He trieth the sea after many shipwrecks; and beats still on that
door which he never saw opened.
WHEN Ann and Kilner left René, he was filled with anger against them,
first of all, fleetingly, with the petulance of a sick man at being
left alone without his having expressed a wish for it, and then at
their treating him as a sick man when he was nothing of the kind, but
only passing through a crisis in which not even sympathy could help
him much. Kilner was so cocksure just because he had a peculiar
delight in putting paint on canvas; and Ann--poor dear little
Ann!--she loved to have things and people at her mercy and to keep
them there. And she could make no attempt to understand them, because
if she did so, that would be to believe in them and let them be free
to work out their own destiny. He knew how little freedom she would
even grant himself, and his mind, spurred by revolt into high
activity, went straight to its mark, the place where freedom most
clearly promised--absurdly, the door through which he had seen Rachel
Bentley pass. That led to his clearest and most beautiful memory, the
days in Scotland, the happy boyhood when delight had grown from year
to year, to flower at last in the coming of Cathleen. Very vivid was
his recollection of their first meeting in his aunt's house: himself
very coltish and shy, she charmingly self-conscious and alert. It was
the first year the Bentleys had taken the big house, and she had come
round by the road. His aunt had asked him to show Cathleen the short
cut through the woods. She chattered until his shyness overcame him,
and then they walked in a miserable silence. He comforted himself by
regarding her as a little girl, which to his young prudishness made
his involuntary adoration of her beauty legitimate. He could never
take his eyes off her, and she began to amuse herself with him and try
her coquetries upon his oversensitiveness. He suffered terribly. She
was caught in her own wiles, and she too suffered. It was a relief to
both when, the first year, they parted.
The next year she was not so lovely, and had lost or disguised her
wildness. It was not long before he discovered that he could rouse it
in her. Then began their meetings in the woods.
At the thought of her now his affection for Ann, his warm regard for
Kilner faded away. They were meaningless without her. He knew not
where she was. His only clue was Rachel. Cathleen, too, might go to
that house. He would wait until she came. If the worst came to the
worst, he would ask Rachel. He must satisfy himself that he was not
covering that sweet past with illusions. The meeting with Rachel had
brought it all flooding back to bring him to acute discontent with the
present. It was one thing to sigh sentimentally over happy days. To do
that was to obscure them. It was quite another thing to have happy
days demanding egress through his life, growing through the thick-set
years like a tree through a wall.
He stole away directly Kilner and Ann were out of sight, found he had
only a sovereign, and turned into the tobacconist's round the corner
for change. It was also a news-agent's, and he bought a newspaper and,
as he was borne along by the bus, read of his aunt's death. Strange,
he thought, that all his thoughts should be clustered round her house
just then. The wise old woman, with her dear foibles: what had her
long life been? The end of it was sweet and true and full of grace.
Not only his mother had been helped in her troubles. That he knew. The
old lady's meager income became supple and elastic under the touch of
generous charity that never spoiled its gifts with the demand for
gratitude. She once said to René: "Better be ungrateful than cramped
with gratitude." Read Dante upside down she might in her old age, but
she could quote him from her heart:
Ed io a lui: Io mi son un che, quando
Amor mi spira, noto, ed a quel modo
che ditta dentro, vo significando.
She had made René learn a little Italian and get that by heart. It
began now to have a meaning for him, and he repeated it to himself as
he came near the road in which stood Rachel's house.
He took up his stand at the corner and waited. He had been there
nearly an hour when a car drove up and a spruce, middle-aged gentleman
got out, walked up the path, and admitted himself with a key. Rachel's
husband? Far too old for her.
Another hour's waiting. A young woman came along the road. René
thought for a moment it was she, and his heart leaped. She did not see
him. She turned in at the gate, knocked at the door, and was admitted.
No, he decided, that was not Cathleen.
Then he told himself he was a fool, that only by the unlikeliest
chance would she be there to-day. He walked away, but was back again
in ten minutes. In another twenty the door opened and the young woman
came out. She stood for a moment at the gate. It could not be
Cathleen, she was too tall and slender. In his eager hope and
curiosity he moved toward her. He was not a yard away from her when
she turned and their eyes met. Neither stirred. They were stilled by
the wonder of it. A spell was on them, and slowly in both grew the
dreadful knowledge that a word or a gesture would break it. In his
heart René prayed: "Oh! let it break into happiness," and his will
leaped into being and decided that it must be so and he laughed. She
said:
"Oh! René!"
It was no echo of the old cry, but the same filled with a new music.
Their hands met in the conventional salute. She said:
"I have been thinking of you so much."
"Much?" said he. "I have been thinking of nothing else. And I was not
sure that it was you when you went in just now."
"I saw you, but I didn't recognize you. Rachel told me she had met
you."
"Did she tell you where?"
"I had to dig it out of her. She was very hushed and secret. Rachel is
funny. I've been looking at taxi-drivers ever since. They are a very
plain lot of men."
"Where do you live now?"
"In Bloomsbury. I am working for my living, you know."
"I'm glad of that, but I shouldn't have thought it necessary."
"My father died."
"I heard that."
