XXIII

She spent the afternoon walking up and down the drawing-room, even as Stephen had spent the night walking up and down it.

She was trying to arrange her thoughts, so that she could see a little more clearly through the tangle they were in, but as they were not so much thoughts as feelings, and all of them agitated and all of them contradictory, it was difficult.

What had happened to her was from every point of view most unpleasant. Sometimes she cried, and sometimes she stopped dead in the middle of the room, smitten by a horrid sensation of sickness when she thought of Virginia. Stephen would be as good as his word, she knew, and cut her off from Virginia, and how could he cut her off from Virginia without explaining the reason for it, his reason for it? The alternative was to marry Christopher. But what would Virginia think of that? And if she did marry him–how incredible that she should find herself being forced by Stephen, of all people, even to consider it–it would prove to Stephen that he had been right, and that she had been guilty.

Guilty! She went scarlet with anger and humiliation at the word. She, at her age; she, with her record of unvaryingly correct wifehood and motherhood and widowhood, her single-minded concentration of devotion, first on George and then on Virginia. Years and years of it there had been, years and years of complete blamelessness. One would have supposed, she said to herself, clenching her hands, that it ought to be possible, after a lifetime of crystal-clear propriety, for a woman to be in a motor break-down at night without instantly being suspected of wickedness. Only clergymen, only thoroughly good clergymen, could have such thoughts….

Oh, she would write at once to Virginia. She would tell her what had happened. But how shameful to have to defend herself to her daughter against such an accusation. And never again, of course, never, never again could things be the same between them, because how could they be, after all that Stephen had said?

Up and down the room walked Catherine. It was intolerable she told herself; the whole situation was intolerable. She wouldn’t endure it. She would go away to the ends of the earth–away, away, and never come back to a country inhabited by Stephen. She would turn her back on everybody, shake their horrid dust from her feet, settle somewhere in Africa or Australia, give herself up to forgetting….

And hardly had she declared this than she was declaring that she wouldn’t. No, she wouldn’t be driven out of her own country by Stephen and his base mind. She would stay and brave him out. She would tell everybody what had happened –not only Virginia, but Mrs. Colquhoun, and all her friends both in London and at Chickover, and she would tell them the sequel too, and what her clergyman son-in-law demanded of her as the price she was to pay for being readmitted into the ranks of honest women–she would make him ridiculous, turn the laugh against him….

And hardly had she declared this than she was declaring that she wouldn’t. No, she wouldn’t be bitter, she wouldn’t make Stephen ridiculous, of course she would do nothing of the kind. How could she so desperately hurt Virginia? But she would write to Virginia, and describe the night’s misfortunes, and as tactfully as possible explain how Stephen, in his anxiety, took an extreme view of what people might say of her adventure, but that she was sure when he had had time to think it over he would see that he was unnecessarily alarmed, and that nobody would say anything.

She would restrict herself to this. She couldn’t, to Virginia, bring herself to mention Stephen’s command that she should marry Christopher. Marry Christopher! She threw back her head and laughed out loud, standing alone among George’s frowning furniture, and went on laughing till she found she wasn’t laughing at all, but crying; for there were certainly tears rolling down her cheeks, and they were certainly not tears of amusement. So then she wiped her face and began to walk up and down again.

But struggle through the tangle of her mind as she might, Catherine could see no real daylight. Always beneath her anger, her indignation at Stephen’s odious instant jumping to the worst conclusions–“And he a priest of God,” she said to herself, rolling her damp handkerchief into a ball–was that memory of kisses on her closed eyelids. What things one did in the dark! How differently one behaved. The memory of these kisses pulverised her morale, made the bones of her pride go to water within her. If only, only she had insisted on walking on. But it had seemed so natural to sit down, especially when there was nowhere to walk to. And once she had sat down, the rest had followed in the simplest sequence.

At intervals of half an hour the telephone bell rang, and Mrs. Mitcham came in and said Mr. Monckton was at the telephone.

“Tell him I’m asleep,” said Catherine each time, turning her face away so that Mrs. Mitcham should not see she had been crying.

At five o’clock Mrs. Mitcham came to say that Mr. Monckton was asking when he might come round.

“Tell him I’m still asleep,” said Catherine, looking out of the window.

Christopher. What was she going to do about him? She could say she was asleep that afternoon, but she couldn’t be asleep for ever; sooner or later she would have to see him. That morning, after the dreadful encounter with Stephen on the door-mat, she had sent Christopher away at once. Overwhelmed by the shocking bad fortune of running straight into Stephen, by the shocking bad fortune of having Christopher with her, who had carried up her things for her when it wasn’t in the least necessary, only one doesn’t think, one says yes without thinking–naturally one does, for one can’t suspect life of going to hit one at every twist and turn–she had told him to go away, had almost pushed him away, as if, now that the mischief was done, his going or staying mattered any more.

But what was she going to do about him? Was she strong enough to defy Stephen and go on seeing Christopher just as before, without marrying him? And Virginia? Whatever she did in regard to Stephen included Virginia; if she defied one she defied and cut herself off from the other. How could she let go of Virginia, her only flesh and blood, her one baby, so tenderly loved and cared for? How could she bear to know that Virginia would believe she had done something abominable? It was a nightmare … she didn’t know how to shake herself free … all because of Stephen….

Seeing nothing, because she was blind with tears, she stood at the window that looked out into the grey and gloomy street. To think that this had happened just as she had got her relationship with Christopher on to a clear and comfortable footing, freed him from all the nonsense in his mind! Oh, well–last night–it was true there was last night–but that didn’t count, that was an accident, that was because it was so cold and dark, and anyhow she wasn’t awake–no, that didn’t count. She had freed his mind, she had cleared him up, and here comes Stephen, and with his awful points of view, his terrible saintly suspiciousness, smashes the whole of her friendship to bits. And however much she might have wished to marry Christopher–she never, never would have wished to, but supposing she had–she couldn’t do it now, because it would be an admission that she must.

She leant her forehead against the cold window-pane. The houses opposite stared across from out of their blank, curtained faces. It was raining, and the street looked a grimy, sooty place, chill and lonely on that wet Sunday afternoon, indifferent and hard. What did one do when one was in trouble and had no one to go to? What did one do?

“Mr. Monckton, m’m,” said Mrs. Mitcham, opening the door.

“However often he telephones,” said Catherine in a smothered voice, her face carefully turned to the street, “tell him I’m still a—asleep.”

The door shut, and there was silence in the room behind her.

Then some one came across it–she supposed Mrs. Mitcham, going to make up the fire, and she resented the impossibility, when one was unhappy, of getting away from the perpetual interruptions of routine. Fires to be made up, meals to sit down to and pretend to eat, clothes to be put on and taken off–how could one be thoroughly unhappy, get to grips with one’s wretchedness, have it out, if one were always being interrupted?

Then she suddenly knew it wasn’t Mrs. Mitcham, it was Christopher.

She turned round quickly to send him away, but found him so close behind her that by merely turning she tumbled up against him.

Instantly his arms were round her, and instantly she had the feeling she had had the night before, when going to sleep, of comfort, and warmth and safety.

“You mustn’t–” she tried to protest; but he held her tight, and even while she said he mustn’t she knew he must, and she must.

“Oh, Chris,” she whispered, her cheek pressed against his coat, “I’m so ashamed–so ashamed–”

“What of?” asked Christopher, holding her so tight that even if she had wanted to she couldn’t have got away. But she didn’t want to.

“Stephen has been here, saying the most awful things–”

“Has he, by Jove,” said Christopher, his head on hers, one hand softly stroking her face. “He’s a very good chap, though,” he added.

“What? Stephen? Why, you know he isn’t.”

“But he is. He came to see me too, this afternoon.”

“Oh.”

“And I think he’s a thorough sensible chap.”

“Why, what did he–what did he–?”

“Narrow, of course, and an infernal ass in places, as I told him several times in the clearest language, besides being a disgusting swine with a regrettably foul mind–”

“Oh, then did he–did he–?”

“But as good and sensible really, within his limits, as any one I’d wish to speak to.”

“Oh, Chris–then he–?”

“Yes. And we’re going to.”