APRIL EVENING
Elizabeth was sitting in the drawing-room window of the little house
that her mother and she had taken in Oakley Street on a warm, uncertain
afternoon of April in the following year. The window was wide open and
the breeze that blew in from the south-west ruffled the leaves of the
music that stood open on the piano. It seemed to the girl's indolent
mood that there was quite a good chance of their not blowing on to the
floor, and since that was so, she much preferred going to pick them up
if this happened rather than disturb herself for fear of its happening.
Outside there was a small brick-walled enclosure, with strips of
flower-bed, bright, nodding with daffodils, and a fig-tree, rather
sooty in foliage, and hopelessly incapable of bearing any fruit at all,
was thrusting out broad handlike leaves from its angled boughs. This
enclosure Mrs. Fanshawe was accustomed to call "that dreadful little
backyard" when she felt like that, but in more cheerful moods alluded
to it as "that dear little garden." For some days past it had been a
dreadful little backyard.
Colonel Fanshawe had left his widow and daughter in circumstances that
admitted of comfort and demanded care, and Mrs. Fanshawe sometimes
complained of, sometimes rather enjoyed the practice of economy.
Elizabeth was rather afraid of those bouts of economical enjoyment,
for they meant that Mrs. Fanshawe was apt to order more coal than
the cellar would possibly hold, as she got a cheaper quotation for
large quantities, or would take a taxicab to some far-distant shop in
Oxford Street, keep it waiting an hour and drive back in it bursting
with innumerable packages. She would then gleefully reckon up the
saving she had effected by not buying the same goods at the shop just
round the corner; sometimes it amounted to as much as two shillings,
in which case she would give Elizabeth quite a little homily on the
virtue of thrift and the immense importance of looking after the pence.
The shillings apparently as represented by the taxi were capable of
looking after themselves. After this thrifty afternoon she would feel
that a little treat was owing to them, and she would take Elizabeth to
a concert. At other times, still enjoying it, she would help in the
housework, and, putting on a very pretty grey apron, dust the china
on the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, or even clean the handle of
the front door with some sample that had been sent her which was of
unrivalled merit in polishing brasswork. She still required a great
deal of rest to recuperate her from labours past, and fit her for those
to come, and always had breakfast in bed. Apart from this necessary
repose and the fatigue engendered by the practice of economies, her
time for the last two months had been largely taken up in collecting
materials for a "Short Memoir" of her late husband.
"I feel that I who know him best," she said to Elizabeth, "owe it to
his large circle of friends at home and abroad, who loved him, to tell
them what I can about him. It is my duty, dear. In addition to that,
his public service as a soldier was never properly appreciated by the
War Office, and it is right that they should know what they have lost,
now that it is too late."
Elizabeth felt as if a file had been drawn across her front teeth, and
her stepmother went on with a certain degree of complacency, with a
sense of importance, and yet not without sincerity.
"It is so beautiful, that passage in 'In Memoriam,'" she said, wiping
her eyes, "where Tennyson says that to write about Mr. Hallam is a
'sad narcotic, numbing pain.' I know he would have understood my
feeling about it, which is just that. I shall, of course, state in the
preface my reasons for writing the memoir, and say that, though it is
like tearing open a wound that will never heal, I owe it to my dear
husband's memory."
She paused a moment.
"It will be privately printed, of course," she said, "and I shall give
it to all his friends. I was thinking of having a purple cloth binding
with gilt lettering."
"Won't it be very expensive, mamma?" asked the girl.
"I cannot bring myself to think about the expense. You and I will have
to be very economical, I know; but when a call of duty comes like this,
I feel that no other consideration can stand in my way. If you think it
quietly over, Elizabeth," she said, again crying a little, "I believe
you will agree with me, when you recollect all that your dear father
was. It will help--I hope it will help--you to appreciate him, too, as
well as the War Office."
This awful little conversation, which held for Elizabeth a certain
miserable wounding humour, had taken place soon after Mrs. Fanshawe
had come back to England after her husband's death. She had returned
as soon as she had settled her affairs in India, and had sold, not
unsuccessfully, the bungalow and all it contained, retaining only a
few personal possessions of his and what belonged to Elizabeth and
herself. This private property included many packets of his letters,
which she tied up in a black ribbon and bestowed in an immense tin
dispatch-box, with "Corrospondence" (the orthography of which was not
worth correcting) printed in white letters on it. This, indeed, had
suggested to her the idea of the "Short Memoir," and with it by the
side of her chair or sofa she made masses of extracts, with a view to
arranging them afterwards in the chapters on his second marriage and
his home-life. The pieces which she selected for publication almost
entirely consisted of affectionate words to herself, and she mostly
omitted messages he sent to Elizabeth, or, indeed, anything that did
not directly refer to his affection for his wife. Mrs. Hancock had been
put under contribution to supply details about his boyhood and early
manhood, which similarly consisted for the most part in stories to show
how fond he was of her. These for a month had poured in in immense
quantities, and before they came to an end Mrs. Fanshawe had begun to
find them exceedingly tedious. Dry details, in the same way, about his
military service, did not so much engage Mrs. Fanshawe's attention,
and it was Elizabeth's duty to get the facts about those from Army
Lists, while she, during the long winter evenings, searched through
his letters for fresh instances of his devotion to her, and wrote and
had typewritten the preface, which was on the lines already indicated.
