millie, like many of the trenchard ladies before her, kept a diary. she had kept it now for three years, and it had not during that time, like the diaries of other young ladies, died many deaths and suffered many resurrections, but had continued with the utmost regularity and discipline. this regularity finds its explanation in the fact that millie really was interested in other people as well as in herself, was sometimes surprised at her cleverness and in turn suspicious of it—in fact, she knew as much about the world as most girls of eighteen who have been “finished” in paris: she thought that she knew more than she did, and was perfectly determined to know a great deal more than she thought she knew.
these were some entries:
dec. 6th. tried on the new white silk, but it won’t do even now—too tight and makes me skimpy—refused to let mother come with me this time. took aunt betty instead, and we saw a peach of a hat at reneé’s which i’d give my eyes for, only of course i haven’t got the money now with christmas coming and everything. aunt betty said it was much better wanting things you can’t have, because then you go on being excited, but that’s of course absurd and just like aunt betty.
bought aunt aggie a calendar-blotter thing for christmas which she won’t like (blue leather with silver corners) but i can’t help it. i’m sick of thinking what to get her, and she won’t be contented whatever it is. meanwhile, in the afternoon: the sensation of a lifetime—all sitting in the drawing-room, waiting for tea. when in bursts henry with the wild news that katie’s engaged herself to philip mark. we all turned blue—i’d like to have been someone outside and seen us. no one had really suspected it. i hadn’t myself—although one might have, i suppose, if one had watched more closely. it’s very exciting, and if katie’s happy i don’t care about anything else. at least i do. it was so lovely coming back from paris and having her all to oneself. we understand one another so much better than any of the others do. i’m the only one in the family who really knows her. i never thought of her as being married, which was silly, i suppose. it’s funny to think of her liking a man, whom she’s only just seen, better than all of us. it wouldn’t be funny with most people, but katherine’s so quiet and so steady. it all depends on what he’s like. finished ‘la faute de l’abbé mouret’. loved it. downstairs i’m reading ‘sesame and lilies’—well-written but awfully silly.
dec. 9th. dreary day buying presents with mother at the stores. why she will go there i can’t think, and she takes it like a week on the riviera or a box at the opera. she says nothing about philip—not a word. he dined last night, and was most tactful. i never saw anyone so determined to make us all devoted to him, but he’s got a difficult business with aunt aggie and mother. i like him, and have a kind of idea that i understand him better than any of the others do. he’s certainly not the god that katherine thinks him—and he knows he isn’t. he’s a little uncomfortable about it, i think. he’s certainly very much in love with her. letter from louise pougé—she’s engaged—to no one very particular. she’s younger than i am—and prettier—lots.
spoke to henry about clean handkerchiefs. he’s really incredible at his age. philip seems to influence him though. that may do something.
dec. 13th. dismal day. out of sorts and cross. dreadfully restless. i don’t know why. it’s all wrong this christmas, not being down at garth and katherine so occupied. on days like these i have terrible scruples about myself. i suppose i am terribly conceited really—and yet i don’t know. there are plenty of people i admire ever so much more than myself. i suppose it’s seeing katherine so happy that makes me restless. it must be nice to have anyone as devoted as that to you.... i’ve always been very cynical about being in love, but when one watches it, quite close, with anyone as good as katherine ... anyway it’s been a beastly day, and aunt aggie went on like an old crow at dinner. i wish i knew what mother was feeling about it all—she’s so quiet.
dec. 17th. had a long talk with philip this evening. i must say i liked him—he was so modest about himself. he said that he wished he were a little more as katherine thinks he is, and that he’s going to try to be. i said that’s all right so long as he made katherine happy and didn’t take her right away from us all. he said that he would do anything to make mother like him, and did i think that she liked him better now? i said that i was sure that she did—but i’m not sure really. it’s impossible to know what mother thinks. katherine came in whilst we were talking. afterwards, i don’t know why, i felt afraid somehow. katie’s so sure. i know i’d never be sure of anybody, least of all anyone in love with me. but then i know so much more about men than katie does. and i’m sure philip knows lots more about women than katie thinks. katie and mother are so alike in some ways. they’re both as obstinate as anything. such a lovely afternoon out with the swintons—snow in the green park, sparkling all over and the air like after you’ve eaten peppermints. lady perrot asked me to go with them to new year’s supper at the savoy. hope i’ll be allowed.
