THE LAST PHASE
§ 1
ON the Colchester and Ipswich train it was still possible for her to
think. I am not necessarily going to Barhanger. I have a ticket to
Holleshont, and there are many places one can get to from Holleshont
besides Barhanger. Besides, even if I do get to Barhanger, Barhanger
is no doubt an ideal place in which to spend a Bank Holiday week-end.
There is no earthly reason why I shouldn’t go to Barhanger. It is close
to the sea, and I need a holiday....
And secretly she rejoiced at the ecstasy of the thought: I am going to
see him. Whatever he says or does, whatever the issue may be, whatever
I suffer then or afterwards, I shall see him.... As the train rolled
over the drab eastern suburbs she revelled in the sensation that every
throb and pulsation of the wheels narrowed the distance between herself
and him.... And withal came another part of her answering her coldly,
reprovingly: You are silly to go on this fool’s errand. You are losing
the satisfaction and contentment it took you so long to acquire. Where
now is your ambition to lead a quiet, sedate and respectable life,
without the storm and stress of emotional escapades? Where now in your
mind’s perspective are Mr. Hobbs and the Rev. Elkin Broodbank? Oh, you
fool! you will suffer, and it will be your own fault. You will have the
old slow fight over again, you will have to build up your contentment
right from the bottom.... Oh, you fool! ... And still her heart
answered: I don’t care. I am going to _see_ him.... I am going to
see _him_....
Between Romford and Chelmsford she remembered the unopened letter that
she had in her hand-bag from Mr. Hobbs. She tore it open and read it.
It was a strange mixture of hopeless adoration and ruffled dignity.
MY DEAR MISS WESTON,
I am very sorry indeed if my invitation for Saturday offended you. I
am glad to think your reason for declining it is that you had another
engagement to fulfil. In the circumstances, is it too impertinent of
me if I invite you to spend the Bank Holiday on the Surrey Hills? I
know the district pretty well, and am sure you will enjoy the fine
scenery as well as the invigorating air. There is a motor omnibus
service as far as Reigate, and we could get from there to a number of
interesting spots. Hoping you will be able to come with me.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
J. A. HOBBS.
She smiled wanly upon the drearily angular handwriting. In rummaging in
her hand-bag she had come across the Rev. Elkin Broodbank’s visiting
card, left by him that morning, and she caught sight of some writing on
the back which she had previously overlooked. “I find you not in,” the
Rev. Elkin had written, in his finicky handwriting and pseudo-Carlylean
prose style, “so I leave this. Will you have tea with me on Sunday? I
have old MSS. church rubric to show you: also good booklet on Oxford
movement.--Yrs., E. B.”
Also upon this she smiled wanly....
Chelmsford....
Oh, what have I done with my life? she cried to herself in a moment
of sudden horror. What have I to show for all these years of toil and
stress? Is there anything of all that I have ever had which has lasted?
I am twenty-four years old, and my youth is over. I have had dreams,
I have had ambitions, I have had golden opportunities and been near
success. But what have I to show? Have I any hold on life which death
would not loose? Am I deep set in the heart of any friend, man or
woman, in the world? Whatever happens to me, does it matter to anyone
save myself? No, no, and therefore I am going to Barhanger. I would go
to Barhanger if it cost me pain for the rest of my life....
At the junction station midway between Chelmsford and Colchester she
got out. On the opposite platform the train for Holleshont was waiting.
Small and feeble it looked beside the great express, but there was an
air of sturdy independence about it, and especially about its single
track curving away over the hills into the dim distance. Catherine
breathed the country air with avidity: she entered a compartment and
leaned out of the window as the express rolled slowly out of the other
platform. As it vanished into the north-east the station became full
of broken silences and staccato sounds. Glorious! she murmured, as the
sun warmed her cheeks and the wind wafted to her the scent of pansies
growing on the embankment near by. And then suddenly, as if it had a
fit of divine inspiration, the train moved off....
Over the dim hills, stopping at tiny halts, with waiting-rooms and
booking halls fashioned out of wheelless railway carriages, up steep
slopes where the grass grew long between the rails, curving into
occasional loops, and pausing sometimes like a hard-worked animal
taking breath. And then, from the top of a hill, the miles drooped
gently into the bosom of the estuary: the tide was out and the mud
shone golden in the sun. Yachts were lying stranded off the fair-way,
and threading the broad belt of mud the river ran like a curve of
molten gold. There were clusters of houses here and there on either
bank, and a church with a candle-snuffer tower, and stretches of brown
shingle.... And the train went gathering speed as it broke over the
summit....
