THE NEEDLEWOMAN
ON the way home I made Waldo promise not to tell about our engagement
till I agreed. He did promise, but I think he must have given a pretty
strong hint at home. There was such a wonderful absence of awkward
references or questions. My mother never spoke of Arsenio; Aunt
Bertha refrained from comment when it became known that Mr. Frost and
his daughter had suddenly gone on a holiday, yachting—at the very
beginning of what would have been Nina’s first season! And Sir Paget,
besides petting me more than ever, began to talk to me as if I had a
proprietorial interest in Cragsfoot. Waldo himself was very gentle and
patient with me; he felt that he had ‘rushed’ me, I think, and was
anxious not to frighten me. I believe that the possibility of something
like what did in the end happen was always at the back of his mind; he
never felt secure. There was always Arsenio; and I was—unaccountable!
So he soothed and smoothed me, and let me put off the announcement of
the engagement for nearly six months. We weren’t at Cragsfoot all that
time, but coming and going between there and London. Mother took the
Mount Street flat then; my opinion was—and is—that Sir Paget or Waldo
paid for it. But, whether in town or country, Waldo and I were meeting
all the time.
“I didn’t announce the engagement because I didn’t want to burn my
boats; and then I did agree to announce it because I did want to burn
my boats! That was the kind of person I was then—at all events, the
kind of condition I was in. I had got over my fears almost entirely.
Nina had thrown up the sponge; Arsenio wouldn’t betray me; Waldo dreamt
of nothing worse than the picturesque flirtation in a gondola (though
he didn’t like even that!). Nobody could prove, or even plausibly
suggest, anything; unless my own nerve gave way, I was quite safe. So I
thought then, anyhow. And I had almost got over my sense of guiltiness
too. It came over me now and then; but it didn’t any longer seem very
real; perhaps I had just exhausted my feelings about it. It wasn’t what
I had done which troubled me all through those long months, both before
the announcement and after it; it was what I was doing and what I was
going to do. I liked Waldo enormously, and more and more as I knew him
better. In spite of his tempers, he’s a great gentleman. But he never
kissed me, he never took me in his arms, without my thinking of Arsenio.
“I had the oddest sense that this thing wasn’t final, that something
would occur to end it. I didn’t expect to finish it myself, but I
expected that something would. The feeling made me terribly restless;
and it often made me cold and wayward with Waldo: then I had to be
very affectionate to make him happy again. I liked making him happy,
and I could do it. But I always seemed to be playing a part. I suppose
I loved Arsenio. Love Arsenio after what had happened! That seemed
monstrous. I wouldn’t open my eyes to it. I wouldn’t have gone to
him if I could. And yet I couldn’t go happily to Waldo. I felt I was
Arsenio’s—I wouldn’t own it, but I couldn’t help it. Julius, I believe
that I’m a very primitive woman.”
“You’ve been sounding rather complicated up to now; I don’t mean—well,
unnatural.”
“You’ve had love affairs, of course. I know you’ve had one big one. I
even know her name; Aunt Bertha told me.”
“She shouldn’t have done that.”
“I was one of the family then, you see. She is—dead?”
“Yes, some few years ago—two years before we met at Cragsfoot.”
“That’s how you come not to have married?”
“I don’t know; many men don’t marry. Well—probably. But it’s your story
we’re after, not mine.”
“Yes, but your having had an affair like that may help you—may help
me to make you understand. What is it that sometimes seems to tie two
people together in spite of themselves? Arsenio’s coming back to me
was just chance—chance on chance. He was in this very place where we
are now; in very low water, living in the little house I’m living in
now, and employed as clerk to a wine merchant. He had given up all
thoughts of me, of coming back to England. He couldn’t do it; he hadn’t
the money. The English papers hardly ever came his way. One day a man
came in, for a bottle of whisky—an Englishman; he had a copy of the
_Times_ with him, and tore off a sheet of it to wrap the bottle in, and
threw the rest on the floor. When he was gone, Arsenio picked it up and
read it. And he saw the announcement of the date of my wedding—July the
twenty-first.”
“He told me, that day in London, that he had already decided to come to
England when he saw that.”
“He couldn’t tell you all the truth that day. This is what happened.
Seeing that notice, a queer fancy took him; he would see whether that
number—my number he called it—would bring him luck. He scraped together
some money, went over to Monte Carlo, and won, won, won! His luck went
to his head; everything seemed possible. He came straight to England—to
see if the luck held, he said. You can guess the rest.”
“Pretty well. You must have had a time of it, though!”
