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PROJECT MANAGEMENT
METRICS, KPIs, AND
DASHBOARDS
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
METRICS, KPIs, AND
DASHBOARDS
A Guide to Measuring
and Monitoring Project
Performance

Fourth Edition

Harold Kerzner, PhD

Sr. Executive Director for Project Management,
The International Institute for Learning
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Kerzner, Harold, author.
Title: Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards : a guide to
measuring and monitoring project performance / Harold Kerzner, Ph.D.,
Sr. Executive Director for Project Management The International
Institute for Learning.
Description: Fourth Edition. | Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons,
[2023] | Revised edition of the author’s Project management metrics,
KPIs, and dashboards, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021062269 (print) | LCCN 2021062270 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119851554 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119851578 (pdf) | ISBN
9781119851561 (epub) | ISBN 9781119851592 (obook)
Subjects: LCSH: Project management. | Project management–Quality control.
| Performance standards. | Work measurement.
Classification: LCC HD69.P75 K492 2022 (print) | LCC HD69.P75 (ebook) |
DDC 658.4/04–dc23/eng/20220131
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062269
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062270

Cover image: Screenshots © Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. Desktop Computer

SC2D40 © Cover Action Pro 3.
Cover design: Wiley

Set in 10/12pt ITC Giovanni Std by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India
 CONTE N TS

PREFACE ix The Definition of Success Must Include a

“Value” Component 28
ABOUT THE COMPANION WEBSITE xiii
Multiple Components for Success 29

1 TPROJECT
The Future 29
HE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF 1.10 THE GROWTH OF PAPERLESS PROJECT
MANAGEMENT 30
MANAGEMENT 1 1.11 PROJECT MANAGEMENT MATURITY AND
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 1 METRICS 31
1.0 INTRODUCTION 1 1.12 PROJECT MANAGEMENT BENCHMARKING
1.1 EXECUTIVE VIEW OF PROJECT AND METRICS 35
MANAGEMENT 2 Best Practice versus Proven Practice 36
1.2 COMPLEX PROJECTS 5 Benchmarking Methodologies 37
Comparing Traditional and Nontraditional Benchmarking Costs 38
Projects 5 Types of Benchmarking 38
Defining Complexity 8 Benchmarking Code of Conduct 40
Trade-offs 10 Benchmarking Mistakes 40
Skill Set 10 Points to Remember 40
Governance 11 1.13 CONCLUSIONS 41
Decision Making 11
Fluid Methodologies 12
1.3 GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT 12 2 TMETRICS43
HE DRIVING FORCES FOR BETTER
1.4 PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES
AND FRAMEWORKS 14
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 43
Light Methodologies 16
2.0 INTRODUCTION 43
Heavy Methodologies 17
2.1 STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS
Frameworks 17 MANAGEMENT 44
1.5 THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE 20 2.2 PROJECT AUDITS AND THE PMO 55
1.6 ENGAGEMENT PROJECT MANAGEMENT 20 2.3 INTRODUCTION TO SCOPE CREEP 56
1.7 CUSTOMER RELATIONS MANAGEMENT 22
Defining Scope Creep 57
1.8 OTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN PROJECT
Scope Creep Dependencies 60
MANAGEMENT 23
1.9 A NEW LOOK AT DEFINING PROJECT Causes of Scope Creep 60
SUCCESS 24 Need for Business Knowledge 61
Success Is Measured by the Triple Business Side of Scope Creep 62
Constraints 25 Ways to Minimize Scope Creep 62
Customer Satisfaction Must Be Considered as 2.4 PROJECT HEALTH CHECKS 64
Well 25 Understanding Project Health Checks 65
Other (or Secondary) Factors Must Be Considered Who Performs the Health Check? 67
as Well 26 Life Cycle Phases 67
Success Must Include a Business Component 26 2.5 MANAGING DISTRESSED PROJECTS 69
Prioritization of Success Constraints May Be Root Causes of Failure 70
Necessary 27 Definition of Failure 71

ftoc.indd 5 23-09-2022 17:45:39

 vi Contents

Early Warning Signs of Trouble 72 4.5 CATEGORIES OF KPIS 133

Selecting the Recovery Project Manager 73 4.6 KPI SELECTION 134
Recovery Life Cycle Phases 74 4.7 KPI MEASUREMENT 140
4.8 KPI INTERDEPENDENCIES 142

3 METRICS83 4.9 KPIS AND TRAINING 144

4.10 KPI TARGETS 145
4.11 UNDERSTANDING STRETCH TARGETS 148
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 83 4.12 KPI FAILURES 149
3.0 INTRODUCTION 83 4.13 KPIS AND INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL 151
3.1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT METRICS: 4.14 KPI BAD HABITS 154
THE EARLY YEARS 84 KPI Bad Habits Causing Your Performance
The Project 85 Measurement Struggles 154
Timeline 85 4.15 BRIGHTPOINT CONSULTING, INC.—
3.2 PROJECT MANAGEMENT METRICS: DASHBOARD DESIGN: KEY PERFORMANCE
CURRENT VIEW 87 INDICATORS AND METRICS 159
Metrics and Small Companies 88 Introduction 159
3.3 METRICS MANAGEMENT MYTHS 88 Metrics and Key Performance Indicators 160
3.4 SELLING EXECUTIVES ON A METRICS Scorecards, Dashboards, and Reports 161
MANAGEMENT PROGRAM 89 Gathering KPI and Metric Requirements for a
3.5 UNDERSTANDING METRICS 91 Dashboard 162
3.6 CAUSES FOR LACK OF SUPPORT FOR Interviewing Business Users 162
METRICS MANAGEMENT 95 Putting It All Together—the KPI Wheel 163
3.7 USING METRICS IN EMPLOYEE
Start Anywhere, but Go Everywhere 164
PERFORMANCE REVIEWS 96
Wheels Generate Other Wheels 166
3.8 CHARACTERISTICS OF A METRIC 97
3.9 METRIC CATEGORIES AND TYPES 99 A Word about Gathering Requirements and
3.10 SELECTING THE METRICS 101 Business Users 166
3.11 SELECTING A METRIC/KPI OWNER 105 Wrapping It All Up 167
3.12 METRICS AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS 106
3.13 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS 106
3.14 METRICS AND THE PMO 109 5 VMANAGEMENT
ALUE-BASED PROJECT
3.15 METRICS AND PROJECT OVERSIGHT/ METRICS169
GOVERNANCE 112
3.16 METRICS TRAPS 113 CHAPTER OVERVIEW 169
3.17 PROMOTING THE METRICS 114 5.0 INTRODUCTION 169
3.18 CHURCHILL DOWNS INCORPORATED’S 5.1 VALUE OVER THE YEARS 171
PROJECT PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT 5.2 VALUES AND LEADERSHIP 172
APPROACHES 114 Project Manager 173
Toll Gates (Project Management–Related Team Members 173
Progress and Performance Reporting) 116 Organization 174
Quad Sections 116 Stakeholders 174
5.3 COMBINING SUCCESS AND VALUE 175