The chapter on "Social Life in India" was already arranged also, in a
rambling sort of fashion, and showed without the slightest doubt how
popular Mrs. Fanshawe was at dinner-parties and balls, and how her
husband, with the wonderful confidence and trust he had in her, was
never the slightest bit jealous. His first wife, Elizabeth's mother,
was scarcely to be mentioned in the "Short Memoir." She might have been
a week-end visitor who had not made much impression on him....
* * * * *
The wind, which had been threatening so long to spill the music that
stood open on the piano, carried out its intention at last, but still
Elizabeth did not stir. Something of the languor of spring had invaded
her, and meaning every moment to get up and go on with her practising,
which had been the excuse for her not going out with her mother on an
expedition of economy to the Army and Navy Stores, she still lounged in
the window-seat thinking over all that had passed since that evening
when Edward came into the drawing-room at Arundel with the foreign
telegram in his hand. It had been a shock to her, the violence of which
she had not been conscious of at the time, but which showed itself
afterwards in the weeks of nerve fatigue that followed. There had been
taken away something in the very core and kernel of her life, and for
the time she had known less of grief than of an inexplicable lack, as
if, on the physical plane, a limb had been amputated, and that she
had just awoke from the operation and found herself with arm or leg
no longer there. Indeed, the feeling was not so much that he was dead
as that a piece of herself was gone. She sent out messages from her
brain and they were not received anywhere, nothing thrilled or moved in
correspondence with them.
And then slowly and by degrees there began to wake in her that new
sense that almost always wakens in those who have suffered some
intimate bereavement. Her mind could not take in, could not conceive,
when once faced with it, the notion of annihilation, of ceasing to
be. It revolted from it, and though for a time her reason (as she
accounted her reason) kept telling her that he was gone, that the
days of their love and confidence were over, she found the conclusion
growing incredible. It began to dawn in her, like the waking of a new
intelligence, that there was nothing of him gone, except the sight of
him, and the possibility of his presence being apprehended any more
by her physical senses. She knew she would not again see or touch him
as she had known him before, or again hear his voice, but she found
herself daily realizing more and more distinctly, by some perception
as innate in her as growth, the knowledge that he was not and could
not have been taken away, amputated, destroyed. All of him that she
missed so dreadfully, all that for which she stretched out empty
arms in the dark, was not her essential father, but only the signs
by which she knew him. He became her companion again, by no effort
of the imagination, but by the assertion of an instinct that could
not be contradicted. Never in those communings with his quiet wisdom
beneath the fading crimson of the Indian sunsets had she felt more
strongly than now the immortal kinship between them, the reality of
their spiritual alliance. He had told her once in words that at the
time seemed to her to have been spoken in an unknown tongue that it
was impossible to go beyond love, that you can only penetrate into it,
finding it without beginning and without end. It was by his death that
she had begun to understand that, by the knowledge of the impotence of
the supreme divider----The supreme divider! She echoed the meaningless
words, the words from which all meaning had departed. Death did not
divide; it was only meanness, falseness, impatience that could do so
tragic a work.
She remembered with growing clearness, as she lay in the window
seat, with the daffodils nodding outside, and the music splayed on
the floor, their talk in the garden that evening. It was as if it
had been written in her mind with invisible ink, which required some
spiritual solution to be poured over it, to bring out the words again.
She herself, she remembered, had been full of vague visions as to the
possibilities and wonders of the world. She had been full of the dreams
that were coloured with the vivid unsubstantial hues that are painted
by inexperience. Now behind them, not removing them or painting over
them, there was stealing, soaking into them the colours that at the
time seemed to her to be somehow dull, dingy, stereotyped. What he had
said to her about love had seemed somehow commonplace, and when an
hour or two afterwards she had sat by the dying fakir at the bottom
of the garden, it was more the sensationalism, the picturesqueness
of that weary and happy passing that had affected her. Now she saw
differently--she saw that precisely the same spirit, precisely the same
inborn knowledge had inspired both. The same rich and unclouded vision
was their daily outlook. They had both staked their all on love. Then
a few days afterwards Elizabeth had ridden out with her father, and he
had spoken to her in the same quiet way about death. He had said he
enjoyed life tremendously, but as for death it was to him but another
stage in growing up....
* * * * *
Elizabeth turned her face to the garden and the bright daffodils.
"Daddy! Daddy!" she said aloud.
She raised herself on her elbow, with the indolence and languor of
spring quite slipped off from her, overwhelmingly conscious of her
nearness to her father, not to his memory, but to him. None knew,
none ever would know except herself, and she but guessed at the huge
significance of it, just what his death had done for her with regard
to her comprehension of life. The news had come to her in days of
despair, when love itself seemed manifested to her only in the form of
a desperate renunciation, when she who loved and was loved in return,
was severed just by an untimely promise, by a bond signed blindly.
