Green Mirror — Book 3, Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV THE WILD NIGHT
Ten minutes later Katherine and Philip were alone in the garden.
There were signs that the gorgeous summer afternoon was to be caught into thunder.
Beyond the garden-wall a black cloud crept toward the trees, and the sunlight that flooded the lawn seemed garish now, as though it had been painted in shrill colours on to the green; the air was intensely hot; the walls of the house glittered like metal.
They stood under the great oak bobbing in front of them.
“Well,” said Philip at last, “that’s the end, Katie dear—your mother’s a wonderful woman.
” Katherine was silent.
He went on: “That was my last hope.
I suppose I’d been counting on it more than I ought.
You’d have come with me, I know, if they’d turned me out?
Not a bit of it.
Your mother’s a wonderful woman, I repeat.
” He paused, looked into her eyes, seemed to be startled by the pain in them.
“My dear, don’t mind.
She only wants to keep you because she can’t get on without you—and I shall settle down all right in a bit.
What a fuss, after all, we’ve been making.
” Katherine said: “Tell me, Phil, have there been times, lately, in the last week, when you’ve thought of running away, going back to Russia?
Tell me honestly.
” “Yes,” he answered, “there have—many times.
But I always waited to see how things turned out.
And then to-day when the moment _did_ come at last, I saw quite clearly that I couldn’t leave you _ever_—that anything was better than being without you—_anything_—So that’s settled.
” “And you’ve thought,” Katherine pursued steadily, “of what it will be after we’re married.
Mother always wanting me.
Your having to be in a place that you hate.
And even if we went to live somewhere else, of Mother always keeping her hand on us, never letting go, never allowing you to be free, knowing about Anna—their _all_ knowing—you’ve faced it all?
” “I’ve faced it all,” he answered, trying to laugh.
“I can’t leave you, Katie, and that’s the truth.
And if I’ve got to have your mother and the family as well, why, then, I’ve got to have them....
But, oh!
my dear, how your mother despises me!
Well, I suppose I _am_ a weak young man!
And I shall forget Russia in time....
_I’ve got to!
_” he ended, almost under his breath.
She looked at him queerly.
“All right,” she said, “I know now what we’ve got to do.
” “What do you mean?
” he asked.
“Wait.
I must go and speak to Uncle Tim.
I shall be an hour.
Be ready for me out here under this tree in an hour’s time.
It will be seven o’clock.
” “What do you mean?
” he asked her again, but she had gone.
She had picked up an old garden hat in the hall, and now very swiftly hurried up the village road.
She walked, the dust rising about her and the black cloud gaining in size and strength behind her.
Uncle Tim’s house stood by itself at the farther end of the village.
She looked neither to right nor left, did not answer the greeting of the villagers, passed quickly through the little garden, over the public path and rang the rusty, creaking bell.
An old woman, who had been Uncle Tim’s housekeeper for an infinite number of years, opened the door.
“Ah, Miss Kathie,” she said, smiling.
“Do ee come in.
’E’s gardenin’, poor soul.
All of a sweat.
Terrible ’ot ’tis, tu.
Makin’ up thunder I’m thinkin’.
” Katherine went into the untidy, dusty hall, then into her uncle’s study.
This had, ever since her childhood, been the same, a litter of bats, fishing-rods, specimens of plants and flowers drying on blotting paper, books lying in piles on the floor, and a pair of trousers hanging by a nail on to the back of the door.
She waited, seeing none of these familiar things.
She did not, at first, see her uncle when he came in from the garden, perspiration dripping down his face, his old cricket shirt open at the neck, his grey flannel trousers grimed with dust.
“Hullo, Katie!
” he cried, “what do _you_ want?
And if it’s an invitation to dinner tell ’em I can’t come.
” Then, taking another look at her, he said gravely, “What’s up, my dear?
” She sat down in an old arm-chair which boasted a large hole and only three legs; he drew up a chair close to her, then suddenly, as though he saw that she needed comfort, put his arms round her.
“What’s the matter, my dear?
” he repeated.
“Uncle Tim,” she said, speaking rapidly but quietly and firmly, “you’ve got to help me.
You’ve always said that you would if I wanted you.
” “Why, of course,” he answered simply.
“What’s happened?
” “Everything.
Things, as you know, have been getting worse and worse at home ever since—well, ever since Phil and I were engaged.
” “Yes, I know,” he said.
“It hasn’t been Phil’s fault,” she broke out with sudden fierceness.