4 KINDICATORS121
EY PERFORMANCE
Internal Success 177
Financial Success 177
Future Success 177
Customer-related Success 178
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 121
5.4 RECOGNIZING THE NEED FOR VALUE
4.0 INTRODUCTION 121 METRICS 178
4.1 THE NEED FOR KPIS 122 5.5 THE NEED FOR EFFECTIVE MEASUREMENT
4.2 USING THE KPIS 126 TECHNIQUES 181
4.3 THE ANATOMY OF A KPI 128 5.6 CUSTOMER/STAKEHOLDER IMPACT ON
4.4 KPI CHARACTERISTICS 129 VALUE METRICS 187
Accountability 130 5.7 CUSTOMER VALUE MANAGEMENT 188
Empowered 131 5.8 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROJECT
Timely 131 MANAGEMENT AND VALUE 193
Trigger Points 131 5.9 BACKGROUND OF METRICS 197
Easy to Understand 132 Redefining Success 198
Accurate 132 Growth in the Use of Metrics 200
Relevant 133

ftoc.indd 6 23-09-2022 17:45:39

 Contents vii

5.10 SELECTING THE RIGHT METRICS 204 Dashboard Design 253

5.11 THE FAILURE OF TRADITIONAL METRICS Guided Analysis 254
AND KPIS 207 Data Exploration 254
5.12 THE NEED FOR VALUE METRICS 207 More 255
5.13 CREATING A VALUE METRIC 208 Not a Dashboard 255
5.14 PRESENTING THE VALUE METRIC IN A
Conclusion 255
DASHBOARD 215
6.2 HOW WE PROCESS DASHBOARD
5.15 INDUSTRY EXAMPLES OF VALUE
INFORMATION 256
METRICS 216
6.3 DASHBOARD CORE ATTRIBUTES 256
Aerospace and Defense: Company 1 216 6.4 THE MEANING OF INFORMATION 257
Aerospace and Defense: Company 2 217 6.5 TRAFFIC LIGHT DASHBOARD
Capital Projects: Company 2 217 REPORTING 259
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 1 6.6 DASHBOARDS AND SCORECARDS 261
(No Percentages Provided) 217 Dashboards 262
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 2 218 Scorecards 262
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 3 218 Summary 262
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 4 219 6.7 CREATING A DASHBOARD IS A LOT LIKE
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 5 219 ONLINE DATING 264
IT Consulting (External Clients): Company 6 219 Finding Out the Needs of the Stakeholders 264
IT Consulting (Internal): Company 1 219 Making a Connection 264
Software Development: (Internal) (No Choosing Your Key Performance Indicators 265
Percentages Provided) 219 Selecting Your Visuals 265
Telecommunications: Company 1 220 Building on the Momentum 266
Telecommunications: Company 2 (No Maintenance 266
Percentages Provided) 220 6.8 BENEFITS OF DASHBOARDS 266
New Product Development 220 6.9 IS YOUR BI TOOL FLEXIBLE ENOUGH? 267
Automotive Suppliers 220 A Flexible BI Tool—What Does It Mean and Why
Global Consulting: Company 1 (Not Industry Does It Matter? 267
Specific and No Weights) 220 Why Is Flexibility So Important? 268
Global Consulting: Company 2 (Not Industry Stay up to Speed with Your Changing Business
specific and No Weights) 221 Needs 269
5.16 USE OF CRISIS DASHBOARDS FOR OUT-OF- Be Independent (with Fewer Tools and Users
RANGE VALUE ATTRIBUTES 222 Involved to Get Your Job Done) 269
5.17 ESTABLISHING A METRICS MANAGEMENT Adapt to Each and Every User 269
PROGRAM 223 Be Ready for the Unknown 269
5.18 USING VALUE METRICS FOR 6.10 FOUR EASY STEPS TO IMPLEMENTING
FORECASTING 225 A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
5.19 METRICS AND JOB DESCRIPTIONS 226 SOLUTION 270
5.20 GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF Step 1: Understand the Business Needs 270
METRICS 227
Step 2: Keep It SMART 271
5.21 CREATING A PROJECT VALUE
Step 3: Determine Your Deliverables 272
BASELINE 239
Step 4: To the Drawing Board 274
The Performance Measurement Baseline 239
Closing Comments 274
Project Value Management 240
6.11 RULES FOR DASHBOARDS 275
The Value Management Baseline 242
6.12 THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF DASHBOARD
Selecting the Value Baseline Attributes 243 DESIGN AND WHY THEY SHOULD BE
Overachievement Trends 245 AVOIDED 275
Risks of Overachievement 245 Deadly Sin #1: Off the Page, Out of
Mind 276

6 DASHBOARDS 247
Deadly Sin #2: And This Means … What? 276
Deadly Sin #3: Right Data, Wrong Chart 276
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 247 Deadly Sin #4: Not Making the Right
6.0 INTRODUCTION 247 Arrangements 276
6.1 DOES EVERYONE KNOW WHAT A Deadly Sin #5: A Lack of Emphasis 277
DASHBOARD REALLY IS? 252 Deadly Sin #6: Debilitating Detail 277
Dashboards 252 Deadly Sin #7: Not Crunching the Numbers 277

ftoc.indd 7 23-09-2022 17:45:40

 viii Contents

6.13 BRIGHTPOINT CONSULTING, INC.: DESIGNING The Rules for Graphic Design of Your
EXECUTIVE DASHBOARDS 278 Dashboard 365
Introduction 278 The Rules for Placing the Dashboard in
Dashboard Design Goals 278 Front of Your Users—The Key to User
Defining Key Performance Indicators 279 Adoption 366
Defining Supporting Analytics 279 The Rules for Accuracy of Information on Your
Choosing the Correct KPI Visualization Dashboard 367
Components 280 6.23 DASHBOARD LIMITATIONS 367
6.24 THE DASHBOARD PILOT RUN 370
Supporting Analytics 282
6.25 EVALUATING DASHBOARD VENDORS 371
A Word about Labeling Your Charts and
6.26 NEW DASHBOARD APPLICATIONS 372
Graphs 284

7 DASHBOARD APPLICATIONS375
Putting It All Together: Using Size, Contrast, and
Position 284
Validating Your Design 286
6.14 ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD 287 CHAPTER OVERVIEW 375
6.15 USING EMOTICONS 310 7.0 INTRODUCTION 375
6.16 MISLEADING INDICATORS 311 7.1 DASHBOARDS IN ACTION: DUNDAS DATA
6.17 AGILE AND SCRUM METRICS 313 VISUALIZATION 376
Introduction: Agile Overview 313 7.2 DASHBOARDS IN ACTION: PIE 376
Agile Metrics 315 7.3 PIE OVERVIEW 388
General Agile Metrics 316 Pie Dashboard 388
Scrum Metrics 320 Pie Portfolio Timeline 392
Other Sprint Charts 325 Pie Project Timeline 392
Iteration Metrics 327 Pie People Timeline (Resource Planning) 395
Scaled Agile Metrics 327 Pie Project List 397
Lean Kanban Metrics 330 Pie on My Plate 397
Summary 333 Pie Recipes—Flexible Frameworks 403
6.18 DATA WAREHOUSES 333 7.4 DASHBOARDS IN ACTION: INTERNATIONAL
The Growth of Business Intelligence Systems 335 INSTITUTE FOR LEARNING 403
Big Data 336
6.19 DASHBOARD DESIGN TIPS 338
Colors 338 8 TPMO
HE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT
Fonts and Font Size 338 AND METRICS407
Use Screen Real Estate 339
CHAPTER OVERVIEW 407
Component Placement 339
8.0 INTRODUCTION 407
6.20 TEAMQUEST CORPORATION 340
8.1 CRITICAL QUESTIONS 408
White Paper #1: Metric Dashboard Design 340 8.2 VALUE CATEGORIES 408
White Paper #2: Proactive Metrics 8.3 PORTFOLIO METRICS 410
Management 351 8.4 MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES AND
The Future 359 METRICS 411
Conclusion 359 8.5 THE GROWTH OF PORTFOLIO METRICS 413
6.21 A SIMPLE TEMPLATE 360 8.6 METRICS FOR MEASURING INTANGIBLES 415
6.22 SUMMARY OF DASHBOARD DESIGN 8.7 THE NEED FOR STRATEGIC METRICS 418
REQUIREMENTS 360 8.8 CRISIS DASHBOARDS 421
The Importance of Design to Information Defining a Crisis 421
Dashboards 363
The Rules for Color Usage on Your INDEX 425
Dashboard 363

