That was on a Thursday. It had been arranged earlier in the week that
Flossie and he were to dine with Lucia on Friday evening. On Saturday
and Sunday the Beaver would be let loose, and would claim him for her
own. He could not hope to see Lucia alone before Monday evening; his
suspense, then, would have to endure for the better part of four days.
He had nothing to hope for from Friday evening. Lucia's manner was too
perfect to afford any clue as to how she had taken it. If she were
offended she would hardly let him see it before Flossie and Miss
Roots. If she accepted, there again the occasion forbade her to give
any sign to one of her guests that should exclude the other two.
Still, it was just possible that he might gather something from her
silence.
But as it happened, he had not even that to go upon. Never had Lucia
been less silent than on Friday night. Not that she talked more than
usual, but that all her looks, all her gestures spoke. They spoke of
her pleasure in the happiness of her friend; of tenderness to the
little woman whom he loved (so little and he so great); of love that
embraced them both, the great and the little, a large, understanding
love that was light and warmth in one. For Lucia believed firmly that
she understood. She had always desired him to be happy, to be
reconciled to the beautiful and glorious world; she had tried to bring
about that reconciliation; and she conceived herself to have failed.
And now because the thing had been done so beautifully, so perfectly
(if a little unexpectedly), by somebody else, because she was relieved
of all anxiety and responsibility, Lucia was rejoicing with all her
heart.
He had not been five minutes in the room before he saw it all. Lucia
believed that it was all over, and was letting herself go, carried
away by the spectacle of a supreme and triumphal happiness. She
triumphed too. Her eyes when they looked at him seemed to be saying,
"Didn't I tell you so?"
He saw why they had been asked to dinner. The spirit of the bridal
hour was upon her, and she had made a little feast to celebrate it.
Like everything she did, it was simple and beautiful and exquisite of
its kind. And yet it was not with that immaculate white linen cloth,
spread on Keith's writing-table, strewn with slender green foliage and
set out with delicate food and fruit and wine, nor with those white
flowers, nor with those six shaded candles, that she had worked the
joyous tender charm. These things, in her hands and in his eyes,
became sacramental, symbolic of Lucia's soul with its pure thoughts
and beautiful beliefs, its inspired and burning charities.
And the hero of this feast of happiness sat at her right hand, facing
his little bride-elect, a miserable man consumed with anguish and
remorse. He had never had so painful a sense of the pathos of his
Beaver. For if anybody was happy it was she. Flossie was aware that it
was her hour, and that high honour was being paid to her. Moreover, he
could see for the moment that the worm had ceased to gnaw, and that
she had become the almost affectionate thrall of the lady whose motto
was _Invictus_. She had been forced (poor little girl) to anticipate
her trousseau in order to attire herself fitly for the occasion, and
was looking remarkably pretty in her way. She sat very upright, and
all her demeanour was irreproachably modest, quiet and demure. Nothing
could have been more correct than her smile, frequent, but so
diminutive that it just lifted her upper lip and no more. No insight,
no foreboding troubled her. Her face, soft and golden white in the
candlelight, expressed a shy and delicate content. For Flossie was a
little materialist through and through. Her smooth and over feminine
body seemed to have grown smoother and more feminine still under the
touch of pleasure; all that was hard and immobile in her melting in
the sense of well-being.
It was not merely that Flossie was on her good behaviour. His
imagination (in league with his conscience) suggested that the poor
child, divinely protected by the righteousness of her cause, was
inspired to confound his judgement of her, to give no vantage ground
to his disloyalty, to throw him defenceless on his own remorse. Or was
it Lucia who inspired her? Lucia, whose loving spirit could create the
thing it loved, whose sweetness was of so fine and piercing a quality
that what it touched it penetrated. He could not tell, but he thanked
Heaven that at least for this hour which was hers the little thing was
happy. He, for his part, by unprecedented acts of subterfuge and
hypocrisy, endeavoured to conceal his agony.
Miss Roots alone divined it. Beyond looking festive in a black silk
gown and a kind of white satin waistcoat, that clever lady took a
strained and awkward part in the rejoicing. He was inclined to think
that the waistcoat committed her to severity, until he became aware
that she was watching him with a furtive sympathy in the clever eyes
that saw through his pitiful play. How was it that Lucia, she who once
understood him, could not divine him too?
From this estranging mood he was roused by the innocent laughter of
the Beaver. He was aware of certain thin and melancholy sounds that
floated up from some room below. They struggled with the noises of the
street, overcame, and rose strident and triumphant to invade the
feast. They seemed to him in perfect keeping with the misery and
insanity of the hour.
It was Mr. Partridge playing on his flute.
Miss Roots looked at Lucia. "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking to
him about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to hear
him play it?"
"No, Sophie, I didn't tell him that." But Lucy looked a little guilty.
The flute rose as if in passionate protest against her denial. It
seemed to say "You did! You know you did!"
"I only said it was a pity he'd given it up, and I meant it. But oh!"
and Lucy put her hands up to her ears, "I don't mean it any more."
"That comes," said Rickman, "of taking things on trust."
She smiled and shook her head. It was her first approach to a sign of
reassurance.
"That's the sort of thing she's always doing. It doesn't matter for
you, Lucy. You won't have to stay on and hear him."
"I don't know. I think I shall stay on. You see, Mr. Rickman, I can't
part with this pretty room."
"Do you like it?"
"I like it very much indeed. You're all coming to dine with me here
again some day."
"And you must come and dine with us, Miss Harden, when we've got
settled." It was Flossie who spoke.
"I shall be delighted."
He looked up, surprised. He could not have believed the Beaver could
have done it so prettily. He had not even realized that it could be
done at all. It never occurred to him that his marriage could bring
him nearer to Lucia Harden. He looked kindly at the Beaver and blessed
her for that thought. And then a thought bolder than the Beaver's came
to him. "I hope," he said, "you'll do more than that. You must come
and stay with us in the summer. You shall sit out in a deck-chair in
the garden all day. That's the way to get strong."
Then he remembered that she could do that just as well in someone
else's garden up at Hampstead, and he looked shy and anxious as he
added, "Will you come?"
"Of course I'll come," said she.
He saw her going through the house at Ealing and sitting in the little
green garden with the lilac bushes about her all in flower. And at the
thought of her coming he was profoundly moved. His eyes moistened, and
under the table his knees shook violently with the agitation of his
nerves. Miss Roots gave one queer little glance at him and another at
Flossie, and the moment passed.
And Lucia had not divined it. No, not for a moment, not even in the
moment of leave-taking. She was still holding Flossie's hand in hers
when her eyes met his, kind eyes that were still saying almost
triumphantly, "I told you so."
As she dropped Flossie's hand for his, she answered the question that
he had not dared to ask. "I've read them," she said, and there was no
diminution in her glad look.
"When may I see you?"
"To-morrow, can you? Any time after four?"