by Hugh Walpole
And she knew — it had not needed Uncle Tim’s words to show her — that this act of hers was uprooting her for ever from everything that had made life for her. She would never go back. More deeply than that, she would never belong again, she, who only six months ago had been the bond that had held them all together....
And behind these thoughts were two figures so strangely, so impossibly like one another — the first that woman, suddenly old, leaning back on to Katherine’s breast, fast asleep, tired out, her mother — the second that woman who, only that afternoon, had turned and given both Katherine and Philip that look of triumph.... “I’ve got you both — You see that I shall never let you go. You cannot, cannot, cannot, escape.” That also was her mother.
She stopped at the village inn, ‘The Three Pilchards’, saw Dick Penhaligan, the landlord, and an old friend of hers.
“Dick, in half-an-hour I want a jingle. I’ve got to go to Rasselas to meet the eight train. I’ll drive myself.”
“All right, Miss Katherine,” he said, looking at her with affection. “ ’Twill be a wild night, I’m thinkin’. Workin’ up wild.”
“Twenty minutes, Dick,” she nodded to him, and was off again. She crossed the road, opened the little wicket gate that broke into the shrubbery, found her way on to the lawn, and there, under the oak, was Philip, waiting for her. As she came up to him she felt the first spurt of rain upon her cheek. The long lighted windows of the house were watching them; she drew under the shadow of the tree.
“Phil,” she whispered, her hand on his arm, “there isn’t a moment to lose. I’ve arranged everything. We must catch the eight o’clock train at Rasselas. We shall be in London by twelve. I shall go to Rachel Seddon’s. We can be married by Special Licence to-morrow.”
She had thought of it so resolutely that she did not realise that it was new to him. He gasped, stepping back from her.
“My dear Katie! What are you talking about?”
“Oh, there isn’t any time,” she went on impatiently. “If you don’t come I go alone. It will be the same thing in the end. I saw it all this afternoon. Things can’t go on. I understood Mother. I know what she’s determined to do. We must escape or it will be too late. Even to-morrow it may be. I won’t trust myself if I stay; I’m afraid even to see Mother again, but I know I’m right. We have only a quarter of an hour. That suit will do, and of course you mustn’t have a bag or anything. There’s that cousin of yours in the Adelphi somewhere. You can go to him. We must be at the ‘Three Pilchards’ in a quarter of an hour, and go separately, of course, or someone may stop us....”
But he drew back. “No, no, no,” he said. “Katie, you’re mad! Do you think I’m going to let you do a thing like this? What do you suppose I’m made of? Why, if we were to go off now they’d never forgive you, they’d throw you off—”
“Why, of course,” she broke in impatiently, “that’s exactly why we’ve got to do it. You proposed it to me yourself once, and I refused because I didn’t understand what our staying here meant. But I do now — it’s all settled, I tell you, Phil, and there’s only ten minutes. It’s the last chance. If we miss that train we shall never escape from Mother, from Anna, from anyone. Oh! I know it! I know it!”
She scarcely realised her words; she was tugging at his sleeve, trying to drag him with her.
But he shook her off. “No, Katie, I tell you I’m not such a cad. I know what all this means to you, the place, the people, everything. It’s true that I asked you once to go off, but I didn’t love you then as I do now. I was thinking more of myself then — but now I’m ready for anything here. You know that I am. I don’t care if only they let me stay with you.”
“But they won’t,” Katherine urged. “You know what they’ll do. They’ll marry us, they’ll make you take a house near at hand, and if you refuse they’ll persuade you that you’re making me miserable. Oh! Phil! don’t you see — if I were sure of myself I’d never run off like this, but it’s from myself that I’m running. That’s the whole point of everything. I can’t trust myself with Mother. She has as much influence over me as ever she had. I felt it to-day more than I’ve ever felt it. There she is over both of us. You know that you’re weaker with her than I am. It isn’t that she does anything much except sit quiet, but I love her, and it’s through that she gets at both of us. No, Phil, we’ve got to go — and now. If not now, then never. I shan’t be strong enough to-morrow. Don’t you see what she can do in the future, now that she knows about Anna....” Then, almost in a whisper, she brought out: “Don’t you see what Anna can do?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t go. It’s not fair. It’s not—”
“Well,” she answered him, “it doesn’t matter what you do, whether you go or not. I shall go. And what are you to do then?”
