"You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine"s presence?" Mr Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of Ca.s.sandra"s interruption.
"I am aware, quite aware-" Rodney"s words, which were broken in sense, spoken after a pause, and with his eyes upon the ground, nevertheless expressed an astonishing amount of resolution. "I am quite aware what you must think of me," he brought out, looking Mr Hilbery directly in the eyes for the first time.
"I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were alone," Mr Hilbery returned.
"But you forget me," said Katharine. She moved a little towards Rodney, and her movement seemed to testify mutely to her respect for him, and her alliance with him. "I think William has behaved perfectly rightly, and, after all, it is I who am concerned-I and Ca.s.sandra."
Ca.s.sandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement which seemed to draw the three of them into alliance together. Katharine"s tone and glance made Mr Hilbery once more feel completely at a loss, and in addition, painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful inner hollowness he was outwardly composed.
"Ca.s.sandra and Rodney have a perfect right to settle their own affairs according to their own wishes; but I see no reason why they should do so either in my room or in my house... I wish to be quite clear on this point, however; you are no longer engaged to Rodney."
He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he was extremely thankful for his daughter"s deliverance.
Ca.s.sandra turned to Katharine, who drew her breath as if to speak and checked herself; Rodney, too, seemed to await some movement on her part; her father glanced at her as if he half antic.i.p.ated some further revelation. She remained perfectly silent. In the silence they heard distinctly steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went straight to the door.
"Wait," Mr Hilbery commanded. "I wish to speak to you-alone," he added.
She paused, holding the door ajar.
"I"ll come back," she said, and as she spoke she opened the door and went out. They could hear her immediately speak to some one outside, though the words were inaudible.
Mr Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who remained standing as if they did not accept their dismissal, and the disappearance of Katharine had brought some change into the situation. So, in his secret heart, Mr Hilbery felt that it had, for he could not explain his daughter"s behaviour to his own satisfaction.
"Uncle Trevor," Ca.s.sandra exclaimed impulsively, "don"t be angry, please. I couldn"t help it; I do beg you to forgive me."
Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her ident.i.ty, and still talked over her head as if she did not exist.
"I suppose you have communicated with the Otways," he said to Rodney grimly.
"Uncle Trevor, we wanted to tell you," Ca.s.sandra replied for him. "We waited-" she looked appealingly at Rodney, who shook his head ever so slightly.
"Yes? What were you waiting for?" her uncle asked sharply, looking at her at last.
The words died on her lips. It was apparent that she was straining her ears as if to catch some sound outside the room that would come to her help. He received no answer. He listened too.
"This is a most unpleasant business for all parties," he concluded, sinking into his chair again, hunching his shoulders and regarding the flames. He seemed to speak to himself, and Rodney and Ca.s.sandra looked at him in silence.
"Why don"t you sit down?" he said suddenly. He spoke gruffly, but the force of his anger was evidently spent, or some preoccupation had turned his mood to other regions. While Ca.s.sandra accepted his invitation, Rodney remained standing.
"I think Ca.s.sandra can explain matters better in my absence," he said, and left the room, Mr Hilbery giving his a.s.sent by a slight nod of the head.
Meanwhile, in the dining-room next door, Denham and Katharine were once more seated at the mahogany table. They seemed to be continuing a conversation broken off in the middle, as if each remembered the precise point at which they had been interrupted, and was eager to go on as quickly as possible. Katharine, having interposed a short account of the interview with her father, Denham made no comment, but said: "Anyhow, there"s no reason why we shouldn"t see each other."
"Or stay together. It"s only marriage that"s out of the question," Katharine replied.
"But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?"
"If our lapses come more and more often?"
He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment.
"But at least," he renewed, "we"ve established the fact that my lapses are still in some odd way connected with you; yours have nothing to do with me. Katharine," he added, his a.s.sumption of reason broken up by his agitation, "I a.s.sure you that we are in love-what other people call love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever then. We were absolutely happy for half an hour. You had no lapse until the day after; I had no lapse until yesterday morning. We"ve been happy at intervals all day until I-went off my head, and you, quite naturally, were bored."
"Ah," she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, "I can"t make you understand. It"s not boredom-I"m never bored. Reality-reality," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, tapping her finger upon the table as if to emphasize and perhaps explain her isolated utterance of this word. "I cease to be real to you. It"s the faces in a storm again-the vision in a hurricane. We come together for a moment and we part. It"s my fault too. I"m as bad as you are-worse, perhaps."
They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as their weary gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common language they had christened their "lapses"; a constant source of distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more strange, because she wore something different, or said something unexpected, Ralph"s sense of her romance welled up and overcame him either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine, with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or contradicted with some severity or a.s.sertion of prosaic fact. Then the vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of gradual detachment until she became completely absorbed in her own thoughts, which carried her away with such intensity that she sharply resented any recall to her companion"s side. It was useless to a.s.sert that these trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however little in their later stages they had to do with him. The fact remained that she had no need of him and was very loath to be reminded of him. How then, could they be in love? The fragmentary nature of their relationship was but too apparent.
Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room table, oblivious of everything, while Rodney paced the drawing-room overhead in such agitation and exaltation of mind as he had never conceived possible, and Ca.s.sandra remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose and walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to the pane. Outside were truth and freedom and the immensity only to be apprehended by the mind in loneliness, and never communicated to another. What worse sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate what he perceived by seeking to impart it? Some movement behind him made him reflect that Katharine had the power, if she chose, to be in person what he dreamed of her spirit. He turned sharply to implore her help, when again he was struck cold by her look of distance, her expression of intentness upon some far object. As if conscious of his look upon her she rose and came to him, standing close by his side, and looking with him out into the dusky atmosphere. Their physical closeness was to him a bitter enough comment upon the distance between their minds. Yet distant as she was, her presence by his side transformed the world. He saw himself performing wonderful deeds of courage; saving the drowning, rescuing the forlorn. Impatient with this form of egotism, he could not shake off the conviction that somehow life was wonderful, romantic, a master worth serving so long as she stood there. He had no wish that she should speak; he did not look at her or touch her; she was apparently deep in her own thoughts and oblivious of his presence.
The door opened without their hearing the sound. Mr Hilbery looked round the room, and for a moment failed to discover the two figures in the window. He started with displeasure when he saw them, and observed them keenly before he appeared able to make up his mind to say anything. He made a movement finally that warned them of his presence; they turned instantly. Without speaking, he beckoned to Katharine to come to him, and, keeping his eyes from the region of the room where Denham stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the study. When Katharine was inside the room he shut the study door carefully behind him as if to secure himself from something that he disliked.
"Now, Katharine," he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire, "you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain-" She remained silent. "What inferences do you expect me to draw?" he said sharply... "You tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see you on what appear to be extremely intimate terms with another-with Ralph Denham. What am I to conclude? Are you," he added, as she still said nothing, "engaged to Ralph Denham?"
"No," she replied.
His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxiety being set at rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her behaviour.
"Then all I can say is that you"ve very strange ideas of the proper way to behave... People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I surprised... The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find it," he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. "Why am I left in ignorance of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear of these events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable-most upsetting. How I"m to explain to your Uncle Francis-but I wash my hands of it. Ca.s.sandra goes to-morrow I forbid Rodney the house. As for the other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the better. After placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine-" He broke off, disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were received, and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her state of mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this evening. He perceived once more that she was not attending to what he said, but was listening, and for a moment he, too, listened for sounds outside the room. His certainty that there was some understanding between Denham and Katharine returned, but with a most unpleasant suspicion that there was something illicit about it, as the whole position between the young people seemed to him gravely illicit.
"I"ll speak to Denham," he said, on the impulse of his suspicion, moving as if to go.
"I shall come with you," Katharine said instantly, starting forward.
"You will stay here," said her father.
"What are you going to say to him?" she asked.
"I suppose I may say what I like in my own house?" he returned.
"Then I go too," she replied.
At these words, which seemed to imply a determination to go-to go for ever, Mr Hilbery returned to his position in front of the fire, and began swaying slightly from side to side without for the moment making any remark.
"I understood you to say that you were not engaged to him," he said at length, fixing his eyes upon his daughter.
"We are not engaged," she said.
"It should be a matter of indifference to you, then, whether he comes here or not-I will not have you listening to other things when I am speaking to you!" he broke off angrily, perceiving a slight movement on her part to one side. "Answer me frankly, what is your relationship with this young man?"
"Nothing that I can explain to a third person," she said obstinately.
"I will have no more of these equivocations," he replied.
"I refuse to explain," she returned, and as she said it the front door banged to. "There!" she exclaimed. "He is gone!" She flashed such a look of fiery indignation at her father that he lost his self-control for a moment.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Katharine, control yourself!" he cried.
She looked for a moment like a wild animal caged in a civilized dwelling-place. She glanced over the walls covered with books, as if for a second she had forgotten the position of the door. Then she made as if to go, but her father laid his hand upon her shoulder. He compelled her to sit down.
"These emotions have been very upsetting, naturally," he said. His manner had regained all its suavity, and he spoke with a soothing a.s.sumption of paternal authority. "You"ve been placed in a very difficult position, as I understand from Ca.s.sandra. Now let us come to terms; we will leave these agitating questions in peace for the present. Meanwhile, let us try to behave like civilized beings. Let us read Sir Walter Scott. What d"you say to "The Antiquary", eh? Or "The Bride of Lammermoor"?"
He made his own choice, and before his daughter could protest or make her escape, she found herself being turned by the agency of Sir Walter Scott into a civilized human being.
Yet Mr Hilbery had grave doubts, as he read, whether the process was more than skin-deep. Civilization had been very profoundly and unpleasantly overthrown that evening; the extent of the ruin was still undetermined; he had lost his temper, a physical disaster not to be matched for the s.p.a.ce of ten years or so; and his own condition urgently required soothing and renovating at the hands of the cla.s.sics. His house was in a state of revolution; he had a vision of unpleasant encounters on the staircase; his meals would be poisoned for days to come; was literature itself a specific against such disagreeables? A note of hollowness was in his voice as he read.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
CONSIDERING THAT MR HILBERY lived in a house which was accurately numbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paid rent, and had seven more years of tenancy to run, he had an excuse for laying down laws for the conduct of those who lived in his house, and this excuse, though profoundly inadequate, he found useful during the interregnum of civilization with which he now found himself faced. In obedience to those laws, Rodney disappeared; Ca.s.sandra was dispatched to catch the eleven-thirty on Monday morning; Denham was seen no more; so that only Katharine, the lawful occupant of the upper rooms, remained, and Mr Hilbery thought himself competent to see that she did nothing further to compromise herself. As he bade her good morning next day he was aware that he knew nothing of what she was thinking, but, as he reflected with some bitterness, even this was an advance upon the ignorance of the previous mornings. He went to his study, wrote, tore up, and wrote again a letter to his wife, asking her to come back on account of domestic difficulties which he specified at first, but in a later draft more discreetly left unspecified. Even if she started the very moment that she got it, he reflected, she would not be home till Tuesday night, and he counted lugubriously the number of hours that he would have to spend in a position of detestable authority alone with his daughter.
What was she doing now, he wondered, as he addressed the envelope to his wife. He could not control the telephone. He could not play the spy. She might be making any arrangements she chose. Yet the thought did not disturb him so much as the strange, unpleasant, illicit atmosphere of the whole scene with the young people the night before. His sense of discomfort was almost physical.
Had he known it, Katharine was far enough withdrawn, both physically and spiritually, from the telephone. She sat in her room with the dictionaries spreading their wide leaves on the table before her, and all the pages which they had concealed for so many years arranged in a pile. She worked with the steady concentration that is produced by the successful effort to think down some unwelcome thought by means of another thought. Having absorbed the unwelcome thought, her mind went on with additional vigour, derived from the victory; on a sheet of paper lines of figures and symbols frequently and firmly written down marked the different stages of its progress. And yet it was broad daylight; there were sounds of knocking and sweeping, which proved that living people were at work on the other side of the door, and the door, which could be thrown open in a second, was her only protection against the world. But she had somehow risen to be mistress in her own kingdom; a.s.suming her sovereignty unconsciously.
Steps approached her unheard. It is true that they were steps that lingered, divagated, and mounted with the deliberation natural to one past sixty whose arms, moreover, are full of leaves and blossoms; but they came on steadily, and soon a tap of laurel boughs against the door arrested Katharine"s pencil as it touched the page. She did not move, however, and sat blank-eyed as if waiting for the interruption to cease. Instead, the door opened. At first, she attached no meaning to the moving ma.s.s of green which seemed to enter the room independently of any human agency. Then she recognized parts of her mother"s face and person behind the yellow flowers and soft velvet of the palm-buds.
"From Shakespeare"s tomb!"1 exclaimed Mrs Hilbery, dropping the entire ma.s.s upon the floor, with a gesture that seemed to indicate an act of dedication. Then she flung her arms wide and embraced her daughter. exclaimed Mrs Hilbery, dropping the entire ma.s.s upon the floor, with a gesture that seemed to indicate an act of dedication. Then she flung her arms wide and embraced her daughter.
"Thank G.o.d, Katharine!" she exclaimed. "Thank G.o.d!" she repeated.
"You"ve come back?" said Katharine, very vaguely, standing up to receive the embrace.
Although she recognized her mother"s presence, she was very far from taking part in the scene, and yet felt it to be amazingly appropriate that her mother should be there, thanking G.o.d emphatically for unknown blessings, and strewing the floor with flowers and leaves from Shakespeare"s tomb.
