KATE’S life seemed to stop at this point. For a few days she did not know what she did. She would have liked to give in, and be ill, but dared not, lest her aunt (who did not love her) should be compromised. Therefore she kept up, and walked and went to the parish and chattered with Minnie Hardwick, and even tried her German, though this latter attempt was not very successful.
‘My aunt was called away suddenly on business,’ she explained to Mrs. Hardwick.
‘What! and left you alone—quite alone in that great house?’ cried Mrs. Hardwick. ‘It is not possible! How lonely for you! But I suppose she will only be gone for a few days?’
‘I scarcely know. It is business that has taken her away, and nobody can answer for business,’ said Kate, with an attempt at a laugh. ‘But the servants are very good, and I shall do very well. I am not afraid of being alone.’
‘Not afraid, I daresay, but dreadfully solitary. It ought not to be,’ said Mrs. Hardwick, in a tone of reproof. And the thought passed through her mind that she had never quite approved of Mrs. Anderson, who seemed to know much more of Bertie than was at all desirable, and, no doubt, had attempted to secure him for that pale girl of hers. ‘Though what any gentleman could see in her, or how anyone could so much as look at her while Kate Courtenay was by, I don’t understand,’ she said, after discussing the question in private.
‘Oh, mamma! I think she is so sweet and pretty,’ said Edith. ‘But I am sure Bertie does not like her. Bertie avoided her—he was scarcely civil. I am sure if there is anyone that Bertie admires it is Kate.’
Mrs. Hardwick shook her head.
‘Bertie knows very well,’ she said, ‘that Miss Courtenay is out of his reach—delightful as she is, and everything we could desire—except that she is rather too rich; but that is no reason why he should go and throw himself away on some girl without a penny. I don’t put any faith in his avoiding Miss Anderson. When a young man avoids a young woman it is much the same as when he seeks her society. But, Minnie, run away and look after your club books; you are too young yet to hear such matters discussed.’
‘Edith is only a year older than I am,’ said Minnie, within herself, ‘but then she is almost a married lady.’ And with this she comforted her heart, which was not without its private flutters too.
And Kate kept on her way, very bravely holding up her little flag of resolution. She sat in the room which they had all occupied together, and had coals heaped upon the two fires, and could not get warm. The silence of the place made her sick and faint. She got up and walked about, in the hope of hearing at least her own step, and could not on the soft carpet. When she coughed, it seemed to ring all through the house. She got frightened when she caught a glimpse of herself in the great mirror, and thought it was a ghost. She sent to Westerton for all the novels that were to be had, and these were a help to her; but still, to sit in a quiet room, with yourself now and then seen passing through the glass like a thief, and nothing audible but the ashes falling from the grate, is a terrible experience for a girl. She heard herself breathing; she heard her cough echo down all the long galleries. She had her stable dog washed and brushed, and made fit for good society, in the hope that he would take to the drawing-room, and live with her, and give her some one to speak to. But, after all, he preferred the stables, being only a mongrel, without birth or breeding. This rather overcame Kate’s bravery; but only once did she thoroughly break down. It was the day after her aunt left, and, with a sudden recollection of companionship and solace still remaining, she had said to Maryanne, ‘Go and call old Francesca.’ ‘Francesca, miss!—oh! bless you, she’s gone with her lady,’ said Maryanne; and Kate, who had not expected this, broke down all at once, and had a fit of crying.
‘Never mind—it is nothing. I thought they meant to leave Francesca,’ she said, incoherently. Thus it became evident to her that they were gone, and gone for ever. And Kate went back to her melancholy solitude, and took up her novel; but when she had read the first page, she stopped, and began to think. She had done no wrong to anyone. If there was wrong, it had been done to her. She had tried even to resist all feelings of resentment, and to look as if she had forgotten the wrong done her. Yet it was she who was being punished, as if she were the criminal. Nobody anywhere, whatever harm they might have done, had been punished so sorely. Solitary confinement!—was not that the worst of all—the thing that drives people mad?
