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diff --git a/78428-0.txt b/78428-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cf7537 --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8541 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78428 *** + + + This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 25th + Anniversary. + + + THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + _by_ Naomi G. Royde-Smith + + “What is most conspicuous in THE TORTOISESHELL CAT is its sunlit + humor. The book is more sparkling than brilliant, and quite as + gentle as it is shrewd. Describing the growth to maturity of a + charming girl who though adult in body has stayed adolescent in + mind, it successfully insinuates the atmosphere of a time when + everything is quaint and lovely and obscure, when all strangers + are delightful and all events are nice.”—_London Outlook._ + + “This is a modern novel of the deepest dye. THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + is very clever, very finished, very witty, very daring. ... So + entertaining that one feels, on turning the three hundredth and + tenth page, that our acquaintanceship with the queer, + sophisticated, cranky or merely charming people in the story has + been cut short too soon. Naughty perhaps, but nice.”—_London + Sketch._ + + “It must be said to be undeniably well done. Life is here touched + in with surety, candour and courage, and all through, the author + keeps on her style the charm with which she endows a variety of + characters.”—_Aberdeen Press and Journal._ + + “To come upon such a novel as Miss Naomi Royde-Smith’s THE + TORTOISESHELL CAT is, in comparison with the bulk of recent + fiction, like having a bath after a ball.... In the characters of + V. V. and Lady Winona Miss Smith has compassed successes we have + not recently seen equalled.”—_Liverpool Courier._ + + “An extremely entertaining and exciting story.”—_The New + Statesman._ + + “Its wit and humor, its pawky asides, its clever situations and + sparkling dialogue demand a large constituency for this story. It + is certainly the best novel we have read this year.”—_The Weekly + Westminster._ + + “She has the ease and decision in putting words and sentences + together that show the born storyteller. THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + will establish for her at once a host of readers clamouring for + more.”—_London Daily News._ + + “Miss Naomi Royde-Smith writes with a crisp touch and a kind of + friendly gaiety; it responds with a sparkle to the humor of life + but it is not afraid of the shadows. With an obvious relish for + character and the freshness of quite ordinary things.”—_London + Times Literary Supplement._ + + “What cool and deliberate skill, what mastery of sheer + craftsmanship.... Altogether one of the very best of recent + novels.”—_Bookman Journal._ + + + THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + + + + + The + Tortoiseshell Cat + + + A Novel By + N. G. ROYDE-SMITH + + + Back to Lesbos, back to the hills + whereunder + Shone Mitylene— + Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight— + Purged not in Lethe. + + SWINBURNE. + + + NEW YORK + BONI & LIVERIGHT + 1925 + + + COPYRIGHT 1925 · BY + BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC. + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES. + + + First printing, November, 1925 + Second printing, November, 1925 + + + TO + WALTER DE LA MARE + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I VOWEL-SOUNDS 13 + II LILAC 47 + III THE TORTOISESHELL CAT 120 + IV LARRY BROWNE 155 + V ILLUSION 202 + VI AUNT ELIZABETH 236 + VII THE FOURTH MOVEMENT 273 + + + + + AUTHOR’S NOTE + + + The action of this novel is set in London in + 1912-13, but William is the only character in + the tale who is drawn from life. + + + THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + + + + + CHAPTER ONE. + VOWEL-SOUNDS + + + I + +You could never be quite sure how Mrs. Lysaght would take anything. Even +thin Miss Winter, the Secretary, who must have loved her or she could +never have stood it, went about her duties murmuring, “I _hope_ I’ve +done right....” And, as Miss Fairfax said, you could feel the pit of the +poor thing’s stomach sink on _hope_. Miss Fairfax was a little coarse at +times: like a man. It was the result of a classical tripos. Gillian had +gathered this from Mrs. Lysaght on the bewildering occasion when she had +first received the head mistress’s instructions, at tea. Mrs. Lysaght +had been in bed that afternoon. + +“I seize every opportunity of rest—facing the light—so revealing—and +thick bread and butter—you will not mind, dear.” + +Gillian did mind being called “dear,” and the bread and butter was +certainly thick; but she was so much engrossed in wondering how Mrs. +Lysaght either rested or enjoyed whatever revelation the faced light +might bring (though quite in bed) while eating thick bread and butter, +interviewing a junior mistress and writing what might be a diary and +again might at the same time be a prospectus, with one of those +collapsible gold pencils which requires to be un-collapsed every +half-page or so, that she missed the next two hundred words—you couldn’t +call any of Mrs. Lysaght’s utterances sentences—and only caught up with +those on which she left Miss Fairfax. + +“Sound scholarship but coarseness—very sad—still the Greeks—_and_ the +Romans—passages in the Epistles—and the Joint Board’s set-books this +year—Satires, dear—Horace—_such_ a pity—English purity—French +refinement—Yours so different.” + +Gillian, whose subjects were English and Foreign Literature (“foreign” +being a term comprehending French and German only), found her mind +rocketing between _Le Misanthrope_ and _Hamlet_, also “set-books” that +year, with horrid memories of lines the full significance of which she +had never quite explored herself, but which in her new capacity she was +now about to purvey to the young and inquisitive. What, for example, was +the grosser name that liberal shepherds gave...? + +“Correlate—always correlate.” Mrs. Lysaght was getting a little +breathless and the lead had sunk below the rim of the gold case of her +pencil. “References to History—dear Miss Parratt, so essentially +refined—to Geography and Botany—the whole time-table—especially in the +middle forms, and, whenever possible in _dramatic_ form. The teaching of +the Church, dear, Miracle and Mystery Plays—on the chest of drawers, +dear—a little red box. Thank you—the school motto—_our utmost for the +highest_—once a week for five minutes in every subject—and _low_-heeled +shoes—ah! no—that was little Miss Battinson—but Saint Paul—infallible—if +only _all_ women—but you with such a father will know how right....” + +On the way home Gillian met Miss Fairfax. + +“Well, child,” said the classical mistress, “did you count the finite +verbs? Parratt and I keep a book of them and the one who gets ten in one +week wins. But she’s a great woman once you’ve got out of the mist.” + +But Gillian never got out of the mist; not quite. It is true that the +improbable connexion between her father (dead long ago of black-water +fever in Burma) and Saint Paul, turned out, like the low-heeled shoes, +to be proper to little Miss Battinson whose heels were very high and +whose father was a well-known Dissenting Minister. And, little by +little, she learnt to follow, with surprising success, the flying leaps +taken by Mrs. Lysaght’s conversation from branch to branch of the Tree +of Life, as she passed in and out of the great old Georgian house and +across the spreading lawns, in which her famous school was lodged. + +It was when the squirrel talk leapt—not only in the Tree of Life, but +across the spaces which divide its branches from those of the Tree of +Knowledge of Good and Evil that Gillian failed, and it was this failure +which had brought her to the disaster she was now facing. + +There was, Gillian had gathered this from the conversation in the +Assistant Mistresses’ Room, one week in the year when Mrs. Lysaght +deserted her post to make a pilgrimage. Colonel Lysaght was buried in +Jersey, where he had died, and his death had synchronized with the dates +not only of his own, but of his mother’s birthday as well. Old Lady +Alice Lysaght, who had married at seventeen, was a woman of indomitable +sentimentality, and, as her widowed daughter-in-law was her only +surviving relative, the celebration of this triple anniversary on the +spot where a comprehensive monument had been erected to it, was an event +before which even the routine of Pelham House broke down. + +In June, in the first week of June, Mrs. Lysaght always went to Jersey +and left Miss Fairfax to rule in her stead. The one lesson a week which +the head mistress gave in each form was distributed among the staff, and +until you had occupied one of these forsaken posts during the annual +retreat, you were not really established at Pelham House. It would +generally take a new mistress eighteen months to attain what, in +deference to the Colonel’s military shade, was called her majority, +especially if, as Gillian had, she only joined the staff at the +beginning of the summer term. But in Gillian’s case, the confirmation +was swift and took place before she had been at Pelham House for more +than six weeks. + +“I _hope_ I’m doing right in telling you, Miss Armstrong,” poor Miss +Winter had said, “but Mrs. Lysaght wishes you to take the Scripture +Class in V.B. next week while she is away.” + +“Me?” said Gillian, looking up from the French Composition she was +correcting. “What book are they doing?” + +Miss Winter consulted her sheaf of notes. + +“Psalms,” she discovered; “but you are to do whatever you like. A single +lesson is what Mrs. Lysaght always asks for. She prefers not to have her +own treatment of the set-books interrupted. She thinks it might confuse +the girls’ minds.” Miss Winter was incapable of disrespect and Gillian’s +gurgle of delight died away in the long silence into which it travelled. + +“I’ll do Naaman the Syrian,” she said. “It’s the finest short story in +the world. I always want to send it in for one of those competitions.” + +“You’ve got a horrid, secular mind, my girl,” said Miss Fairfax. “And +you don’t seem to realize the signal honour bestowed on you.” + +“No,” said Gillian, “it doesn’t seem very honourable—extra work. That’s +why I chose Naaman. I know him by heart. Besides, it’s so well done.” + +Miss Fairfax snorted. + +“The mind of your principal is still a sealed book to you,” and she left +the room without further argument. + +On the following Tuesday, after Recreation, Gillian took V.B. through +the finest short story in the world and felt her own enthusiasm merge in +the collective excitement of the class as the drama turned on itself and +worked back from healing to destruction in the great anticlimax:— + + “Went not my heart with thee when the man turned again from his + chariot to meet thee?” + +Miss Parratt, whose subject was History, and whose essential refinement +was a quality attributed to her by Mrs. Lysaght on account of her +fretful manner rather than in consequence of any real knowledge of her +character, complained about it at luncheon: + +“I took V.B. for the last lesson this morning, after you, Miss +Armstrong. They were all quite excited. As though they’d been to the +theatre.” + +“Well, it was rather like that,” Gillian admitted; “it was bound to be. +I got terribly excited myself.” + +“It’s not at all the state I’m used to for that class,” said Miss +Parratt. + +“Do you think they _ought_ to be excited after a Scripture lesson?” +asked little Miss Battinson, not without malice. + +“Don’t be silly, Battinson,” said Miss Fairfax; “all Armstrong’s lessons +are exciting. I can’t hear myself speak in the Shell when the Third +Form’s singing French verbs at her next door. I’m going to bring it up +at the next mistresses’ meeting.” + +Gillian apologized. + +“They do make a noise, I know. But it was the only way I could think of +to keep them quiet.” + +“I do see what you mean, though I don’t think you put it very +accurately; however, that is only a passing problem. What I really +should like to know is why Mrs. Lysaght gave you, of all people, V.B. +for her Scripture hour. The confirmation class. It was mine by right. +You’ve cut me out. You’re a thruster. I’m now in the outer darkness with +Science and Physical Exercise. Praise God!” and Miss Fairfax helped +herself to a great deal of rather weak mustard which ran down into the +gravy on her plate. + +Two days later, Mrs. Lysaght having returned to Pelham House, Miss +Fairfax learned the truth. + +“It seems,” she told Gillian, “that she was looking in on your +Literature lesson one day and found the Fourth Form standing in serried +ranks saying as one girl: + + “‘And so the whole round world in every way + Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.’ + +She says the deep devotional note you had so patiently got out of that +particularly callous set—what’s the matter?” + +“In the first place,” said Gillian, “how _do_ you understand all that +from what she says?” + +“I’m used to it. How _did_ you get the Fourth Form...?” + +“But I was making them use their chest notes on all those o’s and ou’s, +_whole_, _round_, _bound_, _gold_.” + +“You’d chosen a particularly high-class sentiment.” + +“Goodness!” Gillian was really alarmed. “But I’d just told them that the +_meaning_ didn’t matter. I’d told them—oh, Miss Fairfax—but I’d told +them—I felt they were young and must be told—that what the words said +was just silly—an image of God like a convict with a weight chained to +_both_ feet.... A God, a false image.” + +“Well, I don’t know. It must be rather like hard labour—being +responsible for the lot of us.” + +“That isn’t how I think of God,” said Gillian; “and I don’t think it’s +what Tennyson meant. He’d a silly mind. I was only using it as an +exercise in vowel-sounds.” + +“Bless the child! And it got her the confirmation class!” + +“Anyhow they enjoyed it.” + +“The vowel-sounds, or the confirmation class?” + +“Both,” said Gillian and felt her cheeks burn again with the unfailing +thrill of that tremendous tale. + +“Well, it’s the aim of all you very modern people to make the children +enjoy. I was brought up to teach them facts and make them sit up and +work.” Miss Fairfax was fifty and made no bones about it. She belonged +to a generation which kept Kindergarten methods well inside the +Kindergarten. “I don’t coddle my classes,” had been her much-quoted +observation, so ran the legend, when she made her first appearance at +Pelham House. An undertone of the disapproving surprise and pain which +such a statement must have caused her, always ran through any reference +to Miss Fairfax when Mrs. Lysaght discussed her staff. And yet—— + +“Results, dear—scholarships—honours—even through the Universities. +Classical tripos, every year since she has been with us.” + +Gillian’s own education was a picaresque affair consisting of all her +father had ever told her to read and a panoramic memory of class-rooms +and lecture-theatres, art-galleries and concert-halls in Dresden, +Munich, Vienna, Lausanne and Bournemouth through which she had followed +her young, eager, inconsequent mother for six years after her father’s +death. She envied Miss Fairfax the solid weight of Cheltenham and +Girton, confirmed by a London degree. Professor Fairfax had not grudged +the extra years necessary for this. He was not minded to leave his only +daughter without the outward and visible recognition of those erudite +inheritances of gifts and environment which she derived from him, and +which, as he was given to telling people, had she been a man, would have +made her a Fellow of All Souls. + +Miss Fairfax, however, did not pity Gillian for her lack of these +regularized advantages. + +“Your state is the more gracious,” she said when Gillian told her that +she had not the ghost of a degree, not the half of a certificate to her +name. “You’ll not stay here. How, with a face like the National Gallery +Botticelli and the mind of a revolutionary baby, you ever got here I +still wonder.” + +“I think,” said Gillian, “I must be cheap, and I do a great deal of work +for the money.” + +“How much?” said Miss Fairfax. + +Gillian told her. + +“The sweater!” said Miss Fairfax. + +“But I get extra for French Conversation twice a week,” said Gillian. + +“So does she,” said Miss Fairfax. + +Miss Fairfax was right. Gillian was not staying. There had been a letter +from a Parent. As a matter of fact there had been two, but the first was +really Mrs. Lysaght’s own affair, though the complaint had been launched +at Gillian by name. + +But it was not only the letters. Gillian had begun to lose ground on the +very day of Mrs. Lysaght’s return. The head mistress had come back from +Jersey invigorated by the journey and by the sense of duty done, and not +at all chastened by memories of those humiliations inseparable from a +Channel passage which affect less-balanced frames. + +It was in connexion with this immunity that Gillian had been made aware +of an error in tact. + +“And, I suppose, as usual, you were quite well throughout both +crossings.” + +This was poor Miss Winter saying the right thing at luncheon on the day +of Mrs. Lysaght’s return. + +“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Lysaght. “Never on the horizon +and—semi-horizontal—— But Dean Webster, so deplorable—the clergy—and on +deck.” + +“Mrs. Lysaght always lies in a deck-chair lowered as much as possible +and keeps her eyes off the horizon through the whole crossing,” Miss +Winter explained. + +“Oh, Mrs. Lysaght, if you stood up suddenly and caught sight of the +horizon, would you be sick?” asked Gillian, elated by the thought of a +new and useful light on a problem, in which for the moment she was +keenly interested. + +Mrs. Lysaght flushed a stormy red and bit her bottom lip. Miss Winter +took off her thick eye-glasses for a moment, revealing the singular +blackness all short-sighted people show when their eyes are uncovered, +and Miss Fairfax drank half a tumblerful of water with rather more noise +than anyone not supported by a Classical Tripos would be allowed to make +without reproof in such company. The conversation at the other side of +the table swooned into the silence that emanated from Mrs. Lysaght. +Gradually and astonishingly Gillian knew that she was being isolated, +put into a moral cell and that every mouthful she raised from her plate +was now an infraction of some Code for the Guilty of which until that +moment she had been unaware. It was clearly wrong to go on eating, and +yet Gillian was conscious of the old childish sense of ostracism +attached to the end of nursery dinner when you were left alone at table +and everyone was forbidden to speak to you until you _had_ finished +“every scrap of that good batter-pudding—and you eating all the raisins +out of it first, you greedy little girl.” + +It was batter-pudding again. And she had eaten all the raisins; not from +conscious greed, but because they came that way, and, automatically, she +was clearing her plate of the yellow residue, shovelling a path back to +society again. And now _this_ was wrong. Mrs. Lysaght’s mist was no +longer an amusing vapour with image after image looming through; it had +thickened and dulled into a fog in which Gillian had lost her way. But +the old compulsion prevailed. Bad little girls redeemed themselves and +became good little girls by swallowing mouthfuls of cold, displeasing +food in spite of stiff throats and mounting nausea; the way to salvation +lay through physical anguish. By that old beacon she must steer across +these unfamiliar waters. The unknown offence she had done must be +mitigated by the known correctness. Gillian ate on. Around her spoons +were laid down, forks mutely aligned with them, and the silence was +augmented by this unanimous and simultaneous discarding of the tools of +nutrition. But Gillian still ate with conscientious deliberation. One +more spoonful and her plate would be cleared. As she pushed the yellow +stickiness over the brim of the spoon, Gillian became aware of a +pressure on her foot, slight but intentional. She looked up from her +plate. Miss Fairfax was glaring at her. + +“Put it down, you fool.” She caught the undertone and dropped her spoon +with a clatter. All the plates but hers had been cleared away. The +youngest mistress was keeping the whole High Table waiting. + +Jessie, the waitress, was standing at Gillian’s elbow, and even as she +whipped the plate away Mrs. Lysaght rose and pronounced an elaborate +benediction on the meal her staff, with one exception, had only +partially consumed. + + “Gracious and most bountiful Father, we Thy most unworthy + servants render unto Thee thanksgiving and praise for these Thy + mercies vouchsafed so plenteously unto us alike both just and + unjust, and by us received in the name of and for the sake of Thy + dear Son our Lord. Amen.” + +“I’ve never heard that grace before,” said Gillian to Miss Fairfax as +the school filed out of the dining-hall. + +“No,” said Miss Fairfax, “it’s the one used for criminals, and we’ve had +very little crime this term, so far.” + +“But whose crime was she denouncing?” + +“Yours, my blue-eyed angel. Yours.” + +“I felt I’d done _some_thing. Do you know what it was?” + +“You asked Mrs. Lysaght at the top of your voice if she could be +sea-sick—and at table. It isn’t done.” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “my sister wouldn’t go to Mentone when she was ill +in the winter because she’s always so horribly sick crossing the +Channel, and I thought if keeping your eyes off the horizon really +did——” + +“You could have waited and asked the wretched Winter for details, and +not suggested at the top of your voice that our august head could under +any conditions whatever be sick in public. Didn’t you hear what she said +about the Dean?” + +“Not exactly—it was Miss Winter said—and I _do_ think the punishment +severe.” + +“That wasn’t the punishment, it was only the tocsin. Danger lies ahead.” + + + II + +Miss Fairfax was right. The staff took coffee in Mrs. Lysaght’s private +room and melted away to their afternoon work or leisure. Gillian, who +had Middle School preparation from 2:15 to 4 that day, was just about to +leave when Mrs. Lysaght laid a white, detaining hand on her wrist. + +“A moment, dear. The hymn! So many hymn-books—Prayer should be elastic, +spontaneous. I want it known by heart. On Friday. I shall give out this +week’s hymn on Monday and each class will learn a verse each day. On +Friday. _No_ hymn-books.” + +“But, Mrs. Lysaght, some hymns have more than five verses.” + +“That,” said Mrs. Lysaght with one of her astonishing lapses into +clarity. “That will be your affair, dear. You will divide the hymn for +me each week and repeat the day’s portion with the school in the Hall +before Prayers.” + +Gillian accepted her added burden and by the end of the week was +enjoying the five minutes before Prayers, even though it took ten +minutes off her breakfast-time to encompass the earlier arrival and the +rounding up of stragglers for rehearsal. On Friday the school did her +credit. Two hundred hymn-books made a black pyramid outside the Hall +door and, when the note was struck, two hundred voices raised as one, +sang in the clear cold tones of early youth the heated words: + + My God how wonderful Thou art! + Thy Majesty how bright! + How radiant Thy mercy-seat + In depths of burning light! + +In the second week, however, trouble came. Mrs. Lysaght, whose taste ran +to sentiment, selected a fresh hymn, and the school did not take very +kindly to it. There was trouble with the Fourth Form, headed by Madge +Porter. + +Madge Porter was not a pleasant child. She was always asking the kind of +question which arises not from a desire for knowledge but out of a +determination to put teachers in holes. She had completely routed Miss +Parratt during a lesson on the Reformation by asking that unfortunate +lady whether she believed in the Thirty-Nine Articles. Miss Parratt +having given an emphatic assent, Madge Porter had told her she was +wrong, as her father, who was in a position to know because he had taken +a degree in Science, said they were nothing but a farrago of +superstition, and please would Miss Parratt tell her what “farrago” +meant. + +And now Madge Porter was persuading the Middle School that this +hymn-learning was extra-prep. So Gillian, on her own authority, took the +ringleaders aside at Recreation on Wednesday and taught them their +verses by rote. She sacrificed her own quarter of an hour to do it; but +Madge Porter made her cross. + +On Thursday morning Madge arrived at Prayers with a note for Mrs. +Lysaght. It was from the parent who was in a position to know the truth +about the Thirty-Nine Articles, and it ran: + + DARWIN VILLA, + PUTNEY HILL, + _May 27th, 1912_. + + DEAR MRS. LYSAGHT, + + Kindly allow me to make a most emphatic protest against the + unwholesome restraint and unpedagogic waste of time at present + imposed on my young daughter Madge, by one of your junior + mistresses called, I understand, Miss Armstrong. + + It appears that this Miss Armstrong has curtailed my daughter’s + recreation and interfered with the consumption of half a pint of + milk at 11 o’clock ordered by my doctor for her, by keeping her + in to commit to memory some highly reprehensible lines. + + My daughter has been obliged to burden her mind with such an + incitement to laziness and lack of initiative as this: + + O could we but relinquish all + Our earthly props and simply fall + On Thine almighty arms. + + I make no complaint of the inculcation of Christian doctrine + which I am aware is inseparable from the curriculum of your + school, as I have taken due precaution to fortify Madge’s mind + against superstition by my own home teaching. But I do strongly + protest against the insidious inertia advocated in the passage I + have quoted and also against Miss Armstrong’s tyranny, and must + beg that Madge be removed from the classes in which she teaches. + + Yours sincerely, + JAMES PORTER, B.SC. + + P.S. I shall be glad if, for the future, Madge may be excused + from Prayers. + +Mrs. Lysaght gave Gillian the letter to read. + +“Most unwise—most unwise,” she murmured and bit her lip as she waited +for Gillian’s comment. + +“What a bad old man,” said Gillian. “No wonder Madge is such a terror.” + +Mrs. Lysaght blushed. She always blushed when you said the wrong thing. + +“Mr. Porter is a _parent_,” she said with heat; “a _parent_—he has every +right—and the milk—never forget the means of health.” + +“But—you said ...” began Gillian. + +Mrs. Lysaght waved her hand, the hand with the gold pencil in it. + +“That has nothing to do with the question. Madge Porter does not take +Scripture. You may go now, dear, but do not let it occur again.” + +Madge Porter’s rebellion blew over, but “It” occurred again. It, as Miss +Fairfax explained when Gillian had exhausted herself in wondering what +she was expected to avoid, being a letter from a parent. + +“You should never let it come to letters,” said Miss Fairfax. “A good +assistant mistress consumes her own rows.” + +“That’s what I was trying to do,” Gillian protested, “and even if I’d +known that Mr. Porter was such a bigoted free-thinker, I don’t feel that +I should have let Madge off. I don’t like this hymn business myself, but +if I’m to do it it shall be done properly.” + +“It won’t last,” Miss Fairfax promised her; “it’s your punishment for +that impertinence of yours at luncheon last week. You’ll be let off if +you’re properly good.” + +The difficulty, however, was to be properly good in a world where all +the values were so different from her own. + + + III + +Gillian sat in the class-room after Mrs. Lysaght had left her. The three +windows were wide open and the voices of the girls playing tennis in the +courts beyond the lawn came up to her as they cried the score. It was +after five o’clock and in half an hour the school-house would be closed. +Already the sunlight was thrusting golden swords between the flat +branches of the cedar-tree that darkened the window until evening, and +the scent of the tobacco plants outside the Sixth Form Room was +beginning to creep into the air which came in from the garden. And still +she sat in the little chair on the teacher’s platform, her arms lying +across the desk in front of her, her hands, smooth and beautiful and +strange like the hands of some other woman, some woman whom she loved. + +In her lap she held a fat, blue leather manuscript book with double +brass clasps, the book her father had given her on her ninth birthday +into which she had copied prose and verse when she found it worthy, from +the books she could not afford to buy. It lay in the green gingham +valley of her dress, between her knees, and she had covered it with +three rather fatigued roses and a bunch of pansies with black cotton +round their brittle juicy stalks, the offerings of two of the class that +afternoon. The pansies came from little Gertie Wentworth, a pink-faced, +rather solemn child who made it her business to see that all the +mistresses were supplied with flowers in turn, and who suited her +offerings to the age and status of the recipient in a spirit of +calculating frankness. The week usually opened or closed with fruit from +the Wentworth hot-houses for Mrs. Lysaght. Miss Fairfax and Miss Parratt +had hot-house flowers; so did Mademoiselle de Vanges, who had a tiny +crown embroidered on her handkerchiefs. But, for Miss Winter and Miss +Battinson, Gertie went into the open air and Fräulein Kühn had made a +really dreadful scene on the morning on which the well-meaning Gertie +brought her broad beans done up in brown paper. Pinks and lavender from +the kitchen-garden borders, marsh-marigolds and scentless cabbage-roses +did for Gillian; but they came more often than the nobler flowers, and +Gertie, who had no veils over her heart, explained that she got them +herself, the other flowers being her regular allowance for purposes of +ingratiation ordered by her mother and supplied by the gardeners. In +justice to Mrs. Wentworth it must be admitted that she had no idea of +the scaling to which her daughter subjected the carrying out of her +original half-shrewd half-kindly arrangement. + +“You see, Mrs. Armstrong,” said Gertie, apologizing for the pinks, “you +are new and I only get one bunch a day from Jennings. So I went into the +kitchen garden and got these myself as I always give the irises to Miss +Battinson and Jennings sent irises this morning.” + +Gillian was so enchanted at this glimpse of a really ordered mind, as +well as being glad to have the fragrant pinks, that she forebore to pick +out Gertie’s “only” and replace it next the subject of this sentence as +a good school-mistress is bound in duty to do. But she went about with a +little grit in the wheels of her conscience for the rest of the day. +“Why should I correct her grammar out of class?” she kept asking +herself. “When she took all that trouble to be kind to me with flowers +suitable to my station? I hope she’ll marry the Lord Mayor of London +when she grows up, so as not to waste her instinct for suiting the gift +to the taker.” + +So Gertie’s pansies lay like a funeral wreath on the cover of Gillian’s +commonplace book, and beside them, Jane Bird’s roses. + +Jane Bird was one of Gillian’s problems. Jane Bird was really the only +problem of which Gillian had been consciously aware at Pelham House. The +intricacies of Mrs. Lysaght’s mind and conversation always presented +themselves to her most junior mistress as amusements—labyrinths and +jig-saws in which you wandered or which you took away with you to work +out when you had time. But Jane Bird was a different, a rather +frightening problem. She was also the only figure which stood out with +any real distinction from the confused crowd of girls, mistresses, +servants and visiting professors who surged on the attention of the +dazed new-comer at Pelham House. + +She was a tall, gaunt Sixth Form girl with a high colour and steel-black +hair parted in the middle and twisted into hard round knobs over each +ear, and she made her one-piece frocks herself, usually out of bright +blue casement cloth. She wore round-glassed spectacles and no stays and +was known to the Middle School as the Dutch Doll. To her coevals and to +the staff she was “Bird” without a Christian name, the only girl in the +school to be distinguished in that particular way. There were two +legends about her: one that she bathed naked in the sea in Cornwall +every summer; the other, that she had killed a young man who had called +her “Jinny” a third time, and had buried the remains in Richmond Park at +midnight. + +Bird was known to take pride in both these legends and had illustrated +them in a series of spirited drawings accompanied by a ballad. This work +filled one of the Pelham House note-books, the red-covered kind issued +from the Stationery Room for Greek and Latin only, and nobody quite knew +how Bird came to possess it. Miss Fairfax, who had discovered its +existence when correcting Latin Proses, always declared that Bird had +stolen it and was daring the staff to denounce her to Mrs. Lysaght for +theft. But nobody denounced Bird, and even if anybody had, it is more +than likely that Miss Winter, who had charge of the Stationery Room, +would have suffered alone. For, there was no doubt about it, the wretch +was a marvel. “She drinks-in Greek like a sponge,” said Miss Fairfax, +who was coaching her for Responsions much to the disgust of Mr. +Reppington the Art Master who had never in all his experience had such a +gift for drawing as Bird’s to develop. Bird’s name had headed every +examination list in every subject as she passed up the school from the +Lower Fourth Form, which she had entered at the age of twelve, +positively smothered in scholarships; and it was to Jane Bird that Mrs. +Lysaght looked during the next decade for the greatest glories ever +earned for Pelham House. + +Until mid-term Gillian had only known this star of the Upper School by +sight. But one rainy morning at Middle School Recreation Bird, being +Chief Monitor, descended upon an over-noisy game in the Hall, and +rescued Gillian from her single-handed combat against the forces of +disorder by playing dance-music on the piano until the restless children +were all waltzing happily together. + +“D’y recognize the tune?” said Bird over her shoulder to Gillian, who +had gone up to the platform steps to thank her. + +“No,” said Gillian, “but it’s a very good waltz.” + +“It’s this week’s hymn,” said Bird. “_The day Thou gavest_, three-four +time. _The two-three—Thou two-three, O Lor-three—is enDED._ Go and dance +with Molly Carpenter—she’s perishing with love and lack of exercise. _To +Thee-ee our mor-or-ning Son-ongs a-scend-ded_—You’ll enjoy it.” + +And Gillian had gone meekly up to the other monitor, a sickly girl in +the Upper Fifth who used to waylay her in the mornings as she walked +across the Heath from the 22-omnibus, and had danced with her till the +bell for Fourth Lesson rang. + +Margaret Carpenter knew all about the origin of the swinging waltz. + +“She made a ripping two-step out of _Hark! the Herald Angels_, but Mrs. +Lysaght won’t allow anything but waltzing in the school,” she complained +to Gillian when the dance was over, “and Bird’s never played any of them +at Recreation before.” + +Two days later the door of the class-room opened, ten minutes after +Gillian had settled down to the afternoon French Conversation class by +means of which she brought her salary up to a living wage, and in walked +Bird. + +“Mrs. Lysaght has given me permission to change from Mademoiselle’s +Senior French Conversation to yours, Miss Armstrong,” she explained in a +loud, clear voice. “It is felt that one Englishwoman will be more ready +to appreciate and to assist another Englishwoman in her difficulties +with a foreign tongue than anyone to whom these difficulties are by +nature non-existent.” + +She recited this speech in the manner of one having learnt the whole of +it by heart, and then stalked down the class-room, only half-filled by +the girls who took this extra subject, and settled herself in a desk by +the window at the farther end of the room. + +Gillian’s oddly excited alarm at this apparition was not diminished when +it became evident that Jane Bird was taking no active part in the +conversation class. To all remarks addressed to her by name she replied +with the same phrase delivered in a strong Britannic accent: + +“Mais-oui, mademoiselle, vous avez raison,” and then fell back into a +concentrated silence so removed from inattention that it baffled Gillian +as Bird clearly intended it to do. + +At her second appearance she took copious notes, and once questioned the +construction of a line Gillian quoted; at her third she remained silent +and intent on some drawing before her. When the class was dismissed +Gillian had, her heart beating with fright, asked the Chief Monitor to +remain behind. Bird, calm and still speechless, stood to attention, +facing the light so that its reflection in her thick glasses completely +hid her eyes from her terrified interlocutor. + +“I want to know,” said Gillian, her tongue thickening in her mouth as +she spoke. “I want to know why you come to this class.” + +“But, Miss Armstrong,” Bird’s voice was silky with polite surprise, “to +learn to speak French.” + +“But you never speak.” + +“I listen to you. That helps me enough.” + +Gillian changed her line. + +“What have you been drawing all this afternoon?” + +“Lit-tel Armstrongs,” said Bird, “dee-licious little Armstrongs +backwards through the centuries. Some of them better than others. Look,” +and she placed her sketch-book on the desk before Gillian. +“Eighteen-eighty, bustle and fringe, Du Maurier—_not_ very +good—but Cranford and a crinoline—delightful. First Empire—a +failure—Elizabeth—too stiff and concealing. Medieval henna and veil much +better. I shall do you Greek next week—and Egyptian—I’m strong on +Egypt—and then—Eve in the Garden—oh, only the head and shoulders——” + +“How dare you?” said Gillian, breathless. + +“But they’re _very_ clever,” said Bird. “Of course, if you object, you +can report me to Mrs. Lysaght. You can’t very well report me to myself, +though if you’d like to do that—I—as Chief Monitor will naturally come +to your aid—I am bound by the beautiful Pelham House Code of Honour to +do so.” + +“Very well then,” said Gillian, “I _do_ report you to yourself. Go home +now and bring yourself to me at Second Recreation to-morrow in the Third +Form Room, and tell me what you’re going to do about it.” + +The next day at Second Recreation Gillian had found Jane Bird waiting +for her in the empty class-room. + +“Well,” said Gillian. + +“I’ve thought over the case you reported to me yesterday, Miss +Armstrong,” said Bird coldly, “and I have not only confiscated the +drawings you complain of, but destroyed them.” + +“Destroyed the drawings,” Gillian gasped. + +“By fire. They _were_ very clever. I hope you are satisfied.” And with +enormous dignity to which she contrived to add a touch of pathos as of +some wounded giant, Bird had stalked away. + +She continued to come to French Conversation and Gillian grew to dread +her speech more than her silence. For Bird now came armed with questions +so subtly framed, so intelligently asked, that it was impossible to +convict the questioner of any object in asking them other than the +entirely laudable determination to make the best of her opportunities; +and so searching, that, more than once, Gillian was obliged to confess +her inability to deal with one or another of them. + +Then, to her own great relief and pleasure, Gillian found that Bird was +as keenly eager for the beauty of words as she was herself, and on the +last afternoon but one before the Midsummer Examination set in, she had +had what she called a miracle hour—one of those moments when Beauty +slips away from all the obscuring considerations which hide her from +busy people and they pause from their blinding pursuits while the vision +is granted. It was part of the puzzle that she could sometimes take a +class with her into the revelation—but not always. That day they had +come—all of them—but it was Bird, Jane Bird, who had been filled with +the glory, who had pursued each lovely line with Gillian, who had from +her own reading, caught gleaming syllables herself and had added them to +the jewelled minutes of that shared excitement. + +And it was out of this glow, this splendour, that the thunderbolt had +fallen! + +The second French Conversation class in the week was held on Friday +afternoon, and for it Gillian, still in the haze of heavenly sounds +which had enclosed her consciousness ever since the Tuesday class, had +brought with her the fat, blue commonplace book, because, after the +flowing of verse she had been constrained to hear the march of prose, +and there were passages copied out there which she must let forth to +fill the channels freshly made in the minds of the girls she taught, and +most of all (she knew this with a deep satisfaction) in Jane Bird’s +mind, by the poetry she had made them all hear. + +All the morning long she had gone about her other duties waiting until +the hour when, in the class-room overlooking the lawn, in the shade of +the great cedar-tree outside, she could take her own class—and oh! most +specially Jane Bird—back into the enchanted country. _Mon âme est un +colombier_, how the molten phrases flowed!—_Presse le pas, ô mon +rêve_—she could hear the quickened breathing, see the flush which burned +her own cheeks flame in the faces before her, as the spirit quickened +within each one of them. + +And it had been almost as good to do as to dream of, this sharing of her +private hoard. As she read the passages aloud, the voice, the level, +grave and beautiful voice of her father reading them to her in the +larch-woods above Sils-Maria, seemed to be leading her own. She could +see his small, fine features, his soft, blue, very clear eyes, his thin +hands, holding the yellow-paper book, the great length of him, six long +feet and more, stretched in the grass, almost on the edge of the rock +above the lake. The breeze seemed to sigh around them again with faint +icy breath from the glaciers behind; and all the light and colour and +love of that last summer before he died gathered and increased in her as +she read, and drove through her, and reached the listening girls. + +When the singing phrases were finished, Gillian looked across the wide +room to Jane Bird sitting erect and motionless at the far end of the +aisle of desks. And Jane Bird’s eyes were welling over with great +glistening tears which ran down her flat, red cheek and fell on the +flat, blue bosom of her home-made frock, unheeded. + +Bird, the arrogant, contemptuous, terrible Bird was crying! Gillian +looked at the roses on her desk with changed eyes. When Bird, following +Gertie Wentworth with her pansies, had laid the three heavy Frau Karl +Droushkys across the pen-tray on the reading-desk as the rest of the +class took their seats, Gillian had hardly been able to thank the girl +for them. Her action had been abrupt, slightly mocking. She suggested +more than so simple a gift need imply. + +“They’re like pale girls with red rims to their eyes,” she’d said, and +Gillian had felt caricatured. But the faint resentment Bird had aroused +was gone now, washed away by those heavy, silent tears. + +And then, suddenly, the whole class had risen to its feet. Mrs. Lysaght +was in the room. How long she had been there Gillian did not know. The +door had been left open because of the heat. + +“Who is the author?” Mrs. Lysaght was flustered, displeased. + +“Théophile Gautier,” said Gillian. “It’s a famous passage from +_Mademoiselle de Maupin_.” + +“Go!” Mrs. Lysaght had dismissed the class, but Gillian had remained +reading the letter the head mistress had thrust into her hand. It was +from the Bishop of Putney whose twin daughters were salient features of +the Upper Fifth and of Gillian’s conversation class. + + MY DEAR MRS. LYSAGHT, + + Doris and Daphne have come home in a great state of enthusiasm + from their French lesson this afternoon, and have somewhat + gravely disturbed their mother by assuring her that the most + beautiful line in French poetry is one taken from Racine’s + _Phèdre_. It runs thus: + + “La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaë.” + + They have been asking me to elucidate the text. While agreeing + with the young lady who has evidently stimulated my daughter’s + appreciation of verbal beauty, may I venture, quite tentatively, + to suggest that it would be wiser in future to seek examples in + the works of Corneille, or if Racine be more fertile in melodious + passages (I am myself a little rusty in these matters), to select + passages from _Esther_ or from _Athalie_ rather than from those + plays which are not usually read in English schools. + + Please do not allow this mild suggestion to assume an unduly + critical weight in your consideration and above all, dear lady, + do not for one moment accuse me of wishing to interfere with the + more than admirable conduct of your own high mission at Pelham + House. + + Yours, always most cordially, + VINCENT PUNCTUS. + +“But,” said Gillian, “Corneille doesn’t——” + +“Out of the question,” said Mrs. Lysaght. She was quivering with passion +and the lace which fell from the wrists of her grey silk-muslin gown +shook about her hands as she gesticulated between each fragment of a +phrase. + +“Gross indecency—corruption—and now Gautier—nothing but his +verse—selections of course—_Perles de la Poésie Française_—in the +Library—I must see what else——” and she took the manuscript book from +the reading-stand. + +“Oh, but Mrs. Lysaght,” protested Gillian, “nobody ever—not even my +mother—it’s quite a private book——” + +“Anatole France—_Le Lys Rouge_—monstrous—Gabriele d’Annunzio—steeped in +vice—Swinburne—Rossetti—The Ballad of Hell—my dear Miss Armstrong—how +mistaken—Hugo von Hofmannsthal—unknown to me—Maeterlinck—_Serres +Chaudes_—but this is nauseating—a contamination—confiscate——” + +“Give me back my book,” said Gillian, “you are not fit to look at it. It +is full of loveliness you’ll never see.” + +“I have been completely deceived in you,” said Mrs. Lysaght, +“completely. This one term of probation will end at the end of this +month. I must ask you to set and correct your own examination papers in +the office—not mix with the school again.” And with this lapse into +lucidity, Mrs. Lysaght trembled out of the room, carrying the Bishop’s +letter reverently folded in her right hand, the left being crammed as +usual with note-book, pencil and a floating supplement of extra +documents which varied in number and intensity with the time of term. + +Mrs. Lysaght’s crash into Gillian’s paradisic hour seemed like a +thunderclap in a sunlit garden. It shattered the peace, but only for a +moment. As she sat on, a little stunned by the force of the anger which +had been spent upon her, the waves of beauty began to creep up once +more—the flood of sound to rise in her ears again, drowning the sense of +disaster which had only partially reached her comprehension through the +violence of its onset. + +Then another presence made itself vehement. Rigid against the panelled +wall at the back of the room Jane Bird sat, black and white, crimson and +royal blue, hardened again behind her convex glasses as though she never +had, never could have wept. + +“Jane, Jane Bird—how did you get there?” + +“I didn’t go.” + +“But—Mrs. Lysaght——” + +“I know. Neither of you saw me. It’s a trick.” + +“Do you mean you’ve been there all the time?” + +“All the time. Yes. It’s been a great help to me. I shan’t be going to +Oxford after all.” + +“Why not?” + +“Well, you won’t be here to coach me in French for one thing. I shan’t +tell you the other.” + +“Oh, very well.” Gillian began to gather her books and flowers together +standing up rather wearily to do so. Jane was beside her, below the +platform, looking up at her with yellow eyes out of the deep lenses of +her spectacles. + +“The matter with you is that you don’t see face values,” said the Chief +Monitor. “You won’t in the least know what this would mean to anyone +else. For you it’ll just be new words I’ve written to an old tune. As +you told me to,” and she placed on the desk a sheet of thin blue paper +on which in her clear, delicate writing, she had set down some verses. + +“Good afternoon, Miss Armstrong,” said Jane Bird, and walked out of the +room. + +Gillian picked up the paper she had left behind her. + + + AN OLD SONG RESUNG—she read— + + If every tree and every flower + And every star of night + Could join their beauties for an hour + To make one pure delight; + + The grace thus formed would cease to be + To nature’s marvel true, + Would lack the mystic unity + For which I worship you. + +“I suppose it’s _Songs of Araby_,” said Gillian, humming the lines +through after a second reading, “and you repeat the last two lines. Not +at all bad, but it isn’t really a lyric,” and she slipped the sheet of +paper into her commonplace book and snapped the clasps upon it. + +Downstairs in the cloak-room she was confronted by Miss Fairfax. + +“Will nothing wake you from your dream?” said she. “I’ve watched you +coming along the gallery and down the stairs, looking as though you’d +been in Heaven.” + +“So I have,” said Gillian, “but I believe I’ve been excommunicated all +the same.” + +“That’s what I mean. Mrs. Lysaght came rushing by as I came out of the +Extra Matriculation Coaching half an hour ago and said something about +the Bishop and the French tongue. What have you been telling the twins?” + +“Only about vowel-sounds,” said Gillian. + +“What? Again? And not lucky this time.” + +Gillian explained. + +“Well, all I can say,” said Miss Fairfax, when the facts were before +her, “is that I wonder, with your genius for missing the real point of a +quotation, all I wonder is that you didn’t administer ‘_Vénus toute +entière à sa proie attachée_’ to the whole class. It’s quite as good in +its way.” + +“No, it’s not,” said Gillian, “it’s all t’s and hissing and it’s like +‘our noisy years seem moments in the being of the eternal silence.’ She +told the school that was the finest line in Wordsworth the other day, +and it’s two lines, and it’s horrid, and she might just as well have +said, ‘though inland far we be’ or ‘old forgotten far-off things’ or ‘I +feel the weight of chance desires.’” And much to Miss Fairfax’s +distress, Gillian sat down on the boot-rack and began to cry. + +“If these tears,” said Miss Fairfax, “are shed for the æsthetic +misdirections of our Head, they are wasted; if they bedew the close of +your own career as an instructress of youth they are silly, because,” +Miss Fairfax sat down beside her young colleague and blew her nose with +decision, “because you have not the kind of outlook which fits you for +the career of instructress.” + +“Don’t say ‘instructress,’ dear, darling Miss Fairfax,” said Gillian, “I +can’t bear it.” + + + IV + +And now she was going home to tell Lilac. She had walked down West Hill +and taken the tram to Clapham Junction so as to go the longest way round +and have the bit across the Bridge before she went in. It would be seven +o’clock before she got to the river, and the tide would be full. Over in +the rose-and-lavender distance the flattened bubble of the Lambeth +gas-vat, like some pearly white moon would be rising from the stuff of +the Earth ready to detach itself to soar up, up, into the highways where +satellites travel the sky. The window-boxes and painted tubs along +Cheyne Walk would make a bright mosaic against the shadow beneath the +sunset, and all the sparrows in the garden in Chancery would be +chirruping over their evening crumbs. And Lilac would be laying the +table for supper and wondering why Gillian was late. Gillian was not at +all sure how Lilac would take the news. + +Lilac took it very well. She had finished laying the table when Gillian +got in and was sewing two enormous mauve satin ribbons on to a white +crinoline hat. + +“I’ve washed them,” she said as Gillian opened the door which led +straight off the top-floor landing into their little sitting-room. “I’ve +washed them in cold water with salt in it, and they’re as good as new. +Sophie does get the best of everything.” + +“Was it one of Sophie’s hats?” asked Gillian. + +“No. I bought the hat myself, but the strings come off that orchid-mauve +frock Sophie gave me at Easter and the rose was in a hat of hers. I’ve +put them all together and they’re exactly like a model I saw in Sloane +Street last week.” + +“Lilac,” said Gillian, “I’ve been excommunicated. Mrs. Lysaght and the +Bishop have turned me out of Pelham House.” + +“The beetles!” said Lilac. “The black beetles!