A Crooked Path Part 55

"You are very kind. I shall be delighted."

While Katherine went ostensibly to put aside her hat--really to warn Miss Payne--De Burgh strolled into the drawing-room. How cool and fresh and sweet with abundant flowers it was! An air of refined homeliness about it, the work and books and music on the open piano, spoke of well-occupied repose. Its simplicity was graceful, and indicated the presence of a cultured woman.

De Burgh wandered to the window--a wide bay--and took from a table which stood in it a cabinet photograph of Katherine, taken about a year before. He was absorbed in contemplating it when she came in, and he made a step to meet her. "This is very good," he said. "Where was it taken?"

"In Florence."

"It is like"--looking intently at her, and then at the picture. "But you are changed in some indescribable way, changed since I saw you last, years ago--that is, a month--isn't it a month since you drove me from paradise?--but _you_ don't remember."

"But, Mr. De Burgh, I did not drive you away. You got bored, and went away of your own free-will."

"I shall not argue the point with you--not now; but tell me," with a very steady gaze into her eyes, "has anything happened since I left to waken up your soul? It was by no means asleep when I saw you last, but it has met with an eye-opener of some kind, I am convinced."

"I should not have given you credit for so much imagination, Mr. De Burgh."

Here Miss Payne made her appearance, and the boys followed. They were treated with unusual good-humor and _bonhomie_ by De Burgh, who actually took Charlie on his knee and asked him some questions about boating, which occupied them till lunch was announced.

Miss Payne was too much accustomed to yield to circ.u.mstances not to accept De Burgh's attempts to be amiable and agreeable. He could be amusing when he chose; there was an odd abruptness, a candid avowal of his views and opinions, when he was in the mood, that attracted Katherine.

"You _are_ a funny man!" said Cecil, after gazing at him in silence as he finished his repast. "I wish you would come out in the boat with us.

Auntie said we might go."

"Very well; ask her if I may come."

"He may, mayn't he?"--chorus from both boys.

"Yes, if you really care to come: but do not let the children tease you."

"Do you give me credit for being ready to do what I don't like?"

"I can't say I do."

"When do you start on this expedition?"

"About seven, which will interfere with your dinner, for Miss Payne and I have adopted primitive habits, and do not dine late; we indulge in high tea instead."

"Nevertheless, I shall meet you at the jetty. Till then adieu."

"May we come with you?" cried the boys together--"just as far as the hotel?"

"No, dears; you must stay at home," said Katherine, decidedly.

"Then do let him come and see how the puppy is. He has grown quite big."

"Yes, I'll come round to the kennel if you'll show me the way," replied De Burgh, with a smiling glance at Katherine. "Till this evening, then,"

he added, and bowing to Miss Payne, left the room, the boys capering beside him.

"I should say that man has breakfasted on honey this morning," observed Miss Payne, with a sardonic smile. "Does he think that he has only to come, to see, and to conquer?"

"He has been quite pleasant," said Katherine. "I wonder why he is not always nice? He used to be almost rude at Castleford sometimes." She paused, while Miss Payne rose from the table and began to lock away the wine. "I wonder what has become of Mr. Payne? He has not been here for a long time."

"What made you think of him?" asked his sister, sharply.

"I suppose the force of contrast reminded me of him. What a difference between Bertie and Mr. De Burgh!--your brother living only to help others, and utterly forgetful of self; he regardless of everything but the gratification of his own fancies--at least so far as we can see."

"Yes; Mr. De Burgh can hardly be termed a true Christian. Still, Gilbert is rather too weak and credulous. I suspect he is very often taken in."

"Is it not better he should be sometimes, dear Miss Payne, than that some poor deserving creature should perish for want of help?"

"Well, I don't know. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if that law were more carefully obeyed, fewer would need help."

"Life is an unsolvable problem," said Katherine, and the remark reminded her of her humble friend Rachel. She therefore sat down and wrote her a kind, sympathetic letter, feeling some compunction for having allowed so long an interval to elapse since her last.

Her own troubles had occupied her too much. Now that time was beginning to accustom her to their weight, her deep interest in Rachel revived even with more than its original force. Katherine did not make intimates readily. Let there be ever so small a nook in the mind, ever so tiny an incident in the past, which must be hidden from all eyes, and there can be no free pa.s.s for outsiders, however dear or valued, to the sanctum of the heart, which must remain sealed, a whispering gallery for its own memories and aspirations. But Rachel Trant never dreamed of receiving confidence, nor, after once having strung herself up to tell her sad story, did she allude to her bitter past, save by an occasional word expressing her profound sense of the new life she owed to Katherine; nor did the latter, when talking with her face to face, ever realize that there was any social difference between them. Rachel's voice, manner, diction, and natural refinement were what might be expected from a gentlewoman, only that through all sounded a strain of harsh strength, the echo of that fierce despair from whose grip the tender consideration of her new friend had delivered her. The evening's sail was very tranquil and soothing. De Burgh was agreeable in the best way; that is, he was sympathetically silent, except when Katherine spoke to him. The boys and their governess sat together in the bow of the boat, where they talked merrily together, occasionally running aft to ask more profound questions of De Burgh and auntie. Fear of rheumatism and discomfort generally kept Miss Payne at home on these occasions.

