big girls and boys can ride.”
“There’s roosters for small children,” said Susannah undaunted. “I know,
because Irene Heywood went on one and when she got off she fell over.”
“All the more reason why you shouldn’t go on,” said her mother.
But Susannah looked as though falling over had no terrors for her. On the
contrary.
About the exhibition, however, Sylvia and Phyllis knew as little as
Susannah. It was the first that had ever come to their town. One morning,
as Miss Wade, their lady help, rushed them along to the Heywoods’, whose
governess they shared, they had seen carts piled with great long planks
of wood, sacks, what looked like whole doors, and white flagstaffs,
passing through the wide gate of the Recreation Ground. And by the time
they were bowled home to their dinners, there were the beginnings of a
high thin fence, dotted with flagstaffs, built all round the railings.
From inside, came a tremendous noise of hammering, shouting, clanging; a
little engine, hidden away, went _Chuff-chuff-chuff_. _Chuff!_ And round,
woolly balls of smoke were tossed over the palings.
First it was the day after the day after tomorrow, then plain day after
tomorrow, then tomorrow, and at last, the day itself. When Susannah woke
up in the morning, there was a little gold spot of sunlight watching her
from the wall; it looked as though it had been there for a long time,
waiting to remind her: “It’s today—you’re going today—this afternoon.
Here she is!”
(_Second Version_)
That afternoon they were allowed to cut jugs and basins out of a draper’s
catalogue, and at tea-time they had real tea in the doll’s tea set on the
table. This was a very nice treat, indeed, except that the doll’s tea-pot
wouldn’t pour out even after you’d poked a pin down the spout and blown
into it.
But the next afternoon, which was Saturday, Father came home in high
feather. The front door banged so hard that the whole house shook, and he
shouted to Mother from the hall.
“Oh, how more than good of you, darling!” cried Mother, “but how
unnecessary too. Of course, they’ll simply love it. But to have spent
all that money! You shouldn’t have done it, Daddy dear! They’ve totally
forgotten all about it. And what is this! Half-a-crown?” cried Mother.
“No! Two shillings, I see,” she corrected quickly, “to spend as well.
Children! Children! Come down, downstairs!”
Down they came, Phyllis and Sylvia leading, Susannah holding on. “Do you
know what Father’s done?” And Mother held up her hand. What was she
holding? Three cherry tickets and a green one. “He’s bought you tickets.
You’re to go to the circus, this very afternoon, all of you, with Miss
Wade. What do you say to that?”
“Oh, Mummy! Lovely! Lovely!” cried Phyllis and Sylvia.
“Isn’t it?” said Mother. “Run upstairs. Run and ask Miss Wade to get you
ready. Don’t dawdle. Up you go! All of you.”
Away flew Phyllis and Sylvia, but still Susannah stayed where she was at
the bottom of the stairs, hanging her head.
“Go along,” said Mother. And Father said sharply, “What the devil’s the
matter with the child?”
Susannah’s face quivered. “I don’t want to go,” she whispered.
“What! Don’t want to go to the Exhibition! After Father’s—— You naughty,
ungrateful child! Either you go to the Exhibition, Susannah, or you will
be packed off to bed at once.”
Susannah’s head bent low, lower still. All her little body bent forward.
She looked as though she was going to bow down, to bow down to the
ground, before her kind generous Father and beg for his forgiveness....
SECOND VIOLIN
A February morning, windy, cold, with chill-looking clouds hurrying over
a pale sky and chill snowdrops for sale in the grey streets. People look
small and shrunken as they flit by; they look scared as if they were
trying to hide inside their coats from something big and brutal. The
shop doors are closed, the awnings are furled, and the policemen at the
crossings are lead policemen. Huge empty vans shake past with a hollow
sound; and there is a smell of soot and wet stone staircases, a raw,
grimy smell....
Flinging her small scarf over her shoulder again, clasping her violin,
Miss Bray darts along to orchestra practice. She is conscious of her cold
hands, her cold nose and her colder feet. She can’t feel her toes at all.
Her feet are just little slabs of cold, all of a piece, like the feet
of china dolls. Winter is a terrible time for thin people—terrible! Why
should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a
change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn’t notice? But
no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one’s life a
misery. Winter is all for bones....