—the cockroaches! And +you’ve worked for them like a steam-engine. Go and get into your white +muslin and we’ll have _all_ the butter with the green peas. I’ve put an +onion and some mint to boil with them as you told me.” + +Friday was the night the Armstrongs cooked their own supper on a Primus. +On other evenings they had what was called the House dinner sent up from +the Club kitchen. + +Over the late strawberries which followed the green peas (not that the +Armstrongs were vegetarians, but you can’t cook meat on a Primus in the +scullery), Lilac pronounced herself on Mrs. Lysaght’s side. + +“It’s a mercy,” said Lilac severely, “that I kept _The Garden of Karma_ +locked up in my side of the wardrobe or you’d have given them ‘Pale +hands I love’ for daily bread.” + +“No, I shouldn’t. It’s slip-slop.” + +“It’s luscious,” said Lilac; “besides, how do you know, when I haven’t +let you read it?” + +“I read it in Brussels last year when I was staying with Henriette,” +said Gillian. “I wouldn’t give it to a railway porter.” + +“Well, a railway porter wouldn’t want a book of poetry,” said Lilac with +that sententious, definitive air which characterized the close of most +of her arguments with her elder sister. + + * * * * * + +That night, long after Gillian had supposed her to be asleep, Lilac +called out in a soft little voice across the room from the bed under the +window: + +“Jilly dear,” she said, “what _are_ you going to do?” + +“Pray,” said Gillian; “it’s the only thing I can do to-night.” + +“I suppose it is,” said Lilac. “I’ll say a threefold Ah-ah-men for you.” + +“Thank you, Laylock. I didn’t know you were awake——” + +“Oh, I just woke up. I suppose you were praying something fierce, and +that always disturbs me.” + +“Sorry,” said Gillian. + +“Granted, Miss Armstrong, I’m sure,” said Lilac. + +And then they both fell asleep. + + + + + CHAPTER TWO. + LILAC + + + I + +On the prospectus it was called _The Mordaunt Club_, but in practice no +one ever thought of saying anything but “The Hen House” when speaking of +the block of unselfcontained flats near the river in which Gillian and +Lilac Armstrong had lived ever since their mother’s death. + +Sir John Mordaunt, its founder, had built it out of the remnants of +Buckingham Palace. This material he had acquired at what a later age has +called bargain prices, from one of the contractors when the Royal +dwelling was finished and there were bricks and mortar and fine-faced +stone to be had for the carting away. Being of the period, the Mordaunt +Club building was rock-like in stolidity and forbidding of aspect. +Framed to shelter poor spinsters of the governing-classes in their +declining years, it consisted of two gaunt five-storied houses, one on +each side of a courtyard graced by one plane-tree and a laburnum. +Kindness without consideration had directed the scheme. The buildings +faced due north and south. There were four flats, or sets of rooms on +each floor into two of which the sun never shone; the other two from +March to October being intolerable unless their occupants were able to +obtain for themselves the sunblinds philanthropy had not provided. The +flats consisted of two small intercommunicating rooms, the outer one +opening on to a common hall out of which, on each floor, two bleak +corridors with coal-bin, oil-tank, sink, cold-water tap and lavatory +(also of the period) served the tenants of the four flats as joint +domestic offices. Two members living together were allowed one extra and +separate room, if they could get it. And the rent, which was small, +included a certain amount of service. + +There was a communal kitchen in the basement of one of the buildings, +from which, twice a day, at one o’clock and at half-past seven, the +roast beef of old England or the boiled mutton of her Antipodean island, +was sent up accompanied by potatoes, boiled, with turnips, carrots or +cabbage according to their season, and followed by milk-pudding, and on +Sundays by apple-pie. These viands, served between two hot plates, were +placed on the table in each sitting-room, whether it were laid for a +meal or spread, as the Armstrongs’ often was, with Gillian’s +school-books or Lilac’s millinery, by small hard-working maids. They +came from Battersea, these servers, and were ruled over by the janitor +Mr. Gordon, and by his wife Mrs. Gordon, who roasted beef and boiled +mutton for the “Ladies” (this was how the basement referred to the +landings) and fried and grilled and souffléed choicer viands for her +husband and the maids to consume at less conventional hours. + +Mr. Gordon was only parts of a man: he had a wooden leg, a glass eye and +one other contrivance of the surgical-instrument maker, the precise +nature and location of which was most decently unrevealed, though its +existence was well known and always spoken of as “Mr. Gordon’s trouble.” +For some time after they came to the Mordaunt Club the Armstrongs had +supposed Mr. Gordon’s trouble to be the one which was always very +troublesome on Saturday evenings and had caused him one night to make an +earnest attempt at locking the courtyard gate with a tablespoon. This +delusion, fostered by the constant references to it in Mrs. Gordon’s +conversation, and by the frequency with which it was cited by the maids +as a complete explanation for their lateness on any occasion, was +dispelled, or rather was thrust further into mystery by Mrs. Gordon +herself. + +“I wonder if you’d mind paying by cheque, miss,” said Mrs. Gordon on her +weekly visit to collect the dinner-money. “If I take it all downstairs +in cash, nothing’ll hold Mr. Gordon. They’ve told him at the Orspittle +that he can have a new spring fitted to his trouble, and he’s that set +on it—you know what men are, miss—that he can’t wait to find out whether +it reely will do any good work or whether it’s just one of them try-ons. +Larst year he had six little buttons put on, instead of the strap. And +believe me, miss, there ’asn’t been a week since when one or other of +them buttons ’asn’t popped off. And he won’t have boot-buttons sewed on +at home instead. Not he. You know what men are, miss. Back to the shop +it must go—and a shillin’ a time unless I can find the button in his +close. So I’ve took to keepin’ the buttons till four’s off at a time. +And wot it’ll be like if he gets a spring put on as well you can guess +for yourself, miss. It’s cost us a pretty penny has Mr. Gordon’s +trouble, miss; not but wot her ladyship didn’t come down very handsome +at first, but Mr. Gordon never was one to let well alone. And he _will_ +read the papers. You know what men are, miss. All them nasty +advertisements putting ideas into his head. So, if you don’t mind, miss, +I’ll take a cheque, and give you all the cash I’ve collected from Number +Six and Number Nine—Eight’s out—and that’ll leave me just enough to do +the shoppin’ meself this morning, and Mr. Gordon won’t be tempted even +if he does get hold of my clean apron.” + +Mrs. Gordon’s clean apron, a highly starched affair, was remarkable for +two pockets, in one of which she kept change, in the other a photograph +of Miss Gordon, Mr. Gordon’s daughter by an earlier and evidently +ill-judged union. Gillian was, from the first, at a loss to account for +the frequency with which Mrs. Gordon, diving for change, would put her +hand in the wrong pocket and withdraw the picture exclaiming: + +“There now! if I haven’t gone and got out Miss Gordon’s photograph +instead of arf a crown. P’r’aps, as I have got it out, you’d like to +look at it, miss. It’s a new one. She brought it in the other day when +she come to see me and Mr. Gordon.” + +And it very often was a new one. Miss Gordon seemed to be able to afford +a great many very new photographs, many of them taken in deep evening +dress, though the first one that had emerged from the housekeeper’s +pocket was a tinted affair on a thick bevelled card and represented Miss +Gordon in tennis clothes, “pure white to her feet” as Mrs. Gordon +pointed out, with racket in hand and balls on the ground, and a +tennis-net faintly sketched in on the blank background. + +“It’s more than her own mother ever saw,” had been Mrs. Gordon’s cryptic +reply to Gillian’s congratulations on the handsome effect produced by +this effigy, “nor deserved to,” she had added as one who could, if +encouraged, expatiate on a rich theme. + +Gillian would have liked to know more, but Lilac had discouraged this +curiosity in her sister as being not only vulgar but idle. + +“For goodness’ sake, Gillian,” she said, “don’t let the woman talk more +than she must. She’ll stay here all day if you listen to her with both +eyes like that.” + +“But I think she’s wonderful,” said Gillian, “and such a rest from Mrs. +Lysaght. She talks about real things and makes them deep and funny.” + +Lilac snorted, “Rather a good description of her apple-pies. The crust +had sunk in deep enough last Sunday and there was a bit of carrot in the +apple when I got to it. Besides, she isn’t here to amuse you—and she +doesn’t amuse me. Go and talk to Mrs. Barraclough if you must be amused +in the Club. She’ll tell you things that are some use and she might get +old Lady Mordaunt to let me sell roses on Alexandra Day.” + +Mrs. Barraclough was the Club treasurer. She lived in the flat at the +top of the kitchen stairs, and every Monday from 4 to 6, she sat at the +receipt of custom. The members—it was understood that they should not be +known as “tenants,” lest the Club lose caste—called on her to gossip, or +left their rent on the first Friday of the month in notes in her +letter-box according to their dispositions, some ladies being far more +delicate over finance than others. So delicate indeed was Miss Parsons +who lived in the flat immediately opposite Lilac and Gillian, that she +always paid her rent anonymously and late at night, stealing down to +slip a sealed envelope into Mrs. Barraclough’s letter-box, after Mr. +Gordon had gone his rounds at ten o’clock, when he put out the +landing-lights and locked the Club up till morning. + +Mrs. Barraclough was the widow of a Yorkshire squire—but Mr. +Barraclough’s passage through her life had been so short and so sudden +that if it had ever mitigated her essential qualities, the change had +long been rectified. She was one of seven Irish daughters, all reckless, +as only the children of a Resident Magistrate in the eighteen-eighties +could be; and, after a youth of hard riding to and after hounds, had +eloped from the hunting-field with Tom Barraclough, and had seen him +drown before her eyes six months later, when their wild, protracted +honeymoon ended in the Aran Islands. + +The child, which was born the following year, was a girl, and her mother +had never forgiven her for it. In consequence of the child’s failure to +be a man she had seen the small estate pass to a cousin, from whom her +tiny jointure had to be wrung year by year by a solicitor whose charges +for obtaining it halved, and in very bad years, quartered the total +which eventually reached the widow’s pocket. + +Mrs. Barraclough’s life had been one long scrimmage and the training +served her well. For none but a woman inured to battle could hope to +keep the semblance of peace and order in such a hornet’s nest as the +Club was framed to become in any of those emergencies to which communal +life is liable. She had obtained the post by nepotism of the frankest +kind. Lilias her daughter had escaped early from the chronic friction of +home, by way of marriage with a naval lieutenant, a grandson of the +Club’s founder; and the present Sir John Mordaunt, a man of affairs and +used to cutting knots, had solved the problem of his daughter-in-law’s +relations with her mother by pulling such strings as were necessary to +get his son appointed to a ship in the China Seas. Having done this he +set Lilias up in a flat in Yokohama and, by himself, appointed Mrs. +Barraclough to the post of Treasurer of the Club. Mrs. Barraclough’s +book-keeping was entirely her own affair, but it was sufficient, and she +was in Debrett. To be in Debrett had originally been the first +qualification for membership of the Mordaunt. Lilac and Gillian were not +there. They had figured in _Who’s Who_ as “_2 daughters_” until Gerald +Armstrong’s death and that was all. But, as Mrs. Barraclough explained +when interviewing them, things had slackened terribly since the War. She +was referring to the Boer War which had filled the two years immediately +following her appointment to the Club. + +“It is now enough to be the widow, or the orphan of any officer,” said +Mrs. Barraclough, “or of a missionary, and I understand that your aunt +was a missionary.” + +Gillian was indignant. + +“Aunt Elizabeth was nothing of the kind,” she protested. “She was +engaged for many years to a celibate clergyman in Rhodesia—who died two +years after their marriage—and neither Lilac nor I is her, or his, +orphan.” + +“That’s what I was just saying,” said Mrs. Barraclough who, being Irish, +always knew what she meant, and knew it most especially clearly when her +hearers were most confused by what she actually said. + +“Wasn’t it because Miss Armstrong was so well known to Mrs. Middleton +that you ever came to hear of the Club yourselves? And she’s a +missionary born and bred, though how she came by such a daughter as +Jessie is one of those things I’d like to ask someone who knows.” + +“Well, anyway,” Gillian insisted, “we’re not missionaries.” + +“No,” said Mrs. Barraclough, “you’re not, neither of you. Though if one +of you was it wouldn’t be that fluffy little sister of yours. I saw her +going out in a frill of muslin yesterday, which had no missionary in its +pedigree.” + +“Lilac won’t ever be a missionary, even though she wants to go to India +more than anything in this world.” + +“Then to India she’ll go,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “Lilac is the kind of +girl that gets what she wants, and sooner than late. But I’ll tell you,” +she went on with one of those sudden changes of theme which made her +conversation so stimulating, “I’ll tell you who is. The new tenant at +44. Miss Victoria Vanderleyden—she’s a missionary.” + +“She sounds much more like an American,” said Gillian. + +“She’s that too,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “American on one side and +missionary on the other—I forget which is which—and a manicurist by +profession.” + +“I thought you said she was a missionary.” + +“By birth, yes. But now that she’s got in on the strength of having been +born in Java or some such outlandish place, I find that she works in one +of those sinks of iniquity in Bond Street where you get your face ironed +out and your finger-nails made to look as though you’d been eating hot +muffins and got melted butter all over ’em. You ring the bell before you +can get in, and you pay a guinea before you can get out, and it mostly +goes in curtains and cushions.” + +“Not a shop?” asked Gillian. + +“No,” Mrs. Barraclough snorted, “a parlour. The Spider and the Fly it +should be called. I went there once to see.” + +“Did you pay a guinea?” asked Gillian. + +“I did not. I rang the bell and asked for a price-list. I might have +dropped an ‘h’ with a crash by the horrors they had. They don’t have a +price-list. It’s called a ‘brochure,’ and it says very little about +prices. It isn’t exactly a shop, but it’s so nearly one that I’d never +have let that young woman in if I’d known about it before she was in. I +must wink at it now.” + +Mrs. Barraclough spent a good deal of time in winking at things which +were not strictly within the order of the Club, but which did not +disturb its peace. It was this capacity to wink with discretion that, +more than anything else in her methods, had established her power over +the members and also over the Committee which loomed behind her +administration. + +“She’s a nice creature to look at and very quiet.” + +“She’s young then?” Gillian was interested. + +“She seems young to me, but she’s not a baby. You two are all I want in +the infant line at present.” + +At one time the Club took no one under forty; but that meant separating +mother from daughters. At first they had excluded widows. That was in +old Sir John’s time. The idea of a man who didn’t provide for his wife +made the philanthropist so angry that he refused to do anything for the +consequences. + +“The Club’s full of widows now,” said Gillian. “There’s the Countess.” + +“There is,” said Mrs. Barraclough, “and it’s about the Countess I’ve got +to talk to you, Miss Armstrong. I’ve had a letter of complaint from +her.” + +“She’s a terrible complainer,” said Gillian. “I suppose it’s her +nationality. Poles do have a greater sensibility to grievances than +other people.” + +“Oh, well, so do the Irish,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “But the Countess +has complained of you.” + +“Of me? But I never do anything but say good-morning, and take in her +parcels if I’m in and she’s out. I don’t share her scullery. She’s on +Miss Parsons’ side.” + +“That is the trouble. She says she’s timed the maids and that it took +Beatrice twice as long to empty your slops last week when your sister +was away as it did Gladys to deal with hers and Miss Parsons’.” + +“Well, so long as it didn’t interfere with Gladys I don’t see that it +matters. Beatrice is on our side and she never complains.” + +“You don’t understand. It’s the principle of the thing. You are getting +twice as much service as she is whoever serves you. She says, in the +postscript, that she cannot avoid the suspicion that you have a hot bath +every morning.” + +“But of course.” + +“That’s what she supposes, she says, ‘as a matter of course.’” + +“What have you said to her?” + +“I’ve written to say that I am speaking to you on the subject, Miss +Armstrong, and I’ve pointed out that the remedy lies in her own hands. +But being a Papist I doubt if she is allowed to bathe at all during +Lent.” + +“Did you put that last bit in your letter?” + +“I did not. I’m warning you that whatever you do, whether it’s washing +yourself as a Christian should, or having tea-parties on Sunday will be +used against you and reported to me—and now you may go, I’ve got to see +Mrs. Middleton about the new fireplace she’s putting into No. 6.” + +“I shall complain about the Countess and her piano,” said Gillian from +the threshold, “and that’ll be cutting off my nose to spite her face, +because she plays gorgeously. It will be a terrible pity, but perhaps it +will all be for the best, because if she thinks I don’t like her playing +she’ll play much more than she does now. I think I shall complain +chiefly about the Debussy and the Folk-Songs and then she’ll be put off +Rachmaninoff and Liszt.” + +“Go away, you chatterbox,” said Mrs. Barraclough, throwing a stone out +of her own glass house with vigour and conviction. + +This conversation had taken place soon after Gillian had made her entry +into the Club, having walked to Chelsea from Wimbledon beside the +greengrocer’s van in which the Armstrong furniture was piled, because +the greengrocer and his boy, who were officiating, had refused to start +unless William’s voice were stilled and their own safety insured. +William was a sulphur-crested cockatoo who could, and did, sing “God +save the King” as far as the syllable “Gra——” and no further, whenever +in his opinion things had gone far enough. He sang very loud and harsh, +and danced as he sang, accompanying himself with crest outspread and +great beating of wings. Having his cage tied on to the top of a +greengrocer’s wagon full of furniture on a cold-hearted day in December, +was one of the things no cockatoo could be expected to encourage, and +William had burst into the National Anthem before he had been actually +roped on as the finishing touch to the already overloaded cart. Several +repetitions of this fragment having collected a crowd, William had grown +emphatic and reaching a loud “Gray” for the sixth time, stayed there +shrieking “Gray—Gray—Gray” and shaking his cage with a furious dance of +protest. So Gillian, who had intended to make the journey by omnibus, +was obliged to go with William who would listen to her and to nobody +else. And William, once he had been persuaded that she was not going to +desert him, folded wings and crest, and cocking his head on one side +kept one bright, round eye fixed on his mistress as she walked on the +pavement beside him and occasionally calling “Puss, Puss” to a passing +horse, arrived at the Club at nightfall and was carried into the little +flat before anyone quite realized his nature. William had fallen into +the category of the things Mrs. Barraclough winked at, partly because +she liked Gillian and also because William had remarked, “Good day—what +weather!” and had offered her his claw to shake when, quite by chance, +she had met him, for the first time, alone on the staircase below the +landing where he lived. William lived out of his cage as much as he +could, and had a passion for visiting those he liked. William was no +respecter of persons. If he liked you he liked you, if he did not there +was no persuading him. He liked Mrs. Barraclough and he adored the +postman, and for the time that was enough. + +It was Mrs. Barraclough who came to the rescue in the matter of what +Lilac called “carving Gillian’s career.” Lilac had £100 a year of her +own, as well as the £50 a year with which she and Gillian were each left +when Mrs. Armstrong’s annuity perished with her. So Lilac stayed at home +and devoted the considerable leisure left her when the domestic +arrangements of life in the Mordaunt Club had been disposed of for the +day, to the management of her toilet and wardrobe, while Gillian went +forth to carve her career with what had so far proved the worst possible +incompetence. Carving a career, as Lilac pointed out, demanded common +sense, and of common sense Gillian had no grasp. + +“You might have known that stuff about Venus was no use in a school,” +said Lilac. “I suppose you think that any word beginning with a ‘v’ is +beautiful because of violet. The _violet_, the _viol_ and the _vine_ and +all that nonsense.” + +“But it wasn’t Venus. I didn’t give them that line. It was the one about +Minos et Pasiphaë,” Gillian protested. + +“It’s the same thing, only worse. I shall ask Mrs. Barraclough if she +knows of any safe job for a mild lunatic who knows three languages and a +lot of poetry.” + +Mrs. Barraclough did not endorse Lilac’s estimate of her sister. + +“Gillian’s all right,” she said, “only a little unprejudiced. I’ll go +and see if old Winona wants another secretary.” + +Old Winona, or Winona Lady Bottomley as she was described on her large +glazed and gilt-edged visiting-cards, was out of a secretary when Mrs. +Barraclough called. Old Winona seldom kept a secretary for more than a +few weeks at a time. They either left of their own accord or were sent +away in a great hurry laden with compensatory gold. Some of them took +prolonged sick-leave, and to these Old Winona was very kind. + +“She’s the second wife and first widow of Bottomley’s Bicycles,” said +Mrs. Barraclough, “and she doesn’t know how rich she is. The lawyers +don’t tell her—they think her reason might give way. But she keeps three +secretaries, one in Belfast and one in London and one to travel up and +down with her, and they’re never the same secretary except the one in +Belfast, who’s a man. The others are girls. Poor things. You’re to go to +see her at twenty minutes past eleven to-morrow morning, and to take a +signed photograph of your father with you.” + +“But I haven’t got one,” said Gillian, “my father never signed a +photograph in his life.” + +“Then take any photograph you’ve got and say it’s your father’s,” said +Mrs. Barraclough, who had no use for purely academic scruples in +business. + +“The only signed photograph she’s got,” said Lilac, “is one of William +Gillette as Sherlock Holmes, and that’s a picture post-card. And it’s so +worn out with being hidden by me when I had good reason for worrying +Gillian that it’s no use for carving and careering. But I’ll lend +Gillian a black hat and my good umbrella and see her to the top of +Sloane Street by 11:15 myself. I’ll watch her across the road and we +must leave the rest to God.” + +“Do I call her ‘Winona Lady,’ as they do Adeline Duchess?” asked +Gillian. + +“No; you don’t know her well enough to make game of her title,” said +Mrs. Barraclough, “and you must be very careful about it. There _is_ a +Lady Bottomley, Toby’s wife, but she’s never mentioned, she’s one of the +Oh No’s.” + +“What are they?” asked Lilac, who knew the importance of social +distinctions and the wisdom of not being too proud to ask questions. + +“It’s poetry,” said Mrs. Barraclough, as one who had very little use for +the article. “‘Oh no, we never mention him, his name is never heard,’ a +famous poem, ‘my lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word.’” + +“I know,” said Gillian. + + “‘From sport to sport they hurry me + To banish my regret + And when they only worry me——’” + +“I don’t think it ends like that,” said Mrs. Barraclough. + +“That was Andrew Lang,” said Gillian, “he didn’t like Haynes Bayley—he +was quite right. He wrote ‘O think not Heleena of leaving us yet,’ when +it might just as well have been ‘O, Helena, think not——’” + +“For William’s sake, my poor idiot, if not for your own and mine, try to +forget about how things sound for the next twenty-four hours. It’s far +more important to find out how things are. I’ve met Toby Bottomley,” +Lilac went on, turning to Mrs. Barraclough, “but I didn’t know he’d a +wife.” + +“She’s not noticeable, I grant you that. Not where Toby is. She’s on the +stage, in America. There was a rumour that Toby was divorcing her, but +Old Winona don’t believe in divorce. Her own two husbands died. And Toby +only gets an allowance while she lives, so I dare say it’s all hanging +fire.” + +Lilac was silent and Gillian noticed that her pretty face sharpened, the +blue eyes narrowing and the soft mouth tightening to a hard, red line +for a moment, as they did when Lilac was planning a move in the very +successful game she was already playing with life. + +Gillian never understood the moves or the game, but she knew that Lilac +played and won, and she was often a little uncomfortable about it. For +Lilac had a way of letting her sister in at some advanced stage in an +affair of the kind and expecting her to co-operate in the dark. A pang +of suspicion thrust itself through her mind. It was Lilac who had gone +to Mrs. Barraclough. Had Lilac a reason for wishing Gillian to work for +Lady Bottomley? But, on the contrary, Lilac was rather annoyed about the +prospect. + +“If I’d known,” said Lilac as soon as the door had closed behind Mrs. +Barraclough. “If I’d had the slightest suspicion that Mrs. Barraclough +knew the Bottomleys, I’d—I’d—well, Gillian, will you _promise_ me not to +tell the old lady that I know Toby?” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “I won’t start off by saying, ‘Oh, dear Lady +Bottomley, my sister knows your son,’ but if she asks me if I’m the Miss +Armstrong her son knows....” + +“She won’t. She doesn’t know.” + +“Lilac,” said Gillian, “what is it?” + +“Oh, it’s quite all right. I met him at Glynde, at Sophie’s birthday +revels, and he’s generally at Eaton Square on Sundays. Sophie knows all +about it. It was Toby who gave that dinner at the Savoy last week.” + +“I thought it was Stephen and Sophie’s party. That was why I wondered +why they didn’t ask me.” + +“Well, it wasn’t. It was Toby’s. Stephen and Sophie were asked—and +me—and we went to _Kismet_ after dinner. In a box. There wouldn’t have +been room for you.” + +“Oh, well, I’m glad it was Toby’s party. There isn’t nearly so much iron +in my soul now that I know,” said Gillian, “and if Lady Bottomley +doesn’t know about you she can’t suspect me of being your sister. +Besides, it may not come to anything.” + +“No, p’r’aps it mayn’t,” said Lilac, “and, I forgot to tell you, I had a +letter from Sophie this morning. They’re going to Glynde after Ascot, +and they’ve asked me to go, and you. They’ll have a Goodwood Party, but +you needn’t go to the races.” + +“If I become that old lady’s third secretary,” said Gillian, “I shan’t +be able to go to Glynde at all, except perhaps for a week-end. I’ll +write to Sophie myself.” + +“Oh, all right,” said Lilac; but she was not pleased. + +Sophie Glynde had originally been Gillian’s friend. She was German on +her father’s side and had been at a school in Lausanne where Gillian had +spent six months of her sixteenth year. Her English mother was a Glynde, +and Sophie, who was startlingly pretty, had married her second cousin +Stephen almost at sight the summer she came to England. She would, if +Stephen’s elder brother went on being a bachelor until he died of +riotous living, be the Mistress of Glynde Regis one day. + +Sophie had been very kind to the Armstrongs. But gradually her butterfly +affections had settled on the younger sister who, not being under the +pressing necessity of carving a career, was able to put herself more +unreservedly at Mrs. Glynde’s disposition on those frequent occasions +when that lovely being, who had a horror of solitude, was deprived of +the solace of her husband’s company. Sophie was now Lilac’s friend. And +Lilac, who took the same size in shoes, gloves and garments as Sophie +did, inherited all the clothes of which Sophie grew tired before they +were reduced to the condition in which they automatically passed into +her maid’s possession. Lilac, who had a genius for dress, spent +laborious days in achieving the raiment for triumphant nights from this +spoil, and no one but Gillian, who pinned her into the never quite +securely finished results, knew how precariously the lace from one gown, +the satin from another, were held together to form a third more +wonderful than either in its outward and dazzling effect. + +Lilac, naturally, met a great many people at the Glyndes’ of whom +Gillian had no knowledge, or whose names she knew without importance; +but Lilac’s reserve about this one person, this Toby Bottomley, was +unusual and significant. Lilac, clearly, would prefer that Gillian +should not become Toby’s mother’s secretary. + +But Lilac was to be disappointed. + +She fulfilled her promise, lent Gillian the black hat, completed the +loan with a pair of grey suède gloves and took her to the top of Sloane +Street the following morning. Her last words as she pushed her sister +off the island were: + +“For Heaven’s sake, remember you’ve never heard of me.” + + + II + +Number 99 Knightsbridge was a conspicuous house. It rose a full story +higher than its neighbours and spread a whole window wider than any +other private dwelling from the Hyde Park Hotel to the Guards’ Barracks. +You could see it half-way down Sloane Street, thrusting its crammed and +costly window-boxes into the dimness of the London colour scheme. Each +of the fifteen front window-frames had had the Georgian sashed panes +removed and was now filled with a sheet of plate glass, bevelled into an +ebony frame and veiled inside with curtains of the richest lace; each of +the rust-brown bricks of which it was built was now surrounded with the +best mortar, so white that Gillian felt it must be enamelled. The +wrought-iron balconies which hung across the first and second floors +were painted black and enhanced by a gilded boss wherever the pattern +made it possible to apply one, and the tall black railings which fenced +the ground floor from the street had their tips gilded to match the +balconies. In the midst of them the decoration of an ornate gardendoor +twisted and whirled around what was evidently a bicycle-wheel with a +golden tyre, the hub of which was formed of the letters W. M. in +monogram. Gillian had often rejoiced in the opulent charm of this +exterior without supposing that the dwelling behind it would ever admit +so plain a worm as herself to tremble at its more intimate +magnificences. Now, as she pressed the amethystine button of the +bell-push at the gate she felt like a goose-girl in a fairy-tale at the +moment when she comes to the magician’s cave. It was rather a shock to +find the door opened by a perfectly plain butler; a tall, grave, +clean-shaven man who received her with a melancholy kindness which +belonged to more anciently established, less insistently plutocratic +surroundings. The pathway from the street to the house-door was flagged +with porphyry and malachite under a glass roof supported on pillars up +which crimson-ramblers, their roots in huge porcelain vases, were +twined. Baskets of scented geraniums hung at intervals from the arches +of this processional way, and tubs of blue and pink hydrangeas stood in +the garden spaces on either side of the path. The hall into which she +followed the butler up a flight of three marble steps, occupied the +whole floor and was lit by two tall windows on the street side, and by +glass doors opening on to the long garden which led down to the Park. It +was full of very brightly burnished suits of armour each embowered in a +separate grove of palm and fern. In the midst of these, enormous pink +begonias trained round sticks in a barrel-shaped design, occupied the +four corners of a sunken fountain which was playing above the rather +agitated home-life of several corpulent goldfish. At each corner of the +staircase there were life-size figures representing Nubian slaves (boy +and girl alternating) in coloured raiment bearing trays in either hand. +On one tray stood a vase of flowers, on the other a lamp. The cumulative +effect of passing three of these chromatic statues after a glimpse of +the suits of armour below, had stunned Gillian a little and, by the time +the drawing-room door closed upon the butler, leaving her alone with its +amazing splendours, she had ceased to be keenly receptive. + +But the drawing-room was worthy of the keenest appreciation. Like the +hall it covered the whole floor. It had three windows looking on to +Knightsbridge, and three on to the Park. Its walls were panelled in +hand-cut velvet brocade, electric-blue on a mauve background: each of +the two fireplaces was enriched by an overmantel, all-white balustrades +and mirrors, supporting or reflecting innumerable shelves and brackets, +no shelf without its flower-vase, no bracket without its statuette. +Between the windows were more mirrors, framed in Dresden china frames +from which candle-holders curved out like pink and gilded horns and bore +not candles but china imitations carrying electric lights and silken +shades which mirrored themselves again in the glass. The room was full +of electric-light bulbs. From the heavily moulded ceiling mauve and blue +ribbons hung in slings and from each sling a gilded Cupid stretched down +a torch-filled hand, and in each torch a bulb. This amorous army of +illumination circled round a very beautiful Venetian glass chandelier +which, with the Aubusson carpet that spread its blue medallion and faint +roses over the parquet-floor, seemed to indicate another mind feebly at +work under the overmastering influence which had clearly directed the +main ornamentation of the house. + +There was one book in the room: _The Golden Treasury_, bound in blue +leather, with a wreath of purple violets encircling the name “Winona” +tooled on the cover. On the top of the grand piano, a Broadwood in a +painted case, there stood an army of photographs each in a silver frame. +Most of these photographs were of the same person. These were all signed +“Winona” in a flowing hand and showed the signer in various forms of +evening dress from full panoply of Court train, veil and feathers, to a +relatively simple gown of what was probably black velvet enhanced by +ropes of pearls. Here and there the series was broken by portraits +signed “Reginald”; but Gillian could not discern a “Toby” among them. + +As she waited and wondered if the personality of their owner were veiled +or revealed by all these effigies, the door opened and the butler +reappeared carrying a silver tray covered with an embroidered +tray-cloth. + +“Her ladyship wishes you to take a glass of milk, miss,” he said, +depositing his burden on an inlaid table, “and will be with you +presently.” + +There certainly was a glass of milk, an engraved glass in a silver +holder, on the tray before her, but it took Gillian some time to locate +it among the dishes of fruit, sandwiches and cake with which it was +surrounded. Winona, Lady Bottomley, was evidently kind to others as well +as lavish to herself, though Gillian, who had not been brought up to eat +between meals and was also a little nervous that morning, could not obey +the command to drink. She was counting the layers of marzipan that +separated the rich substance of an iced cake out of which one wedge had +been hewn in evident consideration of her need when the door opened once +more and Lady Bottomley stood revealed. + +“Good morning, Miss Macfarlane, pray be seated,” she said in a measured +and stately voice as she seated herself in the exact centre of a +slippery and magnificent settee. + +Gillian, a little surprised at the form of address, managed to control +herself from correcting it by the thought that it would be time enough +to do so if and when it turned out that she was to take up any duties +for the lady. + +There was a pause. Gillian tried not to stare too hard at the marvellous +auburn wig, the Roman nose, the small dim eyes, the imposing figure, the +ringed hands folded over the plush of a lace-flounced gown which +presented themselves to her consideration for some time before the +spirit which informed them spoke again. When the silence was broken it +was with another surprise. + +“My daughter-in-law, the future Marchioness of Fulham, has spoken to me +of you,” said Lady Bottomley. “She assures me that, happily, most +happily, you do not possess any shorthand.” + +Gillian, to whom the very existence of any such person as the future +Marchioness of Fulham had, until that moment, been unknown, and who was, +moreover, bewildered by the receding phantom of that “Toby” on whose +account she was to conceal her own relationship to Lilac, murmured that +unfortunately she did not practice shorthand. + +“Fortunately, Miss Macfarlane,” said Lady Bottomley, growing more +imposing with each syllable, “I consider that a knowledge of shorthand +renders its possessor unfit for the post of secretary to a lady of +title. I shall require you to take all my letters down in your own +handwriting, and to copy them out in an imitation of mine.” + +“Won’t that be like forgery?” asked Gillian, forgetting her nervousness +in the novelty of the demand. + +“No,” said Lady Bottomley with slow decision, “it will not. It must be a +poor imitation of my handwriting, and I shall sign the letter myself. +The quotations from _The Times_ and _The Guardian_ with which I enliven +my letters to those Abroad, you will add in your own handwriting; but I +like my own remarks to appear in a style which will not clash with my +signature.” + +Gillian remembered Mrs. Barraclough’s admission that old Winona seldom +had the same secretary for many weeks at a time, and wondered whether a +tendency in handwriting to clash with the august signature were +responsible for the failure of the relationship, or if other and even +more probable reasons were to be revealed. + +“You will also,” went on the lady, “you will also prepare lists of +suitable concerts which on those afternoons when I am not accompanied by +my daughter-in-law or my son Sir Reginald, the third baronet, you will +attend with me. Concerts of classical music.” + +“And matinées?” said Gillian hopefully. This part of her duties sounded +easier than imitation scripture. + +“No matinées,” said Lady Bottomley, “only bazaars. I disapprove of the +stage.” + +“Not even charity matinées?” said Gillian. + +“Only those acted by amateurs in Halls. I do not ever go inside a +theatre. When the cause is good I buy tickets and give them to others.” + +“Oh,” said Gillian, and wondered if she and Lilac would ever be counted +as others. + +“How old are you?” Lady Bottomley was forsaking instruction for inquiry. + +“Twenty-three—that is I shall be twenty-four next birthday.” + +“And when is that?” + +“In April,” said Gillian, conscious that this was only July. + +“That’s very young. Still it may mean that you will prove more docile +than those of riper years.” + +Gillian hoped she was docile. + +“We shall see. But if you come to me I must stipulate that you do not +marry.” + +“Never?” + +“Not for three years. My last two secretaries—no, my last three,” Lady +Bottomley checked them off on her fingers, “all married within a few +months of joining my circle. I am now engaging only such as will take a +vow not to marry for three years.” + +“But suppose I left you—or you sent me away for some other reason?” +Gillian ventured. + +“In that case you would be free to marry. Not otherwise. Have you any +intention of marrying?” + +“Well,” said Gillian with complete candour, “I’ve no intention of _not_ +marrying, but I don’t suppose I shall marry for a long time. I don’t +feel old enough yet.” + +“You are quite old enough to marry,” said old Winona visibly annoyed, +“twenty-four is amply old enough. I was married at twenty for the first +time. Have you anybody in particular in view?” + +“To marry? Oh, no. They all want to marry Lilac, not me?” + +“And who is Lilac?” + +Gillian felt the hot blood creep up her neck, over her chin, into her +face and fill her eyes with tears. This was exactly what Lilac had +forbidden her to do. + +“Oh, just a sister of mine,” said she, trying to make as light of the +matter as possible. + +To Gillian’s relief Miss Macfarlane’s sister was a person to whose +identity Lady Bottomley attached no significance whatever, and, after a +few more questions, they passed on to a mutual exhibition of +handwriting, and an attempt on Gillian’s part at that not too faithful +reproduction of the Bottomley script on which so much depended. Greatly +to her own surprise she was able, by the simple device of using a broad +J nib, to write a hand with which the signature “Winona Caroline +Bottomley” did not clash, and before long she was walking down Sloane +Street, a little unsteady in the knees, but with an odd new steadiness +in her mind. Lady Bottomley had engaged her at what seemed to Gillian a +fabulous salary, and unusual though the conditions of her new employment +appeared to be, she had a premonitory feeling of security in them quite +unlike the apprehensions which had filled her after her first interview +with Mrs. Lysaght. Eccentricity was to Gerald Armstrong’s daughter far +less terrifying than regulated convention. + +Not until she was opposite Cadogan Gardens did it occur to her that she +had been engaged as Miss Macfarlane, a friend of the future Marchioness +of Fulham: whereas, now that the gate of No. 99 Knightsbridge was closed +behind her, she realized how completely she was nothing of more +consequence than Gillian Armstrong, a tenant of the Mordaunt Club, on +whom its secretary, plain Mrs. Barraclough, had taken pity. + +It was possible that even now Miss Macfarlane, bearing a coroneted +introduction, was pressing the amethyst button of the electric bell, and +that she, Gillian, would in a few moments be convicted of fraud and +disgraced in a way which would annoy Lilac quite dreadfully. Should she +go back and confess to old Winona, or forward and confess to Mrs. +Barraclough. Both confessions would have to be made with as little delay +as possible. But, seeing that by this time she was nearer home and Mrs. +Barraclough than she was to Knightsbridge, Gillian, who usually took the +more difficult alternative from a sense of self-discipline, hurried on +and walked straight across the courtyard and knocked at Mrs. +Barraclough’s door before going up to face Lilac in their own flat. + +“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said Mrs. Barraclough. She was eating her +luncheon with the _Morning Post_ propped up against a large +Sheffield-plate cruet-stand which gave to the whole of her small and +rather austerely furnished room that sense of having a storied past +behind it which was so lacking in the Armstrongs’ flat. + +“It was Winnie Roehampton who told me that her late mother-in-law was +out of secretaries again. She married Roehampton after she’d killed Jim +Bottomley. He was her first husband and she made him hunt before he +could ride. She’d always wanted Roehampton, but she couldn’t afford him, +so she took Jim Bottomley first and married the other, six weeks after +the accident, on her jointure.” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “if she’s that kind of person I shouldn’t think +Lady Bottomley would engage a secretary who came through her.” + +“No, you wouldn’t, but Winnie’s a sensible girl. Her heart’s always in +the rich place,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “She’s always kept friends with +old Winona who’d never really cared for Jim. He was only her stepson, +and she was delighted that her Toby could have it all. And when Winnie +married into the peerage, well—wait and see. You’ll understand soon +enough.” + +“Well, but what about Miss Macfarlane?” + +“That’s you, Miss Armstrong. All her secretaries are Macfarlanes. She’s +very obstinate about names. Winnie Roehampton says she always calls Hyde +Park Corner the Marble Arch.” + +“Goodness,” said Gillian. “Doesn’t it make it very difficult to know +what she means?” + +“I dare say it does,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “But you may get used to +it.” + +“And is ‘Toby’ the third baronet Sir Reginald?” + +“He is,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “Old Bottomley was the first, poor Jim +was the second and Toby is the third—all in ten years. Old Bottomley was +one of the Coronation honours. He did something very handsome for +Belfast Harbour. You’ll hear all about that, too.” + +“Then you really think I am quite honestly engaged?” + +“Quite honestly,” said Mrs. Barraclough, “and I shouldn’t be at all +surprised if you kept the job. Anyhow you have my blessing and I’ll tell +Winnie Roehampton to tell her late mother-in-law you’re a treasure.” + +Gillian left Mrs. Barraclough comforted and relieved. Odd though it all +sounded, it was not a terrifying oddness. Winona, Lady Bottomley, was +more like the first chapter in a new book than a problem of existence. +You felt there were answers to all her sums. You were astonished at, not +dismayed by her; and Gillian enjoyed astonishment. + +“Lilac,” she called, bursting into the outer of the two rooms they used +as living-rooms. + +But the little room was empty. The black Cromwellian table that stood +under the window was not laid for luncheon, and William had unfastened +the latch of his cage and, perched on the back of one of the three +chairs they had bought at Heal’s to match the table, was thoughtfully +manicuring his claw with his beak. + +“Hillo!” said William. “Kiss cocky! Kiss cocky!” + +“Lilac! Lilac!” called Gillian and went through the door into the inner +room which was lined with bookcases and furnished with an enormous +red-leather chesterfield, Sophie’s gift to the young flat-holders, and +so huge that there was hardly space for another seat in the room. + +But Lilac was not in the book-room, nor in the larger single room on the +north side of the building looking into Gwynne Street which they used as +a bedroom. Lilac had evidently gone on to some occasion of her own when +she left Gillian at the top of Sloane Street, which was like Lilac, who +had many private affairs to attend to though she usually kept Saturday +morning free for flat-keeping and was in to lunch. And this was Saturday +morning or Gillian would not have been free to go looking for work as +she had done. Gillian, in solitary disgrace, was still correcting the +July examination papers in the mistresses’ room at Pelham House all the +other days of the week. + +So Gillian took off her hat and washed her hands and went and ate bread +and cheese and lettuce with William and read _The Song of Honour_ in a +little yellow-paper book with a rather smudgy woodcut on its cover which +she had bought at the Poetry Bookshop the Saturday before. William, who +adored crusts with butter, sat on one claw on the back of her chair and +held the crusts she gave him in the other, occasionally dropping one +while he stood on both feet in order to stretch a long neck to turn over +a page for Gillian. He didn’t tear the page, but he often turned it +before Gillian was quite ready, and she had to turn back while William +was climbing down to pick up his crust from the floor. She did it as +quietly as possible in order not to hurt his feelings. William was +really tiresome when his feelings were hurt. He would chatter and scream +and flap his wings and require whole-hearted, undivided attention for +quite five minutes if he felt neglected or snubbed, and Gillian had to +be very careful because the Countess had already complained of the noise +he made. + +It was three o’clock when Lilac came in. She was flushed, but it was +with excitement quite as much as with heat. + +“Have you got the job?” she asked from the doorway. Gillian felt she +dared not have answered “No.” + +“Yes. I think so, though she wants someone at once,” she replied, +wondering why Lilac’s eyes were so blue and her hair so curly at the +sleepiest hour of the whole week. + +“That’s all right. You can go to her on Monday,” said Lilac, taking off +her hat and pushing the damp curls from her forehead with the third +finger of her left hand. “I’ve fixed it all up with Mrs. Lysaght.” + +“Lilac!” + +“Yes. I have. I took the Putney bus and I called on her.” + +“Goodness!” said Gillian. + +“And gracious!” said Lilac, “I do wish, dear Gillian, you would not +swear so blasphemously.” + +“All right then. Damn!” said Gillian, “but hurry up.” + +“Yes, I did. I called at _Mon Repos_. What a woman! Does she always +screw that little gold pencil in and out?” + +“Always!” said Gillian, “particularly when she’s angry. Was she angry +with you?” + +“Oh, very.” Lilac sat on the table and swung her buckled shoes up and +down in the sunlight that came through under the green rush sunblinds. +“At first. But it’s all right. You’re to correct those abominable +children’s papers at home till the end of the term, and she’ll pay you +your full salary. A person, you really couldn’t call her a girl, called +Jane Bird, who lives on the other side of the Albert Bridge, will +collect and deliver them day by day.” + +“Bird,” said Gillian. “How on earth——” + +“She came here, while you were at school on Tuesday,” said Lilac, her +eyes hard and her mouth narrow. “After what she said I arranged what I’d +say.” + +“What did she say?” + +“She said—she stood in the doorway—she’s a great creature, Gillian—she +said, ‘Your sister is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. She’s no +good to Madame Bowdler.’ I asked her who Madame Bowdler was and she said +that was Mrs. Lysaght’s spiritual title, and then she told me that the +whole school was boiling over about your being in disgrace. You never +told me that they sent up your lunch and tea.” + +“And it’s been Irish stew with the chill off all this week,” said +Gillian. “I didn’t tell you because it is all so horrid I’d rather not +talk about it.” + +“_I_ talked about it,” said Lilac. “I felt I must play a father’s part.” + +“But, Lilac, suppose Lady Bottomley hadn’t wanted me?” + +“You’d have had to find someone who did,” said Lilac. “You’d have had to +do that in any case. I was determined you shouldn’t go back there any +more. I told her you weren’t safe to associate with ordinary people +because of the unfortunate purity of your mind. I admitted,” Lilac +paused ruefully, “I admitted that it was a disadvantage, especially in +school-work. I very nearly said that I supposed no head mistress could +hope to see God.” + +“Oh, Lilac, you didn’t!” + +“No—only nearly. It was a thing I thought of saying. Jane Bird said it +to me.” + +“How did she find you?” + +“She asked Miss Fairfax if you had any family, and Miss Fairfax told her +there was a sister. She said she hadn’t supposed that anyone so +wide-eyed as you could possibly be anything but the youngest of a +family. I told her that to all intents and purposes you were.” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “nobody who saw you would suppose I was younger +than you.” + +“Not until they knew us,” said Lilac darkly. + + * * * * * + +So Gillian wrote to Lady Bottomley to say that she could begin work for +her on Monday, and the sisters went out to post the letter in time to be +delivered at 99 Knightsbridge that evening, and then walked along the +Embankment to Chelsea Bridge and back by Battersea Park, and Gillian +confessed to Lilac that she had told about her after all. + +“Did she take any notice?” asked Lilac. + +“Not the slightest.” + +“It’s all right then, for the present,” said Lilac. “It’s really Toby I +mind. And he mayn’t find out just yet. Did you see him?” + +“No,” said Gillian, “only his photograph and that was called Reginald.” + +“Yes,” said Lilac. “I know. Isn’t it a pity?” + + + III + +“Will you,” said Lady Bottomley with majesty, “take down the following +letter: + +“Winona, Lady Bottomley presents her compliments to Mrs. Archibald +Anstruther, and regrets that she cannot become a subscriber to the +Society for the Prevention of Photographing Private Persons in the Park +as she is already so fully occupied in signing cheques for the Societies +to which she belongs ... no, take out ‘already’ and put in ‘lately’ ... +to which she already belongs, that she cannot take the exercise +prescribed for her by her physician. They all tell me I ought to walk +for at least one hour a day before luncheon and for half an hour after +tea.” + +“Does that last bit go in the letter?” asked Gillian. + +“Surely, Miss Macfarlane,” said Lady Bottomley with a bitter smile, “you +must have noticed that the letter ended with the closure of the third +person.” + +“Shall I write that one in my own writing or in yours?” asked Gillian. + +“Third-person letters go in your own hand. It marks the distinction more +clearly,” pronounced the lady. + +They were seated in the boudoir, an upholstered chamber overlooking the +Park. In spite of the heat of a mid-July forenoon the French windows +were closed and curtained as precaution against draughts, which, as Lady +Bottomley explained, “not only give me a cold in the head, but blow down +my precious photographs.” + +The precious photographs stood in ranks on slippery tables in front of +the window and, in every variety of frame, clambered over the walls and +up every tier of the ornate overmantel. Some of them were of people and +were signed. Others were of places and were dated: none was without an +inscription. One or two had little memorial wreaths affixed to their +frames, and on a table placed before a life-size portrait in oils of the +first baronet dressed for his first levee, stood an array of silver +vases in which it was one of Gillian’s duties to arrange fresh flowers +every morning. On her second day she had suggested filling a pair of +very fine branched candlesticks which were doing nothing in the library +where she sat when imitating her employer’s handwriting after lunch, and +lighting candles to burn among the flowers. + +“It would be lovely to have them of different colours. I know where you +can get green and red candles,” she urged. + +“A very Popish notion,” said old Winona. “I beg, Miss Macfarlane, that +you will not speak of it again.” + +But she was not angry with Gillian, and she was pleased that the girl +had noticed how fine the candlesticks were. + +“Museum-pieces,” Gillian had called them, and Lady Bottomley adopted the +phrase and applied it indiscriminately to many of her treasures which +Gillian herself would have catalogued as pure Waring and Gillow, or +early _train-de-luxe_. + +Gillian had grown accustomed to the daily shock of leaving the +colour-washed little flat in the Club with its open windows, plain +curtains and rush-seated wooden chairs for the fringed and patterned +seclusion of Knightsbridge, and had lost the inclination to giggle at +each fresh revelation of what unbridled wealth could do in the way of +making a house uninhabitable, before there was any sign that the third +baronet lived there himself. + +One morning, however, she had nearly lost her self-control on +discovering that Lady Bottomley’s dressing-room was enriched by a bath +which was silver-plated and covered in by a padded lid of bright +rose-coloured velvet, buttoned with porcelain upholstery buttons, each +bearing the Bottomley crest in the proper heraldic colours with the +baronet’s hand very bloody and the Saracen’s eye looking, with its +spoked lashes quite like a bicycle-wheel, very blue, painted in the +centre. + +“By hand, miss,” as Dashwood, Lady Bottomley’s obsequious and alarmingly +golden-haired maid had insisted when asking Gillian to wait in the +presence of this luxury while she ascertained whether her ladyship, who +was keeping out of draughts in bed that morning, were quite ready to +deal with her letters. + +One of these letters was a post-card dated “Newmarket, Tuesday,” and +signed “Toby.” “Can you put up me and Stephen for Sandown?” it asked. + +“Now,” said Gillian, as she read this missive and realized that Stephen +Glynde might come upon her any day, “I can’t possibly pretend to Stephen +that he doesn’t know his own bridesmaid. I do hope Lilac will be equal +to the crisis.” + +Lady Bottomley, who thought she might have caught cold while driving +round Regent’s Park at Gillian’s instigation at six o’clock the previous +evening, took an extra dose of ammoniated quinine and decided that at +any risk she must entertain her son’s friend. + +“We must send telegrams,” she pronounced as soon as she had realized the +import of her son’s request, “one to Sir Reginald Bottomley, Bart., +Newmarket. That is sufficient address; the other to the Honourable +Stephen Glynde, who is, I presume, at Newmarket with my son.” + +Gillian, who remembered that Sophie was at Glynde and had been there +since Ascot because the Eaton Square house was closed, bit the +information off the tip of her tongue and took down in her own writing +two long, delighted telegrams, one signed “Mother” and the other signed +“Winona Bottomley” and copied them out in her imitation of their +author’s writing without question, feeling that this attention was due +to the family and its friends. + +Lilac was down at Glynde, so there was no need to disturb her with news +which Sophie, who was extraordinarily uninformed of her husband’s +movements for a quite reasonably happy wife, might very well not be able +to pass on to her. + +Gillian was bidden to stay on and dine at Knightsbridge in order to help +Lady Bottomley through the unwonted labour of choosing which of the two +elaborate spare rooms should be filled with flowers and writing-paper +and sticks of scented sealing-wax, and have bath-salts and shaving-soap +disposed in its polished bathroom by the train of rubber-tyred +housemaids who, shepherded by kind and melancholy Atkinson, trooped into +the boudoir to receive her detailed instructions. + +It was extraordinary, thought Gillian, as she walked down Sloane Street +and past the Guards’ Barracks to the Embankment in the moonlight, +extraordinary and rather pathetic that this very kind and cumbered lady +should not have troops of friends on whom to lavish the overflow of her +incredible riches. She was, as her name suggested, Canadian by birth, +and her family had long since faded out of communication with their +relative who had married the first baronet in the days of his +experimental and impecunious youth. Some of the wonderful letters +Gillian was employed to transcribe, often from pencilled notes made in +her absence, were to cousins in Montreal. These were only sent when some +reference to the house of Bottomley appeared in the Press. Gillian had +to go through the post for Press-cuttings very carefully every morning. +On the days when any came in, Atkinson took a cab and went forth to buy +twenty copies of every paper in which they occurred. After the orgies of +the Bottomley Orphanage Bazaar at which Lady Bottomley had been +photographed in the very act of receiving the Royal Princess who had +opened it, the cab bearing the papers in which the picture appeared was +so crammed that Atkinson had been obliged to come back sitting with the +driver all the way from Fleet Street to Knightsbridge. + +Gillian had enjoyed that day. Two cuttings of each notice, two cuttings +of every photograph (several versions had escaped into print) had to be +made and pasted into the two great leather-bound Press-cutting albums in +which the records of twenty years were garnered. The first baronet had +kept one for his own reading and another for his wife’s, and the +practice was continued in piety by his widow. + +“I shall of course,” she had told Gillian with an even more than usually +majestic intonation, “I shall of course make over the late Sir John’s +volume to his grandchildren when they come of age.” + +“I didn’t know he had any,” Gillian had spoken in the haste of surprise. + +“Not yet, Miss Armstrong.” Lady Bottomley had begun to make use of the +right name from time to time, though still reverting to Macfarlane, +especially in the early morning. + +And, then, when the cuttings had been pasted down, the crested +address-book was opened, and its scantily filled pages were gone through +until everybody named in it had been honoured with a copy of all the +papers duly marked in red with “See Page 7.” Gillian addressed the +wrappers in her own or her imitation writing according to old Winona’s +direction, and Atkinson bore them away and applied and gummed them down +to their contents in his pantry. It was all very ritualistic and unreal, +but Gillian enjoyed it. + +“I suppose,” she went on, as she leaned over the parapet and watched the +river flowing at low tide towards Lambeth with a silver, moonlit edge on +the curve of each black ripple, “I suppose that’s why she’s so lonely. +Real people couldn’t bear to be near her and she couldn’t bear it +either. I can, because it keeps you far enough away from anyone to be +paid by them. It doesn’t matter if I do laugh at her a little so long as +I earn my wages. But you’d burst if you tried to be her friend.” + +She let her mind float away along the river till it took her to another +summer night, six years ago, when she had watched another tide swim by +under the same moon. Then she had been with her father at Altona on that +sudden, miraculous journey he had taken, retracing some adventure of his +youth, just before he set out for Burma and his death. + +The broad waters of the Elbe, brackish with the sea that moved within +them, and spangled with the lights of travelling ships, had carried his +memory back to a time in which she, who had been his friend ever since +she could remember, had no slightest share. He had spoken to her as to a +new-made friend, of a climax in his life to which no memory of hers +could even dimly reach. + +“It was all over, the man to whom it happened was dead in me long before +you were born, before even I so much as knew of your mother’s existence. +The house behind the chestnut-tree in that lithograph we bought this +morning might be the house I left twenty years back, Gillian. Sun on the +yellow walls; closed white shutters, a flight of stone steps going up to +a glass door, and inside—Illusion. And I sat under the shadow of that +tree and looked up through the thick leaves and saw the tall spikes of +chestnut-blossom flaming like white wax candles in the heat, and it was +all no good. All that stillness and beauty were empty. I had come to the +end of my own deception. All the time I had known. All the time I had +heard the voice within saying, ‘This is not real. You are playing false +with yourself. Take it if you must, but do not try to pay for it because +you have not the coin in which such things are trafficked.’ And I had +tried to coin their coinage, because I had to pay; and I couldn’t go on. +I can’t tell you what it was. You need never know. I mean, child, it is +not necessary to salvation for a girl to know all things. ‘Its shadow +upon life enough for thee’—you remember Andromeda. But you’ll be safe so +long as you remember to wait until the inner voice agrees _after_ you’ve +tried. It’s no use hesitating before the Unknown. You must try for +yourself, but you must not go along a road you know is not your road +just because you’ve tried it. You must be able to turn back. You must be +able to say, ‘This road is closed.’ Don’t pay tolls at the wrong bar +twice. One day you’ll need all you’ve got. You’re the kind that pays for +everything, overpays always, but I’ve taught you to look for the lasting +values, and you’ll not pay for fakes without knowing what you’re about. +It’s the people who bank on fakes who leave their souls in Hell. Lilac +will pay for fakes in her time. But she’ll pay because she wants them, +and she won’t pay a penny more than they’re worth. It’s you, Gillian, +who may make bad bargains. Remember that, and wait till you’ve said, + + “Das unbeschreibliche. + Hier ist’s gethan,” + +before you go bankrupt.” + +And then they had gone to supper with Hans Adler the painter, and had +laughed and eaten and sung the Mörike-lieder till they cried, and had +eaten again, and drunk extremely sweet and extremely luscious things, +some iced and some buttered, and had had an utterly ridiculous, truly +Germanic time. + + + IV + +Lilac had come back from Glynde. + +She stood in the open doorway of the bedroom as Gillian came up the +stairs. Mr. Gordon had put out the landing-lights and Gillian had only +just managed to get in before he locked the courtyard gates for the +night. + +“How late you are,” said Lilac. + +She was in her nightgown, and her pretty hair was sticking out all round +her head in a honey-coloured halo, as it did before she had brushed it +and tied it into lilac ribbons at night. + +“Goodness,” said Gillian. “Have you had dinner?” + +“Bother dinner,” said Lilac. “I’ve had two eggs and all the milk. Where +have you been till this hour?” + +“At 99,” said Gillian, “getting ready for Stephen. He’s going to be +there for the night.” + +“I know,” said Lilac, “with Toby.” + +Gillian put her arm round Lilac and drew her inside the room. “Lilac,” +she said, “are you in love with Toby?” + +“Yes,” said Lilac, “isn’t it damnable?” + + * * * * * + +They lay awake talking until dawn. Lilac didn’t know how Toby really +felt. She had known there was some hitch in his life but it was Mrs. +Barraclough who had been the first to tell her about the wife in +America. + +“Sophie and Stephen don’t know, at least if Stephen knows he never told +Sophie, and I’ve not told her either,” said Lilac, “and Toby so +helpless. He’s rather like you, Gillian. He misses the point. The first +thing he ever said to me, I mean, the first thing to show he’d noticed, +was, ‘What rippin’ teeth you’ve got,’ and you know, Jill, it isn’t my +teeth at all, it’s my hair that most people like because of its colour, +and the curls. But if he loves me at all it’s for my teeth, and,” said +Lilac with wisdom and despair, “it isn’t enough. There are mountains to +remove, and you don’t remove anything much because you like another +person’s teeth.” + +“What made you come back, then?” said Gillian. “I thought it was always +absence that made a man find out——” + +“Oh, Jilly darling, I know, and if it had been anyone else I’d have +stayed away till he did. But that’s the worst of being in love one’s +self—you simply _can’t_ be clever about it. It’s easy enough to be +_l’autre qui se laisse aimer_. I can do that. Look at that horrid little +Rollo, and Mr. Percival Grantham. Donkeys”—and Lilac sat up in bed, and +waved her arms in the moonlight and shooed donkeys out of her life. + +“Well,” said Gillian, “he’ll have to know about me now. Do you think +he’ll stop loving you for your teeth when he sees me pasting cuttings +into the grandchild’s album?” + +“I just can’t think,” said Lilac, clasping her arms so tightly round her +knees that she laid a hand over each elbow. “He might suddenly love you +terribly, just because he’d loved me a little. He’s rather like you. He +doesn’t see any harm in the most dreadful things.” + +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “what sort of things?” + +“Poetry,” said Lilac, “and pictures. He’s got that print of Father’s—the +one Mother burnt, the Dürer. He took me to an exhibition of the most +awful things, and bought it. It cost fifty pounds—no, guineas.” + +“Do you mean _Die grosse Fortuna_?” + +“Yes, the fat woman on a skipping-rope. And there were the most dearest +little grey and blue pastels, ships that pass in the mist, in the next +room for half the money.” + +“He sounds rather nice,” said Gillian. “I thought it was only horses.” + +“Oh, it’s horses as well. And Sophie’s been an angel. I’ve been riding +every morning at Glynde. She’s given me a perfectly new habit of my own +for my birthday. It’s much harder than riding-lessons in that dreadful +_manège_ at Lausanne, with the tame horses and the smell of tan.” + +“And Monsieur Avranches—’_dans la main gauche, mademoiselle +Arumstrongüe, dans la main_ GAUCHE’—oh, Lilac!” + +“Yes—and only half an hour at a time. But at Glynde it’s a groom who +doesn’t say a word and humps you along—I’m so stiff and sore, Jilly.” + +“Lover’s pains,” said Gillian, “and learning to ride properly. I think +you have a very good time.” + +“Gillian”—Lilac was very solemn—“will you promise me that you’ll never +tell Toby that you cried when Mother burnt that dreadful engraving? I +used to think you shammed liking it to curry favour with Father, and +when I saw Toby buy it I told him my father had had it too, but I didn’t +tell him what became of it, and he doesn’t know there’s you. Sophie +didn’t tell him. Sophie doesn’t know that I meet him in town—at least, +she didn’t till yesterday.” + +“You’re bang in the middle of the tangled web,” said Gillian, “and you +know how bad I am at tangled webs. But I’ll try to say nothing but ‘Yes, +Sir Reginald. No, Sir Reginald,’ like a parlourmaid. Perhaps if I did it +with a lisp it would put him off so frightfully that there’d never be +any chance of getting to pictures in our intercourse.” + +“Oh, Gillian, don’t do anything stupid. It would be no good for him to +think I’d got a lisping idiot for my only family.” + +“I expect,” said Gillian, “that whatever I do’ll be wrong while you are +in this state. But you know you can trust me not to compete.” + +“I know I can trust you not to _try_ to compete,” said Lilac; “but +you’re so innocent you’ll probably think you’re doing putting-off things +when really you’re doing the other kind.” + +“What kind?” + +“Oh, well, what had you done to set your Jane Bird blazing with +adoration? I’ve never seen anyone in such a state. She couldn’t eat or +sleep because you’d been wronged, and I met her in King’s Road every day +last week; probably she hasn’t come round the other way home on the +off-chance of meeting you that way.” + +“I met her on Friday,” said Gillian, “but I didn’t think it had anything +to do with me. Besides, even if it had, Jane Bird’s quite a different +matter.” + +“You wouldn’t, and it isn’t. And, you see, you don’t know a thing about +it.” + +“I certainly don’t know much about Jane Bird,” said Gillian; “but she’s +a strange person—exciting too. Almost the most exciting person I’ve ever +known.” + + + V + +Lilac had forbidden Gillian to share her admiration of _Die grosse +Fortuna_ with Sir Reginald Bottomley, but she did not know, she could +not have known, that his august mother had gone through the complete +works of Swinburne in the eight volumes which he had brought home from +Oxford and had cut out, with a pair of nail-scissors, all the passages +she considered unsuitable for a gentleman’s library. Nor could her worst +nightmare have suggested to her that Toby would discover the mutilation +of his property at the same moment as Gillian did. But this is what +actually happened. + +Gerald Armstrong’s Swinburnes, the little red _Atalanta in Calydon_ and +the little fat Moxon _Poems and Ballads_, had gone to Sotheby’s with his +other first editions when his books were valued, and Gillian, who had +nothing but the Tauchnitz _Selections_, had been bothered all morning +because she could not remember how + + “Some angel’s steady mouth and weight of wings + Shut to the side...” + +went on. So, just before tea, while Lady Bottomley was resting, she took +the library-steps into the far corner where she had seen the tall, dark +Chatto & Windus books standing on a high shelf, and was sitting on the +top of them, one hand clasping the pole, and her mouth wide open in +dismay at the ruin she had found, when a mild voice below her feet said: + +“How do you do?” + +Gillian put the book on her knee and looked over. + +“I’m terribly shocked,” she said. “Did you know that lots of _The +Triumph of Time_ and most of _Before a Crucifix_ had been cut out of +these?” + +“No—have they?—how annoying. May I look?” + +“But, of course. They’re yours. It’s a dreadful pity. And they’ve not +been done at all neatly.” She handed the books to their short, pleasant, +rather nervous owner, who took them from her and helped her down from +the ladder, saying he supposed she was the latest Miss Macfarlane. + +“Well,” said Gillian, “I answer to the name. I’ve got another for +holidays.” + +They took the remaining six volumes down and had made a list of +dilapidation before the chimes rang for tea. + +“I wonder why some of them have been left in,” said Toby. + +“Well, if they’d all come out there’d have been no book left,” said +Gillian. + +“Yes; but I don’t think that would have stopped whoever began to cut +them up.” + +“Lots of people don’t understand the least little things,” said Gillian. + +Toby looked at her sharply. + +“No,” he said. “Perhaps it’s as well.” + +Gillian wondered if he suspected his mother, and was sure he did when he +said nothing about the excisions when they joined her for tea. + +As they sat in an uneasy silence while Lady Bottomley poured out the +scented Ceylon tea she always drank, Gillian let herself fall into the +abyss of guilt that so often yawned for her after any completely +self-forgetting hour. This quiet man with his large grey eyes and small +brown moustache was so unlike the Toby she had imagined, and the +discovery of what had been done to his books had so inflamed her mind +that for the moment Lilac’s complicated affairs had faded from +existence, and here she now was, his accomplice, almost his friend, +before he even knew her name. Was this what Lilac called “doing the +other things”? Gillian wondered. She had done things. She was certainly +now, without knowing how she came to be doing it, standing between Sir +Reginald and old Winona. + +And how dreadful it was to be so afraid of anyone you belonged to as the +third baronet was of his mother. Was he afraid or ashamed? Weren’t they +both the same thing? Why _would_ she use that large gold sugar-tongs? +Why would she put two lumps of sugar and all those blobs of cream in +Gillian’s tea? Why did neither of them say a word except in answer to +her own remarks? Gillian felt herself growing more and more dreadfully +bright as she babbled on. If the monosyllables continued much longer, +she knew she would say something awful. She felt herself turning to poor +Toby and saying: + +“Lady Bottomley tells me you were at Eton and Magdalen Colleges,” which +was exactly what Lady Bottomley had told her in the expansions of +yesterday. That would be a really putting-off thing. Wasn’t she the very +worm of vulgarity for wanting, for not really wanting but for thinking +of saying it? How dreadful to have crumpets for tea in July! + +And then Stephen came in. And Stephen, who was so dull, so solemn, so +correct, Stephen whom she really hardly knew at all, changed everything +back into the amusing, preposterous fun it had all been until these last +ten minutes. + +“Hullo, Gillian!” Stephen said when he saw her, “why aren’t you down at +Glynde with Sophie and Lilac? Is that confounded High School mewing you +up in London through the dog-days?” + +And there were explanations and introductions, and Lady Bottomley, +instead of being upset, was elated that Gillian had a sister whom her +son had met at Glynde, and Stephen and Toby, who weren’t doing anything +particular that evening, said they’d both come and see Lilac and hear +news of Sophie after dinner, and Lady Bottomley said Miss Lilac must +come to lunch with _her_ Miss Armstrong the next day, and they’d find +some nice concert to go to in the afternoon. Gillian was so out of +breath with it all that it took Lilac ten minutes to piece together a +coherent story out of all the scraps and laughter she carried home with +her, particularly as William caught the infection of excitement and sang +“God Save our Gray” at the top of his voice until they covered his cage +with Lilac’s Burberry. And that only made things worse, because, after a +moment’s silence, William observed in a dulcet voice, “Toby—Toby—prritty +Toby.” “Just as if,” said Lilac, pale and husky with rage, “just as if +we’d said nothing else for months. I wish you’d kill that bird, +Gillian.” + +And she meant it. Gillian was afraid of Lilac when she went white with +passion like that. She carried William’s cage over to the Middletons’ +flat and asked the Mrs. Middleton who really was a missionary’s widow to +take him in for the evening. Mrs. Middleton had “a way” with parrots, +and, though it didn’t seem to work quite so well with cockatoos, she was +always very kind about trying to soothe William’s song, when Gillian had +other things to do. Lilac had once declared that she’d overheard Mrs. +Middleton reading the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer to William +just as she used to do to the heathen: but all William was ever heard to +add to his vocabulary from the Middleton flat was Jessie Middleton’s +drawl, “Oh, Mother, _must_ I?” followed by a prolonged imitation of +Jessie Middleton’s yawn. + +Love, thought Gillian, as she knocked at Mrs. Middleton’s door, was +doing rather horrid things to Lilac; it was making her cruel—Lilac who +couldn’t bear even to kill clothes-moths—and suspicious and extravagant. +And dishonourable. After all, there was Toby’s American wife—at least +there might be, though, now she had seen him herself, Gillian was bound +to admit Toby didn’t look in the least married to anybody. + +“Isn’t it damnable!” was what Lilac had said last night. And to-night +she wanted to have William killed. + + + VI + +It was hot in the little book-lined room up under the roof of the +Mordaunt Club. Gillian sat on the window-sill and leaned out over the +dark well of the courtyard across which beams of light from the other +open windows made slanting, transparent, misty bridges. She sat out of +the circle of lamplight made by the painted shade over the oil-lamp +which stood on a table in front of the largest bookcase. + +Stephen was in the light. It shone on his red, fine skin, on his smooth, +shiny hair, on the patent leather of his shoes, on the shining curve of +his dress-shirt that bulged, ever so little, over the dull repp of his +white waistcoat. Gillian was liking Stephen more every minute. He was so +comfortingly at his ease in life. Here, in their little book-room; that +afternoon, before the appalling splendours of old Winona’s tea-table, he +was just the same Stephen as he was at Glynde. He wasn’t like Toby, who +had been nervous even though he chattered in his own library and sulky +in his mother’s drawing-room, and who now sat in the corner of the +red-leather chesterfield making jerks of speech and ruffling up the +pink-and-blue Samarkand rug with his feet. Lilac sat in the other +corner, quite in shadow, very slim in her thin white frock with its wide +angel sleeves that hung down over her hands as they lay folded in her +lap. Her eyes, dark with excitement, looked black in the shade, and the +fluff of her fair hair seemed grey with no light to bring out its golden +shimmer. + +“Been to the Russian Ballet?” jerked Toby. + +“Not again,” said Lilac. + +Money was sometimes a disadvantageous possession—sometimes. Stephen +hadn’t half as much as Toby, but he had been born into his place in +life, and it never occurred to him to doubt his perfect right to be +wherever his life took him. You could see he never thought about paying +for anything; he took it for granted that things were paid for! Stephen +was free. Toby, who could buy real Dürers in St. James’s Street and have +horses at Newmarket, was afraid. Money had robbed him of the place he +was born into and he didn’t fit in the place it had bought for him. He +was too nice to be apologetic, but he was always ready to be a little +angry. He said “How annoying!” over everything that went at all wrong. +He’d said it about his Swinburnes; and when Lady Bottomley had said that +she’d promised he should open a bazaar in September; and when he’d +dropped the spoon out of his coffee-cup saucer as he took it from Lilac +just now. + +It was odd that Lilac, whose every movement was so finished and +effectual, and who knew exactly not only what she wanted but how she was +going to get it—it was perhaps not really odd that Lilac should want +this gentle, undecided Toby. It was clear that he wanted her. Of that +Gillian had been sure from the moment he had come into the flat. You +could see that Toby saw, that he _could_ see nothing but Lilac. It was +dreadful, Gillian felt, to have that feeling about another person, +particularly if you had a wife in America and couldn’t have the person +you wanted like that. It was rather dreadful of Lilac to let him want +her when he couldn’t have her. Dreadfully cruel. Perhaps Lilac didn’t +know. Perhaps Toby had never looked at her in this way before. Lilac +couldn’t let him go on like that. She was keeping very still, almost as +if she were half asleep. She must be making up her mind to put a stop to +it; not to see Toby again. Nobody could bear to be wanted so badly, to +be looked at with such unhappy eyes. + +Then, very quietly, and without looking at Toby, or at Gillian, or at +Stephen, softly and slowly, but deliberately and not at all as if she +were dreaming, Lilac raised one hand and smoothed back the long loose +sleeve from the arm that still lay in her lap. Stephen was lighting a +cigarette and didn’t notice. But Gillian saw. And she saw how Toby +leaned forward a little and stopped in the middle of asking something +quite dull to let his eyes drop from Lilac’s face to her hand. And Lilac +raised her hand and pushed it along the top of the chesterfield, playing +a little, light, slow five-finger exercise on the red leather until her +bare arm up to the elbow, lay out beyond the shadow, cream-pale and +soft, the skin taut and smooth over the wrist-joints, with tiny sparkles +of gold hair catching the yellow lamplight as the round finger-tips +tapped out their noiseless tune. + +“Guess what I’m playing,” said Lilac softly, in the voice of a young +witch casting a spell. “It’s something you know,” and her two long front +teeth gleamed in the shadow, breaking the rose of her mouth as she spoke +and smiled. + +“I can’t guess,” said Toby hoarsely. “Tell me,” said Toby, as though his +life depended on being told. + +“No—you must guess,” said Lilac, her voice shaking a little in her +throat with laughter. “You know it quite well,” and she emphasized the +“quite” delicately so that it rang in the air like a chiming bell. + +Toby bent on his elbows; his crimson hands clutched each other between +his spread knees. His head, thrust into the circle of lamplight, showed +his damp hair sticking to his brow. + +“Lilac, I _can’t_ guess. Not while you do that.” + +Gillian slipped down from the window-seat. + +“It’s _Ach du lieber Augustin_, the tune the pipkin sang when it boiled, +in the story of the prince who went back into his kingdom and slammed +the door,” she said. + +Lilac jumped up from her corner and the sleeve fell back again over her +arm. + +“Oh, Gillian, how mean of you!” she cried. But her voice was happy and +satisfied as it had not been before that day. And presently Stephen took +Toby away. They were driving down to Esher that night, as Toby had +horses arriving from Ireland with a new groom whom he didn’t quite +trust, and he wanted to be on the spot himself first thing the next +morning. + + * * * * * + +Lilac went to lunch next day, and on to the nice concert with Lady +Bottomley. She arrived, very pretty and rather pathetic in the large +crinoline hat trimmed with the pink rose she’d bought in Sloane Street, +and the mauve ribbon she’d salved from part of Sophie’s largesse, while +Gillian was pumice-stoning the copying-ink from her fingers after her +morning’s work. All old Winona’s letters were preserved in duplicate, +even the third-person refusals to add to her cheque-signing toil. +Gillian had already traced the original hands and the varying imitations +of six of her predecessors through the flimsy pages of the copy-files +which, also bound into crested volumes, filled a shelf below the +newspaper-cutting tomes in the library at 99. Gillian had been taught by +her father to burn all letters, even his own lively, brilliant letters +written when she stayed behind at school and he sent her his diaries +with their little pen and pencil drawings on every page. So she added +her daily sheaf to this unvaluable collection, consoling herself with +the quotation from La Rochefoucauld, which she could never quite get by +heart, about considering the kind of people to whom He gave the most of +it when you wanted to know what God really thought of money. + +“And, of course,” said Gillian, being honest with herself as she +scrubbed her inky hands, “it wasn’t God who gave old Winona money to +spend on having a quite young crest put on everything she possesses, but +John Bottomley who did make the best bicycles that ever spun and +deserved to be ‘a perfect Crocus’; and Toby will do beautiful things +with it when old Winona dies. I wonder if she’ll have a tomb all made of +precious stones. I do hope she will. I do wish she would. And order it +now, while I’m with her like the Bishop, at St. Praxed’s.” + +But there wouldn’t be any ordering of jewelled monuments for a day or +two at any rate, for by the time Gillian came into the drawing-room +Lilac had made such headway with Toby’s mother that that lady was +insisting that Gillian must take the week-end until Tuesday and go with +her sister to Glynde. + +“And, of course,” said Lilac, “if Gillian is not quite rested by +Tuesday, I can come back and do your letters myself for a day or two. I +don’t pretend to be as clever as Gillian, but I’m _very_ industrious, +and I’d try not to let you miss her too dreadfully, Lady Bottomley, +indeed I would.” + +Lady Bottomley was archly playful. + +“I am sure, Miss Lilac, that you would be a delightful secretary, but I +always spend August in Ireland, where my male secretary attends to all +my requirements, and _my_ Miss Armstrong will only have to look in for +an hour or two in the mornings when she gets back from Glynde. I should +be sorry,” and she tapped Lilac’s cheek with the whole bunch of her +fingers, “for such a pretty little person as yourself to leave her +friends on my account. Mr. and Mrs. Glynde would never forgive me for +robbing them of such bright eyes.” + +So Gillian went to Glynde with Lilac by the five-o’clock train out of +Victoria on Friday afternoon. And when they got there, there was no +Toby. + +Stephen met them with the car at Lewes. + +“Toby’s gone to America,” he told them. “He was very bored at Sandown +and didn’t seem to care whether the Buster won or not. I think he’s gone +after that wife of his.” + +“Oh,” said Lilac. “You don’t think he’ll bring her back, do you?” + +“Alive or dead,” said Stephen. “Dead, possibly. I dare say he’s gone out +to murder her. There’s sure to be one of the properly free states where +a decent fellow like Toby can kill a wife from time to time! How long +have you known about her?” + +“Only since I went to Lady Bottomley,” said Gillian. “I thought you and +Sophie didn’t.” + +“Sophie don’t,” said Stephen; “but Toby told me the whole story, and he +says he told Lilac.” + +“Yes,” said Lilac, “he wrote to me about it, yesterday. But I’d known +for some time. And I told Sophie.” + +“You did, did you?” said Stephen. “That’s all to the good,” and he +changed the subject. + + + VII + +Lilac did not marry Toby till the spring. And Toby did not murder his +wife, though old Winona went into deep mourning on the receipt of a +cable from San Francisco one day in the following October. The cable was +duly filed. It ran: + + “Millicent is no more. Do not announce it in _The + Times_.—REGINALD.” + +“I quite feel with my son,” said old Winona. “The death of so unworthy a +woman as the late Lady Bottomley is not a matter we, as a family, can +publicly countenance. But my own change of title must be announced. Will +you look up in Kelly, my dear, for the form in which a dowager announces +the resumption of her original title?” + +But Gillian could find nothing helpful in Kelly or even in Whitaker, +and, after an afternoon’s research, was told to telegraph for the lady +whom Mrs. Barraclough called Winnie Roehampton. + +“My daughter-in-law knows by experience how to deal with knotty points +in the social code,” said the ex-dowager. + +Lady Roehampton discouraged the attempt at a public resumption of her +ex-mother-in-law’s rights. She was an elegant and vivacious creature +with very flaxen hair and a complexion so brilliant that, though +actually the work of nature, it laid her under the constant suspicion of +resorting to art. Her manner, which at first seemed friendly, was on +closer acquaintance seen to be the outward expression of an +undiscriminating candour. She had no reticences, and also no rancours. +To her things and people just were. She neither classified nor blamed. +But she lacked the philosophic detachment which enables others who share +her outlook to stand aside and watch their fellow creatures commit the +follies they themselves are too balanced to stigmatize, too interested +to prevent. Life was not pure spectacle to Winnie Roehampton. She knew +what drama meant to the actors and she was a shade too unintelligent to +remain passively unkind in circumstances over which she could have any +possible control. + +“My child,” she said, drawing Gillian into the shelter of one of the +palm-groves in the hall after telling Atkinson to call off that powdered +menial as she would let herself out, “take her to Jay’s. Let her buy up +the whole shop. They’ll tell her to an inch how much crêpe indicates the +resumption of whatever a baronet’s widow resumes when her son has been +divorced by his wife. Oh, yes! That’s what’s happened. Didn’t you know? +Let her get new visiting-cards—she might have a little black arrow put +through ‘Winona.’ I wish I’d thought of that before. Never mind. You can +tell her I thought of it on the way down. But keep her out of _The +Times_. You needn’t tell her Millicent isn’t dead—after all, I _may_ be +doing Toby an injustice—unless you can’t restrain her any other way. But +you might suggest that she’d better wait till Toby gets back, as it’s +quite on the cards that he’s bringing a perfectly good new wife of his +own with him.” + +“I think,” said Gillian, “the little black arrow is quite enough for me +to suggest. I’ve seen the cable, you know.” + +“So have I. That’s what convinces me. Millicent isn’t the kind of woman +who dies of anything but extreme antiquity or violence. And she’s now +about thirty, and you don’t suppose Toby has done anything violent.” + +“No, of course not,” said Gillian faintly, seeing again Toby’s bent head +and strangling hands thrust forward into the lamplight as Lilac’s arm +slid along the top of the couch behind him. + +Her hesitation was misunderstood. + +“Oh,” said the Countess of Roehampton, without a trace of +self-consciousness or embarrassment, “Dora Barraclough has told you +about Jim Bottomley’s accident? She’d exaggerate, of course; I’ve always +said it was my fault. But I didn’t plan it. I was quite sorry when it +happened. And you can see how I’ve been forgiven. Call me in again if +she gets difficult. One of Roehampton’s aunts is a lady-in-waiting, and +I’ll get her trained intellect to bear on the situation.” + +“Thank you so much, Lady Roehampton,” said Gillian from the doorstep, +ignoring the more sensational aspects of the lady’s Parthian speech. +“I’ll get Dashwood to take her to Jay’s this very afternoon.” + + + VIII + +The only person who made any difficulty about Lilac’s marriage was Aunt +Elizabeth Armstrong, whose real name was Mrs. Mortimer. She was what +Toby called a reinforced relation. Toby could be quite amusing if you +gave him time. Mrs. Mortimer had been a Miss Armstrong, Gerald +Armstrong’s only aunt, and had taken him after his mother’s death when +he was quite a child with her at such times as he was not at school. +When he grew up and went to Oxford, and not till then, Aunt Elizabeth +had bestowed her hand on the West African clergyman to whom she had +plighted her troth in early life. Mr. Mortimer did not long survive his +marriage, and little Ellen Mortimer, a young half-sister who was +semi-dependent on him, came to live in England with his widow, and, much +to her indignation, married Gerald Armstrong quite quietly one afternoon +when he was home on leave, going out to do so at a registrar’s office in +an old hat, and coming back with him to tea as though nothing had +happened. + +There was something of the born supplanter in little Ellen Mortimer, so +it seemed to Aunt Elizabeth, who did not greatly care for women. And it +was like little Ellen to have two daughters and no son. Aunt Elizabeth, +who filled the office of grandmother on both sides to Gerald’s and +Ellen’s children, made the best of Gillian, whose second name was +Elizabeth. But Lilac was a thorn in her flesh. Little Ellen had been +sly, but demure and quiet in her dress, as became a Christian lady. But +Lilac only resorted to slyness when overt methods failed and her taste +in dress was what Aunt Elizabeth called “shouting,” which wasn’t in the +least what other people mean by “loud,” but indicated a general effect +calculated to make the casual observer look twice and look approvingly. + +Aunt Elizabeth lived at Highgate in a little bow-windowed house at the +top of the hill which you entered from the road, thinking it quite an +ordinary house, only to discover that the parlour-window at the back +hung over a precipice dizzying down through tree-tops, and smoke-wreaths +and chimney-stacks to the great lake of the city out of which the dome +of St. Paul’s rose, a small round island in the east, and the four +chimneys of the Chelsea power-house stood against the far horizon in the +west like the masts of a sailing-ship with all its canvas furled. + +Aunt Elizabeth set no store by the view from her parlour-window. She did +not obscure it, as she obscured that of the road in the front of the +house, by strong, white Nottingham lace curtains; but her motives were +not æsthetic motives. + +“No need to curtain these windows,” she said. “Only the birds of the air +can see into them from the outside, and the fewer the curtains the +better the dusting.” Aunt Elizabeth’s house was very well dusted. It was +also quite reasonably comfortable. Its furniture belonged to the +mahogany age, but there was no horse-hair left, though you could feel +that Aunt Elizabeth had lived with horse-hair in her time. Also, it was +quite surprisingly free from any traces of Mr. Mortimer’s vocation. None +of the African mats, beads and other devices which filled Mrs. +Middleton’s flat in the Club, had its counterpart in Aunt Elizabeth’s +parlour. “Heathen rubbish,” she called them all, “and some of it worse. +How Agneta Middleton can bring herself to set up that shameless idol she +has on the mantelpiece in a Christian land I cannot conceive, and if,” +said Aunt Elizabeth, “that Mrs. Barrymore of yours wasn’t a poor thing, +she’d have had it taken away and burnt.” + +“But Mrs. Barraclough thinks it is an ornament. She doesn’t feel about +it as you do. It doesn’t seem to her to be a god as it does to you,” +Gillian had protested. + +“God, indeed,” said Aunt Elizabeth; “devil, my girl, that’s what they +are, however your Mrs. Barrington makes excuses for them.” + +Aunt Elizabeth always got the names of the people she called “poor +things” just a little wrong. It made them seem even poorer than she said +they were, and was a deliberate classification, not in the least akin to +old Winona’s large confusions. She had never once stumbled, as a person +liable to true confusion might well have done, over the name or names of +her prospective great-nephew-in-law. “Poor Reginald” she called him from +the first, and she withheld her blessing on the match for some days +under the impression that, being Irish, he must necessarily be a Roman, +and so worse than the heathen of whose conversion it was always possible +to entertain an active hope. + +Lilac made it quite clear to Gillian, without any direct reference to +the subject, that Aunt Elizabeth was to be allowed to understand that +Toby was the bachelor he appeared to be. + +“If she can be brought to approve of my marriage,” was what Lilac had +said, “she’ll forgive me for not going to live at Highgate.” + +Mrs. Mortimer had been quite willing for Gillian to go to the Mordaunt +Club, and be under Mrs. Middleton’s eye when Ellen died. The Club was +within an hour’s journey of Pelham House. But she had quite supposed +that Lilac would sojourn with her at Highgate. That neither she nor +Lilac really liked one another was no reason, in Mrs. Mortimer’s +self-disciplining view of life for them, as widow and orphan of the same +blood, to live apart. + +But Lilac had been firm. Gillian was not fit to live alone. All she’d +got to furnish the flat with was a ton of books, a cast of the Winged +Victory, and an old brass toasting-fork which, said Lilac, just showed. +Besides, Lilac couldn’t live out so far as Highgate herself. And Aunt +Elizabeth saw to it, as Lilac very well knew she would when it came to +the point, that all the lacunæ made by the sale of her nephew’s really +valuable things and the habit of living in semi-furnished houses which +little Ellen had contracted in the course of their nomadic married life, +were properly filled with good cutlery and fine linen sheets to go with +the outlandish curtains and wild cups and saucers Gillian herself had +bought at strange shops of post-Maple ideas. + +“And how is Gillian any fitter to live alone now?” asked Aunt Elizabeth, +when she had been made aware of Lilac’s engagement. “Is she going to +share your home?” + +“No! How could she, dearest Aunt Eliza? Toby and I aren’t going to have +a home for ever such a long time. We’re going round the world for our +honeymoon, and that’ll take almost a year.” + +“And where will you be if the Lord should send you a child? Gadding +about on the face of the waters, I dare say.” + +“Oh,” said Lilac, blushing, but defiant, “He won’t send one till we get +back. Toby and I have decided that.” + +“Wicked, impious creatures!” said Aunt Elizabeth, shaking her head, on +which, in spite of Lilac’s efforts, she wore just the same kind of cap, +three rows of Brussels lace frilled on to a high-crowned ‘shape,’ as her +mother had worn before her. “I shall pray without ceasing that the Lord +may see fit to defeat your ungodly purpose.” + +“Well, don’t say anything to Toby about it, or to Lady Bottomley,” +begged Lilac. + +“I shall do the Lord’s bidding,” was Aunt Elizabeth’s reply. “If He bids +me to speak, it will not be for you to prevent me, my girl.” + +So Lilac took good care that Toby was not left alone at any time when +the Lord might be likely to move Aunt Elizabeth to declare His views; +and by the exercise of that secret diplomacy which always +baffled Gillian to detect in the working, managed to keep her +quasi-grandmaternal relation and her prospective mother-in-law apart. + +“I dare say you would enjoy seeing them meet,” she retorted when Gillian +pointed out how fine a conflict might arise between two such autocrats, +“but it’s my wedding and I’m not going to have it spoilt.” + +“I’m sure they’d not spoil it,” said Gillian. “Aunt Elizabeth is so +relieved that you’re going to be married in a Protestant church that she +doesn’t mind its being a fashionable one, and she won’t know how like a +pantomime it’s going to be till she’s there. And you know she won’t +brawl in church.” + +“No. Not _in_ church. But she might persuade Toby and his mother to have +the horrid bits left in. She thinks her Prayer-Book was just as much +given by inspiration of God as the Bible.” + +“Are there any horrid bits?” said Gillian. + +“Gillian, you idiot. You’ve read the Service, haven’t you?” + +“Lots of times,” said Gillian. “I think those vows are rather +terrifying. It’s such a long promise—forsaking all other, too—you can’t +know who’s coming—but I like it because of the ‘so’—‘as.’ I can’t think +why people will say ‘as long as.’ It’s no easier.” + +“Oh, _that_,” said Lilac. “That’s all right, and I’m not going to be +common and suffragetty about ‘obey.’ It’s the other bits. Even you, my +poor Jill, wouldn’t want to be mixed up in a remedy against sin.” + +“I don’t know,” said Gillian slowly; “if it were a remedy, it would be +rather beautiful to be part of it—_against_ sin.” + +“There are times,” said Lilac with bitter incisiveness, “when I think +you can’t be quite right in your head.” + +They were on their way to Dover Street to try on the bridesmaids’ +dresses. There were to be six bridesmaids—two little Glyndes, the two +small Roehampton children, a stout but very rich friend of whom Lilac +had not lost sight since the Lausanne days, and Gillian herself. And +they were to be all dressed as Dresden china shepherdesses in dresses +copied from a complete half-dozen originals that figured among the many +presents from the bridegroom’s mother. For old Winona, who was coming +out of her black garments and going into maroon with feathers on the +resumption of her dowagership, had insisted on giving and choosing the +bridesmaids’ dresses herself. It wasn’t regular, but still, as Lilac +said, this was a subscription wedding in which Glyndes and Armstrongs +and Mortimers all had stakes, so why shouldn’t everybody have a share? +And, having once allowed the prospective dowager to take a hand in the +preparations, it was useless to attempt to stay that hand from +munificence. Besides, she was already very fond of Lilac. Their ideas +were seldom in conflict. In the matter of abridging the wedding-service, +for example, she was entirely of Lilac’s mind. There was nothing +Calvinistic or Biblical about old Winona. + +“She really is very nice and refined about some things,” said Lilac. +“Much better than Toby is. Did you know that she’d snipped the worst +bits out of his Swinburnes when they moved from Blackheath to +Knightsbridge after he’d left Oxford?” + +“I knew someone had chopped up the books dreadfully,” said Gillian. “I +shall give Toby a new unbarbered set for his wedding-present.” + +Toby gave Gillian _Die grosse Fortuna_ and the large _Saint Eustace_ two +days before the wedding. Lilac had come upon the print when they were +looking through Toby’s things together one day, and had told him that +Gillian liked it. She was taking her own pictures, a large coloured +reproduction of Greiffenhagen’s _Idyll_ and a photogravure of +Balestieri’s _Beethoven_ away with her in the small case of her own +personal possessions which was being stored at Knightsbridge, and Toby, +very modestly, proffered his two Dürers to fill their places on either +side of the tall bookcase in the little room. + +Gillian accepted them in speechless content. + +“And I suppose,” said Lilac, “that you’ll hang them there, both of them, +and tell me they’re both beautiful.” + +“So they are,” said Gillian. + +“The one with the dogs is amusing, and I like the little hill with the +castle on it behind,” Lilac conceded. “But as for the other—well, all I +can say is that you’d better not let Mrs. Gordon see it if you want to +stay on at the Club without me. She’d think it was a caricature of +herself. Which it might very well be.” + + * * * * * + +The wedding took place on the 25th of April at Holy Trinity, Sloane +Square. Aunt Elizabeth did not attend. The date coincided with some +mysterious anniversary in her own life which she always kept in prayer +and fasting. Neither Lilac nor Gillian could ever be quite sure when +this penitential festival would fall, for it came round, not as a day in +the month, but as the third or fourth Monday in April, which might be +any day between the 15th and the 27th. She had presented Lilac with +travelling trunks and cases and a dressing-bag of the finest quality and +a length of black satin brocade which would stand by itself. To Toby she +sent two copies of what she called “The Scriptures,” one in the +Authorized the other in the Revised Version, replete with Notes, Maps, +References, Concordances and Subject-Indexes printed in large type on +India paper and bound in the limpest, most velvety purple leather. She +had also given Lilac a purse containing a five-pound note, four +sovereigns, two half-sovereigns, six half-crowns and ten shillings in +shillings and sixpences, all new coins of that year. + +“No need for you to go to your husband for pocket-money till you’ve got +used to him, my girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth as she gave her youngest +great-niece a dry and single good-bye kiss. + + * * * * * + +Gillian was glad that the old lady did not appear on the day of the +wedding. Nothing about it would have pleased her mind. The great, green, +Burne-Jones window lighting the white-and-silver bride with her sheaf of +Madonna lilies, followed by the six powdered and panniered bridesmaids +with their gilded crooks and jaunty flowered-baskets, would have seemed +to her equally sacrilegious with the operatic music sung by an exotic +soprano and a dusky tenor in place of a sound Britannic anthem while the +register was being signed. And the huge wedding-bell, composed of white +roses and plaster Cupids, under which Lilac and Toby stood to receive +congratulations in the drawing-room of the Grosvenor Hotel afterwards, a +surprise planned and executed by old Winona, would have pleased Mrs. +Mortimer as ill as the champagne and the confetti (silver hearts and +horse-shoes these), which flowed and floated through the afternoon. + +Gillian took Lilac up to the hard, unfamiliar hotel bedroom strewn with +dressmakers’ boxes and tissue-paper where the bride had dressed that +morning and now was to change into her travelling-clothes. The room was +crowded with people. There was Lilac’s new maid, a rather awful being, +who had packed everything so thoroughly that there had been nothing left +for Gillian to help with the night before, and there was Sophie, of +course, and the awkward other bridesmaid who had to come up too, and +Mrs. Barraclough whom they couldn’t very well keep out, and odds and +ends of people who tapped at the door and said, “May I come in just for +one second?” and Winnie Roehampton who dashed in very slim and cool in a +leaf-green sheath frock of the most miraculous cut, and said, “Well, my +dear, I was Lady Bottomley once and I hope you’ll make a better job of +it than I did,” and skimmed out again before Lilac had time to thank her +for the benediction. + +But Sophie cleared the room for the sisters for a final moment, and +Lilac cried a little in Gillian’s arms before she went down to Toby and +the confetti. + +“Jilly,” said Lilac, “promise me one thing. When I come back, when you +see me again for the first time, you won’t open your eyes and stare at +me, will you?” + +“No,” said Gillian; “but why should I stare?