should be indulged. I quite agree, Edgar. It's because it affects other
people. That's ethics; not conventions. All the difference in the
world. Thank you. I've been thinking about it a good deal, and I wanted
to hear what you felt. Good boy!"
As he rose from the table, Claudia also rose, and gave him that rare
thing, a kiss. For Claudia was no more demonstrative of affection than
her brother.
"Sorry to have been a bore," she said abruptly. "I wanted to know. It
hadn't anything to do with--with what we'd been talking about, you
know."
"God forbid!" said Edgar, as he turned away from her in some haste.
Claudia returned to Percy, who had jumped upon her chair and was giving
little sniffs at the odours of breakfast. She patted Percy's head, or
rather, his nose, so that he scowled at her; and, after having lifted
Percy to another chair, poured herself more coffee. Although Claudia
looked so young, and her movements were still the free movements of
youth, she was rather grave as she sat at the table. So many little
thoughts and intuitions, chiefly about Edgar, but some of them about
Patricia, ran in her head. She could not be other than grave.
vi
Edgar went straight out of the house after he had left Claudia in
the breakfast room. He could not at first understand why he felt so
extraordinarily miserable as he walked along the street; but he awoke
to find his own exclamation, "God forbid!" dinning in his ears. What
if the subject Claudia had introduced _were_ something to do with
Patricia! His mind was instantly alight. The man distraught by love
will believe almost anything evil of the inscrutable mistress--that she
is a devil, harlot, liar, angel, fool.... Edgar was not so extreme; but
he was filled with that wild electricity of emotion which accompanies
the throwing into a combustible mind of any such suggestion. His day
was spoilt because of this one frantic thought. There was no pity here
for Patricia; no understanding; only the fierce blaze of uncontrollable
mental agitation. His heat cooled, of course; but the effect of it
remained. Edgar knew that those calm doubtings and considerations of
the night and morning were but the shadows of his real doubtings. Of
consideration he had none: only a fire that smouldered, and that
looked and felt like coldness. But he did not dare to recall the
subject of the morning talk, or Claudia's dissociation of it from the
discussion of Patricia's nature. To have done so would have brought
him to a pitch of unmanageable fear. As it was, the thought, although
suppressed, lay full of secret life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ANOTHER DAY
i
While Edgar speculated, Patricia suffered. Her vanity had been wounded
by Harry's silence: the meeting, which showed her that he was solacing
himself with Rhoda, wounded her vanity yet more. It was a mortal blow
to her sense of power. Parting might have been sweet pain. This was
otherwise. It was a shuddering anguish. Soberly Patricia tried to face
the truth: her mind could not grasp it. She could not suppose that
the romance--so sweet, so almost childish--was concluded. Although
her words, and even her thoughts, were frequently those of a woman,
her heart was still the easily wounded heart of a child. She had been
living in a dream; and nobody would tarry until her due awakening.
She found herself in a discouraging world where the grown-up is still
all-powerful. Harry was a man, fixed in rigid manhood, without the gift
of indefinite spiritual expansion; and she had hoped that he was still
a boy, still able to play, still able to postpone his maturity until
some vaguely contemplated future. Her dream was shown to have been a
folly.
It was to the sense of disaster that Patricia came. Not yet to
desperation.
ii
That morning it occurred to her to look at her bank-book. Two
manuscripts had been returned through the post; and as she ate her
breakfast Patricia suddenly recollected that she had not had anything
accepted for some weeks. A tremor went through her. Her eyes flinched.
Supposing.... With some anxiety she counted the small amount of money
in her purse. And then, as she continued to sit in that constricted
room with the low ceiling and the sun-stained wall-paper, the room
seemed to grow darker. The oilcloth and rug grew more tawdry. The whole
of her surroundings were seen as deplorable. Patricia had thought
little of money lately, for she had given all her attention to the
delightful play that was in progress; and she had worked without
earnest endeavour. It had not appeared necessary, and the fancies had
come with ease. So often her eyes had wandered, and her memories and
anticipations had become exciting; and when that happened the pen
strayed on only half-heeded, or remained quite still upon the table.
