CHAPTER XXXI
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 tocatch an early train to Stratford-on-Avon that very day.
"Please find out the best way of getting there," the note ran, "and wireto dear Sir John Burdett to expect me, with my love. I've been dreamingall night of you and Shakespeare, dearest Katharine."
This was no momentary impulse. Mrs. Hilbery had been dreaming ofShakespeare any time these six months, toying with the idea of anexcursion to what she considered the heart of the civilized world. Tostand six feet above Shakespeare's bones, to see the very stones worn byhis feet, to reflect that the oldest man's oldest mother had very likelyseen Shakespeare's daughter--such thoughts roused an emotion in her,which she expressed at unsuitable moments, and with a passion that wouldnot have been unseemly in a pilgrim to a sacred shrine. The only strangething was that she wished to go by herself. But, naturally enough,she was well provided with friends who lived in the neighborhood ofShakespeare's tomb, and were delighted to welcome her; and she leftlater to catch her train in the best of spirits. There was a man sellingviolets 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 hallto tell Katharine, she felt, she had always felt, that Shakespeare'scommand to leave his bones undisturbed applied only to odiouscuriosity-mongers--not to dear Sir John and herself. Leaving herdaughter to cogitate the theory of Anne Hathaway's sonnets, and theburied manuscripts here referred to, with the implied menace to thesafety of the heart of civilization itself, she briskly shut the doorof her taxi-cab, and was whirled off upon the first stage of herpilgrimage.
The house was oddly different without her. Katharine found the maidsalready in possession of her room, which they meant to clean thoroughlyduring her absence. To Katharine it seemed as if they had brushed awaysixty years or so with the first flick of their damp dusters. It seemedto her that the work she had tried to do in that room was being sweptinto a very insignificant heap of dust. The china shepherdesses werealready shining from a bath of hot water. The writing-table might havebelonged to a professional man of methodical habits.
Gathering together a few papers upon which she was at work, Katharineproceeded to her own room with the intention of looking through them,perhaps, in the course of the morning. But she was met on the stairsby Cassandra, who followed her up, but with such intervals between eachstep that Katharine began to feel her purpose dwindling before they hadreached the door. Cassandra leant over the banisters, and looked downupon the Persian rug that lay on the floor of the hall.
"Doesn't everything look odd this morning?" she inquired. "Are youreally going to spend the morning with those dull old letters, becauseif so--"
The dull old letters, which would have turned the heads of the mostsober of collectors, were laid upon a table, and, after a moment'spause, Cassandra, looking grave all of a sudden, asked Katharine whereshe should find the "History of England" by Lord Macaulay. It wasdownstairs in Mr. Hilbery's study. The cousins descended together insearch of it. They diverged into the drawing-room for the good reasonthat the door was open. The portrait of Richard Alardyce attracted theirattention.
"I wonder what he was like?" It was a question that Katharine had oftenasked herself lately.
"Oh, a fraud like the rest of them--at least Henry says so," Cassandrareplied. "Though I don't believe everything Henry says," she added alittle defensively.
Down they went into Mr. Hilbery's study, where they began to look amonghis books. So desultory was this examination that some fifteen minutesfailed to discover the work they were in search of.
"Must you read Macaulay's History, Cassandra?" Katharine asked, with astretch of her arms.
"I must," Cassandra 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 toldWilliam I'd read a little every day. And I want to tell him that I'vebegun 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 marriedon the same day."
"To the same man?"
"Oh, no, no. But why shouldn't you marry--some one else?"
"Here's your Macaulay," said Katharine, turning round with the book inher hand. "I should say you'd better begin to read at once if you meanto be educated by tea-time."
"Damn Lord Macaulay!" cried Cassandra, 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 Cassandra, lookingruefully at the dull red cover of the prescribed volume, which, however,possessed a talismanic property, since William admired it. He hadadvised a little serious reading for the morning hours.
"Have YOU read Macaulay?" she asked.
"No. William never tried to educate me." As she spoke she saw the lightfade from Cassandra's face, as if she had implied some other, moremysterious, relationship. She was stung with compunction. She marveledat her own rashness in having influenced the life of another, as she hadinfluenced Cassandra's life.
"We weren't serious," she said quickly.
"But I'm fearfully serious," said Cassandra, with a little shudder,and her look showed that she spoke the truth. She turned and glanced atKatharine as she had never glanced at her before. There was fear in herglance, which darted on her and then dropped guiltily. Oh, Katharinehad everything--beauty, mind, character. She could never compete withKatharine; she could never be safe so long as Katharine brooded overher, dominating her, disposing of her. She called her cold, unseeing,unscrupulous, but the only sign she gave outwardly was a curiousone--she reached out her hand and grasped the volume of history. At thatmoment the bell of the telephone rang and Katharine went to answer it.Cassandra, released from observation, dropped her book and clenched herhands. She suffered more fiery torture in those few minutes than she hadsuffered in the whole of her life; she learnt more of her capacities forfeeling. But when Katharine reappeared she was calm, and had gained alook 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 aboutRalph Denham?" The accusation that Katharine was calm, callous, andindifferent was not possible in face of her present air of animation.She gave Cassandra no time to frame an answer. "Now, when are you andWilliam going to be married?" she asked.
Cassandra made no reply for some moments. It was, indeed, a verydifficult question to answer. In conversation the night before, Williamhad indicated to Cassandra that, in his belief, Katharine was becomingengaged to Ralph Denham in the dining-room. Cassandra, in the rosy lightof her own circumstances, had been disposed to think that the mattermust be settled already. But a letter which she had received thatmorning from William, while ardent in its expression of affection, hadconveyed to her obliquely that he would prefer the announcement of theirengagement to coincide with that of Katharine's. This document Cassandranow produced, and read aloud, with considerable excisions and muchhesitation.
"... a thousand pities--ahem--I fear we shall cause a great deal ofnatural annoyance. If, on the other hand, what I have reason to thinkwill happen, should happen--within reasonable time, and the presentposition is not in any way offensive to you, delay would, in my opinion,serve all our interests better than a premature explanation, which isbound to cause more surprise than is desirable--"
"Very like William," Katha
rine exclaimed, having gathered the drift ofthese remarks with a speed that, by itself, disconcerted Cassandra.
"I quite understand his feelings," Cassandra replied. "I quite agreewith 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?"
Cassandra was silent. The prospect appalled her. Katharine had beentelephoning to Ralph Denham; she looked queer, too; she must be, orabout to become, engaged to him. But if Cassandra could have overheardthe conversation upon the telephone, she would not have felt so certainthat 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 canceled withthe word, "Nothing." Suddenly, together, at the same moment, they saidgood-bye. And yet, if the telephone had been miraculously connected withsome higher atmosphere pungent with the scent of thyme and the savorof salt, Katharine could hardly have breathed in a keener sense ofexhilaration. She ran downstairs on the crest of it. She was amazed tofind herself already committed by William and Cassandra to marry theowner of the halting voice she had just heard on the telephone.The tendency of her spirit seemed to be in an altogether differentdirection and of a different nature. She had only to look at Cassandrato see what the love that results in an engagement and marriage means.She considered for a moment, and then said: "If you don't want to tellpeople yourselves, I'll do it for you. I know William has feelings aboutthese matters that make it very difficult for him to do anything."
"Because he's fearfully sensitive about other people's feelings," saidCassandra. "The idea that he could upset Aunt Maggie or Uncle Trevorwould make him ill for weeks."
This interpretation of what she was used to call William'sconventionality was new to Katharine. And yet she felt it now to be thetrue one.
"Yes, you're right," she said.
"And then he worships beauty. He wants life to be beautiful inevery part of it. Have you ever noticed how exquisitely he finisheseverything? Look at the address on that envelope. Every letter isperfect."
Whether this applied also to the sentiments expressed in the letter,Katharine was not so sure; but when William's solicitude was spent uponCassandra it not only failed to irritate her, as it had done when shewas the object of it, but appeared, as Cassandra said, the fruit of hislove of beauty.
"Yes," she said, "he loves beauty."
"I hope we shall have a great many children," said Cassandra. "He loveschildren."
This remark made Katharine realize the depths of their intimacy betterthan any other words could have done; she was jealous for one moment;but the next she was humiliated. She had known William for years, andshe had never once guessed that he loved children. She looked at thequeer glow of exaltation in Cassandra's eyes, through which she wasbeholding the true spirit of a human being, and wished that she wouldgo on talking about William for ever. Cassandra was not unwilling togratify her. She talked on. The morning slipped away. Katharine scarcelychanged her position on the edge of her father's writing-table, andCassandra never opened the "History of England."
And yet it must be confessed that there were vast lapses in theattention which Katharine bestowed upon her cousin. The atmospherewas wonderfully congenial for thoughts of her own. She lost herselfsometimes in such deep reverie that Cassandra, pausing, could look ather for moments unperceived. What could Katharine be thinking about,unless it were Ralph Denham? She was satisfied, by certain randomreplies, that Katharine had wandered a little from the subject ofWilliam's perfections. But Katharine made no sign. She always endedthese pauses by saying something so natural that Cassandra was deludedinto giving fresh examples of her absorbing theme. Then they lunched,and the only sign that Katharine gave of abstraction was to forgetto help the pudding. She looked so like her mother, as she sat thereoblivious of the tapioca, that Cassandra was startled into exclaiming:
"How like Aunt Maggie you look!"
"Nonsense," said Katharine, with more irritation than the remark seemedto call for.
In truth, now that her mother was away, Katharine did feel less sensiblethan usual, but as she argued it to herself, there was much less needfor sense. Secretly, she was a little shaken by the evidence which themorning had supplied of her immense capacity for--what could one callit?--rambling over an infinite variety of thoughts that were too foolishto be named. She was, for example, walking down a road in Northumberlandin the August sunset; at the inn she left her companion, who was RalphDenham, and was transported, not so much by her own feet as by someinvisible means, to the top of a high hill. Here the scents, the soundsamong the dry heather-roots, the grass-blades pressed upon the palm ofher hand, were all so perceptible that she could experience each oneseparately. After this her mind made excursions into the dark of theair, or settled upon the surface of the sea, which could be discoveredover there, or with equal unreason it returned to its couch of brackenbeneath the stars of midnight, and visited the snow valleys of the moon.These fancies would have been in no way strange, since the walls ofevery mind are decorated with some such tracery, but she found herselfsuddenly pursuing such thoughts with an extreme ardor, which becamea desire to change her actual condition for something matching theconditions of her dream. Then she started; then she awoke to the factthat Cassandra was looking at her in amazement.
Cassandra would have liked to feel certain that, when Katharine made noreply at all or one wide of the mark, she was making up her mind to getmarried at once, but it was difficult, if this were so, to account forsome remarks that Katharine let fall about the future. She recurredseveral times to the summer, as if she meant to spend that season insolitary wandering. She seemed to have a plan in her mind which requiredBradshaws and the names of inns.
Cassandra was driven finally, by her own unrest, to put on her clothesand wander out along the streets of Chelsea, on the pretence thatshe must buy something. But, in her ignorance of the way, she becamepanic-stricken at the thought of being late, and no sooner had she foundthe shop she wanted, than she fled back again in order to be at homewhen William came. He came, indeed, five minutes after she had sat downby the tea-table, and she had the happiness of receiving him alone. Hisgreeting put her doubts of his affection at rest, but the first questionhe asked was:
"Has Katharine spoken to you?"
"Yes. But she says she's not engaged. She doesn't seem to think she'sever going to be engaged."
William frowned, and looked annoyed.
"They telephoned this morning, and she behaves very oddly. She forgetsto help the pudding," Cassandra added by way of cheering him.
"My dear child, after what I saw and heard last night, it's not aquestion of guessing or suspecting. Either she's engaged to him--or--"
He left his sentence unfinished, for at this point Katharine herselfappeared. With his recollections of the scene the night before, he wastoo self-conscious even to look at her, and it was not until she toldhim 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, asif he felt at his ease, and Cassandra 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 thesame." But as she said this, with a decision which seemed to make itimply that more than the sofa was unchanged, she held out a cupinto which she had forgotten to pour any tea. Being told of herforgetfulness, she frowned with annoyance, and said that Cassandra wasdemoralizing her. The glance she cast upon them, and the resolute way inwhic
h she plunged them into speech, made William and Cassandra feellike children who had been caught prying. They followed her obediently,making conversation. Any one coming in might have judged themacquaintances met, perhaps, for the third time. If that were so, onemust have concluded that the hostess suddenly bethought her of anengagement pressing for fulfilment. First Katharine looked at her watch,and then she asked William to tell her the right time. When told that itwas 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 butter in her hand.William glanced at Cassandra.
"Well, she IS queer!" Cassandra exclaimed.
William looked perturbed. He knew more of Katharine than Cassandradid, but even he could not tell--. In a second Katharine was back againdressed in outdoor things, still holding her bread and butter in herbare hand.
"If I'm late, don't wait for me," she said. "I shall have dined," and sosaying, she left them.
"But she can't--" William exclaimed, as the door shut, "not without anygloves and bread and butter in her hand!" They ran to the window, andsaw her walking rapidly along the street towards the City. Then shevanished.
"She must have gone to meet Mr. Denham," Cassandra exclaimed.
"Goodness knows!" William interjected.
The incident impressed them both as having something queer and ominousabout it out of all proportion to its surface strangeness.
"It's the sort of way Aunt Maggie behaves," said Cassandra, as if inexplanation.
William shook his head, and paced up and down the room looking extremelyperturbed.
"This is what I've been foretelling," he burst out. "Once set theordinary conventions aside--Thank Heaven Mrs. Hilbery is away. Butthere's Mr. Hilbery. How are we to explain it to him? I shall have toleave you."
"But Uncle Trevor won't be back for hours, William!" Cassandra implored.
"You never can tell. He may be on his way already. Or suppose Mrs.Milvain--your Aunt Celia--or Mrs. Cosham, or any other of your auntsor uncles should be shown in and find us alone together. You know whatthey're saying about us already."
Cassandra was equally stricken by the sight of William's agitation, andappalled by the prospect of his desertion.
"We might hide," she exclaimed wildly, glancing at the curtain whichseparated the room with the relics.
"I refuse entirely to get under the table," said William sarcastically.
