CHAPTER I

“What I like about these small places,” remarked Mrs. Blackwood as she

seated herself at one of the tea-tables in the lounge of the Amberhurst

Private Hotel, “is that everybody gets to know everybody else quite

informally, and that is such a blessing for the young people.”

“Do you really think so?” queried Hester Cawthorn. It amused her to draw

the older woman out. Mrs. Blackwood herself did not interest Hester at

all; but Mrs. Blackwood as a type—the well-to-do, conventional,

provincial type—interested her very much indeed. She could picture Mrs.

Blackwood, queening it in her home-surroundings, the chatty little

country town of Eastwold; near enough to London to allow Mr. Blackwood

to travel up and down every day, and far enough removed from the

metropolis to form a world to itself; a small and very gregarious world,

no doubt, in which everybody certainly knew all about everybody else’s

business, and minded it in preference to their own.

Hester was not gregarious. In the dining-room, she sat alone at her

small table, politely but firmly declining the manageress’s good-natured

offer to “find some company for her.” Hester preferred her own company,

both during meals, and on her long walks into the surrounding country.

When all the hotel visitors, grouped according to their affinities, were

seated upon the lawn, Hester would sit alone, reading; or armed with a

masculine-looking walking-stick, and the brim of her felt hat turned

down to shade her thin sombre face, would stalk off in the direction of

the hills that formed a humped barrier upon the sky-line. At the end of

a fortnight’s stay, Mrs. Blackwood who, true to the traditions of

Eastwold, had discovered the leading features of interest in the lives

of everyone else in the hotel, was still no wiser about Hester.

She smiled now in answer to her question. “Why, yes, of course it’s a

blessing. I think the company one is in makes all the difference to

one’s enjoyment of a holiday—we always take ours in June, as Mr.

Blackwood’s partner has to have his in August.” Mrs. Blackwood was as

eager to impart information concerning herself and her family, as she

was to elicit it from others. “Are you making a long stay, Miss

Cawthorn?”

“Possibly; I don’t know.” Hester spoke with perfect courtesy, though her

tone implied that she was quite decided as to her future plans, but

wished to discourage enquiries regarding them.

“You’ve only been here a short while?”

“Comparatively speaking.”

Mrs. Blackwood abandoned the attack for the moment, and continued: “The

children love it here, and even Ottilie seems to be enjoying herself,

though of course it’s rather difficult for her.”

“Is that the little German girl who is staying with you?”

“Yes. It’s an exchange, you see. Herr Baumgartner is a

business-connection of my husband’s, and Ottilie has been with us for

nearly six months, learning English. Next year, Doreen is to go back

with her to Heidelberg to study German. She’s a dear child, but her

English isn’t very grand yet, though I’m glad to say that Mr. Griggs has

given her a part in the theatricals in spite of it.”

“He must be a very indulgent stage-manager.”

“Oh, he’s charming, I assure you. At home at Eastwold, he’s the life and

soul of the place, just as he is here; he always tries to join us, even

if it’s only for a week, when we’re on our summer holiday.”

At this juncture, the swing-doors leading into the recreation-room were

flung open, and the life and soul of Eastwold, wearing velvet

knee-breeches and a tricolor waistcoat, burst into the lounge.

“Mrs. Blackwood—Miss Cawthorn—what do you think has happened? Miss

Wright has suddenly been called away, and now there’s no one to play the

incidental music for us to-night. I wonder if either of you two

ladies——” tentatively Mr. Griggs glanced at Hester, of whom he was very

much in awe.

She shook her head, and Mrs. Blackwood replied: “Oh, you know I’m no

good at the piano, Mr. Griggs. Dennis has monopolised all the musical

talent there is in our family, and I’m afraid he won’t be here till too

late. Can’t you get on without the music?”

“Why, the music’s half the battle!” wailed Griggs, whose neat little

moustache, neat little features, pince-nez, and hair growing rather thin

on top, accorded strangely with his dashing costume. “It lends

atmosphere—dignity. We can’t have Marry Anto’nett guillotined without a

soft musical accompaniment. It makes all the difference, you know.”

“Most unfortunate, isn’t it?” Mrs. Blackwood invited Hester’s

commiseration, “of course Doreen strums the piano a little, but she’s in

the play. I do wonder if Dennis——”

“You can bet your boots that Dennis won’t!” A twelve-year-old schoolboy

suddenly thrust his head through the swing-doors, “and anyway if he did,

he’d play mouldy sort of stuff. He always does.”

“Oh, Reggie,” his mother reproved him, “you musn’t speak like that about

your brother’s music. You don’t understand it, that’s all.”

“Well, it _is_ mouldy,” insisted the boy, “there’s no tune in it,

however hard you listen for one.”

Mrs. Blackwood privately endorsed this statement, but for the sake of

discipline she resumed: “You’re a very rude little boy! And what are you

doing with that air-gun? Haven’t I told you not to use it in the house?”

“I’ve got to have it. I’m the Mob—in the French Revolution, you know,”

he added for Hester’s edification.

“Oh, darling,” exclaimed Mrs. Blackwood, “I thought you were to be the

little Dauphin.”

Reggie shook his head in silence.

“_Aren’t_ you going to be the Dauphin?” his mother persisted. “I thought

it would be such a nice part for you.”

“It was a mouldy part, so I chucked it.”

“Yes, but who’s going to play it, if you’re not?”

“Doreen. She’s got to be both the Queen’s children rolled into one. _I_

wasn’t going to have Miss Fayne blubbering all over me.... Much more

sport to be the Mob, and stick her head up on a pike.... We haven’t got

a pike, so the air-gun’s got to do.”

Griggs shook his finger archly. “Well, Master Reggie, shall we tell them

the truth about your defalcation—good word that, eh? You didn’t mind

being the Dauphin, as long as Miss de Courcy was playing Marry

Anto’nett, did you?”

Reggie grew pink about the ears and muttered: “She’s a sport, and anyway

_she_ chucked the Queen’s part, because she wanted to be Charlotte

Corday, and have the bathroom bit.”

“Ssh,” remonstrated Griggs, “you musn’t talk so much, or you’ll spoil

the effect of our performance to-night. I don’t know what we shall do

about the music, though. Don’t you think there’s any chance that Dennis

will be here in time?”

Dennis’s mother returned doubtfully: “You see, I don’t know exactly when

he’s arriving; he didn’t say in his wire, he’s rather absent-minded. I

suppose composers and people like that often are.”

Hester noted that there was an undertone of pride in her voice now, as

well as deprecation; a moment later, the pride was unconsciously echoed

by Reggie, hovering between the swing-doors. “Dennis has got other

things to think about than remembering to tell you if he’ll be home to

dinner to-morrow, or whom he’s going out with the day after! His head’s

always full of ideas, even if they do sound rotten when they come out.”

Then, perhaps fearing that he had said too much in praise of his elder

brother, Reggie added with seeming irrelevance: “Clive won the High Jump

at Westborough three years running, and the Long Jump twice; not bad—was

it?” Without waiting for an answer, he vanished through the door; and

Griggs, after vainly scouring the drawing-room and the lawn in search of

a pianist, returned to conduct the dress rehearsal.

Mrs. Blackwood sighed. “Reggie and Clive are great friends in spite of

the big difference in their ages. But Clive and Dennis don’t hit it off

at all, though there’s only a year between them.”

“Opposing temperaments?” suggested Hester.

“Yes, indeed. Even as little boys they were quite different. We could

never get Dennis to play with soldiers or steamers or any of the usual

toys. His father used to get quite angry. He always wanted his boys to

be _manly_ boys. Reggie is a great favourite of his, now. He loves to

take the child along whenever he goes golfing or swimming. Mr. Blackwood

has been such a keen sportsman all his life, and both Clive and Reggie

seem to have inherited it from him. I’m sure it adds to his enjoyment of

his holiday to have Reggie here, even though it’s only because they’ve

got measles at his preparatory school. Yes, he and Mr. Blackwood are

more like friends than father and son. But Dennis....” Again there was

in her tone that mingling of pride and concern. “Dennis has never cared

at all about sport.”

“More his mother’s son than his father’s, perhaps?”

There was a frown between Mrs. Blackwood’s eyes now. She appeared to be

looking straight at Hester, yet without seeing her; and a second later,

at the sunlit lawn and the first tee of the hotel golf links, yet

without seeing them either. Her concentrated gaze evidently beheld

something that had nothing whatever to do with Hester or the lawn or the

golf links. She said in a troubled voice: “Yes—yes, perhaps he is, I

don’t really know—of course as long as he’s happy—.” She broke off

abruptly and fell silent. Hester watched her. So she had reserves after

all, this provincial chatterbox, despite her readiness to discuss her

own and other people’s affairs. But whatever it was that Hester imagined

to have glimpsed, was hidden away again the next moment, beneath the

flow of light conversation that had broken out afresh. “He’s been

staying up in London with a friend, Mr. Burgess, for the Russian opera

season, they’re both so interested in it. Mr. Burgess is musical

too—plays the piano, but he doesn’t compose like Dennis does. Still,

it’s nice for them to have something in common, isn’t it? And now

they’re off on a walking tour through Devonshire, and as we’re on the

Great Western line here, Dennis promised that they would spend the

week-end with us on their way down.” She went on, “I wish they were

staying longer; I’m sure Dennis would like it here, though he always

says he hates hotels. But it’s the people who make the place, isn’t it?

And I do think they’re such a nice set of people here, don’t you, Miss

Cawthorn?”

Hester’s “Oh, yes, I daresay they are,” was utterly impersonal and

aloof, but not in the least discouraged, Mrs. Blackwood continued: “That

Miss de Courcy, now—Antoinette—don’t you think she’s charming?”

“I don’t think I’ve noticed her....” Hester was actuated by some demon

of cussedness to pour cold water on poor Mrs. Blackwood’s enthusiasm. It

was an untruth into the bargain: she had certainly noticed Antoinette de

Courcy; one could not very well help noticing the most vivid and

striking personality in the whole hotel.

Mrs. Blackwood began again: “I believe she comes of a very good old

French family; her people are very strict with her; I think she told

Doreen that this is the first time she has stayed away from

them—she’s here with the Faynes, you know; she and Rosabel were

school-friends—Doreen is simply devoted to Antoinette and so is Reggie.”

“What about Clive?” laughed Hester.

“Oh, Clive’s engaged, you see. They may have to wait two years till they

can marry—not that Mr. Blackwood wouldn’t be quite willing to help them

to set up house now, but Clive is determined that he’ll make a position

for himself before he marries. He’s always known his own mind; even as a

little chap he wanted to be an engineer, and he’s stuck to it ever

since; and he’s like that in his affections, too—absolutely settled,

though he’s so young—just twenty-four—but Lily knows he wouldn’t change

towards her, if she had to wait ten years for him; Reggie’s like Clive;

once he gets an idea into his head nothing will move him. They’re both

inclined to be obstinate, but then if one knows how to treat them!... I

can read those two like an open book.” She ended with a sigh, in which

satisfaction was blended with an indefinable regret. She was obviously

thinking again of that other son, the first-born, whose psychology did

not seem to present the facilities of the “open book.” It was curious

that whereas she spoke of all her menfolk—of her husband, of Clive and

Reggie—with affection, with admiration, with respect even, when she

spoke of Dennis or, as at the present moment, remained silent about him,

there was about her whole manner something which suggested that the love

she bore him was more poignant, and therefore more secret.

Presently, headed by Mr. Griggs, the other members of the theatrical

company came through into the lounge. They had resumed their ordinary

clothes, and flung themselves in various attitudes of weariness into the

deep armchairs.

Griggs’ repeated plea that they were not to spoil the effect of the play

by talking about it now, was laughed down by Antoinette de Courcy,

balancing her slender weight on the arm of a chair. “What does it

matter? There’s no one about now. Mrs. Blackwood is the mother of three

of the actors, so why shouldn’t she be in the know? And Miss Cawthorn

won’t let out any of our secrets.” She smiled brilliantly across at

Hester, who did not smile back, but answered shortly: “No, indeed not.”

Her assurance was quite superfluous, as it was impossible to imagine her

condescending to take sufficient interest in anyone’s secrets to lead

her to betray them.

Mrs. Blackwood laughed. “Well, I can only hope that the three actors for

whom I’m responsible haven’t given you too much trouble, Mr. Griggs.”

“Oh, how can you speak of ‘trouble,’ Mrs. Blackwood?” he expostulated,

“it has only been a pleasure to work with them.”

Mrs. Blackwood beamed upon him. “We all know you’ve got wonderful

patience, as you need to have, I’m sure, for getting up amateur

theatricals.”

Griggs smiled with modest pride. “But it’s well worth it, well worth it.

Nothing like theatricals for making people thoroughly at home with each

other. Whist-drives and picnics aren’t in it! There’s something about

theatricals, an _esprit de corps_, as you might say.”

Reggie was causing a diversion by noisily testing the spring of his

air-gun. By way of rebuke, his mother with less tact than could have

been desired, remarked: “I do hope all Reggie’s chopping and changing

didn’t put you out. I think he’s a naughty little boy not to have taken

the part that was given him.”

“Yes, and it means double work for me,” declared his seventeen-year-old

sister Doreen. “I’ve got to say all his lines as well as my own.”

“And jolly glad you are to get the chance!” retorted Reggie. Doreen

threw back her pretty fair head and commanded him to “shut up”; and

Antoinette checked the reprimand rising to Mrs. Blackwood’s lips with:

“You really musn’t blame Reggie, he was only following my bad example.”

Here Rosabel Fayne, author of the play, broke out: “Yes, Antoinette

darling, I do think it’s such a pity—though of course you know best, and

I’m sure you’re simply wonderful as Charlotte Corday—but I did write

Marie Antoinette part on purpose for you—so sweet that you’ve got the

same name, isn’t it? And I know I’m no good in the part....” She paused

for breath, eyes fixed adoringly on her friend’s face. Rosabel’s

appearance was a sore trial to herself. She yearned to be tall and

willowy and languorous; imperious of manner, and regal of bearing ...

instead of which she had an angular little figure, a pointed chin, and

eyes which, despite the wistfulness of their expression, were somehow

reminiscent of a robin’s. She was ready to lavish great floods of

adoration on her friends or on characters in history or fiction. At

present the said adoration was equally divided between Antoinette de

Courcy and the “Unhappy Queen.”

Antoinette laughed now. “You make an excellent Queen, Rosabel, and the

Charlotte Corday part was really too tempting....”

“It’s quite unhistorical,” remarked Clive Blackwood in a bored voice. He

was bored with the theatricals altogether; had only consented to play a

part, because he did not want to make himself conspicuous by refusing;

and because if you were staying in a place like this, it behoved you,

more or less, to do as the others did. So Clive was playing Louis XVI.

with a wooden stolidity and lack of conviction partly responsible for

Antoinette’s change of rôle.

“Yes, it is gorgeously unhistorical,” she agreed with Clive, “Rosabel

wasn’t even certain if it was Danton or Marat whom I had to murder in

the bath, but Ottilie managed to enlighten us, didn’t you, Ottilie?”

Ottilie, whose tartan blouse, fair basket plaits wound round her head,

and sentimental blue eyes proclaimed her unmistakably a member of the

Fatherland, exclaimed “_Augenblick!_” and removed her fingers from her

ears. She had stuffed them in to shut out sound, while she earnestly

pondered over the lines of her part.

“Ottilie, you ought to know your words by now,” protested Doreen.

“Och, I shall never know zem....” Ottilie’s voice was by nature loud,

deep and gloomy, and her present despair had added considerably to its

lugubrious quality.

“You knew them well enough just now,” Doreen strove to cheer her, but

Ottilie refused to be cheered.

“_Ausgeschlossen_ that I remember myself von vord vhen ze curtain

up-goes.... Only lately I exchanged ze vords. I said ‘ze’ when it is ‘a’

in ze text.”

“But little slips like that don’t matter, do they, Mr. Griggs?” Doreen

appealed to the stage-manager.

“Of course not, of course not,” he responded genially, “as long as you

give us an impression of the character, we’ll be lenient about the

words.”

“And everybody will make allowances for you, dear,” Mrs. Blackwood put

in, “knowing that you’re a foreigner.”

“I am Madame Roland, governess of ze children of ze Qveen, and for my

_Auffassung_ of ze char_ac_ter—how do you say ‘_Auffassung_’ in English,

Doreen?”

“‘Conception,’” translated Antoinette, who had travelled.

“For my conception, zen, it is _unbedingt_ necessary zat my vords shall

be exact.” Ottilie could not be induced to regard her part and

responsibilities in any but the most serious light; and resumed her

conscientious study of her lines. To Ottilie, brought up on her native

Schiller and Goethe and Kleist, there was something almost sacred about

the production of a historical drama, and she was grieved at the lack of

seriousness with which the others approached it. Ever since she could

remember, she had longed to play one of Schiller’s heroines, Maria

Stuart, or Joan of Arc, bidding farewell to her mountains—

“_Lebt wohl, Ihr Berge, Ihr geliebten Triften_—” or most of all

Elisabeth in “Don Carlos”.... Yes, how she had longed to act that great

scene with young Carlos, her step-son, manfully repressing his passion

for her, going to his death.... It would have been rapturous to hear

Heidmann, the romantic actor for whom she had a “_Schwärmerei_,” say to

her:

“_... Elisabeth, ich halte dich in meinen Armen und wanke nicht...._”

But instead of all these imaginary glories, Ottilie was only playing a

French governess with a German accent in an English play—a play in which

historical facts had been shamelessly juggled with, and no one even

cared if she did say “the” when it should be “a”....

As the afternoon wore on, the other hotel visitors returned from their

various outings, and began to fill up the lounge. Griggs scanned them

with an eagle eye, in the hope of finding amongst them a pianist capable

of supplying the “atmospheric” music.

“Mrs. Greene—now I wonder if you would—no? Miss Harris—of course _you_

play—no good denying it, you know, I can see it in your eyes, light of

genius and all that! What? Cut your finger...? Isn’t that bad luck now!”

Griggs mopped his forehead. “Dear, dear, whatever shall we do? All

my—ah—blandishments seem to be of no avail.”

Rosabel suggested dubiously: “Of course, darling Mother would play for

us with pleasure—she’s always so sweet—but she hasn’t such an

exquisitely _soulful_ touch as Miss Wright had—we’re spoilt, aren’t we?

In fact, dance-music is really Mother’s strong point.”

Antoinette gave a joyous laugh. “Well, why not, why not? By all means

let us have the ‘Merry Widow’ waltz, while Marie Antoinette is being

beheaded.”

“Oh, Miss Antoinette!” exclaimed Griggs in an injured voice, “you’re

making fun of us. This is a most serious matter.”

Half amused and half impatient, Antoinette again glanced across at

Hester who, this time, gave her in response a slow smile that made her

pale, haggard face look strangely attractive. Antoinette flushed, shook

back the short blonde _cendré_ curls that clustered about the nape of

her neck, and looked away again.

“Here’s Dad!” cried Reggie, and held the door open while his father and

Mr. Fayne, returning from their round of golf, passed through into the

lounge. In his youth, Mr. Blackwood had been extremely handsome; with

his thick iron-grey hair and ruddy complexion, he was still striking in

appearance, but his features had become coarse, and he played golf

nowadays for the sake of his figure as well as for the sake of the game.

“Well, you youngsters, getting ready for to-night?” Jovially Mr.

Blackwood addressed the company in general. “No one’s offered _me_ a

part, of course.... But if any of you had been out on the links this

afternoon, you’d have seen a performance that would have rivalled your

show, I can tell you.” He paused, then continued impressively: “I did

the eleventh hole in three—one drive clean over the lake, one iron shot

on to the green, and one putt. What do you say to that, my son?”

“Pretty good,” said Reggie, glowing with pleasure, despite the studied

indifference of his tones. “I don’t think much of the way they’ve

cleaned your clubs, Dad, here—let me” ... he seized the bag, and

retiring towards one of the windows, extracted the mashie and began

vigorously polishing it with emery-paper.

“That boy of mine’s all right, you know....” Mr. Blackwood was nearly

bursting with paternal pride; then, having slapped Clive on the back,

and pulled Doreen’s plait, he turned to his wife.

“Dennis not here yet? When’s he coming?”

Mrs. Blackwood became apologetic. “I don’t quite know; he didn’t say

definitely. I expect he’ll be here by dinner-time, though.”

“The least he can do,” commented her husband in a manner suddenly devoid

of joviality. “I’ve no doubt he’ll contrive to be late, and put

everybody out as usual, inconsiderate young beggar.”

A painful flush mounted to Mrs. Blackwood’s cheeks, and Antoinette

wished that she were not witnessing this little scene.

“He doesn’t mean to be inconsiderate, Daddy dear,” said Dennis’s mother

gently, “it’s just—that he doesn’t think.”

“Too much else to think about, eh, with his theatre-going and his operas

and what-not.... Well, if he misses the fun to-night, he’ll only have

himself to blame.” Mr. Blackwood’s joviality was quite restored: “_I_

wouldn’t miss it for a mint o’ money; I know when I’m in for a good

thing!” He glanced approvingly at Antoinette, and she felt by instinct

that had he been better acquainted with her, he would have winked, or

dug her in the ribs. He was that sort of elderly gentleman....

Reggie, from the window, suddenly cried: “Here they are!” and let the

golf-clubs slide to the ground.

“Oh, is it really...?” Doreen rushed towards the door. Antoinette

reflected that the eldest son had indeed timed his entrance effectively;

and she wondered if Hester also was aware of the dramatic possibilities

of the situation. Antoinette herself was always keenly aware of dramatic

possibilities; in fact she lived for the apprehension of them, and for

the coping with them.

As the door swung open to admit Dennis Blackwood and Crispin Burgess,

Mrs. Blackwood made as if to rise from her chair, and then thought

better of it. Her eyes, very bright in her flushed face, were fixed upon

her son’s tall figure.

“Hallo, Mother!” He came straight across the lounge to her and kissed

her. The next minute, Doreen was affectionately hanging round his neck;

and Mr. Griggs was exclaiming in transports of delight: “Splendid

fellows to have come in time! And now they’re here, let’s rope ’em in,

rope ’em both in—everybody’s got to do something—nothing like all

working together—rope ’em in, I say.”

Dennis laughed in good-humoured bewilderment, and put his arm round his

little sister’s shoulders; but his companion, a lanky, sallow-faced

youth of a gloomy and taciturn disposition, stammered: “N-noise....

What’s all the n-noise about?” He always managed to enunciate the first

consonant of a word, and then had to blow hard through his front teeth,

after which the remainder of the word followed with comparative ease.

Doubtless this impediment in his speech accounted both for its

infrequency and its terseness.

Griggs, rubbing his hands together, was still surrounding the newcomers

with ecstatic pæans. “What’s all the noise about, indeed? We’ll soon

show you. Everybody’s going to help in our little entertainment

to-night. _Oh_, yes.... _You_, Mr. Burgess,” shaking a finger at the

bemused Crispin, “are going to play the piano for us, Ah-ha!”

Griggs gave a triumphant chuckle, and with arms folded, stood back to

view the effects of his speech.

After a prolonged interval for blowing, Crispin announced: “I d-don’t

d-dream of it!” and looked reproachfully at Dennis, who only laughed,

and turned to exchange solemn greetings with Reggie, still

ostentatiously polishing the golf-clubs.

Rosabel burst out: “Oh, Mr. Burgess, _won’t_ you...? We’ve heard so much

about your playing, and what we want you to do is quite easy, really....

Oh, dear, that sounds like an insult, doesn’t it? But I didn’t mean it

like that. Of course I know you can play difficult things, but what I

meant to say was that you needn’t bother to play difficult ones for us.

Just any sort of accompaniment will do, as long as there’s _feeling_ in

it.... Puccini, or—or anything of that kind.”

There were sounds from Crispin that might have proceeded from one in the

last stages of suffocation. He was nearly purple before

he managed to get out: “P-puccini—I hate P-puccini—he’s

obvious—ch-cheap—sugarandwater—G-r-r-r.” Crispin shook himself, “no one

like B-bach or B-beethoven.”

Ottilie brightened at the mention of the two familiar names. “Zey are ze

biggest componistors zat ze world has!”

The flexible Rosabel hastened to agree: “Yes, Beethoven is simply

lovely, isn’t he? Well, you play just whatever you feel in the mood for,

Mr. Burgess.”

Mr. Burgess shook his head. “I’m not going to p-play,” then he added

gloomily to Dennis: “If I’d known it was g-going to be like this, I

w-wouldn’t have c-come ...” and in an attitude of profound dejection,

sat down upon his suit-case.

“Oh, be a sport, sir, be a sport! How can you refuse anything to such a

fair petitioner?” Griggs strove to goad Crispin’s _amour propre_. But

Crispin remained entirely unmoved.

“Well, then, we shall have to ask our celebrated composer here to oblige

us. No use hiding away there in the corner, Dennis, _I_ see you”—for

Dennis, seeing that the general attention was centred round Crispin, had

profited by the occasion to efface himself—“of course we all know you’re

a shining light, but we hope you’re not too proud to shed a little of

its radiance in our midst!” Griggs beamed, delighted with his own flow

of language.

Doreen whispered: “Oh, _do_, Denny, please ...” and Dennis, who all

along had anticipated this onslaught upon himself, felt extremely

awkward. “I’m no good to you, Griggs. Don’t think me a surly brute, it

isn’t that I’m proud, or anything of that sort, but—” he broke off. It

was really very difficult to refuse; all the more so in view of

Crispin’s behaviour. He felt his mother’s eyes upon him; Doreen’s....

But he could not play for all these people; not just now; he could not

give them what they wanted, and they would not want what he had to give

them.

“You’ll play us some of your own compositions, I hope,” Griggs went on,

disregarding his refusal. Dennis shook his head. This was exactly what

he would not do. He was in the throes of composing an opera, his first

opera. He loved it, this half-formed work of his, with a love that was

at once passionate and tender, and intensely protective. He felt that he

wanted to protect it now.... “I’m very sorry, Griggs, but I honestly

don’t know anything suitable to the occasion.”

His mother said tentatively: “But you know so many pieces, darling;

can’t you think of any?”

“I’m afraid not, Mother dear....” The thing that he was creating, for

the moment obsessed him entirely; it swamped all thought of other

people’s music; he could only think of his own; dream of it; live in

it....

Griggs, in an agitated aside, whispered to Mrs. Blackwood: “Do you think

he’s offended because I asked Mr. Burgess before him?”

Dennis said again: “I’m sorry.”

Antoinette suddenly slid down from the arm of the chair on which she had

been balancing. “Your mother is just coming up the drive, Rosabel: I’m

going to ask her to play for us!”

And before Dennis Blackwood’s look of gratitude could reach her,

Antoinette had swung through the door to waylay Mrs. Fayne.

CHAPTER II

During dinner, both Dennis and Crispin were given to understand that

they were “in disgrace.” Mr. Blackwood made frequent remarks to the

effect that he was sorry he had ever allowed Dennis to take up such a

nonsensical profession, if he couldn’t even make himself pleasant and

turn his strumming to some account when the occasion arose. He supposed

it was partly due to the influence of Dennis’s friends, “these

new-fangled London young men,” who weren’t sporting enough to take part

in anything that seemed beneath their dignity. And so on, _ad lib._ with

variations....

Dennis said nothing, and set his lips tightly, as was his way when Mr.

Blackwood jarred upon his nerves more exquisitely than usual. He

disliked his father, disliked the whole coarse overbearing masculinity

of the man. There was between them an antagonism that was fundamental,

and quite apart from the present source of grievance.

It was an uncomfortable meal. Clive and Reggie were openly ranged upon

their father’s side; but occasionally Doreen sent Dennis a look of

unmistakable partisanship out of her soft dark eyes. Poor Mrs. Blackwood

was torn between her conviction that her husband was in the right, and

her fear that he was being rude to a guest. But she need not have

worried on Crispin’s behalf. Crispin was quite used to Mr. Blackwood’s

outbursts against the musical profession, having once spent a week with

the family at Eastwold. He also possessed the faculty of making himself

apparently deaf to sounds which displeased him. The sound of Mr.

Blackwood’s voice displeased him, so he took no notice of it, and

devoted himself exclusively to his dinner.

The pervading gloom was only relieved by Ottilie trying half-aloud to

memorise her part, and by Reggie and Doreen quarrelling over points in

the forthcoming play. But the quarrelling and Mr. Blackwood’s grumbling

were alike carried on in undertones, so that they might not be audible

to the occupants of the other tables. Whatever the internal state of

affairs might be, however strained the relations between one member and

another, outwardly the semblance of a cheerful and united family-party

must be preserved. To Dennis, the pink-shaded lamp on each table seemed

to hold within its circle of light a whole complex world of subtle

affinities, subtler strains and antagonisms; and each world seemed to be

irrevocably cut off from the rest. He began to wish that he had not

come. He was overwhelmed by the longing that always assailed him in a

large gathering of strangers, namely to run away and hide ... a longing

that was absurd and incongruous in conjunction with his broad shoulders

and length of limb. Perhaps his mouth alone, curved and sensitive above

the firm chin, betrayed a nature in which such a longing, and others

equally freakish, might hold their sway.

Dinner was over at last. Pleasantly conscious of their own importance,

Doreen, Ottilie and Reggie had left the table before the dessert was

served; Clive had reluctantly followed them; and now Dennis and Crispin,

with Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood, were seated in the front row of chairs in

the recreation-room.

Mrs. Blackwood was saying to Dennis what a pity it was that Reggie

wouldn’t play the Dauphin, and wouldn’t it have been nice if they’d had

the whole thing in French—Doreen’s accent had so wonderfully

improved.... Someone said “Ssh,” as the curtain rose.

Rosabel’s drama should have been entitled “Charlotte Corday” rather than

“Marie Antoinette.” Charlotte Corday alone did not appear to be

suffering from nervousness, nor from the usual tendency of amateurs to

get behind each other, and cluster together as if for shelter in one

corner of the stage. She moved about with a total lack of

self-consciousness, making the others seem awkward and lifeless by

comparison. The impetus that carried her through the play must spring

entirely from within herself, Dennis decided; for she got little enough

support from the coy and timid Marie Antoinette, or from Marat, as

played by Griggs rather staccato and apologetically with an intermittent

French accent. She seemed to be giving out passion and vitality and

emotion, just because she could not restrain them, and had to find vent

for them somehow.

“Who’s the girl, Mother?” Dennis in the entr’acte questioned Mrs.

Blackwood, who launched into voluble descriptions of Antoinette’s

psychology and parentage.

“Don’t you think she’s remarkable, Denny?”

“She’s inclined to over-act,” Dennis returned shortly. He was always on

the defensive, even with his mother. Perhaps with his mother most of

all, because he felt that she was most akin to him, and might at any

moment come to touch the fringe of that secret world of his ... world

that must remain secret even from the mother who loved him as perhaps no

other woman on earth would ever love him.

Tremendous applause greeted the end of the performance. And now the

actors, mingling with the audience, were being congratulated on all

sides, and assured that they were “born actors” who would make their

fortunes on any stage.... Even Ottilie came in for her meed of praise,

and was told by an amiable old gentleman who evidently had no objection

to perjuring his soul, that he would never have guessed that she was not

English.

“_Och, was Sie nicht sagen_ ...” Ottilie, for sheer joy, relapsed into

her native tongue.

But the heartiest applause and the loudest congratulations were for

Antoinette. She stood in the midst of the group that surrounded her, a

slim, straight figure in her short striped petticoat and fichu, laughing

with childish pleasure at the compliments that were being showered upon

her. She had doffed her lace cap and was shaking her thick mop of fair

curls back from her flushed face. Dennis made up his mind to speak to

her. He owed her a debt of gratitude for having come to his assistance

with her suggestion that Mrs. Fayne should play the piano. But for the

present it was impossible to get anywhere within speaking distance of

Antoinette. Griggs was at her side now, sharing the compliments and

honours.

“A wonderful stage-manager, Mr. Griggs, if I may say so, a _born_

stage-manager....”

“You should have been an actor, sir, you’re quite a loss to the

profession....”

Griggs laid his hand upon his tricolor waistcoat, and smilingly assured

the audience in general that they were too kind, that he was nothing but

a humble amateur, an amateur with just a little talent, perhaps.... Yes,

sometimes he certainly did feel that he had missed his vocation; still,

even stockbrokers had their uses, he supposed....

And to Antoinette: “You and I must have a special glass of lemonade

together, Miss Antoinette, just to show there’s no ill-feeling, after

I’ve been murdered by you every day for the past week ... and very

enjoyable too, very enjoyable indeed!”

This was greeted with shouts of laughter, but Dennis saw that

Antoinette’s smile was abstracted, and that her eyes were restlessly

searching the crowded room. Then, quite suddenly, he saw the light go

from them, and her whole figure relax its air of tense vitality, as if

the motive-power that had kept her strung-up, had ceased to operate.

Simultaneously he noticed that the dark woman with the sullen face and

ungracious manner had sauntered out of the room.

But a minute later, Antoinette had quite recovered herself. Someone

suggested that they should end the evening with a dance, and already she

was helping Reggie and another small boy to push the chairs back against

the walls. Mrs. Fayne briskly made for the piano, but Crispin was there

before her. Now that everyone had forgotten about Crispin and his

talent, and no one had the least desire to listen to heavy music, he sat

down and played a Bach fugue right through. And when he had finished it,

he played another and another ... and he played very, very wonderfully,

but what was the use of Bach fugues to young people longing to waltz and

one-step? Oblivious of any such longing, Crispin played on and on, and

out of deference to the great artistic value of his performance, no one

dared suggest that he should terminate it.

“Perhaps if we leave him alone, he’ll stop ...” sighed Reggie; so one by

one the visitors trouped out of the recreation-room, trusting that the

absence of an audience might bring Crispin to his senses. It did not....

Crispin merely grunted with relief, and played on.

“Of course I knew this would happen,” Dennis remarked to Antoinette in

the lounge, “it’s a physical impossibility to keep Crispin and a piano

apart for any length of time.”

She laughed, grey eyes sparkling under a thick fringe of black lashes.

“And you?” she said, “you evidently do not mind being kept apart from

your piano!”

“On the contrary, I want to be kept from it—to-night. I should like to

say that I’m very grateful to you.”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” she laughed again, and turned from him to

Doreen, who was clamouring to be shown how to take the grease-paint off

her face.

“I don’t _really_ want to get it off, because it’s so _awfully_

thrilling to have it on, but I s’pose I can’t come down to breakfast

like this ...” the flapper cried excitedly.

Antoinette went upstairs with her.

Meanwhile a solitary figure crept back into the empty recreation-room,

sat motionless with hands clasped and lips parted—Ottilie, rapturously

listening to Bach and Beethoven and Brahms ... revelling in the

sentimental ecstasy of “_Heimweh_” with which the music filled her. This

was as it should be: at last in this frivolous and superficial England,

she had found one who understood the deep solid works of her countrymen.

Inspired by her presence, and by her sympathy, no doubt, he played on

and on.... When, eventually, he paused to light a cigarette, she

addressed him in her careful English: “I sank you heartiest, Herr

Crispin, zat you for me so vonderful have played.”

Crispin looked round at her and blew hard. “I d-didn’t even know you

were here....”

But Ottilie was not disheartened. She knew quite well that his

brusqueness of manner was only a cloak for his true feelings. She must

be patient with him, until he should have gained courage to throw off

the disguise. Ottilie was in romantic mood.... There was no doubt that

Herr Crispin did not fit into his English surroundings. But at home in

her dear Heidelberg—and perhaps if Herr Crispin could be persuaded to

grow a beard—Ottilie went to bed very happy that night.

Antoinette, having superintended the removal of the grease-paint from

Doreen’s face, and kissed her good-night, was making her way towards her

own room on the second floor. Half-way down the corridor, she came face

to face with Hester Cawthorn. They both stopped.

Hester’s smile was half ironic, half bitter. “Tired?”

Antoinette shook her head. She was feeling violently alive again now;

strung up; ready for anything.

“I’ve never seen anything like the vitality of you,” said Hester; and

passed on.

So Antoinette, also, went to bed happy....

And while Ottilie was dreaming of a much-Germanised Crispin; and Doreen

was deciding that she “simply must” go on the stage; and Clive was

writing a not very inspired love-letter to his Lily—“not much time

to-night, darling, because of the rotten theatricals”—Dennis Blackwood

sat at the open window of his room, and gazed out at the dark country

and wondered if he had at last found the answer to a riddle....

But long after all the others were asleep, Mrs. Blackwood lay awake. In

her mind, she was still turning over the jumbled happenings of the day,

her thoughts darting restlessly from one point to another, without

coherence or concentration. She still regretted that Reggie had been so

obstinate over playing the Dauphin’s part; wondered if she were not

strict enough with him; remembered having noticed that he was at least

half an inch taller than Mrs. Greene’s little boy, who was three months

older; wondered if Mrs. Thompsett would have thought that Doreen was too

much made-up; wondered if Dennis would make friends with that nice

little French girl ... wondered what it was that made him so different

from the other boys, and that baffled all her attempts to fathom it.

Dennis—Dennis—Dennis....

Was he happy, and if not—why not? Why didn’t he tell her? But as far

back as she could remember, he had clung to her and loved her, and never

told her anything. Why...? Perhaps he had nothing to tell. Perhaps she

only imagined that he wasn’t happy. Artists were sometimes peculiar—she

clutched at that—and her boy was an artist: perhaps that accounted for

it. Her reason, working in a peculiarly narrow circle, round and round,

round and round, accepted this as the solution, and was at peace. But

her instinct, less narrow, more subtle, blindly groping, refused to be

thus pacified. There must be—something. But what? What...?

The snoring of her husband at her side was not conducive to the

elucidation of psychological mysteries.

CHAPTER III

“Come for a walk with me—do!” The tone was half pleading, half

commanding. Hester Cawthorn very slowly closed her book, and from the

depths of her chair on the lawn, looked up at Antoinette’s eager face.

She shook her head, and Antoinette repeated under her breath “Do....”

Hester’s sullen mouth curved into a smile. “Why should I?”

“Because I—I want you to.”

“You seem to consider that an adequate reason!”

“Well—isn’t it?”

The hotel visitors, grouped upon the lawn to laze away the hot

after-lunch hour, were surprised at seeing Miss Cawthorn and Antoinette

de Courcy stroll down the drive together. It was the first time that

Miss Cawthorn had been known to set out in company.

“That child has such a way with her, she gets round everybody,” murmured

Mrs. Blackwood, hoping that Dennis would take notice.

Hester and Antoinette walked in silence down the length of the shady

drive. Antoinette was not so sure of herself now; wondered what would be

the result of her daring. It had certainly needed daring to ask Hester

to come out with her. There was about Hester a nimbus of

unapproachability that was recognised by everyone in the hotel, and that

had aroused, firstly, curiosity and secondly, interest in Antoinette.

Also, she was strangely attracted by this woman with the sombre hooded

eyes and down-curved mouth that seemed to speak of much bitterness and

disillusion. During her stay at Amberhurst, Antoinette had become

amazingly intimate with all the hotel visitors; most of them, at one

time or another, had been moved to tell her “the story of my life”; for

she was a good listener, and waited with rapt eagerness for the

picturesque or the dramatic note that should stamp each story with

individuality. Everybody confided in her, petted her, spoilt her. Hester

alone had held aloof from her, as she had held aloof from the others.

But Antoinette was resolved to make herself the exception to Hester’s

rule.

“And now—what do you want?” Hester’s question, breaking the silence, was

abrupt but not discourteous.

Antoinette laughed. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. ‘_Je ne sais pas

ce que je veux, mais je le veux absolument._’”

“Well, then, believe me, you won’t get it.”

“How can you say that, when you don’t know—when I don’t even know—what

it is I want?”

“I can only warn you that it’s useless to expect anything from me—I’ve

nothing to give.” Hester’s voice was low and beautiful, despite its

occasional harshness. Antoinette thrilled at the sound of it, and at the

warning that had just been flung at her. Nothing to give—why, she must

have worlds to give to one who knew how to claim her gifts. Or perhaps

once already she had bestowed them, bestowed them royally upon one

unworthy ... and was cautious now, distrustful of anyone attempting to

approach the fortress-gates behind which was locked—herself. Antoinette

would lay siege to the fortress with every weapon in her power, with

daring and gentleness and subtlety, until the gates were opened to her.

She felt confident of success, buoyantly happy as she strode along at

Hester’s side, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her jersey, the

noon-day sun beating down upon her bare head.

“You’ll catch sun-stroke, child.”

“Not I!”

“Haven’t you anything to put on your head?”

“I believe so, somewhere in my pocket,” Antoinette drew out a crumpled

red silk cap and swung it in her hand.

“Put it on,” commanded Hester curtly. Antoinette obeyed, enjoying the

sensation of being ordered about by Hester.

“Even if you do happen to be possessed of extraordinary vitality,” the

latter continued, “there’s no need to squander it.”

“Am I squandering it?” Antoinette asked innocently. She was not

introspective, but she was always interested when people told her things

about herself.

“Are you squandering it, indeed...? Rushing along a dusty road at the

rate of eight miles an hour, at the hottest time of the day——”

“I’m so sorry! Is it too hot for you? Shall we go back?”

“No, I’ve no objection to it. But then I’ve not been wearing myself out

with emotional acting every night this week.”

“Oh, the acting ... it was such fun! Absolute rot, of course, poor dear

Rosabel hasn’t the faintest notion how to write a play, but she’s

written half a dozen different ones about Marie Antoinette. In fact,

whenever I meet her, she seems to be in the thick of writing one, and

she falls upon my neck with: ‘Antoinette darling, I’m writing a tragedy

about _her_—it’s to be something exquisite ... six acts and nineteen

scenes ... no, don’t ask me anything about it ... the first scene is in

a sort of inn and people come in and talk ... no, I can’t tell you any

more, you’d think me so stupid.... Another time, perhaps....’”

Hester was laughing outright by now; and thus encouraged, Antoinette

went on: “We had an awful business with this particular masterpiece.

Rosabel had left all the parts, except the Queen’s, quite sketchy; so we

had to invent them at rehearsals, and make them fit together as well as

we could. Rosabel is never quite successful with anything she attempts.

There’s a certain blighted perkiness about her, that makes her rather

like an early bird that hasn’t caught the worm—or perhaps she’s the

early worm that always gets the bird....”

“You’re too brilliant, my young friend.”

“Am I? Why?”

Hester smiled inscrutably and was silent.

“Why am I too brilliant?” Antoinette was suddenly overwhelmed by the

fear of disapproval. “I—I wasn’t trying to be.”

“No, I daresay you weren’t. I was only thinking of that old proverb that

was dinned into one’s ears in the nursery: ‘Sing before breakfast—cry

before night!’”

“Oh, do you mean that I shall—‘cry before night’?”

Hester looked down at the eager laughing face, the boyish curls

surmounted carelessly by the red cap. “You won’t, at all events, cry

before—to-night.”

“But you think I shall eventually? Can you tell the future, then?”

“Most people’s futures are written on their faces, aren’t they?”

“For those who are able to read them.... So that’s how you read mine!

Well, I don’t care....” Antoinette flung her cap into the air and caught

it again. “I assure you that if I do have to ‘cry before night,’ I shall

‘sing before breakfast’ quite a lot _en attendant_.”

“I’ve no doubt you will,” said Hester.

“I’m doing it now—simply having the time of my life.”

“And in what,” Hester’s tone was ironical, “in what, exactly, does the

‘time of your life’ consist?” Then before Antoinette could answer, she

covered up the question with: “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to—I’ve

no wish to force confidence.”

Antoinette smiled involuntarily at the notion that Hester should assume

in her a reticence equal to her own. If she had told the truth, she

would have answered: “I’m happy because there’s so much love in the

world, and because so much of it comes to me, and mostly because I’m

walking beside you now....”

But she only said, “It’s not that I’m really doing anything

extraordinary, but this is the first time I’ve ever stayed away from my

people—would you believe it, and I’m nearly twenty-two—but Grand’mère

has quite obsolete ideas as to what a _jeune fille_ should do and

shouldn’t do, even though she’s lived over here for twenty-five years.”

“Were you born in England, then?”

“Yes. And I feel quite English. The others—Grand’mère and Mother and

Father are terribly French, though....” Antoinette gave a sigh, and then

laughed again. “Being away is such fun, I love sitting down to breakfast

in the morning with a different set of faces, don’t you?”

“I never sit down with a ‘set of faces’ at all.”

“Don’t you? Not ever? Not even at home?”

Hester was silent. Antoinette tried to imagine the family-circle from

which she might have sprung, and gave it up as hopeless: she could not

picture Hester in relation to a mother or father, sisters or brothers.

She could only see her as an individual, detached from her surroundings,

lonely and alone. Her whole heart went out in sympathy to this strange

woman with the fierce reserve, and the sensitiveness that lay behind her

brutally direct manner; in sympathy, and something that was more than

sympathy.

After a while, Hester said with quiet bitterness: “I have no home....”

Impulsively Antoinette put out her hand to touch her arm. “I’m sorry—so

dreadfully sorry—you must be lonely.”

Hester made no movement in response, but replied coldly, “You make a

mistake: I am not lonely.”

Antoinette, baffled, dropped her hand and was silent. She had been

tactless and deserved her rebuff; nevertheless it had hurt—rather. The

conquest of Hester, impregnably immured in her fortress, was proving

even more difficult than she had anticipated, and therefore ten times

more desirable. Antoinette was accustomed to easy victories, victories

so easy as scarcely to merit the name, and she was tired of them; but

the prospect of difficulties only stimulated the fighting-instinct in

her.

Hester, with an air of detached amusement, was watching her absorbed

face. “I warned you, didn’t I...?”

Antoinette flashed out: “If you think I’m frightened of your

prickliness——”

“Oh, you hot-headed little fool.... What’s all this for? If you think

I’m going to make a friend or a confidante of you, you’re mistaken. Real

friendship is, in my experience, a treasure impossible to find, and I’ve

no use for people who want to know my family-history, and whence I came

and whither I’m going.... What concern of theirs can it be? No, I have

no friends and I want none. You’re only wasting your time with me.”

“I’m not—it isn’t waste!” cried Antoinette, “you’re so wonderful, and

ever since I’ve been here I’ve wanted to talk to you, only I never quite

dared till to-day, and then I simply couldn’t stop myself.... I noticed

you the first evening I came—how could I help it? All the other people

move about in lumps, three or four staying together, three or four at a

table in the dining-room, three or four going out together—and only you

were alone. That was remarkable to begin with.”

“I shall always be alone,” said Hester.

“Yes—and I know why!” Inspiration seemed suddenly to come to Antoinette.

“Whereas the others want company, want to be together at any price, you

only want what is really good enough for you. It’s—it’s as if it had to

pass through fire before it could get to you.”

“You’re fantastic,” Hester smiled, but not unkindly, and then, without

interrupting her, she let Antoinette have her say.

“I can understand your keeping the others out and hating them to ask

questions—you know they’re only inquisitive, and not asking because it

means a great deal to them. It means a great deal to me, I can’t tell

you why, but it just does. Please won’t you let me come a little bit

closer? You see, I’m not frightened of the prickles or the fire....”

Quite unconsciously she was pleading as a very young boy might plead

with his lady-love.

Hester shook her head. “Even if you do ‘come closer,’ as you say, you’ll

only be disappointed. Go and fall in love with that nice Blackwood boy:

it will be much more profitable than this sort of thing.”

“This sort of thing...?” Antoinette repeated with a puzzled frown.

Hester looked at her sharply for a moment, then gave a curt laugh.

“Never mind.... Do as I say. Stick to young Blackwood.”

“To Clive?” Antoinette exclaimed contemptuously. “Why, he’s engaged,

Doreen says, to a girl who studies economics and won’t powder her nose.”

“I didn’t mean Clive, I meant the one who arrived yesterday—Dennis. At

any rate, I’m certain that he’s going to fall in love with you.”

Antoinette was not interested. Hester continued: “He’s quite a

character-study. I should like to hear how the affair progresses.”

“Would you...?” cried Antoinette, overjoyed at the idea that anything

connected with herself could be of interest to Hester. “I’d better

cultivate him, then.”

“I’ll leave you my address,” said Hester.

“Your address? But you’re not going away yet, surely?”

“Going this very evening.”

Antoinette stood stock-still in the middle of the road, and gasped.

“Not—really?” In the case of anyone but Hester, her plans would have

been known by the whole hotel for days in advance. It was but another

proof of Hester’s aloofness, that the time of her departure came to

Antoinette as an absolute shock.

“Don’t look so bewildered: it can’t possibly matter to you.”

“But it does—more than anything else in the world—more than ever now.

When I started out with you this afternoon, I was only enormously

interested in you, and I admired you—your brains, and the gorgeous way

you have of choking off people you don’t want. I’ve watched you do

it—Oh, often—but you’re not going to choke me off like that, because

now, I—I love you....” She had not intended to say those words; a few

moments ago they would not have entered her mind; now she had not only

said them: she meant them.

