W HEN Michael came into the dining-room after he had left Lily,
his mother said: “Dearest boy, what have you been doing? Your
eyes are shining like stars.”
Here was the opportunity to tell her about Lily, but Michael could not
avail himself of it. These last two days seemed as yet too incomplete
for revelation. Somehow he felt that he was creating a work of art, and
that to tell his mother of conception or progress would be to spoil the
perfection of his impulse. There was only one person on earth to whom
he could confide this cataclysmic experience, and that was Alan. He and
Alan had dreamed enough together in the past to make him unashamed to
announce at last his foothold on reality. But supposing Alan were to
laugh, as he had laughed over the absurdity of Kathleen? Such a
reception of his news would ruin their friendship; and yet if their
friendship could not endure the tale of true love, was it not already
ruined? He must tell Alan, at whatever cost. And where should he tell
him? Such a secret must not be lightly entrusted. Time and place must
come harmoniously, befalling with that rare felicity which salutes the
inevitable hours of a human life.
“Mother,” said Michael, “would you mind if I stayed the night over at
Richmond?”
“To-night?” Mrs. Fane echoed in astonishment.
“Well, perhaps not to-night,” conceded Michael unwillingly. “But
to-morrow night?”
“To-morrow night by all means,” Mrs. Fane agreed.
“Nothing has happened?” she asked anxiously. “You seem so flushed and
strange.”
“I’m just the same as usual,” Michael declared. “It’s hot in this room.
I think I’ll take a short walk.”
“But you’ve been out all the afternoon,” Mrs. Fane protested.
“Oh, well, I’ve nothing to do at home.”
“You’re not feverish?”
“No, no, mother,” Michael affirmed, disengaging his parched hand from
her solicitous touch. “But you know I often feel restless.”
She released him, tenderly smiling; and for one moment he nearly threw
himself down beside her, covetous of childhood’s petting. But the
impulse spent itself before he acted upon it, and soon he was wandering
towards Trelawny Road. How empty the corner of it looked, how stark and
melancholy soared the grey houses guarding its consecrated entrance,
how solitary shone the lamp-posts, and how sadly echoed the footsteps
of people going home. Yet only three hours ago they had met on this
very flagstone that must almost have palpitated to the pressure of her
shoes.
Michael walked on until he stood opposite her house. There was
a light in the bay-window by the front door; perhaps she would
come out to post a letter. O breathless thought! Surely he
heard the sound of a turning handle. Ah, why had he not begged
her to draw aside the blind at a fixed time that he could be
cured of his longing by the vision of her darling form against
the pane? How bitter was the irony of her sitting behind that
brooding window-pane, unconscious of him. Two days must crawl
past before she would meet him again, before he would touch her
hand, look actually into her eyes, watch every quiver and curve
of her mouth. Places would be enriched with the sight of her,
while he ached with the torment of love. School must drag
through ten intolerable hours; he must chatter with
people unaware of her; and she must live two days apart from
his life, two days whose irresponsible minutes and loveless
occupations made him burn with jealousy of time itself.
Suddenly the door of Lily’s house opened, and Michael felt the blood
course through his body, flooding his heart, swaying his very soul.
There was a voice in the glimmering hall, but not her voice. Nor was it
her form that hurried down the steps. It was only the infinitely
fortunate maidservant whose progress to the letter-box he watched with
a sickening disappointment. There went one who every day could see
Lily. Every morning she was privileged to wake her from her rose-fired
sleep. Every night she could gossip with her outside the magical door
of her room. Lily must sometimes descend into the kitchen, and there
they must talk. And yet the idiotic creature was staring curiously at
some unutterably dull policeman, and wasting moments she did not
appreciate. Then a leaping thought came to Michael, that if she wasted
enough time Lily might look round the front-door in search of her. But
too soon for such an event the maidservant pattered back; the door
slammed; and only the window-panes of dull gold brooded immutably. How
long before Lily went up to bed? And did she sleep in a room that
fronted the road? Michael could bear it no longer and turned away from
the exasperation of her withheld presence; and he made up his mind that
he must know every detail of her daily life before he again came
sighing ineffectively like this in the night-time.
