"Go upstairs at once," she said.
"People are wondering what has happened to you. I am ashamed ...”
Katharine was ready to obey. She loved her mother very dearly, for indeed they were much alike, those two, and they had been very close until this Henry came. She went slowly back to the music and the guests, but she had a remote look in her eyes for her thoughts were with Henry galloping home under the stars.
Carolan turned on Margery.
"You arranged that meeting, did you? Did you?”
"Now, now," said Margery.
"What's all the excitement? If a young gent comes knocking on my door and asks for Miss Katharine, what should I do but ask him in?" Carolan, as always, was indiscreet when angry.
"I believe you arranged it, you wicked woman!”
"Here!" said Margery truculently, for, as she told herself, she was all on Miss Katharine's side, love being love and the stuff that makes the world go round. And, she reasoned, it's hard when someone who was as ready to love as most, forgets it! She thought: I don't like this house. There's ghosts in this house. I'd like to go with them two young ones, that I would. My goodness, there'll be some fireworks there. She ain't going to lose her lover like you did, Madam Carolan.
He ain't going to let that happen.
Perhaps children is wiser than their parents, because, if they wasn't, how would things get moving on at all? I'm for the young ones ... whatever you say. And she's promised I'm to go with them and he won't say no. I'm his friend. Haven't I shown him I'm on his side! And he's his father all over again and don't mind handing out a bit of flattery even to an old woman. He's made that way, and my little lady will want someone to look after her, I'm thinking. That's my home with them, on the other side of the Blue Mountains, so I ain't afraid of you, Madam Carolan, that I ain't! And I knows too much about you to pretend I ami Carolan was looking at her arrogantly.
"I said that you probably arranged it. You let him in. You doubtless suggested he should come in. You meddling old woman!”
Margery felt sorry for her. If you know human nature, she was thinking, you know what's behind words. What she meant was"You meddled in my life!" And that boy was the dead spit of his father, and she was thinking back years and years, and wanting his father, never having forgotten him. never having forgotten how, through her own pride, she had lost him.
Then Margery was angry with her, for she reasoned, had not Madam Carolan seen what interfering could do, and yet she wanted to interfere with them two lovely young things, wanted to tear them apart when they were yearning for one another, wanted to thrust the little dear into a pair of blue satin arms just because there was a grand tide and money there!
"I believe in helping young lovers!" said Margery boldly.
"And Madam, I'll tell you here and now, it ain't for you to go criticizing what I might do.”
That started Carolan: her lips quivered with anger.
"You are insolent," she said.
"Oh, Madam," said Margery, seeing herself safe in that station with her two young lovers, 'have you forgotten what it's like to be in love? It ain't so long ago since...”
Insolence!" cried Carolan, her eyes flashing with rage.
"Ah! Now you're like the poor shivering mite you was when you first came into my kitchen. Head full of plans, that was you. And the way you treated that poor boy's father, and the way you went to the master, and then ... and then ..." Margery could not say it. But she lifted her eyes upwards to the first floor, and there was terror in Margery's eyes, and the terror communicated itself to Carolan. for her pride collapsed before her fear. She was as superstitious as Margery.
Margery thought afterwards that something icy touched her. and even when she found that Henry had left the door open she still thought it must have been that poor sickly lady's ghost.
Carolan recovered herself.
That will do!" she cried, and she turned and walked slowly back to her guests. Yes, there were ghosts in the house. Whatever your idea of ghosts, they were there.
Margery came up the stairs and knocked at the bedroom door. If the master was there she would make some excuse. He was not there. Carolan was in front of her, mirror fixing a lace collar on her gown; Audrey was hanging clothes in a cupboard.
Carolan looked up: her eyes smouldered as she was remembering last night's scene with Margery.
"Yes?" she said coldly.
Margery sidled over and turned her back to Audrey. She said in a soft voice: "It is a letter that was brought for you.”
She held out an envelope across which was scrawled "Mrs. Masterman.
Carolan took it.
"It was brought to me kitchen this morning.”
How long ago? wondered Carolan. Had Margery found some means of opening it and read it?
The kitchen?" said Carolan casually. That's an odd place to deliver a letter. All right. Margery. Thank you.”
As soon as Margery had gone. Carolan tore open the letter.
Dear Mrs. Masterman, she read. Would you be so good as to grant me an interview? I think there is much to be discussed concerning out children. Perhaps Katharine would tell you where she was once lost and where Henry found her. These two young people have made that spot their meeting place; could we make it ours? I shall be there this afternoon at four o'clock. If you are not there this afternoon, I will be there tomorrow, because I hope so much that I shall see you. William Henry Jedborough.
She crumpled the letter. How like him. What insolence! She had determined that Katharine should not marry Henry Jed-borough; what good did Marcus think he could do by this meeting? Did he think he could be so persuasive? He was ever one to over-rate his powers.
She had not seen him since that day he had ridden in with Katharine.
She had said she hoped she would never see him again. This marriage was impossible. How could the two families unite! Esther and Marcus!
What memories! At all costs Katharine must not be allowed to marry Henry.
She shivered, thinking of last night's scene in the kitchen, with that insolent Margery almost blackmailing her, and Katharine going back to the guests and acting as though she were a being from another world, until one wanted to slap her. But Anthony Greymore seemed to have found that will-o'-the-wisp mood attractive. Oh, Katharine, you little fool with your romantic ideas of love and life! Here is position, wealth, security... and you would throw all that away for a station in a wild country where bushrangers might deal death to you and your family one dark night. You want love, you say; Sir Anthony loves you, and you, foolish child, ought to know that it is wiser to accept love than to give it. And your Henry, what of him? He is his father all over again. How long will his love stay warm for you, my dear?
Oh no, this folly must be stopped; because I love you, Katharine, better than I love anyone else in the world. It is not because I cannot bear to meet Marcus that I want to stop this marriage; it is not because I hate Henry's mother for taking Marcus from me; it is for your sake, my dear... for your sake only.
She tore the note into many pieces. I wonder what he is like now. He will be over forty, past his prime. I am thirty-six. What years and years ago since I first saw him, and he stole my handkerchief! Thief I Rogue! Philanderer!
She thought of him in his room at Newgate, she standing at his shoulder while he fed her with pieces of chicken. She remembered the proposal he had made then. She thought of Lucy's looking in at the door, and Clementine Smith on the boat, and she was as angry with these two as she had been when she had discovered his relationship to them.
In the glass Mrs. Masterman looked back at her, smooth-faced, well-preserved, a lady of dignity; behind the mask of Mrs. Masterman, Carolan Haredon peeped out. Carolan Haredon was still there in spite of Mrs. Masterman.