Hester looked at her gravely, without curiosity and without

astonishment. “If that’s the case, I’ve no right to choke you off. But

understand once and for all that you’re on a wild-goose chase. You’ll

find none of the hidden depths in me that you seem to expect to find.”

“Whether that’s true or not, I’ll never expect any confidence or

anything that you don’t give me of your own free will. But there’s

nothing on earth that I wouldn’t do for you, if I thought it would make

you happy.”

Hester said with that curious dignity that was hers: “Thank you....”

They walked back then. After some time, Antoinette ventured to ask,

“Where is it you’re going to-night?”

The answer was: “To Bristol—if the gods are good to me!” and Antoinette

saw that Hester’s dark eyes were illuminated by a gleam of light, and

fixed straight ahead of her, as if in pursuance of some vision whence

the light had come. Antoinette longed to know what was portended by that

phrase: “If the gods are good to me ...” wondered what was drawing her

to Bristol; if she lived there; if she ever came to London; why she had

been staying at Amberhurst. But all these questions remained unasked.

She would prove herself worthy of Hester by showing no curiosity, by

accepting as a matter of course anything that she might do.

Her offer to help Hester with her packing was declined; but she obtained

permission to see her to the station.

“I may be late for dinner,” Antoinette flung over her shoulder to

Rosabel, as, for the second time that day, she left the hotel in

Hester’s company. Rosabel stared open-mouthed.... Hester laughed. “You

see, even your friend is struck by the incongruity of seeing us

together!”

“It isn’t incongruous really. At least I don’t think it is. I’m sure I

should find much more in common with you, than with Rosabel.” Antoinette

flushed, fearing that she had said too much; but Hester did not appear

to think that she had been guilty of impertinence.

“Perhaps I’m only letting you imagine that you could....” Antoinette

pondered on this; then: “No, if you were only acting, just to give me

that impression, you’d be so clever that I’d have to adore you all the

same. It’s no earthly good trying to put me off by pretending you aren’t

what I know you are.”

“I don’t know that I am trying to put you off now.... I’m only trying to

be honest and sincere with you, and to keep you from disappointment.”

“Honest and sincere—I should just think you are! I’d follow your lead

blindly through anything, and feel that I could trust you.”

“Oh, child, child, don’t put all that trust in me. No one but a god

could be worthy of so much. It’s too great a responsibility for a mere

human being.”

“No trust and no faith could be too great for me to give you—and—and

I’ll never let you feel the responsibility of me as a drag. I can look

out for myself. I want to walk level with you, not hanging on.”

“You shall do as you wish,” said Hester.

In silence they paced the platform of the little country station.

Antoinette’s exaltation was shadowed now with the dread of parting from

Hester. But she allowed no word of regret to pass her lips. She would be

true to her assertion that she would not “hang on” to Hester. Hester’s

happiness, apparently, lay in going; so, with all her heart, Antoinette

tried to want her to go, even though Amberhurst would seem a deserted

wilderness without her. She regretted the wasted days that had gone

before she had made up her mind to speak to her; the last few hours of

joy had passed so swiftly; and now—and now——

Antoinette hastily shook back her curls and smiled, as the train came

in. The door of the compartment was slammed between them.

“Well, good-bye,” said Antoinette lightly, enjoying the self-imposed

necessity of acting up to Hester, “good luck to you.”

Hester leant out of the window, and, just as the train started, bent

down and kissed her.

... In a very agitated frame of mind, Antoinette wandered back to the

hotel. What had been the most wonderful adventure of her life was at an

end—no, she would not believe that it was at an end, even though she had

received no promise that Hester would write to her, and had no idea when

or if she would ever see her again. The adventure had only just begun;

there must be an equally wonderful continuation to it—some time. And in

the meantime, she would rest secure in the memory of that last second

before the train started.... She could have shouted aloud with the joy

of being alive, and in love: if Hester would only allow herself to be

loved, she would try to make up to her for all the bitterness and

disappointment that might have been in her life. Antoinette was young

enough and mad enough at the moment to believe that anything was

possible.

The Faynes were half-way through dinner when she joined them at their

table.

Mrs. Fayne said, “Why, you’ve been out with that Miss Cawthorn nearly

all day? So morose and unsociable, I always think her.”

“She looks as if she had a secret sorrow,” Rosabel murmured soulfully,

“did she tell you about it, Antoinette?”

Antoinette smiled. “No, she didn’t tell me about it....”

“Then whatever did you talk about, such a long time?”

“Oh—books ...” Antoinette replied at random.

Dinner was over, and most of the visitors were drinking coffee out on

the lawn, glad of the breeze after the sweltering heat of the day. In

couples or in groups they sauntered up and down the grounds, light

dresses showing up against the sombre foliage of the trees; glowing

cigarette-ends making pin-points of fire in the darkness. Antoinette

looked at the couples and at the groups and thought of one who would

have walked alone amongst them. There was certainly no pathos in

Hester’s solitude, none of the pathos of the lonely woman of uncertain

age, drifting from one hotel to another. Pathos would scarcely have

appealed to Antoinette as did the compelling and magnetic dignity of

Hester’s voluntary isolation.

“Won’t you come for a stroll?” Dennis Blackwood was beside her now,

looking down upon her from his superior height.

“If you like....” She accepted the cigarette he offered her, and was

ironically conscious of being quite in the picture now: two and two,

smoking cigarettes, just like the others.

They walked to the end of the hotel-grounds, across some adjoining

fields, and stood on a bridge that spanned a branch-line of the railway.

The ridge of the hills was dim as a shadow; here and there showed the

dull orange squares of cottage-windows, and on either side of the

bridge, the railway-tracks stretched away into the greyness.

Antoinette did not speak. She waited with a certain curiosity for Dennis

to do so. It was he who had borne her off much as she had borne Hester

off that afternoon. Decidedly, it was for him to begin.... She wondered,

still ironically, how his methods of attack would compare with her own.

In all probability, he would try to kiss her. It “belonged” to the whole

scene and setting that he should do so, but it would be a nuisance. She

hoped he would be a trifle more original, so that she could give Hester

an interesting description of the proceedings....

The complex scale passages of the Waldstein Sonata drifted out to them

on the breeze.

Dennis laughed. “That’s Crispin. He’s purloined the key of the

recreation-room, locked himself in, and is now playing to rows of empty

chairs. I bet it’s the first time he’s feeling happy since we arrived.”

“Oh,” said Antoinette, “is he so very unhappy here, then?”

Dennis shrugged his shoulders. “Well, not exactly unhappy. Just out of

place. A square peg in a round hole—like so many of us ...” he mused.

“So you, too, are a square peg?”

He looked at her intently with his clear brown eyes, that were large and

curiously soft under their jutting brows. “Yes.” Then, at a venture:

“Like yourself ...” and still his eyes held hers, as if seeking some

response, some sign by which he might know that she knew the answer to

his riddle.

She shook her head. “Oh, I’m not a square peg, I just fit in anywhere.

It’s fun, trying to fit into different sorts of places; it must be

beastly if you can’t. I’m sorry for your friend.”

“He’ll be all right to-morrow. We’re off, you know, to Devon.”

“Don’t I wish I were going too!” she breathed fervently.

“Do you—do you really?” he cried. “I wish you were. You’d enjoy our long

tramps, and the quaint little inn-places where we have to put up. Do you

know that part of the country?”

Her answer was not to the point. “I was thinking for the moment that

Bristol was in Devon—my geography is shockingly hazy.”

He knew better than to comment upon her irrelevant remark. She stood

with her hands on the stone parapet of the bridge, and looked out at the

railway-tracks that gleamed faintly for a short distance, and then lost

themselves in the mist. He had the sudden desire to stroke her head,

just on top where the hair was quite smooth before it broke into the

mass of short curls bunched over her ears and around the nape of her

neck. He wanted gently to turn her face towards him, and to look again

into her clear grey eyes, and share the dreams that must lurk in their

depths. He felt by instinct that they were strange dreams, which for

him, however, would hold no strangeness. Even though she had evaded his

first attempt to prove the existence of a common meeting-ground, that

very evasiveness showed his instinct to be correct.

She spoke then, rousing herself from her abstraction. “It seems so odd

that we’ve never heard you play. Your mother has told me such a lot

about your music—I’m really not trying to talk like Mr. Griggs—but it

_is_ odd, knowing that you’re probably longing to play.”

“Yes, of course I am; but I can’t here.”

“Because of the people?”

“Yes. I can’t bear showing off; making an exhibition of myself.”

“Then why not do as your friend has done: lock the door?”

Dennis laughed. “Oh, Crispin is a real child of nature. If he wants to

do a thing, he just does it, regardless. I’m afraid I lack that happy

faculty.”

“You’ve got others instead, though. How I envy anyone who can

compose—create—find an outlet for everything that’s bubbling and

frothing inside their brain.”

“Your acting last night—that was a sort of safety-valve, wasn’t it?”

She gave him a quick, vivid smile in acknowledgment of his

understanding. “Yes, but what’s the good of acting? Even if I did it

properly, which I don’t. There’s nothing left of it to-day. You can’t

compare it with being able to create something really lasting....” If

only she could have borrowed Dennis’s creative powers to-night, just for

to-night, Hester should have had some wondrous tribute to their few

hours together!

He said: “You needn’t envy me. I haven’t even started to compose

properly yet. I’m still inarticulate. All that I really want to say,

seems to lie beyond my reach, beyond mere terms of music; impossible to

express, and impossible to set free.”

“Those songs of yours, and the pieces you’ve published—what about them?”

“Well, they were written, as you might say, with the top layer of my

brain. But how did you know of them?”

“Your mother showed them to me. She’s got them with her.”

He smiled tenderly. “Poor darling ... fancy travelling my stuff around

with her like that, and she doesn’t even know one note from another.”

“She just adores you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. I could almost wish she didn’t.”

“Oh—but why...?”

He was silent for a moment. A train thundered under the bridge, sent up

a shower of glowing red sparks, tore through the sleeping country, and,

with a long-drawn shriek, vanished into a tunnel in the hills. Then the

signals creaked and jerked into their places with a rattling sound; and

all was still again.

“I’m so afraid of hurting her,” he mused, “you see, from her point of

view, I’m not very satisfactory.”

“I don’t see that at all,” cried Antoinette, “she’s awfully proud of

you, and quite convinced that you’re going to be famous.”

“And do you imagine that it’ll satisfy her even if I _am_ famous—just

famous? She wants something more for me than fame.”

“And that is——?”

“Happiness....”

“Well, and why shouldn’t you have happiness too? I’m not foolish enough

to imagine that it comes _through_ fame, but can’t you have it as well

as fame?”

He looked at her again. She seemed unsubstantial, wraith-like in the dim

light; eyes very big in her white face; the breeze softly stirring her

dull fair curls. He said, very low: “That depends....”

Another train flew past, enveloping them for a moment in flame-lit

billows of smoke; its tail-light was a slowly-diminishing point of red,

till at last, like some animal seeking its burrow in the ground, it

vanished into the tunnel. The earth seemed to quiver a little after its

noisy passage; the wailing shriek of the engine was muted, by the

distance, to a sound of unbearable yearning and beauty. Somewhere a

church-clock struck ten. And somewhere in the world, there was—Hester. A

sudden wave of feeling came over Antoinette; love so intense as to be

almost pain....

“Impossible to express and impossible to set free——” In her thoughts she

was unconsciously echoing Dennis’s words. Then, half-aloud: “Perhaps

some day it will be set free!”

In the darkness she heard Dennis catch his breath, but already she had

moved away from the bridge, was walking back towards the hotel. He

followed in silence; drew level with her; and noticed, as her sleeve

brushed against his, that the dew had soaked through the thin silk of

her jersey. He would not risk destroying by the clumsy medium of speech,

the fine web of affinity that was spun between them, and of the

existence of which he was no longer in doubt.

Antoinette reflected that the conversation had been more interesting

than she had anticipated; and after all, he had not attempted to kiss

her: she scarcely knew whether she was relieved or disappointed....

The lawn was deserted now; they went straight into the lounge, and stood

blinking in the sudden light.

Mrs. Blackwood looked up eagerly at their entrance, held out her hand to

Antoinette, and telling Reggie to bring a chair for her, drew her into

the family-circle. Dennis announced his intention of climbing through

the window of the recreation-room to rout out Crispin; and Mrs.

Blackwood said to Antoinette, “You’ve made quite a conquest of Dennis,

my dear. He’s not a bit a lady’s man, really. I suppose he’s always

thinking of his work, and so he enjoys a chat with someone who

_thoroughly understands_ music. You must come and stay with us at

Eastwold, when he comes back from Devonshire, and then you’ll be able to

have some nice long talks together.”

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. Blackwood, I should love to come,” Antoinette

replied with genuine enthusiasm. She was always thrilled by the prospect

of new surroundings. Besides, Hester would doubtless be amused....

Doreen squeezed Antoinette’s arm affectionately, and Reggie exclaimed:

“Good egg! If you practise your iron-shots, and remember to keep your

head down, you’ll be able to play with Dad whenever I can’t. He often

likes a game when he comes back from the City.”

Antoinette said hastily, “I’m afraid my golf will never be good enough

for that, Reggie....”

But Reggie responded with mingled impatience and gallantry, “You don’t

expect a fellow to swallow such tosh, do you?”

CHAPTER IV

A few days later, Antoinette returned to London; and old Madame de

Courcy, her grandmother, was interrogating her on the subject of her

stay with the Faynes.... Had she met many amiable young men? Had they

admired her? Had she told them to come and visit her grandmother and her

parents? And her friend, la petite Fayne, had she also been admired?

Antoinette answered all these questions with a comprehensive “Oui,

Grand’mère....” Conversation with Madame de Courcy was always difficult,

firstly because she was very deaf and secondly because she was of an

inquisitiveness and a lack of tact and discretion, that ruled out for

Antoinette all possibility of confidence or affection. She could only

see her grandmother as a comic figure; sometimes as a most irritating

one; never by any chance as one to be loved or reverenced. Grand’mère

frequently indulged in fits of hysteria, in which at the top of her

voice, she would set forth the failings and shortcomings of three

generations of the family, with a special notice for the particular

offence of which each individual, whether dead or alive, had been guilty

towards herself. The performance would usually be started by some quite

irrelevant trifle—some slight breach of etiquette or imagined lack of

consideration for her years and dignity. Part I would be purely personal

and insulting; but Part II, transcending the limits of the personal,

would be wider in range, epic and panoramic; while Part III was crudely

effective through sheer noise and smashing of furniture, or whatever

chanced to be most handy. But Madame de Courcy possessed the remarkable

faculty of being able, without the slightest transition or modulation,

to switch off her hysterics, if a change of front seemed desirable. Thus

at one moment, with tears streaming down her face, she could rave

_fortissimo_ because Antoinette had omitted to say good morning to her,

or because her son-in-law René of Grenoble had once passed out of the

dining-room in front of her ... and then when she had succeeded in

working up everyone else to a similar pitch of excitement, she could on

the instant turn round and smile, in dulcet tones demand of Antoinette

the assurance that she “_aimait bien sa petite grand’mère_,” and resume

the conversation where it had previously been abandoned. The audience—if

audience there happened to be, and there usually did—was invariably

staggered no less by the suddenness of the change than by the actual

recital of the Family Saga.

She was a marvellous old lady, despite her seventy years; and her fierce

dark eyebrows met above her patrician nose, and the hairs upon her upper

lip were many. She had a wonderful memory—for grievances. And she needed

to have, as her family was very extensive and scattered about in all

portions of the globe; and only by reciting the tale of their manifold

iniquities could she draw them together in her mind’s eye.... At least,

so thought Antoinette, who from childhood upwards had listened to

Grand’mère’s outbursts, first in fear and trembling, and later on in

pure artistic appreciation of a spectacular performance.

Grand’mère’s chief hobbies and interests in life were births, deaths,

marriages and operations; but especially marriages, the arrangement,

furtherance and consequences of same. She combined the notion that a

young girl should be brought up in darkest ignorance of the facts of

life, with a fondness for discussing them publicly in intimate detail,

and with a Rabelaisian virility of language. She had married off her six

daughters, with more or less success, to gentlemen in suitable positions

residing in France, Italy and Spain. But when Anatole, her darling only

son, had come to England for business-reasons, she had accompanied him

and his young wife, and lived with them ever since. Anatole de Courcy

was a wholesale dealer in coffee, and a fairly astute man of business.

In appearance he was lean, dark, rather yellow in the face, with

projecting front teeth and a ragged moustache that he was in the habit

of gnawing. He was the only one of her children whom Madame de Courcy

had spoilt, and still manifested all the most objectionable

characteristics of the nursery favourite. He was both obstinate and

petty, and prone to outbursts of temper, not unlike his mother’s.

Sometimes, indeed, mother and son would scream at each other for hours

together, the duet only terminating when one of the vocalists fell dumb

through exhaustion.

On these occasions, Henriette de Courcy, who had long ago learnt the

futility of interfering between her husband and her mother-in-law, would

with a sweeping gesture of her beautiful hand, beckon Antoinette out of

the room. “Come, my child, we are not needed here ...” which was

obvious: Anatole and his mother, both weeping tears of rage, and hurling

the bitterest taunts and recriminations at each other, were supremely

happy.... But Henriette could never let the slightest occasion for

theatricality pass unnoticed. In her youth she had studied elocution,

and had even had dreams of going on the stage, dreams which she had been

obliged to relinquish when her parents married her to Anatole de Courcy.

Anatole was rich; Henriette was poor, and one of a great many

sisters.... But she never allowed either herself or her environment to

forget that but for her marriage, she might have become one of the

leading _tragédiennes_ of France. Her whole bearing, her gestures, the

flowing draperies she affected, were all reminiscent of the great

actress who, in her own opinion, had been sacrificed to matrimony with a

coffee-dealer. Perhaps the constant habit of the theatrical pose

accounted for the fact that Antoinette never felt any real warmth of

affection existing between herself and her mother. There was always at

the back of her mind the suspicion that Henriette’s magnificent

gestures, and deep thrilling inflections expressive of maternal passion,

were really no more than gestures and inflections, practised, perfectly

finished, but with nothing genuine behind them. Henriette was

perpetually voicing lofty sentiments upon the true development of the

soul, and had even been known, in the presence of her family, to extol

free love and the beauties thereof. Needless to say Anatole and old

Madame de Courcy did their best to counteract her evil influence upon

her daughter. But Antoinette felt that they need not have troubled: here

again she could not rid herself of the conviction that her mother was

not sincere, and that her vaunted broad-mindedness would turn into the

righteous indignation of the conventional _bourgeoise_, if ever it were

put to the test.

The house in Cadogan Gardens was hideously furnished; the rooms,

spacious and gloomy, were crammed with dreadful ornaments and pictures

that were either family heirlooms or had been Anatole’s wedding presents

from his numerous sisters. Many small tables in the drawing-room were

laden with photographs of the six sisters with their respective husbands

and offspring; a most alarming exhibition, thought Antoinette, as

neither her aunts nor her cousins were remarkable for their beauty. On

the contrary. However, the plain young cousins made up in virtue what

they so manifestly lacked in looks; witness the embroidered mats and

doyleys and cushion-covers that had been worked as birthday or Xmas

presents for Madame de Courcy, and testified to many hours of patient

toil on the part of her grandchildren. Antoinette’s handiwork alone was

not represented in this orgy of cross-stitch and crochet. Antoinette

could do neither cross-stitch nor crochet, wherefore her grandmother

argued that there must be something radically wrong with her.

As long as she had been too young and helpless to protest against the

outrage, she had always been made to recite on Madame de Courcy’s

birthday. On one occasion she had been heavily coached by her mother in

a long speech from “Athalie,” and Madame de Courcy, who was not

interested in the classics, and too deaf to understand much anyway,

began to chatter in the middle of the recitation. Antoinette stopped

dead. Her mother signed to her to continue. Grand’mère went on

chatting.... Antoinette fumed, shifting from one leg on to the other.

“Go on, _chérie_,” whispered Henriette. “I’ll go on when that horrid old

woman stops talking!” cried Antoinette, loud enough to be heard by the

deafest of grandmothers.

... In the course of the scene which ensued, Grand’mère hurled a book at

her young grand-daughter’s head. It missed its mark and fell to the

ground; Antoinette, obeying the histrionic instinct inherited from her

mother, picked it up and with icy politeness handed it back: “I think

you have dropped something....”

Since that day, Madame de Courcy had realised that Antoinette was

somehow different from her other grandchildren, and that she had “a

difficult little character.” “_Tant pis_,” she was wont to reflect, “we

will have to marry her young....” But so far Antoinette had refused to

accept her grandmother’s sovereign cure for an unusual temperament.

Grand’mère could not understand it. Why, she herself had manœuvred

several meetings with suitable people, and the girl went out in that

disgraceful free-and-easy English way with quite a lot of young men—by

dint of some picturesque perversion of the truth, Antoinette had

succeeded in obtaining a certain amount of liberty—but hitherto nothing

had come either of Grand’mère’s efforts or of Antoinette’s gadding

about. And it was not that Grand’mère was not vigilant, or that she

failed in her duty towards her Anatole’s only child: no man could take

Antoinette out to tea, or write or telephone to her, without Madame de

Courcy enquiring into his financial position, and, after the second or

third meeting had taken place: “_Eh bien, ma petite_, he has not yet

spoken to you of marriage?”

When Antoinette, after many discussions, had finally been allowed to go

to Amberhurst, Grand’mère had propounded the theory that she had been

invited because the Faynes knew of some rich young man who would be

staying there at the same time, and that they were doubtless trying to

bring about a match between him and Antoinette. Henriette languidly

reminded her mother-in-law that the Faynes had a daughter of their own;

but Madame de Courcy, who was wonderfully imaginative where her

favourite topic of matrimony was concerned, argued that even if Miss

Fayne _did_ get engaged to the “_parti_,” the “_parti_” might be struck

by the charms of Miss Fayne’s friend, and remember that he also

possessed a friend, rich and suitable like himself, who would wish to be

introduced to the friend of his friend’s _fiancée_....

Hence Grand’mère’s flood of questions on Antoinette’s return.

As the family sat down to dinner that night, the old lady greeted her

son as usual with: “_Eh bien, mon fils, comment vont les affaires?_” And

he, also as usual, replied impatiently: “_Mal, mal_ ...” for he was a

confirmed pessimist. This short duologue took place between mother and

son every evening. Having performed the ritual, Grand’mère continued to

question Antoinette with an air of false benignity that was intended to

put her at her ease, and draw forth her artless confidence.

“Tell me the names of the young men you have met. Do they live in

London? Was there not one amongst them who pleased you more than the

others?”

Very demurely, with dark lashes sweeping her white cheeks, Antoinette

launched forth into descriptions of Mr. Griggs and Clive Blackwood. She

drew a particularly beautiful imaginary portrait of Griggs, and

Grand’mère pricked up her ears.

“He lives in the country, that one? He has estates? He has asked you to

visit his family?”

Antoinette immediately robbed Mr. Griggs of his vast country estates, by

saying that alas, owing to the innate nobility of his character, he had

renounced them in favour of a consumptive younger brother.... Grand’mère

lost interest, until it struck her that the consumptive brother might

die, and Griggs thus recover possession of the estates. Antoinette did

not think it likely: the brother wasn’t as consumptive as all that....

“You waste your time with the wrong people,” her father declared

irritably, “people who can be of no use to you.”

“She lacks the commercial instinct,” Henriette spoke very slowly and

beautifully, and putting up her lorgnon, surveyed Antoinette through it.

“_C’est bien ma fille...._”

Anatole banged his fist upon the table. “It is the nonsense you put into

her head, that makes her so difficult.”

Henriette smiled her best smile of martyrdom and patient endurance.

... And Antoinette was glad that this wasn’t all: that this hideous

house and this family-party with its bickerings and discussions, did not

represent the sum-total of her universe; glad that she had given a more

or less fictitious account of her stay, and that she could keep to

herself everything that had really mattered. This sense of having a

secret which the others could not guess, made her feel wonderfully

secure, invulnerable, almost: as if no irritation or annoyance could

touch her, while she wrapped herself around with her memories of Hester.

On the plea of fatigue after her journey, she soon escaped upstairs to

her room; smiled at the tablecloth that had been embroidered by her

cousin Marguerite from Lyons, and that Grand’mère had placed in

Antoinette’s room, hoping it might exercise a beneficent influence upon

her character. Antoinette laughed happily; went to bed, and was soon

fast asleep, dreaming of Hester.

