Mrs. Hilbery

“ It never occurred to her that her own conduct could be anything of a puzzle to her mother, or that elder people are as much affected by the young as the young are by them. And yet it was true that love—passion—whatever one chose to call it, had played far less part in Mrs. Hilbery’s life than might have seemed likely, judging from her enthusiastic and imaginative temperament. She had always been more interested by other things. Lady Otway, strange though it seemed, guessed more accurately at Katharine’s state of mind than her mother did. ”

“ Hilbery often observed that it was poetry the wrong side out. From a very early age, too, she had to exert herself in another capacity; she had to counsel and help and generally sustain her mother. Mrs. Hilbery would have been perfectly well able to sustain herself if the world had been what the world is not. She was beautifully adapted for life in another planet. ”

“ “It won’t seem to you nonsense in ten years’ time,” said Mrs. Hilbery. “Believe me, Katharine, you’ll look back on these days afterwards; you’ll remember all the silly things you’ve said; and you’ll find that your life has been built on them. The best of life is built on what we say when we’re in love. It isn’t nonsense, Katharine,” she urged, “it’s the truth, it’s the only truth.” ”

“ I used to dream of white horses and palanquins, too; but still, I like the ink-pots best. And who knows?” she concluded, looking at Katharine, “your father may be made a baronet to-morrow.”
Lady Otway, who was Mr. Hilbery’s sister, knew quite well that, in private, the Hilberys called Sir Francis “that old Turk,” and though she did not follow the drift of Mrs. Hilbery’s remarks, she knew what prompted them.
“But if you can give way to your husband,” she said, speaking to Katharine, as if there were a separate understanding between them, “a happy marriage is the happiest thing in the world.” ”

“ She lived at home. She did it very well, too. Any one coming to the house in Cheyne Walk felt that here was an orderly place, shapely, controlled—a place where life had been trained to show to the best advantage, and, though composed of different elements, made to appear harmonious and with a character of its own. Perhaps it was the chief triumph of Katharine’s art that Mrs. Hilbery’s character predominated. She and Mr. Hilbery appeared to be a rich background for her mother’s more striking qualities. ”

“ Katharine concluded.
Mrs. Hilbery paused, looked unhappy, and sought inspiration from the window.
“What a comfort he was in that shop—how he took me and found the ruins at once—how safe I felt with him—”
“Safe? Oh, no, he’s fearfully rash—he’s always taking risks. He wants to throw up his profession and live in a little cottage and write books, though he hasn’t a penny of his own, and there are any number of sisters and brothers dependent on him.”
“Ah, he has a mother?” Mrs. Hilbery inquired. ”

“ But that old tyrant never repented. She used to say that she had given them three perfect months, and no one had a right to more; and I sometimes think, Katharine, that’s true, you know. It’s more than most of us have, only we have to pretend, which was a thing neither of them could ever do. I fancy,” Mrs. Hilbery mused, “that there was a kind of sincerity in those days between men and women which, with all your outspokenness, you haven't got.”
Katharine again tried to interrupt. But Mrs. Hilbery had been gathering impetus from her recollections, and was now in high spirits. ”

“ Hilbery’s part to embellish the bareness of her discourse, gave Ralph time to perceive that she possessed all the facts of their situation and was come, somehow, in the capacity of ambassador.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Lord Byron,” Mrs. Hilbery continued, with a little laugh, “though I know that both you and Katharine, unlike other young people of your generation, still find him worth reading.” She paused. “I’m so glad you’ve made Katharine read poetry, Mr. Denham!” she exclaimed, “and feel poetry, and look poetry! She can’t talk it yet, but she will—oh, she will!” ”

“ Hilbery continued, with one of her sudden changes of mood, “though, Heaven knows, I don’t want to see you married, surely if ever a man loved a woman, William loves you. And it’s a nice, rich-sounding name too—Katharine Rodney, which, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that he’s got any money, because he hasn’t.”
The alteration of her name annoyed Katharine, and she observed, rather sharply, that she didn’t want to marry any one.
“It’s very dull that you can only marry one husband, certainly,” Mrs. Hilbery reflected. “I always wish that you could marry everybody who wants to marry you. ”

