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diff --git a/25971-h/25971-h.htm b/25971-h/25971-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..622c9a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/25971-h/25971-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22038 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Creators, by May Sinclair</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Creators, by May Sinclair, Illustrated by +Arthur I. Keller</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Creators</p> +<p> A Comedy</p> +<p>Author: May Sinclair</p> +<p>Release Date: July 4, 2008 [eBook #25971]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATORS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1>THE CREATORS</h1> + +<h3><i>A COMEDY</i></h3> + +<h2>BY MAY SINCLAIR</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "THE DIVINE FIRE," "THE HELPMATE," ETC.</h3> + + +<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS<br /> +BY ARTHUR I. KELLER</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>NEW YORK<br /> +THE CENTURY CO.<br /> +1910</h3> + + +<h3>Copyright, 1909, 1910, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></h3> + + +<h3><i>Published, October, 1910</i></h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs01" id="gs01"></a> +<img src="images/gs01.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"To the book!" she said. "To Nina Lempriere's book! You can drink now, George."</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#I">I</a><br /> +<a href="#II">II</a><br /> +<a href="#III">III</a><br /> +<a href="#IV">IV</a><br /> +<a href="#V">V</a><br /> +<a href="#VI">VI</a><br /> +<a href="#VII">VII</a><br /> +<a href="#VIII">VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#IX">IX</a><br /> +<a href="#X">X</a><br /> +<a href="#XI">XI</a><br /> +<a href="#XII">XII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIII">XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIV">XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XV">XV</a><br /> +<a href="#XVI">XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XVII">XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XIX">XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XX">XX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXI">XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXII">XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXV">XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXX">XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#XL">XL</a><br /> +<a href="#XLI">XLI</a><br /> +<a href="#XLII">XLII</a><br /> +<a href="#XLIII">XLIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XLIV">XLIV</a><br /> +<a href="#XLV">XLV</a><br /> +<a href="#XLVI">XLVI</a><br /> +<a href="#XLVII">XLVII</a><br /> +<a href="#XLVIII">XLVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#XLIX">XLIX</a><br /> +<a href="#L">L</a><br /> +<a href="#LI">LI</a><br /> +<a href="#LII">LII</a><br /> +<a href="#LIII">LIII</a><br /> +<a href="#LIV">LIV</a><br /> +<a href="#LV">LV</a><br /> +<a href="#LVI">LVI</a><br /> +<a href="#LVII">LVII</a><br /> +<a href="#LVIII">LVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#LIX">LIX</a><br /> +<a href="#LX">LX</a><br /> +<a href="#LXI">LXI</a><br /> +<a href="#LXII">LXII</a><br /> +<a href="#LXIII">LXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#LXIV">LXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#LXV">LXV</a><br /> +<a href="#LXVI">LXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#LXVII">LXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#LXVIII">LXVIII</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p><a href="#gs01">"To the book!" she said. "To Nina Lempriere's book! You can drink now, +George."</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs02">"How any one can be unkind to dumb animals," said Rose, musing.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs03">"Why do you talk about my heart?"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs04">Jane started at this sudden voice of her own thought.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs05">"And he," she said, "has still a chance if I fail you?"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs06">She had wrung it from him, the thing that six days ago he had come to +her to say.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs07">It was Jinny who lay there, Jinny, his wife.</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs08">"Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me!"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs09">"George," she said ... "I love you for defending him"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs10">She closed her eyes, "I'm quite happy"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#gs11">Jane stood in the doorway, quietly regarding them.</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE CREATORS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + + +<p>Three times during dinner he had asked himself what, after all, was he +there for? And at the end of it, as she rose, her eyes held him for the +first time that evening, as if they said that he would see.</p> + +<p>She had put him as far from her as possible, at the foot of her table +between two of the four preposterous celebrities whom she had asked him, +George Tanqueray, to meet.</p> + +<p>Everything, except her eyes, had changed since he had last dined with +Jane Holland, in the days when she was, if anything, more obscure than +he. It was no longer she who presided at the feast, but her portrait by +Gisborne, R.A. He had given most of his attention to the portrait.</p> + +<p>Gisborne, R.A., was a solemn egoist, and his picture represented, not +Jane Holland, but Gisborne's limited idea of her. It was a sombre face, +broadened and foreshortened by the heavy, leaning brows. A face with a +straight-drawn mouth and eyes prophetic of tragedy, a face in which her +genius brooded, downcast, flameless, and dumb. He had got all her +features, her long black eyebrows, her large, deep-set eyes, flattened +queerly by the level eyebrows, her nose, a trifle too long in the +bridge, too wide in the nostril, and her mouth which could look straight +enough when her will was dominant. He had got her hair, the darkness and +the mass of it. Tanqueray, in his abominable way, had said that Gisborne +had put his best work into that, and when Gisborne resented it he had +told him that it was immortality enough for any one to have painted Jane +Holland's hair. (This was in the days when Gisborne was celebrated and +Tanqueray was not.)</p> + +<p>If Jane had had the face that Gisborne gave her she would never have had +any charm for Tanqueray. For what Gisborne had tried to get was that +oppressive effect of genius, heavily looming. Not a hint had he caught +of her high levity, of her look when the bright devil of comedy +possessed her, not a flash of her fiery quality, of her eyes' sudden +gold, and the ways of her delicate, her brilliant mouth, its fine, +deliberate sweep, its darting tilt, like wings lifted for flight.</p> + +<p>When Tanqueray wanted to annoy Jane he told her that she looked like her +portrait by Gisborne, R.A.</p> + +<p>They were all going to the play together. But at the last moment, she, +to Tanqueray's amazement, threw them over. She was too tired, she said, +to go.</p> + +<p>The celebrities pressed round her, voluble in commiseration. Of course, +if she wasn't going, they wouldn't go. They didn't want to. They would +sacrifice a thousand plays, but not an evening with Jane Holland. They +bowed before her in all the postures and ceremonies of their adoration. +And Jane Holland looked at them curiously with her tired eyes; and +Tanqueray looked at her. He wondered how on earth she was going to get +rid of them.</p> + +<p>She did it with a dexterity he would hardly have given her credit for. +Her tired eyes helped her.</p> + +<p>Then, as the door was closing on them, she turned to him.</p> + +<p>"Are you going with them," she said, "or will you stay with me?"</p> + +<p>"I am certainly not going with them——" He paused, hesitating.</p> + +<p>"Then—you'll stay?" For the first time in their intercourse she +hesitated too.</p> + +<p>"But you're tired?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Not now."</p> + +<p>She smiled appealingly, but not like a woman sure of the success of her +appeal.</p> + +<p>That lapse of certainty marked a difference in their relations. He chose +to put it down to the strange circumstance of her celebrity; and, though +he hesitated, he stayed. To stay was, after all, the thing which at the +moment he most wanted to do. And the thing which Tanqueray most wanted +to do at the moment that he invariably did. This temper of his had but +one drawback, that it left him at the moment's mercy.</p> + +<p>That was what he felt now when he found himself alone with her for the +first time in many weeks.</p> + +<p>She wondered how far he had seen through her. She had made the others go +that he might stay with her, a palpable man[oe]uvre. Of course she would +not have lent herself to it for any ordinary man. His genius justified +her.</p> + +<p>Six weeks ago she would not have had to retreat behind his genius. Six +weeks ago she had never thought of his genius as a thing apart from him. +There was her own genius, if it came to that. It had its rights. Six +weeks ago she would not have had to apologize to herself for keeping +him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you could change your mind so quickly," he said.</p> + +<p>"If you had my mind, George, you'd want to change it."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with your mind, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"It won't work."</p> + +<p>"Ah, it's come to that, has it? I knew it would."</p> + +<p>She led the way into another room, the room she wrote in. Jane lived +alone. Sometimes he had wondered how she liked it.</p> + +<p>There was defiance in her choice of that top floor in the old house in +Kensington Square. To make sure her splendid isolation, she had cut +herself off by a boarded, a barricaded staircase, closed with a door at +the foot. Tanqueray knew well that consecrated, book-lined room, and the +place of everything it held. He had his own place there, the place of +honour and affection. His portrait (a mere photograph) was on her +writing-table. His "Works"—five novels—were on a shelf by themselves +at the head of her chair, where she could lay her hands on them.</p> + +<p>For they had found each other before the world had found her. That was +the charm which had drawn them together, which, more than any of her +charms, had held him until now. She had preserved the incomparable +innocence of a great artist; she was free, with the freedom of a great +nature, from what Tanqueray, who loathed it, called the "literary +taint." They both avoided the circles where it spread deepest, in their +nervous terror of the social process, of "getting to know the right +people." They confessed that, in the beginning, they had fought shy even +of each other, lest one of them should develop a hideous susceptibility +and impart the taint. There were points at which they both might have +touched the aristocracy of journalism; but they had had no dealings with +its proletariat or its demi-monde. Below these infernal circles they had +discerned the fringe of the bottomless pit, popularity, which he, the +Master, told her was "<i>the</i> unclean thing." So that in nineteen hundred +and two George Tanqueray, as a novelist, stood almost undiscovered on +his tremendous height.</p> + +<p>But it looked as if Jane Holland were about to break her charm.</p> + +<p>"I hope," he said, "it hasn't spoilt you, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"What hasn't?"</p> + +<p>"Your pop—your celebrity."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about it. It's bad enough when they——"</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> needn't. I must. Celebrity—you observe that I call it by no +harsher name—celebrity is the beginning of the end. I don't want you to +end that way."</p> + +<p>"I shan't. It's not as if I were intrigued by it. You don't know how I +hate it sometimes."</p> + +<p>"You hate it, yet you're drawn."</p> + +<p>"By what? By my vanity?"</p> + +<p>"Not by your vanity, though there is that."</p> + +<p>"By what, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, you're a woman."</p> + +<p>"Mayn't I be?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said brutally, "you mayn't."</p> + +<p>For a moment her eyes pleaded: "Mayn't I be a woman?" But she was +silent, and he answered her silence rather than her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Because you've genius."</p> + +<p>"Do you, you of all people, tie me down to that?"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Why not I?"</p> + +<p>"Because it was you who told me not to keep back. You told me not to +live alone. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>He remembered. It was in the days when he first knew her.</p> + +<p>"I did. Because you ran to the other extreme then. You were terrified of +life."</p> + +<p>"Because I was a woman. You told me to be a woman!"</p> + +<p>"Because I was the only man you knew. How you remember things."</p> + +<p>"That comes of living alone. I've never really forgotten anything you +ever said to me. It's where I score."</p> + +<p>"You had nobody but me to talk to then, if you remember."</p> + +<p>"No. Nobody but you."</p> + +<p>"And it wasn't enough for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, wasn't it? When you were never the same person for a week together. +It was like knowing fifteen or twenty men."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "I've always been the same man to you, Jinny. Haven't I?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not so sure," said she.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, you were safe with me."</p> + +<p>"From what?"</p> + +<p>"From being 'had.' But now you've begun knowing all sorts of people——"</p> + +<p>"Is that why you've kept away from me?"</p> + +<p>He ignored her question. "Awful people, implacable, insatiable, +pernicious, destructive people. The trackers down, the hangers-on, the +persecutors, the pursuers. Did <i>I</i> ever pursue you?"</p> + +<p>"No, George. I can't say you ever did. I can't see you pursuing any +one."</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> will. And they'll have you at every turn."</p> + +<p>"No. I'm safe. You see, I don't care for any of them."</p> + +<p>"They'll 'have' you all the same. You lend yourself to being 'had.'"</p> + +<p>"Do I?" She said it defiantly.</p> + +<p>"No. You never lend—you give yourself. To be eaten up. You let +everybody prey on you. You'd be preyed on by me, if I let you."</p> + +<p>"Oh—you——"</p> + +<p>"And yet," he said, "I wonder——"</p> + +<p>He paused, considering her with brilliant but unhappy eyes.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said, "where do you get the fire that you put into your +books?"</p> + +<p>"Where you get yours," she said.</p> + +<p>Again he considered her. "Come out of it," he said. "Get away from these +dreadful people, these dreadful, clever little people."</p> + +<p>She smiled, recognizing them.</p> + +<p>"Look at <i>me</i>," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you," she said again, with another intonation.</p> + +<p>"Yes, me. I was born out of it."</p> + +<p>"And I—wasn't I born? Look at <i>me</i>?" She turned to him, holding her +head high.</p> + +<p>"I am looking at you. I've been looking at you all the evening—and I +see a difference already."</p> + +<p>"What you see is the difference in my clothes. There is no difference in +me."</p> + +<p>It was he who was different. She looked at him, trying to penetrate the +secret of his difference. There was a restlessness about him, a fever +and the brilliance fever brought.</p> + +<p>She looked at him and saw a creature dark and colourless, yet splendidly +alive. She knew him by heart, every detail of him, the hair, +close-cropped, that left clean the full backward curve of his head; his +face with its patches of ash and bistre; his eyes, hazel, lucid, intent, +sunk under irritable brows; his mouth, narrowish, the lower lip full, +pushed forward with the slight prominence of its jaw, the upper lip +accentuated by the tilt of its moustache. Tanqueray's face, his +features, always seemed to her to lean forward as against a wind, +suggesting things eager and in salient flight. They shared now in his +difference, his excitement. His eyes as they looked at her had lost +something of their old lucidity. They were more brilliant and yet +somehow more obscure.</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, she saw how he was driven.</p> + +<p>He was out on the first mad hunt with love. Love and he stalked the +hills, questing the visionary maid.</p> + +<p>It was not she. His trouble was as yet vague and purely impersonal. She +saw (it was her business) by every infallible sign and token that it was +not she. She saw, too, that he was enraged with her for this reason, +that it was not she. That showed that he was approaching headlong the +point of danger; and she, if she were his friend, was bound to keep him +back. He was not in love with her or with any one, but he was in that +insane mood when honourable men marry, sometimes disastrously. Any +woman, even she, could draw him to her now by holding out her hand.</p> + +<p>And between them there came a terror, creeping like a beast of prey, +dumb, and holding them dumb. She searched for words to dispel it, but no +words came; her heart beat too quickly; he must hear it beat. That was +not the signal he was waiting for, that beating of her heart.</p> + +<p>He tried to give himself the semblance and the sense of ease by walking +about the room and examining the things in it. There were some that it +had lacked before, signs that the young novelist had increased in +material prosperity. Yes. He had liked her better when she had worked +harder and was as poor as he. They had come to look on poverty as their +protection from the ruinous world. He now realized that it had also been +their protection from each other. He was too poor to marry.</p> + +<p>He reflected with some bitterness that Jane was not, now.</p> + +<p>She in her corner called him from his wanderings. She had made the +coffee. He drank it where he stood, on the hearthrug, ignoring his old +place on the sofa by her side.</p> + +<p>She brooded there, leaving her cup untasted. She had man[oe]uvred to +keep him. And now she wished that she had let him go.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to drink your coffee?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No. I shan't sleep if I do."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you been sleeping?"</p> + +<p>"Not very well."</p> + +<p>"That's why you're looking like your portrait. That man isn't such a +silly ass as I thought he was."</p> + +<p>"I wish," she said, "you'd contrive to forget him, and it, and +everything."</p> + +<p>"Everything?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean. The horrid thing that's happened to me. My—my +celebrity." She brought it out with a little shiver of revolt.</p> + +<p>He laughed. "But when you remind me of it every minute? When it's +everlastingly, if I may say so, on the carpet?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes followed his. It was evident that she had bought a new one.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't mean what you think it does. It isn't, it really isn't as +bad as that——"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be. I'm still living from hand to mouth, only rather larger +mouthfuls."</p> + +<p>"Why apologize?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help it. You make me feel like some horrid literary parvenu."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> make you feel——?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You—you. You don't think me a parvenu, do you?" she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"You know what I think you."</p> + +<p>"I don't. I only know what you used to think me."</p> + +<p>"I think the same."</p> + +<p>"Tell me—tell me."</p> + +<p>"I think, if you can hold yourself together for the next five years, +you'll write a superb book, Jinny. But it all depends on what you do +with yourself in the next five years."</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"At the present moment there's hardly any one—of our generation, mind +you—who counts except you and I."</p> + +<p>He paused again.</p> + +<p>"If you and I have done anything decent it's because, first of all, our +families have cast us off."</p> + +<p>"Mine hasn't yet."</p> + +<p>"It's only a question of time if you go on," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>He had never seen Jane's family. He knew vaguely that her father was the +rector of a small parish in Dorset, and that he had had two wives in +such rapid succession that their effect from a distance, so Tanqueray +said, was scandalously simultaneous. The rector, indeed, had married his +first wife for the sake of a child, and his second for the child's sake. +He had thus achieved a younger family so numerous that it had kept him +from providing properly for Jane. It was what Tanqueray called the +"consecrated immorality" of Jane's father that had set Jane free.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's father was a retired colonel. A man of action, of rash and +inconsiderate action, he regarded Tanqueray with a disapproval so warm +and generous that it left the young man freer, if anything, than Jane.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," he went on, "we haven't let ourselves be drawn in. And yet +that's our temptation, yours and mine."</p> + +<p>Again he paused.</p> + +<p>"If we were painters or musicians we should be safer. Their art draws +them by one divine sense. Ours drags us by the heart and brain, by the +very soul, into the thick of it. <i>The</i> unpardonable sin is separating +literature from life. You know that as well as I do."</p> + +<p>She did. She worked divinely, shaping unashamed the bodies and the souls +of men. There was nothing in contemporary literature to compare with the +serene, inspired audacity of Jane Holland. Her genius seemed to have +kept the transcendent innocence of the days before creation.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray continued in his theme. Talking like this allayed his +excitement.</p> + +<p>"We're bound," he said, "to get mixed up with people. They're the stuff +we work in. It's almost impossible to keep sinless and detached. We're +being tempted all the time. People—people—people—we can't have enough +of 'em; we can't keep off 'em. The thing is—to keep 'em off us. And +Jane, I <i>know</i>—they're getting at you."</p> + +<p>She did not deny it. They were.</p> + +<p>"And you haven't the—the nerve to stand up against it."</p> + +<p>"I have stood up against it."</p> + +<p>"You have. So have I. When we were both poor."</p> + +<p>"You want me to be poor?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to be a howling pauper like me, but, well, just +pleasantly short of cash. There's nothing like that for keeping you out +of it."</p> + +<p>"You want me to be thoroughly uncomfortable? Deprived of everything that +makes life amusing?"</p> + +<p>"Thoroughly uncomfortable. Deprived of everything that stands in the way +of your genius."</p> + +<p>She felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a hatred of her genius, this thing +that had been tacked on to her. He cared for it and could be tender to +it, but not to her.</p> + +<p>"You're a cruel beast," she said, smiling through her pain.</p> + +<p>"My cruelty and my beastliness are nothing to the beastliness and the +cruelty of art. The Lord our God is a consuming fire. You must be +prepared to be burnt."</p> + +<p>"It's all very well for you, George. I don't like being burnt."</p> + +<p>That roused him; it stirred the devil in him.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose <i>I</i> like it? Why, you—you don't know what burning <i>is</i>. +It means standing by, on fire with thirst, and seeing other people drink +themselves drunk."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to be drunk, George. Any more than I do."</p> + +<p>"I do not, thank God. But it would be all the same if I did. I can't get +a single thing I do want."</p> + +<p>"Can't you? I should have thought you could have got most things you +really wanted."</p> + +<p>"I could if I were a grocer or a draper. Why, a hair-dresser has more +mastery of the means of life."</p> + +<p>He was telling her, she knew, that he was too poor for the quest of the +matchless lady; and through all his young and sombre rage of frustration +there flashed forth his anger with her as the unfit.</p> + +<p>He began to tramp up and down the room again, by way of distraction from +his mood. Now and then his eyes turned to her with no thought in them, +only that dark, unhappy fire.</p> + +<p>He was quiet now. He had caught sight of some sheets of manuscript lying +on her desk.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Only the last thing I've written."</p> + +<p>"May I look?"</p> + +<p>"You may."</p> + +<p>He took it up and sat beside her, close beside her, and turned the +leaves over with a nervous hand. He was not reading. There was no +thought in his eyes.</p> + +<p>He looked at her again. She saw that he was at the mercy of his moment, +and of hers.</p> + +<p>For it was her moment. There was a power that every woman had, if she +cared to use it and knew how. There was a charm that had nothing to do +with beauty, for it was present in the unbeautiful. These things had +their life secret and apart from every other charm and every other +power. His senses called to the unknown and unacknowledged sense in her. +She knew that he could be hers if she answered to that call. She had +only to kindle her flame, send out her signal.</p> + +<p>And she said to herself, "I can't. I can't take him like this. He isn't +himself. It would be hateful of me."</p> + +<p>In that moment she had no fear. Love held her back and burning honour +that hardly knew itself from shame. It accused her of having +man[oe]uvred for that moment. It said, "You can't let him come in like +this and trap him."</p> + +<p>Another voice in her whispered, "You fool. If you don't marry him some +other woman will—in this mood of his." And honour cried, answering it, +"Let her. So long as it isn't I."</p> + +<p>She had a torturing sense of his presence. And with it her fear came +back to her, and she rose suddenly to her feet, and stood apart from +him.</p> + +<p>He flung the manuscript into the place she had left, and bowed forward, +hiding his face in his hands. He rose too, and she knew that his moment +had gone. She had let it go.</p> + +<p>Then, with a foreboding of his departure, she tried to call him back to +her, not in his way, but her own, the way of the heart.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what I should like to do?" she said. "I should like to +sweep it all away, and to get back to that little room, and for nobody +to come near me but you, nobody to read me but you, nobody to talk about +me but you. Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>He did, but he was not going to talk about it. In the fierceness of his +mortal moment he was impatient of everything that for her held +immorality.</p> + +<p>"We were so happy then," she said. "Why can't we be happy now?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you why."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and I can't bear it. When I think of you——"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with the lucid gaze of the psychologist, of the +physician who knew her malady.</p> + +<p>"Don't think of me," he said. His eyes seemed to say, "That would be +worst of all."</p> + +<p>And so he left her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + + +<p>He really did not want her to think of him, any more than he wanted to +think intensely and continuously of her. What he had admired in her so +much was her deep loyalty to their compact, the way she had let him +alone and insisted on his letting her alone.</p> + +<p>This desire of Tanqueray's for detachment was not so much an attitude as +an instinct. His genius actually throve on his seclusion, and absorption +in life would have destroyed its finest qualities. It had no need of +sustained and frequent intercourse with men and women. For it worked +with an incredible rapidity. It took at a touch and with a glance of the +eye the thing it wanted. It was an eye that unstripped, a hand that +plunged under all coverings to the essential nakedness.</p> + +<p>His device was, "Look and let go." He had never allowed himself to hold +on or be held on to; for thus you were dragged down and swamped; you +were stifled by the stuff you worked in. Your senses, he maintained, +were no good if you couldn't see a thing at the first glance and feel it +with the first touch. Vision and contact prolonged removed you so many +degrees from the reality; and what you saw that way was not a bit of use +to you. He denied perversely that genius was two-sexed, or that it was +even essentially a virile thing. The fruitful genius was feminine, +rather, humble and passive in its attitude to life. It yearned +perpetually for the embrace, the momentary embrace of the real. But no +more. All that it wanted, all that it could deal with was the germ, the +undeveloped thing; the growing and shaping and bringing forth must be +its own. The live thing, the thing that kicked, was never produced in +any other way. Genius in a great realist was itself flesh and blood. It +was only the little men that were the plagiarists of life; only the +sterile imaginations that adopted the already born, and bargained with +experience to do their work for them.</p> + +<p>And yet there was no more assiduous devotee of experience than George +Tanqueray. He repudiated with furious contempt any charge of +inspiration. There was no such thing as inspiration. There was instinct, +and there was eyesight. The rest was all infernal torment and labour in +the sweat of your brow. All this Tanqueray believed sincerely.</p> + +<p>It would have been hard to find a creature so subtle and at the same +time so unsophisticated as he.</p> + +<p>For five years his genius, his temperament and his poverty had combined +to keep him in a half-savage virgin solitude. Men had penetrated it, +among them one or two distinguished in his own profession. But as for +their women, the wives and daughters of the distinguished, he had shrunk +perceptibly from their advances. He condemned their manner as a shade +too patronizing to his proud obscurity. And now, at two-and-thirty, of +three women whom he really knew, he only really cared for one, Jane +Holland.</p> + +<p>He had further escaped the social round by shifting his abode +incessantly, flying from the town to the country, and from the country +back to the town, driven from each haunt, he declared, by people, +persistent, insufferable people.</p> + +<p>For the last week he had been what he called settled at Hampstead. The +charm of Hampstead was that nobody whom he knew lived there.</p> + +<p>He had chosen the house because it stood at a corner, in a road too +steep for traffic. He had chosen his rooms because they looked on to a +green slope with a row of willows at the bottom and a row of willows at +the top, and because, beyond the willows, he could see the line of a low +hill, pure and sharp against the sky. At sunset the grass of his slope +turned to a more piercing green and its patches of brown earth to +purple. He looked at the sublime procession of his willows and reminded +himself with ecstasy that there was not a soul in Hampstead whom he +knew. And that suburb appeared to him an enchanted place where at last +he had found peace. He would stay there for ever, in those two rooms.</p> + +<p>Here, on the morning after he had dined with Jane Holland, he sat down +to write. And he wrote, but with a fury that destroyed more than it +created. In those days Tanqueray could never count upon his genius. The +thing would stay with him peaceably for months at a time; but it never +let him know the precise moment of its arrival or departure. At times it +seemed the one certainty in an otherwise dubious world, at other times +it was a creature of unmistakably feminine caprice. He courted it, and +it avoided him. He let it go, and it came back to him, caressing and +tormenting him, compelling his embrace. There were days when it pursued +and captured him, and then it had wings that swept him divinely to its +end. There were days when he had to go out and find it, and lure the +winged thing back to him. Once caught, it was unswerving in its +operations.</p> + +<p>But Tanqueray had no lower power he could fall back upon when his genius +failed him. And apparently it had failed him now. In forty-eight hours +he had accomplished nothing.</p> + +<p>At the end of the forty-ninth hour wasted, he drew his pen through what +he had written and sank into a depth as yet unknown to him. His genius +had before now appeared to him as an insane hallucination. But still he +had cared for it supremely. Now, the horrible thing was that he did not +care. His genius was of all things that which interested him least. He +was possessed by one trouble and by one want, the more devastating +because it was aimless and obscure.</p> + +<p>That came of dining with Jane Holland.</p> + +<p>He was not in love with Jane. On the contrary, he was very angry with +her for wanting him to be in love with her when he could not be. And he +was angry with himself for wanting to be in love with her when he could +not be, when his heart (by which the psychologist meant his senses) was +not in it.</p> + +<p>But wherever his heart was, his thoughts, when he let them go, were +always running upon Jane. They ran on her now. He conceived of her more +than ever as the unfit. "She's too damnably clever," he kept saying to +himself, "too damnably clever." And he took up her last book just to see +again how damnably clever she was.</p> + +<p>In an instant he was at her feet. She wasn't clever when she wrote that. +What a genius she had, what a burning, flashing, laughing genius. It +matched his own; it rose to it, giving him flame for flame. Almost as +clear-eyed it was, and tenderer hearted. Reading Jane Holland, Tanqueray +became depressed or exalted according to his mood. He was now depressed.</p> + +<p>But he could not leave her. In spirit he remained at her feet. He bowed +himself in the dust. "I couldn't have done it," he said, "to save my +life. I shall never do anything like that."</p> + +<p>He wrote and told her so. But he did not go to see her, as he would have +done six weeks ago.</p> + +<p>And then he began wondering how she conceived these things if she did +not feel them. "I don't believe," he said, "that she doesn't feel. She's +like me." Too like him to be altogether fit.</p> + +<p>So he found confusion in his judgment and mystery in his vision of her, +while his heart made and unmade her image ten times a day.</p> + +<p>He went out and tramped the lanes and fields for miles beyond Hampstead. +He lay stretched out there on his green slopes, trying not to think +about Jane. For all this exercise fatigued him, and made it impossible +for him to think of anything else. And when he got back into his room +its solitude was intolerable. For ten days he had not spoken to any +woman but his landlady. Every morning, before he sat down to write, he +had to struggle with his terror of Mrs. Eldred. It was growing on him +like a nervous malady.</p> + +<p>An ordinary man would have said of Mrs. Eldred that she was rather a +large woman. To Tanqueray, in his malady, she appeared immense. The +appeal of her immensity was not merely to the eye. It fascinated and +demoralized the imagination. Tanqueray's imagination was sane when it +was at work, handling the stuff of life; it saw all things +unexaggerated, unabridged. But the power went wild when he turned it out +to play. It played with Mrs. Eldred's proportions till it became +tormented with visions of shapeless and ungovernable size. He saw her +figure looming in the doorway, brooding over his table and his bed, +rolling through space to inconceivable confines which it burst. For +though this mass moved slowly, it was never still. When it stood it +quivered. Worse than anything, when it spoke it wheezed.</p> + +<p>He had gathered from Mrs. Eldred that her conversation (if you could +call it conversation) was the foredoomed beginning of his day. He braced +himself to it every morning, but at last his nerves gave way, and he +forgot himself so far as to implore her for God's sake not to talk to +him.</p> + +<p>The large woman replied placably that if he would leave everything to +her, it would not be necessary for her to talk.</p> + +<p>He left everything. At the end of the week his peace was charged to him +at a figure which surprised him by its moderation.</p> + +<p>Still he was haunted by one abominable fear, the fear of being ill, +frightfully ill, and dying in some vast portion of her arms. Under the +obsession of this thought he passed whole hours sitting at his desk, +bowed forward, with his face hidden in his hands.</p> + +<p>He was roused from it one evening by a sound that came from the other +end of the room, somewhere near the sideboard. It startled him, because, +being unaccompanied by any wheezing, it could not have proceeded from +Mrs. Eldred. It was, indeed, one of those small voices that come from +things diminutive and young. It seemed to be trying to tell him that +dinner was ready. He looked round over his shoulder to see what kind of +creature it was that could thus introduce itself without his knowledge.</p> + +<p>It was young, young almost to excess. He judged it to be about two- or +three-and-twenty. At his approach it drew as close as possible to the +sideboard. It had the air of cultivating assiduously the art of +self-effacement, for its face, when looked at, achieved an expression of +inimitable remoteness.</p> + +<p>He now perceived that the creature was not only young but most adorably +feminine. He smiled, simply to reassure it.</p> + +<p>"How on earth did you get in without my hearing you?"</p> + +<p>"I was told to be very quiet, sir. And not to speak."</p> + +<p>"Well, you have spoken, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>She, as it were, seized upon and recovered the smile that darted out to +play reprehensibly about the corners of her mouth.</p> + +<p>"I had to," said she.</p> + +<p>Soft-footed and soft-tongued, moving like a breath, that was how Rose +Eldred first appeared to George Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>He had asked her name, and her name, she said, was Rose.</p> + +<p>If you reasoned about Rose, you saw that she had no right to be pretty, +yet she was. Nature had defied reason when she made her, working from +some obscure instinct for roundness; an instinct which would have +achieved perfection in the moulding of Rose's body if Rose had only +grown two inches taller. Not that the purest reason could think of Rose +as dumpy. Her figure, defying nature, passed for perfect. It was her +face that baffled you. It had a round chin that was a shade too large +for it; an absurd little nose with a round end, tilted; grey eyes a +thought too round, and eyebrows too thick by a hair's-breadth. Not a +feature that did not err by a thought, a hair's-breadth or a shade. All +but her mouth, and that was perfect. A small mouth, with lips so soft, +so full, that you could have called it round. It had pathetic corners, +and when she spoke it trembled for very softness. From her mouth upwards +it was as if Rose's face had been first delicately painted, and then as +delicately blurred. Only her chin was left clean and decided.</p> + +<p>And as Nature, in making Rose's body, had erred by excess of roundness, +when it came to Rose's hair, she rioted in an iniquitous, an unjust +largesse of vitality. Rose herself seemed aware of the sin of it, she +tried so hard to restrain it, coiling it tight at the back, and +smoothing it sleek as a bird's wing above her brows. Mouse-colored hair +it was on the top, and shining gold at the temples and at the roots that +curled away under the coil.</p> + +<p>She wore a brown skirt, and a green bodice with a linen collar, and a +knot of brown ribbon at her throat.</p> + +<p>Thus attired, for three days Rose waited on him. For three days she +never spoke a word except to tell him that a meal was ready.</p> + +<p>In three days he noticed a remarkable increase in his material comfort. +There was about Rose a shining cleanliness that imparted itself to +everything she laid her hands on. (Her hands were light in their touch +and exquisitely gentle.) His writing-table was like a shrine that she +tended. Every polished surface of it shone, and every useful thing lay +ready to his hand. Not a paper out of its order, or a pen out of its +place. The charm was that he never caught her at it. In all her +ministrations Rose was secret and silent and unseen.</p> + +<p>Only every evening at nightfall he heard the street door open, and +Rose's voice calling into the darkness, sending out a cry that had the +magic and rhythm of a song, "Puss—Puss—Puss," she called; +"Minny—Min—Min—Minny—Puss—Puss—Puss." That was the hymn with which +Rose saluted the night. It ought to have irritated him, but it didn't.</p> + +<p>It was all he heard of her, till on the fourth evening she broke her +admirable silence. She had just removed the tablecloth, shyly, from +under the book he was reading.</p> + +<p>"It isn't good for you to read at meal-times, sir."</p> + +<p>"I know it isn't. But what are you to do if you've nobody to talk to?"</p> + +<p>A long silence. It seemed as if Rose was positively thinking.</p> + +<p>"You should go out more, sir."</p> + +<p>"I don't like going out."</p> + +<p>Silence again. Rose had folded up the cloth and put it away in its +drawer. Yet she lingered.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see the little dogs, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Little dogs? I didn't know there were any."</p> + +<p>"We keep them very quiet; but we've seven. We've a fox and a dandy" +(Rose grew breathless with excitement), "and an Aberdeen, and two +Aberdeen pups, and two Poms, a mole and a white. May they come up, sir?"</p> + +<p>"By all means let them come up."</p> + +<p>She ran down-stairs, and returned with the seven little dogs at her +heels. Tanqueray held out his hand invitingly. (He was fond of animals.) +The fox and the dandy sniffed him suspiciously. The old Aberdeen ran +away from him backwards, showing her teeth. Her two pups sat down in the +doorway and yapped at him.</p> + +<p>Rose tried not to laugh, while the Poms ran round and round her skirts, +panting with their ridiculous exertions.</p> + +<p>"That's Prince—the mole—he's a pedigree dog. He doesn't belong to us. +And this," said Rose, darting under the table and picking up the white +Pom, "this is Joey."</p> + +<p>The white Pom leaped in her arms. He licked her face in a rapture of +affection.</p> + +<p>"Is Joey a pedigree dog, too?" said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rose. She met his eyes without flinching.</p> + +<p>"So young a dog——"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, Joey's not so very young."</p> + +<p>She was caressing the little thing tenderly, and Tanqueray saw that +there was something wrong with Joey.</p> + +<p>Joey was deplorably lean and puny, and his hair, which should have stood +out till Joey appeared three times the size he was, his hair, what hair +he had, lay straight and limp along his little back. Rose passed her +hand over him the wrong way.</p> + +<p>"You should always brush a Pom the wrong way, sir. It brings the hair +on."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, Rose, you've worn his hair away with stroking it."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir. That's the peculiarity of Joey's breed. Joey's my dog, +sir."</p> + +<p>"So I see."</p> + +<p>He saw it all. Joey was an indubitable mongrel, but he was Rose's dog, +and she loved him, therefore Joey's fault, his hairlessness, had become +the peculiarity, not to say the superiority, of Joey's breed.</p> + +<p>She read his thoughts.</p> + +<p>"We're taking great pains to bring it on before the tenth."</p> + +<p>"The tenth?"</p> + +<p>"The Dog Show, sir."</p> + +<p>(Heavens above! She was going to show him!)</p> + +<p>"And do you think you'll bring it on before the tenth?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, sir. You've only got to brush a Pom's hair backwards and it +comes."</p> + +<p>The little dogs clamoured to be gone. She stooped, stroking them, +smoothing their ears back and gazing into their eyes, lost in her own +tenderness, and unaware that she was watched. If Rose had been skilled +in the art of allurement she could not have done better than let him see +how she loved all things that had life.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs02" id="gs02"></a> +<img src="images/gs02.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"How any one can be unkind to dumb animals," said Rose, musing.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She moved slowly to the door, gathering up the puppies in her arms, and +calling to the rest to follow her. "Come along," she said, "and see what +Pussy's doing."</p> + +<p>He heard her voice going down-stairs saying, +"Puss—Puss—Pussy—Min—Min—Min."</p> + +<p>When she appeared to him the next day, Minny, the cat, was hanging by +his claws on to her shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Are you fond of cats, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I adore them." (He did.)</p> + +<p>"Would you like to have Minny, sir? He'll be nice company for you."</p> + +<p>"Ought I to deprive you of his society?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mind, sir. I've got the little dogs." She looked at him softly. +"And you've got nothing."</p> + +<p>"True, Rose. I've got nothing."</p> + +<p>That evening, as he sat in his chair, with Rose's cat curled up on his +knee, he found himself thinking, preposterously thinking, about Rose.</p> + +<p>He supposed she was Mrs. Eldred's daughter. He did not like to think of +her as Mrs. Eldred's daughter. She was charming now; but he had a vision +of her as she might be in twenty years' time, grown shapeless and +immense, and wheezing as Mrs. Eldred wheezed. Yet no; that was too +horrible. You could not think of Rose as—wheezing. People did not +always take after their mothers. Rose must have had a father. Of course, +Eldred was her father; and Eldred was a small man, lean and brown as a +beetle; and he had never heard him wheeze.</p> + +<p>At dinner-time Rose solved his doubt.</p> + +<p>"Aunt says, sir, do you mind my waitin' on you?"</p> + +<p>"I do not mind it in the very least."</p> + +<p>"It's beginning to be a trouble to Aunt now to get up-stairs."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't dream of troubling your aunt."</p> + +<p>Her aunt? Mrs. Eldred was not her mother. Ah, but you could take after +your aunt.</p> + +<p>He found that this question absorbed him more than was becoming. He +determined to settle it.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to stay here, then?" he asked, with guile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. I've come back to live with Uncle."</p> + +<p>"Have you always lived here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. Father left me to Uncle when he died."</p> + +<p>"Then, Rose, Mrs. Eldred is not your aunt?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, sir," said Rose eagerly.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray felt a relief out of all proportion to its cause.</p> + +<p>He continued the innocent conversation.</p> + +<p>"And so you're going to look after me, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Rose. He noticed that when she dropped the "sir," it was +because her voice drew itself back with a little gasping breath.</p> + +<p>"And your aunt, you think, really won't be equal to it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, you see, she gets all of a flutter like, and then she +w'eezes, and she knows that's irritating for you to hear." She paused. +"And Aunt was afraid that if you was irritated, sir, you'd go. Nothin' +could keep you."</p> + +<p>(How thoroughly they understood him!)</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not irritated any more. But it is unfortunate, isn't it, that +she—er—wheezes?"</p> + +<p>He had tried before now to make Rose laugh. He wanted to see how she did +it. It would be a test. And he perceived that, somewhere behind her +propriety, Rose cherished a secret, iniquitous enjoyment of her aunt.</p> + +<p>An imp of merriment danced in Rose's eyes, but the rest of her face was +graver than ever. ("Good," he thought; "she doesn't giggle.")</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Tanqueray, talk of w'eezin', you should hear Aunt snore."</p> + +<p>"I have heard her. In my dreams."</p> + +<p>Rose, abashed at her own outburst, remained silent for several minutes. +Then she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Do you think, sir, you could do without me on the tenth?"</p> + +<p>"No. I don't think I could possibly do without you."</p> + +<p>Her face clouded. "Not just for the tenth?"</p> + +<p>"Why the tenth?"</p> + +<p>"The Dog Show, sir. And Joey's in it."</p> + +<p>"I forgot."</p> + +<p>"Miss Kentish, the lady up-stairs, is going for her holiday on the +tenth."</p> + +<p>He saw that she was endeavouring to suggest that if he couldn't do +without her, he and he alone would be keeping her from the superb +spectacle of the Dog Show with Joey in it.</p> + +<p>"So you want me to go for a holiday, too. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, if it's not inconvenient, and you don't really mind +Aunt——"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't she want to see Joey, too?"</p> + +<p>"Not if you required her, sir."</p> + +<p>"I don't require her. I don't require anybody. I'm going away, like the +lady up-stairs, for the tenth. I shall be away all day."</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, sir." She glowed. "Do you think, sir, Joey'll get a +prize?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if you bring his hair on."</p> + +<p>"It's coming. I've put paraffin all over him. You'd laugh if you were to +see Joey now, sir."</p> + +<p>Rose herself was absolutely serious.</p> + +<p>"No, Rose, I should not laugh. I wouldn't hurt Joey's feelings for the +world."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray had his face hidden under the table where he was setting a +saucer of milk for Minny, the cat.</p> + +<p>Rose rejoiced in their communion. "He's quite fond of you, sir," she +said.</p> + +<p>"Of course he's fond of me," said Tanqueray, emerging. "Why shouldn't he +be?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Minny doesn't take to everybody."</p> + +<p>"I am more than honoured that he should take to me."</p> + +<p>Rose accepted that statement with incorruptible gravity. It was the +fifth day, and she had not laughed yet.</p> + +<p>But on the seventh day he met her on the stairs going to her room. She +carried a lilac gown over her arm and a large hat in her hand. She was +smiling at the hat. He smiled at her.</p> + +<p>"A new gown for the Rose Show?"</p> + +<p>"The Dog Show, sir." She stood by to let him pass.</p> + +<p>"It's the same thing. I say, what a howling swell you'll be."</p> + +<p>At that Rose laughed (at last he had made her).</p> + +<p>She ran up-stairs; and through a door ajar, he heard her singing in her +own room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + + +<p>In Tanqueray's memorandum-book for nineteen hundred and two there stands +this note: "June 10th. Rose Show. Remember to take a holiday."</p> + +<p>Rose, he knew, was counting the days till the tenth.</p> + +<p>About a fortnight before the tenth, Tanqueray was in bed, ill. He had +caught a cold by walking furiously, and then lying out on the grass in +the chill of the May evening. There was a chance, Rose said, of its +turning to influenza and bronchitis, and it did.</p> + +<p>He was so bad that Mrs. Eldred dragged herself up-stairs to look at him.</p> + +<p>"Bed's the best place, sir, for you," she said. "So just you lie quiet +'ere, sir, and Rose'll look after you. And if there's anything you +fancy, sir, you tell Rose, and I'll make it you."</p> + +<p>There was nothing that he fancied but to lie still there and look at +Rose when, in a spare hour, she sat by his window, sewing. Bad as he +was, he was not so far gone as to be ever oblivious of her presence. +Even at his worst, one night when he had had a touch of fever, he was +aware of her wandering in and out of his room, hanging over him with a +thermometer, and sitting by his bedside. When he flung the clothes off +she was there to cover him; when his pillow grew hot she turned it; when +he cried out with thirst she gave him a cool drink.</p> + +<p>In the morning she was pale and heavy-eyed; her hair was all unsleeked, +and its round coils were flattened at the back. She had lain down on her +bed, dressed, for five minutes at a time, but she had not closed her +eyes or her ears all night.</p> + +<p>In a week he was well enough to enjoy being nursed. He was now +exquisitely sensitive to the touch of her hands, and to the nearness of +her breathing mouth as her face bent over him, tender, absorbed, and +superlatively grave. What he liked best of all was to hold out his weak +hands to be washed and dried by hers; that, and having his hair brushed.</p> + +<p>He could talk to her now without coughing. Thus—</p> + +<p>"I say, what a bother I am to you."</p> + +<p>Rose had taken away the basin and towels, and was arranging his hair +according to her own fancy. And Rose's fancy was to part it very much on +one side, and brush it back in a curl off his forehead. It gave him a +faint resemblance to Mr. Robinson, the elegant young draper in the High +Street, whom she knew.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing I like so much," said she, "as tucking people up in bed +and 'aving them lie there and nursing 'em. Give me anybody ill, and +anybody 'elpless, and me lookin' after 'em, and I'm happy."</p> + +<p>"And the longer I lie here, Rose, the happier you'll be?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I want you to get well, too, sir."</p> + +<p>"Because you're so unselfish."</p> + +<p>"Oh no. There isn't anybody selfisher than me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Tanqueray, "that's why I <i>don't</i> get well."</p> + +<p>Rose had a whole afternoon to spare that day. She spent it turning out +his drawers and finding all the things there were to mend there. She was +sitting by his bed when, looking up from her mending, she saw his eyes +fixed on her.</p> + +<p>"I don't irritate you, sittin' here, do I, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Irritate me? What do you think I'm made of?"</p> + +<p>Rose meditated for the fraction of a second.</p> + +<p>"Brains, sir," said she.</p> + +<p>"So you think you know a man of brains when you see him, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"What were you, Rose, before you came here?"</p> + +<p>"I was nurse in a gentleman's family. I took care of the baby."</p> + +<p>"Did you like taking care of the baby?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Rose blushed profoundly and turned away. He wondered why.</p> + +<p>"I had a bad dream last night," said Tanqueray. "I dreamt that your aunt +got into this room and couldn't get out again. I'm afraid of your aunt."</p> + +<p>"I dare say, sir. Aunt is so very 'uge."</p> + +<p>Rose dropped her g's and, when deeply moved, her aitches; but he did not +mind. If it had to be done, it couldn't be done more prettily.</p> + +<p>"Rose, do you know when I'm delirious and when I'm not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You see, I take your temperature."</p> + +<p>"It must be up now to a hundred and eighty. You mustn't be alarmed at +anything I say. I'm not responsible."</p> + +<p>"No, sir." She rose and gravely took his temperature.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you afraid of my biting the bulb off, and the quicksilver flying +down my throat, and running about inside me for ever and ever?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to be afraid of anything."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid of many things, and I would never be afraid of you, +sir."</p> + +<p>"Not if I went mad, Rose? Raving?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not if you went mad. Not if you was to strike me, I wouldn't." She +paused. "Not so long as I knew you was really mad, and didn't mean to +hurt me."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't hurt you for the world."</p> + +<p>He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>That evening, when she was giving him his medicine, he noticed that her +eyelids were red and her eyes gleaming.</p> + +<p>"You've been crying. What's made you cry?"</p> + +<p>Rose did not answer.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Kentish keeps on callin' and callin' me. And she scolds me +something awful when I don't come."</p> + +<p>"Give my compliments to Miss Kentish, Rose, and tell her she's a beast."</p> + +<p>"I <i>'ave</i> told her that if it was she that was ill I'd nurse her just +the same and be glad to do it."</p> + +<p>"You consider that equivalent to calling her a beast, do you?"</p> + +<p>Rose said, "Well——" It was a little word she used frequently.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry you think I'm a beast."</p> + +<p>Rose's face had a scared look. She could not follow him, and that +frightened her. It is always terrifying to be left behind. So he spared +her.</p> + +<p>"Why would you be glad to nurse Miss Kentish?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said Rose, "I like taking care of people."</p> + +<p>"Do you like taking care of me?"</p> + +<p>Rose was silent again. She turned suddenly away. It was the second time +she had done this, and again he wondered why.</p> + +<p>By the eighth day Tanqueray was strong enough to wash his own hands and +brush his own hair. On the ninth the doctor and Rose agreed that he +might sit up for an hour or two in his chair by the window. On the +eleventh he came down-stairs for dinner. On the thirteenth Rose had +nothing more to do for him but to bring him his meals and give him his +medicine, which he would otherwise have forgotten.</p> + +<p>At bed-time, therefore, he had two sovereigns ready for her in an +envelope. Rose refused obstinately to take them; to have anything to do +with sovereigns.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I couldn't," she reiterated.</p> + +<p>But when he pressed them on her she began to cry.</p> + +<p>And that left him wondering more.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + + +<p>On the fourteenth day, Tanqueray, completely recovered, went out for a +walk. And the first thing he did when he got back was to look at his +note-book to see what day of the month it was.</p> + +<p>It was the tenth, the tenth of June, the day of the Dog Show. And the +memorandum stared him in the face: "Rose Show. Remember to take a +holiday."</p> + +<p>He looked in the paper. The show began at ten. And here he was at +half-past one. And here was Rose, in her old green and brown, bringing +in his luncheon.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said severely, "why are you not at the Rose Show?"</p> + +<p>Rose lowered her eyes. "I didn't want to go, sir."</p> + +<p>"How about the new gown?"</p> + +<p>(He remembered it.)</p> + +<p>"That don't matter. Aunt's gone instead of me."</p> + +<p>"Wearing it? She couldn't. Get into it at once, and leave that +confounded cloth alone and go. You've plenty of time."</p> + +<p>She repeated that she did not want to go, and went on laying the cloth.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to leave you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say you've given up that Dog Show—with Joey in it—for +me?"</p> + +<p>"Joey isn't in it; and I'd rather be here looking after you."</p> + +<p>"I won't be looked after. I insist on your going. Do you hear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I hear you."</p> + +<p>"And you're going?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir." She meditated with her head a little on one side; a way she +had. "I've got a headache, and—and—and I don't want to go and see them +other dogs, sir."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's it, is it? A feeling for Joey?"</p> + +<p>But by the turn of head he knew it wasn't. Rose was lying, the little +minx.</p> + +<p>"But you <i>must</i> go somewhere. You <i>shall</i> go somewhere. You shall go—I +say, supposing you go for a drive with me?"</p> + +<p>"You mustn't take me for drives, sir."</p> + +<p>"Mustn't I?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to give me drives—or—or anything."</p> + +<p>"I see. You are to do all sorts of things for me, and I'm not to be +allowed to do anything for you."</p> + +<p>She placed his chair for him in silence, and as he seated himself he +looked up into her face.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to please me, Rose?"</p> + +<p>Her face was firm as she looked at him. It was as if she held him in +check by the indomitable set of her chin, and the steady light of her +eyes. (Where should he be if Rose were to let herself go?)</p> + +<p>Her mouth trembled, it protested against these austerities and +decisions. It told him dumbly that she did want, very much, to please +him; but that she knew her place.</p> + +<p>Did she? Did she indeed know her place? Did he know it?</p> + +<p>"You're right, Rose. That isn't the way I ought to have put it. Will you +do me the honour of going for a drive with me?"</p> + +<p>She looked down, troubled and uncertain.</p> + +<p>"It can be done, Rose," he said, answering her thoughts. "It can be +done. The only thing is, would you like it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I would like it very much."</p> + +<p>"Can you be ready by three o'clock?"</p> + +<p>At three she was ready.</p> + +<p>She wore the lilac gown she had bought for the Show, and the hat. It had +red roses in it.</p> + +<p>He did not like her gown. It was trimmed with coarse lace, and he could +not bear to see her in anything that was not fine.</p> + +<p>"Is anything wrong with my hair?" said Rose.</p> + +<p>"No, nothing's wrong with your hair, but I think I like you better in +the green and brown——"</p> + +<p>"That's only for every day."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall like you better every day."</p> + +<p>"Why do you like my green and brown dress?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her again and suddenly he knew why.</p> + +<p>"Because you had it on when I first saw you. I say, would you mind +awfully putting it on instead of that thing?"</p> + +<p>She did mind, awfully; but she went and put it on. And still there was +something wrong with her. It was her hat. It did not go with the green +and brown. But he felt that he would be a brute to ask her to take that +off, too.</p> + +<p>They drove to Hendon and back. They had tea at "Jack Straw's Castle." +(Rose's face surrendered to that ecstasy.) And then they strolled over +the West Heath and found a hollow where Rose sat down under a birch-tree +and Tanqueray stretched himself at her feet.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said suddenly, "do you know what a wood-nymph is?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Rose, "I suppose it's some sort of a little animal."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a little animal. A delightful little animal."</p> + +<p>"Can you catch it and stroke it?"</p> + +<p>"No. If you tried it would run away. Besides, you're not allowed to +catch it, or to stroke it. The wood-nymph is very strictly preserved."</p> + +<p>Rose smiled; for though she did not know what a wood-nymph was, she knew +that Mr. Tanqueray was looking at her all the time.</p> + +<p>"The wood-nymphs always dress in green and brown."</p> + +<p>"Like me?"</p> + +<p>"Like you. Only they don't wear boots" (Rose hid her boots), "nor yet +collars."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't like to see me without a collar."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see you without that hat."</p> + +<p>Any difficulty in taking Rose about with him would lie in Rose's hat. He +could not say what was wrong with it except that the roses in it were +too red and gay for Rose's gravity.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind taking it off?"</p> + +<p>She took it off and put it in her lap. Surrendered as she was, she could +not disobey. The eternal spell was on her.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray removed her hat gently and hid it behind him. He laid his +hands in her lap. It was deep delight to touch her. She covered his +hands with hers. That was all he asked of her and all she thought of +giving.</p> + +<p>On all occasions which she was prepared for, Rose was the soul of +propriety and reserve. But this, the great occasion, had come upon her +unaware, and Nature had her will of her. Through Rose she sent out the +sign and signal that he waited for. And Rose became the vehicle of that +love which Nature fosters and protects; it was visible and tangible, in +her eyes, and in her rosy face and in the naïf movements of her hands.</p> + +<p>Sudden and swift and fierce his passion came upon him, but he only lay +there at her feet, holding her hands, and gazing into her face, dumb, +like any lover of her class.</p> + +<p>Then Rose lifted her hands from his and spoke.</p> + +<p>"What have you done with my hat?"</p> + +<p>In that moment he had turned and sat on it.</p> + +<p>Deliberately, yet impulsively, and without a twinge of remorse, he had +sat on it. But not so that Rose could see him.</p> + +<p>"I haven't done anything <i>with</i> it," said he, "I couldn't do anything +with a hat like that."</p> + +<p>"You've 'idden it somewhere."</p> + +<p>He got up slowly, feigning a search, and produced what a minute ago had +been Rose's hat.</p> + +<p>It was an absurd thing of wire and net, Rose's hat, and it had collapsed +irreparably.</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare, if you haven't gone and sat on it."</p> + +<p>"It looks as if I had. Can you forgive me?"</p> + +<p>"Well—if it was an accident."</p> + +<p>He looked down upon her tenderly.</p> + +<p>"No, Rose, it was not an accident. I couldn't bear that hat."</p> + +<p>He put his hand on her arm and raised her to her feet.</p> + +<p>"And now," he said, "the only thing we can do is to go and get another +one."</p> + +<p>They went slowly back, she shamefaced and bareheaded, he leading her by +the arm till they found themselves in Heath Street outside a magnificent +hat-shop.</p> + +<p>Chance took him there, for Rose, interrogated on the subject of +hat-shops, was obstinately reticent.</p> + +<p>But here, in this temple, in its wonderful window, before a curtain, on +a stage, like actors in a gay drama, he saw hats; black hats and white +hats; green and blue and rose-coloured hats; hats of all shapes and +sizes; airily perched; laid upon velvet; veiled and unveiled; +befeathered and beflowered. Hats of a beauty and a splendour before +which Rose had stood many a time in awful contemplation, and had hurried +past with eyes averted, leaving behind her the impermissible dream.</p> + +<p>And now she had a thousand scruples about entering. He had hit, she +said, on the most expensive shop in Hampstead. Miss Kentish wouldn't +think of buying a hat there. No, she wouldn't have it. He must please, +please, Mr. Tanqueray, let her buy herself a plain straw and trim it.</p> + +<p>But he seized her by the arm and drew her in. And once in there was no +more use resisting, it only made her look foolish.</p> + +<p>Reality with its harsh conditions had vanished for a moment. It was like +a funny dream to be there, in Madame Rodier's shop, with Mr. Tanqueray +looking at her as she tried on innumerable hats, and Madame herself, +serving her, putting the hats on the right way, and turning her round +and round so that Mr. Tanqueray could observe the effect from every side +of her.</p> + +<p>Madame talked all the time to Mr. Tanqueray and ignored Rose.</p> + +<p>Rose had a mortal longing for a rose-coloured hat, and Madame wouldn't +let her have it. Madame, who understood Mr. Tanqueray's thoughts better +than if he had expressed them, insisted on a plain black hat with a +black feather.</p> + +<p>"That's madame's hat, sir," said Madame. "We must keep her very simple."</p> + +<p>"We must," said Tanqueray, with fervour. He thought he had never seen +anything so enchanting in its simplicity as Rose's face under the broad +black brim with its sweeping feather.</p> + +<p>Rose had to wear the hat going home. Tanqueray carried the old one in a +paper parcel.</p> + +<p>At the gate of the corner house he paused and looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"We've half-an-hour yet before we need go in. I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>He led her through the willows, and up the green slope opposite the +house. There was a bench on the top, and he made her sit on it beside +him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he said, "you think that when we go in I shall let you wait +on me, and it'll be just the same as it was before?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. Just the same."</p> + +<p>"It won't, Rose, it can't. You may wait on me to-night, but I shall go +away to-morrow."</p> + +<p>She turned her face to him, it was dumb with its trouble.</p> + +<p>"Oh no—no, sir—don't go away."</p> + +<p>"I must. But before I go, I want to ask you if you'll be my wife——"</p> + +<p>The hands she held clasped in her lap gripped each other tight. Her +mouth was set.</p> + +<p>"I'm asking you now, Rose. To be my wife. My wife," he repeated +fiercely, as if he repelled with violence a contrary suggestion.</p> + +<p>"I can't be your wife, sir," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because," she said simply, "I'm not a lady."</p> + +<p>At that Tanqueray cried, "Ah," as if she had hurt him.</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I'm not, and you mustn't think of it."</p> + +<p>"I shall think of nothing else, and talk of nothing else, until you say +yes."</p> + +<p>She shook her little head; and from the set of her chin he was aware of +the extreme decision of her character.</p> + +<p>He refrained from any speech. His hand sought hers, for he remembered +how, just now, she had unbent at the holding of her hand.</p> + +<p>But she drew it gently away.</p> + +<p>"No," said she. "I look at it sensible. I can see how it is. You've been +ill, and you're upset, and you don't know what you're doin'—sir."</p> + +<p>"I do—madam."</p> + +<p>She smiled and drew back her smile as she had drawn back her head. She +was all for withdrawal.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray in his attempt had let go the parcel that he held. She seized +it in a practical, business-like manner which had the perfect touch of +finality. Then she rose and went back to the house, and he followed her, +still pleading, still protesting. But Rose made herself more than ever +deaf and dumb. When he held the gate open for her she saw her advantage, +darted in, and vanished (his divinity!) down the area steps.</p> + +<p>She went up-stairs to her little garret, and there, first of all, she +looked at herself in the glass. Her face was strange to her under the +black hat with its sweeping feather. She shook her head severely at the +person in the glass. She made her take off the hat with the feather and +put it by with that veneration which attends the disposal of a best hat. +The other one, the one with the roses, she patted and pulled and +caressed affectionately, till she had got it back into something of the +shape it had been, to serve for second best. Then she wished she had +left it as it was.</p> + +<p>She loved them both, the new one because he had given it her, and the +old one because he had sat on it.</p> + +<p>Finally she smoothed her hair to an extreme sleekness, put on a clean +apron and went down-stairs.</p> + +<p>In the evening she appeared to Tanqueray, punctual and subservient, +wearing the same air of reticence and distance with which she had waited +on him first. He was to see, it seemed to say, that she was only little +Rose Eldred, his servant, to whom it was not proper that he should +speak.</p> + +<p>But he did speak. He put his back to the door she would have escaped by, +and kept her prisoned there, utterly in his power.</p> + +<p>Rose, thus besieged, delivered her ultimatum.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "you take a year to think it over sensible."</p> + +<p>"A year?"</p> + +<p>"A year. And if you're in the same mind then as you are now, p'raps I +won't say no."</p> + +<p>"A year? But in a year I may be dead."</p> + +<p>"You come to me," said Rose, "if you're dyin'."</p> + +<p>"And you'll have me then?" he said savagely.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll 'ave you then."</p> + +<p>But, though all night Tanqueray by turns raged and languished, it was +Rose who, in the morning, looked about to die. Not that he saw her. He +never saw her all that day. And at evening he listened in vain for her +call at the gate, her salutation to the night: "Min—Min—Minny! +Puss—Puss—Puss!"</p> + +<p>For in the afternoon Rose left the house, attended by her uncle, who +carried by its cord her little trunk.</p> + +<p>In her going forth she wore a clean white linen gown. She wore, not the +Hat, nor yet the sad thing that Tanqueray had sat on, but a little black +bonnet, close as a cap, with a black velvet bow in the front, and black +velvet strings tied beneath her chin.</p> + +<p>It was the dress she had worn when she was nurse in a gentleman's +family.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2> + + +<p>Late in the evening of that day, Tanqueray, as he sat in miserable +meditation, was surprised by the appearance of Mrs. Eldred. She held in +her hand Rose's hat, the hat he had given her, which she placed before +him on the table.</p> + +<p>"You'll be good enough, sir," said Mrs. Eldred, "to take that back."</p> + +<p>"Why should I take it back?" he replied, with that artificial gaiety +which had been his habitual defence against the approaches of Mrs. +Eldred.</p> + +<p>"Because, it was all very well for you to offer Rose wot you did, sir, +and she'd no call to refuse it. But a 'at's different. There's meanin'," +said Mrs. Eldred, "in a 'at."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray looked at the hat.</p> + +<p>"Meaning? If you knew all the meaning there is in that hat, Mrs. Eldred, +you'd feel, as I do, that you knew <i>something</i>. Half the poetry that's +been written has less meaning in it than that hat. That hat fulfills all +the requirements of poetry. It is simple—extremely simple—and sensuous +and passionate. Yes, passionate. It would be impossible to conceive a +hat less afflicted with the literary taint. It stands, as I see it, for +emotion reduced to its last and purest expression. In short, Mrs. +Eldred, what that hat doesn't mean isn't worth meaning."</p> + +<p>"If you'd explain <i>your</i> meaning, sir, I should be obliged."</p> + +<p>"I am explaining it. My meaning, Mrs. Eldred, is that Rose wore that +hat."</p> + +<p>"I know she did, sir, and she 'adn't ought to 'ave wore it. I'm only +askin' <i>you</i>, sir, to be good enough to take it back."</p> + +<p>"Take it back? But whatever should I do with it? I can't wear it. I +might fall down and worship it, but—No, I couldn't wear it. It would be +sacrilege."</p> + +<p>That took Mrs. Eldred's breath away, so that she sat down and wheezed.</p> + +<p>"Does Rose not know what that hat means?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I'll say that for her. She didn't think till I arst her."</p> + +<p>"Then—I think—you'd perhaps better send Rose to me."</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Please send her to me. I want her."</p> + +<p>"And you may want her, sir. Rose isn't here."</p> + +<p>"Not here? Where is she? I must see her."</p> + +<p>"Rose is visitin' in the country, for her 'ealth."</p> + +<p>"Her health? Is she ill?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred executed a vast gesture that dismissed Rose.</p> + +<p>"Where is she?" he repeated. "I'll go down and see her."</p> + +<p>"You will not, sir. Her uncle wouldn't hear of it."</p> + +<p>"But, by God! he shall hear of it."</p> + +<p>He rang the bell with fury.</p> + +<p>"It's no use your ringin', sir. Eldred's out."</p> + +<p>"What have you done this for?"</p> + +<p>"To get the child out of harm's way, sir. We're not blamin' you, sir. +We're blamin' 'er."</p> + +<p>"Her? Her?"</p> + +<p>"Properly speakin', we're not blamin' anybody. We're no great ones for +blamin', me and Eldred. But, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, sir, there's +a party would be glad of your rooms next month, a party takin' the 'ole +'ouse, and if you would be so good as to try and suit yourself +elsewhere——Though we don't want to put you to no inconvenience, sir."</p> + +<p>It was extraordinary, but the more Mrs. Eldred's meaning was offensive, +the more her manner was polite. He reflected long afterwards that, +really, a lady, in such difficult circumstances, could hardly have +acquitted herself better.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is that all? I'll go. But you'll give me Rose's address."</p> + +<p>"You leave Rose alone, sir. Rose's address don't concern you."</p> + +<p>"Rose's address concerns me a good deal more than my own, I can tell +you. So you'd better give it me."</p> + +<p>"Look 'ere, sir. Are you actin' honest by that girl, or are you not?"</p> + +<p>"What the devil do you mean by asking me that?"</p> + +<p>His violence made her immense bulk tremble; but her soul stood firm.</p> + +<p>"I dessay you mean no 'arm, sir. But we can't 'ave you playin' with 'er. +That's all."</p> + +<p>"Playing with her? Playing?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, playin'. Wot else is it? You know, sir, you ain't thinkin' of +marryin' 'er."</p> + +<p>"That's just what I am thinking of."</p> + +<p>"You 'aven't told <i>'er</i> that."</p> + +<p>"I <i>have</i> told her. And, by Heaven! I'll do it."</p> + +<p>"You mean that, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I mean it. What else should I mean?"</p> + +<p>She sat meditating, taking it in slowly.</p> + +<p>"You'll never make 'er 'appy, sir. Nor she you."</p> + +<p>"She and I are the best judges of that."</p> + +<p>"'Ave you spoke to 'er?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I told you I had."</p> + +<p>"Not a word 'ave she said to <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"Well, I dare say she wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Sir?"</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't have me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred's lower lip dropped, and she stared at Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't 'ave you? Then, depend upon it, that's wot made 'er ill."</p> + +<p>"Ill?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ill, sir. Frettin', I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Where's that address? Give it me at once."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I darsen't give it you. Eldred'd never forgive me."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you I'm going to marry her?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir, as 'ow Rose'll marry <i>you</i>. When she's set, she's +set. And if you'll forgive my saying it, sir, Rose is a good girl, but +she's not in your class, sir, and it isn't suitable. And Rose, I dessay, +she's 'ad the sense to see it so."</p> + +<p>"She's got to see it as I see it. That address?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred rose heavily. She still trembled.</p> + +<p>"You'd best speak to her uncle. 'E'll give it you if 'e approves. And if +'e doesn't 'e won't."</p> + +<p>He stormed. But he was impotent before this monument of middle-class +integrity.</p> + +<p>"When will Eldred be back?"</p> + +<p>"We're expecting of 'im nine o'clock to-night."</p> + +<p>"Mind you send him up as soon as he comes in."</p> + +<p>"Very good, sir."</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"Wot am I to do with that 'at?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her and at the hat. He laughed.</p> + +<p>"You can leave the hat with me."</p> + +<p>She moved slowly away. "Stop!" he cried; "have you got such a thing as a +band-box?"</p> + +<p>"I think I might 'ave, sir; if I could lay my 'and on it."</p> + +<p>"Lay your hand on it, then, and bring it to me."</p> + +<p>She brought it. An enormous band-box, but brown, which was a good +colour. He lowered the hat into it with care and shut the lid on it, +reverently, as if he were committing some sacred emblem to its shrine.</p> + +<p>He sat at his writing-table, tried to work and accomplished nothing. His +heart waited for the stroke of nine.</p> + +<p>At nine there came to his summons the little, lean, brown man, Rose's +uncle. Eldred, who was a groom, was attired with excessive horsiness. He +refused to come further into the room than its threshold, where he stood +at attention, austerely servile, and respectfully despotic.</p> + +<p>The interview in all points resembled Tanqueray's encounter with Mrs. +Eldred; except that the little groom, who knew his world, was even more +firmly persuaded that the gentleman was playing with his Rose.</p> + +<p>"And we can't 'ave that, sir," said Eldred.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to have it."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, we ain't," reiterated Eldred. "We can't 'ave any such goin's +on 'ere."</p> + +<p>"Look here—don't be an idiot—it isn't your business, you know, to +interfere."</p> + +<p>"Not my business? When 'er father left 'er to me? I should like to know +what is my business," said Mr. Eldred hotly.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray saw that he would have to be patient with him. "Yes, <i>I</i> know. +<i>That's</i> all right. Don't you see, Eldred, I'm going to marry her."</p> + +<p>But his eagerness woke in Eldred a ghastlier doubt. Rose's uncle stood +firmer than ever, not turning his head, but casting at Tanqueray a +small, sidelong glance of suspicion.</p> + +<p>"And <i>why</i> do you want to marry her, sir? You tell me that."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray saw.</p> + +<p>"Because I want her. And it's the only way to get her. Do you need me to +tell you that?"</p> + +<p>The man reddened. "I beg your pardon, sir."</p> + +<p>"You beg <i>her</i> pardon, you mean."</p> + +<p>Eldred was silent. He had been hit hard, that time. Then he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Are you certain sure of your feelin's, sir?"</p> + +<p>"I'm certain of nothing in this world except my feelings."</p> + +<p>"Because" (Eldred was slow but steady and indomitable in coming to his +point), "because we don't want 'er 'eart broke."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i>'re breaking it, you fool, every minute you stand there. Give me +her address."</p> + +<p>In the end he gave it.</p> + +<p>Down-stairs, in the kitchen, by the ashes of the raked-out fire, he +discussed the situation with his wife.</p> + +<p>"Did you tell him plain," said Mrs. Eldred, "that we'd 'ave no +triflin'?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell 'im that if 'e was not certain sure 'e wanted 'er, there +was a young man who did?"</p> + +<p>Eldred said nothing to that question. He lit a pipe and began to smoke +it.</p> + +<p>"Did you tell 'im," his wife persisted, "about Mr. Robinson?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't, old girl."</p> + +<p>"Well, if it 'ad bin me I should have said, 'Mr. Tanqueray, for all +you've fam'ly on your side and that, we're not so awful anxious for Rose +to marry you. We'd rather 'ave a young man without fam'ly, in a good +line o' business and steady risin'. And we know of such as would give +'is 'ead to 'ave 'er.' That's wot I should 'ave said."</p> + +<p>"I dessay you would. I didn't say it, because I don't want 'im to 'ave +'er. That I don't. And if 'e was wantin' to cry off, and I was to have +named Mr. Robinson, that'd 'ave bin the very thing to 'ave stirred 'im +up to gettin' 'er. That's wot men <i>is</i>, missis, and women, too, all of +'em I've ever set eyes on. Dorgs wot'll leave the bone you give 'em, to +fight for the bone wot another dorg 'e's got. Wot do you say to that, +Mrs. Smoker, old girl?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Smoker, the Aberdeen, pricked up her ears and smiled, with her eyes +only, after the manner of her breed.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," said Mrs. Eldred, "you let 'im see as 'ow we wasn't any way +snatchin' at 'im?"</p> + +<p>"I did, missis."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2> + + +<p>Mr. Eldred, groom and dog fancier, profoundly musing upon human nature +and illuminated by his study of the lower animals, had hit upon a truth. +Once let him know that another man desired to take Rose away from him +and Mr. Tanqueray would be ten times more desirous to have her. What Mr. +Eldred did not see was the effect upon Mr. Tanqueray of Rose's taking +herself away, or he would not have connived at her departure. "Out o' +sight, out o' mind," said Mr. Eldred, arguing again from his experience +of the lower animals.</p> + +<p>But with Tanqueray, as with all creatures of powerful imagination, to be +out of sight was to be perpetually in mind.</p> + +<p>All night, in this region of the mind, Rose's image did battle with +Jane's image and overcame it.</p> + +<p>It was not only that Jane's charm had no promise for his senses. She was +unfit in more ways than one. Jane was in love with him; yet her attitude +implied resistance rather than surrender. Rose's resistance, taking, as +it did, the form of flight, was her confession of his power. Jane held +her ground; she stood erect. Rose bowed before him like a flower shaken +by the wind. He loved Rose because she was small and sweet and +subservient. Jane troubled and tormented him. He revolted against the +tyranny of Jane.</p> + +<p>Jane was not physically obtrusive, yet there were moments when her +presence in a room oppressed him. She had further that disconcerting +quality of all great personalities, the power to pursue and seize, a +power so oblivious, so pure from all intention or desire, that there was +no flattery in it for the pursued. It persisted when she was gone. +Neither time nor space removed her. He could not get away from Jane. If +he allowed himself to think of her he could not think of anything else. +But he judged that Rose's minute presence in his memory would not be +disturbing to his other thoughts.</p> + +<p>His imagination could play tenderly round Rose. Jane's imagination +challenged his. It stood, brandishing its flaming sword before the gates +of any possible paradise. There was something in Jane that matched him, +and, matching, rang defiance to his supremacy. Jane plucked the laurel +and crowned herself. Rose bowed her pretty head and let him crown her. +Laurel crowns, crowns of glory, for Jane. The crown of roses for Rose.</p> + +<p>He meant, of course, the wedding-wreath and the wedding-ring. His +conversation with the Eldreds had shown him that marriage had not +entered into their humble contemplations; also that if there was no +question of marriage, there could be no question of Rose.</p> + +<p>He had known that in the beginning, he had known it from the +uncompromising little Rose herself. From the first flowering of his +passion until now, he had seen marriage as the sole means to its +inevitable end. Tanqueray had his faults, but it was not in him to bring +the creature he loved to suffering and dishonour. And the alternative, +in Rose's case, was not dishonour, but frustration, which meant +suffering for them both. He would have to give Rose up unless he married +her.</p> + +<p>At the moment, and the moment's vision was enough for him, he saw no +reason why he should not marry her. He wanted to obtain her at once and +to keep her for ever. She was not a lady and she knew it; but she had a +gentleness, a fineness of the heart which was the secret of her +unpremeditated charm. Without it Rose might have been as pretty as she +pleased, she would not have pleased Tanqueray. He could withstand any +manifestly unspiritual appeal, restrained by his own fineness and an +invincible disdain. Therefore, when the divine folly fell upon him, he +was like a thing fresh from the last touch of the creator, every sense +in him unworn and delicate and alert.</p> + +<p>And Rose had come to him when the madness of the quest was on him, a +madness so strong that it overcame his perception of her social lapses. +It was impossible to be unaware of some of them, of certain phrases, of +the sudden wild flight of her aspirates. But these things were entangled +with her adorable gestures, with the soft ways of her mouth, with her +look when she hung about him, nursing him; so that a sane judgment was +impossible.</p> + +<p>It was palpable, too, that Rose was not intellectual, that she was not +even half-educated. But Tanqueray positively disliked the society of +intellectual, cultivated women; they were all insipid after Jane. After +Jane, he did not need intellectual companionship in his wife. He would +still have Jane. And when he was tired of Jane there would, no doubt, be +others; and when he was tired of all of them, there was himself.</p> + +<p>What he did need in his wife was the obstinate, dumb devotion of a +creature that had no life apart from him; a creature so small that in +clinging it would hang no weight on his heart. And he had found it in +Rose.</p> + +<p>Why should he not marry her?</p> + +<p>She was now, he had learned, staying with her former mistress at Fleet, +in Hampshire.</p> + +<p>The next morning he took a suitable train down to Fleet, and arrived, +carrying the band-box, at the door of the house where Rose was. He sat a +long time in the hall of the house with the band-box on his knees. He +did not mind waiting. People went in and out of the hall and looked at +him; and he did not care. He gloried in the society of the sacred +band-box. He enjoyed the spectacle of his own eccentricity.</p> + +<p>At last he was shown into a little room where Rose came to him. She came +from behind, from the garden, through the French window. She was at his +side before he saw her. He felt her then, he felt her fear of him.</p> + +<p>He turned. "Rose," he said, "I've brought you the moon in a band-box."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Rose, and her cry had a thick, sobbing vibration in it.</p> + +<p>He put his arm on her shoulder and drew her out of sight and kissed her, +and she was not afraid of him any more.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said, "have you thought it over?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have. Have you?"</p> + +<p>"I've thought of nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Sensible?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord, yes."</p> + +<p>"You've thought of how I haven't a penny and never shall have?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And how I'm not clever, and how it isn't a bit as if I'd any head for +studyin' and that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Rose."</p> + +<p>"Have you thought of how I'm not a lady? Not what you'd call a lady?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer to that, and so he kissed her.</p> + +<p>"And how you'd be if you was to marry some one who was a lady? Have you +thought of that?"</p> + +<p>"I have."</p> + +<p>"Well then, it's this way. If you was a rich man I wouldn't marry you." +She paused.</p> + +<p>"But you will, because I'm a poor one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Thank God I'm poor."</p> + +<p>He drew her to him and she yielded, not wholly, but with a shrinking of +her small body, and a soft, shy surrender of her lips.</p> + +<p>She was thinking, "If he married a lady he'd have to spend ten times on +her what he need on me."</p> + +<p>All she said was, "There are things I can do for you that a lady +couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Oh—don't—don't!" he cried. That was the one way she hurt him.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with me now?" said she.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take you for a walk. We can't stay here."</p> + +<p>"Can you wait?"</p> + +<p>"I have waited."</p> + +<p>She ran away and stayed away for what seemed an interminable time. Then +somebody opened the door and handed Rose in. Somebody kissed her where +she stood in the doorway, and laughed softly, and shut the door upon +Rose and Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>Rose stood there still. "Do you know me?" said she, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Somebody had transformed her, had made her slip her stiff white gown and +dressed her in a muslin one with a belt that clipped her, showing her +pretty waist. Somebody had taught her how to wear a scarf about her +shoulders; and somebody had taken off that odious linen collar and bared +the white column of her neck.</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> made me put it on," said Rose. "She said if I didn't, I couldn't +wear the hat."</p> + +<p>Somebody, Rose's mistress, had been in Rose's secret. She knew and +understood his great poem of the Hat.</p> + +<p>Rose took it out of the band-box and put it on. Impossible to say +whether he liked her better with it or without it. He thought without; +for she had parted her hair in the middle and braided it at the back.</p> + +<p>"Do you like my hair?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you do it like that before?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I wanted to. But I didn't."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>Rose hid her face. "I thought," said she, "you'd notice, and think—and +think I was after you."</p> + +<p>No. He could never say that she had been after him, that she had laid a +lure. No huntress she. But she had found him, the hunted, run down and +sick in his dark den. And she had stooped there in the darkness, and +tended and comforted him.</p> + +<p>They set out.</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> said I was to tell you," said Rose, "to be sure and take me +through the pine-woods to the pond."</p> + +<p>How well that lady knew the setting that would adorn his Rose; sunlight +and shadow that made her glide fawn-like among the tall stems of the +trees. Through the pine-woods he took her, his white wood-nymph, and +through the low lands covered with bog myrtle, fragrant under her feet. +Beyond the marsh they found a sunny hollow in the sand where the heath +touched the pond. The brushwood sheltered them.</p> + +<p>Side by side they sat and took their fill of joy in gazing at each +other, absolutely dumb.</p> + +<p>It was Tanqueray who broke that beautiful silence. He had obtained her. +He had had his way and must have it to the end. He loved her; and the +thing beyond all things that pleased him was to tease and torment the +creatures that he loved.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said, "do you think I'm good-looking?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not what you call good-looking."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what I call good-looking?"</p> + +<p>"Well—<i>me</i>. Don't you?"</p> + +<p>"You're a woman. Give me your idea of a really handsome man."</p> + +<p>"Well—do you know Mr. Robinson?"</p> + +<p>"No. I do not know Mr. Robinson."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. He keeps the shop in the High Street where you get your +'ankychiefs and collars. You bought a collar off of him the other day. +He told me."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, so I did. Of course I know Mr. Robinson. What about him?"</p> + +<p>"Well—<i>he's</i> what I call a <i>handsome</i> man."</p> + +<p>"Oh." He paused. "Would you love me more if I were as handsome as Mr. +Robinson?"</p> + +<p>"No. Not a bit more. I couldn't. I'd love you just the same if you were +as ugly as poor Uncle. There, what more do you want?"</p> + +<p>"What, indeed? Rose, how much have you seen of Mr. Robinson?"</p> + +<p>"How much? Well—I see him every time I go into his shop. And every +Sunday evening when I go to church. And sometimes he comes and has +supper with us. 'E plays and 'e sings beautiful."</p> + +<p>"The devil he does! Well, did he ever take you anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"Once—he took me to Madame Tussaws; and once to the Colonial +Exhibition; and once——"</p> + +<p>"You minx. That'll do. Has he ever given you anything?"</p> + +<p>"He gave me Joey."</p> + +<p>"I always knew there was something wrong about that dog."</p> + +<p>"And last Christmas he gave me a scented sashy from the shop."</p> + +<p>"Never—anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Never anything else." She smiled subtly. "I wouldn't let 'im."</p> + +<p>"Well, well. And I suppose you consider Mr. Robinson a better dressed +man than I am?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was always a beautiful dresser. He makes it what you might call +'is hobby."</p> + +<p>"Of course Mr. Robinson wants you to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Leastways he says so."</p> + +<p>"And I suppose your uncle and aunt want you to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"They were more for it than I was."</p> + +<p>"Rose—he's got a bigger income than I have."</p> + +<p>"He never told me what his income is."</p> + +<p>"But you know?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say Uncle does."</p> + +<p>"Better dressed—decidedly more handsome——"</p> + +<p>"Well—he <i>is</i> that."</p> + +<p>"A bigger income. Rose, do you want Mr. Robinson to be found dead in his +shop—horribly dead—among the collars and the handkerchiefs—spoiling +them, and—not—looking—handsome—any more?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Tanqueray!"</p> + +<p>"Then don't talk about him."</p> + +<p>He turned his face to hers. She put up her hands and drew his head down +into the hollow of her breasts that were warm with the sun on them.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said, "if you stroke my hair too much it'll come off, like +Joey's. Would you love me if my hair came off?"</p> + +<p>She kissed his hair.</p> + +<p>"When did you begin to love me, Rose?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I think it must have been when you were ill."</p> + +<p>"I see. When I was bowled over on my back and couldn't struggle. What +<i>made</i> you love me?"</p> + +<p>She was silent a long time, smiling softly to herself.</p> + +<p>"I think it was because—because—because you were so kind to Joey."</p> + +<p>"So you thought I would be kind to you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't—I didn't think at all. I just——"</p> + +<p>"So did I," said Tanqueray.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2> + + +<p>It had been arranged that Rose was to be married from the house of her +mistress, and that she was to remain there until her wedding-day. There +were so many things to be seen to. There was the baby. You couldn't, +Rose said, play fast and loose with <i>him</i>. Rose, at her own request, had +come to take care of the baby for a month, and she was not going back on +that, not if it was ever so. Then there were all the things that her +mistress, Rose said, was going to learn her. So many things, things she +was not to do, things she was not to say, things she was on no account +to wear. Rose, buying her trousseau, was not to be trusted alone for a +minute.</p> + +<p>It had been put to Rose, very gently by her mistress, very gravely by +her master, whether she would really be happy if she married this +eccentric young gentleman with the band-box. Was it not possible that +she might be happier with somebody rather less eccentric? And Rose +replied that she knew her own mind; that she couldn't be happy at all +with anybody else, and that, if she could, she'd rather be unhappy with +Mr. Tanqueray, eccentricity, band-box and all. Whereas, if he was to be +unhappy with <i>her</i>, now——But, when it came to that, they hadn't the +heart to tell her that he might, and very probably would be.</p> + +<p>If Rose knew her own mind, Tanqueray knew his. The possibility of being +unhappy with Rose (he had considered it) was dim compared with the +certainty that he was unhappy without her. To be deprived of the sight +and sound of her for six days in the week, to go down to Fleet, like the +butcher, on a Sunday, and find her rosy and bright-eyed with affection, +with a little passion that grew like his own with delay, that grew in +silence and in secret, making Rose, every Sunday, more admirably shy; +to be with her for two hours, and then to be torn from her by a train he +had to catch; all this kept Tanqueray in an excitement incompatible with +discreet reflection.</p> + +<p>Rose would not name a day before the fourteenth of July, not if it was +ever so. He adored that little phrase of desperate negation. He was in a +state of mind to accept everything that Rose did and said as adorable. +Rose had strange audacities, strange embarrassments. Dumbness would come +upon Rose in moments which another woman, Jane for instance, would have +winged with happy words. She had a look that was anything but dumb, a +look of innocent tenderness, which in another woman, Jane again, would +not have been allowed to rest upon him so long. He loved that look. In +her very lapses, her gentle elision of the aitch, he found a foreign, an +infantile, a pathetic charm.</p> + +<p>So the date of the wedding was fixed for the fourteenth.</p> + +<p>It was now the twelfth, and Tanqueray had not yet announced his +engagement.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the twelfth two letters came which made him aware of +this omission. One was from young Arnott Nicholson, who wanted to know +when, if ever, he was coming out to see him. The other was from Jane's +little friend, Laura Gunning, reminding him that the twelfth was Jane's +birthday.</p> + +<p>He had forgotten.</p> + +<p>Yet there it stood in his memorandum-book, entered three months ago, +lest by any possibility he should forget.</p> + +<p>How, in the future, was he going to manage about birthdays? For, +whenever any of the three had a birthday, they all celebrated it +together. Last time it had been Tanqueray's birthday, and they had made +a day of it, winding up with supper in little Laura's rooms. Such a +funny, innocent supper that began with maccaroni, and ended, he +remembered, with bread and jam. Before that, it had been Laura's +birthday, and Tanqueray had taken them all to the play. But on Jane's +birthday (and on other days, <i>their</i> days) it was their custom to take +the train into the country, to tramp the great white roads, to loiter in +the fields, to climb the hillsides and lie there, prone, with slackened +limbs, utterly content with the world, with each other and themselves. +As he thought of those days, their days, he had a sudden vision of his +marriage-day as a dividing line, sundering him from them, their +interests and their activities. He could not think of Rose as making one +of that company.</p> + +<p>Laura now inquired innocently what his plans were for that day. Would he +meet them (she meant, would he meet her and Jane Holland) at Marylebone, +by the entrance, at eleven o'clock, and go with them somewhere into the +country?</p> + +<p>Would he? He thought about it for five minutes, and decided that on the +whole he would rather go than not. He was restless in these days before +his wedding. He could not stand the solitude of this house where Rose +had been and was not. And he wanted to see Jane Holland again and make +it right with her. He was aware that in many ways he had made it wrong.</p> + +<p>He would have to tell her. He would have to tell Nicholson. And +Nicholson, why, of course, Nicholson would have to see him through. He +must go to Nicholson at once.</p> + +<p>Nicholson lived at Wendover. There was a train from Marylebone about +eleven. It was possible to combine a festival for Jane with a descent +upon Nicky.</p> + +<p>By the entrance, at eleven, Laura Gunning waited for him, punctually +observant of the hour. Beyond, on the pavement before the station, he +saw the tall figure of another woman. It was Nina Lempriere. She was not +waiting—Nina never waited—but striding impatiently up and down. He +would have to reckon, then, with Nina Lempriere, too. He was glad that +Jane was with her.</p> + +<p>Little Laura, holding herself very straight, greeted him with her funny +smile, a smile that was hardly more than a tremor of her white lips. +Laura Gunning, at twenty-seven, had still in some of her moods the +manner of a child. She was now like a seven-year-old made shy and +serious by profound excitement. She was a very small woman and she had a +small face, with diminutive features in excessively low relief, a face +shadowless as a child's. Everything about Laura Gunning was small and +finished with an innocent perfection. She had a small and charming +talent for short stories, little novels, perfect within the limits of +their kind.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray laid before her his Wendover scheme. Laura said he must ask +Jane. It was Jane's birthday. Jane, being asked, said, No, she didn't +mind where they went, provided they went somewhere. She supposed there +was a gate they could sit on, while Tanqueray called on Nicky. Tanqueray +said he thought he saw Nicky letting her sit on a gate. Considering that +Nicky had been pestering him for the last six months (he had) to bring +her out to have tea with him on one of their days.</p> + +<p>"And we've never been," said he.</p> + +<p>Jane let it pass. But Nina Lempriere, as Tanqueray well knew, had a +devil in her. Nina's eyes had the trick of ignoring your position in the +space they traversed, which made it the more disconcerting when they +came back and fixed you with their curious, hooded stare. They were +staring at Tanqueray now.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" said she. "We haven't heard of you for ages."</p> + +<p>"I've been ill."</p> + +<p>Jane looked at him and said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Ill? And you never told us?" said Nina.</p> + +<p>"I was all right. I was well looked after."</p> + +<p>"Who looked after you?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer her. For in that instant there rose before him the +image of Rose Eldred, tender and desirable, and it kept him dumb.</p> + +<p>Nina, whose devil was nothing if not persistent, repeated her question. +He divined already in Nina a secret, subtle hostility.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said abruptly. "I looked after myself."</p> + +<p>Jane stared intently at a notice of the departure and arrival of trains.</p> + +<p>Laura, aware of embarrassment somewhere, began to talk to him +light-heartedly, in her fashion, and the moment passed.</p> + +<p>In the train, going down to Wendover, Laura talked to Jane. Nina did not +talk. Her queer eyes, when they looked at him, had a light in them of +ironic devilry and suspicion. They left him speculating on the extent +to which he was cutting himself off. This journey down to Wendover was a +stage in the process. He was going down to tell Nicholson, to ask +Nicholson to see him through.</p> + +<p>How would Jane take it? How would Nina? How would Laura? He had said to +himself, light-heartedly, that his marriage would make no difference, +that he should retain them, all three, as an intellectual seraglio. +Would this, after all, be possible? When they heard that he, George +Tanqueray, was marrying a servant in a lodging-house?</p> + +<p>Aware now, vividly aware, of the thing he was doing, he asked himself +why, if he was not in love with Jane, he had not been in love with Nina? +Nina had shown signs. Yes, very unmistakably she had shown signs. He +could recall a time when there had lurked a betraying tenderness about +her ironic mouth; when her queer eyes, as they looked at him, took on a +certain softness and surrender. It had not touched him. To his mind +there had always been something a little murky about Nina. It was the +fault, no doubt, of her complexion. Not but what Nina had a certain +beauty, a tempestuous, haggard, Roman eagle kind of beauty. She looked +the thing she was, a creature of high courage and prodigious energy. +Besides, she had a devil. Without it, he doubted whether even her genius +(he acknowledged, a little grudgingly, her genius) could have done all +it did.</p> + +<p>It had entered into Tanqueray's head (though not his heart) to be in +love with Jane. But never, even by way of fantasy, had it entered it to +be in love with Nina; though it was to Nina that he looked when he +wanted the highest excitement in his intellectual seraglio. He could not +conceive any man being in love with her, to the extent, that is to say, +of trying to marry her. Nina had the thing called temperament, more +temperament and murkier than he altogether cared for; but, as for +marrying, you might as well try to marry some bird of storm on the wing, +or a flash of lightning on its career through heaven. Nina—career and +all—was pre-eminently unfit.</p> + +<p>She had shown, more than once, this ironic antagonism, as if she knew +what he thought of her, and owed him a grudge.</p> + +<p>If not Nina, why not Laura? She was small and she was pretty and she was +pathetic, and he liked women to be so. Why was it that with all her +feminine smallness and prettiness and pathos he had never cared for her?</p> + +<p>They were talking.</p> + +<p>"Tired, Laura?" Jane asked.</p> + +<p>"Only sleepy. Papa had another dream last night."</p> + +<p>They laughed. So did Laura, though her tragedy was there, the tragedy +which had given her that indomitable face.</p> + +<p>Laura lived under conditions which would have driven Tanqueray mad. She +had a father; she who, as Jane said, could least of all of them afford a +father. Her father had had a sunstroke, and it had made him dream +dreams. He would get up a dozen times in the night and wander in and out +of Laura's bedroom, and sit heavily on her bed and tell her his dreams, +which terrified Laura.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't funny, this time," said she. "It was one of his horrid ones."</p> + +<p>Nobody laughed then. They were dumb with the pity and horror of it. +Laura's father, when he was awake, was the most innocent, most +uninspired, most uncreative of old gentlemen; but in his dreams he had a +perfect genius for the macabre. The dreams had been going on for about a +year, and they were making Laura ill. Tanqueray knew it, and it made him +sad.</p> + +<p>That was why he had not cared to care for Laura.</p> + +<p>Yet little Laura, very prettily, very innocently, with an entire +unconsciousness, had let him see where her heart was. And as prettily +and innocently and unconsciously as he could, he had let her see that +her heart was no concern of his, any more than Nina's.</p> + +<p>And she had not cherished any resentment, she had not owed him any +grudge. She had withdrawn herself, still prettily, still innocently, so +that she seemed, with an absurd prettiness, to be making room for Jane.</p> + +<p>He had even a vague recollection of himself as acquiescing in her +withdrawal, on those grounds. It was almost as if there had been an +understanding between him and Laura, between Jane and Laura, between +him and Jane. They had behaved perfectly, all three. What made their +perfection was that in all these withdrawals, acquiescences and +understandings not one of them had given any outward sign. They had kept +their spoken compact. They had left each other free.</p> + +<p>As for his mere marriage, he was certain with all of them to be +understood. It was their business, as they had so often told each other, +to understand. But he was not sure that he wanted to be understood with +the lucidity, the depth, the prodigious thoroughness of which they were +capable.</p> + +<p>He said to himself, "The blood of these women is in their brains." That +was precisely what he had against them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2> + + +<p>It was a perfect day, Jane's birthday, like a young June day, a day of +the sun, of white distances and vivid foregrounds.</p> + +<p>Wendover Hill looked over Arnott Nicholson's white house and over his +green garden, where, summer and winter through, there brooded a heavenly +quiet, a perfect peace. It was strange and sad, said Tanqueray, that a +quiet and peace like that should be given to Nicky—to write poems in. +Jane said it was sadder and stranger that verse so vile should flow from +anything so charming, so perfect in its way as Nicky.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said she, as they crowded on his doorstep, "do you think +he'll be at home?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. We shall find him in his library, among his books and his +busts, seething in a froth of abominable manuscripts, and feeling +himself immortal."</p> + +<p>Arnott Nicholson was at home, and he was in his library, with his books +and his busts, and with Gisborne's great portrait of Jane Holland (the +original) above his chimney-piece. He was, as Tanqueray had predicted, +seething in his froth. Their names came to him there—Miss Holland and +Mr. Tanqueray. In a moment Nicky was out of his library and into his +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>He was a singularly attractive person, slender, distinguished, highly +finished in black and white. He was dressed, not like a candidate for +immortality, but in the pink of contemporary perfection.</p> + +<p>He was shyly, charmingly glad to see them. And delighted, of course, he +said, to see Miss Lempriere and Miss Gunning. He insisted on their all +staying to tea, to dinner, on their giving him, now that they had come, +a day. He ordered whisky and soda and lemonade. He brought peaches and +chocolates and cigarettes, and offered them diffidently, as things +mortal and savouring of mortality.</p> + +<p>He went to and fro, carrying himself humbly yet with triumph, like one +aware that he entertained immortal guests. He couldn't get over it, he +said, their dropping in on him like this, with a divine precipitance, +out of their blue. Heavens! Supposing he had been out! He stood there +glowing at them, the most perfect thing in his perfect drawing-room.</p> + +<p>It was a room of old chintzes and old china, of fragile, distinguished +furniture, of family portraits, of miniatures in medallions, and great +bowls of roses everywhere. The whole house had a strange feminine +atmosphere, a warm look as if a woman's hand had passed over it. Yet it +was Nicky who was the soul of his house, a slender soul, three parts +feminine.</p> + +<p>Nicky was looking at Jane as she stooped over the roses. "Do you know," +he said, "that you've come home? Come and see yourself."</p> + +<p>He led the way into his library where her portrait looked down from its +high place.</p> + +<p>"You bought it?" said she.</p> + +<p>"Rather. Gisborne painted it for me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nicky!"</p> + +<p>"It's your genius brooding over mine—I mean over me."</p> + +<p>He looked at her again. When he looked at you Nicky's perfect clothes, +his long chin, his nose that seemed all bridge, his fine little black +moustache, Nicky himself retreated into insignificance beneath his +enormous, prominent black eyes.</p> + +<p>"I put you there," he said, "to inspire me."</p> + +<p>Nicky's eyes gazed at you with a terrible solemnity whenever he talked +about his inspiration.</p> + +<p>"Do I?"</p> + +<p>She did. They had caught him in the high act of creation. He'd been at +it since ten o'clock; sitting there, with the blood, he said, beating so +furiously in his brain that if he'd gone on like that he'd have +destroyed himself. His head was burning now.</p> + +<p>"We'll drag you, Nicky, to the top of Wendover Hill, and air you +thoroughly. You reek," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>His idea always was that they took Nicky out of doors to air him; he had +so strongly the literary taint.</p> + +<p>Nicky declared that he would have been willing to be dragged with them +anywhere. Only, as it happened, he had to be at home. He was expecting +Miss Bickersteth. They knew Miss Bickersteth?</p> + +<p>They knew her. Nicky, for purposes of his own, was in the habit of +cultivating, assiduously, the right people; and Miss Bickersteth was +eminently right.</p> + +<p>The lady, he said, might be upon them any minute.</p> + +<p>"In that case," said Tanqueray, "we'll clear out."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> clear out? But you're the very people he wants to see."</p> + +<p>"He?"</p> + +<p>Hugh Brodrick. Miss Bickersteth was bringing Hugh Brodrick.</p> + +<p>They smiled. Miss Bickersteth was always bringing somebody or being +brought.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was the right man to bring. He implored them to stay and meet +Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Who <i>is</i> Brodrick?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick, said Nicky, was a man to be cultivated, to be cherished, to be +clung to and never to be let go. Brodrick was on the "Morning +Telegraph," and at the back of it, and everywhere about it. And the Jews +were at the back of Brodrick. So much so that he was starting a monthly +magazine—for the work of the great authors only. That was his, +Brodrick's, dream. He didn't know whether he could carry it through. +Nicky supposed it would depend on the authors. No, on the +advertisements, Brodrick told him. That was where he had the pull. He +could work the "Telegraph" agency for that. And he had the Jews at the +back of him. He was going to pay his authors on a scale that would leave +the popular magazines behind him.</p> + +<p>"He sounds too good to be true," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Or is he," said Tanqueray, "too true to be altogether good?"