CHAPTER IVNOCTURNE
ON a certain bitterly cold night in November, Catherine stood on the doorstep of No. 24, Kitchener Road, with her overcoat and hat in her hands. Despite the chilliness of the atmosphere her cheeks were hot and flushed, and her sensations took no notice of the blustering wind that raged along the road. For several moments she stood still on the doorstep, with heaving breast and head flung back defiantly. Then, still carrying her hat and overcoat, she went out into the street, omitted to shut the gate behind her, and walked at a terrific pace in the direction of the Bockley High Street.
It was eleven p.m. Her steps rang loudly along the deserted pavements; occasionally she lurched forward as if desiring to increase her pace, and this disturbed the rhythmic beat of her steps. She passed nobody, except at the junction of Hanson Street, where a couple of belated revellers slunk past with the furtive attitude of those who know they ought to have been home long since. They were too intent upon their destination to notice her. Only where there were large front gardens did her passing excite attention, and here congregations of cats, gathered for midnight revelry, dispersed with mournful sound as her footsteps approached.
At the corner of the High Street she stopped. It seemed to occur to her for the first time that to carry one’s hat and overcoat upon such a night was in some degree unusual. With careful deliberation she put them on. Then she laughed softly, and her laugh was a strange minglingof rapture and defiance. That which she had thought impossible had come to pass. After years of undeviating placidity fate had at last done something dramatic with her.
She had been turned out of the house at No. 24, Kitchener Road.
Her father had done what he had never before been known to do: he had lost his temper, and lost it thoroughly.
He had said: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ... Out you go!” He had pushed her into the lobby, and while she was reaching for her hat and coat he had struck her on the face with the back of his hand.
“Out you go!” he repeated, and Catherine saw that his temper had not yet reached its height. “I’m done with you! ... Are you going?” He actually picked up an umbrella and began brandishing it with his hand grasping the ferrule.
Catherine had opened the front door in vague terror of what he was going to do. The door was banged after her with a vicious kick from within. Then her cheek where he had struck her began to hurt....
The cause of the altercation had been Catherine’s determination to accept a situation which he did not wish her to accept. She had answered the advertisement, interviewed her prospective employer, and received word that she had been appointed before even mentioning the matter to him. Then at teatime on a Friday afternoon she casually remarked:
“By the way, I’ve decided to get some work.”
He looked up at her as if the word were unfamiliar to him. “Work?” he said, astounded. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve applied for a job and been offered it.”
He seemed to have difficulty in comprehending what she said.
“A job? What job?”
“They want a pianist at a cinema. Good salary. Only work in the evenings....”
“But, my dear girl——”
“Well?”
“Don’t cut me short like that.... I was about to say....”
“Oh, I know what you’re about to say. You’re hopelessly against it, aren’t you?”
“Well, if I am, you——”
“Why are you?”
“I do wish you’d give me time to speak, Catherine. You spring this on me so suddenly.... I had no idea you were ever thinking of such a thing, to begin with. Even now it seems incredible to me. I can’t understand it.”
“Can’t understand what?”
“Why you want to do it ... it’s ... it’s unnecessary. Haven’t you enough money?”
“Oh, it’s not a question of money. I want to have some work to do, something to get interested in.”
“But you have the work of the house to carry on with. Surely that’s enough.”
“Oh,that’senough. In fact, that’s a great deal too much. I’m sick and tired of housework. Some girls may like it, but I don’t. I’d sooner pay some girl who likes it to do it for me. Besides, I want to be independent.”
He gave a start of surprise. “What’s that you said?” he asked, incredulously.
“I said, independent.”
There was a tense pause.
“Somebody’s been putting some silly modern ideas into your head. All that bosh about independence, I mean. A girl’s place is in the home, when she’s got one. Until you make a home of your own your place is here.”
“I suppose you think I ought to get married.”
“Married? ... Heavens, no! ... You’re only nineteen! Why, I never evenmetyour mother until I was twenty-four! Don’t you worry your head about marriage. Let it alone until the right feller comes along. I expect you’ve been reading too many trashy novels lately, that’s what it is.”
An angry light leapt into her eyes.
“Well, if you think I’m going to scrub floors and wash dishes until the right feller comes along, as you call it, you’re jolly well mistaken. I wouldn’t do it even if I was sure the right fellerwouldcome along. I’m not made that way. I want a bit of liberty. I want to live.”
“My dear Catherine, you have everything you need. I can’t see what you’re making all this fuss about. Really I can’t.... You’re a good deal better off than some girls, I can tell you. What about poor Nellie Selborne and——”
“Oh, what onearthhave they got to do with it?”
“Well, if you won’t listen to me, I suppose ...” He waved his hand deprecatingly. “Suppose we stop arguing. Let’s hold the matter over. I’m certain that with a few days’ thought you’ll——”
“But I can’t hold the matter over.”
