“I do realise it,” Katherine answered firmly. “It needn’t hurt her really, if her love for me is stronger than her hatred of Philip. I’ve thought it all out. If she loves me she’ll see that my love for her isn’t changed at all,—that it’s there just as it always was; that it’s only that she hasmademe choose, either Phil’s happiness or unhappiness. I can only choose one way. He’s ready to give up everything, surrender all the splendid things he was going to do, give up half of me, perhaps more, to the family—perhaps more. He hates the life here, but he’ll live it, under Mother and grandfather and the rest, for my sake. It isn’t fair that he should. Mother, if she loves me, will see that. But I don’t believe,” here Katherine’s voice trembled again, “that she cares foranythingso much as beating Philip. He’s the first person in the world who ever opposed her.... She knows that I’ll love her always, always, but Phil’s life shan’t be spoilt. Nothing matters beside that.”
She stopped, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing; he looked at her and was amazed, as in his queer, isolated life he had never been before, at what love can do to the soul.
“Life’s for the young,” he said, “you’re right, Katherine. Your Mother will never forgive me, but I’ll help you.”
“No,” Katherine said, “you’renot to be involved, Uncle Tim. Mother mustn’t loseanyoneafterwards. You’re to know nothing about it. I shall leave a note with someone to be taken up to the house at half-past nine. I’ve told you because I wanted you to know, but you’re not to have anything to do with it. But you’ll love me just the same, won’t you?Youwon’t be any different, will you? I had to know that. With you and Millie and Aunt Betty and Father caring for me afterwards, it won’t be quite like breaking with the family. Only, Uncle Tim, I want you to do for me what you can with Mother. I’ve explained everything to you, so that you can tell her—show her.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said. Then he caught her and hugged her.
“Good luck,” he said—and she was gone.
Although she had been less than her hour with her uncle, she knew that she had no time to spare. She was haunted, as she hurried back again down the village road by alarms, regrets, agonising reproaches that she refused to admit. She fortified her consciousness against everything save the immediate business to which she had bound herself, but every tree upon the road, every hideous cottage, every stone and flower besieged her with memories. “You are leaving us for ever. Why? For Panic?... For Panic?” ... She could hear the voices that would follow the retreat. “But why did she run away like that? It wasn’t even as though their engagement had been forbidden. To be married all in a hurry and in secret—I don’t like the look of it.... She was always such a quiet, sensible girl.”
And she knew—it had not needed Uncle Tim’s words to show her—that this act of hers was uprooting her for ever from everything that had made life for her. She would never go back. More deeply than that, she would never belong again, she, who only six months ago had been the bond that had held them all together....
And behind these thoughts were two figures so strangely, so impossibly like one another—the first that woman, suddenly old, leaning back on to Katherine’s breast, fast asleep, tired out, her mother—the second that woman who, only that afternoon, had turned and given both Katherine and Philip that look of triumph.... “I’ve got you both—You see that I shall never let you go. You cannot, cannot, cannot, escape.” That also was her mother.
She stopped at the village inn, ‘The Three Pilchards’, saw Dick Penhaligan, the landlord, and an old friend of hers.
“Dick, in half-an-hour I want a jingle. I’ve got to go to Rasselas to meet the eight train. I’ll drive myself.”
“All right, Miss Katherine,” he said, looking at her with affection. “ ’Twill be a wild night, I’m thinkin’. Workin’ up wild.”
“Twenty minutes, Dick,” she nodded to him, and was off again. She crossed the road, opened the little wicket gate that broke into the shrubbery, found her way on to the lawn, and there, under the oak, was Philip, waiting for her. As she came up to him she felt the first spurt of rain upon her cheek. The long lighted windows of the house were watching them; she drew under the shadow of the tree.
“Phil,” she whispered, her hand on his arm, “there isn’t a moment to lose. I’ve arranged everything. We must catch the eight o’clock train at Rasselas. We shall be in London by twelve. I shall go to Rachel Seddon’s. We can be married by Special Licence to-morrow.”
She had thought of it so resolutely that she did not realise that it was new to him. He gasped, stepping back from her.
“MydearKatie! Whatareyou talking about?”
“Oh, there isn’t anytime,” she went on impatiently. “If you don’t come I go alone. It will be the same thing in the end. I saw it all this afternoon. Thingscan’tgo on. I understood Mother. I know what she’s determined to do. We must escape or it will be too late. Even to-morrow it may be. I won’t trust myself if I stay; I’m afraid even to see Mother again, but IknowI’m right. We have only a quarter of an hour. That suit will do, and of course you mustn’t have a bag or anything. There’s that cousin of yours in the Adelphi somewhere. You can go to him. We must be at the ‘Three Pilchards’ in a quarter of an hour, and go separately, of course, or someone may stop us....”
But he drew back. “No, no, no,” he said. “Katie, you’re mad! Do you think I’m going to let you do a thing like this? What do you suppose I’m made of? Why, if we were to go off now they’d never forgive you, they’d throw you off—”
“Why, of course,” she broke in impatiently, “that’s exactly why we’ve got to do it. You proposed it to me yourself once, and I refused because I didn’t understand what our staying here meant. But I do now—it’s allsettled, I tell you, Phil, and there’s only ten minutes. It’s the last chance. If we miss that train we shall never escape from Mother, from Anna, from anyone. Oh! I know it! I know it!”
She scarcely realised her words; she was tugging at his sleeve, trying to drag him with her.
But he shook her off. “No, Katie, I tell you I’m not such a cad. I know what all this means to you, the place, the people, everything. It’s true that I asked you once to go off, but I didn’t love you then as I do now. I was thinking more of myself then—but now I’m ready for anything here. You know that I am. I don’t care if only they let me stay with you.”
“But they won’t,” Katherine urged. “You know what they’ll do. They’ll marry us, they’ll make you take a house near at hand, and if you refuse they’ll persuade you that you’re making me miserable. Oh! Phil! don’t you see—if I were sure of myself I’d never run off like this, but it’s from myself that I’m running. That’s the whole point of everything. I can’t trust myself with Mother. She has as much influence over me as ever she had. I felt it to-day more than I’ve ever felt it. There she is over both of us. You know that you’re weaker with her than I am. It isn’t that she does anything much except sit quiet, but I love her, and it’s through that she gets at both of us. No, Phil, we’ve got to go—andnow. If not now, then never. I shan’t be strong enough to-morrow. Don’t youseewhat she can do in the future, now that she knows about Anna....” Then, almost in a whisper, she brought out: “Don’t you see whatAnnacan do?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t go. It’s not fair. It’s not—”
“Well,” she answered him, “it doesn’t matter what you do, whether you go or not. I shall go. And what are you to do then?”
She had vanished across the lawn, leaving him standing there. Behind all his perplexity and a certain shame at his inaction, a fire of exultation inflamed him, making him heedless of the rain or the low muttering thunder far away. She loved him! She was freeing him! His glory in her strength, her courage, flew like a burning arrow to his heart, killing the old man in him, striking him to the ground, that old lumbering body giving way before a new creature to whom the whole world was a plain of victory. He stood there trembling with his love for her....
