THE FEAST
Some entries in Millie’s diary:
_March 12th._ Wind and rain like anything. Been in most of the day
patching up the screen in my bedroom with new pictures—got them as much
like the old ones as possible. Went for an hour’s tussle with the wind
out to the Cross, and it was fine. Wish I could have got over to Rafiel.
The sea must have been fine to-day coming in over the Peak. Father drove
Philip over to Polchester in the morning. Felt bored and out of temper
in the evening.
_March 13th._ Katie and Philip had their first tiff this morning—at
least first I’ve seen. He wanted her to go off with him for the day.
She’d got to stop and help mother with the Merrimans from Polneaton,
coming to tea. Mother said it didn’t matter, but I could see that she
was awfully pleased when K. stayed. But if I’d been K. I’d have gone.
What _does_ a family matter when one’s in love? and she _is_ in love,
more than anyone I’ve ever seen. But I think she’s disappointed with
Phil for not caring more about Garth, although she never owns it. I’m
sorry for him. He wanders about not knowing what to do with himself, and
everyone’s too busy to think of him. I try, but he doesn’t want me, he
wants Katherine, and thinks he ought to have her all the time. Aunt
Aggie makes things worse in every way she can....
_March 15th._ Cross all day. Garth isn’t quite so nice this time
somehow. Is it because of Paris? I don’t think so—it used to make one
care all the more. I think Philip upsets one. When you see someone
criticising something you’ve always loved, it makes you hot defending
it, but also, although you’d never own it, it makes you see weak spots.
Then he stirs my imagination as no one ever has done before. I believe
he always sees the place he’s not in much more vividly than the place he
is. If I were Katie I’d marry him to-morrow and make sure of him. Not
that he isn’t in love with her—he _is_—more every day—but he doesn’t
want to divide her with us, and she doesn’t understand it and we won’t
have it—so there you are!
_March 16th._ Henry very queer to-day. I wish they’d send him to Oxford
or do something with him. It’s so hard on him to let him hang around
doing nothing—it’s so bad for him, too. I think he hates Philip, but is
fascinated by him. He took me into the garden after lunch to-day as
though he were going to tell me something very important. He was so very
mysterious, and said I could advise him, and he was dreadfully worried.
Then he suddenly stopped, said it was nothing, and wasn’t it a fine day?
I know I shall kill Henry one day. He thinks he’s so important and has
got a great destiny, whereas he can’t even keep his face clean. So I
told him, and then I wanted to hug him and comfort him. I’m really
awfully fond of him, but I do wish he was nice and smart like other men.
_March 17th._ Had a long walk with Philip this afternoon. Really I do
like him most tremendously, partly, I think, because he always treats me
as though I’d come out years ago and knew all about everything. He
talked all the time about Katherine, which was natural enough, I
suppose. He said (what he’d told me in London) that he was frightened by
her idea of him, and wished she thought him more as he was. He said he
hated a long engagement, that he wished it were over—then he said that
he was a poor sort of fellow for anyone so fine as Katherine, and I said
that I didn’t think it did to be too humble about oneself and that I
always made myself out as grand as I could in my mind.
He said that it was Russia made one like that, that after you’d been in
Russia a little you doubted everyone and everything, most of all
yourself. I said that I thought that rather flabby ... but I do like
him. I don’t think Katie ought to insist so much on his liking Garth.
She’ll frighten him off it altogether if she does that.
_March 19th._ Rachel Seddon arrived. Mother asked her down. She doesn’t
generally come at this time, and she’s only just back from abroad, but I
think she wants to see how the engagement’s getting on. Of course she
doesn’t like Philip—you can see that in a moment—and of course he
knows it. But he wants to make her like him. I wish he didn’t care so
much whether people like him or no. Henry quite his old self to-night,
and we danced (I tried to teach him a cake-walk) in my room, and smashed
a lamp of Aunt Aggie’s—I’d quite forgotten her ceiling was my floor.
The house is awfully old and shaky—letter from Rose La Touche—Paris
does seem funny to think of here....
* * * * *
Part of a letter that was never posted—
“I haven’t written to you all these weeks because I was determined not
to write to Russia until I was settled and happy and married for life.
Then, also, you yourself have not written. Have you all, over there,
forgotten me? Russians never do write letters, do they? I don’t suppose
I ought to be disappointed—you warned me. If I’d forgotten all of you
there—but I haven’t. I thought for a time that I had, but I haven’t ...
then a bell rings, and all the servants troop in and kneel down in a row
with their heels up, and George Trenchard reads a bit out of the New
Testament and, very fast, a prayer about ‘Thy humble servants’, and he
has his eye on the weather out of the window all the time. Afterwards
there is the Post—also eggs, bacon, marmalade, brown bread and white
and the family arriving one by one with ‘sorry I’m late!’ Fancy a
Russian saying: ‘Sorry I’m late’!... so the day’s begun. Afterwards,
everyone has their own especial job. I don’t know what my especial job
is supposed to be. George has his writing and the whole place—fences,
weeds, horses, dogs—anything yon like. He fancies himself Walter Scott
at Abbotsford, and is as happy as the day is long; Mrs. Trenchard has
the village and the inside of the house (with Katherine her lieutenant).
There is no living soul from the infant of a week to the old man of
ninety-seven (John Wesley Moyle—he sees visions) who does not have his
or her life exactly and precisely arranged. Mrs. Trenchard has a quiet
hypnotic power that fills me with terror, because I know that I shall
soon be ranged with all the others. She is kindness itself I am sure,
and no cloud passing across the sun’s face makes less sound—and yet she
has always her way. Oh, Paul, old man, I’m frightened of her as I have
never been of anyone before. When I see her here I want to run. I had a
horrible dream last night. The terror of it is with me still. I thought
that I said good-night to everyone and went up to my bedroom. To my
surprise I found Mrs. Trenchard there, and instead of my usual bed was
an enormous feather-bed—an _enormous_ one stretching from wall to wall.
‘You will sleep on that to-night,’ said Mrs. Trenchard, pointing to it.
In some way I knew that if I once lay down upon it I should never get up
again. I said ‘No, I would not lie down.’ ‘I think you’d better,’ she
said in her slow way. ‘I think you’d better.’ ‘No!’ I cried, ‘I defy
you!’ Instantly the feather-bed like a cloud rose, filled the room, was
above me, under me, around me. It pressed in upon me. I tore at it, and
the feathers floated in a great stifling fog against my eyes, up my
nose, in my mouth. I screamed for mercy, I fought, I fell, I was
suffocating, death was driving down upon me ... I woke. There’s nonsense
for you! And yet not such nonsense neither. On a stuffy day here, when
everything steams and the trees and grass and hedges close up about the
house like an army, when Mrs. Trenchard, with Katherine, is arranging
meals and lives, birth and death, when, trying to escape down one of the
lanes, they rise so high above one’s head that it’s like being drowned
in a green bath, I tell you the feather-bed is not so far
away—suffocation seems no idle dream. The fact of the matter is that
there’s nothing here for me to do. It didn’t matter having nothing to do
in Russia—although, as a matter of fact, I always had plenty, because
no one else had anything to do that couldn’t be stopped at any moment
for the sake of a friend, or a drink, or a bit of vague thinking. I
suppose it’s the order, the neatness, the punctuality and, at the same
time, the solid, matter-of-fact assumption that things must be exactly
what they look (which they never are) that fusses me. But really of
course I came down here to make love to Katherine—and I only get a bit
of her. She cherishes the faith that I want the family as badly as I
want her, and that the family want me as badly as she does. She has got
a thousand little duties here that I had never reckoned on, and they are
like midges on a summer’s evening. I would throw myself into their life
if they would let me, but there doesn’t seem any real place for me. It’s
fighting with shadows. George Trenchard takes me for drives, Millie,
Katherine’s sister, takes me for walks—Katie herself is, I do believe,
with me whenever she can be.... I ought to be satisfied. But only last
night Great Aunt Sarah, who is in her dotage (or pretends to be), said,
in the drawing-room to Millie, in a loud whisper, ‘Who is that young
man, my dear, sitting over there? I seem to know his face.’ That sort of
thing doesn’t exactly make you feel at home. With all this, I feel the
whole time that they are criticising me and waiting for me to make some
big blunder. Then they’ll say to Katherine, ‘You see, my dear!’ Oh, of
course, I’m an ass to make a fuss. Any sensible fellow would just wait
his year, marry Katherine and say good-bye to the lot. But I shan’t be
able to say good-bye to the lot. That’s the whole business ... partly
because I’m weak, partly because Katherine adores them, partly because
that is, I believe, Mrs. T.’s plan. To absorb me, to swallow me, to have
me ever afterwards, somewhere about the place, a colourless imitation of
the rest of them. So they’ll keep Katie, and I’m not important enough to
matter. That’s her plan. Is she stronger than I? Perhaps after all I
shall snatch Katherine from them and escape with her—and then have her
homesick for ever after.... Why am I always imagining something that
isn’t here? Russia poisoned my blood—sweet poison, but poison all the
same. You’ll understand this letter, but if George Trenchard, or indeed
any ordinary sensible Englishman were to read it, what an ass he’d think
me! ‘If he thought more about the girl he was going to marry than about
himself he wouldn’t have all this worry.’ But isn’t it just that. If, in
nine months from now, I, swallowed whole by Mrs. T., marry Katie, will
that be much fun for her? I shall be a sort of shadow or ghost. I can
see myself running Mrs. Trenchard’s errands, hurrying down to be in time
for breakfast (although she never scolds anyone), sometimes waking,
seeing myself, loathing, despising myself. Ah! Anna would understand ...
Anna, even when she laughed, understood ... Anna ... I don’t think I
shall send this. I’m determined to drive you all from me until, in a
year’s time, I can think of you safely again. I described Moscow to
Katherine in the train, and speaking of it, has reminded me ...”
* * * * *
Katherine could not remember that there had ever been a year since her
eighth birthday when she had missed “The Feast” at Rafiel. “The Feast”
was held always on the 24th of March, unless that day were a Sunday: it
had been held, old Dr. Pybus, the antiquarian of Pelynt, said, ever
since Phoenician days. To Katherine the event was the crowning day of
the spring. After the 24th there would be, of course, many cold,
blustering days: nevertheless the spring, with primroses, violets,
anemones thick in the four valleys that ran down to Rafiel, the sky blue
with white clouds like bubbles, the stream running crystal-clear over
the red soil, the spring was here, and “The Feast” was its crowning.
For the fishermen and their families “The Feast” meant a huge tea in the
Schools, great bonfires on the Peak, and a dance on the fish-market, a
drink at ‘The Pilchards,’ and, above all, for the younger men and women,
love and engagements. It was on “The Feast” day that the young men of
Rafiel asked the young women whether ‘they would walk out’, and the
young women said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ according to their pleasure. On a fine
night, with the bonfires blazing to the sky and showers of golden sparks
like fire-flies over the quiet sea, there was no happier village in the
world than Rafiel. In its little square harbour the stars, and the fires
and the amphitheatre-shaped village looked down and the ghosts of the
Phoenicians peered over the brow of the hill, sighed for the old times
that they once knew, and crept at last, shivering, back into their
graves.
This was to be the greatest “Feast” that Katherine had ever known,
because Philip was, of course, to be with her. It was to be, for them
both, the crowning of their love by the place, the soil, the good
Glebeshire earth. To Katherine it seemed that if anything untoward
happened on this day, it would be as though Glebeshire itself rejected
them. She would confess to no one how solemn it seemed to her....
Uncle Tim was in charge of the party. Timothy Faunder had not, for many,
many years missed a “Feast”; thither he went, his outward appearance
cynical and careless as ever, but obeying, inwardly, more sacred
instincts than he would acknowledge. He would be in charge of Katherine,
Millie, Philip, Rachel—Henry did not care to go.
The 24th of March was wonderful weather. Uncle Tim, coming over from his
house up the road, to luncheon, said that he had never seen a finer day.
He said this to his sister Harriet, standing before the window of her
little room, looking down upon the lawn that reflected the sunny shadows
like a glass, looking down upon the clumps of daffodils that nodded
their heads to him from the thick grass by the garden wall. Harriet was
very fond of her brother; she had an intimate relationship with him that
had never been expressed in words by either of them. She was a little
afraid of him. She was sitting now writing notes. She did not pause as
she talked to him, and sometimes she rubbed the side of her nose with
her fingers in a puzzled way. She wrote a large sprawling hand, and
often spelt her words wrongly.
This conversation was before luncheon.
“Well, Harriet,” Tim said. “How are you?”
She looked up for a moment at his big, loose, untidy body, his shaggy
beard, his ruffled hair.
“Why do you never brush your hair, Tim? It’s such a bad example for
Henry. And you’re standing in the light.... Thank you.... Oh—I’m very
well. Why didn’t you come in last night, as you said you would?... Yes,
I’m quite well, thank you.”
“I went walking,” said Timothy. “I do brush my hair, only I am not going
to put grease on it for anybody ... How do you like the young man?”
Mrs. Trenchard nodded her head several times as though she were adding
up a sum.
“He likes it here, I think, although of course it must be quiet for
him—‘And if Tuesday—isn’t convenient—suggest—another day—next
week!’”
“So you don’t like him even so much as you expected to?”
“No.” She answered quite abruptly, spreading her large hand flat out
upon the table as though, by her sudden pounce, she had caught a fly.
“He’s weaker than I had fancied, and vainer.... More insignificant
altogether.... Miss Propert, The Close, Polchester....”
“He’s weak, yes,” said Tim, staring down upon his sister. “But he isn’t
insignificant. He’s weak because his imagination paints for him so
clearly the dreadful state of things it would be if affairs went wrong.
He wants then terribly to make them right. But he hasn’t the character
to do much himself, and he knows it. A man who knows he’s weak isn’t
insignificant.”
Mrs. Trenchard made no reply.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” at last said Tim.
“Oh, he’ll marry Katherine of course.”
“And then?”
“And then they’ll live here.... ‘Dear Canon, I wonder whether ...’—”
“And then?”
“And then—why then it will be just as it is now.”
“Oh! I see!”
Timothy turned his back upon her, staring down upon all the green that
came up like a river to the walls of the house. His eyes were grave, his
back square, his hands locked tight. He heard the scratching of his
sister’s pen—otherwise there was deep silence about them. He wheeled
round.
“Harriet, look here! I’ve never—no, I think, never—asked you a
favour.”
She turned in her chair and faced him, looking up to him with her wide,
rather sleepy, kindly eyes—now a little humorous, even a little
cynical.
“No, Tim—never,” she said.
“Well, I’m going to ask you one now.”
“Yes?” Her eyes never flickered nor stirred from his.
“It’s this. I like the young man—like him, for God knows what reason. I
think I must myself once have seen the world as he does. I know I
believed that it could be such a splendid world with such a little
effort—if only everyone were nice to everyone. I understand young
Philip—I believe that this is a crisis in his life and in Katherine’s.
There are three possible endings to the engagement. He can marry her,
carry her off and live his own life. He can marry her, not carry her off
and live your life. The engagement can break down, and he disappear back
to where he came from. You love Katherine, you are determined not to
lose her, therefore you intend to make the first impossible. You see
that Katherine is so deeply attached to him that it will break her heart
if he goes—therefore the last is not to be. There remains only the
second. To that you devote all your energies. You are quite selfish
about it. You see only yourself and Katherine in the matter. You see
that he is weak and afraid of you.... You will break him in, then turn
him into the paddock here to graze for the rest of his life. It would
serve you right if Katherine were to run away with him.”
“She won’t do that,” said Mrs. Trenchard quietly.
“Who knows? I wish she would, but she’s faithful, faithful, faithful
down to the soles of her shoes.... Bless her!”
Mrs. Trenchard smiled. “Dear Tim. You are fond of her, I know....
There’s the luncheon-bell.”
“Wait a minute.” He stood over her now. “Just listen. I believe you’re
wrong about Katherine, Harriet. She’s old-fashioned and slow compared
with the modern girl—we’re an old-fashioned family altogether, I
suppose. It’s the first time she’s been in love in her life, and, as I
said just now, she’s faithful as death—but she’ll be faithful to him as
well as to you. Let him have his fling, let him marry her and carry her
off, go where he likes, develop himself, be a man she can be proud of!
It’s the crisis of his life and of hers too—perhaps of yours. You won’t
lose her by letting her go off with him. She’ll stick to you all the
more firmly if she knows that you’ve trusted him. But to keep him here,
to break his spirit, to govern him through his fear of losing her—I
tell you, Harriet, you’ll regret it all your life. He’ll either run away
and break Katie’s heart or he’ll stay and turn into a characterless,
spiritless young country bumpkin, like thousands of other young fellows
in this county. It isn’t even as though he had the money to be a
first-class squire—just enough to grow fat (he’s rather fat now) and
rotten on. Worse than dear George, who at least has his books.
“And he isn’t a stupid fool neither ... he’ll always know he might have
been something decent. If I thought I had any influence over him I’d
tell him to kidnap Katie to-morrow, carry her up north, and keep her
there.”
Mrs. Trenchard had listened to him with great attention; her eyes had
never left his face, nor had her body moved. She rose, now, very slowly
from her chair, gathered her notes together carefully, walked to the
door, turned to him, saying:
“How you do despise us all, Tim!” then left the room.
* * * * *
After luncheon they started off. Philip, sitting next to Katherine in
the waggonette, was very silent during the drive; he was silent because
he was determined that it was on this afternoon that he would tell
Katherine about Anna.
Without turning directly round to her he could see her profile, her dark
hair a little loose and untidy, her cheek flushed with pleasure, her
eyes smiling. “No, she’s not pretty,” he thought. “But she’s better than
that. I can’t see what she’s like—it’s as though she were something so
close to me and so precious that I could never see it, only feel that it
was there. And yet, although I feel that she’s unattainable too—she’s
something I can never hold completely, because I shall always be a
little frightened of her.”
He made this discovery, that he was frightened, quite suddenly, sitting
there on that lovely afternoon; he saw the shadows from the clouds,
swooping, like black birds, down over the valley beneath him: far beyond
him he saw a thread of yellow running beside the water of the stream
that was now blue in the sunshine and now dark under the hill; there
were hosts of primroses down there, and the hedges that now closed the
carriage were sheeted with gold: when the hedges broke the meadows
beyond them flowed, through the mist, like green clouds, to the hazy
sea; the world throbbed with a rhythm that he could hear quite clearly
behind the clap-clap of the horses’ hoofs—‘hum—hum—hum—hum’—The air
was warm, with a little breath of cold in it; the dark soil in the
ditches glistened as though, very lately, it had been frozen.
