He and she presently had the mild meal she spoke of as dinner in George Cumfrit’s littlepied-à-terredining-room—the most excellent of men, poor George Cumfrit, ripe in foresight and wisdom—and Stephen invoked God’s blessing on two cups not quite full of broth, and some scrambled eggs.
Catherine walked delicately among words with Stephen, and in his presence called that dinner which to Mrs. Mitcham she called supper, or, even more simply, something to eat, in order that Stephen, now so splendidlyestablished in what used to be her shoes, should not be made in any way to feel the difference his marriage had made in her circumstances; while Stephen for his part always went out of his way to praise the quality and abundance of whatever food she gave him, lest she should perhaps notice that she did not now have particularly much to eat. Enough, of course; enough, and most wholesome—heavy meals at night were a mistake. And once, when he had happened to come in when there was only a milk pudding, he had behaved to it as ceremoniously and as reverently as he would have behaved to ducks and green peas, of which he was particularly fond, and said grace over it, and, as it were, carved it—she liked him to preside—with all the air of pleased anticipation of a man rubbing his hands before a banquet. Catherine had been much concerned at his chancing to come in on a milk-pudding night, and had explained, what was true, that she had not been well, and the pudding was in the nature of a sanitary precaution; and Stephen had assured her that a good rice pudding, properly made, was one of the very best of God’s gifts.
There they sat, then, on this evening of her excursion to Hampton Court, quietly eating their scrambled eggs and talking of calm things. It was strange to her to remember that such a few hours earlier she had been an ostensibly young woman out for the afternoon with her adorer, moving swiftly, laughing gaily, petted, cherished, of infinite importance. How unsuitable, how unsuitable, thought Catherine, flushing hotly—‘Yes, Stephen? Old Mrs. Dymock——?’
‘She is dead at last.’
‘Poor old thing.’
‘A blessed release.’
It had been all wrong, of course. It was merest make-believe. These were the sober facts of life; this was really where she belonged—‘Did you say young Andrews? His leg?’
‘Broken playing football.’
‘Poor boy. I am very sorry.’
‘It is his own fault. A rough customer, a very rough customer.’
Now she had entered again into her dim kingdom, in which she negatively reigned as Stephen’s mother-in-law. He was well disposed towards her she knew, and so was she towards him; but she also knew they were not interesting to each other except in their quality of satisfactory son-in-law, satisfactory mother-in-law. She wasn’t to Stephen a woman; Stephen was not to her a man—‘But do I remember Daisy? I don’t seem——’
‘She is my mother’s housemaid at the Rectory. She is marrying the cowman up at Tovey’s farm.’
‘Your mother will miss her.’
‘That is what I fear.’
Virginia had assured her, on becoming engaged, that he was of a distinguished mind; she knew for herself, since he had begun so unexpectedly to preach eloquently on love, that he had a tender and understanding heart; but neither of these things came to the surface and lit up his conversation when he was with her. Strange dehumanisation of a human being produced by their relationship....
‘Bathrooms did you say?’
‘In every cottage. And the new cottages are going to have lavatory basins in each bedroom.’
‘But that is really splendid.’
‘It is my idea, and also Virginia’s, of true religion: Love and Cleanliness. They go hand in hand. Give the poor the opportunity of washing—easywashing—there must be no difficulty about it of any sort, or they won’t—and they will begin to respect themselves. And from a decent self-respect to a decent courting of a decent girl is but one step.’
She did feel, however, that George’s will was calculated to make any son-in-law a little awkward and uncomfortable when with her, and was very sorry for Stephen. He would of course get used to it soon, but he had only had three months as yet of Chickover Manor, so tremendously associated in his eyes, who had lived next door for fourteen years, with her as its mistress, and she did her best to make him understand by every sort of friendliness that she was perfectly content. Why, she was content already; and as soon as she had had time to turn round, and was really settled in her new life, and knew exactly what she could do with her income and what she couldn’t, she suspected she was going to be happier than she had ever been. Because, for the first time, she was free; and just to be able to do things such as go toThe Immortal Houras often as she wanted to—George hadn’t cared for music—and see what friends she liked—George had been happiest when he had her to himself—and read as much as she felt inclined—George loved her to listen to him, and nobody can both listen and read—was already most agreeable, and would go on, as her life developed, becoming more and more so. Only she mustn’t, of course, behave like a fool. She had behaved very like a fool, she was afraid, in letting Christopher become so intimate, and it was her fault that he had dared be sofamiliar. Yet who could have dreamed, who could possibly have imagined.... Still, there it was.
Again she flushed hotly, wondering what Stephen, tranquilly eating eggs, would say if he knew.
But even if he had been looking at her, his mother-in-law might have flushed the vividest red and he wouldn’t have seen it, because it is not what one expects of mothers-in-law. They are not women, of like emotions to oneself, they are institutions. And if she to him seemed like an institution, he to her seemed oddly like a public building. A museum; a temple; a great, cool place through whose echoing emptiness one wandered. On a hot day, what a relief. These last days for Catherine had been hot—hot, and disturbing; and she did find it refreshing to sit like this among Stephen’s shadows. Presently her thoughts faded dim and quiet. Christopher’s image faded dim and quiet. Presently in the accustomed atmosphere—George’s atmosphere too had been a quiet one—she paled down till she matched it. By the end of the meal she was like a mouse, a grey mouse the colour of her surroundings, sitting unassumingly nibbling its food.
‘For these and all Thy blessings——’ said Stephen, towering tall and lean over the empty egg-dish, his eyes closed, his hands folded, his voice sounding as if it came out of somewhere hollow.
‘Amen,’ murmured Catherine with propriety.
Yes—it was soothing; it was what one knew.
