that return to garth was, for everyone concerned, a miserable affair. it happened that the fine summer weather broke into torrents of rain. as they drove up to the old house they could hear the dripping of water from every nook and corner. as henry lay awake that first night the hiss and spatter of the rain against his window seemed to have a personal grudge against him. “ah—you fool—s-s-s—you s-s-s-illy a-s-s-s. put your pride in your pocket—s-s-s-illy a-s-s.”
when he slept he dreamt that a deluge had descended upon the earth, that all were drowned save he, and that he was supported against the flood only by the floor of the house that swayed and swayed. suddenly with a crash in it fell—he awoke to find that he had tumbled out of bed on to the carpet.
for days a steaming, clammy mist, with a weight and a melancholy peculiar to glebeshire, hung over the world.
they lived in hot steam, their hair was damp and their hands chill. it was poor days for the beginning of august. rebekah was in a bad temper; no one knew what it was that had displeased her, but she had a wicked nephew who wrote, at certain times, to plead for money, and always for many days after receiving a letter from him she was displeased with everyone. she walked now like a tragedy queen in her tall white cap and stiff white apron; only mrs. trenchard could be expected to deal with her, and mrs. trenchard had other things that occupied her mind.
henry’s eye was now forever on his mother. he waited for the moment when aunt aggie would speak, that quite inevitable moment.
he thought that he had never truly seen his mother before. in old days, in that strange, dim world before philip’s arrival, she had seemed to him someone to be cherished, to be protected, someone growing a little old, a little cheerless, a little lonely. now she was full of vigour and dominion. when she said to him: “did you put on that clean under-clothing this morning, henry?” instead of sulking and answering her question with an obvious disgust, he assured her earnestly that he had done so. he admired now her strong figure, her pouring of tea at breakfast, her sharp rebukes to the gardener, and her chiding of uncle tim when he entered the drawing-room wearing muddy boots. yes, he admired his mother. so he trembled at the thought of her cold, ironic anger when she heard of philip’s past.
on the day after their arrival at garth he told millie what he had done. he had long ago realised that, since her return from paris, millie had been a quite unaccountable creature. it was not only her french education. he attributed this change also to the dire influence of philip. he noticed with disgust that she behaved now as though she were a woman of the world, implying, at the same time, that he was still an uncleanly and ignorant schoolboy. he knew that she would be indignant and scornful at his indiscretion, nevertheless he was driven by loneliness to confide in her.
they walked together to the village that they might fetch the afternoon post, otherwise unrescued until the following morning.
millie was in a bad temper.
“i never knew anyone walk in the mud as you do, henry. your boots are filthy in a minute. you walk into every puddle you can see. you always did.”
the trees hung ghostly out of the mist like mocking scarecrows. every once and again moisture from somewhere trickled down between henry’s neck and collar.
“look here, millie,” he said gloomily, “i want your advice.”
“you’ve done something silly again, i suppose,” she answered loftily.
glancing shyly at her, he thought that she was looking very pretty. strange, the number of new things that he was noticing now about the family. but she was pretty—a great deal prettier than katherine; in fact, the only pretty one of the family. he liked her soft hair, so charming under her large flopping garden-hat, her little nose, her eyes black and sparkling, the colour of her cheeks, her tall and slim body that carried her old cotton dress so gracefully. everything about her was right and beautiful in a way that no other members of the family could achieve. katherine was always a little clumsy, although since her engagement to philip she had taken more care.... there was something light and lovely about millie that no care would produce if you had not got it. he was proud of her, and would have liked that she should be nice to him.
“yes,” he said, “i’ve been an awful fool.... i’ve told aunt aggie about philip.”
millie stopped and stood, staring at him.
“you’ve told aunt aggie?” she cried furiously.
“yes,” he repeated, blushing, as he always did when he was scolded.
“oh! you silly ass!” she was so deeply exasperated that she could scarcely speak.
“you silly ass! i might have guessed it—and yet all the time i’d hoped that at least.... and aunt aggie of all people!... and now katherine and mother!
“oh, you chattering, blundering idiot!”
she walked forward at a furious pace; he plunged after her.
“that’s all right,” he said, “when you’ve done cursing you’ll be cooler. i know i’m an ass, but aunt aggie irritated me and got it all out of me. aunt aggie’s the devil!”
“of course she is, and of course you’ll choose her out of everyone, when she hates philip and would wring his neck to-morrow if her hands were strong enough.”
“well, i hate him too,” said henry.
“oh, no you don’t,” answered millie, “you think you do. you’re proud of thinking you hate him, and you lose your temper because he laughs at you, and then you throw books at his head, but you don’t really hate him.”
“how do you know i throw books at his head?”
“oh, you don’t suppose we, any of us, believed that story about you and philip having a kind of game in the drawing-room just for fun.... father was furious about it, and said the mirror was unreplaceable, and the sooner you went to cambridge and stopped there the better—and i think so too. oh! you’ve just spoilt everything!”
“it’s only about katie i’m thinking,” he answered doggedly. “it may, after all, be true what aunt aggie said, that it will be much better for her in the end for the thing to be broken off, even though it hurts her now.”
“better for her!” cried millie scornfully. “don’t you know that, however deeply she loved philip when it all began, it’s nothing to the way that she loves him now?... of course now there’ll be a scene. philip will be turned off for ever and—” she broke off, then said, staring at henry: “supposing, after all, katie were to go with him!”
henry shook his head. “she’d never do that, however much philip is to her. why, it would mean giving up garth and us for ever! mother would never forgive her! after all, she’s only known philip six months, and i heard her say the other day in london she loves garth more than ever. and even if mother did forgive her, in the end she’d never be able to come back here as one of us again. you and i will love her whatever she does, but mother and father and the aunts ... i believe it would simply kill them—”
“i’m not so sure,” said millie slowly, “that mother thinks that. i believe she’s half afraid of philip running off and then katie following him. that’s why she’s been so nice to him lately, although she can’t bear him. of course if she knew all this that we know he’d have to go—she wouldn’t have him in the house five minutes, and father would do what mother told him of course. and now that you’ve been an idiot enough to tell aunt aggie, it’s all up.... the only hope is that katie will chuck it all and follow him!”
“what!” cried henry aghast. “you’d like her to!”
“why, of course,” said millie, “there isn’t anything compared with the sort of thing katie feels for philip—home and the family? why, they’ve all got to go in these days! that’s what people like the aunts and fathers and the rest of the old fogeys round here don’t see. but they’ll have to see soon.... but mother’s cleverer than they are. at least she is about katie, because she loves her so much.”
“my word!” said henry, in the husky voice that always came when he admired anybody. “you’ve changed an awful lot lately, millie.”
“yes, i suppose i have,” she answered, complacently.
they talked very little after that, for the reason that in the village henry bought millie some bulls-eyes, because he felt in a confused kind of way that he admired her more than he had ever done.
millie had also another reason for silence; she was thinking very hard. during those few days in london she had lived in a world of thrilling expectation. she hoped that every moment would announce the elopement of katherine and philip. after her conversation with her sister, it had seemed to her that this elopement was inevitable. on every occasion of the opening of a door in the london house her heart had leapt in her breast. she had watched the lovers with eyes that were absorbed. ah! if only they would take her more thoroughly into their confidence, would put themselves into her hands. she’d manage for them—she’d arrange everything most beautifully. this was the most romantic hour of her life....
but now, after henry’s revelation, millie’s thoughts were turned upon her mother. of course her mother would expel philip—then there was a danger that philip would return to that living, fascinating creature in russia, the mysterious, smiling anna. millie had created that figure for herself now, had thought and wondered and dreamed of her so often that she saw her bright and vivid and desperately dangerous, thin and dark and beautiful against a background of eternal snow.
there they were—her mother and anna and katherine, with philip, poor philip, in between them all. it was truly a wonderful time for millie, who regarded all this as a prologue to her own later dazzling history. she did not know that, after all, she blamed henry very desperately for his foolishness. the thrilling crisis was but brought the nearer.
meanwhile the first thing that she did was to inform katherine of henry’s treachery.
katherine received the news very quietly.