“ Her anger immediately dissipated itself; it broke like some wave that has gathered itself high above the rest; the waters were resumed into the sea again, and Katharine felt once more full of peace and solicitude, and anxious only that her mother should be protected from pain. She crossed the room instinctively, and sat on the arm of her mother’s chair. Mrs. Hilbery leant her head against her daughter’s body.
“What is nobler,” she mused, turning over the photographs, “than to be a woman to whom every one turns, in sorrow or difficulty? ”

“ Then, perceiving her daughter’s expression of perplexity, Mrs. Hilbery burst out laughing.
“My dear, I’m not talking about your William, though that’s another reason for liking him. I’m talking, I’m thinking, I’m dreaming of my William—William Shakespeare, of course. Isn’t it odd,” she mused, standing at the window and tapping gently upon the pane, “that for all one can see, that dear old thing in the blue bonnet, crossing the road with her basket on her arm, has never heard that there was such a person? ”

“ Hilbery, with a slight note of disappointment in her voice. “I had my little romance—my little speculation.” She looked at her daughter. Katharine faltered beneath that innocent and penetrating gaze; she flushed, turned away, and then looked up with very bright eyes.
“I'm not in love with Ralph Denham,” she said.
“Don’t marry unless you’re in love!” said Mrs. Hilbery very quickly. “But,” she added, glancing momentarily at her daughter, “aren’t there different ways, Katharine—different———?”
“We want to meet as often as we like, but to be free,” Katharine continued. ”

“ Milvain vouchsafed by way of description.
“Poor thing!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed.
“Poor Cyril!” Mrs. Milvain said, laying a slight emphasis upon Cyril.
“But they’ve got nothing to live upon,” Mrs. Hilbery continued. “If he’d come to us like a man,” she went on, “and said, “I’ve been a fool,” one would have pitied him; one would have tried to help him. There’s nothing so disgraceful after all─But he’s been going about all these years, pretending, letting one take it for granted, that he was single. And the poor deserted little wife─”
“She is not his wife,” Aunt Celia interrupted. ”

“ But, seeing her own state mirrored in her mother’s face, Katharine would shake herself awake with a sense of irritation. Her mother was the last person she wished to resemble, much though she admired her. Her common sense would assert itself almost brutally, and Mrs. Hilbery, looking at her with her odd sidelong glance, that was half malicious and half tender, would liken her to “your wicked old Uncle Judge Peter, who used to be heard delivering sentence of death in the bathroom. Thank Heaven, Katharine, I’ve not a drop of him in me!” ”

“ Katharine replied emphatically, and added, “Why, after all, isn’t it perfectly possible to live together without being married?”
Again Mrs. Hilbery looked discomposed, and, in her trouble, took up the sheets which were lying upon the table, and began turning them over this way and that, and muttering to herself as she glanced:
“A plus B minus C equals x y z. It’s so dreadfully ugly, Katharine. That’s what I feel—so dreadfully ugly.” ”

“ And, though priding herself, with all other men and women, upon an infallible eye for character, she could not feel at all certain that she knew what motives inspired Katharine Hilbery in life. There was something that carried her on smoothly, out of reach—something, yes, but what?—something that reminded Mary of Ralph. Oddly enough, he gave her the same feeling, too, and with him, too, she felt baffled. ”

“ Ah, Katharine, when you marry, be quite, quite sure that you love your husband!”
The tears stood in Mrs. Hilbery’s eyes.
While comforting her, Katharine thought to herself, “Now this is what Mary Datchet and Mr. Denham don’t understand. This is the sort of position I’m always getting into. How simple it must be to live as they do!” for all the evening she had been comparing her home and her father and mother with the Suffrage office and the people there. ”