Then Mr. Courtenay wrote in a state of great fret and annoyance. What did Mrs. Anderson mean by leaving him in the lurch just then, she and her daughter? She had not even given him an address, that he might write to her and remonstrate (he had intended to supersede her in Spring, to be sure, but he did not think it necessary to mention that); and here he was in town, shut up with a threatening of bronchitis, and it was as much as his life was worth to travel now. Couldn’t she get some one to stay with her, or get along somehow until Lady Caryisfort came home?
Kate wrote him a brave little letter, saying that of course she could get on—that he need not be at all troubled about her—that she was quite happy, and should prefer being left as she was. When she had written it, she lay down on the rug before the fire, and had a cry, and then came to herself, and sent to ask if Minnie Hardwick might spend the evening with her. Minnie’s report brought her mother up next morning, who found that Kate had a bad cold, and sent for the doctor, and kept her in bed; and all the fuss of this little illness—though Kate believed she hated fuss—did her good. Her own room was pleasanter than the drawing-room. It was natural to be alone there; and as she lay on the sofa, and was read to by Minnie, there seemed at times a possibility that life might mend. And next day and the next, though she recovered, this companionship went on. Minnie was not very wise, but she chattered about everything in heaven and earth. She talked of her brother—a subject in which Kate could not help taking an interest, which was half anger, half something else. She asked a hundred questions about Florence—
‘Did you really see a great deal of Bertie? How funny that he should not have told us! Men are so odd!’ cried Minnie. ‘If it had been I, I should have raved about you for ever and ever!’
‘Because you are silly and—warm-hearted,’ said Kate, with a sigh. ‘Yes, I think we saw them pretty often.’
‘Why do you say them?’
‘Why?—because the two were always together! We never expected to see one without the other.’
‘Like your cousin and you,’ said innocent Minnie. And then she laughed.
‘Why do you laugh?’ said Kate.
‘Oh! nothing—an idea that came into my head. I have heard of two sisters marrying two brothers, but never of two pair of cousins—it would be funny.’
‘But altogether out of the question, as it happens,’ said Kate, growing stately all at once.
‘Oh! don’t be angry. I did not mean anything. Was Bertie very attentive to Miss Anderson in Florence? We wonder sometimes. For I am sure he avoided her here; and mamma says she puts no faith in a gentleman avoiding a lady. It is as bad as—what do you think?—unless you would rather not say,’ added Minnie, shyly; ‘or if you think I oughtn’t to ask——’
‘I don’t know anything about Mr. Bertie Hardwick’s feelings,’ said Kate. And then she added, with a little sadness which she could not quite conceal, ‘Nor about anybody, Minnie. Don’t ask me, please. I am not clever enough to find things out; and nobody ever confides in me.’
‘I am sure I should confide in you first of all!’ cried Minnie, with enthusiasm. ‘Oh! when I recollect how much we used to be frightened for you, and what a funny girl we thought you; and then to think I should know you so well now, and have got so—fond of you—may I say so?’ said the little girl, who was proud of her post.
Kate made no answer for a full minute, and then she said,
‘Minnie, you are younger than I am, a great deal younger——’
‘I am eighteen,’ said Minnie, mortified.
‘But I am nineteen and a half, and very, very old for my age. At your age one does not know which is the real thing and which is the shadow—there are so many shadows in this world; and sometimes you take them for truth, and when you find it out it is hard.’
Minnie followed this dark saying with a puzzled little face.
‘Yes,’ she said, perplexed, ‘like Narcissus, you mean, and the dog that dropped the bone. No, I don’t mean that—that is too—too—common-place. Oh! did you ever see Bertie Eldridge’s yacht? I think I heard he had it at the Isle of Wight. It was called the Shadow. Oh! I would give anything to have a sail in a yacht!’