She saw that he was losing his temper with the difficulties of thesituation. Her instinct told her that an appeal to his affection, atthis moment, would be extremely ill-judged. She controlled herself, satdown, poured out a fresh cup of tea, and sipped it quietly. This naturalaction, arguing complete self-mastery, and showing her in one of thosefeminine attitudes which William found adorable, did more than anyargument to compose his agitation. It appealed to his chivalry. Heaccepted a cup. Next she asked for a slice of cake. By the time the cakewas eaten and the tea drunk the personal question had lapsed, and theywere discussing poetry. Insensibly they turned from the question ofdramatic poetry in general, to the particular example which reposedin William's pocket, and when the maid came in to clear away thetea-things, William had asked permission to read a short passage aloud,"unless it bored her?"
Cassandra bent her head in silence, but she showed a little of what shefelt in her eyes, and thus fortified, William felt confident that itwould take more than Mrs. Milvain herself to rout him from his position.He read aloud.
Meanwhile Katharine walked rapidly along the street. If called upon toexplain her impulsive action in leaving the tea-table, she could havetraced it to no better cause than that William had glanced at Cassandra;Cassandra at William. Yet, because they had glanced, her position wasimpossible. If one forgot to pour out a cup of tea they rushed to theconclusion that she was engaged to Ralph Denham. She knew that in halfan hour or so the door would open, and Ralph Denham would appear.She could not sit there and contemplate seeing him with William's andCassandra's eyes upon them, judging their exact degree of intimacy, sothat they might fix the wedding-day. She promptly decided that shewould meet Ralph out of doors; she still had time to reach Lincoln's InnFields before he left his office. She hailed a cab, and bade it take herto a shop for selling maps which she remembered in Great Queen Street,since she hardly liked to be set down at his door. Arrived at the shop,she bought a large scale map of Norfolk, and thus provided, hurried intoLincoln's Inn Fields, and assured herself of the position of Messrs.Hoper and Grateley's office. The great gas chandeliers were alight inthe office windows. She conceived that he sat at an enormous table ladenwith papers beneath one of them in the front room with the three tallwindows. Having settled his position there, she began walking to and froupon the pavement. Nobody of his build appeared. She scrutinized eachmale figure as it approached and passed her. Each male figure had,nevertheless, a look of him, due, perhaps, to the professional dress,the quick step, the keen glance which they cast upon her as theyhastened home after the day's work. The square itself, with its immensehouses all so fully occupied and stern of aspect, its atmosphere ofindustry and power, as if even the sparrows and the children wereearning their daily bread, as if the sky itself, with its gray andscarlet clouds, reflected the serious intention of the city beneath it,spoke of him. Here was the fit place for their meeting, she thought;here was the fit place for her to walk thinking of him. She couldnot help comparing it with the domestic streets of Chelsea. With thiscomparison in her mind, she extended her range a little, and turned intothe main road. The great torrent of vans and carts was sweepingdown Kingsway; pedestrians were streaming in two currents along thepavements. She stood fascinated at the corner. The deep roar filled herears; the changing tumult had the inexpressible fascination of variedlife pouring ceaselessly with a purpose which, as she looked, seemed toher, somehow, the normal purpose for which life was framed; its completeindifference to the individuals, whom it swallowed up and rolledonwards, filled her with at least a temporary exaltation. The blend ofdaylight and of lamplight made her an invisible spectator, just as itgave the people who passed her a semi-transparent quality, and left thefaces pale ivory ovals in which the eyes alone were dark. They tendedthe enormous rush of the current--the great flow, the deep stream, theunquenchable tide. She stood unobserved and absorbed, glorying openlyin the rapture that had run subterraneously all day. Suddenly shewas clutched, unwilling, from the outside, by the recollection of herpurpose in coming there. She had come to find Ralph Denham. She hastilyturned back into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and looked for her landmark--thelight in the three tall windows. She sought in vain. The faces of thehouses had now merged in the general darkness, and she had difficulty indetermining which she sought. Ralph's three windows gave back on theirghostly glass panels only a reflection of the gray and greenish sky. Sherang the bell, peremptorily, under the painted name of the firm. Aftersome delay she was answered by a caretaker, whose pail and brush ofthemselves told her that the working day was over and the workersgone. Nobody, save perhaps Mr. Grateley himself, was left, she assuredKatharine; every one else had been gone these ten minutes.
