The Career of Katherine Bush Part 59

"Hush, you must not say that to me, I ask you not to, please."

But since coldness and repulsion were not what he read in her glance, her words did not discourage him.

"I was very foolish at Valfreyne, Katherine, ever to have said farewell, but now I have come here to Blissington to tell you that I love you pa.s.sionately, my darling, and your dear sympathy and understanding saw into my mind, and grasped the prejudices therein. But now the blindness has fallen from my eyes--I adore you, my Beloved One--Katherine, I want you to be my wife."

His voice had never been more beautiful. His splendid presence had never appeared more impressive, nor the fascination of the man more supreme.

And he was there, a suppliant before her asking her to be his wife!

For a few seconds her brain reeled. The summit of her ambition was reached--and not ambition alone, but what now seemed to matter more, the realisation of true love. Both were there for her to take and to enjoy.

The fateful moment had come. She was face to face with the great problem of her life. How could she relinquish all this glory, just to keep faith with her ideal of right?

She looked up into his proud face and saw it transfigured with wors.h.i.+p, and she gave a little cry--No, she could never deceive him, he was far too fine for that. Whatever came, between them there should be only truth. But even so, a flood of pa.s.sionate emotion burst all bonds, the whole deep currents of her nature were stirred, and must find vent before the final renunciation.

"Ah!" she cried, and let herself be clasped in his embrace, then, "I love you, I love you!" she went on wildly.--"Kiss me--hold me, let me feel what it is like to be there next your heart--what it would mean--what it _could_ mean, if it might only be.--Oh! you do not know what it costs really to say good-bye--Do you remember once when I told you that I knew one side of love and asked you if there was not something beyond? Well, I know now that there is--you have taught me to feel it--It is the soul's victory--I love you with everything in me, with my body and my spirit and my life!"

But she could articulate no further, for the Duke, intoxicated with emotion, strained her to his heart, bruising her lips with kisses which seemed to transport them both to paradise.

Here was no timid lover! But one with a nature as fiercely pa.s.sionate as her own!

"Ah, G.o.d, how divine!" and he sighed when at last after long, blissful seconds his lips left hers. "Katherine, how dare you talk such folly to me of bidding me good-bye! You shall never leave me again, you are absolutely mine."

"Hus.h.!.+" and she put her hand over his mouth tenderly, while she drew herself out of his arms. "As far as love goes I am indeed all yours, the mightiness of this pa.s.sion has swept away all other thoughts, but now you will have to listen to me--and you must not speak until the end.--See, let us sit here for the story is long."

Just to humour her he allowed her to draw him to the seat, and with eyes devouring her with fond impatience, he waited for her to begin.

"Promise that you will not interrupt me until I have finished, no matter what you may feel or think."

He gave his word quite gaily and took and held her hand.

Katherine controlled her every nerve now and told the story in a deep, quiet voice--with no dramatic gestures, drawing a graphic picture of her home and of the office at Liv and Dev's and the effect upon her of the voices of the gentlemen who came to borrow money. And then she told of the coming of Lord Algy and of their acquaintance, and then she paused for a second and glanced at Mordryn's face. It had grown a little strained, but he grasped more tightly her hand.

"Now you must listen very carefully and try to understand. I suppose I must have been in love with him in a pa.s.sionate kind of way, he was so very handsome and gay and full of charm--Well, I decided to go away with him for three days--I decided deliberately, not so much from love as because I wanted to understand life, and to know the nature of men, and the point of view of an aristocrat."

The Duke's face became ashen white and his hand turned icy cold, but he did not speak. So with a little break in her voice, Katherine went on:

