STILL ANOTHER CALLER
One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough
to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once
more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again
the little feminine knock.
Daintiness and Myrtilla!
"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you
ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this
mountain-fastness of Bohemia?"
"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little
laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a
climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must
write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,'
with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she
said, looking round the room.
"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you
can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?"
"Aren't you, Myrtilla?"
"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know."
"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over
to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know,
since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have
some tea, won't you?"
"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good
tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther
bought them for you?"
Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther.
"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of
you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that
she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away."
"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me
about it."
The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson.
"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was
telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of
harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself
seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so
we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well,
that's all!"
"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry,
savagely.
"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she
said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with
suppressed tears.
"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!"
"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear
boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if
you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and
again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books
are worth sending for? Will you do that?"
"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow."
"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it."
"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know
yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a
letter from you."
"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to
hear."
"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no
one else takes."
"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily.
"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it;
but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much
as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She
cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own
sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--"
"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla,
making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so
stimulating to Henry.
"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what
I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for
me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it
is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it."
"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't.
Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of
anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you
know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?"
Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and
kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly
on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his
bookshelves with suspicious energy.
At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine.
Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a
shade embarrassed, as he said:
"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I
think this is she coming along the passage."
As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms
round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of
greeting, she realised that he was not alone.
"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend,
Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak."
"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of
course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice.
"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not
indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long
that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther."
Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or
fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any
advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or
perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of
Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still
was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative
child looks at the moon, with suspicion.
So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation
sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival.
Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go.
"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said.
"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief
involuntarily in her voice.
"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married.
I'm sure I sincerely hope so."
"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly.
"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled
good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's
head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see
you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of
you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say,
good-bye."
When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You
might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled.
Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square
inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been
water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with
her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead.
"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long."
"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the
evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you."
"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't."
"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything
happened?"
Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly
miserable as she could make it.
"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come,
dear--what's the matter?"
"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected
flash of speech.
"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?"
"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her.
Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to
doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when
I have known nothing about it."
"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms,"
said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour,
if you need it."
"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye."
"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can
you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in
the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be
sorry to-morrow."
"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another
woman!"
"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be
ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you."
"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you?
I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked
you once, but you put me off."
Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just
after Myrtilla's letter about his poems.
"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I
feared an unreasonable scene like this--"
"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in
any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for
you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please
let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly
flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--"
"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed
down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent
that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might
happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly
called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and
the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he
could be proud too--and the fault had been hers.
Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And
then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half
beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more
the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and
dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's.
There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because
unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms.
For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each
other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other
was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax.
"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last.
"Nor I," said Henry.
"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word
never to doubt you again."
"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more."
"I couldn't live through it again, darling."
"But it can never happen any more, can it?"
"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll
tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived."
"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you."
"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--"
"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?"
"Henry!"
"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom,
and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you
must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out
and long after--"
"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?"
"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said
Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears.