Katherine Lauderdale; Vol. 1 of 2

by F. Marion Crawford

“What a beautiful creature you are!” said Mrs. Lauderdale, in a tone unlike her natural voice.

CHAPTER V.

Katharine had no anxiety about the future, and it seemed to her that she had managed matters in the wisest and most satisfactory manner possible. She had provided, as she thought, against the possibility of any subsequent interference with her marriage in case she should see fit to take the step of which she had spoken. The combination seemed perfect, and even a sensible person, taking into consideration all the circumstances, might have found something to say in favour of a marriage which should not be generally discussed. Ralston and Katharine, though not rich, were decidedly prominent young people in their own society, and their goings and comings interested the gossips and furnished food for conversation. There were many reasons for this. Neither of them was exactly like the average young person in the world. But the great name of Lauderdale, which was such a real power in the financial world, contributed most largely to the result. Every one who bore it, or who was as closely connected with it as the Ralstons, was more or less before the public. Most of the society paragraph writers in the newspapers spoke of the family, collectively and individually, as often as they could find anything to say about it, and as a general rule the tone of their remarks was subdued and laudatory, and betrayed something very like awe. The presence of the Lauderdales and the Ralstons was taken for granted in all accounts of big parties, first nights at the opera and Daly’s, and of other similar occasions. From time to time a newspaper man in a fit of statistics calculated how many dollars of income accrued to Robert Lauderdale at every minute, and proceeded to show how much each member of the family would have if it were all equally divided. As Robert the Rich had made his money in real estate, and his name never appeared in connection with operations in Wall Street, he was therefore not periodically assailed by the wrathful chorus of the sold and ruined, abusing him and his people to the youngest of the living generation, an ordeal with which the great speculators are familiar. But from time to time the daily papers published wood-cuts supposed to be portraits of him and his connections, and the obituary notice of him—which was, of course, kept ready in every newspaper office—would have given even the old gentleman himself some satisfaction. The only member of the family who suffered at all for being connected with him was Benjamin Slayback, the member of Congress. If he ever dared to hint at any measure implying expenditure on the part of the country, he was promptly informed by some Honourable Member on the other side, that it was all very well for him to be reckless, with the whole Lauderdale fortune at his back, but that ordinary mortals had to content themselves with ordinary possibilities. The member from California called him the Eastern Crœsus, and the member from Massachusetts called him the Western Millionaire, and the member from Missouri quoted Scripture at him, while the Social-Democrat member from Somewhere—there was one at that time, and he was a little curiosity in his way—called him a Capitalist, than which epithet the social-democratic dictionary contains none more biting and more offensive in the opinion of its compilers. Altogether, at such times the Honourable Slayback of Nevada had a very bad quarter of an hour because he had married Charlotte Lauderdale,—penniless but a Lauderdale, very inadequately fitted out for a bride, though she was the grand-niece of Robert the Rich. Slayback of Nevada, however, had a certain rough dignity of his own, and never mentioned those facts. He had plenty of money himself and did not covet any that belonged to his wife’s relations.

“I’m not as rich as your uncle Robert,” he said to her on the day after their marriage, “and I don’t count on being. But you can have all you want. There’s enough to go round, now. Maybe you wouldn’t like to be bothering me all the while for little things? Yes, that’s natural; so I’ll just put something up to your credit at Riggs’s and you can have a cheque-book. When you’ve got through it, tell Riggs to let me know. You might be shy of telling me.”

And Benjamin Slayback smiled in a kindly fashion not at all familiar to his men friends, and on the following day Charlotte received a notice from the bank to the effect that ten thousand dollars stood to her credit. Never having had any money of her own, the sum seemed a fortune to her, and she showed herself properly grateful, and forgave Benjamin a multitude of small sins, even such as having once worn a white satin tie in the evening, and at the opera, of all places.

Katharine was perfectly well aware that the smallest actions of her family were subjects for public discussion, and she knew how people would talk if it were ever discovered that she had been secretly married to John Ralston. On the other hand, the rest of the Lauderdales were in the same position, and would be quite willing, when they were acquainted with the facts, to say that the marriage had been a private one, leaving it to be supposed that they had known all about it from the first. She had no anxiety for the future, therefore, and believed that she was acting with her eyes open to all conceivable contingencies and possibilities. Matters were not, indeed, finally settled, for even after she was married she would still have the interview with her uncle to face; but she felt sure of the result. It was so easy for him to do exactly what he pleased, as it seemed to her, to make or unmake men’s fortunes at his will, as she could tie and untie a bit of string.