Threading her way, like a needle, in and out and along, went Miss Bray,
and she thought of nothing but the cold. She had just come out of her
kitchen, which was pleasantly snug in the morning, with her gas-fire
going for her breakfast and the window closed. She had just drunk three
large cups of really boiling tea. Surely, they ought to have warmed
her. One always read in books of people going on their way warmed and
invigorated by even one cup. And she had had three! How she loved her
tea! She was getting fonder and fonder of it. Stirring the cup, Miss
Bray looked down. A little fond smile parted her lips, and she breathed
tenderly, “I love my tea.”
But all the same, in spite of the books, it didn’t keep her warm. Cold!
Cold! And now as she turned the corner she took such a gulp of damp, cold
air that her eyes filled. _Yi-yi-yi_, a little dog yelped; he looked as
though he’d been hurt. She hadn’t time to look round, but that high,
sharp yelping soothed her, was a comfort even. She could have made just
that sound herself.
And here was the Academy. Miss Bray pressed with all her might against
the stiff, sulky door, squeezed through into the vestibule hung with
pallid notices and concert programmes, and stumbled up the dusty stairs
and along the passage to the dressing-room. Through the open door
there came such shrill loud laughter, such high, indifferent voices
that it sounded like a play going on in there. It was hard to believe
people were not laughing and talking like that ... on purpose. “Excuse
me—pardon—sorry,” said Miss Bray, nudging her way in and looking quickly
round the dingy little room. Her two friends had not yet come.
The First Violins were there; a dreamy, broad-faced girl leaned against
her ’cello; two Violas sat on a bench, bent over a music book, and the
Harp, a small grey little person, who only came occasionally, leaned
against a bench and looked for her pocket in her underskirt....
* * * * *
“I’ve a run of three twice, ducky,” said Ma, “a pair of queens make
eight, and one for his nob makes nine.”
With an awful hollow groan Alexander, curling his little finger high,
pegged nine for Ma. And “Wait now, wait now,” said she, and her quick
short little hands snatched at the other cards. “My crib, young man!” She
spread them out, leaned back, twitched her shawl, put her head on one
side. “H’m, not so bad! A flush of four and a pair!”
“Betrayed! Betrayed!” moaned Alexander, bowing his dark head over the
cribbage board, “and by a woo-man.” He sighed deeply, shuffled the cards
and said to Ma, “Cut for me, my love!”
Although of course he was only having his joke like all professional
young gentlemen, something in the tone in which he said “my love!” gave
Ma quite a turn. Her lips trembled as she cut the cards, she felt a
sudden pang as she watched those long slim fingers dealing.
Ma and Alexander were playing cribbage in the basement kitchen of number
9 Bolton Street. It was late, it was on eleven, and Sunday night,
too—shocking! They sat at the kitchen table that was covered with a worn
art serge cloth spotted with candle grease. On one corner of it stood
three glasses, three spoons, a saucer of sugar lumps and a bottle of gin.
The stove was still alight, and the lid of the kettle had just begun to
lift, cautiously, stealthily, as though there was someone inside who
wanted to have a peep and pop back again. On the horse-hair sofa against
the wall by the door, the owner of the third glass lay asleep, gently
snoring. Perhaps because he had his back to them, perhaps because his
feet poked out from the short overcoat covering him, he looked forlorn,
pathetic, and the long fair hair covering his collar looked forlorn and
pathetic, too.
“Well, well,” said Ma, sighing as she put out two cards and arranged the
others in a fan, “such is life. I little thought when I saw the last of
you this morning that we’d be playing a game together tonight.”
“The caprice of destiny,” murmured Alexander. But, as a matter of fact,
it was no joking matter. By some infernal mischance that morning he and
Rinaldo had missed the train that all the company travelled by. That was
bad enough. But being Sunday, there was no other train until midnight,
and as they had a full rehearsal at 10 o’clock on Monday it meant going
by that, or getting what the company called the beetroot. But God! what a
day it had been. They had left the luggage at the station and come back
to Ma’s, back to Alexander’s frowsy bedroom with the bed unmade and water
standing about. Rinaldo had spent the whole day sitting on the side of
the bed swinging his leg, dropping ash on the floor and saying, “I wonder
what made us lose that train. Strange we should have lost it. I bet the
others are wondering what made us lose it, too.” And Alexander had stayed
by the window gazing into the small garden that was so black with grime
even the old lean cat who came and scraped seemed revolted by it, too. It
was only after Ma had seen the last of her Sunday visitors....
MR. AND MRS. WILLIAMS
That winter Mr. and Mrs. Williams of The Rowans, Wickenham, Surrey,
astonished their friends by announcing that they were going for a three
weeks’ holiday to Switzerland. Switzerland! How very enterprising and
exciting! There was quite a flutter in Wickenham households at the
news. Husbands coming home from the city in the evening were greeted
immediately with:
“My dear, have you heard the news about the Williams?”
