THE INTERMEZZO
Business on the Stock Exchange had been, as was not uncommon, somewhat
slack during this month of June, and Edward found it easy to get down
to Heathmoor by the train that arrived soon after five instead of that
which started an hour later. It was natural for him, after getting rid
of the habiliments of town, to come round next door, where he would
find Mrs. Hancock and Edith ready to give him a slightly belated cup
of tea in the garden-house that adjoined the croquet-lawn. As a rule
Elizabeth was not there, but her whereabouts was indicated by the sound
of the piano, for she was practising with the energy of the enthusiast,
and found this hour, when the house was empty and she could escape from
the sense of disturbing or being disturbed, the most congenial time in
which to make as much noise as she chose, or to practise a particular
bar in endless repetition. Mrs. Hancock continued to believe--and to
reiterate--that Edward was the _maestro_ and that Elizabeth followed,
faint but pursuing, in the wake of his victorious fingers, and she
often asked him how he thought she was getting on. He frequently dined
there, and, with the regularity that characterized her, she insisted
on his playing one or more of his "pieces" when he had smoked the
cigarette that detained him in the dining-room. And on these occasions
his eye was wont to seek Elizabeth's in tacit apology, and though no
word had passed between them on the subject the situation was quite
clear to them both. More than once he had attempted to convince Mrs.
Hancock that while he could only strum abominably her niece played,
and she, perfectly incredulous, thought it was nice of him to be so
modest himself and to encourage Elizabeth. So, protest being utterly
useless, he played, with Elizabeth in his confidence. But the sense
of this secret between them--for Edith shared her mother's belief in
the _maestro_--gave him a peculiar and, so he still told himself, an
inexplicable satisfaction. With that knowledge he enjoyed, rather than
otherwise, his own long-drawn murders of the classical authors, and he
completely understood the dimpling smile that fluttered, light-winged,
over Elizabeth's face as he performed his ruthless deeds.
During this last fortnight life at Arundel had pursued, to all outward
appearance, the regulated and emotionless course that characterized
existence at Heathmoor. The time of strawberries had come, and
therefore also the time of garden parties; and a quarter of an hour
after the arrival of the evening train from town the well-laid roads
were thick with hurrying flannelled figures, carrying lawn-tennis
racquets or croquet mallets, for this latter game was taken with
extreme seriousness, and nobody among the regular players would have
dreamed of trusting to a mallet of the house. Elizabeth naturally had
her share in these invitations, and it was a source of never-ending
surprise to see young and athletically limbed men, of the same species
apparently as those who in India spent their leisure in polo and
pig-sticking, pursuing their laborious way through hoop after hoop, and
talking about the game afterwards with greater gusto and minuteness
than if they had been tiger-shooting. Chief amongst those heroes of
the lawn was Edward, but he, as she did him the justice to observe,
preserved the reticence of the accustomed conqueror and sat silent when
the Vicar and Mr. Dale "lived their triumphs o'er again." Elizabeth
felt that to be like him, but she made the admission grudgingly.
The fact that she grudged him such credit was symptomatic of her
feelings towards him, and in especial of those feelings which she did
not admit. Though she would honestly have denied it, she was fighting
him. Again and again, not knowing why, she assured herself that he
was a very ordinary young man, that Edith must be blind, so to speak,
to see anything in him. Except in one point, she told herself that
there was nothing there, that a lanky frame--it was beyond her power
to deny his inches--crowned by a vacant face, was the harbourage of an
insignificant soul. He spent his day among the money-bags, his evening
on the croquet-lawn, and found that sufficient for him. He was not
nearly worthy of Edith or of Edith's inexplicable adoration; he was not
even, so he appeared to Elizabeth's eye, in love with her, which would
have been a foundation for worthiness. He seemed indulgent of her,
kind to her, sometimes a little impatient of her. There Elizabeth did
not wholly acquit her cousin of blame; she set him, willy-nilly, on a
pedestal, and those on pedestals, for he did not deprecate the plinth,
are bound to stoop. But he should have stepped down from the pedestal,
he should not have consented to be edified into the statuesque; here
was the ground of Elizabeth's censure of him. In fine, she reminded
herself twenty times a day of some reason for belittling to her own
mind her cousin's betrothed, and concealed from herself that she
belittled him. That was an affair of her instinct, and instinctively
she knew, though she whispered it not to herself, why she did it, for
she feared to give rein to her liking for him.
One exception she made in this policy of self-defence; in one thing
she gave him his due, for she never attempted to deny or belittle
the validity of his musical passion. It was a fingerless passion, so
to speak; between his brain and his hands there seemed to be a total
want of co-ordination; he was paralytic, but she could not doubt the
intensity of his perception. He was but an alphabet-babbler when
he tried to communicate, but when she played to him she knew by a
glance at his face whether she did ill or well. Thus, ironically,
Mrs. Hancock's judgment of him as _maestro_ and Elizabeth as pupil
was strangely correct, and the girl did not attempt to conceal from
herself that it was of him and his opinion that she thought, when she
practised, with a greater diligence and fire than had ever been hers
before, the music which he understood and loved so discerningly. Day
by day she slaved exultingly at the piano, and the thought that he
would appreciate her progress became an inspiration to her. But at
present this reverence for his gift was like an insoluble lump in the
cup of her cold indifference towards him; it neither sweetened nor
embittered the beverage. But certainly through him she was beginning
to get closer every day to the ineffable spring and spirit from which
that bewildering beauty of sound is poured forth, that "dweller in the
innermost," one glance from whom sends the beholder mad with melody.
