"Thus far, and no farther! There"s a wall, Katrine, between the soul of every brother and sister who was ever created, and sooner or later they come up against it. All the love, and the care, and the patience, and the trying and crying can never scale it. And then one day comes along a vagrant who _doesn"t_ cry, doesn"t try, perhaps doesn"t even care, and before that stranger is an open road. Which is a mystery, dear, and a commonplace. Likewise cussedly unfair.
"Do you mind if I call you "dear"? It"s only on paper, and it"s so long since I"ve had any one to endear. It takes off a bit of the loneliness to feel that there is some one in the world to whom one can occasionally show a glimpse of one"s heart. It"s the only bit of me that has a chance of feeling cold out here--but it"s petrifying fast enough. If you object, if it shocks your sense of decorum, well!--I"ll write it all the same, but I"ll blot it out afterwards. You needn"t know anything about it. Pens _will_ blot on this thin paper!
"Don"t worry yourself because you are not the world and all to Martin.
He would be an odd fellow if you were. It"s not in nature that a sister should satisfy a man"s heart, and it"s no use bucking against nature.
Neither need you worry because of his discontent. If you"d ever suffered from a big wound, you"d understand that at the first, one is numbed by the shock; it"s only when the knitting up and rebuilding begin that the pain bites deep. Look upon his restlessness and depression as growing pains, and the beginning of his cure. Poor little Katrine! but this sort of thing is confoundedly hard on the looker-on.
"You want to know about myself--and why your eyes look sorry as they watch me turn out on my lone. Well, you know, Katrine--I am--I _was_, thirty-five last birthday; only child, parents gone, relations scattered, strangers to me in all but name. Outside the regiment there is not a soul to count in my life, and at the end of four years, unless the impossible happens, I must leave the regiment and say good-bye to my friends. They offered me a majority in the Blankshire a year ago, but I couldn"t bring myself to face the wrench, but as anything is preferable to idleness and the shelf, I shall have to start life again among strangers before I"m forty, with two or three captain fellows swearing vengeance at me for being promoted over their heads! It"s not exactly a glowing vista, and the prospect of that forty makes a man think. When he sits alone on a sweltering Indian night, and compares his lot with that of fellows like Middleton, for instance, it is depressing work!
"In one or other department of life a man must have success, if he is to know content. Work counts for a lot, but it must be successful work to make up a whole. A big career appeals to all men--the sense of power, the consciousness that one particular bit of the world"s work depends upon him, and would suffer from his absence, but that sort of success hasn"t come my way. It"s the jolliest regiment in the world, the best set of fellows, but it"s been our luck to be "out of things," and we are hopelessly blocked.
"Then there"s the home department! Middleton (I use him as a type) can never ask himself "what is the good," while he has his wife and that stunning little lad. He has his depressed moods like the rest, but when they come on, Dorothea makes love to him, and the little chap sits on his knee. At such times any nice feeling young photograph ought to sympathise with a lonely fellow who sits by and--looks on!
"What do you suppose made up my last Christmas mail? A bill from the stores, and a picture postcard from an old nurse. This year there"ll be a letter from you! I have theories about Christmas letters--especially Christmas letters to fellows abroad. Christmas is a time of special kindliness and love; people who are as a rule most reserved and dignified let themselves go, and show what is in their hearts. I"ve a fancy just for once to "pittend" as the children say, and write a real Christma.s.sy letter. A fellow in the regiment--Vincent--is just engaged.
He met her when he went to S--for his last leave. Prom his descriptions you would imagine she was another Helen of Troy, but I"m told she"s quite an ordinary nice girl. The airs he gives himself! A fellow might never have been engaged before. After listening to him steadily for two hours on end the other night, I ventured one on my own account.
""I wonder," I said tentatively, "if any girl will ever care enough to be willing to be engaged to me?"
"He ruminated, and sucked his pipe: "Well," he said slowly, "you"re not such a bad old beast!"
"Rather beastly of me all the same to bore you with all this. Forgive me! As Vincent has appointed me his confidant I hear such a lot about the affair that I turned on to it without thinking... The wedding won"t come off for another year. When _I"m_ engaged, I"ll be married sharp!
"Now here"s a subject for discussing in your next letter--Love and marriage! It"s a big bill, and--be discursive, please! You can"t possibly discuss such questions on one sheet. We know, of course, that you are never to many. You are doomed to dry-nurse Martin for life, whether he wants you or no. (Brutal! Sorry, dear!) Things being as they are at the moment, we may premise that I also am doomed to celibacy, but as onlookers see most of the game, there"s no reason why we shouldn"t wag our heads together over the follies of lovers, and expatiate on how much better we should have managed things ourselves.
"There"s no Cranford reason, I suppose, why a young female should not discuss these things with a person of the opposite s.e.x? Even vowed to celibacy as _you_ are, I expect there are moments when you have dreamed dreams, and seen as in a vision the not impossible He.
"Tell me about him, Katrine! I"ve a fancy to hear.
