Night and Day
“I didn’t know you had to work after you had left the office,” said
Katharine, in a tone which gave the impression that she was thinking of
something else, as was, indeed, the case.
She had been paying calls with her mother, and in between the calls
Mrs. Hilbery had rushed into shops and bought pillow-cases and
blotting-books on no perceptible method for the furnishing of
Katharine’s house. Katharine had a sense of impedimenta accumulating on
all sides of her. She had left her at length, and had come on to keep
an engagement to dine with Rodney at his rooms. But she did not mean to
get to him before seven o’clock, and so had plenty of time to walk all
the way from Bond Street to the Temple if she wished it. The flow of
faces streaming on either side of her had hypnotized her into a mood of
profound despondency, to which her expectation of an evening alone with
Rodney contributed. They were very good friends again, better friends,
they both said, than ever before. So far as she was concerned this was
true. There were many more things in him than she had guessed until
emotion brought them forth—strength, affection, sympathy. And she
thought of them and looked at the faces passing, and thought how much
alike they were, and how distant, nobody feeling anything as she felt
nothing, and distance, she thought, lay inevitably between the closest,
and their intimacy was the worst presence of all. For, “Oh dear,” she
thought, looking into a tobacconist’s window, “I don’t care for any of
them, and I don’t care for William, and people say this is the thing
that matters most, and I can’t see what they mean by it.”
She looked desperately at the smooth-bowled pipes, and wondered—should
she walk on by the Strand or by the Embankment? It was not a simple
question, for it concerned not different streets so much as different
streams of thought. If she went by the Strand she would force herself
to think out the problem of the future, or some mathematical problem;
if she went by the river she would certainly begin to think about
things that didn’t exist—the forest, the ocean beach, the leafy
solitudes, the magnanimous hero. No, no, no! A thousand times no!—it
wouldn’t do; there was something repulsive in such thoughts at present;
she must take something else; she was out of that mood at present. And
then she thought of Mary; the thought gave her confidence, even
pleasure of a sad sort, as if the triumph of Ralph and Mary proved that
the fault of her failure lay with herself and not with life. An
indistinct idea that the sight of Mary might be of help, combined with
her natural trust in her, suggested a visit; for, surely, her liking
was of a kind that implied liking upon Mary’s side also. After a
moment’s hesitation she decided, although she seldom acted upon
impulse, to act upon this one, and turned down a side street and found
Mary’s door. But her reception was not encouraging; clearly Mary didn’t
want to see her, had no help to impart, and the half-formed desire to
confide in her was quenched immediately. She was slightly amused at her
own delusion, looked rather absent-minded, and swung her gloves to and
fro, as if doling out the few minutes accurately before she could say
good-by.
Those few minutes might very well be spent in asking for information as
to the exact position of the Suffrage Bill, or in expounding her own
very sensible view of the situation. But there was a tone in her voice,
or a shade in her opinions, or a swing of her gloves which served to
irritate Mary Datchet, whose manner became increasingly direct, abrupt,
and even antagonistic. She became conscious of a wish to make Katharine
realize the importance of this work, which she discussed so coolly, as
though she, too, had sacrificed what Mary herself had sacrificed. The
swinging of the gloves ceased, and Katharine, after ten minutes, began
to make movements preliminary to departure. At the sight of this, Mary
was aware—she was abnormally aware of things to-night—of another very
strong desire; Katharine was not to be allowed to go, to disappear into
the free, happy world of irresponsible individuals. She must be made to
realize—to feel.
“I don’t quite see,” she said, as if Katharine had challenged her
explicitly, “how, things being as they are, any one can help trying, at
least, to do something.”
“No. But how _are_ things?”
Mary pressed her lips, and smiled ironically; she had Katharine at her
mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge upon her head wagon-loads of
revolting proof of the state of things ignored by the casual, the
amateur, the looker-on, the cynical observer of life at a distance. And
yet she hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with
Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion about her,
arrows of sensation striking strangely through the envelope of
personality, which shelters us so conveniently from our fellows. What
an egoist, how aloof she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but
in her voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a soft
brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound, playing over
her thoughts and deeds, and investing her manner with an habitual
gentleness. The arguments and phrases of Mr. Clacton fell flat against
such armor.
“You’ll be married, and you’ll have other things to think of,” she said
inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension. She was not going
to make Katharine understand in a second, as she would, all she herself
had learnt at the cost of such pain. No. Katharine was to be happy;
Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge of the
impersonal life for herself. The thought of her morning’s renunciation
stung her conscience, and she tried to expand once more into that
impersonal condition which was so lofty and so painless. She must check
this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were in conflict
with those of other people. She repented of her bitterness.
Katharine now renewed her signs of leave-taking; she had drawn on one
of her gloves, and looked about her as if in search of some trivial
saying to end with. Wasn’t there some picture, or clock, or chest of
drawers which might be singled out for notice? something peaceable and
friendly to end the uncomfortable interview? The green-shaded lamp
burnt in the corner, and illumined books and pens and blotting-paper.
The whole aspect of the place started another train of thought and
struck her as enviably free; in such a room one could work—one could
have a life of one’s own.
“I think you’re very lucky,” she observed. “I envy you, living alone
and having your own things”—and engaged in this exalted way, which had
no recognition or engagement-ring, she added in her own mind.
Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what respects
Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her.
“I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,” she said.
“Perhaps one always envies other people,” Katharine observed vaguely.
“Well, but you’ve got everything that any one can want.”
Katharine remained silent. She gazed into the fire quietly, and without
a trace of self-consciousness. The hostility which she had divined in
Mary’s tone had completely disappeared, and she forgot that she had
been upon the point of going.
“Well, I suppose I have,” she said at length. “And yet I sometimes
think—” She paused; she did not know how to express what she meant.
“It came over me in the Tube the other day,” she resumed, with a smile;
“what is it that makes these people go one way rather than the other?
It’s not love; it’s not reason; I think it must be some idea. Perhaps,
Mary, our affections are the shadow of an idea. Perhaps there isn’t any
such thing as affection in itself....” She spoke half-mockingly, asking
her question, which she scarcely troubled to frame, not of Mary, or of
any one in particular.
But the words seemed to Mary Datchet shallow, supercilious,
cold-blooded, and cynical all in one. All her natural instincts were
roused in revolt against them.
“I’m the opposite way of thinking, you see,” she said.
“Yes; I know you are,” Katharine replied, looking at her as if now she
were about, perhaps, to explain something very important.
Mary could not help feeling the simplicity and good faith that lay
behind Katharine’s words.
“I think affection is the only reality,” she said.
“Yes,” said Katharine, almost sadly. She understood that Mary was
thinking of Ralph, and she felt it impossible to press her to reveal
more of this exalted condition; she could only respect the fact that,
in some few cases, life arranged itself thus satisfactorily and pass
on. She rose to her feet accordingly. But Mary exclaimed, with
unmistakable earnestness, that she must not go; that they met so
seldom; that she wanted to talk to her so much.... Katharine was
surprised at the earnestness with which she spoke. It seemed to her
that there could be no indiscretion in mentioning Ralph by name.
Seating herself “for ten minutes,” she said: “By the way, Mr. Denham
told me he was going to give up the Bar and live in the country. Has he
gone? He was beginning to tell me about it, when we were interrupted.”
“He thinks of it,” said Mary briefly. The color at once came to her
face.
“It would be a very good plan,” said Katharine in her decided way.
“You think so?”
“Yes, because he would do something worth while; he would write a book.
My father always says that he’s the most remarkable of the young men
who write for him.”
Mary bent low over the fire and stirred the coal between the bars with
a poker. Katharine’s mention of Ralph had roused within her an almost
irresistible desire to explain to her the true state of the case
between herself and Ralph. She knew, from the tone of her voice, that
in speaking of Ralph she had no desire to probe Mary’s secrets, or to
insinuate any of her own. Moreover, she liked Katharine; she trusted
her; she felt a respect for her. The first step of confidence was
comparatively simple; but a further confidence had revealed itself, as
Katharine spoke, which was not so simple, and yet it impressed itself
upon her as a necessity; she must tell Katharine what it was clear that
she had no conception of—she must tell Katharine that Ralph was in love
with her.
“I don’t know what he means to do,” she said hurriedly, seeking time
against the pressure of her own conviction. “I’ve not seen him since
Christmas.”
Katharine reflected that this was odd; perhaps, after all, she had
misunderstood the position. She was in the habit of assuming, however,
that she was rather unobservant of the finer shades of feeling, and she
noted her present failure as another proof that she was a practical,
abstract-minded person, better fitted to deal with figures than with
the feelings of men and women. Anyhow, William Rodney would say so.
“And now—” she said.
“Oh, please stay!” Mary exclaimed, putting out her hand to stop her.
Directly Katharine moved she felt, inarticulately and violently, that
she could not bear to let her go. If Katharine went, her only chance of
speaking was lost; her only chance of saying something tremendously
important was lost. Half a dozen words were sufficient to wake
Katharine’s attention, and put flight and further silence beyond her
power. But although the words came to her lips, her throat closed upon
them and drove them back. After all, she considered, why should she
speak? Because it is right, her instinct told her; right to expose
oneself without reservations to other human beings. She flinched from
the thought. It asked too much of one already stripped bare. Something
she must keep of her own. But if she did keep something of her own?
Immediately she figured an immured life, continuing for an immense