The Career of Katherine Bush

"I wish G. were here," the hostess said to herself as she, too, stood by a bedroom fire – her own. "I have no one to exchange unspoken confidence with. He would have understood and appreciated the enchanting comedy of female purpose, male instinct to flee, and one young woman's supreme intelligence!"

The next day the Duke, who knew the house well, and in what wing Miss Arnott had worked, took it into his head to walk before breakfast in the rose garden. Miss Bush saw him from the window and allowed herself to bow gravely when he deliberately looked up; then she moved away. He felt a distinct sensation of tantalization. After breakfast everyone would play tennis. He played an extraordinarily good game himself, and was in flannels ready. Katherine thought he had a very fine figure and looked much younger in those clothes. She wanted to ask him about the emerald ring – she wanted to ask him about a number of things. She had work to do all the morning, but came out to the tennis lawn with a message to her mistress just before luncheon, during an exciting single match between the Duke and an agile young man – the last game was at 30 all – and Katherine paused to watch the strokes – 40-30 – And then Mordryn won – amidst shouts of applause.

Katherine had remarked that he ran about very little and won by sheer style and skill and hard hitting.

She did not loiter a second when he was free to move, but flitted back to the house before he could get near her.

She lunched alone in her schoolroom.

By the afternoon, when she did appear at tea, the Duke was thoroughly ill-tempered, he knew not why or for what reason, merely that his mood was so. Katherine, busy with the teapot, only raised her head to give a polite, respectful bow in answer to his greeting. He was infinitely too much a man of the world to single out the humble secretary and draw upon her the wrath of these lovely guests. So he contented himself by watching her, and noting her unconcerned air and easy grace. Some of the people seemed to know her well and be very friendly with her.

She showed not the slightest sign of a desire to speak to him – Could it be possible that this was the girl who only that night week had talked with him upon the enthralling subject of love!

Those utterances of hers which had sounded so cryptic at the time were intelligible now. How subtle had been her comprehension of the situation. He remembered her face when he had asked her if she knew Blissington! And again when she had told him that that night week he would know how altogether unprofitable any investigations regarding her would be! And now in the character of humble secretary she was just as complete as she had been when apparently a fellow guest and social equal. It was all annoyingly disturbing. It placed him in a false position and her in one in which she held all the advantages! And there she sat serene and dignified, hedged round with that barrier of ice of which she had spoken. He had not experienced such perplexing emotions for many years.

He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to ask her what it all meant – He would like to know her history, and whence she had come. Gwendoline d'Estaire had treated her, he had noticed, not as a dependent, but as a friend. He felt himself rather awkward – he, a man of the world accustomed to homage from women!

He did manage to say that it was a bore that the rain had come on, and it looked as though to-morrow would be wet. And he felt humiliated at the fine, instantly suppressed smile which flickered round her mouth at this brilliant remark from an acknowledged wit!

Then he became angry with himself – what matter to him whether she smiled or did not smile? It was obvious that he could not be on terms of familiar friendship with Seraphim's secretary, at his age and with his position. So he had strength of mind to move away from the table, and to allow himself to be purred over by one of the trio of charmers who had been asked for his benefit – but rage mounted in his breast. He was not enjoying himself at all, and if he did not see more of his old friend herself, he really would not stay over Monday as he had intended, but would go back to town on Sunday night!

Lady Garribardine knew the signs of the times and took him off to her sitting-room after tea when most of the others began to play bridge.

"I think modern women have less charm than they had, Seraphim," the Duke said from the depths of an armchair, rather acidly. "They are almost as illiterate as ladies of the ballet used to be when I was young; they are quite as slangy and noisy, and they are full of affectations. If one does not know the last word of their fashionable jargon and cannot keep up a constant flow of 'back talk' – which, incidentally, it would require the wit of the St. James Street cabmen of twenty years ago to be able to do – one is asphyxiated by them. I shall have to become acclimated, I feel. I have been too long away and have lost touch with the movement – I sigh for repose and peace."

"Nonsense, Mordryn – it will do you a great deal of good to be shaken up, you must move with the times."

