by Hugh Walpole
In any case, to begin with, what was her sister-in-law Harriet Trenchard thinking? No one ever knew what Harriet Trenchard thought; and foolish and hasty observers said that that was because Harriet Trenchard never thought at all. Aggie Trenchard was neither foolish nor hasty; she was afraid of Harriet because, after all these years, she knew nothing about her. She had never penetrated that indifferent stolidity. Harriet had never spoken to her intimately about anything, nor had Harriet once displayed any emotions, whether of surprise or anger, happiness or grief, but Aggie was penetrating enough to fear that brooding quiet.
At least Aggie knew her sister-in-law well enough to realise that her children were an ever-present, ever-passionate element in her life. On certain occasions, concerning Millie, Katherine, Henry or Vincent, Aggie had seen that silence, for a moment, quiver as a still lake trembles with a sudden shake or roll when the storm is raging across the hills — especially was Katherine linked to her mother’s most intimate hold upon life, even though the words that they exchanged were of the most commonplace; Aunt Aggie knew that, and strangely, obscurely, she was moved, at times, to sudden impulses of bitter jealousy. Why was it that no one cared for her as Katherine cared for her mother? What was there in Harriet to care for?... and yet — nevertheless, Aggie Trenchard loved her sister-in-law. With regard to this present business Aggie knew, with sufficient assurance, that Harriet disliked Philip Mark, had disliked him from the first. Had Harriet noticed this change in her daughter, and had she drawn her conclusions? What would Harriet say if...? Aunt Aggie added stitches to the green parrot’s tail with every comfortable assurance that ‘in a time or two’, there would be plenty of trouble.
Ultimately, through it all, it was her jealousy that moved her and her jealousy that provoked the first outburst ... instantly, without warning, new impulses, new relationships, new motives were working amongst them all, and their world was changed.
Upon an afternoon, Aunt Aggie hearing that Henry wished to change a novel at Mudie’s Library (that very novel that he had been reading on the day of Philip’s arrival) offered to take it for him. This was at luncheon, and she felt, because she liked her food and barley-water, a sudden impulse towards the Ideal Unselfishness. She made her offer, and then reflected that it would be very troublesome to go so far as Oxford Street; she therefore allowed Katherine to accept the mission, retaining at the same time her own nobility. She became quite angry: “Of course,” she said, “you consider me too old to do anything — to sit in a corner and sew is all I’m good for — well, well — you’ll be old yourself one day, Katherine, my dear. I should have liked to have helped Henry.... However ...”
She was conscious, during the afternoon, of some injustice; she had been treated badly. At dinner that night Rocket forgot the footstool that was essential to her comfort; she was compelled at last to ask him for it. He had never forgotten it before; they all thought her an old woman who didn’t matter; no one troubled now about her — well, they should see....
Great Aunt Sarah was, as often happened to her, rheumatic but Spartan in bed. The ladies, when they left the dining-room and closed around the drawing-room fire, were Mrs. Trenchard, Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, Katherine and Millie. Happy and comfortable enough they looked, with the shadowed dusky room behind them and the blaze in front of them. In the world outside it was a night of intense frost: here they were reflected in the Mirror, Mrs. Trenchard’s large gold locket (Henry as a baby inside it), Aggie’s plump neck and black silk dress, Aunt Betty’s darting, sparkling eyes, Millie’s lovely shoulders, Katherine’s rather dumpy ones — there they all were, right inside the Mirror, with a reflected fire to make them cosy and the walls ever so thick and old. The freezing night could not touch them.
“Rocket’s getting very old and careless,” said Aggie.
Everyone had known that Aunt Aggie was out of temper this evening, and everyone, therefore, was prepared for a tiresome hour or two. Rocket was a great favourite; Mrs. Trenchard, her arms folded across her bosom, her face the picture of placid content, said:
“Oh, Aggie, do you think so?... I don’t.”
“No, of course, you don’t, Harriet,” answered her sister sharply. “He takes care with you. Of course he does. But if you considered your sister sometimes—”
“My dear Aggie!” Mrs. Trenchard, as she spoke, bent forward and very quietly picked up a bright green silk thread from the carpet.