And her confidence in Ralston was boundless. Considering his capacities, as they appeared to her, his failure to do anything for himself in the two positions which had been offered to him was not to be considered a failure at all. He was a man of action, and he was an exceptionally well-educated man. How could he ever be expected to do an ordinary clerk’s work? It was absurd to suppose that he could change his whole character at a moment’s notice, and it was an insult to expect that he should change it at all. It was a splendid nature, she thought, generous, energetic, brave, averse to mean details, of course, as such natures must be, impatient of control, independent and dominating. There was much to admire in Ralston, she believed, even if she had not loved him. And perhaps she was right, from her point of view. Of his chief fault she really knew nothing. The little she had heard of his being wild, as it is called, rather attracted than repelled her. She despised men whom she looked upon as ‘duffers’ and ‘muffs.’ Even her father, whose peculiarities were hard to bear, was manly in his way. He had been good at sports in his youth, he was a good rider, and could be trusted with horses that did not belong to him, which was fortunate, as he had never possessed any of his own; he was a good shot, as she had often heard, and he periodically disappeared upon solitary salmon-fishing expeditions on the borders of Canada. For he was a strong man and a tough man, and needed much bodily exercise. The only real ‘muff’ there had ever been in the family Katharine considered to be her grandfather, the philanthropist, and he was so old that it did not matter much. But the tales he told of his studious youth disgusted her, for some occult reason. All the other male relations were manly fellows, even to little Frank Miner, who was as full of fight as a cock-sparrow, in spite of his diminutive stature. Benjamin Slayback, too, was eminently manly, in an awkward, constrained fashion. Hamilton Bright was an athlete. And John Ralston could do all the things which the others could do, and did most things a trifle better, with a certain finished ‘style’ which other men envied. He was eminently the kind of man whose acquaintances at the club will back for money in every contest requiring skill and strength.

It was no wonder that Katharine admired him. But she told herself that her admiration had nothing to do with her love. There was much more in him than the world knew of, and she was quite sure of it. Her ideals were high, and Ralston fulfilled most of them. She always fancied that there was something knightly about him, and it appealed to her more than any other characteristic.

She felt that he could be intimate without ever becoming familiar. There is more in that idea than appears at first sight, and the distinction is not one of words. Up to a certain point she was quite right in making it, for he was naturally courtly, as well as ordinarily courteous, and yet without exaggeration. He did certain things which few other men did, and which she liked. He walked on her left side, for instance, whenever it was possible, if they chanced to be together in the street. She had never spoken of it to him, but she had read, in some old book on court manners, that it was right a hundred years ago, and she was pleased. They had been children together, and yet almost since she could remember he had always opened the door for her when she left a room. And not for her only, but for every woman. If she and her mother were together when they met him, he always spoke to her mother first. If they got into a carriage he expected to sit on the left side, even if he had to leave the pavement and go to the other door to get in. He never spoke of her simply as ‘Katharine’ if he had to mention her name in her presence to any one not a member of the family. He said ‘my cousin Katharine,’ or ‘Miss Lauderdale,’ according to circumstances.

They were little things, all of them, but by no means absurd in her estimation, and he would continue to do them all his life. She supposed that his mother had taught him the usages of courtesy when he had been a boy, but they were a part of himself now. How many men, thought Katharine, who believed themselves ‘perfect gentlemen,’ and who were undeniably gentlemen in every essential, were wholly lacking in these small matters! How many would have called such things old-fashioned nonsense, who had never so much as noticed that Ralston did them all, because he did them unobtrusively, and because, in reality, most of them are founded on perfectly logical principles, and originally had nothing but the convenience of society for their object. Katharine had thought it out. For instance, most men, being right-handed, have the more skilful hand and the stronger arm on the lady’s side, with which to render her any assistance she may need, if they find themselves on her left. There was never any affectation of fashion about really good manners, Katharine believed, and everything appertaining thereto had a solid foundation in usefulness. During Slayback’s courtship of her sister she had found numberless opportunities of contrasting what she called the social efficiency of the man who knew exactly what to do with the inefficiency of him who did not; and, on a more limited scale, she found such opportunities daily when she saw Ralston together with other men.