Mrs. Portal knew that Poppy was working as for her life, but she did not
know why. Only, sometimes, out of the deep love and sympathy she felt
for the girl, she longed to know the truth. The truth was far even from
her far-seeing eyes.
She believed that there must be a man somewhere in the world whom Poppy
loved, for well she knew that such a wound as Poppy hid could only have
been dealt by a man's unerring hand--and none but a loved hand could
strike so deep! With all the mystical-religious, loving side of her
nature, Clem prayed that life might yet do well by her friend and give
her her heart's desire; but hope did not rise very high. She was fond of
quoting that saying:
"The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. Everything that
belongs to thee for aid or comfort shall surely come home through open
or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the
great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace."
--and she would have liked to believe it, but Life had taught her
differently. In the meantime, in so far as she was able, she watched
faithfully and anxiously over Poppy's destiny, dragging her from her
desk when the lilac eyes grew heavy and the tinted face too pale for
health; making up gay little parties to drive or walk or go to the
theatre, arranging merry dinners and excursions--anything that would
distract, and presently bring back vivacity and strength, and renew
courage.
If it had not been for these things it is very certain that Poppy, with
all her resolution and purpose, must have broken down from overwork and
the strain of seeing the man she loved turn his eyes from her
perpetually. For there were desperate hours when she obliged herself to
face the fact that Evelyn Carson gave no sign of any feeling for her but
a certain polite curiosity. In the black, despairing days that never
fail to come to highly-strung, temperamental people, she bitterly
derided herself, her work, her cause, asking what it was all for?
To win freedom from Luce Abinger and cast herself into the arms of Eve
Carson? But were his arms open to her? Plainly not. Plainly here was
another of the "little songs they sing in hell"--of the woman who loves,
but is beloved not by the beloved.
Oh! she had her black and desperate days--
"And the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night."
But afterwards _Hope_ played for her on the one brave string--and she
took up her pen and worked on.
On a stormy, sullen day towards the end of April she wrote the
concluding words of the two things she had been working on at the same
time--a play and a novel. They contained the best work she had ever
done, for though they were begun for the love of a man, they were gone
forward with, for the love of her craft, and, as all good craftsmen
know, it is only in such spirit that the best work is achieved. All that
remained to do was to go over and through the manuscripts once more,
when they had been typed, to polish here and re-phrase there; and just
to linger over all for a day in sheer delight and surprise. She was not
peculiar among writers, in that, apart from the plan and construction of
a thing, she never remembered from day to day what she had written, and
always felt the greatest surprise and freshness in re-reading passages
which had sped from her mind to paper in inspired moments, and which, if
not written at those moments, would have been lost for ever.
Schopenhauer was not the only person in the world to discover that a
beautiful thought is like a beautiful woman. If you want to keep the one
always you must tie her to you by marriage, if the other, you must tie
it to you with pen and paper or it will leave you and never return.
On that morning when she made her finished work into two tall piles of
exercise-books before her on her table, the measure of content was hers
that is felt by even the heaviest-hearted when they look upon good work
done.
She laid her head on the books and tears fell softly down, and her heart
sang a little song that was pure thankfulness and praise for the
goodness of God.
And while she sat, there came a little tap at the door.
Miss Allendner entered with a letter, and Poppy, taking it from her, saw
that it was addressed in the small, strong writing she had not seen for
years, but which she instantly recognised as Luce Abinger's. She laid it
down mechanically on the table.
"Mr. Abinger brought it himself," said Miss Allendner, "and would not
leave it until he heard that you were here and would receive it at once.
He said it was _very_ important."
"Thank you," said Poppy quietly, and sat staring at the letter long
after her companion had left the room.
Afterwards, she laid her head on the books again, but wearily now, and
the tears of her eyes were dried up and so was the little chant of
praise in her heart. She was afraid--afraid of the letter; of the look
she had seen in Luce Abinger's eyes of late--the old, hateful look--and
of the fight before her. Now that she had done the work and would have
the money to fight with, she was afraid. But only for a time. Those who
have fought with any of the grim forces of life--sorrow, pain, poverty,
despair--and defeated even the least of these in battle, have strength
to fight again, and secret springs of courage to drink from in the hour
of need. Poppy rose from her table at last with such new courage in her,
that she could laugh disdainfully at the sealed letter and all it
contained of threats, or commands. She left it sealed and lying there
for some other hour's perusal. It should not spoil _this_ her glad day
of finished tasks.
She locked the door upon it and her work, and went to her room to change
her gown and get ready to spend the rest of the day with Clem Portal.
She would probably stay the night, but she took nothing with her, for
she had now quite a collection of clothes at Clem's for emergencies.
* * * * *
On the afternoon of the same day she sat dreaming in a Madeira-chair in
Clem's drawing-room, while the latter meditated on the piano, trying to
compose an air sufficiently mournful to set to the words of a little
song of Poppy's called "In Exile." Softly, she sang it over and over to
long slurring chords--curiously sweet and strange.
I.
Across the purple heather
The winds of God blow sweet.
But it's O for the smell of London
And the roar of a London street!
II.
Upon the wine-dark waters
The sun strikes clean and hot.
But it's O for a London garden
And the woman who loves me not!
"You say you are no musician, Clem, but I never knew anyone who could
make lovelier sounds come out of a piano," Poppy said.
Clem laughed.
"Dear, I can't play at all: it is this little song that sets chords
singing in my head. What were you thinking of when you wrote it?"
"Of Dr. Ferrand, I think, that first Sunday I came here. You remember
how he talked of London?--and you said that he had 'his own box of
matches and could make his own hell any day in the week,' like poor
_Dick Heldar_. The circumstances seemed to indicate that there was some
woman in England who didn't love him--but I daresay that applies to a
good many men out here."
"The most usual circumstance," said Clem laughing, "is that the woman
loves too well. Some men find that hardest of all to bear."
Poppy reflected on this for a while.
"I suppose you mean wives! It is curious how many people seem to marry
to live apart, isn't it, Clem?"
"Yes; I call it the cat-and-reptile game," said Clem, swinging round on
the music-stool and beginning to run her hands through her crinkly,
curly, fuzzy dark hair with seven red lights in it. "The cat catches the
reptile, scratches him, bites him, wounds him, puts her mark on him for
good, and as soon as he has no more kick left in him, off she goes and
leaves him alone."
Poppy was laughing.
"Well, some of the reptiles make marvellous recoveries," said she,
remembering one, at least, whom she had known.
"You can't blame them for _that_--it isn't very interesting to be dead,
I suppose."
"As for the cats who don't leave their reptiles," continued Poppy,
thinking of some of the dull people she had recently met, "nothing could
be deader than the pair of them. And then they label themselves
'happily married.'"
"Now, Poppy, I won't have you walking over my cabbages and onions."
"I'm not, Clem--but they don't make marriage look alluring to anyone
with an imagination, do they? Of course, it is wonderful to see your
happiness----"
"Yes; Bill and I _are_ rather wonderful"--Clem jumped up in a hurry--"I
must _absolutely_ go and get some socks and stockings to mend. There is
a pile as big as a house waiting--" She flashed out of the room.
"She won't discuss her happiness with me," thought Poppy. "It is too
sacred!"
By the time Clem came back a settled gloom was over everything; the rain
was heavily pelting against the windows; occasionally a bright beam of
light shot through the room, leaving it as grey as a witch; afterwards
the thunder groaned like some god in agony.
"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said Poppy.
"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered sadly. "And Cinthie
inherits the gentle trait. It is _too_ bad, for I hate darning."
She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat peering her
glimmering head over her work, while they talked in desultory fashion:
but the storm got worse, the thunder groaned more terribly.
