STEPHEN SIGNS CHEQUES
Cecilia received the mystic document containing these words "Am quite all
right. Address, 598, Euston Road, three doors off Martin. Letter follows
explaining. Thyme," she had not even realised her little daughter's
departure. She went up to Thyme's room at once, and opening all the
drawers and cupboards, stared into them one by one. The many things she
saw there allayed the first pangs of her disquiet.
'She has only taken one little trunk,' she thought, 'and left all her
evening frocks.'
This act of independence alarmed rather than surprised her, such had been
her sense of the unrest in the domestic atmosphere during the last month.
Since the evening when she had found Thyme in foods of tears because of
the Hughs' baby, her maternal eyes had not failed to notice something new
in the child's demeanour--a moodiness, an air almost of conspiracy,
together with an emphatic increase of youthful sarcasm: Fearful of
probing deep, she had sought no confidence, nor had she divulged her
doubts to Stephen.
Amongst the blouses a sheet of blue ruled paper, which had evidently
escaped from a notebook, caught her eye. Sentences were scrawled on it
in pencil. Cecilia read: "That poor little dead thing was so grey and
pinched, and I seemed to realise all of a sudden how awful it is for
them. I must--I must--I will do something!"
Cecilia dropped the sheet of paper; her hand was trembling. There was no
mystery in that departure now, and Stephen's words came into her mind:
"It's all very well up to a certain point, and nobody sympathises with
them more than I do; but after that it becomes destructive of all
comfort, and that does no good to anyone."
The sound sense of those words had made her feel queer when they were
spoken; they were even more sensible than she had thought. Did her
little daughter, so young and pretty, seriously mean to plunge into the
rescue work of dismal slums, to cut herself adrift from sweet sounds and
scents and colours, from music and art, from dancing, flowers, and all
that made life beautiful? The secret forces of fastidiousness, an inborn
dread of the fanatical, and all her real ignorance of what such a life
was like, rose in Cecilia with a force which made her feel quite sick.
Better that she herself should do this thing than that her own child
should be deprived of air and light and all the just environment of her
youth and beauty. 'She must come back--she must listen to me!' she
thought. 'We will begin together; we will start a nice little creche of
our own, or--perhaps Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace could find us some regular
work on one of her committees.'
Then suddenly she conceived a thought which made her blood run positively
cold. What if it were a matter of heredity? What if Thyme had inherited
her grandfather's single-mindedness? Martin was giving proof of it.
Things, she knew, often skipped a generation and then set in again.
Surely, surely, it could not have done that! With longing, yet with
dread, she waited for the sound of Stephen's latchkey. It came at its
appointed time.
Even in her agitation Cecilia did not forget to spare him, all she could.
She began by giving him a kiss, and then said casually: "Thyme has got a
whim into her head."
"What whim?"
"It's rather what you might expect," faltered Cecilia, "from her going
about so much with Martin."
Stephen's face assumed at once an air of dry derision; there was no love
lost between him and his young nephew-in-law.
"The Sanitist?" he said; "ah! Well?"
"She has gone off to do work-some place in the Euston Road. I've had a
telegram. Oh, and I found this, Stephen."
She held out to him half-heartedly the two bits of paper, one
pinkish-brown, the other blue. Stephen saw that she was trembling. He
took them from her, read them, and looked at her again. He had a real
affection for his wife, and the tradition of consideration for other
people's feelings was bred in him, so that at this moment, so vitally
disturbing, the first thing he did was to put his hand on her shoulder
and give it a reassuring squeeze. But there was also in Stephen a
certain primitive virility, pickled, it is true, at Cambridge, and in the
Law Courts dried, but still preserving something of its possessive and
assertive quality, and the second thing he did was to say, "No, I'm
damned!"
In that little sentence lay the whole psychology of his attitude towards
this situation and all the difference between two classes of the
population. Mr. Purcey would undoubtedly have said: "Well, I'm damned!"
