Nadine enquired at Hugh's door again that night before she went to bed,
and found that he was still asleep. She had promised her mother not to
sit up, but as she undressed she almost smiled at the uselessness of
going to bed, so impossible did it seem that sleep should come near her.
After her one outburst of crying, she had felt no further agitation, for
something so big and so quiet had entered her heart that all poignancy
of anxiety and suspense were powerless to disturb it. As has been said,
it was scarcely even whether Hugh lived or died that mattered: the only
thing that mattered was Hugh. Had she been compelled to say whether she
believed he would live or not, she would have given the negative. And
yet there was a quality of peace in her that could not be shaken. It was
a peace that humbled and exalted her. It wrapped her round very close,
and yet she looked up to it, as to a mountain-peak on which dawn has
broken.
Despite her conviction that sleep was impossible, she had hardly closed
her eyes, when it embraced and swallowed up all her consciousness. This
cyclone of emotion, in the center of which dwelt the windless calm, had
utterly tired her out, though she was unaware of fatigue, and her rest
was dreamless. Then suddenly she was aware that there was light in the
room, and that she was being spoken to, and she passed from
unconsciousness back to the full possession of her faculties, as swiftly
as they had been surrendered. She found Dodo bending over her.
"Come, my darling," she said.
Nadine had no need to ask any question, but as she put on her slippers
and dressing-gown Dodo spoke again.
"He has been awake for an hour and asking for you," she said. "The nurse
and the doctor are with him: they think you had better come. It is
possible that if he sees you there, he may go off to sleep again. But it
is possible--you are not afraid, darling?"
Nadine's mouth quivered into something very like a smile.
"Afraid of Hughie?" she asked.
They went up the stairs, and along the passage together. The moon that
last night had been hidden by the tempest of storm-clouds, or perhaps
blown away from the sky by the wind, now rode high and cloudlessly amid
a multitude of stars. No wind moved across those ample floors: only from
the beach they heard the plunge and thunder of the sea that could not so
easily resume its tranquillity. The moonlight came through the window of
Hugh's room also, making on the floor a shadow-map of the bars.
He was lying again with his face towards the door, but now his eyes were
vacantly open, and his whole face had changed. There was an agony of
weariness over it, and from his eyes there looked out a dumb,
unavailing rebellion. Before they had got to the door they had heard a
voice inside speaking, a voice that Nadine did not recognize. It kept
saying over and over again, "Nadine, Nadine."
As she came across the room to the bed, he looked straight at her, but
it was clear he did not see her, and the monotonous, unrecognizable
voice went on saying, "Nadine, Nadine."
The doctor was standing by the head of the bed, looking intently at
Hugh, but doing nothing: the nurse was at the foot.
He signed to Nadine to come, and took a step towards her.
"You've got to make him feel you are here," he said. Then with his hand
he beckoned to the nurse and to Dodo, to stand out of sight of Hugh, so
that by chance he might think himself alone with the girl.
Nadine knelt down on the floor, so that her face was close to those
unseeing eyes, and the mouth that babbled her name. And the great peace
was with her still. She spoke in her ordinary natural voice without
tremor.
"Yes, Hughie, yes," she said. "Don't go on calling me. Here I am. What's
the use of calling now? I came as soon as I knew you wanted me."
"Nadine, Nadine," said Hughie, in the same unmeaning monotone.
"Hughie, you are quite idiotic!" she said. "As if you didn't know in
your own heart that I would always come when you wanted me. I always
would, my dear. You need never be afraid that I shall leave you. I am
yours, don't you see?"
"Nadine, Nadine," said Hugh.
Nadine's whole soul went into her words.
"Hughie, you are not with me yet," she said. "I want you, too, and I
mean to have you. I didn't know till to-day that I wanted you, and now I
can't do without you. Hughie, do you hear?" she said. "Oh, answer me,
Hughie dear!"
There was dead silence. Then Hugh gave a great sigh.
"Nadine!" he said. But it was Hugh's voice that spoke then.
She bent forward.
"Oh, Hughie, you have come then," she said. "Welcome; you don't know how
I wanted you!"
"Yes, I'm here all right," said Hugh in a voice scarcely audible. "But
I'm so tired. It's horrible; it's like death!"
Nadine gave her little croaking laugh.
"It isn't like anything of the kind," she said. "But of course you are
tired. Wouldn't it be a good thing to go to sleep?"
"I don't know," said Hugh.
"But I do. I'm tired too, Hughie, awfully tired. If I leaned my head
back against your bed I should go to sleep too."
"Nadine, it is you?" said Hugh.