"But I entirely decline to do so. To what end?"

"You must certainly marry again now that you are at last free."

"Undoubtedly it is my obvious duty, as otherwise the title will die out – but surely you do not suggest that I should convert any of these charming creatures who were good enough to try to lighten my mood last night and to-day, into my wife! I had hoped they were at least safely married, and now you make me tremble in case you are going to announce to me that some are widows!"

"Blanche Montague is; I merely asked the others to accustom you to the modern type. They are to break in your sensibilities, so to speak, and next time you come, if you don't fancy Blanche I will have a selection of suitable prospective Duchesses."

"Will they make as much noise as these 'ballons d'essai'?"

"More – nothing modern can be dignified or quiet, so get the idea out of your head. They are all so out of door and so hearty, such delightful, fresh, knowing, supremely uninnocent, jolly good fellows, they can't be silent or keep still. There are too many new révues to be talked about, and too much golf to be played, and new American nigger dances to be learned. – Come, come, Mordryn! You do not want to be ridiculously old-fashioned – and really Blanche Montague is most suitable. Montague left her well provided for – and she was only thirty-two last birthday."

"But I don't like her voice, and what should we converse about in the entr'actes?"

"Blanche is famous for her small talk, she will start upon any subject under the sun you please – and change it before you can answer the first question. No fear of stagnation there!"

"Even the description tires me. I prefer the lady who you assured me was all simulated passion. I adore passion, though I confess I prefer it to be real."

"How captious of you! The thing is unknown in these days, it has to be reconstructed, like the modern rubies – lots of little ground-up fragments pressed into a whole by scientific chemistry. – A good imitation is all you will get, Mordryn."

"I loathe imitations," and His Grace shuddered.

"I think you had better give me an exact description of what you do want, for, my poor old friend, you seem to be out to court disappointment. I earnestly desire to help you into a second noose more satisfactory than the one I originally placed around your neck – so out with it! A full description!"

The Duke deliberately lit a cigarette, and a gleam of firelight caught his emerald ring.

"Your famous talisman is flashing, Mordryn, the lyre shows that it approves of your thoughts!"

"The woman I should like to marry must be, and look – supremely well-bred – but healthy and normal, not overbred like poor Laura, and Gerard's wife, Beatrice. – She must be able to talk upon the subjects which interest one – a person of cultivation in short. She must have a sense of humour and fine ideals and a strong feeling about the responsibilities of the position, and be above all things dignified and quiet and composed. – And I should like – " and here a faint deprecatory smile flickered about his mouth for a moment, "I should like her to love me, and take a little interest in the human, tangible side of the affair – if you do not think I am asking too much of fate at my age?"

"It is a large order – I only know of one woman who answers to your requirements and she of course is entirely out of the question."

"Who is she – and why is she out of the question?"

"Useless to answer either query, since, as I say, she is altogether out of the running. It was only an idea of mine, but I will diligently seek for your paragon – for, Mordryn, I shall never feel my conscience clear until I see you happily told off – and the father of at least six sturdy boys."

The Duke raised his hands in deprecation.

"Heavens, Seraphim! You would overwhelm me with a litter, then! My wants in that direction are modest. The 'quiver full' has never appealed to me. I want my wife to be my loved companion – my darling if you will – but not, not a rabbit."

When he was dressing for dinner he thought over his friend's words – He had not insisted upon knowing who the "one woman" could be – He himself had lately seen a creature who seemingly, as far as he could judge from one evening's acquaintance, possessed quite a number of the necessary qualifications – but as in the case of Seraphim's specimen, his was also completely out of the running, and not to be thought of in any capacity – Alas!

It was strange, with this resolution so firmly fixed in his mind, that after dinner he should have broken loose from the bevy of ladies waiting to entrap him, and have deliberately gone to the piano to talk to that dull little Lady Flamborough who was leaning upon the lid, chatting with Miss Bush!

Katherine kept her eyes fixed upon the keyboard with that meek, deferential demureness suitable to her station when amidst such exalted company; but her red mouth had an indefinable expression about it which was exasperating.