“He’s done everything.
It’s been my fault.
I’ve been blind and stupid from the beginning.
I don’t want to be long, Uncle Tim, because there’s not much time, but I must explain everything so that you shall understand me and not think it wrong.
We’ve got nearly two hours.
” “Two hours?
” he repeated, bewildered.
“From the beginning Mother hated Phil.
I always saw it of course, but I used to think that it would pass when she knew Phil better—that no one could help knowing him without loving him—and that was silly, of course.
But I waited, and always hoped that things would be better.
Then in the spring down here there was one awful Sunday, when Aunt Aggie at supper made a scene and accused Philip of leading Henry astray or something equally ridiculous.
After that Philip wanted me to run away with him, and I—I don’t know—but I felt that he ought to insist on it, to make me go.
He didn’t insist, and then I saw suddenly that he wasn’t strong enough to insist on anything, and that instead of being the great character that I’d once thought him, he was really weak and under anyone’s influence.
Well, that made me love him in a different way, but more—much more—than I ever had before.
I saw that he wanted looking after and protecting.
I suppose you’ll think that foolish of me,” she said fiercely.
“Not at all, my dear,” said Uncle Tim, “go on.
” “Well, there was something else,” Katherine went on.
“One day some time before, when we first came to Garth, he told me that when he was in Russia he had loved another woman.
They had a child, a boy, who died.
He was afraid to tell me, because he thought that I’d think terribly of him.
“But what did it matter, when he’d given her up and left her?
Only this mattered—that I couldn’t forget her.
I wasn’t jealous, but I was curious—terribly.
I asked him questions, I wanted to see her as she was—it was so strange to me that there should be that woman, still living somewhere, who knew more, much more, about Phil than I did.
Then the more questions I asked him about her the more he thought of her and of Russia, so that at last he asked me not to speak of her.
But then she seemed to come between us, because we both thought of her, and I used to wonder whether he wanted to go back to her, and _he_ wondered whether, after all, I was jealous about her.
Then things got worse with everyone.
I felt as though everyone was against us.
After the Faunder wedding Henry and Phil had a quarrel, and Henry behaved like a baby.
“I’ve had a dreadful time lately.
I’ve imagined _anything_.
I’ve been expecting Phil to run away.
Millie said he would—Mother’s been so strange.
She hated Phil, but she asked him to Garth, and seemed to want to have him with her.
She’s grown so different that I simply haven’t _known_ her lately.
And Phil too—it’s had a dreadful effect on him.
He seems to have lost all his happiness—he hates Garth and everything in it, but he’s wanted to be near me, and so he’s come.
So there we’ve all been.
” She paused for a moment, then went on quickly.
“Just now—this afternoon—it all came to a climax.
Aunt Aggie had found out from Henry about the Russian woman.
She lost her temper at tea, and told Mother before us all.
Phil has been expecting this to happen for weeks, and had been almost hoping for it, because then he thought that Mother and Father would say that he must give me up, and that then I would refuse to leave him.
In that way he’d escape.
“But it seemed”—here Katherine, dropping her voice, spoke more slowly—“that Mother had known all the time.
That horrid Mr. Seymour in London had told her.
She’d known for _months_, and had never said anything—Mother, who would have been _horrified_ a year ago.
But no—She said _nothing_.
She only told Aunt Aggie that she oughtn’t to make scenes in the drawing-room, and that it wasn’t her business.
“Philip saw then that his last chance was gone, that she meant _never_ to let me go, and that if she must have him as well she’d _have_ him.
He’s sure now that I’ll never give Mother up unless she makes me choose between him and her—and so he’s just resigned himself.
” Uncle Tim would have spoken, but she stopped him.
“And there’s more than that.
Perhaps it’s foolish of me, but I’ve felt as though that woman—that Russian woman—had been coming nearer and nearer and nearer.
There was an evening the other night when I felt that she’d come right inside the house.
I went into the hall and listened.
That must seem ridiculous to anyone outside the family, but it may be that thinking of anyone continually _does_ bring them—_does_ do something....
At least for me now she’s here, and she’s going to try and take Phil back again.
Mother wants her, it’s Mother, perhaps, who has made her come.
Mother can make Phil miserable in a thousand ways by reminding him of her, by suggesting, by ...
” With a great cry Katherine broke off: “Oh, Mother, Mother, I did love you so!
” and bursting into a passion of tears, clung to her uncle as though she were still a little child.
