THE evening passed in a whirl, such as Katherine, altogether unused to the strange mingled life of family occupations and self-indulgence, could not understand. There was not a tranquil moment for the talk and the explanations. Stella ran from room to room, approving and objecting. She liked the state apartment with its smart furniture in which she had herself been placed, but she did not like the choice of the rooms for the babies, and had them transferred to others, and the furniture altered and pulled about to suit their needs. The house had put on a gala air for the new guests; there were fires blazing everywhere, flowers everywhere, such as could be got at that advanced season. Stella sent the chrysanthemums away, which were the chief point in the decorations. “They have such a horrid smell. They make my head ache—they remind me,” she said, “of everything that’s dreadful.” And she stood over the worried maid while she opened the boxes, dragging out the dresses by a corner and flinging them about on the floors. “I shall not want any of those old things. Isn’t there a rag of a black that I can wear now? Kate, you were dreadfully remiss not to order me some things. How can I go downstairs and show myself in all my blues and greens? Oh, yes, of course I require to be fitted on, but I’d rather have an ill-fitting gown than none at all. I could wear one of yours, it is true, but my figure is different from yours. I’m not all one straight line from head to foot, as you are; and you’re covered over with crape, which is quite unnecessary—nobody thinks of such a thing now. I’ll wear that,” she added, giving a little kick to a white dress, which was one of those she had dragged out by a flounce and flung on the floor. “You can put some black ribbons to it, Pearson. Oh, how glad I shall be to get rid of all those old things, and get something fit to wear, even if it’s black. I shall telegraph at once to London to send someone down about my things to-morrow, but I warn you I’m not going to wear mourning for a whole year, Kate. No one thinks of such a thing now.”
“You always look well in black, my lady, with your complexion,” said Pearson, the maid.
“Well, perhaps I do,” said Stella mollified. “Please run down and send off the telegram, Kate; there is such a crowd of things to do.”
And thus the day went on. At dinner there was perforce a little time during which the trio were together; but then the servants were present, making any intimate conversation impossible, and the talk that was was entirely about the dishes, which did not please either Sir Charles or his wife. Poor Mrs. Simmons, anxious to please, had with great care compounded what she called and thought to be a curry, upon which both of them looked with disgust. “Take it away,” they both said, after a contemptuous examination of the dish, turning over its contents with the end of a fork, one after the other. “Kate, why do you let that woman try things she knows nothing about?” said Stella severely. “But you never care what you eat, and you think that’s fine, I know. Old Simmons never could do much but what English people call roast and boil—what any savage could do! and you’ve kept her on all these years! I suppose you have eaten meekly whatever she chose to set before you ever since I went away.”
“I think,” said Sir Charles in his moustache, “if I am to be here much there will certainly have to be a change in the cook.”
“You can do what you please, Stella—as soon as everything is settled,” Katherine said. Her sister had taken her place without any question at the head of the table; and Somers, perhaps unconsciously, had placed himself opposite. Katherine had taken with some surprise and a momentary hesitation a seat at the side, as if she were their guest—which indeed she was, she said to herself. But she had never occupied that place before; even in the time of Stella’s undoubted ascendancy, Katherine had always sat at the head of the table. She felt this as one feels the minor pricks of one’s great troubles. After dinner, when she had calculated upon having time for her explanation, Sir Charles took out his cigar case before the servants had left the room. Stella interrupted him with a little scream. “Oh, Charles, Kate isn’t used to smoke! She will be thinking of her curtains and all sorts of things.”
“If Kate objects, of course,” he said, cutting the end off his cigar and looking up from the operation.
Katherine objected, as many women do, not to the cigar but to the disrespect. She said, “Stella is mistress. I take no authority upon me,” with as easy an air as she could assume.
“Come along and see the children,” Stella cried, jumping up, “you’ll like that, or else you’ll pretend to like it,” she said as they went out of the room together, “to please me. Now, you needn’t trouble to please me in that way. I’m not silly about the children. There they are, and one has to make the best of them, but it’s rather hard to have the boy a teeny weeny thing like Job. The girl’s strong enough, but it don’t matter so much for a girl. And Charlie is an idiot about Job. Ten to one he will be upstairs as soon as we are, snatching the little wretch out of his bed and carrying him off. They sit and croon for hours together when there’s no one else to amuse Charlie. And I’m sure I don’t know what is to become of him, for there will be nobody to amuse him here.”
“But it must be so bad for the child, Stella. How can he be well if you allow that to go on?”
