Je vais où le vent me mène
Sans me plaindre où m'effrayer.
Je vais où va toute chose,
Où va la feuille de rose
Et la feuille de laurier!
A DAY or two later he moved his few belongings from Jimmy's rooms to
Ann's. It was her wish. There was no point in concealment. The mews
knew; the mews had expected it; the mews did not mind. Mr. Martin was
delighted:
"It's what every young woman wants, to throw in her lot with some nice
young feller. If they can't be married, they can't, and that's all
there is to it. Take mares now-- Well, you know what I mean." He
caught the boy with his head in at the door listening, picked up a
ledger, and threw it at him. A bad shot, it broke a pane in the glass
wall.
René had told him all the circumstances, because he knew that the mews
was full of gossip, and he was attached enough to the old fellow to
wish him to be in possession of the facts.
"What I mean to say," continued Mr. Martin, when the boy had fled, "is
this: If women must come kerboosting into a man's life, it's better
for them to come while he's young and fool enough to enjoy it. There's
a time for everything, as the Bible says, but don't let her put on
you. The best of women will put on a man if he lets her, and that's
bad for both."
That was the advice with which René Fourmy's second venture in
cohabitation was blessed. As usually happens with advice, he was too
deeply engrossed in present interests to apply what wisdom it
contained to his own case. He drifted down the stream of bliss they
had tapped, and, as generously as she, brought into their common stock
as much kindness, consideration, and warmth, excitement and curiosity
as they needed to take them from moment to moment. Only he brought no
laughter, of which she supplied abundance. Both were out early and all
day long, and both returned in the evening tired but eager for the new
wonder of each other's company. Indeed it was wonderful, the easy
sympathy they had for each other. They could be frank. She had no
preconception of what love should be, and took all its delights simply
as they came, and her simplicity fed and encouraged his. It was a
novelty for him to live from day to day satisfied; a kind of Paradise,
if Paradise is a place where the appetites are a little overfed, so
that body and mind are brought to indolence.
Kilner had disappeared for a time, having made enough to be able to
retire to his painting, and René had no other society than the
chauffeurs in the shelters during the day and the familiars of Mitcham
Mews in the evening. He became sluggishly content to drift. He was
making good money, increased by Ann's earnings. If he ever thought of
the old life in the North at all, it was with lazy contempt and
indifference. His first attitude toward London was reversed. He had
begun with all the northerner's contempt for the easy ways of the
metropolis. He never read anything but the newspaper, and every
evening would read aloud the "fooltong" in the _Star_. Ann took it for
the betting. She put aside two shillings a week for "the horses," and
he joined her in that pursuit. He did not so much enjoy her pleasures
as her zest for them, and it became his object to keep that alive.
Without that he was at moments aware of a sickening sensation that was
truly horrible, making him gird at his surroundings, at certain tricks
that Ann had, at habits, gestures, tones in her voice that were like
his sister-in-law Elsie's. He saw the resemblance first on receiving a
letter from his brother George:
"DEAR R,--A pal of mine who has been on the spree saw you in London
the other day, says you drove him from the Troc to Bernard Street. I
thought you'd have been off that long ago, but there's no accounting
for tastes. I meant to write some time since to say the old man has
hopped it again, and the mother has taken up her quarters with us. It
seems some money came in--I can't make out where from--and he grabbed
it and offed. It seems to have finished her; she's shut up tight, sits
and knits, toddles off to church whenever there's a service, never
mentions him or you. Elsie can't get anything out of her, though they
talk enough together. It makes the house seem full of women. I've
never set eyes on you know who since you cleared. I'm doing well
enough, and hope to get something of my own in a few years, though
small business don't stand much chance in these days against the big
combines. You'd be amazed at the huge joint warehouses they're putting
up now. Thrigsby's changing, and things are queer all round. People
shift a bit now, what with the Colonies and all that. They don't stay
in offices like they used to do, only it doesn't seem to make things
any better for those who stay. Elsie sends her love; she always was a
bit soft on you and didn't mind a bit when you cleared. I only meant
to tell you about the mother, thinking you ought to know. If ever I
get to London I'll look you up.--Thine, G.--Oh! Kurt Brock has gone in
for the aviation and is making quite a name for himself up here."
The letter took René back pleasantly in memory, when he was suddenly
startled to find himself meeting George on his own ground, with
complacent acceptance of "having a good time," as the one desirable
object which could redeem the ever-present evil. And then he was
compelled, from that footing, to see his own revolt as an
unaccountable aberration, an eccentricity, an escapade unfortunately
disastrous in its consequences. He did not like that, nor did he
relish being coupled in George's mind with his father, who was first
indolent, then a vagabond, then irresponsible. His confidence was
shaken, and he was made conscious of discrepancy and narrowly aware of
having missed something of that which he set out to seek. Experience
had taught him that it was no use taking any unhappiness to Ann. She
would merely assume that he was unwell and probably dose him with
physic from the herbalist's round the corner. Again, he saw that
George, like Ann, had a gusto in his way of living which he himself
lacked, and now only enjoyed vicariously. That could no longer fret
his nerves as in the old days it had done; he was fortified by the
memory of his act of revolt and the months of entire independence he
had enjoyed since his coming to London. He looked up at Ann from his
letter.