And the evening in the drawing-room continued to soothe. He sat in what had been George’s chair on one side of the small fire, and she sat on the big sofa facing him. So had she and George sat when she had come up from Chickover to go out with him to some unavoidablefestivity. If George could, he avoided festivities; and she, born with that spirit of adaptability which made her so pleasant to live with, born with that fortunate and convenient disposition which squeezed its happiness out of acquiescences, out of what she had, rather than waiting to be happy when she should have got something else, had gladly shared in his desire to avoid them. But if they were not avoidable, then she cheerfully came up to London and supported him; and afterwards, when whatever it was they had been to was over, with what a sigh of satisfaction did George sink into his chair before going to bed and rest his eyes on his Catherine sitting opposite him. He didn’t even like her to take up the evening paper and glance at the headlines, so much did he love to have her whole attention. Never did any one listen as sweetly as his Catherine. It was the best conversation he ever had, George considered, this talk to Catherine who so sweetly listened. Now she sat opposite Stephen, and Stephen gazed at the fire and hardly spoke, so that even her talent for listening was able to rest. Peace, perfect peace, she thought, her head in the cushions and her eyes inclined to shut.
At nine o’clock Stephen looked at his watch. He had been prepared to take it out, look at it, exclaim that time had flown, get up, and go.
But time had not flown. Both of them had been supposing it must be ten o’clock—at least ten, probably much later; so that when he saw it was only nine he was disconcerted as well as astonished.
He didn’t quite know what to do. To leave so early would not be respectful, he felt, to his excellent mother-in-law; to hold his watch up to his ear in order to make sure it hadn’t stopped—itmusthave stopped—was animpulse he resisted as discourteous. Yet he wanted to go away. Whatever his watch declared, he felt it was long past bedtime.
‘Would you like me,’ he suggested, fidgeting in his chair a little, ‘to say prayers for you and your household before I go?’
‘Very much,’ said Catherine politely, waking up; she was the last person to baulk any clergyman who should want to pray. ‘Only there isn’t——’
She hesitated, anxious not to seem to complain. She had been going to say there wasn’t any household; instead, she inquired whether she should call Mrs. Mitcham.
‘Pray do,’ said Stephen.
Mrs. Mitcham came.
Then it appeared there wasn’t a prayer-book. The prayer-books, both hers and Mrs. Mitcham’s—it was most unfortunate—had been left behind at Chickover.
Stephen stood thoughtfully on the hearth-rug. Mrs. Mitcham, with the expression of one already in church, waited with decent folded hands for whatever of unction should descend on her. Catherine reflected that she hadn’t left her furs behind at Chickover, nor her trinkets, and wondered whether perhaps Stephen might be reflecting this too and drawing his conclusions.
But Stephen was not. He was merely turning over in his mind what, cut off from the assistance of the prayer-book, he should say to these two women as a good-night benediction, and so with grace be able to go back to his lodging to bed.
The thought of that bed, all solitary and cold, recalled Virginia, and with her his great discovery of Love. He suddenly raised his hands over his mother-in-law andher servant—instinctively they bowed their heads—and with complete simplicity and earnestness bade them love one another.
‘Little children, love one another,’ Stephen said simply.
It was the best he could do for them, he felt; it was the best that could be done for any one in the world. Then, abruptly, he wished Catherine good-night.
‘Do you come to St. Clement’s to-morrow evening?’ he inquired of her.
‘I will certainly come,’ she said.
Mrs. Mitcham helped him into his coat with reverence. She liked having texts said over her; it gave her a peculiar, pleasant feeling in her chest. She couldn’t imagine how she had come to forget her prayer-book and not even notice she hadn’t got it. It must have been the confusion of Miss Virginia’s wedding, and moving up to London and settling in. She wrote that very evening to the housekeeper at Chickover, and begged her to send it to her, and also her mistress’s, at once.
Bythis time it was a quarter past nine; quite early, and yet how late it seemed. Catherine went back to the sofa, and turning out the light on the table by her side, for she was being very cautious this first year of her limited income and not wasting anything, put her feet up and lay in the firelight, feeling a little tired.
Stephen, as a cool refuge from the warmths of Christopher, had been restful, but only up to a certain point. He had provided the sort of relief the cool air of a cellar gives those coming rather blinded out of the heat of the sun, and, like a cellar, he had presently palled. She had long ago found, and it had been greatly to her regret, that it was difficult to keep her eyes open after a short time alone with Stephen. She thought this must be due to his conversation. There was nothing to lay hold of in it. It was bony. One slipped off. Besides, he didn’t talk to her as if she were anything but another bone. Bones to bones; how dreary; how little one likes being behaved to as if one were a bone. Yet he knew now about love, and nobody could hear him preach without being thrilled by his appreciation of it. He appreciated it in his sermons in all its branches. At present in his life there was only one branch really living, and that was married love. All those other loves he praised—brotherly love, which he entreated might continue;the love of friends, surpassing, he declared, in beauty and dignity the love of the sexes; that large love of humanity, which needs must well from every thinking heart—were theories to him. Well, perhaps by sheer talking about them from pulpits to impressed congregations they would gradually become real. One did, in a very remarkable way, talk oneself into attitudes of mind that altered one’s entire behaviour; or was talked into them by somebody else, which was less excellent—in fact, should be guarded against.
She shut her eyes. She was tired.
Little children, love one another.... He could say that beautifully—and how beautiful it was—but he didn’tdoit himself. Except Virginia, the rest of the world was at present left out from Stephen’s loving. The exhortation had been for her and Mrs. Mitcham, who had long loved one another in the form of affection and daily mutual courtesies.
Little children, love....
She was tired. She hadn’t walked so fast or so much for ages as she had that afternoon at Hampton Court. And the spring air was relaxing. And Christopher had such long legs, and strode easily over ground that took her innumerable small steps to cover. And, being clearly mad as well, it wasn’t only her feet he had fatigued, but her spirit. Stephen, so passive and indifferent; Christopher, so active and not indifferent enough; and she between them being agreeable, and agreeable, and for ever agreeable. Why did a woman always try, however fruitlessly, as with Stephen, or dangerously, as with Christopher, to be agreeable? She feared it was, at bottom, vanity. Anyhow it was very stupid, when it was so tiring, so tiring....
Little children, love....
She dozed; she more than dozed; she went to sleep. And she hadn’t been asleep five minutes before Christopher came back.
There was her wrap—he hadn’t given her her wrap yet, and found it when he went out where he had dropped it on the carpet outside her door. In any case he had meant to wait in the street till that incredible old son-in-law—thatsheshould dare to try to put him off with stuff about the generations!—had gone, and then see her again unless it was very late. But the wrap made it his duty to see her again; and when he beheld, from the opposite pavement, Stephen emerge and go away at a quarter past nine, he walked up and down for another ten minutes in case the old raven should have forgotten something and come back, and then, the wrap on his arm, went in and up the stairs with all the dignity and composure that legitimate business bestows.
But he was not really composed; not inside. When Mrs. Mitcham opened the door at his ring and, still under the influence of Stephen’s exhortation to love one another, smiled brightly at him, he could hardly stammer out that he had something of Mrs. Cumfrit’s—her wrap——
‘Oh, thank you, sir. I’ll take it,’ said Mrs. Mitcham.
‘Well, but I want to see Mrs. Cumfrit a minute—it isn’t late—it’s quite early—I’ll go in for just a minute——’
And thrusting the wrap into her hand he made for the drawing-room.
She watched him shut the door behind him, and hoped it didn’t matter, her not announcing him. After all, he had but lately left; it wasn’t as if he were calling thatday for the first time. On the contrary, this was the third time since lunch that he had come in.
She stood uncertain a moment in the hall, ready to let him out again if he did only stay a minute; then, when he did not reappear, she went back to the kitchen.
Now Christopher might have behaved quite differently if he had found Catherine wide awake in her chair, properly lit up, and reading or sewing. He had meant, in coming back, only to reason with her. He couldn’t be sent away, cut short in the middle of a sentence and cast out as he had been by Stephen’s entrance, and not see her again at least to finish what he had to say. If she wouldn’t listen now, at least they might arrange an hour the next day when she would. He couldn’t go home to just black misery. He couldn’t. He was a human being. There were things a human being simply couldn’t do. He would see her again that evening, if only to find out when she would let him call and talk quietly. Surely she owed him this. He hadn’t done anything to offend her really, except tell her that he loved her. And was that an offence? No; it was most natural, inevitable and right, he assured his shrinking heart. For his heart did shrink; it was very fearful, because he knew she would be angry when she saw him. He could barely get the words out to Mrs. Mitcham at the door, so short was he of breath because of his heart. It was behaving as if he had been tearing up six flights of stairs, instead of walking slowly up one.
Then, inside the room, instead of light, and Catherine looking up from whatever she was doing at him with surprise and reproach, he found first darkness, and presently, as he stood uncertain and his eyes grew more accustomed to it, the outline of Catherine in the dullglow of the fire, motionless on the sofa. He couldn’t see if she was asleep. She said nothing and didn’t move. She must be asleep. And just at that moment a flame leapt out of the coals, and he saw that she was asleep.
The most extraordinary feeling flooded his heart. All the mothers in his ancestry crowded back to life in him. She looked so little, and helpless and vulnerable. She looked so tired, with no colour at all in her face. Not for anything in the world would Christopher have disturbed that sleep. He would creep away softly, and simply bear the incertitude as to when he was to see her again. Such an immense tenderness he had never in his life felt. He knew now that he loved her beyond all things, and far beyond himself.
He turned to go away, holding his breath, feeling for the door handle, when his foot knocked against the leg of George’s big chair.
Catherine woke up. ‘Mrs. Mitcham——’ she began, drowsily. And then as no one answered, for though he tried to he couldn’t, she put out her hand and turned on the light.
They blinked at each other.
Astonishment, succeeded by indignation, spread over Catherine’s face. She could hardly believe her eyes. Christopher. Back again. Got into her flat like a thief. Stealing in in the dark....
She sat up, leaning on her hands. ‘You!’ was all she could find to say.
‘Yes, I had to. I had to bring you back your——’
He was going to shelter behind her cloak, and then was ashamed of such trifling.
She made a movement to get up, but the sofa was a very low one, and she rather ridiculously bumped downon it again; and before she could make another attempt he had flown across to help her.
‘No, no,’ said Catherine, whose indignation was greater than any she had felt in her life, pushing aside his outstretched hands.
So then he lifted her up bodily, indifferent to everything else in the world; and having set her on her feet he held her like that, tightly in his arms, and didn’t care if he had to die for it.
There was a moment’s complete silence. Catherine was so much amazed that for a moment she was quite still.
Then she gave a gasp—muffled, because of his coat, against which her face was pressed. ‘Oh——’ she gasped, faint and muffled, trying to push him away.
She might as well have tried to push a rock away.
‘Oh——’ she gasped again, as Christopher, still not caring if he had to die for it, began kissing her. He kissed what he could—her hair, the tip of one ear, and she, aghast, horrified, buried her face deeper and deeper into his coat in her efforts to protect it.
Oh, the outrage—never in her life—how dared he, how dared he—just because she was alone, and had no one to defend her——
Not a word of this came out; it was entirely muffled in his coat. Aghast and horrified, Catherine continued to have the top of her head kissed, and her aghastness and horror became overwhelming when she realised that she—no, it wasn’t possible, itcouldn’tbe that she—that this—that she was somehow, besides being horrified, strangely shot through by a feeling that was not unpleasant? Impossible, impossible....
‘Let me go,’ she gasped into his coat. ‘Let mego——’
For answer he took her head in his hands and held it back and kissed her really, right on her mouth, as no one in her life before had ever kissed her.
Impossible, impossible....
She stood, her arms hanging by her side, her body quivering. She didn’t seem able to move. She seemed as if she were becoming every instant more drawn into this, more absorbed in what was happening—as profoundly absorbed as he was, as remote from realities. The room disappeared, the relics of George disappeared, the world disappeared, and all the reminders of the facts of her life. Youth had swept down out of the skies and caught her up in its arms into a strange, warm oblivion. He and she were not any longer Christopher and Catherine—Catherine tied up in a tangle of relationships, of obligations, of increasing memories, Christopher an impetuous young man who needed tremendously to be kept in his proper place: she was simply the Beloved, and he was Love.
‘I worship you,’ murmured Christopher.
Through her dream she heard him murmuring, and it woke her up to consciousness.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
He was gazing down at her—beautiful, all light. She stared at him an instant, still held in his arms, collecting her thoughts.
What had she done? What was she doing? What was this? Oh, but it was shameful, shameful....
She made one immense effort, and with both her hands pushed him away; and before he could stop her, for he too was in a dream, she had run to the doorand flown along the passage to her bedroom and locked herself in.
Then she rang violently for Mrs. Mitcham, and told her through the shut door to let Mr. Monckton out—she was going to bed at once—she had a terrible headache.... And she sat down on her bed and cried bitterly.
Virginia, coming back to the house on Sunday from a short after-luncheon stroll in the garden, where the daffodils were making a great show and the blackbirds a great noise, with the intention of putting her feet up till tea and lying quietly in her boudoir, was surprised to see her mother standing on the terrace.
Her first thought was of Stephen. Her mother had never yet come uninvited and unexpected. Was anything wrong with him?
She hastened her steps. ‘Anything wrong?’ she called out anxiously.
Her mother shook her head reassuringly, and came down to meet her.
They kissed.
‘I had such a longing to see you,’ said Catherine, in answer to Virginia’s face of wonder; and, clinging to her a little, she added, ‘I felt I wanted to be close to you—quite close.’
She took Virginia’s arm, and they walked back slowly towards the house.
‘Sweet of you, mother,’ said Virginia, who was taller than her mother, having taken after George in height as well as features; but still she wondered.
She wondered even more when later on she saw her mother’s luggage. It suggested a longer stay than anyshe had yet made. But even as they strolled towards the house she felt a little uneasy. Her mother had been so satisfactory till now, so careful not to intrude, not to mar the felicities of the early married months. Stephen had warmly praised her admirable tendency to absence rather than presence, and Virginia had been very proud of having provided him with a mother-in-law he admitted could not be bettered. She loved to lay every good gift in her possession at Stephen’s feet, and had rejoiced that her mother should be another of them. Was there going now to be a difference?
She said nothing, however, except that it was a pity she hadn’t known her mother was coming, so that her room might have been ready for her.
‘And how did you manage at the station, mother, with nothing to meet you?’ she asked.
‘I got the fly from the Dragon. I had to wait, of course, but not long. Old Mr. Pearce was so kind, and drove me himself. I would have let you know, but I hadn’t time. I—I suddenly felt Imustbe with you. I had a longing to be just here, peacefully. It doesn’t put you out, dearest?’
‘But of course not, mother. Only you have missed hearing Stephen preach to-night.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I saw him yesterday, though. He dined with me.’
‘Oh, did he?’ said Virginia, suddenly eager. ‘How was he? How did he seem? Had he had a good journey up? Did he say anything about the sandwiches? I’ve got a new cook, and I don’t know if her sand——’
‘Has Mrs. Benson gone?’
‘Yes. We decided she was too expensive. You see,our idea is to cut down unnecessary expenses in the house so as to have more to carry out our schemes with, and this is the first time the new one has had to cut sandwiches. Did Stephen say anything about them?’
‘No; so I expect they were all right.’
‘I do hope they were. He hates restaurant cars, you know, and won’t go and have a proper lunch in them. And it’s important——’
‘Of course. How are you, darling?’
‘Quitewell. It’s wonderful how well I feel. How did you think Stephen was looking?’
‘Quite well.’
‘Not tired? That journey every week is so tiring. I must say I shall be glad when Lent is over. Isn’t it wonderful, mother, how he works, how he gives up his life——’
‘And how very well he is preaching.Youhave made him preach like that.’
‘I?’
‘Yes. By just loving him.’
Virginia blushed. ‘But who could help it?’ she asked.
‘And by believing in him.’
‘I think everybody must believe in Stephen,’ she said.
Her mother pressed her arm. ‘Darling,’ she said softly; and thought how strange a thing love was, how strange that Virginia, by taking this spinster-man, this middle-aged dry man, and just loving him with all her simple young heart and entirely believing in him, had made him, so completely commonplace before in all his utterances, suddenly—at least in the pulpit—sing. Was it acute, personal experience that one needed? Did oneonly cry out the truth really movingly when under some sort of lash, either of grief or ecstasy?
They went up the broad steps on to the familiar terrace. George’s peacocks—George had been of opinion that manors should have peacocks—were behaving as peacocks ought. In the great tubs on each side of the row of long windows—George had seen pictures of terraces, and they all had tubs—the first tulips were showing buds. The bells had begun to ring for afternoon service, and the sound floated across the quiet tree-tops as it had floated on all the Sundays of all the years Catherine had spent in that place. Such blameless, such dignified years. Every corner of them open to the light. Years of clear duties, clear affections—family years. And here was her serious young daughter carrying on the tradition. And here was she too come back to it, but come back to it disgracefully, to hide. She hiding! She winced, and held on tighter to Virginia’s arm. What would Virginia say if she knew? It seemed to Catherine that even her soul turned red at the bare thought.
They went into the boudoir, so recently her own—‘I was just going to rest a little,’ said Virginia. ‘Yes, you must take great care not to stand about too much,’ said her mother—and Catherine tucked her up on the sofa, as she had so often tucked her up in her cot, and there they stayed talking, while the sweet damp smells a garden is so full of in early spring came in through the open window, and filled the room with delicate promises.
Throughout the afternoon Virginia talked, and Catherine listened. So it had always been in that family: Catherine listened. How thankful she was to listen now, not to be asked questions, not to have it noticed that she looked pale and heavy-eyed, leaningback in her own old chair, her head, which ached, on a cushion she remembered covering herself. Her humiliated head; the head Christopher only a few hours before had held in both his hands and—no, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t think of it.
Virginia had much to tell of all that she and Stephen were doing and planning and hoping and intending. Drastic changes were being made; the easy-going old days at the Manor were over for ever. She did not say this in so many words, because it might, perhaps, have been tactless, for were not the old easy-going ways her mother’s ways? But it was evident that a pure flame of reform, of determination to abolish the old arrangements and substitute arrangements that improved, helped, and ultimately sanctified, was sweeping over Chickover. Her father’s money, so long used merely on the unimaginative material well-being of a small domestic circle—she didn’t quite put it this way, but so it drifted into Catherine’s consciousness—was to be spread out like some rich top-dressing—nor did she say just this, yet Catherine had a vision of a kind of holy manure, and Stephen, girt with righteousness, digging it diligently in—across the wide field of the whole parish, and the crop that would spring up would be a crop of entirely sanitary dwellings. No one, said Virginia—it seemed to Catherine that it was the voice of Stephen—could live in an entirely sanitary dwelling without gradually acquiring an entirely sanitary body, and from a sanitary body to a sanitary soul was only a step.
‘Stephen said something about that yesterday,’ said Catherine, her eyelids drooping as she lay back in her chair.
‘He puts it so wonderfully. I can’t explain thingsas he does, but I’d like just to give you an idea, mother——’
‘I’d love to hear,’ said Catherine, her voice sounding very small and tired.
On the table beside Virginia’s sofa were estimates and plans in a pile. She explained them to her mother one after the other, and the most convoluted plumbing, set forth in diagrams that looked exactly like diagrams Catherine had seen of people’s insides, were as nothing to Virginia. She knew them by heart; she understood them clearly; she could and did tell her mother things about drains that Catherine would never have dreamed of left to herself. Lucidly she described the different drainage systems available, and their various advantages and drawbacks. No detail of plumbing was too small to be explored. For half an hour she talked of taps; for another she expounded geysers; and as for plugs, Catherine had no idea of all the things a plug could do to you and your health and happiness if you didn’t in the first instance approach it with care and caution.
She lay back in her chair and listened. It was like listening to water running from one of Virginia’s newest type of tap. It went on and on, and only an occasional word, or even a mere sound of agreement was required of her. Outside, the afternoon sun lit up the beautiful leafless beeches, and when the bells left off ringing she could hear the blackbirds again. Blessed, blessed tranquillity. She felt as people do after an illness—just wanting to rest, to be quiet.
And here she knew she was entirely safe from questions. Virginia never asked her questions about herself or what she was doing. George had been like that, too, pouring out everything to her, but not demanding that she shouldpour back. What a precious quality this was really, though she remembered it had sometimes made her feel lonely. How valuable, though, now. No solicitous questionings embarrassed her. She was aware she was pale and puff-eyed, but Virginia wouldn’t notice. She couldn’t have stood her daughter’s young gaze of inquiry. Oh, she would have been ashamed, ashamed....
Her head ached badly. She hadn’t had any breakfast, in her wild desire to get away, to escape from Hertford Street before anything more could happen to her, and the slow Sunday train had offered no occasion for lunch. But she wasn’t in the least hungry; she only wanted to sit there quiet and feel safe. Virginia, absorbed in all she had to talk about, hadn’t thought of the possibility of her mother’s not having had lunch. The arrival at such an unusual time had surprised her out of her customary hospitable solicitudes, for she took her duties as hostess of the Manor with much seriousness, and wouldn’t for worlds have failed in any of them. Catherine, too, had forgotten lunch. She wanted nothing in the world but to get here, to sit quiet, to be safe.
While they were having tea, Mrs. Colquhoun the elder, Stephen’s mother, called in to see her daughter-in-law.
She now lived alone in her son’s abandoned rectory, and daily walked across the park to inquire how Virginia did. She was immensely surprised to see Catherine, who had not before arrived uninvited and unprepared for, but welcomed her nevertheless, for she too had a high opinion of her.
Nobody could have given less trouble than Mrs. Cumfrit, or been more sensible in the matter of the marriage. Also, not a breath of gossip or criticism hadblown upon her during the whole long time between her husband’s death and her daughter’s marriage, when it well might have if she had been of a less complete propriety and quietness of behaviour. For, after all, she had only been in the early thirties when poor Mr. Cumfrit—a heart of gold, that man, but self-made, and not educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, nor even at a public school, which had been such a pity for Stephen, who otherwise might have found him more interesting to talk to—died, and being quite a pretty little thing, with something really very taking in the way she spoke and looked up at one, it wouldn’t have been surprising if her name had been coupled from time to time with that of some man. It never had been. If there were suitors, the Rectory never heard of them. People came and stayed at the Manor, but they were all relations—either rather odd ones of poor Mr. Cumfrit’s, or much more desirable ones of Mrs. Cumfrit’s, whose mother had been a daughter of the first Lord Bognor. A quiet, decent, well-bred woman was Mrs. Cumfrit, content to devote herself to her home, her child, and the doing of kind acts in the parish; an excellent mother-in-law, tactful and unobtrusive; a good neighbour, a firm friend. The only thing about her which Mrs. Colquhoun could have wished, perhaps, different, was her personal appearance: she still looked younger than the mother of a married daughter should,—though to do her justice it was in no way, apparently, because she tried to. Well, no doubt later on, when all the expensive clothes surviving from her extravagant days had had time to wear out, and she dressed more ordinarily, in sensible things like plain serges and tweeds, this would be remedied, and of course each year now would make agreat difference. For Stephen’s sake she ought to look older. People had smiled, Mrs. Colquhoun knew, at her being his mother-in-law. This seemed to his mother a pity. She was a little sensitive about it; the more so that there had been a time when she had secretly hoped Stephen would marry Mrs. Cumfrit—before, of course, his own splendid plan had dawned on her, and Virginia was still in socks. But Stephen, wise boy, knew what he was about, and waited patiently for little Virginia, of whom he had always been so fond.
The two mothers-in-law met with propriety. They kissed, and expressed pleasure.
‘This is surely a surprise,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, looking at Virginia but with a smile of welcome for Catherine on her face. She was very like her son—tall and thin, and of an avian profile. She towered above the small, round Catherine.
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, putting her papers neatly together; Stephen did so much dislike disorder, and two mothers at once might presently create it.
‘What brought you down on a Sunday, dear Mrs. Cumfrit?’ asked Mrs. Colquhoun, sitting on the end of the sofa, and patting Virginia’s feet, reassuringly to show they were not in her way, and approvingly because they were, as she daily told her daughter-in-law they should be, up.
Catherine wanted to say ‘A train,’ but discarded this as childish. In her conversations with Mrs. Colquhoun she was constantly being impelled towards the simple truth, and constantly discarding it as unsuitable.
She really didn’t know what to give as a reason. She looked at her fellow-mother-in-law helplessly.
Mrs. Colquhoun was struck by an air of dilapidation about her. ‘Ageing,’ she commented to herself.
‘I had a longing to see Virginia,’ said Catherine at last; and it seemed a lame sort of reason, in spite of its being true.
Mrs. Colquhoun privately hoped this mightn’t be the first of a series of such longings, for it was in her opinion essential that a young couple should be left undisturbed by relations, and especially should they not be allowed to get a feeling that at any moment they might unexpectedly be descended upon. It made them jumpy; and what could be worse for a young married woman than to be made jumpy? For three months Virginia’s mother had left her most properly alone, only coming down occasionally for a night, and never without being asked. Was she now going to inaugurate an era of surprise visits? Stephen wouldn’t like it at all, and Mrs. Colquhoun couldn’t help feeling, even as Virginia had felt, a little uneasy. If she had seen the luggage she would have felt still more so, for it was not, as Virginia had already noticed, the luggage of a mere week-end.
‘How natural,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun. ‘And dear Virginia will, I am sure, have been delighted.’
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, removing her pile of papers out of reach of the jam to which her mother seemed to be helping herself a little carelessly; Stephen did so much dislike stickiness.
‘But I hope you weren’t worried about her,’ Mrs. Colquhoun continued. ‘She is in very good hands here, you know, and you may be sure that when her husband is away I look after her—don’t I, Virginia.’
‘Yes,’ said Virginia, anxiously watching her mother,who seemed about to put her cup down on the top of the pile of papers. She got up, and quietly drew the table away into safety; Stephen did so much dislike smudges.
‘Indeed I know that,’ said Catherine politely.
She and Mrs. Colquhoun had always been politeness itself to each other. She tried to smile as she spoke. She ought to smile. She always did smile when addressing Mrs. Colquhoun. And she couldn’t. An awful vision of what Mrs. Colquhoun’s face would change into if she could have seen her the night before froze her mouth stiff.
‘She looks ill,’ thought Mrs. Colquhoun; and fervently hoped she wasn’t going to be ill there.
Virginia offered them bread and butter. Mrs. Colquhoun would not eat; she would just have a cup of tea, and be off again. Virginia mustn’t think she came there only for what she could get.
Virginia smiled, for this was one of her mother-in-law’s little jokes; but she was of so grave a type of countenance that even when she smiled she somehow managed still to look serious. She had strongly marked dark eyebrows, and her hair was drawn off her forehead and neatly brushed back from her ears. She looked very young—rather like a schoolgirl in her last term, dressed with the plainness Stephen and her own taste preferred. She was not pretty, she was merely young; but what grace, what charm there was in that!
Her mother-in-law watched her presiding over the massive silver tea service—George had wished Catherine’s tea service to be handsome—with proud and affectionate possessiveness. Virginia called both the mothers-in-law mother—what else was she to call them?Impossible to address Mrs. Colquhoun by a hybrid like mamma or, even more impossible and grotesque, mummy—and it led to confusion. For, unless their eyes were fixed on her face, they couldn’t know which of them she was talking to. Conversation was constantly being tripped up and delayed by this when the three were together, and Virginia, who was anxious to be a good hostess, besides dutifully loving them both, sometimes found this a strain, and wished she could deal with them separately. Not that, owing to the rareness and shortness of her mother’s visits, it had often happened that she had had them at the same time, for on those occasions her mother-in-law, apprised of the arrival, refrained, as she put it, from intruding. This had been easy when a visit only lasted from Saturday to Monday; but if the present one were going to last longer—and what about all that luggage?—it was not to be expected nor wished that Stephen’s mother shouldn’t come round as usual.
What she and Stephen’s mother wanted most to know at that moment was how long Virginia’s mother meant to stay. But no one can ever ask what most they want to know. What one most wants to know does invariably seem outside the proprieties, thought Virginia, slightly frowning at life’s social complications as she ate her bread and butter, thankful that she and Stephen lived in the country where there were fewer of them.
And Catherine, lying back in her chair—Mrs. Colquhoun never lay back in her chair unless she was definitely unwell and in a dressing-gown—didn’t in any way help. She said nothing whatever about her intentions, and hardly anything about anything else;she merely sat there and looked dilapidated. Evidently, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, observing her, she was worn out. But why? One journey by train from London to Chickover, even by a slow Sunday train, oughtn’t to make a normal woman look yellow. Mrs. Cumfrit looked excessively yellow. Why?
