ELIZABETH ENTERS
Elizabeth was sitting with her cousin in the garden-house at the end
of the croquet-lawn, waiting for the sound of the gong which should
announce to her that the motor was round to take her for a drive with
Aunt Julia. She had arrived the evening before, after spending a week
at Paris with some relations of her mother, and had, at Mrs. Hancock's
special desire, breakfasted in her room that morning, this being the
correct after-cure for any journey that implied a night in the train
or a crossing of the Channel, for had Mrs. Hancock started at midday
from Calais and come to her journey's end at Dover she would certainly
have had breakfast in her room next day. Elizabeth, as a matter of
fact, feeling extremely vigorous when she woke this morning at six, had
let herself discreetly out of the house, and much enjoyed a two hours'
ramble, returning in time to steal back unobserved to her room, where
she ate her breakfast with remarkable heartiness at nine. Soon after,
she had come out with Edith, while her aunt read small paragraphs in
the paper and saw the cook. The usual schedule for the day had been
altered so that Elizabeth might have a good long drive that morning,
and the motor had been ordered for half-past eleven, instead of twelve;
she could then get a good long rest in the afternoon, which should
complete the journey-cure inaugurated by breakfasting in bed. But this
dislocation of hours had proved too serious to face, and Lind had come
out half an hour ago to say that if it suited Miss Elizabeth equally
well, the car would come round at twelve--or a few minutes before--as
usual.
Elizabeth, as has previously been mentioned, had not looked forward
to this summer in England with her aunt, nor had she considered that
the well-remembered comfort of the house was an advantage. But on this
glittering summer morning, after the dust of trains and the roar of
towns, she found herself in a singularly contented, amused and eager
frame of mind. There was, for the present, a charm for her in the warm
airy house, the exquisitely kept garden, the cheerful serenity of her
aunt. As is the way of youth, she delighted in new impressions, and
she found that in her two years' absence from England, for she had
spent the last summer in the Hills, she had forgotten the aroma of home
life. She was recording those new impressions to Edith with remarkable
volubility.
"But the most beautiful bath!" she said. "All white tiles, and roses
at the window, and silver handles for everything. You should see our
Indian bathroom, Edith! There is a horrible little brown shed opening
from your bedroom, and a large tin pan in a corner, and if you are
lucky a tap for the water. Usually you are unlucky, and there are only
tin jugs of water. In the hot weather the first thing you have to do
is to look carefully about to see that a cobra hasn't come to share it
with you. Then there are no bells; nobody knows why, but there aren't;
and if you want your ayah you shout. If she doesn't want to come she
doesn't appear for a quarter of an hour or so, and explains that she
didn't hear you shout."
"Then how did she know you shouted?" said Edith brightly.
"That is what you ask her, and she explains at such length that you
wish you were dead. Oh, look at the grass--real grass, and there's
still dew on it in the shadow. I long to take off my shoes and
stockings and walk about on it. May I?"
"Oh, Elizabeth, I think not!" said Edith, slightly alarmed. "Ellis
would think it so odd."
"Ellis? Oh, the gardener! He looks like a clergyman, with his
side-whiskers. But does it matter much what he thinks? Servants must
think such a lot of awful things about us. However, I don't mind. I
wanted my bath tremendously this morning, if you'll promise not to
tell, because it wasn't exactly what Aunt Julia meant. You see, she
thought I was tired, and really I wasn't, so I got up at six and had
a delicious ramble. I went on to a quiet common covered with heath,
and there was nobody there but a sort of lunatic with a butterfly net,
running madly about. He caught his foot in a root of heather and fell
flat down at my feet. Of course I howled with laughter."
"Mr. Beaumont," remarked Edith in a tone of inspiration.
"So he told me, because we sat and talked after that. I rather liked
him, and he gave me a cigarette."
"A cigarette?" asked Edith. "You don't mean----"
Elizabeth laughed.
"Oh, dear, have I done anything improper?" she asked. "But, anyhow,
Ellis wasn't there. He is rather mad, I suppose, isn't he--Mr.
Beaumont, I mean? Then while we were sitting there an awful woman came
along the path, like a witch in spectacles and the most enormous boots
I ever saw."
"Yes?" said Edith, rather apprehensively.
"You would never guess; it was his sister. After I had said she was
like a witch. Then she became like a policeman and took him in charge,
and I was left smoking my cigarette all alone. The heather smelt so
good, better than the cigarette. But everything smells good in England,
and reminds you of being clean and happy and cool. But oh, Edith, the
Indian smell, the old tired wicked smell! There's always a little bit
of it smouldering in my heart like a joss-stick. It's made of incense
and hot sand and brown naked people and the filth of the streets and
the water-cart; it's savage and eternal, and it reeks of--it doesn't
matter.... Oh look! Ellis is brushing the grass's hair! Docs he comb it
as well?"
