THE doctor had made himself a very important feature in Katherine’s life during those dull winter days. After the great snowstorm, which was a thing by which events were dated for long after, in the island, and which was almost coincident with the catastrophe of the Rector; he had become more frequent in his visits to Mr. Tredgold and consequently to the tea-table of Mr. Tredgold’s lonely daughter. While the snow lasted, and all the atmospheric influences were at their worst, it stood to reason that an asthmatical, rheumatical, gouty old man wanted more looking after than usual; and it was equally clear that a girl a little out of temper and out of patience with life, who was disposed to shut herself up and retire from the usual amusements of her kind, would also be much the better for the invasion into her closed-up world of life and fresh air in the shape of a vigorous and personable young man, who, if not perhaps so secure in self-confidence and belief in his own fascinations as the handsome (if a little elderly) Rector, had not generally been discouraged by the impression he knew himself to have made. And Katherine had liked those visits, that was undeniable; the expectation of making a cup of tea for the doctor had been pleasant to her. The thought of his white strong teeth and the bread and butter which she never got out of her mind, was now amusing, not painful; she had seen him so often making short work of the little thin slices provided for her own entertainment. And he told her all that was going on, and gave her pieces of advice which his profession warranted. He got to know more of her tastes, and she more of his in this way, than perhaps was the case with any two young people in the entire island, and this in the most simple, the most natural way. If there began to get a whisper into the air of Dr. Burnet’s devotion to his patient on the Cliff and its possible consequences, that was chiefly because the doctor’s inclinations had been suspected before by an observant public. And indeed the episode of the Rector had afforded it too much entertainment to leave the mind of Sliplin free for further remark in respect to Katherine and her proceedings. And Mr. Tredgold’s asthma accounted for everything in those more frequent visits to the Cliff. All the same, it was impossible that there should not be a degree of pleasant intimacy and much self-revelation on both sides during these half hours, when, wrapped in warmth and comfort and sweet society, Dr. Burnet saw his dog-cart promenading outside in the snow or during the deeper miseries of the thaw, with the contrast which enhances present pleasure. He became himself more and more interested in Katherine, his feelings towards her being quite genuine, though perhaps enlivened by her prospects as an heiress. And if there had not been that vague preoccupation in Katherine’s mind concerning James Stanford, the recollection not so much of him as of the many, many times she had thought of him, I think it very probable indeed that she would have fallen in love with the doctor; indeed, there were moments when his image pushed Stanford very close, almost making that misty hero give way. He was a very misty hero, a shadow, an outline, indefinite, never having given much revelation of himself; and Dr. Burnet was very definite, as clear as daylight, and in many respects as satisfactory. It would have been very natural indeed that the one should have effaced the other.
Dr. Burnet did not know anything of James Stanford. He thought of Katherine as a little shy, a little cold, perhaps from the persistent shade into which she had been cast by her sister, unsusceptible as people say; but he did not at all despair of moving her out of that calm. He had thought indeed that there were indications of the internal frost yielding, before his interview with Lady Jane. With Lady Jane’s help he thought there was little doubt of success. But even that security made him cautious. It was evident that she was a girl with whom one must not attempt to go too fast. The Rector had tried to carry the fort by a coup de main, and he had perished ingloriously in the effort. Dr. Burnet drew himself in a little after he acquired the knowledge of that event, determined not to risk the same fate. He had continued his visits but he had been careful to give them the most friendly, the least lover-like aspect, to arouse no alarms. When he received the salutation of Lady Jane in passing, and her promise that he should hear from her, his sober heart gave a bound, which was reflected unconsciously in the start of the mare making a dash forward by means of some magnetism, it is to be supposed conveyed to her by the reins from her master’s hand—so that he had to exert himself suddenly with hand and whip to reduce her to her ordinary pace again. If the manœuvre had been intentional it would have been clever as showing his skill and coolness in the sight of his love and of his patroness. It had the same effect not being intentional at all.
