by Hugh Walpole
The Trenchards had never been conceited people — conceit implied too definite a recognition of other people’s position and abilities. To be conceited you must think yourself abler, more interesting, richer, handsomer than someone else — and no Trenchard ever realised anyone else.
From the security of their Mirror they looked out upon the world. Only from inside the House could the Mirror be broken — surely then they were secure....
Katherine was always a very modest little girl, but her modesty had never led to any awkward shyness or embarrassment; she simply did not consider herself at all. She had been, in the early days, a funny little figure, ‘dumpy’, with serious brown eyes and a quiet voice. She was never in the way, better at home than at parties, she never ‘struck’ strangers, as did her younger sister Millicent, ‘who would be brilliant when she grew up’; Katherine would never be brilliant.
She had, from the first, a capacity for doing things for the family without attracting attention — and what more can selfish people desire? She was soon busy and occupied — necessary to the whole house. She very seldom laughed, but her eyes twinkled and she was excellent company did anyone care for her opinion. Only Uncle Tim of them all realised her intelligence — for the rest of the family she was slow ‘but a dear.’
It was in her capacity of ‘a dear’ that she finally stood to all of them. They adored because they knew that they never disappointed her. Although they had, none of them (save Henry) any concern as to their especial failings or weaknesses, it was nevertheless comforting to know that they might put anything upon Katherine, behave to her always in the way that was easiest to them, and that she would always think them splendid. They would not in public places put Katherine forward as a Fine Trenchard. Millicent would be a Fine Trenchard one day — but at home, in their cosy fortified security, there was no one like Katherine.
Katherine was perfect to them all.... Not that she did not sometimes have her tempers, her impatiences, her ‘moods’. They were puzzled when she was short with them, when she would not respond to their invitations for compliments, when she seemed to have some horrible doubt as to whether the Trenchard world was, after all, the only one — but they waited for the ‘mood’ to pass, and it passed very swiftly ... it is noteworthy however that never, in spite of their devotion to her, did they during these crises, attempt to help or console her. She stood alone, and at the back of their love there was always some shadow of fear.
Very happy had her early years been. The house at Garth, rambling, untidy, intimate, with the croquet-lawn in front of it, the little wild wood at the right of it, the high sheltering green fields at the left of it, the old church Tower above the little wood, the primroses and cuckoos, the owls and moonlight nights, the hot summer days with the hum of the reaping machine, the taste of crushed strawberries, the dim-sleepy voices from the village street. This was a world! The Old House had never changed — as she had grown it had dwindled perhaps, but ever, as the years passed, had enclosed more securely the passion of her heart. She saw herself standing in the dim passage that led to her bedroom, a tiny, stumpy figure. She could hear the voice of Miss Mayer, the governess, “Now, Katherine — come along, please — Millie’s in bed.”
She could smell the tallow of the candle, could hear the owls’ hoot from the dark window, could smell apples and roses somewhere, could remember how intensely she had caught that moment and held it, and carried it, for ever and ever, away with her. Yes, that was a World!
And, beyond the House, there was the Country. Every lane and wood and hill did she know. Those thick, deep, scented lanes that only Glebeshire in all the world can provide — the road to Rafiel, running, at first, with only a moment’s peep now and again of the sea, then plunging with dramatic fling, suddenly down into the heart of the Valley. There was Rafiel — Rafiel, the only Cove in all the world! How as the dog-cart bumped down that precipice had her heart been in her mouth, how magical the square harbour, the black Peak, the little wall of white-washed cottages, after that defeated danger!
There were all the other places — St. Lowe and Polwint, Polchester with the Cathedral and the Orchards and the cobbled streets, Grane Woods and Grane Castle, Rothin Woods, Roche St. Mary, Moore with the seadunes and the mists and rabbits, the Loroe river and the fishing-boats at Pelynt — world of perfect beauty and simplicity, days stained with the high glory of romance. And this was Trenchard Country!