‘Do have some of this cake, mother,’ said Virginia; and as Catherine’s gaze was fixed on the open window and Mrs. Colquhoun’s was fixed on Catherine, they both together said they wouldn’t, thank you; and then, as usual when this happened, there was a brief upheaval of explanations.
‘And how is the excellent Mrs. Mitcham?’ inquired Mrs. Colquhoun, pleasantly. ‘How does she like her transplantation from a quiet country parish to London? Does she take root in Mayfair?’
Catherine said she was as kind as ever, and made her most comfortable.
‘We were sure she would, weren’t we, Virginia. Dear Mrs. Cumfrit, I do so like to know that you are in clover with that devoted creature to look after you. And so does Virginia—don’t you, Virginia.’
Virginia said she did, and Catherine said she was.
‘But how does the good soul like it when you leave her alone and come away?’ inquired Mrs. Colquhoun. ‘Oh well, of course you never do leave her for long, do you. A day or two—at the outside a day or two, or really one can imagine her beginning to fret, she is so devoted to you.’
‘Stephen might have stayed in the flat,’ said Virginia, ‘as you’re not in it this week-end, mother. Poor Stephen—he does get so very tired of hotels. I wish we had known.’
‘Oh——’ exclaimed Catherine, startled at the picture her imagination instantly presented of Stephen loose in her bedroom—there were only two bedrooms in the flat, hers and Mrs. Mitcham’s—sleeping in her bed, ranging at will among her excessively pretty odds and ends, among all those little charming things that collect on the dressing-table of a wealthy man’s adored wife, and naturally don’t wear out as fast as he does. But she pulled herself up, and after a tiny pause deftly ended what had so unpropitiously begun with, ‘What a pity.’
‘Perhaps it might be arranged another time,’ suggested Mrs. Colquhoun, hoping that Catherine would on this let them know whether the next Sunday was to find her still at poor little Virginia’s. Surely not; surely, surely she couldn’t suddenly have become, after so much tactfulness, entirely without any?
But Catherine only said in her small voice, as politely as ever, ‘Indeed it might,’—and wondered to herself how many more Sundays there were in Lent. Not many, she thought; Easter must be quite close now; Stephen had been in London for what seemed to her innumerable week-ends, and Lent, she knew, only contained six of them. Yet even if there were only one more, the picture of Stephen in her bed....
Mrs. Colquhoun now saw that only a direct question would extract from Catherine what she wanted to know, and getting up with her customary briskness—she was well on the way to seventy, but yet was brisk—remarked that she really must be going; and having bent over Virginia and kissed her—‘No, no, don’t dream of moving, my dear child,’ she said—she approached Catherine, who had got out of her chair, and held out her hand.
‘Shall I see you again, dear Mrs. Cumfrit?’ she asked.
And Catherine, instead of, as Mrs. Colquhoun had trusted she would, saying, ‘I’m afraid not—I go home to-morrow early,’ only said warmly, ‘Indeed I hope so.’
Which left Mrs. Colquhoun where it found her.
Mr. Lambtoncame to supper. He was the curate; and, during these Lenten Sundays of Stephen’s absence, after evening service supped at the Manor.
Mrs. Colquhoun, it transpired, supped on these occasions too, otherwise, Virginia pointed out, Mr. Lambton couldn’t have supped, it needing two women to make one man proper. She didn’t put it quite like this, but that is how it arrived in Catherine’s mind. On this evening Mrs. Colquhoun didn’t sup because Catherine’s presence made hers unnecessary; and by absenting herself when she needn’t have, and thus leaving Catherine to enjoy her daughter’s society untrammelled, gave her colleague in the office of mother-in-law a lesson in tact which she hoped, as she ate her solitary meal at home and didn’t like it, for she hadn’t been expected back to supper and there was nothing really worth eating, would not be lost.
Mr. Lambton was young, and kind, and full of reverences. He reverenced his Rector and his Rector’s wife and his Rector’s mother and his Rector’s mother-in-law; he was ready to reverence their man-servants and their maid-servants and anything that was theirs as well. He was not long from Cambridge, and this was his first curacy.
On the quiet surface of the evening he hardly causedan extra ripple. He was attentive to both ladies, offering them beet-root salad and bringing them footstools, and afterwards in the drawing-room he brought them more footstools. Catherine kept on forgetting he was there; and Mr. Lambton, having established his Rector’s wife’s mother in an easy-chair out of a draught, and inquired if she didn’t wish for a shawl—having discharged, in fact, his duty to the waning generation, forgot in his turn that she was there, and with Virginia discussed the proposed improvements, going with a quiet relish through all the papers Catherine had been taken through that afternoon.
Catherine sat in her chair and dozed. She felt just as old as they made her. With drowsy wonder she remembered this time yesterday, and the afternoon at Hampton Court, when she had raced—yes, actually raced—about the gardens, propelled by Christopher’s firm hand on her elbow and keeping up with his great strides, laughing, talking, the blood quick in her veins, the scent of spring in her nostrils, the gay adoring words of that strange young man in her ears. Mr. Lambton must be about Christopher’s age, she thought. Yet to Mr. Lambton she was merely some one, perhaps more accurately something, to be placed carefully in a chair out of a draught and then left. Which of them was right? It was most unsettling. Was she the same person to-night as last night? Was she two persons? If she was only one, which one? Or was she a mere vessel of receptiveness, a transparent vessel into which other people poured their view of her, and she instantly reflected the exact colour of their opinion?
Catherine didn’t like this idea of herself—it seemed to make her somehow get lost, and she shifted uneasilyin her chair. But she didn’t like anything about herself these days; she was horribly surprised, and shocked, and confused. After all, one couldn’t get away from the fact that one was well on in the forties, and supposing that there were people in the world who did seem able to fall in love with one even then—silly people, of course; silly, violent people—surely one felt nothing oneself but a bland and creditable indifference? On the other hand she didn’t believe she was nearly old enough to be planted among cushions out of a draught and left. It was very puzzling, and tiresome too. Here she felt almost rheumatic with age. Last night——
The mere thought of last night woke her up so completely and made her so angry that she gave the footstool an impatient push with her foot, and it skidded away along the polished oak floor.
