Ramon said that it was better to buy flowers from him: ‘I cut fresh from the garden when you want,’ he coaxed gently. He spoke even his broken English with the soft, rather sing-song drawl of the local peasants.
‘But aren’t they our flowers?’ inquired Mary, surprised.
Ramon shook his head: ‘Yours to see, yours to touch, but not yours to take, only mine to take—I sell them as part of my little payment. But to you I sell very cheap, Señorita, because you resemble the santa noche that makes our gardens smell sweet at night. I will show you our beautiful santa noche.’ He was thin as a lath and as brown as a chestnut, and his shirt was quite incredibly dirty; but when he walked he moved like a king on his rough bare feet with their broken toe-nails. ‘This evening I make you a present of my flowers; I bring you a very big bunch of tabachero,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, you mustn’t do that,’ protested Mary, getting out her purse.
But Ramon looked offended: ‘I have said it. I give you the tabachero.’
Theirdinner consisted of a local fish fried in oil—the fish had a very strange figure, and the oil, Stephen thought, tasted slightly rancid; there was also a small though muscular chicken. But Concha had provided large baskets of fruit; loquats still warm from the tree that bred them, the full flavoured little indigenous bananas, oranges sweet as though dripping honey, custard apples and guavas had Concha provided, together with a bottle of the soft yellow wine so dearly beloved of the island Spaniards.
Outside in the garden there was luminous darkness. The night had a quality of glory about it, the blue glory peculiar to Africa and seen seldom or never in our more placid climate. A warm breeze stirred the eucalyptus trees and their crude, harsh smell was persistently mingled with the thick scents of heliotrope and datura, with the sweet but melancholy scent of jasmine, with the faint, unmistakable odour of cypress.
Stephen lit a cigarette: ‘Shall we go out, Mary?’
They stood for a minute looking up at the stars, so much larger and brighter than stars seen in England. From a pond on the farther side of the villa, came the queer, hoarse chirping of innumerable frogs singing their prehistoric love songs. A star fell, shooting swiftly earthward through the darkness.
Then the sweetness that was Mary seemed to stir and mingle with the very urgent sweetness of that garden; with the dim, blue glory of the African night, and with all the stars in their endless courses, so that Stephen could have wept aloud as she stood there, because of the words that must not be spoken. For now that this girl was returning to health, her youth was becoming even more apparent, and something in the quality of Mary’s youth, something terrible and ruthless as an unsheathed sword, would leap out at such moments and stand between them.
Mary slipped a small, cool hand into Stephen’s, and they walked on towards the edge of the headland. For a long time they gazed out over the sea, while their thoughts were always of one another. But Mary’s thoughts were not very coherent, and because she was filled with a vague discontent, she sighed and moved even nearer to Stephen, who suddenly put an arm round her shoulder.
Stephen said: ‘Are you tired, you little child?’ And her husky voice was infinitely gentle, so that Mary’s eyes filled with sudden tears.
She answered: ‘I’ve waited a long, long time, all my life—and now that I’ve found you at last, I can’t get near you. Why is it? Tell me.’
‘Aren’t you near? It seems to me you’re quite near!’ And Stephen must smile in spite of herself.
‘Yes, but you feel such a long way away.’
‘That’s because you’re not only tired out but foolish!’
Yet they lingered; for when they returned to the villa they would part, and they dreaded these moments of parting. Sometimes they would suddenly remember the night before it had fallen, and when this happened each would be conscious of a very great sadness which their hearts would divine, the one from the other.
But presently Stephen took Mary’s arm: ‘I believe that big star’s moved over more than six inches! It’s late—we must have been out here for ages.’ And she led the girl slowly back to the villa.
The daysslipped by, days of splendid sunshine that gave bodily health and strength to Mary. Her pale skin was tanned to a healthful brown, and her eyes no longer looked heavy with fatigue—only now their expression was seldom happy.
She and Stephen would ride far afield on their mules; they would often ride right up into the mountains, climbing the hill to old Orotava where the women sat at their green postigos through the long, quiet hours of their indolent day and right on into the evening. The walls of the town would be covered with flowers, jasmine, plumbago and bougainvillea. But they would not linger in old Orotava; pressing on they would climb always up and up to the region of health and trailing arbutus, and beyond that again to the higher slopes that had once been the home of a mighty forest. Now, only a few Spanish chestnut trees remained to mark the decline of that forest.
Sometimes they took their luncheon along, and when they did this young Pedro went with them, for he it was who must drive the mule that carried Concha’s ample lunch-basket. Pedro adored these impromptu excursions, they made an excuse for neglecting the garden. He would saunter along chewing blades of grass, or the stem of some flower he had torn from a wall; or perhaps he would sing softly under his breath, for he knew many songs of his native island. But if the mule Celestino should stumble, or presume, in his turn, to tear flowers from a wall, then Pedro would suddenly cease his soft singing and shout guttural remarks to old Celestino: ‘Vaya, burro! Celestino, arre! Arre—boo!’ he would shout with a slap, so that Celestino must swallow his flowers in one angry gulp, before having a sly kick at Pedro.
The lunch would be eaten in the cool upland air, while the beasts stood near at hand, placidly grazing. Against a sky of incredible blueness the Peak would gleam as though powdered with crystal—Teide, mighty mountain of snow with the heart of fire and the brow of crystal. Down the winding tracks would come goats with their herds, the tinkle of goat-bells breaking the stillness. And as all such things have seemed wonderful to lovers throughout the ages, even so now they seemed very wonderful to Mary and Stephen.
There were days when, leaving the uplands for the vale, they would ride past the big banana plantations and the glowing acres of ripe tomatoes. Geraniums and agaves would be growing side by side in the black volcanic dust of the roadway. From the stretching Valley of Orotava they would see the rugged line of the mountains. The mountains would look blue, like the African nights, all save Teide, clothed in her crystalline whiteness.
And now while they sat together in the garden at evening, there would sometimes come beggars, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island:
‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace,But now I am tormented because I have seen thee.Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire.My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide.A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.’
‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace,But now I am tormented because I have seen thee.Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire.My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide.A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.’
‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace,But now I am tormented because I have seen thee.Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire.My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide.A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.’
‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace,
But now I am tormented because I have seen thee.
Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd!
Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire.
My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide.
A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.’
The strange minor music with its restless rhythms, possessed a very potent enchantment, so that the heart beat faster to hear it, and the mind grew mazed with forbidden thoughts, and the soul grew heavy with the infinite sadness of fulfilled desire; but the body knew only the urge towards a complete fulfilment. . . . ‘A-a-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.’
They would not understand the soft Spanish words, and yet as they sat there they could but divine their meaning, for love is no slave of mere language. Mary would want Stephen to take her in her arms, so must rest her cheek against Stephen’s shoulder, as though they two had a right to such music, had a right to their share in the love songs of the world. But Stephen would always move away quickly.
