ALIX AND BASIL
1
Evie had a good time for the rest of the week of Captain Gordon's leave.
Mrs. Frampton began to wonder whether this enormously wealthy and
overwhelmingly well-dressed young man really meant anything. If you
could tell anything by the size of the chocolate boxes he sent, he
certainly meant quite a lot. Kate looked repressive when they arrived.
'How Evie does go on,' she said to Mrs. Frampton at breakfast, before
Evie came down, referring to the immense box from Buszard's by Evie's
plate. That was the morning after Hugh Montgomery Gordon had returned to
his duties in France. Apparently whatever else he meant, he meant not to
be forgotten.
'She's a naughty girl,' Mrs. Frampton admitted indulgently. 'I shouldn't
wonder if that's from this new friend of hers, Captain Gordon. He looks
such an extravagant man. But very handsome.... What does your brother
think of Captain Gordon, Alix? Didn't you say he knew him?'
Mrs. Frampton was of those ladies who believe that men, good judges in
most matters, are especially good judges of each other.
Alix said she didn't believe Nicholas had thought about Captain Gordon
at all. 'But his friend Mr. West has, quite a lot,' she added.
'Well, love, what does Mr. West think?' Mr. West was even better than
Nicholas as a source of knowledge, being not only a man but a clergyman.
'Mr. West,' said Alix, 'thinks Captain Gordon too rich. It's a fad of
Mr. West's that people shouldn't be too rich. I think they should.'
'Well, we're told, aren't we, that it is hard for a rich man to enter
into the kingdom of heaven.... A little more ham, Alix?'
'It's all a question,' said Kate, 'of the use people make of their
wealth. They say that some of the wealthiest families in the land make
the best landlords and are the kindest to all. I can't say I hold with
socialism. It seems to me most wrong-headed.'
'Well,' Mrs. Frampton agreed, 'it certainly does seem like flying in the
face of what Providence has ordained, doesn't it? Let me see now, Alix,
your brother doesn't hold with socialism, does he?'
Alix's brother, being clever and queer, might hold with anything. Mrs.
Frampton appeared to feel a morbid interest in his opinions.
'Nicky? He doesn't hold with anything, Cousin Emily; he's a general
disapprover. I believe he hates socialism; he thinks it makes for
dullness and stagnation and order and all sorts of things he doesn't
like.'
Mrs. Frampton said, 'Why, I should have thought what socialists wanted
was quite an uprooting and an upset,' and then Evie's entrance
interrupted a discussion which might have been fruitful.
Evie kissed her mother. She said, 'Whatever in the world are you talking
about? Socialism? What a subject for breakfast. Buttered egg for me,
please.... Oh, chocs--' She opened them, smiling, and looked at the card
inside.
'He _is_ extravagant,' she said. 'This is an awfully special box. He
must have ordered it from Buszard's before he went.'
'I don't think you should permit it,' said Kate primly.
'Oh, it's all right. He likes it. He's simply rolling.'
Evie was absorbed in the pencilled inscription on the card.
Life was pleasant to Evie. Her mother smiled indulgently on her. Evie
certainly did seem to have a lot of young men at once, but then how
pretty the child was, and how she enjoyed it. And she had sense, too;
Evie never lost her head.
Evie opened the letter by her plate. She read it and laid it aside
carelessly, and looked up.
'Yes, some ham, please.... Mr. Doye writes he's seen the Board again and
he's to join in a week. I suppose he's satisfied now.'
Mrs. Frampton clicked deprecatingly with her tongue. She regarded it
always as a matter for great regret that wounded young men should have
to return to the wars.
'Well, I'm sorry for that. Any one would think he'd done enough, having
lost a finger for his country. I call it shameful, sending him out
again.'
'Perhaps he'll go to Serbia this time,' said Evie. 'He said there was a
chance of his battalion getting sent there from France soon.'
'Well, well.' That seemed, if anything, more unreasonable still. 'I'm
sure one's dreadfully sorry for poor Serbia--she does seem to be having
a bad time; but I'm not sure that our men ought to be sent out to those
parts. They're all so wild out there; it seems as if, in a way, they
rather _like_ fighting each other; anyhow they've always been at it
since I can remember, and I think they'd much better be left to fight it
out among themselves, while we defend poor France. But who are we to
judge? I suppose Lord Kitchener knows what's right.'
'They say,' put in Kate, 'that Joffre had a great to do before he could
persuade Kitchener to send forces out there at all. They say he came to
the War Office and broke his riding-whip right across.'
'Fancy that! He must be a very violent man. But the French are always
excitable. Lord Kitchener's one of the quiet ones, I've heard. A regular
Englishman.... Well, I'm sure I hope they're taking the right course....
Alix, you haven't had half a breakfast; I'm sure you could manage
another bit of toast. Evie dear, you'll have to hurry with your
breakfast or you'll be late.'
Evie hurried.
She spent the week, with partial success, in avoiding Basil Doye. Since
she had done with him, what was the use of scenes? She certainly wasn't
going to let him go away with the impression that he would find her
waiting on his next return from the war to beguile his leave-time. Her
natural generosity forbade her to take and keep Alix's young man; her
natural prudence forbade her to philander too ardently (having a good
time is different, of course) with a young man who probably didn't mean
business. Rightly Evie condemned these practices as Not Respectable. So
she went off at lunch time with other friends, with a little pang,
indeed, but less acute than she would have felt a week ago, before her
rapid friendship with Hugh Montgomery Gordon. Basil Doye was being
relegated quickly to the circle of Evie's numerous have-beens, to be
remembered with pleasant indifference.
