BLIND STEPS
From that evening Ishmael entered upon a new phase of his London visit.
He told himself, when seriously considering the situation now and then,
that he was certainly not in love. He was deeply interested in Blanche
Grey, but if this were being in love, then was that emotion very
different from anything the books always led one to expect. For
instance, had the question been posed him by some wizard potent to
arrange the lives of humans, whether he would sooner let Cloom or Miss
Grey slip away from him, he would not have hesitated. His values were
not in the least upset. He felt certain things in spite of them, that
was all. There was an uncomfortable emptiness about a day on which he
did not see her, and when at night he waited for her outside the shabby
stage door of the Strand Theatre his heart would go thump-thump in a
manner over which he had no control, but which seemed so very remotely
connected with himself as he understood the term that he made no account
of it. Killigrew said very little to him on the subject once he had
found that he really did not like being chaffed about the fair Blanche,
but it at once lowered Killigrew in Ishmael's estimation, and yet made
him less certain about his own feelings, that he knew Killigrew did not
share his enthusiasm.
Blanche had one of those definite personalities there is no overlooking,
that people, especially men, either adore or actively dislike. Killigrew
had never said he did not like her, but Ishmael felt the fact none the
less certainly. And, as a matter of fact, Killigrew himself was puzzled
by Miss Grey. He was certain enough that she was technically
"good"--what Carminow called "all right"--and he admitted her charm, but
to him the over-emphasis she laid on everything, as on that action of
hers in coming down for the lamp, made the charm of no avail. He went to
the house in Cecil Street a few times with Ishmael and then washed his
hands of the affair.
When Ishmael was not allowed in the presence, then Killigrew still took
him round the town and was not unamused to notice that his tastes had
begun to alter. He was more interested in the personal note, less in
things. Horticultural shows no longer lured him, polytechnics flaunted
in vain.
He went once to the House of Commons and heard a debate on Russell's
abortive Reform Bill, which was to sound the knell of that Minister's
career. Ishmael heard Gladstone in the Bill's defence defying an attack
by Lowe, whilst Mr. Disraeli leant back with a slight smile on his face,
which was a blot of pallor beneath his dark, oiled ringlets. Ishmael was
stirred, yet in him something felt amazement and disappointment. These
were only men after all, not demigods, and some of them were peevish,
some rude, some bored and inattentive. The whole thing seemed somehow
childish; it was difficult to believe, except later when Bright's golden
tongue was speaking, that in this place the nation was governed....
Afterwards he was with the crowd, borne helplessly along, that wrecked
the Hyde Park railings in their anger that the hastily constructed
Ministry of Derby should still let Reform hang in air. Yet all these
affairs of the nation only affected Ishmael from the outside, for he was
beginning to be at his most personal.
Turns of singing and dancing interested him less than plays where there
was a definite and necessarily keenly personal story. The characters
were all occupied with their feelings for each other, never with
theories or conditions. There was one exception to this rule, though
Ishmael kept that to himself--he went often to see a little dancer whose
turn only lasted ten minutes, while the particular moment of it for
which he went was over in a flash, the moment when, whirling round and
round very quickly, her short filmy skirts stood out and were nothing
but a misty circlet about her, so that she gave the illusion of having
nothing to break the slim straight lines of her. She seemed nude with an
elfin nudity that charmed him while it did not inflame, or if it did,
only with the subtle inflammation of the mind, which can withstand such
onslaughts for many years before a sudden reaction of the body shows the
connection between the two. Ishmael, who took no interest in damsels in
tights or in the exuberant proportions of the "frail" ladies that amused
Killigrew, found himself waiting for that moment every evening, and his
satisfaction when he caught it was rather that of a person who is
pleased at verifying something he has had the acumen to discover than
any more poignant emotion. He went far oftener to see this than he did
to watch Blanche in her small part as one of the innocuous and well-bred
company performing at the little old Strand Theatre, which was then
still a phalanx of the respectable Swanborough family.
