by Hugh Walpole
“Mother!... How could I!”
“It didn’t matter, dear, in the slightest ... dear me, no. We went, Millie and I, and got the hot-water bottles, very good and strong ones, I think, although they said they couldn’t positively guarantee them. You never can tell, apparently, with a hot-water bottle.”
Katherine’s eyes, now, were wide and staring with distress.
“How could I possibly have forgotten? It was talking about it at breakfast when Aunt Aggie too was talking about something, and I got confused, I suppose. No, I haven’t any excuse at all. It was seeing Philip unexpectedly....”
She stopped abruptly, realising that she had said the worst thing possible.
“You mustn’t let Philip, dear, drive everything out of your head,” Mrs. Trenchard said, laughing. “We have some claim on you until you are married — then, of course....”
The colour mounted again into Katherine’s face.
“No, mother, you mustn’t say that,” she answered in a low voice, as though she was talking to herself. “Philip makes no difference — none at all. I’d have forgotten in any case, I’m afraid, because we talked about it at breakfast when I was thinking about Aunt Aggie. It was nothing to do with Philip — it was my fault absolutely. I’ll never forgive myself.”
All the joy had left her eyes. She was very grave: she knew that, slight as the whole incident was, it marked a real crisis in her relations, not only with her mother, but with the whole house. Perhaps during all these weeks, she had forgotten them all, and they had noticed it and been hurt by it. She accused herself so bitterly that it seemed that nothing could be bad enough for her. She felt that, in the future, she could not show her mother enough attention and affection. But now, at this moment, there was nothing to be done. Millie would have laughed, hugged her mother and forgotten in five minutes that there had been any crime. But, in this, Katherine’s character resembled, exactly, her mother’s.
“Really, Katie, it didn’t matter. I’m glad you liked the walk. And now it’s tea-time. It always seems to be tea-time. There’s so much to do.”
They were then, both of them, conscious that Aunt Aggie had come in and was smiling at them. They wished intensely to fling into the pause some conversation that would be trivial and unimportant. They could think of nothing to say....
“Why, Katherine,” said Aunt Aggie, “where have you been? Millie says she’s been to the Stores.... You said at breakfast ...”
“I was kept ...” said Katherine sharply, and left the room.
“I’ll be down in five minutes, Aggie,” said Mrs. Trenchard. “Tea-time—”
Her sister watched her as she went out, carrying her hat in her hand. Half-way upstairs she saw Henry, who was half-tumbling, half-sliding from step to step: he was evidently hurrying, in his confused way, to do something that he had forgotten to do or to finish some task that he should long ago have completed.
“Henry,” she said, “I wonder whether—”
“Right, mother,” he called back to her. “I must—” the rest of his sentence was swallowed by distance. She turned and looked after him, then walked through the long passages to her room. She entered it, closed the door, and stood by her dressing-room staring in front of her. There was complete, intense silence here, and all the things lay about the room, as though waiting for her to address them.
“George, Millie, Henry, Katherine ... Millie didn’t want to go ... Katherine....”
On her table was a list of articles, the week’s washing — her own list.
Handkerchiefs — 12.
Stockings — 8 pairs.
She looked at it without seeing it, then with a sudden, vindictive, passionate movement tore it in half, and then those halves into smaller pieces, tore the smaller pieces into little shreds of paper that fluttered in the air and then fell on to the floor at her feet.
CHAPTER III. LIFE AND HENRY
Philip was entirely happy during the first days of his engagement — so happy that he assured himself that he had never before known what happiness was. When, however, this glorious state had continued for four or five weeks he was aware that that most sensitive and unreliable of his spiritual possessions, his conscience, was being attacked. He was aware that there was something that he ought to do, something that he did not want to do — he was aware that he must tell Katherine about Anna and his life with her. Now when he had said to Mr. Trenchard that his life was free of all complications and that there was nothing in it that need be hidden from the world, he was, quite honestly, convinced that that was so. His life with Anna was entirely at an end: he had done her no wrong, she owed him no grudge, he did not know that he had ever taken any especial pains in Moscow to hide his relations with her, and he did not believe that anyone there thought the worse of him for them. He had come to England with that chapter closed, eager to begin another. His only thought of Anna when he had proposed to Katherine was that this was exactly what she had intended him to do — that she would be pleased if she knew. His conscience was always at rest when he thought that everyone liked him....