Stephen, by saying "No, I'm damned!" betrayed that before he could be
damned he had been obliged to wrestle and contend with something, and
Cecilia, who was always wrestling too, knew this something to be that
queer new thing, a Social Conscience, the dim bogey stalking pale about
the houses of those who, through the accidents of leisure or of culture,
had once left the door open to the suspicion: Is it possible that there
is a class of people besides my own, or am I dreaming? Happy the
millions, poor or rich, not yet condemned to watch the wistful visiting
or hear the husky mutter of that ghost, happy in their homes, blessed by
a less disquieting god. Such were Cecilia's inner feelings.
Even now she did not quite plumb the depths of Stephen's; she felt his
struggle with the ghost; she felt and admired his victory. What she did
not, could not, perhaps, realise, was the precise nature of the outrage
inflicted on him by Thyme's action. With her--being a woman--the matter
was more practical; she did not grasp, had never grasped, the
architectural nature of Stephen's mind--how really hurt he was by what
did not seem to him in due and proper order.
He spoke: "Why on earth, if she felt like that, couldn't she have gone to
work in the ordinary way? She could have put herself in connection with
some proper charitable society--I should never have objected to that.
It's all that young Sanitary idiot!"
"I believe," Cecilia faltered, "that Martin's is a society. It's a kind
of medical Socialism, or something of that sort. He has tremendous faith
in it."
Stephen's lip curled.
"He may have as much faith as he likes," he said, with the restraint that
was one of his best qualities, "so long as he doesn't infect my daughter
with it."
Cecilia said suddenly: "Oh! what are we to do, Stephen? Shall I go over
there to-night?"
As one may see a shadow pass down on a cornfield, so came the cloud on
Stephen's face. It was as though he had not realised till then the full
extent of what this meant. For a minute he was silent. "Better wait for
her letter," he said at last. "He's her cousin, after all, and Mrs.
Grundy's dead--in the Euston Road, at all events."
So, trying to spare each other all they could of anxiety, and careful to
abstain from any hint of trouble before the servants, they dined and went
to bed.
At that hour between the night and morning, when man's vitality is
lowest, and the tremors of his spirit, like birds of ill omen, fly round
and round him, beating their long plumes against his cheeks, Stephen
woke.
It was very still. A bar of pearly-grey dawn showed between the filmy
curtains, which stirred with a regular, faint movement, like the puffing
of a sleeper's lips. The tide of the wind, woven in Mr. Stone's fancy of
the souls of men, was at low ebb. Feebly it fanned the houses and hovels
where the myriad forms of men lay sleeping, unconscious of its breath; so
faint life's pulse, that men and shadows seemed for that brief moment
mingled in the town's sleep. Over the million varied roofs, over the
hundred million little different shapes of men and things, the wind's
quiet, visiting wand had stilled all into the wonder state of
nothingness, when life is passing into death, death into new life, and
self is at its feeblest.
And Stephen's self, feeling the magnetic currents of that ebb-tide
drawing it down into murmurous slumber, out beyond the sand-bars of
individuality and class, threw up its little hands and began to cry for
help. The purple sea of self-forgetfulness, under the dim, impersonal
sky, seemed to him so cold and terrible. It had no limit that he could
see, no rules but such as hung too far away, written in the hieroglyphics
of paling stars. He could feel no order in the lift and lap of the wan
waters round his limbs. Where would those waters carry him? To what
depth of still green silence? Was his own little daughter to go down
into this sea that knew no creed but that of self-forgetfulness, that
respected neither class nor person--this sea where a few wandering
streaks seemed all the evidence of the precious differences between
mankind? God forbid it!
And, turning on his elbow, he looked at her who had given him this
daughter. In the mystery of his wife's sleeping face--the face of her
most near and dear to him--he tried hard not to see a likeness to Mr.
Stone. He fell back somewhat comforted with the thought: 'That old chap
has his one idea--his Universal Brotherhood. He's absolutely absorbed in
it. I don't see it in Cis's face a bit. Quite the contrary.'
But suddenly a flash of clear, hard cynicism amounting to inspiration
utterly disturbed him: The old chap, indeed, was so wrapped up in himself
and his precious book as to be quite unconscious that anyone else was
alive. Could one be everybody's brother if one were blind to their
existence? But this freak of Thyme's was an actual try to be everybody's
sister. For that, he supposed, one must forget oneself. Why, it was
really even a worse case than that of Mr. Stone! And to Stephen there
was something awful in this thought.
The first small bird of morning, close to the open window, uttered a
feeble chirrup. Into Stephen's mind there leaped without reason
recollection of the morning after his first term at school, when,
awakened by the birds, he had started up and fished out from under his
pillow his catapult and the box of shot he had brought home and taken to
sleep with him. He seemed to see again those leaden shot with their
bluish sheen, and to feel them, round, and soft, and heavy, rolling about
his palm. He seemed to hear Hilary's surprised voice saying: "Hallo,
Stevie! you awake?"
No one had ever had a better brother than old Hilary. His only fault was
that he had always been too kind. It was his kindness that had done for
him, and made his married life a failure. He had never asserted himself
enough with that woman, his wife. Stephen turned over on his other side.
'All this confounded business,' he thought, 'comes from
over-sympathising. That's what's the matter with Thyme, too.' Long he
lay thus, while the light grew stronger, listening to Cecilia's gentle
breathing, disturbed to his very marrow by these thoughts.
The first post brought no letter from Thyme, and the announcement soon
after, that Mr. Hilary had come to breakfast, was received by both
Stephen and Cecilia with a welcome such as the anxious give to anything
which shows promise of distracting them.
Stephen made haste down. Hilary, with a very grave and harassed face,
was in the dining-room. It was he, however, who, after one look at
Stephen, said:
"What's the matter, Stevie?"
Stephen took up the Standard. In spite of his self-control, his hand
shook a little.
"It's a ridiculous business," he said. "That precious young Sanitist has
so worked his confounded theories into Thyme that she has gone off to the
Euston Road to put them into practice, of all things!"
At the half-concerned amusement on Hilary's face his quick and rather
narrow eyes glinted.
"It's not exactly for you to laugh, Hilary," he said. "It's all of a
piece with your cursed sentimentality about those Hughs, and that girl.
I knew it would end in a mess."
Hilary answered this unjust and unexpected outburst by a look, and
Stephen, with the strange feeling of inferiority which would come to him
in Hilary's presence against his better judgment, lowered his own glance.
"My dear boy," said Hilary, "if any bit of my character has crept into
Thyme, I'm truly sorry."
Stephen took his brother's hand and gave it a good grip; and, Cecilia
coming in, they all sat down.
Cecilia at once noted what Stephen in his preoccupation had not--that
Hilary had come to tell them something. But she did not like to ask him
what it was, though she knew that in the presence of their trouble Hilary
was too delicate to obtrude his own. She did not like, either, to talk
of her trouble in the presence of his. They all talked, therefore, of
indifferent things--what music they had heard, what plays they had
seen--eating but little, and drinking tea. In the middle of a remark
about the opera, Stephen, looking up, saw Martin himself standing in the
doorway. The young Sanitist looked pale, dusty, and dishevelled. He
advanced towards Cecilia, and said with his usual cool determination:
"I've brought her back, Aunt Cis."
At that moment, fraught with such relief, such pure joy, such desire to
say a thousand things, Cecilia could only murmur: "Oh, Martin!"
Stephen, who had jumped up, asked: "Where is she?"
"Gone to her room."
"Then perhaps," said Stephen, regaining at once his dry composure, "you
will give us some explanation of this folly."
"She's no use to us at present."
"Indeed!"
"None."
"Then," said Stephen, "kindly understand that we have no use for you in
future, or any of your sort."
Martin looked round the table, resting his eyes on each in turn.
"You're right," he said. "Good-bye!"
Hilary and Cecilia had risen, too. There was silence. Stephen crossed
to the door.
"You seem to me," he said suddenly, in his driest voice, "with your new
manners and ideas, quite a pernicious youth."
Cecilia stretched her hands out towards Martin, and there was a faint
tinkling as of chains.
