For two or three hours longer the moon poured its light through the
empty air. Unbroken by clouds it fell straightly, and lay almost like a
chill white frost over the sea and the earth. During these hours the
silence was not broken, and the only movement was caused by the
movement of trees and branches which stirred slightly, and then the
shadows that lay across the white spaces of the land moved too. In this
profound silence one sound only was audible, the sound of a slight but
continuous breathing which never ceased, although it never rose and
never fell. It continued after the birds had begun to flutter from
branch to branch, and could be heard behind the first thin notes of
their voices. It continued all through the hours when the east
whitened, and grew red, and a faint blue tinged the sky, but when the
sun rose it ceased, and gave place to other sounds.
The first sounds that were heard were little inarticulate cries, the
cries, it seemed, of children or of the very poor, of people who were
very weak or in pain. But when the sun was above the horizon, the air
which had been thin and pale grew every moment richer and warmer, and
the sounds of life became bolder and more full of courage and
authority. By degrees the smoke began to ascend in wavering breaths
over the houses, and these slowly thickened, until they were as round
and straight as columns, and instead of striking upon pale white
blinds, the sun shone upon dark windows, beyond which there was depth
and space.
The sun had been up for many hours, and the great dome of air was
warmed through and glittering with thin gold threads of sunlight,
before any one moved in the hotel. White and massive it stood in the
early light, half asleep with its blinds down.
At about half-past nine Miss Allan came very slowly into the hall, and
walked very slowly to the table where the morning papers were laid, but
she did not put out her hand to take one; she stood still, thinking,
with her head a little sunk upon her shoulders. She looked curiously
old, and from the way in which she stood, a little hunched together and
very massive, you could see what she would be like when she was really
old, how she would sit day after day in her chair looking placidly in
front of her. Other people began to come into the room, and to pass
her, but she did not speak to any of them or even look at them, and at
last, as if it were necessary to do something, she sat down in a chair,
and looked quietly and fixedly in front of her. She felt very old this
morning, and useless too, as if her life had been a failure, as if it
had been hard and laborious to no purpose. She did not want to go on
living, and yet she knew that she would. She was so strong that she
would live to be a very old woman. She would probably live to be
eighty, and as she was now fifty, that left thirty years more for her
to live. She turned her hands over and over in her lap and looked at
them curiously; her old hands, that had done so much work for her.
There did not seem to be much point in it all; one went on, of course
one went on. . . . She looked up to see Mrs. Thornbury standing beside
her, with lines drawn upon her forehead, and her lips parted as if she
were about to ask a question.
Miss Allan anticipated her.
“Yes,” she said. “She died this morning, very early, about three
o’clock.”
Mrs. Thornbury made a little exclamation, drew her lips together, and
the tears rose in her eyes. Through them she looked at the hall which
was now laid with great breadths of sunlight, and at the careless,
casual groups of people who were standing beside the solid arm-chairs
and tables. They looked to her unreal, or as people look who remain
unconscious that some great explosion is about to take place beside
them. But there was no explosion, and they went on standing by the
chairs and the tables. Mrs. Thornbury no longer saw them, but,
penetrating through them as though they were without substance, she saw
the house, the people in the house, the room, the bed in the room, and
the figure of the dead lying still in the dark beneath the sheets. She
could almost see the dead. She could almost hear the voices of the
mourners.
“They expected it?” she asked at length.
Miss Allan could only shake her head.
“I know nothing,” she replied, “except what Mrs. Flushing’s maid told
me. She died early this morning.”
The two women looked at each other with a quiet significant gaze, and
then, feeling oddly dazed, and seeking she did not know exactly what,
Mrs. Thornbury went slowly upstairs and walked quietly along the
passages, touching the wall with her fingers as if to guide herself.
Housemaids were passing briskly from room to room, but Mrs. Thornbury
avoided them; she hardly saw them; they seemed to her to be in another
world. She did not even look up directly when Evelyn stopped her. It
was evident that Evelyn had been lately in tears, and when she looked
at Mrs. Thornbury she began to cry again. Together they drew into the
hollow of a window, and stood there in silence. Broken words formed
themselves at last among Evelyn’s sobs. “It was wicked,” she sobbed,
“it was cruel—they were so happy.”
Mrs. Thornbury patted her on the shoulder.
“It seems hard—very hard,” she said. She paused and looked out over the
slope of the hill at the Ambroses’ villa; the windows were blazing in
the sun, and she thought how the soul of the dead had passed from those
windows. Something had passed from the world. It seemed to her
strangely empty.
