5
He did not see her again for a long time. He would have liked to have seen her, yes, just once more, but of course he was glad, quite glad, that she did not risk it and drag from dim depths the old passion to break again in those idiotic bubbles of propriety. She did not answer his letter—he was amused. Then her long silence vexed him, until vexation was merged in alarm. She had gone away from Tutsan—of course—gone away on family affairs—oh, naturally!—she might be gone away for ever. But a real grief came upon him. He had long mocked the girl, not only the girl but his own vision of her; now she was gone his mind elaborated her melancholy immobile figure into an image of beauty. Her absence, her silence, left him wretched. He heard of her from Ianthe, who renewed her blandishments; he was not unwilling to receive them now—he hoped their intercourse might be reported to Kate.
After many months he did receive a letter from her. It was a tender letter though ill-expressed, not very wise or informative, but he could feel that the old affection for him was still there, and he wrote her a long reply in which penitence and passion and appeal were mingled.
"I know now, yes, I see it all now; solutions are so easy when the proof of them is passed. We were cold to each other, it was stupid, I should have made you love me and it would have been well. I see it now. How stupid, how unlucky; it turned me to anger and you to sorrow. Now I can think only of you."
She made no further sign, not immediately, and he grew dull again. His old disbelief in her returned. Bah! She loved him no more than a suicide loved the pond it dies in; she had used him for her senseless egoism, tempting him and fooling him, wantonly yes, wantonly, he had not begun it, and she took a chaste pride in saving herself from him. What was it the old writer had said? "Chastity, by nature the gentlest of all affections—give it but its head—'tis like a ramping and roaring lion." Saving herself! Yes, she would save herself for marriage.
He even began to contemplate that outcome.
Her delayed letter, when it came, announced that she was coming home at once; he was to meet her train on the morning after the morrow.
It was a dull autumnal morning when he met her. Her appearance was not less charming than he had imagined it, though the charm was almost inarticulate and there were one or two crude touches that momentarily distressed him. But he met with a flush of emotion all her glances of gaiety and love that were somehow, vaguely, different—perhaps there was a shade less reserve. They went to lunch in the city and at the end of the meal he asked her:
"Well, why have you come back again?"
She looked at him intently: "Guess!"
"I—well, no—perhaps—tell me, Kate, yourself."
"You are different, now, you look different, David."
"Am I changed! Better or worse?"
She did not reply and he continued:
"You, too, are changed, I can't tell how it is, or where, but you are."
"O, I am changed, much changed," murmured Kate.
"Have you been well?"
"Yes."
"And happy?"
"Yes."
"Then how unwise of you to come back."
"I have come back," said Kate, "to be happier. But somehow you are different."
"You are different, too. Shall we ever be happy again?"
"Why—why not?" said Kate.
"Come on!" he cried hilariously, "let us make a day of it, come along!"
Out in the streets they wandered until rain began to fall. "Come in here for a while." They were passing a roomy dull building, the museum, and they went in together. It was a vast hollow-sounding flagstone place that had a central brightness fading into dim recesses and galleries of gloom. They examined a monster skeleton of something like an elephant, three stuffed apes and a picture of the dodo. Kate stood before them without interest or amusement, she just contemplated them. What did she want with an elephant, an ape, or a dodo! The glass exhibit cases were leaned upon by them, the pieces of coal neatly arranged and labelled were stared at, besides the pieces of granite or coloured rock with long names ending in orite, dorite and sorite and so on to the precious gems including an imitation, as big as a bun, of a noted diamond. They leaned over them, repeating the names on the labels with the quintessence of vacuity. They hated it. There were beetles and worms of horror, butterflies of beauty, and birds that had been stuffed for so long that they seemed to be intoxicated; their beaks fitted them as loosely as a drunkard's hat, their glassy eyes were pathetically vague. After ascending a flight of stone steps David and Kate stooped for a long time over a case of sea-anemones that had been reproduced in gelatine by a German with a fancy for such things. From the railed balcony they could peer down into the well of the fusty-smelling museum. No one else was visiting it, they were alone with all things dead, things that had died millions of years ago and were yet simulating life. A footfall sounded so harsh in the corridors, boomed with such clangour, that they took slow diffident steps, almost tiptoeing, while Kate scarcely spoke at all and he conversed in murmurs. Whenever he coughed the whole place seemed to shudder. In the recess, hidden from prying eyes, David clasped her willing body in his arms. For once she was unshrinking and returned his fervour. The vastness, the emptiness, the deadness, worked upon their feelings with intense magic.
"Love me, David," she murmured, and when they moved away from the gelatinous sea-urchins she kept both her arms clasped around him as they walked the length of the empty corridor. He could not perceive her intimations, their meaning was dark to him. She was so altered, this was another Kate.
"I have come home to make it all up to you," she repeated, and he scarcely dared to understand her.
They approached a lecture room; the door was open, the room was empty, they went in and stood near the platform. The place was arranged like a tiny theatre, tiers of desks rising in half circles on three sides high up towards the ceiling. A small platform with a lecturer's desk confronted the rising tiers; on the wall behind it a large white sheet; a magic lantern on a pedestal was near and a blackboard on an easel. A pencil of white chalk lay broken on the floor. Behind the easel was a piano, with a duster on its lid. The room smelled of spilled acids. The lover's steps upon the wooden floor echoed louder than ever after their peregrination upon the flagstones; they were timid of the sound and stood still, close together, silent. He touched her bosom and pressed her to his heart, but all her surrender seemed strange and nerveless. She was almost violently different; he had liked her old rejections, they were fiery and passionate. He scarce knew what to do, he understood her less than ever now. Dressed as she was in thick winter clothes it was like embracing a tree, it tired him. She lay in his arms waiting, waiting, until he felt almost stifled. Something like the smell of the acids came from her fur necklet. He was glad when she stood up, but she was looking at him intently. To cover his uneasiness he went to the blackboard and picking up a piece of chalk he wrote the first inconsequent words that came into his mind. Kate stood where he had left her, staring at the board as he traced the words upon it: We are but little children weak.
Laughing softly she strolled towards him.
"What do you write that for? I know what it is."
"What it is!—well, what is it?"
She took the chalk from his fingers.
"It's a hymn," she went on "it goes...."
"A hymn!" he cried, "I did not know that."
Underneath the one he had written she was now writing another line on the board: Nor born to any high estate.
"Of course," he whispered, "I remember it now, I sang it as a child—at school—go on, go on."
But she had thereupon suddenly turned away, silent, dropping her hands to her side. One of her old black moods had seized her. He let her go and picking up another fragment of chalk completed the verse:
What can we do for Jesu's sake
Who is so high and good and great?
She turned when he had finished and without a word walked loudly to the piano, fetched the duster and rubbed out the words they had written on the blackboard. She was glaring at him.
"How absurd you are"—he was annoyed—"let us go out and get some tea." He wandered off to the door, but she did not follow. He stood just outside gazing vacantly at a stuffed jay that had an indigo eye. He looked into the room again. She was there still just as he had left her; her head bent, her hands hanging clasped before her, the dimness covering and caressing her—a figure full of sad thoughts. He ran to her and crushed her in his arms again:
"Kate, my lovely."
She was saying brokenly: "You know what I said. I've come to make it all up to you. I promised, didn't I?"
Something shuddered in his very soul—too late, too late, this was no love for him. The magic lantern looked a stupid childish toy, the smell of the acid was repulsive. Of all they had written upon the blackboard one word dimly remained: Jesu.
She stirred in his arms. "You are changed, David."
"Changed, yes, everything is changed."
"This is just like a theatre, like a play, as if we were acting."
"Yes, as if we were acting. But we are not acting. Let us go up and sit in the gallery."
They ascended the steps to the top ring of desks and looked down to the tiny platform and the white curtain. She sat fondling his hands, leaning against him.
"Have you ever acted—you would do it so well?"
"Why do you say that? Am I at all histrionic?"
"Does that mean insincere? O no. But you are the person one expects to be able to do anything."
"Nonsense! I've never acted. I suppose I could. It isn't difficult, you haven't to be clever, only courageous. I should think it very easy to be only an ordinary actor, but I'm wrong, no doubt. I thought it was easy to write—to write a play—until I tried. I once engaged myself to write a little play for some students to act. I had never done such a thing before and like other idiots I thought I hadn't ever done it simply because I hadn't ever wanted to. Heavens, how harassed I was and how ashamed! I could not do it. I got no further than the author's speech."
"Well that was something. Tell me it."
"It's nothing to do with the play. It's what the author says to the audience when the play is finished."
She insisted on hearing it whatever it was. "O well," he said at last. "Let's do that properly, at least. I'll go down there and deliver it from the stage. You must pretend that you are the enthusiastic audience. Come and sit in the stalls."
They went down together.
"Now imagine that this curtain goes up and I suddenly appear."
Kate faintly clapped her hands. He stood upon the platform facing her and taking off his hat, began:
"Ladies and Gentlemen.
"I am so deeply touched by the warmth of this reception, this utterly undeserved appreciation, that—forgive me—I have forgotten the speech I had carefully prepared in anticipation of it. Let me meet my obligation by telling you a story; I think it is true, I made it up myself. Once upon a time there was a poor playwright—something like me—who wrote a play—something like this—and at the end of the performance the audience, a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual audience—something like this—called him before the curtain and demanded a speech. He protested that he was unprepared and asked them to allow him to tell them a story—something like this. Well, that, too, was a remarkably handsome well-fed intellectual audience, so they didn't mind and he began again, Once upon a time a poor playwright,—and was just about to repeat the story I have already twice told you when suddenly, without a word of warning, without a sound, without a compunction, the curtain swooped down and chopped him clean in half."
Masterman made an elaborate obeisance and stepped off the platform.
"Is that all?" asked Kate.
"That's all."
At that moment a loud bell clanged throughout the building signifying that the museum was about to close.
"Come along!" he cried, but Kate did not move, she still sat in the stalls.
"Don't leave me, David, I want to hear the play," she said archly.
"There was no play and there is no play. Come, or we shall be locked in for the night."
Still she sat on. He went to her and seized her hands.
"What does it matter!" she whispered, embracing him. "I want to make it all up to you."
He was astoundingly moved. She was marvellously changed. If she hadn't the beauty of perfection she had some of the perfection of beauty. He adored her.
"But no," he said, "it won't do, it really won't. Come, I have got to buy you something at once, a ring with a diamond in it, as big as a bun, an engagement ring, quickly, or the shops will be shut."
He dragged the stammering bewildered girl away, down the stairs and into the street. The rain had ceased, the sunset sky was bright and Masterman was intensely happy.