The Career of Katherine Bush

"My tastes are fruity, but are never gratified in these modern days, alas! She is quite wrong about Läo, though; she is as cold as ice. She smiles with equal sweetness upon the waiters when we are lunching at restaurants. She is merely a lovely woman demanding incense from all things male.

"Beatrice said 'pretends,' remember – Beatrice is not at all dense!"

"No, quite a subtle companion when not composing odes, or discussing the intensity of blue with Hebe Vermont."

" – Are you glad Läo is coming for Christmas?"

"Y – es. I shall want some of your very best champagne."

"You shall have it, G., and I will try to make things difficult for you as a sort of appetiser. I have some kind of feeling that you are depressed, dear boy? – I am putting Läo in the parrot suite."

"It will suit her admirably."

Then they both laughed.

"But you are depressed, G.?"

"A shadow of coming events, perhaps! not exactly disaster, or I should be what the Scotch call 'fey,'" and he sighed. He felt very fatigued and disturbed, and he hardly knew what.

Lady Garribardine did not press the matter. She had enormous tact.

Mrs. Delemar at that moment was lying upon her sofa in a ravishing saffron gauze teagown smoking scented cigarettes, while she discussed her heart's secrets with a dearest friend.

"Gerard is madly in love with me, Agnes. I hardly know what to do about it. I have chucked for to-night on purpose to give him a setback."

"It will be most cosy dining here alone with Bobbie Moreland and Jimmy and me. You were quite right, darling."

"Poor Bobbie, back from that horrible India where he has been for a year – of course, I could not refuse him – But Lady Garribardine is wild."

"It would not do to offend her really, Läo sweet. You must be penitent and send her some flowers to-morrow."

If Katherine Bush had been there, she would have seen a strong likeness in Mrs. Delemar to her future sister-in-law, Mabel Cawber; her cigarette ash was knocked off in almost as dainty a fashion as that lady employed in using her spoon. Mrs. Delemar never ceased remembering that she was a beautiful woman, and must act accordingly; the only difference between them was that Mabel Cawber never forgot that she was a perfect lady, and was determined that no one should miss this fact if she could help it. Their souls were on a par – or whatever animating principle did duty as a soul in each.

Mrs. Delemar returned to the subject of Gerard with a sigh, telling her friend Agnes the most intimate things he had said to her and giving her pleasing descriptions of her own emotions, too. Gerard was a feather for any woman's cap, and Agnes should know how crazily in love he was with her.

"I think he'll do something desperate, darling – if I don't give way soon – I wish men were like us, don't you?"

"One must please the creatures, or they would not stay."

"Yes – but oh! isn't it a shocking bore – that part – if they only knew!"

Katherine Bush, meanwhile, was arriving at Laburnum Villa, where a crowd of sisters and friends welcomed her home.

Fresh from the entrancing fencing match with Gerard Strobridge, their well-meant chaff and badinage sounded extremely bald. But among them poor Gladys was silent, and sat with flushed cheeks and overbright eyes, looking at Katherine.

"I want to talk to you, Glad," this latter said, kindly. "Lady Garribardine has given me ten pounds to get a real evening frock with. I must have it to take down to Blissington for Christmas – we go to-morrow week. But can I get it in the time?"

Gladys was all interest at once. Clothes were a real passion for her. She devised something pretty; but five pounds would be quite enough. Katherine had better have two dresses, a black and that lovely new shade of mauve.

"I'll have the black, the very simplest that there can be, if you know of one of your hands who could make it for me. I'll leave it entirely to you."

Gladys was delighted, and then her large prominent eyes grew haunted and wistful.

"I'd like awfully to talk to you to-night, Kitten," she said. "May I come to your room?"

Permission was given, and they all went to supper. It was exactly as Katherine had described it that afternoon, and Mr. Prodgers was there in his best frock coat, more full of what Miss Ethel Bush called "swank" mixed with discomfort than Katherine had ever known him. If she had not felt so deeply that these people were her own flesh and blood, she could have been amused by the whole thing.

