At first, when Florrie told her, the verdict had seemed unescapable. She
had said, after the little silence in which she received it,--the
silence in which much had happened to her,--she had said, in a very
quiet voice that had surprised herself, “I’m afraid it’s no good, then,
Florrie dear. I can’t afford to go away.”
Aunt Kate had left her only the house and its contents. She had saved
only the tiniest sum herself--just enough to yield an income that paid
for her food and light and coal. To pay for Jane, her good old servant,
to pay for her clothes and washing, to pay for the trips to London and
the crumpets and cakes that she gave her friends at tea in Acacia Road,
she had still to depend upon the pupils that, fortunately, she had found
in the small Surrey town. On three afternoons a week she sallied forth,
peacefully indeed, with no sense of anxiety or pressure, and made her
way to the houses of the doctor, the rector, the big London
manufacturer, and instructed their young daughters in the excellent
Munich method that she had imbibed in youth. With these delightfully
convenient strings to her bow she could manage perfectly. But to give
them up and to pay for an open-air cure in Switzerland was outside the
bounds of her possibilities.
So she explained, in the quiet voice, to Florrie; and it was then that
Florrie, revealing herself as a more wonderfully kind friend than even
in Miss Glover’s grateful eyes she had always been, said, the tears
suddenly hopping down her cheeks and making dark spots on the pink silk
blouse,--
"Stuff and nonsense, my dearest Edie! What do a few pounds more or less
matter at a time like this? You _shall_ go! It’s a question of life or
death. Now, not a word, my dear, and listen to me. _I’ll_ send you.
It’ll be the proudest day of my life that sees you off. What’s all my
good luck worth to me if I can’t give a friend a helping hand when she
needs it? I can sell out some investments. I’ve more than enough, and
I’ll soon fill my stocking again. And you shall go as soon as we can get
you ready; and first class, my dear, all the way, boat _and_ train.
Don’t I know the difference it makes--and getting off to sleep on the
way? Jane shall go with you to take care of you--oh, yes, she shall!--I
won’t hear of your going alone; and you’ll come back next spring a sound
woman.
“I know all about those Swiss open-air cures,” Florrie rushed on.
“They’re magical. Poor Lady Forestalls was at death’s door three years
ago--there she is--over there on the piano--that tall, regal-looking
woman with the Pekinese: worse than you she was, by far. And she went to
Switzerland and came back in six months' time, cured; absolutely cured.
Never a touch of it since. She does everything and goes everywhere. And
such scenery, my dear, such flowers! You’ll revel in it. And Julia
Forestalls told me that the people were so interesting. She made a
number of friends--Italian, German, Russian. You shall take my
tea-basket, my dear. Jane can carry it easily. It’s a gem; everything
complete and so convenient. It makes simply all the difference on a
journey if you can get a steaming hot cup of tea at any time you like,
day _or_ night. I saved Cora Clement’s life with my tea-basket in
Venice; she says so herself. She got chilled to the bone on the lagoons.
Over there on the writing-bureau she is; American. Not a beauty, but
_jolie laide_, and dresses exquisitely--as you can see. She’s always
taken for a French-woman.”
Miss Glover, even more than usual, felt to-day that dear Florrie dazed
and bewildered her a little; but the mere fact that Florrie’s tears had
dried so soon, that she could, so soon, be telling her about Lady
Forestalls and Cora Clement, was encouraging. Miss Glover felt that her
case was evidently but one among many to which Florrie had seen the
happiest endings--a comparatively unalarming affair; entirely
unalarming, though exceedingly engrossing, Florrie’s tone and demeanour
indicated, when taken in hand by such as she.
And how she took it in hand! There was no use protesting against
anything. As always, Florrie made her feel that she knew better than she
herself could what was good for her. It was all arranged before they
parted that day, and Florrie had further smoothed her path by declaring
that nothing would suit her better, if Edie really felt fussed about the
money, than to take The Nook during her absence. “The very thing I
need,” said Florrie. “I’ve been thinking for some time that I must have
a little place near London to run down to for week-ends. And you’ve that
duck of a spare-room, too, I remember, where I can put up a friend; and
it’s so near town that people can motor down and have tea with me of an
afternoon. My dear, nothing could be more providential.”
During the three weeks that followed, Florrie, in London, shopped for
her, decided on the clothes she would need and the conveniences that she
must take; and interesting parcels arrived at The Nook every morning. It
was strange and exciting to be made much of, strange and exciting to be
on a journey; she had not been out of England since that stay, in
girlhood, in Munich; and in spite of the shadow hanging over her, the
sense of haste lest she be overtaken, she felt the days of preparation
as almost happy ones. Jane, it was true, was rather gloomy about
everything, but even beneath her sombre demeanour Miss Glover felt sure
that she, too, was touched by the sense of adventure, for Jane had never
been out of England at all.
And now the boxes were all packed and Miss Glover’s dressing-case stood
open, half filled, in her bedroom, waiting only for her sponge bag and
pin-tray and brush and comb to be added next morning, when she and Jane
and Florrie were to go up together to Victoria, and Florrie was to see
them off; and while Jane prepared her most festive tea, Miss Glover had
been showing Florrie all over her new domain on that August afternoon
when she had spoken of her garden as horrid. Florrie, in answer to her
shy request that she might, perhaps, if it wasn’t too much bother, sow
some mignonette and sweet peas for her next spring, had answered with
reassuring decision, “To be sure I will, my dear. I’ll take care of
everything and have it all waiting for you spick and span when you get
back.” And then Jane’s gong had summoned them in, and it had been
reassuring, too, to see how benignant were the glances that Florrie cast
about the little sitting-room while she stirred her tea and commended
Jane’s cakes. “Beeswax and turpentine for all the furniture once a week.
_I_ know. And dusted every morning without fail.”
Yes, it was safe in Florrie’s competent hands, dear little room. In her
heart of hearts, though she had no faintest flicker of criticism or
comparison except for that one strangely painful memory of the rush of
pinkness,--Miss Glover very much preferred her own room, shabby and
simple as it was, to Florrie’s; just as, though so well aware of the
relative insignificance of her garden, she knew that she would prefer it
to the Isaacsons', with its arches of roses and its geraniums in white
stone vases. She liked quiet, soft, gentle things; the ever-so-faded
ancient chintzes on her aunt’s chairs and sofa, showing here and there a
ghostly bird of paradise or a knot of nearly obliterated flowers, her
aunt’s absurd, faded, old-fashioned carpet,--fortunately faded!--and her
grandmother’s Lowestoft cups ranged above the mantelpiece. Everything
was in its place; her knitting-basket between her chair and the
fireplace; her beaded footstool before the best armchair, where Florrie
sat; the little table, with a bowl of white and purple pansies on it,
where lay the daily paper and the two books from the circulating
library. All were dear to her; all spoke of continuity with the past, of
long association, of quiet, small, peaceful activities; and as she
looked about she knew that her heart would have sunk a little at the
thought of leaving them, had it not been for Florrie’s sustaining
presence.
Florrie, while her second cup of tea was being made, drew forth and laid
beside the tea-tray, with an air of infinite sagacity, the coupons for
the reserved seats in the first-class carriage. “_I’ll_ keep my eyes on
those,” said Florrie. It was almost as if they had been tickets for some
brilliant entertainment--as if, Miss Glover felt, she and Jane were
going to be taken to the opera rather than to Switzerland. It was owing
to Florrie that she had almost come to feel that Switzerland _was_ the
opera.
But that night, when they had gone upstairs and the house was still, the
sense of adventure deserted her. Sitting in her dressing-gown before her
mirror while, with hands that tired so easily, she brushed and braided
her hair, she felt, suddenly, very middle-aged, very lonely, ill, and
almost frightened. The look of her gaping dressing-case, as she glanced
round at it, was frightening, as was the emptiness of the mantelpiece,
from which the family photographs had all been taken to be packed,
together with the Bible and prayer-book from the table near her bed. It
was a room already deserted. It looked as it might look if she had died.
What, indeed, in spite of Florrie’s good cheer, if she were to die out
there, alone, away from everything and every one she knew? And, with a
curious impulse, rising to go and close the gaping dressing-case, she
realized that she had not said good-bye to anything. The morning had all
been spent in packing--in that and in preparations for Florrie’s
arrival; and all the afternoon Florrie had been with her, and she was to
be with her till her departure to-morrow. She would not again be alone
in her little house; she would not again be alone in her garden. The
thought of her pansies came with a pang of reproach; it was as if she
had forgotten them, like children sent to bed without a good-night kiss.
She drew her curtain and looked out. Yes; there they were. The moon was
shining brightly and the white pansies lay below like pools of milk upon
the ground. She looked at them for some moments, while the soft
fragrance of the night mounted to her and seemed with gently
supplicating hands to draw her forth; and then, cautiously--for Florrie
slept across the way--but with decision, she put on her heavy cloak over
her dressing-gown, wrapped a shawl about her head and shoulders, and
stole downstairs.
The drawing-room was very dark; she felt her way swiftly through it past
the familiar objects, and the conservatory door opened on a flood of
silvery light. She saw the high, shining disk of the moon, and the great
black poplar tree that grew in the neighbouring garden seemed vast
against the sky. As she stepped out, she made herself think of Diamond
in “At the Back of the North Wind.” It was like stepping into a
fairy-tale; only something more sweet and solemn than a fairy-tale, as
that book was; something, for all its beauty, a little awful. But when
she looked down from the moon, the sky, the poplar, there was only
sweetness. The fragrance that had solicited her seemed now to welcome
her, to clasp and caress her. The pansies were all looking up at her. On
the wall Madame Alfred Carrière was more beautiful than she had ever
before seen her, her pale flowers and buds making a constellation
against the darkness.
She walked round the path, looking at it all, so glad that she had
come, smiling--a child in fairyland, or a spirit arrived in Paradise and
finding it strange yet familiar--as Paradise should be. Perhaps, she
thought, dying would be like that: a stepping out from the darkness into
something vast and solemn that would slowly gather about one into
well-known and transfigured shapes, into white pansies growing thickly
at one’s feet. She stooped in the moonlight and passed her hands over
their upturned faces. They were flowers entranced, neither sleeping nor
awake; and she felt, as her fingers touched their soft, dewy petals, as
if their dreams with their whiteness flowed into her. To leave them was
like leaving her very self, yet the parting now was all peace and
innocent acquiescence, like them, and she was still smiling as she
whispered to them, “Good-bye, darlings.”