“And yet the older one grows,” she continued, her eyes regaining more
than their usual brightness, “the more certain one becomes that there
is a reason. How could one go on if there were no reason?” she asked.
She asked the question of some one, but she did not ask it of Evelyn.
Evelyn’s sobs were becoming quieter. “There must be a reason,” she
said. “It can’t only be an accident. For it was an accident—it need
never have happened.”
Mrs. Thornbury sighed deeply.
“But we must not let ourselves think of that,” she added, “and let us
hope that they don’t either. Whatever they had done it might have been
the same. These terrible illnesses—”
“There’s no reason—I don’t believe there’s any reason at all!” Evelyn
broke out, pulling the blind down and letting it fly back with a little
snap.
“Why should these things happen? Why should people suffer? I honestly
believe,” she went on, lowering her voice slightly, “that Rachel’s in
Heaven, but Terence. . . .”
“What’s the good of it all?” she demanded.
Mrs. Thornbury shook her head slightly but made no reply, and pressing
Evelyn’s hand she went on down the passage. Impelled by a strong desire
to hear something, although she did not know exactly what there was to
hear, she was making her way to the Flushings’ room. As she opened
their door she felt that she had interrupted some argument between
husband and wife. Mrs. Flushing was sitting with her back to the light,
and Mr. Flushing was standing near her, arguing and trying to persuade
her of something.
“Ah, here is Mrs. Thornbury,” he began with some relief in his voice.
“You have heard, of course. My wife feels that she was in some way
responsible. She urged poor Miss Vinrace to come on the expedition. I’m
sure you will agree with me that it is most unreasonable to feel that.
We don’t even know—in fact I think it most unlikely—that she caught her
illness there. These diseases—Besides, she was set on going. She would
have gone whether you asked her or not, Alice.”
“Don’t, Wilfrid,” said Mrs. Flushing, neither moving nor taking her
eyes off the spot on the floor upon which they rested. “What’s the use
of talking? What’s the use—?” She ceased.
“I was coming to ask you,” said Mrs. Thornbury, addressing Wilfrid, for
it was useless to speak to his wife. “Is there anything you think that
one could do? Has the father arrived? Could one go and see?”
The strongest wish in her being at this moment was to be able to do
something for the unhappy people—to see them—to assure them—to help
them. It was dreadful to be so far away from them. But Mr. Flushing
shook his head; he did not think that now—later perhaps one might be
able to help. Here Mrs. Flushing rose stiffly, turned her back to them,
and walked to the dressing-room opposite. As she walked, they could see
her breast slowly rise and slowly fall. But her grief was silent. She
shut the door behind her.
When she was alone by herself she clenched her fists together, and
began beating the back of a chair with them. She was like a wounded
animal. She hated death; she was furious, outraged, indignant with
death, as if it were a living creature. She refused to relinquish her
friends to death. She would not submit to dark and nothingness. She
began to pace up and down, clenching her hands, and making no attempt
to stop the quick tears which raced down her cheeks. She sat still at
last, but she did not submit. She looked stubborn and strong when she
had ceased to cry.
In the next room, meanwhile, Wilfrid was talking to Mrs. Thornbury with
greater freedom now that his wife was not sitting there.
“That’s the worst of these places,” he said. “People will behave as
though they were in England, and they’re not. I’ve no doubt myself that
Miss Vinrace caught the infection up at the villa itself. She probably
ran risks a dozen times a day that might have given her the illness.
It’s absurd to say she caught it with us.”
If he had not been sincerely sorry for them he would have been annoyed.
“Pepper tells me,” he continued, “that he left the house because he
thought them so careless. He says they never washed their vegetables
properly. Poor people! It’s a fearful price to pay. But it’s only what
I’ve seen over and over again—people seem to forget that these things
happen, and then they do happen, and they’re surprised.”
Mrs. Thornbury agreed with him that they had been very careless, and
that there was no reason whatever to think that she had caught the
fever on the expedition; and after talking about other things for a
short time, she left him and went sadly along the passage to her own
room. There must be some reason why such things happen, she thought to
herself, as she shut the door. Only at first it was not easy to
understand what it was. It seemed so strange—so unbelievable. Why, only
three weeks ago—only a fortnight ago, she had seen Rachel; when she
shut her eyes she could almost see her now, the quiet, shy girl who was
going to be married. She thought of all that she would have missed had
she died at Rachel’s age, the children, the married life, the
unimaginable depths and miracles that seemed to her, as she looked
back, to have lain about her, day after day, and year after year. The
stunned feeling, which had been making it difficult for her to think,
gradually gave way to a feeling of the opposite nature; she thought
very quickly and very clearly, and, looking back over all her
experiences, tried to fit them into a kind of order. There was
undoubtedly much suffering, much struggling, but, on the whole, surely
there was a balance of happiness—surely order did prevail. Nor were the
deaths of young people really the saddest things in life—they were
saved so much; they kept so much. The dead—she called to mind those who
had died early, accidentally—were beautiful; she often dreamt of the
dead. And in time Terence himself would come to feel—She got up and
began to wander restlessly about the room.
For an old woman of her age she was very restless, and for one of her
clear, quick mind she was unusually perplexed. She could not settle to
anything, so that she was relieved when the door opened. She went up to
her husband, took him in her arms, and kissed him with unusual
intensity, and then as they sat down together she began to pat him and
question him as if he were a baby, an old, tired, querulous baby. She
did not tell him about Miss Vinrace’s death, for that would only
disturb him, and he was put out already. She tried to discover why he
was uneasy. Politics again? What were those horrid people doing? She
spent the whole morning in discussing politics with her husband, and by
degrees she became deeply interested in what they were saying. But
every now and then what she was saying seemed to her oddly empty of
meaning.
At luncheon it was remarked by several people that the visitors at the
hotel were beginning to leave; there were fewer every day. There were
only forty people at luncheon, instead of the sixty that there had
been. So old Mrs. Paley computed, gazing about her with her faded eyes,
as she took her seat at her own table in the window. Her party
generally consisted of Mr. Perrott as well as Arthur and Susan, and
to-day Evelyn was lunching with them also.
She was unusually subdued. Having noticed that her eyes were red, and
guessing the reason, the others took pains to keep up an elaborate
conversation between themselves. She suffered it to go on for a few
minutes, leaning both elbows on the table, and leaving her soup
untouched, when she exclaimed suddenly, “I don’t know how you feel, but
I can simply think of nothing else!”
The gentlemen murmured sympathetically, and looked grave.
Susan replied, “Yes—isn’t it perfectly awful? When you think what a
nice girl she was—only just engaged, and this need never have
happened—it seems too tragic.” She looked at Arthur as though he might
be able to help her with something more suitable.
“Hard lines,” said Arthur briefly. “But it was a foolish thing to do—to
go up that river.” He shook his head. “They should have known better.
You can’t expect Englishwomen to stand roughing it as the natives do
who’ve been acclimatised. I’d half a mind to warn them at tea that day
when it was being discussed. But it’s no good saying these sort of
things—it only puts people’s backs up—it never makes any difference.”
Old Mrs. Paley, hitherto contented with her soup, here intimated, by
raising one hand to her ear, that she wished to know what was being
said.
“You heard, Aunt Emma, that poor Miss Vinrace has died of the fever,”
Susan informed her gently. She could not speak of death loudly or even
in her usual voice, so that Mrs. Paley did not catch a word. Arthur
came to the rescue.
“Miss Vinrace is dead,” he said very distinctly.
Mrs. Paley merely bent a little towards him and asked, “Eh?”
“Miss Vinrace is dead,” he repeated. It was only by stiffening all the
muscles round his mouth that he could prevent himself from bursting
into laughter, and forced himself to repeat for the third time, “Miss
Vinrace. . . . She’s dead.”
Let alone the difficulty of hearing the exact words, facts that were
outside her daily experience took some time to reach Mrs. Paley’s
consciousness. A weight seemed to rest upon her brain, impeding, though
not damaging its action. She sat vague-eyed for at least a minute
before she realised what Arthur meant.
“Dead?” she said vaguely. “Miss Vinrace dead? Dear me . . . that’s very
sad. But I don’t at the moment remember which she was. We seem to have
made so many new acquaintances here.” She looked at Susan for help. “A
tall dark girl, who just missed being handsome, with a high colour?”
“No,” Susan interposed. “She was—” then she gave it up in despair.
There was no use in explaining that Mrs. Paley was thinking of the
wrong person.
“She ought not to have died,” Mrs. Paley continued. “She looked so
strong. But people will drink the water. I can never make out why. It
seems such a simple thing to tell them to put a bottle of Seltzer water
in your bedroom. That’s all the precaution I’ve ever taken, and I’ve
been in every part of the world, I may say—Italy a dozen times over. .
. . But young people always think they know better, and then they pay
the penalty. Poor thing—I am very sorry for her.” But the difficulty of
peering into a dish of potatoes and helping herself engrossed her
attention.
Arthur and Susan both secretly hoped that the subject was now disposed
of, for there seemed to them something unpleasant in this discussion.
But Evelyn was not ready to let it drop. Why would people never talk
about the things that mattered?
“I don’t believe you care a bit!” she said, turning savagely upon Mr.
Perrott, who had sat all this time in silence.
“I? Oh, yes, I do,” he answered awkwardly, but with obvious sincerity.
Evelyn’s questions made him too feel uncomfortable.
“It seems so inexplicable,” Evelyn continued. “Death, I mean. Why
should she be dead, and not you or I? It was only a fortnight ago that
she was here with the rest of us. What d’you believe?” she demanded of
Mr. Perrott. “D’you believe that things go on, that she’s still
somewhere—or d’you think it’s simply a game—we crumble up to nothing
when we die? I’m positive Rachel’s not dead.”
Mr. Perrott would have said almost anything that Evelyn wanted him to
say, but to assert that he believed in the immortality of the soul was
not in his power. He sat silent, more deeply wrinkled than usual,
crumbling his bread.
Lest Evelyn should next ask him what he believed, Arthur, after making
a pause equivalent to a full stop, started a completely different
topic.
“Supposing,” he said, “a man were to write and tell you that he wanted
five pounds because he had known your grandfather, what would you do?
It was this way. My grandfather—”
“Invented a stove,” said Evelyn. “I know all about that. We had one in
the conservatory to keep the plants warm.”
“Didn’t know I was so famous,” said Arthur. “Well,” he continued,
determined at all costs to spin his story out at length, “the old chap,
being about the second best inventor of his day, and a capable lawyer
too, died, as they always do, without making a will. Now Fielding, his
clerk, with how much justice I don’t know, always claimed that he meant
to do something for him. The poor old boy’s come down in the world
through trying inventions on his own account, lives in Penge over a
tobacconist’s shop. I’ve been to see him there. The question is—must I
stump up or not? What does the abstract spirit of justice require,
Perrott? Remember, I didn’t benefit under my grandfather’s will, and
I’ve no way of testing the truth of the story.”
“I don’t know much about the abstract spirit of justice,” said Susan,
smiling complacently at the others, “but I’m certain of one thing—he’ll
get his five pounds!”
As Mr. Perrott proceeded to deliver an opinion, and Evelyn insisted
that he was much too stingy, like all lawyers, thinking of the letter
and not of the spirit, while Mrs. Paley required to be kept informed
between the courses as to what they were all saying, the luncheon
passed with no interval of silence, and Arthur congratulated himself
upon the tact with which the discussion had been smoothed over.
As they left the room it happened that Mrs. Paley’s wheeled chair ran
into the Elliots, who were coming through the door, as she was going
out. Brought thus to a standstill for a moment, Arthur and Susan
congratulated Hughling Elliot upon his convalescence,—he was down,
cadaverous enough, for the first time,—and Mr. Perrott took occasion to
say a few words in private to Evelyn.
“Would there be any chance of seeing you this afternoon, about
three-thirty say? I shall be in the garden, by the fountain.”
The block dissolved before Evelyn answered. But as she left them in the
hall, she looked at him brightly and said, “Half-past three, did you
say? That’ll suit me.”
She ran upstairs with the feeling of spiritual exaltation and quickened
life which the prospect of an emotional scene always aroused in her.
That Mr. Perrott was again about to propose to her, she had no doubt,
and she was aware that on this occasion she ought to be prepared with a
definite answer, for she was going away in three days’ time. But she
could not bring her mind to bear upon the question. To come to a
decision was very difficult to her, because she had a natural dislike
of anything final and done with; she liked to go on and on—always on
and on. She was leaving, and, therefore, she occupied herself in laying
her clothes out side by side upon the bed. She observed that some were
very shabby. She took the photograph of her father and mother, and,
before she laid it away in her box, she held it for a minute in her
hand. Rachel had looked at it. Suddenly the keen feeling of some one’s
personality, which things that they have owned or handled sometimes
preserves, overcame her; she felt Rachel in the room with her; it was
as if she were on a ship at sea, and the life of the day was as unreal
as the land in the distance. But by degrees the feeling of Rachel’s
presence passed away, and she could no longer realise her, for she had
scarcely known her. But this momentary sensation left her depressed and
fatigued. What had she done with her life? What future was there before
her? What was make-believe, and what was real? Were these proposals and
intimacies and adventures real, or was the contentment which she had
seen on the faces of Susan and Rachel more real than anything she had
ever felt?
She made herself ready to go downstairs, absentmindedly, but her
fingers were so well trained that they did the work of preparing her
almost of their own accord. When she was actually on the way
downstairs, the blood began to circle through her body of its own
accord too, for her mind felt very dull.
Mr. Perrott was waiting for her. Indeed, he had gone straight into the
garden after luncheon, and had been walking up and down the path for
more than half an hour, in a state of acute suspense.
“I’m late as usual!” she exclaimed, as she caught sight of him. “Well,
you must forgive me; I had to pack up. . . . My word! It looks stormy!
And that’s a new steamer in the bay, isn’t it?”
She looked at the bay, in which a steamer was just dropping anchor, the
smoke still hanging about it, while a swift black shudder ran through
the waves. “One’s quite forgotten what rain looks like,” she added.
But Mr. Perrott paid no attention to the steamer or to the weather.
“Miss Murgatroyd,” he began with his usual formality, “I asked you to
come here from a very selfish motive, I fear. I do not think you need
to be assured once more of my feelings; but, as you are leaving so
soon, I felt that I could not let you go without asking you to tell
me—have I any reason to hope that you will ever come to care for me?”
He was very pale, and seemed unable to say any more.
The little gush of vitality which had come into Evelyn as she ran
downstairs had left her, and she felt herself impotent. There was
nothing for her to say; she felt nothing. Now that he was actually
asking her, in his elderly gentle words, to marry him, she felt less
for him than she had ever felt before.
“Let’s sit down and talk it over,” she said rather unsteadily.
Mr. Perrott followed her to a curved green seat under a tree. They
looked at the fountain in front of them, which had long ceased to play.
Evelyn kept looking at the fountain instead of thinking of what she was
saying; the fountain without any water seemed to be the type of her own
being.
“Of course I care for you,” she began, rushing her words out in a
hurry; “I should be a brute if I didn’t. I think you’re quite one of
the nicest people I’ve ever known, and one of the finest too. But I
wish . . . I wish you didn’t care for me in that way. Are you sure you
do?” For the moment she honestly desired that he should say no.
“Quite sure,” said Mr. Perrott.
“You see, I’m not as simple as most women,” Evelyn continued. “I think
I want more. I don’t know exactly what I feel.”
He sat by her, watching her and refraining from speech.
“I sometimes think I haven’t got it in me to care very much for one
person only. Some one else would make you a better wife. I can imagine
you very happy with some one else.”
“If you think that there is any chance that you will come to care for
me, I am quite content to wait,” said Mr. Perrott.
“Well—there’s no hurry, is there?” said Evelyn. “Suppose I thought it
over and wrote and told you when I get back? I’m going to Moscow; I’ll
write from Moscow.”
But Mr. Perrott persisted.
“You cannot give me any kind of idea. I do not ask for a date . . .
that would be most unreasonable.” He paused, looking down at the gravel
path.
As she did not immediately answer, he went on.
“I know very well that I am not—that I have not much to offer you
either in myself or in my circumstances. And I forget; it cannot seem
the miracle to you that it does to me. Until I met you I had gone on in
my own quiet way—we are both very quiet people, my sister and I—quite
content with my lot. My friendship with Arthur was the most important
thing in my life. Now that I know you, all that has changed. You seem
to put such a spirit into everything. Life seems to hold so many
possibilities that I had never dreamt of.”
“That’s splendid!” Evelyn exclaimed, grasping his hand. “Now you’ll go
back and start all kinds of things and make a great name in the world;
and we’ll go on being friends, whatever happens . . . we’ll be great
friends, won’t we?”
“Evelyn!” he moaned suddenly, and took her in his arms, and kissed her.
She did not resent it, although it made little impression on her.
As she sat upright again, she said, “I never see why one shouldn’t go
on being friends—though some people do. And friendships do make a
difference, don’t they? They are the kind of things that matter in
one’s life?”
He looked at her with a bewildered expression as if he did not really
understand what she was saying. With a considerable effort he collected
himself, stood up, and said, “Now I think I have told you what I feel,
and I will only add that I can wait as long as ever you wish.”
Left alone, Evelyn walked up and down the path. What did matter then?
What was the meaning of it all?