Green Mirror — Book 2, Chapter 5
Some entries in Millie’s diary: _March 12th.
_ Wind and rain like anything.
Been in most of the day patching up the screen in my bedroom with new pictures—got them as much like the old ones as possible.
Went for an hour’s tussle with the wind out to the Cross, and it was fine.
Wish I could have got over to Rafiel.
The sea must have been fine to-day coming in over the Peak.
Father drove Philip over to Polchester in the morning.
Felt bored and out of temper in the evening.
_March 13th.
_ Katie and Philip had their first tiff this morning—at least first I’ve seen.
He wanted her to go off with him for the day.
She’d got to stop and help mother with the Merrimans from Polneaton, coming to tea.
Mother said it didn’t matter, but I could see that she was awfully pleased when K. stayed.
But if I’d been K. I’d have gone.
What _does_ a family matter when one’s in love?
and she _is_ in love, more than anyone I’ve ever seen.
But I think she’s disappointed with Phil for not caring more about Garth, although she never owns it.
I’m sorry for him.
He wanders about not knowing what to do with himself, and everyone’s too busy to think of him.
I try, but he doesn’t want me, he wants Katherine, and thinks he ought to have her all the time.
Aunt Aggie makes things worse in every way she can....
_March 15th.
_ Cross all day.
Garth isn’t quite so nice this time somehow.
Is it because of Paris?
I don’t think so—it used to make one care all the more.
I think Philip upsets one.
When you see someone criticising something you’ve always loved, it makes you hot defending it, but also, although you’d never own it, it makes you see weak spots.
Then he stirs my imagination as no one ever has done before.
I believe he always sees the place he’s not in much more vividly than the place he is.
If I were Katie I’d marry him to-morrow and make sure of him.
Not that he isn’t in love with her—he _is_—more every day—but he doesn’t want to divide her with us, and she doesn’t understand it and we won’t have it—so there you are!
_March 16th.
_ Henry very queer to-day.
I wish they’d send him to Oxford or do something with him.
It’s so hard on him to let him hang around doing nothing—it’s so bad for him, too.
I think he hates Philip, but is fascinated by him.
He took me into the garden after lunch to-day as though he were going to tell me something very important.
He was so very mysterious, and said I could advise him, and he was dreadfully worried.
Then he suddenly stopped, said it was nothing, and wasn’t it a fine day?
I know I shall kill Henry one day.
He thinks he’s so important and has got a great destiny, whereas he can’t even keep his face clean.
So I told him, and then I wanted to hug him and comfort him.
I’m really awfully fond of him, but I do wish he was nice and smart like other men.
_March 17th.
_ Had a long walk with Philip this afternoon.
Really I do like him most tremendously, partly, I think, because he always treats me as though I’d come out years ago and knew all about everything.
He talked all the time about Katherine, which was natural enough, I suppose.
He said (what he’d told me in London) that he was frightened by her idea of him, and wished she thought him more as he was.
He said he hated a long engagement, that he wished it were over—then he said that he was a poor sort of fellow for anyone so fine as Katherine, and I said that I didn’t think it did to be too humble about oneself and that I always made myself out as grand as I could in my mind.
He said that it was Russia made one like that, that after you’d been in Russia a little you doubted everyone and everything, most of all yourself.
I said that I thought that rather flabby ...
but I do like him.
I don’t think Katie ought to insist so much on his liking Garth.
She’ll frighten him off it altogether if she does that.
_March 19th.
_ Rachel Seddon arrived.
Mother asked her down.
She doesn’t generally come at this time, and she’s only just back from abroad, but I think she wants to see how the engagement’s getting on.
Of course she doesn’t like Philip—you can see that in a moment—and of course he knows it.
But he wants to make her like him.
I wish he didn’t care so much whether people like him or no. Henry quite his old self to-night, and we danced (I tried to teach him a cake-walk) in my room, and smashed a lamp of Aunt Aggie’s—I’d quite forgotten her ceiling was my floor.
The house is awfully old and shaky—letter from Rose La Touche—Paris does seem funny to think of here....
* * * * * Part of a letter that was never posted— “I haven’t written to you all these weeks because I was determined not to write to Russia until I was settled and happy and married for life.
Then, also, you yourself have not written.
Have you all, over there, forgotten me?
