Up and up and up went the train and Laura’s spirits with it. Mrs. Cloud
was in one corner of the compartment and Justin in the other, and there
were two squares of glass, unlike prim English carriage windows, opening
upon wonders, black mountains and clouds and brilliant grass, and under
their feet, but far below, the terraced lines of the track over which
they had already passed. Sometimes a drift of white hid them. Laura
thought that it was smoke, but Justin said “no—clouds.” Imagine! She was
so high up that she was looking down on clouds!
Justin laughed at her.
“Beats Beech Hill, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said instantly; but she grew more and more
excited. And all the time they talked to her and she to them—though
Justin was quieter than she thought he need be when he hadn’t seen her
for two years—of all things under the sun and of how glad she was to see
them: and the train climbed higher and higher. It stopped once, at a
snow-covered siding, for them to drink coffee in inch-thick cups, and
the coffee or the air, the air that was like old still wine, must have
gone to Laura’s head a little. She certainly talked too much, fluttering
like a distracted butterfly between Paris and Justin, and the right-hand
window and the left-hand window, and how was Gran’papa and Savonarola
and cushions for Mrs. Cloud. She did not even stop in the tunnel. And
the discarded ghost of a disappointment found that Laura was not the
only person in the carriage worth haunting. Justin had smoked himself
into one of his silences. He was not sure that Laura was improved. Her
voice was rather high. He thought that she was showing off.
He was right. She was so desperately anxious that they should be pleased
with her: and excitement had oiled her discretion. She could not resist
marshalling all her acquirements at once for their inspection.
Mrs. Cloud suddenly pulled down Laura’s glowing face to her and kissed
it.
“I can’t help it. I’m nearly bursting.” Laura answered her
apologetically, though she had said nothing at all. And then, with a
rush, “Oh, Mrs. Cloud, you are a dear!” They perfectly understood each
other.
But Justin stared at them and disapproved. It was so unlike his mother
to be demonstrative ... and he wished Laura would sit down and read....
She talked too much.
She did at last, as the dusk fell and they left the high lands behind
them, settle down to the dear, blameless English magazines, but not
before she had had him thoroughly on edge.
By the end of two days she was on edge herself. She always remembered
Milan as a series of spires and roofs, up and down which she toiled
after a Justin who never waited for her, who always made his remarks
just too far off for her to hear what he said. And he hated repeating
himself. She did not know what had come to either of them. They were
always on the verge of perfect agreement or a serious quarrel and
nothing ever happened, except that Justin had the bored look in his eyes
that Laura dreaded, and Laura had a lump in her throat all day long.
Yet sometimes Laura wondered if she imagined the whole thing. Mrs. Cloud
did not seem disturbed. Mrs. Cloud drove with them in the mornings, and
rested in the afternoons, and listened to them in the evenings, and
beamed at them both as if she found life as pleasant as usual. And she
approved of Laura. Of that there was no doubt. It was Mrs. Cloud who
nodded congratulations when Laura, on their first evening, in her first
evening dress, swished her way in and out of the dining-tables, very
grown-up and shy and uncomfortable. Mrs. Cloud would not have changed
Justin for a dozen Lauras, and yet, watching her entry, quite alive to
the heads that turned, and the murmur at the nearer tables, she wished
she had a beautiful young daughter of her own of whom to be critically
proud.
“Green’s your colour!” said Mrs. Cloud, as Laura settled herself. No
more—but it was the accolade.
Laura blushed and glanced at Justin.
“Chianti or white wine?” he enquired with some interest.
“No, thank you. Water, please.” (... Men were queer!)
“Oh, if you’d rather!” (... Odd things, women!)
It was the last straw when Art, the Italian jade, plucked at Justin’s
sleeve, whispering that two were company ... and Justin went out to
Pavia all by himself. Mrs. Cloud had a headache. Laura, because she felt
like it, spent her afternoon at the _Campo Santo_, and, among tombs,
made up her mind to have it out with Justin.
She had a certain desperate directness in emergencies that might easily
have been mistaken for courage. She had quite the average capacity of a
woman for subterfuge, but, linked with it, a curious dread of being
spared in her turn. She could face an ugly truth, but she could not
endure it tailored. She must know where she stood. She must know where
she stood with Justin, risking snubs; though she dreaded being snubbed
as only soft-shelled youth can. She must know what she done wrong. She
was quite sure that, whatever it was, it was her fault, because if it
were not her fault, it would be Justin’s.... And that was impossible....
