Night and Day
at the faces of the passers-by to see whether their eyes rested on her
for a moment longer than was natural, or with any curiosity. But having
smoothed out her gloves, and done what she could to look as usual, she
forgot spectators, and was once more given up to her desperate desire
to find Ralph Denham. It was a desire now—wild, irrational,
unexplained, resembling something felt in childhood. Once more she
blamed herself bitterly for her carelessness. But finding herself
opposite the Tube station, she pulled herself up and took counsel
swiftly, as of old. It flashed upon her that she would go at once to
Mary Datchet, and ask her to give her Ralph’s address. The decision was
a relief, not only in giving her a goal, but in providing her with a
rational excuse for her own actions. It gave her a goal certainly, but
the fact of having a goal led her to dwell exclusively upon her
obsession; so that when she rang the bell of Mary’s flat, she did not
for a moment consider how this demand would strike Mary. To her extreme
annoyance Mary was not at home; a charwoman opened the door. All
Katharine could do was to accept the invitation to wait. She waited
for, perhaps, fifteen minutes, and spent them in pacing from one end of
the room to the other without intermission. When she heard Mary’s key
in the door she paused in front of the fireplace, and Mary found her
standing upright, looking at once expectant and determined, like a
person who has come on an errand of such importance that it must be
broached without preface.
Mary exclaimed in surprise.
“Yes, yes,” Katharine said, brushing these remarks aside, as if they
were in the way.
“Have you had tea?”
“Oh yes,” she said, thinking that she had had tea hundreds of years
ago, somewhere or other.
Mary paused, took off her gloves, and, finding matches, proceeded to
light the fire.
Katharine checked her with an impatient movement, and said:
“Don’t light the fire for me.... I want to know Ralph Denham’s
address.”
She was holding a pencil and preparing to write on the envelope. She
waited with an imperious expression.
“The Apple Orchard, Mount Ararat Road, Highgate,” Mary said, speaking
slowly and rather strangely.
“Oh, I remember now!” Katharine exclaimed, with irritation at her own
stupidity. “I suppose it wouldn’t take twenty minutes to drive there?”
She gathered up her purse and gloves and seemed about to go.
“But you won’t find him,” said Mary, pausing with a match in her hand.
Katharine, who had already turned towards the door, stopped and looked
at her.
“Why? Where is he?” she asked.
“He won’t have left his office.”
“But he has left the office,” she replied. “The only question is will
he have reached home yet? He went to see me at Chelsea; I tried to meet
him and missed him. He will have found no message to explain. So I must
find him—as soon as possible.”
Mary took in the situation at her leisure.
“But why not telephone?” she said.
Katharine immediately dropped all that she was holding; her strained
expression relaxed, and exclaiming, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of
that!” she seized the telephone receiver and gave her number. Mary
looked at her steadily, and then left the room. At length Katharine
heard, through all the superimposed weight of London, the mysterious
sound of feet in her own house mounting to the little room, where she
could almost see the pictures and the books; she listened with extreme
intentness to the preparatory vibrations, and then established her
identity.
“Has Mr. Denham called?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Did he ask for me?”
“Yes. We said you were out, miss.”
“Did he leave any message?”
“No. He went away. About twenty minutes ago, miss.”
Katharine hung up the receiver. She walked the length of the room in
such acute disappointment that she did not at first perceive Mary’s
absence. Then she called in a harsh and peremptory tone:
“Mary.”
Mary was taking off her outdoor things in the bedroom. She heard
Katharine call her. “Yes,” she said, “I shan’t be a moment.” But the
moment prolonged itself, as if for some reason Mary found satisfaction
in making herself not only tidy, but seemly and ornamented. A stage in
her life had been accomplished in the last months which left its traces
for ever upon her bearing. Youth, and the bloom of youth, had receded,
leaving the purpose of her face to show itself in the hollower cheeks,
the firmer lips, the eyes no longer spontaneously observing at random,
but narrowed upon an end which was not near at hand. This woman was now
a serviceable human being, mistress of her own destiny, and thus, by
some combination of ideas, fit to be adorned with the dignity of silver
chains and glowing brooches. She came in at her leisure and asked:
“Well, did you get an answer?”
“He has left Chelsea already,” Katharine replied.
“Still, he won’t be home yet,” said Mary.
Katharine was once more irresistibly drawn to gaze upon an imaginary
map of London, to follow the twists and turns of unnamed streets.
“I’ll ring up his home and ask whether he’s back.” Mary crossed to the
telephone and, after a series of brief remarks, announced:
“No. His sister says he hasn’t come back yet.”
“Ah!” She applied her ear to the telephone once more. “They’ve had a
message. He won’t be back to dinner.”
“Then what is he going to do?”
Very pale, and with her large eyes fixed not so much upon Mary as upon
vistas of unresponding blankness, Katharine addressed herself also not
so much to Mary as to the unrelenting spirit which now appeared to mock
her from every quarter of her survey.
After waiting a little time Mary remarked indifferently:
“I really don’t know.” Slackly lying back in her armchair, she watched
the little flames beginning to creep among the coals indifferently, as
if they, too, were very distant and indifferent.
