Back Aa

Ralstons

<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> Robert Lauderdale’s condition was precarious, and Mrs. Deems was well aware of the fact as the minutes passed and neither of the doctors who had been sent for appeared. It was Doctor Routh’s custom to come a few minutes before dinner time, as well as in the morning, and his visit at that hour was almost a certainty. As ill-luck would have it, Doctor Cheever was also out when the carriage reached his house, having been called away a few moments previously. Urgent messages were left for both, and the brougham returned empty a second time. So far as the old gentleman was concerned, Mrs. Deems knew well enough how to do what lay in her power, and she could do nothing more than she had done for Katharine already. But she knew how the least delay in setting a broken bone increased the difficulty and the pain when it came to be done at last, and her anxiety about Robert Lauderdale did not prevent her from feeling nervous about the young girl. No one spoke in the great drawing-room where the old man and Katharine lay with closed eyes in their chairs, while the nurse and Ralston sat watching them. But when Leek came with the news that Doctor Cheever could not be found, either, Mrs. Deems was roused almost to anger. “You’ve got to get a surgeon, anyway,” she said, sharply, to Ralston. “If you don’t, they’ll have a bad time when it comes to setting her arm. Mr. Lauderdale I can manage, perhaps, till the doctor comes, but I’m no bone-setter.” Ralston left the room, took the carriage, and went himself in search of a surgeon, and returned with one in less than a quarter of an hour. A few minutes later Doctor Routh appeared, and last of all came young Doctor Cheever. Then everything was done quickly and well. The three practitioners understood one another without words, and the machinery of the great house of the old millionaire did their bidding. But Doctor Routh shook his head when he was alone with John Ralston half an hour later. “I don’t like the look of things,” he said. “Of course, there’s no telling about you Lauderdales. You’re pretty strong people all round. I don’t want any confidences. I don’t want to know what’s happened. I can see the results, and they’re enough for me. You’re a quarrelsome set, but you’d better have managed to fight somewhere else. I’m afraid you’ve killed him this time. However—there’s no telling.” “How about Miss Lauderdale?” asked John, anxiously. “How long will she be laid up?” “Oh—three or four weeks. But they must keep her quiet for a day or two, until the inflammation goes down. When the bone’s begun to heal and the arm’s immobilized, she can be about. It’s no use your staying here. You can’t see either of them. But if I were you—I don’t say anything positive, I’m only giving you a hint—if I were you, I’d be at home this evening. If things get worse, I’ll send for you.” “Are you going to stay yourself?” asked Ralston. “Of course. Practically, as far as one can judge, your uncle’s dying. You may just as well be here as any one else. He’s very fond of you, in spite of your little tiff last winter. You’re the only man in the family he’d like to see, and you won’t be in the way.” It was his manner of putting it. At any other time Ralston would have smiled at the idea of being ‘in the way’ of death. “I suppose there’s really no hope,” he answered, gravely. “But the only person he’d really wish to have with him is Miss Lauderdale.” “Well—that’s impossible, my dear boy. She can’t be running about the house in the middle of the night with her arm just broken. It might be dangerous.” “You’d better not let her know if anything happens, then—or she will.” John Ralston left the house very reluctantly at last, and returned to his home, feeling broken and helpless, as people who have nervous organizations do feel when they have been under great emotion and are left in anxiety. Naturally enough, Katharine’s present condition was uppermost in his mind, and every step which took him further from her was an added pain. But a multitude of other considerations thrust themselves upon him at the same time, and he asked himself what was to happen on the morrow. He had made up his mind, before Alexander Junior had left the house, that it was absolutely necessary to put an end to the present situation at once, and to declare his marriage without delay. He had never wished it to be kept a secret, and he had now the best of reasons for insisting that it should be made public. He might have been willing to believe that Katharine’s fall had been an accident, and that her father had not meant to hurt her, but the fact remained that the accident had occurred through his brutal roughness, with the result that John had struck the elder man in the face. It was not safe