"As far as I understand you-but what should you advise me to do with this ring?" she asked, holding it out.
"I should advise you to let me keep it for you," he replied, in the same tone of half-humorous gravity.
"After what you"ve said, I can hardly trust you-unless you"ll unsay what you"ve said?"
"Very well. I"m not in love with you."
"But I think you are are in love with me ... As I am with you," she added casually enough. "At least," she said, slipping her ring back to its old position, "what other word describes the state we"re in?" in love with me ... As I am with you," she added casually enough. "At least," she said, slipping her ring back to its old position, "what other word describes the state we"re in?"
She looked at him gravely and inquiringly, as if in search of help.
"It"s when I"m with you that I doubt it, not when I"m alone," he stated.
"So I thought," she replied.
In order to explain to her his state of mind, Ralph recounted his experience with the photograph, the letter, and the flower picked at Kew. She listened very seriously.
"And then you went raving about the streets," she mused. "Well, it"s bad enough. But my state is worse than yours, because it hasn"t anything to do with facts. It"s an hallucination, pure and simple-an intoxication ... One can be in love with pure reason?" she hazarded. "Because if you"re in love with a vision, I believe that that"s what I"m in love with."
This conclusion seemed fantastic and profoundly unsatisfactory to Ralph, but after the astonishing variations of his own sentiments during the past half-hour he could not accuse her of fanciful exaggeration.
"Rodney seems to know his own mind well enough," he said almost bitterly. The music, which had ceased, had now begun again, and the melody of Mozart seemed to express the easy and exquisite love of the two upstairs.
"Ca.s.sandra never doubted for a moment. But we-" she glanced at him as if to ascertain his position, "we see each other only now and then-"
"Like lights in a storm-"
"In the midst of a hurricane," she concluded, as the window shook beneath the pressure of the wind. They listened to the sound in silence.
Here the door opened with considerable hesitation, and Mrs Hilbery"s head appeared, at first with an air of caution, but having made sure that she had admitted herself to the dining-room and not to some more unusual region, she came completely inside and seemed in no way taken aback by the sight she saw. She seemed, as usual, bound on some quest of her own which was interrupted pleasantly but strangely by running into one of those queer, unnecessary ceremonies that other people thought fit to indulge in.
"Please don"t let me interrupt you, Mr-" she was at a loss, as usual, for the name, and Katharine thought that she did not recognize him. "I hope you"ve found something nice to read," she added, pointing to the book upon the table. "Byron-ah, Byron. I"ve known people who knew Lord Byron," she said.
Katharine, who had risen in some confusion, could not help smiling at the thought that her mother found it perfectly natural and desirable that her daughter should be reading Byron in the dining-room late at night alone with a strange young man. She blessed a disposition that was so convenient, and felt tenderly towards her mother and her mother"s eccentricities. But Ralph observed that although Mrs Hilbery held the book so close to her eyes she was not reading a word.
"My dear mother, why aren"t you in bed?" Katharine exclaimed, changing astonishingly in the s.p.a.ce of a minute to her usual condition of authoritative good sense. "Why are you wandering about?"
"I"m sure I should like your poetry better than I like Lord Byron"s," said Mrs Hilbery, addressing Ralph Denham.
"Mr Denham doesn"t write poetry; he has written articles for father, for the Review," Katharine said, as if prompting her memory.
"Oh dear! How dull!" Mrs Hilbery exclaimed, with a sudden laugh that rather puzzled her daughter.
Ralph found that she had turned upon him a gaze that was at once very vague and very penetrating.
"But I"m sure you read poetry at night. I always judge by the expression of the eyes," Mrs Hilbery continued. ("The windows of the soul," she added parenthetically.) "I don"t know much about the law," she went on, "though many of my relations were lawyers. Some of them looked very handsome, too, in their wigs. But I think I do know a little about poetry," she added. "And all the things that aren"t written down, but-but-" She waved her hand, as if to indicate the wealth of unwritten poetry all about them. "The night and the stars, the dawn coming up, the barges swimming past, the sun setting... Ah dear," she sighed, "well, the sunset is very lovely too. I sometimes think that poetry isn"t so much what we write as what we feel, Mr Denham."
During this speech of her mother"s Katharine had turned away, and Ralph felt that Mrs Hilbery was talking to him apart, with a desire to ascertain something about him which she veiled purposely by the vagueness of her words. He felt curiously encouraged and heartened by the beam in her eye rather than by her actual words. From the distance of her age and s.e.x she seemed to be waving to him, hailing him as a ship sinking beneath the horizon might wave its flag of greeting to another setting out upon the same voyage. He bent his head, saying nothing, but with a curious certainty that she had read an answer to her inquiry that satisfied her. At any rate, she rambled off into a description of the Law Courts which turned to a denunciation of English justice, which, according to her, imprisoned poor men who couldn"t pay their debts. "Tell me, shall we ever do without it all?" she asked, but at this point Katharine gently insisted that her mother should go to bed. Looking back from halfway up the staircase, Katharine seemed to see Denham"s eyes watching her steadily and intently with an expression that she had guessed in them when he stood looking at the windows across the road.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
THE TRAY WHICH BROUGHT Katharine"s cup of tea the next morning brought, also, a note from her mother, announcing that it was her intention to catch an early train to Stratford-on-Avon that very day.
"Please find out the best way of getting there," the note ran, "and wire to dear Sir John Burdett to expect me, with my love. I"ve been dreaming all night of you and Shakespeare, dearest Katharine."
This was no momentary impulse. Mrs Hilbery had been dreaming of Shakespeare any time these six months, toying with the idea of an excursion to what she considered the heart of the civilized world. To stand six feet above Shakespeare"s bones, to see the very stones worn by his feet, to reflect that the oldest man"s oldest mother had very likely seen Shakespeare"s daughter-such thoughts roused an emotion in her, which she expressed at unsuitable moments, and with a pa.s.sion that would not have been unseemly in a pilgrim to a sacred shrine. The only strange thing was that she wished to go by herself. But, naturally enough, she was well provided with friends who lived in the neighbourhood of Shakespeare"s tomb, and were delighted to welcome her; and she left later to catch her train in the best of spirits. There was a man selling violets in the street. It was a fine day. She would remember to send Mr Hilbery the first daffodil she saw. And, as she ran back into the hall to tell Katharine, she felt, she had always felt, that Shakespeare"s command to leave his bones undisturbed applied only to odious curiosity-mongers1-not to dear Sir John and herself. Leaving her daughter to cogitate the theory of Anne Hathaway"s sonnets, and the buried ma.n.u.scripts here referred to, with the implied menace to the safety of the heart of civilization itself, she briskly shut the door of her taxi-cab, and was whirled off upon the first stage of her pilgrimage.
The house was oddly different without her. Katharine found the maids already in possession of her room, which they meant to clean thoroughly during her absence. To Katharine it seemed as if they had brushed away sixty years or so with the first flick of their damp dusters. It seemed to her that the work she had tried to do in that room was being swept into a very insignificant heap of dust. The china shepherdesses were already shining from a bath of hot water. The writing-table might have belonged to a professional man of methodical habits.
Gathering together a few papers upon which she was at work, Katharine proceeded to her own room with the intention of looking through them, perhaps, in the course of the morning. But she was met on the stairs by Ca.s.sandra, who followed her up, but with such intervals between each step that Katharine began to feel her purpose dwindling before they had reached the door. Ca.s.sandra leant over the banisters, and looked down upon the Persian rug that lay on the floor of the hall.
"Doesn"t everything look odd this morning?" she inquired. "Are you really going to spend the morning with those dull old letters, because if so-"
The dull old letters, which would have turned the heads of the most sober of collectors, were laid upon a table, and, after a moment"s pause, Ca.s.sandra, looking grave all of a sudden, asked Katharine where she should find the "History of England" by Lord Macaulay.dk It was downstairs in Mr Hilbery"s study. The cousins descended together in search of it. They diverged into the drawing-room for the good reason that the door was open. The portrait of Richard Alardyce attracted their attention. It was downstairs in Mr Hilbery"s study. The cousins descended together in search of it. They diverged into the drawing-room for the good reason that the door was open. The portrait of Richard Alardyce attracted their attention.
"I wonder what he was like?" It was a question that Katharine had often asked herself lately.
"Oh, a fraud like the rest of them-at least Henry says so," Ca.s.sandra replied. "Though I don"t believe everything Henry says," she added a little defensively.
Down they went into Mr Hilbery"s study, where they began to look among his books. So desultory was this examination that some fifteen minutes failed to discover the work they were in search of.
"Must you read Macaulay"s History, Ca.s.sandra?" Katharine asked, with a stretch of her arms.
"I must," Ca.s.sandra replied briefly.
"Well, I"m going to leave you to look for it by yourself."
"Oh no, Katharine. Please stay and help me. You see-you see-I told William I"d read a little every day. And I want to tell him that I"ve begun when he comes."
"When does William come?" Katharine asked, turning to the shelves again.
"To tea, if that suits you?"
"If it suits me to be out, I suppose you mean."
"Oh, you"re horrid ... Why shouldn"t you-?"
"Yes?"
"Why shouldn"t you be happy too?"
"I am quite happy," Katharine replied.
"I mean as I am. Katharine," she said impulsively, "do let"s be married on the same day."
"To the same man?"
"Oh no. But why shouldn"t you marry-some one else?"
"Here"s your Macaulay," said Katharine, turning round with the book in her hand. "I should say you"d better begin to read at once if you mean to be educated by tea-time."
"d.a.m.n Lord Macaulay!" cried Ca.s.sandra, slapping the book upon the table. "Would you rather not talk?"
"We"ve talked enough already," Katharine replied evasively.
"I know I shan"t be able to settle to Macaulay," said Ca.s.sandra, looking ruefully at the dull red cover of the prescribed volume, which, however, possessed a talismanic property, since William admired it. He had advised a little serious reading for the morning hours.
"Have you you read Macaulay?" she asked. read Macaulay?" she asked.
"No. William never tried to educate me." As she spoke she saw the light fade from Ca.s.sandra"s face, as if she had implied some other, more mysterious, relationship. She was stung with compunction. She marvelled at her own rashness in having influenced the life of another, as she had influenced Ca.s.sandra"s life.
"We weren"t serious," she said quickly.
"But I"m fearfully serious," said Ca.s.sandra, with a little shudder, and her look showed that she spoke the truth. She turned and glanced at Katharine as she had never glanced at her before. There was fear in her glance, which darted on her and then dropped guiltily. Oh, Katharine had everything-beauty, mind, character. She could never compete with Katharine; she could never be safe so long as Katharine brooded over her, dominating her, disposing of her. She called her cold, unseeing, unscrupulous, but the only sign she gave outwardly was a curious one-she reached out her hand and grasped the volume of history. At that moment the bell of the telephone rang and Katharine went to answer it. Ca.s.sandra, released from observation, dropped her book and clenched her hands. She suffered more fiery torture in those few minutes than she had suffered in the whole of her life; she learnt more of her capacities for feeling. But when Katharine reappeared she was calm, and had gained a look of dignity that was new to her.
"Was that him?" she asked.
"It was Ralph Denham," Katharine replied.
"I meant Ralph Denham."
"Why did you mean Ralph Denham? What has William told you about Ralph Denham?" The accusation that Katharine was calm, callous, and indifferent was not possible in face of her present air of animation. She gave Ca.s.sandra no time to frame an answer. "Now, when are you and William going to be married?" she asked.
Ca.s.sandra made no reply for some moments. It was, indeed, a very difficult question to answer. In conversation the night before, William had indicated to Ca.s.sandra that, in his belief, Katharine was becoming engaged to Ralph Denham in the dining-room. Ca.s.sandra, in the rosy light of her own circ.u.mstances, had been disposed to think that the matter must be settled already. But a letter which she had received that morning from William, while ardent in its expression of affection, had conveyed to her obliquely that he would prefer the announcement of their engagement to coincide with that of Katharine"s. This doc.u.ment Ca.s.sandra now produced, and read aloud, with considerable excisions and much hesitation.
" ... a thousand pities-ahem-I fear we shall cause a great deal of natural annoyance. If, on the other hand what I have reason to think will happen, should happen-within reasonable time, and the present position is not in any way offensive to you, delay would, in my opinion, serve all our interests better than a premature explanation, which is bound to cause more surprise than is desirable-"
"Very like William," Katharine exclaimed, having gathered the drift of these remarks with a speed that, by itself, disconcerted Ca.s.sandra.
"I quite understand his feelings," Ca.s.sandra replied. "I quite agree with them. I think it would be much better, if you intend to marry Mr Denham, that we should wait as William says."
"But, then, if I don"t marry him for months-or, perhaps, not at all?"
Ca.s.sandra was silent. The prospect appalled her. Katharine had been telephoning to Ralph Denham; she looked queer, too; she must be, or about to become, engaged to him. But if Ca.s.sandra could have overheard the conversation upon the telephone, she would not have felt so certain that it tended in that direction. It was to this effect: "I"m Ralph Denham speaking. I"m in my right senses now."
"How long did you wait outside the house?"
"I went home and wrote you a letter. I tore it up."
"I shall tear up everything too."
"I shall come."
"Yes. Come to-day."
"I must explain to you-"
"Yes. We must explain-"
A long pause followed. Ralph began a sentence, which he cancelled with the word, "Nothing." Suddenly, together, at the same moment, they said good-bye. And yet, if the telephone had been miraculously connected with some higher atmosphere pungent with the scent of thyme and the savour of salt, Katharine could hardly have breathed in a keener sense of exhilaration. She ran downstairs on the crest of it. She was amazed to find herself already committed by William and Ca.s.sandra to marry the owner of the halting voice she had just heard on the telephone. The tendency of her spirit seemed to be in an altogether different direction; and of a different nature. She had only to look at Ca.s.sandra to see what the love that results in engagement and marriage means. She considered for a moment, and then said: "If you don"t want to tell people yourselves, I"ll do it for you. I know William has feelings about these matters that make it very difficult for him to do anything."
"Because he"s fearfully sensitive about other people"s feelings," said Ca.s.sandra. "The idea that he could upset Aunt Maggie or Uncle Trevor would make him ill for weeks."
This interpretation of what she was used to call William"s conventionality was new to Katharine. And yet she felt it now to be the true one.
"Yes, you"re right," she said.
"And then he worships beauty. He wants life to be beautiful in every part of it. Have you ever noticed how exquisitely he finishes everything? Look at the address on that envelope. Every letter is perfect."
Whether this applied also to the sentiments expressed in the letter, Katharine was not so sure; but when William"s solicitude was spent upon Ca.s.sandra it not only failed to irritate her, as it had done when she was the object of it, but appeared, as Ca.s.sandra said, the fruit of his love of beauty.
"Yes," she said, "he loves beauty."
"I hope we shall have a great many children," said Ca.s.sandra. "He loves children."
This remark made Katharine realize the depths of their intimacy better than any other words could have done; she was jealous for one moment, but the next she was humiliated. She had known William for years, and she had never once guessed that he loved children. She looked at the queer glow of exaltation in Ca.s.sandra"s eyes, through which she was beholding the true spirit of a human being, and wished that she would go on talking about William for ever. Ca.s.sandra was not unwilling to gratify her. She talked on. The morning slipped away. Katharine scarcely changed her position on the edge of her father"s writing-table, and Ca.s.sandra never opened the "History of England".
And yet it must be confessed that there were vast lapses in the attention which Katharine bestowed upon her cousin. The atmosphere was wonderfully congenial for thoughts of her own. She lost herself sometimes in such deep reverie that Ca.s.sandra, pausing, could look at her for moments unperceived. What could Katharine be thinking about, unless it were Ralph Denham? She was satisfied, by certain random replies, that Katharine had wandered a little from the subject of William"s perfections. But Katharine made no sign. She always ended these pauses by saying something so natural that Ca.s.sandra was deluded into giving fresh examples of her absorbing theme. Then they lunched, and the only sign that Katharine gave of abstraction was to forget to help the pudding. She looked so like her mother, as she sat there oblivious of the tapioca, that Ca.s.sandra was startled into exclaiming: "How like Aunt Maggie you look!"
"Nonsense," said Katharine, with more irritation than the remark seemed to call for.