On one afternoon at the end of the month, graciously exempt from
garden-parties, Elizabeth was alone in the house, for the hour after
lunch had been too hot for Mrs. Hancock's drive, and the whole
curriculum of the day had been upset, tea having taken place at the
very unusual hour of half-past four, so that she might enjoy a cooler
progress between that time and dinner--a dislocation of affairs that
had not occurred since the year before last. But the heat was so
intense that she really hardly cared at all whether Denton and Lind
thought it odd or not, and punctually at five she had set out with
Edith, leaving a message with Lind that if Mr. Holroyd came round he
was to be told that they were out, but would be back by half-past six.
Thus--here Denton became concerned--they would have time to go round by
the mill, proceeding very slowly where the road had been newly mended,
and so forth. But if--here Lind was attentive again--Mr. Holroyd came
by the six o'clock train he might be offered a whisky and soda and
asked to wait, but if by the five o'clock train the original message
should be delivered. Then Filson brought out a light dust-cloak and
the heavier blue one was taken out; then it was put back again in case
the evening got chilly. They passed over the bridge by the station the
moment after the five o'clock train got in, and Edith thought she saw
Edward stepping out of it, but she was not sure. But Edward saw the
motor and its passengers without any doubt whatever.
He went straight to his house and out into the garden. There from
the open French windows of the house next door the piano was plainly
audible. Elizabeth was playing the first of the Brahms' intermezzi,
and the air sang like a bed of breeze-stirred flowers.... In less than
a minute he had rung the bell, and in answer to Lind's message had
said he would come in and wait. In spite of the fact that the offer of
whisky and soda applied only to the six o'clock train Lind suggested
it. But Edward said he wanted nothing, and, turning the handle of the
drawing-room door very softly, he entered.
Elizabeth, utterly intent on her music, heard nothing of his coming,
and he sat down in a chair close to the door, knowing that he was doing
a rude and an ill-bred thing, knowing, too, in his heart that he was
doing worse than that, for he was definitely indulging infidelity,
even though the infidelity was, in fact, no more than listening to the
girl's playing. But he knew quite well why he listened, and it was not
for the sake of the music alone; it was to allow himself, unseen and
unsuspected--for there was in this questionable conduct something of
the self-effacing quality of love--to see incarnated the dreams from
which he had roused himself when a month ago he engaged himself to
Edith. For years of his youth he had cherished this unrealized vision,
fondling it in his dreams; now, when too early he had told himself that
the time for dreaming was done and he must awake to the average humdrum
satisfaction of domesticity with a delightful partner, the dream
incarnate had walked into his waking hours.
The sound of what she played had been the magnet which drew him here,
but now that he had come he was scarcely conscious of her music, which
throughout this month had been that which attracted him to her. Now it
was as if that had done its work, for it had brought his heart to her,
and Nature, or the law of attraction, threw it aside like a discarded
instrument, and for the first moments that he sat here he scarcely
heard the sweetness of the melody. Then it seemed to him that the
strong and tender tune was Elizabeth's soul made audible; she played,
thinking she was alone, as she had never played before. She seemed to
reveal herself.... And then it struck him that he had done, and was
doing, what was equivalent to looking through a keyhole at somebody who
thought she was alone. Shame awoke in him for that, but shame passed
and was swallowed up in his intense consciousness of her, of Elizabeth
and the tune that was Elizabeth herself.
She finished, and sat still for a moment with her fingers still resting
on the last chord. Then she gave a long sigh, and, turning round, saw
him.
"Cousin Edward!" she said, almost incredulously, feeling exactly what
just now he had felt, namely, that he had been looking through a
keyhole at her.
He got up, only dimly conscious of the rebuke in her voice.
"I came in after you had begun that intermezzo," he said, "and I didn't
want to disturb you. I know how you hate an interruption. I----"
He paused a moment, dead to all else except the fact of her.
"I never heard you play like that before," he said. "It was you."
She still looked troubled.
"I don't think you should have done that," she said. "Didn't Lind tell
you that Aunt Julia and Edith were out?"
"Yes. If you think I oughtn't to have come in I am sorry. But I can't
help rejoicing that I have heard you play like that."
Suddenly it seemed to Elizabeth that it was ridiculous of her to object
to what he had done. She had often played to him alone before, and what
difference did it make if on this occasion she did not know of his
presence? But her reason was at variance with her instinct.
She smiled at him.