for Katharine to stay any longer in her father’s house. On the other hand, it seemed clear that Robert Lauderdale was near his end. It was hardly to be hoped that he could survive the strain of his late fit of passion, weakened as he was and old. Even Doctor Routh thought it improbable. What would happen if he died that night? If Katharine had to be moved,—she could scarcely stay in the house after the old man was dead,—to whose house should she go? John swore, inwardly, that she should not return to her father’s. And he thought, too, of his next meeting with the latter. Society would be amazed and horrified to hear that they had actually come to blows. Society, especially in our country, detests the idea of personal violence. Its verdict is against any use of such means to settle difficulties. Society, therefore, must be kept in ignorance of what had happened. No one had seen the blow, not even Katharine, who had just fallen to the floor. She alone had seen John and her father struggling, for they had loosed their hold on seeing that she was hurt, and the servants had found them bending over her. Consequently, a great part of what had happened would be kept secret. Robert Lauderdale would not speak of it, and Mrs. Deems was bound to secrecy by her profession. John wondered how Alexander Junior would meet him, however, and whether there was to be any renewal of hostilities. Altogether, when he let himself into his own house, he was in need of counsel and advice. There was no one but his mother to whom he cared to appeal for either. She had known all along of his devotion to Katharine Lauderdale, though she knew nothing of the secret marriage. She knew how hard Katharine’s life was made in the girl’s own home, by her father’s determined opposition to the match, and John had told her something of other matters—how old Robert had confided to Katharine what he meant to do with his money, and how her father had tried to force her to betray the confidence. Ralston was puzzled, too, by Alexander Junior’s evident willingness to quarrel with his uncle, or at least by his determination to make no concessions whatever to him, and wondered whether his mother could not suggest some explanation. Mrs. Ralston was, in some ways, very like her son, and the two understood one another perfectly. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that she had made him like herself, not intentionally, but by force of example, a result very unusual in the relations between mother and son. She was by no means a manlike woman, but she possessed many of the qualities which make the best men. She was fearless and truthful, and she was more than that—she had a man’s sense of honour from a man’s point of view, and admitted to herself that honour was the only religion in which she could believe. Like Katharine, she, the elder Katharine Lauderdale, had been brought up amidst contradictory influences, and had then married the Admiral, a brave officer, a man of considerable scientific attainments, and a determined agnostic, of the school of thirty years ago, when many people believed that science was to bring about a sort of millennium within the next few years. In that direction she went further than her son. Her sense of fairness had shown her how unfair it would be to make an unbeliever of him before he was old enough to judge for himself, and in this idea she had made him go to church like other boys, and had persuaded his father not to talk atheism before him. The result had been to produce, more or less, the state of mind typical in these last years of the century, amongst a certain class of people who are collectively described as cultured, though they cannot always be spoken of individually as cultivated. John felt that he believed in something, but he had not the slightest idea what that something might be, and did not take the smallest trouble to find out. In this respect he differed from Katharine. Under very similar conditions, the young girl vacillated between a set of undefinable but much discussed beliefs, which included pseudo-Buddhism, Psychological Research, the wreck of what was for a few years Theosophy, and the latest discoveries in hypnotism, taken altogether and kneaded into an amorphous mass, on the one hand, while, on the other, she was attracted by the rigid forms of actual Christianity, widely opposed, but nearest in whole-heartedness, which are found in the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic churches. But John’s mother was a peaceable agnostic, who had transferred the questions of right, wrong, and ultimate good before the tribunal of honour which held perpetual session in her heart. She never discussed such points if she could avoid doing so, and if drawn into discussion against her will, she said frankly that she wished she might believe, but could not. In dealing with the world, her strength of character, her directness and her humanity stood her in good stead. In her heart’s dealings with itself, she thought of Musset’s famous lines—‘If Heaven be void, then we offend no God. But if God is, let God be pitiful!’ And she offended no one, nor desired to offend any. She had in life the advantage, the only one, perhaps, which the agnostic has over the believer—the safety of her own soul was not in the balance when the humanity of others appealed to her own. He who believes that he has a soul to save can be unselfish only with his bodily safety. Mrs. Ralston was eminently a woman of the world in the best sense of an expression which many think can mean no good. She had never been beautiful and had never been vain, but she had much which attracts as beauty does, and holds as no beauty can. Of the Lauderdales now living, she was undeniably the most gifted. Katharine might have rivalled her, had she developed under more favourable circumstances. But with the education she had received, good as it had been of its kind, it was not probable that the young girl would grow up into such a woman. Yet Mrs. Ralston had no accomplishments, in the ordinary sense of the word. Her husband used to say that this was one of her chief attractions in his eyes—he hated women who played the piano, and sang little songs, and made little sketches, for the small price paid by cheap social admiration, and greedily accepted by the performer of such tricks. There were people who did such things well, and whose business it was to do them. Why should any one do them badly? Mrs. Ralston never attempted anything of the sort. On the other hand, she was well acquainted with a number of modern languages, and knew enough of the classics not to talk about ‘reading Horace in the original Greek,’ which is as much knowledge in that direction, perhaps, as a woman needs, and as most men have occasion to use in daily life. She had read very widely, and her criticism, if not that of pure reason, was that of a clear judgment. She had found out early what most people never learn at all, that she could widen her experience of life vicariously by assimilating that of other people, in fact and even in fiction. Good fiction is very like reality. Bad fiction is generally made up of fragments of reality unskilfully patched together. She picked out truths wherever she found them, and set them in their places in the body of all truth. She was, in a way, the least American of all the Lauderdales. She herself would have said, on the contrary, from her own point of view, that she was the most really American in the tribe. She loved the country, she especially loved New York, and she loved her own people better than any other with which she was acquainted. This strong attachment to everything American was in itself contrary to the ideas of most persons with whom she was brought into close relations. What calls itself society, pre-eminently, and numbers itself by hundreds, and shuts itself off as much as possible, requiring those who would be counted with it to pass a special examination in the subjects about which it happens to be mad at the time—Society with a capital letter, in fact, is tired of work, it associates home with hard labour and a bad climate, and Europe with fine weather, idleness, and amusement. ‘They manage those things better in France,’ expresses New York society’s opinion of things in general apart from business. Mrs. Ralston differed from Society, and thought that many things were managed quite as well in America. “That’s because you’ve been abroad so much, my dear,” said her friends. “Wait till you’ve lived ten years at a stretch in New York. You’ll think just as we do. You won’t like it half so much. And besides—think of clothes and things!” Now Mrs. Ralston did think of ‘clothes and things.’ She had never been beautiful, but she had in a high degree the strength and grace distinctive in many of the Lauderdales. She was tall, long-limbed, slight as a girl, at five and forty years of age, less strong than Katharine, perhaps, though that might be doubted, and certainly lighter and much thinner. She, too, was dark—a keen, strong face, like her son’s, with the same bright brown eyes, and the same fine hair, though not nearly so black, but her face was kindlier than his, and far less sad. She had possessed the power of enjoying things for their own sake as long as Mrs. Lauderdale, Katharine’s mother, who had kept her faculty of enjoying the world subjectively, with little interest in it for itself, but with the intensely strong attachment of easily satisfied personal vanity. The difference was, that the one form of enjoyment was doomed to destruction with the beauty which was its source, while the other increased with the ever broadening and deepening humanity in which it found its dominant interest. If Mrs. Lauderdale had been shut off from the gay side of social existence for a time, as Mrs. Ralston had been in the first years of her widowhood, she would have become sour and discontented. Mrs. Ralston had seen where the real bitterness of life lay, and the bitterness had appealed to her heart almost as much as ever the sweetness had. She had suffered in some ways much, but not long; she had been disappointed more than once, but had been repaid. Above all, she was her son’s friend. She had lived a woman’s life, and in him she was living a man’s life, too. She had felt a mother’s fears for him, a mother’s sympathy in his failures, in his downheartedness, in the love for Katharine which had met with such bitter opposition. She had almost known a mother’s despair in believing him lost and truly worthless, and when she had found out her mistake, a mother’s triumph had made her heart beat fast. And little by little through the last months she had seen the man’s real character coming to the surface in its strength and boldness, outgrowing the boyish weakness, the youthful faults that were not vices yet and never would be now, and it was as though the growth had been in her own heart, giving to herself new interest, new life, and new vitality. And John Ralston had forgotten that one hour in which she had doubted him, though at the time he had found it hard to say that he ever should. She was his best friend and was becoming his closest companion. Even Katharine could not understand him so well, for she knew too little of the world yet. She had given him her heart, and her sympathy was all his, but neither the one nor the other was yet quite grown. John and his mother dined alone together that evening, and afterwards went upstairs and sat in a room which was called John’s study, by courtesy, as it had been called the Admiral’s study when his father was alive. It was a quiet, manlike room, with a small bookcase and a large gun-rack, huge chairs covered with brown leather, an unnecessarily large writing-table, a certain number of trophies of the chase, a well-worn carpet and curtains that smelled of cigars. Mrs. Ralston had been accustomed all her life to the smell of tobacco, and rather liked it than otherwise. She settled her graceful figure comfortably in one of the chairs, and Ralston sat down opposite to her in another and began to smoke. “There’s been a row, mother,” he began. “I couldn’t tell you before the servants, but I’m going to tell you all about it now. I want your advice and your help—all sorts of things of you. I’m rather worried.” “Do you think I couldn’t see that in your face, Jack?” asked Mrs. Ralston, smiling as she met his eyes. “There’s a certain line in your forehead that always comes when there’s trouble. What is it, boy?” John told his story briefly and accurately, without superfluous comment, and as much of what had happened in Katharine’s life as she had confided to him. He made it clear enough that she was being tormented to give up Robert Lauderdale’s secret, and if he dwelt unduly upon any point, it was upon this. Mrs. Ralston listened attentively. When he came to the scene which had taken place on that afternoon, she leaned forward in her chair, breathless with interest. “Oh, Jack!” she cried. “You always seem to be fighting somebody!” “Yes—but wasn’t I right, mother?” he asked, quickly. “What could I do? He acted like a madman, and he dragged Katharine from me and whirled her off upon the floor as though he’d been handling a man in a free fight. I couldn’t stand that.” “No—of course you couldn’t,” answered Mrs. Ralston. “I don’t see what you could have done but hit him, I’m sure. And yet it’s a shocking affair—it is, really. I’m afraid it’s cost uncle Robert his life, poor, dear old man!” “Poor man!” echoed Ralston, thoughtfully. “Routh didn’t seem to think he could live through the night. We may get word at any moment.” “The wonder is that he didn’t die then and there. And there’s no one with him, either—Katharine laid up in her room—why didn’t you stay in the house, Jack?” “Routh wouldn’t let me. He’s there. He told me I should only be in the way and that he’d send for me, if anything happened. It’s an odd thing, mother—but there’s no one to go to uncle Robert but you and I and cousin Emma. He’d have a fit if he saw cousin Alexander. And of course the old gentleman can’t go.” He meant Robert’s brother. “No—of course not.” A short silence followed, and Mrs. Ralston seemed to be thinking over the situation. “Well, Jack,” she said, at last, “what are we going to do? This state of things can’t go on.” “No. It can’t. It shan’t. And I won’t let it. Mother—you know we talked last winter—you said that if ever I wanted to marry Katharine—wanted to! Well—that we could manage to live here—” It would be hard to give any adequate idea of the reluctance with which John approached the subject. Short of the consideration of Katharine’s personal safety, which he believed to be endangered by the life she was made to lead, nothing could have induced him to think of laying the burden of his married life upon his mother’s comparatively slender fortune. Although half of it was his, for she had made it over to him by a deed during the previous winter, out of a conviction that he should feel himself to be independent, yet he had never quite accepted the position, and still regarded all there was as being, morally speaking, her property. But now she met him more than half way. “Jack,” she said, almost authoritatively, “if Katharine will marry you, marry her to-morrow and bring her here.” “Thank you, mother,” he answered, and was silent for a moment. “We can live perfectly well—just as well as we do now. One person more—what difference does it make?” “It would make a difference—more than you think,” answered John. “But there’s another thing about it, mother—there’s a secret I’ve kept from you for a long time. I must tell you now. You must be the first to know it. But I want to ask you first not to judge what I’ve done until I’ve told you all about it.” “Is it anything bad, Jack?” asked Mrs. Ralston, with quick anxiety, bending far forward in her chair, while all her expression changed. “No, mother—don’t be frightened. It’s this. Katharine and I were married last winter.” “Married!” cried Mrs. Ralston, in amazement. “Married!” she repeated in a tone which showed that she was deeply hurt. “And you did not tell me!” She said nothing more for a few moments, and John was silent, too, giving her time to recover from her astonishment. She was the first to speak. “Either Katharine made you marry her, or you must have had some very good reason for doing such a thing, Jack,” she said. “It’s not like you to get married secretly. When was it?” “It was on that day when I was so unlucky. When I lost my way, and everybody thought I’d been drinking.” “Jack! Do you mean to say that you had that on your mind, too? Oh, Jack dear, why didn’t you tell me?” “In the first place, I’d said I wouldn’t. The reasons seemed good then. They haven’t seemed so good since. I’ll tell you the idea in two words. We were to be privately married. Then we were to confide in uncle Robert, expecting that he would find me something to do, that I could do whatever he proposed well enough to earn a living without accepting money as a gift. There was where the disappointment came. I found out afterwards how true what he said was. Everybody’s on the lookout for a congenial occupation that means living out of doors and enjoying oneself. He said there was nothing to be done but to go back to Beman’s and work at a desk for a year. Then he’d push me on. He tried to make me take a lot of money, but I wouldn’t. I’m glad of that, anyhow. So we’ve never said anything about it, except to him. But now something must be done.” “But you could have brought her here any time in these four months—at least, you might have told me and I would have helped you.” “I know—but then, it would have been a burden on you, as it’s going to be now.” “A burden! Don’t say such things.” “Only that now—well—I don’t like to say it, but dear old uncle Robert isn’t going to live long, and then you’ll be rich, compared to what you are now, even if he only leaves you what he’d think a small legacy.” “Yes—that’s true,” answered Mrs. Ralston, thoughtfully. “Isn’t life strange, Jack?” she continued, after a short pause. “We’re both very fond of him. We shall miss him very much more than we realize. I think either you or I would do anything we could, and risk anything, to save his life—and yet we can’t help counting on the money he’s sure to leave us when he dies. I suppose most people would call it heartless to speak about it, though they’d think about it from morning till night. But I don’t think we’re heartless, do you?” “No,” answered John, “I don’t. Not that it would be a crime if we were. People are born so, or they aren’t. We can’t all be rough plastered with goodness and stuccoed with virtue on top of it. We’re natural, that’s all—and the majority of people aren’t. I don’t wish uncle Robert to die, any more than you do, or than any one does, except cousin Alexander. It’s only reasonable for us who are young to think of what we may do when he’s gone, since he’s so old.” “Yes, I suppose so,” assented Mrs. Ralston. “So you’ve been married all these months! It hurts me a little to think that you shouldn’t have told me. I’d have helped you. I’m sure I could have made it easier. But I see—you were afraid that I should have