She looked at him with distress. Poor Julian! He had to be theatrical, but his unhappiness was sincere enough. His jesting was so humourless, so affected that it crushed the spirit; and all his talking seemed less a normal exercise than a forced hysterical activity assumed to ease sharp wretchedness. It was not fair to judge and dislike him: he was a sick man.
He sat down again at the piano, and she rose on an impulse and went and stood beside him.
‘Some chaps dance,’ he said. ‘They haven’t stopped dancing since they’ve been back. I play——’ He plunged into a medley of ragtime—‘and play—and play—and play. Syncopation—gets you—right on the nerves—like cocaine—No wonder it’s popular.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Intellectually,’ he said, ‘I adore it. It’ssoclever.’
He played on loudly, rapidly, with pyrotechnical brilliance, then stopped. ‘My passions, however, are too debile to be stirred.’
He flung round on the piano stool and dropped his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes wearily.
‘Julian—I wish you weren’t—I wish you could——’
He looked up, startled, saw her expression, looked quickly away again and gave an embarrassed laugh like a boy.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, ‘You needn’t take any notice of me. I’m being a bore. I’m sorry.’ The last words were faintly husky.
‘Oh, you’renota bore, you’re not! Only—don’tbe so miserable.’
In the awkward silence that followed she said:
‘I must go.’
‘No, you’re not to go,’ he said gently. ‘Stay and talk tome.’ He paused. ‘The trouble is, I can’t sleep, you know, and it makes me a bit jumpy. I don’t like my thoughts, and theywill, theywillbe thought about. But I shall get better in time.’
‘Poor Julian!’
He allowed his face to relax, and his manner was suddenly quiet and simple, almost happy: the unexpected sympathy had made him cheerful.
‘You mustn’t go, Judith, you must stay to supper.’
‘I can’t. What will Mariella say?’
‘Mariella doesn’t say. Whether shethinksis the problem,—or evenfeels. Is she averyremarkable person? Or is itsimplyarrested development?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Not?’
She smiled to herself, struck with a fancy.
‘Perhaps she’s a fairy, Julian.’
As she said it she grew suddenly thoughtful; for it had flashed upon her that perhaps that was the explanation of Roddy; perhaps he was a fairy, and in that case it was no use—he would never....
‘A fairy. I never thought of that.’ He mused, pleased with the idea. ‘You know it must mean something, that nobody’seversuggested giving her apetit nom, or curtailing the mouthful; she’s always been Mariella.’
He began humming a little tune in his contentment. Quickly she said:
‘Just to go back to Peter. You don’t mean it, do you? Why should he be wretched? Think of the things you can teach him. You know you’ll love that.’
He looked a trifle dashed; but after a moment his face cleared again, and his eyes smiled kindly at her.
‘Don’t worry. At all events, I’ll see he’s not ill-treated—except in my own way. That is, if she’ll let me. She will. She’s very good-tempered, I must say. She’s never allowed me to quarrel with her. She well might have.’
He looked like brooding again; but seeing her gazing at him anxiously, added:
‘It’s odd how natural it seems to be talking to you alone like this. You haven’t changed a bit. I always remember you listening so solemnly and staring at me. I’m so glad I’ve found you again. I could always talk to you.’
‘At me,’ she corrected.
He made a face at her, but looked cheerful. She had always known how near the edge to venture without upsetting him. He hummed his little tune again, then played it on the piano.
‘I think I made that up.... It’s rather a nice little tune. Perhaps I’ll take up my music seriously again.’
‘Oh, you must, Julian. It is so well worth it: such a special talent.’
He looked at her with sudden attention.
‘How old are you, Judith?’
‘Seventeen. Nearly eighteen.’
He studied her.
‘You must put your hair up.’
‘Must I?’
‘Yes, because then you’ll be beautiful.’
She was still speechless when Mariella, Martin, two Great Danes and the puppy came in.
‘Hullo!’ said Mariella. ‘Still here?’
‘I’m afraid so. But I’m just going.’
‘She’s not. She’s staying to supper,’ said Julian.
‘Oh, good,’ said Martin surprisingly; and his shy red face smiled at her.
‘Of course you must,’ said Mariella cheerfully. ‘We’re just going to eat now. Where’s Roddy?’
‘He stayed down at the boathouse. He said he’d come soon.’
‘He’d better,’ said Julian, and turning to Judith explained politely: ‘What with poor Martin having to build himself up so, experience has proved it’s wiser to be punctual.’
‘I’ll go and fetch him,’ said Judith, to her own surprise.
She left them amicably wrestling, and escaped light-heartedly into the garden. The cool air refreshed her brain, shaken and excited from its contact with Julian; and she walked slowly to the boathouse by the shrubbery path, sniffing as she went at wild cherry, japonica, almond and plum. It was joy to look for and recognize afresh the beauties of the garden; its unforgotten corners,—places of childish enchantment. Somewhere near, under the laurel, was the rabbit’s grave. She remembered that evening, how she had been shaken with revelation. This was just such another mysterious and poignant fall of the light: anything might happen. Her senses were so overstrung that the slightest physical impression hit her sharply, with a shock.
There on the raft was the curious young man Roddy. He raised his head from the examination of an old red-painted canoe, and smiled when he saw her.
‘I’m sent to say supper’s ready.’
‘Thank you very much. I’ll come.’
‘I’m staying to supper.’ She smiled radiantly at him, sure of herself and full of an immense amusement.
‘I’m delighted.’
His golden-brown eyes sent her their clear and shallow light.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Seeing if this old canoe is sea-worthy. You see, there’s a leak, but I don’tthinkit’s anything much. I’ll leave her in the water over-night. I want to rig her up with a sail.’ He stroked the canoe lovingly.
‘You like going in boats, don’t you?’
‘I suppose I do rather.’
‘I like it too. Especially at night.’
But he would not give himself away. She saw him slipping down the stream, alone in his canoe, the night before, but she was not to know it, she could not say: ‘I saw you.’
