0335m
His heart reproached him. Little Kitten Kay! In the last week he hadn’t thought much of her, and once—once she had been his entire world. He had promised her once that he was never going to marry. And now there was Cherry. It was Cherry he thought of as his eyes were closing—Cherry and her saying that there are those who allow and those who love.
Whenever Peter thought of the Misses Jacobite, the picture that formed was of four lean-breasted women, who spoke in whispers and sat forever in a room with the blinds down. They seemed to have no passions, no desires, no grip on reality, no sense of life’s supreme earnestness. They were waiting, always waiting for something to return—something which had once been theirs: youth, the hope of motherhood, love, the admiration of men. The day of their opportunity had gone by them; they could not forget. It was odd to remember that these gentlewomen, prematurely aged, had once been high-stepping and courted—the belles of Topbury. One of them sang, day in, day out, of the rest to be found on the other side of Jordan; it was all that she had to hope for now. Directly the front door opened you could hear her. The sound of her singing sent shivers down your back. It made you think of a mourner, sitting beside the dead; only the dead was not in the house. It had never come to birth. It was something once expected, that no one dared speak about.
When Peter called next morning he was aware of a changed atmosphere. The sense of folded hands had vanished. The singing was no longer heard; instead, there came to his ears a number of busy, orderly sounds—doors softly opening and shutting, feet making discreet haste upon the stairs, the clink of dishes in the basement and the sizzling of cooking.
As he had passed through the hall, with its varnished wall-paper, to the drawing-room in which he waited, the portrait of old Mr. Jacobite had gazed fiercely down. Quite evidently the old gentleman disapproved of the use being made of his night-shirt.
Peter didn’t seat himself; it would have been impossible to do so without causing havoc. Every chair had its antimacassar, spread at its correct old-maidish angle. He stood by the window, looking out into the cool little garden—a green, shy sanctuary for birds, across which the July sunlight fell. Overhead was the room in which Uncle Waffles had slept—he hoped he had behaved himself. The chandelier shook; several people were very industrious up there. And Peter wondered. Old Mr. Jacobite—had he always disapproved of men where his daughters were concerned? Had he kept them from marriage? Had the tall and reserved Miss Florence ever been kissed by a man? In the light of his own romantic experience he pitied all people who hadn’t been kissed and married. Life was wasted if that hadn’t happened; it was meant for that.
The handle turned. It was Miss Effie, the little and talkative Miss Jacobite, who entered. She was smiling and lifted to Peter a face all a-flutter, thanking him with her eyes, as though he had given her a present.
“How is he?” Peter asked. “I oughtn’t to have brought him here at all—let alone at such an hour. Only you see—you see there was nowhere else to bring him.”
She seated herself on the edge of a chair, patting out her dress. “He’s tired.” She spoke with an air of concern. “He wasn’t very well. We made him stay in bed. We’re going to keep him there; he needs feeding.”
She was flustered. Her hands kept clasping and unclasping. She seemed afraid of being accused of immodesty. She raised her eyes shyly. “It’s so nice to have a man in the house. Not since poor dear father——. I wonder what he’d have said.”
Peter didn’t wonder. He thought it was high time that he made matters clearer. “Of course, I’m not going to leave him on your hands. I only brought him for a night because——”
She interrupted anxiously. “Oh, please, until he’s better. He’s so run down. They made him work so hard in—in there.”
So he had brought his derelict uncle to the one spot on earth where he was regarded as a treasure! He was so amazed at Miss Effie’s attitude that he doubted whether she was in full possession of the facts.
“But—but,” he faltered, “didn’t Miss Florence tell you where he’s come from—where it was that he had to work?”
She answered in a low voice. “We’ve all done wrong.” It seemed she could get no further. She sank her head, gazing straight before her, tracing out the great red roses in the carpet. Peter thought of her sister, Leah, the shadow-woman; he knew what she meant. She raised her eyes to his with an effort. “We’ve all done wrong; I think to have done wrong makes one more gentle. It makes one willing—not to remember.”
Miss Florence opened the door and looked in on them. “He’s ready to see you now.” She hated scenes. Because she saw that one was in preparation, she made her voice and manner perfunctory. “You’d better go alone. You’d better go on tiptoe. I wouldn’t stop too long; he’s got a bad head.”
Peter couldn’t help smiling as he climbed the stairs, and yet it was a tender sort of smiling. Didn’t these innocent ladies know that too much whisky invariably left a bad head? Or, with their divine faculty for forgetting, were they willing to forget the whisky and only to remember to cure the bad head?
It was a white room—a woman’s room most emphatically. The pictures on the walls were triumphs of sentimentality. Gallants were kissing their ladies’ hands and clutching them to their breasts in an agony of parting, or looking meltingly at a flower which they had left. The seats of the chairs wore linen covers to prevent their upholstery from getting shabby. The window was wide; on the sill crumbs had been scattered. Sparrows chattered and, grown bold from habit, flew in on to the carpet and preened their feathers.
On the bed, the sheets drawn close up under his chin, lay Uncle Waffles. He had the look that invalids sometimes have, of being made to appear more ill by too much attention. He had not shaved—his cheeks were grizzled; that help to make him look worse. The atmosphere of a sickroom was completed by a table placed beside the counterpane, on which lay an open Bible and some freshly plucked wall-flowers. Peter had never seen his uncle in bed—for the moment he was embarrassed. He drew up a chair. “How are you? Getting rested?”
Uncle Waffles hitched himself higher on the pillow, reached out and took Peter’s hand. A glint of the old love of fun-making crept into his eyes. “I’ve not been treated like this since my mother—not since I was married. They’re pretending I’m ill because they want to nurse me. Carried off my trousers, they did, to prevent me from getting dressed. What’s the matter with them? Don’t they know who I am?”
“They know.”
“Then why are they doing it?”
“Because they’ve suffered themselves.”
Ocky tightened his grip on Peter’s hand. “One of them been to—to where I’ve been, you mean? Which one?” Peter shook his head. “They’ve all been to prison in a sense—not the kind you speak of. They had a big tragedy, when everything looked happy. Since then——. Well, since then people have pitied and cut them. They’ve been left. They’re glad you’ve come, partly because life’s been cruel to you, and partly——. Look here, I don’t want you to laugh!—partly because you’re a man.”
