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diff --git a/78428-h/78428-h.htm b/78428-h/78428-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3f101cd --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-h/78428-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,14420 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="UTF-8"> +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> +<title>The tortoiseshell cat | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <!-- TITLE="The tortoiseshell cat" --> + <!-- AUTHOR="Naomi Royde-Smith" --> + <!-- LANGUAGE="en" --> + <!-- PUBLISHER="Boni & Liveright, New York" --> + <!-- DATE="1925" --> + <!-- COVER="images/cover.jpg" --> + +<style> + +body { margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%; } +div.frontmatter { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:30em; } +div.frontmatter.praise { font-size:0.8em; } +div.frontmatter.praise p { text-indent:0; margin-bottom:1em; } +div.frontmatter.praise p.hdr { padding-top: 1em; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; + font-size:2em; } +div.frontmatter .halftitle { text-indent:0; 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+ border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; + display: inline; } + +div.centerpic { text-align:center; text-indent:0; display:block; } +div.centerpic img { max-width:80%; } +div.centerpic.logo img { max-width:3em; } +div.centerpic.portrait img { max-width:8em; } + +body.x-ebookmaker { margin-left:0; margin-right:0; } +.x-ebookmaker div.frontmatter { max-width:inherit; } +.x-ebookmaker div.ads { max-width:inherit; } +.x-ebookmaker div.ads div.fl { float:left; } +.x-ebookmaker div.ads div.fr { float:right; } +.x-ebookmaker div.poem-container div.poem { display:block; margin-left:2em; } +.x-ebookmaker div.epi div.poem-container div.poem { display:inline-block; margin-left:0; } +.x-ebookmaker a.pagenum { display:none; } +.x-ebookmaker a.pagenum:after { display:none; } +.x-ebookmaker .trnote { margin:0; } + +</style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78428 ***</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<div class="centerpic cover"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""></div> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="ded"> +This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 25th Anniversary. +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter praise chapter"> +<p class="hdr"> +THE TORTOISESHELL CAT<br> +<em>by</em> Naomi G. Royde-Smith +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>London Outlook.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>London Sketch.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>Aberdeen +Press and Journal.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>Liverpool +Courier.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“An extremely entertaining and +exciting story.”—<em>The New Statesman.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>The Weekly +Westminster.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>London Daily News.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“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.”—<em>London Times +Literary Supplement.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“What cool and deliberate skill, +what mastery of sheer craftsmanship.... +Altogether one of the +very best of recent novels.”—<em>Bookman +Journal.</em> +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="halftitle"> +THE TORTOISESHELL CAT +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<h1 class="title"> +The<br> +Tortoiseshell Cat +</h1> + +<p class="aut"> +<span class="line1">A Novel By</span><br> +<span class="line2">N. G. ROYDE-SMITH</span> +</p> + + <div class="epi"> + <div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder</p> + <p class="verse2">Shone Mitylene—</p> + <p class="verse">Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight—</p> + <p class="verse2">Purged not in Lethe.</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza attr"> + <p class="verse"><span class="sc">Swinburne.</span></p> + </div> + </div> + </div> + </div> +<div class="centerpic logo"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="pub"> +<span class="line1">NEW YORK</span><br> +<span class="line2">BONI & LIVERIGHT</span><br> +<span class="line3">1925</span> +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="cop"> +COPYRIGHT 1925 · BY<br> +BONI & LIVERIGHT, <span class="sc">Inc.</span><br> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES. +</p> + +<div class="centerpic logo"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="run"> +First printing, November, 1925<br> +Second printing, November, 1925 +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="ded"> +TO<br> +WALTER DE LA MARE +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="toc" id="chapter-0-1"> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="table"> +<table class="toc"> +<tbody> + <tr class="s"> + <td class="col1" colspan="2">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="col_page">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">I</td> + <td class="col2">VOWEL-SOUNDS</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-13">13</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">II</td> + <td class="col2">LILAC</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-47">47</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">III</td> + <td class="col2">THE TORTOISESHELL CAT</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-120">120</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">IV</td> + <td class="col2">LARRY BROWNE</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-155">155</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">V</td> + <td class="col2">ILLUSION</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-202">202</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">VI</td> + <td class="col2">AUNT ELIZABETH</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-236">236</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="col1">VII</td> + <td class="col2">THE FOURTH MOVEMENT</td> + <td class="col_page"><a href="#page-273">273</a></td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="note" id="chapter-0-2"> +AUTHOR’S NOTE +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="note"> +The action of this novel is set in London in<br> +1912-13, but William is the only character in<br> +the tale who is drawn from life. +</p> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="tit"> +THE TORTOISESHELL CAT +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3"> +<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a> +CHAPTER ONE.<br> +VOWEL-SOUNDS +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-3-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +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 +<em>hope</em> I’ve done right....” And, as Miss Fairfax +said, you could feel the pit of the poor thing’s stomach +sink on <em>hope</em>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“I seize every opportunity of rest—facing the light—so +revealing—and thick bread and butter—you will +not mind, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Sound scholarship but coarseness—very sad—still +the Greeks—<em>and</em> the Romans—passages in the Epistles—and +the Joint Board’s set-books this year—Satires, +dear—Horace—<em>such</em> a pity—English purity—French +refinement—Yours so different.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian, whose subjects were English and Foreign +Literature (“foreign” being a term comprehending +French and German only), found her mind rocketing +between <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Misanthrope</span> and <em>Hamlet</em>, 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...? +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<em>dramatic</em> 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—<em>our +utmost for the highest</em>—once a week for five +minutes in every subject—and <em>low</em>-heeled shoes—ah! +no—that was little Miss Battinson—but Saint Paul—infallible—if +<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a> +only <em>all</em> women—but you with such a +father will know how right....” +</p> + +<p> +On the way home Gillian met Miss Fairfax. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>hope</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Me?” said Gillian, looking up from the French +Composition she was correcting. “What book are they +doing?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Winter consulted her sheaf of notes. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fairfax snorted. +</p> + +<p> +“The mind of your principal is still a sealed book +to you,” and she left the room without further argument. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<div class="excerpt"> +<p class="noindent"> +“Went not my heart with thee when the man turned +again from his chariot to meet thee?” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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: +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was rather like that,” Gillian admitted; “it +was bound to be. I got terribly excited myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not at all the state I’m used to for that class,” +said Miss Parratt. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think they <em>ought</em> to be excited after a Scripture +lesson?” asked little Miss Battinson, not without +malice. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian apologized. +</p> + +<p> +“They do make a noise, I know. But it was the only +way I could think of to keep them quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Two days later, Mrs. Lysaght having returned to +Pelham House, Miss Fairfax learned the truth. +</p> + +<p> +“It seems,” she told Gillian, “that she was looking +in on your Literature lesson one day and found the +<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a> +Fourth Form standing in serried ranks saying as one +girl: +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“‘And so the whole round world in every way</p> + <p class="verse">Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.’</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +She says the deep devotional note you had so patiently +got out of that particularly callous set—what’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the first place,” said Gillian, “how <em>do</em> you understand +all that from what she says?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m used to it. How <em>did</em> you get the Fourth +Form...?” +</p> + +<p> +“But I was making them use their chest notes on all +those o’s and ou’s, <em>whole</em>, <em>round</em>, <em>bound</em>, <em>gold</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’d chosen a particularly high-class sentiment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” Gillian was really alarmed. “But I’d +just told them that the <em>meaning</em> 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 <em>both</em> feet.... A God, a false +image.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t know. It must be rather like hard +labour—being responsible for the lot of us.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless the child! And it got her the confirmation +class!” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow they enjoyed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The vowel-sounds, or the confirmation class?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a> +“Both,” said Gillian and felt her cheeks burn again +with the unfailing thrill of that tremendous tale. +</p> + +<p> +“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—— +</p> + +<p> +“Results, dear—scholarships—honours—even +through the Universities. Classical tripos, every year +since she has been with us.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a> +she been a man, would have made her a Fellow of All +Souls. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fairfax, however, did not pity Gillian for her +lack of these regularized advantages. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said Gillian, “I must be cheap, and I do +a great deal of work for the money.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” said Miss Fairfax. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian told her. +</p> + +<p> +“The sweater!” said Miss Fairfax. +</p> + +<p> +“But I get extra for French Conversation twice a +week,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“So does she,” said Miss Fairfax. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was in connexion with this immunity that Gillian +had been made aware of an error in tact. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a> +“And, I suppose, as usual, you were quite well +throughout both crossings.” +</p> + +<p> +This was poor Miss Winter saying the right thing +at luncheon on the day of Mrs. Lysaght’s return. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Lysaght. “Never on the +horizon and—semi-horizontal—— But Dean Webster, +so deplorable—the clergy—and on deck.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a> +at table and everyone was forbidden to speak to you +until you <em>had</em> finished “every scrap of that good batter-pudding—and +you eating all the raisins out of it first, +you greedy little girl.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>this</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Put it down, you fool.” She caught the undertone +and dropped her spoon with a clatter. All the plates +<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a> +but hers had been cleared away. The youngest mistress +was keeping the whole High Table waiting. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="excerpt"> +<p class="noindent"> +“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.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“I’ve never heard that grace before,” said Gillian to +Miss Fairfax as the school filed out of the dining-hall. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Miss Fairfax, “it’s the one used for +criminals, and we’ve had very little crime this term, +so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“But whose crime was she denouncing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yours, my blue-eyed angel. Yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“I felt I’d done <em>some</em>thing. Do you know what it +was?” +</p> + +<p> +“You asked Mrs. Lysaght at the top of your voice if +she could be sea-sick—and at table. It isn’t done.” +</p> + +<p> +“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——” +</p> + +<p> +“You could have waited and asked the wretched Winter +for details, and not suggested at the top of your +<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a> +voice that our august head could under any conditions +whatever be sick in public. Didn’t you hear what +she said about the Dean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly—it was Miss Winter said—and I <em>do</em> +think the punishment severe.” +</p> + +<p> +“That wasn’t the punishment, it was only the tocsin. +Danger lies ahead.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-3-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. <em>No</em> hymn-books.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Mrs. Lysaght, some hymns have more than +five verses.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a> +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: +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">My God how wonderful Thou art!</p> + <p class="verse1">Thy Majesty how bright!</p> + <p class="verse">How radiant Thy mercy-seat</p> + <p class="verse1">In depths of burning light!</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a> +verses by rote. She sacrificed her own quarter of an +hour to do it; but Madge Porter made her cross. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="date"> +<span class="sc">Darwin Villa</span>,<br> +<span class="sc">Putney Hill</span>,<br> +<em>May 27th, 1912</em>. +</p> + +<p class="addr"> +<span class="sc">Dear Mrs. Lysaght</span>, +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +My daughter has been obliged to burden her mind +with such an incitement to laziness and lack of initiative +as this: +</p> + + <div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">O could we but relinquish all</p> + <p class="verse">Our earthly props and simply fall</p> + <p class="verse1">On Thine almighty arms.</p> + </div> + </div> + </div> +<p class="noindent"> +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 <a id="corr-3"></a>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 +<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a> +beg that Madge be removed from the classes in which +she teaches. +</p> + +<p class="sign"> +Yours sincerely,<br> +<span class="sc">James Porter, B.Sc.</span> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +P.S. I shall be glad if, for the future, Madge may be +excused from Prayers. +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mrs. Lysaght gave Gillian the letter to read. +</p> + +<p> +“Most unwise—most unwise,” she murmured and +bit her lip as she waited for Gillian’s comment. +</p> + +<p> +“What a bad old man,” said Gillian. “No wonder +Madge is such a terror.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lysaght blushed. She always blushed when +you said the wrong thing. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Porter is a <em>parent</em>,” she said with heat; “a +<em>parent</em>—he has every right—and the milk—never forget +the means of health.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—you said ...” began Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lysaght waved her hand, the hand with the +gold pencil in it. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You should never let it come to letters,” said Miss +Fairfax. “A good assistant mistress consumes her +own rows.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I was trying to do,” Gillian protested, +“and even if I’d known that Mr. Porter was such a +<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The difficulty, however, was to be properly good in +a world where all the values were so different from her +own. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-3-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a> +garden and got these myself as I always give the irises +to Miss Battinson and Jennings sent irises this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +So Gertie’s pansies lay like a funeral wreath on the +cover of Gillian’s commonplace book, and beside them, +Jane Bird’s roses. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“D’y recognize the tune?” said Bird over her shoulder +to Gillian, who had gone up to the platform steps +to thank her. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gillian, “but it’s a very good waltz.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this week’s hymn,” said Bird. “<em>The day Thou +gavest</em>, three-four time. <em>The two-three—Thou two-three, +O Lor-three—is enDED.</em> Go and dance with +Molly Carpenter—she’s perishing with love and lack of +exercise. <em>To Thee-ee our mor-or-ning Son-ongs +a-scend-ded</em>—You’ll enjoy it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Margaret Carpenter knew all about the origin of the +swinging waltz. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a> +“She made a ripping two-step out of <em>Hark! the +Herald Angels</em>, 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Miss Armstrong,” Bird’s voice was silky with +polite surprise, “to learn to speak French.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you never speak.” +</p> + +<p> +“I listen to you. That helps me enough.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian changed her line. +</p> + +<p> +“What have you been drawing all this afternoon?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—<em>not</em> 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——” +</p> + +<p> +“How dare you?” said Gillian, breathless. +</p> + +<p> +“But they’re <em>very</em> clever,” said Bird. “Of course, if +you object, you can report me to Mrs. Lysaght. You +<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well then,” said Gillian, “I <em>do</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The next day at Second Recreation Gillian had found +Jane Bird waiting for her in the empty class-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Destroyed the drawings,” Gillian gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“By fire. They <em>were</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And it was out of this glow, this splendour, that the +thunderbolt had fallen! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mon âme est un colombier</span>, how the molten phrases +<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a> +flowed!—<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Presse le pas, ô mon rêve</span>—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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a> +had been abrupt, slightly mocking. She suggested more +than so simple a gift need imply. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is the author?” Mrs. Lysaght was flustered, +displeased. +</p> + +<p> +“Théophile Gautier,” said Gillian. “It’s a famous +passage from <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mademoiselle de Maupin</span>.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="addr"> +<span class="sc">My dear Mrs. Lysaght</span>, +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Phèdre</span>. It runs thus: +</p> + + <div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaë.”</p> + </div> + </div> + </div> +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a> +passages (I am myself a little rusty in these matters), +to select passages from <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Esther</span> or from <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Athalie</span> rather +than from those plays which are not usually read in +English schools. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="sign"> +Yours, always most cordially,<br> +<span class="sc">Vincent Punctus</span>. +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“But,” said Gillian, “Corneille doesn’t——” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Gross indecency—corruption—and now Gautier—nothing +but his verse—selections of course—<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Perles de +la Poésie Française</span>—in the Library—I must see what +else——” and she took the manuscript book from the +reading-stand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but Mrs. Lysaght,” protested Gillian, “nobody +ever—not even my mother—it’s quite a private +book——” +</p> + +<p> +“Anatole France—<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Lys Rouge</span>—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—<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Serres Chaudes</span>—but this is nauseating—a +contamination—confiscate——” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me back my book,” said Gillian, “you are not +<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a> +fit to look at it. It is full of loveliness you’ll never +see.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane, Jane Bird—how did you get there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t go.” +</p> + +<p> +“But—Mrs. Lysaght——” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. Neither of you saw me. It’s a trick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean you’ve been there all the time?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a> +“All the time. Yes. It’s been a great help to me. +I shan’t be going to Oxford after all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you won’t be here to coach me in French for +one thing. I shan’t tell you the other.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Good afternoon, Miss Armstrong,” said Jane Bird, +and walked out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian picked up the paper she had left behind her. +</p> + +<div class="song"> +<p class="hdr"> +AN OLD SONG RESUNG—she read— +</p> + + <div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">If every tree and every flower</p> + <p class="verse2">And every star of night</p> + <p class="verse">Could join their beauties for an hour</p> + <p class="verse2">To make one pure delight;</p> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">The grace thus formed would cease to be</p> + <p class="verse2">To nature’s marvel true,</p> + <p class="verse">Would lack the mystic unity</p> + <p class="verse2">For which I worship you.</p> + </div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“I suppose it’s <em>Songs of Araby</em>,” said Gillian, humming +the lines through after a second reading, “and you +<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Downstairs in the cloak-room she was confronted by +Miss Fairfax. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I have,” said Gillian, “but I believe I’ve been +excommunicated all the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only about vowel-sounds,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“What? Again? And not lucky this time.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian explained. +</p> + +<p> +“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 ‘<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vénus toute +entière à sa proie attachée</span>’ to the whole class. It’s quite +as good in its way.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a> +And much to Miss Fairfax’s distress, Gillian sat down +on the boot-rack and began to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘instructress,’ dear, darling Miss Fairfax,” +said Gillian, “I can’t bear it.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-3-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Lilac took it very well. She had finished laying the +<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a> +table when Gillian got in and was sewing two enormous +mauve satin ribbons on to a white crinoline hat. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it one of Sophie’s hats?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac,” said Gillian, “I’ve been excommunicated. +Mrs. Lysaght and the Bishop have turned me out of +Pelham House.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>all</em> the butter with the green peas. I’ve put +an onion and some mint to boil with them as you told +me.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a mercy,” said Lilac severely, “that I kept <em>The +Garden of Karma</em> locked up in my side of the wardrobe +<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a> +or you’d have given them ‘Pale hands I love’ for +daily bread.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shouldn’t. It’s slip-slop.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s luscious,” said Lilac; “besides, how do you +know, when I haven’t let you read it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I read it in Brussels last year when I was staying +with Henriette,” said Gillian. “I wouldn’t give it to a +railway porter.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“Jilly dear,” she said, “what <em>are</em> you going to do?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray,” said Gillian; “it’s the only thing I can do +to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it is,” said Lilac. “I’ll say a threefold +Ah-ah-men for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Laylock. I didn’t know you were +awake——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I just woke up. I suppose you were praying +something fierce, and that always disturbs me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Granted, Miss Armstrong, I’m sure,” said Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +And then they both fell asleep. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4"> +<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a> +CHAPTER TWO.