by Hugh Walpole
Katherine sat and talked to anyone. She was so miserable that she felt that she had never known before what to be miserable was. Then, when she was wondering whether the evening would ever end, she looked up, across the room. Philip, from his corner, also looked up. Their eyes met and, at that moment, the fire, hitherto decorously confined behind its decent bounds, ran golden, brilliant about the room, up to the ceiling, crackling, flaming. The people in the room faded, disappeared; there was no furniture there, the book-cases, the chairs, the tables were gone, the mirror, blazing with light, burning with some strange heat, shone down upon chaos. Only, through it all, Katherine and Philip were standing, their eyes shining, for all to see, and Heaven, let loose upon a dead, dusty world, poured recklessly its glories upon them.
“I was saying,” said Lord John, “that it’s these young fellows who think they can shoot and can’t who are doin’ all the harm.”
Slowly, very slowly Katherine’s soul retreated within its fortresses again. Slowly the fires faded, Heaven was withdrawn. For a moment she closed her eyes, then, once more, she regarded Lord John. “Oh, God! I’m so happy!” something within her was saying, “I shall be absurd and impossible in a moment if I can’t do something with my happiness!”
She was saved by the ancient cousin’s deciding that it was late. She always ended an evening party by declaring that it was later than she could ever have supposed. She was followed by Rachel, Lord John and Philip.
When Philip and Katherine said good-bye their hands scarcely touched, but they were burning.
“I will come to-morrow afternoon,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she whispered back to him.
Through the history of that old Westminster house there ran the thread of many of such moments, now it could not be surprised nor even so greatly stirred, whispering through its passages and corridors. “Here it is again.... Pleasant enough for the time. I wish them luck, poor dears, but I’ve never known it answer. This new breath, out through my rafters, up through my floors, down my chimneys, in at my windows — just the same as it used to be. Very pleasant while it lasts — poor young things.”
It was only natural that the House, long practised in the affairs of men, should perceive these movements in advance of the Trenchard family. As to warning the Trenchards, that was not the House’s business. It was certainly owing to no especial virtue of perception that Aunt Aggie decided that she would spend the afternoon of the day following the dinner-party in the drawing-room.
This decision was owing to the physical fact that she fancied that she had a slight cold, and the spiritual one that her sister Harriet had said: would she mind being most unselfish: would she stay in and receive callers as she, Harriet, was compelled to attend an unfortunate Committee? There was nothing that Aunt Aggie could have preferred to sitting close to the drawing-room fire, eating muffin if alone, and being gracious were there company. However, Harriet had said that it would be unselfish — therefore unselfish it was.
Katherine, it appeared, also intended to stay at home.
“You needn’t, my dear,” said Aunt Aggie, “I promised your mother. I had rather looked forward to going to the Misset-Faunders’, but never mind — I promised your mother.”
“I’m sure it’s better for your cold that you shouldn’t go out,” said Katherine. “I think you ought to be upstairs — in bed with a hot bottle.”
“My cold’s nothing” — Aunt Aggie’s voice was sharp, “Certainly the Misset-Faunders wouldn’t have hurt it. I could have gone in a cab. But I promised your mother.... It’s a pity. They always have music on their second Fridays. Alice plays the violin very well ... and I dare say, after all, no one will come this afternoon. You really needn’t bother to stay in, Katherine.”
“I think I will to-day,” said Katherine quietly.
So aunt and niece sat, one on each side of the fire, waiting. Katherine was very quiet, and Aunt Aggie, who, like all self-centred people, was alarmed by silence, spun a little web of chatter round and round the room.
“It was all quite pleasant last night I thought; I must say Lord John can make himself very agreeable if he pleases. How did you think Rachel was looking? I wanted to ask her about Michael, who had a nasty little cold last week, but Mr. Mark quite absorbed her — talking about his Russia, I suppose. I don’t suppose anyone will come this afternoon. The very last thing Clare Faunder said on Sunday was ‘Mind you come on Friday. We’ve some special music on Friday, and I know how you love it.’ But of course one must help your mother when one can. Your Aunt Betty would take one of her walks. Walking in London seems to me such an odd thing to do. If everyone walked what would the poor cabmen and busses do? One must think of others, especially with the cold weather coming on.”
Her voice paused and then dropped; she looked sharply across at Katherine, and realized that the girl had not been listening. She was staring up into the Mirror; in her eyes was the look of burning, dreaming expectation that had on that other afternoon been so alarming.
At that moment Rocket opened the door and announced Philip Mark.
Katherine’s eyes met Philip’s for an instant, then they travelled to Aunt Aggie. That lady rose with the little tremor of half-nervous, half-gratified greeting that she always bestowed on a guest. She disliked Mr. Mark cordially, but that was no reason why the memory of an hour or two filled with close attention from a young man should not brighten to-morrow’s reminiscences. She was conscious also that she was keeping guard over Katherine. Not for an instant would she leave that room until Mr. Mark had also left it. She looked at the two young people, Katherine flushed with the fire, Philip flushed with the frosty day, and regarded with satisfaction their distance one from the other. Tea was brought; life was very civilised; the doors were all tightly closed.
