X
TO TRY TO UNDERSTAND
She turned and left him, walking quietly along the narrow path throughthe harrowed field under the silent pines. The feeling of death was uponher. She wanted to cover her eyes, to blot out the sun, to run to somefriendly darkness to make her moan. She knew he was watching her,however, and carried her head well up. She hoped that he could not seethat her hands were clinched. As she went on, her cheeks scarlet, hercarriage splendidly undejected, the wish came to her that she couldsing. It would prove to him that she had the will not to let this thingcrush her, not to be as other women might have been. But her sinceresoul put the thought aside because of its untruth. She had given him agreat honesty always, she would give it to him until the end. He knewshe suffered, but she desired him to know as well that she was brave,that her spirit was unconquered, that she would do something ratherthan weakly suffer in ineffectual rebellion.
On the crest of the hill she turned to look at him. He was standing withhis eyes fastened on her, the strained whiteness of his face marked outagainst the black of his horse's mane.
Across the distance she had covered their eyes met. The slim littlefigure in the black frock outlined against the blue of the sky, the windblowing the pines over her head, her dusky hair holding the sun, herskirts, pushed backward by the wind, revealing her childish body full ofexquisite vitality. The tears stood big in her eyes, but hers was asoldier's courage, the courage to face defeat, a thing goodly to see inman or woman. Hastily she untied the scarlet kerchief she wore aroundher throat and waved it to him, high, at arm's-length, like a flag ofvictory.
"Ah, don't worry! It's all right!" she called. "Don't think about me!Good-bye!"
At the back of the lodge, down by the brook, there was a place shut inby bushes and roofed over by boughs, where she had often before hiddenher grief. Reaching this leafy room, she threw herself on thepine-needles, moving her head from side to side as if in physical pain.There was shame mixed with the grief. Remembered endearments came backto her; his head had lain on her bosom one night when she had tried toease his pain by her small, cool hands. The place burned over her heart,and she pressed her hand to her side as though to stanch a wound.
If there had been another reason for his conduct, she thought, anyreason save the one he gave! If a father had forbidden marriage betweenthem, or if he had feared the anger of his mother, her pride, at least,would not have suffered. But he had made it clear, "damnably clear," ashe has stated it, that the only obstacle to his marrying her was his ownwill.
But he had suffered, too. She had seen him white and haggard withlonging for her, and she knew pretence too well to doubt that thus farshe was the supreme attraction in his life. The thing that hung blackover all was the unchangeableness of the cause of her trouble. She couldnever be anything but Katrine Dulany; he had decided that she was notworthy to become Katrine Ravenel. Wherein, then, did these Ravenelsexcel? Her rebellious Irish heart put questions for her clear head toanswer. Were they a generous, high-minded, clear-souled people?Folk-tales, passed by word of mouth, of the ill doings of Francis sixth,as well as Francis fifth of the name, told her they were not. Certaindusky faces with the Ravenel mouth and chin had spoken to her of a moralcode before which her clean soul stood abashed. Were they moreintelligent, more dignified, more refined? The narrow-mindedness of themanswered these questionings in the negative. Were they; and here thatself-belief, which seems placed like a shell to protect all genius,entered its own, demanding; were they of the specially gifted, as sheknew herself to be?
But through the turmoil of heated thought one idea became fixed,however. She must leave Carolina and work; determinedly, doggedly; workto save her reason. Unformulated plans were taking shape in her mindeven while she sobbed forth her grief. If she could but study, shethought!
"There must"--and here she spoke aloud, her hands clinched in thepine-needles--"must, _must_ be found some way to do it!"
And by some curious mental twist, as she made the resolution, there cameback to her the words of some old reading:
_"No great artistic success ever came to any woman, that had not itsroot in a dead love."_
As she lay face downward, her body convulsed with weeping, it wasordered that Dermott McDermott should take a short cut through that partof the grounds to the boat-landing, on one of his lightning-like tripsto foreign parts. He had just encountered Frank riding like the wind,his face haggard and drawn, and at the sight of Katrine's distress hedrew conclusions, with rage and a dancing madness in his eye.
"If ye've hurt her, Frank Ravenel, if I find when I come back ye've hurther, you'll answer to me for it! God! _how_ you will answer to me!" hecried.
* * * * *
There is this about life: that frequently when we think the worst hashappened it is but the forerunner of worse to come.
As Katrine lay tossed by misery and shame, Nora O'Grady, with her kiltedlinsey-woolsey skirt turned up, her white kerchief loosened over herbosom, and her brogans twinkling in her haste, came running along theroad, her face twitching with sorrow. Ever and anon in her speed shedried her eyes on her apron and a moan escaped her.
"Poor heart!" she repeated. "Poor heart, she's enough to bear withoutthis coming to her the now!"
But pushing the branches aside, she spoke in simulated anger toKatrine, a pretence which showed well the peculiar delicacy of herclass. It was not for the like of her, she reasoned, to know the truthregarding Miss Katrine's relation with Mr. Ravenel; and yet she knew asaccurately as if the scene of the morning had taken place before her.With clear, wise eyes she had dreaded such an ending the summer long.Nothing, she reasoned, could further hurt Katrine's pride than to haveit known her love had been slighted, or to offer sympathy, no matter howhiddenly. And so she feigned well an anger she was far from feeling, inan intentional misunderstanding.
Looking down at the prostrate figure, she began, in a shrill voice:
"Honestly to God, Miss Katrine, ye'll hear another word of this! Cryinglike a child in the middle of a lot of damp stickers because ye can'thave music as ye like! Just throw yourself round on this wet ground abit more an' mayhap He'll take away the voice He's given ye already!Perhaps it's because ye cry for nothing that there's been something sentye to cry for!" And here her thought of suitable conduct was lost inreal grief.
"Ah, Miss Katrine! Miss Katrine! Your father," her voice broke and wentup in a wail, "your father's come home to ye--"
Katrine, who had arisen, stood with tear-stained face regarding her. "Heis--?" She could not go on with the question, but Nora answered itwithout its being finished.
"He has not been drinking. Oh, Miss Katrine, he's past that! Can't yeunderstand? The hand of God's upon him! He's called away, Miss Katrine.Ye should have seen him as he crawled to the doorway and fell on it. Igot him to his own seat by the window, and he's wanting you, MissKatrine, he's wanting you sore! So I come, in part to tell you, but moreto have ye prepare yerself for the change in him, for his end's insight!"
Although she was trembling from head to foot and had grown ashen pale,Katrine spoke calmly.
"He came alone?"
Nora shook her head in the affirmative.
"It seems, Miss Katrine, that there was some organic trouble; that thegreat specialist, whose name is gone from me, warned him not to try thecure. He said the other disease was too far along. But your fatherwanted to be himself again. It was for you he wanted it. It was thedisgrace he was to you that was on his mind always."
"Ah!" she cried, "there was still enough of the old pride in him forthat! We must pretend not to understand that he is ill, we must try justto seem glad that he is back home with us again."
When Katrine entered the room where her father sat, she found him, asNora had said, by the window, his head thrown back, his eyes closed; nordid he open them at her coming, though by a poor movement of the handshe made her understand his knowledge of her presence.
"Little Katrine," he said, while two g
reat tears welled from under theclosed lids. "Little Bother-the-House! I have come back to you. There isno one can help me except you."
Katrine made a swift movement to be near him. Kneeling, she drew hispoor, sorrowing head to her breast, and in the twilight these two, theone so old and weak and loving, the other so young and desolate andbrave, clung to each other, blinded by the vision of the separation sosoon to be.
In nearly every crisis of life there comes some twist in affairs whichseems to turn the screws harder or sets them to making one flinch in anew and unexpected place. In Katrine's case it was a turn which madelife so unbearable that there were times when she would be forced tobite her lips and set her teeth to keep back a moan, while for hours ata time Patrick Dulany iterated and reiterated the kindness, thethoughtfulness, the goodness to him of Francis Ravenel.
"There was never a day, Katrine, while I was at the hospital, that I hadnot a letter from him. Money was spent for me like water. The doctortold me he had orders to spare nothing. Ay, there's not another man inthe world who would do for a stranger what Mr. Ravenel tried to do forme. And sometimes he'd write drolly, you know his way, that he'd seen yesomewhere, riding, mayhap, or in the garden, or had heard a note of yourmusic as he rode by; and the home feeling would come back to me, and I'dtake heart again."