"Nothing else matters in the world!" Mrs Hilbery continued. "Names aren"t everything; it"s what we feel that"s everything. I didn"t want silly, kind, interfering letters. I didn"t want your father to tell me. I knew it from the first. I prayed that it might be so."
"You knew it?" Katharine repeated her mother"s words softly and vaguely, looking past her. "How did you know it?" She began, like a child, to finger a ta.s.sel hanging from her mother"s cloak.
"The first evening you told me, Katharine. Oh, and thousands of times-dinner-parties-talking about books-the way he came into the room-your voice when you spoke of him."
Katharine seemed to consider each of these proofs separately. Then she said gravely: "I"m not going to marry William. And then there"s Ca.s.sandra-"
"Yes, there"s Ca.s.sandra," said Mrs Hilbery. "I own I was a little grudging at first, but, after all, she plays the piano so beautifully. Do tell me, Katharine," she asked impulsively, "where did you go that evening she played Mozart, and you thought I was asleep?"
Katharine recollected with difficulty.
"To Mary Datchet"s," she remembered.
"Ah!" said Mrs Hilbery, with a slight note of disappointment in her voice. "I had my little romance-my little speculation." She looked at her daughter. Katharine faltered beneath that innocent and penetrating gaze; she flushed, turned away, and then looked up with very bright eyes.
"I"m not in love with Ralph Denham," she said.
"Don"t marry unless you"re in love!" said Mrs Hilbery very quickly. "But," she added, glancing momentarily at her daughter, "aren"t there different ways, Katharine-different-?"
"We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free," Katharine continued.
"To meet here, to meet in his house, to meet in the street." Mrs Hilbery ran over these phrases as if she were trying chords that did not quite satisfy her ear. It was plain that she had her sources of information, and, indeed, her bag was stuffed with what she called "kind letters" from the pen of her sister-in-law "Yes. Or to stay away in the country," Katharine concluded.
Mrs Hilbery paused, looked unhappy, and sought inspiration from the window.
"What a comfort he was in that shop-how he took me and found the ruins at once-how safe safe I felt with him-" I felt with him-"
"Safe? Oh no, he"s fearfully rash-he"s always taking risks. He wants to throw up his profession and live in a little cottage and write books, though he hasn"t a penny of his own, and there are any number of sisters and brothers dependent on him."
"Ah, he has a mother?" Mrs Hilbery inquired.
"Yes. Rather a fine-looking old lady, with white hair." Katharine began to describe her visit, and soon Mrs Hilbery elicited the facts that not only was the house of excruciating ugliness, which Ralph bore without complaint, but that it was evident that every one depended on him, and he had a room at the top of the house, with a wonderful view over London, and a rook.
"A wretched old bird in a corner, with half its feathers out," she said, with a tenderness in her voice that seemed to commiserate the sufferings of humanity while resting a.s.sured in the capacity of Ralph Denham to alleviate them, so that Mrs Hilbery could not help exclaiming: "But, Katharine, you are are in love!" at which Katharine flushed, looked startled, as if she had said something that she ought not to have said, and shook her head. in love!" at which Katharine flushed, looked startled, as if she had said something that she ought not to have said, and shook her head.
Hastily Mrs Hilbery asked for further details of this extraordinary house, and interposed a few speculations about the meeting between Keats and Coleridge2 in a lane, which tided over the discomfort of the moment, and drew Katharine on to further descriptions and indiscretions. In truth, she found an extraordinary pleasure in being thus free to talk to some one who was equally wise and equally benignant, the mother of her earliest childhood, whose silence seemed to answer questions that were never asked. Mrs Hilbery listened without making any remark for a considerable time. She seemed to draw her conclusions rather by looking at her daughter than by listening to her, and, if cross-examined she would probably have given a highly inaccurate version of Ralph Denham"s life-history except that he was penniless, fatherless, and lived at Highgate-all of which was much in his favour. But by means of these furtive glances she had a.s.sured herself that Katharine was in a state which gave her, alternately, the most exquisite pleasure and the most profound alarm. in a lane, which tided over the discomfort of the moment, and drew Katharine on to further descriptions and indiscretions. In truth, she found an extraordinary pleasure in being thus free to talk to some one who was equally wise and equally benignant, the mother of her earliest childhood, whose silence seemed to answer questions that were never asked. Mrs Hilbery listened without making any remark for a considerable time. She seemed to draw her conclusions rather by looking at her daughter than by listening to her, and, if cross-examined she would probably have given a highly inaccurate version of Ralph Denham"s life-history except that he was penniless, fatherless, and lived at Highgate-all of which was much in his favour. But by means of these furtive glances she had a.s.sured herself that Katharine was in a state which gave her, alternately, the most exquisite pleasure and the most profound alarm.