ftoc.indd 8 23-09-2022 17:45:40

 PREFACE

The ultimate purpose of metrics and dashboards is not to provide

more information but to provide the right information to the right
person at the right time, using the correct media and in a cost-effec-
tive manner. This is certainly a challenge. As computer technology
has grown, so has the ease with which information can be generated
and presented to management and stakeholders. Today, everyone
seems concerned about information overload. Unfortunately, the
real issue is non-information overload. In other words, there are too
many useless reports that cannot easily be read and that provide
readers with too much information, much of which may have no rel-
evance. This information simply distracts us from the real issues and
accurate performance reporting. Furthermore, the growth in metric
measurement techniques has encouraged us to measure everything
regardless of its value as part of performance reporting.
The purpose of status reporting is to show us what actions the
viewer must consider. Insufficient or ineffective metrics prevent us
from understanding what decisions really need to be made. In tradi-
tional project review meetings, emphasis is placed on a detailed
schedule analysis and a lengthy review of the cost baseline versus
actual expenditures. The resulting discussion and explanation of the
variances are most frequently pure guesswork. Managers who are
upset about the questioning by senior management then make
adjustments that do not fix the problems but limit the time they will
be grilled by senior management at the next review meeting. They
then end up taking actions that may be counterproductive to the
timely completion of the project, and real issues are hidden.
You cannot correct or improve something that cannot be effec-
tively identified and measured. Without effective metrics, managers
will not respond to situations correctly and will end up reinforcing
undesirable actions by the project team. Keeping the project team
headed in the right direction cannot be done easily without effective
identification and measurement of metrics.
When all is said and done, we wonder why we have studies like
the Chaos Report, which has shown us that over a period of 20 years
only about 30% of the IT projects were completed successfully. We
then identify hundreds of causes as to why projects fail but neglect

ix
x Preface

what is now being recognized as perhaps the single most important

cause: a failure in metrics management.
Metrics management should be addressed in all of the areas of
knowledge in the PMBOK® Guide,1 especially communications
management. We are now struggling to find better ways of commu-
nicating on projects. This will become increasingly important as
companies compete in a global marketplace. Our focus today is on
the unique needs of the receiver of the information. The need to
make faster and better decisions mandates better information.
Human beings can absorb information in a variety of ways. We must
address all of these ways in the selection of the metrics and the design
of the dashboards that convey this information. Dashboards and
data visualization techniques are now part of information ware-
houses and business intelligence systems.
The three most important words in a stakeholder’s vocabulary
are “making informed decisions.” This is usually the intent of effec-
tive stakeholder relations management. Unfortunately, this cannot
be accomplished without an effective information system based on
meaningful and informative metrics and key performance indicators
(KPIs).
All too often, we purchase project management software and
reluctantly rely on the report generators, charts, and graphs to pro-
vide the necessary information, even when we realize that this
information either is not sufficient or has limited value. Even those
companies that create their own project management methodologies
neglect to consider the metrics and KPIs that are needed for effective
stakeholder relations management. Informed decisions require effec-
tive information. We all seem to understand this, yet it has only been
in recent years that we have tried to do something about it.
For decades we believed that the only information that needed to
be passed on to the client and the stakeholders was information
related to time and cost. Today we realize that the true project status
cannot be determined from time and cost alone. Each project may
require its own unique metrics and KPIs. The future of project
management may very well be metric-driven project management.
Information design has finally come of age. Effective communi-
cations is the essence of information design. Today we have many
small companies that are specialists in business information design.
Larger companies may maintain their own specialist team and call
these people graphic designers, information architects, or interaction
designers. These people maintain expertise in the visual display of
both quantitative and qualitative information necessary for informed
decision making.
Traditional communications and information flow has always
been based on tables, charts, and indexes that were, it is hoped, orga-
nized properly by the designer. Today information or data graphics
combines points, lines, charts, symbols, images, words, numbers,

1 PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

 Preface xi

shades, and a symphony of colors necessary to convey the right mes-

sage easily. What we know with certainty is that dashboards and met-
rics are never an end in themselves. They go through continuous
improvement and are constantly updated. In a project management
environment, each receiver of information can have different require-
ments and may request different information during the life cycle of
the project.
With this in mind, the book is structured as follows:
■ Chapters 1 and 2 identify how project management has changed
over the last few years and how more pressure is being placed on
organizations for effective metrics management.
■ Chapter 3 provides an understanding of what metrics are and how
they can be used.
■ Chapter 4 discusses key performance indications and explains the
difference between metrics and KPIs.
■ Chapter 5 focuses on the value-driven metrics and value-driven
KPIs. Stakeholders are asking for more metrics related to the proj-
ect’s ultimate value. The identification and measurement of value-
driven metrics can be difficult.
■ Chapter 6 describes how dashboards can be used to present the
metrics and KPIs to stakeholders. Examples of dashboards are
included together with some rules for dashboard design.
■ Chapter 7 identifies dashboards that are being used by
companies.
■ Chapter 8 provides various business-related metrics that are
currently used by portfolio management project management
­
offices to ensure that the business portfolio is delivering the
business value expected.

HAROLD KERZNER, PhD

Sr. Executive Director for Project Management
The International Institute for Learning
 ABOUT THE COMPANION WEBSITE

This book is accompanied by a companion website which includes a

number of resources created by author that you will find helpful.
www.wiley.com/go/kerznermetrics4e
This is an Instructor website.
Please note that the resources in instructor website are password
protected and can only be accessed by instructors who register with
the site.

xiii
 1 THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF
PROJECT MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER The way project managers managed projects in the past will not suf-
OVERVIEW fice for many of the projects being managed now or for the projects
of the future. The complexity of these projects will place pressure
on organizations to better understand how to identify, select, mea-
sure, and report project metrics, especially metrics showing value
creation. The future of project management may very well be metric-
driven project management. In addition, new approaches to project
management, such as those with agile and Scrum, have brought with
them new sets of metrics.

CHAPTER ■ To understand how project management has changed

OBJECTIVES ■ To understand the need for project management metrics
■ To understand the need for better, more complex project
management metrics

KEY WORDS ■ Certification boards

■ Complex projects
■ Engagement project management
■ Frameworks
■ Governance
■ Project management methodologies
■ Project success

1.0 INTRODUCTION
For more than 50 years, project management has been in use but per-
haps not on a worldwide basis. What differentiated companies in the
early years was whether they used project management or not, not
how well they used it. Today, almost every company uses project
management, and the differentiation is whether they are simply good
at project management or whether they truly excel at project
management. The difference between using project management
and being good at it is relatively small, and most companies can
become good at project management in a relatively short time,
Project Management Metrics, KPIs, and Dashboards: A Guide to Measuring and Monitoring
Project Performance, Fourth Edition. Harold Kerzner.
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Companion Website: www.wiley.com/go/kerznermetrics4e

1
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little girl. She mustn’t be overtired. Too many people to pour out for aren’t
at all good for her just now.’
‘But there wouldn’t be anybody but us,’ Catherine had said. ‘And
Virginia says she hasn’t seen you for ages.’
‘Yes. Not since the day you arrived. It does seem a long while to me too,
but believe me it wouldn’t be fair to the child to have all of us there at
once.’
She had then busily talked of other matters, entertaining her visitor with
tales of her simple but full life, explaining how she didn’t know, owing to
never being idle a moment, what loneliness meant, and couldn’t understand
why women should ever want to be anywhere but in their own homes.
‘At our age one wants just one’s own home, doesn’t one, dear Mrs.
Cumfrit. However small it is, however modest, it is home. Don’t you too
feel how, as one gets older, one’s own little daily round, one’s own little
common task, gone cheerfully, done thoroughly, become more and more
satisfying and beautiful?’
Catherine said she did.
Mrs. Colquhoun begged her to take some refreshment after her walk,
declaring that after a certain age it was one’s duty not to overtax the body.
‘We grandmothers——’ she said, smiling.
Catherine endeavoured to respond to Mrs. Colquhoun’s playfulness, by
more on the same lines of her own.
‘Oh, but we mustn’t count our grandchildren before they’re hatched,’ she
had said with answering smiles.
And Mrs. Colquhoun had seemed a little shocked at that. The word
hatched, perhaps ... in connection with Stephen’s child.
‘Dear Mrs. Cumfrit——’ she had murmured, in the tone of one
overlooking a lapse.
 But it wasn’t her visit to Mrs. Colquhoun that was making her undress so
thoughtfully on Wednesday night, but the fact, most disagreeable to have to
admit, that she was tired of Stephen. From the beginning of the tête-à-tête
walks she had been afraid that presently she might get a little tired of him,
and now, after the tenth of them, the thing she feared had happened.
This dejected her, for it was her earnest wish not to get tired of Stephen.
He was her Virginia’s loved husband, he was her host; and she wished to
feel nothing towards him but the warmest affectionate interest. If she saw
less of him, she reflected as she slowly, and with the movements of fatigue,
got ready for bed, it would be easier. Wisdom dictated that Stephen should
be eked out; but how could one eke out a host so persistent in doing his
duty? It was difficult. It was very, very difficult.
She sat a long time pensive by the fire, wondering how she was going to
bear any more of these walks to and from church. Good to have a refuge,
but sometimes its price....
And while she was sitting thus, Stephen in their bedroom was saying to
Virginia: ‘I miss our mother.’
‘Which one?’ asked Virginia, not at first quite following.
‘Ours,’ said Stephen. ‘She hasn’t been here since yours arrived. Have
you noticed that, darling?’
‘Indeed I have. And I miss her very much, too. I asked her to come to tea
this afternoon, but she didn’t. The message mother brought back wasn’t
very clear, I thought.’
There was a pause. Then Stephen said: ‘She is full of tact.’
‘Which one?’ asked Virginia again, who felt—and how mournfully—
that he could no longer mean her mother, but tried to hope he did.
‘Ours,’ said Stephen, stroking Virginia’s hair; and presently added, ‘We
must make allowances.’
Virginia sighed.
On Thursday night, when Catherine was once more going to bed, she sat
for a long while without undressing, staring into the fire. She was too tired
to undress. Her mind was as tired as her body. Her spirits were low. For,
while the night before she had been facing the fact that she was tired of
Stephen, to-night she was facing the much worse fact that he was tired of
her. She hadn’t been able to help noticing it. It had become obvious on their
twelfth walk; and it had added immensely to her struggles.
For what can one say to somebody who, one feels in one’s bones, is tired
of one? How difficult, in such a case, is conversation. It had been difficult
enough before, but that day, on making her discovery, it had become as
good as impossible. Yet there were the conventions; and for two grown-up
people to walk together and not speak was absurd. They simply had to. And
as Catherine was more practised than Stephen in easy talk, it was she who,
struggling, had had to do more and more of it until, as he grew ever dumber,
she had to do it all.
In the house, too, the same thing had happened. The meals had been
almost monologues—Catherine’s—for the honest Virginia was incapable of
talking if she had nothing she wished to say, or, rather, nothing she
considered desirable should be said. They would have sat at the table in
dead silence but for Catherine’s efforts. As it was, she only succeeded in
extracting occasional words, mostly single, from the other two.
Well, it was evident that in ordinary cases, having tired one’s host, one
would go away. But was this quite an ordinary case? She couldn’t think so.
She couldn’t help remembering, though it was a thing she never thought of,
that she had made way without difficulty for Stephen to come and live in
this very house, giving him everything—why, with both hands giving him
everything—and she couldn’t help feeling that to be allowed to stay in it for
a few days, or even weeks, wasn’t so very much to want of him. Not that he
didn’t allow her to stay in it; he was still assiduous in all politenesses,
opening doors, and lighting candles, and so on. It was only that she knew he
was tired of her; tired to the point of no longer being able to speak when she
was there.
Catherine wasn’t very vain, but what vanity she had was ruffled. She
tried, however, to be fair. She had been tired of Stephen first, and had
thought it natural. Now that he, in his turn, was tired of her, why should she
mind? She did, however, mind. She had taken such pains to be agreeable.
She had walked backwards and forwards to church so assiduously—walked
miles and miles, if one counted all the times up. And she had really tried
very hard to talk on subjects that interested him,—the parish, the plans, the
services, even adventuring into the region of religion. Why should he be
tired of her? Why had this blight descended on him? Why had he become
speechless? Why?
As she sat by her fire on Thursday night she felt curiously down and
lonely. Stephen and Virginia, she had become conscious during the week,
were very much one, and a fear stole into her heart, a small flicker of fear,
gone as soon as come, that perhaps they were one too in this, and that
Virginia too might be....
No, she turned her head away and wouldn’t even look in the direction of
such a fear. But, sitting there in the night, with the big house with all its
passages and empty rooms on the other side of her door dark and silent, the
feeling came upon her that she was a ghost injudiciously wandered back to
its old haunts, to find, what it might have known, that it no longer had part
nor lot in them.
From this feeling too she turned away, and impatiently, for it was a
shame to feel like that when there was Virginia.
And while she sat looking at the fire, her hands hanging over the sides of
the chair, too weary to go to bed, Stephen in their room said to Virginia:
‘What a very blessed thing it is, my darling, that each day has to end, and
that then there is night.’
And Virginia said, ‘Oh, Stephen—isn’t it!’

XV
On Saturday Stephen would have to go up to London for his two last
Lenten sermons in the City, and Catherine made up her mind that she would
stay over the week-end, because he wouldn’t then be there to be oppressed
by her, and she would go away on Monday before he came back.
Gradually, in bed on Friday morning during the interval between
drinking her tea and getting up, she came to this decision. In the morning
light—the sun was shining that day—it seemed rather amusing than
otherwise that her son-in-law should so quickly have come to the end of his
powers of enduring her. Hers, after all, was to be the conventional fate of
mothers-in-law. And she had supposed herself so much nicer than most!
She thought, ‘How funny,’ and tried to see it as altogether amusing; but it
was not altogether amusing. ‘You’re vain,’ she then rebuked herself.
 Yes; she would follow Mrs. Colquhoun’s example, and stay in her own
home. Perhaps that was the secret of Mrs. Colquhoun’s success as a mother-
in-law, and she, very obviously, was a success. She would emulate her; and
from her own home defy Christopher.
It was all owing to him that she had ever left her home. How unfortunate
that she should have come across somebody so mad. Oughtn’t Stephen and
his mother, if they knew the real reason for her appearance in their midst,
applaud her as discreet? What could a woman do more proper than, in such
circumstances, run away? But they would be too profoundly shocked by the
real reason to be able to do anything but regard her, she was sure, with
horror. Her, not Christopher. And she was afraid their attitude would be
natural. ‘We grandmothers....’
Catherine turned red. Mercifully, no one would ever know. Down here,
in this atmosphere where she was regarded as coeval with Mrs. Colquhoun,
those encounters with Christopher seemed infinitely worse than in London,
—so bad, indeed, that they hardly seemed real. She would go back on
Monday, declining to be kept out of her own home longer, and take firm
steps. Christopher should never see her again. If he tried to, she would write
a letter that would clear his mind for ever, and she would, for what was left
to her of life, proceed with undeviating dignity along her allotted path to old
age. And after all, what could he really do? Between her and him there was,
first, the hall porter, and then Mrs. Mitcham. To both of these she would
give precise instructions.
In this state of mind, a state more definite than any she had been in that
week, as if a ray of light, pale and wintry, but yet light, had straggled for a
moment through the mists, did Catherine get up that morning; but not in
this state of mind did she that evening go to bed, for by the evening she had
made a further discovery, and one that took away what still was left of her
vitality: Virginia was tired of her too.
Virginia. It seemed impossible. She couldn’t believe it. But, believe it or
not, she knew it; and she knew it because that afternoon at tea, before
Virginia had had time to take care, her face had flashed into immense,
unmistakable relief when her mother said, in answer to some inquiry of
Mrs. Colquhoun’s, who had at last consented to come round, that she would
have to go back to London on Monday. Instantly the child’s face had
flashed into light; and though she had, as it were, at once banged the
shutters to again, the flash had escaped, and Catherine had seen it.
After this her spirits were at zero. She allowed herself to be taken away
to church—though why any longer bother to try to please Stephen?—
because she was too spiritless to say she preferred to stay at home. She went
there one of four this time, Mr. Lambton having come in too to tea, and
walked silent among them. The others were very nearly gay. The effect of
her announcement had been to restore speech to Stephen, to make Mrs.
Colquhoun more cordial than ever, and even to produce in Mr. Lambton,
who without understanding the cause yet felt the sudden rise of
temperature, almost a friskiness. It was nice, thought Catherine drearily,
trying to be sardonic so as not to be too deeply hurt, to have the power of
making four people happy by just saying one was going away.
She walked among them in silence, unable to feel sardonic long, and
telling herself that it wasn’t really true that Virginia was tired of her, for it
wasn’t Virginia at all,—it was Stephen. Virginia, being so completely one
with him, had caught it from him as one catches a disease. The disease
wasn’t part of Virginia; it would go, and she would be as she was before.
Catherine, however, would not stay a minute longer than Monday morning.
She would have liked to go away the very next day, but to alter her
announced intention now might make Virginia afraid her mother had
noticed something, and then she would be so unhappy, poor little thing,
thinking she had hurt her. For, after that one look of relief, she had blushed
painfully, and what she was feeling had opened out before Catherine like a
book: she was glad her mother was going, and was unhappy that she should
be glad.
No; Catherine would stay till Monday, so that Virginia shouldn’t be hurt
by the knowledge that she had hurt her mother. Oh, these family tangles and
tendernesses, these unexpected inflamed places that mustn’t be touched,
these complicated emotions, and hurtings, and avoidances and
concealments, these loving intentions and these wretched results! It wasn’t
easy to be a mother successfully, and she began to perceive it was difficult
successfully to be a daughter. The position of mother-in-law, which she had
taken on so lightly as a natural one, not giving it a thought, wasn’t at all
easy to fill either, being evidently a highly complicated and artificial affair.
She thought she saw, too, that sons-in-law might have their difficulties; and
she ended, as the party approached the churchyard, by thinking it
extraordinarily difficult successfully to be a human being at all. She felt
very old. She missed George.
Mr. Lambton opened the gate for the ladies, and, with his Rector, stood
aside. Mrs. Colquhoun was prepared to persuade Catherine to pass through
first, but Catherine, in deep abstraction, and seeing an open gate in her path,
passed through it without persuasion.
‘Absent-minded,’ thought Mrs. Colquhoun, explaining this otherwise
ruffling lapse from manners. ‘Ageing,’ she added, explaining the absent-
mindedness; and there was something dragging about Catherine’s walk
which really did look rather old.
The others caught her up. ‘A penny, dear Mrs. Cumfrit,’ said Mrs.
Colquhoun, rallying her, ‘for your thoughts.’
They happened to be passing George’s tomb—George, the unfailingly
good, the unvaryingly kind, the steadfastly loving, George who had been so
devoted to her, and never, never got tired of her—and Catherine, roused
thus suddenly, said absently, ‘I miss George.’
It spread a chill, this answer of hers. It was so unexpected. Mr. Lambton,
though unaware of the cause, for he didn’t know, being new in the parish,
what George was being missed, felt the drop in the temperature and
immediately dropped with it into silence. Neither Mrs. Colquhoun nor
Stephen could think for a moment of anything to say. Poor Mr. Cumfrit had
been dead twelve years, and to be missed out loud after twelve solid years
of death seemed to them uncalled for. It put them in an awkward position. It
was almost an expression of dissatisfaction with the present situation. And,
in any case, after twelve years it was difficult to condole with reasonable
freshness.
Something had to be done, however, if only because of Mr. Lambton;
and Stephen spoke first.
‘Ah,’ he said; and then, because he couldn’t think of anything else, said
it again more thoughtfully. ‘Ah,’ said Stephen a second time.
And Mrs. Colquhoun, taking Catherine’s arm, and walking thus with her
the rest of the way to the porch, said, ‘Dear Mrs. Cumfrit, I do so
understand. Haven’t I been through it all too?’
‘I can’t think why I said that,’ said Catherine, looking first at her and
then at Stephen, lost in surprise at herself, her cheeks flushed.
 ‘So natural, so natural,’ Mrs. Colquhoun assured her; to which Stephen,
desirous of doing his best, added, ‘Very proper.’
That night in their bedroom Stephen said to Virginia: ‘Your mother
misses your father.’
Virginia looked at him with startled eyes. ‘Oh? Do you think so,
Stephen? Why?’ she asked, turning red; for how dreadful if her mother had
felt, had noticed, that she and Stephen.... Yet why else should she suddenly
begin to miss....
‘Because she said so.’
Virginia stood looking at Stephen, the comb with which she was
combing out her long dark hair suspended. It wasn’t natural to begin all
over again missing her father. Her mother wouldn’t have if she hadn’t
noticed.... How dreadful. She would so much hate her to be hurt. Poor
mother. Yet what could she do? Stephen, and his peace and happiness, did
come first. Except that she couldn’t imagine such expressions applied to
either of them, she did feel as if she were between the devil and the deep
sea.
‘Do you think—do you suppose——’ she faltered.
‘It is not, is it my darling, altogether flattering to us,’ said Stephen.
‘Oh, Stephen—yes—I know you’ve done all you could. You’ve been
wonderful——’
She put down the comb and went across to him, and he enfolded her in
his arms.
‘I wish——’ she began.
‘What do you wish, my beloved wife?’ he asked, laying one hand, as if
in blessing, on her head. ‘I hope it is something nice, for, you know,
whatever it is you wish I shall be unable not to wish it too.’
She smiled, and sighed, and nestled close.
‘Darling Stephen,’ she murmured; and after a moment said, with another
sigh, ‘I wish mother didn’t miss father.’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘Indeed I wish it too. But,’ he went on, stroking the
long lovely strands of her thick hair, ‘we must make allowances.’

XVI
The next morning Catherine went to church for the last time—for when
Stephen was in London, and not there to invite her to accompany him,
which he solemnly before each separate service did, there would be no
more need to go—and for the last time mingled her psalms with Mrs.
Colquhoun’s.
The psalms at Morning Prayer were said, not sung, and she was in the
middle of joining with Mrs. Colquhoun in asserting that it was better to
trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man, which at that moment
she was very willing to believe, when she felt she was being stared at.
She looked up from her prayer-book, but could see only a few backs,
and, one on each side of the chancel, Stephen and Mr. Lambton tossing the
verses backwards and forwards across to each other, as if they were a kind
of holy ball. She went on with her psalm, but the feeling grew stronger, and
at last, contrary to all decent practice, she turned round.
There was Christopher.
She stood gazing at him, her open prayer-book in her hand, for such an
appreciable moment that Mrs. Colquhoun had to say the next verse without
her.
The same stone, said Mrs. Colquhoun very loud and distinctly, and in a
voice of remonstrance—for really, what had come over Virginia’s mother,
turning her back on the altar in this manner?—which the builders refused is
become the head-stone of the corner.
She had to say all the other verses without her as well, and all
subsequent responses, because Virginia’s mother, though she presently
resumed her proper eastward position, was thenceforth—such odd
behaviour—dumb.
Perhaps she was not feeling well. She certainly looked pale, or, rather,
yellow, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, observing her during the reading of the
first lesson, through which she sat with downcast eyes and grew, so it
seemed to Mrs. Colquhoun, steadily yellower.
‘Dear Mrs. Cumfrit,’ whispered Mrs. Colquhoun at last, bending towards
her, for she really did look sick, and it would be terrible if she—‘would you
like to go out?’
‘Oh no,’ was the quick, emphatic answer.
 The service came to an end, it seemed to Catherine, in a flash. She
hadn’t had time to settle anything at all in her mind. She didn’t in the least
know what she was going to do. How had he found her? Had Mrs. Mitcham
betrayed her? After her orders, her strict, exact orders? Was everybody
failing her, even Mrs. Mitcham? How dared he follow her. It was
persecution. And what was she to do, what was she to do, if he behaved
badly, if he showed any of his idiotic, his mad feelings?
She knelt so long after the benediction that Mrs. Colquhoun began to
fidget. Mrs. Colquhoun couldn’t get out. She was hemmed into the pew by
the kneeling figure. The few worshippers went away, and still Virginia’s
mother—really most odd—knelt. The outer door of the vestry was banged
to, which meant Stephen and Mr. Lambton had gone, and still she knelt.
The verger came down the aisle with his keys jingling to lock up, and still
she knelt. ‘This,’ thought Mrs. Colquhoun, vexed by such a prolonged and
ill-timed devoutness, ‘is ostentation.’ And she touched Catherine’s elbow.
‘Dear Mrs. Cumfrit——’ she reminded her.
Catherine got up, very pale. The moment had come when she must turn
and face Christopher.
But the church was empty. No one was in it except the verger, waiting
down by the door with his keys and looking patient. If only Christopher had
gone right away—if only something in the service had touched him, and
made him see he was behaving outrageously, and he had gone right away....
The porch, too, was empty. Perhaps he had really gone. Perhaps—she
almost began to hope he had never been there, that she had imagined him.
She walked slowly beside Mrs. Colquhoun along the path to the churchyard
gate. Stephen had hurried off to a sick-bed, Mr. Lambton had withdrawn to
his lodgings to prepare his Sunday sermons.
‘I’m afraid you felt unwell in church,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, suiting her
steps to Catherine’s, which were small and slow, which, in fact, dragged.
‘I have rather a headache to-day,’ said Catherine, in a voice that trailed
away into indistinctness, for, on turning a bend in the path, there once more
was Christopher.
He was examining George’s tomb.
Mrs. Colquhoun saw him at the same moment, and her attention was at
once diverted from Catherine. Strangers were rare in that quiet corner of the
world, and she scrutinised this one with keen, interested eyes. The young
man in his leather motoring-clothes pleased her, for not only was he a well-
set-up young man, but he was reading poor Mr. Cumfrit’s inscription
bareheaded. So, in her opinion, should all hic jacet inscriptions be read. It
showed, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, a rather delicate reverence, not usually
found in these wild scorchers of the road. If Mr. Cumfrit had been the
Unknown Warrior himself his inscription couldn’t have been read more
respectfully.
She was pleased, and wondered complacently who the stranger could be;
and almost before she had had time to wonder, he turned from the tomb and
came towards them.
‘Why, he seems——’ she began; for the young man was showing signs
of recognition, his face was widening in greeting, and the next moment he
was holding out his hand to her companion.
‘How do you do,’ he said, with such warmth that she concluded he must
be Mrs. Cumfrit’s favourite nephew. She had never heard of any nephews,
but most families have got some.
‘How do you do,’ replied her companion, with no warmth at all—with,
indeed, hardly any voice at all.
The newcomer, standing bareheaded in the sun, seemed red all over. His
face was very red, and his hair glowed. She liked the look of him. Vigour.
Life. A relief after her bloodless companion.
‘Introduce us,’ she said briskly, with the frankness she felt her age
entitled her to when dealing with young folk of the other sex. ‘I am sure,’
she said heartily, holding out her hand in its sensible, loose-fitting wash-
leather glove, ‘you are one of Mrs. Cumfrit’s nephews, and our dear
Virginia’s cousin.’
‘No, I’m dashed if I am,’ exclaimed the stranger. ‘I mean’—he turned an
even more fiery red—‘I’m not.’
‘Mr. Monckton,’ said Catherine, in a far-away voice.
‘She doesn’t tell you who I am,’ smiled Mrs. Colquhoun, gripping his
hand, still pleased with him in spite of his exclamation, for she liked young
men, and there existed, besides, a tradition that she got on well with them,
and knew how to manage them. ‘Have you noticed that people who
introduce hardly ever do so completely? I’m the other mother-in-law.’
 A faint hope began to flutter in Catherine’s heart. Christopher had the
appearance of one who doesn’t know what to say next. She had never
known him not know that before. If Mrs. Colquhoun could reduce him to
silence, she might yet get through the next few minutes not too
discreditably. ‘Mrs. Cumfrit and I,’ explained Mrs. Colquhoun, putting her
arm through Catherine’s, as though elucidating her, ‘are both the mothers-
in-law of the same delightful couple—I of her daughter, she of my son. We
are linked together, she and I, in indissoluble bonds.’
Christopher wished to slay her as she stood. The liberal days were past,
however, when one could behave simply, and as he couldn’t behave simply
and slay her, he didn’t know how to behave to her at all.
‘The woman has a beak,’ he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before
her. ‘She’s a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine. Linked
together! Good God.’
Convention preventing his saying this out loud, or any of the other things
he was feeling, he turned in silence and walked with them, on the other side
of Catherine, towards the gate.
A faint desire to laugh stole like a small trickle of reviving courage
through Catherine’s cowed spirit. It was the first desire of the kind she had
had since she got to Chickover, and it arrived, she couldn’t help noticing, at
the same time as Christopher.
Mrs. Colquhoun was a little surprised at the silence of her two
companions. Mr. Monckton, whoever he might be, didn’t respond to her
friendliness as instantly as other young men she had dealt with, and Mrs.
Cumfrit said nothing either. Then she remembered her friend’s attack in
church, and made allowances; while as for Mr. Monckton, whoever he
might be, he probably was shy. Well, she knew how to manage shy young
folk; they never stayed shy long with her.
‘Mrs. Cumfrit,’ she explained over the top of Catherine’s head to
Christopher, ‘isn’t feeling very well to-day.’
‘Oh?’ said Christopher quickly, with a swift, anxious look at Catherine.
‘No. So we mustn’t make her talk, Mr. Monckton. She turned a little
faint just now in church’—again the desire to laugh crept through
Catherine. ‘She’ll be all right presently, and meanwhile you and I will
entertain each other. You shall tell me all about yourself, and how it is
you’ve dropped out of the clouds into our quiet little midst.’
 Christopher’s earnest wish at that moment was to uproot one of the
tombstones and with it fell Mrs. Colquhoun to the ground. That old jackdaw
Stephen’s mother ... birds of a feather ... making him look and be a fool....
‘Do tell us,’ urged Mrs. Colquhoun pleasantly, across the top of
Catherine’s head, as he said nothing.
Catherine, walking in silence between them, began to feel she was in
competent hands.
‘There isn’t much to tell,’ said Christopher, thus inexorably urged, and
flaming red to the roots of his flaming hair.
‘Everything,’ Mrs. Colquhoun assured him encouragingly, ‘interests us
here. All is grist to our quiet little mills—isn’t it, dear Mrs. Cumfrit. Ah, no
—I forgot. You are not to be made to talk. We will do it all for you, won’t
we, Mr. Monckton.’
They had got to the gate. Christopher lunged at it to open it for them.
As Catherine went through it he said to her quickly, in a low voice, ‘You
look years older.’
She raised her eyes a moment. ‘I always was,’ she murmured, with, she
hoped, blood-curdling significance.
‘Older?’ repeated Mrs. Colquhoun, whose hearing, as she often told her
friends, was still, she was thankful to say, unimpaired. ‘That, my young
friend, is what may be said daily of us all. No doubt Mrs. Cumfrit notices a
change even in you. Have you not met for a long while?’
‘Not for an eternity,’ said Christopher, in the sort of voice a man swears
with.
A motor-cycle with a side-car was in the road outside the gate, and Mrs.
Colquhoun paused on seeing it.
‘Yours, of course, Mr. Monckton,’ she said. ‘This is the machine in
which you have dropped out of the skies on us. And with a side-car, too. An
empty one, though. I don’t like to think of a young man with an empty side-
car. But perhaps the young lady has merely gone for a little stroll?’
‘I have brought it to take Mrs. Cumfrit back to London in,’ said
Christopher stiffly; but of what use stiffness, of what use dignity, when one
was being made to look and be such a hopeless fool?
‘Really?’ said Mrs. Colquhoun, excessively surprised. ‘Only, she doesn’t
go back till Monday—do you, dear Mrs. Cumfrit. Ah, no—don’t talk. I
forgot.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Christopher.
‘Really?’ said Mrs. Colquhoun again; and was for a moment, in her turn,
silent.
A side-car seemed to her a highly unsuitable vehicle for a person of Mrs.
Cumfrit’s age. Nor could she recollect, during all the time she had, off and
on, known her, ever having seen her in such a thing. Instinct here began to
warn her, as she afterwards was fond of telling her friends, that the situation
was not quite normal. How far it was from normal, however, instinct in her
case, being that of a decent elderly woman presently to become a
grandmother, was naturally incapable of guessing.
‘You didn’t tell us, dear Mrs. Cumfrit,’ she said, turning to her pale and
obviously not very well companion, ‘that this was to be your mode of
progress. Delightful, of course, in a way. But personally I should be afraid
of the shaking. Young people don’t feel these things as we do. Are you,
then,’ she continued, turning to Christopher, ‘staying in the neighbourhood
over Sunday?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher, taking a rug out of the side-car and unfolding it.
‘I wonder where. You’ll think me an inquisitive old woman, but really I
wonder where. You see, I know this district so well, and there isn’t—oh, I
expect you’re with the Parkers. They usually have a houseful of young
people for the week-end. You’ll enjoy it. The country round is—What, are
you going on, dear Mrs. Cumfrit? Then good-bye for the present. I shall see
you at lunch. Virginia always likes me to come in on these Lenten
Saturdays while Stephen is away. It has become a ritual. Now take my
advice, and lie down for half an hour. I’m a very sensible person, Mr.
Monckton, and know that one can’t go on for ever as if one were still
twenty-five.’
Christopher stepped forward, intercepting Catherine. ‘I’ll drive you
back,’ he said.
‘I’d rather walk,’ she said.
‘Then I’ll walk with you.’ And he threw the rug into the side-car again.
‘What? And leave your motor-cycle and rug and everything
unprotected?’ exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun, who had listened to this brief
dialogue with surprise. Mr. Monckton, whoever he might be, was neither
Mrs. Cumfrit’s son, for she hadn’t got one, nor her nephew, for he had
himself said, with the emphasis of the male young, that he wasn’t, and his
masterfulness seemed accordingly a little unaccountable.
‘You’d better let me drive you,’ he persisted to her pale companion,
taking no notice of this exclamation. ‘You oughtn’t to walk.’
Was he, perhaps, thought Mrs. Colquhoun, a doctor? A young doctor?
Mrs. Cumfrit’s London medical adviser? If so, of course.... Yet even then,
her not having mentioned his expected arrival, and her plan for motoring up
with him on Monday, was odd. Besides, nobody except the very rich had
doctors dangling after them.
‘Let me drive you,’ said the young man again.
And Mrs. Cumfrit said—rather helplessly, Mrs. Colquhoun thought, as if
she were seriously lacking in backbone, ‘Very well.’
It was all extremely odd.
‘Virginia will wonder,’ remarked Mrs. Colquhoun, looking on with a
distinctly pursed expression while her colleague was being rolled into the
rug as carefully as if she were china,—rolled right up to her chin in it, as if
she were going thousands of miles, and at least to Lapland. ‘But no doubt
you have told her Mr. Monckton was coming down.’
‘I shall only drive part of the way,’ answered Mrs. Cumfrit—there was a
tinge of colour in her face now, Mrs. Colquhoun noticed; perhaps the tight
rug was choking her—‘but I shall get back quicker like this.’
‘I wonder,’ said Mrs. Colquhoun grimly.
She watched them disappear in a cloud of dust, and then turned to go
home, where she had several things to see to before lunching at the Manor;
but, pausing, she decided that she would walk round into the village instead,
and see if she could meet Stephen. Perhaps he would be able to explain Mr.
Monckton.
And Catherine did not, after all, get back quicker. No sooner was she off,
at what seemed to her a great pace, than she began to have misgivings about
it, for it occurred to her that on her feet she could go where she liked, but in
Christopher’s side-car she would have to go where he did.
‘That’s the turning,’ she called out—she found she had to speak very
loud to get heard above the din the thing made—pointing to a road to the
right a short distance ahead.
 ‘Is it?’ Christopher shouted back; and rushed past it.