“Oh,” cried Stella, clapping her hands, “I knew you would be the very model of a maiden aunt! Now you’ve found your real rôle in life, Kate. But don’t go crossing the ayah, for she won’t understand you, and you’ll come to dreadful grief. Oh, the children! We should only disturb them if we went in. I said that for an excuse to get you away. Come into my room, and let’s look over my clothes. I am sure I have a black gown somewhere. There was a royal mourning, don’t you know, and I had to get one in a hurry to go to Government House in—unless Pearson has taken it for herself. Black is becoming to my complexion, I know—but I don’t like it all the same—it shows every mark, and it’s hot, and if you wear crape it should always be quite fresh. This of yours is crumpled a little. You’ll look like an old woman from the workhouse directly if you wear crumpled crape—it is the most expensive, the most——”
“You need not mind that now, Stella; and for papa’s sake——”
“Good gracious! what a thing that is to say! I need never mind it! Charlie will say I should always mind it. He says no income could stand me. Are you there, Pearson? Well, it is just as well she isn’t; we can look them over at our ease without her greedy eyes watching what she is to have. She’ll have to get them all, I suppose, for they will be old-fashioned before I could put them on again. Look here,” cried Stella, opening the great wardrobe and pulling down in the most careless way the things which the maid had placed there. She flung them on the floor as before, one above the other. “This is one I invented myself,” she said. “Don’t you think that grey with the silver is good? It had a great succès. They say it looked like moonlight. By the bye,” she added, “that might come in again. Grey with silver is mourning! What a good thing I thought of that! It must have been an inspiration. I’ve only worn it once, and it’s so fantastic it’s independent of the fashion. It will come in quite well again.”
“Stella, I do wish you would let me tell you how things are, and how it all happened, and——”
“Yes, yes,” cried Lady Somers, “another time! Here’s one, again, that I’ve only worn once; but that will be of no use, for it’s pink—unless we could make out somehow that it was mauve, there is very little difference—a sort of blue shade cast upon it, which might be done by a little draping, and it would make such a pretty mauve. There is very little difference between the two, only mauve is mourning and pink is—frivolity, don’t you know. Oh, Pearson, here you are! I suppose you have been down at your supper? What you can do to keep you so long at your supper I never can tell. I suppose you flirt with all the gentlemen in the servants’ hall. Look here, don’t you think this pink, which I have only worn once, could be made with a little trouble to look mauve? I am sure it does already a little by this light.”
“It is a very bright rose-pink, my lady,” said Pearson, not at all disposed to see one of the freshest of her mistress’s dresses taken out of her hands.
“You say that because you think you will get it for yourself,” said Lady Somers, “but I am certain with a little blue carefully arranged to throw a shade it would make a beautiful mauve.”
“Blue-and-pink are the Watteau mixture,” said Pearson, holding her ground, “which is always considered the brightest thing you can wear.”
“Oh, if you are obstinate about it!” cried the mistress. “But recollect I am not at your mercy here, Pearson, and I shall refer it to Louise. Kate, I’m dreadfully tired; I think I’ll go to bed. Remember I haven’t been on solid ground for ever so long. I feel the motion of the boat as if I were going up and down. You do go on feeling it, I believe, for weeks after. Take off this tight dress, Pearson, quick, and let me get to bed.”
“Shall I sit by you a little after, and tell you, Stella?”
“Oh goodness, no! Tell me about a death and all that happened, in the very same house where it was, to make me nervous and take away my rest! You quite forget that I am delicate, Kate! I never could bear the things that you, a great, robust, middle-aged woman, that have never had any drain on your strength, can go through. Do let me have a quiet night, my first night after a sea voyage. Go and talk to Charlie, if you like, he has got no nerves; and Pearson, put the lemonade by my bed, and turn down the light.”
