Delphi Collected Works of Hugh Walpole (Illustrated)

by Hugh Walpole

  She shook her head smiling. “What a baby you are, Phil! Just because Aunt Aggie lost her temper last night we’ve got to be married in half an hour. And what about our promise to father of a year’s engagement?”

  “That’s all right,” he answered eagerly. “If your father had wanted to break off the engagement before the year’s up he’d have done so, you can be sure.”

  She laughed. “But I don’t want to be married all in a minute. You don’t know how women care about trousseaux and presents and bells and—”

  “Ah! Please, Katie!... It’s most awfully serious! Please—”

  She was grave then. They stood up together on the little beach, her arm round his neck.

  “Phil. I do understand better than you think. But do you know what it would mean if we were to run away now like this? My mother would never forgive me. It would mean that I was throwing off everything — the place, mother, all my life.... Of course I would throw it away for you if that were the only course to take. But it isn’t the only course. You see life exaggerated, Phil. Everything that happened yesterday has irritated you. To-morrow—”

  “To-morrow may be too late,” he answered her. “At least give my idea half an hour, I’ll go off now for a walk by myself. In half an hour’s time I’ll be back. Do your best for me.”

  She looked at him, bent forward and kissed him.

  “Yes, go — Come back in half an hour.”

  She watched him climb the rocks, wind up the path, turn at the bend and look back to her, then disappear. She sat down on the beach, rested her elbows on her knees and looked out to sea. She was utterly alone: the pool, now spun gold, beneath a sun that was slowly sinking to bars of saffron, quivered only with the reaction of the retreating tide; the rocks were black and sharp against the evening sky.

  Katherine, as she sat there, had, at first, a desperate wish for the help of some older person’s advice. It was not that she could, for an instant, seriously contemplate this mad proposal of Philip’s — and yet he had imparted to her some of his own fear and distrust of the possible machinations of heaven. What he had said was true — that ever since he had told her about Anna it had been as though they had taken some third person into their lives — taken her unwillingly, almost unconsciously, but nevertheless destructively. Then also, although Katherine had denied it, she knew now that what he had said about the family was true. She not only could not hope now that they and Philip would ever live happily together — it was also the fact that they had changed. Her mother had changed — her Aunts, her father, Millie, Henry — they had all changed — changed to her and changed to themselves.

  Katherine, moreover, now for the first time in her life criticised her family — even her mother. She felt as though she and Philip had needed help, and that the family, instead of giving it, had made difficulties and trouble. Her mother had, deliberately, made trouble — had been hard and unkind to Philip, had brought him to Garth that he might seem to Katherine unsuited there, had put him into impossible positions and then laughed at him. Her mother had come to her and asked her to give Philip up; in retrospect that scene of yesterday afternoon seemed a deliberate challenge — but a challenge offered behind Philip’s back.

  Now her whole impulse was that Philip must at all costs be protected and defended, and, for the first time, this afternoon, sitting there alone with the world all hers, she realised how her feeling for him had changed. When she had first known him she had fallen in love with him because she had thought him the strongest, most adventurous, most fearless of mortal souls. Now — she knew that he was weak, afraid of himself, unbalanced, a prey to moods, impulses, terrors — and with that knowledge of him her love had grown, had flung its wide arm about him, had caught him to her heart with a fierce protection that the attraction for his strength had never given her.

  With her new knowledge of him came also her direct antagonism with that other woman. She knew that what Philip had said was true, that her curiosity had increased for them both the live actuality of that figure. Katherine had always been afraid of cynical people, who must, always, she felt, despise her for the simplicity of her beliefs, the confidence of her trust. She remembered a woman who had, at one time, been a close friend of Aunt Aggie’s, a sharp, masculine woman with pincenez, who, when Katherine had said anything, had looked at her sharply through her glasses, laughed as though she were ringing a coin to see whether it were good metal, and said: ‘Do you think so?’

  Katherine had hated her and been always helpless before her, clumsy, awkward and tongue-tied. Now it was a woman of that kind whom she was called out to challenge. Her thought in church yesterday was with her now more strongly than ever. “How she would despise me if she knew me!...” and then, “what a power she must have if she can come back like this into Philip’s life.”

  And yet not such a power! Always before him was that world where he was not: his fancy, running before him, cried to him: “Yes. There! There! was happiness,” or “In such a fashion happiness will come to you” — as though the only end of life was happiness, the security of the ideal moment. Yes, Katherine knew why Anna had laughed at Philip.

  Her thoughts turned back again then to his mad idea of their escape to London, and, suddenly, as though some woman were with her whom she had never seen before, some voice within her cried: “Ah! I wish he’d make me go! simply take me prisoner, force me by brutal strength, leave me no will nor power.” Her imagination, excited, almost breathless, began to play round this. She saw his return, heard him ask her whether she would go with him, heard her answer that she would not, heard him say: “But you are in my power now. I have arranged everything. Whether you like it or not we go....”