She had vanished across the lawn, leaving him standing there. Behind all his perplexity and a certain shame at his inaction, a fire of exultation inflamed him, making him heedless of the rain or the low muttering thunder far away. She loved him! She was freeing him! His glory in her strength, her courage, flew like a burning arrow to his heart, killing the old man in him, striking him to the ground, that old lumbering body giving way before a new creature to whom the whole world was a plain of victory. He stood there trembling with his love for her....
Then he realised that, whatever he did, there was no time to be lost. And after all what was he to do? Did he enter and alarm the family, tell them that Katherine was flying to London, what would he gain but her scorn? How much would he lose to save nothing? Even as he argued with himself some stronger power was dragging him to the house. He was in his room; he had his coat and hat from the hall; he saw no one; he was in the dark garden again, stepping softly through the wicket-gate on to the high road — Then the wind of the approaching storm met him with a scurry of rain that slashed his face. He did not know that now, for the first moment since his leaving Russia, Anna was less to him than nothing. He did not know that he was leaving behind him in that dark rain-swept garden an indignant, a defeated ghost....
Meanwhile Katherine had gone, rapidly, without pause, to her bedroom. She was conscious of nothing until she reached it, and then she stood in the middle of the floor, struck by a sudden, poignant agony of reproach that took, for the moment, all life from her. Her knees were trembling, her heart pounding in her breast, her eyes veiled by some mist that yet allowed her to see with a fiery clarity every detail of the room. They rose and besieged her, the chairs, the photographs, the carpet, the bed, the wash-hand-stand, the pictures, the window with the old, old view of the wall, the church-tower, the crooked apple-tree clustered in a corner, the bed of roses, the flash of the nook beyond the lawn. She covered her eyes with her hand. Everything was still there, crying to her “Don’t leave us! Is our old devotion nothing, our faithful service? Are you, whom we have trusted, false like the rest?”
She swayed then; tears that would never fall burnt her eyes. The first rain lashed her window, and from the trees around the church some flurry of rooks rose, protesting against the coming storm. She drove it all down with a strong hand. She would not listen....
Then, as she found her coat and hat, a figure rose before her, the one figure that, just then, could most easily defeat her. Her Mother she would not see, Millie, Henry, the Aunts could not then touch her. It was her Father.
They were breaking their word to him, they who were standing now upon their honour. His laughing, friendly spirit, that had never touched her very closely, now seemed to cling to her more nearly than them all. He had kept outside all their family trouble, as he had kept outside all trouble since his birth. He had laughed at them, patted them on the shoulder, determined that if he did not look too closely at things they must be well, refused to see the rifts and divisions and unhappiness. Nevertheless he must have seen something; he had sent Henry to Cambridge, had looked at Millie and Katherine sometimes with a gravity that was not his old manner.
Seeing him suddenly now, it was a
s though he knew what she was about to do, and was appealing to her with a new gravity: “Katie, my dear, I may have seemed not to have cared, to have noticed nothing, but now — don’t give us up. Wait. Things will be happier. Wait. Trust us.”
She beat him down; stayed for another moment beside the window, her hands pressed close against her eyes.
Then she went to her little writing-table, and scribbled very rapidly this note:
Darling Mother,
I have gone with Philip by the eight train to London. We shall be married as soon as possible. I shall stay with Rachel until then. You know that things could not go on as they were.
Will you understand, dear Mother, that if I did not love you so deeply I would not have done this? But because you would not let Phil go I have had to choose. If only you will understand that I do not love you less for this, but that it is for Phil’s sake that I do it, you will love me as before. And you know that I will love you always.
Your devoted daughter,
Katherine.
She laid this against the looking-glass on her dressing-table, glanced once more at the room, then went.
Upon the stairs she met Henry.
“Hullo!” he cried, “going out? There’s a lot of rain coming.”