Nothing could equal the condescension of Miss Cawber. Lady Garribardine's name was not entirely unknown to her – although, to be sure, it was not in the same class as that of the Duchess of Dashington, Lady Hebe Vermont or any of the "smart set" – but still it had chanced once now and then to have appeared in the society column of the Flare, she rather thought as the patroness of some dull old political thing – and yes – more recently in connection with those tableaux vivants, which Miss Cawber was dying to hear the details of; perhaps Katherine could gratify his need?

"Did Hebe Vermont look a dream as Sicchy and Lord St. Aldens as Cupid? My! they must have been a pair! I always do say to Fred when we meet them at church parade of a Sunday that they are the real thing."

Katherine for once took up the gauntlet, while one of her sphinxlike smiles hovered about her mouth.

"Lady Hebe Vermont played Psyche – if that is who you mean by 'Sicchy' – but who is Lord St. Aldens, Mabel? Mr. John St. Aldens, who acted Cupid, is an 'Honourable'; he is a Baron's son, his father is Lord Hexam."

Mabel reddened; while maintaining for the most part a rather chilling silence with her, Katherine had never before deliberately crossed swords. She felt indignant! A paid companion to try to make her look foolish before the others! She who had never done a stroke of work even in a business house in her life! She would have to put this future sister-in-law in her place, and no mistake! Her manner plainly showed that Katherine was in disgrace, as she answered loftily:

"Really, I ought to know – My father was a great friend of his father, and often went to their place."

"In what capacity, Mabel?" Katherine smiled. "We none of us remember your father, but Liv and Dev told me once when I asked them that he had been an under-clerk at Canford and Crin's – the St. Alden solicitors – and then passed the examinations. From what I've learned about his sort of people by living among them for a month, I don't expect Lord Hexam was very intimate with Mr. Cawber – but we are all acquainted in the same way, aren't we, Tild? You remember hearing of this family from mother's father, who was their butcher for the river house at Maidenhead."

Mabel glared; this was sheer impertinence; her queenship of this circle was not being treated with proper respect – How vulgar of Katherine, she thought!

Mabel's refinement was almost of the degree of the Boston lady who insisted upon the piano's "limbs" being put into pantaloons with frills. She would hardly have spoken of a butcher! She felt particularly annoyed now also, because the clerk episode was a fact which she thought was quite unknown – the solicitorship at Bindon's Green having gloriously advanced the family fortunes.

Poor Matilda was quite upset and reproached Katherine when she succeeded in getting her into a corner alone.

"Whatever did you speak to Mabel like that for, Kitten? – And I am sure we need not tell everyone about Grandpa – since he did not live here."

"Her nonsense makes me feel quite sick, Tild – she is always pretending some ridiculous knowledge and acquaintanceship with the aristocracy. She gets all the names wrong, and gives herself away all the time; it does her good to be found out once in a way."

Matilda could bear this side of the affair, but resented the allusion to the butcher with undiminished fervour.

"Oh! what awful snobs you all are!" Katherine exclaimed, exasperated out of her amused tolerance at last. "I am not the least ashamed of him: I am proud, on the contrary. He was honest and made money. Why are you and Mabel and all your friends such absurd shams, Tild! – There is nothing disgraceful in being lower middle class; it is honourable and worthy. Why on earth pretend to belong to another, when anyone who knows can see it is untrue – or if you hate your real station, then do as I am doing, educate yourself out of it."

"Educate myself out of it!" Matilda was incensed. "Why, I'm sure we are all as fairly educated as any ladies need be."

This point of view naturally ended the argument for Katherine; she could only smile again.

"All right – it is your birthday, dear old Tild, so I won't quarrel with you! By the way, where is Bob Hartley? I don't see him here to-night."

The fiancé of Gladys was prevented from coming by a severe cold, she was informed.

And so the evening passed with the Bunny Hug and games, and the gramophone shouted forth its nigger songs, in which they all joined.

"Hasn't it been too lovely, Kitten," Matilda said affectionately – her whilom indignation fled as they walked up the narrow stairs. "I've never had such a perfect birthday party, and I am sure you could not have had a more refined, enjoyable evening, not in any home."

Katherine kissed her as she turned into her room.

"You dear old Tild," she said, and then presently Gladys came in.

Katherine was seated in a shrunk dressing-gown which she had left behind, and Em'ly had lighted a fire in the attic grate.