Then he realised that, whatever he did, there was no time to be lost. And after all what was he to do? Did he enter and alarm the family, tell them that Katherine was flying to London, what would he gain but her scorn? How much would he lose to save nothing? Even as he argued with himself some stronger power was dragging him to the house. He was in his room; he had his coat and hat from the hall; he saw no one; he was in the dark garden again, stepping softly through the wicket-gate on to the high road—Then the wind of the approaching storm met him with a scurry of rain that slashed his face. He did not know that now, for the first moment since his leaving Russia, Anna was less to him than nothing. He did not know that he was leaving behind him in that dark rain-swept garden an indignant, a defeated ghost....
Meanwhile Katherine had gone, rapidly, without pause, to her bedroom. She was conscious of nothing until she reached it, and then she stood in the middle of the floor, struck by a sudden, poignant agony of reproach that took, for the moment, all life from her. Her knees were trembling, her heart pounding in her breast, her eyes veiled by some mist that yet allowed her to see with a fiery clarity every detail of the room. They rose and besieged her, the chairs, the photographs, the carpet, the bed, the wash-hand-stand, the pictures, the window with the old, old view of the wall, the church-tower, the crooked apple-tree clustered in a corner, the bed of roses, the flash of the nook beyond the lawn. She covered her eyes with her hand. Everything was still there, crying to her “Don’t leave us! Is our old devotion nothing, our faithful service? Are you, whom we have trusted, false like the rest?”
She swayed then; tears that would never fall burnt her eyes. The first rain lashed her window, and from the trees around the church some flurry of rooks rose, protesting against the coming storm. She drove it all down with a strong hand. Shewouldnot listen....
Then, as she found her coat and hat, a figure rose before her, the one figure that, just then, could most easily defeat her. Her Mother shewouldnot see, Millie, Henry, the Aunts could not then touch her. It was her Father.
They were breaking their word to him, they who were standing now upon their honour. His laughing, friendly spirit, that had never touched her very closely, now seemed to cling to her more nearly than them all. He had kept outside all their family trouble, as he had kept outside all trouble since his birth. He had laughed at them, patted them on the shoulder, determined that if he did not look too closely at things they must be well, refused to see the rifts and divisions and unhappiness. Nevertheless he must have seen something; he had sent Henry to Cambridge, had looked at Millie and Katherine sometimes with a gravity that was not his old manner.
Seeing him suddenly now, it was as though he knew what she was about to do, and was appealing to her with a new gravity: “Katie, my dear, I may have seemed not to have cared, to have noticed nothing, but now—don’t give us up. Wait. Things will be happier. Wait. Trust us.”
She beat him down; stayed for another moment beside the window, her hands pressed close against her eyes.
Then she went to her little writing-table, and scribbled very rapidly this note:
Darling Mother,I have gone with Philip by the eight train to London. We shall be married as soon as possible. I shall stay with Rachel until then. You know that things could not go on as they were.Will you understand, dear Mother, that if I did not love you so deeply I would not have done this? But because you would not let Phil go I have had to choose. If only you will understand that I do not love you less for this, but that it is for Phil’s sake that I do it, you will love me as before. And you know that I will love you always.Your devoted daughter,Katherine.
Darling Mother,
I have gone with Philip by the eight train to London. We shall be married as soon as possible. I shall stay with Rachel until then. You know that things could not go on as they were.
Will you understand, dear Mother, that if I did not love you so deeply I would not have done this? But because you would not let Phil go I have had to choose. If only you will understand that I do not love you less for this, but that it is for Phil’s sake that I do it, you will love me as before. And you know that I will love you always.
Your devoted daughter,
Katherine.
She laid this against the looking-glass on her dressing-table, glanced once more at the room, then went.
Upon the stairs she met Henry.
“Hullo!” he cried, “going out? There’s a lot of rain coming.”
“I know,” she answered quietly. “I have to see Penhaligan. It’s important.”
He looked at her little black hat; her black coat. These were not the things that one put on for a hurried excursion into the village.
“You’ll be late for dinner,” he said.
“No, I shan’t,” she answered, “I must hurry.” She brushed past him; she had an impulse to put her arms round his neck and kiss him, but she did not look back.
She went through the hall; he turned on the stairs and watched her, then went slowly to his room.
When she came out on to the high road the wind had fallen and the rain was coming in slow heavy drops. The sky was all black, except that at its very heart there burnt a brilliant star; just above the horizon there was a bar of sharp-edged gold. When she came to the ‘Three Pilchards’ the world was lit with a strange half-light so that, although one could see all things distinctly, there was yet the suggestion that nothing was what it seemed. The ‘jingle’ was there, and Philip standing in conversation with Dick Penhaligan.
“Nasty night ’twill be, Miss Katherine. Whisht sort o’ weather. Shouldn’t like for ’ee to get properly wet. Open jingle tu.”
“That’s all right, Dick,” she answered. “We’ve got to meet the train. I’ve been wet before now, you know.”
She jumped into the trap and took the reins. Philip followed her. If Mr. Penhaligan thought there was anything strange in the proceeding he did not say so. He watched them out of the yard, gave a look at the sky, then went whistling into the house.
They did not speak until they had left the village behind them, then, as they came up to Pelynt Cross, the whole beauty of the sweep of stormy sky burst upon them. The storm seemed to be gathering itself together before it made its spring, bunched up heavy and black on the horizon, whilst the bar of gold seemed to waver and hesitate beneath the weight of it. Above their heads the van of the storm, twisted and furious, leaned forward, as though with avaricious fingers, to take the whole world into its grasp.
At its heart still shone that strange glittering star. Beneath the sky the grey expanse of the moon quivered with anticipation like a quaking bog; some high grass, bright against the sky, gave little windy tugs, as though it would release itself and escape before the fury beat it down. Once and again, very far away, the rumble of the thunder rose and fell, the heavy raindrops were still slow and measured, as though they told the seconds left to the world before it was devastated.
Up there, on the moor, Philip put his arm round Katherine. His heart was beating with tumultuous love for her, so that he choked and his face was on fire; his hand trembled against her dress. This was surely the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. He had seemed so utterly lost, and, although he had known that she loved him, he had resigned himself to the belief that her love stayed short of sacrifice. He had said to himself that he was not enough of a fellow for it to be otherwise. And now he did not care for any of them! No one, he realised, had ever, in all his life, made any great sacrifice for him—even Anna had let him go when he made life tiresome for her.
Surging up in him now was the fine vigour of reassurance that Katherine’s love gave to him. It was during that drive to Rasselas station that he began, for the first time, to believe in himself. He did not speak, but held Katherine with his arm close to him, and once, for a moment, he put his cheek against hers.
But she was not, then, thinking of Philip, she was scarcely aware that he was with her. Her whole will and purpose was concentrated on reaching the station in time. She thought: “If we missed that train we’re finished. We’ll have to come back. They’ll have found my note. Mother won’t be angry outwardly, but she’ll hate Phil twice as much as ever, and she’ll never loose her hold again. She’ll show him how ashamed he should be, and she’ll show me how deeply I’ve hurt her. We shall neither of us have the courage to try a ‘second time’.”
How was it that she saw all this so clearly? Never before these last months had she thought of anything save what was straight in front of her.... The world was suddenly unrolled before her like a map of a strange country.
Meanwhile, although she did not know it, she was wildly excited. Her imagination, liberated after those long years of captivity, flamed now before her eyes. She felt the storm behind her, and she thought that at the head of it, urging it forward, was that figure who had pursued her, so remorselessly, ever since that day at Rafiel when Philip had confessed to her.
Anna would keep them if she could, she would drag them back, miserable fugitives, to face the family—and then how she would punish Philip!
“Oh, go on! Go on!” Katherine cried, whipping the pony; they began to climb a long hill. Suddenly the thunder broke overhead, crashing amongst the trees of a dark little wood on their right. Then the rain came down in slanting, stinging sheets. With that clap of thunder the storm caught them, whirled up to them, beat them in the face, buffeted in their eyes and ears, shot lightning across their path, and then plunged them on into yet more impenetrable darkness. The world was abysmal, was on fire, was rocking, was springing with a thousand gestures to stop them on their way. Katherine fancied that in front of her path figures rose and fell, the very hedges riding in a circle round about her.
“Oh! go on! Go on!” she whispered, swaying in her seat, then feeling Philip’s arm about her. They rose, as though borne on a wave of wild weather, to the top of the hill. They had now only the straight road; they could see the station lights. Then the thunder, as though enraged at their persistence, broke into a shattering clatter—the soil, the hedges, the fields, the sky crumbled into rain; a great lash of storm whipped them in the face, and the pony, frightened by the thunder, broke from Katherine’s hand, ran wildly through the dark, crashed with a shuddering jar into the hedge. Their lamps fell; the ‘jingle’, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped over and gently dropped them on to the rain-soaked ground.
Katherine was on her feet in an instant. She saw that by a happy miracle one of the lamps still burned. She went to the pony, and found that, although he was trembling, he was unhurt. Philip was trying to turn the ‘jingle’ upright again.
“Quick!” she cried. “Hang the lamp on the cart. We must run for it—the shaft’s broken or something. There’s no time at all if we’re to catch that train. Run! Run! Phil! There’s sure to be someone coming in by the train who’ll see the ‘jingle’.”
They ran; they were lifted by the wind, beaten by the rain, deafened by the thunder, and Katherine as she ran knew that by her side was her enemy:
“You shan’t go! You shan’t go! I’ve got you still!”
She could hear, through the storm, some voice crying, “Phil! Phil! Come back! Come back!”
Her heart was breaking, her eyes saw flame, her knees trembled, she stumbled, staggered, slipped. They had reached the white gates, had passed the level crossing, were up the station steps.
“It’s in! It’s in!” gasped Philip. “Only a second!”
She was aware of astonished eyes, of the stout station-master, of someone who shouted, of a last and strangely distant peal of thunder, of an open door, of tumbling forward, of a whistle and a jerk, and then a slow Glebeshire voice:
“Kind o’ near shave that was, Miss, I’m thinkin’.”
And through it all her voice was crying exultantly: “I’ve beaten you—you’ve done your worst, but I’ve beaten you. He’s mine now for ever”—and her eyes were fastened on a baffled, stormy figure left on the dark road, abandoned, and, at last, at last, defeated....
Henry waited, for a moment, on the stairs. He heard the door close behind Katherine, heard the approaching storm invade the house, heard the cuckoo-clock in the passage above him proclaim seven o’clock, then went slowly up to his room. Why had Katherine gone out to see Penhaligan in those clothes, in such weather, at such an hour?... Very strange.... And her face too. She was excited, she had almost kissed him.... Her eyes....
He entered his familiar room, looked with disgust at his dinner-jacket and trousers lying upon the bed (he hated dressing for dinner), and then wandered up and down, dragging a book from the book-case and pushing it impatiently back again, stumbling over his evening slippers, pulling his coat off and allowing it to fall, unregarded, on to the floor.
Katherine!... Katherine?... What was ‘up’ with Katherine?
He had, in any case, been greatly upset by the events of the day. The crisis for which he had so long been waiting had at length arrived, and, behold, it had been no crisis at all. Superficially it had been nothing ... in its reality it had shaken, finally, destructively, the foundations of everything upon which his life had been built. He remembered, very clearly, the family’s comments upon the case of a young man known to them all, who, engaged to a girl in Polchester, had confessed, just before the marriage, that he had had a mistress for several years in London, who was however now happily married to a gentleman of means and had no further claim on him. The engagement had been broken off, with the approval of all the best families in Glebeshire. Henry remembered that his mother had said that it was not only the immorality of the young man but also his continued secrecy concerning the affair that was so abominable, that, of course, “young men must be young men, but you couldn’t expect a nice girl”—and so on.
He remembered all this very clearly, and he had decided at the time that if he ever had a mistress he would take very good care that no one knew about her. That had been a year ago ... and now! He was bewildered, almost breathless with a kind of dismayed terror as to what the world might possibly be coming to. His mother! of whom at least one thing had surely been unalterable—that she, herself, would never change. And now she had taken this thing without horror, without anger, almost with complacency.
She had known of it for months!
It was as though he had cherished a pet with the happy conviction that it was a kitten and had suddenly discovered it to be a cub. And out of this confusion of a wrecked and devastated world there emerged the conviction “that there was something more behind all this”, that “his mother had some plan.” He did not see at all what her plan could possibly be, but she appeared before him now as a sinister and menacing figure, someone who had been close to him for so many years, but whose true immensity he had never even remotely perceived.
He, Henry, had, from other points of view, risen out of the affair with considerable good fortune. He had not, as far as he could perceive, earned Katherine’s undying hatred; he had not even made a fool of himself, as might naturally be expected. It was plain enough now that Philip was to be with them for ever and ever, and that therefore Henry must make the best of him. Now indeed that it had come to this, Henry was not at all sure that he might not like Philip very much indeed. That night at the ‘Empire’ had been the beginning of life for Henry, and the indifference of his mother to Philip’s past and the knowledge that Katherine had long been aware of it made him not a little ashamed of his indignation and tempers. Nevertheless Philiphadthat effect upon him, and would have it many times again no doubt. For a clear and steady moment Henry, looking at himself in his looking-glass, wondered whether he were not truly the most terrible of asses.
However, all this was of the past. It was with a sense of advancing to meet a new world that he went down to dinner.
In the drawing-room he found his mother alone. She was wearing an evening dress of black silk, and Henry, whose suspicion of the world made him observant, noticed that she was wearing a brooch of old silver set with pearls. This was a family brooch, and Henry knew that his mother wore it only ‘on occasions’; his mother’s idea of what made an ‘occasion’ was not always that of the outside world. He wondered what the occasion might be to-night.