‘Let’s go in,’ she would mutter; and her voice would sound rough, for that bright sword of youth would have leapt out between them.
Therecame days when they purposely avoided each other, trying to find peace in separation. Stephen would go for long rides alone, leaving Mary to idle about the villa; and when she got back Mary would not speak, but would wander away by herself to the garden. For Stephen had grown almost harsh at times, possessed as she now was by something like terror, since it seemed to her that what she must say to this creature she loved would come as a death-blow, that all youth and all joy would be slain in Mary.
Tormented in body and mind and spirit, she would push the girl away from her roughly: ‘Leave me alone, I can’t bear any more!’
‘Stephen—I don’t understand. Do you hate me?’
‘Hate you? Of course you don’t understand—only, I tell you I simply can’t bear it.’
They would stare at each other pale-faced and shaken.
The long nights became even harder to endure, for now they would feel so terribly divided. Their days would be heavy with misunderstandings, their nights filled with doubts, apprehensions and longings. They would often have parted as enemies, and therein would lie the great loneliness of it.
As time went on they grew deeply despondent, their despondency robbing the sun of its brightness, robbing the little goat-bells of their music, robbing the dark of its luminous glory. The songs of the beggars who sang in the garden at the hour when the santa noche smelt sweetest, those songs would seem full of a cruel jibing: ‘A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace, but now I am tormented because I have seen thee.’
Thus were all things becoming less good in their sight, less perfect because of their own frustration.
ButMary Llewellyn was no coward and no weakling, and one night, at long last, pride came to her rescue. She said: ‘I want to speak to you, Stephen.’
‘Not now, it’s so late—to-morrow morning.’
‘No, now.’ And she followed Stephen into her bedroom.
For a moment they avoided each other’s eyes, then Mary began to talk rather fast: ‘I can’t stay. It’s all been a heart-breaking mistake. I thought you wanted me because you cared. I thought—oh, I don’t know what I thought—but I won’t accept your charity, Stephen, not now that you’ve grown to hate me like this—I’m going back home to England. I forced myself on you, I asked you to take me. I must have been mad; you just took me out of pity; you thought that I was ill and you felt sorry for me. Well, now I’m not ill and not mad any more, and I’m going. Every time I come near you you shrink or push me away as though I repelled you. But I want us to part quickly because. . . .’ Her voice broke: ‘because it torments me to be always with you and to feel that you’ve literally grown to hate me. I can’t stand it; I’d rather not see you, Stephen.’
Stephen stared at her, white and aghast. Then all in a moment the restraint of years was shattered as though by some mighty convulsion. She remembered nothing, was conscious of nothing except that the creature she loved was going.
‘You child,’ she gasped, ‘you don’t understand, you can’t understand—God help me, I love you!’ And now she had the girl in her arms and was kissing her eyes and her mouth: ‘Mary . . . Mary. . . .’
They stood there lost to all sense of time, to all sense of reason, to all things save each other, in the grip of what can be one of the most relentless of all the human emotions.
Then Stephen’s arms suddenly fell to her sides: ‘Stop, stop for God’s sake—you’ve got to listen.’
Oh, but now she must pay to the uttermost farthing for the madness that had left those words unspoken—even as her father had paid before her. With Mary’s kisses still hot on her lips, she must pay and pay unto the uttermost farthing. And because of an anguish that seemed past endurance, she spoke roughly; the words when they came were cruel. She spared neither the girl who must listen to them, nor herself who must force her to stand there and listen.
‘Have you understood? Do you realize now what it’s going to mean if you give yourself to me?’ Then she stopped abruptly . . . Mary was crying.
Stephen said, and her voice had grown quite toneless: ‘It’s too much to ask—you’re right, it’s too much. I had to tell you—forgive me, Mary.’
But Mary turned on her with very bright eyes: ‘You can say that—you, who talk about loving! What do I care for all you’ve told me? What do I care for the world’s opinion? What do I care for anything but you, and you just as you are—as you are, I love you! Do you think I’m crying because of what you’ve told me? I’m crying because of your dear, scarred face . . . the misery on it. . . . Can’t you understand that all that I am belongs to you, Stephen?’
Stephen bent down and kissed Mary’s hands very humbly, for now she could find no words any more . . . and that night they were not divided.
Astrange, though to them a very natural thing it seemed, this new and ardent fulfilment; having something fine and urgent about it that lay almost beyond the range of their wills. Something primitive and age-old as Nature herself, did their love appear to Mary and Stephen. For now they were in the grip of Creation, of Creation’s terrific urge to create; the urge that will sometimes sweep forward blindly alike into fruitful and sterile channels. That well-nigh intolerable life force would grip them, making them a part of its own existence; so that they who might never create a new life, were yet one at such moments with the fountain of living. . . . Oh, great and incomprehensible unreason!
But beyond the bounds of this turbulent river would lie gentle and most placid harbours of refuge; harbours in which the body could repose with contentment, while the lips spoke slow, indolent words, and the eyes beheld a dim, golden haze that blinded the while it revealed all beauty. Then Stephen would stretch out her hand and touch Mary where she lay, happy only to feel her nearness. The hours would slip by towards dawn or sunset; flowers would open and close in the bountiful garden; and perhaps, if it should chance to be evening, beggars would come to that garden, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island:
‘Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless;Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise.But after the moon there cometh the sun;After the evening there cometh the morning.The sea is warmed by the kiss of the sun,Even so shall my kisses bring warmth to thy lips.Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless.’
‘Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless;Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise.But after the moon there cometh the sun;After the evening there cometh the morning.The sea is warmed by the kiss of the sun,Even so shall my kisses bring warmth to thy lips.Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless.’
‘Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless;Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise.But after the moon there cometh the sun;After the evening there cometh the morning.The sea is warmed by the kiss of the sun,Even so shall my kisses bring warmth to thy lips.Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless.’
‘Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless;
Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise.
But after the moon there cometh the sun;
After the evening there cometh the morning.
The sea is warmed by the kiss of the sun,
Even so shall my kisses bring warmth to thy lips.
Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless.’
And now Mary need no longer sigh with unrest, need no longer lay her cheek against Stephen’s shoulder; for her rightful place was in Stephen’s arms and there she would be, overwhelmed by the peace that comes at such times to all happy lovers. They would sit together in a little arbour that looked out over miles upon miles of ocean. The water would flush with the after-glow, then change to a soft, indefinite purple; then, fired anew by the African night, would gleam with that curious, deep blue glory for a space before the swift rising of the moon. ‘Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise; but after the moon there cometh the sun.’
And Stephen as she held the girl in her arms, would feel that indeed she was all things to Mary; father, mother, friend and lover, all things; and Mary all things to her—the child, the friend, the belovèd, all things. But Mary, because she was perfect woman, would rest without thought, without exultation, without question; finding no need to question since for her there was now only one thing—Stephen.
