A Crooked Path Part 57

"Thank G.o.d he is gone!" was Katherine's mental exclamation as the sound of his foot-fall died away. She was troubled by his intensity and determination, and touched by his unmistakable sincerity. "If I loved him I should not be afraid to marry him. I think he might possibly make a good husband to a woman he was really attached to; but I have not the least spark of affection for him, though there is something very distinguished in his figure and bearing; even his ruggedness is perfectly free from vulgarity. Yes, he is a sort of man who might fascinate some women; but he is terribly wrong-headed. If he keeps hoping on until I marry, he has a long spell of celibacy before him. I dare say he will be married himself before two years are over."

She sat awhile longer thinking, her face growing softer and sadder. Then she rose, wrapped her shawl round her, and walked slowly back to the cottage, where she found the rest of the party just returned, joyous and hungry.

Bertie came down late on the following Sat.u.r.day, and brought a note from Rachel Trant to Katherine, accepting her offer of quarters at Sandbourne with grateful readiness. Katherine was always pleased with her letters; they expressed so much in a few words; a spirit of affectionate grat.i.tude breathed through their quiet diction.

Katherine was very glad to receive it, for Bertie's accounts of their _protegee_ made her uneasy. She had at first refused to move, saying it was really of no use spending money upon her, and seemed to be sinking back into the lethargic condition from which Katherine had woke her.

Her kind protectress therefore set off early on Monday to tell Mrs.

Norris she was coming, and to make her room look pretty and cheerful. By her orders the boatman's son was despatched to meet their expected tenant on her arrival. Miss Payne having arranged a picnic for that day, at which Katherine's company could not be dispensed with.

When they returned it was already evening; still Katherine could not refrain from visiting her friend. "She will be so strange and lonely with people she has never seen before," she said to Bertie. "As soon as tea is over I shall go and see her."

"It will be rather late, yet it will be a great kindness. I will go with you, and wait for you among the rocks on the beach."

Miss Payne expressed her opinion that it was unwise to set beggars on horseback, but offered no further opposition.

The sun had not quite sunk as Katherine and her companion walked leisurely by the road which skirted the beach toward the boatman's dwelling.

"I wish we could find some occupation that could so fill Rachel Trant's mind as to prevent these dreadful fits of depression," began Katherine.

"She had plenty of work, and seemed successful in her performance of it," he returned; "but it does not seem to have kept her from a recurrence of these morbid moods. Loneliness does not appear to suit her."

"Sitting from morning till night, unremittingly at work, in silence, alone with memories which must be very sad, is not the best method of recovering cheerfulness, and unfortunately, Rachel is too much above her station to make many friends in it. She wants movement as well as work,"

remarked Katherine.

"As you consider her so good a dressmaker, it might be well to establish her on a larger scale, and give her some of the older girls from our Home as apprentices. Looking after and teaching them would amuse as well as occupy her."

"It is an idea worth developing!" exclaimed Katherine; and they walked on a few paces in silence.

"So De Burgh has been paying you a visit?" said Bertie at length.

"He has been paying Sandbourne a visit. He did not stay with us."

"It is wonderful that he could tame his energies even to stay here a few days."

"He was here only two days the last time."

"_You_ cannot have much in common with such a man."

"Not much, certainly; still, he interests me. He has had such a narrow escape of being a _good_ man."

"Narrow escape! I should say he never was in much danger of _that_ destiny."

"Perhaps if the door of every heart were opened to us we should see more good in all than we could expect." A few words more brought them to the boatman's house, where they parted.

Miss Trant was at home, Mrs. Norris said. Katherine ascended the steep ladder-like stair, and having knocked at the door, entered the room.

Rachel was seated in the window, which was wide open. Her elbows rested on a small table, and her chin on her clasped hands, while her large blue eyes looked steadily out over the bay, which slept blue and peaceful below; the lines of her slightly bent figure looked graceful and refined, but there was infinite sadness in her pose.

"I am very glad to see you again," said Katherine. Rachel, who was too deep in thought to hear her enter, started up to clasp her offered hand.

Her pale thin face was lit with pleasure, and her grave, almost stern eyes softened.

"And so am I. You do not know _how_ glad. Do you know, I began to think I never should see you again," and she kissed the hand she held.

"Do not!" said Katherine, bending forward to kiss her brow. "Were you so ill, then?"

"Not physically ill, except for my cough; but for all that I felt dying, and really I often wonder why you try to keep me alive. I am a trouble to you, and I do very little good. Had I not been a coward I should have left the world, where I have no particular place, long ago."

"Well, you see, I have a sort of superst.i.tion that life is a goodly gift which must not be cast aside for a whim; and why should you despair of finding peace? There is so much that is delightful in life!"

"And so much that is tragic!"

"Ah, yes! but if we only seek for the sorrowful we destroy our own lives, without helping any one. You must let the dead past bury its dead."

"How if the dead past comes and crosses your path, and looks you in the face?"

"What do you mean, Rachel?"

"You will think me weak and contemptible, but I must confess to you the cause of my late prostration."

"Yes, do; it may be a relief."

"About a month ago," said Rachel, sitting down by the table opposite Katherine, and again resting her elbow on it, while she half hid her face by placing her open hand over her eyes, "I was walking to Mrs.

Needham's with some work I had finished, when, turning into Lowndes Square, I came face to face with--him. It is true I had a thick veil on, and my large parcel must have partially disguised me, but he did not recognize me. He pa.s.sed me with the most unconscious composure, and he was looking better, brighter, than I had ever seen him. The sight of him brought back all the torturing pangs of helpless sorrow for the sweetness, the intense happiness I can never know again; the stinging shame, the poison of crushed hopes, the profound contempt for myself, the sense of being of no value to any one on earth. I think if I could have spoken to _you_, I might have shaken off these fiends of thought; but I was alone, always alone: why should I live?"

"Rachel, you _must_ put this cruel man out of your mind. He has been the destroyer of your life. Try and cast the idea of the past from you. Life is too abundant to be exhausted by one sorrow. You have years before you in which to build up a new existence and find consolation. I will not listen to another word about your former life; let us only look forward.

I have a plan for you--at least Mr. Payne has suggested the idea--in which you can help us and others, and which will need all your time and energy. But I will not even talk of this business. We must try lighter and pleasanter topics. Not another word about by-gone days will I speak.

You have started afresh under my auspices, and I mean you to float. Now that you are here, Rachel, you must read amusing books, and be out in the open air all day. You will be a new creature in a week. You must come and see my cottage and my nephews; they are dear little fellows.

Are you fond of children?"

"I don't think I am. I never had anything to do with them. But I would rather not go to your house, dear Miss Liddell. I feel as if I could not brave Miss Payne's eyes."

"That is mere morbidness. There is no reason why you should fear any one. You must discount your future rights. A few years hence, when you are a new woman, you will, I am sure, look back with wonder and pity as if reading the memoir of another. I _know_ that spells of self-forgiveness come to us mercifully."

"When I listen to you, and hear in the tones of your voice more even than in your words that you are my friend, that you really care for me, that it will be a real joy to you to see me rise above myself, I feel that I can live and strive and be something more than a galvanized corpse. You give me strength. I wonder if I shall ever be able to prove to you what you have done for me. Stand by me, and I _will_ try to put the past under my feet. I do not wish to presume on the great goodness you have shown me nor to forget the difference between us socially, but oh! let me believe you love me--even me--with the kindly affection that can forgive even while it blames."

"Be a.s.sured of that, Rachel," cried Katherine, her eyes moist and beautiful with the divine light of kindness and sympathy, as she stretched out her hand to clasp Rachel's. "I have from the first been drawn to you strangely--it is something instinctive--and I have firm belief in your future, if you will but believe in yourself. You are a strong, brave woman, who can dare to look truth in the face. You will be useful and successful yet."

Rachel held her hand tightly for a minute in silence; then she said, in a low but firm voice: "I will try to realize your belief. I should be too unworthy if I failed to do my very best. There! I have discarded the past; you shall hear of it no more."

They were silent for a while; then a solemn old eight-day clock with a fine tone struck loudly and deliberatedly in the room below. Katherine, with a smile, counted each stroke. "Nine!" she exclaimed, when the last had sounded; "and though it is 9 P.M., let it be the first hour of your new life." She rose, and pa.s.sing her arm over Rachel's shoulder, kissed her once more with sisterly warmth. "Mr. Payne is waiting for me, so I must leave you. I have sent you some books; I have but few here. One will amuse you, I am sure, though it is old enough--a translation of the _Memoirs of Madam d'Abrantes_. It is full of such quaint pictures of the great Napoleon's court, and does not display much dignity or n.o.bility, yet it is an honest sort of book."

"Thank you. I don't want novels now; they generally pain me. But my greatest solace is to forget myself in a book."

Bertie Payne's visit was a very happy one. The boys adored him, and subjects of discussion and difference of opinion never failed between Katherine and himself. She consulted him as to what school would be best for Cecil, and he advised that he should be left as a boarder at the one which he now attended, and where he had made fair progress, when Miss Payne and Katherine returned to town.

Bertie looked a new man when he bade them good-by, promising to come again soon.