</p> + +<p>"He isn't true, in your sense, at all. That's the beauty of him. He's a +gorgeous dream. But a dream that can afford to pay for itself."</p> + +<p>"A dream with Jews at its back," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"And he wants—he told me—to secure you first, Miss Holland. And Mr. +Tanqueray. And he's sure to want Miss Lempriere and Miss Gunning. You'll +all be in it. It's the luckiest thing that you came in to-day, of all +days."</p> + +<p>In fact, Nicky suggested that if the finger of Providence was ever to be +seen clearly working anywhere, it was working here.</p> + +<p>A bell in the distance tinkled gently, with a musical silver note. It +was one of the perfections of Nicky's house that it had no jarring +noises in it.</p> + +<p>"That's he," said Nicky solemnly. "Excuse me."</p> + +<p>And he went out.</p> + +<p>He came back, all glowing and quivering, behind Miss Bickersteth and Mr. +Hugh Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Miss Bickersteth they all knew, said Nicky. His voice was unsteady with +his overmastering sense of great presences, of Jane Holland, of +Tanqueray, of Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was a man of about thirty-five, square-built, with a torso +inclined to a somewhat heavy slenderness, and a face with blunt but +regular features, heavily handsome. One of those fair Englishmen who +grow darker after adolescence; hair, moustache and skin acquiring a dull +sombreness in fairness. But Brodrick's face gained in its effect from +the dusky opacity that intensified the peculiar blueness of his eyes. +They were eyes which lacked, curiously, the superficial social gaze, +which fixed themselves, undeviating and intent, on the one object of his +interest. As he entered they were fixed on Jane, turning straight to her +in her corner.</p> + +<p>This directness of aim rendered mediation almost superfluous. But Nicky, +as the fervent adorer of Miss Holland, had brought to the ceremony of +introduction a solemnity and mystery which he was in no mood to abate. +It was wonderful how in spite of Brodrick he got it all in.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was charged with a more formidable and less apparent fire. Yet +what struck Jane first in Brodrick was his shyness, his deference, his +positive timidity. There was something about him that appealed to her, +pathetically, to forget that he was that important person, a proprietor +of the "Morning Telegraph." She would have said that he was new to any +business of proprietorship. New with a newness that shone in his +slumbering ardour; that at first sight seemed to betray itself in the +very innocence, the openness of his approach. If it could be called an +approach, that slow, indomitable gravitation of Brodrick toward Jane.</p> + +<p>"Do you often come over to Wendover?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Not very often."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, then Brodrick said something again, but in so low a +voice that Jane had to ask him what he said.</p> + +<p>"Only that it's an easy run down from Marylebone."</p> + +<p>"It is—very," said she, and she tried to draw him into conversation +with Miss Lempriere and Miss Gunning.</p> + +<p>It was not easy to draw him where he had not previously meant to go. He +was a creature too unswerving, inadaptable for purely social purposes. +For Nina and Laura he had only a blank courtesy. Yet he talked to them, +he talked fluently, in an abstracted manner, while he looked, now at +Jane, and now at her portrait by Gisborne. He seemed to be wondering +quietly what she was doing there, in Nicky's house.</p> + +<p>Nicky, as became him, devoted himself to Miss Bickersteth. She was on +the reviewing staff of the "Morning Telegraph," and very valuable to +Nicky. Besides, he liked her. She interested him, amused, amazed him. As +a journalist she had strange perversities and profundities. She had +sharpened her teeth on the "Critique of Pure Reason" in her prodigious +teens. Yet she could toss off, for the "Telegraph," paragraphs of an +incomparable levity. In the country Miss Bickersteth was a blustering, +full-blooded Diana of the fields. In town she was intellect, energy and +genial modernity made flesh. Even Tanqueray, who drew the line at the +dreadful, clever little people, had not drawn it at Miss Bickersteth. +There was something soothing in her large and florid presence. It had no +ostensible air of journalism, of being restlessly and for ever on the +spot. You found it wherever you wanted it, planted fairly and squarely, +with a look of having grown there.</p> + +<p>Nicky, concealed beside Miss Bickersteth in a corner, had begun by +trying to make her talk about Shelley (she had edited him). He hoped +that thus he might be led on to talk about himself. To Nicky the +transition was a natural one.</p> + +<p>But Miss Bickersteth did not want to talk about Shelley. Shelley, she +declared irreverently, was shop. She wanted to talk about people whom +they knew, having reached the absolving age of forty, when you may say +anything you please about anybody to an audience sufficiently discreet. +And she had just seen Jane and Tanqueray going out together through the +long window on to the lawn.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said she, "if they liked, they could marry now."</p> + +<p>"Now?" repeated poor Nicky vaguely.</p> + +<p>"Now that one of them has got an income."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think he was a marrying man."</p> + +<p>"No. And you wouldn't think, would you, she was a marrying woman?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know. I haven't thought about it. He <i>said</i> he wasn't going +to marry."</p> + +<p>"Oh." Two small eyes looked at him, two liquid, luminous spots in the +pinkness of Miss Bickersteth's face.</p> + +<p>"It's got as far as that, has it? That shows he's been thinking of it."</p> + +<p>"I should have thought it showed he wasn't."</p> + +<p>Miss Bickersteth's mouth was decided in its set, and vague in its +outline and its colouring. Her smile now appeared as a mere quiver of +her face.</p> + +<p>"How have you managed to preserve your beautiful innocence? Do you +always go about with your head among the stars?"</p> + +<p>"My head——?" He felt it. It was going round and round.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Is a poet not supposed ever to see anything under his exquisite +nose?"</p> + +<p>"I am not," said Nicky solemnly, "always a poet. And when a person tells +me he isn't going to do a thing, I naturally think he isn't."</p> + +<p>"And I naturally think he is. Whatever you think about George Tanqueray, +<i>he's</i> sure to do the other thing."</p> + +<p>"Come—if you can calculate on that."</p> + +<p>"You can't calculate on anything. Least of all with George Tanqueray. +Except that he'll never achieve anything that isn't a masterpiece. If +it's a masterpiece of folly."</p> + +<p>"Mind you," she added, "I don't say he will marry Jane Holland, and I +don't say it would be a masterpiece of folly if he did."</p> + +<p>"What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"That if he ever cares for any woman enough to marry her, it will be +Jane."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Nicky, after some reflection. "You think he's that sort?"</p> + +<p>"I think he's a genius. What more do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I</i> don't want anything more," said Nicky, plunging head-first into +a desperate ambiguity. He emerged. "What I mean is, when we've got Him, +and when we've got Her—creators——" He paused before the immensity of +his vision of Them. "What business have we——"</p> + +<p>"To go putting one and one together so as to make two?"</p> + +<p>"Well—it doesn't seem quite reverent."</p> + +<p>"You think them gods, then, your creators?"</p> + +<p>"I think I—worship them."</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mr. Nicholson, <i>you're</i> adorable. And I'm atrocious."</p> + +<p>"I believe," said Nicky, "tea is in the garden."</p> + +<p>"Let us go into the garden," said Miss Bickersteth.</p> + +<p>And they went.</p> + +<p>Tea was served in a green recess shut in from the lawn by high yew +hedges. Nicky at his tea-table was more charming than ever, surrounded +by old silver and fine linen, making tea delicately, and pouring it into +fragile cups and offering it, doing everything with an almost feminine +dexterity and grace.</p> + +<p>After tea the group scattered and rearranged itself. In Nicky's perfect +garden, a garden of smooth grass plots and clipped yew-trees, of lupins +and larkspurs, of roses that would have been riotous but for the +restraining spirit of the place; in a green alley between lawn and +orchard, Mr. Hugh Brodrick found himself with Miss Holland, and alone. +Very quietly, very persistently, with eyes intent, he had watched for +and secured this moment.</p> + +<p>"You don't know," he was saying, "how I've wanted to meet you, and how +hard I've worked for it."</p> + +<p>"Was it so hard?"</p> + +<p>"Hard isn't the word for it. If you knew the things I've done——" He +spoke in his low, even voice, saying eager and impulsive things without +a sign of eagerness or impulse.</p> + +<p>"What things?"</p> + +<p>"Mean things, base things. Going on my knees to people I didn't know, +grovelling for an introduction."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. It sounds awful."</p> + +<p>"It was. I've been on the point of meeting you a score of times, and +there's always been some horrid fatality. Either you'd gone when I +arrived, or I had to go before you arrived. I believe I've seen +you—once."</p> + +<p>"I don't remember."</p> + +<p>"At Miss Bickersteth's. You were coming out as I was going in." He +looked at his watch. "And <i>now</i> I ought to be catching a train."</p> + +<p>"Don't catch it."</p> + +<p>"I shan't. For I've got to tell you how much I admire your work. I'm not +going to ask how you do it, for I don't suppose you know yourself."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"I'm not even going to ask myself. I simply accept the miracle."</p> + +<p>"If it's miracles you want, look at George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>He said nothing. And now she thought of it, he had not looked at George +Tanqueray. He had looked at nobody but her. It was the look of a man who +had never known a moment's uncertainty as to the thing he wanted. It was +a look that stuck.</p> + +<p>"Why aren't you at his feet?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Because I'm not drawn—to my knees—by brutal strength and cold, +diabolical lucidity."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "you haven't read him."</p> + +<p>"I've read all of him. And I prefer you."</p> + +<p>"Me? You've spoilt it all. If you can't admire him, what is the use of +your admiring me?"</p> + +<p>"I see. You don't want me to admire you."</p> + +<p>He said it with no emphasis, no emotion, as if he were indifferent as to +what she wanted.</p> + +<p>"No. I don't think I do."</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "you have a heart."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if people would only leave my heart alone!"</p> + +<p>"And Tanqueray, I believe, has a devil."</p> + +<p>She turned on him.</p> + +<p>"Give me George Tanqueray's devil!" She paused, considering him. "Why do +you talk about my heart?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs03" id="gs03"></a> +<img src="images/gs03.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Why do you talk about my heart?"</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Because, if I may say so, it's what I like most in you."</p> + +<p>"Anybody can like <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Can they?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. For ten people who care for me there isn't one capable of caring +for George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"How very unfortunate for him."</p> + +<p>"Unfortunate for me, you mean."</p> + +<p>He smiled. He was not in the least offended. It was as if her perverse +shafts never penetrated his superb solidity.</p> + +<p>And yet he was not obtuse, not insensitive. He might fall, she judged, +through pride, but not through vanity.</p> + +<p>"I admit," said he, "that he is our greatest living novelist."</p> + +<p>"Then," said she, "you are forgiven."</p> + +<p>"And I may continue to adore your tenderness?"</p> + +<p>"You may adore anything—after that admission."</p> + +<p>He smiled again, like one satisfied, appeased.</p> + +<p>"What," he said presently, "is Miss Lempriere's work like? Has she +anything of your breadth, your solidity, your fire?"</p> + +<p>"There's more fire in Nina Lempriere's little finger than in my whole +body."</p> + +<p>Brodrick took out his pocket-book and made a note of Nina.</p> + +<p>"And the little lady? What does she do?"</p> + +<p>"Little things. Charming, delicious, funny, pathetic things. Everything +she does is like herself."</p> + +<p>"I must put her down too." And he made another note of Laura.</p> + +<p>They had turned on to the lawn. Their host was visible, gathering great +bunches of roses for his guests.</p> + +<p>"What a lovable person he is," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>They faced the house, the little house roofed with moss, walled with +roses, where, thought Jane, poor Nicky nested like the nightingale he +wasn't and would never be.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Brodrick, "how he gets the perfection, the peace, the +finish of it, the little feminine touches, the flowers on the table——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Nicholson and his house always look as if they were expecting +a lady."</p> + +<p>"But," said Brodrick, "it's so pathetic, for the lady never comes."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps if she did it wouldn't be so peaceful."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. But it must be sad for him—living alone like this."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I live alone and I'm not sad."</p> + +<p>"You? You live alone?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. So does Mr. Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"Tanqueray. He's a man, and it doesn't matter. But you, a woman——It's +horrible."</p> + +<p>He was almost animated.</p> + +<p>"There's your friend, Miss Bickersteth. She lives alone."</p> + +<p>"Miss Bickersteth—is Miss Bickersteth."</p> + +<p>"There's Nina Lempriere."</p> + +<p>"The fiery lady?" He paused, meditating. "Why do her people let her?"</p> + +<p>"She hasn't got any. Her people are all dead."</p> + +<p>"How awful. And your small friend, Miss Gunning? Don't say she lives +alone, too."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't. She lives with her father. He's worse than a family——"</p> + +<p>"Worse than a——?" He stared aghast.</p> + +<p>"Worse than a family of seven children."</p> + +<p>"And that's a misfortune, is it?" He frowned.</p> + +<p>"Yes, when you have to keep it—on nothing but what you earn by writing, +and when it leaves you neither time nor space to write in."</p> + +<p>"I see. She oughtn't to have to do it."</p> + +<p>"But she has, and it's killing her. She'd be better if she lived alone."</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know anything about Miss Gunning. But for you——"</p> + +<p>"You don't know anything about me."</p> + +<p>"I do. I've seen you. And I stick to it. It's horrible."</p> + +<p>"What's horrible?" said Miss Bickersteth, as they approached.</p> + +<p>"Ask Mr. Brodrick."</p> + +<p>But Brodrick, thus appealed to, drifted away towards Nicholson, +murmuring something about that train he had to catch.</p> + +<p>"What have you done to agitate him?" said Miss Bickersteth. "You didn't +throw cold water on his magazine, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have known he had a magazine."</p> + +<p>"What? Didn't he mention it?"</p> + +<p>"Not to me."</p> + +<p>"Then something <i>is</i> the matter with him." She added, after a thoughtful +pause, "What did you think of him?"</p> + +<p>"There's no doubt he's a very amiable, benevolent man. The sort of man +who wants everybody to marry because he's married himself."</p> + +<p>"But he isn't married."</p> + +<p>"Well, he looks it. He looks as if he'd never been anything <i>but</i> +married all his life."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow," said Miss Bickersteth, "that's safe. Safer than not looking +married when you are."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's safe enough," said Jane. As she spoke she was aware of +Tanqueray standing at her side.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2> + + +<p>The day was over, and they were going back.</p> + +<p>Their host insisted on accompanying them to the station. They had given +him a day, and every moment of it, he declared solemnly, was precious.</p> + +<p>They could hardly have spent it better than with Nicky in his perfect +house, his perfect garden. And Nicky had been charming, with his humble +ardour, his passion for a perfection that was not his.</p> + +<p>The day, Miss Holland intimated, was his, Nicky's present, rather than +theirs. He glowed. It had been glorious, anyhow, a perfect day. A day, +Nicky said, that made him feel immortal.</p> + +<p>He looked at Jane Holland and George Tanqueray, and they tried not to +smile. Jane would have died rather than have hurt Nicky's feelings. It +was not in her to spoil his perfect day. All the same, it had been their +secret jest that Nicky <i>was</i> immortal. He would never end, never by any +possibility disappear. As he stuck now, he always would stick. He was +going with them to the station.</p> + +<p>Sensitive to the least quiver of a lip, the young man's mortal part was +stung with an exquisite sense of the becoming.</p> + +<p>"If I feel it," said he, "what must <i>you</i> feel?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we!" they cried, and broke loose from his solemn and detaining +eyes.</p> + +<p>They walked on ahead, and Nicholson was left behind with Laura Gunning +and Nina Lempriere. He consented, patiently and politely, to be thus +outstripped. After all, the marvellous thing was that he should find +himself on that road at all with Them. After all, he had had an hour +alone with Him, in his garden, and five-and-twenty minutes by his watch +with Her. It was enough if he could keep his divinities in sight, +following the flutter of Miss Holland's veil.</p> + +<p>Besides, she had asked him to talk to Nina and look after Laura. She was +always asking him to be an angel, and look after somebody. Being an +angel seemed somehow his doom. But he was sorry for Laura. They said she +had cared for Tanqueray; and he could well believe it. He could believe +in any woman caring for Him. He wondered how it had left her. A little +defiant, he thought, but with a quiet, clear-eyed virginity. Determined, +too. Nicholson had never seen so large an expression of determination on +so small a face.</p> + +<p>He always liked talking to Laura; but he shrank inexpressibly from +approaching Nina, the woman with unquiet eyes and nervous gestures, and +a walk that suggested the sweep of a winged thing to its end. A glance +at Nina told him that wherever she was she could look after herself.</p> + +<p>Morose, fearlessly disarrayed, and with it all a trifle haggard and +forlorn, Nina Lempriere had the air of not belonging to them. She +paused, she loitered, she swept tempestuously ahead, but none of her +movements had the slightest reference to her companions. From time to +time he glanced uncomfortably at Nina.</p> + +<p>"Leave her," said Laura, "to herself."</p> + +<p>"Do you think," he said, "she minds being left?"</p> + +<p>"Not she. She likes it. You don't suppose she's thinking of <i>us</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Dear me, no; but one likes to be polite."</p> + +<p>"She'd so much rather you were sincere."</p> + +<p>"I say, mayn't I be both?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, but you couldn't always be with Nina. She makes you feel +sometimes as if it was no use your existing."</p> + +<p>"Do you think," he said, "she'll stand beside Jane Holland?"</p> + +<p>"No. She may go farther."</p> + +<p>"Go farther? How?"</p> + +<p>"She's got a better chance."</p> + +<p>"A better chance? I shouldn't have backed her chance against Miss +Holland's."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> better. She doesn't get so mixed up with people. If she <i>were</i> +to——"</p> + +<p>He waited.</p> + +<p>"She'd go with a rush, in one piece, and either die or come out of it +all right. Whereas Jane——"</p> + +<p>He waited breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Jane would be torn to tatters, inch by inch."</p> + +<p>Nicholson felt a curious constriction across his chest. His throat dried +as he spoke again.</p> + +<p>"What do you think would tear her most?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if she married."</p> + +<p>"I thought you meant that."</p> + +<p>"The thing is," said Laura, "not to marry." She said it meditatively and +without reference to herself; but he gathered that, if reference had +been made, she would, with still more dogged a determination, have kept +her view.</p> + +<p>He agreed with her, and pondered. Tanqueray had once said the very same +thing to him, in talking about Jane. She ought not to marry. He, +Tanqueray, wasn't going to, not if he knew it. That was the view they +all took. Not to marry.</p> + +<p>He knew that they were under vows of poverty. Were they pledged to +chastity and obedience, too? Obedience, immitigable, unrelenting? How +wonderful they were, they and their achievements and renunciations, the +things they did, and the things they let alone simply and as a matter of +course, with their infallible instinct for the perfect. High, solitary +priest and priestesses of a god diviner than desire. And She—he saw her +more virgin, more perfect than they all.</p> + +<p>"You think too then," the blameless youth continued, "that if Miss +Holland—married it would injure her career?"</p> + +<p>"Injure it? There wouldn't be any career left to injure."</p> + +<p>Was it really so? He recorded, silently, his own determination to +remember that. It had for him, also, the consecration of a vow.</p> + +<p>A thought struck him. Perhaps Laura, perhaps Tanqueray, had divined him +and were endeavouring in kindness to take from him the poison of a +preposterous hope. He preferred, however, not to explain them or the +situation or himself thus. He was, with all possible sublimity, +renouncing Jane.</p> + +<p>Another thought struck him. It struck him hard, with the shock almost of +blasphemy. It broke into speech.</p> + +<p>"Not," he said, "if she were to marry Him?"</p> + +<p>Laura was silent, and he wondered.</p> + +<p>Why not? After all it was natural. She matched him. The thing was +inevitable, and it was fitting. So supremely fitting was it that he +could not very well complain. He could give her up to George Tanqueray.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2> + + +<p>Jane Holland and Tanqueray had left the others some considerable way +behind. It was possible, they agreed, to have too much of Nicky, though +he did adore them.</p> + +<p>The wide high road stood up before them, climbing the ridge, to drop +down into Wendover. A white road, between grass borders and hedgerows, +their green powdered white with the dust of it. Over all, the pallor of +the first white hour of twilight.</p> + +<p>For a moment, a blessed pause in the traffic, they were alone; twilight +and the road were theirs.</p> + +<p>The two bore themselves with a certain physical audacity, a swinging +challenge to fatigue. He, in his well-knit youth, walked with the step +of some fine, untamed animal. She, at his side, kept the wild pace he +set with a smooth motion of her own. She carried, high and +processionally, her trophy, flowers from their host's garden, wild +parsley of her own gathering, and green fans of beech and oak. As she +went, the branches swayed with the swinging of her body. A light wind +woke on the hill and played with her. Her long veil, grey-blue and +transparent, falling from her head to her shoulders, flew and drifted +about her, now clinging to her neck, her breasts, now fluttering itself +free.</p> + +<p>He looked at her, and thought that if Gisborne, R.A., hadn't been an +idiot, he would have painted her, not sitting, but like that. Protected +by the charm of Rose, there was no more terror for him in any charm of +Jane's. He could afford to show his approval, to admit that, even as a +woman, she had points. He could afford, being extremely happy himself, +to make Jane happy too.</p> + +<p>So sheltered, so protected was he that it did not strike him that Jane +was utterly defenceless and exposed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "it's been a day."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>She saw him sustained by some inward ecstasy. The coming joy, the joy of +his wedding-day, was upon him; the light of it was in his eyes as he +looked at her, the tenderness of it in his voice as he spoke to her +again.</p> + +<p>"Have you liked it as much as you used to like our other days?"</p> + +<p>"Oh more, far more." Then, remembering how those other days had been +indeed theirs and nobody else's, she added, "In spite of poor Nicky."</p> + +<p>It was at this moment that he realized that he would have to tell her +about Rose; also that he would be hanged if he knew how to. She had been +manifestly unhappy when he last saw her. Now he saw, not only that she +was happy, but that he was responsible for her happiness. This was worse +than anything he had yet imagined. It gave him his first definite +feeling of treachery toward Jane.</p> + +<p>Her reference to Nicky came like a reprieve. How was it, he said, that +they were let in for him? Or rather, why had they ever let him in?</p> + +<p>"It was you, Jane, who did it."</p> + +<p>"No, George; it was you. You introduced him."</p> + +<p>He owned it. "I did it because I hoped you'd fall in love with him."</p> + +<p>She saw that there was a devil in him that still longed to torment her.</p> + +<p>"That," said she, "would have been very bad for Nicky."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But it would have been very good for you."</p> + +<p>She had her moment of torment; then she recovered.</p> + +<p>"I thought," said she, "that was the one thing I was not to do."</p> + +<p>"You're not to do it seriously. But you couldn't fall in love with Nicky +seriously. Could you? Could anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Why are you so unkind to Nicky?"</p> + +<p>"Because he's so ungovernably a man of letters."</p> + +<p>"He isn't. He only thinks he is."</p> + +<p>"He thinks he's Shelley, because his father's a squire."</p> + +<p>"That saves him. No man of letters, if he tried all night, could think +anything so deliciously absurd. Don't you wish <i>you</i> could feel like +that!"</p> + +<p>He rose to it, his very excitement kindling his intellectual flame.</p> + +<p>"To feel myself an immortal, a blessed god!"</p> + +<p>They played together, profanely, with the idea that Nicky was after all +divine.</p> + +<p>"Such a tragic little god," said Jane, with a pitiful mouth, "a little +god without a single apostle or a prophet—nobody," she wailed, "to +spread the knowledge of him."</p> + +<p>"I say—<i>we</i>'ll build an altar on Wendover, to Nicky as the Unknown +God."</p> + +<p>"He won't like that, our calling him unknown."</p> + +<p>"Let's call him the Unapparent—the Undeveloped. He is the Undeveloped."</p> + +<p>"In one aspect. In another he's a finished poem, an incarnate lyric——"</p> + +<p>"An ode to immortality on legs——"</p> + +<p>"Nicky hasn't any legs. He's a breath—a perpetual aspiration."</p> + +<p>"Oh, at aspiring he beats Shelley into apoplexy."</p> + +<p>"He stands for the imperishable illusion——"</p> + +<p>"The stupendous hope——"</p> + +<p>"And, after all, he adores <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"And nobody else does," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"That's Nicky's achievement. He <i>does</i> see what you are. It's his little +claim to immortality. Just think, George, when Nicky dies and goes to +heaven he'll turn up at the gates of the poets' paradise, and they'll +let him in on the strength of that. The angel of the singing stars will +come up to him and say, 'Nicky, you sing abominably, but you can see. +You saw George Tanqueray when nobody else could. Your sonnets and your +ballads are forgiven you; and we've got a nice place for you, Nicky, +near Keats and Shelley.' Because it wouldn't be heaven for Nicky if he +wasn't near them."</p> + +<p>"How about <i>them</i>, though?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, up in heaven you won't see anything of Nicky except his heart."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he'll be stuck somewhere near you, too. It won't be heaven +for him if he isn't. The first thing he'll ask is, 'Where's Jane?'"</p> + +<p>"And then they'll break it to him very gently—'Jane's in the other +place, Nicky, where Mr. Tanqueray is. We had to send her down, because +if she wasn't there it wouldn't be hell for Mr. Tanqueray.'"</p> + +<p>"But why am <i>I</i> down there?"</p> + +<p>"Because you didn't see what Nicky was."</p> + +<p>"If you don't take care, Jinny, he'll 'have' you like the rest. You're +laying up sorrow for yourself in the day when Nicky publishes his +poems."</p> + +<p>"It's you he'll turn to."</p> + +<p>"No. I'm not celebrated," said he grimly. "There, do you see the full +horror of it?"</p> + +<p>"I do," she moaned.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's devil came back to him.</p> + +<p>"Do you think he'll fall in love with Laura?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't." She said it coolly, though his gaze was upon her, and +they were both of them aware of Nicky's high infatuation.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said lightly.</p> + +<p>"Because Nicky'll never be in love with any woman as she is; and nobody +could be in love with Laura as she isn't."</p> + +<p>She faced him in her courage. He might take it, if he liked, that she +knew Nicky was in love with her as she was not; that she knew Tanqueray +would never, like Nicky, see her as she was not, to be in love with +that.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're too subtle," he said. But he understood her subtlety.</p> + +<p>He must tell her about Rose. Before the others could come up with them +he must tell her. And then he must tell Nicky.</p> + +<p>"Jane," he said, "will you forgive me for never coming to see you? I +simply couldn't come."</p> + +<p>"I know, George, I know."</p> + +<p>"You don't. You don't know what I felt like."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not. And yet, I think, you might——"</p> + +<p>But what she thought he might have done she would not tell him.</p> + +<p>"At any rate," said he, "you'll let me come and see you now? Often; I +want to come often."</p> + +<p>He meant to tell her that his marriage was to make no difference.</p> + +<p>"Come as often as you want. Come as often as you used to."</p> + +<p>"Was it so very often?"</p> + +<p>"Not too often."</p> + +<p>"I say, those were glorious times we had. We'll have them again, Jinny. +There are things we've got to talk about. Things we've got to do. Why, +we're hardly beginning."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember saying, 'When you've made yourself an absolutely clear +medium, then you can begin'?"</p> + +<p>"I remember."</p> + +<p>He was content now to join her in singing the duet of remembrance.</p> + +<p>She dismissed herself. "What have <i>you</i> been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Not much. It looks as if I couldn't do things without you."</p> + +<p>A look of heavenly happiness came upon her face, and passed.</p> + +<p>"That isn't so, George. There never was anybody less dependent on other +people. That's why nothing has ever stopped you. Nothing ever will. +Whereas—you're right about me. Anything might stop me."</p> + +<p>"Could <i>I</i> stop you?"</p> + +<p>Not for his life could he have told what made him ask her that question, +whether an insane impulse, or a purely intellectual desire to complete +his knowledge of her, to know how deep she had gone in and what his +power was, whether he could, indeed, "stop" her.</p> + +<p>"You?" she said, and her voice had a long, profound and passionate +vibration. He had not dreamed that such a tone could have been wrung +from Jane.</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his. Steady they were and deep, under their level brows; +but in them, too, was that sudden, unexpected quality. Something in her +startled him with its intensity.</p> + +<p>Her voice, her look, had made it impossible for him to tell her about +Rose. It was not the moment.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know she was like that," he thought.</p> + +<p>No, he had never known until now what Jane was; never seen until now +that the gods in giving her genius had given her one passion the more, +to complicate her, to increase tenfold her interest and her charm.</p> + +<p>And, with the charm of Rose upon him, he could not tell whether, if he +had known, it would have made any difference. All he knew or cared to +know was that he was going to marry Rose the day after to-morrow.</p> + +<p>He would have to ask Nicky to let him go back with him and stay the +night. Then he could tell him. And he could get out of telling Jane. He +liked teasing and tormenting her, but he did not want to stab her. Still +less did he want to stand by with the steel in his hand and see her +bleed.</p> + +<p>He must get away from Jane.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2> + + +<p>On the morning after Wendover Jane woke, bright-eyed and flushed with +dreams. Last night a folding splendour had hung over her till she slept. +It passed into her dreams, and joy woke her.</p> + +<p>She sat up and swung her slender limbs over the bedside, and was caught, +agreeably, by her likeness in the long glass of the wardrobe.</p> + +<p>She went to it and stood there, looking at herself. For the last three +months she had been afraid to face the woman in the glass. Sometimes she +had had to turn her head another way when she passed her. Every day the +woman in the glass grew more repulsively powerful and sombre, more +dreadfully like that portrait which George hated. She knew he couldn't +stand her when she looked like that. Looking like that, and George's +inability to stand her, and the celebrity that made her so absurd, she +put it all down to the peculiar malice and mischief of the thing that +had been, as she said, "tacked on" to her, the thing they called her +Genius.</p> + +<p>And now she did not look like <i>that</i> in the very least. She looked, to +her amazement, like any other woman.</p> + +<p>Nobody had ever said that Jane was handsome. She hadn't one straight +feature, except her eyebrows which were too straight. She wasn't pretty, +either. There was something about her too large and dominating for that. +She had that baffling and provoking modern beauty which secures its +effect by some queerness, some vividness of accent, and triumphs by some +ugliness subdued. It was part of her queerness that she had the square +brows, the wide mouth, the large, innocent muzzle of a deer, and a neck +that carried her head high. With a queerness amounting to perversity +some gentle, fawn-like, ruminant woman had borne her. And, queerer +still, her genius had rushed in and seized upon that body, that it might +draw wild nature into it through her woodland, pastoral blood. And for +the blood it took it had given her back fire.</p> + +<p>Latterly, owing to Tanqueray's behaviour, whenever Jane looked in the +glass, it had been the element of queerness and ugliness that she had +seen. She had felt herself cruelly despoiled, disinherited of the +splendours and powers of her sex. And here she was, looking, as she +modestly put it, like any other woman. Any one of the unknown multitude +whom lately, in prophetic agony, she had seen surrounding Tanqueray; +women dowered, not with the disastrous gift of genius, but with the +secret charm and wonder of mere womanhood. One of these (she had always +reckoned with the possibility), one of these conceivably might at any +moment, and inevitably would when her moment came, secure and conquer +Tanqueray. She had been afraid, even in vision, to measure her power +with theirs.</p> + +<p>But now, standing there in the long nightgown that made her so straight +and tall, with arms raised, holding up the thick mass of her hair, her +body bent a little backwards from the waist, showing it for the slender +and supple thing it was, seeing herself so incredibly feminine and so +alive, she defied any one to tell the difference. If any difference +there were it was not in her body, neither was it in her face. That was +the face which had looked at Tanqueray last night; the face which he had +called up to meet that strange excitement and that tenderness of his. +Her body was the body of a woman created in a day and a night by joy for +its own wooing.</p> + +<p>This glorious person was a marvel to itself. It was so incomprehensibly, +so superlatively happy. Its eyes, its mouth, its hands and feet were +happy. It was happy inside and out and all over. It had developed a +perfectly preposterous capacity for enjoyment. It found pleasure in +bathing itself, in dressing itself, in brushing its hair. And its very +hair, when it had done with it, looked happy.</p> + +<p>It was at its happiest at ten o'clock, when Jane sat down to write a +letter to Tanqueray. The letter had to be written. For yesterday Nina +Lempriere had asked her to supper in her rooms on Sunday, and she was to +bring George Tanqueray. If, said Nina, she could get him.</p> + +<p>Sunday was the seventeenth. This was Wednesday, the thirteenth. She +would hear from Tanqueray to-night or to-morrow at the latest. And there +would be only four days to get through till Sunday.</p> + +<p>To-night and to-morrow went, and Tanqueray did not write. Jane's heart +began to ache with an intolerable anxiety.</p> + +<p>It was on Saturday night that the letter came.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dear Jinny," it said. "It was nice of Nina to ask me to supper. +I'm sorry I can't come. I got married yesterday.</p> + +<p>"Yrs., G. T.</p> + +<p>"P.S.—Nicky saw me through."</p></div> + +<p>Not a word about his wife.</p> + +<p>At first the omission did not strike her as significant. It was so like +Tanqueray, to fling you the bare body of a fact while he cherished the +secret soul of it himself. He must have wondered how she would take it.</p> + +<p>She took it as she would have taken a telegram from a stranger, telling +her that Tanqueray was dead. She took it, as she would have taken the +stranger's telegram, standing very stiff and very still. She faced, as +it were, an invisible crowd of such strangers, ignorant of the intimacy +of her loss, not recognizing her right to suffer, people whose presence +constrained her to all the observances of decency.</p> + +<p>She crushed the note in her hand vindictively, as she would have crushed +that telegram; she pushed it from her, hating the thing that had made +her suffer. Then she drew it to her again; she smoothed it; she examined +it, as she might have examined the telegram, to verify the hour and the +place of the decease, to establish the fact which seemed incredible.</p> + +<p>Verification brought the first live pangs that stabbed her. She was +aware of the existence of the woman. There had been a woman all the +time. But she couldn't realize her. She only knew that she meant +finality, separation.</p> + +<p>An hour passed. She went to bed. Her footsteps and her movements in +undressing were hushed and slow. She was still like some one who knows +that there has been a death in the house and that the body lies in the +next room. Stretched in her bed, turning her face to the wall to hide +herself, she had that sense of awful contact and of separation, of there +being only a wall between the living and the dead.</p> + +<p>The best thing that could have happened to her would have been to lie +awake all night, and let her heart and brain hammer as they would, till +they hammered her to stupefaction. Unfortunately, towards morning she +fell into a sound sleep.</p> + +<p>She woke from it with nerves re-charged to the point of torture and a +brain intolerably acute. She saw now all the vivid, poignant things +which last night she had overlooked. She realized the woman. She divined +her secret, her significance, all that she stood for and all that she +portended. In the light of that woman (for she spread round her an +unbearable illumination) Jane saw transparently what <i>she</i> had been to +Tanqueray. She had had no power and no splendour for him of her own. But +she had been the reflection of the woman's splendour and her power. So +much so that, when he looked at her as he had looked the other evening, +he, George Tanqueray, had grown tender as if in the presence of the +other. He had suffered a sentimental, a sensuous hallucination, and had +made her suffer.</p> + +<p>But never, never for a moment had he cared for her, or seen in her any +power or splendour of her own.</p> + +<p>She wondered why he had not told her about that woman then. It had been +just two days before he married her. Perhaps it had been only his +shyness, or, more likely, his perversity.</p> + +<p>But he had said nothing about her now. He had not said, as men say so +fatuously in this circumstance, that he believed they would like each +other and that he hoped they would be friends.</p> + +<p>It was borne in on her that he had said nothing because he knew it was +the end. There were no fatuous beliefs and hopes in Tanqueray. And if +there was perversity, there was also an incorruptible, an almost violent +honesty. His honesty was, as it were, part of his perversity.</p> + +<p>He was not going to keep up any absurd pretences, to let her imagine for +one moment that it was not the end. It was to mean, not only that +Tanqueray would no longer exist for her, but that she would no longer +exist for Tanqueray. In her attitude to him, there had always been, +though Tanqueray did not know it, an immense simplicity and humbleness. +She felt herself wiped out by this woman who wore for him (she saw her +wearing) all the powers and all the splendours. Tanqueray's wife must +make an end of her and of everything. There was nothing, not the +smallest, most pitiful, cast-up fragment that she could save from the +wreck. A simple, ordinary friendship might have survived it, but not +theirs. There had been in it a disastrous though vague element of +excess. She could not see it continuing in the face of Tanqueray's wife. +As for enlarging it so as to embrace Tanqueray's wife as well as +Tanqueray, Jane simply couldn't. There was something virile in her that +forbade it. She could no more have taken Tanqueray's wife into her heart +than Tanqueray, if their cases had been reversed, could have taken into +his Jane's husband. She might have expected Tanqueray to meet her +husband, to shake hands with him, to dine with him, but not to feel or +to profess affection for him. So Tanqueray would probably expect her to +call upon his wife, to receive her, to dine with her, perhaps, but it +would end there.</p> + +<p>It would end there, in hand-shakings and in frigid ceremony, this +friendship to which Tanqueray had lent himself with a precipitance that +resembled passion and a fervour that suggested fire.</p> + +<p>Looking back, she wondered at what moment the real thing had begun. She +was certain that two months ago, on that evening in May after he had +dined with her, the moment, which was his moment, had been hers. She had +been divided from him by no more than a hair's-breadth. And she had let +him go for a scruple finer than a hair.</p> + +<p>And yet it seemed to her that her scruple had not really counted. It +might have worked, somehow, at the moment; but she could not think of it +as containing all the calamitous weight of destiny. Her failure (it was +so pre-eminently <i>her</i> failure) came of feeling and of understanding at +every moment far too much. It came of having eyes at the back of your +head and nerves that extended, prodigiously, beyond the confines of your +body. It was as if she understood with her body and felt with her brain, +passion and insight in her running disastrously together.</p> + +<p>It came back to her that Tanqueray had always regarded her with interest +and uncertainty, as if he had wondered whether she were really like +other women. In his moment he had searched her for their secret, and her +scruple had worked so far that he judged her lacking in the instinct of +response.</p> + +<p>Her heart, of course, he must have heard. It had positively screamed at +him. But her heart was not what had concerned him at any moment. She +remembered how she had said to him that night, "Mayn't I be a woman?" +and he had answered her brutally. What <i>had</i> concerned him was her +genius. If there had been twenty women in her he would have made her +sacrifice them all to that. He had cared for it to the point of +tenderness, of passion. She had scores of his letters in a drawer, +there; love-letters written to her genius. She knew one of them, the +last, by heart. It was written at Hampstead.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," it had said, "I'm on my knees, with my hat off, at your feet. +I'm in the dust, Jinny, kissing your feet. Shivers of exquisite +adoration are going up and down my spine. Do you know what you've done +to me, you unspeakably divine person? I've worn out the knees, the knees +of my trousers; I've got dust in my hair, Jinny, kissing your feet."</p> + +<p>That letter (there was a great deal more of it) had tided her over +Tanqueray's worst absence; it had carried her on, so to speak, to +Wendover. As she thought of it her heart was filled with hatred and +jealousy of her genius.</p> + +<p>It was odd, but she had no jealousy and no hatred for Tanqueray's wife.</p> + +<p>She hated and was jealous of her genius, not only because it had forced +Tanqueray to care for it, but because, being the thing that had made her +different from other women, it had kept Tanqueray from caring about her.</p> + +<p>And she had got to live alone with it.</p> + +<p>Her solitude had become unbearable. The room was unbearable; it was so +pervaded, so dominated by her genius and by Tanqueray. Most of all by +Tanqueray. There were things in it which he had given to her, things +which she had given to him, as it were; a cup he drank out of, a tray he +used for his cigar-ash; things which would remain vivid for ever with +the illusion of his presence. She could not bear to see them about. She +suffered in all ways, secretly, as if Tanqueray were dead.</p> + +<p>A bell rang. It was four o'clock. Somebody was calling.</p> + +<p>As to one preoccupied with a bereavement, it seemed to her incredible +that anybody <i>could</i> call so soon. She was then reminded that she had a +large acquaintance who would be interested in seeing how she took it. +She had got to meet all these people as if nothing had happened. She +remembered now that she had promised Caroline Bickersteth to go to tea +with her to-day. If she wanted to present an appearance of nothing +having happened, she couldn't do better than go to Caro's for tea. Caro +expected her and would draw conclusions from her absence.</p> + +<p>So might her caller if she declared herself not at home.</p> + +<p>It was Nicky, come, he said, to know if she were going to Miss +Bickersteth's, and if he might have the pleasure of taking her there. +That was all he cared to go for, the pleasure of taking her.</p> + +<p>Jane had never thought of Nicky being there. He was a barrister and he +had chambers, charming chambers, in the Temple, where he gave little +tea-parties and (less frequently) looked up little cases. But on Sundays +he was always a little poet down at Wendover.</p> + +<p>They needn't start at once, he said, almost as if he knew that Jane was +dreading it. He sat and talked; he talked straight on end; talked, not +literature, but humble, innocent banalities, so unlike Nicky who cared +for nothing that had not the literary taint.</p> + +<p>It was a sign of supreme embarrassment, the only one he gave. He did not +mention Tanqueray, and for a moment she wondered if he had heard. Then +she remembered. Of course, it was Nicky who had seen Tanqueray through.</p> + +<p>Nicky was crowning his unlikelihood by refraining from the slightest +allusion to the event. He was, she saw with dreadful lucidity, afraid of +hurting her. And yet, he was (in his exquisite delicacy) behaving as if +nothing had happened. They were going together to Miss Bickersteth's as +if nothing had happened. His manner suggested that they were moving +together in a world where nothing could happen; a world of delightful +and amicable superficialities. She was not to be afraid of him; he was, +as it were, looking another way; he wasn't even aware of any depths. The +sheer beauty and gentleness of him showed her that he had seen and +understood thoroughly what depths there were.</p> + +<p>It was her certainty of Nicky's vision that drove her to the supreme act +of courage.</p> + +<p>"Why aren't we talking," she said, "about George Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>Nicky blushed in a violent distress. Even so, in the house of mourning, +he would have blushed at some sudden, unsoftened reference to the +deceased.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," he said, "whether he had told you."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't he?"</p> + +<p>Poor Nicky, she had made him blunder, so upset was he by the spectacle +of her desperate pluck. He really <i>was</i> like a person calling after a +bereavement. He had called on account of it, and yet it was the last +thing he was going to talk about. He had come, not to condole, but to +see if there was any way in which he could be of use.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Nicky, "he seemed to have kept it so carefully from all his +friends——"</p> + +<p>"He told <i>you</i>——Why, you were there, weren't you?"</p> + +<p>It was as if she had said, "You were there—you saw him die."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Nicky's face expressed a tender relief. If she could talk about +it——"But it was only at the last minute."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said she, "why he didn't tell us."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, I think it was because she—the lady——"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. He knew what would hurt most; and he shrank almost visibly +from mentioning Her.</p> + +<p>"Yes—you've forgotten the lady."</p> + +<p>She smiled, and he took courage. "There it is. The lady, you see, isn't +altogether a lady."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nicky——"</p> + +<p>He did not look at her. He seemed to be a partaker in what he felt to be +her suffering and Tanqueray's shame.</p> + +<p>"Has he known her long?" she said.</p> + +<p>"About two months."</p> + +<p>She was right then. It had been since that night. It had been her own +doing. She had driven him to her.</p> + +<p>"Since he went to Hampstead then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who was she?"</p> + +<p>"His landlady's daughter, I think, or a niece. She waited on him +and—she nursed him when he was ill."</p> + +<p>Jane drew in her breath with an almost audible sound. Nicky had sunk +into his chair in his attitude of vicarious, shamefaced misery.</p> + +<p>It made her rally. "Nicky," she said, "why do you look like that? I +don't think it's nice of you to sit there, giving him away by making +gloomy faces, in a chair. Why shouldn't he marry his landlady's daughter +if he likes? You ought to stand up for him and say she's charming. She +is. She must be; or he wouldn't have done it."</p> + +<p>"He ought not to have done it."</p> + +<p>"But he has. It had to happen. Nothing else could have happened."</p> + +<p>"You think so? It seems to me the most unpredestined, the most horribly, +fantastically fortuitous occurrence."</p> + +<p>"It was what he wanted. Wouldn't you have given him what he wanted?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Nicky, "not if it wasn't good for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nicky, how do you know what's good for him? You're not George +Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"No. If I were I'd have——" He stopped. His passion, growing suddenly, +recklessly, had brought him to the verge of the depth they were trying +to avoid.</p> + +<p>"If you were," said she, with amazing gaiety, "you'd have married this +lady who isn't a lady. And then where would you have been?"</p> + +<p>"Where indeed?" said Nicky bitterly.</p> + +<p>Jane's face, so gay, became suddenly tragic. She looked away, staring +steadily, dumbly, at something that she saw. Then he knew that he had +raised a vision of the abyss, and of Tanqueray, their Tanqueray, sinking +in it. He must keep her from contemplating that, or she would betray +herself, she would break down.</p> + +<p>He searched his heart for some consoling inspiration, and found none. It +was his head which suggested that irrelevance was best.</p> + +<p>"<i>When</i>," said he, by way of being irrelevant, "are you going to give us +another big book?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said. "Never, I think."</p> + +<p>He looked up. Her eyes shone perilously over trembling pools of tears. +He had not been irrelevant at all.</p> + +<p>"You don't <i>think</i> anything of the sort," he said, with a sharp +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"No. I feel it. There isn't another book in me. I'm done for, Nicky."</p> + +<p>Her tears were hanging now on the curve of her eyelashes. They shook and +fell.</p> + +<p>She sat there silent, fronting the abyss. Nicky was horrified and looked +it. If that was how she took it——</p> + +<p>"You've overworked yourself. That's all," he said presently.</p> + +<p>"Yes. That's all."</p> + +<p>She rose. "Nicky," she said, "it's half-past four. If we're going we +must go."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you want to?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I want to." She said it in a tone that for Nicky pointed to +another blunder.</p> + +<p>"I only thought," said he simply, "it might bore you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2> + + +<p>Miss Bickersteth's house was round the corner. So small a house that a +front room and a back room thrown together hardly gave Caro space enough +for tea-parties. But as the back room formed a recess, what space she +had was admirably adapted for the discreet arrangement of conversation +in groups. Its drawback was that persons in the recess remained unaware +of those who entered by the door of the front room, until they were +actually upon them.</p> + +<p>Through that door, opened gently by the little servant, Miss +Bickersteth, in the recess, was heard inquiring with some excitement, +"Can't either of you tell me who she is?"</p> + +<p>Only Nina and Laura were with her. Jane knew from their abrupt silence, +as she entered, that they had been discussing George Tanqueray's +marriage. She gathered that they had only just begun. There was nothing +for it but to invite them to go on, to behave in all things as if +nothing had happened, or could happen to her.</p> + +<p>"Please don't stop," she said, "it sounds exciting."</p> + +<p>"It is. But Mr. Nicholson disapproves of scandal," said Caro, not +without address.</p> + +<p>"He's been talking nothing else to me," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but his scandal and our scandal——"</p> + +<p>"Yours isn't in it with his. He's seen her."</p> + +<p>Three faces turned to Nicholson's, as if it held for them the reflection +of his vision. Miss Bickersteth's face was flushed with embarrassment +that struggled with curiosity; Nina's was almost fierce in its sombre, +haggard intensity; Laura's, in its stillness, had an appealing anxiety, +an innocent distress. It was shadowless and unashamed; it expressed a +trouble that had in it no taint of self.</p> + +<p>Nicky met them with an admirable air of light-heartedness. "Don't look +at me," he said. "I can't tell you anything."</p> + +<p>"But—you've seen her," said Miss Bickersteth, seating herself at her +tea-table.</p> + +<p>"I've seen her, but I don't know her," he said stiffly.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't seem to have impressed him favourably," remarked Miss +Bickersteth to the world in general.</p> + +<p>Nicky brought tea to Jane, who opened her eyes at him in deprecation of +his alarming reticence. It was as if she had said, "Oh, Nicky—to please +me—won't you say nice things about her?"</p> + +<p>He understood. "Miss Holland would like me to tell you that she is +charming."</p> + +<p>"Do you know her, Jinny?" It was Laura who spoke.</p> + +<p>"No, dear. But I know George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"As for Nicky," she went on, with high daring, "you mustn't mind what he +says. He wouldn't think any mortal woman good enough for George."</p> + +<p>Nicky's soul smiled all to itself invisibly as it admired her.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Miss Bickersteth. "The woman isn't good enough. I hope +she's good."</p> + +<p>"Oh—good. Good as they make them."</p> + +<p>"He knows," said Jane, "more than he lets out."</p> + +<p>She withdrew into the corner where little Laura sat, while Miss +Bickersteth put her witness under severe cross-examination.</p> + +<p>"Is it," she said, "the masterpiece of folly?"</p> + +<p>"It looks like it. Only, she is good."</p> + +<p>"Good, but impossible."</p> + +<p>"Im-possible."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean—for Him?"</p> + +<p>"I mean in herself. Utterly impossible."</p> + +<p>"But inevitable?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least, to judge by what I saw."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Miss Bickersteth, "how <i>did</i> it happen?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Nicky, "how it happened."</p> + +<p>There was a long pause. Miss Bickersteth seemed almost to retire from +ground that was becoming perilous.</p> + +<p>"You may as well tell them," said Jane, "what you do know."</p> + +<p>"I have," said poor Nicky.</p> + +<p>"You haven't told us who she is," said Nina.</p> + +<p>"She is Mrs. George Tanqueray. She was, I believe, a very humble person. +The daughter—no—I think he said the niece—of his landlord."</p> + +<p>"Uneducated?" said Miss Bickersteth.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"Common?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated and Jane prompted. "No, Nicky."</p> + +<p>"Don't tamper," said Miss Bickersteth, "with my witness. Uncommon?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least."</p> + +<p>"Any aitches?"</p> + +<p>"I decline," said Nicky, "to answer any more questions."</p> + +<p>"Never mind. You've told us quite enough. I'm disgusted with Mr. +Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"But why?" said Jane imperturbably.</p> + +<p>"Why? When one thinks of the women, the perfectly adorable women he +might have married—if he'd only waited. And he goes and does this."</p> + +<p>"He knows his own business best," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"A man's marriage is not his business."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?"</p> + +<p>Miss Bickersteth was at a loss for once, and Laura helped her. "It's his +pleasure, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"He'd no right to take his pleasure this way."</p> + +<p>Jane raised her head.</p> + +<p>"He had. A perfect right."</p> + +<p>"To throw himself away? My dear—on a little servant-girl without an +aitch in her?"</p> + +<p>"On anybody he pleases."</p> + +<p>"Can you imagine George Tanqueray," said Nina, "throwing himself away on +anybody?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> can—easily," said Nicholson.</p> + +<p>"Whatever he throws away," said Nina, "it won't be himself."</p> + +<p>"My dear Nina, look at him," said Miss Bickersteth. "He's done for +himself—socially, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"Not he. It's men like George Tanqueray who can afford to do these +things. Do you suppose anybody who cares for him will care a rap whom he +marries?"</p> + +<p>"I care," said Nicky. "I care immensely."</p> + +<p>"You needn't. Marriage is not—it really is not—the fearfully important +thing you think it."</p> + +<p>Nicholson looked at his boots, his perfect boots.</p> + +<p>"It's <i>the</i> most important act of a man's life," he said. "An ordinary +man's—a curate's—a grocer's. And for Tanqueray—for any one who +creates——"</p> + +<p>"For any one who creates," said Nina, "nothing's important outside his +blessed creation."</p> + +<p>"And this lady, I imagine," said Miss Bickersteth, "will be very much +outside it."</p> + +<p>Nicky raised his dark eyes and gazed upon them. "Good heavens! But a man +wants a woman to inspire him."</p> + +<p>"George doesn't," said Jane. "You may trust him to inspire himself."</p> + +<p>"You may," said Nina. "In six months it won't matter whether George is +married or not. At least, not to George."</p> + +<p>She rose, turning on Nicky as if something in his ineffectual presence +maddened her. "Do you suppose," she said, "that woman counts? No woman +counts with men like George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"She can hold you back," said Nicky.</p> + +<p>"You think so? You haven't got a hundred horse-power genius pulling you +along. When he's off, fifty women hanging on to him couldn't hold him +back."</p> + +<p>She smiled. "You don't know him. The first time that wife of his gets in +his way he'll shove her out of it. If she does it again he'll knock her +down and trample her under his feet."</p> + +<p>Her smile, more than ever ironic, lashed Nicky's shocked recoil.</p> + +<p>"Creators are a brutal crew, Mr. Nicholson. We're all the same. You +needn't be sorry for us."</p> + +<p>She looked, over Nicky's head as it were, at Jane and Laura. It was as +if with a sweep of her stormy wing she gathered them, George Tanqueray +and Jane and Laura, into the spaces where they ran the superb course of +the creators.</p> + +<p>The movement struck Arnott Nicholson aside into his place among the +multitudes of the uncreative. Who was he to judge George Tanqueray? If +<i>she</i> arraigned him she had a right to. She was of his race, his kind. +She could see through Nicky as if he had been an innocent pane of glass. +And at the moment Nicky's soul with its chivalry and delicacy enraged +her. Caroline Bickersteth enraged her, everybody enraged her except Jane +and little Laura.</p> + +<p>She stood beside Jane, who had risen and was about to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>Caro would have kept them with her distressed, emphatic "<i>Must</i> you go?" +She was expecting, she said, Mr. Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Jane was not interested in Mr. Brodrick. She could not stay and did not, +and, going, she took Nina with her.</p> + +<p>Laura would have followed, but Miss Bickersteth held her with a hand +upon her arm. Nicholson left them, though Laura's eyes almost implored +him not to go.</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Miss Bickersteth. "Tell me. Have you any idea how much +she cares for him?"</p> + +<p>"She?"</p> + +<p>"Jane."</p> + +<p>"You've no reason to suppose she cares."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he cared in the very least for her?"</p> + +<p>"I think he may have—without knowing it."</p> + +<p>"My dear, there's nothing that man doesn't know. He knows, for instance, +all about <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>"Us?"</p> + +<p>"You and I. We've both of us been there. And Nina."</p> + +<p>"How <i>do</i> you know?"</p> + +<p>"She was flagrant!"</p> + +<p>"Flagrant?"</p> + +<p>"Flagrant isn't the word for it. She was flamboyant, magnificent, +superb!"</p> + +<p>"You forget she's my friend," said little Laura.</p> + +<p>"She's mine. I'm not traducing her. Look at George Tanqueray. I defy any +woman not to care for him. It's nothing to be ashamed of—like an +infatuation for a stockbroker who has no use for you. It's—it's your +apprenticeship at the hands of the master."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2> + + +<p>Nina inhabited a third floor in a terrace off the Strand, overlooking +the river. You approached it by secret, tortuous ways that made you +wonder.</p> + +<p>In a small backroom, for an unspeakable half-hour, the two women had sat +over the table facing each other, with Tanqueray's empty place between +them. There had been moments when their sense of his ironic, immaterial +presence had struck them dumb. It was as if this were the final, +consummate stroke of the diabolic master. It had been as impossible to +talk about him as if he had been sitting there and had overheard them.</p> + +<p>They left him behind them in the other room, a room where there was no +evidence of Tanqueray's ever having been. The place was incontestably +and inalterably Nina's. There were things in it cared for by Nina with a +superstitious tenderness, portraits, miniatures, relics guarded, as it +were, in shrines. And in their company were things that Nina had worn +out and done with; things overturned, crushed, flung from her in a fury +of rejection; things on which Nina had inflicted personal violence, +provoked, you felt, by their too long and intimate association with her; +signs everywhere of the pace at which she went through things. It was as +if Nina had torn off shreds, fringes, whole layers of herself and left +them there. You inferred behind her a long, half-savage ancestry of the +open air. There were antlers about and the skins of animals. A +hunting-crop hung by the chimney-piece. Foils, fishing-rods, golf-clubs +staggered together in a corner. Nina herself, long-limbed, tawny, +aquiline, had the look of wild and nervous adolescence prisoned within +walls.</p> + +<p>Beyond this confusion and disorder, her windows opened wide to London, +to the constellated fires, the grey enchantment and silence of the +river.</p> + +<p>It was Nina who began it. Leaning back in a very low chair, with her +legs crossed and her arms flung wide, a position almost insolent in its +ease, she talked.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," she said, "have you any idea how it happened?"</p> + +<p>Jane made a sound of negation that was almost inaudible, and wholly +inarticulate.</p> + +<p>Nina pondered. "I believe," she said presently, "you <i>do</i> know." She +paused on that a moment. "It needn't have happened," she said. "It +wouldn't if you'd shown him that you cared."</p> + +<p>Jane looked at her then. "I did show him," she said. "That's how it +happened."</p> + +<p>"It couldn't. Not that way."</p> + +<p>"It did. I waked him up. I made him restless, I made him want things. +But there was nothing—nothing——"</p> + +<p>"You forget. I've seen him with you. What's more, I've seen him without +you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but it wasn't <i>that</i>. Not for a moment. It could never have been +<i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"You could have made it that. You could have made it anything you liked. +Jinny! If I'd been as sure of him as you were, I'd never have let him +go. I'd have held on——"</p> + +<p>Her hands' tense clutch on the arm of her chair showed how she would +have held on.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Jinny, "I was never sure of him."</p> + +<p>A silence fell between them.</p> + +<p>"You were in it," said Nina, troubling the silence. "It must—it must +have been something you did to him."</p> + +<p>"Or something I didn't do."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Something you didn't do. You didn't know how."</p> + +<p>Jane could have jumped at this sudden echo of her thought.</p> + +<p>"And <i>she</i> did," said Nina.</p> + +<p>She got up and leaned against the chimney-piece, looking down on Jane. +"Poor Jinny," she said. "How I hated you three years ago."</p> + +<p>Jane remembered. It was just three years since Nina had gone away +without saying a word and hidden herself among the mountains where she +was born. In her isolation she had conceived and brought forth her +"Tales of the Marches." And a year ago she had come back to them, the +Nina whom they knew.</p> + +<p>"You can't hate me now," Jane said.</p> + +<p>"I believe I would if you had been sure of him. But I don't hate you. I +don't even hate her."</p> + +<p>"Why should you?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I? When I don't believe she's sure of him, either. She's +called out the little temporary animal or the devil in him. That's what +she's married. It won't last."</p> + +<p>"No, Nina. Nicky said she was good."</p> + +<p>"It's wonderful how good women manage these things."</p> + +<p>"Not when they're absolutely simple."</p> + +<p>"How do you know she's simple?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—because I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Simplicity," said Nina, "would only give her more rope."</p> + +<p>"Nina—there's one thing Nicky didn't tell us. He never let on that she +was pretty. I suppose he thought that was more than we could bear."</p> + +<p>"How do you know she's pretty?"</p> + +<p>"That's how I see her. Very pretty, very soft and tender. Shy at first, +and then very gently, very innocently letting herself go. And always +rather sensuous and clinging."</p> + +<p>"Poor idiot—she's done for if she clings. I'm not sorry for George, +Jinny; I'm sorry for the woman. He'll lay her flat on the floor and wipe +his boots on her."</p> + +<p>Jane shrank back. "Nina," she said, "you loved him. And yet—you can +tear him to pieces."</p> + +<p>"You think I'm a beast, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. When you tear him—and before people, too."</p> + +<p>She shrank a little further. Nina was now sitting on the floor with her +back against Jane's knees.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well for you," she said. "He wanted to care for you. He +only wanted me—to care. That's what he is. He makes you care, he makes +you show it, he drives you on and on. He gives nothing; he takes +nothing. But he lets you strip yourself bare; he lets you bring him the +soul out of your body, and then he turns round and treats you as if you +were his cast-off mistress."</p> + +<p>She laid her head back on Jane's knee, so that Jane saw her face +foreshortened and, as it were, distorted.</p> + +<p>"If I had been—if I'd been like any other woman, good or bad, he'd have +been different."</p> + +<p>Jane started at this sudden voice of her own thought.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs04" id="gs04"></a> +<img src="images/gs04.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>Jane started at this sudden voice of her own thought</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was as if some inscrutable, incredible portion of herself, some dark +and fierce and sensual thing lay there at her feet. It was not +incredible or inscrutable to itself. It was indeed splendidly unashamed. +It gloried in itself and in its suffering. It lived on its own torture, +violent and exalted; Jane could hardly bear its nearness and its +utterance. But she was sorry for it. She hated to see it suffer.</p> + +<p>It raised its head.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it look, Jinny, as if genius were the biggest curse a woman can +be saddled with? It's giving you another sex inside you, and a stronger +one, to plague you. When we want a thing we can't sit still like a woman +and wait till it comes to us, or doesn't come. We go after it like a +man; and if we can't get it peaceably we fight for it, as a man fights +when he isn't a coward or a fool. And because we fight we're done for. +And then, when we're down, the woman in us turns and rends us. But if we +got what we wanted we'd be just like any other woman. As long," she +added, "as we wanted it."</p> + +<p>She got up and leaned against the chimney-piece looking down, rather +like a man, on Jane.</p> + +<p>"It's borne in on me," she said, "that the woman in us isn't meant to +matter. She's simply the victim of the Will-to-do-things. It puts the +bit into our mouths and drives us the way we must go. It's like a whip +laid across our shoulders whenever we turn aside."</p> + +<p>She paused in her vehemence.</p> + +<p>"Jinny—have you ever reckoned with your beastly genius?"</p> + +<p>Jane stirred in her corner. "I suppose," she said, "if it's any good +I'll have to pay for it."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to pay for it with everything you've got and with +everything you haven't got and might have had. With a genius like yours, +Jinny, there'll be no end to your paying. You may make up your mind to +that."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Jane, "how much George will have to pay?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. He'll make his wife pay. <i>You</i>'d have paid if he'd married +you."</p> + +<p>"I wonder. Nina—he was worth it. I'd have paid ten times over. So would +you."</p> + +<p>"I have paid. I paid beforehand. Which is a mistake."</p> + +<p>She looked down at her feet. They were fine and feminine, Nina's feet, +and exquisitely shod. She frowned at them as if they had offended her.</p> + +<p>"Never again," she said, as if admonishing her feet. "Never again. There +must be no more George Tanquerays. If I see one coming, I'll put a knife +into myself, not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to hurt. I'll find +out where it hurts most and keep it there. So that I mayn't forget. If I +haven't the pluck to stick it in myself, I'll get you to do it for me. +You'll only have to say 'George Tanqueray.'"</p> + +<p>Her murky face cleared suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Look here," she said. "I <i>believe</i>, if any woman is to do anything +stupendous, it means virginity. But I <i>know</i> it means that for you and +me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2> + + +<p>August and September came. One by one the houses in Kensington Square +had put on their white masks; but in the narrow brown house at the +corner, among all the decorous drawn blinds and the closed shutters, the +top-floor window stared wide awake on the abandoned Square.</p> + +<p>Jane Holland had stayed in London because it was abandoned. She found a +certain peace in the scattering and retreating in all directions of the +terrible, converging, threatening multitudes of the clever little +people, the multitudes that gather round celebrity, that pursue +celebrity, that struggle and contend for celebrity among themselves. +They had all gone away, carrying with them their own cleverness and +Jane's celebrity. For her celebrity, at least her dreadful sense of it, +vanished when they went.</p> + +<p>She could go in and out of the Square now, really hidden, guarding her +secret, no longer in peril, feeling herself obscure.</p> + +<p>Not that she could really feel anything, or enjoy her obscurity or do +anything with it now that she had got it. She was no longer a creature +that felt or thought, or did things. You could not call it thinking, +this possession of her mind by one tyrannous idea. Every morning she got +up determined to get through the day without thinking of Tanqueray. But +when she tried to read his face swam across the page, when she tried to +write it thrust itself saliently, triumphantly, between her and the +blank sheet. It seemed to say, "You'll never get rid of me that way." +When she tried to eat he sat down beside her and took away her appetite. +And whenever she dressed before the looking-glass he made her turn from +her own reflection, saying to herself, "No wonder he didn't care for me, +a woman with a face like that, fit to frighten the babies in Kensington +Gardens."</p> + +<p>He drove her out of doors at last, and she became simply a thing that +walked; a thing caught in a snare and shut up in a little space where it +could walk; a thing once wild that had forgotten the madness and anguish +of its capture, that turned and turned, till all its senses served the +solitary, perpetual impulse of its turning.</p> + +<p>So Jane walked, without any sense of direction or deliverance, round and +round in her cage of Kensington Gardens.</p> + +<p>She did not stop to ask herself how she was to go on. She had a sort of +sense that she would go on somehow, if only she hardened her heart. So +she hardened it.</p> + +<p>She hardened it, not only against the clever little people who had never +touched it, but against Nicky and Nina and Laura. Laura's face in August +had grown whiter than ever; it was taking on a fixed, strained look. +This face, the face of her friend, appeared to Jane like something seen +in a dream, something remotely, intangibly, incomprehensibly sad. But it +had no power to touch her. She had hardened her heart against everybody +she knew.</p> + +<p>At last she succeeded in hardening it against the world, against the +dawn and the sunset, and the grey skies at evening, against the living +grass and the trees; she hardened it against everything that was +beautiful and tender, because the beauty and the tenderness of things +pierced it with an unbearable pain. It was hard to the very babies in +the Gardens, where she walked.</p> + +<p>One day she came upon a little boy running along the Broad Walk. The +little boy was unable to stop because he believed himself to be a +steam-engine, so he ran his small body into Jane and upset it violently +at her feet. And Jane heard herself saying, "Why don't you look where +you're going?" in a voice as hard as her heart.</p> + +<p>Then she looked at the little boy and saw his eyes. They were the eyes +that children have for all strange and sudden cruelties. They held her +so that she did not stoop and pick him up. He picked himself up and ran +to his mother, sobbing out his tale, telling her that he was a +steam-engine, and he couldn't stop.</p> + +<p>And Jane turned away across the grass and sat down under a tree, holding +her head high to keep her tears back, for they hurt. Her thoughts came +in a tumult, tender, passionate, incoherent, mixed with the child's +wail.</p> + +<p>"I was a steam-engine and I couldn't stop. I mustn't care for George if +it makes me knock little boys down in their pretty play and be cruel to +them. I'll stop thinking about George this minute—I was a steam-engine +and I couldn't stop. No wonder he didn't care for me, a woman who could +do a thing like that. I'll never, never think of him again—I wonder if +he knew I was like that."</p> + +<p>The pain that she had been trying to keep out had bitten its way +through, it gnawed at her heart for days and made it tender, and in +growing tender she grew susceptible to pain. She was aware of the world +again; she knew the passion that the world absorbs from things that +feel, and the soul that passes perpetually into its substance. It hurt +her to see the beauty that came upon the Gardens in September evenings, +to see the green earth alive under its web of silver air, and the trees +as they stood enchanted in sunset and blue mist.</p> + +<p>There had been a procession of such evenings, alike in that +insupportable beauty and tenderness. On the last of these, the last of +September, Jane was sitting in a place by herself under her tree. She +could not say how or at what moment the incredible thing happened, but +of a sudden the world she looked at became luminous and insubstantial +and divinely still. She could not tell whether the stillness of the +world had passed into her heart, or her heart into the stillness of the +world. She could not tell what had happened to her at all. She only knew +that after it had happened, a little while after, something woke out of +sleep in her brain, and it was then that she saw Hambleby.</p> + +<p>Up till this moment Hambleby had been only an idea in her head, and +Tanqueray had taught her a profound contempt for ideas in her head. And +the idea of Hambleby, of a little suburban banker's clerk, was one that +he had defied her to deal with; she could not, he had said, really see +him. She had given him up and forgotten all about him.</p> + +<p>He arose with the oddest irrelevance out of the unfathomable peace. She +could not account for him, nor understand why, when she was incapable of +seeing him a year ago, she should see him now with such extreme +distinctness and solidity. She saw him, all pink and blond and callow +with excessive youth, advancing with his inevitable, suburban, +adolescent smile. She saw his soul, the soul he inevitably would have, a +blond and callow soul. She saw his Girl, the Girl he inevitably would +have. She was present at the mingling of that blond soul with the dark +flesh and blood of the Girl. She saw it all; the Innocence of Hambleby; +the Marriage of Hambleby; the Torture and subsequent Deterioration of +Hambleby; and, emerging in a sort of triumph, the indestructible Decency +of Hambleby.</p> + +<p>Heavens, what a book he would be.</p> + +<p>Hambleby! She was afraid at first to touch him, he was so fragile and so +divinely shy. Before she attempted, as Tanqueray would have said, to +deal with him, he had lived in her for weeks, stirring a delicate +excitement in her brain and a slight fever in her blood, as if she were +falling in love with him. She had never possessed so completely this +virgin ecstasy of vision, this beatitude that comes before the labour of +creation. She walked in it, restless but exultant.</p> + +<p>And when it came to positively dealing with him, she found that she +hadn't got to deal. Hambleby did it all himself, so alive was he, so +possessed by the furious impulse to be born.</p> + +<p>Now as long as Hambleby was there it was impossible for Jane to think +about Tanqueray, and she calculated that Hambleby would last about a +year. For a year, then, she might look to have peace from Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>But in three months, towards the end of January, one half of Hambleby +was done. It then occurred to her that if she was to behave absolutely +as if nothing had happened she would have to show him to Tanqueray. +Instead of showing him to Tanqueray she took him to Nina Lempriere and +Laura Gunning.</p> + +<p>That was how Jane came back to them. They sat till midnight over the +fire in Nina's room, three of them where there had once been four.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Rather!" It was Nina who spoke first. She lay at all her length along +the hearthrug, recklessly, and her speech was innocent of the literary +taint.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," said Laura, "he's divine. However did you think of him?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't have to think. I simply saw him. Is there anything wrong with +him?"</p> + +<p>"Not a thing."</p> + +<p>If there had been a flaw in him Laura would have found it. Next to +Tanqueray she was the best critic of the four. There followed a +discussion of technical points that left Hambleby intact. Then Laura +spoke again.</p> + +<p>"How George would have loved him."</p> + +<p>Six months after, she still spoke of Tanqueray gently, as if he were +dead.</p> + +<p>Nina broke their silence.</p> + +<p>"Does anybody know what's become of Tanks?"</p> + +<p>They did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't that Nicholson man know?"</p> + +<p>"Nicky thinks he's somewhere down in Sussex," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"And where's she?"</p> + +<p>"Wherever he is, I imagine."</p> + +<p>"I gave her six months, if you remember."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Laura, "why he doesn't turn up."</p> + +<p>"Probably," said Nina, "because he doesn't want to."</p> + +<p>"He might write. It isn't like him not to."</p> + +<p>"No," said Jane, "it isn't like him." She rose. "Good-bye, I'm going."</p> + +<p>She went, with a pain in her heart and a sudden fog in her brain that +blurred the splendour of Hambleby.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Laura continued, "he thinks <i>we</i> want to drop him. You know, +if he has married a servant-girl it's what he would think."</p> + +<p>"If," said Nina, "he thought about it at all."</p> + +<p>"He'd think about Jinny."</p> + +<p>"If he'd thought about Jinny he wouldn't have married a servant-girl."</p> + +<p>It was then that Laura had her beautiful idea. She was always having +them.</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> Jinny he thought about. He thought about nothing else. He gave +Jinny up for her own sake—for her career. You know what he thought +about marrying."</p> + +<p>She was in love with her idea. It made George sublime, and preserved +Jinny's dignity. But Nina did not think much of it, and said so. She sat +contemplating Laura a long time. "Queer Kiddy," she said, "very queer +Kiddy."</p> + +<p>It was her tribute to Laura's moral beauty.</p> + +<p>"I say, Infant," she said suddenly, "were you ever in love?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I be? I'm human," said the Infant.</p> + +<p>"I doubt it. You're such a calm Kiddy. I'd like to know how it takes +you."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't take me at all. I don't give it a chance."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't give <i>you</i> a chance, when it comes, my child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does. There's always," said the Infant, speaking slowly, +"just—one—chance. When you feel it coming."</p> + +<p>"You don't feel it coming."</p> + +<p>"I do. You asked me how it takes <i>me</i>. It takes me by stages. Gradual, +insidious stages. In the first stage I'm happy, because it feels nice. +In the second I'm terrified. In the third I'm angry and I turn round and +stamp. Hard."</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous baby. With <i>those</i> feet?"</p> + +<p>"When those feet have done stamping there isn't much left to squirm, I +can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Let's look at them."</p> + +<p>Laura lifted the hem of her skirt and revealed the marvel and absurdity +of her feet.</p> + +<p>"And they," said Nina, "stamped on George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't half as difficult as it looks."</p> + +<p>"You're a wonderful Kiddy, but you don't know what passion is, and you +may thank your stars you don't."</p> + +<p>"I might know quite a lot," said Laura, "if it wasn't for Papa. Papa's a +perfect safeguard against passion. I know beforehand that as long as +he's there, passion isn't any good. You see," she explained, "it's so +simple. I wouldn't marry anybody who wouldn't live with Papa. And nobody +would marry me if he had to."</p> + +<p>"I see. Is it very bad?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty bad. He dreams and dreams <i>and</i> dreams."</p> + +<p>"Won't that ever be better?"</p> + +<p>Laura shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It may be worse. There are things—that I'm afraid of."</p> + +<p>"What things, Kiddy, what things?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I don't know——"</p> + +<p>"How on earth do you go on?"</p> + +<p>"I shut my eyes. And I sit tight. And I go."</p> + +<p>"Poor Kiddy. You give me a pain."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite happy. I'm working like ten horses to get things done while I +can." She smiled indomitably. "I'm glad Tanks didn't care for me. I +couldn't have let him in for all these—horrors. As for his marrying—I +didn't want you to have him because he wouldn't have been good for you, +but I <i>did</i> want Jinny to."</p> + +<p>"And you don't mind—now?"</p> + +<p>"There are so many things to mind. It's one nail driving out another."</p> + +<p>"It's all the nails being hammered in at once, into your little coffin," +said Nina. She drew closer to her, she put her arms round her and kissed +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't! <i>Don't</i> be sorry for me. I'm all right."</p> + +<p>She broke from Nina's hand that still caressed her.</p> + +<p>"I am, really," she said. "I like Jinny better than anybody in the world +except you and Tanks. And I like Nina better than all the Tankses that +ever were."</p> + +<p>("Nice Kiddy," Nina whispered into Laura's hair.)</p> + +<p>"And now Tanks is married, he can't take you away from me."</p> + +<p>"Nobody else can," said Nina. "We've stuck together. And we'll stick."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2> + + +<p>The creation of Hambleby moved on in a procession of superb chapters. +Jane Holland was once more certain of herself, as certain as she had +been in the days when she had shared the splendid obscurity of George +Tanqueray. Her celebrity, by removing her from Tanqueray, had cut the +ground from under her feet. So far from being uplifted by it, she had +felt that there must be something wrong with her since she was +celebrated and George Tanqueray was not. It was Tanqueray's belief in +her that had kept her up. It consoled her with the thought that her +celebrity was, after all, only a disgusting accident. For, through it +all, in spite of the silliness of it, he did believe. He swore by her. +He staked his own genius upon hers. As long as he believed in it she +could not really doubt. But now for the first time since she was +celebrated she believed in it herself.</p> + +<p>She no longer thought of Tanqueray. Or, if she did think of him, her +thinking no longer roused in her the old perverse, passionate jealousy. +She no longer hated her genius because he had cared for it. She even +foresaw that in time she might come to love it for that reason. But at +the moment she was surrendered to it for its own sake.</p> + +<p>She was beginning to understand the way of genius, of the will to +create. She had discovered the secret and the rhythm of its life. It was +subject to the law of the supersensible. To love anything more than this +thing was to lose it. You had to come to it clean from all desire, naked +of all possession. Placable to the small, perishing affections, it +abhorred the shining, dangerous powers, the rival immortalities. It +could not be expected to endure such love as she had had for Tanqueray. +It rejoiced in taking Tanqueray away from her. For the divine thing fed +on suffering, on poverty, solitude, frustration. It took toll of the +blood and nerves and of the splendour of the passions. And to those who +did not stay to count the cost or measure the ruin, it gave back +immeasurable, immortal things. It rewarded supremely the supreme +surrender.</p> + +<p>Nina Lempriere was right. Virginity was the law, the indispensable +condition.</p> + +<p>The quiet, inassailable knowledge of this truth had underlain +Tanqueray's most irritable utterances. Tanqueray had meant that when he +said, "The Lord our God is a consuming fire."</p> + +<p>Jane saw now that there had been something wrong with her and with all +that she had done since the idea of Tanqueray possessed her. She could +put her finger on the flaws wrought by the deflected and divided flame. +She had been caught and bound in the dark places of the house of life, +and had worked there, seeing things only by flashes, by the capricious +impulse of the fire, struggling, between the fall and rise of passion, +to recover the perfection of the passionless hour. She had attained only +the semblance of perfection, through sheer dexterity, a skill she had in +fitting together with delicate precision the fragments of the broken +dream. She defied even Tanqueray to tell the difference between the +thing she had patched and mended and the thing she had brought forth +whole.</p> + +<p>She had been wonderful, standing there before Tanqueray, with her feet +bound and her hands raised above the hands that tortured her, doing +amazing things.</p> + +<p>There was nothing amazing about Hambleby or a whole population of +Hamblebys, given a heavenly silence, a virgin solitude, and a creator +possessed by no power except the impulse to create. Within the four +walls of her room, and in the quiet Square, nothing moved, nothing +breathed but Hambleby. His presence destroyed those poignant, almost +tangible memories of Tanqueray, those fragments of Tanqueray that +adhered to the things that he had looked upon and touched. She was no +longer afraid of these things or of the house that contained them. She +no longer felt any terror of her solitude, any premonition of trouble as +she entered the place. Away from it she found herself longing for its +stillness, for the very sight of the walls that folded her in this +incomparable peace.</p> + +<p>She had never known what peace was until now. If she had she would have +been aware that her state was too exquisite to last. She had not allowed +for the flight of the days and for the inevitable return of people, of +the dreadful, clever little people. By November they had all come back. +They had found her behind her barricades. They approached, some +tentatively, some insistently, some with an ingenuity no foresight could +defeat. One by one they came. First Caro Bickersteth, and Caro once let +in, it was impossible to keep out the rest. For Caro believed in knowing +the right people, and in the right people knowing each other. It was +Caro, last year, who had opened the innumerable doors by which they had +streamed in, converging upon Jane. And they were more terrible than they +had been last year, braced as they were by their sense of communion, of +an intimacy so established that it ignored reluctance and refusal. They +had given introductions to each other, and behind them, on the horrific +verge, Jane saw the heaving, hovering multitudes of the as yet +unintroduced.</p> + +<p>By December she realized again that she was celebrated; by January that +she was hunted down, surrounded, captured, and alone.</p> + +<p>For last year, when it all began, she had had George Tanqueray. +Tanqueray had stood between her and the dreadful little people. His +greatness sheltered her from their dreadfulness, their cleverness, their +littleness. He had softened all the horrors of her pitiless celebrity, +so that she had not felt herself half so celebrated as she was.</p> + +<p>And now, six months after George's marriage, it was borne in upon her +with appalling certitude that George was necessary to her, and that he +was not there.</p> + +<p>He had not even written to her since he married.</p> + +<p>Then, as if he had a far-off sense of her need of him and of her agony, +he wrote. Marriage had not destroyed his supernatural sympathy. +Absolutely as if nothing had happened, he wrote. It was on the day after +New Year's day, and if Jane had behaved as if nothing had happened she +would have written to <i>him</i>. But because she needed him, she could not +bring herself to write.</p> + +<p>"My dear Jinny," he wrote, "I haven't heard from you for centuries." (He +must have expected, then, to hear.) "What's the matter? Is it Book?"</p> + +<p>And Jane wrote back, "It is. Will you look at it?" "Nothing would please +me better," said Tanqueray by return. Not a word about his wife. Jane +sent Hambleby (by return also) and regretted it the moment after.</p> + +<p>In two days a telegram followed. "Coming to see you to-day at four. +Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>Absolutely as if nothing had happened, he came. Her blood sang a song in +her brain; her heart and all her pulses beat with the joy and tumult of +his coming. But when he was there, when he had flung himself into his +old place by the fireside and sat smiling at her across the hearthrug, +of a sudden her brain was on the watch, and her pulses and her heart +were still.</p> + +<p>"What's been the matter?" he said. "You look worn out."</p> + +<p>"I am worn out."</p> + +<p>"With Book, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>She smiled and shook her head. "No. With people, George. Everlasting +people. I have to work like ten horses, and when I think I've got a +spare minute, just to rest in, some one takes it. Look there. And there. +And there."</p> + +<p>His eyes followed her wild gesture. Innumerable little notes were +stacked on Jinny's writing-table and lay littered among her manuscripts. +Invitation cards, theatre tickets, telegrams were posted in every +available space about the room, schedules of the tax the world levies on +celebrity.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's brows crumpled as he surveyed the scene.</p> + +<p>"Before I can write a line of Hambleby," said Jinny—"one little +line—I've got to send answers to all that."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to tell me," he said sternly, "that you dream of +answering?"</p> + +<p>"If it could only end in dreaming."</p> + +<p>He groaned. "Here have I been away from you, how long? Six months, is +it? Only six months, Jinny, just long enough to get married in, and you +go and do the very things I told you not to. You're not to be trusted by +yourself for a single minute. I told you what it would be like."</p> + +<p>"George dear, can't you do something? Can't you save me?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Jinny, I've tried my level best to save you. But you wouldn't +<i>be</i> saved."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said she, "you don't know how I've hated it."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you liked any of it."</p> + +<p>"No," she said slowly. "Not any of it."</p> + +<p>"The praise, Jinny, didn't you like the praise? Weren't you just a +little bit intoxicated?"</p> + +<p>"Did I look intoxicated?"</p> + +<p>"No-no. You carried it fairly well."</p> + +<p>"Just at first, perhaps, just at first it goes to your head a bit. Then +you get sick of it, and you don't want ever to have any more of it +again. And all the time it makes you feel such a silly ass."</p> + +<p>"You were certainly not cut out for a celebrity."</p> + +<p>"But the awful thing is that when you've swallowed all the praise you +can't get rid of the people. They come swarming and tearing and +clutching at you, and bizzing in your ear when you want to be quiet. I +feel as if I were being buried alive under awful avalanches of people."</p> + +<p>"I told you you would be."</p> + +<p>"If," she cried, "they'd only kill you outright. But they throttle you. +You fight for breath. They let go and then they're at you again. They +come telling you how wonderful you are and how they adore your work; and +not one of them cares a rap about it. If they did they'd leave you alone +to do it."</p> + +<p>"Poor Jinny," he murmured.</p> + +<p>"Why am I marked out for this? Why is it, George? Why should they take +me and leave you alone?"</p> + +<p>"It's your emotional quality that fetches them. But it's inconceivable +how <i>you</i>'ve been fetched."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see what the creatures were like. Oh, George, that I +should be so punished when I only wanted to see what they were like."</p> + +<p>"Poor Jinny. Poor gregarious Jinny."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It was so insidious. I can't think, I really can't think how it began."</p> + +<p>"It began with those two spluttering imbecilities you asked me to dine +with."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, poor things, they haven't hurt me. They've gone on to dine at +other tables. They're in it, too. They're torn and devoured. They dine +and are dined on."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear child, you must stop it."</p> + +<p>"If I could. If I could only break loose and get away."</p> + +<p>"Get away. What keeps you?"</p> + +<p>"Everything keeps me."</p> + +<p>"By everything you mean——?"</p> + +<p>"London. London does something to your brain. It jogs it and shakes it; +and all the little ideas that had gone to sleep in their little cells +get up and begin to dance as if they heard music. Everything wakes them +up, the streams of people, the eyes and the faces. It's you and Nina and +Laura. It's ten thousand things. Can't you understand, George?"</p> + +<p>"It's playing the devil with your nerves, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"Not when I go about in it alone. That's the secret."</p> + +<p>"It looks as if you were alone a lot, doesn't it?" He glanced +significantly around him.</p> + +<p>"Oh—that!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "that. Will you really let me save you?"</p> + +<p>"Can you?"</p> + +<p>"I can, if I do it my own way."</p> + +<p>"I don't care how you do it."</p> + +<p>"Good." He rose. "Is there anything in those letters you mind my +seeing?"</p> + +<p>"Not a word."</p> + +<p>He sat down at her writing-table and stirred the litter with rapid, +irritable hands. In two minutes he had gathered into a heap all the +little notes of invitation. He then went round the room collecting the +tickets and the cards and the telegrams. These he added to his heap.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I am going," he said, "to destroy this hornets' nest you've raised +about you."</p> + +<p>He took it up, carrying it gingerly, as if it stung, and dropped it on +the fire.</p> + +<p>"George——" she cried, and sat looking at him as he stirred the pile to +flame and beat down its ashes into the grate. She was paralyzed, +fascinated by the bold splendour of his deed.</p> + +<p>"There," he said. "Is there anything else I can do for you."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She smiled. "You can tell me what I'm to say to my stepmother."</p> + +<p>"Your stepmother?"</p> + +<p>"She wants to know if I'll have Effy."</p> + +<p>"Effy?"</p> + +<p>"My half-sister."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I think, George, I may have to have her."</p> + +<p>"Have her? It's you who'll be had. Don't I tell you you're always being +had?"</p> + +<p>He looked down at her half-tenderly, smiling at the pathos, the absurd +pathos of her face. He was the same George Tanqueray that he had always +been, except he was no longer restless, no longer excited.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said, "if you begin to gather round you a family, or even +the rudiments of a family, you're done for. And so is Hambleby."</p> + +<p>She said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Can you afford to have him done for?"</p> + +<p>"If it would help them, George."</p> + +<p>"You want to help them?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do."</p> + +<p>"But you can't help them without Hambleby. It's he who goes out and +rakes in the shekels, not you."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. I know he does."</p> + +<p>"Apart from Hambleby what are you? A simple idiot."</p> + +<p>Jane's face expressed her profound and contrite persuasion of this +truth.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "have you written to the lady?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Then sit down and write to her now exactly what I tell you. It will be +a beautiful letter; in your manner, not mine."</p> + +<p>He stood over her and dictated the letter. It had a firmness of +intention that no letter of Jinny's to her people had hitherto +expressed, but in all other respects it was a masterly reproduction of +Jinny's style.</p> + +<p>"I am going to post this myself," he said, "because I can't trust you +for a minute."</p> + +<p>He ran out bareheaded and came back again.</p> + +<p>"You can't do without me," he said, "you can't do without me for a +minute."</p> + +<p>He sat down in his old place, and began, always as if nothing had +happened. "And now about Hambleby. Another day, Jinny, and I should have +been too late to save him."</p> + +<p>"But, George, it's awful. They'll never understand. They don't realize +the deadly grind. They see me moving in scenes of leisured splendour."</p> + +<p>"Tell them you don't move in scenes of leisured anything."</p> + +<p>"The scenes I do move in! I was so happy once, when I hadn't any money, +when nobody but you knew anything about me."</p> + +<p>"Were you really, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And before that, when I was quite alone. Think of the hours, the +days, the months I had to myself."</p> + +<p>"Then the curse fell, and you became celeb——Even then, with a little +strength of mind, you might have saved yourself. Do you think, if I +became celebrated, I should give myself up to be devoured?"</p> + +<p>"If I could only not be celebrated," she said. "Do you think I can ever +creep back into my hole again and be obscure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you'll write a book that nobody but I can read."</p> + +<p>"Why, isn't Hambleby——?"</p> + +<p>"Not he. He'll only make things worse for you. Ten times worse."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"He may make you popular."</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> what you think of him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think a lot of him. So do you."</p> + +<p>He smiled his old teasing and tormenting smile.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you're not just a little bit in love with that little +banker's clerk?"</p> + +<p>"I was never in love with a banker's clerk in my life. I've never even +seen one except <i>in</i> banks and tubes and places."</p> + +<p>"I don't care. It's the way you'll be had. It's the way you'll be had by +Hambleby if you don't look out. It's the way," he said, "that's +absolutely forbidden to any artist. You've got to know Hambleby outside +and inside, as God Almighty knows him."</p> + +<p>"Well?" Jinny's mind was working dangerously near certain personal +matters. George himself seemed to be approaching the same borders. He +plunged in an abyss of meditation and emerged.</p> + +<p>"You can't know people, you can't possibly hope to know them, if you +once allow yourself to fall in love with them."</p> + +<p>"Can't you?" she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"No, you can't. If God Almighty had allowed himself to fall in love with +you and me, Jinny, he couldn't have made us all alive and kicking. You +must be God Almighty to Hambleby or he won't kick."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he kick?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord, yes. You haven't gone in deep enough to stop him. I'm only +warning you against a possible danger. It's always a possible danger +when I'm not there to look after you."</p> + +<p>He rose. "Anything," he said, "is possible when I'm not there."</p> + +<p>She rose also. Their hands and their eyes met.</p> + +<p>"That's it," she said, "you weren't there, and you won't be."</p> + +<p>"You're wrong," said he, "I've always been there when you wanted me."</p> + +<p>He turned to go and came back again.</p> + +<p>"If I don't like to see you celebrated, Jinny, it's because I want to +see you immortal."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to be alone in your immortality?"</p> + +<p>"No. I don't want to be alone—in my immortality."</p> + +<p>With that he left her. And he had not said a word about his wife.</p> + +<p>Neither for that matter had Jane. She wondered why she had not.</p> + +<p>"At any rate," she thought, "<i>I</i> haven't hurt his immortality."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2> + + +<p>A week after his visit to Jane Holland, Tanqueray was settled, as he +called it, in rooms in Bloomsbury. He had got all his books and things +sent down from Hampstead, to stay in Bloomsbury for ever, because +Bloomsbury was cheap.</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to him to think what Rose was to do with herself in +Bloomsbury or he with Rose. He had brought her up out of the little +village of Sussex where they had lodged, in a farmhouse, ever since +their marriage. Rose had been happy down in Sussex.</p> + +<p>And for the first few weeks Tanqueray had been happy too. He was never +tired of playing with Rose, caressing Rose, talking nonsense to Rose, +teasing and tormenting Rose for ever. The more so as she provoked him by +turning an imperturbable face to the attack. He liked to lie with his +head in Rose's lap, while Rose's fingers played with his hair, stirring +up new ideas to torment her with. He was content, for the first few +weeks, to be what he had become, a sane and happy animal, mated with an +animal, a dear little animal, superlatively happy and incorruptibly +sane.</p> + +<p>He might have gone on like that for an interminable number of weeks but +that the mere rest from all intellectual labour had a prodigiously +recuperative effect. His genius, just because he had forgotten all about +it, began with characteristic perversity to worry him again. It wouldn't +let him alone. It made him more restless than Rose had ever made him. It +led him into ways that were so many subtle infidelities to Rose. It tore +him from Rose and took him out with it for long tramps beyond the Downs; +wherever they went it was always too far for Rose to go. He would try, +basely, to get off without her seeing him, and managed it, for Rose was +so sensible that she never saw.</p> + +<p>Then it made him begin a book. He wrote all morning in a room by +himself. All afternoon he walked by himself. All evening he lay with his +head in Rose's lap, too tired even to tease her.</p> + +<p>But, because she had Tanqueray's head to nurse in the evenings, Rose had +been happy down in Sussex. She went about the farm and stroked all the +animals. She borrowed the baby at the farm and nursed it half the day. +And in the evening she nursed Tanqueray's head. Tanqueray's head was +never bothered to think what Rose was doing when she was not nursing it.</p> + +<p>Then, because his book made him think of Jane Holland, he sat down one +day and wrote that letter to Jinny.</p> + +<p>He did not know that it was because of Jinny that he had come back to +live in Bloomsbury.</p> + +<p>They had been a month in Bloomsbury, in a house in Torrington Square. +Rose was sitting alone in the ground-floor room that looked straight on +to the pavement. Sitting with her hands before her waiting for Tanqueray +to come to lunch. Tanqueray was up-stairs, two flights away, in his +study, writing. She was afraid to go and tell him lunch was ready. She +had gone up once that morning to see that he didn't let his fire out, +and he hadn't liked it; so she waited. There was a dish of cutlets +keeping hot for him on the hearth. Presently he would come down, and she +would have the pleasure of putting the cutlets on the table and seeing +him eat them. It was about the only pleasure she could count on now.</p> + +<p>For to Rose, as she sat there, the thought had come that for all she saw +of her husband she might as well not be married to him. She had been +better off at Hampstead when she waited on him hand and foot; when she +was doing things for him half the day; when, more often than not, he had +a minute to spare for a word or a look that set her heart fairly +dancing. She had agreed to their marriage chiefly because it would +enable her to wait on him and nobody but him, to wait on him all day +long.</p> + +<p>And he had said to her, first thing, as they dined together on their +wedding-day, that he wasn't going to let his wife wait on him. That was +why they lived in rooms (since he couldn't afford a house and servant), +that she might be waited on. He had hated to see her working, he said; +and now she wouldn't have to work. No, never again. And when she asked +him if he liked to see her sitting with her hands before her, doing +nothing, he said that was precisely what he did like. And it had been +all very well so long as he had been there to see her. But now he wasn't +ever there.</p> + +<p>It was worse than it was down in Sussex. All morning he shut himself up +in his study to write. After lunch he went up there again to smoke. Then +he would go out by himself, and he might or might not come in for +dinner. All evening he shut himself up again and wrote. At midnight or +after he would come to her, worn out, and sleep, lying like a dead man +at her side.</p> + +<p>She was startled by the sound of the postman's knock and the flapping +fall of a letter in the letter-box. It was for Tanqueray, and she took +it up to him and laid it beside him without a word. To speak would have +been fatal. He had let his fire go out (she knew he would); so, while he +was reading his letter, she knelt down by the hearth and made it up +again. She went to work very softly, but he heard her.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing there?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I thought," said she, "I was as quiet as a mouse."</p> + +<p>"So you were. Just about. A horrid little mouse that keeps scratching at +the wainscot and creeping about the room and startling me."</p> + +<p>"Do I startle you?"</p> + +<p>"You do. Horribly."</p> + +<p>Rose put down the poker without a sound.</p> + +<p>He had finished his letter and had not begun writing again. He was only +looking at his letter. So Rose remarked that lunch was ready. He put the +letter into a drawer, and they went down.</p> + +<p>About half-way through lunch he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, "you <i>must</i> keep out of the room when I'm +writing."</p> + +<p>"You're always writing now."</p> + +<p>Yes. He was always writing now; because he did not want to talk to Rose +and it was the best way of keeping her out of the room. But as yet he +did not know that was why, any more than he knew that he had come to +live in London because he wanted to talk to Jinny. The letter in his +drawer up-stairs was from Jinny, asking him if she might not come and +see his wife. He was not sure that he wanted her to come and see his +wife. Why should she?</p> + +<p>"You'll 'urt your brain," his wife was saying, "if you keep on +writ-writin', lettin' the best of the day go by before you put your foot +out of doors. It would do you all the good in the world if you was to +come sometimes for a walk with me——"</p> + +<p>It all went in at one ear and out of the other.</p> + +<p>So all morning, all afternoon, all evening, Rose sat by herself in the +room looking on the pavement. She had nothing to do in this house that +didn't belong to them. When she had helped the little untidy servant to +clear away the breakfast things; when she had dusted their sitting-room +and bedroom; when she had gone out and completed her minute marketings, +she had nothing to do. Nothing to do for herself; worse than all, +nothing to do for Tanqueray. She would hunt in drawers for things of his +to mend, going over his socks again and again in the hope of finding a +hole in one of them. Rose, who loved taking care of people, who was born +in the world and fashioned by Nature to that end, Rose had nothing to +take care of. You couldn't take care of Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she found herself wishing that he were ill. Not dangerously +ill, but ill enough to be put to bed and taken care of. Not that Rose +was really aware of this cruel hope of hers. It came to her rather as a +picture of Tanqueray, lying in his sleeping-suit, adorably helpless, and +she nursing him. Her heart yearned to that vision.</p> + +<p>For she saw visions. From perpetual activities of hands and feet, from +running up and down stairs, from sweeping and dusting, from the making +of beds, the washing of clothes and china, she had passed to the life of +sedentary contemplation. She was always thinking. Sometimes she thought +of nothing but Tanqueray. Sometimes she thought of Aunt and Uncle, of +Minnie and the seven little dogs. She could see them of a Sunday +evening, sitting in the basement parlour, Aunt in her black cashmere +with the gimp trimmings, Uncle in his tight broadcloth with his pipe in +his mouth, and Mrs. Smoker sleeping with her nose on the fender. Mr. +Robinson would come in sometimes, dressed as Mr. Robinson could dress, +and sit down at the little piano and sing in his beautiful voice, "'Ark, +'Ark, my Soul," and "The Church's one Foundation," while Joey howled at +all his top notes, and the smoke came curling out of Uncle's pipe, and +Rose sat very still dreaming of Mr. Tanqueray. (She could never hear +"Hark, Hark, my Soul," now, without thinking of Tanqueray.)</p> + +<p>Sometimes she thought of that other life, further back, in her +mistress's house at Fleet, all the innocent service and affection, the +careful, exquisite tending of the delicious person of Baby, her humble, +dutiful intimacy with Baby's mother. She would shut her eyes and feel +Baby's hands on her neck, and the wounding pressure of his body against +her breasts. And then Rose dreamed another dream.</p> + +<p>She no longer cared to sew now, but when Tanqueray's mending was done, +she would sit for hours with her hands before her, dreaming.</p> + +<p>He found her thus occupied one evening when he had come home after +seeing Jane. After seeing Jane he was always rather more aware of his +wife's existence than he had been, so that he was struck now by the +strange dejection of her figure. He came to her and stood, leaning +against the chimney-piece and looking down at her, as he had stood once +and looked down at Jane.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing. I've a cold in me head."</p> + +<p>"Cold in your head! You've been crying. There's a blob on your dress." +(He kissed her.) "What are you crying about?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not cryin' about <i>anything</i>."</p> + +<p>"But—you're crying." It gave him pain to see Rose crying.</p> + +<p>"If I am it's the first time I've done it."</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Certain. I never <i>was</i> one for cryin', nor for bein' seen cry. It's +just—it's just sittin' here with me 'ands before me, havin' nothing to +do."</p> + +<p>"I suppose there isn't very much for you to do."</p> + +<p>"I've done all there is and a great deal there isn't."</p> + +<p>"I say, shall we go to the play to-night?"</p> + +<p>She smiled with pleasure at his thought for her. Then she shook her +head. "It's not plays I want—it's work. I'd like to have me hands full. +If we had a little house——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. No—no—no." He looked terrified.</p> + +<p>"It would come a lot cheaper. Only a <i>little</i> house, where I could do +all the work."</p> + +<p>"I've told you before I won't let you."</p> + +<p>"With a girl," she pleaded, "to scrub. A little house up Hampstead way."