"It is nothing," she said; "I was absurd to mind. I am glad you
thought I played it well. Have you had tea? Shall we go into the
garden?"
He saw his danger slipping away from him; he had but to make a
commonplace reply and it would be past. But he saw his dream, that had
become incarnate, slipping away from him also, and at the moment that
meant everything in the world to him. He was reckless, on fire, and
came close to her and stammered a little when he spoke.
"For the last fortnight," he said, "I have thought of nothing else but
you----"
Loyalty and cowardice mixed caused him to stop. He saw amazement and
utter surprise flood Elizabeth's face; he saw also, faint as the
reflection of far-away lightning, something that responded to him,
something that leaped towards him instead of recoiling from him. But
all the rest of her was lost in pure bewilderment, which only wanted
to get rid of him. She did not even answer him, but, with finger and
following eye, pointed to the door.
"I beg your pardon!" he said quickly.
"Please go!" said the girl.
* * * * *
She sat down on the music-stool which she had so lately left, and
while waiting for her brain to work again struck a random note or two.
As far as she felt anything she felt surprise. Then in a flash came
indignation that, while he was but a month old in his engagement to
Edith, he should speak thus to her. And following instantly on that,
like some burglar violently breaking into her mind, came the unbidden
thought, "He cares for me."
She tried to eject it; she called for help, so to speak, but the
burglar contemplated her quite calmly, as if he had a right to be
there. He seemed to speak to her, to say, "You will have to get used to
me." In turn she looked at him and ceased calling for help. Something
inside her--that, without doubt, which Edward had seen faintly behind
her first amazement and surprise--seemed to recognize, to smile at
him.... And Elizabeth ceased from being surprised at Edward and became
surprised at herself. But what was to be done? Beyond all doubt the
answer was clear. There was nothing to be done at all; at any rate,
there was nothing for her to do. It was ludicrous to contemplate
telling Aunt Julia; it would not have been more ludicrous to tell
Edith. Nobody must know; nobody must ever so faintly conjecture what
had happened. Edward was going to marry Edith on the eighth of October,
and there were to be six bridesmaids, of whom she herself was to be one.
Elizabeth's surprise at herself waxed and grew, and her surprise was
due to the fact that she was not in the least shocked. She made one
unsuccessful attempt to tell herself that Edward had not meant what he
said, but she swiftly gave that up, being quite aware that he meant
much more than he had said. His trembling voice, his fingers that
plaited themselves together, told her that. He was quite in earnest.
Then, as suddenly as if she had been shaken out of some deep sleep, she
obtained complete control and consciousness of herself. She was not
shocked because she welcomed what he had said, because she responded to
it. Shame and a secret rapture overwhelmed her, and the burglar went
neck and crop out of the wide-flung window of her mind. It was not till
she had turned him out that any struggle in her own mind began. She
knew now why she had made a habit of belittling and criticizing him to
herself: she had been defending herself against him. Now she had to
defend herself against herself as well. She had to inquire into the
fidelity of her own garrison. And she knew that there were traitors
among them. But still she was not the least shocked; certainly they
must be turned out or executed or drawn and quartered, but their crime
against herself did not anger her against them.
The practical aspect of the situation engaged her again, and she saw
now that there was just one thing to be done, namely, to obliterate
altogether what had happened--not to think of it any more at all. No
doubt it was very bad that Edith's affianced lover should have said
what he had said, should have meant so much more than he said, and
that she should not have been horrified at him, but only surprised,
and when her surprise was passed that she should have found that there
was response to him in her soul. But all this must be expunged, and
if she could not forget it she must remember it only as some queer
distorted dream that in reality is nonsense, though, while the dreamer
still slept, it seemed so intensely real. She felt she could answer
for herself in this matter, that she was quite competent to seal the
affair up in her mind, as bees seal up in wax some intruder to their
hive. Edward must also see that to her the whole episode was no longer
existent, since non-existence was undoubtedly the best fate for it, and
thus her manner to him must be exactly what it had been before he had
made his unfortunate intrusion. Hardly less important was it that Edith
and her aunt should remain unaware that anything had occurred between
Edward and herself. This gave a reason the more for her treating him
quite normally. Only ... how did she treat him before?... How did she
look at him? Did she usually smile when she spoke to him? She felt that
to meet him again now without consciousness of what had just happened
would be like meeting a perfect stranger. But it had got to be done.
To admit in her bearing to him that any recollection of the scene
still had a place in her mind, to indicate even by coldness of manner
and an aloof demeanour that he must keep his distance was impossible,
for Edith would be sure to notice it, and, above everything almost, it
was essential that Edith should be utterly unaware of any--she hardly
knew what to call it--any understanding or misunderstanding between
them. Over those three minutes there must be pasted a sheet of white
paper. It seemed to her well within her power to do that. And she must
continue to make her mind fight and belittle and criticize him. That
ought to be easy now that he had done what she knew to be a despicable
thing. Unfortunately she did not despise him for being despicable, or,
at the most, her reason did, but not her instinct.
