PART III

I

Down by the River Wye, among plum-trees in blossom, Noel had laid her

baby in a hammock, and stood reading a letter:

“MY DEAREST NOLLIE,

“Now that you are strong again, I feel that I must put before you my

feeling as to your duty in this crisis of your life. Your aunt and uncle

have made the most kind and generous offer to adopt your little boy. I

have known that this was in their minds for some time, and have thought

it over day and night for weeks. In the worldly sense it would be the

best thing, no doubt. But this is a spiritual matter. The future of

our souls depends on how we meet the consequences of our conduct. And

painful, dreadful, indeed, as they must be, I am driven to feel that you

can only reach true peace by facing them in a spirit of brave humility.

I want you to think and think—till you arrive at a certainty which

satisfies your conscience. If you decide, as I trust you will, to come

back to me here with your boy, I shall do all in my power to make you

happy while we face the future together. To do as your aunt and uncle

in their kindness wish, would, I am sore afraid, end in depriving you

of the inner strength and happiness which God only gives to those who

do their duty and try courageously to repair their errors. I have

confidence in you, my dear child.

“Ever your most loving father,

“EDWARD PIERSON.”

She read it through a second time, and looked at her baby. Daddy seemed

to think that she might be willing to part from this wonderful creature!

Sunlight fell through the plum blossom, in an extra patchwork quilt over

the bundle lying there, touched the baby's nose and mouth, so that he

sneezed. Noel laughed, and put her lips close to his face. 'Give you

up!' she thought: 'Oh, no! And I'm going to be happy too. They

shan't stop me:

In answer to the letter she said simply that she was coming up; and a

week later she went, to the dismay of her uncle and aunt. The old nurse

went too. Everything had hitherto been so carefully watched and guarded

against by Thirza, that Noel did not really come face to face with her

position till she reached home.

Gratian, who had managed to get transferred to a London Hospital, was

now living at home. She had provided the house with new maids against

her sister's return; and though Noel was relieved not to meet her old

familiars, she encountered with difficulty the stolid curiosity of new

faces. That morning before she left Kestrel, her aunt had come into her

room while she was dressing, taken her left hand and slipped a little

gold band on to its third finger. “To please me, Nollie, now that

you're going, just for the foolish, who know nothing about you.”

Noel had suffered it with the thought: 'It's all very silly!' But

now, when the new maid was pouring out her hot water, she was

suddenly aware of the girl's round blue eyes wandering, as it were,

mechanically to her hand. This little hoop of gold, then, had an awful

power! A rush of disgust came over her. All life seemed suddenly a thing

of forms and sham. Everybody then would look at that little ring; and

she was a coward, saving herself from them! When she was alone again,

she slipped it off, and laid it on the washstand, where the sunlight

fell. Only this little shining band of metal, this little yellow ring,

stood between her and the world's hostile scorn! Her lips trembled.

She took up the ring, and went to the open window; to throw it out. But

she did not, uncertain and unhappy—half realising the cruelty of life.

A knock at the door sent her flying back to the washstand. The visitor

was Gratian.

“I've been looking at him,” she said softly; “he's like you,

Nollie, except for his nose.”

“He's hardly got one yet. But aren't his eyes intelligent? I think

they're wonderful.” She held up the ring: “What shall I do about

this, Gratian?”

Gratian flushed. “Wear it. I don't see why outsiders should know.

For the sake of Dad I think you ought. There's the parish.”

Noel slipped the ring back on to her finger. “Would you?”

“I can't tell. I think I would.”

Noel laughed suddenly. “I'm going to get cynical; I can feel it in

my bones. How is Daddy looking?”

“Very thin; Mr. Lauder is back again from the Front for a bit, and

taking some of the work now.”

“Do I hurt him very much still?”

“He's awfully pleased that you've come. He's as sweet as he can

be about you.”

“Yes,” murmured Noel, “that's what's dreadful. I'm glad he

wasn't in when I came. Has he told anyone?”

Gratian shook her head. “I don't think anybody knows;

unless—perhaps Captain Fort. He came in again the other night; and

somehow—”

Noel flushed. “Leila!” she said enigmatically. “Have you seen

her?”

“I went to her flat last week with Dad—he likes her.”

“Delilah is her real name, you know. All men like her. And Captain

Fort is her lover.”

Gratian gasped. Noel would say things sometimes which made her feel the

younger of the two.

“Of course he is,” went on Noel in a hard voice. “She has no men

friends; her sort never have, only lovers. Why do you think he knows

about me?”

“When he asked after you he looked—”

“Yes; I've seen him look like that when he's sorry for anything. I

don't care. Has Monsieur Lavendie been in lately?”

“Yes; he looks awfully unhappy.”

“His wife drugs.”

“Oh, Nollie! How do you know?”

“I saw her once; I'm sure she does; there was a smell; and she's

got wandering eyes that go all glassy. He can paint me now, if he likes.

I wouldn't let him before. Does he know?”

“Of course not.”

“He knows there was something; he's got second sight, I think. But I

mind him less than anybody. Is his picture of Daddy good?”

“Powerful, but it hurts, somehow.”

“Let's go down and see it.”

The picture was hung in the drawing-room, and its intense modernity made

that old-fashioned room seem lifeless and strange. The black figure,

with long pale fingers touching the paler piano keys, had a frightening

actuality. The face, three-quarters full, was raised as if for

inspiration, and the eyes rested, dreamy and unseeing, on the face of a

girl painted and hung on a background of wall above the piano.

“It's the face of that girl,” said Gratian, when they had looked

at the picture for some time in silence:

“No,” said Noel, “it's the look in his eyes.”

“But why did he choose such a horrid, common girl? Isn't

she fearfully alive, though? She looks as if she were saying:

'Cheerio!'.rdquo;

“She is; it's awfully pathetic, I think. Poor Daddy!”

“It's a libel,” said Gratian stubbornly.

“No. That's what hurts. He isn't quite—quite all there. Will he

be coming in soon?”

Gratian took her arm, and pressed it hard. “Would you like me at

dinner or not; I can easily be out?”

Noel shook her head. “It's no good to funk it. He wanted me, and now

he's got me. Oh! why did he? It'll be awful for him.”

Gratian sighed. “I've tried my best, but he always said: 'I've

thought so long about it all that I can't think any longer. I can only

feel the braver course is the best. When things are bravely and humbly

met, there will be charity and forgiveness.'.rdquo;

“There won't,” said Noel, “Daddy's a saint, and he doesn't

see.”

“Yes, he is a saint. But one must think for oneself—one simply must.

I can't believe as he does, any more; can you, Nollie?”

“I don't know. When I was going through it, I prayed; but I don't

know whether I really believed. I don't think I mind much about that,

one way or the other.”

“I mind terribly,” said Gratian, “I want the truth.”

“I don't know what I want,” said Noel slowly, “except that

sometimes I want—life; awfully.”

And the two sisters were silent, looking at each other with a sort of

wonder.

Noel had a fancy to put on a bright-coloured blue frock that evening,

and at her neck she hung a Breton cross of old paste, which had belonged

to her mother. When she had finished dressing she went into the nursery

and stood by the baby's cot. The old nurse who was sitting there

beside him, got up at once and said:

“He's sleeping beautiful—the lamb. I'll go down and get a

cup o' tea, and come up, ma'am, when the gong goes.” In the

way peculiar to those who have never to initiate, but only to support

positions in which they are placed by others, she had adopted for

herself the theory that Noel was a real war-widow. She knew the truth

perfectly; for she had watched that hurried little romance at Kestrel,

but by dint of charity and blurred meditations it was easy for her to

imagine the marriage ceremony which would and should have taken place;

and she was zealous that other people should imagine it too. It was so

much more regular and natural like that, and “her” baby invested

with his proper dignity. She went downstairs to get a “cup o'

tea,” thinking: 'A picture they make—that they do, bless his

little heart; and his pretty little mother—no more than a child, all

said and done.'

Noel had been standing there some minutes in the failing light, absorbed

in the face of the sleeping baby, when, raising her eyes, she saw in

a mirror the refection of her father's dark figure by the door. She

could hear him breathing as if the ascent of the stairs had tired him;

and moving to the head of the cot, she rested her hand on it, and turned

her face towards him. He came up and stood beside her, looking silently

down at the baby. She saw him make the sign of the Cross above it, and

the movement of his lips in prayer. Love for her father, and rebellion

against this intercession for her perfect baby fought so hard in the

girl's heart that she felt suffocated, and glad of the dark, so that

he could not see her eyes. Then he took her hand and put it to his lips,

but still without a word; and for the life of her she could not speak

either. In silence, he kissed her forehead; and there mounted in Noel a

sudden passion of longing to show him her pride and love for her baby.

She put her finger down and touched one of his hands. The tiny sleeping

fingers uncurled and, like some little sea anemone, clutched round it.

She heard her father draw his breath in; saw him turn away quickly,

silently, and go out. And she stayed, hardly breathing, with the hand of

her baby squeezing her finger.

