Katrine: A Novel Read online

  VII

  KATRINE'S OWN COUNTRY

  In the following fortnight Francis and Katrine met but three times.

  One day, having grown restless, she went to walk, taking the road fromthe plantation back into the mountains. Returning by the ford, she heardlaughter and the ring of horses' hoofs, and by a sudden turn of the roadcame directly upon Frank, who, separated from a party, was riding besideAnne Lennox. At first sight of her whom she knew instinctively to be arival, Katrine was reminded of a golden peony, for the pale-yellow hair,bright hazel eyes shot with yellow light, and thick, creamy skin hadgiven Anne Lennox from early childhood a noticeable and flower-likebeauty. A long-limbed, slender, full-breasted, laughing woman, withsquare shoulders and the carriage of one much accustomed to the saddle,she looked with curiosity at Katrine, who was standing aside beneath theelderberry-bushes to permit them to pass.

  "As I was saying," Anne had just remarked, "when you act as you havedone since I have been here, Frank, it's always a woman. At Biarritz,you remember, it was Mrs. Vaughn. That beast of a spring at Marno, itwas Mrs. McIntire. You might as well tell me who it is. You will in theend."

  "Upon my honor, Anne--" Frank began, with a laugh, when he met the cleareyes of Katrine looking at him from below.

  If there had been some coldness, some resentment at his lack ofattention to her, or implied jealousy at his devotion to another, hecould have understood it. But there was nothing of the kind. In thoseeyes, which he believed the most beautiful in the world, there wasnothing but a glad light at seeing him, a bright smile of recognition inwhich he could detect neither remembrance nor regret.

  Anne Lennox turned her keen brown eyes backward to look at Katrine asshe crossed the bridge. "Frank Ravenel," she exclaimed, "if a girl wholooks like that lives near you, you have been making love to her! Iwonder if by any chance she could be _the_ woman!"

  "She is the daughter of the new overseer," Frank answered; and his toneimplied, though the words were not spoken: "and by this reason out ofthe class." The statement was made with misleading frankness, and AnneLennox, understanding his pride, put the affair from her mind.

  The next time of meeting between Francis and Katrine was one morning onthe river road. Her cheeks flushed at sight of him, and there was an oddreserve in her manner; but she never seemed more beautiful.

  He stood, hat in hand, wondering at her silence, a bit amused.

  "It is a pleasant day," he suggested, at length, remotely.

  "It _is_ pleasant," she answered, with averted eyes.

  "Unusual weather for this season, don't you think?" he went on, a bit ofteasing in his tone.

  "I haven't thought of it," she said, concisely.

  "Suppose you think about it now," he suggested, jesting still, but notquite at ease concerning her mood.

  Suddenly she turned toward him, her face suffused, her eyes troubled.

  "Katrine," he cried, "what is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you!"

  "I'm jealous," she said, simply.

  "Jealous!" he repeated. "Of whom?"

  "You."

  She had clasped her hands in front of her, and stood with her chin drawnin, looking at him from under a tangle of dusky hair.

  "You poor child," he said, moving toward her.

  "Don't!" she cried, backing away, "don't try to comfort me! I've always,_always_ been like this. I cannot help it. Whenever I care foranybody--oh, it never made any difference whether I had any right tocare or to be jealous! I just was; and it hurts!" She put her handssuddenly over her heart and began to speak rapidly, as a child does whenaccumulated trouble makes silence no longer possible. "I hated her whenI saw she was with you; far up the road, when I only knew she was awoman; and when I saw her nearer I hated her more. She is so pretty,"she explained. "Are you going to marry her?" she demanded.

  "Not exactly," he answered, grimly.

  "Good-bye!" she cried, dropping down the river-bank to the skiff.

  "Katrine!" he called.

  "I'm not coming back!" she cried through the bushes. "I'm never comingback! Good-bye!"

  Two days later there came from Ravenel House a polite note, cordial bythe book, asking that Miss Dulany come to them for dinner on the fifth;and, it added, perhaps Miss Dulany might give them an opportunity tohear her charming voice. It was written in the quaint, old-fashionedhand of Mrs. Ravenel.