In truth, now that her mother was away, Katharine did feel less sensible than usual, but as she argued it to herself, there was much less need for sense. Secretly, she was a little shaken by the evidence which the morning had supplied of her immense capacity for-what could one call it?-rambling over an infinite variety of thoughts that were too foolish to be named. She was, for example, walking down a road in Northumberlanddl in the August sunset; at the inn she left her companion, who was Ralph Denham, and was transported, not so much by her own feet as by some invisible means, to the top of a high hill. Here the scents, the sounds among the dry heather-roots, the gra.s.s-blades pressed upon the palm of her hand, were all so perceptible that she could experience each one separately. After this her mind made excursions into the dark of the air, or settled upon the surface of the sea, which could be discovered over there, or with equal unreason it returned to its couch of bracken beneath the stars of midnight, and visited the snow valleys of the moon. These fancies would have been in no way strange, since the walls of every mind are decorated with some such tracery, but she found herself suddenly pursuing such thoughts with an extreme ardour, which became a desire to change her actual condition for something matching the conditions of her dream. Then she started; then she awoke to the fact that Ca.s.sandra was looking at her in amazement. in the August sunset; at the inn she left her companion, who was Ralph Denham, and was transported, not so much by her own feet as by some invisible means, to the top of a high hill. Here the scents, the sounds among the dry heather-roots, the gra.s.s-blades pressed upon the palm of her hand, were all so perceptible that she could experience each one separately. After this her mind made excursions into the dark of the air, or settled upon the surface of the sea, which could be discovered over there, or with equal unreason it returned to its couch of bracken beneath the stars of midnight, and visited the snow valleys of the moon. These fancies would have been in no way strange, since the walls of every mind are decorated with some such tracery, but she found herself suddenly pursuing such thoughts with an extreme ardour, which became a desire to change her actual condition for something matching the conditions of her dream. Then she started; then she awoke to the fact that Ca.s.sandra was looking at her in amazement.
Ca.s.sandra would have liked to feel certain that, when Katharine made no reply at all or one wide of the mark, she was making up her mind to get married at once, but it was difficult, if this were so, to account for some remarks that Katharine let fall about the future. She recurred several times to the summer, as if she meant to spend that season in solitary wandering. She seemed to have a plan in her mind which required Bradshaw"sdm and the names of inns. and the names of inns.
Ca.s.sandra was driven finally, by her own unrest, to put on her clothes and wander out along the streets of Chelsea, on the pretence that she must buy something. But, in her ignorance of the way, she became panic-stricken at the thought of being late, and no sooner had she found the shop she wanted, than she fled back again in order to be at home when William came. He came indeed, five minutes after she had sat down by the tea-table, and she had the happiness of receiving him alone. His greeting put her doubts of his affection at rest, but the first question he asked was: "Has Katharine spoken to you?"
"Yes. But she says she"s not engaged. She doesn"t seem to think she"s ever going to be engaged."
William frowned, and looked annoyed.
"They telephoned this morning, and she behaves very oddly. She forgets to help the pudding," Ca.s.sandra added by way of cheering him.
"My dear child, after what I saw and heard last night, it"s not a question of guessing or suspecting. Either she"s engaged to him-or-"
He left his sentence unfinished, for at this point Katharine herself appeared. With his recollections of the scene the night before, he was too self-conscious even to look at her, and it was not until she told him of her mother"s visit to Stratford-on-Avon that he raised his eyes. It was clear that he was greatly relieved. He looked round him now, as if he felt at his ease, and Ca.s.sandra exclaimed: "Don"t you think everything looks quite different?"
"You"ve moved the sofa?" he asked.
"No. Nothing"s been touched," said Katharine. "Everything"s exactly the same." But as she said this, with a decision which seemed to make it imply that more than the sofa was unchanged, she held out a cup into which she had forgotten to pour any tea. Being told of her forgetfulness, she frowned with annoyance, and said that Ca.s.sandra was demoralizing her. The glance she cast upon them, and the resolute way in which she plunged them into speech, made William and Ca.s.sandra feel like children who had been caught prying. They followed her obediently, making conversation. Any one coming in might have judged them acquaintances met, perhaps, for the third time. If that were so, one must have concluded that the hostess suddenly bethought her of an engagement pressing for fulfilment. First Katharine looked at her watch, and then she asked William to tell her the right time. When told that it was ten minutes to five she rose at once, and said: "Then I"m afraid I must go."
She left the room, holding her unfinished bread and b.u.t.ter in her hand. William glanced at Ca.s.sandra.