Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  “That’s true,” assented Ralston.

  “And he knows that you don’t want to take money without giving an equivalent for it.”

  “He’s known that all along. I don’t see why he should put himself out any more now—”

  “Because I’ll make him,” said Katharine, firmly. “I can do that for you, and if you torture your code of honour into fits you can’t make it tell you that a wife should not do that sort of thing for her husband. Can you?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Ralston, smiling. “I’ve tried it myself often enough with the old gentleman. He says I’ve had two chances and have thrown them up, and that, after all, my mother and I have quite enough to live on comfortably, so he supposes that I don’t care for work. I told him that enough was not nearly so good as a feast. He laughed and said he knew that, but that people couldn’t stand feasting unless they worked hard. The last time I saw him, he offered to make Beman try me again. But I couldn’t stand that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I can’t stand anything where I produce no effect, and am not to earn my living for ever so long. I wasn’t to have any salary at Beman’s for a year, you know, because I knew nothing about the work. And it was the same at the lawyer’s office — only much longer to wait. I could work at anything I understood, of course. But I suppose I do know precious little that’s of any use. It can’t be helped, now.”

  “Yes, it can. But you see my plan. Uncle Robert will be so taken off his feet that he’ll find you something. Then the whole thing will be settled. It will probably be something in the West. Then we’ll declare ourselves. There’ll be one stupendous crash, and we shall disappear from the scene, leaving the family to like it or not, as they please. In the end they will like it. There would be no lies to act — at least, not after two or three days. It wouldn’t take longer than that to arrange things.”

  “It all depends on uncle Robert, it seems to me,” said Ralston, doubtfully. “A runaway match would come to about the same thing in the end. I’ll do that, if you like.”

  “I won’t. It must be done in my way, or not at all. If we ran away we should have to come back to see uncle Robert, and we should find him furious. He’d tell us to go back to our homes, separately, till we had enough to live on — or to go and live with your mother. I won’t do that either. She’s not able to support us both.”

  “No — frankly, she’s not.”

  “And uncle Robert would be angry, wouldn’t he? He has a fearful temper, you know.”

  “Yes — he probably would be raging.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I don’t like it, Katharine dear — I don’t like it.”

  “Then you can never marry me at all, Jack. At least, I’m afraid not.”

  “Never?” Ralston’s expression changed suddenly.

  “There’s another reason, Jack dear. I didn’t want to speak of it — now.”

  CHAPTER IV.

  RALSTON SAID NOTHING at first. Then he looked at Katharine as though expecting that she should speak again and explain her meaning, in spite of her having said that she had not meant to do so.

  “What is this other reason?” he asked, after a long pause.

  “It would take so long to tell you all about it,” she answered, thoughtfully. “And even if I did, I am not sure that you would understand. It belongs — well — to quite another set of ideas.”

  “It must be something rather serious if it means marriage now, or marriage never.”

  “It is serious. And the worst of it is that you will laugh at it — and I am sure you will say that I am not honest to myself. And yet I am. You see it is connected with things about which you and I don’t think alike.”

  “Religion?” suggested Ralston, in a tone of enquiry.

  Katharine bowed her head slowly, sighed just audibly and looked away from him as she leaned back. Nothing could have expressed more clearly her conviction that the subject was one upon which they could never agree.

  “I don’t see why you should sigh about it,” said Ralston, in a tone which expressed relief rather than perplexity. “I often wonder why people generally look so sad when they talk about religion. Almost everybody does.”

  “How ridiculous!” exclaimed Katharine, with a little laugh. “Besides, I wasn’t sighing, exactly — I was only wishing it were all arranged.”

  “Your religion?”

  “Don’t talk like that. I’m in earnest. Don’t laugh at me, Jack dear — please!”

  “I’m not laughing. Can’t you tell me how religion bears on the matter in hand? That’s all I need to know. I don’t laugh at religion — at yours or any one else’s. I believe I have a little inclination to it myself.”

  “Yes, I know. But — well — I don’t think you have enough to save a fly — not the smallest little fly, Jack. Never mind — you’re just as nice, dear. I don’t like men who preach.”

  “I’m glad of it. But what has all this to do with our getting married?”

  “Listen. It’s perfectly clear to me, and you can understand if you will. I have almost made up my mind to become a Catholic—”

  “You?” Ralston stared at her in surprise. “You — a Roman Catholic?”

  “Yes — Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic. Is that clear, Jack?”

  “Perfectly. I’m sorry.”

  “Now don’t be a Puritan, Jack—”

  “I’m not a Puritan. I haven’t a drop of Puritan blood. You have, Katharine, for your grandmother was one of the real old sort. I’ve heard my father say so.”

  “You’re just as much a Lauderdale as I am,” retorted Katharine. “And if Scotch Presbyterians are not Puritans, what is? But that isn’t what I mean. It’s the tendency to wish that people were nothing at all rather than Catholics.”

  “It’s not that. I’m not so prejudiced. I was thinking of the row — that’s all. You don’t mean to keep that a secret, too? It wouldn’t be like you.”

  “No, indeed,” answered Katharine, proudly.

  “Well — you’ve not told me what the connection is between this and our marriage. You don’t suppose that it will really make any difference to me, do you? You can’t. And you’re quite mistaken about my Puritanism. I would much rather that my wife should be a Roman Catholic than nothing at all. I’m broad enough for that, anyhow. Of course it’s a serious matter, because people sometimes do that kind of thing and then find out that they have made a mistake — when it’s too late. And there’s something ridiculous and undignified about giving it up again when it’s once done. Religion seems to be a good deal like politics. You may change once — people won’t admire you — I mean people on your old side — but they will tolerate you. But if you change twice—”

  “I’m not going to change twice. I’ve not quite, quite made up my mind to change once, yet. But if I do, it will make things — I mean, our marriage — almost impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “The Catholics do everything they can to prevent mixed marriages, Jack, — especially in our country. You would have to make all sorts of promises which you wouldn’t like, and which I shouldn’t want you to make—”

  Ralston laughed, suddenly comprehending her point of view.

  “I see!” he exclaimed.

  “Of course you see. It’s as plain as day. I want to make sure of you — dear,” — she laid her hand softly on his,— “and I also want to be sure of being perfectly free to change my mind about my religion, if I wish to. It’s a stroke of diplomacy.”

  “I don’t know much about diplomatic proceedings,” laughed Ralston, “but this strikes me as — well — very intelligent, to say the least of it.”

  Katharine’s face became very grave, and she withdrew her hand.

  “You mean that it does not seem to you perfectly honest,” she said.

  “I didn’t say that,” he answered, his expression changing with hers. “Of course the idea is that if you are married to me before you become a Catholic, your chu
rch can have nothing to say to me when you do.”

  “Of course — yes. You couldn’t be called upon to make any promises. But if I should decide, after all, not to take the step, there would be no harm done. On the contrary, I shall have the advantage of being able to put pressure on uncle Robert, as I explained to you before.”

  “I didn’t say I thought it wasn’t honest,” said Ralston. “It’s rather deep, and I’m always afraid that deep things may not be quite straight. I should like to think about it, if you don’t mind.”

  “I want you to decide. I’ve thought about it.”

  “Yes — but—”

  “Well? Suppose that, after thinking it over for ever so long, you should come to the conclusion that I should not be acting perfectly honestly to my conscience — that’s the worst you could discover, isn’t it? Even then — and I believe it’s an impossible case — it’s my conscience and not yours. If you were trying to persuade me to a secret marriage because you were afraid of the consequences, it would be different—”

  “Rather!” exclaimed Ralston, vehemently.

  “But you’re not. You see, the main point is on my account, and it’s I who am doing all the persuading, for that reason. It may be un — un — what shall I call it — not like a girl at all. But I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I tell you that I love you? We’ve both said it often enough, and we both mean it, and I mean to be married to you. The religious question is a matter of conviction. You have no convictions, so you can’t understand—”

  “I have one or two — little ones.”

  “Not enough to understand what I feel — that if religion is anything, then it’s everything except our love. No — that wasn’t an afterthought. It’s not coming between you and me. Nothing can. But it’s everything else in life, or else it’s nothing at all and not worth speaking of. And if it is — if it really is — why then, for me, as I look at it, it means the Catholic Church. If I talk as though I were not quite sure, it’s because I want to be quite on the safe side. And if I want you to do this thing — it’s because I want to be absolutely sure that hereafter no human being shall come between us. I know all about the difficulties in these mixed marriages. I’ve made lots of enquiries. There’s no question of faith, or belief, or anything of the sort in their objections. It’s simply a matter of church politics, and I daresay that they are quite right about it, from their point of view, and that if one is once with them one must be with them altogether, in policy as well as in religion. But I’m not as far as that yet. Perhaps I never shall be, after all. I want to make sure of you — oh, Jack, don’t you understand? I can’t talk well, but I know just what I mean. Tell me you understand, and that you’ll do what I ask!”

  “It’s very hard!” said Ralston, bending his head and looking at the carpet. “I wish I knew what to do.”

  Woman-like, she saw that she was beginning to get the advantage.

  “Go over it all, dear. In the first place, it’s entirely for my sake, and not in the least for yours. So you can’t say there’s anything selfish in it, if you do it for me, can you? You don’t want to do it, you don’t like it, and if you do it you’ll be making a sacrifice to please me.”

  “In marrying you!” Ralston laughed a little and then became very grave again.

  “Yes, in marrying me. It’s a mere formality, and nothing else. We’re not going to run away afterwards, nor meet in the dark in Gramercy Park nor do anything in the least different from what we’ve always done, until I’ve got what I want from uncle Robert. Then we’ll acknowledge the whole thing, and I’ll take all the blame on myself, if there is any—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” interrupted Ralston.

