Night and Day
thin; she forgot to keep up appearances more and more.
The worn patches in the carpets, and the pallor of the drawing-room,
where no chair or cover had been renewed for some years, were due not
only to the miserable pension, but to the wear and tear of twelve
children, eight of whom were sons. As often happens in these large
families, a distinct dividing-line could be traced, about half-way in
the succession, where the money for educational purposes had run short,
and the six younger children had grown up far more economically than
the elder. If the boys were clever, they won scholarships, and went to
school; if they were not clever, they took what the family connection
had to offer them. The girls accepted situations occasionally, but
there were always one or two at home, nursing sick animals, tending
silkworms, or playing the flute in their bedrooms. The distinction
between the elder children and the younger corresponded almost to the
distinction between a higher class and a lower one, for with only a
haphazard education and insufficient allowances, the younger children
had picked up accomplishments, friends, and points of view which were
not to be found within the walls of a public school or of a Government
office. Between the two divisions there was considerable hostility, the
elder trying to patronize the younger, the younger refusing to respect
the elder; but one feeling united them and instantly closed any risk of
a breach—their common belief in the superiority of their own family to
all others. Henry was the eldest of the younger group, and their
leader; he bought strange books and joined odd societies; he went
without a tie for a whole year, and had six shirts made of black
flannel. He had long refused to take a seat either in a shipping office
or in a tea-merchant’s warehouse; and persisted, in spite of the
disapproval of uncles and aunts, in practicing both violin and piano,
with the result that he could not perform professionally upon either.
Indeed, for thirty-two years of life he had nothing more substantial to
show than a manuscript book containing the score of half an opera. In
this protest of his, Katharine had always given him her support, and as
she was generally held to be an extremely sensible person, who dressed
too well to be eccentric, he had found her support of some use. Indeed,
when she came down at Christmas she usually spent a great part of her
time in private conferences with Henry and with Cassandra, the youngest
girl, to whom the silkworms belonged. With the younger section she had
a great reputation for common sense, and for something that they
despised but inwardly respected and called knowledge of the world—that
is to say, of the way in which respectable elderly people, going to
their clubs and dining out with ministers, think and behave. She had
more than once played the part of ambassador between Lady Otway and her
children. That poor lady, for instance, consulted her for advice when,
one day, she opened Cassandra’s bedroom door on a mission of discovery,
and found the ceiling hung with mulberry-leaves, the windows blocked
with cages, and the tables stacked with home-made machines for the
manufacture of silk dresses.
“I wish you could help her to take an interest in something that other
people are interested in, Katharine,” she observed, rather plaintively,
detailing her grievances. “It’s all Henry’s doing, you know, giving up
her parties and taking to these nasty insects. It doesn’t follow that
if a man can do a thing a woman may too.”
The morning was sufficiently bright to make the chairs and sofas in
Lady Otway’s private sitting-room appear more than usually shabby, and
the gallant gentlemen, her brothers and cousins, who had defended the
Empire and left their bones on many frontiers, looked at the world
through a film of yellow which the morning light seemed to have drawn
across their photographs. Lady Otway sighed, it may be at the faded
relics, and turned, with resignation, to her balls of wool, which,
curiously and characteristically, were not an ivory-white, but rather a
tarnished yellow-white. She had called her niece in for a little chat.
She had always trusted her, and now more than ever, since her
engagement to Rodney, which seemed to Lady Otway extremely suitable,
and just what one would wish for one’s own daughter. Katharine
unwittingly increased her reputation for wisdom by asking to be given
knitting-needles too.
“It’s so very pleasant,” said Lady Otway, “to knit while one’s talking.
And now, my dear Katharine, tell me about your plans.”
The emotions of the night before, which she had suppressed in such a
way as to keep her awake till dawn, had left Katharine a little jaded,
and thus more matter-of-fact than usual. She was quite ready to discuss
her plans—houses and rents, servants and economy—without feeling that
they concerned her very much. As she spoke, knitting methodically
meanwhile, Lady Otway noted, with approval, the upright, responsible
bearing of her niece, to whom the prospect of marriage had brought some
gravity most becoming in a bride, and yet, in these days, most rare.
Yes, Katharine’s engagement had changed her a little.
“What a perfect daughter, or daughter-in-law!” she thought to herself,
and could not help contrasting her with Cassandra, surrounded by
innumerable silkworms in her bedroom.
“Yes,” she continued, glancing at Katharine, with the round, greenish
eyes which were as inexpressive as moist marbles, “Katharine is like
the girls of my youth. We took the serious things of life seriously.”
But just as she was deriving satisfaction from this thought, and was
producing some of the hoarded wisdom which none of her own daughters,
alas! seemed now to need, the door opened, and Mrs. Hilbery came in, or
rather, did not come in, but stood in the doorway and smiled, having
evidently mistaken the room.
“I never _shall_ know my way about this house!” she exclaimed. “I’m on
my way to the library, and I don’t want to interrupt. You and Katharine
were having a little chat?”