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to live up Hampstead way."</p> + +<p>"If you mean Uncle and Aunt," she said, "they wouldn't think of +intrudin'. We settled that, me and Uncle. I'd be as happy as the day is +long."</p> + +<p>"You're <i>not</i>? And the day is very long, is it?"</p> + +<p>He kissed her, first on her mouth and then on the lobe of the ear that +was next to him.</p> + +<p>"Kissin' 's all very well," said Rose. "You never kissed me at +Hampstead, and you don't know how happy I was there. Doin' things for +you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want things done for me."</p> + +<p>"No. I wish you did."</p> + +<p>"And, Rose, I don't want to be bothered with a house; to be tied to a +house; to have anything to do with a house."</p> + +<p>"Would it worry you?"</p> + +<p>"Abominably. And think of the horrors of moving!"</p> + +<p>"I'd move you," said Rose.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. Look here. It would kill that book. I must have peace. This +is a beastly hole, I know, but there's peace in it. You don't know what +that damned book <i>is</i>."</p> + +<p>She gave up the idea of a house; and seven months after her marriage, +she fell into a melancholy.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, now, on a fine afternoon, she would go out into the streets +and look listlessly through shop-windows at hats and gowns and all the +pretty things she would have thought it sin so much as to desire to +wear. Where Rose lingered longest was outside those heavenly places +where you saw far off a flutter of white in the windows, which turned +out to be absurd, tiny, short-waisted frocks and diminutive +under-garments, and little heartrending shoes; things of desire, things +of impossible dream, to be approached with a sacred dumbness of the +heart.</p> + +<p>The toy-shops, too, they carried her away in a flight; so that Rose +caught herself saying to herself, "Some day, perhaps, I shall be here +buying one of them fur animals, or that there Noah's ark."</p> + +<p>Then, p'raps, she said to her very inmost self, things might be +different.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she would go up to Hampstead, ridin', as she phrased it, in a +bus, to see her Aunt and Uncle and a friend she had, Polly White. Not +often; for Rose did not hold with gadding about when you had a husband; +besides, she was afraid of Aunt asking her, "Wot's <i>'E</i> doin'?" (By +always referring to Tanqueray as "'E," Mrs. Eldred evaded the problem of +what she was expected to call the gentleman who had so singularly +married her husband's niece.) Most of all Rose dreaded the question, +"Wen is 'E goin' to take a little 'ouse?" For in Rose's world it is +somewhat of a reflection on a married man if he is not a householder.</p> + +<p>And last time Mrs. Eldred's inquiries had taken a more terrible and +searching form. "Is 'E lookin' for anything to do besides 'Is writin'?" +Rose had said then that no, he needn't, they'd got enough; an answer +that brought Mrs. Eldred round to her point again. "Then why doesn't 'E +take a little 'ouse?"</p> + +<p>Sometimes Polly White came to tea in Bloomsbury. Very seldom, though, +and only when Tanqueray was not there. Rose knew and Polly knew that her +friends had to keep away when her husband was about. As for <i>his</i> +friends, she had never caught a sight of them.</p> + +<p>Then, all of a sudden, when Rose had given up wondering whether things +would ever be different, Tanqueray, instead of going up-stairs as usual, +sat down and lit a pipe as if he were going to spend the evening with +her. Rose did not know whether she would be allowed to talk. He seemed +thoughtful, and Rose knew better than to interrupt him when he was +thinking.</p> + +<p>"Rose," he said at last, apparently as the result of his meditation, "a +friend of mine wants to call on you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"To call on <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"On you, certainly."</p> + +<p>"Shall I have to see him?"</p> + +<p>"She, Rose, she. Yes; I think you'll have to see her."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," said Rose, "you had a friend."</p> + +<p>She meant what she would have called a lady friend.</p> + +<p>"I've dozens," said Tanqueray, knowing what she meant.</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me this one's name yet."</p> + +<p>"Her name is Jane Holland."</p> + +<p>It was Rose who became thoughtful now.</p> + +<p>"'As she anything to do with the Jane Holland that's on those books of +yours?"</p> + +<p>"She wrote 'em."</p> + +<p>"You didn't tell me you knew her."</p> + +<p>"Didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's how you knew her."</p> + +<p>"Yes. That's how I knew her."</p> + +<p>"What made 'er take to writin'? Is she married?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Rose, almost as if she really saw. "And wot shall I've to +do?"</p> + +<p>"You'll write a pretty little note to her and ask her to tea."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!"</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid of her."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid; but goodness knows what I shall find to talk about."</p> + +<p>"You can talk about me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I <i>shall</i> 'ave to talk to her?"</p> + +<p>"Well—yes. Or—I can talk to her."</p> + +<p>Rose became very thoughtful indeed.</p> + +<p>"Wot's she like?"</p> + +<p>He considered. What <i>was</i> Jinny like? Like nothing on earth that Rose +had ever seen.</p> + +<p>"I mean," said Rose, "to look at."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I can tell you what she's like."</p> + +<p>"Is she like Miss Kentish? You remember Miss Kentish at Hampstead?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Not in the very least."</p> + +<p>Rose looked depressed. "Is she like Mrs. 'Enderson down at Fleet?"</p> + +<p>"That's nearer. But she's not like Mrs. Henderson. She's—she's +charming."</p> + +<p>"So's Mrs. 'Enderson."</p> + +<p>"It's another sort of charm. I don't even know whether you'd see it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, <i>you</i> should have seen Mrs. 'Enderson with Baby. They was a perfect +picture."</p> + +<p>"That's it. I can't see Miss Holland with Baby. I can only see her by +herself."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Rose, "she was married. Because, if she 'ad been, there +might be something——"</p> + +<p>"Something?"</p> + +<p>"Well—to talk about."</p> + +<p>It was his turn to say "I see."</p> + +<p>He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, thus closing the sitting, and +settled down to a long correspondence in arrears.</p> + +<p>At bed-time Rose spoke again.</p> + +<p>"How old is she?" Rose said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2> + + +<p>The next day at four o'clock Rose had on her best gown and was +bright-eyed and pink. Brighter-eyed and pinker than Tanqueray had seen +her for many weeks. She was excited, not so much by the prospect of +seeing Miss Holland as by the beautiful vision of her tea-table. There +was a cake with sugar icing on it, and bread and butter rolled as Rose +had seen it rolled at Fleet. She had set out the tea-service that her +aunt had given her for a wedding-present. The table cloth had a lace +edge to it which gratified Rose whenever she thought of it. Tanqueray +had on his nicest suit, and Rose's gaze travelled up and down it, and +paused in ecstasy at his necktie.</p> + +<p>"You do pay for dressin'," she said.</p> + +<p>"I do indeed," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>Rose got on very well at tea-time. It was marvellous how many things she +found to say. The conversation really made itself. She had only to sit +there and ask Miss Holland how she liked her tea, weak or strong, and if +she took so much milk or a little drop more, and sugar, one lump or two +lumps, and that sized lump or a little larger? She spun it out till +George was ready to begin talking. And there came a beautiful and sacred +silence while Rose made Tanqueray's tea and gave it him.</p> + +<p>After seven months it was still impossible for Rose to hide her deep +delight in waiting on him. More than once her eyes turned from Jane to +watch him in the wonderful and interesting acts of eating and drinking.</p> + +<p>For a moment Jane suffered an abominable pang as she realized the things +that were permissible to Rose, the things that she could say to +Tanqueray, the things that she might do for him. At first she had looked +away so that she might not see these tender approaches of Rose to +Tanqueray. Then she remembered that this was precisely what she had come +out to see,—that she had got to realize Rose. And thus, as she brought +herself round to face it fairly, she caught in a flash Rose's attitude +and the secret of it.</p> + +<p>It was not a thing flung in her face to madden her, it had no bridal +insolence about it, and none of the consecrated folly of the bride. It +was a thing of pathos and of innocence, something between the +uncontrollable tenderness, the divine infatuation of a mother, and the +crude obsession of a girl uncertain of the man she has set her unhappy +heart on; a thing, Rose's attitude, stripped of all secrecy by its +sadness.</p> + +<p>But there was nothing abject in it. It was strong; it was militant under +its pathos and its renunciation. With such a look Rose would have faced +gates of death closing between her and Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>So Jane realized Rose.</p> + +<p>And she said to herself, "What a good thing Tanks never did care for me. +It would be awful if I made her more uncertain of him."</p> + +<p>At this moment Tanqueray said, "How's Hambleby?"</p> + +<p>"He's not quite so well as he was," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to hear that," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"Is anybody ill?" said Rose. She was always interested in anybody who +was ill.</p> + +<p>"Only Hambleby," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"Who's he?" said Rose.</p> + +<p>"The man Jinny's in love with."</p> + +<p>Rose was shocked at this violation of the holy privacies. She looked +reprovingly at Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"Is your tea as you like it?" she inquired, with tact, to make it more +comfortable for Jane.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to smoke," said Tanqueray. "Will you come to my den, Jinny, +and talk about Hambleby?"</p> + +<p>Rose looked as if positively she couldn't believe her ears. But it was +at Jane that she looked, not at Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"No," said Jinny. "I don't want to talk about Hambleby. I want to talk +to your wife."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't mind what 'e says," said Rose, when they were alone +together. "'E sometimes says things to me that make me fair jump."</p> + +<p>"I didn't jump," said Jane, "did I?"</p> + +<p>"No. You took it a deal better than I should have done."</p> + +<p>It was odd, but Rose was ten times more at her ease since Tanqueray's +awful reference to Hambleby. And she seemed happier, too.</p> + +<p>"You see," said Jane, "there wasn't much to take. Hambleby's only a man +in a book I'm writing."</p> + +<p>"Oh—only a man in a book."</p> + +<p>Rose looked depressed. There was a silence which even Jane found it +difficult to break. Then she had an inspiration.</p> + +<p>"I'm supposed to be in love with him because I can't think or talk about +anything else."</p> + +<p>"That's just like Mr. Tanqueray," said Rose.</p> + +<p>"Only he isn't in love with the people in his books," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"He must think a deal of 'em."</p> + +<p>"He says he doesn't."</p> + +<p>"Well—'e's always thinkin' when he isn't writin'."</p> + +<p>There was trouble on Rose's face.</p> + +<p>"Miss 'Olland—'ow many hours do <i>you</i> sit at it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it depends."</p> + +<p>"'E's sittin' all day sometimes, and 'arf the night. And my fear is," +said Rose, "'e'll injure 'is brain."</p> + +<p>"It will take a good deal to injure it. It's very tough. He'll leave off +when he's tired."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't left off for months and months."</p> + +<p>Her trouble deepened.</p> + +<p>"Did 'e always work that 'ard?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Jane. "I don't think he ever did."</p> + +<p>"Then w'y," said Rose, coming straight to her point, "is he doin' it +now?"</p> + +<p>They looked at each other; and somehow Jane knew why he was doing it. +She wondered if Rose knew; if she suspected.</p> + +<p>"He's doing it," she said, "because he <i>can</i> do it. You've had a good +effect on him."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, do you really think it's <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>"I do indeed," said Jane, with immense conviction.</p> + +<p>"And you think it doesn't hurt him?"</p> + +<p>"No. Does him good. You should be glad when you see him writing."</p> + +<p>"If," said Rose, "I <i>could</i> see 'im. But I've bin settin' here thinkin'. +I lie awake sometimes at night till I'm terrified wonderin' wot's +'appenin', and whether 'is brain won't give way with 'im drivin' it. You +see, we 'ad a lodger once and 'e overworked 'is brain and 'ad to be sent +orf quick to the asylum. That's wot's frightened me."</p> + +<p>"But I don't suppose the lodger's brain was a bit like Mr. Tanqueray's."</p> + +<p>"That's wot I keep sayin' to myself. People's brains is different. But +there's been times when I could have taken that old book away from him +and hidden it, thinkin' that might be for his good."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be for his good."</p> + +<p>"No," said Rose, "I'm not that certain that it would. That's why I don't +do it."</p> + +<p>She became pensive.</p> + +<p>"Besides, it's 'is pleasure. Why, it's all the pleasure he's got."</p> + +<p>She looked up at Jane. Her thoughts swam in her large eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's awful, isn't it," said she, "not knowin' wot really is for +people's good?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid we must trust them to know best."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Rose, "I'll just let 'im alone. That's safest."</p> + +<p>Jane rose.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't worry," said she.</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Rose. "He hates worryin'."</p> + +<p>She looked up again into Jane's face as one beholding the calm face of +wisdom.</p> + +<p>"You've done me good," said she.</p> + +<p>Jane stooped and kissed her. She kissed Tanqueray's wife.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she said, "you are what I thought you would be."</p> + +<p>Rose's eyes grew rounder.</p> + +<p>"And what's that?"</p> + +<p>"Something very sweet and nice."</p> + +<p>Rose's face was a soft mist of smiles and blushes. "Fancy that," she +said.</p> + +<p>"Why did you let her go away without telling me?" said Tanqueray, +half-an-hour later.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think," said Rose. "We got talking."</p> + +<p>"What did you talk about?"</p> + +<p>She would not tell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2> + + +<p>She had known all the time that if she was not to go on thinking about +George Tanqueray she must see his wife. When she had once thoroughly +realized his wife it would be easier to give him up to her.</p> + +<p>It was George who had tried to prevent her realizing Rose. He, for his +part, refused to be given up to Rose or in any way identified with her. +Nina was right. His marriage had made no difference to George.</p> + +<p>But now that she realized Rose, it made all the difference to Jane. Rose +was realized so completely that she turned George out of the place he +persisted in occupying in Jane's mind. Jane had not allowed herself to +feel that there was anything to be sorry about in George's marriage. She +was afraid of having to be sorry for George, because, in that case, +there would be no end to her thinking about him. But if there was any +sorrow in George's marriage it was not going to affect George. She would +not have to be sorry about him.</p> + +<p>Like Nina, Jane was sorry for the woman.</p> + +<p>That little figure strayed in and out of Jane's mind without disturbing +her renewed communion with Hambleby.</p> + +<p>Up till now she had contrived to keep the very existence of Hambleby a +secret from her publishers. But they had got wind of him somehow, and +had written many times inquiring when he would be ready? As if she could +tell, as if her object was to get him ready, and not rather to prolong +the divine moments of his creation. She would have liked to have kept +him with her in perpetual manuscript, for in this state he still seemed +a part of herself. Publicity of any sort was a profanation. When +published he would be made to stand in shop windows coarsely labelled, +offering himself for sale at four-and-six; he would go into the houses +of people who couldn't possibly appreciate him, and would suffer +unspeakable things at their hands. As the supreme indignity, he would be +reviewed. And she, his creator, would be living on him, profiting by his +degradation at percentages which made her blush. To be thinking of what +Hambleby would "fetch" was an outrage to his delicate perfection.</p> + +<p>But she had to think of it; and after all, when she had reckoned it up, +he would not "fetch" so very much. She had failed to gather in one half +of the golden harvest. The serial rights of Hambleby lay rotting in the +field. George used to manage all these dreadful things for her. For +though George was not much cleverer than she he liked to think he was. +It was his weakness to imagine that he had a head for business. And in +the perversity of things he had really done better for her than he had +ever done for himself. That was the irony of it; when, if she could, she +would have taken her luck and shared it with him.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, business without George had been very uninteresting; and +therefore she had not attended to it. There had been opportunities as +golden as you please, but she had not seized them. There had been +glorious openings for Hambleby, far-reaching prospects, noble vistas, if +only he had been born six months sooner. And when George said that +Hambleby would be popular, he was, of course, only tormenting her. He +never meant half of the unpleasant things he said.</p> + +<p>It was now April. Hambleby waited only for the crowning chapter. The +arrangements for his publication had been made, all but the date, which +was left unsettled, in case at the last moment a new opening should be +found.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock on an April afternoon Jane was meditating on her affairs +when the staircase bell rang somewhat imperiously. It sounded like +somebody determined to get in. A month ago she would have taken no +notice of it. Now she was afraid not to open her door lest Tanqueray +should be there.</p> + +<p>It was not Tanqueray. It was Hugh Brodrick.</p> + +<p>For a second she wondered at him, not taking him in. She had forgotten +that Brodrick existed. It was his eyes she recognized him by. They were +fixed on her, smiling at her wonder. He stood on the little square of +landing between the door and the foot of the staircase.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said. "You're just going out?"</p> + +<p>"No, do come in."</p> + +<p>"May I? I don't believe you know in the least who I am."</p> + +<p>"I do, really. I'm very glad to see you."</p> + +<p>He followed her up the stairs and into her sitting-room, the small +white-painted sitting-room, with its three straight windows looking on +the Square. He went to one of the windows and looked out.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "there is a charm about it."</p> + +<p>He spoke as if his mind had been long occupied with this place she lived +in; as if they had disputed together many times as to the attraction of +Kensington Square, and he had been won over, at last, reluctantly, to +her view. It all strengthened the impression he gave of being absorbed +in her.</p> + +<p>He turned to her.</p> + +<p>"You like living here? All alone? Cut off from everybody?"</p> + +<p>She remembered then how they had really discussed this question.</p> + +<p>"I like it very much indeed."</p> + +<p>"Well——" (He said it sadly.) "Do you write in this room? At that +table?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He looked at the table as if he thought it all very interesting and very +incomprehensible and very sad. He looked at the books on the shelf close +to the table and read George Tanqueray's name on them. He frowned +slightly at the books and turned away.</p> + +<p>She sat down. He did not take the chair she indicated, but chose another +where he could see her rather better. He was certainly a man who knew +his own mind.</p> + +<p>"I've called," he said, "a great many times. But I've always missed +you."</p> + +<p>"So at last you gave it up? Like everybody else."</p> + +<p>"Does it look as if I'd given it up?"</p> + +<p>She could not say it did.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I never give anything up. In that I'm not like everybody +else."</p> + +<p>He wasn't, she reflected. And yet somehow he ought to have been. There +was nothing so very remarkable about him.</p> + +<p>He smiled. "I believe," he said, "you thought I was the man come to tune +the piano."</p> + +<p>"Did I look as if I did?"</p> + +<p>"A little."</p> + +<p>"Do I now?" She was beginning to like Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Not so much. As it happens, I have come partly for the pleasure of +seeing you and partly—to discuss, if you don't mind, some business."</p> + +<p>Jane was aware of a certain relief. If it was that he came for——</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you've heard that I'm bringing out a magazine?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. I remember you were bringing it out——"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of bringing it out when I last met you. It may interest +you, because it's to have nothing in it that isn't literature. I'm going +in for novels, short stories, essays, poems. No politics."</p> + +<p>"Won't that limit your circulation?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it'll limit it. Still, it's not easy to keep honest if you go +in for politics."</p> + +<p>"I see. Rather than not be honest you prefer to limit your circulation?"</p> + +<p>He blushed like a man detected in some meanness; the supreme meanness of +vaunting his own honesty.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I don't know about that. Politics means my brother-in-law. If +I keep them out I keep him out, and run the thing my own way. I dare say +that's all there is in it."</p> + +<p>Certainly she liked him. He struck her as powerful and determined. With +his magazine, he had the air of charging, sublimely, at the head of the +forlorn hope of literature.</p> + +<p>"It's taken me all this time to get the capital together. But I've got +it."</p> + +<p>"Yes. You would get it."</p> + +<p>He looked up gravely inquiring.</p> + +<p>"You strike me as being able to get things."</p> + +<p>He flushed with pleasure. "Do I? I don't know. If I can get the authors +I want I believe I can make the magazine one of the big things of the +century." He said it quietly, as if inspired by caution rather than +enthusiasm. "<i>They</i>'ll make it—if I can get them."</p> + +<p>"Are they so difficult?"</p> + +<p>"The ones I want are. I don't want any but the best."</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well to smile; but this kind of magazine hasn't really +been tried before. There's room for it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oceans of <i>room</i>."</p> + +<p>"And it will have all the room there is. Now's its moment. All the good +old magazines are dead."</p> + +<p>"And gone to heaven because they were so good."</p> + +<p>"Because they were old. My magazine will be young."</p> + +<p>"There has been frightful mortality among the young."</p> + +<p>"I know the things you mean. They were decadent, neurotic, morbid, worse +than old. My magazine will be really young. It's the young writers that +I want. And there isn't one of them I want as much as you."</p> + +<p>She seemed to have hardly heard him.</p> + +<p>"Have you asked Mr. Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. You're the first I've asked. The very first."</p> + +<p>"You should have asked him first."</p> + +<p>"I didn't want him first."</p> + +<p>"You should have wanted him. Why" (she persisted), "did you come to me +before him?"</p> + +<p>"Because you're so much more valuable to me."</p> + +<p>"In what way?"</p> + +<p>"Your name is better known."</p> + +<p>"It oughtn't to be. If it's names you want——" She gave him a string of +them.</p> + +<p>"Your name stands for more."</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Tanqueray's? Does it not stand?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated.</p> + +<p>She insisted. "If mine does."</p> + +<p>"I am corrupt," said Brodrick, "and mercenary and brutal."</p> + +<p>"I wish you weren't," said she, so earnestly that he laughed.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Holland, we cannot blink the fact that you have a name and +he hasn't."</p> + +<p>"Or that my name sells and his doesn't. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Not altogether. If I couldn't get you I'd try to get him."</p> + +<p>"Would you? How do you know that you're going to get me?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "I don't. I only know that I'm prepared, if I may say so, to +pay for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "it isn't that."</p> + +<p>He smiled again at her horror.</p> + +<p>"I know it isn't that. Still——" He named a round sum, a sum so perfect +in its roundness that it took her breath away. With such a sum she could +do all that she wanted for her sister Effy at once, and secure herself +against gross poverty for years.</p> + +<p>"It's more than we could give Mr. Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Much more."</p> + +<p>"That's what's so awful," she said.</p> + +<p>He noticed how she clenched her hands as she said it.</p> + +<p>"It's not my fault, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—I don't care whose fault it is!"</p> + +<p>"But you care?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She almost whispered it.</p> + +<p>He was struck by that sudden drop from vehemence to pathos.</p> + +<p>"He is a very great friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And—he's just married, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And he isn't very well off. I don't think he could afford——" she +said.</p> + +<p>He coloured painfully as if she had suspected him of a desire to traffic +in Tanqueray's poverty.</p> + +<p>"We should pay him very well," he said.</p> + +<p>"His book" (she pressed it on him), "is not arranged for."</p> + +<p>"And yours is?"</p> + +<p>"Practically it is. The contract's drawn up, but the date's not +settled."</p> + +<p>"If the date's not settled, surely I've still a chance?"</p> + +<p>"And he," she said, "has still a chance if—I fail you?"</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs05" id="gs05"></a> +<img src="images/gs05.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"And he," she said, "has still a chance if—I fail you?"</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Of course—if you <i>fail</i> me."</p> + +<p>"And supposing that I hadn't got a book?"</p> + +<p>"But you have."</p> + +<p>"Supposing?"</p> + +<p>"Then I should fall back on Mr. Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"Fall back on him!—The date is settled."</p> + +<p>"But I thought——"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i>'ve settled it."</p> + +<p>"Oh. And it can't be unsettled?"</p> + +<p>"It can't—possibly."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>She meditated. "Because—it would spoil the chances of the book."</p> + +<p>"I see. The chances of the book."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met in conflict. It was as if they were measuring each +other's moral value.</p> + +<p>"I should make you a bigger offer, Miss Holland," he said; "only I +believe you don't want that."</p> + +<p>"No. Certainly I don't want that."</p> + +<p>He paused. "Do you mind telling me if you've any other chance?"</p> + +<p>"None. Not the ghost of one."</p> + +<p>"So that, but for this all-important question of the date, I might have +had you?"</p> + +<p>"You might have had me."</p> + +<p>"I'm almost glad," he said, "to have lost you—that way."</p> + +<p>"Which way?" said she.</p> + +<p>At that moment a servant of the house brought in tea. She announced that +Mr. Nicholson was down-stairs and would like to see Miss Holland.</p> + +<p>"Very well. You'll stay?" Jane said to Brodrick.</p> + +<p>He did. He was, Jane reflected, the sort of man who stayed.</p> + +<p>"Here's Mr. Brodrick," said she, as Nicky entered. "He's going to make +all our fortunes."</p> + +<p>"His own, too, I hope," said Brodrick. But he looked sulky, as if he +resented Nicholson's coming in.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said, "they tell me the whole thing's a dream, a +delusion, that it won't pay. But I know how to make it pay. The reason +why magazines go smash is because they're owned by men with no business +connections, no business organization, no business capacity. I couldn't +do it if I hadn't the 'Telegraph' at my back. Practically I make the +paper pay for the magazine."</p> + +<p>And he went into it, in his quick, quiet voice, expounding and expanding +his scheme, laying it down fairly and squarely, with lucidity but no +apparent ardour.</p> + +<p>It was Nicky who was excited. Jane could see cupidity in Nicky's eyes as +Brodrick talked about his magazine. Brodrick dwelt now on the commercial +side of it which had no interest for Nicky. Yet Nicky was excited. He +wanted badly to get into Brodrick's magazine, and Brodrick wanted, +Brodrick was determined to keep him out. There was a brief struggle +between Nicky's decency and his desire; and then Nicky's desire and +Brodrick's determination fairly skirmished together in the open. +Brodrick tried heavily to keep Nicky off it. But Nicky hovered airily, +intangibly about it. He fanned it as with wings; when Brodrick dropped +it he picked it up, he sustained it, he kept it flying high. Every +movement intimated in Nicky's most exquisite manner that if Brodrick +really meant it, if he had positively surrendered to the expensive +dream, if he wanted, in short, to keep it up and keep it high, he +couldn't be off letting Nicky in.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's shameless intention had been to out-stay Nicky. And as long +as Nicky's approaches were so delicate as to provoke only delicate +evasions, Brodrick stayed. But in the end poor Nicky turned desperate +and put it to him point-blank. "Was there, or was there not to be a +place for poets in the magazine?"</p> + +<p>At that Brodrick got up and went.</p> + +<p>"Nicky," said Jane, as the door closed on the retreating editor, "he +came for my book, and I've made him take George Tanqueray's instead."</p> + +<p>"I wish," said he, "you'd make him take my poems. But you can't. Nobody +can <i>make</i> Brodrick do anything he doesn't want to."</p> + +<p>"Oh——" said Jane, and dismissed Brodrick. "It's ages since I've seen +you."</p> + +<p>"I heard that you were immersed, and so I kept away."</p> + +<p>"That was very good of you," said she.</p> + +<p>It struck her when she had said it that perhaps it was not altogether +what Nicky would have liked her to say.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> immersed," she said, "in Hambleby."</p> + +<p>"Is he finished?"</p> + +<p>"All but. I'm waiting to put a crown upon his head."</p> + +<p>"Were you by any chance making it—the crown?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't even begun to make it."</p> + +<p>"I shan't spoil him then if I stay?"</p> + +<p>"No. I doubt if anything could spoil him now."</p> + +<p>"You've got him so safe?"</p> + +<p>"So safe. And yet, Nicky, there are moments when I can hardly bear to +think of Hambleby for fear he shouldn't be all right. It's almost as if +he came too easily."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't. All my best things come," said Nicky "—like <i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>A furious sweep of Nicky's arm simulated the onrush of his inspiration.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nicky, how splendid it must be to be so certain."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Nicky solemnly.</p> + +<p>After all, it argued some divine compensation somewhere that a thing so +destitute should remain unaware of its destitution, that a creature so +futile and diminutive should be sustained by this conviction of his +greatness. For he <i>was</i> certain. Nothing could annihilate the illusion +by which Nicky lived. But it was enough to destroy all certainty in +anybody else, and there were moments when the presence of Nicky had this +shattering effect on Jane. She could not have faced him until Hambleby +was beyond his power to slay.</p> + +<p>But Nicky, so far from enlarging on his certainty, meditated with his +eyes fixed on the clock.</p> + +<p>"You don't dine, do you," he said suddenly, "till half-past seven?"</p> + +<p>"You'll stay, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I think I mustn't, thanks. I only wanted to know how long I had."</p> + +<p>"You've really half-an-hour, if you <i>won't</i> dine."</p> + +<p>"I say, you're not expecting anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect Mr. Brodrick. I've kept everybody out so long that +they've left off coming."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said he, still meditating, "if <i>I</i>'ve come too soon."</p> + +<p>She held her breath. Nicky's voice was charged with a curious emotion.</p> + +<p>"I knew," he went on, "it wasn't any use my coming as long as you were +immersed. I wouldn't for worlds do anything that could possibly injure +your career."</p> + +<p>"Oh—my career——"</p> + +<p>"The question is," he meditated, "would it?"</p> + +<p>"Your coming, Nicky?"</p> + +<p>"My not keeping away. I suppose I ought to be content to stand aside and +watch it, your genius, when it's so tremendous. I've no right to get in +its way——"</p> + +<p>"You don't—you don't."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't. I always should be standing aside and watching. That," said +Nicky, "would be, you see, my attitude."</p> + +<p>"Dear Nicky," she murmured, "it's a beautiful attitude. It +couldn't—your attitude—be anything but beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Only, of course," he added, "I'd be there."</p> + +<p>"But you are. You are there. And it's delightful to have you."</p> + +<p>His face, which had turned very white, flushed, but not with pleasure. +It quivered with some sombre and sultry wave of pain.</p> + +<p>"I meant," he said, "if I were always there."</p> + +<p>His eyes searched her. She would not look at him.</p> + +<p>"Nobody," she said, "can be—always."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't know it. You wouldn't see me—when you were immersed."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," she said, "I always am, I always shall be—immersed."</p> + +<p>"Won't there be moments?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, moments! Very few."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't care how few there were," he said. "I know there can't be +many."</p> + +<p>She understood him. There was nothing on earth like Nicky's delicacy. He +was telling her that he would accept any terms, the very lowest; that he +knew how Tanqueray had impoverished her; that he could live on moments, +the moments Tanqueray had left.</p> + +<p>"There are none, Nicky. None," she said.</p> + +<p>"I see this isn't one of them."</p> + +<p>"All the moments—when there are any—will be more or less like this. +I'm sorry," she said.</p> + +<p>"So am I," said he. It was as if they were saying they were sorry he +could not dine.</p> + +<p>So monstrous was Nicky's capacity for illusion that he went away +thinking he had given Jane up for the sake of her career.</p> + +<p>And Jane tried to think of Nicky and be sorry for him. But she couldn't. +She was immoderately happy. She had given up Brodrick's magazine and +Brodrick's money for Tanqueray's sake. Tanks would have his chance. He +would be able to take a house, and then that little wife of his wouldn't +have to sit with her hands before her, fretting her heart away because +of Tanks. She was pleased, too, because she had made Brodrick do what he +hadn't meant and didn't want to do.</p> + +<p>But as she lay in bed that night, not thinking of Brodrick, she saw +suddenly Brodrick's eyes fixed on her with a look in them which she had +not regarded at the time; and she heard him saying, in that queer, quiet +voice of his, "I'm almost glad to have lost you this way."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said to herself, "if he really spotted me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2> + + +<p>Brodrick's house, Moor Grange, stood on the Roehampton side of Putney +Heath, just discernible between the silver and green of the birches. +With its queer, red-tiled roofs, pitched at every possible slope, white, +rough-cast, many-cornered walls, green storm-shutters, lattice windows +of many sorts and sizes, Brodrick's house had all the brilliant +eccentricity of the twentieth century.</p> + +<p>But Brodrick's garden was at least a hundred years older than his house. +It had a beautiful green lawn with a lime-tree in the middle and a +stone-flagged terrace at the back overlooking the north end of the +Heath. Behind the house there was a kitchen garden that had survived +modernity.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's garden was kept very smooth and very straight, no impudent +little flowers hanging out of their beds, no dissolute straggling of +creepers upon walls. Even the sweet-peas at the back were trained to a +perfect order and propriety.</p> + +<p>And in Brodrick's house propriety and order were carried to the point of +superstition. Nothing in that queer-cornered, modern exterior was ever +out of place. No dust ever lay on floor or furniture. All the +white-painted woodwork was exquisitely white. Time there was measured by +a silver-chiming clock that struck the quiet hours with an infallible +regularity.</p> + +<p>And yet Brodrick was not a tidy nor a punctual man. In his library the +spirit of order contended against fearful odds. For Brodrick lived in +his library, the long, book-lined, up-stairs room that ran half the +length of the house on the north side. But even there, violate as he +would his own sanctuary, the indestructible propriety renewed itself by +a diurnal miracle. He found books restored to their place, papers +sorted, everything an editor could want lying ready to his hand. For the +spirit of order rose punctually to perform its task.</p> + +<p>But in the drawing-room its struggles and its triumph were complete.</p> + +<p>It had been, so Brodrick's sisters told him, a man's idea of a +drawing-room. And now there were feminine touches, so incongruous and +scattered that they seemed the work of a person establishing herself +tentatively, almost furtively, by small inconspicuous advances and +instalments. A little work-table stood beside the low settle in the +corner by the fireplace. Gay, shining chintz covered the ugly chairs. +There were cushions here and there where a woman's back most needed +them. Books, too, classics in slender duo-decimo, bought for their +cheapness, novels (from the circulating library), of the kind that +Brodrick never read. On the top of a writing-table, flagrantly feminine +in its appointments, there stood, well in sight of the low chair, a +photograph of Brodrick which Brodrick could not possibly have framed and +put there.</p> + +<p>The woman who entered this room now had all the air of being its +mistress; she moved in it so naturally and with such assurance, as in +her sphere. You would have judged her occupied with some mysterious +personal predilections with regard to drawing-rooms. She paused in her +passage to reinstate some article dishonoured by the parlour-maid, to +pat a cushion into shape and place a chair better to her liking. At each +of these small fastidious operations she frowned like one who resents +interference with the perfected system of her own arrangements.</p> + +<p>She sat down at the writing-table and took from a pigeonhole a sheaf of +tradesmen's bills. These she checked and docketed conscientiously, after +entering their totals in a book marked "Household." From all these acts +she seemed to draw some secret enjoyment and satisfaction. Here she was +evidently in a realm secure from the interference of the incompetent.</p> + +<p>With a key attached to her person she now unlocked the inmost shrine of +the writing-table. A small squat heap of silver and of copper sat there +like the god of the shrine. She took it in her hand and counted it and +restored it to its consecrated seat. She then made a final entry: "Cash +in Hand, thirty-five shillings."</p> + +<p>She sat smiling in tender contemplation of this legend. It stood for the +savings of the last month, effected by her deft manipulation of the +household. There was no suggestion of cupidity in her smile, nor any +hint of economy adored and pursued for its own sake.</p> + +<p>She was Gertrude Collett, the lady who for three years had acted as +Brodrick's housekeeper, or, as she now preferred to call herself, his +secretary. She had contrived, out of this poor material of his weekly +bills, to fashion for herself a religion and an incorporeal romance.</p> + +<p>She raised her face to the photograph of Brodrick, as if spiritually she +rendered her account to him. And Brodrick's face, from the ledge of the +writing-table, looked over Gertrude's head with an air of being unmoved +by it all, with eyes intent on their own object.</p> + +<p>She, Brodrick's secretary, might have been about five-and-thirty. She +was fair with the fairness which is treacherous to women of her age, +which suffers when they suffer. But Gertrude's skin still held the +colours of her youth as some strong fabric holds its dye. Her face +puzzled you; it was so broad across the cheek-bones that you would have +judged it coarse; it narrowed suddenly in the jaws, pointing her chin to +subtlety. Her nose, broad also across the nostrils and bridge, showed a +sharp edge in profile; it was alert, competent, inquisitive. But there +was mystery again in the long-drawn, pale-rose lines of her mouth. A +wide mouth with irregular lips, not coarse, but coarsely finished. Its +corners must once have drooped with pathos, but this tendency was +overcome or corrected by the serene habit of her smile.</p> + +<p>It was not the face of a dreamer. Yet at the moment you would have said +she dreamed. Her eyes, light coloured, slightly prominent, stared +unsheltered under their pale lashes and insufficient brows. They were +eyes that at first sight had no depths in them. Yet they seemed to hold +vapour. They dreamed. They showed her dream.</p> + +<p>She started as the silver-chiming clock struck the quarter.</p> + +<p>She went up-stairs to the room that was her own, and examined herself +carefully in the looking-glass. Then she did something to her hair. +Waved slightly and kept in place by small amber-coloured combs, +Gertrude's hair, though fragile, sustained the effect of her almost +Scandinavian fairness. Next she changed her cotton blouse for an +immaculate muslin one. As she drew down the blouse and smoothed it under +the clipping belt, she showed a body flat in the back, sharp-breasted, +curbed in the waist; the body of a thoroughly competent, serviceable +person. Her face now almost suggested prettiness, as she turned and +turned its little tilted profile between two looking-glasses.</p> + +<p>At half-past three she was seated at her place in Brodrick's library. A +table was set apart for her and her type-writer on a corner by the +window.</p> + +<p>The editor was at work at his own table in the centre of the room. He +did not look up at her as she came in. His eyes were lowered, fixed on +the proof he was reading. Once, as he read, he shrugged his shoulders +slightly, and once he sighed. Then he called her to him.</p> + +<p>She rose and came, moving dreamily as if drawn, yet holding herself +stiffly and aloof. He continued to gaze at the proof.</p> + +<p>"You sat up half the night to correct this, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Have I done it very badly?"</p> + +<p>He did not tell her that she had, that he had spent the best part of his +morning correcting her corrections. She was an inimitable housekeeper, +and a really admirable secretary. But her weakness was that she desired +to be considered admirable and inimitable in everything she undertook. +It would distress her to know that this time she had not succeeded, and +he did not like distressing people who were dependent on him. It used to +be so easy, so mysteriously easy, to distress Miss Collett; but she had +got over that; she was used to him now; she had settled down into the +silent and serene performance of her duties. And she had brought to her +secretarial work a silence and serenity that were invaluable to a man +who detested argument and agitation.</p> + +<p>So, instead of insisting on her failure, he tried to diminish her +disturbing sense of it; and when she inquired if she had done her work +very badly, he smiled and said, No, she had done it much too well.</p> + +<p>"Too well?" She flushed as she echoed him.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You've corrected all Mr. Tanqueray's punctuation and nearly all +his grammar."</p> + +<p>"But it's all wrong. Look there—and there."</p> + +<p>"How do you know it's all wrong?"</p> + +<p>"But—it's so simple. There are rules."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But Mr. Tanqueray's a great author, and great authors are born to +break half the rules there are. What you and I have got to know is when +they <i>may</i> break them, and when they mayn't."</p> + +<p>A liquid film swam over Gertrude's eyes, deepening their shallows. It +was the first signal of distress.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he said. "I wanted you to do it. I wanted to see what +you could do." He considered her quietly. "It struck me you might +perhaps prefer it to your other duties."</p> + +<p>"What made you think that?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't think. I only wondered. Well——"</p> + +<p>The next half-hour was occupied with the morning's correspondence, till +Brodrick announced that they had no time for more.</p> + +<p>"It's only just past four," she said.</p> + +<p>"I know; but——Is there anything for tea?" He spoke vaguely like a man +in a dream.</p> + +<p>"What an opinion you have of my housekeeping," she said.</p> + +<p>"Your housekeeping, Miss Collett, is perfection."</p> + +<p>She flushed with pleasure, so that he kept it up.</p> + +<p>"Everything," he said, "runs on greased wheels. I don't know how you do +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's easy enough to do."</p> + +<p>"And it doesn't matter if a lady comes to tea?"</p> + +<p>He took up a pencil and began to sharpen it.</p> + +<p>"Is there," said Miss Collett, "a lady coming to tea?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And we'll have it in the garden. Tea, I mean."</p> + +<p>"And who," said she, "is the lady?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Jane Holland." Brodrick did not look up. He was absorbed in his +pencil.</p> + +<p>"Another author?"</p> + +<p>"Another author," said Brodrick to his pencil.</p> + +<p>She smiled. The editor's attitude to authors was one of prolonged +amusement. Prodigious people, authors, in Brodrick's opinion. More than +once, by way of relieving his somewhat perfunctory communion with Miss +Collett, he had discussed the eccentricity, the vanity, the +inexhaustible absurdity of authors. So that it was permissible for her +to smile.</p> + +<p>"You are not," he said, "expecting either of my sisters?"</p> + +<p>He said it in his most casual, most uninterested voice. And yet she +detected an undertone of anxiety. He did not want his sisters to be +there when Miss Holland came. She had spent three years in studying his +inflections and his wants.</p> + +<p>"Not specially to-day," she said.</p> + +<p>Brodrick became manifestly entangled in the process of his thought. The +thought itself was as yet obscure to her. She inquired, therefore, where +Miss Holland was to be "shown in." Was she a drawing-room author or a +library author?</p> + +<p>In the perfect and unspoken conventions of Brodrick's house the +drawing-room was Miss Collett's place, and the library was his. Tea in +the drawing-room meant that he desired Miss Collett's society; tea in +the library that he preferred his own. There were also rules for the +reception of visitors. Men were shown into the library and stayed there. +Great journalistic ladies like Miss Caroline Bickersteth were shown into +the drawing-room. Little journalistic ladies with dubious manners, +calling, as they did, solely on business, were treated as men and +confined strictly to the library.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's stare of surprise showed Gertrude that she had blundered. He +had a superstitious reverence for those authors who, like Mr. Tanqueray, +were great.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Collett, do you know who she is? The drawing-room, of +course, and all possible honour."</p> + +<p>She laughed. She had cultivated for Brodrick's sake the art of laughter, +and prided herself upon knowing the precise moments to be gay.</p> + +<p>"I see," she said. And yet she did not see. How could there be any +honour if he did not want his sisters to be there? "That means the best +tea-service and my best manners?"</p> + +<p>He didn't know, he said, that she had any but the best.</p> + +<p>How good they were she let him see when he presented Miss Holland on her +arrival, her trailing, conspicuous arrival. Gertrude had never given him +occasion to feel that his guests could have a more efficient hostess +than his secretary. She spoke of the pleasure it gave her to see Miss +Holland, and of the honour that she felt, and of how she had heard of +Miss Holland from Mr. Brodrick. There was no becoming thing that +Gertrude did not say. And all the time she was aware of Brodrick's eyes +fixed on Miss Holland with that curious lack of diffuseness in their +vision.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was carrying it off by explaining Gertrude to Miss Holland.</p> + +<p>"Miss Collett," he said, "is a wonderful lady. She's always doing the +most beautiful things, so quietly that you never knew they're done."</p> + +<p>"Does anybody," said Jane, "know how the really beautiful things are +done?"</p> + +<p>"There's a really beautiful tea," said Miss Collett gaily, "in the +garden. There are scones and the kind of cake you like."</p> + +<p>"You see," Brodrick said, "how she spoils me, how I lie on roses."</p> + +<p>"You'd better come," said Miss Collett, "while the scones are still +hot."</p> + +<p>"While," said Jane, "the roses are still fresh."</p> + +<p>He held the door open for her, and on the threshold she turned to Miss +Collett who followed her.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," said she, "that he's the horrid Sybarite you think +him?"</p> + +<p>"I am," said Brodrick, "whatever Miss Collett thinks me. If it pleases +her to think I'm a Sybarite I've got to <i>be</i> a Sybarite."</p> + +<p>"I see. And when the rose-leaves are crumpled you bring them to Miss +Collett, and she irons them out, and makes them all smooth again, so +that you don't know they're the same rose-leaves?"</p> + +<p>"The rose-leaves never are crumpled."</p> + +<p>"Except by some sudden, unconsidered movement of your own?"</p> + +<p>"My movements," said Brodrick, "are never sudden and unconsidered."</p> + +<p>"What? Never?"</p> + +<p>Miss Collett looked a little surprised at this light-handed treatment of +the editor.</p> + +<p>And Jane observed Brodrick with a new interest as they sat there in the +garden and Miss Collett poured out tea. "Mr. Brodrick," she said to +herself, "is going to marry Miss Collett, though he doesn't know it."</p> + +<p>By the end of the afternoon it seemed to her an inevitable consummation, +the marriage of Mr. Brodrick and Miss Collett. She could almost see it +working, the predestined attraction of the eternally compatible, the +incomparably fit. And when Brodrick left off taking any notice of Miss +Collett, and finally lured Jane away into the library on the flimsiest +pretence, she wondered what game he was up to. Perhaps in his innocence +he was blind to Miss Collett's adoration. He was not sure of Miss +Collett. He was trying to draw her.</p> + +<p>Jane, intensely interested, advanced from theory to theory of Brodrick +and Miss Collett while Brodrick removed himself to the writing-table, +and turned on her a mysterious back.</p> + +<p>"I want to show you something," he said.</p> + +<p>She went to him. In the bared centre of the writing-table he had placed +a great pile of manuscript. He drew out his chair for her, so that she +could sit down and look well at the wonder.</p> + +<p>Her heart leaped to the handwriting and to George Tanqueray's name on +the title-page.</p> + +<p>"You've seen it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No. Mr. Tanqueray never shows his work."</p> + +<p>From some lair in the back of the desk he swept forward a prodigious +array of galley proofs. Tanqueray's novel was in the first number of the +"Monthly Review."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried, looking up at him.</p> + +<p>"I've pleased you?" he said.</p> + +<p>"You have pleased me very much."</p> + +<p>She rose and turned away, overcome as by some desired and unexpected +joy. He followed her, making a cushioned place for her in the chair by +the hearth, and seated himself opposite her.</p> + +<p>"I was very glad to do it," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"It will do you more good than Hambleby," she said.</p> + +<p>"You know I did not think so," said he. And there was a pause between +them.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Brodrick," she said presently, "do you really want a serial from +me?"</p> + +<p>"Do I want it!"</p> + +<p>"As much as you think you do?"</p> + +<p>"I always," said he, "want things as much as I think I do."</p> + +<p>She smiled, wondering whether he thought he wanted Miss Collett as much +as he obviously did.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said. "Are you going to let me have the next?"</p> + +<p>"I had thought of it. If you really do——"</p> + +<p>"Have you had any other offers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; several. But——"</p> + +<p>"You must remember mine is only a new venture. And you may do +better——"</p> + +<p>It was odd, but a curious uncertainty, a modesty had come upon him since +she last met him. He had been then so absurd, so arrogant about his +magazine.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to do better."</p> + +<p>"Of course, if it's only a question of terms——"</p> + +<p>It was incredible, Brodrick's depreciating himself to a mere question of +terms. She flushed at this dreadful thought.</p> + +<p>"It isn't," she said. "Oh! I didn't mean <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"You never mean that. Which is why I must think of it for you. I can at +least offer you higher terms."</p> + +<p>"But," she persisted, "I should hate to take them. I <i>want</i> you to have +the thing. That's to say I want <i>you</i> to have it. You must not go paying +me more for that."</p> + +<p>"I see," he said, "you want to make up."</p> + +<p>She looked at him. He was smiling complacently, in the fulness of his +understanding of her.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Holland," he went on, "there must be no making up. Nothing +of that sort between you and me."</p> + +<p>"There isn't," she said. "What is there to make up for? For your not +getting me?"</p> + +<p>He smiled again as if that idea amused him.</p> + +<p>"Or," said she, "for my making you take Mr. Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't <i>make</i> me," he said. "I took him to please you."</p> + +<p>"Well," she said; "and you'll take me now, to please me."</p> + +<p>She rose.</p> + +<p>"I must say good-bye to Miss Collett. How nice," she said, "Miss Collett +is."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she?" said he.</p> + +<p>He saw her politely to the station.</p> + +<p>That evening he drank his coffee politely in the drawing-room with Miss +Collett.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," he said, "Miss Holland thinks you're nice."</p> + +<p>To his wonder Miss Collett did not look as if the information gave her +any joy.</p> + +<p>"Did she say so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you think <i>her</i> nice?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do."</p> + +<p>"What," said he, "do you really think of her?" He was in the habit of +asking Miss Collett what she thought of people. It interested him to +know what women thought, especially what they thought of other women.</p> + +<p>It was in the spirit of their old discussions that she now replied.</p> + +<p>"You can see she is a great genius. They say geniuses are bad to live +with. But I do not think she would be."</p> + +<p>He did not answer. He was considering very profoundly the question she +had raised.</p> + +<p>Which was precisely what Miss Collett meant that he should do.</p> + +<p>As the silver-chiming clock struck ten she rose and said good-night. She +never allowed these sittings to be prolonged past ten. Neither did +Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"And I am not to read any more proofs?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Do you like reading them?"</p> + +<p>She smiled. "It's not because I like it. I simply wanted to save you."</p> + +<p>"You do save me most things."</p> + +<p>"I try," she said sweetly, "to save you all."</p> + +<p>He smiled now. "There are limits," he said, "even to your power of +saving me. And to my capacity for being saved."</p> + +<p>The words were charged with a significance that Brodrick himself was not +aware of; as if the powers that worked in him obscurely had used him for +the utterance of a divination not his own.</p> + +<p>His secretary understood him better than he did himself. She had spent +three years in understanding him. And now, for the first time in three +years, her lucidity was painful.</p> + +<p>She could not contemplate serenely the thing she thought she had seen. +Therefore she drew a veil over it and refused to believe that it was +there.</p> + +<p>"He did not mean anything," said Gertrude to herself. "He is not the +sort of man who means things." Which was true.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2> + + +<p>Brodrick, living on Putney Heath, was surrounded by his family. It was +only fifteen minutes' walk from his front door to his brother John's +house in Augustus Road, Wimbledon; only five minutes from his back door +to Henry's house in Roehampton Lane. You went by a narrow foot-track +down the slope to get to Henry. You crossed the Heath by Wimbledon +Common to get to John. If John and Henry wanted to get to each other, +they had to pass by Brodrick's house.</p> + +<p>Moor Grange was a half-way house, the great meeting-place of all the +Brodricks.</p> + +<p>One fine warm Sunday in mid-May, about four o'clock, all the Brodricks +except Hugh were assembled on Hugh's lawn. There was Mr. John Brodrick, +the eldest brother, the head of the firm of Brodrick and Brodrick, +Electrical Engineers. There was Dr. Henry Brodrick, who came next to +John. He had brought Mrs. Heron, their sister (Mrs. Heron lived with +Henry, because Mr. Heron had run away with the governess, to the +unspeakable scandal of the Brodricks). There was Mrs. Louis Levine, who +came next to Mrs. Heron. There was Mrs. John Brodrick, not to be +separated from her husband, who, in a decorous dumbness and secrecy, +adored her; and Mr. Louis Levine, who owed his position among the +Brodricks to the very properly apparent devotion of his wife.</p> + +<p>And there were children about. Eddy and Winny Heron, restless, +irrepressible in their young teens, sprawled at their mother's feet and +hung over her in attitudes of affection. One very small Levine trotted +to and fro on fat legs over the lawn. The other, too small to run, could +be seen in the background, standing in Gertrude Collett's lap and +trampling on her.</p> + +<p>The Levines had come over from St. John's Wood, packed tight in their +commodious brand-new motor-car, the symbol of Levine's prosperity. So +that all Brodrick's family were at Putney this afternoon.</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the delicate shadow of the lime-tree. Outside, the +lawn was drenched with light, light that ran quivering into the little +inlets and pools among the shadows. The cropped grass shone clear as +emerald, and all the garden showed clear-cut and solid and stable in its +propriety and order.</p> + +<p>Still more distinct, more stable and more solid, more ineradicably fixed +in order and propriety, were the four figures of the Brodricks. Sitting +there, in a light that refused, in spite of the lime-tree, to lend +itself to any mystery or enchantment, they maintained themselves in a +positively formidable reality. All these Brodricks had firm, +thick-skinned faces in which lines came slowly, and were few but strong. +Faces, they were, of men who have lived in absolute sobriety and sanity, +untorn by any temptation to live otherwise; faces of women to whom +motherhood has brought the ultimate content.</p> + +<p>Comfortably material persons, sitting in a deep peace, not to be rapt +from it by any fantasy, nor beguiled by any dream, they paid only in a +high morality their debt to the intangible.</p> + +<p>This afternoon, in spite of themselves, they were roused somewhat from +the peace they sat in. They were expecting somebody.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, when she arrives, we shall all have to sit at the lady's +feet," said Mrs. Levine.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i>'ve no objection," said the Doctor; "after what she's done."</p> + +<p>"It was pretty decent of her," said Levine. He was dark, nervous and +solemn-eyed, a lean man of his race, and handsome. Sophy Brodrick had +not loved her husband when she married him. She adored him now, because +of the beauty that had passed from him into her children.</p> + +<p>"I say, Uncle Louis, you <i>might</i> tell me what she <i>did</i> do," said Eddy +Heron.</p> + +<p>"She got your Uncle Hughy out of a tight place, my boy."</p> + +<p>"I say, what's <i>he</i> been doing?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Levine smiled inscrutably, while his wife shook her head at him.</p> + +<p>"He's been going it, has he? Good old Uncle Hughy!"</p> + +<p>Eddy's mother thought it would be nice if he and Winny went down the +Heath road to meet Uncle Hughy and Miss Holland. Whereupon Eddy embraced +his mother, being unable to agree with her.</p> + +<p>"You really believe," said Mr. John Brodrick, who seemed anxious to be +sure of his facts before he committed himself, "you really believe that +if it had not been for this lady he'd have had to give it up?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Levine judicially, "she practically saved it. You see he +<i>would</i> start it with George Tanqueray. And who cares about George +Tanqueray? That's what wrecked him. I told him at the time it was sheer +lunacy, but he wouldn't listen to me. <i>Why</i>" (Levine spoke in a small +excited voice with sudden high notes), "he hadn't subscriptions enough +to float the thing for twenty-four hours. As soon as he gets Miss +Holland they go up by leaps and bounds, and it's bin goin' steady ever +since. How long it'll keep goin's another thing."</p> + +<p>"I understood Hugh to say," said John, "that the arrangements involved +some considerable sacrifice to the lady."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, he'd been a bit of an ass. He'd made her a ridiculous +offer, an offer <i>we</i> simply couldn't afford, and we had to tell her so."</p> + +<p>"And then," said Sophy, "you might as well mention that she gave it him +for what you <i>could</i> afford."</p> + +<p>"She certainly let him have it very cheap." He ruminated. "Uncommonly +cheap—considering what her figure is."</p> + +<p>Eddy wanted to know what Miss Holland's figure had to do with his Uncle +Hughy. Winny, round-eyed with wonder, inquired if it was beautiful, and +was told that it was fairly beautiful, a tidy figure, a nice round +figure, like her Aunt Sophy's.</p> + +<p>"That," said John, "was <i>very</i> decent of her."</p> + +<p>"Very," said the gentle lady, Mrs. John.</p> + +<p>"It was splendid," said Mrs. Heron.</p> + +<p>The Doctor meditated. "I wonder <i>why</i> she did it," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>His brother-in-law explained. "Oh, she thought she'd let him in for +Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"Let him <i>in</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you see," said Mrs. Heron, "it was her idea of honour."</p> + +<p>"A woman's idea of honour," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"You needn't criticize it," said his sister Sophy.</p> + +<p>"I don't," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you," said Levine, "what with her idea of honour and Hugh's +idea of honour, the office had a pretty rough time of it till they got +the business fixed."</p> + +<p>"With Hugh's <i>ideas</i>," said John, "he's hardly likely to make this thing +pay, is he? Especially if he's going to bar politics."</p> + +<p>He said it importantly. By a manner, by wearing spectacles, and brushing +his hair back in two semi-circles from his forehead, Mr. John Brodrick +contrived to appear considerably more important than he was.</p> + +<p>"Ah, he's made a mistake there," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"That's what <i>I</i> tell him." Levine was more excited than ever.</p> + +<p>"I should think he might be allowed to do what he likes," said Sophy. +"After all, it's <i>his</i> magazine."</p> + +<p>Mr. Levine's face remained supernaturally polite while it guarded his +opinion that it wasn't his brother-in-law's magazine at all. They had +disagreed about Tanqueray. They had disagreed about everything connected +with the magazine, from the make-up of the first number to the salary of +the sub-editor. They had almost quarreled about what Levine called "Miss +Holland's price." And now, when his wife said that it was Sunday—and if +they were going to talk business all the afternoon—she was told that +Hugh's magazine wasn't business. It was Hugh's game. (His dreadfully +expensive, possibly ruinous game.)</p> + +<p>"Then," she said, "you might let him play it. I'm sure he works hard +enough on your horrid old 'Telegraph.'"</p> + +<p>Sophy invariably stood up for her family against her husband. But she +would have stood up for her husband against all the world.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my pet." She stooped to the little three-year-old girl who +trotted to and fro, offering to each of these mysteriously, deplorably +preoccupied persons a flower without a stalk.</p> + +<p>It was at this moment that Brodrick arrived from the station with Miss +Holland.</p> + +<p>"Is it a garden-party?" Jane inquired.</p> + +<p>"No," said Brodrick, "it's my family."</p> + +<p>She came on with him over the lawn. And the group rose to its feet; it +broke up with little movements and murmurs, in a restrained, dignified +expectancy. Jane had the sense of being led towards some unaccountable +triumph and acclamation.</p> + +<p>They closed round her, these unknown Brodricks, inaudibly stirred, with +some unspoken, incomprehensible emotion in the men's gaze and in the +women's touch. The big boy and girl shared it as they came forward in +their shyness, with affectionate faces and clumsy, abortive encounters +of the hand.</p> + +<p>It was the whole Brodrick family moved to its depths, feeling as one. It +could only be so moved by the spectacle of integrity and honour and +incorruptible loyalty to It.</p> + +<p>Still moved, it was surrounding Jane when a maid arrived with the +tea-table, and the white cloth waved a signal to Miss Collett across the +lawn. There was then a perceptible pause in the ovation as Brodrick's +secretary appeared.</p> + +<p>Even across the lawn Jane could discern trouble in Miss Collett's face. +But Miss Collett's face was plastic in readjustments, and by the time +she was fairly on the scene it had recaptured the habit of its smile. +The smile, in greeting, covered and carried off the betraying reluctance +of her hand. It implied that, if Miss Holland was to be set up in a high +place and worshipped, Miss Collett was anxious to observe the +appropriate ritual. Having observed it, she took, with her quiet, +inconspicuous assurance, the place that was her own. She gave but one +sign of her trouble when Dr. Brodrick was heard congratulating their +guest on the great serial which, said he, by "saving" the magazine, had +"saved" his brother. Then Gertrude quivered slightly, and the blood +flushed in her set face and passed as fierce heat passes through iron.</p> + +<p>While they were talking Jane had opportunity to watch and wonder at the +firm, consolidated society that was Brodrick's family. These faces +proclaimed by their resemblance the material link. Mr. John Brodrick was +a more thick-set, an older, graver-lined, and grizzled Hugh, a Hugh who +had lost his sombre fixity of gaze. Dr. Henry Brodrick was a tall, +attenuated John, with a slightly, ever so slightly receding chin. Mrs. +Heron was Hugh again made feminine and slender. She had Hugh's features, +refined and diminished. She had Hugh's eyes, filled with some tragic +sorrow of her own. Her hair was white, every thread of it, though she +could not have been more than forty-five.</p> + +<p>These likenesses were not so apparent at first sight in Mrs. Levine, the +golden, full-blown flower of the Brodricks. They had mixed so thoroughly +and subtly that they merged in her smoothness and her roundness. And +still the facial substance showed in the firm opacity of her skin, the +racial soul asserted itself in her poised complacence and decision.</p> + +<p>"You don't know," she was saying, "how we're all sitting at your feet."</p> + +<p>"We are indeed," said Mr. John Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Very much so," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Even little Cissy," said Hugh.</p> + +<p>For little Cissy was bringing all her stalkless flowers to Jane; smiling +at her as if she alone possessed the secret of this play. Brodrick +watched, well-pleased, the silent traffic of their tendernesses.</p> + +<p>The others were talking about Hambleby now. They had all read him. They +had all enjoyed him. They all wanted more of him.</p> + +<p>"If we could only have had Hambleby, Miss Holland," said Levine. "It +wasn't my fault that we didn't get him."</p> + +<p>Jane remembered that this was the brother-in-law whom Brodrick had +wanted to keep out. He had the air of being persistently, permanently +in.</p> + +<p>"Of course it wasn't your fault," said she.</p> + +<p>Levine then thought it necessary to say things about Jane's celebrity +till Brodrick cut him short.</p> + +<p>"Miss Holland," he said, "doesn't like her celebrity. You needn't talk +about it."</p> + +<p>John and Henry looked graver than ever, and Sophy made sweet eyes at +Jane. Sophy's eyes—when they looked at you—were very sweet. It was +through her eyes only that she apologized for her husband, whose own +eyes were manifestly incapable of apologizing for anything. The +Brodricks seemed to tolerate their brother-in-law; and he seemed, more +sublimely, to tolerate their tolerance.</p> + +<p>Great efforts were now made to divert Levine from the magazine. Mr. John +Brodrick headed him off with motors and their makers; the Doctor kept +his half-resentful spirit moving briskly round the Wimbledon golf-links; +and Hugh, with considerable dexterity, landed him securely on the fiscal +question, where he might be relied upon to stay.</p> + +<p>But it was the Baby who saw what was to be done if his parent was to be +delivered from his own offensiveness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, look!" cried Winny. "Look at Baby. Making such a ducky angel of +himself."</p> + +<p>The Baby, having sat down abruptly on the grass, was making a ducky +angel of himself by wriggling along it, obliquely, as he sat.</p> + +<p>At the sight of him all the Brodricks instantaneously lost their +seriousness and sanity. He was captured and established as the centre of +the group. And, in the great act of adoration of the Baby, Levine was +once more united to his wife's family.</p> + +<p>His wife's family, like his wife, could forgive anything to Louis Levine +because of the babies. It reserved its disapproval for Mrs. John +Brodrick who had never had any; who had never done anything that was +expected of her. Mrs. John looked as if she had cried a great deal +because of the things she had not done. She had small hazel eyes with +inflamed lids, and a small high nose that was always rather red. She was +well born, and she carried her low-browed, bird-like head among the +Brodricks with a solitary grace, and the motions of a dignified, +distinguished bird.</p> + +<p>And now, in mute penitence and wistful worship, she prostrated herself +before their divinity, the Baby.</p> + +<p>And in the middle of it all, with amazing smiles and chuckles, the Baby +suddenly renounced his family and held out his arms to Jane. And +suddenly all the Brodricks laughed. His mother laughed more than any of +them. She took the Baby, and set him at Jane's feet; and he sat there, +looking at Jane, as at some object of extraordinary interest and wonder +and fascination. And Brodrick looked at both of them with something of +the same naïf expression, and the Doctor, the attenuated, meditative +Doctor, looked at all three, but especially at his brother. Gertrude +Collett looked, now at Brodrick and now at Jane.</p> + +<p>Brodrick did not see the Doctor or Gertrude either. It had just struck +him that Jane was not in the least like her portrait, <i>the</i> portrait. He +was thinking, as Tanqueray had once thought, that Gisborne, R. A., was +an ass, and that if he could have her painted he would have her painted +as she looked now.</p> + +<p>As he was trying to catch the look, Gertrude came and said it was the +Baby's tea-time, and carried him away. And the look went from Jane's +face, and Brodrick felt annoyed with Gertrude because she had made it +go.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. John came up and tried very hard to talk to Jane. She was +nervously aware that conversation was expected of her as the wife of the +head of the family, and that in this thing also she had failed him. She +was further oppressed by Miss Holland's celebrity, and by the idea she +had that Miss Holland must be always thinking of it and would not like +to see it thus obscured by any other interest.</p> + +<p>And while Mrs. John sat beside her, painfully and pensively endeavouring +to converse, Jane heard Brodrick talking to Mrs. Levine.</p> + +<p>"Where's Gertrude gone?" he said.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Levine answered, "She's indoors with the children."</p> + +<p>Mrs. John was saying that Miss Holland must have known Hambleby; and +then again that no, that wasn't likely. That was what made it so +wonderful that she should know. Mrs. John could not have done it. She +recounted sorrowfully the number of things she could not do. And through +it all Jane heard the others talking about Gertrude.</p> + +<p>"Gertrude looks very ill," said Mrs. Levine. "What's the matter with +her?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know?" said Brodrick. "Ask Henry."</p> + +<p>"Miss Collett," said the Doctor solemnly, "has not consulted me."</p> + +<p>At this point Mrs. Heron delivered Jane from Mrs. John. She said she +wanted Miss Holland to see the sweet-peas in the kitchen garden.</p> + +<p>And in the kitchen garden, among the sweet-peas, Mrs. Heron thanked Jane +on her own account for what she had done, while Jane kept on saying that +she had done nothing. All down the kitchen garden there was an alley of +sweet-peas with a seat at the end of it, and there they sat while Mrs. +Heron talked about her brother Hugh who had been so good to her and to +her children. This praise of Brodrick mingled with the scent of the +sweet-peas, so that Jane could never again smell sweet-peas in a hot +garden without hearing Brodrick's praise.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Heron stopped abruptly, as if she could say no more, as if, indeed, +she had said too much, as if she were not used to saying such things.</p> + +<p>"My brother thinks I may ask you to come and see me. Will you? Will you +come some day and stay with me?"</p> + +<p>In spite of the voice that told her that she was being drawn, that this +family of Brodrick's was formidable, that she must be on her guard +against all arms, stretched out to her, before she knew what she was +doing Jane had said, Yes; she would be very glad.</p> + +<p>Voices came to them then, and down the long alley between the sweet-peas +she saw Brodrick coming towards them with Miss Collett and Winny Heron; +and Jane was suddenly aware that it was getting late.</p> + +<p>It was cold, too. She shivered. Miss Collett offered a wrap.</p> + +<p>For a moment, in the hall of the house, Jane was alone with Brodrick's +secretary. Through the open door they could see Brodrick standing on the +lawn, talking to his sister. Mrs. Heron held him by one arm, Winny +dragged on the other.</p> + +<p>"Those two seem devoted to Mr. Brodrick," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"They ought to be," said Miss Collett, "with all he does for them. And +they are. The Brodricks are all like that." She looked hard at Jane. "If +you've done anything for them, they never forget it. They keep on paying +back."</p> + +<p>Jane smiled.</p> + +<p>"I imagine Mr. Hugh Brodrick would be quite absurd about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>he</i>——" Gertrude raised her head. Her eyes adored him.</p> + +<p>As if her pause were too profoundly revealing, she filled it up. "He'll +always give more than he gets. It isn't for <i>you</i> he gives, it's for +himself. He likes giving. And when it comes to paying him back——."</p> + +<p>"That's where he has you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>And Jane thought, "My dear lady, if you wouldn't treat him quite so like +a god, he might have a chance to discover that he's mortal."</p> + +<p>She would have liked to have said that to Miss Collett. She would have +liked to have taken Brodrick to the seat at the end of the alley and +have said to him, "It's all perfectly right. Don't be an idiot and miss +it. You can't do a better thing for yourself than marry her, and it's +the only way, you know, you can pay her back. Don't you see that you're +cruel to her? That it's you that's making her ill? She can't look pretty +when she's ill, but she'd be quite pretty if you made her happy."</p> + +<p>But all she said was, "He's like that, is he?" And she went out to where +he waited for her.</p> + +<p>"Have you <i>got</i> to go?" he said.</p> + +<p>She said, Yes, she was half expecting Nina Lempriere.</p> + +<p>"The fiery lady?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You may as well stay. She won't be there," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>But Jane did not stay.</p> + +<p>The whole family turned out on to the Heath to see them go. At the end +of the road they looked back and saw it there. Sophy Levine was holding +up the Baby to make him wave to Jane.</p> + +<p>"Why did you tell them?" she said reproachfully to Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Because I wanted them to like you."</p> + +<p>"Am I so disagreeable that they couldn't—without that?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted you," he said, "to like <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>"I do like them."</p> + +<p>He glanced at her sidelong and softly.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she said. "What have they done to look so happy, and so +perfectly at peace?"</p> + +<p>"That's it. They haven't done anything."</p> + +<p>"Not to do things—that's the secret, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "I almost think it is."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said she.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2> + + +<p>Brodrick was right. Nina was not there.</p> + +<p>At the moment when Jane arrived, anxious and expectant, in Kensington +Square, Nina and Tanqueray were sitting by the window of the room in +Adelphi Terrace.</p> + +<p>They were both silent, both immobile in the same attitude, bowed +forward, listening intently, the antagonistic pair made one in their +enchantment, their absorption.</p> + +<p>A young man stood before Tanqueray. He stood a little behind Nina where +she sat in the window-seat. One shoulder leaned beside her against the +shutter. He was very tall, and as he stood there his voice, deep and +rhythmic, flowed and vibrated above them, giving utterance to the thing +that held them.</p> + +<p>Nina could not see him where she sat. It was Tanqueray who kept on +looking at him with clear, contemplative eyes under brows no longer +irritable.</p> + +<p>He was, Tanqueray thought, rather extraordinary to look at. Dressed in a +loosely-fitting suit of all seasons, he held himself very straight from +the waist, as if in defiance of the slackness of his build. His eyes, +his alien, star-gazing eyes, were blue and uncannily clear under their +dark and delicate brows. He had the face of a Celt, with high +cheek-bones, and a short high nose; the bone between the nostrils, +slightly prominent like a buttress, saved the bridge of it from the +final droop. He had the wide mouth of a Celt, long-lipped, but +beautifully cut. His thick hair, his moustache, his close-clipped, +pointed beard, were dark and dry. His face showed a sunburn whitening. +It had passed through strange climates. He had the look, this poet, of a +man who had left some stupendous experience behind him; who had left +many things behind him, to stride, star-gazing, on. His face revealed +him as he chanted his poems. Unbeautiful in detail, its effect as a +whole was one of extraordinary beauty, as of some marvellously pure +vessel for the spiritual fire. Beside him, it struck Tanqueray that Nina +showed more than ever a murky flame.</p> + +<p>The voice ceased, but the two remained silent for a moment.</p> + +<p>Then Tanqueray spoke one word, "Splendid!"</p> + +<p>Nina turned her head and looked up at the poet. His eyes were still +following his vision. Her voice recalled him.</p> + +<p>"Owen," she said, "will you bring the rest? Bring down all you've got."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray saw as she spoke to him that there came again that betraying +tenderness about her mouth; as she looked at him, her eyes lifted their +hoods, revealing the sudden softness and surrender.</p> + +<p>And as Tanqueray watched her he was aware that the queer eyes of the man +were turned on him, rather than on Nina. They looked through him, as if +they saw with a lucidity even more unendurable than his, what was going +on in Tanqueray's soul.</p> + +<p>He said something inaudible to Nina and went out of the room with a +light, energetic stride.</p> + +<p>"How can you stand his eyes?" said Tanqueray; "it's like being exposed +to the everlasting stare of God."</p> + +<p>"It is, rather."</p> + +<p>"What's his name again?"</p> + +<p>"Owen Prothero."</p> + +<p>"What do you know about him."</p> + +<p>She told him what she knew. Prothero was, as Tanqueray saw, an unlicked +Celt. He had been, if Tanqueray would believe it, in the Indian Medical +Service, and had flung it up before he got his pension. He had been to +British Central Africa on a commission for investigating sleeping +sickness; he spoke of it casually as if it were the sort of thing you +naturally were on. He had volunteered as a surgeon in the Boer War. And +with it all he was what Tanqueray saw.</p> + +<p>"And his address?" Tanqueray inquired.</p> + +<p>"He lives here."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't he?" He answered her challenging eyes. They shot light at +him.</p> + +<p>"He is a great poet? I <i>was</i> right?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. He's great enough for anybody. How on earth did you get +hold of him?"</p> + +<p>She was silent. She seemed to be listening for the sound of Prothero's +feet on the stair.</p> + +<p>He was soon with them, bringing his sheaf of manuscript. He had brought +all he had got. The chanting began again and continued till the light +failed.</p> + +<p>And as Tanqueray listened the restless, irritable devilry passed from +his face. Salient, thrust forward toward Prothero, it was the face of a +winged creature in adoration, caught suddenly into heaven, breasting the +flood of the supernal light. For Tanqueray could be cruel in his +contempt for all clevernesses and littlenesses, for all achievements +that had the literary taint; but he was on his knees in a moment before +the incorruptible divinities. He had the immortal's scent for +immortality.</p> + +<p>When the chanting ceased they talked.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray warned Prothero of the horrors of premature renown. Prothero +declared that he had none. Nobody knew his name.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Tanqueray. "Celebrity's all very well at the end, when +you've done the things you want to do. It's a bad beginning. It doesn't +matter quite so much if you live in the country where nobody's likely to +know you're celebrated till you're dead. But if you <i>will</i> live in +London, your only chance is to remain obscure."</p> + +<p>"There are in London at this moment," he continued, "about one thousand +celebrated authors. There are, I imagine, about fifty distinct circles +where they meet. Fifty distinct hells where they're bound to meet each +other. Hells where they're driven round and round, meeting each other. +Steaming hells where they sit stewing in each other's sweat——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i>, George!" cried Nina.</p> + +<p>"Loathsome hells, where they swarm and squirm and wriggle in and out of +each other. Sanguinary, murderous hells, where they're all tearing at +each other's throats. How can you hope, how can you possibly hope to do +anything original, if you're constantly breathing that atmosphere? +Horrid used-up air that authors—beasts!—have breathed over and over +and over again."</p> + +<p>"As if," said Nina, "<i>we</i> weren't authors."</p> + +<p>"My dear Nina, nobody would think it of us. Nobody would have thought it +of Jinny if she hadn't gone and got celebrated."</p> + +<p>"You'll be celebrated yourself some day."</p> + +<p>"I shall be dead," said he. "I shan't know anything about it."</p> + +<p>At this point Prothero, with an exquisite vagueness, stated that he +wanted to get work on a paper. He was not, he intimated, looking to his +poems to keep him. On the contrary, he would have to keep them.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray wondered if he realized how disastrous, how ruinous they were. +He had no doubt about Nina's poet. But there were poets and poets. There +were dubious, delicate splendours, for ever trembling on the verge of +immortality. And there were the infrequent, enormous stars that wheel on +immeasurable orbits, so distant that they seem of all transitory things +most transitory. Prothero was one of these. There was not much chance +for him in his generation. His poems were too portentously inspired. +They were the poems of a saint, a seer, an exile from life and time. He +stood alone on the ultimate, untrodden shores, watching strange tides +and the courses of unknown worlds. On any reasonable calculation he +could not hope to make himself heard for half a century, if then. There +was something about him alien and terrible, inaccessibly divine. The +form of his poems was uncouth, almost ugly. Their harmonies, stupendous +and unforeseen, struck the ear with the shock of discord.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, absurd that he should want work on a paper; still +more absurd that he should think, or that Nina should think, that +Tanqueray could get it for him.</p> + +<p>He didn't, it appeared, expect anybody to get it for him. He just wrote +things, things that he thought were adequately imbecile, and shot them +into letter-boxes. As to what became of them, Tanqueray had never seen +anybody more unsolicitous, more reckless of the dark event.</p> + +<p>He went away with Prothero's poems in his pocket.</p> + +<p>Nina followed him and held him on the doorstep.</p> + +<p>"You do believe in him?" she said.</p> + +<p>"What's the good of <i>my</i> believing in him? I can't help him. I can't +help myself. He's got to wait, Nina, like the rest of us. It won't hurt +him."</p> + +<p>"It will. He can't wait, George. He's desperately poor. You must do +something."</p> + +<p>"What can I do?"</p> + +<p>"There are things," she said, "that people always do."</p> + +<p>"I could offer him a five-pound note; but he wouldn't take it."</p> + +<p>"No. He wouldn't take it. You can do better than that. You can get him +to meet that man of yours."</p> + +<p>"What man?"</p> + +<p>"That magazine man, Brodrick."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Considering that I all but did for him and his magazine! +Brodrick's Jane Holland's man, not mine, you know. Have you told Jane +about Prothero?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>A faint flame leaped in her face and died.</p> + +<p>"You'd better," he said. "She can do anything with Brodrick. She could +even make him take a poem. Why didn't you ask Prothero to meet her?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen her for six months."</p> + +<p>"Is that your fault or hers?"</p> + +<p>"Neither."</p> + +<p>"He's had to wait, then, six months?"</p> + +<p>There was no escaping his diabolical lucidity.</p> + +<p>"Go and see her at once," he went on, "and take Prothero. That's more to +the point, you know, than his seeing me. Jinny is a powerful person, and +then she has a way with her."</p> + +<p>Again the flame leaped in her face and died, slowly, as under torture.</p> + +<p>"Even Laura can do more for him than I. She knows people on papers. Take +him to see Laura." He was backing out of the doorway.</p> + +<p>"It was you," she said, "that he wanted to see. I promised him."</p> + +<p>Her face, haggard, restless with the quivering of her agonized nerves, +was as a wild book for him to read. He was sorry for her torture. He +lingered.</p> + +<p>"I'd go and speak to Brodrick to-morrow, only he loathes the sight of +me, and I can't blame him, poor devil."</p> + +<p>"It's no matter," she said. "I'll write to Jane Holland."</p> + +<p>"Do. She'll get him work on Brodrick's paper."</p> + +<p>He went away, meditating on Nina and her medical, surgical poet. She +would have to write to Jinny now. But she wouldn't take him to see her. +She was determined to keep him to herself. That was why none of them had +seen anything of Nina for six months. There was (he came back to it +again) something very murky about Nina. And Nina, with her murkiness, +was manifestly in love with this spiritual, this mystical young man. So +amazing was the part set her in the mortal comedy. He would give a good +deal to know what Prothero thought of Nina.</p> + +<p>Prothero could have told him that he thought of Nina as he thought of +his own youth.</p> + +<p>He was of her mother's race and from her country of the Marches. He knew +more about Nina than Tanqueray had ever known. He knew the Lemprieres, a +family of untamed hereditary wildness. He knew Nina as the survival of a +hereditary doom, a tragedy untiring, relentless, repeated year after +year and foreseen with a terrible certainty. He knew that it had left +her with her bare genius, her temperament and her nerves.</p> + +<p>It was of all things most improbable that he should be here in London, +lodged in one room, with only the bare boards of it between him and Nina +Lempriere.</p> + +<p>The improbability of it struck Nina as she went to and fro in the inner +room, preparing their supper.</p> + +<p>There had been no acquaintance between her and young Prothero, the +medical student. If their ways met it was only by accident, at long +intervals, and always, she remembered, out of doors, on her mountains. +They used to pass each other with eyes unseeing, fixed in their own +dream. That was fifteen years ago. In all that time she had not seen +him.</p> + +<p>He had drawn her now by his shyness, his horror of other people, his +perfect satisfaction in their solitary communion. Virgin from his wild +places, he had told her that she was the only woman he was not afraid +of. He had attached himself to her manifestly, persistently, with the +fidelity of a wild thing won by sheer absence of pursuit. She had let +him come and go, violently aware of him, but seeming unaware. He would +sit for hours in her room, reading while she wrote, forgetting that +up-stairs his fire was dying in the grate.</p> + +<p>He had embraced Poverty like a saint. He regarded it as the blessed +state of every man who desired to obey his own genius at all costs. He +was all right, he said. He had lived on rice in the jungle. He could +live on rice at a pinch now. And he could publish his poems if he got +work on the papers. On this point Nina found him engagingly, innocently +open to suggestion. She had suggested a series of articles on the +problem of the East. He had written the articles, but in such a style +and in such a spirit that no editor had as yet dared to publish them.</p> + +<p>It was possible that he would have a chance with Brodrick who was braver +than other editors. Brodrick was his one chance.</p> + +<p>She would have suggested his meeting Brodrick, but that the way to +Brodrick lay through Jane Holland. She remembered that the gods had +thrust Jane Holland between her and George Tanqueray; and she was +determined that they should put no woman between her and Owen Prothero. +She had taken possession of him and she meant to keep him to herself. +The supreme, irresistible temptation was to keep him to herself. It +dominated her desire to serve his interests. But she had not refused him +when he owned, shyly, that he would like to see George Tanqueray, the +only living writer, he maintained, who had any passion for truth, any +sweep, any clearness of vision.</p> + +<p>It was Tanqueray, with that passion, that diabolical lucidity, that +vision of his, who had made her realize the baseness of her secrecy. She +had no right to keep Owen to herself. He was too valuable.</p> + +<p>His innocence had given a sting to her remorse. He had remained so +completely satisfied with what she had done for him, so wholly unaware +of having been kept obscure when celebrity was possible. Things came, he +seemed to say, or they didn't come. If you were wise you waited.</p> + +<p>With his invincible patience he was waiting now, in her room up-stairs, +standing before the bookcase with his back to the door. He stood +absolutely still, his head and shoulders bowed over the book he was +manifestly not reading. In this attitude he had an air of masterly +indifference to time, of not caring how long he waited, being habituated +to extravagant expenditure of moments and of days. Absorbed in some +inward and invisible act, he was unaware of Nina as she entered.</p> + +<p>She called him to the supper she had made ready for him. He swung round, +returning as it were from an immense distance, and followed her.</p> + +<p>He was hungry, and she had a fierce maternal joy in seeing him eat. It +was after supper that they talked, as they sat by the window in the +outer room, looking at the river, a river of night, lamp-starred.</p> + +<p>Nina began it. "Owen," she said, "how did George Tanqueray strike you?"</p> + +<p>He paused before he spoke. "I think," he said, "I never in my life saw +anybody more on the look-out. It's terrible, that prowling genius, +always ready to spring."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, "he sees everything."</p> + +<p>"No, Nina, he doesn't. He's a man whose genius has made away with one +half of his capacity for seeing. That's his curse! If your eyes are +incessantly looking out they lose the power of looking in."</p> + +<p>"And yet, he's the only really great psychologist we've got. He and Jane +Holland."</p> + +<p>"Yes, as they go, your psychologists. Tanqueray sees so much inside +other people that he can't see inside himself. What's worse, I shouldn't +think he'd see far inside the people who really touch him. It comes of +perpetually looking away."</p> + +<p>"You don't know him. How can you tell?"</p> + +<p>"Because I never look away."</p> + +<p>"Can you see what's going on inside <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes. I don't always look."</p> + +<p>"Can you help looking?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you can."</p> + +<p>"You <i>may</i> look. I don't think I mind your looking. Why," she asked +abruptly, "don't I mind?"</p> + +<p>Her voice had an accent that betrayed her.</p> + +<p>"Because there's nothing inside you that you're ashamed of."</p> + +<p>She reddened with shame; shame of the fierce, base instinct that had +made her keep him to herself. She knew that nothing escaped him. He had +the keen, comprehending eyes of the physician who knows the sad secrets +of the body; and he had other eyes that saw inward, that held and drew +to confession the terrified, reluctant soul. She had an insane longing +to throw herself at his feet in confession.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "but there are <i>things</i>——And yet——"</p> + +<p>He stopped her. "Nothing, Nina, if you really knew yourself."</p> + +<p>"Owen—it's not that. It's not because I don't know myself. It's because +I know you. I know that, whatever there might be in me, whatever I did, +however low I sank—if I could sink—your charity would be there to hold +me up. And it wouldn't be your charity, either. I couldn't stand your +charity. It wouldn't even be understanding. You don't understand me. It +would be some knowledge of me that I couldn't have myself, that nobody +but you could have. As if whatever you saw you'd say, 'That isn't really +Nina.'"</p> + +<p>"I should say, 'That's really Nina, so it's all right.'"</p> + +<p>She paused, brooding on the possibilities he saw, that he was bound to +see, if he saw anything. Did he, she wondered, really see what was in +her, her hidden shames and insanities, the course of the wild blood that +he knew must flow from all the Lemprieres to her? She lived, to be sure, +the life of an ascetic and took it out in dreams. Yet he must see how +her savage, solitary passion clung to him, and would not let go. Did he +see, and yet did he not condemn her?</p> + +<p>"Owen," she said suddenly, "do you mind seeing?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I hate it. These aren't the things, you know, I want to see."</p> + +<p>She lowered her eyes. Her nervous hand moved slowly to and fro along the +window-sill, measuring her next words.</p> + +<p>"What—do you want—to see?"</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet and looked at her. At her, not through her, and she +wondered, had he seen enough? It was as if he withdrew himself before +some thought that stirred in her, menacing to peace.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you," he said. "I can't talk about it."</p> + +<p>Then she knew what he meant. He was thinking of his vision, his vision +of God.</p> + +<p>He could not speak of it to her. She had never known him. This soul, +with which her own claimed kindred, was hidden from her by all the veils +of heaven.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said. "Only tell me one thing. Was that what you went out +to India and Central Africa to see?"</p> + +<p>That drew him.</p> + +<p>"No. I went out not to see it. To get away from it. I meant to give +things their chance. That's why I went in for medicine. I wasn't going +to shirk. I wanted to be a man. Not a long-haired, weedy thing in a soft +hat."</p> + +<p>"Was it any good?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I proved the unreality of things. I proved it up to the hilt. And +I <i>did</i>n't shirk."</p> + +<p>"But you wanted to escape, all the time?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't escape. I couldn't. I couldn't catch cholera, or plague, <i>or</i> +sleeping sickness. I couldn't catch anything."</p> + +<p>"You tried?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I gave <i>myself</i> a chance. That was only fair. But it was no +use. I couldn't even get frightened."</p> + +<p>"Owen—some people would say you were morbid."</p> + +<p>"No, they wouldn't. They'd say I was mad. They <i>will</i> say it when I've +published those poems."</p> + +<p>"Did you mind my showing them to George Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>"No. But it's no use. Nobody knows my name."</p> + +<p>"May I show them to Jane Holland?"</p> + +<p>"Show them to any one you like. It'll be no use either."</p> + +<p>"Owen—does it never occur to you that any human being can be of use?"</p> + +<p>"No." He considered the point. "No, I can't say it ever does."</p> + +<p>He stood before her, wrapped in his dream, removed from her, utterly +forgetful.</p> + +<p>She had her moment of pain in contemplating him. He saw it in her face, +and as it were came back to her.</p> + +<p>"Don't imagine," he said, "that I don't know what <i>you</i>'ve done. Now +that I do know you."</p> + +<p>She turned, almost in anger. "I've done nothing. You don't know me." She +added, "I am going to write to Jane Holland."</p> + +<p>When he had left her she sat a long while by the window, brooding on the +thing that had happened to her a second time.</p> + +<p>She had fallen in love; fallen with the fatality of the Lemprieres, and +with the fine precipitate sweep of her own genius. And she had let +herself go, with the recklessness of a woman unaware of her genius for +loving, with the superb innocence, too, of all spontaneous forces. +Owen's nature had disarmed her of all subterfuges, all ordinary defences +of her sex. They were absurd in dealing with a creature so remote and +disembodied.</p> + +<p>She knew that in his way, his remote and disembodied way, he cared for +her. She knew that in whatever place he held her she was alone there. +She was the only woman for whom as yet he had cared. His way was not +Tanqueray's way. It was a way that kept her safe. She had sworn that +there were to be no more George Tanquerays; and there were none. She had +done with that.</p> + +<p>Not but that she was afraid of Owen. She had taken possession of him in +fear, a secret, unallowed possession, a holding with hands invisible, +intangible. For she had wisdom, the sad wisdom of the frustrate; it, and +the insight of her genius, told her that Owen would not endure a tie +less spiritual than friendship. She knew George Tanqueray's opinion of +her. He was justified.</p> + +<p>But though she sacrificed so far to spirit, it was her flesh and blood +that shrank from the possible communion of Owen Prothero and Jane +Holland. For Jinny, as Tanqueray said, had a way with her; and she knew +Jinny's way. Jinny would take Owen Prothero from her as she had taken +George, not deliberately, not because she wanted to, but because she was +Jinny and had a way. Besides, Jane could do for him what she with her +bare genius could not do, and that thought was insupportable to Nina. +Yesterday she had been everything to him. Tomorrow Jane would be as +much, or more.</p> + +<p>And there were other women. They would be as ready as she to take +possession. They would claim his friendship, and more than she had +claimed, as the reward of having recognized him. There was no reason why +she should give Owen up, and hand him over to them. And this was what +she would do if she wrote that letter to Jane Holland.</p> + +<p>She rose, and went to her desk and wrote it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2> + + +<p>Jane answered at once. If Nina would bring Prothero to Kensington on +Friday at four o'clock he would meet Hugh Brodrick.</p> + +<p>But Prothero refused to be taken anywhere. He would not go hanging about +women's drawing-rooms. It was the sort of thing, he said, that did you +harm. He wanted to hold on to what he'd got. It was tricky; it came and +went; it was all he could do to hold on to it; and if he got mixed up +with women he was done for. Of course he was profoundly grateful.</p> + +<p>Nina assured Jane that Mr. Prothero was profoundly grateful. But he was, +she said, a youth of an untamable shyness. He was happy in an Indian +jungle or an African swamp, but civilized interiors seemed to sadden +him. She therefore proposed that Tanqueray, who had the manuscript, +should read it to an audience, chosen with absolute discretion. Two or +three people, not a horrid crowd. For the poems, she warned her fairly, +were all about God; and nowadays people didn't care about God. Owen +Prothero didn't seem to care much about anything else. It was bound, she +said, to handicap him.</p> + +<p>Jane consented. After all, the poems were the thing. For audience she +proposed Hugh Brodrick, Caro Bickersteth, Laura, and Arnott Nicholson. +Dear Nicky, who really was an angel, could appreciate people who were +very far from appreciating him. He knew a multitude of little men on +papers, men who write you up if they take a fancy to you and go about +singing your praises everywhere. Nicky himself, if strongly moved to it, +might sing. Nicky was a good idea, and there was Laura who also wrote +for the papers.</p> + +<p>The reading was fixed for Friday at four o'clock. Tanqueray, who +detested readings, had overcome his repugnance for Prothero's sake. His +letter to Jane was one fiery eulogy of the poet. Brodrick and the +others had accepted the unique invitation, Laura Gunning provisionally. +She would come like a shot, if she could get off, she said, but things +were going badly at the moment.</p> + +<p>Laura, however, was the first to arrive.</p> + +<p>"Who is this man of Nina's?" said she.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, my dear. I never heard of him till the other day."</p> + +<p>She showed her Nina's letter.</p> + +<p>Laura's face was sullen. It indicated that things were going very badly +indeed; that Laura was at the end of her tether.</p> + +<p>"But why God?" was her profane comment.</p> + +<p>"Because, I imagine, he believes in him."</p> + +<p>Laura declared that it was more than she did. She preferred not to +believe in him, after the things that had been done to Papa. Her +arraignment of the cosmic order was cut short by the arrival of George +Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>Nina appeared next. She was followed by Hugh Brodrick and by Caro +Bickersteth. Nicky came last of all.</p> + +<p>He greeted Jane a little mournfully. It was impossible for Nicky to +banish altogether from his manner the delicate reproach he felt, +impossible not to be alive to the atrocious irony that brought him here +to be, as Jane said, an angel, to sit and listen to this fellow +Prothero. He understood that they were all there to do something for +Prothero. Brodrick had been brought solely for that purpose. Tanqueray, +too, and Miss Bickersteth and Miss Gunning, and he. Jane Holland was +always asking him to do things, and she had never done anything for him. +There was Brodrick's magazine that he had never got into. Jane Holland +had only got to speak to Brodrick, only got to say to him that Arnott +Nicholson was a rather fine poet and the thing was done. It was a small +thing and an easy thing for her to do.</p> + +<p>It was not so much that he wanted her to do things. He even now shrank, +in his delicacy, from the bare idea of her doing them. For all his +little palpitating ambition, Nicky shrank. What hurt him was the +unavoidable inference he drew. When a woman cares for a man she does +not doom him to obscurity by her silence, and Jane least of all women. +He knew her. He knew what she had done for Tanqueray because she cared.</p> + +<p>And now she was going to do things for Owen Prothero. Nicky sat dejected +in the sorrow of this thought.</p> + +<p>Brodrick also was oppressed. He was thinking of his magazine. It had +been saved by Jane Holland, but he was aware that at this rate it could +also be ruined by her. He knew what he was there for. He could see, with +the terrible foreknowledge of the editor, that Prothero was to be +pressed on him. He was to take him up as he had taken up Tanqueray. And +from all that he had heard of Prothero he very much doubted whether he +could afford to take him up. It was becoming a serious problem what he +could afford. Levine was worrying him. Levine was insisting on +concessions to the public, on popular articles, on politics. He had +threatened, if his views were disregarded, to withdraw his financial +co-operation, and Brodrick realized that he could not as yet afford to +do without Levine. He might have to refuse to take Prothero up, and he +hated to refuse Jane Holland anything.</p> + +<p>As for Laura, she continued in her sullenness, anticipating with +resentment the assault about to be made upon her soul.</p> + +<p>And Jane, who knew what passed in Brodrick's mind, was downcast in her +turn. She did not want Brodrick to think that she was making use of him, +that she was always trying to get at him.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray, a transformed, oblivious Tanqueray, had unrolled the +manuscript. They grouped themselves for the reading, Nina on a corner of +the sofa; Jane lying back in the other corner; Laura looking at +Tanqueray over Nina's shoulder, with her chair drawn close beside her; +Nicholson and Brodrick on other chairs, opposite the sofa, where they +could look at Jane.</p> + +<p>It was to this audience that Tanqueray first read young Prothero's poems +of the Vision of God; to Laura, who didn't believe in God; to Jane, +absorbed in her embarrassments; to Nina, tortured by many passions; to +Hugh Brodrick, bearing visibly the financial burden of his magazine; to +Caro Bickersteth, dubious and critical; to Nicky, struggling with the +mean hope that Prothero might not prove so very good.</p> + +<p>They heard of the haunting of the divine Lover; of the soul's mortal +terror; of the divine pursuit, of the flight and the hiding of the soul, +of its crying out in its terror; of its finding; of the divine +consummation; of its eternal vision and possession of God.</p> + +<p>Nicky's admirable judgment told him that as a competitive poet he was +dished by Prothero. He maintained his attitude of extreme depression. +His eyes, fixed on Jane, were now startled out of their agony into a +sudden wonder at Prothero, now clouded again as Nicky manifestly said to +himself, "Dished, dished, dished." He was dished by Prothero, dished by +Tanqueray, reduced to sitting there, like an angel, conquering his +desire, sublimely renouncing.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's head was bowed forward on his chest. His eyes, under his +lowering brows, looked up at Jane's, gathering from them her judgment of +Owen Prothero. Prothero's case defied all rule and precedent, and +Brodrick was not prepared with a judgment of his own. Now and then a +gleam of comprehension, caught from Jane, illuminated his face and +troubled it. He showed, not as a happy creature of the flesh, but as a +creature of the flesh made uncontent, divinely pierced by the sharp +flame of the spirit.</p> + +<p>It was so that Jane saw him, once, when his persistent gaze drew hers +for an inconsiderable moment. Now and then, at a pause in the reader's +voice, Brodrick sighed heavily and shifted his position.</p> + +<p>Nina leaned back as she listened, propping her exhausted body, her soul +surrendered as ever to the violent rapture; caught now and carried away +into a place beyond pain, beyond dreams, beyond desire.</p> + +<p>And Laura, who did not believe in God, Laura sat motionless, her small +insurgent being stilled to the imperceptible rhythm of her breath. Over +her face there passed strange lights, strange tremors, a strange +softening of the small indomitable mouth. It was more than ever the face +of a child, of a flower, of all things innocent and open. But her eyes +were the eyes of a soul whom vision makes suddenly mature. They stared +at Tanqueray without seeing him, held by the divine thing they saw.</p> + +<p>She still sat so, while Brodrick and Nicholson, like men released, came +forward and congratulated the novelist as on some achievement of his +own. They did it briefly, restrained by the silence that his voice had +sunk into. Everybody's nerves were tense, troubled by the vibrating +passage of the supersensual. The discussion that followed was spasmodic +and curt.</p> + +<p>Nicky charged into the silence with a voice of violent affirmation. "He +<i>is</i> great," said poor Nicky.</p> + +<p>"Too great," said Brodrick, "for the twentieth century."</p> + +<p>Nina reminded him that the twentieth century had only just begun, and +Jane remarked that it hadn't done badly since it had begun with him.</p> + +<p>Laura said nothing; but, as they parted outside in the square, she +turned eastwards with Nina.</p> + +<p>"Does he really mind seeing people?" she said.</p> + +<p>"It depends," said Nina. "He's seen George."</p> + +<p>"Would he mind your bringing him to see me some day? I want to know +him."</p> + +<p>Nina's face drew back as if Laura had struck her. Its haggard, smitten +look spoke as if Nina had spoken. "What do you want to know him for?" it +said.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't got to be seen," said Nina herself savagely. She was +overwrought. "He's got to be heard. You've heard him."</p> + +<p>"It's because I've heard him that I want to see him."</p> + +<p>Nina paused in her ferocious stride and glanced at the little thing. The +small face of her friend had sunk from its ecstasy to its sullen +suffering, its despondency, its doubt.</p> + +<p>Nina was stung by compassion.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to see him very much?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't."</p> + +<p>"All right. You shall. I'll make him come."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Within a fortnight of that reading Prothero received a letter from +George Tanqueray. It briefly told him that the lady whom he had refused +to meet had prevailed upon her publishers to bring out his poems in the +autumn, at their own and not Prothero's expense.</p> + +<p>How the miracle had been worked he couldn't conceive, and Tanqueray was +careful to leave him unenlightened. It had been simply a stock instance +of Jinny's way. Jinny, whose affairs were in Tanqueray's hands, had been +meditating an infidelity to Messrs. Molyneux, by whom Tanqueray +vehemently assured her she had been, and always would be, "had." They +had "had" her this time by the sacrificial ardour with which they soared +to her suggestion that Mr. Prothero should be published. Miss Holland +must, they urged, be aware that Mr. Prothero had been rejected by every +other firm in London. They were sure that she realized the high danger +of their enterprise and that she appreciated the purity of their +enthusiasm. The poems were, as she knew, so extraordinary that Mr. +Prothero had not one chance in a thousand even with the small public +that read poetry. Still, they were giving Mr. Prothero his fractional +opportunity, because of their enthusiasm and their desire to serve Miss +Holland. They understood that Miss Holland was thinking of leaving them. +They would not urge her to remain, but they hoped that, for her own +sake, she would reconsider it.</p> + +<p>Jane had reconsidered it and had remained.</p> + +<p>"You understand clearly, Jinny," Tanqueray had said, "that you're paying +for Prothero's poems?"</p> + +<p>To that Jinny had replied, "It's what I wanted to do, and there wasn't +any other way."</p> + +<p>Owen Prothero could no longer say that nobody knew his name. His +innocence was unaware of the secret processes by which names are made +and unmade; but he had gathered from Nina that her friends had created +for him a rumour and reputation which he persistently refused to +incarnate by his presence among them. He said he wanted to preserve his +innocence. Tanqueray's retirement was not more superb or more indignant; +Tanqueray had been fortuitously and infrequently "met"; but nobody met +Prothero anywhere. Even Jane Holland, the authentic fount of rumour, had +not met him.</p> + +<p>It was hard on Jane that she who was, as she piteously pleaded, the prey +of all the destroyers, should not be allowed a sight of this +incomparable creator. But she respected the divine terror that kept +Nina's unlicked Celt outside women's drawing-rooms.</p> + +<p>She understood, however, that he was to be seen and seen more often than +not, at Tanqueray's rooms in Torrington Square. Tanqueray's wife did not +count. She was not the sort of woman Prothero could be afraid of, and +she was guiltless of having any drawing-room. Jane remembered that it +was a long time since she had seen Tanqueray's wife.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, about five o'clock, she called in Torrington Square. She +approached the house in some anxiety, afraid of seeing the unhappy +little face of Tanqueray's wife looking out of the ground-floor window.</p> + +<p>But Rose was not at the window. The curtains were drawn across, +obviously for the purpose of concealing Rose. A brougham waited before +the door.