________________________________________________
_ Like a strain of music, the effect of Katharine's presence slowly died
from the room in which Ralph sat alone. The music had ceased in the
rapture of its melody. He strained to catch the faintest lingering
echoes; for a moment the memory lulled him into peace; but soon it
failed, and he paced the room so hungry for the sound to come again
that he was conscious of no other desire left in life. She had gone
without speaking; abruptly a chasm had been cut in his course, down
which the tide of his being plunged in disorder; fell upon rocks;
flung itself to destruction. The distress had an effect of physical
ruin and disaster. He trembled; he was white; he felt exhausted, as if
by a great physical effort. He sank at last into a chair standing
opposite her empty one, and marked, mechanically, with his eye upon
the clock, how she went farther and farther from him, was home now,
and now, doubtless, again with Rodney. But it was long before he could
realize these facts; the immense desire for her presence churned his
senses into foam, into froth, into a haze of emotion that removed all
facts from his grasp, and gave him a strange sense of distance, even
from the material shapes of wall and window by which he was
surrounded. The prospect of the future, now that the strength of his
passion was revealed to him, appalled him.
The marriage would take place in September, she had said; that allowed
him, then, six full months in which to undergo these terrible extremes
of emotion. Six months of torture, and after that the silence of the
grave, the isolation of the insane, the exile of the damned; at best,
a life from which the chief good was knowingly and for ever excluded.
An impartial judge might have assured him that his chief hope of
recovery lay in this mystic temper, which identified a living woman
with much that no human beings long possess in the eyes of each other;
she would pass, and the desire for her vanish, but his belief in what
she stood for, detached from her, would remain. This line of thought
offered, perhaps, some respite, and possessed of a brain that had its
station considerably above the tumult of the senses, he tried to
reduce the vague and wandering incoherency of his emotions to order.
The sense of self-preservation was strong in him, and Katharine
herself had strangely revived it by convincing him that his family
deserved and needed all his strength. She was right, and for their
sake, if not for his own, this passion, which could bear no fruit,
must be cut off, uprooted, shown to be as visionary and baseless as
she had maintained. The best way of achieving this was not to run away
from her, but to face her, and having steeped himself in her
qualities, to convince his reason that they were, as she assured him,
not those that he imagined. She was a practical woman, a domestic wife
for an inferior poet, endowed with romantic beauty by some freak of
unintelligent Nature. No doubt her beauty itself would not stand
examination. He had the means of settling this point at least. He
possessed a book of photographs from the Greek statues; the head of a
goddess, if the lower part were concealed, had often given him the
ecstasy of being in Katharine's presence. He took it down from the
shelf and found the picture. To this he added a note from her, bidding
him meet her at the Zoo. He had a flower which he had picked at Kew to
teach her botany. Such were his relics. He placed them before him, and
set himself to visualize her so clearly that no deception or delusion
was possible. In a second he could see her, with the sun slanting
across her dress, coming towards him down the green walk at Kew. He
made her sit upon the seat beside him. He heard her voice, so low and
yet so decided in its tone; she spoke reasonably of indifferent
matters. He could see her faults, and analyze her virtues. His pulse
became quieter, and his brain increased in clarity. This time she
could not escape him. The illusion of her presence became more and
more complete. They seemed to pass in and out of each other's minds,
questioning and answering. The utmost fullness of communion seemed to
be theirs. Thus united, he felt himself raised to an eminence,
exalted, and filled with a power of achievement such as he had never
known in singleness. Once more he told over conscientiously her
faults, both of face and character; they were clearly known to him;
but they merged themselves in the flawless union that was born of
their association. They surveyed life to its uttermost limits. How
deep it was when looked at from this height! How sublime! How the
commonest things moved him almost to tears! Thus, he forgot the
inevitable limitations; he forgot her absence, he thought it of no
account whether she married him or another; nothing mattered, save
that she should exist, and that he should love her. Some words of
these reflections were uttered aloud, and it happened that among them
were the words, "I love her." It was the first time that he had used
the word "love" to describe his feeling; madness, romance,
hallucination--he had called it by these names before; but having,
apparently by accident, stumbled upon the word "love," he repeated it
again and again with a sense of revelation.
"But I'm in love with you!" he exclaimed, with something like dismay.
He leant against the window-sill, looking over the city as she had
looked. Everything had become miraculously different and completely
distinct. His feelings were justified and needed no further
explanation. But he must impart them to some one, because his
discovery was so important that it concerned other people too.
Shutting the book of Greek photographs, and hiding his relics, he ran
downstairs, snatched his coat, and passed out of doors.
The lamps were being lit, but the streets were dark enough and empty
enough to let him walk his fastest, and to talk aloud as he walked. He
had no doubt where he was going. He was going to find Mary Datchet.
The desire to share what he felt, with some one who understood it, was
so imperious that he did not question it. He was soon in her street.
He ran up the stairs leading to her flat two steps at a time, and it
never crossed his mind that she might not be at home. As he rang her
bell, he seemed to himself to be announcing the presence of something
wonderful that was separate from himself, and gave him power and
authority over all other people. Mary came to the door after a
moment's pause. He was perfectly silent, and in the dusk his face
looked completely white. He followed her into her room.
"Do you know each other?" she said, to his extreme surprise, for he
had counted on finding her alone. A young man rose, and said that he
knew Ralph by sight.
"We were just going through some papers," said Mary. "Mr. Basnett has
to help me, because I don't know much about my work yet. It's the new
society," she explained. "I'm the secretary. I'm no longer at Russell
Square."
The voice in which she gave this information was so constrained as to
sound almost harsh.
"What are your aims?" said Ralph. He looked neither at Mary nor at Mr.
Basnett. Mr. Basnett thought he had seldom seen a more disagreeable or
formidable man than this friend of Mary's, this sarcastic-looking,
white-faced Mr. Denham, who seemed to demand, as if by right, an
account of their proposals, and to criticize them before he had heard
them. Nevertheless, he explained his projects as clearly as he could,
and knew that he wished Mr. Denham to think well of them.
"I see," said Ralph, when he had done. "D'you know, Mary," he suddenly
remarked, "I believe I'm in for a cold. Have you any quinine?" The
look which he cast at her frightened her; it expressed mutely, perhaps
without his own consciousness, something deep, wild, and passionate.
She left the room at once. Her heart beat fast at the knowledge of
Ralph's presence; but it beat with pain, and with an extraordinary
fear. She stood listening for a moment to the voices in the next room.
"Of course, I agree with you," she heard Ralph say, in this strange
voice, to Mr. Basnett. "But there's more that might be done. Have you
seen Judson, for instance? You should make a point of getting him."
Mary returned with the quinine.
"Judson's address?" Mr. Basnett inquired, pulling out his notebook and
preparing to write. For twenty minutes, perhaps, he wrote down names,
addresses, and other suggestions that Ralph dictated to him. Then,
when Ralph fell silent, Mr. Basnett felt that his presence was not
desired, and thanking Ralph for his help, with a sense that he was
very young and ignorant compared with him, he said good-bye.
"Mary," said Ralph, directly Mr. Basnett had shut the door and they
were alone together. "Mary," he repeated. But the old difficulty of
speaking to Mary without reserve prevented him from continuing. His
desire to proclaim his love for Katharine was still strong in him, but
he had felt, directly he saw Mary, that he could not share it with
her. The feeling increased as he sat talking to Mr. Basnett. And yet
all the time he was thinking of Katharine, and marveling at his love.
The tone in which he spoke Mary's name was harsh.
"What is it, Ralph?" she asked, startled by his tone. She looked at
him anxiously, and her little frown showed that she was trying
painfully to understand him, and was puzzled. He could feel her
groping for his meaning, and he was annoyed with her, and thought how
he had always found her slow, painstaking, and clumsy. He had behaved
badly to her, too, which made his irritation the more acute. Without
waiting for him to answer, she rose as if his answer were indifferent
to her, and began to put in order some papers that Mr. Basnett had
left on the table. She hummed a scrap of a tune under her breath, and
moved about the room as if she were occupied in making things tidy,
and had no other concern.
"You'll stay and dine?" she said casually, returning to her seat.
"No," Ralph replied. She did not press him further. They sat side by
side without speaking, and Mary reached her hand for her work basket,
and took out her sewing and threaded a needle.