<br> +LILAC +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-4-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +On the prospectus it was called <em>The Mordaunt Club</em>, +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a> +handsome at first, but Mr. Gordon never was one to let +well alone. And he <em>will</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s more than her own mother ever saw,” had been +<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian would have liked to know more, but Lilac +had discouraged this curiosity in her sister as being +not only vulgar but idle. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a> +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 <em>Who’s Who</em> as +“<em>2 daughters</em>” 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was indignant. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what I was just saying,” said Mrs. Barraclough +who, being Irish, always knew what she meant, +<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a> +and knew it most especially clearly when her hearers +were most confused by what she actually said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, anyway,” Gillian insisted, “we’re not missionaries.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac won’t ever be a missionary, even though she +wants to go to India more than anything in this +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She sounds much more like an American,” said +Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you said she was a missionary.” +</p> + +<p> +“By birth, yes. But now that she’s got in on the +<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a shop?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” Mrs. Barraclough snorted, “a parlour. The +Spider and the Fly it should be called. I went there +once to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you pay a guinea?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a nice creature to look at and very quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s young then?” Gillian was interested. +</p> + +<p> +“She seems young to me, but she’s not a baby. You +two are all I want in the infant line at present.” +</p> + +<p> +At one time the Club took no one under forty; but +<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The Club’s full of widows now,” said Gillian. +“There’s the Countess.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a terrible complainer,” said Gillian. “I suppose +it’s her nationality. Poles do have a greater sensibility +to grievances than other people.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well, so do the Irish,” said Mrs. Barraclough. +“But the Countess has complained of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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’.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But of course.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a> +“That’s what she supposes, she says, ‘as a matter of +course.’” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you said to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you put that last bit in your letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go away, you chatterbox,” said Mrs. Barraclough, +throwing a stone out of her own glass house with +vigour and conviction. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a> +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 +<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>violet</em>, the <em>viol</em> and the <em>vine</em> and all +that nonsense.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it wasn’t Venus. I didn’t give them that line. +It was the one about Minos et Pasiphaë,” Gillian protested. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a> +Mrs. Barraclough did not endorse Lilac’s estimate +of her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Gillian’s all right,” she said, “only a little unprejudiced. +I’ll go and see if old Winona wants another +secretary.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I haven’t got one,” said Gillian, “my father +never signed a photograph in his life.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I call her ‘Winona Lady,’ as they do Adeline +Duchess?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>is</em> a Lady Bottomley, +Toby’s wife, but she’s never mentioned, she’s one of +the Oh No’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are they?” asked Lilac, who knew the importance +of social distinctions and the wisdom of not +being too proud to ask questions. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“‘From sport to sport they hurry me</p> + <p class="verse1">To banish my regret</p> + <p class="verse">And when they only worry me——’”</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“I don’t think it ends like that,” said Mrs. Barraclough. +</p> + +<p> +“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——’” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>promise</em> me not to +tell the old lady that I know Toby?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a> +“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....” +</p> + +<p> +“She won’t. She doesn’t know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac,” said Gillian, “what is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was Stephen and Sophie’s party. That +was why I wondered why they didn’t ask me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it wasn’t. It was Toby’s. Stephen and +Sophie were asked—and me—and we went to <em>Kismet</em> +after dinner. In a box. There wouldn’t have been +room for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right,” said Lilac; but she was not pleased. +</p> + +<p> +Sophie Glynde had originally been Gillian’s friend. +She was German on her father’s side and had been at a +<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a> +and significant. Lilac, clearly, would prefer that +Gillian should not become Toby’s mother’s secretary. +</p> + +<p> +But Lilac was to be disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake, remember you’ve never heard of +me.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a> +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 +<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a> +mind feebly at work under the overmastering influence +which had clearly directed the main ornamentation of +the house. +</p> + +<p> +There was one book in the room: <em>The Golden Treasury</em>, +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a> +to Lilac, murmured that unfortunately she did +not practice shorthand. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t that be like forgery?” asked Gillian, forgetting +her nervousness in the novelty of the demand. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>The Times</em> and <em>The Guardian</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And matinées?” said Gillian hopefully. This part +of her duties sounded easier than imitation scripture. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a> +“No matinées,” said Lady Bottomley, “only bazaars. +I disapprove of the stage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not even charity matinées?” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Gillian, and wondered if she and Lilac +would ever be counted as others. +</p> + +<p> +“How old are you?” Lady Bottomley was forsaking +instruction for inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-three—that is I shall be twenty-four next +birthday.” +</p> + +<p> +“And when is that?” +</p> + +<p> +“In April,” said Gillian, conscious that this was only +July. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s very young. Still it may mean that you will +prove more docile than those of riper years.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian hoped she was docile. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see. But if you come to me I must +stipulate that you do not marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose I left you—or you sent me away for +some other reason?” Gillian ventured. +</p> + +<p> +“In that case you would be free to marry. Not otherwise. +Have you any intention of marrying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian with complete candour, “I’ve no +intention of <em>not</em> marrying, but I don’t suppose I shall +<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a> +marry for a long time. I don’t feel old enough yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“To marry? Oh, no. They all want to marry Lilac, +not me?” +</p> + +<p> +“And who is Lilac?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, just a sister of mine,” said she, trying to make +as light of the matter as possible. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a> +Gerald Armstrong’s daughter far less terrifying than +regulated convention. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” said Mrs. Barraclough. She +was eating her luncheon with the <em>Morning Post</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“It was Winnie Roehampton who told me that her +<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian, “if she’s that kind of person I +shouldn’t think Lady Bottomley would engage a secretary +who came through her.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but what about Miss Macfarlane?