XV

On Saturday Stephen would have to go up to London for his two last Lenten sermons in the City, and Catherine made up her mind that she would stay over the week-end, because he wouldn’t then be there to be oppressed by her, and she would go away on Monday before he came back.

Gradually, in bed on Friday morning during the interval between drinking her tea and getting up, she came to this decision. In the morning light–the sun was shining that day–it seemed rather amusing than otherwise that her son-in-law should so quickly have come to the end of his powers of enduring her. Hers, after all, was to be the conventional fate of mothers-in-law. And she had supposed herself so much nicer than most! She thought, “How funny,” and tried to see it as altogether amusing; but it was not altogether amusing. “You’re vain,” she then rebuked herself.

Yes; she would follow Mrs. Colquhoun’s example, and stay in her own home. Perhaps that was the secret of Mrs. Colquhoun’s success as a mother-in-law, and she, very obviously, was a success. She would emulate her; and from her own home defy Christopher.

It was all owing to him that she had ever left her home. How unfortunate that she should have come across somebody so mad. Oughtn’t Stephen and his mother, if they knew the real reason for her appearance in their midst, applaud her as discreet? What could a woman do more proper than, in such circumstances, run away? But they would be too profoundly shocked by the real reason to be able to do anything but regard her, she was sure, with horror. Her, not Christopher. And she was afraid their attitude would be natural. “We grandmothers …”

Catherine turned red. Mercifully, no one would ever know. Down here, in this atmosphere where she was regarded as coeval with Mrs. Colquhoun, those encounters with Christopher seemed infinitely worse than in London–so bad, indeed, that they hardly seemed real. She would go back on Monday, declining to be kept out of her own home longer, and take firm steps. Christopher should never see her again. If he tried to, she would write a letter that would clear his mind for ever, and she would, for what was left to her of life, proceed with undeviating dignity along her allotted path to old age. And after all, what could he really do? Between her and him there was, first, the hall porter, and then Mrs. Mitcham. To both of these she would give precise instructions.

In this state of mind, a state more definite than any she had been in that week, as if a ray of light, pale and wintry, but yet light, had straggled for a moment through the mists, did Catherine get up that morning; but not in this state of mind did she that evening go to bed, for by the evening she had made a further discovery, and one that took away what still was left of her vitality: Virginia was tired of her too.

Virginia. It seemed impossible. She couldn’t believe it. But, believe it or not, she knew it; and she knew it because that afternoon at tea, before Virginia had had time to take care, her face had flashed into immense, unmistakable relief when her mother said, in answer to some inquiry of Mrs. Colquhoun’s, who had at last consented to come round, that she would have to go back to London on Monday. Instantly the child’s face had flashed into light; and though she had, as it were, at once banged the shutters to again, the flash had escaped, and Catherine had seen it.

After this her spirits were at zero. She allowed herself to be taken away to church–though why any longer bother to try to please Stephen?–because she was too spiritless to say she preferred to stay at home. She went there one of four this time, Mr. Lambton having come in too to tea, and walked silent among them. The others were very nearly gay. The effect of her announcement had been to restore speech to Stephen, to make Mrs. Colquhoun more cordial than ever, and even to produce in Mr. Lambton, who without understanding the cause yet felt the sudden rise of temperature, almost a friskiness. It was nice, thought Catherine drearily, trying to be sardonic so as not to be too deeply hurt, to have the power of making four people happy by just saying one was going away.

She walked among them in silence, unable to feel sardonic long, and telling herself that it wasn’t really true that Virginia was tired of her, for it wasn’t Virginia at all–it was Stephen. Virginia, being so completely one with him, had caught it from him as one catches a disease. The disease wasn’t part of Virginia; it would go, and she would be as she was before. Catherine, however, would not stay a minute longer than Monday morning. She would have liked to go away the very next day, but to alter her announced intention now might make Virginia afraid her mother had noticed something, and then she would be so unhappy, poor little thing, thinking she had hurt her. For, after that one look of relief, she had blushed painfully, and what she was feeling had opened out before Catherine like a book: she was glad her mother was going, and was unhappy that she should be glad.

No; Catherine would stay till Monday, so that Virginia shouldn’t be hurt by the knowledge that she had hurt her mother. Oh, these family tangles and tendernesses, these unexpected inflamed places that mustn’t be touched, these complicated emotions, and hurtings, and avoidances and concealments, these loving intentions and these wretched results! It wasn’t easy to be a mother successfully, and she began to perceive it was difficult successfully to be a daughter. The position of mother-in-law, which she had taken on so lightly as a natural one, not giving it a thought, wasn’t at all easy to fill either, being evidently a highly complicated and artificial affair. She thought she saw, too, that sons-in-law might have their difficulties; and she ended, as the party approached the churchyard, by thinking it extraordinarily difficult successfully to be a human being at all. She felt very old. She missed George.

Mr. Lambton opened the gate for the ladies, and, with his Rector, stood aside. Mrs. Colquhoun was prepared to persuade Catherine to pass through first, but Catherine, in deep abstraction, and seeing an open gate in her path, passed through it without persuasion.

“Absent-minded,” thought Mrs. Colquhoun, explaining this otherwise ruffling lapse from manners. “Ageing,” she added, explaining the absent-mindedness; and there was something dragging about Catherine’s walk which really did look rather old.

The others caught her up. “A penny, dear Mrs. Cumfrit,” said Mrs. Colquhoun, rallying her, “for your thoughts.”

They happened to be passing George’s tomb–George, the unfailingly good, the unvaryingly kind, the steadfastly loving, George who had been so devoted to her, and never, never got tired of her–and Catherine, roused thus suddenly, said absently, “I miss George.”

It spread a chill, this answer of hers. It was so unexpected. Mr. Lambton, though unaware of the cause, for he didn’t know, being new in the parish, what George was being missed, felt the drop in the temperature and immediately dropped with it into silence. Neither Mrs. Colquhoun nor Stephen could think for a moment of anything to say. Poor Mr. Cumfrit had been dead twelve years, and to be missed out loud after twelve solid years of death seemed to them uncalled for. It put them in an awkward position. It was almost an expression of dissatisfaction with the present situation. And, in any case, after twelve years it was difficult to condole with reasonable freshness.

Something had to be done, however, if only because of Mr. Lambton; and Stephen spoke first.

“Ah,” he said; and then, because he couldn’t think of anything else, said it again more thoughtfully. “Ah,” said Stephen a second time.

And Mrs. Colquhoun, taking Catherine’s arm, and walking thus with her the rest of the way to the porch, said, “Dear Mrs. Cumfrit, I do so understand. Haven’t I been through it all too?”

“I can’t think why I said that,” said Catherine, looking first at her and then at Stephen, lost in surprise at herself, her cheeks flushed.

“So natural, so natural,” Mrs. Colquhoun assured her; to which Stephen, desirous of doing his best, added, “Very proper.”

That night in their bedroom Stephen said to Virginia: “Your mother misses your father.”

Virginia looked at him with startled eyes. “Oh? Do you think so, Stephen? Why?” she asked, turning red; for how dreadful if her mother had felt, had noticed, that she and Stephen … Yet why else should she suddenly begin to miss …

“Because she said so.”

Virginia stood looking at Stephen, the comb with which she was combing out her long dark hair suspended. It wasn’t natural to begin all over again missing her father. Her mother wouldn’t have if she hadn’t noticed … How dreadful. She would so much hate her to be hurt. Poor mother. Yet what could she do? Stephen, and his peace and happiness, did come first. Except that she couldn’t imagine such expressions applied to either of them, she did feel as if she were between the devil and the deep sea.

“Do you think–do you suppose–” she faltered.

“It is not, is it my darling, altogether flattering to us,” said Stephen.

“Oh, Stephen–yes–I know you’ve done all you could. You’ve been wonderful–”

She put down the comb and went across to him, and he enfolded her in his arms.

“I wish–” she began.

“What do you wish, my beloved wife?” he asked, laying one hand, as if in blessing, on her head. “I hope it is something nice, for, you know, whatever it is you wish I shall be unable not to wish it too.”

She smiled, and sighed, and nestled close.

“Darling Stephen,” she murmured; and after a moment said, with another sigh, “I wish mother didn’t miss father.”

“Yes,” said Stephen. “Indeed I wish it too. But,” he went on, stroking the long lovely strands of her thick hair, “we must make allowances.”