London, coming to her afterwards, had, at first, been hated, only gradually accepted. She grew slowly fond of the old Westminster house, but the crowds about her confused and perplexed her. She was aware now that, perhaps, there were those in the world who cared nothing for the Trenchards. She flew from such confusion the more intensely into her devotion to her own people. It was as though, at the very first peep of the world, she had said to herself— “No. That is not my place. They have no need of me nor I of them. They would change me. I do not wish to be changed.”
She was aware of her own duty the more strongly because her younger sister, Millicent, had taken always the opposite outlook. Millicent, pretty, slender, witty, attractive, had always found home (even Garth and its glories) ‘a little slow’.
The family had always understood that it was natural for Millicent to find them slow — no pains had been spared over Millicent’s development. She had just finished her education in Paris and was coming back to London. Always future plans now were discussed with a view to finding amusement for Millicent. “Millie will be here then”. “I wonder whether Millie will like him.” “You’d better accept it. Millie will like to go.”
Beyond all the family Katherine loved Millicent. It had begun when Millie had been very small and Katherine had mothered her, — it had continued when Millie, growing older, had plunged into scrapes and demanded succour out of them again — it had continued when Katherine and Millie had developed under a cloud of governesses, Millie brilliant and idle, Katherine plodding and unenterprising, it had continued when Millie, two years ago, had gone to Paris, had written amusing, affectionate letters, had told “Darling Katie that there was no one, no one, no one, anywhere in all the world, to touch her — Mme. Roget was a pig, Mlle. Lefresne, who taught music, an angel, etc. etc.”
Now Millicent was coming home.... Katherine was aware that from none of the family did she receive more genuine affection than from Henry, and yet, strangely, she was often irritated with Henry. She wished that he were more tidy, less rude to strangers, less impulsive, more of a comfort and less of an anxiety to his father and mother. She was severe sometimes to Henry and then was sorry afterwards. She could ‘do anything with him,’ and wished therefore that he had more backbone. Of them all she understood her mother the best. She was very like her mother in many ways; she understood that inability to put things into words, that mild conviction that ‘everything was all right’, a conviction to be obtained only by shutting your eyes very tight. She understood, too, as no other member of the family understood, that Mrs. Trenchard’s devotion to her children was a passion as fierce, as unresting, as profound, and, possibly, as devastating as any religion, any superstition, any obsession. It was an obsession. It had in it all the glories, the dangers, the relentless ruthlessness of an overwhelming ‘idée fixe’ — that ‘idée fixe’ which is at every human being’s heart, and that, often undiscovered, unsuspected, transforms the world.... Katherine knew this.
For her father she had the comradeship of a play-fellow. She could not take her father very seriously — he did not wish that she should. She loved him always and he loved her in his ‘off’ moments, when he was not thinking of himself and his early Nineteenth Century — if he had any time that he could spare from himself it was given to her. She thought it quite natural that his spare time should be slender.
And, of them all, no one enquired as to her own heart, her thoughts, her wonders, her alarms and suspicions, her happiness, her desires. She would not if she could help it, enquire herself about these things — but sometimes she
was aware that life would not for ever, leave her alone. She had one friend who was not a Trenchard, and only one. This was Lady Seddon, who had been before her marriage a Beaminster and grand-daughter of the old Duchess of Wrexe. Rachel Beaminster had married Roddy Seddon. Shortly after their marriage he had been flung from his horse, and from that time had been always upon his back — it would always be so with him. They had one child — a boy of two — and they lived in a little house in Regent’s Park.
That friendship had been of Rachel Seddon’s making. She had driven herself in upon Katherine and, offering her baby as a reward, had lured Katherine into her company — but even to her, Katherine had not surrendered herself. Rachel Seddon was a Beaminster, and although the Beaminster power was now broken, about that family there lingered traditions of greatness and autocratic splendour. Neither Rachel nor Roddy Seddon was autocratic, but Katherine would not trust herself entirely to them. It was as though she was afraid that by doing so she would be disloyal to her own people.
This, then, was Katherine’s world.