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian. “Doesn’t it make it very +difficult to know what she means?” +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say it does,” said Mrs. Barraclough. “But +you may get used to it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is ‘Toby’ the third baronet Sir Reginald?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a> +for Belfast Harbour. You’ll hear all about that, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you really think I am quite honestly engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac,” she called, bursting into the outer of the two +rooms they used as living-rooms. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hillo!” said William. “Kiss cocky! Kiss cocky!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +But Lilac was not in the book-room, nor in the larger +single room on the north side of the building looking +<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +So Gillian took off her hat and washed her hands +and went and ate bread and cheese and lettuce with +William and read <em>The Song of Honour</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +It was three o’clock when Lilac came in. She was +<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a> +flushed, but it was with excitement quite as much as +with heat. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got the job?” she asked from the doorway. +Gillian felt she dared not have answered “No.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have. I took the Putney bus and I called on +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“And gracious!” said Lilac, “I do wish, dear Gillian, +you would not swear so blasphemously.” +</p> + +<p> +“All right then. Damn!” said Gillian, “but hurry +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I did. I called at <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mon Repos</span>. What a woman! +Does she always screw that little gold pencil in and +out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Always!” said Gillian, “particularly when she’s +angry. Was she angry with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a> +on the other side of the Albert Bridge, will collect +and deliver them day by day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bird,” said Gillian. “How on earth——” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did she say?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> talked about it,” said Lilac. “I felt I must play +a father’s part.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Lilac, suppose Lady Bottomley hadn’t wanted +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lilac, you didn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a> +“No—only nearly. It was a thing I thought of saying. +Jane Bird said it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did she find you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian, “nobody who saw you would +suppose I was younger than you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not until they knew us,” said Lilac darkly. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Did she take any notice?” asked Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +“Not the slightest.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gillian, “only his photograph and that +was called Reginald.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lilac. “I know. Isn’t it a pity?” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Will you,” said Lady Bottomley with majesty, “take +down the following letter: +</p> + +<p> +“Winona, Lady Bottomley presents her compliments +<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does that last bit go in the letter?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I write that one in my own writing or in +yours?” asked Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Third-person letters go in your own hand. It +marks the distinction more clearly,” pronounced the +lady. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></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. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be lovely to have them of different colours. +I know where you can get green and red candles,” she +urged. +</p> + +<p> +“A very Popish notion,” said old Winona. “I beg, +Miss Macfarlane, that you will not speak of it again.” +</p> + +<p> +But she was not angry with Gillian, and she was +pleased that the girl had noticed how fine the candlesticks +were. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">train-de-luxe</span>. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +One morning, however, she had nearly lost her self-control +<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a> +Stephen Glynde, who is, I presume, at Newmarket with +my son.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know he had any,” Gillian had spoken in +the haste of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The broad waters of the Elbe, brackish with the sea +<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>after</em> +you’ve tried. It’s no use hesitating before the Unknown. +<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a> +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, +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza " lang="de" xml:lang="de"> + <p class="verse">“Das unbeschreibliche.</p> + <p class="verse1">Hier ist’s gethan,”</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +before you go bankrupt.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lilac had come back from Glynde. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a> +“How late you are,” said Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian. “Have you had dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bother dinner,” said Lilac. “I’ve had two eggs and +all the milk. Where have you been till this hour?” +</p> + +<p> +“At 99,” said Gillian, “getting ready for Stephen. +He’s going to be there for the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Lilac, “with Toby.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian put her arm round Lilac and drew her inside +the room. “Lilac,” she said, “are you in love with +Toby?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lilac, “isn’t it damnable?” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a> +“What made you come back, then?” said Gillian. “I +thought it was always absence that made a man find +out——” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>can’t</em> be +clever about it. It’s easy enough to be <span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">l’autre qui se +laisse aimer</span>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “what sort of things?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Die grosse Fortuna</span>?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He sounds rather nice,” said Gillian. “I thought it +was only horses.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a> +“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 +<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">manège</span> at Lausanne, with the tame horses and the +smell of tan.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Monsieur Avranches—’<span class="italic" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dans la main gauche, +mademoiselle Arumstrongüe, dans la main</span> <span class="sc">GAUCHE</span>’—oh, +Lilac!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lover’s pains,” said Gillian, “and learning to ride +properly. I think you have a very good time.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gillian, don’t do anything stupid. It would +<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a> +be no good for him to think I’d got a lisping idiot for +my only family.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I can trust you not to <em>try</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What kind?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t, and it isn’t. And, you see, you don’t +know a thing about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-5"> +V +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lilac had forbidden Gillian to share her admiration +of <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Die grosse Fortuna</span> 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 +<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gerald Armstrong’s Swinburnes, the little red <em>Atalanta +in Calydon</em> and the little fat Moxon <em>Poems and +Ballads</em>, had gone to Sotheby’s with his other first editions +when his books were valued, and Gillian, who had +nothing but the Tauchnitz <em>Selections</em>, had been bothered +all morning because she could not remember how +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“Some angel’s steady mouth and weight of wings</p> + <p class="verse1">Shut to the side...”</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do?” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian put the book on her knee and looked over. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m terribly shocked,” she said. “Did you know +that lots of <em>The Triumph of Time</em> and most of <em>Before +a Crucifix</em> had been cut out of these?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—have they?—how annoying. May I look?” +</p> + +<p> +“But, of course. They’re yours. It’s a dreadful +<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian, “I answer to the name. I’ve +got another for holidays.” +</p> + +<p> +They took the remaining six volumes down and had +made a list of dilapidation before the chimes rang for +tea. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder why some of them have been left in,” +said Toby. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if they’d all come out there’d have been no +book left,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but I don’t think that would have stopped +whoever began to cut them up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lots of people don’t understand the least little +things,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +Toby looked at her sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” he said. “Perhaps it’s as well.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>would</em> 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: +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>her</em> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a> +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, <em>must</em> +I?” followed by a prolonged imitation of Jessie Middleton’s +yawn. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it damnable!” was what Lilac had said last +night. And to-night she wanted to have William +killed. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-6"> +VI +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen was in the light. It shone on his red, fine +<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Been to the Russian Ballet?” jerked Toby. +</p> + +<p> +“Not again,” said Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>could</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t guess,” said Toby hoarsely. “Tell me,” said +Toby, as though his life depended on being told. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac, I <em>can’t</em> guess. Not while you do that.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian slipped down from the window-seat. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Ach du lieber Augustin</span>, the tune the pipkin +<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a> +sang when it boiled, in the story of the prince who went +back into his kingdom and slammed the door,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +Lilac jumped up from her corner and the sleeve fell +back again over her arm. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>very</em> industrious, and I’d try not +to let you miss her too dreadfully, Lady Bottomley, +indeed I would.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Bottomley was archly playful. +</p> + +<p> +“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, +<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a> +and <em>my</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Stephen met them with the car at Lewes. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Lilac. “You don’t think he’ll bring her +back, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only since I went to Lady Bottomley,” said Gillian. +“I thought you and Sophie didn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sophie don’t,” said Stephen; “but Toby told me the +whole story, and he says he told Lilac.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Lilac, “he wrote to me about it, yesterday. +But I’d known for some time. And I told +Sophie.” +</p> + +<p> +“You did, did you?” said Stephen. “That’s all to +the good,” and he changed the subject. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-7"> +<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a> +VII +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="noindent"> +“Millicent is no more. Do not announce it in <em>The +Times</em>.—<span class="sc">Reginald.</span>” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter-in-law knows by experience how to +deal with knotty points in the social code,” said the ex-dowager. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>The Times</em>. You needn’t tell her Millicent isn’t +dead—after all, I <em>may</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said Gillian, “the little black arrow is quite +enough for me to suggest. I’ve seen the cable, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Her hesitation was misunderstood. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-8"> +VIII +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a> +“God, indeed,” said Aunt Elizabeth; “devil, my girl, +that’s what they are, however your Mrs. Barrington +makes excuses for them.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. <a id="corr-7"></a>Mortimer’s self-disciplining +view of life for them, as widow and orphan of the +same blood, to live apart. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And where will you be if the Lord should send you +a child? Gadding about on the face of the waters, I +dare say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Lilac, blushing, but defiant, “He won’t +send one till we get back. Toby and I have decided +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a> +her mother had worn before her. “I shall pray without +ceasing that the Lord may see fit to defeat your +ungodly purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t say anything to Toby about it, or to +Lady Bottomley,” begged Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Not <em>in</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there any horrid bits?” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Gillian, you idiot. You’ve read the Service, haven’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>that</em>,” 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Gillian slowly; “if it were a +remedy, it would be rather beautiful to be part of +it—<em>against</em> sin.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are times,” said Lilac with bitter incisiveness, +“when I think you can’t be quite right in your +head.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew someone had chopped up the books dreadfully,” +said Gillian. “I shall give Toby a new unbarbered +set for his wedding-present.” +</p> + +<p> +Toby gave Gillian <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Die grosse Fortuna</span> and the large +<em>Saint Eustace</em> 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 <em>Idyll</em> +and a photogravure of Balestieri’s <em>Beethoven</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian accepted them in speechless content. +</p> + +<p> +“And I suppose,” said Lilac, “that you’ll hang them +there, both of them, and tell me they’re both beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“So they are,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“The one with the dogs is amusing, and I like the +<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Gillian was glad that the old lady did not appear on +<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gillian; “but why should I stare?—and +why should you mind if I did?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jilly, Jilly,” said Lilac, “I don’t believe you +know.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-4-9"> +IX +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></a> +way she was more bound than Gillian, who could never +hope to be freer than she was now. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<div class="excerpt"> +<p class="noindent"> +“... whose daughters ye are so long as ye do well +and are not afraid with any amazement.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +and they had never been spoken. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5"> +<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a> +CHAPTER THREE.<br> +THE TORTOISESHELL CAT +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-5-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +There was a knock at the door. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Jane Bird stood on the landing. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Tanagra,” she said, her face impassive +behind her round spectacles. “<em>The Times</em> has +announced that Moloch has devoured your sister, so +I’ve come to see if you’ve been singed at all during the +sacrifice.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you going to Oxford?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor to Cambridge. They’re coming to me. Do +you know Larry Browne?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the only photograph he ever had taken that +<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a> +wasn’t a snapshot one,” said Gillian. “And why has +your Mr. Browne got it? where did he get it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said Gillian, “I think I should like to +see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come along then,” said Jane Bird; “it’s only on the +other side of the bridge.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Traum und Rauch</span> which ran in +large black Gothic capitals below its brim. He wore a +<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></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. +</p> + +<p> +“Behold,” said Jane Bird, still daring Gillian to protest, +“the youth is ruddy and withal of a fair countenance +and beautiful to look to.