Mordryn seized the first second in which Lady Flamborough's attention was diverted by a remark from someone else, to bend down a little and say softly,

"Are you not even going to say good evening to me, Miss Bush? – It is 'this night week.'"

She looked up with perfect composure.

"Good evening, Your Grace."

He frowned. "Is that all?"

"As Your Grace very truly remarked, it is 'this night week.'"

"And you think that has answered all the riddles?"

"Of course."

He frowned again, he knew Julia Scarrisbrooke was swooping down upon him, there was not a moment's time to be lost.

"I do not – to-morrow I will make an opportunity in which you will have to answer them all categorically – do you hear?"

Katherine thrilled. She liked his haughty bearing, the tone of command in his perfect voice.

She remembered once when she and Matilda had been eating lunch at a Lyons popular café, Matilda had said:

"My! Kitten, there's such a strange-looking young man sitting behind you – Whatever makes him look quite different to everyone else?"

And she had turned and perceived that a pure Greek Hermes in rather shabby modern American clothes was manipulating a toothpick within a few feet of her – and her eye, trained from museum study, had instantly seen that it was the balance of proportion, the set and size of the head, and the angle of placing of eyes which differentiated him so startlingly from the mass of humanity surrounding them. She had said to Matilda:

"You had better look at him well, Tild – You will never see such another in the whole of your life. He is a freak, a perfect survival of the ancient Greek type. He is exactly right and not strange-looking really. It is all the other people who are wrong and clumsy or grotesque."

She thought of this now. The Duke stood out from everyone else in the same way, although he was not of pure Greek type, but much more Roman, but there was that astonishing proportion of bone and length of limb about him, the acknowledged yet indescribable shape of a thoroughbred, which middle age had not diminished, but rather accentuated.

She again noticed his hands, and his great emerald ring – but she did not reply at all to his announcement of his intentions for the morrow. She bent down and picked up a piece of music which had fallen to the floor, and Julia Scarrisbrooke swooped and caught her prey and carried it off into safety on a big sofa.

But as Katherine gazed from her window on that Good Friday night up into the deep blue star-studded sky, a feeling of awe came over her – at the magnitude of the vista fate was opening in front of her eyes.

CHAPTER XXVI

The Duke found great difficulty in carrying out his intention on that Saturday. For a Duke to escape from a lady-pack brought there especially to hunt him is no easy task! He had reason to believe that his hostess would not aid him either, and that it would be impossible to appeal to her sympathy, because he was quite aware that he would withhold his own, had he to look at the matter dispassionately as concerning someone else.

It was a fool's errand he was bent upon in all senses of the phrase. But as this conviction forced itself upon him, the desire to see and talk with Katherine grew stronger.

It happened that she lunched downstairs. At such a large party as this, that meal was consumed at several small tables of six each, and of course the secretary was not placed at His Grace's! Indeed, she sat at one directly at his back, so that he could not see her, though once in a pause he heard her deep, fascinating voice. When later in the hall coffee and cigarettes had come, Katherine passed near him to put down a cup, and he seized the moment to address her.

"In twenty minutes, I am coming from the smoking-room to the schoolroom – please be there."

Miss Bush gave no sign as to whether or no she heard this remark, which was made in a low voice with a note of pleading in it. If he chose to do this, she would make it quite clear that she would have no clandestine acquaintance with him, but at the same time she experienced a delicious sense of excitement.

She was seated before her typewriter busily typing innumerable letters, when she heard his footsteps outside, and then a gentle tap at the door.

"Come in!" she called, and he appeared.

His face looked stern, and not particularly good-tempered.

"May I stay for a moment in this haven of rest, Miss Bush?" and he shut the door. "In so large a party, every sitting-room seems to be overflowing, and there is not a corner where one may talk in peace."

Katherine had risen with her almost overrespectful air, which never concealed the mischievous twinkle in her eyes when she raised them, but now they were fixed upon the sheets of paper.

"Your Grace is welcome to that armchair for a little, but I am very occupied. Lady Garribardine wishes these letters to go by this evening's post."

"I wish you would not call me 'Your Grace'," he said, a little impatiently. "I cannot realise that you can be the same person whom I met at Gerard Strobridge's."