Ocky pulled the late Mr. Jacobite’s night-shirt tighter across his shoulders. It was much too large for him—as voluminous as a surplice. “Not much of a man,” he muttered; “not much of a man. Arrived here—you know how. Before that had been hanging about street corners, watched by the police and jostled into the gutter. My own wife won’t look at me; and yet you tell me these strangers——.”
His voice shook. “I don’t understand—can’t see why——.”
Peter spoke after an interval. “You—you haven’t often been surprised by too much kindness, have you? Comes almost like a blow at first?”
“Almost. It kind of hurts. But it’s the right kind of hurting. It makes me want to be good. Never thought I’d want to be that.”
“What did you think?”
For a moment a fierce look came into his eyes. “What does an animal think of when it’s trapped? It thinks of all the ways in which it can get back at the people who put it there. But now——.” He picked up the wall-flowers and smelt them. “She brought them this morning—the littlest one, with the gray hair and tiny hands. They were all wet with dew when she brought them. You need to go to prison, Peter, to know what flowers can mean to a chap.”
There was a tap at the door. Miss Madge entered, bringing some beef-tea. When she had gone Ocky said, “They take it in turns.”
Peter remembered how, going always into separate rooms with them, they’d taken turns in owning himself and Kay when they were children. How rarely life had allowed them to love anything!
Uncle Waffles’ thoughts seemed to have been following the same track. He paused, with the cup half-way to his mouth. “Those women ought to have married.—Been in prison most of their lives, you said? But I don’t know; marriage can be a worse hell.” He turned to Peter. “D’you remember at Sandport how she’d never let me kiss her? It was like that from the first. She kept me hungry. I stole to make her love me. She was always talking about her first husband and making me jealous. And yet——.”
He stopped and gazed vacantly across the room to where sparrows fluttered on the sill and sunlight fell. Peter supposed that he had forgotten what he was going to have said. Suddenly his face became all purpose and pleading. He flung back the bedclothes and leant out, gripping Peter’s shoulders till they hurt. “I’d steal again to-morrow to get one day of her bought affection. My God, how I’ve longed for her! Make her come to me. You must, Peter. You shall. Don’t tell her who I am. Oh, don’t refuse me.”
The sharp agony and desperate determination of a man so drifting and careless took Peter aback. He recalled those days when he had hidden him in the stable—it had been the same then. He had always been urging that Je-hane should be persuaded to walk in the garden that he might catch a glimpse of her. The one strong loyalty of his weak existence had been the love of this woman.
“Get her to come to you!” Peter said. “But how? She wouldn’t. She——” Ocky burried his face in the pillow. How thin he was and listless! How spent! How——. What was the word? How smashed! It was as though in the human quarry some chance stone of calamity had fallen on him, making him a moral cripple. He was what he was through the sort of accident that might happen to any man—to the Faun Man, if Eve refused to love him; even to Peter himself.
The boy pulled the clothes back over the man. “Somehow—I don’t know how—somehow I’ll do it. I promise.”
After that, whenever Peter entered the white room, he saw how his uncle watched for someone to follow.
The Misses Jacobite had found a doctor who supported their opinion that their guest must be kept in bed. The prison fare and long confinement had broken down his constitution. The doctor didn’t know what had done it; he advised food and rest.
From time to time Peter brought visitors to the room overlooking the garden. His father came and was shocked by the wasted look of the man who, in earlier years, had been his friend. It was of those earlier years that they chose to speak, by an instinctive courtesy; they, at least, had been happy territory. They recalled together their schoolday pranks—the canings they had earned, the football matches they had lost or won, the holidays when they had broken boundaries, going on some secret adventure. But, when Barrington rose to go, Ocky said, “Don’t come again, Billy. You used to hate to hear me call you Billy; you’ll dislike it just as much when I’m better. We’ve both been forgetting what I am, and what I’ve done. If you come again we may remember. For years I’ve worried you; well, that’s ended. But—you’re a man of the world, and you understand. I’m a jail-bird—and I don’t want to spoil the memory of this hour. Good-bye, old man.”
It turned out that Mr. Grace hadn’t slept on his box so soundly that evening of Peter’s return—at least, not so soundly as to keep his eyes shut.
“All swank on my part, Mr. Peter,” he said; “she’s been h’at me for years, my darter Grice ‘as, and I don’t mean to get conwerted. H’I’m not a-goin’ ter come ter ‘eaven, so long as ‘er voice is the only voice as calls me. ‘Eaven ‘ud be ‘ell, livin’ wiv ‘er in the same ‘ouse, if I wuz ter do that. We’d be for h’everlastin’ prayin’ and floppin’. Not but wot religion ‘as its uses; but not for me in ‘er sense. That’s why I shut me h’eyes when she was a-bellowin’ at the corner. But I saw yer. ‘Ow is the old bloke nar? Your uncle, I mean, meanin’ no disrespeck. I’ve h’often thought that if we ‘ad met under ‘appier h’auspices—h’auspices is one of my Grice’s words—we might ‘ave been pals.”
Peter brought about the ‘appier h’auspices. One afternoon Cat’s Meat halted before the house and Mr. Grace climbed down from his box, a bag of apples in one hand and his whip in the other. He was very red in the face and embarrassed; he had anything but a sick-room appearance, though he often drove in funeral processions. He was immensely careful about the wiping of his feet. Peter tried to coax him to leave his whip in the hall; he wouldn’t. He seemed to think that it lent him dignity, and explained his status in the world. So it was clutching a bag of apples and clasping his whip against his chest, that he entered the white room where the birds hopped in and out.
Ocky Waffles, shifting his position on the bed, caught sight of the weather-beaten, alcoholic figure. Before he could say a word, in a thick, husky voice Mr. Grace offered his apologies.
“‘Ere. ‘Ave ‘em. I ‘ear you ain’t well.” He swung the bag of apples on to the bed. “Bought ‘em from a gal off a barrer” He paused awkwardly.
“That was good of you,” said Ocky. “Come and sit down.”
Mr. Grace scratched his head. “I dunno as I want to sit down. I dunno as you and me is friends. Remember the last time we met and h’all the trouble we ‘ad? You wuz a nice old cough-drop in them days. I ‘ad to ‘it yer wiv this ‘ere whip—the wery same one—to make yer let go o’ the top o’ the gate and fall inter the stable. Well, I ‘it yer in kindness; but it’s because I ‘it yer that I dunno whether you and me is friends.”
“We’re friends,” said Ocky.
Mr. Grace sat down. It was most curious, all this. He hadn’t got his bearings. This chap, lying in a decent bed and waited on hand and foot by ladies, was Mr. Waffles, if you please. But he had been an old cock who climbed walls to avoid policemen, and rode about at night in philanthropic cabs. He turned to him gruffly. “Eat one o’ them there apples. Bought ‘em from a gal off a barrer.—Did h’I tell yer that h’already?” It was a sign that the truce was established.
Mr. Grace became a frequent caller. An odd friendship grew up between these two men, both broken on the wheel of feminine perversity. They exchanged notes on their experiences. Ocky spoke to the old cabby with greater freedom than to anyone, save Peter. Jehane had always said of him that he found it easy to be sociable with underlings and ostlers. In this case he found it easy because of the wide charity of the underling’s personal laxity. Sometimes Miss Effie would steal in and read to them of a man who chose his companions from among publicans and sinners. Mr. Grace would pay her the closest attention and ask her to repeat certain passages; he was picking up pointers, with which to challenge his daughter’s confident assertions concerning God’s unvarying severity.
And then Jehane! She came one afternoon to Topbury to visit Nan. She had heard nothing; nothing was told her. Peter waited for an opportunity to get her to himself. In the garden after dinner the others contrived to leave them together.
“Going up to Oxford, Peter? Oh, well, it’s good to have opportunities and a father with money. My poor Eustace, he’ll never have that. I might, while you’re there——.”
She paused; the thought had just occurred to her—a new plan for marrying off her girls “I might let Glory and Riska visit my father and mother while you’re there. It would be pleasant for all of you. Would you like that?”
“Splendid,” said Peter.
She eyed him, suspecting the sincerity of his enthusiasm.
“Of course, if you don’t want your cousins—-.”
“I do,” he assured her. “I’m going to Calvary College; that’s just opposite Professor Usk’s house. I’ll be able to see plenty of them.” Then, knowing how she liked to be appealed to as a person with superior knowledge, “I wish you’d tell me some of the things I mustn’t do; Oxford etiquette’s so full ofmustn’ts.”
She laughed; the hard lines softened about her mouth. Talking about Oxford made her think of her girlhood, when to be the daughter of a don was to be something akin to an aristocrat. Those days were sufficiently far removed for her to have forgotten their dread of spinsterhood, and for her to remember only their glamour. “You must never use tongs to your sugar,” she said; “only freshers do that—you must help yourself with your fingers. And, let me see! You must never wear your cap and gown unless it’s positively necessary. You mustn’t speak to a second or third-year man unless he speaks to you first.—Oh, there are so manymustn’tsat Oxford; it would take all evening.”
And then, “Did your mother ever tell you the story of how we first met Billy? It had been raining, and we were waiting to go on the river. I put my head out of the window to see if the storm was over, and there was your father looking up at me. I used to tease your mother by pretending that I was in love with him. I shouldn’t wonder—I expect she still believes I wanted him. You see, Nan and I were inseparable as girls. We used to be horribly scared of not marrying—we didn’t know as much about marriage then. We used to think that girls were born on a raft and that only a man could come to their rescue. Funny idea, wasn’t it?”
“And if the man didn’t come?”
“Why, if the man didn’t come, we believed girls missed everything—believed they got blown out to sea, out of sight of land and starved with thirst. That was what made your mother so jealous, when I pretended to be in love with Billy. She was afraid she’d lose her one and only chance of getting safe ashore to the land of matrimony.” That was Jehane’s public version of how love had miscarried between herself and Barrington.
So she ran on, remembering and remembering, as they walked the garden path from the mulberry to the pear trees, forth and back, back and forth, while the sunset reddened the creepers on the walls and the loft-window, from which Ocky had watched in vain for her coming, looked down on them emptily.
When it was time for her to be getting on her way, Peter volunteered to accompany her to the station. They chose the Lowbury Station instead of the Topbury, because it would take longer and they could continue their conversation about Oxford, her Promised Land of the past. “You must have had good times as a girl.”
Good times! Hadn’t she? She painted for him the joys of Eights’ Week, the excitement of the Toggers, the tremendous elations of a young and vivid ‘Varsity world. She painted them for him as romantic realities which she had lived to the full and lost. And the odd thing was that she believed that she had been happy then. All her life it had beenthenthat she had been happy. Her Eldorados had always been behind her—never in the To-days or the To-morrows. When she pitied herself, her otherwise barren nature blossomed into a tragic luxuriance that was almost noble, and entirely picturesque.
She hadn’t noticed where Peter was leading her. She found herself in a broad and quiet street, through which little traffic passed. The pavements, on either side of it, were lined with plane-trees. Houses stood far back from the road in gardens, with stone steps climbing up to them.
She slipped her hand into Peter’s arm. Now that Nan wasn’t there to be pleased by it, she was willing to let him know that she was proud of him. In the silver twilight, when one sees with the imagination rather than with the eyes, she found his face like to one which had looked up at her suddenly and held her spell-bound in the gray blur of an Oxford street.
“Is this the right way, Peter? Is it a short-cut? Are you taking me out of my way to lengthen our talk?”
He laughed, rather excitedly she thought. “I like to hear you telling of the old days—— Hulloa! Why here’s the Misses Jacobite’s house! You remember what you said about women being on a raft—I think that explains them. No one came out from the land to take them off. Let’s step inside and cheer them up.”
“But Peter, my train——.”
“Oh, there are plenty of trains—we needn’t stop more than a second.”
“You rascal!” She gave his arm a little hug. “I believe you had this in mind from the start.”
“Perhaps I had.”
When they were safe inside the hall and the door had closed behind them, his manner altered. She was conscious of it in a second. He no longer laughed, and he was more excited.
“There’s someone here who wants to meet you,” he informed her.
“But who? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to give you a surprise.”
She looked annoyed and yet curious. “You must tell me. Is it a man or a woman?”
He didn’t dare to let her know that it was her husband.
“You’ll see presently.”
She was beginning to protest; Miss Florence entered. Under her attempt at cordiality her face betrayed dismay, and something still less comfortable—judgment. Peter employed her entrance as an excuse for his own rapid exit. He soon returned. “They want to see you now.”
Making the best of an awkward situation, Jehane exclaimed, “They! So there are several of them! It was only ‘someone’ at first.”
She followed him up the stairs, trying to catch up with and question him; he was careful to keep sufficiently far ahead to prevent conversation. He opened a door on the landing—the door which led into the white room. He made as if he were going to accompany her, but, as she crossed the threshold, stepped back and closed the door.
“You!”
The man held out his arms. When she stood rigid and did not stir, he dragged himself across the bed, as if to come to her.
“Don’t.”
Her voice was sudden like a whip cracked.
His arms fell to his side. After all these years of absence, her stronger will lashed down his desire. He began ramblingly, shame-facedly, hinting at what he meant, not having the audacity to finish his sentences. “I had to——. I made Peter promise. When they let me out, I was thinking of you. All the time in there, for four years, I was thinking of——. Jehane, I’ve been punished enough. Isn’t it possible that——? Jehane, I love you. I always have. I always shall.”
He was aching to touch her. Through the mist of twilight that drifted through the room, he fed his eyes on every detail of this woman who had once been familiar to him. She hadn’t changed much; it was he who was altered. She also made her sternly pitiful estimate—the shrunken body, the loose-lipped, purposeless mouth, the hair growing thin and gray about the temples.
He stretched out his arms. “I love you.”
She shuddered; it was as though a man from the grave had called to her.
“Love me!” Her voice was so low that his ears were strained to catch what she said. “No. You never loved me; you weren’t strong enough for that. It was all a mistake; we never belonged to each other. If you had loved me, you wouldn’t have—— But we won’t talk about it. I’m not bitter; but we must go our own ways now.”
He was lying across the edge of the bed, threatening to reach across the gulf that spread between them. The nearer he came, the more she saw what had happened. He was old—a senile, night-robed caricature of the man she had married. In the half-light her fear of his claim on her made him ghastly.
He was moving—he was getting out of bed. She opened the door, running as she would have run from a skeleton. He was following her down the stairs. She fancied that he touched her. It seemed that he leapt through the air. Something fell. In the hall people tried to stay her. She was in the street where the plane-trees rustled; how she managed to get there she could not tell. She ran on, fearing that he still followed.
She halted for want of breath. Where was she? Lighted trams were passing. She jumped on the first, giving no thought to its direction. Not until she was safe aboard and moving, did she dare to look back.
Nothing was there, nothing gaunt and hungry—only saunterers and girls with their lovers, drifting dreamlike through the shadows under lamps against whose glare moths hurled their fragile bodies, beating their lives out flutteringly.
Despite the Misses Jacobite’s efforts to keep him ill, Ocky insisted on getting better. His cork-like nature refused to be submerged by adversity; it was warranted un-sinkable.
At first, after repeated and urgent requests, he was allowed to sit by the window in a dressing-gown. Then he was allowed to get partly dressed and to ramble about the house in carpet-slippers. At last he was permitted to venture into the garden. There, for some days, his adventures ended. His four benevolent Delilahs had the felicity of watching their captive-man, pottering in the sunshine, watering the grass and tying up the flowers, while leaves tapped against the walls and birds flew over him.
They were terribly afraid that presently he would contemplate an exodus. It was so very long since they had had anything to do with men—they had almost forgotten what things amused them. In those far-off days when the world was young and lovers were frequent, they had played and sung a little. But the drawing-room was faded, their songs were out of date, the piano was out of tune, and their voices——. Perhaps those lovers had never really cared for their singing; appearing to care had afforded an excuse for sitting close to the singers, as they turned the pages of their music.
Mr. Waffles mustn’t be allowed to get dull—that would be fatal. They asked him if he would be so good as to keep an eye on the cats—to see that they didn’t pounce on any of the birds who made a home in their garden. Mr. Waffles promised. But the cats still stole along the wall and crept through the bushes, unmolested by the weary gentleman in carpet-slippers.
Something had to be done. The case grew desperate. The four gray sisters hunted through their father’s library and searched out books—Dickens’ novels in paper-covers, issued in parts at a time when a new character from Boz was more exciting than a new comet hurled through the night from the unseen shores of eternity. Dickens left Mr. Waffles cold; his tastes were not literary. He fell asleep withDavid Copperfieldface-down beside his chair, while the sunlight played leap-frog with the shadows across the lawn.
He had to be amused. Providence sent a diversion. Seated beneath the apple tree, where the shrubbery began, Miss Florence was assuring her Samson for the hundredth time of how glad she and her sisters were to have him with them. To enforce the sincerity of her words, she had stretched out her hand to touch him—had almost touched him—when a shocked voice exclaimed, “What the devil! What the devil! Poor father! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
Miss Florence jumped back from Mr. Waffles. Had he accused her? She saw that his lips were not moving—that in fact, he was as surprised as herself. Both looked slowly round. Their astonished glances found nothing more perturbing than the innocent greenness of the garden and the noiseless hopping of birds.
The voice came again, maliciously strident. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What the devil! What the devil!”
Overhead, perched on a branch, was a gray and scarlet parrot. From whom had it escaped? How long had it been there? All they knew was that, while taking refuge in their garden, it was not above reviling them. At night it formed the habit of roosting in the apple tree. Before anyone was out of bed, it could be heard profaning the early morning.
The energies of the entire household were now directed toward the effecting of its capture. Ingenious plans were concocted. A topic of conversation was never lacking.
The four elderly ladies placed themselves under their guest’s protection. What would the neighbors think if they were to hear a constant stream of blasphemy issuing from their walls? And, besides, the parrot in a cage could be taught better manners and made an attractive pet.
Mr. Grace, on a visit, learnt of the situation and volunteered to lend a hand. He and Mr. Waffles were provided with bags of grain and butterfly-nets. They were instructed to creep with the stealth of poachers behind ambuscades of trees and flowers, following the gray and scarlet peril till it settled, and then——
But the triumphant moment was continually postponed; for, whenever they approached the parrot, no matter how warily, it spread its wings, mocking them and crying, “What the devil!”—or something even worse.
Ocky’s days were fully occupied now. He had a morning-to-evening interest. The Misses Jacobite urged on him the importance of his task—the safeguarding of their reputation.
But even a trust so sacred and incessant failed to content Mr. Waffles. Peter made this discovery when his uncle asked him for the loan of a shilling. “Voluntary contributions thankfully borrowed,” was Ocky’s motto. No one ever gave him anything. It was always lent. Now money implied an excursion into the larger world; Peter wondered what might be its purpose. He knew next morning; his uncle had a sixpenny pipe in his mouth and a tin of cheap tobacco in his pocket. He was stoking up to renew life’s battle; with a pipe between his teeth, Ocky Waffles was a man.