XVII
The noise, the shaking, the wind, made it impossible to say much. Perhaps
up there above her on his perch he really didn’t hear; he anyhow behaved as
if he didn’t. Getting no answer to any of the things she said, she looked up
at him. He was intent, bent forward, his mouth tight shut, and his hair—he
had nothing on his head—blown backwards, shining in the sun.
The anger died from her face. It was so absurd, what was happening to
her, that she couldn’t be angry. All the trouble she had taken to get away
from him, all she had endured and made Stephen and Virginia endure that
week as a result of it, ending like this, in being caught and carried off in a
side-car! Besides, there was something about him sitting up there in the sun,
something in his expression, at once triumphant and troubled, determined
and anxious, happy and scared, that brought a smile flickering round the
corners of her mouth, which, however, she carefully buried in her scarf.
And as she settled down into the rug, for she couldn’t do anything at that
moment except go, except rush, except be hurtled, as she gave herself up to
this extraordinary temporary abduction, a queer feeling stole over her as if
she had come in out of the cold into a room with a bright fire in it. Yes, she
had been cold; and with Christopher it was warm. Absurd as it was, she felt
she was with somebody of her own age again.
They were through the village in a flash. Stephen, still on his way to the
sick-bed he was to console, was caught up and passed without his knowing
who was passing. He jumped aside when he heard the noise of their
approach behind him,—quickly, because he was cautious and they were
close, and without looking at them, because motor-cycles and the ways of
young men who used them were repugnant to him.
Christopher rushed past him with a loud hoot. It sounded defiant.
Catherine gathered, from its special violence, that her son-in-law had been
recognised.
The road beyond Chickover winds sweetly among hills. If one continues
on it long enough, that is for twenty miles or so, one comes to the sea. This
was where Christopher took Catherine that morning, not stopping a
moment, nor slowing down except when prudence demanded, nor speaking
a word till he got there. At the bottom of the steep bit at the end, down
which he went carefully, acutely aware of the preciousness of his passenger,
where between grassy banks the road abruptly finishes in shingle and the
sea, he stopped, got off, and came round to unwind her.
This was the moment he was most afraid of.
She looked so very small, rolled round in the rug like a little bolster,
propped up in the side-car, that his heart misgave him worse than ever. It
had been misgiving him without interruption the whole way, but it misgave
him worse than ever now. He felt she was too small to hurt, to anger, even
to ruffle; that it wasn’t fair; that he ought, if he must attack, attack a woman
more his own size.
And she didn’t say anything. She had, he knew, said a good many things
when they passed that turning, none of which he could hear, but since then
she had been silent. She was silent now; only, over the top of her scarf,
which had got pushed up rather funnily round her ears, her eyes were fixed
on him.
‘There. Here we are,’ he said. ‘We can talk here. If you’ll stand up I’ll
get this thing unwound.’
For a moment he thought she was going to refuse to move, but she said
nothing, and let him help her up. She was so tightly rolled round that it
would have been difficult to move by herself.
He took the rug off, and folded it up busily so as not to have to meet her
eyes, for he was afraid.
‘Help me out,’ she said.
He looked her suddenly in the face. ‘I’m glad I did it, anyhow,’ he said,
flinging back his head.
‘Are you?’ she said.
She held out her hand to be helped. She looked rumpled.
‘Your little coat——’ he murmured, pulling it tidy; and he couldn’t keep
his hand from shaking, because he loved her so—‘your little coat——’
Then he straightened himself, and looked her in the eyes. ‘Catherine, we’ve
got to talk,’ he said.
‘Is that why you’ve brought me here?’
‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘Do you imagine I’m going to listen?’
 ‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘You don’t feel at all ashamed?’
‘No,’ said Christopher.
She got out, and walked on to the shingle, and stood with her back to
him, apparently considering the view. It was low tide, and the sea lay a
good way off across wet sands. The sheltered bay was very quiet, and she
could hear larks singing above the grassy banks behind her. Dreadful how
little angry she was. She turned her back so as to hide how little angry she
was. She wasn’t really angry at all, and she knew she ought to be.
Christopher ought to be sent away at once and for ever, but there were two
reasons against that,—one that he wouldn’t go, and the other that she didn’t
want him to. Contrary to all right feeling, to all sense of what was decent,
she was amazingly glad to be with him again. She didn’t do any of the
things she ought to do,—flame with anger, wither him with rebukes. It was
shameful, but there it was: she was amazingly glad to be with him again.
Christopher, watching her, tried to keep up a stout heart. He had had
such a horrible week that whatever happened now couldn’t anyhow be
worse. And she—well, she didn’t look any the happier for it, for running
away from him, either.
He tried to make his voice sound fearless. ‘Catherine, we must talk,’ he
said. ‘It’s no use turning your back on me and staring at the silly view. You
don’t see it, so why pretend?’
She didn’t move. She was wondering at the way her attitude towards him
had developed in this week. All the while she was so indignant with him
she was really getting used to him, getting used to the idea of him. Helped,
of course, by Stephen. Immensely helped by Stephen, and even by Virginia.
‘I told you you’d never get away from me,’ he said to the back of her
head, putting all he had of defiance into his voice. But he had so little; it
was bluff, sheer bluff, while his heart was ignominiously in his boots.
‘Your methods amaze me,’ said Catherine to the view.
‘Why did you run away?’
‘Why did you force me to?’
‘Well, it hasn’t been much good, has it, seeing that here we are again.’
‘It hasn’t been the least good.’
 ‘It never is, unless it’s done in twos. Then I’m all for it. Don’t forget that
next time, will you. And you might also give the poor devil who is run from
a thought. He has the thinnest time. I suppose if I were to try and tell you
the sort of hell he has to endure you wouldn’t even understand, you
untouched little thing,—you self-sufficing little thing.’
Silence.
Catherine, gazing at the view, was no doubt taking his remarks in. At
least, he hoped so.
‘Won’t you turn round, Catherine?’ he inquired.
‘Yes, when you’re ready to take me back to Chickover.’
‘I’ll be ready to do that when we’ve arrived at some conclusion. Is it any
use my coming round to your other side? We could talk better if we could
see each other’s faces.’
‘No use at all,’ said Catherine.
‘Because you’d only turn your back on me again?’
‘Yes.’
Silence.
‘Aren’t we silly,’ said Christopher.
‘Idiots,’ said Catherine.
Silence.
‘Of course I know you’re very angry with me,’ said Christopher.
‘I’ve been extraordinarily angry with you the whole week,’ said
Catherine.
‘That’s only because you will persist in being unnatural. You’re the
absurdest little bundle of prejudices, and musty old fears. Why on earth you
can’t simply let yourself go——’
Silence.
She, and letting herself go! She struggled to keep her laughter safe
muffled inside her scarf. She hadn’t laughed since last she was with
Christopher. At Chickover nobody laughed. A serious smile from Virginia,
a bright conventional smile from Mrs. Colquhoun, no smile at all from
Stephen; that was the nearest they got to it. Laughter—one of the most
precious of God’s gifts; the very salt, the very light, the very fresh air of
life; the divine disinfectant, the heavenly purge. Could one ever be real
friends with somebody one didn’t laugh with? Of course one couldn’t. She
and Christopher, they laughed. Oh, she had missed him.... But he was so
headlong, he was so dangerous, he must be kept so sternly within what
bounds she could get him to stay in.
She therefore continued to turn her back on him, for her face, she knew,
would betray her.
‘You haven’t been happy down here, that I’ll swear,’ said Christopher. ‘I
saw it at once in your little face.’
‘You needn’t swear, because I’m not going to pretend anything. I haven’t
been at all happy. I was very angry with you, and I was—lonely.’
‘Lonely?’
‘Yes. One misses—one’s friends.’
‘But you were up to your eyes in relations.’
Silence.
Then Catherine said, ‘I’m beginning to think relations can’t be friends—
neither blood relations, nor relations by marriage.’
‘Would you,’ asked Christopher after a pause, during which he
considered this remark, ‘call a husband a relation by marriage?’
‘It depends,’ said Catherine, ‘whose.’
‘Yours, of course. You know I mean yours.’
She was quiet a moment, then she said cautiously, ‘I’d call him George.’
He took a quick step forward, before she had time to turn away, and
looked at her.
‘You’re laughing,’ he said, his face lighting up. ‘I felt you were. Why, I
don’t believe you’re angry at all—I believe you’re glad I’ve come.
Catherine, you are glad I’ve come. You’re fed up with Stephen and
Virginia, and the old lady with the profile, and I’ve come as a sort of relief.
Isn’t it true? You are glad?’
‘I think they’re rather fed up, as you put it, with me,’ said Catherine
soberly.
‘Fed up with you? They? That ancient, moulting, feathered tribe?’
He stared at her. ‘Then why do you stay till Monday?’ he asked.
‘Because of Virginia.’
‘You mean she, of course, isn’t fed up.’