</p> + +<p>Jane, as she entered, had a sense of secrecy and disturbance in the +house. There was secrecy and disturbance, too, in the manner of the +little shabby maid who told her that the doctor was in there with Mrs. +Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>She was going away when Tanqueray came out of the sitting-room where the +doctor was.</p> + +<p>"Don't go, Jinny," he said.</p> + +<p>She searched his face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, is anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows. His moustache tilted with them, upwards. She +recognized the gesture with which he put disagreeable things away from +him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me, no," he said.</p> + +<p>"May I see her—afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you may see her. But"—he smiled—"if you'll come up-stairs +you'll see Prothero."</p> + +<p>She followed him to the room on the top floor, his refuge, pitched high +above Rose and her movements and her troubles.</p> + +<p>He paused at the door.</p> + +<p>"He may thank his stars, Jinny, that he came across Nina instead of +you."</p> + +<p>"You think I'd better keep clear of him?"</p> + +<p>"No. I think he'd better keep clear of you."</p> + +<p>"George, is he really there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's there all right. He's caught. He's trapped. He can't get away +from you."</p> + +<p>"I won't," she said. "It's dishonourable."</p> + +<p>He laughed and they went in.</p> + +<p>The poet was sitting in Tanqueray's low chair, facing them. He rose at +some length as they entered, and she discerned in his eyes the instinct +of savage flight. She herself would have turned and fled, but for the +singularity of such precipitance. She was afraid before this shyness of +the unlicked Celt, of the wild creature trapped and caught unaware, by +the guile she judged dishonourable.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray had hardly introduced them before he was called off to the +doctor. He must leave them, he said, to each other.</p> + +<p>They did not talk. They sat in an odd, intuitive silence, a silence that +had no awkwardness and no embarrassment. It was intimate, rather, and +vividly revealing. You would have said, coming upon them there, that +they had agreed upon this form of communion and enjoyed it.</p> + +<p>It gave her leisure in which to take him more securely in. Her gaze was +obliquely attentive to his face, rugged and battered by travel, sallow +now, where it had once been bronze. She saw that his soul had passed +through strange climates.</p> + +<p>It was borne in on her, as they continued in their silence, that she +knew something about him, something certain and terrible, something that +must, ultimately and inevitably, happen to him. She caught herself +secretly defining it. Tuberculosis—that was it; that was the certain +and inevitable thing. Of course; anybody would have seen it. That she +had not seen it at the first glance she attributed to the enchantment of +his personality that held her from any immediate consideration of his +singular physique. If it were not, indeed, his own magnificent oblivion. +When she looked, she could see how lean he was, how insufficiently +nourished. His clothes hung on him in folds; they were worn to an +incredible shabbiness. Yet he carried them with an indomitable +distinction. He had the grace, in flank and limb, of the wild thing made +swift by hunger.</p> + +<p>Her seeing all this now made their silence unendurable. It also +suggested the thing she at last said.</p> + +<p>"I'm distressed about Mrs. Tanqueray. I hope it's nothing serious."</p> + +<p>Prothero's face was serious; more serious by far than Tanqueray's had +been.</p> + +<p>"Too much contemplation," he said, "is bad for her. She isn't cut out +for a contemplative, though she's in a fair way of becoming a saint +and——"</p> + +<p>She filled his blank, "And a martyr?"</p> + +<p>"What can you expect when a man mates like that?"</p> + +<p>"It's natural," she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Natural? It's one of the most unnatural marriages I've ever come +across. It's a crime against nature for a man like Tanqueray to have +taken that poor little woman—who is nature pure and simple—and condemn +her to——"</p> + +<p>She drew back visibly. "I know. He doesn't see it," she said.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't see anything. He doesn't even know she's there. How can he? +His genius runs to flesh and blood, and he hasn't room for any more of +it outside his own imagination. That's where you are with your great +realists."</p> + +<p>She gazed at him, astonished, admiring. This visionary, this poet so +estranged from flesh and blood, had put his finger on the fact.</p> + +<p>"You mean," she said, "a visionary would see more?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders at her reference.</p> + +<p>"He would have more room," he said, "that would be all. He could at any +rate afford to take more risks."</p> + +<p>They were silent again.</p> + +<p>"I believe," he said presently, "somebody's coming. I shall have to go."</p> + +<p>Jane turned her head. The sounds he heard so distinctly were inaudible +to her.</p> + +<p>They proved to be footsteps on the staircase, footsteps that could never +have been Rose's nor yet Tanqueray's. They paused heavily at the door. +Some one was standing there, breathing.</p> + +<p>A large woman entered very slowly, and Jane arrived, also slowly, at the +conclusion that it must be Mrs. Eldred, George's wife's aunt.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred acknowledged her presence and Prothero's by a vague movement +of respect. It was not till Prothero had gone that she admitted that she +would be glad to take a chair. She explained that she was Rose's aunt, +and that she had never been up them stairs before and found them tryin'.</p> + +<p>Jane expressed sorrow for that fact and for Rose's illness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred sighed an expository sigh.</p> + +<p>"She's frettin' an' she's worritin'. She's worritin' about 'Im. It isn't +natch'ral, that life 'E leads, and it's tellin' on 'er."</p> + +<p>"Something's telling on her."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred leaned forward and lowered her voice. "It's this way, miss. +'E isn't properly a 'usban' to 'er."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't say that, Mrs. Eldred. He's very fond of her."</p> + +<p>"Fond of 'er I dare say 'E may be. But 'E neglec's 'er."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't say that, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, miss, I can't 'elp sayin' it. Wot else <i>is</i> it, when 'E shuts +'imself up with 'is writin' all day long and 'alf the night, and she +a-settin' and a-frettin'?"</p> + +<p>She looked round the room, apparently recognizing with resentment the +scene of Tanqueray's perpetual infidelity.</p> + +<p>"But," said Jane, "he'd be away as much if he was in business."</p> + +<p>"'Ef 'E was in business there'd be the evenin's to look forward to. And +there'd be 'is Saturdays and Sundays. As it is, wot is there for her to +look forward to?"</p> + +<p>"At any rate she knows he's there."</p> + +<p>"It's knowin' that 'E's there wot does it. It's not as if she 'ad a +'ouse to look after, or a little baby to take 'er mind orf of 'im."</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't."</p> + +<p>A sound of yapping came faintly up from the ground-floor.</p> + +<p>"That's Joey," said Mrs. Eldred tearfully, "'er Pom as she was so fond +of. I've brought 'im. And I've brought Minny too."</p> + +<p>"Minny?" Jane had not heard of Minny.</p> + +<p>"The cat, miss. They'll keep 'er company. It's but right as she should +'ave them."</p> + +<p>Jane assented warmly that it was but right.</p> + +<p>"It's not," Mrs. Eldred continued, "as if she came reg'lar, say once in +a week, to see 'er uncle and me. She'll go to Camden Town and set with +that poor old Mr. Gunning. Give Rose any one that's ill. But wot is that +<i>but</i> settin'? And now, you see, with settin' she's ill. It's all very +well when you're brought up to it, but she isn't. Rose'd be well if she +'ad a 'ouse and did the work in it. And 'E won't let 'er 'ave it. 'E +won't 'ear of 'er workin', 'E says."</p> + +<p>"Well, naturally, he wouldn't like to see his wife working."</p> + +<p>"Then, miss, 'E should 'ave married a lady 'as wouldn't want to work. +That's wot 'E should have done. We were always against it from the +first, 'er uncle and me was. But they was set, bein' young-like."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Eldred's voice ceased suddenly as Tanqueray entered. Jane +abstained from all observation of their greeting. She was aware of an +unnatural suavity in Tanqueray's manner. He carried it so far as to +escort Mrs. Eldred all the way down to the ground-floor sitting-room +where Rose was.</p> + +<p>He returned with considerable impetus to Jane.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jinny, so you've seen my aunt-in-law?"</p> + +<p>"I have," said Jinny contumaciously, "and I like her."</p> + +<p>"What do you think? She's brought a dog on a chain and a beast of a cat +in a basket."</p> + +<p>Jinny abstained from sympathy, and Tanqueray grew grave.</p> + +<p>"I wish I knew what was the matter with Rose," he said. "She doesn't +seem to get much better. The doctor swears it's only liver; but he's a +silly ass."</p> + +<p>"Tanks, there's nothing the matter really, except—the poor little bird +wants to build its nest. It wants sticks and straws and feathers and +things——"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean I've got to go and find a beastly house?"</p> + +<p>"Let her go and find it."</p> + +<p>"I would in a minute—only I'm so hard up."</p> + +<p>"Of course you'll be hard up if you go on living in rooms like this."</p> + +<p>"That's what she says. But when she talks about a house she means that +she'll do all the work in it."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Why not? I married her because I wasn't going to have her worked to +death in that damned lodging-house of her uncle's."</p> + +<p>"You married her because you loved her," said Jane quietly.</p> + +<p>"Well—of course. And I'm not going to let my wife cook my dinner and +make my bed and empty my slops. How can I?"</p> + +<p>"She'll die if you don't, George."</p> + +<p>"Die?"</p> + +<p>"She'll get horribly ill. She's ill now because she can't run about and +sweep and dust and cook dinners. She's dying for love of all the +beautiful things you won't let her have—pots and pans and +carpet-sweepers and besoms. You don't want her to die of an unhappy +passion for a besom?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to see her with a besom."</p> + +<p>Jane pleaded. "She'd look so pretty with it, George. Just think how +pretty she'd look in a little house, playing with a carpet-sweeper."</p> + +<p>"On her knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor——"</p> + +<p>"You'd have a woman in to scrub."</p> + +<p>"Carrying the coals?"</p> + +<p>"<i>You'd</i> carry the coals, George."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, I never thought of that. I suppose I could." He pondered.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "she wants to live at Hampstead."</p> + +<p>"You can't cut her off from her own people."</p> + +<p>"I'm not cutting her off. She goes to see them."</p> + +<p>"She'll go to see them if you live at Hampstead. If you live here +they'll come and see you. For she'll be ill and they'll have to."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray looked at her, not without admiration.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, you're ten times cleverer than I."</p> + +<p>"In some things, Tanks, I am. And so is that wife of yours."</p> + +<p>"She's—very sensible. I suppose it's sensible to be in love with a +carpet-sweeper."</p> + +<p>She shook her head at him.</p> + +<p>"Much more sensible than being in love with <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>His eyes evaded her. She rose.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Tanks, you goose. Can't you see that it's you she's in love +with—and that's why she <i>must</i> have a carpet-sweeper?"</p> + +<p>With that she left him.</p> + +<p>He followed her to the doorstep where he turned abruptly from her +departure.</p> + +<p>Rose in the sitting-room was kneeling by the hearth where she had just +set a saucer of milk. With one hand she was loosening very gently from +her shoulder the claws of Minny, the cat, who clung to her breast, +scrambling, with the passion and desperation of his kind. Her other +hand restrained with a soft caressing movement Joey's approaches to the +saucer. Joey, though trembling with excitement, sat fascinated, obedient +to her gesture. Joey was puny and hairless as ever, but in Rose's face +as she looked at him there was a flush of maternal tenderness and +gravity. A slightly sallow tinge under its sudden bloom told how Rose +had suffered from the sedentary life.</p> + +<p>All this Tanqueray saw as he entered. It held him on the threshold, +unmoved by the rushing assault and lacerating bark of the little dog, +who resented his intrusion.</p> + +<p>Rose got up and came to him, lifting a frightened, pleading face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George," she said, "don't make me send them away. Let me keep +them."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you must keep them if you want them."</p> + +<p>"I never said I wanted them. Aunt <i>would</i> bring them. She thought they'd +be something to occupy my mind, like."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray smiled, in spite of his gentleness, at the absurd idea of Rose +having a mind.</p> + +<p>Rose made a little sound in her throat like a laugh. She had not +laughed, she had hardly smiled, for many months now.</p> + +<p>"The doctor—'e's fair pleased. 'E says I'll 'ave to go out walkin' now, +for Joey's sake."</p> + +<p>"Poor Joey."</p> + +<p>He stooped and stroked the little animal, who stood on ridiculous +hind-legs, straining to lick his hand.</p> + +<p>"His hair doesn't come on, Rose——"</p> + +<p>"It hasn't been brushed proper. You should brush a Pom's 'air +backwards——"</p> + +<p>"Of course, and it hasn't been brushed backwards. He can bark all right, +anyhow. There's nothing wrong with his lungs."</p> + +<p>"He won't bark at you no more, now he knows you."</p> + +<p>She leaned her face to the furry head on her shoulder, and he recognized +Minny by the strange pattern of his back and tail. Minny was not +beautiful.</p> + +<p>"It's Minny," she said. "You used to like Minny."</p> + +<p>It struck him with something like a pang that she held him like a child +at her breast. She saw his look and smiled up at him.</p> + +<p>"I may keep him, too?"</p> + +<p>At that he kissed her.</p> + +<p>By the end of that evening Tanqueray had not written a word. He could +only turn over the pages of his manuscript, in wonder at the mechanical +industry that had covered so much paper with such awful quantities of +ink. Here and there he recognized a phrase, and then he was aware, very +miserably aware, that the thing was his masterpiece. He wondered, and +with agony, how on earth he was going to finish it if they came about +him like this and destroyed his peace.</p> + +<p>It wasn't the idea of the house. The house was bad enough; the house +indeed was abominable. It was Rose. It was more than Rose; it was +everything; it was the touch, the intimate, unendurable strain and +pressure of life.</p> + +<p>It was all very well for Prothero to talk. His genius was safe, it was +indestructible. It had the immunity of the transcendent. It worked, not +in flesh and blood, but in a divine material. Whatever Prothero did it +remained unmoved, untroubled by the impact of mortality. Prothero could +afford his descents, his immersions in the stuff of life. He, Tanqueray, +could not, for life was the stuff he worked in. To immerse himself was +suicidal; it was the dyer plunging into his own vat.</p> + +<p>Because his genius was a thing of flesh and blood, flesh and blood was +the danger always at its threshold, the enemy in its house. For the same +reason it was sufficient to itself. It fulfilled the functions, it +enjoyed the excitements and the satisfactions of sense. It reproduced +reality so infallibly, so solidly, so completely, that it took reality's +place; it made him unconscious of his wife's existence and of the things +that went on beneath him in the ground-floor sitting-room.</p> + +<p>Yet he was not and had never been indifferent to life itself. He +approached it, not with precaution or prejudice or any cold discretion, +but with the supreme restraint of passion on guard against its own +violence. If he had given himself to it, what a grip it would have had +on him, what a terrible, destructive grip; if, say, he had found his +mate; if he had married a woman, who, exulting in life, would have drawn +him into it.</p> + +<p>Rose had not drawn him in. She had done nothing assailing and +destructive. She was, in some respects, the most admirable wife a man +bent on solitude could have selected. The little thing had never got in +his way. She was no longer disturbing to the intellect, nor agitating to +the heart; and she satisfied, sufficiently, the infrequent craving of +his senses. Up till now he would hardly have known that he was married; +it had been so easy to ignore her.</p> + +<p>But to-day she had been forced on his attention. The truth about Rose +had been presented to him very plainly and boldly by Prothero, by the +doctor, by Mrs. Eldred and by Jane. It was the same naked truth that in +his novels he himself presented with the utmost plainness and boldness +to the British public. His genius knew no other law but truth to Nature, +trust in Nature, unbroken fidelity to Nature. And now it was Nature that +arraigned his genius for its frustration of her purposes in Rose. His +genius had made Rose the victim of its own incessant, inextinguishable +lust and impulse to create.</p> + +<p>Eleven o'clock struck and he had not written a line. Through his window +he heard the front door open and Rose's little feet on the pavement, and +Rose's voice calling into the darkness her old call, "Puss—Puss—Puss. +Minny—Min—Min—Minny. Puss—Puss—Puss."</p> + +<p>He sighed. He had realized for the first time that he was married.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Nina kept her promise, although Prothero protested that he saw no reason +why he should be taken to see Laura Gunning. He was told that he need +not be afraid of Laura. She was too small, Nina said, to do him any +harm. Refusing to go and see Laura was like refusing to go and see a +sick child. Ultimately, with extreme unwillingness, he consented.</p> + +<p>Laura was the poorest of them all, and she lived on a top-floor in +Albert Street, Camden Town, under desperate restrictions of time and +space. For she had a family, and the peculiarity and the awkwardness of +Laura's family was that it was always there. She spoke of it briefly as +Papa.</p> + +<p>It was four years now since Mr. Gunning's sunstroke and his bankruptcy; +for four years his mind had been giving way, very slowly and softly, and +now he was living, without knowing it, on what Laura wrote. Nobody but +Laura knew what heavy odds she fought against, struggling to bring her +diminutive talent to perfection. Poverty was always putting temptation +in her way. She knew that she had chosen the most expensive and the +least remunerative form of her delightful art. She knew that there were +things she could do, concessions she could make, sacrifices, a thousand +facile extensions of the limit, a thousand imponderable infidelities to +the perfection she adored. But they were sins, and though poverty +pinched her for it, she had never committed one of them.</p> + +<p>And yet Laura was cruel to her small genius. It was delicate, and she +drove it with all the strength of her hard, indomitable will. She would +turn it on to any rough journalistic work that came to her hand. It had +not yet lost its beauty and its freshness. But it was threatened. They +were beginning, Nina said, to wonder how long Laura would hold out.</p> + +<p>It was not Poverty that had wrecked her. She could bear that. Poverty +had been good to her; it had put her woman's talent to the test, +justifying its existence, proving it a marketable thing. She rejoiced in +her benign adversity, and woman-like, she hated herself for rejoicing. +For there was always the thought that if she had not been cursed, as to +her talent, with this perverse instinct for perfection, Papa would not +have had to live, as he did live, miserably, on a top-floor in Camden +Town.</p> + +<p>It was May and the keen light raked her room, laying its bareness still +more bare. It was furnished, Laura's room, with an extreme austerity. +There was a little square of blue drugget under the deal table that +stood against the wall, and one green serge curtain at each window. +There was a cupboard and an easy-chair for Mr. Gunning on one side of +the fireplace next the window. On the other, the dark side, was Laura's +writing-table, with a book-shelf above it. Another book-shelf faced the +fireplace. That was all.</p> + +<p>Here, for three years, Laura had worked, hardly ever alone, and hardly +ever in silence, except when the old man dozed in the easy-chair.</p> + +<p>Some rooms, however disguised by their furniture, have a haunted air, an +atmosphere of spiritual joy or tragedy, nobility or holiness, or +spiritual squalor. Ghostly fragments, torn portions of the manifold +self, are lodged there; they drift for ever and ever between the four +walls of the room and penetrate and torment you with its secret. +Prothero, coming into Laura's room, was smitten and pierced with a sense +of mortal pathos, a small and lonely pathos, holding itself aloof, +drifting about him, a poor broken ghost, too proud to approach him or to +cling.</p> + +<p>Laura was at home. She was writing, snatching at the few golden moments +of her day, while apart from and unaware of her, sunken in his seat, the +old man dozed by the fireside. From time to time she glanced at him, and +then her face set under its tenderness, as if it fronted, unflinching, +an immovable, perpetual fear.</p> + +<p>Prothero, as he crossed her threshold, had taken in the unhappy, +childlike figure, and that other figure, sunken in its seat, +slumbering, inert, the image of decay. He stood still for a moment +before Laura, as a man stands when he is struck with wonder.</p> + +<p>He took without speaking the hand, the ridiculously small, thin hand she +gave him, touching it as if he were afraid lest he might hurt the +fragile thing.</p> + +<p>He knew what Nina had meant when she said that he need not be afraid of +her, that she couldn't do him any harm.</p> + +<p>He saw a mere slender slip of a body, a virginal body, straight-clad; +the body and the face of a white child. Her almost rudimentary features +cast no shade; her lips had kept the soft, low curve of their childhood, +their colourless curl flattened against her still, white face. He saw +all that, and he saw the sleeping tenderness in her eyes; deep-down it +slept, under dark blue veils. Her eyes made him forgive her forehead, +the only thing about her which was not absurdly small.</p> + +<p>And of all this he was afraid, afraid for the wonder and mystery it +evoked in him. He saw that Nina watched him and that she was aware of +his fear.</p> + +<p>She was dangerously, uncontrollably aware of it, and aware of her own +folly in bringing him to Laura against his judgment and his will. She +might have known that for him there would be a charm, a perfection in +her very immaturity, that she would have for him all the appealing, +pathetic beauty of her type. For him, Nina, watching with a fierce +concentration, saw that she was virginity reduced to its last and most +exquisite simplicity.</p> + +<p>They had said nothing to each other. Laura, in the wonderful hour of his +coming, could find nothing to say to him. He noticed that she and Nina +talked in low, rapid voices, as if they feared that at any moment the +old man might awake.</p> + +<p>Then Laura arose and began to get tea ready, moving very softly in her +fear.</p> + +<p>"You'd better let me cut the bread and butter," said Prothero.</p> + +<p>Laura let him.</p> + +<p>Nina heard them talking over the bread and butter while Laura made the +tea. She saw that his eyes did not follow her about the room, but that +they rested on her when she was not looking.</p> + +<p>"You were hard at work when we came," he was saying.</p> + +<p>Laura denied it.</p> + +<p>"If I may say so, you look as if you'd been at it far too long."</p> + +<p>"No. I'm never at it long enough. The bother is getting back to where +you were half-an-hour ago. It seems to take up most of the time."</p> + +<p>"Then I oughtn't—ought I—to take up any of it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, please," said Laura, "take it. <i>I</i> can't do anything with it."</p> + +<p>She had the air of offering it to him like bread and butter on a plate.</p> + +<p>"Time," she said, "is about all we've got here. At any rate there will +be time for tea." She examined the cupboard. "It looks as if time were +about all we were going to have for tea." She explored the ultimate +depth of the cupboard. "I wonder if I could find some jam. Do you like +jam?"</p> + +<p>"I adore it."</p> + +<p>That was all they said.</p> + +<p>"Need you," said Nina to Prothero, "spread the butter quite so thick?" +Even in her agony she wondered how much, at the rate he was spreading +it, would be left for the Kiddy's supper.</p> + +<p>"He shall spread it," said the Kiddy superbly, "as thick as ever he +likes."</p> + +<p>They called Nina to the table. She ate and drank; but Laura's tea +scalded her; Laura's bread and butter choked her; she sickened at it; +and when she tried to talk her voice went dry in her throat.</p> + +<p>And in his chair by the fireside, the old man dropped from torpor to +torpor, apart and unaware of them. When he waked they would have to go.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said Laura, "I'd better wake Papa?"</p> + +<p>That was a question which this decided little person had never been able +to decide for herself. It was too momentous.</p> + +<p>"No," said Nina, "I think you'd better not."</p> + +<p>It was then that Mr. Gunning waked himself, violently; starting and +staring, his pale eyes round with terror; for his sunstroke had made him +dream dreams.</p> + +<p>Laura gave an inarticulate murmur of compassion. She knelt by him, and +held his hands in hers and stroked them.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Papa dear, have you had a little dream? Poor darling," she +said, "he has such horrid ones."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gunning looked about him, still alarmed, still surrounded as in his +dream, by appalling presences. He was a little man, with a weak, +handsome face, worn and dragged by emotion.</p> + +<p>"What's all this? What's all this?" he reiterated, until out of the +throng of presences he distinguished dimly a woman's form. He smiled at +it. He was almost wide awake now.</p> + +<p>"Is it Rose?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No, Papa. It's Nina."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gunning became dejected. If it had been Rose she would have sat +beside him and talked to him a little while.</p> + +<p>He was perfectly wide awake now; he had seen Prothero; and the sight of +Prothero revived in him his one idea. His idea was that every man who +saw Laura would want to pick the little thing up and carry her away from +him. He was haunted by the fear of losing Laura. He had lost everything +he had and had forgotten it; but a faint memory of disaster persisted in +his idea.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with my little girl?" he said. "You're not +going to take her away? I won't have that. I won't have that."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he funny?" said Laura, unabashed. And from where she knelt, there +on the verge of her terror, she looked up at the young man and laughed. +She laughed lest Prothero should feel uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Nina had risen for departure, and with a slow, reluctant movement of his +long body, Prothero rose too. Nina could have sworn that almost he bowed +his head over Laura's hand.</p> + +<p>"May I come and see you again some day?" he said. And she said she would +be very glad.</p> + +<p>That was all.</p> + +<p>Outside in the little dull street he turned to Nina.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't fair, Nina; you didn't tell me I was going to have my heart +wrung."</p> + +<p>"How could I know," she said fiercely, "what would wring your heart?"</p> + +<p>He looked away lest he should seem to see what was in her.</p> + +<p>But she knew he saw.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2> + + +<p>Three weeks passed. Prothero had been four times to see Miss Gunning. He +had been once because she said he might come again; once because of a +book he had promised to lend her; once because he happened to be +passing; and once for no reason whatsoever. It was then borne in on him +that what he required was a pretext. Calling late one evening he caught +Miss Gunning in the incredible double act of flinging off a paragraph +for the papers while she talked to Mr. Gunning.</p> + +<p>His pretext, heaven-sent, unmistakable, stared him in the face. He could +not write paragraphs for the papers (they wouldn't take his paragraphs), +but he could talk to Mr. Gunning. It was not so difficult as he would +have at first supposed. He had already learnt the trick of it. You took +a chair. You made a statement. Any statement would do. You had only to +say to Mr. Gunning, "Isn't that so?" and he would bow and assure you, +with a solemn courtesy, that it was, and sit up waiting patiently for +you to do it again; and you went on talking to Miss Gunning until he +showed signs of restlessness. When you had done this several times +running he would sink back in his chair appeased. But Prothero had +discovered that if you concentrated your attention on Mr. Gunning, if +you exposed him to a steady stream of statements, he invariably went to +sleep; and while he slept Laura wrote.</p> + +<p>And while Laura wrote, Owen could keep on looking at her as much as he +liked.</p> + +<p>From where he sat his half-closed eyes could take in rather more than a +side view of Laura. He could see her head as it bent and turned over her +work, showing, now the two low waves of its dark hair, now the flat +coils at the back that took the beautiful curve of Laura's head. From +time to time she would look up at him and smile, and he would smile +back again under his eyelids with a faint quiver of his moustache.</p> + +<p>And Laura said to herself, "He is rather ugly, but I like him."</p> + +<p>It was not odd that she should like him; but what struck her as amazing +was the peace that in his presence settled on Papa. Once he had got over +the first shock of his appearance, it soothed Mr. Gunning to see +Prothero sitting there, smoking, his long legs stretched out, his head +thrown back, his eyes half closed. It established him in the illusion of +continued opulence, for Mr. Gunning was not aware of the things that had +happened to him four years ago. But there had been lapses and +vanishings, unaccountable disturbances of the illusion. In the days of +opulence people had come to see him; now they only came to see Laura. +They were always the same people, Miss Holland and Miss Lempriere and +Mr. Tanqueray. They did no positive violence to the illusion; in their +way they ministered to it. They took their place among the company of +brilliant and indifferent strangers whom he had once entertained with +cold ceremony and a high and distant courtesy. They stayed for a short +time by his chair, they drifted from it into remote corners of the room, +they existed only for each other and for Laura. Thus one half of his +dream remained incomprehensible to Mr. Gunning. He did not really know +these people.</p> + +<p>But he knew Mr. Prothero, who took a chair beside him and stayed an hour +and smoked a pipe with him. He had known him intimately and for a long +time. His figure filled the dark and empty places in the illusion, and +made it warm, tangible and complete. And because the vanished smokers, +the comrades of the days of opulence, had paid hardly any attention to +Laura, therefore Mr. Gunning's mind ceased to connect Prothero with his +formidable idea.</p> + +<p>Laura, who had once laughed at it, was growing curiously sensitive to +the idea. She waited for it in dreadful pauses of the conversation; she +sat shivering with the expectation of its coming. Sooner or later it +would come, and when it did come Papa would ask Mr. Prothero his +intentions, and Mr. Prothero, having of course no intentions, would go +away and never have anything to do with them again.</p> + +<p>Prothero had not yet asked himself his intentions or even wondered what +he was there for, since, as it seemed, it was not to talk to Laura. +There had been opportunities, moments, pauses in the endless procession +of paragraphs, when he had tried to draw Laura out; but Laura was not to +be drawn. She had a perfect genius for retreating, vanishing from him +backwards, keeping her innocent face towards him all the time, but +backing, backing into her beloved obscurity. He felt that there were +things behind her that forbade him to pursue.</p> + +<p>Of the enchantment that had drawn her in the beginning, she had not said +a word. When it came to that they were both silent, as by a secret +understanding and consent. They were both aware of his genius as a thing +that was and was not his, a thing perpetually present with them but +incommunicable, the very heart of their silence.</p> + +<p>One evening, calling about nine o'clock, he found her alone. She told +him that Papa was very tired and had gone to bed. "It is very good of +you," she said, "to come and sit with him."</p> + +<p>Prothero smiled quietly. "May I sit with <i>you</i> now?"</p> + +<p>"Please do."</p> + +<p>They sat by the fireside, for even in mid-June the night was chilly. A +few scattered ashes showed at the lowest bar of the grate. Laura had +raked out the fire that had been lit to warm her father.</p> + +<p>Papa, she explained, was not always as Mr. Prothero saw him now. His +illness came from a sunstroke.</p> + +<p>He said, yes; he had seen cases like that in India.</p> + +<p>"Then, do you think——"</p> + +<p>She paused, lest she should seem to be asking for a professional +opinion.</p> + +<p>"Do I think? What do I think?"</p> + +<p>"That he'll get better?"</p> + +<p>He was silent a long time.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "But he need never be any worse. You mustn't be afraid."</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> afraid. I'm afraid all the time."</p> + +<p>"What of?"</p> + +<p>"Of some awful thing happening and of my not having the nerve to face +it."</p> + +<p>"You've nerve enough for anything."</p> + +<p>"You don't know me. I'm an utter coward. I can't face things. Especially +the thing I'm afraid of."</p> + +<p>"What is it? Tell me." He leaned nearer to her, and she almost +whispered.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid of his having a fit—epilepsy. He <i>might</i> have it."</p> + +<p>"He might. But he won't. You mustn't think of it."</p> + +<p>"I'm always thinking of it. And the most—the most awful thing is +that—I'm afraid of <i>seeing</i> it."</p> + +<p>She bowed her head and looked away from him as if she had confessed to +an unpardonable shame.</p> + +<p>"Poor child. Of course you are," said Prothero. "We're all afraid of +something. I'm afraid, if you'll believe it, of the sight of blood."</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"I."</p> + +<p>"Oh—but you wouldn't lose your head and run away from it."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"No. Or you couldn't go and be a doctor. Why," she asked suddenly, "did +you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Because</i> I was afraid of the sight of blood. You see, it was this way. +My father was a country doctor—a surgeon. One day he sent me into his +surgery. The butcher had been thrown out of his cart and had his cheek +cut open. My father was sewing it up, and he wanted me—I was a boy +about fifteen at the time—to stand by with lumps of cotton-wool and mop +the butcher while he sewed him up. What do you suppose I did?"</p> + +<p>"You fainted?—You were ill on the spot?"</p> + +<p>"No. I wasn't on the spot at all. I ran away."</p> + +<p>A slight tremor passed over the whiteness of her face; he took it for +the vibration of some spiritual recoil.</p> + +<p>"What do you say to that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't say anything."</p> + +<p>"My father said I was a damned coward, and my mother said I was a +hypocrite. I'd been reading the Book of Job, you see, when it happened."</p> + +<p>"They might have known," she said.</p> + +<p>"They might have known what?"</p> + +<p>"That you were different."</p> + +<p>"They did know it. After that, they never let it alone. They kept +rubbing it into me all the time that I was different. As my father put +it, I wore my cerebro-spinal system on the outside, and I had to grow a +skin or two if I wanted to be a man and not an anatomical diagram. I'd +got to prove that I <i>was</i> a man—that I wasn't different after all."</p> + +<p>"Well—you proved it."</p> + +<p>"If I did my father never knew it."</p> + +<p>"And your mother?" she said softly.</p> + +<p>"I believe she knew."</p> + +<p>"But wasn't she glad to know you were different?"</p> + +<p>"I never let her know, really, how different I was."</p> + +<p>"You kept it to yourself?"</p> + +<p>"It was the only way to keep it."</p> + +<p>"Your genius?"</p> + +<p>"If you choose to call it that."</p> + +<p>"The thing," she said, "that made you different."</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "they didn't understand that <i>that</i> was where I was +most a coward. I was always afraid of losing it. I am now."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't lose it."</p> + +<p>"I have lost it. It went altogether the time I was working for my +medical. I got it back again out in India when I was alone, on the edge +of the jungle, when there wasn't much cholera about, and I'd nothing to +do but think. Then some officious people got me what they called a +better berth in Bombay; and it went again."</p> + +<p>She was uncertain now whether he were speaking of his genius, or of +something more than it.</p> + +<p>"You see," he continued, "you go plodding on with your work for months +and never think about it; and then you realize that it's gone, and +there's the terror—<i>the</i> most awful terror there is—of never getting +back to it again. Then there'll be months of holding on to the fringe of +it without seeing it—seeing nothing but horrors, hearing them, handling +them. Then perhaps, when you've flung yourself down, tired out, where +you are, on the chance of sleeping, it's there. And nothing else +matters. Nothing else is."</p> + +<p>She knew now, though but vaguely and imperfectly, what he meant.</p> + +<p>"And the next day one part of you goes about among the horrors, and the +other part remains where it got to."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>Obscurely and with difficulty she saw, she made it out. The thing he +spoke of was so inconceivable, so tremendous that at times he was afraid +of having it, at times afraid of never having it again. And because, as +he had said, the fear of not having it was worse than any fear, he had +to be sure of it, he had to put it to the test. So he went down into +life, into the thick of it, among all the horrors and the terrors. He +knew that if he could do that and carry his vision through it, if it +wasn't wiped out, if he only saw it once, for a moment afterwards, he +would be sure of it. He wasn't really sure of it until then, not a bit +surer than she was now.</p> + +<p>No; he was always sure of it. It was himself he was not sure of; himself +that he put to the test.</p> + +<p>And it was himself that he had carried through it. He had lived face to +face with all the corporeal horrors; he had handled them, tasted them, +he, the man without a skin, with every sense, every nerve in him +exposed, exquisitely susceptible to torture. And he had come through it +all as through a thing insubstantial, a thing that gave way before his +soul and its exultant, processional vision of God.</p> + +<p>"The absurd thing is that after all I haven't grown a skin. I'm <i>still</i> +afraid of the sight of blood."</p> + +<p>"So I suppose <i>I</i> shall go on being afraid."</p> + +<p>"Probably. But you won't turn tail any more than I should. <i>You</i> never +ran away."</p> + +<p>"There are worse things than running away. All the things that go on +inside you, the cruel, dreadful things; the cowardices and treacheries. +Things that come of never being alone. I have to sit up at night to be +alone."</p> + +<p>"My child, you mustn't. It's simply criminal."</p> + +<p>"If I didn't," she said, "I should never get it in."</p> + +<p>He understood her to be alluding thus vaguely to her gift.</p> + +<p>"I know it's criminal, with Papa depending on me, and yet I do it. +Sometimes I'm up half the night, hammering and hammering at my own +things; things, I mean, that won't sell, just to gratify my vanity in +having done them."</p> + +<p>"To satisfy your instinct for perfection. God made you an artist."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "He's made me so many things besides. That's where the +misery comes in."</p> + +<p>"And a precious poor artist you'd be if he hadn't, and if the misery +didn't come in."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, superior in her sad wisdom. "Misery's all very well +for the big, tragic people like Nina, who can make something out of it. +Why throw it away on a wretched, clever little imp like me?"</p> + +<p>"And if <i>you</i>'re being hammered at to satisfy an instinct for perfection +that you're not aware of——?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head again.</p> + +<p>"I'm certainly not aware of it. Still, I can understand that. I mean I +can understand an instinct for perfection making shots in the dark and +trying things too big for it and their not coming off. But—look at +Papa."</p> + +<p>She held her hands out helplessly. The gesture smote his heart.</p> + +<p>"If Papa had been one of its experiments—but he wasn't. It had got him +all right at first. You've no idea how nice Papa was. You've only to +look at him now to see how nice he is. But he was clever. Not very +clever," (she wasn't going to claim too much for him), "but just clever +enough. He used to say such funny, queer, delicious things. And he can't +say them any more."</p> + +<p>She paused and went on gathering vehemence as she went.</p> + +<p>"And to go and spoil a thing like that, the thing you'd made as fine as +it could be, to tear it to bits and throw the finest bits away—it +doesn't look like an Instinct for Perfection, does it?"</p> + +<p>"The finest bits aren't thrown away. It's what you still have with you, +what you see, that's being thrown away—broken up by some impatient, +impetuous spiritual energy, as a medium that no longer serves its +instinct for perfection. Do you see?"</p> + +<p>"I see that you're trying to make me happier about Papa. It's awfully +nice of you."</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to get you away from a distressing view of the human body. +To you a diseased human body is a thing of palpable horror. To me it is +simply a medium, an unstable, oscillating medium of impetuous spiritual +energies. We're nowhere near understanding the real function of disease. +It probably acts as a partial discarnation of the spiritual energies. +It's a sign of their approaching freedom. Especially those diseases +which are most like death—the horrible diseases that tear down the body +from the top, destroying great tracts of brain and nerve tissue, and +leaving the viscera exuberant with life. And if you knew the mystery of +the building up—why, the growth of an unborn child is more wonderful +than you can conceive. But, if you really knew, that would be nothing to +the secret—the mystery—the romance of dissolution."</p> + +<p>His phrase was luminous to her. It was a violent rent that opened up the +darkness that wrapped her.</p> + +<p>"If you could see <i>through</i> it you'd understand, you'd see that this +body, made of the radiant dust of the universe, is a two-fold medium, +transmitting the splendour of the universe to us, and our splendour to +the universe; that we carry about in every particle of us a spiritual +germ which is not the spiritual germ of our father or our mother or any +of our remote ancestors; so that what we take is insignificant beside +what we give."</p> + +<p>Laura looked grave. "I can't pretend for a moment," she said, "that I +understand."</p> + +<p>"Think," he said, "think of the body of a new-born baby; think how +before its birth that body ran through the whole round of creation in +nine months, that not only the life of its parents, but the life of the +whole creation was present in the cell it started from. Think how our +body comes charged with spiritual energies, indestructible instincts, +infinite memories that are not ours; that its life, from minute to +minute, goes on by a process of combustion, the explosion of untamable +forces, and that we—<i>we</i>—unmake the work of millions of æons in a +moment, that we charge it with <i>our</i> will, <i>our</i> instincts, <i>our</i> +memories, so that there's not an atom of our flesh unpenetrated by +spirit, not a cell of our bodies that doesn't hold some spiritual germ +of us—so that we multiply our souls in our bodies; and their dust, when +they scatter, is the seed of <i>our</i> universe, flung heaven knows where."</p> + +<p>For a moment the clever imp looked out of Laura's eyes. "Do you know," +she said, "it makes me feel as if I had millions and millions of +intoxicated brains, all trying to grasp something, and all reeling, and +I can't tell whether it's you who are intoxicated, or I. And I want to +know how you know about it."</p> + +<p>A change passed over his face. It became suddenly still and +incommunicable.</p> + +<p>"And the only thing I want to know," she wailed, "you won't tell me, and +it's all very dim and disagreeable and sad."</p> + +<p>"What won't I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"What's become of the things that made Papa so adorable?"</p> + +<p>"I've been trying to tell you. I've been trying to make you see."</p> + +<p>"I can only see that they've gone."</p> + +<p>"And I can only see that they exist more exquisitely, more intensely +than ever. Too intensely for your senses, or his, to be aware of them."</p> + +<p>"Ah——"</p> + +<p>"And I should say the same of a still-born baby that I had never seen +alive, or of a lunatic whom I had not once seen sane."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" she reiterated.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you."</p> + +<p>"You can't tell me anything, and your very face shuts up when I look at +it."</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you anything," he said gently. "I can only talk to you +like an intoxicated medical student, and it's time for me to go."</p> + +<p>She did not seem to have heard him, and they sat silent.</p> + +<p>It was as if their silence was a borderland; as if they were both +pausing there before they plunged; behind them the unspoken, the +unspeakable; before them the edge of perilous speech.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad I've seen you," she said at last.</p> + +<p>He ignored the valediction of her tone.</p> + +<p>"And when am I to see you again?" he said.</p> + +<p>This time she did not answer, and he had a profound sense of the pause.</p> + +<p>He asked himself now, as they stood (he being aware that they were +standing) on the brink of the deep, how far she had ever really accepted +his preposterous pretext? Up till now she had appeared to be taking him +and his pretext simply, as they came. Her silence, her pause had had no +expectation in it. It evidently had not occurred to her that the deep +could open up. That was how she had struck him, more and more, as never +looking forward, to him or to anything, as being almost afraid to look +forward. She regarded life with a profound distrust, as a thing that +might turn upon her at any time and hurt her.</p> + +<p>He rose and she followed him, holding the lamp to light the stairway. He +turned.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "have you seen enough of me?"</p> + +<p>They were outside the threshold now, and she stood there, one arm +holding her lamp, the other stretched across the doorway, as if she +would keep him from ever entering again.</p> + +<p>"Or," said he, "may I come again? Soon?"</p> + +<p>"Do," she said, "and bring Nina with you."</p> + +<p>She set her lamp on the floor at the stairhead, and backed, backed from +him into the darkness of the room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2> + + +<p>It was the twenty-seventh of June, Laura's birthday. Tanqueray had +proposed that they should celebrate it by a day on Wendover Hill. For +the Kiddy's increasing pallor cried piteously for the open air.</p> + +<p>Nina was to bring Owen Prothero; and Jane, in Prothero's interests, was +to bring Brodrick; and Tanqueray, Laura insisted, was to bring his wife.</p> + +<p>Rose had counted the days, the very hours before Laura's birthday. She +had plenty to do for once on the morning of the twenty-seventh, making +rock cakes and cutting sandwiches and packing them beautifully in a +basket. Over-night she had washed and ironed the white blouse she was to +wear. The white blouse lay on her bed, wonderful as a thing seen in a +happy dream. Rose could hardly permit herself to believe that the dream +would come true, and that Tanqueray would really take her.</p> + +<p>It all depended on whether Laura could get off. Getting Laura off was +the difficulty they encountered every time she had a birthday.</p> + +<p>So uncertain was the event that Nina and Prothero called at the house in +Albert Street before going on to the station. They found Tanqueray, and +Rose in her white blouse, waiting outside on the pavement. They heard +that Jane Holland was in there with Laura, bringing pressure to bear on +the obstinate Kiddy who was bent on the renunciation of her day.</p> + +<p>Jane's voice on the landing called to them to come up-stairs. Without +them it was impossible, she said, to get Laura off.</p> + +<p>The whole house was helping, in a passionate publicity; for every one in +it loved Laura. Mr. Baxter, the landlord, was on the staircase, bringing +Laura's boots. The maid of all work was leaning out of the window on the +landing, brushing Laura's skirt. A tall girl was standing by the table +in the sitting-room. She had a lean, hectic face, and prominent blue +eyes under masses of light hair. She was Addy Ranger, the type-writer on +the ground-floor, who had come up from her typewriting to see what she +could do. She was sewing buttons on Laura's blouse while Jane brought +pressure upon Laura. "Of course you're going," Jane was saying. "It's +not as if you had a birthday every day."</p> + +<p>For Laura still sat at her writing-table, labouring over a paragraph, +white lipped and heavy eyed. Shuffling all over the room and round about +her was Mr. Gunning. He was pouring out the trouble that had oppressed +him for the last four years.</p> + +<p>"She won't stop scribbling. It's scribble—scribble—scribble all day +long. If I didn't lie awake to stop her she'd be at it all night. I've +caught her—in her nightgown. She'll get out of her bed to do it."</p> + +<p>"Papa, dear, you know Miss Lempriere and Mr. Prothero?"</p> + +<p>His mind adjusted itself instantly to its vision of them. He bowed to +each. He was the soul of courtesy and hospitality, and they were his +guests; they had come to luncheon.</p> + +<p>"Lolly, my dear, have you ordered luncheon?—You must tell Mrs. Baxter +to give us a salmon mayonnaise, and a salad and lamb cutlets in aspic. +And, Lolly! Tell her to put a bottle of champagne in ice."</p> + +<p>For in his blessed state, among the fragments of old splendours that +still clung to him, Mr. Gunning had preserved indestructibly his sense +of power to offer his friends a bottle of champagne on a suitable +occasion, and every occasion now ranked with him as suitable.</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling," said Laura, and dashed down a line of her paragraph.</p> + +<p>He shuffled feebly toward the door. "I have to see to everything +myself," he said. "That child there has no more idea how to order a +luncheon than the cat. There should be," he reverted, "lamb cutlets in +aspic. I must see to it myself."</p> + +<p>He wandered out of the room and in again, driven, by his dream.</p> + +<p>"Oh," cried Laura, "somebody else must have my birthday. <i>I</i> can't have +it. I must sit tight and finish my paragraph."</p> + +<p>"You'll spoil it if you do," said Prothero.</p> + +<p>"Besides spoiling everybody's day," said Jane judiciously.</p> + +<p>That brought Laura round. She reflected that, if she sat tight from ten +that evening till two in the morning, she could save their day.</p> + +<p>But first she had to finish her paragraph and then to hide it and lock +it up. Then she put the pens and ink on a high shelf out of Mr. +Gunning's reach. He had been known to make away with the materials of +Lolly's detestable occupation when he got the chance. He attributed to +it that mysterious, irritating semblance of poverty in which they moved.</p> + +<p>He smiled at her, a happy, innocent smile.</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> right, <i>that's</i> right. Put it away, my dear, put it away."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Papa," said Laura. She took the blouse from Addy Ranger, and she +and Jane Holland disappeared with it into a small inner room. From the +voices that came to him Prothero gathered that Jane Holland was +"buttoning her up the back."</p> + +<p>"Don't say," cried Laura, "that it won't meet!"</p> + +<p>"Meet? It'll go twice round you. You don't eat enough."</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"It's no good," he heard Jane Holland say, "not eating. I've tried +both."</p> + +<p>"I," said Laura in a voice that penetrated, "over-eat. Habitually."</p> + +<p>"I must go," said Mr. Gunning, "and find my hat and stick." His idea now +was that Laura was going to take him for a walk.</p> + +<p>Addy Ranger began to talk to Prothero. He liked Addy. She had an amusing +face with a long nose and wide lips, restless and cynical. She confided +to him the trouble of her life, the eternal difficulty of finding +anywhere a permanent job. Addy's dream was permanence.</p> + +<p>Then they talked of Laura.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what <i>her</i> dream is?" said Addy. "To be able to afford +wine, and chicken, and game and things—for him."</p> + +<p>"When you think of her work!" said Nina. "It's charming; it's finished, +to a point. How on earth does she do it?"</p> + +<p>"She sits up half the night to do it," said Prothero; "when he isn't +there."</p> + +<p>"And it's killing her," said Addy, who had her back to the door.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gunning had come in again and he heard her. He gazed at them with a +vague sweetness, not understanding what he heard.</p> + +<p>Then Laura ran in among them, in a tremendous hurry. She wasn't ready +yet. It was a maddening, protracted agony, getting Laura off. She had +forgotten to lock the cupboard where the whisky was (a shilling's worth +in a medicine bottle); and poor Papa might find it. Since he had had his +sunstroke you couldn't trust him with anything, not even with a jam-pot. +Then Addy, at Laura's request, rushed out of the room to find Laura's +hat and her handkerchief and her gloves—not the ones with the holes in +them. And then Laura looked at her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "<i>look</i> at my poor hands. I can't go like that. I +<i>hate</i> an inky woman."</p> + +<p>And she dashed out to wash the ink off.</p> + +<p>And then the gloves found by Addy had all holes in them. And at that +Laura stamped her foot and said, "Damn!"</p> + +<p>The odds against Laura's getting off were frightful.</p> + +<p>But she was putting on her hat. She was really ready just as Tanqueray's +voice was heard calling on the stairs, "You must hurry up if you want to +catch that train." And now they had to deal seriously with Mr. Gunning, +who stood expectant, holding his hat and stick.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Papa dear," said she.</p> + +<p>"Am I not to come, too?" said Mr. Gunning.</p> + +<p>"Not to-day, dear."</p> + +<p>She was kissing him while Jane and Nina waited in the open doorway. +Their eyes signed to her to be brave and follow them. But Laura +lingered.</p> + +<p>Prothero looked at Laura, and Mr. Gunning looked at Prothero. His +terrible idea had come back to him at the sight of the young man, +risen, and standing beside Laura for departure.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to take my little girl away from me?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Poor little Papa, of course he isn't. I'm going with Jane, and Nina. +You know Nina?"</p> + +<p>"And who," he cried, "is going to take me for my walk?"</p> + +<p>He had her there. She wavered.</p> + +<p>"Addy's coming in to give you your tea. You like Addy." (He bowed to +Miss Ranger with a supreme courtesy.) "And I'll be back in time to see +you in your little bed."</p> + +<p>She ran off. Addy Ranger took Mr. Gunning very tenderly by the arm and +led him to the stairs to see her go.</p> + +<p>Outside on the pavement Tanqueray gave way to irritation.</p> + +<p>"If," said he, "it would only please Heaven to take that old gentleman +to itself."</p> + +<p>"It won't," said Nina.</p> + +<p>"How she would hate us if she heard us," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"There ought to be somebody to take care of 'im," said Rose, moved to +compassion. "'E might go off in a fit any day. She can't be easy when +'e's left."</p> + +<p>"He <i>must</i> be left," said Tanqueray with ferocity.</p> + +<p>"Here she is," said Jane.</p> + +<p>There she was; and there, too, was her family. For, at the sight of +Laura running down-stairs with Prothero after her, Mr. Gunning broke +loose from Addy's arm and followed her, perilously followed her. Addy +was only just in time to draw him back from the hall door as Prothero +closed it.</p> + +<p>And then little Laura, outside, heard a cry as of a thing trapped, and +betrayed, and utterly abandoned.</p> + +<p>"I can't go," she cried. "He thinks I'm leaving him—that I'm never +coming back. He always thinks it."</p> + +<p>"You know," said Nina, "he never thinks anything for more than five +minutes."</p> + +<p>"I know—but——"</p> + +<p>Nina caught her by the shoulder. "You stupid Kiddy, you must forget him +when he isn't there."</p> + +<p>"But he <i>is</i> there," said Laura. "I can't leave him."</p> + +<p>Between her eyes and Prothero's there passed a look of eternal patience +and despair. Rose saw it. She saw how it was with them, and she saw what +she could do. She turned back to the door.</p> + +<p>"You go," she said. "I'll stay with him."</p> + +<p>From the set of her little chin you saw that protest and argument were +useless.</p> + +<p>"I can take care of him," she said. "I know how."</p> + +<p>And as she said it there came into her face a soft flame of joy. For +Tanqueray was looking at her, and smiling as he used to smile in the +days when he adored her. He was thinking in this moment how adorable she +was.</p> + +<p>"You may as well let her," he said. "She isn't happy if she can't take +care of somebody."</p> + +<p>And, as they wondered at her, the door opened and closed again on Rose +and her white blouse.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2> + + +<p>They found Brodrick waiting for them at the station. Imperturbable, on +the platform, he seemed to be holding in leash the Wendover train whose +engines were throbbing for flight.</p> + +<p>Prothero suffered, painfully, the inevitable introduction. Tanqueray had +told him that if he still wanted work on the papers Brodrick was his +man. Brodrick had an idea. On the long hill-road going up from Wendover +station Prothero, at Tanqueray's suggestion, tried to make himself as +civil as possible to Miss Holland.</p> + +<p>Tentatively and with infinite precautions Jane laid before him +Brodrick's idea. The War Correspondent of the "Morning Telegraph" was +coming home invalided from Manchuria. She understood that his place +would be offered to Mr. Prothero. Would he care to take it?</p> + +<p>He did not answer.</p> + +<p>She merely laid the idea before him to look at. He must weigh, she said, +the dangers and the risks. From the expression of his face she gathered +that these were the last things he would weigh.</p> + +<p>And yet he hesitated. She looked at him. His eyes were following the +movements of Laura Gunning where, well in front of them, the marvellous +Kiddy, in the first wildness of her release from paragraphs, darted and +plunged and leaped into the hedges.</p> + +<p>Jane allowed some moments to lapse before she spoke again. The war, she +said, would not last for ever; and if he took this berth, it would lead +almost certainly to a regular job on the "Telegraph" at home.</p> + +<p>He saw all that, he said, and he was profoundly grateful. His eyes, as +they turned to her, showed for a moment a film of tears. Then they +wandered from her.</p> + +<p>He asked if he might think it over and let her know.</p> + +<p>"When," she said, "can you let me know?"</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "probably, before the end of the day."</p> + +<p>The day was drawing to its end when the group drifted and divided. +Brodrick, still imperturbable, took possession of Jane, and Prothero, +with his long swinging stride, set off in pursuit of the darting Laura.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray, thus left behind with Nina, watched him as he went.</p> + +<p>"He's off, Nina. Bolted." His eyes smiled at her, suave, deprecating, +delighted eyes and recklessly observant.</p> + +<p>"So has Jane," said Nina, with her dangerous irony.</p> + +<p>Apart from them and from their irony, Prothero was at last alone with +Laura on the top of Wendover Hill. She had ceased to dart and to plunge.</p> + +<p>He found for her a hidden place on the green slope, under a tree, and +there he stretched himself at her side.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," he said, "this is the first time I've seen you out of +doors."</p> + +<p>"So it is," said she in a strange, even voice.</p> + +<p>She drew off her gloves and held out the palms of her hands as if she +were bathing them in the pure air. Her face was turned from him and +lifted; her nostrils widened; her lips parted; her small breasts heaved; +she drank the air like water. To his eyes she was the white image of +mortal thirst.</p> + +<p>"Is it absolutely necessary for you to live in Camden Town?" he said.</p> + +<p>She sat up very straight and stared steadily in front of her, as if she +faced, unafraid, the invincible necessity.</p> + +<p>"It is. Absolutely." She explained that Baxter, her landlord, had been +an old servant of Papa's, and that <i>the</i> important thing was to be with +people who would be nice to him and not mind, she said, his little ways.</p> + +<p>He sighed.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what I should do with you if I could have my way? I should +turn you into a green garden and keep you there from nine in the morning +till nine at night. I should make you walk a mile with me twice a +day—not too fast. All the rest of the time you should lie on a couch on +a lawn, with a great rose-bush at your head and a bed of violets at your +feet. I should bring you something nice to eat every two hours."</p> + +<p>"And how much work do you suppose I should get through?"</p> + +<p>"Work? You wouldn't do <i>any</i> work for a year at least—if I had my way."</p> + +<p>"It's a beautiful dream," said she. She closed her eyes, but whether to +shut the dream out or to keep it in he could not say.</p> + +<p>"I don't want," she said presently, "to lie on a couch in a garden with +roses at my head and violets at my feet, as if I were dead. You don't +know how tre—<i>mend</i>—ously alive I am."</p> + +<p>"I know," he said, "how tremendously alive you'd be if I had my way—if +you were happy."</p> + +<p>She was still sitting up, nursing her knees, and staring straight in +front of her at nothing.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what it's like," she said; "the unbearable pathos of +Papa."</p> + +<p>"It's your pathos that's unbearable."</p> + +<p>"Oh don't! Don't be nice to me. I shall hate you if you're nice to me." +She paused, staring. "I was unkind to him yesterday. I see how pathetic +he is, and yet I'm unkind. I snap like a little devil. You don't know +what a devil, what a detestable little devil I can be."</p> + +<p>She turned to him, sparing herself no pain in her confession.</p> + +<p>"I was cruel to him. It's horrible, like being cruel to a child." The +horror of it was in her stare.</p> + +<p>"It's your nerves," he said; "it's because you're always frightened." He +seemed to meditate before he spoke again. "How are you going on?"</p> + +<p>"You see how."</p> + +<p>"I do indeed. It's unbearable to think of your having to endure these +things. And I have to stand by and see you at the end of your tether, +hurt and frightened, and to know that I can do nothing for you. If I +could have my way you would never be hurt or frightened any more."</p> + +<p>As he spoke something gave way in her. It felt like a sudden weakening +and collapse of her will, drawing her heart with it.</p> + +<p>"But," he went on, "as I can't have my way, the next best thing is—to +stand by you."</p> + +<p>She struggled as against physical faintness, struggled successfully.</p> + +<p>"Since I can't take you out of it," he said, "I shall come and live in +Camden Town too."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't live in Camden Town."</p> + +<p>"I can live anywhere I choose. I shouldn't <i>see</i> Camden Town."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't," she insisted. "And if you could I wouldn't let you."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Be<i>cause</i>—it wouldn't do."</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>"It would be all right. I should get a room near you and look after your +father."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do," she said again. "I couldn't let you."</p> + +<p>"I can do anything I choose. Your little hands can't stop me."</p> + +<p>She looked at him gravely. "Why do you choose it?"</p> + +<p>"Because I can choose nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Ah, why are you so good to me?"</p> + +<p>"Be<i>cause</i>"—he mocked her absurd intonation.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me. It's because you <i>are</i> good. You can't help it."</p> + +<p>"No; I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"But—" she objected, "I'm so horrid. I don't believe in God and I say +damn when I'm angry."</p> + +<p>"I heard you."</p> + +<p>"You said yourself I wanted violets to sweeten me and hammers to soften +me—you think I'm so bitter and so hard."</p> + +<p>"You know what I think of you. And you know," he said, "that I love +you."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't," she whispered. "It's no good."</p> + +<p>He seemed not to have heard her. "And some day," he said, "I shall marry +you. I'd marry you to-morrow if I'd enough money to buy a hat with."</p> + +<p>"It's no use loving me. You can't marry me."</p> + +<p>"I know I can't. But it makes no difference."</p> + +<p>"No difference?"</p> + +<p>"Not to me."</p> + +<p>"If you could," she said, "I wouldn't let you. It would only be one +misery more."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what it would be?"</p> + +<p>"I won't even let you love me. That's misery too."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what it is."</p> + +<p>"I do know, and I don't want any more of it. I've been hurt with it."</p> + +<p>With a low cry of pity and pain he took her in his arms and held her to +him.</p> + +<p>She writhed and struggled in his clasp. "Don't," she cried, "don't touch +me. Let me alone. I can't bear it."</p> + +<p>He turned her face to his to find the truth in her eyes. "And yet," he +said, "you love me."</p> + +<p>"No, no. It's no use," she reiterated; "it's no use. I won't have it. I +won't let you love me."</p> + +<p>"You can't stop me."</p> + +<p>"I can stop you torturing me!"</p> + +<p>She was freed from his arms now. She sat up. Her small face was sullen +and defiant in its expression of indomitable will.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said, "you can stop me touching you. But it makes no +difference. I shall go on caring for you. It's no use struggling and +crying against that."</p> + +<p>"I shall go on struggling."</p> + +<p>"Go on as long as you like. It doesn't matter. I can wait."</p> + +<p>She rose. "Come," she said. "It's time to be going back."</p> + +<p>He obeyed her. When they reached the rise on the station road they +turned and waited for the others to come up with them. They looked back. +Their hill was on their left, to their right was the great plain, grey +with mist. They stood silent, oppressed by their sense of a sad and +sudden beauty. Then with the others they swung down the road to the +station.</p> + +<p>Before the end of the day Brodrick heard that his offer was accepted.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>It was Tanqueray who took Laura home that night. Prothero parted from +her at the station and walked southwards with Nina Lempriere.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you go with her?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't have let you walk home by yourself."</p> + +<p>"As if I wasn't always by myself."</p> + +<p>Her voice defied, almost repelled him; but her face turned to him with +its involuntary surrender.</p> + +<p>He edged himself in beside her with a sudden protective movement, so +that his shoulders shielded her from the contact of the passers by. But +the pace he set was terrific.</p> + +<p>"You've no idea, Owen, how odd you look careering through the streets."</p> + +<p>"Not odder than you, do I? <i>You</i> ought to be swinging up a +mountain-side, or sitting under an oak-tree. That's how I used to see +you."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"I remember the first time I ever saw you, fifteen years ago. I'd gone +up the mountain through the wood, looking for wild cats. I was beating +my way up through the undergrowth when I came on you. You were above me, +hanging by your arms from an oak-tree, swinging yourself from the upper +ledge down on to the track. Your hair—you had lots of hair, all +tawny—some of it was caught up by the branches, some of it hung over +your eyes. They gleamed through it, all round and startled, and there +were green lights in them. You dropped at my feet and dashed down the +mountain. I had found my wild cat."</p> + +<p>"I remember. You frightened me. Your eyes were so queer."</p> + +<p>"Not queerer than yours, Nina. Yours had all the enchantment and all the +terror of the mountains in them."</p> + +<p>"And yours—yours had the terror and the enchantment of a spirit, a +human spirit lost in a dream. A beautiful and dreadful dream. I'd +forgotten; and now I remember. You look like that now."</p> + +<p>"That's your fault, Nina. You make me remember my old dreams."</p> + +<p>"Owen," she said, "don't you want to get away? Don't these walls press +on you and hurt you?"</p> + +<p>They were passing down a side-street, between rows of bare houses, +houses with iron shutters and doors closed on the dingy secrets, the +mean mysteries of trade; houses of high and solitary lights where some +naked window-square hung golden in a wall greyer than the night.</p> + +<p>"Not they," he said. "I've lost that sense. Look there—you and I could +go slap through all that, and it wouldn't even close over us; it would +simply disappear."</p> + +<p>They had come into the lighted Strand. A monstrous hotel rose before +them, its masonry pale, insubstantial in the twilight, a delicate +framework for its piled and serried squares of light. It showed like a +hollow bastion, filled with insurgent fire, flung up to heaven. The +buildings on either side of it were mere extensions of its dominion.</p> + +<p>"Your sense is a sense I haven't got," said she.</p> + +<p>"I lose it sometimes. But it always comes back."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it—horrible?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "It isn't."</p> + +<p>They plunged down a steep side-street off the Strand, and turned on to +their terrace. He let her in with his latchkey and followed her +up-stairs. He stopped at her landing.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" he said. "Or is it too late?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't late at all," said she. And he followed her into the room.</p> + +<p>He did not see the seat she offered him, but stood leaning his shoulders +against the chimney-piece. She knew that he had something to say to her +that must be said instantly or not at all. And yet he kept silence. +Whatever it was that he had to say it was not an easy thing.</p> + +<p>"You'd like some coffee?" she said curtly, by way of breaking his dumb +and dangerous mood.</p> + +<p>He roused himself almost irritably.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, no. Don't bother about it."</p> + +<p>She left him and went into the inner room to make it. She was afraid of +him; afraid of what she might have to hear. She had the sense of things +approaching, of separation, of the snapping of the tense thread of time +that bound them for her moment. It was as if she could spin it out by +interposing between the moment and its end a series of insignificant +acts.</p> + +<p>Through the open doors she saw him as he turned and wandered to the +bookcase and stood there, apparently absorbed. You would have said that +he had come in to look for a book, and that when he had found what he +wanted he would go. She saw him take her book, "Tales of the Marches," +from its shelf and open it.</p> + +<p>She became aware of this as she was about to lift the kettle from the +gas-ring burning on the hearth. Her thin sleeve swept the ring. She was +stooping, but her face was still raised; her eyes were fixed on +Prothero, held by what they saw. The small blue jets of the ring +flickered and ran together and soared as her sleeve caught them. Nina +made no sound. Prothero turned and saw her standing there by the hearth, +motionless, her right arm wrapped in flame.</p> + +<p>He leaped to her, and held her tight with her arm against his breast, +and beat out the fire with his hands. He dressed the burn and bandaged +it with cool, professional dexterity, trembling a little, taking pain +from her pain.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you call out?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't want you to know."</p> + +<p>"You'd have been burnt sooner?"</p> + +<p>He had slung her arm in a scarf; and, as he tied the knot on her +shoulder, his face was brought close to hers. She turned her head and +her eyes met his.</p> + +<p>"I'd have let my whole body burn," she whispered, "sooner than +hurt—your hands."</p> + +<p>His hands dropped from her shoulder. He thrust them into his pockets out +of her sight.</p> + +<p>She followed him into the outer room, struggling against her sense of +his recoil.</p> + +<p>"If you had a body like mine," she said, "you'd be glad to get rid of it +on any terms." She wondered if he saw through her pitiable attempt to +call back the words that had flung themselves upon him.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing wrong with your body," he answered coldly.</p> + +<p>"No, Owen, nothing; except that I'm tired of it."</p> + +<p>"The tiredness will pass. Is that burn hurting you?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet. I don't mind it."</p> + +<p>He stooped and picked up the book he had dropped in his rush to her. She +saw now that he looked at it as a man looks at the thing he loves, and +that his hands as they touched it shook with a nervous tremor.</p> + +<p>She came and stood by him, without speaking, and he turned and faced +her.</p> + +<p>"Nina," he said, "why did you write this terrible book? If you hadn't +written it, I should never have been here."</p> + +<p>"That's why, then, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. You <i>had</i> to write it, and I <i>had</i> to come."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Owen," she said gently.</p> + +<p>"You brought me here," he said.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand it."</p> + +<p>"Can't understand what?"</p> + +<p>"The fascination I had for you."</p> + +<p>He closed the book and laid it down.</p> + +<p>"You were my youth, Nina."</p> + +<p>He held out his hands toward her, the hands that he had just now +withdrawn. She would have taken them, but for the look in his eyes that +forbade her to touch him.</p> + +<p>"My youth was dumb. It couldn't make itself immortal. You did that for +it."</p> + +<p>"But the people of those tales are not a bit like you."</p> + +<p>"No. They <i>are</i> me. They are what I was. Your people are not people, +they are not characters, they are incarnate passions."</p> + +<p>"So like you," she said, with a resurgence of her irony.</p> + +<p>"You don't know me. You don't remember me. But I know and remember you. +You asked me once how I knew. That's how. I've been where you were."</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"If my youth were here, Nina, it would be at your feet. As it is, it +rose out of its grave to salute you. It follows you now, sometimes, like +an unhappy ghost."</p> + +<p>It was as if he had told her that his youth loved her; that she had not +gone altogether unclaimed and undesired; she had had her part in him.</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that, if she was his youth, Laura was his manhood.</p> + +<p>She knew that none of these things were what he had come to say.</p> + +<p>He said it lingering in the doorway, after their good-night. He had got +to go, he said, next week to Manchuria. Brodrick was sending him.</p> + +<p>She stood there staring at him, her haggard face white under the blow. +Her mouth opened to speak, but her voice died in her tortured throat.</p> + +<p>He turned suddenly from her and went up the stairs. The door fell to +between them.</p> + +<p>She groped her way about the room as if it were in darkness. When her +feet touched the fur of the tiger-skin by the hearth she flung herself +down on it. She had no thought in her brain nor any sense of +circumstance. It was as if every nerve and pulse in her body were +gathered to the one nerve and the one pulse of her heart.</p> + +<p>At midnight she dragged herself to her bed, and lay there, stretched +out, still and passive to the torture. Every now and then tears cut +their way under her eyelids with a pricking pain. Every now and then the +burn in her arm bit deeper; but her mind remained dull to this bodily +distress. The trouble of her body, that had so possessed her when Owen +laid his hands on her, had passed. She could have judged her pain to be +wholly spiritual, its intensity so raised it, so purged it from all +passion of flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>In the morning the glass showed her a face thinned in one night; the +skin, tightened over each high and delicate ridge of bone, had the glaze +and flush of grief; her hooded eyes stared at her, red-rimmed, dilated; +eyes where desire dies miserably of its own pain. Her body, that had +carried itself so superbly, was bowed as if under the scourging of a +lash; she held it upright only by an effort of her will. It was +incredible that it should ever have been a thing of swift and radiant +energy; incredible that its ruin should be an event of yesterday. She +lived in an order of time that was all her own, solitary, interminable, +not to be measured by any clock or sun. It was there that her undoing +was accomplished.</p> + +<p>Yet she knew vaguely that he was to sail in six days. Every day he came +to her and dressed her burn and bandaged it.</p> + +<p>"This thing has got to heal," he said, "before I go."</p> + +<p>She saw his going now as her own deed. It was she, not Brodrick, who was +sending him to Manchuria. It was she who had pushed him to the choice +between poverty and that dangerous exile. It was all done six weeks ago +when she handed him over to Jane Holland. She was aware that in his +desperate decision Brodrick counted for more than Jane, and Laura +Gunning for more than Brodrick; but behind them all she saw herself; +behind all their movements her own ruinous impulse was supreme.</p> + +<p>She asked herself why she had not obeyed the profounder instinct that +had urged her to hold him as long as she had the power to hold? For she +had had it. In his supersensual way he had cared for her; and her +nature, with all its murkiness, had responded to the supersensual +appeal. Her passion for Owen was so finely strung that it exulted in its +own reverberance, and thus remained satisfied in its frustration, +sublimely heedless of its end. There had been moments when she had felt +that nothing could take Owen from her. He was more profoundly part of +her than if they had been joined by the material tie. She was bound to +him by bonds so intimately and secretly interwoven that to rupture any +one of them would kill her.</p> + +<p>She knew that, as a matter of fact, he was not the first. But her +experience of Tanqueray was no help to her. Separation from Tanqueray +had not killed her; it had made her more alive, with the fierce vitality +of passion that bore hatred in its blood. She had no illusion as to the +nature of her feelings. Tanqueray had a devil, and it had let loose the +unhappy beast that lurked in her. That was all.</p> + +<p>Owen, she knew, had seen the lurking thing, but he had not played with +it, he had not drawn it; he had had compassion on the beast. And this +terrible compassion hung about her now; it kept her writhing. Each day +it screwed her nerves tighter to the pitch. She told herself that she +preferred a brutality like Tanqueray's which would have made short work +of her.</p> + +<p>As yet she had kept her head. She was on her guard, her grip to the +throat of the beast.</p> + +<p>She was now at the end of Owen's last day. He had come and gone. She had +endured the touch of his hands upon her for the last time. Her wound was +inflamed, and she had had peace for moments while it gnawed into her +flesh, a tooth of fire, dominating her secret pain. He had stood beside +her, his body touching hers, unaware of the contact, absorbed in his +service to her suffering. And as he handled the wound, he had praised +her courage.</p> + +<p>"It'll hurt like hell," he had said, "before it's done with you. But +when it hurts most it's healing."</p> + +<p>That night she did not sleep. Neither did he. As she lay in bed she +could hear his feet on the floor, pacing his narrow room at the back, +above hers.</p> + +<p>Her wild beast woke and tore her. She was hardly aware of the sound of +his feet overhead. It was indifferent to her as traffic in the street. +The throb of it was merged in the steady throb of her passion.</p> + +<p>The beast was falling now upon Laura's image and destroying it. It hated +Laura as it had once hated Tanqueray. It hated her white face and +virginal body and the pathos that had drawn Owen to her. For the beast, +though savage, was not blind. It discerned; it discriminated. In that +other time of its unloosing it had not fallen upon Jane; it had known +Jane for its fellow, the victim of Tanqueray's devilry. It had pursued +Tanqueray and clung to him, and it had turned on him when he beat it +back. It could have lain low for ever at Owen's feet and under the pity +of his hands. It had no quarrel with spirit. But now that it saw Laura's +little body standing between it and Owen, it broke out in the untamed, +unrelenting fury of flesh against flesh.</p> + +<p>The sound of Owen's feet continued, tramping the floor above her. She +sat up and listened. It was not the first time that she had watched with +him; that she had kept still there to listen till all her senses +streamed into that one sense, and hearing gave the thrill of touch. She +had learned to know his mood by his footstep. She knew the swinging, +rhythmic tread that beat out the measure of his verse, the slow, +lingering tread that marked the procession of his thoughts, and the +troubled, jerking tread that shook her nerves, that sent through her, +like an agonized pulse, the vibration of his suffering.</p> + +<p>It shook her now. She received and endured his trouble.</p> + +<p>She had got out of bed and dressed and went up-stairs to Owen's door, +and knocked softly. She heard him stride to the door with the impetus of +fury; it opened violently, and she swept past him into the room.</p> + +<p>His mood softened at the sight of her haggard face and feverish eyes. He +stood by the door, holding it so that it sheltered her yet did not shut +her in.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Nina?" He was contemplating her with a certain sad +perplexity, a disturbance that was pure from all embarrassment or +surprise. It was as if he had foreseen that she would do this.</p> + +<p>"You're ill," he said. "Go down-stairs; I'll come to you."</p> + +<p>"I'm not ill and I'm not mad. Please shut that door."</p> + +<p>He shut it.</p> + +<p>"Won't you sit down?"</p> + +<p>She smiled and sat down on his bed, helpless and heedless of herself. +Prothero sat on the edge of a packing-case and gazed at her, still with +his air of seeing nothing at all remarkable in her behaviour.</p> + +<p>Her eyes wandered from him and were caught by the fantastic disorder of +the room. On his writing-table a revolver, a microscope, and a case of +surgical instruments lay in a litter of manuscripts. A drawer, pulled +from its chest, stood on end by the bedside; the contents were strewn at +her feet. With a pang of reminiscence she saw there the things that he +had worn, the thin, shabby garments of his poverty; and among them a few +new things bought yesterday for his journey. An overcoat lay on the bed +beside her. He had not had anything like that before. She put out her +hand and felt the stuff.</p> + +<p>"It ought to have had a fur lining," she said, and began to cry quietly.</p> + +<p>He rose and came to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Her sobbing +ceased suddenly. She looked up at him and was still, under his touch.</p> + +<p>"You don't want to go," she said. "Why are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Because I have to. It's the only thing, you see, there is to do."</p> + +<p>"If it wasn't for me you wouldn't have to. If you die out there it will +be my doing."</p> + +<p>"Won't it be the proprietors of the 'Morning Telegraph' who'll be +responsible—if I die?"</p> + +<p>"I set them on to you."</p> + +<p>"Did you? I rather hoped they'd pitched on me because I was the best man +for the job."</p> + +<p>"The best man—to die?"</p> + +<p>"War correspondents don't die. At least they don't set out with that +intention."</p> + +<p>"You <i>will</i> die," she said slowly; "because everything I care for does."</p> + +<p>"Why care," he said, "for things that are so bent on dying?"</p> + +<p>"I care—because they die."</p> + +<p>Her cry was the very voice of mortality and mortality's desire. Having +uttered it she seemed suddenly aware of what she had done.</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I tell you that I care for you? What does it matter? That +ends it."</p> + +<p>She rose.</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, "I've broken all the rules. A woman shouldn't come +and tell a man she cares for him."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said simply.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, I don't know why not. I only know that I'm so much more +like a man than a woman that the rules for women don't apply. Why +shouldn't I tell you? You know it—as God knows it."</p> + +<p>"I know it as a man knows it. I told you I'd been there."</p> + +<p>"Owen—shall I ever be where you are now?"</p> + +<p>"I had to die first. I told you my youth was dead. That, Nina, was what +you cared for."</p> + +<p>It was not. Yet she yearned for it—his youth that was made to love her, +his youth that returning, a dim ghost, followed her and loved her still.</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "it isn't only that."</p> + +<p>She paused in her going and knelt down by his half-packed portmanteau. +With her free left hand she lifted up, folded and laid smooth the new +suit he had flung in and crushed. Her back was now towards him and the +door he was about to open.</p> + +<p>"Owen," she said, "since I'm breaking all the rules, why can't I go out, +too, and look after you?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "It's not the place for women," he said.</p> + +<p>"Women? Haven't I told you that I'm like a man? I'm like you, Owen, if +it comes to that."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "If you were like me, you'd stay at home."</p> + +<p>"What should I stay for?"</p> + +<p>"To look after Laura Gunning. That's what you'd want to do, if you +were—I. And," he said quietly, "it's what you're going to do."</p> + +<p>She rose to her feet and faced him, defying the will that he laid on +her.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs06" id="gs06"></a> +<img src="images/gs06.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>She had wrung it from him, the thing that six days ago he had come to her to say</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"How do you know? And why should I?"</p> + +<p>"Because there's nothing else that you can do for me."</p> + +<p>She had wrung it from him, the thing that six days ago he had come to +her to say.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>XXIX</h2> + + +<p>That was a solid, practical idea of Brodrick's. All that he had heard of +Owen Prothero connected him securely with foreign countries. By the fact +that he had served in South Africa, to say nothing of his years in the +Indian Medical Service, he was pointed out as the right man to send to +the Russian army in Manchuria; add to this the gift of writing and your +War Correspondent was complete. It was further obvious that Prothero +could not possibly exist in England on his poems.</p> + +<p>At the same time Brodrick was aware that he had reasons for desiring to +get the long, ugly poet out of England as soon as possible. His length +and his ugliness had not deterred Jane Holland from taking a +considerable interest in him. Brodrick's reasons made him feel extremely +uncomfortable in offering such a dangerous post as War Correspondent to +young Prothero. Therefore when it came to Prothero's accepting it, he +did his best to withdraw the offer. It wasn't exactly an offer. He had +merely mentioned it as a possible opening, a suggestion in the last +resort. He pointed out to Prothero the dangers and the risks, among them +damage to his trade as a poet. Poets were too precious. There were, he +said, heaps of other men.</p> + +<p>But Prothero had leaped at it; he had implored Brodrick not to put +another man in; and the more he leaped and implored the more Brodrick +tried to keep him off it.</p> + +<p>But you couldn't keep him off. He was mad, apparently, with the sheer +lust of danger. He <i>would</i> go. "If you do," Brodrick had said finally, +"you go at your own risk."</p> + +<p>And he had gone, leaving the editor profoundly uncomfortable. Brodrick, +in these days, found himself reiterating, "He <i>would</i> go, he <i>would</i> +go." And all the time he felt that he had sent the poor long poet to his +death, because of Jane Holland.</p> + +<p>He saw a great deal of Jane Holland in the weeks that followed +Prothero's departure.</p> + +<p>They had reached the first month of autumn, and Jane was sitting out on +the lawn in Brodrick's garden. The slender, new-born body of Prothero's +Poems lay in her lap. Eddy Heron stretched himself at her feet. Winny +hung over her shoulder. Every now and then the child swept back her long +hair that brushed Jane's face, in the excitement of her efforts to see +what, as she phrased it, Mr. Prothero had done. Opposite them Mrs. Heron +and Gertrude Collett sat quietly sewing.</p> + +<p>Eddy, who loved to tease his mother, was talking about Jane as if she +wasn't there.</p> + +<p>"I say, Mummy, don't you like her awfully?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I like her," said Mrs. Heron, smiling at her son.</p> + +<p>"Why do you like me?" said Jane, whose vision of Owen Prothero was again +obscured by Winny's hair.</p> + +<p>"Why do we like anybody?" said Mrs. Heron, with her inassailable +reserve.</p> + +<p>"You can't get out of it that way, Mum. You don't just go liking +anybody. You like jolly few. We're an awful family for not liking +people. Aren't we, Gee-Gee?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it," said Miss Collett.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but Gee-Gee's thinking of Uncle Hugh," said Winny.</p> + +<p>Miss Collett's face stiffened. She <i>was</i> thinking of him.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Hugh? Why, he's worse than any of us. With +women—ladies—anyhow."</p> + +<p>"Eddy, dear!" said Eddy's mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, have you ever seen a lady Uncle Hugh could really stand—except +Miss Holland?"</p> + +<p>Gertrude bent so low over her work that her face was hidden.</p> + +<p>"I say! look at that kid. Can't you take your hair out of Miss Holland's +face? She doesn't want your horrid hair."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," said Jane. She was grateful for the veil of Winny's hair.</p> + +<p>They had not arrived suddenly, the five of them, at this intimacy. It +had developed during the last fortnight, which Jane, fulfilling a +promise, had spent with Dr. Brodrick and Mrs. Heron.</p> + +<p>Jane had been ill, and Brodrick had brought her to his brother's house +to recover. Dr. Henry had been profoundly interested in her case. So had +his sister, Mrs. Heron, and Mr. John Brodrick and Mrs. John, and Sophy +Levine and Gertrude Collett, and Winny and Eddy Heron.</p> + +<p>Since the day when they had first received her, the Brodricks had +established a regular cult of Jane Holland. It had become the prescribed +event for Jane to spend every possible Sunday at Putney Heath with the +editor of the "Monthly Review." Her friendship with his family had +advanced from Sunday to Sunday by slow, well-ordered steps. Jane had no +illusions as to its foundation. She knew that Brodrick's family had +begun by regarding her as part of Brodrick's property, the most +eligible, the most valuable part. It was interested in contemporary +talent merely as a thing in which Brodrick had a stake. It had hardly +been aware of Jane Holland previous to her appearance in the "Monthly +Review." After that it had been obliged to recognize her as a power +propitious to the editor's ambition and his dream. For though his family +regarded the editor of the "Monthly Review" as a dreamer, a fantastic +dreamer, it was glad to think that a Brodrick should have ambition, +still more to think that it could afford a dream. They had always +insisted upon that, there being no end to the things a Brodrick could +afford. They had identified Jane Holland with his dream and his +ambition, and were glad again to think that he could afford her. As for +her dreadful, her conspicuous celebrity, the uncomfortably staring fact +that she was Jane Holland, Jane was aware that it struck them chiefly as +reflecting splendour upon Brodrick. But she was aware that her unique +merit, her supreme claim, was that she had done a great thing for +Brodrick. On that account, if she had been the most obscure, the most +unremarkable Jane Holland, they would have felt it incumbent on them to +cherish her. They had incurred a grave personal obligation, and could +only meet it by that grave personal thing, friendship.</p> + +<p>How grave it was, Jane, who had gone into it so lightly, was only just +aware. This family had an immense capacity for disapproval; it was +awful, as Eddy had observed, for not liking people. It was bound, in its +formidable integrity, to disapprove of her. She had felt that she had +disarmed its criticism only by becoming ill and making it sorry for her.</p> + +<p>She had not been a week in Dr. Brodrick's house before she discovered +that these kind people had been sorry for her all the time. They were +sorry for her because she had to work hard, because she had no home and +no family visible about her. They refused to regard Nina and Laura as a +family, or the flat in Kensington Square as in any reasonable sense a +home. Jane could see that they were trying to make up to her for the +things that she had missed.</p> + +<p>And in being sorry for Jane Holland they had lost sight of her +celebrity. They had not referred to it since the day, three months ago, +when she had first come to them, a brilliant, distracting alien. They +were still a little perturbed by the brilliance and distraction, and it +was as an alien that she moved among them still.</p> + +<p>It was as an alien (she could see it plainly) that they were really +sorry for her. They seemed to agree with her in regarding her genius as +a thing tacked on to her, a thing disastrous, undesirable. They were +anxious to show her that its presence did not destroy for any of them +her personal charm. They betrayed their opinion that her charm existed +in spite rather than because of it.</p> + +<p>Thus, by this shedding of her celebrity, Jane in the houses of the +Brodricks had found peace. She was secure from all the destroyers, from +the clever little people, from everything that carried with it the +dreadful literary taint. Brodrick's family was divinely innocent of the +literary taint. The worst that could be said of Brodrick was that he +would have liked to have it; but, under his editorial surface, he was +clean.</p> + +<p>It was in Hugh Brodrick's house, that the immunity, the peace was most +profound. Hugh was not gregarious. Tanqueray could not have more +abhorred the social round. He had come near it, he had told her, in his +anxiety to know <i>her</i>, but his object attained, he had instantly dropped +out of it.</p> + +<p>She knew where she was with him. In their long, subdued confidences he +had given her the sense that she had become the dominant interest, the +most important fact in his social life. And that, again, not because of +her genius, but, he almost definitely intimated, because of some mystic +moral quality in her. He did not intimate that he found her charming. +Jane had still serious doubts as to her charm, and Brodrick's monstrous +sincerity would have left her to perish of her doubt. She would not have +had him different. It was because of <i>his</i> moral quality, his sincerity, +that she had liked him from the first.</p> + +<p>Most certainly she liked him. If she had not liked him she would not +have come out so often to Roehampton and Wimbledon and Putney. She could +not help but like him when he so liked her, and liked her, not for the +things that she had done for literature, not for the things she had done +for him, but for her own sake. That was what she had wanted, to be liked +for her own sake, to be allowed to be a woman.</p> + +<p>Unlike Tanqueray, Brodrick not only allowed her, he positively +encouraged her to be a woman. Evidently, in Brodrick's opinion she was +just like any other woman. He could see no difference between her and, +well, Gertrude Collett. Gertrude, Jane was sure, stood to Brodrick for +all that was most essentially and admirably feminine. Why he required so +much of Jane's presence when he could have Gertrude Collett's was more +than Jane could understand. She was still inclined to her conjecture +that he was using her to draw Miss Collett, playing her off against Miss +Collett, stinging Miss Collett to the desired frenzy by hanging that +admirable woman upon tenter-hooks. That was why Jane felt so safe with +him; because, she argued, he couldn't do it if he had not felt safe with +her. He was not in love with her. He was not even, like Tanqueray, in +love with her genius.</p> + +<p>If she had had the slightest doubt about his attitude, his behaviour on +the day of her arrival had made it stand out sharp and clear. She had +dined at Moor Grange, and Caro Bickersteth had been there. Caro had +insisted on dragging Jane's genius from its temporary oblivion, and +Brodrick had turned silent and sulky, positively sulky then.</p> + +<p>And in that mood he had remained for the two weeks that she had stayed +at Roehampton. He had betrayed none of the concern so evidently felt for +her by Eddy and Winny and Gertrude Collett and Mrs. Heron and the +doctor. They had all contended with each other in taking care of her, in +waiting on her hand and foot. But Brodrick, after bringing her there; +after, as she said, dumping her down, suddenly and heavily, on his +family, Brodrick had refused to compete; he had hung back; he had +withdrawn himself from the scene, maintaining his singular sulkiness and +silence.</p> + +<p>She forgave him, for of course he was disturbed about Gertrude Collett. +If he wanted to marry Gertrude, why on earth couldn't he marry her and +have done with it? Jane thought.</p> + +<p>In order to think better she had closed her eyes. When she opened them +again she found Brodrick seated in an opposite chair, quietly regarding +her. She was alone with him. The others had all gone.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't asleep," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose you were," said Brodrick; "if you were reading +Prothero."</p> + +<p>Brodrick's conscience was beginning to hurt him rather badly. There were +moments when he connected Jane's illness with Prothero's departure. He, +therefore, by sending Prothero away, was responsible for her illness.</p> + +<p>"If you want to read," he said, "I'll go."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to read. I want to talk."</p> + +<p>"About Prothero?"</p> + +<p>"No, not about Mr. Prothero. About that serial——"</p> + +<p>"What serial?"</p> + +<p>"My serial. Your serial," said she.</p> + +<p>Brodrick said he wasn't going to talk shop on Sunday. He wanted to +forget that there were such things as serials.</p> + +<p>"I wish <i>I</i> could forget," said she.</p> + +<p>She checked the impulse that was urging her to say, "You really ought to +marry Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"I wish you could," he retorted, with some bitterness.</p> + +<p>"How can I?" she replied placably, "when it was the foundation of our +delightful friendship?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick said it had nothing whatever to do with their friendship.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Jane, "if it wasn't that it was Hambleby."</p> + +<p>At that Brodrick frowned so formidably that Jane could have cried out, +"For goodness' sake go and marry her and leave off venting your bad +temper upon me."</p> + +<p>"It had to be something," said she. "Why shouldn't it be Hambleby? By +the way, George Tanqueray was perfectly right. I was in love with him. I +mean, of course, with Hambleby."</p> + +<p>"You seem," said Brodrick, "to be in love with him still, as far as I +can make out."</p> + +<p>"That's why," said Jane, "I can't help feeling that there's something +wrong with him. George says you never really know the people you're in +love with."</p> + +<p>There was a gleam of interest now in Brodrick's face. He was evidently, +Jane thought, applying Tanqueray's aphorism to Gertrude.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't make any difference," he said.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought," said she, "it would have made <i>some</i>."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't. If anything, you know them rather better."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said she, "it makes <i>that</i> difference, does it?"</p> + +<p>Again she thought of Gertrude. "I wonder," she said pensively, "if you +really know."</p> + +<p>"At any rate I know as much as Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"Do I bore you with Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"You don't deny his genius?"</p> + +<p>"I don't deny anybody's genius," said Brodrick furiously.</p> + +<p>Jane looked at him.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's nice of you," said she, "to talk that way to me when +I've been so ill."</p> + +<p>"You've no right to be ill," said Brodrick, with undiminished rancour.</p> + +<p>"I have," said Jane. "A perfect right. I can be as ill as ever I +please."</p> + +<p>She looked at him again and caught him smiling surreptitiously under his +heavy gloom.</p> + +<p>"I mean," he said, "you needn't be. You wouldn't be if you didn't work +so hard."</p> + +<p>She crumpled her eyelids like one who fails to see.</p> + +<p>"If I didn't what?"</p> + +<p>"Work so hard."</p> + +<p>He really wanted to know whether it was that or Prothero. First it had +been Tanqueray, and she had got over Tanqueray. Now he could only +suppose that it was Prothero. He would have to wait until she had got +over Prothero.</p> + +<p>"I like that," said she, "when it's your serial I'm working on."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me," said Brodrick, "that it's that?"</p> + +<p>"I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't let me talk about it. Not +that I wanted to talk about it when the bare idea of it terrifies me. +It's awful to have it hanging over me like this."</p> + +<p>"Forget it. Forget it," he said.</p> + +<p>"I can't. I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Afraid of what?"</p> + +<p>"Of not being able to finish it—of letting you down."</p> + +<p>He turned and looked at her intently.</p> + +<p>"That's why you've been killing yourself, is it?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know. I didn't think," he said. "You should have told me."</p> + +<p>"It's my fault. I ought to have known. I ought never to have tried."</p> + +<p>"Why did you?" His sulkiness, his ferocity, was gone now; he was +gentleness itself.</p> + +<p>"Because I wanted to please you."</p> + +<p>There was an inarticulate murmur from Brodrick, a happy sound.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you shan't go on."</p> + +<p>"But what can we do?"</p> + +<p>"We'll do something. There are plenty of things that can be done."</p> + +<p>"But—there's the magazine."</p> + +<p>"I don't care," said the editor, "if the abominable thing goes smash."</p> + +<p>"What? You can contemplate it's going smash?"</p> + +<p>"I can't contemplate your being worried like this."</p> + +<p>"It's people that worry me," she said—"if I only could have peace!"</p> + +<p>She sketched for him as she had sketched for Tanqueray the horrors +brought on her by her celebrity.</p> + +<p>"That's London," he said, as Tanqueray had said. "You should live out of +it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing comes to me in the country."</p> + +<p>He pondered a long time upon that saying.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't call this country, would you?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear me, no."</p> + +<p>"Well—what would you think of Putney or Wimbledon as a compromise?"</p> + +<p>"There can't be any compromise."</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's what we all have to come to."</p> + +<p>"Not I. I can only write if I'm boxed up in my funny little square, with +the ash-trees weeping away in the middle."</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder," said Brodrick, "that they weep."</p> + +<p>"You think it's so terrible?"</p> + +<p>"Quite terrible."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "Do you remember how you came to see me there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And how you took me for the man come to tune the piano."</p> + +<p>He smiled, remembering it. A bell rang, summoning them, and he took no +notice. He smiled again; and suddenly a great shyness and a terror +overcame her.</p> + +<p>"Don't you really think," said he, "that this sort of thing is nicer?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, incomparably nicer. But isn't it getting rather cold?"</p> + +<p>His face darkened. "Do you want to go in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>They rose and went together into the house.</p> + +<p>In the hall, through the open door of the drawing-room, she could see +the table laid for tea, and Gertrude sitting at it by herself, waiting +for them. His sister and the children had gone. Somehow she knew that he +had made them go. They would come back, he explained, with the carriage +that was to take her to the station, and they would say good-bye to her +before she went.</p> + +<p>He evaded the drawing-room door and led the way into his library; and +she knew that he meant to have the last hour with her alone.</p> + +<p>She paused on the threshold. She knew that if she followed him she would +never get away.</p> + +<p>"Aren't we going," said she, "to have tea with Miss Collett?"</p> + +<p>"Would you rather?"</p> + +<p>"Much rather," said she.</p> + +<p>"Very well, just as you like," he said stiffly.</p> + +<p>He was annoyed again. All through tea-time he sulked, while Jane +sustained a difficult conversation with Miss Collett.</p> + +<p>Miss Collett had lost much of her beautiful serenity. She was still a +charming hostess, but there was a palpable effort about her charm. She +looked as if she were beginning to suffer from the strain of Brodrick in +his present mood.</p> + +<p>What Brodrick's mood was, or was beginning to be, Jane could no longer +profess to be unaware. While she talked thin talk to Gertrude about the +superiority of Putney Heath to Wimbledon Park, and of Brodrick's house +to the houses of the other Brodricks, she was thinking, "This woman was +happy in his house before I came. He would have been happy with her if +I hadn't come. It would be kinder of me if I were to keep out of it, and +let her have her chance."</p> + +<p>And when she had said good-bye to Mrs. Heron and the children, and found +herself in the doctor's brougham, shut up all alone with Brodrick, she +said to herself that it was for the last time. When she let him take her +back to Kensington Square, when she let him sit with her there for ten +minutes in the half-darkness, she said to herself that it was for the +last time. And when he rose suddenly, almost violently, for departure, +she knew it was for the last time.</p> + +<p>"It was good of you," she said, "to bring me home."</p> + +<p>"Do you call <i>this</i> a home?" said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's all I want."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" he said savagely, and left her.</p> + +<p>He was intensely disagreeable; but that also, she told herself, was for +the last time.</p> + +<p>As long as Brodrick was there she could listen to the voice inside her, +murmuring incessantly of last times, and ordering her to keep out of it +and let the poor woman have her chance.</p> + +<p>But when he was gone another voice, that was there too, told her that +she could not keep out of it. She was being drawn in again, into the +toils of life. When it had seemed to her that she drew, she was being +drawn. She was drawn by all the things that she had cut herself off +from, by holding hands, and searching eyes, and unforgotten +tendernesses. In the half-darkness of her room the faces she had been +living with were all about her. She felt again the brushing of Winny's +hair over her cheek. She heard Winny's mother saying that she liked her. +She saw Brodrick sitting opposite her, and the look with which he had +watched her when he thought she was asleep.</p> + +<p>And when the inward admonitory voice reiterated, "Don't be drawn," the +other answered, "Whether I'm out of it or in it the poor woman hasn't +got a chance."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>XXX</h2> + + +<p>It had not occurred to Gertrude that she had a chance. To have +calculated chances would have seemed to her the last profanity, so +consecrated was her attitude to Brodrick and to all that was Brodrick's. +Her chance was, and it always had been, the chance of serving him. She +had it. What more, she said to herself, could a woman want?</p> + +<p>The peace she had folded round Brodrick wrapped her too. In the quiet +hours, measured by the silver-chiming clock, nothing had happened to +disturb her beautiful serenity. It was by the cultivation of a beautiful +serenity that she had hoped to strengthen her appeal to Brodrick and her +position in his house. In the beginning that position had been so +fragile and infirm that she had had then no trust in its continuance. +Three years ago she had come to him, understanding that she was not to +stay. She was a far removed, impoverished cousin of Mrs. John +Brodrick's. Hence her claim. They had stretched the point of cousinship +to shelter the proprieties so sacred to every Brodrick. He had not +wanted her. He preferred a housekeeper who was not a lady, who would not +have to be, as he expressed it, all over the place. But he was sorry for +the impoverished lady and he had let her come. Then his sister Sophy had +urged him to keep her on until he married. Sophy meant until he married +the lady she intended him to marry. He had not married that lady nor any +other; he was not going to marry at all, he told them. But he had kept +Gertrude on.</p> + +<p>He had said at the time that he didn't think she would do, but he would +try her. He regarded Gertrude with the suspicion a Brodrick invariably +entertained for any idea that was not conspicuously his own. But +Gertrude had managed, with considerable adroitness, to convince him that +she was, after all, his own idea. And when Sophy Levine triumphed, as a +Brodrick invariably did triumph, in the proved perfection of her scheme, +he said, Yes, Miss Collett was all right, now that he had trained her. +If he approved of Miss Collett it was because she was no longer +recognizable as the Miss Collett they had so preposterously thrust on +him. He could not have stood her if she had been.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was right. Gertrude was not the same woman. She did not even +look the same. She had come to Moor Grange lean, scared, utterly +pathetic, with a mouth that drooped. So starved of all delight and of +all possession was Gertrude that she flushed with pleasure when she +heard that she was to have for her very own the little north room where +the telephone was now. There was such pathos in her meek withdrawal into +that little north room, that Brodrick hadn't the heart to keep her in +it. The drawing-room, he had intimated, also might be hers, when (it was +understood rather than stated) he wasn't there himself.</p> + +<p>By that time he no longer objected to Gertrude's being all over the +place. Brodrick, though he did not know it and his sisters did, was the +sort of man who could not be happy without a woman to look after him. +Silently, almost furtively, Gertrude made herself indispensable to him. +She knew what he wanted before he knew it himself, and was on the spot +to supply it. Thus, watching the awful increase of Brodrick's +correspondence, as the editor grew great, she was prepared for the +coming of a secretary and had forestalled it.</p> + +<p>She had kept herself prepared for the coming of a wife, a mistress of +Brodrick's house, and by making Brodrick supremely comfortable she had +managed to forestall that too. His secretary had become the companion +that his housekeeper could not hope to be. Hitherto he had kept Gertrude +Collett out of his library as far as possible. Now her intrusion had the +consecration of business, and it was even permissible for Gertrude to +spend long hours with him in the sanctuary. Brodrick invariably +breakfasted alone. This habit and his deadly and perpetual dining out, +had been a barrier to all intimacy. But now a large part of his work on +the "Monthly Review" could be done at home in the evenings, so that the +editor had less time for dining out. And latterly he had taken to +coming home early in the afternoons, when he rather liked to have +Gertrude in the drawing-room pouring out tea for him. She filled the +place of something that he missed, that he was as yet hardly aware of +missing. It seemed to him that he had got used to Gertrude.</p> + +<p>He could not think what life would be like without Gertrude, any more +than he could think what it would be like with her in a closer and more +intimate relation. For none of them had ever suggested that he should +marry Gertrude. No Brodrick would have dreamed of marrying his +housekeeper. Gertrude would not have dreamed of it herself.</p> + +<p>And yet she dreamed. But her dream was of continuance in the silent, +veiled adventure, the mystery and religion of her service. Service to +Brodrick, perpetual, unwearying service, constituted to her mind the +perfect tie. It was the purity of it that she counted as perfection. She +desired nothing further than her present surrender to the incorruptible, +inassailable passion of service. Whenever, in her dream, she touched the +perilous edges of devotion, Gertrude had pulled herself back. She had +told herself that she was there for nothing in the world but to save +Brodrick, to save him trouble, to save him worry, to save him expense; +to save and save and save. That was really what it came to when she +saved him from having to keep a secretary.