Night and Day

“Please, miss,” said the maid, about eleven o’clock on the following morning, “Mrs. Milvain is in the kitchen.”

A long wicker basket of flowers and branches had arrived from the country, and Katharine, kneeling upon the floor of the drawing-room, was sorting them while Cassandra watched her from an arm-chair, and absent-mindedly made spasmodic offers of help which were not accepted. The maid’s message had a curious effect upon Katharine.

She rose, walked to the window, and, the maid being gone, said emphatically and even tragically:

“You know what that means.”

Cassandra had understood nothing.

“Aunt Celia is in the kitchen,” Katharine repeated.

“Why in the kitchen?” Cassandra asked, not unnaturally.

“Probably because she’s discovered something,” Katharine replied. Cassandra’s thoughts flew to the subject of her preoccupation.

“About us?” she inquired.

“Heaven knows,” Katharine replied. “I shan’t let her stay in the kitchen, though. I shall bring her up here.”

The sternness with which this was said suggested that to bring Aunt Celia upstairs was, for some reason, a disciplinary measure.

“For goodness’ sake, Katharine,” Cassandra exclaimed, jumping from her chair and showing signs of agitation, “don’t be rash. Don’t let her suspect. Remember, nothing’s certain – ”

Katharine assured her by nodding her head several times, but the manner in which she left the room was not calculated to inspire complete confidence in her diplomacy.

Mrs. Milvain was sitting, or rather perching, upon the edge of a chair in the servants’ room. Whether there was any sound reason for her choice of a subterranean chamber, or whether it corresponded with the spirit of her quest, Mrs. Milvain invariably came in by the back door and sat in the servants’ room when she was engaged in confidential family transactions. The ostensible reason she gave was that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Hilbery should be disturbed. But, in truth, Mrs. Milvain depended even more than most elderly women of her generation upon the delicious emotions of intimacy, agony, and secrecy, and the additional thrill provided by the basement was one not lightly to be forfeited. She protested almost plaintively when Katharine proposed to go upstairs.

“I’ve something that I want to say to you in PRIVATE,” she said, hesitating reluctantly upon the threshold of her ambush.

“The drawing-room is empty – ”

“But we might meet your mother upon the stairs. We might disturb your father,” Mrs. Milvain objected, taking the precaution to speak in a whisper already.

But as Katharine’s presence was absolutely necessary to the success of the interview, and as Katharine obstinately receded up the kitchen stairs, Mrs. Milvain had no course but to follow her. She glanced furtively about her as she proceeded upstairs, drew her skirts together, and stepped with circumspection past all doors, whether they were open or shut.

“Nobody will overhear us?” she murmured, when the comparative sanctuary of the drawing-room had been reached. “I see that I have interrupted you,” she added, glancing at the flowers strewn upon the floor. A moment later she inquired, “Was some one sitting with you?” noticing a handkerchief that Cassandra had dropped in her flight.

“Cassandra was helping me to put the flowers in water,” said Katharine, and she spoke so firmly and clearly that Mrs. Milvain glanced nervously at the main door and then at the curtain which divided the little room with the relics from the drawing-room.

“Ah, Cassandra is still with you,” she remarked. “And did William send you those lovely flowers?”

Katharine sat down opposite her aunt and said neither yes nor no. She looked past her, and it might have been thought that she was considering very critically the pattern of the curtains. Another advantage of the basement, from Mrs. Milvain’s point of view, was that it made it necessary to sit very close together, and the light was dim compared with that which now poured through three windows upon Katharine and the basket of flowers, and gave even the slight angular figure of Mrs. Milvain herself a halo of gold.

“They’re from Stogdon House,” said Katharine abruptly, with a little jerk of her head.

Mrs. Milvain felt that it would be easier to tell her niece what she wished to say if they were actually in physical contact, for the spiritual distance between them was formidable. Katharine, however, made no overtures, and Mrs. Milvain, who was possessed of rash but heroic courage, plunged without preface:

“People are talking about you, Katharine. That is why I have come this morning. You forgive me for saying what I’d much rather not say? What I say is only for your own sake, my child.”

“There’s nothing to forgive yet, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine, with apparent good humor.

“People are saying that William goes everywhere with you and Cassandra, and that he is always paying her attentions. At the Markhams’ dance he sat out five dances with her. At the Zoo they were seen alone together. They left together. They never came back here till seven in the evening. But that is not all. They say his manner is very marked – he is quite different when she is there.”

Mrs. Milvain, whose words had run themselves together, and whose voice had raised its tone almost to one of protest, here ceased, and looked intently at Katharine, as if to judge the effect of her communication. A slight rigidity had passed over Katharine’s face. Her lips were pressed together; her eyes were contracted, and they were still fixed upon the curtain. These superficial changes covered an extreme inner loathing such as might follow the display of some hideous or indecent spectacle. The indecent spectacle was her own action beheld for the first time from the outside; her aunt’s words made her realize how infinitely repulsive the body of life is without its soul.

“Well?” she said at length.

Mrs. Milvain made a gesture as if to bring her closer, but it was not returned.

“We all know how good you are – how unselfish – how you sacrifice yourself to others. But you’ve been too unselfish, Katharine. You have made Cassandra happy, and she has taken advantage of your goodness.”

“I don’t understand, Aunt Celia,” said Katharine. “What has Cassandra done?”

“Cassandra has behaved in a way that I could not have thought possible,” said Mrs. Milvain warmly. “She has been utterly selfish – utterly heartless. I must speak to her before I go.”

“I don’t understand,” Katharine persisted.

Mrs. Milvain looked at her. Was it possible that Katharine really doubted? That there was something that Mrs. Milvain herself did not understand? She braced herself, and pronounced the tremendous words:

“Cassandra has stolen William’s love.”

Still the words seemed to have curiously little effect.

“Do you mean,” said Katharine, “that he has fallen in love with her?”

“There are ways of MAKING men fall in love with one, Katharine.”

Katharine remained silent. The silence alarmed Mrs. Milvain, and she began hurriedly:

“Nothing would have made me say these things but your own good. I have not wished to interfere; I have not wished to give you pain. I am a useless old woman. I have no children of my own. I only want to see you happy, Katharine.”

Again she stretched forth her arms, but they remained empty.

“You are not going to say these things to Cassandra,” said Katharine suddenly. “You’ve said them to me; that’s enough.”

Katharine spoke so low and with such restraint that Mrs. Milvain had to strain to catch her words, and when she heard them she was dazed by them.

“I’ve made you angry! I knew I should!” she exclaimed. She quivered, and a kind of sob shook her; but even to have made Katharine angry was some relief, and allowed her to feel some of the agreeable sensations of martyrdom.

“Yes,” said Katharine, standing up, “I’m so angry that I don’t want to say anything more. I think you’d better go, Aunt Celia. We don’t understand each other.”

At these words Mrs. Milvain looked for a moment terribly apprehensive; she glanced at her niece’s face, but read no pity there, whereupon she folded her hands upon a black velvet bag which she carried in an attitude that was almost one of prayer. Whatever divinity she prayed to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity in a singular way and faced her niece.

“Married love,” she said slowly and with emphasis upon every word, “is the most sacred of all loves. The love of husband and wife is the most holy we know. That is the lesson Mamma’s children learnt from her; that is what they can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would have wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild.”

Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to convict it of falsity.

“I don’t see that there is any excuse for your behavior,” she said.