In June she went to Surrey for a month. She generally managed to make
studies in the country during a few weeks in the year, and more often
than not took Hilda with her, the Professor agreeing to their departure
with as generous an air as if he were paying the expenses. Hilda went
with her again this time. They had the luck to light on Godstone, where
they found surprisingly attractive quarters, and--what was stranger
still--a sufficiency of simple food, the typical village consisting
chiefly of drawbacks and public-houses.
Godstone was quite exceptional. Although it was the very quintessence
of the country--all cows, and clover, and quietude--the milk there was
not watered with an audacity that would have startled a dairyman of
the London slums. Fresh butter could actually be obtained without much
difficulty, at a price only a little higher than it was sold at in
the cities. Crowning marvel in the country, they were not bowed under
a burden of obligation in securing green vegetables, though that was
certainly because the Kemps grew such luxuries in the garden. Village
tradesmen never "supply" what the customer orders--they occasionally
"oblige him" with it. To foster a fine spirit of indifferentism there is
nothing like the knowledge that your competitors are as bad as yourself.
Laundresses and village tradesmen are the only truly independent classes
in England.
Of course there were drawbacks even here. There were, for instance, a
butcher's and a grocer's opposite Daisymead, and this meant flies and
wasps investigating Daisymead in large numbers. The butcher threw the
onus of the wasps on the grocer's sugar, and the grocer said, that wasps
were harmless things if you hadn't no fear of 'em, and was bitter about
the butcher's flies. Panics were frequent in the lodgers' parlour, and
as the window faced the shops, it became a question whether it was
better to be stifled or stung.
In the morning, while the artist worked, Hilda loitered under the
apple-trees, and languished in basket-chairs and light frocks where the
shade lay deepest in the landlord's field. One could see the railway
from the field, and many a young fellow in the trains saw Hilda, and
regretted that Godstone wasn't his destination. In the afternoon there
was the tangle of the woods to wander through--so close that it was a
constant temptation to get lost there. And there was the way that began
with wild strawberry blossom, and rose to wooded heights, below which
the county spread like a green tablecloth decked with a box of toys;
and then, after avenues of giant firs where darkness fell, no matter
how fierce the sun, there were the surprises of lichened glades where
one tiptoed among the ferns in hope of fairies. With her easel, and her
canvases, and her camera, Bee found the days all too short. She found
the days too short, but there was a charm in the evenings too. The final
saunter along the still white road before supper, just as far as the
gate where the rabbits scampered, or the bridge by the water-mill where
strange birds sometimes flashed among the boughs; the hush of the little
lamplit room with a book afterwards; if one liked, a glimpse of the
stars from the garden-path, a breath of the flowers--and then to bed.
She had written to David a few days after her arrival, and his first
letter to Surrey came when she had been installed in Daisymead about a
fortnight. She opened it by the little stack of hay which was all that
the field had granted this year.
He wrote that her description of her surroundings made London still more
loathsome to him, that he wished vainly he could escape from it. A
somewhat laboured reference to his journalistic work followed--a plaint
that though they had become such good friends, it seemed unlikely they
would meet. A pucker crept between her brows as she read; she wondered
why he said that, wondered why he found it necessary all at once to harp
upon the difficulties of taking a short journey to see her. It was as if
he were warning her not to expect him. Had he interpreted her enthusiasm
for the place as a hint to him to come? She tried, discomfited, to
remember what her words had been. After a minute she went on reading,
and then she saw that all this had been the prelude to a request--a none
too skilful prelude; but that she did not see. "So I have been summoning
my courage to ask you----" She scanned the next lines rapidly, and the
letter quivered in her hand. He asked her for her photograph.
She leant against the fence, dismayed. Her first thought--to explain
that she hadn't a likeness of herself to send--forsook her under the
fear of his thinking her ungracious if she did not promise to be
photographed when she went home. Confused, she sought an excuse that
would sound natural. Never had she exaggerated her disfigurement more
morbidly, never had her face appeared uglier to her, her shoulders
higher, her back more bent. To send him her photograph? She felt that it
demanded the courage of a heroine.
His petition darkened the day to her; it threatened her in the night;
she woke to be harassed by it again. To send him her photograph--to
show him what she was? Again and again she asked herself if her hold
on him was strong enough to withstand the revelation. Momentarily she
wished she were a man; it was woman's mission to be beautiful. And he,
he shrank from ugliness, she could read it in his work. To him "woman"
meant "beauty"--
"Beauty of worshipped form and face ...
Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes,
sweet mouth,
Each singly wooed and won."