The two girls looked at one another, and then Gladys was asked to sit down.

"I know what you are going to say," and Katherine's voice was deep and level. "You would not have to say it if you had not always been such a fool, my poor Glad – you have got into trouble, of course, and Bob Hartley is not playing the game."

Gladys burst into passionate sobs.

"However did you guess, Kitten! Why, Tild doesn't know a thing!"

"Most likely not – Well, what do you want him to do – marry you?"

"Why, of course, Katherine; that is what he promised most solemnly beforehand – at Brighton. You know it is his mother who has kept him back; his Aunt Eliza, with whom we stayed, is quite willing for me. I am sure I'm as good as him, anyway."

Further sobs.

"Oh! that part does not matter a bit, as good or not as good – these awful men like Bob Hartley always seduce women with promises, solemn promises, of matrimony and that sort of stuff; if they meant them, they would not forestall matters – vile brutes!"

"There is no good in abusing Bob, Kitten; he has always meant kind; it is his mother, I tell you, has got at him!"

"Does she know?"

"Oh, my! I hope not. No one knows but you – and Bob."

"Have you told him he must marry you at once?"

"Yes, I've implored him to on my bended knees."

"And he has refused?"

"Yes – he can't break his mother's heart, he says, and speaks of going to Australia."

"Very well – go to bed now, dear – I will see him to-morrow and see what I can do. I think he will marry you next week, perhaps, after all. You must undertake the inventing of a reason for the suddenness to the family, if I accomplish the fact. Go now, dear – I want to think."

Gladys sobbed her gratitude.

"And you don't believe I am really bad, Kitten, do you? Indeed, I never wanted – anything – but Bob – We went to the theatre one night and had a bit of supper – and afterwards, I was so afraid he would be off to Carry Green if I did not do as he wished."

Two great tears grew in Katherine's beautiful eyes, and rolled slowly down her white cheeks.

"I think – most men are devils, Glad – but nine-tenths of the women are fools – and fools always have to pay the price of everything in life. A woman always loses a man if she gives way to him against her conscience. You felt you were sinning all the time, I suppose?"

"Why, of course, Kitten – I'm really a good girl."

"Then what else could you expect? If you feel you are doing wrong, you must know you will be punished – that attitude of yours was bound to have drawn – this. I tell you, Glad, no one of your sort can afford to step one foot aside out of the narrow path. You've 'sinned,' as you call it – for love. It gave you no pleasure and you have practically lost Bob – remember this, and never give way to him in anything again."

"Why did you have the tears in your eyes, Katherine – ? You so cold!"

"It was stupid of me, but the incredible pitifulness of some parts of life touched me for a moment. Now go to bed, dear – and keep your courage up – don't let Tild know; it would break her heart – and think of Mabel!"

"Oh! My!" wailed Gladys, and went towards the door.

Katherine jumped up suddenly, and gave her the ten-pound note which had been lying under a box of matches on the imitation oak dressing-chest.

"Here, Gladys, get the little black frock for me just as cheaply as ever you can. Lady Garribardine will never know what it cost; she is accustomed to pay forty or fifty pounds for her evening dresses – and you keep all the rest. If – if – Bob should not be reasonable to-morrow, it might be useful for you to have some money that you need not account to Tild for – I know she looks after everything that you have got."

"But you will make him, Katherine, oh! you will if you can – you are so clever – and he'll be in the train if you go by the early one. You'll have him alone."

"Very well. Bring me up a slice of bread or anything you can find when you first go down; I can't stand the family breakfast, and I will just rush off by the eight-five."

What she said to Mr. Bob Hartley she never told anyone – but it was extraordinarily effectual – it contained biting scorn and heavy threats. Among them, his chief should know of his conduct that very day, before he could possibly sneak off to Australia, unless he went and got a special license. The Registry Office would do very well, but by the following Wednesday Gladys must be his wife, or Katherine's scorpion whip would fall. He should be thrashed by Fred and Bert and Charlie Prodgers, too! She would have no mercy upon him – none at all.

"You poor, mean, sanctimonious, miserable cur," were some of her parting words to him. "Come into this telegraph office with me and send this wire to Gladys this minute. 'Will you honour me by marrying me on Tuesday? If so, get ready.' You can pretend you had a secret wedding to save expense, and tell them at home on Christmas day."

