Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
CHAPTER XXXIII
Considering that Mr. Hilbery lived in a house which was accuratelynumbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paidrent, and had seven more years of tenancy to run, he had an excuse forlaying down laws for the conduct of those who lived in his house, andthis excuse, though profoundly inadequate, he found useful during theinterregnum of civilization with which he now found himself faced. Inobedience to those laws, Rodney disappeared; Cassandra was dispatched tocatch the eleven-thirty on Monday morning; Denham was seen no more; sothat only Katharine, the lawful occupant of the upper rooms, remained,and Mr. Hilbery thought himself competent to see that she did nothingfurther to compromise herself. As he bade her good morning next dayhe was aware that he knew nothing of what she was thinking, but, ashe reflected with some bitterness, even this was an advance upon theignorance of the previous mornings. He went to his study, wrote, toreup, and wrote again a letter to his wife, asking her to come back onaccount of domestic difficulties which he specified at first, but in alater draft more discreetly left unspecified. Even if she started thevery moment that she got it, he reflected, she would not be home tillTuesday night, and he counted lugubriously the number of hours that hewould have to spend in a position of detestable authority alone with hisdaughter.
What was she doing now, he wondered, as he addressed the envelope to hiswife. He could not control the telephone. He could not play the spy.She might be making any arrangements she chose. Yet the thought did notdisturb him so much as the strange, unpleasant, illicit atmosphere ofthe whole scene with the young people the night before. His sense ofdiscomfort was almost physical.
Had he known it, Katharine was far enough withdrawn, both physicallyand spiritually, from the telephone. She sat in her room with thedictionaries spreading their wide leaves on the table before her, andall the pages which they had concealed for so many years arranged in apile. She worked with the steady concentration that is produced bythe successful effort to think down some unwelcome thought by means ofanother thought. Having absorbed the unwelcome thought, her mind wenton with additional vigor, derived from the victory; on a sheet of paperlines of figures and symbols frequently and firmly written down markedthe different stages of its progress. And yet it was broad daylight;there were sounds of knocking and sweeping, which proved that livingpeople were at work on the other side of the door, and the door, whichcould be thrown open in a second, was her only protection against theworld. But she had somehow risen to be mistress in her own kingdom,assuming her sovereignty unconsciously.
Steps approached her unheard. It is true that they were steps thatlingered, divagated, and mounted with the deliberation natural to onepast sixty whose arms, moreover, are full of leaves and blossoms; butthey came on steadily, and soon a tap of laurel boughs against the doorarrested 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 themoving mass of green which seemed to enter the room independently of anyhuman agency. Then she recognized parts of her mother's face and personbehind the yellow flowers and soft velvet of the palm-buds.
"From Shakespeare's tomb!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, dropping the entiremass upon the floor, with a gesture that seemed to indicate an act ofdedication. Then she flung her arms wide and embraced her daughter.
"Thank God, Katharine!" she exclaimed. "Thank God!" she repeated.
"You've come back?" said Katharine, very vaguely, standing up to receivethe embrace.
Although she recognized her mother's presence, she was very far fromtaking part in the scene, and yet felt it to be amazingly appropriatethat her mother should be there, thanking God emphatically forunknown blessings, and strewing the floor with flowers and leaves fromShakespeare's tomb.
"Nothing else matters in the world!" Mrs. Hilbery continued. "Namesaren't everything; it's what we feel that's everything. I didn't wantsilly, 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, tofinger a tassel hanging from her mother's cloak.
"The first evening you told me, Katharine. Oh, and thousands oftimes--dinner-parties--talking about books--the way he came into theroom--your voice when you spoke of him."
Katharine seemed to consider each of these proofs separately. Then shesaid gravely:
"I'm not going to marry William. And then there's Cassandra--"
"Yes, there's Cassandra," said Mrs. Hilbery. "I own I was a littlegrudging at first, but, after all, she plays the piano so beautifully.Do tell me, Katharine," she asked impulsively, "where did you go thatevening 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 hervoice. "I had my little romance--my little speculation." She looked ather daughter. Katharine faltered beneath that innocent and penetratinggaze; she flushed, turned away, and then looked up with very brighteyes.
"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 theredifferent ways, Katharine--different--?"
"We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free," Katharinecontinued.
"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 didnot quite satisfy her ear. It was plain that she had her sources ofinformation, and, indeed, her bag was stuffed with what she called "kindletters" 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 thewindow.
"What a comfort he was in that shop--how he took me and found the ruinsat once--how SAFE I felt with him--"
"Safe? Oh, no, he's fearfully rash--he's always taking risks. He wantsto 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 sistersand brothers dependent on him."
"Ah, he has a mother?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired.
"Yes. Rather a fine-looking old lady, with white hair." Katharine beganto describe her visit, and soon Mrs. Hilbery elicited the facts that notonly was the house of excruciating ugliness, which Ralph bore withoutcomplaint, 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 overLondon, 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 sufferingsof humanity while resting assured in the capacity of Ralph Denham toalleviate them, so that Mrs. Hilbery could not help exclaiming:
"But, Katharine, you ARE in love!" at which Katharine flushed, lookedstartled, 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 extraordinaryhouse, and interposed a few speculations about the meeting between Keatsand Coleridge in a lane, which tided over the discomfort of the moment,and drew Katharine on to further descriptions and indiscretions. Intruth, she found an extraordinary pleasure in being thus free to talk tosome one who was equally wise and equally benignant, the mother of herearliest childhood, whose silence seemed to answer questions that werenever asked. Mrs. Hilbery listened without making any remark for aconsiderable time. She seemed to draw her conclusions rather by lookingat her daughter than by listening to her, and, if cross-examined, shewould probably have given a highly inaccurate version of Ralph Denham'slife-history except that he was penniless, fatherless, and lived atHighgate--all of which was much in his favor. But by means of thesefurtive glances she had assured herself tha
She could not help ejaculating at last:
"It's all done in five minutes at a Registry Office nowadays, if youthink the Church service a little florid--which it is, though there arenoble things in it."