Even then she had known, though only by the groping of instinct, that
to disown that, or to allow it to be disowned, was to poison the very
fountain and well-spring of love. Edward, she knew well, with reason on
his side, had longed to marry her in despite of that, believing that
the eternal gushing of that spring would wash away from the mouth of
it the taint that had been laid there. But now she had begun to see
how it was that her instinct had directed her, for even then, when her
need was the sorest, she had comprehended, though without conscious
knowledge of her comprehension, that while loyalty was of the very
essence of love, passion was but a symptom of it; that while love died
at the breath of disloyalty, it existed still, deep and calm, though
the symptom, the froth on the surface was blown off it by the austere
wind of mere straightforward, commonplace duty, or was suffered to die
down under the frozen dawn of renunciation. How she had longed through
those thirsty days to be able to go to her father and be comforted by
his steadfast upholding of her choice, a draught of cold, sweet water
in the sultriness of a barren land. Never, so it had been ordained,
should she whisper to him the story of the summer, nor cry her fill on
his shoulder, but his upholding and his comforting had been not one
whit less vivid and present to her, though far away the parching wind
swept over the grave beneath the tamarisk-trees in that remote cemetery.
But it was not often she thought either of the grave or of his death
itself, for those things seemed to her even as they had seemed to him,
but little incidents of the wayside, not events of great moment in the
onward march of his soul, nor to be given a place beside what he had
been and what he was to her. He had died swiftly under the stroke of
the sword of the pestilence, died in a few hours from the time that he
had been taken ill. They had buried him that night as the moon rose,
with the wheeling planets for his funeral lamps, and the flitting owls
crying his requiem. It was but little of him and that no more than a
garment outworn that had there been laid to rest; he, his essential
self, seemed to Elizabeth never to have left her through all the dark
days of autumn and winter, nor through the lengthening evenings of this
long-delayed spring.
It had been a hard struggle and a stern one, this work in which his
spirit seemed so continually to have been at her side. There was
so much which appeared inextricably intertwined with her love for
Edward that must be cast out, annihilated; there was so much also,
and this was of even greater moment, that must be so loyally and
uncompromisingly kept. Not one of those threads of pure gold that ran
through the whole fabric must be drawn out of it; there must be no loss
of that, no turning the royal mantle into a cloak for a funeral. She
must not part, if her shoulders, on to which it had fallen, were to be
worthy of it, with one gleam of its splendour, with one atom of its
gold, and here was a task to test the utmost of her patience and her
wisdom, in preserving all this, and yet unravelling and disentangling
certain other threads. There were feelings, there were attitudes of
mind, there were desires connected with Edward that seemed at first to
be an integral part of the fabric, so strictly were they woven into it;
it seemed that to draw these out must make rents. And yet it had to be
done, to be done radically and completely, though no rent must be seen
or exist there. It was not that these things were in themselves no part
of love; it was only that circumstances had made it impossible that
they should be part of her love for him. Indeed, they were not hers;
they belonged by right to Edith. They must come out of her fabric; each
one of them must come out. She had to divert from it certain strains,
certain colours, the human longing, the desire, the yearning even.
They were natural, they were proper for one other woman only, but not
for herself. How well she remembered how her father had told her that
knowledge would come to her through love, through love of a "common
man," as she had added. It was even so; it had come to her thus, and
even more through the right renunciation, not the mere rejection of
the whole, but the rejection of a certain part of it. The gold, all
that was infinitely precious, must remain. But the rest was not dross;
merely it was not hers.
Not only at first, but through long months of patient effort, the task
appeared impossible, so intimately was the passion of her love woven
in with the love itself. Sensibly enough, she let her subconscious
mind work at it, while she employed her best efforts in filling the
days with other interests and occupations. Yet so many of these, and
of them all the one that hitherto had most enthralled and engrossed
her, namely, the study of music, gave her every moment stabs of
recollection. Her passion for it had been so immensely kindled and
quickened by him, that when she tried to kindle it again, it was still
the thought of him that fed the flame. All that had to go; she must
retrace her steps and find for it the inspiration of itself alone. She
had to shatter the dreams with which it filled her; she had to shake
herself awake from them. The associations which it roused in her must
be disconnected from it; it had to be made to speak to her with its own
voice. Often she thought of giving it up altogether, of cutting off
from the stem of her life the flowers of melody and harmony, so closely
were they set with thorns that made her heart bleed. Yet that again
would have been a wanton and a mutilating renunciation. Instead, with
patience that sometimes shrank and fainted, she set herself to pick off
the thorns that were no essential part of the growth. Yet the thorns
bled; the very stem seemed to ooze with the life-sap.