"That's a clever young man," Ralph observed, referring to Mr. Basnett.
"I'm glad you thought so. It's tremendously interesting work, and
considering everything, I think we've done very well. But I'm inclined
to agree with you; we ought to try to be more conciliatory. We're
absurdly strict. It's difficult to see that there may be sense in what
one's opponents say, though they are one's opponents. Horace Basnett
is certainly too uncompromising. I mustn't forget to see that he
writes that letter to Judson. You're too busy, I suppose, to come on
to our committee?" She spoke in the most impersonal manner.
"I may be out of town," Ralph replied, with equal distance of manner.
"Our executive meets every week, of course," she observed. "But some
of our members don't come more than once a month. Members of
Parliament are the worst; it was a mistake, I think, to ask them."
She went on sewing in silence.
"You've not taken your quinine," she said, looking up and seeing the
tabloids upon the mantelpiece.
"I don't want it," said Ralph shortly.
"Well, you know best," she replied tranquilly.
"Mary, I'm a brute!" he exclaimed. "Here I come and waste your time,
and do nothing but make myself disagreeable."
"A cold coming on does make one feel wretched," she replied.
"I've not got a cold. That was a lie. There's nothing the matter with
me. I'm mad, I suppose. I ought to have had the decency to keep away.
But I wanted to see you--I wanted to tell you--I'm in love, Mary." He
spoke the word, but, as he spoke it, it seemed robbed of substance.
"In love, are you?" she said quietly. "I'm glad, Ralph."
"I suppose I'm in love. Anyhow, I'm out of my mind. I can't think, I
can't work, I don't care a hang for anything in the world. Good
Heavens, Mary! I'm in torment! One moment I'm happy; next I'm
miserable. I hate her for half an hour; then I'd give my whole life to
be with her for ten minutes; all the time I don't know what I feel, or
why I feel it; it's insanity, and yet it's perfectly reasonable. Can
you make any sense of it? Can you see what's happened? I'm raving, I
know; don't listen, Mary; go on with your work."
He rose and began, as usual, to pace up and down the room. He knew
that what he had just said bore very little resemblance to what he
felt, for Mary's presence acted upon him like a very strong magnet,
drawing from him certain expressions which were not those he made use
of when he spoke to himself, nor did they represent his deepest
feelings. He felt a little contempt for himself at having spoken thus;
but somehow he had been forced into speech.
"Do sit down," said Mary suddenly. "You make me so--" She spoke with
unusual irritability, and Ralph, noticing it with surprise, sat down
at once.
"You haven't told me her name--you'd rather not, I suppose?"
"Her name? Katharine Hilbery."
"But she's engaged--"
"To Rodney. They're to be married in September."
"I see," said Mary. But in truth the calm of his manner, now that he
was sitting down once more, wrapt her in the presence of something
which she felt to be so strong, so mysterious, so incalculable, that
she scarcely dared to attempt to intercept it by any word or question
that she was able to frame. She looked at Ralph blankly, with a kind
of awe in her face, her lips slightly parted, and her brows raised. He
was apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could
look no longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes.
The distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another
came into her mind, tempting her to assail Ralph with questions, to
force him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But
she rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing
violence to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a
little far from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and
remote, like a person she no longer knew well.
"Is there anything that I could do for you?" she asked gently, and
even with courtesy, at length.
"You could see her--no, that's not what I want; you mustn't bother
about me, Mary." He, too, spoke very gently.
"I'm afraid no third person can do anything to help," she added.
"No," he shook his head. "Katharine was saying to-day how lonely we
are." She saw the effort with which he spoke Katharine's name, and
believed that he forced himself to make amends now for his concealment
in the past. At any rate, she was conscious of no anger against him;
but rather of a deep pity for one condemned to suffer as she had
suffered. But in the case of Katharine it was different; she was
indignant with Katharine.
"There's always work," she said, a little aggressively.
Ralph moved directly.
"Do you want to be working now?" he asked.
"No, no. It's Sunday," she replied. "I was thinking of Katharine. She
doesn't understand about work. She's never had to. She doesn't know
what work is. I've only found out myself quite lately. But it's the
thing that saves one--I'm sure of that."
"There are other things, aren't there?" he hesitated.
"Nothing that one can count upon," she returned. "After all, other
people--" she stopped, but forced herself to go on. "Where should I be
now if I hadn't got to go to my office every day? Thousands of people
would tell you the same thing--thousands of women. I tell you, work is
the only thing that saved me, Ralph." He set his mouth, as if her
words rained blows on him; he looked as if he had made up his mind to
bear anything she might say, in silence. He had deserved it, and there
would be relief in having to bear it. But she broke off, and rose as
if to fetch something from the next room. Before she reached the door
she turned back, and stood facing him, self-possessed, and yet defiant
and formidable in her composure.
"It's all turned out splendidly for me," she said. "It will for you,
too. I'm sure of that. Because, after all, Katharine is worth it."
"Mary--!" he exclaimed. But her head was turned away, and he could not
say what he wished to say. "Mary, you're splendid," he concluded. She
faced him as he spoke, and gave him her hand. She had suffered and
relinquished, she had seen her future turned from one of infinite
promise to one of barrenness, and yet, somehow, over what she scarcely
knew, and with what results she could hardly foretell, she had
conquered. With Ralph's eyes upon her, smiling straight back at him
serenely and proudly, she knew, for the first time, that she had
conquered. She let him kiss her hand.
The streets were empty enough on Sunday night, and if the Sabbath, and
the domestic amusements proper to the Sabbath, had not kept people
indoors, a high strong wind might very probably have done so. Ralph
Denham was aware of a tumult in the street much in accordance with his
own sensations. The gusts, sweeping along the Strand, seemed at the
same time to blow a clear space across the sky in which stars
appeared, and for a short time the quicks-peeding silver moon riding
through clouds, as if they were waves of water surging round her and
over her. They swamped her, but she emerged; they broke over her and
covered her again; she issued forth indomitable. In the country fields
all the wreckage of winter was being dispersed; the dead leaves, the
withered bracken, the dry and discolored grass, but no bud would be
broken, nor would the new stalks that showed above the earth take any
harm, and perhaps to-morrow a line of blue or yellow would show
through a slit in their green. But the whirl of the atmosphere alone
was in Denham's mood, and what of star or blossom appeared was only as
a light gleaming for a second upon heaped waves fast following each
other. He had not been able to speak to Mary, though for a moment he
had come near enough to be tantalized by a wonderful possibility of
understanding. But the desire to communicate something of the very
greatest importance possessed him completely; he still wished to
bestow this gift upon some other human being; he sought their company.
More by instinct than by conscious choice, he took the direction which
led to Rodney's rooms. He knocked loudly upon his door; but no one
answered. He rang the bell. It took him some time to accept the fact
that Rodney was out. When he could no longer pretend that the sound of
the wind in the old building was the sound of some one rising from his
chair, he ran downstairs again, as if his goal had been altered and
only just revealed to him. He walked in the direction of Chelsea.
But physical fatigue, for he had not dined and had tramped both far
and fast, made him sit for a moment upon a seat on the Embankment. One
of the regular occupants of those seats, an elderly man who had drunk
himself, probably, out of work and lodging, drifted up, begged a
match, and sat down beside him. It was a windy night, he said; times
were hard; some long story of bad luck and injustice followed, told so
often that the man seemed to be talking to himself, or, perhaps, the
neglect of his audience had long made any attempt to catch their
attention seem scarcely worth while. When he began to speak Ralph had
a wild desire to talk to him; to question him; to make him understand.