—and why should you mind if +I did?” + +“Oh, Jilly, Jilly,” said Lilac, “I don’t believe you know.” + + + IX + +Gillian had a dazed, deafening headache. She couldn’t stay on and +chatter to the wedding-guests. She couldn’t go on and dine at Claridge’s +before the theatre-party with which the day was to end. + +Old Winona had another Macfarlane to look after her now. Gillian was +absolved from her duties and was going to take a proper secretarial +course in order to fit her for real life, a business for which life at +99 was no sort of preparation. So Gillian was free to go home to the +Club by herself; Mrs. Barraclough was making a complete orgy of it with +the Roehamptons and the Glyndes. + +She took off her preposterous hat, shook the powder out of her hair, put +on a hooded cloak and slipped out of the busy, indifferent hotel into +the April twilight and walked down to the river. + +It was a soft, dim evening, heavy with spring. The plane-trees on the +Embankment were shaking the fine splinters of their stamens out of the +little tasselled bracts that opened with soft popping noises in the +still leafless boughs. The air was as clouded and green-grey as the +water; the figures hurrying to get out of the Park before the gate +closed for the night moved on the other side of the river as if behind +glass in an aquarium. + +Gillian leaned across the parapet and let the breeze that blew +down-stream cool her aching flushed face. The tide was low. A few +desultory gulls, the stragglers of the main fleet which had put to sea +with the onset of mild weather some weeks earlier, scavenged quietly in +the mud at the water’s edge. A police-boat prowled up from Vauxhall; two +barges keeping to mid-channel travelled with the ebb, their sails set to +catch what airs might stir to aid them. The evening was not so much +peaceful as indifferent. Gillian lingered on, and an increasing +desolation preyed within her. What was it that Lilac had done? + +“Lilac will always know that she is paying for a fake.” That was what +her father had said. Was Toby a fake? Lilac had wanted him. She had +wanted him so much that she had at last stretched out her soft arm and +taken him by guile with her rosy, tapping fingers. Gillian never +remembered that hand, creeping into the lamplight and shaking all poor +Toby’s unhappy resistance, without a shock of wonder. What exactly was +it that Lilac had done to him? How did she know she could do it? It was +predatory, her gesture, yet it gave away something that could never be +taken back again. Lilac had been paying, paying deliberately, for Toby. +But was it Toby, the essential Toby, that dim, kind, gentle Toby who +loved horses and fine engravings and had such clumsy hands and such +vague, beseeching eyes that Lilac had bought with the lilt of a song +from a fairy-tale? Or was it what Toby stood for? Was it only the power +to buy everything, to go everywhere, to make, if she chose, such a +crammed and monotonous wilderness of any house as Old Winona had made of +99, that Lilac really wanted in Toby? wanted it so much that she had +confused Toby, who was not in the least magnificent with the +magnificence she could reach through him? Gillian thought with a slow +gust of remorse of that far-off, unconsidered Millicent who too, in her +day, had wanted Toby, and who was now—neither she nor Lilac had ever +stopped to ask if she were dead—at least she had never spoken of Toby’s +first wife to Lilac. What Toby had said to Lilac about her was their own +affair; but Gillian might have spared her a thought. + +Lower and lower in her own esteem she plunged, down into the dark +undergrowth where motives lie tangled in egoism and vanity. Jealousy of +her sister; envy of Lilac’s freedom; feeble self-pity for her own +loneliness—as if she didn’t want to be alone—assailed her as she groped +in the shadows of her heart. What an aftermath of a wedding! Why +couldn’t she be happy because Lilac was free, because she had both hands +full of what she most wanted? Gillian wanted freedom too. But it wasn’t, +after all, freedom that someone else’s money could give her. Lilac had +freed herself with one hand by fettering the other. In a way she was +more bound than Gillian, who could never hope to be freer than she was +now. + +Gillian’s headache was gone; it had faded out with the daylight. The sky +was quite black above the Embankment lights now, and the tide was rising +and taking fresh reflections, long swords of light from the lamps on the +bridges, as the waters broadened beneath them. Gillian turned her face +to go home, her self-reviling over. But there was still an ache of +disappointment in her thoughts. What was it she had asked of this day, +that thing for herself, that secret and peculiar enjoyment which had not +been given to her? Long ago, when she was a child, she had known this +unsatisfied ache. “I’m not hungry, but I know there’s something very +delicious I’ve not eaten,” she had explained to her father. Now the ache +was there, but she knew what she had missed. It was the climax of the +wedding-service which had never come; the moment when, in her prayer for +Lilac, she had hoped, had meant to reach out and touch her father’s +spirit if it could be possible that that spirit remained aware of her. +She had promised herself to wait with closed eyes for the words: + + “... whose daughters ye are so long as ye do well and are not + afraid with any amazement.” + +and they had never been spoken. + +Lilac and Old Winona together had had the service thoroughly pruned. The +Bishop had tweetled an inaudible little sermon over the married pair, +the murmurs of which were drowned to the congregation in the creaking of +the bridesmaids’ gilded flower-baskets as they stood separated from the +bride and fidgeting in the aisle for the end of the performance. There +had been little need for consecrated phrases at the Pantomime Wedding. + + + + + CHAPTER THREE. + THE TORTOISESHELL CAT + + + I + +There was a knock at the door. + +Gillian, who was dusting books in the inner room, ran out to answer it +without taking off the brown holland overall she was wearing, or untying +the old, blue, silk handkerchief with which she had covered her head. + +Jane Bird stood on the landing. + +“Good morning, Tanagra,” she said, her face impassive behind her round +spectacles. “_The Times_ has announced that Moloch has devoured your +sister, so I’ve come to see if you’ve been singed at all during the +sacrifice.” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Gillian, torn between shyness, +excitement and an unresentful knowledge that Jane was being very +impertinent, and that she was not going to be able to snub her for it. + +“Don’t you know about the Bottomley Sunbaths for Ricketty Children?” +said Jane, “and may I come inside?” She followed Gillian into the inner +room and sat down, very tall and flat, like a creature hewn and jointed +together out of planks, on the red chesterfield. + +“Your brother-in-law has celebrated his marriage by giving a sun-cure +installation, in Dorset, to the London Hospital,” she said. “It’s in the +papers with photographs of the wedding. There’s one of you in fancy +dress, with the fancy hat a little on one side. You oughtn’t to try the +piquant style. Undine or Ophelia, with your hair quite down, and no +stays, is all you should ever allow yourself.” + +“You can’t have Ophelia bridesmaids,” said Gillian, “it would be +tactless. Hamlet was such an unmarrying-man. And how nice of Toby! He +kept it very quiet. I didn’t know.” + +“Very wise of him till he’d got clear of the country, or he’d have all +the hospitals in the kingdom after him. I know. I was brought up on the +lap of a hospital committee. My father was the director of Addenbrokes +till he died. That’s how I know so much more about Life and its +Mysteries than most young women. I read all his books, and it wasn’t +only medicine. I’m an orphan now, like you. I’ve got a mother—if mother +indeed she can be called. She’s third curate, unpaid, at St. Luke’s, and +I’ve taken a studio in Buckingham Palace Road for six months.” + +“Aren’t you going to Oxford?” + +“Nor to Cambridge. They’re coming to me. Do you know Larry Browne?” + +“No,” said Gillian. + +“You will soon,” Jane assured her. “He knows about you; his father was +your father’s tutor at B.N.C., and he’s got a photograph of your father +in his studio that might be you with your hair cut short and your nose a +size larger. I recognized it because it’s the same one as I saw here the +day I called on your sister last summer.” + +“It’s the only photograph he ever had taken that wasn’t a snapshot one,” +said Gillian. “And why has your Mr. Browne got it? where did he get it?” + +“His father had it from your father in the days when you were both +unborn. It’s like a nursery rhyme,” said Jane, “and he’s trying to put +it into a large allegorical picture he’s going to enter for some prize +or other. Up in the top corner—complicated with wings and a halo.” + +“I think,” said Gillian, “I think I should like to see it.” + +“Come along then,” said Jane Bird; “it’s only on the other side of the +bridge.” + +They walked together over the bridge and along by the palings of +Battersea Park, and as they went Jane told Gillian that she had +discarded scholarship for sculpture, and had already sold two figures to +a shop in Bond Street. + +“They’re not good,” said Jane Bird, “my figures are not good, but +they’re very pretty, and I sell them for five pounds apiece.” + +Presently they crossed the road, went through the fragment of a gate +that hung between two blistered gate-posts in a fence which ran along +the footpath between two blocks of flats, and found themselves in a +long, asphalted garden, common to a row of studios, where the fires of +Spring were vainly striving to cover up the traces of the bonfires of +November. + +The studios were of commercial build. Red brick, faced with white stone, +cut into unnecessary and depressing arabesques above the gutters, held +the doors, windows and skylights together. The woodwork of the whole row +had originally been painted in that peculiar liver-coloured red which +distinguishes the entrances of the Piccadilly and Brompton Tube +stations, and is so often used by the London builder to enhance the +yellower red of London bricks. But, here and there in the row, an +occupant had sickened at the shade and had splashed in white or green +over the landlord’s paint. The door of the last studio in the row was +new and shining in a rich cobalt. + +“That is the azure goal of our pilgrimage,” said Jane Bird, and Gillian +found that she dared not ask her to express herself with direct +simplicity. Jane was making it perfectly clear that Gillian was no +longer in authority and that she, Jane, intended to be as ornate and +ridiculous as she pleased, when she pleased; would indeed go out of her +way to be ridiculous and ornate, just for the triumph of seeing Gillian +check her impulse to protest. + +Larry Browne, who opened the door to them, was tall and +broad-shouldered, with thick, strong, golden-brown hair that curved +without curling from either side of a deep, straight parting dividing +his head from crown to brow. He had light eyes; grey-green with yellow +gleams in them, and there was a curious triangular fleck in the iris of +his left eye that gave him a false expression of being a man with an +outward cast. He had a small, neat nose with beautiful wide nostrils +that drank the air freely, and a beautiful fresh mouth from one corner +of which, at that moment, hung a long cherry-wood pipe with a tassel +half-way down its stem, and a china bowl, with a lid to it, painted with +robins and forget-me-nots that hopped and twined in and out of the +device _Traum und Rauch_ which ran in large black Gothic capitals below +its brim. He wore a shantung shirt which had once been blue, but had +passed through many washings and was now clouded, like an August sky, +where the colour had run, leaving irregular white spaces. An enormous +pair of green corduroy trousers was folded into the tops of his brown +boots at the ankles, and pleated into a leather belt round his waist. In +spite, or even because of, this voluminous garment, the young man +appeared remarkable for slenderness and grace as he stood in the +doorway, the sunlight beating full on his clear, bright skin, filling +the little freckles that crossed from cheek to cheek with colour, and +striking a high-light off the curve of the jaw that ran, a clean line, +from behind his small flat ear to the end of his slightly pointed chin. + +“Behold,” said Jane Bird, still daring Gillian to protest, “the youth is +ruddy and withal of a fair countenance and beautiful to look to.” + +“Hullo, Aholah!” said the young man in an even voice, removing the pipe +from his mouth as he spoke, and shutting down the pewter lid of its bowl +with one finger. “Come in. We call your friend Aholah,” he said, turning +to Gillian, “partly on account of her iniquities, but also because it +was my good fortune to stumble on the derivation of that ancient name. +It means ‘she that has her own tent,’ which is Miss Bird’s case, while +I,” said Larry Browne, “am forced to share mine with a faun, as you may +see for yourself.” + +He pulled aside the curtain which shut the little lobby off from the +studio itself, letting it fall again as the two girls passed into the +gaunt, white room. + +Larry Browne’s studio was the usual wilderness of easels, canvases, +mahl-sticks and more or less damaged properties, furred with the usual +dust, smelling of the customary oil and turpentine. The blinds were not +drawn across the skylight and the studio was flooded with sunshine. All +the low windows on the farther side were open on to a hedge of box and +ivy and Virginia creeper which was noisy with sparrows. Some of the +sparrows had hopped in over the window-seat, and three of them were +fluttering and pecking on the boards below the model’s throne. A fourth +was perched on the knee of the figure which occupied the throne; seated +on it with one leg hanging down, the other crossed and bent so that one +naked foot lay on the right knee, just behind the unruffled bird. + +It was the figure of a man so slight and supple that at a first glance +he seemed little more than a child. + +He wore a light-blue suit like an engineer’s overall, held up by a tape +which passed over his neck from the middle of the garment and left his +arms and shoulders as bare as his thin, brown feet. Some one—it was most +probably Larry—had stuck an ivy-leaf into the close black curls on each +side of the creature’s head, and the stiff corners stood up like horns, +widening the low, wide brow and giving to the dark, heavily lashed eyes +which looked out from under the thick eyebrows, a woodland air. The face +narrowed on either side of a long hooked nose to a chin deeply cleft +below a mouth which was at the moment pursed up into a soundless +whistle. The faun was holding converse with the sparrow, having for this +purpose broken off his attempt to clear up the studio with a +long-handled broom which leant up against the throne and served as a +perch for yet another brown bird. + +“Heinrich,” said Larry Browne, “you must shoo those fowls away. We have +other guests.” + +The faun, with one liquid movement, broke the angles of his pose and, +gathering the complacent sparrows together, bore them, perched on the +fingers of either hand to the window and placed them, chirruping, in the +hedge outside. + +“I go to put on coats, vaistcoats too,” he said with a brilliant, +melancholy smile, and vanished. + +“Heinrich,” Larry explained, “is a faun by day. At six o’clock he puts +on more coats and waistcoats and goes out to play in the second violins +at Queen’s Hall. Some of him is German as his name expresses, some of +him is Italian, some of him is Jew. His father undoubtedly was Pan. He +must have had a good many mothers.” + +“And when you’ve done painting him into your fresco,” said Jane Bird, +“he’s going to sit to me with a sparrow, real or stuffed.” + +“I wonder if William would sit with him,” said Gillian. “It wouldn’t be +the same thing as a sparrow, of course.” + +“It would be quite another subject,” said Jane. “‘Tame cockatoo +devouring wild violinist’ I should think would be what the group would +sell as.” + +“I’m sorry,” said Gillian, and didn’t look for fear of seeing Jane +Bird’s small annotating smile at her capitulation. + +“I suppose you’re doing Heinrich as Pan,” said Jane. + +“I’m not,” said Larry Browne, “Heinrich with sparrows is clearly a +Cytherean theme. Without his overall, as you’ll see presently, he loses +touch with nature. But, morning by morning as he sweeps the dust about +the floor and encourages those vulgar birds to be perfectly at ease +indoors, I’ve wondered what it was he reminded me of. He’s my idea of +Cupid.” + +“Goodness!” said Gillian. + +“Even so,” said Larry. “With a bunch of arrows stuck through the front +of that pointed pinafore of his, serious with a sidelong eye—a +conscious, predestinate demiurge—enslaved by his own destiny of +enslavement.” + +“That’s an Orphic Eros, not a Cupid,” said Jane. + +“By Orcus out of Aphrodite,” chanted Larry. + +“Oh, well,” said Jane, “if you like to mix your parents to fit the +faun.... Aren’t you going to be charming to Miss Armstrong? She’s come +because your father knew her father.” + +Larry Browne was easily charming. He remembered Gerald Armstrong’s visit +to his old tutor, soon after his marriage to little Ellen, when Larry +himself was a child of six. “He told me about you,” he said to Gillian, +“he said you’d only one tooth and no hair. I wanted dreadfully to see +you. I didn’t realize you were just a normal baby such as I could see +any day in perambulators on Boar’s Hill. He called you ‘my daughter’ and +I thought you must be grown up, particularly as he said you had the most +beautiful manners, in which alas! you differed from me, as my mother +pointed out, rather tactlessly, I thought.” + +And Gillian asked more about that visit, and discovered that Larry had +been in Munich only a month after they’d left it five years ago, and had +had re-introductions to her father which he’d never used, either then or +in Paris, where they might have met if he’d only known. It was clear +that the whole of Europe was thick with welcome for Larry Browne, and +that he never used half his introductions in any place he visited. He +had, indeed, it appeared, come to Battersea because London was the only +place where you can really hide, “and even here,” said Larry Browne, +“I’m subject to the inquisitions of Aholah Bird.” + +He showed Gillian the head he had painted from her father’s photograph +in the long procession he was designing for a frieze which was the +subject set for a certain much-coveted prize that year. + +“He’s the Knight. I’m doing imaginary characters, Fairy-Tale ones. I +wish you’d sit to me for an hour if you’ve time one morning?” + +“What as?” said Jane Bird sharply. + +“As a changeling, of course,” said Larry Browne. “I wonder you troubled +to ask so answered a question.” + +“Of course,” said Jane, “it’s what I’ve always wondered, and now you’ve +told me. Well, I wish you luck.” + +Heinrich came back, rather more human, in a very shiny blue serge suit, +a wisp of frayed tie holding the soft collar of his grey flannel shirt +together, and they all four went out into Battersea Park and gave the +raven in the aviary in the maze everything that was left over from the +studio breakfast that morning. + + + II + +The laburnum-tree in the courtyard was dropping its amber-and-lemon +florets in the sunlight, and the sparse blossom of the lilac-bush +against the wall by Mrs. Barraclough’s window sent up a breath of such +fragrance as its soot-clogged pores could still render to the morning +air, as Gillian washed her breakfast-dishes. She had been late the night +before, having gone with Jane and Larry to hear Heinrich play the violin +by himself at another studio, after the Queen’s Hall orchestra had +dispersed for the night. + +Heinrich, looking more unlike a Cupid than anything Gillian had ever +seen, had played melodies in a piercing sequence, choosing them from +orchestrated or fully harmonized scores and giving them in the naked +strangeness of a single string. The air from Borodine’s musician’s +quartette; the subject of the last movement of Smetana’s _Aus meinem +Leben_; a phrase from a Bach three-part invention; “Cherry Ripe”; the +pizzicato passage from one scherzo movement of Mozart, and other tunes, +half-recognized or quite unknown, sang again in Gillian’s memory as she +stood at the sink by the open window and let the water from the tap rush +over the old Spode plate, the leadless glaze milk-jug, the Nanking +teapot with its sodden, shabby bamboo handle, and the wide-pink-bordered +Rouen cup and saucer she always used for breakfast. + +How lovely running water was, even out of an indifferently polished +brass tap! How unearthly some of Heinrich’s playing had been! Faint and +thin and high like a gnat’s music. How late it was! Nearly eleven +o’clock. The milk-cart had clattered out, before she was awake; the +butcher-boy’s bicycle had crunched swiftly over the gravel in the +courtyard while she dressed; the ten-o’clock postman had knocked at all +the doors where he had letters to deliver while she was sitting over her +breakfast. Gillian felt she was getting demoralized. No Lilac to +consider at night when she came in. No work to get her out of bed before +she had finished her sleep in the morning. It would be a good thing when +the vacancy at the secretarial school fell in next week and she had more +motive in her days again. How did that Borodine tune end?—up or down? +She turned off the tap and whistled the melody through softly to +herself. No, that wasn’t right. Odd that she could hear it in her head +and not be able to reproduce it properly. Humming was worse than +whistling. Her voice made the oddest noises. She hadn’t a pretty voice. +Still it hadn’t made, it couldn’t have made that queer little sound. +Gillian stopped her low, uncertain singing and leaned out into the +sunlight to listen. Yes. The sound was coming up from below, a shrill, +hoarse, tiny cry. Not unlike Heinrich saying “No” when they had tried to +make him play again last night. + +She leaned out farther, her two hands clutching the window-sill. How +lovely it was to feel the sun on her neck, down between her +shoulder-blades as her holland overall stuck out and made a tunnel +there. A lock of her hair broke loose and hung vertically, soft and +long, below the level of the window so that the sun shone through it and +made it golden and iridescent. She shook her head a little to make the +light dance in her hair, and saw with such a glow of vanity as only the +straight-haired can feel that the movement made it curl a little at the +tip. + +And still the little cry came up, tired and pleading. It sounded like +the mewing of a cat. But it was against the rules of the Club for any +member to have a cat, and Mr. Gordon’s Crack, a stout and arrogant +fox-terrier, made it his vocation to preserve the yard against strays. +But it certainly sounded like a cat. Gillian leaned out a little +farther, so far that one shoe slipped on its sole from the stone floor +and swung out behind her leaving her poised on one foot and two hands. +Yes. She could see it—wedged in under the foot-scraper by the door five +storeys below her—a kitten. Crack had probably chased it under the iron +bar and had tired of the game, and nobody had seen it to set it free. +What a good thing Gillian had heard it! What a good thing, after all, +that she had time on her hands, this lovely, dancing, shining day! + +Down the ten flights of stone steps, eight to a flight, two to a +landing, she ran twisting up her flying hair as she went. The courtyard +was still empty and the kitten had wriggled itself free of the +door-scraper when she reached it; but it was mewing none the less. + +Gillian had seldom seen a less attractive cat. It was not so very young, +not so disarmingly small, now that she was on the same level with it. It +was almost not a kitten any longer, and it was tortoiseshell, a brand +she didn’t admire, and Manx, a thing she had never been able to bear. It +had the four white feet and the white chest and face peculiar to its +kind, and it was very dirty. Its nose was pink and dirty and its +pink-rimmed eyes were sore. Gillian sat on her heels to examine it more +closely. It smelled of indescribable things as well as of stale fish. +And it mewed—oh, how it mewed! + +“I wonder if you’re hungry?” said Gillian. “Perhaps this awful smell of +a dead sardine was eaten by some stronger cat who fought you for it.” + +The cat stopped mewing and took a step nearer to Gillian; then it pushed +its cold nose and weak whisker against her hand and slithered the whole +of its brindled flank against her knee with the travelling pressure cats +exert in order to produce for themselves the sensation of being stroked. + +“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” said Gillian, “you’re not clean enough, +even if this overall is going to the wash.” But the cat had whisked +round and was sleeking its other side along her knee, offering the pink, +unprotected obscenity beneath its upright stump of a tail to Gillian’s +inspection. + +“Oh! I don’t like you at all,” said Gillian. And she stood up. + +But the cat, having attracted attention, was minded to secure a friend. +It began to wind round and round Gillian’s ankles, once more uttering +its short, exhausted mew. + +“After all,” said Gillian, “you may be really hungry, and if you were a +pretty and attractive cat you’d not be here or some one else would have +taken charge of you long ago.” + +And, closing her eyes, she stooped and took the unhappy thing by the +scruff of its neck and wrapped it in the front of her overall. It made +no resistance, and as she carried it upstairs she could feel the faint +thrill of a purr creeping through the holland folds in which it lay. + +The cat was hungry. It lapped up two saucers full of milk almost as +quickly as Gillian could pour them out, and it ate, with quivers and +sharp, sudden jerks of the head, a cold sausage she had meant to have +had with a lettuce for her own lunch. + +When it had finished eating, not because it seemed satisfied but because +there was no more to give it, Gillian bathed its eyes with some warm +boracic lotion and saw, with loathing, that it was lapping the water +from the bowl when she returned from putting the muslin rag she had used +into the dustbin. + +“_Schamlos!_” said Gillian. “I apologize to Heinrich for having let your +voice remind me of him. Now you must go home. I daren’t let William know +you’ve called.” + +So she put on her hat, carried the kitten down to the street with her, +set it down at a street-corner, and then walked up to South Kensington +to look at some T’ang horses in the Museum about which Larry Browne had +been talking the evening before. + +Later in the day she went to tea with Old Winona, who was having all the +post-cards sent her by the honeymoon couple as they progressed round the +world along the most frequented tracks, framed and incorporated in a +screen of fretwork. She herself was inclined to have the whole screen +gilded, but Gillian thought it would look better, or at any rate that +the pictures themselves would show better if the fretting were all +black. So they were having one fold of the screen blacked and another +gilded in order to see which pleased the greater number more. Winnie +Roehampton had been in that morning and had suggested that they should +get a third fold done pea-green. + +“I think Lady Roehampton must have said that in fun,” said Gillian. + +“Well, my dear,” Old Winona conceded, “her manner _was_ a little +playful. Shall we say no more about it?” + +“We can always say we liked the black one best,” said Gillian. + +“Or the gilded one,” said Old Winona, who did not intend to like the +black one at all herself. + +It was dusk before Gillian reached the Club again. She had stayed to see +whether there would be any cards from Colombo by the seven-o’clock post, +escaping before dinner as she was expecting Jane in later in the +evening. As she reached the door in the courtyard there came a soft +rubbing around her ankles and once more the short, hungry mew of the +stray tortoiseshell rose to her ears. + +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “have you come for the night?” + +It seemed that such was the animal’s intention. It followed her +upstairs, or rather, to be accurate, it came upstairs with her feet, +purring as it slithered around and almost under them at every step. + +“It would,” said Gillian, “be far less trouble to carry you. Less +dangerous also. But that would be encouragement—and I don’t want to +encourage you.” + +But the human attitude, so long as it is not brutally repulsive, makes +no difference to a cat. This one, meek outcast though it seemed, had +that soft persistence by means of which the meek obtain fulfilment of +the promise that they shall inherit the earth. Up to the fifth floor it +squirmed, escaping injury as only a cat can, every time Gillian stumbled +over its soft and moving form. + +“I shall let William see you this time,” said Gillian. + +But William proved an unexpected failure so far as discouraging the +pensioner went. After a preliminary greeting of “Bow-wow-Bow-wow-wow” +(William always got his animals wrong and had insulted Crack and +seriously alienated Mr. Gordon by shouting “Baa-lamb” after the +fox-terrier at their first meeting) he took very kindly to the +tortoiseshell. And when Gillian, feeling that there was no need to +deprive William of his wonted freedom because this dingy stray had +invited itself to supper, let William out of his cage before she sat +down to the table, William not only refrained from shooing the cat away +from the plate of scraps Gillian cut for it from the boiled beef and +suet dumpling which had come up for her dinner from the kitchens, but +waddled across the floor with crusts of bread for the visitor’s plate +himself. + +“Pretty cocky,” said William surprisingly, as he deposited each fresh +crust, “pretty cocky,” and finally, deserting his perch on the back of +Gillian’s chair, he established himself on the top rung of the +fender-rail and turned his boot-button eye downwards on the eating, +furry thing, and fixed it with cold, unwinking goodwill. + +And then the tortoiseshell cat broke down the last barrier of Gillian’s +resistance to its adoption of herself and home by sitting up on its +horrid stump of a tail when she began to clear the table and, with the +aid of its pale, dry, little tongue and a grimy forepaw, beginning, very +feebly, to wash itself. + +“Goodness,” said Gillian for the second time that evening. “If I’m a +reforming influence in your poor little life I suppose you’ll have to +stay.” + +“Weak,” said Jane Bird when she came in and heard the story, “weak but +characteristic. There is no reason in logic or morals why any creature +should reform itself under your roof against your will. Besides, it’s a +vagabond. It has a bleary eye. It doesn’t want to stay. It only wants to +get you into trouble. I shall take it down to its native gutter when I +go.” And she did. + +But the next morning, while Gillian was having her breakfast, the now +familiar mew, slightly stronger and more insistent came up from the +foot-scraper by the courtyard door. + +She had received a letter by the early post telling her that she might, +if she liked, begin her training at once at the very exclusive +establishment Lilac had selected as the proper place in which her sister +was to be polished into fitness for a Cabinet Minister’s confidence, and +she was in a hurry to avail herself of the sudden vacancy in Miss de +Stormont’s exclusive ranks. So she dressed to go out and, taking a jug +of milk and a saucer in one hand, she locked up the flat and went +downstairs intending to nourish the kitten by stealth behind the little +box hedge that had succeeded in growing half across the north side of +the yard. + +But, by the time she reached the door-scraper, the kitten had stopped +mewing, and had almost disappeared into the box hedge. The stub of its +tail alone was visible, and that quivered as though the rest of its +person were in the act of consuming food. Gillian put her jug and saucer +down on the ground-floor scullery window-sill and stalked the beggar to +its grove. There, on the stony soil from which the box hedge sprung, +stood a shallow bowl, a china bowl with a spiked, green dragon coiled +around it, a beautiful bowl that was still half full of Devonshire +cream. + +Gillian had no time to waste. The cat had evidently found a richer +benefactor than herself and, musing a little who it might be in this +Club who had cream for a cat and could set it before the creature in a +piece which looked like part of the loot from Pekin, she hurried off to +her first class in Buckingham Gate. + +The new surroundings, the unfamiliar routine drove this small but +pictorial mystery from her mind for the rest of the day. But at four +o’clock (Miss de Stormont gave short hours, half-past ten till one, and +an hour and a half after luncheon to prepare for the next day) it came +back to her with a thrill of romantic excitement as she turned in under +the archway from the street and saw that the cat was lapping from the +same bowl once more, but that this time the green dragon coiled over the +faintly dimpled glaze, in the open, from the flagstone by the +door-scraper. + + + III + +All her life long Gillian had been a spectator. The joys of her life had +been the joys of the eye and the mind. Her sorrows had been few. The +loss of her father, although she was unaware of it, had been mitigated +for her, as it could not have been in a more physically passionate +creature, by the consolations of that kingdom of the spirit wherein his +companionship had taught her to travel. Her mind, in a very literal +sense, was its own place. Since her father’s death she had possessed it +alone. Trained by him to make æsthetic discriminations and to take her +own pleasure in any manifestation of life or art, not only as the only +valid test of its worth, but as the highest form of happiness attainable +in human experience, she had, without any conscious intention, failed to +develop the faculty for establishing personal relationships, for taking +root in any place or affection, which her essentially friendly and +enthusiastic nature should have encouraged. Lilac, who was both more +captious and less affectionate than her sister, had many friends, +useful, ornamental or merely pleasant, with whom she quarrelled or +amused herself, and had whirled her way through several love-affairs +before she met Toby Bottomley and decided that in him she had found the +husband she required. But Gillian depended for her friendships either on +circumstance, or on the determination of those who were willing to +pursue. Love-affairs she had none. There had been two strange episodes, +both of them of almost the same kind, in which infatuated strangers had +applied to her parents for permission to address her, and, on the second +occasion, Gillian, who was by then nearly twenty-two, had had some +trouble in assuring her widowed and excusably flustered mother that she +didn’t even know the young man by sight. + +“Do you mean to tell me, Gillian,” her mother had said when discussing +the matter, “do you seriously mean to tell me that this is another case +of that student at Lausanne all over again?” + +And Gillian had assured her mother that, so far as her conscious +knowledge of the affair was concerned, this was indeed a repetition of +that old vexation. And it had seemed to her that she was once again an +onlooker at a play, the central character of which was a man who had +fallen in love with a girl to whom he had never spoken a word. + +But that afternoon, through the clear May sunshine that was beginning to +turn golden with the westering beams, there came to Gillian, as to a +long-prepared appointment, a creature who filled the eye to overflowing +with that completed harmony between experience and imagination which, +when it comes to any empty heart, is the most unmistakable of all +vanquishing powers. + +She was sitting on her heels, having taken off her hat as soon as she +was inside the gateway (Gillian never wore a hat a minute longer than +she needed, and not always so long as she should), and was watching the +cat and admiring the bowl, when the door of the opposite building opened +and a tall, dark woman came out and stood at the top of the steps. + +Even before she came down to the courtyard and claimed it, Gillian knew +that this was the owner of the china bowl, the Providence that dispensed +clotted cream to dirty little strays. But as she came with a swift, +steady stride, the free rapid movement of a woman who had been much with +horses, who had ridden from childhood, Gillian also knew, with a thrill +of recognition so strange, so new to her experience that the shock of it +took away all sense of any other consideration, that she beheld in the +flesh the very image of a perfection wrought by her own imaginings in +the secret places of her dreaming mind. This was not a beautiful +creature for all the world to see and gape at, it was the figure—unique +of its kind—for which the shrine of her spirit had stood empty and +waiting till now. + +Dark hair, “curled like breakers of the sea” away from a low brow under +which clear, tawny eyes shone beneath fine, exquisitely arched eyebrows; +a wide mouth parted like a ripe pomegranate in a smile that showed +white, even teeth, each separated from its fellow; an impression of +clear red and white in the complexion, and, above all, that swift, +scythe-like movement from hip to knee as the figure approached her where +she crouched on the doorstep beside the lapping, oblivious cat, these +were the first things Gillian was aware of as she gazed stupidly upwards +into the vivid face. + +“Is this your little cat?” + +The voice was a disappointment: flat, metallic, not coming from any +depth, curiously old and lifeless for so vital-seeming a possessor. + +“Oh, no!” said Gillian, “we aren’t allowed to keep cats in the Club; +didn’t you know?” + +“Yes, I knew,” said the stranger, “but I thought you might be keeping +one.” + +“You must have thought I was behaving very badly to it,” Gillian +retorted, “if you’ve been feeding it too.” + +“Oh, well, I saw it was hungry. It’s been about for some days. I can see +it from my window.” She made no attempt to excuse herself for the +implied charge of neglect. Gillian thought she couldn’t have noticed it. + +“I _heard_ it,” said Gillian. “I couldn’t see it at first. It seems to +prefer this side of the yard.” + +“Yes,” said the stranger. “So you live in the Club?” + +“I do,” said Gillian, “my name is Gillian Armstrong.” + +“Do you spell it with a J?” + +“No,” said Gillian, “it’s a soft G, like gilly-flower. I can see you +live in the Club,” she went on, “because you’ve come out without a hat, +but I’ve never seen you before. Are you a new member?” + +“Yes, rather new. I came in last year. I know you quite well by sight. I +see you from my window.” + +“That’s because I don’t have curtains across mine,” said Gillian. “Up on +the top floor it doesn’t really seem necessary. And Mrs. Gordon told me, +when I asked if people could see in from below, that she’d never seen +nothing wrong in my rooms.” + +The other laughed, a short dry “honk” that added no more mirth to her +steadily smiling eyes. + +“Mrs. Gordon is a scream,” she said, “so is Mr. Gordon. Do you like his +dog?” + +“No,” said Gillian. “I can’t bear Crack, and I don’t think you’d better +leave this lovely bowl down here. Crack will break it, you know.” + +The cat had licked the last smear of cream from the sides of the bowl, +and was now rubbing itself round the stranger’s ankles. Gillian with the +bowl in her hands, stood up. + +“Shall I wash it for you?” she said; “I’ll do it with my tea-things and +send it over by the maid who brings my dinner.” + +“Oh, don’t let Mabel bring it,” said the stranger, betraying what seemed +to Gillian an extraordinary familiarity with the arrangements of the +Club under which the four little housemaids revolved from floor to floor +with each returning moon, so that you had the same maid for a month at a +time and then passed into the hands of one of the other three. Gillian +herself was quite incapable of finding out or of remembering which maid +was waiting on any other floor but her own, though she had gathered from +the verbosities of Mrs. Gordon that some floors were more popular with +the servants than others, either because of the kindness of their +occupiers or because of the more sensational furniture and adventures +which occasionally distinguished one member from another in the gossip +of the Club. + +“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Mabel is the rough one, she might drop +it. How did you know it was Mabel’s turn on our landing?” + +“Mabel did my floor last month,” said the stranger, “and she told me she +was going to yours in time for the wedding.” + +Gillian knew that a wave of resentment flowed through some dim backwater +of her mind at this intrusion, but it was drowned in the flood of +expectation with which she accepted a suggestion that, if she really +insisted on washing out the Chinese bowl, its owner would be delighted +to see her with it in her own flat. + +“My name is Victoria Vanderleyden,” she said, “and I live at Number 36. +Do come up to coffee.” + +Gillian had never been bidden to go anywhere “to coffee” before, but she +took the formula to indicate that she would be expected immediately +after dinner, and she accepted the invitation saying she would come as +soon as she had turned the cat out for the night. For the cat was +already inside the door, looking back over its shoulder, a little +impatiently at Gillian, and plainly intending to dine with her that +night also. + + + IV + +The door of Number 36 stood open and lamplight poured out from the room +over the dark landing where Gordon had not yet lit the gas-jet, when +Gillian, carrying the china bowl and a bunch of purple centaureas from a +basket of flowers which Sophie had left at the flat on her way from +Glynde that afternoon, reached the third floor of the house across the +courtyard, soon after eight o’clock. + +It was, Gillian saw, one of the large, two-windowed rooms. The windows +looked westward, across the tops of the trees in the gardens of Cheyne +Row, and through them, lower than the lamplight, there still came the +glow of a late, red sunset. Accustomed as she was to the roofs and +chimneys of the street, or to the windows of the house across the +courtyard as the familiar views from the Club windows, Gillian felt, as +she entered this lit and quiet room, as though she were going into some +far country. + +Her own rooms and those of the Countess and of the Middletons, the only +flats beside her own and Mrs. Barraclough’s into which she had so far +entered, were all colour-washed a uniform cream, with white paint on the +doors and window-frames and skirting-boards; and this colour scheme was, +so Mrs. Barraclough had told the Armstrongs when they took their flat, +the rule of the Club. + +But Miss Vanderleyden had evidently been allowed to break that rule, for +her walls were tinted lavender, and all the woodwork that surrounded +them was black. Long curtains, a shade darker than the walls, and +touched by the sunset into a rosy mauve, hung at the windows, and two +red, wooden candlesticks on the black chimney-shelf matched two painted +Norwegian chairs which stood on either side of a low black table. A wide +divan against the wall at one end of the room was covered with black +satin and heaped with red and green cushions, and the bare boards of the +floor were black and shining. There were no pictures on the walls, but a +mirror in a red frame hung from ceiling to floor between the windows, +and over the fireplace there spread a fan-shaped case in which hundreds +of South Sea Island shells were ranged together in a geometrical +pattern. Gillian looked for books, but there were none to be seen. +“Perhaps she keeps them behind those strange curtains,” she thought, +noting that three of the far corners of the long room were curtained off +with what was obviously stuff from Burnets in Garrick Street, a shop +into which Lilac, who preferred her cretonnes flowered, had definitely +forbidden Gillian to go when they were furnishing Number Seven. + +A strong smell of freshly made coffee filled the whole landing; but of +Miss Vanderleyden herself there was no trace. Gillian crossed the room +and went over to the open window. Between two blocks of houses she saw +the river move, still burnished in the fading light, and voices rose +faintly from the small gardens under the trees below, where the dwellers +in Cheyne Row were sitting out in the cool of the day. In one of the +gardens a row of Chinese lanterns had been festooned between the +branches, and some one was lighting them as if in preparation for a +festivity. One green, one orange and one variegated globe were already +swinging in the dusk and Gillian was waiting with absorbed, delightful +speculation as to the probable colour of the fourth lantern, when a +sound close beside her made her turn. Miss Vanderleyden was standing by +the table on which she had placed a Benares tray with coffee-cups. She +was gazing with lighted eyes, not at Gillian, but at her own reflection +in the long, scarlet-rimmed mirror between the windows. + +“Come and look,” she said, without taking her eyes away from the glass +before her. + +Gillian obeyed. Miss Vanderleyden had taken the red candlesticks from +over the fireplace and had lighted the tall, white candles they held and +had placed them on the table so that their wavering flames lit up her +face as she leaned between them. The door, still open behind her, showed +the dark abyss of the unlit landing beyond, which repeated itself in +profound obscurity in the depths of the looking-glass. Out of the heart +of the darkness the vivid face floated midway on the surface of the +mirror—wide, white brow, wide, luminous eyes, wide, smiling mouth. Miss +Vanderleyden had not changed the soft, dark, brown dress she had been +wearing when they first met, and Gillian saw that the large, +old-fashioned topaz brooch still fastening the lace at her throat was +matched by a pair of heavy gold bracelets which she wore on either arm. +The stones in these antique, fetter-like jewels threw out reflections +into the mirror and seemed to illuminate the hands which, raised on +their finger-tips from the dark surface of the table, as though each had +a separate existence in the shadowy picture, completed without belonging +to, the whole reflection. + +“Look at yourself,” laughed the mouth in the mirror, and the mirrored +eyes met Gillian’s as she gazed. + +And Gillian saw herself, a moth-pale phantom behind the radiant head. +Her white frock glimmered grey in the background, the candle-light +glinted in her hair so faintly that its blondness looked silver above +the molten glow of Miss Vanderleyden’s topaz and gold. Only her +rose-flushed cheeks, and the starry glitter of the eyes she hardly knew +for hers, prevailed with the ardent image that challenged her, and +proved her able to meet the challenge. + +It was the first time in her experience of life that any direct personal +appeal had aroused in her this profoundly personal, this intense and +definitely physical reply. Miss Vanderleyden’s look had, Gillian could +see it in her own reflection, changed the colour of her face, the +expression of her own eyes and lips. For a moment they stood side by +side looking at themselves and at one another in the dark pool of the +mirror, and then Miss Vanderleyden spoke. + +“Aren’t we a nice contrast?” she said in the same flat, shallow voice as +had startled Gillian that afternoon with its audible contradiction of +all that her eyes could see. + + * * * * * + +They drank their coffee, which was very good, sitting together on the +black divan which was neither so soft nor so comfortable as it looked, +being as Miss Vanderleyden explained with some pride, constructed out of +her trunks and a spare mattress, and far too hard to be used as a bed +except by actresses of whom, it appeared, Miss Vanderleyden knew all +kinds. + +“And most of them will sleep on anything, poor dears, when they are +resting,” she stated, without explaining why an actress should be able +to rest in such discomfort. + +Statements of this nature, based on some occult information which, +whether she could not or would not, she certainly did not impart, formed +a staple of Miss Vanderleyden’s conversation and helped to send Gillian +home across the courtyard to her own flat at midnight in a state of +mingled exaltation and bewilderment. But some account of herself the +wonderful creature had given, though few of the details were +consecutive. + +Her name, as she had already said, was Victoria Vanderleyden, but she +was usually called “Victor” by her friends, and she invited Gillian to +use this sobriquet from the beginning because she could see that they +were going to be real pals. Gillian had been able without rejecting the +advance or accepting the actual title of “real pal” to select from a +choice of other names, to all of which the lady had answered in her day, +the alternatives “V.V.” and “Viva,” and had made it clear that the “G” +in her own name was a soft one. “V.V.,” it seemed, had the blood of an +authentic missionary in her veins, and so her title to benefit by the +Club was clearer than the Armstrongs’ had been. Her father’s brother—“a +real Dutchman” (Gillian could not make out to what extent the brothers +differed in their respective Dutchness) had been a missionary in Borneo, +and it was from him that she had inherited the trophy of shells. But +some of her life had certainly been spent in Ostend, and she appeared to +have a root or two as far north as Blackpool. A person called “Daisy” +flickered in and out of the dialogue and, just before they parted, +Gillian gathered that this was no lady but Miss Vanderleyden’s brother, +who appeared to be a gentleman of independent means. + +These details were, in review, unsatisfactory and, added to the fact, +which Gillian remembered Mrs. Barraclough deploring that Miss +Vanderleyden was employed in a beauty-parlour, gave her a sense of +having taken a step into an unknown and even a perilous region. But +Gillian was not in the least afraid of the unknown and, as she looked +for a third time that evening at her own reflection, this last time in +her own toilet-mirror in her own bedroom, she knew that she must go on +with the adventure. + +For her mirror showed her what V.V.’s mirror had shown her, the second +time she had seen herself there—a new, and an undeniably changed and +prettier Gillian. And she wanted to see this girl again. + +“You don’t know how to do your hair,” V.V. had said after half an hour’s +talk with her new pal. “I can make it look twice as much. Do you mind?” + +And Gillian, who had been told till she was tired that she did her hair +infamously, had submitted without the least reluctance while V.V.’s +long, swift, cunning hands drew out the pins from the “bun” at the back +of her head and untwisted the tight coils into which Gillian drove a +dozen hairpins like carpenters’ nails twice or three times a day, in the +despairing hope that they would hold her troublesome locks in place. + +V.V. had produced a set of long-bristled brushes, bleached with constant +washing and innocent of any trace of the varnish with which their +wooden backs had been originally finished, and several large +professional-looking combs. And then, with a long, steady stroke and a +light lifting of each separate strand, she had worked her way from brow +to nape of the head beneath the showering hair that fell as straight as +rain over the elbows of the girl who sat with folded hands in the +straight-backed red Norwegian chair beneath the hanging-lamp in that +quiet room. V.V. brushed and brushed, crooning with pleasure as the fine +hair rose and crackled through the bristles before they let each shining +lock slide back into its place again. + +“Lovely, lovely, hair,” she babbled, and Gillian hardly heard the +foolish voice as the cool hands moved through her hair soothing and +lulling, and flattering her senses till she almost slept. + +“Now,” said V.V. “Sit up, I’m going to plait it over your ears.” + +“Why, I look like a German schoolgirl,” said Gillian when the plaiting +was over and the two long ropes had been coiled one each side of the +parting which divided her head into two smooth shining segments, “and +the pins hurt my ears dreadfully.” + +“You look like a fairy-tale princess,” said V.V. “I wish Dicky could see +you. She’d simply love to draw you.” + +It certainly was an improvement, but, now that she was back in her own +room again, Gillian felt quite sure that Lilac would never allow her to +wear her hair like that: and she unpinned the plaits knowing that she +would twist her hair as usual and drive the long black hairpins into it +in the morning, and cram her hat down on the solid lump in the same old +way as ever, before setting out to her humdrum day in the correct +establishment of Miss de Stormont in the Buckingham Palace Road. + +During the next three or four days the intimacy between Gillian and V.V. +grew like a gourd until, by Saturday morning, they were free of one +another’s rooms and crockery; community of tea-things being one of the +consequences of intimacy at the Mordaunt Club. + +On Saturday morning a bomb fell. + + “DEAR MISS ARMSTRONG,” wrote Mrs. Barraclough on the die-stamped + correspondence-card she always used when reprehending members by + letter: + + “I am writing to Miss Vanderleyden as well as to yourself in + order to request most emphatically that you will not continue to + encourage stray cats about in the courtyard. I understand that + you and she are in the habit of feeding a most objectionable and + probably diseased animal there night and morning, and must forbid + you to continue the practice. + + Yours faithfully, + THEODORA BARRACLOUGH, + Secretary.” + +“And,” said Mrs. Gordon, who delivered the letter with her weekly bill +and made no secret of having lifted the damp and yielding flap of the +envelope in order to read the note on her way up, “Mr. Gordon’s going to +set Crack on the little beast if it begins its mewing again to-night, I +can tell you.” + +Gillian, as Mrs. Gordon very well knew, had got the little beast shut up +in the inner room where William was helping it to the coarser seeds of +Parrot Food in the intervals of eating the hemp out of the mixture +himself. She made no reply to this sally but paid her bill and said that +she would herself carry down the answer to Mrs. Barraclough’s letter and +post it in Mrs. Barraclough’s letter-box when she went out later in the +morning. + +“Miss Vanderleyden ain’t got hers yet,” said Mrs. Gordon vindictively, +moving on. “A telegram come for her from Eppin’ ware she keeps that +great dog of ’ers, this morning, and she’s gone off in a great state. +Borrerd Mr. Gordon’s A.B.C., the one you threw away in Febewry, miss, to +look out a train she did, and I hope she catches it.” + +“If she looked it up in a February time-table I’m afraid she’s missed it +then,” said Gillian. “It’s June now, you know, Mrs. Gordon.” + +But Mrs. Gordon was panting heavily across the landing and made as if +she had not heard Miss Armstrong’s fear. + +All day long Gillian pattered crossly about the flat, feeding the most +objectionable and probably diseased little creature which followed her +in and out of the two living-rooms and twice got out on the landing and +mewed there “as if,” said Gillian to it, as she drove it in again, “as +if it were not enough to have tempted me into a misdemeanour, and you +must now advertise that I’m engaged in crime on your account.” + +Something must be done with the animal, and she certainly was not going +to let Crack do it. Once the desperate thought of taking it up to +Highgate and throwing it on Aunt Elizabeth’s mercies came to her. But +Aunt Elizabeth’s mercies were not tender towards cats, and, though +Atkinson might have sheltered it richly in the basement at 99, he was +just then having a holiday and Gillian had no faith in the humanity of +the first footman who was taking his place and who was not on friendly +terms with the cook. + +William, too, seemed to be siding with Authority. “Good-bye,” he had +observed rather severely to the cat several times since lunch, and when +Gillian began to get tea and put down a sardine beside the saucer of +milk for her guest, William raised his yellow crest and sang, “God save +our Gray——” with unmistakable emphasis. + +“All right, William,” said Gillian, losing her temper, “you needn’t +shout like that. I’m going to take it to the chemist next door to the +_Blue Cockatoo_ and get it prussic-acided. So there.” + +She caught the little cat and put it into an old Gladstone bag of her +father’s and set off with misery and dislike in her heart to spend a +shilling on murder. + +Half-way to the chemist’s she met Heinrich. + +He was coming away from the studio and was tightly buttoned into the +short jacket of his blue suit so that he looked smaller than ever. He +wore no hat, and one diaphanous black curl stood up, like a smoke-wreath +in still air, from the very middle of his forehead making his long nose +seem longer than before. His eyes were unusually blue and fierce. + +“I go to buy a cage,” he announced with dramatic abruptness, stopping +Gillian who had not intended to speak to anyone till her deed were +accomplished, “a cage in which to shelter the beautiful canary Larrie +gives to me. Zoze sparrows, zey pluck at ’im. Zey are proletariat birds. +Zere is somesing alive in your bag,” he ended, suddenly diverted from +his own mission by unmistakable signs of struggle in the interior of +Gillian’s burden. + +Gillian explained her dilemma and the cat in the bag grew violent. + +“Oh,” said Heinrich, “ze poor animal will perish of himself in that +confinement and zere will be no need to call on ze chemist. You shall +just srow him in ze river.” + +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “how horrid. I must let him out.” + +“Come on ze Embankment to a seat,” said Heinrich. “I go wiz you. I will +look at zis cat. My canary is all right for now. I have shut out all +zoze sparrows till I shall give him a cage.” + +“What’s happened to the cage he came in?” asked Gillian as they hurried +to a seat. “Larry can’t have brought a canary home in a piece of paper.” + +“Oh, it is somevere,” said Heinrich vaguely. “I sink we have lost it. It +was a small, old cage. Perhaps Larrie sit on it.” + +They reached the seat just in time. The little cat had given up the +struggle to escape and was gasping for dear life at the bottom of the +bag when they opened it. + +Heinrich lifted the mottled, furry body out and laid it across his +knees. The creature had improved a great deal during its friendship with +Gillian, but it was still an unprepossessing cat. Heinrich stroked it +with his dark, thin hands and lifted one corner of its drooping mouth. + +“It lives. It jumps,” he announced. And presently, with a twitch or two, +the tortoiseshell cat was itself again. + +“It is a bad little cat,” said Heinrich, looking at it with mild +criticism as it sat morosely on his knee, and lifted one paw after +another with a tearing noise out of the serge of the trouser-leg, into +which it had struck its claws to ensure its grip of the position. “Quite +a bad little cat. It shall come to live in ze studio wiz Larrie and wiz +me.” + +“But, Heinrich, won’t it eat your canary, and frighten your sparrows?” + +“No,” said Heinrich, “I say it is a bad little cat. If it would eat +canaries and sparrows it would be a good little cat. I will take it in +my hand.” + +And he went back, across the river, towards the studio carrying the bad +little cat in his arms. + + + + + CHAPTER FOUR. + LARRY BROWNE + + + I + +Heinrich, barefooted as was his custom, and wearing the light-blue slops +in which he always performed his self-appointed task, was trundling a +mop across the studio floor the next morning when Gillian went down to +see how the little cat had prospered among the birds. It was half-past +ten and Sunday. The church-bells on the Battersea side and those fainter +peals which came from over the water had stimulated the canary, which +hung in an extremely fine cage in front of the long window by the hedge, +to such tremendous matins of its own that Heinrich did not hear her +knock at the open door. Gillian, on the threshold, waited while Heinrich +swept on. He brought an entire seriousness and a complete lack of method +to his work, and was, when Gillian arrived, absorbed in chasing a +dandelion-seed which had blown in from the waste places of the Park, +across the width of the studio floor, stalking the mist-like intruder +with elaborate patience. He approached it with creeping stealth, hardly +breathing as he lifted the oiled mop-head at the end of its long pole +before the blow that would bring his prey to rest, only to see the spiky +phantom dance away in the wind he had raised. The sparrows were +everywhere. He drove them off from the immediate field, isolating the +drifting seed. The sparrows appeared to have abandoned their vendetta +against the canary now that it was caged, and to be pursuing their +lawful occasions again with the usual noise and fluster. Some of them +were perched round the rim of Larry’s zinc sponge-bath which had been +pulled out from the bedroom at the back of the studio and filled with +clean water for them to bathe in, and one, as Gillian came to the door, +had flown up from the water and was shaking the drops out of its wings, +perched on the crown of Heinrich’s black, devoted head. + +Heinrich’s estimate of the little cat’s character was being abundantly +justified; for the creature was seated on the model’s throne, mildly +washing its face with its paw, while, three feet away, a couple of +sparrows were picking at the bird-seed which the canary scattered from +the seed-box in the cage above them. + +“Puss, puss,” called Gillian from the doorway. The little cat took no +notice. Either it did not hear her or it had already forgotten her in +the new security of its home. But Heinrich heard and came towards her, +dragging the mop behind him, his face a little anxious with the +eagerness of his welcome. + +“I beg that you will enter,” said Heinrich. “Have you been long at ze +door? I hear nozzing for ze cantata of my canary. It shall cease.” He +laid the long-handled mop down on the floor in the place where he stood, +stumbled slightly over it, regaining his half-lost balance with the +lightest ease, and bustled, if so lithe and gentle a movement could be +called bustling, after the sparrows, clearing them from the room in +handfuls and putting them out at the casement which he closed upon them. + +“It’s like putting toys away in a cupboard,” said Gillian, who never +tired of watching the clearing process Heinrich always accomplished +before attending to a visitor. + +“Zeze sparrows are my toys,” said Heinrich. “My canary is my friend.” + +“And what is the cat going to be?” + +Heinrich met this conversational inanity with a seriousness it had not +been framed to elicit. + +“Tell me,” he questioned, his blue eyes very lustrous and dewy under +their long lashes, “have you complete responsibility for ze life of zis +little cat?” + +“Goodness!” Gillian was alarmed. “I don’t even know if it belongs to +anybody. It adopted me, and I’ve been feeding it with a friend. Here are +its sardines. It has only had three out of the box.” + +Heinrich took the oily tin, over which Gillian had tried unsuccessfully +to re-roll the lid that curled back from its contents on its key opener, +and counted the sardines with his thin forefinger. + +“Ten fishes,” he announced. “Are zeze not your own food for to-day?” + +“Mine! No! I hate sardines, especially in oil. So does William. They +belong to the cat, really.” + +Heinrich picked a sardine out of the tin with his fingers and carried it +by the tail across to the throne where the cat still continued its +perfunctory cleansing. + +“See, Minchoulina!” he chanted, “a fish!” + +But the cat had evidently gorged its fill on some earlier meal and, +collapsing into one of those acrobatic postures with which the meanest +cat can put the proudest human to scorn, went on licking its way over +its person with an increase of zeal. + +“When you know me better,” said Heinrich gently, “you shall dance and +sing when I come.” And he carried the sardine back to its tin which he +had laid on the floor beside the mop. + +“And zis friend,” persisted Heinrich, putting the sardine carefully into +its oil again, “is it her cat?” + +“No. I don’t think so. No, I’m sure it isn’t. She has a dog. She’s gone +away to see it. You can have the cat for your very own if you like, and +if Larry doesn’t mind. Where is Larry?” + +“Charing Cross.” + +“Gone to meet a friend?” + +“No, gone to go a walk.” + +“What a funny place to walk to!” + +“Oh, he will not walk zere. Afterwards he will walk all day. But at +Charing Cross he get a train.” + +“Don’t you ever go with Larry for his walks?” + +“Me? Sometimes. Yes. But I do not like so many hills and so much rain. +And to-day I must play in my orchestra in the afternoon.” + +“Heinrich,” said Gillian, sitting down on the window-seat and taking off +her hat, “I’m going to stay and help you put the studio really tidy. +Tell me how did you and Larry ever come to share it?” + +Heinrich brought the mop and the sardine-tin over to the window-seat and +sat down with them, cross-legged on the floor in front of Gillian. + +“Zis studio is mine,” said Heinrich; “it is left me by my uncle, and I +let it to Larrie, and he take me wiz it. Quite simple. There is room for +two people. In two years I am rich by my uncle’s money which is still +now in his will, until I shall be older, zen I _give_ zis studio to +Larrie.” + +“And where will you live then?” + +“Everywhere,” said Heinrich gravely but with decision. + +Gillian thought the programme admirable and they discussed it in much of +its possible detail as they worked together at putting the studio really +tidy. Gillian was glad of so good an excuse for not going back to the +Club. She had been piqued at V. V.’s sudden departure yesterday and had +an unreasoning desire that V. V. should in her turn wonder what had +become of her. + +At twelve o’clock, while Heinrich retired to his room behind the gallery +to assume his “coats,” and Gillian was washing her hands in the little +lavatory which opened out of Larry’s room on the ground floor, +preparatory to making a salad for luncheon, Larry himself walked in. He +was wearing light, rough tweeds, carried a metal-pointed cherry-wood +stick and was rather cross. + +“I’ve missed the only train in the day,” he said, “and I’m not in the +mood to go anywhere but to Coldharbour. The rhododendrons will be out in +the wood on the Ockley side and there’ll be bluebells left beyond +Tanhurst and I sent Mrs. Print a post-card to say I would have lard-buns +for tea.” + +“Can nothing be done about it?” said Gillian. + +“Yes. We can take a ’bus—a motor-omnibus from the Latchmere at one +o’clock, and you are coming with me. It won’t take us to Coldharbour, +but it will take us to the larch-wood and the buns, and I’ve got +sandwiches enough for two here already and we’ll commandeer Heinrich’s +lettuce. That’ll larn him to be a rabbit.” + +“Heinrich can have the cat’s sardines,” said Gillian, feeling, as she +dried the lettuce and put on her hat, that larch-woods near Coldharbour +were more than an offset to a dog at Epping. + + + II + +The larch-wood grew on one side of the hollow bridle-path that led +across the hill from Broadmoor to Pitland Street. The rest of the way +was through pine and birch with some oak scrub and a holly-bush or so at +the intersection of the main bridle-path with the smaller tracks which +ran straight down the slope. + +They came out through a beech-tunnel that switch-backed narrowly between +palings and, at a turn in the path, saw the aisles of green larch-boles +shot with violet rising out of the bracken, greener at that time of year +than the feathery green of the curved, fine arabesques of the branches +above it. + +It was nearly four o’clock when Gillian and Larry reached the +larch-wood, and the sun, held up by the long shadow of Holmbury Hill, +behind which in another two hours’ time it would be setting, was sending +slanting rays between the trunks of the trees. + +The bluebells Larry had promised were there, though not in great masses: +but their coming disturbed a jay which fled away from them through the +purple tree-trunks, flying low so that the light flashed on his blue +head and picked out the black-and-white feathers in his wide, strong +wings. The brambles were all in bloom under the green fronds of bracken +and their pinky-white flowers repeated the tender rose of the horizon +seen beyond the green veil of the larch-spindles. + +“It’s softer than the mountain larch-woods with snow behind them,” said +Gillian. + +“Colouring’s sentimental,” said Larry, “but the drawing’s good. I’m +going to use it for the background of my fresco design. It’ll repeat +well, and I can change to sky instead of the hill behind it for the +figures. Panoramic pathetic fallacy. Dawn for the Changeling. You’re +very like a Dawn anyhow, Gillian; and twilight for the piping Eros. +Can’t put a violin into symbolism—and the lewte’s an instrument I never +could a-bear. It’s a filthy job altogether—I wish I’d never started on +it. I could draw Heinrich for ever, but this making a photograph-gallery +of one’s friends....” + +“Then why do it?” + +“Oh! I dunno. Hand to the plough and all that. Besides, it _is_ a good +idea. Why can’t you be the Eternal Feminine you look, Gillian, and cheer +the artist in his despondent hours?” + +“I thought you meant it. Besides, I can quite see that there are times +when you would get tired of an idea like that. Are you putting all your +friends in?” + +“No. Nor half mine enemies either. What could you do with Bird in a +fresco, for instance?” + +“If you were Augustus John——” said Gillian. + +“I shouldn’t be going in for a London County Council prize competition, +my poor dear Dawn. Try to rise to daylight, or is it your tea you need?” + +“No, not yet. Let’s stay here. I like this mauve and green and rosy +wood. Why didn’t we bring Heinrich?” + +“You think that because Heinrich can pick up sparrows in his hands as +though they were tennis-balls, that he’d be at home in a wood among +squirrels and nuts. But you are quite wrong. Heinrich is brother to the +sparrow who is a city bird. He’s good with Cockneys. But he’s an indoor +pet—that’s why the canary is not wasted on him, or that dreadful little +cat you’ve planted on us. But put him in the open and he’s lost. Think +of Heinrich in tweeds! It can’t be done. Heinrich suggests the spirit of +the wild to people who’ve only read about it in the Classics. He’s Art. +He’s the eternal Will to be Other. But there’s nothing of the English +public-school boy, the country gentleman about him. And that’s the man +who really enjoys your muddy lanes and your streaking red sunsets and +says ‘pretty dear’ to the rabbits he’s going to shoot.” + +“I’m sorry,” said Gillian, “but you introduced me to Heinrich as a +faun.” + +“And did you ever see a faun in Surrey? Or in Devonshire? Or in Wales? +I’ve heard of fairies in Wales. Little grey men with long beards who +don’t mean to let you see them—and there’s a lot of dialect ballad metre +about pixies on Dartymoor; but the faun—the faun, my child, is the +invention of the sophisticated artist.” + +“Heinrich’s not sophisticated.” + +“Heinrich in his way is a genius. But the home of his soul is Leicester +Square. I found him, covered with sparrows, on a bench in front of that +soaring tribute to Shakespeare which so fittingly presides over the +Empire, the Alhambra and Daly’s.” + +“He’d be all right at Taormina,” said Gillian. + +“And when his uncle’s money comes out of his will”—Larry grew emphatic +and a little angry—“he shall go there, if I can keep the vultures away +from him till then.” + +“I suppose people might swoop down on him if he had money to give away.” + +“Yes, they would. But that isn’t what I was thinking of.” + +“What did you mean by vultures, then?” + +“Oh, nothing.” + +“Heinrich’s very endearing,” said Gillian, passing on from vultures, +“he’s the kind of thing you’d like to put in your pocket and take home +to keep with your dolls.” + +Larry looked at her quickly. It was the same sharp, surprised look she’d +seen jump into Toby’s eyes the day she found the chopped volume of +_Poems and Ballads_. + +“That’s how the vultures feel,” he said shortly. + +“But mine isn’t a devouring wish.” + +“No. I don’t suppose it would be. You’d better leave it at that.” + +So they watched a nuthatch pulling its way up the bole of a tree in +front of them; and wondered why it was there instead of the squirrels +which seemed more probable in such a place; and smoked Petit Caporal +cigarettes, which Larry got from a little shop near Victoria and +pretended to like, though Gillian, who wasn’t much of a smoker herself, +didn’t see how he could. And then they went down to Pitland Street and +came to Honeysuckle Cottage, so called because of the honeysuckle bush +which stood at the garden gate and was visited by gardeners for miles +around, being something of a curiosity. It was beginning to flower and +was full of bees that day, and Mrs. Print, who counted it one among many +occasions of her pride, stood by it, like a benevolent witch, a bent, +smiling figure in a black dress and a white apron, with smooth hair, +still black, parted tightly on either side of a nutcracker face that +looked as if it were carved out of old ivory. + +“Hurry up, Mr. Browne,” she called to him as they crossed the green in +front of the house, “them lard-buns you ordered is baking themselves +dry, and it’s going to rain. You’ll be getting the young lady damp.” + +The sky had clouded over, and as they drank strong Indian tea, heavy +with cream, and ate what Gillian thought was bilberry, but Mrs. Print +called “Hurt jam,” in her parlour, the rain began to fall outside. Mrs. +Print’s parlour was a room as full of flowering geraniums and other +hot-house plants as if it had been a conservatory instead of being the +chamber in which Mrs. Print stored the strange and occasionally valuable +things she’d spent a lifetime buying at the sales at great houses in the +countryside both here in Surrey and in Lincolnshire where she’d gone in +marriage with her first husband, a Mr. Booty of those parts. She had +returned at Mr. Booty’s death to her mother’s house which she had +inherited and to which she had welcomed Mr. Print, a meek little man +whom she had married, chiefly, said Larry, who recounted Mrs. Print’s +history to Gillian over their tea, because he was a gardener by trade +and could give professional services to the honeysuckle bush. + +“It’s my belief, Mrs. Print,” said Larry, repeating what was clearly an +old and trusted joke, “that you and Mr. Print do something to that bush +to prevent its being a creeper. It isn’t a freak of nature at all, but +just a common work of art.” + +Mrs. Print picked up a crumb from the Brussels carpet and smoothed a +plush chair-back that hung over the interlacing pattern of a beautiful +Heppelwhite settee. + +“You’ve said that before, sir,” she answered with friendly scorn; “if +you was a gardener yourself you’d know better. How’s Miss Jerusalem?” + +This appeared to be a frontal attack of considerable weight, for Larry’s +golden freckles disappeared into his blush as he answered, rather +hurriedly, “Oh, quite well, I fancy. What about getting to the station +in all this rain?” + +“I’ll step round and see if Mandible’s got a trap going.” Mrs. Print was +immediately side-tracked by the appeal to her instinct for preserving +the young from damp. + +And accordingly, ten minutes later, Gillian entranced, watched Mrs. +Print in an enormous black straw wide-awake trimmed with a plain band of +what was now very rusty black ribbon, her shoulders protected from the +elements by a small three-cornered red woolen shawl and carrying a +large, green cotton umbrella, “step” down the garden path and out across +the green on her way to see about a trap. + +“Couldn’t we have gone ourselves?” she asked, feeling very young and +ruthless for exposing so bent a frame to the weather on her behalf. + +“We might have tried to go, but we shouldn’t have gone. It’s my belief +that Mrs. Print takes a commission on orders for Mandible’s trap and +likes to book them herself.” + +Presently Mrs. Print came back up the garden path and stood outside the +open glass door of the sitting-room while she unpinned her skirts and +shook the rain out of her umbrella. + +“Mandible’s took the trap over to Malquoits with a party hisself,” she +announced over her shoulder, “but Madge’ll put the old pony into the +closed conveyance for ye, and you’ll have to be startin’ soon as she’s a +slow driver and the roads is slippery with all this wet.” + +The June rain was falling heavily by this time. It washed the sandy path +before Honeysuckle Cottage into a golden ridge between two brawling +torrents which ran down to a pool at the south side of the green to meet +the motor-road where the rods of water broke into circles of spray with +a beating patter as they hit its shining, tarry blackness. + +The “closed conveyance” driven by a small, morose girl from the brim of +whose straw hat the rain was falling in a stream over her large, +melancholy nose, swished through the rivulets beneath its wheels and +drew up outside the gate, where it stood, wreathed in the steam from the +old pony’s devoted and unclipped flanks, and waited while they said +good-bye to Mrs. Print. It was a very small, very old brougham; a +metropolitan, luxurious padded trifle with silver-and-ivory handles to +its doors, and ivory knots and buttons for the brocaded window-straps +and arm-rests, the heavy crimson cords and the flower-vase clip, the +pencil-tray and the hanging letter case, with which it still was fitted. +There was a shelf, under the window behind the coachman’s box, high +enough to take the paper-bordered bouquet of the lady it had once +carried to Court or to the Opera in the days when the Empress Eugénie +visited her royal cousin at Buckingham Palace. Two cords buttoned across +the roof had once held the silk hat of her escort when she drove out in +the daytime and could make room for one beside her silken skirts. It +might have been the original coupé designed by and built for the +fashionable beauty who first called her carriage after the original +garden-chaise of the fierce Lord Brougham; so neat was its finish, so +brave the excellence of its frame, so heroic the resistance to age and +decay which the cracked but still valiant leather of the coachwork, and +the remaining varnish on its slender wheels still offered to the eye. +Even the unkempt and dejected pony who stood, too low for his position, +between the curving shafts, could not destroy the serious elegance, the +accomplished and considered frivolity of its air. + +“Hallo, Mrs. Print,” said Larry, surveying the “trap” between the +spreading leaves of a huge arum lily which stood in the parlour-window, +“why have I never seen this remnant of forgotten splendour before?” + +“You generally walks to the station, sir,” said Mrs. Print dryly. + +She had returned from escorting Gillian to the vehicle under her green +umbrella, and was now waiting for Larry to pursue through his various +pockets the exact equivalent in coin of the tea they had consumed. + +“Mrs. Print is certainly a fairy. Is she your godmother, Larry?” said +Gillian as they drove away, the rain drumming on the roof and misting +over the windows of the little carriage where they sat, hunched and +crowded on account of Larry’s height and rucksack and the thickness of +his tweeds. Larry fidgeted and wiped the mist on the inside of the +window next him with a too easy unconcern. + +“Oh, the Honeysuckle Bush is a great place for reading-parties. I’ve +known her ever since my first year at Trinity.” + +Larry was silent for the rest of the drive. The noise of the rain, the +clop-clopping of the pony’s hoofs on the wet asphalt, the swish of +overhanging branches across the roof of the little brougham which held +them both so tightly, made it easy not to talk and Gillian, tired with +the long day in the open—they had walked eight miles to get to the +larch-woods—lay back against the worn but not ragged brocade of the +padded lining and wondered with a little sting of envy who Miss +Jerusalem was. + +It must, thought Gillian, be rather wonderful to be a friend of Larry +Browne; very friendly to have been with him at Cambridge—there were +girls as well as men who belonged to that near past of his! Some of them +had come to the studio, easy, laughing creatures who talked of swimming +and tennis, of walking tours and winter sports and only very casually of +“jobs” which they took, not because they had to work to live, but +because it was better fun to be doing something. Miss Jerusalem, she +supposed, was one of these. + +It was none of her business, and she had not fallen in love with this +tall, careless, beautiful Larry Browne; but, if ever she could come back +to live the life on earth again, as some people imagined possible, and +if she might, remembering this life, make her choice of the next time, +it would—of this she had long been sure—it would be that she might be +one of this free and happy company who were cradled in learning, and to +whom money was a means already granted and never an end to be pursued, +hardly even a necessity to be toiled for. + +The sudden chilling of the summer air that had come with the rain, fell +also on Gillian’s mood as they travelled slowly between half-seen +hedges, down the long, gradual hill to the station in the valley. Larry +Browne, the friendly, argumentative companion and guide of the sunlit +hours of the day had now grown strange, detached, almost inimical. +Gillian had a sudden and desolating wonder. Was she boring him? The +thought had never occurred to her before, but if it should be—how was +he, how was she, to endure the rest of the cool, dim journey back to +London? + +In the train Larry, who had cheered up as soon as they were released +from the antique confinement of Mandible’s closed conveyance, unpacked +his rucksack and offered her her choice of _The Three Mulla-Mulgars_ and +_Georgian Poetry_ to read till they got to Charing Cross. Gillian, who +had bought the anthology when it came out, chose the novel, which turned +out not to be a novel at all, but something so much better that she came +up as from the depths of a well to realize that the train had stopped at +Waterloo Junction which was why it had suddenly grown too dark to read. +The wistful merriment of the monkey-pilgrimage she had been following +with a sense of a new world to explore had chased away her own cloud of +self-pity, and she saw with a free heart the lemon and lavender of a +clearing sky reflected in the lamp-spangled waters of the Thames as the +train moved slowly into Charing Cross, and the lit clock of the tower of +Westminster pointed to half-past eight. + +It was cold at Charing Cross. It was cold on the top of the No. 11 +omnibus which trundled slowly down the rain-washed slope of Whitehall +and took its almost solitary way along Victoria Street, splashing +through the pools of petrol and water that had settled in the uneven +shallows of the traffic-furrowed road. Gillian’s spirits drooped again. +She was lonely. She was ending the day farther away from Larry than she +had been before it began. Lilac was at the other side of the world by +now, in Japan. There would be no one in the little flat under the roof +of the Mordaunt Club. The grate in the inner room would be empty, bare +and clean, the chimney swept for the summer. She did not even know if +there were a bundle of firewood in the cupboard by the scullery sink, +and there was a hole in her right stocking, right round the base of her +great toe, and her feet were cold, and by the time she had walked from +King’s Road to the Club, her feet in the thin shoes in which she had +walked so far that day, would be wet through. Gillian wished she were +there in the cold twilight, with the door locked, having a thorough good +cry. The omnibus stopped with a grinding jerk. Larry helped her off the +step with a kind hand under her elbow, which he held a moment in his +warm, firm palm as they walked along the slippery pavement together. + +“Dumpy? Come and have supper with Heinrich and his mice—oh yes, he has +mice out when the sparrows have gone to roost. There’s sure to be cheese +and eggs, and we might make coffee and omelette with the Primus.” + +“Oh, Larry! May I?” + +“Yes, of course,” said Larry. + +“I’ve got some macaroons and a Buszard cake,” said Gillian as they +passed the Club; “shall we get them too?—and Lady Bottomley often sends +down strawberries on Sunday.” + +“Up we go to see,” said Larry, with enthusiasm. + + * * * * * + +A golden flicker of light under the door of Number Seven crept across +the landing to their feet as they reached the top of the stairs. + +“Whoever—whatever!” Gillian was alarmed. “Is it on fire?” + +“What a first-rate idea,” said Larry, “let’s hope it is a good one—omne +ignotum pro magnifico, or Hope for the best, as they say in the +schoolroom. Hadn’t we better go in and see?” + +For Gillian was hesitating on the doorway. Her key was not in her +pocket. + +“I’m frightened, Larry.” + +“The longer you wait the more frightened you’ll be. Is the door locked?” + +“I forget, I’ll try.” + +The doors at the Mordaunt Club were so constructed that, even if you +forgot to lock them as you went out, nobody who didn’t know the secret +of the handles could open them from the outside. + +Gillian pushed the knob and the door fell back. + +The light came leaping and glowing from the inner room. Someone had +kindled a fire in the empty grate. + + + III + +V.V. was sitting in front of a fire burning clear, and licked with flame +as only a newly lit fire can burn. She had left the window-sash thrown +up from below, and the stirring night-airs blew the curtains about so +that they made shadows in the lamplight from the windows on the opposite +side of the courtyard. The eager fire and the waving curtains filled the +room with a dance of flame and shade. The great Fortuna on her rope +above the world; Saint Hubert praying to the crucifix that rises between +the horns of the stag he has hunted till sundown, were revealed and +hidden as the flames leapt and the curtain waved across the white wall +where they hung, the tall white bookcase between them. + +She sat in the red-leather couch, her astonishing eyes watching the +doorway, her dark mouth fixed in a steady smile. The firelight moved in +the great waves of her hair, burnishing their heavy curves, and flashed +on the whiteness of her even teeth. She wore a dress of some thin silk +many times washed to a faint brick-red, and her long hands, their wrists +held in the tawny bracelets she always wore, lay palm to palm in her +lap, the finger-tips catching the light above the sharp angle made by +her knees which jutted sharply through the stuff of her clinging skirt +as though it were a skeleton and not a woman sitting under the rusty +silk that fell to the rug at her feet hiding them in its folds. + +Gillian stood in the doorway smiling back at the firelit face. It shone +out against the background of book-filled shelves behind it, gathering +up the glint of the lettered bindings, their reds and yellows and browns +in one living concentration of colour and light. + +“God! What a colour scheme!” said Larry from behind her shoulder. + +“A fire’s nice on a wet evening, isn’t it?” said V.V., stretching her +hands to the blaze but making no other movement. “I’ve had supper ready +for an hour.” + +“You’ll have to stay to supper with us, Larry,” said Gillian. “This is +Miss Vanderleyden who lives at Number Thirty-Six in the other house. +V.V., this is Mr. Browne. He’s adopted our cat.” + +“Well,” said Larry, “that’s one way of putting it. I’ve been told that a +cat, I hesitate to believe it was ever Miss Vanderleyden’s, and you say +it wasn’t yours, Gillian—I’ve been told that a female cat has been added +to the menagerie at my studio without my consent.” + +“I didn’t know it was a she,” said Gillian. + +“All tortoiseshells are,” said Larry. “That is one of the beautiful +truths which are universal.” + +“Oh,” said V.V., “Mrs. Gordon said there’s been a fuss about it and I +found a silly letter from Mrs. Barraclough when I got in. Was it your +cat after all?” + +“I’ve just told you, V.V.,”—Gillian had already noticed that V.V. often +did not quite follow everything that was said—“I’ve explained I’ve given +the cat to Larry. It was a stray.” + +“Oh, was it?” + +“Yes. Where have you put supper, and is there enough for three?” + +“In the other room. Didn’t you see as you came through?” + +“No; we thought the book-room was on fire.” + +V.V. laughed quite heartily at this and then, suddenly becoming +practical and administrative, she announced that there was hot water for +Gillian to wash and enough for Larry, too, if he didn’t mind washing at +the sink, and that they could get tidy while she dished up. + +“Does this vision dwell with you?” asked Larry while V.V. disappeared to +ration the boiling water. + +“Not exactly, but she knows where I keep everything. Isn’t she lovely?” + +“She looked gaudy in the firelight when we came in, but the drawing of +her face is bad. Nose wrong. No chin.” + +“I thought you looked as if you wanted to draw her.” + +“I am going to paint her. Her colour’s exciting.” + +V.V. had made a fine supper. A strange, sliced sausage which she said +came from Looms, which might, for all Gillian knew, be a suburb of +Epping; a crisp salad, not cut with a knife but lightly torn, and +sprinkled with a dew of lemon-juice and a frosting of brown sugar; a +junket with cream in which the huge Bottomley strawberries were drowned; +the macaroons; the Buszard cake; a bottle of white wine; a loaf of brown +bread; a dish of radishes, and her own as well as Gillian’s butter, made +enough for three. V.V. had laid these things out in dishes, some of them +her own, some of them Gillian’s and had brought over two amber glass +candlesticks with dangling lustres which she had inherited from an aunt +and which were the joy of Gillian’s life at that moment. Two tall +candles stuck in these heirlooms lit the feast and threw down white +copies of their flames that lay like waving petals on the dark, waxed +surface of the table. + +“Poor Heinrich! we might have fetched him,” said Gillian half-way +through her second macaroon. + +“No, we mightn’t.” Larry was heaping his plate with the +cream-extinguished strawberries. “He’s quite happy. He’s got all the +cheese for his mice.” + +“What about that little cat?” asked V.V. “Is Heinrich the name you’ve +given him?” + +“Heinrich,” Larry informed her, “is a mouse-tamer. It’s a more difficult +thing to be than a lion-tamer. He also tames sparrows. That is difficult +too. It is also quite messy. Worse than William who is but one and, I +suppose, trained for the house.” + +“You suppose wrong,” said Gillian, “but no matter. Go on telling V.V. +about Heinrich.” + +“Heinrich, for the moment, follows mouse- and sparrow-taming as a hobby. +He lives by his fiddle and with me. With, but not _on_. I pay him no +rent and the studio is his. He pays me no board and the studio is mine. +One day Heinrich will be rich.” + +“How rich?” asked V.V., gleaming. + +“Oh, quite. His uncle had foolish, dilatory ideas about Heinrich’s +majority, and there are things in Chancery for him. A grasping place. +But that’s neither here nor there. Heinrich has his own joys and his +needs are few. If only he could wear my clothes his needs would be +none.” + +Larry looked down, a little self-consciously, at his long tweed-covered +legs, and Gillian thought of the yellow and pink, blue, silk skirts and +Brobdingnagian trousers he usually wore when at work, and of Heinrich’s +shiny serge suit and the pathetic blue slops slung round his thin bird’s +neck as he mopped the studio floor after his birds. + +“At this moment,” said Larry, warming to his work, “Heinrich is most +probably marching on tip-toe, a sort of solemn dance—an antic hay—all +round the studio. He’ll have lighted a little, bronze, Roman lamp with +olive-oil and a wick made out of the marrow of a seven-months child and +it will be burning blue and violet in the middle of the floor, and, +after him, there will skip mice of all ages, on _their_ toes, their +pink, little, sharp-nailed toes, and sparrows, walking in their sleep, +will come in twos and threes and dance with them, and, at the tail of +the procession, your tortoiseshell cat, Miss Vanderleyden, will be +walking on his hind legs, and the canary will have broken cage and be +perched on the bow as he fiddles—oh yes, he’ll be fiddling away, and +spiders will come swinging down on threads from the roof and all the +cockroaches from the studio next door will look in——” + +Larry paused for breath. + +“What a queer little man he must be,” said V.V. “I should like to meet +him.” + +Gillian was almost afraid that V.V. believed it all, but she did not +like to tell her that Larry was just talking, in case she had really +understood. It was difficult with two people you didn’t know very well. +After all, she’d not known Larry much more than a month and V.V. less +than a week. Besides, what Larry had said was true, in a way. Heinrich +might at any time make friends with a spider, even though Gillian hoped +he wouldn’t with a cockroach, and it was more than probable that he was +at that very moment fiddling a tune for the little cat to dance to. + +“Shall we go and call on that funny man?” said V.V. + +But when they got to the studio all was quiet. Nobody was fiddling, +nobody was dancing and the canary, its head long since under its wing, +was asleep, a ball of pale down on the perch of its cage high up in the +shadows of the soaring roof. + +The table was laid with an untouched supper for two; bread, cheese, a +mug of beer and a plate of green apples, and, curled in a corner of a +divan, among sketches and scarves and half-empty boxes of crayons, +Heinrich slept, with the tortoiseshell cat purring quietly, asleep, +beside him. + +“What a shame,” said V.V. “He’s waited for you and never touched a thing +himself. Let’s wake him and give him his supper now.” + +So they woke Heinrich who admitted that he was very hungry—it was now +almost eleven o’clock—and V.V. set to and made a cheese omelette of a +high superiority, and the cat had all the milk and Heinrich had all the +beer which made him astonishingly gay and polyglot. + +“Heinrich talks all the languages there are,” Larry explained to V.V., +“talks them all with a foreign accent and I don’t believe he gets any of +them quite right, but he gets most of them far better than we get any of +them except our own, and as he’s not got one quite of his own——” + +“Oh, I expect he’s got one of his own all right,” said V.V., “but he +keeps it dark.” + +“Mein bester,” said Larry, “she’s insulting you. Can you hear her?” + +Heinrich was sitting on the floor, his hands clasped round his knees, +rocking slightly to and fro. His eyes were fixed on V.V.’s face as she +sat above him in a gilded Italian chair with a large green apple in her +hand. Gillian thought he was paler than usual, but he was always so pale +that this might only be her fancy. + +Suddenly Heinrich spoke in a high, quick voice, rocking to and fro in +time to the words. + +“Ich liebe dich,” said Heinrich with conviction. + +“Mich reiz’ deine schöne Gestalt. + +“Und bist du nicht willig,” he chanted, the wind rising in the music +behind his voice:— + +“Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch’ ich Gewalt.” + +“There!” cried V.V., in some alarm, “I told you so! He’s talking some +outlandish language of his own. Does anyone understand him?” + +But Larry was rolling in his chair in a paroxysm of joy. + +“Oh, Heinrich, you unmatchable treasure! Your virtue is beyond rubies,” +he shouted. “_So brauch’ ich Gewalt. Gewalt!