The Career of Katherine Bush Part 55

No, she was not among them.

She must then either be still in her bedroom--or writing perhaps in front of the window of the pa.s.sage place which was next this very room!

He would go out on the terrace from one of the windows and look in.

Yes--she was there seated at the table very busy, it appeared.

He came forward and stepping across the threshold, he stood beside her.

"Good morning, Miss Bush--it is quite wrong for you to be working on this glorious day. You must come out into the suns.h.i.+ne with the rest of us."

Katherine did not rise or appear to be going to follow his suggestion, so he added authoritatively:

"Now be a good girl and go and get your hat."

"I am very sorry I cannot before lunch; I have much work to do, and it becomes disorganised if I leave it unfinished."

"Nonsense! You did not come to Valfreyne to work. There are such a number of things I want to show you. Everyone is out in the garden, won't you at least come round the state rooms with me?"

How could she refuse him? He was her host and the pleasure would be so intense. She rose, but without alacrity and answered a little stiffly:

"I should much like to see them--if it will not take very long."

Her manner was distinctly different, he noticed it at once--a curtain seemed to have fallen between them ever since the conversation about the pencillings in the book. It chilled him and made him determined to remove it.

He held the door into his sitting-room open for her, and took pains to keep the conversation upon the ostensible reason for their voyage of inspection. He spoke of carving and dates, and told her anecdotes of the building of Valfreyne. And so they pa.s.sed on through all the splendid rooms, "The King's Chamber," and "The Queen's Closet,"--and the salons and so to the great state suite of her who should be reigning d.u.c.h.ess.

And Katherine saw priceless gems of art and splendour of gilding and tapestry, and hangings, and great ghostly beds surmounted with nodding ostrich plumes. And stuffs from Venice and Lyons--and even Spitalfields.

"How wonderful!" she said at last--"And there are many other places such as this in England! How great and rich a country it is. We--the middle cla.s.s population--shut in with our narrow parochial views--do not realise it at all, or we would be very proud of our race owning such glorious things, and would not want to encourage stupid paltry politicians to destroy and dissipate them all, and scatter them to the winds."

"It may seem hard in their view that one man should possess, we will say, Valfreyne."

"But how stupid! How could it all have been acc.u.mulated, but for individual wealth and taste and tradition? Who really cares for museums except to study examples in? Do you know, for instance, such people as my sisters would a thousand times rather walk through these rooms on a day when the public is let in, feeling it was a house owned by people who really lived there, than go to any place given to the nation, like Hampton Court or the Wallace Collection."

"That is the human interest in the thing."

"Yes, but the human and the personal are the strongest and most binding of all interests."

Mordryn looked at her appreciatively--he delighted in hearing her views.

"Then you have no feeling that you wish all this to be divided up among the people of Lulworth, say--the large town near?"

"Oh! no, no! So strongly do I feel for the law by which all goes to the eldest son, that were I a younger one, I would willingly give up my share to ensure the family continuing great. Who that can see clearly would not rather be a younger son of a splendid house, than a little, ridiculous n.o.body on his own account,--if everything were to be divided up."

"It is so very strange that you should have this spirit, Miss Bush. If you had not told me of your parentage I should have said you were of the same root and branch as Lady Garribardine. Are you sure you are not a changeling?"

"Quite sure. How proud it must make you feel to own Valfreyne, and what obligations it must entail!"

"Yes," and he sighed.

"It must make you weigh every action to see if it is worthy of one who must be an example for so many people."

"That is how you look upon great position--it is a n.o.ble way."

"Why, of course--it could not be right to hold all this in trust for your descendants, and for the glory of England, and then to think yourself free to squander it, and degrade the standard. All feeling would have to give way to worthily fulfilling your trust."

The Duke felt his heart sink--a strange feeling of depression came over him.

"I suppose you are right," and he sighed again.

"I was so much interested in the story of your ring," she said presently, to lift the silence which had fallen upon them both. "It is such a strange idea that great good fortune is unlucky--since we always draw what we deserve. If we are foolish and draw misfortune at the beginning of our lives, we must of course pay the price, but if people's brains are properly balanced they should not fear good fortune in itself."

"You think then that a whole life need not be shadowed with misery, but that if the price of folly is paid in youth, there may still be a chance of a happy old age?"

"Of course--One must be quite true, that is all, and never deceive anyone who trusts one."

"That would mean living in a palace of truth and would be impracticable."

"Not at all. There are some things people have no right to ask or to be told--some things one must keep to oneself for the carrying on of life--but if a person has a right to know, and trusts you and you deceive him, then you must take the consequences of unhappiness which is the reflex action of untruth."

"How wise you are, child--that is the whole meaning of honour, 'To thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.'"

She looked straight up into his eyes, hers were pure and deep and sorrowful.

"Now I have seen your beautiful home I must go back to my work--I shall always remember this visit, and this happy morning--all my life."

Mordryn was deeply moved, pa.s.sionate emotion was coursing through him--with great difficulty he restrained the words which rose to his lips. He did not seek to detain her, and they retraced their steps, speaking little by the way, until they came to his sitting-room.

"When you go to-morrow, will you take with you the 'Eothen' and the 'Abelard and Heloise?' I would like to know that you read them sometimes and there is one pa.s.sage in _Abelard's_ first letter which I know I shall have to quote to myself--It is on the fifty-fourth page, the bottom paragraph--you must look at it some time--"

Then his voice broke a little--"And now let us say good-bye--here in my room."

"Good-bye," said Katherine and held out her hand.

The Duke took it and with it drew her near to him.

"Good-bye--Beloved," he whispered, and his tones were hoa.r.s.e, and then he dropped her hand; and Katherine gave a little sob, and turning, ran from the room, leaving him with his proud head bent, and tears in his dark blue eyes.

And she made herself return to her work--nor would she permit her thoughts to dwell for an instant upon the events of the morning, or the words of the Duke--for she knew that if she did so she would lose control of herself and foolishly burst into tears. And there was lunch to be endured, and the afternoon and evening.

So this was the end--he loved her, but his ideas of principle held.--And if she was only a common girl and so debarred from being a d.u.c.h.ess--the Duke should see that no aristocrat of his own cla.s.s could be more game.

Lady Garribardine found her still writing diligently when she came in just before luncheon would be announced, and she wondered what made the girl look so pale.

"It is quite too bad that you have sat here all this time," she exclaimed. "I won't have you bother with another word. This was to be your holiday and your amus.e.m.e.nt, this visit to Valfreyne, and you have been cooped up in the house working as if at home."

The Duke looked extremely stern at luncheon and was punctiliously polite to everyone, but those in his immediate vicinity were conscious that a stiffness had fallen upon the atmosphere which asphyxiated conversation.