‘That’s different,’ she said quickly and defiantly.
‘Is it?’ he said; and he was gone, and twilight seemed suddenly to come
into the room.
‘What a very odd young man,’ remarked her son-in-law, after a pause
during which they both stood staring at the shut door as if it might
burst open again, and again let in a flood of something molten. ‘What
did he mean about the generations?’
‘I don’t think he knows himself,’ she said.
‘Perhaps not. Perhaps not,’ said Stephen with that thoughtfulness which
never forsook him. ‘At his age they frequently do not.’
She shivered a little, and rang the bell for Mrs. Mitcham to light the
fire. Stephen looked so old and dry, as if he needed warming, and she
too felt as though the evening had grown cold.
But how nice it was to sit quietly with Stephen, the virtuous and the
calm. So nice. So what one was used to. She hadn’t half appreciated him.
He was like some quiet pond, with heaven reflected on his excellent
bosom. She liked to sit by him after the raging billows of Christopher;
it was peaceful, secure. What a great thing peace was, and the company
of a person of one’s own age. But he did look very old, she thought. He
was tiring himself out with all the improvements on the estate he and
Virginia were at work on, besides preaching a series of Lenten sermons
in different London churches, which obliged him to come up for the
week-ends, leaving Virginia, who was not travelling just now, down at
Chickover Manor with the curate to officiate on the Sundays.
‘You are tired, Stephen,’ said Catherine gently.
‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No.’
How peaceful were these monosyllables; how soothing, after the turbulent
speech of that demented young man.
‘Virginia is well?’
‘Quite well. That is, as well as one can expect.’
‘She must take care of herself.’
‘She does. I was to give you her love.’
‘Darling Virginia. I hope you are dining with me to-night?’
‘Thank you--I should like to, if I may. Did you say that young fellow’s
name was Monckton?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do I know him? Or, I should perhaps say, do I know anything about him?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Stephen sat thoughtful, looking at the fire.
‘A little overwhelming, is he not?’ he said presently.
‘He is young.’
‘Ah.’
He paused again; reflecting, his thin cheek leaning on his hand, that to
be young was not necessarily to be overwhelming. Virginia, the youngest
of the young--what inexhaustible, proud delight her youth gave him!--was
not at all overwhelming.
But Christopher did not really interest him. The world was full of young
men--all, to Stephen, very much alike, all with spirits that had to be
blown off. The Chickover ones, his own parishioners, blew theirs off on
Saturday afternoons at football or cricket according to the time of
year, and the rest of the week it was to be presumed that work quieted
them. Of whatever class, they seemed to Stephen noisy and restless, and
the one he had just seen reminded him of a lighted torch, flaring away
unpleasantly among the sober blacks and greys of the late Mr. Cumfrit’s
furniture.
But he was not really interested. ‘I preach to-morrow at St. Clement’s,’
he remarked after a silence.
‘On the same subject?’
‘There is only one. It embraces every other.’
‘Yes--Love,’ she said; and her voice at the word went very soft.
‘Yes--Love,’ he repeated, still thoughtfully gazing at the fire, his
cheek on his hand.
His subject on these Lenten Sundays was Love. After having preached not
particularly well all his life on other subjects, since his marriage he
had begun to preach remarkably well on this one. He knew what he was
talking about. He loved Virginia, and had only been married to her three
months, and his warm knowledge of love in particular burned in a real
eloquence on Love in general. He loved and was loved. The marriage about
which Catherine had had misgivings, because she thought him a little too
wooden--what mistakes one makes--for a girl so young, had been
completely successful. They adored each other in the quiet, becoming way
a clergyman and his wife, when they adore, do adore; that is, not
wantonly at all, in public, but nicely, in the fear of God. And both
were determined to use Virginia’s money only for ends that were noble
and good.
Virginia was like her father--made for quiet domestic bliss. Also she
had never been very pretty, and that too was suitable. The Church has no
use, Stephen knew, for beauty. A beautiful woman married to a clergyman
easily produces complications; for we are but weak creatures, and our
footsteps, even if we are a bishop, sometimes go astray. But she was
quite pretty enough, with lovely eyes, and was so entrancingly young,
besides being such a good little girl, and rich.
Stephen, who was first the curate and then the rector of Chickover,
having been presented to the living by George Cumfrit its patron, who
liked him, had had his thoughtful eye on Virginia from the beginning.