De Burgh walked with Miss Liddell to her own door, but wisely refused to enter. "No," he mused, as he proceeded to his hotel; "I have had enough of a _solitude a trois_. It's an uncomfortable, tantalizing thing, and though I have been positively angelic for the last seven or eight hours, I can't stand any more intercourse under Miss Payne's paralyzing optics.

I wonder if any fellow can keep up a heavenly calm for more than twenty-four hours? Depends on the circulation of the blood. I wonder still more if it is possible that Katherine is more disposed to like me than she was? She is somehow different than when I was here last. So divinely soft and kind! I have known a score or two of fascinating women, and gone wild about a good many, but _this_ is different, why the deuce should she _not_ love me? Most of the others did. Why? G.o.d knows.

I'll try my luck; she seems in a propitious mood."

CHAPTER XXI.

"NO."

Next morning's post brought a letter from Bertie, which was a kind of complement to Katherine's reflections of the night before. After explaining that he had hitherto been unable to take a holiday from his various avocations, he promised to spend the following week with his sister and Miss Liddell. He then described the success of Mrs. Needham's bazar, and proceeded thus:

"Meeting my old friend Mrs. Dodd a few days ago, I was sorry to find from her that your favorite, Rachel Trant, had been very unwell. She had had a great deal of work, thanks to your kind efforts on her behalf, and sat at it early and late; then she took cold. I went to see her, and found her in a state of extreme depression, like that from which you succeeded in rousing her. I think it would be well if she could have a little change. Are there any cheap, humble lodgings at Sandbourne, where she might pa.s.s a week or two? I shall pa.s.s this matter in your hands."

"I am sure old Norris's wife would take her in. They have a nice cottage, almost on the beach, close to the point."

"No doubt. Really that Rachel of yours is in great luck. I wonder how many poor girls in London are dying for a breath of sea-air?"

"Ah, hundreds, I fear. But then, you see, they have not been brought under my notice, and Rachel has; so I will do the best I can for her. I am sure she is no common woman."

"At all events she has no common luck."

Katherine lost no time in visiting Mrs. Norris, and found that she was in the habit of letting a large, low, but comfortable room upstairs, where the bed was gorgeous with a patchwork quilt of many colors, and permitting her lodgers to dine in a small parlor, which was her own sitting-room.

The old woman had not had any "chance" that season, as she termed it, and gladly agreed to take the young person recommended by her husband's liberal employer. So Katherine walked back to write both to Bertie and their _protegee_.

During her absence De Burgh had called, but left no message. And Katherine felt a little sorry to have missed him, as she thought it probable he would go on to town that afternoon, and she wanted to hear some tidings of Errington, yet could hardly nerve herself to ask.

The evening was gloriously fine, and as Miss Payne did not like boating, the pony-carriage was given up to her, the boys, and Miss North the governess, for a long drive to a farm-house where the boys enjoyed rambling about, and Miss Payne bought new-laid eggs.

When they had set out, Katherine took a white woolen shawl over her arm--for even in July the breeze was sometimes chill at sundown--and strolled along the road, or rather cart track, which led between the cliffs and the sea to the boatman's cottage. She pa.s.sed this, nodding pleasantly to the st.u.r.dy old man, who was busy in his cabbage garden, and pursued a path which led as far as a footing could be found, to where the sea washed against the point. It was a favorite spot with Katherine, who was tolerably sure of being undisturbed here. The view across the bay was tranquilly beautiful; the older part of Sandbourne only, with the pretty old inn, was visible from her rocky seat among the bowlders and debris which had fallen from above, while the old tower at the opposite point of the bay stood out black and solid against the flood of golden light behind it. She sat there very still, enjoying the air, the scene, the sweet salt breath of the sea, thinking intently of Rachel Trant's experience, of her fatal weakness, of the unpitying severity of that rule of law under which we social atoms are constrained to live; of the evident fact that were we but wise and good we might always be the beneficent arbiters of our own fate; that there are few pleasures which have not their price; and after all, though she, Katherine, had paid high for hers, it had not cost too much, considering she had been groping in the dimness of imperfect knowledge. Oh, hew she wished she had never attempted to act providence to her mother and herself, but trusted to Errington's sense of generosity and justice! Of course it would have been humiliating to beg from a stranger, yet before that stranger she had been compelled to lower herself to the dust, and--