"Oh, my dear! What other girl could be with you?"
"No, that's true. Nadine, would it bore you to stop with me a bit? We
might talk afterwards, when--when you've had a nap."
"That will be ripping," said Nadine, assuming a sleepy voice.
There was silence for a little. Then once again, but in his own voice,
Hugh spoke her name. This time she did not answer, and she felt his hand
move till it rested against her plaited hair.
Then in the silence Nadine became conscious of another noise regular and
slow as the faint hoarse thunder of the sea, the sound of quiet
breathing. After a while the doctor came round the head of the bed.
"We can manage to wrap you up, and make you fairly comfortable," he
whispered. "I think he has a better chance of sleeping if you stop
there."
The light and radiance in Nadine's eyes were a miracle of beauty, like
some enchanted dawn rising over a virgin and unknown land. She smiled
her unmistakable answer, but did not speak, and presently Dodo returned
with pillows and blankets, which she spread over her and folded round
her.
"The nurse will be in the next room," said the doctor; "call her if
anything is wanted."
Dodo and the doctor went back to their rooms, and Nadine was left alone
with Hugh. That night was the birthnight and the bridal-night of her
soul: there was it born, and through the long hours of the winter night
it watched beside its lover and its beloved, in that stillness of
surrender to and absorption in another, that lies beyond and above the
unrest of passion amid the snows and sunshine of the uttermost regions
to which the human spirit can aspire. She knew nothing of the passing of
the hours, nor for a long time did any thought or desire of sleep come
near her eyelids, but the dim room became to her the golden island of
which once in uncomprehending mockery she had spoken to Hugh. She knew
it to be golden now, and so far from being unreal, there was nothing in
her experience so real as it.
She could just turn her head without disturbing Hugh's hand that lay on
her plaited hair, and from time to time she looked round at him. His
face still wore the sunken pallor of exhaustion, but as his sleep, so
still and even-breathing, began to restore the low-ebb of his vital
force, it seemed to Nadine that the darkness of the valley of the
shadow, to the entrance of which he had been so near, cleared off his
face as eclipse passes from the moon. How near he had been, she guessed,
but it seemed to her that for the present his face was set the other
way. She knew, too, that it was she who had had the power to make him
look life-wards again, and the knowledge filled her with a sort of
abasing pride. He had answered to her voice when he was past all other
voices, and had come back in obedience to it.
She did not and she could not yet be troubled with the thought of
anything else besides the fact that Hugh lived. As far as was known yet,
he might never recover his activity of movement again, and years of
crippled life were all that lay in front of him; but in the passing away
of the immediate imminent fear, she could not weigh or even consider
what that would mean. Similarly the thought of Seymour lay for the
present outside the focus of her mind: everything but the fact that Hugh
lived was blurred and had wavering outlines. As the hours went on the
oblongs of moonshine on the floor moved across the room, narrowing as
they went. Then the moon sank and the velvet of the cloudless sky grew
darker, and the stars more luminous. One great planet, tremulous and
twinkling, made a glory beside which all the lesser lights paled into
insignificance. No wind stirred in the great halls of the night, the
moans and yells of its unquiet soul were still, and the boom of the surf
grew ever less sonorous, like the thunder of a retreating storm.
Occasionally the night-nurse appeared at the doorway of the room
adjoining, where she sat, and as often Nadine looked up at her smiling.
Once, very softly, she came round the head of the bed, and looked at
Hugh, then bent down towards the girl.
"Won't you get some sleep?" she said, and Nadine made a little gesture
of raised eyebrows and parted hands that was characteristic of her.
"I don't know," she whispered. "Perhaps not. I don't want to."
Then her solitary night vigil began again, and it seemed to her that she
would not have bartered a minute of it for the best hour that her life
had known before. The utter peace and happiness of it grew as the night
went on, for still close to her head there came the regular
uninterrupted breathing, and the weight, just the weight of a hand
absolutely relaxed, lay on her hair. Not the faintest stir of movement
other than those regular respirations came from the bed, and all the
laughter and joy of which her days had been full was as the light of the
remotest of stars compared to the glorious planet that sang in the
windless sky, when weighed against the joy that that quiet breathing
gave her. She did not color her consciousness with hope, she did not
illuminate it by prayer; there was no room in her mind for anything
except the knowledge that Hugh slept and lived.
