1
IT was extraordinary how Elizabeth's return changed the complexion of
things for Joan; strange that one human being, not really beautiful,
only a little more than average clever and no longer very young, could,
by her mere presence, make others seem so much less trying.
Now that she had Elizabeth again the people at the tennis club, for
instance, were miraculously changed. She began to think that she had
misjudged them; after all, they were very good sorts and kindly enough,
nor did they really seem to be bored with her; she must have imagined
it. She found herself more tolerant towards Mrs. Ogden's religiosity.
Why shouldn't her mother enjoy herself in her own way! Surely everyone
must find their rare pleasures how and where they could. And, oh! the
joy of using her brain again! The exhilaration of renewed mental effort,
of pitting her mind against Elizabeth's.
"We must work a bit to keep you from getting rusty, Joan, but I can't do
much more for you now; you're getting beyond me, and Cambridge must do
the rest," Elizabeth said.
Ralph was pleased at his sister's return and welcomed Joan cordially as
the chief cause thereof. The atmosphere at his house had become restful,
because now it contained three happy people. Joan had never known
anything quite like this before; she wondered whether the dead felt as
she did when they met those they loved on the other side of the grave.
A deep sense of peace enveloped her; Elizabeth felt it too, and they sat
very often with clasped hands without speaking, for now their silence
drew them closer together than words would have done.
As if by mutual consent they avoided discussing the future. At this time
they thought of neither past nor future, but only of their present. And
they no longer worked very hard; what was the use? Joan was ready, and,
as Elizabeth had said, it was now only a matter of not letting her get
rusty, so they slackened the gallop to a walk and began to look about
them.
They ransacked Seabourne and the neighbouring towns for diversion,
visiting such theatres as there were, making excursions to places of
interest that they had lived close to for years yet never seen. They
discovered the joys of sailing, setting out of mornings before it was
quite light, becoming acquainted together for the first time with the
mystery and wonder that is Nature while she still smells drowsy and
sweet after sleep.
And they walked. They would go off now for a whole day, lunching
wherever they happened to find themselves. Sometimes it would be at a
little inn by the roadside and sometimes on the summit of a hill, or in
woods, eating biscuits they had stuffed into their pockets before
starting.
When Milly came home for her holidays she did not seem surprised to find
Elizabeth back in Seabourne. They were relieved at this, for they had
both been secretly dreading her questions, which, however, did not come.
Milly was not wanted, but they found room for her in their days,
nevertheless; she joined them whenever their programme seemed amusing,
and because they themselves were so happy they made her welcome.
At this time Elizabeth did her best to placate Mrs. Ogden; she did it
entirely for Joan's sake, and although her efforts were rebuffed with
coldness, she knew that Joan was the happier for them. Mrs. Ogden was
aggrieved and rude; she could not find it in her, poor soul, to
compromise over Joan. If she had only met Elizabeth half way, had made
even a slight effort to accept things as they were, she would almost
certainly have won from her daughter a lifelong gratitude. But she let
the moment slip, and so for the time being she found herself ignored.
Contentment agreed with Joan; she grew handsomer that summer, and people
noticed it. Now they would turn sometimes and look after the Ogden girls
when they passed them in the street, struck by the curious contrast they
made. Joan was burnt to the colour of a gipsy; her constant excursions
in the open air had brightened her eyes and reddened her lips and given
her slim body a supple strength which showed in all her movements.
Milly's beauty was a little marred by an ever-present suggestion of
delicacy. Her skin was too pink and white for perfect health, and of
late dark shadows had appeared under her eyes. However, she seemed in
excellent spirits, and never complained, in spite of the fact that she
coughed a good deal.
"It's the dry weather," she explained. "The dust irritates my throat."
Her shoulders had taken a slight stoop from the long hours of practice,
which contracted her chest, but her playing had improved enormously; she
was beginning to acquire real finish and style.
"I shall be earning soon!" she announced triumphantly.
Elizabeth could not resist looking at Joan, but she held her tongue and
the dangerous moment passed.
Joan began to find it in her to bless Father Cuthbert and Holy Martyrs,
for between them they took up a good deal of Mrs. Ogden's time. To be
sure, her eyes were red with secret weeping, and she lost even that
remnant of appetite that her religious scruples permitted her; but Joan
was happy and selfish to the verge of recklessness. She was like a man
reprieved when the noose is already round his throat; for the moment
nothing mattered except just being alive. She felt balanced and calm,
with the power to see through and beyond the frets and rubs of this
everyday life, from which she herself had somehow become exempt.
She and Elizabeth went to tea with Admiral Bourne. It was like the old
days, out there in the garden, under the big tree. The admiral eyed them
kindly. "Capital, capital!" was all he said. After tea they asked to see
the mice, because they knew that it would give him pleasure, and he
responded with alacrity, leading the way to the mousery. But although
they had gone there to please Admiral Bourne, they stayed on to please
themselves; playing with the tame, soft creatures, feeling a sense of
contentment as they watched their swift, symmetrical movements and their
round bright eyes.
2
They walked home arm in arm through the twilight.
Joan said: "Our life seems new, somehow, Elizabeth, and yet it isn't
new. Perhaps it's because you went away. We aren't doing anything very
different, only working rather less; but it all seems so new; I feel new
myself."
Elizabeth pressed her arm very slightly. "It's as old as the hills," she
said.
"What is?" asked Joan.
"Nothing--everything. Did you change those library books?"
"Yes. But listen to me, Elizabeth. I _will_ tell you how your going away
and coming back has changed things. I'm changed; I feel softer and
harder, more sympathetic and less so. I feel--oh, how shall I put it? I
feel like a tiny speck of God that can't help seeing all round and
through everything. I seem to know the reason for things, somewhere
inside of me, only it won't get right into my brain. I don't think I
love Mother any less than I did, and I don't think I really hate
Seabourne any less; but I can't worry about her or it, and that's where
I've changed. I've got a feeling that Mother had to be and Seabourne had
to be and that you and I had to be, too; that it's all just a necessary
part of the whole. And after all, Elizabeth, if you hadn't gone away and
I hadn't been frightfully unhappy there wouldn't have been your coming
back and my happiness over that. I think it was worth the unhappiness."
They stood still, staring at the sunset. A sweet, damp smell was coming
up from the ground; there had been a little shower. The sea lay very
quiet and vast, flecked here and there with afterglow. Down below them
the lights of Seabourne sprang into being, one by one; they looked small
and unnaturally bright. The ugly homes from which they shone were
mercifully hidden in the dusk. Only their lights appeared, elusive,
beckoning, never quite still. Around them little hidden specks of life
were making indefinable noises; a blur of rustlings, chirpings,
buzzings. They were very busy, these hidden people, with their secret
activities. Presently it would be night; already the moon was showing
palely opposite the sunset.
Elizabeth turned her gaze away from the sky and looked at Joan. The girl
was standing upright with her head a little back. She had taken off her
hat, and the queer light fell slantwise across her broad forehead, and
dipped into her wide open eyes that held in their depths a look of fear.
Her lips were parted as if to speak, but no words came. She stretched
out a hand, without looking at Elizabeth, as though groping for
protection. Elizabeth took the hand and held it firmly in her own.
"Are you frightened, Joan?" she asked softly.
"A little; how did you know?"
"Your eyes looked scared. Why are you frightened? I thought you were so
confident just now."
"I don't know, but it's all so strange, somehow. I think it's the
newness I told you about that frightens me, now I come to think of it.
You seem new. Do you feel new, Elizabeth?"
Elizabeth dropped the hand and turned away.
"Not particularly," she said; "I'm getting rather old for that sort of
thing; if I let myself feel new I might forget how old I'm getting. No,
I don't think I'd better feel too new, or you might get more frightened
still; you told me you were frightened of me once, do you remember?"
"Oh, rot! I could never be frightened of you, Elizabeth; you're just a
bit of me."
"Am I? Well, come on or we'll be late, and I think I'm catching cold."