“Oh, I’m not complaining! That’s a thing I don’t believe in! After all, if you think Rocket’s perfection I’ve no more to say. I want others to be comfortable — for myself I care nothing. It is for the rest of the family.”
“We’re quite comfortable, Aunt Aggie, thank you,” said Millie laughing.
“I hope you don’t think, Harriet,” said Aggie, disregarding her niece, “that I’m complaining — I—”
Mrs. Trenchard leant towards her, holding out the thread of green silk!
“That must be from your silks, Aggie dear,” she said. “It’s just the colour of your parrot’s tail. I couldn’t think what it was, lying there on the carpet.”
It was then that Katherine, who had paid no attention to this little conversation but had followed her own thoughts, said:
“Oh! how careless of me! I never took Henry’s book, after all — and I went right up Oxford Street too!”
This was unfortunate, because it reminded Aunt Aggie of something that she had very nearly forgotten. Of course Katherine had never intended to take the book — she had simply offered to do so because she thought her Aunt old, feeble, and incapable.
“Really, Katherine,” said Aunt Aggie, “you might have let me take it after all. I may be useless in most ways and not worth anyone’s consideration, but at least I’m still able to walk up Oxford Street in safety!”
Her aunt’s tones were so bitter that Katherine looked across at her in some dismay.
Aunt Betty did not assist the affair by saying:
“Why, Aggie dear, who ever supposed you couldn’t; I’m sure you can do anything you want to!”
“Well, perhaps, next time,” Aunt Aggie said sharply. “When I offer some help someone will listen to me. I should not have forgotten the book.”
“I can’t think why I did,” said Katherine, “I remembered it just before I started, and then something happened—”
Aunt Aggie looked about her, and thought that this would be a very good opportunity for discovering the real state of Katherine’s mind.
“You must take care, Katherine dear,” she said, “you don’t seem to me to have been quite yourself lately. I’ve noticed a number of little things. You’re tired, I think.”
Katherine laughed. “Why should I be? I’ve had nothing to make me.”
It was then that Aunt Aggie caught a look of strange, almost furtive anxiety in Harriet’s eyes. Following this, for the swiftest moment, Katherine and her mother exchanged a gleam of affection, of reassurance, of confidence.
“Ah!” thought Aunt Aggie, “they’re laughing at me. Everyone’s laughing at me.”
“My dear Katherine,” she snapped, “I’m sure I don’t know what’s tired you, but I think you must realise what I mean. You are not your normal self; and, if your old aunt may say so, that’s a pity.”
Millie, looking across at her sister, was astonished to see the colour rising in her cheeks. Katherine was annoyed! Katherine minded Aunt Aggie! Katherine, who was never out of temper — never perturbed! and at Aunt Aggie!
“Really, Aunt Aggie,” Katherine said, “it’s very tiresome if all the family are going to watch one day and night as though one were something from the Zoo. Tiresome is not nearly strong enough.”
Her aunt smiled bitterly.
“It’s only my affection for you,” she said. “But of course you don’t want that. Why should you? One day, however, you may remember that someone once cared whether you were tired or not.”
Aunt Aggie’s hands trembled on her lap.
Katherine shook her
head impatiently.
“I’m very grateful for your kindness — but I’d much rather be left alone. I’m not tired, nor odd, nor anything — so, please, don’t tell me that I am.”
Aggie rose from her chair, and very slowly with trembling fingers drew her work together. “I think,” she said, her voice quivering a little, “that I’ll go to bed. Next time you wish to insult me, Katherine, I’d rather you did it when we were alone.”
A very slow and stately figure, she walked down the drawing-room and disappeared.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Oh, dear!” cried Katherine, “I’m so sorry!” She looked round upon them all, and saw quite clearly that they were surprised at her. Again behind Mrs. Trenchard’s eyes there hovered that suspicion of anxiety.