She heard the sound of the motor-wheels crunching the gravel, and felt
perfectly prepared to resume not only her natural manner, but her
normal consciousness. She swung round on her music-stool and began the
intermezzo again, getting up as her aunt entered with Edith.
"Well? And I hope you've had a good practice, dear!" said Mrs. Hancock
very cordially. "And we've had a pleasant drive, and not so dusty as
I expected it would be. But we hurried back sooner than I intended
originally, because there was a huge black cloud coming up, and Denton
said he wouldn't be surprised if it came on to rain very suddenly. So I
think I shall sit out in the garden to get a little more air, and you
and Edith might have a game of croquet. I expect Edward will come in
when the six o'clock train arrives. Dear me, it is after six. Perhaps
he has been, Edith, and went back. Lind will know. Then you can all
three play croquet. If you touch the bell, dear."
Elizabeth found the natural manner perfectly easy.
"He came in," she said, "and went back to his house again, I think. I
was practising."
Suddenly she found herself wondering whether her manner was quite
natural, and she glanced at Edith, who was "touching" the bell.
"No doubt he did not want to disturb your practice," said Mrs. Hancock,
who always liked to remind herself of the comforts she showered on
other people, "for I have given strict orders, dear, that you are not
to be disturbed when you are practising. Perhaps he is in the garden.
We will call to him over the wall. I want him to come in to dine, and
you shall both play to us afterwards. I wonder if we could not get
some nice duets with an easy part for you, dear, which you could play
together. Look, it has begun to rain already; Denton was quite right.
I am glad he advised us to turn, though it was Edith who saw the big
black cloud first. There is an end to our going into the garden and
to your croquet, I am afraid, but I will send a note round to Edward.
I think that was a flash of lightning. Perhaps you would write the
note for me, Edith, and give it to Lind. Oh yes, Lind, there will be a
note. Yes, there is the thunder. Quite a loud clap. What a blessing we
turned!"
Lind's wooden face looked inquiringly round when he was told that there
was a note for Edward to be taken round, as if he expected to find him
concealed under the piano.
"I thought Mr. Edward was here, ma'am," he said. "Perhaps he is in the
garden. He said he would wait."
Elizabeth, gathering her music together, made a sudden awkward movement
and spilled it.
"No, he went back home, Aunt Julia," she said. "He came in when I was
practising, as I told you."
"I told him you were out, ma'am," repeated Lind, "and he said he would
wait."
Elizabeth felt a wild exasperation. There was nothing to explain, and
yet she had to go on explaining.
"But he went away again," she repeated.
"Yes, dear; I quite understand," said Mrs. Hancock. "He saw you were
practising. Did he say he would come back? If so, I need not send this
note!"
It all seemed like a plot of the Inquisition.
"No, he said nothing," remarked Elizabeth rather shortly, feeling that
this perfectly straightforward visit was somehow becoming suspicious.
"Did he stop long?" asked Edith, quite casually.
"No, five minutes--ten, perhaps," said Elizabeth. "I really did not
time him."
Mrs. Hancock always kept a feather in a small vase of water on her
writing-table. With this she smeared the gum on the flap of envelopes
in preference to the more ordinary use of the tongue on such occasions.
It seemed to her slightly indelicate to put out her tongue--even the
tip of it--in public; and besides, who knew what the gum was made of or
who had been touching it? This genteel observance singularly annoyed
Elizabeth, and it was her privilege to snatch away envelopes from
her aunt and lick them herself, with, so to speak, yards of tongue
protruding, rather than allow the use of the horrible feather. Here
she saw her opportunity, and with a complete resumption of her natural
manner, which up to that moment had not been a complete success, upset
the feather's water and brought an end to the senseless catechism.
Lind was obliging enough to take the note himself, and prepared for
this expedition of about forty yards by putting on a cap, a mackintosh,
and goloshes, and providing himself with an umbrella. There was need
only for a verbal answer, but he waited some five minutes before an
acceptance came. By this time the rain had completely ceased, but
Edward, from his window, saw him put up his umbrella again--no doubt to
guard against drippings from the trees. He observed this with a very
minute detached feeling of interest. Then he sprang up to call to Lind
and substitute "regrets" for his "delight." Then that impulse died
also, and he sat down to think over what had happened.
He did not fall into the mistake of considering it a little thing,
though the incident in itself was nothing. It was, at the least, a
feather of carded cloud high up in the heavens, that told, though so
insignificant and remote a thing, of the great wind that blew there. He
had not spoken idly; rather, he scarcely knew that he had spoken at all
until his own words sounded in his ears. He had not addressed pretty
words to a pretty girl; it seemed to him that they had been squeezed,
as it were, by some force infinitely superior to his power of will out
of his resisting mouth. His whole conduct, from the chance hearing of
the Brahms' intermezzo in his garden, leading on to his ill-bred and
silent intrusion into the room where Elizabeth played and his words,
all seemed to have been dictated by an irresistible power that arose
out of the sense of his incarnate dream. It had been perfectly true
that for the last fortnight he had thought of nothing else but her,
that the affairs of every day had for him moved like shadows across
that solid background.... In the meantime he had promised his substance
and his life to one of the shadows, and, as far as he knew or guessed,
he was nothing more than a shadow, rather a distasteful one, to the
girl who for him was the only reality.
