The Career of Katherine Bush. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ rung her enamelled bell for the automatic entrance of the servants from behind the screen – they were only allowed in the room to change the courses at this meal. Numbers of politicians and diplomats frequently dropped in and preferred to discuss affairs with their hostess alone.

      "No – not much," Mr. Strobridge admitted when they were again by themselves and coffee had come. "I thought she did my letter to the Times remarkably well, though."

      "She has not done anything badly yet – when she makes a mistake in social trifles she always realises it, and corrects herself. Her reading aloud was grotesque at first, but I have never had to tell her how to pronounce a word twice. I lay traps for her; she is as smart as paint and as deep as a well."

      "A treasure indeed – " but Mr. Strobridge's voice was absent, he was uninterested and was still smarting under the annoyance of the situation created by his wife.

      Of course he could not make her stay at home by force – and he hated the idea of Ganymede and the bare legs. He reverted to the topic once more.

      "I would really rather not go to see the freakish crew to-night," he said. "Beatrice is doing it merely from obstinacy; she is not like Hebe Vermont, a ridiculous poseuse, crazy for notoriety; she is a refined creature generally, though wearying. This is just to defy me."

      "As I have always told you, G., you should never have married, you are made for an ardent and devoted lover, with a suitable change of inamorata every six months. In the rôle of husband you are – frankly – a little ridiculous! You have no authority. As Miss Bush put it just now about something else, you usually act from good nature, not from a sense of justice; and Beatrice snaps her fingers at you and goes her own way."

      "I don't mind as a rule – indeed, I am grateful to her for doing so. Can there be anything more tedious and bourgeois than the recognised relation of husband and wife? The only things which make intimacy with a woman agreeable are difficulty and intermittency. Bee fortunately expects nothing from me, and I expect nothing from her, beyond acting in a manner suitable to her race and station, and I don't think Ganymede in his original costume at an Artist Models' ball a harmonious part for my wife or a Thorvil to adopt."

      "You don't know how to manage her, and you are too indifferent to try – so you had better swallow your outraged dignity and come with me in my box after all. Läo will be there and you can sit and whisper in the back of it." And Lady Garribardine lit her cigarette, but Mr. Strobridge protested in whimsical distress:

      "Heaven forbid! Would you kill this dawning romance, Seraphim? If Läo and I are to be drafted off like a pair of fiancés, the whole charm is gone. I wish to ménager my emotions so that they may last over the Easter recess; after that I shall be too busy for them to matter. Don't be ruthless, sweet Aunt!"

      Lady Garribardine laughed and at that moment Katherine Bush came in, the finished letters in her hand.

      "Give Miss Bush some coffee, G., while I look over them," and Her Ladyship indicated the tray which had been placed by an attentive Bronson close to her hand.

      Mr. Strobridge did as he was asked. His thoughts were far away, and beyond displaying the courtesy he used to all women, he never noticed Katherine at all. She was quite ordinary looking still – with the screwed up mop of ashen-hued hair, and her plain dark blouse, unless you chanced to meet her strange and beautiful eyes.

      For some reason she felt a little piqued, the man's manner and phrasing attracted her, his voice was superlatively cultivated, and his words chosen with polished grace. Here was a person from whom something could be learned. She would have wished to have talked with him unrestrainedly and alone. She remained silent and listened when aunt and nephew again took up the ball of conversation together. How she would love to be able to converse like that! They were so sparkling – never in earnest seemingly, all was light as air, while Mr. Strobridge made allusions and quotations which showed his brilliant erudition, and Katherine hearkened with all her ears. Some of them she recognized and others she determined to look up, but his whole pronunciation of the sentences sounded different from what she had imagined they would be when she had read them to herself.

      This was the first time she had heard a continued conversation between two people who she had already decided were worthy of note, and this half-hour stood out as the first milestone in her progress.

      Presently they all rose – and she went back to her work with the sense of the magnitude of her task in climbing to the pinnacle of a great lady and cultivated woman of the world.

      For a few moments she felt a little depressed – then a thought came to her.

      "He could help me to knowledge of literature and art – he could teach me true culture – and since he is married there can be no stupid love-making. But for this he must first realise that I exist and for that when my chance comes I must arrest his attention through the ears and the eyes. He must for once look at me and see not only his aunt's secretary – and then I can learn from him all that I desire to know."

      That this course of action could possibly cause the proposed teacher pain in the future never entered her head.

      CHAPTER VIII

      Matilda had been told to meet her sister, if it should be fine on this Sunday, in the Park by the Serpentine; they would walk about and then go and have an early tea at Victoria Station, whence Matilda could take a train back to Bindon's Green.

      They met punctually at the time appointed on the bridge, and the elder Miss Bush was filled with joy. She had missed Katherine dreadfully, as browbeating husbands are often missed by meek wives, and she was full of curiosity to hear her news.

      "You look changed somehow, Kitten!" she exclaimed, when they had greeted each other. "It isn't because you'd done your hair differently; you had it that way on the last day – it isn't a bit 'the look', but it suits you. No, it's not that – but you are changed somehow. Now tell me everything, dearie – I am dying to hear."

      "I like it," began Katherine, "and I am learning lots of things."

      This information did not thrill Matilda. Katherine's desire to be always learning was very fatiguing, she thought, and quite unnecessary. She wanted to hear facts of food and lodging and people and treatment, not unimportant moral developments.

      "Oh – well," she said. "Are they kind to you?"

      "Yes – I am waited on like a lady – and generally the work isn't half so heavy as at Liv and Dev's."

      "Tell me right from the beginning. What you do when you get up in the morning until you go to bed."

      Katherine complied.

      "I am waked at half-past seven and given a cup of tea – real tea, Tild, not the stuff we called tea at home." (A slight toss of the head from Matilda.) "The second housemaid waits on me, and pulls up my blind, and then I have my bath in the bathroom across the passage – a nice, deep hot bath."

      "Whatever for – every day?" interrupted Matilda. "What waste of soap and towels and things – do you like it, Kitten?"

      "Of course, I do – we all seem to be very dirty people to me now, Tild – with our one tub a week; you soon grow to find things a necessity. I could not bear not to have a bath every day now."

      Matilda snorted.

      "Well – and then – ?"

      "Then I go down and have my breakfast in the secretary's room – my sitting-room, in fact. It is a lovely breakfast, with beautiful china and silver and table-linen, СКАЧАТЬ