Part 3 (1/2)
For the first time a faint doubt shot through the certainty of Katrine's conviction that all that was best worth having was for Martin past and over. A man of thirty-five, in the prime of health and vigour--was it natural, was it _right_, that his heart should remain buried in the grave of his girl wife? Loyalty would not allow Katrine to confess as much in words, but deep down in her heart she realised that her brother was growing yearly less loving, less lovable, more difficult to please.
Bereft of Juliet, thrown back upon himself, the best part of his nature was slowly atrophying from disuse.
Was the fault on his side or hers? Woman of twenty-six though she was, Katrine was curiously limited in her ideas on the great facts of life.
The Cranford cramp had laid its hand upon her, so that her judgments were made from the standpoint of convention, not fact. It never occurred to her to blame human nature for the fact that a brother and sister of mature age had failed to find completeness in a life together; instead, she peered anxiously into her own shortcomings of temper and tact, and laboriously built up resolutions.
”I must be more careful, more considerate. He has n.o.body but me.”
She sighed, and this time the sigh was undisguisedly wistful in tone.
”If it were possible! If she could indeed be brave enough, fine enough, woman enough, to throw conventions to the winds, what a wonderful new interest might come into her life! The arrival of Dorothea's letters had made epochs in the week, but how much more--” She stopped short, aghast at the suggestion. How could the letters of a strange man be _more_ engrossing than those of the friend of years? Comparison between them was ridiculous. The whole proposition was preposterous and impossible. She would write at once, a firm and dignified rebuff.
Then suddenly, in the midst of her protests, Katrine caught sight of her own image gazing at her from a mirror across the room--a transformed image, youthful, glowing, incredibly alive. The eyes flashed, drooped with a guilty shame, then flashed again bright and defiant. She looked, and burst into a great peal of laughter; she threw out her arms with the gesture of one pus.h.i.+ng aside imprisoning chains, advanced with a swaggering gait, and nodded defiance into the tell-tale gla.s.s.
”You're a fraud, Katrine Beverley; you're a fraud! It is all humbug and pretence, and you _know_ that it is. His letters _would_ be more interesting, just because he _is_ a man, who admires me, and wants--_things_--he can never have! And I'm _not_ sorry, I'm _glad_.
If it wasn't for Martin, I'd say yes.--I'd say it at once, I _want_ to say yes!”
Her face fell, she sighed despondently, then straightened herself, rea.s.sured.
”At any rate there is the box. In common decency I must write to thank him for the box!”
And meantime Martin was swinging along the country lanes, recalling the morning's conversation, and pondering for the hundredth time how he could best escape from the _impa.s.se_ of his life.
”Any other woman would have understood--would have realised that I _wanted_ to be alone, but the mischief of it is Katrine doesn't see, and I can't be brute enough to tell her in so many words. If she could be induced to take that Indian tour, we might start afresh after a year's absence. Or she might marry out there. She's a handsome girl, and would make a rattling wife,--to the right man! Poor old Katrine! I hope I did not show her too plainly... The furniture will have an extra polish this morning, and we shall have a superfine dinner, my favourite dishes,--an ice, and Angels on Horseback,--for a ducat we'll have them, and I shall buy her a box of chocolates on my way home... She tries her best, poor girl. So do I, for that matter, and that is the devil of it.
Effort! Effort!”
The air seemed black with clouds; the pain which long custom had dulled revived into throbbing life. He was racked with mental nausea: life stretched before him level, uneventful, intolerably dull. His very work was a mistake. Long months of effort, and struggle of spirit, and as a result a few patronising reviews, and a monetary reward, which, worked out on a time basis, approached a sweating wage. If he never wrote another line, should he be missed; would the world be a whit the poorer?
What was the sum total when all was told, but amus.e.m.e.nt for an idle hour!
It was in the depths of depression that Martin entered the golf club half an hour later, but on the threshold his good angel stood waiting.
His favourite partner, a retired civil servant, living in an adjoining village, stood within the pavilion and acclaimed him with delight; the most intelligent of caddies was at his disposal, and half-an-hour's play demonstrated the fact that the day was his.
By the end of two hours the vapours had disappeared beneath the combined influences of bracing air, congenial companions.h.i.+p, and a succession of long drives; and then as he climbed up the side of a heathery slope, suddenly, mysteriously, in the fas.h.i.+on known to all writers of fiction, inspiration flashed! The longed-for clue appeared, the tangles smoothed, the barren scene vibrated with life.
Martin stood still on the hill-side, and his lungs expanded with a deep, envious breath. Work! Work! The study table--the scattered leaves, the click of the typewriter; the barren hours, the hours when thoughts flew so fast that the pen could not keep pace,--each different phase of work rose before him, and each in its turn seemed good. His former lethargy disappeared. Useless? Valueless? Was it of no value to be one of the few writers who in a decadent age kept his pages clean? When so many streams ran foul, was it a light thing to provide a crystal well? And this last book should be the best he had written; stronger, deeper, more vital. Already in his own mind it was a living thing. He conceived a man, and lived in his image; he made unto him a wife. The two faces flashed at him out of the blue...
Ten minutes later, as he took up his position before a buried ball, Martin was telling himself briskly: ”Hang it all, it's _true_! It _is_ my house. I can ask whom I like--”
CHAPTER FOUR.
”c.u.mly, _June_ 1, _19--_.
”Dear Captain Blair,
”As you say, I am bound in duty to thank you for the box.
”Considered as a box, it is a treasure indeed. It is so 'worthy' of my collection, that every other specimen looks in comparison poor and tawdry. I have placed it on a little pinnacle of its own, where it s.h.i.+nes afar, leaving the lesser lights undimmed.
”Miss Beverley returns warm thanks to Captain Blair for his kindness in remembering her collection, and adding to it so valuable and antique a specimen.