"God sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to throw it under the
feet of dancing women and men," said Poppy, in a voice that rang with
some unusual emotion.
Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.
"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."
To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.
"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem ... these storms ... a
storm like this reminds me of when I was a child ... I was once out in
a storm like this."
"You?"
"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."
"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning tore through the
room, showing her for an instant a tortured face. She reached out and
took the girl's hands in hers, gripping them tight. Dimly, through the
rumble of the thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.
"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think have only been in Africa
for a few months at a time ... I, the gently-nurtured English girl! ...
educated at Cheltenham College! ... I did not actually tell you these
things, Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ... I was
born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and hungry ... been a
little beaten vagabond in the streets."
"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness; "what do
these things matter--except that they have made you suffer? ... they
have made you the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I
have always known that there was a wound ... don't make it bleed
afresh ... I love you too well to want to hear anything that it hurts to
tell ... always believe this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any
woman I have ever known."
"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am not worthy even to speak
to you, to touch you.... It is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless
you ... I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for you....
I did not know one woman could be so sweet to another as you have been
to me ... you are like the priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the
harlot broke over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ! What am
I?"
Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was heard but the sound
of deep weeping. Outside the storm raged on. But when next a gleam of
light flashed through the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was
revealed clasped in another woman's arms.
"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips' false tales ...
since I have been near you and seen your true unafraid eyes ... the
frank clear turn of your mouth that has never lied to anyone ... I have
died many deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ... pure
women don't know what suffering there is in the world, it is no use
pretending they do ... they are wonderful, they shine.... O! what
wouldn't _we_ give to shine with that lovely cold, pure glow ... but
they can't take from us what our misery has bought."
"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman said steadily. "I don't
want to know ... whatever Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I
don't care! I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you is
sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It is all a matter of
luck ... God was good to me ... I had a good mother and a fleet foot ...
when I smelt danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you had not,
perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only difference----"
Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.
"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are generous, Clem, but
truth is truth, and I should like to speak it to you now and always ...
confession has no attractions for me, and I once told a man I should
never confess to a woman----"
"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a woman learns to be
silent about herself, she gains power that nothing else can give her.
And words can forge themselves into such terrible weapons to be used
against one--sometimes by hands we love."
"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you, dear, once and
for all. Let me tell you--even the name I use is not my own!"
"I don't care. What does a name matter?"
"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny,
nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all
of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an
Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"
"What do these things matter?"
"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters
to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps----"
"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever
weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."
"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have
been--lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years
cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ...
you hate me!"
"No, Poppy--only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"
"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is
where you will not understand."
"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of,
it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."
"_Miserable!_ I am misery's own!" she cried passionately. "She marked me
with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have
you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem?
More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not
innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand
the untold tale of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had
only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home
and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the
sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover
left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a
paean of praise to the gods that _my_ lover would never go lacking the
gift of my breasts. I made a song--all Africa knows it now:
"'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts----'"
"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly. "When Cinthie is twelve,
will you want her to be thinking of lover's caresses?"
"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a mother's caresses. Your
nature was starving for love, poor child!"
"You have a tender heart for sinners."
"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."
"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to tell you _something_
of what the last three years have been ... three years of lying to get a
living ... lying to get money: the stage, governessing, serving in
shops, nursing invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great
variety about my _roles_ in life, Clem, except for one faithful
detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook, a man
cropped up and stood in the path. There was something special about me,
it seemed, that brought them unerringly my way--nothing less than my
_wonderful innocence_. That drew them as the magnet draws steel ...
lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they all wanted to open the
portals of knowledge for me ... to show me the golden way into the
wondrous city of Love. And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint!
Sin was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow! I looked into
their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I told them I was good and
adjured them by their mothers to leave me so. At first they were always
deeply impressed, but later they became slightly bored.... The affair
nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part never to
forget that I had a _real_ friend if I should ever want one, and I
understood very well what _that_ meant, but invariably I pretended that
I did not, and went my way innocent-eyed.... But there were variations
on this ... sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship in
the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In such cases I always
helped myself liberally ... I had an unerring instinct that I should
shortly be seeking a new home--a new friend ... and that instinct never
played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once more, looking for
a way to earn a living and stay _pure_ and _innocent_. Once I was almost
content with an old woman. I washed her and dressed her, and,
incidentally, was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high.... Alas!
like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a decent boy, too ... but
when he had looked into my eyes and found me good, there was the old
tale to tell.... _He_ used to give me lovely presents ... I was never
too good to take presents, Clem--under protest.... He wanted to marry
me, but marriage was not in my plan ... then the old mother found out,
and I had to go. Another man in Birmingham, whose children I taught,
gave me _hundreds_--just for being good! would have given me thousands
only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once and flew to the worst
conclusions ... she believed I had stolen her husband and was as bad as
I could be ... no one could be surprised at what she called me ... but
it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go back to London,
and there was nothing at first to go back to but the stage.... I did not
stay _there_ long ... innocence is not very valuable on the
stage--except in the play!... and though I have a special talent for
acting _off_ the stage, I am too nervous _on_ it to open my lips ... so
there was no hope for advancement that way ... I had to begin again on
the old round."
"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand--why? _why?_... what
was it all for?"
"For money, Clem. I wanted money."
"I can't believe it!--Oh! _not_ for money!"
"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money; there is nothing they
will not do to get gold in their hands. I was _good_ for money ... a
saint, an angel, a virgin--most especially a virgin."
"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you say can make no
difference to me. I _will_ love you. I _will_ be your friend. But--is
there anything in the world that money can get that was worth it all? I
ask out of sheer curiosity--_is_ there?"
Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a few words dropped into
the silence of the room.
"I wanted the money for my child."
The storm had died away at last, leaving a terrible peace behind it. The
colour of the evening sky was sard-green, than which nothing can be more
despairing.
Mrs. Portal sat with her head drooped forward a little as if very tired,
and Poppy arose from her seat, pushed open a window, and stood looking
out. The smell of wet steaming earth came into the room. Presently,
speaking very softly, she continued her narrative:
"I wanted all the money I could get for my son. He had no name, no
heritage ... his father ... had, I believed, married another woman. I
was resolved that he should at least have all money could give him.... I
thought that when he grew up he would turn from me in any case as a
woman who had shamed him and robbed him of his birthright, so that it
did not matter _what_ I did while he was yet young, and yet loved me,
to insure him health, a fine education, and a future. First it was to
give him the bare necessaries of life, later to provide a home in the
country where he could grow up strong and well under good, kind care ...
then, my thoughts were for his future ... Oh! I hoped to redeem my soul
by his future, Clem!... So I worked and lied ... and lied and took ...
and lied and saved ... not often with my lips did I lie, Clem ... but
_always_ with my eyes. I had at last amassed nearly eight hundred
pounds ... you will think that remarkable, if you will remember that
always I amassed it virtuously ... that there is no man of all I met
in those years who can call me anything but a good woman--abominably,
disgustingly, vilely _good_.
"And then ... I was introduced to a financier, who, because of the charm
of my innocent eyes, told me that, in a few weeks, he would transform my
eight hundred pounds into eight thousand pounds. Incidentally, he
remarked that we must see more of each other ... and I looked into _his_
eyes and saw that they were _not_ innocent,--and that there would be a
difficult day of reckoning for me later on ... but for eight thousand
pounds, and secure in mailed armour of _purity_, I risked that ...
especially as he was just leaving England for a few weeks ... I handed
over my eight hundred pounds without a qualm, for he had a great name in
the financial world. In less than three weeks his dead body was being
hauled over the side of a yacht in the Adriatic, and my eight hundred
pounds was deader than Dead-Sea fruit, for I never heard of it again ...
nor wanted to ... the need of it was gone ... my boy was dead!"