</p> + +<p>For Gertrude lived and moved and had her sentimental being in Brodrick. +Thus she had laboured at her own destruction. So preoccupied was she +with the thought of Brodrick that her trouble, travelling along secret +paths of the nerves and brain, had subtly, insensibly communicated +itself to him. He grew restless in that atmosphere of unrest. If +Gertrude could have kept, inwardly, her visible beautiful serenity, +Brodrick, beguiled by the peace she wrapped him in, might have remained +indefinitely quiescent. But he had become the centre of a hundred +influences, wandering spirits of Gertrude's brain. Irresistibly urging, +intangibly irritating, perpetually suggesting, they had prepared him for +the dominion of Jane Holland. But Gertrude was not aware of this. Her +state, which had begun within a few months of her arrival, remained for +three years a secret to herself. She was before all things a +sentimentalist, and she had the sentimentalist's monstrous innocence and +boundless capacity for illusion. She shuddered in the grip of mortal +renunciation, and called her state holy, when adoration and desire were +fused in a burning beatitude at the approach of Brodrick. In her three +years' innocence she continued unaware that her emotions had any root in +flesh and blood; and Brodrick was not the man to enlighten her. His +attitude was such as to nourish and perpetuate her beautiful serenity.</p> + +<p>It was with the coming of Jane Holland that disturbance had begun; a +trouble so mysterious and profound that, if her conscience probed it, +the seat of it remained hidden from the probe. She thought, in her +innocence, that she was going to have an illness; but it had not struck +her that her symptoms were aggravated by Miss Holland's presence and +became intense to excruciation in those hours when she knew that +Brodrick and Miss Holland were off together somewhere, and alone. She +sickened at the thought, and was unaware that she was sick. This +unconsciousness of hers was fostered by all the conventions of her +world, a world that veils itself decorously in the presence of the +unveiled; and she was further helped by her own anxiety to preserve the +perfect attitude, to do the perfect thing.</p> + +<p>She was not even aware that she disliked Miss Holland. What she felt was +rather a nameless, inexplicable fascination, a charm that fed morbidly +on Jane's presence, and, in its strange workings, afflicted her with a +perversion of interest and desire in all that concerned Miss Holland. +Thus she found herself positively looking forward to Miss Holland's +coming, actually absorbed in thinking of her, wondering where she was, +and what she was doing when she was not there.</p> + +<p>It ended in wonder; for Brodrick was the only person who could have +informed her, and he had grown curiously reticent on the subject of Jane +Holland. He would say that she was coming, or that she was not coming, +on such or such a day. That was all. Her coming on some day or the other +was a thing that Gertrude had now to take for granted. She tried to +discuss it eagerly with Brodrick; she dwelt on it with almost +affectionate solicitude; you would have said that Brodrick could not +have desired it more than she did.</p> + +<p>In the last two weeks Gertrude found something ominous in Brodrick's +silence and sulkiness. And on this Sunday, the day of Jane's departure, +she was no longer able to ignore their significance. Very soon he would +come to her and tell her that he did not want her; that she must go; +that she must make room for Miss Holland.</p> + +<p>That night, after Brodrick had returned from taking Jane Holland home, +his secretary came to him in the library. She found him standing by the +writing-table, looking intently at something which he held in his hand, +something which, as Gertrude appeared to him, he thrust hastily into a +drawer.</p> + +<p>"May I speak to you a moment?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>He turned, patient and polite, prepared to deal, as he had dealt before, +with some illusory embarrassment of Gertrude's.</p> + +<p>"You are not pleased with me," she said, forcing the naked statement +through hard lips straight drawn.</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Your manner has been different."</p> + +<p>"Then what you mean is that you are not pleased with my manner. My +manner is unfortunate."</p> + +<p>He was almost oppressively patient and polite.</p> + +<p>"Would it not be better," she said, "for me to go?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. Unless you want to."</p> + +<p>"I don't say that I want to. I say it might be better."</p> + +<p>Still, with laborious, weary patience, he protested. He was entirely, +absolutely satisfied. He had never dreamed of her going. The idea was +preposterous, and it was her own idea, not his.</p> + +<p>She looked at him steadily, with eyes prepared to draw truth from him by +torture.</p> + +<p>"And there is no reason?" she said. "You can think of no reason why it +would be better for me to go?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated a perceptible instant before he answered her.</p> + +<p>"There is no reason," he said; and having said it, he left the room.</p> + +<p>He had paused to gather patience in exasperation. Gertrude interpreted +the pause as the impressive stop before the final, irrevocable decision; +a decision favourable to her continuance.</p> + +<p>She was not appeased by it. Her anxiety rather had taken shape, +resolving itself into a dreadful suspicion as to the relations between +Brodrick and Miss Holland.</p> + +<p>He was not thinking of marrying Miss Holland. But there was something +between them, something which by no means necessitated her own +departure, which indeed rendered superfluous any change in the +arrangements she had made so perfect. It was not likely that Brodrick, +at his age, should desire to change them. He might be in love with Jane +Holland. He was wedded to order and tranquillity and peace. And she +never would be. There was wild, queer blood in her. Her writings proved +her lawless, defiant, contemptuous of propriety. She had, no doubt, +claimed the right of genius to make its own rules.</p> + +<p>Gertrude's brain, which had been passive to the situation, now worked +with uncontrolled activity. She found herself arguing it out. If it were +so, whatever was, or had been, or would be between them, it was +transitory. It would run its course and period, and she would remain, +and he would return to her. She had only to wait and serve; to serve and +wait. It seemed to her then that her passion rose above theirs, white +with renunciation, a winged prayer, a bloodless, bodiless longing, +subtler than desire, sounding a poignant spiritual cry.</p> + +<p>And all the time she knew that her suspicion was not justified. Jane +Holland was honest; and as for him, she was not even sure that he cared +for her.</p> + +<p>Every instinct in her was now subdued to the craving to be sure, to know +how far the two were going or had gone. Whatever was between them, it +was something that Brodrick desired to conceal, to thrust out of her +sight, as he had thrust the thing he had held in his hand.</p> + +<p>Up-stairs overhead, she heard the door of his room opening and +shutting. She saw the light from his windows lengthening on the gravel +path outside. He was not coming back.</p> + +<p>She opened the drawer where she divined that it lurked hidden, the thing +that was the sign and symbol of their secret. She found lying there, +face downwards, a portrait of Jane Holland, a photograph of the painting +by Gisborne. She took it in her hand and looked at the queer, +half-plain, half-beautiful, wholly fascinating face; and it was as if +she looked for the first time on the face of her own passion, dully, +stupidly, not knowing it for the thing it was. She had a sudden vision +of their passion, Jane's and Brodrick's, as it would be; she saw the +transitory, incarnate thing, flushed in the splendour of its moment, +triumphant, exultant and alive.</p> + +<p>She laid the portrait in its drawer again, face downwards, and turned +from it. And for a moment she stood there, clutching her breasts with +her hands, so that she hurt them, giving pain for intolerable pain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>XXXI</h2> + + +<p>Now that the thing she was afraid of had become a fact, she told herself +that she might have known, that she had known it all the time. As she +faced it she realized how terribly afraid she had been. She had had +foreknowledge of it from the moment when Jane Holland came first into +Brodrick's house.</p> + +<p>She maintained her policy of silence. It helped her, as if she felt +that, by ignoring this thing, by refusing to talk about it, by not +admitting that anything so preposterous could be, it did somehow cease +to be.</p> + +<p>She would have been glad if Brodrick's family could have remained +unaware of the situation. But Brodrick's family, by the sheer instinct +of self-preservation, was awake to everything that concerned it.</p> + +<p>Every Brodrick, once he had passed the privileged years of his minority, +knew that grave things were expected of him. It was expected of him, +first of all, that he should marry; and that, not with the levity of +infatuation, but soberly and seriously, for the good and for the +preservation of the race of Brodricks in its perfection. As it happened, +in the present generation of Brodricks, not one of them had done what +was expected of them, except Sophy. John had fallen in love with a +fragile, distinguished lady, and had incontinently married her; and she +had borne him no children. Henry, who should have known better, had +fallen in love with a lady so excessively fragile that she had died +before he could marry her at all. And because of his love for her he had +remained unmarried. Frances had set her heart on a rascal who had left +her for the governess. And now Hugh, with his Jane Holland, bid fair to +be similarly perverse.</p> + +<p>For every Brodrick took, not delight, so much as a serious and sober +satisfaction, in the thought that he disappointed expectation. Each one +believed himself the creature of a solitary and majestic law. His +actions defied prediction. He felt it as an impertinence that anybody, +even a Brodrick, should presume to conjecture how a Brodrick would, in +any given circumstances, behave. He held it a special prerogative of +Brodricks, this capacity for accomplishing the unforeseen. Nobody was +surprised when the unforeseen happened; for this family made it a point +of honour never to be surprised. The performances of other people, +however astounding, however eccentric, appeared to a Brodrick as the +facilely calculable working of a law from which a Brodrick was exempt. +Whatever another person did, it was always what some Brodrick had +expected him to do. Even when Frances's husband ran away with the +governess and broke the heart Frances had set on him, it was only what +John and Henry and Sophy and Hugh had known would happen if she married +him. If it hadn't happened to a Brodrick, they would hardly have blamed +Heron for his iniquity; it was so inherent in him and predestined.</p> + +<p>So, when it seemed likely that Hugh would marry Jane Holland, the +Brodricks were careful to conceal from each other that they were +unprepared for this event. They discussed it casually, and with less +emotion than they had given to the wild project of the magazine.</p> + +<p>It was on a Sunday evening at the John Brodricks', shortly after Jane +had left Putney.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me," said John who began it, "that one way or another Hugh +is seeing a great deal of Miss Holland."</p> + +<p>"My dear John, why shouldn't he?" said Frances Heron.</p> + +<p>"I'm not saying that he shouldn't. I'm saying that one way or another, +he does."</p> + +<p>"He has to see her on business," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"<i>Does</i> he see her on business?" inquired John.</p> + +<p>"He says he does," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said the Doctor, "he'd <i>say</i> he did."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Sophy, "does he say anything at all? That's the suspicious +circumstance, to my mind."</p> + +<p>"He's evidently aware," said the Doctor, "that something wants +explaining."</p> + +<p>"So it does," said Sophy; "when Hugh takes to seeing any woman more than +once in five months."</p> + +<p>"But she's the last woman he'd think of," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"It's the last woman a man thinks of that he generally ends by +marrying," said John.</p> + +<p>"If he'd only think of her," said the Doctor, "he'd be safe enough."</p> + +<p>"I know. It's his not thinking," said John; "it's his dashing into it +with his eyes shut."</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said Frances, "we'd better open his eyes?"</p> + +<p>"If you do that," said Levine, "he'll marry her to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the Doctor; "much better encourage him, give him his head."</p> + +<p>"And fling her at it?" suggested Sophy.</p> + +<p>"Well, certainly, if we don't want it to happen, we'd better assume that +it will happen."</p> + +<p>"Supposing," said Frances presently, "it did happen—what then?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Frances, it would be most undesirable," said John.</p> + +<p>"By all means," said Levine, "let us take the worst for granted. Then +possibly he'll think better of it."</p> + +<p>The family, therefore, adopted its characteristic policy of assuming +Hugh's intentions to be obvious, of refusing to be surprised or even +greatly interested.</p> + +<p>Only the Doctor, watching quietly, waited for his moment. It came the +next evening when he dropped in to dine with Hugh. He turned the +conversation upon Jane Holland, upon her illness, upon its cause and her +recovery.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be surprised," said he, "if some time or other she was to +have a bad nervous break-down."</p> + +<p>Hugh laughed. "My dear Henry, you wouldn't be surprised if everybody had +a bad nervous break-down. It's what you're always expecting them to +have."</p> + +<p>Henry said he <i>did</i> expect it in women of Miss Holland's physique, who +habitually over-drive their brains beyond the power of their body. He +became excessively professional as he delivered himself on this head.</p> + +<p>It was his subject. He was permitted to enlarge upon it from time to +time, and Hugh was not in the least surprised at his entering on it now. +It was what he had expected of Henry, and he said so.</p> + +<p>Henry looked steadily at his brother.</p> + +<p>"I have had her," said he, "under very close observation."</p> + +<p>"So have I," said Hugh. "You forget that she is an exceptional woman."</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I think her so very exceptional as to be quite +abnormal. Geniuses generally are."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. For a woman to live absolutely alone, as she does, and +thrive on it, and turn out the work she does—It's a pretty fair test of +sanity."</p> + +<p>"That she should have chosen to do so is itself abnormal."</p> + +<p>"It's not a joyous or a desirable life for her, if that's what you +mean," said Hugh.</p> + +<p>But that was not what the Doctor meant, and he judged it discreet to +drop the discussion at that point.</p> + +<p>And, as for several weeks he saw and heard no more of Miss Holland, he +judged that Hugh had begun to think, and that he had thought better of +it.</p> + +<p>For the Doctor knew what he was talking about. When a Brodrick meant to +marry, he did not lose his head about a woman, he married sanely, +soberly and decorously, for the sake of children. It was so that their +father had married. It was so that John—well, John had been a little +unfortunate. It was so that he, the Doctor——</p> + +<p>He stopped short in his reflections, remembering how it was that he had +remained unmarried. Like every other Brodrick he had reserved for +himself the privilege of the unexpected line.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>XXXII</h2> + + +<p>Every year, about the middle of August, Brodrick's family dispersed for +the summer holidays. Every year, about the middle of September, its +return was celebrated at a garden-party given by the Levines.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's brother-in-law lived with an extreme simplicity in one of +those square white houses in St. John's Wood, houses secluded behind +high, mysterious walls, where you entered, as by secret, through a +narrow door.</p> + +<p>The party had streamed through this door, over the flagged path and +through the house, into the small, dark, green garden at the back, a +garden that seemed to guard, like the house, its secret and its mystery. +There, on this yearly festival, you were certain to find all the +Brodricks, packed rather tight among a crowd of Levines and their +collaterals from Fitzjohn's Avenue, a crowd of very dark, very +large-eyed, very curly-haired persons, persons attired with sobriety, +almost with austerity, by way of protest against the notorious excesses +of their race.</p> + +<p>And with them there was always, on this occasion, a troop of little boys +and girls, dark, solemn-eyed little boys and girls, with incredibly +curly hair, and strange, unchildlike noses.</p> + +<p>Moving restlessly among them, or grouped apart, you came upon friends of +the Brodricks and Levines, and here and there a few journalists, +conspicuously tired young men who toiled nocturnally on the "Morning +Telegraph."</p> + +<p>This year it was understood that the party would be brilliant. The young +men turned up in large numbers and endeavoured to look for the occasion +a little less tired than they were. All the great writers on the +"Monthly Review" had been invited and many of them came.</p> + +<p>Caro Bickersteth was there; she came early, and Sophy Levine, in a +discreet aside, implored her to give her a hand with the authors. +Authors, Sophy intimated, were too much for her, and there would be a +lot of them. There was Miss Lempriere and Miss Gunning, and Jane +Holland, of course——</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Caro, twinkling.</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>At that name Caro raised her eyebrows and remarked that Sophy was a +lucky lady to get Him, for He never went anywhere. Then Caro became +abstracted, wondering why George Tanqueray was coming, and to this +particular show.</p> + +<p>"Will his wife be here?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Sophy, "I never asked her. You don't somehow think of +him as married."</p> + +<p>"I doubt," said Caro; "if he thinks so of himself. There never was a man +who looked it less."</p> + +<p>Most singularly unattached he looked, as he stood there, beside Nina +Lempriere and Laura Gunning, drawn to them, but taking hardly more +notice of them than of any Brodrick or Levine. He was watching Jinny as +she moved about in the party. She had arrived somewhat conspicuously, +attended by Brodrick, by Winny Heron and by Eddy, with the two elder +little Levines clinging to her gown.</p> + +<p>Jane was aware that Nina and Laura were observing her; she was aware of +a shade of anxiety in their concentration. Then she knew that Tanqueray +was there, too, that he was watching her, that his eyes never left her.</p> + +<p>He did not seek her out after their first greeting. He preferred to +stand aside and watch her. He had arrived later and he was staying late. +Jane felt that it would become her not to stay. But Brodrick would not +let her go. He took possession of her. He paraded her as his possession +under Tanqueray's eyes; eyes that were fixed always upon Jane, +vigilantly, anxiously, as if he saw her caught in the toils.</p> + +<p>An hour passed. The party dwindled and dissolved around them. The +strangers were gone. The hordes of Levines had scattered to their houses +in Fitzjohn's Avenue. The little Levines had been gathered away by their +nurses from the scene. Only Brodrick and his family remained, and Jane +with them, and Tanqueray who kept on looking at the two while he talked +vaguely to Levine.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's family was not less interested or less observant. It had +accepted without surprise what it now recognized as inevitable. It could +no longer hope that Hugh would cease from his insane pursuit of Jane +Holland, after making the thing thus public, flourishing his intentions +in the face of his family. With a dexterity in man[oe]uvre, an audacity, +an obstinacy that was all his own, Hugh had resisted every attempt to +separate him from Miss Holland. He only let go his hold when Sophy +Levine, approaching with an admirable air of innocence in guile, +announced that Baby was being put to bed. She suggested that Jane might +like to see him in his—well, in his perfection. It was impossible, +Sophy maintained, for anybody not to desire above all things to see him.</p> + +<p>Up-stairs in the nursery, Winny and Mrs. Heron were worshipping Baby as +he lay on the nurse's lap, in his perfection, naked from his bath. Sophy +could not wait till he was given up to her. She seized him, in the +impatience of maternal passion. She bent over him, hiding her face with +his soft body.</p> + +<p>Presently her eyes, Sophy's beautiful, loving eyes, looked up at Jane +over the child's shoulder, and their gaze had guile as well as love in +it. Jane stood before it motionless, impassive, impenetrable.</p> + +<p>Winny fell on her knees in a rapture.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Holland!" she cried. "Don't you love him?"</p> + +<p>Jane admitted that she rather liked him.</p> + +<p>"She's a wretch," said Sophy. "Baby duckums, she says she rather likes +you."</p> + +<p>Baby chuckled as if he appreciated the absurdity of Jane's moderation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you want," said Winny, "don't you want to kiss his little +feet? Wouldn't you love to have him for your very own?"</p> + +<p>"No, Winny, I shouldn't know what to do with him."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you?" said Mrs. Heron.</p> + +<p>"Feel," said Winny, "how soft he is. He's got teeny, teeny hairs, like +down, golden down, just there, on his little back."</p> + +<p>Jane stooped and stroked the golden down. And at the touch of the +child's body, a fine pain ran from her finger-tips to her heart, and she +drew back, as one who feels, for the first time, the touch of life, +terrible and tender.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jane," said Sophy, "what are you made of?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder——" said Mrs. Heron.</p> + +<p>Jane knew that the eyes of the two women were on her, searching her, and +that Sophy's eyes were not altogether kind. She continued in her +impassivity, smiling a provoking and inscrutable smile.</p> + +<p>"She looks," said Sophy, "as if she knew a great deal. And she doesn't +know, Baby dear, she doesn't know anything at all."</p> + +<p>"Wait," said Mrs. Heron, "till she's got babies of her own. Then she'll +know."</p> + +<p>"I know now," said Jane calmly.</p> + +<p>"Not you," said Sophy almost fiercely, as she carried the little thing +away to his bed beside her own. Winny and the nurse followed her. Jane +was alone with Frances Heron.</p> + +<p>"No woman," said Frances, "knows anything till she's had a child."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you married women!"</p> + +<p>"Even a married woman. She doesn't know what her love for her husband is +until she's held his child at her breast. And she may be as stupid as +you please; but she knows more than you."</p> + +<p>"I know what she knows—I was born knowing. But if I were married, if I +had children, I should know nothing, nothing any more."</p> + +<p>Frances was silent.</p> + +<p>"They—they'd press up so close to me that I should see nothing—not +even them."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want them to press?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter what I want. It's what I see. And they wouldn't let +me see."</p> + +<p>"They'd make you feel," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"Feel? I should think they would. I should feel <i>them</i>, I should feel +for them, I should feel nothing else besides."</p> + +<p>"But," persisted Frances, "you would feel."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I don't?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>"Well, there are some things—I don't see how you can—without +experience."</p> + +<p>"Experience? Experience is no good—the experience you mean—if you're +an artist. It spoils you. It ties you hand and foot. It perverts you, +twists you, blinds you to everything but yourself and it. I know +women—artists—who have never got over their experience, women who'll +never do anything again because of it."</p> + +<p>"Then, my dear," said Frances, "you would say that geniuses would do +very much better not to marry?" Her voice was sweet, but there was a +light of sword-play in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I do say it—if they're thinking of their genius."</p> + +<p>"Would you say it to Hugh?"</p> + +<p>The thrust flashed sharp and straight.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said Jane, lightly parrying the thrust.</p> + +<p>Sophy appeared again at that moment and said good-bye. They held her at +parting with a gaze that still searched her and found her impenetrable. +Their very embrace dismissed her and disapproved.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray was waiting for her at the gate. He was going to see her home, +he said. He wanted to talk to her. They could walk through Regent's Park +towards Baker Street.</p> + +<p>They had left the Levines' some way behind them when he turned to her.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said, "what are you doing in that galley?"</p> + +<p>"What are you doing in it yourself, George?"</p> + +<p>"I? I came to see you. I was told you would be there. You know, you <i>do</i> +let yourself in for people."</p> + +<p>"Do I?"</p> + +<p>"You do. And these Brodricks aren't your sort. No good can come of your +being mixed up with them. Why do you do these things?" he persisted.</p> + +<p>"They're kind to me," she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Kind? Queer sort of kindness, when you're working yourself to death for +that fellow and his magazine."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. He'll let me off any day. He said he'd rather his magazine +smashed than I did."</p> + +<p>"And you believed him?"</p> + +<p>"I believed him."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Tanqueray, "it's more serious than I thought."</p> + +<p>His eyes rested on her, their terrible lucidity softened by some veil. +"Do you like him, Jinny?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Do I like him? Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why do you like him?"</p> + +<p>"I think, perhaps, because he's good."</p> + +<p>"That's how he has you, is it?"</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"Brodrick doesn't know you, Jinny, as I know you."</p> + +<p>"That's it," she said. "I wonder if you do."</p> + +<p>"I think I do. Better, perhaps, in some ways, than you know yourself."</p> + +<p>He was silent for a little time. The sound of his slow feet on the +gravel measured the moments of his thought.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said at last, "I'm going to talk truth to you." Again he +paused. "Because I don't think anybody else will."</p> + +<p>"There are things," he said, "that are necessary to women like Mrs. +Levine and Mrs. Heron, that are not necessary to you. You have moments +when your need of these things is such that you think life isn't worth +living unless you get them. Those moments are bound to come, because +you're human. But they pass. They pass. Especially if you don't attend +to them. The real, permanent, indestructible thing in you is the need, +the craving, the impulse to create Hamblebys. It can't pass. You know +that. What you won't admit is that you're mistaking the temporary, +passing impulse for a permanent one. No woman will tell you that it's +temporary. They'll all take the sentimental view of it, as you do. +Because, Jinny, the devilish thing about it is that, when this folly +falls upon a woman, she thinks it's a divine folly."</p> + +<p>He looked at her again with the penetrating eyes that saw everything.</p> + +<p>"It may be," he said. "It may be. But the chances are it isn't."</p> + +<p>"Tanks," she said, "you're very hard on me."</p> + +<p>"That's just what I'm not. I'm tenderer to you than you are yourself."</p> + +<p>It was hard to take in, the idea of his tenderness to her.</p> + +<p>"Think—think, before you're drawn in."</p> + +<p>"I am thinking," she said.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's voice insisted. "It's easy to get in; but it isn't so jolly +easy to get out."</p> + +<p>"And if I don't want," she murmured, "to get out——?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her and smiled, reluctantly, as if compelled by what he saw +in her.</p> + +<p>"It's your confounded Jinniness!"</p> + +<p>At last he had acknowledged it, her quality. He revolted against it, as +a thing more provoking, more incorrigible than mere womanhood.</p> + +<p>"It'll always tug you one way and your genius another. I'm only asking +you which is likely to be stronger?"</p> + +<p>"Do I know, George? Do <i>you</i> know?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you," he said. "I think I do."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>XXXIII</h2> + + +<p>Three weeks later, one afternoon in October, Jane found herself going at +a terrific pace through Kensington Gardens. Brodrick had sent word that +he would see her at five o'clock, and it wanted but a few minutes of +that hour.</p> + +<p>When Tanqueray sounded his warning, he did not measure the effect of the +illumination that it wrought. The passion he divined in her had had a +chance to sleep as long as it was kept in the dark. Now it was wide +awake, and superbly aware of itself and of its hour.</p> + +<p>After she had parted from him Jane saw clearly how she had been drawn, +and why. There was no doubt that the folly had come upon her; the folly +that Tanqueray told her she would think divine. She not only thought it +divine, she felt it to be divine with a certainty that Tanqueray himself +could not take away from her.</p> + +<p>Very swiftly the divine folly had come upon her. She could not say +precisely at what moment, unless it were three weeks ago, when she had +stood dumb before the wise women, smitten by a mortal pang, invaded by +an inexplicable helplessness and tenderness. It was then that she had +been caught in the toils of life, the snares of the folly.</p> + +<p>For all its swiftness, she must have had a premonition of it. That was +why she had tried so desperately to build the house of life for Brodrick +and Miss Collett. She had laboured at the fantastic, monstrous +fabrication, as if in that way only she could save herself.</p> + +<p>She had been afraid of it. She had fought it desperately. In the teeth +of it she had sat down to write, to perfect a phrase, to finish a +paragraph abandoned the night before; and she had found herself +meditating on Brodrick's moral beauty.</p> + +<p>She knew it for the divine folly by the way it dealt with her. It made +her the victim of preposterous illusions. The entire district round +about Putney became for her a land of magic and of splendour. She could +not see the word Putney posted on a hoarding without a stirring of the +spirit and a beating of the heart. When she closed her eyes she saw in a +vision the green grass plots and sinuous gravel walks of Brodrick's +garden, she heard as in a vision the silver chiming of the clock, an +unearthly clock, measuring immortal hours.</p> + +<p>The great wonder of this folly was that it took the place of the +creative impulse. Not only did it possess her to the exclusion of all +other interests, but the rapture of it was marvellously akin to the +creative ecstasy.</p> + +<p>It drove her now at a furious pace through the Gardens and along the +High Street. It caused her to exult in the face of the great golden +October sunset piled high in the west. It made her see Brodrick +everywhere. The Gardens were a green paradise with the spirit of +Brodrick moving in them like a god. The High Street was a golden road +with Brodrick at the end of it. The whole world built itself into a +golden shrine for Brodrick. He was coming to see her at five o'clock.</p> + +<p>He was not there, in her room, when she arrived. But he had been there +so often that he pervaded and dominated the place, as Tanqueray had once +dominated and pervaded it. He had created such a habit, such a +superstition of himself that his bodily presence was no longer necessary +to its support. There was a chair by the fireplace, next the window. She +could not see it now without seeing Brodrick, without seeing a look he +had, when, as he sat there silent, his eyes had held her, covered her, +caressed her. There were times when he had the gestures and the manner +of a man sitting by his own fireside, taking her and all that she +signified for granted, establishing between them a communion in which +the poignant, ultimate things were not said because they were so +profoundly felt.</p> + +<p>She caught herself smiling now at the things she was going to say to +him.</p> + +<p>Her bell rang with the dreadful, startling noise that made her heart +leap in her breast.</p> + +<p>He came in slowly like a man preoccupied with grave business of his own. +And at the sight of him Jane's heart, which had leaped so madly, dragged +in her breast and drew the tide of her blood after it.</p> + +<p>He took her hand, but not with any eagerness. His face was more than +ever sombre, as if with some inward darkness and concern. He turned from +her and became interested in finding a suitable place for his hat. (Jane +noticed that it was a new one.) Then he sat down and remained seated.</p> + +<p>He let her get up and cross the room and ring the bell for herself, so +fixed was he in his dream. Only, as her gown brushed him in her passing +back, he was aware of it and shrank. She heard him draw in a hard +breath, and when she looked at him again she saw the sweat standing on +his forehead.</p> + +<p>"You've hurried," she said.</p> + +<p>"I haven't," said Brodrick. "I never hurry."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. You never do anything undignified."</p> + +<p>That was not one of the things that she had meant to say.</p> + +<p>"Never," said Brodrick, "if I can help it." And he wiped his forehead.</p> + +<p>Jane caught herself smiling at Brodrick's hat. She felt a sudden +melting, enervating tenderness for Brodrick's hat. The passion which, in +the circumstances, she could not permit herself to feel for Brodrick, +she felt, ridiculously, for Brodrick's hat.</p> + +<p>It was, of course, ridiculous, that she, Jane Holland, should feel a +passion for a man's hat, a passion that brought her heart into her +mouth, so that she could not say any of the things that she had thought +of.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's hat on an arm-chair beside him was shining in the firelight. +On his uncomfortable seat Brodrick lowered and darkened, an incarnate +gloom.</p> + +<p>"How happy your hat looks," said Jane, smiling at it again.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad it amuses you," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Jane made tea.</p> + +<p>He rose, wrapped in his dream, and took his cup from her. He sat down +again, in his dream, and put his cup on the arm-chair and left it there +as an offering to the hat. Then, with an immense, sustained politeness, +he began to talk.</p> + +<p>Now that Hambleby had become a classic; he supposed that her ambition +was almost satisfied.</p> + +<p>It was so much so, Jane said, that she was tired of hearing about +Hambleby. Whereupon Brodrick inquired with positively formidable +politeness, how the new serial was getting on.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Jane. "How's the 'Monthly Review'?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick intimated that the state of the "Monthly Review" was prosperity +itself, and he asked her if she had heard lately from Mr. Prothero?</p> + +<p>Jane said that she had had a long letter from Mr. Prothero the other +day, and she wished that a suitable appointment could be found for Mr. +Prothero at home. Brodrick replied, that, at the moment, he could not +think of any appointment more suitable for Mr. Prothero than the one he +had already got for him.</p> + +<p>Then there was a silence, and when Jane with competitive urbanity +inquired after Brodrick's sisters, Brodrick's manner gave her to +understand that she had touched on a subject by far too intimate and +personal. And while she was wondering what she could say next Brodrick +took up his hat and said good-bye and went out hurriedly, he who never +hurried.</p> + +<p>Jane stood for a moment looking at the seat he had left and the place +where his hat had been. And her heart drew its doors together and shut +them against Brodrick.</p> + +<p>She had heard the sound of him going down her stairs, and the click of +the latch at the bottom, and the slamming of the front door; and then, +under her windows, his feet on the pavement of the Square. She went to +the window, and stared at the weeping ash-trees in the garden and +thought of how Brodrick had said that it was no wonder that they wept. +And at the memory of his voice she felt a little pricking, wounding pain +under her eyelids, the birth-pang of unwilling tears.</p> + +<p>There were feet, hurrying feet on the pavement again, and again the bell +cried out with its nervous electric scream. Her staircase door was +opened quickly and shut again, but Jane heard nothing until Brodrick +stood still in the room and spoke her name.</p> + +<p>She turned, and he came forward, and she met him, holding her head high +to keep back her tears. She came slowly, with shy feet and with fear in +her eyes, and the desire of her heart on her lips, lifting them like +wings.</p> + +<p>He took her two hands, surrendered to his, and raised and kissed them. +For a moment they stood so, held together, without any movement or any +speech.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said thickly, and she looked down and saw her own tears, +dreadful drops, rolling off Brodrick's hands.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to do that."</p> + +<p>Her hands struggled in his, and for pity he let them go.</p> + +<p>"You can't be more surprised at me than I am myself," said she.</p> + +<p>"But I'm not surprised," said Brodrick. "I never am."</p> + +<p>And still she doubted.</p> + +<p>"What did you come back for?"</p> + +<p>"This, of course."</p> + +<p>He had drawn her to the long seat by the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"Why did you go away," she said, "and make me cry?"</p> + +<p>"Because, for the first time in my life, I was uncertain."</p> + +<p>"Of yourself?" Doubt, dying hard, stabbed her.</p> + +<p>"I am never uncertain of myself," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Of what, then?"</p> + +<p>"Of you."</p> + +<p>"But you never told me."</p> + +<p>"I've been trying to tell you the whole time."</p> + +<p>Yet even in his arms her doubt stirred.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do now?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"<i>You're</i> going to marry me," he said.</p> + +<p>He had been certain of it the whole time.</p> + +<p>"I thought," she said an hour later, "that you were going to marry +Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"Oh, so that was it, was it? You were afraid——"</p> + +<p>"I wasn't afraid. I knew it was the best thing you could do."</p> + +<p>"The best thing I could do? To marry Gertrude?"</p> + +<p>"My dear—it would be far, far better than marrying me."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want," said he, "to marry Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"Of course, <i>she</i> doesn't want to marry you."</p> + +<p>"I never supposed for a moment that she did."</p> + +<p>"All the same, I thought it was going to happen."</p> + +<p>"If it was going to happen," he said, "it would have happened long ago."</p> + +<p>She insisted. "It would have been nicer for you, dear, if it had."</p> + +<p>"And when I'd met you afterwards—you think <i>that</i> would have been +nicer—for all three of us?"</p> + +<p>His voice was low, shaken, surcharged and crushed with passion. But he +could see things plainly. It was with the certainty, the terrible +lucidity of passion that he saw himself. The vision was disastrous to +all ideas of integrity, of propriety and honour; it destroyed the long +tradition of the Brodricks. But he saw true.</p> + +<p>Jane's eyes were searching his while her mouth smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"And is it really," she said, "as bad as that?"</p> + +<p>"It always is as bad as that, when you're determined to get the thing +you want. Luckily for me I've only really wanted one thing."</p> + +<p>"One thing?"</p> + +<p>"You—or a woman like you. Only there never was a woman like you."</p> + +<p>"I see. <i>That's</i> why you care for me?"</p> + +<p>"Does it matter why?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit. I only wondered."</p> + +<p>He looked at her almost as if he also wondered. Then they were silent. +Jane was content to let her wonder die, but Brodrick's mind was still +groping in obscurity. At last he seemed to have got hold of something, +and he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Of course, there's your genius, Jinny. If I don't say much about it, +you mustn't think I don't care."</p> + +<p>"Do you? There are moments when <i>I</i> hate it."</p> + +<p>Her face was set to the mood of hatred.</p> + +<p>"Hugh dear, you're a brave man to marry it."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't marry it, if I didn't think I could look after it."</p> + +<p>"You needn't bother. It can look after itself."</p> + +<p>She paused, looking down where her finger traced and traced again the +pattern of the sofa-cover.</p> + +<p>"Did you think I cared for it so frightfully?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I know you did."</p> + +<p>"I care for it still." She turned to him with her set face. "But I could +kill it if it came between you and me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>XXXIV</h2> + + +<p>Jane had been married for three months, married with a completeness that +even Tanqueray had not foreseen. She herself had been unaware of her +capacity for surrender. She rejoiced in it like a saint who beholds in +himself the mystic, supreme transmutation of desire. One by one there +fell from her the things that had stood between her and the object of +her adoration.</p> + +<p>For the forms of imagination had withdrawn themselves; once visible, +audible, tangible, they became evasive, fugitive presences, discernible +on some verge between creation and oblivion. This withdrawal had once +been her agony, the dissolution of her world; she had struggled against +it, striving with a vain and ruinous tension to hold the perishing +vision, to preserve it from destruction. Now she contemplated its +disappearance with a curious indifference. She had no desire to recover +it.</p> + +<p>She remembered how she had once regarded the immolation of her genius as +the thing of all things most dangerous, most difficult, a form of +terrible self-destruction, the sundering of passionate life from life. +That sacrifice, she had said, would be the test of her love for Hugh +Brodrick. And now, this thing so difficult, so dangerous, so impossible, +had accomplished itself without effort and without pain. Her genius had +ceased from violence and importunity; it had let go its hold; it no +longer moved her.</p> + +<p>Nothing moved her but Brodrick; nothing mattered but Brodrick; nothing +had the full prestige of reality apart from him. Her heart went out to +the things that he had touched or worn; things that were wonderful, +adorable, and at the same time absurd. His overcoat hanging in the hall +called on her for a caress. Henry, arriving suddenly one afternoon, +found her rubbing her cheek against its sleeve. His gloves, which had +taken on the shape of Brodrick's hands, were things to be stroked +tenderly in passing.</p> + +<p>And this house that contained him, white-walled, green-shuttered, +red-roofed, it wore the high colours of reality; the Heath was drenched +in the poignant, tender light of it.</p> + +<p>That house on the Heath continued in its incomprehensible beauty. It was +not to be approached without excitement, a beating of the heart. She +marvelled at the power that, out of things actual and trivial, things +ordinary and suburban, had made for her these radiances and +immortalities. She could not detect the work of her imagination in the +production of this state. It was her senses that were so exquisitely +acute. She suffered an exaltation of all the powers of life. Her state +was bliss. She loved these hours, measured by the silver-chiming clock. +She had discovered that it struck the quarters. She said to herself how +odd it was that she could bear to live with a clock that struck the +quarters.</p> + +<p>She was trying hard to be as punctual and perfect as Gertrude Collett. +She had gone to Gertrude to learn the secret of these ordered hours. She +had found out from Gertrude what Brodrick liked best for dinner. She had +listened humbly while Gertrude read to her and expounded the legend of +the sacred Books. She had stood like a child, breathless with attention, +when Gertrude unlocked the inner door of the writing-table and showed +her the little squat god in his shrine.</p> + +<p>She played with this house of Brodrick's like a child, making believe +that she adored the little squat god and respected all the paraphernalia +of his service. She knew that Gertrude doubted her seriousness and +sincerity in relation to the god.</p> + +<p>And all the time she was overcome by the pathos of Gertrude who had been +so serious and so sincere, who was leaving these things for ever. But +though she was sorry for Gertrude, her heart exulted and cried out in +her, "Do you think He cares for the little squat god? He cares for +nothing in the world but me!"</p> + +<p>All would have been well if Brodrick had not committed the grave error +of asking to look at the Books, just to see that she had got them all +right. Like Gertrude he doubted.</p> + +<p>She brought them to him; presenting first the Book marked "Household." +He turned from the beginning of this Book to the end. The pages of +Gertrude's housekeeping looked like what they were, a perfect and simple +system of accounts. Jinny's pages looked like a wild, straggling lyric, +flung off in a rapture and meticulously revised.</p> + +<p>Brodrick smiled at it—at first.</p> + +<p>"At any rate," said she, "it shows how hard I've tried."</p> + +<p>For all answer he laid before her Gertrude's flawless work.</p> + +<p>"Is it any use trying to bring it up to Gertrude's standard?" she said. +"Wouldn't it be better just to accept the fact that she was wonderful?"</p> + +<p>(He ignored the suggestion.)</p> + +<p>"I suppose you never realized till now how wonderful that woman was?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick said gravely he would have to go into it to see.</p> + +<p>Brodrick, going in deeper, became very grave. It seemed that each week +Jane's expenditure overlapped her allowance with appalling regularity. +It was the only regularity she had.</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea, Jinny, how it goes?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head sadly.</p> + +<p>"If it's gone, it's gone. Why should we <i>seek</i> to know?"</p> + +<p>"Just go into it with me," he said.</p> + +<p>She went into it and emerged with an idea.</p> + +<p>"It looks," said Jinny, "as if I ate more than Gertrude. Do I?"</p> + +<p>Still abstracted, he suggested the advisability of saving.</p> + +<p>"Can it be done?" said Jinny.</p> + +<p>"It can," said Brodrick, "because Gertrude did it."</p> + +<p>"Must I do it?"</p> + +<p>"Not if it bothers you. I was only saying it can be done."</p> + +<p>"And you'd like it?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I should like to know where I am."</p> + +<p>"But—darling—It's <i>so</i> much better not to."</p> + +<p>He sighed. So did Jinny.</p> + +<p>"I can see," she said, "what I've done. I've crumpled <i>all</i> the +rose-leaves, and you'll never be able to lie on them any more."</p> + +<p>Then she had another idea.</p> + +<p>"Hugh! It's just occurred to me. Talk of saving! I've been saving all +the time like fury. I save you Gertrude's salary."</p> + +<p>At this Brodrick became angry, as Jane might have seen, only she was too +entirely taken up with her discovery to look at him.</p> + +<p>"Here I have been working for months, trying how not to be extravagant, +and thinking how incompetent I am and how much more advantageous it +would have been for you to have married Gertrude. And I come lots +cheaper. I really do. Wasn't it funny of us never to have thought of it +before?"</p> + +<p>He was very angry, but he had to smile. Then by way of correction he +reminded her that the servants were getting rather slack. Didn't she +think it was about time to haul them up?</p> + +<p>She didn't. She didn't like the poor things to feel that they were +driven. She liked to see happy faces all around her.</p> + +<p>"But they're so unpunctual—those faces," Brodrick said. And while they +<i>were</i> on the subject there was the clock. The clock that Gertrude +always used to wind, that Brodrick sometimes forgot to wind, but that +Jinny never by any chance wound at all.</p> + +<p>"I'm happier," said Jane, "when it's not wound."</p> + +<p>"But why——" His face was one vast amazement.</p> + +<p>"Because," she said, "it chimes. And it strikes the quarters."</p> + +<p>He had thought that was the great merit of his incomparable clock.</p> + +<p>She seemed incorrigible. Then, miraculously, for two months all went +well, really well.</p> + +<p>It was not for nothing that Hambleby sold and was selling. The weekly +deficit continued, appalling, palpable even to Jane; but she made it up +secretly. Secretly, she seemed to save.</p> + +<p>But Brodrick found that out and stopped it. Jane was not allowed, and +she knew it, to use her own income for the house or for anything else +but herself and her people. It wasn't for that he had married her. +Besides, he objected to her method. It was too expensive.</p> + +<p>Jane was disposed to argue the matter.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, dear, that it's the price of peace? Peace is the most +expensive thing on this earth—any stupid politician will tell you that. +If you won't pay for peace, what will you pay for?"</p> + +<p>"My dear child, there used to be more peace and considerable less pay +when Miss Collett did things."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But she was wonderful."</p> + +<p>(Her lips lifted at the corners. There was a flash of irony in her tone, +this time.)</p> + +<p>"Not half so wonderful as you," he said.</p> + +<p>"But—Hugh—angel—as long as it's <i>me</i> who pays——"</p> + +<p>"That's what I won't have—your paying."</p> + +<p>"It's for <i>my</i> peace," she said.</p> + +<p>"It certainly isn't for mine," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>She considered him pensively. She knew that he didn't care a rap about +the little squat god, but he abhorred untidiness—in other people.</p> + +<p>"Poor darling—how uncomfy he is, with all his little rose-leaves +crumpled under him. Irritating him."</p> + +<p>She came and hung over him and stroked his hair till he smiled.</p> + +<p>"I told you at the time you ought to have married Gertrude. What on +earth possessed you to go and marry me?"</p> + +<p>He kissed her, just to show what possessed him.</p> + +<p>The question of finance was settled by his going into it again and +finding out her awful average and making her an allowance large enough +to cover it. And at the end of another two months she came to him in +triumph.</p> + +<p>"Look there," she said. "I've saved a halfpenny. It isn't much, but it +shows that I <i>can</i> save when I give my mind to it."</p> + +<p>He said he would hang it on his watch-chain and cherish it for ever.</p> + +<p>As before, he kissed her. He loved her, as men love a disastrous thing, +desperately, because of her divine folly.</p> + +<p>In all these things her genius had no part. It was as if they had agreed +to ignore it. But people were beginning to talk now of the Event of +nineteen-five, the appearance of Hambleby's successor, said to be +greater than Hambleby.</p> + +<p>She was conscious then of a misgiving, almost a dread. Still, it hardly +concerned her. This book was the work of some one unfamiliar, +unrecognizable, forgotten by the happy woman that she was. So immense +was the separation between Jane Holland and Jane Brodrick.</p> + +<p>She was aware of the imminence of her loss without deploring it. She +spoke of it to Brodrick.</p> + +<p>They were sitting together, one night in June, under the lime-tree on +the lawn, only half visible to each other in the falling darkness.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind very much," she said, "if I never wrote anything again?"</p> + +<p>He turned to her. "What makes you think you can't write? (He too had a +misgiving.) You've plenty of time. You've all day, in fact."</p> + +<p>"Yes, all day long."</p> + +<p>"It's not as if I bothered you—I say, <i>they</i> don't bother you, do +they?"</p> + +<p>She understood him as referring to the frequent, the very frequent +incursions of his family.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't let them. You must harden your heart."</p> + +<p>"It isn't they. It isn't anybody."</p> + +<p>"What is it then?"</p> + +<p>"Only that everything's different. I'm different."</p> + +<p>He regarded her for a long time. She <i>was</i> different. It was part of her +queerness, this capacity she had for being different. He could see +nothing now but her wild fawn look, the softness and the flush of life. +It was his miracle on her.</p> + +<p>He remained silent, brooding over it. In the stillness she could hear +his deep breathing; she could just discern his face, heavy but tender.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't mean that you're not well, Jinny?" He remembered that once +or twice since he had known her it had meant that.</p> + +<p>She smiled. "Oh no, not that."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't make you unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"No, not if—if it wasn't for that you cared."</p> + +<p>"You know it wasn't."</p> + +<p>She knew. She had always known it.</p> + +<p>They sat silent a long time. Round and about them Brodrick's garden +slept, enchanted in darkness. Phantasmal, blanched by the dark, his +flowers dreamed on the lawn. An immense tenderness filled her for +Brodrick and all things that were his.</p> + +<p>At last they rose and went hand in hand, slowly, through the garden +towards the house.</p> + +<p>Her state was bliss; and yet, through it all she had a sense of +estrangement from herself, and of things closing round her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>XXXV</h2> + + +<p>This sense came sharply to her one late afternoon in July. She was +sitting out in the garden, watching Brodrick as he went his slow and +happy rounds. Now and then he paused and straightened a border, or +propped some untended plant, top-heavy with bloom, or pinned back some +wild arm of a climbing rose flung out to pluck at him as he went by. He +could not but be aware that since Gertrude Collett left there had been +confusion and disorder in the place she had made perfect.</p> + +<p>In these hours of innocent absorption he was oblivious of Jane who +watched him.</p> + +<p>The garden was still, with that stillness that earth takes at sunsets +following hot days; stillness of grass-plots flooded by flat light; +stillness of trees and flowers that stand fixed, held by the light, +divinely vivid. Jane's vision of her surroundings had never been so +radiant and intense. Yet in a moment, by some impenetrable way, her +thoughts had wandered back to her solitude in Kensington Square. She saw +herself sitting in her room. She was dressed in an old gown that she had +worn two years ago, she saw distinctly the fashion and the colour of it, +and the little ink-mark on the sleeve. She was writing, this solitary +woman, with an extraordinary concentration and rapidity. Jane found +herself looking on, fascinated as by the performance of a stranger, +admiring as she would have admired a stranger. The solitary woman knew +nothing of Hugh Brodrick or of his house at Putney, and cared less; she +had a desire and a memory in which he had no part. That seemed to Jane +most curious.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly she was aware that she, Jane Brodrick, and this woman, +Jane Holland, were inseparably and indestructibly one. For a moment her +memory and her desire merged with this woman's desire and memory, so +that the house and the garden and the figure of her husband became +strange to her and empty of all significance. As for her own presence +in the extraordinary scene, she had no longer her vague, delicious +wonder at its reality. What she felt was a shock of surprise, of +spiritual dislocation. She was positively asking herself, "What am I +doing here?"</p> + +<p>The wonder passed with a sense of shifting in her brain.</p> + +<p>But there was terror for her in this resurgence of her unwedded self. In +any settlement of affairs between Jane Holland and Jane Brodrick it +would be the younger, the unwedded woman who would demand of the other +her account. It was she who was aware, already, of the imminent +disaster, the irreparable loss. It was she who suffered when they talked +about the genius of Jane Holland.</p> + +<p>For they were talking more than ever. In another week it would be upon +her, the Great Event of nineteen-five. Her frightful celebrity exposed +her, forced her to face the thing she had brought forth and was ashamed +to own.</p> + +<p>She might have brazened it out somehow but for Nina Lempriere and her +book. It appeared, Nina's book, in these hours that tingled with +expectation of the terrible Event. In a majestic silence and secrecy it +appeared. Jane had heard Tanqueray praise it. "Thank heaven," he said, +"there's one of us that's sinless. Nina's genius can lay nothing to her +charge." She saw it. Nina's flame was pure. Her hand had virginal +strength.</p> + +<p>It had not always had it. Her younger work, "Tales of the Marches," +showed violence and torture in its strength. It was as if Nina had torn +her genius from the fire that destroyed it and had compelled it to +create. Her very style moved with the vehemence of her revolt from +Tanqueray. But there had been a year between Tanqueray and Owen +Prothero. For one year Nina had been immune from the divine folly. And +in that year she had produced her sinless masterpiece. No wonder that +the Master praised her.</p> + +<p>And above the praise Jane heard Nina's voice proclaiming yet again that +the law and the condition was virginity, untamed and untamable +virginity. And for her, also, was it not the law? According to her code +and Tanqueray's she had sinned a mortal sin. She had conceived and +brought forth a book, not by divine compulsion, but because Brodrick +wanted a book and she wanted to please Brodrick. Such a desire was the +mother of monstrous and unshapen things. In Tanqueray's eyes it was +hardly less impure than the commercial taint. Its uncleanness lacked the +element of venality; that was all that could be said. She had done +violence to her genius. She had constrained the secret and incorruptible +will.</p> + +<p>It had not suffered all at once. It was still tense with its own young +impulse towards creation. In the beginning of the work it moved +divinely; it was divinely unaware of her and of her urging.</p> + +<p>She could trace the stages of its dissolution.</p> + +<p>Nothing that Jane Holland had yet achieved could compare with that +beginning. In the middle there was a slight decline from her perfection; +further on, a perpetual struggle to recover it; and, towards the end, a +frightful collapse of energy. She could put her finger on the place; +there, at the close of a page that fairly flared; for the flame, of +course, had leaped like mad before it died. It was at that point that +she had got ill, and that Brodrick had found her and had taken her away.</p> + +<p>After that the sentences came in jerks; they gasped for breath; they +reeled and fell; they dragged on, nerveless and bloodless, to an +unspeakable exhaustion. Then, as if her genius defied the ultimate +corruption, it soared and made itself its own funeral fire. She had +finished the thing somehow, and flung it from her as the divine folly +came upon her. The wonder was that she should have finished it at all.</p> + +<p>And Tanqueray might almost say that she was venal. She had received +money for simply committing this crime. She would receive money again +for perpetuating it in a more flagrant form. So much down on the awful +day of publication; a half-yearly revenue as long as the abominable work +endured. There might be a great deal of money in it, as Louis Levine +would say. More money than Nina or George Tanqueray had ever made. It +was possible, it was more than possible, it was hideously probable that +this time she would achieve popularity. It was just the sort of +terrible, ironic thing that happened. If it did happen she would not be +able to look George Tanqueray in the face.</p> + +<p>The date of the Event was fixed now, the fifteenth of July. It was like +death. She had never thought of it as a personal experience so long as +its hour remained far-off in time. But the terror of it was on her, now +that the thing was imminent, that she could count the hours.</p> + +<p>The day came, the Birthday, as Brodrick called it, of the Great Book. He +had told Tanqueray long ago that it was the biggest thing she had done +yet. He bore himself, this husband of Jane's, with an air of triumphant +paternity, as if (Tanqueray reflected) he had had a hand in it. He had +even sent Tanqueray an early copy. Tanqueray owned that the fellow was +justified. He thought he could see very plainly Brodrick's hand, his +power over the infatuated Jinny.</p> + +<p>By way of celebrating the fifteenth he had asked Tanqueray to dinner.</p> + +<p>The Levines were there and the John Brodricks, Dr. Henry Brodrick and +Mrs. Heron. But for the presence of the novelist, the birthday dinner +was indistinguishable, from any family festival of Brodricks. Solemn it +was and ceremonial, yet intimate, relieved by the minute absurdities, +the tender follies of people who were, as Tanqueray owned, incomparably +untainted. It was Jinny's great merit, after all, that she had not +married a man who had the taint. The marvel was how the editor had +contrived to carry intact that innocence of his through the horrors of +his obscene profession. It argued an incorruptible natural soundness in +the man.</p> + +<p>And only the supreme levity of innocence could have devised and +accomplished this amazing celebration. It took, Tanqueray said to +himself, a mind like Brodrick's to be unaware of Jinny's tragedy, to be +unaware of Jinny.</p> + +<p>He himself was insupportably aware of her, as she sat, doomed and +agonizing, in her chair at the head of Brodrick's table.</p> + +<p>They had stuck him, of course, at her left, in the place of honour. +Unprofitable as he was, they acknowledged him as a great man. He was +there on the ground and on the sanction of his greatness. Nobody else, +their manner had suggested, was great enough to be set beside Jinny in +her splendid hour. His stature was prized because it gave the measure of +hers. He was there also to officiate. He was the high priest of the +unspeakable ritual. He would be expected presently to say something, to +perform the supreme and final act of consecration.</p> + +<p>And for the life of him he could not think of anything to say. The +things he thought could not be said while he sat there, at Brodrick's +table. Afterwards, perhaps, when he and she were alone, if she insisted.</p> + +<p>But she would not insist. Far from it. She would not expect him to say +anything. What touched him was her utter absence of any expectation, the +candour with which she received his silence as her doom.</p> + +<p>The ceremony was growing more and more awful. Champagne had been +brought. They were going—he might have foreseen it—they were going to +drink to the long life of the Book.</p> + +<p>John Brodrick rose first, then Henry, then Levine. They raised their +glasses. Jane's terrified eyes met theirs.</p> + +<p>"To the Book!" they said. "To the Book!" Tanqueray found himself gazing +in agony at his glass where the bubbles danced and glittered, calling +him to the toast. For the life of him he could not rise.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was drinking now, his eyes fixed upon his wife. And Tanqueray, +for the life of him, could not help looking at Jane, to see how she +would take it.</p> + +<p>She took it well. She faced the torture smiling, with a courage that was +proof, if he had wanted proof, of her loyalty to Brodrick. Her smile +trembled as it met Brodrick's eyes across the table, and the tenderness +of it went to Tanqueray's heart. She held out her glass; and as she +raised it she turned and looked full in Tanqueray's face, and smiled +again, steadily.</p> + +<p>"To the Book!" she said. "To Nina Lempriere's book! You can drink now, +George."</p> + +<p>He met her look.</p> + +<p>"Here's to you. You immortal Jinny."</p> + +<p>Lucid and comprehending, over the tilted glass his eyes approved her, +adored her. She flushed under the unveiled, deliberate gaze.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I get you out of that nicely?" she said, an hour later, outside +in the darkening garden, as she paced the terrace with him alone. The +others, at Brodrick's suggestion, had left them to their communion. +Brodrick's idea evidently was that the novelist would break silence only +under cover of the night.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "It was like your sweetness."</p> + +<p>"You can't say," she continued, "that I'm not appreciated in my family."</p> + +<p>Through the dark, as her face flashed towards him, he saw the little +devil that sat laughing in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"You needn't be afraid to talk about it," she said. "And you needn't lie +to me. I know it's a tragedy."</p> + +<p>He had never lied to her. It was not in him to fashion for her any +tender lie.</p> + +<p>"It's worse than a tragedy. It's a sin, Jinny. And that's what I would +have saved you from. Other people can sin and not suffer. You can't. +There's your tragedy."</p> + +<p>She raised her head.</p> + +<p>"There shall be no more tragedies."</p> + +<p>He went on as if he had not heard her. "It wouldn't have mattered if it +had been bad all through. But neither you nor I, Jinny, have ever +written, probably we never shall write, anything to compare with the +beginning of that book. My God! To think that there were only six +months—six months—between that beginning and that end."</p> + +<p>She smiled, saying to herself, "Only six months. Yes. But what months!"</p> + +<p>"You've killed a masterpiece," he said, "between you."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean Hugh?" she said. "What had he to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"He married you."</p> + +<p>"My crime was committed before he married me."</p> + +<p>"Exactly." She was aware of the queer, nervous, upward jerk of his +moustache, precluding the impermissible—"When you were in love with +him."</p> + +<p>Her face darkened as she turned to him.</p> + +<p>"Let's talk about Nina's book. George—there isn't anybody like her. And +I knew, I knew she'd do it."</p> + +<p>"Did you know that she did it before she saw Prothero."</p> + +<p>"I know."</p> + +<p>"And that she's never written a line since?"</p> + +<p>"When she does it will be immense. Because of him."</p> + +<p>"Possibly. She hasn't married him."</p> + +<p>"After all, George, if it comes to that, you're married too."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I married a woman who can't do me any harm."</p> + +<p>"Could anybody."</p> + +<p>She stood still there, on the terrace, fronting him with the scorn of +her question.</p> + +<p>He did not answer her at first. His face changed and was silent as his +thought. As they paced up and down again he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind, Jinny; if you're happy; if you're really content."</p> + +<p>"You see that I am."</p> + +<p>Her voice throbbed. He caught the pure, the virginal tremor, and knew it +for the vibration of her soul. It stirred in him a subtle, unaccountable +pang.</p> + +<p>She paused, brooding.</p> + +<p>"I shall be," she said, "even if I never do anything again."</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he assured her, "can take from you the things you have done. +Look at Hambleby. He's enough. After all, Jinny, you might have died +young and just left us that. We ought to be glad that, as it is, we've +got so much of you."</p> + +<p>"So much——"</p> + +<p>Almost he could have said she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Nothing can touch Hambleby or the genius that made him."</p> + +<p>"George—do you think it'll ever come back to me?"</p> + +<p>She stood still again. He was aware now, through her voice, of +something tense, something perturbed and tormented in her soul. He +rejoiced, for it was he who had stirred her; it was he who had made her +feel.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said, "it'll come back. If you choose—if you let it. +But you'll have to pay your price."</p> + +<p>She was silent. They talked of other things. Presently the John +Brodricks, the Levines and Mrs. Heron came out into the garden and said +good-night, and Tanqueray followed them and went.</p> + +<p>She found Hugh closeted with Henry in the library where invariably the +doctor lingered. Brodrick made a sign to his brother-in-law as she +entered.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you've had your talk."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, we've had it."</p> + +<p>She lay back in her seat as if exhausted by hard physical exercise, +supporting the limp length of her arms on the sides of the chair.</p> + +<p>The doctor, after a somewhat prolonged observation of her posture, +remarked that she should make a point of going to bed at ten.</p> + +<p>Brodrick pleaded the Birthday of the Book. And at the memory of the +intolerable scene, and of Tanqueray's presence in it, her agony broke +out.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about it. I don't want ever to hear of it again."</p> + +<p>"What's he been saying to you?" said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"He'd no need to say anything. Do you suppose I don't know? Can't you +see how awful it is for me?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick raised the eyebrows of innocence amazed.</p> + +<p>"It's as if I'd brought something deformed and horrible into the +world——"</p> + +<p>The doctor leaned forward, more than ever attentive.</p> + +<p>"And you <i>would</i> go and drag it out, all of you, when I was sitting +there in shame and misery. And before George Tanqueray—How could you?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Jinny——"</p> + +<p>Brodrick was leaning forward too now, looking at her with affectionate +concern.</p> + +<p>Her brother-in-law rose and held out his hand. He detained hers for an +appreciable moment, thoughtfully, professionally.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "really, you'd better go to bed."</p> + +<p>Outside in the hall she could hear him talking to Hugh.</p> + +<p>"It's physical, it's physical," he said. "It won't do to upset her. You +must take great care."</p> + +<p>The doctor's voice grew mysterious, then inaudible, and she heard Hugh +saying he supposed that it was so; and Henry murmured and mumbled +himself away. Outside their voices still retreated with their footsteps, +down the garden path, and out at the terrace gate. Hugh was seeing Henry +home.</p> + +<p>When he came back he found Jane in the library, sitting up for him. She +was excited and a little flushed.</p> + +<p>"So you've had <i>your</i> talk, have you?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He came to her and put his hands on her forehead.</p> + +<p>"Look here. You ought to have gone to bed."</p> + +<p>She took his hand and drew him to her.</p> + +<p>"Henry doesn't think I'm any good," she said.</p> + +<p>"Henry's very fond of you."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"To Henry I'm nothing but a highly interesting neurotic. He watches me +as if he were on the look-out for some abnormal manifestation, with that +delightful air he has of never being surprised at anything, as if he +could calculate the very moment."</p> + +<p>"My dear——"</p> + +<p>"I'm used to it. My people took me that way, too. Only they hadn't a +scientific turn of mind, like Henry. They didn't think it interesting; +and they haven't Henry's angelic patience and forbearance. I was the +only one of the family, don't you know, who wasn't quite sane; and +yet—so unlike Henry—they considered me rather more responsible than +any of them. I couldn't get off anything on the grounds of my insanity."</p> + +<p>All the time, while thus tormenting him, she seemed profoundly occupied +with the hand she held, caressing it with swift, nervous, tender +touches.</p> + +<p>"After all," she said, "I haven't turned out so badly; even from Henry's +point of view, have I?"</p> + +<p>He laughed. "What is Henry's point of view?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him quickly. "You know, and I know that Henry didn't +want you to marry me."</p> + +<p>The uncaptured hand closed over hers, holding it tighter than she +herself could hold.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I'm not the sort of woman Henry <i>would</i> want you to +marry. To please Henry——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't marry to please Henry."</p> + +<p>"To please Henry you should have married placable flesh and blood, very +large and handsome, without a nerve in her body. The sort of woman who +has any amount of large and handsome flesh-and-blood children, and lives +to have them, thrives on them. That's Henry's idea of the right woman."</p> + +<p>He admitted that it had once been his. He had seen his wife that was to +be, placable, as Jinny said, sane flesh and blood, the mother of perfect +children.</p> + +<p>"And so, of course," said Jinny, "you go and marry me."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Brodrick. He said it in the voice she loved.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you marry her? <i>She</i> wouldn't have bothered your life out." +She paused. "On the other hand, she wouldn't have cared for you as I do. +That sort of woman only cares for her children."</p> + +<p>"Won't you care for them, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"Not as I care for you," said Jinny.</p> + +<p>And to his uttermost amazement she bowed her head over his hands and +cried.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>XXXVI</h2> + + +<p>Tanqueray's book was out. Times and seasons mattered little in a case so +hopeless. There was no rivalry between George Tanqueray and his +contemporaries; therefore, his publishers had not scrupled to produce +him in the same month as Jane Holland. They handled any work of his with +the apathy of despair.</p> + +<p>He himself had put from him all financial anxiety when he banked the +modest sum, "on account," which was all that he could look for. The +perturbing question for him was, not whether his sales would be small or +great, but whether this time the greatness of his work would or would +not be recognized. He did not suppose for a moment that it would be. +<i>His</i> tide would never turn.</p> + +<p>His first intimation that it was turning came from Jane, in a pencil +note enclosed with a newspaper cutting, his first favourable review. +"Poor George," she wrote, "you thought you could escape it. But it's +coming—it's come. You needn't think you're going to be so very +posthumous, after all." He marvelled that Jinny should attach so much +importance to the printed word.</p> + +<p>But Jinny had foreseen those mighty lunar motions that control the +tides. It looked really as if it had come, years before he had expected +it, as if (as dear Jinny put it) he would not have a chance of being +posthumous. Not only was he aware that this book of his was a +masterpiece, but other people were aware. There was one man, even +Tanqueray admitted, who cared and knew, whose contemporary opinion +carried the prestige of posterity; and he had placed him where he would +be placed. And lesser men followed, praising him; some with the +constrained and tortured utterances of critics compelled into eating +their own words; some with the cold weight of a verdict delivered +unwillingly under judicial pressure. And there were others, lesser +still, men who had hated Tanqueray. They postured now in attitudes of +prudery and terror; they protested; they proclaimed themselves victims +of diabolic power, worshippers of the purity, the sanctity of English +letters, constrained to an act of unholy propitiation. They would, if +they could, have passed him by.</p> + +<p>It was Caro Bickersteth who said of Tanqueray that he played upon the +imaginations of his critics as he played upon women's hearts.</p> + +<p>And so it went on. One took off a conventional hat to Mr. Tanqueray's +sincerity; and one complained of "Mr. Tanqueray's own somewhat undraped +attitude toward the naked truth," observing that truth was not nearly so +naked as "Mr. Tanqueray would have us think." Another praised "his large +undecorated splendour." They split him up into all his attributes and +antitheses. They found wonder in his union of tenderness and brutality. +They spoke of "the steady beat of his style," and his touch, "the +delicate, velvet stroke of the hammer, driven by the purring dynamo." +Articles appeared ("The Novels of George Tanqueray;" "George Tanqueray: +an Appreciation;" "George Tanqueray: an Apology and a Protest"); with +the result that his publishers reported a slight, a very slight +improvement in his sales.</p> + +<p>Besides this alien tribute there was Caro Bickersteth's large column in +the "Morning Telegraph," and Nicky's inspired eulogy in the "Monthly +Review." For, somehow, by the eternal irony that pursued him, Nicky's +reviews of other people could get in all right, while his own poems +never did and never would. And there was the letter that had preceded +Jinny's note, the letter that she wrote to him, as she said, "out of the +abyss." It brought him to her feet, where he declared he would be glad +to remain, whether Jinny's feet were in or out of the abyss.</p> + +<p>Rose revived a little under this praise of Tanqueray. Not that she said +very much about it to him. She was too hurt by the way he thrust all his +reviews into the waste-paper basket, without showing them to her. But +she went and picked them out of the waste-paper basket when he wasn't +looking, and pasted all the good ones into a book, and burnt all the +bad ones in the kitchen fire. And she brought the reviews, and made her +boast of him to Aunt and Uncle, and told them of the nice sum of money +that his book had "fetched," this time. This was all he had been waiting +for, she said, before he took a little house at Hampstead.</p> + +<p>For he had taken it at last, that little house. It was one of a terrace +of three that stood high above the suburb, close to the elm-tree walk +overlooking the West Heath. A diminutive brown-brick house, with jasmine +climbing all over it, and a little square of glass laid like a mat in +front of it, and a little garden of grass and flower-borders behind. +Inside, to be sure, there wasn't any drawing-room; for what did Rose +want with a drawing-room, she would like to know? But there was a +beautiful study for Tanqueray up-stairs, and a little dining-room and a +kitchen for Rose below.</p> + +<p>Rose had sought counsel in her furnishing; with the result that +Tanqueray's study bore a remarkable resemblance to Laura Gunning's room +in Camden Town, while Rose's dining-room recalled vividly Mrs. +Henderson's dining-room at Fleet.</p> + +<p>Though it was such a little house, there had been no difficulty about +getting the furniture all in. The awful thing was moving Tanqueray and +his books. It was a struggle, a hostile invasion, and it happened on his +birthday. And in the middle of it all, when the last packing-case was +hardly emptied, and there wasn't a carpet laid down anywhere, Tanqueray +announced that he had asked some people to dine that night.</p> + +<p>"Wot, a dinner-party?" said Rose (she was trying not to cry).</p> + +<p>"No, not a party. Only six."</p> + +<p>"Six," said Rose, "<i>is</i> a dinner-party."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-six might be."</p> + +<p>Rose sat down and looked at him and said, "Oh dear, oh dear." But she +had begun to smooth her hair in a kind of anticipation.</p> + +<p>Then Tanqueray stooped and put his arm around her and kissed her and +said it was his birthday. He always did ask people to dine on his +birthday. There would only be the Brodricks and Nicky and Nina Lempriere +and Laura Gunning—No, Laura Gunning couldn't come. That, with +themselves, made six.</p> + +<p>"Well——" said Rose placidly.</p> + +<p>"I can take them to a restaurant if you'd rather. But I thought it would +be so nice to have them in our own house. When it's my birthday."</p> + +<p>She smiled. She was taking it all in. In her eyes, for once, he was like +a child, with his birthday and his party. How could she refuse him +anything on his birthday? And all through the removal he had been so +good.</p> + +<p>Already she was measuring spaces with her eye.</p> + +<p>"It'll 'old six," she said—"squeezin'."</p> + +<p>She sat silent, contemplating in a vision the right sequence of the +dinner.</p> + +<p>"There must be soup," she said, "an' fish, an' a hongtry an' a joint, +an' a puddin' an' a sav'ry, an' dessert to follow."</p> + +<p>"Oh Lord, no. Give 'em bread and cheese. They're none of 'em greedy."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you something better than that," said Rose; "on your +birthday—the idea!"</p> + +<p>Dinner was to be at eight o'clock. The lateness of the hour enabled Mr. +and Mrs. Eldred to come up and give a hand with the waiting and the +dishing-up. They had softened towards Tanqueray since he had taken that +little house. That he should give a dinner-party in it during the middle +of the removal was no more than they expected of his eccentricity.</p> + +<p>The dinner went off very well. Rose was charming in a pink silk blouse +with lace at her throat and wrists. Her face too was pink with a flush +of anxiety and excitement. As for George, she had never seen him look so +handsome. She could hardly take her eyes off him, as he sat there in his +beautiful evening suit and white shirt-front. He was enjoying his +birthday like a child, and laughing—she had never heard him laugh like +that in her life before. He laughed most at the very things she thought +would vex him, the little accidents, such as the sliding of all the +dinner-plates from Mr. Nicholson's hands on to the floor at Uncle's feet +in the doorway, and Uncle's slamming of the door upon the fragments. The +dinner, too; she had been afraid that George wouldn't like all his +friends to know she'd cooked it. But he told them all straight out, +laughing, and asking them if she wasn't very clever? And they all said +that she was, and that her dinner was delicious; even the dishes that +she had worried and trembled over. And though she had cooked the dinner, +she hadn't got to wait. Not one of the gentlemen would let her. Rose +became quite gay with her small triumph, and by the time the sweets came +she felt that she could talk a little.</p> + +<p>For Nicky was the perfection of admirable behaviour. His right ear, +patient and attentive, leaned toward Tanqueray's wife, while his left +strained in agony to catch what Tanqueray was saying. Tanqueray was +talking to Jane. He had said he supposed she had seen the way "they had +been going for him," and she had asked him was it possible he minded?</p> + +<p>"Minded? After your letter? When a big full-fledged arch-angel gets up +on the tips of its toes, and spreads its gorgeous wings in front of me, +and sings a hymn of praise out loud in my face, do you think I hear the +little beasts snarling at my feet and snapping at the calves of my +legs?"</p> + +<p>Rose at Nicky's right was saying, "It's over small for a dinin'-room. +But you should see 'is study."</p> + +<p>He bowed an ear that did not hear her.</p> + +<p>"Nicky did me well," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"I told you all the time," said Jane, "that Nicky knew."</p> + +<p>"'E couldn't do anything without 'is study."</p> + +<p>"Ah?" Nicky returned to the little woman, all attention.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you proud of him? Isn't it splendid how he's brought them round? +How they're all praising him?"</p> + +<p>"So they'd ought to," Rose said. "'E's worked 'ard enough for it. The +way 'e works! He'll sit think-thinkin' for hours, before 'e seems as if +'e could get fair hold of a word——"</p> + +<p>They had all stopped talking to Tanqueray and were listening to +Tanqueray's wife.</p> + +<p>"Then 'e'll start writin', slow-like; and 'e'll go over it again and +again, a-scratchin' out and a-scratchin' out, till all 'is papers is a +marsh of ink; and 'e'll 'ave to write all that over again. And the study +and the care 'e gives to it you'd never think."</p> + +<p>Nicky's ear leaned closer than ever, as if to shelter and protect her; +and Rose became aware that George's forehead was lowering upon her from +the other end of the table and trying to scowl her into silence.</p> + +<p>After that Rose talked no more. She sat wondering miserably what it was +that she had done. It did not occur to her that what had annoyed him was +her vivid revelation of his method. The dinner she was enjoying so much +had suddenly become dreadful to her.</p> + +<p>Her wonder and her dread still weighed on her, long after it was over, +when she was showing Mrs. Brodrick the house. Her joy and her pride in +it were dashed. Over all the house there hung the shadow of George's +awful scowl. It seemed to her that George's scowl must have had +something to do with Mrs. Brodrick; that she must have shamed him in +some way before the lady he thought so much of, who thought so much of +him. A little too much, Rose said to herself, seeing that she was a +married woman.</p> + +<p>And for the first time there crept into Rose's obscurely suffering soul, +a fear and a jealousy of Mrs. Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Jane felt it, and divined beneath it the suffering that was its cause. +It was not as if she had not known how George could make a woman suffer.</p> + +<p>Her acutest sense of it came to her as they stood together in the +bedroom that she had been called on to admire. Rose's bedroom was a +wonder of whiteness; so was the great smooth double bed; but the +smoothest and the whitest thing in it was Tanqueray's pillow where +Tanqueray's head had never lain. There was a tiny dressing-room beyond, +and through the open door Jane caught a sight of the low camp-bed where, +night after night, Tanqueray's genius flung its victim down to sleep off +the orgy of the day's work. The dressing-room was a place where he could +hide from Rose by night as he hid from her by day.</p> + +<p>And Rose, when they took the house, had been so proud of the +dressing-room.</p> + +<p>Jane, seeing these things, resolved to remove the fear and jealousy. She +must let Rose see that she was not dangerous; and she knew how.</p> + +<p>She began by asking Rose when she was coming out to Putney? And Rose +answered that she was busy and couldn't say for sure.</p> + +<p>"You won't be busy in August, will you? If you'll come then I'll show +you a room you haven't seen, the prettiest room in the house."</p> + +<p>Rose drew in her breath. Her face had the soft flush in it that came +when she was deeply moved.</p> + +<p>"I've got some of its dear little things all ready for it now," said +Jane. "You must see them."</p> + +<p>"I should dearly love to."</p> + +<p>"I never thought, Rose, that I should have it."</p> + +<p>Rose meditated. "They come," said she, "mostly to them that doesn't +think."</p> + +<p>"There's only one thing, Rose. I'm afraid. Oh, I'm so dreadfully +afraid."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be afraid," said Rose, "if it was me."</p> + +<p>"It's because I've been so happy."</p> + +<p>"You'll be 'appier still when it's come. It'd make all the difference to +me if I 'ad a child. But that's what I haven't and never shall have."</p> + +<p>"You don't know. You don't know."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I do know." Rose's mouth trembled. She glanced unaware at the +pillow that lay so smooth beside her own. "I 'aven't let on to him how +much I want it. I wouldn't" (Rose steadied her mouth to get the words +out). "Not if it was ever so."</p> + +<p>"You darling," said Jane, and kissed her, and at that Rose burst into +tears.</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to be keeping you here," she said. And they left the +bedroom.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you coming in?" said Jane.</p> + +<p>Rose had turned away from her at Tanqueray's door.</p> + +<p>"I can't," she whispered. "Not with me eyes all swelled up like this."</p> + +<p>She went down-stairs to her little kitchen, where in the half-darkness +she crouched down beside Minny who, with humped shoulders and head that +nodded to the fender, dozed before the fire.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>XXXVII</h2> + + +<p>Laura Gunning was writing a letter to Tanqueray to congratulate him on +his book and to explain why she had not come to his birthday party. It +was simply impossible to get off now. Papa, she said, couldn't be left +for five minutes, not even with the morning paper.</p> + +<p>It was frightfully hard work getting all this into any intelligible form +of words; getting it down at all was difficult. For the last hour she +had been sitting there, starting and trembling at each rustle of the +paper. Mr. Gunning could not settle down to reading now. He turned his +paper over and over again in the vain search for distraction; he divided +it into parts and became entangled in them; now he would cast them from +him and trample them under his feet; and now they would be flapping +about his head; he would be covered and utterly concealed in newspaper.</p> + +<p>It was a perpetual wind of newspaper, now high, now low; small, creeping +sounds that rose to a crescendo; rushing, ripping, shrieking sounds of +agitated newspaper, lacerating Laura's nerves, and murderous to the +rhythm of her prose.</p> + +<p>Tears fell from Laura's eyes as she wrote; they dropped, disfiguring her +letter. Her head ached. It was always aching now. And when she tried to +write she felt as if she were weaving string out of the grey matter of +her brain, with the thread breaking all the time.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock she rose wearily and began to get tea ready. Nina was +coming to tea that afternoon. It was something to look forward to, +something that would stave off the pressure and the pain.</p> + +<p>Her tether had stretched; it had given her inches; but this was the end +of it. She did not see, herself, now, any more than Nina or Jane or +Tanqueray saw, how she was to go on. She did not know how, for +instance, she was to face the terrible question of finance. For the last +six months she had not written any paragraphs. Even if Papa had not made +it impossible for her to write them, her head and all the ideas in it +were giving out. She had lost her job. She was living precariously on +translation, which could be done, she maintained, when you hadn't any +head at all. She would get twenty pounds for it, and there would be +forty, perhaps, for the book which she had been sitting up to write. She +did not know where the money for next year was coming from; and there +were the doctor and the chemist now to pay for poor Papa.</p> + +<p>The doctor and the chemist had not cured him of his dreams. The dreams +were incessant, and they were more horrid than they had ever been. She +hadn't slept for fear of the opening of the door, and the sound of the +slow feet shuffling to her bedside, and the face that took on more and +more the likeness of the horrors that he dreamed.</p> + +<p>The dreams, she had gathered, were a very bad sign. She had been told +that she must be on the look-out; she must not leave him. She knew what +that meant. Her fear might take shape any day or any night.</p> + +<p>Last night she had moved her bed into his room.</p> + +<p>The doctor had looked grave when she told him what she had done. There +should be, he said, an attendant for the night. To be on the look-out +night and day were too much for any woman. She should husband her +strength, for she would want it. She was in for a very long strain. For +the old man's bodily health was marvellous. He might last like that for +another ten years, and, with care, for longer.</p> + +<p>Nina had been drawn apart into the inner room to receive this account of +Mr. Gunning. She was shocked by the change she found in her little +friend. The Kiddy was very thin. Her pretty, slender neck was wasted, +and her childlike wrists were flattened to the bone. A sallow tint was +staining her whiteness. Her hair no longer waved in its low curves; it +fell flat and limp from the parting. Her eyes, strained, fixed in their +fear, showed a rim of white. Her mouth was set tight in defiance of her +fear. Nina noticed that there was a faint, sagging mark on either side +of it.</p> + +<p>"Kiddy," she said, "how <i>will</i> you——?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. My brain's all woolly and it won't think."</p> + +<p>Laura closed her eyes; a way she had when she faced terror.</p> + +<p>"Nina, it was horrible yesterday. I caught myself wishing——Oh no, I +don't; I didn't; I couldn't; it was something else, not me. It couldn't +have been me, could it?"</p> + +<p>"No, Kiddy, of course it couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I feel sometimes as if I could be awful. Yesterday, I did +a cruel thing to him. I took his newspaper away from him."</p> + +<p>She stared, agonized, as if her words were being wrenched from her with +each turn of a rack.</p> + +<p>"I hid it. And he cried, Nina, he cried."</p> + +<p>Her sad eyes fastened on Nina's; they clung, straining at the hope they +saw in Nina's pity.</p> + +<p>"I can't think how I did it. I couldn't stand it, you know—the +rustling."</p> + +<p>"Kiddy," said Nina, "you're going to pieces."</p> + +<p>Laura shook her head. "Oh no. If I could have peace; if I could only +have peace, for three days."</p> + +<p>"You must have it. You must go away."</p> + +<p>"How can I go and leave him?"</p> + +<p>"Tank's wife would come."</p> + +<p>"Three days." It seemed as if she were considering it, as if her mind, +drowning, snatched at that straw.</p> + +<p>She let it go. "No. It's no use going away. It would make no +difference."</p> + +<p>She turned her face from Nina. "In some ways," she said, "it's a good +thing I've got Papa to think of."</p> + +<p>Nina was silent. She knew what Laura meant.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>XXXVIII</h2> + + +<p>They had preserved as by a compact a perpetual silence on the subject of +Owen Prothero. But always, after seeing Laura, Nina had forced herself +to write to him that he might know she had been true to her trust.</p> + +<p>To-night she wrote: "I have done all I can for you, or, if you like, for +Laura. She's at the breaking point. If you think there's anything you +can do for her yourself you'd better do it and lose no time."</p> + +<p>She wrote brutally; for mixed with her jealousy there was a savage anger +with Owen as the cause of Laura's suffering. She hated the Kiddy, but +she couldn't bear to see her suffer.</p> + +<p>There were two days yet before the mail went; but she posted her letter +at once, while her nerve held out. The thing done, she sat up till +midnight brooding over it. It had taken all her nerve. For she did not +want Prothero to come back, and that letter would bring him. Bodily +separation from Owen had not killed her; it had become the very +condition of her life; for there was a soul of soundness in her. Her +blood, so vehement in its course, had the saving impetus of recoil.</p> + +<p>She dreaded its dominion as the whipped slave dreads the lash.</p> + +<p>Latterly she had detached herself even spiritually from Owen. She +remembered what she had been before, without him, and what, without him, +she had possessed. Her genius was a thing utterly removed from her, a +thing that belonged to Owen rather than to her, since he had said it was +his youth. She thought of it tenderly, as of a thing done for and +departed; for it was so that she had come to think of Owen's youth. She +was not like Jane, she felt no hatred of it and no jealousy. It had not +given her cause. It had not stood in her way. It had not struggled in +her against her passion. If it had, she knew that she would have swept +it aside and crushed it. It had lain always at the mercy of her +passions; she had given it to her passions to destroy, foreseeing the +destruction. But now she relented. She felt that she would save it if +she could.</p> + +<p>It was in her hour of sanity and insight that she had said virginity was +the law, the indispensable condition. Virginity—she had always seen it, +not as a fragile, frustrate thing, but as a joyous, triumphing energy, +the cold, wild sister of mountain winds and leaping waters, subservient +only to her genius, guarding the flame in its secret, unsurrendered +heart.</p> + +<p>Her genius was the genius of wild earth, an immortal of divinely pitiful +virgin heart and healing hand; clear-eyed, swift-footed, a huntress of +the woods and the mountains, a runner in the earth's green depths, in +the secret, enchanted ways. To follow it was to know joy and deliverance +and peace. It was the one thing that had not betrayed her.</p> + +<p>There had been moments, lately, when she had had almost the assurance of +its ultimate return; when she had felt the stirring of the old impulse, +the immortal instinct; when she longed for the rushing of her rivers, +and the race of the wind on her mountains of the Marches. It would come +back, her power, if she were there, in the place where it was born; if +she could get away from streets and houses and people; if she got away +from Laura.</p> + +<p>But Laura was the one thing she could not get away from. She had to be +faithful to her trust.</p> + +<p>It would be seven weeks, at the least, before Owen could come back. Her +letter would take three weeks to reach him, and he would have to make +arrangements. She wondered whether the Kiddy could hold out so long.</p> + +<p>All night she was tormented by this fear, of the Kiddy's not holding +out, of her just missing it; of every week being one more nail hammered, +as she had once said, into the Kiddy's little coffin; and it was with a +poignant premonition that she received a message from Addy Ranger in the +morning. Miss Ranger was down-stairs; she had something to say to Miss +Lempriere; she must see her. She couldn't come up; she hadn't a minute.</p> + +<p>Addy stood outside on the doorstep. She was always in a violent hurry +when on her way to Fleet Street, the scene for the time being of her +job. But this morning her face showed signs of a profounder agitation. +She made a rush at Nina.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Lempriere, will you go to Laura?"</p> + +<p>"Is she ill?"</p> + +<p>"No. <i>He</i> is. He's dying. He's in a fit. I think it's killing her."</p> + +<p>The blinds were down when Nina reached the house in Camden Town.</p> + +<p>The fit—it was apoplexy, Mrs. Baxter informed her—had not been long. +It had come on, mercifully, in his sleep. Mercifully (Mrs. Baxter leant +on it); but Miss Lempriere had better go up at once to Miss Gunning.</p> + +<p>Nina went without a word.</p> + +<p>The bed had been drawn into the middle of the small back room. The body +of the old man lay on it, covered with a sheet. His head was tilted a +little, showing the prone arch of the peaked nose; the jaw was bound +with a handkerchief. Already the features were as they had been in the +days before disease had touched them. Death had constrained them to +their primal sanity. Death dominated them like a living soul.</p> + +<p>The death-bed and its burden filled the room. In the narrow space +between it and the wall little Laura went to and fro, to and fro, +looking for a pair of white socks that were not there and never had +been. She must find, she was saying, a pair of white socks, of clean +white socks. They had told her that they were necessary.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>XXXIX</h2> + + +<p>It was on the thirtieth of July that Laura's father died. Three weeks +later Laura was living in the room in Adelphi Terrace which had been +Owen Prothero's. Nina had taken her away from the house in Camden Town, +where she had sat alone with her grief and remorse and the intolerable +memory of her fear. They said that her mind would give way if she were +left there.</p> + +<p>And now, secretly and in a night, her trouble had passed from her. Lying +there in Owen's room, on his bed, held as in shelter by the walls that +had held him, there had come to her a strange and intimate sense of his +presence. More strangely and more intimately still, it assured her of +her father's presence and continuance, of it being as Owen had said. The +wind from the river passed over her, lying there. It fell like an aura +of immortality.</p> + +<p>After that night the return of her bodily health was rapid, a matter of +three days; and they said of her that this marvellous recovery was due +to the old man's death, to her release from the tension.</p> + +<p>Late one afternoon she was sitting by herself at Owen's window that +looked out to the sky. Outside the rain streamed in a grey mist to the +streets and the river. At the sound of it her heart lifted with a sudden +wildness and tremor. She started when Nina opened the door and came to +her, haggard and unsmiling.</p> + +<p>Nina was telling her twice over to go down-stairs. There was somebody +there who had come to see her. When she asked who it was, Nina answered +curtly that she, Laura, knew.</p> + +<p>Laura went down to Nina's room, the room that looked over the river.</p> + +<p>Prothero stood by the window with his back to the light.</p> + +<p>She gave a low sobbing cry of joy and fear, and stayed where she had +entered; and he strode forward and took her in his arms. He held her for +a long moment, bending to her, his lips pressed to hers, till she drew +back her face suddenly and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"Do you know? Has Nina told you?"</p> + +<p>"I knew three weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"Did she wire?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody wired."</p> + +<p>"Why have you come, then?"</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> sent for me."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no. It wasn't I. I couldn't. How could you think I would?"</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"It would have been," she said, "a dreadful thing to do."</p> + +<p>"That dreadful thing is what you did. I heard you all night—the night +of the thirtieth; you were crying to me. And in the morning I saw you."</p> + +<p>"You saw me?"</p> + +<p>"I saw you in a little room that I've never seen you in. You were going +up and down in it, with your hands held out, like this, in front of you. +You were looking for something. And I knew that I had to come."</p> + +<p>"And you came," she said, "just for that?"</p> + +<p>"I came—just for that."</p> + +<p>An hour later he was alone for a moment with Nina. She had come in with +her hat and jacket on.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind," she said, "if I go out? I've <i>got</i> to go."</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be said. He knew the nature of her necessity, and +she knew that he knew. She stood confronting him and his knowledge with +a face that never flinched. His eyes protested, with that eternal +tenderness of his that had been her undoing. She steadied her voice +under it.</p> + +<p>"I want you to know, Owen, that I sent for you."</p> + +<p>"It was like your goodness."</p> + +<p>She shrugged her thin shoulders. "There was nothing else," she said, +"that I could do."</p> + +<p>That night, while Prothero and Laura sat together holding each other's +hands, Nina walked up and down outside on the Embankment, in the rain. +She had said that she was more like a man than a woman; and with her +stride that gave her garments recklessly to the rain, with her impetuous +poise, and hooded, hungry eyes, she had the look of some lean and +vehement adolescent, driven there by his youth.</p> + +<p>The next day, very early, she went down into Wales, a virgin to her +mountains.</p> + +<p>She had done all she could.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>XL</h2> + + +<p>Laura was staying at the Brodricks. She was to stay, Jane insisted on +it, until she was married. She would have to stay for ever then, Laura +said. Her marriage seemed so far-off, so unlikely, so impossible.</p> + +<p>For Prothero had offended the powers that governed his material destiny, +the editors and proprietors of the "Morning Telegraph." A man who, +without a moment's notice, could fling up his appointment, an +appointment, mind you, that he had obtained, not by any merit of his +own, but through the grace and favour of an editor's wife, an +appointment that he held precariously, almost on sufferance, by mercy +extended to him day by day and hour by hour, what could he hope for from +sane, responsible men like Brodrick and Levine? Did he imagine that +appointments hung on lamp-posts ready to his hand? Or that they only +waited for his appearance, to fall instantly upon his head? And that, if +they did fall on his head, he could take them on and off like his hat? +And did he think that he could play the fool with a paper like the +"Morning Telegraph"?</p> + +<p>These questions Brodrick asked of Levine and Levine of Brodrick, before +the unspeakably shocked, the unconditionally assenting faces of John and +Henry.</p> + +<p>All the Brodricks disapproved of Prothero and were annoyed with him for +flinging up his appointment. Jane pleaded that he had flung it up +because he was fond of Laura and wanted to marry her; and she was told +that that was all the more reason why he should have stuck to it. They +were annoyed with him for keeping Laura hanging on when he knew he +couldn't marry her; and they were annoyed with him for wanting to marry +her at all. They admitted that it was very sad for Laura; they liked +Laura; they approved of Laura; she had done her duty by all the family +she had, and had nearly died of it. And when Jane suggested that all +Prothero wanted was to do the same, they replied that Prothero had no +business to think of having a family—they supposed that was what it +would end in—a man who couldn't keep himself, much less a delicate wife +and half-a-dozen children. There would be half-a-dozen; there always +were in cases like Prothero's. And at that Jane smiled and said they +would be darlings if they were at all like Laura.</p> + +<p>They were annoyed with Jane for her championship of Prothero. They were +immeasurably annoyed with her when she, and Tanqueray, and Arnott +Nicholson, and Nina published his poems—a second volume—by +subscription. They subscribed generously, and grew more resentful on the +strength of it. Jane pleaded, but Brodrick was inexorable. The more she +pleaded the more inexorable he was. This time he put his foot down, and +put it (as Jane bitterly remarked) on poor Owen Prothero's neck. It was +a neck, a stiff and obstinate neck, that positively invited the foot of +a stiff and obstinate man.</p> + +<p>Jane hid these things from Laura, who thought, poor innocent, that it +was only her luck. Marriage or no marriage, she was incredibly happy. +She even persuaded herself it was as well that she couldn't be married +if that was to make her happier. She distrusted happiness carried to +such a preposterous pitch.</p> + +<p>She was sitting with Jane one evening, by the October firelight, in the +room where her friend lay quietly.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember, Jinny, how we were all in love with George, you and I +and Nina and poor old Caro? Caro said it was our apprenticeship to the +master."</p> + +<p>Jane remembered.</p> + +<p>"He was training us; I really think he was," said Laura, still +reminiscent. "Can't you hear him saying, 'Come on, come on, what the +dickens does it matter if I do see you? It's got to be somebody and it +had much better be me. I shan't snigger. But I'm going to make you +squirm as much as you <i>can</i> squirm. You've got to know what it feels +like.' I think he was positively proud of us when we did come on. I +can't imagine him taking any other view. And after all, you know, he +didn't snigger."</p> + +<p>She pondered. "He's an abominable husband, but he's a glorious friend."</p> + +<p>Jane assented. He was glorious and abominable.</p> + +<p>Laura's face grew tender in meditation. She was no longer thinking of +George Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"There's one awful fear I have with Owen. I shan't be ready in time when +he's all nicely disembodied and on his way to heaven. I see him stopped +at some uninteresting station, and sitting there waiting—patiently +waiting—for me to disembody myself and come on. It'll take me ages."</p> + +<p>"It always was difficult to get you off," Jane murmured.</p> + +<p>"I know. And I shall feel as if I were keeping him back when he was +trying to catch a train."</p> + +<p>"I imagine he's pretty sure of his train."</p> + +<p>"The truth is Owen doesn't really wait. He's always in his train and out +of it, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"And your disembodying yourself, darling, is only a question of time."</p> + +<p>"And time," said Laura, "doesn't exist for Owen."</p> + +<p>But time was beginning to exist for Owen. He felt the pressure of the +heavy days that divided him from Laura. He revolted against this tyranny +of time.</p> + +<p>And Brodrick, the lord of time, remained inexorable for two months.</p> + +<p>Long before they were ended, little Laura, with a determination as +inexorable as Brodrick's, had left Brodrick's house. To the great +disgust and scandal of the Brodricks she had gone back to her rooms in +Camden Town, where Prothero was living in the next house with only a +wall between them.</p> + +<p>Then (it was in the middle of October, when Henry was telling them that +Jane must on no account be agitated) Brodrick and Jane nearly quarrelled +about Prothero. She said that he was cruel, and that if Owen went into a +consumption and Laura died of hunger it would be all his fault. And when +he tried to reason gently with her she went off into a violent fit of +hysterics. The next day Brodrick had a son born to him, a whole month +before Henry had expected anything of the kind.</p> + +<p>At first Brodrick was more than ever enraged with Prothero for tampering +with other people's families like that. Jane had to go very near to +death before his will was broken. It broke, though, at the touch of her +weak arms round his neck, at the sight of her tortured body, and at her +voice, sounding from the doors of death and birth, imploring him to do +something for Owen Prothero.</p> + +<p>Jane had hardly had time to recover before Prothero got work again on +Brodrick's paper. Laura said they owed that to Jinny's baby.</p> + +<p>They were married in November before Jinny's baby could be christened. +It was a rather sad and strange little wedding, in the parish church of +Camden Town, with Brodrick to give away the bride, and Caro Bickersteth +for bridesmaid, and Tanqueray for best man. Nina was not there. She had +sent Laura a cheque for two hundred pounds two months ago—the half of +her savings—and told her to go and marry Owen with it at once, and she +had torn it up in a fury when Laura sent it back. She could do all that; +but she could not go and see Laura and Owen getting married.</p> + +<p>The two had found a lodging in an old house in Hampstead, not far from +the Consumption Hospital. Laura had objected to the hospital, but Owen +refused to recognize it as a thing of fear. He had fallen in love with +the house. It topped a rise, at the end of the precipitous lane that +curls out of the great modern High Street. It stood back in its garden, +its narrow, flat-eyed windows staring over the wall down the lane.</p> + +<p>Laura wasn't sure that she quite liked it.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking at?" she said, as he paused before this house.</p> + +<p>"I'm looking at that," said Prothero.</p> + +<p>He pointed to an old, disused iron gate, and to the design, curl within +curl of slender, aspiring curves, that grew and branched and overflowed, +in tendrils of almost tremulous grace, and in triple leaves, each less +like a leaf than a three-tongued flame. Insubstantial as lace-work +against the green background of the garden, it hung rather than stood +between its brick pillars, its edges fretted and fringed with rust, +consumed in a delicate decay. A stout iron railing guarded this miracle +of art and time. Thus cut off from the uses of life, it gave to the +place an air of almost unbearable mystery and isolation; it stirred the +sense of mortality, of things that having passed through that doorway +would not return.</p> + +<p>"That house looks and feels as if it had ghosts in it," she said.</p> + +<p>"So it has. Not the ghosts of people who have died. The ghosts of people +who have never been born. The people," he said, "who come through the +iron gate."</p> + +<p>And as she looked at it again and at the untrodden grass behind it, she +felt that this masterpiece of iron tortured into beauty was an +appropriate symbol of their life. Of Owen's, rather than of hers. Closed +as it was to all corporeal creatures, there yet went through it +presences, intelligences, the august procession of the dreams.</p> + +<p>It was flanked by a postern door, a little humble door in the wall of +the garden. That was the door, Laura said, through which her little +humble dreams would go out into the world to make their living.</p> + +<p>"Poor Owen," she said, "it's the door <i>you'll</i> have to go through."</p> + +<p>He smiled.</p> + +<p>"And the other," he said, "is the door I shall come back through when +I'm gone."</p> + +<p>That was what she couldn't bear to think of, the necessity she laid on +him of going, as it were, for ever through the postern door. He was +after all such a supernatural, such a disembodied thing. He had at times +the eyes of a young divinity innocent of creation, untouched by the +shames and terrors of the apparent world. And she knew it was the desire +they had for each other that had brought him back from his divine +borders and that held him in her world. There were moments when she +felt that he maintained his appearance there by an effort so intense +that it must be torture.</p> + +<p>And he would have to work for her, doing dreadful things down in Fleet +Street. Every day she would see him go down the green walk, and out +through the postern gate, into the alien and terrible places of the +incarnate. She felt that she had brought mortality upon an immortal +thing. She had bound this winged and radiant spirit with the weight of +her sad star.</p> + +<p>But there came to her a wonderful day when he brought her home, through +the little humble door in the wall of the garden; when, shut in their +room, he took her to himself. He laid his hands on her shoulders, and +she closed her eyes. He bowed his head over her and his breath was on +her mouth and she gave her face to him. His hands trembled holding her, +and she felt upon her their power and their passion.</p> + +<p>And she knew that it was not her body alone that he sought for and held, +but the soul that was her womanhood. It stood before him, a new-born +Eve, naked and unafraid on the green plots of Eden. It looked at him, +and its eyes were tender with desire and pity. It was tremulous as a +body inhabited by leaping light and flame.</p> + +<p>She knew that in them both the flame burned singly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>XLI</h2> + + +<p>She was aware how wonderful the thing was that had happened to her, how +it stood solitary in the world.</p> + +<p>It was not so, she knew, with any of the others. It was not so with Nina +or with Tanqueray. It was not so even with Jane. Jane had taken into her +life an element of tumult and division. The Lord her God (as Tanqueray +had once told her) was a consuming fire. Married she served a double and +divided flame. For Laura and Prothero the plots of Eden lay green for +ever inside the iron gate, and all heaven was held within the four walls +of a room.</p> + +<p>They had established themselves, strictly speaking, in three rooms, two +for work and one for sleep. From the standpoint of tangible +requirements, three rooms on a silent upper floor was their idea of a +perfect lodging. It was Nina's, it had been Tanqueray's and Jane's. A +house, Laura declared, was all very well for a poet like poor Nicky +(what would poor Nicky be without his house?); but Jinny's house was a +curse to her, and Tanks did not regard his as an unmixed blessing, +though she would have died rather than say so to Tank's wife.</p> + +<p>Tank's wife had her own theory of Laura's attitude. Laura was making (as +she herself had once made) the best of a bad job. Rose had the worst +opinion of Mr. Prothero's job; the job that sent him into Fleet Street +in all weathers and at all hours of the day and night, and was yet +compatible with his hanging about at home, doing nothing, four days out +of the seven. Rose was very fond of Laura and of Prothero. She had +always felt that they were interesting persons, persons who might any +day be ill and require to be taken care of, who required a good deal of +being taken care of, as it was. Rose superintended their removal. Rose, +very earnestly and gravely, took Laura's housekeeping in hand. To Rose, +Laura's housekeeping was a childish thing. She enlightened its innocence +and controlled its ardours and its indiscretions. Spring chicken on a +Tuesday and a Wednesday, and all Thursday nothing but such stuff as rice +and macaroni was, said Rose, a flyin' outrageous to extremes. She taught +them the secret of a breast of veal, stewed in rice (if rice they must +have), and many another admirable and economical contrivance.