"You must know, dear," she said, "how anxious we've all been. Of course,
your uncle doesn't mean that."
The same scornful tenderness with which he was wont to look at Thyme
passed into Martin's face.
"All right, Aunt Cis," he said; "if Stephen doesn't mean it, he ought to.
To mean things is what matters." He stooped and kissed her forehead.
"Give that to Thyme for me," he said. "I shan't see her for a bit."
"You'll never see her, sir," said Stephen dryly, "if I can help it! The
liquor of your Sanitism is too bright and effervescent."
Martin's smile broadened. "For old bottles," he said, and with another
slow look round went out.
Stephen's mouth assumed its driest twist. "Bumptious young devil!" he
said. "If that is the new young man, defend us!"
Over the cool dining-room, with its faint scent of pinks, of melon, and
of ham, came silence. Suddenly Cecilia glided from the room. Her light
footsteps were heard hurrying, now that she was not visible, up to Thyme.
Hilary, too, had moved towards the door. In spite of his preoccupation,
Stephen could not help noticing how very worn his brother looked.
"You look quite seedy, old boy," he said. "Will you have some brandy?"
Hilary shook his head.
"Now that you've got Thyme back," he said, "I'd better let you know my
news. I'm going abroad to-morrow. I don't know whether I shall come
back again to live with B."
Stephen gave a low whistle; then, pressing Hilary's arm, he said:
"Anything you decide, old man, I'll always back you in, but--"
"I'm going alone."
In his relief Stephen violated the laws of reticence.
"Thank Heaven for that! I was afraid you were beginning to lose your
head about that girl"
"I'm not quite fool enough," said Hilary, "to imagine that such a liaison
would be anything but misery in the long-run. If I took the child I
should have to stick to her; but I'm not proud of leaving her in the
lurch, Stevie."
The tone of his voice was so bitter that Stephen seized his hand.
"My dear old man, you're too kind. Why, she's no hold on you--not the
smallest in the world!"
"Except the hold of this devotion I've roused in her, God knows how, and
her destitution."
"You let these people haunt you," said Stephen. "It's quite a
mistake--it really is."
"I had forgotten to mention that I am not an iceberg," muttered Hilary.
Stephen looked into his face without speaking, then with the utmost
earnestness he said:
"However much you may be attracted, it's simply unthinkable for a man
like you to go outside his class."
"Class! Yes!" muttered Hilary: "Good-bye!"
And with a long grip of his brother's hand he went away.
Stephen turned to the window. For all the care and contrivance bestowed
on the view, far away to the left the back courts of an alley could be
seen; and as though some gadfly had planted in him its small poisonous
sting, he moved back from the sight at once. 'Confusion!' he thought.
'Are we never to get rid of these infernal people?'
His eyes lighted on the melon. A single slice lay by itself on a
blue-green dish. Leaning over a plate, with a desperation quite unlike
himself, he took an enormous bite. Again and again he bit the slice,
then almost threw it from him, and dipped his fingers in a bowl.
'Thank God!' he thought, 'that's over! What an escape!'
Whether he meant Hilary's escape or Thyme's was doubtful, but there came
on him a longing to rush up to his little daughter's room, and hug her.
He suppressed it, and sat down at the bureau; he was suddenly
experiencing a sensation such as he had sometimes felt on a perfect day,
or after physical danger, of too much benefit, of something that he would
like to return thanks for, yet knew not how. His hand stole to the inner
pocket of his black coat. It stole out again; there was a cheque-book in
it. Before his mind's eye, starting up one after the other, he saw the
names of the societies he supported, or meant sometime, if he could
afford it, to support. He reached his hand out for a pen. The still,
small noise of the nib travelling across the cheques mingled with the
buzzing of a single fly.
These sounds Cecilia heard, when, from the open door, she saw the thin
back of her husband's neck, with its softly graduated hair, bent forward
above the bureau. She stole over to him, and pressed herself against his
arm.
Stephen, staying the progress of his pen, looked up at her. Their eyes
met, and, bending down, Cecilia put her cheek to his.