He had, for long, been unconsciously in the habit of dividing his mother into two persons, the figure of domination and power who kept the household in awe and was mysterious in her dignity and aloof reserve, and the figure of maternal homeliness who spoke to one about underclothes, was subject to human agitations and pleasures; of the first he was afraid, and would be afraid until he died. The second he loved. His mother to-night was the first of these. She looked, in his eyes, amazingly young. Her fair grey hair, her broad shoulders, her straight back, these things showed Henry’s mother to be younger than ever Henry would be. The pearl brooch gleamed against the black silk that covered her strong bosom; her head was carried high; her eyes feared no man nor woman alive.
Therefore Henry, as was his manner on such an occasion, did his best to slip quietly into a chair and hide his diminished personality in a book. This, however, was not permitted him.
“Henry,” his mother said softly, “why did you not tell me earlier the things that you had heard about Philip?”
Henry blushed so intensely that there was a thin white line just below the roots of his hair.
“I didn’t want to make Katie unhappy,” he muttered.
“I should have thought your duty to your parents came before your duty to Katherine,” his mother replied.
“It wasn’t you who was going to marry Philip,” he answered, not looking at his mother.
“Nevertheless it’s possible that older heads—yes, older heads—”
“Oh! well! it’s all right,” he burst out, “I’m sick of the thing, and you and father don’t seem to mind anything about it—”
“I haven’t told your father,” she interrupted.
“Haven’t told Father?” Henry repeated.
“No. Father doesn’t think of such things. If everything goes well, as I am sure that everything will, Father will want to know nothing further. I have every confidence in Philip.”
“Why!” Henry burst out, “I always thought you hated Philip, Mother. I simply don’t understand.”
“There are quite a number of things you don’t understand, Henry dear,” his mother answered. “Yes, quite a number. Philip was perhaps not at home with us at first—but I’m sure that in time he will become quite one of the family—almost as though he had been born a Trenchard. I have great hopes.... Your tie is as usual, Henry, dear, above your collar. Let me put it down for you.”
Henry waited whilst his mother’s cool, solid fingers rubbed against his neck and sent a little shiver down his spine as though they would remind him that he was a Trenchard too and had better not try to forget it. But the great, overwhelming impression that now dominated him was of his mother’s happiness. He knew very well when his mother was happy. There was a note in her voice as sure and melodious as the rhythm of a stream that runs, somewhere hidden, between the rocks. He had known, on many days, that deep joy of his mother’s—often it had been for no reason that he could discover.
To-night she was triumphant; her triumph sang through every note of her voice.
The others come in. George Trenchard entered, rubbing his hands and laughing. He seemed, every week, redder in the face and stouter all over; in physical reality he added but little to his girth. It was the stoutness of moral self-satisfaction and cheerful complaisance. His doctrine of pleasant aloofness from contact with other human beings had acted so admirably; he would like to have recommended it to everyone had not such recommendation been too great a trouble.
He was never, after this evening, to be aloof again, but he did not know that.
“Well, well,” he cried. “Punctual for once, Henry. Very nice, indeed. Dear me, Mother, why this gaudiness? People coming to dinner?”
She looked down at her brooch.
“No, dear.... No one. I just thought I’d put it on. I haven’t worn it for quite a time. Not for a year at least.”
“Very pretty, very pretty,” he cried. “Dear me, what a day I’ve had! So busy, scarcely able to breathe!”
“What have you been doing, Father?” asked Henry.
“One thing and another. One thing and another,” said George airily. “Day simply flown.”
He stood there in front of the fire, his legs spread, his huge chest flung out, his face flaming like the sun.
“Yes, it’s been a very pleasant day,” said Mrs. Trenchard, “very pleasant.”
“Where’s Katie?” asked her father. “She’s generally down before anyone.”
Henry, who, in the contemplation of his mother, had forgotten, for the moment, his sister’s strange behaviour, said:
“Oh! she’ll be late, I expect. I saw her go out about seven. Had to see Penhaligan about something important, she told me. Went out into all that storm.”
As he spoke eight o’clock struck.
Mrs. Trenchard looked up.
“Went out to see Penhaligan?” she asked.
“Yes, Mother. She didn’t tell me why.”
Aunt Betty came in. Her little body, her cheerful smile, her air as of one who was ready to be pleased with anything, might lead a careless observer into the error of supposing that she was a quite ordinary old maid with a fancy for knitting, the Church of England, and hot water with her meals. He would be wrong in his judgment; her sharp little eyes, the corners of her mouth betrayed a sense of humour that, although it had never been encouraged by the family, provided much wise penetration and knowledge. Any casual acquaintance in half an hour’s talk would have discovered in Aunt Betty wisdom and judgment to which her own family would, until the day of its decent and honourable death, be entirely blind.
Just now she had lost her spectacles.
“My spectacles,” she said. “Hum-hum—Very odd. I had them just before tea. I was working over in that corner—I never moved from there except once when—when—Oh! there they are! No, they are not. And I played ‘Patience’ there, too, in the same corner. Very odd.”
“Perhaps, dear,” said Mrs. Trenchard, “you left them in your bedroom.”
“No, Harriet, I looked there. Hum-hum-hum. Very odd it is, because—”
Millie came in and then Aunt Aggie.
“Is Father coming down to-night?” said George.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Trenchard. “He said that he felt better. Thought it would be nice to come down. Yes, that it would be rather nice.... Aggie, dear, that’s your sewing, isn’t it? You left it here this morning. Rocket put it between the pages of my novel to mark the place. I knew it was yours—”
“Yes, it’s mine,” said Aunt Aggie, shortly.
Meanwhile Henry, looking at the door, waited for Katherine. A strange premonition was growing in him that all was not well. Katherine and Philip, they had not appeared—Katherine and Philip.... As he thought of it, it occurred to him that he had not heard Philip moving as he dressed. Philip’s room was next to Henry’s, and the division was thin; you could always hear coughs, steps, the pouring of water, the opening and shutting of drawers.
There had been no sounds to-night. Henry’s heart began to beat very fast. He listened to the wind that, now that the storm had swung away, was creeping around the house, trying the doors and windows, rattling something here, tugging at something there, all the pipes gurgled and spluttered with the waters of the storm.
“Ah! there they are!” cried Aunt Betty.
Henry started, thinking that she must herald the entry of Katherine and Philip; but no, it was only the gold-rimmed spectacles lying miraculously beneath the sofa.
“Now,how,” cried Aunt Betty, “did they get there? Very odd, because I remember distinctly that I never moved from my corner.”
“Well,” said George Trenchard, who, now that his back was warmed by the fire, wanted his front warmed too, “how much longer are we to wait for dinner? Katie and Philip. Playing about upstairs, I suppose.”
Quarter-past eight struck, and Rocket, opening the door, announced that dinner was ready.
“Suppose you just go up and see what Katie’s doing, Millie dear,” said Mrs. Trenchard.
Millie left them and ran quickly upstairs. She pushed back Katie’s door, then, stepping inside, the darkness and silence and a strange murmurous chill caught her, as though someone had leapt, out of the dusk, at her throat. She knew then instantly what had occurred. She only said once, very softly, “Katie!” then gently closed the door behind her, as though she did not want anyone else to see the room.
She stayed there; there, beside the door, for quite a long time. The room was very dark, but the looking-glass glimmered like a white, flickering shadow blown by the wet wind that came in through the open window. Something flapped monotonously.
Millie, standing quite motionless by the door, thought to herself “Katherine and Philip! They’ve done it!... at last, they’ve done it!” At first, because she was very young and still believed in freedom and adventure as the things best worth having in life, she felt nothing but a glad, triumphant excitement; an excitement springing not only from her pleasure in any brave movement, but also from her reassurance in her beloved sister, her knowledge that after all Katherinedidbelieve in Love beyond every other power, was ready to venture all for it. Her own impulse was to run after them, as fast as she could, and declare her fidelity to them.
At last she moved away from the door to the dressing-table and lit a candle. Its soft white flame for a moment blinded her. She had an instant of hesitation; perhaps after all she had flown too rapidly to her desired conclusions, the two of them were waiting now in the drawing-room for her.... Then she saw Katherine’s note propped against the looking-glass.
She took it up, saw that it was addressed to her mother, and realised, for the first time, what this would mean to them all. She saw then—THE OLD ONES—Grandfather, Mother, Father, Aunt Sarah, Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty. She was sorry for them, but she knew, as she stood there, that she did not care, really, whether they were hurt or no. She felt her own freedom descend upon her, there in Katie’s room, like a golden, flaming cloud. This was the moment for which, all her life, she had been waiting. The Old Ones had tried to keep them and tie them down, but the day of the Old Ones was past, their power was broken. It was the New Generation that mattered—Katherine and Philip, Millie and Henry, and all their kind; it wastheirworld andtheirdominion—
She suddenly, alone there, with the note in her hand, danced a little dance, the candle-flame flickering in the breeze and Katherine’s white, neat bed so cold and tidy.
She was not hard, she was not cruel—her own time would come when she would cry for sympathy and would not find it, and must set her teeth because her day was past ... now was her day—She seized it fiercely.
Very quietly she went downstairs....
She opened the drawing-room door: as she entered all their eyes met her and she knew at once, as she saw Henry’s, that he was expecting her announcement.
She looked across at her mother.
“Katherine’s room’s empty,” she said. “There’s no one there at all.” She hesitated a moment, then added: “There was this note for you, Mother, on her dressing-table.”
She went across the room and gave it to her mother. Her mother took it; no one spoke.
Mrs. Trenchard read it; for a dreadful moment she thought that she was going to give way before them all, was going to cry out, to scream, to rush wildly into the road to stop the fugitives, or slap Aunt Aggie’s face. For a dreadful moment the battle of her whole life to obtain the mastery of herself was almost defeated—then, blindly, obeying some impulse with which she could not reason, of which she was scarcely conscious, some strong call from a far country, she won a triumphant victory.
“It’s from Katherine!” she said. “The child’s mad. She’s gone up to London.”
“London!” George Trenchard cried.
“London!” cried Aunt Aggie.
“Yes. With Philip. They have caught the eight train. They are to be married to-morrow. ‘Because I would not let Philip go,’ she says. But she’s mad—”
For an instant she gripped the mantelpiece behind her. She could hear them, only from a distance, as though their voices were muffled by the roar of sea or wind, their exclamations.
Her husband was, of course, useless. She despised him. He cried:
“They must be stopped! They must be stopped. This is impossible! That fellow Mark—one might have guessed! They must be stopped. At once! At once!”
“They can’t be.” She heard her voice far away with the others. “They can’t be stopped. The train left at eight o’clock, nearly half an hour ago. There’s nothing to be done.”
“But, of course,” cried George, “there’ssomethingto be done. They must be stopped at once. I’ll go up by the next train.”
“There’s no train until six to-morrow morning—and what good would you do? They’re engaged. You gave your permission. Katherine’s of age. It is her own affair.”
They all cried out together. Their voices sounded to Mrs. Trenchard like the screams of children.
Through the confusion there came the sound of an opening door. They all turned, and saw that it was old Mr. Trenchard, assisted by Rocket.
“Why don’t you come in to dinner?” he said, in his clear, thin voice. “I went straight into the dining-room because I was late, and here you all are, and it’s nearly half-past eight.”
The same thought instantly struck them all. Grandfather must know nothing about it; a very slight shock, they were all aware, wouldkillGrandfather, and there could not possibly be any shock to him like this amazing revolt of Katherine’s. Therefore he must know nothing. Like bathers asserting themselves after the first quiver of an icy plunge, they fought their way to the surface.
Until Grandfather was safely once more alone in his room the situation must be suspended. After all, there wasnothingto be done! He, because he was feeling well that evening, was intent upon his dinner.
“What! Waiting for Katherine?” he said.
“Katherine isn’t coming down to dinner, Father,” Mrs. Trenchard said.
“What, my dear?”
“Katherine isn’t coming down to dinner.”
“Not ill, I hope.”
“No—a little tired.”
George Trenchard was the only one who did not support his part. When the old man had passed through the door, George caught his wife’s arm.
“But, I say,” he whispered, “something—”
She turned for an instant, looking at him with scorn.
“Nothing!” she said. “It’s too late.”
They went in to dinner.
It was fortunate that Grandfather was hungry; he did not, it seems, notice Philip’s absence.
“Very nice to see you down, Father,” Mrs. Trenchard said pleasantly. “Very nice for us all.”
“Thank ye, my dear. Very agreeable—very agreeable. Quite myself this evening. That rheumatism passed away, so I said to Rocket, ‘Well, ’pon my word, Rocket, I think I’ll come down to-night’ Livelier for us all to be together. Hope Katie isn’t ill, though?”
“No—no—nothing at all.”
“I saw her this morning. She seemed quite well.”
“A little headache, Father dear. She thought she was better by herself.”
“Dear Katie—never do to have her ill. Well, George. What’s the matter with ’ee? Looking quite hipped. Dig your father in the ribs, Millie, my dear, and cheer him up a bit.”
So seldom was old Mr. Trenchard in his merry mood, and so difficult of him to be in it now. So often he was consumed with his own thoughts, his death, perhaps, the present degradation of the world, the tyranny of aches and pains, impatience with the monotonous unvariety of relations, past Trenchard glories, old scenes and days and hours ... he, thus caught up into his own life, would be blind to them all. But to-night, pleased with his food because he was hungry, and because his body was not paining him anywhere just now, he was interested in them. His bright little eyes darted all about the table.
There came at last the question that they dreaded:
“Why, where’s the young man? Katie’s young man?”
A moment’s silence, and then Mrs. Trenchard said quietly, and with her eyes upon the new ‘girl,’ introduced into the house only last week and fresh to the mysteries of a dinner-table:
“He’s dining with Timothy to-night, Father.”
Rocket could be heard whispering to Lucy, the ‘girl’:
“Potatoes first—then the sauce.”
Of them all, it was George Trenchard who covered with least success the yawning chasm, even Aunt Betty, although her hands shook as she crumbled her bread, had not surrendered her control.
But for George this was the first blow, in all his life, to reach his heart. Nothing really had ever touched him before. And he could not understand it—he simply could not understand it. It had been as sudden as an earthquake, and then, after all, there had been nothing to be done. That was the awful thing. There had been nothing to be done.... It was also so mysterious. Nothing had ever been mysterious to him before. He had been dimly aware that during these last months all had not been well, but he had pursued his old safe plan, namely, that if you didn’t mention things and just smiled upon life without inviting it to approach you closely, all would, in the end, be well.
But now he could no longer hold aloof—he was in the middle of something, as surely as though he had been plunged into a deep tab of tossing, foaming water. Katherine ... Katie ... dear, devoted Katie ... who had always loved him and done as he wished; Katie, nearest of all human beings to his heart, and nearest because he had always known that she cared for him more than for any other human being. And now it was obvious that that was not so, it was obvious that she cared more for that young man, that abominable young man.... O, damn it! damn it!damn it!Katherine was gone, and for no reason, for nothing at all except pride and impatience. Already, as he sat there, he was wondering how soon, by any means whatever, he could establish pleasant relations with her, and so make his life comfortable once more. But, beyond Katherine, there was his wife. What was he to do about Harriet? For so many years now he had decided that the only way to deal comfortably with Harriet was not to deal with her, and this had seemed to work so well ... but now ... now ... hemustdeal with her. He saw that she was in terrible distress; he knew her well enough to be sure of that. He would have liked to have helped and comforted her; it really distressed him to see anyone in pain, but he discovered now, with a sharp surprise, that she was a complete stranger, that he did not know any more about the real Harriet Trenchard than he did about Lucy, the maid-servant. There was approaching him that awful moment when he would be compelled to draw close to her ... he was truly terrified of this.
It was a terrible dinner for all of them; once Lucy dropped a knife, and they started, all of them, as though a bomb had screamed through the ceiling. And perhaps, to the older ones, there was nothing in it more alarming than the eyes, the startled, absorbed and challenging eyes, of Millie and Henry....
Slowly, as the dinner progressed, old Mr. Trenchard discovered that something was the matter. He discovered it as surely by the nervous laughter and chatter of Aunt Betty as by the disconcerted discomfort of his son George. His merriment fell away from him; he loved ‘Angels on Horseback’—to-night there were ‘Angels on Horseback’, and he ate them with a peevish irritation. Whatever was the matter now? He felt lost without Sarah;sheknew when and why things were the matter more quickly than anyone, aware of her deafness, would consider possible. But before he was assisted from the table he was sure that the ‘something’ was connected with his dear Katherine.... The men did not stay behind to-night. In the hall they were grouped together, on the way to the drawing-room, waiting for the old man’s slow progress.
He paused suddenly beside the staircase.
“George,” he said, “George, just run up and see how Katie is. Give her my love, will ’ee?”
George turned, his face white. Mrs. Trenchard said:
“She’s probably asleep, Father. With her headache—it would be a pity to wake her.”
At that moment the hall door pushed slowly open, and there, the wind eddying behind him, his ulster up over his neck, his hair and beard wet with the rain, stood Uncle Timothy.
“Hullo!” he cried, seeing them all grouped together. But old Mr. Trenchard called to him in a voice that trembled now with some troubled anticipation:
“Why, your dinner’s soon done? Where’s the young man?”
Uncle Timothy stared at them; he looked round at them, then, at a loss for the first time in his life, stammered: “Why, don’t you know...?”
The old man turned, his stick shaking in his hand: “Where’s Katherine? Katie.... What’s happened to Katie? What’s this mean?”
Mrs. Trenchard looked at him, then said:
“It’s all right, Father—really. It’s quite all right.”
“It’s not all right.” Fright like the terror of a child alone in the dark was in his eyes. “What have you done with her?”
Her voice cold, without moving, she answered:
“Katherine went up by the eight o’clock train to London with Philip. She has gone to Rachel Seddon.”
“With Philip?... What do you say? I can’t hear you.”
“Yes. She is to stay with Rachel Seddon.”
“But why? What have you done? Why did you tell me lies?”
“We have done nothing. We did not know that she was going.”
“You didn’t know?... then she’s left us?”
Mrs. Trenchard said nothing.
He cried: “I told him—what it would be—if he took her ... Katie!”
Then, his stick dropping with a rattle on to the stone floor, he fell back. Rocket caught him.
There was a movement forward, but Mrs. Trenchard, saying swiftly, “George ... Rocket,” had swept them all outside the figure—the figure of an old, broken, tumbled-to-pieces man, held now by his son and Rocket, huddled, with his white, waxen hand trailing across George Trenchard’s strong arm.
Harriet Trenchard said to her brother:
“You knew!” then turned up the stairs.
In the drawing-room Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, Millie and Henry faced Uncle Timothy.
“Well!” said Aunt Aggie, “so you know all about it.... You’ve killed Father!” she ended with a grim, malignant triumph.
He answered fiercely: “Yes, I knew. That’s why I came. She said that she would send up a note from the village. I thought that you wouldn’t have heard it yet. I came up to explain.”
They all burst upon him then with questions:
“What?” “Did you see her?” “What did she say?” “Where was she?”
“Of course I saw her. She came to me before she went off.”
“She came and you didn’t stop her!” This from Aunt Aggie. He turned then and addressed himself solely to her.
“No. I didn’t stop her. I gave her my blessing.”
Aunt Aggie would have spoken, but he went on: “Yes, and it’s you—you and Harriet and the others—who are responsible. I warned Harriet months ago, but she wouldn’t listen. What did you expect? Do you think the world’s always going on made for you and you alone? The more life’s behind you the more important you think you are, whereas it doesn’t matter a damn to anybody what you’ve done compared with what others are going to do. You thought you could tie Katherine and Philip down, take away their freedom? Well, you couldn’t, that’s all.”
“Yes,” cried Aunt Aggie, who was shaking with anger, “it’s such doctrines as yours, Timothy, that lead to Katherine and others doing the dreadful things they do. It’s all freedom now and such words, and young men like Mr. Mark, who don’t fear God and have no morals and make reprobates of themselves and all around them, can do what they please, I suppose. You talk about common-sense, but what about God? What about the Commandments and duty to your parents? They may think what they like abroad, but, Heaven be praised, there are some of us still in England who know our duty.”
He had recovered his control before she ended her speech. He smiled at her.
“The time will come,” he answered, “and I daresay it isn’t so distant as you think, when you and you fellow-patriots, Aggie, will learn that England isn’t all alone, on her fine moral pedestal, any longer. There won’t be any pedestal, and you and your friends will have to wake up and realise that the world’s pushed a bit closer together now-a-days, that you’ve got to use your eyes a bit, or you’ll get jostled out of existence. The world’s going to be for the young and the independent and the unprejudiced, not the old and narrow-minded.