"Now the sort of girl _I_ should choose... But this scrawl is too long already. That must keep for another day.
"Salaams!
"Jim Blair."
CHAPTER NINE.
"c.u.mly, _July 10, 19--_.
"Dear Captain Blair,
"I"m in a grumbly mood this morning. Do you mind? Something annoyed me yesterday, and this is the lachrymose aftermath. I"m sorry, for your sake as well as my own, for it"s mail day, and it"s now or never to catch that birthday! Perhaps a morning"s writing will work it "off"
better than any other distraction which this place affords. It"s easy for you away at the other side of the world to sentimentalise over my "Cranford" home, but if I had been asked to state the spot of all others in which I would _not_ choose to live, it would be just such a derelict little hamlet as that in which fate has dumped me. It"s a pretty little place, built on the side of a hill, with a precipitous High Street which is dangerous to drive down, and puffy to walk up. There is a church at the top, a chapel at the bottom, and a bank half-way; likewise a linen draper"s shop, which serves the purpose of a lady"s club, for no self-respecting woman allows a morning to pa.s.s without popping in at "Verney"s." If the stock does not supply what one wants (it rarely does!) there is always "a startling line" in something else, and a smell of flannel thrown in. "We are out of white gloves this morning, but I have a very fine line in unbleached calico!" Mr Verney is a deacon of the chapel; Mrs Verney was in the millinery, and has hankerings after the church. We notice a general tendency among the maidens of dissent to appear at the parish church, what time they possess new garments or hats... After we have bought our packets of needles, or a box of pins, we meet our friends in the front shop, and gossip. Such a lot of talk, about such little, little things! There are days when it"s amusing enough; days when it"s the driest dust. Last year a friend of mine started a "Thankfulness Society," as a cure for the grumbling and discontent which is apt to engulf spinsters in a country place. Each member was presented with a little book, and was bound to inscribe therein the special causes of thankfulness which had occurred during each day. I refused to join. I said if I ceased to grumble it would have a demoralising effect on my character. No use to grumble?
Fiddlesticks! _Every_ use! As a dear old American friend used to say: "When you feel like scratching, it"s not a mite of use rolling your eyes, and trying to be a saint--just let yourself go, and be right down _ugly_ for a few minutes, and it will be a heap better for you, and every one concerned!" The secretary was shocked. She said if one realised one"s blessings, one would not _wish_ to grumble... I said that considered as a trial the grumbler was not in it, compared with the persistent optimist. Nothing on earth is more embittering than to live with a persistently amiable person. Imagine living with a certificated optimist bound over to be thankful through thick and thin, when the soot falls, the soup is singed, and the new dress does _not_ come home! ...
Imagine the conversation, the maddening serenity of the smile!
Optimists are admirable in calamity, but in the simple aggravations of daily life they are just the most depressing creatures upon earth!
"Well, I"m sorry! Now I"ve had my growl, and (Yankee again!) feel as "good as pie," You might as well know what a grumbling, discontented wretch I am, and if you ask me why this special fit attacked me just this special morning, well, I _know_, but I"m not going to tell. I"ll answer another question instead--
"You ask me what I think about love, getting engaged, married, all the rest of it. I am only a looker on, and must always be, but it _does_ interest me all the same! I have marvelled with every one else over the nature of that indefinable something which draws two people together, and which has nothing on earth to do with suitability as understood by the people. John may be a model of excellence; amiable, rich, handsome, devoted, but on their first meeting it is settled in Louisa"s mind as irrevocably as the trump of doom that he would never _do_! She knew it at a flash, the moment he entered the room; the second he touched her hand. And Tom is poor; he is plain, he looks as though on occasion he might be abominably disagreeable. Louisa looks upon his cross face, and acknowledges to herself "My Lord and King!"--It"s a _feel_ that decides it, not a fact. In the great, big choice of life, reason doesn"t count.
Two men have asked me to marry them (You wouldn"t know their names, even if you heard them, so I am betraying no confidence); I should have said "no" in any case, but I might have _wanted_ to say "yes"! I didn"t! I felt that as a choice a jump into the river would be preferable, yet from a sane, sensible point of view there was no reason why I should not have fallen in love--and--especially in one case! every obvious reason why I _should_! I couldn"t for my life tell you what was wrong, except--_Everything_! I should have hated his very virtues by my own fireside. His "little _ways_" would have driven me daft, but I can imagine wrapping up those self-same little ways right in the middle of my heart, as the dearest things, the sweetest, the most winsome, if they had belonged to another man!
"Engaged people are a bore to outsiders, but for themselves it must be a good time. To be able to speak out, after bottling it all in; to be left alone in peace, instead of living on odd s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation in the midst of crowds; to feel _sure_; to be done with "I",--and become for ever "We."--It must feel so warm, and restful, and rich! It isn"t so much the mere happiness that impresses me; it"s the _rest_. I wish it were possible to get engaged without being married, then I should arrange it with indecent haste, with an orphan, with a motor car, and we _would_ be happy! He should be clean shaven, and rather plain, but it must be just my special fad in the way of plainness--a trim, slim, sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an" you love me!