Edith had but little chance of saying anything at all while these
remarkable statements were being poured out by her cousin, but as a
matter of fact she was well content to listen. Two years ago, when she
had seen Elizabeth last, the latter was a tall, thin, sallow girl, with
bursts of high spirits and long intervals of languid silences, and now,
with the strength of two years added and the flow of her adolescent
womanhood tingling in her veins, she was a very different creature.
Her sallow face was tinged with warm blood, giving her the warm brown
complexion that goes with black hair and soft dark eyes; it was as
impossible not to feel the kindly effect of her superb vitality as to
be insensible to the glow of a frosty-burning fire. She was taut and
poised, and full of vigour as a curled spring of steel or the strained
wings of a hovering hawk, with the immobile balance that implies
so intense an energy. Edith, with a rather unaccustomed flight of
imagination, compared herself to a sparrow hopping cheerfully about a
lawn, with a nest in the ivy, and an appetite for bread-crumbs.... But
apparently the sparrow had to chirrup.
"And now I want to hear all sorts of things, Edith," she said. "Tell
me about Mr. Beaumont, and the witch, and who lives next door on that
side and on that. On that side"--and she pointed with her long brown
hand--"I saw a roundabout little woman like a cook, sitting on a
bench and reading the paper. Was it the cook? Was she looking in the
advertisements for another place, I wondered."
"No; Mrs. Dobbs," said Edith. "She's a friend of mother's and mine."
"Tell me about her. What does she think about?"
It had never occurred to Edith to conjecture what Mrs. Dobbs thought
about. You did not connect Mrs. Dobbs with the idea of thought.
"She is very fond of dogs," said Edith.
"I saw them too, curled and brushed. I expect she blacks the ends of
their noses like horses' hoofs. I don't call them dogs. But what does
she think about if she lies awake at night? What you think about lying
awake is what you really think about. Perhaps she doesn't lie awake.
We'll leave her. I don't seem to be interested in her. Who lives there?"
"Mr. Holroyd."
"Whom Aunt Julia said was coming to dinner to-night? She called him
Edward--dear Edward, I think--and I am sure she was going to tell me
something about him when the old man--Lind, isn't it?--came in to say
Mrs. Williams was waiting. So I came out here. Tell me about Edward. Is
he a relation? Shall I call him Edward?"
Elizabeth gave one glance at Edith's face, stopped suddenly, and
clapped her hands.
"I guess, I guess!" she said. "He isn't a relation, but he is going
to be. Edith, my dear, how exciting! I want to hear all about him
instantly."
She stopped again.
"I think he must have come out of his front gate in rather a hurry at
nine o'clock," she said. "Is he rather tall and clean-shaven, with the
look that some people have as if he had washed twice at least that
morning? Also, he was whistling Schumann's first Novelette, very loud
and quite out of tune. I thought that was rather nice of him, and I
whistled too, out of my bedroom window. I had to; I couldn't help it.
Of course I didn't let him see me, and he stopped and looked up at
the sky to see where it came from. My dear, tell me all about Edward
instantly."
Edith gasped in the grip of this genial whirlwind of a girl.
"You are quite right, Elizabeth," she said; "and--and there's nobody
like him. I should have come up to talk to you last night, but mother
said you would be tired. How did you guess? It was quick of you."
Elizabeth laughed.
"Not very, dear!" she said. "You looked as if--as if you were in
church. And as you weren't, it was obvious you were in love. 'Mr.
Holroyd'--you said it like that, like an 'Amen.' My dear, what fun! But
I do hope he's good enough for you, and attractive enough. A man has
to be so tremendously attractive to make up for being a man at all,
with their tufts of hair all over their faces. Of course, I shall never
marry at all. I shall----Oh dear, I've begun to talk about myself, and
really I'm not the least interested in myself. Tell me straight off all
about Cousin Edward."
This was a task of which Edith was hopelessly incapable. She could no
more talk about him than she could talk about religion. Reticent at
all times, on this subject her inability to speak amounted almost to
dumbness. Her thoughts, unable not to hover round him, were equally
unable to alight, to be put into words. The very thought of speaking of
him embarrassed her.
"Quick!" said Elizabeth, putting her arm round her.
"I can't! I can't say anything about him except that he is he. You must
see for yourself. But oh, Elizabeth, fancy his wanting me! And fancy
that when he asked me first I didn't really care. But very soon I began
to care, and now I care for him more than anything. If I go on like
this I shall begin not to care about anybody else. Oh, there is the
gong; that is for the motor. You must go. But in the interval I think
you are a dear. I care for you."
Edith got up, hearing the sonorous Chinese music, but Elizabeth pulled
her back to her seat again.
"Surely the motor can wait five minutes," she said. "We are beginning
to know each other."
"But mother doesn't like waiting," said Edith.