Then how he soothed her!
stroking her hair, telling her that he loved her, that he would help her, that he would do anything for her.
He held her in his arms, murmuring to her as he had done so many years ago: “There, Katie, Katie ...
it’s all right, it’s all right.
Nobody will touch you.
It’s all right, it’s all right.
” At last, with a sudden movement, as though she had realised that there was little time to waste, she broke from him and stood up, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief; then, with that strange note of fierceness, so foreign to the old mild Katherine, she said: “But now I see—I see everything.
What Millie said is true—I can’t have it both ways, I’ve got to choose.
Mother doesn’t care for anything so much as for beating Philip, for humiliating him, for making him do everything that she says.
That other woman too—she’d like to see him humiliated, laughed at—I _know_ that she’s like that, cruel and hard.
“And he’s only got me in all the world.
I can beat that other woman only by showing her that I’m stronger than she is.
I thought once that it was Phil who would take me and look after me, but now it is _I_ that must look after him.
“If we stay, if we do as Mother wishes, we shall never escape.
I love everything here, I love them all, I can’t leave them unless I do it now, _now_!
Even to-morrow I shall be weak again.
Mother’s stronger than we are.
She’s stronger, I do believe, than anyone.
Uncle Tim, we must go to-night!
” “To-night!
” he repeated, staring at her.
“Now, at once, in an hour’s time.
We can drive to Rasselas.
There’s the London Express at eight o’clock.
It’s in London by midnight.
I can wire to Rachel.
She’ll have me.
We can be married, by special licence, to-morrow!
” He did not seem astonished by her impetuosity.
He got up slowly from his chair, knocked over with his elbow the blotting-paper upon which were the dried flowers, swore, bent down and picked them up slowly one by one, rose at last and, very red in the face with his exertions, looked at her.
Then he smiled gently, stroking his fingers through his beard.
“My dear, how you’ve changed!
” he said.
“You understand, Uncle Tim,” she urged.
“I couldn’t tell Millie.
They’d make it bad for her afterwards, and it would hurt Mother too.
I don’t want Mother to be left alone.
It’s the only thing to do.
I saw it all in a flash this evening when Mother was speaking.
Even to-morrow may be too late, when I see the garden again and the village and when they’re all kind to me.
And perhaps after all it will be all right.
Only I must show them that Phil comes first, that if I must choose, I choose Phil.
” She paused, breathlessly.
He was grave again when he spoke: “You know, my dear, what you are doing, don’t you?
I won’t say whether I think you right or wrong.
It’s for you to decide, and only you.
But just think.
It’s a tremendous thing.
It’s more than just marrying Philip.
It’s giving up, perhaps, everything here—giving up Garth and Glebeshire and the house.
Giving up your Mother may be for ever.
I know your Mother.
It is possible that she will never forgive you.
” Katherine’s under lip quivered.
She nodded her head.
“And it’s hurting her,” he went on, “hurting her more than ever anything has done.
It’s her own fault in a way.
I warned her long ago.
But never mind that.
You must realise what you’re doing.
” “I do realise it,” Katherine answered firmly.
“It needn’t hurt her really, if her love for me is stronger than her hatred of Philip.
I’ve thought it all out.
If she loves me she’ll see that my love for her isn’t changed at all,—that it’s there just as it always was; that it’s only that she has _made_ me choose, either Phil’s happiness or unhappiness.
I can only choose one way.
He’s ready to give up everything, surrender all the splendid things he was going to do, give up half of me, perhaps more, to the family—perhaps more.
He hates the life here, but he’ll live it, under Mother and grandfather and the rest, for my sake.
It isn’t fair that he should.
Mother, if she loves me, will see that.
But I don’t believe,” here Katherine’s voice trembled again, “that she cares for _anything_ so much as beating Philip.
He’s the first person in the world who ever opposed her....
She knows that I’ll love her always, always, but Phil’s life shan’t be spoilt.
Nothing matters beside that.
” She stopped, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing; he looked at her and was amazed, as in his queer, isolated life he had never been before, at what love can do to the soul.
“Life’s for the young,” he said, “you’re right, Katherine.
Your Mother will never forgive me, but I’ll help you.
” “No,” Katherine said, “_you’re_ not to be involved, Uncle Tim.
Mother mustn’t lose _anyone_ afterwards.
You’re to know nothing about it.
I
shall leave a note with someone to be taken up to the house at half-past nine.
