CHAPTER XVI
Lady Beatrice remained until the Saturday, greatly to her husband'ssatisfaction and relief. He had manoeuvred this arrangement with muchskill, and Laeo's vanity felt satisfied, and indeed gratified, by thebelief that the presence of his wife was causing Gerard untold sufferingand disappointment! The preliminaries of the game were so veryagreeable! and when they could be prolonged by fate so that there was nofear of losing the other participant in them, nothing could be more toher taste.
Passion, like that which Katherine Bush knew, would have appeared assomething absolutely shocking and horrible to her--indeed, she wouldhave agreed with Mabel Cawber in considering it as most unladylike!
The circumstance of the Christmas night dance had left a feeling ofmystery with Gerard Strobridge, which did not detract from his interestin Katherine Bush. That some strong upheaval had taken place in thisstrange young woman's soul he did not doubt.
But what in Heaven's name had caused it? Did it concern him?--Or was heonly the medium connecting some memory?--He wished he could feel sure.Then there was the incident of his flowers; why had she worn them, andthen thrown them from her as if they had burnt her?
His rather tormenting thoughts kept him too frequent company--especiallyas the provoking girl seemed to have retired from sight, and except onrare occasions, before everyone, he never had the chance of even aword.
Lady Garribardine's rheumatism was better, so Miss Bush had not evenbeen required to pour out the tea.
It was with a sigh of intense relief that he returned into the hallafter tucking Laeo and his wife into the motor en route for London town,on Saturday morning an hour or two before lunch.
The hostess was not down to speed her parting guests; she was very muchoccupied in her boudoir, and they had gone thither to bid her farewell.
As Mr. Strobridge mounted the stairs, he met Katherine coming out of theroom with her arms full of papers and small parcels, and a couple of bigbooks, which she had some ado to carry.
"Let me help you," he said, eagerly--and she gave him the heavy volumeswithout a word.
A sense of exasperation arose in him. He would not be flouted like this!He followed her to the old schoolroom, merely remarking on the way thatnow all the guests, except Colonel Hawthorne, had departed, he feltthere was breathing space.
Katherine seemed quite unconcerned and indifferent as to whether he didor did not; and she took his burden from him and thanked him absently,with a look towards the door evidently expecting him to go back againwhence he came.
But he showed no signs of moving.
"Am I to be offered a chair on this my first call upon Miss Bush?"
"It isn't a call--you helped me to carry the books. I am very busyto-day."
"I don't care. I am here now, and I am going to stay--I shall tell myaunt how inhospitable and ungracious you are!"
"Sneak!" and she began sorting the little parcels into a row, her sulleneyes smiling. "I always hated tell-tales at school."
"So did I--but I could commit any crime to be with you. I have beentantalized all the week--Miss Bush not even seen at tea--and onlyglimpses of her scurrying along passages and up stairs!"
"What then do you want with Miss Bush?--Have you some more charitybusiness to do?"
"No--The charity will be quite on the side of the fair Katherine, if shewill allow a weary wayfarer to bask in the sunshine of her presence fora little while."
"Mr. Strobridge, you are talking nonsense, and I have not a moment'stime to waste on you."
"I love to talk nonsense. It annoys you, and I want to see your eyesflash. I have seen them laughing--and full of pain--and snakilycold. Now I want them to flash--and then I would like them to growtender.--They would be divine like that."
Katherine sat down and took up a pen, with a glance of witheringindifference; then she began to address the labels of the packets from alist.
He came quite close to her; he was feeling a number of things.
"What a temptress you are--aren't you?--teasing me like this!"
Katherine now opened her eyes wide and stared at him, but she did notmove away an inch.
"The whole thing is only in your imagination," she said, calmly. "Youare a proof of my theory that personal emotion creates appearance, andhides reality."
"You understand then that I do feel emotion?"
"Why, of course. A man of your brains and cultivation could not behavein so foolish a way otherwise."
He drew back and leaned against the mantelpiece while he laughedshortly.
Katherine continued to work.
"I am merely waiting until you have finished directing those confoundedparcels, which I presume are for this post--and then I am going to coaxyou to talk to me--May I smoke?"
"Yes, if you like--" still with lowered head.
"Won't you have a cigarette?"
"Thanks."
He handed her one from his case. She pulled a box of matches near andlit it casually, going on with her work as a boy might have done--Therewas no knocking off of ash or graceful movement of the hand in thefashion of Laeo, who loved her white jewelled fingers to be seen toadvantage.
Neither of them spoke. He might not have been in the room as far as shewas concerned! He, on the contrary, was profoundly aware of herpresence. Emotion such as he had not felt for years was surging throughhim.
She was the most damnably attractive creature, he thought, he had evermet. She awoke primitive passions, and stirred his blood. There was thatintense note of reality and strength about her. She was like somedangerous lazy lioness. She made him feel that civilisation was slippingfrom him, and that he could willingly seize her for a jungle mate.
She, however, continued to smoke and to write for quite ten minutes,until all the parcels were addressed, and several papers examined andannotated and filed. Then she looked up. His eyes had never left herface.
"I can't think how you can stare like that," she said, with abominablematter-of-factness. "It would make me blink."
"I can enjoy looking at the sun--Now are those infernal things finished?I have been waiting with the patience of Job."
"But I can't think what for?"
"To talk to you."
"Well, talk then! I must do some typing," and she got up and went to hermachine, which was on another table by the window. She knew perfectlywell that she was driving him mad; it gave her a savage pleasure, andseemed a sort of balance to her own emotions on Christmas night aboutAlgy.
He came and leant against the mantelpiece and looked down at her andquoted Dryden:
"She knows her man, and when you rant and swear Can draw you to her with a single hair."
and stretching out his hand, he touched for an instant the faint broadwaves on her forehead.
And now he saw her eyes flash brilliantly enough!
"If you are going to be impertinent, Mr. Strobridge, the staircase intothe garden is quite close, and the sooner you find your way to it, thebetter I shall be pleased."
"I would not be impertinent for the world--the temptation wasoverwhelming; it is so lovely, your hair--"
His voice was quite sincere, and it was not in her plan to quarrel withhim.
"Very well."
"I want to hear so many things about you, child--tell me what made youcome to my aunt's?--I somehow cannot ever feel that you should be inany dependent position."
"I came to educate myself--I do not mean to be dependent always--What doyou do in the Foreign Office?"
He gave her a brief sketch of his days.
"Well, then," she said, "you have to do what you are told toalso--nothing matters as long as the spirit is not dependent. You willbe a Chief some day, I suppose?"
"Perhaps--and are you learning here?"
"Yes--and you could teach me if you liked."
"I should quite adore it--what wages should I have?"
"None."
"Then that means, by the rules of all games, that I should be workingfor--love----"
&nb
sp; She shrugged her shoulders and put in another piece of paper in thetyping machine. She had no intention of talking about--love----
"You are the queerest creature--you make me feel--I do not knowwhat--Well, if you won't discuss wages--tell me what I am to teach you?"
"Literature--Do you remember a day when I came in and had coffee in thedining-room?--It was before you knew I existed--You and Her Ladyshiptalked of the things then which I would like you to talk to me about."
"Yes, was it not strange?--I must have been blind all those weeks."
The sphinxlike smile hovered round Katherine's mouth; it was enigmaticand horribly tantalizing. Gerard Strobridge felt a rush of wild emotionagain; the temptation to seize her in his arms and passionately kissthose mocking lips almost overcame him. It is quite doubtful what mighthave eventuated, if at that moment he had not caught sight of oldColonel Hawthorne in the rose garden. He had come out through the samelittle door which Katherine used, the passage from which, on the groundfloor, led to the smoking-room. He waved his hand and beckoned toGerard.
It broke the spell, and drove some sense into the latter's head.
"Colonel Hawthorne is calling you; had not you better go and get someair?" Miss Bush suggested graciously. "It would be most beneficial, I amsure, to you, on this fine morning!"
"I daresay you are right--Well, I will go--only some day perhaps youwill pay me some wages after all!"
"Is that a threat?"
"Not in the least"; he went towards the door. "Don't be cross--and whenyou have time will you come and see the pictures in the gallery?"
"Yes--I would love that," and her face brightened. "But you had betterask Lady Garribardine if I may."
"All right--Leave it to me--_Au revoir!_" and he was gone.
As he went down the stairs, he thought that it was a good idea of hisaunt's to have had the smoking-room removed to this wing of the house.It had only been done that autumn, so that the shooters could gostraight in if they pleased, by the side door.
Katherine did not continue her typing for a moment after she was leftalone. Her brows were contracted. She was thinking deeply.
Mr. Strobridge might not be quite so easy to rule as Charlie Prodgers.She had heard that thoroughbred racers required the lightest hand, andalso that there were moments when nothing would control them, neitherbridle, nor whip, nor spur. She must think out her plan of actioncoolly. It was necessary for what she required of him that his desire toplease her should surmount all other things. At the present stage itwould be difficult to get him to talk sense--but she would do her bestto make him do so. This point settled, she went on with her work againundisturbed.
