"It was a nymph, uprisen to the breastIn the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood.To him her dripping hand she softly kist,And anxiously began to plait and twistHer ringlets round her fingers, saying: Youth!Too long, alas, hast thou starved on the ruth,The bitterness of love: too long indeed,Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weedThy soul of care, by heavens, I would offerAll the bright riches of my crystal cofferTo Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish,Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish,Vermilion-tailed, or finned with silvery gauze;Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that drawsA virgin light to the deep; my grotto-sandsTawny and gold, oozed slowly from far lands.By my diligent springs; my level lilies, shells,My charming rod, my potent river spells;Yes, everything, even to the pearly cupMeander gave me,—for I bubbled upTo fainting creatures in a desert wild.But woe is me, I am but as a childTo gladden thee; and all I dare to say,Is, that I pity thee; that on this dayI've been thy guide; that thou must wander farIn other regions, past the scanty barTo mortal steps, before thou canst be ta'enFrom every wasting sigh, from every pain,Into the gentle bosom of thy love.Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above:But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell!I have a ditty for my hollow cell.'"
"It was a nymph, uprisen to the breastIn the fountain's pebbly margin, and she stood'Mong lilies, like the youngest of the brood.To him her dripping hand she softly kist,And anxiously began to plait and twistHer ringlets round her fingers, saying: Youth!Too long, alas, hast thou starved on the ruth,The bitterness of love: too long indeed,Seeing thou art so gentle. Could I weedThy soul of care, by heavens, I would offerAll the bright riches of my crystal cofferTo Amphitrite; all my clear-eyed fish,Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish,Vermilion-tailed, or finned with silvery gauze;Yea, or my veined pebble-floor, that drawsA virgin light to the deep; my grotto-sandsTawny and gold, oozed slowly from far lands.By my diligent springs; my level lilies, shells,My charming rod, my potent river spells;Yes, everything, even to the pearly cupMeander gave me,—for I bubbled upTo fainting creatures in a desert wild.But woe is me, I am but as a childTo gladden thee; and all I dare to say,Is, that I pity thee; that on this dayI've been thy guide; that thou must wander farIn other regions, past the scanty barTo mortal steps, before thou canst be ta'enFrom every wasting sigh, from every pain,Into the gentle bosom of thy love.Why it is thus, one knows in heaven above:But, a poor Naiad, I guess not. Farewell!I have a ditty for my hollow cell.'"
"That'sEndymion," Henry said. "Keats."
"Keats!" she repeated, "what a funny name for a poet. When I read it in the book I remembered very distantly when we were learning English at school there was such a name. What kind of man was he?"
"He had a very sad life," said Henry. "He had consumption and the critics abused his poetry, and he loved a young lady who treated him very badly. He was very young when he died in Italy."
"What was the name of the girl he loved?" she asked.
"Brawne," said Henry.
"Ugh! what a horrible name! Keats and Brawne. Isn't England a funny country? We have beautiful names at home like Norregaard and Friessen and Christinsen and Engel and Röde. You can't say Röde."
Henry tried to say it.
"No. Not like that at all. It's right deep in your throat, listen! Röde—Röde, Röde." She stared in front of her. "Andon a summer morning the water comes up Holman's Canal and the green tiles shine in the water and the ships clink-clank against the side of the pier. The ships are riding almost into Kongens Nytorv and all along the Square in the early morning sun they are going." She pulled herself up with a little jump.
"All the same, although he was called Keats there are lovely words in what I was reading." She turned to the book again, repeating to herself:
"All my clear-eyed fish, golden or rainbow-sided,My grotto-sands tawny and gold."
"All my clear-eyed fish, golden or rainbow-sided,My grotto-sands tawny and gold."
"'Tawny.' What's that?"
"Rich red-brown," said Henry.
"Do I say most of the words right?"
"Yes, nearly all."
She pushed the book away and looked at him.
"Now tell me," he said, "why you're happy to-day?"
She looked around as though some one might be listening, then leant towards him and lowered her voice.
"I've had a letter from my uncle, Uncle Axel. It's written from Constantinople. Luckily I got the letters before mother one morning and found this. He's coming to London as soon as ever he can to see after me. Mother would be terribly angry if she knew. She hates Uncle Axel worst of them all. When he's there I'm safe!"
Henry's face fell.
"I feel such a fool," he said. "Even your mother said the same thing. Here I've been hanging round for months and done nothing for you at all. Any other man would have got you away to Copenhagen or wherever you wanted to go. But I—I always fail. I'm always hopeless—even now when I want to succeed more than ever before in my life."
His voice shook. He turned away from her.
"No," she said. "You've not failed. I couldn't have escaped like that. Mother would only have followed me. Both my uncles are abroad. There's no one in Copenhagen to protect me. I would rather—what do you call it? hang on like this until everything got so bad that Ihadto run. You've been a wonderful friend to me these months. You don't know what a help you've been to me. I've been the ungrateful one." She looked at him and drew his eyes to hers. "Do you know I've thought a lot about you these last weeks, wondering what I could do in return. It seems unfair. I'd like to love you in the way you want me to. But I can't. . . . I've never loved anybody, not inthatway. I loved my father and I love my uncles, but most of all I love places, the places I've always known, Odense and the fields and the long line against the sky just before the sunsets, and Kjöbenhavn when the bells are ringing and you go up Ostngarde and it's so full of people you can't move: in the spring when you walk out to Langlinir and smell the sea and see the ships come in and hear them knocking with hammers on the boats, and it's all so fresh and clean . . . and at twelve o'clock when they change the guard and the soldiers come marching down behind the band into Kongens Nytorv and all the boys shout . . . I don't know," she sighed, staring again in front of her. "It's so simple there and every one's kind-hearted. Here——" She suddenly burst into tears, hiding her face in her arms.
He came across to her, knelt down beside her, put his hands against her neck.
"Don't cry. Oh, don't cry, Christina. You'll go home soon. You will indeed. It won't be long to wait. No, don't bother. It's only my pince-nez. I don't mind if they do break. Your uncle will come and you'll go home. Don't cry. Please, please don't cry."
He laid his cheek against her hot one, then his heart hammering in his breast he kissed her. She did not move away from him; her cheek was still pressed against his, but, as he kissed her, he knew that it was true enough that whosoever one day she loved it would not be him.
He stayed there his hand against her arm. She wiped her eyes.
"I'm frightened," she said. "If Uncle Axel doesn't come in time . . . . mother . . . Mr. Leishman."
"I'm here," Henry cried valiantly, feeling for his pince-nez, which to his delight were not broken "I'll follow you anywhere. No harm shall happen to you so long as I'm alive."
She might have laughed at such a knight with his hair now dishevelled, his eye-glasses crooked, his trouser-knees dusty. She did not. She certainly came nearer at that moment to loving him than she had ever done before.
I have said before that one of the chief complaints that Henry had against life was the abrupt fashion in which it jerked him from one set of experiences and emotions into another. When Christina laid her head on her arms and cried and he kissed her Time stood still and History was no more.
He had been here for one purpose and one alone, namely to guard, protect and cherish Christina so long as she might need him.
Half an hour later he was in his room in Panton Street.
A telephone message said that his mother was very ill and that he was to go at once to the Westminster house.
He knew what that meant. The moment had, at last, come. His mother was dying, was perhaps even then dead. As he stood by his shabby little table staring at the piece of paper that offered the message, flocks of memories—discordant, humorous, vulgar, pathetic—came to him, crowding about him, insisting on his notice, hiding from him the immediate need of his action. No world seemed to exist for him as he stood there staring but that thick scented one of Garth and Rafiel and the Westminster house and the Aunts—and through it all, forcing it together, the strong figure of his mother fashioning it all into a shape upon which she had already determined, crushing it until suddenly it broke in her hands.
Then he remembered where he should be. He put on his overcoat again and hurried down the dark stairs into the street. The first of the autumn fogs was making a shy, half-confident appearance, peeping into Panton Street, rolling a little towards the Comedy Theatre, then frightened at the lights tumbling back and running down the hill towards Westminster. In Whitehall it plucked up courage to stay a little while, andbunched itself around the bookshop on one side and the Horse Guards on the other and became quite black in the face peeping into Scotland Yard. Near the Houses of Parliament it was shy again, and crept away after writhing itself for five minutes around St. Margaret's, up into Victoria Street, where it suddenly kicked its heels in the air, snapped its fingers at the Army and Navy Stores, and made itself as thick and confusing as possible round Victoria Station, so that passengers went to wrong destinations and trains snorted their irritation and annoyance.
To Henry the fog had a curious significance, sweeping him back to that evening of Grandfather's birthday, when, because of the fog, a stranger had lost himself and burst in upon their family sanctity for succour—the most important moment of young Henry's life perhaps! and here was the moment that was to close that earlier epoch, close it and lock it up and put it away and the Fog had come once again to assist at the Ceremony.
In Rundle Square the Fog was a shadow, a thin ghostly curtain twisting and turning as though it had a life and purpose all of its own. It hid and revealed, revealed and hid a cherry-coloured moon that was just then bumping about on a number of fantastically leering chimney-pots. The old house was the same, with its square set face, its air of ironic respectability, sniggering at its true British hypocrisy, alive though the Family Spirit that it had once enshrined was all but dead, was to-night to squeak its final protest. The things in the house were the same, just the same and in the same places—only there was electric light now where there had been gas and there was a new servant-maid to take off his coat, a white-faced little creature with a sniffling cold.
She knew him apparently. "Please, Mr. Henry, they're all upstairs," she said. But he went straight into his father's study. There was no human being there, but how crammed with life it was, and a life so far from Christina and her affairs! It was surely only yesterday that he had stood there and his father had told him of the engagement between Katherine and Philip, and afterwards he had gone out into the passage and seen them kissing. . . . That too was an event in his life.
The books looked at him and remained aloof knowing so much that he did not know, tired and sated with their knowledge of life.
He went upstairs. On the first landing he met Millie. They talked in whispers.
"Shall I go up?"
"Yes, you'd better for a moment."
"How is she?"
"Oh, she doesn't know any of us. She can't live through the night."
"Who's there?"
"Father and Katherine and the Aunts."
"And she didn't know you?"
"None of us. . . ."
He went suddenly stepping on tip-toe as though he were afraid of waking somebody.
The long dim bedroom was green-shaded and very soft to the tread. Beside the bed Katherine was sitting; nearer the window in an armchair Henry's father; on the far side of the bed, against the wall like images, staring in front of them, the Aunts; the doctor was talking in a low whisper to the nurse, who was occupied with something at the wash-hand stand—all these figures were flat, of one dimension against the green light. When Henry entered there was a little stir; he could not see his mother because Katherine was in the way, but hefeltthat the bed was terrible, something that he would rather not see, something that he ought not to see.
The thought in his brain was: "Why are there so many people here? They don't wantallof us. . . ."
Apparently the doctor felt the same thing because he moved about whispering. He came at last to Henry. He was a little man, short and fat. He stood on his toes and whispered in Henry's ear, "Better go downstairs for a bit. No use being here. I'll call you if necessary."
The Aunts detached themselves from the wall and came to the door. Then Henry noticed that something was going on between his sister Katherine and the little doctor. She was shaking her head violently. He was trying to persuade her. No, she would not be persuaded. Henry suddenly seemed to seethe old Katherine whom through many years now he had lost—the old Katherine with her determination, her courage, her knowledge of what she meant to do. She stayed, of course. The others filed out of the door—Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, his father, himself.
They were down in the dining-room, sitting round the dining-room table. Millie had joined them.
Aunt Aggie looked just the same, Henry thought—as thin and as bitter and as pleased with herself—still the little mole on her cheek, the tight lips, the suspicious eyes.
They talked in low voices.
"Well, Henry."
"Well, Aunt Aggie."
"And what are you doing for yourself?"
"Secretarial work."
"Dear, dear, I wouldn't have thought you had the application."
His father was fatter, yes, a lot fatter. He had been a jolly-looking man once. Running to seed. . . . He'd die too, one day. They'd all die . . . all . . . himself. Die?Whatwas it?Wherewas it?
"Oh yes, we like Long-Masterman very much, thank you, Millie dear. It suits Aggie's health excellently. You really should come down one day—only I suppose you're so busy."