He bent over his canoe, fingering the wood, then straightened himself and stood looking down the long willow-bordered stretch of water. The sun had gone out of it and it was a quiet grey limpid solitude. A white owl flew over, swooping suddenly low.
‘There he goes,’ said Roddy softly. ‘He goes every evening.’
‘Yes, I know.’
She smiled still in her immense mysterious amusement. She saw him look up at the poplar from whence the owl had come, and as he did so his whole image was flung imperishably on her mind. She saw the portrait of a young man, with features a trifle blurred and indeterminate, as if he had just waked up; the dark hair faintly ruffled and shining, the expression secret-looking, with something proud and sensual and cynical, far older than his years, in the short full curve of his lips and the heaviness of his under-lids. She saw all the strange blend of likeness and unlikeness to the boy Roddy which he presented without a clue.
He caught her smile and smiled back, all his queer face breaking up in intimate twinklings, and the mouth parting and going downward in its bitter-sweet way. They smiled into each other’s eyes; and all at once the light in his seemed to gather to a point and become fixed, dwelling on her for a moment.
‘Well?’ he said at last; for they still lingered uncertainly, as if aware of something between them that kept them hesitating, watching, listening subconsciously, each waiting on the other for a decisive action.
He spread out his hands and looked down at them; a nervous gesture and look she remembered with a pang.
‘Yes, we must go,’ she said softly.
At supper he sat opposite to her, and twinkled at her incessantly, as if encouraging her to continue to share with him a secret joke. But, confused amongst them all, she had lost her sense of vast amusement and assurance; she was unhappy because he was a stranger laughing at her and she could not laugh back.
Beside him was the face of Martin, staring solemnly, with absorption, watching her mouth when she spoke, her eyes when she glanced at him.
Thank God the meal was soon over.
A gay clipped exhilarating dance tune sounded from the drawing-room. Roddy had turned on the gramophone. He came and took Mariella without a word and they glided off together. Judith stayed with Julian and Martin in the verandah, looking in at them. She was frightened; she could not dance, so she would be no use to Roddy.
‘Do you dance, Julian?’
‘No. At least only with two people.’
Alas,—wounding reminder of his elegant unknown world where she had no place!... She blushed in the dusk.
‘Julian’s very lordly about his dancing;’ said Martin. ‘I expect he’s rotten really.’
‘It may be,’ said Julian, stung and irritable. ‘It may be that I therefore bestow the burden of my gyrations on the only two creatures of my acquaintance whose rottenness equals mine. It may be that I derive more satisfaction from the idea of this artistic whole of rottenness than from the physical delights of promiscuous contact.’
‘It may be,’ said Martin pleasantly, unperturbed.
Julian hunched his shoulders and went away, clouded by a dreadful mood.
‘Poor old Ju,’ said Martin softly.
‘Yes, poor thing.’ Her voice implied how well she understood, and he looked grateful.
In the drawing-room, Roddy and Mariella moved like a dream, smoothly turning, pausing and swaying, quite silent.
‘Well, shall we?’ Martin smiled down at her.
Now she must confess.
‘I can’t, Martin, I don’t know how. I’ve never learnt.I haven’t ever——’ Shame and despair flooded her.
‘Oh, you’ll soon learn,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Come and try.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t.’
She glanced at the competent interweaving feet of Mariella and Roddy, at Marietta’s slender back pivoting gracefully from the hips, at Roddy’s composed dancing-face and shoulders. She could not let them see her stumbling and struggling.
‘Well, come and practise in the hall. Here now. Can you hear the music? Follow me. This is a fox-trot. Look, your feet between my feet. Now just go backwards, following my movements. Don’t think about it. If you step on my feet it’s my fault andvice versa. Now—short,long, short, two short. Don’t keep your back so stiff,—quite free and supple but quite upright.’
‘Do it by yourself,’ said Judith perspiring with anxiety. ‘Then I can see.’
He chasséd solemnly round the hall, pausing now and then to show her how he brought his feet together; then, with a firm hand on her shoulder-blades he made her follow him.
‘That’s good. It’s coming. Oh, good! Sorry, that was my fault. You’ve got the trick now.’
All at once the music had got into her limbs; it seemed impossible not to move to it.
‘But you can!’ said Martin, letting her go and beaming at her in joyful surprise.
‘Come back into the drawing-room,’ said Judith, exalted. They went.
‘Now,’ she said trembling.
Martin put his arm round her and they glided off. It was easier than walking, it was more delicious than swimming or climbing; her body had always known how it was done. Martin looked down at her with eloquent eyes and said:
‘You know, you’re marvellous. I didn’t know anyone could learn so quickly.’
‘It’s because I’ve had such a good teacher,’ she said sweetly.
They went on dancing, and every now and then she looked up and smiled at him and his eyes shone and smiled in answer, happy because of her pleasure. He really was a dear. In his looks he had improved beyond expectation. He was still a little red, a little coltish and untidy, but his figure was impressive, with powerful heavy shoulders and narrow hips; and the muscles of his thigh and calf bulged beneath his trousers. His head with the brown wings of hair brushed flat and straight on it, was finely set, his eyes were dark and warm, kindly rather than intelligent; his nose was biggish and thick, his mouth long, thin and rather ineffectual, with a faint twitch at one corner,—the corner that lifted first, swiftly, when he smiled his frequent shy smile. His teeth were magnificent; and he smelt a little of Virginian cigarettes.
‘You must dance with Roddy,’ said Martin. ‘He’s ever so much better than I am.’
Roddy and Mariella were dancing in the porch now, not speaking or looking about them. The record came to an end, but they went on whirling while Martin sought a new tune and set it going; then they glided forward again.
Roddy had forgotten her: she was not up to his dancing.
At last Mariella stopped and disengaged herself.
‘I want to dance with Martin now,’ she said.
Roddy left her and strolled over to Judith.
‘Been giving Martin a dancing-lesson?’ he said.
‘Goodness, no! He’s been teaching me. I didn’t know how.’
‘Oh?—How did you get on?’
‘Quite well, thank you. It’s easy. IthinkI can dance now.’
‘Good!’
It was plain he was not interested; or else was incredulous. He thought she was just a stumbling novice; he was not going to dance with her or even offer to go on teaching her. Roddy would never have bothered to give her hints or be patient while she was awkward. He was so good himselfthat he could not condescend to incompetence. But Judith, still, though more doubtfully, exalted, said:
‘Shall we dance?’
He looked surprised.
‘All right. Certainly. Just let me cool down a bit.’
He was not in any hurry. He sat on the table and watched Marietta’s neatly moving feet.
‘She’s good at her stuff,’ he said.
‘Do you adore dancing?’
‘Well, I don’t know that I adore it. It’s fun once in a way.’
‘It seems funny not to be mad about a thing if you can do it so beautifully.’
He looked at her with amusement.
She must remember not to ask Roddy if he adored things. His secret life went on in a place where such states of feeling were unknown.
‘Shall we?’ he said at last.
She was not going to be able to do it; the rhythm had gone out of her limbs. He was going to be too good for her and she would stumble and he would get disgusted and not dance with her any more....
After a few moments of anguish, suddenly she could, after all. Long light movements flowed from her body.
Roddy looked down.
‘But you can dance,’ he said.
‘I told you I could. You didn’t believe me.’
He laughed.
‘You don’t mean to tell me you’ve never danced before?’
‘Never.’
‘Swear?’
‘Cross my heart.’
‘But of course,’ said Roddy, ‘you couldn’t help dancing, such a beautiful mover as you.’
He had really said that! She lifted her face and glowed at him: life was too, too rich.
The music came to an end. Roddy stood still with his arm round her waist and called imperiously to Martin for another tune.
‘Come on,’ he said, and tightened his arm round her. You might almost dare to suppose he was a little, a very little exalted too.
‘But you do love it, Roddy!’
He looked down at her and smiled.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Do you now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Roddy!’
She was silenced by happiness.
They were alone now. Martin and Mariella were on the verandah, and she heard Mariella say:
‘Darlin’ Martin, fetch me my coat.’
‘Mariella’s very fond of Martin, isn’t she?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose she is. What makes you think so?’
‘I just heard her call him darling just now.’
He laughed.
‘Oh yes. She does that now and again.’
‘She doesn’t call you darling,’ said Judith twinkling.
‘No. Nobody ever does.’
‘Not anybody,—ever?’
‘Notanybody—ever.’
‘What a pity! And itisso enjoyable to be called darling.’
‘I’ve no doubt it is. I tell you I’ve no experience.’ He peered into her face, and repeated piteously: ‘Nobodyeverdoes.’
Judith laughed aloud.
‘I will,’ she heard her own voice saying.
‘You really will?’
She waited.
‘Go on,’ he urged.
The word would not come.
‘Go on, go on!’ he shouted triumphantly.
‘Oh, be quiet!’
‘Please!...’
‘No....’
She hid her face away from him and blushed. Laughing silently he gathered her up and started whirling, whirling. A deeper dream started. The room was a blur, flying, sinking away; only Roddy’s dark red tie and the line of his cheek and chin above it were real.
She laughed and gasped, clinging to him.
‘Giddy?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
He stopped and looked at her amusedly.
‘Oh, Iam.’
She threw out an arm blindly and he caught it and supported her.
‘Come out on the verandah and get sober,’ he said.
The spring night greeted them with a chill fragrance. Roddy’s eyes were so bright that she could see them shining, brimming with amusement in the dim light.
‘What are you looking at, Roddy?’
‘You.’
‘I can see your eyes. Can you see mine?’ He bent his head over hers.
‘Yes, of course. They’re like stars. Lovely dark eyes.’
‘Arethey?... Roddy paying compliments,—how funny! Roddy, I remember you. Do you remember yourself when we were children?’
‘Not much. I never remember the past. I suppose I’m not interested enough—or interesting enough.’
She felt checked, and dared not ask the ‘What do you remember about me?’ which should have opened the warm little paths of childish reminiscence. Roddy had no desire to recall the uninteresting figures of himself and the little girl Judith: that trifling relationship had been brushed away as soon as it had ceased. She must realize that, for him, nolong threads came dragging from the web of the past, tangling the present.
She stared into the dark garden, wondering what safe topic to propose.
‘When do you go back to Paris, Roddy?’
‘Oh,—soon, I suppose.’
‘Do you work very hard there?’
‘Terribly hard.’
‘Drawing or painting?’
‘Some of both. Nothing of either.’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t show me some of your things?’
‘Couldn’t. I’ve nothing here. I’m having a rest.’ He twinkled at her.
‘What a pity! I should so have loved.... Which are you best at, drawing or painting?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Drawing, I think. But I’m not any good. I just waste time.’
‘Why do you?’
‘Why indeed?’
‘How funny! If I could draw I’d draw all day. I’d be so excited at being able to, I’d go on and on. I’d be so horrid and enthusiastic. I wouldn’t have any sense of humour about it. You’d think menauseating, wouldn’t you?’
He nodded, smiling.
‘But I’ddraw. I’d be the best drawer in the world. Oh, you are lucky! I do envy people with a specialty, and I do love them. Isn’t it funny how fingers take naturally to one form of activity and not to another? Mine—mine—’ she spread them out and looked at them—‘mine wouldn’t draw if I spent all my life trying to make them; but—they know how to touch a piano—only a little of course; but theyunderstandthat without having it explained. And some fingers can make lovely things with a needle and thread and a bit of stuff. There’s another mystery! Then there are the machine makers, and the ones that can use knives like artists to take away bits of people or put bits in,—and theones that can remove pain just by touching.... Some peoplearetheir hands, aren’t they? They understand with them. But most people have idiot hands,—destroyers. Roddy, why are some of our senses always idiots? All my senses are semi-imbecile, and I’m better off than lots of people, I suppose. Seems to me, what they call the norm is practically idiot, and any departure is just a little more or less so. Yet one has thisideaof perfection——’
She stopped abruptly. He was not interested, and his face in the wan light was a blank which might be hiding mockery or distrust of a girl who affected vaporous philosophizings, trying, no doubt, to appear clever. She flushed. Such stuff had been her food for years, chewed over secretly, or confided to the one friend, the Roddy of her imagination; and here she was in the foolishness of her elation pouring it out to this unmoved young man who thought—shemustremember this—that he was meeting her for the first time. It was plain, it must be plain to him, that she was a person with no notion of the rules of behaviour.
