CHAPTER XXV
At a quarter-past three in the afternoon of the following SaturdayRalph Denham sat on the bank of the lake in Kew Gardens, dividing thedial-plate of his watch into sections with his forefinger. The just andinexorable nature of time itself was reflected in his face. He mighthave been composing a hymn to the unhasting and unresting march of thatdivinity. He seemed to greet the lapse of minute after minute with sternacquiescence in the inevitable order. His expression was so severe, soserene, so immobile, that it seemed obvious that for him at least therewas a grandeur in the departing hour which no petty irritation on hispart was to mar, although the wasting time wasted also high privatehopes of his own.
His face was no bad index to what went on within him. He was in acondition of mind rather too exalted for the trivialities of daily life.He could not accept the fact that a lady was fifteen minutes late inkeeping her appointment without seeing in that accident the frustrationof his entire life. Looking at his watch, he seemed to look deep intothe springs of human existence, and by the light of what he saw therealtered his course towards the north and the midnight.... Yes, one'svoyage must be made absolutely without companions through ice and blackwater--towards what goal? Here he laid his finger upon the half-hour,and decided that when the minute-hand reached that point he would go, atthe same time answering the question put by another of the many voicesof consciousness with the reply that there was undoubtedly a goal, butthat it would need the most relentless energy to keep anywhere in itsdirection. Still, still, one goes on, the ticking seconds seemed toassure him, with dignity, with open eyes, with determination not toaccept the second-rate, not to be tempted by the unworthy, not to yield,not to compromise. Twenty-five minutes past three were now marked uponthe face of the watch. The world, he assured himself, since KatharineHilbery was now half an hour behind her time, offers no happiness, norest from struggle, no certainty. In a scheme of things utterly bad fromthe start the only unpardonable folly is that of hope. Raising hiseyes for a moment from the face of his watch, he rested them upon theopposite bank, reflectively and not without a certain wistfulness, asif the sternness of their gaze were still capable of mitigation. Soon alook of the deepest satisfaction filled them, though, for a moment, hedid not move. He watched a lady who came rapidly, and yet with a traceof hesitation, down the broad grass-walk towards him. She did not seehim. Distance lent her figure an indescribable height, and romanceseemed to surround her from the floating of a purple veil which thelight air filled and curved from her shoulders.
"Here she comes, like a ship in full sail," he said to himself, halfremembering some line from a play or poem where the heroine bore downthus with feathers flying and airs saluting her. The greenery and thehigh presences of the trees surrounded her as if they stood forth at hercoming. He rose, and she saw him; her little exclamation proved that shewas glad to find him, and then that she blamed herself for being late.
"Why did you never tell me? I didn't know there was this," she remarked,alluding to the lake, the broad green space, the vista of trees, withthe ruffled gold of the Thames in the distance and the Ducal castlestanding in its meadows. She paid the rigid tail of the Ducal lion thetribute of incredulous laughter.
"You've never been to Kew?" Denham remarked.
But it appeared that she had come once as a small child, when thegeography of the place was entirely different, and the fauna includedcertainly flamingoes and, possibly, camels. They strolled on,refashioning these legendary gardens. She was, as he felt, glad merelyto stroll and loiter and let her fancy touch upon anything her eyesencountered--a bush, a park-keeper, a decorated goose--as if therelaxation soothed her. The warmth of the afternoon, the first ofspring, tempted them to sit upon a seat in a glade of beech-trees, withforest drives striking green paths this way and that around them. Shesighed deeply.
"It's so peaceful," she said, as if in explanation of her sigh. Not asingle person was in sight, and the stir of the wind in the branches,that sound so seldom heard by Londoners, seemed to her as if wafted fromfathomless oceans of sweet air in the distance.
While she breathed and looked, Denham was engaged in uncovering with thepoint of his stick a group of green spikes half smothered by the deadleaves. He did this with the peculiar touch of the botanist. In namingthe little green plant to her he used the Latin name, thus disguisingsome flower familiar even to Chelsea, and making her exclaim, half inamusement, at his knowledge. Her own ignorance was vast, she confessed.What did one call that tree opposite, for instance, supposing onecondescended to call it by its English name? Beech or elm or sycamore?It chanced, by the testimony of a dead leaf, to be oak; and a littleattention to a diagram which Denham proceeded to draw upon an envelopesoon put Katharine in possession of some of the fundamental distinctionsbetween our British trees. She then asked him to inform her aboutflowers. To her they were variously shaped and colored petals, poised,at different seasons of the year, upon very similar green stalks; but tohim they were, in the first instance, bulbs or seeds, and later, livingthings endowed with sex, and pores, and susceptibilities which adaptedthemselves by all manner of ingenious devices to live and beget life,and could be fashioned squat or tapering, flame-colored or pale, pure orspotted, by processes which might reveal the secrets of human existence.Denham spoke with increasing ardor of a hobby which had long been his insecret. No discourse could have worn a more welcome sound in Katharine'sears. For weeks she had heard nothing that made such pleasant music inher mind. It wakened echoes in all those remote fastnesses of her beingwhere loneliness had brooded so long undisturbed.
She wished he would go on for ever talking of plants, and showing herhow science felt not quite blindly for the law that ruled their endlessvariations. A law that might be inscrutable but was certainly omnipotentappealed to her at the moment, because she could find nothing like itin possession of human lives. Circumstances had long forced her, asthey force most women in the flower of youth, to consider, painfully andminutely, all that part of life which is conspicuously withoutorder; she had had to consider moods and wishes, degrees of liking ordisliking, and their effect upon the destiny of people dear to her; shehad been forced to deny herself any contemplation of that other part oflife where thought constructs a destiny which is independent of humanbeings. As Denham spoke, she followed his words and considered theirbearing with an easy vigor which spoke of a capacity long hoarded andunspent. The very trees and the green merging into the blue distancebecame symbols of the vast external world which recks so little of thehappiness, of the marriages or deaths of individuals. In order to giveher examples of what he was saying, Denham led the way, first to theRock Garden, and then to the Orchid House.
For him there was safety in the direction which the talk had taken.His emphasis might come from feelings more personal than those scienceroused in him, but it was disguised, and naturally he found it easyto expound and explain. Nevertheless, when he saw Katharine among theorchids, her beauty strangely emphasized by the fantastic plants, whichseemed to peer and gape at her from striped hoods and fleshy throats,his ardor for botany waned, and a more complex feeling replaced it. Shefell silent. The orchids seemed to suggest absorbing reflections. Indefiance of the rules she stretched her ungloved hand and touched one.The sight of the rubies upon her finger affected him so disagreeablythat he started and turned away. But next moment he controlled himself;he looked at her taking in one strange shape after another with thecontemplative, considering gaze of a person who sees not exactly what isbefore him, but gropes in regions that lie beyond it. The far-awaylook entirely lacked self-consciousness. Denham doubted whether sheremembered his presence. He could recall himself, of course, by a wordor a movement--but why? She was happier thus. She needed nothing thathe could give her. And for him, too, perhaps, it was best to keep aloof,only to know that she existed, to preserve what he already had--perfect,remote, and unbroken. Further, her still look, standing among theorchids in that hot atmosphere, strangely illustrated some scene thathe had imagined in his room at h
ome. The sight, mingling with hisrecollection, kept him silent when the door was shut and they werewalking on again.
But though she did not speak, Katharine had an uneasy sense that silenceon her part was selfishness. It was selfish of her to continue, as shewished to do, a discussion of subjects not remotely connected with anyhuman beings. She roused herself to consider their exact position uponthe turbulent map of the emotions. Oh yes--it was a question whetherRalph Denham should live in the country and write a book; it was gettinglate; they must waste no more time; Cassandra arrived to-night fordinner; she flinched and roused herself, and discovered that she oughtto be holding something in her hands. But they were empty. She held themout with an exclamation.
"I've left my bag somewhere--where?" The gardens had no points of thecompass, so far as she was concerned. She had been walking for the mostpart on grass--that was all she knew. Even the road to the Orchid Househad now split itself into three. But there was no bag in the OrchidHouse. It must, therefore, have been left upon the seat. They retracedtheir steps in the preoccupied manner of people who have to thinkabout something that is lost. What did this bag look like? What did itcontain?
"A purse--a ticket--some letters, papers," Katharine counted, becomingmore agitated as she recalled the list. Denham went on quickly inadvance of her, and she heard him shout that he had found it before shereached the seat. In order to make sure that all was safe she spread thecontents on her knee. It was a queer collection, Denham thought, gazingwith the deepest interest. Loose gold coins were tangled in a narrowstrip of lace; there were letters which somehow suggested the extreme ofintimacy; there were two or three keys, and lists of commissions againstwhich crosses were set at intervals. But she did not seem satisfieduntil she had made sure of a certain paper so folded that Denham couldnot judge what it contained. In her relief and gratitude she began atonce to say that she had been thinking over what Denham had told her ofhis plans.
He cut her short. "Don't let's discuss that dreary business."
"But I thought--"
"It's a dreary business. I ought never to have bothered you--"
"Have you decided, then?"
He made an impatient sound. "It's not a thing that matters."
She could only say rather flatly, "Oh!"
"I mean it matters to me, but it matters to no one else. Anyhow," hecontinued, more amiably, "I see no reason why you should be botheredwith other people's nuisances."
She supposed that she had let him see too clearly her weariness of thisside of life.
"I'm afraid I've been absent-minded," she began, remembering how oftenWilliam had brought this charge against her.
"You have a good deal to make you absent-minded," he replied.
"Yes," she replied, flushing. "No," she contradicted herself. "Nothingparticular, I mean. But I was thinking about plants. I was enjoyingmyself. In fact, I've seldom enjoyed an afternoon more. But I want tohear what you've settled, if you don't mind telling me."
"Oh, it's all settled," he replied. "I'm going to this infernal cottageto write a worthless book."
"How I envy you," she replied, with the utmost sincerity.
"Well, cottages are to be had for fifteen shillings a week."
"Cottages are to be had--yes," she replied. "The question is--" Shechecked herself. "Two rooms are all I should want," she continued, witha curious sigh; "one for eating, one for sleeping. Oh, but I should likeanother, a large one at the top, and a little garden where one couldgrow flowers. A path--so--down to a river, or up to a wood, and the seanot very far off, so that one could hear the waves at night. Ships justvanishing on the horizon--" She broke off. "Shall you be near the sea?"
"My notion of perfect happiness," he began, not replying to herquestion, "is to live as you've said."
"Well, now you can. You will work, I suppose," she continued; "you'llwork all the morning and again after tea and perhaps at night. You won'thave people always coming about you to interrupt."
"How far can one live alone?" he asked. "Have you tried ever?"
"Once for three weeks," she replied. "My father and mother were inItaly, and something happened so that I couldn't join them. For threeweeks I lived entirely by myself, and the only person I spoke to was astranger in a shop where I lunched--a man with a beard. Then I went backto my room by myself and--well, I did what I liked. It doesn't make meout an amiable character, I'm afraid," she added, "but I can't endureliving with other people. An occasional man with a beard is interesting;he's detached; he lets me go my way, and we know we shall never meetagain. Therefore, we are perfectly sincere--a thing not possible withone's friends."
"Nonsense," Denham replied abruptly.
"Why 'nonsense'?" she inquired.
"Because you don't mean what you say," he expostulated.
"You're very positive," she said, laughing and looking at him. Howarbitrary, hot-tempered, and imperious he was! He had asked her to cometo Kew to advise him; he then told her that he had settled the questionalready; he then proceeded to find fault with her. He was the veryopposite of William Rodney, she thought; he was shabby, his clotheswere badly made, he was ill versed in the amenities of life; he wastongue-tied and awkward to the verge of obliterating his real character.He was awkwardly silent; he was awkwardly emphatic. And yet she likedhim.
"I don't mean what I say," she repeated good-humoredly. "Well--?"
"I doubt whether you make absolute sincerity your standard in life," heanswered significantly.
She flushed. He had penetrated at once to the weak spot--her engagement,and had reason for what he said. He was not altogether justified now, atany rate, she was glad to remember; but she could not enlighten himand must bear his insinuations, though from the lips of a man whohad behaved as he had behaved their force should not have been sharp.Nevertheless, what he said had its force, she mused; partly because heseemed unconscious of his own lapse in the case of Mary Datchet, andthus baffled her insight; partly because he always spoke with force, forwhat reason she did not yet feel certain.
"Absolute sincerity is rather difficult, don't you think?" she inquired,with a touch of irony.
"There are people one credits even with that," he replied a littlevaguely. He was ashamed of his savage wish to hurt her, and yet it wasnot for the sake of hurting her, who was beyond his shafts, but in orderto mortify his own incredibly reckless impulse of abandonment to thespirit which seemed, at moments, about to rush him to the uttermost endsof the earth. She affected him beyond the scope of his wildest dreams.He seemed to see that beneath the quiet surface of her manner, which wasalmost pathetically at hand and within reach for all the trivial demandsof daily life, there was a spirit which she reserved or repressed forsome reason either of loneliness or--could it be possible--of love. Wasit given to Rodney to see her unmasked, unrestrained, unconscious of herduties? a creature of uncalculating passion and instinctive freedom? No;he refused to believe it. It was in her loneliness that Katharine wasunreserved. "I went back to my room by myself and I did--what I liked."She had said that to him, and in saying it had given him a glimpse ofpossibilities, even of confidences, as if he might be the one to shareher loneliness, the mere hint of which made his heart beat faster andhis brain spin. He checked himself as brutally as he could. He saw herredden, and in the irony of her reply he heard her resentment.
He began slipping his smooth, silver watch in his pocket, in the hopethat somehow he might help himself back to that calm and fatalistic moodwhich had been his when he looked at its face upon the bank of the lake,for that mood must, at whatever cost, be the mood of his intercoursewith Katharine. He had spoken of gratitude and acquiescence in theletter which he had never sent, and now all the force of his charactermust make good those vows in her presence.
She, thus challenged, tried meanwhile to define her points. She wishedto make Denham understand.
"Don't you see that if you have no relations with people it's easier tobe honest with them?" she inquired. "That is what I meant. One needn'tcajole them;
one's under no obligation to them. Surely you must havefound with your own family that it's impossible to discuss what mattersto you most because you're all herded together, because you're in aconspiracy, because the position is false--" Her reasoning suspendeditself a little inconclusively, for the subject was complex, and shefound herself in ignorance whether Denham had a family or not. Denhamwas agreed with her as to the destructiveness of the family system, buthe did not wish to discuss the problem at that moment.
He turned to a problem which was of greater interest to him.
"I'm convinced," he said, "that there are cases in which perfectsincerity is possible--cases where there's no relationship, though thepeople live together, if you like, where each is free, where there's noobligation upon either side."
"For a time perhaps," she agreed, a little despondently. "Butobligations always grow up. There are feelings to be considered. Peoplearen't simple, and though they may mean to be reasonable, theyend"--in the condition in which she found herself, she meant, but addedlamely--"in a muddle."
"Because," Denham instantly intervened, "they don't make themselvesunderstood at the beginning. I could undertake, at this instant," hecontinued, with a reasonable intonation which did much credit to hisself-control, "to lay down terms for a friendship which should beperfectly sincere and perfectly straightforward."
She was curious to hear them, but, besides feeling that the topicconcealed dangers better known to her than to him, she was remindedby his tone of his curious abstract declaration upon the Embankment.Anything that hinted at love for the moment alarmed her; it was as muchan infliction to her as the rubbing of a skinless wound.
But he went on, without waiting for her invitation.
"In the first place, such a friendship must be unemotional," he laid itdown emphatically. "At least, on both sides it must be understood thatif either chooses to fall in love, he or she does so entirely at hisown risk. Neither is under any obligation to the other. They must beat liberty to break or to alter at any moment. They must be able to saywhatever they wish to say. All this must be understood."
"And they gain something worth having?" she asked.
"It's a risk--of course it's a risk," he replied. The word
was one that she had been using frequently in her arguments with herselfof late.
"But it's the only way--if you think friendship worth having," heconcluded.
"Perhaps under those conditions it might be," she said reflectively.
"Well," he said, "those are the terms of the friendship I wish to offeryou." She had known that this was coming, but, none the less, felt alittle shock, half of pleasure, half of reluctance, when she heard theformal statement.
"I should like it," she began, "but--"
"Would Rodney mind?"
"Oh no," she replied quickly.
"No, no, it isn't that," she went on, and again came to an end. She hadbeen touched by the unreserved and yet ceremonious way in which he hadmade what he called his offer of terms, but if he was generous it wasthe more necessary for her to be cautious. They would find themselvesin difficulties, she speculated; but, at this point, which was not veryfar, after all, upon the road of caution, her foresight deserted her.She sought for some definite catastrophe into which they must inevitablyplunge. But she could think of none. It seemed to her that thesecatastrophes were fictitious; life went on and on--life was differentaltogether from what people said. And not only was she at an end of herstock of caution, but it seemed suddenly altogether superfluous. Surelyif any one could take care of himself, Ralph Denham could; he had toldher that he did not love her. And, further, she meditated, walking onbeneath the beech-trees and swinging her umbrella, as in her thought shewas accustomed to complete freedom, why should she perpetually apply sodifferent a standard to her behavior in practice? Why, she reflected,should there be this perpetual disparity between the thought and theaction, between the life of solitude and the life of society, thisastonishing precipice on one side of which the soul was active and inbroad daylight, on the other side of which it was contemplative and darkas night? Was it not possible to step from one to the other, erect, andwithout essential change? Was this not the chance he offered her--therare and wonderful chance of friendship? At any rate, she told Denham,with a sigh in which he heard both impatience and relief, that sheagreed; she thought him right; she would accept his terms of friendship.
"Now," she said, "let's go and have tea."
In fact, these principles having been laid down, a great lightness ofspirit showed itself in both of them. They were both convinced thatsomething of profound importance had been settled, and could now givetheir attention to their tea and the Gardens. They wandered in and outof glass-houses, saw lilies swimming in tanks, breathed in the scentof thousands of carnations, and compared their respective tastes in thematter of trees and lakes. While talking exclusively of what they saw,so that any one might have overheard them, they felt that the compactbetween them was made firmer and deeper by the number of people whopassed them and suspected nothing of the kind. The question of Ralph'scottage and future was not mentioned again.