Katherine left her sister’s room with the most curious sensations. She was foiled at every point by Stella’s lightness, by her self-occupation, the rapidity of her loose and shallow thoughts, and their devotion to one subject. She recognised in a half-angry way the potency and influence of this self-occupation. It was so sincere that it was almost interesting. Stella found her own concerns full of interest; she had no amiable delusions about them. She spoke out quite simply what she felt, even about her children. She did not claim anything except boundless indulgence for herself. And then it struck Katherine very strangely, it must be allowed, to hear herself described as a great, robust, middle-aged woman. Was that how Stella saw her—was she that, probably, to other people? She laughed a little to herself, but it was not a happy laugh. How misguided was the poet when he prayed that we might see ourselves as others see us! Would not that be a dreadful coming down to almost everybody, even to the fairest and the wisest. The words kept flitting through Katherine’s mind without any will of hers. “A great, robust, middle-aged woman.” She passed a long mirror in the corridor (there were mirrors everywhere in Mr. Tredgold’s much decorated house), and started a little involuntarily to see the slim black figure in it gliding forward as if to meet her. Was this herself, Katherine, or was it the ghost of what she had thought she was, a girl at home, although twenty-nine? After all, middle-age does begin with the thirties, Katherine said to herself. Dante was thirty-five only when he described himself as at the mezzo del cammin. Perhaps Stella was right. She was three years younger. As she went towards the stairs occupied by these thoughts, she suddenly saw Sir Charles, a tall shadow, still more ghost-like than herself, in the mirror, with a little white figure seated on his shoulder. It was the little Job, the delicate boy, his little feet held in his father’s hand to keep them warm, his arms clinging round his father’s head as he sat upon his shoulder. Katherine started when she came upon the group, and made out the little boy’s small face and staring eyes up on those heights. Her brother-in-law greeted her with a laugh: “You wouldn’t stop with me to smoke a cigar, so I have found a companion who never objects. You like the smoke, don’t you, Job?”
“Job fader’s little boy,” said the small creature, in a voice with a shiver in it.
“Put a shawl round him, at least,” cried Katherine, going hastily to a wardrobe in the corridor; “the poor little man is cold.”
“Not a bit, are you, Job, with your feet in father’s hand?”
“Indland,” said the child, with a still more perceptible shiver, “Indland’s cold.”
But he tried to kick at Katherine as she approached to put the shawl round him, which Sir Charles stooped to permit, with an instinct of politeness.
“What, kick at a lady!” cried Sir Charles, giving the child a shake. “But we are not used to all these punctilios. We shall do very well, I don’t fear.”
“It is very bad for the child—indeed, he ought to be asleep,” Katherine could not but say. She felt herself the maiden aunt, as Stella had called her, the robust middle-aged woman—a superannuated care-taking creature who did nothing but interfere.
“Oh, we’ll look after that, Job and I,” the father said, going on down the stairs without even the fictitious courtesy of waiting till Katherine should pass. She stood and watched them going towards the drawing-room, the father and child. The devotion between them was a pretty sight—no doubt it was a pretty sight. The group of the mother and child is the one group in the world which calls forth human sentiment everywhere; and yet the father and child is more moving, more pathetic still, to most, certainly to all feminine, eyes. It seems to imply more—a want in the infant life to which its mother is not first, a void in the man’s. Is it that they seem to cling to each other for want of better? But that would be derogatory to the father’s office. At all events it is so. Katherine’s heart melted at this sight. The poor little child uncared for in the midst of so much ease, awake with his big excited eyes when he ought to have been asleep, exposed to the cold to which he was unaccustomed, shivering yet not complaining, his father carrying him away to comfort his own heart—negligent, but not intentionally so, of the child’s welfare, holding him as his dearest thing in the world. The ayah, on hearing the sound of voices, came to the door of the room, expostulating largely in her unknown tongue, gesticulating, appealing to the unknown lady. “He catch death—cold,” she cried, and Katherine shook her head as she stood watching them, the child recovering his spirits in the warmth of the shawl, his little laugh sounding through the house. Oh, how bad it was for little Job! and yet the conjunction was so touching that it went to her heart. She hesitated for a moment. What would be the use of following them, of endeavouring through Sir Charles’ cigar and Job’s chatter to give her brother-in-law the needful information, joyful though it must be. She did not understand these strange, eager, insouciant, money-grasping, yet apparently indifferent people, who were satisfied with her curt intimation of their restoration to wealth, even though they were forever, as Lady Jane said, agape for more. She stood for a moment hesitating, and then she turned away in the other direction to her own room, and gave it over for the night.
But Katherine’s cares were not over; in her room she found Mrs. Simmons waiting for her, handkerchief in hand, with her cap a little awry and her eyes red with crying. “I’m told, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons with a sniff, “as Miss Stella, which they calls her ladyship, don’t think nothing of my cookin’, and says I’m no better than a savage. I’ve bin in this house nigh upon twenty years, and my things always liked, and me trusted with everything; and that’s what I won’t take from no one, if it was the Lord Chamberlain himself. I never thought to live to hear myself called a savage—and it’s what I can’t put up with, Miss Katherine—not to go again you. I wouldn’t cross you not for no money. I’ve ’ad my offers, both for service and for publics, and other things. Mr. Harrison, the butler, he have been very pressin’—but I’ve said just this, and it’s my last word, I won’t leave Miss Katherine while she’s in trouble. I know my dooty better nor that, I’ve always said.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Simmons; you were always very good to me,” said Katherine, “and you must not mind anything that is said at table. You know Stella always was hasty, and never meant half she said.”
