“There’s nothing more to tell. We got up and came away.”
But as we sat silently by, still waiting, the storyteller crept back
into her face.
“Oh, yes—” up went her forefinger. “It was then that it happened. We
went stumbling over the graves, round to the east end, to see the
lepers’ window, a particularly interesting one. Ruskin mentions it. Yes,
Carey came with us. There’s a little bit of bare lawn under the window
before the stones begin again, and as we crossed it Madala gave a kind
of shuddering start. He said—‘Cold?’ smiling at her. She shivered again,
in spite of herself as it were, for she’d been joking and laughing, and
said—‘Someone must be walking over my grave.’ And at that he gave her
such a look, and said loudly in a great rough voice—‘Rubbish! don’t talk
such rubbish!’ Really, you know, the tone! And I thought to myself then
as I’ve thought many times since—‘At heart the man’s a bully—that’s what
the man is.’ But Madala laughed. We didn’t stay long after that. The
window was a disappointment—restored. There was nothing further to see
and Madala was quite right—it was chilly. The sky had clouded over and
there was a wind. I thought it time to go. Madala made no objection. She
had grown curiously quiet. She tired easily, you know. And he didn’t say
another word. Quite time to go. I thought we might try for the earlier
train, so we went off at last in a hurry. No, he didn’t come with us: we
shook hands at the gate. And when I looked back a minute later he had
turned away. We caught our train.”
There was a little pause that Miss Howe ended.
“Queer!” she said.
Anita stared at them. Her hands twitched.
“Oh, I’m a practical person, but—‘You’re walking on my grave,’ she said.
And there or thereabouts, I suppose, she’ll lie.”
“Coincidence,” said Mr. Flood quickly.
“Of course. I never thought of it again. Nor did Madala for that matter,
though she was quiet enough in the train. There she sat, looking out of
the window and smiling to herself. But then she was always like that
after any little excitement, very quiet for an hour, re-living
it—literally. I think, you know,” she hesitated, “that that was the
secret of her genius. Her genius was her memory. _She liked whate’er she
looked on_——”
“And her looks were certainly everywhere,” said the blonde lady in her
drawling voice.
“Just so. But it didn’t end there. She remembered. She remembered
uncannily. She was like a child picking up pebbles from the beach every
holiday, and spending all the rest of its year polishing. She turned
them into jewels. The process used to fascinate me—professionally, you
know. You could see her mind at work on some trifling incident,
fidgeting with it, twisting it, dropping it, picking it up again, till
one wearied. And then a year later, or two years, or three years, or ten
years maybe, you’ll pick up a novel or a story, and there you’ll find
it, cut, graved, polished, set in diamonds, but—the same pebble, if one
has the wit to see.”
“Well, what did she say?” Miss Howe cut through the theory impatiently.
Anita frowned. She disliked being hurried.
“Oh, that day? Very little. I was surprised. She usually enjoyed pouring
herself out to me. But no, she just sat and smiled. It irritated me.
‘What is it, Madala?’ I said at last. She stared at me as if she had
never seen me before. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in her vague way. And
then—‘Wasn’t it a lovely day?’ I waited. I knew she would go on sooner
or later. Presently she said—‘That stone we sat on _was_ damp. He was
quite right.’ Then she said, thinking aloud as it were—‘You know, if a
man has a really pleasant voice, I like it better than women’s voices.
It’s so steady.’ And then—‘What did you think of him, Anita?’”
Miss Howe chuckled.
“And you said?”
“Oh, I said what I could. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It was so
obvious that the place and everyone in it was beglamoured for her. I
said that he seemed a worthy, harmless person, or something to that
effect. I forget exactly how I phrased it—I was tactful, of course. Oh,
I remember, I said that she ought to put him into a book—that the old
country doctors were disappearing, like the farmers and the parsons. I’m
sure I appeared interested. But all she said was—‘Old? He’s not old.
Would you call him old?’ ‘That was a figure of speech,’ I said. ‘I was
thinking of the type. But all the same you can’t describe him as young,
Madala.’ ‘Oh, he’s not a boy,’ she said. ‘No one ever said he was a
_boy_.’ She didn’t say any more. But just as we were getting out at
Victoria she cried—‘My cowslips! Anita, my cowslips! I’ve forgotten my
cowslip ball.’ I told her that it wouldn’t have lasted anyway, with the
stalks nipped off so short. But she looked as if she had lost a
kingdom.”
“I believe I know that cowslip ball.” Miss Howe looked amused. “_A_
cowslip ball, anyway. She had one sent to her once when I was there. I
thought it was from her slum children.”
“Yes, he sent it on.” My cousin went on quickly with her own story. “How
he knew the address puzzled me. Her publishers wouldn’t have given it
and I know she didn’t.”
“Telephone book,” said the Baxter girl, as one experienced.
“Ah, possibly. I went round to her that morning, and—yes, you were
there, Lila,” she conceded, “for I remember I wondered how Madala could
compose herself to work with anyone else in the room. I always left her
to herself when she stayed with me.”
“She didn’t mind me,” said Miss Howe firmly.
“She always said that she didn’t, I know. And of course I know that it
is possible to withdraw oneself as it were, but I confess I disapproved.
Her room was a regular clearing-house in those days. Oh, not you
particularly, Lila, but——”
“You came in yourself that morning, didn’t you?” said Miss Howe very
softly and sweetly.
“I was telling you so. And what did I find? Her desk littered over with
string and paper and moss and damp cardboard, and that story Hooper
published (it had been freshly typed only the day before) watering into
purple under my eyes, while she sat and gloated over those wretched
flowers. ‘Madala!’ I said, ‘your manuscript! Really, Madala!’”
“And Madala—” Miss Howe began to laugh—“Oh, I remember now.”
“What did Madala say?” demanded the Baxter girl.
“It wasn’t like her.” Anita fidgeted. “She knew how I disliked the
modern manner.”
“But she said,” Miss Howe caught it up—
“I don’t know what possessed her,” said my cousin with a rush. “She
actually stamped her foot at me. Yes, she did, and then held out her
wretched posy and said—‘Oh, damn the manuscript, Nita! Smell!’”
“What did Nita do?” enquired the blonde lady softly of Miss Howe.
“Sniffed,” Mr. Flood struck in. “Obviously! Satisfied Madala and
relieved her own feelings. That is called tact.”
“And just then, you know,” Miss Howe glanced over her shoulder and
lowered her voice, “_he_ came in.”
“Kent?” The lady with Mr. Flood did not lower her voice. I believe she
wanted him to hear. She was like a curious child poking at a hurt
beastie. Her smile was infantine as she looked across at him. But the
man at the window never stirred.
“Sh!” Miss Howe frowned at her. And then, still whispering—“Yes, don’t
you remember? he had his studio in the same block all that year. He
always came across to Madala when he wanted a sardine tin opened, or
change for his gas, or someone to sit to him.”
“Someone was saying that he couldn’t keep a model.” Mr. Flood glanced at
them in turn.
Miss Howe flushed surprisingly.
“It’s not that. You ought to know better, Jasper. It’s only that he’s
exigeant—never knows how the time goes, and” (she lowered her voice
still more), “and Madala spoilt him. She could sit by the hour looking
like a Madonna, and getting all her own head-work done, and never
stirring a hair. Of course he doesn’t like the shilling an hour type
after her.”
“I know, I know! The explanation is quite unnecessary.” He smiled and
waved his hand.
“Then why——?” She was still flushed and annoyed.
“One gets at other people’s views. I merely wondered how
the—er—partnership appeared to your—er—intelligence. Now I know.”
“She did spoil him.” Anita disregarded them. “The time she wasted on
him! In he came, you know, that day, and she went to meet him with the
cowslips still in her hand, and shielding her eyes from the sun. That
room of hers got all the morning sun.”
“What did she wear—the blue dress?” The Baxter girl was like a child
being told a story.
“I forget. Anyway he stood looking her up and down till she reddened and
began to laugh at him. And then he said—‘And cowslips too! What luck!