I’ve told you because I wanted you to know, but you’re not to have anything to do with it.
But you’ll love me just the same, won’t you?
_You_ won’t be any different, will you?
I had to know that.
With you and Millie and Aunt Betty and Father caring for me afterwards, it won’t be quite like breaking with the family.
Only, Uncle Tim, I want you to do for me what you can with Mother.
I’ve explained everything to you, so that you can tell her—show her.
” “I’ll do my best,” he said.
Then he caught her and hugged her.
“Good luck,” he said—and she was gone.
Although she had been less than her hour with her uncle, she knew that she had no time to spare.
She was haunted, as she hurried back again down the village road by alarms, regrets, agonising reproaches that she refused to admit.
She fortified her consciousness against everything save the immediate business to which she had bound herself, but every tree upon the road, every hideous cottage, every stone and flower besieged her with memories.
“You are leaving us for ever.
Why?
For Panic?...
For Panic?
” ...
She could hear the voices that would follow the retreat.
“But why did she run away like that?
It wasn’t even as though their engagement had been forbidden.
To be married all in a hurry and in secret—I don’t like the look of it....
She was always such a quiet, sensible girl.
” And she knew—it had not needed Uncle Tim’s words to show her—that this act of hers was uprooting her for ever from everything that had made life for her.
She would never go back.
More deeply than that, she would never belong again, she, who only six months ago had been the bond that had held them all together....
And behind these thoughts were two figures so strangely, so impossibly like one another—the first that woman, suddenly old, leaning back on to Katherine’s breast, fast asleep, tired out, her mother—the second that woman who, only that afternoon, had turned and given both Katherine and Philip that look of triumph....
“I’ve got you both—You see that I shall never let you go.
You cannot, cannot, cannot, escape.
” That also was her mother.
She stopped at the village inn, ‘The Three Pilchards’, saw Dick Penhaligan, the landlord, and an old friend of hers.
“Dick, in half-an-hour I want a jingle.
I’ve got to go to Rasselas to meet the eight train.
I’ll drive myself.
” “All right, Miss Katherine,” he said, looking at her with affection.
“’Twill be a wild night, I’m thinkin’.
Workin’ up wild.
” “Twenty minutes, Dick,” she nodded to him, and was off again.
She crossed the road, opened the little wicket gate that broke into the shrubbery, found her way on to the lawn, and there, under the oak, was Philip, waiting for her.
As she came up to him she felt the first spurt of rain upon her cheek.
The long lighted windows of the house were watching them; she drew under the shadow of the tree.
“Phil,” she whispered, her hand on his arm, “there isn’t a moment to lose.
I’ve arranged everything.
We must catch the eight o’clock train at Rasselas.
We shall be in London by twelve.
I shall go to Rachel Seddon’s. We can be married by Special Licence to-morrow.
” She had thought of it so resolutely that she did not realise that it was new to him.
He gasped, stepping back from her.
“My _dear_ Katie!
What _are_ you talking about?
” “Oh, there isn’t any _time_,” she went on impatiently.
“If you don’t come I go alone.
It will be the same thing in the end.
I saw it all this afternoon.
Things _can’t_ go on.
I understood Mother.
I know what she’s determined to do.
We must escape or it will be too late.
Even to-morrow it may be.
I won’t trust myself if I stay; I’m afraid even to see Mother again, but I _know_ I’m right.
We have only a quarter of an hour.
That suit will do, and of course you mustn’t have a bag or anything.
There’s that cousin of yours in the Adelphi somewhere.
You can go to him.
We must be at the ‘Three Pilchards’ in a quarter of an hour, and go separately, of course, or someone may stop us....
” But he drew back.
“No, no, no,” he said.
“Katie, you’re mad!
Do you think I’m going to let you do a thing like this?
What do you suppose I’m made of?
Why, if we were to go off now they’d never forgive you, they’d throw you off—” “Why, of course,” she broke in impatiently, “that’s exactly why we’ve got to do it.
You proposed it to me yourself once, and I refused because I didn’t understand what our staying here meant.
But I do now—it’s all _settled_, I tell you, Phil, and there’s only ten minutes.
It’s the last chance.
If we miss that train we shall never escape from Mother, from Anna, from anyone.
Oh!
I know it!
I know it!
” She scarcely realised her words; she was tugging at his sleeve, trying to drag him with her.
But he shook her off.
“No, Katie, I tell you I’m not such a cad.