Riding there through this beautiful day he was frightened. He was aware
that he did not know what Katherine would do when he told her. During
his years in Russia he had grown accustomed to a world, inevitably,
recklessly, voluble. Russians spoke, on any and ever occasion, exactly
what was in their mind; they thought nothing of consequences whether to
themselves or any other; their interest in the ideas that they were
pursuing, the character that they were discussing, the situation that
they were unravelling, was always so intense, so eager, so vital that
they would talk for days or weeks, if necessary, and lose all sense of
time, private feelings, restraint and even veracity. Philip had become
used to this. Had Katherine been a member of a Russian family he would,
two days after his engagement, have had everything out with them all—he
would have known exactly where he stood. With the Trenchards he did not
know anything at all; from the moment of his engagement he had been
blindfolded, and now he felt as though in a monstrous game of “Blind
Man’s Buff” he were pushed against, knocked on the elbows, laughed at,
bumped against furniture, always in black, grim darkness. Since he had
come down to Garth he had lost even Katherine. He felt that she was
disappointed in some way, that she had never been quite happy since
their journey together in the train. Well, he would put everything
straight this afternoon. He would tell her about Moscow, Anna, all his
life—tell her that he could not, after their marriage, live at Garth,
that it would stifle him, make him worthless and useless, that she must
show him that she definitely cared for him more than for her family....
He felt as though, with a great sweeping stroke of his arm, all the
cobwebs would be brushed away and he would be free. He rehearsed to
himself some of the things that he would say: “You must see, dear, that
the family don’t like me. They’re jealous of me. Much better that we go
away for a year or two—right away—and allow them to get used to the
idea. Then we can come back.”
But what would she say about Anna? Did she know anything about men,
their lives and affairs? Would her fine picture of him be dimmed? He
hoped a little that it would. He wanted simply to love her, that she
should understand him and that he should understand her, and then they
two together (the world, Garth, the Trenchards blown to the wind)
should—
“That’s Tredden Cove, that dip beyond the wood,” said Katherine. “We
used to go there—”
Yes, he was frightened. He felt as though this afternoon would be the
crisis of his life. (There had been already a great many crises in his
life.) He was impatient; he wanted to begin, now, in the waggonette. He
could imagine turning to her, saying: “Katie, darling, I want to tell
you—”
He was conscious that Lady Seddon was watching him. “Jolly day, isn’t
it?” he said. He thought to himself. “She hates me as the others do.”
They had come to the Cross-Roads. Jacob put on the drag, and they began,
very slowly, to creak down a precipitous hill. The fantastic element in
the affair that Philip had been expecting as a kind of reply to his own
sense of his personal adventure seemed to begin with this hill. It
resembled no ordinary hill; it plunged down with a sudden curve that
seemed to defy the wheels of any carriage; on their right the bank broke
sheer away far down to one of the Rafiel four valleys, vivid green now
with tufted trees. There was no fence nor wall, and one slip of the
wheels would have hurled the carriage over. At a turn of the road a
cluster of white cottages, forming one figure together as though they
had been a great stone flung from the hill-top by some giant, showed in
the valley’s cup. At his sense of that remoteness, of that lifting
wildness of the rising hills, at the beauty of the green and grey and
silver and white, he could not restrain a cry.
Katherine laughed. “That’s Blotch End,” she said. “One turn and we’re at
the bottom.” The carriage wheeled round, crossed a brown bridge and had
started down the road to Rafiel.... On one side of the road was a stream
that, hurrying down from the valley, hastened past them to the sea; on
the other side of them a wooded hill, with trees like sentinels against
the sky—then the village street began, ugly at first, as are the
streets of so many Glebeshire villages, the straight, uniform houses,
with their grey slate roofs, now and then hideous-coloured glass over
the doorways, and, ugliest of all, the Methodist chapel with ‘1870’ in
white stone over the door. But even with such a street as this Rafiel
could do something: the valley stream, hidden sometimes by houses,
revealed itself suddenly in chuckling, leaping vistas. Before the houses
there were little gardens, thick now with daffodils and primroses and
hyacinths: through the deep mouth of the forge fires flamed, and a
sudden curve of the street brought a bridge, a view of the harbour and a
vision of little houses rising, tier on tier, against the rock, as
though desperately they were climbing to avoid some flood. This contrast
of the wild place itself, with the ugly patches of civilisation that had
presented themselves first, was like the voice of the place chuckling at
its visitors’ surprise.
First the row of villas, the tailor’s shop with a pattern picture in the
window, the sweet shop, the ironmonger’s—now this sudden huddle of
twisted buildings, wildly climbing to the very sky, a high, rugged peak
guarding the little bay, two streams tossing themselves madly over the
harbour ridges, the boats of the fleet rocking as though dancing to some
mysterious measure, a flurry of gulls, grey and white, flashing,
wheeling, like waves and foam against the sky, the screaming of the
birds, the distant thud of the sea ... this was Rafiel.
They left the carriage and turned to go back to the schools, where the
tea had already begun. Katherine slipped her arm into Philip’s: he knew
that she was waiting for him to speak about the place, and he knew, too,
that she was not expecting his praise as confidently as she would have
expected it three weeks ago. A little of her great trust in him was
shadowed by her surprise that he had not surrendered to Glebeshire more
completely. Now he could tell her that it was to the Trenchards and not
to Glebeshire that he had refused to surrender.
She could not tell, of course, that all his attention now was fixed on
his determination to tell her everything as soon as he was alone.
Walking with him up the road was that secret figure who attends us
all—the fine, cherished personality whom we know ourselves to be.
To Philip, more than many others, was the preservation of that secret
personality essential. He was, this afternoon, determined to live up to
the full height of it.
In the schools, at two long tables, the whole village was feeding: the
room was steaming with heat: huge urns at the ends of the tables were
pouring out tea with a fierce, scornful indifference, as though they
would show what they could do but despised their company. The fishermen,
farmers, their wives and families, shining with soap, perspiration and
excitement, sat, packed so tightly together that eating seemed an
impossibility: there were plates of bread and butter, saffron buns,
seed-cake piled up and running over: there were the ladies of the
village, who said: “Now, Mr. Trefusis, do try another,” or “Mary’s
rather tired, I think, Mrs. Maxwell. Shall I lift her down?” or “Well,
Mrs. Pascoe, out and about again, I see,” or “How’s the new cottage,
Henry? Better than the old one, I expect.”
From the other side of the world came: “Aw, thank ’ee, Ma’am—not so
bad, thank ’ee. Up to Glossen’s Farm they ’ad it praper wild, so they
tell me”—“Yes ... true enough. All over spots ’er arms was, poor
worm”—“Didn’t worry we, thank ’ee, Miss. Marnin’ or evenin’ all the
same to we ... Ah, yes, poor Mr. Izards—’e did suffer terrible, poor
dear....”
Philip perceived with a sense of irritated isolation how instantly and
how easily the other members of his party were swallowed up by the
Ceremony. He himself was introduced to a prim young woman in a blue hat,
who flung remarks to him over a tea-tray and seemed to regard his
well-cut clothes with contempt. The fishermen did not look happy in
their stiff Sunday clothes, but he liked their faces. They reminded him
more of Russian peasants than any people whom he had seen since his
landing in England. No, he must not think about that ... Russia was
banished for ever.
Uncle Timothy, Millie, even Lady Seddon were warmly welcomed, but
Katherine was adored. He understood, perhaps for the first time, what
that place must mean to her. They called her ‘Miss Kathie’, they shouted
to her across the room, they cracked jokes with her; an old man, with a
long white beard like a prophet, stood up and put his hand on her
shoulder as he talked to her. Once she broke away from them and came to
him.
“Phil, I want you to come and be introduced to a great friend of mine,”
she said.
He followed her, feeling that all eyes watched him, with criticism and
even with hostility. A large, immensely broad man, in a navy blue suit,
with a red, laughing face, hair cut very close to his head, and eyes of
the honestest, stood up as they came across. He looked at Katherine with
the devotion and confidence of a faithful dog.
“This is Mr. Richard Curtis,” Katherine said. “He used to pick up shells
for me when I was three. He has a boat here with his brother. He’s
always in good spirits, aren’t you, Dick, even when you scald your arm
with boiling water?”
This was an allusion to some confidence between them, and as their eyes
met, Philip felt a pang of ridiculous jealousy. The man’s face was
flaming, and his eyes were more devoted than ever. He held out a large,
horny hand to Philip. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I’m proud to shake
’ands with the man wot Miss Katherine is goin’ to marry. We thought,
once on a time, p’raps as she’d always be ’ere, along with we, but wot
we want most is fer ’er to be ’appy—and that we knows now she will be.
I ’ope you’ll be often down—along, sir, in time to come—that is, sir,
if you’re not goin’ to take ’er right away from us.”
“Why, of course not, Dick,” said Katherine. “When we’re married we’re
going to live quite close. You’ve only got to find us a house.”
Philip knew that he should say something pleasant; he could think of
nothing; he muttered a few words and then turned away, confused,
irritated, embarrassed. What had happened to him? He was always so
pleasant with everyone, especially with strangers; now, at every turn,
he seemed compelled by someone stronger than he to show his worst side.
“Oh, if I can only get Katherine out of all this,” he thought
passionately, “even for a little time. Then I’ll come back another man.
To have her to myself. Everything’s coming between us. Everything’s
coming between us....”