Russians never do write letters, do they?
I don’t suppose I ought to be disappointed—you warned me.
If I’d forgotten all of you there—but I haven’t. I thought for a time that I had, but I haven’t ...
then a bell rings, and all the servants troop in and kneel down in a row with their heels up, and George Trenchard reads a bit out of the New Testament and, very fast, a prayer about ‘Thy humble servants’, and he has his eye on the weather out of the window all the time.
Afterwards there is the Post—also eggs, bacon, marmalade, brown bread and white and the family arriving one by one with ‘sorry I’m late!
’ Fancy a Russian saying: ‘Sorry I’m late’!...
so the day’s begun.
Afterwards, everyone has their own especial job.
I don’t know what my especial job is supposed to be.
George has his writing and the whole place—fences, weeds, horses, dogs—anything yon like.
He fancies himself Walter Scott at Abbotsford, and is as happy as the day is long; Mrs. Trenchard has the village and the inside of the house (with Katherine her lieutenant).
There is no living soul from the infant of a week to the old man of ninety-seven (John Wesley Moyle—he sees visions) who does not have his or her life exactly and precisely arranged.
Mrs. Trenchard has a quiet hypnotic power that fills me with terror, because I know that I shall soon be ranged with all the others.
She is kindness itself I am sure, and no cloud passing across the sun’s face makes less sound—and yet she has always her way.
Oh, Paul, old man, I’m frightened of her as I have never been of anyone before.
When I see her here I want to run.
I had a horrible dream last night.
The terror of it is with me still.
I thought that I said good-night to everyone and went up to my bedroom.
To my surprise I found Mrs. Trenchard there, and instead of my usual bed was an enormous feather-bed—an _enormous_ one stretching from wall to wall.
‘You will sleep on that to-night,’ said Mrs. Trenchard, pointing to it.
In some way I knew that if I once lay down upon it I should never get up again.
I said ‘No, I would not lie down.
’ ‘I think you’d better,’ she said in her slow way.
‘I think you’d better.
’ ‘No!
’ I cried, ‘I defy you!
’ Instantly the feather-bed like a cloud rose, filled the room, was above me, under me, around me.
It pressed in upon me.
I tore at it, and the feathers floated in a great stifling fog against my eyes, up my nose, in my mouth.
I screamed for mercy, I fought, I fell, I was suffocating, death was driving down upon me ...
I woke.
There’s nonsense for you!
And yet not such nonsense neither.
On a stuffy day here, when everything steams and the trees and grass and hedges close up about the house like an army, when Mrs. Trenchard, with Katherine, is arranging meals and lives, birth and death, when, trying to escape down one of the lanes, they rise so high above one’s head that it’s like being drowned in a green bath, I tell you the feather-bed is not so far away—suffocation seems no idle dream.
The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing here for me to do.
It didn’t matter having nothing to do in Russia—although, as a matter of fact, I always had plenty, because no one else had anything to do that couldn’t be stopped at any moment for the sake of a friend, or a drink, or a bit of vague thinking.
I
suppose it’s the order, the neatness, the punctuality and, at the same time, the solid, matter-of-fact assumption that things must be exactly what they look (which they never are) that fusses me.
But really of course I came down here to make love to Katherine—and I only get a bit of her.
She cherishes the faith that I want the family as badly as I want her, and that the family want me as badly as she does.
She has got a thousand little duties here that I had never reckoned on, and they are like midges on a summer’s evening.
I would throw myself into their life if they would let me, but there doesn’t seem any real place for me.
It’s fighting with shadows.
George Trenchard takes me for drives, Millie, Katherine’s sister, takes me for walks—Katie herself is, I do believe, with me whenever she can be....
I ought to be satisfied.
But only last night Great Aunt Sarah, who is in her dotage (or pretends to be), said, in the drawing-room to Millie, in a loud whisper, ‘Who is that young man, my dear, sitting over there?
I seem to know his face.
’ That sort of thing doesn’t exactly make you feel at home.
With all this, I feel the whole time that they are criticising me and waiting for me to make some big blunder.
Then they’ll say to Katherine, ‘You see, my dear!
’ Oh, of course, I’m an ass to make a fuss.
Any sensible fellow would just wait his year, marry Katherine and say good-bye to the lot.
But I shan’t be able to say good-bye to the lot.
That’s the whole business ...
partly because I’m weak, partly because Katherine adores them, partly because that is, I believe, Mrs. T.
’s plan.
To absorb me, to swallow me, to have me ever afterwards, somewhere about the place, a colourless imitation of the rest of them.
So they’ll keep Katie, and I’m not important enough to matter.
That’s her plan.
Is she stronger than I?
Perhaps after all I shall snatch Katherine from them and escape with her—and then have her homesick for ever after....
Why am I always imagining something that isn’t here?
Russia poisoned my blood—sweet poison, but poison all the same.
You’ll understand this letter, but if George Trenchard, or indeed any ordinary sensible Englishman were to read it, what an ass he’d think me!
‘If he thought more about the girl he was going to marry than about himself he wouldn’t have all this worry.
’ But isn’t it just that.
If, in nine months from now, I, swallowed whole by Mrs. T.
, marry Katie, will that be much fun for her?
I shall be a sort of shadow or ghost.
I can see myself running Mrs. Trenchard’s errands, hurrying down to be in time for breakfast (although she never scolds anyone), sometimes waking, seeing myself, loathing, despising myself.
Ah!
Anna would understand ...
Anna, even when she laughed, understood ...
Anna ...
I don’t think I shall send this.
I’m determined to drive you all from me until, in a year’s time, I can think of you safely again.
I described Moscow to Katherine in the train, and speaking of it, has reminded me ...
” * * * * * Katherine could not remember that there had ever been a year since her eighth birthday when she had missed “The Feast” at Rafiel.
“The Feast” was held always on the 24th of March, unless that day were a Sunday: it had been held, old Dr. Pybus, the antiquarian of Pelynt, said, ever since Phoenician days.
To Katherine the event was the crowning day of the spring.
After the 24th there would be, of course, many cold, blustering days: nevertheless the spring, with primroses, violets, anemones thick in the four valleys that ran down to Rafiel, the sky blue with white clouds like bubbles, the stream running crystal-clear over the red soil, the spring was here, and “The Feast” was its crowning.
For the fishermen and their families “The Feast” meant a huge tea in the Schools, great bonfires on the Peak, and a dance on the fish-market, a drink at ‘The Pilchards,’ and, above all, for the younger men and women, love and engagements.
It was on “The Feast” day that the young men of Rafiel asked the young women whether ‘they would walk out’, and the young women said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ according to their pleasure.
On a fine night, with the bonfires blazing to the sky and showers of golden sparks like fire-flies over the quiet sea, there was no happier village in the world than Rafiel.
In its little square harbour the stars, and the fires and the amphitheatre-shaped village looked down and the ghosts of the Phoenicians peered over the brow of the hill, sighed for the old times that they once knew, and crept at last, shivering, back into their graves.
This was to be the greatest “Feast” that Katherine had ever known, because Philip was, of course, to be with her.
It was to be, for them both, the crowning of their love by the place, the soil, the good Glebeshire earth.
To Katherine it seemed that if anything untoward happened on this day, it would be as though Glebeshire itself rejected them.
She would confess to no one how solemn it seemed to her....
Uncle Tim was in charge of the party.
Timothy Faunder had not, for many, many years missed a “Feast”; thither he went, his outward appearance cynical and careless as ever, but obeying, inwardly, more sacred instincts than he would acknowledge.
He would be in charge of Katherine, Millie, Philip, Rachel—Henry did not care to go.
The 24th of March was wonderful weather.
Uncle Tim, coming over from his house up the road, to luncheon, said that he had never seen a finer day.
He said this to his sister Harriet, standing before the window of her little room, looking down upon the lawn that reflected the sunny shadows like a glass, looking down upon the clumps of daffodils that nodded their heads to him from the thick grass by the garden wall.
Harriet was very fond of her brother; she had an intimate relationship with him that had never been expressed in words by either of them.
She was a little afraid of him.
She was sitting now writing notes.
She did not pause as she talked to him, and sometimes she rubbed the side of her nose with her fingers in a puzzled way.
She wrote a large sprawling hand, and often spelt her words wrongly.
This conversation was before luncheon.
“Well, Harriet,” Tim said.
“How are you?
” She looked up for a moment at his big, loose, untidy body, his shaggy beard, his ruffled hair.
