An Unknown Lover, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey [best romantic novels in english txt] 📗

It complicates the position, and in one way or other is pretty well bound to lead to trouble. The man who would appreciate the one, is bound to object to t’other, and it’s such a contrary world, that the t’other it would almost certainly be... When you are making a choice for life, you ought to understand where you are. You see, Martin,” she turned towards him with a smile, “it would not be fair!”

“And—” he said hoarsely, “was that the reason why you never—?”

Grizel put her head on one side, and stared thoughtfully into the blaze.

“Partly. Mostly. Yes! And my old Buddy. She won’t live long, and I owe her so much. But mostly the idea of playing the game. Most of the men I have met have positions to maintain, and expect their wives to lend a hand. They can’t afford a love marriage, and I’m proud in my own little way. I shouldn’t like to turn out a disappointment.”

“There are some men who are old-fashioned enough to prefer to provide for their own wives, who would dread the fortune even more heartily than others do the lack of it.”

“There are. I realise that. Bless their dear hearts! But not the majority! There’s an heir to a Dukedom hovering round now, Martin; not compromising himself, you understand, but by steady attention to business laying the foundation of a claim. If the old Buddy died and left me her heir, he’d tell me that he had forborne to intrude, had valiantly subdued his impatience, etc., etc., I never want the money quite so badly as when I imagine that interview! I’m not spiteful as a rule, but I shall think fate treats me hardly if I never have a chance of scorching that young man... Well! we’ll see—!”

“You want then,—you will be disappointed if you don’t get the money?”

She turned her eyes full upon him, distended in the widest of stares.

“Well, I should just farther think I should! T-errifically disappointed! Squelched. Flum-macked. Laid out flat. For the hour, that is. I couldn’t go on being worried, for all the fortunes on earth. It will be a case of adapting myself to a new sort of happiness—c’est tout! That’s easily done.”

The joy of the lover, the keen, appraising interest of the artist, were both eloquent in Martin’s glance as he considered her eloquent face.

“Yes! One cannot imagine Grizel less than happy and content. And yet to an ordinary nature, your life during these last years, for all its luxuries, would have seemed a poor thing. You have made your happiness by managing to love a very unlovable character. It’s a big feat, Grizel; a very big feat!”

Grizel rubbed her nose, a slow, thoughtful rub with a raised forefinger. The homely movement seemed ridiculously out of character with the ethereal form and the transparent hand, on which the firelight woke the gleam of flawless diamonds.

“Can a ‘feat’ be something for which you have never tried? I never try to love any one. Either I love ’em, or—I don’t bother! Disliking, hating,—it’s too much trouble! I wipe ’em out... Same way with things; therefore, as a logical conclusion nothing remains but what I do like. Therefore,—logical inference again!—one must be happy, because there’s nothing to make one un-happy. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”

Martin’s lip curled.

“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder what Katrine would say if you propounded that theory to her? I fancy, poor girl, that the very opposite of your programme would come nearer to her outlook on life. She finds it as difficult to be happy as you do to be miserable. And yet—she’s had her chance!”

“Martin, she has not! What chance has she had? Tucked away in this dark old house, with you shut up in your study all day, and in your moods all night? My old Buddy loves me; it’s not an ordinary form of loving perhaps, but she does! I’m more to her than the whole world. And I’ve had my fling... Poor old Katrine has had no love, and no fling, nothing but duty, and brotherly affection, and home-made clothes. It’s enough to make any woman snap. I’m glad she is discontented. I’ll make her more discontented still, before I’ve done. She’s pot-bound, like your stale old ferns, and needs uprooting, and shaking, and planting in fresh, strong earth. Then she’ll bloom, and you, poor bat! will be amazed at what a fine big bloom it is. It isn’t a sign of greatness, Martin, to blink in the sun, because one is too lazy too move, and is content to bask, and be stroked, and lick up cream. That’s me! Katrine is bigger; it needs more to fill her life, but she’s only just beginning to grow. You don’t know, Martin, how sweet a woman Katrine is going to be!”

Martin smiled; a smile of serene, unshakable conviction. He knew his sister. She was a good girl, well meaning, if a little difficult by nature; he, of all people on earth, would be the last to deny Katrine’s good points, but—to compare her with Grizel, to account to her a greatness of nature above that of the sweetest, kindliest, most loving of women,—that was a flight of fancy beyond even his well-trained powers!

“And who,” queried Grizel, with sudden energy, “is Katrine thinking of, when she sits smiling into space, and giving silly answers to obvious questions, and putting horrid sugar into my tea,—tell me that, if you can! It is your profession in life to study men and women, and analyse their thoughts. What do you make of the mystery of the woman upon your hearth?”

Martin smiled superior.