Then the practical side of the situation, the "what next" which always
hastens to stir the boiling pottage of our emotions with its bony
fingers, held his attention, even as it had held Elizabeth's. He came
to the same conclusions, but with an important reservation. She had
consigned the whole affair to complete oblivion, whether or no the
consignment lay in her power; he was as glad as she to consign it also,
until and unless, in legal phrase, something modified the existing
conditions. He knew very well what he connoted by that modification:
it meant some sign, some signal from Elizabeth that should confirm the
secret welcome that her amazement had so instantly smothered. Just
now he had told himself that he was but a distasteful shadow to her;
now again the remembrance of her soul's leap towards him told that he
was not that. Yet he had had no right to see that smothered welcome
any more than he had a right to intrude himself privately into her
presence. But in his heart of hearts he was ashamed of neither feat.
Only his surface, his sense of breeding, his respect for things like
conduct and convention rebuked him. He himself, the seer of dreams,
cared not at all; rather, he hugged himself on it.
He had drifted away from practical considerations and wrenched himself
back to them. On the eighth of October next, as matters stood,
he was to be married to Edith, and his conduct--again with that
reservation--must be framed on the lines demanded by that condition. He
felt no doubt whatever that Elizabeth would breathe no word of what had
passed to her aunt or Edith, for, if she did so, it would imply wanton
mischief on her part, of which he knew her to be incapable, or the
determination to stop his marriage for--for other reasons.... She would
only speak if she intended to spoil or to stop. She might, it was very
likely that she would, interpose between herself and him that screen of
manner, invisible as a sheet of glass, which yet cuts off all rays of
heat from a fire, while it suffers to pass through it the sparkle of
its brightness. She would probably appear to others to shine on him as
before, but he, poor shivering wretch, would know that all warmth had
been cut off from him.
For a moment his passion blazed up within him, and he felt himself
barbarian and primitive man without code of morals, without regard for
honour and environment. He who spent his innocuous days in an office
making money, wearing a black coat, living the dull, respectable,
stereotyped life, who spent his leisure in reading papers about affairs
that he cared not one drop of heart's blood about, in tapping foolish
croquet balls through iron hoops, in playing the piano at Heathmoor
dinner-parties, in enveloping himself and his soul in the muffled
cotton-wool of comfort and material ease, knew that within this swathed
cocoon of himself, that lay in a decorous row of hundreds of other
similar cocoons, there lurked, in spite of all contrary appearance,
an individual life. He found himself capable of love and utterly
indifferent to honour or obligations, regarding them only as arbitrary
rules laid down for the pursuance of the foolish game of civilized
existence. In essentials he believed himself without morals, without
religion, without any of the bonds that have built up corporate man
and differentiate life from dreams. And this flashed discovery did not
disconcert him; he felt as if he had found a jewel in the muddy flats
of existence.
Then, in another flash, he was back in his cocoon again, prisoner
in this decorous roomful of things which he did not want. There
was a silver cigarette-box on a polished table; there was an ivory
paper-knife stuck into the leaves of a book he was reading, a
parquetted floor spread with Persian rugs, and all these things were
symbols of slavery, chains that bound him, or, at the best, bright
objects by which a baby is diverted from its crying for the moon. And
the clock chiming its half-hour after seven told him he must conform to
the prison rules and go to dress for dinner at Mrs. Hancock's.
He took out of his coat-pocket an envelope about which, up to this
moment, he had completely forgotten. It contained the ticket for a
box at the opera, which he had bought that day for a performance of
"Siegfried" in a week's time. He hoped to persuade the ladies next door
to be his guests, and since the pursuance of this formed part of the
resumption of ordinary normal life he meant to propose his plans to
them. But both when he bought the ticket and now, he saw that it might
bear on the life that lay within the cocoon. More than all the material
diversion or business of the world he wanted to go with Elizabeth to
"Siegfried." And, with his hat, when he started to dinner, he took the
book of the music with him.
He was a little late as judged by the iron punctuality of Arundel, and
he found the ladies assembled. He had one moment of intense nervousness
as he entered, but it was succeeded by an eagerness not less intense
when he saw Elizabeth's cordial and welcoming smile. That set the note
for him; he had already determined on the same key, and he knew himself
in tune with it.
As he shook hands with the girl he laughed and turned to Mrs. Hancock,
involuntarily detaining Elizabeth's hand one second, not more, than
was quite usual.
"I was rather nervous," he said. "I intruded on Elizabeth's practice
this afternoon. Perhaps she has told you. In fact, I meant to stay to
wait for your return and Edith's, but I found it quite impossible."
"Dear!" said Mrs. Hancock. "Yes, Lind has told us dinner is ready. Did
Elizabeth scold you?"
Elizabeth, equally relieved, laughed.
"You behaved very rudely, Edward," she said; "and, as a matter of fact,
I didn't tell them. I wanted to screen you. But as you don't seem in
the least ashamed of yourself I shall give you up."
"What revelations we are going to have!" said Mrs. Hancock. "Yes, your
favourite soup, Edward. Mrs. Williams thought of it when she heard you
were coming. She sent out for the cream. Now let us hear all about it.
I thought there was some mystery."
This was not quite true. Mrs. Hancock had not thought anything whatever
about it. But this phrase of purely dinner conversation disconcerted
Elizabeth for a moment. Edith, suddenly looking up, perceived this
obscure embarrassment.
"No, Aunt Julia, there was no mystery," said Elizabeth. "There was
merely my mistaken kindness in sparing Edward. Now I shall sacrifice
and expose him. He came in when I was practising quietly, so that I
didn't hear him, and sat down to listen. And when I had finished my
piece I turned round and saw him, and, of course, I was startled and
annoyed. Wasn't it caddish of him! Do say it was caddish!"
That should have been sufficiently robust to have carried off and
finished with the subject. But it so happened that Mrs. Hancock went
on.
"My dear, what words to use!" she said. "Edith will be up in arms.
Look, there is another flash of lightning! We shall have a regular
storm, I am afraid. And what did you say to him?"
"She told me to go away," said Edward, "which I did. And I asked her to
forgive me. I don't know if she's done that yet."
The desire for secret communication with her prompted and impelled him.
"I shall ask her later if she has," he said, raising his eyes to her
face. "Her screening me was a sign of her softening."
"But her giving you away now shows signs of hardening again," said
Edith.
"Perhaps she doesn't know her own mind," said Edward, still looking
at her, and knowing but not caring that he had no business to force
replies on her, so long as he could talk with a meaning that was clear
to her alone.
This time the secret look that leaped out to him below her amazement
showed again through the trouble and brightness of her face.
"I know my mind perfectly," she said. "I will forgive you if you are
sorry."
"I am. But I liked hearing you play when you didn't know any one was
there."
Mrs. Hancock looked vaguely and beamingly round.
"But I always thought that people played best when there was an
audience to listen to them," she said.
"There was an audience," remarked Edward.
Mrs. Hancock saw the fallacy without a moment's hesitation, and
enlarged on it till it became more clear than the sun at noonday.
"But she didn't know there was," she said lucidly, "and so it would
count as if there wasn't. Listen, there is the rain beginning again,
like that beautiful piece of Edward's which always makes me feel sad.
He shall play it to us after dinner. Was it one of your pieces that
Elizabeth was playing before, Edward?"
Mrs. Hancock always spoke of immortal works by classical masters as if
Edward's atrocious renderings of them gave him the entire right and
possession of them.
"No," said he, "it was her own. I shall always think of it as the
Elizabintermezzo."
Mrs. Hancock turned an attentive eye on the asparagus dish.
"Finish it, Edward," she said; "it is the last you will get from my
garden this year, and what an amusing conversation we are having about
Elizabeth and you! Elizabintermezzo--the intermezzo which Elizabeth
plays! What a good word! Quite a portmanteau!"
All this private signalling of Edward to her, all his double-edged
questions as to whether she had forgiven him, seemed to Elizabeth in
the worst possible taste. She had just now announced, so frankly that
she could not be imagined to be serious, that he had behaved caddishly
that afternoon, and his behaviour now seemed to endorse her judgment.
And yet she, by her outspokenness perhaps, had set the fashion of
double-edged speech; it was justifiable in him to think that she
meant to allude to what neither of them openly alluded to. But he was
caddish; she felt irritated and disgusted with him. She looked at him
with eyebrows that first frowned and then were raised in expostulation.
"Haven't we all had enough of my practice this afternoon?" she said.
As she looked at him she noticed what she had noticed a hundred times
before, how his hair above his forehead grew straight and then fell
over in a plume. And while her mind was ruffled with his behaviour,
she suddenly liked that enormously. She wondered if it was elastic,
that thickness of erect hair, like a spring-mattress; she wanted to
put her hand on it. And that radical and superficial emotion called
physical attraction had begun--superficial because it concerns merely
the outward form and colour of face and limbs, radical because all
the sex-love in the world springs from its root which is buried in
the beating heart of humanity. Afterwards, no doubt, those roots may
dissolve and become part of the life-blood, red corpuscles of love, but
without them there has never yet opened the glorious scarlet of the
flowers of passion, nor the shining foliage that keeps the world green.
Thus, at the very moment when he was indifferent to her except that she
was a little nauseated by his behaviour, he began to become different
to all others, and very faintly but authentically it was whispered
to her that he and she "belonged," that they fitted, entwined and
interlacing, into this great Chinese puzzle of a world. Instantly she
shut her ears to the whisper. But she had heard it.
He had the decency, she allowed, to change the subject.
"No encore for the intermezzo," he said; "but 'Siegfried' is being
given this day week, and I have got a box for it. I want you all to
come."