Come along! Come _along_!’ ‘Oh, my good man!’ I said, ‘she’s in the
middle of her writing!’ But it was useless to expostulate. He wanted her
and so she went. I heard him as he dragged her off. ‘Madala, I’ve got
such a notion!’ No, it was the great fault of her character, I consider,
that she could never deny anyone, not even for her work’s sake. Still, I
suppose one had to forgive it in that case, for that was the beginning,
you know, of _The Spring Song_. She is painted just as she stood there
that morning, literally gilded over with sunshine, and the flowers in
her hands.”
“It’s the best thing he’s ever done, isn’t it?” said the Baxter girl.
“Best thing? It’s a master-piece. It’s Madala Grey.”
“When is he going to show it?” asked Mr. Flood.
Anita shrugged.
“Heaven knows! He insists that it isn’t finished. I believe he sits and
prays over it. He was annoyed that Madala took me there one day. You
know how touchy he is.”
“He won’t show it now,” said the blonde lady.
“Why not? Why not?” Anita hovered, on the pounce, like a cat over a bowl
of goldfish, and like a fish the blonde lady glided out of reach.
“And _she_ asks!” she appealed to the others.
Anita frowned.
“You’re cryptic.”
“Well, wasn’t there a certain—rivalry? You should have a
fellow-feeling.”
“Oh—” she resented quickly, “Kent always wanted to keep her to himself,
if you mean that.”
The blonde lady smiled.
“And now he keeps her to himself. I mean just that. I go by your
account, of course. _I_ haven’t glimpsed _The Spring Song_.”
“So that started it.” The Baxter girl mused aloud. “I think that’s
romantic now—to make a famous picture and to pick up one’s husband, all
in twenty-four hours.”
“‘Pick up!’”
“You know what I mean—fall in love.”
“‘Fall in love!’”
“Nita, don’t trample.” Miss Howe threw the Baxter girl a cigarette.
“I only mean—it was romantic, meeting like that so long ago and nobody
knowing a word until just before they were married, except you, Miss
Serle. And I don’t believe you guessed?” She questioned her with defiant
eyebrows.
“How could I guess what never happened? ‘In love!’ I suppose it deceived
some good folks.”
“It wasn’t so long ago,” Miss Howe soothered them. She had a funny
little way of slipping people into another subject if she thought that
they sounded quarrelsome. ‘Let’s be comfortable!’ was written all over
her. And yet she could scratch. I think that a great many women are like
Miss Howe.
“Long ago? Of course not!” Anita picked it up at once. “How long is it?
A year? Eighteen months? April, wasn’t it? She wrote _The Resting-place_
in the next three months. Scamped. I shall always say so. She was three
years over _Ploughed Fields_. Yes, April began it. _The Resting-place_
was out for the Christmas sales. She married him at Easter. And now it’s
November. The year’s not gone. But Madala Grey is gone.”
“Where?” said the Baxter girl intensely.
“Don’t!” said Miss Howe.
But the Baxter girl looked as if she couldn’t stop herself.
“We—we put her into the past tense—d’you notice how easily we’re doing
it already?—but—is she less alive to you, less lovable, less Madala Grey
to you, because of a telegram and a funeral service? is she?”
“No,” said Miss Howe. “If you put it like that—no.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Flood. “When you put it like that—yes.”
“She must be somewhere,” argued the Baxter girl. “She can’t just stop.”
“Why not?” said Mr. Flood, with his bored smile.
“She can’t. I feel it,” she said with her hand at her heart and her
large eyes on him.
“I don’t,” he said to her, and he lost his smile. “‘Dust to dust——’”
The woman behind him moved restlessly.
“Jasper, _dear_! How trite!”
“But the spirit?” said the Baxter girl, “the spirit?”
Nobody answered. The little blue flames on the hearth capered and said
‘Chik-chik!’ Anita shivered.
“The room’s getting cold,” she said sharply. And then—“Jenny, is that
door open? There’s such a draught.”
I got up and went to see. But the door was shut. When I came back they
were talking again. Anita was answering the Baxter girl.