On the Saturday before he left London, Basil obtained an interview with
Evie, by means of going, at immense sacrifice of time, to Violette. It
was a short interview, and not intimate, for Mrs. Frampton and Kate were
present at it.
After it Basil called at Clifford's Inn to say good-bye to Nicholas and
Alix, who, they told, him, was there.
2
He found Alix alone, waiting for Nicholas to come in. She had been
having tea, and was reading _Peacock Pie_. She preferred this poetry to
any written since August 1914, which had killed fairies.
Looking up from it, she saw Basil standing at the door. He was flushed,
and looked cross; she knew of old the sulky set of his brows and mouth,
that made him look like a petulant boy. It hurt Alix so much that she
couldn't muster any sort of smile, only look away from him and say, 'I'm
sorry; Nicky's not in yet.'
He said 'No,' abstractedly, and sat down in the chair on the other side
of the fire. He sat in the attitude she had seen him in a thousand times
(it seemed to her) before; his elbow resting on his knee, his hand
supporting his chin, the other hand, with its maimed third finger,
hanging at his side. She had seen him sitting thus happy, intimately
talking; she had seen him moody and brooding, as now. There had been a
time when she could always lighten these moods, tickle his sullenness to
laughter; but that time was past.
He said presently, 'I'm off to-morrow, you know.'
'Yes,' said Alix, who did know.
In her another knowledge grew: the knowledge that if he did not speak of
Evie she could get through this interview without disgrace, but that if
he did speak of Evie she could not. She did not want him to speak of
Evie and break down the wall between them; yet she did want it.
He did speak of Evie. He said he had been to Violette to say good-bye.
'I said it to the whole family together. Evie wouldn't see me alone....
I suppose she doesn't really care a hang. In fact, she's made that very
obvious for the last fortnight.'
'Yes,' said Alix again, clinging to that one small word as to a raft in
a stormy sea, which might yet float her through.
Basil pushed the tongs with his foot, so that they made a clattering
noise in the grate.
'She doesn't care a hang,' he repeated. 'She's on with that jam fellow
now. Well, every one to his taste. Hugh Montgomery Gordon obviously
appeals to hers.'
Alix's hands were clasped tight over her knee. Her knuckles were white.
She kept her eyes on the fire. She would not look at him.
'Yes,' she said.
Then silence fell between them, and though she would not look she felt
his nearness, knew how he sat, angry and sullen, brooding over his hurt.
A coal fell from the fire. Alix, as if some one was physically forcing
her, raised her eyes from it and looked at Basil, and knew then that she
was not going to get through this interview without disgrace. For she
saw him sit as she had seen him sit (it seemed to her) a thousand times
before, inert, bent forward a little, with the shadows leaping and
flickering on his thin olive face and vivid eyes, with one hand
supporting his sharp-cut chin, the other hanging maimed (and that alone
was something new, belonging to the cruel present not the kindly past)
at his side. It seemed that those lean, quick, brown artist's fingers
were dragging her soul from her. The sharp sense of all those other
times when she and he had thus sat stabbed her like a turning-knife. A
thousand intimacies rose to shatter her, and, so shattered, she spoke.
'She doesn't care a hang.' She repeated his phrase, mechanically,
sitting very still. 'But I do.'
Then she leant towards him, putting out her hands, and a sob caught in
her throat.
'Oh, Basil--I do.'
For a moment the silence was only broken by the leaping, stirring fire.
Basil looked swiftly at Alix, and Alix saw horror in his eyes before he
veiled it. The next moment it was veiled: veiled by his quick friendly
smile. He leant forward and took her outstretched hands in his, and
spoke lightly, easily. He did it well; few people could have attained at
once to such ease, such spontaneous naturalness of affection.
'Why, of course--I know. The way you and I care for each other is one of
the best things I've got in my life. It lasts, too, when the other sorts
of caring go phut....'
'Yes,' said Alix faintly. The raft of that small word drifted back to
her, and she climbed on to it out of the engulfing sea. She took her
hands from his and lay back in her chair, impassive and still.
Basil rose, and stood by the chimney-piece, playing with the things on
it. He talked, naturally, easily, of what he was going to do, the
probabilities of his being sent out with a draft to France almost at
once, the possibility of his battalion being sent to Serbia. He talked
too of their common friends, even of painting, which he seldom mentioned
now.
Alix heard his voice as from a great distance off, and from time to time
said 'Yes.'
There was a sharp crack, and Basil held the stem of one of Nicholas's
pipes in one hand, the bowl in the other; he had broken it in two. His
fluent tongue, his flexible face, were under his control; but it seemed
that his hands were not; they had shown thus blatantly the
uncontrollable strain he felt. Alix winced away from it. She couldn't
bear any more: he must go, quickly, before either of them broke anything
else.
He went, slipping as it were unnoticeably away, with 'Good-bye'
unemphasised, half ashamed, sandwiched between fatuities about the pipe
and comments on the future.
'It was an ugly pipe, wasn't it? Tell Sandomir I broke it for his sake,
compelled by my artistic conscience; it'll be for his good in the
end.... I'm sorry I've not seen him; but you'll say good-bye for me....
And to any of them at the shop.... Good-bye.... If we do get out to the
East, we shall have a funny time in some ways, I fancy. I hear
Salonika's a great place; glorious riviera climate. But less so inland;
too much snow on the hills. Well, it can't be worse than France in
winter, anyhow. I believe the Bulgars are very good-natured people to
fight against; they aren't really a bit keen on this show.... Want to
get back to till their fields....'
His voice came from beyond the door. Then it shut, and muffled his steps
running down wooden stairs.
Alix let go her raft, and was submerged by the cold, engulfing seas.