"Well, that would be a treat," said Mrs. Hancock. "These are the first
white-heart cherries we've had from the garden, Edward. You must take
some! 'Siegfried!' That is by Wagner."
Elizabeth banished from her mind caddishness and springy hair alike.
"Oh, Aunt Julia!" she exclaimed.
"That is capital, then!" said Edward, knowing the value of an
atmosphere of certainty. "We had better all sleep in town so that we
can stop to the end without any sense of being hurried, which would
spoil it all. I'll see to all that, and, of course, it's my treat."
Mrs. Hancock's face changed, but brightened again as she caught the
full flavour of the first white-heart.
"Sleep in town!" she said. "I never----Aren't the cherries good? I
shall tell Ellis he was quite right when he wanted extra manure.
Delicious! But sleep in town, Edward! Is that necessary? Can't we come
away before the end, for I quite agree with you that it is no use
stopping in your seat grasping a fan in one hand and your dress in the
other, waiting for the curtain to go down. And even then, they all come
on and bow. Wouldn't it be better if we all slipped out in plenty of
time to catch the theatre-train, as we always do?"
Elizabeth sighed.
"Aunt Julia, I would sooner not go at all than come away before the
end," she said. "It's the love duet, you know, and oh! I've never seen
it!"
Aunt Julia looked mild reproof.
"My dear, we mustn't be in a hurry. We must think it over and see how
we can contrive."
"We can contrive by stopping in town," said Elizabeth. "Or couldn't you
drive down in your car afterwards?"
"But, my dear, it might be a wet night, and if we drove back it would
only be reasonable to drive up. Shall we have coffee in here now for
an exception, and then we need not interrupt ourselves? Yes, Lind,
coffee in here, not in the drawing-room, but here. It would only be
reasonable, as I said, to drive up, for it would be no use going by
train, while Denton took up the car empty, and if it was a wet night
I should not like him hanging about all afternoon and evening, for his
wife expects a baby." This was aside to Edward, though since Edith was
soon to be married she did not so much mind her hearing.
"But his wife isn't going to hang about all afternoon and evening,"
said Elizabeth swiftly.
"My dear, let me talk it over with Edward! And Denton would not know
how to meet us at the opera--we might miss him, and then what would
happen?"
Edward laughed.
"Then, Mrs. Hancock, you would have to sleep in town uncomfortably,
without night things, instead of sleeping comfortably according to my
plans."
"But I should have to take Filson," said Mrs. Hancock, rather unwisely,
since if you mean not to do a thing--and she had not the smallest wish
to see "Siegfried"--it weakens the position to argue, however sensibly,
about it.
"Of course you would take Filson!" said Edward. "Take Lind as well, if
you like! I will arrange it all."
"Well, it would be an event, wouldn't it, to see the opera and sleep
up in town," said Mrs. Hancock, who, though she did not mean to go,
a little hankered after anything of this sort, if it was to be had
without any expense. "But there would be a great deal to think of and
to plan. I always forget if you take cream, Edward. Yes? A great deal
to plan, for if one is to go one must look tidy, and have a few jewels."
She formed a rapid mental picture of herself in the front of a box with
the pearls, and perhaps the tiara. It rather attracted her, but she
felt that if she stayed in a hotel she would not get a wink of sleep
all night with thinking of those treasures. She rejected the picture,
but simultaneously a bright idea struck her.
"Wednesday next, did you say?" she asked guilefully.
"No, Thursday."
Mrs. Hancock made a gesture of impatience.
"Well, if that isn't annoying," she said, "when we were arranging it
so nicely and getting over every difficulty. Because Thursday is Mrs.
Martin's garden-party, which I haven't missed in all the years I have
been at Heathmoor, and I mustn't miss it! She would think it so unkind,
for she always says she depends on me. I wonder if she could possibly
change her day. Listen to the rain. I hope you have brought your
mackintosh, Edward. No, I'm afraid it's too late to ask her, for the
invitations are already sent out. Well, that does knock our delightful
plan on the head. How battered the garden will be, though we want
rain. And 'Siegfried,' too; of all operas that is the one I should so
like to see again. But I have an idea. Yes, pray light your cigarette,
Edward! What if you took these two girls up to see it? Couldn't they be
supposed to chaperone each other, and Edith so nearly married, too? I
don't know what people would think, though!"
Mrs. Hancock was the soul of good nature, and having so adroitly shown
the impossibility of herself partaking in this plan, thought nothing of
the disagreeableness of spending an evening alone.
"But couldn't you come after the garden-party, mother?" asked Edith.
"My dear, I should be a rag! Mrs. Martin says that she feels no
responsibility if I am there at her party, but I assure you I do. I
have always said it is no use trying to listen to music unless you
are fresh. It is an insult to the music. But I wonder if it is very
wrong of me to suggest such a thing. Edith, darling, the candle-shade.
Well done! You have saved it. But if you girls go up together and join
Edward in town I don't see who will know. Well, that will be a secret
for us all to keep! Shall we all go into the drawing-room? Hark how the
rain is falling! We must have some music."