"Nor does daddy; but he very often has got to. What do you and Cousin
Edward talk about? I shall call him Cousin Edward at once, I think, to
show him that I know. Or is that forward and tropical of me?"
Lind approached swiftly across the grass.
"Mrs. Hancock is waiting, miss," he said to Elizabeth. "She thinks you
can't have heard the gong out here."
Elizabeth gave him a ravishing smile.
"Oh, I heard it beautifully!" she said. "Say I'm coming."
"I think Mrs. Hancock expects you at once, miss," said Lind, quite
unsoftened, and continuing to stand firmly there until Elizabeth should
move.
Under these circumstances it was impossible to continue anything
resembling an intimate conversation, and Elizabeth rose just as Mrs.
Hancock herself came out on to the gravel walk below the drawing-room
window. She had been waiting at least three minutes--a thing to which
she was wholly unaccustomed except when going by train. Then, for the
sake of the corner seat facing the engine, she cheerfully waited twenty.
Elizabeth was quite unconscious of any severity of scrutiny on the part
of her aunt as she ran across the lawn and jumped over a flower-bed,
nor did she detect the slightest intention of sarcasm in Mrs. Hancock's
greeting.
"Arc you nearly ready, Elizabeth?" she asked. "If so the car has been
waiting some time."
"I'm quite ready, Aunt Julia," she said, "and I am so looking forward
to my drive."
The usual detailed discussion was gone through with Denton as to their
exact route, and Mrs. Hancock put her feet up on the footstool that had
been bought for the journey to Bath.
"Now we're off," she said; "and if you would put down your window two
more holes, dear, or perhaps three, we shall be quite comfortable.
You look quite rested; that's what comes of stopping in your room for
breakfast. And if you get a good long rest again this afternoon, while
Edith and I are out, I've no doubt you'll be quite brisk this evening.
Mr. Holroyd is coming to dinner, and you'll hear him play. That will be
quite a treat for you as you are so fond of music. And now I want to
tell you----"
Elizabeth interrupted her aunt. To this also she was unaccustomed.
"I think I know," she said. "Do you mean about Mr. Holroyd? Edith told
me. But she didn't seem able to describe him at all. Do tell me about
him! Is he good enough for her? I think she's a dear!"
"Edward is a young man in a thousand," began Mrs. Hancock.
"Yes; but is he the right young man in a thousand? I hope he's rich
too, though of course that doesn't matter so much for Edith. Aunt
Julia, what a lovely car! May I drive it some day? Would your chauffeur
lend me his cap and coat? I used often to drive daddy, till one day
when I went into a ditch. It was so funny; one door was jammed, of
course, against the side of the ditch and we couldn't open the other.
Mamma was inside. We thought we should have to feed her through the
window. But daddy said afterwards that it wasn't entirely my fault. May
I drive now? Or perhaps I had better learn about the car first. And now
about Cousin Edward?"
Mrs. Hancock had received several shocks during this hurricane speech,
and she had to collect herself a little before she could reply. But
before she could reply Elizabeth was away again.
"Oh, here we are on that nice heath!" she said. "It did smell so good!
Oh, Aunt Julia, I think I had better confess! I couldn't stop in bed
this morning, though it was nice of you to want me to get rested, and I
went for a walk about six."
"My dear! All alone?"
"Some of the time. I met a man whom I thought was a lunatic with a
butterfly net, but Edith says it was Mr. Beaumont. He fell down, so we
talked. And his sister came out of a wood! Oh, I believe that is he
again, coming along the road towards us now!"
"But, my dear, what odd conduct on your part!"
"Was it? It seemed the only thing to do. Had I better bow to him, Aunt
Julia?"
Mrs. Hancock felt slightly bewildered by so puzzling a question
of etiquette as that involved by a girl conversing with a total
stranger--particularly when that stranger turned out to be Mr.
Beaumont--at six o'clock in the morning. Prudence prevailed.
"We will both look at the view out of the side-window," she said, and
Mr. Beaumont encountered a pair of profiles.
But Mr. Beaumont and his butterfly net being left behind, Mrs. Hancock
thought well to take advantage of the opportunity for a few general
remarks. Already she had been kept waiting, been interrupted, and
been faced with this problem arising from quite unheard-of conduct on
Elizabeth's part. And as a gentian thrusts blossoms through the snow,
so at the base of her cordiality of tone lay a frozen rigidity. As
her custom was, when she wanted to say something of the correcting
and improving nature, she laid her hand softly--then squeezed--on
Elizabeth's. This was symbolical of the affectionate nature of her
intention.