  She would protest, but in her surrender, triumphant at heart, she would see her utter defeat of that other woman, whose baffled ghost might whistle across the dark moor back to its own country to find other humours for its decision.

  “Poor Ghost,” she might cry after it, “you did not know that he would prove so strong!” Nor would he.... Her dream faded like the trembling colours in the evening sea.

  And otherwise, unless that were so, she could not go. She had no illusions as to what her escape with him would mean. There would be no return for her to Garth — even Glebeshire itself would cast her out. As she thought of all her days, of her babyhood, when the world had been the green lawn and the old oak, of her girlhood, when Rafiel and Polchester had been the farthest bounds, of all the fair days and the wild days, of the scents and the sounds and the cries and the laughter, it seemed that the little cove itself came close to her, pressing up to her, touching her cheek, whispering to her: “You will not go!... You will not go!... You will not go!” No, of her own will she could not go. The golden pool was very full, swelling with a lift and fall that caught the light of the sun as though the evening itself were rocking it. Against the far band of rocks the tide was breaking with a white flash of colour, and the distant caves boomed like drums. But the peace was undisturbed; birds slowly, with a dreamy beat of wings, vanished into a sky that was almost radiant white ... and behind her, the dark rocks, more than ever watching, guarding beasts that loved her, waited for her decision.

  Then all things faded before her vision of her mother. That so familiar figure seemed to come towards her with a freshness, a piquancy, as though mother and daughter had been parted for years. “We’ve misunderstood one another,” the figure seemed to say: “there shall never be misunderstanding again.” There seemed, at that moment, to be no one else in Katherine’s world: looking back she could see, in all her past life, only her mother’s face, could hear only her mother’s voice.

  She remembered the day when she had told her about the engagement, the day when she had forgotten about the Stores, yesterday in her bedroom....

  She buried her face in her hands, feeling a wild, desperate despair — as though life were too strong for her and her will too weak.

  She felt a touch on her shoulder, and saw that Philip had return
ed, his face in the dusk was pale like the white sky.

  “Well?” he said.

  She shook her head, smiling a dismal little smile. “I can’t go.... You know that I can’t.”

  (That other woman in her whispered: ‘Now he must compel you.’)

  Philip looked out to sea.

  “I can’t,” she repeated. “I can’t leave it all.”

  (‘Ah! make me go!’ that other whispered.)

  He turned away from her and looked back at the rocks.

  “You care for all this more than for me.”

  “You know that that is not true. I care for you more than anyone or anything in the world. But these have all been fancies of yours, Phil. In six months time—” she broke off.

  (‘Force me, compel me to go with you,’ the other woman whispered to him. But he did not hear.)

  “Yes. We’ll go back,” he said.

  They were silent. Suddenly he gripped her shoulder, and they both turned and looked behind them.

  “I thought I heard someone laugh,” he whispered.

  She rose, then before they moved away, put her arm round him with a close, maternal gesture that she had never used to him before.

  BOOK III. KATHERINE AND ANNA

  CHAPTER I. KATHERINE ALONE

  It happened that in the middle of July there was to be a Trenchard-Faunder wedding in London. It was to be a quite especial Trenchard-Faunder wedding that no Trenchard or Faunder must miss. A Miss Dorothy Faunder, daughter of Colonel Faunder of Foxley Park, Wilts, was to marry her cousin Humphrey Trenchard, second son of Sir Geoffrey Trenchard of Tredent Hall, Truxe, in Glebeshire, and 22 Bryanston Square, W....

  The wedding was to be towards the end of the season, before Goodwood and Cowes; and St. Margaret’s, Westminster, was to be the scene of the Ceremony. Of course the George Trenchards of Garth would be present — there was never any question of that — but at the same time it was an inconvenient interference with normal life. Trenchards and Faunders saw, as a rule, little of London in the season unless there was a daughter coming out or a wedding or a Presentation at Court. George Trenchard greatly disliked being torn from Garth during July and August, and it was only an exceptional demand that could uproot him.

  This demand was exceptional. Of course they must all be there.

  On the evening before the departure for London Katherine sat alone in her bedroom looking through her bright window on to the garden beneath her. The July evening was close and oppressive — the garden was almost black, with a strange quivering bar of pale yellow light behind the trees. The scents came up to the open window heavily — there was no breeze. Now and then a dog barked as though it were challenging someone. Although there was no breeze, the trees sometimes shivered very faintly.

  One star glittered between the black clouds.

  Katherine sat at the open window smelling the pinks and the roses, her room dim behind her with a pale metallic glow. She felt oppressed by the evening, and at the same time strangely excited, as though something was about to happen. But beyond this she was conscious of a curious combative loneliness that should have been a miserable thing, but was in reality something challenging and almost defiant. Defiant of what? Defiant of whom? She thought of it as she sat there.