"But we don't want to be married," Katharine replied emphatically, andadded, "Why, after all, isn't it perfectly possible to live togetherwithout being married?"
Again Mrs. Hilbery looked discomposed, and, in her trouble, took up thesheets which were lying upon the table, and began turning them over thisway and that, and muttering to herself as she glanced:
"A plus B minus C equals 'x y z'. 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 shufflingthem absent-mindedly together, for her fixed gaze seemed to show thather 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 graveyoung 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 longcorridor of days at the far end of which the little figures of herselfand her husband appeared fantastically attired, clasping hands upon amoonlit beach, with roses swinging in the dusk.
"We were in a little boat going out to a ship at night," she began. "Thesun had set and the moon was rising over our heads. There were lovelysilver lights upon the waves and three green lights upon the steamer inthe middle of the bay. Your father's head looked so grand against themast. It was life, it was death. The great sea was round us. It was thevoyage for ever and ever."
The ancient fairy-tale fell roundly and harmoniously upon Katharine'sears. Yes, there was the enormous space of the sea; there were the threegreen lights upon the steamer; the cloaked figures climbed up on deck.And so, voyaging over the green and purple waters, past the cliffs andthe sandy lagoons and through pools crowded with the masts of shipsand the steeples of churches--here they were. The river seemed to havebrought them and deposited them here at this precise point. She lookedadmiringly at her mother, that ancient voyager.
"Who knows," exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery, continuing her reveries, "where weare bound for, or why, or who has sent us, or what we shall find--whoknows anything, except that love is our faith--love--" she crooned, andthe soft sound beating through the dim words was heard by her daughteras the breaking of waves solemnly in order upon the vast shore that shegazed upon. She would have been content for her mother to repeat thatword almost indefinitely--a soothing word when uttered by another, ariveting 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?" atwhich words the ship which Katharine had been considering seemed to putinto harbor and have done with its seafaring. Yet she was in great need,if not exactly of sympathy, of some form of advice, or, at least, of theopportunity of setting forth her problems before a third person so as torenew them in her own eyes.
"But then," she said, ignoring the difficult problem of ugliness, "youknew you were in love; but we're different. It seems," she continued,frowning a little as she tried to fix the difficult feeling, "as ifsomething came to an end suddenly--gave out--faded--an illusion--asif when we think we're in love we make it up--we imagine what doesn'texist. That's why it's impossible that we should ever marry. Always tobe finding the other an illusion, and going off and forgetting aboutthem, never to be certain that you cared, or that he wasn't caring forsome one not you at all, the horror of changing from one state to theother, being happy one moment and miserable the next--that's the reasonwhy we can't possibly marry. At the same time," she continued, "we can'tlive without each other, because--" Mrs. Hilbery waited patiently forthe sentence to be completed, but Katharine fell silent and fingered hersheet of figures.
"We have to have faith in our vision," Mrs. Hilbery resumed, glancingat the figures, which distressed her vaguely, and had some connection inher mind with the household accounts, "otherwise, as you say--" Shecast 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--foryour father," she said earnestly, and sighed. They looked together intothe abyss and, as the elder of the two, she recovered herself first andasked:
"But where is Ralph? Why isn't he here to see me?"
Katharine's expression changed instantly.
"Because he's not allowed to come here," she replied bitterly.
Mrs. Hilbery brushed this aside.
"Would there be time to send for him before luncheon?" she asked.
Katharine looked at her as if, indeed, she were some magician. Oncemore she felt that instead of being a grown woman, used to advise andcommand, she was only a foot or two raised above the long grass and thelittle flowers and entirely dependent upon the figure of indefinite sizewhose head went up into the sky, whose hand was in hers, for guidance.
"I'm not happy without him," she said simply.
Mrs. Hilbery nodded her head in a manner which indicated completeunderstanding, and the immediate conception of certain plans for thefuture. She swept up her flowers, breathed in their sweetness, and,humming a little song about a miller's daughter, left the room.
The case upon which Ralph Denham was engaged that afternoon was notapparently receiving his full attention, and yet the affairs of the lateJohn Leake of Dublin were sufficiently confused to need all the carethat a solicitor could bestow upon them, if the widow Leake and the fiveLeake children of tender age were to receive any pittance at all. Butthe appeal to Ralph's humanity had little chance of being heard to-day;he was no longer a model of concentration. The partition so carefullyerected between the different sections of his life had been broken down,with the result that though his eyes were fixed upon the last Will andTestament, he saw through the page a certain drawing-room in CheyneWalk.
