence from the ball.
“Jack,” she began again, seeing that he did not speak, “say something — say that you’ll try to forgive me. It’s breaking my heart.”
“I’ll try,” answered John, in a voice without meaning.
“Ah — not that way, dear!�
� answered Katharine, with a breaking sigh. “Be kind — for the sake of all that has been!”
There was a deep and touching quaver in the words. He could say nothing yet.
“Of all that might have been, Jack — it was only yesterday morning that we were married — dear — and now—”
He lifted his face and looked long into her eyes — she saw nothing but regret, coldness, interrogation in his. And still he was silent, and still she pleaded for forgiveness.
“But it can’t be undone, now. It can never be undone — and I’m your wife, though I have distrusted you, and been cruel and heartless and unkind. Don’t you see how it all was, dear? Can’t you be weak for a moment, just to understand me a little bit? Won’t you believe me when I tell you how I hate myself and despise myself and wish that I could — oh, I don’t know! — I wish I could wash it all away, if it were with my heart’s blood! I’d give it, every drop, for you, now — dear one — sweetheart — forgive me! forgive me!”
“Don’t, Katharine — please don’t,” said John, in an uncertain tone, and looking away from her again.
“But you must,” she cried in her low and pleading voice, leaning far forward, so that she spoke very close to his averted face. “It’s my life — it’s all I have! Jack — haven’t women done as bad things and been forgiven and been loved, too, after all was over? No — I know — oh, God! If I had but known before!”
“Don’t talk like that, Katharine!” said Ralston, distressed, if not moved. “What’s done is done, and we can’t undo it. I made a bad mistake myself—”
“You, Jack? What? Yesterday?” She thought he spoke of their marriage.
“No — the night before — at the Thirlwalls’, when I told you that I sometimes drank — and all that—”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Katharine. “You were so right. It was the bravest thing you ever did!”
“And this is the result,” said John, bitterly. “I put it all into your head then. You’d never thought about it before. And of course things looked badly — about yesterday — and you took it for granted. Isn’t that the truth?”
“No, dear. It’s not — you’re mistaken. Because I thought you brave, night before last, was no reason why I should have thought you a coward yesterday. No — don’t make excuses for me, even in that way. There are none — I want none — I ask for none. Only say that you’ll try to forgive me — but not as you said it just now. Mean it, Jack! Oh, try to mean it, if you ever loved me!”
Ralston had not doubted her sincerity for a moment, after he had caught sight of her face when he had finished telling his story at the dinner-table. She loved him with all her heart, and her grief for what she had done was real and deep. But he had been badly hurt. Love was half numb, and would not wake, though his tears were in her voice.
Nevertheless, she had moved John so far that he made an effort to meet her, as it were, and to stretch out his hand to hers across the gulf that divided them.
“Katharine,” he said, at last, “don’t think me hard and unfeeling. You managed to hurt me pretty badly, that’s all. Just when I was down, you turned your back on me, and I cared. I suppose that if I didn’t love you, I shouldn’t have cared at all, or not so much. Shouldn’t you think it strange if I’d been perfectly indifferent, and if I were to say to you now— ‘Oh, never mind — it’s all right — it wasn’t anything’? It seems to me that would just show that I’d never loved you, and that I had acted like a blackguard in marrying you yesterday morning. Wouldn’t it?”
Katharine looked at him, and a gleam of hope came into her eyes. She nodded twice in silence, with close-set lips, waiting to hear what more he would say.
“I don’t like to talk of forgiveness and that sort of thing between you and me, either,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s a question of forgiveness. You’re not a child, and I’m not your father. I can’t exactly forgive — in that sense. I never knew precisely what the word meant, anyhow. They say ‘forgive and forget’ — but if forgiving an injury isn’t forgetting it, what is it? Love bears, but doesn’t need to forgive, it seems to me. The forgiveness consists in the bearing. Well, you don’t mean to make me bear anything more, do you?”
A smile came into his face, not a very gentle one, but nevertheless a smile. Katharine’s hand went out quickly and touched his own.
“No, dear, never,” she said simply.
“Well — don’t. Perhaps I couldn’t bear much more just now. You see, I’ve loved you very much.”
“Don’t say it as though it were past, Jack,” said Katharine, softly.
“No — I was thinking of the past, that’s all.”
He paused a moment. His heart was beating a little faster now, and tender words were not so far from his lips as they had been five minutes earlier. He could be silent and still be cold. But she had made him feel that she loved him dearly, and her voice waked the music in his own as he spoke.
“It was because I loved you so, that I felt it all,” he said. “A little more than you thought I could — dear.”
