Chapter III: Part I: I (3)

‘What I do think,’ said Catherine icily, for it was grotesque, this refusal to go away, he was humiliating her with his absurdities, ‘is that you say more foolish things in less time than any person I have ever yet come across.’

‘That’s because,’ said Christopher, ‘you’ve never yet come across any one who loves you as I love you. There. It’s out. Now what are you going to do?’

And he folded his arms, and stood waiting with burning eyes for the door to be shut in his face.

She stood a moment looking at him, a quick flush coming and disappearing across her face.

‘Oh,’ she then sighed faintly, ‘the <i>silliness</i>....’ For she was right up against it now. Her amusing little dream of resurrected youth was over. She was right up against Virginia.

‘Well, what are you going to do?’ asked Christopher, defiant on the threshold, waiting for his punishment. He knew it would be punishment; he saw by her face. But whatever it was, if it didn’t kill him he would bear it, and then, when it was over, begin again.

She moved aside and pointed to the drawing-room door. ‘Ask you to come in,’ she said.

VIII

Christopher stared.

‘I’m to--come in?’ he stammered, bewildered.

‘Please.’

‘Oh, my darling!’ he burst out, throwing down her cloak and coming in with a rush.

But she held up her hand, exactly as if he were the traffic in Piccadilly, and remarked, so coldly that all that was left to him was once more bewilderment, ‘Not at all.’

‘Not at all?’ he could only stupidly repeat.

‘Please come into the drawing-room,’ said Catherine, walking into it herself. ‘I want to tell you something.’

‘Nothing you can tell me can ever----’

‘Yes it can,’ said Catherine.

Mrs. Mitcham appeared, following them into the room. ‘Shall I light the fire, m’m?’ she inquired. ‘It seemed warm, and Mr. Colquhoun thought----’

‘Was Mr. Colquhoun here?’

‘Yes, m’m. He’s only been gone a few minutes.’

‘What a pity,’ said Catherine.

‘What a mercy,’ said Christopher.

‘I would have liked you to meet him,’ she said. ‘No, thank you--I won’t have a fire,’ she added, turning to Mrs. Mitcham, who went away and shut the door.

‘Why? Why on earth should you want me to meet Stephen?’

‘He would so very nicely have pointed the moral of what I’m going to tell you,’ she said smiling, for she felt safe again, knowing that Virginia would bring him to his senses once and for ever.

‘Catherine, if you smile at me like that----’ he began, taking a step forward.

‘Christopher, it’s my conviction that you’re mad,’ she said, taking a step backward. ‘I never heard of a young man behaving as you do in my life before.’

‘I’d kill any other young man who did. And look here--whatever it is you want to say, let me tell you you may say what you like, and tell me what you like, and send me away as much as you like, and it’ll have no effect whatever. I love you too much. I’ll always come back, and back, however often you send me away, till at last you’ll be so tired of it that you’ll marry me.’

‘Marry you!’

‘Yes, Catherine. It’s what one does. When people love frantically----’

She looked at him aghast at his expressions.

‘But who loves frantically?’ she inquired.

‘I do. All by myself at present. But you will too, soon. You won’t be able to help it. It’s the most absolutely catching thing----’

‘Oh, my dear boy,’ she interrupted, shocked at such a picture of herself, ‘don’t talk like that. It’s really dreadful. I’ve never done anything frantically in my life.’

‘I’m going to make you.’

‘Oh--oh....’

She was scandalised. She said quickly, ‘I ought to have told you ages ago about Virginia--when first you began saying foolish things.’

‘I don’t care a hang about Virginia, whoever she may be.’

‘She’s my daughter.’

‘What do I care?’

‘She’s grown up.’

‘She must have grown very fast, then.’

‘Please don’t be silly. She’s not only grown up, she’s married. So now, perhaps, you’ll understand----’

‘George was married before, then?’ he said.

‘No. She’s my daughter. My very own. So now you’ll understand----’

‘That you’re older than I am. I knew that. I could see that.’

How unaccountable one is, thought Catherine; for when he said this she was conscious of a small stab of chagrin.

‘But you see now how <i>much</i> older,’ she said.

‘Much! Little! What words. I don’t know what they mean. You’re you. And you’re me as well. As though I cared for any Virginia, fifty times married. My business is only with you, and yours only with me----’

‘I haven’t got any business with you.’

‘Shut her out. Forget her----’

‘Shut out Virginia?’

‘Be just you. Be just me.’

‘Oh, you’re absolutely mad.’

‘Catherine, you’re not going to let the fact that you were born before me separate us?’

She stared at him in astonishment and dismay. Virginia as a cure had failed. It was at once excessively warming to her vanity and curiously humiliating to her sense of decency. The last twelve years of her life, since George’s death, as the widowed mother of a daughter who during them grew up, was taken out, became engaged and married, had so much accustomed her to her position as a background,--necessary, even important, but only a background for the young creature who was to have all the money directly she married with her mother’s consent or came of age,--that to be dragged out of this useful obscurity, so proper, as she had long considered, to her age, and her friends and relations had considered it so also, to be dragged out with real violence into the very front of the stage, forced to be the prima donna of the piece of whom it was suddenly passionately demanded that she should sing, shocked and humiliated her. Yet, over and through this feeling of wounded decency washed a queer warm feeling of gratified vanity. She was still, then, if taken by herself, away from Virginia, who up to three months before had always been at her side, attractive; she was still so apparently young, so outwardly young, that Christopher evidently altogether failed to visualise Virginia. It really was a feather in a woman’s cap. But then the recollection that this young man was just the right age for Virginia overwhelmed her, and she turned away with a quick flush of shame.

‘I have my pride,’ she remarked.

‘Pride! What has pride to do with love?’

‘Everything with the only sort of love I shall ever know--family love, and the affection of my child, and later on I hope of her children.’

‘Oh Catherine, don’t talk such stuff to me--such copy-book, renunciated stuff!’ he exclaimed, coming nearer.

‘You see,’ she said, ‘how much older I am than you, whatever you may choose to pretend. Why, we don’t even talk the same language. When I talk what I’m sure is sense you call it copy-book stuff. And when you talk what I know is nonsense, you’re positive it is most right and proper.’

‘So it is, because it’s natural. Yours is all convention and other people’s ideas, and what you’ve been told and not what you’ve thought for yourself, and nothing to do with a simple following of your natural instincts.’

‘My natural instincts!’

She was horrified at his supposing she had such things. At her age. The mother of Virginia.

‘Well, are you going to dare tell me you haven’t been happy with me, you haven’t liked going out with me?’

‘Yes. I did. It was queer--I oughtn’t to have.’

‘It was natural, that’s why. You were being natural then, and not thinking. It’s natural you should be loved----’

‘But not by you,’ she said quickly. ‘That’s most unnatural. The generations have to keep together. You would have to be twenty years older before it could even begin to be decent.’

‘Love isn’t decent. Love is glorious and shameless.’

She put up her hand again, warding off his words. ‘Christopher, good-bye,’ she said very firmly. ‘I can’t listen to any more foolish things. As long as you didn’t know about Virginia I could forgive them, but now that you know I simply can’t bear them. You make me ridiculous. I’m sorry. I ought to have told you at the beginning, but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t see for yourself----’

‘What is there to see except that you are what I have always dreamed of?’

‘Oh--<i>please</i>. Good-bye. I’m really very sorry. But you’ll laugh over this in a year’s time--perhaps we’ll laugh over it together.’

‘Yes--when you’re my wife, and I remind you of how you tormented me.’

Her answer to that was to go towards the fireplace to ring the bell for Mrs. Mitcham to show him out. There was nothing to be done with Christopher. He was mad.

But he got to the fireplace first. ‘No,’ he said, standing in front of the bell. ‘Please. Listen to me. One moment more. I can’t go away like this. Please, Catherine--my darling, my darling--don’t send love away----’

‘Mr. Colquhoun, m’m,’ said Mrs. Mitcham opening the door; and in walked Stephen.

‘Why, Stephen,’ cried Catherine, almost running to him, so very glad was she to see him, so much gladder than she had yet been in her life, ‘I <i>am</i> pleased!’

‘I was here earlier in the evening,’ began Stephen--and paused on catching sight of the flaming young man in the corner by the fireplace.

‘Oh, yes--this is Mr. Monckton,’ said Catherine hastily. And to Christopher she said, ‘This is Mr. Colquhoun----’ Adding, with extreme clearness, ‘My son-in-law.’

IX

The manner of Christopher’s departure was not creditable. He shouldn’t behave like that, thought Catherine, whatever his feelings might be. He pretended not to be aware of Stephen’s outstretched hand, scowled at him in silence, and then immediately said good-bye to her; and as he crushed her fingers--she hadn’t time to pull off her rings--he said out loud, ‘The generations don’t do what they should, you see, after all.’

‘I have no idea what you mean,’ she said coldly.

‘Just now you laid down as a principle that they should keep together.’ And he glanced at Stephen.

Stephen and Virginia. Yes; but how absurd of him to compare--

‘That’s different,’ she said quickly and defiantly.

‘Is it?’ he said; and he was gone, and twilight seemed suddenly to come into the room.

‘What a very odd young man,’ remarked her son-in-law, after a pause during which they both stood staring at the shut door as if it might burst open again, and again let in a flood of something molten. ‘What did he mean about the generations?’

‘I don’t think he knows himself,’ she said.

‘Perhaps not. Perhaps not,’ said Stephen with that thoughtfulness which never forsook him. ‘At his age they frequently do not.’

She shivered a little, and rang the bell for Mrs. Mitcham to light the fire. Stephen looked so old and dry, as if he needed warming, and she too felt as though the evening had grown cold.

But how nice it was to sit quietly with Stephen, the virtuous and the calm. So nice. So what one was used to. She hadn’t half appreciated him. He was like some quiet pond, with heaven reflected on his excellent bosom. She liked to sit by him after the raging billows of Christopher; it was peaceful, secure. What a great thing peace was, and the company of a person of one’s own age. But he did look very old, she thought. He was tiring himself out with all the improvements on the estate he and Virginia were at work on, besides preaching a series of Lenten sermons in different London churches, which obliged him to come up for the week-ends, leaving Virginia, who was not travelling just now, down at Chickover Manor with the curate to officiate on the Sundays.

‘You are tired, Stephen,’ said Catherine gently.

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No.’

How peaceful were these monosyllables; how soothing, after the turbulent speech of that demented young man.

‘Virginia is well?’

‘Quite well. That is, as well as one can expect.’

‘She must take care of herself.’

‘She does. I was to give you her love.’

‘Darling Virginia. I hope you are dining with me to-night?’

‘Thank you--I should like to, if I may. Did you say that young fellow’s name was Monckton?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do I know him? Or, I should perhaps say, do I know anything about him?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Stephen sat thoughtful, looking at the fire.