Philip had come with the determined resolve of asking Katherine to marry him. Last night he had not slept. With a glorious Katherine at his side he had paced his room, his soul in the stars, his body somewhere underground. All day he had waited for a decent hour to arrive. He had almost run to the house. Now he was faced by Aunt Aggie. As he smiled at her he could have taken her little body, her bundle of clothes, her dried little soul, crunched it to nothing in his hands and flung it into the fire.
Although he gave no sign of outward dismay, he was raging with impatience. He would not look at Katherine lest, borne upon some wave of passion stronger than he, he should have rushed across the room, caught her to his side, and so defied all the Trenchard decencies; he knew that it was wiser, at present, to preserve them.
They talked about Rachel Seddon, Dinner-parties, Cold Weather, Dancing, Exercise, growing Stout, Biscuits, the best Church in London, Choirs, Committees, Aunt Aggie’s duties, growing Thin, Sleeplessness, Aunt Aggie’s trials, Chilblains, Cold Weather.... At this renewed appearance of the weather Philip noticed an old calf-bound book lying upon a little table at his side. Behind his eyes there flashed the discovery of an idea.
“Pride and Prejudice,” he said.
“Oh!” cried Katherine. “That’s one of Father’s precious Jane Austen’s — a first edition. He keeps them all locked up in his study. Henry must have borrowed that one. They’re never allowed to lie about.”
Philip picked it up. From between the old leaves, brown a little now, with the black print sunk deep into their very heart, there stole a scent of old age, old leather, old tobacco, old fun and wisdom.
Philip had opened it where Mr. Collins, proposing to Elizabeth Bennet, declines to accept her refusal.
“I am not now to learn,” replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, “that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.”
“Upon my word, sir,” cried Elizabeth, “your hope is rat
her an extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill-qualified for the situation.”
“Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so,” said Mr. Collins very gravely— “but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain that when I have the honour of seeing her again, I shall speak in the highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualifications.”
“ ’Pride and Prejudice,’ I always thought,” said Aunt Aggie with amiable approval, “a very pretty little tale. It’s many years since I read it. Father read it aloud to us, I remember, when we were girls.”
Philip turned a little from her, as though he would have the light more directly over his shoulder. He had taken a piece of paper from his pocket, and in an instant he had written in pencil:
“I love you. Will you marry me? Philip.”
This he slipped between the pages.
He knew that Katherine had watched him; very gravely he passed the book across to her, then he turned to Aunt Aggie, and with a composure that surprised himself, paid her a little of the deference that she needed.
Katherine, with hands that trembled, had opened the book. She found the piece of paper, saw the words, and then, in a sort of dreaming bewilderment, read to the bottom of the old printed page.
“Mr. Collins thus addressed her:
“When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on this subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first—”
She did not turn the page; for a moment she waited, her mind quite empty of any concentrated thought, her eyes seeing nothing but the shining, glittering expanse of the Mirror.
Very quickly, using a gold pencil that hung on to her watch chain, she wrote below his name: “Yes. Katherine.”
“Let me see the book, my dear,” said Aunt Aggie. “You must know, Mr. Mark, that I care very little for novels. There is so much to do in this world, so many people that need care, so many things that want attention, that I think one is scarcely justified in spending the precious time over stories. But I own Miss Austen is a memory — a really precious memory to me. Those little simple stories have their charm still, Mr. Mark.... Yes.... Thank you, my dear.”
She took the book from Katherine, and began very slowly to turn over the pages, bending upon Miss Austen’s labours exactly the look of kindly patronage that she would have bent upon that lady herself had she been present.
Katherine glanced at Philip, half rose in her chair, and then sat down again. She felt, as she waited for the dreadful moment to pass, a sudden perception of the family — until this moment they had not occurred to her. She saw her mother, her father, her grandfather, her aunts, Henry, Millie. Let this affair be suddenly flung upon them as a result of Aunt Aggie’s horrified discovery and the tumult would be, indeed, terrible. The silence in the room, during those moments, almost forced her to cry out.
Had Philip not been there she would have rushed to her aunt, torn the book from her hands, and surrendered to the avalanche.
Aunt Aggie paused — she peered forward over the page. With a little cry Katherine stood up, her knees trembling, her eyes dimmed, as though the room were filled with fog.
“I doubt very much,” said Aunt Aggie, “whether I could read it now. It would seem strangely old-fashioned, I daresay, I’m sure to a modern young man like yourself, Mr. Mark.”
Philip took the book from her; he opened it, read Katherine’s answer, laid the volume very carefully upon the table.
“I can assure, Miss Trenchard,” he said, “a glance is enough to assure me that ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is and always will be my favourite novel.”
Katherine moved to the table, picked up the book, and slipped the paper from the leaves into her belt. For an instant her hand touched Philip’s.
Aunt Aggie looked at them, and satisfied with hot tea, a fire, a perfect conscience and a sense of her real importance in the business of the world, thought to herself— “Well, this afternoon at any rate those two have had no chance.”
She was drowsy and anxious for a little rest before dinner, but her guard, she assured herself with a pleasant little bit of conscious self-sacrifice, should not be relaxed....
Eleven had boomed that night, from the Abbey clock, when Philip Mark took his stand opposite the old house, looking up, as all the lovers in fiction and most of the lovers in real life have done, at his mistress’ window. A little red glow of light was there. The frosty night had showered its sky with stars, frozen into the blue itself in this clear air, a frozen sea; an orange moon scooped into a dazzling curve, lay like a sail that had floated from its vessel, idly above the town; the plane trees rustled softly once and again, as though, now that the noise of men had died away, they might whisper in comfort together. Sometimes a horn blew from the river, or a bell rang.
Philip waited there, and worshipped with all the humility and reverence of a human soul at the threshold of Love.
The lights in the house went out. Now all the Trenchards were lying upon their backs, their noses towards the ceilings, the ceilings that shut off that starry sky. They were very secure, fenced round by Westminster. No danger could threaten their strong fortress.... Their very dreams were winged about with security, their happy safety was penetrated by no consciousness of that watching, motionless figure.
CHAPTER VI. THE SHOCK
George Trenchard’s study expressed, very pleasantly, his personality. The room’s walls were of a deep warm red, and covering three sides ran high book-cases with glass fronts; within these book-cases were beautiful new editions, ugly old ones, books, for the greater part, relating to his favourite period, all ranged and ordered with the most delicate care. The windows of the room were tall and bright even on dull and foggy days, the carpet soft and thick, the leather chairs large and yielding, the fireplace wide and shining. Most significant of all was his writing-table; upon this lay everything that any writer could possibly desire, from the handsomest of gold inkstands to the minutest of elastic bands. There was also here a little bust of Sir Walter Scott. Within this room George Trenchard knew, always, perfect happiness — a very exceptional man, indeed, that he could know it so easily. He knew it by the simple expedient of shutting off entirely from his consciousness the rest of mankind; his study door once closed, he forgot his family absolutely. No one was allowed to disturb or interrupt him; it was understood that he was at work upon a volume that would ultimately make another of that series that contained already such well-known books as “William Wordsworth and his Circle,” “Hazlitt — The Man in his Letters” and “The Life of Thomas de Quincey.” These had appeared a number of years ago; he had been indeed a young man when he had written them. It was supposed that a work entitled “The Lake Poets, a Critical Survey” would appear ‘Next Autumn’.
For some time now the literary schemes of the weekly journals had announced this. George Trenchard only laughed at enquiries: “It takes a damned long time, you know,” he said, “ ’tisn’t any use rushing the thing.” He enjoyed, however, immensely, making notes. From half-past nine in the morning until half-past one, behind his closed doors, he considered the early Nineteenth Century, found it admirable (Scott seemed to him the perfect type) took first one book, then another from his book-shelves, wrote a few lines, and before his fire imagined the Trenchards of that period, considered their food and their drink, their morals, their humour and their literature. Hazlitt’s essays seemed to him the perfection, not of English
prose, but of a temporal and spiritual attitude. “Hang it all,” he would conclude, “we’re a rotten lot now-a-days.” He did not worry over this conclusion, but it gave him the opportunity of a superior attitude during the rest of the day when he joined the world. “If you knew as much about the early Nineteenth Century as I do,” he seemed to say, “you wouldn’t be so pleased with yourselves.” He did not, however, express his superiority in any unpleasant manner. There was never anyone more amiable. All that he wanted was that everyone should be happy, and to be that, he had long ago discovered, one must not go too deep. “Keep out of close relationships and you’re safe” might be considered his advice to young people. He had certainly avoided them all his life, and avoided them by laughing at them. He couldn’t abide “gloomy fellows” and on no account would he allow a ‘scene’. He had never lost his temper.
During the months that he spent at his place in Glebeshire he pursued a plan identically similar. He possessed an invaluable ‘factotum’, a certain James Ritchie, who took everything in a way of management off his hands. Ritchie in Glebeshire, Mrs. Trenchard and Rocket in London. Life was made very simple for him.
As has been said elsewhere, Katherine, alone of his family, had in some degree penetrated his indifferent jollity; that was because she really did seem to him to have some of the Early Nineteenth Century characteristics. She seemed to him (he did not know her very well) tranquil, humorous, unadventurous, but determined. She reminded him of Elizabeth Bennet, and he always fancied (he regarded her, of course, from a distance,) that she would make a very jolly companion. She seemed to him wiser than the others, with a little strain of satirical humour in her comment on things that pleased him greatly. “She should have been the boy, and Henry the girl,” he would say. He thought Henry a terrible ass. He was really anxious that Katherine should be happy. She deserved it, he thought, because she was a little wiser than the others. He considered sometimes her future, and thought that it would be agreeable to have her always about the place, but she must not be an old maid. She was too good for that. “She’d breed a good stock,” he would say. “She must marry a decent fellow — one day.” He delighted in the gentle postponement of possibly charming climaxes. His size, geniality and good appetite may be attributed very largely to his happy gifts of procrastination. “Always leave until to-morrow what ought to be done to-day” had made him the best-tempered of men.