Now he knew, quite definitely, after a month of his engagement to Katherine, that some of the members of the Trenchard family did not like him — No amount of his determination to like them could blind him to the truth of this unpleasant fact — Mrs. Trenchard aid not like him, Aunt Aggie did not like him, probably Mr. Trenchard, senior, and Great-Aunt Sarah did not like him (he could not tell, because they were so silent), and he was not sure whether Henry liked him or not. Therefore, in front of this alarming array of critics his conscience awoke.
The other force that stirred his conscience was Katherine’s belief in him. In Moscow no one had believed in anyone — anyone there, proved to be faultless, would have been, for that very reason, unpopular. Anna herself had held the most humorous opinion of him. (She liked Englishmen, respected their restraint and silence, but always laughed at their care for appearances.) Although he had known that his love for Katherine had sprung partly from his sense of her difference from Anna, he, nevertheless, had expected the qualities that had pleased him in the one to continue in the other. He discovered that Katherine trusted him utterly, that she believed, with absolute confidence, in every word that fell from his lips, and he knew that, if the old whole world came to her and told her that he had had for several years a mistress in Moscow and he denied it to her, that she would laugh at the world. This knowledge made him extremely uncomfortable. First, he tried to persuade himself that he had never had a mistress, that Anna had never existed, then, when that miserably failed, he told himself that he could always deny it if she asked him, then he knew that he loved her so much that he would not lie to her (this discovery pleased him). He must, he finally knew, tell her himself.... He told himself that he would wait a little until she believed in him less completely; he must prepare her mind. He did not even now, however, consider that she would feel his confession very deeply; Anna would simply have laughed at his scruples.
Meanwhile he loved her so deeply and so completely that Anna’s figure was a ghost, dimly recalled from some other life. He had almost forgotten her appearance. She had a little black mole on her left cheek — or was it her right?...
Somewhere in the beginning of February he decided that he would cultivate Henry, not because he liked Henry, but because he thought that Katherine would like it — also, although this he did not confess to himself, because Henry was so strange and unexpected that he was half afraid of him.
Of course Henry ought to be sent to one of the Universities, it was absurd to keep a great, hulking boy of nineteen hanging about, wasting his own time and the time of his family, suffering no discipline and learning nothing of any value. George Trenchard had told Philip that Henry was too young for Oxford, and was to have a year of “seeing the world” before he “went up”. A fine lot of seeing the world Henry was doing, slouching about the house, reading novels and sulking! Philip, in spite of his years in Russia, felt very strongly that every Engli
shman should be shaven clean and wear clothes from a good tailor. About men of other nationalities it did not matter, but smartness was expected from an Englishman. Henry, however, was in that unpleasant condition known as “sprouting.” He had a little down on one cheek, apparently none on the other; in certain lights his chin boasted a few hairs of a forlorn and desolate appearance, in other lights you would swear that there were none. His forehead often broke into pimples (these were a terrible agony to him).
“Why can’t he do something with his hair?” thought Philip, “brush it and have it cut regularly. Why is it that awful dusty colour? He might at least do something to his clothes. Mrs. Trenchard ought to see to it.”
Mrs. Trenchard did try to “see to it”. She was perpetually buying new clothes for Henry; she took him to her husband’s tailor and dragged him, again and again, to have things “tried on”. Henry, however, possessed the art of reducing any suit, within twenty-four hours of his first wearing it, to chaos. He was puzzled himself to know what he did.
“But, Henry, it was new last week!”
“I know. How can I help it? I haven’t done anything to the beastly thing. It simply came like that.”
He affected a lofty indifference to clothes, but Philip, who saw him look frequently into the looking-glass, suspected the sincerity of this. Katherine said to Philip:
“You have so much influence on Henry. Do talk to him about his clothes and other things. He won’t mind it from you. He gets so angry if we say anything.”