‘Come back and dance,’ suggested Roddy at last.
It was curious how much easier it was to get on with Roddy if he had an arm round you. His mind, the whole of him, came freely to meet you then; there was entire happiness, entire peace and harmony. It was far more difficult to find him on the plane where only minds, not senses, had contact,—the plane on which a Julian, one whose physical touch could never be desirable, was reached without any groping. Roddy put something in the way. He guarded himself almost as if he suspected you of trying to catch him out; or of taking an impertinent interest in him. His mind would be thrilling if you could dig it out: all hidden and withheld things were.
‘I don’t want ever to stop,’ she said suddenly.
‘We won’t,’ he promised and held her closer, as if he were as much caught away and dazed as she.
He bent his head and whispered laughingly:
‘Just say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘That word you like—in your delicious voice—just as a kindness.’
‘No, I won’t—now.’
‘When will you?’
‘You are naughty, Roddy.... Perhaps when I know you better.’
‘You’ll never know me better than you do now.’
‘Don’t say that. Why do you?’
‘There’s nothing more to know.’
‘Oh, if there’s nothing more to know, then you are——’
‘What?’
‘More or less—as far as I can tell——’
‘What?’
She whispered.
‘A darling.’
‘Ah, thank you.’ He added rapidly, in the full soft voice of laughter: ‘Thank you, darling.’
‘Now we’ve both said it. Roddy, aren’t we absurd?’
‘No, very sensible.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘I adored it.’
‘Roddy, are we flirting?’
‘Are we?’
‘If we are, it’s your fault. You make me feel sort of stimulated. I didn’t flirt with Martin.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it. Martin wouldn’t have liked it at all.’
They laughed and danced on. He held her very close, the cold rim of his ear touching her forehead.
‘To think I’ve never danced before!’
‘Why haven’t you?’
‘Nobody to dance with.’
‘Nobody?’
‘Nobody at all.’
‘Have you been living on your little lone since I went away?’
‘Ever since then.’
‘Well, now I’ve come back we’ll dance a lot, won’t we?’
‘Oh yes. But you’ll disappear again, I know you will.’
‘Not yet. And not for long.’
She could have cried, he was so comforting.
He spun, holding her tightly, stopped, held her a moment more, and let her go as the record came to an end. She watched him as he went, with that secret of idle grace in his movements, to switch off the gramophone. He looked pale and composed as ever, while she was flushed, throbbing and exhausted with excitement. She stood at the open French windows and leaned towards the cool night air; and he found her silent when he came back.
‘A penny for them, Judith.’
‘I was thinking—what extraordinary things one says. I suppose it’s the dancing. It seems so incredibly easy to behave as one naturally wouldn’t——’
‘I find that myself,’ he said solemnly.
‘The—the unsuitable things that generally stay inside one’s head,—they spring to one’s lips, don’t they?’
‘They do.’
‘Values are quite changed. Don’t you think so?’
She must make him realize that she was not really a cheap flirtatious creature: re-establish her dignity in his eyes. She had behaved so lightly he might be led to think of her and treat her without respect, and laugh at her behind her back after she had ceased to divert him. It was very worrying.
‘Quite, quite changed,’ he said.
‘Isn’t it queer? I suppose—it doesn’t do much harm? One oughtn’t to think worse of a person for——’
He threw back his head to laugh at his ease, silently, as always, as if his joke were too deep down and individual for audible laughter.
‘Are you laughing at me, Roddy?’
‘I can’t help it. You’re so terribly funny. You’re the funniest person I’ve ever met.’
‘Why am I?’
‘You’re so incredibly serious.’
‘I’m not—not always.’
‘I’m afraid you are. I’m afraid you’re terribly introspective.’
‘Am I? Is that wrong? Roddy, please don’t laugh at me. It leaves me out if you laugh by yourself like that. I could laughwithyou at any thing, if you’d let me——’ she pleaded.
‘Anything—even yourself?’
She pondered.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps not. That’s a weakness, isn’t it?’
‘There you go again! Never mind about your weaknesses. I was only teasing you. Let me see you smile.’
To obey him her lips went upwards sorrowfully; but when she saw his laughing, coaxing face, her heart had to lift too.
‘Well you’re very nice anyway,’ he said, ‘serious or no. Have you forgiven me?’
‘Oh yes. Yes, Roddy.’
As she said it she realised with a passing prophetic sense of helplessness and joy and fear that whatever he did she would always inevitably forgive him. But she must not tell him that, yet.
Martin and Mariella came strolling back from the garden, the spark of their cigarettes going before them. She heard Mariella’s little laugh bubbling out contentedly, her childish voice answering his in an easy chatter. Yes, Mariella was happy with Martin. He was polite and kind to her, and she was equal to him without effort. As she came into the light Judith was struck afresh by the lack of all emphasis, the careful absence of any one memorable feature in the memorable whole of her beauty. Her lovely athletic body effaced itself in simple clothes of no particular fashion or cut; subdued in colour, moderately long, moderately low in their necks and short in their sleeves,—negative clothes that nevertheless were distinguished, and said “Mariella” and nothing else in the world.
It was time to go.
‘Oh, must you?’ said Mariella.
Roddy said not a word. He had detached himself as soon as the others came in, and was idly busy in a corner, tuning a guitar. Either he had not heard or was not interested. It seemed impossible that his face had been off its guard a few minutes ago, warming and lighting in swift response.
Julian lounged in again silently, a book in his hand. He looked tired and fierce, as if daring her to remember his recent lapse into friendliness. The strange disheartening people....
She stammered: ‘Well, good-night everybody. Thank you so much.’
‘One of the boys will see you home,’ said Mariella dubiously.
‘Oh no. It isn’t necessary. I’ll just climb over the wall if the gate’s locked. I shall be quite all right, honestly....’
There was no need to protest. They dismissed the matter in silence.
‘Well, come in any time,’ said Mariella.
But any time was no good. She had dreaded just such a non-committal invitation. Any time probably meant never. Despondently she looked back to smile her thanks; and as her eyes took in the group of them standing there looking at her, she felt suddenly startled.
But they were all alike!
So strange, so diverse in feature and colour, they yet had grown up with this overpowering likeness; as if one mind had thought them all out and set upon them, in spite of variations, the unmistakable stamp of itself. Alone among all the tall distinguished creatures Roddy made sharp departure, and preserved, though not wholly intact, the profounder individuality of his unimportant features.
It was some weeks later. The day had been long and fruitless. She had idled through the hours, playing the piano, reading ‘Pecheurs d’Islande’ with voluptuous sorrow, doing nothing. A letter from her mother in Paris had arrived in the afternoon. They were not coming home just yet. Father had caught another of his colds and seemed so exhausted by it. He was in bed and she was nursing him, and it had meant cancelling his party, that party. Why should not Judith come out and join them, now that her examinations were over? It would amuse her; and Father would be glad to have her. They would expect her in a few days; she was old enough now to make the journey by herself.
Her heart was heavy. She could not leave the house, the spring garden, this delicious solitude, these torturing and exquisite hopes. How could she drag herself to Paris when she dared not even venture beyond the garden for fear of missing them if they came for her? If she went now, the great opportunity would be gone irrevocably; they would slip from her again just as life was beginning to tremble on the verge of revelation. She must devise an excuse; but it was difficult. She swallowed a few mouthfuls of supper and wandered back into the library.
The last of the sun lay in the great room like blond water, lightly clouded, still, mysterious. The brown and gold and red ranks of the dear books shone mellow through it, all round the room from the floor three quarters way to the ceiling; the Persian rugs, the Greek bronzes on the mantlepiece, the bronze lamps with their red shades, the tapestry curtains, the heavy oak chairs and tables, all the dim richnesses, were lit and caressed by it into a single harmony. The portrait of her father as a dark-eyed, dark-browed young man of romantic beauty was above the level of the sun, staring sombrely down at his possessions. She could sit in this room, especially now with hair brushed smooth and coiled low across the nape, defining the lines of head and neck and the clearcurve of the jaw,—she could sit alone here in her wine-red frock and feel part of the room in darkness and richness and simplicity of line; decorating it so naturally that, if he saw, his uncommunicating eyes would surely dwell and approve.
She and the young man of the portrait recognised each other as of the same blood, springing with kindred thoughts and dreams from a common root of being, and with the same physical likeness at the source of their unlikeness which she had noticed in the cousins next-door. She was knit by a heart-pulling bond to the portrait; through it, she knew she loved the elderly man whose silent, occasional presence embarrassed her.
There was sadness in everything,—in the room, in the ringing bird-calls from the garden, in the lit, golden lawn beyond the window, with its single miraculous cherry-tree breaking in immaculate blossom and tossing long foamy sprays against the sky. She was sad to the verge of tears, and yet the sorrow was rich,—a suffocating joy.
The evening held Roddy clasped within its beauty and mystery: he was identified with its secret.
‘Oh, Roddy, I love you! I’ve always loved you.’
Oh, the torment of loving!
But soon the way would open without check and lead to the happy ending. Surely it had started to open already.
The pictures came before her.
Roddy playing tennis,—playing a characteristic twisty game that irritated his opponents, and made him laugh to himself as he ran and leapt. His eyes forgot to guard themselves and be secret: they were clear yellow-brown jewels. She was his partner, and with solemn fervour she had tried to play as she had never played before, for his sake, to win his admiration. But he was not the sort of partner who said: “Well played!” or “Hard lines.” He watched her strokes and looked amused, but was silent even when she earned him victory after victory.
Afterwards she said:
‘Oh, Roddy, I love tennis. Don’t you?’
He answered indifferently:
‘Sometimes,—when they let me do as I like; when I’m not expected to play what they call properly. One of my lady opponents once told me I played a most unsporting game. “My intelligence, however corrupt, is worth all your muscle”—was what I did not just then think of saying to her. She was in a temper, that lady.’
She smiled at him, thinking how she loved the feel of her own body moving obediently, the satisfaction of achieving a perfect stroke, the look of young bodies in play and in repose,—especially his; and she hazarded:
‘I love it just for the movement. I love movement,—the look of people in motion and the thought and feel of my own movements. I suppose I am too solemn over it. I want so much to do it as well as I can. I’m solemn because I’m excited. I sometimes think I would like above all things to be the best dancer in the world,—or the best acrobat; or failing that, to watch dancers and acrobats for ever.’
Looking back on their few but significant conversations, she decided that there was something about him which invited confidences while seeming to repel them. Though his response—if it came at all or came save in silent laughter—was uncoloured by enthusiasm and unsweetened by sympathy, he made her feel that he understood and even pondered in secret over her remarks.
‘There are some things I tell you, Roddy, that I tell no one else. They make themselves be told. Often I haven’t known they were inside me.’ She rehearsed this silently. One day she would say it aloud to him.
Then she had added:
‘Do you still caricature, Roddy?’
‘Now and then,—when I feel like it.’
‘It is funny how a caricature impresses a likeness on you far quicker and more lastingly than a good portrait. Do you remember you once did one of me when we were little and I cried?’
‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘Do you see everybody with their imperfections exaggerated—always?’
‘Only with one eye. That’s my defence. The other has so frequently to be shut—or wounded. But there’s a great deal of æsthetic pleasure to be had from the contemplation of monsters.’
‘I suppose the temptation is to shut the normal one more and more until finally it ceases to work; especially if the other one has a greater facility. And it has, hasn’t it, Roddy?’
‘Perhaps. You must stay by me and counteract it.’
‘Which is it?’ she looked at him laughing.
