Mary returned with the quinine.
"Judson"s address?" Mr Basnett inquired, pulling out his notebook and preparing to write. For twenty minutes, perhaps, he wrote down names, addresses, and other suggestions that Ralph dictated to him. Then, when Ralph fell silent, Mr Basnett felt that his presence was not desired, and thanking Ralph for his help, with a sense that he was very young and ignorant compared with him, he said good-bye.
"Mary," said Ralph, directly Mr Basnett had shut the door and they were alone together. "Mary," he repeated. But the old difficulty of speaking to Mary without reserve prevented him from continuing. His desire to proclaim his love for Katharine was still strong in him, but he had felt, directly he saw Mary, that he could not share it with her. The feeling increased as he sat talking to Mr Basnett. And yet all the time he was thinking of Katharine, and marvelling at his love. The tone in which he spoke Mary"s name was harsh.
"What is it, Ralph?" she asked, startled by his tone. She looked at him anxiously, and her little frown showed that she was trying painfully to understand him, and was puzzled. He could feel her groping for his meaning, and he was annoyed with her, and thought how he had always found her slow, painstaking, and clumsy. He had behaved badly to her, too, which made his irritation the more acute. Without waiting for him to answer, she rose as if his answer were indifferent to her, and began to put in order some papers that Mr Basnett had left on the table. She hummed a sc.r.a.p of a tune under her breath, and moved about the room as if she were occupied in making things tidy, and had no other concern.
"You"ll stay and dine?" she said casually, returning to her seat.
"No," Ralph replied. She did not press him any further. They sat side by side without speaking, and Mary reached her hand for her work-basket, and took her sewing and threaded a needle.
"That"s a clever young man," Ralph observed, referring to Mr Basnett.
"I"m glad you thought so. It"s tremendously interesting work, and considering everything, I think we"ve done very well. But I"m inclined to agree with you; we ought to try to be more conciliatory. We"re absurdly strict. It"s difficult to see that there may be sense in what one"s opponents say, though they are one"s opponents. Horace Basnett is certainly too uncompromising. I mustn"t forget to see that he writes that letter to Judson. You"re too busy, I suppose, to come on to our committee?" She spoke in the most impersonal manner.
"I may be out of town," Ralph replied, with equal distance of manner.
"Our executive meets every week, of course," she observed. "But some of our members don"t come more than once a month. Members of Parliament are the worst; it was a mistake, I think, to ask them."
She went on sewing in silence.
"You"ve not taken your quinine," she said, looking up and seeing the tabloids upon the mantelpiece.
"I don"t want it," said Ralph shortly.
"Well, you know best," she replied tranquilly.
"Mary, I"m a brute!" he exclaimed. "Here I come and waste your time, and do nothing but make myself disagreeable."
"A cold coming on does make one feel wretched," she replied.
"I"ve not got a cold. That was a lie. There"s nothing the matter with me. I"m mad, I suppose. I ought to have had the decency to keep away. But I wanted to see you-I wanted to tell you-I"m in love, Mary." He spoke the word, but, as he spoke it, it seemed robbed of substance.
"In love, are you?" she said quietly. "I"m glad, Ralph."
"I suppose I"m in love. Anyhow, I"m out of my mind. I can"t think, I can"t work, I don"t care a hang for anything in the world. Good Heavens, Mary! I"m in torment! One moment I"m happy; next I"m miserable. I hate her for half an hour; then I"d give my whole life to be with her for ten minutes; all the time I don"t know what I feel, or why I feel it; it"s insanity, and yet it"s perfectly reasonable.1 Can you make any sense of it? Can you see what"s happened? I"m raving, I know; don"t listen, Mary; go on with your work." Can you make any sense of it? Can you see what"s happened? I"m raving, I know; don"t listen, Mary; go on with your work."
He rose and began, as usual, to pace up and down the room. He knew that what he had just said bore very little resemblance to what he felt, for Mary"s presence acted upon him like a very strong magnet, drawing from him certain expressions which were not those he made use of when he spoke to himself, nor did they represent his deepest feelings. He felt a little contempt for himself at having spoken thus; but somehow he had been forced into speech.
"Do sit down," said Mary suddenly. "You make me so-" She spoke with unusual irritability, and Ralph, noticing it with surprise, sat down at once.
"You haven"t told me her name-you"d rather not, I suppose?"
"Her name? Katharine Hilbery."
"But she"s engaged-"
"To Rodney. They"re to be married in September."
"I see," said Mary. But in truth the calm of his manner, now that he was sitting down once more, wrapt her in the presence of something which she felt to be so strong, so mysterious, so incalculable, that she scarcely dared to attempt to intercept it by any word or question that she was able to frame. She looked at Ralph blankly, with a kind of awe in her face, her lips slightly parted, and her brows raised. He was apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could look no longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes. The distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another came into her mind, tempting her to a.s.sail Ralph with questions, to force him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But she rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing violence to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a little far from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and remote, like a person she no longer knew well.
"Is there anything that I could do for you?" she asked gently, and even with courtesy, at length.
"You could see her-no, that"s not what I want; you mustn"t bother about me, Mary." He, too, spoke very gently.
"I"m afraid no third person can do anything to help," she added.
"No," he shook his head. "Katharine was saying to-day how lonely we are." She saw the effort with which he spoke Katharine"s name, and believed that he forced himself to make amends now for his concealment in the past. At any rate, she was conscious of no anger against him; but rather of a deep pity for one condemned to suffer as she had suffered. But in the case of Katharine it was different; she was indignant with Katharine.
"There"s always work," she said, a little aggressively.
Ralph moved directly.
"Do you want to be working now?" he asked.
"No, no. It"s Sunday," she replied. "I was thinking of Katharine. She doesn"t understand about work. She"s never had to. She doesn"t know what work is. I"ve only found out myself quite lately. But it"s the thing that saves one-I"m sure of that."
"There are other things, aren"t there?" he hesitated.
"Nothing that one can count upon," she returned. "After all, other people-" she stopped, but forced herself to go on. "Where should I be now if I hadn"t got to go to my office every day? Thousands of people would tell you the same thing-thousands of women. I tell you, work is the only thing that saved me, Ralph." He set his mouth, as if her words rained blows on him; he looked as if he had made up his mind to bear anything she might say, in silence. He had deserved it, and there would be relief in having to bear it. But she broke off, and rose as if to fetch something from the next room. Before she reached the door she turned back, and stood facing him, self-possessed, and yet defiant and formidable in her composure.
"It"s all turned out splendidly for me," she said. "It will for you, too. I"m sure of that. Because, after all, Katharine is worth it."
"Mary-!" he exclaimed. But her head was turned away, and he could not say what he wished to say. "Mary, you"re splendid," he concluded. She faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had conquered. With Ralph"s eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had conquered. She let him kiss her hand.
The streets were empty enough on Sunday night, and if the Sabbath, and the domestic amus.e.m.e.nts proper to the Sabbath, had not kept people indoors, a high strong wind might very probably have done so. Ralph Denham was aware of a tumult in the street much in accordance with his own sensations. The gusts, sweeping along the Strand, seemed at the same time to blow a clear s.p.a.ce across the sky in which stars appeared, and for a short time the quick-speeding silver moon riding through clouds, as if they were waves of water surging round her and over her. They swamped her, but she emerged; they broke over her and covered her again; she issued forth indomitable. In the country fields all the wreckage of winter was being dispersed; the dead leaves, the withered bracken, the dry and discoloured gra.s.s, but no bud would be broken, nor would the new stalks that showed above the earth take any harm, and perhaps tomorrow a line of blue or yellow would show through a slit in their green. But the whirl of the atmosphere alone was in Denham"s mood, and what of star or blossom appeared was only as a light gleaming for a second upon heaped waves fast following each other. He had not been able to speak to Mary, though for a moment he had come near enough to be tantalized by a wonderful possibility of understanding. But the desire to communicate something of the very greatest importance possessed him completely; he still wished to bestow this gift upon some other human being; he sought their company. More by instinct than by conscious choice, he took the direction which led to Rodney"s rooms. He knocked loudly upon his door; but no one answered. He rang the bell. It took him some time to accept the fact that Rodney was out. When he could no longer pretend that the sound of the wind in the old building was the sound of some one rising from his chair, he ran downstairs again, as if his goal had been altered and only just revealed to him. He walked in the direction of Chelsea.
But physical fatigue, for he had not dined and had tramped both far and fast, made him sit for a moment upon a seat on the Embankment. One of the regular occupants of those seats, an elderly man who had drunk himself, probably, out of work and lodging, drifted up, begged a match, and sat down beside him. It was a windy night, he said; times were hard; some long story of bad luck and injustice followed, told so often that the man seemed to be talking to himself, or, perhaps, the neglect of his audience had long made any attempt to catch their attention seem scarcely worth while. When he began to speak Ralph had a wild desire to talk to him; to question him; to make him understand. He did, in fact, interrupt him at one point; but it was useless. The ancient story of failure, ill-luck, undeserved disaster, went down the wind, disconnected syllables flying past Ralph"s ears with a queer alternation of loudness and faintness as if, at certain moments, the man"s memory of his wrongs revived and then flagged, dying down at last into a grumble of resignation, which seemed to represent a final lapse into the accustomed despair. The unhappy voice afflicted Ralph, but it also angered him. And when the elderly man refused to listen and mumbled on, an odd image came to his mind of a lighthouse besieged by the flying bodies of lost birds, who were dashed senseless, by the gale, against the gla.s.s.2 He had a strange sensation that he was both lighthouse and bird; he was steadfast and brilliant; and at the same time he was whirled, with all other things, senseless against the gla.s.s. He got up, left his tribute of silver, and pressed on, with the wind against him. The image of the lighthouse and the storm full of birds persisted, taking the place of more definite thoughts, as he walked past the Houses of Parliament and down Grosvenor Road, He had a strange sensation that he was both lighthouse and bird; he was steadfast and brilliant; and at the same time he was whirled, with all other things, senseless against the gla.s.s. He got up, left his tribute of silver, and pressed on, with the wind against him. The image of the lighthouse and the storm full of birds persisted, taking the place of more definite thoughts, as he walked past the Houses of Parliament and down Grosvenor Road,dj by the side of the river. In his state of physical fatigue, details merged themselves in the vaster prospect, of which the flying gloom and the intermittent lights of lamp-posts and private houses were the outward token, but he never lost his sense of walking in the direction of Katharine"s house. He took it for granted that something would then happen, and, as he walked on, his mind became more and more full of pleasure and expectancy. Within a certain radius of her house the streets came under the influence of her presence. Each house had an individuality known to Ralph, because of the tremendous individuality of the house in which she lived. For some yards before reaching the Hilberys" door he walked in a trance of pleasure, but when he reached it, and pushed the gate of the little garden open, he hesitated. He did not know what to do next. There was no hurry, however, for the outside of the house held pleasure enough to last him some time longer. He crossed the road, and leant against the bal.u.s.trade of the Embankment, fixing his eyes upon the house. by the side of the river. In his state of physical fatigue, details merged themselves in the vaster prospect, of which the flying gloom and the intermittent lights of lamp-posts and private houses were the outward token, but he never lost his sense of walking in the direction of Katharine"s house. He took it for granted that something would then happen, and, as he walked on, his mind became more and more full of pleasure and expectancy. Within a certain radius of her house the streets came under the influence of her presence. Each house had an individuality known to Ralph, because of the tremendous individuality of the house in which she lived. For some yards before reaching the Hilberys" door he walked in a trance of pleasure, but when he reached it, and pushed the gate of the little garden open, he hesitated. He did not know what to do next. There was no hurry, however, for the outside of the house held pleasure enough to last him some time longer. He crossed the road, and leant against the bal.u.s.trade of the Embankment, fixing his eyes upon the house.
Lights burnt in the three long windows of the drawing-room. The s.p.a.ce of the room behind became, in Ralph"s vision, the centre of the dark, flying wilderness of the world; the justification for the welter of confusion surrounding it; the steady light which cast its beams, like those of a lighthouse, with searching composure over the trackless waste. In this little sanctuary were gathered together several different people, but their ident.i.ty was dissolved in a general glory of something that might, perhaps, be called civilization; at any rate, all dryness, all safety, all that stood up above the surge and preserved a consciousness of its own, was centred in the drawing-room of the Hilberys. Its purpose was beneficent; and yet so far above his level as to have something austere about it, a light that cast itself out and yet kept itself aloof. Then he began, in his mind, to distinguish different individuals within, consciously refusing as yet to attack the figure of Katharine. His thoughts lingered over Mrs Hilbery and Ca.s.sandra; and then he turned to Rodney and Mr Hilbery. Physically, he saw them bathed in that steady flow of yellow light which filled the long oblongs of the windows; in their movements they were beautiful; and in their speech he figured a reserve of meaning, unspoken, but understood. At length, after all this half-conscious selection and arrangement, he allowed himself to approach the figure of Katharine herself; and instantly the scene was flooded with excitement. He did not see her in body; he seemed curiously to see her as a shape of light, the light itself; he seemed, simplified and exhausted as he was, to be like one of those lost birds fascinated by the lighthouse and held to the gla.s.s by the splendour of the blaze.
These thoughts drove him to tramp a beat up and down the pavement before the Hilberys" gate. He did not trouble himself to make any plans for the future. Something of an unknown kind would decide both the coming year and the coming hour. Now and again, in his vigil, he sought the light in the long windows, or glanced at the ray which gilded a few leaves and a few blades of gra.s.s in the little garden. For a long time the light burnt without changing. He had just reached the limit of his beat and was turning, when the front door opened, and the aspect of the house was entirely changed. A black figure came down the little pathway and paused at the gate. Denham understood instantly that it was Rodney. Without hesitation, and conscious only of a great friendliness for any one coming from that lighted room, he walked straight up to him and stopped him. In the flurry of the wind Rodney was taken aback, and for the moment tried to press on, muttering something, as if he suspected a demand upon his charity.
"Goodness, Denham, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed, recognizing him.
Ralph mumbled something about being on his way home. They walked on together, though Rodney walked quick enough to make it plain that he had no wish for company.
He was very unhappy. That afternoon Ca.s.sandra had repulsed him; he had tried to explain to her the difficulties of the situation, and to suggest the nature of his feelings for her without saying anything definite or anything offensive to her. But he had lost his head; under the goad of Katharine"s ridicule he had said too much, and Ca.s.sandra, superb in her dignity and severity, had refused to hear another word, and threatened an immediate return to her home. His agitation, after an evening spent between the two women, was extreme. Moreover, he could not help suspecting that Ralph was wandering near the Hilberys" house, at this hour, for reasons connected with Katharine. There was probably some understanding between them-not that anything of the kind mattered to him now. He was convinced that he had never cared for anyone save Ca.s.sandra, and Katharine"s future was no concern of his. Aloud, he said, shortly, that he was very tired and wished to find a cab. But on Sunday night, on the Embankment, cabs were hard to come by, and Rodney found himself constrained to walk some distance, at any rate, in Denham"s company. Denham maintained his silence. Rodney"s irritation lapsed. He found the silence oddly suggestive of the good masculine qualities which he much respected, and had at this moment great reason to need. After the mystery, difficulty, and uncertainty of dealing with the other s.e.x, intercourse with one"s own is apt to have a composing and even enn.o.bling influence, since plain speaking is possible and subterfuges of no avail. Rodney, too, was much in need of a confidant; Katharine, despite her promises to help, had failed him at the crucial moment; she had gone off with Denham; she was, perhaps, tormenting Denham as she had tormented him. How grave and stable he seemed, speaking little, and walking firmly, compared with what Rodney knew of his own torments and indecisions! He began to cast about for some way of telling the story of his relations with Katharine and Ca.s.sandra that would not lower him in Denham"s eyes. It then occurred to him that, perhaps, Katharine herself had confided in Denham; they had something in common; it was likely that they had discussed him that very afternoon. The desire to discover what they had said of him now came uppermost in his mind. He recalled Katharine"s laugh; he remembered that she had gone, laughing, to walk with Denham.
"Did you stay long after we"d left?" he asked abruptly.
"No. We went back to my house."
This seemed to confirm Rodney"s belief that he had been discussed. He turned over the unpalatable idea for a while, in silence.
"Women are incomprehensible creatures, Denham!" he then exclaimed.
"Um," said Denham, who seemed to himself possessed of complete understanding, not merely of women, but of the entire universe. He could read Rodney, too, like a book. He knew that he was unhappy, and he pitied him, and wished to help him.
"You say something and they-fly into a pa.s.sion. Or for no reason at all, they laugh. I take it that no amount of education will-" The remainder of the sentence was lost in the high wind, against which they had to struggle; but Denham understood that he referred to Katharine"s laughter, and that the memory of it was still hurting him. In comparison with Rodney, Denham felt himself very secure; he saw Rodney as one of the lost birds dashed senseless against the gla.s.s; one of the flying bodies of which the air was full. But he and Katharine were alone together, aloft, splendid, and luminous with a twofold radiance. He pitied the unstable creature beside him; he felt a desire to protect him, exposed without the knowledge which made his own way so direct. They were united as the adventurous are united, though one reaches the goal and the other perishes by the way.
"You couldn"t laugh at some one you cared for."
This sentence, apparently addressed to no other human being, reached Denham"s ears. The wind seemed to m.u.f.fle it and fly away with it directly. Had Rodney spoken those words?
"You love her." Was that his own voice, which seemed to sound in the air several yards in front of him?
"I"ve suffered tortures, Denham, tortures!"
"Yes, yes, I know that."
"She"s laughed at me."
"Never-to me."
The wind blew a s.p.a.ce between the words-blew them so far away that they seemed unspoken.
"How I"ve loved her!"
This was certainly spoken by the man at Denham"s side. The voice had all the marks of Rodney"s character, and recalled, with strange vividness, his personal appearance. Denham could see him against the blank buildings and towers of the horizon. He saw him dignified, exalted, and tragic, as he might have appeared thinking of Katharine alone in his rooms at night.
"I am in love with Katharine myself. That is why I am here tonight."
Ralph spoke distinctly and deliberately, as if Rodney"s confession had made this statement necessary.
Rodney exclaimed something inarticulate.
"Ah, I"ve always known it," he cried, "I"ve known it from the first. You"ll marry her!"
The cry had a note of despair in it. Again the wind intercepted their words. They said no more. At length they drew up beneath a lamp-post, simultaneously.
"My G.o.d, Denham, what fools we both are!"3 Rodney exclaimed. They looked at each other, queerly, in the light of the lamp. Fools! They seemed to confess to each other the extreme depths of their folly. For the moment, under the lamp-post, they seemed to be aware of some common knowledge which did away with the possibility of rivalry, and made them feel more sympathy for each other than for any one else in the world. Giving simultaneously a little nod, as if in confirmation of this understanding, they parted without speaking again. Rodney exclaimed. They looked at each other, queerly, in the light of the lamp. Fools! They seemed to confess to each other the extreme depths of their folly. For the moment, under the lamp-post, they seemed to be aware of some common knowledge which did away with the possibility of rivalry, and made them feel more sympathy for each other than for any one else in the world. Giving simultaneously a little nod, as if in confirmation of this understanding, they parted without speaking again.
CHAPTER XXIX.
BETWEEN TWELVE AND ONE that Sunday night Katharine lay in bed, not asleep, but in that twilight region where a detached and humorous view of our own lot is possible; or if we must be serious, our seriousness is tempered by the swift oncome of slumber and oblivion. She saw the forms of Ralph, William, Ca.s.sandra, and herself, as if they were all equally unsubstantial, and, in putting off reality, had gained a kind of dignity which rested upon each impartially. Thus rid of any uncomfortable warmth of partisanship or load of obligation, she was dropping off to sleep when a light tap sounded upon her door. A moment later Ca.s.sandra stood beside her, holding a candle and speaking in the low tones proper to the time of night.
"Are you awake, Katharine?"
"Yes, I"m awake. What is it?"
She roused herself, sat up, and asked what in Heaven"s name Ca.s.sandra was doing?
"I couldn"t sleep, and I thought I"d come and speak to you-only for a moment, though. I"m going home to-morrow"
"Home? Why, what has happened?"
"Something happened to-day which makes it impossible for me to stay here."
Ca.s.sandra spoke formally, almost solemnly; the announcement was clearly prepared and marked a crisis of the utmost gravity. She continued what seemed to be part of a set speech.
"I have decided to tell you the whole truth, Katharine. William allowed himself to behave in a way which made me extremely uncomfortable to-day."
Katharine seemed to waken completely, and at once to be in control of herself.
"At the Zoo?" she asked.
"No, on the way home. When we had tea."
As if foreseeing that the interview might be long, and the night chilly, Katharine advised Ca.s.sandra to wrap herself in a quilt. Ca.s.sandra did so with unbroken solemnity.
"There"s a train at eleven," she said. "I shall tell Aunt Maggie that I have to go suddenly ... I shall make Violet"s visit an excuse. But, after thinking it over, I don"t see how I can go without telling you the truth."
She was careful to abstain from looking in Katharine"s direction. There was a slight pause.
"But I don"t see the least reason why you should go," said Katharine eventually. Her voice sounded so astonishingly equable that Ca.s.sandra glanced at her. It was impossible to suppose that she was either indignant or surprised; she seemed, on the contrary, sitting up in bed, with her arms clasped round her knees and a little frown on her brow, to be thinking closely upon a matter of indifference to her.
"Because I can"t allow any man to behave to me in that way," Ca.s.sandra replied, and she added, "particularly when I know that he is engaged to some one else."
"But you like him, don"t you?" Katharine inquired.
"That"s got nothing to do with it," Ca.s.sandra exclaimed indignantly. "I consider his conduct, under the circ.u.mstances, most disgraceful."
This was the last of the sentences of her premeditated speech; and having spoken it she was left unprovided with any more to say in that particular style. When Katharine remarked: "I should say it had everything to do with it," Ca.s.sandra"s self-possession deserted her.
"I don"t understand you in the least, Katharine. How can you behave as you behave? Ever since I came here I"ve been amazed by you!"
"You"ve enjoyed yourself, haven"t you?" Katharine asked.
"Yes, I have," Ca.s.sandra admitted.
"Anyhow, my behaviour hasn"t spoilt your visit."
"No," Ca.s.sandra allowed once more. She was completely at a loss. In her forecast of the interview she had taken it for granted that Katharine, after an outburst of incredulity, would agree that Ca.s.sandra must return home as soon as possible. But Katharine, on the contrary, accepted her statement at once, seemed neither shocked nor surprised, and merely looked rather more thoughtful than usual. From being a mature woman charged with an important mission, Ca.s.sandra shrunk to the stature of an inexperienced child.
"Do you think I"ve been very foolish about it?" she asked.
Katharine made no answer, but still sat deliberating silently, and a certain feeling of alarm took possession of Ca.s.sandra. Perhaps her words had struck far deeper than she had thought, into depths beyond her reach, as so much of Katharine was beyond her reach. She thought suddenly that she had been playing with very dangerous tools.
Looking at her at length, Katharine asked slowly, as if she found the question very difficult to ask: "But do you care for William?"
She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl"s expression, and how she looked away from her.