He tried every device that had proved effective in the past for keepingup the partitions of the mind, until he could decently go home; but alittle to his alarm he found himself assailed so persistently, as iffrom outside, by Katharine, that he launched forth desperately into animaginary interview with her. She obliterated a bookcase full of lawreports, and the corners and lines of the room underwent a curioussoftening of outline like that which sometimes makes a room unfamiliarat the moment of waking from sleep. By degrees, a pulse or stress beganto beat at regular intervals in his mind, heaping his thoughts intowaves to which words fitted themselves, and without much consciousnessof what he was doing, he began to write on a sheet of draft paper whathad the appearance of a poem lacking several words in each line. Notmany lines had been set down, however, before he threw away his pen asviolently as if that were responsible for his misdeeds, and tore thepaper into many separate pieces. This was a sign that Katharinehad asserted herself and put to him a remark that could not be metpoetically. Her remark was entirely destructive of poetry, since it wasto the effect that poetry had nothing whatever to do with her; allher friends spent their lives in making up phrases, she said; all hisfeeling was an illusion, and next moment, as if to taunt him with hisimpotence, she had sunk into one of those dreamy states which took noaccount whatever of his existence. Ralph was roused by his passionateattempts to attract her attention to the fact that he was standingin the middle of his little private room in Lincoln's Inn Fields at aconsiderable distance from Chelsea. The physical distance increased hisdesperation. He began pacing in circles until the process sickened him,and then took a sheet of paper for the composition of a letter which, hevowed before he began it, should be sent that same eve
It was a difficult matter to put into words; poetry would have done itbetter justice, but he must abstain from poetry. In an infinite numberof half-obliterated scratches he tried to convey to her the possibilitythat although human beings are woefully ill-adapted for communication,still, such communion is the best we know; moreover, they make itpossible for each to have access to another world independent ofpersonal affairs, a world of law, of philosophy, or more strangely aworld such as he had had a glimpse of the other evening when togetherthey seemed to be sharing something, creating something, an ideal--avision flung out in advance of our actual circumstances. If this goldenrim were quenched, if life were no longer circled by an illusion (butwas it an illusion after all?), then it would be too dismal an affairto carry to an end; so he wrote with a sudden spurt of conviction whichmade clear way for a space and left at least one sentence standingwhole. Making every allowance for other desires, on the whole thisconclusion appeared to him to justify their relationship. But theconclusion was mystical; it plunged him into thought. The difficultywith which even this amount was written, the inadequacy of the words,and the need of writing under them and over them others which, afterall, did no better, led him to leave off before he was at all satisfiedwith his production, and unable to resist the conviction that suchrambling would never be fit for Katharine's eye. He felt himself morecut off from her than ever. In idleness, and because he could do nothingfurther with words, he began to draw little figures in the blank spaces,heads meant to resemble her head, blots fringed with flames meant torepresent--perhaps the entire universe. From this occupation he wasroused by the message that a lady wished to speak to him. He hadscarcely time to run his hands through his hair in order to look as muchlike a solicitor as possible, and to cram his papers into his pocket,already overcome with shame that another eye should behold them, when herealized that his preparations were needless. The lady was Mrs. Hilbery.
"I hope you're not disposing of somebody's fortune in a hurry," sheremarked, gazing at the documents on his table, "or cutting off anentail at one blow, because I want to ask you to do me a favor. AndAnderson won't keep his horse waiting. (Anderson is a perfect tyrant,but he drove my dear father to the Abbey the day they buried him.) Imade bold to come to you, Mr. Denham, not exactly in search of legalassistance (though I don't know who I'd rather come to, if I were introuble), but in order to ask your help in settling some tiresomelittle domestic affairs that have arisen in my absence. I've been toStratford-on-Avon (I must tell you all about that one of these days),and there I got a letter from my sister-in-law, a dear kind goose wholikes interfering with other people's children because she's got none ofher own. (We're dreadfully afraid that she's going to lose the sight ofone of her eyes, and I always feel that our physical ailments are so aptto turn into mental ailments. I think Matthew Arnold says something ofthe same kind about Lord Byron.) But that's neither here nor there."
The effect of these parentheses, whether they were introduced for thatpurpose or represented a natural instinct on Mrs. Hilbery's part toembellish the bareness of her discourse, gave Ralph time to perceivethat she possessed all the facts of their situation and was come,somehow, in the capacity of ambassador.
"I didn't come here to talk about Lord Byron," Mrs. Hilbery continued,with a little laugh, "though I know that both you and Katharine, unlikeother young people of your generation, still find him worth reading."She paused. "I'm so glad you've made Katharine read poetry, Mr. Denham!"she exclaimed, "and feel poetry, and look poetry! She can't talk it yet,but she will--oh, she will!"
Ralph, whose hand was grasped and whose tongue almost refused toarticulate, somehow contrived to say that there were moments when hefelt hopeless, utterly hopeless, though he gave no reason for thisstatement on his part.
"But you care for her?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired.
"Good God!" he exclaimed, with a vehemence which admitted of noquestion.
"It's the Church of England service you both object to?" Mrs. Hilberyinquired innocently.
"I don't care a damn what service it is," Ralph replied.
"You would marry her in Westminster Abbey if the worst came to theworst?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired.
"I would marry her in St. Paul's Cathedral," Ralph replied. His doubtsupon this point, which were always roused by Katharine's presence, hadvanished completely, and his strongest wish in the world was to be withher immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined herslipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of mindin which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to possessher.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery. She thanked Him for a variety ofblessings: for the conviction with which the young man spoke; and notleast for the prospect that on her daughter's wedding-day the noblecadences, the stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriageservice would resound over the heads of a distinguished congregationgathered together near the very spot where her father lay quiescentwith the other poets of England. The tears filled her eyes; but sheremembered simultaneously that her carriage was waiting, and with dimeyes she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs.
It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception the mostunpleasant he had ever taken. His only wish was to go as straightlyand quickly as possible to Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared thatMrs. Hilbery either ignored or thought fit to baffle this desire byinterposing various errands of her own. She stopped the carriage atpost-offices, and coffee-shops, and shops of inscrutable dignity wherethe aged attendants had to be greeted as old friends; and, catchingsight of the dome of St. Paul's above the irregular spires of LudgateHill, she pulled the cord impulsively, and gave directions that Andersonshould drive them there. But Anderson had reasons of his own fordiscouraging afternoon worship, and kept his horse's nose obstinatelytowards the west. After some minutes, Mrs. Hilbery realized thesituation, and accepted it good-humoredly, apologizing to Ralph for hisdisappointment.
