Cathie

“ Between Cathie and her there was a sort of coldness, though I always thought the fault lay more on Cathie's side than on Fulvia's this time. The fact was, Cathie blamed her for the way she had treated Alex, and blamed her, too, for being the cause of his going away, for Alex had been Cathie's idol, and she could not bear the idea of losing him, and fretted dreadfully.
"It is all her fault that he is going into the world without a friend, Norah," she would say. "I used to care for Fulvia, but I shall never care for her again if Alex leaves us." ”

“ Rose, pushing herself away with one hand, stood staring. She was struck dumb by this sudden breaking down of Catherine's long resistance. And what a strange white Catherine! What did it mean? Catherine withdrew her arms with a little sigh and moved away.
'I just came to tell you that, Röschen,' she said, 'but I am very tired and must not stay.'
Catherine 'very tired'! Rose thought the skies must be falling.
'Cathie!' she cried, leaping forward just as her sister gained the door. 'Oh, Cathie, you are an angel, and I am a nasty, odious little wretch. ”

“ Fancy being able to like looking at photographs! If so mean a form of entertainment pleased her, she felt she would be happier than the length of summer days.
Another thing, too, she envied. Aunt Cathie was so much gentler, so much less abrupt and brusque than she used to be. The passage of the years, like the hours of summer suns, seemed to have mellowed her. And Lucia was conscious that no such mellowing was taking place in herself; she knew herself to be harder than she used to be, less indulgent of people who were tiresome, less easily pleased. ”

“ But though Aunt Cathie was easily scared off the slightest advance towards confidence, for the very reason that she so nervously yearned to show herself to Lucia, the girl found not the slightest difficulty in giving her aunt certain of the conclusions of her morning walk.
"I had a good long think this morning, Aunt Cathie," she said, "and I should like to tell you about it. I found out that I was an idle, lazy little brute, and that I had been wasting my time most abominably during this last year. Now I'm going to behave differently. I suppose you don't talk French, do you?" ”

“ With morning storm and stress really began for Cathie. She acquainted Jane with her destiny at breakfast, and told her that while they were at Brayton she would be Jane no longer, but Arbuthnot, and that she must be very careful, in case she saw Miss Lucia, to say "My lady" instead. It was settled also that Cathie should begin calling Jane by her surname at once, so that it might not seem strange to either of them when the thing had to be done in earnest. Otherwise Cathie was sure that she would stammer, or that Jane would not recognize that she was being spoken to. ”

“ I received a good letter from your witch sister, my darling little Katie, this morning. She writes with much cheerfulness. Says she has commenced another quarter at her school (in New York) . She says also she is ‘crazy’ to see me! You know just about what is intended to be understood when she thus addresses me (her friend and adviser) ; but Cathie is fast learning to be a woman, and my prayer is that she may escape the bitter trials through which you and your mother have been called to pass. She adds: ‘We had a telegraphic despatch from Maggie, saying she would be here last week Saturday ”

“ Weston directed Catherine to run over to the co-operative stores and purchase two small tins of lobster and one large tin of pineapple chunks....
About ten minutes to midnight, when all the mourners had departed, and Catherine was pulling down the blinds in the back bedroom, her father came up and sat down on the end of the bed Unlacing his boots.
“You know, Cathie,” he began, nervously, as if there were something he wished to get off his mind, “this business is so ... so ... so sudden.... That’s what’s the matter with it. It don’t give a chap time to gather his wits.... ”

“ Weston had made it a rule that the hall should be illuminated when visitors came Catherine knocked at the door.... This [Pg 33] was really lucky. With good fortune the lateness of the hour might not be noticed: at any rate the fracas would be postponed. Also there would be a good supper awaiting her.... Cold beetroot; perhaps even stewed prunes and custard....
A strange woman came to the door. Catherine did not know her name, but she recognized her as someone who lived “up the road,” and who used to push in front of her when she was a little girl at the co-operative stores.
“Is it Cathie?” ”

“ It is true that there is always a faint foreign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is talking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a charm than a mar, I think. In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is neither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say. But I can say this for her: in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and good-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors. ”

“ I thought how I would introduce Cathy to him, and how much he would admire her, and how perhaps we could go and stay somewhere near Marshlands in the holidays, so that he could see all the Winstanleys together. I imagined him coming to our Mid-summer breaking-up party, and how proud [199] and happy I should be to have him there. It was an annual occasion to which the parents and friends of the girls were invited, and I had often felt, with a little pang, when I saw the warm greetings between others, that it seemed hard to have no one there to love me specially above everyone else. ”

“ Well, you know, she’s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she is so busy, and into everything, like that bird. It’s all just as innocent, you know, and she don’t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it ain’t her fault, it’s her nature; her interest is always a-working and always red-hot, and she can’t keep quiet. Well, yesterday it was ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t do that’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t make so much noise’; and so on and so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen minutes ”

“ Stay securely in your nest;
Caty now, will do her best,
All she can, to make you blest;
But, you want no human aid—
Nature, when she form'd you, said,
"Independent you are made,
My dear little Caty-did:
Soon yourself must disappear
With the verdure of the year,"—
And to go, we know not where,
With your song of Caty-did. ”

“ When Catty got upon this theme she could not be brought to quit it,—nor, indeed, did Mary try,—for though she had heard these stories of her father's boyish days over and over again, she never wearied of them; they had all the fascination of romance for her, with the stronger interest that grew out of her love for one who, she was told, had so loved herself. Besides this, she felt in her own heart the same promptings to a life of action and adventure. ”

“ Life pre-supposes movement, animation, sensation, coloring, plenty of work, but above all, movement; not sitting in a close room, putting in patches and listening to chapters of Physical Geography. Every one knows you are a saint, Miss Faith," continued Cathy, enthusiastically. "I know Garth thinks so. But, all the same, life means a little more than patches and dissertations on the Gulf Stream."
"You young things are so impetuous," returned poor Miss Faith with a tremulous smile; "perhaps at your age one may have felt the same. There is a sort of fever in young blood, I think. ”

“ As she watched the lovely golden white robes float away in the distance, Cathy raised her arms in prayer.
“O! my Divine Heavenly Father and His Holy Angels, Will Thou resurrect me to immortality? Will Thou protect me and those I love, and keep my soul pure? May I prove there is no death to others and serve Thee, My God, faithfully through all eternity? Amen.”
That lonely, dark, stormy night Cathy cried and sobbed for her lovely Ruth. O! how terrible to be all alone at the hour of death! ”

“ To Katy she was very gracious, admiring her house, admiring herself, admiring everything, until Katy wondered how she could ever have dreaded to meet her, laughing and chatting as familiarly as if the fashionable woman were not criticising every movement, and every act, and every feature of her face, wondering most at the flour upon her hair! ”

“ At your time of life, with all your children growing up about you, to——
"What am I talking of?
"I know very well; and so would you, if you had any conscience, which you haven't. When I say I shall discharge Kitty, you say she's a very good servant, and I sha'n't get a better. But I know why you think her good; you think her pretty, and that's enough for you; as if girls who work for their bread have any business to be pretty,— which she isn't. Pretty servants, indeed! going mincing about with their fal-lal faces, as if even the flies would spoil 'em. ”

“ And Katy, darling, I want to tell you how pleased I am to see how bravely you have worked your way up. I can perceive it in everything—in Papa, in the children, in yourself. You have won the place, which, you recollect, I once told you an invalid should try to gain, of being to everybody 'The Heart of the House.'"
"Oh, Cousin Helen, don't!" said Katy, her eyes filling with sudden tears. "I haven't been brave. You can't think how badly I sometimes have behaved—how cross and ungrateful I am, and how stupid and slow. Every day I see things which ought to be done, and I don't do them. ”

“ But to return to Cathy. Whenever possible I sat next her in school, I was her partner when we walked out "in crocodile", and she kindly initiated me into the mysteries of cricket, Badminton, archery, and croquet, in all of which I had hitherto been profoundly ignorant. She was a most stimulating companion. A little older than myself, and brought up among a family of brothers, she had all the frank open ways of a boy, with the pretty attractive manners which often mark a much-thought-of only daughter. ”

“ To be the belle of every place, to know that her dress, her style, and even the fashion of her hair was copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because she knew it pleased her husband, who was never happier or prouder than when, with Katy on his arm, he entered some crowded parlor and heard the buzz of admiration as it circled round, while Katy smiled and blushed like a little child, wondering at the attentions lavished upon her, and attributing them mostly to her husband, whose position she understood, marveling more and more that he should have chosen her to be his wife. ”

“ Besides, he knew her only as a thing apart from all other human relations, as an isolated personality whose one point of contact was with himself. The society of a woman who parted her hair straight down the middle of her head and who quoted Job at breakfast was not a perfect preparation for modern domestic life.
As for Catie, or Catia, as she now called herself, she was modern enough, distressingly so sometimes. Nevertheless, analyzed, she would not have seemed to Scott at all domestic. She was too much wrapped up in her own personal concerns, too uncomprehending in a spiritual crisis. ”

“ But the Spouse who had excited in her soul this enthusiasm, so as to influence her more and more, visited her incessantly. Catherine all vehement with sacred desires said to him: "Oh ! why, my beloved Master does this miserable body deprive me of thy heavenly embrace ? Alas I in this melancholy life naught can afford me pleasure. I seek but thee; for if I indeed love any thing, it is simply on thy account. I implore thee, let this miserable body no longer prove an obstacle to my happiness. Oh ! the best of Masters draw my soul from this prison and deliver me from this body of death." ”

“ Katy.
[This is another song by Burns, to the tune of "The Ruffian's Rant," furnished by him in 1794 for Thomson's collection.]
⁠Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
⁠Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
⁠Well though know'st my aching heart,
⁠And canst thou leave me thus for pity?
Is this thy plighted fond regard,
⁠Thus cruelly to part, my Katy?
Is this thy faithful swain's reward—
⁠An aching, broken heart, my Katy?
Farewell! and ne'er such sorrows tear
⁠That fickle heart of thine, my Katy?
Thou may'st find those will love thee dear—
⁠But not a love like mine, my Katy. ”

“ So we, Kathleen, have to leave so much to our Heavenly Father's foreseeing love, and the many every-day wants of His children are mercifully and lovingly supplied. But our spiritual needs must be taken to God and by ourselves. I can plead for you, Kitty, aye and with you, but unless you acknowledge your fault and ask forgiveness, your weakness and ask for strength, your ignorance and long for guidance, your helplessness and pray that God will enable you to take the armour of His providing, you must be beaten in the fight. ”

“ Now I call this returning good for evil, Madame Catherine, when you've just been slanging me so hard!"
"Poor old Babe!" said Cathy soothingly. "You see, when people earn a bad name, it is apt to stick. But to console you, we'll let you choose where we shall go this afternoon; only make up your mind quickly, for we are all ready and waiting."
"All right!" said George promptly. "Up the common, and round by the oak-wood; there's a stream there where we can get water for the kettle, and I know a place to camp in that's just A1." ”