PETER, RHODA, AND LUCY
When Mr. Vyvian called at 51 Brook Street one evening and was informed
by the assembled company that Miss Johnson had got engaged to Mr. Peter
Margerison, he sneered a little and wished them both joy, and said
good-night rather markedly early.
"He won't come back," said Rhoda in Peter's ear when he had gone. "He's
gone for good." She sat very still, realising it, and shivered a little.
Then, casting off that old chain of the past, she turned on Peter eyes
full of tears and affection.
"Now I'm going to forget all about him and be happy," she whispered.
"He's not going to be part of my life any more at all. How queer that
seems!"
If in her heart she wished a little that Peter had had Guy Vyvian's
handsome face and person (Peter had no presence: one might overlook him;
the only vivid note about him, except when he smiled, was the blue of his
eyes), she stifled the wish with firm pressure. What were looks, after
all? And that bold, handsome stare of Guy's had burnt and hurt; in the
blue of Peter's she found healing and coolness, as one finds it in a
summer sea.
So, after the third time of asking, they were married, in St. Austin's
Church, and Rhoda, coming out of it, whispered to Peter, "Some of the
beautiful things are true after all, I do believe;" and he smiled at her
and said, "Of course they are."
They left the boarding-house, because Rhoda was tired of the boarders
and wanted a little place to themselves. Peter, who didn't really care,
but who would have rather liked to stay and be with Peggy and Hilary,
pretended that he too wanted a little place to themselves. So they took
lodgings in Greville Street, which runs out of Brook Street. Rhoda gave
up her work and settled down to keep house and do needlework. They kept
a canary in the sitting-room, and a kitten with a blue bow, and Rhoda
took to wearing blue bows in her own hair, and sewed all the buttons on
her frocks and darned her gloves and stockings and Peter's socks, and
devoted herself to household economy, a subject in which her mother had
always tried to interest her without success. Rhoda thought it a great
relief to have escaped from the tiresome boarders who chattered so about
things they knew nothing about, and from her own daily drudgery, that had
tired her back. (She had been a typist.) It was nice to be able to sit at
peace with one's needlework and one's own reflections, and have Peter,
who was always kind and friendly and cheerful, to brighten breakfast and
leave her in peace during the day and come in again to brighten the
evening. Peter's chatter didn't worry her, though she often thought it
childish and singularly inconsequent; Peter, of course, was only a boy,
though such a dear, kind, affectionate boy. He would spend his evenings
teasing the kitten and retying the blue bow, or lying on the rug before
the fire, talking nonsense which made Rhoda laugh even when she was
feeling low. Sometimes they would go to Brook Street and spend the
evening there; and often Hilary would drop in and smoke with Peter;
only Rhoda didn't much care for these evenings, for she never felt at
ease with Hilary, who wasn't at ease with her either. The uncultured
young creatures of either sex never quite knew where they were with the
æsthetic Hilary; at any moment they might tread heavily on his sensitive
susceptibilities and make him wince visibly, and no one likes being
winced at. Rhoda in particular was very sensitive; she thought Hilary
ill-mannered and conceited, and vaguely resented his attitude towards her
without understanding it, for (now that she was removed from the crushing
influence of a person who had always ruthlessly shown her her limitations
and follies) she didn't think of herself as uncultured, she with her
poetical and artistic tastes, sharpened and refined by contact with the
culture of Guy Vyvian and broadened by acquaintance with the art of
foreign cities. On the contrary, she felt in herself yearnings for a
fuller and freer life of beauty and grace. She wasn't sure that Peter
ever felt such yearnings; he seemed quite contented with the ugly rooms
in the ugly street, and the dingy lace curtains and impossible pictures;
he could make a joke of it all; and things one could make a joke of
couldn't really hurt, thought Rhoda.
But anyhow, cramped and squalid and dingy though 9 Greville Street might
be, it held security and peace.
"The Snuggery, that's what we call it at fifty-one," said Miss Clegson,
who sometimes looked in to rally them.
Fifty-one was getting less of a snuggery than ever. Fifty-one, Peter
feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little
piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began
again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary,
despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more.
Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to
spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was _not_
a good manager. One or two of the boarders left, to seek more commodious
quarters elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy
wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry
drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his
best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if
it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than
it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now
Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat
their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, _dear_,
oh dear, oh dear!"
Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own
fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his
job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on
a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough
of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same
drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,--(it is odd how discernment
and talent in one trade serve so little for another)--and every week came
home with the same meagre sum.
As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he
been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the
roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and
unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone
concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had
to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to
keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to
be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to
renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its
renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed.
The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer
London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive
hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter
dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible.
Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too
had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the
maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was
really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day
with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people
to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted
to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see
her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their
circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants
of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda's, who amused and pleased
Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common.
"But I like them," said Peter.
"You like to see me put to shame, I suppose," said Rhoda, with tears in
her eyes. "As if it was _my_ fault that my parents came of common people.
I've cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I
just want to forget it."
Peter said no more. It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt
he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the
things he could not like. But he was sorry she felt like that, for her
nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her.
Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not
have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social
instinct strongly developed. But Rhoda didn't much care about seeing
his fellow-clerks; they hadn't, she was sure, great minds, and they made
silly jokes.
Another person who came to see Peter sometimes was Rodney. Ever since the
Margerisons' abrupt fall into ignominy, Rodney had cultivated Peter's
acquaintance. Peter perceived that he had at last slipped into the ranks
of those unfortunates who were qualified for Rodney's regard; it was
enough for that, Urquhart had long since told him, to be cut by society
or to produce a yesterday's handkerchief. Peter, driven from the faces of
the rich, found Rodney waiting to receive him cheerfully among the ranks
of the poor. Rodney was a much occupied person; but when he found time
from his other pursuits he walked up from his Westminster slum to Holborn
and visited 9 Greville Street. He hadn't known quite what to make of
Peter's marriage; though when he got to know Rhoda a little he began to
understand rather more. She, being very manifestly among the Have-Nots,
and a small, weak, and pitiable thing, also entered in a manner into the
circle of his tolerance. He was gentle with her always, though not
expansive. She was a little in awe of the gaunt young man, with his
strange eyes that seemed to see so much further than anyone else's. She
pronounced him "queer."
"I suppose he's very clever," she said to Peter.
"Yes," Peter agreed.
But even that didn't further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude,
as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her,
and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her.
Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home.
Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly
a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to adorn the
earth--a doubtful ornament to it, in Rodney's opinion.
Rhoda said one evening to Peter, "You don't see anything of your friends
the Urquharts now, do you?"
"No," said Peter, who was stroking the kitten's fur the wrong way, to
bring sparks out of it before the gas was lit. "They've been in the
country all the winter."
"Mr. Urquhart got elected a member, didn't he?" said Rhoda, without much
interest.
"Yes," said Peter.
"I suppose they'll be coming up to town soon, then, for him to attend
Parliament."
Peter supposed they would.
"When last Lucy wrote, she said they were coming up this month."
"Have you heard from her again, since Monday week?" enquired Rhoda.
"No. We write alternate Sundays, you know. We always have. Last Sunday it
was my turn."
"Fancy going on all these years so regular," said Rhoda. "I couldn't, not
to any of my cousins. I should use up all there was to say."
"Oh, but there are quite new things every fortnight," Peter explained.
Certainly it wasn't easy to picture Rhoda corresponding with any of the
Johnson relatives once a fortnight.
"I expect you and she have heaps to tell each other always when you
meet," said Rhoda, a little plaintive note in her weak voice.
Peter considered.
"Not so much to tell exactly as to talk about. Yes, there's lots to
say.... She's coming to see you, Rhoda, directly they come up to town.
It's so funny to think you and she have never met."
"Is it? Well, I don't know. I've not met any of your cousins really,
have I?"
Rhoda was in one of her slightly pettish moods this evening. Peter didn't
better matters by saying, "Oh, well, none of the others count. Lucy and I
have always been different from most cousins, I suppose; more like
brother and sister, I daresay."
Rhoda looked at him sharply. She was in a fault-finding mood.
"You think more of her than you do of anyone else. Of course, I know
that."
Peter was startled. He stopped stroking the kitten and looked at her
through the dim firelight. The suspicion of a vulgar scene was in the
air, and frightened him. Then he remembered that Rhoda was in frail
health, and said very gently, "Oh, Rhoda darling, don't say silly things,
like a young gurl in a novelette," and slithered along the floor and laid
his arm across her lap and laughed up into her face.
