‘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.