THE SHADOW
In the afternoon of the last day of April, 190--, a billowy sea of little
broken clouds crowned the thin air above High Street, Kensington.
This soft tumult of vapours, covering nearly all the firmament, was in
onslaught round a patch of blue sky, shaped somewhat like a star, which
still gleamed--a single gentian flower amongst innumerable grass. Each
of these small clouds seemed fitted with a pair of unseen wings, and, as
insects flight on their too constant journeys, they were setting forth
all ways round this starry blossom which burned so clear with the colour
of its far fixity. On one side they were massed in fleecy congeries, so
crowding each other that no edge or outline was preserved; on the other,
higher, stronger, emergent from their fellow-clouds, they seemed leading
the attack on that surviving gleam of the ineffable. Infinite was the
variety of those million separate vapours, infinite the unchanging unity
of that fixed blue star.
Down in the street beneath this eternal warring of the various
soft-winged clouds on the unmisted ether, men, women, children, and
their familiars--horses, dogs, and cats--were pursuing their occupations
with the sweet zest of the Spring. They streamed along, and the noise of
their frequenting rose in an unbroken roar: “I, I--I, I!”
The crowd was perhaps thickest outside the premises of Messrs. Rose and
Thorn. Every kind of being, from the highest to the lowest, passed in
front of the hundred doors of this establishment; and before the costume
window a rather tall, slight, graceful woman stood thinking: “It really
is gentian blue! But I don't know whether I ought to buy it, with all
this distress about!”
Her eyes, which were greenish-grey, and often ironical lest they should
reveal her soul, seemed probing a blue gown displayed in that window, to
the very heart of its desirability.
“And suppose Stephen doesn't like me in it!” This doubt set her gloved
fingers pleating the bosom of her frock. Into that little pleat she
folded the essence of herself, the wish to have and the fear of having,
the wish to be and the fear of being, and her veil, falling from the
edge of her hat, three inches from her face, shrouded with its tissue
her half-decided little features, her rather too high cheek-bones, her
cheeks which were slightly hollowed, as though Time had kissed them just
too much.
The old man, with a long face, eyes rimmed like a parrot's, and
discoloured nose, who, so long as he did not sit down, was permitted
to frequent the pavement just there and sell the 'Westminster Gazette',
marked her, and took his empty pipe out of his mouth.
It was his business to know all the passers-by, and his pleasure too;
his mind was thus distracted from the condition of his feet. He knew
this particular lady with the delicate face, and found her puzzling;
she sometimes bought the paper which Fate condemned him, against his
politics, to sell. The Tory journals were undoubtedly those which her
class of person ought to purchase. He knew a lady when he saw one. In
fact, before Life threw him into the streets, by giving him a disease in
curing which his savings had disappeared, he had been a butler, and for
the gentry had a respect as incurable as was his distrust of “all
that class of people” who bought their things at “these 'ere large
establishments,” and attended “these 'ere subscription dances at the
Town 'All over there.” He watched her with special interest, not,
indeed, attempting to attract attention, though conscious in every fibre
that he had only sold five copies of his early issues. And he was sorry
and surprised when she passed from his sight through one of the hundred
doors.
The thought which spurred her into Messrs. Rose and Thorn's was this: “I
am thirty-eight; I have a daughter of seventeen. I cannot afford to
lose my husband's admiration. The time is on me when I really must make
myself look nice!”
Before a long mirror, in whose bright pool there yearly bathed hundreds
of women's bodies, divested of skirts and bodices, whose unruffled
surface reflected daily a dozen women's souls divested of everything,
her eyes became as bright as steel; but having ascertained the need of
taking two inches off the chest of the gentian frock, one off its waist,
three off its hips, and of adding one to its skirt, they clouded again
with doubt, as though prepared to fly from the decision she had come to.
Resuming her bodice, she asked:
“When could you let me have it?”
“At the end of the week, madam.”
“Not till then?”
“We are very pressed, madam.”
“Oh, but you must let me have it by Thursday at the latest, please.”
The fitter sighed: “I will do my best.”
“I shall rely on you. Mrs. Stephen Dallison, 76, The Old Square.”
Going downstairs she thought: “That poor girl looked very tired; it's a
shame they give them such long hours!” and she passed into the street.
A voice said timidly behind her: “Westminister, marm?”
“That's the poor old creature,” thought Cecilia Dallison, “whose nose is
so unpleasant. I don't really think I--” and she felt for a penny in her
little bag. Standing beside the “poor old creature” was a woman clothed
in worn but neat black clothes, and an ancient toque which had once
known a better head. The wan remains of a little bit of fur lay round
her throat. She had a thin face, not without refinement, mild, very
clear brown eyes, and a twist of smooth black hair. Beside her was
a skimpy little boy, and in her arms a baby. Mrs. Dallison held out
two-pence for the paper, but it was at the woman that she looked.
“Oh, Mrs. Hughs,” she said, “we've been expecting you to hem the
curtains!”
The woman slightly pressed the baby.
“I am very sorry, ma'am. I knew I was expected, but I've had such
trouble.”
Cecilia winced. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, m'm; it's my husband.”
“Oh, dear!” Cecilia murmured. “But why didn't you come to us?”
“I didn't feel up to it, ma'am; I didn't really--”
A tear ran down her cheek, and was caught in a furrow near the mouth.
Mrs. Dallison said hurriedly: “Yes, yes; I'm very sorry.”
“This old gentleman, Mr. Creed, lives in the same house with us, and he
is going to speak to my husband.”
The old man wagged his head on its lean stalk of neck.
“He ought to know better than be'ave 'imself so disrespectable,” he
said.
Cecilia looked at him, and murmured: “I hope he won't turn on you!”
The old man shuffled his feet.
“I likes to live at peace with everybody. I shall have the police to 'im
if he misdemeans hisself with me!... Westminister, sir?” And, screening
his mouth from Mrs. Dallison, he added in a loud whisper: “Execution of
the Shoreditch murderer!”
Cecilia felt suddenly as though the world were listening to her
conversation with these two rather seedy persons.
“I don't really know what I can do for you, Mrs. Hughs. I'll speak to
Mr. Dallison, and to Mr. Hilary too.”
“Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am.”
With a smile which seemed to deprecate its own appearance,
Cecilia grasped her skirts and crossed the road. “I hope I wasn't
unsympathetic,” she thought, looking back at the three figures on the
edge of the pavement--the old man with his papers, and his discoloured
nose thrust upwards under iron-rimmed spectacles; the seamstress in her
black dress; the skimpy little boy. Neither speaking nor moving, they
were looking out before them at the traffic; and something in Cecilia
revolted at this sight. It was lifeless, hopeless, unaesthetic.
“What can one do,” she thought, “for women like Mrs. Hughs, who always
look like that? And that poor old man! I suppose I oughtn't to have
bought that dress, but Stephen is tired of this.”
She turned out of the main street into a road preserved from commoner
forms of traffic, and stopped at a long low house half hidden behind the
trees of its front garden.
It was the residence of Hilary Dallison, her husband's brother, and
himself the husband of Bianca, her own sister.
The queer conceit came to Cecilia that it resembled Hilary. Its look
was kindly and uncertain; its colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of
its windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the
windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache
and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines and
shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and apart,
though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that studio--of
white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue paint--was
something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to Bianca, who used
it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with its eyes on the house,
shrinking defiantly from too close company, as though it could not
entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who often worried over the
relations between her sister and her brother-in-law, suddenly felt how
fitting and symbolical this was.
But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed one
too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the door.
Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog, of
toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her
bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had
been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had at
last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.
Speaking the word “Miranda!” Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this
daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress,
being also unaccustomed to commit herself....
Mondays were Blanca's “days,” and Cecilia made her way towards the
studio. It was a large high room, full of people.
Motionless, by himself, close to the door, stood an old man, very thin
and rather bent, with silvery hair, and a thin silvery beard grasped in
his transparent fingers. He was dressed in a suit of smoke-grey cottage
tweed, which smelt of peat, and an Oxford shirt, whose collar, ceasing
prematurely, exposed a lean brown neck; his trousers, too, ended very
soon, and showed light socks. In his attitude there was something
suggestive of the patience and determination of a mule. At Cecilia's
approach he raised his eyes. It was at once apparent why, in so full a
room, he was standing alone. Those blue eyes looked as if he were about
to utter a prophetic statement.
“They have been speaking to me of an execution,” he said.
Cecilia made a nervous movement.
“Yes, Father?”
“To take life,” went on the old man in a voice which, though charged
with strong emotion, seemed to be speaking to itself, “was the chief
mark of the insensate barbarism still prevailing in those days. It
sprang from that most irreligious fetish, the belief in the permanence
of the individual ego after death. From the worship of that fetish had
come all the sorrows of the human race.”
Cecilia, with an involuntary quiver of her little bag, said:
“Father, how can you?”
“They did not stop to love each other in this life; they were so sure
they had all eternity to do it in. The doctrine was an invention to
enable men to act like dogs with clear consciences. Love could never
come to full fruition till it was destroyed.”
Cecilia looked hastily round; no one had heard. She moved a little
sideways, and became merged in another group. Her father's lips
continued moving. He had resumed the patient attitude which so slightly
suggested mules. A voice behind her said: “I do think your father is
such an interesting man, Mrs. Dallison.”
Cecilia turned and saw a woman of middle height, with her hair done
in the early Italian fashion, and very small, dark, lively eyes, which
looked as though her love of living would keep her busy each minute of
her day and all the minutes that she could occupy of everybody else's
days.
“Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace? Oh! how do you do? I've been meaning to come
and see you for quite a long time, but I know you're always so busy.”
With doubting eyes, half friendly and half defensive, as though chaffing
to prevent herself from being chaffed, Cecilia looked at Mrs. Tallents
Smallpeace, whom she had met several times at Bianca's house. The widow
of a somewhat famous connoisseur, she was now secretary of the League
for Educating Orphans who have Lost both Parents, vice-president of
the Forlorn Hope for Maids in Peril, and treasurer to Thursday Hops
for Working Girls. She seemed to know every man and woman who was worth
knowing, and some besides; to see all picture-shows; to hear every new
musician; and attend the opening performance of every play. With regard
to literature, she would say that authors bored her; but she was always
doing them good turns, inviting them to meet their critics or editors,
and sometimes--though this was not generally known--pulling them out
of the holes they were prone to get into, by lending them a sum of
money--after which, as she would plaintively remark; she rarely saw them
more.
She had a peculiar spiritual significance to Mrs. Stephen Dallison,
being just on the borderline between those of Bianca's friends whom
Cecilia did not wish and those whom she did wish to come to her own
house, for Stephen, a barrister in an official position, had a keen
sense of the ridiculous. Since Hilary wrote books and was a poet, and
Bianca painted, their friends would naturally be either interesting or
queer; and though for Stephen's sake it was important to establish which
was which, they were so very often both. Such people stimulated,
taken in small doses, but neither on her husband's account nor on her
daughter's did Cecilia desire that they should come to her in swarms.
Her attitude of mind towards them was, in fact, similar-a sort of
pleasurable dread-to that in which she purchased the Westminster Gazette
to feel the pulse of social progress.
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's dark little eyes twinkled.
“I hear that Mr. Stone--that is your father's name, I think--is writing
a book which will create quite a sensation when it comes out.”
Cecilia bit her lips. “I hope it never will come out,” she was on the
point of saying.
“What will it be called?” asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. “I gather that
it's a book of Universal Brotherhood. That's so nice!”
Cecilia made a movement of annoyance. “Who told you?”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, “I do think your sister gets
such attractive people at her At Homes. They all take such interest in
things.”
A little surprised at herself, Cecilia answered “Too much for me!”
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace smiled. “I mean in art and social questions.
Surely one can't be too interested in them?”