“Yes, I stayed there once. A pretty place. The sort of place she would
choose. All roses. No conveniences. And what with the surgery and the
socialism, the poor seemed to be always with us. Only one servant——”
“She _ought_ to have made money,” said Miss Howe.
“Oh, the first two books were a _succès d’estime_, I wept over her
contract. She did make a considerable amount of money on _The
Resting-place_. But it was all put by for the child. She told me so. He,
you know, a poor man’s doctor! She told me that too—flung it at me. She
had an extravagant way of talking, manner more than anything, of course,
but to hear her you would almost think she was proud of the life they
led. She was always unpractical.”
“I’d like to have gone down there once,” said Miss Howe. “If I’d
known—heigh-ho!”
“I—I wished I hadn’t gone,” said Anita slowly. “It wasn’t a success.”
“The husband, I suppose,” the Baxter girl hinted delicately.
“No, I hardly saw him. It was Madala herself. Changed. Affectionate—she
was always that to me but——I remember sitting with her once. We had been
talking, about Aphra Behn I believe, and she had grown flushed and had
begun to stammer a little. You know her way?”
“I know.” The Baxter girl leaned forward eagerly.
“And she was tracing a parallel between the development of the novel and
the growth of the woman’s movement—her old vein. Brilliant, she was. And
all at once she stopped and began staring in front of her. You know that
trick she had of frowning out her thoughts. I was careful not to
interrupt. I knew something big was coming. She could be—prophetic,
sometimes. At last she said in a worried sort of way—‘I’ve a dreadful
feeling that we’re out of coffee and it’s early closing.’ No, I’m not
exaggerating—her very words. And then some long rigmarole about Carey’s
appetite, and that if she made the coffee black strong she could
persuade him to take more milk with it. Oh—pitiful! And in a moment
she’d dashed off on a three mile walk to the next village where there
was a grocer that did open on Wednesdays. Oh, it was most pathetic. It
made me realize the effect that he was having on her—stultifying! I
always did dislike him.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Howe.
“Just so—you don’t know. Naturally, you were not so intimate with
Madala. Well, that very afternoon, I remember, he came in at tea-time.
That was unusual: he was generally late for seven-thirty dinner, and
then he didn’t change. I used to wonder how Madala allowed it. Well, as
I was telling you, he came in, stamping through the hall, calling to
her, and when he opened the drawing-room door and found that she was
out, you should have seen his look! Sour! No other word! And off he went
at once to meet her, on his bicycle, though I was prepared to give him
tea. They didn’t come back for hours. In fact I had gone up to change. I
saw them from the window, coming up the drive. And there was Madala
Grey, perched on _his_ bicycle, with a great bunch of that white parsley
that grows in the hedges, and a string bag dangling down, while he
steadied her, and both of them _talking_! and as he helped her off, she
kissed him—in front of the kitchen windows. And, if you please, not a
word of apology to me. All she said was—why hadn’t I seen that he had
some tea before he went after her? I think it’s the only time I’ve ever
seen Madala annoyed. No, you can’t say the marriage improved her.” She
paused. “It was so unlike her,” she meditated, “as if I could help it!
You know, I’d always thought her so considerate. Carey’s influence, of
course. Oh,” she cried out suddenly and angrily, “I’ve got nothing
against Carey. I’m not prejudiced. But if he’d been the sort of man one
could approve—someone——” Her eye wandered from Kent Rehan to Mr.
Flood—“but he was dragging her down——”
Miss Howe shook her head.
“Anita, you’re wrong. I’ve only met him a couple of times but I liked
what I saw of him. An honest, straightforward sort of person. Oh, not
clever, of course. He’d have bored me in a week——”
“Ah?” said the woman behind Mr. Flood.
“Oh, yes, dull—distinctly. But I had the impression that if I’d been one
of his patients I should have done everything he told me to do.”
Anita shrugged.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt he had every virtue, but it’s idle to pretend that he
made any attempt to appreciate Madala Grey.”
“You don’t suggest that the man didn’t love his wife, do you?” said Miss
Howe in her downright way.
“I suggest nothing. But the fact remains—I give it for what it is
worth—but the fact does remain that John Carey has never read one of her
books—not one!”