When he went there she was five and he was thirty-four. Dear little
child; he played with her. Presently she was fifteen, and he was
forty-four. Sweet little maid; he prepared her for confirmation. Again
presently she was eighteen, and he was forty-seven. Touching young bud
of womanhood; he proposed to her. Catherine hesitated, for Virginia was
so very young, while Stephen compared to her was so very old; and
Stephen explained that age, difference in age, had nothing to do with
love. Love loved, Stephen pointed out, and there was an end of it. No
objections in face of that great fact could be valid, he said. Seeing
that Virginia returned his love, whatever were their respective ages it
surely had nothing to do with anybody except themselves. Should Mrs.
Cumfrit think fit to refuse her consent she would merely be depriving
her daughter of three years’ happiness, for they would certainly marry
directly Virginia was of age.
Thus, before young men had had time to become aware of Virginia, Stephen
had carried her off. She wasn’t nineteen when he married her. He loved
her with the excessive love of a middle-aged man for a very young girl,
though of course decorously in public. She, having been trained to it
from childhood by him, thought there was no one in the world like him.
He was to her most great, most brilliant, most good. She worshipped him.
Never was a girl so proud and happy as she was when Stephen married her.
Their loves, however, were private. No one was offended by
demonstrations. His mother-in-law, who was of his own age, or even
slightly younger,--one year younger, to be exact--wasn’t made to feel
uncomfortable. Indeed, he had too high an opinion of his mother-in-law
not to wish in every way to please her. She had behaved admirably. With
the whole of the income of George Cumfrit’s fortune at her disposal till
Virginia was either twenty-one or married with her consent under that
age, and able, merely by refusing her consent, to continue in its
enjoyment for another three years, she had relinquished everything with
perfect grace the moment he had convinced her that it was for her
daughter’s happiness. Stephen could not but consider himself the most
fortunate of men. Here, by simply resisting the desire to marry--and he
was a man naturally disposed to marriage--until Virginia had grown up,
he had secured a delightful young wife with money enough to carry out
all his most ardent dreams of benevolence, and a really remarkable
mother-in-law. Indeed, his mother-in-law was exactly what the
mother-in-law of a clergyman should be: a modest, unassuming,
non-interfering, kind, contented Christian gentlewoman. Great had been
his satisfaction when he discovered she was contented. The drop from the
Cumfrit thousands and Chickover to £500 a year and a small London flat
was big enough to unsettle most women. His mother-in-law dropped without
a murmur. She was not in the least unsettled. She remained as kind as
ever. She made no demands at all, either on Virginia or himself. When
they invited her, she went, but not otherwise. When he came to see her,
she welcomed him with the same pleasant friendliness. A kind, quiet
woman, who didn’t mind being poor. St. Paul would have liked her.
He and she presently had the mild meal she spoke of as dinner in George
Cumfrit’s little <i>pied-à-terre</i> dining-room--the most excellent of men,
poor George Cumfrit, ripe in foresight and wisdom--and Stephen invoked
God’s blessing on two cups not quite full of broth, and some scrambled
eggs.
Catherine walked delicately among words with Stephen, and in his
presence called that dinner which to Mrs. Mitcham she called supper, or,
even more simply, something to eat, in order that Stephen, now so
splendidly established in what used to be her shoes, should not be made
in any way to feel the difference his marriage had made in her
circumstances; while Stephen for his part always went out of his way to
praise the quality and abundance of whatever food she gave him, lest she
should perhaps notice that she did not now have particularly much to
eat. Enough, of course; enough, and most wholesome--heavy meals at night
were a mistake. And once, when he had happened to come in when there was
only a milk pudding, he had behaved to it as ceremoniously and as
reverently as he would have behaved to ducks and green peas, of which he
was particularly fond, and said grace over it, and, as it were, carved
it--she liked him to preside--with all the air of pleased anticipation
of a man rubbing his hands before a banquet. Catherine had been much
concerned at his chancing to come in on a milk-pudding night, and had
explained, what was true, that she had not been well, and the pudding
was in the nature of a sanitary precaution; and Stephen had assured her
that a good rice pudding, properly made, was one of the very best of
God’s gifts.
There they sat, then, on this evening of her excursion to Hampton Court,
quietly eating their scrambled eggs and talking of calm things. It was
strange to her to remember that such a few hours earlier she had been an
ostensibly young woman out for the afternoon with her adorer, moving
swiftly, laughing gaily, petted, cherished, of infinite importance. How
unsuitable, how unsuitable, thought Catherine, flushing hotly--‘Yes,
Stephen? Old Mrs. Dymock----?’
‘She is dead at last.’