“No! What’s up now?”
“They’re off to Switzerland.”
“Switzerland! What the dickens are they going there for?”
That, of course, was only the extravagance of the moment. One knew
perfectly well why people went. But nobody in Wickenham ever plunged
so far away from home at that time of year. It was not considered
“necessary”—as golf, bridge, a summer holiday at the sea, an account at
Harrods’ and a small car as soon as one could afford it, were considered
necessary....
“Won’t you find the initial expenditure very heavy?” asked stout old
Mrs. Prean, meeting Mrs. Williams quite by chance at their nice obliging
grocer’s. And she brushed the crumbs of a sample cheese biscuit off her
broad bosom.
“Oh, we shall get our kit over there,” said Mrs. Williams.
“Kit” was a word in high favour among the Wickenham ladies. It was left
over from the war, of course, with “cheery,” “wash-out,” “Hun,” “Boche,”
and “Bolshy.” As a matter of fact, Bolshy was post-war. But it belonged
to the same mood. (“My dear, my housemaid is an absolute little Hun,
and I’m afraid the cook is turning Bolshy....”) There was a fascination
in those words. To use them was like opening one’s Red Cross cupboard
again, and gazing at the remains of the bandages, body-belts, tins of
anti-insectide and so on. One was stirred, one got a far-away thrill,
like the thrill of hearing a distant band. It reminded you of those
exciting, busy, of course anxious, but tremendous days when the whole of
Wickenham was one united family. And, although one’s husband was away,
one had for a substitute three large photographs of him in uniform. One
in a silver frame on the table by the bed, one in the regimental colours
on the piano, and one in leather to match the dining-room chairs.
“Cook strongly advised us to buy nothing here,” went on Mrs. Williams.
“_Cook!_” cried Mrs. Prean, greatly astounded. “What can——”
“Oh—_Thomas_ Cook, of course I mean,” said Mrs. Williams, smiling
brightly. Mrs. Prean subsided.
“But you will surely not depend upon the resources of a little Swiss
village for clothes?” she persisted, deeply interested, as usual, in
other people’s affairs.
“Oh, no, certainly not.” Mrs. Williams was quite shocked. “We shall get
all we need in the way of clothes from Harrods’.”
That was what Mrs. Prean had wished to hear. That was as it should be.
“The great secret my dear” (she always knew the great secret), “the
great secret,”—and she put her hand on Mrs. Williams’ arm and spoke very
distinctly—“is plenty of long-sleeved woven combies!”
“Thank you, m’m.”
Both ladies started. There at their side was Mr. Wick, the nice grocer,
holding Mrs. Prean’s parcel by a loop of pink string. Dear me—how very
awkward! He must have ... he couldn’t possibly not have.... In the
emotion of the moment Mrs. Prean, thinking to gloss it over tactfully,
nodded significantly at Mrs. Williams and said, accepting the parcel,
“And that is what I always tell my dear son!” But this was too swift for
Mrs. Williams to follow.
Her embarrassment continued, and ordering the sardines, she just stopped
herself from saying “Three large pairs, Mr. Wick, please,” instead of
“Three large tins.”
2
As a matter of fact it was Mrs. Williams’ Aunt Aggie’s happy release
which had made their scheme possible. Happy release it was! After fifteen
years in a wheel-chair passing in and out of the little house at Ealing
she had, to use the nurse’s expression, “just glided away at the last.”
Glided away ... it sounded as though Aunt Aggie had taken the wheel-chair
with her. One saw her, in her absurd purple velvet, steering carefully
among the stars and whimpering faintly, as was her terrestrial wont, when
the wheel jolted over a particularly large one.
Aunt Aggie had left her dear niece Gwendolen two hundred and fifty
pounds. Not a vast sum by any means, but quite a nice little windfall.
Gwendolen, in that dashing mood that only women know, decided immediately
to spend it—part of it on the house and the rest on a treat for Gerald.
And the lawyer’s letter happening to come at tea-time together with a
copy of the _Sphere_ full of the most fascinating, thrilling photographs
of holiday-makers at Mürren and St. Moritz and Montana, the question of
the treat was settled.
“You would like to go to Switzerland, wouldn’t you, Gerald?”
“Very much.”
“You’re—awfully good at skating and all that kind of thing—aren’t you?”
“Fairly.”
“You do feel it’s a thing to be done—don’t you?”
“How do you mean?”
But Gwendolen only laughed. That was so like Gerald. She knew, in his
heart of hearts he was every bit as keen as she was. But he had this
horror of showing his feelings like all men. Gwendolen understood it
perfectly and wouldn’t have had him different for the world....
“I’ll write to Cook’s at once and tell them we don’t want to go to a very
fashionable place, and we don’t want one of those big jazzy hotels! I’d
much prefer a really small out-of-the-way place where we could really go
in for the sports seriously.” This was quite untrue, but, like so many of
Gwendolen’s statements, it was made to please Gerald. “Don’t you agree?”
Gerald lit his pipe for reply.
As you have gathered, the Christian names of Mr. and Mrs. Williams were
Gwendolen and Gerald. How well they went together! They sounded married.
Gwendolen-Gerald. Gwendolen wrote them, bracketed, on bits of blotting
paper, on the backs of old envelopes, on the Stores’ catalogue. They
looked married.
Gerald, when they were on their honeymoon, had made an awfully good joke
about them. He had said one morning, “I say, has it ever struck you that
both our names begin with _G_? Gwendolen-Gerald. You’re a _G_,” and he
had pointed his razor at her—he was shaving—“and I’m a _G_. Two _Gs_.
Gee-Gee. See?”
Oh, Gwendolen saw immediately. It was really most witty. Quite brilliant!
And so—sweet and unexpected of him to have thought of it. Gee-Gee. Oh,
_very_ good! She wished she could have told it to people. She had an
idea that some people thought Gerald had not a very strong sense of
humour. All the more precious for that reason, however.
“My dear, did you think of it at this moment? I mean—did you just make it
up on the spot?”
Gerald, rubbing the lather with a finger, nodded. “Flashed into my
mind while I was soaping my face,” he said seriously. “It’s a queer
thing,”—and he dipped the razor into the pot of hot water—“I’ve noticed
it before. Shaving gives me ideas.” It did, indeed, thought Gwendolen....
WEAK HEART
Although it sounded all the year round, although it rang out sometimes as
early as half-past six in the morning, sometimes as late as half-past ten
at night, it was in the spring, when Bengel’s violet patch just inside
the gate was blue with flowers that that piano ... made the passers-by
not only stop talking, but slow down, pause, look suddenly—if they were
men—grave, even stern, and if they were women—dreamy, even sorrowful.
Tarana Street was beautiful in the spring; there was not a single house
without its garden and trees and a plot of grass big enough to be called
“the lawn.” Over the low painted fences, you could see, as you ran by,
whose daffys were out, whose wild snowdrop border was over and who had
the biggest hyacinths, so pink and white, the colour of cocoanut ice.
But nobody had violets that grew, that smelled in the spring sun like
Bengel’s. Did they really smell like that? Or did you shut your eyes and
lean over the fence because of Edie Bengel’s piano?
A little wind ruffles among the leaves like a joyful hand looking for the
finest flowers; and the piano sounds gay, tender, laughing. Now a cloud,
like a swan, flies across the sun, the violets shine cold, like water,
and a sudden questioning cry rings from Edie Bengel’s piano.
... Ah, if life must pass so quickly, why is the breath of these flowers
so sweet? What is the meaning of this feeling of longing, of sweet
trouble—of flying joy? Goodbye! Farewell! The young bees lie half awake
on the slender dandelions, silver are the pink tipped arrowy petals of
the daisies; the new grass shakes in the light. Everything is beginning
again, marvellous as ever, heavenly fair. “Let me stay! Let me stay!”
pleads Edie Bengel’s piano.
It is the afternoon, sunny and still. The blinds are down in the front to
save the carpets, but upstairs the slats are open and in the golden light
little Mrs. Bengel is feeling under her bed for the square bonnet box.
She is flushed. She feels timid, excited, like a girl. And now the tissue
paper is parted, her best bonnet, the one trimmed with a jet butterfly,
which reposes on top, is lifted out and solemnly blown upon.
Dipping down to the glass she tries it with fingers that tremble. She
twitches her dolman round her slender shoulders, clasps her purse and
before leaving the bedroom kneels down a moment to ask God’s blessing on
her “goings out.” And as she kneels there quivering, she is rather like
a butterfly herself, fanning her wings before the Lord. When the door is
open the sound of the piano coming up through the silent house is almost
frightening, so bold, so defiant, so reckless it rolls under Edie’s
fingers. And just for a moment the thought comes to Mrs. Bengel and is
gone again, that there is a stranger with Edie in the drawing-room, but
a fantastic person, out of a book, a—a—villain. It’s very absurd. She
flits across the hall, turns the door handle and confronts her flushed
daughter. Edie’s hands drop from the keys. She squeezes them between her
knees, her head is bent, her curls are fallen forward. She gazes at her
mother with brilliant eyes. There is something painful in that glance,
something very strange. It is dusky in the drawing-room, the top of the
piano is open. Edie has been playing from memory; it’s as though the air
still tingles.