Michael was vexed to find that he could not even conjure Lily
to his side in sleep, but that even there he must be surrounded
by the tiresome people of ordinary life. However, there was
always a delicious moment, just before he lost complete
consciousness, when the image of her dissolved and materialized
elusively above the nebulous confines of semi-reality; while
always at the very instant of awakening he
was aware of her moth-winged kisses trembling upon the first
liquid flash of daylight.
In the ‘quarter’ Michael suggested to Alan that he should come back to
Richmond with him, and when Alan looked a little astonished at this
Monday night proposal, he explained that he had a lot to talk over.
“I nearly came over at nine o’clock last night,” Michael announced.
Alan seemed to realize that it must indeed be something of importance
and could scarcely wait for the time when they should be fast alone and
primed for confidences.
After dinner Michael proposed a walk up Richmond Hill, and without any
appearance of strategy managed to persuade Alan to rest awhile on one
of the seats along the Terrace. In this late autumnal time there was no
view of the Thames gleaming beneath the sorcery of a summer night.
There was nothing now but a vast airiness of mist damascening the
blades of light with which the street-lamps pierced the darkness.
“Pretty wet,” said Alan distastefully patting the seat.
“We needn’t stay long, but it’s rather ripping, don’t you think?”
Michael urged. “Alan, do you remember once we sat here on a night
before exams at the end of a summer term?”
“Yes, but it was a jolly sight warmer than it is now,” said Alan.
“I know. We were in ‘whites,’” said Michael pensively. “Alan,
I’m in love. I am really. You mustn’t laugh. I was a fool over
that first girl, but now I am in love. Alan, she’s only
seventeen, and she has hair the colour of that rather thick
honey you get at chemists. Only it isn’t thick, but as foamy as
a lemon-sponge. And her mouth is truly a bow and her voice is
gloriously deep and exciting, and her eyes are the most
extraordinary blue—as blue as ink in a bottle when you hold it
up to the light—and her
chin is in two pieces rather like yours, and her
ankles—well—her ankles are absolutely divine. The
extraordinary luck is that she loves me, and I want you to
meet her. I’m describing her very accurately like this because
I don’t want you to think I’m raving or quoting poetry. You
see, you don’t appreciate poetry, or I could describe her much
better.”
“I do appreciate poetry,” protested Alan.
“Oh, I know you like Kipling and Adam Lindsay Gordon, but I mean real
poetry. Well, I’m not going to argue about that. But, Alan, you must be
sympathetic and believe that I really am in love. She has a sister
called Doris. I haven’t met her yet, but she’s sure to be lovely, and I
think you ought to fall in love with her. Now wouldn’t that be
splendid? Alan, you do believe I’m in love this time?”
Michael paused anxiously.
“I suppose you must be,” said Alan slowly.
“And you’re glad?” asked Michael a little wistfully.
“What’s going to happen?” Alan wondered.
“Well, of course not much can happen just now. Not much can happen
while one is still at school,” Michael went on. “But don’t let’s talk
about what is going to be. Let’s talk about what is now.”
Alan looked at him reproachfully.
“You used to enjoy talking about the future.”
“Because it used always to be more interesting,” Michael explained.
Alan rose from the seat and taking Michael’s arm drew him down the
hill.
“And will you come and meet her sister?” Michael asked.
“I expect so,” said Alan.
“Hurrah!” cried the lover.
“I suppose this means the end of football, the end of cricket,
in fact the end of school as far as you’re concerned,” Alan
complained. “I wish you’d waited a little.”
“I told you I was years older than you,” Michael pointed out,
involuntarily making excuses.
“Only because you would encourage yourself to think so. Well, I hope
everything will go well. I hope you won’t take it into your head to
think you’ve got to marry her immediately, or any rot like that.”
“Don’t be an ass,” said Michael.
“Well, you’re such an impulsive devil. By Jove, the fellow that first
called you ‘Bangs’ was a bit of a spotter.”
“It was Abercrombie,” Michael reminded him.
“I should think that was the only clever thing he ever did in his
life,” said Alan.
“Why, I thought you considered him no end of a good man.”
“He was a good forward and a good deep field,” Alan granted. “But that
doesn’t make him Shakespeare.”
Thence onwards war, or rather sport the schoolboys’ substitute, ousted
love from the conversation, and very soon solo whist with Mr. and Mrs.
Merivale disposed of both.
On Tuesday night Michael in a fever of enthusiasm for Wednesday’s
approach wrote a letter to Stella.
64 CARLINGTON ROAD ,
_October_ , 1900.