Gerard Strobridge found old Tom Hawthorne a tiresome companion, on theirprowl round the stables, and soon escaped to his aunt's sitting-room; hemust somehow arrange for Katherine to see the pictures with him afterlunch.
Lady Garribardine was reading the _Times_ when he came in, and looked updelightedly. She enjoyed converse with her favourite at any hour.
They talked of many things; politics in chief. Her Ladyship's views wereTory to the backbone, but she had a speculative cynical lightness whichleavened any retrogressive tendencies. Gerard often disagreed with herjust to draw out her views. She loathed the Radical government. Itaroused her fiercest sarcasms and contempt.
How could such a class of people, she argued, from their heredity, nomatter what clever brains they had, have the right qualities in them toenable them to govern England? How could they with personal andfinancial axes to grind possibly concentrate honestly upon the welfareof the country above their own necessities? It was quite ridiculous inlogic, whether their views were Radical or Tory. The supreme voice inthe government of a country should only be in the hands of thoseraised by their position above all temptation for merely personalaggrandisement, so that the glory of the country could be theirlegitimate and undivided aim. It could not be that the little Mr.Browns and Greens with their parochial lawyer instincts and bitter classhatreds, greedy for their salaries and own advancement, could rise tothe necessary heights of sublime prevision to enable them to see farenough ahead to have the final decision on any great question. She wasall in favour of the most advanced views for the advantage and raisingof the lower classes in freedom and education, no matter from which sidethey emanated. But she resented the pushing up of individuals totallyunfit in integrity of character for the positions of authority theyoccupied, and who year after year were exposed as having in some waylowered the standard of honour in their office.
She would receive none such in her house.
"I eat with no one who lowers the prestige of my country in the eyes ofother nations," she declared. "Making us a laughing-stock in Europewhere we were once great!"
And for her that settled matters!
Mr. Strobridge coasted warily among the shoals of her opinions, andgradually got the conversation on the topic of the pictures in thegallery, some of which she really thought ought to be sent to London tobe cleaned--had Gerard noticed lately?--particularly two early Italians?This was a most fortunate suggestion! Mr. Strobridge had noticed--andhad meant to speak about them.
"We must have a critical examination to-day after luncheon while thelight is good. One ought not to delay over such matters."
He knew incidently that his aunt was going to drive Tom Hawthorne intothe town in her phaeton, to try a new pair of cobs which she had boughtjust before Christmas, and would be starting the moment that meal wasfinished--but he showed just the right amount of regret and surprisewhen she informed him of this fact.
"Never mind. I will go round alone, or better still, if you could spareMiss Bush for an hour, I will get her to make shorthand notes of what Ithink should be done to each picture."
Lady Garribardine looked at her nephew shrewdly; his face was innocentas a babe's.
"I believe Miss Bush would make quite an agreeable companion in apicture gallery," she remarked.
"I am sure you are perfectly right."
Then they both laughed.
"G., you won't flirt with the girl, will you, and turn her head?"
"The sad part of the affair is that it is the girl who is more likely toturn my head. Her own is far too well screwed on."
"Upon my word, I believe you! Well, then, innocent of thirty-five,don't be beguiled into idiocy by this competent _seductrice_ oftwenty-two!--If you were forty-five there would be no hope for you, buta glimmer of sanity may remain in the thirties!"
"She _is_ attractive, Seraphim--and will love to see the pictures. Shesays she wants to learn about art and literature--and kindred things."
"And you have offered to teach her?"
Mr. Strobridge put on a modest air, while his humorous grey eyes met hisaunt's merrily.
"I have applied for the post of tutor--with no salary attached."
"She won't put up with inefficiency; you will have to keep your wits athigh-water mark, then."
"I feel that."
"Well, G., perhaps you deserve a treat. The Christmas entertainment Ihad provided for you in the way of Laeo fell rather flat, did it not!"
"One grows tired of souffle."
"Yes, but do not forget that more substantial food can cause shockingindigestion, unless partaken of with moderation."
"Heavens, Seraphim! I am no gourmand!"
"Gerard, my dear boy--you are at a stage of hunger, I fear, whenintelligence may not guide discretion. You see, Nature is apt to breakout after years of artificial repression."
"We are overcivilised, I admit."
At that moment, the luncheon-gong sounded and they both rose from theirchairs.
Lady Garribardine slipped her fat hand into her nephew's arm, as theywent down the stairs.
"G.--I leave the afternoon to you--only don't burn your fingersirretrievably; this young woman is no fool like poor Laeo. I look uponher as a rather marvellous product of the twentieth century."