I am not sure either whether it was Lady Jane’s intention to enhance the effect of Dr. Burnet by the extreme dulness of the household background upon which she set him, so to speak, to impress the mind of Katherine. There was no party at Steephill. Sir John, though everything that was good and kind, was dull; the tutor, who was a young man fresh from the University, and no doubt might have been very intellectual or very frivolous had there been anything to call either gifts out, was dull also because of having little encouragement to be anything else. Lady Jane indeed was not dull, but she had no call upon her for any exertion; and the tone of the house was humdrum beyond description. The old clergyman dined habitually at Steephill on the Sunday evenings, and he was duller still, though invested to Katherine with a little interest as the man who had officiated at her sister’s marriage. But he could not be got to recall the circumstance distinctly, nor to master the fact that this Miss Tredgold was so closely related to the young lady whom he had made into Lady Somers. “Dear! dear! to think of that!” he had said when the connection had been explained to him, but what he meant by that exclamation nobody knew. I think it very likely that Lady Jane herself was not aware how dull her house was when in entire repose, until she found it out by looking through the eyes of a chance guest like Katherine. “What in thunder did you mean by bringing that poor girl here to bore her to death, when there’s nobody in the house?” Sir John said, whose voice was like a westerly gale. “Really, Katherine, I did not remember how deadly dull we were,” Lady Jane said apologetically. “It suits us well enough—Sir John and myself; but it’s a shame to have asked you here when there’s nobody in the house, as he says. And Sunday is the worst of all, when you can’t have even your needlework to amuse you. But there are some people coming to dinner to-morrow.” Katherine did her best to express herself prettily, and I don’t think even that she felt the dulness so much as she was supposed to do. The routine of a big family house, the machinery of meals and walks and drives and other observances, the children bursting in now and then, the tutor appearing from time to time tremendously comme il faut, and keeping up his equality, Sir John, not half so careful, rolling in from the inspection of his stables or his turnips with a noisy salutation, “You come out with me after lunch, Miss Tredgold, and get a blow over the downs, far better for you than keeping indoors.” And then after that blow on the downs, afternoon tea, and Mr. Montgomery rubbing his hands before the fire, while he asked, without moving, whether he should hand the kettle. All this was mildly amusing, in the proportion of its dulness, for a little while. We none of us, or at least few of us, feel heavily this dull procession of the hours when it is our own life; when it is another’s, our perceptions are more clear.
“But there are people coming to dinner to-morrow,” Lady Jane said. There was something in the little nod she gave, of satisfaction and knowingness, which Katherine did not understand or attempt to understand. No idea of Dr. Burnet was associated with Steephill. She was not aware that he was on visiting terms there—he had told her that he attended the servants’ hall—so that it was with a little start of surprise that, raising her eyes from a book she was looking at, she found him standing before her, holding out his hand as the guests gathered before dinner. The party was from the neighbourhood—county, or, at least, country people—and when Dr. Burnet was appointed to take Katherine in to dinner, that young lady, though she knew the doctor so well and liked him so much, did not feel that it was any great promotion. She thought she might have had somebody newer, something that belonged less to her own routine of existence, which is one of the mistakes often made by very astute women of the world like Lady Jane. There was young Fortescue, for instance, a mere fox-hunting young squire, not half so agreeable as Dr. Burnet, whom Katherine would have preferred. “He is an ass; he would not amuse her in the very least,” Lady Jane had said. But Sir John, who was not clever at all, divined that something new, though an ass, would have amused Katherine more. Besides, Lady Jane had her motives, which she mentioned to nobody.