“I think my mind really made itself up the moment I saw Arsenio. The
rest was—tactics! I mustn’t see Waldo; I invented excuses. Waldo
mustn’t see Arsenio—that at all costs! He always suspected Arsenio,
and Arsenio might give it away—you know his malicious little airs of
triumph when he scores! You picture me as miserable? No! I was fearful,
terrified. But I was irrepressibly excited—and at last happy. My doubt
was done and ended.”
“You were not ashamed?” I ventured.
“Yes, I was ashamed too—because of Aunt Bertha and Sir Paget. Because
of them, much more than because of Waldo. They loved me; they had taken
me to be, as it were, their daughter. Between Waldo and Arsenio it had
always been a fight—yes, from that first day at Cragsfoot. I was the
prize! But in a way I was also just a spectator. I mean—in the end I
couldn’t help which won; something quite out of my power to control had
to decide that. And that something never had any doubt. How could I go
against everything that was real in me?”
“I think you are rather primitive,” I said. “It seems to you a fight
between the males. You await the issue. Well—and what’s happened? I
hope things are—flourishing now?”
She looked at me with one of her slow-dawning smiles; evidently, for
some reason, she was amused at me, or at the question which I had put.
“I’ve spent the greater part of the waking hours of three days with
you, Julius. I’ve walked, lunched, and dined with you. I’ve talked to
you interminably. You must have looked at me sometimes, haven’t you?”
“I’ve looked at you, to tell the truth, a great deal.”
“And you’ve noticed nothing peculiar?”
“I shouldn’t use the word ‘peculiar’ to describe what I’ve noticed.”
“Not, for instance, that I’ve always worn the same frock?” She was
leaning her elbows on the table now, her chin resting between her
hands. “And what that means to a charming woman—oh, we agreed on
that!—invited out by a fine figure of a man——! And yet you ask if
things are flourishing!”
“By Jove, I believe you have! It’s a very pretty frock, Lucinda. No,
but really it is!”
“It’s an old friend—and my only one. So let’s speak no evil of it.” Yet
she did speak evil of the poor frock; she whispered, “Oh, how I hate
it, hate it, this old frock!” She gave a little laugh. “If it came my
way, I wonder whether I could resist splendor! Guilty splendor!”
“Didn’t poor old Waldo present himself to you—oddly, I must say—rather
in that light? And you resisted!”
“I’ve changed. You’re talking to a different woman—different from
the girl I’ve been boring you about. The girl I’ve been boring you
about wouldn’t—couldn’t—marry Waldo with Arsenio there; I—the I that
am—could and, I think, would.”
“Because of your old friend here?” I touched lightly the sleeve of her
gown.
“For what it has meant, and does mean—oh, and for itself too! I’m no
heroine. Primitive women love finery too.”
Her face was untouched by time, or struggle, or disillusion. Her
eyes were as they always had been, clear, calm, introspective. Only
her figure was more womanly, though still slim; she had not Nina’s
statuesque quality. But the soul within was changed, it seemed. This
train of thought brought me to an abrupt question: “No child, Lucinda?”
“There was to have been. I fell ill, and——It was one of the times when
our luck was out. Arsenio made nothing for months. We soon spent what
Number 21 brought us.”
“You don’t mean to say that you were—in want? At that time!”
“Yes. Well, I can’t learn all lessons, but I can learn some. I’ve a
trade of my own now.”
I confess that I yielded for a moment to a horrible suspicion—an idea
that seemed to make my blood stop. I did not touch her arm this time; I
clasped it roughly. I did not speak.
“Oh, no,” she said with a little laugh. “But thank you, dear old
Julius. I see that you’d have cared, that you’d have cared very much.
Because I shall have a bruise there—and for your sake I’ll kiss it.
I’ve neglected my work for your sake—or my pleasure—these last three
days. But I work for Madame—well, shall we say Madame Chose?—because
I don’t want you to go and criticize my handiwork in the window. I
embroider _lingerie_, Julius—chemises and pants. There’s a demand
for such things—yes, even now, on this coast. I was always a good
needlewoman. I used to mend all my things. Do you remember that on one
occasion I was mending my gloves?”
“But Arsenio?”
“Arsenio pursues Dame Fortune. Sometimes he catches her for a moment,
and she pays ransom. She buys herself off—she will not be permanently
his. She’s very elusive. A light-o’-love! Like me? No, but I’m not.”
She leant forward to me, with a sudden amused gurgle of laughter. “But,
you know, he’s as brave as a lion. He was dying to fight from the
beginning. Only he didn’t know whom to fight for, poor boy! He wanted
to fight for Germany because she’s monarchical, and against her because
she’s heavy and stupid and rigid and cruel—and mainly Protestant!—and
against France because she’s republican and atheistical—oh, no
less!—but for her because she’s chivalrous, and dashing, and—well, the
_panache_, you know! He was in a very difficult position, poor dear
Arsenio, till Italy came in; and even then he had his doubts, because
Austria’s clerical! However, Italy it is!”
“Didn’t England appeal to him?”
“For England, monsieur, Don Arsenio has now an illimitable scorn.”
“The devil he has!” said I softly.
She laughed again at that, and something of her gayety still
illuminated her face as she gave me a warning. “I’ve told you nearly
all my secrets—all I’m going to tell! If any of them get to that
deplorable England, to that damp, dripping and doleful Devonshire
(the epithets are Arsenio’s!) I’ll cut you dead. And if they get
to—Briarmount—I’ll kill you!”
“I’ll say that you live in a palace, with seven attendant princes, and
seventy-seven handmaids!”
“Yes!” she agreed gleefully. “Who’s that woman looking for?”
The woman in question was a stout person in a sort of official uniform.
Her eyes traveled over the few guests at the little restaurant; in
her hand she held a blue envelope. “She’s looking for me. She’s been
sent on from my hotel, depend upon it,” I said, with a queer sense of
annoyance. I, who had been fuming because my instructions did not come!
I was right. The woman gave me the envelope and took my receipt. I
made a rapid examination of my package. “I must be off early to-morrow
morning,” I said to Lucinda.
She did say, “I’m sorry,” but without any sign of emotion. And the
next moment she added, “Because you’ll just miss Arsenio. He arrives
to-morrow evening—to pay me a visit.”
“I think I’m rather glad to miss Arsenio,” I remarked frankly. “Oh, not
because he ran away with you, and made fools of us all that day, but
because of what you’ve been telling me just now.”
“If you liked him before, you’d like him still. He hasn’t changed a
bit, he’s just as he always was—very attractive in his good and gay
moods, very naughty and perverse in his bad ones. Yes, just the same.
And that’s what makes it so unfair in me to—to feel as I do about him
now. That’s one of the difficult things about love, isn’t it? And
marriage. The other person may go on being just what he was—what you
knew he was; but you may change yourself, and so not like him any
more—at least, not be content; because there’s a lot about Arsenio
that I still like.” Her eyes now wore their most self-examining,
introspective look.
She pushed her chair back from the table. “It’s late, and you’ve got to
start early. And I must be early and long at work, to make up for lost
time—if it’s not rude to call it that.”
I raised my glass. “Then—to our next meeting!”
“When will that be, I wonder!”
“Heaven knows! I roam up and down the earth, like the Enemy of Mankind.
But, after all, in these days to be on the earth and not under it, is
something. And you, Lucinda?”
“I suppose I shall stay here—with Madame—Chose. War or no war, ladies
must have _lingerie_, mustn’t they?”
“It seems a—well, a drab sort of life!”
“Well—yes,” said Lucinda. “But one of us must earn some money, you see.
Even if I were that sort of person—and I don’t think I am—I couldn’t
afford to do anything useful or heroic. The pay for that isn’t high
enough.”
I walked to her house with her, according to our custom—now of three
days’ standing. As we went, I was summoning up courage for a venture.
When we reached the door I said, “May I let you know from time to
time—whenever it’s possible—where I am? So that, if you were in—if real
occasion arose, you could write to me and——?”
“Yes, I shall like to hear from you. But I probably shan’t
answer—unless I’ve something different to tell you—different from
Madame Chose—and better.”
“But if it were—worse?”
“I couldn’t take money from you, if that’s what you mean. Oh, it’s not
your fault, it’s nothing in you yourself. But you’re a Rillington.”
“Isn’t that, again, rather fanciful?”
“You seem to call all my deepest instincts fanciful!” she protested,
smiling. “But that one’s very deep. Goodness, I could almost as soon
conceive of myself accepting Nina Frost’s cast-off frocks!”
We smiled together over that monstrous freak of the imagination. And
so, still smiling, we parted—she to go back to Madame Chose and her
_lingerie_, I to my wanderings and nosing about. I did from time to
time send her an address that would probably find me; but, as her words
had foreshadowed, I got no answers. So it was still Madame Chose—or
worse? I had to suppose that; and I was sorrowful. She had been much
to blame, but somewhat to be pitied; the root feeling under which
she had in the end acted—fidelity to the man to whom she had first
belonged—might be primitive, as she herself suggested; it did not seem
to me ignoble. At all events, she had not in the end been worldly; she
had not sold herself. No, not yet.
For a while I thought a good deal about her; she had made a vivid
impression on me in those three days; her face haunted my eyes
sometimes. But—well, we were all very busy; there was a lot to think
about—plenty of food both for thought and for emotion, immediate
interests too strong for memories and speculations to fight against.
The echo of her voice was drowned by the clamor of war. The vision of
her face faded.