The Night Travellers

3. Kathy

Kathy It was the faithful servant in the white jacket, he who had been with the family for years, from the time Fred Davis was a boy, who had returned to serve the meal that night. He had done it as a special favor, not usually being needed in the evening. Kate sat at one end of the dark table with the high-backed chairs, made much lighter in appearance than was usual by the use of white embroidered linen place mats and matching napkins, and the addition of a large white Chinese bowl of larkspur in palest colors of green, pink, and white. All of them could see over it except Kathy, who had been placed on an enormous Webster's dictionary, but who still was a trifle low. Yet Kate, from the end of the table, could see her plainly, as could Fred from the head. Her plate was served with lamb which the servant Phillip had cut up for her in bite-sized pieces, and asparagus, too, and duchess potatoes nicely browned. She had not touched her soup, and the bowls had been taken away. She did not touch her plate, either. "She isn't eating/' said Kate to Jane. "Do you want something else, darling?" "No, thank you," said Kathy in a tiny voice. Fred noticed that those great gray leaf-shaped eyes which had startled him earlier were fixed on the lovely woman he had married, whose happy look had just for a while returned. They had been fixed there for some time. Kate moved uncomfortably under their gaze. Don't stare, he thought of saying. Three times he had tried to distract the child, but regularly her steady gaze had returned to Kate. How precarious everything was, and how crucial. It came to him like a dark shadow, birdlike, flying across a window, that maybe all his 3 355 T H E N I G H T T R A V E L L E R S efforts were for nothing. He summoned the weight of all he knew, had done, and was. He even thought, / love her. He meant Kate, but had seldom allowed his thoughts to say it. Now he freely, silently, let it come. They were bound to move ahead. "So what do you want, sweetheart?" he asked Kathy, the tone demanding the gray leaf gaze to turn toward him. He watched as it slowly did so. The captive princess, he thought. "I want to go home," said Kathy. She turned back once more to fix on Kate. 356 ...