dec. 23rd. had a walk with katie—first walk had alone since her engagement. she was so happy that she was almost—a beastly word—frisky, katie frisky! we’re miles away from one another just now, and that’s the truth. i suppose one must simply wait until this period’s passed away. but supposing it never passes away? supposing she disappears altogether—from all of us. at any rate, what can one say? i like philip, and can honestly say so, but i don’t think him the angel gabriel. not that katie at present cares, in the least, what one thinks—she doesn’t wait to hear. she is making no plans, thinking of no possible future, imagining nothing. she never had any imagination, or at any rate never used it. perhaps she’ll get some now from philip, who has plenty—far too much. it’s his trouble, i believe that he’s always imagining something a little better than he’s got.... we trenchards have none. i haven’t any really—it’s only curiosity. henry and i might have some if we were all very uncomfortable. but of course the whole family only keeps together because it can’t imagine things being different. are things going to be different now?... rachel seddon came to tea. don’t like her. thinks she owns katie—and katie’s let her. went with the aunts to the messiah. very long, with nice bits. aunt aggie had a crick in the neck, and wriggled all the time. hope i get some money on christmas day or i shall be in an awful hole.
dec. 26th. two pounds from father, one from grandfather, ten shillings cousin alice, five aunt grace, kettle-holder aunt aggie, two dozen handkerchiefs uncle bob, fountain-pen father, new hat mother (quite hopeless), photo-gravure ‘happy warrior’ aunt betty, two books ‘reuben hallard’ by westcott (mudie second-hand) ‘rossetti’s poems’ from henry—lovely amethyst brooch katie (darling!) two novels by turgenieff from philip—lots of other things.
nice day on the whole, but not quite right somehow. wish mother didn’t always look so anxious when there’s a dinner party. you always expect things to happen wrong, and really rocket knows his business by this time. all of us a little forced, i think. it seemed funny not being at garth and philip the first person we’ve ever had not of the family. aunt sarah keeps forgetting who he is, or pretends to. i wish he didn’t make up to mother quite so much. that isn’t the way to make her like him. i really do understand him much better than anyone else does—much better than katie.
dec. 31st. going to the savoy party to-night. hope it will be fun. never expected mother to let me, but she’s awfully sweet to me lately. she’s a darling, but we’re really always just a little afraid of one another. of course i’m not out yet, so i’ll have to be quiet to-night. mother never would have dreamt of letting me go six months back. end of the year—made several resolutions. not to be snappy, nor superior, nor cynical, nor selfish. that’s enough for anyone to look after! wonder what things will be like this year, and how katie and philip will turn out. feel as though things will all go wrong, and yet i don’t know why. bought the hat i saw a fortnight ago. finished ‘house of gentlefolks’. adored it. discussed it with philip. going to get all the other turgenieffs. think russia must be a wonderful country. time to dress. i know i’ll just love the party....
only mrs. trenchard herself could say whether or no she had enjoyed this christmas. she displayed the same busy placidity as on other occasions; of her fears, disappointments, surprises, she said nothing. the turkey was a success, the plum-pudding burnt with a proper glow, no one was ill, she had forgotten, in sending out her parcels, no single trenchard relation—surely all was well.
her brother, timothy, who knew her better than anyone else did, had long abandoned the penetration of her motives, aims, regrets. there had been a time when she had been almost intimate with him, then something (he never knew what) had driven her in more obstinately than ever upon herself. something he had said.... he could point almost exactly to the day and hour. she had been a stranger to him from that moment.
her history was, however, very simple.
when she had been a very, very small child she had decided for herself that the way to give life a real value was to fix one’s affection upon someone: perhaps there had been also the fear of life as a motive, the discovery that the best way to be protected from all kinds of perils was to be so fond of someone that nothing else mattered. with a quiet, undemonstrative but absolutely tenacious hold she attached herself to her nurse, who deserted her on the appearance of a younger sister, to her mother, who died, to her father, who was always so busy that loving him was like being devoted to a blotting pad. when she was ten years of age she went to school, and clung to a succession of older girls, who, however, found, in her lack of all demonstrations, her almost cynical remarks, her inability to give any expression whatever to her emotions, something, at first, terrifying, and afterwards merely tiresome.
when she was about eighteen she discovered that the person to whom a woman should be properly attached was her husband. she waited then very calmly until she was twenty, when george trenchard appeared, proposed to her, and was accepted. she took it so utterly for granted that her devotion to him would fill sufficiently the energy of her remaining days that it wasn’t until the end of a year of married life that she discovered that, although he liked her very much, he could do quite beautifully without her, and did, indeed, for three-quarters of every day forget her altogether. no one, except herself, knew whether that discovery hurt her. she, of course, said nothing to anyone about it. she waited for the arrival of her children. katherine, henry and mildred came, and at last it seemed that mrs. trenchard’s ship had come into port. during their early years, at any rate, they clung to her tenaciously, did not in the least mind that she had nothing to say to them: they found her sure and safe and, best of all possible things in a parent, always the same. it was when katherine was six years old that timothy said to her one day:
“look here, harriet, don’t get so wrapt in the children that you’ll never be able to unwrap yourself again. i’ve seen it happen dozens of times, and it always gives endless trouble later on. it’s all very well now, but the time will come when they’ll break away—it must come, and you’ll suffer horribly unless you’re ready for it. i’m not married myself, it’s true, but i see all the more for that very reason.”
this was the speech that severed mrs. trenchard from her brother. she never forgot nor forgave it. she never forgave it because she could not forget it: his words were to haunt her from the moment of their utterance until the last conscious instant of her life. she had been born entirely without imagination, but she had not been born without the wish for romance. moreover, the faunder tradition (which is the same as the trenchard tradition) taught her to believe that there was something enfeebling and dangerous about imagination, and that the more one thought about things not immediately within sight the less likely one was to do one’s daily task with efficiency. her longing for a romantic life therefore (that is for the justification of her own personal existence) was assisted by no private dreams nor castle-building. no faunder or trenchard had ever built a castle in the air when there were good square manors and vicarages waiting to be constructed on good solid ground. she directed the whole of her passionate life towards her relations with her children, but never even to herself would she admit that she had any passionate life at all. take away the children and there was nothing left for her except her religion; because the loss of them would be the one tragedy that would drive her to question the justice of her god was justification of itself for her passionate determination.
now timothy had said that she would lose them—well, timothy should see. with other children, with other mothers, it might be so. god himself should not take them from her.
nevertheless, as the children grew, the shadows of his words ever pursued her and hemmed her in. she watched, with close attention, other families, and saw that timothy’s warning was justified often enough, but always she was able to find for herself some reason. the weakness of selfishness or carelessness of the parent. not weak, nor selfish, nor careless could any watching powers, waiting to pounce, accuse her of being!
when the children grew older she discovered certain things about them. henry often annoyed her with his untidiness and strangely unjustified egotism. he always thought about himself, and yet never did anything. she liked henry least of her children.
mildred was delightful, clever, the “show child”, but for that very reason would in all probability be, afterwards, the most restless of them. as the two girls grew mrs. trenchard told herself that, perhaps, millie would have to be sacrificed, and in telling herself this she implied that if she would only, when the time came, allow millie without a murmur to depart, the gods would be satisfied with that and katherine would remain.
it came to this, that by the time that katherine was twelve she was the centre of her mother’s existence. mildred and henry would be held as long as it was possible to hold them, but, if the worst came, they should go. katherine would always remain....