The presence of her sister-in-law made Lady Otway slightly uneasy. How
could she go on with what she was saying in Maggie’s presence? for she
was saying something that she had never said, all these years, to
Maggie herself.
“I was telling Katharine a few little commonplaces about marriage,” she
said, with a little laugh. “Are none of my children looking after you,
Maggie?”
“Marriage,” said Mrs. Hilbery, coming into the room, and nodding her
head once or twice, “I always say marriage is a school. And you don’t
get the prizes unless you go to school. Charlotte has won all the
prizes,” she added, giving her sister-in-law a little pat, which made
Lady Otway more uncomfortable still. She half laughed, muttered
something, and ended on a sigh.
“Aunt Charlotte was saying that it’s no good being married unless you
submit to your husband,” said Katharine, framing her aunt’s words into
a far more definite shape than they had really worn; and when she spoke
thus she did not appear at all old-fashioned. Lady Otway looked at her
and paused for a moment.
“Well, I really don’t advise a woman who wants to have things her own
way to get married,” she said, beginning a fresh row rather
elaborately.
Mrs. Hilbery knew something of the circumstances which, as she thought,
had inspired this remark. In a moment her face was clouded with
sympathy which she did not quite know how to express.
“What a shame it was!” she exclaimed, forgetting that her train of
thought might not be obvious to her listeners. “But, Charlotte, it
would have been much worse if Frank had disgraced himself in any way.
And it isn’t what our husbands GET, but what they _are_. I used to
dream of white horses and palanquins, too; but still, I like the
ink-pots best. And who knows?” she concluded, looking at Katharine,
“your father may be made a baronet to-morrow.”
Lady Otway, who was Mr. Hilbery’s sister, knew quite well that, in
private, the Hilberys called Sir Francis “that old Turk,” and though
she did not follow the drift of Mrs. Hilbery’s remarks, she knew what
prompted them.
“But if you can give way to your husband,” she said, speaking to
Katharine, as if there were a separate understanding between them, “a
happy marriage is the happiest thing in the world.”
“Yes,” said Katharine, “but—” She did not mean to finish her sentence,
she merely wished to induce her mother and her aunt to go on talking
about marriage, for she was in the mood to feel that other people could
help her if they would. She went on knitting, but her fingers worked
with a decision that was oddly unlike the smooth and contemplative
sweep of Lady Otway’s plump hand. Now and then she looked swiftly at
her mother, then at her aunt. Mrs. Hilbery held a book in her hand, and
was on her way, as Katharine guessed, to the library, where another
paragraph was to be added to that varied assortment of paragraphs, the
Life of Richard Alardyce. Normally, Katharine would have hurried her
mother downstairs, and seen that no excuse for distraction came her
way. Her attitude towards the poet’s life, however, had changed with
other changes; and she was content to forget all about her scheme of
hours. Mrs. Hilbery was secretly delighted. Her relief at finding
herself excused manifested itself in a series of sidelong glances of
sly humor in her daughter’s direction, and the indulgence put her in
the best of spirits. Was she to be allowed merely to sit and talk? It
was so much pleasanter to sit in a nice room filled with all sorts of
interesting odds and ends which she hadn’t looked at for a year, at
least, than to seek out one date which contradicted another in a
dictionary.
“We’ve all had perfect husbands,” she concluded, generously forgiving
Sir Francis all his faults in a lump. “Not that I think a bad temper is
really a fault in a man. I don’t mean a bad temper,” she corrected
herself, with a glance obviously in the direction of Sir Francis. “I
should say a quick, impatient temper. Most, in fact _all_ great men
have had bad tempers—except your grandfather, Katharine,” and here she
sighed, and suggested that, perhaps, she ought to go down to the
library.
“But in the ordinary marriage, is it necessary to give way to one’s
husband?” said Katharine, taking no notice of her mother’s suggestion,
blind even to the depression which had now taken possession of her at
the thought of her own inevitable death.
“I should say yes, certainly,” said Lady Otway, with a decision most
unusual for her.
“Then one ought to make up one’s mind to that before one is married,”
Katharine mused, seeming to address herself.
Mrs. Hilbery was not much interested in these remarks, which seemed to
have a melancholy tendency, and to revive her spirits she had recourse
to an infallible remedy—she looked out of the window.
“Do look at that lovely little blue bird!” she exclaimed, and her eye
looked with extreme pleasure at the soft sky. at the trees, at the
green fields visible behind those trees, and at the leafless branches
which surrounded the body of the small blue tit. Her sympathy with
nature was exquisite.
“Most women know by instinct whether they can give it or not,” Lady
Otway slipped in quickly, in rather a low voice, as if she wanted to
get this said while her sister-in-law’s attention was diverted. “And if
not—well then, my advice would be—don’t marry.”
“Oh, but marriage is the happiest life for a woman,” said Mrs. Hilbery,
catching the word marriage, as she brought her eyes back to the room
again. Then she turned her mind to what she had said.
“It’s the most _interesting_ life,” she corrected herself. She looked
at her daughter with a look of vague alarm. It was the kind of maternal