“Why should I shut up? It’s quite true that Katherine has had it since she was fifteen; that’s—let me see—fourteen years, nearly the half of her life, and no expenses to speak of. There must be thousands and thousands in the bank, and so little to do with it. She’s richer than we are, when all is said.”
“Stella, you must remember,” cried Katherine excitedly in spite of herself, “that the money in the bank was always——”
“Oh, I knew you would say that,” cried Stella, in an aggrieved tone; “you’ve lent it to me, haven’t you? Though not so very much of it, and of course you will get it back. Oh, don’t be afraid, you will get it back! It will be put among the other bills, and it will be paid with the rest. I would rather be in debt to Louise or any one than to a sister who is always thinking about what she has lent me. And it is not so very much, either; you used to dole it out to me a hundred at a time, or even fifty at a time, as if it were a great favour, while all the time you were enjoying papa’s money, which by law was mine. I don’t think very much of favours like that.”
“I hope, Miss Tredgold,” said Sir Charles, lifting his hat, “that after this very great injustice, as it seems to me, you will at least make your home with us, and see if—if we can’t come to any arrangement. I suppose it’s true that ladies alone don’t want very much, not like a family—or—or two careless spendthrift sort of people like Stella and me, but——”
“Well, of course,” cried Stella, “I hope, Kate, you’ll pay us a visit when—whenever you like, in short. I don’t say make your home with us, as Charlie says, for I know you wouldn’t like it, and it’s a mistake, I think, for relations to live together. You know yourself, it never works. Charlie, do hold your tongue and let me speak. I know all about it a great deal better than you do. To have us to fall back upon when she wants it, to be able to write and say, take me in—which, of course, I should always do if it were possible—that is the thing that would suit Kate. Of course you will have rooms of your own somewhere. I shouldn’t advise a house, for that is such a bother with servants and things, and runs away with such a lot of money, but—— Oh, I declare, there is the Midge, with the two old cats! Shall we have to stop and speak if they see us? I am not going to do that. I heard of papa’s death only yesterday, and I am not fit to speak to anybody as yet,” she cried, pulling over her face the crape veil which depended from her bonnet behind. And the two old ladies in the Midge were much impressed by the spectacle of Stella driving out with her husband and her sister, and covered with a crape veil, on the day after her return. “Poor thing,” they said, “Katherine has made her come out to take the air; but she has a great deal of feeling, and it has been a great shock to her. Did you see how she was covered with that great veil? Stella was a little thing that I never quite approved of, but she had a feeling heart.”
Katherine was a little sick at heart with all the talk, with Stella’s rattle running through everything, with the fulfilment of all her fears, and the small ground for hope of any nobler thoughts. She was quite decided never under any circumstances to take anything from her sister. That from the first moment had been impossible. She had seen the whole position very clearly, and made up her mind without a doubt or hesitation. She was herself perfectly well provided for, she had said to herself, she had no reason to complain; and she had known all along how Stella would take it, exactly as she did, and all that would follow. But a thing seldom happens exactly as you believe it will happen; and the extreme ease with which this revolution had taken place, the absence of excitement, of surprise, even of exultation, had the most curious effect upon her. She was confounded by Stella’s calm, and yet she knew that Stella would be calm. Nothing could be more like Stella than her conviction that she herself, instead of being extraordinarily favoured, was on the whole rather an injured person when all was said and done. The whole of this had been in Katherine’s anticipations of the crisis. And yet she was as bitterly disappointed as if she had not known Stella, and as if her sister had been her ideal, and she had thought her capable of nothing that was not lofty and noble. A visionary has always that hope in her heart. It is always possible that in any new emergency a spirit nobler and better than of old may be brought out.
Katherine stole out in the early twilight to her favourite walk. The sea was misty, lost in a great incertitude, a suffusion of blueness upon the verge of the sand below, but all besides mist in which nothing could be distinguished. The horizon was blurred all round, so that no one could see what was there, though overhead there was a bit of sky clear enough. The hour just melting out of day into night, the mild great world of space, in which lay hidden the unseen sea and the sky, were soothing influences, and she felt her involuntary anger, her unwilling disappointment, die away. She forgot that there was any harm done. She only remembered that Stella was here with her children, and that it was so natural to have her in her own home. The long windows of the drawing-room were full of light, so were those of Stella’s bedroom, and a number of occupied rooms shining out into the dimness. It was perhaps rococo, as they said, but it was warm and bright. Katherine had got herself very well in hand before she heard a step near her on the gravel, and looking up saw that her brother-in-law was approaching. She had not been much in charity with Sir Charles Somers before, but he had not shown badly in these curious scenes. He had made some surprised exclamations, he had exhibited some kind of interest in herself. Katherine was very lonely, and anxious to think well of someone. She was almost glad to see him, and went towards him with something like pleasure.
“I have come to bring you in,” he said; “Stella fears that you will catch cold. She says it is very damp, even on the top of the cliff.”
“I don’t think I shall take cold; but I will gladly go in if Stella wants me,” said Katherine; then, as Somers turned with her at the end of her promenade, she said: “The house is rococo, I know; but I do hope you will like it a little and sometimes live in it, for the sake of our youth which was passed here.”
“You don’t seem to think where you are to live yourself,” he said hurriedly. “I think more of that. We seem to be putting you out of everything. Shouldn’t you like it for yourself? You have more associations with it than anyone I wish you would say you would like to have it—for yourself——”