"I can't tell you, dear Elizabeth," she said, "how I have been looking
forward to your coming here, and I am quite certain we shall have the
happiest summer together. And I hope you won't find the manners and
customs expected of a young lady in England very strange, though I know
they are so different to what is quite right and proper in India, with
all its deserts and black people. Most interesting it all must be, and
I am greatly looking forward to hearing about it all, and I'm sure when
you tell me I shall want to go to India myself. But here, for instance,
dear Edith would never dream of taking a walk at six o'clock in the
morning all alone, when there might be all kinds of people about, or
talking to strangers, or thinking even of driving a motor-car. My dear,
if you would reach down that tube and blow through it and then say, 'To
the right, please, Denton,' he will take us a very pleasant round, and
we shall get back ten minutes before lunch and have time to rest and
cool. Had we started a few minutes sooner, when the car came round, we
should have had time to go a long round, past a very pretty mill which
I wanted to show you. As it is, we will take a shorter round."
There was all Mrs. Hancock's quiet masterfulness in these agreeable
remarks, all the leaden imperturbability which formed so large a factor
in the phenomenon of her getting her own way in her own manner, and
of everybody else doing, in the long run, what she wished, until they
were reduced to the state of abject vassalage in which her immediate
circle found themselves. The effect it produced on Elizabeth, though
not complete, was material.
"I'm afraid that it was my fault we didn't start punctually, Aunt
Julia," she said. "But couldn't we go round by the mill all the same
and be a little late for lunch?"
Mrs. Hancock laughed.
"And make other people unpunctual as well?" she said. "No, my dear;
when anybody has been unpunctual--I am never unpunctual myself--my rule
is to get back to punctuality as soon as possible and start fair again.
We will go to the mill another day, for I hope we shall have plenty
of drives together. About Mr. Beaumont, I hardly know what to do. If
only, you naughty girl, you had not got up but stayed quietly in bed,
as I meant you to do, it would never have happened. I think the best
plan will be for me to ask him to lunch with us and then introduce
you quite fresh, so that he will see that we all mean to forget about
your meeting on the heath. Look, here are the golf links! Very likely
we shall see Mr. Martin playing. He is our clergyman, and we are most
lucky to have him. Yes, upon my word, there he is! Now he sees my car
and is waving his cap! Well, that was a coincidence, meeting him, for
now you will recognize him again when you see him in his surplice and
hood in church to-morrow morning. Dear me, it is the first Sunday in
the month, and there will be the Communion after Morning Service. Mr.
Martin never calls it Matins; he says that is a Roman Catholic name.
How quickly the Sundays come round!"
Elizabeth looked out of the window at the celebrated Mr. Martin, and
saw that here was an opportunity for saying what she felt she must say
to her aunt before Sunday morning. The talk she had had with her father
on the reality of religious beliefs to her had been renewed before she
left India, and, with his consent, she had made up her mind not to go
to church while the reason for so doing remained inconclusive to her.
To attend public worship seemed to her a symbolical act, an outward
sign of something that, in truth, was non-existent.... It was like a
red Socialist joining in the National Anthem. But she had promised
him--and, indeed, the promise was one with the desire of her heart--to
pray, not to let neglect cement her want of conviction.
"Aunt Julia," she said, "I want to tell you something. It is that I
don't want to go to church. It--it doesn't mean anything to me. Oh, I'm
afraid you are shocked!"
It seemed a justifiable apprehension.
"Elizabeth!" said Mrs. Hancock. "How can you say such wicked things?"
This roused the girl.
"They are not wicked!" she said hotly. "It is very cruel of you to say
so. I had a long talk, two talks, with daddy about it. He agrees with
me. He was very sorry, but he agrees."
It is hard to convey exactly the impression made on Mrs. Hancock's
mind. If Elizabeth had confessed to a systematic course of burglary or
murder she would not have been more shocked, nor would she have been
more shocked if her niece had announced her intention of appearing at
dinner without shoes and stockings. The conventional outrage, in fact,
was about as distressing to her as the moral one. She knew, of course,
perfectly well that even in well-regulated Heathmoor certain most
respectable inhabitants, who often sat at her table, were accustomed to
spend Sunday morning on the golf-links instead of at public worship,
but she never for a moment thought of classing them with Elizabeth. She
could not have explained that; it was merely matter of common knowledge
that grown-up men did not seem to need to go to church so much.
Similarly it was right for them to smoke strong cigars after dinner,
whereas the fact that Elizabeth had consumed one of Mr. Beaumont's
cigarettes, had she been cognizant of that appalling occurrence, would
have seemed to her an almost inconceivable breach of decency. Girls
went to church, and did not smoke; here was the statement of two very
simple fundamental things.
"I hardly know what to say to you," she said. "Talking to Mr. Beaumont
is nothing to this. I must ask you to be silent for a little while,
Elizabeth, while I collect my thoughts, and on our first drive too,
which I hoped we should enjoy so much, although your being late made it
impossible for us to go round by the mill as I had planned."
The poor lady's pleasure was quite spoiled, and not being accustomed to
arrange her thoughts in any order, except when she was forming careful
plans for her own comfort, she found the collection of them, which
she desired, difficult of attainment. But very quickly she began to
see that her own comfort was seriously involved, and that gave her a
starting-point. It would be known by now throughout Heathmoor that her
niece from India had come to stay with her for the summer, and it would
be seen that no niece sat with her in the pew just below the pulpit.