‘Poor old thing.’
‘A blessed release.’
It had been all wrong, of course. It was merest make-believe. These were
the sober facts of life; this was really where she belonged--‘Did you
say young Andrews? His leg?’
‘Broken playing football.’
‘Poor boy. I am very sorry.’
‘It is his own fault. A rough customer, a very rough customer.’
Now she had entered again into her dim kingdom, in which she negatively
reigned as Stephen’s mother-in-law. He was well disposed towards her she
knew, and so was she towards him; but she also knew they were not
interesting to each other except in their quality of satisfactory
son-in-law, satisfactory mother-in-law. She wasn’t to Stephen a woman;
Stephen was not to her a man--‘But do I remember Daisy? I don’t seem----’
‘She is my mother’s housemaid at the Rectory. She is marrying the cowman
up at Tovey’s farm.’
‘Your mother will miss her.’
‘That is what I fear.’
Virginia had assured her, on becoming engaged, that he was of a
distinguished mind; she knew for herself, since he had begun so
unexpectedly to preach eloquently on love, that he had a tender and
understanding heart; but neither of these things came to the surface and
lit up his conversation when he was with her. Strange dehumanisation of
a human being produced by their relationship....
‘Bathrooms did you say?’
‘In every cottage. And the new cottages are going to have lavatory
basins in each bedroom.’
‘But that is really splendid.’
‘It is my idea, and also Virginia’s, of true religion: Love and
Cleanliness. They go hand in hand. Give the poor the opportunity of
washing--<i>easy</i> washing--there must be no difficulty about it of any
sort, or they won’t--and they will begin to respect themselves. And from
a decent self-respect to a decent courting of a decent girl is but one
step.’
She did feel, however, that George’s will was calculated to make any
son-in-law a little awkward and uncomfortable when with her, and was
very sorry for Stephen. He would of course get used to it soon, but he
had only had three months as yet of Chickover Manor, so tremendously
associated in his eyes, who had lived next door for fourteen years, with
her as its mistress, and she did her best to make him understand by
every sort of friendliness that she was perfectly content. Why, she was
content already; and as soon as she had had time to turn round, and was
really settled in her new life, and knew exactly what she could do with
her income and what she couldn’t, she suspected she was going to be
happier than she had ever been. Because, for the first time, she was
free; and just to be able to do things such as go to <i>The Immortal Hour</i>
as often as she wanted to--George hadn’t cared for music--and see what
friends she liked--George had been happiest when he had her to
himself--and read as much as she felt inclined--George loved her to
listen to him, and nobody can both listen and read--was already most
agreeable, and would go on, as her life developed, becoming more and
more so. Only she mustn’t, of course, behave like a fool. She had
behaved very like a fool, she was afraid, in letting Christopher become
so intimate, and it was her fault that he had dared be so familiar. Yet
who could have dreamed, who could possibly have imagined.... Still,
there it was.
Again she flushed hotly, wondering what Stephen, tranquilly eating eggs,
would say if he knew.
But even if he had been looking at her, his mother-in-law might have
flushed the vividest red and he wouldn’t have seen it, because it is not
what one expects of mothers-in-law. They are not women, of like emotions
to oneself, they are institutions. And if she to him seemed like an
institution, he to her seemed oddly like a public building. A museum; a
temple; a great, cool place through whose echoing emptiness one
wandered. On a hot day, what a relief. These last days for Catherine had
been hot--hot, and disturbing; and she did find it refreshing to sit
like this among Stephen’s shadows. Presently her thoughts faded dim and
quiet. Christopher’s image faded dim and quiet. Presently in the
accustomed atmosphere--George’s atmosphere too had been a quiet one--she
paled down till she matched it. By the end of the meal she was like a
mouse, a grey mouse the colour of her surroundings, sitting unassumingly
nibbling its food.
‘<i>For these and all Thy blessings</i>----’ said Stephen, towering tall and
lean over the empty egg-dish, his eyes closed, his hands folded, his
voice sounding as if it came out of somewhere hollow.
‘<i>Amen</i>,’ murmured Catherine with propriety.
Yes--it was soothing; it was what one knew.