At Holleshont the estuary was no longer in view, but the sea-smell
was fresh in the air. “Barhanger?” she said to a man with a pony and
trap who was waiting outside the station. He nodded, and helped her
to a seat beside him. He was buxom and red-faced and jolly. If he had
been younger, it would have been rather romantic to go driving with
him thus along the lonely country lanes. But he was taciturn, and
stopped once to pluck from the side of the hedge a long grass to suck.
At times he broke into humming, but it was a tune Catherine did not
recognize. After half an hour’s riding they came upon a dishevelled
country lane, which on turning a corner became immediately the main
street of a village. They passed a church and a public-house, a
post-office, a pump, and then another public-house. At this last the
driver pulled his horse to a standstill and indicated to Catherine that
she should descend. “Barhanger,” he muttered explanatorily. Seeing her
uncertainty, he questioned her. “Lookin’ f’ranywhere partic’ler, miss?”
She replied with a momentary impulse: “Seahill.”
He pointed in a southerly direction.
And now she was walking straight to “Seahill.” ...
The road narrowed into an ill-defined pathway and climbed abruptly on
to the top of the sea-wall. A long arm of the great shining estuary lay
stretched at her feet, and dotted about it were scores of mud-banks
overgrown with reeds and sea-lavender. The grasses rose high as her
knees, and she pushed through them and against the wind till her
cheeks were flushed with exertion. At the mouth of the creek the
estuary rolled infinitely in either direction, and miles and miles of
brown-black mud were hissing in the sunlight. “Glorious!” she cried,
and flung back her head proudly to meet the wind that swept the corner
of the creek. She turned to the right and walked on swiftly. Behind
her, looking quite near, but really a good distance away, the village
of Barhanger slept drowsily in the afternoon heat: ahead the sea-wall
swelled and rolled into great meaningless curves. Not a human being
besides herself occupied the landscape. The mud hissed and cracked, and
the grasshoppers chattered and the wind shook the long grasses into
waving tumult. And over on the mudbanks the sea-gulls gathered and rose
and called shrilly, and swooped down again to rest....
At one point the land rose slightly inland from the sea-wall, and
perched on the crest of the low hill there stood an old-fashioned
red-bricked house with a litter of sheds and stabling around it.
Something told her that this was “Seahill.” A pathway wound upwards
through the long meadow-grass: the pale green streak over the darker
green told her that this was a method of approach used sometimes, but
not frequently. And there were ditches to cross--ditches banked with
mud, which at high tide must have been brimming with salt water....
§ 2
She found her way into a sort of courtyard formed by the back of the
house and surrounding outbuildings. And there, throwing food to some
chickens, was Helen!
“Cathie!” Helen’s voice was full of glad welcome. Helen had grown a
fine woman, somewhat stout perhaps, but upright and fine-looking. She
kissed Catherine affectionately, and in her quiet way made a great fuss
over her.
“How did you know we were here?” she asked, as she led Catherine into
the house by way of the kitchen.
“Quite by chance,” replied Catherine. “I just happened to hear somebody
mention it--somebody in the musical line.”
“Ah--my husband knows so many people, doesn’t he? And how about your
arm? Of course we heard all about that, you know----”
“Oh, that’s getting better again slowly. When did you come back from
America?”
“America?” Helen’s face showed a blank. “We never went to America. Who
told you that?”
Catherine flushed a little. “I don’t remember,” she replied
nonchalantly. “It must have been a wrong idea I picked up from
somebody.”
They chatted on for some time and then Helen said:
“Well, perhaps you would like to go and see my husband. He’s in his
study--straight up the steps and second on the left. He’ll be working,
but he’ll be glad to see you, I daresay. He used to be very interested
in you, didn’t he?”
“I’ll go up and see him,” replied Catherine quietly.
She ascended the steps and found her way to the door of his study. With
some trepidation she knocked....
