A Church Invasion followed. The Invasion rustled and listened to the bell that called across the garden. ‘Com-ing?... Com-ing?... Com-ing?’... Then ‘Come! Come! Come!’ and said: “Where’s Katie?... It isn’t Litany to-day, so there’ll be time before lunch. Where’s Henry?... We’d better start, the bell’s stopping. Just hold my prayer-book a minute, Millie dear, whilst I do this....”
Finally the Invasion called: “Katie! Katie! Katherine!... We’re going!” and a voice, very far away answered:
“Yes.... I’ll catch you up! Go on!”
The Invasion left, followed by Uncle Tim, smiling to himself, the trowel in his hand. The house was very still then, relapsing with a little sigh of content into its Sunday quiet: a bird was chattering gently to itself in the wet garden.
Katherine hurried into the drawing-room, her cheeks flushed, buttoning her gloves, her prayer-book under her arm. Her black dress, a little open at the front, had a stiff black lace collar at the back, Elizabethan fashion; now, for the first time in her life, she was wearing something that she had herself thought about and planned. It was for Philip....
She looked about the empty drawing-room, then hurried away through the little wood. How unlike her to be late! She was always the first of the party. But to-day she had been dreaming in her bedroom, sitting, with her hands in her lap, looking out of the window, wondering, longing to know ... No, she was not jealous. Her curiosity had no tinge of jealousy in it. Why should she be jealous? Was not the thing over, closed? Had not the woman herself dismissed him? That strange figure in that strange country! The wild town, as he had described it, like a village with towers and towers, gold and green and blue, and the carts with painted roofs and the strange writing on the shop-walls ... and the woman standing there, in the middle of it. This woman, who had known Philip better than Katherine knew him, whom Philip had madly loved, who had borne Philip a son. She was still living there, loving, now, perhaps someone else, looking back perhaps with some scorn and some pity and some affection to the days when Philip had kissed her, to the hour when their son had died, to that first meeting in the strange country house, where everyone might come and go as they pleased. No, there was no jealousy; but Katherine wanted to have her there, standing in front of her, so that she might study her clothes, her hair, her eyes. Here was a woman whom Philip had madly loved—and he had ceased to love her. Well, he might also cease to love Katherine. But that other woman had dismissed him. Fancy dismissing him! When one had shared with him such experiences how could one ever let him go?... Ah, what, what was she like? Was her voice soft or harsh? How did she look when Philip made love to her? When Philip made love to her.... Yes, there was pain in that.
Katherine hurried under the low porch of the church. She could hear the voice: ‘Wherefore I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart....’
As the congregation knelt she slipped into a seat at the back of the church. She had always loved the shabby, ugly little place. It had, for one thing, nothing to boast about—had no fine carvings like the Rafiel Church, no splendid tombs like the two Dunstan St. Firths at Poloynt, no wonderful glass like the Porthcullin memorial window at Borhaze; frankly ugly, white-washed, with thin narrow grey glass in the side-walls and a hideous purple Transfiguration above the altar, with plain, ugly seats, a terrible modern lectern, a shabby nondescript pulpit, a font like an expensive white sweet, and the most shining and vulgar brass tablet commemorating the Garth heroes of the Boer War.
No other church could ever mean so much to Katherine as this, her shabby friend. She was glad that it was no show place for inquisitive tourists to come tramping over with haughty eyes and scornful boasts. It was her own ... she loved it because strangers would always say: “How hideous!” because she could remember it on wonderful summer evenings when through the open doors the congregation could hear the tinkling sheep-bells and smell the pinks from the Rectory garden, on wild nights when the sea gales howled round its warm, happy security, on Christmases, on Easters, on Harvest Festivals: she loved it on the evenings when, with its lights covering its plainness, the Garth villagers would shout their souls away over “Onward, Christian soldiers” or “For all the Saints” or would sink into sentimental tenderness over “Abide with me” and “Saviour, again to Thy dear name”; she loved it because here she had been sad and happy, frightened and secure, proud and humble, victorious and defeated ... as this morning she sank on her knees, burying her face in her hands, she felt at first as though her Friend had found her, had encircled her with His arm, had drawn her into safety....
And yet, after a little while, her unrest returned. As Mr. Smart and the congregation hurried through the psalms for the day, trying, as it were, to beat one another in the friendly race, Katherine felt again that insistent pressure and pursuit. Her mind left the church: she was back again with Philip at Rafiel ... and now she was searching that mysterious town for that elusive, laughing figure. Katherine had in her mind a clear picture; she saw a woman, tall and thin, a dark face with black, ironical eyes, hair jet black, a figure alert, independent, sometimes scornful, never tragic or despairing. “If she knew me she would despise me” ... this thought came flashing like a sudden stream of light across the church. “If she knew me she’d despise me ... despise me for everything, even perhaps for loving Philip”—and yet she felt no hostility; of a certainty no jealousy, only a little pain at her heart and a strange conviction that the world was altered now simply because there was a new figure in it. And there were so many things that she wanted to know. Why had Anna dismissed Philip? Was it simply because she was tired of him? Was it perhaps for his own sake, because she thought that he was wasting his life and character there. No, Anna probably did not think about his character.... Did she still care for him and, now that he was gone, long for him? Well, Katherine had him now, and no one should take him.... Would she, perhaps, write to Philip and try to compel him to return? Did she think of the son who had died? Had she much heart or was she proud and indifferent?