The Career of Katherine Bush. Glyn Elinor
was a case of French hotel extravagance and not what would be the custom in private life.
She fingered them softly. They were arranged peculiarly, too, with the top fold turned back so that one could pick them up in a second. Katherine Bush smiled cynically when she remembered her two coarse huckabacks, changed only every Saturday at Laburnum Villa!
Everything gave the impression of spotless cleanliness and order. The brass hot-water can and the fender and the fire-irons all shone with superlative polishing.
Presently her tea was brought up by a housemaid in neatest black, with a cap and apron which would have made Em'ly snort with indignation had she been asked to wear them, so unmodish was their style! It was a joy to have a perfectly arranged tea-tray with shining silver and pretty porcelain, a tray all to herself, too, instead of a breakfast cup already poured out and mixed with milk and sugar, and probably a little of the contents upset into the saucer, which also contained a thick slice of bread and butter and a piece of cake! This is what she had always been accustomed to at the office, or on Saturday afternoons at home, while she read her books and a sister brought her tea up to her attic. And with the exceptions of a Lyons or an A. B. C. restaurant, and the brief time of glory in Paris, when chocolate was the order of the day, this one unappetizing cup had represented to her what many women look forward to as the most delightful meal of all.
The housemaid's manner had been quiet and respectful, as she drew the curtains and shut out the dying light, the muffin was done to a turn, and, above all, the tea tasted as tea had never tasted before. She was too ignorant as yet to know that it was China, not the rankest Ceylon which she was accustomed to, but she found it particularly nice, though rather weak. The whole room and the service and the atmosphere spoke of inhabitants who, somehow she knew, belonged to the same class as those whose voices she had always admired from beyond the half-high glass screen.
She sat and dreamed for a while before beginning her unpacking. Her heart ached underneath for Lord Algy – but aches are possible to bear when there is an element of triumph and self-glorification about them. She was quite aware that she had behaved remarkably well, and in a manner which Lord Algy could never look back upon but with respect. And to renounce happiness and union when the other person is clamouring for a continuance of relations, brings a great measure of consolation, because there is no wound to the self-love, no disastrous feeling that but for personal stupidity the ache need not be. There is even a melancholy pleasure in it, giving a pensive sadness not all pain.
After a while, she began to arrange her clothes and books, and it had struck seven o'clock before all was complete and she had sat down again to finish "Mademoiselle de Maupin," which had so thrilled her far into the night.
She read French quite easily, but she was not accustomed to judge of its style, and as yet hardly appreciated nuances, but the story, the cynical, enchanting, wonderful story, seized hold of her imagination. As she read the last words, the book dropped into her lap and she stared in front of her. She saw what Lord Algy had meant – and it flattered her greatly. She understood entirely Thédore's feelings. How wise she had been to go! How she had grasped the salient points of life! And she, Katherine Bush, no great lady, but a daughter of the lower middle class, had evolved some such instincts herself – had played her game with equal coolness, and had lived through some such joys.
She thrilled and thrilled. The subtle, whimsical, polished wit of the book seemed to open some new vista of comprehension to her. She did not perceive its immorality. She would read it over again and again – and everything else this man had written. It seemed that she was newly awakened to a sense of power that she had not known she possessed. If only she could have read this before she had gone to Paris, what a help it would have been!
"So Algy was not so ignorant, after all," she mused. "Of course, he must have thought I was, and so did not let me see that he himself was more than a fool – darling Algy." But, at all events, he had thought she was like Théodore, only kinder – that was good enough! Well, she would make that true some day, and meanwhile she was away from stultifying squalor – away from minds only interested in petty local affairs – away from sham gentility, away from gramophones and cinemas – away from pretence, away among the real things where she could learn to understand every shade of the meaning of life step by step! And at this stage of her musings, after a gentle knock the same housemaid opened the door with a can of hot water.
"Your dinner will be served in the secretary's room at eight o'clock, miss; it is half-past seven now. When would you like me to return to fasten you up?"
The two red spots appeared in Katherine Bush's cheeks. So she had been expected to change her dress – and she had not thought of doing so! She had not even imagined that she would go again downstairs or have any dinner after that wonderful tea! A little supper probably on a tray later on, or something like that.
But here was dinner! perhaps the same kind of meal as she had had with Lord Algy. Of course, she ought to have known that she must change her dress. She felt very angry with herself, and after the exaltation over her own instincts this was a fall! But she would never err again, and fortunately the housemaid would not know that she had been ignorant.
"My things fasten in the front, thank you, so that I need not trouble you," she answered, graciously; "but will you tell me, please, where I shall find the secretary's room?"
The housemaid gave directions – but one of the footmen would be certain to be in the hall and would show her. Thomas, the one who had brought her up, would wait on her.
"When you are ready, miss, will you please ring, and I will whistle down to say you are coming. We always did for Miss Arnott, and then they serve the dinner at once. This bell rings up and this one down; it is the upstairs one for me. I am Martha, the second housemaid, miss, and will be pleased to do anything I can for you."
Katherine Bush thanked the girl again and quickly began to dress, and at a minute or two to eight was on her way. This upper staircase she found descended to the ground floor independently of the stately, shallow marble one she had walked up on to the sitting-room on her former visit and which went no farther than the first floor.
Thomas was waiting for her and conducted her to a room down the corridor, whose windows she discovered later looked out on a dull, blank wall. It had comfortable, solid, leather-covered furniture, the relic possibly of some country smoking-room, and faded crimson silk brocade curtains, the discarded splendour of a salon, perhaps. These were cosily drawn, and there was plenty of electric light, and she saw that there would be space to do her typing on the solid, large table, and to keep all records in those capacious cupboards which lined the walls. The feeling that she was in space again gave her satisfaction; she had so often longed to break down the partition of her attic, or stretch out and push away the glass screen at Liv and Dev's. The room was very high, too – another advantage.
"I shall always have large, high rooms when I have won my game," she said to herself.
A small table by the fire was laid for one. She made herself notice the silver and the glass and the cloth, and almost immediately Thomas brought in a large tray with her dinner. There was soup in a quaint covered cup with two handles, and some hot silver dishes.
He placed them all with regularity within her reach, and then asked respectfully if she would please to ring when she was ready for her sweet. Miss Arnott was wont to take claret, he informed her, but what would she, Miss Bush, desire to drink?
"A cup of tea," almost escaped from the tip of Katherine's tongue – but she stopped herself. Probably one did not take tea with one's dinner even alone like this, and if she had it, Thomas would know that she was not accustomed to the regulation things. Water would be safest. So she indicated her wishes and Thomas left the room.
A sense of strangeness, almost of awe, stole over her, a sensation she had not felt even when with Lord Algy in the gilded luxury of the Paris hotel. She had known then that those surroundings were just part of any demi-mondaine's life, and could be had by the lowest for money – but these were quite different. These were rather shabby, but were the expression of people who had had them for countless years, and were, of course, ordinary and everyday in their existences – the whole atmosphere affected her.
She was glad that Thomas had gone out