</p> + +<p>Rose, fertile in contrivances, came and went a great deal to the house +with the iron gate. She, who had once felt that there was nothing in +common between her and her husband's friends, was being gradually drawn +to them. Jane's baby had been the link with Jane; Mr. Gunning had been +the link with Laura; she shared with Laura and Prothero the rare genius +of devotion to a person. Rose was shocked and bewildered by many of the +little ways of the creators, but she understood <i>their</i> way. They loved +each other more than they loved anything they created. They loved each +other as she loved Tanqueray, but with a perfect comprehension.</p> + +<p>Their happiness was ominously perfect. And as time went on Rose shook +her wise head over them. They had been married six months, and Rose was +beginning to think what a difference it would make if Laura was to have +a little baby, and she could come in sometimes and take care of it. But +Laura hadn't a little baby, and wasn't going, she said, to have a little +baby. She didn't want one. Laura was elated because she had had a book. +She had thought she was never going to have another, and it was the best +book she had ever had. Perfection, within her limits, had come to her, +now that she had left off thinking about it.</p> + +<p>She couldn't have believed that so many perfect things could come to her +at once. For Laura, in spite of her happiness, remained a sceptic at +heart. She went cautiously, dreading the irony of the jealous gods.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray had bullied his publishers into giving a decent price for +Laura's book. And, to the utter overthrow of Laura's scepticism, the +book went well. It had a levity and charm that provoked and captured and +never held you for a minute too long. A demand rose for more of the +same kind from the same author, and for her earlier books, the ones that +she had got out of bed to write, and that didn't and wouldn't sell.</p> + +<p>For her husband's poems there had been no demand at all. He was not +unknown, far from it. He fell conspicuously, illustriously, between the +reviewers who reviled him, and the public who would have none of him. If +they had only let him alone. But they didn't. There was no poet more +pursued and persecuted than Owen Prothero. He trailed bleeding feet, +like a scapegoat on all the high mountains. He brought reproach and +ridicule on the friends who defended him, on Jane Holland, and on Nina +Lempriere and Tanqueray, which was what he minded most of all.</p> + +<p>He was beginning to wonder whether, at this rate, there would be any +continued demand for his paragraphs, or for any of the work he did for +the "Morning Telegraph." His editors were by no means satisfied. If only +he could write columns and paragraphs as Laura wrote them. But he +couldn't really write them properly at all. And the dreadful irony of it +was that when he ought to be writing paragraphs, poems would come; and +that when he was writing poems he would have to leave off, as often as +not, to finish a paragraph.</p> + +<p>Laura said to herself that she was going to make an end of all that.</p> + +<p>Her gift was so small that it couldn't in any way crown him; there was +no room on his head for anything besides his own stupendous crown. But, +if she couldn't put it on his head, her poor gift, she could lay it, she +could spread it out at his feet, to make his way softer. He had praised +it; he had said that in its minute way it was wonderful and beautiful; +and to her the beauty and the wonder of it were that, though it was so +small, it could actually make his gift greater. It could actually +provide the difficult material conditions, sleep and proper food, an +enormous leisure and a perfect peace.</p> + +<p>She was a little sore as she thought how she had struggled for years to +get things for poor Papa, and how he had had to do without them. And she +consoled herself by thinking, after all, how pleased he would have been +if he had known; and how fond he had been of Owen, and how nice Owen had +always been to him.</p> + +<p>One evening she brought all the publishers' letters and the cheques, and +laid them before Owen as he sat in gloom.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if we were going to make lots of money."</p> + +<p>"We!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, we; you and I. Isn't it funny?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's funny at all," said Owen. "It might be—a little +funny, if I made it and not you."</p> + +<p>"Darling—that would be funnier than anything."</p> + +<p>Her laughter darted at him, sudden and sweet and shrill, and it cut him +to the heart. His gravity was now portentous.</p> + +<p>"The beauty of it is," she persisted, defying all his gravity, "that, +if I can go on, you won't have to make it. And I shall go on, I feel +it; I feel myself going. I've got a dream, Owen, such a beautiful +dream. Some day, instead of sitting there breaking your heart over +those horrid paragraphs, instead of rushing down to Fleet Street in +the rain and the sleet and the fog, you shall ramp up and down here, +darling, making poems, and it won't matter if you wear the carpet +out, if you wear ten carpets. You shall make poems all day long, and +you—shall—never—write—another—paragraph again. You do them very +badly."</p> + +<p>"You needn't remind me of that," said Owen in his gloom.</p> + +<p>"But, surely, you don't want to do them <i>well</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I want."</p> + +<p>"You talk as if you hadn't got it."</p> + +<p>She crouched down beside him and laid her face against his knee.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's nice of you," she said, "not to be pleased when I'm +pleased."</p> + +<p>His eyes lightened. His hand slid down to her and caressed her hair.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> pleased," he said. "That's what I wanted, to see you going +strong, doing nothing but the work you love. All the same——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you understand that I don't want to see my wife working for me?"</p> + +<p>She laughed again. "You're just like that silly old Tanks. He couldn't +bear to see his wife working when she wanted to; so he wouldn't let her +work, and the poor little soul got ill with not having what she wanted. +You didn't want me to get ill, did you?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to take care of you—well or ill. I wanted to work for you all +my life long."</p> + +<p>"And you wanted me to be happy?"</p> + +<p>"More than anything I wanted you to be happy."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't, and you don't want me to be happy—in my own way?"</p> + +<p>He rose and lifted her from the floor where she crouched, and held her +so tight to him that he hurt her.</p> + +<p>"My little one," he murmured, "can't you understand it? Can't you see +it? You're so small—so small."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>XLII</h2> + + +<p>For six months Jane concentrated all her passion on her little son. The +Brodricks, who had never been surprised at anything, owned that this was +certainly not what they had expected. Jane seemed created to confound +their judgments and overthrow their expectations. Neither Frances Heron +nor Sophy Levine was ever possessed by the ecstasy and martyrdom of +motherhood. They confessed as much. Frances looked at Sophy and said, +"Whoever would have thought that Jinny——?" And Sophy looked at Frances +and replied, "My dear, I didn't even think she could have had one. She's +a marvel and a mystery."</p> + +<p>The baby was a link binding Jane to her husband's family. She was a +marvel and a mystery to them more than ever, but she was no longer an +alien. The tie of the flesh was strong. She was Hugh's wife, who had +gone near to death for him, and had returned in triumph. She was +glorified in their eyes by all the powers of life.</p> + +<p>The baby himself had an irresistible attraction for them. From John's +house in Augustus Road, from Henry's house in Roehampton Lane, from the +house of the Levines in St. John's Wood, there was now an incessant +converging upon Brodrick's house. The women took an unwearying and +unwandering interest in Hugh's amazing son. (It was a girl they had +expected.) First thing in the morning, or at noon, or in the early +evening at his bed-time, John's wife, Mabel, came with her red-eyed, +sad-hearted worship. Winny Heron hung about him and Jane for ever. Jane +discovered in Sophy and in Frances an undercurrent of positive affection +that set from her child to her.</p> + +<p>John Brodrick regarded her with solemn but tender approval, and Henry +(who might have owed her a grudge for upsetting his verdict), Henry +loved her even more than he approved. She had performed her part beyond +all hope; she linked the generations; she was wedded and made one with +the solidarity of the Brodricks.</p> + +<p>Jane with a baby was a mystery and a marvel to herself. She spent days +in worshipping the small divinity of his person, and in the +contemplation of his heartrending human attributes. She doubted if there +were any delirium of the senses to compare with the touch of her hands +upon his body, or of his fingers on her breast. She fretted herself to +fever at his untimely weaning. She ached with longing for the work of +his hands upon her, for the wonder of his eyes, opening at her for a +moment, bright and small, over the white rim of her breast.</p> + +<p>In his presence there perished in her all consciousness of time. Time +was nothing to him. He laid his diminutive hands upon the hours and +destroyed them for his play.</p> + +<p>You would have said that time was no more to Jane than it was to the +baby. For six months she watched with indifference the slaughter and +ruin of the perfect hours. For six months she remained untormented by +the desire to write. Brodrick looked upon her as a woman made perfect, +wholly satisfied and appeased.</p> + +<p>At the end of six months she was attacked by a mysterious restlessness +and fatigue. Brodrick, at Henry's suggestion, took her to the seaside. +They were away six weeks.</p> + +<p>She came back declaring herself strong.</p> + +<p>But there was something about her that Henry did not like. She was if +anything more restless; unnaturally (he said) abstracted when you spoke +to her; hardly aware of you at times. John had noticed that, too, and +had not liked it. They had all noticed it. They were afraid it must be +worrying Hugh. She seemed, Sophy said, to be letting things go all +round. Frances thought she was not nearly so much taken up with the +baby. When she mentioned it to Henry he replied gravely that it was +physical. It would pass.</p> + +<p>And yet it did not pass.</p> + +<p>The crisis came in May of nineteen-six, when the baby was seven months +old. It all turned on the baby.</p> + +<p>Every morning about nine o'clock, now that summer was come, you found +him in the garden, in his perambulator, barefooted and bareheaded, +taking the air before the sun had power. Every morning his nurse brought +him to his mother to be made much of; at nine when he went out, and at +eleven when he came in, full of sleep. In and out he went through the +French window of Jane's study, which opened straight on to the garden. +He was wheeled processionally up and down, up and down the gravel walk +outside it, or had his divine seat under the lime-tree on the lawn. +Always he was within sight of Jane's windows.</p> + +<p>One Sunday morning (it was early, and he had not been out for five +minutes, poor lamb) Jane called to the nurse to take him away out of her +sight.</p> + +<p>"Take him away," she said. "Take him down to the bottom of the garden, +where I can't see him."</p> + +<p>Brodrick heard her. He was standing on the gravel path, contemplating +his son. It was his great merit that at these moments, and in the +presence of other people, he betrayed no fatuous emotion. And now his +face, fixed on the adorable infant, was destitute of all expression. At +Jane's cry it flushed heavily.</p> + +<p>The flush was the only sign he gave that he had heard her. Without a +word he turned and followed, thoughtfully, the windings of the exiled +perambulator. From her place at the writing-table where she sat +tormented, Jane watched them go.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Brodrick appeared at the window. He was about to +enter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no!" she cried. "<i>Not</i> you!"</p> + +<p>He entered.</p> + +<p>"Jinny," he said gently, "what's the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>His voice made her weak and tender.</p> + +<p>"I want to write a book," she said. "Such a pretty book."</p> + +<p>"It's that, is it?"</p> + +<p>He sighed and stood contemplating her in ponderous thought.</p> + +<p>Jane took up some pens and played with them.</p> + +<p>"I can't write if you look at me like that," she said.</p> + +<p>"I won't look at you; but I'm going to talk to you."</p> + +<p>He sat down. She saw with terror his hostility to the thing she was +about to do.</p> + +<p>"Talking's no good," she said. "It's got to be done."</p> + +<p>"I don't see the necessity."</p> + +<p>"It's not one of those things that can be seen."</p> + +<p>"No. But look here——" He was very gentle and forbearing. "Need you do +it quite so soon?"</p> + +<p>"So soon? If I don't do it now, when <i>shall</i> I do it?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer her. He sat looking at her hands in their nervous, +restless play.</p> + +<p>Her grave eyes, under their flattening brows, gazed thoughtfully at him. +The corners of her mouth lifted a little with their wing-like, quivering +motion. Two moods were in her; one had its home in her brooding, tragic +eyes, one in her mysterious, mocking lips.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, dear," she said. "You'll never turn me into that sort of +woman."</p> + +<p>"What sort of woman?"</p> + +<p>"The sort of woman you like."</p> + +<p>He waited in silence for what she would say next.</p> + +<p>"It's not my fault, it's yours and Henry's. You shouldn't have made me +go away and get strong. The thing always comes back to me when I get +strong. It's <i>me</i>, you see."</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny, the whole point is that you're not strong. You're not fit +for anything creative."</p> + +<p>At that she laughed.</p> + +<p>"You're not, really. Why, how old is that child?"</p> + +<p>"Six months. No—seven."</p> + +<p>"Well, Henry said it would take you a whole year to get over it."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> thought I should never get over it. We were both wrong."</p> + +<p>"My child, it's palpable. You're nervy to the last degree. I never saw +you so horribly restless."</p> + +<p>"Not more so than when I first knew Baby was coming."</p> + +<p>"Well, quite as much."</p> + +<p>She gave him a little look that he did not understand.</p> + +<p>"Quite as much," she said. "And you were patient with me then."</p> + +<p>He maintained a composure that invited her to observe how extremely +patient he was now.</p> + +<p>"And do you remember—afterwards—before he came—how quiet I was and +how contented? I wasn't a bit nervy, or restless, or—or troublesome."</p> + +<p>He smiled, remembering.</p> + +<p>"Can't you see that anything creative—everything creative must be like +that?"</p> + +<p>He became grave again, having failed to follow her.</p> + +<p>"Presently, if this thing goes all right, I shall be quite, quite sane. +That's the way it takes you just at first. Then, when you feel it coming +to life and shaping itself, you settle down into a peace."</p> + +<p>Now he understood.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "and you pay for it after."</p> + +<p>"My dear, we pay for everything—after."</p> + +<p>She leaned back in her chair. The movement withdrew her a little from +Brodrick's unremitting gaze.</p> + +<p>"There are women—angels naturally—who become devils if they can't have +children. I'm an angel—you know I'm an angel—but I shall be a devil if +I can't have this. Can't you see that it's just as natural and +normal—for me?"</p> + +<p>"It's pretty evident," he said, "that you can't have both. You weren't +built to stand the double strain——"</p> + +<p>"And you mean—you mean——"</p> + +<p>"I mean that it would be better for you if you could keep off it for a +while. At any rate while the child's young."</p> + +<p>"But he'll be young, though, for ages. And if—if there are any more of +him, there'll be no end to the keeping off."</p> + +<p>"You needn't think about that," he said.</p> + +<p>"It would be all very well," she said, "if it were simpler; if either +you or I could deal with the thing, if we could just wring its neck and +destroy it. I would if it would make you any happier, but I can't. It's +stronger than I. I <i>can't</i> keep off it."</p> + +<p>He pondered. He was trying, painfully, to understand the nature of this +woman whom he thought he knew, whom, after all, it seemed, he did not +know.</p> + +<p>"You used to understand," she said. "Why can't you now?"</p> + +<p>Why couldn't he? He had reckoned with her genius when he married her. He +had honestly believed that he cared for it as he cared for her, that +Jinny was not to be thought of apart from her genius. He had found +Henry's opinion of it revolting, absurd, intolerable. And imperceptibly +his attitude had changed. In spite of himself he was coming round to +Henry's view, regarding genius as a malady, a thing abnormal, +disastrous, not of nature; or if normal and natural—for Jinny—a thing +altogether subordinate to Jinny's functions as a wife and mother. There +was no sane man who would not take that view, who would not feel that +nature was supreme. And Jinny had proved that left to nature, to her +womanhood, she was sound and perfect. Jinny's genius had had, as he put +it, pretty well its fling. It was nature's turn.</p> + +<p>Under all his arguments there lurked, unrecognized and unsuspected, the +natural man's fear of the thing not of nature, of its dominion, coming +between him and her, slackening, perhaps sundering the tie of flesh. +Through the tie of flesh, insensibly, he had come to look on Jinny as +his possession.</p> + +<p>"What would you do," he said, "if the little chap were to get ill?"</p> + +<p>She turned as if he had struck her.</p> + +<p>"Ill? Why couldn't you <i>tell</i> me he was ill?"</p> + +<p>"But he isn't. I was only——"</p> + +<p>"Does Henry say he's ill?"</p> + +<p>"Henry? Oh Lord, no."</p> + +<p>"You're lying. I'll go to him and see——"</p> + +<p>She made a rush for the window. He sprang after her and caught her. She +struggled in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, you little fool. There's nothing—nothing——He's bursting with +health."</p> + +<p>"What did you mean, then?"</p> + +<p>"I meant—supposing he were ill——"</p> + +<p>"You meant to frighten me?"</p> + +<p>She sat down and he saw her fighting for her breath. He knelt beside her +and took her in his arms, murmuring inarticulate things in his terror. +At his touch she turned to him and kissed him.</p> + +<p>"Hugh, dear," she said, "don't frighten me again. It's not necessary."</p> + +<p>All that week, and for many weeks, she busied herself with the child and +with the house. It was as if she were trying, passionately, to make up +for some brief disloyalty, some lapse of tenderness.</p> + +<p>Then, all of a sudden she flagged; she was overcome by an intolerable +fatigue and depression. Brodrick was worried, but he kept his anxiety to +himself. He was afraid now of doing or saying the wrong thing.</p> + +<p>One Saturday evening Jinny came to him in his study. She carried the +dreadfully familiar pile of bills and tradesmen's books.</p> + +<p>"Is it those horrible accounts?" he said.</p> + +<p>She was so sick, so white and harassed, so piteously humble, that he +knew. She had got them all wrong again.</p> + +<p>"I did <i>try</i> to keep them," she said.</p> + +<p>"Don't try. Leave the damned things alone."</p> + +<p>"I <i>have</i> left them," she wailed. "And look at them."</p> + +<p>He looked. A child, he thought, could have kept them straight. They were +absurdly simple. But out of their simplicity, their limpid, facile, +elementary innocence, Jinny had wrought fantasies, marvels of confusion, +of intricate complexity.</p> + +<p>That was bad enough. But it was nothing to the disorder of what Jinny +called her own little affairs. There seemed at first to be no relation +between Jinny's proved takings and the sums that Jinny was aware of as +having passed into her hands. And then Brodrick found the cheques at the +back of a drawer, where they had lain for many months; forgotten, +Brodrick said, as if they had never been.</p> + +<p>"I'm dreadful," said Jinny.</p> + +<p>"You are. What on earth did you do before you married me?"</p> + +<p>"George Tanqueray helped me."</p> + +<p>He frowned.</p> + +<p>"Well, you can leave it to me now," he said.</p> + +<p>"It takes it out of me more than all the books I ever wrote."</p> + +<p>That touched him, and he smiled in spite of himself.</p> + +<p>"If," said she, "we only had a housekeeper."</p> + +<p>"A housekeeper?"</p> + +<p>"It's a housekeeper you want."</p> + +<p>She put her face to his, brushing his cheek with a shy and fugitive +caress.</p> + +<p>"You really ought," she said, "to have married Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"You've told me that several times already."</p> + +<p>"<i>She</i> wouldn't have plagued you night and day."</p> + +<p>He owned it.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it rather a pity that she ever left?"</p> + +<p>"Why, what else could the poor woman do?"</p> + +<p>"Stay, of course."</p> + +<p>He had never thought of that solution; he would, if he had been asked, +have judged it unthinkable.</p> + +<p>"Supposing," said Jinny, "you asked her, very nicely, to come +back—don't you think that would save us?"</p> + +<p>No; he never would have thought of it himself; but since she had put it +that way, as saving them, saving Jinny, that was to say; well, he owned, +wouldn't it?</p> + +<p>"I say, but wouldn't you mind?" he said at last.</p> + +<p>"Why should I?" said she.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon of the next day, which was a Sunday, Brodrick appeared +at the house in Augustus Road. He asked to see Miss Collett, who was +staying there with her cousin.</p> + +<p>She came to him, as she used to come to him in his study, with her +uplifted, sacrificial face, holding herself stiffly and tensely, half in +surrender, half resisting the impulse that drew her.</p> + +<p>He laid the situation before her, curtly.</p> + +<p>"If you were to come back," he said, "it would solve all our problems."</p> + +<p>She reddened, suspecting, as was her way, significance in everything +that Brodrick said. Did he, she wondered, recognize that she too had her +problem; and was he providing for her too the simple and beautiful +solution? It was possible, then, she argued inwardly, that in some way +that was not any other man's way, in some immaterial and perfect way, he +cared. There was after all a tie. He desired, as she had desired, to +preserve it in its purity and its perfection.</p> + +<p>Putting all that aside, it remained certain that she was indispensable.</p> + +<p>There was a deepening in the grey shallows of her eyes; they darted such +light as comes only from the deeps. Her upper lip quivered with a +movement that was between a tremor and a smile, subtler than either.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure," she said, "that Mrs. Brodrick wouldn't mind?"</p> + +<p>"Jinny? Oh dear me, no. It was her idea."</p> + +<p>Her face changed again. The light and flush of life withdrew. Her +sallowness returned. She had the fixed look of one who watches the +perishing under her eyes of a beloved dream.</p> + +<p>"And you," she said, as if she read him, "are not quite sure whether you +really want me?"</p> + +<p>"Should I ask you if I didn't want you? My only doubt was whether you +would care to come. Will you?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with his intent look. It bore some faint resemblance to +the look he had for Jane. Her light rose. She met his gaze with a flame +of the sacrificial fire.</p> + +<p>"I'll do whatever you want," she said.</p> + +<p>That was how Gertrude came back to Brodrick's house.</p> + +<p>"And now," Jane wrote to Sophy Levine, "we're all happy."</p> + +<p>But Sophy in her wisdom wondered. As soon as she heard of Gertrude's +installation she rushed over to Putney at the highest speed of her +motor-car.</p> + +<p>She found Jane on the lawn, lying back in her long chair. An expression +of great peace was on her face.</p> + +<p>She had been writing. Some sheets of manuscript lay under the chair +where she had thrust them out of Sophy's sight. She had heard the +imperious trump of the motor-car, sounding her doom as it swung on to +the Heath.</p> + +<p>Sophy looked at her sister-in-law and said to herself that, really, +Henry did exaggerate. She could see nothing in the least abnormal about +Jane. Jane, when you took her the right way, was just like anybody else.</p> + +<p>Gertrude was out. She had gone over to Roehampton to see Frances. Sophy +judged the hour propitious.</p> + +<p>"It works," said Jane in answer to her question; "it works beautifully. +You don't know, Sophy, what a hand that woman has. Just go indoors and +look about you. You can see it working."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't stand another woman's hand in my house," said Sophy, +"however beautifully it worked."</p> + +<p>"Is it my house? In a sense it's hers. There's no doubt that she made it +about as perfect as a house could be. It was like a beautiful machine +that she had invented and kept going. Nobody but Gertrude could have +kept it going like that. It was her thing and she loved it."</p> + +<p>Sophy's face betrayed her demure understanding of Gertrude's love.</p> + +<p>"Gertrude," said Jane, "couldn't do my work, and it's been demonstrated +that I can't do hers. I don't believe in turning people out of their +heaven-appointed places and setting them down to each other's jobs."</p> + +<p>"If you could convince me that Gertrude's heaven-appointed place is in +your husband's house——"</p> + +<p>"She's proved it."</p> + +<p>"He wasn't your husband then."</p> + +<p>"Don't you see that his being my husband robs the situation of its +charm, the vagueness that might have been its danger?"</p> + +<p>"Jinny—it never answers—a double arrangement."</p> + +<p>"Why not? Why not a quadruple arrangement if necessary?"</p> + +<p>"That would be safe. It's the double thing that isn't. You've got to +think of Hugh."</p> + +<p>"Poor darling, as if I didn't."</p> + +<p>"I mean—of him and her."</p> + +<p>"Together? Is that your——Oh, I can't. It's unthinkable."</p> + +<p>"You might have thought of her, then."</p> + +<p>"I did. I did think of her."</p> + +<p>"My dear—you know what's the matter with her?"</p> + +<p>"That," said Jane slowly, "is what I thought of. She might have been +happy if it hadn't been for me."</p> + +<p>"That was out of the question," said Sophy, with some asperity.</p> + +<p>"Was it? Well, anyhow, she's happy now."</p> + +<p>"Jinny, you're beyond anything. Do you mean to tell me that was what you +did it for?"</p> + +<p>"Partly. I had to have some one. But, yes, that's why I had Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you did it for Gertrude it was cruel kindness. Encouraging her +in her preposterous——"</p> + +<p>"Don't, Sophy. There couldn't be anything more innocent on earth."</p> + +<p>"Oh, innocent, I dare say. But I've no patience with the folly of it."</p> + +<p>"I have. It might so easily have been me."</p> + +<p>"You? I don't see you making a fool of yourself."</p> + +<p>"I do. I can see myself making an eternal fool. <i>You</i> wouldn't, Sophy, +you haven't got it in you. But I could cry when I look at Gertrude. We +oughtn't to be talking about it. It's awful of us. We've no right even +to know."</p> + +<p>"My dear, when it's so apparent! What does Hugh think of it?"</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose I've given her away to him?"</p> + +<p>"I imagine he knows."</p> + +<p>"If he does, he wouldn't give her away to me."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, dear, she gave herself away."</p> + +<p>"Don't you see that that makes it all the worse for her? It makes it +horrible. Think how she must have suffered before she <i>could</i>. The only +chance for her now is to have her back, to face the thing, and let it +take its poor innocent place, and make it beautiful for her, so that she +can endure it and get all the happiness she can out of it. It's so +little she can get, and I owe it to her. I made her suffer."</p> + +<p>Sophy became thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"After all, Jinny," she said, "you <i>are</i> rather a dear. All the same, if +Gertrude wasn't a good woman——"</p> + +<p>"But she <i>is</i> a good woman. That's why she's happy now."</p> + +<p>Sophy arranged her motor-veil, very thoughtfully, over and around a +smile.</p> + +<p>This conversation had thrown light on Jinny, a light that to Sophy's +sense was beautiful but perilous, hardly of the earth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>XLIII</h2> + + +<p>Down in the garden at Roehampton, Gertrude and Frances Heron were more +tenderly and intimately discussing the same theme.</p> + +<p>Frances was the only one of the Brodricks with whom tenderness and +intimacy were possible for one in Gertrude's case. She was approachable +through her sufferings, her profound affections, and the dependence of +her position that subdued in her her racial pride.</p> + +<p>Gertrude had confessed to a doubt as to whether she ought or ought not +to have gone back.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Frances, "that it was very wise."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not, from the world's point of view. If I had thought of +<i>that</i>——" she stopped herself, aware that scandal had not been one of +any possibilities contemplated by the Brodricks.</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> was not thinking of it, I assure you," said Frances. "I only +wondered whether it were right." She elucidated her point. "For you, for +your happiness, considering——"</p> + +<p>"I'm not thinking of my own happiness, or I couldn't do it. No, I +couldn't do it. I was thinking"—her voice sank and vibrated, and rose, +exulting, to the stress—"of <i>his</i>."</p> + +<p>Frances looked at her with gentle, questioning eyes. Hugh's happiness, +no doubt, was the thing; but she wondered how Gertrude's presence was to +secure it.</p> + +<p>Slowly, bit by bit, with many meditative pauses, many sinkings of her +thought into the depths, as if she sounded at each point her own +sincerity, Gertrude made it out.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Brodrick is very sweet and very charming, and I know they are +devoted. Still"—Gertrude's pause was poignant—"still—she <i>is</i> +unusual."</p> + +<p>"Well, yes," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"And one sees that the situation is a little difficult."</p> + +<p>Frances made no attempt to deny it.</p> + +<p>"It always is," said Gertrude, "when the wife has an immense, absorbing +interest apart. I can't help feeling that they've come, both of them, to +a point—a turning point, where everything depends on saving her, as +much as possible, all fret and worry. It's saving him. There are so many +things she tries to do and can't do; and she puts them all on him."</p> + +<p>"She certainly does," said Frances.</p> + +<p>"If I'm there to do them, it will at least prevent this continual +friction and strain."</p> + +<p>"But you, my dear—you?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter about me." She was pensive over it. "If I solve his +problem——"</p> + +<p>"It will be very hard for you."</p> + +<p>"I can bear anything if he's happy."</p> + +<p>Frances smiled sadly. She had had worse things than that to bear.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, "if you know—if you're sure that you care—in +that way——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know until the other day, when I came back. It's only when you +give up everything that you really know."</p> + +<p>Frances was silent. If any woman knew, she knew. She had given up her +husband to another woman. For his happiness she had given the woman her +own name and her own place, when she might have shamed her by refusing +the divorce he asked for.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't have been right for me to come back," said Gertrude, "if I +hadn't been certain in my own heart that I can lift this feeling, and +make it pure." Her voice thickened slightly. "It <i>is</i> pure. I think it +always was. Why should I be ashamed of it? If there's anything spiritual +in me, it's <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>Frances was not the woman to warn her of possible delusion; to hint at +the risk run by the passion that disdains and disowns its kindred to the +flesh.</p> + +<p>She raised her eyes of tragedy, tender with unfallen tears.</p> + +<p>"My dear," she said, "you're a very noble woman."</p> + +<p>Across the narrow heath-path, with a lifted head, with flame in her +heart and in her eyes, Gertrude made her way to Brodrick's house.</p> + +<p>And once again, with immutable punctuality, the silver-chiming clock +told out the hours; fair hours made perfect by the spirit of order +moving in its round. It moved in the garden, and the lawn was clean and +smooth; the roses rioted no longer; the borders and the paths were +straight again. Indoors, all things on which Gertrude laid her hand slid +sweetly and inaudibly into their place. The little squat god appeared +again within his shrine; and a great peace came upon Brodrick and on +Brodrick's house.</p> + +<p>It came upon Jane. She sank into it and it closed over her, a +marvellous, incredible peace. At the turning point when everything +depended upon time, when time was all she wanted and was the one thing +she could not get, suddenly time was made new and golden for her, it was +given to her without measure, without break or stint.</p> + +<p>Only once, and for a moment, Gertrude Collett intruded on her peace, +looking in at Jane's study window as she passed on soft feet through the +garden.</p> + +<p>"Are you happy <i>now</i>?" she said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>XLIV</h2> + + +<p>She moved with such soft feet, on so fine and light a wing that, but for +the blessed effects of it, they were hardly aware of her presence in the +house. Owing to her consummate genius for self-effacement, Brodrick +remained peculiarly unaware. The bond of her secretaryship no longer +held them. It had lapsed when Brodrick married, and Gertrude found +herself superseded as the editor grew great.</p> + +<p>For more than a year Brodrick's magazine had had a staff of its own, and +its own office where Miss Addy Ranger sat in Gertrude's seat. Addy no +longer railed at the impermanence and mutability of things. Having +attained the extreme pitch of speed and competence, she was now +established as Brodrick's secretary for good. She owed her position to +Jane, a position from which, Addy exultantly declared, not even +earthquakes could remove her.</p> + +<p>You would have said nothing short of an earthquake could remove the +"Monthly Review." It looked as if Brodrick's magazine, for all its +dangerous splendour, had come to stay, as if Brodrick, by sheer fixity +and the power he had of getting what he wanted, would yet force the +world to accept his preposterous dream. He had gone straight on, deaf to +his brother-in-law's warning and remonstrance; he had not checked for +one moment the flight of his fantasy, nor changed by one nervous +movement his high attitude. Month after month, the appearance of the +magazine was punctual, inalterable as the courses of the moon.</p> + +<p>Bold as Brodrick was, there was no vulgar audacity about his venture. +The magazine was not hurled at people's heads; it was not thrust on +them. It was barely offered. By the restraint and dignity of his +advertisements the editor seemed to be saying to his public, "There it +is. You take it or you leave it. In either case it is there; and it will +remain there."</p> + +<p>And strangely, inconceivably, it did remain. In nineteen-six Brodrick +found himself planted with apparent security on the summit of his +ambition. He had a unique position, a reputation for caring, caring with +the candid purity of high passion, only for the best. He counted as a +power unapproachable, implacable to mediocrity. Authors believed in him, +adored, feared, detested him, according to their quality. Other editors +admired him cautiously; they praised him to his face; in secret they +judged him preposterous, but not absurd. They all prophesied his +failure; they gave him a year, or at the most three years.</p> + +<p>Some wondered that a man like Brodrick, solid, if you like, but after +all, well, of no more than ordinary brilliance, should have gone so far. +It was said among them that Jane Holland was the power behind Brodrick +and his ordinary brilliance and his most extraordinary magazine. The +imagination he displayed, the fine, the infallible discernment, the +secret for the perfect thing, were hers, they could not by any +possibility be Brodrick's.</p> + +<p>Caro Bickersteth, who gathered these impressions in her continuous +intercourse with the right people, met them with one invariable +argument. If Brodrick wasn't fine, if he wasn't perceptive, if he hadn't +got the scent, Caro challenged them, how on earth did he discern Jane +Holland? His appreciation of her, Caro informed one or two eminent +critics, had considerably forestalled their own. He was the first to +see; he always was the first. He had taken up George Tanqueray when +other editors wouldn't look at him, when he was absolutely unknown. And +when Caro was reminded that there, at any rate, Jane Holland had been +notoriously behind Brodrick's back, and that the editor was, notoriously +again, in love with her, Caro made her point triumphantly, maintaining +that to be in love with Jane Holland required some subtlety, if it came +to that; and pray how, if Brodrick was devoid of it, did Jane Holland +come to be in love with <i>him</i>?</p> + +<p>It was generous of Caro, for even as sub-editor she was no longer +Brodrick's right hand. To the right and to the left of him, at his back +and perpetually before him, all round about him she saw Jane.</p> + +<p>The wonder was that she saw her happy. It was Jane who observed to Caro +how admirably they all of them, she, Addy Ranger, Gertrude, Brodrick, +and those two queer women, Jane Brodrick and Jane Holland, were settled +down into their right places, with everything about them incomparably +ordered and adjusted.</p> + +<p>Jane marvelled at the concessions that had been made to her, at the +extent to which things were being done for her. Her hours were no longer +confounded and consumed in supervising servants, interviewing +tradespeople, and struggling with the demon of finance. They were all, +Jane's hours, serenely and equitably disposed. She gave her mornings to +her work, a portion of the afternoon to her son, and her evenings to her +husband. Sometimes she sat up quite late with him, working on the +magazine. Brodrick and the baby between them divided the three hours +which were hers before dinner. The social round had ceased for Jane. +Brodrick had freed her from the destroyers, from the pressure of the +dreadful, clever little people. She was hardly yet aware of the more +formidable impact of his family.</p> + +<p>What impressed her was Brodrick's serene acceptance of her friends, his +authors. He was wonderful in his brilliant, undismayed enthusiasm, as he +followed the reckless charge, the shining onset of the talents. He +accepted even Tanqueray's murderous, amazing ironies. If Brodrick's +lifted eyebrows confessed that Tanqueray was amazing, they also +intimated that Brodrick remained perpetually unamazed.</p> + +<p>But, as an editor, he drew the line at Arnott Nicholson.</p> + +<p>It was the sensitive Nicky who first perceived and pointed out a change +in Jane. She moved among them abstractedly, with mute, half alienated +eyes. She seemed to have suffered some spiritual disintegration that was +pain. She gave herself to them no longer whole, but piecemeal. At times +she seemed to hold out empty, supplicating hands, palms outward, +showing that she could give no more. There was, she seemed to say, no +more left of her.</p> + +<p>Only Tanqueray knew how much was left; knew of her secret, imperishable +resources, things that were hidden profoundly even from herself; so +hidden that, even if she gave him nothing, it was always possible to him +to help himself. To him she could not change. His creed had always been +the unchangeableness, the indestructibility of Jinny.</p> + +<p>Still, he assented, smiling, when little Laura confided to him that to +see Jane Brodrick in Brodrick's house, among Brodricks, was not seeing +Jinny. There was too much Brodrick. It would have been better, said +Laura, if she had married Nicky.</p> + +<p>He agreed. There would never have been too much of Nicky. But Laura +shook her head.</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of proportion," she said. "It isn't that there's +too much Brodrick and too little Jinny. It's simply that Jinny isn't +there."</p> + +<p>Jane knew how she struck them. There was sadness for her, not in their +reproaches, for they had none, but in their recognition of the things +that were impossible. They had always known how it would be if she +married, if she was surrounded by a family circle.</p> + +<p>There was no denying that she was surrounded, and that the circle was +drawing rather tight. And she was planted there in the middle of it, +more than ever under observation. She always had been; she had known it; +only in the beginning it had not been quite so bad. Allowances had been +made for her in the days when she did her best, when she was seen by all +of them valiantly struggling, deplorably handicapped; in the days when, +as Brodrick said, she was pathetic.</p> + +<p>For the Brodricks as a family were chivalrous. Even Frances and Sophy +were chivalrous; and it had touched them, that dismal spectacle of Jane +doing her sad best. But now she was in the position of one to whom all +things have been conceded. She was in for all the consequences of +concession. Everything had been done for her that could be done. She was +more than ever on her honour, more than ever pledged to do her part. If +she failed Brodrick now at any point she was without excuse. Every nerve +in her vibrated to the touch of honour.</p> + +<p>Around her things went with the rhythm of faultless mechanism. There was +no murmur, no perceptible vibration at the heart of the machine. You +could not put your finger on it and say that it was Gertrude. Yet you +knew it. Time itself and the awful punctuality of things were in +Gertrude's hand. You would have known it even if, every morning at the +same hour, you had not come upon Gertrude standing on a chair winding up +the clock that Jane invariably forgot to wind. You felt that by no +possibility could Gertrude forget to wind up anything. She herself was +wound up every morning. She might have been a clock. She was wound up by +Brodrick; otherwise she was self-regulating, provided with a +compensation balance, and so long as Brodrick wound her, incapable of +going wrong. Jane envied her her secure and secret mechanism, her +automatic rhythm, the delicate precision of her ways. Compared with them +her own performance was dangerous, fantastic, a dance on a tight-rope. +She marvelled at her own preternatural poise.</p> + +<p>She was steady; they could never say she was not steady. And they could +never say it was not difficult. She had so many balls to keep going. +There was her novel; and there was Brodrick, and the baby, and +Brodrick's family, and her own friends. She couldn't drop one of them.</p> + +<p>And at first there came on her an incredible, effortless dexterity. She +was a fine juggler on her tight-rope, keeping in play her golden balls +that multiplied till you could have sworn that she must miss one. And +she never missed. She kept her head; she held it high; she fixed her +eyes on the tossing balls, and simply trusted her feet not to swerve by +a hair's-breadth. And she never swerved.</p> + +<p>But now she was beginning to feel the trembling of the perfect balance. +It was as if, in that marvellous adjustment of relations, she had +arrived at the pitch where perfection topples over. She moved with tense +nerves on the edge of peril.</p> + +<p>How tense they were she hardly realized till Tanqueray warned her.</p> + +<p>It was on Friday, that one day of the week when Brodrick was kept late +at the office of the "Morning Telegraph." And it was August, two months +after the coming of Gertrude Collett. Tanqueray, calling to see Jane, as +he frequently did on a Friday, about five o'clock in the afternoon, +found her in her study, playing with the baby.</p> + +<p>She had the effrontery to hold the baby up, with his little naked legs +kicking in Tanqueray's face. At ten months old he was a really charming +baby, and very like Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him?" she said.</p> + +<p>He stepped back and considered her. She had put her little son down on +the floor, where, by an absurd rising and falling motion of his rosy +hips, he contrived to travel across the room towards the fireplace.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray said that he liked the effect of him.</p> + +<p>"The general effect? It <i>is</i> heartrending."</p> + +<p>"I mean his effect on you, Jinny. He makes you look like some nice, +furry animal in a wood."</p> + +<p>At that she snatched the child from his goal, the sharp curb of the +hearthstone, and set him on her shoulder. Her face was turned up to him, +his hands were in her hair. Mother and child they laughed together.</p> + +<p>And Tanqueray looked at her, thinking how never before had he seen her +just like that; never before with her body, tall for sheer slenderness, +curved backwards, with her face so turned, and her mouth, fawn-like, +tilting upwards, the lips half-mocking, half-maternal.</p> + +<p>It was Jinny, shaped by the powers of life.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, "he makes you look like a young Mænad; mad, Jinny, drunk +with life, and dangerous to life. What are you going to do with him?"</p> + +<p>At that moment Gertrude Collett appeared in the doorway.</p> + +<p>She returned Tanqueray's greeting as if she hardly saw him. Her face was +set towards Jane Brodrick and the child.</p> + +<p>"I am going," said Jane, "to give him to any one who wants him. I am +going to give him to Miss Collett. There—you may keep him as long as +you like."</p> + +<p>Gertrude advanced, impassive, scarcely smiling. But as she took the +child from Jane, Tanqueray saw how the fine lines of her lips tightened, +relaxed, and tightened again, as if her tenderness were pain.</p> + +<p>She laid the little thing across her shoulder and went from them without +a word.</p> + +<p>"He goes like a lamb," said Jane. "A month ago he'd have howled the +house down."</p> + +<p>"So that's how you've solved your problem?" said Tanqueray, as he closed +the door behind Miss Collett.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Isn't it simple?"</p> + +<p>"Very. But you always were."</p> + +<p>From his corner of the fireside lounge, where he seated himself beside +her, his eyes regarded her with a grave and dark lucidity. The devil in +them was quiet for a time.</p> + +<p>"That's a wonderful woman, George," said she.</p> + +<p>"Not half so wonderful as you," he murmured. (It was what Brodrick had +once said.)</p> + +<p>"She's been here exactly two months and—it's incredible—but I've begun +another book. I'm almost half through."</p> + +<p>His eyes lightened.</p> + +<p>"So it's come back, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"You said it would."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I think I told you the condition. Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>She lowered her eyes, remembering.</p> + +<p>"What was it you said?"</p> + +<p>"That you'd have to pay the price."</p> + +<p>"Not yet. Not yet. And perhaps, after all, I shan't have to. I mayn't be +able to finish."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Because I've been so happy over it."</p> + +<p>Of a sudden there died out of her face the fawn-like, woodland look, the +maternal wildness, the red-blooded joy. She was the harassed and +unquiet Jinny whom he knew. It was so that her genius dealt with her. +She had been swung high on a strong elastic, luminous wave; and now she +was swept down into its trough.</p> + +<p>He comforted her as he had comforted her before. It was, he assured her, +what he was there for.</p> + +<p>"We're all like that, Jinny, we're all like that. It's no worse than I +feel a dozen times over one infernal book. It's no more than what you've +felt about everything you've ever done—even Hambleby."</p> + +<p>"Yes." She almost whispered it. "It <i>is</i> worse."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know whether it is that there isn't enough time—yet, or +whether I've really not enough strength. Don't tell anybody I said so. +Above all, don't tell Henry."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't dream of telling Henry."</p> + +<p>"You see, sometimes I feel as if I was walking on a tight-rope of time, +held for me, by somebody else, over an abyss; and that, if somebody else +were suddenly to let go, there I should be—precipitated. And sometimes +it's as if I were doing it all with one little, little brain-cell that +might break any minute; or with one little tight nerve that might snap. +It's the way Laura used to feel. I never knew what it was like till now. +Poor little Laura, don't you remember how frightened we always were?"</p> + +<p>He was frightened now. He suggested that she had better rest. He tried +to force from her a promise that she would rest. He pointed out the +absolute necessity of rest.</p> + +<p>"That's it. I'm afraid to rest. Lest—later on—there shouldn't be any +time at all."</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't there be?"</p> + +<p>"Things," she said wildly and vaguely, "get hold of you. And yet, you'd +have thought I'd cut myself loose from most."</p> + +<p>"Cut yourself looser."</p> + +<p>"But—from what?"</p> + +<p>"Your relations."</p> + +<p>"How can I. I wouldn't if I could."</p> + +<p>"Your friends, then—Nina, Laura, Prothero, Nicky—me."</p> + +<p>"You? I can't do without you."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "No, Jinny. I told you long ago you couldn't."</p> + +<p>He was moved, very strangely moved, by her admission. He had not had to +help himself to that. She had given it to him, a gift from the unseen.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said presently, "what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—struggle along somehow."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't struggle too hard." He meditated. "Look here, our natural +tendency, yours and mine, is to believe that it's people that do all the +mischief, and not that the thing itself goes. We'll believe anything +rather than that. But we've got to recognize that it's capricious. It +comes and goes."</p> + +<p>"Still, people do count. My brother-in-law, John Brodrick, makes it go. +Whereas you, Tanks, I own you make it come."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I make it come, do I?"</p> + +<p>He wondered, "What does Brodrick do?"</p> + +<p>His smile persisted, so that she divined his wonder.</p> + +<p>She turned from him ever so little, and he saw a sadness in her face, +thus estranged and averted. He thought he knew the source of it and its +secret. It also was a gift from the unseen.</p> + +<p>When he had left her she went up-stairs and cast herself upon the bed +where her little son lay naked, and abandoned herself to her maternal +passion.</p> + +<p>And Gertrude stood there in the nursery, and watched her; and like +Tanqueray, she thought she knew.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>XLV</h2> + + +<p>There were moments when she longed to be as Gertrude, a woman with one +innocent, uncomplicated aim. She was no longer sorry for her. Gertrude's +passion was so sweetly and serenely mortal, and it was so manifestly +appeased. She bore within her no tyrannous divinity. She knew nothing of +the consuming and avenging will.</p> + +<p>Jane was at its mercy; now that she had given it its head. It went, it +went, as they said; and the terror was now lest she should go with it, +past all bounds.</p> + +<p>For the world of vivid and tangible things was receding. The garden, the +house, Brodrick and his suits of clothes and the unchanged garment of +his flesh and blood, the child's adorable, diminutive body, they had no +place beside the perpetual, the ungovernable resurgence of her vision. +They became insubstantial, insignificant. The people of the vision were +solid, they clothed themselves in flesh; they walked the earth; the +light and the darkness and the weather knew them, and the grass was +green under their feet. The things they touched were saturated with +their presence. There was no sign of ardent life they had not.</p> + +<p>And not only was she surrounded by their visible bodies, but their souls +possessed her; she became the soul of each one of them in turn. It was +the intimacy, the spiritual warmth of the possession that gave her her +first sense of separation, of infidelity to Brodrick. The immaterial, +consecrated places were invaded. It was as if she closed her heart to +her husband and her child.</p> + +<p>The mood continued as long as the vision kept its grip. She came out of +it unnerved and exhausted, and terrified at herself. Bodily +unfaithfulness seemed to her a lesser sin.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was aware that she wandered. That was how he had always put it. +He had reckoned long ago with her propensity to wander. It was the way +of her genius; it was part of her queerness, of the dangerous charm that +had attracted him. He understood that sort of thing. It was his own +comparative queerness, his perversity, that had made him fly in the face +of his family's tradition. No Brodrick had ever married a woman who +wandered, who conceivably would want to wander.</p> + +<p>And Jinny wandered more than ever; more than he had ever made allowances +for. And with each wandering she became increasingly difficult to find.</p> + +<p>Still, hitherto he had had his certainty. Her spirit might torment him +with its disappearances; through her body, surrendered to his arms, he +had had the assurance of ultimate possession. At night her genius had no +power over her. Sleeping, she had deliverance in dreams. His passion +moved in her darkness, sounded her depths; through all their veils of +sleep she was aware of him, and at a touch she turned to him.</p> + +<p>Now it was he who had no power over her.</p> + +<p>One night, when he came to her, he found a creature that quivered at his +touch and shrank from it, fatigued, averted; a creature pitifully +supine, with arms too weary to enforce their own repulse. He took her in +his arms and she gave a cry, little and low, like a child's whimper. It +went to his heart and struck cold there. It was incredible that Jinny +should have given such a cry.</p> + +<p>He lay awake a long time. He wondered if she had ceased to care for him. +He hardly dared own how it terrified him, this slackening of the +physical tie.</p> + +<p>He got up early and dressed and went out into the garden. At six o'clock +he came back into her room. She was asleep, and he sat and watched her. +She lay with one arm thrown up above her pillow, as the trouble of her +sleep had tossed her. Her head was bowed upon her breast.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs07" id="gs07"></a> +<img src="images/gs07.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>It was Jinny who lay there, Jinny, his wife</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>His watching face was lowered as he brooded over the marvel and the +mystery of her. It was Jinny who lay there, Jinny, his wife, whose face +had been so tender to him, whose body utterly tender, utterly +compassionate. He tried to realize the marvel and mystery of her genius. +He knew it to be an immortal thing, hidden behind the veil of mortal +flesh that for the moment was so supremely dear to him. He wondered once +whether she still cared for Tanqueray. But the thought passed from him; +it could not endure beside the memory of her tenderness.</p> + +<p>She woke and found his eyes fixed on her. They drew her from sleep, as +they had so often drawn her from some dark corner where she had sat +removed. She woke, as if at the urgence of a trouble that kept watch in +her under her sleep. In a moment she was wide-eyed, alert; she gazed at +him with a lucid comprehension of his state. She held out to him an arm +drowsier than her thought.</p> + +<p>"I'm a brute to you," she said, "but I can't help it."</p> + +<p>She sat up and gathered together the strayed masses of her hair.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," she said, "you could get me a cup of tea from the +servant's breakfast?"</p> + +<p>He brought the tea, and as they drank together their mutual memories +revived.</p> + +<p>"I have," said she, "the most awful recollection of having been a brute +to you."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Jinny," he said, and flushed with the sting of it.</p> + +<p>"I don't. That's the dreadful part of it. I can't feel sorry when I want +to. I can't feel anything at all."</p> + +<p>She closed her eyes helplessly against his.</p> + +<p>"It isn't my fault. It isn't really me. It's It."</p> + +<p>He smiled at this reference to the dreadful Power.</p> + +<p>"The horrible and brutal thing about it is that it stops you feeling. It +would, you know."</p> + +<p>"Would it? I shouldn't have thought it would have made <i>that</i> +difference."</p> + +<p>"That's just the difference it does make."</p> + +<p>He moved impatiently. "You don't know what you're talking about."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't talk about it—only—it's much better that you should know +what it is, than that you should think it's what it isn't."</p> + +<p>She looked at him. His forehead still displayed a lowering incredulity.</p> + +<p>"If you don't believe me, ask George Tanqueray."</p> + +<p>"George Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>His nerves felt the shock of the thought that had come to him, just now +when he watched her sleep. He had not expected to meet Tanqueray again +so soon and in the open.</p> + +<p>"How much do you think he cares for poor Rose when he's in the state I'm +in?"</p> + +<p>His face darkened as he considered her question. He knew all about poor +Rose's trouble, how her tender flesh and blood had been made to pay for +Tanqueray's outrageous genius. He and Henry had discussed it. Henry had +his own theory of it. He offered it as one more instance of the +physiological disabilities of genius. It was an extreme and curious +instance, if you liked, Tanqueray himself being curious and extreme. But +it had not occurred to Brodrick that Henry's theory of Tanqueray might +be applied to Jane.</p> + +<p>"What on earth do you know about George Tanqueray?" he said. "How +<i>could</i> you know a thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"I know because I'm like him."</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny, it's not the same thing. You're a woman."</p> + +<p>She smiled, remembering sadly how that was what George in a brutal +moment had said she was not to be. It showed after all how well he knew +her.</p> + +<p>"I'm more like George Tanqueray," she said, "than I'm like Gertrude +Collett."</p> + +<p>He frowned, wondering what Gertrude Collett had to do with it.</p> + +<p>"We're all the same," she said. "It takes us that way. You see, it tires +us out."</p> + +<p>He sighed, but his face lightened.</p> + +<p>"If nothing's left of a big strong man like George Tanqueray, how much +do you suppose is left of me? It's perfectly simple—simpler than you +thought. But it has to be."</p> + +<p>It was simpler than he had thought. He understood her to say that in its +hour, by taking from her all passion, her genius was mindful of its own.</p> + +<p>"I see," he said; "it's simply physical exhaustion."</p> + +<p>She closed her eyes again.</p> + +<p>He saw and rose against it, insanely revolted by the sacrifice of +Jinny's womanhood.</p> + +<p>"It shows, Jinny, that you <i>can't</i> stand the strain. Something will have +to be done," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what?" Her eyes opened on him in terror.</p> + +<p>His expression was utterly blank, utterly helpless. He really hadn't an +idea.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Jinny."</p> + +<p>He suggested that she should stay in bed for breakfast.</p> + +<p>She stayed.</p> + +<p>Down-stairs, over the breakfast-table, he presented to Gertrude Collett +a face heavy with his suffering.</p> + +<p>He was soothed by Gertrude's imperishable tact. She was glad to hear +that Mrs. Brodrick had stayed in bed for breakfast. It would do her +good.</p> + +<p>At dinner-time they learned that it had done her good. Gertrude was glad +again. She said that Mrs. Brodrick knew she had always wanted her to +stay in bed for breakfast. She saw no reason why she should not stay in +bed for breakfast every morning.</p> + +<p>Henry was consulted. He said, "By all means. Capital idea." In a week's +time, staying in bed for breakfast had made such a difference to Jane +that Gertrude was held once more to have solved the problem. Brodrick +even said that if Jane always did what Gertrude wanted she wouldn't go +far wrong.</p> + +<p>The Brodricks all knew that Jane was staying in bed for breakfast. The +news went the round of the family in three days. It travelled from Henry +to Frances, from Frances to Mabel, from Mabel to John, and from John to +Levine and Sophy. They received it unsurprised, with melancholy +comprehension, as if they had always known it. And they said it was very +sad for Hugh.</p> + +<p>Gertrude said it was very sad for everybody. She said it to Brodrick one +Sunday morning, looking at him across the table, where she sat in Jane's +place. At first he had not liked to see her there, but he was getting +used to it. She soothed him with her stillness, her smile, and the soft +deepening of her shallow eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's very sad, isn't it," said she, "without Mrs. Brodrick?"</p> + +<p>"Very," he said. He wondered ironically, brutally, what Gertrude would +say if she really know how sad it was. There had been another night like +that which had seemed to him the beginning of it all.</p> + +<p>"May I give you some more tea?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. I wonder," said he, "how long it's going to last."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said he, "it must run its course."</p> + +<p>"You talk like my brother, as if it were an illness."</p> + +<p>"Well—isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? I haven't got it."</p> + +<p>He rose and went to the window that looked out on to the garden and the +lawn and Jane's seat under the lime-tree. He remembered how one summer, +three years ago, before he married her, she had lain there recovering +from the malady of her genius. A passion of revolt surged up in him.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, anyhow, it's incurable," he said, more to himself than to +Gertrude.</p> + +<p>She had risen from her place and followed him.</p> + +<p>"Whatever it is," she said, "it's the thing we've got most to think of. +It's the thing that means most to her."</p> + +<p>"To her?" he repeated vaguely.</p> + +<p>"To her," she insisted. "I didn't understand it at first; I can't say I +understand it now; it's altogether beyond me. But I do say it's the +great thing."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he assented, "it's the great thing."</p> + +<p>"The thing" (she pressed it) "for which sacrifices must be made."</p> + +<p>Then, lest he should think that she pressed it too hard, that she rubbed +it into him, the fact that stung, the fact that his wife's genius was +his dangerous rival, standing between them, separating them, slackening +the tie; lest he should know how much she knew; lest he should consider +her obtuse, as if she thought that he grudged his sacrifices, she faced +him with her supreme sincerity.</p> + +<p>"You know that you are glad to make them."</p> + +<p>She smiled, clear-eyed, shining with her own inspiration. She was the +woman who was there to serve him, who knew his need. She came to him in +his hour of danger, in his dark, sensual hour, and held his light for +him. She held him to himself high.</p> + +<p>He was so helpless that he turned to her as if she indeed knew.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," he said, "it does mean most to her?"</p> + +<p>"You know best," she said, "what it means."</p> + +<p>It sank into him. And, as it sank, he said to himself that of course it +was so; that he might have known it. Gertrude left it sinking.</p> + +<p>He never for a moment suspected that she had rubbed it in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI"></a>XLVI</h2> + + +<p>They were saying now that Jane left her husband too much to Gertrude +Collett, and that it was hard on Hugh.</p> + +<p>They supposed, in their unastonished acceptance of the facts, that +things would have to go on like this indefinitely. It was partly Hugh's +own fault. That was John Brodrick's view of it. Hugh had given her her +head and she was off. And when Jane was off (Sophy declared) nothing +could stop her.</p> + +<p>And yet she was stopped.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, in the full fury of it, she stopped dead.</p> + +<p>She had given herself ten months. She had asked for ten months; not a +day more. But she had not allowed for friction or disturbance from the +outside. And the check—it was a clutch at the heart that brought her +brain up staggering—came entirely from the outside, from the uttermost +rim of her circle, from Mabel Brodrick.</p> + +<p>In January, the last but three of the ten months, Mabel became ill. All +autumn John Brodrick's wife had grown slenderer and redder-eyed, her +little high-nosed, distinguished face thinned and drooped, till she was +more than ever like a delicate bird.</p> + +<p>Jane heard from Frances vague rumours of the source of Mabel's malady. +The powers of life had been cruel to the lady whom John Brodrick had so +indiscreetly married.</p> + +<p>It was incredible to all of them that poor Mabel should have the power +to stay Jinny in her course. But it was so. Mabel had became attached to +Jinny. She clung, she adhered; she drew her life through Jinny. It was +because she felt that Jane understood, that she was the only one of them +who really knew. It was, she all but intimated, because Jane was not a +Brodrick. When she was with the others, Mabel was reminded perpetually +of her failure, of how horribly she had made John suffer. Not that they +ever said a word about it, but they made her feel it; whereas Jinny had +seen from the first that she suffered too; she recognized her perfect +right to suffer. And when it all ended, as it was bound to end, in a bad +illness, the only thing that did Mabel any good was seeing Jinny.</p> + +<p>That was in January (they put it all down to the cold of January); and +every day until the middle of February when Mabel was about again, Jane +tramped across the Heath to Augustus Road, always in weather that did +its worst for Mabel, always in wind or frost or rain. She never missed a +day.</p> + +<p>Sometimes Henry was with her. He made John's house the last point of his +round that he might sit with Mabel. He had never sat with her before; he +had never paid very much attention to her. It was the change in Henry +that made Jane alive to the change in Mabel; for the long, lean, unhappy +man, this man of obstinate distastes and disapprovals, had an extreme +tenderness for all physical suffering.</p> + +<p>Since Mabel's illness he had dropped his disapproving attitude to Jane. +She could almost have believed that Henry liked her.</p> + +<p>One day as they turned together into the deep avenue of Augustus Road, +she saw kind grey eyes looking down at her from Henry's height.</p> + +<p>"You're very good to poor Mabel, Jinny," he said.</p> + +<p>"I can't do much."</p> + +<p>"Do what you can. We shan't have her with us very long."</p> + +<p>"Henry——"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know it. John doesn't know it. But I thought I'd tell you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you've told me."</p> + +<p>"It's a kindness," he went on, "to go and see her. It takes her mind off +herself."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't complain."</p> + +<p>"No. She doesn't complain. But her mind turns in on itself. It preys on +her. And of course it's terrible for John."</p> + +<p>She agreed. "Of course, it's terrible—for John." But she was thinking +how terrible it was for Mabel. She wondered, did they say of her and of +<i>her</i> malady, how terrible it was for Hugh?</p> + +<p>"This is a great interruption to your work," he said presently, with the +peculiar solemnity he accorded to the obvious.</p> + +<p>Her pace quickened. The frosty air stung her cheeks and the blood +mounted there.</p> + +<p>"It won't hurt you," he said. "You're better when you're not working."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" said she in a voice that irritated Henry.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII"></a>XLVII</h2> + + +<p>In February the interruption ceased. Mabel was better. She was well +enough for John to take her to the Riviera.</p> + +<p>Jane was, as they said, "off" again. But not all at once; not without +suffering, for the seventh time, the supreme agony of the creator—that +going down into the void darkness, to recall the offended Power, to +endure the tortures that propitiate the revolted Will.</p> + +<p>Her book was finished in March and appeared in April. Her terror of the +published thing was softened to her by the great apathy and fatigue +which now came upon her; a fatigue and an apathy in which Henry +recognized the beginning of the illness he had prophesied. He reminded +her that he had prophesied it long ago; and he watched her, sad and +unsurprised, but like the angel he invariably was in the presence of +physical suffering.</p> + +<p>She was thus spared the ordeal of the birthday celebration. It was +understood that she would give audience in her study to her friends, to +Arnott Nicholson, to the Protheros and Tanqueray. Instead of all going +in at once, they were to take it in turns.</p> + +<p>She lay there on her couch, waiting for Tanqueray to come and tell her +whether this time it was life or death.</p> + +<p>Nicky's turn came first. Nicky was unspeakably moved at the sight of +her. He bent over her hand and kissed it; and her fear misread his mood.</p> + +<p>"Dear Nicky," she said, "are you consoling me?"</p> + +<p>He stood solemnly before her, inspired, positively flaming with +annunciation.</p> + +<p>"Wait—wait," he said, "till you've seen Him. I won't say a word."</p> + +<p>Nicky had never made himself more beautiful; he had never yet, in all +his high renouncing, so sunk, so hidden himself behind the splendour +that was Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"And Prothero" (he laid beauty upon beauty), "he'll tell you himself. +He's on his knees."</p> + +<p>The moments passed. Nicky in his beauty and his pain wandered outside in +the garden, leaving her to Prothero and Laura.</p> + +<p>And in the drawing-room, where Tanqueray waited for his turn, Jane's +family appraised her triumph. Henry, to Caro Bickersteth in a corner, +was not sure that he did not, on the whole, regret it. These books +wrecked her nerves. She was, Henry admitted, a great genius; but great +genius, what was it, after all, but a great Neurosis?</p> + +<p>Not far from them Louis Levine, for John's benefit, calculated the +possible proceeds of the new book. Louis smiled his mobile smile as he +caught the last words of Henry's diagnosis. Henry might say what he +liked. Neurosis, to that extent, was a valuable asset. He could do, +Louis said, with some of it himself.</p> + +<p>Brodrick, as he surveyed with Tanqueray the immensity of his wife's +achievement, wondered whether, for all that, she had not paid too high a +price. And Sophy Levine, who overheard him, whispered to Frances that it +was he, poor dear, who paid.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray got up and left the room. He had heard through it all the +signal that he waited for, the sound of the opening of Jane's door.</p> + +<p>Her eyes searched his at the very doorway. "Is it all right, George?" +she whispered. Her hand, her thin hand, held his until he answered.</p> + +<p>"It's tremendous."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember two years ago—when you wouldn't drink?"</p> + +<p>"I drank this time. I'm drunk, Jinny, drunk as a lord."</p> + +<p>"I swore I'd make you drink, this time; if I died for it."</p> + +<p>She leaned back in the corner of her couch, looking at him.</p> + +<p>"Thank heaven you've never lied to me; because now I know."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if you do. It's alive, Jinny; it's organic; it's been +conceived and born." He brought his chair close to the table that stood +beside her couch, a barrier between them. "It's got what we're all +praying for—that divine unity——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't think it could have it. <i>I</i>'m torn in pieces."</p> + +<p>"You? I knew you would be."</p> + +<p>"It wasn't the book."</p> + +<p>"What was it?" he said fiercely.</p> + +<p>"It was chiefly, I think, Mabel Brodrick's illness."</p> + +<p>"<i>Whose</i> illness?"</p> + +<p>"John's wife's. You don't know what it means."</p> + +<p>"I can see. You let that woman prey on you. She sucks your life. You're +white; you're thin; you're ill, too."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Only tired, George."</p> + +<p>"Why do you do it? Why do you do it, Jinny?" he pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Ah—I must."</p> + +<p>He rose and walked up and down the room; and each time as he turned to +face her he burst out into speech.</p> + +<p>"What's Brodrick doing?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. He noticed that she never answered him when he spoke +of Brodrick now. He paid no heed to the warning of her face.</p> + +<p>"Why does he let his beastly relations worry you? You didn't undertake +to marry the whole lot of them."</p> + +<p>He turned from her with that, and she looked after him. The set of his +shoulders was square with his defiance and his fury.</p> + +<p>He faced her again.</p> + +<p>"I suppose if <i>he</i> was ill you'd have to look after him. I don't see +that you're bound to look after his sisters-in-law. Why can't the +Brodricks look after her?"</p> + +<p>"They do. But it's me she wants."</p> + +<p>He softened, looking down at her. But she did not see his look.</p> + +<p>"You think," said she, "that it's odd of her—the last thing anybody +could want?"</p> + +<p>His face changed suddenly as the blood surged in it. He sat down, and +stretched his arms across the table that was the barrier between them. +His head leaned towards her with its salient thrust, its poise of +impetus and forward flight.</p> + +<p>"If you knew," he said, "the things you say——"</p> + +<p>His hands made a sudden movement, as if they would have taken hers that +lay nerveless and helpless, almost within their grasp.</p> + +<p>She drew her hands back.</p> + +<p>"It's nearly ten o'clock," she said.</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to go?"</p> + +<p>She smiled. "No. Only—they'll say, if I sit up, that that's what tires +me."</p> + +<p>"And does it? Do <i>I</i> tire you?"</p> + +<p>"You never tire me."</p> + +<p>"At any rate I don't destroy you; I don't prey on you."</p> + +<p>"We all prey on each other. <i>I</i> prey on you."</p> + +<p>"You? Oh—Jinny!"</p> + +<p>Again there was a movement of his hands, checked, this time, by his own +will.</p> + +<p>"Five minutes past ten, George. They'll come and carry me out if I don't +go."</p> + +<p>"Who will?"</p> + +<p>"All of them, probably. They're all in there."</p> + +<p>"It's preposterous. They don't care what they do to you themselves; they +bore you brutally; they tire you till you're sick; they hand you on to +each other, to be worried and torn to pieces; and they drag you from +anybody who does you good. They don't let you have five minutes' +pleasure, Jinny, or five minutes' peace. Good Lord, what a family!"</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, it's <i>my</i> family."</p> + +<p>"It isn't. You haven't got a family; you never had and you never will +have. They don't belong to you, and you don't belong to any of them, and +you know it——"</p> + +<p>She rose. "All the same, I'm going to them," she said. "And that reminds +me, how's Rose?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly well, I believe."</p> + +<p>"It's ages since I saw Rose. Tell her—tell her that I'm coming to see +her."</p> + +<p>"When?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Some day next week."</p> + +<p>"Sunday?"</p> + +<p>He knew, and she knew that he knew, that Sunday was Brodrick's day.</p> + +<p>"No, Monday. Monday, about four."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII"></a>XLVIII</h2> + + +<p>Tanqueray was realizing more and more that he was married, and that his +marriage had been made in that heaven where the spirit of creative +comedy abides. In spite of the superb sincerity of his indifference, he +found it increasingly difficult to ignore his wife. It had, in fact, +become impossible now that people no longer ignored <i>him</i>. Rose, as the +wife of an obscurity, could very easily be kept obscure. But, by a +peculiar irony, as Tanqueray's genius became recognized, Rose, though +not exactly recognized in any social sense, undoubtedly tended to +appear. Tanqueray might dine "out" without her (he frequently did), but +when it came to asking people back again she was bound to be in +evidence. Not that he allowed himself to tread the ruinous round. He +still kept people at arm's length. Only people were more agreeably +disposed towards George Tanqueray recognized than they had been towards +George Tanqueray obscure, and he in consequence was more agreeably +disposed towards them. Having made it clearly understood that he would +not receive people, that he barred himself against all intrusions and +approaches, occasionally, at the length of his arm, he did receive them. +And they immediately became aware of Rose.</p> + +<p>That did not matter, considering how little <i>they</i> mattered. The +nuisance of it was that he thus became aware of her himself. Rose at the +head of his table, so conspicuously and yet so fortuitously his wife, +emphasizing her position by her struggles to sustain it, Rose with her +embarrassments and solecisms, with her lost innocence in the matter of +her aspirates, agonized now by their terrified flight and by her own +fluttering efforts at recapture, Rose was not a person that anybody +could ignore, least of all her husband.</p> + +<p>As long as she had remained a servant in his house he had been unaware +of her, or aware of her only as a presence beneficent, invisible, +inaudible. Here again his celebrity, such as it was, had cursed him. The +increase in Tanqueray's income, by enabling them to keep a servant, had +the effect of throwing Rose adrift about the house. As the mistress of +it, with a maid under her, she was not quite so invisible, nor yet so +inaudible as she had been.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Tanqueray that his acuter consciousness dated from the +arrival of that maid. Rose, too, had developed nerves. The maid +irritated Rose. She put her back up and rubbed her the wrong way in all +the places where she was sorest. For Rose's weakness was that she +couldn't tolerate any competition in her own line. She couldn't, as she +said, abide sitting still and seeing the work taken out of her hands, +seeing another woman clean <i>her</i> house, and cook <i>her</i> husband's dinner, +and she knowing that she could do both ten times as well herself. She +appealed to Tanqueray to know how he'd like it if she was to get a man +in to write his books for him. She was always appealing to Tanqueray. +When George wanted to know what, after all, was wrong with Susan, and +declared that Susan seemed to him a most superior young woman, Rose said +that was the worst of it. Susan was much too superior for her. She could +see well enough, she said, that Susan knew that she was not a lady, and +she could see that George knew that she knew. Else why did he say that +Susan was superior? And sometimes George would be beside himself with +fury and would roar, "Damn Susan!" And sometimes, but not often, he +would be a torment and a tease. He would tell Rose that he loved Susan, +that he adored Susan, that he couldn't live without her. He might part +with Rose, but he couldn't possibly part with Susan. Susan was the +symbol of his prosperity. Without Susan he would not feel celebrated any +more.</p> + +<p>And sometimes Rose would laugh; and sometimes, in moments of extreme +depression, she would deplore the irony of the success that had saddled +her with Susan. And Tanqueray cursed Susan in his heart, as the cause of +Rose's increasing tendency to conversation.</p> + +<p>It was there that she encroached. She invaded more and more the guarded +territory of silence. She annexed outlying pieces of Tanqueray's sacred +time, pursuing him with talk that it was intolerable to listen to.</p> + +<p>He blamed Prothero and Laura and Jane for that, as well as Susan. They +were the first who had encouraged her to talk, and now she had got the +habit.</p> + +<p>And it was there again that the really fine and poignant irony came in. +Through her intercourse with Jane and Laura, Rose offered herself for +comparison, and showed flagrantly imperfect. But for that, owing to +Tanqueray's superhuman powers of abstraction, she might almost have +passed unnoticed. As it was, he owned that her incorruptible simplicity +preserved her, even at her worst, from being really dreadful.</p> + +<p>Once, after some speech of hers, there had followed an outburst of fury +on Tanqueray's part and on Rose's a long period of dumbness.</p> + +<p>He was, he always had been, most aware of her after seeing Jane +Brodrick. From every meeting with Jane he came to her gloomy and +depressed and irritable. And the meetings were growing more frequent. He +saw Jane now at less and less intervals. He couldn't go on without +seeing her. A fortnight was about as long as he could stand it. He had a +sense of just struggling through, somehow, in the days that passed +between the night (it was a Thursday) when he had dined at Putney and +Monday afternoon when Jane had promised that she would come to +Hampstead.</p> + +<p>On Monday a telegram arrived for Tanqueray. The brisk director of a +great publishing firm in New York desired (at the last moment before his +departure) an appointment with the novelist for that afternoon. The +affair was of extreme importance. The American meant business. It would +be madness not to see him, even though he should miss Jinny.</p> + +<p>All morning Tanqueray sulked because of that American.</p> + +<p>Rose was cowed by his mood. At luncheon she prepared herself to sit dumb +lest she should irritate him. She had soft movements that would have +conciliated a worse ruffian than Tanqueray in his mood. She rebuked the +importunities of Joey in asides so tender that they couldn't have +irritated anybody. But Tanqueray remained irritated. He couldn't eat his +luncheon, and said so.</p> + +<p>And then Rose said something, out loud. That wasn't her fault, she said. +And Tanqueray told her that he hadn't said it was. Then, maddened by her +thought, she (as she put it to herself afterwards) fair burst with it.</p> + +<p>"I wish I'd never set eyes on that Susan!" said she.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray at the moment was trying to make notes in his memorandum-book. +He might be able to cut short that interview if he started with all his +points clear.</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>hold</i> your tongue," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> 'oldin' it," said Rose.</p> + +<p>He smiled at that in spite of himself. He was softened by its reminder +of her submissive dumbness, by its implication that there were, after +all, so many things she might have said and hadn't.</p> + +<p>Having impressed upon her that she was on no account to let Mrs. +Brodrick go till he came back, he rushed for his appointment.</p> + +<p>By rushing away from it, cutting it very short indeed, he contrived to +be back again at half-past four. Susan informed him that Mrs. Brodrick +had come. She had arrived at four with the baby and the nurse. She was +in there with the baby.</p> + +<p>"The baby?"</p> + +<p>Sounds of laughter came from the dining-room, rendering it unnecessary +for Susan to repeat her statement. She smiled sidelong at the door, as +much as to say she had put her master on to a good thing. He would +appreciate what he found in there.</p> + +<p>In there he found Jinny crouching on a footstool; facing her, Rose knelt +upon the floor. In the space between them, running incessantly to and +fro on his unsteady feet, was Brodrick's little son. When he got to +Jinny he flung his arms around her neck and kissed her twice, and then +Rose said, "Oh, kiss poor Rose"; and when he got to Rose he flung his +arms around her neck, too, and kissed her, once only. That was the +distinction that he made. And as he ran he laughed, he laughed as if +love were the biggest joke in all the world.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray stood still in the doorway and watched, as he had stood once +in the doorway of the house in Bloomsbury, watching Rose. Now he was +watching Jinny. He thought he had never seen her look so divinely happy. +He watched Brodrick's son and thought distastefully that when Brodrick +was a baby he must have looked just like that.</p> + +<p>And the little Brodrick ran to and fro, from Jinny to Rose and from Rose +to Jinny, passionately, monotonously busy, with always the same +rapturous embrace from Brodrick's wife and always the same cry from +Tanqueray's, "Kiss poor Rose!"</p> + +<p>When Jane turned to greet Tanqueray, the baby clung to her gown. His +mouth drooped as he realized that it was no longer possible to reach her +face. Identifying Tanqueray as the cause of her remoteness, he stamped a +baby foot at him; he distorted his features and set up a riotous howl. +Rose reiterated her sad cry as a charm to distract him. She pretended to +cry too, because the baby wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't look at +anybody till his mother took him in her arms and kissed him. Then, with +his round face still flushing under his tears, he smiled at Tanqueray, a +smile of superhuman forgiveness and reconciliation.</p> + +<p>Rose gazed at them in a rapture.</p> + +<p>"Well," said she, "how you can keep orf kissin' 'im——"</p> + +<p>"I can keep off kissing anything," said he.</p> + +<p>Jane asked if he would ring for the nurse to take the baby.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray was glad when he went. It had just dawned on him that he +didn't like to see Jinny with a baby; he didn't like to see her +preoccupied with Brodrick's son, adoring, positively adoring, and +caressing Brodrick's son.</p> + +<p>At the same time it struck him that it was a pity that Rose had never +had a baby; but he didn't carry the thought far enough to reflect that +Rose's baby would be his son. He wondered if he could persuade Jinny to +send the baby home and stay for dinner.</p> + +<p>He apologized for not having been there to receive her. Jane replied +that Rose had entertained her.</p> + +<p>"You mean that you were entertaining Rose?"</p> + +<p>"We were entertaining each other."</p> + +<p>"And now you've got to entertain me."</p> + +<p>She was going to when Rose interrupted (her mind was still running on +the baby).</p> + +<p>"If I was you," said she, "I shouldn't leave 'im much to that Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"What?" (It was Tanqueray who exclaimed.) "Not to the angel in the +house?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know about angels, but if it was me I wouldn't leave 'im, or +she'll get a hold on 'im."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he," said Tanqueray, "a little young?"</p> + +<p>But Rose was very serious.</p> + +<p>"It's when 'e's young she'll do the mischief."</p> + +<p>"My dear Rose," said Jane, "whatever do you think she'll do?"</p> + +<p>"She'll estrange 'im, if you don't take care."</p> + +<p>"She couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't? She'll get a 'old before you know where you are."</p> + +<p>"But," said Jane quietly, "I do know where I am."</p> + +<p>"Not," Rose insisted, "when you're away, writin'."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray saw Jane's face flush and whiten. He looked at Rose.</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you're talking about," he said, with anger under +his breath.</p> + +<p>Jane seemed not to know that he was there. She addressed herself +exclusively to Rose.</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose happens when I'm—away?"</p> + +<p>"You forget."</p> + +<p>"Never!" said Jane. The passion of her inflection was lost on Rose who +brooded.</p> + +<p>"You forget," she repeated. "And she doesn't."</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Tanqueray looked at Jane and Jane at Tanqueray. There were +moments when his wife's penetration was terrible.</p> + +<p>Rose was brooding so profoundly that she failed to see the passing of +that look.</p> + +<p>"If it was me," she murmured in a thick voice, a voice soft as her +dream, "if it was my child——"</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's nerves gave way. "But it isn't." He positively roared at +her. "And it never will be."</p> + +<p>Rose shrank back as if he had struck her. Jane's heart leaped to her +help.</p> + +<p>"If it was," she said, "it would have the dearest, sweetest little +mother."</p> + +<p>At that, at the sudden tenderness of it coming after Tanqueray's blow, +Rose gave a half-audible moan and got up quickly and left the room. They +heard her faltering steps up-stairs in the room above them.</p> + +<p>It was then that Tanqueray asked Jane if she would stay and dine with +them. She could send a note to Brodrick by the nurse.</p> + +<p>She stayed. She felt that if she did not Tanqueray would bully Rose.</p> + +<p>Rose was glad she stayed. She was afraid to be left alone that evening +with George. She was dumb before him, and her dumbness cut Jane to the +heart. Jane tried to make her talk a little during dinner. They talked +about the Protheros when Susan was in the room, and when she was out of +it they talked about Susan.</p> + +<p>This was not wise of Jane, for it exasperated Tanqueray. He wanted to +talk to Jane, and he wanted to be alone with her to talk.</p> + +<p>After dinner they went up to his study to look at some books he had +bought. The best of selling your own books, he said, was that you could +buy as many as you wanted of other people's. He had now got as many as +he wanted. They were more than the room would hold. All that he could +not get on to the shelves were stacked about the floor. He stood among +them smiling.</p> + +<p>Rose did not smile. The care of Tanqueray's study was her religion.</p> + +<p>"How am I to get round them 'eaps to dust?" said she.</p> + +<p>"You don't get round them, and you don't dust," said Tanqueray +imperturbably.</p> + +<p>"Then—them books'll breed a fever."</p> + +<p>"They will. But <i>you</i> won't catch it."</p> + +<p>Rose lingered, and he suggested that it would be as well if she went +down-stairs and made the coffee. She needn't send it up till nine, he +said. It was now five minutes past eight.</p> + +<p>She went obediently.</p> + +<p>"She knows she isn't allowed into this room," said Tanqueray to Jane.</p> + +<p>"You speak of her as if she was a dog," said she. She added that she +would have to go at half-past eight. There was a train at nine that she +positively must catch.</p> + +<p>He had to go down and ask Rose to come back with the coffee soon. Jane +was glad that she had forced on him that act of humility.</p> + +<p>For the moments that she remained alone with him she wandered among his +books. There were some that she would like to borrow. She talked about +them deliberately while Tanqueray maddened.</p> + +<p>He walked with her to the station.</p> + +<p>She turned on him as they dipped down the lane out of sight and hearing.</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "I'll never come and see you again if you bully that +dear little wife of yours."</p> + +<p>"I?—Bully her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You bully her, you torture her, you terrify her till she doesn't +know what she's doing."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"Sorry? Of course you're sorry. She slaves for you from morning till +night."</p> + +<p>"That's not my fault. I stopped her slaving and she got ill. Why, it was +you—<i>you</i>—who made me turn her on to it again."</p> + +<p>"Of course I did. She loves slaving for you. She'd cut herself in little +pieces. She'd cook herself—deliciously—and serve herself up for your +dinner if she thought you'd fancy her."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Jinny. I never ought to have married her."</p> + +<p>"I didn't say you never ought to have married her. I say you ought to be +on your knees now you have married her. She's ten thousand times too +good for you."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Jinny. You always were right, you always will be damnably +right."</p> + +<p>"And you always will be—oh dear me—so rude."</p> + +<p>He looked in her face like a whipped dog trying to reinstate himself in +favour, as far as Tanqueray could look like a whipped dog.</p> + +<p>"Let me carry those books for you," he said.</p> + +<p>"You may carry the books, but I don't like you, Tanks."</p> + +<p>His devil, the old devil that used to be in him, looked at her then.</p> + +<p>"You used to like me," he said.</p> + +<p>But Jinny was beyond its torment. "Of course I liked you. I liked you +awfully. You were another person then."</p> + +<p>He said nothing to that.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, George," she said presently. "You see, I love your little +wife."</p> + +<p>"I love you for loving her," he said.</p> + +<p>"You may go on loving me for that. But you needn't come any further with +me. I know my way."</p> + +<p>"But I want to come with you."</p> + +<p>"And I, unfortunately, want to be alone."</p> + +<p>"You shall. I'll walk behind you—as many yards as you like behind you. +I've got to carry the books."</p> + +<p>"Bother the books. I'll carry them."</p> + +<p>"You'll do nothing of the sort."</p> + +<p>They walked together in silence till the station doors were in sight. He +meant to go with her all the way to Putney, carrying the books.</p> + +<p>"I wish," he said, "I knew what would really please you."</p> + +<p>"You do know," she said.</p> + +<p>A moment passed. Tanqueray stopped his stride.</p> + +<p>"I'll go back and beg her pardon—<i>now</i>."</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand. He went back; and between them they forgot the +books.</p> + +<p>Though it was not yet ten the light was low in Rose's bedroom. Rose had +gone to bed. He went up to her room. He raised the light a little, +quietly, and stood by her bedside. She lay there, all huddled, her body +rounded, her knees drawn up as if she had curled into herself in her +misery. One arm was flung out on the bed-clothes, the hand hung cramped +over a fold of blanket; sleep only had slackened its convulsive grip. +Her lips were parted, her soft face was relaxed, blurred, stained in +scarlet patches. She had cried herself to sleep.</p> + +<p>And as he looked at her he remembered how happy she had been playing +with Jinny's baby; and how his brutal words had struck her in the hurt +place where she was always tender.</p> + +<p>His heart smote him. He undressed quietly and lay down beside her.</p> + +<p>She stirred; and, finding him there, gave a little cry and put her arms +about him.</p> + +<p>And then he asked her to forgive him, and she said there was nothing to +forgive.</p> + +<p>She added with her seeming irrelevance, "You didn't go all the way to +Putney then?"</p> + +<p>She knew he had meant to go. She knew, too, that he had been sent back.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="XLIX" id="XLIX"></a>XLIX</h2> + + +<p>On her return Jane went at once to Brodrick in his study. The editor was +gloomy and perturbed. He made no response to her regrets, nor yet to her +excuse that Tanqueray had kept her. Presently, after some moments of +heavy silence, she learned that her absence was not the cause of his +gloom. He was worried about the magazine. Levine was pestering him. When +she reminded him that Louis had nothing to do with it, that she thought +he was going to be kept out, he replied that that was all very well in +theory; you couldn't keep him out when he'd got those infernal Jews +behind him, and they were running the concern. You could buy him out, +you could buy out the whole lot of them if you had the money; but, if +you hadn't, where were you? It had been stipulated that the editor was +to have a free hand; and up till now, as long as the thing had paid its +way, his hand had been pretty free. But it wasn't paying; and Levine was +insisting that the free hand was the cause of the deficit.</p> + +<p>He did not tell her that Levine's point was that they had not bargained +for his wife's hand, which was considerably freer than his own. If they +were prepared to run the magazine at a financial loss they were not +prepared to run it for the exclusive benefit of his wife's friends; +which, Levine said, was about what it amounted to.</p> + +<p>That was what was bothering Brodrick; for it was Jane's hand, in its +freedom, that had kept the standard of the magazine so high. It had +helped him to realize his expensive dream. The trouble, this time, he +told her, was a tale of Nina Lempriere's.</p> + +<p>Jane gave an excited cry at this unexpected flashing forth of her +friend's name.</p> + +<p>"What, Nina? Has she——?"</p> + +<p>Brodrick answered, almost with anger, that she had. And Levine had put +his silly foot down. He had complained that the tale was gruesome (they +had set it up; it was quite a short thing); Nina's tales usually were +gruesome; and Nina's price was stiff. He didn't know about the price; +perhaps it was a trifle stiff; you might even say it crackled; but the +tale——! Brodrick went on in the soft, even voice that was a sign with +him of profound excitement—the tale was a corker. He didn't care if it +<i>was</i> gruesome. It was magnificent.</p> + +<p>"More so than her last?" Jane murmured.</p> + +<p>"Oh, miles more." He rummaged among his papers for the proofs. He'd be +eternally disgraced, he said, if he didn't publish it. He wished she'd +look at the thing and tell him if he wouldn't be.</p> + +<p>She looked and admired his judgment. The tale was everything that he had +said. Nina had more than found herself.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, "you'll publish it."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shall. I'm not going to knuckle under to Louis and his +beastly Jews—with a chance like that. I don't care if the price <i>is</i> +stiff. It's a little masterpiece, the sort of thing you don't get once +in a hundred years. It'll send up the standard. That's of course why he +funks it."</p> + +<p>He pondered. "There's something queer about it. Whenever that woman gets +away and hides herself in some savage lair she invariably does a thing +like this."</p> + +<p>Jane admitted half-audibly that it was queer.</p> + +<p>They gave themselves up to the proofs, and it was late when she heard +that Nina had crept from her savage lair and was now in London. It was +very queer, she thought, that Nina had not told her she was coming.</p> + +<p>She called the next day at Adelphi Terrace. She found Nina in her front +room, at work on the proofs that Brodrick had sent her.</p> + +<p>Nina met her friend's reproaches with a perfect frankness. She had not +told her she was coming, because she didn't know how long she was going +to stay, and she had wanted, in any case, to be let alone. That was +yesterday. To-day what she wanted more than anything was to see Jane. +She hadn't read her book, and wasn't going to until she had fairly done +with her own. She had heard of it from Tanqueray, and was afraid of it. +Jane, she declared, was too tremendous, too overwhelming. She could only +save herself by keeping clear of her.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought," Jane said, "you were safe enough—after that +last." She had told her what she had thought of it in the first moments +of her arrival. "Safe, at any rate, from me."</p> + +<p>"You're the last person I shall ever be safe from. There you are, always +just ahead of me. I'm exhausted if I look at you. You make me feel as if +I never could keep up."</p> + +<p>"But why? There's no comparison between your pace and mine."</p> + +<p>"It's not your pace, Jinny, it's your handicap that frightens me."</p> + +<p>"My handicap?"</p> + +<p>"Well—a baby, a husband, and all those Brodricks and Levines. I've got +to see you carrying all that weight, and winning; and it takes the heart +out of me."</p> + +<p>"If I did win, wouldn't it prove that the handicap wasn't what you +thought it?"</p> + +<p>Nina said nothing. She was thinking that it must be pretty serious if +Jinny was not prepared to be sincere about it.</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to prove," said Jane softly, "that there isn't any +handicap. That's why I want to win."</p> + +<p>Her feeling was that she must keep her family out of these discussions. +She had gone too far the other night in the things that she had said to +Tanqueray, that Tanqueray had forced her to say. She had made herself +afraid of him. Her admissions had been so many base disloyalties to +Hugh. She was not going to admit anything to Nina, least of all that she +found her enviable, as she stood there, stripped for the race, carrying +nothing but her genius. It was so horribly true (as Nina had once said) +that the lash had been laid across her naked shoulders to turn her into +the course when she had swerved from it. It had happened every time, +every time; so invariably as to prove that for Nina virginity was the +sacred, the infrangible, predestined law, the one condition.</p> + +<p>But the conditions, she said aloud, were nobody's business but your own. +She refused to be judged by anything but the result. It was absurd to +talk about winning and handicapping; as if creative art <i>was</i> a +handicap, as if there were any joy or any end in it beyond the act of +creation. You defeated your end if you insisted on conditions, if you +allowed anything extraneous to count as much as that.</p> + +<p>The flush on her face showed what currents moved her to her protest.</p> + +<p>"Does it seem to you, then, that <i>I</i>'ve defeated my end?" Nina pressed +her point home implacably.</p> + +<p>Jane strung herself to the pain of it.</p> + +<p>"Not you." She paused for her stroke. "Nor yet I."</p> + +<p>She rose with it. She wanted to get away from Nina who seemed terrible +to her at that moment. She shrank from meeting Nina's eyes.</p> + +<p>Nina was left meditating on her friend's beautiful hypocrisy.</p> + +<p>It might be beautiful, but it was fatuous, too, of Jinny to pretend that +she could live surrounded and hemmed in by Brodricks and do what she had +done without turning a hair, or that she could maintain so +uncompromising an affection for her husband and child without +encountering the vengeance of the jealous god. Nina could not suppose +that Jinny's god was less jealous than George Tanqueray's or her own. +And Jinny must be perpetually offending him. She recognized the +righteousness of the artist in Jinny's plea to be judged only by the +results. That, no doubt, was how posterity would judge her. But she, +Nina, was judging, like posterity, by the results. The largeness and the +perfection of them pointed to a struggle in which poor Jinny must have +been torn in pieces. Her very anxiety to conceal the signs of laceration +betrayed the extent to which she had been torn. She had not gone so far +in her hypocrisy as to argue that the struggle was the cause of the +perfection, and you could only conclude that, if the conditions had +been perfect, there would have been no end to the vast performances of +Jinny. That was how she measured her.</p> + +<p>It looked as if whatever you did to her you couldn't stop Jinny, any +more than you could stop George Tanqueray. Jinny, if you came to think +of it, had the superior impetus. George, after all, had carefully +removed obstruction from his path. Jinny had taken the risk, and had +swept on, reckless, regardless.</p> + +<p>It was beautiful, her pretending not to see it; beautiful, too, her not +letting you allow for it in appraising her achievement, lest it should +seem somehow, to diminish yours. As if she had not said herself that the +idea of rivalry was absurd.</p> + +<p>Nina knew it. Her fear lay deeper than the idea of rivalry. She had no +vision of failure in her career as long as she kept to it. The great +thing was to be certain of the designs of destiny; so certain that you +acquiesced. And she was certain now; she was even thankful for the hand +and its scourge on her shoulders, turning her back again on to the +splendid course. It marked her honourably; it was the sign and +certificate of her fitness. She was aware also that, beyond the splendid +course, there was no path for her. She would have been sure of herself +there but that her nerves remembered how she had once swerved. She had +instincts born of that experience; they kept her on the look-out for +danger, for the sudden starting up of the thing that had made her +swerve. What she dreaded now was some irreparable damage to her genius.</p> + +<p>She was narrowed down to that, her bare genius. Since there was nothing +else; since, as she had said long ago, she had been made to pay for it +with all she had and all she might have had, she cherished it fiercely +now. Her state was one of jealousy and fear, a perpetual premonition of +disaster. She had tried to forget the existence of Jane's book, because +Tanqueray had said it was tremendous, and she felt that, if it were as +tremendous as all that, it was bound to obscure for a moment her vision +of her own.</p> + +<p>If the designs of destiny were clear, it was equally evident that her +friends were bent on frustrating them. Within five minutes after Jane +Brodrick had removed her disturbing presence, Nina received a telegram +from Owen Prothero. He was coming to see her at five o'clock. It was now +half-past four.</p> + +<p>This was what she had dreaded more than anything. Her fear of it had +kept her out of London for two years.</p> + +<p>Owen had been considerate in notifying her of his coming. It suggested +that it was open to her to escape if she did not want to see him, while +it warned her not to miss him if she did. She debated the point for the +half hour he had left her, and decided that she would see him.</p> + +<p>Prothero arrived punctually to his hour. She found no change in his +aspect or his manner. If he looked happy, he looked it in his own +supersensual way. Marriage had not abridged his immeasurable remoteness, +nor touched his incorruptible refinement.</p> + +<p>He considered her with a medical eye, glad to see her bearing the signs +of life lived freely and robustly in the open air. Her mountains, he +said, evidently agreed with her.</p> + +<p>She inquired after Laura, and was told that she would not know her. The +Kiddy, he said, smiling, had grown up. She was almost plump; she had +almost a colour.</p> + +<p>"She wants to see you," he said. "She told me I was to bring you back +with me."</p> + +<p>Ages passed before she answered. "I don't think, really, Owen, that I +can come."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said.</p> + +<p>She would have told him that she was too busy, but for her knowledge +that with Owen lying was no good. She resented his asking her why not, +when he knew perfectly well why.</p> + +<p>"Why ever not," he repeated, "when we want you?"</p> + +<p>She smiled. "You seem determined to get everything you want."</p> + +<p>She had a good mind to tell him straight out, there and then, that he +couldn't have everything he wanted, not with her, at any rate. He +couldn't have it both ways. But you do not say these things; and if she +could judge by the expression of his face what she had said had hit him +hard enough.</p> + +<p>He sheltered himself behind a semblance of irrelevance. "Laura is very +fond of you."</p> + +<p>The significance of the statement lay in its implication that he was +very fond of Laura. Taken that way it was fuel heaped on to Nina's +malignant fire. Under it she smouldered darkly.</p> + +<p>"She's getting unhappy about you," he went on. "You don't want to make +her unhappy, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Did I ever want to make her unhappy?" she answered, with a flash. "And +if it comes to that, why should it?"</p> + +<p>"The Kiddy has a very tender conscience."</p> + +<p>She saw what he meant now. He was imploring her not to put it into +Laura's head that she had come between them. That would hurt Laura. His +wife was never to suspect that her friend had suffered. Nina, he seemed +secretly to intimate, was behaving in a manner likely to give rise to +that suspicion. He must have been aware that she did it to save herself +more suffering; but his point was that it didn't matter how much she +suffered, provided they saved Laura. There must be no flaw in that +perfect happiness.</p> + +<p>"You mean," she said, "she won't understand it if I don't come?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I mean she will understand it if you keep on not coming. But +of course you'll come. You're coming with me now."</p> + +<p>It was the same voice that had told her three years ago that she was not +coming with him, that she was going to stay and take care of Laura, +because that was all that she could do for him. And as she had stayed +then she went with him now, and for the same reason.</p> + +<p>She felt, miserably, that her reluctance damned her; it proved her +coarse, or at any rate not fine enough for the communion he had offered +her, the fineness of which she had once accepted as the sanction of +their fellowship. She must seem to him preposterous in her anxiety to +break with him, to make an end of what had never been. All the same, +what he was forcing on her now was the fact of separation. As they +approached the house where he and Laura lived she had an increasing +sense of estrangement from him and of distance.</p> + +<p>He drew her attention to the iron gate that guarded their sanctuary, and +the untrodden grass behind it. His dreams came in by that gate, and all +other things by the postern door, which, he said, was the way he and she +must go.</p> + +<p>Nina paused by the gate. "It won't open, Owen."</p> + +<p>"No. The best dreams come through the gates that never open."</p> + +<p>"It looks as if a good south wind would bring it down."</p> + +<p>"It will last my time," he said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="L" id="L"></a>L</h2> + + +<p>Laura received her as if Prothero were not there; as if he never had +been, never would be there. She looked up from their embrace with a +blue-eyed innocence that ignored him in its perfect assurance that they +had kept their pledge, that nothing had ever come or would come between +them.</p> + +<p>It struck Nina that he had no grounds for his anxiety. Laura was not +suffering; she was not going to suffer. She had no consciousness or +conscience in the matter.</p> + +<p>It was made clear to Nina that she was too happy for that, too much in +love with Owen, too much aware that Owen was in love with her, though +their fineness saved them both from any flagrant evidences of their +state. They evaded as by a common understanding the smallest allusion to +themselves and their affairs. They suggested charmingly that what +excited them was the amazing performance of their friends, of Tanqueray, +of Jane, of Nina. In her smiling protest that she no longer counted +Laura gave the effect of serene detachment from the contest. She +surveyed it from an inaccessible height, turning very sweetly and +benignly from her bliss. She was not so remote, she seemed to say, but +that she remembered. She knew how absorbing those ardent rivalries could +be. Nina she evidently regarded as absorbed fatally, beyond recall; and +no wonder, when for her the game was so magnificent. If Nina cared for +the applause of a blessed spirit, it was hers.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Nina's morbid sense that Laura overdid it; that the two of +them closed round her by a common impulse and a common fear, that they +rushed to her wild head to turn her to her course and keep her there. In +every word there was a sting for her, the flick of the lash that drove +her on.</p> + +<p>Nina was then aware that she hated Laura. The hatred was not active in +her presence; it made no movement towards its object; it lay somewhere +in the dark; it tossed on a hot bed, sleepless in an incurable distress.</p> + +<p>And Laura remained unconscious. She took her presently up-stairs to her +room, Owen's room. It was all they had, she said. Nina held her head +very straight, trying hard not to see Owen's coat that hung behind the +door, or his big boots all in a row beside Laura's little ones. Her face +in the glass met her with a challenge to her ironic humour. It demanded +why she could not face that innocent juxtaposition, after all she <i>had</i> +stood, after all that they were evidently prepared to make her stand. +But she was not to be moved by any suggestions of her face. She owed it +a grudge; it showed so visibly her murkiness. Sun-burnt, coarsened a +little by the wind, with the short, virile, jutting bridge of the nose, +the hot eyes, the mouth's ironic twist, it was the face not of a woman +but a man, or rather of a temperament, a face foredoomed to disaster. +She accentuated its effect by the masculine fashion of her clothes and +the way she swept back her hair sidelong from her forehead. Laura saw +her doing it now.</p> + +<p>"I like your face," was her comment.</p> + +<p>"It's more than I do," said Nina. "But I like my hands."</p> + +<p>She began washing them with energy, as if thus dismissing an unpleasant +subject. She could admire their fine flexible play under the water; do +what she would with them her hands at least were feminine. But they +brought her up sharp with the sight of the little scar, white on her +wrist, reminding her of Owen. She was aware of the beast in her blood +that crouched, ready to fall upon the innocent Laura.</p> + +<p>At the other end of the room, by the wardrobe, Laura, in her innocence, +was babbling about Owen.</p> + +<p>"He's growing frightfully extravagant," she said. "He got fifteen pounds +for an article the other day, and what do you think he did with it? Look +there!"</p> + +<p>She had taken a gown, a little mouse-coloured velvet gown, from the +wardrobe and laid it on the bed for Nina to admire.</p> + +<p>"He went and spent it, every bit of it, on that. He said he thought I +should look nice in it. Wasn't it clever of him to know? And who ever +would have thought that he'd have cared?"</p> + +<p>Nina looked at the gown and remembered the years when Laura had gone +shabby.</p> + +<p>"He cares so much," said Laura, "that I have to put it on every +evening."</p> + +<p>"Put it on now," said Nina.</p> + +<p>"Shall I?" She was longing to. "No, I don't think I will."</p> + +<p>"You must," said Nina.</p> + +<p>Laura put it on, baring her white neck and shoulders, and turned for +Nina to "fasten her up the back."</p> + +<p>Nina had a vision of Prothero standing over the little thing, his long +deft hands trembling as he performed this office.</p> + +<p>The Kiddy, divinely unconscious, babbled on of Owen and the wonderful +gown.</p> + +<p>"Conceive," she said, "the darling going out all by himself to get it! +How he knew one gown from another—how he knew the shops—what hand +guided him—I can't think. It must have been his guardian angel."</p> + +<p>"Or yours."</p> + +<p>"Yes—when you think of the horrors he might have got."</p> + +<p>Laura had stroked the velvet to smoothness about her waist, and now she +was pulling up a fold of lace above her breasts. As she did this she +looked at her own image in the glass and smiled softly, unaware. Nina +saw then that her breasts were slightly and delicately rounded; she +recognized the work of life, shaping Laura's womanhood; it was the last +touch of the passion that had made her body the sign and symbol of its +perfection. Her own breasts heaved as the wild fang pierced them.</p> + +<p>Then, as her fingers brushed the small white back, there surged up in +her a sudden virile tenderness and comprehension. She looked at Laura +with Prothero's eyes, she touched her almost with Prothero's touch. +There was, after all, some advantage in being made so very like a man, +since it compelled her to take Prothero's view of a little woman in a +mouse-coloured velvet gown.