Time, that most ruthless enemy of lovers, strode callously forward into the spring. It was March, so that down at the noisy Puerto the bougainvilleas were in their full glory, while up in the old town of Orotava bloomed great laden bushes of white camellias. In the garden of the villa the orange trees flowered, and the little arbour that looked over the sea was covered by an ancient wisteria vine whose mighty trunk was as thick as three saplings. But in spite of a haunting shadow of regret at the thought of leaving Orotava, Stephen was deeply and thankfully happy. A happiness such as she had never conceived could be hers, now possessed her body and soul—and Mary also was happy.
Stephen would ask her: ‘Do I content you? Tell me, is there anything you want in the world?’
Mary’s answer was always the same; she would say very gravely: ‘Only you, Stephen.’
Ramon had begun to speculate about them, these two Englishwomen who were so devoted. He would shrug his shoulders—Dios! What did it matter? They were courteous to him and exceedingly generous. If the elder one had an ugly red scar down her cheek, the younger one seemed not to mind it. The younger one was beautiful though, as beautiful as the santa noche . . . some day she would get a real man to love her.
As for Concha and the cross-eyed Esmeralda, their tongues were muted by their ill-gotten gains. They grew rich thanks to Stephen’s complete indifference to the price of such trifles as sugar and candles.
Esmeralda’s afflicted eyes were quite sharp, yet she said to Concha: ‘I see less than nothing.’
And Concha answered: ‘I also see nothing; it is better to suppose that there is nothing to see. They are wealthy and the big one is very careless—she trusts me completely and I do my utmost. She is so taken up with the amighita that I really believe I could easily rob her! Quien sabe? They are certainly queer those two—however, I am blind, it is better so; and in any case they are only the English!’
But Pedro was very sorely afflicted, for Pedro had fallen in love with Mary, and now he must stay at home in the garden when she and Stephen rode up to the mountains. Now they wished to be all alone it seemed, and what food they took would be stuffed into a pocket. It was spring and Pedro was deeply enamoured, so that he sighed as he tended the roses, sighed and stubbed the hard earth with his toes, and made insolent faces at the good-tempered Ramon, and killed flies with a kind of grim desperation, and sang songs of longing under his breath: ‘A-a-a-y! Thou art to me as the mountain. Would I could melt thy virginal snows. . . .’
‘Would I could kick thy behind!’ grinned Ramon.
One evening Mary asked Pedro to sing, speaking to him in her halting Spanish. So Pedro went off and got his guitar; but when he must stand there and sing before Mary he could only stammer a childish old song having in it nothing of passion and longing:
‘I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea;It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe.I was born on a reef. . . .’
‘I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea;It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe.I was born on a reef. . . .’
‘I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea;It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe.I was born on a reef. . . .’
‘I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea;
It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe.
I was born on a reef. . . .’
sang the unhappy Pedro.
Stephen felt sorry for the lanky boy with the lovesick eyes, and so to console him she offered him money, ten pesetas—for she knew that these people set much store by money. But Pedro seemed to have grown very tall as he gently but firmly refused consolation. Then he suddenly burst into tears and fled, leaving his little guitar behind him.
The dayswere too short, as were now the nights—those spring nights of soft heat and incredible moonlight. And because they both felt that something was passing, they would turn their minds to thoughts of the future. The future was drawing very near to the present; in less than three weeks they must start for Paris.
Mary would suddenly cling to Stephen: ‘Say that you’ll never leave me, belovèd!’
‘How could I leave you and go on living?’
Thus their talk of the future would often drift into talk of love, that is always timeless. On their lips, as in their hearts, would be words such as countless other lovers had spoken, for love is the sweetest monotony that was ever conceived of by the Creator.
‘Promise you’ll never stop loving me, Stephen.’
‘Never. You know that I couldn’t Mary.’
Even to themselves their vows would sound foolish, because so inadequate to compass their meaning. Language is surely too small a vessel to contain those emotions of mind and body that have somehow awakened a response in the spirit.
And now when they climbed the long hill to the town of old Orotava on their way to the mountains, they would pause to examine certain flowers minutely, or to stare down the narrow, shadowy bystreets. And when they had reached the cool upland places, and their mules were loosed and placidly grazing, they would sit hand in hand looking out at the Peak, trying to impress such pictures on their minds, because all things pass and they wished to remember. The goat-bells would break the lovely stillness, together with the greater stillness of their dreaming. But the sound of the bells would be lovely also, a part of their dreaming, a part of the stillness; for all things would seem to be welded together, to be one, even as they two were now one.
They no longer felt desolate, hungry outcasts; unloved and unwanted, despised of the world. They were lovers who walked in the vineyard of life, plucking the warm, sweet fruits of that vineyard. Love had lifted them up as on wings of fire, had made them courageous, invincible, enduring. Nothing could be lacking to those who loved—the very earth gave of her fullest bounty. The earth seemed to come alive in response to the touch of their healthful and eager bodies—nothing could be lacking to those who loved.
And thus in a cloud of illusion and glory, sped the last enchanted days at Orotava.
BOOK FIVE
Earlyin April Stephen and Mary returned to the house in Paris. This second home-coming seemed wonderfully sweet by reason of its peaceful and happy completeness, so that they turned to smile at each other as they passed through the door, and Stephen said very softly:
‘Welcome home, Mary.’
And now for the first time the old house was home. Mary went quickly from room to room humming a little tune as she did so, feeling that she saw with a new understanding the inanimate objects which filled those rooms—were they not Stephen’s? Every now and again she must pause to touch them because they were Stephen’s. Then she turned and went into Stephen’s bedroom; not timidly, dreading to be unwelcome, but quite without fear or restraint or shyness, and this gave her a warm little glow of pleasure.
Stephen was busily grooming her hair with a couple of brushes that had been dipped in water. The water had darkened her hair in patches, but had deepened the wide wave above her forehead. Seeing Mary in the glass she did not turn round, but just smiled for a moment at their two reflections. Mary sat down in an arm-chair and watched her, noticing the strong, thin line of her thighs; noticing too the curve of her breasts—slight and compact, of a certain beauty. She had taken off her jacket and looked very tall in her soft silk shirt and her skirt of dark serge.
‘Tired?’ she inquired, glancing down at the girl.
‘No, not a bit tired,’ smiled Mary.
Stephen walked over to the stationary basin and proceeded to wash her hands under the tap, spotting her white silk cuffs in the process. Going to the cupboard she got out a clean shirt, slipped in a pair of simple gold cuff-links, and changed; after which she put on a new necktie.
Mary said: ‘Who’s been looking after your clothes—sewing on buttons and that sort of thing?’