"--Well, we went to Paris on the Sat.u.r.day and came back on the Monday night; by that time I knew all the pa.s.sionate side of love; he aroused all those instincts in me which I once told you about--but he never touched my soul--that slept until you came.--I never meant to stay with him or remain his mistress; it was for experience, and that was all--and we parted at Charing Cross Station, and he went to Wales to his family to shoot, and I went home. I wrote to him and told him that I would not see him again. Then I made up my mind that I would leave Livingstone & Devereux's, and begin my next rise in the world. Oh! you do not know how ignorant I was then! But I never lost sight of the goal I meant to win, to win by knowing how to fill the position desired. I had vast dreams even in those early days. I was fortunate to obtain the situation of Lady Garribardine's secretary, and on leaving the house after being engaged, I met Lord Algy by chance in the park. He was very much upset and unhappy at my determination never to see him again--and he asked me to marry him. I refused, of course, because I knew even then that he only attracted one side of me, and also I was not educated enough at that time to have been able to carry off the position with success. I explained everything to him, and made him promise to try and be a fine soldier--he was being sent to Egypt for his extravagance, and so we parted, and I have never spoken to him since. My goal now was definitely fixed; I meant to educate myself to be able to take the highest position to be obtained in England some day. I used to long for Algy sometimes, but only every now and then, when some scent or sound brought him back to me; that is why I said such love is unbalanced and animal--the memory of it is always aroused by something of the senses. Then, after I went to Lady Garribardine, Mr. Strobridge came upon the scene, and his great cultivation inspired me, and presently we became friends. I deliberately encouraged his friends.h.i.+p so as to polish my own brain. I knew he was in love with me, so this may have been wrong, but since he was weak enough to allow himself to feel in that way for me knowing he was married, he must pay the price in pain, not I. He has always been a loyal friend after the beginning, when he lost his head one night and made a great scene. My determination never wavered; it was in every way to improve myself, always to be perfectly true and finally to obtain the height of my ambition. Things went on in this way for a year and a half, Lady Garribardine always helping me and encouraging my education until we became deep and intimate friends. But the goal never seemed to come in view until I went to the House of Lords that day and saw you and heard you speak. In a lightning flash the object of all my striving seemed revealed to me, and I began to lay my plans, but with some unusual excitement, because something in you had aroused an emotion in my heart, the meaning of which I could not then determine. That night I went to the theatre with my sister and there saw in the stalls Lord Algy, returned from Egypt, I suppose, on leave. The sight of him moved me, I felt cold and sick, but I realised once for all that my feeling for him had been only physical, and was pa.s.sing away.

"I had arranged with Mr. Strobridge to have the dinner, and to let me meet you, not as the secretary, because I knew that your unconscious prejudice would be insurmountable then. And I thought that if you liked me that night, afterwards the prejudice might not be so deep when you did know my real position.--You will remember what followed, but the second part of the story begins with the afternoon you came into the schoolroom. Until then I had never had a backward thought or regret or worry about Lord Algy. I was only glad to have had the experience, that was all. But after I had told you of my life and parentage, you bent down and kissed my hand. And from that moment doubts began to trouble me. You had started the awakening of my soul. And as love grew and grew, so the blackness of the shadow increased. I knew that if I deceived you I should only draw unhappiness and never respect myself. Where love is there can be no deceit--and so at last even before I went to Valfreyne I put all thoughts of you from me. Although each day you seemed to grow more dear--until I knew that you meant everything to me and were my wild and pa.s.sionate desire--I saw that my position in life held you back, and I was almost glad that it should be so--because I knew that if you should really love me, and conquer your prejudice against my cla.s.s, it would come to this, that I must tell you the truth and that it would part us forever. And I have tried to prevent you from telling me of your love, I have tried to restrain my own for you, but now I am left defenceless--I love you, but I realise that what I did in the past the world could never forgive, and so I must pay the price of my own action, and say an eternal farewell."

Her voice died away in a sob, and she did not then look at the Duke's face; his hand had grown nerveless in its clasp and she drew hers away from him, and rose slowly to her feet. The awful moment was over, the story was done--she had been true to herself and had lost her love--and now she must have courage to behave with dignity and go back to the house.

But she must just look at him once more, her dearly loved one! He sat there in an att.i.tude of utter dejection, his face buried in his hands.--For long aching moments Katherine watched him, but she did not speak and life and hope and purpose died out of her, drowned in overwhelming grief.

Then after this horrible silence the blood seemed to creep back to the Duke's heart, and reaction set in. He began gradually to think. His level judgment, his faculty for a.n.a.lyzing things, rea.s.serted themselves, and enabled him to view the whole subject in right perspective, and a re-awakening to happiness slowly filled him.

He looked up to Katherine at last as she stood there leaning against a pillar of the bal.u.s.trade, and he read no humiliation or shame or contrition in her great eyes, but only a deep sorrow and tenderness and love.

And suddenly he realised the splendour of her courage, the glorious force of character which had enabled her to jeopardize--nay, indeed, relinquish, love and high estate and ambition, rather than be false to herself.