II 1

When Edward Pierson, afraid of his own emotion, left the twilit nursery,

he slipped into his own room, and fell on his knees beside his bed,

absorbed in the vision he had seen. That young figure in Madonna blue,

with the halo of bright hair; the sleeping babe in the fine dusk; the

silence, the adoration in that white room! He saw, too; a vision of the

past, when Noel herself had been the sleeping babe within her mother's

arm, and he had stood beside them, wondering and giving praise. It

passed with its other-worldliness and the fine holiness which belongs to

beauty, passed and left the tormenting realism of life. Ah! to live with

only the inner meaning, spiritual and beautifed, in a rare wonderment

such as he had experienced just now!

His alarum clock, while he knelt in his narrow, monkish little

room—ticked the evening hour away into darkness. And still he knelt,

dreading to come back into it all, to face the world's eyes, and the

sound of the world's tongue, and the touch of the rough, the gross,

the unseemly. How could he guard his child? How preserve that vision in

her life, in her spirit, about to enter such cold, rough waters? But the

gong sounded; he got up, and went downstairs.

But this first family moment, which all had dreaded, was relieved,

as dreaded moments so often are, by the unexpected appearance of the

Belgian painter. He had a general invitation, of which he often availed

himself; but he was so silent, and his thin, beardless face, which

seemed all eyes and brow, so mournful, that all three felt in the

presence of a sorrow deeper even than their own family grief. During the

meal he gazed silently at Noel. Once he said: “You will let me paint

you now, mademoiselle, I hope?” and his face brightened a little when

she nodded. There was never much talk when he came, for any depth of

discussion, even of art, brought out at once too wide a difference. And

Pierson could never avoid a vague irritation with one who clearly had

spirituality, but of a sort which he could not understand. After dinner

he excused himself, and went off to his study. Monsieur would be happier

alone with the two girls! Gratian, too, got up. She had remembered

Noel's words: “I mind him less than anybody.” It was a chance for

Nollie to break the ice.

2

“I have not seen you for a long time, mademoiselle,” said the

painter, when they were alone.

Noel was sitting in front of the empty drawing-room hearth, with her

arms stretched out as if there had been a fire there.

“I've been away. How are you going to paint me, monsieur?”

“In that dress, mademoiselle; Just as you are now, warming yourself at

the fire of life.”

“But it isn't there.”

“Yes, fires soon go out. Mademoiselle, will you come and see my wife?

She is ill.”

“Now?” asked Noel, startled.

“Yes, now. She is really ill, and I have no one there. That is what I

came to ask of your sister; but—now you are here, it's even better.

She likes you.”

Noel got up. “Wait one minute!” she said, and ran upstairs. Her baby

was asleep, and the old nurse dozing. Putting on a cloak and cap of grey

rabbit's fur, she ran down again to the hall where the painter was

waiting; and they went out together.

“I do not know if I am to blame,” he said, “my wife has been no

real wife to me since she knew I had a mistress and was no real husband

to her.”

Noel stared round at his face lighted by a queer, smile.

“Yes,” he went on, “from that has come her tragedy. But she should

have known before I married her. Nothing was concealed. Bon Dieu!

she should have known! Why cannot a woman see things as they are? My

mistress, mademoiselle, is not a thing of flesh. It is my art. It has

always been first with me, and always will. She has never accepted that,

she is incapable of accepting it. I am sorry for her. But what would

you? I was a fool to marry her. Chere mademoiselle, no troubles are

anything beside the trouble which goes on day and night, meal after

meal, year, after year, between two people who should never have

married, because one loves too much and requires all, and the other

loves not at all—no, not at all, now, it is long dead—and can give

but little.”

“Can't you separate?” asked Noel, wondering.

“It is hard to separate from one who craves for you as she craves her

drugs—yes, she takes drugs now, mademoiselle. It is impossible for one

who has any compassion in his soul. Besides, what would she do? We live

from hand to mouth, in a strange land. She has no friends here, not one.

How could I leave her while this war lasts? As well could two persons on

a desert island separate. She is killing herself, too, with these drugs,

and I cannot stop her.”

“Poor madame!” murmured Noel. “Poor monsieur!”

The painter drew his hand across his eyes.

“I cannot change my nature,” he said in a stifled voice, “nor she

hers. So we go on. But life will stop suddenly some day for one of us.

After all, it is much worse for her than for me. Enter, mademoiselle. Do

not tell her I am going to paint you; she likes you, because you refused

to let me.”

Noel went up the stairs, shuddering; she had been there once before, and

remembered that sickly scent of drugs. On the third floor they entered a

small sitting-room whose walls were covered with paintings and drawings;

from one corner a triangular stack of canvases jutted out. There was

little furniture save an old red sofa, and on this was seated a stoutish

man in the garb of a Belgian soldier, with his elbows on his knees and

his bearded cheeks resting on his doubled fists. Beside him on the sofa,

nursing a doll, was a little girl, who looked up at Noel. She had a most

strange, attractive, pale little face, with pointed chin and large eyes,

which never moved from this apparition in grey rabbits' skins.

“Ah, Barra! You here!” said the painter:

“Mademoiselle, this is Monsieur Barra, a friend of ours from the

front; and this is our landlady's little girl. A little refugee, too,

aren't you, Chica?”

The child gave him a sudden brilliant smile and resumed her grave

scrutiny of the visitor. The soldier, who had risen heavily, offered

Noel one of his podgy hands, with a sad and heavy giggle.

“Sit down, mademoiselle,” said Lavendie, placing a chair for her:

“I will bring my wife in,” and he went out through some double

doors.

Noel sat down. The soldier had resumed his old attitude, and the little

girl her nursing of the doll, though her big eyes still watched the

visitor. Overcome by strangeness, Noel made no attempt to talk. And

presently through the double doors the painter and his wife came in. She

was a thin woman in a red wrapper, with hollow cheeks, high cheek-bones,

and hungry eyes; her dark hair hung loose, and one hand played

restlessly with a fold of her gown. She took Noel's hand; and her

uplifted eyes seemed to dig into the girl's face, to let go suddenly,

and flutter.

“How do you do?” she said in English. “So Pierre brought you, to

see me again. I remember you so well. You would not let him paint you.

Ah! que c'est drole! You are so pretty, too. Hein, Monsieur Barra, is

not mademoiselle pretty?”

The soldier gave his heavy giggle, and resumed his scrutiny of the

floor.

“Henriette,” said Lavendie, “sit down beside Chica—you must not

stand. Sit down, mademoiselle, I beg.”

“I'm so sorry you're not well,” said Noel, and sat down again.

The painter stood leaning against the wall, and his wife looked up at

his tall, thin figure, with eyes which had in them anger, and a sort of

cunning.

“A great painter, my husband, is he not?” she said to Noel. “You

would not imagine what that man can do. And how he paints—all day

long; and all night in his head. And so you would not let him paint you,

after all?”

Lavendie said impatiently: “Voyons, Henriette, causez d'autre

chose.”

His wife plucked nervously at a fold in her red gown, and gave him the

look of a dog that has been rebuked.

“I am a prisoner here, mademoiselle, I never leave the house. Here

I live day after day—my husband is always painting. Who would go out

alone under this grey sky of yours, and the hatreds of the war in every

face? I prefer to keep my room. My husband goes painting; every face

he sees interests him, except that which he sees every day. But I am a

prisoner. Monsieur Barra is our first visitor for a long time.”

The soldier raised his face from his fists. “Prisonnier, madame! What

would you say if you were out there?” And he gave his thick giggle.

“We are the prisoners, we others. What would you say to imprisonment

by explosion day and night; never a minute free. Bom! Bom! Bom! Ah! les

tranchees! It's not so free as all that, there.”

“Every one has his own prison,” said Lavendie bitterly.

“Mademoiselle even, has her prison—and little Chica, and her doll.

Every one has his prison, Barra. Monsieur Barra is also a painter,

mademoiselle.”

“Moi!” said Barra, lifting his heavy hairy hand. “I paint puddles,

star-bombs, horses' ribs—I paint holes and holes and holes, wire and

wire and wire, and water—long white ugly water. I paint splinters,

and men's souls naked, and men's bodies dead, and

nightmare—nightmare—all day and all night—I paint them in my

head.” He suddenly ceased speaking and relapsed into contemplation of

the carpet, with his bearded cheeks resting on his fists. “And their

souls as white as snow, les camarades,” he added suddenly and loudly,

“millions of Belgians, English, French, even the Boches, with white

souls. I paint those souls!”

A little shiver ran through Noel, and she looked appealingly at

Lavendie.

“Barra,” he said, as if the soldier were not there, “is a great

painter, but the Front has turned his head a little. What he says is

true, though. There is no hatred out there. It is here that we are

prisoners of hatred, mademoiselle; avoid hatreds—they are poison!”

His wife put out her hand and touched the child's shoulder.

“Why should we not hate?” she said. “Who killed Chica's

father, and blew her home to-rags? Who threw her out into this horrible

England—pardon, mademoiselle, but it is horrible. Ah! les Boches!

If my hatred could destroy them there would not be one left. Even my

husband was not so mad about his painting when we lived at home. But

here—!” Her eyes darted at his face again, and then sank as if

rebuked. Noel saw the painter's lips move. The sick woman's whole

figure writhed.