to go without my toilet water and have to wear ready made gloves, or some such ridiculous thing as that! Married! Well—I’m not exactly sentimental, but I’d rather looked forward to your wedding with Katharine. I always knew you’d marry her in the end, and I liked to think of it. I’m glad, though—I’m glad it’s done and can’t be undone, in spite of her father. Tell me all about it, since you’ve told me everything else.” It was not a long story—how Katharine had persuaded him, much against his will, how he had found a clergyman willing to perform the ceremony, and how Katharine and he had gone to the church early in the morning. “And now she is Katharine Ralston, too, like me—and I’ve got a daughter-in-law!” Mrs. Ralston smiled dreamily. After the first moment of surprise and after the first sharp pain she had felt for her son’s want of confidence in her, as she regarded his secrecy, the news did not seem to disturb her much. For years she had been convinced that Katharine was destined to be her son’s wife, and for many months she had felt sure that, with his nature, his happiness and success in life depended entirely upon his marrying her. She was heartily glad that it had come, though, as she said, she had often looked forward to the wedding as to something very bright in her own existence. “Jack,” she said, “leave it to me to set matters straight with the rest of the family, will you?” “Why—mother—if you think you can—of course,” answered Ralston, with some hesitation. “The difficulty will be with cousin Alexander. We’re enemies for life, now.” “Yes. Until to-day you were only enemies by circumstance. You’ll never be reconciled, now—not completely. You could never spend a night under his roof after what has happened, could you? Of course you can say to him that you acted under the impression that he was—well—what shall I say?—that he was treating Katharine brutally, but that if he wasn’t, you apologize for striking him. But after all, that’s only quibbling with honour. It wouldn’t satisfy him and wouldn’t be very dignified for you, it seems to me. And he’s not the man who would ever put out his hand and forgive you frankly and say that by-gones should be by-gones.” “Scarcely!” assented Ralston. “Not at all that kind of man. By the bye, mother,—forgive me for going off to something else,—what do you think is the reason why he seems so ready to offend uncle Robert, instead of bowing down to him, as they all do? He wants the money more than any one. He can’t suppose that if uncle Robert were to make a new will now, after what has happened, he’d leave him anything. You should have heard the old gentleman swear at him, and turn him out of the house!” “I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Ralston, thoughtfully, “unless he wants to irritate uncle Robert, and drive him into making some extraordinary will that wouldn’t hold. Then he’d get it broken. You see, Jack, my uncle Alexander, who’s uncle Robert’s own brother, and I, who am the only child of uncle Robert’s other brother, are the next of kin. If there were no will, or if the will were broken, we two should get the whole fortune, equally divided, half and half, and none of the rest would get anything. Mr. Brett told me that a long time ago. As it is, we don’t know how the money’s left, though uncle Robert has often told me that I should have a big share.” “Katharine knows,” said John. “That’s the reason her father leaves her no peace.” “And she’s not told you, Jack?” “Mother! Do you suppose Katharine would betray a confidence like that? You don’t know her!” “No, dear. I didn’t seriously think she would. But then—she’s your wife, Jack. She might tell you what she wouldn’t tell any one else, and yet not think that she were giving away a secret. Most women would, I think.” “Katharine’s not like most women,” said Ralston, gravely. A silence followed, during which his mother watched his face, and her own grew beautiful with mother’s pride in man, and woman’s gladness for woman’s dignity. When Ralston and his mother separated, they had come to a clear understanding about the future. They had decided to say nothing about the marriage until Katharine had recovered sufficiently to leave Robert Lauderdale’s home, and then to establish her in their house, and tell the world that there had been a private wedding. If the old gentleman died,—and they were obliged to take this probability into consideration,—Katharine would have to be brought at once. If anything, this would make matters simpler. The household would be in mourning, Katharine would be unable to go out or to appear at all for some time, and society would easily believe that during the two or three weeks which must pass in this way, the marriage might have taken place. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.