An Unknown Lover Part 10

"Naturally! Who wouldn't be? A muslin gown, this morning! If you'd an ounce of sense, you'd go upstairs and change it at once."

Grizel's face fell, like that of a small disappointed child. She shivered, and her nose looked redder than ever.

"I was hinting," she sighed softly, "for a fire."

"I _know_ that, my dear, perfectly well, but you are not going to get it."

"If you were a kind, polite hostess--"

"No, I shouldn't, because in an hour's time the rain will stop, and the room would be close and stuffy all day. Besides, we are going out. If you will be quiet for ten minutes, I shall have finished these books, and we'll go out shopping. So you'll _have_ to change."

Grizel stared, a glimmer of interest struggling with dismay.

"What are you going to buy?"

"Vegetables for dinner, and bacon, and pay the books."

"You expect me to walk out in a torrent for _that! I_ won't go. I won't change my frock either. I'll go to bed."

There was not the least note of offence in Grizel's voice. It preserved its deep note of good-nature, but it sounded obstinate, and her little face was fierce in its militance. Katrine, unabashed, went on checking off figures.

"Nonsense. It will do you good. Rain is good for the complexion. Your face looks tartan, and your nose is red."

"I like it red," said Grizel serenely. She sat another moment nursing her cold hands. "And I won't buy cabbages either," she added defiantly.

"It's no use trying to brace me, for I won't _be_ braced. I'll go upstairs, and complain to Martin."

That threat roused Katrine to whole-hearted attention. She shut the little red book--the butcher's book, this time, swept it and its companions into a neat pile, and sprang to her feet.

"You'll do nothing of the sort. _n.o.body_ interrupts Martin when he is at work. We are forbidden even to knock at the door for anything short of a fire or an earthquake. It might spoil his work for the whole morning."

Grizel stared at her thoughtfully.

"That reminds me," she soliloquised slowly. "I _promised_ to help him, and it's four whole days, and I've never been near! It's my duty to go at once, and I'll tell him my brain can't work unless I'm warm. We'll light a fire and roast, while you swim home with the cabbage. Why on earth didn't I think of that before?"

She smiled into her hostess's face with an easy a.s.surance which brought a spark into the dark blue eyes. Katrine was honestly trying not to be angry. Before now she had had experience of Grizel in a perverse mood, and knew that it was not by force that one could move her from her purpose. She adopted an air of resignation, and approached the bell.

"Very well, then, you shall have your fire, and you can read comfortably beside it, or write letters, while I'm away. And I'll tell Mary to bring you a cup of chocolate. You are a spoiled baby, Grizel; when you've taken it into your head to do a thing, one might as well give in first as last."

"Yes," agreed Grizel calmly. "I'm going to Martin."

She rose in her turn and strolled towards the door, while Katrine stood helpless, her hand on the bell.

"Grizel!"

"Yes."

"Don't go!"

There was a look on her face, a tone in her voice, which arrested Grizel's attention. Half-way across the room she paused, and studied her hostess with those eyes which looked so lazy, but which saw so uncommonly well. There was dread as well as annoyance on Katrine's face.

"What will happen if I do? What is it you are afraid of?"

"He'll be furious. Terribly angry." But in her heart Katrine knew that this was not her fear. Her fear was lest Martin should _not_ be angry.

Grizel considered, a slow smile curving her lips.

"But that," she said, "would be amusing. Much more amusing than buying cabbages. I'd like to see Martin angry!"

She turned and continued her way. From her position by the bell Katrine could watch her progress up the staircase, could note the grace of the slim white form. "Her nose is red!" chanted the inner voice. "Her nose is red!" Amongst a medley of disagreeable reflections the thought appeared to stand out in solitary comfort. It was hardly more than a week since Grizel had arrived, eight days to be exact, yet to Katrine standing alone in the dark old room, it appeared that the whole structure of life had in that time undergone a radical change. It was not a change which could be registered in _facts_; the days had been spent in ordinary happenings, tea parties in neighbouring gardens, drives through the country lanes, small dinner parties, a day on the river. There was no single incident on which she could lay a finger and declare that here or there stood the dividing mark between past and present. The change was in the air; impalpable yet real; Katrine's sensitive nature felt it in every fibre, inhaled it with every breath.

Behind the peaceful, smiling exterior she divined a smouldering pa.s.sion.

The atmosphere was flecked with fire; it flamed beneath the most trivial words, the most trivial deeds. From an ice-bound solitude she looked on, understanding with a keenness of vision, as new as it was bitter. During the last days her mind had been incessantly occupied reviewing the past, searching it in the light of the present. Juliet, Grizel, and herself had been schoolmates at a French boarding-school.

Grizel had accompanied her on a short visit to the married couple in the autumn after their marriage. That was the first time that Martin had seen her, and even in the midst of his bridegroom's joy, he had been attracted, impressed. Then came two long, black years, at the end of which, taking her courage in both hands, she had enquired if Martin would object if Grizel came down for a few days. The mysterious storehouse of the brain had registered the moment, so that she could still see her brother's face before her, as he lifted it from his book-- the young, drawn face, with the haggard eyes. Something approaching a light of interest dawned in the wan depths.

"Grizel Dundas?" he queried slowly; and after a pause. "Certainly! Why not? I'd like to see her!"

So Grizel had come. Memory again registered the fact that it was in response to one of her sallies that Martin had laughed for the first time: an honest, wholesome laugh. She had come again the next year, and had been warmly welcomed. Then had followed an interval. Lady Griselda's health had begun to fail, she was much abroad, and when at home, disinclined to spare her niece. It was not until the fifth year of Martin's widower-hood that Grizel again visited The Glen, but since then every six or seven months had brought about more or less fleeting visits. Questioning herself, Katrine realised that while at the beginning she herself had been the one to suggest a fresh invitation, for the last two years Martin had taken the initiative, while she, with an instinctive unwillingness, had sought excuses.

Could it be that subconsciously she had divined this ending; had known that slowly, surely, Martin's heart was pa.s.sing into Grizel's keeping?

She had held fiercely to the remembrance of Juliet; to the ideal of lifelong faithfulness; held to it the more fiercely as doubt grew, but now it was no longer doubt, it was certainty. Martin loved Grizel with the love of a full-grown man, compared with which that pretty idyll of the past had been child's play. And Grizel? Who could say! That she would not marry while her aunt lived had for years been an accepted fact, but Lady Griselda's days were numbered. In a few months the question of Grizel's future position would be decided, and then-- Katrine's mind had a flashlight realisation of two alternatives, Martin refused, despairing, Martin accepted, aglow. For one black moment of involuntary selfishness, each seemed equally obnoxious. Then with a stifled sob, she shut the door, and buried her face in her hands.

Throughout the silent house travelled the sound of an imperative rap.

"Who's there?"

The sharp, impatient voice was enough to quell the courage of an ordinary intruder. Grizel chuckled, and knocked once more, a trifle more loudly than before.

"Who's--there?"

"Me!"

It was the tiniest of squeaks, and the irate author, shouting back an imperious "Go away!" settled himself to his task, but the knock sounded yet again, and in a fury of impatience he dashed to the door and stood scowling upon the threshold.

"What the--"

"Devil--" concluded Grizel calmly, "but it isn't. It's me. Let me in, Martin! It's a choice between you and buying cabbages in the rain.

Katrine says so, and I should catch my death of cold."

But the change in the man's face was startling to behold. The scowl had vanished, had been wiped out of being at the first swift glance, and with it the fret, and the tire. The deep-set eyes glowed upon her, the hands stretched out.

"Grizel! Come in! Come in! I was just thinking. Wishing--"

Grizel floated past into the forbidden room, her glance as easily avoiding his as her hands escaped his grasp. There was nothing curt or forbidding in the evasion, she seemed simply oblivious of anything but a friendly warmth of manner; engrossed in an interested survey of the study itself. Her eyes roved round the book-lined walls, and rested brightening upon the old-fashioned hearth. The fire was laid. In a basket on one side of the hearth reposed a pile of resined logs. A copper vase obviously contained coal.

"Martin!" she cried eagerly, "let's light up! I've been perished all morning. Katrine says I'm unsuitably dressed. I am, but I never dress to suit rooms. I heat them to suit _me_! Would you think the room unbearably stuffy if we had a fire?"

"Not a bit of it! I often do. Sitting at a desk is chilly work."