“My dear Katherine! what a long time it is since we have met,” said Lady Jane.
“Yes,” said Katherine sedately. “That is very true, it is a long time.”
“You mean to say it is my fault by that tone! My dear, you have more horses and carriages, and a great deal more time and youth and all that than I. Why didn’t you come to see me? If you thought I was huffy or neglectful, why didn’t you come and tell me so? I should have thought that was the right thing to do.”
“I should not have thought it becoming,” cried Katherine, astonished by this accost, “from me to you. I am the youngest and far the humblest——”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” cried the elder lady, “that’s not true humility, that’s pride, my dear. I was an old friend; and though poor dear Stella always put herself in the front, you know it was you I liked best, Katherine. Well, when will you come, now? Come and spend a day or two, which will be extremely dull, for we’re all alone; but you can tell me of Stella, as well as your own little affairs.”
“I don’t know that I can leave papa,” Katherine said, with a little remnant of that primness which had been her distinction in Captain Scott’s eyes.
“Nonsense! He will spare you to me,” said Lady Jane with calm certainty. “Let me see, what day is this, Tuesday? Then I will come for you on Saturday. You can send over that famous little brougham with your maid and your things, and keep it if you like, for we have scarcely anything but dog-carts, except this hearse. Saturday; and don’t show bad breeding by making any fuss about it,” Lady Jane said.
Katherine felt that the great lady was right, it would have been bad breeding; and then her heart rose a little in spite of herself at the thought of the large dull rooms at Steephill in which there was no gilding, nor any attempt to look finer than the most solid needs of life demanded, and where Lady Jane conducted the affairs of life with a much higher hand than any of the Sliplin ladies. After being so long shut up in Sliplin, and now partly out of favour in it, the ways of Lady Jane seemed bigger, the life more easy and less self-conscious, and she consented with a little rising of her heart. She was a little surprised that Lady Jane, with her large voice, should have shouted a cordial greeting to the doctor as he passed in his dog-cart. “I am going to write to you,” she cried, nodding her head at him; but no doubt this was about some little ailment in the nursery, for with Katherine, a young lady going on a visit to Steephill, what could it have to do?
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The doctor had made himself a very important feature in Katherine’s life during those dull winter days. After the great snowstorm, which was a thing by which events were dated for long after, in the island, and which was almost coincident with the catastrophe of the Rector; he had become more frequent in his visits to Mr. Tredgold and consequently to the tea-table of Mr. Tredgold’s lonely daughter. While the snow lasted, and all the atmospheric influences were at their worst, it stood to reason that an asthmatical, rheumatical, gouty old man wanted more looking after than usual; and it was equally clear that a girl a little out of temper and out of patience with life, who was disposed to shut herself up and retire from the usual amusements of her kind, would also be much the better for the invasion into her closed-up world of life and fresh air in the shape of a vigorous and personable young man, who, if not perhaps so secure in self-confidence and belief in his own fascinations as the handsome (if a little elderly) Rector, had not generally been discouraged by the impression he knew himself to have made. And Katherine had liked those visits, that was undeniable; the expectation of making a cup of tea for the doctor had been pleasant to her. The thought of his white strong teeth and the bread and butter which she never got out of her mind, was now amusing, not painful; she had seen him so often making short work of the little thin slices provided for her own entertainment. And he told her all that was going on, and gave her pieces of advice which his profession warranted. He got to know more of her tastes, and she more of his in this way, than perhaps was the case with any two young people in the entire island, and this in the most simple, the most natural way. If there began to get a whisper into the air of Dr. Burnet’s devotion to his patient on the Cliff and its possible consequences, that was chiefly because the doctor’s inclinations had been suspected before by an observant public. And indeed the episode of the Rector had afforded it too much entertainment to leave the mind of Sliplin free for further remark in respect to Katherine and her proceedings. And Mr. Tredgold’s asthma accounted for everything in those more frequent visits to the Cliff. All the same, it was impossible that there should not be a degree of pleasant intimacy and much self-revelation on both sides during these half hours, when, wrapped in warmth and comfort and sweet society, Dr. Burnet saw his dog-cart promenading outside in the snow or during the deeper miseries of the thaw, with the contrast which enhances present pleasure. He became himself more and more interested in Katherine, his feelings towards her being quite genuine, though perhaps enlivened by her prospects as an heiress. And if there had not been that vague preoccupation in Katherine’s mind concerning James Stanford, the recollection not so much of him as of the many, many times she had thought of him, I think it very probable indeed that she would have fallen in love with the doctor; indeed, there were moments when his image pushed Stanford very close, almost making that misty hero give way. He was a very misty hero, a shadow, an outline, indefinite, never having given much revelation of himself; and Dr. Burnet was very definite, as clear as daylight, and in many respects as satisfactory. It would have been very natural indeed that the one should have effaced the other.