wordless thing between them which they knew, and no other : that Ida, uninstructed, understood certain of Katherine’s needs, as Katherine, by her very being, supplemented Ida’s. The din around them, the mischances, the nervous tensions of daily living could not intrude upon the centre of peace, the “silent singing” of that which lay between.
In Queen’s College days Ida was one “with whom she could be herself.” Kathleen knew (and there were times when she desperately needed to know) that no matter what could happen in her world, Ida was steadfast. They evolved between them, once, a symbol : Ida was the tall green column, and herself the live bird who rested upon it — and from it flew away — only to return before taking the new flight. Except for occasional restless periods, it was always to be so. Superficial circumstances might seem to intervene, but the intangible relationship remained — out of sight, at times — beyond reach, even — yet recognised, acknowledged, as when Katherine Mansfield wrote from Paris in 1915 :
“You sent me a letter from L. M. which was simply marvellous. She wrote, as she can, you know, of all sorts of things, grass and birds and little animals and herself and our friendship with that kind of careless, very infinite joy — There is something quite absolute in Lesley — She said at the end of a page— ‘Katie, dearie — what is Eternity?’ She’s about the nearest thing to eternal that I could ever imagine. I wish she were not so far away …”
The chapters of Juliet written during the last months at Queen’s show not only the restlessness which Kathleen seemed impotent to control, but also the fierce rebellion which rose in her at her father’s intention of taking the girls back to New Zealand, when they had finished college at the end of July, 1906; and her desperate and unavailing attempts to persuade the family to let her remain in London. That they were unable to understand the depth of her desire is not remarkable; neither is it strange that it should have seemed to her impossible to be torn from a place where she felt her whole life was centred — all her friends and her interests, and all her opportunities. She believed in herself — yet when one is young, if that belief is not supported by the belief of another, the doubt creeps in :”Can I do this thing?” So she flew to Ida, crying :”But you believe in me — don’t you?”
Her father said, in bewilderment :”I hardly know the girls; I’ve lost them now. I’ll never send the two younger children ‘home’ to be educated.”
But Kathleen, reassured, said to her room-mate :”When I get to New Zealand, I’ll make myself so objectionable that they’ll have to send me away.” Even then she had perception enough — penetration enough — to know the one way of escape.
CHAPTER XI
WELLINGTON: 47 FITZHERBERT TERRACE
“I do not want to earn a living; I want to live.” — Oscar Wilde. (K. M.’s Note Book, 1907.)
1
THE Beauchamp family moved to 47 Fitzherbert Terrace soon after the girls returned to Wellington. The Terrace was the short street behind Tinakori Road, on the other side of the Gully. A swinging bridge joined the two from the Walter Nathan’s corner (which was No. 13 on Tinakori Road, beside Kathleen’s birthplace) to Miss Swainson’s School, second from the bottom of Fitzherbert Terrace. No. 47 was a huge house — larger than “Chesney Wold,” larger than 75 Tinakori Road. It stood second from the top of Fitzherbert Terrace, where the trams turned on Molesworth Street.
On one of her first days back in Wellington, Kass went over the old haunts — down Hill Street, past the Green Gate, through the short cut to the Convent gardens. Had it dwindled, had it changed, while she was away in London?
“i. x. 06.
“I walk along the broad, almost deserted street. It has a meaningless, forsaken, careless look — like a woman who has ceased to believe in her beauty. The splendid rhythm of life is absent. With their white faces the people pass to and fro — silently — drearily — All colour seems to have lost its keenness. The street is as toneless as a great stretch of sand. And now I pass through the narrow iron gates up the little path and through the heavy doors into the church. Silence hung motionless over the church; the shadow of her great wings darkened everything. Through the door the figures of the saints showed — and the altar shone mystical — vision-like. Then I noticed there were many people kneeling in the pews — their attitude strangely beatific — almost old world. A nun came and sat beside me. She raised a passionless, expressionless face — and the rosary shone like a thread of silver through her fingers.”
Now, as Kass leaned from her window in the new home in Fitzherbert Terrace, it seemed strange to see so little of the Tinakori Hills, so little of the Harbour; and to hear the lumbering of trams mingled with the song of tuis. But it was of little moment. She leaned out, looking over the same dark pines that used to hide Ole Underwood so long — four years — ago, pines with a blue ribbon of asphalt running between; but actually, she was leaning out over Mansfield Mews, listening to distant London surging beyond Harley Street:
“Away beyond the line of dark houses there is a sound like the call of the sea after a storm — passionate, solemn, strong …”
She drew back into the room and looked at herself in the glass :
“The same Kathie of long ago, and yet not the same.” Then she pulled the curtains, to shut out Wellington, to shut in her own world :
“Here in my room I feel as though I was in London — in London. To write the word makes me feel that I could burst into tears. Isn’t it terrible to love anything so much? I do not care at all for men, but London — it is Life …”
Here in Wellington it was early morning, early spring; there in London it was Indian summer, and night, with the lights brilliant in Piccadilly Circus. People were streaming from cafés, from the theatres, from Queen’s and Bechstein Hall. Perhaps Arnold Trowell had been playing. She heard the quick notes of his “clever performance,” the comfortable murmur and shuffle of the crowds; she saw the revolving lights.
Here — Wellington — nobody smoked. No advantages. No writers. No artists. No pictures. No books. Who that she knew had heard of Rossetti? (She had just said to Mary, the “model pupil” of Miss Swainson :”You ought to read Rossetti!”) As for having read Wilde! Their idea of interesting conversation was babies and jam-making. Their idea of a big party was Godber’s meringues for tea! She loathed those things; she couldn’t be bothered talking or thinking trivialities. After the friends she’d made, after “literary London,” Wellington was a prison :”If Denmark’s a prison, then is life one.” She had given up everything in coming back, and she was now eighteen. She had vowed — she had written the promise to herself, and signed it and burned it :”In two years I will be famous.” In two years she would be twenty, and buried — as good as dead — at the bottom of the world.
At such times — in such moods — she turned to her ‘cello, or to writing and reading.
From Vignettes
“A year ago we sat by the fire, she and I, hand in hand, cheek to cheek, speaking but little, and then whispering, because the room was so dark, the fire so low, and the rain outside so loud and bitter.
“She, a thin little figure in a long, soft black frock, and a string of amethysts around her white throat.
“Eventually
