Katrine: A Novel Read online

  V

  FRANK FALLS FURTHER UNDER KATRINE'S INFLUENCE

  When Frank came out on the porch the next morning at Ravenel, he foundPatrick Dulany waiting on horse by the main steps. It was the first timethe two men had met in daylight, and with the keenest interest Mr.Ravenel inspected his strange overseer; for in the week since his returnhe had heard much of his wit and his ability.

  He found him to be a large man with a broad face tanned to the hue of amulatto. His eyes were light blue with the fulness under them of peoplewho have gift in speech. His silver hair, of which he had a greatquantity, set strangely around his dark face, falling low over a browmarkedly intellectual. But it was the mouth and chin at which Ravenelmost wondered, for their lines were strong, the lips full and finelychiselled, showing, one could have sworn, high birth and greatresolution.

  His clothes were of tweed, with a riding-cap far back on his head, andhe rode with an excellent seat. Upon seeing Mr. Ravenel he dismounted,removed his cap, and advanced with outstretched hand, in the manner ofone welcoming home an old friend.

  "Twas the sawmill business that kept me from seeing you sooner, Mr.Ravenel," he began. "But Katrine's been telling me of you, with someworry, I think, in her gentle soul for fear that you may not understandour friend McDermott."

  Francis replied with a comprehending smile.

  "Now that I've seen ye," said Dulany, "I know you'll understand. He hasa peculiarity of nature. He likes to arrange certain unimportant detailsof life that they may sound better in the telling. But one has a smallknowledge of human nature if he discount McDermott because of this. InIreland his name is a household word. He's here to-day, gone to-morrow.He works like a galley-slave; his word is as good as his bond when givenin honor. And 'tis for others he works always. Generous, he gives all,all, all! his work, his brain, the money it earns, everything! His is agreat soul, a very great soul. There's not a man in America, barring thePresident, who has his personal power. Quietly, his name unworded inthe newspapers, he holds Tammany in his hand. I can't tell you howenthusiastic I am about him! Mines, politics, Wall Street, he's intothem all, a million ideas a minute! Helps the chap that's down. He helpsevery one with whom he comes in contact. He has helped me."

  His sadness of tone introduced the next statement better than wordscould have done.

  "Mr. Ravenel," he said, "I have a confession to make to you. I drink."He looked Frank squarely in the face as he spoke, with no flinching. "Yemay have heard it from one or another since ye've been back. It's been ahabit of mine for some time. I was not myself the other evening when Imet you on the hill. The worst of it is," and he spoke the wordsbrightly and bravely, "I've no excuse for it, if there can be found anexcusing for such a habit. The thing is growing upon me in thissolitude. I try, God alone knows how I try, for Katrine's sake, toresist; but only those who have fought the thing can realize what itstemptations are. However, I've been thinking that if I drink too much,or fail to suit you, it might make it easier for you to tell me to go,if you knew it would be better for me that I went."

  "I am hoping that you will not find it necessary to go, Mr. Dulany. Theplantation has never been in better shape."

  "And I'm glad to hear you say that, sir," was the answer."Well"--hopefully--"things may change for the better in me, and so,good-day," and spurring his horse he was off at a gallop down the broadroad, and Ravenel stood listening to the horse's hoofs clatter over thebridge, strike the soft road under the pines, and die away in silencebefore he turned into the bridle-path which led to the stables.

  And a strange thing occurred but a few minutes after this interview,when Frank made his daily visit to the stables. One of the head groomsexplained a horse's lameness to him as due to a bad place in the roadnear the north gate which, he finished, would probably not be mendeduntil Mr. Dulany was over "his coming attack."

  "Is he drinking again?" Ravenel asked.

  "For three days past," the groom answered.

  Francis made no comment whatever, but the next day he discovered theman's suspicions justified, and the third, as he rode to Marlton, he sawKatrine, a pale-faced, desolate little figure, sitting on the gardenbench, her head in her hands, the picture of despair. About five o'clockJerry drove to the station for Dr. Johnston, and the same evening afterthe dinner Nora O'Grady's son, a red-haired, unkempt boy of seventeen,brought a short letter from Katrine, asking that the doctor be sent assoon as possible.

  "Mr. Dulany is drinking?" Frank said, interrogatively, to the youth.

  "Something fierce," was the laconic answer.

  "Is he better this evening?"

  "Worse. Heart's actin' up," the boy responded.

  At the end of the week, after three days spent with the Dulanys, at theold lodge, Dr. Johnston and Francis sat together at the dinner-table atRavenel. Mrs. Ravenel had left them, and the great doctor, in theadmirably restrained and cautious language of the scientific mind, gavehis findings in the case, as it were.

  "Mr. Dulany's habits," the great doctor began, "I should say, after suchsuperficial investigation as I have been able to make, may be cured. Onething I have noted with pleasure. He has lost none of his mentalintegrity. He is capable of the truth concerning himself. Generallythose given to the alcoholic habit deny everything or secrete everythingconcerning it when sober. Sometimes they are sentimental over it, givento self-pity, with even a certain desire for dramatic effects in thestatements about themselves. Dulany is still, so far as I can judge,honest. To-day he told me the history of himself, with a gay humor inthe telling. He is a descendant, it seems, of the great and the gifted.There are lawless loves behind him, a picturesque ancestry, artisticand, on the wrong side of the blanket, aristocratic as well."

  "It is the ancestry of genius," Francis answered.

  "It is the ancestry of Katrine Dulany," Dr. Johnston returned, lookingat Frank with an untranslatable smile.

  A silence fell between them, broken at length by the doctor. "I havedecided to take Mr. Dulany to New York with me. I shall keep him near meas long as is necessary. If there is no organic trouble, of which I havesome fear, the case will be simple enough, if there is the desire in himto help me. He was keen to have his daughter go with him, but I told himfrankly it was better that she should not go. He leans too much on her.He must strengthen his own will; he must learn to rely on himself."

  As the doctor spoke it was not of Patrick Dulany that Francis thought,but of Katrine. The people were coming on the twenty-seventh; it wasnow but the seventeenth. He would have her to himself for ten days, tendays of those caressing eyes, of the charming voice and open adulation,and then? He closed his eyes to whatever lay beyond. He would go away tokeep his engagements and forget. He always had forgotten; he would, hethought, be able always to forget.

  And the ten days were his; days on the river fishing by the IndianRocks, or drifting with the current under the dogwoods' white, openfaces down to the falls; days with lunches in the rose-garden, and Abtand Schubert songs under the pines at twilight, when their hands touchedin the exchange of a flower or a book and lingered in the touching; whentheir eyes had learned the answering of each other with no spoken word.And the question and answer were the same in the Garden of Eden, beforeman and woman made their first great mistake and did the thing that wasintended for them to do.

  For Frank this companionship was unutterably sweet. He enjoyed the smalland unimportant events of their intercourse; the way Katrine would saveflowers for him to wear, pinning them in his coat with a flushed cheek,or read, with an ecstasy of appreciation, a line from some great writer,marking a meaning he had never found, or laugh at his oldriding-clothes, his Southern prejudices, saying once: "To a _man_ of theworld like myself, these ideas seem trivial."

  On one of these ten precious days the lawyers at Marlton telephoned himto obtain an interview. The business was important, and he startedimmediately for a conference with them. By the fence opening into themain road from the lodge he found Katrine, in her high-waisted blackfrock, looking out
between the bars of the great swinging gate, with aradiance about her, an inconsequential joy such as he had never seenbefore in any human being. She had a letter tucked in her breast, and atsight of him she touched it.

  "He is getting better, better, better, and the doctor writes he may bequite himself again," she said, with no salutation whatever, her face awonder to behold.

  "I am rejoiced more than I can say, Katrine," he answered.

  "You have been so good," she replied, gratefully.

  "Thank you," he said, gravely, and though the words were trivial themanner gave them significance.

  "Were you coming to call on me?" Katrine inquired.

  Frank shook his head. "The lawyers at Marlton are waiting for me."

  "Stay with me," she said, opening her hand and showing some nuts, asthough they might be an inducement to remain. "It's lonesome. I'vefinished practising. Stay with me!"

  "Duty calls," he answered, looking down at her.

  "Put your fingers in your ears! If you once listen to her, you can neverhear any other thing in life." She folded her arms on one of the bars ofthe gate, resting her chin upon them, as she looked up at him. "If youwill stay with me," she hesitated, searching her mind for furtherinducements, "I'll tell you tales of Killybegs and the Black BradleyBrothers, who hid their sister in the 'pocheen' barrel"--she waited aminute--"and of the wedding of Peggy Menalis on the old sea-wall."

  He shook his head.

  "And I'll sing you a funny little song that ends like this":

  [Music notation]

  She sang the tones out sweet and true as a bird. "Is she calling still?"she asked.

  "Who?" Frank asked, not following.

  "Duty," she answered; and as she spoke she shut her eyes tight and drewthe lids together.

  "Somehow, I don't hear her so plainly as I did," he returned, with alaugh.

  There was another pause, filled by a glance which made his heart throb.

  "And if you stayed," she went on, at length, "I could tell you how niceyou are."

  Frank smiled. "I don't hear her at all now--that Duty person," he said,gayly.

  "You are," she hesitated, "a very nice man."

  He kept his eyes averted.

  "One of the nicest I have ever known."

  He fastened his eyes on the Chestnut Ridge.

  "The nicest of all," she said, almost in a whisper, her eyes brimmingover with laughter.

  At the words he sprang to the ground and stood beside her.

  "And Duty?" she asked.

  "I don't know whether it's Duty or not, but something tells me thatthere's nothing in all the world of any importance except to stay withyou," he answered.

  But with his acquiescence there came the veering in her moods for whichhe had already learned to watch.

  "Where were you going?" she asked.

  "The lawyers telephoned for me from Marlton."

  "They are waiting for you?"

  "Yes."

  "And you are going to keep them waiting because I asked you to stay?"

  "Them or the whole world," he answered.

  "King Francis," she said, with a courtesy, "must do no wrong. Here is aflower--a horrible one, it is true, but the only one I have. Wear it,and go to the lawyer men and think of me. Perhaps--this evening--" shehesitated.

  "May I come," he said, "early?"

  * * * * *

  On the evening of the twenty-sixth they sat on the mahogany settletogether, in a moonless night, the lilacs and honeysuckle a-bloom aroundthem.

  "All those people are coming to-morrow. I wish they were in some otherplace," he ended, inadequately considering the vehemence of his tone."Do you, Katrine?" he asked.

  She did not answer him.

  "Do you, Katrine?" he repeated, insistently.

  There was no response.

  "Do you wish that we had these ten happy days to live over? Do you wishthat they might come again? Will you miss me?"

  She turned toward him with a wistful look, letting her eyes rest in hisas she spoke. "I am sorry it is over. I shall miss you more than I cansay."

  "Thank you." And then, with a mixture of whimsicality and earnestness hecontinued: "Do you remember the talk we had the other day of Josef?"

  "Yes."

  "When you told me he believed women to have some undeveloped psychicpower which, with study, could be developed to revolutionize the world?"

  "I didn't say it so clearly as that, but that is what he means."

  "Do you believe it, Katrine?"

  "I don't know, Mr. Ravenel."

  "Do you believe that if you tried to help me, even if I were far away,you could?"

  "Again I don't know, Mr. Ravenel."

  "I do," he said, in the tone of one thoroughly convinced. "I have beenthinking it over, and have come to the conclusion that Josef is right.You could make me do anything, Katrine. Will you try? In these days tocome, when I am away with all those people, will you keep me fromtemptation?"

  She hesitated for a minute, not knowing whether he was jesting or not.

  "Believe me," she said, at length, "I will try."