"Yes indeed." Aunt Aggie's old familiar snort. "Millie alwayswastoo busy for her poor old Aunts."
How disagreeable Aunt Aggie was and how little people changed although you might pretend. . . . But he felt that he was changing all the time. Suppose he wasn't changing at all? Oh, but that was absurd! How different the man who sat out in the garden at Duncombe from the boy who, at that very table, had sat after dinner on Grandfather's table looking for sugared cherries? Really different? . . . But, of course. . . . Yes, but really?
Aunt Aggie stood up. "I really don't know what we're all sitting round this table for. They'll send for us if anything happens. I'm sure poor Harriet wouldn't want us to be uncomfortable."
Henry and Millie were left there alone.
"How quiet the house is!" Millie gave a little shiver. "Poor mother! I wish I felt it more. I suppose I shall afterwards."
"It's what people always call a 'happy release,'" said Henry. "It really has been awful for her these last years. When I went up to see her a few weeks ago her eyes were terrible."
"Poor mother," Millie repeated again. They were silent for a little, then Millie said: "You know, I've been thinking all the evening what Peter once said to us about our being enchanted—because we are young. There's something awfully true about it. When things are at their very worst—when I'm having the most awful row with Bunny or Victoria's more tiresome than you can imagine—although I say to myself, 'I'm perfectly miserable,' I'm not really because there's something behind it all that I'm enjoying hugely. I wouldn't miss a moment of it. I want every scrap. It islikean enchantment really. I suppose I'll wake up soon."
Henry nodded.
"I feel it too. And I feel as though it must all have its climax in some wonderful adventure that's coming to me. An adventure that I shall remember all the rest of my life. It seems silly, after the War, talking of adventures, but the War was too awful for one to dare to talk about oneself in connection with it, although it was immensely personal all the time. But we're out of the War now and back in life again, and if I can keep that sense of magic I have now, nothing can hurt me. The whole of life will be an adventure."
"Wemustkeep it," said Millie. "We must remember we had it. And when we get ever so old and dusty and rheumatic we can say: 'Anyway we knew what life was once.'"
"Yes, I know," said Henry. "And be one of those people who say to their children and other people's children if they haven't any of their own: 'Ah, my dear, there's nothing like being young. My school-days were the happiest.' Rot! as though most people's school-time wasn't damnable."
"Oh it's nothing to do with age," said Millie scornfully. "The enchanted people are any age, but they're always young. The only point about them is that they're the only people who really know what life is. All the others are wrong."
"We're talking terribly like the virtuous people in books,"said Henry. "You know, books like Seymour's, all about Courage and Tolerance and all the other things with capital letters. Why is it that when a Russian or Scandinavian talks about life it sounds perfectly natural and that when an Englishman does it's false and priggish?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Millie in an absent-minded voice. "Isn't the house quiet? And isn't it cold? . . . Poor mother! It's so horrid being not able to do anything. Katherine's feeling it terribly. She's longing for her to say just one word."
"She won't," said Henry. "She'll hold out to the very last."
At that moment Aunt Betty appeared in the doorway, beckoning to them.
A moment later they were all there gathered round the bed.
Now Henry could see his mother. She was lying, her eyes closed, but with that same determined expression in the face that he had so often seen before. She might be dead or she might be asleep. He didn't feel any drama in connection with his vision of her. Too many years had now intervened since his time with her. He did indeed recall with love and affection some woman who had been very good to him, who had taken him to Our Boys' Clothing Company to be fitted on, who had written to him and sent him cake when he was at school, and of whom he had thought with passionate and tearful appeal when he had been savagely bullied. But that woman had died long ago. This stern, remorseless figure, who had cursed her children because they would not conform to the patterns that she had made for them, had confronted all his love of justice, of tolerance, of freedom. There had been many moments when he had hated her, and now when he was seeing her for the last time he could not summon false emotion and cry out at a pain that he did not feel. And yet he knew well that when she was gone remorse would come sweeping in and that he would be often longing for her to return that he might tell her that he loved her and wished to atone to her for all that he had done that was callous and selfish and unkind.
Worst of all was the unreality of the scene, the dim light, the faint scent of medicine, the closed-in seclusion as though they were all barred from the outside world which they were neverto enter again. He looked at the faces—at Aunt Betty upset, distressed, moved deeply because in her tender heart she could not bear to see any one or any thing unhappy; Aunt Aggie, severe, fancying herself benign and dignified, thinking only of herself; the doctor and the nurse professionally preoccupied, wondering perhaps how long this tiresome old woman would be "pegging out"; his father struggling to recover something of the old romance that had once bound him, tired out with the effort, longing for it all to be over; Millie, perfectly natural, ready to do anything that would help anybody, but admitting no falseness nor hypocrisy; Katherine——!
It was Katherine who restored Henry to reality. Katherine was suffering terribly. She was gazing at her mother, an agonized appeal in her eyes.
"Come back! Come back! Come and say that you forgive me for all I have done, that you love me still——"
She seemed to have shed all her married life, her home with Philip, her bearing of children to him, her love for him, her love for them all. She was the daughter again, in an agony of repentance and self-abasement. Was the victory after all to Mrs. Trenchard?
Katherine broke into a great cry:
"Mother! Mother; speak to me! Forgive me!"
She fell on her knees.
Mrs. Trenchard's eyes opened. There was a slight movement of the mouth: it seemed, in that half light, ironical, a gesture of contempt. Her head rolled to one side and the long, long conflict was at an end.
At that moment of Mrs. Trenchard's death began the worst battle of Millie's life (so far). She dated it from that or perhaps from the evening of her mother's funeral four days later.
Mrs. Trenchard had expressed a wish to be buried in Garth and so down to Glebeshire they all went. The funeral took place on a day of the dreariest drizzling rain—Glebeshire at its earliest autumn worst. Afterwards they—Katherine, Millie, Henry, Philip and Mr. Trenchard—sat over a spluttering fire in the old chilly house and heard the rain, which developed at night into a heavy down-pour, beat upon the window-panes.
The Aunts had not come down, for which every one was thankful. Philip, looking as he did every day more and more a cross between a successful Prize-fighter and an eminent Cabinet Minister, was not thinking, as in Henry's opinion he should have been, of the havoc that he had wrought upon the Trenchard family, but of Public Affairs. Katherine was silent and soon went up to her room. Henry thought of Christina, his father retired into a corner, drank whisky and went to sleep. Millie struggled with a huge pillow of depression that came lolloping towards her and was only kept away by the grimmest determination.
Nobody except Katherine thought directly of Mrs. Trenchard, but she was there with them all in the room and would be with one or two of them—Mr. Trenchard, senior, and Katherine for instance—until the very day of their death.
Yes, perhaps after all Mrs. Trenchardhadwon the battle.
Millie went back to London with a cold and the Cromwell Road seemed almost unbearable. A great deal of what was unbearable came of course from Victoria. Had she not witnessedit with her own eyes Millie could not have believed that a month at Cladgate could alter so completely a human being as it had altered Victoria. There she had tasted Blood and she intended to go on tasting Blood to the end of the Chapter. It is true that Cladgate could not take all the blame for the transformation—Mr. Bennett and Major Mereward must also bear some responsibility. When these gentlemen had first come forward Millie had been touched by the effect upon Victoria of ardent male attention. Now she found that same male attention day by day more irritating. Major Mereward she could endure, silent and clumsy though he was. It was certainly tiresome to find yourself sitting next to him day after day at luncheon when the most that he could ever contribute was "Rippin' weather, what?" or "Dirty sort of day to-day"—but he did adore Victoria and would have adored her just as much had she not possessed a penny in the world. He thought her simply the wittiest creature in Europe and laughed at everything she said and often long before she said it. Yes, he was agoodman even though he was a dull one.
But if Major Mereward was good Robin Bennett was most certainly bad. Millie very soon hated him with a hatred that made her shiver. She hated him, of course, for himself, but was it only that? Deep down in her soul there lurked a dreadful suspicion. Could it be that some of her hatred arose because in him she detected some vices and low qualities grown to full bloom that in twig, stem and leaf were already sprouting in a younger soil?Wasthere in Robin Bennett a prophecy? No, no. Never, never, never. . . . And yet. . . . Oh, how she hated him! His smart clothes, his neat hair, his white hands, his soft voice! And Bunny liked him. "Not half a bad fellow that man Bennett. Knows a motor-car when he sees one."
Millie had it not in her nature to pretend, and she did not disguise for a moment on whose side she was.
"You don't like me?" Bennett said to her one day.
"No, indeed I don't," said Millie, looking him in the eyes.
"Why not?"
"Why? Because for one thing I'm very fond of Victoria. You're after her money. She'll be perfectly miserable if she marries you."
He laughed. Nothing in life could disconcert him!
"Yes, of course I'm a Pirate." (Hadn't some one else somewhere said that once?) "This is the day for Pirates. There neverwassuch a time for them. All sorts of people going about with money that they don't know what to do with. All sorts of other people without any money ready to do anything to get it. No morality any more. Damned good thing for England. Hypocrisy was the only thing that was the matter with her—now she's a hypocrite no longer! You see I'm frank with you, Miss Trenchard. You say you don't like me. Well, I'll return the compliment. I don't like you either. Of course you're damned pretty, about the prettiest girl in London I should say. But you're damned conceited too. You'll forgive me, won't you?Youdon't sparemeyou know. I tell young Baxter he's a fool to marry you. He'll be miserable with you."
"You tell him that?" Millie said furiously.
"Yes, why not? You tell Victoria she'd be miserable withme, don't you? Well, then. . . . You're very young, you know. When you're a bit older you'll see that there's not so much difference between people like me and people like yourself as you think. We all line up very much the same in the end. I mayn't have quite your faults and you mayn't have quite mine, but when it comes to the Judgment Day I don't expect there'll be much to choose between Piracy and Arrogance."
So far Mr. Bennett and a Victory cannot exactly be claimed for Millie in this encounter. She was furious. She was miserable.Wasshe so conceited? She'd ask Henry. She did ask the little doctor, who told her—"No. Only a little self-confident." He was her only friend and support in these days.
"Be patient with Victoria," he said. "It's only a phase. She'll work through this."
"She won't if she marries Mr. Bennett," Millie said.
Meanwhile the old artists' colony was broomed right away. Eve was carried down to the cellar, the voice of Mr. Block was no longer heard in the land and the poor little Russian went and begged for meals in other districts. Victoria danced, went to the theatre and gave supper-parties.
She was quite frank with Millie.
"I don't mind telling you, Millie, that all that art wasn'tquite genuine—not altogether. Idolike pretty things, of course—you know me well enough to know that. And I do want to help poor young artists. But they're so ungrateful. Now aren't they, Millie? You can see it for yourself. Look at Mr. Block. I really did everything I could for him. But is he pleased? Not a bit. He's as discontented as he can be."
"It's very difficult doing kindnesses to people," said Millie sententiously. "Sometimes you want to stop before they think you ought to."
"Now you're looking at me reproachfully. That isn't fine. Why shouldn't I enjoy myself and be gay a little? And I love dancing; I daresay I look absurd, but so do thousands of other people, so what does it matter? My Millie, Imustbe happy. I must. Do you know that this is positively the first time I've been happy in all my life and I daresay it's my last. . . . I know you often think me a fool. Oh,Isee you looking at me. But I'm not such a fool as you think. I know about my age and my figure and all the rest of it. I know that if I hadn't a penny no one would look at me. You think that I don't know any of these things, but indeed I do. . . . It's my last fling and you can't deprive me of it!"
"Oh I don't want to deprive you of it," cried Millie, suddenly flinging her arms round the fat, red-faced woman, "only I don't want you to go and do anything foolish—like marrying Mr. Bennett for instance."
"Now, why shouldn't I marry Mr. Bennett? Suppose I'm in love with him—madly. Isn't it something in these days when there are so many old maids to have a month of love even if he beats one all the rest of one's days? And anyway I've got the purse—I could keep him in check. . . . No, that's a nasty way of talking. And I'm certainly not in love with Bennett, nor with Mereward neither. I don't suppose I'll ever be in love with any one again."
"You're lucky!" Millie broke out. "Oh, you are indeed! It isn't happy to be in love. It's miserable."