</p> + +<p>The gown was fastened, and the Kiddy in an innocent vanity was looking +over her left shoulder and admiring her mouse-coloured tail. Of a sudden +she caught sight of Nina's eyes in the glass regarding her sombrely. She +turned and put up her face to Nina's, and paused, wavering. She closed +her eyes and felt Nina's arms about her neck, and Nina's hands touching +her hair with a subtle, quick caress, charged with confession. Laura's +nerves divined it. She opened her eyes and looked at Nina.</p> + +<p>"Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs08" id="gs08"></a> +<img src="images/gs08.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me!"</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Nina bowed her head. "Poor Kiddy, dear Kiddy," she whispered. "How could +I?"</p> + +<p>How could she?</p> + +<p>She couldn't, even if she tried; not even afterwards, when she sat alone +in that room of hers that reminded her so intolerably of Prothero. +To-night it reminded her still more intolerably of her dreadful self. +She had been afraid to enter it lest it should put her to the torture. +It was the place where her beast had gone out and in with her. It still +crouched in the corner where she had kicked it. It was an unhappy beast, +but it was not cruel any more. It could have crawled to Laura's feet and +licked them.</p> + +<p>For the Kiddy was such a little thing. It was impossible to feel hatred +for anything so soft and so unintentionally sweet and small. Life had +been cruel enough to Laura, before Owen married her. If it came to +suffering, it was not conceivable that she should have been allowed to +suffer more.</p> + +<p>Nina put it to herself, beast or no beast, if she had had the power to +take Owen from the Kiddy, to make the Kiddy suffer as she had suffered, +could she have done it? Could she have borne to be, really, such a beast +as that? Even if the choice had lain, innocently, between her own +torture and the Kiddy's, could she have endured to see the little tender +thing stretched out, in her place, on the rack? Of course she couldn't.</p> + +<p>And since she felt like that about it, beast or no beast, wouldn't even +Owen say that she was not so dreadful after all?</p> + +<p>She remembered then that, though he had seen through her, he had never +at any time admitted that she was dreadful. He had spoken rather as if, +seeing <i>through</i> her, he had seen things she could not see, fine things +which he declared to be the innermost truth of her.</p> + +<p>He must have known all the time that she would feel like that when she +could bring herself to see Laura.</p> + +<p>She saw through <i>him</i> now. That was why he had insisted on her coming. +It was as if he had said to her, "I'm not thinking so tremendously of +her. What I mean is that it'll be all right for you if you'll trust +yourself to me; if you'll only come." He seemed to say frankly, "That +beast of yours is really dreadful. It must be a great affliction to have +to carry it about with you. I'll show you how to get rid of it +altogether. You've only got to see her, Nina, in her heartrending +innocence, wearing, if you would believe it, a mouse-coloured velvet +gown."</p> + +<p>That night Laura stood silent and thoughtful while Prothero's hands +fumbled gently over the many little hooks and fastenings of the gown. +She let it slide with the soft fall of its velvet from her shoulders to +her feet.</p> + +<p>"I wish," she said, "I hadn't put it on."</p> + +<p>He stooped and kissed her where the silk down of her hair sprang from +her white neck.</p> + +<p>"Does it think," he said, "that it crushed poor Nina with its beauty?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. She would not tell him what she thought. But the +tears in her eyes betrayed her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LI" id="LI"></a>LI</h2> + + +<p>It was April in a week of warm weather, of blue sky, of white clouds, +and a stormy south-west wind. Brodrick's garden was sweet with dense +odours of earth and sunken rain, of young grass and wallflowers thick in +the borders, and with the pure smells of virgin green, of buds and +branches and of lime-leaves fallen open to the sun. Outside, among the +birch-trees, there was a flashing of silver stems, a shaking of green +veils, and a triumphing of bright grass over the blown dust of the +suburb, as the spring gave back its wildness to the Heath.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was coming back. He had been away a fortnight, on his holiday. +He was to have taken Jane with him but at the last moment she had been +kept at home by some ailment of the child's. They had been married more +than three years now, and they had not been separated for as many nights +and days. In all his letters Brodrick had stated that he was enjoying +himself immensely and could do with three months of it; and at the end +of a fortnight he had sent Jane a telegram to say that he was coming +back.</p> + +<p>She was waiting for him, walking in the garden, as she used to wait for +him more than three years ago, in excitement and ecstasy. The spring +made her wild with the wildness of her girlhood when the white April +evenings met her on her Dorset moors.</p> + +<p>She knew again the virgin desire of desire, the poignant, incommunicable +passion, when the soul knows the body's mystery and the body half +divines the secret of the soul. She felt again that keen stirring of the +immortal spirit in mortal sense, her veins were light, they ran fire and +air, and the fine nerves aspired and adored. At moments it was as if the +veils of being shook, and in their commotion all her heights and depths +were ringing, reverberant to the indivisible joy.</p> + +<p>It was so until she heard Brodrick calling to her at the gate. And at +his voice her wedded blood remembered, and she came to him with the +swift feet, and the flushed face uplifted, and the eyes and mouth of a +bride.</p> + +<p>Up-stairs Gertrude Collett was dressing for dinner. She looked out at +her window and saw them walking up and down the long alley of the +kitchen garden, like children, hand in hand.</p> + +<p>They were late for dinner, which was the reason, Brodrick thought, why +the Angel of the Dinner (as Jane called her) looked annoyed.</p> + +<p>They were very polite and kind to her, sustaining a conversation devised +and elaborated for her diversion.</p> + +<p>Gertrude was manifestly not diverted. She congratulated Brodrick on his +brilliant appearance, and said in her soft voice that his holiday had +evidently done him good, and that it was a pity he hadn't stayed away a +little longer. Brodrick replied that he didn't want to stay away longer. +He thought Gertrude looked fatigued, and suggested that a holiday would +do her good. She had better take one.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"We both," said Brodrick, "wish you would."</p> + +<p>Gertrude said she never wanted to take holidays. She got on better +without them. Jane looked at Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"I might have gone with you," she said. "After all, Baby never did have +convulsions."</p> + +<p>"I knew he wouldn't," said Brodrick, and remembered that it was Gertrude +who had said he would.</p> + +<p>A pause in the dialogue robbed Gertrude's next remark of any relevance +it might have had.</p> + +<p>"We've seen," said she, "a good deal of Mr. Tanqueray." (Another pause.) +"I wonder how Mrs. Tanqueray gets on."</p> + +<p>"I imagine," said Brodrick, "that she never did get on with him."</p> + +<p>"I meant—without him."</p> + +<p>"Oh." He caused the conversation to flourish round another subject.</p> + +<p>In the drawing-room, where Gertrude did not follow them all at once, +Jane turned to him.</p> + +<p>"Hugh," she said, "was I unkind to her?"</p> + +<p>"Unkind?"</p> + +<p>"Well, was I kind enough?"</p> + +<p>"You are always kind," he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you think so? Do you really think so?"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about her, Jinny, I've got other things to attend to."</p> + +<p>"What things?"</p> + +<p>He put his arm round her and drew her to their seat beside the hearth. +So drawn, so held, she looked in his face and smiled that singular smile +of hers that he found so adorable and incomprehensible.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of being made love to. I'm going," she said, "to fling off +all maidenly reserve and make love to you."</p> + +<p>She put away his arm from her and rose and seated herself with audacity +on his knees.</p> + +<p>"The devil gets into me when I have to talk to Gertrude."</p> + +<p>She put her arm lightly and shyly about him.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny, I rather like it."</p> + +<p>Her arms tightened ever so little.</p> + +<p>"It gives you, doesn't it, an agreeable sense of impropriety at your own +fireside?"</p> + +<p>She did something to his hair which made him look unlike himself or any +Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Supposing," she said, "you repulse me? Could you repulse me?"</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny; I don't think I ever could."</p> + +<p>"What, not this outrageous hussy, flinging herself at your head, and +rumpling your nice collar?"</p> + +<p>She let him go that she might look at him and see how he really took it. +He drew her and held her close to him in arms that trembled violently, +while her lips brushed his with skimming, fugitive kisses, and kisses +that lingered a moment in their flight.</p> + +<p>"Do you like the way I make love?" she said. "And do you like my gown +and the way I do my hair?"</p> + +<p>His voice shook. "Jinny, why aren't you always like this? Why aren't you +always adorable?"</p> + +<p>"I can't be anything—always. Don't you adore me in my other moods?"</p> + +<p>"Can you," said he, "adore a little devil when it teases?"</p> + +<p>"I never tease you when you're tired."</p> + +<p>"No, but I'm sometimes tired when you tease me. You are, darling, just a +little bit exhausting for one man."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jinny complacently; "I can exhaust you. But you can never, +never exhaust me. There's always more where I came from."</p> + +<p>"The trouble is, Jinny, that I can't always make you out. I never know +where I am with you."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, think of having to live with a woman whom you <i>had</i> made +out. Think of knowing exactly what she's going to do before she does it, +and anticipating all her conversation!"</p> + +<p>"Think," said he, "of living with a woman and never knowing precisely +whether she's your wife or not your wife."</p> + +<p>"But it solves all the matrimonial problems—how to be the exemplary +father of a family and yet to slip the noose and be a bachelor +again—how to break the seventh commandment——"</p> + +<p>"Jinny!"</p> + +<p>"The seventh commandment and yet be faithful to your marriage vows—how +to obtain all the excitement of polygamy, all the relief of the divorce +court without the bother and the scandal and the expense. Why can't you +look at it in that light?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, Jinny, because I'm not polygamous."</p> + +<p>"You never know what you are until you're tried. Supposing you'd married +Gertrude—you'd have had Gertrude, all there is of Gertrude, always +Gertrude, and nothing but Gertrude. Could you have stood it?"</p> + +<p>"Probably."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't. Before you'd been married to Gertrude six months you'd +have gone, howling, to the devil. Whereas with me you've got your devil +at home."</p> + +<p>His smile admitted that there was truth in what she said. She had +appealed to the adventurous and lawless spirit in him, the spirit that +marked his difference from his family.</p> + +<p>She went on with her air of reasonableness and wisdom. "I am really, +though you mayn't know it, the thing you need."</p> + +<p>He saw his advantage in her mood.</p> + +<p>"And <i>you</i>, Jinny? Don't you know that you're happiest like this?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know it."</p> + +<p>"And that when you're working like ten horses you're in misery half the +time?"</p> + +<p>"In torture." She agreed.</p> + +<p>"And don't you know that it makes little lines come, little lines of +agony on your forehead, Jinny, and purple patches under your dear eyes; +and your mouth hardens."</p> + +<p>"I know," she moaned. "I know it does. And you don't love me when I look +like that?"</p> + +<p>"I love you whatever you look like, and you know it. I love you even +when you wander."</p> + +<p>"Even? Do you mind so very much—my wandering?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes, perhaps, a little."</p> + +<p>"You didn't mind at all before you married me."</p> + +<p>"I didn't realize it then."</p> + +<p>"Didn't realize what?"</p> + +<p>"Your genius, Jinny, and the things it does to you."</p> + +<p>"But you did—you did—you knew all about it."</p> + +<p>"I knew what it meant to me."</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> it mean—to you?"</p> + +<p>He appeared to plunge into deep memories before he answered her.</p> + +<p>"To me it was simply <i>the</i> supreme intellectual interest. It was the +strongest and the strangest intellectual influence I had ever felt. +You'll never quite know what it meant to me."</p> + +<p>"And it means nothing now—you don't like it—my poor genius? And they +used to say you were in love with it."</p> + +<p>"So I was, Jinny, before I saw you."</p> + +<p>"You were in love enough to marry it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't marry it. It wouldn't marry me."</p> + +<p>"Is that why you hate it? Darling, you can't hate it as much as I do."</p> + +<p>"I don't hate it. But you can't expect me to love it as I love my wife."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not your wife. Your wife wouldn't behave like this. Would you +like me better if I didn't?"</p> + +<p>He held her arms in his arms, fiercely and tight, crushing her.</p> + +<p>"If," she said, "I was a virtuous woman, the sort of woman who sits on +her husband's head like an uncomfortable crown?"</p> + +<p>"Jinny—if Gertrude were to hear you!"</p> + +<p>She loosened his arms and sat up and listened.</p> + +<p>"I hear Gertrude," she said. "Darling, your hair's all any way. Let me +straighten it. It might be used in evidence against us."</p> + +<p>Gertrude indeed wore as she entered the ominously distant air of one who +suspects a vision of iniquity. She took her place on the other side of +the hearth and bent her head over her sewing. A thin stream of +conversation flowed from Brodrick and from Jane, and under it she +divined, she felt the tide that drew them.</p> + +<p>She herself sat silent and smooth and cool. She sat like one removed +from mortality's commotion. But it was as if she were listening to the +blood that beat in Brodrick's veins, and felt in herself the passion +that ran there, in secret, exulting towards its end.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock Jane rose and held out her hand to Gertrude. She was +saying good-night. Brodrick sat abstracted for a moment. Presently he +rose also and followed her with shining eyes.</p> + +<p>Gertrude's head bent lower and lower over her sewing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LII" id="LII"></a>LII</h2> + + +<p>Before long Brodrick was aware that that month of spring had brought him +the thing he most desired. He was appeased again with the hope of +fatherhood. It tided him over the bad months of nineteen-seven, over the +intolerable hours that Levine was giving him in the office of the +"Monthly Review." It softened for him the hard fact that he could no +longer afford his expensive dream. The old, reckless, personal ambition, +the fantastic pride, had been overtaken by the ambition and the pride of +race. He wanted to found, not a great magazine, but a family, to have +more and more children like the solid little son they had called John +Henry Brodrick.</p> + +<p>The child justified the double name. The blood of the Brodricks ran in +him pure. He flattered the racial and paternal pride. He grew more and +more the image of what Brodrick had been at his age. It was good to +think that there would be more like him. Brodrick's pride in beholding +him was such that he had almost forgotten that in this question of race +there would be Jane to reckon with.</p> + +<p>In December, in the last night of nineteen-seven, a second son was born. +A son so excessively small and feeble that the wonder was how he had +contrived to be born at all. Brodrick when he first looked at him had a +terrible misgiving. Supposing he had to face the chances of +degeneration? There could be only one opinion, of course, as to the +cause and the responsibility. He did not require Henry to tell him that.</p> + +<p>Not that he could think of it just then. He could think of nothing but +Jinny pausing again, uncertain, though for a shorter time, before the +dreadful open door.</p> + +<p>Nineteen-eight was the year when everything happened. Jinny was hardly +out of danger when there was a crisis in the affairs of the "Monthly +Review." Levine who had been pestering his brother-in-law for the last +eighteen months, was pressing him hard now. The Review was passing out +of Brodrick's hands. When it came to the point he realized how unwilling +he was to let it go. He could only save it by buying Levine out. And he +couldn't do that. As the father of a family he had no business to risk +more money on his unprofitable dream.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to conceal from Jane the fact that he was worried. She +saw it in his face. She lay awake, retarded somewhat in her recovery by +the thought that she was responsible for that and all his worries. He +had lost money over the Review and now he was going to lose the Review +itself, owing, she could perfectly well see, to her high-handed +editorship. It would go to his heart, she knew, to give it up; he had +been so attached to his dream. It would go to her heart, too. It was in +his dream, so to speak, that he had first met her; it had held them; +they had always been happy together in his dream. It was his link with +the otherwise inaccessible and intangible elements in her, the elements +that made for separation. She was determined that, whatever went, his +dream should not go. She could not forget that it had been she who had +all but wrecked it in its first precarious year when she had planted +George Tanqueray on an infatuated editor.</p> + +<p>She had saved it then, and of course she could save it now. It wasn't +for nothing that she had been celebrated all these years. And it wasn't +for nothing that Hugh, poor dear, had been an angel, refusing all these +years to take a penny of her earnings for the house. He hadn't married +her for that. And there they were, her earnings, diminished by some +advances to her father's impecunious family, and by some extravagances +of her own, but still swollen by much saving to a sum more than +sufficient to buy Louis out.</p> + +<p>Her genius, after all, was a valuable asset.</p> + +<p>She lay in bed, embracing that thought, and drawing strength from it.</p> + +<p>Before she was well enough to go out she went and confronted Louis in +his office.</p> + +<p>Levine was human. He always had been; and he was moved by the sight of +his pale sister-in-law, risen from her bed, dangerously, to do this +thing. He was not hard on her. He suffered himself to be bought out for +a sum less than she offered a sum that no more than recouped him for his +losses. He didn't want, he said, to make money out of the thing, he only +wanted not to lose. He was glad to be quit of it.</p> + +<p>Brodrick was very tender to her when, lying in bed again, recovering +from her rash adventure, she told him what she had done. But she divined +under his tenderness an acute embarrassment; she could see that he +wished she hadn't done it, and wished it not only for her sake but for +his own. She could see that she had not, in nineteen-eight, repeated the +glorious success of nineteen-three. The deed he thought so adorable when +she did it in the innocence of her unwedded will, he regarded somehow as +impermissible in his wife. Then, by its sheer extravagance, it was +flattering to his male pride; now, by the same conspicuous quality, it +was not. As for his family, it was clear that they condemned the +transaction as an unjustifiable and fantastic folly. Brodrick was not +sure that he did not count it as one of the disasters of nineteen-eight.</p> + +<p>The year was thick with them. There was Jane's collapse. Jane, by a +natural perversity had chosen nineteen-eight, of all years, to write a +book in. She had begun the work in the spring and had broken down with +the first effort.</p> + +<p>There was not only Jane; there was Jane's child, so lamentably unlike a +Brodrick. The shedding of his first crop of hair was followed by a +darker down, revealing Jane. Not that anybody could have objected to +Jane's hair. But there was Jane's delicacy. An alarming tendency to +waste, and an incessant, violent, inveterate screaming proclaimed him +her son, the heir of an unstable nervous system.</p> + +<p>Jane's time and what strength she had were divided between her sick +child and Mabel Brodrick.</p> + +<p>For in this dreadful year Mabel had become worse. Her malady had +declared itself. There were rumours and hushed hints of a possible +operation. Henry was against it; he doubted whether she would survive +the shock. It was not to be thought of at present; not as long as +things, he said, remained quiescent.</p> + +<p>John Brodrick, as he waited, had grown greyer; he was gentler also and +less important, less visibly the unsurprised master of the expected. The +lines on his face had multiplied and softened in an expression as of +wonder why this unspeakable thing should have happened to him of all men +and to his wife of all women. Poor Mabel who had never done anything——</p> + +<p>That was the way they put it now among themselves, Mabel's shortcoming. +She had never done anything to deserve this misery. Lying on her couch +in the square, solid house in Augustus Road, Wimbledon, Mabel covered +her nullity with the imperial purple of her doom. In the family she was +supreme by divine right of suffering.</p> + +<p>Again, every day, Jane trod the path over the Heath to Wimbledon. And +sometimes Henry found her at John's house and drove her back in his +motor (he had a motor now). Once, boxed up with him in the closed car +(it was March and the wind was cold over the Heath), she surprised him +with a question.</p> + +<p>"Henry, is it true that if Mabel had had children she'd have been all +right?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said curtly, wondering what on earth had made her ask him +that.</p> + +<p>"It's killing her then—not having them?"</p> + +<p>"That," he said, "and the desire to have them."</p> + +<p>"How cruel it is, how detestable—that she should have <i>this</i>——"</p> + +<p>"It's Nature's revenge, Jane, on herself."</p> + +<p>"And she was so sweet, she would have loved them——"</p> + +<p>The Doctor brooded. He had a thing to say to her.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, if you'd put it away—altogether—that writing of yours—you'd +be a different woman."</p> + +<p>"Different?"</p> + +<p>"You'd be happier. And, what's more, you'd be well, too. Perfectly +well."</p> + +<p>"This is not the advice I should give you," he went on, addressing her +silence, "if you were an unmarried woman. I urge my unmarried patients +to work—to use their brains all they can—and married ones, too, when +they've no children. If poor Mabel had done <i>something</i> it would have +been far better. But in your case it's disastrous."</p> + +<p>Jane remained silent. She herself had a premonition of disaster. Her +restlessness was on her. Her nerves and blood were troubled again by the +ungovernable, tyrannous impulse of her power. It was not the year she +should have chosen, but because she had no choice she was working +through everything, secretly, in defiance of Henry's orders. She +wondered if he knew. He was looking at her keenly, as if he had at any +rate a shrewd suspicion.</p> + +<p>"I hardly think," he said, "it's fair to Hugh."</p> + +<p>Henry was sure of his facts, and her silence made him surer. She <i>was</i> +at it again, and the question was how to stop her?</p> + +<p>The question was laid that night before the family committee. It met in +the library at Moor Grange almost by Brodrick's invitation. Brodrick was +worried. He had gone so far as to confess that he was worried about +Jane. She wanted to write another book, he said, and he didn't know +whether she was fit.</p> + +<p>"Of course she isn't fit," said the Doctor. "It must be stopped. She +must be made to give it up—altogether."</p> + +<p>Brodrick inquired who was to make her? and was told that <i>he</i> was. He +must put his foot down. He should have put it down before.</p> + +<p>But Brodrick, being a Brodrick, took an unexpected line.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said slowly, "that we've any right to dictate to her. +It's a big question, and I think she ought to be allowed to decide it +for herself."</p> + +<p>"She isn't fit," said Henry, "to decide anything for herself."</p> + +<p>Brodrick sent a level look at him.</p> + +<p>"You talk," said he, "as if she wasn't responsible."</p> + +<p>"I should be very sorry to say who is and who isn't. Responsibility is a +question of degree. I say Jane is not at the present moment in a state +to decide."</p> + +<p>"It sounds," said Brodrick, laughing in his bitterness, "very much as if +you thought she wasn't sane. Of course I know she'd put a cheque for a +hundred pounds into a drawer and forget all about it. But it would be +more proof of insanity in Jinny if she remembered it was there."</p> + +<p>"It would indeed," said Sophy.</p> + +<p>"We're not discussing Jinny's talent for finance," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Brodrick, "what we <i>are</i> discussing is her genius?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not saying anything at all about her genius. We've every reason to +recognize her genius and be proud of it. It's not a question of her +mind. It's a question of a definite bodily condition, and as you can't +separate mind from body" (he shrugged his shoulders), "well—there you +are. I won't say don't let her work; it's better for her to use her +brain than to let it rust. But let her use it in moderation. +Moder—ation. Not those tremendous books that take it out of her."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure they do take it out of her? Tanqueray says she'll be ill +if she doesn't write 'em."</p> + +<p>"Tanqueray? What does he know about it?"</p> + +<p>"More than we do, I suspect. He says the normal, healthy thing for her +is to write, to write tremendous books, and she'll suffer if we thwart +her. He says we don't understand her."</p> + +<p>"Does he suggest that <i>you</i> don't understand her?" asked Sophy.</p> + +<p>Brodrick smiled. "I think he was referring more particularly to Henry."</p> + +<p>Henry tried to smile. "He's not a very good instance of his own theory. +Look at his wife."</p> + +<p>"That only proves that Tanqueray's books aren't good for his wife. Not +that they aren't good for Tanqueray. Besides, Prothero says the same +thing."</p> + +<p>"Prothero!"</p> + +<p>"He ought to know. He's a doctor."</p> + +<p>Henry dismissed Prothero with a gesture.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Hugh. It simply comes to this. Either there must be no more +books or there must be no more children. You can't have both."</p> + +<p>"There shall be no more children."</p> + +<p>"As you like it. I don't advise it. Those books take it out of her +more."</p> + +<p>He lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>"I consider her last book responsible for that child's delicacy."</p> + +<p>Brodrick flinched visibly at that.</p> + +<p>"I don't care," the Doctor went on, "what Prothero and Tanqueray say. +They can't know. They don't see her. No more do you. You're out all day. +I shouldn't know myself if Gertrude Collett hadn't told me."</p> + +<p>"Oh—Gertrude Collett."</p> + +<p>"Nobody more likely to know. She's on the spot, watching her from hour +to hour."</p> + +<p>"What did she tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Why—that she works up-stairs, in her room—for hours—when she's +supposed to be lying down. She's doing it now probably."</p> + +<p>"Gertrude knows that for a fact?"</p> + +<p>"A fact. And she knows it was done last year too, before the baby was +born."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> know," said Brodrick fiercely, "it was not."</p> + +<p>"Have her in," said Sophy, "and ask her."</p> + +<p>Brodrick had her in and asked her. Gertrude gave her evidence with a +gentle air of surprise that there could be any doubt as to what Mrs. +Brodrick had been up to—this year, at any rate. She flushed when +Brodrick confronted her with his certainty as to last year. She could +not, in the face of Brodrick's certainty, speak positively as to last +year.</p> + +<p>She withdrew herself hastily, as from an unpleasant position, and was +followed by Sophy Levine.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing for it," said Henry, "but to tell her."</p> + +<p>"About the child?"</p> + +<p>"About the child."</p> + +<p>There was a terrible pause.</p> + +<p>"Will you tell her," said Brodrick, "or shall I?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell her. I'll tell her now. But you must back me up."</p> + +<p>Brodrick fetched Jane. He had found her as Gertrude had said. She was +heavy-eyed, and dazed with the embraces of her dream. But when she saw +the look that passed between Hugh and Henry her face was one white fear. +The two were about to arraign her. She took the chair that Henry held +for her.</p> + +<p>Then he told her. And Brodrick backed him up with silence and a face +averted.</p> + +<p>It was not until Henry had left them together that he spoke to her.</p> + +<p>"Don't take it so hardly, Jinny," he said. "It's not as if you knew."</p> + +<p>"I might have known," she answered.</p> + +<p>She was thinking, "George told me that I should have to pay—that +there'd be no end to my paying."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIII" id="LIII"></a>LIII</h2> + + +<p>The Brodricks—Hugh—Henry—all of them—stood justified. There was, +indeed, rather more justice than mercy in their attitude. She could not +say that they had let her off easily. She knew (and they had taken care +that she should know) the full extent of her misdoing.</p> + +<p>That was it. They regarded her genius (the thing which had been tacked +on to her) more as a crime than a misfortune. It was a power in the +highest degree destructive and malign, a power utterly disintegrating to +its possessor, and yet a power entirely within her own control. They +refused to recognize in it any divine element of destiny, while they +remained imperturbably unastonished at its course. They judged it as +they would have judged any reprehensible tendency to excitement or +excess. You gave way to it or you did not give way. In Jane the thing +was monstrous. She had sinned through it the unforgivable sin, the sin +against the family, the race.</p> + +<p>And she had been warned often enough. They had always told her that she +would have to pay for it.</p> + +<p>But now that the event had proved them so deplorably right, now that +they were established as guardians of the obvious, and masters of the +expected, they said no more. They assumed no airs of successful +prophecy. They were sorry for her. They gathered about her when the day +of reckoning came; they couldn't bear to see her paying, to think that +she should have to pay. She knew that as long as she paid they would +stand by her.</p> + +<p>More than ever the family closed in round her; it stood solid, a +sheltering and protecting wall.</p> + +<p>She was almost unaware how close they were to her. It seemed to her that +she stood alone there, in the centre of the circle, with her sin. Her +sin was always there, never out of her sight, in the little half-living +body of the child. Her sin tore at her heart as she nursed, night and +day, the little strange, dark thing, stamped with her stamp. She traced +her sin in its shrunken face, its thread-like limbs, its sick nerves and +bloodless veins.</p> + +<p>There was an exaltation in her anguish. Her tenderness, shot with pain, +was indistinguishable from a joy of sense. She went surrendered and +subdued to suffering; she embraced passionately her pain. It appeased +her desire for expiation.</p> + +<p>They needn't have rubbed it into her so hard that it was her sin. If she +could have doubted it there was the other child to prove it. John Henry +Brodrick stood solid and sane, a Brodrick of the Brodricks, rosy and +round with nourishment, not a nerve, Henry said, in his composition, and +the stomach of a young ostrich. It was in little Hugh's little stomach +and his nerves that the mischief lay. The screaming, Henry told her, was +a nervous system. It was awful that a baby should have nerves.</p> + +<p>Henry hardly thought that she would rear him. He didn't rub that in, he +was much too tender. He replied to her agonized questioning that, yes, +it might be possible, with infinite precaution and incessant care. With +incessant care and infinite precaution she tended him. She had him night +and day. She washed and dressed him; she prepared his food and fed him +with her own hands. It was with a pang, piercing her fatigue, that she +gave him to the nurse to watch for the two hours in the afternoon when +she slept. For she had bad nights with him because of the screaming.</p> + +<p>Brodrick had had bad nights, too. It had got on his nerves, and his +digestion suffered. Jane made him sleep in a room at the other end of +the house where he couldn't hear the screaming. He went unwillingly, and +with a sense of cowardice and shame. He couldn't think how Jinny could +stand it with <i>her</i> nerves.</p> + +<p>She stood it somehow, in her passion for the child. It was her heart, +not her nerves, that his screams lacerated. Beyond her heavy-eyed +fatigue she showed no signs of strain. Henry acknowledged in her that +great quality of the nervous temperament, the power of rising +high-strung to an emergency. He intimated that he rejoiced to see her on +the right track, substituting for the unhealthy excesses of the brain +the normal, wholesome life of motherhood. He was not sure now that he +pitied her. He was sorrier, ten times sorrier, for his brother Hugh.</p> + +<p>Gertrude Collett agreed with the Doctor. She insisted that it was +Brodrick and not Jane who suffered. Gertrude was in a position to know. +She hinted that nobody but she really did know. She saw more of him than +any of his family. She saw more of him than Jane. Brodrick's suffering +was Gertrude's opportunity, the open, consecrated door where she entered +soft-footed, angelic, with a barely perceptible motion of her ministrant +wings. Circumstances restored the old intimate relation. Brodrick was +worried about his digestion; he was afraid he was breaking up +altogether, and Gertrude's solicitude confirmed him in his fear. Under +its influence and Gertrude's the editor spent less and less of his time +in Fleet Street. He found, as he had found before, that a great part of +his work could be done more comfortably at home. He found, too, that he +required more than ever the co-operation of a secretary. The increased +efficiency of Addy Ranger made her permanent and invaluable in Fleet +Street. Jane's preoccupation had removed her altogether from the affairs +of the "Monthly Review." Inevitably Gertrude slid into her former place.</p> + +<p>She had more of Brodrick now than she had ever had; she had more of the +best of him. She was associated with his ambition and his dream. Now +that Jane's hand was not there to support it, Brodrick's dream had begun +to sink a little, it was lowering itself almost to Gertrude's reach. She +could touch it on tiptoe, straining. She commiserated Jane on her +exclusion from the editor's adventures and excitements, his untiring +pursuit of the young talents (his scent for them was not quite so +infallible as it had been), his curious or glorious finds. Jane smiled +at her under her tired eyes. She was glad that he was not alone in his +dream, that he had some one, if it was only Gertrude.</p> + +<p>For, by an irony that no Brodrick could possibly have foreseen, Jane's +child separated her from her husband more than her genius had ever done. +Her motherhood had the fierce ardour and concentration of the disastrous +power. It was as if her genius had changed its channel and direction, +and had its impulse bent on giving life to the half-living body. Nothing +else mattered. She could not have travelled farther from Brodrick in her +widest, wildest wanderings. The very hours conspired against them. Jane +had to sleep in the afternoon, to make up for bad nights. Brodrick was +apt to sleep in the evenings, after dinner, when Jane revived a little +and was free.</p> + +<p>The year passed and she triumphed. The little half-living body had +quickened. The child, Henry said, would live; he might even be fairly +strong. His food nourished him. He was gaining weight and substance. +Jane was to be congratulated on her work which was nothing short of a +miracle. <i>Her</i> work; <i>her</i> miracle; Henry admitted it was that. He had +had to stand by and do nothing. He couldn't work miracles. But if Jane +had relaxed her care for a moment there was no miracle that could have +saved the child.</p> + +<p>To Jane it <i>was</i> a miracle. It was as if her folding arms had been his +antenatal hiding-place; as if she had brought him forth with anguish a +second time.</p> + +<p>She would not have admitted that she loved him more than his brother. +Jacky was as good as gold; but he was good with Gertrude and happy with +Gertrude. The baby was neither good nor happy with anybody but Jane. +Between her and the little twice-born son there was an unbreakable tie. +He attached himself to his mother with a painful, pitiful passion. Out +of her sight he languished. He had grown into her arms. Every time he +was taken from them it was a rending of flesh from tender flesh.</p> + +<p>His attachment grew with his strength, and she was more captured and +more chained than ever. He "had" her, as Tanqueray would have said, at +every turn. Frances and Sophy, the wise maternal women, shook their +heads in their wisdom; and Jane smiled in hers. She was wiser than any +of them. She had become pure womanhood, she said, like Gertrude. She +defied Gertrude's womanhood to produce a superior purity.</p> + +<p>Brodrick had accepted the fact without astonishment. The instinct of +paternity was strong in him. Once married to Jane her genius had become +of secondary importance. The important thing was that she was his wife; +and even that was not so important as it had been. Only last year he had +told her, jesting, that he never knew whether she was his wife or not. +He hardly knew now (they saw so little of each other); but he did know +that she was the mother of his children.</p> + +<p>In the extremity of her anguish Jane had not observed this change in +Brodrick's attitude. But now she had leisure to observe. What struck her +first was the way Gertrude Collett had come out. It was in proportion as +she herself had become sunk in her maternal functions that Gertrude had +emerged. She was amazed at the extent to which a soft-feathered angel, +innocent, heaven knew, of the literary taint, could constitute herself a +great editor's intellectual companion. But Gertrude's intellect retained +the quality of Gertrude. In all its manifestations it was soothing and +serene. And there was not too much of it—never any more than a tired +and slightly deteriorated editor could stand.</p> + +<p>Jane had observed (pitifully) the deterioration and the tiredness. A +falling off in the high fineness of the "Monthly Review" showed that +Brodrick was losing his perfect, his infallible scent. The tiredness she +judged to be the cause of the deterioration. Presently, when she was +free to take some of his work off his shoulders, he would revive. +Meanwhile she was glad that he could find refreshment in his increased +communion with Gertrude. She knew that he would sleep well after it. And +so long as he could sleep——</p> + +<p>She said to herself that she had done Gertrude an injustice. She was +wrong in supposing that if Hugh had been married to their angel he would +have tired of her, or that he would ever have had too much of her. You +couldn't have too much of Gertrude, for there was, after all, so very +little to have. Or else she measured herself discreetly, never giving +him any more than he could stand.</p> + +<p>But Gertrude's discretion could not disguise from Jane the fact of her +ascendency. She owed it to her very self-restraint, her amazing +moderation. And, after all, what was it but the power, developed with +opportunity, of doing for Brodrick whatever it was that Jane at the +moment could not do? When Jane shut her eyes and tried to imagine what +it would be like if Gertrude were not there, she found herself inquiring +with dismay why, whatever would he do without her? What would she do +herself? It was Gertrude who kept them all together. She ran the house +noiselessly on greased wheels, she smoothed all Brodrick's rose-leaves +as fast as Jane crumpled them. Without Gertrude there would be no peace.</p> + +<p>Before long Jane had an opportunity of observing the fine height to +which Gertrude <i>could</i> ascend. It was at a luncheon party that they +gave, by way of celebrating Jane's return to the social life. The Herons +were there, the young people, who had been asked without their mother, +to celebrate Winny's long skirts; they and the Protheros and Caro +Bickersteth. Jane was not sure that she wanted them to come. She was +afraid of any disturbance in the tranquil depths of her renunciation.</p> + +<p>Laura said afterwards that she hardly knew how they had sat through that +luncheon. It was not that Jinny wasn't there and Brodrick was. The awful +thing was that both were so lamentably altered. Brodrick was no longer +the enthusiastic editor, gathering around him the brilliant circle of +the talents; he was the absorbed, depressed and ponderous man of +business. It was as if some spirit that had breathed on him, sustaining +him, lightening his incipient heaviness, had been removed. Jinny sat +opposite him, a pale Mater Dolorosa. Her face, even when she talked to +you, had an intent, remote expression, as if through it all she were +listening for her child's cry. She was silent for the most part, passive +in Prothero's hands. She sat unnoticed and effaced; only from time to +time the young girl, Winny Heron, sent her a look from soft eyes that +adored her.</p> + +<p>On the background of Jane's silence and effacement nothing stood out +except Gertrude Collett.</p> + +<p>Prothero, who had his hostess on his right hand, had inquired as to the +ultimate fate of the "Monthly Review." Jane referred him to Miss Collett +on his left. Miss Collett knew more about the Review than she did.</p> + +<p>Gertrude flushed through all her faded fairness at Prothero's appeal.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know," said she, "that it's in Mr. Brodrick's hands entirely +now?"</p> + +<p>Prothero did know. That was why he asked. He turned to Jane again. He +was afraid, he said, that the Review, in Brodrick's hands, would be too +good to live.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it too good to live, Gertrude?" said she.</p> + +<p>Gertrude looked at Brodrick as if she thought that <i>he</i> was.</p> + +<p>"I don't think Mr. Brodrick will let it die," she said. "If he takes a +thing up you can trust him to carry it through. He can fight for his +own. He's a born fighter."</p> + +<p>Down at her end of the table beside Brodrick, Laura listened.</p> + +<p>"It has been a bit of a struggle, I imagine, up till now," said Prothero +to Jane.</p> + +<p>"Up till now" (it was Gertrude who answered) "his hands have been tied. +But now it's absolutely his own thing. He has realized his dream."</p> + +<p>If she had seen Prothero's eyes she would have been reminded that +Brodrick's dream had been realized for him by his wife. She saw nothing +but Brodrick. For Gertrude the "Monthly Review" <i>was</i> Brodrick.</p> + +<p>She drew him for Prothero's benefit as the champion of the lost cause of +literature. She framed the portrait as it were in a golden laurel +wreath.</p> + +<p>Eddy Heron cried, "Hear, hear!" and "Go it, Gertrude!" and Winny wanted +to know if her uncle's ears weren't tingling. She was told that an +editor's ears were past tingling. But he flushed slightly when Gertrude +crowned herself and him. They were all listening to her now.</p> + +<p>"I assure you," she was saying, "<i>we</i> are not afraid."</p> + +<p>She was one with Brodrick, his interests and his dream.</p> + +<p>She was congratulated (by Jane) on her championship of the champion, and +Brodrick was heard murmuring something to the effect that nobody need be +frightened; they were safe enough.</p> + +<p>It struck Laura that Brodrick looked singularly unsatisfied for a man +who has realized his dream.</p> + +<p>"All the same," said Prothero, "it was rash of you to take those poems I +sent you."</p> + +<p>"Dear Owen," said Jane, "do you think they'll sink him?"</p> + +<p>"As far as that goes," Brodrick said, "we're going to have a novel of +George Tanqueray's. That'll show you what we can afford."</p> + +<p>"Or what George can afford," said Jane. It was the first spark she had +emitted. But it consumed the heavy subject.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Caro Bickersteth, "where <i>is</i> George Tanqueray?"</p> + +<p>Laura said that he was somewhere in the country. He was always in the +country now.</p> + +<p>"Without his wife," said Caro, and nobody contradicted her. She went on.</p> + +<p>"You great geniuses ought not to marry, any more than lunatics. The law +ought to provide for it. Genius, in either party, if you can establish +the fact, should annul the contract, like—like any other crucial +disability."</p> + +<p>"Or," Jane amended, "why not make the marriage of geniuses a criminal +act, like suicide? You can always acquit them afterwards on the ground +of temporary insanity."</p> + +<p>"How would you deal," said Brodrick suddenly, "with mixed marriages?"</p> + +<p>"Mixed——?" Caro feigned bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"When a norm—an ordinary—person marries a genius? It's a racial +difference."</p> + +<p>("Distinctly," Caro murmured.)</p> + +<p>"And wouldn't it be hard to say which side the lunacy was on?"</p> + +<p>Laura would have suspected him of a bitter personal intention had it not +been so clear that Jinny's genius was no longer in question, that her +flame was quenched.</p> + +<p>It was Caro who asked (in the drawing-room, afterwards) if they might +see the children.</p> + +<p>Gertrude went up-stairs to fetch them. Eddy Heron watched her softly +retreating figure, and smiled and spoke.</p> + +<p>"I say, Gee-Gee's going strong, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>Everybody affected not to hear him, and the youth went on smiling to his +unappreciated self.</p> + +<p>Gertrude appeared again presently, bringing the children. On the very +threshold little Hugh struggled in her arms and tried to hurl himself on +his mother. His object attained, he turned his back on everybody and +hung his head over Jane's shoulder.</p> + +<p>But little John Henry was admirably behaved. He wandered from guest to +guest, shaking hands, in his solemn urbanity, with each. He looked +already absurdly unastonished and important. He was not so much his +father's son as the son of all the Brodricks. As for little Hugh, it was +easy enough, Prothero said, to see whose son <i>he</i> was. And Winny Heron +cried out in an ecstasy that he was going to be a genius, she was sure +of it.</p> + +<p>"Heaven forbid," said Brodrick. Everybody heard him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Hughy, if he was like Jin-Jin!" Allurement and tender +reproach mingled in Winny's tone.</p> + +<p>She turned to Jane with eyes that adored and loved and defended her. "I +wish you'd have dozens of babies—darlings—like yourself."</p> + +<p>"And I wish," said Eddy, "she'd have dozens of books like her last one."</p> + +<p>Eddy was standing, very straight and tall, on his uncle's hearth. His +chin, which was nothing if not determined, was thrust upwards and +outwards over his irreproachable high collar. Everybody looked at Eddy +as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"What I want to know is why she doesn't have them? What have you all +been doing to her? What have <i>you</i> been doing to her, Uncle Hughy?"</p> + +<p>He looked round on all of them with the challenge of his young eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well, you know, but I agree with Miss Bickersteth. If +you're a genius you've no business to marry—I mean nobody's any +business to marry you."</p> + +<p>"Mine," said Caro suavely, "was a purely abstract proposition."</p> + +<p>But the terrible youth went on. "Mine isn't. Uncle Hugh's done a good +thing for himself, I know. But it would have been a jolly sight better +thing for literature if he'd married Gee-Gee, or somebody like that."</p> + +<p>For there was nothing that young Eddy did not permit himself to say.</p> + +<p>Little Hugh had begun to cry bitterly, as if he had understood that +there had been some reflection on his mother. And from crying he went on +to screaming, and Gertrude carried him, struggling violently, from the +room.</p> + +<p>The screams continued in the nursery overhead. Jane sat for a moment in +agony, listening, and then rushed up-stairs.</p> + +<p>Gertrude appeared, serene and apologetic.</p> + +<p>"Can't anything be done," Brodrick said irritably, "to stop that +screaming?"</p> + +<p>"It's stopped now," said Winny.</p> + +<p>"You've only got to give him what he wants," said Gertrude.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he knows he's only got to scream for it."</p> + +<p>Gertrude's eyebrows, raised helplessly, were a note on the folly and +infatuation of the child's mother.</p> + +<p>Caro Bickersteth and Laura left, hopeless of Jane's return to them. +Prothero stayed on, conferring with the editor. Later, he found himself +alone in the garden with Jane. He asked then (what they were all longing +to know) when she was going to give them another book?</p> + +<p>"Never again, Owen, never again."</p> + +<p>He reproached her.</p> + +<p>"Ah—you don't know what it's been, this last year," she said. "George +told me I should have to pay for it. So did Nina. And you see how I've +paid."</p> + +<p>His eyes questioned her.</p> + +<p>"Through my child."</p> + +<p>He turned to her. His eyes were pitiful but incredulous.</p> + +<p>"Owen—Nina said there'd be no end to my paying. But there shall be an +end to it. For a year it's been one long fight for his little life, and +I've won; but he'll never be strong; never, I'm afraid, like other +children. He'll always remind me——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Remind</i> you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They say I'm responsible for him. It's the hard work I've done. +It's my temperament—my nerves."</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> nerves?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm supposed to be hopelessly neurotic."</p> + +<p>"But you're not. Your nerves are very highly-strung—they're bound to +be, or they wouldn't respond as perfectly as they do—but they're the +<i>soundest</i> nerves I know. I should say you were sound all over."</p> + +<p>"<i>Should</i> you?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"Then" (she almost cried it) "why should he suffer?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say you don't know what's the matter with him?"</p> + +<p>"Owen——"</p> + +<p>"He's a Brodrick. He's got their nerves."</p> + +<p>"<i>Their</i> nerves? I didn't know they had any."</p> + +<p>"They've all got them except Mrs. Levine. It's the family trouble. Weak +nerves and weak stomachs."</p> + +<p>"But Henry——"</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> has to take no end of care of himself."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"It's my business," he said, "to know."</p> + +<p>"I keep on forgetting that you're a doctor too." She meditated. "But +Sophy's children are all strong."</p> + +<p>"No, they're not. Levine told me the other day that they were very +anxious about one of them."</p> + +<p>"Is it—the same thing that my child has?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely the same."</p> + +<p>"And it comes," she said, "from them. And they never told me."</p> + +<p>"They must have thought you knew."</p> + +<p>"I didn't. They made me think it was my fault. They let me go through +all that agony and terror. I can't forgive them."</p> + +<p>"They couldn't have known."</p> + +<p>"There was Henry. He must have known. And yet he made me think it. He +made me give up writing because of that."</p> + +<p>"You needn't think it any more. Jacky gets his constitution from you, +and it was you who saved the little one."</p> + +<p>"He made me think I'd killed him. It's just as well," she said, "that I +should have thought it. If I hadn't I mightn't have fought so hard to +make him live. I might have been tormented with another book. It was the +only thing that could have stopped me."</p> + +<p>She paused. "Perhaps—they knew that."</p> + +<p>"It's all right," she said presently. "After all, if there is anything +wrong with the child, I'd rather Hugh didn't think it came from him."</p> + +<p>She had now another fear. It made her very tender to Brodrick when, +coming to him in the drawing-room after their guests had departed, she +found him communing earnestly with Gertrude. A look passed between them +as she entered.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you two putting your heads together about?" she said.</p> + +<p>Gertrude's head drew back as if a charge had been brought against it.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Brodrick, "it was about the child. Something must be done. +You can't go on like this."</p> + +<p>She seated herself. Her very silence implied that she was all attention.</p> + +<p>"It's bad for him and it's bad for you."</p> + +<p>"What's bad for him?"</p> + +<p>"The way you've given yourself up to him. There's no moderation about +your methods."</p> + +<p>"If there had been," said she, "he wouldn't be alive now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know that. But he's all right now. He doesn't want that +perpetual attention. It's ruining him. He thinks he's only got to scream +loud enough for anything and he gets it. Every time he screams you rush +to him. It's preposterous."</p> + +<p>Jane listened.</p> + +<p>"The fact is," said Brodrick, bracing himself, "you have him too much +with you."</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> have him with me."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't," said Brodrick, with his forced gentleness.</p> + +<p>"You think I'm bad for him?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Gertrude—do <i>you</i> think I'm bad for him?"</p> + +<p>Gertrude smiled. She did not answer any more than Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Miss Collett agrees with me," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"She always does. What do I do to him?"</p> + +<p>"You excite him."</p> + +<p>"Do I, Gertrude?"</p> + +<p>Gertrude's face seemed to be imploring Brodrick to be pitiful, and not +to rub it in.</p> + +<p>"Do I?"</p> + +<p>"The child," said Gertrude evasively, "is very sensitive."</p> + +<p>"And you create," Brodrick said, "an atmosphere——"</p> + +<p>"A what?"</p> + +<p>"An atmosphere of perpetual agitation—of emotion——"</p> + +<p>"You mean my child is fond of me."</p> + +<p>"Much too fond of you. It's playing the devil with him."</p> + +<p>"Poor mite—at <i>his</i> age! Well—what do you propose?"</p> + +<p>"I propose that he should be with somebody who hasn't that effect, who +can keep him quiet. Miss Collett very kindly offered——"</p> + +<p>"Dear Gertrude, you can't. You've got your hands full."</p> + +<p>"Not so full that they can't hold a little more." Gertrude said it with +extreme sweetness.</p> + +<p>"Can they hold Hughy?"</p> + +<p>"They've held Jacky," said Brodrick, "for the last year. <i>He</i> never +gives any trouble."</p> + +<p>"He never feels it. Poor Baby has got nerves——"</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear girl, isn't it all the more reason why he should be with +somebody who hasn't got 'em?"</p> + +<p>"Poor Gertrude, she'll have more nerves than any of us if she has to +look after the house, and the accounts, and Jacky, and Hughy, and +<i>you</i>——"</p> + +<p>"She doesn't look after me," said Brodrick stiffly, and left the room.</p> + +<p>Jane turned to Gertrude.</p> + +<p>"Was that your idea, or his?"</p> + +<p>"How can any idea be mine," said Gertrude, "if I always agree with Mr. +Brodrick? As a matter of fact it was the Doctor's."</p> + +<p>"Yes. It was very like him."</p> + +<p>"He spoke to Mr. Brodrick yesterday. And I am glad he did."</p> + +<p>"Why are you glad?"</p> + +<p>"Because it was taken out of my hands. I don't want you to think that I +interfere, that I put myself forward, that I suggested this arrangement +about the children. If it's to be, you must understand distinctly that I +and my ideas and my wishes have nothing to do with it. If I offered +myself it was because I was compelled. Mr. Brodrick was at his wits' +end."</p> + +<p>("Poor dear, <i>I</i> drove him there," said Jane.)</p> + +<p>"It's put me in a very difficult position. I have to appear to be taking +everything on myself, to be thrusting myself in everywhere, whereas the +truth is I can only keep on" (she closed her eyes, as one dizzied with +the perilous path she trod) "by ignoring myself, putting myself +altogether on one side."</p> + +<p>"Do you hate it?" Jane said softly.</p> + +<p>"No. It's the only way. But sometimes one is foolish—one looks for a +little recognition and reward——"</p> + +<p>Jane put her hands on the other woman's shoulders and gazed into her +face.</p> + +<p>"We do recognize you," she said, "even if we don't reward you. How can +we, when you've done so much?"</p> + +<p>"My reward would be—not to be misunderstood."</p> + +<p>"Do I misunderstand you? Does <i>he</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Brodrick? Never."</p> + +<p>"I, then?"</p> + +<p>"You? I think you thought I wanted to come between you and the +children."</p> + +<p>"I never thought you wanted to come between me and anything."</p> + +<p>Her hands that held her dropped.</p> + +<p>"But you're right, Gertrude. I'm a brute and you're an angel."</p> + +<p>She turned from her and left her there.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIV" id="LIV"></a>LIV</h2> + + +<p>She knew that she had dealt a wound, and she was sorry for it. It was +awful to see Gertrude going about the house in her flagrant secrecy. It +was unbearable to Jane, Gertrude's soft-flaming, dedicated face, and +that little evasive, sacred look of hers, as if she had her hand for +ever on her heart, hiding her wound. It was a look that reminded Jane, +and was somehow, she felt, intended to remind her, that Gertrude was +pure spirit as well as pure womanhood in her too discernible emotion. +Was it not spiritual to serve as she served, to spend as she spent +herself, so angelically, bearing the dreadful weight of Brodrick's +marriage—the consequences, so to speak, of that corporeal tie—on her +winged shoulders?</p> + +<p>She could see that Hugh looked at it in that light (as well he might) +when one evening he spoke remorsefully of the amount they put on her.</p> + +<p>A month had passed since he had given the care of his children into +Gertrude's hands. She was up-stairs now superintending their disposal +for the night. He and Jane were alone in a half-hour before dinner, +waiting for John and Henry and the Protheros to come and dine. The house +was very still. Brodrick could not have believed that it was possible, +the perfection of the peace that had descended on them. He appealed to +Jane. She couldn't deny that it was peace.</p> + +<p>Jane didn't deny it. She had nothing whatever to say against an +arrangement that had turned out so entirely for the children's good. She +kept her secret to herself. Her secret was that she would have given all +the peace and all the perfection for one scream of Hughy's and the +child's arms round her neck.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't know," Brodrick said, "that there was a child in the +house."</p> + +<p>Jane agreed. Ah, yes, if <i>that</i> was peace, they had it.</p> + +<p>Well, wasn't it? After that infernal row he made? You couldn't say +anything when the poor little chap was ill and couldn't help it, but you +couldn't have let him cultivate screaming as a habit. It was wonderful +the effect that woman had on him. He couldn't think how she did it. It +was as if her mere presence in a room——</p> + +<p>He thought that Jane was going to admit that as she had admitted +everything, but as he looked at her he saw that her mouth had lifted at +its winged corners, and her eyes were darting their ominous light.</p> + +<p>"It's awful of me, I know," she said, "but her presence in a room—in +the house, Hugh—makes me feel as if <i>I</i> could scream the roof off."</p> + +<p>(He glanced uneasily at her.)</p> + +<p>"She makes me want to <i>do</i> things."</p> + +<p>"What things?" he inquired mildly.</p> + +<p>"The things I mustn't—to break loose—to kick over the traces——"</p> + +<p>"You don't surprise me." He smoothed his face to the expression proper +to a person unsurprised, dealing imperturbably with what he had long ago +foreseen.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I think that if Gertrude were not so good, I might be more +so. You're all so good," she said. "<i>You</i> are so good, so very, very +good."</p> + +<p>"I observe," said Brodrick, "a few elementary rules, as you do +yourself."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want," she said, "to observe them any more. I want to put +my foot through all the rules."</p> + +<p>The front door bell rang as the chiming clock struck eight.</p> + +<p>"That's John," he said, "and Henry."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever put your foot through a rule? Did John? Did Henry? Fancy +John setting out on an adventure with his hair brushed like that and his +spectacles on——"</p> + +<p>They were announced. She rose to greet them. They waited. The clock with +its soft silver insistence struck the quarter. It was awful, she said, +to have to live with a clock that struck the quarter; and Henry shook +his head at her and said, "Nerves, Jinny, nerves."</p> + +<p>John looked at his watch. "I thought," said John, "you dined at eight."</p> + +<p>"So did I," said Brodrick. He turned to Jane. "Your friend Prothero does +not observe the rule of punctuality."</p> + +<p>"If they won't turn up in time," said Henry, "I should dine without +them."</p> + +<p>They did dine ultimately. Prothero turned up at a quarter to nine, +entering with the joint. Laura was not with him. Laura couldn't, he +said, "get off."</p> + +<p>He was innocent and unconscious of offence. They were not to bring back +the soup or fish. Roast mutton was enough for him. He expected he was a +bit late. He had been detained by Tanqueray. Tanqueray had just come +back.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily Brodrick looked at Jane.</p> + +<p>Prothero had to defend her from a reiterated charge of neurosis brought +against her by Henry, who observed with disapproval her rejection of +roast mutton.</p> + +<p>Over coffee and cigarettes Prothero caught him up and whirled him in a +fantastic flight around his favourite subject.</p> + +<p>There were cases, he declared, where disease was a higher sort of +health. "Take," he said, "a genius with a pronounced neurosis. His body +may be a precious poor medium for all ordinary purposes. But he couldn't +have a more delicate, more lyrical, more perfectly adjusted instrument +for <i>his</i> purposes than the nervous system you call diseased."</p> + +<p>When he had gone Henry shook off the discomfort of him with a gesture.</p> + +<p>"I've no patience with him," he said.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't expect you to have any," said Jane. "But you've no idea of +the patience he would have with <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>She herself was conscious of a growing exasperation.</p> + +<p>"I've no use for him. A man who deliberately constructs his own scheme +of the universe, in defiance," said Henry, "of the facts."</p> + +<p>"Owen couldn't construct a scheme of anything if he tried. Either he +sees that it's so, or he feels that it's so, or he knows that it's so, +and there's nothing more to be said. It's not a bit of good arguing with +him."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't attempt to argue with him, any more than I should argue +with a lunatic."</p> + +<p>"You consider him a lunatic, do you?"</p> + +<p>"I consider him a very bad neurotic."</p> + +<p>"If you can't have genius without neurosis," said Jane, "give me +neurosis. You needn't look at me like that, Henry. I know you think I've +got it."</p> + +<p>"My dear Jane——"</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't call me your dear Jane if you didn't."</p> + +<p>"We're wandering from the point. I think all I've ever said was that +Prothero may be as great a poet, and as neurotic as you please, but he's +nothing of a physiologist, nor, I should imagine, of a physician."</p> + +<p>"There you're wrong. He did splendid work out in Africa and India. He's +got as good a record as you have in your own profession. It's no use +your looking as if you wished he hadn't, for he has."</p> + +<p>"You mistake me. I am delighted to hear it. In that case, why doesn't he +practise, instead of living on his wife?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't live on her. His journalism pays for his keep—if we're +going to be as vulgar as all that."</p> + +<p>Jinny was in revolt.</p> + +<p>"I imagine all the same," said John, "that Prothero's wife is +considerably the better man."</p> + +<p>"She'd hate you if she knew you'd said so."</p> + +<p>"Prothero's wife," said Henry, "is a lady for whom I have the very +highest admiration. But Prothero is impossible. <i>Im</i>—possible."</p> + +<p>Jane left the room.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LV" id="LV"></a>LV</h2> + + +<p>It seemed to have struck everybody all at once that Prothero was +impossible. That conviction was growing more and more upon his +publishers. His poems, they assured him, were no longer worth the paper +they were written on. As for his job on the "Morning Telegraph," he was +aware that he held it only on sufferance, drawing a momentary and +precarious income. He owed everything to Brodrick. He depended on +Brodrick. He knew what manner of men these Brodricks were. Inexhaustibly +kind to undeserved misfortune, a little impatient of mere incompetence, +implacable to continuous idiocy. Prothero they regarded as a continuous +idiot.</p> + +<p>His impossibility appeared more flagrant in the face of Laura's +marvellous achievement. Laura's luck persisted (she declared) because +she couldn't bear it, because it was a fantastic refinement of torture +to be thrust forward this way in the full blaze, while Owen, withdrawn +into the columns of the "Morning Telegraph," became increasingly +obscure. It made her feel iniquitous, as if she had taken from him his +high place and his praise. Of course she knew that it was not <i>his</i> +place or <i>his</i> praise that she had taken; degradation at the hands of +her appraisers set him high. Obscurity, since it meant secrecy, was what +he had desired for himself, and what she ought to have desired for him. +She knew the uses of unpopularity. It kept him perfect; sacred in a way, +and uncontaminated. It preserved, perpetually, the clearness of his +vision. His genius was cut loose from everything extraneous. It swung in +ether, solitary and pure, a crystal world, not yet breathed upon.</p> + +<p>She would not have had it otherwise. It was through Owen's obscurity +that her happiness had become so secure and so complete. It made her the +unique guardian of a high and secret shrine. She had never been one who +could be carried away by emotion in a crowd. The presence of her +fellow-worshippers had always checked her impulse to adore. It was as +much as she could do to admit two or three holy ones, Nina or Jane or +Tanqueray, to a place beside her where she knelt.</p> + +<p>As for the wretched money that he worried about, she wouldn't have liked +him to have made it, if he could. An opulent poet was ridiculous, the +perversion of the sublime. If one of them was to be made absurd by the +possession of a large and comfortable income she preferred that it +should be she.</p> + +<p>The size of Laura's income, contrasted, as Prothero persisted in +contrasting it, with her own size, was excessively absurd. Large and +comfortable as it appeared to Prothero, it was not yet so large nor was +it so comfortable that Laura could lie back and rest on it. She was +heartrending, irritating, maddening to Prothero in her refusals to lie +back on it and rest. She toiled prodigiously, incessantly, +indefatigably. She implored Prothero to admit that if she was prodigious +and incessant, she <i>was</i> indefatigable, she never tired. There was +nothing wonderful in what she did. She had caught the silly trick of it. +It could be done, she assured him, standing on your head. She enjoyed +doing it. The wonderful thing was that she should be paid for her +enjoyment, instead of having to pay for it, like other people. He argued +vainly that once you had achieved an income it was no longer necessary +to set your teeth and go at it like that.</p> + +<p>And the more he argued the more Laura laughed at him. "I can't help it," +she said; "I've got the habit. You'll never break me of it, after all +these years."</p> + +<p>For the Kiddy, even in her affluence, was hounded and driven by the +memory of her former poverty. She had no illusions. She had never had +them; and there was nothing spectral about her fear. After all, looking +at it sanely, it didn't amount to so very much, what she had made. And +it wasn't really an income; it was only a little miserable capital. It +had no stability. It might at any moment cease. She might have an +illness, or Owen might have one; he very probably would, considering the +pace <i>he</i> went at it. Or the "Morning Telegraph" might throw him over. +All sorts of things might happen. In her experience they generally did.</p> + +<p>Of course, in a way Owen was right. They didn't want all the money. But +what he didn't see was that you had to make ten times more than you +wanted, in order to secure, ultimately, an income. And then, in the +first excitement of it, she had rather launched out. To begin with, she +had bought the house, to keep out the other lodgers. They were always +bringing coughs and colds about the place and giving them to Owen. And +she had had two rooms thrown into one so as to give Owen's long legs +space to ramp up and down in. The den he had chosen had been too small +for him. He was better, she thought, since he had had his great room. +The house justified itself. It was reassuring to know that whatever +happened they would have a roof over their heads. But it could not be +denied that she had been extravagant.</p> + +<p>And Owen had been the least shade extravagant too. He had found a poet +even more unpopular, more impecunious than himself, a youth with no +balance, and no power to right himself when he toppled over; and he had +given him a hundred pounds in one lump sum to set him on his legs again. +And on the top of that he had routed out a tipsy medical student from a +slum, and "advanced him," as the medical student put it, twenty pounds +to go to America with.</p> + +<p>He had just come to her in her room where she sat toiling, and had +confessed with a childlike, contrite innocence the things that he had +done.</p> + +<p>"It was a sudden impulse," he said. "I yielded to it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Owen dear, don't have another soon. These impulses are ruinous."</p> + +<p>He sat down, overburdened with his crime, a heartrending spectacle to +Laura.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, "I suppose it was worth it. It must have given you an +exquisite pleasure."</p> + +<p>"It did. That's where the iniquity comes in. It gave me an exquisite +pleasure at your expense."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> give me an exquisite pleasure," she said, "in everything you do."</p> + +<p>Her lips made a sign for him to come to her, and he came and knelt at +her feet and took her hands in his. He bowed his head over them and +kissed them.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you are?" she said. "You're a divine prodigal."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, kissing her, "I'm a prodigal, a dissolute, +good-for-noting wastrel. I adore you and your little holy hands; but I'm +not the least use to you. You ink your blessed little fingers to the +bone for me, and I take your earnings and fling them away—in—in——" +He grew incoherent with kissing.</p> + +<p>"In one night's spiritual debauchery," said she. She was pleased with +her way of putting it; she was pleased, immeasurably pleased with him.</p> + +<p>But Owen was not pleased in the very least.</p> + +<p>"That," said he, "is precisely what I do."</p> + +<p>He rose and stood before her, regarding her with troubled, darkening +eyes. He was indeed a mark for the immortal ironies. He had struggled to +support and protect her, this unspeakably dear and inconceivably small +woman; he looked on her still as a sick child whom he had made well, and +here he was, living on her, living on Laura. The position was +incredible, abominable, but it was his.</p> + +<p>She looked at him with deep-blue, adoring eyes, and there was a pain in +her heart as she saw how thin his hands were, and how his clothes hung +away from his sunken waist.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "what a little beast I am, to make you feel like that, +when you're journalizing and agonizing day and night, and when it's your +own savings that you flung. It <i>was</i>, dear," she insisted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and as I've flung them, I'll have to live on you for a year at +least. It all comes back to that."</p> + +<p>"I wish <i>you</i> wouldn't come back to it. Can't you see, can't you see," +she implored, "how, literally, I'm living on you?"</p> + +<p>"If you only did!"</p> + +<p>"But I do, I do. In the real things, the things that matter. I cling and +suck like a vampire. Why can't you have the courage of your opinions?"</p> + +<p>"My opinions? I haven't any. Hence, no doubt, my lack of courage."</p> + +<p>"Your convictions, then, whatever you call the things you <i>do</i> have. You +think, and <i>I</i> think, that money doesn't matter. You won't even allow +that it exists, and for you it doesn't exist, it can't. Well then, why +make such a fuss about it? And what does it matter which of us earns it, +or who spends it?"</p> + +<p>He seemed to be considering her point. Then he put it violently from +him.</p> + +<p>"That's the argument of all the humbugs, all the consecrated hypocrites +that have ever been. All the lazy, long-haired, rickety freaks and +loafers who go nourishing their damned spirituality at some woman's +physical expense. The thing's indecent, it's unspeakable. Those +Brodricks are perfectly right."</p> + +<p>Laura raised her head. "They? What have they got to do with you and me?"</p> + +<p>"A good deal. They supply me with work, which they don't want me to do, +in order to keep me from sponging on my wife. They are admirable men. +They represent the sanity and decency of the world pronouncing judgment +on the fact. No Brodrick ever blinked a fact. When people ask the +Brodricks, What does that fellow Prothero do? they shrug their shoulders +and say, 'He has visions, and his wife pays for them.'"</p> + +<p>"But I don't. It's the public that pays for them. And your wife has a +savage joy in making it pay. If it wasn't for that I should loathe my +celebrity more than Jinny ever loathed hers. It makes me feel sillier."</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing," said Prothero.</p> + +<p>"Well—it's hard that <i>I</i> should have to entertain imbeciles who +wouldn't read <i>you</i> if they were paid."</p> + +<p>He knew that that was the sting of it for her.</p> + +<p>"They're all right," he said. "It's your funny little humour that they +like. I like it, too."</p> + +<p>But Laura snapped her teeth and said, "Damn! Damn my humour! Well—when +they use it as a brickbat to hurl at your head."</p> + +<p>She quoted furiously, "'While her husband still sings to deaf ears, Mrs. +Prothero has found the secret of capturing her public. She has made her +way straight to its heart. And the heart of Mrs. Prothero's public is +unmistakably in the right place.' Oh—if Mrs. Prothero's public knew +what Mrs. Prothero thinks of it. I give them what they want, do I? As if +I gave it them because they want it. If they only knew why I give it, +and how I'm fooling them all the time! How I make them pay—for <i>you</i>! +Just think, Owen, of the splendid, the diabolical irony of it!"</p> + +<p>"So very small," he murmured, "and yet so fierce."</p> + +<p>"Just think," she went on, "how I'm enjoying myself."</p> + +<p>"Just think," said Prothero, "how I am not."</p> + +<p>"Then" (she returned it triumphantly), "you're paying for my enjoyment, +which is what you want."</p> + +<p>The clock struck six. She went out of the room, and returned, bringing +an overcoat which she said had grown miles too big for him. She warmed +it at the fire and helped him on with it, and disappeared for a moment +under its flapping wings, so large was that overcoat.</p> + +<p>All the way to Fleet Street, Prothero, wrapped in his warm overcoat, +meditated tenderly on his wife's humour.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LVI" id="LVI"></a>LVI</h2> + + +<p>Nothing, Tanqueray said, could be more pathetic than the Kiddy spreading +her diminutive skirts before Prothero, to shelter that colossal figure.</p> + +<p>But the Kiddy, ever since Tanqueray had known her, had refused to be +pathetic; she had clenched her small fists to repel the debilitating +touch of sympathy. She was always breaking loose from the hands that +tried to restrain her, always facing things in spite of her terror, +always plunging, armoured, indomitable, into the thick of the fight. And +she had always come through somehow, unconquered, with her wounds in +front. The wounds he had divined rather than seen, ever since he, in +their first deplorable encounter, had stuck a knife into her. She had +turned that defeat, he remembered, into a brilliant personal triumph; +she had forced him to admire her; she had worn over that mark, as it +were, a gay and pretty gown.</p> + +<p>And now, again, Tanqueray was obliged to abandon his vision of her +pathos. The spectacle she presented inspired awe rather and amazement; +though all that she called on you to observe, at the moment, was merely +an insolent exhibition of a clever imp. The Kiddy was minute, but her +achievements were enormous; she was ridiculous, but she was sublime.</p> + +<p>She sat tight, tighter than ever, and went on. She wrote one charming +book after another, at astonishingly short intervals, with every +appearance of immemorial ease. She flung them to her scrambling public +with a side wink at her friends. "They don't know how I'm fooling them," +was her reiterated comment on her own performances.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray exulted over them. They all went to Prothero's profit and his +peace. It was not in him to make light of her popularity, or cast it in +her hilarious face. Nor could he hope to equal her own incomparable +levity. She would come to him, laughing, with the tale of her absurdly +soaring royalties, and he would shout with her when she cried, "The +irony of it, Tanks, the delicious irony! It all goes down to his +account."</p> + +<p>"He's got another ready for them," she announced one day.</p> + +<p>She always spoke of her husband's poems as if they were so many bombs, +hurled in the face of the enemy, her public. There was nothing like the +pugnacity of the Kiddy in these years of Prothero's disaster.</p> + +<p>She came to Tanqueray one evening, the evening before publication; she +came secretly, while Owen was in Fleet Street. Her eyes blazed in a +premature commencement of hostilities. She had come forth, Tanqueray +knew, to brave it out, to show her serenity, and the coolness of her +courage on the dreadful eve.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to blink the danger. Prothero could not possibly +escape this time. He had gone, as Tanqueray said, one better than his +recent best. And Laura had got a book out, too, an enchanting book. It +looked as if they were doomed, in sheer perversity, to appear together. +Financial necessity, of course, might have compelled them to this +indiscretion. Laura was bound eventually to have a book, to pay for +Prothero's; there wasn't a publisher in London now who would take the +risk of him. But as likely as not these wedded ones flung themselves +thus on the public in a superb disdain, just to prove how little they +cared what was said about them.</p> + +<p>Laura was inclined to be reticent, but Tanqueray drew her out by +congratulating her on her popularity, on the way she kept it up.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she cried, "as if I didn't know what you think of it. Me and my +popularity!"</p> + +<p>"You don't know, and you don't care, you disgraceful Kiddy."</p> + +<p>She lifted her face, a face tender and a little tremulous, that yet held +itself bravely to be smitten as it told him that indeed she did not +care.</p> + +<p>"I think your popularity, <i>and</i> you, my child, the most beautiful sight +I've ever seen for many a long year."</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"You may laugh at me," she said.</p> + +<p>"'E isn't laughin' at you," Rose interjected. She was generally admitted +to Tanqueray's conferences with Laura. She sat by the fire with her +knees very wide apart, nursing Minny.</p> + +<p>"He isn't, indeed," said Tanqueray. "He thinks you a marvellous Kiddy; +and he bows his knee before your popularity. How you contrive to turn +anything so horrible into anything so adorable he doesn't know and never +will know."</p> + +<p>"Dear me. I'm only dumping down earth for Owen's roses."</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean. That's the miracle. Every novel you write blossoms +into a splendid poem."</p> + +<p>It was what she meant. She had never meant anything so much. It was the +miracle that her marriage perpetually renewed for her, this process of +divine transmutation, by which her work passed into Owen's and became +perfect. It passed, if you like, through a sordid medium, through pounds +and shillings and pence, but there again, the medium itself was +transmuted, sanctified by its use, by the thing accomplished. She +touched a consummation beyond consummation of their marriage.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you see it as I do," she said. She had not thought that he +would see.</p> + +<p>"Of course I see it." He sat silent a moment regarding his vision; +smooth-browed, close-lipped, a purified and transmuted Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"What do you expect," he said presently, "to happen?"</p> + +<p>"I expect what always has happened, and worse."</p> + +<p>"So do I. I said in the beginning that he hadn't a chance. There isn't a +place for him anywhere in his own generation. He might just as well go +on the Stock Exchange and try to float a company by singing to the +brokers. It's a generation of brokers."</p> + +<p>"Beasts!"</p> + +<p>"Aunt's lodger is a broker," said Rose. "Old furniture—real—and +pictures is <i>'is</i> line."</p> + +<p>"Aunt's lodger, I assure you, will be thoroughly well damned if he takes +any stock in Owen."</p> + +<p>"'E 'asn't seen Mr. Prothero," said Rose, "and you'll frighten Minny if +you use such language."</p> + +<p>Tanqueray ignored the interruption. "Owen, you see, is dangerous. He +regards the entire Stock Exchange as a bankrupt concern. The Stock +Exchange resents the imputation and makes things dangerous for Owen. If +a man will insist on belonging to all the centuries that have been, and +all the centuries that will be, he's bound to have a bad time in his +own. You can't have it both ways."</p> + +<p>"I know. He knows it. We'd rather have it this way. I oughtn't to talk +as if he minded, as if it could touch him where he is. It's me it hurts, +not him."</p> + +<p>"It hurts me, too, Kiddy. I can't stand it when I see the filthy curs +rushing at him. They've got to be kicked into a corner. I'm prepared for +them, this time."</p> + +<p>He rose and went to his desk and returned with an article in proof which +he gave to her.</p> + +<p>"Just look through that and see if it's any good."</p> + +<p>It was his vindication of Owen Prothero.</p> + +<p>"Oh——"</p> + +<p>She drew in her breath. "How you <i>have</i> fought for him."</p> + +<p>"I'm fighting for my own honour and glory, too."</p> + +<p>He drew her attention to a passage where he called upon Heaven to forbid +that he should appear to apologize for so great a man. He was only +concerned with explaining why Prothero was and would remain unacceptable +to a generation of brokers; which was not so much a defence of Prothero +as an indictment of his generation. She would see how he had rubbed it +in.</p> + +<p>She followed, panting a little in her excitement, the admirable points +he made. There, where he showed that there was no reason why this Celt +should be an alien to the Saxon race. Because (her heart leaped as she +followed) his genius had all the robust and virile qualities. He was not +the creature of a creed, or a conviction, or a theory; neither was he a +fantastic dreamer. He was a man of realities, the very type (Tanqueray +had rubbed that well in) that hard-headed Englishmen adore, a surgeon, +a physician, a traveller, a fighter among fighting men. He had never +blinked a fact (Laura smiled as she remembered how Owen had said that +that was what a Brodrick never did); he had never shirked a danger. But +(Tanqueray, in a new paragraph, had plunged into the heart of his +subject) on the top of it all he was a seer; a man who saw <i>through</i> the +things that other men see. And to say that he saw, that he saw through +things, was the humblest and simplest statement of his case. To him the +visible world was a veil worn thin by the pressure of the reality behind +it; it had the translucence that belongs to it in the form of its +eternity. He was in a position to judge. He had lived face to face and +hand to hand with all forms of corporeal horror, and there was no mass +of disease or of corruption that he did not see in its resplendent and +divine transparency. It was simple and self-evident to him that the +world of bodies was made so and not otherwise. It was also clear as +daylight that the entire scheme of things existed solely to unfold and +multiply and vary the everlasting-to-everlasting-world-without-end +communion between God and the soul. To him this communion was a fact, a +fact above all facts, the supremely and only interesting fact. It was so +natural a thing that he sang about it as spontaneously as other poets +sing about their love and their mistresses. So simple and so +self-evident was it that he had called his latest and greatest poems +"Transparences."</p> + +<p>"It sounds," she said, "as if you saw what he sees."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Tanqueray. "I only see <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>At that, all of a sudden, the clever imp broke down.</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "I love you—I don't care if Rose <i>does</i> hear—I +love you for defending him."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs09" id="gs09"></a> +<img src="images/gs09.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"George," she said ... "I love you for defending him."</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Love me for something else. He doesn't need defending."</p> + +<p>"Not he! But all the same I love you."</p> + +<p>It was as if she had drawn aside a fold of her pretty garment and shown +him, where the scar had been, a jewel, a pearl with fire in the white of +it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LVII" id="LVII"></a>LVII</h2> + + +<p>They were right. Worse things were reserved for Prothero than had +happened to him yet. Even Caro Bickersteth had turned. Caro had done her +best to appreciate competently this creator adored by creators. Caro, +nourished on her "Critique of Pure Reason," was trying hard to hold the +balance of justice in the "Morning Telegraph"; and according to Caro +there was a limit. She had edited Shelley and she knew. She was frankly, +as she said, unable to follow Mr. Prothero in his latest flight. There +was a limit even to the imagination of the mystic, and to the poet's +vision of the Transcendent. There were, Caro said, regions of ether too +subtle to sustain even so imponderable a poet as Mr. Prothero. So there +wasn't much chance, Tanqueray remarked, of their sustaining Caro.</p> + +<p>But the weight of Caro's utterances increased, as they circulated, +formidably, among the right people. All the little men on papers +declared that there was a limit, and that Prothero had passed it.</p> + +<p>It was barely a year since the publication of his last volume, and they +were annoyed with Prothero for daring to show his face again so soon in +the absence of encouragement. It looked as if he didn't care whether +they encouraged him or not. Such an attitude in a person standing on his +trial amounted to contempt of court. When his case came up for judgment +in the papers, the jury were reminded that the question before them was +whether Mr. Prothero, in issuing a volume, at three and six net, with +the title of "Transparences," and the sub-title of "Poems," was or was +not seeking to obtain money under false pretenses. And judgment in +Prothero's case was given thus: Any writer who wilfully and deliberately +takes for his subject a heap of theoretical, transcendental stuff, stuff +that at its best is pure hypothesis, and at its worst an outrage on the +sane intelligence of his readers, stuff, mind you, utterly lacking in +simplicity, sensuousness and passion, that writer may be a thinker, a +mystic, a metaphysician of unspeakable profundity, but he is not a poet. +He stands condemned in the interests of Reality.</p> + +<p>Laura knew it didn't matter what they said about him, but that last +touch kindled her to flame. It even drew fire from Owen.</p> + +<p>"If I gave them the reality they want," he cried; "if I brought them the +dead body of God with the grave-clothes and worms about it, they'd call +that poetry. I bring them the living body of God rejoicing in life, and +they howl at me. What their own poets, their Wordsworths and Tennysons +and Brownings showed them in fits and flashes, I show them in one +continuous ecstasy, and they can't stand it. They might complain, the +beggars, if I'd given them a dramatic trilogy or an epic. But when I've +let them off, Laura, with a few songs!"</p> + +<p>They were alone in his big room. Nina and Tanqueray and Jane had come +and praised him, and Laura had been very entertaining over Prothero's +reviews. But, when they had gone, she came and crouched on the floor +beside him, as her way was, and leaned her face against his hand. +Prothero, with the hand that was not engaged with Laura, turned over the +pages of his poems. He was counting them, to prove the slenderness of +his offence.</p> + +<p>"Listen to this," he said. "They can't say it's <i>not</i> a song."</p> + +<p>He read and she listened, while her hand clutched his, as if she held +him against the onslaught of the world.</p> + +<p>Her grip slackened as she surrendered to his voice. She lay back, as it +were, and was carried on the strong wave of the rhythm. It was the +questing song of the soul, the huntress, on the heavenly track; the song +of the soul, the fowler, who draws after her the streaming worlds, as a +net, to snare the wings of God. It was the song of her outcasting, of +the fall from heaven that came of the too great rapture of the soul, of +her wantoning in the joy of the supernal, who forgot God in possessing +him. It was the song of birth, of the soul's plunging into darkness and +fire, of the weaving round her of the fleshy veils, the veils of +separation, the veils of illusion; the song of her withdrawal into her +dim house, of her binding and scourging, and of her ceaseless breaking +on the wheel of time, till she renews her passion and the desire of her +return. It was the song of the angels of mortal life, sounding its +secrets; angels of terror and pain, carding the mortal stuff, spinning +it out, finer and yet more fine, till every nerve becomes vibrant, a +singing lyre of God; angels of the passions and the agonies, moving in +the blood, ministers of the flame that subtilizes flesh to a transparent +vehicle of God; strong angels of disease and dissolution, undermining, +pulling down the house of pain.</p> + +<p>He paused and she raised her head.</p> + +<p>"Owen—that's what you once tried to make me see. Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and you said that I was intoxicated and that it was all very dim +and disagreeable and sad."</p> + +<p>"I didn't understand it then," she said.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand it now. You feel it."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't I feel it then? When you said it?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say it. How could I? There's no other way of saying it but +this. It isn't a theory or a creed; if it were it could be stated in a +thousand different ways. It's the supreme personal experience, and this +is the only form in which it could possibly be conveyed. These words +were brought together from all eternity to say this thing."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure that I'm convinced of the truth of it, even now. I only +feel the passion of it. It's the passion of it, Owen, that'll make it +live."</p> + +<p>"The truth and the passion of it are the same thing," he said.</p> + +<p>He went on chanting. The music gathered and rose and broke over her in +the last verse, in the song of consummation, of the soul's passion, +jubilant, transcendent, where, of the veils of earth and heaven, the +veils of separation and illusion, she weaves the veil of the last +bridal, the fine veil of immortality.</p> + +<p>In the silence Laura stirred at his side. She had possessed herself of +his hand again and held it firmly, as if she were afraid that he might +be taken from her in his ecstasy.</p> + +<p>She was thinking: He used that theme before, in the first poem of his I +ever heard. He was mistaken. There was more than one way of saying the +same thing. She reminded him of this earlier poem. Surely, she said, it +was the same thing, the same vision, the same ecstasy, or, if he liked, +the same experience?</p> + +<p>He did not answer all at once; he seemed to be considering her +objection, as if he owned that it might have weight.</p> + +<p>No, he said presently, it was not the same thing. Each experience was +solitary, unique, it had its own incommunicable quality. He rose and +found the earlier poem, and brought it to her that she might see the +difference.</p> + +<p>She shook her head; but she had to own that the difference was immense. +It was the difference (so she made it out) between a vision that you +were sure of, and a vision of which you were not so sure. And—yes—it +was more than that; it was as if his genius had suffered incarnation, +and its flame were intenser for having passed through flesh and blood. +It was the incorruptible spirit that cried aloud; but there was no +shrill tenuity in its cry. The thrill it gave her was unlike the shock +that she remembered receiving from the poem of his youth, the shiver +they had all felt, as at the passing by of the supersensual. Her +husband's genius commanded all the splendours, all the tumultuous +energies of sense. His verse rose, and its wings shed the colours of +flame, blue, purple, red, and gold that kindled into white; it dropped +and ran, striking earth with untiring, impetuous feet, it slackened; and +still it throbbed with the heat of a heart driving vehement blood. But, +she insisted, it was the same vision. How could she forget it? Did he +suppose that she had forgotten the moment, four years ago, when +Tanqueray had read the poem to them, and it had flashed on her——?</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," he said; "it flashed all right. It flashed on me. But it did +no more. There was always the fear of losing it. The difference is +that—now—there isn't any fear."</p> + +<p>She said, "Ah, I remember how afraid you were."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid," he said, "of you."</p> + +<p>She rose and lifted her arms to him and laid her hand on his shoulders. +He had to stoop to let her do it. So held, he couldn't hope to escape +from her candid, searching eyes.</p> + +<p>"You aren't afraid of me now? I haven't made it go? You haven't lost it +through me?"</p> + +<p>"You've made it stay."</p> + +<p>"Have I? Have I done that for you?"</p> + +<p>He drew in his breath with a sob of passion. "Ah—the things you do!"</p> + +<p>"None of them matter except that," she said.</p> + +<p>She left him with that, turning on the threshold to add, "Why bother, +then, about the other stupid things?"</p> + +<p>It was as if she had said to him that since he owed that to her, a debt +so unique, so enormous that he could never dream of paying it back in +one lifetime, wasn't it rather absurd and rather mean of him to make a +fuss about the rest? How could he think of anything but that? Didn't the +one stupendous obligation cover everything, and lay him, everlastingly +abject, at her feet? The only graceful act left him was to kneel down +and kiss her feet. And that was what, in spirit, he was always doing. As +for her, she would consider herself paid if she saw the difference and +knew that she had made it.</p> + +<p>It was only now, in the hour of achievement, that, looking back and +counting all his flashes and his failures, he realized the difference +she had made. It had seemed to him once that he held his gift, his +vision, on a fragile and uncertain tenure, that it could not be carried +through the tumult and shock of the world without great danger and +difficulty. The thing, as he had said, was tricky; it came and went; and +the fear of losing it was the most overpowering of all fears.</p> + +<p>He now perceived that, from the beginning, the thing that had been most +hostile, most dangerous to his vision was this fear. Time after time it +had escaped him when he had hung on to it too hard, and time after time +it had returned when he had let it go, to follow the thundering +batteries of the world. He had not really lost it when he had left off +clutching at it or had flung himself with it into the heart of the +danger. He could not say that he had seen it in the reeking wards, and +fields bloody with battle, or when his hands were at their swift and +delicate work on the bodies of the wounded. But it had the trick of +coming back to him in moments when he least looked for it. He saw now +that its brief vanishings had been followed by brief and faint +appearances, and that when it had left him longest it had returned to +stay. The times of utter destitution were succeeded by perfect and +continuous possession. He saw that nothing had been fatal to it except +his fear.</p> + +<p>He had tested it because of his fear. He had chosen his profession as +the extreme test, because of his fear. He had given up his profession, +again because of his fear, fear of success in it, fear of the world's +way of rewarding heroism, the dreadful fear of promotion, of being +caught and branded and tied down. He had thought that to be forced into +a line, to be committed to medicine and surgery, was to burn the ships +of God, to cut himself off for ever from his vision.</p> + +<p>Looking back, he saw that his fear of the world had been nothing to his +fear of women, of the half-spiritual, half-sensual snare. He had put +away this fear, and stood the ultimate test. He had tied himself to a +woman and bowed his neck for her to cling to. He would have judged this +attitude perilous in the extreme, incompatible with vision, with seeing +anything but two diminutive feet and the inches of earth they stood in. +And it was only since he had done this dangerous thing and done it +thoroughly, only since he had staked his soul to redeem his body, that +his vision had become secure. It really stayed. He could turn from it, +but it was always with him; he could hold and command it at his will.</p> + +<p>She was right. If he could take that from her, if he was in for it to +that extent, why <i>did</i> he bother about the other stupid things?</p> + +<p>And yet he bothered. All that autumn he worked harder than ever at his +journalism. He seemed to gather to himself all the jobs that were going +on the "Morning Telegraph." He went the round of the theatres on first +nights, reporting for the "Morning Telegraph" on plays that were beneath +the notice of its official dramatic critic. He reviewed poetry and +<i>belles lettres</i> for the "Morning Telegraph;" and he did a great deal of +work for it down in Fleet Street with a paste-pot and a pair of +scissors.</p> + +<p>Prothero's genius had liberated itself for the time being in his last +poem; it was detached from him; it wandered free, like a blessed spirit +invisible, while Prothero's brain agonized and journalized as Laura +said. There was no compromise this time, no propitiation, no playing +with the beautiful prose of his occasional essays. He plunged from his +heavenly height sheer into the worst blackness of the pit; he contorted +himself there in his obscure creation of paragraphs and columns. His +spirit writhed like a fine flame, trammelled and tortured by the +grossness of the stuff it kindled, and the more it writhed the more he +piled on the paragraphs and columns. He seemed, Laura said, to take a +pleasure in seeing how much he could pile on without extinguishing it.</p> + +<p>In December he caught cold coming out of a theatre on a night of north +wind and sleet, and he was laid up for three weeks with bronchitis.</p> + +<p>And at night, that winter, when sounds of coughing came from the +Consumption Hospital, they were answered through the open windows of the +house with the iron gate. And Laura at Owen's side lay awake in her +fear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LVIII" id="LVIII"></a>LVIII</h2> + + +<p>There was one thing that Prothero, in his journalism, drew the line at. +He would not, if they paid him more than they had ever paid him, more +than they had ever dreamed of paying anybody, he would not review +another poet's work. For some day, he said, Nicky will bring out a +volume of his poems, and in that day he will infallibly turn to me. If, +in that day, I can lay my hand upon my heart and swear that I never +review poetry, that I never have reviewed it and never shall, I can look +Nicky in his innocent face with a clean soul.</p> + +<p>But when Nicky actually did it (in the spring of nineteen-nine) Prothero +applied to Brodrick for a holiday. He wanted badly to get out of town. +He could not—when it came to the agonizing point—he could not face +Nicky.</p> + +<p>At least that was the account of the matter which Tanqueray gave to +Brodrick when the question of Prothero's impossibility came up again at +Moor Grange. Brodrick was indignant at Prothero's wanting a holiday, and +a month's holiday. It was preposterous. But Jane had implored him to let +him have it.</p> + +<p>Jinny would give a good deal, Tanqueray imagined, to get out of town +too. It was more terrible for her to face Nicky than for any of them. +Tanqueray himself was hiding from him at that moment in Brodrick's +study. But Jinny, with that superb and incomprehensible courage that +women have, was facing him down there in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>It was in the drawing-room, later on in the afternoon, that Brodrick +found his wife, shrunk into a corner of the sofa and mopping her face +with a pocket-handkerchief. Tanqueray had one knee on the sofa and one +arm flung tenderly round Jinny's shoulder. He met, smiling, the +husband's standstill of imperturbable inquiry.</p> + +<p>"It's all right, Brodrick," he said. "I've revived her. I've been +talking to her like a father."</p> + +<p>He stood looking down at her, and commented—</p> + +<p>"Nicky brought a book of poems out and Jinny cried."</p> + +<p>"It was th—th—the last straw," sobbed Jinny.</p> + +<p>Brodrick left them together, just to show how imperturbable he was.</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "it was horrible. Poor Nicky stood there where you +are, waiting for me to say things. And I couldn't, I couldn't, and he +saw it. He saw it and turned white——"</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> white," said Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>"He turned whiter. And he burst out into a dreadful perspiration. And +then—oh, don't laugh—it was so awful—he took my hand and wrung it, +and walked out of the room, very dignified and stiff."</p> + +<p>"My dear child, he only thought you were speechless with emotion."</p> + +<p>But Jane was putting on her hat and coat which lay beside her.</p> + +<p>"Let's get out somewhere," she said, "anywhere away from this +intolerable scene. Let's tear over the Heath."</p> + +<p>She tore and he followed. Gertrude saw them go.</p> + +<p>She turned midway between Putney and Wimbledon. "Oh, how my heart aches +for that poor lamb."</p> + +<p>"It needn't. The poor lamb's heart doesn't ache for itself."</p> + +<p>"It does. I stabbed it."</p> + +<p>"Not you!"</p> + +<p>"But, George—they were dedicated to me. Could my cup of agony be +fuller?"</p> + +<p>"I admit it's full."</p> + +<p>"And how about Nicky's?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Jinny. If you or I or Prothero had written those poems we +should be drinking cups of agony. But there is <i>no</i> cup of agony for +Nicky. He believes that those poems are immortal, and that none of us +can rob them of their immortality."</p> + +<p>"But if he's slaughtered—and he will be—if they fall on him and tear +him limb from limb, poor innocent lamb!"</p> + +<p>"He isn't innocent, your lamb. He deserves it. So he won't get it. It's +only poets like Prothero who are torn limb from limb."</p> + +<p>"I don't know. There are people who'd stick a knife into him as soon as +look at him."</p> + +<p>"If there are he'll be happy. He'll believe that there's a plot against +him to write him down. He'll believe that he's Keats. He'll believe +anything. You needn't be sorry for him. If only you or I had Nicky's +hope of immortality—if we only had the joy he has even now, in the +horrible act of creation. Why, he's never tired. He can go on for ever +without turning a hair, whereas look at <i>our</i> hair after a morning's +work. Think what it must be to feel that you never can be uninspired, +never to have a doubt or a shadowy misgiving. Neither you nor I nor +Prothero will ever know a hundredth part of the rapture Nicky knows. We +get it for five minutes, an hour, perhaps, and all the rest is simply +hard, heavy, heartbreaking, grinding labour."</p> + +<p>Their wild pace slackened.</p> + +<p>"It's a dog's life, yours and mine, Jinny. Upon my soul, for mere +sensation, if I could choose I'd rather be Nicky."</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"And then—when you think of his supreme illusion——"</p> + +<p>"Has he another?"</p> + +<p>"You know he has. If all of us could believe that when the woman we love +refuses us she only does it because of her career——"</p> + +<p>"If he <i>did</i> believe that——"</p> + +<p>"Believe it? He believes now that she didn't even refuse him. He thinks +he renounced her—for the sake of her career. It's quite possible he +thinks she loves him; and really, considering her absurd behaviour——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't mind," she moaned, "he can believe anything he likes if it +makes him happier."</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> happy," said George tempestuously. "If I were to be born again, +I'd pray to the high gods, the cruel gods, Jinny, to make me mad—like +Nicky—to give me the gift of indestructible illusion. Then, perhaps, I +might know what it was to live."</p> + +<p>She had seen him once, and only once, in this mood, the night he had +dined with her in Kensington Square six weeks before he married Rose.</p> + +<p>"But you and I have been faithful to reality—true, as they say, to +life. If the idiots who fling that phrase about only knew what it meant! +You've been more faithful than I. You've taken such awful risks. You +fling your heart down, Jinny, every time."</p> + +<p>"Do you never take risks? Do you never fling your heart down?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her. "Not your way. Not unless I <i>know</i> that I'll get what +I want."</p> + +<p>"And haven't you got it?"</p> + +<p>"I've got most of it, but not all—yet."</p> + +<p>His tone might or might not imply that getting it was only a question of +time.</p> + +<p>"I say, where are you going?"</p> + +<p>She was heading rapidly for Augustus Road. She wanted to get away from +George.</p> + +<p>"Not there," he protested, perceiving her intention.</p> + +<p>"I must."</p> + +<p>He followed her down the long road where the trees drooped darkly, and +he stood with her by the gate.</p> + +<p>"How long will you be?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I can't say. Half-an-hour—three-quarters—ever so long."</p> + +<p>He waited for an hour, walking up and down, up and down the long road +under the trees. She reappeared as he was turning at the far end of it. +He had to run to overtake her.</p> + +<p>Her face had on it the agony of unborn tears.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Jinny?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Mabel Brodrick."</p> + +<p>She hardly saw his gesture of exasperation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, George, she suffers. It's terrible. There's to be an +operation—to-morrow. I can think of nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, is there no one to take care of you? Is there no one to keep +you from that woman?"</p> + +<p>"Oh don't—if you had seen her——"</p> + +<p>"I don't want to see her. I don't want <i>you</i> to see her. You should +never have anything to do with suffering. It hurts you. It kills you. +You ought to be taken care of. You ought to be kept from the sight and +sound of it." He gazed wildly round the Heath. "If Brodrick was any good +he'd take you out of this damned place."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't go. Poor darling, she can't bear me out of her sight. I +believe I've worn a path going and coming."</p> + +<p>They had left the beaten path. Their way lay in a line drawn straight +across the Heath from Brodrick's house. It was almost as if her feet had +made it.</p> + +<p>"Jinny's path," he said.</p> + +<p>They were silent, and he gathered up, as it were, the burden of their +silence when he stopped and faced her with his question—</p> + +<p>"How are you going on?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIX" id="LIX"></a>LIX</h2> + + +<p>A YEAR passed and half a year, and she had not found an answer to +Tanqueray's question.</p> + +<p>She had gone on somehow. He himself had made it easier for her by his +frequent disappearances. He had found a place somewhere on Dartmoor +where he hid himself from the destroyers, from the dreadful little +people, where he hid himself from Rose. It helped her—not to have the +question raised.</p> + +<p>Now (they were in August of nineteen-ten) Tanqueray was back again with +his question. He had left her, about eleven o'clock in the evening, in +her study, facing it. Not but that he had provided her with a solution, +a positive solution. "Jinny," he had said, "why don't you do as I do? +Why don't you go away, if it was only for a few months every year?"</p> + +<p>It seemed so simple, Tanqueray's solution, that at first she wondered +why it had not occurred to her before. But as she looked back over the +last three years she saw why. It could not have occurred to her as long +as she had had the charge of her own children. She would not be +entertaining it now if Gertrude were not there, looking after them. And +it would not have been possible if the baby, the little girl, her third +child, had lived. She had wanted to have a little girl, just to show +what she could do. She had said, "There shall be one happy woman in the +world and she shall be my daughter."</p> + +<p>But the little girl had never lived at all. She had been brought forth +dead in the night that followed Mabel Brodrick's death. Jane had been +with Mabel when she died. That was in January six months ago.</p> + +<p>After that there had come the great collapse, the six weeks when she lay +quiet and Gertrude, like an angel, waited on her. She had been allowed +to have the little boys with her for hours at a time then, she being +utterly unable to excite them. Sometimes, when she was not well enough +to have them very long, Gertrude would bring them in to look at her, the +little solemn-eyed, quiet boys, holding Gertrude's hands. Every day +brought her a moment of pain when she saw them going out of the room +with Gertrude, led by her hand.</p> + +<p>For six weeks Brodrick had been left very much to Gertrude. And +Gertrude's face in that time had flowered softly, as if she had entered +herself into the peace she made.</p> + +<p>But in March Jane was on her feet again. In April Brodrick took her to +the Riviera, and her return (in May) was the return of that brilliant +and distracting alien who had invaded Brodrick's house seven years ago. +Jane having nothing to do but to recover had done it so completely that +Henry admitted that he would not have known her. To which she had rather +ominously replied that she knew herself, only too well.</p> + +<p>Even before she went away, even lying quiet, she had been aware that +life was having its triumphant will of her. She had known all along, of +course, that (as Owen Prothero had told her) she was sound through and +through. Her vitality was unconquerable. Nothing could wreck her. Even +Henry would own that her body, when they gave it a chance, was as fine a +physical envelope as any woman could wish to have. Lying quiet, she had +been inclined to agree with Henry that genius—her genius at any +rate—was a neurosis; and she was not going to be neurotic any more. +Whatever it was, it had made things terribly complicated. And to Jane +lying quiet they had become absurdly simple. She herself was simplified. +She had been torn in pieces; and in putting herself together again she +had left out the dangerous, disintegrating, virile element. Whatever +happened now, she would no longer suffer from the presence in her of two +sexes contending for the mastery. Through it all, through all her +dreadful virility, she had always been persistently and preposterously +feminine. And lying quiet she was more than ever what George Tanqueray +had said she was not to be—a mere woman.</p> + +<p>Therefore to Jane, lying quiet, there had been no question of how she +was to go on.</p> + +<p>But to Jane on her feet again, in all her ungovernable, disastrous +energy, the question was as insistent as Tanqueray himself. Her genius +had recognized its own vehicle in her body restored to perfect health, +and three years' repression had given it ten times its power to dominate +and torture. It had thriven on the very tragedies that had brought her +low.</p> + +<p>It knew its hour and claimed her. She was close upon thirty-nine. It +would probably claim her without remission for the next seven years. It +had been relentless enough in its youth; it would be terrible in its +maturity. The struggle, if she struggled, would tear her as she had +never yet been torn. She would have to surrender, or at any rate to make +terms with it. It was useless to fall back upon the old compromises and +adjustments. Tanqueray's solution was the only possible, the only +tolerable one. But it depended perilously upon Hugh's consent.</p> + +<p>She went to him in his study where he sat peaceably smoking in the +half-hour before bed-time.</p> + +<p>Brodrick merely raised his eyebrows as she laid it before him—her +monstrous proposal to go away—for three months. He asked her if three +months was not rather a long time for a woman to leave her home and her +children?</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, "but if I don't——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I shall go to pieces."</p> + +<p>He looked at her critically, incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Why can't you say at once what's wrong?" he said. "Is there anything +you want that you don't have here? Is there any mortal thing that can be +done that isn't done?"</p> + +<p>"Not any mortal thing."</p> + +<p>"What is it then?"</p> + +<p>"Hugh dear, did it never strike you that you are a very large family? +And that when it comes down on me it's in the proportion of about seven +to one?"</p> + +<p>"Whoever <i>does</i> come down on you?"</p> + +<p>"John," said she, "was with me for two hours yesterday."</p> + +<p>Brodrick lent his ear as to a very genuine grievance. John, since his +bereavement, was hardly ever out of the house.</p> + +<p>"And I suppose," he said, "he bored you?"</p> + +<p>"No, but he will call when I'm writing."</p> + +<p>"Why on earth don't you send him away?"</p> + +<p>"I would, if Mabel hadn't died. But how can you when he's unhappy? It +would hurt him so. And yet, supposing you were to die, what would John +say if I were to call on him at the works every day, and play with his +dynamos to distract my mind, or sit with him in his office rumpling his +hair, and dislocating his ideas till he didn't know the difference +between a steam-roller and an internal combustion engine? That's more or +less what John does to me. The only thing is to get away."