“Jane! You shouldn’t say such things!”
“Well, miss, I am but human, as the saying is; and if I was going into the drawing-room to see a man like him, rather than look a fright I’d put something on my face, or do something to myself somehow, for look different to what you’re looking now that I would—no matter how I done it.”
With those last words of cheering advice Jane passed up the stairs, presumably to pursue her professional avocations. She would never have dared to say such a thing to one of the girls, but to me it always seems that everyone says just anything. That splendid person, with the moustaches turned up at the ends like ramrods, and the eyes, and the foreign accent—could he be that imposing dignitary of the Imperial Hotel? Had he had the audacity to trace me to my own home—and call on me? A waiter! What a cosmopolitan assembly appeared to be gathered together in the drawing-room.
The voices within seemed raised. Walter Hammond’s and Basil Carter’s voices were very audible. I fancied I heard also the “lovely” accent of which Jane had spoken. Mamma was unmistakable. It appeared that an argument was taking place inside, which was growing warmer by rapid degrees, with the promise of becoming, at an early moment, absolutely hot. Just as I reached the door, and was about to turn the handle, it was opened from within, with something of a flourish. I chose to take it as having been opened for me, and walked straight in.
My appearance created a sensation, that I needed no one to tell me. Still less did I need to be told that it was a sensation of a curious kind. An argument had been taking place which bore a tolerable imitation to something else. That was plain. It seemed probable that pressure had been brought to bear upon the dignitary of the Imperial Hotel to induce him to take himself away, and that that pressure had been applied in vain. Basil Carter had his hand upon the door-knob, his air suggesting something more than command, while there was something in Walter Hammond’s attitude which hinted at measures of a distinctly vigorous kind. Had I not arrived just then, I am inclined to think that steps would very shortly have been taken to bring that dignitary of the Imperial Hotel to a proper sense of his position. Considering his physique, it is tolerably certain that those who undertook the task of persuasion might have found that there were difficulties in the way. So far as I could judge—and I had pretty good opportunities—he was not the least collected person present. When I entered, he stood about the centre of the room, his hat and stick in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other. Even in height he towered above Walter Hammond, who was no dwarf, while, so far as girth went, he would easily have made two of any of the others. He was smiling on his company, and I am afraid even on mamma, in a manner which was hardly deferential; but when he saw me he commenced to salute me with a bow of the deepest deference.
I say commenced, because he actually got no farther than what I should call the impulse. He began, but in the very act of beginning, as it were, stopped short, as if something which he saw in me had stricken him with temporary paralysis—paralysis which was decidedly not the result of a flattering cause. He was, possibly by profession—for a waiter must know how to control his countenance—a master of the art of keeping his feelings out of his face. That he was surprised, I was uncomfortably convinced—surprised almost to the verge of being dumfounded. Yet he managed to prevent that fact being betrayed by his features. His expression, so to speak, was held in suspense. But presently it became eloquent enough.
I have heard something about the insolence of foreigners. I know a girl who has lived most of her life abroad, and I have heard her say that while foreigners are the politest creatures on earth, they are the most insolent too. I had an example of it then. That sublimated person of the waiter class had evidently expected to see one kind of a girl, and actually saw another. For a moment or two he was still, looking me, all the while, full in the face. Then he smiled, not only at me, but also at the others, and he said, his slightly foreign accent emphasising his sneering intention:
“What a difference between the night and the morning!”
Swinging the flowers which he held in his hand, which had certainly been intended for me, he marched past me, straight out of the room, without another word, still smiling. As he opened the hall-door to let himself out, he laughed—such a laugh!
I knew, as well as if I had seen him do it, that as soon as he was down the steps, he threw the flowers which had been meant for me out into the street.
Had he struck me across the face with his stick, he could not have branded me with a more distinctive mark of ignominy—he, a waiter! The charm of it was, that no one showed the slightest sign of resenting his behaviour. I was speechless. I had anticipated some difficulty with my tongue, but in the presence of that sublimity of insult, it refused to do its office altogether. My confusion was rendered worse confounded by the horrible embarrassment of the men by whom I found myself confronted. Their astonishment at the personality which my entrance had discovered—in such bewildering contrast to the glorious being of whom they had dreamed—was evidently so great as to be beyond their capacity of concealment. It not only robbed them of their senses, but also of their manners. They offered me no sort of greeting, not acknowledging my presence by a word or movement, but could only stand and stare and gasp, probably anathematising themselves internally for the crassness of their folly.
Those well-bred gentlemen!
The continued silence became so hideous that it had to be broken, even though I had to break it myself. I could not stay there and petrify before their stony gaze. It cost me a severe muscular spasm to break loose from the trammels of the sort of tetanus by which I was afflicted. And when I did the result was ludicrously inadequate. My intention was to be garrulous, a lava stream of words. All I could say was this:
“You don’t want me. I needn’t stay.”
It was true, the concentrated essence of truth. But as an illustration of the resources of the English language, it seemed hardly equal to the occasion. It was such a stupid, such an uncouth, thing to say—so utterly in character. The consciousness that this was so—that I was, by the decree of nature, a stupid, uncouth, gawky idiot—was the last straw. I turned to make my way out of the room as best I could.
My turning woke, at least, one of the gentlemen to some sense of the requirements of his position—the brown man. He had shown himself, last night, to be the owner of considerable stores of presence of mind; he proved, now, that he possessed some remnants still—even though they were, as remnants are apt to be, of somewhat dubious quality. Advancing a half-step towards where I was, he checked me in my retreat.
“Pardon me, one moment, Miss O’Brady.” I was not Miss O’Brady. I longed, even then, to tell him so. But, fortunately, I did manage to refrain. “I am here to offer you my apologies.” I was perfectly sure that he had come there with no intention of the kind. “I fear that last night I behaved with scant discretion. I frightened you. I think I must have been a little off my head. I beg that it is in that light that you will regard the singularity of my conduct; and can now only assure you that I am ready to lay at your feet my excuses, my regrets, my confession of misbehaviour, in any form you may command.”
He did not seem to see that his words, which were more than a little artificial, were not so much an apology as a fresh offence. He had made love to me because he was a little off his head, had he? What a compliment, under the circumstances, the idea conveyed. I should have liked to have pinched him, or done something more emphatic still, and, perhaps, something more undignified. Instead of which I merely replied, with an awkward clumsiness of which I was only too keenly sensitive:
“Pray, don’t apologise! It doesn’t matter in the least.”
I gave no one else an opportunity to utter a syllable. The sight of their continued dumbness was more than flesh and blood could endure; and, above all, what the brown man had the audacity to call his apology. I strode out into the hall, and I am afraid I banged the door after me as I went.
WhenI regained my bedroom, which, in spite of its manifold and ostentatious deficiencies, I had long regarded as a harbour of refuge in which I might find shelter when the storms of life pressed too hardly, I took out of my dress pocket—I always insisted on having a pocket in my dress, whatever the fashion was, it was the one point on which I would have my way—that scrap of paper. It was blank. That sentence must have been written on it with vanishing ink, because already not a trace of it could be seen. That process of fading must have proceeded with marvellous rapidity. I held in my hand a soiled, crumpled piece of paper, which was so void of anything in the shape of written characters, that I was at a loss as to which side of it those mysterious words had been on.
The brief hour of my triumph had faded too. I was again the plain, uninteresting Norah O’Brady; the ugly girl with the pretty sisters; the overgrown gawk, who always looked so ridiculous in the clothes she wore. As I had once heard myself described—the creature with the hands and feet. I was that pleasant person again, this time for ever and a day. I could hardly expect a second miraculous interference with the ordinance of nature.
And the story of that interposition would be scored up against me, in the family debtor and creditor account, to be used as another missile, when the tale of Norah’s clumsiness, bearishness, multitudinous stupidities, was once more the well-worn domestic theme. How amusing it would be to recall the day when the five men took her out to dine. How incredible it seemed, and, indeed, was. One must have dreamed it. By degrees, quite possibly, a legend would grow up that it was an elaborate practical joke which those five gentlemen had planned among themselves. And the Duke who called on her! You wouldn’t think it to look at her, would you? No one ever does believe it; but he actually did. And the bald-headed old horror! And that waiter!—a waiter, actually, my dear!—such a ridiculous fellow! Don’t you remember how impertinent he was to her? How he treated her as if she were the dirt beneath his feet! It was the funniest thing you ever saw.
I knew. My prophetic soul saw it all in store for me, being acquainted with the family methods where anything which would point a gibe against me was concerned.
Putting on my hat I went out. The atmosphere of the house, even of my own room, was insupportable. It would not have been surprising if someone had endeavoured to stay me, for with Jane, assisted only by a charwoman, I had to play the part of second maid. But no one did. I was conscious that someone came to the drawing-room window as I went by. But I did not notice who it was; and as, so far as I know, no attempt was made to attract my attention, I did not care.
I steered for Kensington Gardens. They were the nearest available approach to the country for which I was always longing; and there, sometimes, one could be alone with the grass, and the trees, and the birds. That was my dominant feeling: the desire to get away from everyone, from everything. To transplant myself from this world, in which I had been, and was, and should be, such an utter failure. If I could only find myself in a different environment, in some place where people were not principally concerned with each other’s appearance, where one could dress as one pleased, and do as one chose, and be comfortable, and yet not be the subject of perpetual comment; where one could have liberty to be a woman, a girl, in one’s own way, which would not be such a dreadful way after all, where one could be even huge and plain and not despised, what a place that would be.
