Night and Day

he was at all satisfied with his production, and unable to resist the conviction that such rambling would never be fit for Katharine’s eye. He felt himself more cut off from her than ever. In idleness, and because he could do nothing further with words, he began to draw little figures in the blank spaces, heads meant to resemble her head, blots fringed with flames meant to represent—perhaps the entire universe. From this occupation he was roused by the message that a lady wished to speak to him. He had scarcely time to run his hands through his hair in order to look as much like a solicitor as possible, and to cram his papers into his pocket, already overcome with shame that another eye should behold them, when he realized that his preparations were needless. The lady was Mrs Hilbery.

‘I hope you’re not disposing of somebody’s fortune in a hurry,’ she remarked, gazing at the documents on his table, ‘or cutting off an entail at one blow, because I want to ask you to do me a favour. And Anderson won’t keep his horse waiting. (Anderson is a perfect tyrant, but he drove my dear father to the Abbey the day they buried him.) I made bold to come to you, Mr Denham, not exactly in search of legal assistance (though I don’t know who I’d rather come to, if I were in trouble), but in order to ask your help in settling some tiresome little domestic affairs that have arisen in my absence. I’ve been to Stratford-on-Avon (I must tell you all about that one of these days), and there I got a letter from my sister-in-law, a dear kind goose who likes interfering with other people’s children because she’s got none of her own. (We’re dreadfully afraid that she’s going to lose the sight of one of her eyes, and I always feel that our physical ailments are so apt to turn into mental ailments I think Matthew Arnold says something of the same kind about Lord Byron.)⁴ But that’s neither here nor there.’

The effect of these parentheses, whether they were introduced for that purpose or represented a natural instinct on Mrs Hilbery’s part to embellish the bareness of her discourse, gave Ralph time to perceive that she possessed all the facts of their situation and was come, somehow, in the capacity of ambassador.

‘I didn’t come here to talk about Lord Byron,’ Mrs Hilbery continued, with a little laugh, ‘though I know that both you and Katharine, unlike other young people of your generation, still find him worth reading.’ She paused. ‘I’m so glad you’ve made Katharine read poetry, Mr Denham!’ she exclaimed, ‘and feel poetry, and look poetry! She can’t talk it yet, but she will—oh, she will!’

Ralph, whose hand was grasped and whose tongue almost refused to articulate, somehow contrived to say that there were moments when he felt hopeless, utterly hopeless, though he gave no reason for this statement on his part.

‘But you care for her?’ Mrs Hilbery inquired.

‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, with a vehemence which admitted of no question.

‘It’s the Church of England service you both object to?’ Mrs Hilbery inquired innocently.

‘I don’t care a damn what service it is,’ Ralph replied.

‘You would marry her in Westminster Abbey if the worst came to the worst?’ Mrs Hilbery inquired.

‘I would marry her in St Paul’s Cathedral,’⁵ Ralph replied. His doubts upon this point, which were always roused by Katharine’s presence, had vanished completely, and his strongest wish in the world was to be with her immediately, since every second he was away from her he imagined her slipping farther and farther from him into one of those states of mind in which he was unrepresented. He wished to dominate her, to possess her.

‘Thank God!’ exclaimed Mrs Hilbery. She thanked Him for a variety of blessings: for the conviction with which the young man spoke; and not least for the prospect that on her daughter’s wedding-day the noble cadences, the stately periods, the ancient eloquence of the marriage service would resound over the heads of a distinguished congregation gathered together near the very spot where her father lay quiescent with the other poets of England. The tears filled her eyes; but she remembered simultaneously that her carriage was waiting, and with dim eyes she walked to the door. Denham followed her downstairs.

It was a strange drive. For Denham it was without exception the most unpleasant he had ever taken. His only wish was to go as straightly and quickly as possible to Cheyne Walk; but it soon appeared that Mrs Hilbery either ignored or thought fit to baffle this desire by interposing various errands of her own. She stopped the carriage at post-offices, and coffee-shops, and shops of inscrutable dignity where the aged attendants had to be greeted as old friends; and, catching sight of the dome of St Paul’s above the irregular spires of Ludgate Hill,^eb she pulled the cord impulsively, and gave directions that Anderson should drive them there. But Anderson had reasons of his own for discouraging afternoon worship, and kept his horse’s nose obstinately towards the west. After some minutes, Mrs Hilbery realized the situation, and accepted it good-humouredly, apologizing to Ralph for his disappointment.

‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘we’ll go to St Paul’s another day, and it may turn out, though I can’t promise that it will, that he’ll take us past Westminster Abbey, which would be even better.’

Ralph was scarcely aware of what she went on to say. Her mind and body both seemed to have floated into another region of quick-sailing clouds rapidly passing across each other and enveloping everything in a vaporous indistinctness. Meanwhile he remained conscious of his own concentrated desire, his impotence to bring about anything he wished, and his increasing agony of impatience.

Suddenly Mrs Hilbery pulled the cord with such decision that even Anderson had to listen to the order which she leant out of the window to give him. The carriage pulled up abruptly in the middle of Whitehall^ec before a large building dedicated to one of our Government offices. In a second Mrs Hilbery was mounting the steps, and Ralph was left in too acute an irritation by this further delay even to speculate what errand took her now to the Board of Education. He was about to jump from the carriage and take a cab, when Mrs Hilbery reappeared talking genially to a figure who remained hidden behind her.

‘There’s plenty of room for us all,’ she was saying. ‘Plenty of room. We could find space for four of you, William,’ she added, opening the door, and Ralph found that Rodney had now joined their company. The two men glanced at each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most acute form were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could read them all expressed beyond the eloquence of words upon the face of his unfortunate companion. But Mrs Hilbery was either completely unseeing or determined to appear so. She went on talking; she talked, it seemed to both the young men, to some one outside, up in the air. She talked about Shakespeare, she apostrophized the human race, she proclaimed the virtues of divine poetry, she began to recite verses which broke down in the middle. The great advantage of her discourse was that it was self-supporting. It nourished itself until Cheyne Walk was reached upon half a dozen grunts and murmurs.

‘Now,’ she said, alighting briskly at her door, ‘here we are!’ There was something airy and ironical in her voice and expression as she turned upon the doorstep and looked at them, which filled both Rodney and Denham with the same misgivings at having trusted their fortunes to such an ambassador; and Rodney actually hesitated upon the threshold and murmured to Denham:

‘You go in, Denham. I ... ’ He was turning tail, but the door opening and the familiar look of the house asserting its charm, he bolted in on the wake of the others, and the door shut upon his escape. Mrs Hilbery led the way upstairs. She took them to the drawing-room. The fire burnt as usual, the little tables were laid with china and