"He left nearly all his money to another woman: another family. I
suppose he liked them better than us. I had a row with my mother over
it. It appears she knew all about it and never minded. Only when it
came to her having less money than she thought, she developed a horrid
conscience and denounced my father to us. I hadn't thought about such
things, but I was fond of my father, and it wasn't fair to vilify him
after his death. I didn't understand it in the very least, but I stood
up for him, and of course I said a lot of stupid, cruel things. I went
to see the other woman. She was quite old, older than mother, rather
vulgar, but jolly and warm-hearted and kind, and, from the way she
talked, I could see she really did love my father and was very proud
of him. You know, he made his own way. His father was a barber in
Rickham, in Hertfordshire. She came from there, too. I told mother I
had seen her, and she was furious, and said I was too young to know
anything about such things. I pointed out that she had told me, and
she declared she never imagined that I would understand. Then she put
it all down to my taste for low company, meaning you. That annoyed me,
and I told her you were a very learned and brilliant person. She said
Thrigsby wasn't a real university, and its degrees did not count. You
weren't a gentleman, and it was terrible how all the professions were
being invaded by little whipper-snappers with a thin coating of book
knowledge. So I asked her point-blank why she married my father, and
she said he was extremely successful. Father had left us each two
hundred pounds. I asked for that, and said I would earn my own living.
I should have a year in which to look round. She said no one would
ever marry me if I worked. I told her that the little I had learned of
her life didn't make me anxious to be married. She became very solemn
on that, and told me I couldn't possibly remain unmarried, because I
was too pretty. I said I thought women could look after themselves,
and obviously other arrangements were possible, and sometimes more
profitable. That was an odious thing to say, but we had irritated each
other out of all decency, and for vulgarity the other woman was an
angel to us. I couldn't stay with my mother; I had said too much. She
knew if I stayed it would make it hard for her to play the devoted
widow; and also, if she could be the broken-hearted parent, it would
give her a good start. She pounced on that, and let me go with her
most lugubrious blessing and most ghoulish doubts. She prophesied
almost gleefully that I would go to the bad, and helped me along by
treating me as if I had already done so. Then I plunged into the
wicked world. It was very disappointing. I had been led to suppose
that no woman was safe alone. The wicked world has absolutely
disregarded me. Occasionally some miserable little man or pale-faced
boy has sidled up to me in the street and said, 'Excuse me, miss'--or
'Haven't we met before?' They don't alarm me. I say I won't excuse
them or that I haven't met them, and they look very comically cast
down, and say 'Beg pardon' and shuffle off. Sometimes I am so sorry
for them that I feel inclined to run after them and tell them to cheer
up, because it's quite easy to find affection if you only set about it
the right way. They think it's adventure they want, but it isn't. It's
only affection, some sort of human contact. I understood that, because
I too was lonely. But those poor little men were so dull. I can't bear
being dull, and I hate to see it in others; I hate to see them
settling down to it. That's what mother wanted me to do. I might have
done it, too, if father hadn't died. You know it seems quite pleasant
to flirt and spend money, and find a husband and go on flirting and
spending money. I'd never seen anyone die before, and it did make me
feel ashamed. All of us were changed by it for a little. We became
very shy of each other, and wanted to be nice, and began to talk about
the things we really thought and felt inside ourselves. Then all that
slipped away, and we were just the same as before until we talked
about father's money, and then we were all angry. I suppose I hadn't
quite recovered from the strain of his death, because all that hurt
me, and I could only think that I had really loved him, and might have
loved him much more if things had been somehow different. And then
when I saw that kind, common woman it opened up another kind of life
going on apart from money and position and amusement, all the things
we were so proud of. It horrified me at first, of course. It is
dreadful because it is secret. In itself-- Well, anyhow, the only
other thing in my life that was the least bit like it and could stand
against it was my absurd little affair with you in Scotland. So you
see, I had begun to think of you even before Rachel met you."
"Absurd!" René winced at the word.
"Wasn't it? I couldn't have gone on with it, you know. It made me feel
so helpless, and I felt so mean, letting you care so much. Your
letters used to frighten me."
"But you cared for me?"
"Yes, yes; with one eye on you and the other on my mother."
René thought that over uneasily. He was disconcerted by this cool
young woman. The enchantment of their meeting had roused and
invigorated him, and, as usual, he had surrendered to the emotional
flux of the encounter and was prepared for wonders, which, as usual,
did not come, or, at least, were not palpable. His eyes never left her
face. It was lit with a smile of happiness, an incommunicable joy.
Unconscious of their surroundings they had reached Kensington Gardens,
and stood by the railings outside the Palace looking over the Round
Pond. A gray October day: the trees gaunt and shabby; the heavy clouds
tumbled and ragged. A cold northwest wind was blowing. René's ungloved
hands were blue.
He gripped Cathleen's arm, and she turned her happy eyes on him.
"That's good," she said. "You were so strong then."
"Cathleen, I mustn't lose sight of you again. You make me forget
everything that has been, though that isn't quite what I wanted to
say."
"I shan't lose sight of you, my dear. It doesn't matter what happens
to either of us."
René said:
"A good deal has happened to me."
"Tell me."
He told her. She received his story in silence. At last she said:
"If you have a friend, it doesn't matter what he does. All the same,
it's a nuisance."
"What is?"
"The nuisance is that I'm a woman and you're a man. Can friendship get
over that?"
"Love," said René, "can master everything. I love you. Shall we start
with that? That's clear, anyhow."
"Clear? Oh, yes; but it means being very certain about it and
definite. Some of the charm of love goes. It is gone already from me."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't. I'm trying not to pity you. Oh, René, my foolish dear, I only
want to love you and help you."
"It is you who are strong," he said.
She moved closer to him, so that she could just touch him.
"We shall need all the strength we can get if we are not to be
broken--strength and patience."
"I have a friend," said he, "who thinks that all the confusion comes
from sloth and fear."
"I should like to meet that friend."