XIV.
"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds."
In some respects, the pedler's anticipations were correct. Katherine had "a bad time by herself" that night; for evil has this woful prerogative,—it can wound the good and the innocent, it can make wretched without provocation and without desert. But, whatever her suffering, it was altogether her own. She made no complaint, and she offered no explanation of her singular conduct. Her household, however, had learned to trust her; and the men and women servants sitting around the kitchen-fire that night, talked over the circumstance, and found its very mystery a greater charm than any possible certainty, however terrible, could have given them.
"She be a stout-hearted one," said the ostler admiringly. "Tony and I a-watched her and the dog a-driving him through the gates. With his bundle on his back, he was a-shuffling along, a-nigh on his all-fours; and the madam at his heels, with her head up in the air, and her eyes a-shining like candles."
"It would be about the captain he spoke."
The remark was ventured by Lettice in a low voice, and the company looked at each other and nodded confidentially. For the captain was a person of great and mysterious importance in the house. All that was done was in obedience to some order received from him. Katherine quoted him continually, granted every favour in his name, made him the authority for every change necessary. His visits were times of holiday, when discipline was relaxed, and the methodical economy of life at the manor house changed into festival. And Hyde had precisely that dashing manner, that mixture of frankness and authority, which dependents admire. The one place in the whole world where nobody would have believed wrong of Hyde was in Hyde's own home.
And yet Katherine, in the secrecy of her chamber, felt her heart quake. She had refused to think of the circumstance until after she had made a pretence of eating her supper, and had seen little Joris asleep, and dismissed Lettice, with all her accustomed deliberation and order. But, oh, how gratefully she turned the key of her room! How glad she felt to be alone with the fear and the sorrow that had come to her! For she wanted to face it honestly; and as she stood with eyes cast down, and hands clasped behind her back, the calm, resolute spirit of her fathers gathered in her heart, and gave an air of sorrowful purpose to her face and attitude. At that hour she was singularly like Joris Van Heemskirk; and any one familiar with the councillor would have known Katherine to be his daughter.
Most women are restless when they are in anxiety. Katherine felt motion to be a mental disturbance. She sat down, and remained still as a carven image, thinking over what had been told her. There had been a time when her husband's constant talk of Lady Suffolk had pained her, and when she had been a little jealous of the apparent familiarity which existed in their relations with each other; but Hyde had laughed at her fears, and she had taken a pride in putting his word above all her suspicions. She had seen him receive letters which she knew to be from Lady Suffolk. She had seen him read and destroy them without remark. She was aware that many a love-billet from fine ladies followed him to Hyde. But it was in accord with the integrity of her own nature to believe in her husband's faithfulness. She had made one inquiry on the subject, and his assurance at that time she accepted as a final settlement of all doubts. And if she had needed further evidence, she had found it in his affectionate and constant regard for her, and in his love for his child and his home.
It was also a part of Katherine's just and upright disposition to make allowances for the life by which her husband was surrounded. She understood that he must often be placed in circumstances of great temptation and suspicion. Hyde had told her that there were necessarily events in his daily experience of which it was better for her to be ignorant. "They belong to it, as my uniform does," he said; "they are a part of its appearance; but they never touch my feelings, and they never do you a moment's wrong, Katherine." This explanation it had been the duty both of love and of wisdom to accept; and she had done so with a faith which asked for no conviction beyond it.