An Unknown Lover - Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

myself, and no work that I can do! Too young to be a housekeeper, too old to begin a training.

“It is a big problem, and must be gripped. I have many invitations, enough to fill six months at least, but I’ve refused them all! I can’t frivol with that big question unsolved, so I’m going away quietly by myself to think it out. The friends here are keenly interested, and proffer advice, tinctured with consolation as follows: ‘Have you ever thought of dispensing? I knew a girl who had such a good post, and married the doctor. Of course you will marry, too, dear!’—‘I’m told there’s quite a big income to be made out of fashion designing’ (Can’t draw a line!). ‘Then you could go on with it at home if you married a poor man. Of course you’ll marry.’ ... ‘You might be a matron at Eton...’ (Might I?) ‘How would you like to be a Cookery Demonstrator?’ (Not at all!) ‘So useful when you marry.’—‘Charity Organisation Offices need Secretaries. Couldn’t you get your brother to get the Bishop to write to say you’d be suitable?’ (Story-teller if he did! I shouldn’t. Too much sympathy, and too little judgment, I’d give them money on the sly!)

“‘Dear Katrine! promise me one thing,—that you will not be tempted to go on the stage!’ (Vicar’s wife having seen me act charades at a mild tea fray.) ‘Wait patiently and trustfully, performing faithfully the little duties that arise, and in good time...’ (She means the curate!!)

“Oh, dear, it’s funny, but I’m not laughing. I’m trying not to cry. In the horrid, ungrateful way we have, I realise for the first time how well off I’ve been; how comfortable, and snug, and independent, and—necessary! That’s the crux of it all. I was necessary—now I’m superfluous!

“Well! here I am, you see, for the first time in twenty-six years really at grips with life, about to experience for myself the troubles and perplexities which so far have been mere matters of hearsay! I growsed and grizzled about the dulness of monotony, now I’m to taste uncertainty for a change. It may be very good for me; the vicar’s wife says—confidently!—that it will be. I can imagine myself pouring forth the most inspiriting sentiments to my next-door neighbour, similarly bound, but when You write to me, don’t be inspiriting! I pray you, don’t make the best of it! Say that it’s an unjust world; that brothers have no right to get married, and chuck their sisters; that it’s confoundedly hard lines, and that I’m a hardly used, unappreciated, despised, abandoned angel and martyr. That will buck me up, and give me courage to go on!

“But I want you to know one thing! If I could alter everything by a wave of the hand, nothing would induce me to do it! To see the cloud lifted, to watch blank eyes grow deep, and sweet, and satisfied again,—that’s a wonderful thing, and it would be a pigmy soul who did not rejoice. So think of me as I am, really happy, and truthfully thankful, but naturally a little agitated as to personal plans. Here’s an excitement for you! Guess what I’ll be, when you hear from me next!

“Superfluously,

“Katrine.”

Cable message from Dorothea Middleton to Katrine Beverley:

“October 10, 19—.

“Come immediately year’s visit. Cable dates.”

Reply cable from Katrine Beverley to Dorothea Middleton:

“October 11, 19—.

“Regret quite impossible. Thanks.”

“Lebong, October 23, 19—.

“Dear Katrine,

“So you have refused Dorothea’s invitation to come out to her for the next year. She, poor girl, is surprised and hurt; I, on the contrary, am neither one nor t’other. I knew it; felt it in my bones; could have drafted beforehand your reply—and what’s more, dear, I know precisely by what train of argument the refusal came about!—I—Jim Blair—am the bogie! You are saying to yourself: ‘A year ago I should have gone. It would have seemed the obvious thing to go to Dorothea. Her companionship, and the novelty of the surroundings would have been my best medicine and cure, but now it’s impossible! There’s that man! ... Behind the friendly import of his letters, there’s something else, the which I have strenuously ignored, but I have recognised it all the same. If I went out now, leaving Martin married and content, he would think,—that man would think,—imagine,—perhaps even (he’s audacious enough!)—Expect! ... My presence would give ground to these expectations. Therefore, Q.E.D., as a modest, self-respecting damsel I cannot go! I must stay at home. I shall be dull; I shall be lonely; I shall be disappointed,’ (You would be disappointed, Katrine!) ‘But my self-respect will be preserved. No man shall ever have it in his power to say that I have travelled to the end of the world “on appro,”—that I have deliberately thrown myself in his way. Sooner a hundred times death or life-solitude! The question is settled. Let it rest. Selah!’

“Are you angry, dear? Are your cheeks red? Is there a light burning in those deep eyes? I’ll bet there is, and don’t I wish I could see it! Don’t be hurt with me for divining the workings of your mind. I’ll make a clean breast of my own in return...