“What did I do? What did I say? Aunt Aggie’s so funny.” Then, as still they did not answer, she turned round upon them: “Have I been cross and tiresome lately? Have you all noticed it? Tell me.”
Aunt Betty said, “No, dear, of course not.”
Millie said, “What does it matter what Aunt Aggie says?”
Mrs. Trenchard said, “There’s another of Aggie’s green threads. Under your chair, Millie dear. I’d better go up and see whether she wants anything.”
But Katherine rose and, standing for an instant with a little half-smile, half-frown, surveying them, moved then slowly away from them down the room.
“No. I’ll go, Mother, and apologise. I suppose I was horrid.” She left them.
She went up through the dark passages slowly, meditatively. She waited for a moment outside her aunt’s door and then knocked, heard then her aunt’s voice, “Come in!” — in tones that showed that she had been expecting some ambassador.
Katherine stood by the door, then moved forward, put her arms about Aunt Aggie and kissed her.
“I’m so sorry. I’m afraid that I hurt you. You know that I didn’t mean to.”
Upon Aunt Aggie’s dried cheeks there hovered a tiny cold and glassy tear. She drew back from Katherine’s embrace, then with a strange, almost feverish movement caught Katherine’s hand.
“It wasn’t, my dear, that you hurt me. I expect I’m too sensitive — that has always been my misfortune. But I felt” (another glassy tear now upon the other cheek) “that you and Millie are finding me tiresome now.”
“Aunt Aggie! Of course not!”
“I wish to be of some use — it is my continual prayer — some use to someone — and you make me feel — but of course you are young and impatient — that I’d be better perhaps out of the way.”
Katherine answered her very gravely: “If I’ve ever made you feel that for a moment, Aunt Aggie, there’s nothing too bad for me. But how can you say such a thing? Aren’t you a little unjust?”
The two tears had disappeared.
“I daresay I am, my dear, I daresay I am — or seem so to you. Old people often do to young ones. But I’m not unjust, I think, in fancying that you yourself have changed lately. I made you angry when I said that just now, but I felt it my duty—”
Katherine was silent. Aunt Aggie watched her with bright, inquisitive eyes, from which tears were now very far away.
“Well, we won’t say any more, dear. My fault is, perhaps, that I am too anxious to do things for others, and so may seem to you young ones interfering. I don’t know, I’m sure. It has always been my way. I’m glad indeed when you tell me that nothing is the matter. To my old eyes it seems that ever since Mr. Mark stayed here the house has not been the same. You have not been the same.”
“Mr. Mark?” Katherine’s voice was sharp, then suddenly dropped and, after an instant’s silence, was soft, “You’ve got Mr. Mark on the brain, Aunt Aggie.”
“Well, my dear, I didn’t like him. I’m sure he was very bad for Henry. But then I’m old-fashioned, I suppose. Mr. Mark shocked me, I confess. Russia must be a very wild country.”
Then, for a space, they looked at one another. Katherine said nothing, only, her cheeks flushed, her breath coming sharply, stared into the mirror on the dressing-table. Aunt Aggie faced in this silence something alarming and uneasy; it was as though they were, both of them, listening for some sound, but the house was very still.
“I think I’ll go to bed, my dear. Kiss me, Katherine. Don’t forget that I’m older than you, dear. I know something of the world — yes ... good-night, my dear.”
They embraced; Katherine left the room. Her cheeks were flaming; her body seemed wrapt in dry, scorching heat. She hurried, her heart beating so loudly that it seemed to her to fill the passage with sound, into her own room.
She did not switch on the electric-light, but stood there in the darkness, the room very cool and half-shadowed; some reflected outside light made a pool of grey twilight upon the floor, and just above this pool Katherine stood, quite motionless, her head raised, her hands tightly clasped together. She knew. That moment in her aunt’s room had told her!
She was lifted, by one instant of glorious revelation, out of herself, her body, her life, and caught up into her divine heaven, could look down upon that other arid, mordant world with eyes of incredulous happiness.