And now, with this awakening, what she had written seemed to Patricia
silly and babyish and without value, with all the pleasant sportiveness
by which it had been inspired wholly evaporated. And she found that she
had other things to face besides the loss of Harry.
For a few minutes she pretended that there was nothing to fear, that
there must lie pounds and weeks between the moment and the end of
comfort. Her confidence was staunch. Nothing to fear ... nothing to
fear.... She was Patricia Quin. Just as she felt that she would never
die, so Patricia felt that she would never want. It was true, perhaps.
And yet when her thoughts tried to create money out of nothing it did
not seem clear how she was to live ... presently ... soon ... very
soon....
Without preparation, Patricia's courage suddenly deserted her. She lost
her nerve. She no longer had her dream of Harry: she was awake: she
was stifling. And disaster lay ahead. She wasn't any good.... She was
afraid.
"I'm afraid," she whispered to herself, with bowed head. "I'm a
coward!" It was for Patricia a terrible confession. Energy, confidence,
egotism as a rule sustained her in every shock. Now these things were
deserting her in face of a spectre. In vain did she rally. It was true:
she was afraid.
iii
With the expression of a baby that is afraid and is trying not to
confess it; with eyes that seemed to grow larger each minute and a
mouth that was pursed in fear that masqueraded as courage, Patricia
stood alone in that ugly little room with the highly coloured
furnishings and the gilded mirror. She knew she had her friends,
who would welcome her rich or poor, but they would welcome a happy
Patricia, and not one who was cowed by disaster. Such a Patricia
as this would be unfamiliar. She could never bear to go among them
starving or wretched. Where she had queened it, she could never
play Cinderella. But when her imagination darted ever so little
forward--to the day when the money which had seemed such wealth was
exhausted,--Patricia heard pity, and shrank from it. Hers was the
panic cry: "All is lost!" She had been bold; her way had seemed so
clear, so conquering. In that minute of discovery it was not surprising
that confidence vanished. She was not one used to hardship, to the
canvassing of expedients. All her life had been spent thoughtlessly so
far as provision for anything beyond the moment was involved. She had
no preparation at all for this emergency. She had awakened to nightmare.
With nerves shaken, and despair almost at her elbow, ready to plunge
into her heart at a motion, Patricia tried to think. If her money
went, what prospects were there? Harry's help--no! She could never
appeal to Harry. That was a new thought, and one which confirmed her
decision. In no circumstances whatever could she ever have gone to
Harry as one humiliated. Nor could she have married him except for
love, as an equal--as a superior, the adored, the shining wonderful
of her own dreams. Marriage occurred to her--marriage as a way out of
want--as it has occurred many times to women;--and it was only without
true imagination that she saw it. It was a suggestion made by her
inexperience--the sort of careless, unrealised notion that trips off
the mind's surface. She knew that at any time she could have married
Jacky; and the notion almost, even in the midst of her distress, made
her laugh. It was absurd. Jacky! Jacky as a husband, a perpetual
companion! There was nobody whom she could marry. A situation? Who
would employ her? Now, when men and women were clamouring for work! And
how, after so much liberty, endure the constraints and disciplines of
office life! Impossible.
Dry-eyed and wretched, Patricia received her shock. She was stunned.
A day earlier--in full panoply, deliciously happy, self-enchanted,
inspired with the greatest ambitions, now she was amazed to find
how insubstantial were the foundations of her confidence. In an
instant, from independence, she had fallen to a paralysing discovery.
Patricia was terrified. The knowledge that she was only a frightened,
inexperienced little girl was borne in upon her.
iv
If she could have been caught in that mood by somebody capable of
understanding her, who would have taken all her native silliness at
its true value as the ebullience of youth, Patricia might have been
turned at this moment into a channel leading straight to growth and
happiness. But there was nobody at hand. There so rarely is anybody at
hand. She had friends, but no friend. She was entirely without a friend
to whom she could turn for renewal of that self-justification which is
essential to happiness. She had been without a guide all her life, and
all the acquaintances of the last few weeks were self-engrossed and
pleasure-loving. She had been so wonderful, and now she saw that the
power upon which she had counted did not exist. She was alone, and that
was the consciousness which for Patricia lay uppermost. She was alone.
