Night and Day

Mrs. Milvain became rigid, and emitted her message in little short sentences of extreme intensity.

“Who has Cassandra gone out with? William Rodney. Who has Katharine gone out with? Ralph Denham. Why are they for ever meeting each other round street corners, and going to music-halls, and taking cabs late at night? Why will Katharine not tell me the truth when I question her? I understand the reason now. Katharine has entangled herself with this unknown lawyer; she has seen fit to condone Cassandra’s conduct.”

There was another slight pause.

“Ah, well, Katharine will no doubt have some explanation to give me,” Mr. Hilbery replied imperturbably. “It’s a little too complicated for me to take in all at once, I confess – and, if you won’t think me rude, Celia, I think I’ll be getting along towards Knightsbridge.”

Mrs. Milvain rose at once.

“She has condoned Cassandra’s conduct and entangled herself with Ralph Denham,” she repeated. She stood very erect with the dauntless air of one testifying to the truth regardless of consequences. She knew from past discussions that the only way to counter her brother’s indolence and indifference was to shoot her statements at him in a compressed form once finally upon leaving the room. Having spoken thus, she restrained herself from adding another word, and left the house with the dignity of one inspired by a great ideal.

She had certainly framed her remarks in such a way as to prevent her brother from paying his call in the region of Knightsbridge. He had no fears for Katharine, but there was a suspicion at the back of his mind that Cassandra might have been, innocently and ignorantly, led into some foolish situation in one of their unshepherded dissipations. His wife was an erratic judge of the conventions; he himself was lazy; and with Katharine absorbed, very naturally – Here he recalled, as well as he could, the exact nature of the charge. “She has condoned Cassandra’s conduct and entangled herself with Ralph Denham.” From which it appeared that Katharine was NOT absorbed, or which of them was it that had entangled herself with Ralph Denham? From this maze of absurdity Mr. Hilbery saw no way out until Katharine herself came to his help, so that he applied himself, very philosophically on the whole, to a book.

No sooner had he heard the young people come in and go upstairs than he sent a maid to tell Miss Katharine that he wished to speak to her in the study. She was slipping furs loosely onto the floor in the drawing-room in front of the fire. They were all gathered round, reluctant to part. The message from her father surprised Katharine, and the others caught from her look, as she turned to go, a vague sense of apprehension.

Mr. Hilbery was reassured by the sight of her. He congratulated himself, he prided himself, upon possessing a daughter who had a sense of responsibility and an understanding of life profound beyond her years. Moreover, she was looking to-day unusual; he had come to take her beauty for granted; now he remembered it and was surprised by it. He thought instinctively that he had interrupted some happy hour of hers with Rodney, and apologized.

“I’m sorry to bother you, my dear. I heard you come in, and thought I’d better make myself disagreeable at once – as it seems, unfortunately, that fathers are expected to make themselves disagreeable. Now, your Aunt Celia has been to see me; your Aunt Celia has taken it into her head apparently that you and Cassandra have been – let us say a little foolish. This going about together – these pleasant little parties – there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I told her I saw no harm in it, but I should just like to hear from yourself. Has Cassandra been left a little too much in the company of Mr. Denham?”

Katharine did not reply at once, and Mr. Hilbery tapped the coal encouragingly with the poker. Then she said, without embarrassment or apology:

“I don’t see why I should answer Aunt Celia’s questions. I’ve told her already that I won’t.”

Mr. Hilbery was relieved and secretly amused at the thought of the interview, although he could not license such irreverence outwardly.

“Very good. Then you authorize me to tell her that she’s been mistaken, and there was nothing but a little fun in it? You’ve no doubt, Katharine, in your own mind? Cassandra is in our charge, and I don’t intend that people should gossip about her. I suggest that you should be a little more careful in future. Invite me to your next entertainment.”

She did not respond, as he had hoped, with any affectionate or humorous reply. She meditated, pondering something or other, and he reflected that even his Katharine did not differ from other women in the capacity to let things be. Or had she something to say?

“Have you a guilty conscience?” he inquired lightly. “Tell me, Katharine,” he said more seriously, struck by something in the expression of her eyes.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time,” she said, “I’m not going to marry William.”

“You’re not going – !” he exclaimed, dropping the poker in his immense surprise. “Why? When? Explain yourself, Katharine.”

“Oh, some time ago – a week, perhaps more.” Katharine spoke hurriedly and indifferently, as if the matter could no longer concern any one.

“But may I ask – why have I not been told of this – what do you mean by it?”

“We don’t wish to be married – that’s all.”

“This is William’s wish as well as yours?”

“Oh, yes. We agree perfectly.”

Mr. Hilbery had seldom felt more completely at a loss. He thought that Katharine was treating the matter with curious unconcern; she scarcely seemed aware of the gravity of what she was saying; he did not understand the position at all. But his desire to smooth everything over comfortably came to his relief. No doubt there was some quarrel, some whimsey on the part of William, who, though a good fellow, was a little exacting sometimes – something that a woman could put right. But though he inclined to take the easiest view of his responsibilities, he cared too much for this daughter to let things be.

“I confess I find great difficulty in following you. I should like to hear William’s side of the story,” he said irritably. “I think he ought to have spoken to me in the first instance.”