“What?” The Baxter girl’s mouth opened and stayed so.
“You don’t intend to say——” began Mr. Flood.
“I don’t believe it,” said Miss Howe contemptuously.
“Why not? I’ve known a man jealous of his wife before now. I suppose he
knew enough to know that she had the brains.” The blonde lady was
smiling.
Anita shook her head reluctantly.
“Jealousy? H’m—it might have been, of course. But I didn’t get that
impression. I believe that it was a perfectly genuine lack of interest.”
“Yes, but I don’t believe it. How d’you know he didn’t? It’s not a thing
he’d own to. Who told you?”
“Madala. Madala herself. She used to make a joke of it.”
“She never showed when she was hurt,” said the Baxter girl emotionally.
“Yes, but it almost seemed as if she were not hurt, as if her—her
sensitiveness, her better feelings, had been blunted. I’ve known her use
it as a _weapon_ almost,” said Anita conscientiously recollecting.
“He—that annoyed me so—he was very peremptory with her sometimes, most
rude in his manner. Of course, you know, she _was_ dreamy. Not that that
excused him for a moment. I remember a regular scene——”
“Before you?” Miss Howe cast instant doubt upon it.
“My room was next to theirs. I could hear them through the wall. I can
assure you that he stormed at her in a most ungentlemanly way——”
“What about?” said the Baxter girl breathlessly.
“Something about his razors. A parcel had come by the early post, and
just because she had cut the string—but I couldn’t follow it all. He was
a man who was easily irritated by trifles. Well, as I say, after he had
raged at her for five minutes or more, till I could have gone in and
spoken to him myself, all that that patient woman said, was—‘Darling,
have you begun _Eden Walls_ yet?’ I tell you the man never said another
word.”
“He didn’t prevent her writing, did he?” said Miss Howe.
“There’s no doubt that he discouraged her. He was selfish. It was his
wretched doctoring all day long—and you know how sensitive Madala was. I
did persuade her to do some work while I was staying with them, but I
soon saw that it was labour thrown away. Her heart wasn’t in it. When it
wasn’t Carey it was the baby clothes. For the sake of her reputation,”
her voice hardened, “it’s as well that she has died when she has.”
“Anita!”
“I mean it.” She was quick and fierce. “Do you think it was a little
thing for me to see that pearl of great price—oh, not Madala Grey! I
grew to hate her almost, that new Madala Grey—but the gift within her,
her great, blazing genius—flung away, trampled on——”
Miss Howe turned her head in slow denial.
“No, Anita! Not genius. Charm, if you like. Talent, as much as you
please. But Madala Grey wasn’t a genius, and she knew it.”
Anita flung up her head.
“She will be when I’ve done with her. She will be when I’ve written the
_Life_.”
“Ah, the poor child!” said Great-aunt startlingly.
Anita never heeded. She was wrapt away in some cold passion of her own,
a passion that amazed me. I had always thought of her as what she
looked, an ordered, steely woman, all brain and will; yet now of a
sudden she revealed herself, a creature convulsed, writhing in flames.
But they were cold flames. Cold fire, is there such a thing? Ice burns.
There is phosphorus. There is the light of stars. I know what I mean if
only I had the words. Star-fire—that’s it. She was like a dead star. She
warmed no one, she only burned herself up.
It was the impression of a moment. When I looked again it was as if I
had been withdrawn from a telescope. She was herself once more. The
volcano had shrunk to a diamond twinkle, to a tiny, gesticulating
creature with a needle tongue. It was bewildering: while I listened to
her I was still thinking—‘Yes, but which is Anita? Diamond or star? What
makes the glitter? Frost or flame?’
But that blonde woman in the shadows went off into noiseless laughter
that woke the dragons and stirred Mr. Flood to an upward glance. Then he
hunched himself closer against her knees, his chin low on his chest, so
that his tiny beard and mouth and eyes were like triangles standing on
their points. The pose gave him a glinting air of mockery and yet,
somehow, you did not feel that he was amused. You only felt—‘Oh, he’s
practised that at a looking-glass.’