He shut one eye.
‘I shut it entirely to look at you,’ he said.
Afterwards when she played again, a single with Martin, he lay on the bank, indolent after his burst of energy, watching her long after the others had lost interest and gone indoors. Passing him once, she had closed one eye and looked at him inquiringly; and all his face had broken up in warm delighted twinklings. He did welcome the most trivial jokes from her; and they were always trivial, and not nearly frequent enough.
Next time had been the time of Julian’s extremely bad temper. He had played tennis with malice and vicious cuts and nasty exclamations of triumph. Over Roddy’s face slid down the mask of deadly obstinacy which was his anger.
He came from the game and flung himself on the bank without a word, while Julian remained on the court, peevishly patting balls about.
‘He annoys me,’ said Roddy after a bit, watching him under heavy lids. Presently he took a piece of paper from his pocket and worked in silence.
‘Roddy, may I see it?’
He made no reply; but after a few more minutes he flung it over to her.
It was a terrible success (Julian had always been the most successful subject); and it was devilish as well as funny.
‘Oh, Roddy!’ She began to giggle.
‘Sh! Lookout! He’s coming back.’
He snatched the paper from her and crushed it up.
‘Oh, let me keep it.’
‘Well, don’t let him see it. He hates it.’
He flung it hurriedly into her lap as Julian came up; and as she stuffed it into her pocket with studied carelessness, his lips suddenly relinquished the last of his obstinacy, and he flashed her a look suffused with laughter and the sense of shared guilt. Surely he had never looked at anyone before with such irresistible intimacy and appeal. The less assured face of the child Roddy peered for a moment in that look; but the dark and laughing fascination was new and belonged to the young man; and she melted inwardly at the remembrance of it.
Then there had been the time Martin and Roddy had come to tea—so exciting a little time that she still dwelt on it with beating heart.
She felt again her delighted astonishment at sight of the pair of them coming up the garden. She had washed her hair and was drying it in the sun when they appeared; it was spread in a mass round her shoulders and down to her waist, and she was brushing the last of the damp out of it.
‘Hullo!’ said Martin.
‘Hullo!’
They came smiling up to her.
‘Are you busy?’ said Martin.
‘No, only washing my hair. Please excuse it.’
‘We like it,’ said Roddy. He watched her brushing, combing it and shaking it back over her shoulders as if fascinated.
‘Are you doing anything this afternoon?’ said Martin.
‘Oh no!’—eagerly.
‘Shall we be in the way?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then may we come to tea?’
‘Oh! Will you really?’
‘Julian has got some tiresome people we don’t like, so we escaped, and Roddy suggested coming to find you.’
Roddy raised his eyebrows, smiling faintly.
‘Well, we both suggested it,’ continued Martin with a blush. ‘May we really stay?’
Which, oh, which of them had suggested it?...
‘Will you wait here while I go and put my hair right?’
‘It’s not dry yet,’ said Roddy. ‘Let me brush it at the back for you.’
She stood still in embarrassed pleasure while he brushed and combed her hair.
‘You do it beautifully. You don’t pull a bit.’
‘I’m a good hairdresser. I brush my mother’s when her maid’s out.’
‘Has she got lovely hair?’
‘Goodish. Very long. Not such lumps of it as this though.’ He took up a handful and weighed it. ‘Extraordinary stuff.’
It was the first time that she had ever heard him mention his mother. Why, Roddy must have a home life, a whole background of influences and associations of which she knew nothing.... She felt startled and anxious; and the old ache at being left out, failing to possess, stirred in her.
She saw him brushing his mother’s hair with careful hands. His mother had long dark hair perfumed deliciously. She had a pale society face, and she sat before her brilliantly lit dressing table wearing a rich wrap and pearls, and put red on her lips, and made Roddy fetch and carry for her about the bedroom. They talked and laughed together. She had never heard of Judith.
Judith dismissed the picture.
Roddy went on brushing, while Martin stared and smiled at her. They made a most intimate-looking little group. She thought of herself for a moment as their sister. Roddy would often brush her hair for her if she was his sister, or if....
‘There!’ said Roddy. ‘Je vous félicite, Mademoiselle.’ He adjusted her tortoiseshell slide and bowed to her with the hairbrush over his heart.
‘I love your garden,’ said Martin.
She showed them the garden and then the house. They asked questions and admired the furniture and the rare books she picked out for them in the library.
‘When Daddy comes back you must meet him,’ she said. ‘He’d love to show you his books.’
She was sure he would like such appreciative young men.
‘I’d like to meet him awfully,’ said Martin. ‘I’ve often heard about him.’
She glowed.
‘No wonder you’re a bookworm, Judy,’ said Roddy, searching the shelves with absorbed eyes. ‘I’d be myself if I had this always round me.’
He could hardly tear himself away from browsing and gazing.
In the hall hung a water-color portrait of Judith at the age of six.
‘Ah!’ said Roddy. ‘I remember you like this.’
He looked from her to the portrait, and then at her again, as if remembering and comparing, and dwelling on the face she smilingly lifted to him until she had to drop her eyes.
They had tea in the drawing-room,—exquisite China tea in the precious Nankin cups which always appeared for visitors. Everything in the house was precious and exquisite: she had never realized it before; and she thought:
‘Now that they have seen me in my beautiful home, against my own background, the only daughter of such richness, they will think more of me.’
It certainly seemed so. Conversation flowed happily about nothing. She was, for the first time, completely at her ease; and they listened with interest,—even with a sort of deference, as if they thought her rather a special person.
After tea they went down to the river. The westering sun spread on the water as far as eye could see in a full embrace of shining light.
‘Let’s bathe,’ said Martin.
They ran next door for their bathing suits while she undressed in the boathouse. Then they returned and undressed behind the boathouse; and they all plunged into the water together.
Judith and Roddy stood on the raft, watching Martin diving sideways, and backwards and forwards, always perfectly, his magnificent muscle swelling and rippling as he moved. He swam and dived with a faultless ease of technique, as if he could never tire.