“Why not?”
“Because the situation’s been offered me. I’ve either got to accept it or reject it on the spot.”
“Well, Catherine, I’m sorry to go against you, but it will have to be so, in this case. Understand, I mean it. I mean to have my own way in this matter. I won’t have you strumming away every night in a third-rate picture house. I’m going to put my foot down firmly in this matter. You must reject the offer.”
He made a gallant but not entirely successful attempt to appear dignified by resuming the perusal of his newspaper. Catherine bit her lip and went a little pale.
“That’s a pity,” she said quietly.
“Why is it a pity?”
“Because I’ve decided to accept it.” Her lips were tight, and there was the suggestion of restrained emotion in her voice.
Something happened to his eyes. They opened terrifically wide and gazed at her expressionlessly for several seconds.
“What’s that?” he said.
His eyes unnerved her somewhat. But she steeled herself to repeat her ultimatum.
“Because—I’ve—decided to—to accept.”
Pause. “That’s all,” she added, irrelevantly, as if by way of clinching the matter.
Another pause. The clock tactfully struck in with the announcement of six o’clock. That seemed to break the spell. He rose and made for his hat.
“H’m,” he ejaculated, sharply. “I see. That’s what it amounts to, is it.... Well, you’ll have time to think it over. I’m off to school now.”
He took a sheaf of night-school exercises from his desk and stuffed them in his pocket. Not another word came from him. Catherine was almost hypnotized by his quick, startling movements, so unlike his usual apathy. He strode firmly down the lobby and shut the door after him more noisily than usual. She could hear his footsteps along the street, and he was walking at a pace that was for him unprecedentedly rapid. When he was quite out of hearing she sank down into the chair he had just vacated. The tension of the argument had given her a sense of physical exhaustion. Yet spiritually she was thrilled by a strange feeling of exhilaration: it seemed to her that after an interval of drudgery she was once again being drawn into the vortex of momentous happenings. She was absolutely certain of one thing: she would not give way. If he chose to make her disobedience a “test-case” of the father’s right to inflict his will upon the daughter she would await whatever steps he took with calmness and determination. But she would never give way. She was nineteen, and to her nineteen seemed old age. Things he had said in the course of the argument had annoyed her inexpressibly. They were little things, mostly. Bringing in the case of Nellie Selborne, for instance, was silly and entirely irrelevant. Nellie had paralysis down one side, and existed apparently for the purpose of proving to all other girls how lucky they were. Then again, Catherine disliked intensely his massive declaration that “a girl’s place is in the home.” He had talked about “waiting for the right feller to comealong,” and this passive method of getting through life roused all the scorn and contempt in her nature. Also he had talked about her “strumming in a third-rate picture house.” It was typical of him to assume that it was third-rate before he had heard even the name of it. He had been ridiculously unfair....
She went over to the writing-desk where he marked his school exercise books. Something within her said: You are angry and excited now, but you will soon cool down and then probably you will give in to him.... To this she replied passionately: Iwon’tgive in to him.... But, continued the part of her which always told the truth, youwillgive in to him if you wait till your temper has cooled down.... Better write now accepting the situation, and post it before he comes back from night-school. Then the matter will be really settled. Then you can say to him when he comes in: “It’s no use arguing about it any more. I’ve written to accept the job. The thing’s done now and can’t be undone.”
She wrote the letter as quickly as she could, for the feeling of supreme depression, the feeling that she was doing something regrettable and irretrievably silly, was becoming heavier upon her every second. She was just addressing the envelope after fastening it when she heard the key fumbling at the front door. For the moment a kind of panic fear seized her. He was coming back. He must have turned back before reaching the school. His footsteps down the lobby sounded brutal and unnecessarily noisy. She swung round in her chair and sat awaiting his entrance with the penholder stuck between her teeth. The half-addressed envelope lay on the desk invisible behind her back.... He flung down his hat and coat on the table.
The moment was so tense that Catherine spoke merely to interrupt the horrible silence of it.
“Was there no school to-night?” she asked, with an effort to appear perfectly casual.
“I’m not going,” he snapped curtly, and took down the red-ink bottlefrom the corner of the mantelpiece. That meant he was going to spend the evening marking exercise books.
She was thoroughly frightened. Her mother’s tempers and tirades had never frightened her, because she was used to them and knew them intimately, as a doctor knows the illness of a familiar patient. But her father was normally so quiet and placid and mild-mannered: she had never seen him in a temper, although when she was a little girl, boys who were in his class at school had told her that on rare occasions he got “ratty.” But she had never known him in such a condition. In this phase he was a complete stranger to her. And she was apprehensive, as she would have been if a stranger had entered the house when she was alone.
He came to the desk to get his exercise books. She thought at first he was going to strike her. But he merely leaned over her and lifted the lid. As he did so he must have seen the half-addressed envelope lying on the top. But he did not say a word. His silence was unnerving.
Always he used the desk for marking exercise books. But this time he arranged the pile of books and the pen and ink on the dining-table.
“You can use the desk,” he said curiously, “if you’re wanting to.” His politeness, his unusual solicitude for her comfort, was horrible! Normally, if she had been at his desk, he would have said: “Now look here, Cathie, it’s too bad of you to want to use my desk when I want it. After all, it’smydesk. You’ve got all the day to use it when I’m out. Can’t you use the table?”
She would have understood a speech like that. But for him to say so thoughtfully, so obsequiously, “You can use the desk if you’re wanting to,” was charged with all the nameless horror of the unprecedented.
It was half-past six. The clock struck. He was assiduously and seemingly quite normally putting red-ink ticks and crosses on algebra sums. Yet she knew that the atmosphere was very far from being normal. She took a book from the shelf and sat down in the chair by the fire,but it was difficult to read. She could hear the ticking of the clock and the steady scratching of his pen, and flipping of pages. He went on for hours. When he had finished one pile of books he went to his desk and fetched out another. Then again, if he had not done so the first time, he must have seen the envelope with its incomplete address. But he went on with his work at the table. Supper time came, but he made no sign of clearing away his books. And then his surliness and sulkiness, whichever it was, ceased to frighten her, but began to annoy her acutely.... The last post went at eleven-thirty. Come what might she would post that letter. At five minutes past eleven she went over to the desk with the intention of finishing the address. She had got as far as the “p” in “Upton” when she saw that he was regarding her intently. As soon as he saw that she had noticed his glance he put down his pen and swung back on his chair.
“Now then, Cathie,” he began brusquely, “this matter’s got to be settled.... You understand. No nonsense. What’re you going to do?”
She bit the end of the penholder.
“I’m going to accept the thing,” she said firmly, though she had difficulty in restraining her apprehension and excitement.
“You’re not!” he cried, advancing menacingly. “Understand, I forbid it! I’m going to be firm in this business. You’re not to accept that situation. D’you hear?”
He picked up the envelope she had been engaged upon. She knew that he had seen it before. But he pretended not to have done. She despised him for that little perfidy.
“What’s this?” he cried, snatching it up vehemently. Then he pretended to realize. “You’ve been writing to accept it?”
“Yes.”
For a moment she thought he was going to do her physical violence. Then he tore the envelope across and flung the two pieces into the fire.
“Oh,thatdoesn’t matter,” she said contemptuously, “that’s merely childish. I can easily write another.” (In her anger she did not remember an occasion when she had been smitten with the same kind of childishness).
It was then that he cried: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ... Out you go!”
At the corner of the Bockley High Street her only feeling was one of nervous jubilation. The clock chimed the quarter. She remembered with a little thrill of ecstasy how on all other occasions at night when she had heard the clock chime a quarter past eleven she had been anxiously wondering what sort of a row there would be when she reached home. Now she was free. She was not returning home. She was leaving. She was free to go where she liked and do what she liked....
If it were summer time, she thought, I would walk to the Forest and sleep out under the stars....
But it was November.... She decided to travel up to the City and spend the night in one of the waiting-rooms at the big terminals. The next day she would look out for lodgings.... Money was a difficulty. In her pocket was a purse containing the residue of the week’s house-keeping money. It amounted to five and sevenpence half-penny. There were also a couple of penny stamps....
The ideal time for this enterprise would have been a Monday evening in June or July.
Still, she would have to make the best of it. With light step she passed along the wide expanse of the High Street in the direction of Bockley Station. As she went on little groups of returning revellers passed her by. Most of them had just come in by train from the City after an evening at the theatre. Some of them stared at her curiously as she hurried by. So did the policeman at the corner of the Station Road.
Outside the booking-office she met, of all people in the world, Helen Trant.... Since the episode between herself and George, Catherine had not seen much of Helen.
Catherine nodded casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to be catching the 11.37 p.m. to the City.
“Where’re you off to?” said Helen.
“City,” replied Catherine, curtly.
“Whatever for at this time of night?”
“Oh ... business ... that’s all. ... Excuse me, I shall miss my train....”
“No, you won’t. You’ve eleven minutes to wait. Come here.”
There was a queer undefinable something in Helen’s voice that commanded and usually obtained implicit obedience. Catherine came.
“Well? ... What do you want?”
Helen put her arm in Catherine’s.
“It’s not my business,” she said, “but I should like you to tell me what’s been happening to you.”
“Happening? What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean ... Cathie!”
“Yes?”
“Something’s happened. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me.”
Catherine clicked her heels nonchalantly.
“Well, if you’re so keen, I don’t suppose there’s much harm in letting you know. I’ve run away from home.... That’s all....”
“Run away?”
“Yes, run away. Oh, for God’s sake, don’t look so surprised. I suppose it isn’t respectable to run away, is it?”
“Don’t be silly.... What were you going to the City for?”
“To get a shake-down in a railway waiting-room.”
“I see.... Well, you needn’t do that. You can come home with me for to-night.”
“Really, Helen, I can’t. It’s awfully good of you, but——”
“Youmust.”
“But your mother——”
“Mother and father are away for the week-end.”
“Really, I’d much rather not.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got to. You can easily sleep with me. We’ll talk the whole question over to-night before going to sleep. You can’t do a big thing like this all on your own.”
“That’s just what I can. I’m going to, anyway....”
“Well, you’re coming home with me to-night, anyway....”
“If you insist——”
“I do.”
A man came striding up the stairs three at a time from the platform. It was George Trant.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “The luggage-office was shut, and I had to waken somebody up....” Then he saw Catherine. “... Er ... I say ... I didn’t see you, Miss Weston! Or shall I call you Catherine, as I used? And how are you? I haven’t heard of you for ages.”
He held out his hand, but Catherine made no movement.
“I’m quite well,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I can’t stop here talking; I’ve a train to catch. Good-night!”
“Cathie!” cried Helen, but Catherine was too far down the steps to be recalled. Helen followed her on to the platform and overtook her near to the further end.
“You’re coming back, Cathie. Don’t be silly.... You must ...”
Catherine held herself passionately erect. The signal lights winked from red to green.
“It’s no good your trying to persuade me, Helen.... I’m not coming. I wouldn’t enter the same house with that man.... No, no, no, no, I’m not coming.”
The train came in to the platform.
“Cathie!”
“No, no! ... I’m not coming, I tell you....” She opened the door of a third-class compartment and entered.
“You’ll wish you hadn’t done this, Cathie.”
“Never.”
The train slid away into the night and Helen was left standing on the platform. She had a swift impulse to jump into the tail-end of the now quickly-moving train and go with Cathie to the next station. But the train was moving too rapidly for her to attempt this manœuvre in safety. And behind her stood George a little bewildered (he had followed her slowly down the steps).
“What’s all the fuss about?” he queried suspiciously.
“Nothing,” replied Helen. Then, as they walked together along the platform, “You’ll have to tell the man we gave up our tickets before.”
As they hurried along the Bockley High Street the clock on the Carnegie library chimed the three-quarters....
At Liverpool Street, Catherine discovered that the waiting-room did not keep open throughout the night for the benefit of girls who have run away from home. There was a man at the door inspecting tickets. Catherine was struck by a brilliant notion. There is an all-night hourly service of trains from Liverpool Street to Bockley, the same train proceeding backwards and forwards. She went to the booking-office and purchased a return ticket to Bockley (sixpence). She had a good sixpennyworth, for the next five hours she spent in the corner seat of a third-class compartment. About two a.m. she fell asleep, and when she awoke the train was jerking to a standstill at Upton Rising. The clock said twenty minutes past six. Evidently the train had undergone a change while she had slept. All those dark hours it had paraded the inner suburbs, but now it had become a thing of greater consequence: it was the first early morning train to Chingford. At the tiny Forest town Catherine left it, paying excess fare on the journey from Bockley. Dawn came as she was tramping the muddy paths of Epping Forest. She had no idea where she was going. The main thing was to get the time over. About eight o’clock she returned to Chingford, purchased some notepaper and envelopes, and went into the post-office. On the desk provided for composing telegrams she wrote a letter accepting the situation of pianist at the Royal Cinema, Upton Rising. That done, and the letterstamped and posted, she felt calmer than she had been for some time. Then came hunger. She had a glass of milk (threepence) at a dairy and two of yesterday’s buns (a penny each) from a confectioner’s. Out of five and sevenpence half-penny and two penny stamps she had now left four shillings and a half-penny and one penny stamp, plus a third-class return half from Bockley to Liverpool Street.
She persisted in being joyous. This was to be an adventure, and she was to enter into the spirit of it. She took her buns to the top of Yardley Hill in order that she might imagine herself picnicking. She lay down on the damp grass eating, and told herself she was enjoying herself immensely. She admired the loveliness of the view with all the consciousness of a well-trained tourist. She refused to be melancholy. She discovered hundreds of excuses for feeling happy which would never have occurred to her if she had been feeling happy. As she was descending the hill after her meal it commenced to rain. She tried to see beauty in the rain. The grey sky and the sodden leaves, the squelch of her heels in the mud, the bare trees swathed in slanting rain, these, she decided, were infinitely preferable to Kitchener Road.... Nevertheless she would have to find lodgings.
She decided to seek them in Upton Rising.