"Never mind," she said, "we'll go to St. Paul's another day, and it mayturn out, though I can't promise that it WILL, that he'll take us pastWestminster Abbey, which would be even better."
Ralph was scarcely aware of what she went on to say. Her mind and bodyboth seemed to have floated into another region of quick-sailingclouds rapidly passing across each other and enveloping everything ina vaporous indistinctness. Meanwhile he remained conscious of his ownconcentrated desire, his impotence to bring about anything he wished,and his increasing agony of impatience.
Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery pulled the cord with such decision that evenAnderson had to listen to the order which she leant out of the windowto give him. The carriage pulled up abruptly in the middle of Whitehallbefore a large building dedicated to one of our Government offices. Ina second Mrs. Hilbery was mounting the steps, and Ralph was left in tooacute an irritation by this further delay even to speculate what errandtook her now to the Board of Education. He was about to jump from thecarriage and take a cab, when Mrs. Hilbery reappeared talking geniallyto a figure who remained hidden behind her.
"There's plenty of room for us all," she was saying. "Plenty of room. Wecould find space for FOUR of you, William," she added, opening the door,and Ralph found that Rodney had now joined their company. The two menglanced at each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most acuteform were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could read them allexpressed beyond the eloquence of words upon the face of his unfortunatecompanion. But Mrs. Hilbery was either completely unseeing or determinedto appear so. She went on talking; she talked, it seemed to boththe young men, to some one outside, up in the air. She talked aboutShakespeare, she apostrophized the human race, she proclaimed thevirtues of divine poetry, she began to recite verses which broke downin the middle. The great advantage of her discourse was that it wasself-supporting. It nourished itself until Cheyne Walk was reached uponhalf a dozen grunts and murmurs.
"Now," she said, alighting briskly at her door, "here we are!"
There was something airy and ironi
"You go in, Denham. I..." He was turning tail, but the door opening andthe familiar look of the house asserting its charm, he bolted in on thewake of the others, and the door shut upon his escape. Mrs. Hilbery ledthe way upstairs. She took them to the drawing-room. The fire burntas usual, the little tables were laid with china and silver. There wasnobody there.
"Ah," she said, "Katharine's not here. She must be upstairs in her room.You have something to say to her, I know, Mr. Denham. You can find yourway?" she vaguely indicated the ceiling with a gesture of her hand. Shehad become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in her own house.The gesture with which she dismissed him had a dignity that Ralph neverforgot. She seemed to make him free with a wave of her hand to all thatshe possessed. He left the room.
The Hilberys' house was tall, possessing many stories and passages withclosed doors, all, once he had passed the drawing-room floor, unknown toRalph. He mounted as high as he could and knocked at the first door hecame to.
"May I come in?" he asked.
A voice from within answered "Yes."
He was conscious of a large window, full of light, of a bare table, andof a long looking-glass. Katharine had risen, and was standing with somewhite papers in her hand, which slowly fluttered to the ground asshe saw her visitor. The explanation was a short one. The sounds wereinarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves.As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder theysat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious eyeof Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit.
"Don't move, don't go," she begged of him, when he stooped to gather thepapers she had let fall. But he took them in his hands and, giving herby a sudden impulse his own unfinished dissertation, with its mysticalconclusion, they read each other's compositions in silence.
Katharine read his sheets to an end; Ralph followed her figures as faras his mathematics would let him. They came to the end of their tasks atabout the same moment, and sat for a time in silence.
"Those were the papers you left on the seat at Kew," said Ralph atlength. "You folded them so quickly that I couldn't see what they were."
She blushed very deeply; but as she did not move or attempt to hide herface she had the appearance of some one disarmed of all defences, orRalph likened her to a wild bird just settling with wings trembling tofold themselves within reach of his hand. The moment of exposure hadbeen exquisitely painful--the light shed startlingly vivid. She hadnow to get used to the fact that some one shared her loneliness. Thebewilderment was half shame and half the prelude to profound rejoicing.Nor was she unconscious that on the surface the whole thing must appearof the utmost absurdity. She looked to see whether Ralph smiled, butfound his gaze fixed on her with such gravity that she turned to thebelief that she had committed no sacrilege but enriched herself, perhapsimmeasurably, perhaps eternally. She hardly dared steep herself in theinfinite bliss. But his glance seemed to ask for some assurance uponanother point of vital interest to him. It beseeched her mutely to tellhim whether what she had read upon his confused sheet had any meaning ortruth to her. She bent her head once more to the papers she held.
"I like your little dot with the flames round it," she saidmeditatively.
Ralph nearly tore the page from her hand in shame and despair when hesaw her actually contemplating the idiotic symbol of his most confusedand emotional moments.
He was convinced that it could mean nothing to another, although somehowto him it conveyed not only Katharine herself but all those states ofmind which had clustered round her since he first saw her pouringout tea on a Sunday afternoon. It represented by its circumference ofsmudges surrounding a central blot all that encircling glow which forhim surrounded, inexplicably, so many of the objects of life, softeningtheir sharp outline, so that he could see certain streets, books, andsituations wearing a halo almost perceptible to the physical eye. Didshe smile? Did she put the paper down wearily, condemning it not onlyfor its inadequacy but for its falsity? Was she going to protest oncemore that he only loved the vision of her? But it did not occur to herthat this diagram had anything to do with her. She said simply, and inthe same tone of reflection:
"Yes, the world looks something like that to me too."