He did, in fact, interrupt him at one point; but it was useless. The
ancient story of failure, ill-luck, undeserved disaster, went down the
wind, disconnected syllables flying past Ralph's ears with a queer
alternation of loudness and faintness as if, at certain moments, the
man's memory of his wrongs revived and then flagged, dying down at
last into a grumble of resignation, which seemed to represent a final
lapse into the accustomed despair. The unhappy voice afflicted Ralph,
but it also angered him. And when the elderly man refused to listen
and mumbled on, an odd image came to his mind of a lighthouse besieged
by the flying bodies of lost birds, who were dashed senseless, by the
gale, against the glass. He had a strange sensation that he was both
lighthouse and bird; he was steadfast and brilliant; and at the same
time he was whirled, with all other things, senseless against the
glass. He got up, left his tribute of silver, and pressed on, with the
wind against him. The image of the lighthouse and the storm full of
birds persisted, taking the place of more definite thoughts, as he
walked past the Houses of Parliament and down Grosvenor Road, by the
side of the river. In his state of physical fatigue, details merged
themselves in the vaster prospect, of which the flying gloom and the
intermittent lights of lamp-posts and private houses were the outward
token, but he never lost his sense of walking in the direction of
Katharine's house. He took it for granted that something would then
happen, and, as he walked on, his mind became more and more full of
pleasure and expectancy. Within a certain radius of her house the
streets came under the influence of her presence. Each house had an
individuality known to Ralph, because of the tremendous individuality
of the house in which she lived. For some yards before reaching the
Hilberys' door he walked in a trance of pleasure, but when he reached
it, and pushed the gate of the little garden open, he hesitated. He
did not know what to do next. There was no hurry, however, for the
outside of the house held pleasure enough to last him some time
longer. He crossed the road, and leant against the balustrade of the
Embankment, fixing his eyes upon the house.
Lights burnt in the three long windows of the drawing-room. The space
of the room behind became, in Ralph's vision, the center of the dark,
flying wilderness of the world; the justification for the welter of
confusion surrounding it; the steady light which cast its beams, like
those of a lighthouse, with searching composure over the trackless
waste. In this little sanctuary were gathered together several
different people, but their identity was dissolved in a general glory
of something that might, perhaps, be called civilization; at any rate,
all dryness, all safety, all that stood up above the surge and
preserved a consciousness of its own, was centered in the drawing-room
of the Hilberys. Its purpose was beneficent; and yet so far above his
level as to have something austere about it, a light that cast itself
out and yet kept itself aloof. Then he began, in his mind, to
distinguish different individuals within, consciously refusing as yet
to attack the figure of Katharine. His thoughts lingered over Mrs.
Hilbery and Cassandra; and then he turned to Rodney and Mr. Hilbery.
Physically, he saw them bathed in that steady flow of yellow light
which filled the long oblongs of the windows; in their movements they
were beautiful; and in their speech he figured a reserve of meaning,
unspoken, but understood. At length, after all this half-conscious
selection and arrangement, he allowed himself to approach the figure
of Katharine herself; and instantly the scene was flooded with
excitement. He did not see her in the body; he seemed curiously to see
her as a shape of light, the light itself; he seemed, simplified and
exhausted as he was, to be like one of those lost birds fascinated by
the lighthouse and held to the glass by the splendor of the blaze.
These thoughts drove him to tramp a beat up and down the pavement
before the Hilberys' gate. He did not trouble himself to make any
plans for the future. Something of an unknown kind would decide both
the coming year and the coming hour. Now and again, in his vigil, he
sought the light in the long windows, or glanced at the ray which
gilded a few leaves and a few blades of grass in the little garden.
For a long time the light burnt without changing. He had just reached
the limit of his beat and was turning, when the front door opened, and
the aspect of the house was entirely changed. A black figure came down
the little pathway and paused at the gate. Denham understood instantly
that it was Rodney. Without hesitation, and conscious only of a great
friendliness for any one coming from that lighted room, he walked
straight up to him and stopped him. In the flurry of the wind Rodney
was taken aback, and for the moment tried to press on, muttering
something, as if he suspected a demand upon his charity.
"Goodness, Denham, what are you doing here?" he exclaimed, recognizing
him.
Ralph mumbled something about being on his way home. They walked on
together, though Rodney walked quick enough to make it plain that he
had no wish for company.
He was very unhappy. That afternoon Cassandra had repulsed him; he had
tried to explain to her the difficulties of the situation, and to
suggest the nature of his feelings for her without saying anything
definite or anything offensive to her. But he had lost his head; under
the goad of Katharine's ridicule he had said too much, and Cassandra,
superb in her dignity and severity, had refused to hear another word,
and threatened an immediate return to her home. His agitation, after
an evening spent between the two women, was extreme. Moreover, he
could not help suspecting that Ralph was wandering near the Hilberys'
house, at this hour, for reasons connected with Katharine. There was
probably some understanding between them--not that anything of the
kind mattered to him now. He was convinced that he had never cared for
any one save Cassandra, and Katharine's future was no concern of his.