§ 3
It was a large room facing the west. The sun shone drowsily on a table
littered with papers and opened books. There was the piano which she
had so often played in the music-room at “Claremont.” There were the
same bookcases, with glass doors swung open, and the aperture between
the tops of the books and the shelf above filled with letters and
papers. That had always been one of his untidy habits. And scattered
over all the available wallspace were disconnected fragments of
shelving, sagging in the middle if the span were wide, and piled high
with longitudinal and horizontal groups of books. The old brown leather
armchairs and the club-fender occupied positions in front of the
fireplace. The carpet was thick, and littered here and there with the
grey smudge of tobacco-ash and scraps of torn paper that had escaped
the meshes of the basket. The scene was curiously similar to that on
which she had first seen him at “Claremont.” He was sitting in one of
his armchairs with an adjustable reading bracket in front of him. She
could see nothing of him, but a coil of rising smoke that straggled
upwards from the back of the chair told her that he existed. She had
knocked on the door before entering, and his voice had drawled its
usual “Come in.” He had heard the door open and close again, but he
did not look round. She knew this habit of his. Doubtless he would
wait to finish the sentence or maybe the paragraph he was reading. She
came across the intervening space and entered the limits within which
his eye could not avoid seeing her. The sun caught her hair and flung
it into radiance; she was glad of this, for it made her seem youthful
again.
She saw him for a fraction of a second before he caught sight of her.
And a strange feeling of doubt, of perplexity--might it be even of
disappointment?--touched upon her. He was the same, quite the same. And
yet--there was a sense in which he was not as she expected. But she had
not expected him to be very much changed. It was only a passing phase
that swept across her--hardly to be understood, much less explained.
But she felt it, and it surprised her.
When he saw her he opened his eyes very wide and stared. Then he pushed
back the book-rest and rose from his chair. All the time she was
watching him narrowly. There was a queer phase during which neither
of them moved or attempted to move. And then, the tension becoming too
great to be borne, she gave her head a little toss and said: “Well?”
She had an absurd feeling of curiosity about his first words to her.
In her ideal dialogue with him he struck an attitude of surprise
and bewilderment and ejaculated, after the manner of the hero in a
melodrama: “What?--_You_!--_You_! Is it really _you_?”
Of course he did nothing like that. She might have expected her fancied
conversation to go all wrong from the start. He slowly and cautiously
held out his right hand, and smiled a careful, quizzical smile.
And his first words were: “How are you?”
“Very well,” she replied mechanically.
There was a pause, after which he said: “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you,” she replied, and occupied the other armchair. He still
remained standing and smoking.
“I suppose,” he said reflectively, “you got the address from the
Directory?”
“No,” she replied nonchalantly, “it was quite by accident. I am one
of the assistants in the music department of Ryder and Sons, and you
yourself gave me your address over the telephone last Monday.”
“What a startling coincidence!” he muttered, as if by way of comment to
himself.
Pause....
“So,” he went on meditatively, “you were the young lady who knew the
Bach double-piano concerto from memory! Curious! ... I thought it was
remarkable, and the next time I was in town I intended coming up to
Ryder’s to see who you were.... Perhaps it is well I didn’t.... We
might have startled each other.”
“We might,” she said quietly.
Long pause....
“I don’t remember your ever playing the concerto when I knew you,” he
resumed, still in the rôle of a somewhat curious spectator. “I never
taught it you, did I?”
“No,” she answered. “I learnt it myself.” And there was just a
momentary gleam of fire within at that remark. As much as to say:
“Don’t think I am not capable of doing _some_ things myself.”
“Do you know all of it?” he asked.
“I did--but I don’t know if I remember it all now.” He tapped his pipe
on the mantelpiece.
“I wish you’d play it for me,” he said, slowly and still meditatively,
“I should like very much to hear it ... and besides ... it would ...
give me time to think....”
“To think what?” she put in sharply.
He sat down, filled his pipe afresh and lit it, saying as he did so:
“Well--to think--one of the things, at any rate--why you have come.”
There was something in the tone of that last remark of his which stung
her to the retort:
“So you think it is possible for me to go to the piano and play a Bach
concerto while you sit coolly down to wonder why I have come?”
“Well,” he said, suddenly and with emphasis, “why _have_ you come?”
“You said if I was ever over in the States I was to come and see you.
I naturally expected that the invitation would extend to when you
returned to England.”
“Did it not occur to you,” he remarked slowly, “that when I returned
from the States I should have sent you my address if I had desired to
see you?”
“Of course,” she interposed neatly, “as it happens, I know that you
never went to America at all.”
He did not seem greatly ruffled by this.
“Then,” he continued, “you know that I told you a lie. And you may have
the satisfaction--if it is a satisfaction--of knowing also that you
are the only person in the whole world who has ever made me do that.
That honour,” he added bitterly, “you share with no one: it is yours
entirely.”
She felt: Now we are getting to it.
“I don’t know why it should have been so necessary for you to tell me a
lie,” she said.
“The fact is,” he announced brutally, “I wanted to get rid of you, and
that seemed the only way.”
She winced a little at his words, but interposed sharply:
“Why did you want to get rid of me?”
He grunted something incoherent, and began to walk towards the door.
“Look here,” he said, “we’ll go for a walk. I’m not going to have you
quarrelling in here.”
“But surely we aren’t going to quarrel?”
“On the contrary, we _are_ going to quarrel. We’re going to
quarrel most damnably.... Come on!”
He led her back down the steps into the kitchen. Helen was there
preparing a meal. As he passed he addressed her.
“Miss Weston and I are going out for a stroll along the sea-wall,
Helen.... We shan’t be long. Miss Weston has to get back to town
to-night, so she hasn’t got much time to spare.”
“You’ve missed the last train already,” replied Helen.
“I shall take her in the car to the junction in time for the night
train,” he answered.
“All right.... I shall see you again, shan’t I, Cathie?”
“We shall be back in half an hour,” he said curtly.
When they were out of Helen’s hearing Catherine said:
“Who told you I had to be back in town to-night?”
“I told myself,” he replied. “I insist upon your going back to-night.”
“And supposing I don’t?”
“I can only ask you,” he replied, somewhat subdued, “to avoid making
things unnecessarily unpleasant.”
“Things need not be at all unpleasant,” she cried passionately, “if
only you weren’t such a brute.”
She had not meant to say this.
He smiled a trifle cynically.
“Do you really think I’m a brute?” he asked. “There are lots of others
who would agree with you,” he added encouragingly.
“I certainly think you are,” she replied, determined to uphold her
statement. “Wasn’t it brutal to say you wanted to get rid of me?”
“But it was true.”
“Was it?”
“Quite!”
“Really?”
“If you only knew--Look here: there are moments when, if I could have
had you painlessly extracted, I would have done it. I would have
strangled you with my own fingers if I had not kept control of them!”
“And so, as I couldn’t be painlessly extracted, you extracted yourself,
eh?”
“Yes.”
She laughed a trifle hysterically.
“Was it painless?” she enquired archly.
He swore under his breath.
“It was not,” he replied curtly.
Pause.... They were walking on the narrow ridge of the sea-wall, he in
front and she a few paces behind. Neither could see the face of the
other. The tide was coming in.... If they had not been busy with other
matters they might have noticed the loveliness of the scene....
“The fact is,” he said gruffly, “I was in love with you against my
will.”
She had known that for a long while, but she liked to hear him say it.
And she was infected with a childish daring. She laughed boisterously.
“What?” she cried. “You in love with me?--Surely not? Never--I don’t
believe it, Mr. Verreker.”
He answered, slowly and methodically: “It was so.... I will tell you
about it if you wish to know. When I first heard you play before
Razounov at my house I knew that you were no genius, but a person of
slightly above average ability who might be trained or coerced into
doing something worth while. But there were lots of people like that
whom I refused to teach. I was going to refuse you, though I didn’t
want to. A friend of yours--your fiancé, I supposed at that time--was
offering to pay for your lessons. It seemed a capital excuse for
accepting you as a pupil. To my everlasting regret I grabbed hold of it
eagerly. You came to me once a week and I pumped music into you at the
rate of three guineas a lesson.... Even then I believe I was in love
with you....”
“I must have been,” he continued, “because you were such a little fool
that normally I should have chucked you up. You had a horrible set of
musical bad manners, and not an idea of how to play. I had to give you
huge quantities of myself. I thought then I might create out of you
something it would be worth my while to love. I tried. I admit you had
remarkable receptiveness. You gulped down everything I offered you....
In fact, I made you. You hadn’t an idea in your head till I put some
there. You couldn’t have played a note at a public concert unless I had
shown you how to. You were absolutely dependent on me.... When I left
your life you went smash. You found you couldn’t play without me. I was
your sole source of inspiration, and you could no more play without me
than a performing monkey will do its tricks without its keeper.”
“That’s not true,” she protested weakly, but he went on.
“Of course it didn’t really matter in the least my being in love with
you. I had other things to think about. But when you began to be in
love with me, things began to be dangerous. You see it was quite
impossible for me to marry you.”
“Why?” she said sharply.
“Do you really wish to know?” he asked.
“I do.”
“It will offend you, possibly.”
“Never mind.... Tell me....”
He paused before answering.
“Well,” he said, “this is the politest way I can put it. I could not
marry you because you weren’t up to standard--my standard, that is.”
“What’s the matter with me?”
“You will be offended if I reply.”
“Tell me, please.”
“If you wish,” he said nonchalantly. “To begin with, you are the most
selfish person I have ever met. You are vain, conceited and a prig.
Selfishness runs in all your veins. All your desires are selfish--all
your aims are selfish--nay, nearly all your actions have been selfish.
The only unselfish part of you was the part I compelled you to
assimilate, and that was counterfeit.... God help any man you marry if
he loves you. You will ruin him if you can. If you love him too, so
much the worse for him.... Do you want me to go on?”
She bore all this with amazing calmness. True, she had been in some
manner prepared for it, but she had not expected the denunciation to be
so severe. What surprised her was that it did not hurt her as much as
she had anticipated.
She did not answer his question.
“So you loved me against your will?” she said reflectively.
He nodded.
“Every woman likes to be loved like that,” she remarked daringly.
This speech of hers seemed to infuriate him. He stopped his walking and
turned round to face her.
“If you can extract any satisfaction from the knowledge that I loved
you against my will, have it!” he cried bitterly. “Nay, I’ll even say
this: I love you passionately at this very moment. Take my love!--do
what you like with it!--it is no concern of mine when it has once been
given to you! ... I tried once to give you intellectual and spiritual
sympathy--you showed me that was no use to you! You wanted my love!
Well, now you have it, so be satisfied if you can! You have it, and
also my profound dislike and contempt!”
She thought: If I were to cry now would it have any effect on him? She
tried to cry but could not.
“Turn back now,” he commanded. They commenced the homeward journey.
“Why did you marry Helen?” she asked.
“Because I liked her and respected her.”
“And because if you married her you felt safe from me, eh?”
“If that were a true statement I would never admit it.”
“But you do not love her?”
“No.”
“Does she know?”
“She does not know. Do you want her to know?”
“I don’t care whether she knows or not.”
“Well, then, she shall not know....”
They were silent after this for a long while.
The tide was creeping in now through the maze of mud-banks: when they
stopped talking they could hear the water oozing and splashing amongst
the reeds. The thin streak of river had widened into a broad lake, and
over it the sea-gulls were flapping their wings and crying weirdly. And
far in the west where the estuary vanished into the grey hills the sun
was sinking in proud splendour. In the near distance lay the village,
with its line of cottages facing the sea-wall. Here and there the sun
had picked out a window and turned it into a glittering ruby.
Oh, it was all inexpressibly beautiful, this evening picture, with the
village and the green meadows and the sun and the rising tide! But
Catherine scarcely noticed it. She walked on through the long, stiff
grasses, and was thinking only of herself....
§ 4
To begin with, she felt very tired and weary. Of course she had done a
good deal that day. She had every reason to be physically tired. But it
was not altogether physical tiredness. She felt like a child who has
been looking forward to something for a long time, and is disappointed
because its expectations are not realized. And again she felt relieved,
as one who has been harbouring a vague dread and finds that the worst
is not half so bad as was thought. And again she felt sorry, as if
both her disappointment and her relief were things to be regretted and
to feel ashamed of. And somewhere--vaguely--subconsciously--what was
the thought that came to her? A revolutionary thought, a thought that
marked an epoch in her life and development. Nothing less than the
thought that the things he and she had been discussing, the questions
that at one time had seemed the most momentous in her life, were now
become by the sad process of time stale, unmeaning, and out of date.
Of historic and achæological interest, maybe, but not living things as
she had expected them to be living. She had expected to be immensely
moved, immensely stirred by this conversation with him. She had
expected it so confidently that she had been stirred at the thought of
being stirred. She had tuned herself in readiness for a great conflict.
And now the conflict had begun, had lasted and was over. She had not
been stirred. Not that the blows had been light. It was something in
her that gave her a new invulnerability, a strange imperviousness to
blows. Her expectations, her dreads, her excitement, her preparations
for conflict, all had been for nothing. And now that she realized that
they had been for nothing she felt the effect of them--they made her
tired, weary, worn out. The tension snapped. Vaguely she felt sorry
that she was not suffering more acutely: vaguely she felt that her
invulnerability was purchased at a great price. But try as she would
she could not help but feel that her conversation with him had been a
futile disinterment of dead bones.... She was not hurt. But she was
tired--weary--as after a successful and dangerous operation.
They both felt that they had said all that need be said. On the way
home scarcely a remark passed between them, except once or twice when
he called her attention to the scenery.
He said: “The tide is coming in fast now. It comes in by inches as you
watch it.”
She replied: “Yes,” but she did not think what she was saying.
When they got back to “Seahill,” he disappeared into the garage to
prepare the car for use. She was left for a few moments with Helen.
Their conversation (lasting for two minutes) was full of amazing things.
Helen began it.
“Well,” she said, “what do you think of him?”
“He’s very clever.”
“Yes,” agreed Helen, surprisingly, “and like all clever men he is
rather stupid. He’s so stupid that he thinks I don’t understand him.”
Pause. Catherine was too much astonished to reply.
“Of course he doesn’t love me,” she went on. “I know that, though he
thinks I don’t.... I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he loves you.”
Pause.
“Though of course you and he would never get on at all well together.
You’re not suited.... Now we (he and I) get on splendidly. I help
him with his literary work. The other day he said to me (I had just
finished typing at his dictation): ‘Helen, it’s just splendid to think
that you do all this stuff because you take a living interest in it and
not on my account!’ I was frightfully pleased: I think it was the best
compliment he’s ever paid me.”
Pause.
“Though of course,” a little wistfully, “it wasn’t at all true. I don’t
take a living interest in it at all: I only do it to please him. And I
can only please him by making him think I’m not doing it to please him.
That’s why I say he’s stupid.”
Pause.
“I suppose I shall see you again sometime?”
“Possibly. I don’t know.... I don’t think I shall come again.”
“I hope you will.... I suppose you like him? Well, so do I. That ought
to be something in common between us.”
Pause.
“Oughtn’t it?”
Catherine did not answer. But Helen kissed her very affectionately. And
at that moment Verreker entered in motor-cap and goggles.
“We’ll catch the 9.40 at the junction,” he said. “Come along!”
A four-seater car stood in the courtyard.
“Get in the back seat,” he said gruffly.
§ 5
As the car drew them through the sweet-scented country lanes Catherine
lolled amongst the heavy cushions and pondered. Once again she had
the feeling that had comforted her when she first realized that her
musical career was at an end. It was the feeling that she was not going
to be very disappointed. Once again, too, she was subtly disappointed
at not being disappointed.... Helen had said that he was stupid. That
remark set in motion a whole avalanche of unspoken ideas that had been
gathering patiently about her for some time. She had not noticed them
then, but now as they came tumbling about her ears she perceived them
in bulk as a sudden new revelation. They shifted Verreker to a less
hallowed perspective. The halo left him and he became a man. And a
stupid man at that. She began to sum him up dispassionately, and was
amazed at the results she came to....
Even his eccentricities--which she had hitherto admired--lost their
glamour and became either vices or the mere foibles of a crank.
His manners were atrocious. He did not raise his hat to her in the
street. When entering and leaving a railway compartment he did not
allow her to take the first place. It was things like those that went
to make up a gentleman. And, frankly, he was not a gentleman. His
rudeness, his brusquerie, his awful bluntness of speech, were vices
which his cleverness might explain but could not excuse. And even his
cleverness--might it not be possible to exaggerate that? He was not
well known: his books were dry and uninteresting--abstruse, maybe, but
extremely tiresome. And even in music, how was it that he had never
made a name at concert playing? One remark of his which had especially
annoyed her had been his blunt asseveration that her musical success
had been derived solely from his instruction. She could not deny this
even to herself, but she found partial, if illogical, comfort in the
thought: If he can make me into a successful concert pianist, why
hasn’t he ever thought it worth while to make himself one?
And he had treated her abominably. It gave her a curious pleasure to
discover that. The magnitude of his ill-treatment of her seemed by a
subtle process of ethical cancelling out to wipe away all record of her
own previous misdeeds.
Once again her soul was white, immaculate, redeemed by his cruelty and
her consequent martyrdom. The very thought that his debt to her was
incapable now of being ever repaid put her on the plane of loftiest
altruism. She was still proud, triumphant, superbly conscious of her
own supremacy.
When her ideals had tottered one by one, and at last she had realized
the futility of her musical ambitions, she had thought: Here goes my
last ideal! Henceforth I am without them.... But now she saw that
there had been a survivor that had remained with her even to the last.
And that was her ideal of him--a man, superbly good, superbly great,
fit object of her respect and worship.... Now this ideal had tottered
and fallen also. He was a mere irritable crank, pedantically clever,
perhaps, but rather brutal and, as Helen said, curiously stupid.
The car went racing up the low hills from the estuary inland.... Was it
a case of “sour grapes”? she wondered for a fleeting moment, but she
answered “No” with sufficient emphasis to convince herself.
Of course he had assumed that she loved him. But was that true? Did
she? ... Anyway, there were many reasons for getting married, and
love was only one of them, and perhaps neither the best nor the most
frequent. There was companionship, for instance, and a desire for home
and children and money. One might marry in order to secure at a cheaper
rate the services of a skilled shorthand-typist.... One might even
marry to secure part ownership of a motor-car.
§ 6
At the junction he saw her on the platform, shook hands with her very
quietly and, she had to admit, for him, very politely, and then left
her. She heard him drive off out of the station courtyard, and saw the
headlights of his car flashing over the hill beyond the town....
An episode in her life was closed.
It was half-past nine. The bookstall had just opened for a few moments
before the arrival of the night train to town. She spent some time
examining the cheap novels it displayed for sale, and finally with
perfect _sang-froid_ she purchased a sevenpenny detective story,
with a paper wrapper depicting a woman in evening dress sprawled face
downwards across some stairs with a revolver by her side....
The train came in, and she found a comfortable seat next to the window.
“Chelmsford and London only!” the porters called out, and she smiled
quietly. Her fellow travellers were mainly half asleep.
After the train had started she fished in her hand-bag for a sheet of
paper and pencil.... Then, using her book as a desk, she wrote the
following note:
DEAR MR. HOBBS,
How absurd of you to think your invitation had offended me! I am only
too grateful to you, and sorry that I could not have come with you
to-day. But I shall be pleased to accept your invitation for Monday
if you will still have me. I shall like to go into Surrey very much:
I have heard such a lot about it but have never been there. It will
be rather difficult for us to fix up arrangements about meeting each
other, won’t it, so perhaps I had better call at your house to-morrow
afternoon. (I know your address, I think.) I shan’t be able to stay
long, though, as I am going to tea with the St. Luke’s curate, Mr.
Broodbank--do you know him?--a charming and interesting man. Thanks
again for your invitation.--Yrs., etc.,
CATHERINE WESTON.
Reading it over afterwards she smiled again to herself. Then she put it
in an envelope, addressed the latter, and began to read the detective
story. First she scanned the first paragraph of the first chapter, then
the last paragraph of the last chapter, and then a paragraph selected
haphazard from the middle, this being her established formula for
commencing any book.... After that she began to read consecutively from
the beginning.
After all, she reflected here and there, where the printed matter
failed to keep its grip on her attention, the long troublesome episode
in her life was over. Henceforth she would be quiet and sedate and
respectable, a lady of perfect manners and breeding. Passion was a
tiresome thing. It was, to use a favourite adjective of Mrs. Lazenby’s,
very “wearing.” ... To-morrow she would have tea with the Rev. Elkin
Broodbank, M.A. (Cantab.), and discuss church missals and cassocks and
Puseyism. On Monday she would go with Mr. Hobbs on the top of a bus to
Reigate. He would be frantically polite and meekly adoring. He was, at
any rate, a gentleman....
The detective story began to be interesting, so she ceased her
nursings, and meanwhile the train went speeding Londonwards....
THE END
_Printed in Great Britain by_ UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM
PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON