Night and Day

“Right – of course we’re doing right,” William answered her, “if, after what you’ve heard, you can marry a man of such incomprehensible confusion, such deplorable – ”

“Don’t, William,” Katharine interposed; “Cassandra has heard us; she can judge what we are; she knows better than we could tell her.”

But, still holding William’s hand, questions and desires welled up in Cassandra’s heart. Had she done wrong in listening? Why did Aunt Celia blame her? Did Katharine think her right? Above all, did William really love her, for ever and ever, better than any one?

“I must be first with him, Katharine!” she exclaimed. “I can’t share him even with you.”

“I shall never ask that,” said Katharine. She moved a little away from where they sat and began half-consciously sorting her flowers.

“But you’ve shared with me,” Cassandra said. “Why can’t I share with you? Why am I so mean? I know why it is,” she added. “We understand each other, William and I. You’ve never understood each other. You’re too different.”

“I’ve never admired anybody more,” William interposed.

“It’s not that” – Cassandra tried to enlighten him – “it’s understanding.”

“Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been very selfish?”

“Yes,” Cassandra interposed. “You’ve asked her for sympathy, and she’s not sympathetic; you’ve wanted her to be practical, and she’s not practical. You’ve been selfish; you’ve been exacting – and so has Katharine – but it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

Katharine had listened to this attempt at analysis with keen attention. Cassandra’s words seemed to rub the old blurred image of life and freshen it so marvelously that it looked new again. She turned to William.

“It’s quite true,” she said. “It was nobody’s fault.”

“There are many things that he’ll always come to you for,” Cassandra continued, still reading from her invisible book. “I accept that, Katharine. I shall never dispute it. I want to be generous as you’ve been generous. But being in love makes it more difficult for me.”

They were silent. At length William broke the silence.

“One thing I beg of you both,” he said, and the old nervousness of manner returned as he glanced at Katharine. “We will never discuss these matters again. It’s not that I’m timid and conventional, as you think, Katharine. It’s that it spoils things to discuss them; it unsettles people’s minds; and now we’re all so happy – ”

Cassandra ratified this conclusion so far as she was concerned, and William, after receiving the exquisite pleasure of her glance, with its absolute affection and trust, looked anxiously at Katharine.

“Yes, I’m happy,” she assured him. “And I agree. We will never talk about it again.”

“Oh, Katharine, Katharine!” Cassandra cried, holding out her arms while the tears ran down her cheeks.

CHAPTER XXX

The day was so different from other days to three people in the house that the common routine of household life – the maid waiting at table, Mrs. Hilbery writing a letter, the clock striking, and the door opening, and all the other signs of long-established civilization appeared suddenly to have no meaning save as they lulled Mr. and Mrs. Hilbery into the belief that nothing unusual had taken place. It chanced that Mrs. Hilbery was depressed without visible cause, unless a certain crudeness verging upon coarseness in the temper of her favorite Elizabethans could be held responsible for the mood. At any rate, she had shut up “The Duchess of Malfi” with a sigh, and wished to know, so she told Rodney at dinner, whether there wasn’t some young writer with a touch of the great spirit – somebody who made you believe that life was BEAUTIFUL? She got little help from Rodney, and after singing her plaintive requiem for the death of poetry by herself, she charmed herself into good spirits again by remembering the existence of Mozart. She begged Cassandra to play to her, and when they went upstairs Cassandra opened the piano directly, and did her best to create an atmosphere of unmixed beauty. At the sound of the first notes Katharine and Rodney both felt an enormous sense of relief at the license which the music gave them to loosen their hold upon the mechanism of behavior. They lapsed into the depths of thought. Mrs. Hilbery was soon spirited away into a perfectly congenial mood, that was half reverie and half slumber, half delicious melancholy and half pure bliss. Mr. Hilbery alone attended. He was extremely musical, and made Cassandra aware that he listened to every note. She played her best, and won his approval. Leaning slightly forward in his chair, and turning his little green stone, he weighed the intention of her phrases approvingly, but stopped her suddenly to complain of a noise behind him. The window was unhasped. He signed to Rodney, who crossed the room immediately to put the matter right. He stayed a moment longer by the window than was, perhaps, necessary, and having done what was needed, drew his chair a little closer than before to Katharine’s side. The music went on. Under cover of some exquisite run of melody, he leant towards her and whispered something. She glanced at her father and mother, and a moment later left the room, almost unobserved, with Rodney.

“What is it?” she asked, as soon as the door was shut.

Rodney made no answer, but led her downstairs into the dining-room on the ground floor. Even when he had shut the door he said nothing, but went straight to the window and parted the curtains. He beckoned to Katharine.

“There he is again,” he said. “Look, there – under the lamp-post.”

Katharine looked. She had no idea what Rodney was talking about. A vague feeling of alarm and mystery possessed her. She saw a man standing on the opposite side of the road facing the house beneath a lamp-post. As they looked the figure turned, walked a few steps, and came back again to his old position. It seemed to her that he was looking fixedly at her, and was conscious of her gaze on him. She knew, in a flash, who the man was who was watching them. She drew the curtain abruptly.

“Denham,” said Rodney. “He was there last night too.” He spoke sternly. His whole manner had become full of authority. Katharine felt almost as if he accused her of some crime. She was pale and uncomfortably agitated, as much by the strangeness of Rodney’s behavior as by the sight of Ralph Denham.

“If he chooses to come – ” she said defiantly.

“You can’t let him wait out there. I shall tell him to come in.” Rodney spoke with such decision that when he raised his arm Katharine expected him to draw the curtain instantly. She caught his hand with a little exclamation.

“Wait!” she cried. “I don’t allow you.”

“You can’t wait,” he replied. “You’ve gone too far.” His hand remained upon the curtain. “Why don’t you admit, Katharine,” he broke out, looking at her with an expression of contempt as well as of anger, “that you love him? Are you going to treat him as you treated me?”

She looked at him, wondering, in spite of all her perplexity, at the spirit that possessed him.

“I forbid you to draw the curtain,” she said.

He reflected, and then took his hand away.

“I’ve no right to interfere,” he concluded. “I’ll leave you. Or, if you like, we’ll go back to the drawing-room.”

“No. I can’t go back,” she said, shaking her head. She bent her head in thought.

“You love him, Katharine,” Rodney said suddenly. His tone had lost something of its sternness, and might have been used to urge a child to confess its fault. She raised her eyes and fixed them upon him.

“I love him?” she repeated. He nodded. She searched his face, as if for further confirmation of his words, and, as he remained silent and expectant, turned away once more and continued her thoughts. He observed her closely, but without stirring, as if he gave her time to make up her mind to fulfil her obvious duty. The strains of Mozart reached them from the room above.

“Now,” she said suddenly, with a sort of desperation, rising from her chair and seeming to command Rodney to fulfil his part. He drew the curtain instantly, and she made no attempt to stop him. Their eyes at once sought the same spot beneath the lamp-post.

“He’s not there!” she exclaimed.

No one was there. William threw the window up and looked out. The wind rushed into the room, together with the sound of distant wheels, footsteps hurrying along the pavement, and the cries of sirens hooting down the river.

“Denham!” William cried.

“Ralph!” said Katharine, but she spoke scarcely louder than she might have spoken to some one in the same room. With their eyes fixed upon the opposite side of the road, they did not notice a figure close to the railing which divided the garden from the street. But Denham had crossed the road and was standing there. They were startled by his voice close at hand.

“Rodney!”

“There you are! Come in, Denham.” Rodney went to the front door and opened it. “Here he is,” he said, bringing Ralph with him into the dining-room where Katharine stood, with her back to the open window. Their eyes met for a second. Denham looked half dazed by the strong light, and, buttoned in his overcoat, with his hair ruffled across his forehead by the wind, he seemed like somebody rescued from an open boat out at sea. William promptly shut the window and drew the curtains. He acted with a cheerful decision as if he were master of the situation, and knew exactly what he meant to do.

“You’re the first to hear the news, Denham,” he said. “Katharine isn’t going to marry me, after all.”

“Where shall I put – ” Ralph began vaguely, holding out his hat and glancing about him; he balanced it carefully against a silver bowl that stood upon the sideboard. He then sat himself down rather heavily at the head of the oval dinner-table. Rodney stood on one side of him and Katharine on the other. He appeared to be presiding over some meeting from which most of the members were absent. Meanwhile, he waited, and his eyes rested upon the glow of the beautifully polished mahogany table.

“William is engaged to Cassandra,” said Katharine briefly.

At that Denham looked up quickly at Rodney. Rodney’s expression changed. He lost his self-possession. He smiled a little nervously, and then his attention seemed to be caught by a fragment of melody from the floor above. He seemed for a moment to forget the presence of the others. He glanced towards the door.

“I congratulate you,” said Denham.

“Yes, yes. We’re all mad – quite out of our minds, Denham,” he said. “It’s partly Katharine’s doing – partly mine.” He looked oddly round the room as if he wished to make sure that the scene in which he played a part had some real existence. “Quite mad,” he repeated. “Even Katharine – ” His gaze rested upon her finally, as if she, too, had changed from his old view of her. He smiled at her as if to encourage her. “Katharine shall explain,” he said, and giving a little nod to Denham, he left the room.

Katharine sat down at once, and leant her chin upon her hands. So long as Rodney was in the room the proceedings of the evening had seemed to be in his charge, and had been marked by a certain unreality. Now that she was alone with Ralph she felt at once that a constraint had been taken from them both. She felt that they were alone at the bottom of the house, which rose, story upon story, upon the top of them.