Cecilia said rather hastily:
“Oh no, of course not.” And both ladies looked around them. A buzz of
conversation fell on Cecilia's ears.
“Have you seen the 'Aftermath'? It's really quite wonderful!”
“Poor old chap! he's so rococo....”
“There's a new man.
“She's very sympathetic.
“But the condition of the poor....
“Is that Mr. Balladyce? Oh, really.
“It gives you such a feeling of life.
“Bourgeois!...”
The voice of Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace broke through: “But do please tell
me who is that young girl with the young man looking at the picture over
there. She's quite charming!”
Cecilia's cheeks went a very pretty pink.
“Oh, that's my little daughter.”
“Really! Have you a daughter as big as that? Why, she must be
seventeen!”
“Nearly eighteen!”
“What is her name?”
“Thyme,” said Cecilia, with a little smile. She felt that Mrs. Tallents
Smallpeace was about to say: 'How charming!'
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace saw her smile and paused. “Who is the young man
with her?”
“My nephew, Martin Stone.”
“The son of your brother who was killed with his wife in that dreadful
Alpine accident? He looks a very decided sort of young man. He's got
that new look. What is he?”
“He's very nearly a doctor. I never know whether he's quite finished or
not.”
“I thought perhaps he might have something to do with Art.”
“Oh no, he despises Art.”
“And does your daughter despise it, too?”
“No; she's studying it.”
“Oh, really! How interesting! I do think the rising generation amusing,
don't you? They're so independent.”
Cecilia looked uneasily at the rising generation. They were standing
side by side before the picture, curiously observant and detached,
exchanging short remarks and glances. They seemed to watch all these
circling, chatting, bending, smiling people with a sort of youthful,
matter-of-fact, half-hostile curiosity. The young man had a pale face,
clean-shaven, with a strong jaw, a long, straight nose, a rather bumpy
forehead which did not recede, and clear grey eyes. His sarcastic
lips were firm and quick, and he looked at people with disconcerting
straightness. The young girl wore a blue-green frock. Her face was
charming, with eager, hazel-grey eyes, a bright colour, and fluffy hair
the colour of ripe nuts.
“That's your sister's picture, 'The Shadow,' they're looking at, isn't
it?” asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. “I remember seeing it on Christmas
Day, and the little model who was sitting for it--an attractive type!
Your brother-in-law told me how interested you all were in her. Quite a
romantic story, wasn't it, about her fainting from want of food when she
first came to sit?”
Cecilia murmured something. Her hands were moving nervously; she looked
ill at ease.
These signs passed unperceived by Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, whose eyes
were busy.
“In the F.H.M.P., of course, I see a lot of young girls placed in
delicate positions, just on the borders, don't you know? You should
really join the F.H.M.P., Mrs. Dallison. It's a first-rate thing--most
absorbing work.”
The doubting deepened in Cecilia's eyes.
“Oh, it must be!” she said. “I've so little time.”
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace went on at once.
“Don't you think that we live in the most interesting days? There are
such a lot of movements going on. It's quite exciting. We all feel
that we can't shut our eyes any longer to social questions. I mean the
condition of the people alone is enough to give one nightmare!”
“Yes, yes,” said Cecilia; “it is dreadful, of course.
“Politicians and officials are so hopeless, one can't look for anything
from them.”
Cecilia drew herself up. “Oh, do you think so?” she said.
“I was just talking to Mr. Balladyce. He says that Art and Literature
must be put on a new basis altogether.”
“Yes,” said Cecilia; “really? Is he that funny little man?”
“I think he's so monstrously clever.”
Cecilia answered quickly: “I know--I know. Of course, something must be
done.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace absently, “I think we all
feel that. Oh, do tell me! I've been talking to such a delightful
person--just the type you see when you go into the City--thousands of
them, all in such good black coats. It's so unusual to really meet one
nowadays; and they're so refreshing, they have such nice simple views.
There he is, standing just behind your sister.”
Cecilia by a nervous gesture indicated that she recognized the
personality alluded to. “Oh, yes,” she said; “Mr. Purcey. I don't know
why he comes to see us.”
“I think he's so delicious!” said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace dreamily. Her
little dark eyes, like bees, had flown to sip honey from the flower
in question--a man of broad build and medium height, dressed.
with accuracy, who seemed just a little out of his proper bed. His
mustachioed mouth wore a set smile; his cheerful face was rather red,
with a forehead of no extravagant height or breadth, and a conspicuous
jaw; his hair was thick and light in colour, and his eyes were small,
grey, and shrewd. He was looking at a picture.
“He's so delightfully unconscious,” murmured Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace.
“He didn't even seem to know that there was a problem of the lower
classes.”
“Did he tell you that he had a picture?” asked Cecilia gloomily.
“Oh yes, by Harpignies, with the accent on the 'pig.' It's worth three
times what he gave for it. It's so nice to be made to feel that there is
still all that mass of people just simply measuring everything by what
they gave for it.”
“And did he tell you my grandfather Carfax's dictum in the Banstock
case?” muttered Cecilia.
“Oh yes: 'The man who does not know his own mind should be made an
Irishman by Act of Parliament.' He said it was so awfully good.”
“He would,” replied Cecilia.
“He seems to depress you, rather!”
“Oh no; I believe he's quite a nice sort of person. One can't be rude
to him; he really did what he thought a very kind thing to my father.
That's how we came to know him. Only it's rather trying when he will
come to call regularly. He gets a little on one's nerves.”
“Ah, that's just what I feel is so jolly about him; no one would ever
get on his nerves. I do think we've got too many nerves, don't you?
Here's your brother-in-law. He's such an uncommon-looking man; I want
to have a talk with him about that little model. A country girl, wasn't
she?”
She had turned her head towards a tall man with a very slight stoop and
a brown, thin, bearded face, who was approaching from the door. She did
not see that Cecilia had flushed, and was looking at her almost angrily.
The tall thin man put his hand on Cecilia's arm, saying gently: “Hallo
Cis! Stephen here yet?”
Cecilia shook her head.
“You know Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, Hilary?”
The tall man bowed. His hazel-coloured eyes were shy, gentle, and
deep-set; his eyebrows, hardly ever still, gave him a look of austere
whimsicality. His dark brown hair was very lightly touched with grey,
and a frequent kindly smile played on his lips. His unmannerised manner
was quiet to the point of extinction. He had long, thin, brown hands,
and nothing peculiar about his dress.
“I'll leave you to talk to Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace,” Cecilia said.
A knot of people round Mr. Balladyce prevented her from moving far,
however, and the voice of Mrs. Smallpeace travelled to her ears.
“I was talking about that little model. It was so good of you to take
such interest in the girl. I wondered whether we could do anything for
her.”
Cecilia's hearing was too excellent to miss the tone of Hilary's reply:
“Oh, thank you; I don't think so.”
“I fancied perhaps you might feel that our Society---hers is an
unsatisfactory profession for young girls!”
Cecilia saw the back of Hilary's neck grow red. She turned her head
away.
“Of course, there are many very nice models indeed,” said the voice of
Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. “I don't mean that they are necessarily at
all--if they're girls of strong character; and especially if they don't
sit for the--the altogether.”
Hilary's dry, staccato answer came to Cecilia's ears: “Thank you; it's
very kind of you.”
“Oh, of course, if it's not necessary. Your wife's picture was so
clever, Mr. Dallison--such an interesting type.”
Without intention Cecilia found herself before that picture. It stood
with its face a little turned towards the wall, as though somewhat in
disgrace, portraying the full-length figure of a girl standing in deep
shadow, with her arms half outstretched, as if asking for something. Her
eyes were fixed on Cecilia, and through her parted lips breath almost
seemed to come. The only colour in the picture was the pale blue of
those eyes, the pallid red of those parted lips, the still paler brown
of the hair; the rest was shadow. In the foreground light was falling as
though from a street-lamp.
Cecilia thought: “That girl's eyes and mouth haunt me. Whatever made
Blanca choose such a subject? It is clever, of course--for her.”