"Let's walk arm and arm again," Joan pleaded, like a schoolgirl begging
a favour, and Elizabeth acquiesced with a short laugh.
3
Milly was obviously not well; she coughed perpetually, and Joan sent for
the doctor. He came and sounded her chest and lungs, but found no
alarming symptoms. Mrs. Ogden protested fretfully that Joan was always
over-fussy when there was nothing to fuss about, and quite unusually
indifferent when there was real cause for anxiety. She either could not
or would not see that her younger daughter looked other than robust.
Joan had a long talk with her sister about the life at the College. They
were pretty well fed, it seemed, but of course no luxuries. Oh, yes,
Milly usually went to bed early; she felt too dead tired to want to sit
up late. She practised a good many hours a day, whenever she could, in
fact; but then that was what she was there for, and she loved that part
of it. Couldn't she slack a bit? Good Lord, no! Rather not; she wanted
to make some money, and that as soon as possible; you didn't get on by
scamping your practising. Joan mustn't fuss, it bored Milly to have her
fussing like an old hen. The cough was nothing at all, the doctor had
said so. How long had it been going on? Oh, about two months, perhaps a
little longer; but, good Lord! it was just a cough! She did wish Joan
would shut up.
Elizabeth was anxious too; she felt an inexplicable apprehension about
this cough of Milly's. She was glad when the holidays came to an end and
Milly and her cough had removed themselves to London.
With her sister's departure, Joan seemed to forget her anxiety. She had
fallen into a strangely elated frame of mind and threw off troubles as
though they were thistledown.
"Mother seems very busy with her religion," she remarked one day.
Elizabeth agreed.
They fell silent, and then: "Perhaps we can go soon now, Elizabeth; I
was thinking that perhaps after Christmas----"
Elizabeth bit her lip. Something in her wanted to cry out in triumph,
but she choked it down.
"The flat's let until March," she said quietly.
"Well then, March. Oh! Elizabeth, think of it!"
Elizabeth said: "I never think of anything else--I thought you knew
that."
"But you seem so dull about it, aren't you pleased?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid!"
"Of what?"
"Of something happening to prevent it. Don't let's make plans too long
ahead."
Joan flushed. "You don't trust me any more," she said, and her voice
sounded as though she wanted to cry.
"Trust you? Of course I trust you. Joan, I don't think you know how I
feel about all this; it's too much, almost. I feel--oh, well, I can't
explain, only it's desperately serious to me."
"And what do you think it is to me?" demanded Joan passionately. "It's
more than serious to me!"
"Joan, you've known me for years now. I was your teacher when you were
quite little. I used to think you looked like a young colt then, I
remember--never mind that--only you've known me too long really to know
me; that can happen I think. I often wish I could get inside you and
know just how I look to you, what sort of woman I am as you see me,
because I don't believe it's the real me. I believe you see your old
teacher, and later on your very good and devoted friend. Well, that's
all right so far as it goes; that's part of me, but only a part. There's
another big bit that's quite different; you saw the edge of it when I
left you to go to London. It's not neat and calm and self-possessed at
all, and above all it's outrageously discontented and adventurous; it
longs for all sorts of things and hates being crossed. This part of me
loves life, real life, and beautiful things and brilliant, careless
people. It feels young, absurdly so for its age, and it demands the
pleasures of youth, cries out for them. I think it cries out all the
more because it's been so long denied. This me could be reckless of
consequences, greedy of happiness and jealous of competition. It is
jealous already of you, Joan, of any interests that seem to take your
attention off me, of any affection that might rob me of even a
hair's-breadth of you. It wants to keep you all to itself, to have all
your love and gratitude, all that makes you; and it wouldn't be
contented with less. Well, my dear, this side of me and the side that
you know are one and indivisible, they're the two halves of the whole
that is Elizabeth Rodney; what do you think of her? Aren't you a little
afraid after this revelation?"
Joan laughed quietly. "No," she said, "I'm not a bit afraid. Because,
you see, I think I've known the real Elizabeth for a long time now."