The news woke Katharine completely. Anxiety gained upon her. Shehastened back into Kingsway, looking at people who had miraculouslyregained their solidity. She ran as far as the Tube station, overhaulingclerk after clerk, solicitor after solicitor. Not one of them evenfaintly resembled Ralph Denham. More and more plainly did she see him;and more and more did he seem to her unlike any one else. At the door ofthe station she paused, and tried to collect her thoughts. He had goneto her house. By taking a cab she could be there probably in advance ofhim. But she pictured herself opening the drawing-room door, and Williamand Cassandra looking up, and Ralph's entrance a moment later, and theglances--the insinuations. No; she could not face it. She would writehim a letter and take it at once to his house. She bought paper andpencil at the bookstall, and entered an A.B.C. shop, where, by orderinga cup of coffee, she secured an empty table, and began at vice to
write:
"I came to meet you and I have missed you. I could not face William andCassandra. They want us--" here she paused. "They insist that we areengaged," she substituted, "and we couldn't talk at all, or explainanything. I want--" Her wants were so vast, now that she was incommunication with Ralph, that the pencil was utterly inadequate toconduct them on to the paper; it seemed as if the whole torrent ofKingsway had to run down her pencil. She gazed intently at a noticehanging on the gold-encrusted wall opposite, "... to say all kinds ofthings," she added, writing each word with the painstaking of a child.But, when she raised her eyes again to meditate the next sentence, shewas aware of a waitress, whose expression intimated that it was closingtime, and, looking round, Katharine saw herself almost the last personleft in the shop. She took up her letter, paid her bill, and foundherself once more in the street. She would now take a cab to Highgate.But at that moment it flashed upon her that she could not remember theaddress. This check seemed to let fall a barrier across a very powerfulcurrent of desire. She ransacked her memory in desperation, huntingfor the name, first by remembering the look of the house, and then bytrying, in memory, to retrace the words she had written once, at least,upon an envelope. The more she pressed the farther the words receded.Was the house an Orchard Something, on the street a Hill? She gaveit up. Never, since she was a child, had she felt anything like thisblankness and desolation. There rushed in upon her, as if she werewaking from some dream, all the consequences of her inexplicableindolence. She figured Ralph's face as he turned from her door withouta word of explanation, receiving his dismissal as a blow from herself,a callous intimation that she did not wish to see him. She followed hisdeparture from her door; but it was far more easy to see him marchingfar and fast in any direction for any length of time than to conceivethat he would turn back to Highgate. Perhaps he would try once more tosee her in Cheyne Walk? It was proof of the clearness with which she sawhim, that she started forward as this possibility occurred to her, andalmost raised her hand to beckon to a cab. No; he was too proud to comeagain; he rejected the desire and walked on and on, on and on--Ifonly she could read the names of those visionary streets down which hepassed! But her imagination betrayed her at this point, or mocked herwith a sense of their strangeness, darkness, and distance. Indeed,instead of helping herself to any decision, she only filled her mindwith the vast extent of London and the impossibility of finding anysingle figure that wandered off this way and that way, turned to theright and to the left, chose that dingy little back street wherethe children were playing in the road, and so--She roused herselfimpatiently. She walked rapidly along Holborn. Soon she turned andwalked as rapidly in the other direction. This indecision was not merelyodious, but had something that alarmed her about it, as she had beenalarmed slightly once or twice already that day; she felt unable to copewith the strength of her own desires. To a person controlled by habit,there was humiliation as well as alarm in this sudden release of whatappeared to be a very powerful as well as an unreasonable force. Anaching in the muscles of her right hand now showed her that she wascrushing her gloves and the map of Norfolk in a grip sufficient to cracka more solid object. She relaxed her grasp; she looked anxiously at thefaces of the passers-by to see whether their eyes rested on her fora moment longer than was natural, or with any curiosity. But havingsmoothed out her gloves, and done what she could to look as usual, sheforgot spectators, and was once more given up to her desperate desire tofind Ralph Denham. It was a desire now--wild, irrational, unexplained,resembling something felt in childhood. Once more she blamed herselfbitterly for her carelessness. But finding herself opposite the Tubestation, she pulled herself up and took counsel swiftly, as of old. Itflashed upon her that she would go at once to Mary Datchet, and askher to give her Ralph's address. The decision was a relief, not only ingiving her a goal, but in providing her with a rational excuse for herown actions. It gave her a goal certainly, but the fact of having a goalled her to dwell exclusively upon her obsession so that when she rangthe bell of Mary's flat, she did not for a moment consider how thisdemand would strike Mary. To her extreme annoyance Mary was not at home;a charwoman opened the door. All Katharine could do was to accept theinvitation to wait. She waited for, perhaps, fifteen minutes, andspent them in pacing from one end of the room to the other withoutintermission. When she heard Mary's key in the door she paused in frontof the fireplace, and Mary found her standing upright, looking at onceexpectant and determined, like a person who has come on an errand ofsuch importance that it must be broached without preface.
Mary exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes, yes," Katharine said, brushing these remarks aside, as if theywere in the way.
"Have you had tea?"
"Oh yes," she said, thinking that she had had tea hundreds of years ago,somewhere or other.
Mary paused, took off her gloves, and, finding matches, proceeded tolight the fire.
Katharine checked her with an impatient movement, and said:
"Don't light the fire for me.... I want to know Ralph Denham's address."
She was holding a pencil and preparing to write on the envelope. Shewaited with an imperious expression.
"The Apple Orchard, Mount Ararat Road, Highgate," Mary said, speakingslowly and rather strangely.
"Oh, I remember now!" Katharine exclaimed, with irritation at her ownstupidity. "I suppose it wouldn't take twenty minutes to drive there?"She gathered up her purse and gloves and seemed about to go.
"But you won't find him," said Mary, pausing with a match in her hand.Katharine, who had already turned towards the door, stopped and lookedat her.
"Why? Where is he?" she asked.
"He won't have left his office."
"But he has left the office," she replied. "The only question is will hehave reached home yet? He went to see me at Chelsea; I tried to meet himand missed him. He will have found no message to explain. So I must findhim--as soon as possible."
Mary took in the situation at her leisure.
"But why not telephone?" she said.
Katharine immediately dropped all that she was holding; her strainedexpression relaxed, and exclaiming, "Of course! Why didn't I thinkof that!" she seized the telephone receiver and gave her number. Marylooked at her steadily, and then left the room. At length Katharineheard, through all the superimposed weight of London, the mysterioussound of feet in her own house mounting to the little room, where shecould almost see the pictures and the books; she listened with extremeintentness to the preparatory vibrations, and then established heridentity.
"Has Mr. Denham called?"
"Yes, miss."
"Did he ask for me?"
"Yes. We said you were out, miss."
"Did he leave any message?"
"No. He went away. About twenty minutes ago, miss."
Katharine hung up the receiver. She walked the length of the room insuch acute disappointment that she did not at first perceive Mary'sabsence. Then she called in a harsh and peremptory tone:
"Mary."
Mary was taking off her outdoor things in the bedroom. She heardKatharine call her. "Yes," she said, "I shan't be a moment." But themoment prolonged itself, as if for some reason Mary found satisfactionin making herself not only tidy, but seemly and ornamented. A stage inher life had been accomplished in the last months which left its tracesfor ever upon her bearing. Youth, and the bloom of youth, had receded,leaving the purpose of her face to show itself in the hollower cheeks,the firmer lips, the eyes no longer spontaneously observing at random,but narrowed upon an end which was not near at hand. This woman was nowa serviceable human being, mistress of her own destiny, and thus, bysome combination of ideas, fit to be adorned with the dignity of silverchains and glowing brooches. She came in at her leisure and asked:"Well, did you get an answer?"
"He has left Chelsea already," Katharine replied.
"Still, he won't be home yet," said Mary.
Katharine was once more irresistibly drawn to gaze upon an imaginary mapof London, to follow th
e twists and turns of unnamed streets.
"I'll ring up his home and ask whether he's back." Mary crossed to thetelephone and, after a series of brief remarks, announced:
"No. His sister says he hasn't come back yet."
"Ah!" She applied her ear to the telephone once more. "They've had amessage. He won't be back to dinner."
"Then what is he going to do?"
Very pale, and with her large eyes fixed not so much upon Mary as uponvistas of unresponding blankness, Katharine addressed herself also notso much to Mary as to the unrelenting spirit which now appeared to mockher from every quarter of her survey.
After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently:
"I really don't know." Slackly lying back in her armchair, she watchedthe little flames beginning to creep among the coals indifferently, asif they, too, were very distant and indifferent.
Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose.
"Possibly he may come here," Mary continued, without altering theabstract tone of her voice. "It would be worth your while to wait ifyou want to see him to-night." She bent forward and touched the wood, sothat the flames slipped in between the interstices of the coal.
Katharine reflected. "I'll wait half an hour," she said.
Mary rose, went to the table, spread out her papers under thegreen-shaded lamp and, with an action that was becoming a habit,twisted a lock of hair round and round in her fingers. Once she lookedunperceived at her visitor, who never moved, who sat so still, with eyesso intent, that you could almost fancy that she was watching something,some face that never looked up at her. Mary found herself unable togo on writing. She turned her eyes away, but only to be aware of thepresence of what Katharine looked at. There were ghosts in the room, andone, strangely and sadly, was the ghost of herself. The minutes went by.
"What would be the time now?" said Katharine at last. The half-hour wasnot quite spent.
"I'm going to get dinner ready," said Mary, rising from her table.
"Then I'll go," said Katharine.
"Why don't you stay? Where are you going?"
Katharine looked round the room, conveying her uncertainty in herglance.
"Perhaps I might find him," she mused.
"But why should it matter? You'll see him another day."
Mary spoke, and intended to speak, cruelly enough.
"I was wrong to come here," Katharine replied.
Their eyes met with antagonism, and neither flinched.
"You had a perfect right to come here," Mary answered.
A loud knocking at the door interrupted them. Mary went to open it, andreturning with some note or parcel, Katharine looked away so that Marymight not read her disappointment.