And of all the spiritual tasks which filled Elizabeth's days with
strivings, and drove sleep from her during the weary nights, the most
haunting, the most difficult of all remains to be mentioned--namely,
that of keeping her heart sweet when she thought of Edith. It seemed at
first that mere patience, mere daily and unremitting striving, was of
no avail to quarry away that adamantine block; the tools of her armoury
were blunted at its contact. She tried not to judge her, or to attempt
to record a verdict about an action that was morally unintelligible to
her, if, indeed, she could preserve herself from thinking it vile, but
when she contemplated the choice Edith had made, her refusal to let
Edward go free from the promise he had made, before he knew what love
was, she could scarcely abstain from revolted condemnation, or succeed
in leaving the case unjudged. It was not easy to dissociate from it
the momentous personal consequences that this refusal held for her, or
to look at it impartially, as if the situation had been presented to
her as an incident that had happened among strangers; but even when
she most schooled herself to put her own entanglement in it out of the
question she felt it difficult not to seethe with scorn over it. She
could not understand how a girl with respect either for herself or the
great emotions could refuse to set free a man who no longer wished to
be tied to her, who longed, as Edith knew very well, to be acquitted
of his promise. It was inconceivable, even had he not given his heart
elsewhere, to claim a right in such a matter, to refuse to uncage
the bird of love which was beating its wings against the wires, just
because the cage was hers, and in her hands it was to close or unclose
the door. It seemed to Elizabeth that the very fact that Edith loved
him, though it made it more difficult for her to give him up, must make
that giving of him up the more imperative. Love, so it appeared to her,
must have relaxed the fingers that detained him. Had she not cared for
him, had she not known what love was, these other desires, the liking
she had for him, the desire in a general way to be married, the feeling
that she would be happy with him, might have caused her to keep him,
or, at any rate, not voluntarily to release him from his promise. But
that she could love (as Elizabeth rightly felt she did) and yet not
find predominant over everything else the longing for his happiness was
the thing that was utterly inconceivable.
Whether Edith had secured her own happiness she had no idea whatever.
She had but seen her some half-dozen times since Edward and Edith had
returned from Egypt in the early spring, and Edith seemed to have
developed a sort of sheath over her, a carapace that was insensitive
to the touch. It was natural--indeed, anything else would have been
impossible--that no mention of past history or how it bore on the
present should take place between them, but it seemed to Elizabeth
that her cousin had shut herself up in this hard integument, and gave
no indication of her real self. If she spoke of her home, it was to
say that they had put a fresh carpet down in the drawing-room, if of
her daily life, to say that she often lunched with her mother; if of
Mrs. Hancock, that she had raised Denton's wages; if of Edward, that
he seldom came back from the City before the later of the two trains.
Once or twice, it is true, it had seemed to Elizabeth as if Edith was
wanting to say something more, that, as if shipwrecked on some desert
island, she was silently waving an inconspicuous flag, that might,
indeed, not be a flag at all. But nothing came of these efforts, and
it was impossible for Elizabeth to urge her to confidence, when it
was so very doubtful whether she wished to confide, or, indeed, had
anything to say. Once Elizabeth had made an impulsive attempt--had said
suddenly, not pausing to consider the wisdom of such a speech, but
eager for her own sincerity--
"Oh, Edith, I hope you are happy. You are, aren't you?" And Edith, if
she had been signalling, furled her flag at once, as if afraid it had
been seen.
"Quite happy, thank you," she had said, and picked up from the floor
the umbrella with a false onyx top that had fallen there. She proceeded
to explain about the top. Mrs. Hancock had bought it in Cairo very
cheap, and Edith hoped she would never know it was not real onyx. She
need not have been afraid, for Mrs. Hancock had had her doubts on the
subject, but had resolutely put them from her before she made this
present.
It has been said that Elizabeth was "eager for her own sincerity" in
wishing to know that Edith was happy. That expresses with fair accuracy
the measure of her success in trying not to judge Edith. It may be
taken also as the epitaph on the grave where her jealousy of her was
buried. The cynic is at liberty to reflect that since Edward did not
love his wife she had no cause for jealousy.
Of all the virtues that lift the eyes of men to the hills, patience
is the least admired, has the least to attract the attention and
thus earn the encouragement of others, and yet none is more certain
of its results. Never does it fail in putting forth its fruits in
due season, nor in accomplishing its perfect work. But for the most
part its growth is imperceptible; it does not shoot up like the aloe
flower, nor challenge attention from the brilliance of its blossoming;
and, like the violet, it hides its lovely fragrance, and those who
observe carelessly and without love are usually quite unaware of its
blossoming. It trumpets forth no deeds of valour, it fills the stage
with no heroic attitudes and splendid speeches; and only those who
watch tenderly and closely can see the growth of its sweet-smelling
purple. It was not a matter for wonder then that Mrs. Fanshawe, eagerly
intent on herself, interested in her own grief and bereavement, and
marvellously anxious that others should be (if possible) equally
interested in them, should have observed nothing of this modest
flowering, not even now, when on this languid April day Elizabeth's
plot was thick with the flowers of her silent gardening. Indeed, she
was disposed to blame her stepdaughter for many omissions in her
general conduct. There was much to be desired in her that she did not
get. When she played to her, so to speak, Elizabeth was not always
ready to dance; when she mourned Elizabeth did not always weep. She
took but a tepid interest in Mrs. Fanshawe's brilliant and absorbing
economies, and though she was always ready to go on searching through
Army Lists, she did not bring to that employment the eager zeal which
might have been expected from one who had just lost so well-beloved a
father. Worse still, when Mrs. Fanshawe's voice sometimes broke and her
eyes filled with self-pitying tears, as she read aloud to Elizabeth
some fresh and pathetic page of the memoir, describing how her father
had sat up till half-past three on two consecutive nights so that his
wife should have her fill of dancing, Elizabeth seemed as hard as
adamant over this poignant recollection. Indeed, Elizabeth had tried
to persuade her (quite unsuccessfully) to cut out from the preface the
concluding paragraph which began "Out of the depths of my broken heart
I wish to thank all those friends whose sympathy has supported me in my
bereavement."