Dr. Burnet did the very best for himself that was possible. He gave Katherine a report of her father, he told her the last thing that had transpired at Sliplin since her departure, he informed her who all the people were at table, pleased to let her see that he knew them all. “That’s young Fortescue who has just come in to his estate, and he promises to make ducks and drakes of it,” Dr. Burnet said. Katherine looked across the table at the young man thus described. She was not responsible for him in any way, nor could it concern her if he did make ducks and drakes of his estate, but she would have preferred to make acquaintance with those specimens of the absolutely unknown. A little feeling suddenly sprang up in her heart against Dr. Burnet, because he was Dr. Burnet and absolutely above reproach. She would have sighed for Dr. Burnet, for his quick understanding and the abundance he had to say, had she been seated at young Fortescue’s side.
After dinner, when she had talked a little to all the ladies and had done her duty, Lady Jane caught Katherine’s hand and drew her to a seat beside herself, and then she beckoned to Dr. Burnet, who drew a chair in front of them and sat down, bending forward till his head, Katherine thought, was almost in Lady Jane’s lap. “I want,” she said, “Katherine, to get Dr. Burnet on our side—to make him take up our dear Stella’s interests as you do, my dear, and as in my uninfluential way I should like to do too.”
“How can Dr. Burnet take up Stella’s interests?” cried Katherine, surprised and perhaps a little offended too.
“My dear Katherine, a medical man has the most tremendous opportunities—all that the priest had in old times, and something additional which belongs to himself. He can often say a word when none of the rest of us would dare to do so. I have immense trust in a medical man. He can bring people together that have quarrelled, and—and influence wills, and—do endless things. I always try to have the doctor on my side.”
“Miss Katherine knows,” said Dr. Burnet, trying to lead out of the subject, for Lady Jane’s methods were entirely, on this occasion, too straightforward, “that the medical man in this case is always on her side. Does not Mrs. Swanson, Lady Jane, sing very well? I have never heard her. I am not very musical, but I love a song.”
“Which is a sign that you are not musical. You are like Sir John,” said Lady Jane, as if that was the worst that could be said. “Still, if that is what you mean, Dr. Burnet, you can go and ask her, on my part. He is very much interested in you all, I think, Katherine,” she added when he had departed on this mission. “We had a talk the other day—about you and Stella and the whole matter. I think, if he ever had it in his power, that he would see justice done her, as you would yourself.”
“He is very friendly, I daresay,” said Katherine, “but I can’t imagine how he could ever have anything in his power.”
“There is no telling,” Lady Jane said. “I think he is quite a disinterested man, if any such thing exists. Now, we must be silent a little, for, of course, Mrs. Swanson is going to sing; she is not likely to neglect an opportunity. She has a good voice, so far as that goes, but little training. It is just the thing that pleases Sir John. And he has planted himself between us and the piano, bless him! now we can go on with our talk. Katherine, I don’t think you see how important it is to surround your father with people who think the same as we do about your poor sister.”
“No,” said Katherine, “it has not occurred to me; my father is not very open to influence.”
“Then do you give up Stella’s cause? Do you really think it is hopeless, Katherine?”
“How could I think so?” cried the girl with a keen tone in her voice which, though she spoke low, was penetrating, and to check which, Lady Jane placed her hand on Katherine’s hand and kept it there with a faint “shsh.” “You know what I should instantly do,” she added, “if I ever had it in my power.”
“Dear Katherine! but your husband might not see it in that light.”
“He should—or he should not be—my husband,” said Katherine with a sudden blush. She raised her eyes unwillingly at this moment and caught the gaze of Dr. Burnet, who was standing behind the great bulk of Sir John, but with his face towards the ladies on the sofa. Katherine’s heart gave a little bound, half of affright. She had looked at him and he at her as she said the words. An answering gleam of expression, an answering wave of colour, seemed to go over him (though he could not possibly hear her) as she spoke. It was the first time that this idea had been clearly suggested to her, but now so simply, so potently, as if she were herself the author of the suggestion. She was startled out of her self-possession. “Oh,” she cried with agitation, “I like her voice! I am like Sir John; let us listen to the singing.” Lady Jane nodded her head, pressed Katherine’s hand, and did what was indeed the first wise step she had taken, stepped as noiselessly as possible to another corner, where, behind her fan, she could talk to a friend more likely to respond to her sentiments and left Dr. Burnet to take her place.