As I tramped through the trees, seeking a spot which was not overrun with nursemaids, and all kinds of persons, I perceived no prospect of ever finding such a haven; unless, perhaps, it were by way of the Round Pond, if it contains water to cover a person of my unseemly inches. On the other side of it, almost obscured by the trunk of a great oak, I saw two chairs. Not only were they unoccupied, but there seemed to be no one in their immediate neighbourhood. So I planted myself in one. In Kensington Gardens no one ever sits upon the grass. Not only would it be in the highest degree improper, but it would spoil one’s clothes, and everyone would stare, and take one for quite a common person. Such an act would be impossible. If one sits at all, one sits upon a chair,—as I did then, though I would infinitely have preferred the ground, and my back against a tree, because the chair was most uncomfortable. And I prepared to lash myself with pessimistic and painful reflections on some such cheerful topic as the Vanity of Human Wishes—please put in the capital letters.
Unfortunately, the sun was shining; and when the sun shines, and I am out-of-doors, and the air is fresh and sweet, and one feels that the summer is at hand, and there is no unsympathetic person to stick pins in you, somehow I never can make as much of my distresses as I ought to; they seem to melt. To begin with, they are solid; in fact, immensely solid, and I mean to keep them solid. Indeed, I often set out with the deliberate intention of considering nothing else but their immense solidity, and allowing nothing to interfere with my consideration either. Then, in some way, the sunshine gets into my eyes, or head, or something, and has a sort of a kind of a dazzling effect. It must have, because, all of a sudden, they are gone—or seem gone. I cannot see them anywhere. Of course, it is absurd, and most illogical; because, all the time, they must be there. But it really is fatal for me to start thinking of my grievances in fine weather. No matter how resolved I am to stick to the subject, I never can keep my mind fixed on them when the sun is shining, and I am out-of-doors—never.
It was like that, then. I had not been on that chair three minutes when Ben Morgan came and seated himself on the one just next. I was too surprised for words, having had no notion that he was anywhere within miles. His coming in that unexpected and startling fashion knocked all the ideas clean out of my head, except the consciousness of my disgraceful conduct to him the day before. But his tact was marvellous; I always have been struck by it. He never hinted at it by so much as a syllable. And presently, to my absolute amazement, I found myself chattering away as if I had come out for that especial purpose.
We began with what was in the newspaper, which I did not happen to have seen, though, from what I could gather from him, I had not lost much. And then—well then, the subject was changed. A white poodle crossed in front of us, and we began talking about dogs. We were both of us very fond of dogs, and, indeed, all sorts of animals; so that it was a topic which was interesting to us both. Then the subject was changed again. Became personal. Drifted, as it were. I have always laughed at people who did that sort of thing in Kensington Gardens. I never thought I should have done it—never. But it became sunnier and sunnier every moment, until I was looking at everything through a golden haze.
Well—I said I would. And when I confessed my shame and my contrition for my behaviour to him yesterday, he said it did not matter—nothing mattered now. And I was the happiest girl in the world! As for being sorry because that fatal power of mine had endured for so short a time, it was the best thing that could have happened. I was delighted. How awful it would have been if everyone I met had kept on falling in love with me right off—high and low, married and single, young and old—when I wanted to be loved by no one else but Ben.
When I told him, in a muddly way, of what had occurred, you should have seen how deliciously he was amused. Though he did say one ridiculous thing—that he could see nothing miraculous in people falling in love with me at sight, since no man worth his salt could help it. Of course I knew that that was one of love’s sweet perjuries. I am not sure that truth is always the thing which is most to be desired.
He is not at all mis-shapen, really; or, if he is, the tiniest scrap: I love him all the more because of it. To me, he will always be straighter than I am; and, ever since I was the merest tot, for straightness, I have been a perfect grenadier.
He would walk home with me; and he told them about it, then and there. You should have seen mamma and the girls when we walked in together. We had actually forgotten lunch; it was quite late in the afternoon; they were beginning to wonder what had become of me. When they learnt, their faces were a study. But they were positively as nice as possible to both of us. Mamma kissed me, and was quite sweet to Ben; and Audrey, in particular, said some lovely things.
... We are going to have that scrap of paper, on which the writing was, framed, and hung up in—in our bedroom.
[The End]
Alterations to the text:
Add TOC.
Change several instances ofanyratetoany rate.
Minor punctuation fixes.
Note: minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies have been left as is.
[Chapter III]
“I am a kind of raree show, So whenever...” change comma to period.
[Chapter V]
“among all my compeers. am best qualified...” change period to comma.
[Chapter IX]
“than to the end of awomen’sarm.” towoman’s.
“scarcely sayingbo! to a goose” toboo.
[Chapter XVIII]
Change “when they wereyonng” toyoung.
Change “on theotberside of the top...” toother.
[Chapter XX]
“or rage. or something.” change the period afterrageto a comma.
Change “But this time Isha’n’tmind.” toshan’t.
[Chapter XXV]
Change “Apromonitorysomething was...” topremonitory.
[End of Text]