“It is mania, your painting!” She looked at Noel with a smile.

“Will you have some tea, mademoiselle? Monsieur Barra, some tea?”

The soldier said thickly: “No, madame; in the trenches we have tea

enough. It consoles us. But when we get away—give us wine, le bon vin;

le bon petit vin!”

“Get some wine, Pierre!”

Noel saw from the painter's face that there was no wine, and perhaps

no money to get any; but he went quickly out. She rose and said:

“I must be going, madame.”

Madame Lavendie leaned forward and clutched her wrist. “Wait a little,

mademoiselle. We shall have some wine, and Pierre shall take you back

presently. You cannot go home alone—you are too pretty. Is she not,

Monsieur Barra?”

The soldier looked up: “What would you say,” he said, “to bottles

of wine bursting in the air, bursting red and bursting white, all day

long, all night long? Great steel bottles, large as Chica: bits of

bottles, carrying off men's heads? Bsum, garra-a-a, and a house comes

down, and little bits of people ever so small, ever so small, tiny bits

in the air and all over the ground. Great souls out there, madame. But I

will tell you a secret,” and again he gave his heavy giggle, “all a

little, little mad; nothing to speak of—just a little bit mad; like

a watch, you know, that you can wind for ever. That is the discovery of

this war, mademoiselle,” he said, addressing Noel for the first

time, “you cannot gain a great soul till you are a little mad.” And

lowering his piggy grey eyes at once, he resumed his former attitude.

“It is that madness I shall paint some day,” he announced to

the carpet; “lurking in one tiny corner of each soul of all those

millions, as it creeps, as it peeps, ever so sudden, ever so little when

we all think it has been put to bed, here—there, now—then, when you

least think; in and out like a mouse with bright eyes. Millions of men

with white souls, all a little mad. A great subject, I think,” he

added heavily. Involuntarily Noel put her hand to her heart, which was

beating fast. She felt quite sick.

“How long have you been at the Front, monsieur?”

“Two years, mademoiselle. Time to go home and paint, is it not? But

art—!” he shrugged his heavy round shoulders, his whole bear-like

body. “A little mad,” he muttered once more. “I will tell you a

story. Once in winter after I had rested a fortnight, I go back to the

trenches at night, and I want some earth to fill up a hole in the

ground where I was sleeping; when one has slept in a bed one becomes

particular. Well, I scratch it from my parapet, and I come to something

funny. I strike my briquet, and there is a Boche's face all frozen and

earthy and dead and greeny-white in the flame from my briquet.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh! but yes, mademoiselle; true as I sit here. Very useful in the

parapet—dead Boche. Once a man like me. But in the morning I could not

stand him; we dug him out and buried him, and filled the hole up with

other things. But there I stood in the night, and my face as close to

his as this”—and he held his thick hand a foot before his face.

“We talked of our homes; he had a soul, that man. 'Il me disait des

choses', how he had suffered; and I, too, told him my sufferings. Dear

God, we know all; we shall never know more than we know out there, we

others, for we are mad—nothing to speak of, but just a little, little

mad. When you see us, mademoiselle, walking the streets, remember

that.” And he dropped his face on to his fists again.

A silence had fallen in the room-very queer and complete. The little

girl nursed her doll, the soldier gazed at the floor, the woman's

mouth moved stealthily, and in Noel the thought rushed continually to

the verge of action: 'Couldn't I get up and run downstairs?' But

she sat on, hypnotised by that silence, till Lavendie reappeared with a

bottle and four glasses.

“To drink our health, and wish us luck, mademoiselle,” he said.

Noel raised the glass he had given her. “I wish you all happiness.”

“And you, mademoiselle,” the two men murmured.

She drank a little, and rose.

“And now, mademoiselle,” said Lavendie, “if you must go, I will

see you home.”

Noel took Madame Lavendie's hand; it was cold, and returned no

pressure; her eyes had the glazed look that she remembered. The

soldier had put his empty glass down on the floor, and was regarding it

unconscious of her. Noel turned quickly to the door; the last thing she

saw was the little girl nursing her doll.

In the street the painter began at once in his rapid French:

“I ought not to have asked you to come, mademoiselle; I did not know

our friend Barra was there. Besides, my wife is not fit to receive

a lady; vous voyez qu'il y a de la manie dans cette pauvre tote. I

should not have asked you; but I was so miserable.”

“Oh!” murmured Noel, “I know.”

“In our home over there she had interests. In this great town she can

only nurse her grief against me. Ah! this war! It seems to me we are all

in the stomach of a great coiling serpent. We lie there, being digested.

In a way it is better out there in the trenches; they are beyond hate,

they have attained a height that we have not. It is wonderful how they

still can be for going on till they have beaten the Boche; that is

curious and it is very great. Did Barra tell you how, when they come

back—all these fighters—they are going to rule, and manage the

future of the world? But it will not be so. They will mix in with life,

separate—be scattered, and they will be ruled as they were before. The

tongue and the pen will rule them: those who have not seen the war will

rule them.”

“Oh!”' cried Noel, “surely they will be the bravest and

strongest in the future.”

The painter smiled.

“War makes men simple,” he said, “elemental; life in peace

is neither simple nor elemental, it is subtle, full of changing

environments, to which man must adapt himself; the cunning, the astute,

the adaptable, will ever rule in times of peace. It is pathetic, the

belief of those brave soldiers that the-future is theirs.”

“He said, a strange thing,” murmured Noel; “that they were all a

little mad.”

“He is a man of queer genius—Barra; you should see some of his

earlier pictures. Mad is not quite the word, but something is loosened,

is rattling round in them, they have lost proportion, they are being

forced in one direction. I tell you, mademoiselle, this war is one great

forcing-house; every living plant is being made to grow too fast, each

quality, each passion; hate and love, intolerance and lust and avarice,

courage and energy; yes, and self-sacrifice—all are being forced and

forced beyond their strength, beyond the natural flow of the sap,

forced till there has come a great wild luxuriant crop, and then—Psum!

Presto! The change comes, and these plants will wither and rot and

stink. But we who see Life in forms of Art are the only ones who feel

that; and we are so few. The natural shape of things is lost. There is a

mist of blood before all eyes. Men are afraid of being fair. See how we

all hate not only our enemies, but those who differ from us. Look at the

streets too—see how men and women rush together, how Venus reigns in

this forcing-house. Is it not natural that Youth about to die should

yearn for pleasure, for love, for union, before death?”

Noel stared up at him. 'Now!' she thought: I will.'

“Yes,” she said, “I know that's true, because I rushed, myself.

I'd like you to know. We couldn't be married—there wasn't time.

And—he was killed. But his son is alive. That's why I've been away

so long. I want every one to know.” She spoke very calmly, but her

cheeks felt burning hot.

The painter had made an upward movement of his hands, as if they had

been jerked by an electric current, then he said quite quietly:

“My profound respect, mademoiselle, and my great sympathy. And your

father?”

“It's awful for him.”

The painter said gently: “Ah! mademoiselle, I am not so sure. Perhaps

he does not suffer so greatly. Perhaps not even your trouble can hurt

him very much. He lives in a world apart. That, I think, is his true

tragedy to be alive, and yet not living enough to feel reality. Do you

know Anatole France's description of an old woman: 'Elle vivait,

mais si peu.' Would that not be well said of the Church in these days:

'Elle vivait, mais si peu.' I see him always like a rather beautiful

dark spire in the night-time when you cannot see how it is attached to

the earth. He does not know, he never will know, Life.”

Noel looked round at him. “What do you mean by Life, monsieur? I'm

always reading about Life, and people talk of seeing Life! What is

it—where is it? I never see anything that you could call Life.”

The painter smiled.

“To 'see life'.” he said. “Ah! that is different. To enjoy

yourself! Well, it is my experience that when people are 'seeing

life' as they call it, they are not enjoying themselves. You know when

one is very thirsty one drinks and drinks, but the thirst remains all

the same. There are places where one can see life as it is called, but

the only persons you will see enjoying themselves at such places are a

few humdrums like myself, who go there for a talk over a cup of coffee.

Perhaps at your age, though, it is different.”

Noel clasped her hands, and her eyes seemed to shine in the gloom. “I

want music and dancing and light, and beautiful things and faces; but I

never get them.”

“No, there does not exist in this town, or in any other, a place which

will give you that. Fox-trots and ragtime and paint and powder and glare

and half-drunken young men, and women with red lips you can get them in

plenty. But rhythm and beauty and charm never. In Brussels when I was

younger I saw much 'life' as they call it, but not one lovely thing

unspoiled; it was all as ashes in the mouth. Ah! you may smile, but I

know what I am talking of. Happiness never comes when you are looking

for it, mademoiselle; beauty is in Nature and in real art, never in

these false silly make believes. There is a place just here where we

Belgians go; would you like to see how true my words are?

“Oh, yes!”

“Tres-bien! Let us go in?”

They passed into a revolving doorway with little glass compartments

which shot them out into a shining corridor. At the end of this the

painter looked at Noel and seemed to hesitate, then he turned off from

the room they were about to enter into a room on the right. It was

large, full of gilt and plush and marble tables, where couples were

seated; young men in khaki and older men in plain clothes, together or

with young women. At these last Noel looked, face after face, while they

were passing down a long way to an empty table. She saw that some were

pretty, and some only trying to be, that nearly all were powdered and

had their eyes darkened and their lips reddened, till she felt her own

face to be dreadfully ungarnished: Up in a gallery a small band was

playing an attractive jingling hollow little tune; and the buzz of talk

and laughter was almost deafening.

“What will you have, mademoiselle?” said the painter. “It is just

nine o'clock; we must order quickly.”

“May I have one of those green things?”

“Deux cremes de menthe,” said Lavendie to the waiter.

Noel was too absorbed to see the queer, bitter little smile hovering

about his face. She was busy looking at the faces of women whose eyes,

furtively cold and enquiring, were fixed on her; and at the faces of men

with eyes that were furtively warm and wondering.

“I wonder if Daddy was ever in a place like this?” she said, putting

the glass of green stuff to her lips. “Is it nice? It smells of

peppermint.”

“A beautiful colour. Good luck, mademoiselle!” and he chinked his

glass with hers.

Noel sipped, held it away, and sipped again.

“It's nice; but awfully sticky. May I have a cigarette?”

“Des cigarettes,” said Lavendie to the waiter, “Et deux cafes

noirs. Now, mademoiselle,” he murmured when they were brought, “if

we imagine that we have drunk a bottle of wine each, we shall have

exhausted all the preliminaries of what is called Vice. Amusing, isn't

it?” He shrugged his shoulders.

His face struck Noel suddenly as tarnished and almost sullen.

“Don't be angry, monsieur, it's all new to me, you see.”

The painter smiled, his bright, skin-deep smile.

“Pardon! I forget myself. Only, it hurts me to see beauty in a place

like this. It does not go well with that tune, and these voices, and

these faces. Enjoy yourself, mademoiselle; drink it all in! See the way

these people look at each other; what love shines in their eyes! A pity,

too, we cannot hear what they are saying. Believe me, their talk is most

subtle, tres-spirituel. These young women are 'doing their bit,'

as you call it; bringing le plaisir to all these who are serving their

country. Eat, drink, love, for tomorrow we die. Who cares for the world

simple or the world beautiful, in days like these? The house of the

spirit is empty.”

He was looking at her sidelong as if he would enter her very soul.

Noel got up. “I'm ready to go, monsieur.”

He put her cloak on her shoulders, paid the bill, and they went out,

threading again through the little tables, through the buzz of talk

and laughter and the fumes of tobacco, while another hollow little tune

jingled away behind them.

“Through there,” said the painter, pointing to another door, “they

dance. So it goes. London in war-time! Well, after all, it is never very

different; no great town is. Did you enjoy your sight of 'life,'

mademoiselle?”

“I think one must dance, to be happy. Is that where your friends

go?”

“Oh, no! To a room much rougher, and play dominoes, and drink coffee

and beer, and talk. They have no money to throw away.”

“Why didn't you show me?”

“Mademoiselle, in that room you might see someone perhaps whom one day

you would meet again; in the place we visited you were safe enough at

least I hope so.”

Noel shrugged. “I suppose it doesn't matter now, what I do.”

And a rush of emotion caught at her throat—a wave from the past—the

moonlit night, the dark old Abbey, the woods and the river. Two tears

rolled down her cheeks.

“I was thinking of—something,” she said in a muffled voice.

“It's all right.”

“Chere mademoiselle!” Lavendie murmured; and all the way home he was

timid and distressed. Shaking his hand at the door, she murmured:

“I'm sorry I was such a fool; and thank you awfully, monsieur. Good

night.”

“Good night; and better dreams. There is a good time coming—Peace

and Happiness once more in the world. It will not always be this

Forcing-House. Good night, chere mademoiselle!”

Noel went up to the nursery, and stole in. A night-light was burning,

Nurse and baby were fast asleep. She tiptoed through into her own room.

Once there, she felt suddenly so tired that she could hardly undress;

and yet curiously rested, as if with that rush of emotion, Cyril and the

past had slipped from her for ever.

III

Noel's first encounter with Opinion took place the following day.

The baby had just come in from its airing; she had seen it comfortably

snoozing, and was on her way downstairs, when a voice from the hall

said:

“How do you do?” and she saw the khaki-clad figure of Adrian Lauder,

her father's curate! Hesitating just a moment, she finished

her descent, and put her fingers in his. He was a rather heavy,

dough-coloured young man of nearly thirty, unsuited by khaki, with a

round white collar buttoned behind; but his aspiring eyes redeemed him,

proclaiming the best intentions in the world, and an inclination towards

sentiment in the presence of beauty.

“I haven't seen you for ages,” he said rather fatuously, following

her into her father's study.

“No,” said Noel. “How—do you like being at the Front?”

“Ah!” he said, “they're wonderful!” And his eyes shone.

“It's so nice to see you again.”

“Is it?”

He seemed puzzled by that answer; stammered, and said:

“I didn't know your sister had a baby. A jolly baby.”

“She hasn't.”

Lauder's mouth opened. 'A silly mouth,' she thought.

“Oh!” he said. “Is it a protegee—Belgian or something?”

“No, it's mine; my own.” And, turning round, she slipped the

little ring off her finger. When she turned back to him, his face had

not recovered from her words. It had a hapless look, as of one to whom

such a thing ought not to have happened.

“Don't look like that,” said Noel. “Didn't you understand?

It's mine-mine.” She put out her left hand. “Look! There's no

ring.”

He stammered: “I say, you oughtn't to—you oughtn't to—!”

“What?”

“Joke about—about such things; ought you?”

“One doesn't joke if one's had a baby without being married, you

know.”

Lauder went suddenly slack. A shell might have burst a few paces from

him. And then, just as one would in such a case, he made an effort,

braced himself, and said in a curious voice, both stiff and heavy: “I

can't—one doesn't—it's not—”

“It is,” said Noel. “If you don't believe me, ask Daddy.”

He put his hand up to his round collar; and with the wild thought that

he was going to tear it off, she cried: “Don't!”

“You!” he said. “You! But—”

Noel turned away from him to the window: She stood looking out, but saw

nothing whatever.

“I don't want it hidden,” she said without turning round, “I

want every one to know. It's stupid as it is—stupid!” and she

stamped her foot. “Can't you see how stupid it is—everybody's

mouth falling open!”

He uttered a little sound which had pain in it, and she felt a real pang

of compunction. He had gripped the back of a chair; his face had lost

its heaviness. A dull flush coloured his cheeks. Noel had a feeling, as

if she had been convicted of treachery. It was his silence, the curious

look of an impersonal pain beyond power of words; she felt in him

something much deeper than mere disapproval—something which echoed

within herself. She walked quickly past him and escaped. She ran

upstairs and threw herself on her bed. He was nothing: it was not that!

It was in herself, the awful feeling, for the first time developed and

poignant, that she had betrayed her caste, forfeited the right to be

thought a lady, betrayed her secret reserve and refinement, repaid with

black ingratitude the love lavished on her up bringing, by behaving like

any uncared-for common girl. She had never felt this before—not even

when Gratian first heard of it, and they had stood one at each end of

the hearth, unable to speak. Then she still had her passion, and her

grief for the dead. That was gone now as if it had never been; and she

had no defence, nothing between her and this crushing humiliation and

chagrin. She had been mad! She must have been mad! The Belgian Barra was

right: “All a little mad” in this “forcing-house” of a war! She

buried her face deep in the pillow, till it almost stopped her power of

breathing; her head and cheeks and ears seemed to be on fire. If only he

had shown disgust, done something which roused her temper, her sense

of justice, her feeling that Fate had been too cruel to her; but he had

just stood there, bewilderment incarnate, like a creature with some very

deep illusion shattered. It was horrible! Then, feeling that she could

not stay still, must walk, run, get away somehow from this feeling of

treachery and betrayal, she sprang up. All was quiet below, and

she slipped downstairs and out, speeding along with no knowledge of

direction, taking the way she had taken day after day to her hospital.

It was the last of April, trees and shrubs were luscious with blossom

and leaf; the dogs ran gaily; people had almost happy faces in the

sunshine. 'If I could get away from myself, I wouldn't care,' she

thought. Easy to get away from people, from London, even from England

perhaps; but from oneself—impossible! She passed her hospital; and

looked at it dully, at the Red Cross flag against its stucco wall, and

a soldier in his blue slops and red tie, coming out. She had spent many

miserable hours there, but none quite so miserable as this. She passed

the church opposite to the flats where Leila lived, and running suddenly

into a tall man coming round the corner, saw Fort. She bent her head,

and tried to hurry past. But his hand was held out, she could not help

putting hers into it; and looking up hardily, she said:

“You know about me, don't you?”

His face, naturally so frank, seemed to clench up, as if he were riding

at a fence. 'He'll tell a lie,' she thought bitterly. But he did

not.

“Yes, Leila told me.”

And she thought: 'I suppose he'll try and pretend that I've not

been a beast!'

