Katherine Lauderdale; Vol. 1 of 2

by F. Marion Crawford

CHAPTER XIII.

The rain continued to fall, and even if the weather had changed it would have been too late for Katharine to go and see Robert Lauderdale after her sister had left her. On the whole, she thought, it would probably have been a mistake to speak to him beforehand. She had felt a strong temptation to do so, but it had not been the part of wisdom. She waited for Ralston’s note.

At last it came. It was short and clear. He had, with great difficulty, found a clergyman who was willing to marry them, and who would perform the ceremony on the following morning at half-past nine o’clock. The clergyman had only consented on Ralston’s strong representations, and on the distinct understanding that there was to be no unnecessary secrecy after the fact, and that the couple should solemnly promise to inform their parents of what they had done at the earliest moment consistent with their welfare. Ralston had written out his very words in regard to that matter, for he liked them, and felt that Katharine should.

John had been fortunate in his search, for he had accidentally come upon a man whose own life had been marred by the opposition of a young girl’s family to her marriage with him. He himself had in consequence never married; the young girl had taken a husband and had been a most unhappy woman. He sympathized with Ralston, liked his face, and agreed to marry Ralston and Katharine immediately. His church lay in a distant part of the city, and he had nothing to do with society, and therefore nothing to fear from it. If trouble arose he was justified beforehand by the fact that no clergyman has an absolute right to refuse marriage to those who ask it, and by the thought that he was contributing to happiness of the kind which he himself had most desired, but which had been withheld from him under just such circumstances as those in which Ralston and Katharine were placed. The good man admired, too, the wisdom of the course they were taking. When he had said that he would consider the matter favourably, provided that there was no legal obstacle, Ralston had told him the whole truth, and had explained exactly what Katharine and he intended to do. Of course, he had to explain the relationship which existed between them and old Robert Lauderdale, and the clergyman, to Ralston’s considerable surprise, took Katharine’s view of the possibilities. He only insisted that the plan should be conscientiously carried out as soon as might be, and that Katharine should therefore go, in the course of the same day, and tell her story to Mr. Robert Lauderdale. Ralston made no difficulty about that, and agreed to be at the door of the clergyman’s house on the following morning at half-past nine. The latter would open the church himself. It was very improbable that any one should see them at that hour, and in that distant part of the city.

There is no necessity for entering upon a defence of the clergyman’s action in the affair. It was a case, not of right or wrong, nor of doing anything irregular, but possibly excusable. Theoretically, it was his duty to comply with Ralston’s request. In practice, it was a matter of judgment and of choice, since if he had flatly refused, as several others had done without so much as knowing the names of the parties, Ralston would certainly have found it out of the question to force his consent. He believed that he was doing right, he wished to do what was kind, and he knew that he was acting legally and that the law must support him. He ran the risk of offending his own congregation if the story got abroad, but he remembered his own youth and he cheerfully took that risk. He would not have done as much for any two who might have chanced to present themselves, however. But Ralston impressed him as a man of honour, a gentleman and very truthful, and there was just enough of socialistic tendency in the good man, as the pastor of a very poor congregation, to enjoy the idea that the rich man should be forced, as a matter of common decency, to do something for his less fortunate relation. With his own life and experience behind him, he could not possibly have seen things as Robert Lauderdale saw them.

So the matter was settled, and Katharine had Ralston’s note. He added that he would be in Clinton Place at half-past eight o’clock in the morning, on foot. They might be seen walking together at almost any hour, by right of cousinship, but to appear together in a carriage, especially at such an hour, was out of the question.

It would have been unlike her to hesitate now. She had made up her mind long before she had spoken to Ralston on Monday evening, and there was nothing new to her in the idea. But she could not help wondering about the future, as she had been doing when Charlotte Slayback had unexpectedly appeared in the afternoon. Meanwhile the evening was before her. She was going to a dinner-party of young people and afterwards to the dance at the Thirlwalls’, of which she had spoken to Ralston. He would be there, but would not be at the dinner, as she knew. At the latter there were to be two young married women who were to chaperon the young girls to the other house afterwards.

At eight o’clock Katharine sat down to table between two typical, fashion-struck youths, one of whom took more champagne than was good for him, and talked to her of college sports and football matches in which he had not taken part, but which excited his enthusiasm, while the other drank water, and asked if she preferred Schopenhauer or Hegel. Of the two, she preferred the critic of athletics. But the dinner seemed a very long one to Katharine, though it was really of the short and fashionable type.

Then came another girls’ talk while the young men smoked furiously together in another room. The two married women managed to get into a corner, and told each other long stories in whispers, while the young girls, who were afraid of romping and playing games because they were in their ball-dresses, amused themselves as they could, with a good deal of highly slangy but perfectly harmless chaff, and an occasional attempt at a little music. As all the young men smoked the very longest and strongest cigars, because they had all been told that cigarettes were deadly, it was nearly ten o’clock when they came into the drawing-room. They were all extremely well behaved young fellows, and the one who had talked about athletics to Katharine was the only one who was a little too pink. The dance was an early affair, and in a few moments the whole party began to get ready to go. They transferred themselves from one house to another in big carriages, and all arrived within a short time of one another.

Ralston was in the room when Katharine entered, and she saw instantly that he had been waiting for her and expected a sign at once. She smiled and nodded to him from a distance, for he had far too much tact to make a rush at her as soon as she appeared. It was not until half an hour later that they found themselves together in the crowded entrance hall, and Ralston assured himself more particularly that everything was as she wished it to be.