The lines of Rossetti's that had flouted her insignificance since she
was a girl, jeered at her now. She found no comfort in the next:--
"Yet most with the sweet soul
Shall love's espousals then be knit."
Yes, "then"--after the rest was wooed! "Woman" meant features to inspire
men, and a form to make them mad. In a transport of imagination she
imagined almost with a man's desires, and hung before her glass, abased.
But, after all, how could confession rob her of her happiness? She had
woven the tie between them of her thoughts, her spirit; it was her mind
that pleased him--how could the knowledge that she was misshapen destroy
his interest in her mind? She insisted that it could not--and deep in
her heart was hurt to feel that his interest in her was this purely
intellectual thing. He cared too little for her hand-clasp even to
travel to see her. Then she was a fool to hesitate--she would write him
the truth! Next, resentment scorched her that, caring so little, he had
put this humiliation upon her. A whim, a spasm of curiosity, and he had
made her suffer so. Her misery cried that he was not worth it, but tears
sprang to her eyes at the same moment. She would write to him before her
courage failed her. She would write as soon as Hilda was settled in the
field for the morning; her folly should end to-day!
She was eager to write at once, fearful that if she waited long,
her mood would change. When she saw the landlady's daughter in the
passage, she asked her to come to the parlour before she went out and
take a letter to the post. The girl said she wouldn't forget, and the
arrangement, trivial though it was, gave to the woman a sense of
something accomplished. She was dimly aware, too, that it would shorten
her ordeal.
On the breakfast-table there was another letter for her, redirected by
the Professor. Hilda called her attention to it.
"For you," she piped in her thin voice. "What hours you've been
dressing! I began to think you were never coming down. Do pour the tea
out, or it will be cold; it has been standing there ten minutes."
"You shouldn't have waited for me." She poured the tea, and picked up
the letter absently. It was an invitation to exhibit "The Sun's Last
Rays" in Liverpool, and at any other time the request would have excited
her; now she was too preoccupied to find it interesting.
"Oh," she murmured.
"'Oh,' what?"
"They want 'The Sun's Last Rays' at the Walker Art Gallery when the
Academy closes, that's all."
"Where's that? Pass me the salt, will you?"
"Liverpool."
"Shall you let them have it?"
"Oh yes," she said, "I suppose so. Why not?"
"The carriage will cost a lot, won't it?"
"No, it won't cost anything. They'll send for the picture, and return
it to me free of charge, if it isn't sold." Her lips tightened, and she
looked away through the window. Engrossed as she was, she noticed that
her sister did not say "How jolly for you!" but "Won't the carriage cost
a lot?" In the course of the summer Hilda would refer to the invitation
casually as "That nice letter you had from Liverpool," quite unconscious
that she had shown no perception of its being "nice" when it came.
"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" she asked now, having exhausted the
subject of the picture.
"I don't want it," said Bee. "You can have this egg too, if you like."
When the table was cleared, and she was left alone, she sat down to
her task. What should she say? Now that the pen was in her hand her
eagerness deserted her, and the thought of dispelling his delusion
made her tremble again. Her arguments of a while ago recurred to her
vainly--she was as sure that he imagined her what she would like to
be as she was sure that ugliness repelled him. She set her teeth, and
dipped the pen in the ink.
She could find no words. Presently she addressed the envelope, but the
notepaper was still blank. In the kitchen the mother and the girl were
talking; she could hear them quite distinctly: "And don't forget to call
in about the bread as you come back!" She glanced at the clock, and
wrote desperately.
"I cannot do as you wish," she scrawled, "because I have never been
photographed in my life. I have never been photographed because I am
deformed, and----"
No! not like that, she couldn't say it like that. She sat motionless
again, hearing the loud ticking of the clock, and hating herself. The
clock struck insistently. She pushed the sheet of paper aside, and
searched through the blotting-book for another. There was no other in
it, so she went to the chiffonnier and opened the drawer. In the drawer
there were several things besides the stationery: a sketch-book, some
unmounted photographs that she had taken last week in Penshurst, some
unmounted photographs that she had taken last week of Hilda. She picked
one of them up mechanically, and stood looking at it; stood looking at
the photograph of Hilda--a study in sunlight and shadow, dreaming in a
garden chair under the boughs.
There was a knock at the door, and Miss Kemp came in.
"I'm just going, Miss," she said. "Have you got your letter ready?"
"What?" said Bee huskily, without turning.
"I'm just going. Is your letter ready?"
"Yes," muttered the woman. She ran back to the table, and thrust the
photograph in the envelope, and put it in the girl's hand.