_For she need not have told him anything of her story._ That fact was the great proof of her truth. He had asked no questions about her past.

She had made no dramatic virtue of necessity, she had done this thing that she might not soil her own soul with deceit.

Of what matter was a paltry venial sin! If sin it were, the shame of which lay wholly in a too rigid convention--of what matter to him were three days in the past, long before they had met! That she was altogether his now in body and soul he had no faintest doubt. Was there any man living such a fool or puritan that he would renounce life's joy for such a foolish thing! The very qualities of courage and justice which her action in telling him had shown, would wipe out any sin and give him ample guaranties for future security and peace. Such a woman was worth all the world! And ridiculous puny conventions were of no account. Did he dream of looking upon Seraphim as degraded because she had been his love long ago, and not his wife? Of course not! Then why should he feel scorn for Katherine who had not even betrayed a husband, but had been free? Scorn was for such women as Julia Scarrisbrooke--creatures who simulated pa.s.sion for one man after another, merely as a game--people who held love cheaply and who knew not even the glimmerings of obligation to their own souls.

Away with all shams of the world! None of them should influence him! He had found a spirit strong and free and honest. Reality had won forever, and appearance had vanished away.

So he rose and came to her again and once more took her into his arms, and bending kissed her white forehead as if in blessing.

"Oh! my Beloved--And you deemed that this would part us, this long-past ugly thing! Foolish one!--You do not know how much I love you! Far beyond any of the earthly things. Darling, I honour your brave courage.

I wors.h.i.+p your truth. You shall come to me and be my adored wife, and the mistress of my home. Katherine, heart of me, whisper that all sorrows are over, and let us enter heaven together and forget all else."

But Katherine, overwrought with emotion, lay there against his breast, limp and white. She was beyond speech, only her spirit cried out in thankfulness to G.o.d for having given her the strength to tell the truth.

Joys kills not--and soon under her lover's fond caresses, warm life rushed back to her. And thus in the evening glory of sunset they found content.

For the one sublime thing in this sad, mad world is LOVE.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

It was more than a month since, in the late July of 1914, the joy bells had rung out on all the Duke's estates for the birth of the heir, the infant Marquis of Valfreyne. And it was just a year since Katherine had become his d.u.c.h.ess!

And what a year in a woman's life!

Days and weeks and months of happiness, of ever-increasing understanding and companions.h.i.+p, with one whose every action and thought inspired respect and love.

The bond between the two had grown always more deep, more sacred, as the days went on, and as Katherine said one morning fondly:

"Mordryn, we are just like _Rochester_ and _Jane Eyre_, not modern people, because we never want to be away from one another for a minute--only, thank G.o.d, you are not blind."

Theirs was a real marriage, and Lady Garribardine was fully content. She took personal pride in the manner in which her protege fulfilled the role of d.u.c.h.ess, and she rejoiced to see her old love in the midst of such bliss.

For their union was divine and complete, and the coming of the baby Valfreyne had been the crowning joy.

It was a continual source of delight to the Duke to watch Katherine, and to know how absolutely his belief in her had been justified. To watch and to note with what supreme dignity she carried out the duties of his great state. And as each occasion came when some special effort was required, after it was over she would rush into his arms, and caress him, and ask to be petted, and told that he was satisfied, and that his beggar d.u.c.h.ess had pleased him and done all that he would wis.h.!.+

The year of perfect happiness and gratified ambition had moulded Katherine into a new and n.o.ble being, in whom graciousness and sweetness and gentleness enhanced all her old charms.

She continued to make Lady Garribardine her model for everything.

The world had experienced a nine days' wonder when the engagement was announced; but, as Her Ladys.h.i.+p said, there was no use in having kept her iron heel upon the neck of society for all these years, if she could not now impose upon it unquestioned what she wished. So Katherine had had a triumphant entry, and very little antagonism to surmount. She paid visits to all the Duke's relatives under Lady Garribardine's wing, and her own tact and serene dignity had conquered them all, and turned them into friends.

"She is of no particular birth," Her Ladys.h.i.+p was wont to say, "but _I know_ who she is, so you need none of you trouble yourselves about it. I will be answerable for her fitness for the post."

Thus the most romantic and fantastic rumours got about, and Lady Garribardine wrote amusedly to Gerard in Russia, after the wedding in September, giving a description of events: