CHAPTER XXXII

Two or three days before, I had sent off a small picture to Katherine as a Christmas-box. It had taken me a long time to choose something I thought she might care for, and which at the same time pleased myself. In the end I had got her a photograph of Francia’s portrait of the boy Federigo Gonzaga, the son of Isabella d’Este――the Miserden Park picture. I had had it framed in a flat, dull, dark frame, and very carefully packed; and over and over again I had pictured her opening the parcel, her surprise. It was two days after Christmas when the postman brought me a letter from her, but instead of reading it, I put it in my pocket. It was a fairly thick packet, so, though her writing was very large, I knew it must be a long letter. I could feel it as it lay in the inner pocket of my jacket, and a dozen times that day I drew it out and inspected it, but no more than that, for I had determined not to read it till I went to bed. All day long I thought of the pleasure I should have, and in the end I became so impatient that I went to bed about nine o’clock.

I put the letter on my pillow, and placed a lighted candle on the painted, deal chest-of-drawers beside my bed. I undressed, got into bed, and only then, with eager fingers, tore open the envelope and drew out its contents.

I looked at them as they lay upon the bright, patch-work counterpane, a single sheet of note-paper, and a New Year card in the form of a pocket calendar. My disappointment was so great that for a little I did not even read the letter, but lay on my back and stared dismally at the iron rail at the foot of my bed. My thoughts were bitter. I recalled the many letters I had written to her, undiscouraged by her brief replies. Some of these had been pages long; the one I had sent with my present, for instance, I had given a whole evening to. I glanced at what she had written――three sides of a sheet of note-paper hastily scrawled over in huge characters, about two words to a line. She thanked me for my picture, which was very pretty. She would have liked to write me a really long letter, but there were some people staying in the house, and she had to look after them, and had only been able to snatch a moment to wish me a happy New Year. That was all.

I blew out the candle and lay with my eyes wide open staring into the darkness. The few, conventional phrases of her letter were vivid in my mind. To begin with, the picture was not pretty; if it had been, I shouldn’t have bought it. If she had wanted me to have a happy New Year it would have been very easy for her to make it so. But it had been too much trouble. I thought of how I had sat up far into the night to finish my Christmas letter to her. I heard my father’s step on the stairs, the shutting of his bedroom door. I pulled the bed-clothes up to my chin, and as I did so my hand touched something――the pocket-calendar. I tore it in two and flung the pieces at the opposite wall.

My mind was divided between despondency and anger. I pictured her enjoying herself with a houseful of her own and Gerald’s friends, while I was forgotten. Of course there was no particular reason why she should remember me. Still, the irony of those foolish New Year’s wishes might almost have been intentional had the whole letter not been so thoughtless. She knew well enough how happy I must be now, stuck in this wretched hole by myself; and I asked myself how anybody could be so completely devoid of imagination, of sympathy, even of tact? I began to compose a letter to be written to-morrow, a letter expressing what I felt. I imagined her reading it in the midst of her friends, and realizing how she had wounded me. I tossed and turned till I was almost in a fever. Sleep was out of the question, for I knew it must be nearly morning already, and I had half a mind to get up and dress....

When I opened my eyes it was broad daylight. I sprang out of bed and hurried into my clothes. The first thing after breakfast I sat down to write my letter of reproach, and wrote it at furious speed, a fire burning in my soul. Yet when I came to read it over, it seemed childish and stilted, and in my haste I had left out so many words and mis-spelt so many others that I was obliged to make a fair copy of the whole. This I posted, but had two days more of impatience before a reply reached me. When it came, it had the effect of turning away my anger. Katherine seemed really sorry; at any rate she said she was. She told me that she cared far more for me than for any of the people I imagined she found so delightful, and that I might have known this by now, even if her letters _had_ been short. She said it had been horrid of her to write such a miserable scrawl, but that, if she had guessed I should mind it so much, she would have written me a whole book.

I sat down to reply at once, but I cannot account for the unfortunate tone my letter took. It was morbid and self-conscious, without being in the least frank. I begged her forgiveness; I made a parade of a melancholy that bore no resemblance to the kind of melancholy I really felt; I talked vaguely about not being as good as she believed me to be, and the whole production was a little sickening. I don’t know, or rather I do know, what she made of it. She replied that she had never for a moment thought me good, and that she should prefer not to hear from me at all to getting letters like the last I had written.

It was not, perhaps, extremely sympathetic, but I knew well enough myself I had done the wrong thing. My letter had been odiously self-conscious. I had accused myself of not being good, but what on earth did that mean? It might mean that I went into the pantry at night and stole the jam!