"Then that's settled?" asked Edward.
"If these young ladies approve. But what a lot we have to
arrange--where you are to go, and where they are to meet you, and the
train they are to come back by in the morning." She paused a moment as
she took up her patience pack.
"And Filson shall go up with them!" she proclaimed. "It will make me
feel more comfortable if I know Filson is there. What a talk we have
had! I declare it is half-past nine already! Do let us have some music!
Edith, dear, I think you might open the window into the garden a little
bit. If any of us feel it damp, we can close it again. Look, there are
two aces out already. What a good beginning!"
Edward turned to Elizabeth.
"And you like the 'Siegfried' plan?" he asked.
"But it's too nice of you! I----"
She stopped.
"Do go on," he said, speaking low.
Suddenly Elizabeth saw that Edith was observing them.
"I suppose I shall have to forgive you," she said, in a voice clearly
audible, "now that you are taking me to 'Siegfried.'"
And the very fact that she spoke aloud, so that Edith could hear,
falsified, so she felt, the truth of her light speech. She knew he
would not take it quite lightly, and she allowed him to put one
construction on it, so that Edith might put another.
His eye quickened with the secret message he sent to her, and she did
not refuse it.
"But it wasn't a bribe," said he with his lips. "I made the plan before
I sinned. So play your intermezzo."
* * * * *
A week afterwards Elizabeth was walking up and down the long
garden-path while the morning was yet dewy. She had awoke early on
this day that she and Edith were going up to town to see the opera,
woke with a sense of ecstatic joy in life, of intense and rapturous
happiness. For the last week she had been living in a storm of emotion,
that seemed not to come from within her, but from without, beating
and buffeting her, but giving her, from time to time, serene and
wonderful hours. She had wrestled with and worked over the transcript
of "Siegfried" until she had made the music her own, and she seemed
to have come into a heritage that was waiting ready for her to claim
it. The passionate excitement of the true musician, with all its flow
of flooding revelations, its stream of infinite rewards was hers;
she had entered that kingdom which, to all except those few who can
say "we musicians know," is but a beautiful cloudland and a place of
bewildering mists. But now for her it had cleared; she had come into
her own, and saw steadfastly what she had before but guessed at, of
what she had heard but hints and seen images. Till now, with all her
love of music, she had been but a speller of the mere words that made
its language, knowing the words to be beautiful and feeling their
nameless charm. But now it was as if the printed page of their poetry
was open to her. There was meaning as well as beauty, coherence and
romance in the sounds which had hitherto but suggested images to her.
The revelation had not come singly; the golden gates had not swung open
of their own accord. Well, she knew the hand which for her had thrown
them open, the wind that had dispersed the mists. She was in love, in
love, as she had once said indifferently and disappointedly, with "a
common man." Beyond any shadow of doubt it was that which had opened
out the kingdom of music for her; thus quickened, her receptive nature
had been enabled to receive. Hitherto she had been like a deaf man,
vivid in imagination, to whom the magic of sound had been described.
Her perceptions had been dormant; she had but felt the light as the bud
of a folded flower may be imagined to feel it. Now she received it on
expanded petals.
About that love itself she had at present no qualms, she admitted no
recognition of its hopelessness, she had no perception of its dangers.
She was too full of the first wonder of its dawning to guess or to
care what the risen day might bring forth. The fact that Edward was
engaged to be married to her cousin was a complete safeguard against
dangers which she barely conjectured, and the very thought of hope or
hopelessness made no imprint on her mind, for in the presence of the
thing herself she could not bring herself to consider the possible
issues of it. It exalted and possessed her; the fact that she loved
filled her entire being, which already brimmed with her new perceptions
of music. Each heightened the other, each was infinite, possessing
the whole of her. She had no thought for the morrow, or for the day,
or for herself. The whole of the eagerness of her youth was enslaved
in a perfect freedom. She was blind and ecstatic, and in truth was
running heedlessly, sightlessly between quicksands and deep seas and
precipices, unconscious of them all, and above all, unconscious of
herself, absorbed by love and melody, even as the dew on the lawn was
being absorbed by the sun.
Above, the sky was unflecked by cloud and as yet of pale and liquid
blue; the warm air had still a touch of night's coolness in it, and
the young day seemed like a rosy child awakening from sleep. At the
end of the garden the tall elms stood motionless, towers of midsummer
leaf, and the smell of the evaporating dew that had lain all night in
the bosom of red roses and among the thick-blade grass of the lawn,
told her where it had slept. It hung thick on the threads of the netted
fruit-trees, and glimmered on the red-brick wall that ran alongside the
shining gravel walk. Already the bees had begun their garnerings, the
birds were a-chuckle in the bushes, and suddenly the whole pervading
sweetness and song of the morning smote on Elizabeth's heart, already
full to overflowing, and demanded the expression of her gratitude. She
was compelled to thank somebody for it--not Ellis, not Aunt Julia, not
Edward even.
"Somebody, anyhow!" she said aloud.