Indeed, Mrs. Fanshawe was afraid that she had not been far astray when,
on first marrying, she had formed the conclusion that Elizabeth was
a selfish sort of girl. She had believed then that she had a great
affection for her father (who really rather spoiled her) and had tried,
the dear fellow, to spoil his wife as well; but now, so quietly did
Elizabeth take her bereavement, she was afraid that, after all, her
affection for her father was not so very deep. Otherwise she must have
found the writing of the memoir a work at which it was an agonizing
yet exquisite pleasure to assist. Otherwise, again, Elizabeth could
not have been so remarkably industrious in her music; she could not,
within a couple of months of her father's death, begin a course of
instruction in the piano at the Royal Institute. She would have been
unable to give her mind, as she was undoubtedly doing, to this very
nice accomplishment of playing the piano, but have immured herself
in the privacy of Oakley Street, and refused to see anybody but her
stepmother, to whom she must have been irresistibly drawn by the
bond of their common sorrow. Incidentally, too, these music lessons
seemed to Mrs. Fanshawe very expensive for the gratification of a mere
luxurious whim, and the thought of them often impelled her to distant
economical expeditions, implying a huge expense in taxi-cabs. It was
on one of these that she had gone out this afternoon, the object being
to purchase large quantities of violet soap, so cheap if you bought a
large box of it, and other little things that would probably occur to
her, from a shop in High Holborn. Though the distance was considerable,
Elizabeth was surprised she was not back by the time the servant
brought up tea; but since she might return any moment, and be querulous
over the fact that tea was not made, she prepared it, risking the other
possibility that it might be cold when her stepmother returned, who
would then drink it with the air of a martyr, or be compelled, though
she hated extravagance and unnecessary trouble to servants, to order a
fresh teapot. One of the two was likely, since, as has been mentioned,
the open space at the back of the house had been for the last fortnight
the horrid little backyard.
But an agreeable surprise was in store. Mrs. Fanshawe came in before
long in the most excellent spirits, full of affection and tenderness.
"And my dear little musical Cinderella has made tea," she said, "all
ready for her wicked stepmother! Darling, you should have come out
with me, it is the loveliest day; you are too industrious. Perhaps
this evening you will play to me something you have been so diligently
practising."
Elizabeth poured out tea.
"I'm afraid I haven't been so very industrious, mamma," she said. "I've
been sitting in the window nearly an hour doing nothing."
"Ah, it is not doing nothing to enjoy this sweet breeze and look at the
daffodils in our sweet little garden. My dear, what a good cup of tea!
Nobody makes tea like you. I often say it."
She often did, though with quite a different _nuance_. But clearly the
days of the horrid little backyard were over for the present.
"Such an afternoon as I have had, dear," she continued. "You would
never guess all the things that have happened to me. Who should I
meet, for instance, in Isaacs and Redford's but your Aunt Julia, so
pleasant and full of welcome! And nothing would content her but that I
must promise to bring you down to stay with her next Friday over the
Sunday. Her dear little Elizabeth, she called you. We quite quarrelled
over that. I said you were my dear little Elizabeth. She has been so
busy, she said, since her return from Egypt in February, getting things
straight after her long absence or she would have asked me many times
before. I never thought it odd, I am glad to say, that she had not done
so; I always refrained from wondering at it, though, to be sure, three
months is a long time to take putting things straight after an absence
of two. But now she quite insists on it; she simply would not let me
go until I had promised, and she will send her motor to the station to
meet whatever train we settle to travel by."
Here was a prospect that had long daunted Elizabeth to look forward
to, yet of necessity it must sometime come close to her. She had not
so much as seen Edward since he handed her the telegram last August in
Mrs. Hancock's drawing-room; he and she, tacitly contriving together
in sundered co-operation had averted that. Her heart leaped and sank
and leaped again; she shrank from seeing him, and had not known till
now, when in the natural course of events she must see him, how much
she longed to. On her side there was no reasonable excuse to urge
against the plan, and had there been she hardly knew whether she would
have urged it. On his side, he might escape the meeting, say that he
had arranged to take Edith away for the Sunday, but she felt sure that
if he understood that she had consented to go down to her aunt's he
would not absent himself. He waited, so she instinctively knew, for a
sign that she was willing to meet him. Otherwise he would long ago have
been to see her. She quite understood his absence and his silence.