“There is none. She is thinking of the grocer, and determining to hurl another complaint at his head, because he will insist upon sending us sandy grit, instead of honest West Indian sugar, or of the butcher, whom she suspects of frozen meat, or—or of the Y.W., who has left smudges on the plates... Nothing more romantic, I assure you.”

“Blind bat of a man! that’s all you know. I’ll take to novel-writing myself at this rate. If this is the insight and inner vision of ‘one of the most popular of our young writers’ there’s room for Grizel Dundas! I have not been in the house a week, but I know two things—Some one is making love to Katrine, and—Katrine enjoys the process! By a process of elucidation I know also that it is not the doctor with the beard, nor the curate with the smile, nor the Caldecote squire who rides the white horse, nor the squeaky person who sings. It isn’t this neighbourhood which holds the treasure. She has an air of calmness and detachment in partaking of your rural joys. Not a flicker of ‘Will he come?’ ... Methinks my friend, he lives afar!”

The smile broadened upon Martin’s lips. Women, the most sensible of women, had a way of searching for sentimental reasons for the most prosaic happenings; it was an interesting trait, and from the altitude of a man’s sound common-sense, attractive enough. It pleased him to hear Grizel imagining love stories with Katrine as heroine, without foundation as they were.

“Can’t you go a little further and discover his name and address? It would be interesting to know.”

“Jim. India,” replied Grizel with a promptness which startled her hearer into attention at last. The face which confronted him was full of triumph, and a malicious delight in his discomfiture. He stared discomfited, amazed, subtly aggrieved.

“Jim, India! There is no Jim! She knows no one there, not a soul, except Jack Middleton and Dorothea. What put it into your head to fancy such a thing? Has she—?”

“There is a Jim, and the Middletons know him. Dorothea wrote about some commissions, and Katrine showed me the note—wanting my advice. There was a reference to one ‘Jim,’—she’d forgotten that, quite a colourless reference, but when I questioned, she blushed!” Grizel covered her cheeks with her hands, in eloquent gesture. “Oh, such a blush! I looked away, but I thought: ‘Why should one blush at a name?’ and after that I went on thinking. It’s Jim, India—Martin, you may take my word for it, though how, and why, and when, I have no more idea than you have yourself. There’s a new interest in her life; any one with two eyes can see that, and she writes huge, huge letters...”

“To Dorothea! She’s done that for years. I’ve often wondered what she finds to say.”

Grizel rolled eloquent eyes to the ceiling.

“I have been young,” she declaimed dramatically, “and now am old, yet have I never seen a woman staring into space, smirking, and looking silly, considering how she can best turn a sentence, to another woman! I tell you that which I do know and, Martin dear, it’s not disloyalty... I wouldn’t have breathed a word, if it had not been for the hope of helping both. Keep your own eyes open, and act! Katrine’s conscience is of the good, old-fashioned, Nonconformist type which urges her on to do the thing she most dislikes, out of a deluded idea that it must needs be right! She’s quite capable of playing suttee with her life. Don’t let her do it!”

“How can I help it? I know nothing. I am not consulted. I believe the whole thing is imagination. If there had been anything real she would surely have confided in you.”

“Me? I’m the last person,—the last person in the world—”

The words were spoken on the impulse of the moment, and apparently regretted as soon as they were pronounced. Grizel flushed; obviously, unmistakably, even in the glow of the firelight. She flushed, and pushing back her chair rose hurriedly to her feet.

“Whew! That fire! Katrine was right,—it does get close. And I believe it is going to clear.—I’ll go and see.”

“Why are you the last? Why?”

Martin had followed her, was questioning with a new light in his eyes—eager, curious, anticipatory. On her way towards the door her progress was blocked by his tall form.

“Why the last, Grizel?” he repeated urgently. “Tell me! I want to know. Why should Katrine—?”

Never before had he seen a trace of embarrassment break the lazy serenity of Grizel’s mien. The sight of it, and the possibility of an intoxicating explanation of her statement, fired his blood. For the last two years he had been fighting against this love, fighting it as a forbidden thing, a thing of which to be ashamed, but lately, subtly, the mental position had changed. Life was forcibly pushing him from one standpoint after another, proving its untenability, sending him forth to find fresh fields.

“Why should Katrine—?” he cried, and at that moment the door opened and Katrine herself stood upon the threshold.

Her face was pale, her eyes grave and gentle, the picture of her as she appeared at that moment dwelt in Martin’s mind, and brought with it a startled recognition of his sister’s charm, then in a flash, she stiffened; the softness passed from the eyes, and was replaced by a chilly scorn. This was a love scene upon which she had intruded,—Grizel flushed, protesting, Martin flushed, appealing, and her own name “Katrine” bandied upon his lip—no doubt to be waved aside, as an obstacle blocking the way.

It was in a voice icily bereft of expression that she delivered her message:

“I have just taken a message for you, Grizel. They have rung up to say that Lady Griselda is worse. You are wanted at home at once.”