Although she tried very hard to bluster, it was forced home to her that
nobody cared very much what she did with her life. Harry had wanted
her for himself, to make love to, to play with; never for the sake of
seeing that she made the best of herself. He had not been interested in
her. He had not imagined her. He did not love Patricia: he was merely
"in love" with her, which meant that she provided, in her response,
flattery to his own self-love.
Not a real friend: they did not grow in this heartless realm. There was
only one house in London which she had felt as a home; and Claudia she
hardly knew, while she was sure that Edgar Mayne, although he was kind,
was inhuman. He could never understand that she was Patricia Quin, the
marvellous Patricia; and that so she must remain in her own eyes for
weeks and months and years to come--she believed, for ever. When she
thought of him it was of one whose friendship she might value if only
he would do what he could never do--acknowledge her will as a thing
quite as splendid as his own. No friend: she was alone. A sob shook
Patricia. The first hint of desperation showed in her. She gave a sob.
What did it matter _what_ she did? Nobody cared. Again that surge of
arrogance swept--now a little less strongly--over her. She could rely
upon only herself; and she was a little girl. Edgar was grown-up. Harry
was grown-up. Amy was grown-up. They were all finished: only Patricia
had the power of infinite growth. They could none of them understand
her. She was too big to be understood--too big, and too childishly
helpless. Patricia angrily wiped away two tears which had stolen out on
to her cheeks. The contrast between her egotism and her situation was
insufferable. She felt reckless, without hope. Who cared?
v
She was dining that night with Monty; and they were going on to dance
at a club. She supposed it would be Topping's, but she was not sure.
And as she wiped away her tears Patricia felt glad to be going out to
dance. She thought that for one evening at least she would be able
to forget that she had lost Harry and that she was on the verge of
poverty. Still with that expression of fear and misery upon her face,
she began to wonder about the dress she would wear, and about the
evening, and about Monty; and as she did this her heart was a little
eased at the distraction of her thoughts, and a more cheerful glance
gave freshness to her appearance. She might still be fearful; but at
any rate she was--ever so slightly--relieved. Complete disaster was not
yet.
The day went on, very slowly, giving Patricia time for many changes of
emotion between her fear and her arrogance, for tears and blustering or
consoling speeches and recoveries; and by the evening she had become
calmer. But the assertion of self-control had been purchased. She
was no longer normal. The knocking of a postman in the street below
made her heart flutter, and her ears strain. Any violent noise was
enough to set her nerves jangling. With her mind lost, she could not
do anything with concentration, but committed mistakes in spelling,
wrote words that made nonsense, spilt water from the vase she had just
re-filled, and almost broke the vase itself by striking it against the
table in inattentive blindness. And at last the day grew dark, and then
it seemed as though the lighted gas tried her eyes, making them smart,
and as though the atmosphere were unaccountably heavy. Out-of-doors it
was raw, with a mist rising. Within, the heat was dry and exhausting.
And the hours would not pass quickly enough. They dallied slowly round
the clock, and she watched the seconds hand with impatience from
quarter to quarter. The room grew smaller and smaller, closing in upon
her until she sprang to her feet as if to force the walls apart, so
that she could breathe.
vi
The meeting with Monty was for seven o'clock, and the little restaurant
where they were to dine was already half-full of people when Patricia
arrived. She went straight in, and saw Monty waiting in the hall of the
restaurant, his overcoat already discarded, and a cigarette between his
lips. For the first time that day Patricia's heart really lightened.
Monty was in evening dress (for so it had been arranged), and he always
looked his most handsome when dressed. The white shirt enhanced the
olive darkness of his skin, and the beautifully cut coat made him look
slimmer than he was. And there was a quality in Monty's caressing
manner which pleased and soothed Patricia. It was full of admiration.
Monty had very dark and tired eyes, which seemed never to yield their
secrets. There was power in his carriage. Everything about Monty, from
his bearing to his finger tips, suggested luxury and invulnerability.
He seemed always just to have left the hands of his hairdresser and the
manicurist.
And on this evening he was more than ever regal and courteous. His
quick glance was full of sympathy and reassurance, as though he were
saying: "You are unhappy, but you look, as usual, incomparably lovely.
You deserve, and you shall have, all the consolation, all the happiness
that I can give you; and it will make me very proud if you will let me
entertain you with all the resources of expensiveness and unobtrusive
delicacy." Spoken, the words would have been odious; conveyed, they
were as balm.
"Come straight in," murmured Monty, his hand upon her wrist. Patricia
could still feel that he bore about him the aroma of the Egyptian
cigarette which he had thrown away, and it seemed appropriate to him.
He had for her the attractiveness of something exotic. The proximity
of that dark face and dark head was agreeable; where all was softness
and gentle modulation, she, too, could not fail to yield. "How punctual
you always are! I've got a table there--in the far corner. It will be
quieter. And I ventured--you will excuse me?--to order the dinner."
With a checked sigh, Patricia allowed Monty to help her with her coat,
so that her arms might be free; and as he seated himself opposite she
smiled. She did not know that it was a pathetic smile: she would have
blushed had she known it. But Monty's glance seemed to be everywhere,
although it was so seldom anything but gentle and melancholy. He spoke
to the waiter, who disappeared and returned too quickly to allow of any
talk in the interval. The waiter bore two small glasses.
"This is a very exceptional cocktail," said Monty. "It will do you
good."
Patricia held out her hand for the glass he extended. For the first
time in her life she was eager for stimulant. She drank the cool bitter
drink, which sent a slow motion of revived life through her, and filled
her eyes and made the feeling of dispirited tiredness recede. Monty was
watching her.
"_Very_ good," Patricia assured him. She saw the black head inclined,
the slow smile which crossed Monty's face; and upon the table his plump
and beautifully shapely hand as he received his own glass. As he did
this, a waiter brought a shining bucket, containing ice, held a bottle
for verification, and drew with a muffled pop the wine-cork. Patricia
started: Monty was giving her champagne. How glad she was! It was as if
he had known that she was miserable, and had planned to disperse the
shadow. It was magic.
"You like the wine dry?" said Monty. "This is Ruinart."
Patricia nodded, shyly smiling. How kind he was! How kind and consoling
and suave and perfectly controlled. As if he had known! Her heart
warmed. Already the wretchedness of the day was slipping out of her
memory. Her spirits were rising with each instant. She was growing
happy.
vii
"You're tired," suggested Monty. "Don't talk. Keep very still, and your
headache will go. Let me do the talking. I'm not so used to that as
some of our friends are; and it will please me and rest you. Will you
have some of this--and this?" His voice was so low, and its quality had
so much the soft smoothness of velvet, that every word brought peace.
"It ought to be possible for us all to leave England now and follow
the sun. One ought now to be starting for the East, where the sun is,
and spending the days in winter quarters. We ought to be going soon to
Tunisia or beyond, further than the winter tourists go; and then we
could come back and explore the ruins of Carthage; and you should learn
all about the ancient civilisations, and forget that this sharp and
strident Europe exists. It's so very lovely to travel back gradually
to the West, and to see Sicily, where the most beautiful things in
the world are; or it must be enchanting to go to India, to those
places where Europeans rarely go, and learn something about the Hindu
philosophy by going back for a dozen or so centuries and forgetting
that the world as we know it has any existence. I've never been to
India; but one day I shall go, because the wish to see it is growing
stronger and stronger, and I'm afraid of dying or growing old before
I've savoured all the beauties of the unfamiliar."
Monty spoke very slowly, and as if to cast a spell upon her, so that
she might forget her tiredness and her headache. Patricia nodded.
She thought how beautiful it would be to escape from all her present
distress, and to wander over the face of the earth, where there was
always sunshine and happiness.
"I should like," continued Monty, "to travel by car all over the world,
and go through the roads, staying where the fancy suggested, and going
on when I was tired. It would be very good to go through France, and
Northern Italy, and on to the East. One's seen the familiar beauties.
Now is the time to try and see what remains."
"I haven't seen even the familiar beauties," said Patricia, staring
straight in front of her. In imagination she could see a long white
road winding towards distant mountains. "I've never been out of
England. Why, I still think that to go to France and Italy and Spain
would be the most glorious thing in the world. Perhaps I shall go, one
day."
"Nothing could be easier, I'm sure," sympathised Monty. "Why not go?"
"Because I haven't any money," retorted Patricia. "You can't go, if you
haven't any money."
"You should get somebody to take you," ventured Monty. "It could easily
be arranged."
Patricia remained serious: Harry, she knew, tramped through Europe. It
would have been easy to go with him. He would make everything easy. A
film was across her eyes. Meditatively, forgetting Monty, she sipped
her champagne, and felt its incomparable pricking upon her tongue,
delicious and golden.
"Yes, it could easily be arranged," said Patricia, drowsily. Then a
little dryness touched her, and she looked straight at Monty, smiling.
"But it won't," she added.
Monty's glance held her eyes for an instant. But Patricia's eyes were
blue and clear, as baffling to Monty in their purity as his own were
unreadable to Patricia by reason of their impenetrable softness.
Something in those eyes smouldered.
"What a pity," said Monty.
viii
Two hours later they were at Topping's, and Patricia was dancing. The
champagne had cleared her head, but she had had more to drink than
usual, and her lightness was unwelcome. As she left the room where
she changed her shoes and handed her coat to an attendant she was
moved once more to thought of Harry by memory of her first visit to
this place. Her lips seemed to be swollen and to ache, and she had
been made short-sighted, and her lids were hot and unrefreshing to
tired eyes. But she was less unhappy, more pliant, more forgetful of
the possible disasters of the future. When Monty joined her she took
his arm naturally, but also because she felt glad of the safety which
his protection gave her. She could not bear to be here alone, to hear
the band in the distance, and to think of Harry. It was as though, in
touching Monty, she had said: "Take me anywhere--anywhere--so that I
shan't think of to-morrow. Because I'm frightened of to-morrow!"
They pressed into the room, through little bunches of people who
stood near the door; and Patricia heard the noise incomparably loud
in her ears, and she was dancing with Monty as if there were to be no
to-morrow. The champagne had robbed her of the power to feel: she was
numbed by it; but it had given her brain clearness and vivacity. When
suddenly she caught sight, among the dancers who were sitting at a
neighbouring table, of Harry and Rhoda, the shudder which ran through
her body was unconcealed. Tears filled her eyes. Monty could not have
failed to observe her emotion; but his acknowledgment of it was a
warmer pressure of reassurance.
"Don't let's ... go ... over there," whispered Patricia. "I don't want
to go. I don't ... like them. I don't want to ... talk to Harry and
Rhoda. Let's ... keep on dancing. I _want_ to."
If only Monty would keep her there, with one arm about her, safe from
her unhappiness.... If only he would protect her now....
ix
Patricia was not to escape Harry; for she and Monty had presently to
rest. They sat at one of the tables, and Monty ordered some more to
drink, and gently urged Patricia to join him. As she was hesitating,
refusing, yielding, a voice came from behind them which sent a tremor
through her. Harry and Rhoda stood there, laughing like children who
had stolen unawares upon sleeping elders.
"Hullo!" cried Harry. "Hullo, Patricia!"
Rhoda drew up a chair to Patricia's side, and began vivaciously to
talk. Patricia had a glimpse of the dead white cheeks and red lips and
full dark eyes, and struggled to carry on a conversation with Rhoda
while she was giving all her attention to what was passing behind her,
between the two men.
"Saw you when you first came in!" said Rhoda. "What a pretty dress
that is. This blue ... there aren't many complexions that would stand
it. Yours does, though. I'm sticking to black just now. Makes me look
svelte. I'm getting fat. You've been dining with Monty, I suppose.
Lucky girl. I had to dig Harry out. He's working like a nigger. Going
abroad...."
"I ... had ... to ... dig ... Harry ... out!... He's ... going ...
abroad!" That was all Patricia heard. "He's going abroad ... going
to the East, and the sun, perhaps ... tramping in the sun, making
everything ... easy."
"I wish ... I were going ... abroad," stammered Patricia.
"Wouldn't it be jolly. I say, let's _all_ go! If you could get
somebody.... You could join us somewhere.... I mean...." Rhoda checked
herself. Patricia shrank back.
"No, no!" she whispered. But she had heard the words which Rhoda had
spoken so thoughtlessly. And behind her was Harry's voice, quite
quietly saying:
"Let's change partners for a dance, Monty. I...."