Any sign of emotion that might have escaped her was certainly not seen
by her stepmother, who was full of the wonders of this afternoon. But
Elizabeth felt that something beyond this invitation to Heathmoor
had occurred to send Mrs. Fanshawe's mental barometer up to such
exhilarated serenity of fair weather, and she waited for it to be told
her. It did not come at once; she mentioned first the other objects on
which some ray had beamed which gilded and transfigured them.
"Such a long and dear talk I had with her," she went on, "and she
begged, if it did not hurt me too much, to bring down all the memoirs
that I have written to read to her quietly. After she had gone I
bought the soap and the other little things I wanted, which were even
cheaper than I had anticipated, and you never would guess, dear, how
I came back here. Perhaps you will scarcely believe it when I tell
you, for I got on the top of a 'bus, with my great box of soap and my
other parcels, and came all the way right to the Chelsea Town Hall
for threepence, not counting the sixpence with which I tipped the
conductor, who was most obliging and helped me with my things. Really
very polite! In spite of my packages, he of course saw I was not just a
common woman like the rest of the passengers, and I hesitated whether I
ought to have given him a shilling. But I have never enjoyed making a
little economy and denying myself comforts more than I did when I got
up on that 'bus."
No, it was not the 'bus ride, so thought Elizabeth, that had produced
this exhilaration and pleasure. She waited.
"But before I got up on to my 'bus I gave myself just a little treat,"
Mrs. Fanshawe proceeded, "and went into one of those electric palaces,
as they call them, where you see the cinematograph. I was not quite
sure whether it was the sort of thing that is thought respectable, and
so I looked pretty closely at the programme before I entered. But I
need not have been afraid; I never saw anything more refined, and you
and I will go together one of these days, dear. So cheap, too; only a
shilling. Why, you could go every day for a week and not spend more
than in one evening in the dress-circle at the theatre."
Mrs. Fanshawe looked up at Elizabeth with that glance of soft, shy
helplessness which many men found so provocatively feminine and
pleading, and called forth the instinct of protection in their somewhat
unobservant minds. For, on the whole, nobody was less in need of
protection than she; she was almost aggressively able to take care of
herself.
"And I didn't have to carry my parcels after all," she said, "from
where the 'bus stopped, for whom should I see just coming out
of the chemist's there but that dear Sir Henry Meyrick, who was
Commander-in-Chief in India. Do you remember? He came home only a
couple of days ago on leave, and will be here till January. He stayed
with us once at Peshawar, darling, in those happy, happy days!"
Mrs. Fanshawe took out her handkerchief and dabbed the corners of
her eyes. This was a piece of ritual that had lost its practical
significance (for there was not the semblance of moisture there), and
was merely the outward and visible sign of an inward grief.
"I stayed with him afterwards at Simla," she said, "and got, oh, so
fond of him! It was while I was staying there, you know, that the news
came that caused my poor heart to break. My dear, he was like a woman
for tenderness to me, and yet he had the strength of a man; and I can
never, never forget what I owe dear Sir Henry. If it had not been for
him I am convinced I should quite have broken down, or even made away
with myself."
Elizabeth felt sure that she had here the origin of the wonderful rise
in her stepmother's spirits. And an idea, horrible to contemplate, came
close to her and stared her in the face. She resolutely turned away
from it.
"Yes, I remember him quite well," she said. "I thought you found him
rather foolish and ridiculous."
"Foolish and ridiculous!" said Mrs. Fanshawe, with great energy. "I
cannot imagine what you mean, Elizabeth. You must be confusing him with
some one else."
"Perhaps I am," said the girl. "It is stupid of me. How was he looking?"
Mrs. Fanshawe calmed down at once and became softly pathetic again.
"Oh, so different to what he was when you saw him," she said, "when he
was so cheery and jolly, and made all the women in Peshawar fall in
love with him. At least, I am sure that I did. He looked so anxious and
unhappy, Elizabeth, that my heart quite went out to him, and I longed
to comfort him. And he brightened up so when he saw me; he looked quite
radiant again. And you will never guess what a pretty welcome he gave
me, though of course it was very foolish of him. He said, 'My dear
little girl--my dear little girl!' twice over, just like that. And he
held out both his hands to me, and dropped his umbrella in a puddle
and never seemed to notice it. And there was I with my arms full of
great heavy parcels. I declare for a moment I was quite ashamed before
so true a gentleman as Sir Henry is. And he took all the parcels from
me--and oh, my dear, it was so wonderful to me in my loneliness in the
crowded streets to be taken care of again like that!--and carried them
right up to the door, and gave them to Mary when she opened it. He
would not let me touch them again myself."
Again the idea stood close to Elizabeth, holding her, so it seemed, not
letting her turn her face away. And the soft, childlike voice went on.