  “Unless you tell a story that’s not true, you won’t be able to find anything to blame yourself with,” answered Katharine. “So it will be all over, and it will save no end of bother — and expense. Which is something, as neither of us, nor our people, have any money to speak of, and a wedding costs ever so much. I needn’t even have a trousseau — just a few things, of course — and poor papa will be glad of that. You needn’t laugh. You’ll be doing him a service, as well as me. And you see how I can put it to uncle Robert, don’t you? ‘Uncle Robert, we’re married — that’s all. What are you going to do about it?’ Nothing could be plainer than that, could it?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Now he will simply have to do something. Perhaps he’ll be angry at first, but that won’t last long. He’ll get over it and laugh at my audacity. But that isn’t the main point. It’s perfectly conceivable that you might work and slave at something you hate for years and years, until we could get married in the regular way. The principal question is the other — my freedom afterwards to do exactly as I please about my religion without any possibility of any one interfering with our marriage.”

  “Katharine! Do you really mean to say that if you were a Catholic, and if the priests said that we shouldn’t be married, you would submit?”

  “If I couldn’t, I couldn’t,” Katharine answered. “If I were a Catholic, and a good Catholic, — I wouldn’t be a bad one, — no marriage but a Catholic one would be a marriage at all for me. And if they refused it, what could I do? Go back? That would be lying to myself. To marry you in some half regular way—”

  “Hush, child! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Yes, I do — perfectly. And you wouldn’t like that. So you see what my position is. It’s absolutely necessary to my future happiness that we should be quietly married some morning — to-morrow, if you like, but certainly in a day or two — and that nobody should know anything about it, until I’ve told uncle Robert.”

  “After all,” said Ralston, hesitating, “it will be very much the same thing as though we were to run away, provided we face everybody at once.”

  “Very much better, because there’ll be no scandal — and no immediate starvation, which is something worth considering.”

  “It won’t really be a secret marriage, except for the mere ceremony, then. That looks different, somehow.”

  “Of course. You don’t suppose that I thought of taking so much trouble and doing such a queer thing just for the sake of knowing all to myself that I was married, do you? Besides, secrets are always idiotic things. Somebody always lets them out before one is ready. And it’s not as though there were any good reason in the world why we should not be married, except the money question. We’re of age — and suited to each other — and all that.”

  “Naturally!” And Ralston laughed again.

  “Well, then — it seems to me that it’s all perfectly clear. It amounts to telling everybody the day after, instead of the day before the wedding. Do you see?”

  “I suppose I ought to go on protesting, but you do make it very clear that there’s nothing underhand about it, except the mere ceremony. And as you say, we have a perfect right to be married if we please.”

  “And we do please — don’t we?”

  “With all our hearts,” Ralston answered, in a dreamy tone.

  “Then when shall it be, Jack?” Katharine leaned towards him and touched his hand with her fingers as though to rouse him from the reverie into which he seemed to be falling.

  The touch thrilled him, and he looked up suddenly and met her glance. He looked at her steadily for a moment, and once more he felt that odd, pleasurable, unmanly moisture in his

  “She rose suddenly and pretended to busy herself with the single light.” — Vol. I., .

  eyes, with a sweeping wave of emotion that rose from his heart with a rush as though it would burst his throat. He yielded to it altogether this time, and catching her in his arms drew her passionately to him, kissing her again and again, as though he had never kissed her before. He did not understand it himself, and Katharine was not used to it. But she loved him, too, with all her heart, as it seemed to her. She had proved it to him and to herself more completely within the last half hour, and she let her own arms go round him. Then a d
eep, dark blush which she could feel, rose slowly from her throat to her cheeks, and she instinctively disentangled herself from him and drew gently back.

  “Remember that it’s for my sake — not for yours, dear,” she said.

  Her grey eyes were as deep as the dusk itself. Vaguely she guessed her power as she gave him one more long look, and then rose suddenly and pretended to busy herself with the single light, turning it up a little and then down. Ralston watched the springing curves that outlined her figure as she reached upward. He was in many ways a strangely refined man, in spite of all his sins, and of his besetting sin in particular, and refinement in others appealed to him strongly when it was healthy and natural. He detested the diaphanous type of semi-consumptive with the angel face, man or woman, and declared that a skeleton deserved no credit for looking refined, since it could not possibly look anything else. But he delighted in delicacy of touch and grace of movement when it went with such health and strength as Katharine had.

  “You are the most divinely beautiful thing on earth,” he said, quietly.

  Katharine laughed, but still turned her face away from him.

  “Then marry me,” she said, laughing. “What a speech!” she cried an instant later. “Just fancy if any one could hear me, not knowing what we’ve been talking about!”

  “You were just in time, then,” said Ralston. “There’s some one coming.”

  Katharine turned quickly, listened a moment, and distinguished a footfall on the stairs outside the door. She nodded, and came to his side at once.

  “You will, Jack,” she said under her breath. “Say that you will — quick!”

  Ralston hesitated one moment. He tried to think, but her eyes were upon him and he seemed to be under a spell. They were close together, and there was not much light in the room. He felt that the shadow of something unknown was around them both — that somewhere in the room a sweet flower was growing, not like other flowers, not common nor scented with spring — a plant full of softly twisted tendrils and pale petals and in-turned stamens — a flower of moon-leaf and fire-bloom and dusk-thorn — drooping above their two heads like a blossom-laden bough bending heavily over two exquisite statues — two statues that did not speak, whose faces did not change as the night stole silently upon them — but they were side by side, very near, and the darkness was sweet.