Indeed she was unhappy. She could not have believed that she would ever allow herself to be swung into such a swirl of emotions as were hers now. At one moment she hated him, feeling herself bound ignobly, surrendering weakly all that wasbest in herself; at such a moment she determined that she would be entirely frank with him, insisting on his own frankness, challenging him to tell her everything that he was, as she now knew, keeping back from her . . . then she loved him so that she wanted only his company, only to be with him, to hear him laugh, to see him happy, and she would accept any tie (knowing in her heart that it was a lie) if it would keep him with her and cause him to love her. That he did love her through all his weakness she was truly aware: it was that awareness that chained her to him.
Very strange the part that Ellen played in all this. That odd woman made no further demonstrations of affection; she was always now ironically sarcastic, hurting Millie when she could, and she knew, as no one else in the place did, the way to hurt her. Because of her Bunny came now much less to the house.
"I can't stand that sneering woman," he said, "and she loathesme."
Millie tried to challenge her.
"Why do you hate Bunny?" she asked. "He's never done you any harm."
"Hasn't he?" Ellen answered smiling.
"No, what harm has he done you?"
"I'll tell you one day."
"I hate these mysteries," Millie cried. "Once you asked to be my friend. Now——"
"Now?" repeated Ellen.
"You seem to want to hurt me any way you can."
Ellen had a habit of standing stiff against the wall, her heels together, her head back as though she were being measured for her height.
"Perhaps I don't like to see you so happy when I'm unhappy myself."
Millie came to her.
"Why are you unhappy, Ellen? I hate you to be. I do like you. I do want to be your friend if you'll let me. I offended you somehow in the early days. You've never forgiven me for it. But I don't even now know what I did."
Ellen walked away. Suddenly she turned.
"What," she said, "can people like you know about peoplelike us, how we suffer, how we hate ourselves, how we are thirstier and thirstier and for ever unsatisfied. . . . No, I don't mean you any harm. I'll save you from Baxter, though. You're too pretty. . . . You can escape even though I can't."
There was melodrama in this it seemed to Millie. It was quite a relief to have a fierce quarrel with Bunny five minutes later. The quarrel came, of course, from nothing—about some play which was, Bunny said, at Daly's, and Millie at the Lyric.
They were walking furiously down Knightsbridge. An omnibus passed. The play was at the Lyric.
"Of course I was right," said Millie.
"Oh, you're always right, aren't you?"
Millie turned.
"I'm not coming on with you if you're like that."
"Very well then." He suddenly stepped back to her with his charming air of penitence.
"Millie, I'm sorry. Don't let's fight to-day."
"Well, then, take me to see your mother."
The words seemed not to be hers. At their sudden utterance Knightsbridge, the trees of the Park were carved in coloured stone.
His mouth set. "No, I can't."
"Why not?"
"She's not—she's not in London."
She knew that he was lying.
"Then take me to where she is."
They were walking on again, neither seeing the other.
"You know that I can't. She's down in the country."
"Then we'll go there."
"We can't."
"Yes, we can. Now. At once. If you ever want to speak to me again. . . ."
"I tell you—I've told you a thousand times—we must wait. There are reasons——"
"What reasons?"
"If you're patient——"
"I'm tired of being patient. Take me now or I'll never speak to you again."
"Well then, don't."
They parted. After an evening of utter misery she wrote to him:
My Darling Bunny—I know that I was hateful this afternoon. I know that I've been hateful other afternoons andshallbe hateful again on afternoons to come. You're not very nice either on these occasions. What are we to do about it? We do love one another—I know we do. We ought to be kinder to one another than we are to any one else and yet we seem to like to lash out and hurt one another. And I think this is because there's something really wrong in our relationship. You make me feel as though you were ashamed to love me. Now why should you be ashamed? Why can't we be open and clear before all the world?If you have some secret that you are keeping from me, tell me and we'll discuss it frankly like friends. Take me to see your mother. If she doesn't like me at first perhaps she will when she knows me better. Anyway we shall be sure of where we are. Oh, Bunny, we could besohappy. Why don't you let us be? I know that it is partly my fault. I suppose I'm conceited and think I'm always right. But I don't really inside—only if you don't pretend to have an opinion of your own no one will ever listen to anything you say. Oh! I don't know what I'm writing. I am tempted to telephone to you and see if you are in and if you are to ask you to come over here. Perhaps you will come of your own accord. Every footstep outside the door seems to be yours and then it goes on up the stairs. Don't let us quarrel, Bunny. I hate it so and we say such horrid things to one another that we neither of us mean. Forgive me for anything I've done or said. I love you. Iloveyou. . . . Bunny darling.—Your lovingM.
My Darling Bunny—I know that I was hateful this afternoon. I know that I've been hateful other afternoons andshallbe hateful again on afternoons to come. You're not very nice either on these occasions. What are we to do about it? We do love one another—I know we do. We ought to be kinder to one another than we are to any one else and yet we seem to like to lash out and hurt one another. And I think this is because there's something really wrong in our relationship. You make me feel as though you were ashamed to love me. Now why should you be ashamed? Why can't we be open and clear before all the world?
If you have some secret that you are keeping from me, tell me and we'll discuss it frankly like friends. Take me to see your mother. If she doesn't like me at first perhaps she will when she knows me better. Anyway we shall be sure of where we are. Oh, Bunny, we could besohappy. Why don't you let us be? I know that it is partly my fault. I suppose I'm conceited and think I'm always right. But I don't really inside—only if you don't pretend to have an opinion of your own no one will ever listen to anything you say. Oh! I don't know what I'm writing. I am tempted to telephone to you and see if you are in and if you are to ask you to come over here. Perhaps you will come of your own accord. Every footstep outside the door seems to be yours and then it goes on up the stairs. Don't let us quarrel, Bunny. I hate it so and we say such horrid things to one another that we neither of us mean. Forgive me for anything I've done or said. I love you. Iloveyou. . . . Bunny darling.—Your loving
M.
Her letter was crossed by one from him.
Dearest Millie—I didn't mean what I said this afternoon. I love you so much that when we quarrel it's terrible. Do be patient, darling. You want everything to be right all in a moment. I'll tell you one day how difficult it has been all these months. You'll see then that it isn't all my fault. I'm not perfect but I do love you. You're the most beautiful thing ever made and I'm a lucky devil to be allowed to kiss your hand. I'll be round at Cromwell Road five o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Please forgive me, Millie darling.—Your lovingBunny.
Dearest Millie—I didn't mean what I said this afternoon. I love you so much that when we quarrel it's terrible. Do be patient, darling. You want everything to be right all in a moment. I'll tell you one day how difficult it has been all these months. You'll see then that it isn't all my fault. I'm not perfect but I do love you. You're the most beautiful thing ever made and I'm a lucky devil to be allowed to kiss your hand. I'll be round at Cromwell Road five o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Please forgive me, Millie darling.—Your loving
Bunny.
"To-morrow afternoon at five o'clock" the reconciliation was complete. No secrets were revealed.
Peter Westcott, meanwhile, had been passing his London summer in a strange state of half-expectant happiness and tranquillity. It was a condition quite new to him, this almost tranced state of pause as though he were hesitating outside the door of some room; was some one coming who would enter with him? Was he expecting to see some treasure within that might after all not be there? Was he afraid to face that realization?
Throughout the whole of that solitary August he had with him three joys—London, the book that was now slowly day by day growing, and Millie. When he was young he had taken all he could get—then everything had been snatched from him—now in his middle age life had taught him to savour everything slowly, to expect nothing more than he perceived actually before him; he had grown selfish in his consciousness of his few treasures. If he shared with others perhaps the gods would grow jealous and rob him once again.
People might deride or condemn. He was shy now; his heart went out as truly, as passionately as it had ever done, but he alone now must know that. Henry and Millie, yes—they might know something—had he not sworn comradeship with them? But not even to them could he truly speak of his secrets. He had talked to Henry of his book and even discussed it with him, but he would not put into spoken words the desires and ambitions that, around it, were creeping into his heart. He scarcely dared own them to himself.
Of his feeling about London he did not speak to any one because he could not put it into words. There was something mysterious in the very soul of the feeling. He could tell himself that it was partly because London was a middle-aged man'stown. Paris was for youth, he said, and New York too and Berlin perhaps, but London did not love you until you were a little tired and had known trouble and sorrow and lost your self-esteem. Then the grey-smoked stone, the grey of pigeon's wings and the red-misted sky and the faint dusty green of the trees settled about your heart and calmed you. Now when the past is something to you at last, and the scorn of the past that you had in your youth is over, London admits you into her comradeship. "There is no place," he said to himself, "where one can live in such tranquillity. She is like a woman who was once your mistress, whom you meet again after many years and with whom at last, now that passion is gone, you can have kind, loving friendship. Against the grey-white stone and the dim smoke-stained sky the night colours come and go, life flashes and fades, sounds rise and fall, and kindliness of heart is there at the end." He found now that he could watch everything with a passionate interest. Marylebone High Street might not be the most beautiful street in London, but it had the charm of a small country town where, closing your eyes you could believe that only a mile away there was the country road, the fir-wood, the high, wind-swept down. As people down the street stopped for their morning gossip and the dogs recognized their accustomed friends and the little bell of the tiny Post Office jangled its bell, London rolled back like a thick mist on to a distant horizon and its noise receded into a thin and distant whisper of the wind among the trees. Watching from his window he came to know faces and bodies and horses, he grew part of a community small enough to want his company, but not narrow enough to limit his horizon.
His days during those months were very quiet and very happy. He worked in the morning at his book, at some reviewing, at an occasional article. His few friends, Campbell, Martha Proctor, Monteith perhaps, James Maradick, one or two more, came to see him or he went to them. There was the theatre (so much better than the highbrows asserted), there were concerts. There was golf at a cheap little course at Roehampton, and there were occasional week-ends in the country . . . as a period of pause before some great event—those were happy months. Perhaps the great event would never come, but never in his life before hadhe felt so deeply assured that he was moving towards something that was to change all his life. Even the finishing of his book would do that. It was calledThe Fiery Tree, and it began with a man who, walking at night towards a town, loses his way and takes shelter in an old farmhouse. In the farmhouse are two men and an old woman. They consent to put him up for the night. He goes to his room, and looking out from his window on to the moonlit garden he sees, hiding in an appletree. . . . What does he see? It does not matter. In the spring of 1922 the book will be published—The Fiery Tree, By Peter Westcott: Author ofReuben Hallard, etc.: and you be able to judge whether or no he has improved as a writer after all these years. Whether he has improved or no the principal fact is that day after day he got happiness and companionship and comfort from his book. It might be good: it might be bad: he said he did not know. Campbell was right. He did his best, secured his happiness. What came when the book was between its cover was another matter.
Behind London and the book was Millie. She coloured all his day, all his thoughts: sometimes she came before him with her eyes wide and excited like a child waking on her birthday morning. Sometimes she stood in front of him, but away from him, her eyes watching him with that half-ironical suggestion that she knew all about life, that he and indeed all men were children to her whom she could not but pity, that suggestion that went so sweetly with the child in herself, the simplicity and innocence and confidence.
And then again she would be before him simply in her beauty, her colour, gold and red and dark, her body so straight, so strong, so slim, the loveliness of her neck, her hands, her breast. Then a mist came before his eyes and he could see no more.
Sometimes he ached to know how she was, whether she were happy with this man to whom she was engaged; he had no thought any more of having her for himself. That was one thing that his middle-age and his past trouble had brought him—patience, infinite, infinite patience.
Then, as unheralded as such things usually are, the crisis came. It was a foggy afternoon. He came in about half-past three, meaning to work. Just as he was about to sit down athis table his telephone bell rang. He was surprised to hear Martha Proctor's voice: he was still more surprised when she told him that she was at Selfridge's and would like to come in and have tea if he were alone.
Martha Proctor! The last of the Three Graces to pay him any attention he said. But I like her. I've always liked her best of the three. . . .
He got his tea things from the little brown cupboard, made some toast, found a pot of raspberry jam; just as he had finished Martha Proctor stalked in. He liked her clear-cut ways, the decent friendly challenge of her smile, her liking for brown bread and jam, with no nonsense about "not being really hungry." Yes, he liked her—and he was pleased that she had troubled to come to him, even though it was only the fog that had driven her in. But at first his own shyness, the eternal sense always with him that he was a recognized failure, and that no one wanted to hear what he had to say, held him back. There fell silences, silences that always came when he was alone with anybody.
He had not the gift of making others enthusiastic, of firing their intelligence. Only Millie and Henry, and perhaps James Maradick and Bobby Galleon were able to see him as he really was. With others he always thought of the thing that he was going to say before he said it; then, finding it priggish, or sententious, or platitudinous, didn't say it after all. No wonder men found him dull!
He liked Martha Proctor, but the first half-hour of their meeting was not a success. Then, with a smile he broke out:
"You know—you wouldn't think it—but I'm tremendously glad the fog drove you in here to-day. There are so many things I want to talk about, but I've lost my confidence somehow in any one being interested in what I think."
"If you imagine it was the fog," said Martha Proctor, "that brought me in to-day, you are greatly mistaken. I've been meaning to come for weeks. You say you're diffident, well, I'm diffident too, although I wouldn't have any one in the world to know it. Here I am at forty-two, and I'm a failure. No, don't protest. It's true. I know I've got a name and something of a position and young authors are said to wait nervously formy Olympian utterances, but as a matter of fact I've got about as much influence and power as that jam-pot there. But it isn't only with myself I'm disappointed—I'm disappointed with everybody."
She paused then, as though she expected Peter to say something, so he said:
"That's pretty sweeping."
"No, it isn't. The state of literature in London is rotten, more rotten than I've ever known it. Everybody over forty is tired and down and out, and everybody under thirty has swelled head. And they're all in sets and cliques. And they're all hating one another and abusing one another and running their own little pets. And all the little pets that might have turned into good writers if they'd been let alone have been spoiled and ruined." She paused for breath, then went on, growing really excited: "Look at young Burnley for instance. There's quite a promising dramatist—you know thatThe Rivers' Familywas a jolly good play. Then Monteith gets hold of him, persuades him that he's a critic, which, poor infant, he never was and never will be, lets him loose on his paper and ruins his character. Yes, ruins it! Six months later he's reviewing the same book in four different papers under four different names, and hasn't the least idea that he's doing anything dishonest!
"But Burnley isn't the point. It's the general state of things. Monteith and Murphy and the rest think they're Olympian. They're as full of prejudices as an egg is full of meat, and they haven't got a grain of humour amongst the lot. They aren't consciously dishonest, but they run round and round after their own tails with their eyes on the ground. Now, I'm only saying what lots of us are feeling. We want literature to become a jollier, freer thing; to be quit of schools and groups, and to have altogether more fun in it. That's why I've come to you!"
"To me!" said Peter, laughing. "I'm not generally considered the most amusing dog in London——"
"No, you're not," said Miss Proctor. "People don't know you, of course. Lots of them think you dull and conceited. You may be proud, but you're certainly not conceited—and you're not dull."
"Thank you," said Peter.
"No, but seriously, a lot of us have been considering you lately. You see, you're honest—no one would deny that—and you're independent, and even if you're proud you're not so damned proud as Monteith, and you haven't got a literary nursery of admiring pupils. You'd be surprised, though, if you knew how many friends you have got."
"I should be indeed," said Peter.
"Well, you have. Of course Janet Ross and the others of her kind think you're no good, but those are just the cliques we want to get away from. To cut a long story short, some of us—Gardiner, Morris, Billy Wells, Thompson, Thurtell, and there are others—want you to join us."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing very definite at the moment. We are going to be apart from all cliques and sets——"
"I see——" interrupted Peter, "be an anti-clique clique."
"Not at all," said Martha Proctor. "We aren't going to call ourselves anything or have meetings in an A.B.C. shop or anything of the kind. It is possible that there—there'll be a paper one day—a jolly kind of paper that will admit any sort of literature if it's good of its kind; not only novels about introspective women and poems about young men's stomachs on a spring morning. I don't know. All we want now is to be a little happier about things in general, to be a little less jealous of writing that isn't quite our kind and, above all, not to be Olympian!"
She banged the table with her hand and the jam-pot jumped. "I hate the Olympians! Damn the Olympians! Self-conscious Olympians are the worst things God ever made . . . I'm a fool, you're not very bright, but we're not Olympian, therefore let's have tea together once or twice a year!"
Soon after that she went. Peter had promised to come to her flat one evening soon and meet some of her friends. She left him in a state of very pleasureable excitement.
He walked up and down his room, lurching a little from leg to leg like a sailor on his deck. Yes, he was awfully pleased—awfullypleased. . . . Somebody wanted him. Somebody thought his opinion worth having.
There were friendly faces, kindly voices waiting for him.
His ambition leapt up again like fire. Life was not over for him, and although he might never write a fine book nor a word that would be remembered after he was gone, yet he could help, take his share in the movement, encourage a little what seemed to him good, fight against everything that was false and pretentious and insincere.
He felt as though some one were pushing the pieces of the game at last in his favour. For long he had been baffled, betrayed, checked. Now everything was moving together for him. Even Millie. . .!
He stopped in his walk, staring at the window behind whose panes the fog lay now like bales of dirty cotton. Millie! Perhaps this engagement of hers was not a success. He did not know why but he had an impression that all was not well with her. Something that Henry had said in a letter. Something. . . . So long as she were still there so that he might see her and tell her of his work. See her, her colour, her eyes, her hands, her movement as she walked, her smile so kindly and then a little scornful as though she were telling herself that it was not grown-up to show kindness too readily, that they must understand that shewasgrown up. . . .
Oh, bless her! He would be her true friend whatever course her life might take, however small a share himself might have in it.
He stared at the window and his happiness, his new ambition and confidence were suddenly penetrated by some chill breath. By what? He could not tell. He stood there looking in front of him, seeing nothing but the grey shadows that coiled and uncoiled against the glass.
What was it? His heart seemed to stand still in some sudden anticipation. What was it? Was some one coming? He listened. There was no sound but a sudden cry from the fog, a dim taxi-whistle. Something was about to happen. He was sure as one is sure in dreams with a knowledge that is simply an anticipation of something that one has already been through. Just like this once he had stood, waiting in a closed room. Once before. Where? Who was coming? Some one out in the fog was now looking at the number of his house-door. Someone had stepped into the house. Some one was walking slowly up the stairs, looking at the cards upon the doors. It was as though he were chained, enchanted to the spot. Now his own floor. A pause outside his door. When suddenly his bell rang he felt no surprise, only a strange hesitation before he moved as though a voice were saying to him: "This is going to be very difficult for you. Pull yourself together. You'll need your courage."
He opened his door and peered out. The passage was dark. A woman was there, standing back, leaning against the bannisters.
"Who's there?" he called. His voiced echoed back to him from the empty staircase. The woman made no answer, standing like a black shadow against the dark stain of the bannisters.
"Do you want anything?" asked Peter. "Did you ring my bell?"
She moved then ever so slightly. In a hoarse whisper she said: "I want to speak to Mr. Westcott."
"I'm Peter Westcott," he answered.
She moved again, coming a little nearer.
"I want to sit down," she said. "I'm not very well." She gave a little sigh, her arms moved in a gesture of protest and she sank upon the floor. He went to her, lifted her up (he felt at once how small she was and slight), carried her into his room and laid her on his old green-backed sofa.
Then, bending over her, he saw that she was his wife, Clare.
Instantly he was flooded, body and soul, with pity. He had, he could have, no other sense but that. It had been, perhaps, all his life even during those childish years of defiance of his father the strongest emotion in him—it was called forth now as it had never been before.
He had hurried into his bedroom, fetched water, bathed her forehead, her hands, taken off the shabby hat, unfastened the faded black dress at the throat, still she lay there, her eyes closed in the painted and powdered face, the body crumpled up on the sofa as though it were broken in every limb.
Broken! Indeed she was! It was nearly twenty years since he had last seen her, since that moment when she had turned back at the door, looking at him with that strange appeal in hereyes, the appeal that had failed. He heard again, as though it had been only yesterday, her voice in their last conversation—"I've got a headache. I'm going upstairs to lie down. . . ." And that had been the end.
She smelt of some horrible scent, the powder on her face blew off in little dry flakes, her hair was still that same wonderful colour, yellow gold; she must be forty now—her body was as slight and childish as it had been twenty years ago. He rubbed her hands: they were not clean and the nails were broken.
She moved restlessly without opening her eyes, as though in her sleep, she pushed against him, then freed her hands from his, muttering. He caught some words: "No, Alex—no. Don't hurt me. I want to be happy! Oh, I want to be happy! Oh, don't hurt me! Don't!"
All this in a little whimper as though she had no strength left with which to cry out. Then her eyes opened: she stared about her, first at the ceiling, then at the table and chairs, then at Peter.
She frowned at him. "I oughtn't to have come here," she said. "You don't want me—not after all this time. Did I faint? How silly of me!" She pushed herself up. "That's because I'm so hungry—so dreadfully hungry. I've had nothing to eat for two days except what that man gave me at the station . . . I feel sick but I must eat something——"
"Hungry!" he sprang to his feet. "Just lie there a minute and rest. Close your eyes. There! Lie back again! I'll have something ready in a moment."
He rushed into the little kitchen, found the kettle, filled it and put it on the sitting-room fire. The tea-things were still on the table, a plate with cakes, a loaf of bread, the pot of jam. She was sitting up staring at them. She got up and moved across to the table. "Cut me some bread quickly. Never mind about the tea."
He cut her some bread and butter. She began to eat, tearing the bread with her fingers, her eyes staring at the cakes. She snatched two of them and began to eat them with the bread. Suddenly she stopped.
"Oh, I can't!" she whispered. "I'm so hungry, but I can't—I'm going to be sick."
He led her into his bedroom, his arm around her. There she was very ill. Afterwards white and trembling she lay on his bed. He put the counterpane over her, and then said:
"Would you like a doctor?" She was shivering from head to foot.
"No," she whispered. "Would you make me some tea—very hot?"
He went into the sitting-room and in a fever of impatience waited for the kettle to boil. He stood there, watching it, his own emotion so violent that his knees and hands were trembling.
"Poor little thing! Poor little thing! Poor little thing!" He found that he was repeating the words aloud. . . . The lid of the kettle suddenly lifted. He made the tea and carried it into the other room. It was dark now, with the fog and the early evening. He switched on the light and then as she turned, making a slight movement of protest with her hand, he switched it off again. She sat up a little, catching at the cup, and then began to drink it with eager, thirsty gulps.
"Ah, that's good!" he heard her murmur. "Good!" He gave her some more, then a third cup. With a little sigh she sank back satisfied. She lay then without speaking and he thought she was asleep. He drew a chair to the bedside and sat down there, leaning forward a little towards her. He could not see her now at all: the room was quite dark.
Suddenly she began to speak in a low, monotonous voice——
"I oughtn't to have come. . . . Do you know I nearly came once last year? I was awfully hard up and I got your address from the publishers. I didn't like to go to them again this time. It was just chance that you might still be here. I wouldn't have come to you at all if I hadn't been so hard up. . . ."
"Hush," he said, "you oughtn't to talk. Try and sleep."
She laughed. "You say that just as you used to. You aren't changed very much, fatter a bit. I'd have known you anywhere. I wouldn't have come if I'd known where Benois was. He's in London somewhere, but he's given me the slip. Not the first time either. . . . I'm not going to stay here, you know. You needn't be frightened."
The voice was changed terribly. He would have recognizedit from the thin sharp note, almost of complaint, that was still in it, but it was thickened, coarsened, with a curious catch in it as though her breathing were difficult.
"Don't talk now. Rest!" he repeated.
"Yes, you're not changed a bit. Fatter of course. I've often wondered what you'd turned into. How you got on in the War. You know Jerry was killed—quite early, at the beginning. He was in the French Army. He treated me badly. But every one's treated me badly. All I wanted was to be happy. I didn't mean to do any one any harm. It's cruel the way I've been treated."
Her voice died off into a murmur. He caught only the words "Benois . . . Paris . . . Station."
Soon he heard her breathing, soft with a little catch in it like a strangled sob. He sat on then, hearing nothing but that little catch. He did not think at all. He could see nothing. He was sightless in a blind world, coil after coil of grey vapour moving about him, enclosing him, releasing him, enclosing him again—"Poor little thing!" "Poor little thing!" "Poor little thing!"
He did not move as the evening passed into night.