“Is this permitted? It is too tempting to be lost,” he said in a whisper, and then he too relapsed into silence and attention. Katherine, I fear, did not get any clear impression of the song. Her own words went through her head, involuntarily, as though she had touched some spring which went on repeating them: “My husband—my husband.” Her white dress touched his blackness as he sat down beside her. She drew away a little, her heart beating loudly, in alarm, mingled with some other feeling which she could not understand, but he did not say another word until the song was over, and all the applause, and the moment of commotion in which the singer returned to her seat, and the groups of the party changed and mingled. Then he said suddenly, “I hope you will not think, Miss Katherine, that I desired Lady Jane to drag me in head and shoulders to your family concerns. I never should have been so presumptuous. I do trust you will believe that.”
“I never should have thought so, Dr. Burnet,” said Katherine, faltering with that commotion which was she hoped entirely within herself and apparent to no one. Then she added as she assured her voice, “It would not have been presumptuous. You know so much of us already, and of her, and took so much part——”
“I am your faithful servant,” he said, “ready to be sent on any errand, or to take any part you wish, but I do not presume further than that.” Then he rose quickly, as one who is moved by a sudden impulse. “Miss Katherine, will you let me take you to the conservatory to see Lady Jane’s great aloe? They used to say it blossomed only once in a hundred years.”
“But that’s all nonsense, you know,” said Mr. Montgomery the tutor; “see them all about the Riviera at every corner. Truth, they kill ’emselves when they’re about it.”
“Which comes to the same thing. Will you come?” said Dr. Burnet, offering his arm.
“But, my dear fellow, Miss Tredgold has seen it three or four times,” said this very unnecessary commentator.
“Never mind. She has not seen what I am going to show her,” said the doctor with great self-possession. Lady Jane followed them with her eyes as they went away into the long conservatory, which was famous in the islands and full of lofty palms and tropical foliage. Her middle-aged bosom owned a little tremor; was he going to put it to her, then and there? Lady Jane had offered assistance, even co-operation, but this prompt action took away her breath.
“I should like to see the aloe, too,” said the lady by her side.
“So you shall, presently,” said Lady Jane, “but we must not make a move yet, for there is Lady Freshwater going to sing. Mr. Montgomery, ask Lady Freshwater from me whether she will not sing us one of her delightful French songs. She has such expression, and they are all as light as air of course, not serious music. Look at Sir John, he is pleased, but he likes it better when it is English, and he can make out the words. He is a constant amusement when he talks of music—and he thinks he understands it, poor dear.”
She kept talking until she had watched Lady Freshwater to the piano, and heard her begin. And then Lady Jane felt herself entitled to a little rest. She kept one eye on the conservatory to see that nobody interrupted the botanical exposition which was no doubt going on there. Would he actually propose—on the spot, all at once, with the very sound of the conversation and of Lady Freshwater’s song in their ears? Was it possible that a man should go so fast as that? Now that it had come to this point Lady Jane began to get a little compunctious, to ask herself whether she might not have done better for Katherine than a country doctor, without distinction, even though he might have a wealthy uncle and a family place at his back? Old Tredgold’s daughter was perhaps too great a prize to be allowed to drop in that commonplace way. On the other hand, if Lady Jane had exerted herself to get Katherine a better match, was it likely that a man—if a man of our monde—would have consented to such an arrangement about Stella as Dr. Burnet was willing to make? If the fortune had been Stella’s, Lady Jane was quite certain that Charlie Somers would have consented to no such settlement. And after all, would not Katherine be really happier with a man not too much out of her own monde, fitted for village life, knowing all about her, and not likely to be ashamed of his father-in-law? With this last argument she comforted her heart.
And Katherine went into the conservatory to see the aloe, which that malevolent tutor declared she had already seen so often, with her heart beating rather uncomfortably, and her hand upon Dr. Burnet’s arm.