‘But we go at such a snail’s pace,’ said Sally, shaking her head impatiently.
At this Mary burst out laughing, and all her arrogance was dissipated.
‘You can afford to laugh,’ said Sally, with another shake of her head, ‘but I can’t. I’m fifty-five, and I dare say I shall be in my grave by the time we get it—if we ever do.’
‘Oh no, you won’t be in your grave,’ said Mary, kindly.
‘It’ll be such a great day,’ said Mrs Seal, with a toss of her locks. ‘A great day, not only for us, but for civilization. That’s what I feel, you know, about these meetings. Each one of them is a step onwards in the great march—humanity, you know. We do want the people after us to have a better time of it—and so many don’t see it. I wonder how it is that they don’t see it?’
She was carrying plates and cups from the cupboard as she spoke, so that her sentences were more than usually broken apart. Mary could not help looking at the odd little priestess of humanity with something like admiration. While she had been thinking about herself, Mrs Seal had thought of nothing but her vision.
‘You mustn’t wear yourself out, Sally, if you want to see the great day,’ she said, rising and trying to take a plate of biscuits from Mrs Seal’s hands.
‘My dear child, what else is my old body good for?’ she exclaimed, clinging more tightly than before to her plate of biscuits. ‘Shouldn’t I be proud to give everything I have to the cause?—for I’m not an intelligence like you. There were domestic circumstances—I’d like to tell you one of these days—so I say foolish things. I lose my head, you know. You don’t. Mr Clacton doesn’t. It’s a great mistake, to lose one’s head. But my heart’s in the right place. And I’m so glad Kit has a big dog, for I didn’t think her looking well.’
They had their tea, and went over many of the points that had been raised in the committee, rather more intimately than had been possible then; and they all felt an agreeable sense of being in some way behind the scenes; of having their hands upon strings which, when pulled, would completely change the pageant exhibited daily to those who read the newspapers. Although their views were very different, this sense united them and made them almost cordial in their manners to each other.
Mary, however, left the tea-party rather early, desiring both to be alone, and then to hear some music at the Queen’s Hall.bk She fully intended to use her loneliness to think out her position with regard to Ralph; but although she walked back to the Strand with this end in view, she found her mind uncomfortably full of different trains of thought. She started one and then another. They seemed even to take their colour from the street she happened to be in. Thus the vision of humanity appeared to be in some way connected with Bloomsbury, and faded distinctly by the time she crossed the main road; then a belated organ-grinder in Holborn set her thoughts dancing incongruously; and by the time she was crossing the great misty square of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, she was cold and depressed again, and horribly clear-sighted. The dark removed the stimulus of human companionship, and a tear actually slid down her cheek, accompanying a sudden conviction within her that she loved Ralph, and that he didn’t love her. All dark and empty now was the path where they had walked that morning, and the sparrows silent in the bare trees. But the lights in her own building soon cheered her; all these different states of mind were submerged in the deep flood of desires, thoughts, perceptions, antagonisms, which washed perpetually at the base of her being, to rise into prominence in turn when the conditions of the upper world were favourable. She put off the hour of clear thought until Christmas, saying to herself, as she lit her fire, that it is impossible to think anything out in London; and, no doubt, Ralph wouldn’t come at Christmas, and she would take long walks into the heart of the country, and decide this question and all the others that puzzled her. Meanwhile, she thought, drawing her feet up on to the fender, life was full of complexity; life was a thing one must love to the last fibre of it.
She had sat there for five minutes or so, and her thoughts had had time to grow dim, when there came a ring at her bell. Her eye brightened; she felt immediately convinced that Ralph had come to visit her. Accordingly, she waited a moment before opening the door; she wanted to feel her hands secure upon the reins of all the troublesome emotions which the sight of Ralph would certainly arouse. She composed herself unnecessarily, however, for she had to admit, not Ralph, but Katharine and William Rodney. Her first impression was that they were both extremely well dressed. She felt herself shabby and slovenly beside them, and did not know how she should entertain them, nor could she guess why they had come. She had heard nothing of their engagement. But after the first disappointment, she was pleased, for she felt instantly that Katharine was a personality, and, moreover, she need not now exercise her self-control.
‘We were passing and saw a light in your window, so we came up,’ Katharine explained, standing and looking very tall and distinguished and rather absent-minded.
‘We have been to see some pictures,’ said William. ‘Oh dear,’ he exclaimed, looking about him, ‘this room reminds me of one of the worst hours in my existence—when I read a paper, and you all sat round and jeered at me. Katharine was the worst. I could feel her gloating over every mistake I made. Miss Datchet was kind. Miss Datchet just made it possible for me to get through, I remember.’
Sitting down, he drew off his light yellow gloves, and began slapping his knees with them. His vitality was pleasant, Mary thought, although he made her laugh. The very look of him was inclined to make her laugh. His rather prominent eyes passed from one young woman to the other, and his lips perpetually formed words which remained unspoken.
‘We have been seeing old masters at the Grafton Gallery,’bl said Katharine, apparently paying no attention to William, and accepting a cigarette which Mary offered her. She leant back in her chair, and the smoke which hung about her face seemed to withdraw her still further from the others.
‘Would you believe it, Miss Datchet,’ William continued, ‘Katharine doesn’t like Titian.bm She doesn’t like apricots, she doesn’t like peaches, she doesn’t like green peas. She likes the Elgin marbles, and grey days without any sun. She’s a typical example of the cold northern nature. I come from Devonshire —’bn
Had they been quarrelling, Mary wondered, and had they, for that reason, sought refuge in her room, or were they engaged, or had Katharine just refused him? She was completely baffled.
Katharine now reappeared from her veil of smoke, knocked the ash from her cigarette into the fireplace, and looked, with an odd expression of solicitude, at the irritable man.
‘Perhaps, Mary,’ she said tentatively, ‘you wouldn’t mind giving us some tea? We did try to get some, but the shop was so crowded, and in the next one there was a band playing; and most of the pictures, at any rate, were very dull, whatever you may say, William.’ She spoke with a kind of guarded gentleness.
Mary, accordingly, retired to make preparations in the pantry.
‘What in the world are they after?’ she asked of her own reflection in the little looking-glass which hung there. She was not left to doubt much longer, for, on coming back into the sitting-room with the tea-things, Katharine informed her, apparently having been instructed so to do by William, of their engagement.