"I am not," she looked up at him.

"Why?"

"It is obvious – I was me – myself, that night – a guest."

"And now?"

"Your Grace is not observant, I fear; I am Her Ladyship's secretary."

"Of course – but still?" he came over quite close to her.

"If I had been the same person as the one you met at Mr. Strobridge's, you would not now have been obliged to contrive to come to the schoolroom to speak to me."

A dark flush mounted to his brow. She had touched a number of his refined sensibilities. Her words were so true and so simple, and her tone was quite calm, showing no personal emotion but merely as though she were announcing a fact.

"That is unfortunately true, but these are only ridiculous conventions, which please let us brush aside. May I really sit down for a minute?"

Katherine glanced at the clock; it was half-past three.

"Until a quarter to four, if you wish. I am afraid I cannot spare more time than that."

She pointed to the armchair which he took, and she reseated herself at the table, folding her hands. There was a moment's silence. The Duke was feeling uncomfortably disturbed. There had been a subtle rebuke conveyed in her late speech, which he knew he merited. He had no right to have come there.

"Are you not going to talk to me at all, then?" he almost blurted out.

"I will answer, of course, when Your Grace speaks; it is not for me to begin."

"Very well, I not only speak – I implore – I even order you to discontinue this ridiculous humility, this ridiculous continuance of 'Your Grace,' resume the character of guest, and let us enjoy these miserable fifteen minutes – but first, I want to know what is the necessity for your total change of manner here? Gerard and Gwendoline knew that you were Lady Garribardine's secretary that night, but they did not consider it imperative to make a startling difference in their relations towards you because of that, as it seems that you would wish me to make now."

Katherine looked down and then up again straight into his eyes, a slight smile quivered round her mouth.

"That is quite different – they know me very well – and dear Miss Gwendoline is not very intelligent. I have been there before to help to entertain bores for Mr. Strobridge and Lady Beatrice, but that night I was there – because I wanted to see – Your Grace."

Here she looked down again suddenly. The Duke leaned forward eagerly; this was a strange confession!

"I wanted once to talk to a man as an equal, to feel what it was like to be a lady and not to have to remember to be respectful. So I deliberately asked Mr. Strobridge to arrange it – after I had heard you speak."

The Duke was much astonished – and gratified.

"How frank and delicious of you to tell me this! I thought the evening was enchanting – but why do you say such a silly thing as that you wanted to feel what it was like to be a lady? You could never have felt anything else."

"Indeed, I could; I am not a lady by birth, anything but! only I have tried to educate myself into being one, and it was so nice to have a chance of deciding if I had succeeded or no."

"And your verdict was?" he raised amused eyebrows.

She looked demure.

"By Your Grace's words just now, I conclude that I have succeeded."

"Only by my words just now? I thought we had had a rather pleasant and interesting hour of conversation as fellow-guests."

"Yes – You are not shocked, then, when I tell you that I am not really a lady?"

"No. The counterfeit presentment is so very perfect, one would like to hear the details of the passage to its achievement."

Then she told him in as few and as simple words as she could – just the truth. Of her parentage, of her home at Bindon's Green – of Liv and Dev's, of her ideals, and her self-education, and of her coming to Lady Garribardine's.

Mordryn listened with rapt attention, his gaze fixed upon her face – he made brief ejaculations at times, but did not otherwise interrupt her.

"You can understand now how entertained I was at the things which you said to me that night, can you not?"

Thus she ended her story, and the Duke rose and sat down upon the edge of the table quite close to her; he was visibly moved.

"You extraordinary girl. You have upset every theory I ever held. I shall go away now and think over all you have said – Meanwhile, I feel that this is the only way in which I can show my homage," and he took her hand with infinite respect and kissed it.

Then he removed his tall form from the table and quietly left the room.

And when she was alone, Katherine gently touched the spot where his lips had pressed; there was a quite unknown emotion running through her.

She found it very difficult to go on with her work after this, and made a couple of mistakes, to her great annoyance. Nearly an hour passed. She got up from her typing, and after changing her blouse, went down to tea, her thoughts not nearly so calm as usual.

Was her friendship with this man finished? Had her frankness overreached itself? Just what did that kiss mean? Here was a character not so easy to read as Gerard Strobridge's. Here was a will perhaps as strong as her own. Her face was very pale, and those concentrated grey-green eyes looked stormy and resentful.

The Duke reached the smoking-room and was seated at the writing-table only one moment before the room was invaded by Lady Garribardine.

"Poor Mordryn! You had to take refuge here! I fear those charming creatures I have invited for you are proving a little fatiguing."

"Frankly, Seraphim, they bore me to death."

"Two others are coming of a different type presently. But you are safe in this corner. Most of them do not know I have moved the smoking-room to this wing."

"I think it is a great improvement."

Her Ladyship looked at him out of the tail of her eye, but she said, quite innocently:

"Yes, Gerard always says so." Then she left him to his letters, with a word as to tea and a cosy talk in her boudoir after it.

So Gerard liked this room, too! Miss Bush was with him at the House. She dined at Brook Street. Then Mordryn frowned and looked the very image of the Iron Duke, and did not even begin to write an order which he had intended to send his agent. His mind was disturbed. Every word Katherine had said had made a deep impression upon him.

The father an auctioneer – the grandfather a butcher! And this girl a peerless creature fit for a throne! But if she were fit for heaven, there were still quite insurmountable barriers between even ordinary acquaintance with her. He rather thought he would leave Blissington on Sunday night.

Then he frowned again. Gerard Strobridge was a charming fellow. Seraphim adored him – he was often here – he liked the smoking-room! Somehow the conversation must be turned, when he was alone with his friend presently, to the subject of Gerard.

Then he found himself going over every minute sentence that had fallen from Katherine. What a wonderful, wonderful girl! How quite ridiculous class prejudices were! How totally faulty the reasoning of the world!

At tea, he did not converse with Miss Bush, but he never lost the consciousness of her presence, and was almost annoyedly aware of a youngish man's evident appreciation of her conversation. So that his temper, when he found himself in Lady Garribardine's sitting-room, was even more peevish than it had been on the evening before.

Katherine had preceded him there, but had left ere he arrived. She had brought some letters for her mistress' inspection. When this business was finished, she said quite simply:

"His Grace came up into the schoolroom after luncheon to-day. He appears to have been confused over my two identities. I explained to him, and told him who my father was, and my mother's father, and how I have only tried to make myself into a lady. It did not seem fair that he should think that I was really one born."

Lady Garribardine looked disagreeable for an instant. She, too, had to conquer instinct at times, which asserted itself in opposition even to her heart's desire, and her deliberate thought-out intentions. One of her ancestors had put a retainer in chains for presumption! But her intelligence crushed out the folly almost as quickly as it arose, and she smiled:

"And, of course, the Duke at once said he could not know common people, and bounced from the room! Katherine Bush, you are a minx, my child!"

Katherine laughed softly.

"He did not say that exactly – but he did go away very soon."

"'He that fights and runs away!'" quoth Her Ladyship; "but I don't think you had better let him come to the schoolroom again. Martha will be having her say about the matter."

Katherine reddened. That her dear mistress should think her so stupid!

"I did not intend to. It is very difficult – even the greatest gentlemen do not seem to know their places always."

"A man finds his place near the woman he wants to talk to – you must not forget that, girl!"

"It is a little mean and puts the woman in a false position often."

"She prefers that to indifference. There is one very curious thing about women, the greatest prude is not altogether inwardly displeased at the knowledge that she exercises a physical attraction for men. Just as the greatest intellectual among men feels more flattered if exceptional virility is imputed to him, than all the spiritual gifts! Virility – a quality which he shares with the lower animals, spirituality a gift which he inherits from God. Oh! we are a mass of incongruities, we humans! and brutal nature eventually wins the game. Animal savagery is always the outcome of too much civilisation. And unless the dark ages of ignorance fall upon us once more, so that we can again be sufficiently simple to believe en masse in a God, I feel our cycle is over and that we shall be burnt out of time."