it seemed indeed that she would. she loved her home, her parents, her relations, glebeshire, the whole of the trenchard inheritance. she placed her mother first in her life, and she was able to satisfy the love in her mother’s heart without saying anything about it or drawing anyone’s attention towards it. she had all the qualities that her mother admired—sincerity, trust, common-sense, practical punctuality, moral as well as physical: above all, she took things for granted without asking endless questions, as was henry’s unfortunate habit. there grew then in the lives both of mrs. trenchard and katherine a passionate affection, which was never allowed by either of them to find outward expression. this became, behind the commonplace matter-of-fact of all their days, a kind of romantic conspiracy. even when katherine was still a child mrs. trenchard knew that the hours that they spent alone together had some strange almost incoherent quality, something that was mixed, inextricably, with the high lanes, the grassy lawns, the distant strip of sea beyond the fields, the rooks in the high trees, the smell of the village shop, boot-laces, liquorice, tallow, cheese and cotton, the dark attic bedroom of katherine’s, the cries of village children beyond the garden wall, afternoon sunday school upon hard benches under glazed lamps to the accompaniment of the harmonium; all the things that belonged to garth belonged also to the love between mrs. trenchard and katherine. katherine had been first taken to the sea when she had been a very little girl; she had been shown rafiel and the pirates’ cove with its cave (too small for any but very thin pirates), and the village with the cottages cut out of the rock and the sea advancing and retreating as a lazy cat stretches and withdraws its paws upon the pebbled beach. driving home through the twilight in the high dog-cart behind the fat and beloved family pony, katherine had been besieged with questions. what had she thought of it all? what had she liked best? had it been wonderful? she had said nothing. she was obstinately silent. at last, persecuted beyond bearing, she looked, imploringly, at her mother. her eyes had met her mother’s, and, as complete understanding passed between them, it seemed that they made, there and then, a compact of mutual help and protection that was never afterwards to be broken. mrs. trenchard had never, never been known to mention scenery, sunsets or buildings, except for strictly practical reasons. she would say: “come in, children, you’ll catch cold, the sun’s setting”, or “i don’t think we’ll have rain to-day. there’s not a cloud”, or “it’s so hot, there’s quite a mist. i hope there’ll be enough strawberries and cream for everyone.” that was her attitude, and yet she loved glebeshire, every stone and tree, with an unfaltering and unarguing devotion. she never said “glebeshire is the loveliest spot in the world”. but only: “oh! you’ve never been to glebeshire? you don’t know the clarence faunders then? they’re only five miles from us”, or “yes. we live in glebeshire—a little village not far from polchester. we’re very lucky in our clergyman, a mr. smart, one of the smarts, etc.” moreover, she never when she was quite alone said to herself: “oh! what a heavenly day!” or “how lovely the new leaves are”, or “look at the primroses!” she only said to herself: “lucy cartwright’s annie has got to have that ointment”, or “i must tell rebekah about the poor curtises. she could take them the things.”
nevertheless, when she discovered that katherine cared for glebeshire with a love as deep as her own, how happy she was! how firmly that discovery bound them together! for them both that journey twice a year from london to garth was as exciting as though they had never taken it before. the stations, whose names were like the successive wrappers that enclose a splendid present, rasselas, the little windy station where they changed from the london express into the halting, stumbling little train that carried them towards the sea; then stoep in roselands, tiniest station of all, with the sea smell blowing across the dark fields, the carriage with its lights and jacob, the coachman, the drive through the twilight lanes, the gleaming white gates, the house itself and old rebekah on the doorstep ... yes, of all these things was the love between mrs. trenchard and her daughter made.
most wonderful of all was it that, with katherine, mrs. trenchard never knew a moment’s awkwardness or embarrassment. with everyone else in the world and, perhaps especially with her own family, mrs. trenchard was often awkward and embarrassed, although no one but herself was aware of it. of this embarrassment mrs. trenchard had a horrible dread: it was to her as though she were suddenly lifted off her feet by a giant hand and held dangling: she felt that all the world must see how her skirts blew in the wind. with katherine she was always safe: she grew, most urgently, to depend upon this safety. then, as the years passed she felt that she might, with justice, consider katherine secure. katherine seemed to have no interest in young men: already she adopted a rather motherly attitude towards them and, perhaps because henry was the young man immediately before her, considered them rather helpless, rather clumsy, rather unwieldy and ungainly. she was always kind but a little satirical in her relations to the other sex: young men were, perhaps, afraid of her.
mrs. trenchard did, of course, consider the possibility of katherine’s marriage, but, if that ever occurred, it would be, she knew, with someone in the family, someone like themselves, who would live near by, who would worship katherine but never interfere with her, who would give her children, to whom mrs. trenchard could be a delightful grandmother. this surrender the gods might demand—it would need more than such a marriage to separate, now, katherine from her mother. mrs. trenchard, like all unimaginative people, relied very strongly upon little facts and well-accustomed places and familiar family relations. she did not believe that victoria street would walk away or that the old woman (mrs. pengello, an ancient widow with a pension, two granddaughters and a cast in her eye) at the garth post office would appear one morning as a radiant young beauty, or that her brother timothy would go on to the music halls. her world was thus a place of security, and katherine was one of the most secure things in it. “ah! timothy, you’re wrong after all,” she would sometimes, in the watches of the night, think to herself. “nothing can take katherine from me now. you may be as right as you like about millie and henry. katherine is enough....”
