In her morning room Mrs. Stephen Dallison sat at an old oak bureau collecting her scattered thoughts. They lay about on pieces of stamped notepaper, beginning “Dear Cecilia,” or “Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace requests,” or on bits of pasteboard headed by the names of theatres, galleries, or concert-halls; or, again, on paper of not quite so good a quality, commencing, “Dear Friend,” and ending with a single well-known name like “Wessex,” so that no suspicion should attach to the appeal contained between the two. She had before her also sheets of her own writing-paper, headed “76, The Old Square, Kensington,” and two little books. One of these was bound in marbleised paper, and on it written: “Please keep this book in safety”; across the other, cased in the skin of some small animal deceased, was inscribed the solitary word “Engagements.”
Cecilia had on a Persian-green silk blouse with sleeves that would have hidden her slim hands, but for silver buttons made in the likeness of little roses at her wrists; on her brow was a faint frown, as though she were wondering what her thoughts were all about. She sat there every morning catching those thoughts, and placing them in one or other of her little books. Only by thus working hard could she keep herself, her husband, and daughter, in due touch with all the different movements going on. And that the touch might be as due as possible, she had a little headache nearly every day. For the dread of letting slip one movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her; there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of hers and Stephen's which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much. Then, too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed her constitution. She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid isolation now enjoyed by Blanca, of which some subtle instinct, rather than definite knowledge, had informed her; but not often, for she was a loyal little person, to whom Stephen and his comforts were of the first moment. And though she worried somewhat because her thoughts WOULD come by every post, she did not worry very much—hardly more than the Persian kitten on her lap, who also sat for hours trying to catch her tail, with a line between her eyes, and two small hollows in her cheeks.
When she had at last decided what concerts she would be obliged to miss, paid her subscription to the League for the Suppression of Tinned Milk, and accepted an invitation to watch a man fall from a balloon, she paused. Then, dipping her pen in ink, she wrote as follows:
“Mrs. Stephen Dallison would be glad to have the blue dress ordered by her yesterday sent home at once without alteration.—Messrs. Rose and Thorn, High Street, Kensington.”
Ringing the bell, she thought: 'It will be a job for Mrs. Hughs, poor thing. I believe she'll do it quite as well as Rose and Thorn.'—“Would you please ask Mrs. Hughs to come to me?—Oh, is that you, Mrs. Hughs? Come in.”
The seamstress, who had advanced into the middle of the room, stood with her worn hands against her sides, and no sign of life but the liquid patience in her large brown eyes. She was an enigmatic figure. Her presence always roused a sort of irritation in Cecilia, as if she had been suddenly confronted with what might possibly have been herself if certain little accidents had omitted to occur. She was so conscious that she ought to sympathise, so anxious to show that there was no barrier between them, so eager to be all she ought to be, that her voice almost purred.
“Are you Getting on with the curtains, Mrs. Hughs?”
“Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm.”
“I shall have another job for you to-morrow—altering a dress. Can you come?”
“Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm.”
“Is the baby well?”
“Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm.”
There was a silence.
'It's no good talking of her domestic matters,' thought Cecilia; 'not that I don't care!' But the silence getting on her nerves, she said quickly: “Is your husband behaving himself better?”
There was no answer; Cecilia saw a tear trickle slowly down the woman's cheek.
'Oh dear, oh dear,' she thought; 'poor thing! I'm in for it!'
Mrs. Hughs' whispering voice began: “He's behaving himself dreadful, m'm. I was going to speak to you. It's ever since that young girl”—her face hardened—“come to live down in my room there; he seem to—he seem to—just do nothing but neglect me.”
Cecilia's heart gave the little pleasurable flutter which the heart must feel at the love dramas of other people, however painful.
“You mean the little model?” she said.
The seamstress answered in an agitated voice: “I don't want to speak against her, but she's put a spell on him, that's what she has; he don't seem able to do nothing but talk of her, and hang about her room. It was that troubling me when I saw you the other day. And ever since yesterday midday, when Mr. Hilary came—he's been talking that wild—and he pushed me—and—and—-” Her lips ceased to form articulate words, but, since it was not etiquette to cry before her superiors, she used them to swallow down her tears, and something in her lean throat moved up and down.
At the mention of Hilary's name the pleasurable sensation in Cecilia had undergone a change. She felt curiosity, fear, offence.