“Philip Mark’s woken you all up, and thank God he has!”
“Heaven forgive you,” Aunt Aggie answered, “for taking His name. You’ve got terrible things to answer to Him for, Timothy, when the time comes.”
“I’m not afraid, Aggie,” he said.
But it was Millie who spoke the final word.
“Oh,whatare you all talking about!” she broke in. “What does it matterwho’sgood or bad or right or wrong. It’s Katie’shappinessthat matters, nothing else. Ofcourse, she’s gone. She ought to have gone months ago. You all wanted to make her and Phil liveyourlife just as you wished it, and Phil, because he loved Katie so much, was ready to, butwhyshould they? You say you all loved her, but I think it was just selfishness. I’ve been as bad as the rest of you. I’ve been thinking of myself more than Katie, but at heart now I’m glad, and I hope they’ll be happy, happy for ever.”
“And your Mother?” said Aunt Aggie. “Did Katherine owe her nothing?”
“Yes,” answered Millie, stoutly, “but she didn’t owe her all her life. Mother’s still got her if she wants her. Katie will never change—she isn’t that kind. It’s mother’s pride that’s hurt, not her love.”
Aunt Betty, who had been quite silent, said:
“I do indeed hope that she will be very happy ... but life will never be the same again. We mustn’t be selfish, of course, but we shall miss her—terribly.”
At a later hour George Trenchard, in pyjamas and a dressing gown, knocked on his wife’s door. She opened it, and he found her fully clothed; she had, it seemed to him, been reading.
He looked at her; he felt very wretched and uncomfortable.
“Father’s asleep,” he said.
“I’m glad of that,” she answered.
“I think he’ll be none the worse in the morning.”
“I hope not. Dr. Pierson seemed reassured.”
There was a pause; in spite of his bedroom slippers, his feet were cold.
“Harriet.”
“Yes, George.”
“I only wanted to say—well, I don’t know—only that—I’m sorry if this—this business of Katherine’s—has been a great blow to you.”
Her mind returned to that day, now so long ago, when, after her visit to the Stores, she had gone to his study. Their position now was reversed. But she was tired; she did not care. George did not exist for her.
“It has surprised me, of course,” she answered, in her even, level voice. “I thought Katherine cared more for us all than she has shown that she does. I certainly thought so. Perhaps my pride is hurt.”
By making this statement—not especially to George, but to the world in general—she could say to herself: “You see how honest you are. You are hiding nothing.”
He meanwhile hated his position, but was driven on by a vague sense that she needed comfort, and that he ought to give it her.
“See here, Harriet,” he said, awkwardly, “perhaps it needn’t be so bad. Nothing very terrible’s happened, I mean. After all, they were going to marry anyway. They’ve only done it a bit sooner. They might have told us, it’s true—they ought to have told us—but, after all, young people will be young people, won’t they? We can’t be very angry with them. And young Mark isn’t quite an Englishman, you know. Been abroad so long.”
As he spoke he dwindled and dwindled before her until his huge, healthy body seemed like a little speck, a fly, crawling upon the distant wall.
“Nothing very terrible’s happened” ... “Nothing very terrible’s happened” ... “NOTHING VERY TERRIBLE’S HAPPENED.”
George, who, during these many years had been very little in her life, disappeared, as he made that speech, utterly and entirely out of it. He was never to figure in it again, but he did not know that.
He suddenly sat down beside her on the old sofa and put his arm round her. She did not move.
They sat there in utter silence. At last desperately, as though he were committing the crime of his life, he kissed her. She patted his hand.
“You look tired,” he said, feeling an immense relief, now that he had done his duty. “You go to bed.”
“Good night, George dear,” she said.
He raised his big body from the sofa, smiled at her and padded away....
When he had gone and she was alone, for a terrible time she fought her defeat. She knew now quite clearly that her ruling passion during all these months had not been, as she had supposed, her love of Katherine, but her hatred of Philip.
From the first moment of seeing him she had known him for her enemy. He had been, although at the time she had not realised it, the very figure whose appearance, all her life, she had dreaded; that figure, from outside, of whose coming Timothy had long ago prophesied. How she had hated him! From the very first she had made her plans, influencing the others against him, watching how she might herself most securely influence him against himself, breaking in his will, using Katherine against him; finally, when Seymour had told her the scandal, how she had treasured it up for the moment when he, because of his love for Katherine, should be completely delivered over to her!
And the moment had come. She had had her triumph! She had seen his despair in his eyes! She had got him, she thought, securely for ever and ever.
Then how she had known what she would do in the future, the slave that she would make of him, the ways that she would trouble him with Katherine, with that Russian woman, with Aggie, with all of them!
Ah! it had been so perfect! and—at the very moment of her triumph—he had escaped!
That love for Katherine that had been a true motive in her earlier life, a true motive even until six months ago, was now converted into a cold, implacable resentment, because it was Katherine who had opened the door of Philip’s cage. Strange the complexities of the human heart! That very day, as she won her triumph she had loved her daughter. She had thought: “Now that I have beaten him I can take you back to my heart. We can be, my dear, as we used to be”—but now, had Katherine entered the room, she would have been spurned, dismissed for ever.
In the lust of love there is embedded, as the pearl is embedded in its shell, a lust of hate. Very closely they are pressed together. Mrs. Trenchard was beaten—beaten by her daughter, by a new generation, by a new world, by a new age—beaten in the very moment of her victory.
She would never forgive.
What was left to her?
Her heart was suddenly empty of love, of hatred, of triumph, of defeat. She was tired and lonely. Somewhere, dimly, from the passage, the cuckoo-clock proclaimed the hour.
The house! That at least was left to her. These rooms, these roofs, the garden, the village, the fields, the hedges the roads to the sea. The Place had not deceived her, had not shared in the victory over her; it had, rather, shared in her defeat.
It seemed, as she stood there, to come up to her, to welcome her, to console her.
She put a shawl over her shoulders, went softly through the dark passages, down into the drawing-room.
There, feeling her way, she found candles and lit them. She went to her cabinet, opened drawers, produced papers, plans, rows of figures. Here was a plan of a new barn behind the house, here the addition of a conservatory to the drawing-room. Before her was a map of South Glebeshire, with the roads, the fields, the farms. She began to work, adding figures, following the plans, writing....
The light of the summer morning found her working there in the thin candle-light.
At about half-past four upon the afternoon of November 8th, 1903, the drawing-room of No. 5 Rundle Square Westminster, was empty. November 8th was, of course, Grandfather Trenchard’s birthday; a year ago on that day Philip Mark had made his first entrance into the Trenchard fastnesses. This Eighth of November, 1903, did not, in the manner of weather, repeat the Eighth of November, 1902. There had been, a year ago, the thickest of fogs, now there was a clear, mildly blue November evening, with the lamps like faint blurs of light against a sky in which tiny stars sparkled on a background that was almost white. It was cold enough to be jolly, and there was a thin wafer-like frost over the pools and gutters.