she had, during these last years, been wrapped in with a strange, placid content: millie had been at school in paris: there was nothing inside the trenchard fortress that spoke of the outside world. no secret spirit ever whispered to mrs. trenchard: “are you not being selfish in keeping your daughter? you will die some day, and then she will have a lonely old maid’s life when she might have been so happy. the children’s lives are their own. what right have you to katherine’s life and ambitions and love? would you, in your youth, have given up your future for your parents? why should she?”
there was nothing that mrs. trenchard desired more than katherine’s happiness. if katherine had not loved her she would have let her go, but now ... katherine’s life was bound up with hers so tightly that nothing, nothing could part them....
then there came a night of fog, a stranger bowing in the doorway, and all the old days were dead. mrs. trenchard was still stunned, the fog was yet about her eyes, and in her heart was a dread that had not yet found its voice nor driven her to determine what she would do.... meanwhile there was no one in the world who knew her. she did not know herself. until now there had been in her life no crisis strong enough to force open that realisation.
one morning early in january mrs. trenchard said to katherine at breakfast: “will you come to the stores with me this afternoon, katherine? i have to buy some hot-water bottles and one or two other things. two of them leak badly ... some hot-water bottles ... and i’d like you to help me.”
“i’m lunching with rachel, mother,” katherine said. “but i’ll be back by three if that’s time enough.”
“three o’clock. very well, dear. they oughtn’t to leak—we’ve had them quite a short time. shall i meet you there?”
“no. i’ll come back. we might miss there. i’ll be back by three.”
at ten minutes past three in a large rather confused hat with a black bird and white feathers mrs. trenchard was seated waiting in the drawing-room. the fire had had coal poured upon it by rocket, and it was very black: the room was cold and dark, and mrs. trenchard, feeling like an unwelcome guest in her own house, shivered. at twenty minutes past three mrs. trenchard began to be afraid that there had been an accident. katherine was always so punctual. millie came in.
“dear mother, what on earth!”
“i’m waiting for katherine. she was to be back at three from rachel seddon’s. we are—were—going to the stores. you don’t think there can have been an accident?”
“katherine! why, i saw her twenty minutes ago. i’ve just come back from lady carloes. katie was at hyde park corner with philip.”
“philip!”
mrs. trenchard got up, took off one black glove, then put it on again. she looked at the clock.
“will you come to the stores with me, millie? i’ve got to get some hot-water bottles and some other things.... two of ours leak.... i’d like you to help me.”
millie looked once at the clock, and her mother saw her. then millie said:
“of course i will. we won’t be very long, will we?”
“why, no, dear,” said mrs. trenchard, who would have been happy to spend a week at the stores had she the opportunity. “quite a little time.”
they set off together.
millie was not yet of such an age that she could disguise her thoughts. she was wondering about katherine, and mrs. trenchard knew that this was so. mrs. trenchard always walked through the streets of london as a trainer in the company of his lions. anything might happen, and one’s life was not safe for a moment, but a calm, resolute demeanour did a great deal, and, if trouble came, one could always use the whip: the whip was the trenchard name. to-day, however, she gave no thought to london: she was very gentle and kind to millie—almost submissive and humble. this made millie very uncomfortable.
“i’m rather foolish about the stores, i’m afraid. i know several places where you can get better hot-water bottles and cheaper. but they know me at the stores now.”
once she said: “i hope, millie dear, i’m not keeping you from anything. we shall be home by half-past four.”
in exchange for these two little remarks millie talked a great deal, and the more she talked the more awkward she seemed. she was very unhappy about her mother, and she wished that she could comfort her, but she knew her so little and had been always on such careless terms with her that now she had no intuition about her.