And the evening in the drawing-room continued to soothe. He sat in what
had been George’s chair on one side of the small fire, and she sat on
the big sofa facing him. So had she and George sat when she had come up
from Chickover to go out with him to some unavoidable festivity. If
George could, he avoided festivities; and she, born with that spirit of
adaptability which made her so pleasant to live with, born with that
fortunate and convenient disposition which squeezed its happiness out of
acquiescences, out of what she had, rather than waiting to be happy when
she should have got something else, had gladly shared in his desire to
avoid them. But if they were not avoidable, then she cheerfully came up
to London and supported him; and afterwards, when whatever it was they
had been to was over, with what a sigh of satisfaction did George sink
into his chair before going to bed and rest his eyes on his Catherine
sitting opposite him. He didn’t even like her to take up the evening
paper and glance at the headlines, so much did he love to have her whole
attention. Never did any one listen as sweetly as his Catherine. It was
the best conversation he ever had, George considered, this talk to
Catherine who so sweetly listened. Now she sat opposite Stephen, and
Stephen gazed at the fire and hardly spoke, so that even her talent for
listening was able to rest. Peace, perfect peace, she thought, her head
in the cushions and her eyes inclined to shut.
At nine o’clock Stephen looked at his watch. He had been prepared to
take it out, look at it, exclaim that time had flown, get up, and go.
But time had not flown. Both of them had been supposing it must be ten
o’clock--at least ten, probably much later; so that when he saw it was
only nine he was disconcerted as well as astonished.
He didn’t quite know what to do. To leave so early would not be
respectful, he felt, to his excellent mother-in-law; to hold his watch
up to his ear in order to make sure it hadn’t stopped--it <i>must</i> have
stopped--was an impulse he resisted as discourteous. Yet he wanted to
go away. Whatever his watch declared, he felt it was long past bedtime.
‘Would you like me,’ he suggested, fidgeting in his chair a little, ‘to
say prayers for you and your household before I go?’
‘Very much,’ said Catherine politely, waking up; she was the last person
to baulk any clergyman who should want to pray. ‘Only there isn’t----’
She hesitated, anxious not to seem to complain. She had been going to
say there wasn’t any household; instead, she inquired whether she should
call Mrs. Mitcham.
‘Pray do,’ said Stephen.
Mrs. Mitcham came.
Then it appeared there wasn’t a prayer-book. The prayer-books, both hers
and Mrs. Mitcham’s--it was most unfortunate--had been left behind at
Chickover.
Stephen stood thoughtfully on the hearth-rug. Mrs. Mitcham, with the
expression of one already in church, waited with decent folded hands for
whatever of unction should descend on her. Catherine reflected that she
hadn’t left her furs behind at Chickover, nor her trinkets, and wondered
whether perhaps Stephen might be reflecting this too and drawing his
conclusions.
But Stephen was not. He was merely turning over in his mind what, cut
off from the assistance of the prayer-book, he should say to these two
women as a good-night benediction, and so with grace be able to go back
to his lodging to bed.
The thought of that bed, all solitary and cold, recalled Virginia, and
with her his great discovery of Love. He suddenly raised his hands over
his mother-in-law and her servant--instinctively they bowed their
heads--and with complete simplicity and earnestness bade them love one
another.
‘<i>Little children, love one another</i>,’ Stephen said simply.
It was the best he could do for them, he felt; it was the best that
could be done for any one in the world. Then, abruptly, he wished
Catherine good-night.
‘Do you come to St. Clement’s to-morrow evening?’ he inquired of her.
‘I will certainly come,’ she said.
Mrs. Mitcham helped him into his coat with reverence. She liked having
texts said over her; it gave her a peculiar, pleasant feeling in her
chest. She couldn’t imagine how she had come to forget her prayer-book
and not even notice she hadn’t got it. It must have been the confusion
of Miss Virginia’s wedding, and moving up to London and settling in. She
wrote that very evening to the housekeeper at Chickover, and begged her
to send it to her, and also her mistress’s, at once.
X
By this time it was a quarter past nine; quite early, and yet how late
it seemed. Catherine went back to the sofa, and turning out the light on
the table by her side, for she was being very cautious this first year
of her limited income and not wasting anything, put her feet up and lay
in the firelight, feeling a little tired.
Stephen, as a cool refuge from the warmths of Christopher, had been
restful, but only up to a certain point. He had provided the sort of
relief the cool air of a cellar gives those coming rather blinded out of
the heat of the sun, and, like a cellar, he had presently palled. She
had long ago found, and it had been greatly to her regret, that it was
difficult to keep her eyes open after a short time alone with Stephen.