“Why do you never brush your hair, Tim?
It’s such a bad example for Henry.
And you’re standing in the light....
Thank you....
Oh—I’m very well.
Why didn’t you come in last night, as you said you would?...
Yes, I’m quite well, thank you.
” “I went walking,” said Timothy.
“I do brush my hair, only I am not going to put grease on it for anybody ...
How do you like the young man?
” Mrs. Trenchard nodded her head several times as though she were adding up a sum.
“He likes it here, I think, although of course it must be quiet for him—‘And if Tuesday—isn’t convenient—suggest—another day—next week!
’” “So you don’t like him even so much as you expected to?
” “No. ” She answered quite abruptly, spreading her large hand flat out upon the table as though, by her sudden pounce, she had caught a fly.
“He’s weaker than I had fancied, and vainer....
More insignificant altogether....
Miss Propert, The Close, Polchester....
” “He’s weak, yes,” said Tim, staring down upon his sister.
“But he isn’t insignificant.
He’s weak because his imagination paints for him so clearly the dreadful state of things it would be if affairs went wrong.
He wants then terribly to make them right.
But he hasn’t the character to do much himself, and he knows it.
A man who knows he’s weak isn’t insignificant.
” Mrs. Trenchard made no reply.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?
” at last said Tim.
“Oh, he’ll marry Katherine of course.
” “And then?
” “And then they’ll live here....
‘Dear Canon, I wonder whether ...
’—” “And then?
” “And then—why then it will be just as it is now.
” “Oh!
I see!
” Timothy turned his back upon her, staring down upon all the green that came up like a river to the walls of the house.
His eyes were grave, his back square, his hands locked tight.
He heard the scratching of his sister’s pen—otherwise there was deep silence about them.
He wheeled round.
“Harriet, look here!
I’ve never—no, I think, never—asked you a favour.
” She turned in her chair and faced him, looking up to him with her wide, rather sleepy, kindly eyes—now a little humorous, even a little cynical.
“No, Tim—never,” she said.
“Well, I’m going to ask you one now.
” “Yes?
” Her eyes never flickered nor stirred from his.
“It’s this.
I like the young man—like him, for God knows what reason.
I
think I must myself once have seen the world as he does.
I know I believed that it could be such a splendid world with such a little effort—if only everyone were nice to everyone.
I understand young Philip—I believe that this is a crisis in his life and in Katherine’s. There are three possible endings to the engagement.
He can marry her, carry her off and live his own life.
He can marry her, not carry her off and live your life.
The engagement can break down, and he disappear back to where he came from.
You love Katherine, you are determined not to lose her, therefore you intend to make the first impossible.
You see that Katherine is so deeply attached to him that it will break her heart if he goes—therefore the last is not to be.
There remains only the second.
To that you devote all your energies.
You are quite selfish about it.
You see only yourself and Katherine in the matter.
You see that he is weak and afraid of you....
You will break him in, then turn him into the paddock here to graze for the rest of his life.
It would serve you right if Katherine were to run away with him.
” “She won’t do that,” said Mrs. Trenchard quietly.
“Who knows?
I wish she would, but she’s faithful, faithful, faithful down to the soles of her shoes....
Bless her!
” Mrs. Trenchard smiled.
“Dear Tim.
You are fond of her, I know....
There’s the luncheon-bell.
” “Wait a minute.
” He stood over her now.
“Just listen.
I believe you’re wrong about Katherine, Harriet.
She’s old-fashioned and slow compared with the modern girl—we’re an old-fashioned family altogether, I suppose.
It’s the first time she’s been in love in her life, and, as I said just now, she’s faithful as death—but she’ll be faithful to him as well as to you.
Let him have his fling, let him marry her and carry her off, go where he likes, develop himself, be a man she can be proud of!
It’s the crisis of his life and of hers too—perhaps of yours.
You won’t lose her by letting her go off with him.
She’ll stick to you all the more firmly if she knows that you’ve trusted him.
But to keep him here, to break his spirit, to govern him through his fear of losing her—I tell you, Harriet, you’ll regret it all your life.
He’ll either run away and break Katie’s heart or he’ll stay and turn into a characterless, spiritless young country bumpkin, like thousands of other young fellows in this county.
It isn’t even as though he had the money to be a first-class squire—just enough to grow fat (he’s rather fat now) and rotten on.
Worse than dear George, who at least has his books.
“And he isn’t a stupid fool neither ...
he’ll always know he might have been something decent.
If I thought I had any influence over him I’d tell him to kidnap Katie to-morrow, carry her up north, and keep her there.
” Mrs. Trenchard had listened to him with great attention; her eyes had never left his face, nor had her body moved.
She rose, now, very slowly from her chair, gathered her notes together carefully, walked to the door, turned to him, saying: “How you do despise us all, Tim!
” then left the room.
* * * * * After luncheon they started off.
Philip, sitting next to Katherine in the waggonette, was very silent during the drive; he was silent because he was determined that it was on this afternoon that he would tell Katherine about Anna.
Without turning directly round to her he could see her profile, her dark hair a little loose and untidy, her cheek flushed with pleasure, her eyes smiling.
“No, she’s not pretty,” he thought.
“But she’s better than that.
I can’t see what she’s like—it’s as though she were something so close to me and so precious that I could never see it, only feel that it was there.
And yet, although I feel that she’s unattainable too—she’s something I can never hold completely, because I shall always be a little frightened of her.
” He made this discovery, that he was frightened, quite suddenly, sitting there on that lovely afternoon; he saw the shadows from the clouds, swooping, like black birds, down over the valley beneath him: far beyond him he saw a thread of yellow running beside the water of the stream that was now blue in the sunshine and now dark under the hill; there were hosts of primroses down there, and the hedges that now closed the carriage were sheeted with gold: when the hedges broke the meadows beyond them flowed, through the mist, like green clouds, to the hazy sea; the world throbbed with a rhythm that he could hear quite clearly behind the clap-clap of the horses’ hoofs—‘hum—hum—hum—hum’—The air was warm, with a little breath of cold in it; the dark soil in the ditches glistened as though, very lately, it had been frozen.
Riding there through this beautiful day he was frightened.
He was aware that he did not know what Katherine would do when he told her.
During his years in Russia he had grown accustomed to a world, inevitably, recklessly, voluble.
Russians spoke, on any and ever occasion, exactly what was in their mind; they thought nothing of consequences whether to themselves or any other; their interest in the ideas that they were pursuing, the character that they were discussing, the situation that they were unravelling, was always so intense, so eager, so vital that they would talk for days or weeks, if necessary, and lose all sense of time, private feelings, restraint and even veracity.
Philip had become used to this.
Had Katherine been a member of a Russian family he would, two days after his engagement, have had everything out with them all—he would have known exactly where he stood.
With the Trenchards he did not know anything at all; from the moment of his engagement he had been blindfolded, and now he felt as though in a monstrous game of “Blind Man’s Buff” he were pushed against, knocked on the elbows, laughed at, bumped against furniture, always in black, grim darkness.
Since he had come down to Garth he had lost even Katherine.
He felt that she was disappointed in some way, that she had never been quite happy since their journey together in the train.
Well, he would put everything straight this afternoon.
He would tell her about Moscow, Anna, all his life—tell her that he could not, after their marriage, live at Garth, that it would stifle him, make him worthless and useless, that she must show him that she definitely cared for him more than for her family....
He felt as though, with a great sweeping stroke of his arm, all the cobwebs would be brushed away and he would be free.
He rehearsed to himself some of the things that he would say: “You must see, dear, that the family don’t like me.
They’re jealous of me.
Much better that we go away for a year or two—right away—and allow them to get used to the idea.
Then we can come back.
” But what would she say about Anna?
Did she know anything about men, their lives and affairs?
Would her fine picture of him be dimmed?
He hoped a little that it would.
He wanted simply to love her, that she should understand him and that he should understand her, and then they two together (the world, Garth, the Trenchards blown to the wind) should— “That’s Tredden Cove, that dip beyond the wood,” said Katherine.
“We used to go there—” Yes, he was frightened.
He felt as though this afternoon would be the crisis of his life.
(There had been already a great many crises in his life.
) He was impatient; he wanted to begin, now, in the waggonette.
He could imagine turning to her, saying: “Katie, darling, I want to tell you—” He was conscious that Lady Seddon was watching him.
“Jolly day, isn’t it?
” he said.
He thought to himself.
“She hates me as the others do.