‘A little overwhelming, is he not?’ he said presently.

‘He is young.’

‘Ah.’

He paused again; reflecting, his thin cheek leaning on his hand, that to be young was not necessarily to be overwhelming. Virginia, the youngest of the young--what inexhaustible, proud delight her youth gave him!--was not at all overwhelming.

But Christopher did not really interest him. The world was full of young men--all, to Stephen, very much alike, all with spirits that had to be blown off. The Chickover ones, his own parishioners, blew theirs off on Saturday afternoons at football or cricket according to the time of year, and the rest of the week it was to be presumed that work quieted them. Of whatever class, they seemed to Stephen noisy and restless, and the one he had just seen reminded him of a lighted torch, flaring away unpleasantly among the sober blacks and greys of the late Mr. Cumfrit’s furniture.

But he was not really interested. ‘I preach to-morrow at St. Clement’s,’ he remarked after a silence.

‘On the same subject?’

‘There is only one. It embraces every other.’

‘Yes--Love,’ she said; and her voice at the word went very soft.

‘Yes--Love,’ he repeated, still thoughtfully gazing at the fire, his cheek on his hand.

His subject on these Lenten Sundays was Love. After having preached not particularly well all his life on other subjects, since his marriage he had begun to preach remarkably well on this one. He knew what he was talking about. He loved Virginia, and had only been married to her three months, and his warm knowledge of love in particular burned in a real eloquence on Love in general. He loved and was loved. The marriage about which Catherine had had misgivings, because she thought him a little too wooden--what mistakes one makes--for a girl so young, had been completely successful. They adored each other in the quiet, becoming way a clergyman and his wife, when they adore, do adore; that is, not wantonly at all, in public, but nicely, in the fear of God. And both were determined to use Virginia’s money only for ends that were noble and good.

Virginia was like her father--made for quiet domestic bliss. Also she had never been very pretty, and that too was suitable. The Church has no use, Stephen knew, for beauty. A beautiful woman married to a clergyman easily produces complications; for we are but weak creatures, and our footsteps, even if we are a bishop, sometimes go astray. But she was quite pretty enough, with lovely eyes, and was so entrancingly young, besides being such a good little girl, and rich.

Stephen, who was first the curate and then the rector of Chickover, having been presented to the living by George Cumfrit its patron, who liked him, had had his thoughtful eye on Virginia from the beginning. When he went there she was five and he was thirty-four. Dear little child; he played with her. Presently she was fifteen, and he was forty-four. Sweet little maid; he prepared her for confirmation. Again presently she was eighteen, and he was forty-seven. Touching young bud of womanhood; he proposed to her. Catherine hesitated, for Virginia was so very young, while Stephen compared to her was so very old; and Stephen explained that age, difference in age, had nothing to do with love. Love loved, Stephen pointed out, and there was an end of it. No objections in face of that great fact could be valid, he said. Seeing that Virginia returned his love, whatever were their respective ages it surely had nothing to do with anybody except themselves. Should Mrs. Cumfrit think fit to refuse her consent she would merely be depriving her daughter of three years’ happiness, for they would certainly marry directly Virginia was of age.

Thus, before young men had had time to become aware of Virginia, Stephen had carried her off. She wasn’t nineteen when he married her. He loved her with the excessive love of a middle-aged man for a very young girl, though of course decorously in public. She, having been trained to it from childhood by him, thought there was no one in the world like him. He was to her most great, most brilliant, most good. She worshipped him. Never was a girl so proud and happy as she was when Stephen married her. Their loves, however, were private. No one was offended by demonstrations. His mother-in-law, who was of his own age, or even slightly younger,--one year younger, to be exact--wasn’t made to feel uncomfortable. Indeed, he had too high an opinion of his mother-in-law not to wish in every way to please her. She had behaved admirably. With the whole of the income of George Cumfrit’s fortune at her disposal till Virginia was either twenty-one or married with her consent under that age, and able, merely by refusing her consent, to continue in its enjoyment for another three years, she had relinquished everything with perfect grace the moment he had convinced her that it was for her daughter’s happiness. Stephen could not but consider himself the most fortunate of men. Here, by simply resisting the desire to marry--and he was a man naturally disposed to marriage--until Virginia had grown up, he had secured a delightful young wife with money enough to carry out all his most ardent dreams of benevolence, and a really remarkable mother-in-law. Indeed, his mother-in-law was exactly what the mother-in-law of a clergyman should be: a modest, unassuming, non-interfering, kind, contented Christian gentlewoman. Great had been his satisfaction when he discovered she was contented. The drop from the Cumfrit thousands and Chickover to £500 a year and a small London flat was big enough to unsettle most women. His mother-in-law dropped without a murmur. She was not in the least unsettled. She remained as kind as ever. She made no demands at all, either on Virginia or himself. When they invited her, she went, but not otherwise. When he came to see her, she welcomed him with the same pleasant friendliness. A kind, quiet woman, who didn’t mind being poor. St. Paul would have liked her.

He and she presently had the mild meal she spoke of as dinner in George Cumfrit’s little <i>pied-à-terre</i> dining-room--the most excellent of men, poor George Cumfrit, ripe in foresight and wisdom--and Stephen invoked God’s blessing on two cups not quite full of broth, and some scrambled eggs.

Catherine walked delicately among words with Stephen, and in his presence called that dinner which to Mrs. Mitcham she called supper, or, even more simply, something to eat, in order that Stephen, now so splendidly established in what used to be her shoes, should not be made in any way to feel the difference his marriage had made in her circumstances; while Stephen for his part always went out of his way to praise the quality and abundance of whatever food she gave him, lest she should perhaps notice that she did not now have particularly much to eat. Enough, of course; enough, and most wholesome--heavy meals at night were a mistake. And once, when he had happened to come in when there was only a milk pudding, he had behaved to it as ceremoniously and as reverently as he would have behaved to ducks and green peas, of which he was particularly fond, and said grace over it, and, as it were, carved it--she liked him to preside--with all the air of pleased anticipation of a man rubbing his hands before a banquet. Catherine had been much concerned at his chancing to come in on a milk-pudding night, and had explained, what was true, that she had not been well, and the pudding was in the nature of a sanitary precaution; and Stephen had assured her that a good rice pudding, properly made, was one of the very best of God’s gifts.

There they sat, then, on this evening of her excursion to Hampton Court, quietly eating their scrambled eggs and talking of calm things. It was strange to her to remember that such a few hours earlier she had been an ostensibly young woman out for the afternoon with her adorer, moving swiftly, laughing gaily, petted, cherished, of infinite importance. How unsuitable, how unsuitable, thought Catherine, flushing hotly--‘Yes, Stephen? Old Mrs. Dymock----?’

‘She is dead at last.’

‘Poor old thing.’

‘A blessed release.’

It had been all wrong, of course. It was merest make-believe. These were the sober facts of life; this was really where she belonged--‘Did you say young Andrews? His leg?’

‘Broken playing football.’

‘Poor boy. I am very sorry.’

‘It is his own fault. A rough customer, a very rough customer.’

Now she had entered again into her dim kingdom, in which she negatively reigned as Stephen’s mother-in-law. He was well disposed towards her she knew, and so was she towards him; but she also knew they were not interesting to each other except in their quality of satisfactory son-in-law, satisfactory mother-in-law. She wasn’t to Stephen a woman; Stephen was not to her a man--‘But do I remember Daisy? I don’t seem----’

‘She is my mother’s housemaid at the Rectory. She is marrying the cowman up at Tovey’s farm.’

‘Your mother will miss her.’

‘That is what I fear.’

Virginia had assured her, on becoming engaged, that he was of a distinguished mind; she knew for herself, since he had begun so unexpectedly to preach eloquently on love, that he had a tender and understanding heart; but neither of these things came to the surface and lit up his conversation when he was with her. Strange dehumanisation of a human being produced by their relationship....

‘Bathrooms did you say?’

‘In every cottage. And the new cottages are going to have lavatory basins in each bedroom.’

‘But that is really splendid.’

‘It is my idea, and also Virginia’s, of true religion: Love and Cleanliness. They go hand in hand. Give the poor the opportunity of washing--<i>easy</i> washing--there must be no difficulty about it of any sort, or they won’t--and they will begin to respect themselves. And from a decent self-respect to a decent courting of a decent girl is but one step.’

She did feel, however, that George’s will was calculated to make any son-in-law a little awkward and uncomfortable when with her, and was very sorry for Stephen. He would of course get used to it soon, but he had only had three months as yet of Chickover Manor, so tremendously associated in his eyes, who had lived next door for fourteen years, with her as its mistress, and she did her best to make him understand by every sort of friendliness that she was perfectly content. Why, she was content already; and as soon as she had had time to turn round, and was really settled in her new life, and knew exactly what she could do with her income and what she couldn’t, she suspected she was going to be happier than she had ever been. Because, for the first time, she was free; and just to be able to do things such as go to <i>The Immortal Hour</i> as often as she wanted to--George hadn’t cared for music--and see what friends she liked--George had been happiest when he had her to himself--and read as much as she felt inclined--George loved her to listen to him, and nobody can both listen and read--was already most agreeable, and would go on, as her life developed, becoming more and more so. Only she mustn’t, of course, behave like a fool. She had behaved very like a fool, she was afraid, in letting Christopher become so intimate, and it was her fault that he had dared be so familiar. Yet who could have dreamed, who could possibly have imagined.... Still, there it was.

Again she flushed hotly, wondering what Stephen, tranquilly eating eggs, would say if he knew.

But even if he had been looking at her, his mother-in-law might have flushed the vividest red and he wouldn’t have seen it, because it is not what one expects of mothers-in-law. They are not women, of like emotions to oneself, they are institutions. And if she to him seemed like an institution, he to her seemed oddly like a public building. A museum; a temple; a great, cool place through whose echoing emptiness one wandered. On a hot day, what a relief. These last days for Catherine had been hot--hot, and disturbing; and she did find it refreshing to sit like this among Stephen’s shadows. Presently her thoughts faded dim and quiet. Christopher’s image faded dim and quiet. Presently in the accustomed atmosphere--George’s atmosphere too had been a quiet one--she paled down till she matched it. By the end of the meal she was like a mouse, a grey mouse the colour of her surroundings, sitting unassumingly nibbling its food.

‘<i>For these and all Thy blessings</i>----’ said Stephen, towering tall and lean over the empty egg-dish, his eyes closed, his hands folded, his voice sounding as if it came out of somewhere hollow.

‘<i>Amen</i>,’ murmured Catherine with propriety.

Yes--it was soothing; it was what one knew.

