“Look here,” said the husband, “don’t be a little fool. I’m not going to stand a drunken old beast coming here saying he’s my wife’s relation. Settle what he wants and be done. It’s not my affair? Oh, yes, some things are my affair. Settle it here, I say. Mr. Sturgeon, she’s ready to settle whatever you say.”
Sir Charles had his wife’s wrist in his hand. She was far cleverer than he was and much more steady and pertinacious, but when she got into that grip Stella knew there was no more to be said. Thus she bought off the powers of Nemesis, had there been any chance of their being put in motion against her; and there was no further question of setting the worst of examples to Job by upsetting his grandfather’s will. Stella religiously watched over Mr. Tredgold’s fortune and kept every penny of it to herself from that day.
“And do you think of building that cottage, Miss Katherine, as your father suggested?” Mr. Sturgeon asked as he rose from the dinner at which he had been entertained, Lady Somers making herself very agreeable to him and throwing a great deal of dust into his eyes. He was going back to town by the last train, and he had just risen to go away. Katherine had been as silent as Stella was gay. She had not shown well, the old lawyer was obliged to admit, in comparison with her sister, the effect no doubt of having lived all her life at Sliplin and never having seen the great world, besides that of being altogether duller, dimmer than Stella. She was a little startled when he spoke to her, and for a moment did not seem to understand what was being said.
“Oh, the cottage! I don’t think I can afford it. No, Mr. Sturgeon,” she said at length.
“Then I have a good opportunity of selling the bit of land for you,” he said. “There is a new railway station wanted, and this is the very spot that will be most suitable. I can make an excellent bargain if you put it in my hands.”
“There!” cried Stella, holding up a lively finger, “I told you! It is always Kate that has the luck among us all!”
CHAPTER XLVI.
Katherine scarcely heard what Stanford said to her after that astounding speech about his little child. She rose to her feet as if it had touched some sudden spring in her; though she could no more have told why than she could have told what it was that made her head giddy and her heart beat. She had a momentary sense that she had been insulted; but that too was so utterly unreasonable that she could not explain her conduct to herself by it, any more than by any other rule. She did not know how she managed to get out of the room, on what pretext, by what excuse to the astonished visitor, whose look alone she saw in her mind afterwards, startled and disturbed, with the eyelids puckered over his eyes. He had been conscious, too, that she had received a shock; but he had not been aware, any more than she was, what he had done to produce this impression upon her.
She ran upstairs to her own room, and concealed herself there in the gathering twilight, in the darkest corner, as if somebody might come to look for her. There had been a great many thoughts in that room through these long years—thoughts that, perhaps, were sometimes impatient, occasionally pathetic, conscious of the passing of her youth from her, and that there had been little in it that was like the youth of other women. To be sure, she might have married had she been so minded, which is believed to be the chief thing in a young woman’s life; but that had not counted for very much in Katherine’s. There had been one bit of visionary romance, only one, and such a little one! but it had sufficed to make a sort of shining, as of a dream, over her horizon. It had never come nearer than the horizon; it had been a glimmer of colour, of light, of poetry, and the unknown. It had never been anything, she said to herself, with emphasis, putting her foot down firmly on the ground, with a faint sound of purpose and meaning—never—anything! She was the most desperate fool in the world to feel herself insulted, to feel as if he had struck her in the face when he spoke of his little child. Why should he not have a little child like any other man, and a kind wife waiting for him, amid all the brightness of a home? Why not? Why not? There was no reason in the world. The effect it produced upon her was absurd in the last degree. It was an effect of surprise, of sudden disillusion. She was not prepared for that disclosure. This was the only way in which she could account for the ridiculous impression made upon her mind by these few words.
She had so much to do accounting to herself for this, that it was not for a long time that she came to imagine what he would think of her sudden start and flight. What could he think of it? Could he think she was disappointed, that she had been building hopes upon his return? But that was one of the thoughts that tend to madness, and have to be crushed upon the threshold of the mind. She tried not to think of him at all, to get rid of the impression which he had made on her. Certainly he had not meant to insult her, certainly it was no blow in the face. There had been some foolish sort of talk before—she could not recall it to mind now—something that had nothing in the world to do with his position, or hers, or that of anyone in the world, which probably was only to pass the time; and then he had begun to speak to her about his child. How natural to speak about his child! probably with the intention of securing her as a friend for his child—she who had been a playmate of his own childhood. If she had not been so ridiculous she would have heard of the poor little thing brought from India (like little Job, but that was scarcely an endearing comparison) to be left alone among strangers. Poor little thing! probably he wanted her to be kind to it, to be a friend to it—how natural that idea was!—his own playfellow, the girl whom he had read Dante with in those days. But why, why did he recall those days? It was that that made her feel—when he began immediately after to speak of his child—as if he had given her a blow in the face.