But Roddy would not exert himself. After two swift arrow-like dives he stood on the raft looking funny and boyish, with his hair plastered close over his head and his too-slender body shivering slightly. She noticed how delicately he was made in spite of his height. He had the look of a cat, graceful, narrow and lazy; and his skin was almost as smooth as her own.
When she dived he watched her body and all her movements closely; and she wondered whether his artist’s eye were detecting the faults and virtues of her form and if she compared at all favorably with his models in Paris.
She swam a little and talked to Martin, and came back to the raft.
‘Have you had enough, Roddy?’
‘Soon.’
‘Do you prefer watching?’
‘I always prefer watching.’
It was true. He would watch with deep concentration while others moved and took exercise, as if he were drawing them in his mind or getting them by heart; but his own impulses towards physical activity were rare and of brief duration.
‘I like swimming,’ said Judith; careful not to say she adored it.
‘You do it very nicely.’
‘But this is dull compared with swimming at night.’
‘Ah!’
‘Have you ever done that?’
‘No, never.’
‘You don’t need to wear a bathing-suit then. It’s far more delicious with nothing on.’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘I do it quite often.’
Now she was going to tell him something she had never meant to tell him. She could not stop herself. As if he were expecting it, he turned his face to hers, and waited.
‘I saw you once when I was bathing. It was before we met again. You were in a canoe, alone, and I knew it was you. I watched you go past.’
‘I know you did.’
‘You——?’
‘I saw you,’ he said.
She was paralysed; and of the questions which flooded her mind not one could be spoken.
She lifted her eyes and saw his weighing on her, making her answer him, with something heavy and fixed, dazed almost, at the back of their clear shining. She gazed back; and in a moment was lost, sinking in timeless soundless darkness and clinging to his eyes while she drowned.
It was all over in the duration of two or three heavy heart beats: and then they were standing together aimlessly, shivering in wet bathing-suits and Martin came all streaming and fresh from the water and broke in upon them with cheerful upbraidings.
They parted from her with happy thanks and friendly looks, and Roddy said that some day he would come and spend a whole afternoon in the library if he might; and then instead of the casual: ‘See you again soon’ which she dreaded, they gave her a specific invitation to a picnic in two days’ time.
That had been the last time.
It was a day without sun. The muffled light fell all day across the countryside as if through faintly shining bluish glass; and beneath it the spring held itself withdrawn andstill, as unchanging as a picture. Around the gentle green of the picnic meadow was the wild and ardent green of the little hedge; and here and there across the hedge, the blackthorn flung great scatters of frail-spun snow. Beyond the meadow the larch copse was lit all over with plumes of green fire; and upon its fringes, pure against the dim purple-brown of its tangled trunks, a stripling tree or so sprinkled its fresh leaves out upon the darkness like a swarm of green moths arrested in flight. Everywhere was the lavish, pouring green, smouldering and weighed-down with the ache of life, and quiet, quiet, turned inward upon itself and consuming its own heart. Everywhere the white blossom, as it rose, freed itself lightly from its roots in earth’s pangs of passion and contemplation, and, floating upon the air, kept but one secret, which was beauty, paid no heed, gave no sign.
Roddy lay with his head in the moss, sniffing at primroses, nibbling grasses, teasing Martin under his breath, watching them all with half-closed eyes.
Everyone was quiet and happy; all the peevishness was gone, all the tension smoothed out. The cigarette smoke curled in patterns into the still air; and now and again the Spring stirred, shook out a long breath of blossom and leaf and wet earth; and then was tranced again.
They made a wood fire and watched it sink to crumbling feathery ash round a glowing core; and they ate oranges and tomatoes and very young small lettuces stolen from the garden by Martin who was still, so Roddy said, a tiger for raw vegetables. But there were no onions: he declared he had given them up.
Nothing memorable was said or done, yet all seemed significant, and her happiness grew to such a poignant ecstasy that her lips trembled. She rolled over and hid her face in her hands for fear it should betray her by indecent radiance; but nobody noticed. Their eyes looked calm and dreaming: even Mariella’s had a less blind stare, a depth of meditation.
If only the moment could stay fixed, if their strange andthoughtful faces could enclose her safely for ever in their trance of contentment, if she could be able to want nothing from them beyond a share of their unimpassioned peace: if only these things could be, they would be best. For a moment they seemed possible; for a moment she achieved a summit and clung briefly to it, tasting the cool taste of no desire. But it would not do: it was the taste of being old and past wanting people,—past wanting Roddy who already tasted so sharply and sweetly that she must have more of him and more of him; and whose presence in the circle made collective indifference a pretence too bleak to strive for.
The sun flooded the meadow all at once in a tide of pallid light; and the earth ceased to struggle and brood in the dark coil of itself, and spread itself smiling and released. The spell within the clouded crystal of the afternoon broke; they stretched and stirred. Judith looked up at the big elm.
‘Who can climb this?’ she said.
‘Up with you,’ said Martin.
She climbed as she had not climbed since childhood, lifting herself lightly, unhesitatingly from branch to branch. At the top she looked down and saw them all small beneath her, looking up. Boldly from her eminence she called to the little creatures to come up; but not one of them would.
She descended again, feeling young and silly in the face of their lack of physical ambition. But they were all smiling upwards to receive her. Martin held his hands up to her and she took them and jumped from the bottom bough.
‘You haven’t forgotten your stuff,’ he said, and his eyes dwelt on her with their faithful brown look.
‘I wish I could do that,’ said Mariella. ‘I never could.’
‘And now,’ said Julian, ‘divert us with a hand spring or so,’—and his harsh face looked half-amused, half-clouded with an odd look,—almost like jealousy.
He had never been really pleased with the spectacle of other people’s successes: He found it too bitter not to be himself the one to excel. But he could not trouble her to-day or make her doubtful.
Roddy said nothing,—only looked at her out of glinting, twinkling eyes.
It was time to go home.
She parted from them gaily, taking her immense happiness with her unbroken, for once stepping clear out of the day into sleep with it wrapped round her.
