Katherine went down to dinner as if she were a visitor in the house. She passed the nursery door, standing wide open, with the baby making a great whiteness in the middle of the room, and Job watching like an ill-tempered little dog, ready to rush out with a snarl and bite at any passer-by whom he disliked; and her sister’s door, where Stella’s voice was audibly high and gay, sometimes addressing her maid, sometimes in a heightened tone her husband, in his dressing-room at the other side. They were the proprietors of the place, not Katherine. She knew that very well, and wondered at herself that she should still be here, and had made no other provision for her loneliness. She was a guest—a guest on sufferance—one who had not even been invited. William, the soldier-servant, was in possession of the hall. He opened the door for her with a respectful tolerance. She was missus’s sister to William. In the drawing-room was Mr. Sturgeon, who rose as she entered from the side of the fire. He was going back by the train immediately after dinner, and was in his old-fashioned professional dress, a long black coat and large black tie. One looked for a visionary bag of papers at his feet or in his hands. His influence had a soothing effect upon Katherine; it brought her back to the practical. He told her what he had been able to do—to get gratuities for the servants, and a pension, such as it was, for poor old Bob Tredgold. “It will keep him in comfort if he can be kept off the drink,” he said. All this brought her out of herself, yet at the same time increased the sense in her of two selves, one very much interested in all these inconsiderable arrangements, the other standing by looking on. “But about your affairs, Miss Katherine, not a thing could I do,” Mr. Sturgeon was beginning, when happily Sir Charles came downstairs.
“So much the better; my affairs have nothing to do with my sister,” Katharine said hastily. And, indeed, it was plain neither they nor any other intrusive affairs had much to do with Stella when she came in radiant, the blackness of her dress making the whiteness of her arms and throat almost too dazzling. She came in with her head held high, with a swing and movement of her figure which embodied the supremacy she felt. She understood now her own importance, her own greatness. It was her natural position, of which she had been defrauded for some time without ever giving up her pretensions to it; but now there was no further possibility of any mistake.
As I have already related the concluding incident of this party it is unnecessary now to go through its details. But when Mr. Sturgeon had gone to his train and Sir Charles to the smoking-room (though not without an invitation to the ladies to accompany him) Stella suddenly took her sister by the waist, and drew her close. “Well?” she said, in her cheerful high tones, “have you anything to tell me, Kate?”
“To tell you, Stella? I don’t know what I can tell you—you know the house as well as I do—and as you are going to have new servants——”
“Oh! if you think it is anything about the house, I doubt very much whether I shall keep up the house, it’s rococo to such a degree—and all about it—the very gardens are rococo.”
“It suits you very well, however,” Katherine said. “All this gilding seems appropriate, like a frame to a picture.”
“Do you think so?” said Stella, looking at herself in the great mirror over the mantelpiece with a certain fondness. It was nice to be able to see yourself like that wherever you turned, from head to foot. “But that is not in the least what I was thinking of,” she said; “tell me about yourself. Haven’t you something very particular to tell me—something about your own self?”
Katherine was surprised, yet but dimly surprised, not enough to cause her any emotion. Her heart had become as still as a stone.
“No,” she said; “I have nothing particular to tell you. I will leave The Cliff when you like—is that what you mean? I have not as yet made any plans, but as soon as you wish it——”
“Oh, as for that,” said Stella, “we shall be going ourselves. Charlie wants me to go to his horrid old place to see what can be done to it, and we shall stay in town for a little. Town is town, don’t you know, after you’ve been in India, even at the dullest time of the year. But these old wretches of servants will have to stay out their month I suppose, and if you like to stay while they’re here—of course, they think a great deal more of you than of me. It will be in order as long as they are here. After, I cannot answer for things. We may shut up the house, or we may let it. It should bring in a fine rent, with the view and all that. But I have not settled yet what I am going to do.”