He led Peter down the garden to the shrubbery, behind which were two cane-chairs. The shrubbery was convenient for hiding the fact that he was smoking.
“Peter,” he said, jerking his head across his shoulder, “I’ve been noticing. They can’t afford it. I’ve got to go to work, old chap.”
He spoke with his old swaggering confidence, as though the entire world was waiting to engage his services. The carpet-slippers, which had been Mr. Jacobite’s, chafed one against the other thoughtfully.
“Got to go to work,” he repeated reflectively, in a tone which implied regret. “I think I know a fellow—— We were in the coop together, and he said—— But I’m not going to tell you till I’m more certain of my plans.”
Had he been burdened with the weightiest of financial secrets, he could not have made them more mysterious. Peter tried not to smile; he was glad—this was the muddling self-deceived uncle he remembered.
Ocky knocked the ashes out of his pipe, waiting for the bowl to cool before he filled it. “I hadn’t an idea that they had so little. It’s come home to me gradually—the worn carpets and old things everywhere. And here have I been eating my head off. We’ll have to pay ‘em back, Peter—have to pay ‘em back.”
Peter had reason to be sceptical about the paying back; he applauded the intention. Except in imagination, his uncle had never been much of a money-maker. He had always been unemployable; he was ten times more unemployable now with a prison record. Peter spoke to his father, with the result that a position was offered as packer in a publisher’s establishment. Ocky refused it. “Got something better.”
The “something better” was at last divulged. One afternoon Peter found his uncle up the apple-tree, trying to balance a box in its branches. In the box was scattered the kind of food best calculated to tempt the appetite of a parrot. The box had a flap-door leading into it, propped open by a stick from which a string dangled. If an ill-natured bird were to enter the box and a lady beneath the tree were to pull on the string, thus dragging away the stick, the door would shut and the ill-natured bird would be a captive. Gathered under the tree were the four Misses Jacobite, looking very weepy and calling up warnings to their guest, please not to fall and to be careful.
Peter knew what it meant—these were the last offices of gratitude which preceded departure.
When the adventurous gentleman had clambered down, it was seen that he wore his shabby spats and that his mustaches were pointed with wax. He led Peter aside and winked at him solemnly. It was the return from Elba; after exile, he was going forth to conquer the world afresh.
“Well?” said Peter.
“Well?” said Ocky.
“Leaving?” asked Peter.
“‘S’afternoon,” said Ocky. Then, after a silence, which heightened the suspense, came the revelation. “There’s a fellow, I know, a Mr. Widow—we were in the coop together. A nice fellow! He oughtn’t to have been there. Seems he was in the second-hand business and dressed like a parson to inspire confidence. Well, his wife was a gadabout woman and always jeering at him. One day, quite quietly, in a necessary sort of manner, without losing his temper, so he told me, he up and clumped her over the head. He went out to a sale, never thinking he’d done any more than was his duty; when he came back she was dead. He’s a nice, kind sort of chap, is Jimmie Widow, and religious. Not a bit like a murderer. If you didn’t start with a prejudice, you’d like him, Peter. I met him a fortnight ago. He’s opened a little place in Soho and wants me to join him. I’m to mind shop while he’s out. There’s heaps of money to be made in the second-hand business. You see, I’ll surprise you all and die a rich man yet.”
“Oh, yes,” said Peter, “I—I hope so.”
Mr. Grace thought it just as well that his friend should enter on his new adventure with the appearance of prosperity. He offered him a free ride in his cab. So Ocky took leave of his benevolent Delilahs not as a pedestrian but, as he had arrived—a carriage-gentleman.
Shortly after his exit, the parrot was pounced on and eaten by a cat. With the first money that he earned, Ocky made up for the loss with the gift of a pair of love-birds. The Misses Jacobite named one Ocky and the other Waffles. Which was the husband-bird and which the lady was a matter in continual dispute between the sisters. Miss Florence insisted that Waffles was the husband, because it had the more considerate habits. The other she thought of as Jehane, and disliked.
The question was still undecided, when a hawker of goldfish happened to call. No gold-fish were required; but the conversation veered round to the sex of love-birds. The peddler confessed that in his spare moments ‘e did a bit in poultry and bulldogs. He was at once invited to enter, with all the deference that is due to an expert. Having inspected Ocky and Waffles, he announced as his verdict that them bloomin’ love-birds wuz either both cocks or both ‘ens; but, whether cocks or ‘ens, even he, with a vast experience be’ind him, could not tell.
When he had departed, a silver cruet-stand was missed from the sideboard. And there the perplexing problem rested.
Asummer’s afternoon in London! The gold-gray majesty of the Embankment, basking in sunlight; the silver-gray flowing of the Thames beneath its many bridges; smoke, bidding a casual good-by to chimneys, sauntering off a truant into the quiet blue; trees, bravely green and a-flutter; a steamer swerving in to the landing at Westminster! His decision came suddenly. She had asked him to visit her. Perhaps—perhaps, she could tell him what had happened to Cherry.
He jumped off the bus, crossed the road at a run, sprang down the steps and thrust his money through the hole in the ticket-window. “A return to Kew.”
The man in the box was ostentatiously slow in counting out the change. These young bloods made him bitter. With all the years before them, they were always late and always in a hurry. He sold them their passports to cool green places; he himself was left permanently behind by that streak of gleaming river.
“‘Eaps o’ time,” he grumbled. “Yes, that’s your one.” Then, having at last handed over the change and a ticket, “Best skip lively, or you’ll lose ‘er.”
Peter skipped lively; to the man’s disappointment, he scrambled aboard just as the steamer was casting loose. She shot out into the current, panting and splashing, kicking up a merry white wake. The Houses of Parliament grew tall and, at last, spectral in the distance. The dome of St. Paul’s lay, a black bubble swollen to bursting, on the lip of the horizon. The smoke of London trembled like a thin flag, waving back the encroaching sky. The groan of creeping traffic was stilled; stone-palaces of labor sank and sank, shorn of their height and supremacy. This was the road to Arcady, the flowing road to the land of birds and grass pavements. They were on the outskirts of that land already; everybody felt it. A red-nosed minstrel drew his harp between his knees and fumbled at the strings. He assured his public tunefully that he had dreamt that he dwelt in marble halls. It was difficult to believe him; he didn’t look a soulful fellow. Nevertheless, in his decrepit person, he echoed the hopes of incredible romance. The crowd grew careless of appearances and jaunty. Cockney swains cuddled their girls more closely; the girls, rather proud than abashed, tittered.
