Part 13 (1/2)
”Please do,” returned Grizel heartily. ”I adore stray teas!”
Most unfeeling! the nurse decided, but then, what could one expect? A most disagreeable old woman, and such a fortune to inherit! She sighed, stifling a pang of envy.
The will of Lady Griselda Dundas was published the week after her funeral, and was the subject of comment in every large newspaper in the kingdom. The disposal of so large a fortune was in itself interesting, but the unusual conditions of the will attracted a curious attention.
Beyond a few insignificant legacies the entire property was bequeathed to her niece, and adopted daughter, Miss Grizel Dundas, for the term of her unmarried life. On her marriage she became ent.i.tled to an income of five hundred a year, with a further sum of ten thousand pounds to be paid down on her fiftieth birthday, the remainder of the vast property being divided between certain charities, and a few distant relations, scattered about the world.
Grizel Dundas was left then to decide between single blessedness and an income approaching thirty thousand a year, and marriage on a pittance of five hundred! Society wagged its tongue in excited effort to solve the reason of the mystery. Lady Griselda's own unhappy marriage had made her dread a similar experience for her niece. Grizel Dundas had been on the eve of an imprudent marriage, from which the will was designed to save her. Unsavoury facts had come to light concerning the private life of a certain t.i.tled aspirant... Numerous theories were advanced, but only one solution. Grizel Dundas was already twenty-eight, an age at which the sentimental period might be supposed to be outlived; she would accept the goods which the G.o.ds had given, and become one of the great hostesses of society. Those seemingly lazy, easy-going people were invariably the most practical at heart. Grizel Dundas was no fool. She knew well enough on which side her bread was b.u.t.tered.
And in The Glen, Martin and Katrine Beverley read the different notices in strained silence, and referred to them in terse, difficult words.
Each tried anxiously to discover the other's sentiments, and to conceal a personal verdict. Katrine discovered in Martin's depression the confirmation of her own conviction that he could never venture to ask Grizel to become his wife, at such a cost to her future prospects. The conviction brought with it a renewed sense of security, but little of the satisfaction which she had expected. A mysterious weight lay on her heart, and she struggled against an almost overwhelming sense of impatience. The routine of daily life appeared insufferably monotonous, blank, and unsatisfying. If Martin settled down again into his old, grave way, life would go on in the same old way, always the same! She had been pa.s.sing through a period of unrest and dread, but now that the dread seemed over, her heart knew no joy. ”What do I want?” Katrine asked despairingly of herself. ”What do I want?”
Martin had gone to town to attend the funeral, but as Grizel had not attended the ceremony had had no glimpse of her. The ordinary letter of condolence had been forwarded, but had received no reply. A week dragged by, a fortnight, almost three weeks, and Martin, strained almost beyond endurance, was tentatively suggesting to Katrine that it would be a kind action to run up to town to pay Grizel a call, when the morning post arrived, and with it a letter in the large, well-known writing.
”Will you put me up for a week?” Grizel wrote. ”There is a lot of clearing away to be done here, and I must get away. Expect me to-morrow by the five o'clock train!”
CHAPTER TWELVE.
”Lebong, _August 20, 19--_.
”Dear Katrine,--
”Your grumbly letter safely to hand. You explained the reasons right enough, for all your protests, and honestly, dear, I can't sympathise!
All is going as I could have told you it would, and in the best way possible for all concerned. You've only to sit still, and await events.
”I should like to meet Miss Grizel Dundas. She doesn't sound the sort of a girl a man _would_ look at with sorrowful eyes. I shouldn't myself. I'd think small beer of Martin if he did. Dorothea says there's an erratic old aunt in the question, and that no human soul can foretell what she may do. Personally I hope she'll leave her fortune to the Home for Stray Cats, or any mad scheme which old ladies approve, rather than to fascinating Miss Grizel. A few hundreds a year to buy frocks and frills is agreeable enough, but a colossal fortune is a handicap to a girl, so far as decent, single-minded men are concerned.
_You_ are not an heiress by any chance, are you? My annual income from every source tots up to something like eight hundred a year, and as this is an expensive station, and the caste question necessitates an army of servants, it might very well be more... However! we were not talking about ourselves.
”You are wrong about Martin, dear girl, and the sooner you realise it the better. There's no stepping down from pedestals in opening the heart to love and joy--the demoralising thing is to close it, out of a mistaken sense of duty. Are these years of repression shaping him into a kinder, wider, more generous form? Think over the question, and if you answer 'no,' then what is to be his cure?
”I expect the truth of it is that like most dear women the religious question troubles you. How, you ask yourself, would Martin feel, if he married again, and died, and met Juliet in another sphere? What would happen when the two wives met?--I should laugh over that question, if I did not guess that it bites deep, for what sort of a spiritual world could it be in which jealousy and self-seeking counted before love! I can imagine Juliet meeting Grizel with open arms, and blessing her for having brought back joy to the beloved's heart; I can imagine them united by the very fact of their mutual love; what is utterly beyond my imagination is that having reached a higher plane of thought and vision, there should be any grudge, any envy, any question of who comes first!
”We've got to _grow_, little girl! Plants _can_ grow in the dark; sickly, pale-coloured things, but they cannot flower. Think that over too. You'll find I am right.
”I'm hanged if I am not preaching, after all. Sorry! You'll have to forgive me this time.
”Dorothea and I have had 'words.' She represents that as she allowed me to hear extracts from your letters for years past, she might now be treated to occasional extracts from mine. From a logical point of view there's nothing to be said, only--it can't be done. My letters are my own. Not so much as a comma can be shared. It appears also that a certain photograph has disappeared from her mantelpiece, and that she blames me. I took it right enough, _but it looked as if it wanted to come_! Give you my word it did. And it lives _perdu_ in a drawer, where no eye can see it but mine own, and I say good-night to it every night, and good-morning when I'm not too late, and an occasional salaam during the day, just to see that she's there all right!
”We have just been giving a big send-off to a fellow in the regiment, Bedford by name, who is taking a few months' sick leave. His people are to meet him in Egypt as he can't stand an English winter, and he hopes to get back in spring. A bad case of rheumatism, which will play the d.i.c.kens with his work if it is not stopped in time. The desert air is the best cure he can have, and he ought to put in a pretty good time.
You'd like Bedford. A big, bony chap, rather after your own description of the fortunate orphan, with a curt, shy manner, which the women seem to approve. With men he is as straight as a die, and a splendid soldier. It gives one a choke in the throat to see Bedford hobble.
”I've told him that I know a spinster lady in England who collects bra.s.ses, and asked him to keep a look-out for old specimens, so I expect you'll hear from him one of these days. It will give him an interest in poking about, and besides--Christmas is coming!
”Well, good-bye, little girl. Take care of yourself, and look forward as I do to a good time coming!
”Yours ever,
”Jim Blair.”