At last he had his desire. They had left the others. She had led him,
out past the row of white cottages, to a rock on the side of the hill,
high over the sea, with the harbour below them, the village, curved like
a moon in the hills’ hollow, behind the harbour, and a little cluster of
trees at the hill top striking the blue night sky: opposite them was the
Peak rock, black and jagged, lying out into the water like a dragon
couchant. They could see the plateau above the Peak where the bonfire
was to be, they could see the fish-market silver grey in the evening
light, and the harbour like a green square handkerchief with the boats
painted upon it. The houses, like an amphitheatre of spectators, watched
and waited, their lights turning from pale yellow to flame as the
evening colours faded; crying, singing, laughing voices came up to their
rock, but they were utterly, finally remote. She leaned her head against
his shoulder, and they sat there in silence.
At last, half-dreamily, gazing forward into the sea that, stirred by no
wind, heaved ever and again, with some sigh, some tremor born of its own
happiness, she talked. “You can see the bonfire and the figures moving
around it. Soon the moon will be right above the Peak.... Isn’t
everything quiet? I never knew last year how different this one would be
from any that I had ever known before.” She turned half towards him,
caught his hand and held it. “Phil, you must be very patient with me.
I’ve felt so much that you were part of me that I’ve expected you to see
things always as I do. Of course that was ridiculous of me. You _can’t_
love this place quite as I do—it must take time.... You aren’t angry
with me, are you?”
“Angry?” he laughed.
“Because the closer I get to you—the longer we’re engaged, the less, in
some ways, I seem to know you. I never realised until you came how shut
up as a family we’ve been, how wrapt up in ourselves. That must be hard
for you to understand....”
“There it goes!” he broke in suddenly.
The bonfire leapt into fire: instantly the village glowed with flame, a
golden pool burnt beneath the Peak, the houses that had been blue-grey
in the dusk now reflected a rosy glow, and whirling, dancing sparks flew
up to join the stars. Little black figures were dancing round the blaze;
down on the fish-market other figures were moving, and the faint echo of
a fiddle and a horn was carried across the water.
Something said to Philip, ‘Tell her—now.’
He plunged with the same tightening of the heart that he would have
known had he sprung from their rock into the pools of the sea below
them. He put his arm more tightly around her, and there was a desperate
clutch in the pressure of his fingers, as though he were afraid lest she
should vanish and he be left with sky, land and sea flaming and leaping
beneath the fire’s blaze.
“Katie, I’ve something I must tell you,” he said. He felt her body move
under his arm, but she only said, very quietly: “Yes, Phil?” Then in the
little fragment of silence that followed she said, very cosily and
securely: “So long as it isn’t to tell me that you don’t love me any
more, I don’t mind what it is?”
“No—it isn’t that. It’s something I should have told you, I suppose,
long ago. I would have told you, only it was all so over and done with
for me that I couldn’t imagine its mattering to anyone. I told your
father that there was no complication in my life, and that’s true—there
is none. There’s nothing I have nor think nor do that isn’t yours.”
She said very quietly: “You were in love with someone before you knew
me?”
He was surprised and immensely reassured by the quietness and
tranquillity of her voice.
“That’s it—That’s it,” he said, eagerly, his heart bounding with relief
and happiness. “Look here, Katie. I must tell you
everything—_everything_, so that there can’t be anything between us any
more that you don’t know. You see, when I went to Russia first I was
very young—very young for my age too. Russia isn’t much of a place when
you don’t know the language and the weather’s bad—and I’d gone
expecting too much. I’d heard so much about Russia’s hospitality and
kindness, but I was with English people at first, and most of them were
tired to death of Russia, and only saw its worst side and didn’t paint
it very cheerfully. Then the Russians I did meet had to struggle along
in bad French or English (it’s all rot about Russians being great
linguists), and if a Russian isn’t spontaneous he isn’t anything at all.
Then when I did go to their houses their meals simply killed me. They
make one eat such a lot and drink such a lot and sit up all night—I
simply couldn’t stand it. So at first I was awfully lonely and
unhappy—awfully unhappy.”
She sighed in sympathy and pressed closer to him.
“I’m not the sort of man,” Philip went on, “to stand being lonely. It’s
bad for me. Some men like it. It simply _kills_ me. But after about six
months or more I knew a little Russian, and I got to know one or two
Russians individually. There’s one thing I can tell you—that until you
know a Russian personally, so that he feels that he’s got some kind of
personal part in you, you simply don’t know him at all. It’s so easy to
generalise about Russians. Wait until you’ve made a friend.... I made a
friend, several friends. I began to be happier.”
Katherine pressed his hand. The bonfire was towering steadily now in a
great golden pillar of smoke and flame to heaven. The music of the
fiddle and the horn, as though they were its voice, trembled dimly in
the air: all the stars were shining, and a full moon, brittle like
glass, flung a broad silver road of light across the black Peak and the
sea. There was no breeze, but the scent of the flowers from the gardens
on the rocks mingled with the strong briny odour of the sea-pinks that
covered the ground at their feet.