“I admire your pluck,” he said.

“I haven't any.”

“We never know ourselves, do we? I suppose you wouldn't walk my pace

a minute or two, would you? I'm going the same way.”

“I don't know which way I'm going.”

“That is my case, too.”

They walked on in silence.

“I wish to God I were back in France,” said Fort abruptly. “One

doesn't feel clean here.”

Noel's heart applauded.

Ah! to get away—away from oneself! But at the thought of her baby, her

heart fell again. “Is your leg quite hopeless?” she said.

“Quite.”

“That must be horrid.”

“Hundreds of thousands would look on it as splendid luck; and so it

is if you count it better to be alive than dead, which I do, in spite of

the blues.”

“How is Cousin Leila?”

“Very well. She goes on pegging away at the hospital; she's a

brick.” But he did not look at her, and again there was silence, till

he stopped by Lord's Cricket-ground.

“I mustn't keep you crawling along at this pace.”

“Oh, I don't mind!”

“I only wanted to say that if I can be of any service to you at any

time in any way whatever, please command me.”

He gave her hand a squeeze, took his hat off; and Noel walked slowly on.

The little interview, with its suppressions, and its implications, had

but exasperated her restlessness, and yet, in a way, it had soothed the

soreness of her heart. Captain Fort at all events did not despise her;

and he was in trouble like herself. She felt that somehow by the look

of his face, and the tone of his voice when he spoke of Leila. She

quickened her pace. George's words came back to her: “If you're

not ashamed of yourself, no one will be of you!” How easy to say! The

old days, her school, the little half grown-up dances she used to go to,

when everything was happy. Gone! All gone!

But her meetings with Opinion were not over for the day, for turning

again at last into the home Square, tired out by her three hours'

ramble, she met an old lady whom she and Gratian had known from

babyhood—a handsome dame, the widow of an official, who spent her

days, which showed no symptom of declining, in admirable works. Her

daughter, the widow of an officer killed at the Marne, was with her, and

the two greeted Noel with a shower of cordial questions: So she was

back from the country, and was she quite well again? And working at her

hospital? And how was her dear father? They had thought him looking very

thin and worn. But now Gratian was at home—How dreadfully the war kept

husbands and wives apart! And whose was the dear little baby they had in

the house?

“Mine,” said Noel, walking straight past them with her head up.

In every fibre of her being she could feel the hurt, startled, utterly

bewildered looks of those firm friendly persons left there on the

pavement behind her; could feel the way they would gather themselves

together, and walk on, perhaps without a word, and then round the corner

begin: “What has come to Noel? What did she mean?” And taking the

little gold hoop out of her pocket, she flung it with all her might into

the Square Garden. The action saved her from a breakdown; and she went

in calmly. Lunch was long over, but her father had not gone out, for he

met her in the hall and drew her into the dining-room.

“You must eat, my child,” he said. And while she was swallowing down

what he had caused to be kept back for her, he stood by the hearth in

that favourite attitude of his, one foot on the fender, and one hand

gripping the mantel-shelf.

“You've got your wish, Daddy,” she said dully: “Everybody knows

now. I've told Mr. Lauder, and Monsieur, and the Dinnafords.”

She saw his fingers uncrisp, then grip the shelf again. “I'm

glad,” he said.

“Aunt Thirza gave me a ring to wear, but I've thrown it away.”

“My dearest child,” he began, but could not go on, for the quivering

of his lips.

“I wanted to say once more, Daddy, that I'm fearfully sorry about

you. And I am ashamed of myself; I thought I wasn't, but I am—only,

I think it was cruel, and I'm not penitent to God; and it's no good

trying to make me.”

Pierson turned and looked at her. For a long time after, she could not

get that look out of her memory.

Jimmy Fort had turned away from Noel feeling particularly wretched. Ever

since the day when Leila had told him of the girl's misfortune he had

been aware that his liaison had no decent foundation, save a sort of

pity. One day, in a queer access of compunction, he had made Leila an

offer of marriage. She had refused; and he had respected her the more,

realising by the quiver in her voice and the look in her eyes that she

refused him, not because she did not love him well enough, but because

she was afraid of losing any of his affection. She was a woman of great

experience.

To-day he had taken advantage of the luncheon interval to bring her some

flowers, with a note to say that he could not come that evening. Letting

himself in with his latchkey, he had carefully put those Japanese

azaleas in the bowl “Famille Rose,” taking water from her bedroom.

Then he had sat down on the divan with his head in his hands.

Though he had rolled so much about the world, he had never had much to

do with women. And there was nothing in him of the Frenchman, who takes

what life puts in his way as so much enjoyment on the credit side, and

accepts the ends of such affairs as they naturally and rather rapidly

arrive. It had been a pleasure, and was no longer a pleasure; but this

apparently did not dissolve it, or absolve him. He felt himself bound by

an obscure but deep instinct to go on pretending that he was not tired

of her, so long as she was not tired of him. And he sat there trying to

remember any sign, however small, of such a consummation, quite without

success. On the contrary, he had even the wretched feeling that if only

he had loved her, she would have been much more likely to have tired of

him by now. For her he was still the unconquered, in spite of his loyal

endeavour to seem conquered. He had made a fatal mistake, that evening

after the concert at Queen's Hall, to let himself go, on a mixed tide

of desire and pity!

His folly came to him with increased poignancy after he had parted from

Noel. How could he have been such a base fool, as to have committed

himself to Leila on an evening when he had actually been in the company

of that child? Was it the vague, unseizable likeness between them which

had pushed him over the edge? 'I've been an ass,' he thought; 'a

horrible ass.' I would always have given every hour I've ever spent

with Leila, for one real smile from that girl.'

This sudden sight of Noel after months during which he had tried loyally

to forget her existence, and not succeeded at all, made him realise as

he never had yet that he was in love with her; so very much in love

with her that the thought of Leila was become nauseating. And yet the

instincts of a gentleman seemed to forbid him to betray that secret to

either of them. It was an accursed coil! He hailed a cab, for he was

late; and all the way back to the War Office he continued to see

the girl's figure and her face with its short hair. And a fearful

temptation rose within him. Was it not she who was now the real object

for chivalry and pity? Had he not the right to consecrate himself to

championship of one in such a deplorable position? Leila had lived her

life; but this child's life—pretty well wrecked—was all before

her. And then he grinned from sheer disgust. For he knew that this

was Jesuitry. Not chivalry was moving him, but love! Love! Love of

the unattainable! And with a heavy heart, indeed, he entered the great

building, where, in a small room, companioned by the telephone, and

surrounded by sheets of paper covered with figures, he passed his days.

The war made everything seem dreary, hopeless. No wonder he had caught

at any distraction which came along—caught at it, till it had caught

him!

IV 1

To find out the worst is, for human nature, only a question of time. But

where the “worst” is attached to a family haloed, as it were, by the

authority and reputation of an institution like the Church, the

process of discovery has to break through many a little hedge.

Sheer unlikelihood, genuine respect, the defensive instinct in those

identified with an institution, who will themselves feel weaker if its

strength be diminished, the feeling that the scandal is too good to be

true—all these little hedges, and more, had to be broken through.

To the Dinnafords, the unholy importance of what Noel had said to them

would have continued to keep them dumb, out of self-protection; but its

monstrosity had given them the feeling that there must be some mistake,

that the girl had been overtaken by a wild desire to “pull their

legs” as dear Charlie would say. With the hope of getting this view

confirmed, they lay in wait for the old nurse who took the baby out, and

obtained the information, shortly imparted: “Oh, yes; Miss Noel's.

Her 'usband was killed—poor lamb!” And they felt rewarded. They

had been sure there was some mistake. The relief of hearing that word

“'usband” was intense. One of these hasty war marriages, of which

the dear Vicar had not approved, and so it had been kept dark. Quite

intelligible, but so sad! Enough misgiving however remained in their

minds, to prevent their going to condole with the dear Vicar; but not

enough to prevent their roundly contradicting the rumours and gossip

already coming to their ears. And then one day, when their friend

Mrs. Curtis had said too positively: “Well, she doesn't wear a

wedding-ring, that I'll swear, because I took very good care

to look!” they determined to ask Mr. Lauder. He would—indeed

must—know; and, of course, would not tell a story. When they asked

him it was so manifest that he did know, that they almost withdrew the

question. The poor young man had gone the colour of a tomato.

“I prefer not to answer,” he said. The rest of a very short

interview was passed in exquisite discomfort. Indeed discomfort,

exquisite and otherwise, within a few weeks of Noel's return, had

begun to pervade all the habitual congregation of Pierson's church.

It was noticed that neither of the two sisters attended Service now.

Certain people who went in the sincere hope of seeing Noel, only fell

off again when she did not appear. After all, she would not have the

face! And Gratian was too ashamed, no doubt. It was constantly remarked

that the Vicar looked very grave and thin, even for him. As the rumours

hardened into certainty, the feeling towards him became a curious medley

of sympathy and condemnation. There was about the whole business that

which English people especially resent. By the very fact of his

presence before them every Sunday, and his public ministrations, he

was exhibiting to them, as it were, the seamed and blushing face of

his daughter's private life, besides affording one long and glaring

demonstration of the failure of the Church to guide its flock: If a man

could not keep his own daughter in the straight path—whom could he?

Resign! The word began to be thought about, but not yet spoken. He had

been there so long; he had spent so much money on the church and the

parish; his gentle dreamy manner was greatly liked. He was a gentleman;

and had helped many people; and, though his love of music and vestments

had always caused heart-burnings, yet it had given a certain cachet to

the church. The women, at any rate, were always glad to know that the

church they went to was capable of drawing their fellow women away from

other churches. Besides, it was war-time, and moral delinquency which

in time of peace would have bulked too large to neglect, was now less

insistently dwelt on, by minds preoccupied by food and air-raids.

Things, of course, could not go on as they were; but as yet they did go

on.

The talked-about is always the last to hear the talk; and nothing

concrete or tangible came Pierson's way. He went about his usual

routine without seeming change. And yet there was a change, secret and

creeping. Wounded almost to death himself, he felt as though surrounded

by one great wound in others; but it was some weeks before anything

occurred to rouse within him the weapon of anger or the protective

impulse.

And then one day a little swift brutality shook him to the very soul.

He was coming home from a long parish round, and had turned into the

Square, when a low voice behind him said:

“Wot price the little barstard?”

A cold, sick feeling stifled his very breathing; he gasped, and spun

round, to see two big loutish boys walking fast away. With swift and

stealthy passion he sprang after them, and putting his hands on their

two neighbouring shoulders, wrenched them round so that they faced him,

with mouths fallen open in alarm. Shaking them with all his force, he

said:

“How dare you—how dare you use that word?” His face and voice must

have been rather terrible, for the scare in their faces brought him to

sudden consciousness of his own violence, and he dropped his hands. In

two seconds they were at the corner. They stopped there for a second;

one of them shouted “Gran'pa”; then they vanished. He was left

with lips and hands quivering, and a feeling that he had not known for

years—the weak white empty feeling one has after yielding utterly to

sudden murderous rage. He crossed over, and stood leaning against the

Garden railings, with the thought: 'God forgive me! I could have

killed them—I could have killed them!' There had been a devil in

him. If he had had something in his hand, he might now have been a

murderer: How awful! Only one had spoken; but he could have killed them

both! And the word was true, and was in all mouths—all low common

mouths, day after day, of his own daughter's child! The ghastliness

of this thought, brought home so utterly, made him writhe, and grasp the

railings as if he would have bent them.

From that day on, a creeping sensation of being rejected of men, never

left him; the sense of identification with Noel and her tiny outcast

became ever more poignant, more real; the desire to protect them ever

more passionate; and the feeling that round about there were whispering

voices, pointing fingers, and a growing malevolence was ever more

sickening. He was beginning too to realise the deep and hidden truth:

How easily the breath of scandal destroys the influence and sanctity

of those endowed therewith by vocation; how invaluable it is to feel

untarnished, and how difficult to feel that when others think you

tarnished.

He tried to be with Noel as much as possible; and in the evenings they

sometimes went walks together, without ever talking of what was always

in their minds. Between six and eight the girl was giving sittings to

Lavendie in the drawing-room, and sometimes Pierson would come there and

play to them. He was always possessed now by a sense of the danger Noel

ran from companionship with any man. On three occasions, Jimmy Fort

made his appearance after dinner. He had so little to say that it was

difficult to understand why he came; but, sharpened by this new dread

for his daughter, Pierson noticed his eyes always following her. 'He

admires her,' he thought; and often he would try his utmost to grasp

the character of this man, who had lived such a roving life. 'Is

he—can he be the sort of man I would trust Nollie to?' he would

think. 'Oh, that I should have to hope like this that some good man

would marry her—my little Nollie, a child only the other day!'

In these sad, painful, lonely weeks he found a spot of something like

refuge in Leila's sitting-room, and would go there often for half an

hour when she was back from her hospital. That little black-walled room

with its Japanese prints and its flowers, soothed him. And Leila soothed

him, innocent as he was of any knowledge of her latest aberration,

and perhaps conscious that she herself was not too happy. To watch

her arranging flowers, singing her little French songs, or to find her

beside him, listening to his confidences, was the only real pleasure

he knew in these days. And Leila, in turn, would watch him and think:

'Poor Edward! He has never lived; and never will; now!' But

sometimes the thought would shoot through her: 'Perhaps he's to be

envied. He doesn't feel what I feel, anyway. Why did I fall in love

again?'

They did not speak of Noel as a rule, but one evening she expressed her

views roundly.

“It was a great mistake to make Noel come back. Edward. It was

Quixotic. You'll be lucky if real mischief doesn't come of it.

She's not a patient character; one day she'll do something rash.

And, mind you, she'll be much more likely to break out if she sees the

world treating you badly than if it happens to herself. I should send

her back to the country, before she makes bad worse.”

“I can't do that, Leila. We must live it down together.”

“Wrong, Edward. You should take things as they are.”

With a heavy sigh Pierson answered:

“I wish I could see her future. She's so attractive. And her

defences are gone. She's lost faith, and belief in all that a good

woman should be. The day after she came back she told me she was ashamed

of herself. But since—she's not given a sign. She's so proud—my

poor little Nollie. I see how men admire her, too. Our Belgian friend is

painting her. He's a good man; but he finds her beautiful, and who can

wonder. And your friend Captain Fort. Fathers are supposed to be blind,

but they see very clear sometimes.”

Leila rose and drew down a blind.

“This sun,” she said. “Does Jimmy Fort come to you—often?”

“Oh! no; very seldom. But still—I can see.”

'You bat—you blunderer!' thought Leila: 'See! You can't even

see this beside you!'

“I expect he's sorry for her,” she said in a queer voice.

“Why should he be sorry? He doesn't know:”

“Oh, yes! He knows; I told him.”

“You told him!”

“Yes,” Leila repeated stubbornly; “and he's sorry for her.”

And even then “this monk” beside her did not see, and went

blundering on.

“No, no; it's not merely that he's sorry. By the way he looks at

her, I know I'm not mistaken. I've wondered—what do you think,

Leila. He's too old for her; but he seems an honourable, kind man.”

“Oh! a most honourable, kind man.” But only by pressing her hand

against her lips had she smothered a burst of bitter laughter. He, who

saw nothing, could yet notice Fort's eyes when he looked at Noel, and

be positive that he was in love with her! How plainly those eyes must

speak! Her control gave way.

“All this is very interesting,” she said, spurning her words like

Noel, “considering that he's more than my friend, Edward.” It gave

her a sort of pleasure to see him wince. 'These blind bats!' she

thought, terribly stung that he should so clearly assume her out of the

running. Then she was sorry, his face had become so still and wistful.

And turning away, she said:

“Oh! I shan't break my heart; I'm a good loser. And I'm a good

fighter, too; perhaps I shan't lose.” And snapping off a sprig of

geranium, she pressed it to her lips.

“Forgive me,” said Pierson slowly; “I didn't know. I'm stupid.

I thought your love for your poor soldiers had left no room for other

feelings.”

Leila uttered a shrill laugh. “What have they to do with each other?

Did you never hear of passion, Edward? Oh! Don't look at me like that.

Do you think a woman can't feel passion at my age? As much as ever,

more than ever, because it's all slipping away.”

She took her hand from her lips, but a geranium petal was left clinging

there, like a bloodstain. “What has your life been all these years,”

she went on vehemently—“suppression of passion, nothing else! You

monks twist Nature up with holy words, and try to disguise what the

eeriest simpleton can see. Well, I haven't suppressed passion, Edward.

That's all.”

“And are you happier for that?”

“I was; and I shall be again.”

A little smile curled Pierson's lips. “Shall be?” he said. “I

hope so. It's just two ways of looking at things, Leila.”

“Oh, Edward! Don't be so gentle! I suppose you don't think a

person like me can ever really love?”

He was standing before her with his head down, and a sense that, naive

and bat-like as he was, there was something in him she could not reach

or understand, made her cry out:

“I've not been nice to you. Forgive me, Edward! I'm so unhappy.”

“There was a Greek who used to say: 'God is the helping of man by

man.' It isn't true, but it's beautiful. Good-bye, dear Leila, and

don't be sorrowful.”

She squeezed his hand, and turned to the window.

She stood there watching his black figure cross the road in the

sunshine, and pass round the corner by the railings of the church. He

walked quickly, very upright; there was something unseeing even about

that back view of him; or was it that he saw-another world? She had

never lost the mental habits of her orthodox girlhood, and in spite of

all impatience, recognised his sanctity. When he had disappeared she

went into her bedroom. What he had said, indeed, was no discovery. She

had known. Oh! She had known. 'Why didn't I accept Jimmy's offer?

Why didn't I marry him? Is it too late?' she thought. 'Could I?

Would he—even now?' But then she started away from her own thought.

Marry him! knowing his heart was with this girl?

She looked long at her face in the mirror, studying with a fearful

interest the little hard lines and markings there beneath their light

coating of powder. She examined the cunning touches of colouring matter

here and there in her front hair. Were they cunning enough? Did they

deceive? They seemed to her suddenly to stare out. She fingered and

smoothed the slight looseness and fulness of the skin below her chin.

She stretched herself, and passed her hands down over her whole form,

searching as it were for slackness, or thickness. And she had the bitter

thought: 'I'm all out. I'm doing all I can.' The lines of a

little poem Fort had showed her went thrumming through her head:

“Time, you old gipsy man Will you not stay Put up your caravan Just

for a day?”

What more could she do? He did not like to see her lips reddened. She

had marked his disapprovals, watched him wipe his mouth after a kiss,

when he thought she couldn't see him. 'I need'nt!' she thought.

'Noel's lips are no redder, really. What has she better than I?

Youth—dew on the grass!' That didn't last long! But long enough to

“do her in” as her soldier-men would say. And, suddenly she revolted

against herself, against Fort, against this chilled and foggy country;

felt a fierce nostalgia for African sun, and the African flowers; the

happy-go-lucky, hand-to-mouth existence of those five years before the

war began. High Constantia at grape harvest! How many years ago—ten

years, eleven years! Ah! To have before her those ten years, with him!

Ten years in the sun! He would have loved her then, and gone on loving

her! And she would not have tired of him, as she had tired of those

others. 'In half an hour,' she thought, 'he'll be here,

sit opposite me; I shall see him struggling forcing himself to seem

affectionate! It's too humbling! But I don't care; I want him!'

She searched her wardrobe, for some garment or touch of colour, novelty

of any sort, to help her. But she had tried them all—those little

tricks—was bankrupt. And such a discouraged, heavy mood came on her,

that she did not even “change,” but went back in her nurse's dress

and lay down on the divan, pretending to sleep, while the maid set

out the supper. She lay there moody and motionless, trying to summon

courage, feeling that if she showed herself beaten she was beaten;

knowing that she only held him by pity. But when she heard his footstep

on the stairs she swiftly passed her hands over her cheeks, as if to

press the blood out of them, and lay absolutely still. She hoped that

she was white, and indeed she was, with finger-marks under the eyes, for

she had suffered greatly this last hour. Through her lashes she saw him

halt, and look at her in surprise. Asleep, or-ill, which? She did not

move. She wanted to watch him. He tiptoed across the room and stood

looking down at her. There was a furrow between his eyes. 'Ah!' she

thought, 'it would suit you, if I were dead, my kind friend.' He

bent a little towards her; and she wondered suddenly whether she looked

graceful lying there, sorry now that she had not changed her dress.

She saw him shrug his shoulders ever so faintly with a puzzled little

movement. He had not seen that she was shamming. How nice his face

was—not mean, secret, callous! She opened her eyes, which against her

will had in them the despair she was feeling. He went on his knees, and

lifting her hand to his lips, hid them with it.

“Jimmy,” she said gently, “I'm an awful bore to you. Poor

Jimmy! No! Don't pretend! I know what I know!” 'Oh, God! What am

I saying?' she thought. 'It's fatal-fatal. I ought never!' And

drawing his head to her, she put it to her heart. Then, instinctively

aware that this moment had been pressed to its uttermost, she scrambled

up, kissed his forehead, stretched herself, and laughed.

“I was asleep, dreaming; dreaming you loved me. Wasn't it funny?

Come along. There are oysters, for the last time this season.”

All that evening, as if both knew they had been looking over a

precipice, they seemed to be treading warily, desperately anxious not

to rouse emotion in each other, or touch on things which must bring a

scene. And Leila talked incessantly of Africa.

“Don't you long for the sun, Jimmy? Couldn't we—couldn't you

go? Oh! why doesn't this wretched war end? All that we've got here

at home every scrap of wealth, and comfort, and age, and art, and

music, I'd give it all for the light and the sun out there. Wouldn't

you?”

And Fort said he would, knowing well of one thing which he would not

give. And she knew that, as well as he.

They were both gayer than they had been for a long time; so that when he

had gone, she fell back once more on to the divan, and burying her face

in a cushion, wept bitterly.

V 1

It was not quite disillusionment that Pierson felt while he walked away.

Perhaps he had not really believed in Leila's regeneration. It was

more an acute discomfort, an increasing loneliness. A soft and restful

spot was now denied him; a certain warmth and allurement had gone out

of his life. He had not even the feeling that it was his duty to try

and save Leila by persuading her to marry Fort. He had always been too

sensitive, too much as it were of a gentleman, for the robuster sorts of

evangelism. Such delicacy had been a stumbling-block to him all through

professional life. In the eight years when his wife was with him, all

had been more certain, more direct and simple, with the help of her

sympathy, judgment; and companionship. At her death a sort of mist

had gathered in his soul. No one had ever spoken plainly to him. To a

clergyman, who does? No one had told him in so many words that he should

have married again—that to stay unmarried was bad for him, physically

and spiritually, fogging and perverting life; not driving him, indeed,

as it drove many, to intolerance and cruelty, but to that half-living

dreaminess, and the vague unhappy yearnings which so constantly beset

him. All these celibate years he had really only been happy in his

music, or in far-away country places, taking strong exercise, and losing

himself in the beauties of Nature; and since the war began he had only

once, for those three days at Kestrel, been out of London.

He walked home, going over in his mind very anxiously all the evidence

he had of Fort's feeling for Noel. How many times had he been to them

since she came back? Only three times—three evening visits! And he had

not been alone with her a single minute! Before this calamity befell his

daughter, he would never have observed anything in Fort's demeanour;

but, in his new watchfulness, he had seen the almost reverential way he

looked at her, noticed the extra softness of his voice when he spoke

to her, and once a look of sudden pain, a sort of dulling of his whole

self, when Noel had got up and gone out of the room. And the girl

herself? Twice he had surprised her gazing at Fort when he was not

looking, with a sort of brooding interest. He remembered how, as a

little girl, she would watch a grown-up, and then suddenly one day

attach herself to him, and be quite devoted. Yes, he must warn her,

before she could possibly become entangled. In his fastidious chastity,

the opinion he had held of Fort was suddenly lowered. He, already a

free-thinker, was now revealed as a free-liver. Poor little Nollie!

Endangered again already! Every man a kind of wolf waiting to pounce on

her!

He found Lavendie and Noel in the drawing-room, standing before the

portrait which was nearing completion. He looked at it for a long

minute, and turned away:

“Don't you think it's like me, Daddy?”

“It's like you; but it hurts me. I can't tell why.”

He saw the smile of a painter whose picture is being criticised come on

Lavendie's face.

“It is perhaps the colouring which does not please you, monsieur?”

“No, no; deeper. The expression; what is she waiting for?”

The defensive smile died on Lavendie's lips.

“It is as I see her, monsieur le cure.”

Pierson turned again to the picture, and suddenly covered his eyes.

“She looks 'fey,'” he said, and went out of the room.

Lavendie and Noel remained staring at the picture. “Fey? What does

that mean, mademoiselle?”

“Possessed, or something.”

And they continued to stare at the picture, till Lavendie said:

“I think there is still a little too much light on that ear.”

The same evening, at bedtime, Pierson called Noel back.

“Nollie, I want you to know something. In all but the name, Captain

Fort is a married man.”

He saw her flush, and felt his own face darkening with colour.

She said calmly: “I know; to Leila.”

“Do you mean she has told you?”

Noel shook her head.

“Then how?”

“I guessed. Daddy, don't treat me as a child any more. What's the

use, now?”

He sat down in the chair before the hearth, and covered his face with

his hands. By the quivering of those hands, and the movement of his

shoulders, she could tell that he was stifling emotion, perhaps even

crying; and sinking down on his knees she pressed his hands and face to

her, murmuring: “Oh, Daddy dear! Oh, Daddy dear!”

He put his arms round her, and they sat a long time with their cheeks

pressed together, not speaking a word.

VI 1

The day after that silent outburst of emotion in the drawing-room was a

Sunday. And, obeying the longing awakened overnight to be as good as she

could to her father; Noel said to him:

“Would you like me to come to Church?”

“Of course, Nollie.”

How could he have answered otherwise? To him Church was the home

of comfort and absolution, where people must bring their sins and

troubles—a haven of sinners, the fount of charity, of forgiveness, and

love. Not to have believed that, after all these years, would have been

to deny all his usefulness in life, and to cast a slur on the House of

God.

And so Noel walked there with him, for Gratian had gone down to George,

for the week-end. She slipped quietly up the side aisle to their empty

pew, under the pulpit. Never turning her eyes from the chancel, she

remained unconscious of the stir her presence made, during that hour and

twenty minutes. Behind her, the dumb currents of wonder, disapproval,

and resentment ran a stealthy course. On her all eyes were fixed sooner

or later, and every mind became the play ground of judgments. From every

soul, kneeling, standing, or sitting, while the voice of the Service

droned, sang, or spoke, a kind of glare radiated on to that one small

devoted head, which seemed so ludicrously devout. She disturbed their

devotions, this girl who had betrayed her father, her faith, her class.

She ought to repent, of course, and Church was the right place; yet

there was something brazen in her repenting there before their very

eyes; she was too palpable a flaw in the crystal of the Church's

authority, too visible a rent in the raiment of their priest. Her figure

focused all the uneasy amazement and heart searchings of these last

weeks. Mothers quivered with the knowledge that their daughters could

see her; wives with the idea that their husbands were seeing her.

Men experienced sensations varying from condemnation to a sort of

covetousness. Young folk wondered, and felt inclined to giggle. Old

maids could hardly bear to look. Here and there a man or woman who had

seen life face to face, was simply sorry! The consciousness of all who

knew her personally was at stretch how to behave if they came within

reach of her in going out. For, though only half a dozen would actually

rub shoulders with her, all knew that they might be, and many felt it

their duty to be, of that half-dozen, so as to establish their attitude

once for all. It was, in fact, too severe a test for human nature and

the feelings which Church ought to arouse. The stillness of that young

figure, the impossibility of seeing her face and judging of her state

of mind thereby; finally, a faint lurking shame that they should be so

intrigued and disturbed by something which had to do with sex, in

this House of Worship—all combined to produce in every mind that

herd-feeling of defence, which so soon becomes, offensive. And, half

unconscious, half aware of it all, Noel stood, and sat, and knelt. Once

or twice she saw her father's eyes fixed on her; and, still in the

glow of last night's pity and remorse, felt a kind of worship for

his thin grave face. But for the most part, her own wore the expression

Lavendie had translated to his canvas—the look of one ever waiting

for the extreme moments of life, for those few and fleeting poignancies

which existence holds for the human heart. A look neither hungry nor

dissatisfied, but dreamy and expectant, which might blaze into warmth

and depth at any moment, and then go back to its dream.

When the last notes of the organ died away she continued to sit very

still, without looking round.

There was no second Service, and the congregation melted out behind

her, and had dispersed into the streets and squares long before she

came forth. After hesitating whether or no to go to the vestry door, she

turned away and walked home alone.

It was this deliberate evasion of all contact which probably clinched

the business. The absence of vent, of any escape-pipe for the feelings,

is always dangerous. They felt cheated. If Noel had come out amongst all

those whose devotions her presence had disturbed, if in that exit, some

had shown and others had witnessed one knows not what of a manifested

ostracism, the outraged sense of social decency might have been appeased

and sleeping dogs allowed to lie, for we soon get used to things;

and, after all, the war took precedence in every mind even over social

decency. But none of this had occurred, and a sense that Sunday after

Sunday the same little outrage would happen to them, moved more than a

dozen quite unrelated persons, and caused the posting that evening of

as many letters, signed and unsigned, to a certain quarter. London is no

place for parish conspiracy, and a situation which in the country would

have provoked meetings more or less public, and possibly a resolution,

could perhaps only thus be dealt with. Besides, in certain folk there

is ever a mysterious itch to write an unsigned letter—such missives

satisfy some obscure sense of justice, some uncontrollable longing to

get even with those who have hurt or disturbed them, without affording

the offenders chance for further hurt or disturbance.

Letters which are posted often reach their destination.

On Wednesday morning Pierson was sitting in his study at the hour

devoted to the calls of his parishioners, when the maid announced,

“Canon Rushbourne, sir,” and he saw before him an old College friend

whom he had met but seldom in recent years. His visitor was a

short, grey-haired man of rather portly figure, whose round, rosy,

good-humoured face had a look of sober goodness, and whose light-blue

eyes shone a little. He grasped Pierson's hand, and said in a voice

to whose natural heavy resonance professional duty had added a certain

unction:

“My dear Edward, how many years it is since we met! Do you remember

dear old Blakeway? I saw him only yesterday. He's just the same. I'm

delighted to see you again,” and he laughed a little soft nervous

laugh. Then for a few moments he talked of the war and old College days,

and Pierson looked at him and thought: 'What has he come for?'

“You've something to say to me, Alec,” he said, at last.

Canon Rushbourne leaned forward in his chair, and answered with evident

effort: “Yes; I wanted to have a little talk with you, Edward. I hope

you won't mind. I do hope you won't.”

“Why should I mind?”

Canon Rushbourne's eyes shone more than ever, there was real

friendliness in his face.

“I know you've every right to say to me: 'Mind your own

business.' But I made up my mind to come as a friend, hoping to save

you from—er” he stammered, and began again: “I think you ought to

know of the feeling in your parish that—er—that—er—your position

is very delicate. Without breach of confidence I may tell you that

letters have been sent to headquarters; you can imagine perhaps what

I mean. Do believe, my dear friend, that I'm actuated by my old

affection for you; nothing else, I do assure you.”

In the silence, his breathing could be heard, as of a man a little

touched with asthma, while he continually smoothed his thick black

knees, his whole face radiating an anxious kindliness. The sun shone

brightly on those two black figures, so very different, and drew out

of their well-worn garments the faint latent green mossiness which.

underlies the clothes of clergymen.

At last Pierson said: “Thank you, Alec; I understand.”

The Canon uttered a resounding sigh. “You didn't realise how very

easily people misinterpret her being here with you; it seems to them a

kind—a kind of challenge. They were bound, I think, to feel that; and

I'm afraid, in consequence—” He stopped, moved by the fact that

Pierson had closed his eyes.

“I am to choose, you mean, between my daughter and my parish?”

The Canon seemed, with a stammer of words, to try and blunt the edge of

that clear question.

“My visit is quite informal, my dear fellow; I can't say at all. But

there is evidently much feeling; that is what I wanted you to know. You

haven't quite seen, I think, that—”

Pierson raised his hand. “I can't talk of this.”

The Canon rose. “Believe me, Edward, I sympathise deeply. I felt I had

to warn you.” He held out his hand. “Good-bye, my dear friend, do

forgive me”; and he went out. In the hall an adventure befell him so

plump, and awkward, that he could barely recite it to Mrs. Rushbourne

that night.

“Coming out from my poor friend,” he said, “I ran into a baby's

perambulator and that young mother, whom I remember as a little

thing”—he held his hand at the level of his thigh—“arranging it

for going out. It startled me; and I fear I asked quite foolishly: 'Is

it a boy?' The poor young thing looked up at me. She has very large

eyes, quite beautiful, strange eyes. 'Have you been speaking to Daddy

about me?' 'My dear young lady,' I said, 'I'm such an old

friend, you see. You must forgive me.' And then she said: 'Are they

going to ask him to resign?' 'That depends on you,' I said. Why

do I say these things, Charlotte? I ought simply to have held my tongue.

Poor young thing; so very young! And the little baby!” “She has

brought it on herself, Alec,” Mrs. Rushbourne replied.

VII 1

The moment his visitor had vanished, Pierson paced up and down the

study, with anger rising in his, heart. His daughter or his parish! The

old saw, “An Englishman's house is his castle!” was being attacked

within him. Must he not then harbour his own daughter, and help her by

candid atonement to regain her inward strength and peace? Was he not

thereby acting as a true Christian, in by far the hardest course he

and she could pursue? To go back on that decision and imperil his

daughter's spirit, or else resign his parish—the alternatives were

brutal! This was the centre of his world, the only spot where so lonely

a man could hope to feel even the semblance of home; a thousand

little threads tethered him to his church, his parishioners, and this

house—for, to live on here if he gave up his church was out of the

question. But his chief feeling was a bewildered anger that for doing

what seemed to him his duty, he should be attacked by his parishioners.

A passion of desire to know what they really thought and felt—these

parishioners of his, whom he had befriended, and for whom he had worked

so long—beset him now, and he went out. But the absurdity of his quest

struck him before he had gone the length of the Square. One could not go

to people and say: “Stand and deliver me your inmost judgments.” And

suddenly he was aware of how far away he really was from them. Through

all his ministrations had he ever come to know their hearts? And now, in

this dire necessity for knowledge, there seemed no way of getting it. He

went at random into a stationer's shop; the shopman sang bass in his

choir. They had met Sunday after Sunday for the last seven years. But

when, with this itch for intimate knowledge on him, he saw the man

behind the counter, it was as if he were looking on him for the first

time. The Russian proverb, “The heart of another is a dark forest,”

gashed into his mind, while he said:

“Well, Hodson, what news of your son?”

“Nothing more, Mr. Pierson, thank you, sir, nothing more at

present.”

And it seemed to Pierson, gazing at the man's face clothed in a short,

grizzling beard cut rather like his own, that he must be thinking:

'Ah! sir, but what news of your daughter?' No one would ever tell

him to his face what he was thinking. And buying two pencils, he went

out. On the other side of the road was a bird-fancier's shop, kept by

a woman whose husband had been taken for the Army. She was not friendly

towards him, for it was known to her that he had expostulated with her

husband for keeping larks, and other wild birds. And quite deliberately

he crossed the road, and stood looking in at the window, with the morbid

hope that from this unfriendly one he might hear truth. She was in her

shop, and came to the door.

“Have you any news of your husband, Mrs. Cherry?”

“No, Mr. Pierson, I 'ave not; not this week.”

“He hasn't gone out yet?”

“No, Mr. Pierson; 'e 'as not.”