Ah! that was called the Shadow too. Kate felt for a moment as if she had found something out; but it was a delusion, an idea which she could not identify—a Will-o’-the-Wisp, which looked like something, and was nothing. ‘I have a shadow too,’ she murmured, half to herself. But before Minnie’s wondering eyes and tongue could ask what it meant, Spigot came solemnly to the door. He had to peer into the darkness to see his young mistress on the sofa.
‘If you please, Miss Courtenay,’ he said, ‘there is a gentleman downstairs wishes to see you; and he won’t take no answer as I can offer. He says if you hear his name——’
‘What is his name?’ cried Kate. She did not know what she expected, but it made her heart beat. She sat up, on her sofa, throwing off her wraps, notwithstanding Minnie’s remonstrances. Who could it be?—or rather, what?
‘The Reverend Mr. Sugden, Miss,’ said Mr. Spigot.
‘Mr. Sugden!’ She said the name two or three times over before she could remember. Then she rose, and directed Spigot to light the candles. She did not know how it was, but new vigour somehow seemed to come into her veins.
‘Minnie,’ she said, ‘this is a gentleman who knows my aunt. He has come, I suppose, about her business. I want you to stay just now; but if I put up my hand so, will you run upstairs and wait for me in my room? Take the book. You will be a true little friend if you will do this.’
‘Leave you alone!—with a gentleman!’ said Minnie. ‘But then of course he must be an old gentleman, as he has come about business,’ she said to herself; and added hastily, ‘Of course I will. And if you don’t put up your hand—so—must I stay?’
‘I am sure to put it up,’ said Kate.
The room by this time was light and bright, and Spigot’s solemn step was heard once more approaching. Kate placed herself in a large chair. She looked as imposing and dignified as she could, poor child!—the solitary mistress of her own house. But how strange it was to see the tall figure come in—the watchful, wistful face she remembered so well! He held out his large hand, in which her little one was drowned, just as he used to do. He glanced round him in the same way, as if Ombra might be somewhere about in the corners. His Shadow too! Kate could not doubt that. But when she gave Minnie her instructions, she had taken it for granted that there would have been certain preliminaries to the conversation—inquiries about herself, or information about what she was doing. But Mr. Sugden was full of excitement and anxiety. He took her small hand into his big one, which swallowed it up, as we have said, and he held it, as some men hold a button.
‘I hear they have left you,’ he said. ‘Tell me, is it true?’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, too much startled to give her signal, ‘they have left me.’
‘And you don’t know where they have gone?’
She remembered now, and Minnie disappeared, curious beyond all description. Then Kate withdrew her hand from that mighty grasp.
‘I don’t know where they have gone. Have you heard anything of them, Mr. Sugden? Have you brought me, perhaps, a message?’
He shook his head.
‘I heard it all vaguely, only vaguely; but you know how I used to feel, Miss Kate. I feel the same still. Though it is not what I should have wished—I am ready to be a brother to her. Will you tell me all that has passed since you went away?’
‘If you will, Miss Kate—as you would be kind to one who does not care very much what happens to him! You are kind, I know—and you love her!’
The tears came to Kate’s eyes. She grew warm and red all over, throwing off, as it were, in a moment, the palsy of cold and misery that had come over her.
‘Yes,’ she said suddenly, ‘I love her,’ and cried. Mr. Sugden looked on, not knowing why.
Kate felt herself changed as in a moment; she felt—nay, she was herself again. What did it matter whether they loved her?—she loved them. That was, after all, what she had most to do with. She dried her tears, and she told her story, straight off, like a tale she had been taught, missing nothing. And he drank it all in to the end, not missing a word. When she had finished he sat silent, with a sombre countenance, and not a syllable was spoken between them for ten minutes at least. Then he said aloud, as if not talking, but thinking,
‘The question is which?’ Then he raised his eyes and looked at her. ‘Which?’ he repeated.
Kate grew pale again, and felt a choking in her throat. She bowed her head, as if she were accepting her fate.
‘Mr. Bertie Hardwick!’ she said.