"Of course you had a right to come," Mary repeated, laying the note uponthe table.
"No," said Katharine. "Except that when one's desperate one has a sortof right. I am desperate. How do I know what's happening to him now? Hemay do anything. He may wander about the streets all night. Anything mayhappen to him."
She spoke with a self-abandonment that Mary had never seen in her.
"You know you exaggerate; you're talking nonsense," she said roughly.
"Mary, I must talk--I must tell you--"
"You needn't tell me anything," Mary interrupted her. "Can't I see formyself?"
"No, no," Katharine exclaimed. "It's not that--"
Her look, passing beyond Mary, beyond the verge of the room and outbeyond any words that came her way, wildly and passionately, convincedMary that she, at any rate, could not follow such a glance to its end.She was baffled; she tried to think herself back again into the heightof her love for Ralph. Pressing her fingers upon her eyelids, shemurmured:
"You forget that I loved him too. I thought I knew him. I DID know him."
And yet, what had she known? She could not remember it any more. Shepressed her eyeballs until they struck stars and suns into her darkness.She convinced herself that she was stirring among ashes. She desisted.She was astonished at her discovery. She did not love Ralph any more.She looked back dazed into the room, and her eyes rested upon the tablewith its lamp-lit papers. The steady radiance seemed for a second tohave its counterpart within her; she shut her eyes; she opened them andlooked at the lamp again; another love burnt in the place of the oldone, or so, in a momentary glance of amazement, she guessed before therevelation was over and the old surroundings asserted themselves. Sheleant in silence against the mantelpiece.
"There are different ways of loving," she murmured, half to herself, atlength.
Katharine made no reply and seemed unaware of her words. She seemedabsorbed in her own thoughts.
"Perhaps he's waiting in the street again to-night," she exclaimed."I'll go now. I might find him."
"It's far more likely that he'll come here," said Mary, and Katharine,after considering for a moment, said:
"I'll wait another half-hour."
She sank down into her chair again, and took up the same position whichMary had compared to the position of one watching an unseeing face. Shewatched, indeed, not a face, but a procession, not of people, but oflife itself: the good and bad; the meaning; the past, the present, andthe future. All this seemed apparent to her, and she was not ashamedof her extravagance so much as exalted to one of the pinnacles ofexistence, where it behoved the world to do her homage. No one butshe herself knew what it meant to miss Ralph Denham on that particularnight; into this inadequate event crowded feelings that the great crisesof life might have failed to call forth. She had missed him, and knewthe bitterness of all failure; she desired him, and knew the tormentof all passion. It did not matter what trivial accidents led to thisculmination. Nor did she care how extravagant she appeared, nor howopenly she showed her feelings.
When the dinner was ready Mary told her to come, and she camesubmissively, as if she let Mary direct her movements for her. Theyate and drank together almost in silence, and when Mary told her toeat more, she ate more; when she was told to drink wine, she drank it.Nevertheless, beneath this superficial obedience, Mary knew that she wasfollowing her own thoughts unhindered. She was not inattentive so muchas remote; she looked at once so unseeing and so intent upon some visionof her own that Mary gradually felt more than protective--she becameactually alarmed at the prospect of some collision between Katharineand the forces of the outside world. Directly they had done, Katharineannounced her intention of going.
"But where are you going to?" Mary asked, desiring vaguely to hinderher.
"Oh, I'm going home--no, to Highgate perhaps."
Mary saw that it would be useless to try to stop her. All she could dowas to insist upon coming too, but she met with no opposition Katharineseemed indifferent to her presence. In a few minutes they were walkingalong the Strand. They walked so rapidly that Mary was deluded intothe belief that Katharine knew where she was going. She herself was notattentive. She was glad of the movement along lamp-lit streets in theopen air. She was fingering, painfully and with fear, yet with strangehope, too, the discovery which she had stumbled upon unexpectedly thatnight. She was free once more at the cost of a gift, the best, perhaps,that she could offer, but she was, thank Heaven, in love no longer.She was tempted to spend the first instalment of her freedom in somedissipation in the pit of the Coliseum, for example, since they werenow passing the door. Why not go in and celebrate her independence ofthe tyranny of love? Or, perhaps, the top of an omnibus bound for someremote place such as Camberwell, or Sidcup, or the Welsh Harp would suither better. She noticed these names painted on little boards for thefirst time for weeks. Or should she return to her room, and spendthe night working out the details of a very enlightened and ingeniousscheme? Of all possibilities this appealed to her most, and brought tomind the fire, the lamplight, the steady glow which had seemed lit inthe place where a more passionate flame had once burnt.
Now Katharine stopped, and Mary woke to the fact that instead of havinga goal she had evidently none. She paused at the edge of the crossing,and loo
ked this way and that, and finally made as if in the direction ofHaverstock Hill.