"Bad news?" she said.
"I don't know whether it's good or bad. My father has cleared out
again."
"It's made you sorry. You always look like that when you think of your
home. Sometimes I fancy you really wish you had never come away."
"That's not true. I'm perfectly content. I'm learning not to blame
anybody. That isn't easy."
"If you're not sorry, I don't see why you want to think about it."
"You can't forget people so completely as all that."
"Your dad seems to be able to."
"I'm not my father."
"No. But sometimes I wish you'd take a leaf out of his book. From what
you tell me he does seem able to enjoy himself."
"Don't I?"
"Oh, you're better than you used to be, but you do frighten me
sometimes."
"When?"
"Oh, when you look at me and don't see me, and when I go on talking
and you don't hear a word I'm saying. Sometimes I think it's only
because you had that queer time when you first came to London, and
then I think you can't be any different. The world does seem upside
down, and it seems to me it might be better if we went right away and
made a new start somewheres."
It comforted René to find that she, too, had her qualms, and that
there was some stir behind her constant and equable good humor. He
said:
"Oh, no. I think we shall be all right. Only we mustn't make the
mistake of thinking that love makes life easier."
"Not much fear of that," she replied, with an odd little wry smile.
"Mr. Martin said to me, he said, 'This here education makes a man
queer to live with. If it isn't idees,' he said, 'it's niceness; and
if it isn't niceness it's bloody obstinacy,' he said. . . . And I do
try, Renny, I do reelly, though of course if I hadn't the work during
the day I should feel it more."
"What would you feel?"
"Well, I don't know. Oh, you know, when you look at things a long
time, and when you like to sit and smoke and look inside yourself."
"I didn't know I did that. I don't see much if I do."
"Well, you do. And I asked Mr. Martin about it and he said it was
education, and he said his brother-in-law was like that before he went
off his head with religion. And often when I look at you and you are
like that I want to put my arms round you and hold you until you stop
doing it, and begin to think of me a little."
"But I do think of you all the time."
Then she put her arms round him and held him close until he forgot all
but her in the dark pleasure that is called love.
And again he drifted and supposed himself content, until one day when
a young man hailed him and told him to drive to Islington where there
was an exhibition of modern engineering. Halfway there, the young man
stopped the car, leaped out excitedly, gripped René by the arm, and
cried:
"Good Lord, if it isn't old René!"
It was Kurt Brock.
"I say!" he said. "What a find!"
"The taxi's mounting up," said René.
"I say, you take me out to Hendon and we'll have a yarn. They told me
you were still at it, and I was meaning to come and see you, but I'm
up to my eyes in work. Let me drive."
He took the wheel and sent the car whizzing through the traffic at a
speed that made René cry out in protest that he'd have him run in and
his license forfeited. Kurt slowed down a little.
"Cars crawl so," he said, "once you've tried a flier."
"I've seen your name in the papers."
"Yes. I won my first race, Glasgow to Edinburgh round the coast of
Scotland. Bit stiff, some of it, with mist and rain. I say, I _am_
glad to see you. You're looking fit. Better life than mugging away
with books, what? Though I don't know that I'd care about being out in
the streets in all weathers, what?"
"Oh, you get used to that. I hate it when the engine goes wrong and I
have to stay at home."
They reached Hendon and Kurt took his old friend to see his new
monoplane.
"Like to go up in her? She's a snorter. Takes the air like a bird; you
can feel her planes stretching to the air, and the engine's like a
cat."
Before he could think twice about it, René found himself sitting up
behind Kurt with the machine rushing over the ground and the engine
roaring. He could not tell at what point they left the earth, but
trees, sheds, houses seemed to fall away as though the earth were
tilted up, and then the air rushed in his ears, caught at his throat,
pressed hard against his body. He looked down. They were ascending in
circles. Roads looked like ribbons, trees like haycocks, trams like
toys, men and women were little dots mysteriously and absurdly moving.
They hovered for a moment as they turned out of the final circle and
made straight for a low gray cloud. Soon they passed through it, and
up again. Presently they turned, dipped, and Kurt shut off the engine
and they came gliding down; the earth tilted up alarmingly to meet
them; houses, trees, sheds slid back into their places. René was
startled to find the earth almost immediately flattened out again
without the threatened impact, and back they darted to the hangar.
"Glorious?" asked Kurt.
"I--I don't know yet," replied René.
"How like you!"
"How do you mean--like me?"
"I mean, to admit that you don't know. Half the people I take up
pretend they like it, though they hate it really. A few, like you,
don't know, but they don't say so. I wish I'd been the first man to do
it."
René had to walk to get warm again, and he left Kurt in his hangar for
a moment to instruct one of his mechanics. He came quickly, caught
René by the arm, and laughed, telling him how comic it was to see him
in his chauffeur's clothes, disguised, the truant brother-in-law
hiding behind a uniform. René said:
"I've got used to it now."
"Do you ever open a book?"
"Sometimes. I had a few sent to me."
"Economic books?" asked Kurt.
"No. But I go on thinking about all that. Habit, I suppose, or perhaps
trying to discover what it really is all about, and I don't know. They
used to call it a science, but it can't be scientific----"
"That's what I say. You do know where you are with an engine. You can
eat up distance. But I thought clever people would never understand
that. You used not to. Perhaps you're not clever any more. That's what
I said to Linda. Oh, I'm sorry."
"You needn't be." René gulped that out, for indeed he was embarrassed.
The days of his torment were brought back suddenly, came savagely
breaking through his simple pleasure in the rediscovery of this
enlarged Kurt, grown from boy to man without loss of youth and
frankness. He extricated himself from his confusion by asking:
"How is she?" And at once he was shocked to find out how little he
really cared to know.
"Linda? Well, she's a much better sort than she used to be. I don't
know much about women, though I like them well enough. Linda? Oh, she
seems happy. She has a house and a piano and a lot of people, goes
abroad, little parties of four or five, mixed; musicians and
professors, cream of Thrigsby, you know. She wrote a play for the
Thrigsby Repertory Theater, all about you and marriage and sex. Rather
disgusting, I thought it, but all Thrigsby flocked to see it. All the
same, yes, she is nicer. Not so inquisitive; doesn't romance so
wildly. The only objection I have to her now is that she will get me
into a corner when I'm at home and talk about you. I think she ought
to ignore your existence, as it is no longer her affair. She seems
unable to do that, and she fancies I know something about you that she
doesn't, though I've told her over and over again that I don't pretend
to understand you or anybody else. I did tell her that you made me
feel that what I wanted to do wasn't necessarily a thing to be ashamed
of."
"I did that?"
"Well, it was only after you came that I was able to tell the mater
that I didn't want to do as she wished and couldn't. . . . Where are
you living?"
René described Ann's two rooms.
"Do you like it? I mean, aren't they rather grubby and piggy?"
René thought it over with a clear picture in his mind of Ann's room
and Jimmy's and Kilner's, and the women standing at the doors and
leaning out of the windows, and the children playing in the muck. For
him it was all colored emotionally. Moments of distaste he could
remember, but nothing like the offended fastidiousness expressed in
Kurt's tone.
"Well, yes. Untidy and careless. One day's work slops over into the
next day. But, you know, my home was not so very unlike that. I used
to hate it at home when I got back at night to find my bed unmade.
That used to happen."
"Can I come and see you? I'm here for a fortnight. My business is up
north. Got a factory now. You must come and see it if ever you
are----"
"I don't think I'm likely to go north again. I feel that's finished. I
don't know why. It isn't that I have any hatred for it, or any
bitterness about what happened. Only I feel on firmer ground here, as
though I had taken root."
"I'll come along then. Any night?"
"Almost any night."
"I'll take my chance."
They shook hands, Kurt with a grip that squeezed René's knuckles
together until the pain was horrible.
"'Member our smash?" asked Kurt.
René grinned at the recollection. He was very pleased and comfortable.
To have established a connection with the past through Kurt was to
have it made without shock of shame or injury to vanity. Through
Kurt's frank mind it was cleaned and shaped for him, presented to him
so that he must make the necessary effort to strike out of himself the
light which should reveal it, the light of humor. It was a very faint
gleam that came out of him, but it was enough to serve and to imprint
the picture on his mind, give him possession of it, and deliver him
from the anguish which attended all his dark contemplations.
"Oh, yes," he said, "and I remember how I lectured you. And now the
positions are reversed."
"I don't see that."
An elegant young man in a gray suit came up, with a beautiful woman of
a loveliness and charm that took René's breath away.
"How do, Kurt?" said the young man, stepping in front of him. "Lady
Clewer wishes to be----"
Kurt shook hands with the beautiful lady and with her and her
companion walked away toward the knot of brilliant persons gathered
round a biplane that had just come to earth.
Flushed and tingling at the hurt, René rushed away, savagely wound up
his engine, and glided back into the city, to the narrow place where
he had till now lived in comfort and the pleasures of simplicity.
Small and confined he saw it now, mean and untidy. But it had been and
was still his refuge. He had been happy, and the world had ignored his
happiness and snatched it away from him. He was actively angry and
jealous.
He frightened Ann by the hungry affection with which he greeted her
when she came home, after working overtime to keep pace with a rush of
work at her factory. She liked it too. It was exciting. Yet she could
not conceal her fear. She was more than his match in exuberance, but
here was a demand upon her that she could not recognize and very soon
she was in tears; not her happy tears that had so often reconciled him
and made him gleeful and proud. He was humbled and acutely conscious
of separation from her, though they clung together. For a few moments
the whole weight of their relationship was thrown upon their loyalty,
and it did not yield. She slept at last, her hand in his, but he lay
awake staring back into the past, fascinated as the light growing in
him showed it up in continually sharpening relief--his parting from
his father; him he could see very clearly; but his mother was in
shadow, sitting, head down, hands busy, never stirring, in acceptance.
And Linda? He could see her at that absurd tea-party when his father
had shown her his picture. She walked into his life then. They sat by
the tulips and she was gone. He could remember his own desire and
after, only its horrible, inexplicable disappearance.