Battersea Park drifted by, a green mist of trees and romping children. Against the red-brick background of Chelsea, scarlet-coated soldiers strolled, unwarriorlike, keeping pace with pram-trundling nurse-maids. The steamer seemed to stand still; it was the banks, on either side, that traveled.
The harpist, having tried his nose at romance, came back to reality. Perhaps, it was because he sang so much through it, that his nose was so long and red.
“Sez I, ‘Be Mrs. ‘Awkins, Mrs. ‘Enery ‘Awkins,
Or acrost the seas I’ll roam.
So ‘elp me, Bob, I’m crazy,
Liza, yer a daisy—
Won’t yer share my ‘umble ‘ome?”’
In vulgar language he gave exact utterance to Peter’s emotions. Not that he had any home for Cherry to share. He wasn’t likely to have for a long time to come. He had to go to Oxford first, there to be drilled for his tussle with the world. And yet, unreasonably, too previously, against all laws of caution and common sense, he wanted to hear her say that she cared for him.
He had every reason to believe the contrary. He had written to her, and had received only a line in answer, “Let’s forget. For your sake it would be better.” After that his many letters had been returned to him unopened, indicating that the address was unknown. He had tried to get into touch with the Faun Man and Harry, but they were on the Continent, roving. Then, he had thought of the golden woman. She had been kind to him. She had asked him to visit her. She and Cherry were scarcely friends, but she might tell him where he could find her.
“Let’s forget.” The words rang in his ears. They tormented him. They made him both sad and angry. They seemed to treat all love as a flirtation, as a stroll beneath the stars which must end. He didn’t want an ending—couldn’t conceive that it was possible. Was she heartless or—or had she mistaken him? Was it that she didn’t understand love’s finality? Or that she did understand, and was frightened? Or—and this was the doubt that haunted him most—that she didn’t really like him?
Putney! Mortlake! Racing-shells skimming the surface of the water! Bridges wading from bank to bank! Bathing boys who stood up naked, waving to the passing steamer! Then Kew, green and somnolent, with its plumed trees and low-browed houses. Peter landed. The crowd melted, breaking up into couples who wandered off, purposeless and happy. They had only escaped from London that they might be alone together. Should they go to the Botanical Gardens? Oh, yes. Anywhere—it didn’t matter. Anywhere, so long as they could sit together and hold hands.
He crossed the bridge; stopped a stranger and asked a question; turned along the bank and came to a house, little more than a cottage—a nest tucked away amid shrubs and trees, with the river in view.
Like the frill on a woman’s dress, a green verandah ran round it. Everything was cool and neat and hushed. The bushes were trim and orderly. The gravel-path had been smoothly raked—not a stone was awry. Flowers stood sweetly demure, in rows like school-girls awaiting a good conduct prize and trying to forget that they had ever been hoydens. On the lawn an automatic sprinkler was at work, revolving slowly and throwing up a cloud of spray.
As he approached the porch, misty with wistaria and passion-flowers, he searched the windows for signs of life. They were so clear that they seemed to be without panes, giving direct entrance to the pleasant rooms inside. They seemed to say, “We have nothing to hide—nothing.” Brasses shone as brightly as a more precious metal. The door lent a virginal touch of whiteness.
He rang the bell and heard a faint tinkle, then the rustling of skirts, accompanied by prim footsteps. A severely attired maid admitted him. He gazed round the room into which he was shown. Books, artistically bound, lay on the table. Everything gave evidence of fastidiousness and taste—of a certain remoteness from the everyday jostle of life. Above an inlaid desk stood a portrait, silverframed. Out of curiosity Peter tiptoed over; the Faun Man gazed out at him with laughing eyes. Lying open on the desk was a well-thumbed volume, small and bound like a Bible. A passage was underscored, which read, “Thou must be lord and master of thine own actions, and not a slave or hireling.” Turning to the title-page, he found that it wasThe Imitation of Christ.
A voice behind him said, “Ah, so you’ve discovered me!”
He drew himself up, afraid she might suspect him of spying. “I—I was interested by the words you’d underlined. I wanted to see who wrote them. I oughtn’t to have——”
She laughed softly, shrugging her shoulders. She was all in white—lazy, splendid and vital. “My Loo-ard! Don’t apologize. You were surprised. I don’t blame you.” She nodded her head like a knowing child. “Oh, yes, Peter, the golden woman reads books like that sometimes.”
She took his hands in hers and drew him over to a sofa, making him sit down beside her. “And now, what have you come to tell me?”
He recovered from his confusion and surrendered, as all men did, to her graciousness. “That it’s ripping to see you. But—but how did you know I called you the golden woman?”
“Lorie—he tells me everything.” She leant back her long fine throat, pillowing her head against the cushions. “You must never trust him with any of your secrets, if you don’t want me to—— Now, what is it that you’ve come to tell me?”
“Then, you know——?” He hesitated. The confession to him was sacred; there was amusement in her eyes. “Then you know about me and Cherry?” He was sure she did. She had greeted him as though his visit had been long expected.
She placed her cool fingers about his wrist and bent her head nearer. Her voice was low, and caressing—the voice of one who breaks bad news gently. “I know. You told her that you loved her.—— Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
She was looking sorry for him. “Why sooner?” he questioned.
“Because she’s gone away.”
It was almost as though she had told him that Cherry had died. “Away? Where to?”
“I don’t know. Lorie didn’t say; he took her. Perhaps, to the convent. Poor little girl, you—you frightened her, Peter.”
He was all amazement. What a contrast there was between these two! The boy so inexperienced and crestfallen; the golden woman so wise and quiet. “Yes,you, Peter. You’re so natural and uncivilized. You were too sudden with her. You told her that you loved her just as a child would—directly you felt it. You wanted to kiss her without waste of time. You galloped too fast, Peter; you tried to take all the fences at one stride.” Her voice grew more tender; she folded her hands in her lap, looking away from him, straight before her. “You’re—you’re the sort of lover we older women dream of when the hour’s gone by. The men who come to us are too cautious; they watch for the lines in our faces. They’ve learnt to play safe. But you, with your glorious youth——! And she didn’t recognize it—didn’t know what you were offering.” The blue eyes came back slowly to his face. She ended, “And so, she’s gone away.”
Peter felt unhappy and yet comforted. She had envied him something of which he had been ashamed—the unavoidable indiscretion of his lack of age. She had called it glorious; she hadn’t thought it foolish. “But what must I do? Will she—will she come back again? Will she understand, one day, the way you do?”
She answered evasively. “One day! We women all understand one day.”
He repeated his question, “But what must I do?”
She put her arm about his shoulder. “Wait. It’s all that either of us can do.”
Why did she include herself? The room was very silent. In its patient preparedness, it must have spent years in waiting. The garden outside seemed to listen, tiptoe. The door was white, as if little used. The sunlight on the lawn crept slowly. Everything watched; yet nothing was wideawake. For whom were they all expectant?Always there is one who allows, and one who loves. Was that the explanation?
Above the open volume of cloistered consolation, with its disillusioned counsels of timid patience, the Faun Man smiled from his silver frame. Peter had always thought——.
So, after all, was it the Faun Man who had delayed?
And Cherry loved him! Had that anything to do with it? He crushed the suspicion down—and yet it survived.
“And you don’t know——. You couldn’t tell me where to write?”
The golden woman shook her head. “Who can say? You don’t know much about love, Peter. It’s a continual hoping for something which never happens—or which, when it happens, is something different. People say it’s a state of heart—it’s really a state of mind. I think—and you’ll hate me for saying it—I think true love is always on one side and is always disappointed. Did you ever hear about the green tree and the bird in the morn? You didn’t?
“A bird in the morn
To a green tree was calling:
‘Come over. Come over.
Night’s vanished. Day’s born.
And I’m weary—I want you, green tree, for my lover;
Through clouds I am falling,
A-flutter, a-flutter.
I’m lonely,
Here only.
And heard your leaves mutter.
Night’s vanished. Day’s born.
So run out and fold me, green tree, in the morn.’
“The bird in the morn
Heard a distant tree sighing:
I cannot come over—
Night’s vanished. Day’s born.
I am rooted. But haste, oh sweet bird, to your lover;
So freely you’re flying,
A-flutter, a-flutter.
Sink hither,
Not thither.
Hark how my leaves mutter,
Night’s vanished. Love’s born.’
The bird flew—ah, whither? The tree was forlorn.”
She stroked his hand. “In true love,” she said, “there’s always one who could but won’t, and one who would but cannot.”
“Not always,” he denied. He spoke confidently, remembering his mother and father.
“How certain you are!” She watched him mockingly. “Ah, you know of an exception! Believe me, Peter, winged birds and rooted trees are by far the more common.”
She made him feel that she shared his dilemma—that she reckoned herself, with him, among the trees which are rooted. The bond of sympathy was established.
“We,” she whispered, “you and I, Peter, we must wait for our winged birds to visit us. We can’t go to them, however we try.”
She sprang up with a quick change of expression; in a flash she was radiant. “My Loo-ard, but we needn’t be tragic.”
Running to the window, she flung it wide. “Look out there. The sun, the river, the grass—they’re happy. What do they care? It’s our hearts that are unhappy. We won’t have any hearts, Peter.”
He crossed the room to her. With the freedom of a sister, she put her arm about him, leaning so that her hair just touched his face. She seemed to be excusing her action. “You’re only a boy. How old shall we say. Just fourteen, perhaps. Why, little Peter, you’re too young to be in love.—— Do you remember the saying, that every load has two handles: one by which it can be carried; one by which it cannot? You and I are going to find the handle by which it can be carried—is that a bargain? I’ll show you the handle—it’s not to take yourself or anyone too seriously. You’re making a face, Peter, as though I’d given you nasty medicine. You were determined to be most awfully wretched over Cherry, weren’t you? Well, you mustn’t. Wait half a second.”
Her half-seconds were half-hours to other people. When she reappeared, she was clad girlishly in a white dress, which hung above her ankles. At her breast was a yellow rose. Her golden hair was wrapped in bands about her head. There swung from her hand a broad river-hat. Peter thought that, if the Faun Man could see her now, he wouldn’t wait much longer. But it was contradictory—this that she had told him; he had always supposed that it was she who had kept the Faun Man waiting. For himself he was wishing that she were Cherry.
Before the mirror, over the empty fireplace, she stooped to adjust her hat. Her arms curved up to her shining head, the loose sleeves falling back from them; they looked like handles of ivory on a gold-rimmed goblet. The motive of the attitude was lost on Peter; he only took in the general effect. Her eyes, watching him from the glass, saw that. He was thinking how naÃÆïve she was to have taken thirty minutes over dressing, and then to pretend that she had hurried by coming down with her hat in her hand.
“Ready,” she said. “Do you like me in this dress? If you don’t, I’ll change it.”
“If I took you at your word——. But would you really? I’m almost tempted to put you to the test.”
“I would really,” she said.
“I do like you.” He spoke with boyish downrightness. “You know jolly well that you look splendid in anything.”
She pretended to be abashed and hurried into the garden, singing just above her breath,
“I like you in satin,
I like you in fluff.”
She seemed to forget the words and hummed; but, as she came to the end of the air, she crouched her chin against her shoulder, looking back at him naughtily,
“I love you and like you
In—oh, anything at all.”
They walked by the muffled river; trees were reflected so clearly on its surface that it was easy to mistake illusion for reality. Everything was asleep or listless in the summer sun. They came to a point where they ferried across. They entered Kew Gardens and sauntered into the Palace for coolness. They didn’t care where their feet led them; all the while they talked—about life, love, men and women, but really, under the disguise of words, about Cherry and the Faun Man. In her company he had found a sudden relief from suspense.
She was so smiling, so generous, and at times so anxious to be reckless, like a clever child saying slant-eyed things of which the meaning was half-guessed. He was elated to be seen with her; she was rare and beautiful.
Toward evening he turned back from the land of stately trees and grass-pavements to the clamor of the perturbed and narrow city. The river was a thread of gold; the sun foundered red in a crimson sea of cloud. The thread of gold broadened as bridges grew more frequent; black wharfs took the place of meadows and sat huddled along the banks like homeless beggars. But it was the majesty, not the meanness of London, that impressed him. His eyes were on the horizon, where the lace-work tower of Westminster shot up, sculptured and ethereal, and still further beyond where, above herded roofs, the dome of St. Paul’s protruded like a woman’s breast.