Blanche kept her work as a thing apart from her life--that is to say,
she did not join the rest of the company at supper at the pothouse
opposite, nor acknowledge the attentions of the mashers from the front
row who waited at the shabby little stage door of a night. She was very
charming to the other members of the company, especially the women, and
the fact that she had enemies there was easily explained on the ground
of her aloofness. She told Ishmael very little with all her frankness of
address, but one night as he was seeing her home she asked him to come
and have tea with her next day, which happened to be a Sunday, and
Ishmael accepted eagerly; it was the first time she had actually asked
him to the house.
When he arrived, clasping a bouquet he had bought overnight and nursed
in his bedroom water-jug, he found that she had begged the loan of the
ground-floor sitting-room, which was unlet, from her landlady, and was
awaiting him there, wearing her grey dress and a rose pinned by the
little white muslin collar that spanned the base of her throat. She was
not looking her best, but somehow that made her all the more appealing
to Ishmael; the sudden heat had made dark shadows under her eyes, and
her movements were more languid even than usual.
It was an ugly room, like all its kind; but Blanche had the triumphant
quality of rising superior to her background, which is one of the most
valuable a woman can possess. Against the hot, hideous red of the
wall-paper and the mass of tawdry ornaments she seemed to gain in
simplicity, and that peculiar clearness of hers was intensified. She was
grave, and only gave Ishmael the ghost of a little wan smile on his
entry over his tendered bouquet. She dispensed tea with her firm, rather
square hands, hands with short, blunt-tipped fingers that yet were not
without the beauty of fitting in with her puma-like solidity of frame;
while the way in which she used them was grace itself. They were the
typical hands of a courtesan, but neither she nor Ishmael knew that,
though Carminow had marvelled to himself at the fact.
Ishmael was silent, falling in with her mood, and suddenly she fixed her
limpid eyes upon him and asked with disconcerting directness:
"What are you thinking of!"
"I was thinking about you," he was startled into saying; "I was
wondering if it's true you're insincere...."
"Who says so ...? Mr. Killigrew? He doesn't like me; I knew it from the
first. I'm sorry; I think he's rather fine, though I'm not sure I think
he's good for you. He guesses that, and that's why he doesn't like me."
"Oh, I'm sure he couldn't be such an ass as to think that," protested
Ishmael. "Besides, surely I am capable of looking after myself!"
"You're capable of a good deal, I believe. You could look after yourself
and other people too. You're strong, you know. I suppose you don't know,
or you wouldn't be you. But I'm sorry you think like that about me."
"I don't. I mean--I do sometimes wonder. You're so charming to everyone
and--"
"But I'm not insincere because of that, am I? I wish you hadn't thought
that. Of course, one meets people, at the theatre and so on, and one
doesn't really know them and can't get at them, and so one just tries to
be very nice to them, but I don't call that insincere...."
"No. I didn't mean to people like that. But to your friends--to old
Carminow, for instance, and myself.... I sometimes wonder. And to
yourself--"
"Ah! I'm not insincere to myself."
"I sometimes wonder if you know what your real self is."
"Don't I? I do. Why do you say that, Mr. Ruan?"
"Because you asked me, and because I can't help saying what I think when
I'm asked like that and I think the person's worth it."
Blanche had pushed away her cup, and now she folded her arms on the
table and bent to him over them. Her face was very earnest.
"I do know what you mean," she admitted; "I think I know it better than
you do. And I suppose it's partly because I've no mother and I've had to
protect myself. A woman is very like some kinds of animals I've heard
of--she has to assume protective colouring. If I seem to like people
that have nothing in common with me it's because I find it's the
simplest way. You are different; I don't have to pretend anything with
you. I think if my real self were beginning to be overlaid you could
help me revive her."
"Your real self ... haven't I seen that?"
"I thought so till you said what you did," she answered in a low voice,
looking away from him; then she went on hurriedly: "You know, when Mamma
died I was only thirteen, and though I loved my father very dearly it's
never quite the same, is it? It was dreadful leaving Papa, but I had to
earn money somehow; you see, he wants all sorts of little things, extra
delicacies he can't get on his small means, and I do manage most times
to send him them. He didn't like my choosing the stage; but I'm not
really well enough educated for a governess--besides, I did try that
once...."
"What happened?" asked Ishmael as she paused.
"She--the lady--had a grown-up son as well as the children, and he fell
in love with me. I couldn't help that, but she was very angry. And I was
so unhappy I couldn't bear to go anywhere else. I wanted a new life. You
see--I cared rather."
"But if you both cared--"
"I wouldn't let him defy his mother. It would have made it all dreadful,
somehow. And he wasn't a strong character, not like you. You wouldn't
mind who was against you if you were in love."
Ishmael did not reply and she went on:
"I've been trying to make a fine thing out of acting now for three
years, ever since I was little more than a child--a real child in the
little I knew. And if I had not minded certain things of course by now I
could have been a leading lady and driven in my brougham, or left the
stage for good--or for bad. But one cannot alter the way one is made, or
drop the ideas one was brought up to have ... at least I can't; and so
I'm still in the attic in Cecil Street, with a small part and no
prospects. And how I hate it all sometimes; you can't imagine how I hate
it! London is like an awful monster that draws one in inch by inch--a
monster that breathes soot instead of fire."
Ishmael had been turning over a wonderful plan in his mind while she was
speaking, an idea that had flashed on him before, but that had seemed
too splendid to be possible of realization. Now, emboldened by her
words, he ventured on the great question.
"I say," he began, "why not, when you want a holiday, when this piece
you're playing in is over, come and stay at Cloom? I don't know whether
you've heard--whether Carminow has told you about me--I hope he has; I
dropped him a hint, because I hate to think I'm sailing under false
colours with you--" He paused, his courageous words dying in hot
embarrassment. Blanche met him perfectly.
"I know all about it. Mr. Carminow told me. What difference does it
make, except to make your friends care all the more for you?"
"Then you would come? My sister Vassie--you'd like her. And I think even
my mother would love you. It would be so good for you after all this."
She did not reply at once and Ishmael's heart sank.
"Your father...." he murmured; "I suppose you feel--"
She interrupted with a sudden radiance: "Oh, no, it's not that. My
father is married again, you know.... I don't often talk of it; it was a
grief to me. We were so everything to each other. But I don't go home
very often, because of that. I would love to come, Mr. Ruan. I wonder if
I can; I wonder...."
"But why should you wonder?" he urged more boldly; "one advantage of
your lonely situation is that you are free to decide for yourself. Do
promise me!"
She turned her head away as though to hide eyes suddenly dewy, then met
his look with her wonted level candour.
"I'll come," she said; "I'll come. Oh, it will he heavenly!... You don't
know what the mere thought of it means.... To get away, even for a
little while, from all this...." She swept her hands expressively around
on the lodging-house surroundings.
"It must be rotten," said Ishmael in heartfelt accents. "I know how I
felt in the parlour at home after my sister Vassie had done it up for my
return. I felt as though the woolly mats were choking me. And I couldn't
say anything for fear of hurting her feelings."
"And have you got used to it? That's what I'm always so afraid
of--getting used to ugliness."
"Vassie has altered. She is the cleverest girl at picking up ideas I've
ever known, and somehow when Killigrew was down with us she soon found
out, though I don't think he actually said anything. And we have
beautiful old furniture hidden away in the attics, so we simply pulled
it all out, and Vassie and Phoebe are making new needlework seats for
the chairs."
"Is Phoebe another sister?"
"Oh, no; she's the daughter of Mr. Lenine, the miller. She was at
boarding-school in Plymouth with Vassie, and they're just like sisters,"
said Ishmael in the simplicity of his heart.
"How nice!" said Blanche Grey.