“I know,” she answered quietly. “I have to see Penhaligan. It’s important.”
He looked at her little black hat; her black coat. These were not the things that one put on for a hurried excursion into the village.
“You’ll be late for dinner,” he said.
“No, I shan’t,” she answered, “I must hurry.” She brushed past him; she had an impulse to put her arms round his neck and kiss him, but she did not look back.
She went through the hall; he turned on the stairs and watched her, then went slowly to his room.
When she came out on to the high road the wind had fallen and the rain was coming in slow heavy drops. The sky was all black, except that at its very heart there burnt a brilliant star; just above the horizon there was a bar of sharp-edged gold. When she came to the ‘Three Pilchards’ the world was lit with a strange half-light so that, although one could see all things distinctly, there was yet the suggestion that nothing was what it seemed. The ‘jingle’ was there, and Philip standing in conversation with Dick Penhaligan.
“Nasty night ‘twill be, Miss Katherine. Whisht sort o’ weather. Shouldn’t like for ‘ee to get properly wet. Open jingle tu.”
“That’s all right, Dick,” she answered. “We’ve got to meet the train. I’ve been wet before now, you know.”
She jumped into the trap and took the reins. Philip followed her. If Mr. Penhaligan thought there was anything strange in the proceeding he did not say so. He watched them out of the yard, gave a look at the sky, then went whistling into the house.
They did not speak until they had left the village behind them, then, as they came up to Pelynt Cross, the whole beauty of the sweep of stormy sky burst upon them. The storm seemed to be gathering itself together before it made its spring, bunched up heavy and black on the horizon, whilst the bar of gold seemed to waver and hesitate beneath the weight of it. Above their heads the van of the storm, twisted and furious, leaned forward, as though with avaricious fingers, to take the whole world into its grasp.
At its heart still shone that strange glittering star. Beneath the sky the grey expanse of the moon quivered with anticipation like a quaking bog; some high grass, bright against the sky, gave little windy tugs, as though it would release itself and escape before the fury beat it down. Once and again, very far away, the rumble of the thunder rose and fell, the heavy raindrops were still slow and measured, as though they told the seconds left to the world before it was devastated.
Up there, on the moor, Philip put his arm round Katherine. His heart was beating with tumultuous love for her, so that he choked and his face was on fire; his hand trembled against her dress. This was surely the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. He had seemed so utterly lost, and, although he had known that she loved him, he had resigned himself to the belief that her love stayed short of sacrifice. He had said to himself that he was not enough of a fellow for it to be otherwise. And now he did not care for any of them! No one, he realised, had ever, in all his life, made any great sacrifice for him — even Anna had let him go when he made life tiresome for her.
Surging up in him now was the fine vigour of reassurance that Katherine’s love gave to him. It was during that drive to Rasselas station that he began, for the first time, to believe in himself. He did not speak, but held Katherine with his arm close to him, and once, for a moment, he put his cheek against hers.
But she was not, then, thinking of Philip, she was scarcely aware that he was with her. Her whole will and purpose was concentrated on reaching the station in time. She thought: “If we missed that train we’re finished. We’ll have to come back. They’ll have found my note. Mother won’t be angry outwardly, but she’ll hate Phil twice as much as ever, and she’ll never loose her hold again. She’ll show him how ashamed he should be, and she’ll show me how deeply I’ve hurt her. We shall neither of us have the courage to try a ‘second time’.”
How was it that she saw all this so clearly? Never before these last months had she thought of anything save what was straight in front of her.... The world was suddenly unrolled before her like a map of a strange country.
Meanwhile, although she did not know it, she was wildly excited. Her imagination, liberated after those long years of captivity, flamed now before her eyes. She felt the storm behind her, and she thought that at the head of it, urging it forward, was that figure who had pursued her, so remorselessly, ever since that day at Rafiel when Philip had confessed to her.
Anna would keep them if she could, she would drag them back, miserable fugitives, to face the family — and then how she would punish Philip!