It was now near the dawning of the winter day; the stars were paling in
the sky, and the sky grew ensaffroned with the indescribable hue that
heralds day. Footfalls, muffled and remote, began to stir in the house,
and far away there came the sound of crowing cocks, faint but exultant,
hailing the dawn. About that time, Nadine looked round once more at
Hugh, and saw in the pallid light of morning that the change she had
noticed before was more distinct. There had come back to his face
something of the firm softness of youth, there had been withdrawn from
it the droop and hardness of exhaustion. And turning again, she gave one
sigh and fell fast asleep.
Lover and beloved they lay there sleeping, while the dawn brightened in
the sky, she leaning against the bed where he was stretched, he with his
hand on her hair. And strangely, the moment that she slept, their
positions seemed to be reversed, and Hugh in his sleep appeared
unconsciously to keep watch over and guard her, though all night she had
been awake for him. Once her head slipped an inch or two, so that his
hand no longer lay on her hair, but it seemed as if that movement
reached down to him fathom-deep in his slumber and immediately
afterwards his hand, which had lain so motionless and inert all night,
moved, as if to a magnet, after that bright hair, seeking and finding it
again. And dawn brightened into day, and the sun leaped up from his lair
in the East, and still Nadine slept, and Hugh slept. It was as if until
then the balance of vitality had kept the girl awake to pour into him of
her superabundance: now she was drained, and sleep with the level stroke
of his soft hand across the furrows of trouble and the jagged edges of
injury and exhaustion comforted both alike.
It had been arranged after these events of storm that the party should
disperse, and Dodo went to early breakfast downstairs with her departing
guests, who were leaving soon after. But first she went into the nurse's
room, next door to where Hugh lay, to make enquiries, and was taken by
her to look into the sick-room. With daylight their sleep seemed only to
have deepened: it was like the slumber of lovers who have been long
awake in passion of mutual surrender, and at the end have fallen asleep
like children, with mere effacement of consciousness. Nadine's head was
a little bowed forward, and her breath came not more evenly than his. It
was the sleep of childlike content that bound them both, and bound them
together.
Dodo looked long, and then with redoubled precaution moved softly into
the nurse's room again, with mouth quivering between smiles and tears.
"My dear, I never saw anything so perfectly sweet," she said. "Do let
them have their sleep out, nurse. And Nadine has slept in Hugh's room
all night. What ducks! Please God it shall so often happen again!"
Nurse Bryerley was not unsympathetic, but she felt that explanations
were needed.
"I understood the young lady was engaged to some one else," she said.
Dodo smiled.
"But until now no one has quite understood the young lady herself," she
said. "Least of all, has she understood herself. I think she will find
that she is less mysterious now."
"Mr. Graves will have to take some nourishment soon," said Nurse
Bryerley.
Dodo considered.
"Then could you not give him his nourishment very cautiously, so that he
will go to sleep again afterwards?" she asked. "I should like them to
sleep all day like that. But then, you see, nurse, I am a very odd
woman. But don't disturb them till you must. I think their souls are
getting to know each other. That may not be scientific nursing, but I
think it is sound nursing. It's too bad we can't eternalize such moments
of perfect equilibrium."
"Certainly the young lady was awake till nearly dawn," said Nurse
Bryerley. "It wouldn't hurt her to have a good rest."
Dodo beamed.
"Oh, leave them as long as possible," she said. "You have no idea how
it warms my heart. There will be trouble enough when they awake."
Seymour was among those who were going by the early train, and when Dodo
came down he had finished breakfast. He got up just as she entered.
"How is he?" he asked.
Dodo's warm approbation went out to him.
"It was nice of you to ask that first, dear Seymour," she said. "He is
asleep: he has slept all night."
Seymour lit a cigarette.
"I asked that first," he said, "because it was a mixture of politeness
and duty to do so. I suppose you understand."
Dodo took the young man by the arm.
"Come out and talk to me in the hall," she said. "Bring me a cup of
tea."
The morning sunshine flooded the window-seat by the door, and Dodo sat
down there for one moment's thought before he joined her. But she found
that no thought was necessary. She had absolutely made up her mind as to
her own view of the situation, and with all the regrets in the world for
him, she was prepared to support it. In a minute Seymour joined her.
"Nadine came down to the beach just before Hugh went in yesterday
morning," he said, "and she called out--called?--shouted out, 'Not you,
Hughie: Seymour, Berts, anybody, but not you!' There was no need for me
to think what that meant."
Dodo looked at him straight.
"No, my dear, there was no need," she said.
"Then I have been a--a farcical interlude," said he, not very kindly.
"You managed that farcical interlude, you know. You licensed it, so to
speak, like the censor of plays."
"Yes, I licensed it, you are quite right. But, my dear, I didn't license
it as a farce; there you wrong me. I licensed it as what I hoped would
be a very pleasant play. You must be just, Seymour: you didn't love her
then, nor she you. You were good friends, and there was no shadow of a
reason to suppose that you would not pass very happy times together. The
great love, the real thing, is not given to everybody. But when it
comes, we must bow to it.... It is royal."
All his flippancy and quickness of wit had gone from him. Next
conversation remained only because it was a habit.
"And I am royal," he said. "I love Nadine like that."
"Then you know that when that regality comes," she said quickly, "it
comes without control. It is the same with Nadine; it is by no wish of
hers that it came."
"I must know that from Nadine," he said. "I can't take your word for it,
or anybody's except hers. She made a promise to me."
"She cannot keep it," said Dodo. "It is an impossibility for her. She
made it under different conditions, and you put your hand to it under
the same. And Nadine said you understood, and behaved so delightfully
yesterday. All honor to you, since behind your behavior there was that
knowledge, that royalty."
"I had to. But don't think I abdicated. But she was in terrible
distress, and really, Aunt Dodo, the rest of your guests were quite
idiotic. Berts looked like a frog; he had the meaningless pathos of a
frog on his silly face--"
"Nadine said he looked like a funeral with plumes," Dodo permitted
herself to interpolate.
"More like a frog. Edith kept pouring out glasses of port to take to
Nadine, but I think she usually forgot and drank them herself. It was a
lunatic asylum. But Nadine felt."
"Ah, my dear," said Dodo, with a movement of her hand on to his.
Seymour quietly disengaged his own.
"Very gratifying," he said, "but as I said, I take nobody's word for it,
except Nadine's. She has got to tell me herself. Where is she? I have to
go in five minutes, but to see her will still leave me four to spare."
Dodo got up.
"You shall see her," she said. "But come quietly, because she is
asleep."
"If she is only to talk to me in her sleep--" began he.
"Come quietly," said Dodo.
But all her pity was stirred, and as they went along the passage to
Hugh's room, she slipped her arm into his. She knew that her _coup_ was
slightly theatrical, but there seemed no better way of showing him. It
might fail: he might still desire explanations, but it was worth trying.
"And remember I am sorry," she said, "and be sure that Nadine will be
sorry."
"Riddles," said Seymour.
"Yes, my dear, riddles if you will," said she. "But you may guess the
answer."
Dodo quietly turned the handle of the door into the nurse's room, and
entered with her arm still in his. She made a sign of silence, and took
Seymour straight through into the sick-room. All was as she had left it
a quarter-of-an-hour ago; Nadine still slept and Hugh, in that same
attitude of security and love. Her head was drooped; she slept as only
children and lovers sleep. But Dodo with all her intuition did not see
as much as Seymour, who loved her, saw. The truth of it was branded into
his brain, whereas it only shone in hers. She saw the situation: he felt
it.
Then with a signal of pressure on his arm, she led him out again.
"She has been there all night," she said. "She only fell asleep at
dawn."
They were in the passage again before Seymour spoke.
"There is no need for me to awake her or talk to her," he said. "You
were quite right. And I congratulate you on your _ensemble_. I should
have guessed that it required most careful rehearsal. And I should have
been wrong. And now, for God's sake, don't be kind and tender--"
He took his arm away from hers, feeling for her then more resentment
than he might feel against the footman who conveyed cold soup to him. He
did not want the footman's sympathy, nor did he want Dodo's.
"And spare me your optimism," he said. "If you tell me it is all for the
best, I shall scream. It isn't for the best, as far as I am concerned.
It is damned bad. I was a Thing, and Nadine made a man of me. Now she is
tired of her handiwork, and says that I shall be a Thing again. And
don't tell me I shall get over it. The fact that I know I shall, makes
your information, which was on the tip of your tongue, wanton and
superfluous. But if you think I shall love Hugh, because he loves
Nadine, you are utterly astray. I am not a child in a Sunday school,
letting the teacher smack both sides of my face. I hate Hugh, and I am
not the least touched by the disgusting spectacle you have taken me on
tiptoe to see. They looked like two amorous monkeys in the
monkey-house."
Seymour suddenly paused and gasped.
"They didn't," he said. "At any rate Nadine looked as I have often
pictured her looking. The difference is that it was myself, not Hugh,
beside whom I imagined her falling asleep. That makes a lot of
difference if you happen to be the person concerned. And now I hope the
motor is ready to take me away, and many thanks for an absolutely
damnable visit. Don't look pained. It doesn't hurt you as much as it
hurts me. There is a real _cliché_ to finish with."
Dodo's _coup_ had been sufficiently theatrical to satisfy her, but she
had not reckoned with the possible savageness that it might arouse.
Seymour's temper, as well as his love, was awake, and she had not
thought of the two as being at home simultaneously, but had imagined
they played Box-and-Cox with each other in the minds of men. Here Box
and Cox met, and they were hand-in-hand. He was convinced and angry: she
had imagined he would be convinced and pathetic. With that combination
she had felt herself perfectly competent to deal. But his temper roused
hers.
"You are at least interesting," she said briskly, "and I have enjoyed
what you call your damnable visit as much as you. You seem to have
behaved decently yesterday, but no doubt that was Nadine's mistake."
"Not at all: it was mine," he said.
"Which you now recognize," said she. "I am afraid you must be off, if
you want to catch your train. Good-by."
"Good-by," said he.
He turned from her at the top of the stairs, and went down a half-dozen
of them. Then suddenly he turned back again.
"Don't you see I'm in hell?" he said.
Dodo entirely melted at that, and ran down the stairs to him.
"Oh, Seymour, my dear," she said. "A woman's pity can't hurt you. Do
accept it."
She drew that handsome tragical face towards her, and kissed him.
"Do you mind my kissing you?" she said. "There's my heart behind it.
There is, indeed."
"Thanks, Aunt Dodo," he said. "And--and you might tell Nadine I saw her
like that. I am not so very stupid. I understand: good-by."
"And Hugh?" she asked, quite unwisely, but in that optimistic spirit
that he had deprecated.
"Don't strain magnanimity," he said. "It's quality is _not_ strained.
Say good-by to Nadine for me. Say I saw her asleep, and didn't disturb
her. I never thought much of her intelligence, but she may understand
that. She will have to tell me what she means to do. That I require. At
present our wedding-day is fixed."
Seymour broke off suddenly and ran downstairs without looking back.
Dodo was quite sincerely very sorry for him, but almost the moment he
had gone she ceased to think about him altogether, for there were so
many soul-absorbing topics to occupy her, and forgetting she had had no
breakfast, she went to Edith's room (Edith alone had not the slightest
intention of going away) to discuss them. Her optimism was luckily quite
incurable: she could not look on the darker aspect of affairs for more
than a minute or two. She found Edith breakfasting in bed, with a large
fur cape flung over her shoulders. Her breakfast had been placed on a
table beside her, but for greater convenience she had disposed the
plates round her, on her counterpane. There were also disposed there
sheets of music-paper, a pen and ink-bottle, and a box of cigarettes.
The window was wide open, and as Dodo entered the draught caused the
music paper to flutter, and Edith laid hasty restraining hands on it,
and screamed with her mouth full.
"Shut the door quickly!" she cried. "And then come and have some
breakfast, Dodo. I don't think I shall get up to-day. I have been
composing since six this morning, and if I get up the thread may be
entirely broken. Beethoven worked at the C minor Symphony for three days
and nights without eating, sleeping, or washing."
"I see you are eating," remarked Dodo. "I hope that won't prevent your
giving us another C minor."
"The C minor is much over-rated work," said Edith; "it is commonplace
melodically, and clumsily handled. If I had composed it, I should not be
very proud of it."
"Which is a blessing you didn't, because then you would have composed
something of which you were not proud," said Dodo, ringing the bell.
"Yes, I shall have some breakfast with you. Oh, Edith, everything is so
interesting, and Hughie has slept all night, and Nadine with him. They
are sleeping now, Nadine on the floor half-sitting up with her head
against the bed, looking too sweet for anything. And poor dear Seymour
has just gone away. I took him in to see them by way of breaking it to
him. Whoever guessed that he would fall in love with her? It is very
awkward, for I thought it would be such a nice sensible marriage. And
now of course there will be no marriage at all."
At this moment the bell was answered, and Edith in trying to prevent her
music-paper from practising aviation, upset the ink-bottle. Several
minutes were spent in quenching the thirst of sheets of blotting paper
at it, as you water horses when their day's work is over.
"One of the faults of your mind, Dodo," said Edith, as this process was
going on, "is that you don't concentrate enough. You have too many
objects in focus simultaneously. Now my success is due to the fact that
I have only one in focus at a time. For instance this Stygian pool of
ink does not distress me in the slightest--"
"No, darling, it's not your counterpane," said Dodo.
"It wouldn't distress me if it was. But if I opened your mind I should
find Hugh's recovery, Nadine's future, and your baby in about equally
vivid colors, and all in sharp outline. Also you make too many plans for
other people. Do leave something to Providence sometimes."
"Oh, I leave lots," said Dodo. "I only try to touch up the designs now
and then. Providence is often rather sketchy and unfinished. But
yesterday's design was absolutely wonderful. I can hardly even be sorry
for Hugh."
Edith shook her head.
"You are quite incorrigible," she said. "Providence sent what was
clearly intended to be a terrible event, but you see all sorts of
glories in it. I don't thing it is very polite. It is like laughing at a
ghost story instead of being terrified."
Dodo's breakfast had been brought in, and she fell to it with an
excellent appetite.
"There is nothing like scenes before breakfast to make one hungry," she
said. "Think how hungry a murderer would be if he was taken out to be
hanged before breakfast, and then given his breakfast afterwards. I had
a scene with Seymour, you know. I am very sorry for him, but somehow he
doesn't seem to matter. He lost his temper, which I rather respected,
and showed me he had an ideal. That I respect too. I remember the
struggles I used to go through in order to get one."
"Were they successful?" asked Edith.
"Only by a process of elimination. I did everything that I wanted, and
found it was a mistake. So, last of all, I married Jack. What a
delightful life I have led, and how good this bacon is. Don't you think
David is a very nice name? I am going to call my baby David."
"It may be a girl," said Edith.
"Then I shall call it Bathsheba," said Dodo without pause. "Or do I mean
Beersheba? Bath, I think. Edith, why is it that when I am most anxious
and full of cares, I feel it imperative to talk tommy-rot? I'm sure
there is enough to worry me into a grave if not a vault, between Seymour
and Nadine and Hugh. But after all, one needn't worry about Nadine. It
is quite certain that she will do as she chooses, and if she wants to
marry Hugh with both arms in slings, and two crutches, and a truss and
one of those sort of scrapers under one foot she certainly will. I
brought her up on those lines, to know her own mind, and then do what
she wanted. It has been a failure hitherto, because she has never really
wanted anything. But now I think my system of education is going to be
justified. I am also suffering from reaction. Last night I thought our
dear Hughie was dying, and I am perfectly convinced this morning that he
isn't. So, too, I am sure, is Nadine: otherwise she couldn't have fallen
asleep like that. And what Hughie did was so splendid. I am glad God
made men like that, but it doesn't prevent my eating a huge breakfast
and talking rot. I hope you don't mean to go away. It is so dull to be
alone in the house with two young lovers, even when one adores them
both."
"Aren't you getting on rather quick, Dodo?" asked Edith.
"Probably: but Seymour is _congédié_--how do you say it--spun,
dismissed, and quite certainly Nadine has fallen in love with Hugh.
There isn't time to be slow, nowadays. If you are slow you are left
gasping on the beach like a fish. I still swim in the great waters,
thank God."
Dodo got up, and her mood changed utterly. She was never other than
genuine, but it had pleased Nature to give her many facets, all
brilliant, but all reflecting different-colored lights.
"Oh, my dear, life is so short," she said, "and every moment should be
so precious to everybody. I hate going to sleep, for fear I may miss
something. Fancy waking in the morning and finding you had missed
something, like an earthquake or suffragette riot! My days are
reasonably full, but I want them to be unreasonably full. And just now
Jack keeps saying, 'Do rest: do lie down: do have some beef-tea.' Just
as if I didn't know what was good for David! Edith, he is going to be
such a gay dog! All the girls and all the women are going to fall
desperately in love with him. He is going to marry when he is thirty,
and not a day before, and he will be absolutely simple and unspoiled and
a wicked little devil on his marriage morning. And then all his energies
will be concentrated on one point, and that will be his wife. He will
utterly adore her, and think of nobody else except me. I shall be
seventy-four, you perceive, at that time, and so I shall be easy to
please. The older one gets the easier one is to please. Already little
things please me quite enormously, and big ones, as you also perceive,
make me go off my head. Oh, I am sure heaven will be extremely nice, if
I ever die, which God forbid; but however nice it is, it won't be the
same as this. You agree there I know; you want to make all the music you
can first--"
"As a protest against what seems to be the music of heaven," said Edith
firmly, "if we may judge by hymn tunes and chants, and the first act of
Parsifal, and I suppose the last of Faust, and Handel's oratorios. It is
very degrading stuff; all the changes of key are childishly simple, and
the proportion of full closes is nearly indecent. And I want another
ink-bottle."
Edith whistled a short phrase on her teeth, as a gentle hint to her
hostess.
"It's for the flutes," she said, "and the 'cellos take it up two octaves
lower."
She grabbed at her music-paper.
"Then the horns start it again in the subdominant," she said, "and all
the silly audience will think they are merely out of tune. That's
because they got what they didn't expect. To be any good, you must
surprise the ear. I'll surprise them. But I want another ink-bottle. And
may I have lunch in my room, Dodo, if necessary? I don't know when I
shall be able to get up."
Dodo was not attending in any marked manner.
"We will all do what we choose," she said genially.
"We will be a sort of harmless Medmenham Abbey. You shall spill all the
ink you please, and Nadine shall marry Hugh, who will get quite well,
and I shall go and order dinner and see if Nadine is awake. I am afraid
I am rather fatuously optimistic this morning, like Mr. Chesterton, and
that is always so depressing, both to other people at the time, and to
oneself subsequently. Dear me, what a charming world if there was no
such thing as reaction. As a matter of fact I do not experience much of
it."
Edith gave a great sigh of relief as Dodo left the room, and
concentrated herself with singular completeness on the horn-tune in the
subdominant. She was quite devoted to Dodo, but the horn-tune was in
focus just now, and she knew if Dodo had stopped any longer, she would
have become barely tolerant of her presence. Shortly afterwards the
fresh supply of ink came also, and Edith proceeded straight up into the
seventh heaven of her own compositions, which, good or bad, were
perfection itself to their author.
Dodo found a packet of letters waiting for her and among them a telegram
from Miss Grantham saying, "Deeply grieved. Can I do anything?" This she
swiftly answered, replying, "Darling Grantie. Nothing whatever," and
went to Nadine's room, where she found Nadine, half-dressed, rosy from
her bath, and radiant of spirit.
"Oh, Mama, I never had such a lovely night," she said. "How delicious it
must be to be married! I didn't wake till half-an-hour ago, and
simultaneously Hughie woke, which looks as if we suited each other,
doesn't it? And then the doctor came in, and looked at him, and said he
was much stronger, much fuller of vitality for his long sleep, and he
congratulated me on having made him sleep. And the nurse told me the
first great danger, that he would not rally after the shock of the
operation, was over. As far as that goes he will be all right."
Nadine kissed her mother, and clung round her neck, dewy-eyed.
"I'm not going to think about the future," she said. "Sufficient to the
day is the good thereof. It is enough this morning that Hughie has got
through the night and is stronger. If I had been given any wish to be
fulfilled I should have chosen that. And if on the top of that I had
been given another, it would have been that I should have helped towards
it, which I suppose is the old Eve coming in. I think I had better
finish dressing, Mama, instead of babbling. Have you had breakfast?"
"Yes, dear, I had it with Edith. She is in bed making tunes and pouring
ink over the counterpane, and not minding."
Nadine's face clouded for a moment, in spite of the accomplishment of
her wishes.
"And then I must see Seymour," she said. "It is no use putting that off.
But, oh, Mama, to think that till yesterday I was willing to marry him,
with Hugh in the world all the time. Whatever happens to Hugh, I can't
marry him, Seymour, I mean, if the ridiculous English pronouns admit of
any meaning; and I must tell him."
"Seymour left half an hour ago," said Dodo. "But there's no need for you
to tell him. I took him into Hugh's room and he saw you asleep. He
understands. He couldn't very well help understanding, darling. He told
me he understood before, when you called out to Hugh not to attempt the
rescue. But he only understood it pretty well, as the ordinary person
says he understands French. But when he saw you asleep, not exactly in
Hugh's arms, but sufficiently close, he understood it like a real
native, poor boy!"
"What did he do?" asked Nadine.
"He behaved very rightly and properly, and lost his temper with me, just
as I lose my temper with the porter at the station if I miss my train. I
had been just porter to him. He thanked me for a horrid visit, only he
called it damnable, and so I lost my temper, too, and we had a few
flowers of speech on the staircase, not big ones, but just promising
buds. And then, poor chap, he came back to me, and told me he was in
hell, and I kissed him, and he didn't seem to mind much, and I suppose
he caught his train. Otherwise he would have been back by now. I'm
exceedingly sorry for him, Nadine, and you must write him a sweet little
letter, which won't do any good at all, but it's one of the things you
have to do. Darling, I wonder if jilting runs in families like
consumption and red faces. You see I jilted my darling Jack, to marry
into your family. But you must write the sweet little letter I spoke of,
because you are sorry, only you couldn't help it."
"Did you write a sweet little letter under--under the same circumstances
to Papa Jack?" asked Nadine.
"No, dear, because I hadn't got anybody exceedingly wise to give me that
good advice," said Dodo. "Also, because I was a little brute there is no
reason why you should be."
"Perhaps it runs in the family, too," suggested Nadine.
"Then the quicker it runs out of the family the better. Besides you are
sorry for Seymour."
Nadine opened her hands wide.
"Am I? I hope so," she said. "But if you are quite full of gladness for
one thing, Mama, it is a little difficult to find a corner for anything
else."
Dodo turned to leave the room.
"Anywhere will do. Just under the stairs," she said. "I don't want to
put it in the middle of the drawing-room. After all, darling, you
propose to jilt him."
"There's something in that," said Nadine. "Oh, Mama, I used not to have
any heart at all, and now that I've got one it doesn't belong to me."
"No woman's heart belongs to her," said Dodo. "If it belongs to her, it
isn't a heart."
"I should have thought that nonsense yesterday," said Nadine. "Oh, wait
while I finish dressing; I shan't be ten minutes. What meetings we have
had in my lovely back room! One, I remember so particularly. You and
Esther and Berts all lay on my bed like sardines in evening dresses, and
I had just refused to marry Hugh, who was playing billiards with Uncle
Algie. Somehow the things like love and devotion seemed to me quite
old-fashioned, or anyhow they seemed to me signs of age. They did,
indeed. I thought a clear brain was infinitely preferable to a confused
heart, especially if it belonged to somebody else. I'm not used to it,
Mama: it still seems to me very odd like a hat that doesn't fit. But
it's a fact, and I suppose I shall grow into it, not that any one ever
grew into a hat. But when Hugh swam out yesterday morning, something
came tumbling down inside me. Or was it that only something cracked,
like the shell of a nut? It does not much matter, so long as it is not
mended again. But how queer that it should happen in a second, like
that. I suppose time has nothing to do with what concerns one's soul. I
believe Plato says something about it. I don't think I shall look it up.
He wrote wonderfully, but when a thing happens to oneself, that seems
to matter more than Plato's reflections on the subject."
There was a short pause as Nadine brushed her teeth, but Dodo sitting on
the unslept-in bed did not feel inclined to break it. She wondered
whether a particular point in the situation would occur to Nadine,
whether her illumination as regards a woman's heart threw any light on
that very different affair, a man's heart. She was not left long in
doubt. The question of a man's heart was altogether unilluminated, and
to Dodo there was something poignantly pathetic about Nadine's blissful
ignorance. She came and sat down on the bed close to her mother.
"Hughie will see I love him," she said, "because he won't be able to
help it. I shall just wait, oh, so happily, for him to say again what he
has so often said before. He will know my answer, before I give it him.
I hope he will say it soon. Then we shall be engaged, and people who are
engaged are a little freer, aren't they, Mama?"
Dodo felt incapable of clouding that radiant face, for she knew in the
days that were coming, all its radiance would be needed: not a single
sparkle of light must be wasted. But it did not seem to her very likely
that Hugh, whose joyous strength and splendid activity had been so often
rejected by Nadine, would be likely to offer to her again what would be,
in all probability, but a crippled parody of himself. But her sense of
justice told her that Nadine owed him all the strength and encouragement
her eager vitality could give him. It was only fair that she should
devote herself to him, and let him feel all the inspiration to live
that her care of him could give him. But it seemed to her very doubtful
if Hugh would consent, even if he perceived that it was love not warm
friendship that she gave him, to let himself and his crippled body
appeal to her. In days gone by, she would not marry him for love, and it
seemed to Dodo that a real man, as Hugh was, would not allow her to
marry him for pity. He had offered her his best, and she had refused it;
it would not be surprising if he refused to offer her his worst. The joy
that had inspired Dodo so that she had softly melted over the sight of
Nadine asleep by Hugh, and had exultantly mopped up the spilt ink with
Edith, suddenly evaporated, leaving her dry and cold.
"You must wait, Nadine," she said. "You must make no plans. Give Hughie
your vitality, and don't ask more."
She got up.
"Now, my darling, I shall go downstairs," she said, "and order your
breakfast. You must be hungry. And then you can say your prayers, and
breakfast will be ready."
Nadine, absorbed in her own thoughts, felt nothing of this.
"Prayers?" she said. "Why I was praying all night till dawn. At least, I
was wanting, just wanting, and not for myself. Isn't that prayers?"
Dodo loved that: it was exactly what she meant in her inmost heart by
prayers. She drew Nadine to her and kissed her.
"Darling, you have said enough for a week," she said, "if not more. And
you said them because you must, which is the only proper plan. If you
don't feel you must say your prayers, it is just as well not to say them
at all. But you shall have breakfast, whether you feel you must or not.
I say you must."