She sniffed a little, and dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes.
"It's all very well, Peter, but you do care for her a lot, you know you
do."
"But of course I do," said Peter, laying his cheek against her knee. "You
don't _mind_, Rhoda, do you?"
"You care for her," said Rhoda, but softening under his caresses, "and
you care for her husband. You care for him awfully, Peter; more than for
her really, I believe; more than for anyone in the world, don't you?"
"Don't," said Peter, his voice muffled against her dress. "I can't
compare one thing with another like that, and I don't want to. Isn't
one's caring for each of the people one knows quite different from every
other? Isn't yours? Can you say which you love best, the sun rising over
the river, or St. Mark's, or a Bellini Madonna? Of course you can't, and
it's immoral to try. So I'm not going to place Lucy and Denis and you and
Rodney and Peggy and the kitten in a horrid class-list. I won't. Do you
hear?"
He drew one of her small thin hands down to his lips, then moved it up
and placed it on his head, and drew it gently to and fro, ruffling his
hair.
"You're a silly, Peter," said Rhoda, and there was peace.
Very soon after that Lucy came. She came in the afternoon before Peter
got home, and Rhoda looked with listless interest at the small, wide-eyed
person in a grey frock and big grey hat that made her small, pale face
look like a white flower. Pretty? Rhoda wasn't sure. Very like Peter; so
perhaps not pretty; only one liked to look at her. Clever? It didn't
transpire that she was. Witty? Well, much more amused than amusing; and
when she was amused she came out with Peter's laugh, which Rhoda wasn't
sure was in good taste on her part. Absurdly like Peter she was, to
look at and to listen to, and in some inner essence which was beyond
definition. The thought flashed through Rhoda's mind that it was no
wonder these two found things to tell each other every other Sunday;
they would be interested in all the same things, so it must be easy.
Remotely, dully, Rhoda thought these things, as things which didn't
concern her particularly. Less and less each day she had grown to care
whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could
work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but
it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very surface grievance.
So she looked at Lucy dispassionately, and let herself, without a
struggle, be caught and held by that ingenuous charm, a charm as of a
small woodland flower set dancing by the winds of spring. She noticed
that when the kitten that was now nearly a cat sprang on to Lucy's lap,
she stroked its fur backwards with her flat hand and spread fingers
precisely as Peter always did.
Then Peter came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one
another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they
were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's
one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was
no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like,
either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something
inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like
substance but the same. So it is sometimes with twins. Rhoda, her
intuitive faculties oddly sharpened, took in this. Peter might care
most for Denis Urquhart; he might love Rhoda as a wife; but Lucy, less
consciously loved than either, was intimately one with himself.
Peter asked "How is Denis?" and Lucy answered "Very well, of course. And
very busy playing at being a real member. Isn't it fun? Oh, he sent you
his love. And you're to come and see us soon."
That last wasn't a message from Denis; Peter knew that. He knew that
there would be no more such messages from Denis; the Margerisons had gone
a little too far in their latest enterprise; they had strained the cord
to breaking-point, and it had broken. In future Denis might be kind and
friendly to Peter when they met, but he wouldn't bring about meetings;
they would embarrass him. But Lucy knew nothing of that. Denis hadn't
mentioned to her what had happened at Astleys last November; he never
dwelt on unpleasant subjects or made a talk about them. So Lucy said to
Peter and Rhoda, "You must come and see us soon," and Peter said, "You're
so far away, you know," evading her, and she gave him a sudden wide clear
look, taking in all he didn't say, which was the way they had with one
another, so that no deceits could ever stand between them.
"Don't be _silly_, Peter," she told him; then, "'_Course_ you must come";
but he only smiled at her and said, "Some day, perhaps."
"Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time," she reminded him. "D'_you_
like them, Rhoda?" She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of
her luminous, friendly looks. "They're Peter's favourite food, you know."
But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would
be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into
class-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was
her favourite food too.
When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring sunshine had stolen
into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt
her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been
surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with
her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the
souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had
ever had a touch of that.
Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long
way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through
that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at
Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda.
And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because
her father died. She said once, "I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off
from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and
Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father
I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being
prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was--you know,
Peter?--it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off
from all that sort of thing. Denis and I _are_ so well off, d'you know.
Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful
and beautifully dressed. I _like_ them to be, of course; they are joys,
like the sun shining; only..."
"The poor are always with you," suggested Peter. "You can always come to
Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come
we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear
beautifully dressed."
"But I _like_ Algernon's blue bow," Lucy protested. "I love people to be
bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only
I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all."
Obviously the remedy was to come to Greville Street. Lucy came more and
more as the months went by.
Rhoda said once, "Doesn't it bother you to come all this way, into these
ugly streets?" and she shook her head.
"Oh, I _like_ it. I like these streets better than the ones round us. And
I like your house better than ours too; it's smaller."
Rhoda could have thought she looked wistful, this fortunate person who
was in love with her splendid husband and lived in the dwellings of the
prosperous.
"Don't you like large houses?" she asked, without much caring; for she
was absorbed in her own thoughts in these days.
Lucy puckered her wide forehead.
"Why, no. No, I don't believe I do," she said, as if she was finding it
out with a little surprise.
Rhoda saw her one day in July. In a few weeks, she told Rhoda (Peter was
out that afternoon), she and Denis were going up to Scotland, to stay
with people.
"We shall miss you," said Rhoda dully.
"And me you," said Lucy, with a more acute sense of it.
"Peter'll miss you dreadfully," said Rhoda. She was lying on the sofa,
pale and tired in the heat.
"Only," said Lucy, "next month you'll both be feeling too interested to
miss anyone."
"Peter," said Rhoda, "cares more about the baby coming than I do."
Lucy said, "Peter loves little weak funny things like that." She was a
little sad that Rhoda didn't seem to care more about the baby; babies are
such entrancing toys to those who like toys, people like her and Peter.
Suddenly Lucy saw that two large tears were rolling down Rhoda's pale
cheeks as she lay. Lucy knelt by the sofa side and took Rhoda's hand in
both of hers and laid her cheek upon it.
"Please, little Rhoda, not to cry. Please, little Rhoda, tell me."
Rhoda, with her other hand, brushed the tears away.
"I'm a silly. I suppose I'm crying because I can't feel to care about
anything in the world, and I wish I could. What's the use of a baby if
you can't love it? What's the use of a husb--"
Lucy's hand was over her lips, and Lucy whispered, "Oh, hush, little
Rhoda, hush!"
But Rhoda pushed the hand away and cried, "Oh, why do we pretend and
pretend and pretend? It's Guy I care for--Guy, Guy, Guy, who's gone for
good and all."
She fell to crying drearily, with Lucy's arms about her.
"But you _mustn't_ cry," said Lucy, her own eyes brimming over; "you
mustn't, you mustn't. And you do care for Peter, you know you do, only
it's so hot, and you're tired and ill. If that horrible Guy was here--oh,
I know he's horrible--you'd know you cared for Peter most. You mustn't
_say_ things, Rhoda; it makes them alive." Her eyes were wide and
frightened as she looked over Rhoda's head out of the window.
Slowly Rhoda quieted down, and lay numb and still.
"You won't tell Peter," she said; and Lucy said, "Oh, Rhoda!"
"Well, of course I know you wouldn't. Only that you and Peter tell one
another things without saying anything.... Peter belongs to you really,
you know, not to me at all. All he thinks and says and is--it's all
yours. He's never really been near _me_ like that, not from the
beginning. I was a silly to let him sacrifice himself for me the way he's
done. We don't belong really, Peter and I; however friendly we are, we
don't belong; we don't understand each other like you two do.... You
don't mind my saying that, do you?" for Lucy had dropped her hands and
fallen away.
"I mind your saying anything," said Lucy, "just now. Don't say things: it
makes them alive. It's hot, and you're tired, and I'm not going to stay
any more."
She got up from the floor and stood for a moment looking down at Rhoda.
Rhoda saw her eyes, how they were wet and strange and far-away, and full
of what seemed an immense weight of pity; pity for all the sadnesses of
mankind.
The next moment Lucy's cool finger-tips touched her forehead in a light
caress, and Lucy was gone.