"I"ve thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man, his name does not matter. I"ve known a woman to settle down with "Percy," and live happily ever after. I"ve heard of another who espoused a "Samuel," and was apparently content. It is conceivable that I might do the same, but "Alfred" gives me a crawl. It is settled, firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred!
"If there is one thing more than another for which I bless my parents, and praise them in the gate, it is that they called me by a durable Christian name. Katherine! It is not beautiful; it is not poetic, but it is at least seemly and discreet. You may take liberties with Katherine, and it will never disgrace you. When you are small and curly-headed you can pose as "Kitty Clover" with beguiling effect. I did myself, for quite a long run. Later on, dropping the Clover, you may be known to schoolmates as Kitty or Kate. There"s a snap about Kate which keeps Pearls and Rubies in their place. Katrine is, as you observe, quite attractive for the days of youth; Katherine is a refuge for old age. Can you imagine anything more appropriate for a spinster lady in a country town?
"The only married couple whom I have studied from the _inside_ was my brother and his wife during that little six months. It seemed quite a perfect thing at the time, but looking back from the sober height of twenty-six, it seems more like a play, than real, serious life. She was only nineteen; a pretty thing; such a babe; poor little, happy Juliet!
and Martin was a boy with her. Now, as you say, he is a man. I wonder sometimes--
"We have a visitor staying with us just now. Her name is Grizel Dundas, and she is twenty-eight, and very beautiful or rather plain, according to the hour of the day, and her own mood and intention. Sometimes I suspect that she deliberately _makes_ herself plain, for the fun of confounding people with her beauty an hour later on. Also she may probably turn out to be one of the greatest heiresses in London, or be left with a few hundreds a year, and she is very lazy, and very energetic, and talks like a schoolboy, and looks like a fay, and dresses, oh, Lonely Man! in the most ra-vishing clothes! And she knocks at the door of Martin"s study in his writing hours, and walks bang in.
_And he doesn"t turn her out_!
"That"s Grizel. And if I tried a hundred years I couldn"t describe her better. We were at school together, and she is my most intimate friend, next to Dorothea, but--
"I wish I were a generous, humble-minded person who _liked_ standing aside, and seeing other people succeed where I have failed, and being praised where I"m snubbed, and run after when I"m ignored, but I"m not, and if you think I am, you"d better know once for all that you"re mistaken. There have been times this last week when I"ve _hated_ Grizel, and her works!
"Yesterday we went to a garden party, she, Martin, and I, and they schemed to send me off with a snuffy old man, so that they could be alone. I saw them look at each other, a quick, signalling look, which meant, "_Get rid of her_!" and he was the first person who came along.
Poor, snuffy person, with a termagant on his hands! If you were sitting here, face to face--I should be too proud to tell you this; even to write it to Dorothea would hurt, but to a ghostly shape whom one has never seen, and probably never shall see, it is a relief to blurt out one"s woes!
"Martin looks at Grizel with a look in his eyes which,--which is _not_ like a sorrowing widower! and when I see it I am filled with seventeen contending emotions, like the heroines in the newspaper _feuilletons_.
Jealousy--hideous, aching jealousy, for Juliet, and the past, for myself and the future; disillusionment, in the breaking of an ideal, which, if impracticable, was still beautiful and sweet, the illusion of a lifelong loyalty and devotion; also, and this is worst of all,--something horribly approaching contempt! My love for Martin is as great as ever, but he is no longer the hero, the strong, silent man who loved once and for ever, and went through life waiting patiently for a reunion. He has stepped down from his pedestal and become flesh and blood, and I--oh, Lonely Man!--I am _trying_ to be glad, but it"s a big, big effort! Self looms so large; the self that _will_ intrude into every question. I wanted him to be happy, _but in my own way_!
"I"m going to stop this minute. You"ll be horrified at the length of this budget, but it"s your own fault. Give a woman an inch, and she"ll take an ell. Wade through it this time, and tell me what you think, but don"t _preach_! Preaching does me such a lot of harm. Methinks I descry in you a latent tendency to preach; nevertheless, somehow--I can"t think how--you"ve comforted me to-day and so I"m grateful.
"Many happy returns of your twenty-fifth birthday. I am a year older, and feel pleasantly superior.
"Yours sincerely,
"Katrine Beverley.
"PS.--Please go on about "The girl you would fancy" ... I have a fancy to hear!"
CHAPTER TEN.
It was a week after the garden party. A persistent rain was drenching the trees in the garden, and turning the gravel path into miniature torrents. The atmosphere in the low, panelled rooms was damp and chilly. Katrine, in a flannel shirt of her favourite rich blue, was busy with account books at the centre table. Grizel, in a white gown, and a red nose, was miserably rubbing her hands together, and drumming her small feet on the floor.
"Katrine!"
"Yes."
"I"m cold."
Katrine glanced over the rim of the grocer"s book.