“They cost a deal of money all the same. And bring me the diamonds,” Mr. Tredgold said.
And then there suddenly flashed upon Katherine a strange revelation, a ludicrous tragic detail which did not seem laughable to her, yet was so——“The diamonds,” she said faltering, half turning back on her way to the door.
“Well! the diamonds?”
“Oh, forgive her, forgive her! She never could have thought of that; she never could have meant it. Papa, for God’s sake, forgive her, and don’t say—that again. She was wearing them all at the ball. She was in her ball dress. She had no time to change—she——”
He seized and shook her savagely as if she had been confessing a theft of her own, and then rose up with his habitual chuckle in his throat. “George, she’s done me,” he said. “She’s got her fortune on her back. She’s—she’s a chip of the old block, after all.” He dropped down again heavily in his chair, and then with a calm voice, looking at Katherine, said tranquilly, “God damn her” once more.
CHAPTER XIX.
It was afterwards discovered that Stella had calculated her elopement in a way which justified most perfectly the unwilling applause elicited from her father—that she was a chip of the old block. She had over-decorated herself, as had been remarked, it now appeared, by everybody at the ball, on the night of her flight, wearing all the diamonds she had got from her father as an equivalent for her lover—and other things besides, everything she had that was valuable. It was ridiculous enough to see a girl blazing in all those diamonds; but to have her pearl necklace as well, adjusted as an ornament on her bodice, and bracelets enough to go up almost to the elbow, was more absurd still, and Katherine, it now appeared, was the only person who had not observed this excess of jewellery. She remembered now vaguely that she had felt Stella to be more radiant, more dazzling than ever, and had wondered with a sort of dull ache whether it was want of heart, whether it was over-excitement, or what it was which made her sister’s appearance and aspect so brilliant on the very eve of her parting from her lover. “Partings which press the life from out young hearts.” How was it possible that she could be so bright, so gay, so full of life, and he going away? She had felt this, but she had not noticed, which was strange, the extraordinary number of Stella’s bracelets, or the manner in which her pearls were fastened upon the bosom of her dress. This was strange, but due chiefly perhaps to the fact that Stella had not shown herself, as usual, for her sister’s admiration, but had appeared in a hurry rather late, and already wrapped in her cloak.
It was found, however, on examining her drawers, that Stella had taken everything she had which was of any value. It was also discovered later that she had taken advantage of her father’s permission to get as many new frocks as she pleased—always to make up for the loss of Charlie—by ordering for herself an ample trousseau, which had been sent to await her to a London hotel. She had all these things now and the lover too, which was so brilliant a practical joke that it kept the regiment in laughter for a year; but was not so regarded at home, though Mr. Tredgold himself was not able to refrain from a certain admiration when he became fully aware of it, as has been seen. It afflicted Katherine, however, with a dull, enduring pain in the midst of her longing for her sister and her sense of the dreadful vacancy made by Stella’s absence. The cheerful calculation, the peaceful looks with which Stella had hid all her wiles and preparations gave her sister a pang, not acute but profound—a constant ache which took away all the spring of her life. Even when she tried to escape from it, making to herself all those banal excuses which are employed in such circumstances—about love, to which everything is permitted, and the lover’s entreaties, to which nothing can be refused, and the fact that she had to live her own life, not another’s, and was obeying the voice of Nature in choosing for herself—all these things, which Katherine presented to herself as consolations, were over and over again refused. If Stella had run away in her little white frock and garden hat, her sister could have forgiven her; but the trousseau, the maid, the diamonds, even the old pearls which had been given to both of them, and still remained the chief of Katherine’s possessions—that Stella should have settled and arranged all that was more than Katherine could bear. She locked away her own pearls, with what she felt afterwards to be a very absurd sentiment, and vowed that she would never wear them again. There seemed a sort of insult in the addition of that girlish decoration to all her other ornaments. But this, the reader will perceive, was very high-flown on Katherine’s part.
A day or two after this tremendous crisis, which, I need not say, was by far the most delightful public event which had occurred in Sliplin for centuries, and which moved the very island to its centre, Lady Jane called with solemnity at the Cliff. Lady Jane was better dressed on this occasion than I believe she had ever been seen to be in the memory of men. She was attired in black brocade with a train, and wore such a mantle as everybody said must have been got for the occasion, since it was like nothing that had ever been seen on Lady Jane’s shoulders before. The furs, too, were unknown to Sliplin; perhaps she wore them in more favoured places, perhaps she had borrowed them for the occasion. The reason of all this display was beyond the divination of Katherine, who received her visitor half with the suppressed resentment which she felt she owed to everyone who could be supposed privy to Stella’s plans, and half with the wistful longing for an old friend, a wiser and more experienced person, to console herself. Katherine had abandoned the young ladies’ room, with all its double arrangements and suggestions of a life that was over. She sat in the large drawing-room, among the costly, crowded furniture, feeling as if, though less expensive, she was but one of them—a daughter needed, like the Italian cabinets, for the due furnishing of the house.
Lady Jane came in, feeling her way between the chairs and tables. It was appropriate that so formal a visit should be received in this formal place. She shook hands with Katherine, who held back visibly from the usual unnecessary kiss. It marked at once the difference, and that the younger woman felt herself elevated by her resentment, and was no longer to be supposed to be in any way at Lady Jane’s feet.