Philip was not at all sure that Henry would “not mind it from him”. When they were alone Henry would listen with the greatest interest to the things that Philip told him; his eyes would soften, his mouth would smile, his voice would quiver with his excitement. Then, quite suddenly, his face would cloud, he would blush and frown, almost scowl, then, abruptly, with some half-muttered word, fall into a sulky silence. Once he had broken in to Philip’s information with: “Oh! I suppose you think I don’t know anything about it, that I’m a stupid idiot.... Well, if I am, what do you bother to talk to me for?”
This, of course, annoyed Philip, who always liked to feel, after a conversation with anyone, that “everything had gone off all right”. Had it not been for Katherine, he would not have bothered with the fellow. Another thing puzzled and even alarmed Philip. Henry would often, when he thought that he was unwatched, stare at Philip in a perplexed brooding fashion with a look in his eye that said: “I’ll find out one day all right. You think that no one’s watching you, that I’m not worth anyone’s trouble.... You wait and see.”
Henry would look at Philip’s buttons, studs, tie, handkerchief with this same puzzled stare. It was another side of that surveillance of which Philip had been conscious ever since Tim Flaunder’s visit to his rooms. “Ah!” thought Philip, “once I’m married, they can watch as much as they like.... A year’s a long time though.”
He decided then to cultivate Henry and to know the boy better. “I’ll show him that there’s nothing in me to be suspicious about — that I’m worthy of marrying his sister. I’ll make a friend of him.”
He asked George Trenchard whether he might give Henry an evening. “Take him out to dinner and a music-hall. I’ll look after him.”
Trenchard said:
“My dear fellow, if you can make Henry look something like an ordinary civilised being we’ll all be in your debt for ever. I don’t envy you your job ... but, of course, do what you like with him.”
When Philip told Mrs. Trenchard she said:
“How nice for Henry! How kind of you to bother with the boy! He goes out so little. How nice for Henry!”
When Philip asked Henry himself, Henry coloured crimson, looked at his boots, muttered something about shirts, stammered “Thanks ... very glad ... awful bore for you”, and finally stumbled from the room.
Philip thought Jules for dinner, The Empire, The Carlton for supper. Katherine’s delight when he told her compensated him for all the effort of the undertaking.
To understand Henry’s emotion at Philip’s invitation would be to understand everything about Henry, and that no one has ever done. His chief sensation was one of delight and excitement — this he hid from all the world. He had waited, during more years than he could remember, for the arrival of that moment when he would be treated as a man. Lately he had said to himself, “If they’re all going to laugh at me always, I’ll show them one day soon.” He had a ferocious disgust at their lack of penetration. He had, from the very first, admired Philip’s appearance. Here was a man still young, with perfect clothes, perfect ability to get in and out of a room easily, perfect tranquillity in conversation. He had been offended at Philip’s treatment of Seymour, but even that had been a bold, daring thing to do, and Henry was forced to admit that he had been, since that episode, himself sometimes doubtful of Seymour’s ability. Then Philip in his conversation had shown such knowledge of the world; Henry could listen all day to his talk about Russia. To be able to travel so easily from one country to the other, without fear or hesitation, that was, indeed, wonderful!
Afterwards had occurred one of the critical moments in Henry’s career; his passionate memory of that afternoon when he had seen the embrace of Katherine and Philip, changed those two into miraculous beings, apart from all the world. He heard Philip for the audacity of it, he also admired him, envied him, speculated endlessly about it. “Ah! if somebody would love me like that”, he thought. “I’d be just as fine. They think me a baby, not fit even to go to college, I could — I could ...” He did not know what it was that he could do. Perhaps Philip would help him.
And yet he did not really like Philip. He thought that Philip laughed at him, despised him. His one continual fear was lest Philip should teach Katherine, Henry’s adored and worshipped Katherine, also to despise him. “If he were to do that I’d kill him”, he thought. He believed utterly in Katherine’s loyalty, “but she loves Philip so now. It’s changed her. She’ll never belong to us properly again.” Always his first thought was: “So long as he’s good to her and makes her happy nothing matters.”