“I wouldn’t let him,” said Katharine. “I know it must seem to you very strange,” she added. “But I assure you, if you’d wait a little – until mother comes back.”

This appeal for delay was much to Mr. Hilbery’s liking. But his conscience would not suffer it. People were talking. He could not endure that his daughter’s conduct should be in any way considered irregular. He wondered whether, in the circumstances, it would be better to wire to his wife, to send for one of his sisters, to forbid William the house, to pack Cassandra off home – for he was vaguely conscious of responsibilities in her direction, too. His forehead was becoming more and more wrinkled by the multiplicity of his anxieties, which he was sorely tempted to ask Katharine to solve for him, when the door opened and William Rodney appeared. This necessitated a complete change, not only of manner, but of position also.

“Here’s William,” Katharine exclaimed, in a tone of relief. “I’ve told father we’re not engaged,” she said to him. “I’ve explained that I prevented you from telling him.”

William’s manner was marked by the utmost formality. He bowed very slightly in the direction of Mr. Hilbery, and stood erect, holding one lapel of his coat, and gazing into the center of the fire. He waited for Mr. Hilbery to speak.

Mr. Hilbery also assumed an appearance of formidable dignity. He had risen to his feet, and now bent the top part of his body slightly forward.

“I should like your account of this affair, Rodney – if Katharine no longer prevents you from speaking.”

William waited two seconds at least.

“Our engagement is at an end,” he said, with the utmost stiffness.

“Has this been arrived at by your joint desire?”

After a perceptible pause William bent his head, and Katharine said, as if by an afterthought:

“Oh, yes.”

Mr. Hilbery swayed to and fro, and moved his lips as if to utter remarks which remained unspoken.

“I can only suggest that you should postpone any decision until the effect of this misunderstanding has had time to wear off. You have now known each other – ” he began.

“There’s been no misunderstanding,” Katharine interposed. “Nothing at all.” She moved a few paces across the room, as if she intended to leave them. Her preoccupied naturalness was in strange contrast to her father’s pomposity and to William’s military rigidity. He had not once raised his eyes. Katharine’s glance, on the other hand, ranged past the two gentlemen, along the books, over the tables, towards the door. She was paying the least possible attention, it seemed, to what was happening. Her father looked at her with a sudden clouding and troubling of his expression. Somehow his faith in her stability and sense was queerly shaken. He no longer felt that he could ultimately entrust her with the whole conduct of her own affairs after a superficial show of directing them. He felt, for the first time in many years, responsible for her.

“Look here, we must get to the bottom of this,” he said, dropping his formal manner and addressing Rodney as if Katharine were not present. “You’ve had some difference of opinion, eh? Take my word for it, most people go through this sort of thing when they’re engaged. I’ve seen more trouble come from long engagements than from any other form of human folly. Take my advice and put the whole matter out of your minds – both of you. I prescribe a complete abstinence from emotion. Visit some cheerful seaside resort, Rodney.”

He was struck by William’s appearance, which seemed to him to indicate profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected, Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery certainly did not overrate William’s sufferings. No minutes in his life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself entirely and fundamentally other than Mr. Hilbery thought him. Everything was against him. Even the Sunday evening and the fire and the tranquil library scene were against him. Mr. Hilbery’s appeal to him as a man of the world was terribly against him. He was no longer a man of any world that Mr. Hilbery cared to recognize. But some power compelled him, as it had compelled him to come downstairs, to make his stand here and now, alone and unhelped by any one, without prospect of reward. He fumbled with various phrases; and then jerked out:

“I love Cassandra.”

Mr. Hilbery’s face turned a curious dull purple. He looked at his daughter. He nodded his head, as if to convey his silent command to her to leave the room; but either she did not notice it or preferred not to obey.

“You have the impudence – ” Mr. Hilbery began, in a dull, low voice that he himself had never heard before, when there was a scuffling and exclaiming in the hall, and Cassandra, who appeared to be insisting against some dissuasion on the part of another, burst into the room.

“Uncle Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I insist upon telling you the truth!” She flung herself between Rodney and her uncle, as if she sought to intercept their blows. As her uncle stood perfectly still, looking very large and imposing, and as nobody spoke, she shrank back a little, and looked first at Katharine and then at Rodney. “You must know the truth,” she said, a little lamely.

“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s presence?” Mr. Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of Cassandra’s interruption.

“I am aware, quite aware – ” Rodney’s words, which were broken in sense, spoken after a pause, and with his eyes upon the ground, nevertheless expressed an astonishing amount of resolution. “I am quite aware what you must think of me,” he brought out, looking Mr. Hilbery directly in the eyes for the first time.

“I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were alone,” Mr. Hilbery returned.

“But you forget me,” said Katharine. She moved a little towards Rodney, and her movement seemed to testify mutely to her respect for him, and her alliance with him. “I think William has behaved perfectly rightly, and, after all, it is I who am concerned – I and Cassandra.”

Cassandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement which seemed to draw the three of them into alliance together. Katharine’s tone and glance made Mr. Hilbery once more feel completely at a loss, and in addition, painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful inner hollowness he was outwardly composed.