"He asked after you, too," she said, "so nicely and affectionately. He
would not come in then, for he had some other appointment; and though
he wanted to break it I did not let him. But he is coming to dine here
to-night. I shall not think of making any extra preparation for him. He
will like it best just to see me in my quiet, modest little house just
naturally."
There was a moment's rather awkward pause, for Mrs. Fanshawe had to
consider how to reintroduce a topic that had been spoken of that
morning between her and Elizabeth in hours of the "horrid little
backyard." Elizabeth had wanted to go to the Queen's Hall to attend a
concert of the most ravishing character that was to be performed that
night, but had given up the idea owing to a marked querulousness on her
stepmother's part at the prospect of passing a deserted evening. There
had even been pained wonder at the girl caring to go out to an evening
of pleasure so soon. But she was not apt to be troubled at her own
inconsistencies, and the pause was not long.
"He will be sorry not to see you, I am sure, darling," she said, "but I
think you told me you were going to a concert at the Queen's Hall. Very
likely you will not be in till nearly eleven, and you may be sure I
shall have a nice cosy little supper ready for you when you come back."
To Elizabeth this seemed but to confirm the idea that had forced itself
on her; it needed, at any rate, little perspicacity to see that her
stepmother, with the prospect of dining alone with Sir Henry, wanted
her to keep the engagement which, in deference to her desire, she had
abandoned. Nor was she surprised at the tenderness that followed.
Mrs. Fanshawe rose in willowy fashion from her chair and stood behind
Elizabeth's, gently stroking her hair.
"I want you to enjoy all the pleasures that I can contrive for you,
dear," she said. "He whom we both miss so dreadfully, I know would wish
us to enjoy--'richly to enjoy,' does not the Bible say? He would have
hated to think that we were going to lose all our gaiety and happiness."
Elizabeth felt physically unable to bear the touch of that insincere,
caressing hand. She got up quickly.
"Yes, mamma," she said; "I am sure of that. I have tried not to lose
the joy of life."
"So right, darling!" said Mrs. Fanshawe, in a dreadful little cooing
voice. "And we have helped each other, I hope, in that. I know you
have helped me. I will not let my life be spoiled and broken; it would
grieve him so."
She paused a moment with handkerchief-ritual, and with her head a
little on one side, spoke with childlike timidity.
"It was lovely being taken care of again," she said, "though only
in a little matter like having a parcel carried. Are you going now,
dear? Enjoy yourself, my sweetest, and stop till the very end of your
concert. I know what a treat music is to you; I would not have you miss
a note."
* * * * *
Elizabeth felt the need of air after this interview, and having an hour
yet to spare before she need think of going to the concert, went down
the broad, quiet street and on to the Thames Embankment at its lower
end. She felt stifled by this atmosphere of insincerity from which
she had come; she choked at the pitiful nauseating deception that she
believed almost deceived her stepmother and caused her to refer to the
duty of behaving as her late husband would have had her behave, at
all her little subterfuges for facilitating her own arrangements. The
falseness of it all was so blatant, so palpable that it would not have
deceived a baby, and yet Elizabeth was not wrong in thinking that it
largely deceived the very author of it. Her acting might not appear
at all life-like to her audience, but it seemed real to herself. For
years she had, while diligently pursuing paths of complete selfishness,
been employed, so to speak, on modelling a figure of herself, that was
winning, child-like, and trustingly devoted to the love of others, and
now regarding that, with conscious approval, she had come to believe
that it was the very image of herself. And Elizabeth felt sure (and
again was not mistaken) that Mrs. Fanshawe was even now getting herself
into another graceful pose for the reception of Sir Henry. To say that
she was deliberately laying herself out to attract him would have been
the coarsely true way of putting it, but things that were coarse and
things that were true were almost equally abhorrent to Mrs. Fanshawe's
mind. She told herself that she owed a great debt to Sir Henry for his
kindness and sympathy at her husband's death, a debt that she would
never be able to repay. She was bound to treat him as an old friend,
to confide in him her plans for the future; to tell him how she was
"oh, so content" to live quietly here, devoting her life to Elizabeth,
who was so sweet to her. And she would somehow make it appear that it
was her own sweetness, not Elizabeth's, that she was really talking
about. She would hint that she was a great deal alone, but that it was
by her own wish that Elizabeth spent so many evenings enjoying herself
with hearing music. Elizabeth was right, "oh, so right!" to do it.
And Elizabeth, thinking over these things, executed a few wild dance
steps on a lonely piece of the Embankment, from sheer irritation at the
thought. She wondered also whether her stepmother would show Sir Henry
the written chapters of the Memoir. She rather thought not.