"Poppy! Poppy!" Clem got up and drew the girl down to the floor by her
side. "Rest your head on me dear ... you are tired ... life has been too
hard for you.
"'Dost thou know, O happy God!----'
"Life has been brutal to you. I think of my own sheltered childhood, and
compare it with yours--flung out into the fiery sands of the desert to
die or survive, as best you might!... The strange thing is that your
face bears no sign of all the terrible things that have overtaken you! I
see no base, vile marks anywhere on you, Poppy.... It cannot all be
acting ... no one is clever enough to mask a soiled soul for ever, and
from everyone, if it really _is_ soiled.... You _look_ good--not
smirking, soft goodness that means nothing, but brave, strong
goodness ... and I _know_ that that look is true ... and so I can love
you, after all these things you have told me ... I can love you better
than ever. But _why_ is it, Poppy?"
"I don't know. If it _is_ so, the reason must be that all was done for
Love, Clem ... because always I had a sweet thing at my heart ... the
love I bore to my child, and to the father of my child. Because, like
the mother of Asa, 'I built an altar in a grove' and laid my soul upon
it for Love. I want to tell you something further. Being _good_, as the
world calls it, has no charm for me. Many of the men I have spoken of
had a sinister attraction. _I understood what they felt._ I looked into
eyes and saw things there that had answers deep down in me. I am a child
of passionate Africa, Clem ... the blood in my veins runs as hot and red
as the colour of a poppy.... It is an awful thing to look into the eyes
of a man you do not love and see passion staring there--and feel it
urging in your own veins, too. It is an awful thing to know what it is
that he is silently demanding, and what that basely answers in your own
nature.... Yet there are worse things than this knowledge. A worse
thing, surely, would have been to have gone hurtling over the precipice
with some Gadarene swine!... Clem, if I had been _really_ innocent those
years, nothing could have saved me. I should have gone to the devil, as
they call it, with some vile man I had no love for, just because I
didn't know how to keep out of the traps laid for me by my own
nature--and then I should have 'been at the devil' indeed! But I had
bought knowledge with the price of my girlhood ... and I had mated with
my own right man.... I had looked at life, if only for an hour, with
love-anointed eyes ... and so, it came to pass that I had a memory to
live for, and a child to fight for ... and courage to fight my greatest
enemy--myself. I think no one who knew the workings of my heart would
deny me courage, Clem."
"No, and it is a noble quality, child--the noblest, I think, when it is
used to fight one's own baser nature. That only would keep a woman
beautiful ... it is to _that_ you owe your beauty, dear."
"Then it is to you I owe it to a great extent--for it was you who first
put the creed into me of courage--and silence--and endurance. Do you
remember the night you wished me good-bye over your gate, Clem?"
"I remember everything--but, dear, there is one thing that grieves and
bewilders me--why, _why_ could you not have earned a clean, fine living
with your pen ... where was your gift of writing?"
"It left me, Clem, when I tried to earn money with it. I could not
write. I tried and tried. I sat to it until my eyes sank into my head
and hollows came to my cheeks--until we were hungry, my little Pat and
I--and cold. For bread and firing I had to leave it, and turn to other
things. After the boy died ... it came back and mocked me. I wrote then
to ease my pain ... and everything I have written since has been
successful ... found a ready market and in some sort Fame ... but it was
all too late!"
"Poor child! everything has mocked you!" Clem put her arms round the
girl and kissed her tenderly; then drew away and assumed an ordinary
pose, for a maid had come into the room bringing lights, and with the
intimation that she was about to sound the dressing-bell, as it wanted
only half an hour to dinner-time.
"Heavens!" cried Clem; "and I hear Billy's voice in the garden; Eve
Carson's, too, I believe. _Fly_ to your room, Poppy. I expect Sarah has
laid out one of your gowns."