Katharine looked at her indignantly and rose.
“Possibly he may come here,” Mary continued, without altering the
abstract tone of her voice. “It would be worth your while to wait if
you want to see him to-night.” She bent forward and touched the wood,
so that the flames slipped in between the interstices of the coal.
Katharine reflected. “I’ll wait half an hour,” she said.
Mary rose, went to the table, spread out her papers under the
green-shaded lamp and, with an action that was becoming a habit,
twisted a lock of hair round and round in her fingers. Once she looked
unperceived at her visitor, who never moved, who sat so still, with
eyes so intent, that you could almost fancy that she was watching
something, some face that never looked up at her. Mary found herself
unable to go on writing. She turned her eyes away, but only to be aware
of the presence of what Katharine looked at. There were ghosts in the
room, and one, strangely and sadly, was the ghost of herself. The
minutes went by.
“What would be the time now?” said Katharine at last. The half-hour was
not quite spent.
“I’m going to get dinner ready,” said Mary, rising from her table.
“Then I’ll go,” said Katharine.
“Why don’t you stay? Where are you going?”
Katharine looked round the room, conveying her uncertainty in her
glance.
“Perhaps I might find him,” she mused.
“But why should it matter? You’ll see him another day.”
Mary spoke, and intended to speak, cruelly enough.
“I was wrong to come here,” Katharine replied.
Their eyes met with antagonism, and neither flinched.
“You had a perfect right to come here,” Mary answered.
A loud knocking at the door interrupted them. Mary went to open it, and
returning with some note or parcel, Katharine looked away so that Mary
might not read her disappointment.
“Of course you had a right to come,” Mary repeated, laying the note
upon the table.
“No,” said Katharine. “Except that when one’s desperate one has a sort
of right. I am desperate. How do I know what’s happening to him now? He
may do anything. He may wander about the streets all night. Anything
may happen to him.”
She spoke with a self-abandonment that Mary had never seen in her.
“You know you exaggerate; you’re talking nonsense,” she said roughly.
“Mary, I must talk—I must tell you—”
“You needn’t tell me anything,” Mary interrupted her. “Can’t I see for
myself?”
“No, no,” Katharine exclaimed. “It’s not that—”
Her look, passing beyond Mary, beyond the verge of the room and out
beyond any words that came her way, wildly and passionately, convinced
Mary that she, at any rate, could not follow such a glance to its end.
She was baffled; she tried to think herself back again into the height
of her love for Ralph. Pressing her fingers upon her eyelids, she
murmured:
“You forget that I loved him too. I thought I knew him. I _did_ know
him.”
And yet, what had she known? She could not remember it any more. She
pressed her eyeballs until they struck stars and suns into her
darkness. She convinced herself that she was stirring among ashes. She
desisted. She was astonished at her discovery. She did not love Ralph
any more. She looked back dazed into the room, and her eyes rested upon
the table with its lamp-lit papers. The steady radiance seemed for a
second to have its counterpart within her; she shut her eyes; she
opened them and looked at the lamp again; another love burnt in the
place of the old one, or so, in a momentary glance of amazement, she
guessed before the revelation was over and the old surroundings
asserted themselves. She leant in silence against the mantelpiece.
“There are different ways of loving,” she murmured, half to herself, at
length.
Katharine made no reply and seemed unaware of her words. She seemed
absorbed in her own thoughts.
“Perhaps he’s waiting in the street again to-night,” she exclaimed.
“I’ll go now. I might find him.”
“It’s far more likely that he’ll come here,” said Mary, and Katharine,
after considering for a moment, said:
“I’ll wait another half-hour.”
She sank down into her chair again, and took up the same position which
Mary had compared to the position of one watching an unseeing face. She
watched, indeed, not a face, but a procession, not of people, but of
life itself: the good and bad; the meaning; the past, the present, and
the future. All this seemed apparent to her, and she was not ashamed of
her extravagance so much as exalted to one of the pinnacles of
existence, where it behoved the world to do her homage. No one but she
herself knew what it meant to miss Ralph Denham on that particular
night; into this inadequate event crowded feelings that the great
crises of life might have failed to call forth. She had missed him, and
knew the bitterness of all failure; she desired him, and knew the
torment of all passion. It did not matter what trivial accidents led to
this culmination. Nor did she care how extravagant she appeared, nor
how openly she showed her feelings.
When the dinner was ready Mary told her to come, and she came
submissively, as if she let Mary direct her movements for her. They ate
and drank together almost in silence, and when Mary told her to eat
more, she ate more; when she was told to drink wine, she drank it.
Nevertheless, beneath this superficial obedience, Mary knew that she
was following her own thoughts unhindered. She was not inattentive so
much as remote; she looked at once so unseeing and so intent upon some
vision of her own that Mary gradually felt more than protective—she
became actually alarmed at the prospect of some collision between
Katharine and the forces of the outside world. Directly they had done,
Katharine announced her intention of going.
“But where are you going to?” Mary asked, desiring vaguely to hinder
her.
“Oh, I’m going home—no, to Highgate perhaps.”
Mary saw that it would be useless to try to stop her. All she could do