</p> + +<p>However, it was for Brodrick to decide, she said. And Brodrick said he +couldn't decide until he had thought it over.</p> + +<p>She was very soon aware that she had caused a scandal in her husband's +family by her proposal to go away for three months. The scandal was not +altogether unconnected with George Tanqueray, since it was at his +suggestion that she proposed to take this unprecedented step. If she had +proposed to take it with him they could hardly have shown themselves +more horrified.</p> + +<p>She knew how monstrous her conduct must appear to them. She could see it +all so clearly from their point of view. That had always been after all +her poor merit, that she could see things from other people's point of +view. Her vision indeed of them, of the way they took things, was apt to +be so vivid, so engrossing that it left her with no point of view of her +own. She carried into life itself and all its relations her virtue as an +artist, that effacement of her observing self in favour of the thing +observed.</p> + +<p>That, Nina told her, was her danger. Nina happened to be with her on the +day when another family committee met and sat upon her case. They were +sitting on it now, up-stairs with Brodrick in his study. She knew +infallibly what their judgment would be. Just as she had seemed to them +so long a creature of uncertain health, she must seem now inconstant, +insincere, the incarnation of heartlessness, egotism and caprice. She +said to herself that it was all very well for Nina to talk. This insight +was a curse. It was terrible to know what people were thinking, to feel +what they were feeling. And they were seven to one, so that when she +gave them pain she had to feel seven times the pain she gave.</p> + +<p>But after all they, her judges, could take care of themselves. This +family, that was one consolidated affection, was like a wall, it would +shelter and protect her so long as she was content to be sheltered and +protected; if she dashed herself against it it would break her in +pieces.</p> + +<p>And Nina was saying, "Can't you take it into your own hands? Why should +you let these people decide your fate for you?"</p> + +<p>"Hugh will decide it," she said. "He's with them up-stairs now."</p> + +<p>"Is he asking their advice?"</p> + +<p>"No, they're giving it him. That's my chance, Nina."</p> + +<p>"Your chance?"</p> + +<p>"My one chance. They'll put his back up and, if it's only to show them, +he'll let me go."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say, Jinny, that if he didn't you wouldn't go?"</p> + +<p>"I don't even know that I'd go if he minded very much."</p> + +<p>"I wish to goodness George Tanqueray was here. He might make you——"</p> + +<p>"What has he ever made me do?"</p> + +<p>"He might make you see it."</p> + +<p>"I do see it," said Jane.</p> + +<p>She closed her eyes as one tired with much seeing. Nina's presence +hardly helped her. Nina was even more profoundly disturbing than George +Tanqueray; she had even less of consolation to offer to one torn and +divided, she herself being so supreme an instance of the glory of the +single flame.</p> + +<p>The beauty and the wonder of it—in Nina—was its purity. Nina showed to +what a pitch it had brought her, the high, undivided passion of her +genius. Under it every trace of Nina's murkiness had vanished. She had +lost that look of restless, haggard adolescence, that horrible +intentness, as if her hand was always on the throat of her wild beast. +You saw, of course, that she had suffered; but you saw too that her +genius was appeased by her suffering. It was just, it was compassionate; +it had rewarded her for every pang.</p> + +<p>Jane found herself saying beautiful things about Nina's genius. It was +the flame, unmistakably the pure flame. If solitude, if virginity, if +frustration could do that——She knew what it had cost Nina, but it was +worth it, seeing what she had gained.</p> + +<p>Nina faced her with the eyes that had grown so curiously quiet.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Jinny," she said, "could <i>you</i> have borne to pay my price?"</p> + +<p>She owned that she could not.</p> + +<p>Up-stairs Brodrick faced his family where it sat in judgment upon Jane.</p> + +<p>"What does she complain of?" said John.</p> + +<p>"Interruption," said Hugh. "She says she never has any time to herself, +with people constantly running in and out."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't mind," said Sophy, "how much time she gives to the +Protheros and the rest of them. Nina Lempriere's with her now. She's +been here three solid hours. As for George Tanqueray——"</p> + +<p>John shook his head.</p> + +<p>"That's what I don't like, Hugh, Tanqueray's hanging about the house at +all hours of the day and night. However you look at it, it's a most +undesirable thing."</p> + +<p>"Oh—Tanqueray," said Brodrick, "<i>he</i>'s all right."</p> + +<p>"He's anything but all right," said Henry. "A fellow who notoriously +neglects his wife."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Brodrick, "I don't neglect mine."</p> + +<p>"If you give her her head," said Henry.</p> + +<p>He scowled at Henry.</p> + +<p>"You know, Hugh," said Frances, "she really will be talked about."</p> + +<p>"She's being talked about now," said Brodrick, "and I don't like it."</p> + +<p>"There's no use talking," said John sorrowfully, and he rose to go.</p> + +<p>They all rose then. Two by two they went across the Heath to John's +house, Sophy with Henry and Frances with John; and as they went they +leaned to each other, talking continuously about Hugh, and Tanqueray, +and Jane.</p> + +<p>"If Hugh gives in to her in this," said Henry, "he'll always have to +give in."</p> + +<p>"I could understand it," said Sophy, "if she had too much to do in the +house."</p> + +<p>"It's not," said Frances, "as if there was any struggle to make ends +meet. She has everything she wants."</p> + +<p>"Children——" said John.</p> + +<p>"It's preposterous," said Henry.</p> + +<p>When Nina had gone Brodrick came to Jane.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "do you still want to go away for three months?"</p> + +<p>"It's not that I want to, but I must."</p> + +<p>"If you must," he said, "of course you may. I dare say it will be a very +good thing for you."</p> + +<p>"Shall you mind, Hugh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh dear me, no. I shall be very comfortable here with Gertrude."</p> + +<p>"And Gertrude," she murmured, "will be very comfortable here with you."</p> + +<p>That evening, about nine o'clock, the parlour-maid announced to Brodrick +in his study that Miss Winny and Mr. Eddy had called. They were in the +dining-room. When Brodrick asked if Mrs. Brodrick was with them he was +told that the young gentlemen had said expressly that it was Mr. +Brodrick whom they wished to see.</p> + +<p>Brodrick desired that they should be brought to him. They were going +away, to stay somewhere with a school-fellow of Winny's, and he supposed +that they had looked in to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>As they entered something told him, as he had not been told before, that +his young niece and nephew had grown up. It was not Winny's ripening +form and trailing gown, it was not the golden down on Eddy's upper lip; +it was not altogether that the outline of their faces had lost the +engaging and tender indecision of its youth. It was their unmistakable +air of inward assurance and maturity.</p> + +<p>After the usual greetings (Brodrick was aware of a growing restraint in +this particular) Eddy, at the first opening, made for his point—<i>their</i> +point, rather. His uncle had inquired with urbane irony at what hour the +family was to be bereaved of their society, and how long it would have +to languish——</p> + +<p>They were going, Eddy said, at ten in the morning, and a jolly good +thing too. They weren't coming back, either, any sooner than they could +help. They—well, they couldn't "stick it" at home just now.</p> + +<p>They'd had (Winny interpolated) a row with Uncle Henry, a gorgeous row +(the colour of it was in Winny's face).</p> + +<p>Brodrick showed no sign of surprise, not so much as a raised eyebrow. He +asked in quiet tones what it was all about?</p> + +<p>Eddy, standing up before his uncle and looking very tall and manly, +gazed down his waistcoat at his boots.</p> + +<p>"It was about Jin-Jin," Winny said.</p> + +<p>(Eddy could almost have sworn that his uncle suffered a slight shock.)</p> + +<p>"We can't stick it, you know, the way they're going on about her. The +fact is," said the tall youth, "we told Uncle Henry that, and he didn't +like it."</p> + +<p>"You did, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know you'll say it isn't our business, but you see——"</p> + +<p>"You see" (Winny explained), "we're so awfully fond of her."</p> + +<p>Brodrick knew that he ought to tell the young rascals that their being +fond of her didn't make it any more their business. But he couldn't.</p> + +<p>"What did you say to your Uncle Henry?"</p> + +<p>He really wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we said it was all humbug about Jinny being neurotic. He's neurotic +himself and so he thinks everybody else is. He's got it regularly on the +brain."</p> + +<p>(If, Brodrick thought, Henry could have heard him!)</p> + +<p>"You can't think," said Winny, "how he bores us with it."</p> + +<p>"I said he couldn't wonder if she <i>was</i> neurotic, when you think what +she's got to stand. The boresomeness——" He left the idea to its own +immensity.</p> + +<p>"Of what?" said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Well, for one thing, you know, of living everlastingly with Gertrude."</p> + +<p>Brodrick said, "Gertrude doesn't bore anybody."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't bore <i>you</i>, Uncle Hugh, of course, because you're a man."</p> + +<p>(Winny said that.)</p> + +<p>"Then," said Eddy, "there's <i>us</i>. You know, we're an awful family for a +woman like Jinny to have married into. There isn't one of us fit to +black her boots. And I believe Uncle Henry thinks she wasn't made for +anything except to bring more of us into the world."</p> + +<p>Brodrick's face displayed a fine flush.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i>'re all right, Uncle Hugh."</p> + +<p>Brodrick lowered his eyelids in modest acceptance of this tribute.</p> + +<p>"I keep forgetting you're one of them, because you married her."</p> + +<p>"What else did you say to him?"</p> + +<p>Eddy became excited. "Oh—I got in one before we left—I landed him +neatly. I asked him why on earth—if he thought she was neurotic—he let +her shut herself up for a whole year with that screaming kid, when any +fat nurse would have done the job as well? And why he let her break her +neck, running round after Aunt Mabel? I had him there."</p> + +<p>"What did your Uncle say to that?" (Brodrick's voice was rather faint.)</p> + +<p>"He didn't say anything. He couldn't—oh—well, he <i>did</i> say my +impertinence was unendurable. And I said <i>his</i> was, when you think what +Jinny is."</p> + +<p>He meditated on it. He had become, suddenly, a grave and reverent +youth.</p> + +<p>"We really came," Winny said, "to know whether Jinny <i>is</i> going away?"</p> + +<p>"She is going away," said Brodrick, "for three months."</p> + +<p>He rose and held out the hand of parting. To his surprise Winny kissed +him and kept her face against his as she whispered, "And <i>if</i>—she has +to stay a year?"</p> + +<p>"She shall stay," Brodrick said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LX" id="LX"></a>LX</h2> + + +<p>She went down to Devonshire, to a farmhouse not far from Chagford, on +the edge of Dartmoor. Tanqueray had rooms there which were his and +nobody else's, and he had lent them to her for three months, or for as +long as she cared to stay. She would be safe there, he said. Nobody +would find her.</p> + +<p>Certainly it would be hard to find her, so remote and hidden was the +place. The farm, which was small and humble, stood in a deep lane cut +off from Chagford by a hill. The lane dipped abruptly from the hillside; +it plunged; it went down, at noon, as into a pit of darkness. The +white-washed house, lodged on a flat break in the descent, sucked light +through its high ring of ash-trees. Below it the lane went headlong to +the hill-bottom. It was perched on a hill, hugged in a valley, according +as you approached it from the north-east or the south-west.</p> + +<p>The doorway was guarded by a deep, white-walled porch. You came straight +into an ancient low-roofed, white-washed kitchen, now the living-room +for the eccentric stranger who had made his lodging there. A stairway +led up from it into the bedroom overhead. This living-room had a door +that opened into a passage joining it to further and dimmer parts of the +house; but the bedroom was inaccessible save by its own stair.</p> + +<p>By the deep-set window of each room there stood a firm, solid oak table, +at which, the woman of the farm had told her, Mr. Tanqueray wrote. Both +windows looked on to the lane. That was the beauty of it, Tanqueray had +said. There would be nothing to distract her. You couldn't trust Jinny +on the open moor.</p> + +<p>For the first week Jinny, cut off from her husband and children, was +assailed by a poignant and perpetual misery. As one who has undergone a +surgical operation, she suffered an inveterate nerve-aching after the +severed flesh. She was haunted by Brodrick's face as she had seen it +from her corner of the rail-way carriage, looking in at her through the +window, silent and overcast, and by his look, his unforgettable look as +the train carried her away. And the children, their faces and their soft +forms and their voices haunted her. She did no work that week.</p> + +<p>Then the country claimed her. Dartmoor laid on her its magic of wild +earth and wild skies. She tried to write and could not. Something older +and more powerful than her genius had her. She suffered a resurgence of +her youth, her young youth that sprang from the moors, and had had its +joy in them and knew its joy again. It was on the moors that earth had +most kinship and communion with the sky. It took the storms of heaven. +Its hills were fused with heaven in fires of sunset; they wore the +likeness of the clouds, of vapour and fine air. On the moors it was an +endless passing of substance into shadow and of shadow into substance.</p> + +<p>And she had her own kinship and communion with them. She remembered +these hillsides grey as time, where the grass was a perishing bloom on +the face of the immemorial granite. A million memories and instincts met +in these smells of furze and heather and moss, of green rushes and the +sweet earth of the south-west.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray was right. She was not to be trusted on the open moors. She +was out of doors all day. And out of doors the Idea that had driven her +forth withdrew itself. Its very skirts, only half-discerned, were beyond +her grasp. She was oppressed at times by a sense of utter frustration +and futility. If this was all; if she was simply there enjoying herself, +tramping the hills all day, a glorious animal set free; if she was not +going to accomplish anything, then she had no business to be there at +all. It would be better to give it up, to give in, to go back again.</p> + +<p>There was a day in her third week when she nearly did go back, when it +seemed to her that she would be obeying a wise instinct if she went. She +got as far as looking up the trains to Waterloo.</p> + +<p>Then, on the brink of it, something that announced itself as a wiser +and profounder instinct, an instinct of self-preservation, told her not +to go. It told her to wait, to trust to Nature's way, and to Nature's +wisdom in bringing back her youth. Nature's way was to weave over again +the web of life so strained and worn, so tangled and broken by the +impact of other lives. Nature's wisdom was to make her simple and +strong, a new creature, with a clean vision and an imagination once more +virgin to the world. In short, Nature's beneficent intention was to +restore her whole to the genius which also had been a part of Nature's +plan.</p> + +<p>And all the time good news of Brodrick and the children reached her +every other day. Punctually, every other day Gertrude Collett wrote, +assuring her that all was going well at home and urging her to stay. +Brodrick wrote (at rather longer intervals) saying how happy the +children were, and how entirely comfortable he was with Gertrude. His +letters contained little besides praise of Gertrude. There was no +reason, he reiterated, why she should not stay.</p> + +<p>She stayed, and in her fifth week she received the reward of her +staying. Walking back to the farm late one evening, the moors veiled +from her passion by the half-darkness, her Idea came back to her. It +came, not yet with the vividness of flesh and blood, but like a ghost. +It had ghostly hands and feet, and like a ghost it walked the road with +her. But through its presence she felt in herself again that nascent +ecstasy which foretold, infallibly, the onset of the incredible act and +labour of creation.</p> + +<p>When she reached the farm she found George Tanqueray sitting in the +porch. The lamp-light through the open door revealed him.</p> + +<p>"Whatever brought you here?" she said.</p> + +<p>"What always brings me."</p> + +<p>She understood him to mean that he also had been driven forth, and was +in subjection to the Idea.</p> + +<p>"Have you come to turn me out?" she said.</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny."</p> + +<p>He explained that he was staying in the village, at the Three Crowns. He +had arrived that evening and had walked over.</p> + +<p>He followed her into the deep kitchen. At the supper-table his place had +been laid for him already. He had ordered it so.</p> + +<p>He looked at her, smiling an apology.</p> + +<p>"Is it all right?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly all right, George."</p> + +<p>They talked all evening and far into the night. She parted from him at +the gate of the lane under the ash-trees. Under the ash-trees her Idea +showed in its immense and luminous perfection. It trembled into life. It +drew her, palpitating, into the lamp-light of the room.</p> + +<p>She had found what she had come for.</p> + +<p>That was the effect he always had on her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXI" id="LXI"></a>LXI</h2> + + +<p>Brodrick had been alone in the first fortnight that followed Jane's +extraordinary departure. Instead of settling down to be comfortable with +Gertrude, he had packed her off to the seaside with the children and +their nurse. He had often wondered what he should do without Gertrude. +Now he knew. He knew by incontrovertible experiment that he could not do +without her at all. Everything, even the silver-chiming clock, went +wrong in her absence.</p> + +<p>If, before that fortnight, Brodrick had been asked suddenly with what +feelings he regarded Gertrude Collett, he would have replied that he was +unaware of regarding the lady with any feelings, or indeed of regarding +her intimately at all. And he would have told the simple truth; for +Brodrick was of all men the most profoundly unaware.</p> + +<p>Of course, there was gratitude. He had always been aware of that. But in +that fortnight his gratitude took on immense proportions, it became a +monstrous and indestructible indebtedness. He would have said that such +a feeling, so far from making him comfortable with Gertrude, would have +made him very uncomfortable, much more uncomfortable than he cared to +be. But curiously it was not so. In his renewed intercourse with +Gertrude he found a vague, exquisite satisfaction. The idea of not +paying Gertrude back in any way would have been intolerable; but what he +felt now was so very like affection that it counted as in some measure a +return. It was as if he had settled it in his own mind that he could now +meet the innocent demands which the angelic woman seemed to make. +Goodness knew it wasn't much to ask, a little attention, a little +display of the feeling so very like affection, after all that she had +done.</p> + +<p>It pleased him now when he came, mooning drearily, into the +drawing-room, to find Gertrude in possession. He was almost always +tired now, and he was glad to lie back in an easy-chair and have his tea +handed to him by Gertrude. He looked forward, in fancy, to the +children's hour that followed tea-time, and he had made a great point at +first of having them to himself. But as a matter of fact, being almost +always tired, he enjoyed their society far more sincerely when Gertrude +was there to keep them in order.</p> + +<p>That was her gift. She had been the genius of order ever since she had +come into his house—good gracious, was it ten years ago? Her gift made +her the most admirable secretary an editor could have. But she was more +than that now. She was a perfect companion to a physically fatigued and +intellectually slightly deteriorated man. He owned to the deterioration. +Jane had once told him that his intellect was a "lazy, powerful beast." +It seemed to him now, humbly regarding it, that the beast was and always +had been much more lazy than powerful. It required constant stimulus to +keep it going. His young ambition and his young passion for Jane Holland +had converged to whip it up. It flagged with the dying down of passion +and ambition. Things latterly had come a bit too late. His dream had +been realized too late. And he hadn't realized it, either. Jane had +realized it for him. No sooner had he got his wonderful magazine into +his own hands than he found out how little he cared about it. He had +become more and more absorbed in its external and financial aspects. He +showed more and more as the man of business, the slightly hustled and +harassed father of a family. He had put off intellectual things. His +deterioration weighed on him when he thought of Jane. But Gertrude's +gentleness stood between him and any acute perception of his state.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when they sat together over her fire, lit in the September +evenings, there would be long silences. Gertrude never broke a silence. +She was conscious of it; she, as it were, held it—he could almost feel +her holding it—tenderly, as if she loved it; she handled it gently as +if she were afraid that it would break. She gave him so much sense of +her presence and no more. She kept before him, humbly, veiled from his +vision, the fact that she was there to serve him.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a curious shyness would come on her. It was not the poignant +shyness of her youth which Brodrick had once found so distressing. It +conveyed no fear and no embarrassment, only (so he made it out) the +quietest, subtlest hint of possible flight. Its physical sign was the +pale, suffused flame in Gertrude's face, and that web of air across her +eyes. There was a sort of charm about it.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, coming upon Gertrude alone and unaware of him, he would find +her sad. He said to himself then that she had no great cause for gaiety. +It was a pretty heavy burden for her, this shouldering of another +woman's responsibilities. He thought that Jane had sometimes been a +little hard on her. He supposed that was her (Jane's) feminine way. The +question was whether he himself might not have been kinder; whether +there wasn't anything that he might yet do to make life sweeter to her. +He was, in fact, profoundly sorry for Gertrude, more profoundly sorry +than he had been ten years ago, when she had come to him, and he had +kept her, though he didn't want her, because he was sorry for her. Well, +he wanted her enough now in all conscience.</p> + +<p>Then the horrible thought would occur to him: supposing Gertrude were to +go? It was not conceivable, her going.</p> + +<p>For, above all her gifts, Gertrude was an incomparable mother to those +unfortunate children (since Jane's departure Brodrick had begun to think +definitely of his children as unfortunate). It was distinctly +pleasurable the feeling with which he watched her ways in gathering them +to her side and leading them softly from the room when "Daddy was busy," +or when "poor Daddy was so tired." More than once he found himself +looking out of his study window at her quiet play with the little boys +in the garden. Solemn little boys they were; and sometimes he wondered +whether little Jacky were not <i>too</i> solemn, too preternaturally quiet +for four and a half, and rather too fond of holding Gertrude's hand. He +remembered how the little beggar used to romp and laugh when +Jinny——And remembering he would turn abruptly from the window with a +sore heart and a set face.</p> + +<p>Three weeks passed thus. There was a perceptible increase in Gertrude's +shyness and sadness.</p> + +<p>One evening after dinner she came to him in his study. He rose and drew +forward a chair for her. She glanced at his writing-table and at the +long proof-sheets that hung from it, streaming.</p> + +<p>"I mustn't," she said. "You're busy."</p> + +<p>"Well—not so busy as all that. What is it?"</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking that it would perhaps be better if I were to leave."</p> + +<p>"To leave? What's put that into your head?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. She appeared to him dumb with distress.</p> + +<p>"Have the children been too much for you?"</p> + +<p>"Poor little darlings—no."</p> + +<p>"Little monkeys. Send them to me if you can't manage them."</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. It is—I don't think it's right for me to stay."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>right</i>?"</p> + +<p>"On the children's account, I mean."</p> + +<p>He looked at her and a shade, a tremor, of uneasiness passed over his +face.</p> + +<p>"I say," he said, "you don't think they're unhappy?"</p> + +<p>(She smiled).</p> + +<p>"—Without their mother?" He jerked it out with a visible effort.</p> + +<p>"No. If they were I shouldn't be so uneasy."</p> + +<p>"Come, you don't want them to be unhappy, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No. I don't want anybody to be unhappy. That's why I think I'd better +go."</p> + +<p>"On their account?" he repeated, hopelessly adrift.</p> + +<p>"Theirs, and their mother's."</p> + +<p>"But it's on their account—and—their mother's—that we want you."</p> + +<p>"I know; but it isn't fair to them or to—Mrs. Brodrick that they should +be so dependent on me."</p> + +<p>"But—they're babies."</p> + +<p>"Not quite—now. It isn't right that I should be taking their mother's +place, that they should look to me for everything."</p> + +<p>"But," he broke in irritably, "they don't. Why should they?"</p> + +<p>"They do. They must. You see, it's because I'm on the spot."</p> + +<p>"I see." He hid his frowning forehead with one hand.</p> + +<p>"I know," she continued, "it can't be helped. It isn't anybody's fault. +It's—it's inevitable."</p> + +<p>"Yes. For the present it's—inevitable."</p> + +<p>They both paused on that word.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he said, "you're really afraid that they'll get too fond of +you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"They're very fond of their mother, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—if she were always here."</p> + +<p>"Of course, it does make your position a little difficult. Still, we +don't want them to fret for her—we don't want them not to be fond of +you. Besides, if you went, what on earth would they do without you?"</p> + +<p>"They must learn to do without me. They would have some one else."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and they'll be fond of <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>"Not in the same way. I think perhaps I've given myself too much to +them. There's something unusual, something tragic in the way they cling +to me. I know it's bad for them. I try to check it, and I can't. And +I've no right to let it go on. Nobody has a right except their mother."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's awfully nice of you to feel like that about it. But as you +say, I don't see how it's to be helped. I think you're taking an +exaggerated view—conscientiously exaggerated. They're too young, you +know, to be very tragic."</p> + +<p>She smiled as through tears.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you'll save tragedy by going. Besides, what should I do?"</p> + +<p>"You?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You don't appear to have thought of me."</p> + +<p>"Don't I?" She smiled again, as if at some secret, none too happy, of +her own.</p> + +<p>"If I had not thought of you I should never have come here a second +time. If I had not thought of you I should not have thought of going."</p> + +<p>"Did you think I wanted you to go?"</p> + +<p>"I—was not quite sure."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Are you sure now?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him again.</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> help you by staying?"</p> + +<p>He was overwhelmed by his indebtedness.</p> + +<p>"Most certainly you do. I must have been very ungracious if you haven't +realized how indispensable you are."</p> + +<p>"If you're sure of that—I'll stay."</p> + +<p>"Good."</p> + +<p>He held out his hand and detained hers for a moment. "Are you sure you +don't want to leave us? I'm not asking too much of you?"</p> + +<p>She withdrew her hand.</p> + +<p>"You have never asked too much."</p> + +<p>Thus Gertrude uncovered the knees of the gods.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXII" id="LXII"></a>LXII</h2> + + +<p>Four days in every week Jane had a letter from Gertrude and once a week +a letter from Brodrick. She was thus continually assured that all was +well and that Brodrick was very comfortable with Gertrude.</p> + +<p>She was justified in staying on, since her genius had come back to her, +divinely placable, divinely propitiated and appeased.</p> + +<p>She knew that in a measure she owed this supreme reconciliation to +George Tanqueray. Her genius was virile. He could not give it anything, +nor could it have taken anything he gave. He was passive to her vision +and humble, on his knees, as he always had been, before a kindred +immortality. What he did for her was to see her idea as she saw it, but +so that through his eyes she saw steadily and continuously its power and +perfection. She was aware that in the last five years she had grown +dependent on him for that. For five years he had lifted her out of the +abyss when she had found herself falling. Through all the surgings and +tossings that had beset her he had kept her from sinking into the trough +of the wave. Never once had he let go his hold till he had seen her +riding gaily on the luminous crest.</p> + +<p>His presence filled her with a deep and strong excitement. For two +years, in their long separations, she had found that her craving for it +was at times unbearable. She knew that when her flame died down and she +was in terror of extinction, she had only to send for him to have her +fear taken from her. She had only to pick up a book of his, to read a +sentence of his, and she would feel herself afire again. Everything +about him, his voice, his look, the touch of his hand, had this +penetrating, life-giving quality.</p> + +<p>Three weeks passed and Tanqueray was still staying in his inn at +Chagford. In the mornings they worked, he on his book and she on hers. +She saw him every afternoon or evening. Sometimes they took long walks +together over the moors. Sometimes they wandered in the deep lanes. +Sometimes, in rainy weather, they sat indoors, talking. In the last five +years Tanqueray (who never used to show his work) had brought all his +manuscripts for her to read. He brought them now. Sometimes she read to +him what she had written. Sometimes he read to her. Sometimes he left +his manuscript with her and took hers away with him. They discussed +every doubtful point together, they advised each other and consulted. +Sometimes they talked of other things. She was aware that the flame he +kindled leaned to him, drawn by his flame. She kept it high. She wanted +him to see how divine it was, and how between him and her there could be +no question of passion that was not incorruptible, a fiery intellectual +thing.</p> + +<p>But every day Tanqueray walked up from the village to the farm. She +looked on his coming as the settled, natural thing. Brodrick continued +to assure her that the children were happy without her, and that he was +very comfortable with Gertrude; and Tanqueray reiterated that it was all +right, all perfectly right.</p> + +<p>One day he arrived earlier than usual, about eleven o'clock. He proposed +that they should walk together over the moor to Post Bridge, lunch at +the inn there and walk back. Distance was nothing to them.</p> + +<p>They set out down the lane. There had been wind at dawn. Southwards, +over the hills, the clouds were piled up to the high sun in a riot and +glory of light and storm. The hills were dusk under their shadow.</p> + +<p>The two swung up the long slopes at a steady pace, rejoicing in the +strong movement of their limbs. It was thus that they used to set out +together long ago, on their "days," over the hills of Buckinghamshire +and Hertfordshire. Jane remarked that her state now was almost equal to +that great freedom. And they talked of Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"There aren't many husbands," she said, "who would let their wives go +off like this for months at a time."</p> + +<p>"Not many. He has his merits."</p> + +<p>"When you think of the life I lead him at home it takes heaps off his +merit. The kindest thing I can do to him is to go away and stay away. +George, you don't know how I've tormented the poor darling."</p> + +<p>"I can imagine."</p> + +<p>"He was an angel to bear it."</p> + +<p>She became pensive at the recollection.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I wonder whether I ought, really, to have married. You told +me that I oughtn't."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Six years ago."</p> + +<p>"Well—I'm inclined to say so still. Only, the unpardonable sin in a +great artist—isn't so much marrying as marrying the wrong person."</p> + +<p>"He isn't the wrong person for me. But I'm afraid I'm the wrong person +for him."</p> + +<p>"It comes to the same thing."</p> + +<p>"Not altogether." She pondered. "No doubt God had some wise purpose when +he made Hugh marry me. I can see the wise purpose in Owen's marrying +Laura, and the wise purpose in his not marrying Nina; but when it comes +to poor, innocent Hugh tying himself up for ever and ever with a woman +like me——"</p> + +<p>"Don't put it on God. His purpose was wise enough."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"Why—obviously—that I should have married you, that Hugh should have +married Gertrude, and that some reputable young draper should have +married Rose."</p> + +<p>"Poor little Rose!"</p> + +<p>"Poor little Rose would have been happy with her draper; Gertrude would +have been happy with Brodrick; you—no, I, would have been divinely +happy with you."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "Oh, would you!"</p> + +<p>"<i>That</i> was the heaven-appointed scheme. And there we were, all five of +us, bent on frustrating the divine will—I beg Gertrude's +pardon—Gertrude's will was entirely in accord."</p> + +<p>"It sounds delightfully simple, but I doubt if it would have worked out +so. We've all got as much of each other as we want."</p> + +<p>"That's what we haven't got. Very large, important pieces of each of us +have been taken and given to the wrong person. Look at you—look at me."</p> + +<p>She looked at him. "My dear, the largest and most important part of you +is kept well out of the reach of Rose's little fingers. You and I have +quite as much of each other as is good for us. If <i>we</i> were to tear each +other to pieces there'd be nothing left of us."</p> + +<p>Thus lightly they handled it, setting out in the morning.</p> + +<p>Their pace slackened. They had begun to think.</p> + +<p>She had always been a little hard on him about Rose, Tanqueray thought. +It was as if she accused him, or rather his genius, of a monstrous +egoism. Surely that only meant that it was indomitably sound and sane. A +reckless sanity it had, a soundness capable of any risks. There never +was any man who so defied the forces of dissolution, who had so profound +an instinct of self-preservation.</p> + +<p>Such a nature was bound to be inhospitable to parasites. By the very +ease with which it assimilated all food of earth and heaven, it starved +them at the roots.</p> + +<p>It was not that he deliberately cast off any tender thing that clung to +him. It was that the sheer impulse of growth in him was so tremendous +that it burst through and out-soared the embracing and aspiring bonds. +His cruelty (for it <i>was</i> cruelty from the poor parasite's point of +view) was like Nature's, unconscious and impersonal.</p> + +<p>It was not his fault, therefore, if Rose's arms, try as she would, could +never hold him. It was not that he was indifferent to Rose or to her +suffering, or that he shrank in moral cowardice from dealing with it as +a man should deal. It was that the voice of implacably wise, and +indubitably sane instincts warned him that he would accomplish no great +thing if he turned to contemplate her tragedy, still less if he +accepted it as his own. Incorruptible impulses urged him to evasion. And +it was thus that in the seven years of his marriage he had achieved +almost complete oblivion of her.</p> + +<p>But Jane—Jane was a creature of like impulses and of the same stature +as he. Her dependence on him, if she was dependent, was for such things +as overflowed from him, that cost him no effort to bestow. And she gave +as superbly as she received. There was nothing in the least parasitic +about Jane. She had the freedom of all the spaces of earth and heaven. +She could tramp the hills beside him with the same breath and stride.</p> + +<p>He had given her his hand for the last steep ascent. She sprang to it +and took it in her fine, firm grasp; but he felt no great pull upon his +arm. She kept step with him and reached the top unflushed, unpanting.</p> + +<p>Watching her, he saw how marriage had ripened her slender body and given +to it the beauty that it had lacked. She was more feminine than ever. +She had added that invincible quality to the sexless charm that had +drawn him hitherto, drawn him irresistibly, but on paths remote from +disaster.</p> + +<p>(He had forgotten that he had been aware that she was formidable ever +since he had first realized that she belonged to another man.)</p> + +<p>They lunched at Post Bridge, at the little inn that Tanqueray knew. They +drove (a sudden inspiration seizing them) to Merivale and back. They +stopped at their inn again for tea, and faced untired the long tramp of +the return. It was evening when they reached the last moor that lay +between them and the farm lane.</p> + +<p>The long uphill road unwound itself before them, a dun-white band flung +across the darkening down. A veil of grey air was drawn across the +landscape. To their left the further moors streamed to the horizon, line +after line, curve after curve, fluent in the watery air. Nearer, on the +hillside to their right, under the haze that drenched its green to +darkness, the furze threw out its unquenchable gold.</p> + +<p>Jane was afraid of her thoughts and Tanqueray's. She talked incessantly. +She looked around her and made him see how patches of furze seen under a +haze showed flattened, with dark bitten edges, clinging close like +lichen on a granite wall; and how, down the hillsides, in the beds of +perished streams, the green grass ran like water.</p> + +<p>"I love your voice," he said, "but I wish you'd look at me when you're +talking."</p> + +<p>"If I did," she said, "I couldn't talk."</p> + +<p>The truth leaped out of her, and she drew in her breath, as if thus she +could recall it; seeing all that it meant, and knowing that he who saw +everything must see.</p> + +<p>A silence fell on them. It lasted till they topped the rise.</p> + +<p>Then Tanqueray spoke.</p> + +<p>"Yes. A precious hash we've all made of it. You and I and Brodrick and +poor Nina. Could anything be more fatuous, more perverse?"</p> + +<p>"Not all of us. Not Owen. He didn't go far wrong when he married Laura."</p> + +<p>"Because the beast's clairvoyant. And love only made him more so; while +it makes us poor devils blind as bats."</p> + +<p>"There's a dear little bat just gone by us. He's so happy."</p> + +<p>"Ah—you should see him trying to fly by daylight."</p> + +<p>Silence and the lucid twilight held them close.</p> + +<p>"Jinny—do you remember that walk we had once, coming back from +Wendover?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer him.</p> + +<p>"Jinny—we're there again and where we were then. We've slipped +everything between. Positively, I can't remember now what came between."</p> + +<p>It was her state, also. She could have owned it. Only that to her it was +strange and terrible, the facility with which they had annihilated time +and circumstance, all that had come between. It was part of their +vitality, the way they let slip the things that hurt, the way they +plunged into oblivion and emerged new-made.</p> + +<p>"We must have gone wrong somewhere, in the beginning," he said.</p> + +<p>"Don't let's talk about it any more."</p> + +<p>"It's better to talk about it than to bottle it up inside us. That turns +it to poison."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And haven't we always told the truth to each other?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the beginning. If we only had——"</p> + +<p>"We didn't know it then."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> knew it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me, then?"</p> + +<p>"You know what you'd have thought of me if I had."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't have cared what I thought. You should have risked it."</p> + +<p>"Risked it?"</p> + +<p>"Risked it."</p> + +<p>"But I risked losing you altogether. What did <i>you</i> risk?"</p> + +<p>He was silent.</p> + +<p>"Why do you blame me? It was your fault, your choice."</p> + +<p>"Was it really mine? Was it I who went wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "In the beginning. You knew I cared for you."</p> + +<p>"If you'd let me see it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you saw it. I didn't tell you in as many words. But I let you see +it. <i>That</i> was where I went wrong."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes." He assented, for it was truth's hour. "You should have made +me <i>feel</i> it."</p> + +<p>"How could I?"</p> + +<p>"That was it. You couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't when I knew you'd seen it."</p> + +<p>"How did you know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—<i>you</i> took good care of that."</p> + +<p>"Was I a brute? Was I a brute to you, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"Not as men go. You couldn't help it. There was no deceiving me."</p> + +<p>"Why, after all, shouldn't you have told me?"</p> + +<p>"Why indeed?"</p> + +<p>"It's a preposterous convention that leaves all the truth-telling to the +unhappy man."</p> + +<p>"Still—there it is. We can't get over it."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> could have got over it. It wasn't made for you."</p> + +<p>"It was made for all women. And for one who has been wrecked by it there +are millions who have been saved. It was made for me more than any of +them."</p> + +<p>"If you prefer other women's conventions to your own happiness."</p> + +<p>"Would it have been happiness to have given my heart and my soul to +somebody who had no use for them and showed it?"</p> + +<p>"You insist that I showed it?"</p> + +<p>"You showed me plainly that it wasn't my heart and my soul you wanted."</p> + +<p>"There you're wrong. There was a moment—if you'd only known it."</p> + +<p>"I did know."</p> + +<p>"What did you know?"</p> + +<p>"I knew there was some power I had, if I had known how to use it."</p> + +<p>"And didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. You see, I didn't try."</p> + +<p>"You know how to use it now, I can tell you, with a vengeance."</p> + +<p>"No. It isn't the same power, I think."</p> + +<p>"At any rate you knew that it was touch and go with me? That if <i>you</i>'d +chosen you might have done anything with me?"</p> + +<p>"I knew that any other woman could have done the same."</p> + +<p>"Then why not you?"</p> + +<p>"I? I didn't want to hold you that way. I had some decency. I loved my +poor friend too much to take him at a disadvantage."</p> + +<p>"Good God! So <i>that</i> was your view of it? I was sacrificed to your +invincible ignorance."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, to my knowledge. Or shall we say to an honourable scruple?"</p> + +<p>"Honourable?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. The whole honour of women lies in that."</p> + +<p>"I hope you see where the whole honour of women has landed us at last."</p> + +<p>They had reached the lane leading to their farm. Its depth held them +closer than the twilight held. The trees guarded them. Every green +branch roofed a hollow deep with haze.</p> + +<p>"If you were a cold woman I could understand it."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> couldn't. It's because I was anything but cold."</p> + +<p>"I know. You were afraid then."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I was mortally afraid."</p> + +<p>Above the lane, on the slope of the foot hills, they could see their +farm, a dim grey roof in a ring of ash-trees. A dim green field opened +out below it, fan-wise with a wild edge that touched the moor. It seemed +to her with her altered memory that it was home they were drawing near.</p> + +<p>"George," she said, "you know women as God knows them; why didn't you +know me? Can't you see what I was afraid of? What we're all afraid of? +What we're eternally trying to escape from? The thing that hunts us +down, that turns again and rends us."</p> + +<p>"You thought you saw that in me?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see it now."</p> + +<p>"Not now," he whispered.</p> + +<p>They had come to the porch of the farmhouse. The door stood open. The +lamp-light drew them in. He closed the door behind them. She stood +facing him as one who waits.</p> + +<p>"Not now," he said aloud.</p> + +<p>He glanced round. The house and all about it was still.</p> + +<p>"If we could always be here, Jinny——"</p> + +<p>She turned from him, afraid.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said, and followed her and took her in his arms.</p> + +<p>He pressed back her head with one hand. His face sought hers, the face +she knew, with its look of impetuous flight, of curves blown back, the +face that seemed to lean forward, breasting the wind of its own speed. +It leaned now, swift to its desire. It covered her face. Its lips were +pressed to her lips, lips that drank her breath, that were fierce in +their drinking, after their long thirst. She pushed it from her with her +two hands and cried out, "Rose, little Rose!"</p> + +<p>She struggled from his arms and ran from him, stumbling up the steep +stairs. A door opened and shut. He heard her feet go slowly on the floor +of her room above him. They reached the bed. She seemed to sink there.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXIII" id="LXIII"></a>LXIII</h2> + + +<p>That night she knew that she must leave Dartmoor, and go somewhere where +George Tanqueray could not follow her and find her. She was mortally +afraid of him. He had tracked and hunted her down swiftly and more +inevitably than any destroyer or pursuer.</p> + +<p>In spite of him, indeed because of him, her passion for this solitude of +the moors was strong upon her, and she planned to move on the next day +into Somerset, to a place on Exmoor that she knew. She would leave very +early in the morning before Tanqueray could come to her.</p> + +<p>She lay all night staring with hot eyes at the white walls that held +her. At daylight she dropped asleep and slept on into the morning. When +she woke she faced her purpose wide-eyed and unflinching. Her fear was +there also and she faced it.</p> + +<p>She was down too late for any train that could take her away before +noon, and Tanqueray might come now at any time.</p> + +<p>She was so late that the day's letters waited for her on the +window-sill. In her agitation she nearly missed seeing them. One was +from Gertrude, fulfilling punctually her pledge, assuring her as usual +that all was well. The other was from her brother-in-law, Henry. It was +very brief. Henry, after expressing the hope that she continued to +benefit by the air of Dartmoor, supposed that she would have heard that +Hugh was suffering from a chill he had caught by motoring without an +overcoat.</p> + +<p>She had not heard it. She read Gertrude's letter again to make sure. +Among all the things, the absolutely unnecessary things, that Gertrude +had mentioned, she had not mentioned that. She had broken her pledge.</p> + +<p>They kept things from her, then. Heaven only knew what they had kept.</p> + +<p>She read Henry's letter again. There were no details, but her mind +supplied them as it grasped the sense of what he <i>had</i> written. There +rose before her instantly a vision of Hugh lying in his bed ill. He had +a racing pulse, a flaming temperature. He was in for gastritis, at the +least, if it was not pneumonia. She saw with intolerable vividness a +long procession of terrors and disasters, from their cause, the chill, +down to their remotest consequences. Her imagination never missed one.</p> + +<p>And instantly there went from her the passion of her solitude, and the +splendour of the moors perished around her like an imperfect dream, and +her genius that had driven her there and held her let go its hold. It +was as if it owned that it was beaten. She had no more fear of it. And +she had no more fear of George Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>Nothing existed for her but the fear that hung round Brodrick in his +bed. This vision of calamity was unspeakable, it was worse than all the +calamities that had actually been. It was worse through its significance +and premonition than the illness of her little son; it was worse than +the loss of her little dead-born daughter; it brought back to her with a +more unendurable pang that everlasting warning utterance of Nina's, +"With you—there'll be no end to your paying." Her heart cried out to +powers discerned as implacable, "Anything but that! Anything but that!"</p> + +<p>She had missed the first possible train to Waterloo, but there was +another from a station five miles distant which would bring her home +early in the evening. She packed hurriedly and sent one of the farm +people to the village for a fly. Then she paced the room, maddening over +the hours that she had still to spare.</p> + +<p>Once or twice it occurred to her that perhaps, after all, Hugh was not +so very ill. If he had been Henry would have told her. He would have +suggested the propriety of her return. And Henry's brief reference to +Dartmoor had suggested continuance rather than return.</p> + +<p>But her fear remained with her. It made her forget all about George +Tanqueray.</p> + +<p>It was the sudden striking of ten o'clock that recalled to her her +certainty that he would come. And he was there in the doorway before her +mind had time to adjust itself to his appearance.</p> + +<p>She fell on him with Hugh's illness as if it were a weapon and she would +have slain him with it.</p> + +<p>He stood back and denied the fact she hurled at him. As evidence +supporting his denial, he produced his recent correspondence with the +editor. He had heard from him that morning, and he was all right then. +Jinny was being "had," he said.</p> + +<p>He had not come there to talk about Brodrick, or to think about him. He +was not going to let Jinny think about him either.</p> + +<p>He had come early because he wanted to find her with all the dreams of +the night about her, before her passion (he was sure of it) could be +overtaken by the mood of the cool morning.</p> + +<p>Jinny had begun to pack her manuscript (she had forgotten it till now) +in the leather case it travelled in. She had a hat with a long veil on. +Tanqueray's gaze took in all this and other more unmistakable signs of +her departure.</p> + +<p>"What do you think you're doing?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm going back."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you?"</p> + +<p>Positively he had forgotten Brodrick.</p> + +<p>He began all over again and continued, tenderly, patiently, with all his +cold, ascendant, dispassionate lucidity, till he had convinced her that +her fear was folly.</p> + +<p>She was grateful to him for that.</p> + +<p>"All the same," she said, "I'm going. I wasn't going to stay here in any +case."</p> + +<p>"You were going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And do you suppose I'm going to let you go? After last night?"</p> + +<p>"After—last—night—I <i>must</i> go. And I must go back."</p> + +<p>"No. Remember what you said to me last night. We know ourselves and we +know each other now as God knows us. We're not afraid of ourselves or of +each other any more."</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I am not afraid."</p> + +<p>"Well—you've had the courage to get so far, why haven't you the courage +to go on?"</p> + +<p>"You think I'm a coward still?"</p> + +<p>"A coward." He paused. "I beg your pardon. I forgot that you had the +courage to go back."</p> + +<p>Her face hardened as they looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"I believe after all," he said, "you're a cold little devil. You stand +there staring at me and you don't care a damn."</p> + +<p>"As far as damns go, it was you, if you remember, that didn't care."</p> + +<p>"Are you always going to bring that up against me? I suppose you'll +remind me next that you're a married woman and the mother of two +children."</p> + +<p>"We do seem rather to have forgotten it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Jinny—<i>that</i> ought never to have happened. You should have left that +to the other women."</p> + +<p>"Why, George, that's what you said six years ago, if you remember."</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i>——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know I am. You've just said so."</p> + +<p>"My God. I don't care what you are."</p> + +<p>He came to her and stood by her, with his face close to her, not +touching hers, but very close. His eyes searched her. She stood rigid in +her supernatural self-possession.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, you knew. You knew all the time I cared."</p> + +<p>"I thought I knew. I did know you cared in a way. But not in this way. +This—this is different."</p> + +<p>She was trying to tell him that hitherto his passion had been to her +such a fiery intellectual thing that it had saved her—as by fire.</p> + +<p>"It isn't different," he said gravely. "Jinny—if I only wanted you for +myself—but that doesn't count as much as you think it does. If you +didn't suffer——"</p> + +<p>"I'm not suffering."</p> + +<p>"You are. Every nerve's in torture. Haven't I seen you? You're ill with +it now, with the bare idea of going back. I want to take you out of all +that."</p> + +<p>"No, no. It isn't that. I want to go."</p> + +<p>"You don't. You don't want to own that you're beaten."</p> + +<p>"No. It's simpler than that. I don't care for you, George, not—not as +you want me to."</p> + +<p>He smiled. "How do you think I want you to?"</p> + +<p>"Well—you know."</p> + +<p>"I know that I care so much that it doesn't matter how you care, or +whether you care or not, so long as I can put a stop to that brutality."</p> + +<p>"There isn't any brutality. I've got everything a woman can want."</p> + +<p>"You've got everything any other woman can want."</p> + +<p>She closed her eyes. "I'm quite happy."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs10" id="gs10"></a> +<img src="images/gs10.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>She closed her eyes. "I'm quite happy."</h3> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"For heaven's sake be honest. What is the use of lying, to me of all +people? Don't I know how happy you are?"</p> + +<p>"But I am—I am, George. It's only this horrid, devilish thing that's +been tacked on to me——"</p> + +<p>"That beautiful, divine thing that God made part of you, the thing that +you should have loved and made sacrifices to—if there were to have been +sacrifices—the thing you've outraged and frustrated, and done your best +to destroy, in your blind, senseless lust for what you call happiness. +You've no right to make It suffer."</p> + +<p>"They say suffering's the best thing that can happen to it."</p> + +<p>"Not Its suffering. <i>Your</i> suffering is—the pain that makes you alive, +that stings and urges and keeps you going—going till you drop. To feel +the pull of the bit when you swerve on the road—Its road—to have the +lash laid about your shoulders when you jib—that's good. You women need +the lash more than we because you're more given to swerving and +jibbing. Look at Nina. <i>She</i> was lashed into it if any woman ever was."</p> + +<p>"She isn't the only one, George."</p> + +<p>"I hope she isn't. God is good to the great artists sometimes, and he +was good to her."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose Laura thinks so?"</p> + +<p>"Laura's not a great artist."</p> + +<p>"And do you suppose Owen was thinking of Nina's genius when he married +Laura instead of her?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think that Owen was thinking at all. It's not the thinkers who +are tools in the hands of destiny, dear child."</p> + +<p>His gaze fell on the manuscript she was packing.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, you know—you've always known that you can't do anything without +me."</p> + +<p>"It seems as if I couldn't," she admitted.</p> + +<p>"Well—be honest with me."</p> + +<p>She looked at her watch. "There's not much time for me to be honest in, +but I'll try."</p> + +<p>She sat down. She meditated a moment, making it out.</p> + +<p>"You're right. I can't do much without you. I'm not perfectly alive when +you're not there. And I can't get away from you—as I can get away from +Hugh. I believe I remember every single thing you ever said to me. I'm +always wanting to talk to you. I don't want—always—to talk to Hugh. +But—I think more of him."</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that it was only now that she really made it out. Her +fear had been no test, it threw no light on her, and it had passed. It +was only now, with Tanqueray's passionately logical issue facing her, +that she knew herself aright.</p> + +<p>"There's another thing. I can't be sorry for you. I know I'm hurting +you, and I don't seem to care a bit. You can't make me sorry for you. +But I'm sorry for Hugh all the time."</p> + +<p>"God forbid that you should be sorry for me, then."</p> + +<p>"God does forbid it. It's not that Hugh <i>makes</i> me sorry for him; he +never lets me know; but I do know. When his little finger aches I know +it, and I ache all over—I think it's aching a bit now; that's what +makes me want to go back to him."</p> + +<p>"I see—Pity," said the psychologist.</p> + +<p>"No. Not pity. It's simply that I know he needs me more than you do. +That's why I need him more than I need you."</p> + +<p>"Pity," he reiterated, with a more insistent stress.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Never mind what it is, if it's something that you haven't got for me."</p> + +<p>"It is something that I haven't got for you. There isn't time," she +said, "to go into all that."</p> + +<p>As she spoke he heard wheels grinding the stones in the upper lane, the +shriek of the brake grinding the wheel, and the shuffling of men's feet +on the flagged yard outside.</p> + +<p>He shut the door and faced her, making his last stand.</p> + +<p>"You know what you're going back to."</p> + +<p>"I know."</p> + +<p>"To suffer," he said, "and to cause suffering—to +one—two—three—innocent people."</p> + +<p>"No. Things will be different."</p> + +<p>"They won't. <i>We</i> shall be the same."</p> + +<p>She shook her head a little helplessly.</p> + +<p>"At any rate," he said, "<i>you</i> won't be different."</p> + +<p>"If I could—if I only could be——"</p> + +<p>"But you can't. You know you can't."</p> + +<p>"I can—if I give it up—once for all."</p> + +<p>"What? Your divine genius?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever it is. When I've killed that part of me I shall be all right. +I mean—<i>they</i>'ll be all right."</p> + +<p>"You can't kill it. You can starve it, drug it, paralyze it, but you +can't kill it. It's stronger than you. You'll go through hell—I know +it, I've been there—you'll be like a drunkard trying to break himself +of the drink habit."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But some day I shall break myself, or be broken; and there'll be +peace."</p> + +<p>"<i>Will</i> there!"</p> + +<p>"There'll be something."</p> + +<p>She rose. The wheels sounded nearer, and stopped. The gate of the +farmyard opened. The feet of the men were at the door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXIV" id="LXIV"></a>LXIV</h2> + + +<p>Whatever Tanqueray thought of Brodrick's chill, it and the fear it +inspired in Gertrude had been grave enough to keep him in the house. For +three days (the last of September) he had not been in Fleet Street, in +his office.</p> + +<p>There was agitation there, and agitation in the mind of the editor and +of his secretary. Tanqueray's serial was running its devastating course +through the magazine, and the last instalment of the manuscript was +overdue (Tanqueray was always a little late with his instalments). +Brodrick was worried, and Gertrude, at work with him in his study, tried +to soothe him. They telephoned to the office for the manuscript. The +manuscript was not there. The clerk suggested that it was probably still +with the type-writer, Miss Ranger. They telephoned to Miss Ranger, who +replied that the manuscript had been typed and sent to the author three +weeks ago for revision.</p> + +<p>Brodrick sent a messenger to Tanqueray's house for the manuscript. He +returned towards evening with a message that Mrs. Tanqueray was out, Mr. +Tanqueray was in the country and the servant did not know his address.</p> + +<p>They telegraphed to Addy Ranger's rooms for his address. The reply came, +"Post Office, Okehampton, Devon."</p> + +<p>Brodrick repeated it with satisfaction as he wrote it down: "Post +Office, Okehampton, Devon."</p> + +<p>Gertrude was silent.</p> + +<p>"He's got friends somewhere in Devonshire," Brodrick said.</p> + +<p>"At the Post Office?" she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Of course—if they're motoring."</p> + +<p>Gertrude was again silent (she achieved her effects mainly by silences).</p> + +<p>"We'd better send the wire there," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>They sent it there first thing in the morning.</p> + +<p>Before noon a message came from Mrs. Tanqueray: "Address, 'The Manor, +Wilbury, Wilts.' Have sent your message there."</p> + +<p>Admirable Mrs. Tanqueray!</p> + +<p>"We've sent <i>our</i> wire to the wrong address," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"It's the right one, I fancy, if Miss Ranger has it."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Tanqueray's got the wrong one, then?"</p> + +<p>They looked at each other. Gertrude's face was smooth and still, but her +eyes searched him, asking what his thoughts were.</p> + +<p>They sent a wire to Wilbury.</p> + +<p>Three days passed. No answer to their wires and no manuscript.</p> + +<p>"He's left Okehampton, I suppose," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Or has he left Wilbury?"</p> + +<p>"We'll send another wire there, to make sure."</p> + +<p>She wrote out the form obediently. Then she spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Of course he's at Okehampton." Her voice had an accent of joyous +certainty.</p> + +<p>"Why 'of course'?"</p> + +<p>"Because he went to Wilbury first. Mrs. Tanqueray said she sent our +message there—the one we sent three days ago. So he's left Wilbury and +he's staying in Okehampton."</p> + +<p>"It looks like it."</p> + +<p>"And yet—you'd have thought he'd have let his wife know if he was +staying."</p> + +<p>"He probably isn't."</p> + +<p>"He must be. The manuscript went there."</p> + +<p>"Let's hope so, then we may get it to-morrow."</p> + +<p>It was as if he desired to impress upon her that the manuscript was the +important thing.</p> + +<p>It came as he had anticipated the next day. Miss Ranger sent it up by +special messenger.</p> + +<p>"Good!" said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>He undid the parcel hurriedly. The inner cover was addressed to Miss +Ranger in Tanqueray's handwriting. It bore the post-mark, Chagford.</p> + +<p>"He's been at Chagford all the time!" said Gertrude.</p> + +<p>(She had picked up the wrapper which Brodrick had thrown upon the +floor.)</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"T-t-t. It would have saved a day," she said, "if he'd sent this direct +to you instead of to Miss Ranger. Why couldn't he when he knew we were +so rushed?"</p> + +<p>"Why, indeed?" he thought.</p> + +<p>"There must have been more corrections," he said.</p> + +<p>"She can't have typed them in the time," said Gertrude. She was +examining the inner cover. "Besides, she has sent it on unopened."</p> + +<p>"Excellent Miss Ranger!"</p> + +<p>He said it with a certain levity. But even as he said it his brain +accepted the inference she forced on it. If Tanqueray had not sent his +manuscript to Camden Town for corrections, he had sent it there for +another reason. The parcel was registered. There was no letter inside +it.</p> + +<p>Brodrick's hand trembled as he turned over the pages of the manuscript. +Gertrude's eyes were fixed upon its trembling.</p> + +<p>A few savage ink-scratches in Tanqueray's handwriting told where Miss +Ranger had blundered; otherwise the manuscript was clean. Tanqueray had +at last satisfied his passion for perfection.</p> + +<p>All this Brodrick's brain took in while his eyes, feverish and intent, +searched the blank spaces of the manuscript. He knew what he was looking +for. It would be there, on the wide margin left for her, that he would +find the evidence that his wife and Tanqueray were together. He knew the +signs of her. Not a manuscript of Tanqueray's, not one of his last great +books, but bore them, the queer, delicate, nervous pencil-markings that +Tanqueray, with all his furious erasures, left untouched. Sometimes +(Brodrick had noticed) he would enclose them in a sort of holy circle of +red ink, to show that they were not for incorporation in the text. But +it was not in him to destroy a word that she had written.</p> + +<p>But he could find no trace of her. He merely made out some humble +queryings of Miss Ranger, automatically erased.</p> + +<p>The manuscript was in three Parts. As he laid down each, Gertrude put +forth a quiet hand and drew it to herself. He was too much preoccupied +to notice how minutely and with what intent and passionate anxiety she +examined it.</p> + +<p>He was arranging the manuscript in order. Gertrude was absorbed in Part +Three. He had reached out for it when he remembered that the original +draft of Part Two had contained a passage as to which he had endeavoured +to exercise an ancient editorial right. He looked to see whether +Tanqueray had removed it.</p> + +<p>He had not. The passage stood, naked and immense, tremendous as some +monument of primeval nature, alone in literature, simple, superb, +immortal; irremovable by any prayer. Brodrick looked at it now with a +clearer vision. He acknowledged its grandeur and bowed his head to the +power that was Tanqueray. Had he not been first to recognize it? It was +as if his suspicion of the man urged him to a larger justice towards the +writer.</p> + +<p>He turned to Gertrude. "There are no alterations to be made, thank +heaven——"</p> + +<p>"How about this?"</p> + +<p>She slid the manuscript under his arm; her finger pointed to the margin. +He saw nothing.</p> + +<p>"What?" He spoke with some irritation.</p> + +<p>"This."</p> + +<p>She turned up the lamp so that the light fell full upon the page. He +bent closer. On the margin, so blurred as to be almost indecipherable, +he saw his wife's sign, a square of delicate script. To a careless +reader it might have seemed to have been written with a light pencil and +to have been meant to stand. Examined closely it revealed the firm +strokes of a heavy lead obliterated with india-rubber. Gertrude's finger +slid away and left him free to turn the pages. There were several of +these marks in the same handwriting, each one deliberately erased. The +manuscript had been in his wife's hand within the last three days; for +three days certainly Tanqueray had been in Chagford, and for three weeks +for all Brodrick knew.</p> + +<p>There was no reason why he should not be there, no reason why they +should not be together. Then why these pitiable attempts at concealment, +at the covering of the tracks?</p> + +<p>And yet, after all, they had not covered them. They had only betrayed +the fact that they had tried. Had they? And which of them? Tanqueray in +the matter of obliteration would at any rate have been aware of the +utter inadequacy of india-rubber. To dash at a thing like india-rubber +was more the sudden, futile inspiration of a woman made frantic by her +terror of detection.</p> + +<p>It was clear that Jane had not wanted him to know that Tanqueray was at +Chagford. She had not told him. Why had she not told him? She knew of +the plight they were in at the office, of the hue and cry after the +unappearing manuscript.</p> + +<p>So his brain worked, with a savage independence. He seemed to himself +two men, a man with a brain that worked, following a lucid argument to +an obscure conclusion, and a man who looked on and watched its working +without attaching the least importance to it. It was as if <i>this</i> man +knew all the time what the other did not know. He had his own light, his +own secret. He had never thought about it before (his secret), still +less had he talked about it. Thinking about it was a kind of profanity; +talking would have been inconceivable sacrilege. It was self-evident as +the existence of God to the soul that loves him; a secret only in that +it was profounder than appearances, in that it stood by the denial of +appearances, so that, if appearances were against it, what of that?</p> + +<p>He was thinking about it now, obscurely, without images, barely with +words, as if it had been indeed a thing occult and metaphysical.</p> + +<p>Thinking about it—that meant, of course, that he had for a moment +doubted it? It was coming back to him now, clothed with the mortal +pathos of its imperfection. She was dearer to him—unspeakably dearer, +for his doubt.</p> + +<p>The man with the brain approached slowly and unwillingly the conclusion +that now emerged, monstrous and abominable, from the obscurity. If that +be so, he said, she is deliberately deceiving me.</p> + +<p>And he who watched, he with the illuminating, incommunicable secret, +smiled as he watched, in scorn and pity. Scorn of the slow and ugly +movements of the intellect, and pity for a creature so mean as to employ +them.</p> + +<p>In the silence that he kept he had not heard the deep breathing of the +woman at his side. Now he was aware of it and her.</p> + +<p>He was positively relieved when the servant announced Mrs. Levine.</p> + +<p>There was a look on Sophy's face that Brodrick knew, a look of +importance and of competence, a look it always had when Sophy was about +to deal with a situation. Gertrude's silent disappearance marked her +sense of a situation to be dealt with.</p> + +<p>Brodrick rose heavily to greet his sister. There was a certain +consolation in her presence, since it had relieved him of Gertrude's. +Sophy, by way of prelude, inquired about Brodrick and the children and +the house, then paused to attack her theme.</p> + +<p>"When's Jane coming back?" said she.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"She's been away two months."</p> + +<p>"Seven weeks," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it about time she <i>did</i> come back?"</p> + +<p>"She's the best judge of that," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>Sophy's face was extraordinarily clear-eyed and candid as it turned on +him.</p> + +<p>"George Tanqueray's at Chagford."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" (He really wondered.)</p> + +<p>"Miss Ranger let it out to Louis this morning."</p> + +<p>"Let it out? Why on earth should she keep it in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh well, I don't suppose <i>she</i> sees anything in it."</p> + +<p>"No more do I," said Brodrick.</p> + +<p>"You never saw anything," said Sophy. "I don't say there's anything to +see—all the same——"</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"Well?" He was all attention and politeness.</p> + +<p>"All the same I should insist on her coming back."</p> + +<p>He was silent, as though he were considering it.</p> + +<p>"Or better still, go down and fetch her."</p> + +<p>"I shall do nothing of the sort."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you think it's wise to give her her head to that extent—a +woman with Jane's temperament——"</p> + +<p>"What do you know about her temperament?"</p> + +<p>Sophy shifted her ground. "I know, and you know the effect he has on +her, and the influence; and if you leave her to him—if you leave them +to themselves, down there—for weeks like that—you'll have nobody but +yourself to thank if——"</p> + +<p>He cut her short.</p> + +<p>"I have nobody but myself to thank. She shall please herself about +coming back. It she didn't come—I couldn't blame her."</p> + +<p>Sophy was speechless. Of all the attitudes that any Brodrick could take +she had not expected this.</p> + +<p>"We have made things too hard for her——" he said.</p> + +<p>"We?"</p> + +<p>"You and I—all of us. We've not seen what was in her."</p> + +<p>Sophy repressed her opinion that they very probably would see now. As +there was no use arguing with him in his present mood (she could see +<i>that</i>), she left him.</p> + +<p>Brodrick heard her motor hooting down Roehampton Lane. She was going to +dine at Henry's. Presently all the family would be in possession of the +situation, of Jane's conduct and his attitude. And there was Gertrude +Collett. He understood now that she suspected.</p> + +<p>Gertrude had come back into her place.</p> + +<p>He picked up some papers and took them to the safe which stood in +another corner of the room behind his writing-table. He wanted to get +away from Gertrude, to be alone with his secret and concealed, without +betraying his desire for solitude, for concealment. He knelt down by the +safe and busied himself there quite a long time. He said to himself, "It +couldn't happen. She was always honest with me. But if it did I +couldn't wonder. The wonder is why she married me."</p> + +<p>He rose to his feet, saying to himself again, "It couldn't happen."</p> + +<p>With that slight readjusting movement the two men in him became one, so +that when the reasoning man reached slowly his conclusion he formulated +it thus: "It couldn't happen. If it did, it wouldn't happen this way. +He" (even to himself he could not say "they") "would have managed +better, or worse." At last his intellect, the lazy, powerful beast, was +roused and dealt masterfully with the situation.</p> + +<p>He had to pass the fireplace to get back to his seat, which Gertrude +guarded. As he passed he caught sight of his own face in the glass over +the chimney-piece, a face with inflamed eyes and a forehead frowning and +overcast, and cheeks flushed with shame. Gertrude, looking up at him +from the manuscript she brooded over, instinctively made way for him to +pass.</p> + +<p>It was she who spoke first. Her finger was on the pencil-marks again.</p> + +<p>"Then that," said she, pointing, "that is not to stand?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it isn't." He answered coldly. "It wasn't meant to. It's +rubbed out."</p> + +<p>He looked at her for the first time with dislike. He did not suspect her +as the source of abominable suggestion. He was only thinking that if it +hadn't been for her he wouldn't have seen any of these things.</p> + +<p>She shrank before his look. "Does he think I wanted him to see it?" she +said to herself.</p> + +<p>Already she was clean in her own eyes. Already she had persuaded herself +that she had not wanted that. And in the same breath of thought she +asked herself, "What <i>did</i> he see?"</p> + +<p>She smiled as she answered his cold answer.</p> + +<p>"I thought it was rubbed out, but I couldn't be quite sure."</p> + +<p>They were so absorbed that they did not hear the door open.</p> + +<p>Jane stood in the doorway quietly regarding them.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="gs11" id="gs11"></a> +<img src="images/gs11.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>Jane stood in the doorway, quietly regarding them</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXV" id="LXV"></a>LXV</h2> + + +<p>There were people who knew for a fact that Jane Holland (Mrs. Hugh +Brodrick) had run away with George Tanqueray. The rumour ran through the +literary circles shunned by Tanqueray and Jane. The theory of her guilt +was embraced with excitement by the dreadful, clever little people. Not +one of them would have confessed to a positive desire to catch her +tripping. But now that the thing had happened it satisfied the craving +for complete vision of the celebrated lady. It reduced considerably her +baffling eminence, and dispersed once for all the impenetrable, +irritating atmosphere of secrecy she had kept up.</p> + +<p>There was George Tanqueray, too, who had kept it up even longer and more +successfully. At last they had been caught, the two so insolent in their +swift evasion of pursuit. Their fall, so to speak, enabled the hunter to +come up with them. People who had complained that they could never meet +them, who had wanted to meet them solely that they might talk about them +afterwards, who had never been able to talk about them at all, had now +abundant material for conversation.</p> + +<p>The rumour, once it had fairly penetrated, spread over London in five +days. It started in Kensington, ran thence all the way to Chelsea, +skipped to Bloomsbury, and spread from these centres into Belgravia and +Mayfair. In three weeks the tale of George Tanqueray and Jane Holland +(Mrs. Hugh Brodrick) had invaded Hampstead and the Southwestern suburbs. +It was only confirmed by the contemptuous silence and curt denials of +their friends, Arnott Nicholson, Caro Bickersteth, Nina Lempriere and +the Protheros.</p> + +<p>In Brodrick's family it sank down deep, below the level of permissible +discussion. But it revealed itself presently in an awful external +upheaval, utterly unforeseen, and in a still more unforeseen +subsidence.</p> + +<p>There was first of all a split between Mrs. Heron and the Doctor. The +behaviour of Eddy and Winny, especially of Eddy, had got on the Doctor's +nerves (he had confessed, in a moment of intense provocation, to having +them). Eddy one evening had attacked violently the impermissible topic, +defending Jin-Jin (in the presence of his younger sister) from the +unspeakable charge current in their suburb, taxing his uncle with a +monstrous credence of the impossible, and trying to prove to him that it +<i>was</i> impossible.</p> + +<p>For the sake of the peace so beloved by Brodricks it was settled that +Frances and her children should live with poor dear John in the big +house in Augustus Road.</p> + +<p>Brodrick then suggested that Gertrude Collett might with advantage keep +house for Henry.</p> + +<p>This arrangement covered the dreadful rupture, the intolerable situation +at Moor Grange. Gertrude had contributed nothing to the support of the +rumour beyond an intimation that the rupture (between her and the +Brodricks) <i>was</i> dreadful and the situation intolerable. The intimation, +as conveyed by Gertrude, was delicate and subtle to a degree. All that +she would admit in words was a certain lack of spiritual sympathy +between her and Mrs. Brodrick.</p> + +<p>It was felt in Brodrick's family that, concerning Jane and Tanqueray, +Gertrude Collett knew considerably more than she cared to say.</p> + +<p>And through it all Brodrick guarded his secret.</p> + +<p>The rumour had not yet touched him whom it most affected. It never would +touch him, so securely the secret he guarded guarded him. And though it +had reached Hampstead the rumour had not reached Rose.</p> + +<p>Rose had her hands full for once with the Protheros, helping Mrs. +Prothero to look after <i>him</i>. For Owen was ill, dreadfully and +definitely ill, with an illness you could put a name to. Dr. Brodrick +was attending him. Owen had consulted him casually the year before, and +the Doctor had then discovered a bell-sound in his left lung. Now he +came regularly once or twice a week all the way from Putney in his +motor-car.</p> + +<p>Rose had positively envied Laura, who had a husband who could be ill, +who could be tucked up in bed and taken care of. It was Rose who helped +Laura to make Prothero's big room look for all the world like the ward +of a hospital.</p> + +<p>Dr. Brodrick had wanted to take him away to a sanatorium, but Prothero +had refused flatly to be taken anywhere. The traveller was tired of +travelling. He loved with passion this place where he had found peace, +where his wandering genius had made its sanctuary and its home. His +repugnance was so violent and invincible that the Doctor had agreed with +Laura that it would do more harm than good to insist on his removal. She +must do as best she could, with (he suggested) the assistance of a +trained nurse.</p> + +<p>Laura had very soon let him know what she could do. She had winced +visibly when she heard of the trained nurse. It would be anguish to her +to see another woman beside Owen's bed and her hands touching him; but +she said she supposed she could bear even that if it would save him, if +it were absolutely necessary. Was it? The Doctor had admitted that it +was not so, if she insisted—absolutely—for the present; but it was +advisable if she wished to save herself. Laura had smiled then, very +quietly.</p> + +<p>In twenty-four hours she showed him the great room, bare and clean as +the ward of a hospital (Rose was on her knees on the floor, bees-waxing +it). The long rows of bookcases were gone, so were the pictures. He +couldn't put his finger on a single small unnecessary thing. Laura, cool +and clean in a linen gown, defied him to find a chink where a germ could +lodge. Prothero inquired gaily, if they couldn't make a good fight +there, where could they make it?</p> + +<p>Henry, although used to these combats, was singularly affected as he +looked upon the scene, stripped as it was for the last struggle. What +moved him most was the sight of Laura's little bed, set under the north +window, and separated from her husband's by the long empty space +between, through which the winds of heaven rushed freely. It showed him +what the little thing was capable of, day and night, night and day, the +undying, indomitable devotion. That was the stuff a man wanted in his +wife. He thought of his brother Hugh. Why on earth, if he had to marry +one of them, hadn't he married <i>her</i>? He was moved too and troubled by +the presence there of Tanqueray's poor little wife. Whatever view truth +compelled you to take of Jane's and Tanqueray's relations, Tanqueray's +wife had, from first to last, been cruelly wronged by both of them.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray's wife was so absorbed in the fight they were making as to be +apparently indifferent to her wrongs, and they judged that the legend of +Jane Holland and George Tanqueray had not reached her.</p> + +<p>It had not. And yet she knew it, she had known it all the time—that +they had been together. She had known it ever since, in the innocent +days before the rumour, she had heard Dr. Brodrick telling Mrs. Prothero +that his sister-in-law had gone down to Chagford for three months. +Chagford was where he was always staying. And in the days of innocence +Addy Ranger had let out that it was Chagford where he was now. She had +given Rose his address, Post Office, Chagford. He had been there all the +time when Rose had supposed him to be in Wiltshire and was sending all +his letters there.</p> + +<p>She did not hear of Mrs. Brodrick's return until a week or two after +that event; for, in the days no longer of innocence, his sister-in-law +was a sore subject with the Doctor. And when Rose did hear it finally +from Laura, by that time she had heard that Tanqueray was coming back +too. He had written to her to say so.</p> + +<p>That was on a Saturday. He was not coming until Tuesday. Rose had two +days in which to consider what line she meant to take.</p> + +<p>That she meant to take a line was already clear to Rose. Perfectly +clear, although her decision was arrived at through nights of misery so +profound that it made most things obscure. It was clear that they could +not go on as they had been doing. <i>He</i> might (nothing seemed to matter +to him), but she couldn't; and she wouldn't, not (so she put it) if it +was ever so. They had been miserable.</p> + +<p>Not that it mattered so very much whether she was miserable or no. But +that was it; she had ended by making him miserable too. It took some +making; for he wasn't one to feel things much; he had always gone his +own way as if nothing mattered. By his beginning to feel things (as she +called it) now, she measured the effect she must have had on him.</p> + +<p>It was all because she wasn't educated proper, because she wasn't a +lady. He ought to have married a lady. He ought (she could see it now) +to have married some one like Mrs. Brodrick, who could understand his +talk, and enter into what he did.</p> + +<p>There was Mr. and Mrs. Prothero now. They were happy. There wasn't a +thing he could say or do or think but what she understood it. Why, she'd +understand, time and again, without his saying anything. That came of +being educated. It came (poor Rose was driven back to it at every turn) +of being a lady.</p> + +<p>She might have known how it would be. And in a way she had known it from +the first. That was why she'd been against it, and why Uncle and Aunt +and her master and mistress down at Fleet had been against it too. But +there—she loved him. Lady or no lady, she loved him.</p> + +<p>As for his going away with Mrs. Brodrick, she "looked at it sensible." +She understood. She saw the excuses that could be made for him. She +couldn't understand <i>her</i>; she couldn't find one excuse for <i>her</i> +behaviour, a married woman, leaving her husband—such a good man, and +her children—her little helpless children, and going off for weeks +together with a married man, let him be who he might be. Still, if it +hadn't been her, it might have been somebody else, somebody much worse. +It might have been that Miss Lempriere. If <i>she</i>'d had a hold on him, +<i>she</i>'d not have let him go.</p> + +<p>For deep-bedded in Rose's obscure misery was the conviction that Jane +Brodrick had let him go. Her theory of Jane's guilt had not gone much +farther than the charge of deserting her little helpless children. It +was as if Rose's imagination could not conceive of guilt beyond that +monstrous crime. And Jane had gone back to her husband and children, +after all.</p> + +<p>If it had been Miss Lempriere she would have been bound to have stuck, +she having nothing, so to speak, to go back to.</p> + +<p>The question was, what was George coming back to? If it was to her, +Rose, he must know pretty well what. He must know, she kept repeating to +herself; he must know. Her line, the sensible line that she had been so +long considering, was somehow to surprise and defeat his miserable +foreknowledge.</p> + +<p>By Sunday morning she had decided on her line. Nothing would turn her. +She did not intend to ask anybody's advice, nor to take it were it +offered. The line itself required the co-operation and, in a measure, +the consent of Aunt and Uncle; and on the practical head they were +consulted. She managed that on Sunday afternoon. Then she remembered +that she would have to tell Mr. and Mrs. Prothero.</p> + +<p>It was on Sunday evening that she told them.</p> + +<p>She told them, very shortly and simply, that she had made up her mind to +separate from Tanqueray and live with her uncle.</p> + +<p>"Uncle'll be glad to 'ave me," she said.</p> + +<p>She explained. "<i>He</i>'ll think more of me if he's not with me."</p> + +<p>Prothero admitted that it might be likely.</p> + +<p>"It's not," she said, "as if I was afraid of 'is taking up with another +woman—serious."</p> + +<p>(They wondered had she heard?)</p> + +<p>"I can trust him with Mrs. Brodrick."</p> + +<p>(They thought it strange that she should not consider Mrs. Brodrick +serious. They said nothing, and in a moment Rose explained.)</p> + +<p>"She's like all these writin' people. <i>I</i> know 'em."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Prothero. "We're a poor lot, aren't we?"</p> + +<p>(It was a mercy that she didn't take it seriously.)</p> + +<p>"Oh you—you're different."</p> + +<p>She had always had a very clear perception of his freedom from the +literary taint.</p> + +<p>"But Mrs. Brodrick now—she doesn't care for 'im. She's not likely to. +She'll never care for anybody but herself."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Well—a woman who could walk off like that and leave 'er little +children—to say nothing of 'er husband——"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it," said Prothero, "what you're proposing to do yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I 'aven't got any little children. She's leavin' 'er 'usband to get +away from' im, to please 'erself. I'm leavin' mine to bring 'im to me."</p> + +<p>She paused, pensive.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I'm not afraid of Mrs. Brodrick. She 'asn't got a 'eart."</p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"Not wot <i>I</i> should call a 'eart."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," said Laura.</p> + +<p>"I used to hate her when she came about the place. Leastways I tried to +hate her, and I couldn't."</p> + +<p>She meditated in their silence.</p> + +<p>"If it's got to be anybody it'd best be 'er. She's given 'im all she's +got to give, and he sees 'ow much it is. 'E goes to 'er, I know, and +'e'll keep on going; and she—she'll 'old 'im orf and on—I can see 'er +doin' of it, and I don't care. As long as she 'olds' im she keeps other +women orf of 'im."</p> + +<p>Their silence marvelled at her.</p> + +<p>"Time and again I've cried my eyes out, and <i>that</i>'s no good. I've got," +said Rose, "to look at it sensible. She's really keepin' 'im for me."</p> + +<p>Down-stairs, alone with Laura, she revealed herself more fully.</p> + +<p>"I dare say 'e won't ever ask me to come back," she said. "But once I've +gone out of the house for good and all, 'e'll come to me now and again. +He's bound to. You see, <i>she</i>'s no good to him. And maybe, if I was to +'ave a child—I might——"</p> + +<p>She sighed, but in her eyes there kindled a dim hope, shining through +tears.</p> + +<p>"Wot I shall miss is—workin' for 'im."</p> + +<p>Her mouth trembled. Her tears fell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXVI" id="LXVI"></a>LXVI</h2> + + +<p>Between seven and eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, Tanqueray, in an +execrable temper, returned to his home.</p> + +<p>The little house had an air of bright expectancy, not to say of +festival; it was so intensely, so unusually illuminated. Each window, +with its drawn blind, was a golden square in the ivy-darkened wall.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray let himself in noiselessly with his latchkey. He took up the +pile of letters that waited for him on the hat-stand in the hall, and +turned into the dining-room.</p> + +<p>It smiled at him brilliantly with all its lights. So did the table, laid +for dinner; the very forks and spoons smiled, twinkling and limping in +irrepressible welcome. A fire burned ostentatiously in the hearth-place. +It sent out at him eager, loquacious tongues of flame, to draw him to +the insufferable endearments of the hearth.</p> + +<p>He was aware now that what he was most afraid of in this horrible coming +back was his wife's insupportable affection.</p> + +<p>He turned the lights down a little lower. All his movements were +noiseless. He was afraid that Rose would hear him and would come running +down.</p> + +<p>He went up-stairs, treading quietly. He meant to take his letters to his +study and read them there. He might even answer some of them. Anything +to stave off the moment when he must meet Rose.</p> + +<p>The door of her bedroom was wide open. The light flared so high that he +judged that Rose was in there and about to appear. He swung himself +swiftly and dexterously round the angle of the stair-rail, and so +reached his own door.</p> + +<p>She must have heard him go in, but there was no answering movement from +her room.</p> + +<p>With a closed door behind him he sat down and looked over his letters. +Bills, proofs from the "Monthly Review," a letter from Laura that +saddened him (he had not realized that Prothero was so ill). Last of +all, at the bottom of the pile, a little note from Rose.</p> + +<p>She had got it all into five lines. Five lines, rather straggling, +rather shapeless lines that told him with a surprising brevity that his +wife had decided on an informal separation, for his good.</p> + +<p>No resentment, no reproach, no passion and no postscript.</p> + +<p>He went down-stairs by no means noiselessly.</p> + +<p>In the hall, as he was putting on his hat, Susan came to him. She gave +him a queer look. Dinner was ready, she said. The mistress had ordered +the dinner that he liked. (Irrepressibly, insistently, thick with +intolerable reminiscence, the savour of it streamed through the kitchen +door.) The mistress had cooked it herself, Susan said. The mistress had +told Susan that she was to be sure and make him very comfortable, and to +remember what he liked for dinner. Susan's manner was a little shy and a +little important, it suggested the inauguration of a new rule, a new +order, a life in which Rose was not and never would be.</p> + +<p>Tanqueray took no notice whatever of Susan as he strode out of the +house.</p> + +<p>The lights were dim in the corner house by the Heath, opposite the +willows. Still, standing on the upper ground of the Heath, he could see +across the road through the window of his old sitting-room, and there, +in his old chair by the fireside he made out a solitary seated figure +that looked like Rose.</p> + +<p>He came out from under the willows and made for the front door. He +pushed past the little maid who opened it and strode into the room. Rose +turned.</p> + +<p>There was a slight stir and hesitation, then a greeting, very formal and +polite on both sides, and with Joey all the time leaping and panting and +licking Tanqueray's hands. Joey's demonstration was ignored as much too +emotional for the occasion.</p> + +<p>A remark from Rose about the weather. Inquiries from Tanqueray as to the +health of Mr. and Mrs. Eldred. Further inquiries as to the health of +Rose.</p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p>"May I turn the light up?" (From Tanqueray.)</p> + +<p>"I'd rather you let it be?" (From Rose.)</p> + +<p>He let it be.</p> + +<p>"Rose" (very suddenly from Tanqueray), "do you remember Mr. Robinson?"</p> + +<p>(No response.)</p> + +<p>"Rose, why are you sitting in this room?"</p> + +<p>"Because I like it."</p> + +<p>"Why do you like it?"</p> + +<p>(No response; only a furtive movement of Rose's hand towards her +pocket-handkerchief. A sudden movement of Tanqueray's, restrained, so +that he appeared to have knelt on the hearthrug to caress the little +dog. A long and silent stroking of Joey's back. Demonstration of +ineffable affection from Joey.)</p> + +<p>"His hair never <i>has</i> come on, has it? Do you know" (very gravely), "I'm +afraid it never will."</p> + +<p>(A faint quiver of Rose's mouth which might or might not have been a +smile.)</p> + +<p>"Rose, why did you marry me? Wouldn't any other hairless little dog have +done as well?"</p> + +<p>(A deep sigh from Rose.)</p> + +<p>Tanqueray was now standing up and looking down at her in his way.</p> + +<p>"Rose, do you remember how I came to you at Fleet, and brought you the +moon in a band-box?"</p> + +<p>She answered him with a sudden and convulsive sob.</p> + +<p>He knelt beside her. He hesitated for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Rose—I've brought you the band-box without the moon. Will you have +it?"</p> + +<p>She got up with a wild movement of escape. Something rolled from her lap +and fell between them. She made a dash towards the object. But Tanqueray +had picked it up. It was a pair of Tanqueray's gloves, neatly folded.</p> + +<p>"What were you doing with those gloves?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I was mendin' them," said she.</p> + +<p>Half-an-hour later Rose and Tanqueray were walking up the East Heath +Road towards their little house. Rose carried Tanqueray's gloves, and +Tanqueray carried Minny, the cat, in a basket.</p> + +<p>As they went they talked about Owen Prothero. And Tanqueray thanked God +that, after all, there was something they <i>could</i> talk about.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXVII" id="LXVII"></a>LXVII</h2> + + +<p>Dr. Brodrick had declared for the seventh time that Prothero was +impossible.</p> + +<p>His disease was advancing. Both lungs were attacked now. There was, as +he perfectly well knew, consolidation at the apex of the left lung; the +upper lobe had retracted, leaving his heart partially uncovered, and he +knew it; you could detect also a distinct systolic murmur; and nobody +could be more aware than Prothero of the gravity of these signs. Up till +now, he, Brodrick, had been making a record case of him. The man had a +fine constitution (he gave him credit for that); he had pluck; there was +resistance, pugnacity in every nerve. He had one chance, a fighting +chance. His life might be prolonged for years, if he would only rest.</p> + +<p>And there he was, with all that terrible knowledge in him, sitting up in +bed, driving that infernal pen of his as if his life depended on <i>that</i>. +Scribbling verses, he was, working himself into such a state of +excitement that his temperature had risen. He displayed, Brodrick said, +an increasing nervous instability. When Brodrick told him that (if he +wanted to know) his inspiration was hollow, had been hollow for months, +and that he would recognize that as one of the worst symptoms in his +case, Prothero said that his critics had always told him that. The worst +symptom in his case, <i>he</i> declared, was that he couldn't laugh without +coughing. When Brodrick said that it wasn't a laughing matter, he +laughed till he spat blood and frightened himself. For he had (Brodrick +had noticed it) a morbid horror of the sight of blood. You had to inject +morphia after every hæmorrhage, to subdue that awful agitation.</p> + +<p>All this the Doctor recounted to Laura, alone with her in her forlorn +little drawing-room down-stairs. He unveiled for her intelligence the +whole pathology of the case. It brought him back to what he had started +with, Prothero's impossibility.</p> + +<p>"What does he do for it?" he repeated. "He knows the consequences as +well as I do."</p> + +<p>Laura said she didn't think that Owen ever had considered consequences.</p> + +<p>"But he <i>must</i> consider them. What's a set of verses compared with his +health?"</p> + +<p>Laura answered quietly, "Owen would say what was his health compared +with a set of verses? If he knew they'd be the greatest poem of his +life."</p> + +<p>"His life? My dear child——"</p> + +<p>The pause was terrible.</p> + +<p>"I wish," he said, "we could get him out of this."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't want to go. You said yourself it wasn't the great thing."</p> + +<p>He admitted it. The great thing, he reiterated, was rest. It was his one +chance. He explained carefully again how good a chance it was. He dwelt +on the things Prothero might yet do if he gave himself a chance. And +when he had done talking Laura remarked that it was all very well, but +he was reckoning without Owen's genius.</p> + +<p>"Genius?" He shrugged his shoulders. He smiled (as if they weren't +always reckoning with it at Putney!). "What is it? For medicine it's +simply and solely an abnormal activity of the brain. And it must stop."</p> + +<p>He stood over her impressively, marking his words with clenched fist on +open palm.</p> + +<p>"He must choose between his genius and his life."</p> + +<p>She winced. "I don't believe he <i>can</i> choose," she murmured. "It <i>is</i> +his life."</p> + +<p>He straightened himself to his enormous height, in dignified recoil from +her contradiction.</p> + +<p>"I have known many men of genius," he said.</p> + +<p>"His genius is different," said she.</p> + +<p>He hadn't the heart to say what he had always said, that Prothero's +genius was and always had been most peculiarly a disease; but he did +not shrink from telling her that at the present crisis it was death.</p> + +<p>For he was angry now. He could not help being moved by professional +animus, the fury of a man who has brought his difficult, dangerous work +to the pitch of unexpected triumph, and sees it taken from his hands and +destroyed for a perversity, an incomprehensible caprice.</p> + +<p>He was still more deeply stirred by his compassion, his affection for +the Protheros. Secretly, he was very fond of Owen, though the poet <i>was</i> +impossible; he was even more fond of little Laura. He did not want to +see her made a widow because Prothero refused to control his vice. For +the literary habit, indulged in to that extent, amounted to a vice. The +Doctor had no patience with it. A man was not, after all, a slave to his +unwholesome inspiration (it had dawned on him by this time that Prothero +had made a joke about it). Prothero could stop it if he liked.</p> + +<p>"I've told him plainly," he said, "that what it means to him is death. +If you want to keep him, you must stop it."</p> + +<p>"How can I?" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"Don't encourage him. Don't let him talk about it. Don't let his mind +dwell on it. Turn the conversation. Take his pens and paper from him and +don't let him see them again till he is well."</p> + +<p>When the Doctor left her she went up-stairs to Owen.</p> + +<p>He was still sitting up writing, dashing down lines with a speed that +told her what race he ran.</p> + +<p>"Owen," she said, "you know. He told you——"</p> + +<p>He waved her away with a gesture that would have been violent if it +could.</p> + +<p>She tried to take his pen and paper from him, and he laid his thin hands +out over the sheets. The sweat stood in big drops between the veins of +his hands; it streamed from his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Wait just a little longer, till you're well," she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, darling," he whispered hoarsely, "leave me, go away."</p> + +<p>She went. In her own room her work stood unfinished on the table where +she had left it, months ago. She pushed it away in anger. She hated the +sight of it. She sat watching the clock for the moments when she would +have to go to him with his medicine.</p> + +<p>She thought how right they had been after all. Nina and Jane and +Tanqueray, when they spoke of the cruelty of genius. It had no mercy and +no pity. It had taken its toll from all of them. It was taking its toll +from Owen now, to the last drop of his blood, to the last torturing +breath. His life was nothing to it.</p> + +<p>She went to him silently every hour to give him food or medicine or to +take his temperature. She recorded on her chart heat mounting to fever, +and a pulse staggering in its awful haste. He was submissive as long as +she was silent, but at a word his thin hand waved in its agonized +gesture.</p> + +<p>Once he kissed her hands that gave him his drink.</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing," he said, "it's so frightened—always was. Never +mind—It'll soon be over—only—don't come again" (he had to whisper +it), "if you don't mind—till I ring."</p> + +<p>She sat listening then for his bell.</p> + +<p>Rose came and stayed with her a little while. She wanted to know what +the Doctor had said to-day.</p> + +<p>"He says he must choose between his genius and his life. And it's I who +have to choose. If he goes on he'll kill himself. If I stop him I shall +kill him. What am I to do?"</p> + +<p>Rose had her own opinion of the dilemma, and no great opinion of the +Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Do nothin'," she said, and pondered on it. "Look at it sensible. You +may depend upon it 'e's found somethin' 'e's got to do. 'E's set 'is +'eart on finishin' it. Don't you cross 'im. I don't believe in crossin' +them when they're set."</p> + +<p>"And if he dies, Rose? If he dies?"</p> + +<p>"'E dies 'is way—not yours."</p> + +<p>It was the wisdom of renunciation and repression; but Laura felt that it +was right.</p> + +<p>Her hour struck and she went up to Owen. He was lying back now with his +eyes closed and his lips parted. Because of its peace his face was like +the face of the dead. But his lips were hot under hers and his cheek was +fire to her touch. She put her finger on his pulse and he opened his +eyes and smiled at her.</p> + +<p>"It's finished," he said. "You can take it away now."</p> + +<p>She gathered up the loose sheets and laid them in a drawer in his desk. +The poem once finished he was indifferent to its disposal. His eyes +followed her, they rested on her without noting her movements. They drew +her as she came towards him again.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," he said. "It was too strong for me."</p> + +<p>"Never again," she murmured. "Promise me, never again till you're well."</p> + +<p>"Never again." He smiled as he answered.</p> + +<p>Dr. Brodrick, calling late that night, was informed by Laura of the +extent to which he had been disobeyed. He thundered at her and +threatened, a Brodrick beside himself with fury.</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose," she said, "it isn't awful for me to have to stand by +and see it, and do nothing? What can I do?"</p> + +<p>He looked down at her. The little thing had a will of her own; she was +indeed, for her size, preposterously over-charged with will. Never had +he seen a small creature so indomitably determined. He put it to her. +She had a will; why couldn't she use it?</p> + +<p>"His will is stronger than mine," she said. "And his genius is stronger +than his will."</p> + +<p>"You overrate the importance of it. What does it matter if he never +writes another line?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that he charged him with futility, that he echoed—and +in this hour!—the voice of the world that tried to make futile +everything he did.</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter to you," she said. "You never understood his genius; +you never cared about it."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me that you—<i>you</i> care about it more than you care +about him? Upon my word, I don't know what you women are made of."</p> + +<p>"What could I do?" she said. "I had to use my own judgment."</p> + +<p>"You had not. You had to use mine."</p> + +<p>He paused impressively.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, my child, fighting against the facts."</p> + +<p>To Henry Laura was a little angry child, crying over the bitter dose of +life. He had got to make her take it.</p> + +<p>He towered over her, a Brodrick, the incarnate spirit of fact.</p> + +<p>It was a spirit that revolted her. She stood her ground and defied it in +its insufferable tyranny. She thought of how these men, these Brodricks, +behaved to genius wherever they met it; how, among them, they had driven +poor Jinny all but mad, martyrizing her in the name of fact. As for +Owen, she knew what they had thought and said of him, how they judged +him by the facts. If it came to that she could fight the Doctor with his +own weapons. If he wanted facts he should have them; he should have all +the facts.</p> + +<p>"<i>This</i> isn't what's killing him," she said. "It's all the other things, +the things he was made to do. Going out to Manchuria—that began it. He +ought never to have been sent there. Then—five years on that abominable +paper. Think how he slaved on it. You don't know what it was to him. To +have to sit in stuffy theatres and offices; to turn out at night in vile +weather; to have to work whether he was fit to work or not."</p> + +<p>He looked down at her very quietly and kindly. It was when people were +really outrageous that a Brodrick came out in his inexhaustible patience +and forbearance.</p> + +<p>"You say he had to do all these things. Is that the fact?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Laura, passionately, "it's the truth."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p> + +<p>"I mean it's what it amounted to. They—they drove him to it with their +everlasting criticism and fault-finding and complaining."</p> + +<p>"I should not have thought he was a man to be much affected by adverse +criticism."</p> + +<p>"You don't know," she retorted, "how he was affected. You can't judge. +Anyhow, he stuck to it up to the very last—the very last," she cried.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. Prothero, nobody wanted him to——"</p> + +<p>"He did it, though. He did it because he was not what you all thought +him."</p> + +<p>"We thought him splendid. My brother was saying only the other day he +had never seen such pluck."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, it's his pluck—his splendour that he's dying of."</p> + +<p>"And you hold us, his friends, responsible for that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't hold you responsible for anything."</p> + +<p>She was trembling on the edge of tears.</p> + +<p>"Come, come," he said gently, "you misunderstand. You've been doing too +much. You're overstrained."</p> + +<p>She smiled. That was so like them. They were sane when they got hold of +one stupid fact and flung it at your head. But you were overstrained +when you retaliated. When you had made a sober selection from the facts, +such a selection as constituted a truth, and presented it to them, you +were more overstrained than ever. They couldn't stand the truth.</p> + +<p>"I don't hold <i>you</i> responsible for his perversity," said the poor +Doctor.</p> + +<p>"You talked as if you did."</p> + +<p>"You misunderstood me," he said sadly. "I only asked you to do what you +could."</p> + +<p>"I have done what I could."</p> + +<p>He ordered her some bromide then, for her nerves.</p> + +<p>That evening Prothero was so much better that he declared himself well. +The wind had changed to the south. She had prayed for a warm wind; and, +as it swept through the great room, she flung off her fur-lined coat and +tried to persuade herself that the weather was in Owen's favour.</p> + +<p>At midnight the warm wind swelled to a gale. Down at the end of the +garden the iron gate cried under the menace and torture of its grip. The +sound and the rush of it filled Prothero with exultation. Neither he nor +Laura slept.</p> + +<p>She had moved her bed close up against his, and they lay side by side. +The room was a passage for the wind; it whirled down it like a mad +thing, precipitating itself towards the mouth of the night, where the +wide north window sucked it. On the floor and the long walls the very +darkness moved. The pale yellow disc that the guarded nightlight threw +upon the ceiling swayed incessantly at the driving of the wind. The +twilight of the white beds trembled.</p> + +<p>Outside the gust staggered and drew back; it plunged forward again, with +its charge of impetus, and hurled itself against the gate. There was a +shriek of torn iron, a crash, and the long sweeping, rending cry of live +branches wrenched from their hold, lacerated and crushed, trailing and +clinging in their fall.</p> + +<p>Owen dragged himself up on his pillows. Laura's arm was round him.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing," she said, "only the gate. It was bound to go."</p> + +<p>"The gate?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her touch that he drew himself together.</p> + +<p>"I said I'd come back—through it——" he whispered. "I shall—come +back"—his voice gathered a sudden, terrible, hoarse vibration—"over +it—treading it down."</p> + +<p>At that he coughed and turned from her, hiding his face. The +handkerchief she took from him was soaked in blood. He shuddered and +shrank back, overcome by the inveterate, ungovernable horror.</p> + +<p>He lay very still, with closed eyes, afraid lest a movement or a word +should bring back the thing he loathed. Laura sat up and watched him.</p> + +<p>Towards morning the wind dropped a little and there was some rain. The +air was warm with the wet south, and the garden sent up a smell, vivid +and sweet, the smell of a young spring day. Once the wind was so quiet +that she heard the clock strike in the hall of the hospital. She counted +seven strokes.</p> + +<p>It grew warmer and warmer out there. Owen was very cold.</p> + +<p>Laura ran down-stairs to telephone to the Doctor. She was gone about +five minutes.</p> + +<p>And Prothero lay in his bed under the window with a pool of blood in the +hollow of the sheet where it had jetted, and the warm wind blowing over +his dead body.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LXVIII" id="LXVIII"></a>LXVIII</h2> + + +<p>Laura Prothero was sitting with Jane in the garden at Wendover one day +in that spring. It was a day of sudden warmth and stillness that brought +back vividly to both of them the hour of Owen's death.</p> + +<p>They were touched by the beauty and the peace of this place where Nicky +lived his perfect little life. They had just agreed that it was Nicky's +life, Nicky's character, that had given to his garden its lucent, +exquisite tranquillity. You associated that quality so indivisibly with +Nicky that it was as if he flowered there, he came up every spring, +flaming purely, in the crocuses on the lawn. Every spring Nicky and a +book of poems appeared with the crocuses; the poems as Nicky made them, +but Nicky heaven-born, in an immortal innocence and charm.</p> + +<p>It was incredible, they said, how heaven sheltered and protected Nicky.</p> + +<p>He, with his infallible instinct for the perfect thing, had left them +together, alone in the little green chamber on the lawn, shut in by its +walls of yew. He was glad that he had this heavenly peace to give them +for a moment.</p> + +<p>He passed before them now and then, pacing the green paths of the lawn +with Nina.</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny, I am <i>not</i> going on any more," Laura said, returning to the +subject of that intimate communion to which they had been left. "You +see, it ended as a sort of joke, his and mine—nobody else saw the point +of it. Why should I keep it up?"</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't he have liked you to keep it up?"</p> + +<p>"He would have liked me to please myself—to be happy. How can I be +happy going on—giving myself to the people who rejected <i>him</i>? I'm not +going to keep <i>that</i> up."</p> + +<p>"What will you do?"</p> + +<p>Laura said that she would have enough to do, editing his poems and his +memoirs. Jane had not realized the memoirs. They were, Laura told her, +mainly a record of his life as a physician and a surgeon, a record so +simple that it only unconsciously revealed the man he was. George +Tanqueray had insisted on her publishing this first.</p> + +<p>"I hated doing it for some things," she said. "It looks too like a +concession to this detestable British public. But I can't rest, Jinny, +till we've made him known. They'll see that he didn't shirk, that he +could beat the practical men—the men they worship—at their own game, +that he did something for the Empire. Then they'll accept the rest. +There's an awful irony in it, but I'm convinced that's the way his +immortality will come."</p> + +<p>"It'll come anyway," said Jane.</p> + +<p>"It'll come soonest this way. They'll believe in him to-morrow, because +of the things he did with his hands. His hands were wonderful. Ah, +Jinny, how could I ever want to write again?"</p> + +<p>"What will you <i>do</i>, dear child? How will you live?"</p> + +<p>"I'll live as he did." She said it fiercely. "I'll live by journalism. +It doesn't matter how I live."</p> + +<p>"There are so many things," she said, "that don't matter, after all."</p> + +<p>Nicky and Nina passed.</p> + +<p>"Do you think," said he, "she's happy?"</p> + +<p>"Who? Jane? Or Laura?"</p> + +<p>"You can't think of Laura," said Nicky, gravely, "without <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>"That's it. She isn't without him. She never will be. He has given her +his certainty."</p> + +<p>"Of immortality?" Nicky's tone was tentative.</p> + +<p>"Of the thing he saw. That <i>is</i> immortality. Of course she's happy."</p> + +<p>"But I was thinking," Nicky said, "of Jane."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CREATORS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 25971-h.txt or 25971-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/9/7/25971">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/9/7/25971</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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