Part 52 (1/2)

”After all, Kitten,” she said, when they met in the park to discuss the news, ”you aren't one of us and we aren't one of you. I shall be moving up now into Mabel's set, and there is no use in hiding it, Mabel don't seem to dote on you.”

”Yes, I feel that,” agreed Katherine, meekly lowering her eyes, so that her sister might not see their twinkle. ”I expect we shall not meet often in the future, Tild.”

”Well, of course, Kitten, I'd always be very pleased to have tea with you up here now and then,” and Matilda gave an uncomfortable laugh; ”but it is always best to avoid awkwardness, isn't it, dearie, and you are only a paid servant, aren't you--living in--not like you were at Liv and Dev's, out on your own, and everyone starts better in considering her husband's position, don't they--and Charlie is manager in his department now, and very particular as to who I know.”

”You are perfectly right, Tild,” Katherine's voice was ominously soft, ”and so is Charlie. You go ahead, and very soon you will have got above Mabel, and, of course, I would not be a drag on you for the world. I think, after to-day, we will just write to one another now and then, and you must not bother to come up to see me. We do not think alike on any point--but I shall always remember how good you were to me when I was a tiresome little girl.”

”Oh, Kitten!” and Matilda felt almost tearful; for apart from her fear of reawakening her fiance's interest in her sister, she still had a secret affection for her.

”Yes, you were very good to me, then, Tild, but now we have come to a final parting of the ways, and we are all satisfied--I shall fulfil my ideas, and you will fulfil yours.”

And afterwards, when she walked back to Berkeley Square, she pondered deeply. There was no such thing as family affection really in the abstract--it only held when the individuals were in sympathy and had a community of interests. They--her family--were as glad at the thought that they had risen above her, and need not communicate in the future, as she was that she would not have to bring her mind down to their point of view. Matilda was the last link--and Matilda had shown that she desired also to break away. Katherine felt that but for Lady Garribardine's real affection for her, she was virtually alone in the world.

If only there were no backward thoughts in her mind, she would have looked upon her fair future as a certainty; sooner or later, with the visit to Valfreyne in front of her, and the frequent occasions upon which she must see the Duke at her mistress' house, she knew she could continue to attract him if she so desired, and make him love her with a great love. There was that subtle, indescribable sympathy of ideas between them. And as Algy had called forth physical pa.s.sion, and Gerard the awakening of the spirit, this man seemed to arouse the essence of all three things, the body, the spirit and the soul.

But there lay this ugly shadow between them, and she began to realise the meaning of the old saw from Horace, ”Black care sits behind the horseman,” and she had not yet made up her mind to dislodge him and defy fate.

The three days in Paris began to haunt her until she severely took herself to task, and a.n.a.lysed everything. She must not look back upon them in that fas.h.i.+on. She must remember them gratefully, she told herself, since they had opened her eyes for the first time in a way that nothing else could have done, and she indeed felt that it was very doubtful if she could ever have obtained Lady Garribardine's situation, and so her education from Gerard Strobridge, without the experience that that episode in her life had given her to start upon.

It was contrary to all her principles to allow any past action to influence with its shadow present events. She would banish the whole subject from her mind, and leave the future in the hand of destiny--neither a.s.sisting fate by personal initiative, nor resisting its march by deliberate renunciation.

But she seemed very quiet, Her Ladys.h.i.+p thought, and wondered to herself at the cause. The Duke was in the North paying other visits for some weeks, and when he did come to Berkeley Square in between times he did not see Katherine.

So April pa.s.sed and May came, and with it the prospect of Whitsuntide, early that year. Whitsunday fell upon the eleventh of May.

”You must have some decent clothes,” Lady Garribardine had said, a week or two beforehand, ”another evening dress and an afternoon frock. I think I should like the first to be white and the other black, and in your own excellent taste. You will dine down every night as a guest, and we shall stay from Sat.u.r.day until Tuesday.”

”It is extremely exciting for me,” Katherine admitted. ”I wonder so much what the house will be like.”

”It is a huge Palladian Monument, very splendid and ducal, everything is on an immense scale, and the Duke keeps it up with great state. It is more like some royal residence than a house, but there are some cosy rooms to be found in odd corners. It will interest and educate you, child. You had better read up all about it in one of the old volumes of _Country Life_--some three years ago, I think, it was described.”

Katherine lost no time in doing this, and read of its building in 1680, and of its wonderful gardens ”in the French style”--and of its superb collections of pictures and art treasures, and of its avenues and lake and waterways and fountains. Yes, it must be a very n.o.ble place.

They were to arrive early in time for luncheon, since Her Ladys.h.i.+p was to act hostess to the party who would come in the afternoon. And when they approached the gates, Katherine felt that one of the supreme moments in her life had come.

The park was vast, larger even than Blissington, and with more open s.p.a.ces, and the house could be viewed from a distance--a symmetrical, magnificent pile. And it seemed that they walked through an endless succession of halls and great salons, until they were ushered into the Duke's presence in his own particular panelled room.

It was very lofty and partly filled with bookcases arranged in rather an unusual way, sunk into the wall itself, with very beautiful decorations by Grinling Gibbons surrounding them and also the intervening panels wherein fine pictures hung. The curtains and chair coverings were of the most superb old blue silk, faded now to a wonderful greenish tone, and harmonizing with the beautiful Savonnerie carpet with its soft tints of citron and puce and green.

Katherine was frankly awed. Blissington was a very fine gentleman's house--but this was a palace. And suddenly, the Duke seemed a million miles away from her, and she wondered how she had ever dared to be familiar with him, and rebuke him for coming to her schoolroom to talk!

She was meek as a mouse, and never opened her lips after the first words of greeting.

The host had come forward with cordial graciousness and bidden them welcome, and he had looked a very magnificent person somehow in his morning country riding clothes. And all the glamour of high rank and power and fastidiousness enhanced his natural charms, so that Katherine felt a little cold and sick with the emotion which she was experiencing.

He was courtly and aloof in his manner with all his kindness, and in a moment or two he accompanied them along to the Venetian suite himself.

”I must come, dear friend,” he had said to Lady Garribardine, ”to be sure that you have everything you can possibly want.”

The Venetian suite was on a par in splendour with the rest of the house.