She loved Philip Mark. She had always loved him. She had never loved anyone before. She had thought that life was enough with its duties, its friendships, its little pleasures and little sorrows. She had never lived; she was born now here in the still security of her room.... The clocks were striking ten, the light on the carpet quivered, dimly she could see her books, her bed, her furniture. Some voice, very far away, called her name, waited and then called again — called the old Katherine, who was dead now ... dead and gone ... buried in Aunt Aggie’s room. The new Katherine had powers, demands, values, insistences, of which the old Katherine had never dreamed.
Katherine, at this instant, asked herself no questions — whether he loved her, what the family would say, how she herself would face a new world, why it was that, through all these weeks, she had not known that she loved him? She asked herself nothing.... Only waited, motionless, staring in front of her.
Then suddenly her heart was so weighed down with happiness that she was utterly weary; her knees trembled, her hands wavered as though seeking some support. She turned, fell down on her knees beside the bed, her face sank deep in her hands and so remained, thinking of nothing, conscious of nothing, her spirit bathed in an intensity of overwhelming joy.
She recovered, instantly in the days that followed, her natural sweetness; she was, as all the household, with relief, discovered, the real Katherine again. She did not to herself seem to have any existence at all. The days in this early December were days of frost, red skies, smoking leaves, and hovering silver mists that clouded the chimneys, made the sun a remotely yellow ball, shot sunset and sunrise with all rainbow colours.
Beautiful days — she passed through them with no consciousness of herself, her friends, not even of Philip. No thought of anything was possible, only that breathless, burning, heart-beat, the thickness of the throat, the strange heat and then sudden cold about her face, the vision of everyone near her as ghosts who moved many, many worlds away. Her daily duties were performed by someone else — some kindly, considerate, sensible person, who saw that she was disturbed and preoccupied. She watched this kind person, and wondered how it was that the people about her did not notice this. At night for many hours she lay there, thinking of nothing, feeling the beating of her heart, wrapped in a glorious ecstasy of content, then suddenly soothed as though by some anaesthetic she would sleep, dumbly, dreamlessly, heavily.
For a week this continued — then Philip came to dinner, scarcely a dinner-party, although it had solemnity. The only invited guests were Philip, Rachel Seddon, her fat uncle, Lord John Beaminster, and an ancient Trenchard cousin. Lord John was fat, shining, and happy. Having survived with much complacency the death of his mother, the Duchess of Wrexe, and the end of the Beaminster grandeur, he led a happy bachelor existence in a little house behind Shepherds Market. He was the
perfect symbol of good temper, good food, and a good conscience. Deeply attached to his niece, Rachel, he had, otherwise, many friends, many interests, many happinesses, all of a small bird-like amiable character. He bubbled with relief because he was not compelled, any longer, to sustain the Beaminster character. He had beautiful white hair, rosy cheeks, and perfect clothes. He often dined at the Trenchard’s house with Rachel — he called himself ‘Roddy’s Apology.’ The Trenchards liked him because he thought very highly of the Trenchards.
He sat beside Katherine at dinner and chattered to her. Philip sat on her side of the table, and she could not see him, but when he had entered the drawing-room earlier in the evening the sudden sight of him had torn aside, as though with a fierce, almost revengeful gesture, all the mists, the unrealities, the glories that had, during the last weeks, surrounded her. She saw him and instantly, as though with a fall into icy water, was plunged into her old world again. He looked at her, she thought, as he would look at a stranger. He did not care for her — he had not even thought about her. Why had she been so confident during all these strange days? Her one longing now was to avoid him. With a great effort she drove her common-sense to her service, talked to him for a moment or two with her customary quiet, half-humorous placidity, and went into dinner. She heard his voice now and then. He was getting on well with Rachel. They would become great friends. Katherine was glad. Dinner was interminable; Lord John babbled and babbled and babbled. Dinner was over. The ladies went into the drawing-room.
“I like your friend, Katie,” said Rachel. “He’s interesting.”
“I’m glad you do,” said Katherine.
The men joined them. Philip was conveyed by Mrs. Trenchard to the ancient Trenchard cousin, who had a bony face and an eager, unsatisfied eye. Philip devoted himself to these.