Mr. Hartley was a thorough coward; his plans were not matured enough yet to go to Australia, and his present berth was a good one, so he felt it was wiser to give in and do what he was bid. And presently Katherine got into a taxi and was whirled back to Berkeley Square, where later in the day her sister's telegram of rapturous thanks came to her.

But when she was alone that night by her comfortable fire, she let a volume of Flaubert drop on her knees and looked into the coals, her thoughts going back to the painful incident. Here was a plain indication of the working of laws shown in her own case and the difference between it and that of Gladys. Alas! the piteous fate of weaklings!

And then she set herself to analyse things. "Whether the accepted idea of morality is right or is wrong – of God or of man, those who break its laws are certainly drawing to themselves the frightfully strong current of millions of people's disapproval and so must run great risk of punishment." Thus she mused and then her eyes grew wide as she gazed into the glowing coals. What if some day she should have to pay some price for her own deviation from recognized standards?

CHAPTER XII

Christmas Day fell upon a Tuesday in 1911, and on the Saturday before Katherine Bush accompanied her employer, and the two dogs, down to Blissington in the motor. She had only been in one for short drives in the Bois with Lord Algy, so to tear through the frozen country was a great joy to her, although, not possessing proper wraps, she was rather cold.

"You must have a fur coat, Miss Bush! I am greatly annoyed that I did not remark that you were insufficiently clad before we started. Here, crouch down under this rug – and there is an extra one at my feet you must wrap round you."

Katherine was grateful.

"Stirling must find you some warm garment of mine while we are at Blissington. I have no patience with idiots who deliberately take cold."

Katherine agreed with her.

"Do you know the English country, or are you quite a cockney girl?" she was then asked.

"No, I hardly know it at all. I know Brighton, and a lot of seaside places, but we never chanced to go to the country for our holidays."

"It is a wonderful place, the English country, the most beautiful in the world, I think; it will interest me immensely to hear your impressions of it; after a week you must tell me."

"I shall be very pleased to do so."

"We pass Windsor; you must go over it some day – it is only twenty miles from Blissington – . Are you interested in historical associations?"

"Extremely – any places which are saturated with the evolution of man and nations are interesting, I think. I am afraid I would not care to go to Australia, or a new country."

Lady Garribardine turned and looked at her secretary. The creature evidently had a brain, and this would be a good opportunity to draw her out.

"You feel the force of tradition, then?"

"Oh, yes – in everything. It acts for generations in the blood – it makes people do all sorts of things, good and bad, quite without reason."

Lady Garribardine chuckled – she loved discussions.

"How does it act in yourself, for instance?"

"I have tried to stop its action in myself, because I saw the effects of the traditions of my class in my brothers and sisters, and how stultifying it was."

"You certainly seem to have emerged from them in an extraordinary manner – how did you set about it?"

Katherine thought a little and then answered deliberately.

"I always wanted to know the reason why of everything and I soon felt sure that there was no such thing as chance, but that everything which happened was part of some scheme – and I always desired to be able to distinguish between appearance and reality, and I got to understand that personal emotion distorts all reality and creates appearance, and so I began to try to dissociate things from personal emotion in my judgments of them."

"Yes, but how about tradition?"

"Tradition suggested certain views and actions to me – but looked at without emotion, I saw that they were foolish. I analysed my brothers' and sisters' ideas and instincts because I wanted to see if what I did not like in them was inevitable in myself too from the force of tradition or if there was any way to get rid of stupidities."

"And you found?"

"Of course, that everything, even instincts, can be eradicated if only their origins can be traced and the will is strong enough to overcome them."

"Yes, everything depends upon will. And you found time for all this reasoning while you kept the accounts at the pork-butcher's?"

Lady Garribardine's eyebrows ran quizzically up into her forehead, and there was a twinkle in her eye. She was greatly amused.

"Yes – in the evenings."

"No wonder you have emerged! You do not allow yourself to have any emotions then?"

Katherine looked away demurely.

"I try not to indulge in them; it is more prudent to watch their action in others."

"Have you ever been in love, child?"

