Night and Day
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.
CHAPTER XXIX
Between twelve and one that Sunday night Katharine lay in bed, not
asleep, but in that twilight region where a detached and humorous view
of our own lot is possible; or if we must be serious, our seriousness
is tempered by the swift oncome of slumber and oblivion. She saw the
forms of Ralph, William, Cassandra, and herself, as if they were all
equally unsubstantial, and, in putting off reality, had gained a kind
of dignity which rested upon each impartially. Thus rid of any
uncomfortable warmth of partisanship or load of obligation, she was
dropping off to sleep when a light tap sounded upon her door. A moment
later Cassandra stood beside her, holding a candle and speaking in the
low tones proper to the time of night.
“Are you awake, Katharine?”
“Yes, I’m awake. What is it?”
She roused herself, sat up, and asked what in Heaven’s name Cassandra
was doing?
“I couldn’t sleep, and I thought I’d come and speak to you—only for a
moment, though. I’m going home to-morrow.”
“Home? Why, what has happened?”
“Something happened to-day which makes it impossible for me to stay
here.”
Cassandra spoke formally, almost solemnly; the announcement was clearly
prepared and marked a crisis of the utmost gravity. She continued what
seemed to be part of a set speech.
“I have decided to tell you the whole truth, Katharine. William allowed
himself to behave in a way which made me extremely uncomfortable
to-day.”
Katharine seemed to waken completely, and at once to be in control of
herself.
“At the Zoo?” she asked.
“No, on the way home. When we had tea.”
As if foreseeing that the interview might be long, and the night
chilly, Katharine advised Cassandra to wrap herself in a quilt.
Cassandra did so with unbroken solemnity.
“There’s a train at eleven,” she said. “I shall tell Aunt Maggie that I
have to go suddenly.... I shall make Violet’s visit an excuse. But,
after thinking it over, I don’t see how I can go without telling you
the truth.”
She was careful to abstain from looking in Katharine’s direction. There
was a slight pause.
“But I don’t see the least reason why you should go,” said Katharine
eventually. Her voice sounded so astonishingly equable that Cassandra
glanced at her. It was impossible to suppose that she was either
indignant or surprised; she seemed, on the contrary, sitting up in bed,
with her arms clasped round her knees and a little frown on her brow,
to be thinking closely upon a matter of indifference to her.
“Because I can’t allow any man to behave to me in that way,” Cassandra
replied, and she added, “particularly when I know that he is engaged to
some one else.”
“But you like him, don’t you?” Katharine inquired.
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Cassandra exclaimed indignantly. “I
consider his conduct, under the circumstances, most disgraceful.”
This was the last of the sentences of her premeditated speech; and
having spoken it she was left unprovided with any more to say in that
particular style. When Katharine remarked:
“I should say it had everything to do with it,” Cassandra’s
self-possession deserted her.
“I don’t understand you in the least, Katharine. How can you behave as
you behave? Ever since I came here I’ve been amazed by you!”
“You’ve enjoyed yourself, haven’t you?” Katharine asked.
“Yes, I have,” Cassandra admitted.
“Anyhow, my behavior hasn’t spoiled your visit.”
“No,” Cassandra allowed once more. She was completely at a loss. In her
forecast of the interview she had taken it for granted that Katharine,
after an outburst of incredulity, would agree that Cassandra must
return home as soon as possible. But Katharine, on the contrary,
accepted her statement at once, seemed neither shocked nor surprised,
and merely looked rather more thoughtful than usual. From being a
mature woman charged with an important mission, Cassandra shrunk to the
stature of an inexperienced child.
“Do you think I’ve been very foolish about it?” she asked.
Katharine made no answer, but still sat deliberating silently, and a
certain feeling of alarm took possession of Cassandra. Perhaps her
words had struck far deeper than she had thought, into depths beyond
her reach, as so much of Katharine was beyond her reach. She thought
suddenly that she had been playing with very dangerous tools.
Looking at her at length, Katharine asked slowly, as if she found the
question very difficult to ask.
“But do you care for William?”
She marked the agitation and bewilderment of the girl’s expression, and
how she looked away from her.
“Do you mean, am I in love with him?” Cassandra asked, breathing
quickly, and nervously moving her hands.
“Yes, in love with him,” Katharine repeated.
“How can I love the man you’re engaged to marry?” Cassandra burst out.
“He may be in love with you.”
“I don’t think you’ve any right to say such things, Katharine,”
Cassandra exclaimed. “Why do you say them? Don’t you mind in the least
how William behaves to other women? If I were engaged, I couldn’t bear
it!”
“We’re not engaged,” said Katharine, after a pause.
“Katharine!” Cassandra cried.
“No, we’re not engaged,” Katharine repeated. “But no one knows it but
ourselves.”
“But why—I don’t understand—you’re not engaged!” Cassandra said again.
“Oh, that explains it! You’re not in love with him! You don’t want to
marry him!”
“We aren’t in love with each other any longer,” said Katharine, as if
disposing of something for ever and ever.
“How queer, how strange, how unlike other people you are, Katharine,”
Cassandra said, her whole body and voice seeming to fall and collapse
together, and no trace of anger or excitement remaining, but only a
dreamy quietude.
“You’re not in love with him?”
“But I love him,” said Katharine.
Cassandra remained bowed, as if by the weight of the revelation, for
some little while longer. Nor did Katharine speak. Her attitude was
that of some one who wishes to be concealed as much as possible from
observation. She sighed profoundly; she was absolutely silent, and
apparently overcome by her thoughts.
“D’you know what time it is?” she said at length, and shook her pillow,
as if making ready for sleep.
Cassandra rose obediently, and once more took up her candle. Perhaps
the white dressing-gown, and the loosened hair, and something unseeing
in the expression of the eyes gave her a likeness to a woman walking in
her sleep. Katharine, at least, thought so.
“There’s no reason why I should go home, then?” Cassandra said,
pausing. “Unless you want me to go, Katharine? What _do_ you want me to
do?”
For the first time their eyes met.
“You wanted us to fall in love,” Cassandra exclaimed, as if she read
the certainty there. But as she looked she saw a sight that surprised
her. The tears rose slowly in Katharine’s eyes and stood there,
brimming but contained—the tears of some profound emotion, happiness,
grief, renunciation; an emotion so complex in its nature that to
express it was impossible, and Cassandra, bending her head and
receiving the tears upon her cheek, accepted them in silence as the
consecration of her love.
“Please, miss,” said the maid, about eleven o’clock on the following
morning, “Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen.”
A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the
country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room,
was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and
absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted.
The maid’s message had a curious effect upon Katharine.
She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said
emphatically and even tragically:
“You know what that means.”
Cassandra had understood nothing.
“Aunt Celia is in the kitchen,” Katharine repeated.
“Why in the kitchen?” Cassandra asked, not unnaturally.
“Probably because she’s discovered something,” Katharine replied.