“Kate!” she heard Stella call suddenly, her voice ringing out (she had never had a low voice) over the noise and bustle. “Kate, I forgot to tell you, here’s an old friend of yours. There she is, there she is, Mr.——. Go and speak to her for yourself.”
Katherine did not hear the name, and had not an idea who the old friend was. She turned round with a faint smile on her face.
Well! There was nothing wonderful in the fact that he had come home with them. He had, it turned out afterwards, taken his passage in the Aurungzebe without knowing that the Somers were going by it, or anything about them. It would be vain to deny that Katherine was startled, but she did not cling to anything for support, nor—except by a sudden change of colour, for which she was extremely angry with herself—betray any emotion. Her heart gave a jump, but then it became quite quiet again. “We seem fated to meet in travelling,” she said, “and nowhere else.” Afterwards she was very angry with herself for these last words. She did not know why she said them—to round off her sentence perhaps, as a writer often puts in words which he does not precisely mean. They seemed to convey a complaint or a reproach which she did not intend at all.
“I have been hoping,” he said, “since ever I knew your sister was on board that perhaps you might come, but——” He looked at Katherine in her mourning, and then over the crowd to Stella, talking, laughing, full of spirit and movement. “I was going to say that I—feared some sorrow had come your way, but when I look at Lady Somers——”
“It is that she does not realise it,” said Katherine. “It is true—my father is dead.”
He stood looking at her again, his countenance changing from red to brown (which was now its natural colour). He seemed to have a hundred things to say, but nothing would come to his lips. At last he stammered forth, with a little difficulty it appeared, “I am—sorry—that anything could happen to bring sorrow to you.”
Katherine only answered him with a little bow. He was not sorry, nor was Stella sorry, nor anyone else involved. She felt with a keen compunction that to make up for this universal satisfaction over her father’s death she ought to be sorry—more sorry than words could say.
“It makes a great difference in my life,” she said simply, and while he was still apparently struggling for something to say, the Somers party got into motion and came towards the gangway, by which most of the passengers had now landed. The little army pushed forward, various porters first with numberless small packets and bags, then the man and worried maid with more, then the ayah with the baby, then Lady Somers, who caught Katherine by the arm and pushed through with her, putting her sister in front, with the tall figure of the husband and the little boy seated on his shoulder bringing up the rear. Job’s little dangling legs were on a level with Stanford’s shoulder, and kicked him with a friendly farewell as they passed, while Job’s father stretched out a large hand and said, “Goodbye, old fellow; we’re going to the old place in the Isle of Wight. Look us up some time.” Katherine heard these words as she landed, with Stella’s hand holding fast to her arm. She was amused, too, faintly to hear her sister’s husband’s instant adoption of the old place in the Isle of Wight. Sir Charles did not as yet know any more than that Stella was not cut off, that a great deal was coming to her. Stella had not required any further information. She had managed to say to him that of course to go to the Cliff would be the best thing, now that it was Katherine’s. It would be a handy headquarters and save money, and not be too far from town.
The party was not fatigued as from an inland journey. They had all bathed and breakfasted in such comfort as a steamship affords, so that there was no need for any delay in proceeding to their journey’s end. And the bustle and the confusion, and the orders to the servants, and the arrangements about the luggage, and the whining of Job on his father’s shoulder, and the screams of the baby when it was for a moment moved from its nurse’s arms, and the sharp remarks of Sir Charles and the continual talk of Stella—so occupied every moment that Katherine found herself at home again with this large and exigent party before another word on the important subject which was growing larger and larger in her mind could be said.