“ Katharine asked her father.
“Only one of my geese, happily, makes epigrams—Augustus Pelham, of course,” said Mrs. Hilbery.
“I’m not sorry that I was out,” said Katharine.
“Poor Augustus!” Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. “But we’re all too hard on him. Remember how devoted he is to his tiresome old mother.”
“That’s only because she is his mother. Any one connected with himself—”
“No, no, Katharine—that’s too bad. That’s—what’s the word I mean, Trevor, something long and Latin—the sort of word you and Katharine know—”
Mr. Hilbery suggested “cynical.” ”

“ Hilbery had at command appear oddly irrelevant. At any rate, he said nothing. He respected the young man; he was a very able young man; he was likely to get his own way. He could, he thought, looking at his still and very dignified head, understand Katharine’s preference, and, as he thought this, he was surprised by a pang of acute jealousy, She might have married Rodney without causing him a twinge. This man she loved. ”

“ Rather a fine-looking old lady, with white hair.” Katharine began to describe her visit, and soon Mrs. Hilbery elicited the facts that not only was the house of excruciating ugliness, which Ralph bore without complaint, but that it was evident that every one depended on him, and he had a room at the top of the house, with a wonderful view over London, and a rook. ”

“ He was about to jump from the carriage and take a cab, when Mrs. Hilbery reappeared talking genially to a figure who remained hidden behind her.
“There’s plenty of room for us all,” she was saying. “Plenty of room. We could find space for FOUR of you, William,” she added, opening the door, and Ralph found that Rodney had now joined their company. The two men glanced at each other. If distress, shame, discomfort in its most acute form were ever visible upon a human face, Ralph could read them all expressed beyond the eloquence of words upon the face of his unfortunate companion. ”

“ No one can escape the power of language, let alone those of English birth brought up from childhood, as Mrs. Hilbery had been, to disport themselves now in the Saxon plainness, now in the Latin splendor of the tongue, and stored with memories, as she was, of old poets exuberating in an infinity of vocables. Even Katharine was slightly affected against her better judgment by her mother’s enthusiasm. Not that her judgment could altogether acquiesce in the necessity for a study of Shakespeare’s sonnets as a preliminary to the fifth chapter of her grandfather’s biography. ”

“ He began to wish to tell her about the Hilberys in order to abuse them, for in the miniature battle which so often rages between two quickly following impressions of life, the life of the Hilberys was getting the better of the life of the Denhams in his mind, and he wanted to assure himself that there was some quality in which Joan infinitely surpassed Miss Hilbery. He should have felt that his own sister was more original, and had greater vitality than Miss Hilbery had; but his main impression of Katharine now was of a person of great vitality and composure ”

“ The world, he assured himself, since Katharine Hilbery was now half an hour behind her time, offers no happiness, no rest from struggle, no certainty. In a scheme of things utterly bad from the start the only unpardonable folly is that of hope. Raising his eyes for a moment from the face of his watch, he rested them upon the opposite bank, reflectively and not without a certain wistfulness, as if the sternness of their gaze were still capable of mitigation. ”

“ Daily life in a house where there are young and old is full of curious little ceremonies and pieties, which are discharged quite punctually, though the meaning of them is obscure, and a mystery has come to brood over them which lends even a superstitious charm to their performance. Such was the nightly ceremony of the cigar and the glass of port, which were placed on the right hand and on the left hand of Mr. Hilbery, and simultaneously Mrs. Hilbery and Katharine left the room. All the years they had lived together they had never seen Mr. ”

“ He balanced his stick most carefully against the folds of the curtain. Thus occupied with his own sensations and preparations, he had little time to observe what either of the other two was feeling. Such symptoms of agitation as he might perceive (and they had left their tokens in brightness of eye and pallor of cheeks) seemed to him well befitting the actors in so great a drama as that of Katharine Hilbery’s daily life. Beauty and passion were the breath of her being, he thought. ”

“ She did not clearly realize what this call was to be; but when the ears have got into the habit of listening, they go on listening involuntarily, and thus Katharine spent the greater part of the morning in listening to a variety of sounds in the back streets of Chelsea. For the first time in her life, probably, she wished that Mrs. Hilbery would not keep so closely to her work. A quotation from Shakespeare would not have come amiss. ”