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Larry Browne’s studio was the usual wilderness of +easels, canvases, mahl-sticks and more or less damaged +<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was the figure of a man so slight and supple that +at a first glance he seemed little more than a child. +</p> + +<p> +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 <a id="corr-8"></a>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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a> +“Heinrich,” said Larry Browne, “you must shoo +those fowls away. We have other guests.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I go to put on coats, vaistcoats too,” he said with a +brilliant, melancholy smile, and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if William would sit with him,” said Gillian. +“It wouldn’t be the same thing as a sparrow, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be quite another subject,” said Jane. +“‘Tame cockatoo devouring wild violinist’ I should +think would be what the group would sell as.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” said Gillian, and didn’t look for fear +of seeing Jane Bird’s small annotating smile at her capitulation. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you’re doing Heinrich as Pan,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“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, +<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s an Orphic Eros, not a Cupid,” said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“By Orcus out of Aphrodite,” chanted Larry. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“What as?” said Jane Bird sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“As a changeling, of course,” said Larry Browne. +“I wonder you troubled to ask so answered a question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Jane, “it’s what I’ve always wondered, +and now you’ve told me. Well, I wish you +luck.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <a id="corr-9"></a>left +over from the studio breakfast that morning. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-5-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +The laburnum-tree in the courtyard was dropping its +amber-and-lemon florets in the sunlight, and the sparse +<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Aus meinem Leben</span>; 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And still the little cry came up, tired and pleading. +<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I don’t like you at all,” said Gillian. And +she stood up. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The cat was hungry. It lapped up two saucers full +<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Schamlos!</span>” 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a> +“I think Lady Roehampton must have said that in +fun,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear,” Old Winona conceded, “her manner +<em>was</em> a little playful. Shall we say no more about +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“We can always say we liked the black one best,” +said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Or the gilded one,” said Old Winona, who did not +intend to like the black one at all herself. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “have you come for the +night?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a> +can, every time Gillian stumbled over its soft and moving +form. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall let William see you this time,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-5-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +And Gillian had assured her mother that, so far as +<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <a id="corr-11"></a>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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this your little cat?” +</p> + +<p> +The voice was a disappointment: flat, metallic, not +coming from any depth, curiously old and lifeless for so +vital-seeming a possessor. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” said Gillian, “we aren’t allowed to keep +cats in the Club; didn’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I knew,” said the stranger, “but I thought you +might be keeping one.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have thought I was behaving very badly +to it,” Gillian retorted, “if you’ve been feeding it too.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>heard</em> it,” said Gillian. “I couldn’t see it at first. +It seems to prefer this side of the yard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the stranger. “So you live in the Club?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a> +“I do,” said Gillian, “my name is Gillian Armstrong.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you spell it with a J?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, rather new. I came in last year. I know you +quite well by sight. I see you from my window.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +The other laughed, a short dry “honk” that added +no more mirth to her steadily smiling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Gordon is a scream,” she said, “so is Mr. +Gordon. Do you like his dog?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mabel did my floor last month,” said the stranger, +“and she told me she was going to yours in time for +the wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Victoria Vanderleyden,” she said, “and +I live at Number 36. Do come up to coffee.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a> +over its shoulder, a little impatiently at Gillian, and +plainly intending to dine with her that night also. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-5-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But Miss Vanderleyden had evidently been allowed +to break that rule, for her walls were tinted lavender, +<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and look,” she said, without taking her eyes +away from the glass before her. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a> +existence in the shadowy picture, completed without +belonging to, the whole reflection. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at yourself,” laughed the mouth in the mirror, +and the mirrored eyes met Gillian’s as she gazed. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a> +used as a bed except by actresses of whom, it appeared, +Miss Vanderleyden knew all kinds. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +V.V. had produced a set of long-bristled brushes, +<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said V.V. “Sit up, I’m going to plait it over +your ears.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You look like a fairy-tale princess,” said V.V. “I +wish Dicky could see you. She’d simply love to draw +you.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +On Saturday morning a bomb fell. +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="noindent"> +“<span class="sc">Dear Miss Armstrong</span>,” wrote Mrs. Barraclough +on the die-stamped correspondence-card she always used +when reprehending members by letter: +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="sign"> +Yours faithfully,<br> +<span class="sc">Theodora Barraclough</span>,<br> +Secretary.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Gordon was panting heavily across the +landing and made as if she had not heard Miss Armstrong’s +fear. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Something must be done with the animal, and she +certainly was not going to let Crack do it. Once the +<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>Blue Cockatoo</em> and get it +prussic-acided. So there.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Half-way to the chemist’s she met Heinrich. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I go to buy a cage,” he announced with dramatic +abruptness, stopping Gillian who had not intended to +<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian explained her dilemma and the cat in the bag +grew violent. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “how horrid. I must let +him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it is somevere,” said Heinrich vaguely. “I sink +we have lost it. It was a small, old cage. Perhaps +Larrie sit on it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a> +an unprepossessing cat. Heinrich stroked it with his +dark, thin hands and lifted one corner of its drooping +mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“It lives. It jumps,” he announced. And presently, +with a twitch or two, the tortoiseshell cat was itself +again. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Heinrich, won’t it eat your canary, and frighten +your sparrows?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +And he went back, across the river, towards the +studio carrying the bad little cat in his arms. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6"> +<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a> +CHAPTER FOUR.<br> +LARRY BROWNE +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-6-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +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 +<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Zeze sparrows are my toys,” said Heinrich. “My +canary is my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what is the cat going to be?” +</p> + +<p> +Heinrich met this conversational inanity with a seriousness +it had not been framed to elicit. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ten fishes,” he announced. “Are zeze not your +own food for to-day?