“I do think! I do imagine! I do expect! It’s not a new phase, it began a couple of years ago, when I fell in love with the portrait of a girl’s face, and the portrait of the girl herself, as portrayed in her weekly letters. And I diagnosed the position from those letters, and thinks I:—‘That Martin fellow will soon break loose, he’s coming to life with a rush;—that little girl’s billet is about run out. She will be needing another, one of these days. I could give her another!’ And I set myself to pave the way.

“So there it is, Katrine; you have it at last—the full and free confession of a man, who, bereft of force, resorted to guile wherewith to win a wife...

“I’ve been sitting for a quarter of an hour staring at that last word, and thinking!

“It seems an extraordinary term to use in connection with a woman one has never seen, but I know you, we know each other, better than half the couples who go to the altar. It’s no good reminding me that this is only the fourth time I have written to you. I know that perfectly well, but will you kindly recollect that I have been sharing in letters written by you for the last six years, besides which, of course, I have had the advantage of hearing constant descriptions from Dorothea’s lips. It’s more difficult for you; don’t think I minimise that! If I seem wanting in consideration it is only seeming; I realise only too well how hard it must be for you, poor, proud little girl. But you must come, you know! There’s no way out of that. Be sensible, Katrine. Don’t get angry! Sit down and let me talk to you quietly, and show you how the question appears to me...

“I have never wanted to marry a woman before, though I’ve met scores of nice girls. I never felt for one of them the sympathy, the affinity I know for you. You are not in love with me; I don’t expect it for the moment, but you are interested; so far as you’ve gone, you like and approve. You’ve shown that in your letters, and are honest enough to admit it now. Then why not give me a chance? Is there anything derogatory to a sane woman’s dignity in meeting, at his own request, and on perfectly free, unconditional terms, a man who loves her, and wishes to make her his wife? You know there is not.—I ask for no promises; nothing but the chance to meet you on an ordinary friendly footing. If it eases the way, I promise to say no word of love for, shall we say three months? I’d prefer weeks—but it’s your verdict.

“I want you, Katrine! I need you! I want a tangible, flesh and blood love, instead of its shadowy substitute. I want to take you in my arms, and hold you close till the red burns in your cheeks. I want to look down into those deep eyes, and to see them look back into mine. I want to stroke that curly hair, and to kiss those lips. Most of all I want your lips. I hunger to love, and I hunger to be loved. The thought of your coming would be like life; your refusal, blackness like death.

“Is there a soul at home in England who can say as much? And if not, are you justified, Katrine, in sacrificing me to your pride? You won’t do it. You can’t do it! Come to me, Katrine!

“J.C.D. Blair.”

“Cumly, November 20, 19—.

“Dear Captain Blair,

“I have received your letter. What can I say? Honestly, I have tried to weigh your arguments,—not calmly,—that is impossible, but unselfishly, thoughtfully, from every point of view, and indeed, and indeed, I can’t alter my decision!

“I hate the thought of giving you pain; I hate it so much that I will confess that it gives me pain also. I want to give in, and say yes; I want to leave behind the pain and the jar of the last few years, and sail out into the sun,—to see Dorothea, and yes! to see you too; to continue our friendship face to face. I could waive the shyness, waive the pride; what I cannot do is to waive the risk! You are a man; you see, man-like, only the plain, obvious facts; you don’t realise, as a woman does, the hundred and one difficulties and risks. You say that you love me, and you do love the imaginary Katrine whom you have created out of paper and ink. What you don’t realise is how tiny a difference between the real and the imaginary might turn that love to disillusion. I’m honest in my letters; I don’t pretend; Dorothea has no doubt told you my faults as well as my virtues; my photographs are not flattered; because I am young, and healthy, and alert, I am better-looking in real life, yet if I walked into your room at this moment looking my utmost best, you might still feel a shock of disappointment! You might acknowledge that this woman was handsomer, finer, in every way more personable than you had imagined, but that would not soothe the disappointment. She had made unto yourself a dream, and she was not your dream!

“Such a little thing can do it,—a little inconsequent thing, a tiny personal peculiarity, a trick of manner, an expression, a look. It’s not a question of whether it is beautiful and admirable in itself; it is a question of attraction, the indefinable, all-important attraction about which there can be no reasoning, no appeal.

“We discussed it before—do you remember? I told you there was every conceivable reason why I should have loved one man who wanted me, but there it was,—impossible! and nothing could alter it.

“If we had met in the ordinary way, as strangers, we should have been able to test the presence or absence of this attraction in a simple, natural fashion,—now, the realisation of its failure on either side must bring with it misery and embarrassment.

“Honestly, I can’t answer for myself. I do like you! There have been times—my loneliest times—when I have almost loved Jim Blair,—the Jim Blair of my dreams, but how am I to know that he is anything like you? The face which looks at me from beneath the white topee in the various groups which Dorothea has sent is vague enough to lend itself to mental adaptation, the real one may be a very different thing!

“If I could see you for even five minutes, face to face, I could tell if it were possible; but as things are, I can’t, and I dare not cross the world on the chance. I must find a niche at home, and