“I don't quite understand you,” she said.
The seamstress plaited at her frock. “Of course, I can't help the way he talks, m'm. I'm sure I don't like to repeat the wicked things he says about Mr. Hilary. It seems as if he were out of his mind when he gets talkin' about that young girl.”
The tone of those last three words was almost fierce.
Cecilia was on the point of saying: 'That will do, please; I want to hear no more.' But her curiosity and queer subtle fear forced her instead to repeat: “I don't understand. Do you mean he insinuates that Mr. Hilary has anything to do with—with this girl, or what?” And she thought: 'I'll stop that, at any rate.'
The seamstress's face was distorted by her efforts to control her voice.
“I tell him he's wicked to say such things, m'm, and Mr. Hilary such a kind gentleman. And what business is it of his, I say, that's got a wife and children of his own? I've seen him in the street, I've watched him hanging about Mrs. Hilary's house when I've been working there waiting for that girl, and following her—home—-” Again her lips refused to do service, except in the swallowing of her tears.
Cecilia thought: 'I must tell Stephen at once. That man is dangerous.' A spasm gripped her heart, usually so warm and snug; vague feelings she had already entertained presented themselves now with startling force; she seemed to see the face of sordid life staring at the family of Dallison. Mrs. Hughs' voice, which did not dare to break, resumed:
“I've said to him: 'Whatever are you thinking of? And after Mrs. Hilary's been so kind to me! But he's like a madman when he's in liquor, and he says he'll go to Mrs. Hilary—-”
“Go to my sister? What about? The ruffian!”
At hearing her husband called a ruffian by another woman the shadow of resentment passed across Mrs. Hughs' face, leaving it quivering and red. The conversation had already made a strange difference in the manner of these two women to each other. It was as though each now knew exactly how much sympathy and confidence could be expected of the other, as though life had suddenly sucked up the mist, and shown them standing one on either side of a deep trench. In Mrs. Hughs' eyes there was the look of those who have long discovered that they must not answer back for fear of losing what little ground they have to stand on; and Cecilia's eyes were cold and watchful. 'I sympathise,' they seemed to say, 'I sympathise; but you must please understand that you cannot expect sympathy if your affairs compromise the members of my family.' Her, chief thought now was to be relieved of the company of this woman, who had been betrayed into showing what lay beneath her dumb, stubborn patience. It was not callousness, but the natural result of being fluttered. Her heart was like a bird agitated in its gilt-wire cage by the contemplation of a distant cat. She did not, however, lose her sense of what was practical, but said calmly: “Your husband was wounded in South Africa, you told me? It looks as if he wasn't quite.... I think you should have a doctor!”
The seamstress's answer, slow and matter-of-fact, was worse than her emotion.
“No, m'm, he isn't mad.”
Crossing to the hearth-whose Persian-blue tiling had taken her so long to find—Cecilia stood beneath a reproduction of Botticelli's “Primavera,” and looked doubtfully at Mrs. Hughs. The Persian kitten, sleepy and disturbed on the bosom of her blouse, gazed up into her face. 'Consider me,' it seemed to say; 'I am worth consideration; I am of a piece with you, and everything round you. We are both elegant and rather slender; we both love warmth and kittens; we both dislike interference with our fur. You took a long time to buy me, so as to get me perfect. You see that woman over there! I sat on her lap this morning while she was sewing your curtains. She has no right in here; she's not what she seems; she can bite and scratch, I know; her lap is skinny; she drops water from her eyes. She made me wet all down my back. Be careful what you're doing, or she'll make you wet down yours!'
All that was like the little Persian kitten within Cecilia—cosiness and love of pretty things, attachment to her own abode with its high-art lining, love for her mate and her own kitten, Thyme, dread of disturbance—all made her long to push this woman from the room; this woman with the skimpy figure, and eyes that, for all their patience, had in them something virago-like; this woman who carried about with her an atmosphere of sordid grief, of squalid menaces, and scandal. She longed all the more because it could well be seen from the seamstress's helpless attitude that she too would have liked an easy life. To dwell on things like this was to feel more than thirty-eight!
Cecilia had no pocket, Providence having removed it now for some time past, but from her little bag she drew forth the two essentials of gentility. Taking her nose, which she feared was shining, gently within one, she fumbled in the other. And again she looked doubtfully at Mrs. Hughs. Her heart said: 'Give the poor woman half a sovereign; it might comfort her!' But her brain said: 'I owe her four-and-six; after what she's just been saying about her husband and that girl and Hilary, it mayn't be safe to give her more.' She held out two half-crowns, and had an inspiration: “I shall mention to my sister what you've said; you can tell your husband that!”
No sooner had she said this, however, than she saw, from a little smile devoid of merriment and quickly extinguished, that Mrs. Hughs did not believe she would do anything of the kind; from which she concluded that the seamstress was convinced of Hilary's interest in the little model. She said hastily:
“You can go now, Mrs. Hughs.”
Mrs. Hughs went, making no noise or sign of any sort.
Cecilia returned to her scattered thoughts. They lay there still, with a gleam of sun from the low window smearing their importance; she felt somehow that it did not now matter very much whether she and Stephen, in the interests of science, saw that man fall from his balloon, or, in the interests of art, heard Herr von Kraaffe sing his Polish songs; she experienced, too, almost a revulsion in favour of tinned milk. After meditatively tearing up her note to Messrs. Rose and Thorn, she lowered the bureau lid and left the room.
Mounting the stairs, whose old oak banisters on either side were a real joy, she felt she was stupid to let vague, sordid rumours, which, after all, affected her but indirectly, disturb her morning's work. And entering Stephen's dressing-room she stood looking at his boots.
Inside each one of them was a wooden soul; none had any creases, none had any holes. The moment they wore out, their wooden souls were taken from them and their bodies given to the poor, whilst—in accordance with that theory, to hear a course of lectures on which a scattered thought was even now inviting her—the wooden souls migrated instantly to other leathern bodies.
Looking at that polished row of boots, Cecilia felt lonely and unsatisfied. Stephen worked in the Law Courts, Thyme worked at Art; both were doing something definite. She alone, it seemed, had to wait at home, and order dinner, answer letters, shop, pay calls, and do a dozen things that failed to stop her thoughts from dwelling on that woman's tale. She was not often conscious of the nature of her life, so like the lives of many hundred women in this London, which she said she could not stand, but which she stood very well. As a rule, with practical good sense, she kept her doubting eyes fixed friendlily on every little phase in turn, enjoying well enough fitting the Chinese puzzle of her scattered thoughts, setting out on each small adventure with a certain cautious zest, and taking Stephen with her as far as he allowed. This last year or so, now that Thyme was a grown girl, she had felt at once a loss of purpose and a gain of liberty. She hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. It freed her for the tasting of more things, more people, and more Stephen; but it left a little void in her heart, a little soreness round it. What would Thyme think if she heard this story about her uncle? The thought started a whole train of doubts that had of late beset her. Was her little daughter going to turn out like herself? If not, why not? Stephen joked about his daughter's skirts, her hockey, her friendship with young men. He joked about the way Thyme refused to let him joke about her art or about her interest in “the people.” His joking was a source of irritation to Cecilia. For, by woman's instinct rather than by any reasoning process, she was conscious of a disconcerting change. Amongst the people she knew, young men were not now attracted by girls as they had been in her young days. There was a kind of cool and friendly matter-of-factness in the way they treated them, a sort of almost scientific playfulness. And Cecilia felt uneasy as to how far this was to go. She seemed left behind. If young people were really becoming serious, if youths no longer cared about the colour of Thyme's eyes, or dress, or hair, what would there be left to care for—that is, up to the point of definite relationship? Not that she wanted her daughter to be married. It would be time enough to think of that when she was twenty-five. But her own experiences had been so different. She had spent so many youthful hours in wondering about men, had seen so many men cast furtive looks at her; and now there did not seem in men or girls anything left worth the other's while to wonder or look furtive about. She was not of a philosophic turn of mind, and had attached no deep meaning to Stephen's jest—“If young people will reveal their ankles, they'll soon have no ankles to reveal.”
To Cecilia the extinction of the race seemed threatened; in reality her species of the race alone was vanishing, which to her, of course, was very much the same disaster. With her eyes on Stephen's boots she thought: 'How shall I prevent what I've heard from coming to Bianca's ears? I know how she would take it! How shall I prevent Thyme's hearing? I'm sure I don't know what the effect would be on her! I must speak to Stephen. He's so fond of Hilary.'
And, turning away from Stephen's boots, she mused: 'Of course it's nonsense. Hilary's much too—too nice, too fastidious, to be more than just interested; but he's so kind he might easily put himself in a false position. And—it's ugly nonsense! B. can be so disagreeable; even now she's not—on terms with him!' And suddenly the thought of Mr. Purcey leaped into her mind—Mr. Purcey, who, as Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace had declared, was not even conscious that there was a problem of the poor. To think of him seemed somehow at that moment comforting, like rolling oneself in a blanket against a draught. Passing into her room, she opened her wardrobe door.
'Bother the woman!' she thought. 'I do want that gentian dress got ready, but now I simply can't give it to her to do.'
Since in the flutter of her spirit caused by the words of Mrs. Hughs, Cecilia felt she must do something, she decided to change her dress.
The furniture of the pretty room she shared with Stephen had not been hastily assembled. Conscious, even fifteen years ago, when they moved into this house, of the grave Philistinism of the upper classes, she and Stephen had ever kept their duty to aestheticism green; and, in the matter of their bed, had lain for two years on two little white affairs, comfortable, but purely temporary, that they might give themselves a chance. The chance had come at last—a bed in real keeping with the period they had settled on, and going for twelve pounds. They had not let it go, and now slept in it—not quite so comfortable, perhaps, but comfortable enough, and conscious of duty done.
For fifteen years Cecilia had been furnishing her house; the process approached completion. The only things remaining on her mind—apart, that is, from Thyme's development and the condition of the people—were: item, a copper lantern that would allow some light to pass its framework; item, an old oak washstand not going back to Cromwell's time. And now this third anxiety had come!
She was rather touching, as she stood before the wardrobe glass divested of her bodice, with dimples of exertion in her thin white arms while she hooked her skirt behind, and her greenish eyes troubled, so anxious to do their best for everyone, and save risk of any sort. Having put on a bramble-coloured frock, which laced across her breast with silver lattice-work, and a hat (without feathers, so as to encourage birds) fastened to her head with pins (bought to aid a novel school of metal-work), she went to see what sort of day it was.
The window looked out at the back over some dreary streets, where the wind was flinging light drifts of smoke athwart the sunlight. They had chosen this room, not indeed for its view over the condition of the people, but because of the sky effects at sunset, which were extremely fine. For the first time, perhaps, Cecilia was conscious that a sample of the class she was so interested in was exposed to view beneath her nose. 'The Hughs live somewhere there,' she thought. 'After all I think B. ought to know about that man. She might speak to father, and get him to give up having the girl to copy for him—the whole thing's so worrying.'
In pursuance of this thought, she lunched hastily, and went out, making her way to Hilary's. With every step she became more uncertain. The fear of meddling too much, of not meddling enough, of seeming meddlesome; timidity at touching anything so awkward; distrust, even ignorance, of her sister's character, which was like, yet so very unlike, her own; a real itch to get the matter settled, so that nothing whatever should come of it—all this she felt. She hurried, dawdled, finished the adventure almost at a run, then told the servant not to announce her. The vision of Bianca's eyes, while she listened to this tale, was suddenly too much for Cecilia. She decided to pay a visit to her father first.
Mr. Stone was writing, attired in his working dress—a thick brown woollen gown, revealing his thin neck above the line of a blue shirt, and tightly gathered round the waist with tasselled cord; the lower portions of grey trousers were visible above woollen-slippered feet. His hair straggled over his thin long ears. The window, wide open, admitted an east wind; there was no fire. Cecilia shivered.
“Come in quickly,” said Mr. Stone. Turning to a big high desk of stained deal which occupied the middle of one wall, he began methodically to place the inkstand, a heavy paper-knife, a book, and stones of several sizes, on his guttering sheets of manuscript.
Cecilia looked about her; she had not been inside her father's room for several months. There was nothing in it but that desk, a camp bed in the far corner (with blankets, but no sheets), a folding washstand, and a narrow bookcase, the books in which Cecilia unconsciously told off on the fingers of her memory. They never varied. On the top shelf the Bible and the works of Plautus and Diderot; on the second from the top the plays of Shakespeare in a blue edition; on the third from the bottom Don Quixote, in four volumes, covered with brown paper; a green Milton; the “Comedies of Aristophanes”; a leather book, partially burned, comparing the philosophy of Epicurus with the philosophy of Spinoza; and in a yellow binding Mark Twain's “Huckleberry Finn.” On the second from the bottom was lighter literature: “The Iliad”; a “Life of Francis of Assisi”; Speke's “Discovery of the Sources of the Nile”; the “Pickwick Papers”; “Mr. Midshipman Easy”; The Verses of Theocritus, in a very old translation; Renan's “Life of Christ”; and the “Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.” The bottom shelf of all was full of books on natural science.
The walls were whitewashed, and, as Cecilia knew, came off on anybody who leaned against them. The floor was stained, and had no carpet. There was a little gas cooking-stove, with cooking things ranged on it; a small bare table; and one large cupboard. No draperies, no pictures, no ornaments of any kind; but by the window an ancient golden leather chair. Cecilia could never bear to sit in that oasis; its colour in this wilderness was too precious to her spirit.
“It's an east wind, father; aren't you terribly cold without a fire?”
Mr. Stone came from his writing-desk, and stood so that light might fall on a sheet of paper in his hand. Cecilia noted the scent that went about with him of peat and baked potatoes. He spoke:
“Listen to this: 'In the condition of society, dignified in those days with the name of civilisation, the only source of hope was the persistence of the quality called courage. Amongst a thousand nerve-destroying habits, amongst the dramshops, patent medicines, the undigested chaos of inventions and discoveries, while hundreds were prating in their pulpits of things believed in by a negligible fraction of the population, and thousands writing down today what nobody would want to read in two days' time; while men shut animals in cages, and made bears jig to please their children, and all were striving one against the other; while, in a word, like gnats above a stagnant pool on a summer's evening, man danced up and down without the faintest notion why—in this condition of affairs the quality of courage was alive. It was the only fire within that gloomy valley.'” He stopped, though evidently anxious to go on, because he had read the last word on that sheet of paper. He moved towards the writing-desk. Cecilia said hastily:
“Do you mind if I shut the window, father?”
Mr. Stone made a movement of his head, and Cecilia saw that he held a second sheet of paper in his hand. She rose, and, going towards him, said:
“I want to talk to you, Dad!” Taking up the cord of his dressing-gown, she pulled it by its tassel.
“Don't!” said Mr. Stone; “it secures my trousers.”
Cecilia dropped the cord. 'Father is really terrible!' she thought.
Mr. Stone, lifting the second sheet of paper, began again:
“'The reason, however, was not far to seek—-”
Cecilia said desperately:
“It's about that girl who comes to copy for you.”
Mr. Stone lowered the sheet of paper, and stood, slightly curved from head to foot; his ears moved as though he were about to lay them back; his blue eyes, with little white spots of light alongside the tiny black pupils, stared at his daughter.
Cecilia thought: 'He's listening now.'
She made haste. “Must you have her here? Can't you do without her?”
“Without whom?” said Mr. Stone.
“Without the girl who comes to copy for you.”
“Why?”
“For this very good reason—-”
Mr. Stone dropped his eyes, and Cecilia saw that he had moved the sheet of paper up as far as his waist.
“Does she copy better than any other girl could?” she asked hastily.
“No,” said Mr. Stone.
“Then, Father, I do wish, to please me, you'd get someone else. I know what I'm talking about, and I—-” Cecilia stopped; her father's lips and eyes were moving; he was obviously reading to himself.
'I've no patience with him,' she thought; 'he thinks of nothing but his wretched book.'
Aware of his daughter's silence, Mr. Stone let the sheet of paper sink, and waited patiently again.
“What do you want, my dear?” he said.
“Oh, Father, do listen just a minute!”
“Yes, Yes.”
“It's about that girl who comes to copy for you. Is there any reason why she should come instead of any other girl?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Stone.
“What reason?”
“Because she has no friends.”
So awkward a reply was not expected by Cecilia; she looked at the floor, forced to search within her soul. Silence lasted several seconds; then Mr. Stone's voice rose above a whisper:
“'The reason was not far to seek. Man, differentiated from the other apes by his desire to know, was from the first obliged to steel himself against the penalties of knowledge. Like animals subjected to the rigours of an Arctic climate, and putting forth more fur with each reduction in the temperature, man's hide of courage thickened automatically to resist the spear-thrusts dealt him by his own insatiate curiosity. In those days of which we speak, when undigested knowledge, in a great invading horde, had swarmed all his defences, man, suffering from a foul dyspepsia, with a nervous system in the latest stages of exhaustion, and a reeling brain, survived by reason of his power to go on making courage. Little heroic as (in the then general state of petty competition) his deeds appeared to be, there never had yet been a time when man in bulk was more courageous, for there never had yet been a time when he had more need to be. Signs were not wanting that this desperate state of things had caught the eyes of the community. A little sect—-'” Mr. Stone stopped; his eyes had again tumbled over the bottom edge; he moved hurriedly towards the desk. Just as his hand removed a stone and took up a third sheet, Cecilia cried out:
“Father!”
Mr. Stone stopped, and turned towards her. His daughter saw that he had gone quite pink; her annoyance vanished.
“Father! About that girl—-”
Mr. Stone seemed to reflect. “Yes, yes,” he said.
“I don't think Bianca likes her coming here.”
Mr. Stone passed his hand across his brow.
“Forgive me for reading to you, my dear,” he said; “it's a great relief to me at times.”
Cecilia went close to him, and refrained with difficulty from taking up the tasselled cord.
“Of course, dear,” she said: “I quite understand that.”
Mr. Stone looked full in her face, and before a gaze which seemed to go through her and see things the other side, Cecilia dropped her eyes.
“It is strange,” he said, “how you came to be my daughter!”
To Cecilia, too, this had often seemed a problem.
“There is a great deal in atavism,” said Mr. Stone, “that we know nothing of at present.”
Cecilia cried with heat, “I do wish you would attend a minute, Father; it's really an important matter,” and she turned towards the window, tears being very near her eyes.
The voice of Mr. Stone said humbly: “I will try, my dear.”
But Cecilia thought: 'I must give him a good lesson. He really is too self-absorbed'; and she did not move, conveying by the posture of her shoulders how gravely she was vexed.
She could see nursemaids wheeling babies towards the Gardens, and noted their faces gazing, not at the babies, but, uppishly, at other nursemaids, or, with a sort of cautious longing, at men who passed. How selfish they looked! She felt a little glow of satisfaction that she was making this thin and bent old man behind her conscious of his egoism.
'He will know better another time,' she thought. Suddenly she heard a whistling, squeaking sound—it was Mr. Stone whispering the third page of his manuscript:
“'—-animated by some admirable sentiments, but whose doctrines—riddled by the fact that life is but the change of form to form—were too constricted for the evils they designed to remedy; this little sect, who had as yet to learn the meaning of universal love, were making the most strenuous efforts, in advance of the community at large, to understand themselves. The necessary, movement which they voiced—reaction against the high-tide of the fratricidal system then prevailing—was young, and had the freshness and honesty of youth....'”
Without a word Cecilia turned round and hurried to the door. She saw her father drop the sheet of paper; she saw his face, all pink and silver, stooping after it; and remorse visited her anger.
In the corridor outside she was arrested by a noise. The uncertain light of London halls fell there; on close inspection the sufferer was seen to be Miranda, who, unable to decide whether she wanted to be in the garden or the house, was seated beneath the hatrack snuffling to herself. On seeing Cecilia she came out.
“What do you want, you little beast?”
Peering at her over the tops of her eyes, Miranda vaguely lifted a white foot. 'Why ask me that?' she seemed to say. 'How am I to know? Are we not all like this?'
Her conduct, coming at that moment, over-tried Cecilia's nerves. She threw open Hilary's study-door, saying sharply: “Go in and find your master!”
Miranda did not move, but Hilary came out instead. He had been correcting proofs to catch the post, and wore the look of a man abstracted, faintly contemptuous of other forms of life.
Cecilia, once more saved from the necessity of approaching her sister, the mistress of the house, so fugitive, haunting, and unseen, yet so much the centre of this situation, said:
“Can I speak to you a minute, Hilary?”
They went into his study, and Miranda came creeping in behind.
To Cecilia her brother-in-law always seemed an amiable and more or less pathetic figure. In his literary preoccupations he allowed people to impose on him. He looked unsubstantial beside the bust of Socrates, which moved Cecilia strangely—it was so very massive and so very ugly! She decided not to beat about the bush.
“I've been hearing some odd things from Mrs. Hughs about that little model, Hilary.”
Hilary's smile faded from his eyes, but remained clinging to his lips.
“Indeed!”
Cecilia went on nervously: “Mrs. Hughs says it's because of her that Hughs behaves so badly. I don't want to say anything against the girl, but she seems—she seems to have—-”
“Yes?” said Hilary.
“To have cast a spell on Hughs, as the woman puts it.”
“On Hughs!” repeated Hilary.
Cecilia found her eyes resting on the bust of Socrates, and hastily proceeded:
“She says he follows her about, and comes down here to lie in wait for her. It's a most strange business altogether. You went to see them, didn't you?”
Hilary nodded.
“I've been speaking to Father,” Cecilia murmured; “but he's hopeless—I, couldn't get him to pay the least attention.”
Hilary seemed thinking deeply.
“I wanted him,” she went on, “to get some other girl instead to come and copy for him.”
“Why?”
Under the seeming impossibility of ever getting any farther, without saying what she had come to say, Cecilia blurted out:
“Mrs. Hughs says that Hughs has threatened you.”
Hilary's face became ironical.
“Really!” he said. “That's good of him! What for?”
The frightful indelicacy of her situation at this moment, the feeling of unfairness that she should be placed in it, almost overwhelmed Cecilia. “Goodness knows I don't want to meddle. I never meddle in anything-it's horrible!”
Hilary took her hand.
“My dear Cis,” he said, “of course! But we'd better have this out!”
Grateful for the pressure of his hand, she gave it a convulsive squeeze.
“It's so sordid, Hilary!”
“Sordid! H'm! Let's get it over, then.”
Cecilia had grown crimson. “Do you want me to tell you everything?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, Hughs evidently thinks you're interested in the girl. You can't keep anything from servants and people who work about your house; they always think the worst of everything—and, of course, they know that you and B. don't—aren't—-”
Hilary nodded.
“Mrs. Hughs actually said the man meant to go to B.!”
Again the vision of her sister seemed to float into the room, and she went on desperately: “And, Hilary, I can see Mrs. Hughs really thinks you are interested. Of course, she wants to, for if you were, it would mean that a man like her husband could have no chance.”
Astonished at this flash of cynical inspiration, and ashamed of such plain speaking, she checked herself. Hilary had turned away.
Cecilia touched his arm. “Hilary, dear,” she said, “isn't there any chance of you and B—-”
Hilary's lips twitched. “I should say not.”
Cecilia looked sadly at the floor. Not since Stephen was bad with pleurisy had she felt so worried. The sight of Hilary's face brought back her doubts with all their force. It might, of course, be only anger at the man's impudence, but it might be—she hardly liked to frame her thought—a more personal feeling.
“Don't you think,” she said, “that, anyway, she had better not come here again?”
Hilary paced the room.
“It's her only safe and certain piece of work; it keeps her independent. It's much more satisfactory than this sitting. I can't have any hand in taking it away from her.”
Cecilia had never seen him moved like this. Was it possible that he was not incorrigibly gentle, but had in him some of that animality which she, in a sense, admired? This uncertainty terribly increased the difficulties of the situation.
“But, Hilary,” she said at last, “are you satisfied about the girl—I mean, are you satisfied that she really is worth helping?”
“I don't understand.”
“I mean,” murmured Cecilia, “that we don't know anything about her past.” And, seeing from the movement of his eyebrows that she was touching on what had evidently been a doubt with him, she went on with great courage: “Where are her friends and relations? I mean, she may have had a—adventures.”
Hilary withdrew into himself.
“You can hardly expect me,” he said, “to go into that with her.”
His reply made Cecilia feel ridiculous.
“Well,” she said in a hard little voice, “if this is what comes of helping the poor, I don't see the use of it.”
The outburst evoked no reply from Hilary; she felt more tremulous than ever. The whole thing was so confused, so unnatural. What with the dark, malignant Hughs and that haunting vision of Bianca, the matter seemed almost Italian. That a man of Hughs' class might be affected by the passion of love had somehow never come into her head. She thought of the back streets she had looked out on from her bedroom window. Could anything like passion spring up in those dismal alleys? The people who lived there, poor downtrodden things, had enough to do to keep themselves alive. She knew all about them; they were in the air; their condition was deplorable! Could a person whose condition was deplorable find time or strength for any sort of lurid exhibition such as this? It was incredible.
She became aware that Hilary was speaking.
“I daresay the man is dangerous!”
Hearing her fears confirmed, and in accordance with the secret vein of hardness which kept her living, amid all her sympathies and hesitations, Cecilia felt suddenly that she had gone as far as it was in her to go.
“I shall have no more to do with them,” she said; “I've tried my best for Mrs. Hughs. I know quite as good a needlewoman, who'll be only too glad to come instead. Any other girl will do as well to copy father's book. If you take my advice, Hilary, you'll give up trying to help them too.”
Hilary's smile puzzled and annoyed her. If she had known, this was the smile that stood between him and her sister.
“You may be right,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders:
“Very well,” said Cecilia, “I've done all I can. I must go now. Good-bye.”
During her progress to the door she gave one look behind. Hilary was standing by the bust of Socrates. Her heart smote her to leave him thus embarrassed. But again the vision of Bianca—fugitive in her own house, and with something tragic in her mocking immobility—came to her, and she hastened away.
A voice said: “How are you, Mrs. Dallison? Your sister at home?”
Cecilia saw before her Mr. Purcey, rising and falling a little with the oscillation of his A.i. Damyer.
A sense as of having just left a house visited by sickness or misfortune made Cecilia murmur:
“I'm afraid she's not.”
“Bad luck!” said Mr. Purcey. His face fell as far as so red and square a face could fall. “I was hoping perhaps I might be allowed to take them for a run. She's wanting exercise.” Mr. Purcey laid his hand on the flank of his palpitating car. “Know these A.i. Damyers, Mrs. Dallison? Best value you can get, simply rippin' little cars. Wish you'd try her.”
The A.i. Damyer, diffusing an aroma of the finest petrol, leaped and trembled, as though conscious of her master's praise. Cecilia looked at her.
“Yes,” she said, “she's very sweet.”
“Now do!” said Mr. Purcey. “Let me give you a run—Just to please me, I mean. I'm sure you'll like her.”
A little compunction, a little curiosity, a sudden revolt against all the discomfiture and sordid doubts she had been suffering from, made Cecilia glance softly at Mr. Purcey's figure; almost before she knew it, she was seated in the A.i. Damyer. It trembled, emitted two small sounds, one large scent, and glided forward. Mr. Purcey said:
“That's rippin' of you!”
A postman, dog, and baker's cart, all hurrying at top speed, seemed to stand still; Cecilia felt the wind beating her cheeks. She gave a little laugh.
“You must just take me home, please.”
Mr. Purcey touched the chauffeur's elbow.
“Round the park,” he said. “Let her have it.”
The A.i. Damyer uttered a tiny shriek. Cecilia, leaning back in her padded corner, glanced askance at Mr. Purcey leaning back in his; an unholy, astonished little smile played on her lips.
'What am I doing?' it seemed to say. 'The way he got me here—really! And now I am here I'm just going to enjoy it!'
There were no Hughs, no little model—all that sordid life had vanished; there was nothing but the wind beating her cheeks and the A.i. Damyer leaping under her.
Mr. Purcey said: “It just makes all the difference to me; keeps my nerves in order.”
“Oh,” Cecilia murmured, “have you got nerves.”
Mr. Purcey smiled. When he smiled his cheeks formed two hard red blocks, his trim moustache stood out, and many little wrinkles ran from his light eyes.
“Chock full of them,” he said; “least thing upsets me. Can't bear to see a hungry-lookin' child, or anything.”
A strange feeling of admiration for this man had come upon Cecilia. Why could not she, and Thyme, and Hilary, and Stephen, and all the people they knew and mixed with, be like him, so sound and healthy, so unravaged by disturbing sympathies, so innocent of “social conscience,” so content?
As though jealous of these thoughts about her master, the A.i. Damyer stopped of her own accord.
“Hallo,” said Mr. Purcey, “hallo, I say! Don't you get out; she'll be all right directly.”
“Oh,” said Cecilia, “thanks; but I must go in here, anyhow; I think I'll say good-bye. Thank you so much. I have enjoyed it.”
From the threshold of a shop she looked back. Mr. Purcey, on foot, was leaning forward from the waist, staring at his A.i. Damyer with profound concentration.