An Unknown Lover by Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (books for students to read .TXT) 📕
He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled an easy smile.
"Oh, I should rub along. I might get in a working housekeeper, or I could take a room in town. I might work better for a change of scene. If you would like to go--"
"I shouldn't like anything which left you alone. It would not be worth going for less than six months, and I couldn't possibly do that. I am of some use to you, Martin!"
This time the appeal was too direct to be ignored and the response came readily enough.
"A very great deal. You have managed admirably, but it is possible to be too unselfish. If you would like a change--"
Katrine drew in her breath with a sharp inhalation. "Like it!" like to spend months with Dorothea and Jack Middleton! Like to have the experiences of that thrilling voyage, past the Bay, past Gib., along the Mediterranean, through the Canal to the glowing East! Like to see India, with
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Imaginary characters flitted before Martin’s brain, he lived with them, carved out their lives. In a flash of enthusiasm he saw the completed whole, and found it the finest thing he had yet achieved. From time to time he wrote out notes; sketched out the first few chapters, then reading them over, fell once more into the trough of despair. A day or two of restless wanderings, and he would begin again, and again would follow the check, the discouragement. He had lived through the same misery with each fresh book which he had written. Experience had proved that in this instance it was indeed the first step which cost, that once fairly afloat his characters would grow in reality, and in inexplicable fashion would take the reins in their own hands, and work out their own destinies, but where, since the beginning of the world, is the artist to be found who can be comforted by common-sense while floundering in the valley of discouragement?
This morning for Martin Beverley had begun badly, and breakfast, instead of being a time of refreshment, had left him feeling still more jarred and dreary. Mentally he laid the blame upon Katrine’s shoulders. There was no denying the fact that Katrine was getting upon his nerves. For the first few years of their lives together all had gone well; he himself had been too bruised, too sore, to take more than a passing interest in life; and she had been but a young and malleable girl; now at the end of eight years he was awake once more, while Katrine was a woman of twenty-six, and, it was no use denying that the home atmosphere was out of time. Katrine was a clever housekeeper, careful and considerate of his comfort, she was also handsome, capable, and affectionate, yet the bitter fact remained that the tête-à-tête was beginning to jar, and an unspoken friction to shadow the air.
Martin was grateful for the help which his sister had given him, he tried persistently for self-control, yet in the recesses of his mind the question was growing daily more insistent: “How long could he endure the present manage?”
An intolerable longing possessed him to break loose from the chains which cramped his life, and to start afresh, free and untrammelled. For the moment the very presence of his sister in the room seemed more than he could bear. He turned on his heel, and walked quickly from the room.
Katrine meantime had accomplished her duties, and given herself up to the enjoyment of reading, and replying, to her Indian letter. The temptation of beginning the reply could seldom be postponed, for Dorothea’s words brought with them a personal demand, to which it was imperative to respond.
Dorothea was the one person in the whole world who could always be relied upon to understand, and follow Katrine’s mental flights. At school she had been the staunchest of chums; through the first black years of Martin’s widowerhood her enthusiasm had kept her friend’s resolution at white heat, and when two years later she had met her fate in the guise of a young officer, and had been spirited away to India, her departure had been the sorest grief which Katrine had yet been called upon to bear.
The weekly letters which crossed each other with unfailing regularity were in each case a diary of daily happenings, enlivened by such moralisings, grave and gay, as were natural between the friends, who were deeply in each other’s confidence. Dorothea’s latest letter was no exception to the rule, except as regards one startling item of news, given, woman-like, in the postscript.
“By the way, Jim Blair discovered a charming old box in the bazaar this week, and is sending it home to you as the latest addition to your collection. Be sure to answer his letter nicely, and be properly pleased! He is a dear, and I have read (edited) extracts from your letters to him weekly, for years past, so that he knows you quite well by repute. He is lonely, poor man. You wouldn’t grudge him that small distraction!”
Katrine’s cheeks flushed to an unusual pink as she digested that postscript. Jim Blair! Jim Blair was a bachelor, and the ami intime of the Middleton ménage. Katrine searched her memory for further details, and had an impression of a tall, thin man, who had had a rough time in life, and had come through his trials with flying colours. Whence had the impression arisen? She could not tell, but determined to re-read old letters to find out exactly what had been said. Meantime the present announcement caused a distinct stirring of the quiet waters of life...
A strange man had written to her, had sent her a gift, in the shape of a brass box, to add to the collection of antiques which lay before her, their polished surfaces gleaming brightly against a background of old oak. Katrine had a passion for antique brasses, and through Dorothea’s agency had acquired an interesting collection during the last few years. An addition to her collection was always a triumph, but in this special case her expectations were engaged more with the message itself, than with the treasure which it introduced. The letter had not arrived by the ordinary post, although Dorothea had spoken of it as already despatched. Probably then it was enclosed in the box, and would arrive by the later parcel delivery!
