happy as we were and not be happier. Here we were, alone, miles away
from everybody, free as air, and in love with each other. I looked
again at Daphne, at her slender shoulders, her throat, her bosom, and,
passionately in love, I decided, with fervour: Wouldn’t it be rather
absurd, then, to behave like a couple of children? Wouldn’t she even, in
spite of all she had said, be disappointed if we did?...
* * * * *
And I went off at a tremendous pace, not because I thought she’d run
after me, but I did think she might call, or I might look round....
* * * * *
It was one of those still, hushed days when the sea and the sky seem to
melt into one another, and it is long before the moisture dries on the
leaves and grasses. One of those days when the sea smells strong and
there are gulls standing in a row on the sand. The smoke from our wood
fire hung in the air and the smoke of my pipe mingled with it. I caught
myself staring at nothing. I felt dull and angry. I couldn’t get over the
ridiculous affair. You see, my _amour propre_ was wounded.
* * * * *
Monday morning was grey, cloudy, one of those mornings peculiar to
the sea-side when everything, the sea most of all, seems exhausted and
sullen. There had been a very high tide, the road was wet—on the beach
there stood a long line of sickly-looking gulls....
When we got on board she sat down on one of the green benches and,
muttering something about a pipe, I walked quickly away. It was
intolerable that we should still be together after what had happened. It
was indecent. I only asked—I only longed for one thing—to be free of this
still, unsmiling and pitiful—that was the worst of it—creature who had
been my playful Daphne.
* * * * *
For answer I telephoned her at once and asked if I might come and see her
that evening. Her voice sounded grave, unlike the voice I remembered,
and she seemed to deliberate. There was a long pause before she said,
“Yes—perhaps that would be best.”
“Then I shall come at half-past six.”
“Very well.”
And we went into a room full of flowers and very large art photographs of
the Harbour by Night, A Misty Day, Moonrise over the Water, and I know I
wondered if she admired them.
“Why did you send me that letter?”
“Oh, but I had to,” said Daphne. “I meant every word of it. I only let
you come to-night to.... No, I know I shall disappoint you. I’m wiser
than you are for all your experience. I shan’t be able to live up to it.
I’m not the person for you. Really I’m not!”...
FATHER AND THE GIRLS
At midday, Ernestine, who had come down from the mountains with her
mother to work in the vineyards belonging to the hotel, heard the faint,
far-away _chuff-chuff_ of the train from Italy. Trains were a novelty
to Ernestine; they were fascinating, unknown, terrible. What were they
like as they came tearing their way through the valley, plunging between
the mountains as if not even the mountains could stop them? When she saw
the dark, flat breast of the engine, so bare, so powerful, hurled as it
were towards her, she felt a weakness; she could have sunk to the earth.
And yet she must look. So she straightened up, stopped pulling at the
blue-green leaves, tugging at the long, bright-green, curly suckers,
and, with eyes like a bird, stared. The vines were very tall. There
was nothing to be seen of Ernestine but her beautiful, youthful bosom
buttoned into a blue cotton jacket and her small, dark head covered with
a faded cherry-coloured handkerchief.
_Chiff-chuff-chaff._ _Chiff-chuff-chaff_, sounded the train. Now a wisp
of white smoke shone and melted. Now there was another, and the monster
itself came into sight and snorting horribly drew up at the little,
toy-like station five minutes away. The railway ran at the bottom of
the hotel garden which was perched high and surrounded by a stone wall.
Steps cut in the stone led to the terraces where the vines were planted.
Ernestine, looking out from the leaves like a bright bird, saw the
terrible engine and looked beyond it at doors swinging open, at strangers
stepping down. She would never know who they were or where they had come
from. A moment ago they were not here; perhaps tomorrow they would be
gone again. And looking like a bird herself, she remembered how, at home,
in the late autumn, she had sometimes seen strange birds in the fir tree
that were there one day and gone the next. Where from? Where to? She felt
an ache in her bosom. Wings were tight-folded there. Why could she not
stretch them out and fly away and away?...
§
From the first-class carriage tall, thin Emily alighted and gave her hand
to Father whose brittle legs seemed to wave in the air as they felt for
the iron step. Taller, thinner Edith followed, carrying Father’s light
overcoat, his field-glasses on a strap, and his new Baedeker. The blond
hotel porter came forward. Wasn’t that nice? He could speak as good
English as you and me. So Edith had no trouble at all in explaining how,
as they were going on by the morning train tomorrow, they would only
need their suit-cases, and what was left in the compartment. Was there a
carriage outside? Yes, a carriage was there. But if they cared to walk
there was a private entrance through the hotel gardens.... No, they
wouldn’t walk.