"It depends upon what one calls love." The tone was dignified. Katherine did not think this quite a fair question.

Lady Garribardine laughed appreciatively.

"You are quite right. I should not have asked you that, since we were up upon a plane of discussion in which even women do not lie to one another!"

"If Your Ladyship will permit me to say so, women have very little notion of truth, I think!"

"Oh! that is too bad. You must always stand up for your sex."

"Forgive me for differing, but I should be acting from good nature in that case, not from justice."

Lady Garribardine was delighted.

"So you think we are not truthful as a company?"

"Oh, no, we have no love of abstract truth, truth for itself. When we are truthful in our general dealings with people, it is either because we have decent characters or religious views, or for our own ends, not from a detached love of truth."

"What a cynic! And how about men?"

"A man is truthful because he likes truth, and to tell lies he feels would degrade himself."

"And yet men always lie to women – have you remarked that, girl?"

"Yes – that seems to be the one exception in their standard of truth."

"How do you account for this? Have you found the 'reason why' of this peculiarity?"

"It seems presumptuous of me to give my views to Your Ladyship."

"I think I am the best judge of that matter," and Lady Garribardine frowned a little. "I asked a question."

Katherine answered then immediately. She was not quite pleased with herself for her last remark, it had laid her open to a snub.

"Original man had no regard for women – they were as the animals to him – he would not have felt degraded in lying to animals – because such a thing could not occur. He would not consult animals – he simply ordered them."

"Well?"

"Then as soon as he had to consider women at all he found it easier to lie to them because of their want of understanding, and chattering tongues, and as he did not consider that they were his equals in anything, no degradation was entailed in making things easy for himself with them, by lying to them."

"How ingenuous!"

"That is how it seems to me, and so things have gone on – tradition and instinct again! Until even now when man is forced to consider women, the original instinct is still there making him feel that it does not matter lying to them."

"I believe you are right. You are not a suffragette?"

"Oh, no! I like women to advance in everything, but unless you could destroy their dramatic instinct, and hysteria, I think it would be a pity for a country if they had votes."

"You despise women and respect men, then?"

"Not at all; it would be like despising bread and respecting water. I only despise weakness in either sex."

"Well, Miss Bush, I think you have a wonderfully-stored mind. I don't feel that ninety pounds a year and drudgery is the right thing for you. What is to be done?"

Katherine gave one of her rare soft laughs.

"Believe me, madam, the lessons I am learning in Your Ladyship's service are worth more to me than my salary. I am quite contented and enjoy my drudgery."

"So you are learning lessons – are you!" Lady Garribardine chuckled again. "Of the world, the flesh or the devil?"

"A little of all three, perhaps," Katherine answered with shy demureness.

"Look here, young woman, I have remarked more than once that you possess a quality – almost unknown in ninety-nine females out of a hundred, and non-existent in the middle classes – a fine sense of humour. It is quite out of place – and like the royal rose imprinted upon the real queen's left shoulder, I expect we shall discover presently that the butcher and baker forebears are all moonshine, and that you are a princess in disguise. – See, that is Windsor – isn't it fine?"

"Ah! Yes!" cried Katherine. "It makes one think."

They were rushing along the road from Staines where they could see the splendid pile standing out against the sky.

"All those old grey stones put together by brutes and fools and brains and force. I will take you there myself some day."

"I shall love to go."

Then Her Ladyship became quite silent as was her custom when she felt inclined so to be. The obligation to make conversation never weighed upon her. This made her a delightful companion. They arrived at the park gates of Blissington Court about one o'clock, and Katherine Bush felt again a delightful excitement. She had never seen a big English country home except in pictures.

The lodge-keeper came out. He was an old man in a quaint livery.

"I cannot stand the untidy females escaping from the washtub who attend to most people's gates. This family of Peterson have opened those of Blissington for two hundred years, and have always worn the same sort of livery, from father to son. Their intelligence is at the lowest ebb, and they make capital gate-keepers. There is generally a 'simple' boy or two to carry on the business. The women folk keep out of sight, it is a tradition in the family – they take a pride in it. I give them unusually high wages, and whatever else grows more and more idiotic, the gate-keeping instinct survives in full force. There are three lodges – all kept by Petersons."