She could not help e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. at last: "It"s all done in five minutes at a Registry Officeea nowadays, if you think the Church service a little florid-which it is, though there are n.o.ble things in it." nowadays, if you think the Church service a little florid-which it is, though there are n.o.ble things in it."
"But we don"t want to be married," Katharine replied emphatically, and added, "Why, after all, isn"t it perfectly possible to live together without being married?"
Again Mrs Hilbery looked discomposed, and, in her trouble, took up the sheets which were lying upon the table, and began turning them over this way and that, and muttering to herself as she glanced: "A plus B minus C equals x y z. x y z. It"s so dreadfully ugly, Katharine. That"s what I feel-so dreadfully ugly." It"s so dreadfully ugly, Katharine. That"s what I feel-so dreadfully ugly."
Katharine took the sheets from her mother"s hand and began shuffling them absent-mindedly together, for her fixed gaze seemed to show that her thoughts were intent upon some other matter.
"Well, I don"t know about ugliness," she said at length.
"But he doesn"t ask it of you?" Mrs Hilbery exclaimed. "Not that grave young man with the steady brown eyes?"
"He doesn"t ask anything-we neither of us ask anything."
"If I could help you, Katharine, by the memory of what I felt-"
"Yes, tell me what you felt."
Mrs Hilbery, her eyes growing blank, peered down the enormously long corridor of days at the far end of which the little figures of herself and her husband appeared fantastically attired, clasping hands upon a moonlit beach, with roses swinging in the dusk.
"We were in a little boat going out to a ship at night," she began. "The sun had set and the moon was rising over our heads. There were lovely silver lights upon the waves and three green lights upon the steamer in the middle of the bay. Your father"s head looked so grand against the mast. It was life, it was death. The great sea was round us. It was the voyage for ever and ever."
The ancient fairy-tale fell roundly and harmoniously upon Katharine"s ears. Yes, there was the enormous s.p.a.ce of the sea; there were the three green lights upon the steamer; the cloaked figures climbed up on deck. And so, voyaging over the green and purple waters, past the cliffs and the sandy lagoons and through pools crowded with the masts of ships and the steeples of churches-here they were. The river seemed to have brought them and deposited them here at this precise point. She looked admiringly at her mother, that ancient voyager.
"Who knows," exclaimed Mrs Hilbery, continuing her reveries, "where we are bound for, or why, or who has sent us, or what we shall find-who knows anything, except that love is our faith-love-" she crooned, and the soft sound beating through the dim words was heard by her daughter as the breaking of waves solemnly in order upon the vast sh.o.r.e that she gazed upon. She would have been content for her mother to repeat that word almost indefinitely-a soothing word when uttered by another, a riveting together of the shattered fragments of the world. But Mrs Hilbery, instead of repeating the word love, said pleadingly: "And you won"t think those ugly thoughts again, will you, Katharine?" at which words the ship which Katharine had been considering seemed to put into harbour and have done with its sea-faring. Yet she was in great need, if not exactly of sympathy, of some form of advice, or, at least, of the opportunity of setting forth her problems before a third person so as to renew them in her own eyes.
"But then," she said, ignoring the difficult problem of ugliness, "you knew you were in love; but we"re different. It seems," she continued, frowning a little as she tried to fix the difficult feeling, "as if something came to an end suddenly-gave out-faded-an illusion-as if when we think we"re in love we make it up-we imagine what doesn"t exist. That"s why it"s impossible that we should ever marry. Always to be finding the other an illusion, and going off and forgetting about them, never to be certain that you cared, or that he wasn"t caring for some one not you at all, the horror of changing from one state to the other, being happy one moment and miserable the next-that"s the reason why we can"t possibly marry. At the same time," she continued, "we can"t live without each other, because-" Mrs Hilbery waited patiently for the sentence to be completed, but Katharine fell silent and fingered her sheet of figures.
"We have to have faith in our vision," Mrs Hilbery resumed, glancing at the figures, which distressed her vaguely, and had some connexion in her mind with the household accounts, "otherwise, as you say-" She cast a lightning glance into the depths of disillusionment which were, perhaps, not altogether unknown to her.
"Believe me, Katharine, it"s the same for every one-for me, too-for your father," she said earnestly, and sighed. They looked together into the abyss and, as the elder of the two, she recovered herself first and asked: "But where is Ralph? Why isn"t he here to see me?"