But now, when she looked back for that day, it was a million miles behind her, floating unsubstantially like a wisp of shining mist: and all that returned to her out of it, clear and whole, were two detached impressions which, at the time, had barely brushed her consciousness: the look of young lilac-leaves with the sun on them, glittering above the garden-gate where she had bidden them good-bye; and the expression she had surprised on Mariella’s face some time in that day,—but when, she had forgotten.
Whatever had disturbed Mariella’s face then, it had not been happiness. The other faces, even Roddy’s, had unaccountably become blurred in the mist; but Mariella’s came back again and again, as if to stress the significance of its momentary defencelessness; as if, could it only be solved, there, in a flash, would be the whole clue to Mariella.
She got up and studied her hair in the mirror above the mantelpiece. While she stared there came a tap on the window behind her. She turned and there was Roddy peering through the pane and laughing at her. She ran to the window and opened it.
‘Roddy!’
It did not seem possible that he should have come when she wanted him so badly.
‘I’ve knocked twice. You were too busy to hear me.’
‘I’ve put my hair up.’
‘It’s ravishing. Will you please come in it to a fireworks party which Martin is giving in about an hour’s time?’
‘Fireworks! of all heavenly things! Hurrah for Martin!’
‘He only thought of it this afternoon, and he dashed into the town and bought up the whole stock. He sent me tofetch you. He says he must have you. Julian’s terrified of the big rocket and he wants you to persuade him to light it. And you’re to stay to supper afterwards. Mariella’s away for the night. Can you face it?’
‘Oh, how glorious!’
He gave her a hand and she jumped out of the window.
Roddy was in his best mood. He was friendly and talkative; his face was almost wide awake; his very hair looked alert, ruffled about his forehead; and he was sunburnt and clear-eyed, at his ease in grey flannels and yellow shirt and an ancient navy-blue coat.
The river had an enchanted beauty and stillness in the half-light. It was moon-coloured, with a dying flush in it; faint opal flickers lit the ripples that broke away on either side of the canoe.
‘It won’t be dark enough for a while, yet,’ said Roddy.
‘They’ll wonder where I am.’
‘Why? Didn’t you tell them?’
‘They didn’t know I’d slip off so soon.’
She blushed. It really looked as if Roddy had come early in order to have a little time alone with her. He would not say so; but he twinkled and smiled so gaily that she smiled back at him, as if giving him secret for delightful secret.
‘They’ll tease me,’ he declared.
‘No. Will they?’
‘Yes, I assure you——’
‘How silly!’
‘Isn’t it? Do you know, they’ll suspect us of the most desperate flirtation on this exquisite secluded river.’
‘Willthey?’ She was troubled.
‘What common minds! As if a man couldn’t be alone with a girl without making love to her.’
‘Oh, I do agree, Roddy.’
He threw back his head and laughed silently: he had been laughing all the time. And it had seemed for a moment that Roddy was prepared for the first time in her memory to have a little serious conversation.
‘Oh, Roddy, how you do laugh at me!’
‘I can’t help it, Judy. You are so incredibly solemn. You don’t mind, do you? Please don’t mind. I adore people who make me laugh.’
It was that his laughter left her out, making her feel heavy and unhumorous. If only he would teach her to play with him, how quick and apt he would find her!
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Only I do wish I could be ready for you.’
Being himself, was Roddy more likely or less likely to fall in love with a person he never took seriously?
‘You’d forgive anybody, however badly they treated you, wouldn’t you, Judy?’
‘Forgiving or not forgiving doesn’t mean much to me. I never could feel wronged. I might not be able to help feeling hurt, butforgivenesswouldn’t come into it.’
‘Hmm!’ said Roddy. ‘Are you sure you’re so civilized? Personally I never forgive anybody anything. I’m like God. I love my grievances, and want people to feel them.’
‘I know you’re laughing really. I know it isn’t true, what you say.’
He said quickly, quite seriously:
‘I never would forgive a person who made a fool of me.’
‘I wouldn’tlikeit; but if it only affected myself, it wouldn’t be important. A thing that happens to yourself alone doesn’tmatter.’ She stopped and blushed painfully, thinking: ‘How he’ll mock.’ But instead he looked at her gravely and nodded, saying:
‘I dare say you’re right.’
It was beginning to get dark.
He steered the canoe under the willows into narrow shadinesses, lit a cigarette and lay back watching her.
‘And what will they teach you at college, Judy?’
No one but he knew how to say ‘Judy.’
‘I don’t know, Roddy. I’m rather frightened,—not about the reading,—about the girls, all the people. I don’t understand a bit how to live with lots of people. I neverhave. I shall make such mistakes. It oppresses me, such a weight of lives crammed together in one building, such a terrifying press of faces. I prefer living alone.’
‘Don’t get standardized, or I shan’t come and visit you.’
‘Will you come and visit me?’
‘If I ever find myself not too desperately busy,’ he said twinkling.
‘I shall look forward to that. Perhaps I’ll see Martin sometimes too. Perhaps it won’t be so bad.... Roddy, do you realize I’ve never known anyone of my own age except the gardener’s little girl and one or two local children—and all of you? After you left, when we were little, I was so lonely I.... You don’t know. Daddy would never let me be sent to school. Now you’re back, I expect every day to wake up and find you all vanished again.’
‘We shan’t vanish again.’
‘If only I were sure!’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Oh, you! You’re the most vanishing of all. You slip through my fingers.’
‘Not I. It’s you who do that.’
‘I?’
‘Yes. You elude....’ He made a gesture with his hand. ‘I don’t understand how you work. You’re an enigma. You intrigue me.’
‘I’m very glad.’
‘And I’m afraid of you.’
‘You’re not. You’re only amused at me.’
‘No. You’re wrong.’
He fell silent, smoking and watching her; all his attention fixed in his eyes. It was as if he could not look away. Her head swam, and she stammered:
‘What are you thinking?’
‘That it’s a good thing we—agree so—completely about the standards of conduct proper between the sexes; otherwise it might be a good thing you’re so exceptionally forgiving.’ His voice had an edge of question.