“I’m going, dear,” said Mrs. Bengel softly, so softly it is like a sigh.
“Yes, Mother,” came from Edie.
“I don’t expect I shall be long.”
Mrs. Bengel lingers. She would very much like just a word, of sympathy,
of understanding, even from Edie, to cheer her on her way.
But Edie murmurs, “I’ll put the kettle on in half an hour.”
“Do, dear!” Mrs. Bengel grasped at that even. A nervous little smile
touched her lips. “I expect I shall want my tea.”
But to that Edie makes no reply; she frowns, she stretches out a hand,
quickly unscrews one of the piano candle-sticks, lifts off a pink china
ring and screws all tight again. The ring has been rattling. As the
front door bangs softly after her mother Edie and the piano seem to
plunge together into deep dark water, into waves that flow over both,
relentless. She plays on desperately until her nose is white and her
heart beats. It is her way of getting over her nervousness and her way
too of praying. Would they accept her? Would she be allowed to go? Was it
possible that in a week’s time she would be one of Miss Farmer’s girls,
wearing a red and blue hat band, running up the broad steps leading to
the big grey painted house that buzzed, that hummed as you went by? Their
pew in Church faced Miss Farmer’s boarders. Would she at last know the
names of the girls she had looked at so often? The pretty pale one with
red hair, the dark one with a fringe, the fair one who held Miss Farmer’s
hand during the sermon?... But after all....
* * * * *
It was Edie’s fourteenth birthday. Her father gave her a silver brooch
with a bar of music, two crotchets, two quavers and a minim headed by a
very twisted treble clef. Her mother gave her blue satin gloves and two
boxes for gloves and handkerchiefs, hand-painted the glove box with a
sprig of gold roses tying up the capital G. and the handkerchief box with
a marvellously lifelike butterfly quivering on the capital H. From the
aunts in....
* * * * *
There was a tree at the corner of Tarana Street and May Street. It grew
so close to the pavement that the heavy boughs stretched over, and on
that part of the pavement there was always a fine sifting of minute twigs.
* * * * *
But in the dusk, lovers parading came into its shade as into a tent.
There, however long they had been together, they greeted each other
again with long kisses, with embraces that were sweet torture, agony to
bear, agony to end.
* * * * *
Edie never knew that Roddie “loved” it, Roddie never knew that it meant
anything to Edie.
* * * * *
Roddie, spruce, sleek with water, bumped his new bike down the wooden
steps, through the gate. He was off for a spin, and looking at that tree,
dark in the glow of evening, he felt the tree was watching him. He wanted
to do marvels, to astonish, to shock, to amaze it.
Roddie had a complete new outfit for the occasion. A black serge suit, a
black tie, a straw hat so white it was almost silver, a dazzling white
straw hat with a broad black band. Attached to the hat there was a thick
guard that somehow reminded one of a fishing line and the little clasp on
the brim was like a fly.... He stood at the graveside, his legs apart,
his hands loosely clasped, and watched Edie being lowered into the
grave—as a half-grown boy watches anything, a man at work, or a bicycle
accident, or a chap cleaning a spring-carriage wheel—but suddenly as
the men drew back he gave a violent start, turned, muttered something
to his father and dashed away, so fast that people looked positively
frightened, through the cemetery, down the avenue of dripping clay
banks into Tarana Road, and started pelting for home. His suit was very
tight and hot. It was like a dream. He kept his head down and his fists
clenched, he couldn’t look up, nothing could have made him look higher
than the tops of the fences—What was he thinking of as he pressed along?
On, on until the gate was reached, up the steps, in at the front door,
through the hall, up to the drawing-room.
“Edie!” called Roddie. “Edie, old girl!”
And he gave a low strange squawk and cried “Edie!” and stared across at
Edie’s piano.
But cold, solemn, as if frozen, heavily the piano stared back at Roddie.
Then it answered, but on its own behalf, on behalf of the house and the
violet patch, the garden, the velvet tree at the corner of May Street,
and all that was delightful: “There is nobody here of that name, young
man!”
WIDOWED