Now it seemed that Philip was making her happy. Katherine’s happiness lit, with its glow, the house, the family, all the world. When, therefore, Philip asked Henry to dine with him, the great moment of Henry’s life seemed to have come, and to have come from a source honourable enough for Henry to accept it.
“If only I dare,” Henry thought, “there are so many things that I should like to ask him.” The remembered passion of that kiss told Henry that there could be nothing that Philip did not know. He was in a ferment of excitement and expectation. To the family he said:
“I’m afraid I shan’t be in, Tuesday evening. Sorry, but Philip and I are dining together. Expect I’ll be in, Wednesday, though.”
It is a fact, strange but true, that Henry had never entered one of the bigger London restaurants. The Trenchards were not among those more modern parents who spend their lives in restaurants and take their infant sons in Eton jackets to supper at the Savoy after the Drury Lane pantomime. Moreover, no one ever thought of taking Henry anywhere. He had been at school until a few months ago, and when, in the holidays, he had gone to children’s parties he had always behaved badly. George Trenchard went very seldom into restaurants, and often, for days together, forgot that he had a son at all. Down in Glebeshire Henry was allowed to roam as he pleased; even in London no restrictions were placed on his movements. So long as he went to the Abbey twice on Sunday he could do what he liked. A friend of Seymour’s had put him up as a member of a club in a little street off St. James: the entrance was only a guinea, and “anyone could be a member”. Henry had, three months ago, received a book of club rules, a list of members, and a printed letter informing him that he was now elected, must pay five guineas entrance and a guinea subscription. He had extorted the money from his father, and, for twenty-four hours, was the proudest and happiest human being in London. He had never, alas! dared to venture inside the building. Seymour’s
friend had forgotten him. The Club had remained strangely ignorant of his existence. On three occasions he had started out, and on three occasions his fears had been too strong for him. Once he had arrived at the very club door, but a stout gentleman, emerging and staring at him haughtily, had driven the blood from his heart. He had hurried home, feeling that he had been personally insulted. He found, on his return, that some vehicle had splashed mud on to his cheek. “There! you see what happens!...”
He was not far from tears.
He had, behind his unhappy experiences, the resolved certainty that he was marked apart by destiny for some extraordinary future: his very misfortunes seemed to prove this. He had bought for himself a second-hand copy of that romance to which I have made earlier allusion. It exercised, at this time, an extraordinary influence upon him, and in the hero’s fight against an overwhelming fate he saw his own history, even when the circumstance was as trivial as his search for a stud under the washing-stand. So young was he, so crude, so sentimental, impulsive, suspicious, self-confident, and lacking in self-confidence, loyal, ambitious, modest and conceited that it was not strange that Philip did not understand him.
On the evening of his dinner with Philip he dressed with the utmost care. There were three dress-shirts in his drawer, and it was, of course, fate that decided that there should be something the matter with all of them — one of them had been worn once already, one was frayed at the cuffs, one had a cracked and gaping stud hole. He pared the frayed cuffs with his scissors, and hoped for the best. He then produced the only valuable article in his possession, a pearl stud given to him by his Uncle Bob on his last birthday. He was greatly afraid of this stud, because the head of it screwed into the body of it, and he was never sure whether he had screwed it sufficiently. Suppose it were to leap into the soup! Suppose it were to fall off and he not see it and lose it! Such catastrophes were only too probable where he was concerned. He screwed it in so vigorously to-night that he made a grey mark round the stud-hole. He dabbed this with a sponge, and the grey mark was greyer. His father had told him that he must never wear a “made-up” evening tie, but he had not told him how to tie one that was not made-up, and Henry had been too timid to enquire. To-night, by a sudden twist of genius, he produced something that really seemed satisfactory; one end was longer than the other, but his father approved of a little disorder — when the tie was too neat it was almost “made-up”. Henry’s dress-clothes, lying there upon the bed, seemed a little faded. The trousers glistered in the electric light, and the tails of the coat were sadly crumpled. But when they were on his body Henry gazed at them with pleasure. One trouser leg seemed oddly longer than the other, and his shirt cuff had disappeared altogether, but the grey mark round the stud was scarcely visible, and his collar was beautifully clean.