She did not pretend to understand Justin, she knew she was not clever
enough for that, but at least she realized that he had no faults.... She
was not quite a fool.... There were certain inexplicabilities, of
course, but they were not her presumptuous business....
One does not criticize one’s god, or only when one has ceased to believe
in him. But God is not God when one ceases to believe in Him.
She attacked Justin the next evening, choosing the wrong moment, when he
was tired, ready for a pipe and a book rather than argument. But he had
been kind to her at dinner and she had made him laugh. (At least she
could always make him laugh.) She thought his mood could not change in
half an hour.
But it had changed. He was absorbed, if not somnolent: had not a glance
to spare as she hesitated in front of him.
“Justin? Aren’t you coming out again?”
He shook his head.
She looked out of the window. The moon glimmered in the white sky, thin
and flat and unsubstantial, like a peeled honesty leaf: and, below, the
square was glamorous. The cathedral that rose out of it, like June woods
turned to stone, quivered in the warm dusk as on the verge of
disenchantment. The dots of lamp-light increased like buttercups all
opening at once, and among them people moved in vague masses. A shrill
of voices and laughter floated upwards.
Laura turned to Justin, straining his eyes over Baedeker’s _Northern
Italy_. The sight of the crowd had stirred her, made her want to go down
into it, just as the sight of the sea makes you want to bathe.
“It’s only half-past eight,” she hazarded.
He read on.
She glanced across at Mrs. Cloud, half asleep at the other end of the
huge deserted hotel sitting-room. They were the only people indoors on
that warm spring night of Italy.
Suddenly she attacked him—
“Justin, you’ll hurt your eyes.” Then, with a curtness that was pure
embarrassment, “Justin, what’s the matter?”
“The matter?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes. I want to know.” She hesitated. “Is anything wrong? Have I done
anything you don’t like? What makes you——?”
“What?”
“Oh, I don’t know—so funny to me. So—grumpy.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know——” he began stiffly.
She flared out.
“Of course you know. It’s been perfectly awful. You sit on me and sit on
me—and go out by yourself—and fidget at meals when I talk——”
“I say, don’t wake Mother,” he warned her.
Hastily she dropped an octave.
“So I think you might tell me what’s the matter,” she concluded.
“Oh rot, Laura,” said Justin uncomfortably. “What should be the matter?”
He waited a moment for her answer; but she said nothing: was waiting in
her turn. He looked at his book.
If he once began reading again....
“I don’t know,” she said hastily, “but there is. You might tell me,
Justin.” She put her hand upon his open book, would not budge as he
tried politely to move it. “You’ve got to tell me,” she insisted.
It was a very young and ignorant thing to do, crudely provocative if
it had not been so utterly unconscious. A woman or an older man would
have laughed and understood and found it charming enough. But it
annoyed Justin. He hated to be bothered. He had a keen sense of his
own dignity. Above all he had a horror of being inveigled into
anything approaching sentimentality. And he was out of touch with
Laura. He had been prepared for a jolly little girl, not for a young
woman with obvious faults and disconcerting garments. He was just too
old to label her challenge ‘cheek,’ yet not old enough to make
allowances for her hobble-de-hoyhood, to differentiate between
impudence and a lack of _savoir-faire_. Ever since Lucerne he had
been, though he had no idea of analysing his attitude, disappointed,
on the edge of boredom. He was as unaware as she herself of the beauty
of her hand, he merely knew that he didn’t want a great paw sprawling
over his book. He wanted to say “Get out!” And she stood there and
waited!
He leaned back in his chair with elaborate indifference.
“Justin?”
She was actually smiling at him—pleased, he supposed, with the success
of her idiotic performance.
“I don’t know that it’s anything much,” he was impelled to begin. “It
doesn’t matter anyway. It’s only——” He broke off.
“Tell me,” she insisted. And again he disliked her tone. Who was she to
order him about? Oh, well, if she wanted it she should have it....
“You’re rather different from what I expected.” He stopped. It was not
perfectly easy, annoyed as he was.
“How?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“How?” She had a touch of colour in her cheek. Her bright eyes compelled
him.
“You’re—rather French, you know. You don’t seem quite—natural.”
“How?”
“Well, your clothes——”
Her face fell.
“Oh, Justin, don’t you like them?”
“They’re rather bright.”
“Oh!”
He did not volunteer anything.
“What else, Justin?”
“Oh, how do I know?” He was impatient. “It’s not my business. But I hate
scent and chatter and high heels and things that jingle. And you come
down to dinner with your hair fussed out like an actress. But it’s all
right, I expect.”
“I see.” She managed to smile at him before she swished across to the
window, with the little un-English swing of her body that was another of
her ways that vaguely irritated him. He made an impatient movement. Of
course he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but why on earth did she
worry him?
“I only mean——You wouldn’t see Mother——Every one looks at you!” And
then, “I’m sorry, Laura, but you made me say what I think.”
“Of course. I’m glad. I’m glad to know what you think.”
Her voice grew higher and higher as she tried to over-top the catch in
it. He had put a match to her quick young pride, and it blazed and raged
within her till she was quite sick with the physical pain of it. The
intolerable, humiliating tears rose under her lids. Always with her back
to him she took her handkerchief, screwed it to a point, and removed
them with precise care. She could not quite control them, the square
danced mistily, but at least she would not show a stained face. Head up
before everything!
‘Not natural,’ ‘like an actress.’... Oh, it wasn’t fair of Justin ...
wasn’t fair not to give her time to get used to him again.... He’d been
grown-up so much longer, but didn’t he remember what it felt like to be
shy and awkward and uncertain?... How could one cover it up but by being
glib?... At Paris they liked her.... Mrs. Cloud liked her.... Mrs. Cloud
had liked her green dress.... She didn’t know what he meant.... It
wasn’t vanity, everybody waved their hair.... She couldn’t help her
voice being loud.... She had never realized that she was so full of
faults.... She had only wanted to make herself nice—and now it was all
wrong.... And after looking forward so to Italy.... Not that she cared
... not that she cared a hang!...
“Don’t worry, Laura!” Justin was stirred by a vague compunction, though
he wished that she did not find it necessary to stand between him and
the last of the light. “What does it matter? I told you—it’s nothing to
do with me.”
She whirled round indignantly, all eyes and flame.
“Whom else has it got to do with but you and Mrs. Cloud and Gran’papa?
If you feel that way I’ve got to alter things. It’s dreadful! It’s
dreadful that you don’t like me any more.”
He was obliged to smile at that—a smile that lit up his face as sunshine
brightens a room: and suddenly, for the first time since their meeting,
he was at home with her again. The simplicity of her passionate distress
was so familiar, so entirely the Laura he had missed, that the two
alienating years were blotted out, as the darkness was blotting out
Laura’s skirts and offending airs and graces, leaving him his foundling
again in one of her tragi-comic rages, his rum old Laura, raw from
conflict with life and Aunt Adela.
She must be smoothed down!... She must be smoothed down at once!...
“Here, dry up, Laura,” he advised her, “and don’t talk so much. You’re
right, it’s getting too dark to read. Come on out with me and eat
spaghetti on the pavement. They say that’s the thing to do when there’s
a moon.”
For an open-mouthed moment she stared at him: then, with a comprehension
of his change of attitude that was uncanny, controlled herself,
controlled her choking need of a good cry, nodded cheerfully, and ran
upstairs for her hat, her old straw hat at the bottom of her trunk that
she had not meant to wear in Italy.
It was going to be all right.... He was going to understand.... He was
going to be himself again ... if she only kept quiet and wore her old
clothes.... _Oh, all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord!_... She
dashed downstairs.
It was a cloudless night. The macaroni was delicious. The clang of the
trams was like Eastern music. Laura was quiet and sweet. Justin found
that he was enjoying himself, and was moved to tell all about his tour
around the world, and she was deeply interested and asked
extraordinarily intelligent questions, and there was no shadow upon them
any more, save the shadow of the great cathedral, black and white and
wonderful under the moon.
It was late when they came back to an amused, forsaken Mrs. Cloud, and
were eloquent for half an hour upon moonlight and macaroni and Milan.
And Justin said good-night to Laura and shook hands with her properly
instead of grunting off to bed as he generally did. He said she was to
sleep well. She said she would.
Yet the dawn a few hours later, nosing damply in between venetian
blinds, surprised Laura, with wet brushes and a determined mouth, still
hard at work before her looking-glass, brushing, brushing, brushing the
vanity out of her splendid hair.
------------------------------------------------------------------------