“and now,” said millie eagerly, “what will you do, katie darling?”
“wait and see what mother does,” said katie.
“she’ll be simply horrified,” said millie. “if she sends philip away and forbids you ever to see him again, what will you do?”
but katherine would not answer that.
“let’s wait, millie dear,” she said gently.
“but you wouldn’t let him go?” millie pursued, “not back to russia and that awful woman.”
“i trust philip,” katherine said.
“you can never trust a man,” millie said gravely. “i know. one of our girls in paris was let in terribly. she—”
katherine interrupted her.
“philip isn’t like anyone else,” she said.
and millie was dismissed.
but when katherine was alone she sat down and wrote a letter. this was it:
my darling rachel,
do you remember that a long time ago, one day when i came to see you in london, you said that if i were ever in trouble i was to tell you and you’d understand anything? well, i’m in trouble now—bad trouble. things are growing worse and worse, and it seems now that whichever way i act, something’s got to be hopelessly spoiled. to any ordinary outsider it would mean such a small business, but really it’s the whole of my life and of other people’s too. you’re not an outsider, and so i know that you’ll understand. i can’t tell you more now—i don’t know what will happen, how i’ll act, or anything. but i shall know soon, and then i shall want your help, dreadfully. i’m sure you’ll help me when i ask you to.
you do like philip better now, don’t you? i know that you didn’t at first, but that was because you didn’t really know him. i didn’t really know him either then, but i know him now, and i love him twice as much as ever i did.
this will seem a silly letter to you, but i want to feel that i’ve got someone behind me. millie’s a dear, but she isn’t old enough to understand. don’t be frightened by this. if anything happens i’ll write at once.
your loving
k.
meanwhile the family life proceeded, outwardly, on its normal way. august was always a month of incident—picnics to rafiel and st. lowe and damen head, sometimes long expeditions to borhaze or pelynt, sometimes afternoons in pendennis or rothin woods. there were expeditions in which relations from polchester or clinton, or friends from liskane and polewint shared, and, in the cover of them, the family supported quite successfully the trenchard tradition of good manners, unruffled composure, and abundant leisure. as members of a clan so ancient and self-reliant that no enemy, however strong, however confident, could touch them, they sat about their luncheon baskets on the burning sand, whilst the fat pony cropped in the dark hedges above the beach and the gulls wheeled and hovered close at hand.
this was well enough, but the long summer evenings betrayed them. in earlier days, when relationships were so sure and so pleasant that the world swept by in a happy silence, those summer evenings had been lazy, intimate prologues to long nights of undisturbed sleep. they would sit in the drawing-room, the windows open to the garden scents and the salt twang of the sea, moths would flutter round the lamps, millie would play and sing a little at a piano that was never quite in tune. aunt betty would struggle happily with her “demon patience,” george trenchard would laugh at them for half-an-hour, and then slip away to his study. mrs. trenchard and aunt aggie would knit and discuss the village, henry would lie back in an arm-chair, his nose deep in a book, katherine would be at anybody’s service—the minutes would fly, then would come rebekah with hot milk for some and toast-and-water for others, there would be prayers, and then “good-night, ma’am”. “good-night, sir”, from the three maids, the cook and rebekah, then candles lighted in the hall, then climbing slowly up the stairs, with clumsy jokes from henry and last words from mrs. trenchard, such as “don’t forget the williams’ coming over to-morrow, katie dear,” or “some of that quinine for your cold, aggie, i suggest,” or “i’ve put the new collars on your bed, henry,” then the closing of doors, then a happy silence, utterly secure. that had been the old way.
outwardly the august nights of this year resembled the old ones—but the heart of them beat with panic and dismay. philip had thought at first that it was perhaps his presence that caused the uneasiness, and one evening he complained of a headache and went up to his room after dinner. but he learnt from katherine that his absence had merely emphasised everything. they must be all there—it would never do to show that there was anything the matter. millie played the piano, aunt betty attempted her “patience” with her usual little “tut-tut’s” and “dear me’s.” mrs. trenchard and aunt aggie sewed or knitted, but now the minutes dragged in endless procession across the floor, suddenly someone would raise a head and listen, henry, pretending to read a book, would stare desperately in front of him, then noticing that aunt aggie watched him, would blush and hold his book before his face; with relief, as though they had escaped some threatening danger, they would greet the milk, the ‘toast-and-water’, the maids and the family prayers.