“Folks do say, Miss Katherine,” said Simmons, “as it’s a going to be Miss Stella’s house.”
“Yes, it will be her house; but whether she will stay in it or not I cannot tell you yet. It would be very nice for you, Simmons, to be left here as housekeeper with a maid or two to attend you, and nothing to do.”
“I hope,” said Simmons, with again a sniff, “as I am not come so low down as that—to be a caretaker, me at my time of life. And it don’t seem to me justice as Miss Stella should have the house as she runned away from and broke poor old master’s heart. He’s never been himself from that day. I wonder she can show her face in it, Miss Katherine, that I do! Going and calling old servants savages, as has been true and faithful and stood by him, and done their best for him up to the very last.”
“You must not be offended, Simmons, by a foolish word; and you must not speak so of my sister. She is my only sister, and I am glad she should have everything, everything!” Katherine cried with fervour, the moisture rising to her eyes.
“Then, Miss Katherine, it’s more nor anyone else is, either in the servants’ hall or the kitchen. Miss Stella, or her ladyship as they calls her, is a very ’andsome young lady, and I knows it, and dreadful spoiled she has been all her life. But she don’t have no consideration for servants. And we’ll clear out, leastways I will for one, if she is to be the Missus here.”
“I hope you will wait first and see what she intends. I am sure she would be very sorry, Simmons, to lose so good a servant as you.”
“I don’t know as it will grieve her much—me as she has called no better nor a savage; but she’ll have to stand it all the same. And the most of the others, I warn you, Miss Katherine, will go with me.”
“Don’t, dear Simmons,” said Katherine. “Poor Stella has been nearly seven long years away, and she has been among black people, where—where people are not particular what they say; don’t plunge her into trouble with her house the moment she gets back.”
“She ought to have thought of that,” cried Simmons, “afore she called a white woman and a good Christian, I hope, a savage—a savage! I am not one of them black people; and I doubt if the black people themselves would put up with it. Miss Katherine, I won’t ask you for a character.”
“Oh, Simmons, don’t speak of that.”
“No,” said Simmons, dabbing her eyes, then turning to Katherine with an insinuating smile, “because—because I’ll not want one if what I expect comes to pass. Miss Katherine, you haven’t got no objections to me.”
“You know I have not, Simmons! You know I have always looked to you to stand by me and back me up.”
“Your poor old Simmons, Miss Katherine, as made cakes for you, and them apples as you were so fond of when you were small! And as was always ready, no matter for what, if it was a lunch or if it was a supper, or a picnic, or whatever you wanted, and never a grumble; if it was ever so unreasonable, Miss Katherine, dear! If this house is Miss Stella’s house, take me with you! I shouldn’t mind a smaller ’ouse. Fifteen is a many to manage, and so long as I’ve my kitchenmaid I don’t hold with no crowds in the kitchen. Take me with you, Miss Katherine—you might be modest about it—seeing as you are not a married lady and no gentleman, and a different style of establishment. But you will want a cook and a housekeeper wherever you go—take me with you, Miss Katherine, dear.”
“Dear Simmons,” said Katherine, “I have not money enough for that. I shall not be rich now. I shall have to go into lodgings with Hannah—if I can keep Hannah.”
“You are joking,” said Simmons, withdrawing with wonder her handkerchief from her eyes. “You, Mr. Tredgold’s daughter, you the eldest! Oh, Miss Katherine, say it plain if you won’t have me, but don’t tell me that.”
“But indeed it is true,” cried Katherine. “Simmons, you know what things cost better than I do, and Mrs. Shanks says and Miss Mildmay——”
“Oh, Mrs. Shanks and Miss Mildmay! Them as you used to call the old cats! Don’t you mind, Miss Katherine, what they say.”
“Simmons, tell me,” asked Katherine, “what can I do, how many servants can I keep, with five hundred a year?”
Simmons’ countenance fell, her mouth opened in her consternation, her jaw dropped. She knew very well the value of money. She gasped as she repeated; “Five hundred a year!”