Upon the morning of the November day when Millicent was to make, upon London, her triumphal descent from Paris, Katherine found herself, suddenly, in the middle of Wigmore Street, uneasy — Wigmore Street was mild, pleasantly lit with a low and dim November sun, humming with a little stir and scatter of voices and traffic, opening and shutting its doors, watching a drove of clouds, like shredded paper, sail through the faint blue sky above it. Katherine stopped for an instant to consider this strange uneasiness. She looked about her, thought, and decided that she would go and see Rachel Seddon.
Crossing a little finger of the Park, she stopped again. The shredded clouds were dancing now amongst the bare stiff branches of the trees and a grey mist, climbing over the expanse of green, spread like thin gauze from end to end of the rising ground. A little soughing wind seemed to creep about her feet. She stopped again and stood there, a solitary figure. For, perhaps, the first time in her life she considered herself. She knew, as she stood there, that she had for several days been aware of this uneasiness. It was as though someone had been knocking at a door for admittance. She had heard the knocking, but had refused to move, saying to herself that soon the sound would cease. But it had not ceased, it was more clamorous than before. She was frightened — why? Was it Millie’s return? She knew that it was not that....
Standing there, in the still Park, she seemed to hear something say to her “You are to be caught up.... Life is coming to you.... You cannot avoid it.... You are caught.”
She might have cried to the sky, the trees, the little pools of dead and sodden leaves “What is it? What is it? Do you hear anything?” A scent of rotting leaves and damp mist, brought by the little wind, invaded her. The pale sun struck through the moist air and smiled down, a globe of gold, upon her. There came to her that moment of revelation that tells human beings that, fine as they may think themselves, full of courage and independent of all men, Life, if it exert but the softest pressure, may be too strong for them — the armies of God, with their certain purpose, are revealed for a brief instant entrenched amongst the clouds. “If we crush you what matters it to Us?”
She hurried on her way, longing for the sound of friendly voices, and, when she found Rachel Seddon with her son in the nursery, the fire, the warm colours, the absurd rocking-horse, armies of glittering soldiers encamped upon the red carpet, the buzz of a sewing-machine in the next room, above all, Michael Seddon’s golden head and Rachel’s dark one, she could have cried aloud her relief.
Rachel, tall and slender, dark eyes and hair from a Russian mother, restless, impetuous, flinging her hands out in some gesture, catching her boy, suddenly, and kissing him, breaking off in the heart of one sentence to begin another, was a strange contrast to Katherine’s repose. Soon Katherine was on the floor and Michael, who loved her, had his arms about her neck.
“That’s how she ought always to be,” thought Rachel, looking down at her. “How could anyone ever say that she was plain! Roddy thinks her so.... He should see her now.”
Katherine looked up. “Rachel,” she said, “I was frightened just now in the Park. I don’t know why — I almost ran here. I’m desperately ashamed of myself.”
“You — frightened?”
“Yes, I thought someone was coming out from behind a tree to slip a bag over my head, I — Oh! I don’t know what I thought....”
Then she would say no more. She played with Michael and tried to tell him a story. Here she was, as she had often been before, unsuccessful. She was too serious over the business, would not risk improbabilities and wanted to emphasise the moral. She was not sufficiently absurd ... gravely her eyes sought for a decent ending. She looked up and found that Michael had left her and was moving his soldiers.
The sun, slanting in, struck lines of silver and gold from their armour across the floor.
As she got up and stood there, patting herself to see whether she were tidy, her laughing eyes caught Rachel.
“There! You see! I’m no good at that! — no imagination — father’s always said so.”
“Katie,” Rachel said, catching her soft, warm, almost chubby hand, “there’s nothing the matter, is there?”
“The matter! No! what should there be?”
“It’s so odd for you to say what you did just now. And I think — I don’t know — you’re different to-day.”
“No, I’m not.” Katherine looked at her. “It was the damp Park, all the bare trees and nobody about.”
“But it’s so unlike you to think of damp Parks and bare trees.”
“Well — perhaps it’s because Millie’s coming back from Paris this afternoon. I shall be terrified of her — so smart she’ll be!”