Almost all the seats in the church faced eastwards; this, with one or
two others, ran at right angles to them, and was thus in full view of
the congregation. It followed that unless she explained Elizabeth's
absence, Sunday by Sunday, when there was always a general chat--except
on the first Sunday of the month--at the gate into the churchyard, by
a cold or some other non-existent complaint (and this was really not
to be thought of), her circle of friends would necessarily come to the
most shocking conclusion as to Elizabeth's non-appearance. Certainly
Mr. Martin would notice it, and it would be his duty to inquire into
it. That would be most uncomfortable, and if inquiries were made of
her she could not imagine herself giving either the real reason or a
false one. No doubt if Mr. Martin talked to Elizabeth he could soon
awake in her that sense of religious security, of soothed, confident
trust--a trust as complete as that with which any sane person awaited
the rising of the sun in the morning, which to Mrs. Hancock connoted
Christianity, but that he should talk to her implied that he must know
what ailed her. And in any case the rest of Heathmoor would notice
Elizabeth's absence from church.... It was all very dreadful and
puzzling, and was no doubt the result of a prolonged sojourn in India,
where heathens, in spite of all those missions to which she did not
subscribe, were still in such numerical preponderance. But the cause of
Elizabeth's proposed absence did not in reality so greatly trouble her.
What spoiled her pleasure, in any case, was the uncomfortableness of
the situation if Elizabeth was seen to be consistently absent from the
eleven o'clock service.
Then the light began to break, and conventional arguments flocked to
the assistance of her beleaguered conventionality.
"I am so shocked and distressed, dear," she said, "though you will tell
me, I dare say, that there is little good in that, and on this lovely
morning, too. But of the reason for your not going to church I will
not speak now. I am thinking of the effect. Every one knows that you
are here with me, and, unless I am to say you are unwell every Sunday
morning, what am I to say? And, indeed, I could not bring myself to say
you are unwell, and keep on repeating it. Of course we all say, 'Not at
home,' when it is not convenient to receive callers, but on a subject
like this it would be out of the question. There is Mr. Beaumont again;
we seem always to be meeting him. And the servants, too. Lind and
Denton and Filson will all certainly know you don't go to church, and
Mrs. Williams, who can't go, though I am sure she would if her duties
allowed her to, will be certain to hear you moving about from the
kitchen. They will talk among themselves and say how odd it is. It will
offend them, dear, and you know what is said about giving offence. I am
sure you did not think of that"--Mrs. Hancock had only just thought of
it--"or consider what effect your absence would have. I assure you that
often and often I have felt inclined not to go on Sunday morning, and
should much prefer, when it is wet, to read the psalms and lessons at
home. Even then Lind and Filson and the others would know that it was
only the weather that prevented me, and they would see the prayer-books
and Bibles lying about."
Elizabeth again interrupted.
"You needn't say any more, Aunt Julia," she said. "Certainly I will go
to church on Sunday. It seems to me that it would be an offence against
your hospitality for me to refuse. It is part of the routine, is it
not, a rule of the house? On those grounds I will go. Will that satisfy
you?"
Mrs. Hancock found that all that had "shocked and distressed her" was
sensibly ameliorated. The feelings of Lind and Filson would be spared,
and the chat at the churchyard gate would be as cheerful as usual. She
beamed on her niece.
"I knew you would see it in the right light, if it was put to you," she
said. "And, with regard to your reasons for not wanting to go, would
you like to talk to Mr. Martin about it? He is so wise. Anyhow, you
will hear him preach, and I cannot imagine any one hearing Mr. Martin
preach without feeling the absolute truth of what he says. But that
we will talk of another time. Dear me, we are back at the golf links
again; we have made a loop, you see. And if that isn't Mr. Martin going
into the club-house. Fancy seeing him twice in a morning! Well, we have
had a nice drive, after all. And when we get in you must remind me to
give you a volume of sermons by your grandfather, in which he tells
about his own doubts when he was a young man, and how he fought and
overcame them. It is all so beautifully put, and after that he never
had any more doubts at all. And we shall get back ten minutes before
luncheon-time, which is just what I like to do."
Edward was the only guest that evening, and during dinner Elizabeth
found herself observing him somewhat closely, and coming to no
conclusions whatever about him. Certainly he was good-looking, he
was well-bred and quiet of voice, but she found nothing in him to
distinguish him from the host, nothing that to her could account for
the lighting up of Edith's face when she looked at him. He had a couple
of Stock Exchange jokes to repeat, one of which made Mrs. Hancock
call him naughty, and the subjects of perennial interest, such as the
weather and the train-service--it appeared that the directors were
going to cut off the vexing three minutes in the evening train from
town--took their turns with the hardy annuals, such as the forthcoming
croquet tournament and the ripening strawberry crop. New plays going on
in town, the criticisms of which Mrs. Hancock had read in the _Morning
Post,_ followed, and the much-debated action of the Censor in refusing
to license the Biblical drama called "David" infused a tinge of extra
vividness in discussion, and Mrs. Hancock exhibited considerable
ingenuity in avoiding the word "Bathsheba."