_My dear Stella,_
_After this you needn’t grouse about my letters being dull,
and you can consider yourself jolly honoured because I’m
writing to tell you that I’m in love. Her name is Lily
Haden. Only, of course, please don’t go shouting this all
over Germany, and don’t write a gushing letter to mother,
who doesn’t know anything about it. I shouldn’t tell you if
you were in London, and don’t write back and tell me that
you’re in love with some long-haired dancing-master or
one-eyed banjo-player, because I_ know _now what love is,
and it’s nothing like what you think it is._
_Lily is fair—not just fair like a doll, but_ frightfully
_fair. In fact, her hair is like bubbling champagne, I met
her in Kensington Gardens. It was truly romantic, not a
silly, giggling, gone-on-a-girl sort of meeting. I hope
you’re getting on with your music. I shall introduce Lily
to you just before your first concert, and then if you
can’t play, well, you never will. You might write me a
letter and say what you think of my news. Not a gushing
letter, of course, but as sensible as you can make it._
_Your loving brother,_
_Michael._
Michael had meant to say much more to Stella, but ink and paper seemed
to violate the secluded airs in which Lily had her being. However,
Stella would understand by his writing at all that he was in deadly
earnest, and she was unearthly enough to supply what was missing from
his account.
Meanwhile to-morrow was Wednesday, the mate of Saturday and certainly
of all the days in the week his second favourite. Monday, of course,
was vile. Tuesday was colourless. Thursday was nearly as bad as Monday.
Friday was irksome and only a little less insipid than Tuesday. Sunday
had many disadvantages. Saturday was without doubt the best day, and
Wednesday was next best, for though it was not a half-holiday, as long
ago it had been at Randell House, still it had never quite lost its
suggestion of holiday. Wednesday—the very word said slowly had a rich
individuality. Wednesday—how promptly it sprang to the lips for any
occasion of festivity that did not require full-blown reckless
Saturday. Monday was dull red. Tuesday was cream-coloured. Thursday was
dingy purple. Friday was a harsh scarlet, but Wednesday was vivid
apple-green, or was it a clear cool blue? One or the other.
So, tantalizing himself by not allowing a single thought of
Lily while he was undressing, Michael achieved bed very
easily. Here all trivialities were dismissed, and like one who
falls asleep when a star is shining through his window-pane
Michael fell asleep, with Lily radiant above the horizon.
It was rather a disappointing Wednesday, for Lily said she could not
stay out more than a minute, since her mother was indoors and would
wonder what she was doing. However on Saturday she would see Michael
again, and announce to her mother that she was going to see him, so
that on Sunday Michael could be invited to tea.
“And then if mother likes you, why, you can often come in,” Lily
pointed out. “That is, if you want to.”
“Saturday,” sighed Michael.
“Well, don’t spoil the few minutes we’ve got by being miserable.”
“But I can’t kiss you.”
“Think how much nicer it will be when we can kiss,” said Lily
philosophically.
“I don’t believe you care a damn whether we kiss or not,” said Michael.
“Don’t I?” murmured Lily, quickly touching his hand and as quickly
withdrawing it to the prison of the muff.
“Ah, do you, Lily?” Michael throbbed out.
“Of course. Now I must go. Good-bye. Don’t forget Saturday in the
Gardens, where we met last time. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!” She was
running from him backwards, forbidding with a wave his sudden step
towards her. “No, if you dare to move, I shan’t meet you on Saturday.
Be good, be good.”
By her corner she paused, stood on tiptoe for one provocative instant,
blew a kiss, laughed her elfin laugh and vanished more swift than any
Ariel.
“Damn!” cried Michael sorely, and forthwith set out to walk
round West Kensington at five miles an hour, until his chagrin,
his disappointment and his heartsick emptiness
were conquered, or at any rate sufficiently humbled to make
him secure against unmanly tears.
When Saturday finally did arrive, Michael did not sit reading Verlaine,
but wandered from tree-trunk to tree-trunk like Orlando in despair.
Then Lily came at last sedately, and brought the good news that
to-morrow Michael should come to tea at her house.
“But where does your mother think we met?” he asked in perplexity.
“Oh, I told her it was in Kensington Gardens,” said Lily carelessly.
“But doesn’t she think I must be an awful bounder?”
“Why, you silly, I told her you were at St. James’ School.”
“But I never told you I was at school,” exclaimed Michael, somewhat
aghast.
“I know you didn’t, and you never told me that you weren’t eighteen
yet.”
“I am in a month or two,” said Michael. “But, good Lord, who have you
been talking to?”
“Ah, that’s the greatest secret in the world,” laughed Lily.
“Oh, no, do tell me.”
“Well, I know a boy called Drake who knows you.”
“That beast!” cried Michael.
“I think he’s quite a nice boy. He lives next door to us and——”
Michael kicked angrily the dead leaves lying about his feet, and almost
choked with astonished fury.
“Why, my dear girl, he’s absolutely barred. He’s as unpopular as
anybody I know. I hope you won’t discuss me with that hulking brute.
What the deuce right has he got to tell you anything about me?”
“Because I asked him, and you needn’t look so enraged, because
if you want to know why you’re coming to tea, it’s because I
asked Arthur——”
“Who’s Arthur?” growled Michael.
“Arthur Drake.”
“Go on,” said Michael icily.
“I shan’t go on, if you look like that.”
“I can’t help how I look. I don’t carry a glass round with me,” said
Michael. “So I suppose this worm Drake had the cheek to tell your
mother I was all right. Drake! Wait till I see the brute on Monday
morning.”
“Well, if you take my advice,” said Lily, “you’ll be nice to him,
because he’s supposed to have introduced us.”
“What lies! What lies!” Michael stamped.
“You told me a lie about your age,” Lily retorted. “And I’ve told
mother a lie on your account, so you needn’t be so particular. And if
you think you’re going to make me cry, you’re not.”
She sat down on a seat and looked out at the bare woodland with sullen
eyes.
“Has Drake ever dared to make love to you?” demanded Michael.
“That’s my business,” said Lily. “You’ve no right to ask me questions
like that.”
Michael looked at her so adorable even now, and suddenly throwing his
dignity to the dead leaves, he sat close beside her caressingly.
“Darling Lily,” he whispered, “it was my fault. I lied first. I don’t
care how much you talked about me. I don’t care about anything but you.
I’ll even say Drake is a decent chap—though he really isn’t even
moderately decent. Lily, we had such a rotten Wednesday, and to-day
ought to be perfect. Will you forgive me? Will you?”
And the quarrel was over.
“But you don’t care anything about Drake?” Michael asked, when half an
hour had dreamed itself away.
“Of course not,” she reassured him. “Arthur likes Doris better
than me.”
“But he mustn’t like Doris,” said Michael eagerly. “At least she
mustn’t like him. Because I’ve got a friend—at least three million
times as decent as Drake—who wants to be in love with Doris, or rather
he will want to be when he sees her.”
“Why, you haven’t seen Doris yourself yet,” laughed Lily.
“Oh, of course my plan may all come to nothing,” Michael admitted. “But
look here, I vote we don’t bother about anybody else in the world but
ourselves for the rest of the afternoon.”
Nor did they.
“Shall I wear a top-hat to-morrow?” Michael asked even in the very
poignancy of farewell. “I mean—will your mother prefer it?”
“Oh, no, the people who come to tea with us on Sunday are mostly
artists and actors,” decided Lily judicially.
“Do lots of people come then?” asked Michael, quickly jealous.
“A good many.”
“I might as well have fallen in love with one of the Royal Family,”
sighed Michael in despair.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I never can see you alone,” he declared.
“Why, we’ve had the whole of this afternoon,” she told him.
“Do you call sitting in the middle of Kensington Gardens being alone?
Why, it was crammed with people,” he ejaculated in disgust.
“I must go, I must go, I must go,” Lily whispered and almost seemed to
be preening her wings in the lamplight before she flew away.
“I say, what number is Drake’s house?” Michael asked, with a consummate
affectation of casual enquiry.
She told him laughingly, and in a most malicious hurry
would not even linger a moment to ask him why he wanted to
know. Coldly and deliberately Michael after dinner rang the
bell of Drake’s house.
“Is—er—Master Arthur at home?” he asked the maid.
“Master Arthur,” she cried. “Someone to see you.”
“Hullo, Bangs,” shouted Drake, emerging effusively from a doorway.
“Oh, hullo,” said Michael loftily. “I thought I’d call to see if you
felt like coming out.”
“Right-o,” said Drake. “Wait half a tick while I tell my mater. Come
in, and meet my people.”
“Oh, no,” said Michael. “I’m beastly untidy.”
He would condescend to Drake for the sake of his love, but he did not
think that love demanded the sacrifice of condescending to a possibly
more expansive acquaintance with Drake’s family.
“So you’ve met the fair Lily,” Drake said, as they strolled along.
“Pretty smart, what, my boy?”
“I’m going to tea with them to-morrow,” Michael informed him.
“Mrs. Haden’s a bit thick,” said Drake confidentially. “And Doris is of
a very coming-on disposition.”
Michael thought of Alan and sighed; then he thought of himself
listening to this and he was humiliated.
“But Lily is a bit stand-offish,” said Drake. “Of course I never could
stand very fair girls, myself. I say, talking of girls, there’s a girl
in Sherringham Road, well—she’s an actress’s French maid, as a matter
of fact, but, my gad, if you like cayenne, you ought to come along with
me, and I’ll introduce you. She’ll be alone now. Are you on?”
“Oh, thanks very much,” said Michael. “But I must get back. Good-night,
Drake.”
“Well, you’re a nice chap to ask a fellow to come out. Come on, don’t
be an ass. Her name’s Marie.”
“I don’t care if her name’s Marie or Mabel or what it is,”
Michael declared in exasperation. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go
home. Thanks for coming out.”
He turned abruptly and walked off, leaving Drake to apostrophize his
eccentricity and seek consolation with Marie.
On Sunday afternoon Michael, torn between a desire to arrive before the
crowd of artists and actors who thronged the house and an unwillingness
to obtrude upon the Sabbath lethargy of half-past three o’clock, set
out with beating heart to invade Lily’s home. Love made him reckless
and luck rewarded him, for when he enquired for Mrs. Haden the maid
told him that only Miss Lily was in.
“Who shall I say?” she asked.
“Mr. Fane.”
“Step this way, please. Miss Lily’s down in the morning-room.”
And this so brief and so bald a colloquy danced in letters of fire
across the darkling descent of the enclosed stairs down to the
ground-floor.
“Someone to see you, Miss Lily.”
Not Iris could have delivered a richer message.
Deep in a wicker chair by a dull red fire sat Lily with open book upon
her delicate dress of lavender. The door closed; the daylight of the
grey October afternoon seemed already to have fled this room. Dusky in
a corner stood a great dolls’ house, somewhat sad like a real house
that has been left long untenanted.
“Well, now we’re alone enough,” murmured Lily.
He knelt beside her chair and let his head fall upon her silken
shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re in your own room,” Michael sighed in answer.
Outside, a muffin-man went ringing through the sombre Sabbath
chill; and sometimes, disturbing the monotonous railings above
the area, absurd legs were seen hurrying to
their social tasks. No other sign was given of a life that
went on unaware of these two on whom time showered twenty
golden minutes.
“Mother and Doris will be back at four,” Lily said. “Is my face
flushed?”
Fresh carnations would have seemed faded near her, when she looked at
Michael for an answer.
“Only very slightly,” he reassured her.
“Come up to the drawing-room,” she commanded.
“Can I look at your dolls’ house?” Michael asked.
“That old thing,” said Lily scornfully.
Reverently he pulled aside the front of the battered dwelling-place,
and saw the minute furniture higgledy-piggledy.
“I wonder if anyone has ever thought of burning an old dolls’ house,”
said Michael thoughtfully. “It would be rather a rag. I’ve got an old
toy fire-engine somewhere at home.”
“You baby,” said Lily.
“Well, it depresses me to see that dolls’ house all disused and upside
down and no good any more. My kiddy sister gave hers to a hospital.
What a pity I never thought of burning that,” sighed Michael
regretfully. “I say, some time we must explore this room. It reminds me
of all sorts of things.”
“What sort of things?” asked Lily indifferently.
“Oh, being a kid.”
“Well, I don’t want to be reminded of that,” said Lily. “I wish I was
older than I am.”
“Oh, so do I,” said Michael. “I don’t want to be a kid again.”
Upstairs in the drawing-room it was still fairly light, but the
backs of the grey houses opposite and the groups of ghostly
trees that filmed the leaden air seemed to call for curtains to
be drawn across the contemplation of their
melancholy. Yet before they sat down by the crackling fire,
Michael and Lily stood with their cheeks against the cold
window-panes in a luxury of bodeful silence.
“No, you’re not to sit so close now,” Lily ordained, when by a joint
impulse they turned to inhabit the room in which they had been
standing. Michael saw a large photograph album and seized it.
“No, you’re not to look in that,” Lily cried.
“Why not?” he asked, holding it high above his head.
“Because I don’t want you to,” said Lily. “Put it down.”
“I want to see if there are any photographs of you when you were a
kid.”
“Well, I don’t want you to see them,” Lily persisted.
In the middle of a struggle for possession of the album, Mrs. Haden and
Doris came in, and Michael felt rather foolish.
“What a dreadfully noisy girl you are, Lily,” said Mrs. Haden. “And is
this your friend Mr. Fane? How d’ye do?”
“I’m afraid it was my fault,” said Michael. “I was trying to bag the
photograph album.”
“Oh, Lily hates anyone to see that picture of her,” Doris interposed.
“She’s so conceited, and just because——”
“Shut up, you beast,” cried Lily.
“Her legs——”
“Doris!” interposed Mrs. Haden. “You must remember you’re grown up
now.”
“Mother, can’t I burn the photograph?” said Lily.
“No, she’s not to, mother,” Doris interrupted. “She’s not to, is she?
You jealous thing. You’d love to burn it because it’s good of me.”
“Well, really,” said Mrs. Haden, “what Mr. Fane can be thinking
of you two girls, I shouldn’t like to guess.”
The quarrel over the album died down as easily as it had begun, and the
entrance of the tea adjusted the conversation to a less excited plane.
Mrs. Haden was a woman whom Michael could not help liking for her open
breezy manner and a certain large-handed toleration which suited her
loud deep voice. But he was inclined to deprecate her obviously dyed
hair and the plentifulness of pink powder; nor could he at first detect
in her any likeness to Lily who, though Mrs. Haden persistently
reproached her as a noisy girl, stood for Michael as the slim
embodiment of a subtle and easy tranquillity. Gradually, however,
during the afternoon he perceived slight resemblances between the
mother and daughter that showed them vaguely alike, as much alike at
any rate as an elk and a roedeer.
Doris Haden was much less fair than Lily, though she could only have
been called dark in comparison with her sister. She had a high
complexion, wide almond-shaped eyes of a very mutable hazel, and a
ripe, sanguine mouth. She was dressed in a coat and skirt of
crushed-strawberry frieze, whose cool folds seemed to enhance her
slightly exotic air. Michael could not help doubting whether she and
Alan were perfectly suited to one another. He could not imagine that
she would not care for him, but he wondered about Alan’s feelings; and
Drake’s overnight description stuck unpleasantly in his mind with a
sensation of disloyalty to Lily whose sister after all Doris was.
They were not left very long without visitors, for one by one
young men came in with a self-possession and an assumption of
familiarity that Michael resented very much, and all the more
deeply because he felt himself at a disadvantage. He wondered
if Lily were despising him, and wished that she would not catch
hold of these detestable young men by the lapels of their
coats, or submit to their throaty persiflage. Once when the
most absolutely self-possessed of all,
a tall thin creature with black fuzzy hair and stilted joints,
pulled Lily on to his knee to talk to him, Michael nearly
dived through the window in a fury of resentment.
All these young men seemed to him to revel in their bad taste, and
their conversation, half-theatrical, half-artistic, was of a character
that he could not enter into. Mrs. Haden’s loud laugh rang out over the
clatter of tea-cups; Doris walked about the room smoking a cigarette
and humming songs; Lily moved from group to group with a nonchalance
that seriously perturbed Michael, who retired more and more deeply
behind a spreading palm in the darkest corner of the room. Yet he could
not tear himself away from the fascination of watching Lily’s grace; he
could not surrender her to these marionettes of vulgar fashion; he
could not go coldly out into the Sabbath night without the consolation
of first hustling these intruders before him.
The afternoon drew on to real dusk; the gas was lighted; songs
were sung and music was played. All these young men seemed
accomplished performers of insignificant arts. Mrs. Haden
recited, and in this drawing-room her heightened air and
accentuated voice made Michael blush. Doris went upstairs for a
moment and presently came down in a Spanish dancing-dress, in
which she swayed about and rattled castanets and banged a
tambourine, while the young men sat round and applauded through
the smoke of their cigarettes. These cigarettes began to affect
Michael’s nerves. Wherever he looked he could see their
flattened corpses occupying nooks. They were in the
flower-pots; they littered the grate; they were strewn on brass
ash-trays; and even here and there on uninflammable and level
spots they stood up like little rakish mummies slowly and
acridly cremating themselves. Michael wondered uneasily what
Lily was going to do to entertain these voracious listeners. He
hoped she would not debase her beauty by
dancing on the hearthrug like her sister. In the end, Lily was
persuaded to sing, and her voice very low and sweet singing
some bygone coon song, was tremendously applauded.
Supper-time drew on, and at last the parlour-maid came in and enquired
with a martyred air how many she should lay for.
“You must all stay to supper,” cried Mrs. Haden in deafening
hospitality. “Everybody. Mr. Fane, you’ll stay, won’t you?”
“Oh, thanks very much,” said Michael shyly, and wished that these
confounded young men would not all look at him as if they had perceived
him suddenly for the first time. Everybody seemed as a matter of course
to help to get supper ready, and Michael found himself being bumped
about and handed plates and knives and glasses and salad-bowls. Even at
supper he found himself as far as it was possible to be from Lily, and
he thought that never in his life had food tasted so absolutely of
nothing. But the evening came to an end, and Michael was consoled for
his purgatory by Mrs. Haden’s invitation to call whenever he liked. In
the hall too Lily came out to see him off, and he besought her
anxiously to assure him truthfully that to all these young men she was
indifferent.
“Of course, I don’t care for any of them. Why, you silly, they all
think I’m still a little girl.”
Then since a friendly draught had closed the drawing-room door, she
kissed him; and he forgot all that had happened before, and sailed home
on thoughts that carried him high above the iron-bound sadness of the
Sunday night.
Some time early in the week came a letter from Stella in answer
to his, and when Michael read it he wished that Stella would
come home, since only she seemed to appreciate what love meant.
Yet Stella was even younger than Lily.
S TUTTGART ,
_Sunday_ .
_Darling Michael_ ,
_I’m writing a sonata about Lily. It’s not very good
unfortunately, so you’ll never be able to hear it. But
after all, as you don’t understand music, perhaps I will
let you hear it. I wish you had told me more about Lily. I
think she’s lucky. You must be simply a perfect person to
be in love with. Most boys are so silly. That’s why only
men of at_ _least thirty attract me. But of course if I
could find someone younger who would be content to love me
and not mind whether I loved him, I should prefer that. You
say I don’t know what love is. How silly you are, Michael.
Now_ isn’t _it thrilling to take Lily’s hand? I_ do _know
what love is. But don’t look shocked, because if you can
still look shocked, you don’t know what love is. Don’t
forget I’m seventeen next month, and don’t forget I’m a
girl as well as Lily. Lily is a good name for her, if she
is very fair. I expect she really has cendré hair. I hope
she’s rather tall and delicate-looking. I hope she’s a
violin sort of girl, or like those notes half-way up the
treble. It must have been perfect when you met her. I can
just imagine you, especially if you like October as much as
I do. Did the leaves come falling down all round you, when
you kissed her? Oh, Michael, it must have been enchanting.
I want to come back soon, soon, soon, and see this Lily of
yours. Will she like me? Is she fond of music?_
_I must have my first concert next summer. Mother must_ not
_put me off. Why doesn’t she let me come home now? There’s
some reason for it, I believe. Thank goodness, you’ll have
left school soon. You must be sick of it, especially since
you’ve fallen in love_ .
_I think of you meeting Lily when I play Schumann, and when
I play Chopin I think of you walking about underneath her
window, and when I play Beethoven I think of you kissing
her_ .
_Darling Michael, I love you more than ever. Be interested
in me still, because I’m not interested in anybody but you,
except, of course, myself and my music_ .
_Oh, do bring Lily to my first concert, and I’ll see you
two alone of all the people in the Hall and play you so
close together that you’ll nearly faint. Now you think I’m
gushing, I suppose, so I’ll shut up_ .
_With a most tremendous amount of love_ ,
_Your delightful sister_ ,
_Stella_ .
“I wonder if she ought to write like that,” said Michael to himself.
“Oh, well, I don’t see why she shouldn’t.”
Certainly as one grew older a sister became a most valuable
property.