“Give her my love and bring her here as soon as she’ll come. She’ll amuse Roddy.” She paused, searching in Katherine’s brown eyes— “Katie — if there’s ever — anything — anything — I can help you in or advise you — or do for you. You know, don’t you?... You always will be so independent. You don’t tell me things. Remember I’ve had my times — worse times than you guess.”
Katherine kissed her. “It’s all right, Rachel, there’s nothing the matter — except that ... no, nothing at all. Good-bye, dear. Don’t come down. I’ll bring Millie over.”
She was gone — Rachel watched her demure, careful progress until she was caught and hidden by the trees.
There had been a little truth in her words when she told Rachel that she dreaded Millie’s arrival. If she had ever, in the regular routine of her happy and busy life, looked forward to any event as dramatic or a crisis, that moment had always been Millie’s return from Paris. Millie had been happy and affectionate at home, but nevertheless a critic. She had never quite seen Life from inside the Trenchard Mirror nor had she quite seen it from the vision of family affection. She loved them all — but she found them slow, unadventurous, behind the times. That was the awful thing— ‘behind the times’ — a terrible accusation. If Millie had felt that (two years ago) how vehemently would she feel it now!... and Katherine knew that as she considered this criticism of Millie’s she was angry and indignant and warm with an urgent, passionate desire to protect her mother from any criticism whatever. “Behind the times”, indeed — Millie had better not.... And then she remembered the depth of her love for Millie ... nothing should interfere with that.
She was in her bedroom, after luncheon, considering these things when there was a tap on the door and Aunt Betty entered. In her peep round the door to see whether she might come in, in the friendly, hopeful, reassuring butterfly of a smile that hovered about her lips, in the little stir of her clothes as she moved as though every article of attire was assuring her that it was still there, and was very happy to be there too, there was the whole of her history written.
It might be said that she had no history, but to such an assertion, did she hear it, she would offer an indignant denial, could she be indignant about anything. She had been perfectly, admirably ha
ppy for fifty-six years, and that, after all, is to have a history to some purpose. She had nothing whatever to be happy about. She had no money at all, and had never had any. She had, for a great number of years, been compelled to live upon her brother’s charity, and she was the most independent soul alive. In strict truth she had, of her own, thirty pounds a year, and the things that she did with those thirty pounds are outside and beyond any calculation. “There’s always my money, George,” she would say when her brother had gloomy forebodings about investments. She lived, in fact, a minute, engrossing, adventurous, flaming life of her own, and the flame, the colour, the fire were drawn from her own unconquerable soul. In her bedroom — faded wall-paper, faded carpet, faded chairs because no one ever thought of her needs — she had certain possessions, a cedar-wood box, a row of books, a water-colour sketch, photographs of the family (Katherine 3½, Vincent 8 years old, Millicent 10 years, etc., etc.), a model of the Albert Memorial done in pink wax, a brass tray from India, some mother-of-pearl shells, two china cats given to her, one Christmas day, by a very young Katherine — those possessions were her world. She felt that within that bedroom everything was her own. She would allow no other pictures on the wall, no books not hers in the book-case. One day when she had some of the thirty pounds ‘to play with’ she would cover the chairs with beautiful cretonne and she would buy a rug — so she had said for the last twenty years. She withdrew, when life was tiresome, when her sister Aggie was difficult, when there were quarrels in the family (she hated quarrels) into this world of her own, and would suddenly break out in the midst of a conversation with “I might have the bed there” or “There isn’t really room for another chair if I had one,” and then would make a little noise like a top, ‘hum, hum, hum’. In defiance of her serenity she could assume a terrible rage and indignation were any member of the family attacked. Her brother George and Katherine she loved best — she did not, although she would never acknowledge it, care greatly for Henry — Millie she admired and feared. She had only to think of Katherine and her eyes would fill with tears ... she was a very fount of sentiment. She had suffered much from her sister Agnes, but she had learnt now the art of withdrawal so perfectly that she could escape at any time without her sister being aware of it. “You aren’t listening, Elizabeth,” Agnes would cry suspiciously.