She thought this must be due to his conversation. There was nothing to
lay hold of in it. It was bony. One slipped off. Besides, he didn’t talk
to her as if she were anything but another bone. Bones to bones; how
dreary; how little one likes being behaved to as if one were a bone. Yet
he knew now about love, and nobody could hear him preach without being
thrilled by his appreciation of it. He appreciated it in his sermons in
all its branches. At present in his life there was only one branch
really living, and that was married love. All those other loves he
praised--brotherly love, which he entreated might continue; the love of
friends, surpassing, he declared, in beauty and dignity the love of the
sexes; that large love of humanity, which needs must well from every
thinking heart--were theories to him. Well, perhaps by sheer talking
about them from pulpits to impressed congregations they would gradually
become real. One did, in a very remarkable way, talk oneself into
attitudes of mind that altered one’s entire behaviour; or was talked
into them by somebody else, which was less excellent--in fact, should be
guarded against.
She shut her eyes. She was tired.
<i>Little children, love one another</i>.... He could say that
beautifully--and how beautiful it was--but he didn’t <i>do</i> it himself.
Except Virginia, the rest of the world was at present left out from
Stephen’s loving. The exhortation had been for her and Mrs. Mitcham, who
had long loved one another in the form of affection and daily mutual
courtesies.
<i>Little children, love</i>....
She was tired. She hadn’t walked so fast or so much for ages as she had
that afternoon at Hampton Court. And the spring air was relaxing. And
Christopher had such long legs, and strode easily over ground that took
her innumerable small steps to cover. And, being clearly mad as well, it
wasn’t only her feet he had fatigued, but her spirit. Stephen, so
passive and indifferent; Christopher, so active and not indifferent
enough; and she between them being agreeable, and agreeable, and for
ever agreeable. Why did a woman always try, however fruitlessly, as with
Stephen, or dangerously, as with Christopher, to be agreeable? She
feared it was, at bottom, vanity. Anyhow it was very stupid, when it was
so tiring, so tiring....
<i>Little children, love</i>....
She dozed; she more than dozed; she went to sleep. And she hadn’t been
asleep five minutes before Christopher came back.
There was her wrap--he hadn’t given her her wrap yet, and found it when
he went out where he had dropped it on the carpet outside her door. In
any case he had meant to wait in the street till that incredible old
son-in-law--that <i>she</i> should dare to try to put him off with stuff
about the generations!--had gone, and then see her again unless it was
very late. But the wrap made it his duty to see her again; and when he
beheld, from the opposite pavement, Stephen emerge and go away at a
quarter past nine, he walked up and down for another ten minutes in case
the old raven should have forgotten something and come back, and then,
the wrap on his arm, went in and up the stairs with all the dignity and
composure that legitimate business bestows.
But he was not really composed; not inside. When Mrs. Mitcham opened the
door at his ring and, still under the influence of Stephen’s exhortation
to love one another, smiled brightly at him, he could hardly stammer out
that he had something of Mrs. Cumfrit’s--her wrap----
‘Oh, thank you, sir. I’ll take it,’ said Mrs. Mitcham.
‘Well, but I want to see Mrs. Cumfrit a minute--it isn’t late--it’s
quite early--I’ll go in for just a minute----’
And thrusting the wrap into her hand he made for the drawing-room.
She watched him shut the door behind him, and hoped it didn’t matter,
her not announcing him. After all, he had but lately left; it wasn’t as
if he were calling that day for the first time. On the contrary, this
was the third time since lunch that he had come in.
She stood uncertain a moment in the hall, ready to let him out again if
he did only stay a minute; then, when he did not reappear, she went back
to the kitchen.
Now Christopher might have behaved quite differently if he had found
Catherine wide awake in her chair, properly lit up, and reading or
sewing. He had meant, in coming back, only to reason with her. He
couldn’t be sent away, cut short in the middle of a sentence and cast
out as he had been by Stephen’s entrance, and not see her again at least
to finish what he had to say. If she wouldn’t listen now, at least they
might arrange an hour the next day when she would. He couldn’t go home
to just black misery. He couldn’t. He was a human being. There were
things a human being simply couldn’t do. He would see her again that
evening, if only to find out when she would let him call and talk
quietly. Surely she owed him this. He hadn’t done anything to offend her
really, except tell her that he loved her. And was that an offence? No;
it was most natural, inevitable and right, he assured his shrinking
heart. For his heart did shrink; it was very fearful, because he knew
she would be angry when she saw him. He could barely get the words out
to Mrs. Mitcham at the door, so short was he of breath because of his
heart. It was behaving as if he had been tearing up six flights of
stairs, instead of walking slowly up one.