Mr. Lambton looked up from the papers he and Virginia were poring over, and mildly contemplated the figure by the fire a moment, collecting his thoughts. Something rather vigorous seemed just to have been done. There had been a noise, and the footstool was certainly a good way off.
He got up, and went across and replaced it under Catherine’s feet. ‘You’re sure you’re quite comfortable, Mrs. Cumfrit?’ he asked, in much the same voice with which, when district visiting, he addressed the aged poor—a hearty, an encouraging, a rather loud voice. ‘You wouldn’t like another cushion, would you?’
Catherine thanked him, and just to please him and make him feel he was pleasing her, said she thought another cushion would be very nice indeed, and let him adjust it with care in what he described, evidently fromhis knowledge of where his older parishioners chiefly ached, the small of her back.
The small of her back. She wanted to laugh. All these elderly places she seemed to have about her—feet needing supporting on footstools, shoulders needing sheltering in shawls, backs needing propping with cushions.... But she didn’t laugh; she sat quiet, having nicely thanked Mr. Lambton, and on the whole did feel very comfortable like that, cushioned and foot-stooled, and no demands of any sort being made on her. It anyhow was peace.
Down here she was still simply somebody’s mother, and it was a restful state. Except for the last three months she had continually in her life only been somebody’s something. She had begun by being somebody’s daughter—such a good little girl; she clearly remembered being a good little girl who gave no trouble, and played happily for hours together by herself. Then she passed straight from that to being somebody’s wife; again a great success, again doing everything that was expected of her and nothing that wasn’t. Then, when this phase was over, for twelve years she became exclusively somebody’s mother; but how had she not, when that too ended, stretched out her arms to the sun and cried out all to herself, ‘Now I’m going to be me!’
Three months she had had of it, three months of freedom in London; and friends had seemed to spring up like daisies under her feet, and Mrs. Mitcham was always making tea, and cigarette ends were always being emptied out of ash-trays, and some cousins she had in London, who had cropped up the minute she had got there, brought friends, and these friends instantly became her friends, and it was a holiday, the threemonths, a very happy little holiday as different as possible from anything she had ever known, in which every one she met was kind and gay, and nobody in any way restricted her movements, and when she wanted to be alone and go for her solitary enjoyments, such as music, which she best loved alone, or visits to Kew to see whether spring wasn’t anywhere about yet, she could be alone and go, and when she wanted to see people and talk, she could see them and talk, and there was no clash anywhere of some one else’s opposing tastes and wishes.
A pleasant life. An amusing, independent, dignified small life; opening out before her with that other life of faithfully fulfilled duties and expectations at the back of her like a pillow to rest her conscience on. She hadn’t had time to arrange anything yet, but she certainly meant to do good as well as be happy, to find some form of charitable activity and throw herself into it. She wasn’t going to be idle, to drift into being one of those numerous ex-wives and mothers, unhappy specialists out of a job, who roam through their remaining years unprofitably conversing.
All this had seemed to open out before her like a bland afternoon landscape, and what had she done? Behaved so idiotically that she had been forced to run away; and not only run, but not know in the least when she would be able to go back again.
It was most unfortunate that she should have chanced to meet and make friends with the one young man in, she supposed, ten millions, who could be mad enough to fall in love with her and was of an undisciplined disposition into the bargain. Why, he might have been a quite meek young man—one of those who worship in secret, reverence from afar, one controlled by a liftedfinger or a flickered eyelash. But nothing controlled Christopher. He was an elemental force, and he swept her with him—she had certainly been swept somewhere unusual that brief moment she became so strangely quiescent in his arms. In his arms! Disgraceful. It rankled. It gnawed. The only thing to do, with such a memory scorching one, was to take to one’s heels. But imagine at her age having to take to any such things. Theindignity....
Once more the footstool skidded across the shiny floor.
The heads bent over the table turned towards her inquiringly.
‘Have you the fidgets, mother?’ asked Virginia gravely.
‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ said Catherine, getting up from her cushions.
Mr. Lambton hastened across to help. An odd desire to slap Mr. Lambton seized her. She blushed that she should wish to.
‘But not before prayers?’ said Virginia, surprised.
‘Oh yes—I forgot prayers,’ said Catherine, slightly ashamed.
Virginia, though, was more ashamed. It did seem to her unfortunate that her mother should have said that before Mr. Lambton. Bad to forget them, but worse to say so.
She got up and rang the bell.
‘We’ll have them now, as you’re tired,’ she said.
There usedn’t to be prayers in Catherine’s day, because George in his day hadn’t liked them, and she had kept things up exactly as he had, so that it was natural she should forget the new habits, besidesfinding it difficult to remember that the Manor was really a rectory now, a place in which family prayers the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning were inevitable.
In came the servants, headed by the parlourmaid bearing a tray of lemonade and soda water, and it seemed to Catherine, watching for the faces of old friends, that they had been much thinned out. They trickled in where, in old days, if there had been prayers, they would have poured. Manifestly they were being rapidly exchanged for cottages. There was hardly one left to smile furtively at her before settling down with folded hands and composed vacant face to listen to Mr. Lambton.
He officiated in Stephen’s absence. He did it in a clear tenor. The room growled with muffled responses. Virginia’s voice firmly led the growls. They all knelt with their faces to the walls and the soles of their shoes towards Mr. Lambton. Catherine became very conscious of her shoes, aware that their high heels were not the heels of the absolutely pure in heart. Before her mind floated a picture she had once seen of a pair of German boots that had belonged to a German woman who had been wicked, but, by the time she wore the boots, was good. They were the very opposite of the shoes she herself had on at the moment, and below the picture of them was written: