"Yes, I'm going out now to post the letters."
"Then I'll wait up until you get back, darling."
"No, please not, Mother; I have a key."
"But it makes me nervous when I know you're out. Run along, dear; I shall wait for you."
"Very well," said Joan, "I shan't be long."
Mrs. Benson called and talked about Richard, and she looked at Joan as she spoke. She would have liked her Richard to have this girl, if, as she had begun to suspect, he had set his heart on her.
"You and Richard have so much in common, Joan; he's always writing to me about you."
Mrs. Ogden said nothing.
"When are you going to Cambridge?" Mrs. Benson continued hurriedly, bridging an awkward pause.
Joan looked at her mother, but she was still silent.
"Aren't you going?" Mrs. Benson persisted.
Joan hesitated. "Well, you see, it's rather difficult just now——"
"She doesn't want to leave me," said Mrs. Ogden with a little smile. "She thinks I'm such a helpless creature!"
"But, surely——" Mrs. Benson began, and then stopped.
The atmosphere of this house was beginning to depress her, and in a sudden flash she realized the cause of her depression. There was something shabby about everything here, both physical and mental. Inanimate things, and people, were letting themselves go, sliding; Mrs. Ogden was sliding very fast—and Joan? She let her eyes dwell on the girl attentively. No, Joan had only begun to slip a little as yet, but there were signs; her mouth drooped too much at the corners, her lips were too pale and her strong hands fidgeted restlessly, but otherwise she was intact so far, and how spruce she looked! Mrs. Benson envied this talent for tidiness, which had never been hers. Yes, on the whole, Joan's clothes suited her, it would be difficult to conceive of her dressed otherwise; still, the short hair was rather exaggerated. She wondered if Richard would make her let it grow when they were married, for, of course, she would marry him in the end.
"So Elizabeth has gone to London," she said after a silence, feeling that she had made a bad slip the moment the words were out.
"Yes, she went more than a week ago," Joan replied.
Mrs. Ogden looked up with interest. "But surely not for long? How queer of you not to have told me, dear."
"I thought I had," said Joan untruthfully.
"I heard from her this morning," Mrs. Benson plunged on, feeling that she might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. "She's got a very good post as librarian to some society."
Then Elizabeth was in London!
"Well, of all the extraordinary things!" said Mrs. Ogden, genuinely surprised. "Joan, younevertold me a word!"
"I didn't know about the post as librarian, Mother."
"No, but you knew that Elizabeth had left Seabourne for good."
"Yes, I knew that——"
"Well then, fancy your not telling me; fancy her not coming here to say good-bye—extraordinary!" Her voice was shaking a little with excitement now. "What made her go off suddenly, like that? Surely you and she haven't quarrelled, Joan?"
Joan looked at Mrs. Benson; did she know? Probably, as Elizabeth had written to her. Mrs. Benson smiled and nodded sympathetically, her motherly eyes said plainly: "Never mind, dear, it's not so bad as you think; you've got my Richard." But Joan ignored the comfort. What could Mrs. Benson know of all this, what could anyone know but Elizabeth and herself.
She said: "I think she was tired of Seabourne, Mother. Elizabeth was always very clever, and there's nothing to be clever about here."
Mrs. Ogden smiled quietly. "Elizabeth was certainly very clever; but what about her interest in you?"
"Yes, she took a great interest in me; she believed in me, I think, but—oh, well, she couldn't wait for ever, could she?"
She thought: "If they go on like this I shall scream!"
"Well, I must be going," said Mrs. Benson uncomfortably. "Come up to-morrow and lunch with me, Joan; half-past one, and I hope you'll come too, Mrs. Ogden."
Mrs. Ogden sighed. "I never go anywhere since James's death. It may be morbid of me, but I feel I can't bear to, somehow."
"Oh, but do come, please. We shall be quite alone and it'll do you good."
The smile that played round Mrs. Ogden's lips was apologetic and sad; it seemed to repudiate gently the suggestion that anything, however kindly meant, could do her good, now.
"I think not," she said, pressing Mrs. Benson's hand. "But thank you all the same for wanting such a dull guest."
Mrs. Benson thought: "A tiresome woman; she's overdoing her bereavement, poor thing."
The door had scarcely closed on the departing guest when Mrs. Ogden turned to her daughter. "Is this true?" she demanded, holding out her hands.
"Is what true?"
"About Elizabeth."
"Oh, for God's sake!" exclaimed Joan gruffly, "don't let's go into all that. Elizabeth has gone away, isn't that enough? Aren't you satisfied?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Ogden, and her voice was wonderfully firm and self-possessed. "I am quite satisfied, Joan."
At Christmas, Milly came home, a little taller, a little thinner, but prettier than ever. Joan was glad enough of her sister's brief visit, for it broke the monotony of the house.
Milly was happy, self-satisfied and friendly. She seemed to look upon the episode of Mr. Thompson as an escapade of her foolish youth; she had become very grown-up and experienced. She had a great deal to tell of her life in London; she shared rooms with a girl called Harriet Nelson, a singer. Harriet was clever and fat. You had to be fat if you wanted to be an operatic singer, and Harriet had a marvellous soprano voice. She had taken the principal part in the College opera last year, but unfortunately she couldn't act, she just lumbered about and sang divinely.
Milly said that Harriet was not a bad sort, but rather irritating and inclined to show off her French. She did speak French pretty well, having had a French nurse before her family had lost their money. Her father had been a manager in some big works up north, they had been quite well off during his lifetime; Harriet was always bragging about their big house and the fact that she used to hunt. Milly didn't believe a word of it. Still, Harriet always seemed to have plenty to spend, even now. Milly complained of shortness of money, one felt it when it came to providing teas and things.
Then there was Cassy Ryan, another singer who also had a wonderful voice and was a born actress as well. She was a great darling. Milly would have liked to chum up with her, her diggings were just above Milly's and Harriet's. They had high jinks up there occasionally, judging by the row they made after hours; they had nearly been caught by "Old Scout," the matron, one night, and had only just had time to empty the coffee down the lavatory and jump into bed with the cakes. Milly wished that she had been one of that party, but she didn't know Cassy very well; Harriet did, but was rather jealous and liked keeping her friends to herself. Cassy's father had been a butcher; Cassy said that he used to get drunk and beat her mother; and one day he had got into a frenzy and had thrown all the carcasses about the shop. One of them had hit Cassy and her lip had been cut open by a piece of bone; she still had the scar of it. But it didn't matter about Cassy's father having been a butcher; Cassy belonged to the aristocracy of brains, that was the only thing that really counted.
The violin students were rather a dull lot with the exception of Renée Fabre, who was beautiful. She was Andros's favourite pupil. Milly thought that he pushed her rather to the detriment of the others; but it really didn't matter, because Renée would be well off hands when Milly wished to take the field.
Andros was a great dear; he wore a pig-skin belt instead of braces, and when he played his waistcoat hitched up and you saw the belt and buckle; it was very attractive. He had a blue-black beard, which he combed and brushed, and really beautiful black eyes. He was very Spanish indeed, they said that he had cried like a baby over his first London fog, he missed the sunshine so much.
You were allowed to go and see people, and Milly had gone once or twice to Sunday luncheon with Harriet's family in Brondesbury. Her mother was a brick; nothing was good enough for Harriet, special dishes were cooked when it was known that she was bringing friends home.
Milly babbled on day after day; when she wasn't talking about her new life she was making fun of the old one. Seabourne provided great scope for her wit; she enjoyed walking up and down the esplanade, ridiculing the inhabitants.
"What a queer crew, Joan, just look at them! They think they're alive, too, and that's the funniest thing about them."
Joan tried to enter in and to appear amused and interested, but she was very heavy of heart. And in addition to this a certain new commonness about her sister jarred her; Milly had grown second-rate and her sense of humour was second-rate too. Still, she was happy and, so far as Joan knew, good, and the other thing mattered so little after all. Mr. Thompson had left Seabourne, so there was really nothing to worry about so far as Milly was concerned; she was launched, and if she came to shipwreck later on it would not be Joan's fault, she had done everything she could for Milly.
There was no mutual understanding between them; Joan felt no temptation to take her sister into her confidence. Milly had received the news of Elizabeth's departure much as she always took things that did not concern her personally—listening with half an ear, while apparently thinking of something else. She had sympathized perfunctorily: "Poor old Joan, what a beastly shame!" But her voice had lacked conviction. After all, it was not so bad for Joan, who had no talent in particular, it was when you had the artistic temperament that things went deep with you. Joan had retired into her shell at this obvious lack of interest, and the subject was not discussed any more.
Milly seemed to take it for granted that Joan had given up all idea of Cambridge. "All I ask," she said laughing, "is that you don't grow to look like them."
"Like who?" Joan asked sharply, nettled by Milly's manner.
"Like the rest of the Seabourne freaks."
"Oh, don't get anxious about me; I may change my mind and go up next year, after all."
"Not you!" said Milly with disturbing conviction.
On the whole, however, the holidays passed peaceably enough. They avoided having rows, which was always to the good, and when at last Milly's trunks were packed and on the fly, Joan felt regretful that her sister was really going; Milly was rather amusing after all.
THE winter dragged on into spring, a late spring, but wonderfully rewarding when it came. Everything connected with the earth seemed to burst out into fulfilment all in a night; there was a feeling of exuberance and intense colour everywhere, which reflected itself in people's spirits, making them jolly. The milkman whistled loudly and clanked his cans for the sheer joy of making a noise. They had a servant again at Leaside, so that Joan no longer exchanged the time of day with him at the back door, but she stood at the dining-room window and watched him swinging down the street, pushing his little chariot in front of him; a red-haired and rosy man, very well contented with life.
"He's contented and I'm miserable," she thought. "Perhaps I should be happier if I were a milkman, and had nothing to long for because there was nothing in me to long with."
Far away, in London, Elizabeth strode through Kensington Gardens on her way to work; her head was a little bent, her nostrils dilated, sniffing the air. A chorus of birds hailed her with apparent delight. She noticed several thrushes and at least one blackbird among them. The Albert Memorial came into sight, it glowed like flame in the sun; a pompous and a foolish thing made beautiful.
"I suppose it's spring in Seabourne too," she was thinking, and then: "I wonder if Joan is very unhappy."
She quickened her steps. "Go on, go on, go on!" sang the spring insistently, and then: "Go back, go back, go back! There is something sweeter than ambition." Elizabeth trembled but went on.
To Joan the very glory of it all was an added heart-break. Grief is never so unendurable in suitable company, it finds quite a deal of consolation in the sorrow of others; it feels understood and at home. But on this spring morning in Seabourne Joan's grief found no one to welcome it. Even the servant at Leaside was shouting hymns as she laid the breakfast; she belonged to the Salvation Army and every now and then would pause to clap her hands in rhythm to the jaunty tune.
"My sins they were as scarlet!They are now as white as snow!"
"My sins they were as scarlet!They are now as white as snow!"
She carolled, and clapped triumphantly. Joan could hear her from her bedroom upstairs.
Mrs. Ogden heard her too. "Ethel!" she called irritably; "not so much noise, please." She closed her door sharply and kneeling down in front of a newly acquired picture of The Holy Family, began to read a long Matinal Devotion—for Mrs. Ogden was becoming religious. The presence of spring in her room coloured her prayers, giving them an impish vitality. She entreated God with a new note of sincerity and conviction to cast all evil spirits into Hell and keep them there for ever and ever. She made an elaborate private confession, striking her breast considerably more often than the prescribed number of times. "Through my fault, through my fault——" she murmured ecstatically.
An amazingly High Church clergyman had been appointed to a living two miles away, and something in the incense and candles he affected had stirred a new emotional excitement in Mrs. Ogden. Her bedside table was strewn with little purple and white booklets: "Steps towards Eternal Life," "Guide to Holy Mass," "The Real Catholic Church." They found their way downstairs at times, and got themselves mixed up with Joan's medical literature.
There appeared to be countless services at "Holy Martyrs," all of which began at inconvenient hours, for Mrs. Ogden was for ever having the times of the meals altered so that she might attend. It was wonderful how she found the strength for these excursions. Two miles there and two back and early service every Sunday morning, for she had become a regular Communicant now, and wet or fine went forth fasting.
Joan understood that the new "priest," as Mrs. Ogden insisted that he should be called, was ascetic, celibate and delicate. His name was Cuthbert Jackson, and he was known to his flock as "Father Cuthbert."
It was not at all unusual for Mrs. Ogden to feel faint on her return from Mass—the congregation called it Mass to annoy the bishop—and once she had actually fainted in the church. Joan had been with her on that occasion and had helped to carry her mother into the vestry; it had been very embarrassing. When, after a severe application of smelling salts, Mrs. Ogden had opened her eyes, there had been much sympathy expressed, and she had insisted on leaving the church via the nave, clinging to her daughter's arm.
She remonstrated with her mother about these early services, but to no effect.
"Oh, Joan! If only you could find Him too!"
"Who?" Joan inquired flippantly; "Father Cuthbert?"
"No, my darling. I didn't mean Father Cuthbert—but then you don't understand!"
Joan was silent, she felt that she was getting hard. It worried her at times, but something in the smug contentment of her mother's new-found faith irritated her beyond endurance. Mrs. Ogden had become so familiar with the Almighty; so soppily sentimental over her Redeemer. Joan could not feel Christianity like this or recognize Christ in this guise. She suspected that Mrs. Ogden put Him only a very little above Father Cuthbert: Father Cuthbert to whom she went every few days to confess the sins that she might have committed but had not. Joan had formed her own picture of Christ, and in it He did not appear as the Redeemer especially reserved for elderly women and anæmic parsons, but as a Being immensely vast and fierce and tender. Hers was a militant, intellectual Christ; the Leader of great armies, the Ruler over the nations of the earth, the Companion of wise men and kings, the Friend of little children and simple people. She felt ashamed and indignant for Him whenever her mother touched on religion, she was so terrifyingly patronizing.
Mrs. Ogden had quickly become the slave of small, pious practices. She went so far as to keep a notebook lest she should forget any of them. They affected the household adversely, they made a lot more work for other people to do. No meat was permitted on Fridays; in fact, they had very little to eat of any kind. It was all absurd and tiresome and pathetic, and obviously bad for the health. The only result of it, so far as Joan could see, was that Mrs. Ogden evinced even less interest than before in domestic concerns, only descending from her vantage ground to find fault. She seemed to be living in another world, while still keeping a watchful eye on her daughter.
She found an excellent new grievance in the fact that Joan resisted all efforts to make her attend church regularly; there was no longer Elizabeth to worry about, so she worried about Joan's soul. Joan was patiently stubborn, she refused to confess to Father Cuthbert or to interest herself in any way in his numerous activities. He came to tea at Mrs. Ogden's request and tried his best, poor man, to wear down what he felt to be Joan's prejudice against him. But he was melodramatic looking and doubtfully clean, and wore a large amethyst cross on his emaciated stomach, and Joan remained unimpressed.
"If you want to be a Catholic," she told her mother afterwards, "why not be a real one and be done with it."
"I am a real one," said Mrs. Ogden.
"Oh no, Mother, you're not, you're only pretending to be. You take the plums out of other people's religion and disregard the rest. I think it's rather mean."
"If you mean the Pope!——" began Mrs. Ogden indignantly.
"Oh, I mean the whole thing; anyhow, it wouldn't suit me."
Mrs. Ogden was offended. "I must ask you not to speak disrespectfully of my religion," she said. "I don't like it."
"Then don't keep on pushing it down my throat."
They started bickering again. Bickering, always bickering; Joan knew that it was intolerable, undignified, that she ought to control herself, but the power of self-control was weakening in her. She was sorry for her mother, for the past that was so largely responsible for Mrs. Ogden's present, but the fact that she felt sorry only irritated her the more. She told herself that if this new religious zeal had been productive of peace she could have been tolerant, but it was not; on the contrary the domestic chaos grew. If Mrs. Ogden had tried her servants before, she did so now ten times more; she nagged with new-found spiritual vigour; it was becoming increasingly difficult to please her.
"It's them meal times, miss," blubbered the latest acquisition to Joan, one morning. "It's the chopping and the changing that's so wearying; I can't stand it, no I can't, I feel quite worn out."
"Don't say you want to leave, Ethel?" Joan implored with a note of despair in her voice.
"But I do! She's never satisfied, miss; she's at me all the time."
"She's at me, too," thought Joan, "and yet I don't seem able to give a month's notice."
It was summer again. How monotonously the seasons came round; it was always spring, summer, autumn, or winter; it could never be anything else, that made a year. How many years made a lifetime?
Joan began playing tennis again; one always played tennis every summer at Seabourne, but now she disliked the game. Since Milly's affair with Mr. Thompson the tennis club and its members had become intolerable to her. The members found her dull and probably disliked her; she was so sure of this that she grew self-conscious and abashed in their midst. She wondered sometimes if that was why she found fault with them, because they made her feel shy. She had never made friends, she had been too much wrapped up in Elizabeth. No one was interested in her, no one wanted her. Richard wrote angry letters; she never answered them, but he went on writing just the same. He seemed to take a pleasure in bullying her.
"I shan't come home this summer," he wrote. "I can't see you withering on your stalk. You can marry me if you like; why not, since nothing better offers? But what's the good of talking to you? It's hopeless! I don't know why I waste time in writing; I suppose it's because I'm in love with you. You've disappointed me horribly; I could have stood aside for your work, but you don't want to work, and you make your duty to your mother the excuse. Oh, Joan! I did think you were made of better stuff. I thought you were a real person and not just a bit of flabby toast like the rest of the things at Seabourne."
"I shan't come home this summer," he wrote. "I can't see you withering on your stalk. You can marry me if you like; why not, since nothing better offers? But what's the good of talking to you? It's hopeless! I don't know why I waste time in writing; I suppose it's because I'm in love with you. You've disappointed me horribly; I could have stood aside for your work, but you don't want to work, and you make your duty to your mother the excuse. Oh, Joan! I did think you were made of better stuff. I thought you were a real person and not just a bit of flabby toast like the rest of the things at Seabourne."
She had said that she cared less than nothing for his approval or disapproval, but she found she did care after all; not because she loved Richard, but because it was being brought home to her that she, like the rest of mankind, needed approbation. No one approved of her, not even the mother for whose sake she was sacrificing herself. Self-sacrifice was unpopular, it seemed, or was it in some way her own fault? She must be different from other people, a kind of unprepossessing freak. She sat brooding over this at the school-room table, with Richard's last epistle crushed in her hand. Her eyes were bent unseeing on the ink-stained mahogany, but something, perhaps it was a faint sound, made her look up. Elizabeth was standing in the doorway gazing at her.
Joan sprang forward with a cry.
"Hallo, Joan," said Elizabeth calmly, and sat down in the arm-chair.
Joan's voice failed her. She stood and stared, afraid to believe her eyes.
Elizabeth waited; then: "Well?" she queried.
Joan found her voice. "You've come back for the holidays? Thank you for coming to see me."
Elizabeth said: "There's no need to thank me; I came because I wanted to; don't be ridiculous, Joan!"
"But I thought—I understood that you'd had enough of me. I thought my failing you had made you hate me."
"No, I don't hate you, or I shouldn't be here."
"Then I don't understand," said Joan desperately. "Oh! Idon'tunderstand!"
Elizabeth said: "No, I know you don't. I don't understand myself, but here I am."
They were silent for a while, eyeing each other like duellists waiting for an opening. Elizabeth leant back in the rickety chair, her enigmatical eyes on the girl's agitated face. She was smiling a little.
"What have you come for?" said Joan, flushing with sudden anger. "If you don't mean to stay, why have you come back to Seabourne? Perhaps you've come to jeer at me. Even Richard hasn't done that!"
Elizabeth stretched her long legs and made as if to stifle a yawn. "I've given up my job," she said.
"You've given up your job in London?"
"Yes."
"But why?"
"Because of you."
"Because of me? You've thrown over your post because of me?"
"Yes; it's queer, isn't it? But I've come back to wait with you a little while longer."
IT was extraordinary how Elizabeth's return changed the complexion of things for Joan; strange that one human being, not really beautiful, only a little more than average clever and no longer very young, could, by her mere presence, make others seem so much less trying.
Now that she had Elizabeth again the people at the tennis club, for instance, were miraculously changed. She began to think that she had misjudged them; after all, they were very good sorts and kindly enough, nor did they really seem to be bored with her; she must have imagined it. She found herself more tolerant towards Mrs. Ogden's religiosity. Why shouldn't her mother enjoy herself in her own way! Surely everyone must find their rare pleasures how and where they could. And, oh! the joy of using her brain again! The exhilaration of renewed mental effort, of pitting her mind against Elizabeth's.
"We must work a bit to keep you from getting rusty, Joan, but I can't do much more for you now; you're getting beyond me, and Cambridge must do the rest," Elizabeth said.
Ralph was pleased at his sister's return and welcomed Joan cordially as the chief cause thereof. The atmosphere at his house had become restful, because now it contained three happy people. Joan had never known anything quite like this before; she wondered whether the dead felt as she did when they met those they loved on the other side of the grave. A deep sense of peace enveloped her; Elizabeth felt it too, and they sat very often with clasped hands without speaking, for now their silence drew them closer together than words would have done.
As if by mutual consent they avoided discussing the future. At this time they thought of neither past nor future, but only of their present. And they no longer worked very hard; what was the use? Joan was ready, and, as Elizabeth had said, it was now only a matter of not letting her get rusty, so they slackened the gallop to a walk and began to look about them.
They ransacked Seabourne and the neighbouring towns for diversion, visiting such theatres as there were, making excursions to places of interest that they had lived close to for years yet never seen. They discovered the joys of sailing, setting out of mornings before it was quite light, becoming acquainted together for the first time with the mystery and wonder that is Nature while she still smells drowsy and sweet after sleep.
And they walked. They would go off now for a whole day, lunching wherever they happened to find themselves. Sometimes it would be at a little inn by the roadside and sometimes on the summit of a hill, or in woods, eating biscuits they had stuffed into their pockets before starting.
When Milly came home for her holidays she did not seem surprised to find Elizabeth back in Seabourne. They were relieved at this, for they had both been secretly dreading her questions, which, however, did not come. Milly was not wanted, but they found room for her in their days, nevertheless; she joined them whenever their programme seemed amusing, and because they themselves were so happy they made her welcome.
At this time Elizabeth did her best to placate Mrs. Ogden; she did it entirely for Joan's sake, and although her efforts were rebuffed with coldness, she knew that Joan was the happier for them. Mrs. Ogden was aggrieved and rude; she could not find it in her, poor soul, to compromise over Joan. If she had only met Elizabeth half way, had made even a slight effort to accept things as they were, she would almost certainly have won from her daughter a lifelong gratitude. But she let the moment slip, and so for the time being she found herself ignored.
Contentment agreed with Joan; she grew handsomer that summer, and people noticed it. Now they would turn sometimes and look after the Ogden girls when they passed them in the street, struck by the curious contrast they made. Joan was burnt to the colour of a gipsy; her constant excursions in the open air had brightened her eyes and reddened her lips and given her slim body a supple strength which showed in all her movements. Milly's beauty was a little marred by an ever-present suggestion of delicacy. Her skin was too pink and white for perfect health, and of late dark shadows had appeared under her eyes. However, she seemed in excellent spirits, and never complained, in spite of the fact that she coughed a good deal.
"It's the dry weather," she explained. "The dust irritates my throat."
Her shoulders had taken a slight stoop from the long hours of practice, which contracted her chest, but her playing had improved enormously; she was beginning to acquire real finish and style.
"I shall be earning soon!" she announced triumphantly.
Elizabeth could not resist looking at Joan, but she held her tongue and the dangerous moment passed.
Joan began to find it in her to bless Father Cuthbert and Holy Martyrs, for between them they took up a good deal of Mrs. Ogden's time. To be sure, her eyes were red with secret weeping, and she lost even that remnant of appetite that her religious scruples permitted her; but Joan was happy and selfish to the verge of recklessness. She was like a man reprieved when the noose is already round his throat; for the moment nothing mattered except just being alive. She felt balanced and calm, with the power to see through and beyond the frets and rubs of this everyday life, from which she herself had somehow become exempt.
She and Elizabeth went to tea with Admiral Bourne. It was like the old days, out there in the garden, under the big tree. The admiral eyed them kindly. "Capital, capital!" was all he said. After tea they asked to see the mice, because they knew that it would give him pleasure, and he responded with alacrity, leading the way to the mousery. But although they had gone there to please Admiral Bourne, they stayed on to please themselves; playing with the tame, soft creatures, feeling a sense of contentment as they watched their swift, symmetrical movements and their round bright eyes.
They walked home arm in arm through the twilight.
Joan said: "Our life seems new, somehow, Elizabeth, and yet it isn't new. Perhaps it's because you went away. We aren't doing anything very different, only working rather less; but it all seems so new; I feel new myself."
Elizabeth pressed her arm very slightly. "It's as old as the hills," she said.
"What is?" asked Joan.
"Nothing—everything. Did you change those library books?"
"Yes. But listen to me, Elizabeth. Iwilltell you how your going away and coming back has changed things. I'm changed; I feel softer and harder, more sympathetic and less so. I feel—oh, how shall I put it? I feel like a tiny speck of God that can't help seeing all round and through everything. I seem to know the reason for things, somewhere inside of me, only it won't get right into my brain. I don't think I love Mother any less than I did, and I don't think I really hate Seabourne any less; but I can't worry about her or it, and that's where I've changed. I've got a feeling that Mother had to be and Seabourne had to be and that you and I had to be, too; that it's all just a necessary part of the whole. And after all, Elizabeth, if you hadn't gone away and I hadn't been frightfully unhappy there wouldn't have been your coming back and my happiness over that. I think it was worth the unhappiness."
They stood still, staring at the sunset. A sweet, damp smell was coming up from the ground; there had been a little shower. The sea lay very quiet and vast, flecked here and there with afterglow. Down below them the lights of Seabourne sprang into being, one by one; they looked small and unnaturally bright. The ugly homes from which they shone were mercifully hidden in the dusk. Only their lights appeared, elusive, beckoning, never quite still. Around them little hidden specks of life were making indefinable noises; a blur of rustlings, chirpings, buzzings. They were very busy, these hidden people, with their secret activities. Presently it would be night; already the moon was showing palely opposite the sunset.
Elizabeth turned her gaze away from the sky and looked at Joan. The girl was standing upright with her head a little back. She had taken off her hat, and the queer light fell slantwise across her broad forehead, and dipped into her wide open eyes that held in their depths a look of fear. Her lips were parted as if to speak, but no words came. She stretched out a hand, without looking at Elizabeth, as though groping for protection. Elizabeth took the hand and held it firmly in her own.
"Are you frightened, Joan?" she asked softly.
"A little; how did you know?"
"Your eyes looked scared. Why are you frightened? I thought you were so confident just now."
"I don't know, but it's all so strange, somehow. I think it's the newness I told you about that frightens me, now I come to think of it. You seem new. Do you feel new, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth dropped the hand and turned away.
"Not particularly," she said; "I'm getting rather old for that sort of thing; if I let myself feel new I might forget how old I'm getting. No, I don't think I'd better feel too new, or you might get more frightened still; you told me you were frightened of me once, do you remember?"
"Oh, rot! I could never be frightened of you, Elizabeth; you're just a bit of me."
"Am I? Well, come on or we'll be late, and I think I'm catching cold."
"Let's walk arm and arm again," Joan pleaded, like a schoolgirl begging a favour, and Elizabeth acquiesced with a short laugh.
Milly was obviously not well; she coughed perpetually, and Joan sent for the doctor. He came and sounded her chest and lungs, but found no alarming symptoms. Mrs. Ogden protested fretfully that Joan was always over-fussy when there was nothing to fuss about, and quite unusually indifferent when there was real cause for anxiety. She either could not or would not see that her younger daughter looked other than robust.
Joan had a long talk with her sister about the life at the College. They were pretty well fed, it seemed, but of course no luxuries. Oh, yes, Milly usually went to bed early; she felt too dead tired to want to sit up late. She practised a good many hours a day, whenever she could, in fact; but then that was what she was there for, and she loved that part of it. Couldn't she slack a bit? Good Lord, no! Rather not; she wanted to make some money, and that as soon as possible; you didn't get on by scamping your practising. Joan mustn't fuss, it bored Milly to have her fussing like an old hen. The cough was nothing at all, the doctor had said so. How long had it been going on? Oh, about two months, perhaps a little longer; but, good Lord! it was just a cough! She did wish Joan would shut up.
Elizabeth was anxious too; she felt an inexplicable apprehension about this cough of Milly's. She was glad when the holidays came to an end and Milly and her cough had removed themselves to London.
With her sister's departure, Joan seemed to forget her anxiety. She had fallen into a strangely elated frame of mind and threw off troubles as though they were thistledown.
"Mother seems very busy with her religion," she remarked one day.
Elizabeth agreed.
They fell silent, and then: "Perhaps we can go soon now, Elizabeth; I was thinking that perhaps after Christmas——"
Elizabeth bit her lip. Something in her wanted to cry out in triumph, but she choked it down.
"The flat's let until March," she said quietly.
"Well then, March. Oh! Elizabeth, think of it!"
Elizabeth said: "I never think of anything else—I thought you knew that."
"But you seem so dull about it, aren't you pleased?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid!"
"Of what?"
"Of something happening to prevent it. Don't let's make plans too long ahead."
Joan flushed. "You don't trust me any more," she said, and her voice sounded as though she wanted to cry.
"Trust you? Of course I trust you. Joan, I don't think you know how I feel about all this; it's too much, almost. I feel—oh, well, I can't explain, only it's desperately serious to me."
"And what do you think it is to me?" demanded Joan passionately. "It's more than serious to me!"
"Joan, you've known me for years now. I was your teacher when you were quite little. I used to think you looked like a young colt then, I remember—never mind that—only you've known me too long really to know me; that can happen I think. I often wish I could get inside you and know just how I look to you, what sort of woman I am as you see me, because I don't believe it's the real me. I believe you see your old teacher, and later on your very good and devoted friend. Well, that's all right so far as it goes; that's part of me, but only a part. There's another big bit that's quite different; you saw the edge of it when I left you to go to London. It's not neat and calm and self-possessed at all, and above all it's outrageously discontented and adventurous; it longs for all sorts of things and hates being crossed. This part of me loves life, real life, and beautiful things and brilliant, careless people. It feels young, absurdly so for its age, and it demands the pleasures of youth, cries out for them. I think it cries out all the more because it's been so long denied. This me could be reckless of consequences, greedy of happiness and jealous of competition. It is jealous already of you, Joan, of any interests that seem to take your attention off me, of any affection that might rob me of even a hair's-breadth of you. It wants to keep you all to itself, to have all your love and gratitude, all that makes you; and it wouldn't be contented with less. Well, my dear, this side of me and the side that you know are one and indivisible, they're the two halves of the whole that is Elizabeth Rodney; what do you think of her? Aren't you a little afraid after this revelation?"
Joan laughed quietly. "No," she said, "I'm not a bit afraid. Because, you see, I think I've known the real Elizabeth for a long time now."
THE tiny study at Alexandra House was bright with flowers, although it was November. The flowers had been the gift of one of Harriet Nelson's youthful admirers, Rosie Wilmot, an art student. The room was littered with a mass of futilities, including torn music and innumerable signed photographs. The guilty smell of cigarette smoke hung on the air, although the window had been opened.
Harriet, plump and pretty, with her red hair and blue eyes, lolled ungracefully in the wicker arm-chair; her thick ankles stretched out in front of her. On a low stool, sufficiently near these same ankles to express humbleness of spirit, crouched Rosie Wilmot.
"Chérie," Harriet was saying with an exaggerated Parisian accent, "you are a naughty child to spend your money on flowers for me!"
"But, darling, you know how I loved buying them!"
Rosie's sallow cheeks flushed at her own daring. Her long brown neck rose up from a band of Liberty embroidery, like the stem of a carefully coloured meerschaum. She rubbed her forehead nervously with a paint-stained hand, fixing her irritatingly intense eyes the while on Harriet's placid face.
Harriet stretched out an indolent hand. "There, there," she said soothingly, "I'm very pleased indeed with the flowers; come and be kissed."
Milly raised scoffing eyes to the ceiling. She made her mouth into a round O, and proceeded to blow smoke rings.
"Let me know when it's all over," she said derisively, "and then we'll boil the kettle."
"You can boil it now," said Harriet, waving Rosie back to her foot-stool.
They proceeded to make tea and toast bread in front of the fire. Milly fetched some rather weary butter and a pot of "Gentleman's Relish" from the bedroom, and Rosie produced her contribution in the shape of a bag of Harriet's favourite cream puffs. She had gone without lunch for two days in order to afford this offering, but as Harriet's strong teeth bit into the billowy cream which oozed out over her chin, Rosie's heart swelled with pleasure; she had her reward.
"Méchante enfant!" exclaimed Harriet, shaking her finger, "you mustn't spend your money like this!"
At that moment the door opened and Joan and Elizabeth walked into the room.
"Good Lord,you!" exclaimed Milly in amazement.
They laughed and came forward, waiting to be introduced.
"Oh, yes; Harriet, this is my sister Joan, and this is Miss Rodney."
Harriet nodded casually.
"This is Rosie Wilmot, Joan; Rosie, Miss Rodney."
Rosie shook hands with a close, intense grip. Her eyes interrogated the new-comers as though they alone held the answer to the riddle of her Universe. Milly dragged up the only remaining chair for Elizabeth.
"You can squat on the floor, Joan," she said, throwing her sister a cushion. "That's right. And now, what on earth are you doing here?"
It was Elizabeth who answered. "We've come up for a fortnight. We're staying with the woman who has my flat."
"But why? Has anything happened?"
"No, of course not. We just thought it would be rather fun."
Milly whistled softly; however, she refrained from further comment.
Harriet was examining Joan. Joan fidgeted; this self-possessed young woman made her feel at a disadvantage.
"You're musical too?" inquired the singer, still staring.
"Oh, no, not a bit; I don't know one note from another."
"Tiens! Then whatdoyou do?"
Joan hesitated. "At the present moment, nothing."
Harriet turned to Elizabeth. "And you?" she inquired. "I feel sure you must do something; you look it."
"I? Oh, I teach Joan."
Milly fidgeted with the tea things; the unexpected arrivals necessitated more hot water. Her sister's sudden appearance with Elizabeth made her vaguely uneasy. How on earth had these two managed to escape, and what did this escape portend? Would it, could it possibly affect her in any way? And they seemed so calm about it; Joan apparently took it as a matter of course that she should come up to London for a fortnight's spree. Milly felt incapable of boiling the kettle again; she poured out some tepid tea and handed it to her sister.
"Is Mother all alone?" she inquired.
Joan smiled at the implied reproach. "No, we've got a very good maid at the moment, though goodness only knows how long she'll stay."
Milly was silent; what could she say? Joan's manner was utterly unconcerned, and in any case, why shouldn't she come up to London for a bit; everyone else did. She felt a little ashamed of herself; hadn't she always been the one to rage against the injustice of their existence, to encourage insubordination? And she owed her own freedom entirely to Joan; Joan had stuck by her like a brick.
"I'm jolly glad you've come," she said, squeezing her sister's hand. "Jolly glad!"
Through the open window drifted the sound of innumerable pianos, string instruments and singing; a queer, discordant blur that crystallized every now and then into stray cadences, shrill arpeggios, or snatches of operatic airs. The distorted melody of some familiar ballad would now and then be wafted through the misty atmosphere from the adjacent College. "My dearest heart," sang a loud young voice, only to be submerged again under the wave of other sounds that constantly ebbed and flowed. This queer, almost painful inharmony struck Joan as symbolic. It awed her, as the immense machinery of some steel works she had once seen as a child had awed her. Then, she had been frightened to tears as the great wheels spun and ground, whirring their straining belts. And now as she listened to this other sound she was somehow reminded of her childish terror, of the pistons and valves and wheels and belts that had throbbed and ground and strained. Here was no steel and iron, it is true, but here was a vast machine none the less. Only its parts were composed of flesh and blood, of striving, living human beings, and the sound they produced was such pitiable discord!
Her thoughts were broken into by the consciousness that eyes were upon her; she turned to meet Harriet Nelson's stare.
Harriet smiled and tapped Rosie's shoulder. "Go and find me a handkerchief, in my drawer," she ordered.
The girl went with alacrity, and Joan was motioned to the vacant footstool.
She protested: "Oh, but surely this is Miss Wilmot's place."
"Never mind that, sit down; I want to talk to you." Joan obeyed unwillingly.
"Now tell me about your life. Milly mentions you so seldom, I had no idea she had such an interesting sister; tell me all about yourself; you live with your friend Miss—Miss—Rodney, is that her name? Is she nice? She looks terribly severe."
"Oh, no, I don't live with Miss Rodney; I live with my mother at Seabourne."
"You live there all the year round?Quelle horreur! Why don't you come to London?"
"Well, you see——" began Joan uncomfortably. But at this stage they were interrupted. For some moments Rosie had been standing motionless in the doorway, the clean handkerchief crushed in her hand. Her smouldering eyes had taken in the situation at a glance, and it seemed to her catastrophic. She stood now, paling and flushing by turns, biting her under-lip. Her thin neck was extended and shot forward; the attitude suggested an eagle about to attack. Harriet saw her there well enough, but appeared to notice nothing unusual and continued to talk to Joan. In fact her voice grew slightly louder and more intimate in tone. Rosie drew a quick breath; it was noisy and Harriet looked up impatiently; then her eyes fell to the crushed handkerchief.
"Give it to me, do!" she exclaimed.
Rosie took a step forward as if to obey, but instead she raised her arm and hurled the crumpled linen ball straight at Harriet, then snatching up her coat she fled from the room. Joan jumped up, Elizabeth looked embarrassed and Milly laughed loudly; but Harriet only shrugged her plump shoulders.
"Nom d'un nom!" she murmured softly. "Poor Rosie grows insupportable!"
The situation was somewhat relieved by a knock on the door. "Can I come in?" inquired a pleasant, deep voice.
Cassy Ryan looked from one to another of the group gathered near the tea-table. Her soft brown eyes and over-red lips suggested her Jewish origin. She was a tall girl and as yet only graciously ample.
She turned to Milly. "I've only come for a moment; I want you to try the violin obbligato over with me to-morrow, Milly; I'm not sure of that difficult passage."
She hummed the passage softly in her splendid contralto voice. "It won't take you long; you don't mind, do you?"
"Rather not!" said Milly, introducing her to Joan and Elizabeth.
Cassy turned to Harriet. "What's the matter with Rosie?" she inquired. "I met her on the stairs just now looking as mad as a hatter."
"Oh, she's only in one of her tantrums; she's furious with me at the moment."
Cassy shook her head. "Poor kid, she's half daft at times, I think. You oughtn't to tease her, Harriet."
"Bon Dieu!" exclaimed Harriet, flushing with temper. "I shall forbid her to come here at all if she goes on making these scenes." She pressed a hand to her throat. "It makes my throat ache; I don't believe I've asoupçonof voice left."
She stood up and deliberately tried an ascending scale, while the rest sat silent. Up and up soared the pure, sexless voice, the voice of an undreamt-of choir-boy or an angel; and then, just as the last height was reached, it hazed, it faltered, it failed to attain.
"There you are!" screamed Harriet, forgetting in her agitation how perfectly she could speak French. "What did I tell you? I knew it! That's Rosie's fault, damn her! Damn her! She's probably upset my voice for days to come, and I've got that rehearsal with Stanford to-morrow; my God, it's too awful!"
She paused to try her voice once more, but with the same result. "Where's my inhaler?" she demanded of the room in general.
Milly winked at Cassy as she went into Harriet's bedroom. "Here it is, on your washstand," she called.
Harriet began feverishly to boil up the kettle; she appeared to have completely forgotten Joan and Elizabeth; she spoke in whispers now, addressing all her stifled remarks to Cassy. Milly brought in the inhaler and a bottle of drops; they filled it from the kettle and proceeded to count out the tincture. Harriet sat down heavily with her knees apart; she gripped the ridiculous china bottle in both hands and, applying her lips to the fat glass mouthpiece, proceeded to evoke a series of bubbling, gurgling noises.
Milly drew her sister aside. "You two had better go," she whispered. "Don't try to say good-bye to her; she's in one of her panics, she won't notice your going."
Cassy smiled across at Elizabeth with a finger on her lips; her eyes were full of amusement as she glanced in the direction of her friend. Years afterwards when the names of Cassy Ryan and Harriet Nelson had become famous, when these two old friends and fellow students would be billed together on the huge sheets advertising oratorio or opera, Joan, seeing an announcement of the performance in the papers, would have a sudden vision of that little crowded sitting-room, with Harriet hunched fatly in the wicker arm-chair, the rotund inhaler clasped to her bosom.
THE transition from Seabourne to London had been accomplished so quietly and easily that the first morning Joan woke up on the divan in the sitting-room of Elizabeth's flat she could hardly believe that she was there. She thumped the mattress to reassure herself, and then looked round the study which, by its very strangeness, testified to the glorious truth.
The idea had originated with Elizabeth. "Let's run up to London for a fortnight," she had said, and Joan had acquiesced as though such a thing were an everyday occurrence. And, strangest of all, Mrs. Ogden had taken it resignedly. Perhaps there had been a certain new quality in Joan's voice when she had announced her intention. Perhaps somewhere at the back of her mind Mrs. Ogden was beginning to realize that her daughter was now of an age when maternal commands could be disregarded. Be that as it may, she consented to Joan's cashing a tiny cheque, and beyond engineering a severe migraine on the morning of their departure, offered no greater obstacle to the jaunt than an injured expression and a rather faint voice.
Elizabeth had arranged it all. She had persuaded her tenant to take them in as "paying guests," and had overcome Joan's pride with regard to finances. "You can pay me back in time," she had remarked, and Joan had given in.
The little flat was all that Elizabeth had said, and more. Miss Lesway had put in a small quantity of furniture to tide her over; she was only there until March, when she would move into a flat of her own. But the things that she had brought with her were good, quiet and unobtrusive relics of a bygone country house; they suggested a grandfather, even a great-grandfather for that matter. From the windows of the flat you saw the romantic chimney-pots and roofs that Elizabeth loved, and to your right the topmost branches of the larger trees of the Bloomsbury square. Yes, it was all there and adorable. Miss Lesway had welcomed them as old friends. Tea had been ready on their arrival and flowers on Elizabeth's dressing-table.
Beatrice Lesway was a Cambridge woman. She was a pleasant, somewhat squat, practical creature; contented enough, it seemed, with her lot, which was that of a teacher in a High School. Her father had been a hunting Devonshire squire, a rough-and-tumble sort of man having more in common with his beasts than with his family. A kindly man but a mighty spendthrift, a paralysing kind of spendthrift; one who, having no vices on which you could lay your hand, was well-nigh impossible to check. But that was a long time ago, and beyond the dignified Sheraton bookcase and a few similar reminders of the past, Miss Lesway allowed her origin to go unnoticed. Her eyes were so observant and her sense of humour so keen, that she managed to extract a good deal of fun from her drab existence. The pupils interested her; their foibles, their follies, their rather splendid qualities and their less admirable meannesses. She attributed these latter to their up-bringing, blaming home environment for most of the more serious faults in her girls. She liked talking about her work, and had an old-fashioned trick of dropping her "g's" when speaking emphatically, especially when referring to sport. Possibly Squire Lesway had said: "Huntin', racin', fishin', shootin';" in any case his daughter did so very markedly on those rare occasions when she gave rein to her inherited instincts.
"Some of the girls would be all the better for a good day's huntin' on Exmoor, gettin' wet to the skin and havin' their arms tugged out by a half-mouthed Devonshire cob; that's the stuff to make men of 'em, that's the life that knocks the affectation and side out of young females."
Once she said quite seriously: "The trouble is I can't give that girl a sound lickin'; I told her mother it was the only way to cure a liar; but of course she's a liar herself, so she didn't agree with me."
She liked Elizabeth, hence her acceptance of this invasion, and she liked Joan too, after she got used to her, though she looked askance at her hair.
"No good dotting the 'i's,' my dear," had been her comment.
Miss Lesway herself wore Liberty serges of a most unpleasing green, and a string of turgid beads which clinked unhappily on her flat bosom. Her sandy hair was chronically untidy, and what holding together it submitted to was done by celluloid pins that more or less matched her dresses. Her hands and wrists were small and elegant, but although she manicured her shapely nails with immense care, and would soak them in the soap dish while she talked to friends in the evenings, she disdained all stain or polish. On the third finger of her left hand she wore a heavy signet ring that had once belonged to her father. Her feet matched her hands in slimness and breeding, but these she ignored, dooming them perpetually to woollen stockings and wide square-toed shoes, heelless at that.
"Can't afford pneumonia," she had said once when remonstrated with.
The thick-soled, flat shoes permitted full play to the clumping stride which was her natural walk. Her whole appearance left you bewildered; it was a mixed metaphor, a contradiction in style, certainly a little grotesque, and yet you did not laugh.
It was impossible to know what Beatrice Lesway thought of herself, much less to discover what cravings, if any, tore her unfeminine bosom. She managed to give the impression of great frankness, while rarely betraying her private emotions. At times she spoke and acted very much like a man, but at others became the quintessence of old maidishness. If she did not long for the privileges denied to her sex she took them none the less; you gathered that she thought these privileges should be hers by right of some hidden virtue in her own make-up, but that her opinion of women as a whole was low. The feminist movement was going through a period of rest, having temporarily subsided since the days, not so very long ago, when Lady Loo had donned her knickerbockers. But the lull was only the forerunner of a storm which was to break with great violence less than twenty years later. Even now there were debates, discussions, threats, but at these Miss Lesway laughed rudely.
"Bless their little hearts," she chuckled, "they must learn to stop squabbling about their frocks before they sit in Parliament."
"But surely," Elizabeth protested, putting down the evening paper, "a woman's brain is as good as a man's? I cannot see why women should be debarred from a degree, or why they should get lower salaries when they work for the same hours, and I don't see why they should be expected to do nothing more intellectual than darn socks and have babies."
Miss Lesway made a sound of impatience. "And who's to do it if they don't, pray?"
Elizabeth was silent, and Joan, who had not joined in this discussion, was suddenly impressed with what she felt might be the truth about Miss Lesway. Miss Lesway had the brain of a masterful man and the soul of a mother. Probably that untidy, art-serged body of hers was a perpetual battle-ground; no wonder it looked so dishevelled, trampled under as it must be by these two violent rival forces.
"Well, I shall never marry!" Joan announced suddenly.
Miss Lesway looked at her. Joan had expected an outburst, or at least a severe reproof, but, instead, the eyes that met hers were tired, compassionate and almost tender.
Miss Lesway said: "No, I don't think you ever will. God help you!"
Everything was new and interesting and altogether delightful to Joan and Elizabeth during this visit. They played with the zest of truant schoolboys. No weather, however diabolical, could daunt them; they put on their mackintoshes and sallied forth in rain, sleet and mud. They got lost in a fog and found themselves in Kensington instead of Bloomsbury. They struggled furiously for overcrowded buses, or filled their lungs with sulphur in the Underground. They stood for hours at the pit doors of theatres, and walked in the British Museum until their feet ached. Joan developed a love of pictures, which she found she shared with Elizabeth, and the mornings that they spent in the galleries were some of their happiest. To Joan, beauty as portrayed by fine art came as a heavenly revelation; she knew for the first time the thrill of looking at someone else's inspired thoughts.
"After all, everything is just thought," she said wisely. "They think, and then they clothe what they've thought in something; this happens to be paint and canvas, but it's all the same thing; thought must be clothed in something so that we can see it."
Elizabeth watched her delightedly. She told herself that it was like putting a geranium cutting in the window; at first it was just all green, then came the little coloured buds and then the bloom. She felt that Joan was growing more in this fortnight than she had done in all her years at Seabourne; growing, expanding, coming nearer to her kingdom, day by day.
The fortnight passed all too quickly; it was going and then it was gone. They sat side by side in an empty third-class compartment, rushing back to Seabourne. Everything had changed suddenly for the worse. Their clothes struck them as shabby, now that it no longer mattered. In London, where it really had mattered, they had been quite contented with their appearance. Their bags, on the luggage rack opposite them, looked very worn and battered. How had they ever dared to go up to London at all? They and their possessions belonged so obviously to Seabourne.
Joan took Elizabeth's hand. "Rotten, it's being over!"
"Yes, it's been a good time, but we'll have lots more, Joan."
"Yes—oh, yes!" Why was she so doubtful? Of course they would have lots more, they were going to live together.
She realized now how necessary, how vitally necessary it was that they should live together. Their two weeks in London had emphasized that fact, if it needed emphasizing. In the past she had known two Elizabeths, but now she knew a third; there had been Elizabeth the teacher and Elizabeth the friend. But now there was Elizabeth the perfect companion. There was the Elizabeth who knew so much and was able to make things so clear to you, and so interesting. The Elizabeth who thought only of you, of how to please you and make you happy; the Elizabeth who entered in, who liked what you liked, enjoying all sorts of little things, finding fun at the identical moment when you were wanting to laugh; in fact who thought your own thoughts. This was a wonderful person who could descend with grace to your level or unobtrusively drag you up to hers; an altogether darling, humorous and understanding creature.
The train slowed down. Joan said: "Oh, not already?"
They shared the fly as far as the Rodneys' house, and then Joan drove on alone.
Mrs. Ogden opened the front door herself.
"She's gone!" were her words of greeting.
"Who has? You don't mean Ethel?"
Mrs. Ogden sank on to the rim of the elephant pad umbrella stand. "She walked out this morning after the greatest impertinence. Of course I refused to pay her. I'm worn out by all I've been through since you left; I nearly telegraphed for you to come back."
"Wait a minute, Mother dear; I must get my trunk in. Yes, please, cabby—upstairs, if you don't mind; the back room."
"She kept the kitchen filthy; I've been down there since she left and the sink made me feel quite sick! I've thought for some time she was dishonest and brought men in the evenings, and now I'm sure of it; there's hardly a grain of coffee left and I can't find the pound of bacon I bought only the day before yesterday."
"Oh! I do wish we hadn't lost her!" said Joan inconsequently. "Have you been to the registry office?"
"No, of course not; what time have I had? You'll have to do that to-morrow."
Joan went upstairs and began unstrapping her trunk. She did not attempt to analyse her feelings; they were too confused and she was very tired. She wanted to sit down and gloat over the past two weeks, to recapture some of their fun and freedom and companionship; above all she did not want to think of registry offices.
Mrs. Ogden came into her room. "You haven't kissed me yet, darling."
Joan longed to say: "You didn't give me a chance, did you?" But something in the small, thin figure that stood rather wistfully before her, as if uncertain of its welcome, made her kiss her mother in silence.
"Have you had any tea?" she asked, patting Mrs. Ogden's arm.
"No, I felt too tired to get it, but it might do my head good if you could make some really strong tea, darling."
Joan left her trunk untouched, and turned to the door. "All right, I'll have it ready in a quarter of an hour," she said.
Mrs. Ogden looked at her with love in her eyes. "Oh, Joan, it's so good to have you home again; I've missed you terribly."
Joan was silent.
THAT Christmas Mrs. Benson invited them to dinner, and, being cookless, Mrs. Ogden accepted. Milly was delighted to escape from the dreaded ordeal of Christmas dinner at home. Her holidays were becoming increasingly distasteful. For one thing she missed the convivial student life, the companionship of people who shared her own interests and ambitions, their free and easy talk, their illicit sprees, their love affairs and the combined atmosphere of animal passion and spiritual uplift which they managed to create. She dearly loved the ceaseless activity of the College, the hurrying figures on the stairs, the muffled thud of the swing-doors. The intent, preoccupied faces of the students inspired and fascinated her; their hands seemed always to be clutching something, a violin case, a music roll. Their hands were never empty.
She felt less toleration than ever for her home, now that she had left it; the fact that she was practically free failed to soften her judgment of Seabourne; as she had felt about it in the past, so she felt now, with the added irritation that it reminded her of Mr. Thompson.
Milly was not introspective and she was not morbid. A wider experience of life had not tended to raise her standard of morality, and if she was ashamed of the episode with Mr. Thompson, it was because of the partner she had chosen rather than because of the episode itself. She was humiliated that it should have been Mr. Thompson of the circulating library, a vulgar youth without ambition, talent, or brain. The memory of those hours spent in the sand-pit lowered her self-esteem, the more so as the side of her that had rejoiced in them was in abeyance for the moment, kept in subjection by her passion for her art. She watched the students' turbulent love affairs with critical and amused eyes. Some day, perhaps, she would have another affair of her own, but for the present she was too busy.
In her mind she divided the two elements in her nature by a well-defined gulf. Both were highly important, but different. Both were good in themselves, inasmuch as they were stimulating and pleasurable, but she felt that they could not combine in her as they so often did in her fellow students, and of this she was glad.
Her work was the thing that really counted, as she had always known; but if the day should come when her work needed the stimulus of her passions, she was calmly determined that it should have it. She knew that she would be capable of deliberately indulging all that was least desirable in her nature, if thereby a jot or tittle could be gained for her music.
Her opinion of her sister was becoming unstable, viewed in the light of wider experience; she was beginning to feel that she did not understand Joan. In London Joan had seemed free, emancipated even; but back at Leaside she was dull, irritable and apparently quite hopeless, like someone suffering from a strong reaction.
It was true enough that the home-coming had been a shock to Joan; why, it is impossible to say. She had known so many similar incidents; servants had left abruptly before, especially of late years, so that familiarity should have softened the effect produced by her arrival at Leaside. But a condition of spirit, a degree of physical elation or fatigue, perhaps a mere passing mood, will sometimes predispose the mind to receive impressions disproportionately deep to their importance, and this was what had happened in Joan's case. She had felt suddenly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of it all, and as the days passed her fighting spirit weakened. It was not that she longed any less to get away with Elizabeth, but rather that the atmosphere of the house sapped her initiative as never before. All the fine, brave plans for the future, that had seemed so accessible with Elizabeth in London, became nebulous and difficult to seize. The worries that flourished like brambles around Mrs. Ogden closed in around Joan too, seeming almost insurmountable when viewed in the perspective of Leaside.
Milly watched her sister curiously: "You look like the morning after the night before! What's the matter, Joan?"
"Nothing," said Joan irritably. "Do let me alone!"
"Your jaunt with Elizabeth doesn't seem to have cheered you up much."
"Oh, I'm all right."
"Are you really going to Cambridge, do you think, after all?"
"Willyou shut up, Milly! I've told you a hundred times I don't know."
Milly laughed provokingly, but the laugh brought on a paroxysm of coughing; and she gasped, clinging to a chair.
Joan eyed her with resentment. Milly's cough made her unaccountably angry sometimes; it had begun to take on abnormal proportions, to loom as a menace. Her tense nerves throbbed painfully now whenever she heard it.