* * * * *

It was a long time since she had been as happy and as excited as she was

now. Her schooldays had held occasional periods of a similar excitement,

but the three years since she had left boarding-school, had been

conspicuously barren, compared with what had gone before. When she was

thirteen, there had been the melancholy-eyed young teacher of literature

whom she had adored; a dreamy unpopular woman, who had been made to

suffer horribly in the innumerable little ways in which schoolgirls can

torment their victims. Antoinette had been seized with a kind of holy

wrath, and desire to avenge and protect; she had flamed out against the

whole class, almost wishing that they would turn and rend her, so that

she might have the pleasure of sacrificing herself for her idol.... The

idol very soon learnt to return the adoration of the fervent and

hot-tempered worshipper; and simultaneously Antoinette began to lose

interest. She had only enjoyed her rôle, as long as Miss Prescot had

taken no notice of her: had been apparently unaware of the flutter and

throb of excitement caused by her mere presence in the class-room, or

her casual good-night kiss at bed-time. When Miss Prescot had come to

single her out from the other girls and to linger fondly over that

good-night kiss, Antoinette had had quite a fit of repulsion. She only

enjoyed an up-hill battle; even at that age, the easy conquest had bored

her. Also, she hated being touched, except in cases where her own

feelings were aroused. She shook off the girls who sought to walk with

their arms through hers, or to stroke her funny boyish head of hair; she

would run away from them, revelling in the fun of the chase, yet

dreading capture ... the fear in her eyes contradicted by the laughing

curves of her mouth; the eyes of a nun, indeed, and the mouth of a

voluptuary.

And then, some time later, there was the Russian girl, Natasha.

This time, Antoinette’s passion was not killed by easy reciprocity, but

kept alive by a thousand subtle tortures, rekindled by a single look or

gesture, whenever Natasha imagined that it showed signs of waning. Her

beauty was her strongest weapon, and at seventeen she used it with a

refinement of cruelty that would have done credit to a woman twice her

years. Antoinette was fascinated by her long sleepy eyes, that were

green as jade, and as hard; by the heavy black hair growing low down

upon her forehead; by her indolent graceful body, and the coldly

indifferent manner that seemed to express the disdain in which she held

her schoolfellows and her teachers alike. She had many slaves and

admirers in the school, but none so ardent, so abandoned in her

devotion, as Antoinette. Therefore, seeing that this was the case,

Natasha ignored her completely; avoided her on purpose when she knew

that the younger girl was hovering about the stairs on the chance of

being allowed to say good-night to her; ridiculed her adoration in front

of the others; paraded ostentatiously with her favourites before

Antoinette’s jealous eyes. And then, as she did not wish to forfeit

altogether the entertaining spectacle of Antoinette’s passion, she would

suddenly and unexpectedly be nice to her, making amends in five minutes

for all the ill-treatment of the previous weeks. Antoinette forgave her

gladly and generously, but the moment she imagined that her troubles

were at an end, Natasha would with equal suddenness withdraw her favour,

and treat her as badly as ever....

Antoinette suffered greatly at the time, but when her passion had worn

itself out, she began to look forward with new zest to being grown up.

If already this world of women and girls, narrow though it was, could

contain for her such a wealth of thrills and excitement, how much more

wonderful must be that other world, the world beyond school, the world

of men. So far, she was inclined to feel contemptuous of the world of

men, as represented by the elderly masters who took some of the classes

at the fashionable boarding-school, and by the coarse-looking schoolboys

who grinned at the girls when they passed each other on their daily

walks. But she knew that when she was grown-up, everything would be

different. Antoinette, counting the months, the years—fifteen, sixteen,

seventeen—indulging in occasional passing flickers of feeling for this

girl or that mistress; Antoinette, young, eager and glowing with an

exuberant vitality, could scarcely await her eighteenth birthday, and

the meeting with the lover who, she knew, awaited her ... a lover to

whom she could give all the passion of her soul, and whose touch would

thrill her even more potently than had the touch of those women she had

adored.

But when at last she was released from school, the grown-up world of men

proved singularly disappointing; totally devoid of that stimulus for

which she craved. The wonderful lover of her imagination had certainly

not yet appeared upon the scene. In the meantime, various supers tried

to play the part, but with no success as far as she was concerned. She

let them kiss her, because she hoped that thus she might find what she

sought; but those that did not arouse active repulsion in her, merely

bored her, left her with a sense of staleness and dissatisfaction. She

began to fear that she would never be capable of feeling anything for

anybody again. And now Hester had proved her fears to be groundless....

Gladly, gratefully Antoinette welcomed her advent, and the rush of

emotion which she had called forth; turned with relief from her

fruitless search in the world of masculinity, to give herself up to

whole-hearted worship of this proud silent woman, who had had the power

to arouse her from her temporary lethargy. And in so doing, Antoinette

was free from the least taint of morbidity; unaware that there was aught

of unusual about her attitude—Hester herself had perceived this—she

merely felt that she was coming into her own again, and was

healthy-minded and joyous in her unquestioning obedience to the dictates

of her inmost nature.

* * * * *

Hester wrote, giving her address at Bristol; nothing more. Antoinette

turned the scrawled half-sheet over and over in the hope of finding some

other message, but in vain. She had to rest content with having the

address, and hence, obviously, the permission to write to Hester.... She

wrote by return a very long letter that was amusing as well as ardent,

for she remembered that she had on occasions been able to arouse

Hester’s caustic sense of humour. And fervently she hoped that by-and-by

Hester would come to reveal herself in writing more intimately than she

was ever likely to do in speech.

The strain of waiting for Hester’s answer was almost unbearable; at last

it came: a brief acknowledgment of the receipt of Antoinette’s letter,

and the date of her departure from Bristol....

Hereupon Antoinette wrote despairingly: “Won’t you for once write me a

_real_ letter?” And Hester wrote back: “I never write what you call

_real_ letters....”

After the first disappointment, Antoinette was conscious of renewed

stimulation. Hester was unlike anyone she had ever met. What must be the

life-history, every clue to which was guarded from the merest chance of

revelation by pen and paper? Antoinette determined that one day she

would break through Hester’s reserve. In the meantime she continued to

batter it with letters into which she put all the warmth and passion

that were in her.

About the time she received Hester’s second note, a letter came from

Dennis Blackwood in Devonshire. Without a formal mode of address, it

started straight away with a request for permission to write to her, and

then rambled on for many pages in a particularly charming style, giving

vivid bits of description of the places where he and Crispin were

staying, and telling her little humorous incidents of the day’s tramp.

Antoinette said that certainly he might write to her, if he pleased; but

she did not write to him at any length, because her one-sided

correspondence with Hester was absorbing all her spare time and

interest. But apparently her letter was cordial enough to call forth an

answer by return.

Soon Dennis was writing to her every other day, then every day, then

twice a day.... Regretfully she compared his long and truly delightful

letters with Hester’s curt scrappy communications. It seemed such a

waste not to be in love with Dennis. His veritable avalanche of letters

undoubtedly pleased and flattered her, but did not cause one fraction of

the palpitating excitement that she felt at the mere sight of Hester’s

writing on an envelope.

But her grandmother’s agitation alone would have made it worth

Antoinette’s while to keep up the correspondence. Grand’mère had

naturally demanded full details concerning the young man who wrote to

her grand-daughter with such improper frequency. And Antoinette, more

demure and “jeune fille” than ever, had modestly said that he was a

great artist....

“_Hein, hein_, an artist? That does not please me at all. He has

doubtless not a farthing, and you know very well that _la vie de bohème_

is nothing for you,” with a warning glance at Henriette, from whom

Antoinette was assumed to have inherited all her immoral tendencies.

Antoinette continued gleefully to foster in her grandmother’s mind the

vision of Dennis as an impecunious artist with short nails and long

hair, who would encourage her to dance upon tables, drink champagne for

breakfast, associate with people who posed for “_L’ensemble_”—even if

she did not actually pose for “_L’ensemble_” herself—and generally

behave in a manner incompatible with Cadogan Gardens and the dignity of

the de Courcys.

CHAPTER V

June 29th, 1914.

“... We’re putting up to-night in rooms above a pastry-cook’s shop ...

wonderful rooms. I know you’d love them. I’ve been taking for your

benefit an inventory of the sitting-room furniture. There are yellow

faded family-photographs on the walls, and wedding-groups with

bridesmaids wearing hats with quills all pointing the same way. There’s

a dusty wooden shelf with mugs that are all Presents from the Seaside,

or else symbols of the Jubilee, the Coronation or other events of

national unimportance. There’s a red plush anchor with shells round it;

there’s a cardboard model of a ship under a glass bell; there’s a

slippery horse-hair sofa, upon which Crispin is now reclining, fast

asleep. And chiefly, there is a piano with a green silk front and a

yellow keyboard so short that I find myself clawing the air if I venture

too far away from the central C. There’s such a funny foreign look about

the way the houses here grow in a square round the market-place. They

are painted all different colours, too; there’s a bright blue one just

opposite, with a tiny salmon pink one, half its height, leaning

confidingly up against it; ours is a modest saffron yellow, with red

bars under the window-ledges. There’s a pump in the middle of the

market-square, and around it the most delightful mixed assorted

collection of dogs doze in the sun. I’m going to fetch one of them in to

talk to me when I’ve finished this letter. We don’t quite know if he’s

meant to be a bull-dog or a spaniel, but he’s long and slobbery and

brindled and adorable, and he’s going to lie across my lap, while I

whisper absurdities into his long soft ears.

I can’t get rid of the impression that this is a little foreign town.

Between the houses are narrow passages that are spanned by tiny stone

archways, dazzling white against an Italian blue sky; and from each

archway flutter boldly the coloured banners of somebody’s washing. And

the hotel, painted brownish pink and built round a triangular court

planted with shrubbery, is just such as you might find in a small place

in Switzerland.

No, I think I’ve got it now: it’s not a foreign place, in fact it isn’t

a real place at all.... It’s just a toy village that you’re allowed to

take out of the nursery cupboard and play with, when you’ve been good.

Please won’t you come and play with my toy village with me? I’ll be

awfully nice about it, and even let you work the pump and hang up the

washing when I’m tired of doing it myself.

No, it isn’t a toy village either: it’s just a dream-place. I knew that,

the instant we came in sight of it this afternoon. We’d been walking

over the moors to the accompaniment of a tearing wind that swept

magnificently up and down the scale, as it drove great lumpy golden

clouds over the edge of the horizon, and roared in our ears and muttered

in the hedgerows. And then suddenly the white road began to dip down and

down into a hollow in which lay this handful of coloured roofs. And the

sound of the wind became softer and softer, as if whoever was conducting

the orchestra, had hushed all the brass-instruments. And by the time we

reached the village-street, after a last faint murmur there was no sound

at all, only the most wonderful thick sunny silence you’ve ever listened

to. And I want you here in my dream-place. You belong in it. I may tell

you that, mayn’t I? Besides, you know. Of course you know ... don’t

you?”

July 5th.

“... You want my village for keeps? I’m afraid you can’t have it,

because if I packed it in my suit-case to bring home to you, the water

from the pump might get loose and make my collars damp. I’m sorry! I’m

sending you a nice fat tin of cream instead, which will no doubt upset

your grandmother—morally, of course. She must be a delightful old lady,

according to your descriptions, and I look forward to making her

acquaintance on my return.... We’re staying in quite a different sort of

village this time; it has an old-world triangular village-green, planted

with giant oak-trees, and enclosed on two sides by dear little thatched

cottages with trim little gardens; and it has an ivy-clad church and the

usual combination of Post Office and all-sorts shop, in which you may

revel in the complex odour of boots, cheese, liquorice, soap, sawdust,

biscuits, Fry’s chocolate and warm humanity. And best of all, this

village of ours boasts an absolutely authentic Idiot, Vicar, Oldest

Inhabitant, Lady of the Manor and Village Belle—I expect she’ll lose

some of our socks, as she happens to be the laundress in private

life—and they all come on and speak in character when the strings are

pulled. Unfortunately, the Wicked Squire is lacking from the set; he

must have been mislaid. But I hear they’ve got a Squire of sorts some

miles away, and for the sake of tradition let us hope that his morals

are infamous and his jowl unshaven and blue.

We had a long tramp to get here from Chagford, and at every farm we

encountered on the way, we halted so that Crispin might still his

insatiable appetite for bread and cheese and beer. And while he sat and

gorged in state in the parlour with the best antimacassars and the

coloured prints of the Royal Family, I prowled round the farm-buildings,

and had much speech with velvet-eyed calves, and watch-dogs straining at

their chains, and sleepy kittens, and ducks sailing proudly on the pond

in the orchard. I loved all their quacking and purring and barking and

lowing, and the excited flutter in the poultry-yard and the rich deep

sounds from the pig-sty. And oh, the farm-smell of earth and damp straw

and clover and animals and hay....

The fields are brown and red and green, and brown again; and scattered

in the hollows, or perched on the hillsides are villages—mere clusters

of whitewashed and pinkwashed cottages—gleaming in the sun. But even the

tiniest cluster has its battered grey church-spire. The smoke from the

gorse-fires floats in heavy blue clouds above the Tors, and I do so

badly want someone to share it all with me...! Crispin? Yes, he’s a dear

good sort and I like being with him. He’s so restful because he takes me

so for granted; doesn’t ask questions; and there’s never the least

strain between us. I believe Crispin is really wedded, heart and soul,

to his Bechstein grand at home. Whilst I—Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps some

day I’ll be able to tell you....

I’m afraid we shall have to push on very quickly from this perfect spot,

as Crispin has succeeded in getting us into trouble. We’ve got no piano

here, and he was told on enquiring that the only one in the

neighbourhood is up at the Manor. I had to restrain him forcibly from

marching straight in and taking possession of the instrument. I put it

to him that it couldn’t be done—no, not even if he pretended to be the

piano-tuner.... So very morosely, he gave way, and consoled himself by

borrowing the key of the church from the vicar, and playing the organ.

That was all very nice, of course, but Crispin, from force of habit,

locked himself in; and that afternoon there was to be a christening ...

and he didn’t take the slightest notice when they came and hammered on

the church-door; merely thundered away, louder than ever, on his wheezy

old organ. The christening procession had to wait outside, with the baby

catching cold, till Crispin got hungry, and came out to have his tea....

Of course they might have entered by another door, but that spoils my

story....

I’m writing you such a lot of nonsense; you don’t mind, do you? If you

only realised how difficult it is to stop writing to you! I want to go

on and on and on, and tell you things—but they are just the things you

know already.... You seem very near to me to-night. Perhaps you were

thinking about me just a little, and have come here in a dream. I

believe you’re beside me now, only if I turn to look you’ll vanish....”

July 7th.

“... It’s nice of you to ask about my opera. I haven’t worked at it much

lately. I’ve been so lazy and happy, just walking and dreaming and

eating and sleeping, and writing to you. But as regards the opera—do you

remember Andersen’s fairy-tale, ‘Karen and the Red Shoes’? A friend of

mine, Neil Barnaby, has turned it into a three-act play, and I’m writing

the music for it. It’s the first time I’ve attempted anything quite so

big. We want to have it put on with an entirely modern impressionistic

setting—perhaps next opera-season at Covent Garden. Perhaps.... To-night

I can almost believe that it will be so, and that the work that is

nearest and dearest to my heart will actually be played before hundreds

and hundreds of people. Perhaps they’ll acclaim it, go mad over it, as

I’ve seen them go mad, and gone mad myself over the Russian Opera. And I

know I shall have a ridiculous desire to cry, and there won’t be an

ounce of conceit in me, because after all it’s just my child they’ll be

making the fuss about—not me. And I’m glad that it should be like that,

for I hate being taken notice of, and always want to run away and hide.

But the child is different. The child, I think, is going to be strong.

And I love it so.... And all the pleasure that my music may bring to the

people who listen to it, won’t nearly equal some of the top-moments of

joy I’ve had in creating it. Yes, to-night I can believe that the opera

will be a success; to-night I can believe even more than that; to-night

I can believe—anything, Antoinette.

When I was at school, I was terrified of my musical gift; I hated it,

and did my utmost to suppress it, because I thought it was that which

made me different from the other boys. I loathed being ‘different’; it

made me feel so alone, so I played hard games with the others, and tried

to make friends with the others, and tried to forget that there was

something inside my brain that turned everything I felt and experienced

into music, which clamoured to be released, and which I refused to

release, because I knew that if I did so, it would widen still more the

gulf between me and the others. I built barrier upon barrier to shut in

the fragments of music that sang in my ears all day and all night; I was

powerless to keep them from entering, but at least I would give them no

chance to escape. I wouldn’t take music-lessons at school; that would

have been too dangerous; old Harper, the piano-master, was a pretty

shrewd person, and might have spotted me. I resented having this thing

to hide, and envied my brother Clive and the other boys, for not having

to wage this perpetual war against part of their own selves. There were

times when I did long so badly just to give in.... And if I did that, I

could never again keep up the pretence of being like the others.

Somehow, that pretence seemed the all-important thing: there was safety

in it.

When I was sixteen, a Jewish boy called Eric Rubenstein came to

Westborough. He was clever as they’re made, but ugly and undersized, and

appallingly sensitive; he had a rotten time of it. Everything about him

seemed to lay him open to being ragged—his looks, his name (they called

him Little-by-Little ‘for short’) and the way his people kissed him

before the whole school, and brought him pineapples and grapes when they

came down to see him. He used, for some unfathomable reason, to follow

me around with his great intelligent eyes, that were like the eyes of a

dog that expects to be kicked; but I didn’t even try to befriend him.

You see, I realised that young Eric was likely to be dangerous too: he

played the violin, and he played it like an artist....

He fagged for a great loutish Sixth Form chap called Burnley, who did

his best to make Eric’s life a misery. I was in Burnley’s study one

Saturday afternoon, and he and some of his pals were banging away on the

piano. Someone suggested that the Jew-boy, who was toasting muffins by

the fire, should play his violin.... The Jew-boy refused, and I was glad

that he had refused to play to them. Then I saw that Burnley was looking

at him with a very evil gleam in his heavy eyes. The next instant the

storm broke. ‘What—you won’t? Is there any law in your benighted

religion to prevent you playing the fiddle on Saturdays?’

Eric blazed out: ‘My religion’s as good as yours!’ and then relapsed

into his usual attitude of defence.

‘Oh, no, it isn’t, Ikey,’ Burnley grinned, ‘don’t make any mistake about

that; you’re a Jew, that’s what you are, a dirty Jew ... ugh!’

They went on badgering him about his religion and about his father, who

was supposed to have kept a fried-fish shop before he got rich. And they

threatened him with lickings, and with red-hot pokers down his back if

he wouldn’t play.... I daresay most of it was bluff, but he must have

had memories of previous tortures, for he turned absolutely white, and

tried to hide his funk under a rather sickening smile.

He kept on looking to me for help, but I just sat there, with the palms

of my hands getting hot and sticky, and didn’t move. They forced him

finally by threat of sheer physical violence, and I felt that it was

indecent that he should play before those boys who didn’t really want to

hear his music, and only wanted to make a mock of him; and indecent that

I should be listening. But I had to stop and listen. I hadn’t interfered

to protect him, but I couldn’t leave him quite alone while he played....

And then I realised that Eric wasn’t really giving himself in his music;

he seemed to be withholding himself from expression. I was terribly

afraid that as he went on he’d overstep the borders of his reserve, but

he didn’t. His playing was correct and polished; and absolutely

soulless.

When he had finished, I was unthinkingly whistling the Russian song he’d

played; and he looked up and came across to me, seeing that the others

were all busy round the piano. ‘Yes, of course that’s how it ought to

have been played, but I couldn’t do it like that—could I—for them.’ I

had to take care not to let him guess how heartily I agreed with him, so

I said off-handedly: ‘I don’t see why not!’

‘Oh, yes, you do,’ he persisted, ‘you _know_.... You must have a

wonderful ear to be able to whistle it straight off like that. Don’t you

love Wieniawski? I do....’ He was no longer the cringeing little Fourth

Form fag addressing a senior boy; he was speaking as man to man, or as

one artist to another. But I had to shut him up; told him I didn’t

‘know,’ and hadn’t any ear at all, and hated Wieniawski and all other

kinds of music, and advised him to stow his cheek.... Oh, I could talk

the vernacular right enough! He just gave me one look, half reproachful

and half apologetic; then he blurted out, under cover of the song that

the others were bawling in chorus: ‘I—I suppose you thought me an utter

worm just now—I know I am, but it makes me sick—pain does—even the idea

of it—and being helpless and knowing that it isn’t going to stop—and it

comes over you in waves each a bit more ghastly than the last. It isn’t

what they do, though that’s bad enough sometimes.... It’s what they

might do ... and you know exactly what it would feel like, and you lie

awake at night and think about it, and wait——’

It was all too horrible for words. I longed to shut him up again, but I

saw that he’d reached the limits of his endurance, and simply had to

talk.... He went on to tell me about his people at home. ‘My father

thinks I’m ever so happy here, and popular, and good at games and all

that—he’s so absurdly proud of me, you see—so in the holidays I have to

keep it up—fib about cricket matches I’m supposed to have played in, and

invent stories of practical jokes in which I figure as the hero instead

of the victim ... and he drinks it all in, and loves it, and I can’t

bear to let him know.’

He said that, when I suggested that he should get his parents to take

him away from Westborough. Plucky, wasn’t it? And heartbreaking. He was

such a kid.... I had an insane desire to be nice to him, to make up for

what the others were doing to him. But after that one outburst, I

avoided him more than ever. With his subtle Jewish instinct he’d

discovered well enough that I _was_ different from the others; but he

never again attempted to speak to me about music, although he must have

known all along. I was grateful to him for that; the barriers I had

built were getting weaker and weaker; and I had the almost superstitious

conviction that they would only stand firm as long as I didn’t tell

anybody about myself, or let them give me the sympathy and understanding

I craved for. I dared not let myself get fond of Eric, or I might

have been swept away to heaven knows what headlong flights

of—‘differentness.’ So the desire to be nice to him had to be fought

down as well....

And then one day—it was the half-term holiday, and pouring with rain. I

went up to the practice-room at the top of the house to fetch something

I’d been sent for—and the piano was open—and no one was about—and I

thought I’d just see if I could remember one of the absurd pieces Clive

and I had been taught by our nursery-governess.

I don’t know how it happened: I had started by picking out ‘The Merry

Peasant,’ but a while after, without realising what I was doing, I was

finding chords that began to release, bit by bit, some of the music that

was imprisoned inside my head, and that seemed to be spurring me on,

impatient of my clumsy fingers that groped so slowly for the magic

formula that would set it free....

Later on, I was out on the Downs, running away from what I knew I should

never be able to escape, now that I had let _it_ escape me ... given the

thing that was in my mind a separate existence, by putting it outside

myself. It was just that—putting it outside myself—that had swept me

right over my own barriers. I knew then that come what might, I’d got to

be a musician, even if it did mean being different and being lonely. I

knew I’d got to suffer, and by suffering—create. I determined that the

one person who should share that knowledge with me, should be Eric. I

looked forward to being able to be decent to him at last....

I wandered about for hours in the wind and rain, and when I got back,

there was a little knot of boys whispering in the hall. ‘I say, have you

heard?’ ‘No, what?’ ‘About the Jew-boy—appendicitis—awful agony, the

Matron says, quickest case she’s ever heard of—_scream_—you should have

heard him, fair blood-curdling, I can tell you.’ ‘It’s awfully quiet

now; his people have come.... Will they take him—take _it_—away...?’

That was the end of Eric, who dreaded the idea of pain.

... After that, I didn’t make any attempt to crawl back behind my

barriers; they weren’t strong enough anyway to stand against the

flood-tide that had broken out. Everything that I felt about Eric would

set itself to weird horrible music that drummed unceasingly in my ears,

and demanded expression, and I was dead tired of choking it back. So I

had to let myself become a musician. But I put up an awfully hard fight

against it. It’s queer to think of it now....

I don’t know how it is that I can talk to you like this. I’ve never told

anyone else about Eric, and I know I couldn’t do it so easily if you

were really here. But being miles away from you, there’s nothing to

frighten me into shutting myself up, nothing to destroy my conviction

that you _do_ understand.

Good-night, dear. I’ve enjoyed talking to you....”

July 12th.

“We’re zig-zagging about the country in the most amazing style. And I

wish I could collect all the things I’ve loved most, and bring them back

to you. There’s the early-morning smell—such a foreign smell, too—of

pines, and fresh-cut grass, and stone walls and burning wood. And there

are the evenings when the scent of the earth and the trees after the

day’s heat is so strong and sweet and poignant that it hurts you; and

there’s a glamour over the whole world; and the lights begin to show in

the cottage-windows; and a great golden moon swims up over the hard

black edge of the moor.... Yesterday we found a river, gleaming silver

in the depths of a forest—such a river.... It rushed onward at a tearing

rate, hurling itself down over great moss-grown boulders, working itself

into a white frenzy of foam as it fretted its way between them, and

swirled around the outstanding tree-roots. And, oh, the colours of the

water—crystal and gold where the sun touched it, clear amber and brown

and green where it was flecked by the shadow of the branches. You’ve

never heard such a wonderful orchestra of bird-voices: the low clear

note of the blackbird as soloist, and all the warbling, trilling,

chirping and whistling that went to make a harmonious accompaniment,

together with the soothing monotone of the bees, and the hurry, hurry,

hurry of the river—but what’s the good of trying to tell you about it in

words? Perhaps I’ll put it into music for you some day. There’s such a

lot to be done ‘some day,’ isn’t there? When I get back, you must come

to Covent Garden with me. And there’ll be concerts, too. It’s a regular

feast of good music in London this season. We’re taking the train to

Exeter to-morrow, and I may be coming straight home from there, unless

Crispin lures me on into Cornwall. I’m too sleepy and drunk with the air

to make up my mind definitely to-night. But I’ll let you know to-morrow.

Good-night....”

CHAPTER VI

Antoinette smiled tenderly over those letters; he must be a queer

person, Dennis Blackwood, to write to her like that, after having only

spoken to her once. She liked his letters from an artistic point of

view, and the bulk of them gave her a feeling of warmth and contentment;

but once read, she put them aside; did not pore over them as she pored

over Hester’s, striving to read between the lines, and to put into the

words meanings which did not exist. Hester at a distance was most

unsatisfactory, so much so, that it sometimes cost Antoinette a real

effort to conjure up the image of her personality. She ventured to

express the hope that she might soon be allowed to see Hester again; and

to her infinite surprise, Hester replied that she was at Birmingham now,

and that if Antoinette thought it worth while, she might come and spend

a day with her there.

Antoinette trembled with joy on receiving that letter. It lay beside the

one in which Dennis had told her about Eric Rubenstein, and Grand’mère

peered inquisitively over the silver coffee-pot. But Antoinette cared

naught for Grand’mère that morning: she was going to see Hester, and

Dennis was evidently in love with her, and the world was altogether an

excellent place; gratefully Antoinette accepted the gifts that fate was

showering upon her—gratefully as a flower opens its petals to the sun.

Some days later, by dint of a series of lies and precautions, she set

out for Birmingham. She could not tell the family where she was going.

They knew nothing about Hester, and had they done so, would doubtless

have deemed the two hours’ journey to see her, crazy and an unnecessary

expense. She had stated that she was spending the day at Rosabel’s in

Hampstead; and Rosabel, good soul, had been sworn to secrecy.

What would the day give her? Antoinette wondered, as the train bore her

northwards, her excitement growing and growing with every beat of the

wheels. In what circumstances and in what state of mind would she find

Hester? She was entirely in the dark, her imagination free to illuminate

it with the most fantastic of pictures. It was fantastic enough in

itself that she should be tearing across England just to spend a day

with Hester. Just one day—that was the joy of it! One magic day standing

out in high relief from the monotonous flat background of days all

alike; one day to look back upon, robbed from the calendar.... Would

Hester be as unapproachable as ever, or would she at last overcome her

fierce reserve, and of her own free will admit Antoinette to her

confidence? Antoinette’s heart beat faster, as she pictured this

eventuality. She stood up in the corridor, too restless to sit down,

feverish with anticipation....

Then the train swung into the station, and Antoinette saw Hester on the

platform; and suddenly all the fever and excitement that had been worked

up to such a pitch died down, so that it required no special effort to

greet Hester with nonchalant calm. It was as if her pulses had become

tired of beating and hammering merely in anticipation, and had ceased to

do so, now that anticipation was about to merge into realisation.

“It was nice of you to come,” smiled Hester.

“It was nice of you to let me,” responded Antoinette.

They made their way through the crowd and out into the street.

“You’ll lunch with me at my lodgings, won’t you?” said Hester.

“Thanks very much.”

After that they walked in silence. Obviously Hester waited for her to

open conversation, but their unsatisfactory correspondence had

established no link of intimacy between them, and Antoinette was at a

loss, not knowing where or how to begin. Hester stopped in front of a

boarding-house in a rather dingy side-street, and Antoinette followed

her in through a dark and stuffy hall that smelt of roast mutton, and

thence into a drawing-room with cheap lace curtains and bamboo tables

ornamented with dusty ferns.

“We can stop here for the present,” said Hester; “everybody seems to be

out.”

Antoinette glanced at the pretentious knick-knacks on the mantelpiece,

the dirty crinkled paper round the flower-pots, the gaudily-framed

pictures ... a third-rate boarding-house was about the last place in the

world, in which she would have expected to find Hester. Her sense of the

fitness of things was outraged.

“Do you—do you live here?” she began at last tentatively.

“For the moment, yes.”

“But ... do you like it?”

Hester shrugged her shoulders. “If you can’t be where you want to be,

this place is as good as any other. And I’m not a millionaire, you

know.”

All the same, Antoinette reflected, millionaire or not, surely it was

possible to live in surroundings less actively repellent than these!

Apparently Hester carried her habitual detachment even to the lengths of

being quite oblivious of their sordidness.

She hunted in her mind for a suitable topic of conversation. “What was

Bristol like?” But almost before the words were out of her mouth, she

realised that she had infringed that unwritten law which decreed that

she should display no curiosity with regard to Hester’s private affairs.

She was prepared for the inevitable cold and evasive reply, when Hester

said: “Bristol? Oh, good enough while it lasted. But what are two weeks

in a year, compared with the fifty bad ones?”

“Are they always bad—the odd fifty?”

“More or less. He’s married, you see. His wife’s in an asylum; and

things are difficult on account of his position; he’s a schoolmaster....

The good times just have to be snatched.”

Antoinette felt stunned—and then disappointed. Hester had revealed to

her the secret of her life, but she had expected so much more drama from

the actual moment of revelation. And the secret itself struck her as

very commonplace; it seemed as if Hester, by taking Antoinette into her

confidence, had forfeited some of her mysterious charm.... Antoinette

tried in vain to fathom the reason why her burning love for Hester

should be thus transformed into a feeling of faint repulsion—repulsion,

no, that was absurd. What she felt was jealousy, perhaps; jealousy of

the man to whom Hester gave all there was to be given, so that she had

nothing left over for Antoinette.... It was not that, either. She had

always dimly suspected the existence of such a man, and assuming that

Hester’s happiness lay with him, she had been generous enough not to be

jealous. And now that his existence was no longer a hypothesis but a

certainty, she was less inclined than ever to be jealous—but she knew it

was from indifference rather than from generosity.

Hester was saying: “As you know, I never discuss my life with anyone,

but I thought I had better tell you just the bare facts, as you’ve been

foolish enough to honour me with a certain amount of your affection.”

Her great eyes gazed straight into Antoinette’s with the old look, which

only three weeks ago had stirred in her such depths of feeling. But now

she could only flush and avert her eyes from Hester’s, so that Hester

might not see that all the affection she had ever had for her was dead.

Also, she had a shrinking fear that Hester would come to elaborate the

“bare facts.” It struck Antoinette as indecent that Hester should do so

now, when she lacked the tenderness with which she would once have

received such confidence.... So she talked feverishly and brilliantly,

and was all the while full of a pitiful amazement, because Hester’s

appreciative laugh, that could so wonderfully transform her sullen face

was powerless to rekindle the dead emotion. Antoinette was relieved when

they sat down to lunch with the other inhabitants of the boarding-house

at the one long table in the dining-room. She was getting tired of the

strain.... And by the end of the day she was more tired of it still,

tired of pretending to Hester, pretending to herself. And evidently she

had not pretended so very well after all, because Hester said as she

walked with her to the station: “You’re disappointed—but remember, I

warned you....”

“Oh, I’m _not_!” cried Antoinette, in a last attempt to delude herself

even more than Hester.

But Hester only smiled and shook her head. “It’s no use, my child, I

know you are, as I knew you would be. People who pour out such great

floods of feeling as you do are bound to suffer from disillusionment.

Especially if they come up against people like me.”

“How d’you mean—people like you?” stammered Antoinette.

Hester laughed harshly. “I suppose I’m deceptive. Oh, you’re not the

first person I’ve deceived—involuntarily, of course, because I’ve always

warned them as I warned you. Imaginative people of your type are drawn

to me because, apparently, I give the impression of having more in me

than I have. That’s all. It’s not a tragedy. But I don’t think we’ll see

each other again, you and I.”

“Not...?”

“Better not. And by the time you get home you’ll realise if you haven’t

done so already, that you don’t want to either.”

... The world would be a terribly dreary place, now that there was no

one left in it to love. Even if Hester had been cruel to her, it would

have been easier to bear, than just discovering that she no longer cared

for Hester. The greatest cruelty on her part could not have killed the

love that Antoinette had had for her only three weeks ago, only

yesterday.... But Hester had been kind; kinder than ever before; and it

was not her kindness that was to blame. Nor was it the mere fact of

having found her in the wrong setting. Again, only yesterday,

Antoinette’s adoration would have been proof against such

trivialities—would have deepened at the thought of Hester in that

depressing environment.

It was not Hester’s fault. Antoinette knew that; Hester was unchanged.

It was only she who had lost the power of endowing her with a charm that

she had never possessed. The queer impetus that had made her love Hester

had suddenly become paralysed, just as her pulses had ceased to hammer,

the moment she arrived at the station.

But if the whole of that brief magical passion had been but a fever of

Antoinette’s own imagination, a temporary madness, and if her present

state of mind heralded her return to sanity, then with all her soul she

longed to become mad again, so that she might go on loving....

Her wonderful day was over, and it had not held one single moment upon

which it would be good to look back. She was returning empty-handed. And

she would have to rouse herself into giving the family a chatty and

fictitious description of how she had spent the day with Rosabel.

In the midst of her desolation, it gave her a little comfort to remember

that Dennis’s promised letter from Exeter would be awaiting her at home.

She hoped it would be one of his specially nice ones. She was in a mood

to appreciate it to-night....

But that night there was no letter from Dennis; neither the next night;

nor the one after.

CHAPTER VII

“And what now?” queried Dennis Blackwood, as they got out of the train,

and stood upon the dripping wet platform at Crannack.

“P-put up here for the night, and p-push on to-morrow,” Crispin

responded. Dennis agreed that it was the only thing to be done.

They had left Exeter that afternoon, Dennis having agreed to Crispin’s

suggestion that they might sample the Cornish coast. Dennis was in no

hurry to return to London. There was a dream-like quality about all his

days just now, days shared with his dream-companion, Antoinette. And

perhaps at the back of his mind lurked an indefinable fear of the moment

when he must exchange dreams for reality. If he went on to Cornwall,

there would be more days, and more, of hard walking and healthy sleep,

and all the haphazard fun of eccentric stoppages at eccentric places—and

above all, the dream-companionship would be prolonged....

From Exeter, they had intended taking the train down to Penzance, and

thence starting to explore the Land’s End district; but it had got late

while they visited the Cathedral at Exeter, and on arriving at the

station they found that they had missed the Cornish express, and had to

be content with a very slow train that stopped at all stations, and

finally stopped altogether at Crannack, the centre of the

mining-district. They were informed that they could get no connection to

Penzance the same night.

“Dismal-looking hole, isn’t it?” remarked Dennis, as they trudged up the

High Street, through the rain, in search of lodgings. Crispin grunted

assent, and turned up his coat-collar. He detested the wet. They took

rooms at the first Commercial Hotel they reached; and had a belated

supper in a dingy and badly-lighted dining-room. When they had finished,

Dennis declared: “I’m going out for some air, rain or no rain,” but

Crispin preferred to remain in the stuffy little smoking-room with a

book and a pipe.

Dennis resolved that before settling down to write to Antoinette, he

would have a look round the place. It seemed unprepossessing enough,

especially when contrasted with the clean cheerful Devonshire villages

which they had just left. Crannack was neither clean nor cheerful; yet

for Dennis there was a certain fascination about the way its little

twisted streets ran steeply upwards from the docks, as if trying to

scramble away from the perpetual harbour-noises; the rasping of chains,

hooting of steam-sirens, rattling of coal-trucks. But the few

upward-winding streets which Dennis explored attained to nothing more

romantic or beautiful than a tin-roofed Methodist Chapel or Temperance

Hotel. And as if in mockery of, or in opposition to, these hideous

symbols of virtue, a great multitude of public-houses and

drinking-saloons clustered about the centre of the town and straggled

all along the wharf. From behind the blurred windows came the sound of

drunken laughter and voices raised in discussion; voices raucous and yet

mournful, that reminded Dennis of the screeching of sea-gulls. He

strolled across the market-place, where the gas-flares over the stalls

spluttered and wavered in the rain-laden wind, and cast fantastic lights

and shadows—evil lights and shadows—upon the grimy faces of the men who

hung about in groups, seemingly aimless, as if waiting to take their

turn in the overcrowded drinking-saloons. Whenever any of the

swing-doors were pushed open, giving a glimpse of sanded floor and

iridescent bottles, and some figure reeled out, or was pushed out into

the night air, his place was immediately filled by one of the waiting

crowd. Dennis moved away from the noise and glare, and up a quiet

side-street. The wet soft wind was in his face, bringing with it a faint

tang of the sea. He walked on, while behind him the lights of the town

became dimmer and more dim, and the sounds more and more muffled; and at

last the monotonous outlines of the houses on either side of the narrow

street merged into irregular humped shadows, that represented tumbledown

barns and deserted cottages, and then fell away altogether. The wind

blew harder now, and Dennis guessed that he must be in open country. The

darkness was thick and moist; tangible almost. But further up the road,

a red glow of light beckoned, that was neither the light of a

public-house, nor yet the flare above a market-stall. It was the

unmistakable glow of a blacksmith’s forge, that was luring him on

through the darkness; and Dennis pressed forward, for there was

something subtly attractive to him in these sudden alternations of

blackest shadows and glaring light.

The door of the smithy stood wide open. Dennis, rather dazzled, sat down

upon a ramshackle fence on the opposite side of the road. Two

swarthy-faced men stood facing the forge, and a third, a

muscular-looking giant was holding by the bridle a great cart-horse,

that impatiently pawed the ground and shook back its mane.

A youth was at work at the anvil. He was stripped to the waist, and in

the leaping light of the flames, his body seemed white and slender.

Dennis reflected that it was a most effective picture: in the midst of

the clammy surrounding darkness, this great square of blazing heat and

light; crimson glow illuminating the men’s dark faces, the glossy coat

of the horse, and the boy’s black head; and showing every ripple of the

muscles under the fine skin, as he raised his arms to hammer the red-hot

iron into shape. The three men watched him attentively, talking in their

Cornish dialect that was almost incomprehensible to Dennis across the

road.

He caught snatches. “Coomin’ on fine, that be.”

“What d’ I tell ee, la-ad? Slowly does ut—slowly.”

“Ee doan’t want fur tu use all that strength—thur, I knew it’d ’appen

...” as the boy brought down the hammer with a smashing blow upon the

horseshoe, and a piece of the red-hot iron flew off and, before he had

time to avoid it, landed upon his foot. He dropped the hammer and broke

into a picturesque flow of bad language; but to Dennis’s surprise, his

speech bore no trace of Cornish dialect, but every trace of the accent

that is manufactured at Oxford....

“All right, you needn’t crow over me, Tremayne! I tell you, that shoe

would have been every bit as good as one of yours, if I hadn’t smashed

it. Holy saints and martyrs, the touch of red-hot iron on the flesh is

damnable, simply damnable. I wish my mother were here to ‘kiss the place

and make it well’....”

There was a burst of gruff laughter from the blacksmith and the man

holding the horse, but the third, a round-shouldered little man with

weak, kindly eyes, spoke with some concern. “And what’ll yer fa-ather be

sayin’, Mr. Alan, if us let ee go knockin’ yerself tu bits like this?”

“My father, Jenkins, would send down another army of chaperons and

guardians to look after me, or would censure you most heartily for

allowing me to play with the nasty fire.... Have any of you got a spare

handkerchief? I want to tie up my foot and hobble home.”

Several more or less grimy rags were produced simultaneously, and Dennis

came forward across the road. “Here, take mine. Are you badly hurt?”

“Oh, dear me, no, I’m not badly hurt. It’s fun, dropping pieces of

red-hot metal upon portions of one’s anatomy. Especially if one isn’t

accustomed to it.”

“A fresh emotion, at any rate,” Dennis smiled.

Alan looked up at him quickly from where he sat on the ground, nursing

his foot. “I say, where do you come from? What are you? We don’t get any

tourists here. You’re not another new inspector, sent down by my

benighted parent, are you?”

“Inspector?” Dennis repeated blankly, “inspector of what?”

“Of coal-mines, of course. In this God-forsaken place we think of

nothing but coal. We live in it, count in it, breathe it—lots of them

die of it. Jenkins here has nearly lost his sight through it.... No one

comes to Crannack who isn’t somehow or other connected with coal.”

“I assure you solemnly, then, that I haven’t the least connection with

it, and that I know nothing whatever about coal, barring the strictly

domestic variety that appears in the family grate.”

“Thank God at least for that! Well, if it isn’t coal that has brought

you here, what is it?”

“A train that refused to carry us on to Penzance, as we desired, and

apparently preferred to deposit us here. We’re staying over night and

going on to-morrow morning.”

“I thought as much. It was too good to be true. No one stops at Crannack

longer than they can help. Where are you putting up?”

Dennis told him, and he replied: “That’s not far from my digs. Are you

going back there now? If so, we may as well walk together, and you can

support my fainting footsteps if necessary. I say—will you?”

There was so much boyish eagerness in the tone, that Dennis laughed. “Of

course I will. Come along.”

Alan put on his coat, bade good-night to the three men, and he and

Dennis set off together down the dark road. At the bottom of the hill,

the clustered lights of the town twinkled sleepily.

“It doesn’t look so bad at night,” remarked Alan, “but in the

daytime—Lord, the ugliness and the filth of it! And the ugliness and the

filth of the people, too. Not that it’s their fault, poor devils. The

material is good enough in itself—it’s the use that’s being made of it.”

“But,” said Dennis, “whatever are _you_ doing here, in this place that

you hate, and among these people to whom you don’t belong?”

Impatiently Alan replied: “My father sent me here to study

mining-engineering after I left Oxford. He owns several more or less

prosperous coal-mines up in Lancashire, and he’s having this one

developed as a speculation. He wants me to take over the management of

it. So I’m supposed to be learning the ropes—seeing how the thing’s

done—or how the maximum of profit can be ground out of the minimum of

expenditure; financial expenditure of course; not expenditure of human

life.”

“But I thought that everything in mortal power had been done to reduce

the liability of accidents in mines; is the expenditure of life really

so great?”

“Greater than it need be. Oh, we have sanitary inspectors nosing around,

and plastering up the Government regulations, and finding everything to

their satisfaction—but all the same, every lump of coal that is burnt is

soaked in blood, human blood....” The boy was talking with a curious

vehemence and excitement—vehemence and excitement that seemed to have

been long pent-up. “Sometimes we have quicksand, and sometimes we have

floods, and sometimes we have fire-damp and explosions, and sometimes we

have all the lot.... You can see the results: you’ve only to look at the

blind and the cripples and the consumptive wrecks in the streets. It’s

in the pits that they’ve lost their sight and their limbs and their

health, grubbing in the dark, in the foul air, so that capitalists like

my father may grow sleek.”

“That’s socialist-talk, isn’t it?”

“Not only talk; I’m going to _do_....”

“What can you do—what is there to be done about it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out; and the only way to find out is to

do what I’m doing now.”

“Well...?” Dennis looked at the boy limping along at his side; saw his

face, white and dim, in the darkness, the clean line of the jaw and

throat. It might have been the face of a young knight, Dennis thought; a

young knight ardent and fearless, setting out to combat evils as old as

the world....

Alan replied: “I’m living with the people and among them and beside

them. My father thinks I’m safely wrapped in cotton-wool, and that

sometimes the head-engineer takes me round the mine in state, with very

clean hands, while the miners touch their caps to me and say ‘Yes, sir,’

when out of my graciousness I put the asinine questions that show I’m

taking an intelligent interest in my father’s property.... But I’ve

worked in the mine day by day myself, I tell you, and come out as grimy

and ready for drink as the rest. It’s no use standing at the top of the

shaft and wondering—I must get at things from the inside—discover

exactly where these Labour conditions of ours are wrong, and how to

improve them.”

“You’ve got your work cut out! Forgive me for saying so, but you seem so

young to be attempting so much.”

Alan grinned and swung his arms a little. “I’ll give all the youth and

nerves and strength that are in me, if by giving them I can achieve my

ends.”

“I think you will achieve them,” murmured Dennis. He was suddenly lost

in admiration of the earnestness, the virility and the steadfastness of

purpose on the part of one who still seemed—he could not help coming

back to it—such a child.

“Don’t you ever let yourself play?” he asked.

Alan laughed. “Oh, Lord, yes. I go down to the harbour and mess about

with the old boats, old iron and rusty cranes. And I watch the kids

digging up winkles out of the mud at low tide. And I sit on barrels and

let the seamen tell me their yarns, specially concocted on the spur of

the moment for landlubbers like myself. That was play-time just now, up

at the smithy.... Well, you saw how that ended!”

He was limping badly now. Dennis put an arm through his as they crossed

the glaring market-place, and once again found themselves in the

darkness of a side-street, rising steeply from the wharf-side. Alan led

the way into one of the houses, lit a candle-end which he found on a

shelf in the hall and painfully climbed the wooden stairs to his room.

Dennis followed. The light from the guttering candle wavered and

flickered in the draught from under the front door, and cast grotesque,

elongated shadows of the two men upon the opposite wall. Dennis had time

to reflect that here indeed he had stumbled into a strange adventure,

but he was in no mind to withdraw from it. Alan lit the candles in his

room. It was small and bare, but the walls were covered with pen-and-ink

sketches and caricatures nailed up with drawing-pins.

“Are those yours?” asked Dennis, and Alan replied: “Yes; that’s how I

keep myself from going crazy with depression.”

“They’re good, by Jove,” said Dennis; the drawings, indeed, some of them

only half-finished, were exceptionally strong. “Living in the wilds

doesn’t seem to have spoilt your technique.”

Alan looked pleased. “Greatest effect in the fewest possible

lines—that’s what I tried to get.”

“And that’s what you have got, no doubt of it. I must look at the

drawings closer later on, but let me see to your foot first. One puts

oil on a burn, doesn’t one? Have you got any?”

The landlord eventually produced a doubtful-looking compound in a

bottle; and Dennis removed his handkerchief from Alan’s foot, and began

to bandage it afresh. As he did so, a quick spasm of pain passed across

the boy’s face, and Dennis thought again with an odd pang of tenderness,

how absurdly young he looked, and how his mother must love to stroke

back the dark hair from his forehead. There was a photograph of her on

the mantelpiece—a tired-looking woman with dull eyes and long slender

hands. The father, from his portrait, was evidently thick-set, with

side-whiskers and a self-assertive expression. A queer couple, they

seemed, to have bred this finely-strung creature with the tanned face,

sensitive level brows, and great black eyes that burned with a

smouldering fire.

“Thanks awfully,” said Alan, as Dennis finished his task; “you’ve been a

god-send to me to-night. I was getting pretty near the end of my

tether—I do sometimes, you know. It’s the loneliness, and being so

completely cut off from everything down here. It’s been refreshing to

talk to an absolute stranger who doesn’t understand any of the

technicalities appertaining to this beastly mining-village.”

Dennis smiled. “You’re right. I know nothing whatever about mining, and

not much about any trade or profession outside my own. You make me feel

fearfully narrow and selfish.”

“Rot! What is your line?”

“Music.”

“Music? Oh, good.... I’ve not heard any music for over six months.

Sometimes I’m positively hungry for it—any sort of music—even a

barrel-organ.... If anyone played one of those tango-tunes that were all

the rage in London before I came down here, I believe I’d weep!”

“Poor kid,” said Dennis.

Alan went on: “Do you come from London?”

“Near enough to be there as often as I want to.”

“Oh, lucky beggar! To think of being in London

now—theatres—dancing—art-shows. They’ve got the Russian Ballet on too,

haven’t they?”

“Yes, and the opera. Chaliapine is just beyond all powers of

description. I heard him in ‘Boris’ before I left.”

Alan groaned. “We’re buried alive here. Not the humblest and shoddiest

of touring-companies comes to alleviate our boredom—we haven’t as much

as a picture-palace. The only diversions our people get are drink and

women, women and drink. If it were ‘Woman, wine and song,’ it wouldn’t

be so bad; but there’s no ‘song’ about the people’s lives in Crannack,

and in all the other places like it, that are dead to all beauty, and

are mere sores on the face of the earth.... And you come from London—I

look at you positively with awe—and you’re going back there, when is it?

To-morrow?”

“We’re going to Penzance to-morrow.”

“Oh, what’ll you do at Penzance?” Alan exclaimed impatiently, “it’s an

awful hole, not much better than this—and without even me in it, as a

redeeming feature....”

“I am going to be shown the beauties of the Cornish coast, not to hunt

for social reformers tossing red-hot horse-shoes in blacksmiths’ shops!

And anyway,” Dennis added in a lower voice, “I shouldn’t find one like

you. I shouldn’t find anything half as good....”

Alan glanced up with a quick flush of pleasure. “You’ve liked meeting

me, then.... Ah, but you can’t have liked it half as much as I’ve liked

meeting you. Think of it—after all this time and among these people,

suddenly to come across another human being from the world I’ve almost

forgotten!”

Dennis said half-aloud: “Consider the even greater wonder of meeting

someone from a world that one didn’t know really existed—that one had

scarcely dared to dream into existence.”

Alan cried eagerly: “Then you’ll stop on here for a bit, won’t you? Give

a poor starving wretch a chance! I want to hear you talk about London

with the London voice; I want to be able to talk about ideas instead of

machinery; and I want to hear your music—do you play the piano? I

haven’t got one ... but I believe there’s one up at the Sunday-school.

You will stop, won’t you?”

It would be cruel to refuse Alan’s request. In spite of the magnitude of

the task which the boy had set himself, and although he was engrossed in

it heart and soul, he was still young enough to want his play-time,

genuine play-time; not the play-time of which, ironically he had told

Dennis.... He was asking for his play-time now, but Dennis knew that he

must not yield; must tear himself away from a danger doubly dangerous,

because, far from wishing to avoid it, he longed to succumb to it.

He said, with an effort to play for safety: “I can’t tell you off-hand.

I must consult my pal, and see what he says....” He could not quite

bring himself to make his refusal absolutely definite just yet.... “But

our train doesn’t leave till eleven in the morning, so perhaps if your

foot’s well enough, you’ll come round and see what we’re doing.” He had

quite decided that he must go, but at least by this arrangement, he

would see Alan again before he left. “Ask for Dennis Blackwood, if you

turn up.”

“I’ll turn up all right,” said Alan.

Dennis walked back to rejoin Crispin. He felt oddly stimulated, oddly

excited. And all night long his heart throbbed to a new and strange

music; and his brain found utterance for that music that was as virile

and splendid as the one who had inspired it.

It was not the music that he had promised to Antoinette. He did not

write to Antoinette that night, nor the next night, nor the night

after....

* * * * *

Alan came round to the hotel early next morning, and burst into Dennis’s

room.

“Well, what have you decided? Where’s your pal? I’ll murder him, if he

doesn’t agree to your stopping.”

Dennis was kneeling on the floor, packing his bag; and he spoke without

looking up. “You needn’t murder him, Alan; but I’m not going to stop.”

The boy said after a moment’s silence: “Why...?” Then hotly, almost

pitifully he began to plead: “When I’ve only just found you—and when I

needed you most.... Why must you go? Why?”

Dennis picked up a roll of manuscript-music. “This will tell you why,

Alan, if you can understand it. I wrote it out for you this morning. It

will tell you all that I mustn’t tell you in words, or—or”—he clenched

his hands desperately and continued: “You can play it to yourself, boy,

on the piano at the Sunday-school, after I’m gone....”

* * * * *

The secret terror that had beset him ever since he was a boy, was upon

him, urging him to flight; secret terror, unavowed, unshared, upon which

even in thought he had scarcely allowed himself to dwell ... terror that

nevertheless had been part and parcel of his being, since the first dawn

of adolescence.

Different from the others, even in his schooldays; different, not only

by reason of his music. It was not his music alone that he had striven

to keep out, when he had avoided Eric Rubenstein.... He must be for ever

an outcast amongst men, shunned by them, despised and mocked by them. He

was maddened by fear and horror and loathing of himself.

Abnormal—perverted—against nature—he could hear the epithets that would

be hurled against him, and that he would deserve. Yes, but what had

nature been about, in giving him the soul of a woman in the body of a

man?

And beyond all powers of reasoning; beyond the fear, and the horror, and

the loathing, the thought of Alan reasserted itself, and the blinding

pain that had been inflicted at parting from him.

The train pounded onwards—westwards—Dennis cared little enough whither

it bore him. He knew only that it carried him away from that which all

his life long he had sought, and from which he now must flee, in order

that it might not become shameful.

Shameful—strange that such a word might ever be applied to love such as

his for Alan; love that had grown up in one night of happiness, and that

every instinct bade him welcome with glad lips and eyes and heart ...

love that was so strong that it would not die even under the torture

that was in store.

CHAPTER VIII

“... It will be such a nice surprise for Dennis,” mused Mrs. Blackwood,

as she stamped the letter inviting Antoinette de Courcy to spend the

following week-end at Eastwold. “If I tell Mrs. Ryan she’s a great

friend of Doreen’s, and staying in the house, she can’t possibly object

to our bringing her along to the dance.” Mrs. Blackwood reflected

further that in the event of Mrs. Ryan’s proving averse from the

prospect of having yet another to add to her list of girls, she must be

propitiated by the offer of the loan of lemonade-glasses or fish-forks.

Perhaps even, if necessary, Susan, her inestimable parlour-maid, might

be thrown in as a make-weight. One was always neighbourly about these

little things in Eastwold.

It was Mrs. Blackwood’s “At Home” that afternoon; she expected Mrs. Ryan

and her daughters; and no doubt they could come to some satisfactory

arrangement, whereby Antoinette’s invitation to the fancy dress ball

could be secured. But she would not send off the letter to Antoinette

until she had made quite sure. Mrs. Ryan, as the wife of the richest

stockbroker in Eastwold, was considered a very important personage; and

her dance was undoubtedly a fitting climax to the season of 1914, and

one not to be lightly trifled with.... To-day was July 16th, the dance

was on the 24th. Dennis would be back by then. In her last letter, Mrs.

Blackwood had asked him to make a point of being back, but of course she

had not said why.... She was well pleased with her little scheme, as she

waited in the pretty sun-flooded drawing-room for her guests to arrive.

The chintz furniture-covers that had just come back from the cleaner’s

gave the room a bright and cheerful appearance; there were flowers out

of the garden in all the vases; and the piano was heavily laden with

silver-framed photographs of the four children at various ages and

stages of development. The French windows stood wide open, and the

shouts of the tennis-players were clearly audible in the still air.

Doreen and Ottilie, and their partners, Tom Sanderson and Hugh

Clavering, were trying to finish a set before tea. Mrs. Blackwood could

hear Doreen’s pretty laugh; and Tom’s noisy exhortation to Ottilie to

“run for her life”; and Hugh’s praise of Doreen’s neat strokes; and

Ottilie’s punctilious counting, as vigorously she served into the net.

“Lof-fifteen—lof-zirty—lof-forty—Ach, such a camel _ist noch nicht

dagewesen_!”

Mrs. Blackwood wondered if it wouldn’t be possible to get up a tennis

tournament while Antoinette was staying with them. They could have it on

the Saturday after the dance; then there would be Clive and Lily to

play; Antoinette and Dennis; one of the Ryan girls and Tom Sanderson;

Doreen and Hugh—Doreen and the doctor’s handsome son from next door

always seemed to pair off together automatically, so why thwart the

designs of nature? The 25th—Reggie would be home from school by then;

perhaps he could be bribed to pick up the balls, if it was a very hot

day; she wondered how many socks and handkerchiefs would have been lost

in the wash again this term, and if he had already grown out of those

coloured shirts she had bought him last holidays....

Her reflections were cut short by the entrance of Mrs. Ryan with her

daughters Millie and Amy. They were followed by Miss Simpkins, a funny

little old maid, wearing stout boots and a multitude of charms and

bangles, with which she continually fidgeted.

Mrs. Blackwood shook hands with her guests. “This is nice of you, Mrs.

Ryan. And you’ve brought the girls, too. Doreen and Ottilie will be here

directly—they’re just finishing a game. Dear Miss Simpkins, how are you?

You’ve had a very long way to come.”

“Oh, not so very long,” chirped the little spinster. “I met Mrs. Ryan,

and she gave me a lift in her carriage. Wasn’t it _kind_ of her?”

“Very kind,” assented Mrs. Blackwood.

“Not at all,” Mrs. Ryan pronounced with dignity, “if one happens to be

fortunately placed oneself, one naturally likes to do what one can for

others.” She had very white hair, a very red face, and very thick black

brows; a combination that was awe-inspiring rather than pleasing; and

she wore an obviously expensive, but quite unsuitable hat which, by

means of a high bandeau, was prevented from entertaining any definite

relations with her head. Her elder daughter, Millie, was pretty in an

insignificant way, with yellow hair and a good complexion, but she had a

slightly strained expression that made her look older than her age. She

wore a coat and skirt of light grey cloth, and an unbecoming straw hat

with a feather. Amy was nineteen and a fluffier edition of her sister.

She spoke with a lisp, and wore a costume cut like Millie’s, only in

pale blue, and the same kind of hat with a wreath of daisies round it,

instead of a feather.

“I expect you are all getting very excited about the dance,” Mrs.

Blackwood began, “I’m sure my young people are.”

“We won’t ask you what they’re wearing,” said Millie, “the costumes are

all to be surprises. It adds to the fun.”

“Oh, certainly,” Mrs. Blackwood agreed. “And it was so thoughtful of you

to make the fancy dress optional for the men. Of course, my boys don’t

mind a bit, but I know some who hate putting on fancy dress—they think

it makes them look ridiculous.”

“It’th a pity,” lisped Amy, “becauthe it’th tho much prettier if

everybody ith drethed up, ithn’t it? I mean—for the thpirit of the

thing.”

“My dear, it’s hard enough to get sufficient men, as it is....” Millie,

rather bitterly, voiced the preponderating sentiment of a community in

which there were never enough men to go round.

“I’m sure _you_ never suffer from lack of partners, Millie,” her mother

interposed, and Millie quickly took her cue.

“No—no, of course not; I’m always all right.”

“Tho am I!” giggled Amy.

“So I should think,” said Mrs. Ryan proudly, “after having seen the

programme you brought home from the last subscription dance at the Town

Hall. It was scrawled all over with ‘T.S.’—that’s Tom Sanderson, you

know ... he’s been most attentive ever since; drops in quite informally

at all hours of the day. And,” with an arch glance at her younger

daughter, “I think it’s easy to tell the reason why!”

“That was my dance-programme you saw, Mamma....” Millie had listened to

the foregoing with a gradually stiffening face.

“Was it, my dear?” Mrs. Ryan laughed indulgently, “well, you really

can’t expect me to remember all your conquests apart, can you, now?”

Millie looked sullen and her mother continued: “I met Tom yesterday and

told him we were coming here this afternoon, and he said he might be

calling in too.”

“Yes, he’s playing tennis with the girls now ...” said Mrs. Blackwood,

making her point.

Mrs. Ryan’s face dropped; then she recovered herself with a swift

counter-attack. “Of course we’re delighted that you are allowing Doreen

to come to the dance, Mrs. Blackwood, even though she’s not really ‘out’

yet. But don’t you think it’s rather a pity to let her pretend to be

grown-up before her time?”

Little Miss Simpkins sighed sentimentally. “Yes, a young girl’s bloom is

her chief charm, isn’t it? Her freshness....”

“Oh, I don’t know that it’s so very much before her time,” Mrs.

Blackwood smiled, “she’s seventeen and a half ... and putting her hair

up, too, for the first time, in honour of your dance.”

Mrs. Ryan thought that this was an honour with which she could easily

have dispensed; it was most undesirable that a child like Doreen should

enjoy the same privileges as girls who really had a right to them.

Doreen was quite unnecessarily pretty, and it wasn’t fair on the other

girls that she, at her age, should already absorb a quantity of the male

attention, that should have been directed towards her elders and

betters.... But before Mrs. Ryan could say anything more, the

tennis-players came in from the garden, all very flushed, and Ottilie

still inclined to be argumentative with herself about the badness of her

playing.

“Well, young people, have you had a nice game?” Mrs. Blackwood beamed

upon the quartette.

“Splendid!” cried Hugh Clavering, looking at Doreen, “hot work, though,

when you’ve got to live up to a partner like mine.”

Doreen blushed and murmured: “Oh, Hugh ...” as she shook hands with the

Ryans.

“Not nearly such hot work as dancing these days,” remarked Tom

Sanderson, gulping down his tea. He was a nice, fresh-faced boy of

twenty-two; reputed to be the best rider in the county; and endowed with

a divine gift for saying the wrong thing, and appearing utterly

oblivious of having done so.

“Do you really find dancing such hard work, Tom?” queried Mrs. Ryan with

some acerbity.

“Yes, rather, don’t you?” retorted the ingenuous youth; “takes it out of

you, you know, luggin’ your partner round and round, especially if you

can’t get into each other’s stride.”

“Well, I trust you won’t find much difficulty with your partners on the

24th....”

“The 24th—why, I’d almost forgotten. Going to be great sport, what?

Weather looks settled, too. You’ll be able to use the garden for

sitting-out.”

Amy nodded vigorously. “Yeth, all decorated with fairy-lighth and

Chinethe lanternth and thingth.”

Mrs. Ryan turned to her hostess. “Dennis is sure to be here for the

dance, isn’t he? One likes to know how many to count on, even though, as

I say, when you’ve got to beyond fifty, another half dozen or so doesn’t

make any difference.”

“Oh, yes, Dennis will be back,” replied Mrs. Blackwood, “but you can’t

count on him as a dancing-man, you know.”

“Non-starter, eh?” said Tom with his mouth full.

“Oh, Denny likes different things to what we do,” Doreen was always

ready to rise in defence of her favourite brother, “he prefers getting

up early in the morning and going for long walks by himself, to dancing

or playing tennis.”

“I thpothe that’th when he geth hith inthpirathionth—early in the

morning,” suggested Amy.

“How wonderful the artistic temperament is ...” sighed Miss Simpkins,

“don’t you sometimes feel quite _overawed_, Mrs. Blackwood, to think

that you’ve got such a clever composer for your own son?”

“I must admit that the dear boy doesn’t try to make his family feel

small beside him,” Mrs. Blackwood laughed, “he’s most modest about his

work.”

“A charming young fellow,” concurred Mrs. Ryan, “but it’s a pity he’s

not a dancer. Perhaps we can persuade him to play us some of his

compositions, though, while the band has supper.”

Remembering Amberhurst, Mrs. Blackwood thought this extremely unlikely;

but passed the matter over in silence, and suggested that as Doreen

would be having a friend to stay with her next week—

But before the words were out of her mouth, and before she had time to

dangle Susan and the cutlery in front of Mrs. Ryan’s eyes, the door

opened to admit Mr. Griggs.

He was greeted on all sides by shouts of welcome, to which he replied,

beaming and rubbing his hands: “Really, this is too much—I am

overwhelmed—so much kindness.... I expected I should find a large

gathering here, all chatting about the dance next Friday, and I’m not

disappointed!”

“Of course we’re relying on you, as one of our best dancers, to make

things go,” said Mrs. Ryan graciously.

Griggs sat down beside Amy, who was looking very animated. “You can

trust me for that, Mrs. Ryan.”

“You’ll come early, won’t you?” pleaded Amy, “it thayth nine o’clock on

the invitathionth, but it’th nithe to thtart booking up before the

danthe really beginth, tho we athk all our thpethial friendth to come at

ten _to_ nine.”

“Ten to nine it shall be, Miss Amy,” cried Griggs, “or I might come at

half past eight and be mistaken for a waiter or part of the orchestra!”

“But the waiters and the orchestra won’t be in fancy dress, as I hope

_you_ will be, Mr. Griggs,” said Mrs. Ryan, very benign.

“Your hopes are not unfounded, Mrs. Ryan.... Of course I shall be in

fancy dress, I’m not one of your ‘optional’ shirkers. I wouldn’t dream

of missing such an opportunity to—ah—improve my noble features. I’m

coming as——”

“Don’t tell, don’t tell,” Amy broke in excitedly, “let it be a

thurprithe.”

“Very well, Miss Amy, I will be mute as the grave.... What about

starting the advance-booking right away? Let me see, have I got any

paper in my pocket? No? Well, what’s a cuff for? May I claim the honour

of the first lancers, Miss Millie?”

“... Such a dear girl,” Mrs. Blackwood started for the second time,

“Doreen is so fond of her.”

“It’s her first dance in England, isn’t it?” responded Mrs. Ryan,

thinking she meant Ottilie; “well, I hope she’ll be favourably

impressed.”

“Could she be otherwise, Mrs. Ryan...?” Griggs’ voice vibrated with

emotion.

“Ach, I shall remain sitting all ze night,” said Ottilie in accents of

gloom.

Tom chuckled irrepressibly. “How will you manage that?”

Ottilie repeated with conviction: “I shall remain sitting—I know it

_ganz gewiss_.”

“She means she’ll be a wallflower,” translated Doreen, and Griggs cried:

“We Britishers aren’t the people to let a fascinating foreign lady be a

wallflower for long. When Miss Ottilie returns to the Fatherland, she’ll

be able to tell them so, won’t she?... And now, Miss Simpkins, what may

I have the pleasure of booking with you?”

Miss Simpkins blushed and giggled. “Why, Mr. Griggs, I shan’t be

there—what do you imagine? An old woman like me....”

“Oh, Miss _Simpkins_ ...” with gallant indignation.

“It’s just a boy-and-girl affair, Mr. Griggs,” put in Mrs. Ryan, and

thought it just as well to make no mention of the fact that some of the

parents of the “boys and girls” were being invited to watch their

progeny disporting themselves, and perhaps to have a quiet game of

Bridge. The cosmogony of Eastwold fell naturally into two groups;

elderly married people, and young people to be married. There was no

room in the scheme for Miss Simpkins and her like, who did not come

under either of these headings....

For the third time, Mrs. Blackwood came forward with her request, and

this time Mrs. Ryan was left under no illusion as to its nature.

“Another girl, and a very good dancer, you say? We shall be

delighted....” For the sake of her prestige, she had to pretend that

this was the case. “Any friend of Doreen’s is welcome, and I’m sure _my_

girls won’t mind sitting out a dance now and then, if it’s to give a

visitor a chance.”

“Oh, you needn’t fear that Miss de Courcy will be a drag upon the

market,” exclaimed Griggs with less tact than enthusiasm, “there’ll be

no difficulty in getting partners for _her_!”

Mrs. Ryan said that she was glad to hear it, and inwardly boiling with

annoyance, turned to Mrs. Blackwood to exact her full toll of

fish-knives, lemonade-glasses, Susan, and whatever else Mrs. Blackwood

had to offer her.

The invitation to Antoinette was sent that night; and Antoinette,

receiving it next morning, was conscious of a reawakened interest in

life. It had indeed been depressingly dull and flat, ever since Hester

had ceased to fill her thoughts, and there had been no word from Dennis.

His sudden silence was strange to the verge of uncanniness. That last

letter of his had not given the slightest indication of the silence that

was to follow it; the conversation—his letters were really more like

very intimate conversations, than like written epistles—was to have been

continued the next day. And it had not been continued. It was as if

someone, in the middle of a sentence, had been struck dumb.

And now his mother had invited her to Eastwold—asked her to bring a

fancy dress for the dance—_good!_ It would be great fun to see Dennis

Blackwood again, and dance with him—she assumed that he would be

there—and to solve the mystery of his extraordinary behaviour. She

decided to go as a Bacchante; and Grand’mère raised her hands and her

voice in horror at the unmaidenly abandonment of a costume that would

assuredly frighten away all the prospective “partis” her hostess

intended her to meet at the dance....

Henriette, who secretly shared Madame de Courcy’s opinion of the

costume, but did not like to say so, talked in a large, vague manner

about not cramping a young soul’s development; and Grand’mère, with one

of her not infrequent lapses into coarseness, replied that it wasn’t

Antoinette’s soul which the prospective “partis” would be thinking of.

Anatole, for the sake of keeping up his parental authority, remarked

that he didn’t care for his daughter going to stay with people he did

not know. But Antoinette paid no heed to any of them. She set out once

more with a light heart, brimful of high spirits, and ready for anything

in the shape of an adventure, which the gods might see fit to offer her.

She was met at the station by Doreen and Reggie; and was greeted by the

former with affectionate enthusiasm, and by the latter with becoming

restraint. Doreen explained volubly that Reggie had come down from his

preparatory school that morning; that Clive was expected by a later

train from London; that Dennis hadn’t turned up at all—wasn’t it a

shame?—and that she hoped Antoinette wouldn’t mind having tea in the

nursery—they always had it in the nursery to please Nanna, on Reggie’s

first day home from school....

Antoinette replied that she would love to have tea in the nursery, but

secretly regretted that Dennis had not arrived. It looked as if her

anticipations were doomed to disappointment after all.

They walked through the little town, and up a steep sunny road, bordered

on either side by neat villa residences with neat carriage-drives and

neat gardens planted with neat shrubbery and flower-beds. Further on,

there were larger houses, separated from each other by wider spaces of

garden, houses built in imitation of the old-fashioned cottage-style,

with gabled roofs and rough white walls with black beams running across

them. These houses represented the imaginative flights of Tom

Sanderson’s father, the architect; and the one which bore upon its gate

the words “The Hermitage,” was the home of the Blackwoods.

Mrs. Blackwood’s welcome was hearty enough, but Antoinette thought that

she seemed worried and restless, and that beneath her continuous light

chatter, some real trouble or disturbance lay concealed. Doreen

conducted her to the spare bedroom with its little wooden balcony and

wide view of the Downs. Appreciatively Antoinette took in the details of

the room; the bright flowered wall-paper; the names of the books on the

revolving stand—“Wild Kitty,” by L. T. Meade; “What Katy Did at School”;

... one or two Hentys; “Alice in Wonderland,” of course ... a room,

reflected Antoinette, in which to feel very girlish and happy.

Half an hour later, a large party was enjoying nursery tea, presided

over by the old nurse who had brought up all the four Blackwood

children. The long table was richly spread with home-made cakes and

jams; Nanna sat at the head of it, with Reggie and Clive on either side

of her; Lily Hallard, Clive’s fiancée, was between him and Doreen; and

Antoinette was between Ottilie and Reggie. Mrs. Blackwood had said that

she would not join the nursery party, as she had already had tea, and

was busy. She would see them all later on....

Nanna brooded fondly upon their faces, occasionally admonishing her

favourite with: “Now, Master Reggie, my lamb, remember you’re not at

school: it’s butter _and_ jam in the holidays....”

Reggie responded: “Good job!” but the reminder was superfluous, in view

of the thickly-buttered and jam-smeared slice of bread that he was

conveying to his lips during conversation as well as in the intervals.

He and Clive were at present engaged in trying to disguise from each

other their pleasure at seeing each other again; and their talk was

conducted with the careful indifference worthy of the traditions of

Westborough and all the other Westboroughs in the United Kingdom.

Reggie said: “Some of our fellows did rifle-practice this term.”

Clive said: “Daresay we could fix up a target in the garden.”

Reggie said: “Daresay we could.”

After a pause, Clive re-opened: “Your last term at the prep. school,

isn’t it?”

Reggie nodded with his mouth full.

“Like to have that old bat of mine to take to Westborough?”

“The one you made a century with in the house-match against St.

Winstan’s—ra-ther!” for one instant Reggie defied tradition by showing

enthusiasm; then quickly he retrieved himself: “Daresay I could do with

it....”

Antoinette decided that she did not like Clive’s fiancée. She had an

aggressive personality, a shiny complexion, large hands and untidy dark

hair. Doreen had previously explained that all these were outward and

visible signs of “brains.” Lily went up to town daily to a School of

Economics, and usually came back in the evening by the same train as

Clive and Mr. Blackwood, and the other male denizens of Eastwold, whom

business and the excellent train service took to London for the day, and

restored to their families at night.

“I had to cut a class this afternoon,” Lily was grumbling, “all because

of that beastly dance to-night. I do think dancing’s rot!”

Clive agreed with her, but Doreen protested. “How can you say so? I

think dancing’s simply ripping—at least, I’ve only been to parties and

the dancing-class ... but real grown-up dances, like this one, must

be—Oh, just perfect!” Doreen’s eyes were very bright, her lips

tremulously parted. She was thinking of Hugh Clavering from next door.

He had engaged her for the supper-dance, and for ever so many other

dances besides, and he was so strong and fair and sunny, with his golden

hair and laughing grey eyes.

The whole atmosphere of the house appealed to Antoinette, typically

English atmosphere different enough from that of her own foreign

home—the old nurse at the head of the table; the schoolboy just home for

the holidays; Doreen’s excitement over her first dance.... But she did

wish that Dennis were here: she wondered how he fitted into the picture.

Ottilie, for the hundredth time that week, was expressing the conviction

that she would “remain sitting.”

“And when my dancers see I cannot dance in ze English vay, zey vill bow

zemselves and leave me.”

“They can’t do that,” Antoinette consoled her. “In England, once a man

is engaged to a girl for a dance, he’s got to stick to her for better or

for worse. He can’t just plant her there and run away, if he doesn’t

like her.”

“Not?” queried Ottilie doubtfully.

“Of course not.”

“_Verrückt_ ...” muttered Ottilie.

“It’s different in Germany,” Antoinette went on, “I’ve been to dances

there myself, so I know. A man introduces himself to a girl, whirls her

twice round the room, and throws her back again into the arms of her

chaperone where she waits for her next partner. But here it’s one dance,

one partner. You can’t give bits of the same dance to different men.”

Ottilie looked puzzled. “And to supper? In Heidelberg sometimes sree and

four dancers have me to supper engaged.”

“In Eastwold, Ottilie,” Clive spoke with authority from his end of the

table, “you will have one supper-partner, and one only.”

“And lucky if you get him ...” muttered Reggie. Ottilie as a type did

not appeal to him.

“Don’t be rude, Reg,” cried Doreen, but he continued irrepressibly:

“Ottilie’s going as ‘Britannia’ ... what a rag!”

“Well, and I’m going as a Dresden Shepherdess—there’s nothing funny

about that, stupid.” Doreen was staunch in her defence of her friend.

“What a nice idea,” said Antoinette, “a compliment to each other’s

nationality. It’s like foreign potentates wearing the uniform of which

ever country they’re visiting—oh, Reggie, dear, have you swallowed a

plum-stone?” For Reggie, in the simultaneous appreciation of her remark,

and an extra large mouthful of bread and jam, was slowly but surely

choking himself into an apoplectic fit.

* * * * *

Mrs. Blackwood had not had tea; neither did she want any. She sat alone

in the drawing-room, as she had done for the greater part of the

afternoon, hoping against hope, and wondering and wondering if the next

train would bring Dennis, or the next. She had had no definite word to

say that he was coming; still, he knew that she expected him to-day ...

she was used to his indefiniteness in the matter of letters or telegrams

... perhaps he wanted to surprise her.... He was sure to come, knowing

that she expected him. She had to cling to the certainty of his coming,

to stave off as long as possible her inevitable disappointment if he did

not come.

But when at last Dennis himself stood in the opening of the French

window, just for one second she wondered if it were really he, or if all

her wishing had conjured up an image that would vanish....

“My dear, dear boy,” her arms were round him now, “so you’ve come in

time after all. What a fright you gave me. I’d promised Mrs. Ryan that

you were coming, and it would have been so awkward if you hadn’t turned

up.”

He repeated in a dazed kind of way: “In time for what? Turned up—where?”

And she saw that his face was drawn, and that his eyes were full of an

unutterable weariness.

“Mrs. Ryan’s dance, of course, dear.” She was making a pitiful attempt

to ignore the things that she saw, “it’s to-night—I wrote to you; didn’t

you get my letter?”

He shook his head. “No—or perhaps I did, and—and forgot. I don’t

know....”

They looked at each other; he battling with the longing to go to her,

and hide his head on her breast, and tell her everything; and she,

struggling against this strange terror of something unknown, not

understood, that had befallen her son.

“It’s a fancy dress dance ...” she faltered with stiff lips.

He almost smiled. A fancy dress dance—well, why not? Since the whole of

his life henceforth must be a masquerade, a travesty to disguise every

impulse, thought and feeling; to make them appear not different from

other people’s impulses, thoughts and feelings....

The dread in his mother’s heart, shadowy and shapeless, tightened its

grip. What had been done to him? What shuddering depths of unhappiness

had brought that look to his face? But all her love for him could not

give her sight where she was blind. Was there nothing with which she

could heal him? She clutched at a faint hope. “I’ve got a surprise for

you, dear. I’ve asked Miss de Courcy down for the dance—she’s here

already—in the nursery with the others. Won’t you go up to them?”

He heard himself saying: “Oh, good ...” and walked away, because he

could no longer bear to feel his mother’s troubled, searching gaze upon

him. He would go up to the nursery, and to the dance, and pretend that

he had come back on purpose for it, and pretend that he was glad to see

Antoinette—

_Antoinette_.... If at least he had been spared—that.

The shouts of the party in the nursery fell upon his ears, as he went

upstairs....

CHAPTER IX

Dennis, Clive and the three girls motored over to the dance, and sent

the car back for Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood, who were to come on later. It

was a very silent drive; Doreen tremulous with anticipation; Ottilie

despondent as usual. The symbolism of her costume was powerless to

disguise her true Teutonic instincts—no sooner was she arrayed in helmet

and shield, than Britannia immediately saw herself as Brunhilde, and

this despite the Union Jack swathed around her buxom figure.

Antoinette was feverishly excited by that queer restraint that had

characterised Dennis’s manner ever since his first appearance in the

nursery that evening. If it was acting, she reflected, it was

phenomenally bad acting—too tense and white-lipped; altogether overdone.

But he had kept it up all through dinner, and he was keeping it up now,

though they sat opposite each other in the car, their knees almost

touching. He was not looking at her, but out of the window, and the

moonlight showed up the strained set expression of his face. What lay

behind it all, she wondered. When that elaborate restraint was broken

down, as undoubtedly it would be during the evening, what would she

find?

Dinner had been an awkward meal. Mr. Blackwood had insisted on telling

Antoinette stories that made Mrs. Blackwood say reproachfully: “Oh,

Daddy _dear_ ...” and that left Antoinette in doubt as to whether it

were better to incur her hostess’s displeasure by laughing at them, or

that of her host by pretending not to understand them....

When they had almost reached their destination, Ottilie broke the

silence by saying to Dennis: “Your friend who so excellent piano

plays—comes he also to ze ball?”

“I’m afraid not, Ottilie. I left him up in town this morning. Wild

horses wouldn’t drag Crispin to a dance, you know.”

“_Schade_ ...” sighed Ottilie, regretting the wasted opportunities which

her costume, and Crispin’s appreciation of Wagner might have offered.

When Doreen introduced Antoinette to Mrs. Ryan, that lady favoured the

bacchante with a glance not unlike the one with which Grand’mère had

surveyed her. Antoinette argued from this that she was looking her best,

and prepared to enjoy herself. Her clinging draperies of warm reds and

browns and purples, and the vine-leaves in her hair, made her look

distinctive enough among the crowd of pierrettes, fairy-queens, peasants

and columbines who clustered around the doorway of the drawing-room,

booking up their programmes.

“I am delighted to welcome you here—Millie—Amy, this is Doreen’s friend,

Miss de Courcy; will you see that she gets some partners?”

Amy, Queen of Hearts, with a golden paper crown upon a head of hair that

had been vigorously treated with curling-irons, rushed up to Antoinette.

“Tho glad to meet you—let me introduthe Mr. Thanderthon,” presenting a

very chubby Arab, “we’ve jutht been out in the garden to thee if

everthing ith all right, we’ve had flagth put on the theat in the

arbour, tho we than’t thpoil our dretheth....”

Tom having booked his dance with Antoinette, she was handed on to

Millie, who wore a composite “national” costume, of which the main

ingredients were Dutch sabots, a black velvet bodice, a red gypsy

head-dress with coins attached to it, and two straggly little yellow

plaits reaching just to her shoulders. She introduced to Antoinette

several men whose programmes were already full, and turned to speak to

Mr. Griggs, resplendent in a hired “Charles II” costume, several sizes

too large, and a very luxuriant wig. The moment he espied Antoinette, he

hurried to her side, his would-be majestic gait somewhat impeded by his

sword, to which he was not yet accustomed. “Miss Antoinette, I am

charmed—charmed—to meet you again. The memory of Charlotte Corday still

lingers in my heart, I assure you, and though this time we meet in a

different guise, I trust we shall be as good friends as ever.... May I

have the pleasure of the second waltz?” suddenly reverting to the

business on hand.

Antoinette accorded him the pleasure of the second waltz, and he

continued raptly to gaze at her. “That’s a very pretty dress you have

on—worthy of its wearer, if I may say so. There’s what you might call a

laissay-allay about it——”

“Mr. Griggs,” interrupted the voice of Mrs. Ryan, “would you mind seeing

that Miss Holt has a supper-partner? I think she’s in the garden

now—dressed as a Draught Board, you know,” she added in a confidential

undertone, “we always have difficulty with her, and her people will be

so offended if they see her sitting out.”

“She shall have a partner, if I have to bring her one by the scruff of

his neck,” vowed the gallant Griggs, and made for the iron stairs that

led down into the garden.

“Oh, and—Mr. Griggs!” his hostess recalled him, “you will see they don’t

lift the girls off their feet in the third figure of the lancers, won’t

you?”

“Your commands shall be obeyed, dear lady,” declared Griggs, and

promptly fell down the stairs.

In the meantime Clive had dutifully booked two dances with Antoinette.

Handsome in his sullen, black-browed way, he looked very effective as an

Indian Chief. Lily had come as a Squaw to match him, but as she

disdained the use of external aids to nature, her complexion retained

its blameless European hue.

The first waltz had already been played, Antoinette had been whirled

round by a perspiring Neptune, and her programme was nearly full, before

Dennis made any attempt to approach her.

“Have you anything left for me?” His tone was carefully conventional.

She gave him a quick amused look, but as there was no answering twinkle

in his eye, assumed that he was not yet prepared to throw off the

restraint that was a more effectual disguise than any of the fancy

dresses could hope to be. Undoubtedly he was working up to a scene, and

had quite definite notions as to how the scene should be played. It was

far from her to complain. She appreciated the histrionic instinct

wherever she encountered it; and she was quite capable of giving him all

the support that he needed.

She answered demurely: “Yes, I think I have one or two dances to spare.”

“May I see?”—he scanned her programme—“I’m not a dancer, but perhaps

you’ll sit out the lancers with me?”

“I shall be delighted,” murmured Antoinette.

Mrs. Ryan tapped Dennis’s arm with the end of her ostrich feather fan.

“Naughty boy, not to have come in fancy dress.”

He smiled. “I didn’t know in time, Mrs. Ryan.”

“Didn’t you? What a pity. Of course you were on a walking tour. Cornwall

or somewhere like that, wasn’t it? Did you have a pleasant time?”

“Very pleasant, thanks.”

“I’m glad ... but I thought your mother had written to tell you it was a

_fancy dress_ dance?”

“I think her letter must have been lost,” he lied piously.

“Or perhaps it was you who lost it ... well, well, we must make

allowances for these great composers, I suppose. Tell me if there’s

anyone you’d like to be introduced to, won’t you? You know you’re quite

at home here.”

Released from Mrs. Ryan’s expressions of unwonted amiability, Dennis

wandered down into the garden. The trees were hung with Chinese

lanterns; the paths picked out with coloured fairy-lights; on the lawn,

deck-chairs awaited the couples who, between the dances, would sit there

and whisper under the sighing trees. For him the whole scene was imbued

with that feeling of horror and oppression which characterizes a

nightmare; if he cried out, his voice would not be heard; if he

attempted to run away, his limbs would refuse to obey him.... Some

volition other than his own, was compelling him to act and speak as he

was doing, while part of himself was being tortured, beating against

prison bars ... crying out for help, for understanding to a world that

would neither help nor understand, but condemn him to eternal

suppression, eternal loneliness. This nightmare-sense had overlain the

whole of the last dreadful fortnight since he had left Crannack.

Passively he had let Crispin drag him round the Cornish coast. He had

not wanted to come home just yet, and Crispin at least was restful,

because he asked no questions ... no questions, even, concerning a

vivid-looking brown boy, who had burst into the little hotel at

Crannack, and asked to see Mr. Blackwood, and left again a few minutes

later with all the light gone out of his eyes.... And Mrs. Blackwood’s

letter, mentioning the dance, lay with some of her other letters in the

pocket of Dennis’s tweed suit; he had read them; but the names, the

dates, the local gossip she retailed, had conveyed absolutely nothing to

him. It was only by chance that he had returned to-day, returned because

he was tired of perpetually striving to banish from his mind a companion

who asked so much, and to whom he longed to give so much, and to whom he

might give—nothing.

At home, at least there would not be those long hours of silent, hard

walking, dangerous hours when he had felt that he must take the next

train back to Crannack.... He could only keep away, by resolutely

shutting Alan out of his thoughts, admitting him but for rare seconds,

precious seconds, when the danger of returning to him was minimised by

the absence of such things as railway-connections. Even his imagination

must be forbidden too much free play.... And all the while, he felt that

he was being cruel to the boy in thus keeping him out; pleaded with him

in the nights when he lay sleepless and through the days when,

unheeding, he tramped along the beautiful Cornish roads: “Don’t you

understand that I can’t? That I daren’t? That it isn’t because I don’t

love you enough...?”

Very tiring, this eternal struggle.... He had imagined that it might be

easier at home. And at home there had been Antoinette.... She fitted

into the nightmare well enough; he might have expected that she would be

in the very centre of it. But so far he had betrayed nothing; he had

done the correct thing, asked her for a dance ... and heaven alone knew

what he would say to her, when it was his turn to claim her for Number

6!

Voices reached him where he sat in the shadow of a clump of trees.

“That’s all right—I think we’re safe now. Griggs has been dogging me all

the evening with a Draught Board, he can’t get rid of her at any price.”

It was Neptune who spoke, and his companion, arrayed as Father

Christmas, responded: “Yes, for the Lord’s sake, let’s get a quiet

smoke. Griggs is the very dickens.... Always trying to introduce me to

Little Bo-peep. I don’t know if there are two of her, or if I’ve been

introduced twice over, or if I’m seeing double, but I don’t like either

of them.”

“Awful rot, these fancy dress hops,” mused Neptune. Father Christmas

gloomily assented. “My sisters rigged me up like this—there was no

getting out of it.”

“Whatever am I to do with this beastly trident thing? Every time I

forget it somewhere on purpose, some silly ass brings it after me and

says: ‘I think you’ve lost this.’”

“Oh, just drop it here, and the crowd who call themselves Harvesters can

use it as a hay-fork. I wish to goodness I could leave this ghastly

beard behind too....”

They strolled off into the more secluded portions of the garden,

grotesque figures moving across the background of Dennis’s nightmare.

“Denny darling, I’m having a simply lovely time—even lovelier than I

knew it was going to be!” Doreen’s voice now.... The dainty little

Dresden Shepherdess tripped across the lawn to where her brother sat

smoking, “it’s such a pity you don’t dance, dear old thing, you do miss

a lot.”

“Do I, Kid?” He smiled up at her radiant face.

She breathed “Yes ...” and young Hugh, a slim and golden-haired Black

Knight from “Ivanhoe,” came and joined them.

“Doreen and I both agree that it’s top-hole, being grown-up.”

“Yes, but I’m only pretending just for to-night,” replied Doreen, “I

shan’t be really grown-up till I come back from Heidelberg next year.”

“It’s rotten luck, your having to go there,” said Hugh.

“I know, but you see, I must. I’m the exchange for Ottilie. She says

that girls of seventeen can go to grown-up dances over there, but being

grown-up in Germany isn’t the same as being grown-up here, is it?”

“The insularity of your views is something appalling, my child,” teased

Dennis.

Doreen pouted. “Well, it’s not the same, is it?” she appealed to Hugh.

“Rather not!” he concurred, his eyes resting tenderly on her; then he

said to Dennis: “You and I are in luck to-night—I’ve got half the dances

on the programme with Doreen, and you’re out of it altogether. The other

poor chaps are having an awful thin time, trying to remember whom

they’re engaged to. There are so many duplicates—half a dozen Ophelias,

four Red Riding Hoods, innumerable Snow Queens, and two Queens of

Sheba—I thought there’d be murder there: did you see them glare at each

other when they first met?”

“I suppose each thought the other was a distorted figment of her own

imagination, and was properly resentful on discovering that she wasn’t,”

said Dennis.

Hugh gave his hearty, boyish laugh, and Doreen said, “I think

Antoinette’s costume is one of the prettiest, don’t you, Denny?”

“And even that’s been duplicated three times over,” Hugh broke in,

“rotten imitations, I grant you. As Amy says, ‘they’re all drethed in

thkinth’.... I’ve booked dances with all of them—got ’em down on my

programme as ‘Tiger-skin,’ ‘Bunny-skin’ and ‘Hearthrug,’ to be able to

tell the difference.”

“And ‘Hearthrug’s’ father is in the fur trade,” Doreen giggled

delightedly. “I heard Daddy say that she was a very bad

advertisement....”

“Ah well, I daresay there wasn’t enough tiger-skin to go round,” mused

Dennis, “let us not be uncharitable.”

“Let’s go across to the arbour, Doreen,” suggested the Black Knight,

“I’ll carry you, because you’ll get your shoes damp.”

Doreen argued that as she had been standing on the grass all this time,

her shoes were already as damp as they were ever likely to be; but Hugh,

with a gallant show of mastery, picked her up in his arms and carried

her across the lawn. The figure of the Black Knight and the light blur

of Doreen’s dress receded from Dennis’s vision, as the sound of their

mingled voices faded from his hearing.

He reflected quite dispassionately that it was odd that he should still

be able to talk to the others as if he were one of them; odd that they

should not divine the gulf that yawned between himself and them. But it

was a strain.... He became conscious afterwards of how great the strain

had been. He was alone again now, and could relax, grant himself a few

moments’ respite from effort. Wearily he wondered when and how the next

demand would be made upon him. He could hear voices not far off.

“Shall we stay here for a little while, Miss Millie?”

“Yes, I should like to, Mr. Griggs. I’m sure you deserve a rest after

all your hard work.”

“Everything that I do in your service, is pleasure, Miss Millie.”

“Oh, Mr. Griggs....”

A very cross Little Boy Blue here interrupted the budding tête-à-tête.

“I say, Griggs, can you tell me whom I’m dancing the next with? I can’t

read what I’ve got on my programme.” He presented the crumpled programme

to Charles II, who rallied him in debonair fashion. “Now—now—now, what’s

all this? Someone’s always in trouble and coming to me for help. Can’t

say I admire your calligraphy, old chap—are these the lady’s initials?”

He deciphered slowly: “‘Goggle—eyes—and—flat—feet——’”

Little Boy Blue snatched away the programme: “Not there, man, not

there—here!”

“Oh, _here_ ... why, that’s Miss Baumgartner, surely—Britannia—or is it

the Queen of Sheba?”

“I didn’t know we’d got the next one together too,” Little Boy Blue

stared reproachfully at his partner.

“We haven’t,” retorted she coldly, “I’m engaged to Neptune.”

“And Neptune’s dancing with Dolly Dickson, the other Queen of Sheba—I

just saw them go in,” said Millie.

“If two people _will_ come as the same thing——” began Little Boy Blue

with resentment.

“I should have thought it was easy enough to tell us apart,” said the

Queen of Sheba haughtily, “her costume’s home-made and mine came from

Clarkson’s.”

“Yes, that was what the other one said too ...” murmured Little Boy

Blue, and evaporated into the shrubbery. Griggs palmed off the Queen of

Sheba on to an unsuspecting Highwayman, who had come out to have a

peaceful cigarette. Then he sank back into his chair and mopped his

manly forehead.

“Poor Mr. Griggs,” cooed Millie, “how tired you must be.”

“Oh, Miss Millie, I would willingly incur far greater fatigues if only

to hear you say ‘poor Mr. Griggs’ in just that tone....” He put his hand

to where the hilt of his sword should have been, but finding that he had

mislaid the sword, arrested the gesture half-way. “I love that costume

you’re wearing. National, isn’t it?”

“Yes, national.”

The voices became inaudible for a space, then—“I don’t know very many of

the steps—there are such different ways of doing it, aren’t there? But

perhaps if you’ll teach me....”

“It will be a labour of love, Miss Millie.”

... Retreating footsteps and silence. Then the music, faintly audible,

struck up again; but instead of the accustomed beat of waltz or

two-step, came the less familiar, haunting rhythm of a tango.

“_If anyone played one of those tango-tunes that were all the rage in

London before I came down here, I believe I’d weep...._”

Piercing through the stupor which, for the moment had numbed pain, came

memory, keen and poignant as a rapier-thrust. Alan was before him again,

looking up into his face with eager, burning eyes.

“You can stay with me a minute, boy,” Dennis whispered to him, “there’s

nobody looking.... Would you like to be dancing the tango in there? I

could easily introduce you to Mrs. Ryan—she’d think you a delightful

acquisition.... How we could have laughed over all this together, you

and I.... Are you eating your heart out in loneliness, Alan, as I am—as

I am? You must go now—I—the others are coming....”

Obediently the vision faded.

The dancers were straggling out into the garden again, grouping

themselves upon the lawn. Griggs picked up the trident from the ground.

“What have we here? Anybody claim this valuable article? Is it yours,

Madam?” offering it to the home-made Queen of Sheba, who paused,

wondering perhaps if she could not use the weapon upon her rival from

Clarkson’s.

“No, it’s not mine; it’s yours, isn’t it, Neptune?”

“I’ve been trying to lose it all the evening,” he groaned, “can’t you

raffle it or use it as a tooth-pick or a toasting-fork? I don’t care

what you do with the damn thing!”

Mrs. Ryan’s opulent aigrette appeared upon the balcony.

“Not catching cold, any of you, I hope?” ... and in answer to the chorus

of: “Oh, no, Mrs. Ryan....” “It’s lovely out here....” “The garden looks

ripping....” “It’s such a perfect evening ...” the hostess nodded

benignly. “That’s right. I like to see you all enjoying yourselves—Oh,

what is it, Susan?” She turned to Mrs. Blackwood’s faithful retainer who

had been lent to her for the occasion, and who had come out on to the

balcony to speak to her.

“Please, M’m, it’s the freezing-salt,” Susan announced in sepulchral

tones.

“Well, what about it?”

“It’s got into the strawberry ice, M’m.”

“Dear me, how very careless. What can we do?”

“We can’t do anything, M’m, the ices’ll just have to taste salt, only I

thought I’d better tell you.”

Susan withdrew and there was a burst of laughter from the group on the

lawn.

“Never mind, Mrs. Ryan, they’ll be cold even if they are salt,” cried

Tom Sanderson.

“Some people like them better that way—more piquant,” from Hugh.

“Yeth, quite a novelty, ithn’t it?” from Amy.

“Yes, rather ...” from the chorus.

Mrs. Ryan was very distressed. “You’re dear, sweet children to take it

like that, still there are plenty of other good things for you, so you

won’t starve.... Now, have you all got your partners for the lancers?”

Dennis waited till the group on the lawn had re-assorted itself and

paired off into different combinations of incongruity; then, as the last

couple disappeared into the house, he went across to fetch his partner.

Father Christmas, with whom she had just been dancing, was taking his

leave of her, and as Dennis appeared at the foot of the steps, his

father, together with Mr. Ryan and Dr. Clavering, came out on to the

balcony.

“Here’s Romeo come to fetch his Juliet,” Mr. Blackwood jovially

apostrophised his son, “lucky young dog—I wish I were your age!” with an

appreciative glance at Antoinette.

“Yes, that’s all very well—all very well when you’re young”—Mr. Ryan was

a stout little red-faced man with a wheezy voice—“but I can’t understand

this preference for sitting about in the damp, with next to nothing on.

It would kill me!”

The doctor smiled and Mr. Blackwood guffawed. “It wouldn’t kill me, but

then perhaps I’ve got a stronger constitution, eh, Doctor?” He threw out

his chest and positively winked at Antoinette.

“You needn’t boast,” snapped Mr. Ryan, “your gout is as bad as mine any

day, isn’t it, Clavering?”

“There’s not a pin to choose between you,” declared the doctor, a

twinkle in his humorous grey eyes. He was clean-shaven and soldierly in

appearance; a very pleasant type to look upon. Young Hugh could be glad

if he resembled his father in twenty years’ time.

Mr. Blackwood began again: “That boy of yours, Doctor, and my little

girl ... hitting it off very well, eh? Haven’t seen the young rascals

all the evening....”

“One is only young once,” smiled Clavering.

“... Trio of dear old gentlemen,” murmured Dennis, as he and Antoinette

walked across the lawn. The “trio of dear old gentlemen,” after a little

more facetious banter, and digging of each other in the ribs, returned

to their game of cards.

In silence they entered the arbour. Dennis swept aside the flags with

which the seats were draped. “I don’t like the patriotic decorations in

conjunction with your costume.”

She laughed with easy response to his mood. “Isn’t it rather a waste of

Amy’s forethought?”

He did not answer, and she wondered, not without a trace of impatience,

when at last he was going to throw aside his pose. Antoinette herself

was feverishly strung-up; every nerve in her craving the relief of some

violent scene, some violent emotion. The whole dance, dull enough in

itself from her point of view, was but a preliminary, an accompaniment,

a working-up to this moment.

Still he sat silent; and at last, unable any longer to bear the strain,

she took the initiative. “You have quite a genius for making dramatic

entrances, just in the nick of time, when everybody has given you up for

lost. Your arrival at Amberhurst was good enough, but to-day was more

effective still.”

He said: “Amberhurst—yes, I remember. They were hoping I’d play for the

theatricals, and I wouldn’t. It’s a pity that anticlimax seems

inevitably to succeed what you call my dramatic entrances.”

“You shouldn’t let it, then!” she cried, “surely it’s in your power to

prevent it.”

“Not always.”

She became aware then, of the utter weariness of his tone, the weariness

of his deep-set brown eyes. It seemed incredible that this was the man

who had written her those wonderful letters. Where was the promised

continuation of the long, intimate talks that had been started in them?

Where was his anticipated delight at seeing her again? Had he ever

really told her about himself and Eric Rubenstein? Taken for granted her

understanding of all his moods? Said to her: “I want you here beside me

in my dream-place....”

Well, she was beside him now, and there was nothing wrong with the

place—stars twinkling in a pale blueish sky, wind rustling faintly in

the trees, and swaying the Chinese lanterns to and fro—but he made no

attempt to break the oppressive silence, or in any way to shatter that

impalpable barrier which seemed to have arisen between them. Curiously,

critically almost, she watched him, as she leant back in her corner of

the arbour, and smoked her cigarette.

... And to him also the silence was becoming oppressive. He had not

found, in talking to the other figures in the nightmare, the same

appalling difficulty as he found in trying to talk to Antoinette. The

soft light of the lantern, swinging from the roof of the arbour, fell

upon the slim, lithe curves of her body; on the white throat and

shoulders above the wine-coloured draperies; on the flushed face and

hair tumbled to a riotous mass of curls. The face and hair and body of a

bacchante, indeed.

He was fully aware of her decorative value; admitted it at every point;

but of the appeal which she might once have made to his senses, nothing

remained. Alan, with his virile personality, had blotted out for Dennis

the fainter magic of Antoinette, so that he could no longer perceive

it—or if he did perceive it, then but dimly, remotely, as something not

felt at all, but just seen through a misty glass. He had wondered

once—it seemed a very long time ago, now—if Antoinette were not the one

girl in a thousand, in a million, with whom he could find happiness and

rest from the ceaseless internal wars of his own nature. And while he

had still been doubting, wondering, playing with the idea, writing

letters to a girl of his dreams, Alan had come....

Yet he knew that he owed her some explanation; that she expected one of

him. But what was he to tell her? What could he tell her? The truth...?

He suddenly felt a mad desire to tell her the truth. Groping back to his

first impression of her at Amberhurst, he was still convinced that she

would understand. She too, or so it had seemed to him, was different

from other girls, just as he—And it would be just a little less lonely,

if he could tell her....

The strains of the “Chocolate Soldier” lancers floated out to them with

bursts of clapping and laughter between the figures. Antoinette sat

listening with concentrated attention to the music. The fourth figure

was nearly over now; soon the dancers would come swarming into the

garden, encroaching upon their solitude, which might have been such a

thing of wonder ... and had merely been a thing of emptiness. She

resented the waste of the good moment, of the good setting—of

herself....

Dennis seemed suddenly to awaken from his stupor. He said, “I’m

sorry—about anticlimaxes, but believe me, they’re not my fault. They

happen—just happen—like everything else in this world that’s crazy and

cussed and without rhyme and reason. I——”

But already the dancers were pouring down the stairs into the garden,

and the voice of Britannia, deep and lugubrious, uprose upon the still

night air. She was addressing a Pierrot, whom Griggs had jockeyed into

asking her for the supper-dance, not knowing that Little Boy Blue, in

self-defence against the joint Queens of Sheba, had previously engaged

her for it. “Ach, no, I cannot. I have got von man already, and zey say

I must not have more zan von ...” as regretfully she refused the second

offer. “Ach, to zis England shall I never myself accustom....”

“Poor Ottilie,” murmured Dennis, “it’s a hard life.” He was secretly

relieved at the diversion that had checked the confession on his lips.

After all, it would have been a great mistake to tell her—he must have

been crazy even to have contemplated it. He must guard against these

incalculable impulses in future. For the present he was safe, thanks to

Ottilie.

“They might have let her have her Pierrot as well—what would it have

hurt?”

But Antoinette made no answer. She was possessed by a dull fury, her

nerves strained to snapping-point.

He had cheated her of a sensation.

PART II

CHAPTER I

But Ottilie had no occasion “herself to zis England to accustom”;

neither was Doreen obliged to put to the test her assertion that being

grown-up in Germany wasn’t the same as being grown-up in Eastwold. A

European war intervened in time to prevent a further exchange of

daughters between Herr Baumgartner and Mr. Blackwood. Ottilie, wailing

bitterly, was bundled off post-haste and with considerable difficulty,

to her native land. Mr. Blackwood was taking her as far as Dover, and

the rest of the family saw her off at Eastwold station; where she kissed

them all, including Reggie, much to the latter’s disgust. And they put

her into the train, together with the brand-new English hold-all, of

which she was so proud, and the large canvas bag on which were

embroidered in red cotton the words: “_Glückliche Reise_”.... And up

till the last, she craned her head, surmounted by its absurd little

straw hat, out of the window, and assured the Blackwoods repeatedly that

she loved them, and loved England; and enjoined Doreen to “Greet me Mr.

Griggs—greet me all dear friends....” Then, as the train began to move

out of the station: “Ach, zis vor.... _Jammerschade_!” The rest was

smothered by the noise of the engine.... Doreen cried all the way home,

and Reggie was compelled to remind her with some severity that Ottilie

was a German—the term “Hun” in these early days of the war had not yet

become incorporated in the language, or he would certainly have used it.

Ottilie was a German, and hence, obviously, a spy; Reggie expressed the

devout hope that he had said nothing in her presence that might lead to

giving information to the enemy; and tried to obliterate the shame of

her parting embrace by assiduous rifle-practice in the garden.

And young Hugh Clavering, looking very elated, climbed over the wall

into the Blackwoods’ garden that afternoon, and told Doreen how awfully,

awfully glad he was that she couldn’t go to Heidelberg now, even if she

wanted to ... but he might be there himself, with any luck—Heidelberg

would do just as well as Berlin, he wasn’t particular—yes, of course

he’d enlisted; was going straight into camp; fine sport ... and he’d

bring her a German helmet for Christmas.

And Doreen said how awfully, awfully proud of him she was, and she did

hope he wouldn’t get hurt, and yes, of course she’d write to him, and

would he send her a photograph of himself in uniform?

And Griggs and Tom Sanderson and Clive Blackwood, and all the clowns,

pierrots, highwaymen and the rest of the motley crew from the fancy

dress dance, had likewise enlisted; and of each one of them it was

proudly claimed by his family that he was the first man in Eastwold—the

first man in the county to have done so. Be this as it may, Eastwold

made gallant response to the call of King and Country. Clive applied for

a commission in the Royal Engineers; Tom gravitated naturally towards a

cavalry regiment; Griggs appeared in the modest uniform of a private,

and bore himself with that ingratiating charm of manner that had

distinguished his impersonation both of Marat and Charles II.

“Only a simple Tommy—but ready to do his bit with the best of ’em. We’ll

show Fritz the stuff Old England is made of!”

So, with a great deal of excitement, and metaphorical clanking of spurs,

and generally with the sensation of taking part in a picturesque

pageant, the manhood of Eastwold, very pleased with itself, left the

sunny, sleepy little town for the various camps and headquarters, where

it was to be instructed in the art of “showing Fritz the stuff old

England was made of....”

“And what is Dennis going to do?” Mrs. Ryan at last voiced the question

which had agitated the whole of Eastwold ever since the outbreak of war.

Dennis’s mother replied that for the present she didn’t know that he was

going to do anything, and rather hastily changed the subject. Eastwold,

with a tolerance and forbearance which later it was to lose, assumed

that Dennis, being an artist, and hence possessing a certain right to be

“peculiar,” would take longer than the others to realise his duty

towards his King, country and family. But inspired by the example of his

brother Clive and the rest of Eastwold, he would no doubt soon long to

feel his hand upon the hilt of his sword, as did every true-born Briton

in times like these....

Little Miss Simpkins ventured to suggest that the Blackwoods, in giving

one of their sons to the army, were adequately fulfilling the dictates

of patriotism.

“We women of England must give _all_ our sons,” returned Mrs. Ryan who

had no sons to give; and reiterated the ominous catch-phrase that had

just been coined: “in times like these....”

The war had run the course of four horror-stricken months, and still the

Blackwoods’ eldest son had made no move towards the recruiting-office.

Nor had he any intention of doing so. The thought of war inspired in him

none of those feelings with which convention decreed that every true

Briton should be inspired—in times like these. He had no desire to feel

his hand upon the hilt of his sword; no desire to help to bring the “day

of victory” nearer. The whole thing was damnable and stupid, and cruel;

and so was all the talk and the bombast with which everyone strove to

gloss over the fact that it was damnable, and stupid, and cruel ...

pretended that it was a noble thing, a glorious game, a game which every

Englishman should be proud to be playing.

“A little blood-letting won’t do the nation any harm.” Often and often

Dennis had heard that phrase upon his father’s lips, as comfortably Mr.

Blackwood smoked his after-dinner cigar, and fixed his son with a

baleful eye. Dennis at all events would not give himself up to become

part of the machinery of nations trying to prove which could stand the

most blood-letting; machinery that organised the murder of individuals

by individuals who had no personal quarrel with each other. And greater

even than his repugnance to the “great war game” as a whole; greater

even than his revolt against the senselessness of it, and the pity of

it; greater than any personal physical fear of death or wounds was his

fear of being sent out to inflict death or wounds on others ...

deliberately to maim and shatter the bodies of men as young as himself,

the bodies of men as young as Alan.

He would not enlist. And Eastwold might do its worst.... Eastwold was,

in fact, already growing restive.

Mrs. Ryan took him to task one day when she met him in the town. She had

just come out of the grocer’s shop, where she had been complaining

because the price of bacon had gone up again; and the grocer had replied

that in times like these.... She was therefore considerably ruffled when

she met Dennis outside. After a preliminary exchange of hostilities, and

a meaning glance at his civilian clothes, she said: “Well, I should like

to know where the war would be if everyone thought like that!”

“Presumably there would be no war at all,” he returned gently.

“Nonsense! The Germans would have been here long ago.”

“Not if _everyone_ thought like that.”

“The Germans would never think like that, even if the English did—and

I’m thankful to say they don’t. It’s the Germans who wanted the war.”

“And now the English want it every bit as much as they do.”

“Well, now they’ve started it, we’ve got to go on with it—we didn’t want

war.”

“I daresay they think and say exactly the same, only the other way

round....” Dennis walked away, weary of the argument. He would have been

wearier still, if he could have foreseen the countless times he was to

repeat that argument with different people, in different places, with

variations and amplifications. These were still the early days of the

war, and the crusade against pacifism was not so strenuous as it became

later on.

But Mrs. Ryan reported that conversation to Mrs. Clavering who reported

it back to Mrs. Blackwood; and Mrs. Blackwood, half uneasily, told

Dennis that it had been reported. “Of course Mrs. Ryan thinks you ought

to go, Denny.”

“Everybody does, Mother,” he smiled at her.

“And—shall you...?”

“Do you think I ought to, Mother?”

She was troubled by the direct question. “I suppose every man ought to

go, but it’s difficult to want them to. I suppose one can’t help being

selfish.... Daddy thinks you ought to go, Dennis.”

He ignored this, being already acquainted with his father’s views on the

subject. “And you Mother?” he persisted.

“I know it’s very wrong of me,” she murmured, as if apologising to the

wrathful spirits of her husband and Mrs. Ryan and the rest of the

community; apologising for being a mother first, and a “woman of

England” afterwards.

Dennis laughed, and took her in his arms. “You dear....”

She returned his kiss, but repeated: “Mind you, I know it’s wrong.”

“Wrong that you should want me not to go out and kill people whose

mothers love them every bit as much as you love me?”

She was silent, disconcerted by a point of view unfamiliar to Eastwold.

“Or do you think that because they’re Germans, they love their sons

less?” he teased her, and she pretended to be indignant.

“You’re trying to make fun of me, and to muddle me, and I—I’m sure you

ought to go, really....”

“That’s all right,” laughed Dennis.

But all the same, life at “The Hermitage” was far from ideal just now.

Mr. Blackwood reading the paper aloud to his family every morning, dwelt

with reproachful emphasis upon those portions detailing the atrocities

committed by the German soldiery in Belgium—as if to make Dennis

responsible for them. “Inhuman brutes—savages—devils! No Englishman

should rest till the last one of them has been wiped off the face of the

earth.”

“And I suppose no mention is made of the atrocities our Russian allies

have probably committed in Germany,” said Dennis, “don’t you see that

once the ‘dogs of war’ are loose, there’s bound to be that sort of thing

all round? For the baser elements of all nations alike? Debauch and

beastliness on the part of people sent mad by blood-lust?”

Mr. Blackwood turned purple. “Your views are disgraceful, sir. Why, to

hear you, anyone would think you were pro-Hun.”

“I’m not pro-Hun any more than I’m pro-British. I’m not pro-anything

that’s driving millions of innocent people to slaughter and be

slaughtered by each other. I’m for the first people who’ve got the

courage to put down their arms and end the whole thing.”

“You say that because you don’t want to fight yourself. Must I own that

a son of mine is a coward and a shirker?”

“That’s as you please....”

Mr. Blackwood turned to vent his fury upon his wife. “This is your

doing—you always did bring him up to be a spoilt namby-pamby!”

Between Mr. Blackwood’s spluttering rage, and Clive’s cold contempt for

Dennis, and her own secret relief at the attitude which he had taken up,

Mrs. Blackwood had no easy time. The house was divided against itself.

Doreen had as yet not declared herself openly on one side or the other.

She was sincerely convinced that every man ought to go, but she was half

inclined to think that an exception might be made in Dennis’s favour. It

was different somehow, for Dennis, though she had not the faintest idea

why....

But Reggie, taking no heed of any psychological subtleties, wrote from

Westborough, saying that he jolly well hoped Dennis would have joined up

by Christmas, and that he ought to be jolly well ashamed of himself if

he didn’t, and that he—Reggie—jolly well hoped that the war would last

long enough to allow him to enlist.

About the middle of December, Dennis realised that he could no longer

stand the strain of guerilla warfare in the home-circle, and decided to

go to London for a while. No doubt the strain upon his mother, too,

would be lessened, once his own irritating presence was removed from the

house. Mrs. Blackwood approved his decision; told him to be sure and

write if he wanted anything; and hoped he would often run down for the

week-end.

Then, very tentatively, she said: “Will you see anything of Antoinette

when you’re in London?”

He answered without looking at her: “I daresay I shall.”

“I’ll give you her address.”

He smiled. “I know it, thanks.”

It was the first time that they had mentioned Antoinette since she had

stayed with them for the dance. Mrs. Blackwood still did not know why

nothing had come of that little scheme of hers. It seemed just to have

fallen flat.... Dennis had been in such a queer mood when he came back

from Cornwall.... Perhaps Antoinette had been capricious or unkind to

him; he was so absurdly sensitive. Of course she had never ventured to

ask him about it. But perhaps if they met again in London——

Dennis certainly went to London with his mother’s blessing....

He was very glad of the £150 a year which had been left to him and his

sister and brothers by Mrs. Blackwood’s father, and that enabled him to

live as he pleased. He made a little money out of the sale of his

compositions, but not sufficient to keep himself entirely; and he would

have hated to be dependent upon his father.

He took a room in Tavistock Square, and went the next day to see his

friend Neil Barnaby.

Barnaby was sitting at a writing-table littered with papers when Dennis

entered. He looked up at him with a casual “Hallo?” and a funny, twisted

smile that seemed confined to one corner of his mouth only.

“Hallo?” responded Dennis.

Barnaby put down his pen, and swung round in his revolving chair. “It’s

six months, or thereabouts, since I saw you here last. Shall we pass

over the intervening time in silence, or do you wish to make statement

of it in detail?”

“Oh, pass it over in decent silence, I think,” laughed Dennis, “the best

of you is, Barnaby, that after six months’ separation, one can take up

the threads of intercourse as easily as if they’d been dropped

yesterday.”

Barnaby grunted. “Nevertheless you might have had the decency to report

upon the progress of your opera, considering that the libretto is mine.

Have you finished it yet?”

Barnaby, in his time, had tried his hand at nearly all branches of

literature; had perpetrated plays, a novel or two, an occasional set of

verses and newspaper articles. But he retained a special fondness for

the fairy-tale of “Karen and the Red Shoes,” which he had turned into a

play for which Dennis was writing the music.

He answered Barnaby: “No, it isn’t finished. I haven’t been able to do

any work at home of late. That’s partly why I’ve come up here for a

bit.”

“Can’t work at home, eh?” Barnaby fixed him with a critical glance.

“What is it—white feathers?”

Dennis nodded. “More or less.”

“H’m,” reflected Barnaby, “I at least am immune from that delicate sort

of attention.”

Dennis glanced quickly away from the crutches that lay beside his

friend’s chair. He was conscious of almost physical pain whenever

Barnaby made allusion to his deformity; fine massive head sunk between

rounded shoulders; one leg shorter than the other....

Dennis said: “Supposing you hadn’t been immune—that way?”

“You mean, if my physical disabilities hadn’t been so blatantly apparent

to the naked eye? In that case, my dear Dennis, I should be doing

exactly what you’re doing now—or rather, what you’re not doing.”

“You think I’m right in refusing to go, then?”

“If only they’d all refuse....” The concentrated fierceness of despair

was in Barnaby’s voice.

“‘Then,’” Dennis parodied Mrs. Ryan, “‘where would the war be?’”

“Nowhere! That’s the obvious answer to that riddle.”

“I know it’s the answer. I’ve given it myself over and over again.”

Barnaby continued impatiently: “The brute stupidity of the thing ... and

all the waste of art and intellect! Don’t give in, Dennis. Don’t let

white feathers and the opinion of your next-door neighbours drive you

into it. Get on with your opera. That’s the ‘bit’ for you to do, and a

‘bit’ which only you _can_ do.... Let’s at least preserve art from the

general wreckage.”

“I doubt if the old ladies at home would agree with you,” said Dennis,

“they’d say that art, too, must be sacrificed ‘in times like these.’”

“The Vandals.... I’d rather be a Hun than a Vandal any day! If the old

ladies at home get too much for you, for heaven’s sake don’t bring the

conflict of your opinions to me. I’m not interested in psychology at

present: I’m doing free-lance journalism just now, for which it isn’t

necessary. And keep in mind that it’s better to write music that will

live, than to help to fill the world with things that look like me—and

worse....”

* * * * *

But Dennis had no need of Barnaby’s reminder. The sight of the wounded

in the streets was enough; and the thought of the wounded in the

hospitals, being tended and mended, so that they might be sent out

again, and broken again.... And already one saw those who could not be

sent out again: armless, legless, blind; wreckage that could not be

utilised either on the field of battle, or on any other.

He plunged into his work, taking it up where he had left it before he

went to Devonshire. But the horror that was all around and about him,

got into his music and became part of it. The ideas that came to him,

found expression in harmonies that had an ominous and sinister beauty.

He knew that they had beauty, despite the horror with which they were

impregnated. He never lost his critical faculty where his work was

concerned, nor yet a certain detached surprise with regard to it.

Sometimes he wondered from what strange sub-region of consciousness

issued these visions—yes, that was the right word—visions of sound,

audible to himself alone, and that he had the power to translate and

transmit to others. And sometimes he was afraid of this music of his,

that sprang from he knew not whence, and over the going and coming of

which, he had no control. He was afraid now.... The clamour in those

submerged regions of his brain was so great and so complex that it

obsessed his every thought; waking or sleeping he heard the tortured

dissonances and weird scurrying arpeggios, that left him no peace until

he had found the right form of expression for them.

... Music such as might have been heard in a nightmare ... music

horrible and unreal, that in itself constituted a nightmare from which

there was no escape. Like Karen, the girl in the fairy-tale who was

compelled to dance on and on in the red shoes which she had so ardently

desired—on and on past the loves with whom she would fain have

lingered—so was Dennis compelled to listen without respite to this

nightmare-music, that was like an evil spell upon him.

As a child, some haunting phrase of music, suddenly remembered; or the

sound of a coach-horn heard in the stillness of the night, had had this

power to fill him with helpless terror. He had stuffed his fingers into

his ears, hidden his head under the bedclothes, but still the sound had

pursued him.... He was equally helpless now, equally terrified; lonely,

too; a loneliness that could be banished neither by talks with Barnaby,

nor by the long musical evenings he spent at Crispin’s flat.

... And the little khaki-clad processions marched gallantly through the

streets; shopboys and bank-clerks and grocers’ assistants, weedy and

pasty-faced, with a smile on their lips, and a joke to be tossed at the

girls they passed on the pavements.... Arms swinging, caps set rakishly

upon their heads ... a bit of swank and a bit of curiosity and a great

deal of heroism. And here and there for Dennis some face would stand

out, upon which there was neither swank, nor curiosity, nor heroism;

only wonder, dazed wonder; or a stupefied kind of patience.... And he

would long to drag that man out of the marching ranks, to ask him what

madness possessed him, or what ideal inspired him, that he must thus go

out and offer up his all to the Juggernaut of war.... And the answer

would always have been the same: he didn’t really know; but everybody

was in it, and he supposed that a fellow ought to do his bit.

And sometimes, Dennis caught sight of some face, some figure that

remotely recalled Alan’s. And the pain that had never quite ceased, only

lain temporarily dormant, awoke anew: pain, and a new panic-fear....

Supposing Alan were to be in one of those marching processions! He had

probably joined up by now, and with his democratic ideas, he would have

gone in the ranks. Alan was the type that could not be held back, that

would be eager and impatient to go. Dennis was certain of it.... He

would be crazily brave on the battlefield; would storm trenches in the

face of enormous odds.... And he would not return. People like Alan did

not return. He would lie out there with his body torn and shattered;

piteous unseeing eyes open to the pitiless heavens. Dennis turned sick

as his fancy painted for him the things that might befall Alan; things

that had perhaps already befallen him.

Consciously and unconsciously, Dennis scanned the faces of those who

marched past him, his heart throbbing hotly at the discovery of every

fugitive resemblance of look or feature. Soon he hunted for Alan not

only amongst the passing soldiers, but amongst the crowds thronging the

streets, pouring out of restaurants and tea-shops, waiting outside

theatres ... lived for the momentary thrill of encountering that chance

resemblance.

... Deeper and deeper into the crazy depths of the nightmare—nightmare

set to his own horrible music, and filled with strange faces, figures,

voices; and, almost like a futurist picture, with bits of streets,

buildings, bridges, where he had caught a glimpse of this one, and

that.... There was danger in his present mood, as there had been danger

that night at Crannack.... Deeper and deeper into the nightmare, sinking

in it, drowning in it....

With a last remnant of sanity, and obeying a wild impulse to fling out a

hand for safety while yet there was time, he rang up Antoinette, and

asked if he could come and see her next day.