I was not to see her again for a while. That man said: “You did her no
good the other day. The reverse. She has something on her mind she wants
to say to you, and she can’t, and it worries her. Naturally....”
“Your instructions,” I said. “She will be angry with you, Masters.”
“When she is well,” snapped that captain of men, “she may burst, if I
may say so. And so I’ll tell her. But in the meanwhile you will have to
wait ten days. Or more.”
It was more, quite a while more, and when I went again into the oak-room
of the Saint whose name I forgot to look at Iris met me with accusing
eyes. She did not turn her head, she just gave me a sideways, accusing
look. Turnings of head were discouraged, she must lie very still, oh for
a long time, for that, it seems, is the way of sceptic poisoning. And
Masters had said to me in the passage outside: “If she as much as moves
a finger, God help you!”
“You should not be in Paris,” she whispered, not without vehemence. “And
why are you laughing, please?”
“Why, at your voice! I do believe, Iris, that it’s stronger than you at
last.”
“Yes, but you should not be in Paris, that I’m sure of. You have waited
to see me,” she complained bitterly, but I protested that never was such
nonsense, for why in the name of commonsense would I wait to see her?
“But, Iris, the very night I arrived in Paris I had an idea for a tale,
and I thought I would stay in Paris to write it.”
“You must tell it to me. Oh, at once. Oh, please....” And the voice
expired. And we waited. “I can’t laugh,” she said bitterly, “because it
hurts. Everything hurts....”
“Iris,” I said, “I am so sorry....”
“Yes.” She gave me a long sideways look.
“Yes,” she said. “But please to tell me your tale. What is it about?
What is it called?”
“No, Iris, I mustn’t tell it to you. It was indiscreet of me to mention
it, and you only just returned from the valley of death. It is a
terrible story. Every one dies. It is about a man who would not dance
with his wife.”
“Yes, but ... Oh, why wouldn’t he dance with his wife? What a silly man!
You do get some beastly ideas, I do think....”
“Please, Iris, be still and good! That man said he would fire me out for
two pins.” So grey she looked, frail beyond frailty, in the gay
afternoon light. It was the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I
remember well.
Never moving her head, only her eyes vivid with restless insurgent life,
she whispered defiantly: “As long as I lie quiet like this no one can do
anything to me or ... fire you out or anything. You just ... stay where
you are. Be brave, child....”
Now there were queer, funny things in the great eyes of the still head.
They were childish, too, and I laughed at them, but she would not laugh,
because it hurt her.
We sat in silence, not to tire her. She lay flat on her back, her head
on a pillow which was so low as to be only a pillow by courtesy. Her
eyes would be fixed on the ceiling, and then she would look sideways at
me, and that was when I seemed to see queer, funny things in her eyes.
They were as though glistening with bits of things ... fear, pride, a
sort of childish glee, a sort of childish naughtiness, a sort of
childish shamefacedness. It was as though she was terrified of her new
toy, and very proud of it, too--her returning life. And then the
shamefacedness, an almost guilty look, as though she had just cheated
some one out of something in a funny way. Not that she hadn’t been very
clever either, her look seemed to say. And somehow I was made a
fellow-conspirator in all this ... in the terror, pride, glee, mischief,
shamefacedness with which she was deliciously playing with her new toy,
returning life.
She said suddenly, in an enormous voice which she had obviously been
husbanding for the purpose: “No one wants me....” And I think, but I am
not sure, that she would have giggled if she could.
“Iris, you’ll have Masters in here if you go shouting like that.”
“He didn’t want me, even....”
“Who didn’t? Masters didn’t?”
“No. God.”
“Oh, I see,” I said.
She panted breathlessly, eager to be talking: “I made my application,
all ... all in order. Forms all filled in and everything. But ... Oh,
they weren’t impressed. Not a bit, they weren’t----”
“Oi, you’re talking too much, Iris!”
“Oi to you. Listen.... The old man said to me: ‘Well, young woman, and
what do you want?’ I wasn’t afraid, not a bit. Had all my forms ready
and everything.... ‘What do I want, Father?’ says I. ‘Why, I’m as good
as dead, that’s what I am. Doctor’s face all of a blur, nurse’s face all
of a blur, temperature 106--why, I _am_ dead, if it comes to that!’
‘Nonsense,’ says God. ‘Never saw a woman more alive in all my life. Ho,
Gabriel! Expel this woman!’ ‘Yes, but!’ I said, ‘I want to die, I do, I
do!’ ‘In that case,’ says He, ‘death will be a great disappointment to
you. We want none of your sort here, young woman. Ho, Michael, Gabriel!
Eject this sinner. She’s still alive....’”
After a long pause I found those great eyes looking at me very
seriously. She whispered: “Owe it to you. I mean, life. Thank you.”
“Iris, to me! My dear, what rot!”
“Not rot at all. If you hadn’t been kind enough to come round again that
night to ... inquire, he’d have called and found only that old nun there
and she would have said ... _assez bien_, and away he’d have gone. And
me, too.... See?
“_And_,” she said, “that ptomaine poisoning. You dear, you dear! Oh, how
I like you when you’re not looking! Genius, I call that. And when ...
Masters told me, I laughed so they had to give me morphia. Darling,
these _piqures_! I got holes all over me....”
“_Piqure du cœur_,” I let slip.
“_Piqure du_ what?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You’re laughing at me,” she whispered, “that’s what you’re doing. I’m
going to close my eyes now for five minutes. But don’t go. Don’t go....”
It was the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well, and
Mademoiselle Printemps was dancing in the sunlight that fell in a shower
of gold on the window-sill, on which now stood three nectarines and a
large pear on a plate. But the blind was drawn so that she could dance
only in a bright splash across the little mountain which, I ventured to
suppose, was made by Iris’s toes. In the shade of the room stood the
small table, and on the small table the doll with the red silk
handkerchief round her wrist sat sleeping beneath tall sprays of mimosa,
sprays of bright yellow powdered with fresh gold....
“Yes,” I heard her voice, faint, faint, and when I looked round from the
mimosa to her I saw that her eyes had followed mine to a garden in the
South.
“Iris, I was to say good-bye....”
“I know,” she said gravely; and she smiled. “I heard him....”
“You heard him, Iris?”
“Dreams, clouds, mists. Faces, phantoms, fates, words. Yes, I heard
him....” And she smiled, with every bit of her eyes, as though to
reassure me. “That’s quite all right,” she said.
“Iris, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you ... promise that that’s quite all
right?”
She was looking at me with a smile....
“Promise,” she suddenly sobbed, and her eyes were streaming with tears.
I was terrified.
“Lie here,” she sobbed, “like a mummy ... no inside left, nothing left
... thinking and thinking and thinking ... trying to lie to myself right
and left, north and south ... can’t have what I want, so must make up
stories ... and you sit there stiff as a pole saying ‘Promise’ ... call
yourself a friend.... You don’t know how ill I’ve been!”
“I do, I do, Iris! For pity’s sake! If that man comes in and finds you
like th----”
“And you think I’m awful,” she whispered helplessly. She stared at me.
“You think I’m awful,” she said quite calmly.
“Iris,” I said, “I like you. Of course, if I didn’t....”
“Of course,” she said, “he doesn’t know....”
“Of course,” I said.
“And he’ll never know....”
“Good,” I said.
“As for me,” she whispered ...
On her forehead there were little beads of wet. I wiped them off with my
handkerchief, and she said: “My nose, too, please. Had my hair waved ...
but it never stays when you’re not well. Got to be well to have curly
hair....”
“And, Iris, if you don’t have it cut soon it will be as long as a
woman’s hair.”
“As for me,” she whispered, “all this effort wasted ... no playmate, no
nothing. Masters warned me, too.... Dead as dead, the poor darling
was....” Slowly, slowly, tears were crawling down the tiny grey cheeks.
Hastily I wiped them away, hearing a step outside. “Nothing, nothing
...” she kept on whispering with closed eyes, and I barely had time to
whisk away a tear from her eyelash as the door opened.
“Well?” that man muttered. “Killed her yet?”
“I think she’s asleep,” I whispered. “Ssh.”
“Stuff!” snapped Masters. “She’s been crying. Out you go.”
Suddenly Iris said in that enormous, preserved voice: “I have not been
crying.”
Masters, whose great brown coat filled the whole side of the bed, so
that I was nowhere, looked down at her like a worried bird....
“I’d like,” she pleaded, “to say good-bye ... to this gentleman, if you
would kindly ... get out of the way for a minute....” And when I bent
over the wasted hand, from which the emerald ring now hung like a hoop,
she said: “Ah, that defiant courtesy! Thank you, my dear. And good-bye
for ever as ever is, for I don’t suppose I shall ever come back to
England again ... nevermore, nevermore. And,” she whispered, “I will
keep my promise....”