there was now no lingering on the staircase.
there are many families, of course, to whom the rebellion or disgrace of one of its members would mean but little, so slightly had been felt before the dependence of one soul upon another. but with the trenchards that dependence had been everything, the outside world had been a fantastic show, unreal and unneeded: as the pieces of a pictured puzzle fit one into another, so had the trenchards been interwoven and dependent ... only in england, perhaps, had such a blind and superior insularity been possible ... and it may be that this was to be, in all the records of history, the last of such a kind—“nil nisi bonum”....
to philip these summer days were darkened by his consciousness of mrs. trenchard. when he looked back over the months since he had known her, he could remember no very dramatic conversation that he had had with her, nothing tangible anywhere. she had been always pleasant and agreeable to him, and, at times, he had tried to tell himself that, after all, he might ultimately be happy ‘eaten up by her,’ as jonah was by the whale. then, with a little shiver, he knew the truth—that increasingly, as the days passed, he both hated and feared her. she had caught his will in her strong hands and was crushing it into pulp.
he made one last effort to assert himself, even as he had tried his strength against katherine, against henry, against aunt aggie, against old mr. trenchard. this little conversation that he had in the garth garden with mrs. trenchard upon one of those lovely summer evenings was of the simplest and most undramatic fashion. nevertheless it marked the end of his struggle; he always afterwards looked back upon those ten minutes as the most frightening experience of his life. mrs. trenchard, in a large loose hat and gauntleted gardening gloves, made a fine cheerful, reposeful figure as she walked slowly up and down the long lawn; she asked philip to walk with her; the sun flung her broad flat shadow like a stain upon the bright grass.
they had talked a little, and then he had suddenly, with a tug of alarm at his heart, determined that he would break his chains. he looked up at her placid eyes.
“i think,” he said—his voice was not quite steady—“that katherine and i will live somewhere in the north after our marriage. quite frankly i don’t think glebeshire suits me.”
“and katie,” said mrs. trenchard, smiling.
“katie ... she—she’ll like the north when she’s tried it for a little.”
“you’ll rob us of her?”
“not altogether, of course.”
“she’ll be very miserable away from glebeshire ... very miserable. i’ve seen such a nice little house—colve hall—only two miles from here—on the rafiel road. i don’t think you must take katie from glebeshire, philip.”
that was a challenge. their eyes met. his dropped.
“i think it will be better for her to be away after we are married.”
“why? do you hate us all?”
he coloured. “i’m not myself with you. i don’t know what to do with your kind of life. i’ve tried—i have indeed—i’m not happy here.”
“aren’t you selfish? if you rob katie of everything—will you be happy then?”
yes, that was it. he could see their future life, katherine, longing, longing to return, excited, homesick!
although he did not look up, he knew that she was smiling at him.
“you are very young, philip,” she said. “you want life to be perfect. it can’t be that. you must adapt yourself. i think that you will both be happier here in glebeshire—near us.”
he would have broken out, crying that katherine was his, not theirs, that he wanted her for himself, that they must be free.... of what use? that impassivity took his courage and flattened it all out as though he were a child of ten, still ruled by his mother.
“shall we go in?” said mrs. trenchard. “it’s a little cold.”
it was after this conversation that he began to place his hope upon the day when his moscow misdeeds would be declared—that seemed now his only road to freedom.
upon one lovely summer evening they sat there and had, some of them, the same thought.
millie, slim and white, standing before the long open window, stared into the purple night, splashed with stars and mysterious with tier-like clouds. she was thinking of anna, of all that life that philip had, of what a world it must be where there are no laws, no conventions, no restraints. that woman now had some other lover, she thought no more, perhaps, of philip—and no one held her the worse. she could do what she would—how full her life must be, how adventurous, packed with colour, excitement, battle and victory. and, after all, it might be, to that woman, that this adventure meant so little that she did not realise it as an adventure. millie’s heart rose and fell; her heart hurt her so that she pressed her hand against her frock. she wanted her own life to begin—at once, at once. other girls had found the beginning of it during those days in paris, but some english restraint and pride—she was intensely proud—had held her back. but now she was on fire with impatience, with longing, with, courage.... as she stared into the night she seemed to see the whole world open, like a shining silver plate, held by some dark figure for her acceptance. she stretched out her hands.