  Her thoughts went back to that day that she had spent with Philip at Roche St. Mary Moor. Her loneliness had begun quite definitely from that day. Only a fortnight later Philip had departed. She had not seen him since then. But even had he been with her she thought that he would not, very greatly, have affected her loneliness. He might even have accentuated it. For Philip had behaved very strangely since that afternoon at Roche St. Mary. It was, Katherine thought, as though, having made his bolt for freedom and failed, he simply resigned himself. He only once afterwards alluded to the affair. One day he said to her quite suddenly: “After all, it’s worth it — so long as you’re there.”

  “What’s worth it?” she had asked him.

  “But if you were to leave me,” he went on, and stopped and looked at her.

  “What’s worth it?” she had repeated.

  “Being swallowed up,” he had answered her. “Your mother and I are going to pay calls together this afternoon.”

  He had during these last weeks been wonderful about her mother; he had agreed to everything that she proposed, had run errands for her, supported her opinions, “been quite a son to her,” Aunt Betty, happy at this transformation, had declared — and he had been perfectly miserable. Katherine knew that.

  And his misery had kept them apart. Katherine had never loved him so intensely as she did during those last days, and he had loved her with a kind of passionate, almost desperate, intensity. But their love had never brought them together. There had always been someone between.

  It was as good as though he had said to her: “We have still another six months before our marriage. You have told me definitely that you will not give up the family. Your mother is determined not to surrender a bit of you to me, therefore I am to be surrendered to your mother. I am willing that this should be so because I love you, but if I change, if I am dull and lifeless you mustn’t be surprised.

  “There’s the earlier life, which one can’t forget all at once, however deeply one wants to. Meanwhile, I hate your mother and your mother hates me. But she’ll never let me go unless you force her to. She knows that I can’t break away so long as you’re here. And she means you to be here always. What would a strong man do? Forget the earlier life, I suppose. So would I if I had you all to myself. But I have to share you — and that gives the earlier life a chance.”

  Although he had never opened his lips, Katherine heard him saying all this as though he were there in front of her, there with his charm and his hopeless humours about himself, his weakness that she had once thought was strength, and for which now she only loved him all the more.

  But the terrible thing about those last weeks had been that, although she knew exactly what he was thinking, they had simply avoided all open and direct discussion. She had wished for it, but what could she say? Only the same things again — that it would be all right when they were married, that he would love the family then, that she would be his then and not the family’s.... Always at this point in her argument she was pulled up sharply, because that was a lie. She would not be his when they were married. She knew now, quite definitely, that her mother was utterly, absolutely resolved never to let her go.

  And meanwhile there was Anna....

  Katherine, putting Philip aside for a moment, thought of the members of the family one by one. They were all separated from her. She summoned this ghostly truth before her, there in her dim room with the hot scented air surrounding her, quite calmly without a shudder or a qualm. Her mother was separated from her because, during the last six months, they had never, with one exception, spoken the truth to one another. Aunt Aggie was separated from her because, quite definitely, ever since that horrible Sunday night, she hated Aunt Aggie. Henry was separated from her because during these last months he had been so strange with his alternate moods of affection and abrupt rudeness that she now deliberately avoided him. Aunt Betty was separated from her because she simply didn’t see things in the least as they were. Her father was separated from her because he laughed at the situation and refused to consider it at all. Millie — ah! Millie, the friend of all her life! — was separated from her because they were concealing things the one from the other as they had never done in all their days before.

  Katherine faced these facts. She had an illusion about her life that she had always been right in the very heart of her family. She did not know that it had been their need of her that had put her there, and that now that she was turning away from them to someone else, they were all rejecting her. They also were unaware of this. They thought and she thought that it had been always a matter of Love between them all — but of course Love in most cases is only a handsome name for selfishness.

  So Katherine sat alone in her room and waite
d for the thunder to come. Meanwhile she was immensely surprised that this discovery of her loneliness did not immediately depress her, but rather aroused in her a pugnacity and an independence that seemed to her to be quite new qualities. And then, following immediately upon her pugnacity, came an overwhelming desire to kiss them all, to do anything in the world that they wished, to love them all more than she had ever done before. And following upon that came an aching, aching desire for Philip, for his presence, his eyes, his hair, his neck, his hands, his voice....

  And following upon that came Anna. Anna had become an obsession to Katherine. If, in her earlier life, she had thought very intently of persons or countries remote from her, she would, perhaps, have known how to deal with the woman, but never before, in any crisis or impulse, had her imagination been stirred. If she had ever thought about imagination, she had decided that Rachel Seddon’s “Imagination!... you haven’t got a scrap, my dear!” hurled at her once in the middle of some dispute, was absolutely true. But her love for Philip had proved its preserver, had proved it, roused it, stirred it into a fierce, tramping monster, with whom she was simply unable to deal.

  If only, she felt, she had been able to speak of her to Philip! Surely then the questions and the answers would have stripped Anna of her romance, would have shown her to be the most ordinary of ordinary women, someone unworthy of Philip, unworthy of anyone’s dreams. But bringing Anna into the air had been forbidden — anything better than to start Philip thinking of her — so that there she had lingered, somewhere in the shadow, romantic, provoking, mocking, dangerous, coloured with all the show of her foreign land, with the towers and plains and rivers of romance.