So it was settled between them that Blanche should renew her
acquaintance with the country that summer at Cloom, and when Ishmael
left he walked on air. It was not that he was excited so much as that a
deep content filled him; life seemed full of promise and even more
worth living than he had thought it. The distrust which that news of
Carminow's had engendered drifted to the back of his brain; he wandered
through the streets, picturing the days to come at Cloom. He came to a
pause at last, aware that he had missed the way to the hotel where he
was to sup with Carminow and Killigrew. He looked at the name of the
street he was in, and saw that it was the name Carminow had mentioned as
being that of the street where Hilaria was lodged.
He stood between the rows of houses and tried to realise that one of
them sheltered Hilaria. He stood quite still, beset by the same thoughts
as on the first evening he had been told of her. He looked up at the
houses and wondered which it was; it seemed odd that the bricks and
stone which hid so much of sadness should not declare it in some way
unmistakable to him. Odd that he could no more tell at what elevation,
whether just above him or nearer the roof, she lay, as odd that,
wherever it might be, she was equally unknowing that someone was
thinking of her with such intensity so near. He walked along, looking
for the number Carminow had mentioned, found he had passed it, and
turned back to see it was the house one door further down than that at
which he had first stopped. He looked at the door as though it could fly
open and bid him enter; he pictured with a vividness he could not
suppress her entrance there, carried, her head lolling on her breast.
Several times he walked up and down, wondering if she would care to see
him, trying to remember if she had ever shown any predilection for him
which could make him think she would. Then he turned away and went on,
the thought of her and the pity of her going with him. He was not
surprised when at supper Carminow began to speak of her; it seemed as
though it would not be possible to sit so near to himself and not feel
the trend of his thoughts.
"I saw Hilaria yesterday," said Carminow, "and I asked her if she
wanted to see you two. I thought she might, but she waited a minute and
then let me know most unmistakably that she would rather not. She can
only speak very queerly now--most painful business--and make a few
gestures, but there was no mistaking her. I expect it would have been
too much for her anyway."
Both his listeners felt a half-guilty relief, and that night when alone
in his room Ishmael, aided by that glimpse of the exterior of her
surroundings and by Carminow's words, was assailed again by the thought
of her, but not as keenly as before. Shocked senses had been responsible
for that first keenness, and imagination, however aided, could not sting
to the same depth. He thought as he fell asleep of Blanche and Cloom.
Life had ugly, unthought-of things in it, but, thinking of her steady
radiance, he could not believe that any fate would dare to dim its
lustre.
Blanche sat long at the window of her bedroom that evening, her ashen
fair hair about her shoulders and her brush idle in her hand. As it was
Sunday and she had no engagement, she was going to bed early, so early
that it was still sunset-light.
She stood at the open window of the bedroom, staring with unseeing eyes;
her thoughts were revolving round her own problems, but gradually the
sights and sounds without won her to notice of them. The back windows of
the house looked on to other house-backs that formed a square well,
wherein smaller, much lower roofs and flat expanses of ribbed leads and
stable yards all huddled together in soft blue shadow. Only an
occasional chimney-pot, higher than its fellows, made a note of glowing
orange where it pierced the slant of the evening sun: To Blanche's left
there showed a pale gleam from the Thames between the house-backs of
brownish-grey brick; to her right roof-tops and fantastic cowls were
patterned in a flat purple tone against the luminous sky. In the eaves
the sparrows were chirping shrilly; one flew downwards so swiftly
between Blanche's eyes and the sky that his little body seemed nothing
but a dark blot with a flickering upon either side of it. The sight
caught at her memory, and she had a quick vision of a day when she had
lain upon a sloping cliff and watched the gulls wheel far above her, the
light of the setting sun making their breasts and the underneath of
their wings flash like silver. A smaller bird had darted past, and then,
as now, she had noted the curious effect of the solid little body
flanked by that flickering which meant wings invisible through their own
speed. The surface of her mind was quick to respond to suggestion, and
the thought of the country struck her as being an answer to the unspoken
questionings that were pricking at her. The West--the land of ready
sleep and sweet dreams. So Ishmael had told her, and the way lay open if
she chose to take it, a way that would not necessarily commit her to
anything. When she saw Ishmael in his own environment, then she would
know whether it were worth it or not....