_ Did you hear it, Gillian?” + +“Yes,” said Gillian, a little dazed, “and I think, in a way, he would—he +could, I mean.” + +“I told you he’d got a funny language of his own,” Miss Vanderleyden +reiterated, her eyes shifting quickly from Gillian’s smile to Larry’s +laughter-wrinkled face. + +“You know, the Erlkönig wasn’t brawny after all. Play it to us, +Heinrich, you haven’t played to us this evening. Get your fiddle and +spin.” + +Larry, for all his mocking tongue, was very proud of this odd, gifted, +incalculable friend. + +So Heinrich got his fiddle and spun the mist and the wind and the +night-ride through the storm, and rocked them with the galloping horse, +and cried to them with the terrified child, and stirred them with the +sound of the goblin’s insatiable desire. + + * * * * * + +Gillian and V.V. went home in the small hours. They walked across the +bridge in the light of an old moon lying on its back low in the sky, +having refused to be accompanied by either Larry or Heinrich. It was +V.V. who had insisted. + +“We shall be seen coming in by one of the old cats,” she said, “and +they’ll think you’ve come in too.” + +“Goodness!” said Gillian, “what a horrid thought. But they couldn’t.” + +“Oh, yes, they could,” and V.V. proceeded to tell how the Countess had +written to Mrs. Barraclough, once when one of V.V.’s actresses was being +put up on the hard divan, to complain that Miss Vanderleyden’s visitor +had come home after midnight with a man, _who was never seen to leave_! + +“What did Mrs. Barraclough do? Did she come up and look in your cupboard +for him?” + +“No,” said V.V. “She wrote to the Countess and said she was so sorry to +hear that she’d felt obliged to sit up all night in that way, but that +she felt quite sure I was able to chaperone my guests myself.” + +“Did he?” said Larry. + +“Did who, what?” + +“Leave.” + +“He never came in, of course. The Countess lost sight of him in the +archway, I suppose. Serve her right if she did sit up till morning.” + +“Oh, well,” said Larry, “if it means keeping Countesses out of their +beds till dawn, and you’re quite sure——” + +“That Heinrich gives me the creeps,” chattered V.V. as they walked home; +“his fiddle and those eyes. And you did look such a thin, tired little +thing, I wanted to take you home and brush your hair and put you nice +and comfy in your little bed-a-bies long ago. I came home for a surprise +for you this morning and you weren’t there. I said to Dicky that you’d +be wondering where ever I’d got to yesterday, but she had Jerry and +Frank coming and poor old Biddles had had to have a pill. So I lit the +fire and got supper ready and all, and we could have had such a nice +cosy little evening all to ourselves, and then you came in with your +Larry and spoilt everything.” + +“But V.V., you were quite pleased to see Larry, and, please, he’s not +particularly mine.” + +Gillian was irritated a little by V.V.’s chatter. It was very late; she +herself was really tired and it seemed beyond understanding that anyone +could have listened to Heinrich’s fiddle and not still be silent in the +mood it had woven round them all. Larry was still in it, she was sure, +and Heinrich himself had never come out of it at all, but had sat, a +shadow among shadows, in the darkness round the model-throne, plucking +fragments of melancholy airs out of his violin while they said +good-night. + +V.V. was a puzzle. In the moonlight, with her rich colour greyed into +monochrome, Gillian could see what Larry meant about her nose being +clumsy and her chin weak. They seemed to reinforce the vapid, babbling +voice, making it sillier than it sounded by day or in the lamplight. +Only the swift, smooth walk, the balanced rhythm of knee and shoulder +moving in continuous, co-ordinated harmony kept their beauty. They were +a lilt of the enchantment under which Gillian had fallen, beating time +to the pulses of her heart, carrying her back to the room overlooking +the gardens, to the compelling magic of the face which had shone out of +the dark mirror on the night when Gillian had washed up the cat’s +cream-bowl, only a week ago. + +“Is Biddles your dog?” She asked the question to escape from the +creeping disillusionment that sickened beneath her fatigue. + +“Yes, he is, the darling. Dicky’s keeping him till I can afford to have +a cottage. He’s a borzoi. They’re very delicate, you know, and Biddles +bites—that’s why he’s at Epping.” + +Gillian was too tired to ask whether biting dogs were cured or endured +at Epping. + +They let themselves into the courtyard stealthily and then, because it +might wake Mrs. Barraclough, who lived on the ground floor, if V.V. were +to open the hall door and go up to her flat in the farther house, she +came up to Gillian’s and slept, in borrowed night-gear, on the red couch +by the embers of the fire she had kindled. + +Gillian slept well that night. V.V. had carried out her programme and +had brushed Gillian’s hair and braided it into two long plaits which she +tied with ribbons and pulled out over the sheet on each side of +Gillian’s face as she tucked her up in bed. + +“It’s my flat,” Gillian had protested, “I ought to be putting you to bed +really.” + +“But you’re not,” said V.V. She stood by the bedside, a lighted candle +in her hand, and looked down at the tired girl with a brooding +eagerness. Then stooping swiftly, she kissed Gillian, kissed her with a +little gurgling murmur, as if a mother were kissing her baby, kissed her +twice on her open, astonished mouth. + +“How odd of V.V.,” said Gillian sleepily to herself when the door had +closed behind her, and the room was dark and still. And she pulled her +handkerchief from under her pillow and wiped her lips as if she had +taken a drink from the tumbler of water which stood on a table beside +her bed. + + + IV + +Later in the week, Gillian went to tea with Jane Bird in her workshop in +Buckingham Palace Road. It was conveniently situated for the purpose, +being on the way home from the Secretarial School. + +Jane had called the place her studio when she first took it, but since +she had begun to sell her figures she had changed the name. + +“It’s not Art, it’s Commerce that I woo behind these portals,” she +explained. “Besides! Look at it!” + +The place was certainly business-like. It had originally been a +coach-house and stables, and the loose-box and stalls still remained as +store-rooms, divided from the larger portion in which Jane, standing at +a long table on trestles, worked on her plasticine figures. + +“I keep three going at a time, one being modelled, one being painted, +one being varnished. Mr. Quist has invented a varnish which is +transparent without being shiny.” + +Mr. Quist, a little olive-skinned man with a shock of white hair, who +worked in his shirt-sleeves and wore a red tie and a gold watch-chain, +looked up and bowed his acknowledgment of this introduction, but did not +speak. He was varnishing a figure with a camel’s-hair brush which he +dipped with marked precision into a clear, colourless liquid that +seethed in a glass retort under a spirit-lamp. + +Gillian went across the workshop to look at the figure. It stood about +eighteen inches from the square base on which it was moulded and which +was painted in the semblance of a sandy path between two flower borders. +The figure was that of an old, bent woman in a black full-skirted gown +with a bodice buttoned tight across the hollow, stooping chest. It +stood, leaning forward, supporting itself with two claw-thin, +parchment-white hands on the crook of a large, bushy, green umbrella. +The face, keen and delicate, like an old ivory, was framed in smooth +bands of dark brown hair gathered into a bag-like net at the back of the +fine, old head. + +“Goodness!” said Gillian. “It’s Mrs. Print.” + +“Goodness!” mocked Jane Bird, “how did you know?” + +“Larry took me to tea there last Sunday.” + +“The Pirate! Mrs. Print’s mine. Larry had no right to share her. I’d +have taken you there myself.” + +“Oh, dear!” Gillian was remorseful. “Why didn’t I say ‘by the pricking +of my thumbs’? Anyone can see she’s a witch—a good witch.” + +“She’s nothing of the kind. She’s a village landlady who knows her +business, but you make every-think into a fairy-tale.” + +“Well, look at her! Look what you’ve done with her! How did you get that +black-velvet net effect on her hair?” + +“How did she get a chenille net? I don’t suppose there’s another within +a hundred miles of London. Did she tell you about her teeth?” + +“I don’t think she’d got any.” + +“She hasn’t. And she hasn’t had for years. She bites with her gums. +They’ve grown hard and sharp, and she reads without spectacles, and she +takes her mother out in a bath-chair every Saturday afternoon.” + +“Jane! what magnificent people you know! Larry and Heinrich and Mrs. +Print.” + +“Magnificent isn’t the right word for either Heinrich or Mrs. Print. +Larry, perhaps.” + +Mr. Quist looked up from his varnishing. He pushed his gold-rimmed +spectacles up on to his forehead, put his paint-brush down on a glass +tray, dropped a glass extinguisher over the blue flame of the +spirit-lamp and, without a word, trotted off across the workshop and +disappeared into the loose-box. + +“Jane, who is Mr. Quist? He doesn’t look like a workman.” + +“He’s a genius. And I know no more about him than you can see for +yourself. He called here one morning to buy a figure he’d seen in that +shop I told you about. They’d sold that one and he wanted another, and I +wouldn’t make one for him. So he told me about his varnish.” + +“It sounds like the Great Panjandrum! Did he speak?” + +“Not much. The bare minimum. We carry on mostly in pregnant silences. +I’m good at mute eloquence.” + +“I know you are. But I shouldn’t have thought two could have been +eloquent enough that way.” + +“Well, we are. He’s gone to fetch the Larrys for you.” + +Mr. Quist emerged from the loose-box carrying in either hand a veiled +object, much like a priest bearing two chalices to a sick parishioner. +Mr. Quist jerked his head sideways and Jane, advancing to meet him, took +one of the muslin-shaded figures from him and placed it on the +work-table. Mr. Quist carried the figure he still retained to a shelf +with a small, carved canopy, evidently prepared for the exhibition of +completed figures, and then returned to unveil the one Jane had taken +from him. + +It was Larry Browne in his wide green corduroys, his blue, cloudy shirt +open, his straight hair a little heightened in colour so as to balance +the gay mosaic of paint on the palette he was holding, his head thrown +back and a little on one side as if he were watching a smoke-ring he had +blown. The right arm hung straight from the shoulder and slightly +backwards, and a cigarette burned between the fingers of the hanging +hand. + +“Jane, it’s lovely,” said Gillian, “so long, so graceful, so alive. +But—but—he isn’t painting—his face is all wrong, not concentrated.” + +“No,” said Jane. “He doesn’t. Didn’t you know?” + +“But he does, I’ve seen him. I’m sitting to him. And he has proper +models. And there’s Heinrich.” + +“He draws,” said Jane, “quite well. And he plans all sorts of pictures. +And he squeezes miles of Windsor and Newton out on that wonderful +palette of his. It belonged to Arnold Boecklin. Did you know?” + +“Yes,” said Gillian. “I’ve often wondered why he got it.” + +“It was a bad debt. A very bad debt. He shouldn’t have taken it. It’s +part of his curse. He is so interested in being interesting, in the +details, in literaryishness—and he’s got such an audience, and enough +money to live on. He’ll never paint. Not unless——” Jane smudged a +thumb-load of plasticine vindictively on to the figure she had left when +Gillian came in, and began scraping it off again, and left her sentence +unfinished. + +“Well,” said Gillian, “I don’t think it will be much of a pity if he +never finishes that procession of a fresco for the competition. But he’s +going to paint V.V. Vanderleyden in the fire.” + +“Golly, what a name!” said Jane rudely. “Who is it? Another?” + +“She’s one of the Club members. He saw her in my flat on Sunday.” + +“Has he taken her to Mrs. Print’s?” + +“Not yet. He doesn’t seem to take many people there, really, Jane. Only +me and Miss Jerusalem.” + +Jane’s high colour ebbed away and her face looked streaked and queer +between the black bosses of her hair. + +“That’s me,” she snapped. “Jane Ursula Mayne—they called me ‘Jerusalem’ +when I was little. They used to send me to Mrs. Print’s for weeks +together after measles and things.” + +“What a lovely name for a little girl!” + +Gillian watched the blood flow back into Jane’s flat cheeks and +remembered how Larry’s blush had swamped his freckles at the same name. +Why hadn’t Larry told her that at the Honeysuckle Bush Jane was +“Jerusalem”? It was such an addition to Jane. + +“May I see the other figure—the one on the stand?” + +Mr. Quist removed the second veil with a flick which might or might not +be an expression of feeling. + +It was Larry again: slim and dapper and sleek in the hard white and +black of evening dress, white waistcoat, white tie, white gloves. The +figure was shown buttoning one glove critically, lovingly, the whole +attitude expressive of intense absorption in the matter so charmingly in +hand. It was finished with a minute perfection, a ridiculous attention +to detail, Pre-Raphaelite in its insistence on every button, every seam. +Gillian, who had never seen Larry wearing any garments of the kind, was +forced to admit that this Larry was even more accurately portrayed than +the other. + +“Jane,” she cried, “what a horrid thing! Just like one of those painted +plaster figures they put in shop-windows.” + +Jane was angry. “How can you be such a philistine! Look at the +modelling! Look at the pose! It’s a masterpiece.” + +“I don’t like it,” Gillian persisted. + +“Like it. You like your pictures pretty, I suppose. You aren’t meant to +like it. It’s a warning. Larry’ll revert to type, he’ll be just like +that before he’s done.” + +“Has he seen it?” + +“Not yet. He shall before it goes home, though.” + +“Jane! you’ve not sold it?” + +Jane nodded, and by a rustle that came from the direction where Mr. +Quist was varnishing Mrs. Print, Gillian understood that he was the +purchaser. + +Gillian was puzzled. She had thought Jane and Larry were friends. + +“Have you done Heinrich yet?” she asked, more to change the difficult +subject than because she thought this possible. + +“No,” said Jane, “I can’t do him out of my head, and he hasn’t been able +to sit to me. He’s very busy about something or other.” + +“Heinrich’s always busy. I’ve never seen such an occupied creature. +Besides, he’s rehearsing a new Russian Symphony, and there are afternoon +concerts.” + +At that moment there was a knock at the workshop door, and before anyone +could reply to it, Larry himself walked in. Gillian saw Jane’s +immediately suppressed movement towards Mr. Quist’s purchase, and saw +how that movement had directed Larry’s eyes to the effigy, which stood +in its niche on the same wall as the door, so that it was invisible to +anyone entering the studio. + +“Hullo!” Larry swung round to look at the figure. “I say, Jane, that’s +pretty cruel,” he said. “What made you do it?” + +“My prophetic soul, of the wide world dreaming on things to come, I +suppose. These things are in the air.” But it was odd how unhappy her +voice was. + +“Le Beau Brummell de nos jours. Well, I seem to be making a success +there, at any rate. Are you going to give it to me?” + +“No.” + +“Why not?” + +“It’s sold.” + +“Jane, don’t be a fool! You can’t sell my portrait.” + +“It isn’t a portrait. You didn’t sit for it. It’s a fantasy.” + +“It’s a simpering horror. You’re to destroy it.” + +“It isn’t mine to destroy.” + +“Then I will.” + +Larry took a step towards the figure, but Mr. Quist reached it first. +With a practised hand he swathed the property in its butter-muslin +shroud and, lifting it from the stand, carried it back to the loose-box +where the statues were packed. + +Larry watched him go and gave a short laugh. + +“Sorry, Jane. I’ve lost my temper, and you’ve got to help me to find it +again at once. You must promise not to let whoever has bought it have +that idiotic thing.” + +“He’s paid for it,” said Jane, “and I’m going out to see the Guard +change at the Palace. I’ve got an order for a Grenadier complete with +busby”—and going to a peg on the wall, she took down her hat and gloves +and marched out of the still open workshop door. Larry looked for a +moment as though he were about to involve Gillian in the discussion, and +then, tossing his hair back with the very gesture Jane had caught for +the figure which still stood uncovered on the work-table, he followed +her into the street. + +Gillian waited a moment to let them get a start so that she might not +appear to be following, and while she waited, Mr. Quist came out from +the loose-box again and began to wrap up the laughing Larry. + +“I’m afraid, Mr. Quist,” said Gillian, feeling foolish for speaking and +yet nervously unable to keep silence, “I’m afraid Miss Bird and Mr. +Browne have misunderstood each other about your figure.” + +Mr. Quist looked at Gillian over the top of his glasses. + +“Sublimation. Sublimation,” he said. + +Gillian, who had never heard of the theories of Vienna or the practices +of Zurich, had not the faintest idea of what Mr. Quist meant. + +It was the first time she had heard his voice. It was a thick, smooth +voice, and she thought there was a note of triumph in it. She did not +feel she was going to like Mr. Quist, and she was not at all sorry that +he made no attempt at further conversation before she said good-bye and +went out. + + + V + +Whenever Gillian felt she had come to something she didn’t want to think +about, she either cleaned out William’s cage or went to see Aunt +Elizabeth. William’s cage was, of course, cleaned out every day. That +is, he had fresh seed, fresh water and fresh sand as punctually as +Gillian had her own breakfast. Indeed, there had been mornings in the +Pelham House days when Gillian’s breakfast had been omitted in favour of +William’s cage. It was in recognition of what she called her sister’s +slavery that Lilac had once tried to teach William the hymn which says: + + “All my wants by thee supplied, + All my sins by thee forgiven,” + +as a surprise while Gillian was away. But William, who was a pronounced +eclectic, had welcomed Gillian’s return from a holiday with the remark, +“Hello—sins forgiven? Bow-wow,” and had then gone off into peals of very +strident laughter in imitation of Mabel, who had, at her own request, +undertaken the care of William’s food and cage during his rightful +servant’s absence. But, in moments of doubt or pain, there was no more +successful anodyne than half an hour’s extra attendance on the cage. +William, who enjoyed extra attendance, always assisted with might and +main at all efforts towards the promotion of his own well-being, and +while William was helping and encouraging you there was no time for +metaphysical brooding or morbid self-analysis. Sometimes, when she +wanted practical advice or felt the moment was come for facing rather +than escaping her problem, Gillian would go to Highgate. But it was a +long way to Highgate, and, besides, Mrs. Mortimer was away just then, +and, even if she had been available, Gillian was not at all sure that +she could have had any patience with so insubstantial a grief as the one +she now carried. For Gillian was fighting a shadow which was never +vanquished and had now become so constant in assailing that she could no +longer doubt the existence of the shape which cast it. One day, and that +day might be to-morrow, she felt, the shadow would pass her by and leave +her face to face with the reality in which it originated, and of that +day she was afraid. + +There was a force, a malign thrusting-on, at work, in the lives around +her; she saw it more and more, to which her own experience gave her no +clue. It seemed to go by the name of Love, but in its manifestation it +was the most unloving impulse in the world. It lay, Gillian had known +that, behind Lilac’s whole attitude to Toby; it was, she had seen it, +implicit in Toby’s submission to Lilac. And now it was binding and +hurting Jane Bird, making her cruel and vulgar and yet giving her a +power over Larry which he resented but did not deny. Larry had been +angry with Jane. That was clear enough and easy to understand—but he had +followed her when she defied him, and it was to his own defeat he had +gone. + +Gillian knew very little about sex. She had escaped the definite +physiological instruction which most people of her age and station had +had administered to them in their teens. A little vague botany, put +before her with the best intentions while she was at school, had bored +without enlightening her. Flowers were flowers. Diagrams of their works +with straight black tines leading out of them like so many stamens, with +A, B, C, and D at their tips, had seemed to her of far less use or +interest than the pages of the little green Huxley’s Physiology, another +class-book which had been brought to her notice at the same time. But +that concise and well-illustrated manual confines its guidance to the +alimentary canal and the organs of sight and hearing, and it had never +occurred to Gillian to make any connexion between the two branches of +knowledge. They had been laid before her, separately, in a hopeful +spirit, by parents and guardians who shrank from directer methods of +illumination, and who credited adolescent curiosity with greater powers +of accurate deduction than there was any sound reason for supposing it +to possess. Gillian had failed entirely to deduce. She had assimilated +one set of facts and rejected the other; for she had a clear and honest +mind and chose by instinct, competent instruction in preference to +tentative and disingenuous information set up as an analogy which she +had not the means to follow. + +Later on, when disturbances in her own development might have turned her +mind inwards, she had been in the full tide of that friendship with her +father which had filled them both with so deep and so shared a passion +for impersonal beauty that human love, except as it found its expression +in Art and Letters, had seemed a matter which might very well wait its +time. Gerald Armstrong, like so many men of his type when they begin to +meet on its own ground the first blossoming of the mind they have +trained, had fallen in love with his daughter, idealizing the +crystalline beauty of her girl’s mind, loving the eager courage of its +unflawed innocence and jealously guarding that virginal quality from any +taint of a dark knowledge she might never need to bear. When she had +asked him what + + “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame” + +meant, he had given her _Madame Bovary_ to read, and had adored her for +the comment with which she returned the book to him: “I suppose the +French of those days were even more different from us than they are +now.” + +When he died and she was left with his books, she had taken to those +they had not read together, the same spirit of detached and impersonal +enjoyment of literary quality as had distinguished his own +appreciations, and had retained unimpaired the habit he had never +checked since the day when he had first discovered it, of classing any +allusions or franknesses she did not understand as “Elizabethanisms,” a +term he himself had once used to dismiss a very early inquiry as to the +precise meaning of a passage she and Lilac had failed to elucidate in +the psalms for the day when Lilac was seven and she was nine years old. + +And before Gillian could venture very far by herself, her father’s more +valuable and rarer books had been sold, and she had been allowed to keep +for her own use only such ordinary editions of the classics as would not +fetch more than remainder prices in an auctioneer’s rooms. Out of these +she got all she required, either as food for her own mind or as material +for those lessons in literature which she had so disastrously added to +the curriculum of Pelham House. But in actual knowledge of life she +moved, at twenty-three, in the same occasionally troubled but still +enchanted dream as she had known at seventeen, when her father died. + +Love, according to the best authorities known to Gillian, was the guide +to many a wandering bark; many waters could not quench it; it suffered, +endured, and hoped all things; it made the world go round, in which last +connexion it was assisted by the blessing of the Church in the +Solemnization of Matrimony. When it made people ridiculous or tiresome +it was called Calf Love; when it was transferred from its legitimate +objects it was called Sin; and when, as sometimes happened, particularly +on the Continent, it took place between people who had conscientious +objections to marriage, it was called Free. So far, this conspectus of +an important but not personally urgent business had met any case which +had come under her observation; but, lately, Gillian had begun to +suspect its adequacy. Toby and Lilac had made what is called a +love-match. Had not Mrs. Middleton given them for a present an +illuminated copy, in a frame, of a work supposed to be a translation +into more adequate terms of the well-known passage from Corinthians? It +had made Gillian’s blood boil at the time, particularly the improvement, +which ran: + + “Love has no taste for anything which is impure but a responsive + delight in all that is genuine.” + +But it certainly was about love, and Gillian had always understood that, +as a definition, however translated, the original had never been +bettered. Possibly there were things about love which Saint Paul did not +know. Times had changed, and love with them. There was Modern Love. +There were the sixteen-line pseudo-sonnets—“We are betrayed by what is +false within”—“A kiss is but a kiss now, and no wave of a great +flood....” Gillian had always thought that an interesting but rather +exaggerated way of referring to a kiss. “Love that had robbed us of +immortal things,” that was better, a beautiful line, all o’s—better, +Gillian thought, than the one about the swan and the twilight wave, +which didn’t somehow come in quite naturally. “I suppose he’d seen a +swan at twilight, and used it up for his last line in the same way as +Tennyson used his nature notes.” Gillian didn’t care about these +detachable beauties. You didn’t find them in Shakespeare’s sonnets. All +the great lines fitted there: “The mortal moon hath her eclipse +endured,” or, “Come in the rearward of a conquered woe.” ... + + + VI + +By the time Gillian got back to the Club she had walked herself out of +love to literature, and there, on a happy well-known path, she was +herself again. No need to give William second sand, after all. But she’d +do it, for a treat, for William’s treat, and he should walk up and down +outside the window of her bedroom on the street side while she did it, +and address the children on their way home from school at half-past +four, a performance he, and they, enjoyed vastly. + +But when she turned into the courtyard she was met by an excited crowd +headed by Mrs. Gordon and superintended from the window of her +ground-floor flat by Mrs. Barraclough herself. Club members, some of +whom Gillian had never seen before, were visible at windows or present +on the gravel under the laburnum-tree, and a first glance informed +Gillian that V.V. was not among them. But the Countess, in hat, veil, +gloves, parasol, and a fan, was conspicuous; as was Mrs. Middleton, +whose hair was coming down and who had buttoned the blouse she had +donned in haste in most of the wrong holes. + +And over the noise of the mob, drowning it in a torrent of excruciating +protest, flooding the sky with clamour, the voice of William shrieked +from the open window of the book-room under the roof. + +“Oh, Miss!” cried Mrs. Gordon, trundling towards Gillian as she emerged +from the archway. “’Ere you are at last. ’E’s been goin’ on like this +for a _h_our or more, and none of us can’t get anywhere near ’im to +pacify of ’im.” + +“Oh, dear,” said Gillian, “but haven’t you my duplicate key?” + +“No, Miss, that I ’aven’t.” Mrs. Gordon was righteousness under outrage. +“That Miss Vanderleyden come and borrowed it off me to take ’im a piece +of groundsel, and she’ve gone off with it and ’ere we are.” + +“And groundsel isn’t a bit good for him,” said Mrs. Middleton, “we all +know that. Do you think dear William is dying in agony?” + +“No,” said Gillian, “he’s evidently perfectly well. Only cross. I’m so +very sorry. I’ll go straight up and scold him.” + +Up she went, accompanied by Mrs. Middleton, who loved William with +passion, and followed at a speaking distance by the Countess, who made +no mystery of her feelings towards “this savage bird.” + +And, even as she ran, listening to the sympathetic bleat of Mrs. +Middleton at her side and pursued by the blistering invective of the +Countess behind her, Gillian was conscious that Mrs. Gordon’s pardonable +rancour against Miss Vanderleyden was shared by her fellow members. And +it was not because she had locked a screaming William in and disturbed +them all over their tea that they were angry with V.V. She felt that in +a way they were glad to have this excuse for saying, “So _very_ +peculiar. A little officious. Members should _never_ borrow the +duplicate key.” + +William, it turned out, had a real grievance. Touched by one of those +synchronizing impulses which it was her queer gift to receive and act +upon, V.V. had herself come over and had given William fresh seed, fresh +sand, and fresh water, as well as the bunch of groundsel which now lay, +severely mauled but uneaten, on the bottom of his cage. But not content +with these ministrations, she had, with a zeal commensurate to the +protest it had evoked, polished the whole of the cage, bar by bar, wire +by wire, with Bluebell. It stood there glittering in the afternoon sun, +the brass ring by which it was carried from room to room a perfect blaze +of reflected light. The room reeked of the polish, and it was against +this smell quite as much as in disapproval of the unwonted scintillation +of his home, that William’s voice was still most devastatingly raised. + +It was not until she had quieted the bird that Gillian caught sight of a +three-cornered note, stuck in the back of the old settee and addressed +to her in V.V.’s black, curly handwriting, out of which the tops of the +t’s and d’s stuck like pins in an untidy pincushion: + + “Belovedest” (V.V. had an expansive epistolary style), “I’ve + polished up Cocky’s cage for a s’prize and I’m going to the + concert with Hinerik, so don’t look me up till I get in. A + thousand kisses—V.V.” + +Gillian sat with William rubbing his beak against her ear and clucking, +“Pretty Cocky! Pretty Cocky! S’rimps for tea,” and tore the note into +tiny fragments, wondering why V.V.’s letters moved her to nothing but +dismay, when V.V.’s presence had in it the power to fill her with +transporting joy. The soft, thick, gilt-edged paper on which the note +was written tore without sound into pieces, each of which showed at the +furred indefinite edges little glistering filaments of the pulp from +which it had been dried. Almost like blotting-paper, she thought, +remembering how sore her middle finger had been for days when she had +sliced it against the sharp, hard corner of the note-paper on which she +used to imitate the Bottomley signature from Knightsbridge. + +Presently, to her surprise, Larry knocked at the door. + +“I’ve come to tell you,” he said, pushing his hair back from his eyes as +he subsided into the chesterfield, “I’ve come to tell you that I’m sorry +I let fly at Jane as I did. It was a rotten thing to do, anyway, and +with you there”—he flicked a fragment of the torn letter away from the +back of the couch with his hand as if disposing of himself and his +behaviour for a while. + +“I didn’t like that figure myself,” Gillian conceded, “but Jane seemed +to think you deserved it.” + +“So I do.” said Larry moodily. “I’m a rotter.” + +“That’s silly,” said Gillian. “It was rather rotten of Jane, you know, +as well—to sell it, I mean.” + +“Oh, Jane’s got to get her own back. Besides, she didn’t make it to sell +it. She made it because she thinks I ought to do one thing at once. +She’s afraid of my atavistic impulses. In a way she’s right. But life’s +a great thing in so many ways. And Jane’ll only hear of me having it in +one.” + +“Well, one thing at a time is the only way if you’re going to do +anything great.” + +“Who wants to do anything great? It’s like being a non-drinker, a +non-smoker, and a Nonconformist like an old gardener of ours, because he +wanted to be sure of living a long time in this world and missing +hell-fire in the next. The great object of life is living—not saving +life up to do things with. I’d rather die of life at thirty than hang on +‘doing.’” + +“Jane believes in doing things.” + +“I ought to know what Jane believes by this time.” + +“Larry, are you in love with Jane?” + +“No. Not now. That’s the trouble.” + +“I don’t think,” said Gillian slowly, “I don’t really suppose that I +quite understand about being in love.” + +“Your state is the more gracious.” + +“Well. It’s supposed to bring happiness.” + +“It’s the devil. It has the primal, eldest curse upon it.” + +“Oh, Larry—that was murder, not love.” + +“It wasn’t. You’re a shallow, superficial child, and you’re talking like +a parrot—like that William of yours.” + +“But the King in _Hamlet_ had killed his brother, that’s what his +offence was rank about.” + +“What had he done it for? Shakespeare was a subtler johnny than that. +Read your Bible. What is the eldest curse? Not Cain’s. Golly, no! His +was easy, ‘a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth’—lots of us are that, +and like it. No, the primal, eldest curse is Adam’s: ‘I will put enmity +between thee and the woman.’ _Enmity_—‘It shall bruise thy head.’ That’s +love,” said Larry. And he thrust both hands deep into the pockets of his +flannel trousers—he was wearing a perfectly normal, grey flannel suit +that afternoon—and began to whistle, through his teeth, a tune which +Gillian recognized after a bar or two to be “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” + +But she was quite sure that Larry had no notion of what he was +whistling, and she didn’t tell him. + + + + + CHAPTER FIVE. + ILLUSION + + + I + +Larry went to Germany. He said he knew a place in the Bavarian Tyrol +where in the third week in June the hay was all flowers and no grass and +each separate flower had its butterfly coloured to match itself, and +that there was an inn, _Zur Goldenen Rose_, at a place called +Dinkelsbühl, on the way back, which hadn’t had a chair added to it since +the eighteenth century. And, why, when there were these things to be +inherited on the Earth, he or anyone should stay in a jerry-built studio +in Battersea Park Road——? Larry was in a difficult temper. Heinrich, who +couldn’t go with him, partly because his orchestra was active until +after the third week in June and partly because he hadn’t any clothes to +travel in, was very pensive about it both before and after Larry’s +departure from Waterloo in a crashing thunderstorm late one Sunday +evening. + +Larry was going by Havre. It seemed a long way round and was not so +cheap as the other ways. But Larry was in the kind of temper which makes +people—and more especially men—go the longest, dearest way on purpose, +and gives them some interior satisfaction of the kind which arises from +being able to blame others for these self-inflicted aggravations of an +initial injury. Larry’s state of mind was in no sense Heinrich’s fault, +but Heinrich pined and wilted terribly after his departure. + +“I shall have that Hinerik to tea to cheer him up a bit,” said V.V., and +Gillian, who admired nothing in V.V.’s rather featureless character so +ardently as her real kindliness, went off to Seaford, comforted by the +idea of the comfort these two apparently friendless beings would give +one another. + +Gillian’s errand was not of her seeking. On the day of Larry’s departure +she had received a letter in an imitation less exact than her own of Old +Winona’s hand. It was dated, “Marine Hotel, Seaford,” and ran: + + “MY DEAR GILLIAN, + + Miss Macfarlane is very kindly acting as my amanuensis to-day, + and I am asking her to tell you that I have come down here on a + matter of important private business on which I should very much + appreciate the benefit of your advice. + + The matter concerns a little gift which I mean to make to our + dear Lilac on her return from her wedding-journey in three + months’ time, and as time presses I shall be glad if you will + come down here for a week or two as soon as your classes at the + Polytechnicum are over. + + I enclose a small cheque to cover the necessary expenses, and + remain, + + Yours, affectionately, + WINONA BOTTOMLEY. + + P.S.—The car will meet you at Lewes.” + +“Goodness!” said Gillian when she had read this epistle through twice, +“what ever _can_ she be doing? She can’t have gone down to Seaford to +knit a shawl for Lilac, and I’ve never known her make anything else. I +wonder if she’s mad. The Macfarlane in office has evidently not been +able to persuade her that I’m going to her own revered de Stormonts’, +which goes on for ever like that dreadful brook, and has no terms. I +think I’d better go at once.” + +So she telegraphed to the Marine Hotel, called on Jane and excused +herself from an engagement to sit to her for that portrait of the +Changeling which Larry had never painted and which Jane was now going to +attempt, and with the zealous aid of V.V., who washed and ironed odds +and ends of ribbon and lace and packed them for her with the utmost +delicacy and precision, got herself started for Seaford within +twenty-four hours of receiving the summons. + +The car met her at Lewes. This simple phrase but poorly conveys the +experience of being met by Old Winona’s car. It began on the platform, +where two startlingly liveried menials flanked a bowing stationmaster, +drawn up, unfortunately, in front of the Pullman in which Gillian had +not thought it necessary to travel, although the cheque for expenses had +allowed margins in every possible direction. It continued, in +processional splendour, with Tompkins bearing her ticket and umbrella +before, and Wilkins carrying her reasonably new suit-case and her quite +unreasonably battered hat-box behind, and it ended, much to the delight +of an admiring crowd, when the car, a Rolls-Royce of the largest size, +mistook the road and, with three men to direct and prevent its ways, had +to back down one steep and cobbled hill and up another before it could +find a space sufficient to turn round in. The ways out of Lewes from the +railway station are almost as difficult as if they had been expressly +planned for the bewilderment of haughty and companioned chauffeurs. + +Miss Macfarlane, a new one, met her in the hall. She was a thin and +serious girl who had not done very well at Newnham and was finding +private-secretaryship more remunerative but less straightforward than +the scholastic career for which Nature had planned and Education had +almost fitted her. On the way up to Lady Bottomley’s private suite +Gillian gathered that things were in a bad way. “And I am afraid,” said +the Miss Macfarlane with depression, “that the fault is partly mine. I +had hoped to inspire Lady Bottomley with a wish to visit the châteaux of +the Loire herself. Instead of which we are having frightful trouble down +here.” + +Some of the trouble, it appeared, had been due to the presence at the +Marine Hotel of another Belfast baronet’s widow, a lady on a visit of +supervision to an only son in a preparatory school who had broken a +quantity of bones in a riding accident. This lady, in virtue of her +sorrows, had claimed the suite, the best suite on the first floor, for +which Lady Bottomley had negotiated. + +The air was still surcharged with the fury of the storm which had raged +over the claims. Finally, Old Winona had won, on a point of precedence. +“Ours is the earlier creation,” she had announced. Sir John had been +raised to the title in 1906. And Lady Eaton, whose husband had had to +wait until 1908 before his merits had been formally acknowledged by a +dilatory government, had admitted her just defeat. The other matter, +however, was more serious. + +The glories of Chenonceaux and Blois, the architectural resplendency of +Amboise, the marvels of Tours for which the mild young secretary had a +deep enthusiasm, had been displayed before her employer in so many +photographs, diagrams, and literary panegyrics that they had gone to the +poor lady’s head. + +“She wants,” said Miss Macfarlane, “to have bits of them copied into a +kind of composite villa here, and Sir Edwin Lutyens has just refused to +do it for her. She will tell you the rest herself.” + +Gillian did not hear the rest at once, for she had been assigned a suite +of her own, bedroom, bathroom and sitting-room, on the second floor, +and, having a horror of lifts in descent, had wandered for some time +along unfamiliar corridors all carpeted in the same monstrous pattern +before she found the rooms Lady Bottomley now triumphantly occupied. + +“My dear,” said Old Winona, who, by way of emphasizing the difference +between an hotel and her own home, was wearing an imposing bonnet +although she had not been out that day, “I am glad you have been able to +get away so soon. Do you know anything of architecture?” + +“Very little,” said Gillian. + +“Socially, I mean,” said Old Winona. + +This was difficult, but Gillian was able to gather that what was +required of her was information about architects of a more docile +temperament than those of riper years or wider fame were proving +themselves to possess. Young men, willing to carry out the plans which a +lavish and devoted mother was making for her children’s dwelling; +impecunious young men, in short, were what the lady sought. + +“I have,” said Old Winona, “already purchased the house, an admirable +one: south aspect, modern sanitation, large grounds, within easy, but +not too easy, reach of the sea. Children,” said Old Winona with a long, +prospective look through the closed windows and across the waters of the +Channel, “children have been known to escape from their nurses, however +numerous.” + +“But Lilac——” Gillian began, intending to point out that Lilac, though +not yet of age, could swim quite well. + +“Not yet—not quite yet, I dare say.” Lilac’s mother-in-law was evidently +hopeful, possibly even better informed of the future than Gillian. “But +though she has many years before her, there is no time to be lost.” + +Dinner was coming up processionally, borne in courses by a staff visibly +awed by what had happened during the installation of the occupant of the +first-floor suite, before Gillian had heard the whole story. The house +intended as a surprise for Lilac and Toby was not to be destroyed. It +was a large, three-storied affair, gabled and balconied with terraces to +its garden, and Old Winona’s idea was to have replicas of as many of the +distinguishing features of the châteaux in question as could possibly be +crowded together affixed to the building, so that in none of its aspects +it should fail to remind the beholder of at least one, and often of +several of them. And, having been told by one famous architect that he +thanked her but that, praise God, he was not a reincarnation of +Viollet-le-Duc, and by another that nothing would induce him to consider +her project, she had applied, very feebly seconded by Miss Macfarlane, +to the local builders and found that they simply could not begin to +understand her idea. So, knowing that Gillian lived in Chelsea and was +therefore surrounded by people who drew and planned for the upper +classes, Old Winona had decided to leave the problem in her hands. + +Gillian sat up for an hour with the Miss Macfarlane, after the old lady +had gone to bed, trying to think of a way to save Lilac from the +consequences of the secretary’s plot for foreign travel. Nothing, of +that Gillian was quite sure, nothing would induce Lilac to live at +Seaford for any part of her time, just as not even the occasion to +select her own models would have moved Old Winona abroad without +anything less than six months’ preparation. + +“You might just as well have told her about Ludwig of Bavaria and gone +on touring round all those crazy castles next summer,” she said to Miss +Macfarlane, who was horrified, not caring for the idea of visiting any +places that were not known to be famous for good art and authenticated +history. + +But, two days later, having seen the house, which had been originally +built as a school, and having interviewed the puzzled builder, Gillian +had an inspiration. + +Jane would be quite equal to constructing a model of such a fantasia as +Old Winona desired; and superintending Jane might distract the old lady +for a time and would help to preserve the builder’s sanity which her +direction, supplemented by portfolios of photographs and engravings, had +severely shaken. And, so long as the house itself remained untouched +until Toby and Lilac returned to take up their own responsibilities, it +could be put into the market again; whereas, once improved according to +plan, it must remain for ever planted on the Bottomley family, only too +probably to be known, as other less comprehensive outrages had been +known in other places, as Bottomley’s Folly. + +The idea pleased Old Winona, and it enchanted Jane, who came down for +two days and went back to London with a suit-case full of plans and +photographs. + +Gillian stayed on at Seaford for another week, bathing and walking over +the cliffs towards Cuckmere Haven and up and down the Seven Sisters all +morning, and relieving Miss Macfarlane after tea, and going on to Glynde +when Lady Bottomley abandoned the Marine Hotel in order to open a bazaar +in Belfast in the first week in July. + +When she got back to London she found Jane and Mr. Quist fully occupied +in modelling, painting, and varnishing such a doll’s-house as had never +been made in any studio. Gillian looked in at the workshop on her way +home for Victoria. + +“Delirious, ain’t it?” said Jane, “and not a staircase, not a gargoyle +without documentary evidence of its origin in other brains than ours. +The colour I’ll admit is often my own. I’ve never faltered more or less +in my great task of happiness since I started this. What a peach, what a +queen, your divine Winona! How sumptuous in outlook! A ton of plasticine +in the yard and everything handsome about me. I’m having a +painting-blouse embroidered with bicycles to keep my mind from being +puffed up, and you’ve got to come and sit to me like a ghost at +twilight, to prevent my spirit from being snuffed out.” + +“I shall have to sit with V.V. at twilight for a bit now,” said Gillian. +“I’ve been away for three weeks and she’ll expect me to make it up to +her at first.” + +“You’ll find V.V. otherwise engaged,” said Jane darkly. + +“Goodness!” said Gillian. “Engaged?” + +“To the unfortunate being she will call Hinerik,” said Jane. + +“But she must be years older.” + +“She is. Ten at least. She would be.” + +“What ever made them do it?” wondered Gillian. + +“Hadn’t you better ask them?” said Jane. “It might be love, you know.” + + + II + +Heinrich was extremely pleased about his engagement. He wore a “Mizpah” +ring, which V.V. had given him, and a rather small Trilby hat which he +had disinterred from some forgotten cupboard himself. Arrayed in these +additions to his toilet, he called formally on Gillian that evening. +V.V. was not at home. She was working late in Bond Street all that week, +renewing the youth of the fashionable clientele before its final exodus +from town. + +“I have taken ze responsibility for zis life,” he explained, as though +V.V. were another cat or sparrow. “V.V. has never enough money till ze +end of ze munz. For ze last two, tree, four, five days she does eat +nozzing.” + +“Heinrich! What ever do you mean?” Gillian was startled. It had never +occurred to her to inquire into V.V.’s finances, but all sorts of +instances crowded into her mind at Heinrich’s words. + +“I mean what I say. V.V. has not enough money for food for four weeks, +only for tree. In ze force week she starve. On ze first day of ze monz +she have fresh money. Zen she eat. So I marry her.” Heinrich was +delighted with the adequacy of this solution. + +“Have you got married while I was away?” + +“Not yet. It is to come. Now we food on love.” + +This was beyond Gillian. “Will she live with you and Larry in the studio +when you do marry?” she asked, turning to practical matters for relief. + +“No. I give ze studio to Larry for himself. V.V. and I we go in many +countries. Countries where it is warm. Italy and Africa and Hindustan,” +said Heinrich. + +“You’ll have to wait then,” said Gillian with reference to the golden +liberty which was known to lie behind the clauses of Heinrich’s uncle’s +will. + +“A little, yes. But not so much time as before. I go to my ozzer onkel, +and tell to him zat now I marry. And he say I may have some money out of +ze will, from him. He is not quite a good man—but there is in him a +little goodness sometimes. I sign him a paper so that he have twice as +much out of ze will by and then. And I get sree hundred pounds for each +year till ze will is over.” + +Unversed though she was in the ethics of finance, Gillian had a distant +feeling that Heinrich’s uncle was being the not quite good man Heinrich +had admitted him to be in the question of that other uncle’s will on +which his future depended. But Heinrich had done his best for V.V. + +And he looked taller and braver, more nearly a man, and rather +distressingly a little less like a fairy than he had seemed to her till +now. + +“Does V.V. want to marry you?” she asked. + +“Oh, very much.” + +In the dark of her mind Gillian felt a jealous pang. V.V. then had +forgotten her. + +“I go now to take her to dinner, in a restaurant: proper dinner,” said +Heinrich impressively, “wiz prrawns.” + + * * * * * + +Late that night there was a furtive knock at Gillian’s bedroom door. +Gillian called “Come in,” wondering who could be there. It was V.V. She +stood in the doorway smiling, excited. + +“Oh, you darling,” she said in a hungry whisper, “oh, you darling.” + +“V.V.! how did you get in? Gordon locked up hours ago.” + +“I had your house-key copied while you were away,” said V.V., and did +not wait to hear how Gillian took this announcement, but strode across +the room and knelt by the bedside, thrusting her long, strong, bony arms +in under the bed-clothes and dragging Gillian to the edge of the bed in +an almost angry hug. + +Gillian struggled out of the straining clasp and sat up, pulling the +ends of her long plaits from under the sheet and shaking out the +crumpled bows of blue ribbon with which they were tied. + +“V.V., how thrilling!” + +“Isn’t it! isn’t it!” said V.V., burying her face in Gillian’s shoulder. +Her hair smelt of brilliantine—a sweet, heavy smell like +scented-geranium leaves when you pinch them—and of fresh +Virginia-cigarette smoke, and she had been drinking liqueur. She was +shaking all over and Gillian could feel the quick, pushing beat of her +heart vibrate in the wire of the stretched spring-mattress of the little +iron bedstead. + +“Goodness!” said Gillian, putting one arm round V.V.’s trembling +shoulder. “Are you as happy as all that?” + +“Of course I am, you darling, aren’t you?” + +“Well, no! You can’t expect me to be quite as excited as you are—or as +Heinrich is.” + +“Hinerik? What’s he got to do with it?” V.V. sat back on her heels and +frowned. “I’m excited because I’ve got you back again. You know that, +you monkey.” + +Gillian felt uncomfortable. She had not expected this pudicity in V.V. + +“I’m sorry,” she apologized, “I thought you knew I knew. Heinrich told +me. So did Jane.” + +“Oh, that,” said V.V., “that’s Hinerik’s funeral.” + +“I thought it was to be your wedding.” + +“P’r’aps. Some day. But we won’t bother about silly old weddings now +I’ve got you back again.” + +“Get the basket-chair and a cushion and come and talk to me a minute,” +said Gillian, clasping her hands round her knees outside the bed-clothes +and preparing to conduct an inquisition. “You tell me such a lot about +your life, all in bits, and I can’t ever put them quite together in any +real plan.” + +“Oh, mine’s not been a planny life,” said V.V., dragging the chair and +cushion close to the bedside. + +“Well, never mind about the whole of it now,” said Gillian, “but try, if +you can, to tell me what Heinrich meant about you not having proper +meals some weeks.” + +“Oh yes.” V.V. was frank as always, with a baffling and allusive +frankness that more often than not darkened the situation she attempted +to illuminate. “My brother, you know. He’s not quite all there—not mad +you know, but sometimes he drinks a little, and sometimes he goes out +and paints the town red, and then he can’t send me the whole of my +allowance.” + +“I didn’t know you had an allowance. I thought you worked in Bond +Street.” + +“Oh, that’s a debt. The rent for the flat at Ostend. I’ll be paid by +October and then I shan’t go to silly old Jacynthe’s any more.” + +“But V.V., if your brother is like that he oughtn’t to have the money to +control. You ought to have it and send him his allowance.” + +“Yes, I know. But he’s the eldest, and a man. He’s the trustee too, but +I don’t like him. If I marry Hinerik and he can get hold of his money +we’ll put my brother into a home and he can have it all.” + +“How did Heinrich find out?” + +“Oh, he just came to dinner and there wasn’t any. Old Mrs. Gordon +wouldn’t send any up because I’d not paid my book. She’s generally quite +good about waiting, but when she came up on Saturday with the books, I +was unpacking some bath-salts and she seemed to think I could have done +without them.” + +“Oh, V.V., that’s why you’re so thin.” + +“Oh, I was always bony, even”—V.V. did not intend to be enigmatic—“even +at Ostend.” + +And then she yawned and Gillian said she was sleepy too, and V.V. kissed +her and went over to her own flat. + + + III + +“V.V.,” said Gillian, “I can’t make out why your bedroom is so different +from this room.” + +They were sitting in the large room at Number Thirty-Six, and Gillian +was contrasting its considered effects, seen by daylight to be hastily +contrived, with the muslin and pink ribbons of V.V.’s bedroom, the outer +of the two communicating rooms that completed the set, into the inner of +which Gillian had never penetrated. + +“Oh,” said V.V., “this is all Jacky’s furniture. She’s on tour, Cape +Town and Australia. She won’t be back till Christmas. She was very good +to me when I was down on my luck.” + +“But you mayn’t sublet flats in the Club, or be away for more than three +months at a time.” + +“We haven’t sublet. We live together. But it’s mostly her furniture. +Hers and Peter’s.” + +“Who’s Peter?” Gillian was conscious of a growing irritation as each new +woman with a man’s name emerged from the horde of V.V.’s acquaintances. + +“Oh, Peter’s Smithy. I was with her before I met Jacky. She’s married +now. She won’t ask for her furniture because we quarrelled and she +doesn’t want Evelyn to know that she lived with me. She never told him +that. He was in the same company on tour and he never came to our flat.” + +Gillian did not pursue Smithy and Evelyn into the seclusion of their +matrimonial relationships. She was not particularly interested in their +vague and distant passage through V.V.’s life and she was beginning to +dread the copious and unilluminating anecdote with which V.V. replied to +any polite manifestation of concern for the fortunes of these drifting +adventurers. + +V.V. was polishing her manicure-tools. She sat on a low seat by the +table, a duster on her knees and her case of instruments, emptied of its +contents, lying by them on an outspread sheet of the _Daily Mail_. The +sun, shining on her bent head, brought out chestnut lights in the waves +of her dark hair and showed her pale skin, yellowed and sallow below her +ears where her neck had not been covered with the fine, perfumed powder +she always used. + +Gillian sat in the window darning her socks. Her attention was absorbed +in the in-and-out in-and-out of her short darning-needle, as it drove +its way backwards and forwards through the warp and woof of the thread +which stretched across the painted glass of the china darning-egg in the +heel of her brown stocking. There was something very satisfying to +Gillian about a good large darn. It gave the stocking, which had looked +so desperate and uncomfortable with a ragged hole in it, a cared-for and +rather interesting appearance of having survived adventure and being +prepared for more, and it was, of all necessary mending, the most +interesting to do, surpassing the sewing on of buttons, always a +tiresome business, especially when, as usually happened, the buttons +didn’t quite match and the strong cotton was missing. + +She was in V.V.’s flat for the day because her own was given over to the +workmen who were installing a telephone in Number Seven. This was a gift +of Lady Bottomley’s, who, on several occasions, had wished to telephone +to Gillian without success for the sufficient reason that there was no +telephone at the Club. + +The innovation was being showered upon her in recognition of the donor’s +sense of the services Gillian had rendered in introducing Jane Bird. It +was also a valedictory beneficence. Having learnt by one of those rich +coincidences which do occur even in the most heavily sheltered lives, +that the Royal Princess who was to open the next bazaar on her horizon +had just returned from visiting the châteaux of the Loire, Old Winona +had decided that what Royalty had done she could do also, and Miss +Macfarlane, her days heavy with time-tables, hotel tariffs and +interviews with Cook’s clerks and couriers, was realizing the profound +sadness of having a long-treasured dream come true (as it so often comes +true in this trying world) more than a little wrong. + +Jane had gone with them, but not Gillian. This was entirely Gillian’s +own fault, for an invitation so pressing that it had almost the force of +a command, had been issued to her as soon as the decision to go at all +had been reached. And she had refused, alleging that the three weeks +already spent at Seaford must be made up before the Secretarial School +closed for a fortnight in August. Old Winona, who respected a business +reason, had acquiesced insisting, however, that the occasion must be +marked in some way, and choosing the telephone as its monument. + +To Miss Macfarlane (her real name Gillian discovered was +Bronx-Prittlewell, and this did seem an excuse for going on calling her +Macfarlane)—to the harassed secretary Gillian confessed that the +prospect of three weeks’ pilgrimage from one best hotel to another in a +party consisting of Old Winona, her maid, a courier, three chauffeurs, +two cars, as well as Jane and herself, was so asphyxiating that she felt +as if they would all be smothered if she, Gillian, added herself and her +luggage to the caravan. But, in her heart of hearts, she knew that she +would have endured the restraints and adored the enjoyments of such a +pilgrimage with the utmost indifference to one and abandonment to the +other if it had not meant separating herself again from V.V. + +V.V. herself had been quite unscrupulous about it, and had declared that +she would not look after William if Gillian went to France. She had not +looked after William while Gillian was at Seaford. He had gone down to +the basement for the period of Gillian’s absence, on a visit to the +Gordons who looked upon him with mingled admiration and terror as being +“almost a Christian.” And, Christian or no, William had come back with +Mabel’s sniff and Mr. Gordon’s cough and Mrs. Gordon’s raucous cry of +“’Arry!” (this being the title by which Mr. Gordon was known on the +hearth) added to his repertoire, and was in consequence rather more than +Gillian could bear at times. For William was always immensely proud of +any new phrases he had acquired, and had sniffed and coughed and +summoned ’Arry with penetrating distinctness and with reiterations which +would not be quenched for at least half an hour every time Gillian had +come into the flat since her return. She had vowed that she would never +go away again unless either V.V. or Heinrich were left behind in charge +of him. But Heinrich had gone to Bristol for a Musical Festival in which +the orchestra to which he belonged was competing, and V.V. thrust her +own deserted state as well as her refusal to harbour William into the +scale when Gillian had hesitated over the invitation from Knightsbridge. + +So Gillian saw the expedition start without her and remained at home to +solace V.V. and to strive to soften William’s memories of kitchen life. + +On this particular Saturday morning he was entertaining the telephone +men with the whole of his repertoire and Gillian, having warned them +that everything they said would be repeated by the bird, hoping in that +way to keep William pure from the grosser profanities of proletarian +expletive, darned her stockings and listened to V.V., and prayed that +William would not and could not learn to make a noise like telephone men +hammering telephone nails into the well-built and very resisting walls +of the Mordaunt Club. + +V.V. prattled on, cleaning the blades of the tiny knives and slender +scissors in her outfit, taking minute stains out of the ivory +file-handles and the pushing and picking instruments, fitting fresh +chamois leather on the large wooden buffers for nail-polishing, testing +the screw tops and the glass stoppers of some bottles and putting fresh +corks into others. She worked without much method but with fastidious +care. Everything about V.V. was fastidiously cared for, immaculate, +crisp or shining according to its kind, from the glass of the +window-panes in her flat, which sparkled every day of the year as the +windows of Gillian’s rooms only sparkled for two or three days after the +quarterly cleaning, to the Japanese paper napkins which replaced +table-linen in her domain and which she used extravagantly and burned +after every meal. V.V. might go without food in the weeks when her +allowance ran short, but she would not go without soap and hot water. + +“I wonder,” said Gillian, “if it’s eating so little or washing so much +that makes you so thin.” + +“I ’xpec’ it’s a bit of both,” said V.V., whose speech was far more +slovenly than her person; and she rambled on into a fresh tangle of +autobiography in which Smithy and the landlady of some theatrical +lodgings in Wrexham and a box of Keating’s powder all played equally +ambiguous parts. + +“What I can’t understand,” said Gillian as the story finally lost itself +in a species of delta with V.V. sitting on Smithy’s dress-basket all one +Sunday morning in the cloak-room of a Welsh railway station whose name +V.V. kept, quite unsuccessfully, trying to retrieve from a long list of +railway stations she had waited in, “what I keep on trying to get you to +explain, V.V., is why if you’ve never been an actress you travelled +about so much with touring companies. Were you really never on the +stage?” + +“Never quite,” replied V.V., “I walked on once in a play Jackie was in, +_The Notorious Mrs. Something_ I think it was, or else _When Knights +Were Bold_, I’m not sure, but I was too tall for the clothes and they +got a girl the next night. I was sharing Peter’s rooms then. She was ill +and couldn’t afford things, and my being there helped. It’s cheaper +travelling two.” + +“You’re a kind creature,” said Gillian. + +V.V. changed the subject. + +“Come along, Gillian, put your horrid old stockings away and I’ll do +your hands for you.” + +“Wait one minute. I must just put one more thread through this darn to +make it tight. It’s such a beauti_full_ darn, V.V., worth having a +blistered toe for. I walked that toe through in Richmond Park on Friday +evening, seeing the full moon with deer, and I’ve darned it all into the +hole again, moon, and mist over the lake, and an owl that hooted and +flew—no, it didn’t fly, what is the proper word for the way owls make no +noise when they go through the space in front of your nose at night?” + +“How you do talk!” said V.V., filling the dragon bowl with warm soapsuds +and a little sponge, “make haste or we shan’t get both hands done before +lunchtime.” + +So Gillian put away her darning and pushed up the sleeves of her cotton +frock. She lay back among the gay cushions of Jackie’s Russian-ballet +room which V.V. piled one by one into the big arm-chair by the window, +with consummate knowledge of where you did and where you didn’t need a +cushion to be. And, one hand laid on the clean towel on V.V.’s knee +while she dabbled in the warm, scented soapsuds in the green-dragon bowl +with the other, Gillian forgot the flatness of V.V.’s voice, the +baldness of her narrative style, forgot that she could never talk to +V.V. about the shape of a word, or the meaning of a colour, or the way +people took in life, but could only ask her questions to which V.V. +never could give coherent answers. She could let herself be petted and +caressed and flattered and told how each of her fingers as it passed +under file and cutter and emery board to the ultimate polishing, +exceeded any finger that V.V. had ever polished before in the beauty of +its shape, the fineness of its skin, the rising of the half-moons at the +base of its nail and the colour of the tip. It was all nonsense, of +course, nonsense of the worst kind, but it was extraordinarily soothing +on a hot midsummer day at the end of a long week of shorthand and +typing, card-indexing and tables of precedence, and the most +preposterous lectures on how to address envelopes to persons of title, +it was balmy and cooling to lie back in heavenly comfort and let your +mind be vitiated by it for an hour. Gillian would have been very lonely +after Lilac’s wedding if she had not found V.V. + + + IV + +They sat on through the hot afternoon drowsing in easy chairs by the +open windows, the green-and-orange sunblinds drawn so low that, of all +the world outside, only the glitter of the sun on the river could be +seen under the rims of the sunblinds. Three tawny roses in a slim +rainbow-glass vase dropped their petals hour by hour on the black table +under the mirror and filled the still air of the room with their breath; +the fragrance coming and going in obedience to that mystery of a +flower’s life which gives its odour a rhythm and makes it rise and fall +by a law we do not know. + +It was too hot to darn any more socks, and her hands, sleek and languid, +with the scent of V.V.’s unguents still hanging around them, lay idle in +Gillian’s lap, the milky opal in her mother’s engagement-ring which she +always wore, gleaming in the tranquil light with almost as rich a lustre +as the over-polished nail of the finger on which it shone. One of V.V.’s +sharp little knives had slipped and cut into the flesh at the side of +Gillian’s right-hand little finger, and the smarting of this +infinitesimal wound was pain enough to prevent her falling completely +asleep. But V.V., tired and happy, was sleeping, her mouth a little open +and her head fallen sideways against a purple cushion; and, as she +slept, she gave occasional soft, puffing snores, like the engine of a +doll’s train going uphill. + +With eyes closed and sagging mouth, V.V.’s face lost the light and glow +which in her waking hours made it so difficult to realize that she was +not as intelligent as she was vivacious. Gillian, watching her, saw what +Larry’s trained eye had taken in at a glance—the abnormal fading away of +the jaw-bone, which, after lifting the chin away from the long, thin +column of the neck, disappeared into the cheek, giving to the lower part +of the side face a flat, unmodelled look. The nose too, long and blunt, +with wide, unwinged nostrils, was unfinished, almost embryonic in its +failure to achieve any dignity of form. And yet the rest of her; the +wide flat shoulders; the thin flanks, and long, harmoniously +proportioned and swift-moving hands and arms; the slim, straight legs +with that moving line from thigh to knee which was to Gillian the first +element of grace in any human beauty, belonged to an inbred fineness, an +inherited civilization which should have had its corresponding signal in +her mind. Gillian had searched the more eagerly for this confirmation of +excellence in V.V., as she grew increasingly aware of her own +enslavement to the infatuating spell which the thought, far more than +the actual presence of the elder woman had established upon her life. It +was galling to her dignity, and contrary to an ascetic strain in her +nature to admit that V.V.’s predominance was due to the eager adoration, +the curiously maternal devotion she professed and practised. Gillian, it +is true, darned V.V.’s stockings and had, since she learned of V.V.’s +ways with her allowance, made it her business to see that V.V. had three +good meals a day, but then she liked the act of darning, and nobody +could be reasonably comfortable themselves with a fellow being starving +within earshot. The rest of their relationship consisted of services +offered; daily, almost hourly oblations by V.V. It was V.V. who +supplemented the duties of Mabel and her rotating colleagues in all +sorts of details for which Gillian had no time. The Bluebelling of +William’s cage was symbolic of her whole attitude to Gillian’s +surroundings. Gillian seldom had cut-flowers in vases because she could +not bear to see flowers die, and so spent more time than she could spare +changing their water and clipping their stalks when she did have any in +her rooms. V.V. kept flowers fresh in water as clear as plate glass in +all three of Gillian’s rooms, and so stimulated a tiny dwarf rose-bush +which Gillian had nurtured for several years, by giving it packets of +some patent forcing compound that it bloomed and withered in a +fortnight. + +Once or twice when Gillian had dined or gone to a play with Stephen and +Sophie, V.V. had sat up till after midnight with hot water for her to +wash in, and clean brushes to brush her long hair out before she went to +bed. On hot evenings V.V. produced ice for the Club lemonade; on rainy +afternoons she had tea waiting when Gillian came back from her classes +tired and cross. V.V.’s hours in Jacynthe’s beauty-parlour appeared +elastic; they had interfered with some of Heinrich’s arrangements, but +Gillian remembered with a startled thought as she brooded sleepily in +the deep chair, they never prevented V.V. from being at hand when she +could do anything for Gillian. Where, Gillian wondered with a pang of +remorse, did V.V. get the ice they had had so often since her return +from Seaford? How had she found money to fill both flats with flowers +ever since April? V.V. must have gone without many more meals than +Heinrich had counted, if her brother had drunk or spent her allowance +very often in the past three months. Gillian could not feel honestly +grateful to V.V. for these supererogatory ministrations. They were more +than the services of common friendship, but they checked rather than +encouraged the unique response she made to some other quality than the +slavish activity in V.V. That quality was undeniably a physical one. +Gillian had suffered V.V.’s exaggerated and frequent embraces with a +docility which had surprised her in herself, and lately she had found +herself returning them with a queer thrill of satisfaction. It was +rather wonderful to hear the thump of V.V.’s heart through the thin silk +of her blouse when she kissed you; to feel her cool, strong hands on +your shoulders and to smell the mixed aromatic confusion of scents from +her hair and her face-powder; from the soap she washed with and the +paste she used for her shining, greedy-looking teeth; from the creams +and lotions with which she kept her hands in order. V.V. did not reek of +these things. She was almost morbidly clean and dainty in her person, as +in all her surroundings. Her clothes were worn but spotless, shabby with +much cleaning, limp from many laundries—you had to come very near to her +to know that blended, exciting smell. Gillian knew it well now. It was +V.V.’s most intimate secret; something she could not know herself, even +when she imparted it. And yet it was not a secret after all. It must +have been shared between all sorts of people, the Jackies and Dickies, +the Peters and Brownies and Smithys—they must all have known it in their +day. And that mysterious woman, the one figure in all the picaresque +vagabondage to whom V.V. never gave a name, the shadowy friend with whom +she had gone, oh, but quite years ago, to live in that little flat in +Ostend for which she still owed some one rent, had she too kissed V.V. +and breathed her scented warmth? Gillian was wide awake now, her mind +alive with pictures and speculation. V.V. must have been quite young in +those days. She was only just thirty now and there were at least ten +years between the Mordaunt Club and the home she had left for ever to go +to Ostend. For some reason V.V. didn’t seem to think needed explanation, +her father had refused to let her return to him and her sister when she +wanted to come back. It wasn’t as if she had run away with a man Gillian +reflected. Fathers, she knew, were entitled to be harsh when their +daughters did that, and the partner of their flight either could not or +would not, or, in any case, did not, marry them. But V.V. and her horse +and the borzoi she now kept at Epping had come to England, but not to +V.V.’s home, when the Ostend adventure ended, and V.V. was working at +Jacynthe’s to get herself free from a debt—though to whom she owed the +money and for what and why and where the woman was through whom she came +to be in debt at all, Gillian could even now not understand. It was all +so overlaid with the procession of other women and their affairs which +trailed along the more immediate past of V.V.’s life. She had clearly +loved them all in her way. But not for long. Did she, Gillian wondered, +always love immoderately, with lavish bestowal of material proofs of her +love and so wear herself and them out? V.V.’s face as she sank deeper +into sleep was unlined, but it had shadows on its imperfect beauty. Her +waking face was always pathetic rather than tragic in its shallow +ardour; its expression of her unbridled desire to give; but when the +vivid evidence of that outgoing impulse was shrouded and her face was at +rest, the shadows could be seen, resting lightly, where time and change +might have driven furrows in a more resisting field. Even the +catastrophe to that friendship for which she had left her father’s house +and had not even seen him before he died, had left no mark on her smooth +forehead. Could one love lightly and violently too? And many times? +Gillian knew that V.V. loved her with a kind of obsession now—and there +was Heinrich—V.V. loved him too. Of course she did. He was away just +now, which was why she had so much time for Gillian. And she was missing +him, missing his love-making. It must, thought Gillian, throwing a shy, +hurried thought after an idea which had skimmed across her mind like a +swallow in flight, it must be very touching to be made love to by +Heinrich. Rather like the flattering, miraculous advances a squirrel had +once made to her when she was quite a little girl and had spent a whole +day being most happily lost in a wood. Heinrich had made love to V.V. +like that, and V.V. had kissed him and thrust her scented fingers into +his hair and laughed in her throat, and he had felt her heart beating +and smelt her spicy odour and had kissed her softly and whispered to her +as though she were a mouse or a sparrow or their poor, dull, little +tortoiseshell cat. It must have been like that. It must have been very +sweet and wonderful. And V.V. was missing it all. How should she not +miss such a thing, she whose whole happiness lay in demonstration of +that kind? That was why her hands were so often round Gillian’s neck in +these days, and why her clear eyes, hazel-brown, black-ringed, lovely +eyes, looked at her with such an overwhelmingly dewy appeal. Gillian +felt the tight little core of resistance to V.V. which had been hard in +her heart, melt into pity and love. Dear V.V., kind, lavish, squandering +V.V.! Why should Gillian stiffen herself against so warm, so human, so +fragrant an adoration as this transferred and wistful passion? “And how +much nicer for Heinrich, and safer, to have me occupying till he comes,” +said Gillian, coming to the surface of her reverie in a bubble of +laughter. “V.V. must love somebody aloud all the time. Suppose she’d +fixed on Larry or some other man? Heinrich would have minded that.” + +And then, suddenly, she remembered why Larry had gone away. It was much +easier not to have love-affairs, unless you were rich like Toby and +could marry them at once. Would waiting till Heinrich’s money came out +of his uncle’s will and make him really rich, put enmity between him and +V.V.? She hoped not. Heinrich would take enmity so seriously. And V.V. +wasn’t serious about anything but kissing; and kissing, after all, isn’t +a serious matter. + +There was a sudden knock at the door. V.V. woke with a start and sat up +in her long chair, putting up her hands to arrange her perfectly tidy +hair with the instinctive gesture of one whose personal appearance is +her constant thought. + +“Who ever can that be?” said V.V. + +The knock was repeated and seemed to emerge from a background of more +complicated though muffled noises. + +“Oh! _Come_ in!” shouted V.V. through a yawn. + +The door was pushed open and Mabel’s voice, carried on the clamour that +rushed in, as a soloist sings with the accompanying orchestra, was heard +delivering a message. + +“Please, Miss Armstrong, Mrs. Barraclough says it’s William again, and +will you go over to your own flat and see to him.” + +William’s voice certainly could be heard in the din; but it was not its +chief ingredient. It rose and fell, tossed about like a cork on the +surface of the flood of sound that stormed in through the open door from +the landing and from the courtyard beyond the landing window. The noise +was the noise of many pianos in conflict over one piece of music. From +the floor below Number Thirty-Six but from the flat on the courtyard +side there rose the Ballade in A Flat, played loudly, heavily, horribly, +with steady thumpings and the dreadful vibrations of an instrument on +the loud pedal of which an unrelenting foot is pressed without lifting. + +“Goodness!” said Gillian, “that’s the new tenant at Twenty-Nine. Mrs. +Barraclough told me she’d had a piano left her by a friend. Do you think +it’s driven her mad?” + +“It’s driving the Countess madder,” V.V. grinned as she leaned through +her scullery window and looked out over the courtyard with Gillian at +her side. + +The Countess, her window wide to the afternoon, was, in her turn and +with enormous _brio_, rendering Chopin with all the assurance of a +compatriot and all the calculated resonance of a powerful mistress of +the instrument. Neither in _tempo_, nor in the exact place each +performer had reached in her interpretation was there any pretence by +either player at synchronizing the two performances. They were intended +to clash and they clashed. That William should have joined in the din +was both natural and comic; but a touch of pathos was added to the +conflict by Mrs. Middleton, who, with sturdy perseverance in well-doing, +was pedalling away at the harmonium she usually only employed on Sunday +evenings and, all stops drawn, was attempting to sound the note, not so +much of Christian forbearance as of holy awe, by sending out the tune of +“Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” in a series of simple but heartfelt +chords. + +“I don’t think,” said Gillian, sobbing with laughter as she raced across +the courtyard and up the ten flights of steps to her own flat, “I really +do _not_ think that William is to be blamed for this.” + +But William, who had felt lonely since the telephone men had gone home +at noon, was making up for several hours of silence. Refreshed by sleep, +and strengthened by a pickled onion which one of the workmen had shared +with him at the lunch interval, he was in full song and in no mind to +stop for anybody. Even when the instrumental contest had subsided until +none but the missionary strains of good Mrs. Middleton’s harmonium +continued to break the evening peace, William sang on. And, +unfortunately the competition had stimulated his memory, from the dark +and backward abysm of which he had dredged up fragments, taught him by +the lewd sailors who had carried him from the tropic isle which saw his +hatching. These he now scattered to the Mordaunt Club with piercing +distinctness just as they came back to his undiscriminating mind. And +presently, Mrs. Middleton, her pacific task accomplished, closed down +the folding lid of her harmonium and took her feet from the red-carpeted +pedals. And still William flung loud, obscene snatches from his marine +repertory out of the double mufflings of green baize and Mexican blanket +which Gillian had flung over his cage, hardly caring if she stifled +William’s self so long as his songs were stifled too. + + * * * * * + +V.V. came up to dinner, with a muslin-covered basin of ice in one hand +and _Pharaoh’s Book of Dreams_ in the other. + +“All the old cats on my landing have written to complain about the new +member,” she said. + +“I’m sure the Countess will complain of William,” said Gillian, “and +Mrs. Barraclough has warned me that if anyone does he’ll have to go.” + +“Shall you let him? Poor old cocky.” + +“No, of course not. I shall _take_ him away.” + +“Oh, Gillian—where?” + +“To wherever I go, of course.” + +“You wouldn’t leave the Club!” + +“I should have to.” + +“And poor V.V. too?” + +“Well, in any case you’ll leave when you marry, and besides, we don’t +know yet that I’ll have to go.” + +However, as they were drinking their coffee in the book-room Mabel came +up, very full of importance, and delivered a letter from Mrs. +Barraclough in which Gillian was given a final warning. + +“I will overlook the matter this last time,” wrote Mrs. Barraclough, “as +William, in spite of several representations made to me by some of the +members, cannot be held entirely responsible for this afternoon’s +disturbance, but I must be very plain with you that this _is_ the last +time.” + +“I’ll tell you what, darling,” said V.V., her eyes very bright in the +cloud of cigarette smoke she blew about her head as she sat curled up in +a corner of the chesterfield. “We’ll take a ducky little flat together +on the Embankment past Beaufort Street and keep William in the window +and buy those white china elephants you want so badly from the shop in +King’s Road to go with him, and we can have a real bath with a geyser to +it, and no more cans of hot water up from the kitchen or boiled on the +Primus for our bedroom tub. Won’t that be lovely?” + +“It would be very nice to have a flat with a proper bath and electric +light in it,” said Gillian, “but, if you can find one, you’ll have to +take Heinrich there, not me.” + +“Oh, him,” said V.V. “He’s sent me a picture post-card, such a funny +one. Look!” + +Gillian, who had seen some of the coloured comic post-cards with which +V.V. cheered her betrothed on his travels, looked rather anxiously at +the response which V.V. drew from the pages of _Pharaoh’s Dream Book_. +Heinrich, however, had not replied in kind. He had been over to Wells +and had sent V.V. an enchanting picture of a head from one of the +cornices. + +“He’s not written anything on it but the address and put a little H down +in one corner. It’s a dull sort of thing to get, I think,” said V.V. +without rancour. + +“I think it’s perfectly lovely,” said Gillian, “and it’s a little like +you—the way the hair parts, and the eyebrows. That’s why he chose it.” + +“Me! Like that ugly stone thing! I hope not,” said V.V., and she tore +the card across and threw the pieces into Gillian’s waste-paper basket. + +That night, when she had brushed out her hair and shown her how much +more becoming two narrow ribbons of different colours threaded in the +lace of her nightgown were than one wide one, V.V. pulled down her own +hair, slipped out of her old silk dress, and, her thin arms looking very +brown and dusky in contrast to her white underclothes, proceeded to sit +cross-legged on the floor with a candle on either side of her, to +interpret her own and Gillian’s dreams from the pages of the ragged book +she had brought upstairs with her. + +“You must take off all metal and one garment before you begin,” she +explained. “We used to do it at Ostend.” + +“V.V.! If you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t do it here. I don’t want +to know about my dreams, anyway. They are my own, and I know what they +mean to me.” + +“Oh, all right, ducky. I thought it would amuse you, pertickly as you +said you’d dreamed of flowers, and that’s a lucky dream always.” + +And gathering herself and her oracle together, she rose from the floor +and, coming over to the dressing-table where Gillian was still braiding +her hair, she kissed the back of her neck and the shoulders round which +the blue and mauve ribbon she had threaded held the lace of Gillian’s +nightgown together. + +“You baby,” said V.V. “I should like to eat you.” + +“V.V., if you don’t take care I shall knock your lovely front teeth out +with my hair-brush,” said Gillian. “Go home now before Gordon locks up, +and eat a bun instead.” + +“I haven’t any buns, and you are being dreadfully cross to your V.V.,” +she said. But she went home in quite a good temper, having once more +reverted to the glories of the possible flat with gas and a geyser in +it, which she was sure they could find without much trouble. V.V. seemed +to know all there was to know about dear little flats. + +“All the same,” said Gillian to herself when V.V. had gone, “I hope she +won’t find one till Heinrich gets his money settled. I don’t think I +could bear to live all day and all night in the same flat as dear V.V. I +must have some lucid intervals. And there’s nothing lucid about her.” + + + + + CHAPTER SIX. + AUNT ELIZABETH + + + I + +“It’s high time I came home again,” said Lilac. “_Look_ at your hat.” + +Gillian took off her hat and looked at it. It was an old one she had +retrimmed herself. + +“What a funny expression ‘high time’ is,” she said. “It’s like ‘now +then.’ You know what it means, but it doesn’t mean anything at all when +you think about it.” + +Lilac made the noise that is written down as “pish” or “tush” to convey +her opinion of that remark and returned to her point. Lilac had a most +feminine gift for returning to the point. + +“Your clothes are past praying for, and you say ‘Goodness’ twice a day +instead of once a week. You _have_ been left to yourself.” + +Lilac had as evidently been left to herself, for she had come back from +her honeymoon travels more emphatic and more critical, more woman of the +world and more beautifully dressed than she had been able to be when the +combined influence of Gillian and poverty had kept her relatively +easy-going and only tentatively fashionable. + +“Your hat’s a marvel,” said Gillian, “so neat and yet so gaudy. It looks +expensive all over even though it’s so plain. Paris, I suppose?” + +“Vienna, my dear.” Lilac was infinitely up to date: almost in front of +date, Gillian thought, once more reflecting on the oddness, the strong +commerciality of the phrase “up to date,” but this time keeping her +comments to herself while Lilac chattered on of how _no_body went to +Paris now for really new ideas in clothes. All the cleverest things came +from Vienna, which was more Russian than the Russian ballet, so far as +colour and decoration went. + +She had brought Gillian an enormous grey fox muff and stole from Vienna +and a string of clear glass beads that hung down to her knee and then +ended in a cerise-and-magenta tassel to bring out the green colour of +the glass. + +“Just like that poem in _Georgian Poetry_,” said Gillian, “and they’ll +go most wonderfully with V.V.’s flat.” + +“Well, I hope you’ll wear them there,” said Lilac, “and not come to my +house in them or in any other string of beads, like a savage. I’d never +have got them myself. It was Toby’s idea. He said they looked like you.” + +“How lovely of Toby!” + +“Well,” said Lilac, “he seemed to think I should want to wear them +because they reminded him of you. Men _are_ the queerest creatures.” + +“Oh! Poor Toby! He wanted to be able to see them every day, and now +you’ve given them to me.” + +“You can wear them when Toby takes you out to dinner, and I hope he’ll +be calm about it when you catch your knee in them and they break and +roll about on the floor at the Berkeley or get caught in the spring-seat +at a theatre. Beads,” said Lilac, “should be seen but not weared.” + +“Does Toby let you make nursery jokes?” + +“Toby would let me do anything so long as I didn’t prevent him getting +back to England in time for fox-huntin’. We’re going to Ireland next +week about horses and then back to wherever it is he’s got that horrid, +cold, little house you can’t get to from anywhere.” + +Lilac was on the whole discontented; a little with Toby, Gillian +thought, and a little with life. She had no definite, spoken grievance +except one against Gillian for not preventing the house at Seaford +altogether. + +“Of course, neither Toby nor I will ever go near it. Never, never, +never. She’s got that ridiculous clay model all over the billiard-room +table at Knightsbridge, and the Bird, looking like an owl, to explain it +to us. Why ever did you let her?” + +“But how could I help it?” + +“Well, she says you advised her. And Seaford of all inhuman +wildernesses. We could have done with a house at Ascot, and there are +schools there.” + +“I’m sorry. But she’d bought the house before I knew and she thought +you’d like one near Glynde.” + +“Pish!” said Lilac again. “And, anyway, it was you who got Bird into it. +Painting all over those cauliflowers and gargoyles. It’s like a +lunatic’s house. It’s worse than the Phené toy in Oakley Street.” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “Jane’s going to have it in her show in Grafton +Street. In the middle of the room with the portrait figures all round. +It’s very amusing, and awfully clever too. She’s not made a mess of it.” + +“Oh, the model’s all right as a joke, and some of Bird’s figures are +very good. She’s going to be a rage. She’s the best friend you’ve got. I +think you ought to drop the others.” + +“Really! Lilac——” + +“Yes! Don’t look at me as though I had a smut on my nose. My face is +perfectly clean, and I mean what I say. You have no taste in people. +Larry Browne’s all right. He belongs to quite a good family. All that +living in a studio and wearing a big hat is just pose. He ought to have +gone into the Home Office and done a little painting in his spare time, +then you could have married him.” + +“But, Lilac——” + +“Oh, yes, I know you never think of how you are to get out of all this +nonsense about earning your living. But I think of it for you. No one +but rather an odd sort of man would marry you. Unless, of course, I can +_make_ you dress properly and look at things in an ordinary common-sense +way.” + +“Lilac darling, I’m perfectly happy as I am. And quite ordinary enough +to keep myself out of an asylum.” + +“For the present. But look at the lunatics you go about with.” + +“Lilac!” + +“Yes. I saw you yesterday in Sloane Street with something rather like an +Italian organ-grinder without the organ and the monkey. Without a hat +too.” + +“Oh, that was Heinrich. He plays in the Queen’s Hall orchestra.” + +“Look here, Gillian. You can’t be seen about with a man who plays in a +band; and Bird told me yesterday that you’d got another crony, a woman +hairdresser with a wild name.” + +“That’s too bad of Jane. She’s always been horrid about poor V.V. I +think she’s jealous because Larry has drawn and painted her so much +since he came back. She’s engaged to be married to Heinrich. They are +both perfect dears.” + +“Well, Jane Bird does not approve of the woman, and I’ve seen the +band-player myself. Let them marry one another, by all means, as soon as +possible, and then you’ll be rid of both of them.” + +“No, I shan’t. They can’t marry for some time. And I’m very probably +going to share a small flat with V.V., so as to be able to make a home +for William. Mrs. Barraclough has given me notice for him again, and, +this time, he must go.” + +“Nonsense, Gillian. If you must leave the Club, go and live with Aunt +Elizabeth. She’s very frail and lonely. I was up there yesterday. She +asked about you. Have you been to see her lately?” + +“N-no. Not since she came back from Matlock.” + +“It hasn’t done her much good. And you’d far better cherish her a little +and leave these fearful wildfowl you’ve collected alone. Toby and I’ll +take William on if you want a home for him, There’s a conservatory in +the house we saw yesterday in Norfolk Street that would suit him very +well.” + +“I’ll think about William, and I’ll go to see Aunt Elizabeth on Tuesday. +It’s her birthday.” + +“So it is. I’d almost forgotten. We shall be in Ireland. I must have +some flowers sent up.” + +And Lilac gathered her sable coat about her and cast a rather wistful +look round the flat. + +“Good-bye, Jilly dear. In some ways I envy you for being here still, in +spite of the oil-lamps and the bedroom bath. You’re free, and the rooms +are very peaceful, once you get up all these stairs.” + + + II + +The air was yellow and the pavements were slimy with what might at any +moment thicken into a December fog as Gillian made her way from the +workshop to the Highgate omnibus, where she had spent the morning +sitting to Jane. Nothing short of missing the last omnibus on a wet +night ever drove her into any Tube. + +She had spent a depressing morning. Jane, who never worked on the model +with a sitter, had taken a few sketches and had then insisted on having +lunch, in order, as she frankly confessed, to talk to Gillian. Jane was +much happier since she had returned from her commissioned journey in Old +Winona’s retinue. The progress from château to château had been +marvellous in every aspect, whether as business and its involved and +legitimate pleasures, or as the illicit delight any prolonged +acquaintance with the mind and methods of that great and wonderful woman +could not fail to arouse in anyone so keenly alive to the varieties of +human experience as Jane Bird. But it was not only the refreshment of +that change which had calmed and illuminated Jane’s spirit. There was +now, as Gillian could not fail to notice, a new and a curiously peaceful +understanding between her and Larry. They no longer hailed each other +with torrents of esoteric abuse: indeed, they seemed to have quite +wonderfully little to say to each other in public. But every now and +again in general conversation it would appear that Jane or Larry +possessed the answer to some question asked of one or the other, and, +several times when she had been out alone or with V.V., at night, +watching the moon on the river or coming home from a play on the top of +an omnibus, she had seen Larry and Jane arm-in-arm strolling together +deep in talk and laughter. Gillian never saw Jane at the studio when she +went to fetch V.V. home from a sitting or to join her and Heinrich at +supper, and Larry never came into the workshop when she was sitting +herself to Jane, but it was clear that they spent a great deal of time +together and that each knew every detail of the other’s work. More than +once Gillian had been on the brink of asking whether Mr. Quist had taken +the glove-buttoning figure home, but the question had never been spoken, +and no reference to it appeared in the little descriptive catalogues of +Jane’s works which they had all drawn up together in preparation for the +coming exhibition of them. + +But it was not of herself, nor of Larry, that Jane delivered opinions +that morning. + +“It’s about Heinrich, Gillian. Do you think that painted mannequin of +yours is behaving properly to him?” + +“V.V.? Why, yes. Why shouldn’t she?” + +“Well, I don’t. Have you noticed the look in his face? His eyes get +nearer together every time I see him. The bridge of his nose hardly +separates them. It’s an ugly look. And he never takes his eyes off her +while she’s with him.” + +“I know he doesn’t. It gets on her nerves a little.” + +“She shouldn’t have nerves. No woman who undertakes Heinrich has any +business with nerves. He’s got more than enough for a whole family. And +she won’t let him have his sparrows in, or play with mice.” + +“I know. She says the cat is enough now that it has killed the canary +which she _did_ like. She’s very tender-hearted.” + +“Very _what_?” + +“Tender-hearted, Jane. You don’t know V.V. as I do, and you are not fair +to her or about her.” + +“Gillian, you’re dotty about that woman. And it isn’t right. You’re too +old. I know what I’m talking about. I was dotty about you two years ago. +Crazy. I didn’t think of anything but how to make you look at me again. +But I came through. And you were worth it. You meant something, and you +never set yourself to lead me on. Do you remember the King’s daughter? +You showed me the bit in that purple, locked book of yours. How did it +go? ‘Let us love her or none—to choose the false in mere impatience with +the true, that it is which degrades us....’ And that Vanderleyden woman +won’t see you through, Gillian. There’s nothing to her, once you’ve got +her colour and her bones—she’s a model, but only a model. It’s not worth +it—it’s not good enough. Not for you. Larry doesn’t like it either.” + +Gillian was angry. + +“I wish you’d not discuss my private affairs with all sorts of people. +Lilac was saying on Saturday that you’d slandered V.V. to her. She’s the +only person who bothers one little bit about me, and she never says one +unkind word about you.” + +“Oh, all right. Lose your temper. It’s a symptom. Only when the crash +comes, remember I’m like the man in the Psalms: I’ve delivered my soul.” + +“Well, I always did think that was the top note of self-seeking,” said +Gillian, getting up from the table and putting on her hat with emphasis, +rather on one side; “and besides, it isn’t Psalms, it’s Ezekiel.” + +“Pedant!” said Jane. “You are right, ‘if he turn not from his wicked +way,’ which is what you’ve refused to do. And if you won’t finish your +lunch you won’t. There’ll be two lemon cheese-cakes for me. Also a +cream-cheese. You didn’t know that. But it’s too late now. You can’t +relent and forgive me just for cream-cheese.” + +“I could,” said Gillian, “but I’ve got to go and buy some chrysanthemums +and get up to Highgate before it’s black dark.” + + * * * * * + +Outside in the raw, damp air Gillian’s temper cooled. She sat on the top +of the omnibus, on the left-hand corner seat, in front, her arms full of +the crisp, copper-coloured flowers, their festive winter scent filling +her brain with half-remembered excitements: children’s parties; her +first grown-up dance; the bouquets which came at New Year when they +lived at Lausanne—mimosa and carnations or chrysanthemums always. The +scented memories crowded out her resentment at Jane’s strictures as the +omnibus lumbered on and the heavy air cleared and lightened with every +mile. But there remained with her the half-guilty, half-puzzled sense +that had beset her before. + +It was half-past three before she reached the top of Highgate Hill, and +there was a faint glow of sunset with a little shred of new moon dim +through the watery twilight above the trees in Mrs. Mortimer’s garden, +when Gillian rang the bell at the gate. + +It was answered by Maggie, a devoted and entirely disrespectful retainer +who had “stood up to” Aunt Elizabeth for many years and was known to be +keeping a matrimonially inclined policeman at bay, until she could find +another person (Maggie did not care for the word “woman,” refused to say +“servant,” and considered “lady” to be an unsuitable description of the +ideal she sought) fit to take charge of “the mistress.” + +“I’m glad you’ve come, Miss Gillian,” said Maggie in the tone of one who +could have said “and surprised,” “and I see you’ve remembered it’s the +mistress’s birthday. Seventy-three she is, and looks it. She’s been far +from well the last ten days and more.” + +Gillian carried her flowers through the square hall where the +grandfather clock, which had belonged to her own great-grandfather, +ticked to the rocking of a full-rigged ship that tossed to and fro +across its aged face on a painted ocean very full of waves, and opened +the door of the room with the view. + +Mrs. Mortimer sat in a chair by the fire, a pile of white muslin in her +lap. She was hemming window-curtains for Gillian’s flat. + +“Lilac told me you’d none now she’s left you,” said she, as Gillian +kissed her and asked her why she tired herself with sewing in the fading +light. + +“How lovely of you,” said Gillian, not daring or even wishing to tell +that she preferred her windows unblinded. “I believe you do it a little +out of vanity because you can see without glasses.” + +But when she had arranged her chrysanthemums, to which Mrs. Mortimer +paid very little attention, flowers inside a house being, in her +opinion, out of place and in the way, Gillian, sitting on a low stool in +front of the fire, looked up at her great-aunt’s face and saw that she +was very tired. And Aunt Elizabeth, looking down at the young face +lifted to hers, saw a shadow there. + +“Have you anything to tell me, my girl?” she said. + +It was the consecrated phrase in which, ever since Gillian and Lilac +could remember, she had made open confession easy for them. + +“Aunt Elizabeth,” said Gillian, “did love make you unhappy?” + +“The Lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “dealt very graciously with me and gave +me the man of my choice.” + +“But not for a great many years, Aunt Elizabeth.” + +“He was given to me in the first moment I met him.” + +“How did you know?” + +The old woman was silent. Her dim eyes fixed on the glowing embers of +the fire. + +“By a bodily pang,” she said at last. + +Gillian was startled. + +“Tell me about it,” she said, taking one of the thin old hands, its blue +veins dark under the transparent, silk-smooth skin, and laying her cheek +in its palm. “Tell me, Aunt Elizabeth. I want so much to know.” + +“I was an unbeliever in those days,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “a wicked, +haughty girl, a Sabbath-breaker. I and my brothers, James and Penrhyn, +would ride together twenty miles on horseback and think nothing to dance +all night afterwards, and ride home again in the morning without sleep. +They called us the handsome Armstrongs. James was dark like an eagle, +and Penrhyn had red hair and a blue eye, piercing and terrible. Two +girls pined and died when Penrhyn had looked at them only. And I was +betwixt and between, cinder-colour they called my hair, and my eyes were +not so grey as James’s nor so blue as Penrhyn’s; but my hair was thick +and long so that I could sit in it and you could not see my hands if I +put them in my lap or behind my back, and it was curly. And my eyes were +well enough, even if my face was pale. Tall like a Maypole I was. ‘Long +Bess Armstrong,’ they called me, and I was mad for horses and pleasure. +Twice I broke my arm and once my collar-bone riding, and when I was +eighteen, I dressed in Penrhyn’s breeches and stole my father’s +riding-coat and won the steeplechase at Stone Crosses. My father was for +sending me away to London after that, but James and Penrhyn rebelled. +Neither of them would move without me to any ball or gala in the +countryside; and neither of them would marry, because there was not a +girl for miles around I could not put to shame in the pride of my +dancing and for riding the wickedest horse anywhere in the marches. And +many’s the man that would have tried for me in the face of Penrhyn’s vow +that the man I married must outride him and then throw him at wrestling. +But there was not one of them I would put to the test. + +“But one night, as we rode home just before harvest, we came to a narrow +lane that ran along a field of corn, sloping up the hillside. And the +dawn was breaking and the wind ran up the cornfield in waves and shadows +like hounds in full cry, and I was riding ahead because of the +narrowness of the lane. And there, at the end of the lane where the +hedges ended and the fields lay open, I saw a light before me, and a +voice coming out of the light called me by name, ‘Elizabeth Armstrong,’ +three times. And my horse heard the voice and saw the light and would +not go forward. But I said nothing to the boys when they came up with +me, and we rode home together laughing at the way Penrhyn spoke of what +my mother had told us the day before. She had told us that she was +giving the two rooms at the end of the house to a young student from +Trevecca. The rooms were part of an old cottage that had been built into +the main part by my grandfather when he married his third wife and had +more children. My grandfather had twenty-four children, and they all +lived to grow up. And this young student was coming to finish his study +for a degree in theology. He was going to the Valley Farm. But smallpox +had broken out there. And the pest-house was full and they had to keep +three cases in the house. So my mother said she would be ashamed for a +young and godly man to go there, to his death maybe, and she with more +rooms in the house than we could ever fill, and the student should come +to us and the payment should go just the same to Mrs. Pryce at the Farm +and be towards the nursing of the sick. + +“In my heart I knew that my mother was right; but I joined with James +and Penrhyn in mocking at her for taking sides with a Methody man. And, +as we rode on, the sun rose higher, and Penrhyn laughed and said we +should come into the village a little late for church. It was a Sunday +morning, and presently we could hear the bells ringing for Morning +Prayer at ten o’clock. And Penrhyn said, ‘Let us ride into church and +support the parson. Maybe he is too drunk again this morning to read the +prayers without aid.’ But James and I would not ride our horses into the +churchyard. So we got down at the gate and gave our horses to a boy to +lead home and walked into church as we were, in our riding-things. I had +on a green habit, with laced frills at the neck, and a black hat with a +feather in it, and I stood for a moment in the porch to smell the roses +that grew over it and to wait for the General Confession to be ended and +the Absolution, so that we could walk into church with less scandal—it +was bad enough to be going straight from our dancing and in our +riding-clothes—when the congregation stood up to say the Venite. There +was no singing in church in those days, my girl, till it came to the +hymn, and not then if Tom and Harry Pryce had been harvesting all week +and were too tired to play the flute and the cornet at ten o’clock in +the morning. + +“And as I stood there I saw Evan Mortimer. And he stood up in his place +when he saw me. And my heart broke within me and my tongue was stiff in +my mouth, and I walked straight into the church and stood beside him. +And when we knelt down I prayed to God for the first time since I was a +child and my mother made me pray at her knee, and my prayer was, ‘O God, +give me this man.’” + +“And was he the Methody student?” said Gillian. + +“He was, my girl,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “and he would none of me, knowing +of my ungodly life. But he had not known who I was when he saw me, and +by the grace of God, the desire of my flesh inflamed my soul and I +believed and was saved.” + +“But did you love God because of Uncle Evan?” + +“God showed me first His creature who had beauty that I might desire him +and so come to know Him whom no man hath at any time seen. The love of +man will lead to the love of God, or to the slavery of the Devil. I +served God, through Evan, and was saved. But my brother Penrhyn, who +mocked at my love and would never speak to me again after he knew that +Evan and I had promised marriage to each other, he went a-whoring after +women and was lost.” + +“I thought he went to America,” said Gillian. + +“He went to America, with the Squire’s young wife; shamefully, in open +sin, and died there before I married Evan. Evan had gone to Africa away +from me, and I was alone, for the grace of God to work in me, when your +father was born, and James’s wife—a poor and sickly creature who thought +more of the new book of poems by Robert Browning than of James or of her +unborn child—died. And I took the child, for the Lord had denied +children to my body. Sometimes,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “when love is as +great as it was between Evan and me, there is no child according to the +flesh, born of it.” + +“Why didn’t you go to Africa with Uncle Evan?” + +“There was a time when your uncle turned from me, fearing that he was +losing God in his love for me,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “and until he had +purged himself of that fear we remained apart. But the Lord blessed his +ministry and brought us together in it at the end.” + +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “it gets more and more difficult. I thought +love always made people want to live together for ever.” + +“Love,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “divides like a sword if it is only of the +flesh. But when its roots in the flesh come to their flowering in the +heart and in the soul, it is from everlasting to everlasting; death and +the grave have no power upon it; it cannot consume away.” + +Night had blackened the uncurtained windows, and the fire had died into +a dull gleam as they talked; but the room was filled with the living +flame of the old woman’s passion and they needed no grosser light. +Gillian sat, with her head against her aunt’s knee, and listened to the +faint ticking of the austere little polished granite clock that, flanked +by two bronze vases, presided, from the centre of the marble mantelpiece +over the gaunt, Victorian room. The locked glass doors of the bookcase +shutting in volumes of sermons and the lives of John and Charles Wesley, +together with the works of other latter-day saints, reflected the +firelight and cast a dim flicker on the polished wood of the walnut +davenport at which Mrs. Mortimer inconveniently conducted her direct and +concise correspondence. A fine steel-engraving after Rubens, _The +Descent from the Cross_, hung between the two windows, and a coloured +print of Turner’s _Golden Bough_ occupied the opposite wall, hanging +over a Victorian sofa on which the hardiest frame could find no repose +without the aid of the cushions which Mrs. Mortimer kept upstairs in a +cupboard, except at such times as illness warranted their temporary +release. + +Gillian knew now why no vestiges of her African life appeared in Mrs. +Mortimer’s parlour. The carved and woven trophies of heathen art, the +pink-lipped tropic shells, the plaited mats that proclaimed the past in +Mrs. Middleton’s flat, were absent from her friend’s retreat. The +heathen in his blindness had been to Elizabeth Mortimer the necessary +means through which God had worked to bring peace to Evan Mortimer’s +soul. She had helped to clothe the negro nakedness; she had taught the +African girl to read the New Testament and to substitute the name of +Jesus in her automatic prayers for those of the more awful though not +less blood-stained deities of her native religion, but she had not let +her eyes be beguiled by the ingenuous art of her proselytes. Her pupils +had taught her nothing. She went out to preach the Gospel in a strange +place, and, that duty accomplished, she returned to wait the day of +reunion with her husband in surroundings as removed from the wild folly +of her youth as they were untouched by the missionary adventure of her +middle life. + +Gillian had known for many years that under the rigid performance of +such duties to society at large and to the members of her own family in +particular as Aunt Elizabeth felt called upon to discharge there burned +a deeper, more individual flame. She was accustomed to the sight of Evan +Mortimer’s portrait, a miniature, faded but still clear with the fine, +grave beauty the artist had seen in the ascetic face and had transferred +to the yellowing ivory. It lay, in its worn leather case, beside the +Bible and the clean, lavender-scented, always folded handkerchief Mrs. +Mortimer kept with a carafe of cold water on a table by her bedside. She +knew that her aunt entertained a living belief that her husband, clothed +in the immortalized flesh of his mortality, answering to his earthly +name, speaking with his human voice, would be waiting for her when, in a +glorified but still tangible shape, she, too, should ford the river of +death (“cross Jordan” was Aunt Elizabeth’s phrase) and be welcomed on +the farther side, knew, too that it was in the strength of this +conviction that she was possessing her soul through the years of +waiting. But in Gillian’s mind, relegated to the class, formed in +childhood, of impertinent questions which it was not her business to +ask, the actual nature of the feeling on which this expectation was +founded had escaped definition. That Aunt Elizabeth should ever have +been shaken by, that she should still openly admit the dominion of +physical passion, was to Gillian an amazing discovery. And the most +amazing part of it was that the revelation left Aunt Elizabeth herself +untouched, the same emphatic Puritan as she had always been; but love, +this thing of the body from which she had until now turned her timid +thought, became exalted and magnified “of a reasonable soul and human +flesh subsisting one altogether.” What was it she was saying? “And they +that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have +done evil into everlasting fire.” + +“Aunt Elizabeth. Do you know, you’ve made me think of the Athanasian +Creed?” + +“I daresay, my girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth. But she was sunk in a dream, +and Gillian was not sure that she had heard her. + +And presently Maggie came in and lit the incandescent gas-burners, one +on each side of the fireplace, and drew, the long, red, repp curtains +across the windows and stirred the fire and said tea was ready in the +dining-room, and she hoped Miss Gillian wouldn’t go making her auntie +talk too much or she’d have another of her bad nights again. + + + III + +When she got back to the Club, Gillian crept up to her flat very softly +so as not to be heard of William, whose cage stood in the outer of the +double-rooms on the courtyard side, and let herself into the single-room +on the street side of the building which she still kept as a bedroom, +though, strictly speaking, she should have given it up when Lilac left. +She did not want William’s possible song of welcome or the light in one +of the courtyard windows to announce her return. She wanted, for this +one evening, to be alone, free from V.V.’s kindness and cherishing, free +from her interminable chatter, and from the necessity of responding to +the ardour of her impulsive embraces. She might, of course, find one of +V.V.’s notes—“Darling, put a light in the window when you come in and +I’ll come across”—but this she would—she must, for once, ignore. If only +she did not meet V.V., or find her waiting on the landing. + +But there was no eager shadow waiting on the darkened staircase when she +let herself in after closing-time, no three-cornered note fell out from +the letters in her letter-box when she unlocked it, almost furtively, +outside her bedroom door. And, perverse as she felt it to be, Gillian +was surprised, disappointed, hurt at this failure of the very +importunity she had tried to avoid. + +She had not seen V.V. before going out in the morning: it was quite +possible that she had gone to Queen’s Hall and that Heinrich had taken +her back to supper at the studio after the Symphony Concert that +evening. She hoped so. She hoped so much that Jane was wrong about V.V. +making Heinrich unhappy. It was strange to think that V.V. and Aunt +Elizabeth were both women, and that both of them used the same word and +meant such different things when they spoke of loving. “But, then,” said +Gillian as she drew the blankets up above her ears, “I suppose Uncle +Evan must have been extremely unlike Heinrich.” + +Yesterday’s threat of fog had established itself in suffocating +fulfilment when Gillian woke next morning. + +By three o’clock it had so blinded the eyes and irritated the throat of +everybody in the school in Buckingham Palace Road that Miss de Stormont +declared the last lecture suspended and sent her students home an hour +and a half before the usual time. Gillian groped her way back to Chelsea +on foot, all the omnibuses having given up attempting to run at noon. +She had not had time to see V.V. that morning, but as she came out of +the fog to the railings by the gateway to the Club she knew that she +wanted nothing so much as to find V.V. with a huge fire and tea waiting +for her when she got upstairs. “And if she’s not in my flat, I shall go +over to Thirty-Six,” said Gillian to herself. + +But she was so sure that V.V. would be waiting for her in her own rooms +that she tried the door on the top landing without unlocking it. It was +locked. V.V. had not come over. Gillian propped her dispatch-case +against the wall on her lifted knees as she groped in it for her +latch-key. A small movement behind the curtain which shut off the +scullery corridor from the landing made her pause before she could find +the key in the darkness on which the single gas-jet in its wire cage +only threw more obscuring shadows. + +“Who’s there?” she called, and was a little frightened at the note of +fear in her own voice. + +A shadow detached itself from the gloom. + +“It is I,” said a reedy voice. + +“Heinrich. What are you doing without an overcoat in this weather?” + +“I come for V.V.,” said the thin voice sternly. “You will please give +her up to me now.” + +“Oh, I thought she must be with you,” said Gillian. + +“You know she is here,” said Heinrich. + +But when the door was unlocked Gillian’s two rooms were dark and +untenanted. No fire had been lit in either, though fires were laid in +both. + +Gillian lit two candles and put a match to the fire in the outer +sitting-room. + +“Will you stay and have tea here,” she asked, “or will you go over to +V.V.’s flat? You see she is not in mine.” + +“V.V. is somewhere wiz you. She is not in her flat. She has not been +zere since before yesterday. She is wiz you.” + +“Don’t be silly, Heinrich. I haven’t seen V.V. since Sunday. Why—what +_have_ you got?” + +“A pistol—wiz bullets in him.” + +“Goodness! Is it yours? Can you work it?” + +“No. I do not know how to work it. But I can pull somesing till it works +himself. It belongs to Larry. I bring it here to frighten you. I am,” +said Heinrich, “frightened of it myself.” + +“Well,” said Gillian, “I’m not exactly frightened. But you’d better put +it down on the table and have some tea. If it’s Larry’s it won’t be +loaded. Larry knows better than to let you have loaded pistols to play +with.” + +“Larry does not know I play wiz it. He has gone wiz Jane up the hill out +of ze fog. And I come here for V.V.” + +“I’ve told you V.V. isn’t here. I’ve not seen her since Sunday. What +makes you think she’s here?” + +“She tell me so herself. She said to me ‘whenever you cannot find me I +shall be wiz Gillian.’” + +“Oh, she just meant I might know where she was or she might be here. Are +you sure she is not in her own flat?” + +“I know she is not. She tell me she is wiz you.” + +Gillian was cross. It was cold and foggy and she wanted her tea and +Heinrich was being very obstinate and trying. + +“Look here, Heinrich,” she began, and then, in the light of the candles +which were burning higher now, she saw his face. Jane had been right. He +had a curious look. His eyes _were_ odd, almost squinting, with deep, +dark hollows on each side of the nose so that they seemed to have grown +nearer together. + +“Let’s go over to the other house and look for her,” she said. + +“I will look first for her in the books-room please,” said Heinrich. + +So Gillian let him look, and carried a candle into the inner room to +show him that V.V. was not there. But all it showed them was the empty, +red chesterfield and the Great Fortuna who danced on her tight-rope in +the flickering light. + +“Come,” said Gillian, “we shall find her in her own room.” + +The doors of the large and of the smaller rooms in the house across the +courtyard were locked and there were several letters visible through the +glass of V.V.’s uncleared letter-box. + +“We’ll ask Mrs. Gordon if she knows where V.V. is,” Gillian decided as +they came downstairs together. Heinrich shivered a little. He was +wearing neither overcoat nor hat. “You must put that weapon in your +pocket though,” Gillian admonished him. “Mrs. Gordon would be scared +past speech if she were to see such a thing.” + +But Mrs. Gordon had seen nothing of V.V. for some days. + +“I see her on Saturday wen she paid her book,” said Mrs. Gordon, “and +yet again at middle-day Monday wen she went out with that ’at with the +red feather in it, if you take me, miss, the oxydized one like the ’at +Miss Gordon wears of an afternoon. But since then I’ve seen nothing of +her and she’s not been having any meals from the kitching.” + +“Did she leave her keys with you?” + +“’Arry!” screamed Mrs. Gordon suddenly down the kitchen stairs to the +top of which she had mounted in reply to Gillian’s ring. “Wot abart +Number Thirty-Six?” + +Mr. and Mrs. Gordon always spoke of the tenants as warders are said to +speak of the convicts in their charge. + +“Bin away since Chewsdy,” boomed a voice from below, “left no key +downstairs neither.” + +“There now.” Mrs. Gordon was satisfied that her statements had +corroboration. “Wot did I say. She’s off after that dog of hers again, I +suppose. Makes as much trouble as if ’e was a Christian.” + +“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon. I dare say that’s what has happened,” and +Gillian closed the door although Mrs. Gordon betrayed symptoms of her +being able to continue the conversation further. Gillian did not wish +Heinrich to be drawn into it, hoped he had escaped Mrs. Gordon’s notice +altogether, above all did not wish his pistol to be remarked. She didn’t +for one moment think the pistol was loaded or feel that Heinrich himself +was dangerous; but he was so agitated and unhappy that she knew he +couldn’t bear such a fuss and clamour as the discovery that he bore +firearms would arouse in the Gordons’ domain. “Suppose they set Crack on +him,” thought Gillian, “as they would have done on that poor little cat. +He’d break.” Heinrich did indeed look strained and taut; Gillian had +never before realized what the expression “reaching the breaking-point” +really meant. + +Out in the courtyard, in the angles of lamplight that came down from +above the doors of the two houses, he was almost invisible, a faint +shade in the fog which was moving and lifting as the tide set +down-stream in the river. + +“Heinrich dear,” said Gillian, “she’s not here. She’s probably been held +up in the fog in Essex. Hadn’t you better go back to the studio? Perhaps +she’s waiting for you there.” + +“She told me she will always be wiz you,” persisted Heinrich in the +thin, high voice. + +“I’ll come and tell you or I’ll send her if she’s not too tired, the +minute she comes, if she does come to me, to-night. But I don’t think +she will. There’ll be a letter from her in the morning. Perhaps even +to-night. Perhaps there’s one waiting for you at the studio this very +minute.” + +“I shall find a letter if I go back?” asked the voice anxiously. + +“Yes, I think so. Anyway, go and see. And get an overcoat and a muffler +if you come out again. And a hat, Heinrich.” + +Gillian went with him to the gateway of the Club and watched him drift +away and vanish into the dim mists by the river. Then she went up to her +own flat again. + +The fire she had kindled hastily was out, quenched by the heavy air, and +the candles burnt sullenly in the yellow stillness. It was getting late; +a clattering of dishes on the lower landings announced the serving of +dinner. Gillian decided to leave the fire alone and to eat her dinner as +quickly as possible without taking off her outdoor clothes. It was a +lonely, dismal thing to do, but she intended to make up for it by having +the largest fire her bedroom grate would hold, and a double quantity of +hot water for her bath and to devote an hour to washing the fog out of +herself before she went to bed. She would read _Emma_ till the last post +came. _Emma_ was just the right book for a foggy night. She would enjoy +getting too hot eating Mr. Knightley’s strawberries, she would avoid the +long cold drive with the proposing Mr. Elton, and she would look up all +Mr. Woodhouse’s gruels. She would put on her old, padded, silk +dressing-gown, shabby but faded into such a satisfying, dim, +rose-colour, and sit in the big basket-chair which would go on giving +out companionable creaks all night afterwards, and there would be no +Lilac to grumble at the noise it made, saying that each creak woke her +out of a dream it sounded so like a pistol-shot at night. Poor Heinrich +and his borrowed pistol. She hoped he was all right and that V.V. had +either gone to the studio or written to him. Anyhow it was warm at the +studio with that white porcelain stove that Larry had brought home with +him, each tile painted with a different bird on a flowering branch; and +the little cat would be there to keep him company. Gillian was glad to +think he had the little cat. + +Mabel, clearing away the dinner-dishes, agreed to bring up two large +cans of bath-water and volunteered the news that the fog had blowed off +to Battersea. She also offered to light the bedroom fire seeing that she +must have laid the sitting-room one badly that morning for it to have +gone out as it had done. This was kind of Mabel, for it was not her duty +to light, only to lay the fires in the various rooms she waited on. But, +ever since the day when Gillian had gone unexpectedly into her scullery +and had found the postman kissing Mabel behind the curtains and had told +neither Mrs. Barraclough nor Mrs. Gordon, Mabel had done a great many +little services of that kind for Number Seven. + +So Gillian settled down in the big basket-chair with _Emma_ and _Songs +before Sunrise_ in the new Pineapple Edition; shrugged her shoulders +luxuriously up and down in the soft silk of her dressing-gown; toasted +her feet at the big fire and waited for the last post and for the two +cans of boiling water that would come up just before the house was +closed for the night. + +But there was no letter from V.V. by the last post and when Mabel +staggered into the room, wreathed in clouds of steam from the two huge +cans she had carried upstairs at ten o’clock, she said that Miss +Vanderleyden’s flat was still empty. + +“Maybe,” said Mabel hopefully, “she’s met with a haxident. Lots of +people is run over in these ere fogs you know, miss.” + +And William, from under the baize cover which kept him warm and silent +in his corner for the night, roused by Mabel’s familiar voice, stirred +on his perch and gave his only too realistic imitation of Mabel’s loud, +persistent sniff. + + + IV + +It was eleven o’clock. Gillian had had her bath and the round shallow +tin which V.V. had only just re-enamelled pink inside and bright blue +out, was still full of fragrant soapsuds iridescent in the firelight and +whispering to themselves with a little, soft, hissing noise of tiny +bubbles as they coalesced and broke. She had put the lamp on a table by +the window so that her shadow should not fall on the blind, and she +stood in front of the fire, her feet rosy on the blue bath-mat, her arms +raised to take the pins out of her hair. + +A few small flames, blue and transparent, moved softly, flowing together +like liquid mercury across the blackened surface of the still unburnt +coal that arched the ruddy caverns of the fire from which an even glow +enveloped her as she stood, supple and tingling from the water. Her +bath-towel hung drying over a chair on one side of the fireplace, her +nightgown threaded with two coloured ribbons, mauve and blue this time, +lay warming on another. She hunched one shoulder and rubbed her chin +against its rounded smoothness and she saw her shadow cast by the +firelight on the white wall behind her. She shook her head to free the +coils of her hair. They slid down her back, two thick ropes warm and +faintly scented with camomile-flower tea blended with an imprisoned +memory of the day’s fog. Taking an end in each hand she turned her back +to the fire and, holding out her arms to their full length, she shook +out her hair so that it fell slowly and made a great fan-shaped shadow +on the wall. She ran to the dressing-table to take a comb, stilting +along on the top of each great-toe like a ballet-dancer, and then, +returning to the zone of warmth and firelight, she combed and +disentangled and pulled away the knots until her hair hung straight and +smooth hiding her breast and shoulders in a moving veil. Her face peered +at her, laughing at its own reflection in a little mirror framed in +black, carved ivy-leaves which hung above the fireplace between a white, +china rabbit and an old, green, glass door-stop, all three cherished +relics of her childhood. The tick of the falling ash in the grate; the +creaking of the wicker-chair on the cushions of which _Emma_ still lay, +open in the middle of the Box Hill party; the swish of a passing taxi in +the street below muffled by the closed window and drawn curtains, seemed +like little desultory tunes played to the accompaniment of a silence +that was, like a ray of light that twists together all the colour of a +rainbow, only the gathering together of distant, undistinguishable +clamour of many sounds. Gillian, alone in her closed room, its white +walls gilded and rosy with lamp- and firelight, its warm air laden with +the clean scent of soap and water and violet-powder and loosened hair +which in five minutes would be chased away by the cold night-air when +she opened her window and got into bed, felt herself caught into a bliss +of solitude, safe, anonymous, ignored. She was alone, alone. No claims, +no duty, no criticism could touch her. The disfiguring humiliation of +the clothes she could never quite wear as other people wore the same, or +slightly better chosen raiment, was no longer about her. She was free, +and fine and lovely. She cupped her chin in her hands and saw in the +mirror how the point of each shoulder broke through the cloud of hair +hanging over it, like a young moon in an outcast sky. She shook back her +hair and, with a hand on each hip, bent her body backwards till she felt +her hair touch her ankles. She stretched up her arms till the shadow of +her hands on the ceiling almost met the shadow of the chair on which her +bath-towel hung. She made a rabbit of her hands, as children do, and it +scampered round the walls; she played tricks with her shadows, the tall +one on the wall opposite the fire, and the wavering one by the door, +cast by the lamp which was flickering and dying down because its oil was +nearly spent. She tried to make them meet and become one shadow. She +stood on one leg with the palm of her foot over her straightened knee +and let the light shine through the arch; she tried to look through the +arch and almost slipped and fell. As she straightened herself again she +remembered that it was Lilac who did that, and that, even when she was +twelve, she had never succeeded in doing it three times running, +herself. “I’m getting too old to do it at all,” she said and put out her +hand to take her nightgown. + + * * * * * + +There was a sudden rush of cold air into the room as the door opened and +closed quickly again shutting V.V. in. + +Gillian clutched at her nightgown and tried to slip it on. + +“Don’t, don’t,” laughed V.V., “I love you as you are, you witch,” and +she slipped across the room and pulled the thin cambric till it tore +across. + +“V.V.! how dare you!” said Gillian, and she wrapped herself from chin to +toe in the warm bath-towel, folding her hair in with it in her haste and +indignation. + +V.V. sat down in the basket-chair, throwing _Emma_ on the floor beside +her with no concern for the crumpling pages. + +“Have you missed me?” she said. + +“Of course I have,” said Gillian, surprised to feel herself trembling as +she stood holding the bath-towel round her like a shawl. “Have you been +with Heinrich?” + +“No. Not since Monday. I had a quarrel with him on Monday. I’ve kept +away from both of you on purpose since.” + +V.V. was pale and tired. She had evidently been out in the fog all day +for her hair hung damp and heavy under the brim of her hat and there +were black smudges on her imperfectly powdered face. + +“Poor Heinrich has been here in a dreadful state of anxiety this +evening,” said Gillian. + +“Has he? The little fool.” + +“Oh, V.V.! He was really distressed about you. He thought you were with +me.” + +“So I am.” + +“Yes, now, but this was between five and six.” + +“Well, he knows I’m with you now.” + +“Oh, then you have seen him.” + +“No, not yet. But I’m going to.” + +V.V. got up out of the creaking chair and in two swift strides had +crossed the narrow room and was at the window. She pulled aside the +curtains and threw up the sash. “Come here,” she said to Gillian as she +leaned out over the sill. + +Gillian stumbled in her heavy swathing to V.V.’s side. + +“Look there. Did you ever see such an idiot,” said V.V. + +Gillian leaned out beside her and looked. The fog had cleared off and a +fine, chill rain was falling. Down on the pavement on the opposite side +of the street, standing under a lamp-post Heinrich waited looking up at +the lighted window. He was still without hat or overcoat and even from +the fifth story Gillian could see how sharp and white his face was. + +“Go home, Hinerik,” called V.V. “I told you I’d be here,” and dragging +Gillian back with her she slammed the window down again and drew the +curtains. + +“V.V., what are you doing?” said Gillian, her teeth chattering with the +sudden cold. + +“Teaching him his place,” said V.V. sullenly. “I told him on Monday that +you and I were going to live together in a flat of our own——” + +“But, V.V.——” + +“Yes, we are. You know we are. Well, he didn’t like it.” + +“But of course he didn’t——” + +“You be quiet. I told him, like it or not, that’s what I was going to +do. So then he said I thought more of you than I did of him and I said, +yes, and had done from the beginning——” + +“Oh, V.V., how could you?” + +“Well, it’s true—and it’s time Master Hinerik made up his mind to it. +And I said you knew it.” + +“That was a lie, V.V.” + +“Oh, was it? Of course you knew it. Haven’t I been with you day after +day and night after night when he was alone or hanging about in the +courtyard till old Gordon turned him out——” + +“V.V.! V.V.!” + +“Well, I said if he couldn’t see what was as plain as the nose on his +silly face I’d tell him. And I did tell him. I told him I’d always gone +with girls and that you were worth ten of any boy, let alone a little +Dago like him. What are you crying about, Gillian? It’s the plain +truth.” + +“It don’t know what you _mean_, V.V. You can’t feel the same about me as +you did about Heinrich when you were going to marry him.” + +“Oh, well, not the same, but I’d sooner live with any girl than with +him. And I said we were going to Ostend together for Christmas.” + +“You know we’re not. It’s the first I’ve ever heard of it.” + +“Well, it won’t be the last. I’ve been down to Epping and paid off the +rent of that flat so’s I can go back there all right—not to the flat, +we’ll go to an hotel. And I stayed on to make you worry, darling. Did +you worry about your V.V.?” + +It was amazing, it was sickening, but V.V. was clearly unable to realize +how what she had told was affecting Gillian. + +“V.V., what brought Heinrich up here again to-night? How did you know +he’d be there?” + +“He’s there most nights,” said V.V., “and I wrote to him from Epping +this morning to make sure. I told him I’d be coming home to give you +your bath. He’d get it by the last post.” + +Gillian felt herself turning giddy. She put out one hand to steady +herself on the back of a chair, and the bath-towel slipped from her +shoulder loosening a strand of hair with it. + +“Oh, you darling,” said V.V., “take off the horrid ugly towel and let +V.V. brush out your hair and make you all nice and comfy.” + +“If you dare to come near me,” said Gillian, and she choked between each +word. “If you dare to touch me I’ll ring the night-bell and have the +Gordons and Mrs. Barraclough up to take you out of my room. I’m going to +dress and go to Heinrich now, myself. He’s ill, he’s nearly mad.” + +“Oh, spitfire!” said V.V., still cheerful but a little uneasy, “and you +can’t go to a man’s studio in the middle of the night, you naughty one. +Shocking!” + +“You shall come too,” said Gillian. “Sit down in the basket-chair and +wait for me.” + +Trembling and sick she dressed hastily, twisting her hair up anyhow and +pulling a knitted cap over it to keep it together. + +“Now,” she said, when she had found the keys of the outside door and +gate, “are you ready?” + +“I’m cold and hungry and tired,” whimpered V.V., “and Hinerik will only +be cross.” + +But Gillian had no pity for V.V.’s weariness. + + * * * * * + +It was some minutes before they could get the high barred gate under the +archway open. The lock was often hard to deal with when two or three +people had locked and unlocked it on one evening and V.V., at any rate, +had come in since it had been closed at ten by Gordon. But Gillian was +not to be hindered by a lock. Finally the key turned and the gate swung +open. + +“I’ll leave it unlocked in case we can’t get in again,” she said, +pulling it to gently. + +They set off over the bridge, but Gillian could not make V.V. hurry. She +protested that she was dog-tired and once or twice she stopped and +leaned against the parapet and really did seem to be exhausted. The +night-rain on her already rain-soaked clothing was cold and heavy. But +still Gillian had no pity. There was no room in her aching mind for any +trouble but Heinrich’s. She had turned him out dazed with misery, had +let him go wavering off into the fog to find V.V.’s letter. And he had +stood there under the street-lamp while she was sleeking her skin and +playing silly games with her shadow, staring up at her window, so numb +with despair that he had not even seen V.V. herself as she crept into +the Club an hour ago. + +The ragged wooden gate of the studio gardens was unlatched and flapping +feebly on its hinges in the wind. But there was no light in any of the +studio windows. Some of them were uninhabited except in the daytime, and +the occupants of the others were either in bed or abroad on their +private occasions. The blue door Larry had painted was locked and no +gleam from within came through any crack over the fanlight. + +“He’s gone to bed,” said V.V. “I told you so.” + +“He’s not asleep if he is in bed,” said Gillian, and she knocked at the +door. She knocked first with her knuckles, then hammered with a stone +she found in the gravel of the path. She called him by name. “Heinrich, +Heinrich. It’s Gillian. V.V.’s come to you.” She rattled at the +door-handle; she tried to climb on the ledge of the small high window, +but it was too narrow to hold her foot. A window was opened by some +disturbed sleeper in one of the houses that backed on to the studio +gardens, but the only sound that came from behind the locked and bolted +door was the faint, melancholy mewing of the little tortoiseshell cat. + +“He’s not there,” said V.V. “I knew it was no good coming. He’s prob’ly +gone off to some other studio where there’s a party. Oh, do come home. +You’ll catch your death of cold and so shall I.” + +“I shall come down again first thing in the morning,” said Gillian. “I +believe he’s in there all the time.” + +“With that screaming cat,” said V.V., “just like him.” + + * * * * * + +But the next morning there was a telegram from Maggie. + +“Please come at once. The Mistress has been taken seriously ill.” + + * * * * * + +When Gillian got to Highgate, Aunt Elizabeth was lying dead in her +chair, her hands stiffening round the leather case in which the +miniature of Evan Mortimer was closed. And the luminous, still smile +that the living never wear raised the corners of her mouth and lifted +her shadowed eyelids into an angel’s beauty. + + + + + CHAPTER SEVEN. + THE FOURTH MOVEMENT + + + I + +Queen’s Hall was three-parts full of the regular Saturday Concert +audience listening to a regular Saturday Concert. + +It was almost as foggy inside the hall as it was out in the streets, and +the light streamed down from the red, silk valances round the great +chandeliers over the orchestra in straight slanting lines, and cut +yellow, flat-headed cones of illumination out of the misty dusk. + +Gillian sat in the darkness at the back of the two-shilling gallery. How +she got there was more than she could remember. They had nailed Aunt +Elizabeth down in her coffin that morning and there was no more to do in +the house where Maggie held lugubrious tea-parties for the reception of +all licensed comers in preparation for the funeral on Monday. Lilac had +missed Gillian’s telegrams at Curragh and would only reach Euston at six +o’clock that evening, and Gillian, who could neither stay at Highgate +nor go back to the Club, was waiting till it was time to go to the +station to meet her. + +She could not stay in the house at Highgate now that Aunt Elizabeth’s +face was hidden in darkness, and she could not go back to the Club and +sit in the room where Larry had stood and told her that Heinrich was +dead. + +Larry had been waiting for her the night she had gone back after seeing +the doctor and the lawyer and the men who wanted to know about Aunt +Elizabeth’s grave. V.V. was with him at first, but they had sent her +away. Jane had come and taken her away, leaving Gillian and Larry alone. +Larry had told her what had happened and presently Jane had come back +and had said to Larry: + +“Dearest, you will have to give evidence at the inquest to-morrow. But I +think we shall be able to keep her out of it.” + +But they weren’t keeping V.V. out of it because they loved her or were +sorry for her, only because it was the decent thing to do. And Gillian +was to be kept out of it as well. Nobody, not even Mrs. Gordon, had seen +Heinrich in the fog on Wednesday afternoon looking for V.V. + +“All the mud will be splashed on Larry,” said Jane, her face one set and +constant glare. “V.V. will be his broken-hearted _fiancée_ who was away +at the time, and you—you won’t come into it at all.” + +It was Mr. Quist who had found Heinrich on Thursday evening. He had gone +down to the studio to get a book Jane had left there and wanted to have +sent to Felday, and the people in the studio next door had said that the +mewing of the cat had disturbed them all day long. So Mr. Quist had got +a ladder and had broken the skylight and had looked in. He had seen +Heinrich sitting queerly in a chair in the middle of the studio. And +Heinrich had torn up all Larry’s studies of V.V.; the drawings and +sketches for the fire-picture he was going to paint; and he had broken +the little figure of Gillian, the Rapunzel statue Jane had made and +given to Larry to take care of just before they went away, the figure +Gillian had never seen which was to be a surprise for her at Christmas. +He had piled the ruined fragments in a heap in front of the dais. He had +put on his blue overall and had swept all the dust and rubbish from the +floor and had covered the fragments with it. He had pulled out the big +Italian chair and had sat in front of the pile of rubbish and had put +the barrel of the pistol he was so frightened of into his mouth and +pulled the trigger. And the pistol had been loaded after all. And the +little cat was sliding round his feet mewing, mewing.... + +“He must have done it just before we got there,” said Gillian. + +“Or just after you had gone away; it doesn’t much matter now,” said +Larry. + +“Larry, did you know that he minded about me?” + +“Of course I knew. I minded myself.” + +“But I didn’t. I didn’t dream—why didn’t you warn me?” + +“Jane did. I spoke to Jane about it. She wouldn’t believe me at first. +She said she’d ask you.” + +“She did, but only the day before—two days before—and besides, I didn’t +understand.” + +“You should have understood,” said Larry. “Everybody else did. Are you +going to live with her?” + +“With V.V.? No. I never was. She talked about it a lot. But I thought it +was only talk.” + +“It was a good deal more than talk to him.” + +“How did you know? Did he say anything?” + +“I loved him, that’s how I knew. But that, again, is something I don’t +suppose you would understand.” + +The sick trouble in his face had deepened as he looked away from Gillian +out into the courtyard and at the staircase window of the other house +which Jane was passing on her way down from V.V.’s flat. + +And then Jane had come and taken Larry away. + +Gillian did not see V.V. again. The Jacky who shared the flat with her +had returned from South Africa and was looking after her. She appeared +to be a very sensible and decent creature, and quite equal to V.V., who, +said Jane coldly, was really very much distressed, and as Gillian was in +trouble herself she had better leave V.V. to her own friends. + +That was last night. And this morning she had found a list of the +Saturday concerts. Heinrich had given it to her because she said she +wanted to know what she’d be likely to hear before she went to any of +them. And she had been to none. And now Heinrich’s place in the second +violins was already filled by some other player, someone to whom his +failure was probably a godsend, and she was there because in some +aching, remorseful fashion she knew that if there were any knowledge or +remembrance in the dim places where his eager soul had exiled itself, he +would be eased of some part of his torment because she had gone there +for his sake. + +She had slept heavily all night, numb with the fatigue of the past three +days, but she had wakened unrefreshed and it had not been worth the +trouble to get herself any breakfast. It was Mabel’s week in the other +house and the maid on duty on Gillian’s floor had upset her milkcan, +being new to the flats and consequently unable to retain her hold upon +any object that happened to be in her grasp when William addressed her +as “Pretty Dear” out of the darkness of seven o’clock in the morning. +Kind Mrs. Middleton, hearing the clatter, had come in with a cup of +early tea and had stayed to condole and confer with Gillian and to be +scandalized that Gillian had made no effort to get black raiment for the +funeral. + +“But I shan’t go to the funeral,” said Gillian. “Aunt Elizabeth wouldn’t +think it right. Only the men of the family—that’ll be Toby and Old +Cousin Mortimer from Ludlow—will go. Lilac and I will stay at Highgate, +with you and her other friends.” + +But Mrs. Middleton would argue, and Gillian had slipped out to escape +the questions she knew must come as soon as the news of Heinrich’s death +travelled up from the kitchens, where it must already be known, and came +to Mrs. Middleton’s ears. + +She had wandered on the Embankment with no bread to give to the gulls +who wheeled out of the mist, their red legs hanging straight like +coral-branches from their down-white bodies as they screamed past her +face. Their broken, mewing cries seemed like a devil’s echo of that +other mewing, the thought of which drove all the blood of her body in a +cold flood back to her sickened heart. + +There, by the river, where she had so often found comfort, where she had +escaped so often from her small, half-imagined griefs, the real and +awful sorrow, the harrowing remorse for her own share in the disaster +she was facing, broke in upon her with wave after wave of mounting +desolation. All the beauty she had ever found by the river was gone; +washed away by this horror. The ash-grey water, sluggish under the +hidden sky, lapped against the pier by the bridges with a cold +reiterated syllable—“dead—dead—dead.” Gillian drifted on to the flat +sound till she came to Vauxhall. For half an hour she wandered in the +Tate Gallery. All the pictures there seemed to repeat the sound of the +river in paint. Ophelia floating on the flower-encumbered stream; Icarus +livid among the soaring feathers of his wings; the child in Luke Fildes’ +life-size bestseller; Chatterton, dead at his attic window; the +sickening giants struggling or gloating over corpses in the symbolism of +Watts; the anatomical perfection of Leighton’s Sea giving up its dead; +the bird crushed in the grip of the Minotaur—could they paint nothing +but this? Did the men who put paint on canvas with such hideous +competence know anything about the crazed disillusionment that had +killed Heinrich? Had they ever imagined the ineffable, almost +contemptuous peace which Death had set upon Elizabeth Mortimer’s smiling +mask? + +And then the memory of the faint, ironic curve into which the dead mouth +had fallen before they shut it away from sight, came back to Gillian, +terrifying, abasing her with the thought that Aunt Elizabeth knew of her +folly and condemned her from the grave to which she herself had gone in +righteousness and joy. + +Out past Westminster and up Whitehall she wandered. She did not pause in +Trafalgar Square to look with derision at dead painters’ crucifixions +and _pietàs_. Her mind was heavy with refusal of the consolations their +very existence implied. Her eye had offended and she had not plucked it +out. She was fit to be eternally cast into the outer darkness where she +was now wandering. She could not enter any Christian church and pray for +the pagan Heinrich; and no prayer of hers need reach the heaven for +which Aunt Elizabeth had saved her own soul. + +After a time she had found herself waiting in the gallery-queue on the +staircase outside Queen’s Hall; and finally, jostled and elbowed by +enthusiasts who would not, if struggling could avail their eyes, miss +any turn of the conductor’s wrist, any wafture of his expressive hair or +necktie, she had found a seat high up in a corner against the wall. + +She did not trouble about a programme. The orchestra played one of the +well-known overtures. A violinist executed some Dvorák; there was a +Martial work—Elgar, Gillian thought, and another violin solo, and the +first part of the programme was over. + +Gillian was only musical at second hand. For the most part she was +content to feel without understanding what she heard. Unless she had a +score to read she could not follow any orchestrated music at all. But +both by taste and training she was happier listening to a symphony she +knew well, or hearing chamber-music with which she had some acquaintance +than she was where any but the greatest artists sang. Words were spoilt +by music to Gillian, though she often turned the music she knew into +words. It was one of the secret personal idiosyncrasies she discovered +to Heinrich, that when she had learnt to know any great music by ear she +remembered it in a notation of words, just as in her childhood she had +done as Jane Bird did and had made profane verses to hymn-tunes. +Heinrich had not been musical in this same secondary, literary sense, +though he knew and loved the tunes in what he played. But once, +following her lead, he too had set a melody to words. Nothing in the +first part of the programme had gone to any words for Gillian; but, +after the first item on the second half was over, there was a longish +pause, and then the orchestra gave forth the first subject of +Tchaikowsky’s B Minor Symphony. And Heinrich, his great eyes laughing +with pleasure, his fiddle tucked under his ear, stood before her singing +in his voice that was almost the voice of the strings from which he drew +the tune, singing at Gillian’s bidding, but singing for V.V., who hardly +listened to him, his one absurd, exotic phrase: + +“_Wir sollen nicht mehr auseinander gehen_”—the phrase repeated itself, +_nicht auseinander, nicht auseinander_ soared the violins, and the whole +orchestra repeated it like an oath, _Wir sollen nicht mehr auseinander +gehen_. Was it only of V.V. Heinrich had been thinking when the melody, +the perfect love-phrase of the music, had drawn this sentimentalism up +from the recesses of his polyglot vocabulary? It might have been. And +yet Heinrich was better than that. He was not, like V.V., incapable of +any idea that had not a direct personal implication—_Nicht mehr +auseinander gehen_—that was the ideal of all lovers. Would any German +girl, Gillian wondered, hearing it exotic and appealing from Heinrich’s +impish lips have loved him as V.V. could not imagine doing? Or would she +have laughed at his queer passion as V.V. had done. It was a terrible +thing to face—that claim—love me or I die. After all it was almost what +V.V. had said to her, and she had turned away from it with all the force +within her. You couldn’t let another human being set up a right in you +like that. Larry hadn’t. He had said it was the primal curse. + +The orchestra marched on until the time and the key had changed and the +first bars of the five-four allegro were racing along the wood-wind and +up and down the strings. Heinrich had made no words for that, only a +funny little laughing song that had run against the tune. There was more +music in Heinrich than in Gillian—she could not have pointed any melody +like that. She could not even quite remember how Heinrich had done it. +It flickered in her mind as the movement danced on: presently it would +flicker out altogether—and be just a little, forgotten trick, like his +way of getting the sparrows together in his hand and throwing them out +into the ivy on the wall beyond the studio window. + +Heinrich had refused to make words for the rest of the symphony, and as +it rioted on melodiously Gillian’s attention flagged and she half-dozed +in her airless corner, her eyes dazzled by the angles of light which cut +one another just within her line of vision. And then the descending +chords of the fourth movement, the Adagio Lamentoso, broke heavy with +anger and despair. And they made words so plain that Gillian felt the +whole hall was ringing with them. “O poor Larry Browne,” they called, “O +poor Larry Browne.” Like a foolish, tragic, nursery rhyme. And it was +Jane’s voice, and Lilac’s, and even V.V.’s heaping anger upon her +because of what had been done to Larry and to Heinrich. What was it Jane +had said? “Spattering mud on Larry.” She had done that. It was clear +that in some horrible way, which was a part of the things she did not +even now quite understand, Larry was being laid under an imputation of +which she, Gillian, had been the source. + +He was, she knew, almost Heinrich’s guardian. He had meant to take his +faun to the warmth and light in which his frail and delicate nature +could flourish and grow in joy. But Larry would never be able to take +Heinrich to Taormina now. Larry had not saved him from the vultures +after all. He could never bear to live in the studio again. Perhaps, +even now, at the inquest Larry was being blamed—censured was the +word—the coroner censured the witness—for leaving his pistol loaded—for +leaving Heinrich alone with a loaded pistol. For leaving Heinrich alone +with his anger and his fear. + +Suddenly the lights grew together, they began to revolve like rockets, +and the music swelled and increased to an intolerable shouting, and +everyone in the galleries leaned forward and pointed at her, and they +all shouted in time to the chords—they all shouted Larry’s name. Gillian +stood up in her place—“Larry, Larry”—she shouted with them; and then the +reeling lights and the shouting voices became one black confusion into +which she was falling, falling—— + + * * * * * + +Someone—she did not know who it was—was holding her by the arm on the +pavement outside. A taxi with the door open stood by the kerb. + +“Where shall I take you?” said a strange, kind voice. + +“To Euston, to meet the Irish Mail,” said Gillian. + +And then she fainted. + + + II + +The curtains were of the richest satin and they were so voluminous that +even when they were drawn right across the windows they fell in close +corrugation to the velvet pile of the carpet which covered the floor. +But carpet and curtains were plain and of a very soft, dull, +rose-colour, and there was not an inch of fringe or an attempt at a +true-lover’s knot to be seen on them. And the room, though large, was +not very high, and there were no mirrors on the plain cream walls nor in +the doors of the plain walnut cupboard that ran along the wall opposite +the fireplace. And the only picture in the room was a large +uncompromising water-colour of a race-horse in a flat, wooden frame +which hung over the fireplace. A huge photograph of Old Winona, framed +in silver, stood on a writing-table between the windows, but the frame +was quite plain, and the bed in which Gillian lay, though it was +deliciously comfortable with sheets of heavy, cool linen, smooth as silk +and blankets as light as the down quilt above them, was narrow, with +plain head- and foot-boards, to match the wardrobe. + +She was in Toby’s room on the top-floor at Knightsbridge, which was for +the moment, so Lilac had explained to her, the only spare room in the +house, Toby having moved down to the room with a dressing-room on the +floor below next door to Lilac’s temporary quarters. + +“When we get into Norfolk Street you shall have a whole floor to +yourself,” said Lilac. + +But Gillian had refused the installation saying she would rather go back +to the Club if Mrs. Barraclough would tolerate William there after all. + +“It would be awkward for you to have a wage-earning sister in the +house,” said Gillian, “and wages I intend to earn after Christmas.” + +And Lilac had not argued with Gillian, though she had tried to make Jane +Bird do so when Jane had come to tea that afternoon. Jane, however, +sided with Gillian. + +“She’s quite right. She’d ruin herself, living up to your standard in +hats and gloves alone, in Norfolk Street,” said Jane, “even if she did +live rent- and food-free. Whereas at the Club with me and Larry as +social outlets she’ll be affluent, and you can provide her with the +right kind of trimmings when you feel she won’t quite do as she is for +special occasions.” + +Gillian, from her pillows, expressed her gratitude to Jane, and when +Lilac left them alone together Jane said more. + +“You wouldn’t be happy with them anyhow,” she said; “they don’t want the +same things as you do. Toby may have wanted some of them once, but he’s +forgetting. You’d better let Lilac go. She’ll be a Leader of London +Society in three years and Toby’ll be in the House of Lords before she’s +done with him. You’d come quite as bad a cropper there as you did with +your Vanderleyden. It’s no use being intimate out of your own class.” + +“But I haven’t got a class,” protested Gillian. + +“Oh yes, you have. But it isn’t a very large one. I’m in it. That’s why +I’ll never be rich, though my figures are getting quite degradingly +fashionable. And Larry’s really in it. I think I shall keep him there. +We’re married, you know.” + +“Goodness!” said Gillian, “has this been going on for long?” + +“Since he came back from Dinkelsbühl. It was the white porcelain stove +that made me see I could not allow him, with it, to pass out of my life. +And we were afraid Heinrich was gone beyond recall to the Vanderleyden.” + +“Oh, Jane!” + +“Yes. I know. She’s gone off to Ostend with someone called Mick or Nick. +A female. Mrs. Barraclough has let her rooms to a real missionary this +time: false teeth and no mean moustache. She tilled the Chinese vineyard +in her day, I’m told.” + +“I don’t believe you till vineyards,” said Gillian. “Where are you and +Larry going to live?” + +“In a converted mews, behind Brompton Oratory. It looks out on the +greenest of green gardens and we’re painting it Reckitt’s blue and +orange in our spare time.” + +“What do you do with the rest of your time?” + +“Gillian,” said Jane firmly, “we kiss each other.” + + * * * * * + +Jane had gone. She had left a single Christmas rose behind her. It stood +on a table by the fire, in a toothbrush-glass full of water which Jane +had fetched for it from the dressing-room before she left, and it was +unfolding its pinky-yellow petals so quickly in the heat that Gillian +could already see the pollen-soft stamens at its heart. Presently the +petals would fall on the polished wood, just as the petals of the gloire +de Dijon roses had fallen on the table in V.V.’s room last July on the +day when the idea of their living together in the same flat had first +been suggested. + +Gillian did not remember that she had assented to it even then, but that +did not lessen her sense of guilt. What was it Aunt Elizabeth had said? +Love must blossom in the spirit. There had been no spiritual blossoming +in all her infatuation for V.V. She had known that all the time. She had +gone on taking all the pleasure, breathing the heady incense, yielding +to the senseless spell of that haunting, physical charm that never once +fulfilled the promise it always half suggested. What it was that had so +lured her mind and stirred her senses Gillian had never known. She had +followed blindly, but her blindness had been wilful. Always she might +have opened her eyes. + +And now the waking dream was over. Heinrich was dead. Larry might have +gone after him if it had not been for Jane who had seen and known all +the time. + + * * * * * + +It was Jane who had made many dark things clear to Gillian a few days +earlier. Lilac had sent for Jane, not understanding the confused and +shaken trouble of Gillian’s state. + +“She says you are angry with her,” said Lilac. + +“So I was,” said Jane, “but, I admit, she can’t have known what she was +really in for. But now this dreadful thing has happened she ought to be +told.” + +And Jane had told Gillian. And in telling her Jane had lost the +bitterness of her anger against Gillian and found her love there still. +And Gillian had seen the morning of her ignorance melt into a hard, +bleak, unenchanted day. + +The only person who had escaped unhurt was V.V. But she was unhurt +because, and this Gillian knew now, because long ago V.V. had been so +maimed, her soul had been so warped and stunted by some influence she +could still recall though she was too vitiated to resent it, that +nothing that happened to her now would make very much difference. You +cannot shipwreck a derelict. + +V.V. had gone her own way, and Gillian could not follow her. She had +taken the first steps on the road down which V.V. was disappearing, and +had come back again to the place where it started. + +And now that road was closed. + + + THE END + + + OLD GUARD HOUSE + NOVEMBER, 1925 + + + + + THEODORE + DREISER’S + FIRST NOVEL SINCE 1915 + + An American + Tragedy + + It is a great moment in American literature that sees the + publication of Theodore Dreiser’s first novel in nine years. Mr. + Dreiser’s strict standards of artistic rectitude are ever + untouched by alien influences. What he writes must square with + the artist’s loftiest vision. We have been Mr. Dreiser’s + publishers since 1917. Our rather long period of suspense in + waiting for a new Dreiser novel has more than justified itself in + _An American Tragedy_. 2 vols. boxed. + + $5.00 + + SHERWOOD + ANDERSON’S + + Dark + Laughter + + [ FIFTH EDITION ] + + “The first chapter is as consummate a piece of art as the first + chapter of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and the rest of the book is + keyed up to that pitch.”—Stuart P. Sherman, _N. Y. Herald + Tribune_. + + “Anderson has wrought a masterpiece.”—Laurence Stallings, _N. Y. + World_. + + “There is life in Sherwood Anderson’s work; life that bubbles and + surges—life and vigor and crude poetry.”—_New York Eve. Post._ + + “This is the chosen or Godgiven field of Sherwood Anderson—the + revelation of human minds, of our own minds.”—Edwin Bjorkman, _N. + Y. Sun_. + + $2.50 + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + +The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical +and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were +silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after): + + [p. 27]: + ... of your school, as I have taken due precaution ... + ... of your school, as I have taken due precaution to ... + + [p. 108]: + ... was no reason, in Mrs. Mordaunt’s self-disciplining ... + ... was no reason, in Mrs. Mortimer’s self-disciplining ... + + [p. 125]: + ... a woodland air. The face narrowed on either side a ... + ... a woodland air. The face narrowed on either side of a ... + + [p. 128]: + ... raven in the aviary in the maze everything that was ... + ... raven in the aviary in the maze everything that was left ... + + [p. 139]: + ... wore a hat a minute longer than she need, and not ... + ... wore a hat a minute longer than she needed, and not ... + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78428 *** |