A letter! How extraordinary that a man should take upon himself to send a letter to an unknown girl at the other end of the world! As for the brass itself, he had probably seen other specimens which Dorothea had forwarded from time to time, both as commissions and gifts; had been consulted as to their value, possibly even taken to the bazaar to assist in bargaining; then, coming by chance across a good specimen, it might have occurred to a generously-minded man to secure it in its turn. Katrine would have found the whole transaction natural enough if the gift had been offered through Dorothea’s mediumship—But to write direct!
A letter! What would that letter contain? A few brief lines of formal explanation; a colourless, characteristic thing, as lifeless as the sheet on which it was written? Assuredly so. How in the name of fortune could it be anything else? Katrine stifled a stab of disappointment, and set herself resolutely to foretell the words which she was presently to read.
“Dear Miss Beverley—Dear Madame—Knowing your liking for old brass—um—um—I am taking the liberty of forwarding—” No! that’s too sudden and businessy.—He must offer some sort of explanation... “Coming across this old box the other day in the bazaar, and knowing your liking for old brass, I consulted with Mrs Middleton as to whether I might venture—” “Really, it’s horribly difficult! Why didn’t he just put in a card, and leave it to Doll to explain? I must accept, of course; it would be churlish to refuse, but as to answering nicely, that’s another matter! A few lines in the third person would be the best way out of the difficulty—”
“A parcel for you, miss.”
The waitress brought in a small box, oblong in shape, sealed and tied with a security which bespoke a long journey. Katrine’s hasty hands scattered the wrappings on the floor, and even as they fell, the musty, pungent smell of the East filled the air, and her eyes looked with surprise upon a cedar-wood box, carved, and inlaid with delicate skill. Cedar wood! but Dorothea had said brass. It seemed inexplicable that the offering should consist of a thing in which she took no special interest. Katrine’s hands weighed it carefully, and discovered an unexpected weight; she prized off the lid, and beheld yet a second parcel, wrapped in soft, rough silk. Ah! here came the brass. She drew her breath with a quick gasp of delight as the treasure came into sight,—a long, flat-shaped box, deeply carved with letterings, mingled with the most grotesque of figures. Katrine’s growing experience made her aware of its antiquity. No other item in her possession was worthy to be named in comparison. It was a treasure trove, such as would delight the heart of the most fastidious collector.
For a moment surprise and admiration engrossed her mind, then quickly following came another thought. The letter!—where was the letter? Was there no letter enclosed? Katrine dashed at the scattered wrappings, shook them apart, and failing to find any trace of what she sought, fumbled with the lid of the box itself. It was tightly jammed, but a little coaxing set it free, and in the cavity lay a sheet of foreign paper, closely covered with a man’s strong, well-formed writing.
Katrine seated herself on the chair by the window, with a strange, dazed feeling of expectancy. A narrow strip of garden separated the side of the house from the lane without. With half-conscious eyes she saw a blue-robed figure strolling slowly by, followed by a fat, waddling pug. Mary Biggs, the lawyer’s sister, taking Peter Biggs for his morning’s stroll. Approaching from the opposite direction came a trim figure in grey, sandwiched between two small girls, with skirts cut short to display shapely brown legs. Mrs Slades’s governess taking the children for their morning stroll... The little hamlet was pursuing its quiet, machine-like way; no tremor of excitement had disturbed its calm, but in Katrine’s room was the scent of the East, and out of the silence six thousand miles away, a man laid bare to her his heart.
“Lebong, May 10, 19—.
“Captain Blair presents his compliments to Miss Beverley, and takes the liberty of forwarding for her acceptance an antique brass box, which he trusts may be considered worthy of a place in her collection.
“Katrine! It is such a delicious little name; it is the only name by which I have ever heard you called. Will you forgive a lonely fellow, six thousand miles away, if he writes to you as he thinks? It’s ridiculous to let conventions throw their shadow across the world, but if you will have it, enclosed is the conventional, colourless, third-person missive. Keep it, and tear up the rest unread. I give you full liberty to do it.
“But you won’t.
“I might as well confess at once,—that box is a delusion and a snare. I didn’t ‘hit upon it’; I searched for it far and wide. Properly regarded, it is not a box at all; it is an excuse; a decoy. I wanted one badly, and it was the best I could find.
“The nuisance of it is that we meet on such unequal terms! You know my name; you have probably gathered an impression that, as fellows go, I’m not a bad fellow, though a trifle dull. Dorothea Middleton is an angel of hospitality, but an up-country station has its limits even for a saint. To your mind I’m dead as Queen Anne, but to me you are quite distractingly alive. Why do you send out photographs taken in such a fashion that your eyes look straight into the eyes of any lonely fellow who chances to sit smoking his pipe in a friend’s bungalow if you don’t want trouble to follow?
“There’s one photograph which smiles. You know it! the one in the white frock. When I’m pleased to be witty, I look at those eyes, and they laugh back. My other hearers may be dull and unappreciative, but those eyes never fail. Katrine and I have shared many a joke together during these last years.
“There’s another photograph—the dark one! A white, little face looking out of the shadow; pensive this time, but always with those straight-glancing eyes. It’s your own fault, Katrine! If you had been ‘taken’ like ordinary folk, gazing blankly into space, all this might never have happened... The pensive portrait is even deadlier than the glad. It looks sorry
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