Night and Day
paper into many separate pieces. This was a sign that Katharine had
asserted herself and put to him a remark that could not be met
poetically. Her remark was entirely destructive of poetry, since it was
to the effect that poetry had nothing whatever to do with her; all her
friends spent their lives in making up phrases, she said; all his
feeling was an illusion, and next moment, as if to taunt him with his
impotence, she had sunk into one of those dreamy states which took no
account whatever of his existence. Ralph was roused by his passionate
attempts to attract her attention to the fact that he was standing in
the middle of his little private room in Lincoln’s Inn Fields at a
considerable distance from Chelsea. The physical distance increased his
desperation. He began pacing in circles until the process sickened him,
and then took a sheet of paper for the composition of a letter which,
he vowed before he began it, should be sent that same evening.
It was a difficult matter to put into words; poetry would have done it
better justice, but he must abstain from poetry. In an infinite number
of half-obliterated scratches he tried to convey to her the possibility
that although human beings are woefully ill-adapted for communication,
still, such communion is the best we know; moreover, they make it
possible for each to have access to another world independent of
personal affairs, a world of law, of philosophy, or more strangely a
world such as he had had a glimpse of the other evening when together
they seemed to be sharing something, creating something, an ideal—a
vision flung out in advance of our actual circumstances. If this golden
rim were quenched, if life were no longer circled by an illusion (but
was it an illusion after all?), then it would be too dismal an affair
to carry to an end; so he wrote with a sudden spurt of conviction which
made clear way for a space and left at least one sentence standing
whole. Making every allowance for other desires, on the whole this
conclusion appeared to him to justify their relationship. But the
conclusion was mystical; it plunged him into thought. The difficulty
with which even this amount was written, the inadequacy of the words,
and the need of writing under them and over them others which, after
all, did no better, led him to leave off before he was at all satisfied
with his production, and unable to resist the conviction that such
rambling would never be fit for Katharine’s eye. He felt himself more
cut off from her than ever. In idleness, and because he could do
nothing further with words, he began to draw little figures in the
blank spaces, heads meant to resemble her head, blots fringed with
flames meant to represent—perhaps the entire universe. From this
occupation he was roused by the message that a lady wished to speak to
him. He had scarcely time to run his hands through his hair in order to
look as much like a solicitor as possible, and to cram his papers into
his pocket, already overcome with shame that another eye should behold
them, when he realized that his preparations were needless. The lady
was Mrs. Hilbery.
“I hope you’re not disposing of somebody’s fortune in a hurry,” she
remarked, gazing at the documents on his table, “or cutting off an
entail at one blow, because I want to ask you to do me a favor. And
Anderson won’t keep his horse waiting. (Anderson is a perfect tyrant,
but he drove my dear father to the Abbey the day they buried him.) I
made bold to come to you, Mr. Denham, not exactly in search of legal
assistance (though I don’t know who I’d rather come to, if I were in
trouble), but in order to ask your help in settling some tiresome
little domestic affairs that have arisen in my absence. I’ve been to
Stratford-on-Avon (I must tell you all about that one of these days),
and there I got a letter from my sister-in-law, a dear kind goose who
likes interfering with other people’s children because she’s got none
of her own. (We’re dreadfully afraid that she’s going to lose the sight
of one of her eyes, and I always feel that our physical ailments are so
apt to turn into mental ailments. I think Matthew Arnold says something
of the same kind about Lord Byron.) But that’s neither here nor there.”
The effect of these parentheses, whether they were introduced for that
purpose or represented a natural instinct on Mrs. Hilbery’s part to
embellish the bareness of her discourse, gave Ralph time to perceive
that she possessed all the facts of their situation and was come,
somehow, in the capacity of ambassador.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Lord Byron,” Mrs. Hilbery continued,
with a little laugh, “though I know that both you and Katharine, unlike
other young people of your generation, still find him worth reading.”
She paused. “I’m so glad you’ve made Katharine read poetry, Mr.
Denham!” she exclaimed, “and feel poetry, and look poetry! She can’t
talk it yet, but she will—oh, she will!”
Ralph, whose hand was grasped and whose tongue almost refused to
articulate, somehow contrived to say that there were moments when he
felt hopeless, utterly hopeless, though he gave no reason for this
statement on his part.
“But you care for her?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired.
“Good God!” he exclaimed, with a vehemence which admitted of no
question.
“It’s the Church of England service you both object to?” Mrs. Hilbery
inquired innocently.
“I don’t care a damn what service it is,” Ralph replied.
“You would marry her in Westminster Abbey if the worst came to the
worst?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired.
“I would marry her in St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Ralph replied. His doubts
upon this point, which were always roused by Katharine’s presence, had
vanished completely, and his strongest wish in the world was to be with
her immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined
her slipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of
mind in which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to
possess her.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Mrs. Hilbery. She thanked Him for a variety of
blessings: for the conviction with which the young man spoke; and not
least for the prospect that on her daughter’s wedding-day the noble
cadences, the stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriage
service would resound over the heads of a distinguished congregation
gathered together near the very spot where her father lay quiescent
with the other poets of England. The tears filled her eyes; but she
remembered simultaneously that her carriage was waiting, and with dim
eyes she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs.
It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception the most
unpleasant he had ever taken. His only wish was to go as straightly and
quickly as possible to Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared that Mrs.
Hilbery either ignored or thought fit to baffle this desire by
interposing various errands of her own. She stopped the carriage at
post-offices, and coffee-shops, and shops of inscrutable dignity where
the aged attendants had to be greeted as old friends; and, catching
sight of the dome of St. Paul’s above the irregular spires of Ludgate
Hill, she pulled the cord impulsively, and gave directions that
Anderson should drive them there. But Anderson had reasons of his own
for discouraging afternoon worship, and kept his horse’s nose
obstinately towards the west. After some minutes, Mrs. Hilbery realized
the situation, and accepted it good-humoredly, apologizing to Ralph for
his disappointment.
“Never mind,” she said, “we’ll go to St. Paul’s another day, and it may
turn out, though I can’t promise that it _will_, that he’ll take us
past Westminster Abbey, which would be even better.”
Ralph was scarcely aware of what she went on to say. Her mind and body
both seemed to have floated into another region of quick-sailing clouds
rapidly passing across each other and enveloping everything in a
vaporous indistinctness. Meanwhile he remained conscious of his own
concentrated desire, his impotence to bring about anything he wished,
and his increasing agony of impatience.
Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery pulled the cord with such decision that even
Anderson had to listen to the order which she leant out of the window
to give him. The carriage pulled up abruptly in the middle of Whitehall
before a large building dedicated to one of our Government offices. In
a second Mrs. Hilbery was mounting the steps, and Ralph was left in too
acute an irritation by this further delay even to speculate what errand
took her now to the Board of Education. He was about to jump from the
carriage and take a cab, when Mrs. Hilbery reappeared talking genially
to a figure who remained hidden behind her.
“There’s plenty of room for us all,” she was saying. “Plenty of room.
We could find space for FOUR of you, William,” she added, opening the
door, and Ralph found that Rodney had now joined their company. The two
men glanced at each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most
acute form were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could read them
all expressed beyond the eloquence of words upon the face of his
unfortunate companion. But Mrs. Hilbery was either completely unseeing
or determined to appear so. She went on talking; she talked, it seemed
to both the young men, to some one outside, up in the air. She talked
about Shakespeare, she apostrophized the human race, she proclaimed the
virtues of divine poetry, she began to recite verses which broke down
in the middle. The great advantage of her discourse was that it was
self-supporting. It nourished itself until Cheyne Walk was reached upon
half a dozen grunts and murmurs.
“Now,” she said, alighting briskly at her door, “here we are!”
There was something airy and ironical in her voice and expression as
she turned upon the doorstep and looked at them, which filled both
Rodney and Denham with the same misgivings at having trusted their
fortunes to such an ambassador; and Rodney actually hesitated upon the
threshold and murmured to Denham:
“You go in, Denham. I...” He was turning tail, but the door opening and
the familiar look of the house asserting its charm, he bolted in on the
wake of the others, and the door shut upon his escape. Mrs. Hilbery led
the way upstairs. She took them to the drawing-room. The fire burnt as
usual, the little tables were laid with china and silver. There was
nobody there.
“Ah,” she said, “Katharine’s not here. She must be upstairs in her
room. You have something to say to her, I know, Mr. Denham. You can
find your way?” she vaguely indicated the ceiling with a gesture of her
hand. She had become suddenly serious and composed, mistress in her own
house. The gesture with which she dismissed him had a dignity that
Ralph never forgot. She seemed to make him free with a wave of her hand
to all that she possessed. He left the room.
The Hilberys’ house was tall, possessing many stories and passages with
closed doors, all, once he had passed the drawing-room floor, unknown
to Ralph. He mounted as high as he could and knocked at the first door
he came to.
“May I come in?” he asked.
A voice from within answered “Yes.”
He was conscious of a large window, full of light, of a bare table, and
of a long looking-glass. Katharine had risen, and was standing with
some white papers in her hand, which slowly fluttered to the ground as
she saw her visitor. The explanation was a short one. The sounds were
inarticulate; no one could have understood the meaning save themselves.
As if the forces of the world were all at work to tear them asunder
they sat, clasping hands, near enough to be taken even by the malicious
eye of Time himself for a united couple, an indivisible unit.
“Don’t move, don’t go,” she begged of him, when he stooped to gather