He landed at Westminster Bridge and ran up the steps. What a different world! How many hours was it since he had been there? He had recovered his sense of life’s magic.
The tethered man in the ticket-office eyed him gloomily. “Still in a hurry,” he thought, “and with all the years of life before him. Ugh!”
That afternoon was the pattern of many that followed. He came from London to Kew, simply and solely that he might speak about Cherry, and always with the hope that he might gain some news of her. Subtly the golden woman would lead the conversation round to herself. It was only at parting that he would discover this. Once he said, laughingly, “Why, we’ve spent all our time in talking about you!” Then he stopped, for he saw that he had not pleased her. “Next time it shall be all about Cherry,” he told himself; but it wasn’t.
He had never had a woman consult him before about her dress and the styles of doing her hair. The golden woman did; she made him tell her just what he preferred. When he met her, she came to express a part of his personality.
In the intimacy which grew up between them, the small reserves of pride and reticence were broken down. They spoke their minds aloud.
“I’m getting old, Peter,” she would say. But this was only on the days when she looked youngest.
If he had no money, he would tell her; then, she would either pay or they would make their pleasures inexpensive. He regarded her as a sister older than himself.
“What shall I call you?” he asked her. “Haven’t you noticed that I have no name for you?”
She slipped her arm into his. “The golden woman. I like that. It’s you—it has the touch of poetry.”
“I gave you that name,” he said, “the moment I saw you—years ago, at the Happy Cottage.”
She opened her eyes wide, pretending to be offended. “Years ago! How cruel! Years ago to you; but to me not so long ago—four years, wasn’t it? Why do you say things that make me feel ancient?”
“When you’re beautiful——.” He got no farther; his tongue stumbled at compliments. He was going to have said that, when you were very beautiful, years didn’t matter.
She caught at his words. “Then you think I’m beautiful?”
“Think, indeed!”
“As beautiful as Cherry?”
He avoided answering, saying instead, “See how everyone turns to look after you.”
She fell silent, only to return to the topic long after he had forgotten it. “Yes, they look after me and go away. That isn’t like having someone with you always.”
She could make him feel very unhappy—more unhappy than anyone he had ever met. She could say such lonely things, and almost as though he were to blame for her loneliness. She could talk exquisitely of love and little children. He wondered why the Faun Man hadn’t married her.
One afternoon he had stopped longer than usual. They had walked through Kew Gardens, and had sat in a teagarden watching the trippers. It had been one of their gay days, when they had built up absurd philosophies. She had told him that all that any woman could love was the sixth part of any man—all the other five-sixths were distasteful. Her idea was that every woman should be allowed to have six husbands; then, by taking what she liked out of each of them, she would have one perfect man. They had dawdled in the tea-garden out of compassion, rescuing wasps with teaspoons from drowning in the jam. When they rose to go, evening was gathering. On the bridge they paused, gazing down at the gray creeping of the river and the slow drifting of the boats. Suddenly she reverted from gay to sad.
“If I were old, Peter, you wouldn’t come to see me so often. One day, though I try to fight it off, one day I shall be old.” At the gate, in the wistful twilight, she lifted up her face. “If I were to ask you to kiss me, would you?”
“I think I would.”
But she didn’t ask him.
A strange summer made up of waiting, visits to Kew and interludes of work! In those interludes he studied hard, putting the finishing touches to his preparation for Oxford. The first question he always asked the golden woman—asked her breathlessly—was, “Is there any news of her?” The answer was always the same—a negative. Sometimes she would read him portions of letters which she had received from the Faun Man. There was never any mention of Cherry. He grew sick at heart with waiting. The golden woman alone shared his secret; he could not bring himself to speak of it at home.
His holiday was short that year—three weeks in Surrey. On his return Glory came to stay at Topbury. How she had escaped his memory! He was a little surprised by her quiet beauty; his surprise wore off as he got used to her. She laid so little emphasis on herself. People were only aware that she had been there when she had gone—an atmosphere of kindness was lacking. Then they looked up, were puzzled and remembered, “Oh yes, Glory. Where’s she vanished? Thought she was here.” She only once penetrated into Peter’s world—then only for a few hours. A boy in love can think only of one woman.
That once occurred on a rainy morning, in the study which had been his nursery. He had just sat down and had his nose in his books. Someone touched him.
“Peter, you don’t mind, do you? If you’re busy now, I’ll come again later.”
He looked up, his head between his hands, his hair all ruffled. “Sorry. Didn’t see that you were there. Anything you want me to do?”
The sensitive face flushed. He noticed that. The white hands fluttered against her breast. “You know about father.” Her voice was timid. It strove and sank like a spent bird. “Nobody’s told me. So, Peter, I came to you.”
“That’s a shame. He used to be our secret. What d’you want to know about him, Glory?”
She faltered like a girl much younger. “I want you to take me to him.”
That afternoon on the top of a bus they set off to Soho together. What that excursion meant to her, what thoughts tiptoed to and fro inside her head, he never knew. He never guessed how proud she was to be seen alone with him in public. Her thoughts tiptoed for that reason—so that no one might ever guess. They found Uncle Waffles, waxed mustaches and dingy spats, seated in a dingy shop. They had to descend a step to enter. The riot of dirt distressed Glory. She wanted to busy herself with a duster, until her stepfather discouraged her, telling her that it was no use—it would be as bad to-morrow; in fact, in his line of trade, dirt was a kind of advertisement.
Just as they were sitting down to tea, Mr. Widow, the murderer, joined them. They found him a very severe old gentleman, with chop-whiskers and an eye to other people’s imperfections. Prison seemed to have strengthened his moral views. Once he referred to “my poor wife,” in a tone which implied that she had died respectably of bloodpoisoning or cancer.
Before they left, Uncle Waffles took Peter aside and borrowed two-and-sixpence in a whisper. So the tea was quite expensive. Perhaps the ease with which he had contrived to borrow had something to do with the heartiness of his invitation that they should drop in whenever they were passing.
That evening, when Glory came to bid Peter good-night, she asked, “You’ll take me again, won’t you. He’s—I don’t think he’s happy.”
Peter dragged his thoughts away from his work. “Don’t you? Perhaps Mr. Widow isn’t tremendously cheerful company. Of course I’ll take you.”
His eyes were going back to his books. Glory hesitated at the door, saw that he had forgotten her and slipped out. There was a song about a rooted tree and a winged bird; had he looked up at that moment and seen her expression, he might have remembered it.