This little ebullition of temper passed, and she let her mind quiet
down again as she leaned her elbows on the stone balustrade and looked
out over the beautiful river, which brimmed and swirled just below,
for the tide, near to full flood, was pouring up from the sea, still
fresh and strong and unwearied by its journey. Barges were drifting
up with it in a comfortable, haphazard sort of fashion, and a great
company of sea-gulls hovered near, chiding and wheeling together. The
hour was a little after sunset, and the whole sky was bright with
mackerel-markings of rosy cloud, and the tawny river, reflecting
these, was covered with glows and gleams. Opposite, the trees in the
park were dim in the mist of fresh green that lay over them, blurring
the outlines which all the winter had stood stark and clear-cut under
cold, grey skies. And the triumphant tide of springtime which flushed
everything with the tingle of new growth, unfolding the bells of the
tulips in the patches of riverside garden, and making the sparrows busy
with gathering sticks and straws for their nestings, sent a sudden
thrill through Elizabeth's heart, and she was conscious again, as she
had not been for many weary weeks, of the youth and glory of the world.
From the great sea of life came the vivifying wave, covering for the
moment the brown seaweed tangle of her trouble that had lain dry and
sun-baked so long, flushing and freshening and uplifting it.
Relieved of its irritation, and refreshed by this good moment of
spring evening, her mind went back to her stepmother. She felt sure
that it was her intention to marry that jolly old warrior, if it could
possibly be managed, and that she was going to employ all her art in
the shape of her artlessness and simplicity to bring that about. It
was but eight months since her husband had died, but, after all, what
did that matter? The actual lapse of time had very little to do with
the question, and she would be sure to have touching and convincing
reasons for such a step. It had seemed horrible at first to Elizabeth,
but where, after all, was the horror? Of course, her dead husband would
have wished her to be happy. Elizabeth knew her father well enough
to know that, and it was only horrible that she should give (as she
undoubtedly would) as a reason for her marrying again what she knew his
wishes would be on the subject. Whether Sir Henry would be brought up
to the point was another matter, and on this Elizabeth had no evidence
except her stepmother's account of their meeting. But clearly Mrs.
Fanshawe thought that things promised well.
Elizabeth's eyes suddenly filled with tears. Only once had the grass
sprung up on that far-distant grave; not yet had the Memoir, so quickly
taken in hand, been completed.
"Daddy, daddy!" she said aloud.
She turned from the rosy river, and set out to walk down the Embankment
to the next bridge, from where she proposed to take the conveyance that
had thrilled her stepmother that afternoon with a sense of incredible
adventure. The pavement stretched empty and darkening in front of her,
and at the far end the lamplighter had started on his luminous round.
Some two hundred yards off a figure was walking quickly towards her,
and long before she could distinguish face or feature, Elizabeth, with
heart in sudden tumult, saw who it was. Almost at the same moment
she saw him pause suddenly in his rapid progress, and halt as if
undetermined whether or no to turn and retrace his steps. But he came
on again, and soon they stood face to face. All the tumult in her had
died down again; she held out her hand with the friendliest, most
unembarrassed smile.
"At last, Edward!" she said. "And we shall meet again soon. Aunt Julia
has asked mamma and me down for next Sunday."
He looked at her a moment without speaking. She saw that his breath
came quickly as if he had been running.
"I know. She told me she was going to write," he said.
"She met mamma this afternoon, and said it instead."
"Must I go away?" he asked. "Of course I will if you wish it. But--but
mayn't I see you again?"
At his voice, at the entreaty in his eyes, all but her love for him,
unstained and bright-burning, vanished utterly.
"Yes, why not, if you want to?" she said. "But I shall understand so
well if you do not."
"I have wanted nothing else every day," he said.
All her heart went out to him.
"Aren't you happy, dear?" she said.
"How can you ask that?"
"I'm sorry," she said simply. "And Edith?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything about her. I try to be kind and
nice to her. In fact I am."
A wretched, quivering smile broke out on the girl's face.
"Conceit!" she said. "I'm glad we have met, Edward, for we had to get
this over, you know. Well, it's over."
They stood in silence a moment. Then suddenly he broke out--
"Why wouldn't you trust your own heart, Elizabeth, and let me
trust mine? What good has come of it all? What has come of it but
wretchedness? I don't ask if you are happy. I know you aren't."
"No. But you kept faith. That good has come of it. Don't say those
things. It isn't the best of you that says them. And what are you doing
here?"
"I often walk this way," he said. "Then I go up Oakley Street. The
evenings are getting light now. Do you mind my doing that?"
Then something swelled in her throat forbidding speech.
"I--I must go on," she said at length.
"May I walk with you a little?"
"To the corner. I shall take a 'bus there."
There was but a little way to go, and they stood together, waiting for
the 'bus, looking at the darkling river, down which poured the wild
west wind.
"Sea-gulls," she said to him, pointing. "Sea-gulls and spring, Edward."
And she mounted quickly up the winding iron stairs, not looking back.
But as the 'bus swung round a corner a little distance up the road she
could not resist turning round. He was still there at the corner where
she had left him, a minute speck on the pavement that glowed in the
rose-coloured sunset, so minute, so significant. It seemed to her that
all of her essential self, her heart, her power of love, was standing
there with him; that he gazed but at an empty wraith of herself who
sat on the pounding, swaying 'bus, while she stood by his side as the
spring evening darkened and the sea-gulls hovered and wheeled.