“take care you don’t catch cold by that open window, millie dear,” said her mother.
henry also was thinking of anna. from where he sat he could, behind his book, raising his eyes a little, see philip. philip was sitting, very straight and solid, with his short thick legs crossed in front of him, reading a book. he never moved. he made no sound. henry had, since the day when he had broken the mirror, avoided philip entirely. he did not want to consider the man at all; of course he hated the man because it was he who had made them all miserable, and yet, had the fellow never loved katherine, had he remained outside the family, henry knew now that he could have loved him.
this discovery he had made exactly at the moment when that book had fallen crashing into the mirror—it had been so silly, so humiliating a discovery that he had banished it from his mind, had refused to look into it at all.
but that did not mean that he did not contemplate philip’s amazing life. he contemplated it more intensely every day. the woman had all the mystery of invisibility, and yet henry thought that he would know her if he saw her. he coloured her according to his fancy, a laughing, tender figure who would recognize him, did she meet him, as the one man in the world for whom she had been searching.
he imagined to himself ridiculous conversations that he should have with her. he would propose to marry her, would declare, with a splendid nobility, that he knew of her earlier life, but that “that meant nothing to him.” he would even give up his country for her, would live in russia, would ... then he caught philip’s eye, blushed, bent to pull up his sock, said, in a husky, unconcerned voice:
“do play something, millie. something of mendelssohn.”
philip also was thinking of anna. through the pages of his stupid novel, as though they had been of glass, he saw her as she had last appeared to him on the platform of the moscow station. she had been wearing a little round black fur hat and a long black fur coat, her cheeks were pale, her eyes mocking, but somewhere, as though in spite of herself, there had been tenderness. she had laughed at him, but she had, for only a moment perhaps, wished that he were not going. it was that tenderness that held him now. the evening, through which he was now passing, had been terrible—one of the worst that he had ever spent—and he had wondered whether he really would be able to discipline himself to that course on which he had determined, to marry katherine under the trenchard shadow, to deliver himself to mrs. trenchard, even as the lobster is delivered to the cook. and so, with this desperation, had come, with increasing force, that memory of anna’s tenderness.
he did not want to live with her again, to renew that old life—his love for katherine had, most truly, blotted out all the fire and colour of that earlier passion, but he wanted—yes, he wanted most passionately, to save his own soul.
might it not, after all, be true, as that ghostly figure had urged to him, that it would be better for him to escape and so carry katherine after him—but what if she did not come?
he heard mrs. trenchard’s voice as she spoke to millie, and, at that sound, he resigned himself ... but the figure still smiled at him behind that glassy barrier.
katherine also thought of anna. she was sitting just behind aunt betty watching, over the old lady’s shoulder, the ‘patience’.
“there,” said aunt betty, “there’s the ten, the nine, the eight. oh! if i only had the seven!”
“you can get it,” said katherine, “if you move that six and five.”
“how stupid i am!” said aunt betty, “thank you, my dear, i didn’t see.”
katherine saw dancing in and out between the little cards a tiny figure that was yet tall and strong, moving there a teasing, taunting puppet, standing also, a motionless figure, away there, by the wall, watching, with a cynical smile, the room. beneath the thin hands of the old lady the cards fluttered, shifted, lay with their painted colours on the shining table, and, in accompaniment with their movement, katherine’s thoughts also danced, in and out, round and round, chasing the same old hopeless riddle. sometimes she glanced across at her mother. perhaps already aunt aggie had told her.... no, she had not. her mother’s calm showed that she, as yet, knew nothing. katherine, like the others, did not doubt what her mother would do. she would demand that the engagement should be broken off; they would all, ranged behind her broad back, present their ultimatum—and then what would katherine do?... simply, sitting there, with her fingers fiercely interlaced, her hands pressed against her knee, she did not know. she was exhausted with the struggle that had continued now for so many weeks, and behind her exhaustion, waiting there, triumphant in the expectation of her success, was her rival.
then, suddenly, as they waited there came to them all the idea that the hall door had been opened and gently closed. they all, mrs. trenchard, aunt aggie, millie, henry, katherine, started, looked up.
“did someone come in?” said mrs. trenchard, in her mild voice. “i thought i heard the hall door—just go and see, henry.”
“i’ll go,” said katherine quickly.
they all waited, their heads raised. katherine crossed the room, went into the hall that glimmered faintly under a dim lamp, paused a moment, then turned back the heavy handle of the door. the door swung back, and the lovely summer night swept into the house. the stars were a pattern of quivering light between the branches of the heavy trees that trembled ever so gently with the thrilling sense of their happiness. the roses, the rich soil soaked with dew, and the distant murmur of the stream that ran below the garden wall entered the house.
katherine waited, in the open door, looking forward. then she came in, shutting the door softly behind her.
had someone entered? was someone there with her, in the half-light, whispering to her: “i’m in the house now—and i shall stay, so long as i please—unless you can turn me out.”
she went back into the drawing-room.
“there was no one,” she said. “perhaps it was rebekah.”
“there’s rather a draught, dear,” said aunt aggie, “my neuralgia ... thank you, my dear.”
“i’ve done it!” cried aunt betty, flushed with pleasure. “it’s come out! if you hadn’t shown me that seven, katie, it never would have come!”
upon the very next afternoon aunt aggie made up her mind. after luncheon she went, alone, for a walk; she climbed the fields above the house, threaded little lanes sunk between high hedges, crossed an open common, dropped into another lane, was lost for awhile, finally emerged on the hill above that tiny cove known as smuggler’s button. smuggler’s button is the tiniest cove in glebeshire, the sand of it is the whitest, and it has in the very middle a high jagged rock known as the pin. aunt aggie, holding an umbrella, a black bonnet on her head and an old shabby rain-coat flapping behind her, sat on the pin. it was a long way for her to have come—five miles from garth—and the day was windy, with high white clouds that raced above her head like angry birds ready to devour her. aunt aggie sat there and looked at the sea, which approached her in little bowing and beckoning white waves, as though she were a shrivelled and pouting queen victoria holding a drawing-room. once and again her head trembled, as though it were fastened insecurely to her body, and her little fat, swollen cheeks shook like jelly. sometimes she raised a finger, encased in a black glove, and waved it in the air, as though she were admonishing the universe.
she clutched vigorously in one hand her umbrella.
she gazed at the sea with passion. this love for the sea had been a dominant power in her ever since she could remember, and had come she knew not whence. it had been, in earlier days, one of the deep, unspoken bonds between herself and katherine, and it had been one of her most active criticisms of millie that ‘the girl cared nothing about the sea whatever’. but she, aunt aggie, could not say why she loved it. she was no poet, and she knew not the meaning of the word ‘enthusiasm’. she was ashamed a little of her passion, and, when she had walked five miles to smuggler’s button or seven miles to lingard sand ‘just to look at it’, she would walk stiffly home again, would give no answer to those who asked questions, and, if driven into a corner would say she had been ‘just for a walk.’ but she loved it in all its moods, grave, gay and terrible, loved it even when it was like a grey cotton garment designed for the poor or when it slipped into empty space under a blind and soaking mist. she loved the rhythm of it, the indifference of it, above all, the strength of it. here at last, thank god, was something that she could admire more than herself.
she had, nevertheless, always at the back of her mind the thought that it would be bad for it if it knew how much she thought of it; she was always ready to be disappointed in it, although she knew that it would never disappoint her—she was grim and unbending in her attitude to it lest, in a moment of ecstasy, she should make cheap of her one devotion. to-day she did not actively consider it. she sat on the rock and made up her mind that she would take steps ‘that very day.’ harriet, her sister-in-law, had, during these last months, often surprised her, but there would be no question of her action in this climax of the whole unfortunate business.
“the young man,” as she always called philip, would never show his face in trenchard circles again. harriet might forgive, because of her love for katherine, his impertinence, his conceit, his irreligion, his leading henry into profligacy and drunkenness, she would not—could not—forgive his flagrant and open immorality, an immorality that had extended over many years. as she thought of this vicious life she gave a little shiver—a shiver of indignation, of resolution, of superiority, and of loneliness. the world—the gay, vital, alluring world, had left her high and dry upon that rock on which she was sitting, and, rebuke and disapprove of it as she might, it cared little for her words.
it was, perhaps, for this reason that she felt strangely little pleasure in her approaching triumph. she had hated “the young man” since her first meeting with him, and at last, after many months of patient waiting, the means had been placed in her hands for his destruction.... well, she did not know that she cared to-day very greatly about it. she was old, she was tired, she had neuralgia in one side of her face, there was a coming headache in the air. why was it that she, who had always held so steadily for right, whose life had been one long struggle after unselfishness, who had served others from early morning until late at night, should now find no reward, but only emptiness and old age and frustration? she had not now even the pleasure of her bitternesses. they were dust and ashes in her mouth.
she resolved that at once, upon that very afternoon, she would tell harriet about philip—and then suddenly, for no reason, with a strange surprise to herself, she did a thing that was quite foreign to her; she began to cry, a desolate trickling of tears that tasted salt in her mouth, that were shed, apparently, by some quite other person.
it seemed to her as she turned slowly and went home that that same woman who had encountered life, had taken it all and tasted every danger, now, watching her, laughed at her for her wasted, barren days....
by the time, however, that she reached garth she had recovered her spirits; it was the sea that had made her melancholy. she walked into the house with the firm step of anticipated triumph. she went up to her bedroom, took off her bonnet, washed her face and hands, peeped out on to the drive as though she expected to see someone watching there, then came down into the drawing-room.
she had intended to speak to her sister-in-law in private. it happened, however, that, on going to the tea-table, she discovered that the tea had been standing for a considerable period, and nobody apparently intended to order any more—at the same time a twinge in her left jaw told her that it had been foolish of her to sit on that rock so long.
then philip, who had the unfortunate habit of trying to be friendly at the precisely wrong moment, said, cheerfully:
“been for a walk all alone, aunt aggie?”
she always hated that he should call her aunt aggie. to-day it seemed a most aggravated insult.
“yes,” she said. “you’ve had tea very early.”
“george wanted it,” said mrs. trenchard, who was writing at a little table near a window that opened into the sunlit garden. “one never can tell with you, aggie, what time you’ll like it—never can tell, surely.”
there! as though that weren’t directly charging her with being a trouble to the household. because they’d happened to have it early!
“i call it very unfair—” she began nibbling a piece of bread and butter.
but the unfortunate philip gaily continued: “when we are married, aunt aggie, and you come to stay with us, you shall have tea just when you like.”
he was laughing at her, he patronised her! he dared—! she trembled with anger.
“i shall never come and stay with you,” she said.
“aunt aggie!” cried katherine, who was sitting near her mother by the window.
“no, never!” aunt aggie answered, her little eyes flashing and her cheeks shaking. “and if i had my way you should never be married!”
they all knew then that at last the moment had come. henry started to his feet as though he would escape, katherine turned towards her mother, philip fixed his eyes gravely upon his enemy—only mrs. trenchard did not pause in her writing. aunt aggie knew then that she was committed. she did not care, she was glad if only she could hurt philip, that hateful and intolerable young man.
her hands trembled, her rings making a tiny clatter against the china; she saw only her sister-in-law and philip.
philip quietly said:
“why do you hope that katherine and i will never marry, aunt aggie?”
“because i love katherine—because i—we want her to make a happy marriage. because if she—knew what i know she would not marry you.”
“my dear aggie!” said mrs. trenchard, softly, from the writing-table—but she stayed her pen and waited, with her head turned a little, as though she would watch katherine’s face without appearing to do so.
“and what do you know,” pursued philip quietly, “that would prevent katherine from marrying me?”
“i know,” she answered fiercely, the little gold cross that hung round her throat jumping against the agitation of her breast, “that you—that you are not the man to marry my niece. you have concealed things from her father which, if he had known, would have caused him to forbid you the house.”
“oh! i say!” cried henry, suddenly jumping to his feet.
“well,” pursued philip, “what are these things?”
she paused for a moment, wondering whether henry had had sufficient authority for his statements. philip of course would deny everything—but she had now proceeded too far to withdraw.
“i understand,” she said, “that you lived in russia with a woman to whom you were not married—lived for some years, and had a child. this is, i am ashamed to say, common talk. i need scarcely add that i had not intended to bring this disgraceful matter up in this public fashion. but perhaps after all it is better. you have only yourself to blame, mr. mark,” she continued, “for your policy of secrecy. to allow us all to remain in ignorance of these things, to allow katherine—but perhaps,” she asked, “you intend to deny everything? in that case—”
“i deny nothing,” he answered. “this seems to me a very silly manner of discussing such a business.” he addressed his words then to mrs. trenchard. “i said nothing about these things,” he continued, “because, quite honestly, i could not see that it was anyone’s affair but my own and katherine’s. i told katherine everything directly after we were engaged.”
at that aunt aggie turned upon her niece.
“you knew, katherine? you knew—all these disgraceful—these—” her voice broke. “you knew and you continued your engagement?”
“certainly,” answered katherine quietly. “whatever life philip led before he knew me, was no business of mine. it was good of him to tell me as he did, but it was not my affair. and really, aunt aggie,” she continued, “that you could think it right to speak like this before us all—to interfere—”
her voice was cold with anger. they had none of them ever before known this katherine.
aunt aggie appealed to her sister-in-law.
“harriet, if i’ve been wrong in mentioning this now, i’m sorry. katherine seems to have lost her senses. i would not wish to condemn anyone, but to sit still and watch whilst my niece, whom i have loved, is given to a profligate—”
katherine stood, with the sunlight behind her; she looked at her aunt, then moved across the room to philip and put her hand on his shoulder.
they all waited then for mrs. trenchard; they did not doubt what she would say. katherine, strangely, at that moment felt that she loved her mother as she had never loved her before. in the very fury of the indignation that would be directed against philip would be the force of her love for her daughter.
this pause, as they all waited for mrs. trenchard to speak, was weighted with the indignation that they expected from her.
but mrs. trenchard laughed: “my dear aggie: what a scene! really too stupid. as you have mentioned this, i may say that i have known—these things—about philip for a long time. but i said nothing because—well, because it is really not my business what life philip led before he met us. perhaps i know more about young men and their lives, aggie, than you do.”
“you knew!” henry gasped.
“you’ve known!” aggie cried.
katherine had, at the sound of her mother’s voice, given her one flash of amazement: then she had turned to philip, while she felt a cold shudder at her heart as though she were some prisoner suddenly clapt into a cage and the doors bolted.
“yes,” said mrs. trenchard, “mr. seymour came a long time ago and told me things that he thought i ought to know. i said to mr. seymour that he must not do such things, and that if i ever spoke of it to philip i should give him his name. i disapprove of such things. yes, it was mr. seymour—i think he never liked you, philip, because you contradicted him about russia. he’s a nice, clever boy, but i daresay he’s wrong in his facts....” then, as they still waited in silence, “i really think that’s all, aggie. you must forgive me, dear, but i don’t think it was quite your business. katherine is over age, you know, and in any case it isn’t quite nice in the drawing-room—and really only because your tea was cold, aggie dear.”
“you’ve known ... you’ll do nothing, harriet?” aggie gasped.
mrs. trenchard looked at them before she turned back to her writing-table.
“you can ring for some fresh tea if you like,” she said.
but for a moment her eyes had caught philip’s eyes. they exchanged the strangest look. hers of triumph, sarcastic, ironic, amazingly triumphant, his of a dull, hopeless abandonment and submission.
her attack at last, after long months of struggle, had succeeded. he was beaten. she continued her letter.