A large fire roared in the fireplace; the room seemed strangely altered since that day when Henry had read his novel and thought of his forests. In what lay the alteration? The old green carpet was still there; in front of the fireplace was a deep red Turkey rug—but it was not the rug that changed the room. The deep glass-fronted book-cases were still there, with the chilly and stately classics inside them; on the round table there were two novels with gaudy red and blue covers. One novel was entitled “The Lovely Mrs. Tempest”, the other “The Mystery of Dovecote Mill”—but it was not the novels that changed the room. The portraits of deceased Trenchards, weighted with heavy gold, still hung upon the walls; there was also, near the fireplace, a gay water-colour of some place on the Riviera, with a bright parasol in the foreground and the bluest of all blue seas in the background—but it was not the water-colour that changed the room.
No, the change lay here—the Mirror was gone.
After Henry had broken it, there was much discussion as to whether it should be mended. Of course it would be mended—but when?—Well, soon. Meanwhile it had better be out of the way somewhere ... it had remained out of the way. Until it should be restored, Sir George Trenchard, K.C.B., 1834-1896, a stout gentleman with side whiskers, hung in its place.
Meanwhile it would never be restored. People would forget it; people wanted to forget it ... the Mirror’s day was over.
It was, of course, impossible for Sir George Trenchard to reflect the room in his countenance or in his splendid suit of clothes, and the result of this was that the old room that had gathered itself so comfortably, with its faded and mossy green, into the shining embrace of the Mirror, had now nowhere for its repose; it seemed now an ordinary room, and the spots of colour—the Turkey rug, the novels, the water-colour, broke up the walls and the carpet, flung light here and light there, shattered that earlier composed remoteness, proclaimed the room a comfortable place that had lost its tradition.
The Room was broken up—the Mirror was in the cellar.
Henry came in. He had had permission to abandon—for one night—his labours at Cambridge to assist in the celebration of his grandfather’s birthday, the last, perhaps, that there would be, because the old man now was very broken and ill. He had never recovered from the blow of Katherine’s desertion.
The first thing that Henry had done on his arrival in London had been to pay a visit to Mrs. Philip Mark. Katherine and Philip lived in a little flat in Knightsbridge—Park Place—and a delightful little flat it was. This was not the first visit that Henry had paid there; George Trenchard, Millie, Aunt Betty had also been there—there had been several merry tea-parties.
The marriage had been a great success; the only thing that marred it for Katherine was her division from her mother. Mrs. Trenchard was relentless. She would not see Katherine, she would not read her letters, she would not allow her name to be mentioned in her presence. Secretly, one by one, the others had crept off to the Knightsbridge flat.... They gave no sign of their desertion. Did she know? She also gave no sign.
But Katherine would not abandon hope. The time must come when her mother needed her. She did not ask questions of the others, but she saw her mother lonely, aged, miserable; she saw this from no conceit of herself, but simply because she knew that she had, for so many years, been the centre of her mother’s life. Her heart ached; she lay awake, crying, at night, and Philip would strive to console her but could not. Nevertheless, through all her tears, she did not regret what she had done. She would do it again did the problem again arise. Philip was a new man, strong, happy, reliant, wise ... she had laid the ghosts for him. He was hers, as though he had been her child.
Henry, upon this afternoon, was clearly under the influence of great excitement. He entered the drawing-room as though he were eager to deliver important news, and then, seeing that no one was there, he uttered a little exclamation and flung himself into a chair. Anyone might see that a few weeks of Cambridge life had worked a very happy change in Henry; much of his crudity was gone. One need not now be afraid of what he would do next, and because he was himself aware of this development much of his awkwardness had left him.
His clothes were neat; his hair was brushed. He might still yield at any moment to his old impetuosities, his despairs and his unjustified triumphs, but there would now be some further purpose beyond them; he would know now that there were more important things in life than his moods.
He looked at the place where the Mirror had been and blushed; then he frowned. Yes, he had lost his temper badly that day, but Philip had had such an abominable way of showing him how young he was, how little of life he knew. All the same, Philip wasn’t a bad sort,—and hedidlove Katie—‘like anything!’
Henry himself thrilled with the consciousness of the things that he intended to do in life. He had attended a debate at the Cambridge Union, and himself, driven by what desperate impulse he did not know, had spoken a few words. From that moment he had realised what life held in store for him. He had discovered other eager spirits; they met at night and drank cocoa together. They intended nothing less than the redemption of the world; their Utopian City shone upon no distant hill. They called themselves the Crusaders, and some time before the end of the term the first number of a periodical written by them was to startle the world. Henry was the Editor. His first Editorial was entitled: “Freedom: What it is”.
And only a year ago he had sat in this very room reading that novel and wondering whether life would ever open before him. It had opened—it was opening before them all. He did not know that it had been opening thus for many thousands of years. He knew nothing of the past; he knew nothing of the future; but he saw his City rising, so pure and of marvellous promise, before his eyes....
As he looked back over the past year and surveyed the family, it was to him as though an earthquake had blown them all sky-high. A year ago they had been united, as though no power could ever divide them. Well, the division had come. There was now not one member of the family who had not his, or her, secret ambitions and desires. Aunt Aggie intended to live in a little flat by herself. She found “the younger ones impossible.” George Trenchard bought land at Garth. Mrs. Trenchard intended to pull down some of the Garth house and build a new wing.
She was immersed all day in plans and maps and figures; even her father-in-law’s illness had not interfered with her determination.
Millie had made friends with a number of independent London ladies, who thought Women’s Suffrage far beyond either cleanliness or Godliness. She talked to Henry about her companions, who hoped for a new City in no very distant future, very much as Henry’s friends at Cambridge did. Only, the two Cities were very different. Even Katherine and Philip were concerned in some Society for teaching poor women how to manage their children, and Philip was also interested in a new Art, in which young painters produced medical charts showing the internal arrangements of the stomach, and called them “Spring on the Heath” or “Rome—Midday.”
And through all the middle-class families in England these things were occurring. “Something is coming....” “Something is coming....” “Look out....” “Look out....”
This was in 1903. Henry, Millie, Katherine had still eleven years to wait for their revolution, but in at least one corner of happy England the work of preparation had been begun.
The door opened, and Henry’s reveries were interrupted by the entrance of Millie. He started, and then jumped up on seeing her; for a moment, under the power of his thoughts, he had forgotten his news; now he stammered with the importance of it.
“Millie!” he cried.
“Hullo, Henry,” she said, smiling. “We expected you hours ago.”
He dropped his voice. “I’ve been round to see Katie. Look here, Millie, it’s most important. She’s coming here to see Mother.”
Millie glanced behind. They carried on then the rest of their conversation in whispers.
“To see Mother?”
“Yes. She can’t bear waiting any longer. She felt that shemustbe here on Grandfather’s birthday.”
“But—but—”
“Yes, I know. But she thinks that if she sees Mother alone and she can show her that nothing’s changed—”
“Buteverything’schanged. She doesn’tknowhow different Mother is.”