  Katrine read it with a curious smile around her lips, answering whilethe messenger waited. She "regretted extremely that a cold"; she pauseda minute in the writing to reflect on the way the cold had come; sittingone damp afternoon in the rose-garden with the son of the writer of thisextremely polite invitation; "regretted extremely that this cold, whichseemed more persistent than such things generally were, prevented heraccepting Mrs. Ravenel's most kind invitation."

  The third meeting was an intentional one on Frank's part. The people atRavenel had become unbearable, and with no thought save for Katrine'ssociety, he took a short cut through the laurel trees, crossed the riverin his canoe, and entered the lodge garden to find her sitting on thebroad steps of the house, her chin resting in her hands. There was anexaltation in her little being, an alluring remoteness, an entireconcentration upon her own thoughts, which one sees in a child; and whenone saw her thus, dreaming hillward, one knew there were great ongoingsin that dusky head of hers.

  At sight of him she bowed gravely, moving that he might have nearly allthe rug upon which she had been sitting, not minding the stones forherself in the least. Her careless generosity spoke even in thistrifling act.

  "You are bored?" she asked, after a silence which he seemed disinclinedto break.

  "To extinction, little lady," he answered, puffing a cloud of smoke intothe hollyhocks. "You see, you have spoiled me for those others." Therewas another pause. "And you?" he asked.

  "I? Well, I practised, and planted some flowers, and made some thingsfor Miranda's baby, and then"--she hesitated, with an adorably shy lookfull of that pathos, which made so many of her simplest statements seemclaims for protection, "and then I went over into 'My Own Land.'"

  He regarded her for a minute, his approval of her showing in every lineof his handsome face. It was in these untouchable moods of her, when sheeluded him utterly, when she took him out of himself entirely, that hefound the most zest in intercourse with her.

  "Is it a long journey to that land of yours?" he demanded, gravely,"making believe" with her.

  "Not long," she answered, "but sometimes difficult. I go down to a queergate; I never knew where I got that gate," she threw in, in anexplaining way; "and let down the bars and walk up a long driveway ofblue pines, and there I am!"

  "Go on," he said, "though I think it shabby that you've never told me ofyour property before now."

  "I found this country; oh, years ago! Of course, I have changed it agreat deal. There was only one house at first, like Kenilworth Castle,only much larger, with those heavenly, deep windows. And I have takenall the people I liked to live there--"

  "Jolly," he said; adding, hastily: "But not in the least a house-partysort of thing, is it? where they play bridge and drink whiskey-sours?"

  Katrine shook her head. "These people _live_ in My Country. I've stolensome, but others come of their own accord. They are very great people.Colonel Newcome is the host. You know him?"

  "Adsum," Frank answered, softly, and Katrine flashed a smile ofappreciation back at him.

  "And Henry Esmond," she went on, "I have a time with him. Of course, henever really married that other woman and went to live in Virginia. Headored Beatrice until the end, and is always trying to have her withhim. I've had it out with him!" She smiled again, as at a memory, andextended one hand dramatically.

  "'Henry Esmond,' I said (you know he's a little man, so I lookedstraight in his eyes as I spoke), 'I will not have her here with her redstockings and their silver clocks.'

  "'Ye've listened to gossip of her,' says he.

  "''Twas you yourself that rode after her and the King, when ye c
rossedswords with his Majesty for her honor,' said I.

  "'An event which never took place, believe me,' said he, with a bow, andhe bows like a king.

  "'Ye lie like a gentleman,' said I, 'and I've pride in ye for it; butBeatrice Esmond never comes in here.' And then I just told the truth tohim. 'I've had jealousy of her for many years, despite her morals,' Iexplained."

  Ravenel threw back his head and laughed.

  "Oh, you women!" he cried. "Are there many ladies resident in that landof yours?"