Aloud, he said, shortly, that he was very tired and wished to find a
cab. But on Sunday night, on the Embankment, cabs were hard to come
by, and Rodney found himself constrained to walk some distance, at any
rate, in Denham's company. Denham maintained his silence. Rodney's
irritation lapsed. He found the silence oddly suggestive of the good
masculine qualities which he much respected, and had at this moment
great reason to need. After the mystery, difficulty, and uncertainty
of dealing with the other sex, intercourse with one's own is apt to
have a composing and even ennobling influence, since plain speaking is
possible and subterfuges of no avail. Rodney, too, was much in need of
a confidant; Katharine, despite her promises of help, had failed him
at the critical moment; she had gone off with Denham; she was,
perhaps, tormenting Denham as she had tormented him. How grave and
stable he seemed, speaking little, and walking firmly, compared with
what Rodney knew of his own torments and indecisions! He began to cast
about for some way of telling the story of his relations with
Katharine and Cassandra that would not lower him in Denham's eyes. It
then occurred to him that, perhaps, Katharine herself had confided in
Denham; they had something in common; it was likely that they had
discussed him that very afternoon. The desire to discover what they
had said of him now came uppermost in his mind. He recalled
Katharine's laugh; he remembered that she had gone, laughing, to walk
with Denham.
"Did you stay long after we'd left?" he asked abruptly.
"No. We went back to my house."
This seemed to confirm Rodney's belief that he had been discussed. He
turned over the unpalatable idea for a while, in silence.
"Women are incomprehensible creatures, Denham!" he then exclaimed.
"Um," said Denham, who seemed to himself possessed of complete
understanding, not merely of women, but of the entire universe. He
could read Rodney, too, like a book. He knew that he was unhappy, and
he pitied him, and wished to help him.
"You say something and they--fly into a passion. Or for no reason at
all, they laugh. I take it that no amount of education will--" The
remainder of the sentence was lost in the high wind, against which
they had to struggle; but Denham understood that he referred to
Katharine's laughter, and that the memory of it was still hurting him.
In comparison with Rodney, Denham felt himself very secure; he saw
Rodney as one of the lost birds dashed senseless against the glass;
one of the flying bodies of which the air was full. But he and
Katharine were alone together, aloft, splendid, and luminous with a
twofold radiance. He pitied the unstable creature beside him; he felt
a desire to protect him, exposed without the knowledge which made his
own way so direct. They were united as the adventurous are united,
though one reaches the goal and the other perishes by the way.
"You couldn't laugh at some one you cared for."
This sentence, apparently addressed to no other human being, reached
Denham's ears. The wind seemed to muffle it and fly away with it
directly. Had Rodney spoken those words?
"You love her." Was that his own voice, which seemed to sound in the
air several yards in front of him?
"I've suffered tortures, Denham, tortures!"
"Yes, yes, I know that."
"She's laughed at me."
"Never--to me."
The wind blew a space between the words--blew them so far away that
they seemed unspoken.
"How I've loved her!"
This was certainly spoken by the man at Denham's side. The voice had
all the marks of Rodney's character, and recalled, with; strange
vividness, his personal appearance. Denham could see him against the
blank buildings and towers of the horizon. He saw him dignified,
exalted, and tragic, as he might have appeared thinking of Katharine
alone in his rooms at night.
"I am in love with Katharine myself. That is why I am here to-night."
Ralph spoke distinctly and deliberately, as if Rodney's confession had
made this statement necessary.
Rodney exclaimed something inarticulate.
"Ah, I've always known it," he cried, "I've known it from the first.
You'll marry her!"
The cry had a note of despair in it. Again the wind intercepted their
words. They said no more. At length they drew up beneath a lamp-post,
simultaneously.
"My God, Denham, what fools we both are!" Rodney exclaimed. They
looked at each other, queerly, in the light of the lamp. Fools! They
seemed to confess to each other the extreme depths of their folly. For
the moment, under the lamp-post, they seemed to be aware of some
common knowledge which did away with the possibility of rivalry, and
made them feel more sympathy for each other than for any one else in
the world. Giving simultaneously a little nod, as if in confirmation
of this understanding, they parted without speaking again. _
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