"Mr. Beaumont was talking to me about it the other day," she said, "and
he said his cousin, who is in the Lord Chamberlain's office, told him
that there was no question about its having the licence refused. There
were episodes quite unfit for the stage."
Everybody looked regretfully at the dessert.
"I am very glad it was stopped," continued Mrs. Hancock. "I feel so
uncomfortable at the theatre if I think there is something coming which
isn't _quite_----"
"But we have it all read in the lessons in church, don't we, Aunt
Julia?" asked Elizabeth.
"Yes, my dear; but what is suitable to read is often not suitable for
the stage. For my part, even if they do give 'Parsifal' in town, I
shall not think of going to it."
"But that is not quite parallel to David and Bathsheba," said Elizabeth
straight out. Lind was at her elbow, too, with the savoury.
"And do come in to-morrow afternoon, Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, with
extraordinary presence of mind, "and play these two young ladies at
croquet."
Smoking, of course, was not allowed in Mrs. Hancock's drawing-room, and
Edward was firmly shut into the dining-room, with the injunction not to
stop there long. No word was said regarding Elizabeth's awful lapse,
nor did any silence reproach her. The one swift change of subject at
the moment of the crisis had called sufficient attention to it. The
table with patience cards was set ready, and Mrs. Hancock, over her
coffee, got instantly occupied and superficially absorbed in her game.
Before long Edward, as commanded, reunited himself.
"And now give us our usual treat, dear Edward," said Mrs. Hancock,
building busily from the king downwards in alternate colours, "and play
us something. That beautiful piece by Schumann now, where it keeps
coming in again."
From this indication Edward was quick enough to conjecture the first
of the Noveletten, and opened the Steinway grand, covered with a piece
of Italian embroidery on which stood a lamp, two vases of flowers, and
four photograph frames. Edith moved round to the other side of the
card-table, where she could see the player; Elizabeth, with a flash of
delighted anticipation, shifted round in her chair and put down the
evening paper. She adored the piece "which kept coming in again," and,
knowing it well herself, felt the musician's intense pleasure at the
idea of hearing what somebody else thought about it. Somewhat to her
surprise, Edward put the music in front of him; more to her surprise,
he did not show the slightest intention of moving the lamp, the vase of
flowers, or the photograph frames.
Then he began with the loud pedal down, as the composer ordered, and
Elizabeth listened amazed to an awful, a conscientious, a correct
performance. Never were there so many right notes played with so
graceless a result; no one could have imagined there was so much wood
in the whole human system as Edward contrived to concentrate into his
ten fingers, those fingers which, Elizabeth noticed, looked so slender
and athletic, and for all purposes of striking notes properly were as
efficient as a row of wooden pegs. He made the piano bellow, he made
it shriek, he made it rattle; and when he played with less force he
made it emit squeaks and little hollow gasps. As for phrasing, there
was of course none at all; each chord was played as written, each
sequence that made up the phrase played with laborious and precise
punctuality. To any one of musical mind the result was of the most
excruciating nature, or would have been had not the entire performance
been so extremely funny. As a parody of how some quite accomplished but
unsympathetic pianist performed the Novelette it was beyond all praise.
Elizabeth rocked with noiseless laughter. So much for the sound, and
then Elizabeth, looking at his face in the twilight of the shaded lamp,
saw that in it was all that his hands lacked. The features that at
dinner, when she somewhat studied him, had appeared so meaninglessly
good-looking, were irradiated, transfigured; he heard all that his
fingers could not make others hear, his eyes saw and danced with
seeing, all the abounding grace and colour that lay in the melodies his
hands were incapable of rendering. Then, in three inflexible leaps, as
if a wooden marionette jumping down from platform to platform of rock,
the piece came to an end.
Edith gave a great sigh.
"Oh, it's splendid!" she said.
Mrs. Hancock triumphantly put the knave of hearts on to the queen of
clubs.
"Thank you, Edward!" she said. "I like it where it comes in again.
There! I believe it's going to come out!"
He faced round on his music-stool to receive their compliments, his
eyes still glowing, and met Elizabeth's look. Perception flashed
between the two, wordless and infallible. He knew for certain that she
knew, knew all the exultant music meant to him, knew all the entire
incompetence of his rendering. He got up and went to her.
"You play, don't you?" he said, speaking rather low. "Can't you take
the taste of that out of our mouths?"
Elizabeth almost laughed for pleasure at the complete understanding so
instantaneously established between them.