“Oh, go on! Go on!” Katherine cried, whipping the pony; they began to climb a long hill. Suddenly the thunder broke overhead, crashing amongst the trees of a dark little wood on their right. Then the rain came down in slanting, stinging sheets. With that clap of thunder the storm caught them, whirled up to them, beat them in the face, buffeted in their eyes and ears, shot lightning across their path, and then plunged them on into yet more impenetrable darkness. The world was abysmal, was on fire, was rocking, was springing with a thousand gestures to stop them on their way. Katherine fancied that in front of her path figures rose and fell, the very hedges riding in a circle round about her.
“Oh! go on! Go on!” she whispered, swaying in her seat, then feeling Philip’s arm about her. They rose, as though borne on a wave of wild weather, to the top of the hill. They had now only the straight road; they could see the station lights. Then the thunder, as though enraged at their persistence, broke into a shattering clatter — the soil, the hedges, the fields, the sky crumbled into rain; a great lash of storm whipped them in the face, and the pony, frightened by the thunder, broke from Katherine’s hand, ran wildly through the dark, crashed with a shuddering jar into the hedge. Their lamps fell; the ‘jingle’, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped over and gently dropped them on to the rain-soaked ground.
Katherine was on her feet in an instant. She saw that by a happy miracle one of the lamps still burned. She went to the pony, and found that, although he was trembling, he was unhurt. Philip was trying to turn the ‘jingle’ upright again.
“Quick!” she cried. “Hang the lamp on the cart. We must run for it — the shaft’s broken or something. There’s no time at all if we’re to catch that train. Run! Run! Phil! There’s sure to be someone coming in by the train who’ll see the ‘jingle’.”
They ran; they were lifted by the wind, beaten by the rain, deafened by the thunder, and Katherine as she ran knew that by her side was her enemy:
“You shan’t go! You shan’t go! I’ve got you still!”
She could hear, through the storm, some voice crying, “Phil! Phil! Come back! Come back!”
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Her heart was breaking, her eyes saw flame, her knees trembled, she stumbled, staggered, slipped. They had reached the white gates, had passed the level crossing, were up the station steps.
“It’s in! It’s in!” gasped Philip. “Only a second!”
She was aware of astonished eyes, of the stout station-master, of someone who shouted, of a last and strangely distant peal of thunder, of an open door, of tumbling forward, of a whistle and a jerk, and then a slow Glebeshire voice:
“Kind o’ near shave that was, Miss, I’m thinkin’.”
And through it all her voice was crying exultantly: “I’ve beaten you — you’ve done your worst, but I’ve beaten you. He’s mine now for ever” — and her eyes were fastened on a baffled, stormy figure left on the dark road, abandoned, and, at last, at last, defeated....
CHAPTER V. THE TRENCHARDS
Henry waited, for a moment, on the stairs. He heard the door close behind Katherine, heard the approaching storm invade the house, heard the cuckoo-clock in the passage above him proclaim seven o’clock, then went slowly up to his room. Why had Katherine gone out to see Penhaligan in those clothes, in such weather, at such an hour?... Very strange.... And her face too. She was excited, she had almost kissed him.... Her eyes....
He entered his familiar room, looked with disgust at his dinner-jacket and trousers lying upon the bed (he hated dressing for dinner), and then wandered up and down, dragging a book from the book-case and pushing it impatiently back again, stumbling over his evening slippers, pulling his coat off and allowing it to fall, unregarded, on to the floor.
Katherine!... Katherine?... What was ‘up’ with Katherine?
He had, in any case, been greatly upset by the events of the day. The crisis for which he had so long been waiting had at length arrived, and, behold, it had been no crisis at all. Superficially it had been nothing ... in its reality it had shaken, finally, destructively, the foundations of everything upon which his life had been built. He remembered, very clearly, the family’s comments upon the case of a young man known to them all, who, engaged to a girl in Polchester, had confessed, just before the marriage, that he had had a mistress for several years in London, who was however now happily married to a gentleman of means and had no further claim on him. The engagement had been broken off, with the approval of all the best families in Glebeshire. Henry remembered that his mother had said that it was not only the immorality of the young man but also his continued secrecy concerning the affair that was so abominable, that, of course, “young men must be young men, but you couldn’t expect a nice girl” — and so on.