‘I don’t know exactly—Puddle or Adèle. Why?’
‘Because I’m going to do it in future. You’ll find that I’ve got one very real talent, and that’s darning. When I darn the place looks like a basket, criss-cross. And I know how to pick up a ladder as well as the Invisible Mending people! It’s very important that the darns should be smooth, otherwise when you fence they might give you a blister.’
Stephen’s lips twitched a little, but she said quite gravely: ‘Thanks awfully, darling, we’ll go over my stockings.’
From the dressing-room next door came a series of thuds; Pierre was depositing Stephen’s luggage. Getting up, Mary opened the wardrobe, revealing a long, neat line of suits hanging from heavy mahogany shoulders—she examined each suit in turn with great interest. Presently she made her way to the cupboard in the wall; it was fitted with sliding shelves, and these she pulled out one by one with precaution. On the shelves there were orderly piles of shirts, crêpe de Chine pyjamas—quite a goodly assortment, and the heavy silk masculine underwear that for several years now had been worn by Stephen. Finally she discovered the stockings where they lay by themselves in the one long drawer, and these she proceeded to unfurl deftly, with a quick and slightly important movement. Thrusting a fist into toes and heels she looked for the holes that were nonexistent.
‘You must have paid a lot for these stockings, they’re hand knitted silk;’ murmured Mary gravely.
‘I forget what I paid—Puddle got them from England.’
‘Who did she order them from; do you know?’
‘I can’t remember; some woman or other.’
But Mary persisted: ‘I shall want her address.’
Stephen smiled: ‘Why? Are you going to order my stockings?’
‘Darling! Do you think I’ll let you go barefoot? Of course I’m going to order your stockings.’
Stephen rested her elbow on the mantelpiece and stood gazing at Mary with her chin on her hand. As she did so she was struck once again by the look of youth that was characteristic of Mary. She looked much less than her twenty-two years in her simple dress with its leather belt—she looked indeed little more than a schoolgirl. And yet there was something quite new in her face, a soft, wise expression that Stephen had put there, so that she suddenly felt pitiful to see her so young yet so full of this wisdom; for sometimes the coming of passion to youth, in spite of its glory, will be strangely pathetic.
Mary rolled up the stockings with a sigh of regret; alas, they would not require darning. She was at the stage of being in love when she longed to do womanly tasks for Stephen. But all Stephen’s clothes were discouragingly neat; Mary thought that she must be very well served, which was true—she was served, as are certain men, with a great deal of nicety and care by the servants.
And now Stephen was filling her cigarette case from the big box that lived on her dressing table; and now she was strapping on her gold wrist watch; and now she was brushing some dust from her coat; and now she was frowning at herself in the glass for a second as she twitched her immaculate necktie. Mary had seen her do all this before, many times, but to-day somehow it was different; for to-day they were in their own home together, so that these little intimate things seemed more dear than they had done at Orotava. The bedroom could only have belonged to Stephen; a large, airy room, very simply furnished—white walls, old oak, and a wide, bricked hearth on which some large, friendly logs were burning. The bed could only have been Stephen’s bed; it was heavy and rather austere in pattern. It looked solemn as Mary had seen Stephen look, and was covered by a bedspread of old blue brocade, otherwise it remained quite guiltless of trimmings. The chairs could only have been Stephen’s chairs; a little reserved, not conducive to lounging. The dressing table could only have been hers, with its tall silver mirror and ivory brushes. And all these things had drawn into themselves a species of life derived from their owner, until they seemed to be thinking of Stephen with a dumbness that made their thoughts more insistent, and their thoughts gathered strength and mingled with Mary’s so that she heard herself cry out: ‘Stephen!’ in a voice that was not very far from tears, because of the joy she felt in that name.
And Stephen answered her: ‘Mary—’
Then they stood very still, grown abruptly silent. And each of them felt a little afraid, for the realization of great mutual love can at times be so overwhelming a thing, that even the bravest of hearts may grow fearful. And although they could not have put it into words, could not have explained it to themselves or to each other, they seemed at that moment to be looking beyond the turbulent flood of earthly passion; to be looking straight into the eyes of a love that was changed—a love made perfect, discarnate.
But the moment passed and they drew together. . . .
The springthey had left behind in Orotava overtook them quite soon, and one day there it was blowing softly along the old streets of the Quarter—the Rue de Seine, the Rue des Saints Pères, the Rue Bonaparte and their own Rue Jacob. And who can resist the first spring days in Paris? Brighter than ever looked the patches of sky when glimpsed between rows of tall, flat-bosomed houses. From the Pont des Arts could be seen a river that was one wide, ingratiating smile of sunshine; while beyond in the Rue des Petits Champs, spring ran up and down the Passage Choiseul, striking gleams of gold from its dirty glass roof—the roof that looks like the vertebral column of some prehistoric monster.
All over the Bois there was bursting of buds—a positive orgy of growth and greenness. The miniature waterfall lifted its voice in an effort to roar as loud as Niagara. Birds sang. Dogs yapped or barked or bayed according to their size and the tastes of their owners. Children appeared in the Champs Elysées with bright coloured balloons which tried to escape and which, given the ghost of a chance, always did so. In the Tuileries Gardens boys with brown legs and innocent socks were hiring toy boats from the man who provided Bateaux de Location. The fountains tossed clouds of spray into the air, and just for fun made an occasional rainbow; then the Arc de Triomphe would be seen through an arc that was, thanks to the sun, even more triumphal. As for the very old lady in her kiosk—the one who sells bocks, groseille, limonade, and such simple food-stuffs as brioches and croissants—as for her, she appeared in a new frilled bonnet and a fine worsted shawl on one memorable Sunday. Smiling she was too, from ear to ear, in spite of the fact that her mouth was toothless, for this fact she only remembered in winter when the east wind started her empty gums aching.
Under the quiet, grey wings of the Madeleine the flower-stalls were bright with the glory of God—anemones, jonquils, daffodils, tulips; mimosa that left gold dust on the fingers, and the faintly perfumed ascetic white lilac that had come in the train from the Riviera. There were also hyacinths, pink, red and blue, and many small trees of sturdy azalea.
Oh, but the spring was shouting through Paris! It was in the hearts and the eyes of the people. The very dray-horses jangled their bells more loudly because of the spring in their drivers. The debauched old taxis tooted their horns and spun round the corners as though on a race track. Even such glacial things as the diamonds in the Rue de la Paix, were kindled to fire as the sun pierced their facets right through to their entrails; while the sapphires glowed as those African nights had glowed in the garden at Orotava.
Was it likely that Stephen could finish her book—she who had Paris in springtime with Mary? Was it likely that Mary could urge her to do so—she who had Paris in springtime with Stephen? There was so much to see, so much to show Mary, so many new things to discover together. And now Stephen felt grateful to Jonathan Brockett who had gone to such pains to teach her her Paris.
