The Career of Katherine Bush Part 56

Lady Garribardine was well acquainted with the signs of all his moods.

This one, she knew, resulted from pain of some sort, and mental perturbation. What had occurred between him and Katherine? Could they have quarrelled? This must be ascertained at the earliest possible moment.

After luncheon they were all to motor to an old castle for a picnic tea, a beautiful ruin of a former habitation of the Monluces about five miles away.

Katherine should go with the younger people, and she should have the Duke to herself.

His manner was certainly preoccupied, and he spoke only of ordinary things as they went through the park.

"The party has been the greatest success, Mordryn. Are you pleased?

Everyone has enjoyed it."

"Yes, I suppose it has been all right, thanks to your admirable qualities as hostess, dear friend. But how irksome I find all parties! I have been too long away from the world."

"I thought you seemed so cheery, Mordryn, yesterday, but to-day you look as glum as a church. You must shake yourself up, nothing is so foolish as giving way to these acquired habits of solitude and separation from your kind."

"I am growing old, Seraphim."

"Stuff and nonsense!" Her Ladys.h.i.+p cried. "You have never looked more vigorous--or more attractive, and you are not subject to liver attacks or the gout--so you have no excuse in the world for this doleful point of view."

"Perhaps not--It is stupid to want the moon."

"There are no such things as moons for Dukes; they are always lamps which can be secured in the hand."

"Not without fear of combustion or fusing as the case might be."

"Nothing venture nothing have. No man ought to sit down and abandon his moon chase--if he wants it badly enough he will get it."

"In spite of his conscience?"

Her Ladys.h.i.+p looked at him shrewdly--now was a moment for indicating her sentiments she felt--he might understand her as he so pleased.

"No, never in spite of his conscience, but in spite of custom or tradition or any other man-made barrier."

But although the Duke found much comfort in her words, he was not easily influenced by anyone and the torrent of his pa.s.sion had not yet reached the floodgates, and was restrained by his will. So he turned the conversation and endeavoured to be cheerful. And Seraphim saw that for the moment she must leave things to fate.

Katherine looked quite lovely at tea. Her new air of rather pensive gentleness suited her well. She showed perfect composure, there was no trace of nervousness or self-consciousness in her manner, only her eyes were sad.

What dignity, the Duke thought as he watched, her conduct and att.i.tude during the whole visit had shown! He knew it must have been a moment of exceptional excitement to her to come there among his and Lady Garribardine's friends, as one of them, and yet not for a second had she shown anything but composure and ease, talking with quiet politeness to whoever addressed her, neither with subservience nor with expansiveness, but with exactly the consideration which so becomes a great lady, even if she is but a girl. He looked at her again and again, and could find only something further to respect and admire.

He wondered how much she was feeling? What had that little sob meant?

Pain as well as understanding a.s.suredly. Was she, too, longing secretly to be taken into his arms--as with every fibre of his being he was burning with desire to hold her? Or did she not really care, and was the attention of young Wes...o...b..rough enough to divert her--and would she eventually marry Sir John?

This last thought was disgusting! but His Grace of Mordryn had not the type of mind like that of Gerard Strobridge, to take comfort in the thought that if she did so, his own chance of future joy would be the greater. No touch of anything but reverence was in his heart towards Katherine.

And so the afternoon pa.s.sed with much suffering in two souls, and the rainbow tints of the evening came over the sky. The chestnut trees were the softest fresh green, and the oaks only just out. Copper beeches and limes and firs all added to the beauty of tint. And young birds were twittering their good-nights; the whole world was full of love, and springtime promise of joy.

And Mordryn battled with himself and banished temptation, and had his sitting-room blinds drawn immediately to hide all these sweet things of nature, when they returned, and stayed alone there until it was time to dress for dinner, saying he had important letters to write.

But all the while he was conscious that just beyond that door and that pa.s.sage, there was a woman who seemed to matter to him more than anything else in life!

The whole afternoon had been such a wretched tantalization. A long duty when he had spoken as an automaton to boring guests. He had not sought to talk to Katherine; that good-bye in the morning had been final, there could be no anticlimax, that would make it all futile.

And she had _understood_, she had realised his motive--this he knew and felt, but took no comfort from the thought.

And Katherine, with half an hour to herself, looked for and found that pa.s.sage on page fifty-four of "Abelard and Heloise" and she read:

I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding you as an enemy. And yet I incessantly seek for you in my mind--I recall your image in my memory and in such different disquietudes I betray and contradict myself.--I hate you!--I love you! Shame presses me on all sides. I am at this moment afraid I should seem more indifferent than you are, and yet I am ashamed to discover my trouble.

Well--if he felt like that--what could be the end?

CHAPTER x.x.xI

London seemed very noisy and tumultuous to Katherine when they returned to Berkeley Square, and the routine of her work came almost as a relief.

What would be the outcome of this visit to Valfreyne? She could not guess. That the Duke loved her she knew--but with what kind of love?

With an almighty pa.s.sion which one day would break all barriers and seek for fulfilment? Or with a restrained emotion which, when the temptation of her presence was removed, would settle down? But of what matter really whether he loved her with the one or the other, since both were equally forbidden and useless!

And she?--What were her feelings? She knew in her heart that if she were to permit herself to indulge in natural emotion, she could shower upon him a love that in its white heat of devotion and pa.s.sion would make that which she had formerly given to Lord Algy appear but a puny schoolgirl thing.

She must not give way to any such feelings, though; the pain was quite bitter enough as it was--and nothing but stern discipline of mind and an iron self-control could make it bearable at all.

She felt restless during that week--on tenterhooks to know if she should see the Duke; hot and cold as she went into a room. But he did not come and she heard casually that he was still at Valfreyne. And on Sat.u.r.day morning they went down to Blissington until the Monday afternoon, as was their custom at each week-end.

Lady Garribardine watched Katherine critically and knew that she was suffering, and so she was unusually kind and witty and sarcastic, and acted as a tonic. She had a shrewd way of looking at men and things which always delighted Katherine, and they seemed to grow closer friends than ever.

"You are a great comfort to me, girl," she said. "I can talk to you and air all my notions as I could to a man--and you do not answer upon another subject. For you know, my dear, that if the basis of your argument with nine women out of ten happens to be that the sea is salt, they will reply that on the contrary the moon is made of green cheese!

You mildly protest that it is the taste of the sea, not the composition of the moon which is in question, and then they say they totally disagree with you and that the sun is warm! You are done!--There is nothing left for you but to smile and talk of clothes!"

Katherine laughed delightedly. How well she knew this style of argument!

Matilda had always practised it.

"I believe I owe to my dear lady the faculty of seeing a little differently."

"Not at all!--You always were as sharp as a needle. I may merely have encouraged you perhaps."

"It is through your kindness and sympathy that I have emerged and broken away from the stultifying bonds of my cla.s.s. Oh! if you only knew how deep is my grat.i.tude!"

She was very seldom moved like this, and Lady Garribardine looked at her closely.

"Tut, tut, child--you were made for great things, and it is because I realised this at once, almost, that I have sympathised with you. I could not have kept you back any more than I could have created qualities in you. I could merely have delayed your upward progress or, as I hope I have done, advanced it. The spirit in you is G.o.d-given and I have nothing to do with it."

Katherine's eyes softened with love and reverence! Her dear, dear friend and benefactress!

When she was alone, Lady Garribardine thought deeply over everything, their respect and affection were mutual. It troubled her a little to see the girl so quiet--Mordryn had played quite fairly, she hoped--but yes--he could never do otherwise. She guessed what was the reason of the estrangement--if estrangement there was--on his side, and it caused her no permanent concern.