He received her assurance with profound joy. Quietly and steadily thererose up behind the whole aspect of life that soft edge of fire whichgave its red tint to the atmosphere and crowded the scene with shadowsso deep and dark that one could fancy pushing farther into theirdensity and still farther, exploring indefinitely. Whether there was anycorrespondence between the two prospects now opening before themthey shared the same sense of the impending future, vast, mysterious,infinitely stored with undeveloped shapes which each would unwrap forthe other to behold; but for the present the prospect of the future wasenough to fill them with silent adoration. At any rate, their furtherattempts to communicate articulately were interrupted by a knock onthe door, and the entrance of a maid who, with a due sense of mystery,announced that a lady wished to see Miss Hilbery, but refused to allowher name to be given.
When Katharine rose, with a profound sigh, to resume her duties, Ralphwent with her, and neither of them formulated any guess, on their waydownstairs, as to who this anonymous lady might prove to be. Perhaps thefantastic notion that she was a little black hunchback provided with asteel knife, which she would plunge into Katharine's heart, appearedto Ralph more probable than another, and he pushed first into thedining-room to avert the blow. Then he exclaimed "Cassandra!" with suchheartiness at the sight of Cassandra Otway standing by the dining-roomtable that she put her finger to her lips and begged him to be quiet.
"Nobody must know I'm here," she explained in a sepulchral whisper. "Imissed my train. I have been wandering about London all day. I can bearit no longer. Katharine, what am I to do?"
Katharine pushed forward a chair; Ralph hastily found wine and poured itout for her. If not actually fainting, she was very near it.
"William's upstairs," said Ralph, as soon as she appeared to berecovered. "I'll go and ask him to come down to you." His own happinesshad given him a confidence that every one else was bound to be happytoo. But Cassandra had her uncle's commands and anger too vividly in hermind to dare any such defiance. She became agitated and said that shemust leave the house at once. She was not in a condition to go, had theyknown where to send her. Katharine's common sense, which had been inabeyance for the past week or two, still failed her, and she couldonly ask, "But where's your luggage?" in the vague belief that to takelodgings depended entirely upon a sufficiency of luggage. Cassandra'sreply, "I've lost my luggage," in no way helped her to a conclusion.
"You've lost your luggage," she repeated. Her eyes rested upon Ralph,with an expression which seemed better fitted to accompany a profoundthanksgiving for his existence or some vow of eternal devotion than aquestion about luggage. Cassandra perceived the look, and saw that itwas returned; her eyes filled with tears. She faltered in what she wassaying. She began bravely again to discuss the question of lodging whenKatharine, who seemed to have communicated silently with Ralph, andobtained his permission, took her ruby ring from her finger andgiving it to Cassandra, said: "I believe it will fit you without anyalteration."
These words would not have been enough to convince Cassandra of what shevery much wished to believe had not Ralph taken the bare hand in his anddemanded:
"Why don't you tell us you're glad?" Cassandra was so glad that thetears ran down her cheeks. The certainty of Katharine's engagement notonly relieved her of a thousand vague fears and self-reproaches, butentirely quenched that spirit of criticism which had lately impairedher belief in Katharine. Her old faith came back to her. She seemed tobehold her with that curious intensity which she had
"I won't take that unless William gives it me himself," she said. "Keepit for me, Katharine."
"I assure you everything's perfectly all right," said Ralph. "Let metell William--"
He was about, in spite of Cassandra's protest, to reach the door, whenMrs. Hilbery, either warned by the parlor-maid or conscious with herusual prescience of the need for her intervention, opened the door andsmilingly surveyed them.
"My dear Cassandra!" she exclaimed. "How delightful to see you backagain! What a coincidence!" she observed, in a general way. "William isupstairs. The kettle boils over. Where's Katharine, I say? I go to look,and I find Cassandra!" She seemed to have proved something to her ownsatisfaction, although nobody felt certain what thing precisely it was.
"I find Cassandra," she repeated.
"She missed her train," Katharine interposed, seeing that Cassandra wasunable to speak.
"Life," began Mrs. Hilbery, drawing inspiration from the portraits onthe wall apparently, "consists in missing trains and in finding--" Butshe pulled herself up and remarked that the kettle must have boiledcompletely over everything.
To Katharine's agitated mind it appeared that this kettle was anenormous kettle, capable of deluging the house in its incessant showersof steam, the enraged representative of all those household duties whichshe had neglected. She ran hastily up to the drawing-room, and the restfollowed her, for Mrs. Hilbery put her arm round Cassandra and drew herupstairs. They found Rodney observing the kettle with uneasiness butwith such absence of mind that Katharine's catastrophe was in a fairway to be fulfilled. In putting the matter straight no greetingswere exchanged, but Rodney and Cassandra chose seats as far apart aspossible, and sat down with an air of people making a very temporarylodgment. Either Mrs. Hilbery was impervious to their discomfort,or chose to ignore it, or thought it high time that the subject waschanged, for she did nothing but talk about Shakespeare's tomb.
"So much earth and so much water and that sublime spirit brooding overit all," she mused, and went on to sing her strange, half-earthly songof dawns and sunsets, of great poets, and the unchanged spirit of nobleloving which they had taught, so that nothing changes, and one age islinked with another, and no one dies, and we all meet in spirit, untilshe appeared oblivious of any one in the room. But suddenly her remarksseemed to contract the enormously wide circle in which they were soaringand to alight, airily and temporarily, upon matters of more immediatemoment.