  "Some; not many. Di Vernon, of course, and Mary Richling, and Dora,whom David Copperfield never had sense enough to appreciate, and oh, thechildren! Huckleberry Finn and Little Lord Fauntleroy! The Nigger Jimtends the grounds, you know. And that divine Harold of the Dream Days!

  "One awful day," she went on, "when everything seemed wrong," the quicktears came to her eyes as she spoke, "and I was sick and disgracedbefore people and wanted to die, I went into My Own Land, and there wasJean Valjean at the bars waiting for me. He smiled as I came."

  "'Cheer up, Little Irish Lady!' he cried, at sight of me, 'cheer up!There is reason for everything in that Great Beyond that we'llunderstand some day.' And that night, because of his strength, I went tosleep comforted, and the next morning sang the 'Ah! Patria mia' quitenobly. It was payment for the suffering, perhaps. Who can tell?"

  "And whom," it was curious how Frank's jealousy showed in the question,"whom do you like best of all these tenant folk of yours, Katrine?"

  "Ye'll never tell?" She turned to look him full in the eyes. "Promise meye'll never tell; for if the word of it gets abroad there'll be nokeeping him in bounds, he's so filled with conceit of himself already."She leaned toward Frank and whispered: "It's Alan Breck. Ah," she cried,"you feel so fine and sure when ye're out with him! With his glitteringsword and his belt of gold, and the way he takes the centre of the stageand the speech skin-fitted to the occasion. It's grand to be with himthen. But it's none of these that I love him for. Do you remember whenhe says to Catriona: '_I'm a kind of henchman to Davie_,' she quotedAlan's words with a deep-voiced enthusiasm, '_and whatever he cares forI've got to care for, too. I'm not so very bonny, but I'm leal to them Ilove_.' In My Land, that is all they care for. They are of all religionsand times and climes, but they are loyal, every one." And, turning tohim suddenly, she brought her wee bit of a fist down on the hard stone,her cheeks flushed, her eyes glorious to see. "It's all there is, in MyLand or yours, that makes life worth while--_Loyalty_! The 'enduring tothe end.' _Even if one's none so bonny, he can be leal to them heloves_!"

  Frank threw his cigar away and moved nearer to her, holding out his handwith an odd combination of "make-believe" and real pleading in hisvoice.

  "Katrine, dear," he said, "take me to live in that land of yours. I wantto let down the bars of the gate you don't know where you found, and goup the pine driveway to meet Colonel Newcome. I want all that it meansto have those people for intimate friends."

  "One must make one's own 'Land,'" Katrine answered. "And besides," witha curious, lovable puckering of her eyelids, "men mustn't _dream_things. Men must _do_."

  There was a silence.

  "Must they?" he asked, at length. "Why?"

  "Did it ever occur to you," she asked, abruptly, "that you mightwork--ever, I mean--when you were a boy?"

  "Never for a second."

  "You never felt that you would like to take a part in great affairs, asother men do?"

  "Why should I, Katrine? I have all the money I can possibly want. Lifeis short. I come of a family who tire of living quickly. Say, forinstance, I live until I'm sixty. I probably sha'n't, you know, butwe'll say so for argument. One-third of the time I sleep, which reducesthe real living to forty years. Until the time of fifteen one doesn'tcount, anyway. That gives me but twenty-five years of life. Now, I askyou"--he threw back his head as he spoke, his face charming with ahumorous smile, an illuminated eye--"now, I ask you, if you would be sohard-hearted as to desire me--with but twenty-five years at my disposal,remember--to spend them in a treadmill of work when I might be spendingthem under the pines and the beeches with you, Katrine--_with you_!"

  She had clasped her knees, making of herself a magnetic bunch of colorand lovableness, and she let her eyes rest in his a moment before shespoke. "Don't talk that way, will you? I like to think of you always asa great man--a man of action, a man who helps."

  They regarded each other steadily for a full minute before he said:

  "It has begun."

  "What?" she asked, mystified.

  "That mental treatment you spoke of some time ago. You are having aterrible effect on me, Katrine, and I find it extremely uncomfortable,"he added, laughing.