“Anita’s been very kind to me.” Anita’s my cousin, after all. I didn’t
like the Baxter girl’s tone.
“Oh, she’s been kind to me.” The Baxter girl caught me up quickly. She
was like a sensitive plant for all her crudity. “Oh, I admire Anita.
She’s the finest judge of style in England. Jasper Flood says so. You
mustn’t think I say a word against Anita. Very kind to me she’s been.”
Then, innocently, but her eyes were flickering again—“She was kind to
Madala too, till——”
“Well?” I demanded.
“Till Madala was kind to her. Madala’s one of those big people. She’ll
never forget what she owes Anita—what Anita told her she owed her. After
she made her own name she made Anita’s. Anita, being Anita, doesn’t
forget that.”
“How d’you mean—made Anita’s name?”
“Well, look at the people who come here—the people who count. What do
you think the draw was? Anita? Oh yes, _now_. But they came first for
Madala. Oh, those early days when _Eden Walls_ was just out! Of course
Anita had sense for ten. She ran Madala for all she was worth.”
“Then you do like Madala Grey?”
“I?” The Baxter girl looked at me oddly. “She read my book. She wrote to
me. That’s why Anita took me up. She let me come to the Nights. She
started them, you know. Somebody reads a story or a poem, and then it’s
talk till the milkman comes. Good times! But now Madala’s married she
doesn’t come often. Anita carries on like grim death, of course. But
it’s not the same. Last month it was dreary.”
“Is it every month?”
“Yes. It’s tomorrow again. Tomorrow’s Sunday, isn’t it? It’ll amuse you.
You’ll come, of course, as you’re in the house.”
“Will she? Herself?” I found myself reproducing the Baxter girl’s
eagerness.
“Not now.” The common voice had deepened queerly. “She’s very ill.” She
hesitated. “That’s why I came today. I thought Anita might have heard.
Not my business, of course, but——” She made an awkward, violent gesture
with her hands. “Oh, a genius oughtn’t to marry. It’s wicked waste.
Well, so long! See you tomorrow night!”
She left me abruptly.
I found myself marking time, as it were, all through that morrow, as if
the evening were of great importance. The Baxter girl was always
unsettling, or it may have been Anita’s restlessness that affected me.
Anita was on edge. She was writing, writing, all the morning. She was at
her desk when I came down. There was a mass of packets and papers in
front of her and an empty coffee cup. I believe she had been writing all
night. She had that white look round her eyes. But she didn’t need any
typing done. Early in the afternoon she went out and at once Great-aunt,
in her corner, put down her knitting with a little catch of her breath.
But she didn’t talk: she sat watching the door. I had been half the day
at the window, fascinated by the fog. I’d never seen a London fog
before. I found myself writing a letter in my head to Mother about it,
about the way it would change from black to yellow and then clear off to
let in daylight and sparrow-talk and the tramp-tramp of feet, and then
back again to silence, and the sun like a ball that you could reach up
to with your hand and hold. I was deep in my description—and then, of a
sudden, I remembered that she wasn’t there to write to any more. It was
so hard to remember always that she was dead. I got up quickly and went
to Anita’s shelves for a book. Great-aunt hadn’t noticed anything. She
was still watching the door.
The little back room that opened on to the staircase was lined to the
ceiling with books, all so tidy and alphabetical. Anita lived for books,
but I used to wonder why. She didn’t love them. Her books never opened
friendlily at special places, and they hadn’t the proper smell. I ran my
finger along the ‘G’s’ and pulled out _Eden Walls_.
I began in the middle of course. One always falls into the middle of a
real person’s life, and a book is a person. There’s always time to find
out their beginning afterwards when you’ve decided to be friends. It
isn’t always worth while. But it was with _Eden Walls_. I liked the
voice in which the story was being told. Soon I began to feel happier.
Then I began to feel excited. It said things I’d always thought, you
know. It was extraordinary that it knew how I felt about things. There’s
a bit where the heroine comes to town and the streets scare her, because
they go on, and on, and on, always in straight lines, like a corridor in
a dream. Now how did she know of that dream? I turned back to the first
page and began to read steadily.
When Anita’s voice jerked me back to real life it was nearly dark. She
was speaking to Great-aunt as she took off her wraps—
“The fog’s confusing. I had to take a taxi to the tube. A trunk call is
an endless business.”
“Well?” said Great-aunt.
“Nothing fresh.”
“Did _he_ answer?”
Anita nodded.
“Was he——? Is she——? Did you ask——? What did he tell you, Anita?”
Anita stabbed at her hat with her long pins. She was flushing.
“The usual details. He spares you nothing. Have you had tea, Mother?”
She rang the bell.
Great-aunt beat her hand on the arm of her chair in a feeble, restless
way. When I brought her tea she said to me in her confidential whisper—
“Give it to my daughter. She’s tired. She’ll tell us when she’s not so
tired.”
She settled herself again to watch; but she watched Anita, not the door.