Idle she was, let it not be denied, idle and happy and utterly carefree. A lover, who, like many another before her, was under the spell of the loved one’s existence. She would wake in the mornings to find Mary beside her, and all through the day she would keep beside Mary, and at night they would lie in each other’s arms—God alone knows who shall dare judge of such matters; in any case Stephen was too much bewitched to be troubled just then by hair-splitting problems.
Life had become a new revelation. The most mundane things were invested with glory; shopping with Mary who needed quite a number of dresses. And then there was food that was eaten together—the careful perusal of wine-card and menu. They would lunch or have dinner at Lapérouse; surely still the most epicurean restaurant in the whole of an epicurean city. So humble it looks with its modest entrance on the Quai des Grands Augustins; so humble that a stranger might well pass it by unnoticed, but not so Stephen, who had been there with Brockett.
Mary loved Prunier’s in the Rue Duphot, because of its galaxy of sea-monsters. A whole counter there was of incredible creatures—Oursins, black armoured and covered with prickles; Bigorneaux; serpent-like Anguilles Fumées; and many other exciting things that Stephen mistrusted for English stomachs. They would sit at their own particular table, one of the tables upstairs by the window, for the manager came very quickly to know them and would smile and bow grandly: ‘Bon jour, mesdames.’ When they left, the attendant who kept the flower-basket would give Mary a neat little bouquet of roses: ‘Au revoir, mesdames. Merci bien—à bientôt!’ For every one had pretty manners at Prunier’s.
A few people might stare at the tall, scarred woman in her well-tailored clothes and black slouch hat. They would stare first at her and then at her companion: ‘Mais regardez moi ça! Elle est belle, la petite; comme c’est rigolo!’ There would be a few smiles, but on the whole they would attract little notice—ils en ont vu bien d’autres—it was post-war Paris.
Sometimes, having dined, they would saunter towards home through streets that were crowded with others who sauntered—men and women, a couple of women together—always twos—the fine nights seemed prolific of couples. In the air there would be the inconsequent feeling that belongs to the night life of most great cities, above all to the careless night life of Paris, where problems are apt to vanish with sunset. The lure of the brightly lighted boulevards, the lure of the dim and mysterious bystreets would grip them so that they would not turn homeward for quite a long while, but would just go on walking. The moon, less clear than at Orotava, less innocent doubtless, yet scarcely less lovely, would come sailing over the Place de la Concorde, staring down at the dozens of other white moons that had managed to get themselves caught by the standards. In the cafés would be crowds of indolent people, for the French who work hard know well how to idle; and these cafés would smell of hot coffee and sawdust, of rough, strong tobacco, of men and women. Beneath the arcades there would be the shop windows, illuminated and bright with temptation. But Mary would usually stare into Sulka’s, picking out scarves or neckties for Stephen.
‘That one! We’ll come and buy it to-morrow. Oh, Stephen, do wait—look at that dressing-gown!’
And Stephen might laugh and pretend to be bored, though she secretly nurtured a weakness for Sulka’s.
Down the Rue de Rivoli they would walk arm in arm, until turning at last, they would pass the old church of St. Germain—the church from whose Gothic tower had been rung the first call to a most bloody slaying. But now that tower would be grim with silence, dreaming the composite dreams of Paris—dreams that were heavy with blood and beauty, with innocence and lust, with joy and despair, with life and death, with heaven and hell; all the curious composite dreams of Paris.
Then crossing the river they would reach the Quarter and their house, where Stephen would slip her latchkey into the door and would know the warm feeling that can come of a union between door and latchkey. With a sigh of contentment they would find themselves at home once again in the quiet old Rue Jacob.
Theywent to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, and this visit seemed momentous to Mary. She gazed with something almost like awe at the woman who had had the teaching of Stephen.
‘Oh, but yes,’ smiled Mademoiselle Duphot, ‘I teached her. She was terribly naughty over her dictée; she would write remarks about the poor Henri—très impertinente she would be about Henri! Stévenne was a queer little child and naughty—but so dear, so dear—I could never scold her. With me she done everything her own way.’
‘Please tell me about that time,’ coaxed Mary.
So Mademoiselle Duphot sat down beside Mary and patted her hand: ‘Like me, you love her. Well now let me recall— She would sometimes get angry, very angry, and then she would go to the stables and talk to her horse. But when she fence it was marvellous—she fence like a man, and she only a baby but extrémement strong. And then. . . .’ The memories went on and on, such a store she possessed, the kind Mademoiselle Duphot.
As she talked her heart went out to the girl, for she felt a great tenderness towards young things: ‘I am glad that you come to live with our Stévenne now that Mademoiselle Puddle is at Morton. Stévenne would be desolate in the big house. It is charming for both of you this new arrangement. While she work you look after the ménage; is it not so? You take care of Stévenne, she take care of you. Oui, oui, I am glad you have come to Paris.’
Julie stroked Mary’s smooth young cheek, then her arm, for she wished to observe through her fingers. She smiled: ‘Very young, also very kind. I like so much the feel of your kindness—it gives me a warm and so happy sensation, because with all kindness there must be much good.’
Was she quite blind after all, the poor Julie?
And hearing her Stephen flushed with pleasure, and her eyes that could see turned and rested on Mary with a gentle and very profound expression in their depths—at that moment they were calmly thoughtful, as though brooding upon the mystery of life—one might almost have said the eyes of a mother.
A happy and pleasant visit it had been; they talked about it all through the evening.
Burton, who had enlisted in the Worcesters soon after Stephen had found work in London, Burton was now back again in Paris, loudly demanding a brand-new motor.
‘The car looks awful! Snub-nosed she looks—peculiar—all tucked up in the bonnet;’ he declared.
So Stephen bought a touring Renault and a smart little landaulette for Mary. The choosing of the cars was the greatest fun; Mary climbed in and out of hers at least six times while it stood in the showroom.
‘Is it comfortable?’ Stephen must keep on asking, ‘Do you want them to pad it out more at the back? Are you perfectly sure you like the grey whip-cord? Because if you don’t it can be re-upholstered.’
Mary laughed: ‘I’m climbing in and out from sheer swank, just to show that it’s mine. Will they send it soon?’
‘Almost at once, I hope,’ smiled Stephen.
Very splendid it seemed to her now to have money, because of what money could do for Mary; in the shops they must sometimes behave like two children, having endless things dragged out for inspection. They drove to Versailles in the new touring car and wandered for hours through the lovely gardens. The Hameau no longer seemed sad to Stephen, for Mary and she brought love back to the Hameau. Then they drove to the forest of Fontainebleau, and wherever they went there was singing of birds—challenging, jubilant, provocative singing: ‘Look at us, look at us! We’re happy, Stephen!’ And Stephen’s heart shouted back: ‘So are we. Look at us, look at us, look at us! We’re happy!’
When they were not driving into the country, or amusing themselves by ransacking Paris, Stephen would fence, to keep herself fit—would fence as never before with Buisson, so that Buisson would sometimes say with a grin:
‘Mais voyons, voyons! I have done you no wrong, yet it almost appears that you wish to kill me!’
The foils laid aside, he might turn to Mary, still grinning: ‘She fence very well, eh, your friend? She lunge like a man, so strong and so graceful.’ Which considering all things was generous of Buisson.
But suddenly Buisson would grow very angry: ‘More than seventy francs have I paid to my cook and for nothing! Bon Dieu! Is this winning the war? We starve, we go short of our butter and chickens, and before it is better it is surely much worse. We are all imbeciles, we kind-hearted French; we starve ourselves to fatten the Germans. Are they grateful? Sacré Nom! Mais oui, they are grateful—they love us so much that they spit in our faces!’ And quite often this mood would be vented on Stephen.
To Mary, however, he was usually polite: ‘You like our Paris? I am glad—that is good. You make the home with Mademoiselle Gordon; I hope you prevent her injurious smoking.’
And in spite of his outbursts Mary adored him, because of his interest in Stephen’s fencing.
Oneevening towards the end of June, Jonathan Brockett walked in serenely: ‘Hallo, Stephen! Here I am, I’ve turned up again—not that I love you, I positively hate you. I’ve been keeping away for weeks and weeks. Why did you never answer my letters? Not so much as a line on a picture postcard! There’s something in this more than meets the eye. And where’s Puddle? She used to be kind to me once—I shall lay my head down on her bosom and weep. . . .’ He stopped abruptly, seeing Mary Llewellyn, who got up from her deep arm-chair in the corner.
Stephen said: ‘Mary, this is Jonathan Brockett—an old friend of mine; we’re fellow writers. Brockett, this is Mary Llewellyn.’
Brockett shot a swift glance in Stephen’s direction, then he bowed and gravely shook hands with Mary.
And now Stephen was to see yet another side of this strange and unexpected creature. With infinite courtesy and tact he went out of his way to make himself charming. Never by so much as a word or a look did he once allow it to be inferred that his quick mind had seized on the situation. Brockett’s manner suggested an innocence that he was very far from possessing.
Stephen began to study him with interest; they two had not met since before the war. He had thickened, his figure was more robust, there was muscle and flesh on his wide, straight shoulders. And she thought that his face had certainly aged; little bags were showing under his eyes, and rather deep lines at the sides of his mouth—the war had left its mark upon Brockett. Only his hands remained unchanged; those white and soft skinned hands of a woman.
He was saying: ‘So you two were in the same Unit. That was a great stroke of luck for Stephen; I mean she’d be feeling horribly lonely now that old Puddle’s gone back to England. Stephen’s distinguished herself I see—Croix de Guerre and a very becoming scar. Don’t protest, my dear Stephen, you know it’s becoming. All that happened to me was a badly sprained ankle;’ he laughed, ‘fancy going out to Mesopotamia to slip on a bit of orange peel! I might have done better than that here in Paris. By the way, I’m in my own flat again now; I hope you’ll bring Miss Llewellyn to luncheon.’
He did not stay embarrassingly late, nor did he leave suggestively early; he got up to go at just the right moment. But when Mary went out of the room to call Pierre, he quite suddenly put his arm through Stephen’s.
‘Good luck, my dear, you deserve it;’ he murmured, and his sharp grey eyes had grown almost gentle: ‘I hope you’ll be very, very happy.’
Stephen quietly disengaged her arm with a look of surprise: ‘Happy? Thank you, Brockett,’ she smiled, as she lighted a cigarette.
Theycould not tear themselves away from their home, and that summer they remained in Paris. There were always so many things to do, Mary’s bedroom entirely to refurnish for instance—she had Puddle’s old room overlooking the garden. When the city seemed to be growing too airless, they motored off happily into the country, spending a couple of nights at an auberge, for France abounds in green, pleasant places. Once or twice they lunched with Jonathan Brockett at his flat in the Avenue Victor Hugo, a beautiful flat since his taste was perfect, and he dined with them before leaving for Deauville—his manner continued to be studiously guarded. The Duphots had gone for their holiday and Buisson was away in Spain for a month—but what did they want that summer with people? On those evenings when they did not go out, Stephen would now read aloud to Mary, leading the girl’s adaptable mind into new and hitherto unexplored channels; teaching her the joy that can lie in books, even as Sir Philip had once taught his daughter. Mary had read so little in her life that the choice of books seemed practically endless, but Stephen must make a start by reading that immortal classic of their own Paris,Peter Ibbetson, and Mary said:
‘Stephen—if we were ever parted, do you think that you and I could dream true?’
And Stephen answered: ‘I often wonder whether we’re not dreaming true all the time—whether the only truth isn’t in dreaming.’ Then they talked for a while of such nebulous things as dreams, which will seem very concrete to lovers.
Sometimes Stephen would read aloud in French, for she wanted the girl to grow better acquainted with the lure of that fascinating language. And thus gradually, with infinite care, did she seek to fill the more obvious gaps in Mary’s none too complete education. And Mary, listening to Stephen’s voice, rather deep and always a little husky, would think that words were more tuneful than music and more inspiring, when spoken by Stephen.
At this time many gentle and friendly things began to bear witness to Mary’s presence. There were flowers in the quiet old garden for instance, and some large red carp in the fountain’s basin, and two married couples of white fantail pigeons who lived in a house on a tall wooden leg and kept up a convivial cooing. These pigeons lacked all respect for Stephen; by August they were flying in at her window and landing with soft, heavy thuds on her desk where they strutted until she fed them with maize. And because they were Mary’s and Mary loved them, Stephen would laugh, as unruffled as they were, and would patiently coax them back into the garden with bribes for their plump little circular crops. In the turret room that had been Puddle’s sanctum, there were now three cagefuls of Mary’s rescues—tiny bright coloured birds with dejected plumage, and eyes that had filmed from a lack of sunshine. Mary was always bringing them home from the terrible bird shops along the river, for her love of such helpless and suffering things was so great that she in her turn must suffer. An ill-treated creature would haunt her for days, so that Stephen would often exclaim half in earnest:
‘Go and buy up all the animal shops in Paris . . . anything, darling, only don’t look unhappy!’
The tiny bright coloured birds would revive to some extent, thanks to Mary’s skilled treatment; but since she always bought the most ailing, not a few of them left this disheartening world for what we must hope was a warm, wild heaven—there were several small graves already in the garden.
Then one morning, when Mary went out alone because Stephen had letters to write to Morton, she chanced on yet one more desolate creature who followed her home to the Rue Jacob, and right into Stephen’s immaculate study. It was large, ungainly and appallingly thin; it was coated with mud which had dried on its nose, its back, its legs and all over its stomach. Its paws were heavy, its ears were long, and its tail, like the tail of a rat, looked hairless, but curved up to a point in a miniature sickle. Its face was as smooth as though made out of plush, and its luminous eyes were the colour of amber.
Mary said: ‘Oh, Stephen—he wanted to come. He’s got a sore paw; look at him, he’s limping!’
Then this tramp of a dog hobbled over to the table and stood there gazing dumbly at Stephen, who must stroke his anxious, dishevelled head: ‘I suppose this means that we’re going to keep him.’
‘Darling, I’m dreadfully afraid it does—he says he’s sorry to be such a mongrel.’
‘He needn’t apologize,’ Stephen smiled, ‘he’s all right, he’s an Irish water-spaniel, though what he’s doing out here the Lord knows; I’ve never seen one before in Paris.’
They fed him, and later that afternoon they gave him a bath in Stephen’s bathroom. The result of that bath, which was disconcerting as far as the room went, they left to Adèle. The room was a bog, but Mary’s rescue had emerged a mass of chocolate ringlets, all save his charming plush-covered face, and his curious tail, which was curved like a sickle. Then they bound the sore pad and took him downstairs; after which Mary wanted to know all about him, so Stephen unearthed an illustrated dog book from a cupboard under the study bookcase.
‘Oh, look!’ exclaimed Mary, reading over her shoulder, ‘He’s not Irish at all, he’s really a Welshman: “We find in the Welsh laws of Howell Dda the first reference to this intelligent spaniel. The Iberians brought the breed to Ireland. . . .” Of course, that’s why he followed me home; he knew I was Welsh the moment he saw me!’
Stephen laughed: ‘Yes, his hair grows up from a peak like yours—it must be a national failing. Well, what shall we call him? His name’s important; it ought to be quite short.’
‘David,’ said Mary.
The dog looked gravely from one to the other for a moment, then he lay down at Mary’s feet, dropping his chin on his bandaged paw, and closing his eyes with a grunt of contentment. And so it had suddenly come to pass that they who had lately been two, were now three. There were Stephen and Mary—there was also David.
ThatOctober there arose the first dark cloud. It drifted over to Paris from England, for Anna wrote asking Stephen to Morton but with never a mention of Mary Llewellyn. Not that she ever did mention their friendship in her letters, indeed she completely ignored it; yet this invitation which excluded the girl seemed to Stephen an intentional slight upon Mary. A hot flush of anger spread up to her brow as she read and re-read her mother’s brief letter:
‘I want to discuss some important points regarding the management of the estate. As the place will eventually come to you, I think we should try to keep more in touch. . . .’ Then a list of the points Anna wished to discuss; they seemed very trifling indeed to Stephen.
She put the letter away in a drawer and sat staring darkly out of the window. In the garden Mary was talking to David, persuading him not to retrieve the pigeons.
‘If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,’ Stephen muttered.
Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom—be careful . . . of course while we’re here at Morton . . . it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an outrage, an insult. . . .’ And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship—‘Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening—remember my mother.’
Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary.
She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her. She would try to minimize the whole thing; she would say: ‘It will only be for ten days; I must just run over about this business,’ then Mary would probably think it quite natural that she had not been invited to Morton and would ask no questions—she never asked questions. But would Mary think such a slight was quite natural? Fear possessed her; she sat there terribly afraid of this cloud that had suddenly risen to menace—afraid yet determined not to submit, not to let it gain power through her own acquiescence.
There was only one weapon to keep it at bay. Getting up she opened the window: ‘Mary!’
All unconscious the girl hurried in with David: ‘Did you call?’
‘Yes—come close. Closer . . . closer, sweetheart. . . .’
Shakenand very greatly humbled, Mary had let Stephen go from her to Morton. She had not been deceived by Stephen’s glib words, and had now no illusions regarding Anna Gordon. Lady Anna, suspecting the truth about them, had not wished to meet her. It was all quite clear, cruelly clear if it came to that matter—but these thoughts she had mercifully hidden from Stephen.
She had seen Stephen off at the station with a smile: ‘I’ll write every day. Do put on your coat, darling; you don’t want to arrive at Morton with a chill. And mind you wire when you get to Dover.’
Yet now as she sat in the empty study, she must bury her face and cry a little because she was here and Stephen in England . . . and then of course, this was their first real parting.
David sat watching with luminous eyes in which were reflected her secret troubles; then he got up and planted a paw on the book, for he thought it high time to have done with this reading. He lacked the language that Raftery had known—the language of many small sounds and small movements—a clumsy and inarticulate fellow he was, but unrestrainedly loving. He nearly broke his own heart between love and the deep gratitude which he felt for Mary. At the moment he wanted to lay back his ears and howl with despair to see her unhappy. He wanted to make an enormous noise, the kind of noise wild folk make in the jungle—lions and tigers and other wild folk that David had heard about from his mother—his mother had been in Africa once a long time ago, with an old French colonel. But instead he abruptly licked Mary’s cheek—it tasted peculiar, he thought, like sea water.
‘Do you want a walk, David?’ she asked him gently.
And as well as he could, David nodded his head by wagging his tail which was shaped like a sickle. Then he capered, thumping the ground with his paws; after which he barked twice in an effort to amuse her, for such things had seemed funny to her in the past, although now she appeared not to notice his capers. However, she had put on her hat and coat; so, still barking, he followed her through the courtyard.
They wandered along the Quai Voltaire, Mary pausing to look at the misty river.
‘Shall I dive in and bring you a rat?’ inquired David by lunging wildly backwards and forwards.
She shook her head. ‘Do stop, David; be good!’ Then she sighed again and stared at the river; so David stared too, but he stared at Mary.
Quite suddenly Paris had lost its charm for her. After all, what was it? Just a big, foreign city—a city that belonged to a stranger people who cared nothing for Stephen and nothing for Mary. They were exiles. She turned the word over in her mind—exiles; it sounded unwanted, lonely. But why had Stephen become an exile? Why had she exiled herself from Morton? Strange that she, Mary, had never asked her—had never wanted to until this moment.
She walked on not caring very much where she went. It grew dusk, and the dusk brought with it great longing—the longing to see, to hear, to touch—almost a physical pain it was, this longing to feel the nearness of Stephen. But Stephen had left her to go to Morton . . . Morton, that was surely Stephen’s real home, and in that real home there was no place for Mary.
She was not resentful. She did not condemn either the world, or herself, or Stephen. Hers was no mind to wrestle with problems, to demand either justice or explanation; she only knew that her heart felt bruised so that all manner of little things hurt her. It hurt her to think of Stephen surrounded by objects that she had never seen—tables, chairs, pictures, all old friends of Stephen’s, all dear and familiar, yet strangers to Mary. It hurt her to think of the unknown bedroom in which Stephen had slept since the days of her childhood; of the unknown schoolroom where Stephen had worked; of the stables, the lakes and the gardens of Morton. It hurt her to think of the two unknown women who must now be awaiting Stephen’s arrival—Puddle, whom Stephen loved and respected; Lady Anna, of whom she spoke very seldom, and who, Mary felt, could never have loved her. And it came upon Mary with a little shock that a long span of Stephen’s life was hidden; years and years of that life had come and gone before they two had finally found each other. How could she hope to link up with a past that belonged to a home which she might not enter? Then, being a woman, she suddenly ached for the quiet, pleasant things that a home will stand for—security, peace, respect and honour, the kindness of parents, the good-will of neighbours; happiness that can be shared with friends, love that is proud to proclaim its existence. All that Stephen most craved for the creature she loved, that creature must now quite suddenly ache for.
And as though some mysterious cord stretched between them, Stephen’s heart was troubled at that very moment; intolerably troubled because of Morton, the real home which might not be shared with Mary. Ashamed because of shame laid on another, compassionate and suffering because of her compassion, she was thinking of the girl left alone in Paris—the girl who should have come with her to England, who should have been welcomed and honoured at Morton. Then she suddenly remembered some words from the past, very terrible words: ‘Could you marry me, Stephen?’
Mary turned and walked back to the Rue Jacob. Disheartened and anxious, David lagged beside her. He had done all he could to distract her mind from whatever it was that lay heavy upon it. He had made a pretence of chasing a pigeon, he had barked himself hoarse at a terrified beggar, he had brought her a stick and implored her to throw it, he had caught at her skirt and tugged it politely; in the end he had nearly got run over by a taxi in his desperate efforts to gain her attention. This last attempt had certainly roused her: she had put on his lead—poor, misunderstood David.
Marywent into Stephen’s study and sat down at the spacious writing-table, for now all of a sudden she had only one ache, and that was the ache of her love for Stephen. And because of her love she wished to comfort, since in every fond woman there is much of the mother. That letter was full of many things which a less privileged pen had best left unwritten—loyalty, faith, consolation, devotion; all this and much more she wrote to Stephen. As she sat there, her heart seemed to swell within her as though in response to some mighty challenge.
Thus it was that Mary met and defeated the world’s first tentative onslaught upon them.
Therecomes a time in all passionate attachments when life, real life, must be faced once again with its varied and endless obligations, when the lover knows in his innermost heart that the halcyon days are over. He may well regret this prosaic intrusion, yet to him it will usually seem quite natural, so that while loving not one whit the less, he will bend his neck to the yoke of existence. But the woman, for whom love is an end in itself, finds it harder to submit thus calmly. To every devoted and ardent woman there comes this moment of poignant regretting; and struggle she must to hold it at bay. ‘Not yet, not yet—just a little longer’; until Nature, abhorring her idleness, forces on her the labour of procreation.
But in such relationships as Mary’s and Stephen’s, Nature must pay for experimenting; she may even have to pay very dearly—it largely depends on the sexual mixture. A drop too little of the male in the lover, and mighty indeed will be the wastage. And yet there are cases—and Stephen’s was one—in which the male will emerge triumphant; in which passion combined with a real devotion will become a spur rather than a deterrent; in which love and endeavour will fight side by side in a desperate struggle to find some solution.
Thus it was that when Stephen returned from Morton, Mary divined, as it were by instinct, that the time of dreaming was over and past; and she clung very close, kissing many times—
‘Do you love me as much as before you went? Do you love me?’ The woman’s eternal question.
And Stephen, who, if possible, loved her more, answered almost brusquely: ‘Of course I love you.’ For her thoughts were still heavy with the bitterness that had come of that visit of hers to Morton, and which at all costs must be hidden from Mary.
There had been no marked change in her mother’s manner. Anna had been very quiet and courteous. Together they had interviewed bailiff and agent, scheming as always for the welfare of Morton; but one topic there had been which Anna had ignored, had refused to discuss, and that topic was Mary. With a suddenness born of exasperation, Stephen had spoken of her one evening. ‘I want Mary Llewellyn to know my real home; some day I must bring her to Morton with me.’ She had stopped, seeing Anna’s warning face—expressionless, closed; while as for her answer, it had been more eloquent far than words—a disconcerting, unequivocal silence. And Stephen, had she ever entertained any doubt, must have known at that moment past all hope of doubting, that her mother’s omission to invite the girl had indeed been meant as a slight upon Mary. Getting up, she had gone to her father’s study.
Puddle, who had held her peace at the time, had spoken just before Stephen’s departure. ‘My dear, I know it’s all terribly hard about Morton—about . . .’ She had hesitated.
And Stephen had thought with renewed bitterness: ‘Even she jibs, it seems, at mentioning Mary.’ She had answered: ‘If you’re speaking of Mary Llewellyn, I shall certainly never bring her to Morton, that is as long as my mother lives—I don’t allow her to be insulted.’
Then Puddle had looked at Stephen gravely. ‘You’re not working, and yet work’s your only weapon. Make the world respect you, as you can do through your work; it’s the surest harbour of refuge for your friend, the only harbour—remember that—and it’s up to you to provide it, Stephen.’
Stephen had been too sore at heart to reply; but throughout the long journey from Morton to Paris, Puddle’s words had kept hammering in her brain: ‘You’re not working, and yet work’s your only weapon.’
So while Mary lay sleeping in Stephen’s arms on that first blessèd night of their reunion, her lover lay wide-eyed with sleeplessness, planning the work she must do on the morrow, cursing her own indolence and folly, her illusion of safety where none existed.
Theysoon settled down to their more prosaic days very much as quite ordinary people will do. Each of them now had her separate tasks—Stephen her writing, and Mary the household, the paying of bills, the filing of receipts, the answering of unimportant letters. But for her there were long hours of idleness, since Pauline and Pierre were almost too perfect—they would smile and manage the house their own way, which it must be admitted was better than Mary’s. As for the letters, there were not very many; and as for the bills, there was plenty of money—being spared the struggle to make two ends meet, she was also deprived of the innocent pleasure of scheming to provide little happy surprises, little extra comforts for the person she loved, which in youth can add a real zest to existence. Then Stephen had found her typing too slow, so was sending the work to a woman in Passy; obsessed by a longing to finish her book, she would tolerate neither let nor hindrance. And because of their curious isolation, there were times when Mary would feel very lonely. For whom did she know? She had no friends in Paris except the kind Mademoiselle Duphot and Julie. Once a week, it is true, she could go and see Buisson, for Stephen continued to keep up her fencing; and occasionally Brockett would come strolling in, but his interest was centred entirely in Stephen; if she should be working, as was often the case, he would not waste very much time over Mary.