“what is she thinking?... i know katherine has hurt her terribly. she oughtn’t to wear a hat like that: it doesn’t suit her a bit. why isn’t it i who have forgotten, and katie here instead to console her? only then she wouldn’t want consolation....”
as they walked up the steps of the stores they were stared at by a number of little dogs on chains, who all seemed to assert their triumphant claims on somebody’s especial affections. the little dogs stirred mrs. trenchard’s unhappiness, without her knowing why. all down victoria street she had been thinking to herself: “katherine never forgot before—never. it was only this morning—if it had even been yesterday—but this morning! millie doesn’t understand, and she didn’t want to come—katie....”
she walked slowly into the building, and was at once received by that friendly, confused smell of hams and medicines which is the stores’ note of welcome. lights shone, warmth eddied in little gusts of hot air from corner to corner: there was much conversation, but all of a very decent kind: ladies, not very grand ones and not very poor ones, but comfortable, motherly, housekeeping ladies were everywhere to be seen.
no wonder, surely, that mrs. trenchard loved the stores! here was everything gathered in from the ends of the earth that was solid and sound and real. here were no extravagances, no decadencies, no flowing creations with fair outsides and no heart to them, nothing foreign nor degenerate. however foreign an article might be before it entered the stores, once inside those walls it adopted itself at once to the claims of a cathedral city—even the eastern carpets, stained though their past lives might be with memories of the harem, recognised that their future lay along the floor of a bishop’s study, a major’s drawing-room or the dining-room of a country rectory. if ever mrs. trenchard was alarmed by memories of foreign influences, of german invasions, or armenian atrocities, she had only to come to the stores to be entirely reassured. it would be better for our unbalanced and hysterical alarmists did they visit the stores more frequently....
but frequent visits had bred in mrs. trenchard a yet warmer intimacy. although she had never put her feeling into words, she was determined now that the stores was maintained solely in the trenchard and faunder interests. so pleasant and personally submissive had the young men and young women of the place been to her all these years, that she now regarded them with very nearly the personal benevolence that she bestowed upon her own rebekah, rocket, jacob and so on. she felt that only trenchards and faunders could have produced an organisation whose spirit was so entirely sprung from their own views and observances. she did not defend or extol those views. there simply they were! and out of them the stores were born. she paid her call here, therefore, rather as a patroness visits a hospital in which she is interested—with no conceit or false pride, but with a maternal anxiety that everything should be well and prosperous. everything always was well and prosperous.... she was a happy patroness!
“that’s a splendid ham!” were invariably her first words, and “i do like the way they arrange things here,” her second. she could have wandered, very happily, all day from compartment to compartment, stopping continually to observe, to touch, to smile, to blow her nose (being moved, very often, quite emotionally) to beam happily upon the customers and then to turn, with a little smile of intimacy, to the young men in frock coats and shiny hair, as though she would say: “we’ve got a good crowd to-day. everyone seems comfortable ... but how can they help it when everything is so beautifully done?”
her chief pride and happiness found its ultimate crown in the furniture department. here, hung as it was somewhere up aloft, with dark bewildering passages starting into infinity on every side of it, was the place that her soul truly loved. she could gaze all day upon those sofas and chairs. those wonderful leather couches of dark red and dark blue, so solid, so stern in their unrelenting opposition to flighty half-and-half, so self-supporting and self-satisfying, so assured of propriety and comfort and solid value for your money. she would sink slowly into a huge leather arm-chair, and from her throne smile upon the kind gentleman who washed his hands in front of her.
“and how much is this one?”
“nine pounds, eight and sixpence, ma’am.”
“really. nine pounds, eight and sixpence. it’s a splendid chair.”
“it is indeed, ma’am. we’ve sold more than two dozen of this same article in this last fortnight. a great demand just now.”
“and so there ought to be—more than two dozen! well, i’m not surprised—an excellent chair.”
“perhaps we can send it for you? or you prefer—?”
“no, thank you. not to-day. but i must say that it’s wonderful for the money. that sofa over there—”
up here, in this world of solid furniture, it seemed that england was indeed a country to be proud of! mrs. trenchard would have made no mean britannia, seated in one of the stores’ arm-chairs with a stores’ curtain-rod for her trident!
upon this january afternoon she found her way to the furniture department more swiftly than was usual with her. the stores seemed remote from her to-day. as she passed the hams, the chickens, the medicines and powders, the petticoats and ribbons and gloves, the books and the stationery, the cut-glass and the ironware, the fancy pots, the brass, the chinese lanterns, the toys, the pianos and the gramophones, the carpets and the silver, the clocks and the pictures, she could only be dimly aware that to-day these things were not for her, that all the treasures of the earth might be laid at her feet and she would not care for them, that all the young men and young women in england might bow and smile before her and she would have no interest nor pleasure in them. she reached the furniture department. she sank down in the red-leather arm-chair. she said, with a little sigh:
“she has never forgotten before!”