"Yes. What shall I play?" she asked.
"If only you happened to know that first Novelette," he said.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Shall I really?" she said. "I think I know it."
"And won't you give us that other delicious one?" said Mrs. Hancock,
plastering the cards down. "The one I like next best, which is sad in
the middle."
Elizabeth did not answer, but went straight over to the piano. He
had shut the book from which he played, and she did not open it, for,
though she suspected she might not be note-perfect, she intended to
play, not to practise. Mrs. Hancock, absorbed in the patience that
really was "coming out," did not notice that she had no reply to her
question, and the click of her triumphant sequence of cards continued.
Edith, who had not heard what had passed between the two, remembered
that Elizabeth was fond of music, but felt surprised and slightly
nervous at the thought that she should think of playing when the echoes
of that reverberating performance still lingered in the air. But
neither Elizabeth nor Edward seemed to heed her.
Elizabeth sat down, then half-rose again, and gave a twirl to the
music-stool. Then she paused for a moment, with her hands before her
face, and without any preliminary excursions, plunged straight into
the first Novelette again. And all that had been in Edward's brain,
all that could not communicate itself to his hands, streamed from
her firm, soft finger-tips. The images imprisoned in his brain broke
out and peopled the room with colour and with fire. Banners waved,
and a throng of laughing youths passed, jewel-decked, in wonderful
processions down a street of noble palaces. At every corner fresh
members joined them, for on this joyful morning the whole world of
those spirit-presences kept festival, and whether they sang or not, or
whether the marching melody was but the sound of joy, he knew not....
Innumerable as the laughter of the sea they glittered along, until by
some wonderful transformation they were the waves on a spring morning,
and over them a song floated.... Or were they a field of daffodils,
and over them the scent of their blossoming hovered? From the sunlight
they passed into a clear blue shadow, and out of it, as out of waters,
came the strain.... From shadow into sunlight again they passed, and
from sunlight into waves with singing sea-birds flashing white-winged
over them. Once more sun and banners, and in the sunlight a fountain
of water aspired.... Where under his hands the wooden doll had tumbled
from rock to rock, bouquets of rainbowed water fell from basin to basin
of crystal.... And that was the first Novelette.
Mrs. Hancock had noticed the change of performer, though not at first,
for it only occurred to her that Edward was playing the same piece
over again. But it struck her very soon that he was not "keeping the
time" with such precision as usual, and the moment afterwards that
this was altogether different from the tune that kept coming in again,
as rendered before. Then, looking up, she saw it was Elizabeth at
the piano, and there followed a couple of obviously wrong notes. How
foolish and forward of this girl to play after Edward, to play his
piece, too, and make mistakes in it. And when the tune came in again
she didn't put half the force into it that Edward did. Certainly she
had not Edward's "touch," nor his masculine power, that stamped out the
time with such vigour.
Her natural geniality prevented her saying or even hinting at any of
these things, and she was extremely encouraging.
"Thank you, Elizabeth!" she said. "What a coincidence that you should
be learning one of Edward's tunes. Now you _have_ heard it played,
haven't you? I am sure you will get it right in time. You must play it
to Edward again next week, when you have practised, and he will see how
you have got on."
"Ah, do play it again to me next week," said he, "or before next week."
"And now, Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, "do let us have the tune that
gets sad in the middle."
He turned to her, with face that music still vivified.
"After that all my tunes would be sad," he said--"beginning, middle,
and end. But won't Miss Fanshawe play again?"
Mrs. Hancock thought that charming of him; it was so tactful to make
Elizabeth think she had played well; poor Elizabeth, with her wrong
notes that any one with an ear could detect. As a matter of fact she
did not care one particle who played or if anybody played, so long as
her patience came out. She perceived nothing of the situation, guessed
nothing about the fire from the girl's fingers which tingled in his
brain.
But Edith saw more; she saw, at any rate, that something in Elizabeth's
playing had enormously pleased and excited her lover. And he had said
that it was surely she herself who lay behind melody, she whom he
sought. She went to Elizabeth and gently pushed her back on to the
music-stool.
"Do play again, dear!" she said. "It gives us such pleasure."
Elizabeth, as her father knew, was conscious of little else than her
"German Johnnies," when there was singing in her brain, and she sat
down at once.
"Do you know this?" she said. "Quite short."
She touched the keys once and then again, as if to test the lightness
of her fingers, and then broke into the Twelfth Etude of Chopin,
letting the piano whisper--a privilege so seldom accorded to that
belaboured instrument. Even Mrs. Hancock responded to it, and laid down
her cards and spoke.
"What a delicious tune, my dear," she said. "Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti!"
The tune was still hovering and poised. Elizabeth put her hands firmly
down on a suspension and stopped.
"But what an abrupt end!" said Mrs. Hancock.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, turning round on the stool.
