Katharine Frensham: A Novel

"And the nature of the dream?" he was asked.

He shook his head.

"I do not know," he said. "I only know it was a dream."

He had made up his mind to keep that secret, chiefly for Alan's sake. He felt that he had already injured the boy, and no word of his should now add to the heavy burden of hastened knowledge.

"If I began to speak of it," he said to himself, "I should go on to tell him that I had killed her – and in time he would believe it – even as I do."

That was the torturing thought which at once began to assail him, although he fought it with all the weapons of reason and common-sense. He fought it even at the side of the grave, his impenetrable face showing no sign of the mental torture which he was enduring unhelped by any one. But when they came back to "Falun" after the funeral, he put his hands on Alan's shoulders and said sorrowfully:

"Alan, I would give my right hand, and the sight of my eyes, and the strength of my brain, if only I could unsay what I said to you the other day about your mother."

"Oh, father," the boy answered, in a paroxysm of grief, "perhaps we did not love her enough."

He broke off there, and they did not speak together further, both being of painfully reserved natures; but each wrung the other's hand silently, in token of closer friendship, and throughout that sad day they did not leave each other's side. The doctor called in during the afternoon, and found them in the study sitting close together and trying to interest themselves in a new book on architecture, which was Alan's beloved subject, and for which he had undoubted talent. They looked so desolate and pathetic that Dr Aldborough, who had always been attracted to this reserved man and his son, was concerned for their welfare. He offered no un-timely word of comfort or cheer, but he said to them:

"Come out with me. It is a splendid afternoon. I have to drive over to Midhurst, and the air will do you both good. You will sleep better. And Alan shall handle the greys, whilst we smoke."

The boy brightened up at once.

"Let us go, father," he said, a little eagerly.

"You go," his father answered. "I think I shall stay here."

"Then I shall stay," Alan said. "I couldn't be without you."

"In that case we will both go," Professor Thornton answered, smiling; and so they went off, thankful really for the break in that long day.

When they came back that evening, they were a little more cheerful in spite of themselves, and Alan went to bed and slept, and Clifford wrote to his old Danish governess, Miss Knudsgaard, telling her of his wife's sudden death, and asking her to come over. Then he sat thinking of his dead wife and of all the circumstances of their married life. He recalled to himself how bitterness of spirit and tenderness of intention had been ever at war within him. He had no sooner recovered from an attack of bitterness, than he was assailed by prolonged paroxysms of self-reproach, which tore him to shreds even more ruthlessly than his feelings of self-commiseration. He recalled all the petty strain and stress of trifling tragedies which had been steadily impairing his mental serenity. He hardened himself when he thought of that.

"This tragedy has happened," he said, "and through no fault of mine. I must not let it spoil the rest of my life. I am forty-three. What cannot a man still do and be at forty-three? I will battle with it until I conquer it. It shall not crush me. No, it shall not."

He rose from his chair with a grim determination in his manner.

"Do you hear what I say?" he said, as though to a vast audience. "It shall not crush me."

Then his eyes lighted on a box of his wife's letters and papers which had been found in her room. He opened the box and took out some of the papers. A few of them were receipted accounts. Several of them were letters evidently written on that last night, gummed down, and stamped ready for the post. One was to her intimate friend, Julia Stanhope, with whom she had been touring in Scotland: a woman whom he had always disliked, and who, so he thought, had always encouraged poor Marianne's displays of uncontrolled anger. He put the letters into the post-box. And here apparently was her journal. He did not know that she had kept a journal. He smiled sadly as he thought of all the stormy scenes it must surely record. He did not read it. He tore it up and threw the fragments in the fire, and watched them curl up and carry their secret away with them. But one page, the last page, had escaped the destruction, and fell at his feet. He picked it up and he saw these words:

"September 20th. – Had another temper to-night. As usual, bitterly, bitterly sorry. If only I could tell him; but I can't, and I won't."

Those must have been her last written words. They touched the most tender chords in the man's highly-strung gentle nature. He forgot his own sufferings: his own outraged peace and harmony of spirit: his own ambitions and schemes marred by constant turmoil of mind: his own broad outlook on life stealthily fenced in, now in one direction and now another, by her compelling pettiness of temperament. All this he forgot. She had not understood him – but – had he ever understood her? Ah, that was it – that was the crux of the whole matter; and he remembered now that never once had she reproached him with that. Never once had she said to him:

"And do you think there has been nothing to understand in me? I may not be the marvellous person you suppose yourself to be. I may not have all the gifts you are supposed to have; but at least I am a human being, with my own necessities and crying demands, no less importunate with me than yours with you."

Never had she said that to him. But he said it to himself over and over again, and almost broke his heart in the repeating of it.

CHAPTER IV

"And so you have come home at last, dear old Katharine," Ronald Frensham said to his sister as they both sat over the fire in the music-room of Ronald's house in Kensington, one evening in the middle of March. "It is good to see you again."

Katharine Frensham said nothing, but held out her hand, which her brother grasped silently. There was a harmony in the atmosphere, a silent song of friendship. The faces of both brother and sister wore that expression of quiet happiness always unmistakable when people of the right temperament are feeling how gracious a thing it is to be together once more. The music-room, too, delicately furnished, was restful to the eye; and there seemed to be an appropriate sympathy between the pictures on the walls, the books on the shelves, and the musical instruments, some of the latter lying about casually, and others carefully enshrined in a Chippendale cabinet. A small organ at the other end of the room gave a dignity to the surroundings peculiar entirely to the presence of that most compelling of all musical instruments. A little white Pomeranian dog was curled up in front of the fire, and added for the time to the effect of peacefulness. Of course one knew that directly the music began, he would get up, yell, refuse to be removed, and go as near as possible to the very source of his nerve-disturbance; but for the moment he was in a dog's Paradise – on the best rug in the room, near those he loved best, and therefore in tune with self and circumstance.

It was now nearly three years since Ronald had married, and Katharine had left England to travel about the world alone. She and her brother had always been close friends, and their companionship had ever been a joy to themselves and to those who knew them. Since childhood they had been called "the inseparables." They had fished together, climbed trees, fought, followed the otter hounds in their old Somersetshire home, stolen, ridden, and accomplished all their fun and wickedness in close partnership. And together they had loved their mother passionately. And when she died, she said to them, "Love each other always – promise me, whatever comes – whatever befalls. Stand by each other." And boy and girl of fifteen and sixteen then, they said, "Always – always."

So the years passed. They grew up and made their home together alone. Ronald became head of the organ-building business left to him and Katharine by their father, and thus they were partners in business as well as in pleasure. And they were still called the inseparables. People said, "Ah, Katharine is somewhere about, for I see Ronald." Or they said, "Ronald cannot be far off, as Kath has arrived." There was a story that Ronald had said at a picnic, "Nothing more for me, thanks, and nothing more for my sister!"

But at last the inevitable happened: Ronald became engaged to an attractive girl, and Katharine had the bitter experience of becoming a secondary consideration in his life. And then people said, "What will Katharine do? How will she take it?"

She behaved splendidly, and bore herself in a manner worthy of a warm and generous nature.

"Ronald and Gwendolen shall have a joyous engagement-time," she said to herself. "I will keep all my jealous feelings locked up in an iron safe."

And they had it, unmarred by any sadness or jealousy on her part. Nevertheless she suffered; for she and Gwendolen had nothing in common. Katharine had the free spirit and the broad outlook. Gwendolen was essentially of the world worldly, belonging to that ever-increasing community known as "smart," with no outlook worth speaking of, but, for all that, delightfully engaging in her beauty and her bearing. In her metallic way, too, she was appreciative of Katharine's kindness, and she made a very real attempt to accept the sisterliness affectionately offered to her.

But they spoke a different language. That was the only criticism Katharine made of her, and then only to Willy Tonedale, her old friend and admirer.

"Well, my dear Kath," he had drawled out as he twirled his moustache, "all I can say is that I prefer your language. It is more intelligible. Perhaps it may be because I am supposed to have a slow brain. Anyway, you're behaving like a brick to them both, and Ronnie is a deuced old duffer for giving you up. I would not have given you up if you'd been my sister, my grandmother, or my great-grandmother, for the matter of that."

"Nonsense, Willy!" Katharine had answered laughingly. "Don't be ridiculous. It is right that Ronnie should marry. It all comes in the day's march; and I might have been the one to have given him up."

She said that to Ronald when for the last time he and she sat together by their fireside on the eve of his marriage. She comforted him when, in spite of his passionate adoration of and desire for Gwendolen, he felt torn by the thought that he was entering on a new life and renouncing Kath irrevocably.

"Kath, dear old senior partner," he said, "I feel – terribly upset about you – now it comes to the point – I – "

He broke off, but there was no need to finish the sentence, for Katharine knew.

"It is all right, dear old chap," she answered. "And you see, we are friends for life. And I might have been the one to leave you. I nearly did three times!"

"Four times," he said quaintly. "You never own up to four times!"

And they both laughed. They had had many merry times over some of Katharine's passing love affairs.

"But at least you will live near us," Ronnie said.

She shook her head.

"I am going to travel," she answered, "I am going to the ends of the earth. You know I've always wanted to see the great vast countries of the great world. And this is my chance. You have some one to love you and look after you, and I can go forth. But I want you to promise me one thing. Don't give up your music. Don't give up your Wednesday evening quartette meetings. I should love to think that you had kept that pleasure out of our old life, and that Herr Edelhart, Monsieur Gervais, Signor Luigi, and yourself were continuing to fiddle together on Wednesday evenings. And when I come back I shall try to arrive on quartette-night."

That was three years ago, and now Katharine had returned from her wanderings and arrived at her brother's house on quartette-day. She left her things at the Langham, intending to take up her quarters there until she should have made up her mind how to shape her life. But Ronald seemed hurt, and so she consented to stay a few days in his beautiful home. Gwendolen was away, but she was coming back the next morning; and Ronald assured Katharine that his wife's welcome to the returned traveller would be as warm as his own. Meantime brother and sister, alone together, renewed the sweet old intimacy which had been so dear to them both. They talked of old times, old bits of fun, old difficulties, old bits of mischief, old quarrels, old reconciliations.

"Do you remember that day when I shook you?" Ronald said. "We had had a terrible upset over one of my love affairs, and I lost my temper, whilst you remained quite silent and stared into the fire. You were most irritating."

"And I claimed damages, three theatres and a new evening dress," Katharine said. "And Signor Luigi declared we ought both to be heartily ashamed of ourselves for quarrelling, and that the only way of effacing the disgrace was by giving him a new violoncello bow! I have always thought that was so funny."

"Well, he uses the bow to this day, and calls it his Queen," Ronald said. "How glad they will all be to see you. They have no idea that you have come back. Every night after we have played, we have drunk your health, each of us taking it in turn to propose the toast.

"'To the illustrious Signorina.'