Then, inside the room, instead of light, and Catherine looking up from
whatever she was doing at him with surprise and reproach, he found first
darkness, and presently, as he stood uncertain and his eyes grew more
accustomed to it, the outline of Catherine in the dull glow of the
fire, motionless on the sofa. He couldn’t see if she was asleep. She
said nothing and didn’t move. She must be asleep. And just at that
moment a flame leapt out of the coals, and he saw that she was asleep.
The most extraordinary feeling flooded his heart. All the mothers in his
ancestry crowded back to life in him. She looked so little, and helpless
and vulnerable. She looked so tired, with no colour at all in her face.
Not for anything in the world would Christopher have disturbed that
sleep. He would creep away softly, and simply bear the incertitude as to
when he was to see her again. Such an immense tenderness he had never in
his life felt. He knew now that he loved her beyond all things, and far
beyond himself.
He turned to go away, holding his breath, feeling for the door handle,
when his foot knocked against the leg of George’s big chair.
Catherine woke up. ‘Mrs. Mitcham----’ she began, drowsily. And then as
no one answered, for though he tried to he couldn’t, she put out her
hand and turned on the light.
They blinked at each other.
Astonishment, succeeded by indignation, spread over Catherine’s face.
She could hardly believe her eyes. Christopher. Back again. Got into her
flat like a thief. Stealing in in the dark....
She sat up, leaning on her hands. ‘You!’ was all she could find to say.
‘Yes, I had to. I had to bring you back your----’
He was going to shelter behind her cloak, and then was ashamed of such
trifling.
She made a movement to get up, but the sofa was a very low one, and she
rather ridiculously bumped down on it again; and before she could make
another attempt he had flown across to help her.
‘No, no,’ said Catherine, whose indignation was greater than any she had
felt in her life, pushing aside his outstretched hands.
So then he lifted her up bodily, indifferent to everything else in the
world; and having set her on her feet he held her like that, tightly in
his arms, and didn’t care if he had to die for it.
There was a moment’s complete silence. Catherine was so much amazed that
for a moment she was quite still.
Then she gave a gasp--muffled, because of his coat, against which her
face was pressed. ‘<i>Oh</i>----’ she gasped, faint and muffled, trying to
push him away.
She might as well have tried to push a rock away.
‘<i>Oh</i>----’ she gasped again, as Christopher, still not caring if he had
to die for it, began kissing her. He kissed what he could--her hair, the
tip of one ear, and she, aghast, horrified, buried her face deeper and
deeper into his coat in her efforts to protect it.
Oh, the outrage--never in her life--how dared he, how dared he--just
because she was alone, and had no one to defend her----
Not a word of this came out; it was entirely muffled in his coat. Aghast
and horrified, Catherine continued to have the top of her head kissed,
and her aghastness and horror became overwhelming when she realised that
she--no, it wasn’t possible, it <i>couldn’t</i> be that she--that this--that
she was somehow, besides being horrified, strangely shot through by a
feeling that was not unpleasant? Impossible, impossible....
‘Let me go,’ she gasped into his coat. ‘Let me <i>go</i>----’
For answer he took her head in his hands and held it back and kissed her
really, right on her mouth, as no one in her life before had ever kissed
her.
Impossible, impossible....
She stood, her arms hanging by her side, her body quivering. She didn’t
seem able to move. She seemed as if she were becoming every instant more
drawn into this, more absorbed in what was happening--as profoundly
absorbed as he was, as remote from realities. The room disappeared, the
relics of George disappeared, the world disappeared, and all the
reminders of the facts of her life. Youth had swept down out of the
skies and caught her up in its arms into a strange, warm oblivion. He
and she were not any longer Christopher and Catherine--Catherine tied up
in a tangle of relationships, of obligations, of increasing memories,
Christopher an impetuous young man who needed tremendously to be kept in
his proper place: she was simply the Beloved, and he was Love.
‘I worship you,’ murmured Christopher.
Through her dream she heard him murmuring, and it woke her up to
consciousness.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
He was gazing down at her--beautiful, all light. She stared at him an
instant, still held in his arms, collecting her thoughts.
What had she done? What was she doing? What was this? Oh, but it was
shameful, shameful....
She made one immense effort, and with both her hands pushed him away;
and before he could stop her, for he too was in a dream, she had run to
the door and flown along the passage to her bedroom and locked herself
in.
Then she rang violently for Mrs. Mitcham, and told her through the shut
door to let Mr. Monckton out--she was going to bed at once--she had a
terrible headache.... And she sat down on her bed and cried bitterly.