And the evening in the drawing-room continued to soothe. He sat in what had been George’s chair on one side of the small fire, and she sat on the big sofa facing him. So had she and George sat when she had come up from Chickover to go out with him to some unavoidable festivity. If George could, he avoided festivities; and she, born with that spirit of adaptability which made her so pleasant to live with, born with that fortunate and convenient disposition which squeezed its happiness out of acquiescences, out of what she had, rather than waiting to be happy when she should have got something else, had gladly shared in his desire to avoid them. But if they were not avoidable, then she cheerfully came up to London and supported him; and afterwards, when whatever it was they had been to was over, with what a sigh of satisfaction did George sink into his chair before going to bed and rest his eyes on his Catherine sitting opposite him. He didn’t even like her to take up the evening paper and glance at the headlines, so much did he love to have her whole attention. Never did any one listen as sweetly as his Catherine. It was the best conversation he ever had, George considered, this talk to Catherine who so sweetly listened. Now she sat opposite Stephen, and Stephen gazed at the fire and hardly spoke, so that even her talent for listening was able to rest. Peace, perfect peace, she thought, her head in the cushions and her eyes inclined to shut.

At nine o’clock Stephen looked at his watch. He had been prepared to take it out, look at it, exclaim that time had flown, get up, and go.

But time had not flown. Both of them had been supposing it must be ten o’clock--at least ten, probably much later; so that when he saw it was only nine he was disconcerted as well as astonished.

He didn’t quite know what to do. To leave so early would not be respectful, he felt, to his excellent mother-in-law; to hold his watch up to his ear in order to make sure it hadn’t stopped--it <i>must</i> have stopped--was an impulse he resisted as discourteous. Yet he wanted to go away. Whatever his watch declared, he felt it was long past bedtime.

‘Would you like me,’ he suggested, fidgeting in his chair a little, ‘to say prayers for you and your household before I go?’

‘Very much,’ said Catherine politely, waking up; she was the last person to baulk any clergyman who should want to pray. ‘Only there isn’t----’

She hesitated, anxious not to seem to complain. She had been going to say there wasn’t any household; instead, she inquired whether she should call Mrs. Mitcham.

‘Pray do,’ said Stephen.

Mrs. Mitcham came.

Then it appeared there wasn’t a prayer-book. The prayer-books, both hers and Mrs. Mitcham’s--it was most unfortunate--had been left behind at Chickover.

Stephen stood thoughtfully on the hearth-rug. Mrs. Mitcham, with the expression of one already in church, waited with decent folded hands for whatever of unction should descend on her. Catherine reflected that she hadn’t left her furs behind at Chickover, nor her trinkets, and wondered whether perhaps Stephen might be reflecting this too and drawing his conclusions.

But Stephen was not. He was merely turning over in his mind what, cut off from the assistance of the prayer-book, he should say to these two women as a good-night benediction, and so with grace be able to go back to his lodging to bed.

The thought of that bed, all solitary and cold, recalled Virginia, and with her his great discovery of Love. He suddenly raised his hands over his mother-in-law and her servant--instinctively they bowed their heads--and with complete simplicity and earnestness bade them love one another.

‘<i>Little children, love one another</i>,’ Stephen said simply.

It was the best he could do for them, he felt; it was the best that could be done for any one in the world. Then, abruptly, he wished Catherine good-night.

‘Do you come to St. Clement’s to-morrow evening?’ he inquired of her.

‘I will certainly come,’ she said.

Mrs. Mitcham helped him into his coat with reverence. She liked having texts said over her; it gave her a peculiar, pleasant feeling in her chest. She couldn’t imagine how she had come to forget her prayer-book and not even notice she hadn’t got it. It must have been the confusion of Miss Virginia’s wedding, and moving up to London and settling in. She wrote that very evening to the housekeeper at Chickover, and begged her to send it to her, and also her mistress’s, at once.

X

By this time it was a quarter past nine; quite early, and yet how late it seemed. Catherine went back to the sofa, and turning out the light on the table by her side, for she was being very cautious this first year of her limited income and not wasting anything, put her feet up and lay in the firelight, feeling a little tired.

Stephen, as a cool refuge from the warmths of Christopher, had been restful, but only up to a certain point. He had provided the sort of relief the cool air of a cellar gives those coming rather blinded out of the heat of the sun, and, like a cellar, he had presently palled. She had long ago found, and it had been greatly to her regret, that it was difficult to keep her eyes open after a short time alone with Stephen. She thought this must be due to his conversation. There was nothing to lay hold of in it. It was bony. One slipped off. Besides, he didn’t talk to her as if she were anything but another bone. Bones to bones; how dreary; how little one likes being behaved to as if one were a bone. Yet he knew now about love, and nobody could hear him preach without being thrilled by his appreciation of it. He appreciated it in his sermons in all its branches. At present in his life there was only one branch really living, and that was married love. All those other loves he praised--brotherly love, which he entreated might continue; the love of friends, surpassing, he declared, in beauty and dignity the love of the sexes; that large love of humanity, which needs must well from every thinking heart--were theories to him. Well, perhaps by sheer talking about them from pulpits to impressed congregations they would gradually become real. One did, in a very remarkable way, talk oneself into attitudes of mind that altered one’s entire behaviour; or was talked into them by somebody else, which was less excellent--in fact, should be guarded against.

She shut her eyes. She was tired.

<i>Little children, love one another</i>.... He could say that beautifully--and how beautiful it was--but he didn’t <i>do</i> it himself. Except Virginia, the rest of the world was at present left out from Stephen’s loving. The exhortation had been for her and Mrs. Mitcham, who had long loved one another in the form of affection and daily mutual courtesies.

<i>Little children, love</i>....

She was tired. She hadn’t walked so fast or so much for ages as she had that afternoon at Hampton Court. And the spring air was relaxing. And Christopher had such long legs, and strode easily over ground that took her innumerable small steps to cover. And, being clearly mad as well, it wasn’t only her feet he had fatigued, but her spirit. Stephen, so passive and indifferent; Christopher, so active and not indifferent enough; and she between them being agreeable, and agreeable, and for ever agreeable. Why did a woman always try, however fruitlessly, as with Stephen, or dangerously, as with Christopher, to be agreeable? She feared it was, at bottom, vanity. Anyhow it was very stupid, when it was so tiring, so tiring....

<i>Little children, love</i>....

She dozed; she more than dozed; she went to sleep. And she hadn’t been asleep five minutes before Christopher came back.

There was her wrap--he hadn’t given her her wrap yet, and found it when he went out where he had dropped it on the carpet outside her door. In any case he had meant to wait in the street till that incredible old son-in-law--that <i>she</i> should dare to try to put him off with stuff about the generations!--had gone, and then see her again unless it was very late. But the wrap made it his duty to see her again; and when he beheld, from the opposite pavement, Stephen emerge and go away at a quarter past nine, he walked up and down for another ten minutes in case the old raven should have forgotten something and come back, and then, the wrap on his arm, went in and up the stairs with all the dignity and composure that legitimate business bestows.

But he was not really composed; not inside. When Mrs. Mitcham opened the door at his ring and, still under the influence of Stephen’s exhortation to love one another, smiled brightly at him, he could hardly stammer out that he had something of Mrs. Cumfrit’s--her wrap----

‘Oh, thank you, sir. I’ll take it,’ said Mrs. Mitcham.

‘Well, but I want to see Mrs. Cumfrit a minute--it isn’t late--it’s quite early--I’ll go in for just a minute----’

And thrusting the wrap into her hand he made for the drawing-room.

She watched him shut the door behind him, and hoped it didn’t matter, her not announcing him. After all, he had but lately left; it wasn’t as if he were calling that day for the first time. On the contrary, this was the third time since lunch that he had come in.

She stood uncertain a moment in the hall, ready to let him out again if he did only stay a minute; then, when he did not reappear, she went back to the kitchen.

Now Christopher might have behaved quite differently if he had found Catherine wide awake in her chair, properly lit up, and reading or sewing. He had meant, in coming back, only to reason with her. He couldn’t be sent away, cut short in the middle of a sentence and cast out as he had been by Stephen’s entrance, and not see her again at least to finish what he had to say. If she wouldn’t listen now, at least they might arrange an hour the next day when she would. He couldn’t go home to just black misery. He couldn’t. He was a human being. There were things a human being simply couldn’t do. He would see her again that evening, if only to find out when she would let him call and talk quietly. Surely she owed him this. He hadn’t done anything to offend her really, except tell her that he loved her. And was that an offence? No; it was most natural, inevitable and right, he assured his shrinking heart. For his heart did shrink; it was very fearful, because he knew she would be angry when she saw him. He could barely get the words out to Mrs. Mitcham at the door, so short was he of breath because of his heart. It was behaving as if he had been tearing up six flights of stairs, instead of walking slowly up one.

Then, inside the room, instead of light, and Catherine looking up from whatever she was doing at him with surprise and reproach, he found first darkness, and presently, as he stood uncertain and his eyes grew more accustomed to it, the outline of Catherine in the dull glow of the fire, motionless on the sofa. He couldn’t see if she was asleep. She said nothing and didn’t move. She must be asleep. And just at that moment a flame leapt out of the coals, and he saw that she was asleep.

The most extraordinary feeling flooded his heart. All the mothers in his ancestry crowded back to life in him. She looked so little, and helpless and vulnerable. She looked so tired, with no colour at all in her face. Not for anything in the world would Christopher have disturbed that sleep. He would creep away softly, and simply bear the incertitude as to when he was to see her again. Such an immense tenderness he had never in his life felt. He knew now that he loved her beyond all things, and far beyond himself.

He turned to go away, holding his breath, feeling for the door handle, when his foot knocked against the leg of George’s big chair.

Catherine woke up. ‘Mrs. Mitcham----’ she began, drowsily. And then as no one answered, for though he tried to he couldn’t, she put out her hand and turned on the light.

They blinked at each other.

Astonishment, succeeded by indignation, spread over Catherine’s face. She could hardly believe her eyes. Christopher. Back again. Got into her flat like a thief. Stealing in in the dark....

She sat up, leaning on her hands. ‘You!’ was all she could find to say.

‘Yes, I had to. I had to bring you back your----’

He was going to shelter behind her cloak, and then was ashamed of such trifling.

She made a movement to get up, but the sofa was a very low one, and she rather ridiculously bumped down on it again; and before she could make another attempt he had flown across to help her.

‘No, no,’ said Catherine, whose indignation was greater than any she had felt in her life, pushing aside his outstretched hands.

So then he lifted her up bodily, indifferent to everything else in the world; and having set her on her feet he held her like that, tightly in his arms, and didn’t care if he had to die for it.

There was a moment’s complete silence. Catherine was so much amazed that for a moment she was quite still.

Then she gave a gasp--muffled, because of his coat, against which her face was pressed. ‘<i>Oh</i>----’ she gasped, faint and muffled, trying to push him away.

She might as well have tried to push a rock away.

‘<i>Oh</i>----’ she gasped again, as Christopher, still not caring if he had to die for it, began kissing her. He kissed what he could--her hair, the tip of one ear, and she, aghast, horrified, buried her face deeper and deeper into his coat in her efforts to protect it.

Oh, the outrage--never in her life--how dared he, how dared he--just because she was alone, and had no one to defend her----

Not a word of this came out; it was entirely muffled in his coat. Aghast and horrified, Catherine continued to have the top of her head kissed, and her aghastness and horror became overwhelming when she realised that she--no, it wasn’t possible, it <i>couldn’t</i> be that she--that this--that she was somehow, besides being horrified, strangely shot through by a feeling that was not unpleasant? Impossible, impossible....

‘Let me go,’ she gasped into his coat. ‘Let me <i>go</i>----’

For answer he took her head in his hands and held it back and kissed her really, right on her mouth, as no one in her life before had ever kissed her.

Impossible, impossible....

She stood, her arms hanging by her side, her body quivering. She didn’t seem able to move. She seemed as if she were becoming every instant more drawn into this, more absorbed in what was happening--as profoundly absorbed as he was, as remote from realities. The room disappeared, the relics of George disappeared, the world disappeared, and all the reminders of the facts of her life. Youth had swept down out of the skies and caught her up in its arms into a strange, warm oblivion. He and she were not any longer Christopher and Catherine--Catherine tied up in a tangle of relationships, of obligations, of increasing memories, Christopher an impetuous young man who needed tremendously to be kept in his proper place: she was simply the Beloved, and he was Love.

‘I worship you,’ murmured Christopher.

Through her dream she heard him murmuring, and it woke her up to consciousness.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

He was gazing down at her--beautiful, all light. She stared at him an instant, still held in his arms, collecting her thoughts.

What had she done? What was she doing? What was this? Oh, but it was shameful, shameful....

She made one immense effort, and with both her hands pushed him away; and before he could stop her, for he too was in a dream, she had run to the door and flown along the passage to her bedroom and locked herself in.

Then she rang violently for Mrs. Mitcham, and told her through the shut door to let Mr. Monckton out--she was going to bed at once--she had a terrible headache.... And she sat down on her bed and cried bitterly.

XI

Virginia, coming back to the house on Sunday from a short after-luncheon stroll in the garden, where the daffodils were making a great show and the blackbirds a great noise, with the intention of putting her feet up till tea and lying quietly in her boudoir, was surprised to see her mother standing on the terrace.

Her first thought was of Stephen. Her mother had never yet come uninvited and unexpected. Was anything wrong with him?

She hastened her steps. ‘Anything wrong?’ she called out anxiously.

Her mother shook her head reassuringly, and came down to meet her.

They kissed.

‘I had such a longing to see you,’ said Catherine, in answer to Virginia’s face of wonder; and, clinging to her a little, she added, ‘I felt I wanted to be close to you--quite close.’

She took Virginia’s arm, and they walked back slowly towards the house.

‘Sweet of you, mother,’ said Virginia, who was taller than her mother, having taken after George in height as well as features; but still she wondered.

She wondered even more when later on she saw her mother’s luggage. It suggested a longer stay than any she had yet made. But even as they strolled towards the house she felt a little uneasy. Her mother had been so satisfactory till now, so careful not to intrude, not to mar the felicities of the early married months. Stephen had warmly praised her admirable tendency to absence rather than presence, and Virginia had been very proud of having provided him with a mother-in-law he admitted could not be bettered. She loved to lay every good gift in her possession at Stephen’s feet, and had rejoiced that her mother should be another of them. Was there going now to be a difference?

She said nothing, however, except that it was a pity she hadn’t known her mother was coming, so that her room might have been ready for her.

‘And how did you manage at the station, mother, with nothing to meet you?’ she asked.

‘I got the fly from the Dragon. I had to wait, of course, but not long. Old Mr. Pearce was so kind, and drove me himself. I would have let you know, but I hadn’t time. I--I suddenly felt I <i>must</i> be with you. I had a longing to be just here, peacefully. It doesn’t put you out, dearest?’

‘But of course not, mother. Only you have missed hearing Stephen preach to-night.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. I saw him yesterday, though. He dined with me.’

‘Oh, did he?’ said Virginia, suddenly eager. ‘How was he? How did he seem? Had he had a good journey up? Did he say anything about the sandwiches? I’ve got a new cook, and I don’t know if her sand----’

‘Has Mrs. Benson gone?’

‘Yes. We decided she was too expensive. You see, our idea is to cut down unnecessary expenses in the house so as to have more to carry out our schemes with, and this is the first time the new one has had to cut sandwiches. Did Stephen say anything about them?’

‘No; so I expect they were all right.’

‘I do hope they were. He hates restaurant cars, you know, and won’t go and have a proper lunch in them. And it’s important----’

‘Of course. How are you, darling?’

‘<i>Quite</i> well. It’s wonderful how well I feel. How did you think Stephen was looking?’

‘Quite well.’

‘Not tired? That journey every week is so tiring. I must say I shall be glad when Lent is over. Isn’t it wonderful, mother, how he works, how he gives up his life----’

‘And how very well he is preaching. <i>You</i> have made him preach like that.’

‘I?’

‘Yes. By just loving him.’

Virginia blushed. ‘But who could help it?’ she asked.

‘And by believing in him.’

‘I think everybody must believe in Stephen,’ she said.

Her mother pressed her arm. ‘Darling,’ she said softly; and thought how strange a thing love was, how strange that Virginia, by taking this spinster-man, this middle-aged dry man, and just loving him with all her simple young heart and entirely believing in him, had made him, so completely commonplace before in all his utterances, suddenly--at least in the pulpit--sing. Was it acute, personal experience that one needed? Did one only cry out the truth really movingly when under some sort of lash, either of grief or ecstasy?

They went up the broad steps on to the familiar terrace. George’s peacocks--George had been of opinion that manors should have peacocks--were behaving as peacocks ought. In the great tubs on each side of the row of long windows--George had seen pictures of terraces, and they all had tubs--the first tulips were showing buds. The bells had begun to ring for afternoon service, and the sound floated across the quiet tree-tops as it had floated on all the Sundays of all the years Catherine had spent in that place. Such blameless, such dignified years. Every corner of them open to the light. Years of clear duties, clear affections--family years. And here was her serious young daughter carrying on the tradition. And here was she too come back to it, but come back to it disgracefully, to hide. She hiding! She winced, and held on tighter to Virginia’s arm. What would Virginia say if she knew? It seemed to Catherine that even her soul turned red at the bare thought.

They went into the boudoir, so recently her own--‘I was just going to rest a little,’ said Virginia. ‘Yes, you must take great care not to stand about too much,’ said her mother--and Catherine tucked her up on the sofa, as she had so often tucked her up in her cot, and there they stayed talking, while the sweet damp smells a garden is so full of in early spring came in through the open window, and filled the room with delicate promises.

Throughout the afternoon Virginia talked, and Catherine listened. So it had always been in that family: Catherine listened. How thankful she was to listen now, not to be asked questions, not to have it noticed that she looked pale and heavy-eyed, leaning back in her own old chair, her head, which ached, on a cushion she remembered covering herself. Her humiliated head; the head Christopher only a few hours before had held in both his hands and--no, she wouldn’t, she couldn’t think of it.

Virginia had much to tell of all that she and Stephen were doing and planning and hoping and intending. Drastic changes were being made; the easy-going old days at the Manor were over for ever. She did not say this in so many words, because it might, perhaps, have been tactless, for were not the old easy-going ways her mother’s ways? But it was evident that a pure flame of reform, of determination to abolish the old arrangements and substitute arrangements that improved, helped, and ultimately sanctified, was sweeping over Chickover. Her father’s money, so long used merely on the unimaginative material well-being of a small domestic circle--she didn’t quite put it this way, but so it drifted into Catherine’s consciousness--was to be spread out like some rich top-dressing--nor did she say just this, yet Catherine had a vision of a kind of holy manure, and Stephen, girt with righteousness, digging it diligently in--across the wide field of the whole parish, and the crop that would spring up would be a crop of entirely sanitary dwellings. No one, said Virginia--it seemed to Catherine that it was the voice of Stephen--could live in an entirely sanitary dwelling without gradually acquiring an entirely sanitary body, and from a sanitary body to a sanitary soul was only a step.

‘Stephen said something about that yesterday,’ said Catherine, her eyelids drooping as she lay back in her chair.

‘He puts it so wonderfully. I can’t explain things as he does, but I’d like just to give you an idea, mother----’

‘I’d love to hear,’ said Catherine, her voice sounding very small and tired.

On the table beside Virginia’s sofa were estimates and plans in a pile. She explained them to her mother one after the other, and the most convoluted plumbing, set forth in diagrams that looked exactly like diagrams Catherine had seen of people’s insides, were as nothing to Virginia. She knew them by heart; she understood them clearly; she could and did tell her mother things about drains that Catherine would never have dreamed of left to herself. Lucidly she described the different drainage systems available, and their various advantages and drawbacks. No detail of plumbing was too small to be explored. For half an hour she talked of taps; for another she expounded geysers; and as for plugs, Catherine had no idea of all the things a plug could do to you and your health and happiness if you didn’t in the first instance approach it with care and caution.

She lay back in her chair and listened. It was like listening to water running from one of Virginia’s newest type of tap. It went on and on, and only an occasional word, or even a mere sound of agreement was required of her. Outside, the afternoon sun lit up the beautiful leafless beeches, and when the bells left off ringing she could hear the blackbirds again. Blessed, blessed tranquillity. She felt as people do after an illness--just wanting to rest, to be quiet.

And here she knew she was entirely safe from questions. Virginia never asked her questions about herself or what she was doing. George had been like that, too, pouring out everything to her, but not demanding that she should pour back. What a precious quality this was really, though she remembered it had sometimes made her feel lonely. How valuable, though, now. No solicitous questionings embarrassed her. She was aware she was pale and puff-eyed, but Virginia wouldn’t notice. She couldn’t have stood her daughter’s young gaze of inquiry. Oh, she would have been ashamed, ashamed....

Her head ached badly. She hadn’t had any breakfast, in her wild desire to get away, to escape from Hertford Street before anything more could happen to her, and the slow Sunday train had offered no occasion for lunch. But she wasn’t in the least hungry; she only wanted to sit there quiet and feel safe. Virginia, absorbed in all she had to talk about, hadn’t thought of the possibility of her mother’s not having had lunch. The arrival at such an unusual time had surprised her out of her customary hospitable solicitudes, for she took her duties as hostess of the Manor with much seriousness, and wouldn’t for worlds have failed in any of them. Catherine, too, had forgotten lunch. She wanted nothing in the world but to get here, to sit quiet, to be safe.

While they were having tea, Mrs. Colquhoun the elder, Stephen’s mother, called in to see her daughter-in-law.