To blot herself out of existence for a few weeks, that was what it
amounted to; there should be no such person as the town-ridden Blanche
Nevill on the face of the earth. She felt a delightful stirring of
anticipation, and nothing had had power to awaken that emotion in her
for several years. Her own surroundings once shed, she would, she felt,
meet a new world with all the hopes and dreams that had once been hers.
She was twenty-six years of age, though with her bland face she looked
much younger; and the truth was she had no love for any work in itself,
but only for the praise it brought her--a temperament which can never
make the artist, but results in the brilliant amateur.
She was sick of the stage, for no worthy captive of her bow and spear
had presented himself, and she detected the dawning of criticism in the
friends that had been so warm when she first met them in town. Blanche
was always posing, and people had found it out. As a child she had
played the misunderstood genius or shy mother's darling as occasion
demanded; she had posed with others till she was unable to do anything
but pose with herself. A few years, a very few years, ago, and even her
own sex had had to admit her charm; now she was beginning to be played
out, and she knew it. Her triumphant personality always attracted
attention, even when prettier and cleverer women were present, but it
was a very critical attention she attracted now.
When the light faded she moved to the bed and began to brush out her
hair. The sun had set, and she had drawn the dark, narrow blinds; down
their edges showed the gleam of the outside world steeped in a cold
blue-green light like the depths of the sea, and the faded curtains
wavered slowly in the breeze like long swaying strips of seaweed.
Blanche, swathed in a pale wrapper and sitting on the bed whose
whiteness was dimmed by the greenish dusk, was suggestive of a stage
mermaid combing her locks upon a property sandbank.
She lit her lamp, and at once the gleam without turned a deep, soft
blue. She knotted her pale hair on the nape of her neck, and, chin up,
hands on hips, stared critically at herself in the glass, and, as she
looked her lips parted a little in pleasure. Snatching up the
hand-glass, she poised from one foot to the other, craning her neck to
see herself from every possible point of view.
"Yes," she decided, "I'll go. And then--a new life. Miss Blanche Nevill
will vanish into thin air, and hurrah! for Blanche Grey, who will
be--herself."
She slept, thinking of Ishmael and herself, as he of her, while in a dim
room, lying perforce motionless in her hot bed, a girl thought, with the
brain left clear amidst all her failing senses, of two boys who stood
as symbols of a happy time when life was unclouded by even the least
conscious hints of the creeping Thing. She felt, in her thick confusion
of tongue and ear and eye, more uncouth than she was, and not for any
good life could still hold for her would she have had either see
her--Killigrew because he had been fond of her, Ishmael because she had
been fond of him.
A week later Ishmael arrived back at Cloom. As he walked along on the
first evening after his return the feel of the country smote him as
never before. Ecstasy welled in him, clear and living; the strong, pure
air made him want to shout with joy. And more than the sight of the
swelling land, more than the feel of the springy turf beneath his feet,
or the wind on his eyelids, it was the smell of the country that woke in
him this ecstasy. Sweet as the breath of cows came its mingled fragrance
of grass and earth and of the fine dust on the roadway, of the
bitter-sweet tang of the bracken and faint aftermath of hay; the breath
at his nostrils was drunken with sweet odour. He had come back to face
Archelaus, it was true, but he came back a man.
It was a good world, and he would make his corner of it still better....
How splendid it was to be alive and tingling with the knowledge that
everything lay before one! Pain and sorrow were only words that fell
away into nothingness before the joy of merely living....
So he felt as, late that night, he leant upon his window sill and stared
out at the darkness that was the background for his imagings of what was
to come. Upon his thoughts there broke the chattering scream of a rabbit
caught by a stoat, tearing the velvet tissues of the night's silence. On
and on it kept, always on one high note, with a horrible persistence.
Ishmael listened, sorry that even a rabbit should suffer on this night
of nights, and was glad when the screaming wavered and died into a
merciful stillness. As he dropped asleep the sardonic laughing bark of a
full-fed fox came echoing from the earn.