‘Now, just let me hear you decline
‘No, Johnnie, no Greek at meal-times,’ said Joan, overhearing him instantly. ‘She’s up at all hours of the night over her books, Miss Hilbery, and I’m sure that’s not the way to pass examinations,’ she went on, smiling at Katharine, with the worried humorous smile of the elder sister whose younger brothers and sisters have become almost like children of her own.
‘Joan, you don’t really think that
‘Did I say Greek? Well, never mind. No dead languages at tea-time. My dear boy, don’t trouble to make me any toast—’
‘Or if you do, surely there’s the toasting-fork somewhere?’ said Mrs Denham, still cherishing the belief that the bread-knife could be spoilt. ‘Do one of you ring and ask for one,’ she said, without any conviction that she would be obeyed. ‘But is Ann coming to be with Uncle Joseph?’ she continued. ‘If so, surely they had better send Amy to us—’ and in the mysterious delight of learning further details of these arrangements, and suggesting more sensible plans of her own, which, from the aggrieved way in which she spoke, she did not seem to expect any one to adopt, Mrs Denham completely forgot the presence of a well-dressed visitor, who had to be informed about the amenities of Highgate. As soon as Joan had taken her seat, an argument had sprung up on either side of Katharine, as to whether the Salvation Army has any right to play hymns at street corners on Sunday mornings, thereby making it impossible for James to have his sleep out, and tampering with the rights of individual liberty.
‘You see, James likes to lie in bed and sleep like a hog,’ said Johnnie, explaining himself to Katharine, whereupon James fired up and, making her his goal, also exclaimed:
‘Because Sundays are my one chance in the week of having my sleep out. Johnnie messes with stinking chemicals in the pantry—’
They appealed to her, and she forgot her cake and began to laugh and talk and argue with sudden animation. The large family seemed to her so warm and various that she forgot to censure them for their taste in pottery. But the personal question between James and Johnnie merged into some argument already, apparently, debated, so that the parts had been distributed among the family, in which Ralph took the lead; and Katharine found herself opposed to him and the champion of Johnnie’s cause, who, it appeared, always lost his head and got excited in argument with Ralph.
‘Yes, yes, that’s what I mean. She’s got it right,’ he exclaimed, after Katharine had restated his case, and made it more precise. The debate was left almost solely to Katharine and Ralph. They looked into each other’s eyes fixedly, like wrestlers trying to see what movement is coming next, and while Ralph spoke, Katharine bit her lower lip, and was always ready with her next point as soon as he had done. They were very well matched, and held the opposite views.
But at the most exciting stage of the argument, for no reason that Katharine could see, all chairs were pushed back, and one after another the Denham family got up and went out of the door, as if a bell had summoned them. She was not used to the clockwork regulations of a large family. She hesitated in what she was saying, and rose. Mrs Denham and Joan had drawn together and stood by the fireplace, slightly raising their skirts above their ankles, and discussing something which had an air of being very serious and very private. They appeared to have forgotten her presence among them. Ralph stood holding the door open for her.
‘Won’t you come up to my room?’ he said. And Katharine, glancing back at Joan, who smiled at her in a preoccupied way, followed Ralph upstairs. She was thinking of their argument, and when, after the long climb, he opened his door, she began at once.
‘The question is, then, at what point is it right for the individual to assert his will against the will of the State.’
For some time they continued the argument, and then the intervals between one statement and the next became longer and longer, and they spoke more speculatively and less pugnaciously, and at last fell silent. Katharine went over the argument in her mind, remembering how, now and then, it had been set conspicuously on the right course by some remark offered either by James or by Johnnie.
‘Your brothers are very clever,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’re in the habit of arguing?’
‘James and Johnnie will go on like that for hours,’ Ralph replied. ‘So will Hester, if you start her upon Elizabethan dramatists.’
‘And the little girl with the pigtail?’
‘Molly? She’s only ten. But they’re always arguing among themselves.’
He was immensely pleased by Katharine’s praise of his brothers and sisters. He would have liked to go on telling her about them, but he checked himself.
‘I see that it must be difficult to leave them.’ Katharine continued. His deep pride in his family was more evident to him, at that moment, than ever before, and the idea of living alone in a cottage was ridiculous. All that brotherhood and sisterhood, and a common childhood in a common past mean, all the stability, the unambitious comradeship, and tacit understanding of family life at its best, came to his mind, and he thought of them as a company, of which he was the leader, bound on a difficult, dreary, but glorious voyage. And it was Katharine who had opened his eyes to this, he thought.
A little dry chirp from the corner of the room now roused her attention.
‘My tame rook,’ he explained briefly. ‘A cat had bitten one of its legs.’ She looked at the rook, and her eyes went from one object to another.
‘You sit here and read?’ she said, her eyes resting upon his books. He said that he was in the habit of working there at night.
‘The great advantage of Highgate is the view over London. At night the view from my window is splendid.’ He was extremely anxious that she should appreciate his view, and she rose to see what was to be seen. It was already dark enough for the turbulent haze to be yellow with the light of street lamps, and she tried to determine the quarters of the city beneath her. The sight of her gazing from his window gave him a peculiar satisfaction. When she turned, at length, he was still sitting motionless in his chair.
‘It must be late,’ she said. ‘I must be going.’ She settled upon the arm of the chair irresolutely, thinking that she had no wish to go home. William would be there, and he would find some way of making things unpleasant for her, and the memory of their quarrel came back to her. She had noticed Ralph’s coldness, too. She looked at him, and from his fixed stare she thought that he must be working out some theory, some argument. He had thought, perhaps, of some fresh point in his position, as to the bounds of personal liberty. She waited, silently, thinking about