"Katharine and Ralph," she said, as if to try the sound. "William andCassandra."
"I feel myself in an entirely false position," said William desperately,thrusting himself into this breach in her reflections. "I've no right tobe sitting here. Mr. Hilbery told me yesterday to leave the house. I'dno intention of coming back again. I shall now--"
"I feel the same too," Cassandra interrupted. "After what Uncle Trevorsaid to me last night--"
"I have put you into a most odious position," Rodney went on, risingfrom his seat, in which movement he was imitated simultaneously byCassandra. "Until I have your father's consent I have no right tospeak to you--let alone in this house, where my conduct"--he lookedat Katharine, stammered, and fell silent--"where my conduct has beenreprehensible and inexcusable in the extreme," he forced himselfto continue. "I have explained everything to your mother. She is sogenerous as to try and make me believe that I have done no harm--youhave convinced her that my behavior, selfish and weak as it was--selfishand weak--" he repeated, like a speaker who has lost his notes.
Two emotions seemed to be struggling in Katharine; one the desire tolaugh at the ridiculous spectacle of William making her a formalspeech across the tea-table, the other a desire to weep at the sight ofsomething childlike and honest in him which touched her inexpressibly.To every one's surprise she rose, stretched out her hand, and said:
"You've nothing to reproach yourself with--you've been always--" buthere her voice died away, and the tears forced themselves into her eyes,and ran down her cheeks, while William, equally moved, seized her handand pressed it to his lips. No one perceived that the drawing-room doorhad opened itself sufficiently to admit at least half the person ofMr. Hilbery, or saw him gaze at the scene round the tea-table with anexpression of the utmost disgust and expostulation. He withdrew unseen.He paused outside on the landing trying to recover his self-control andto decide what course he might with most dignity pursue. It wasobvious to him that his wife had entirely confused the meaning of hisinstructions. She had plunged them all into the most odious confusion.He waited a moment, and then, with much preliminary rattling of thehandle, opened the door a second time. They had all regained theirplaces; some incident of an absurd nature had now set them laughingand looking under the table, so that his entrance passed momentarilyunperceived. Katharine, with flushed cheeks, raised her head and said:
"Well, that's my last attempt at the dramatic."
"It's astonishing what a distance they roll," said Ralph, stooping toturn up the corner of the hearthrug.
"Don't trouble--don't bother. We shall find it--" Mrs. Hilbery began,and then saw her husband and exclaimed: "Oh, Trevor, we're looking forCassandra's engagement-ring!"
Mr. Hilbery looked instinctively at the carpet. Remarkably enough, thering had rolled to the very point where he stood. He saw the rubiestouching the tip of his boot. Such is the force of habit that he couldnot refrain from stooping, with an absurd little thrill of pleasure atbeing the one to find what others were looking for, and, picking thering up, he presented it, with a bow that was courtly in the extreme, toCassandra. Whether the making of a bow released automatically feelingsof complaisance and urbanity, Mr. Hilbery found his resentmentcompletely washed away during the second in which he bent andstraightened himself. Cassandra dared to offer her cheek and receivedhis embrace. He nodded with some degree of stiffness to Rodney andDenham, who had both risen upon seeing him, and now altogether satdown. Mrs. Hilbery seemed to have been waiting for the entrance of herhusband, and for this precise moment in order to put to him a questionwhich, from the ardor with which she announced it, had evidently beenpressing for utterance for some time past.
"Oh, Trevor, please tell me, what was the date of the first performanceof 'Hamlet'?"
In order to answer her Mr. Hilbery had to have recourse to the exactscholarship of William Rodney, and before he had given his excellentauthorities for believing as he believed, Rodney felt himself admittedonce more to the society of the civilized and sanctioned by theauthority of no less a person than Shakespeare himself. The power ofliterature, which had temporarily deserted Mr. Hilbery, now came back tohim, pouring over the raw ugliness of human affairs its soothingbalm, and providing a form into which such passions as he had felt sopainfully the night before could be molded so that they fell roundlyfrom the tongue in shapely phrases, hurting nobody. He was sufficientlysure of his command of language at length to look at Katharine and againat Denham. All this talk about Shakespeare had acted as a soporific, orrather as an incantation upon Katharine. She leaned back in her chair atthe head of the tea-table, perfectly silent, looking vaguely pastthem all, receiving the most generalized ideas of human heads againstpictures, against yellow-tinted walls, against curtains of deep crimsonvelvet. Denham, to whom he turned next, shared her immobility under hisgaze. But beneath his restraint and calm it was possible to detect aresolution, a will, set now with unalterable tenacity, which made suchturns of speech as Mr. Hilbery had at command appear oddly irrelevant.At any rate, he said nothing. He respected the young man; he was a veryable young man; he was likely to get his own way. He could, he thought,looking at his still and very dignified head, understand Katharine'spreference, and, as he thought this, he was surprised by a pang of acutejealousy. She might have married Rodney without causing him a twinge.This man she love
"Don't stay if you want to go, Katharine. There's the little room overthere. Perhaps you and Ralph--"
"We're engaged," said Katharine, waking with a start, and lookingstraight at her father. He was taken aback by the directness of thestatement; he exclaimed as if an unexpected blow had struck him. Had heloved her to see her swept away by this torrent, to have her taken fromhim by this uncontrollable force, to stand by helpless, ignored? Oh, howhe loved her! How he loved her! He nodded very curtly to Denham.
"I gathered something of the kind last night," he said. "I hope you'lldeserve her." But he never looked at his daughter, and strode out of theroom, leaving in the minds of the women a sense, half of awe, half ofamusement, at the extravagant, inconsiderate, uncivilized male, outragedsomehow and gone bellowing to his lair with a roar which still sometimesreverberates in the most polished of drawing-rooms. Then Katharine,looking at the shut door, looked down again, to hide her tears.
CHAPTER XXXIV
The lamps were lit; their luster reflected itself in the polished wood;good wine was passed round the dinner-table; before the meal was faradvanced civilization had triumphed, and Mr. Hilbery presided overa feast which came to wear more and more surely an aspect, cheerful,dignified, promising well for the future. To judge from the expressionin Katharine's eyes it promised something--but he checked the approachsentimentality. He poured out wine; he bade Denham help himself.
They went upstairs and he saw Katharine and Denham abstractthemselves directly Cassandra had asked whether she might not play himsomething--some Mozart? some Beethoven? She sat down to the piano; thedoor closed softly behind them. His eyes rested on the closed door forsome seconds unwaveringly, but, by degrees, the look of expectation diedout of them, and, with a sigh, he listened to the music.
Katharine and Ralph were agreed with scarcely a word of discussion asto what they wished to do, and in a moment she joined him in the halldressed for walking. The night was still and moonlit, fit for walking,though any night would have seemed so to them, desiring more thananything movement, freedom from scrutiny, silence, and the open air.
"At last!" she breathed, as the front door shut. She told him how shehad waited, fidgeted, thought he was never coming, listened for thesound of doors, half expected to see him again under the lamp-post,looking at the house. They turned and looked at the serene front withits gold-rimmed windows, to him the shrine of so much adoration. Inspite of her laugh and the little pressure of mockery on his arm, hewould not resign his belief, but with her hand resting there, her voicequickened and mysteriously moving in his ears, he had not time--they hadnot the same inclination--other objects drew his attention.
How they came to find themselves walking down a street with many lamps,corners radiant with light, and a steady succession of motor-omnibusesplying both ways along it, they could neither of them tell; nor accountfor the impulse which led them suddenly to select one of these wayfarersand mount to the very front seat. After curving through streets ofcomparative darkness, so narrow that shadows on the blinds were pressedwithin a few feet of their faces, they came to one of those great knotsof activity where the lights, having drawn close together, thin outagain and take their separate ways. They were borne on until they sawthe spires of the city churches pale and flat against the sky.
"Are you cold?" he asked, as they stopped by Temple Bar.
"Yes, I am rather," she replied, becoming conscious that the splendidrace of lights drawn past her eyes by the superb curving and swerving ofthe monster on which she sat was at an end. They had followed some suchcourse in their thoughts too; they had been borne on, victors in theforefront of some triumphal car, spectators of a pageant enactedfor them, masters of life. But standing on the pavement alone, thisexaltation left them; they were glad to be alone together. Ralph stoodstill for a moment to light his pipe beneath a lamp.
She looked at his face isolated in the little circle of light.
"Oh, that cottage," she said. "We must take it and go there."
"And leave all this?" he inquired.
"As you like," she replied. She thought, looking at the sky aboveChancery Lane, how the roof was the same everywhere; how she was nowsecure of all that this lofty blue and its steadfast lights meant toher; reality, was it, figures, love, truth?
"I've something on my mind," said Ralph abruptly. "I mean I've beenthinking of Mary Datchet. We're very near her rooms now. Would you mindif we went there?"
She had turned before she answered him. She had no wish to see any oneto-night; it seemed to her that the immense riddle was answered; theproblem had been solved; she held in her hands for one brief moment theglobe which we spend our lives in trying to shape, round, whole,and entire from the confusion of chaos. To see Mary was to risk thedestruction of this globe.
"Did you treat her badly?" she asked rather mechanically, walking on.
"I could defend myself," he said, almost defiantly. "But what's the use,if one feels a thing? I won't be with her a minute," he said. "I'll justtell her--"
"Of course, you must tell her," said Katharine, and now felt anxiousfor him to do what appeared to be necessary if he, too, were to hold hisglobe for a moment round, whole, and entire.
"I wish--I wish--" she sighed, for melancholy came over her and obscuredat least a section of her clear vision. The globe swam before her as ifobscured by tears.
"I regret nothing," said Ralph firmly. She leant towards him almost asif she could thus see what he saw. She thought how obscure he still wasto her, save only that more and more constantly he appeared to her afire burning through its smoke, a source of life.
"Go on," she said. "You regret nothing--"
"Nothing--nothing," he repeated.
"What a fire!" she thought to herself. She thought of him blazingsplendidly in the night, yet so obscure that to hold his arm, as sheheld it, was only to touch the opaque substance surrounding the flamethat roared upwards.
"Why nothing?" she asked hurriedly, in order that he might say more andso make more splendid, more red, more darkly intertwined with smoke thisflame rushing upwards.
"What are you thinking of, Katharine?" he asked suspiciously, noticingher tone of dreaminess and the inapt words.
"I was thinking of you--yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you takesuch strange shapes in my mind. You've destroyed my loneliness. Am I totell you how I see you? No, tell me--tell me from the beginning."
Beginning with spasmodic words, he went on to speak more and morefluently, more and more passionately, feeling her leaning towards him,listening with wonder like a child, with gratitude like a woman. Sheinterrupted him gravely now and then.
"But it was foolish to stand outside and look at the windows. SupposeWilliam hadn't seen you. Would you have gone to bed?"
He capped her reproof with wonderment that a woman of her age could havestood in Kingsway looking at the traffic until she forgot.
"But it was then I first knew I loved you!" she exclaimed.
"Tell me from the beginning," he begged her.
"No, I'm a person who can't tell things," she pleaded. "I shall saysomething ridiculous--something about flames--fires. No, I can't tellyou."
But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him, chargedwith extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, and the smoketwined round it, making him feel that he had stepped over the thresholdinto the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirring with shapes,so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes, and moving awayagain into the darkness, engulfed by it. They had walked by this timeto the street in which Mary lived, and being engrossed by what they saidand partly saw, passed her staircase without looking up. At this timeof night there was no traffic and scarcely any foot-passengers, so thatthey could pace slowly
They brought themselves by these means, acting on a mood of profoundhappiness, to a state of clear-sightedness where the lifting of a fingerhad effect, and one word spoke more than a sentence. They lapsed gentlyinto silence, traveling the dark paths of thought side by side towardssomething discerned in the distance which gradually possessed them both.They were victors, masters of life, but at the same time absorbed in theflame, giving their life to increase its brightness, to testify to theirfaith. Thus they had walked, perhaps, twice or three times up and downMary Datchet's street before the recurrence of a light burning behind athin, yellow blind caused them to stop without exactly knowing why theydid so. It burned itself into their minds.
"That is the light in Mary's room," said Ralph. "She must be at home."He pointed across the street. Katharine's eyes rested there too.
"Is she alone, working at this time of night? What is she working at?"she wondered. "Why should we interrupt her?" she asked passionately."What have we got to give her? She's happy too," she added. "She hasher work." Her voice shook slightly, and the light swam like an ocean ofgold behind her tears.
"You don't want me to go to her?" Ralph asked.
"Go, if you like; tell her what you like," she replied.
He crossed the road immediately, and went up the steps into Mary'shouse. Katharine stood where he left her, looking at the window andexpecting soon to see a shadow move across it; but she saw nothing; theblinds conveyed nothing; the light was not moved. It signaled to heracross the dark street; it was a sign of triumph shining there forever, not to be extinguished this side of the grave. She brandished herhappiness as if in salute; she dipped it as if in reverence. "How theyburn!" she thought, and all the darkness of London seemed set withfires, roaring upwards; but her eyes came back to Mary's window andrested there satisfied. She had waited some time before a figuredetached itself from the doorway and came across the road, slowly andreluctantly, to where she stood.
"I didn't go in--I couldn't bring myself," he broke off. He had stoodoutside Mary's door unable to bring himself to knock; if she had comeout she would have found him there, the tears running down his cheeks,unable to speak.
They stood for some moments, looking at the illuminated blinds, anexpression to them both of something impersonal and serene in the spiritof the woman within, working out her plans far into the night--her plansfor the good of a world that none of them were ever to know. Then theirminds jumped on and other little figures came by in procession, headed,in Ralph's view, by the figure of Sally Seal.
"Do you remember Sally Seal?" he asked. Katharine bent her head.
"Your mother and Mary?" he went on. "Rodney and Cassandra? Old Joan upat Highgate?" He stopped in his enumeration, not finding it possible tolink them together in any way that should explain the queer combinationwhich he could perceive in them, as he thought of them. They appeared tohim to be more than individuals; to be made up of many different thingsin cohesion he had a vision of an orderly world.
"It's all so easy--it's all so simple," Katherine quoted, rememberingsome words of Sally Seal's, and wishing Ralph to understand that shefollowed the track of his thought. She felt him trying to piece togetherin a laborious and elementary fashion fragments of belief, unsolderedand separate, lacking the unity of phrases fashioned by the oldbelievers. Together they groped in this difficult region, where theunfinished, the unfulfilled, the unwritten, the unreturned, cametogether in their ghostly way and wore the semblance of the complete andthe satisfactory. The future emerged more splendid than ever from thisconstruction of the present. Books were to be written, and since booksmust be written in rooms, and rooms must have hangings, and outsidethe windows there must be land, and an horizon to that land, and treesperhaps, and a hill, they sketched a habitation for themselves upon theoutline of great offices in the Strand and continued to make an accountof the future upon the omnibus which took them towards Chelsea; andstill, for both of them, it swam miraculously in the golden light of alarge steady lamp.
As the night was far advanced they had the whole of the seats on thetop of the omnibus to choose from, and the roads, save for an occasionalcouple, wearing even at midnight, an air of sheltering their words fromthe public, were deserted. No longer did the shadow of a man sing tothe shadow of a piano. A few lights in bedroom windows burnt but wereextinguished one by one as the omnibus passed them.
They dismounted and walked down to the river. She felt his arm stiffenbeneath her hand, and knew by this token that they had entered theenchanted region. She might speak to him, but with that strange tremorin his voice, those eyes blindly adoring, whom did he answer? Whatwoman did he see? And where was she walking, and who was her companion?Moments, fragments, a second of vision, and then the flying waters,the winds dissipating and dissolving; then, too, the recollection fromchaos, the return of security, the earth firm, superb and brilliant inthe sun. From the heart of his darkness he spoke his thanksgiving;from a region as far, as hidden, she answered him. On a June night thenightingales sing, they answer each other across the plain; they areheard under the window among the trees in the garden. Pausing, theylooked down into the river which bore its dark tide of waters, endlesslymoving, beneath them. They turned and found themselves opposite thehouse. Quietly they surveyed the friendly place, burning its lampseither in expectation of them or because Rodney was still there talkingto Cassandra. Katharine pushed the door half open and stood upon thethreshold. The light lay in soft golden grains upon the deep obscurityof the hushed and sleeping household. For a moment they waited, andthen loosed their hands. "Good night," he breathed. "Good night," shemurmured back to him.