CHAPTER IV

NOCTURNE

§ 1

ON a certain bitterly cold night in November, Catherine stood on the doorstep of No. 24, Kitchener Road, with her overcoat and hat in her hands. Despite the chilliness of the atmosphere her cheeks were hot and flushed, and her sensations took no notice of the blustering wind that raged along the road. For several moments she stood still on the doorstep, with heaving breast and head flung back defiantly. Then, still carrying her hat and overcoat, she went out into the street, omitted to shut the gate behind her, and walked at a terrific pace in the direction of the Bockley High Street.

It was eleven p.m. Her steps rang loudly along the deserted pavements; occasionally she lurched forward as if desiring to increase her pace, and this disturbed the rhythmic beat of her steps. She passed nobody, except at the junction of Hanson Street, where a couple of belated revellers slunk past with the furtive attitude of those who know they ought to have been home long since. They were too intent upon their destination to notice her. Only where there were large front gardens did her passing excite attention, and here congregations of cats, gathered for midnight revelry, dispersed with mournful sound as her footsteps approached.

At the corner of the High Street she stopped. It seemed to occur to her for the first time that to carry one’s hat and overcoat upon such a night was in some degree unusual. With careful deliberation she put them on. Then she laughed softly, and her laugh was a strange mingling of rapture and defiance. That which she had thought impossible had come to pass. After years of undeviating placidity fate had at last done something dramatic with her.

She had been turned out of the house at No. 24, Kitchener Road.

Her father had done what he had never before been known to do: he had lost his temper, and lost it thoroughly.

He had said: “My God, Cathie, I won’t stand that! ... Out you go!” He had pushed her into the lobby, and while she was reaching for her hat and coat he had struck her on the face with the back of his hand.

“Out you go!” he repeated, and Catherine saw that his temper had not yet reached its height. “I’m done with you! ... Are you going?” He actually picked up an umbrella and began brandishing it with his hand grasping the ferrule.

Catherine had opened the front door in vague terror of what he was going to do. The door was banged after her with a vicious kick from within. Then her cheek where he had struck her began to hurt....

§ 2

The cause of the altercation had been Catherine’s determination to accept a situation which he did not wish her to accept. She had answered the advertisement, interviewed her prospective employer, and received word that she had been appointed before even mentioning the matter to him. Then at teatime on a Friday afternoon she casually remarked:

“By the way, I’ve decided to get some work.”

He looked up at her as if the word were unfamiliar to him. “Work?” he said, astounded. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve applied for a job and been offered it.”

He seemed to have difficulty in comprehending what she said.

“A job? What job?”

“They want a pianist at a cinema. Good salary. Only work in the evenings....”

“But, my dear girl----”

“Well?”

“Don’t cut me short like that.... I was about to say....”

“Oh, I know what you’re about to say. You’re hopelessly against it, aren’t you?”

“Well, if I am, you----”

“Why are you?”

“I do wish you’d give me time to speak, Catherine. You spring this on me so suddenly.... I had no idea you were ever thinking of such a thing, to begin with. Even now it seems incredible to me. I can’t understand it.”

“Can’t understand what?”

“Why you want to do it ... it’s ... it’s unnecessary. Haven’t you enough money?”

“Oh, it’s not a question of money. I want to have some work to do, something to get interested in.”

“But you have the work of the house to carry on with. Surely that’s enough.”

“Oh, _that’s_ enough. In fact, that’s a great deal too much. I’m sick and tired of housework. Some girls may like it, but I don’t. I’d sooner pay some girl who likes it to do it for me. Besides, I want to be independent.”

He gave a start of surprise. “What’s that you said?” he asked, incredulously.

“I said, independent.”

There was a tense pause.

“Somebody’s been putting some silly modern ideas into your head. All that bosh about independence, I mean. A girl’s place is in the home, when she’s got one. Until you make a home of your own your place is here.”

“I suppose you think I ought to get married.”

“Married? ... Heavens, no! ... You’re only nineteen! Why, I never even _met_ your mother until I was twenty-four! Don’t you worry your head about marriage. Let it alone until the right feller comes along. I expect you’ve been reading too many trashy novels lately, that’s what it is.”

An angry light leapt into her eyes.

“Well, if you think I’m going to scrub floors and wash dishes until the right feller comes along, as you call it, you’re jolly well mistaken. I wouldn’t do it even if I was sure the right feller _would_ come along. I’m not made that way. I want a bit of liberty. I want to live.”

“My dear Catherine, you have everything you need. I can’t see what you’re making all this fuss about. Really I can’t.... You’re a good deal better off than some girls, I can tell you. What about poor Nellie Selborne and----”

“Oh, what on _earth_ have they got to do with it?”

“Well, if you won’t listen to me, I suppose ...” He waved his hand deprecatingly. “Suppose we stop arguing. Let’s hold the matter over. I’m certain that with a few days’ thought you’ll----”

“But I can’t hold the matter over.”

“Why not?”

“Because the situation’s been offered me. I’ve either got to accept it or reject it on the spot.”

“Well, Catherine, I’m sorry to go against you, but it will have to be so, in this case. Understand, I mean it. I mean to have my own way in this matter. I won’t have you strumming away every night in a third-rate picture house. I’m going to put my foot down firmly in this matter. You must reject the offer.”

He made a gallant but not entirely successful attempt to appear dignified by resuming the perusal of his newspaper. Catherine bit her lip and went a little pale.

“That’s a pity,” she said quietly.

“Why is it a pity?”

“Because I’ve decided to accept it.” Her lips were tight, and there was the suggestion of restrained emotion in her voice.

Something happened to his eyes. They opened terrifically wide and gazed at her expressionlessly for several seconds.

“What’s that?” he said.

His eyes unnerved her somewhat. But she steeled herself to repeat her ultimatum.

“Because--I’ve--decided to--to accept.”

Pause. “That’s all,” she added, irrelevantly, as if by way of clinching the matter.

Another pause. The clock tactfully struck in with the announcement of six o’clock. That seemed to break the spell. He rose and made for his hat.

“H’m,” he ejaculated, sharply. “I see. That’s what it amounts to, is it.... Well, you’ll have time to think it over. I’m off to school now.”

He took a sheaf of night-school exercises from his desk and stuffed them in his pocket. Not another word came from him. Catherine was almost hypnotized by his quick, startling movements, so unlike his usual apathy. He strode firmly down the lobby and shut the door after him more noisily than usual. She could hear his footsteps along the street, and he was walking at a pace that was for him unprecedentedly rapid. When he was quite out of hearing she sank down into the chair he had just vacated. The tension of the argument had given her a sense of physical exhaustion. Yet spiritually she was thrilled by a strange feeling of exhilaration: it seemed to her that after an interval of drudgery she was once again being drawn into the vortex of momentous happenings. She was absolutely certain of one thing: she would not give way. If he chose to make her disobedience a “test-case” of the father’s right to inflict his will upon the daughter she would await whatever steps he took with calmness and determination. But she would never give way. She was nineteen, and to her nineteen seemed old age. Things he had said in the course of the argument had annoyed her inexpressibly. They were little things, mostly. Bringing in the case of Nellie Selborne, for instance, was silly and entirely irrelevant. Nellie had paralysis down one side, and existed apparently for the purpose of proving to all other girls how lucky they were. Then again, Catherine disliked intensely his massive declaration that “a girl’s place is in the home.” He had talked about “waiting for the right feller to come along,” and this passive method of getting through life roused all the scorn and contempt in her nature. Also he had talked about her “strumming in a third-rate picture house.” It was typical of him to assume that it was third-rate before he had heard even the name of it. He had been ridiculously unfair....

She went over to the writing-desk where he marked his school exercise books. Something within her said: You are angry and excited now, but you will soon cool down and then probably you will give in to him.... To this she replied passionately: I _won’t_ give in to him.... But, continued the part of her which always told the truth, you _will_ give in to him if you wait till your temper has cooled down.... Better write now accepting the situation, and post it before he comes back from night-school. Then the matter will be really settled. Then you can say to him when he comes in: “It’s no use arguing about it any more. I’ve written to accept the job. The thing’s done now and can’t be undone.”

She wrote the letter as quickly as she could, for the feeling of supreme depression, the feeling that she was doing something regrettable and irretrievably silly, was becoming heavier upon her every second. She was just addressing the envelope after fastening it when she heard the key fumbling at the front door. For the moment a kind of panic fear seized her. He was coming back. He must have turned back before reaching the school. His footsteps down the lobby sounded brutal and unnecessarily noisy. She swung round in her chair and sat awaiting his entrance with the penholder stuck between her teeth. The half-addressed envelope lay on the desk invisible behind her back.... He flung down his hat and coat on the table.

The moment was so tense that Catherine spoke merely to interrupt the horrible silence of it.

“Was there no school to-night?” she asked, with an effort to appear perfectly casual.

“I’m not going,” he snapped curtly, and took down the red-ink bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece. That meant he was going to spend the evening marking exercise books.

She was thoroughly frightened. Her mother’s tempers and tirades had never frightened her, because she was used to them and knew them intimately, as a doctor knows the illness of a familiar patient. But her father was normally so quiet and placid and mild-mannered: she had never seen him in a temper, although when she was a little girl, boys who were in his class at school had told her that on rare occasions he got “ratty.” But she had never known him in such a condition. In this phase he was a complete stranger to her. And she was apprehensive, as she would have been if a stranger had entered the house when she was alone.

He came to the desk to get his exercise books. She thought at first he was going to strike her. But he merely leaned over her and lifted the