“The spring came all in a moment, like a new scene at the play. I was
introduced to some theatre people, who had a house in the country near
Moscow. You’ve no idea of the slackness and ease of a Russian country
house. People just come and go—the doors are all open, meals are always
going on—there’s always a samovar, and sweets in little glass dishes,
and cold fish and meat and little hot pies. In the evening there was
dancing, and afterwards the men would just sleep about anywhere. I met a
girl there, the first Russian woman who had attracted me. Her name was
Anna Mihailovna, and she was a dancer in the Moscow Ballet.”
He paused, but Katherine said nothing nor did she move.
“She attracted me because she had never known an Englishman before, and
I was exactly what she had always thought an Englishman would be. That
pleased me then—I wanted, I even felt it my duty, to be the typical
Englishman. It wasn’t that she admired the typical Englishman
altogether: she laughed at me a great deal, she laughed at my having
everything so cut and dried, at my dogmatising so easily, at my
disliking Russian unpunctuality and lack of method.
“She thought me rather ridiculous, I fancy, but she felt motherly to me,
and that’s what most Russian women feel to most men. I was just
beginning to love Russia then. I was beginning to dream of its wonderful
secrets, secrets that no one ever discovers, secrets the pursuit of
which make life one long, restless search. Anna fascinated me—she let
me do always as I pleased. She seemed to me freedom itself: I fell madly
in love with her.”
Katherine’s hand gave then a sudden leap in his; he felt the ends of her
fingers pressing against his palm. Some of his confidence had left him:
some of his confidence not only in himself but in his assurance of the
remoteness of his story and the actors in it. He felt as though some
hand were dragging him back into scenes that he had abandoned,
situations that had been dead. The fire and the sea were veiled, and his
eyes, against their will, were fastened upon other visions.
“That year was a very wonderful one for me. We took a flat together, and
life seemed to be realised quite completely for me. This, I thought, was
what I had always desired ... and I grew slack and fat and lazy—outside
my business—I always worked at that decently. Early in the next year we
had a boy. Anna took him with the same happy indifference that she had
taken me: she loved him, I know, but she was outside us all, speculating
about impossibilities, then suddenly coming to earth and startling one
with her reality. I loved her and I loved Moscow—although sometimes too
I hated it—but we used also to have the most awful quarrels; I was
angry with her, I remember, because I thought that she would never take
me seriously, and she would laugh at me for wanting her to. I felt that
Russia was doing me no good. Our boy died, quite suddenly, of pneumonia,
and then I begged her to marry me and come and live in England. How she
laughed at the idea! She didn’t want to be married to anyone. But she
thought that perhaps England would be better for me. She did not seem to
mind at all if I went. That piqued me, and I stayed on, trying to make
myself essential to her. I did not care for her then so much as for my
idea of myself, that she would break her heart if I went. But she knew
that—how she would laugh as she looked at me.... She refused to take me
seriously. Russia was doing me harm—I got slack, sleepy, indifferent. I
longed for England. The chance came. Anna said that she was glad for me
to go, and laughed as she said it. I took my chance.... I’ve told you
everything,” he suddenly ended.
He waited. The tune across the water went: ‘La-la-la, la, la-la-la-la,
la, la.’ Many, many little black figures were turning on the
fish-market. The blaze of the bonfire was low and its reflection in the
sea smoking red.
When he had finished Katherine had very gently drawn her hand away from
his, then suddenly, with a little fierce gesture, pushed it back again.
“What was your boy’s name?” she asked, very quietly.
“Paul.”
“Poor little boy. Did you care for him very much?”
“Yes, terribly.”
“It must have been dreadful his dying.”
He felt then a sudden dismay and fear. Perhaps, after all she was going
to dismiss him; he fancied that she was retreating from him—he felt
already that she was farther away from him than she had ever been, and,
with a desperate urgency, his voice trembling, his hand pressing her
arm, he said:
“Katie—Katie—You’re disgusted with me. I can feel it. But you must go
on loving me—you _must_, you _must_. I don’t care for anything but
that. All men have had affairs with women. It’s all dead with me, as
though it had been another man. There’s no one in the world but you.
I—I—”
His hand shook; his eyes, if she could have seen them, were strained
with terror.
She turned to him, put her arms round his neck, drew his head towards
her, kissed him on his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks.
“Phil—Phil,” she whispered. “How little you understand. My dear—my
dear.”
Then raising her eyes away from him and staring again in front of her,
she said:
“But I want to know, Phil. I _must_ know. What was she like?”
“Like?” he repeated, puzzled.
“Yes. Her appearance, her clothes, her hair, _everything_. I want to be
able to see her—with my own eyes—as though she were here....”
He stared at her for a moment—then, very slowly, almost reluctantly, he
began his description....