It was he, now, who put out his hand and touched a fold of her gown which was near him, as she had touched his arm. The tears came back to Katharine’s eyes suddenly and unexpectedly, but they did not burn as they had burned before.
“I’ve never loved any one else,” he continued presently. “Yes — and I know you’ve not. But I’m older, and I know men who have been in love — what they call being in love — twice and three times at my age. I’ve not. I’ve never cared for any one but you, and I don’t want to. I’ve been a failure in a good many ways, but I shan’t be in that one way. I shall always love you — just the same.”
Katharine caught happily at the three little words.
“Just the same — as though all this had never happened, Jack?” she asked, bending towards him, and looking into his brown eyes. “If you’ll say that again, dear, I shall be quite happy.”
“Yes — in a way — just the same,” answered Ralston, as though weighing his words.
Katharine’s face fell.
“There’s a reservation, dear — I knew there would be,” she said, with a sigh.
“No,” answered Ralston. “Only I didn’t want to say more than just what I meant. I’ve been angry myself — I was angry at dinner — perhaps I was angry still when I sat down here. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to be. It’s hard to say exactly what I do mean. I love you — just the same as ever. Only we’ve both been very angry and shall never forget that we have been, though we may wonder some day why we were. Do you understand? It’s not very clear, but I’m not good at talking.”
“Yes.” Katharine’s face grew brighter again. “Yes,” she repeated, a moment later; “it’s what I feel — only I wish that you might not feel it, because it’s all my fault — all of it. And yet — oh, Jack! It seems to me that I never loved you as I do now — somehow, you seem dearer to me since I’ve hurt you, and you’ve forgiven me — but I wasn’t to say that!”
“No, dear — don’t talk of forgiveness. Tell me you love me — I’d rather hear it.”
“So would I — from you, Jack!”
Some one had sat down at the piano. The keyboard was away from them, so that they could not see who it was, but as Katharine spoke a chord was struck, then two or three more followed, and the first bars of a waltz rang through the room. It was the same which the orchestra had been playing on the previous evening, just when Katharine had left the Assembly rooms with Hester Crowdie.
“They were playing that last night,” she said, leaning toward him once more in the shadow of the piano. “I was so unhappy — last night—”
No one was looking at them in their corner. John Ralston caught her hand in his, pressed it almost sharply, and then held it a moment.
“I love you with all my heart,” he said.
The deep grey eyes melted as they met his, and the beautiful mouth quivered.
“I want to kiss you, dear,” said Katharine. “Then I shall know.
Do you think anybody will see?”
That is the story of those five days, from Monday afternoon to Friday evening, in reality little more than four times twenty-four hours. It has been a long story, and if it has not been well told, the fault lies with him who has told it, and may or may not be pardoned, according to the kindness of those whose patience has brought them thus far. And if there be any whose patience will carry them further, they shall be satisfied before long, unless the writer be meanwhile gathered among those who tell no tales.
For there is much more to be said about John Ralston and Katharine, and about all the other people who have entered into their lives. For instance, it may occur to some one to wonder whether, after this last evening, John and Katharine declared their marriage at once, or whether they were obliged to keep the secret much longer, and some may ask whether John Ralston’s resolution held good against more of such temptations as he had resisted on Wednesday night at the Thirlwalls’ dance. Some may like to know whether old Robert Lauderdale lived many years longer, and, if he died, what became of the vast Lauderdale fortune; whether it turned out to be true that Alexander Junior was rich, or, at least, not nearly so poor as he represented himself to be; whether Walter Crowdie had another of those strange attacks which had so terrified his wife on Monday night; whether he and Paul Griggs, the veteran man of letters, were really bound by some common tie of a former history or not, and, finally, perhaps, whether Charlotte Slayback got divorced from Benjamin Slayback of Nevada, or not. There is also a pretty little tale to be told about the three Misses Miner, Frank’s old-maid sisters. And some few there may be who will care to know what Katharine’s convictions ultimately became and remained, when, after passing through this five days’ storm, she found time once more for thought and meditation. All these things may interest a few patient readers, but the main question here raised and not yet answered is whether that hasty, secret marriage between Katharine and John turned out to have been really such a piece of folly as it seemed, or whether the lovers were ultimately glad that they had done as they did. It is assuredly very rash to be married secretly, and some of the reasons given by Katharine when she persuaded John to take the step were not very valid ones, as he, at least, was well aware at the time. But, on the other hand, such true love as they really bore one another is good, and a rare thing in the world, and when men and women feel such love, having felt it long, and knowing it, they may be right to do such things to make sure of not being parted; and they may live to look each into the other’s eyes and say, long afterwards, ‘Thank God that we were not afraid.’ But this must not be asserted of them positively by others without proof.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 700