“You wouldn’t care to walk, would you, Father dear?”
“No, Edith, I won’t walk. Do you girls wanna walk?”
“Why no, Father, not without you, dear.”
And the blond hotel porter leading, they passed through the little knot
of sturdy peasants at the station gate to where the carriage waited under
a group of limes.
“Did you ever see anything as big as that horse, Edith!” cried Emily. She
was always the first to exclaim about things.
“It is a very big horse,” sang Edith, more sober. “It’s a farm horse,
from the look of it and it’s been working. See how hot it is.” Edith had
so much observation. The big, brown horse, his sides streaked with dark
sweat, tossed his head and the bells on his collar set up a loud jangling.
“Hu-yup!” called the young peasant driver warningly, from his seat on the
high box.
Father, who was just about to get in, drew back, a little scared.
“You don’t think that horse will run away with us, do you, Edith?” he
quavered.
“Why no, Father dear,” coaxed Edith. “That horse is just as tame as you
or me.” So in they got, the three of them. And as the horse bounded
forward his ears seemed to twitch in surprise at his friend the driver.
Call that a load? Father and the girls weighed nothing. They might have
been three bones, three broomsticks, three umbrellas bouncing up and down
on the hard seats of the carriage. It was a mercy the hotel was so close.
Father could never have stood that for more than a minute, especially at
the end of a journey. Even as it was his face was quite green when Emily
helped him out, straightened him, and gave him a little pull.
“It’s shaken you, dear, hasn’t it?” she said tenderly.
But he refused her arm into the hotel. That would create a wrong
impression.
“No, no, Emily. I’m all right. All right,” said Father, as staggering a
little he followed them through big glass doors into a hall as dim as a
church and as chill and as deserted.
My! Wasn’t that hall cold! The cold seemed to come leaping at them from
the floor. It clasped the peaked knees of Edith and Emily; it leapt high
as the fluttering heart of Father. For a moment they hesitated, drew
together, almost gasped. But then out from the Bureau a cheerful young
person, her smiling face spotted with mosquito bites, ran to meet them,
and welcomed them with such real enthusiasm (in English too) that the
chill first moment was forgotten.
“Aw-yes. Aw-yes. I can let you ave very naice rooms on de firs floor wid
a lif. Two rooms and bart and dressing-room for de chentleman. Beautiful
rooms wid sun but nort too hot. Very naice. Till tomorrow. I taike you.
If you please. It is dis way. You are tired wid the churney? Launch is at
half-pas tvelf. Hort worter? Aw-yes. It is wid de bart. If you please.”
Father and the girls were drawn by her cheerful smiles and becks and nods
along a cloister-like corridor, into the lift and up, until she flung
open a heavy, dark door and stood aside for them to enter.
“It is a suite,” she explained. “Wid a hall and tree doors.” Quickly she
opened them. “Now I gaw to see when your luggage is gum.”
And she went.
“Well!” cried Emily.
Edith stared.
Father craned his thin, old neck, looking, too.
“Did you—ever see the like, Edith?” cried Emily, in a little rush.
And Edith softly clasped her hands. Softly she sang “No, I never did,
Emily. I’ve never seen anything just like this before.”
“Sims to me a nice room,” quavered Father, still hovering. “Do you girls
wanna change it?”
Change it! “Why, Father dear, it’s just the loveliest thing we’ve ever
set eyes on, isn’t it, Emily? Sit down, Father dear, sit down in the
armchair.”
Father’s pale claws gripped the velvet arms. He lowered himself, he sank
with an old man’s quick sigh.
Edith still stood, as if bewitched, at the door. But Emily ran over to
the window and leaned out, quite girlish....
For a long time now—for how long?—for countless ages—Father and the girls
had been on the wing. Nice, Montreux, Biarritz, Naples, Mentone, Lake
Maggiore, they had seen them all and many, many more. And still they beat
on, beat on, flying as if unwearied, never stopping anywhere for long.
But the truth was—Oh, better not enquire what the truth was. Better not
ask what it was that kept them going. Or why the only word that daunted
Father was the word—home....
Home! To sit around, doing nothing, listening to the clock, counting up
the years, thinking back ... thinking! To stay fixed in one place as if
waiting for something or somebody. No! no! Better far to be blown over
the earth like the husk, like the withered pod that the wind carries and
drops and bears off again.
“Are you ready, girls?”
“Yes, Father dear.”
“Then we’d better be off if we’re to make that train.”
But oh, it was a weariness, it was an unspeakable weariness. Father made
no secret of his age; he was eighty-four. As for Edith and Emily—well,
he looked now like their elder brother. An old, old brother and two
ancient sisters, so the lovely room might have summed them up. But its
shaded brightness, its beauty, the flutter of leaves at the creamy stone
windows seemed only to whisper “Rest! Stay!”
Edith looked at the pale, green-panelled walls, at the doors that had
lozenges and squares of green picked out in gold. She made the amazing
discovery that the floor had the same pattern in wood that was traced
on the high, painted ceiling. But the colour of the shining floor was
marvellous; it was like tortoiseshell. In one corner there was a huge,
tilted stove, milky white and blue. The low wooden bed, with its cover
of quilted yellow satin, had sheaves of corn carved on the bed posts.
It looked to fanciful, tired Edith—yes,—that bed looked as if it were
breathing, softly, gently breathing. Outside the narrow, deep-set
windows, beyond their wreaths of green, she could see a whole, tiny
landscape bright as a jewel in the summer heat.
“Rest! Stay!” Was it the sound of the leaves outside? No, it was in the
air; it was the room itself that whispered joyfully, shyly. Edith felt so
strange that she could keep quiet no longer.
“This is a very old room, Emily,” she warbled softly. “I know what it
is. This hotel has not always been a hotel. It’s been an old château. I
feel as sure of that as that I’m standing here.” Perhaps she wanted to
convince herself that she was standing there. “Do you see that stove?”
She walked over to the stove. “It’s got figures on it. Emily,” she
warbled faintly, “It’s 1623.”
“Isn’t that too wonderful!” cried Emily.
Even Father was deeply moved.
“1623? Nearly three hundred years old.” And suddenly, in spite of his
tiredness, he gave a thin, airy, old man’s chuckle. “Makes yer feel quite
a chicken, don’t it?” said Father.
Emily’s breathless little laugh answered him; it too was gay.
“I’m going to see what’s behind that door,” she cried. And half running
to the door in the middle wall she lifted the slender steel catch. It led
into a larger room, into Edith’s and her bedroom. But the walls were the
same and the floor, and there were the same deep-set windows. Only two
beds instead of one stood side by side with blue silk quilts instead of
yellow. And what a beautiful old chest there was under the windows!
“Oh,” cried Emily, in rapture. “Isn’t it all too perfectly historical
for words, Edith! It makes me feel——” She stopped, she looked at Edith
who had followed her and whose thin shadow lay on the sunny floor.
“Queer!” said Emily, trying to put all she felt into that one word. “I
don’t know what it is.”
Perhaps if Edith, the discoverer, had had time, she might have satisfied
Emily. But a knock sounded at the outer door; it was the luggage boy.
And while he brought in their suitcases there came from downstairs the
ringing of the luncheon bell. Father mustn’t be kept waiting. Once a bell
had gone he liked to follow it up right then. So without even a glance
at the mirror—they had reached the age when it is as natural to avoid
mirrors as it is to peer into them when one is young—Edith and Emily were
ready.
“Are you ready, girls?”
“Yes, Father dear.”
And off they went again, to the left, to the right, down a stone
staircase with a broad, worn balustrade, to the left again, finding their
way as if by instinct—Edith first, then Father, and Emily close behind.
But when they reached the _salle à manger_, which was as big as a
ball-room, it was still empty. All gay, all glittering, the long French
windows open on to the green and gold garden, the _salle à manger_
stretched before them. And the fifty little tables with the fifty pots of
dahlias looked as if they might begin dancing with....
ALL SERENE
At breakfast that morning they were in wonderfully good spirits. Who
was responsible—he or she? It was true she made a point of looking her
best in the morning; she thought it part of her duty to him—to their
love, even, to wear charming little caps, funny little coats, coloured
mules at breakfast time, and to see that the table was perfect as he
and she—fastidious pair!—understood the word. But he, too, so fresh,
well-groomed and content, contributed his share.... She had been down
first, sitting at her place when he came in. He leaned over the back of
her chair, his hands on her shoulders; he bent down and lightly rubbed
his cheek against hers, murmuring gently but with just enough pride of
proprietorship to make her flush with delight, “Give me my tea, love.”
And she lifted the silver teapot that had a silver pear modelled on the
lid and gave him his tea.
“Thanks.... You know you look awfully well this morning!”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Do that again. Look at me again. It’s your eyes. They’re like a
child’s. I’ve never known anyone have such shining eyes as you.”
“Oh, dear!” She sighed for joy. “I do love having sweet things said to
me!”
“Yes, you do—spoilt child! Shall I give you some of this?”
“No, thank you.... Darling!” Her hand flew across the table and clasped
his hand.
“Yes?”
But she said nothing, only “Darling!” again. There was the look on his
face she loved—a kind of sweet jesting. He was pretending he didn’t know
what she meant, and yet of course he did know. He was pretending to
be feeling “Here she is—trust a woman—all ready for a passionate love
scene over the breakfast table at nine o’clock in the morning.” But she
wasn’t deceived. She knew he felt just the same as she did. That amused
tolerance, that mock despair was part of the ways of men—no more.
“May I be allowed to _use_ this knife please, or to put it down?”
Really! Mona had never yet got accustomed to her husband’s smile. They
had been married for three years. She was in love with him for countless
reasons, but apart from them all, a special reason all to itself, was
because of his smile. If it hadn’t sounded nonsense she would have said
she fell in love at first sight over and over again when he smiled. Other
people felt the charm of it, too. Other women, she was certain. Sometimes
she thought that even the servants watched for it....
“Don’t forget we’re going to the theatre to-night.”
“Oh, good egg! I had forgotten. It’s ages since we went to a show.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I feel quite thrilled.”
“Don’t you think we might have a tiny small celebration at dinner?”
(“Tiny small” was one of her expressions. But why did it sound so sweet
when he used it?)
“Yes, let’s. You mean champagne?” And she looked into the distance, and
said in a far-away voice: “Then I must revise the sweet.”
At that moment the maid came in with the letters. There were four for
him, three for her. No, one of hers belonged to him, too, rather a grimy
little envelope with a dab of sealing wax on the back.
“Why do you get all the letters?” she wailed, handing it across. “It’s
awfully unfair. I love letters and I never get any.”
“Well, I do like that!” said he. “How can you sit there and tell such
awful bangers? It’s the rarest thing on earth for me to get a letter in
the morning. It’s always you who get those mysterious epistles from girls
you were at college with or faded aunts. Here, have half my pear—it’s a
beauty.” She held out her plate.
The Rutherfords never shared their letters. It was her idea that they
should not. He had been violently opposed to it at first. She couldn’t
help laughing; he had so absolutely misunderstood her reason.
“Good God! my dear. You’re perfectly welcome to open any letters of mine
that come to the house—or to read any letters of mine that may be lying
about. I think I can promise you....”
“Oh no, no, darling, that’s not what I mean. I don’t suspect you.” And
she put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him quickly. He looked like an
offended boy. “But so many of Mother’s old friends write to me—confide in
me—don’t you know?—tell me things they wouldn’t for the world tell a man.
I feel it wouldn’t be fair to them. Don’t you see?”
He gave way at last. But “I’m old fashioned,” he said, and his smile was
a little rueful. “I like to feel my wife reads my letters.”
“My precious dear! I’ve made you unhappy.” She felt so repentant; she
didn’t know quite about what. “Of course I’d love to read....”
“No, no! That’s all right. It’s understood. We’ll keep the bond.” And
they had kept it.
He slit open the grimy envelope. He began to read. “Damn!” he said and
thrust out his under lip.
“Why, what is it? Something horrid?”
“No—annoying. I shall be late this evening. A man wants to meet me at the
office at six o’clock.”
“Was that a business letter?” She sounded surprised.
“Yes, why?”
“It looked so awfully unbusinesslike. The sealing-wax and the funny
writing—much more like a woman’s than a man’s.”
He laughed. He folded the letter, put it in his pocket and picked up
the envelope. “Yes,” he said, “it is queer, isn’t it. I shouldn’t have
noticed. How quick you are! But it does look exactly like a woman’s hand.
The capital R, for instance”—he flipped the envelope across to her.
“Yes, and that squiggle underneath. I should have said a rather
uneducated female....”
“As a matter of fact,” said Hugh, “he’s a mining engineer.” And he got
up, began to stretch and then stopped. “I say, what a glorious morning!
Why do I have to go to the office instead of staying at home and playing
with you?” And he came over to her and locked his arms round her neck.
“Tell me that, little lovely one.”
“Oh,” she leaned against him, “I wish you could. Life’s arranged badly
for people like you and me. And now you’re going to be late this evening.”
“Never mind,” said he. “All the rest of the time’s ours. Every single bit
of it. We shan’t come back from the theatre to find——”
“Our porch black with mining engineers.” She laughed. Did other
people—could other people—was it possible that any one before had ever
loved as they loved? She squeezed her head against him—she heard his
watch ticking—precious watch!
“What are those purple floppy flowers in my bedroom?” he murmured.
“Petunias.”
“You smell exactly like a petunia.”
And he raised her up. She drew towards him. “Kiss me,” said he.
* * * * *
It was her habit to sit on the bottom stair and watch his final
preparations. Strange it should be so fascinating to see someone brush
his hat, choose a pair of gloves, and give a last quick look in the round
mirror. But it was the same when he was shaving. Then she loved to curl
up on the hard little couch in his dressing room; she was as absorbed, as
intent as he. How fantastic he looked, like a pierrot, like a mask, with
those dark eyebrows, liquid eyes and the brush of flesh colour on his
cheek-bones above the lather! But that was not her chief feeling. No, it
was what she felt on the stairs, too. It was, “So this is my husband, so
this is the man I’ve married, this is the stranger who walked across the
lawn that afternoon swinging his tennis racket and bowed, rolling up his
shirt-sleeves. This is not only my lover and my husband, but my brother,
my dearest friend, my playmate, even at times a kind of very perfect
father too. And here is where we live. Here is his room—and here is our
hall.” She seemed to be showing their house and him to her other self,
the self she had been before she had met him. Deeply admiring, almost
awed by so much happiness, that other self looked on....
“Will I do?” He stood there smiling, stroking on his gloves. But although
he wouldn’t like her to say the things she often longed to say about
his appearance, she did think she detected that morning just the very
faintest boyish showing off. Children who know they are admired look like
that at their mother.
“Yes, you’ll do....” Perhaps at that moment she was proud of him as a
mother is proud; she could have blessed him before he went his way.
Instead she stood in the porch thinking, “There he goes. The man I’ve
married. The stranger who came across the lawn.” The fact was never less
wonderful....
It was never less wonderful, never. It was even more wonderful if
anything and the reason was—Mona ran back into the house, into the
drawing-room and sat down to the piano. Oh, why bother about reasons— She
began to sing,
See, love, I bring thee flowers
To charm thy pain!
But joy—joy breathless and exulting thrilled in her voice, on the word
“pain” her lips parted in such a happy—dreadfully unsympathetic smile
that she felt quite ashamed. She stopped playing, she turned round on the
piano stool facing the room. How different it looked in the morning, how
severe and remote. The grey chairs with the fuchsia-coloured cushions,
the black and gold carpet, the bright green silk curtains might have
belonged to anybody. It was like a stage setting with the curtain still
down. She had no right to be there, and as she thought that a queer
little chill caught her; it seemed so extraordinary that anything, even a
chair, should turn away from, should not respond to her happiness.
“I don’t like this room in the morning, I don’t like it at all,” she
decided, and she ran upstairs to finish dressing. Ran into their big
shadowy bedroom ... and leaned over the starry petunias....
A BAD IDEA
Something’s happened to me—something bad. And I don’t know what to do
about it. I don’t see any way out for the life of me. The worst of it is,
I can’t get this thing into focus—if you know what I mean. I just feel
in a muddle—in the hell of a muddle. It ought to be plain to anyone that
I’m not the kind of man to get mixed up in a thing like this. I’m not
one of your actor Johnnies, or a chap in a book. I’m—well, I knew what
I was all right until yesterday. But now—I feel helpless, yes, that’s
the word, helpless. Here I sit, chucking stones at the sea like a child
that’s missed its mother. And everybody else has cut along home hours ago
and tea’s over and it’s getting on for time to light the lamp. I shall
have to go home too, sooner or later. I see that, of course. In fact,
would you believe it? at this very moment I wish I was there in spite of
everything. What’s she doing? My wife, I mean. Has she cleared away? Or
has she stayed there staring at the table with the plates pushed back?
My God! when I think that I could howl like a dog—if you know what I
mean....