* * * * *
When Mrs. Hancock had had enough patience and conversation she
secretly rang an electric bell which was fixed to the underside of
her card-table, upon which Lind brought in a tray of glasses and
soda-water, which was rightly regarded by her guests as a stirrup-cup.
This signal occurred rather earlier than usual to-night, for it was
likely that the two lovers would wish to say a few words to each
other in the library before parting. This was made completely easy
for them by Mrs. Hancock's suggestion that Edith would find Edward's
hat and coat for him, as Lind no doubt had gone to bed--he had left
the soda-water tray about three minutes before--and the two went out
together.
The words of parting were short, and Edward, still tingling with music,
still inflamed by that lambent fire, went back to his house. In musical
matters, despite his own incompetence in matter of performance, he had
an excellent judgment, and he knew that he had been listening that
night to the real thing. There was no question as to the quality of
Elizabeth's playing; she had authority, without which the most agile
execution is no more than a mere facility of finger, acquirable like
the nimble manoeuvres of a conjurer, and in itself as devoid of
artistic merit. That magic, like his, is a matter of mere manipulation,
and no more constitutes a pianist than does the power of pronouncing
words without stammer or stumbling constitute an actor. But behind
Elizabeth's playing sat the master, who understood by virtue of
perception the meaning of music, and by virtue of hands co-ordinated
with that burning perception, could interpret. And, above all, he felt
that in music she spoke his language, uttered the idioms he understood
but could not give voice to. Her soul and his were natives of the same
melodious country; not foreigners to each other.
He told himself, and honestly believed it, that there was no more than
this--as if this was not enough--in the hour he had spent in Mrs.
Hancock's drawing-room. He was not even sure whether he liked Elizabeth
or not; certainly she was as different as might well be from the type
of marriageable maidenhood which had so greatly and so sanely attracted
him that he rejoiced to know that his future life would be intimately
and entirely bound up in hers. All through dinner Elizabeth had _meant_
nothing at all to him, and he had noted, rather than admired, her
vitality, for certainly she was like a light brought into a dusky room,
dispersing the shadows that completely and somnolently brooded in the
corners, and restoring colour to mere grey outlines. But he was not
very sure that he desired or appreciated this unusual illumination;
they had all of them got on very nicely in the dark, where if you dozed
a little, there was not much probability of being detected, and of
late he had sat with chair close to Edith's, so to speak, and listened
with tenderness to Mrs. Hancock talking on in her sleep. Into this had
Elizabeth come with her vivid bull's-eye lantern, which got in one's
eyes a little, and was slightly disconcerting.
So had it been until she played, and at that moment and in that
regard he found her simply and utterly adorable; and he poured out
his homage for her as he would have done for some splendid Brunnhilde
awaking and hailing the sun. And he knew the nature of the homage he
brought, so he as yet confidently told himself, a homage as sexless
and impersonal as that which prompts the presentation of wreaths to
elderly and perspiring conductors at the close of an act. It needed
not a Brunnhilde to evoke that, for it was merely the tribute to
artistic interpretation manifested by man or woman, and responded to by
those who could appreciate. Mrs. Hancock's deplorable ejaculation of
"Tum-ti-ti; tum-ti-ti" was of the same nature. It was not a tribute to
Elizabeth, nor was his abandonment of himself to her spell, or, at the
most, it was a tribute to her fingers, for the music that flowed from
them. But how he would have worshipped that gift in another; if only it
had been Edith who played!
He had sat himself down in the broad window-seat of his drawing-room,
which looked out into the garden and trees that a fortnight before
had stood made of ebony and ivory in the blaze of the May moonlight,
on the night when the house next door had been empty. To-night it was
tenanted, tenanted by the girl who, within a few months, would come
across so short a space of lawn and make her home with him, tenanted
also by the dark, vivid presence of her who had made music to them. In
his drawing-room where he sat, empty and blazing with electric light,
for some unaccounted impulse had made him turn on all the switches,
stood his big black piano, with inviolate top, standing open. How would
Elizabeth awake the soul in it, even as Siegfried had by his kiss
awakened Brunnhilde, by the magic of her comprehending fingers! Almost
he could see her there, with her profile, a little defiant, a little
mutinous, cut, cameo-wise, against the dark grey of his walls, with her
eye kindling as she listened to the music in her brain, which flowed
like some virile, tumultuous heart-beat out of her fingers. How well
she understood the tramp and colour of that Novelette!--yet he knew
he understood it quite as well himself--how unerringly her fingers
marshalled and painted it! In her was the secret, the initiation,
and--oh, how much it meant!--in her also was the mysterious power of
communication. She was not one of those incomplete souls who are born
dumb, as so many were. She could speak.... Others were born empty,
and so their power of speech was but a bottle of senseless sounds, of
flat wooden phrases.... And then, with a shock of surprise to himself,
he became aware that he was thinking no longer about the music which
Elizabeth made, but Elizabeth who made it.