this was, considering her surroundings and the moment of its expression, the most poignant utterance of her life.
millie’s chief emotion, until this moment, had been one of intense boredom. the stores seemed to her, after paris, an impossible anachronism; she could not understand why it was not instantly burnt up and destroyed, and all its solemn absurdities cast, in dirt and ashes, to the winds.
she followed her mother with irritation, and glances of cynical contempt were flung by her upon the innocent ladies who were buying and chatting and laughing together. then she remembered that her mother was in trouble, and she was bowed down with self-accusation for a hard heartless girl who thought of no one but herself. her moods always thus followed swiftly one upon another.
when, in the furniture department, she heard that forlorn exclamation she wanted to take her mother’s hand, but was shy and embarrassed.
“i expect katie had to go with philip.... something she had to do, and perhaps it only kept her a moment or two and she got back just after we’d left. we didn’t wait long enough for her. she’s been waiting there, i expect, all this time for us.”
mrs. trenchard’s cheek flushed and her eyes brightened.
“why, millie, that’s most likely! we’ll go back at once ... that’s most likely.... we’ll go back at once.”
“this is a very cheap article,” said the young man, “or if madame would prefer a chair with—”
“no, no,” said mrs. trenchard quite impatiently. “not to-day. not to-day, thank you.”
“there are the hot-water bottles,” said millie.
“oh, of course.... i want some hot-water bottles. ours leak ... three of them....”
“in the rubber department, madam, first to the right, second to the left....”
but mrs. trenchard hurried through the hot-water bottles in a manner utterly foreign to her.
“thank you. i’m sure they’re very nice. they won’t leak, you say? how much?... thank you ... no, i prefer these.... if you’re sure they won’t leak.... yes, my number is 2157.... thank you.”
outside in victoria street she said: “i might have given her until quarter to four. i daresay she’s been waiting all this time.”
but millie for the first time in all their days together was angry with katherine. she said to herself: “she’s going to forget us all like this now. we aren’t, any of us, going to count for anything. six months ago she would have died rather than hurt mother....”
and behind her anger with katherine was anger with herself because she seemed so far away from her mother, because she was at a loss as to the right thing to do, because she had said that she had seen philip with katherine. “you silly idiot!” she thought to herself. “why couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut?”
mrs. trenchard spoke no word all the way home.
katherine was not in the house when they returned. millie went upstairs, mrs. trenchard stared at the desolate drawing-room. the fire was dead, and the room, in spite of its electric light, heavy and dark. mrs. trenchard looked at the reflection of her face in the mirror; with both hands she pushed her hat a little, then, with a sudden gesture, took it off, drawing out the pins slowly and staring at it again. mrs. trenchard glanced at the clock, and then slowly went out, holding her hat in her hand, advancing with that trailing, half-sleepy movement that was peculiarly hers.
she did then what she had not done for many years: she went to her husband’s study. this hour before tea he always insisted was absolutely his own: no one, on any pretext, was ever to disturb him. to-day, cosily, with a luxurious sense that the whole world had been made for him, and made for him exactly as he liked it, he was, with a lazy pencil, half-writing, half-thinking, making little notes for an essay on william hazlitt.
as his wife entered he was reading: “how fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at the approach of nightfall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after enquiring for the best entertainment the place affords, to take one’s ease at one’s inn! these eventful moments in our lives’ history are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. i would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop.”
how thoroughly george trenchard agreed with that. how lucky for him that he was able to defend himself from so much of that same “imperfect sympathy”. not that he did not love his fellow-creatures, far from it, but it was pleasant to be able to protect oneself from their too constant, their too eager ravages. had he been born in his beloved period, then he fancied that he might, like magnificent sir walter, have built his castle and entertained all the world, but in this age of telephones and motorcars one was absolutely compelled.... he turned hazlitt’s words over on his tongue with a little happy sigh of regret, and then was conscious that his wife was standing by the door.
“hullo!” he cried, starting up. “is anything the matter?”
it was so unusual for her to be there that he stared at her large, heavy figure as though she had been a stranger. then he jumped up, laughing, and the dark blue hazlitt fell on to the carpet.
“well, my dear,” he said, “tea-time?”
she came trailing across the room, and stood beside him near the fire.
“no ...” she said, “not yet ... george.... you, look very cosy here,” she suddenly added.
“i am,” he answered. he looked down at the hazlitt, and her eyes followed his glance. “what have you been doing?”
“i’ve been to the stores.”
“why, of course,” he said, chaffing her. “you live there. and what have you been buying this time?”
“hot-water bottles.”
“well, that’s exciting!”
“ours leaked.... two of them, and we’d had them a very short time. i took millie with me!”
“very good for her. clear some of her parisian fancies.”
there was a pause then, and he bent forward as though he would pick up the book, but he pulled himself up again.
“katherine’s been out with philip all the afternoon.”
he smiled one of his radiant, boyish smiles.
“she’s happy, isn’t she? it does one good to see her. she deserves it too if anyone in this world does. i like him—more and more. he’s seen the world, and has got a head on his shoulders. and he isn’t conceited, not in the least. he’s charming to her, and i think he’ll make her a very good husband. that was a lucky thing for us his coming along, because katherine was sure to marry someone, and she might have set her heart on an awful fellow. you never know in these days.”
“ah! i don’t think so,” said mrs. trenchard, nervously turning her hat over in her hands, “that wouldn’t be like katie at all.”
“no, well, perhaps it wouldn’t,” said george cheerfully. there was another pause, and now he bent right down, picked up the book, grunting a little, then stood, turning over the pages.
“i’m getting fat,” he said, “good for all of us when we get down to garth.”
“george ...” she began and stopped.
“well, my dear.” he put his hand on her shoulder, and then as though embarrassed by the unexpected intimacy that his action produced, withdrew it.
“don’t you think we might go out to the theatre one evening—theatre or something?”
“what! with the children? family party! splendid idea!”
“no, i didn’t mean with the children—exactly. just you and i alone. dine somewhere—have an evening together.”
it was no use to pretend that he was not surprised. she saw his astonishment.
“why, of course—if you’d really care about it. mostly pantomimes just now—but i daresay we could find something. good idea. good idea.”
“now that—now that—the children are beginning to marry and go off by themselves. why, i thought ... you understand....”
“of course. of course,” he said again. “any night you like. you remind me....”
he whistled a gay little tune, and turned over the pages of the hazlitt, reading sentences here and there.
“tea in a minute?...” he said gaily. “just got a line or two more to finish. then i’ll be with you.”
she looked at him as though she would say something more: she decided, however, that she would not, and trailed away.
returning to the drawing-room, she found katherine standing there. katherine’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled: she was wearing a little black hat with red berries, and the black velvet ribbon round her neck had a diamond brooch in it that philip had given her. rocket was bending over the fire: she was laughing at him. when she saw her mother she waved her hand.
“mother, darling—what kind of an afternoon have you had? i’ve had the loveliest time. i lunched at rachel’s, and there, to my immense surprise, was philip. i hadn’t the least idea he was coming. not the slightest. we weren’t to have met to-day at all. just lord john, philip, rachel and i. then we had such a walk. philip and i. hyde park corner, right through the park, marble arch, then through regent’s park all the way up primrose hill—took a ’bus home again. never enjoyed anything so much. you’ve all been out too, because here’s the fire dead. i’ve been telling rocket what i think of him. haven’t i, rocket?... where are the others? millie, aunt aggie. it’s tea-time.”
“yes, dear, it is,” said mrs. trenchard.
it was incredible, katherine was utterly unconscious. she remembered nothing.
mrs. trenchard looked at rocket.
“that’ll do, rocket. that’s enough. we’ll have tea at once.”
rocket went out. she turned to her daughter.
“i’m glad you’ve enjoyed your afternoon, dear. i couldn’t think what had happened to you. i waited until half-past three.”
“waited?”
“yes—to go to the stores. you said at breakfast that you’d come with me—that you’d be back by three. i waited until half-past.... it was quite all right, dear. millie went with me. she had seen you—you and philip at hyde park corner—so, of course, i didn’t wait any longer.”
katherine stared at her mother: the colour slowly left her face and her hand went up to her cheeks with a gesture of dismay.
“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.