"Look here--where are you going?" Mary cried, catching her by the hand."We must take that cab and go home." She hailed a cab and insisted thatKatharine should get in, while she directed the driver to take them toCheyne Walk.
Katharine submitted. "Very well," she said. "We may as well go there asanywhere else."
A gloom seemed to have fallen on her. She lay back in her corner, silentand apparently exhausted. Mary, in spite of her own preoccupation, wasstruck by her pallor and her attitude of dejection.
"I'm sure we shall find him," she said more gently than she had yetspoken.
"It may be too late," Katharine replied. Without understanding her, Marybegan to pity her for what she was suffering.
"Nonsense," she said, taking her hand and rubbing it. "If we don't findhim there we shall find him somewhere else."
"But suppose he's walking about the streets--for hours and hours?"
She leant forward and looked out of the window.
"He may refuse ever to speak to me again," she said in a low voice,almost to herself.
The exaggeration was so immense that Mary did not attempt to cope withit, save by keeping hold of Katharine's wrist. She half expected thatKatharine might open the door suddenly and jump out. Perhaps Katharineperceived the purpose with which her hand was held.
"Don't be frightened," she said, with a little laugh. "I'm not going tojump out of the cab. It wouldn't do much good after all."
Upon this, Mary ostentatiously withdrew her hand.
"I ought to have apologized," Katharine continued, with an effort, "forbringing you into all this business; I haven't told you half, either.I'm no longer engaged to William Rodney. He is to marry Cassandra Otway.It's all arranged--all perfectly right.... And after he'd waited inthe streets for hours and hours, William made me bring him in. He wasstanding under the lamp-post watching our windows. He was perfectlywhite when he came into the room. William left us alone, and we sat andtalked. It seems ages and ages ago, now. Was it last night? Have Ibeen out long? What's the time?" She sprang forward to catch sight of aclock, as if the exact time had some important bearing on her case.
"Only half-past eight!" she exclaimed. "Then he may be there still." Sheleant out of the window and told the cabman to drive faster.
"But if he's not there, what shall I do? Where could I find him? Thestreets are so crowded."
"We shall find him," Mary repeated.
Mary had no doubt but that somehow or other they would find him. Butsuppose they did find him? She began to think of Ralph with a sort ofstrangeness, in her effort to understand how he could be capable ofsatisfying this extraordinary desire. Once more she thought herself backto her old view of him and could, with an effort, recall the hazewhich surrounded his figure, and the sense of confused, heightenedexhilaration which lay all about his neighborhood, so that for months ata time she had never exactly heard his voice or seen his face--or so itnow seemed to her. The pain of her loss shot through her. Nothing wouldever make up--not success, or happiness, or oblivion. But this pang wasimmediately followed by the assurance that now, at any rate, she knewthe truth; and Katharine, she thought, stealing a look at her, did notknow the truth; yes, Katharine was immensely to be pitied.
The cab, which had been caught in the traffic, was now liberated andsped on down Sloane Street. Mary was conscious of the tension with whichKatharine marked its progress, as if her mind were fixed upon a point infront of them, and marked, second by second, their approach to it. Shesaid nothing, and in silence Mary began to fix her mind, in sympathyat first, and later in forgetfulness of her companion, upon a pointin front of them. She imagined a point distant as a low star upon thehorizon of the dark. There for her too, for them both, was the goal forwhich they were striving, and the end for the ardors of their spiritswas the same: but where it was, or what it was, or why she feltconvinced that they were united in search of it, as they drove swiftlydown the streets of London side by side, she could not have said.
"At last," Katharine breathed, as the cab drew up at the door. Shejumped out and scanned the pavement on either side. Mary, meanwhile,rang the bell. The door opened as Katharine assured herself that no oneof the people within view had any likeness to Ralph. On seeing her, themaid said at once:
"Mr. Denham called again, miss. He has been waiting for you for sometime."
Katharine vanished from Mary's sight. The door shut between them, andMary walked slowly and thoughtfully up the street alone.
Katharine turned at once to the dining-room. But with her fingers uponthe handle, she held back. Perhaps she realized that this was a momentwhich would never come again. Perhaps, for a second, it seemed to herthat no reality could equal the imagination she had formed. Perhaps shewas restrained by some vague fear or anticipation, which made her dreadany exchange or interruption. But if these doubts and fears or thissupreme bliss restrained her, it was only for a moment. In anothersecond she had turned the handle and, biting her lip to control herself,she opened the door upon Ralph Denham. An extraordinary clearness ofsight seemed to possess her on beholding him. So little, so single,so separate from all else he appeared, who had been the cause of theseextreme agitations and aspirations. She could have laughed in his face.But, gaining upon this clearness of sight against her will, and to herdislike, was a flood of confusion, of relief, of certainty, of humility,of desire no longer to strive and to discriminate, yielding to which,she let herself sink within his arms and confessed her love.