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mine! No! I hate sardines, especially in oil. So +does William. They belong to the cat, really.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“See, Minchoulina!” he chanted, “a fish!” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a> +human to scorn, went on licking its way over its +person with an increase of zeal. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“And zis friend,” persisted Heinrich, putting the +sardine carefully into its oil again, “is it her cat?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Charing Cross.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone to meet a friend?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, gone to go a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a funny place to walk to!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he will not walk zere. Afterwards he will +walk all day. But at Charing Cross he get a train.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you ever go with Larry for his walks?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a> +two years I am rich by my uncle’s money which is still +now in his will, until I shall be older, zen I <em>give</em> zis +studio to Larrie.” +</p> + +<p> +“And where will you live then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everywhere,” said Heinrich gravely but with decision. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can nothing be done about it?” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-6-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s softer than the mountain larch-woods with +snow behind them,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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....” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I dunno. Hand to the plough and all that. +Besides, it <em>is</em> a good idea. Why can’t you be the Eternal +Feminine you look, Gillian, and cheer the artist in +his despondent hours?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Nor half mine enemies either. What could +you do with Bird in a fresco, for instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were Augustus John——” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not yet. Let’s stay here. I like this mauve +<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a> +and green and rosy wood. Why didn’t we bring Heinrich?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” said Gillian, “but you introduced me to +Heinrich as a faun.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heinrich’s not sophisticated.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a> +Shakespeare which so fittingly presides over the Empire, +the Alhambra and Daly’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’d be all right at Taormina,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose people might swoop down on him if he +had money to give away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they would. But that isn’t what I was thinking +of.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you mean by vultures, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>Poems and Ballads</em>. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s how the vultures feel,” he said shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“But mine isn’t a devouring wish.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. I don’t suppose it would be. You’d better +leave it at that.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a> +gardener by trade and could give professional services +to the honeysuckle bush. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t we have gone ourselves?” she asked, feeling +<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a> +very young and ruthless for exposing so bent a +frame to the weather on her behalf. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You generally walks to the station, sir,” said Mrs. +Print dryly. +</p> + +<p> +She had returned from escorting Gillian to the +vehicle under her green umbrella, and was now waiting +<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a> +for Larry to pursue through his various pockets the +exact equivalent in coin of the tea they had consumed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the Honeysuckle Bush is a great place for reading-parties. +I’ve known her ever since my first year at +Trinity.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a> +but because it was better fun to be doing something. +Miss Jerusalem, she supposed, was one of these. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>The Three Mulla-Mulgars</em> +and <em>Georgian Poetry</em> 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 +<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Larry! May I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, of course,” said Larry. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Up we go to see,” said Larry, with enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Whoever—whatever!” Gillian was alarmed. “Is +it on fire?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +For Gillian was hesitating on the doorway. Her key +was not in her pocket. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m frightened, Larry.” +</p> + +<p> +“The longer you wait the more frightened you’ll be. +Is the door locked?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a> +“I forget, I’ll try.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian pushed the knob and the door fell back. +</p> + +<p> +The light came leaping and glowing from the inner +room. Someone had kindled a fire in the empty grate. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-6-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“God! What a colour scheme!” said Larry from +behind her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know it was a she,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“All tortoiseshells are,” said Larry. “That is one +of the beautiful truths which are universal.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just told you, V.V.,”—Gillian had already +noticed that V.V. often did not quite follow everything +<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a> +that was said—“I’ve explained I’ve given the cat to +Larry. It was a stray.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, was it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Where have you put supper, and is there +enough for three?” +</p> + +<p> +“In the other room. Didn’t you see as you came +through?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; we thought the book-room was on fire.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Does this vision dwell with you?” asked Larry +while V.V. disappeared to ration the boiling water. +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly, but she knows where I keep everything. +Isn’t she lovely?” +</p> + +<p> +“She looked gaudy in the firelight when we came in, +but the drawing of her face is bad. Nose wrong. +No chin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you looked as if you wanted to draw her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am going to paint her. Her colour’s exciting.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Heinrich! we might have fetched him,” said +Gillian half-way through her second macaroon. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What about that little cat?” asked V.V. “Is Heinrich +the name you’ve given him?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You suppose wrong,” said Gillian, “but no matter. +Go on telling V.V. about Heinrich.” +</p> + +<p> +“Heinrich, for the moment, follows mouse- and +sparrow-taming as a hobby. He lives by his fiddle and +with me. With, but not <em>on</em>. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How rich?” asked V.V., gleaming. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>their</em> 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——” +</p> + +<p> +Larry paused for breath. +</p> + +<p> +“What a queer little man he must be,” said V.V. +“I should like to meet him.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was almost afraid that V.V. believed it all, +but she did not like to tell her that Larry was just +<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we go and call on that funny man?” said +V.V. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Heinrich talks all the languages there are,” Larry +<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a> +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——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I expect he’s got one of his own all right,” +said V.V., “but he keeps it dark.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mein bester,” said Larry, “she’s insulting you. +Can you hear her?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Heinrich spoke in a high, quick voice, +rocking to and fro in time to the words. +</p> + +<p> +“Ich liebe dich,” said Heinrich with conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“Mich reiz’ deine schöne Gestalt. +</p> + +<p> +“Und bist du nicht willig,” he chanted, the wind +rising in the music behind his voice:— +</p> + +<p> +“Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch’ ich Gewalt.” +</p> + +<p> +“There!” cried V.V., in some alarm, “I told you so! +He’s talking some outlandish language of his own. +Does anyone understand him?” +</p> + +<p> +But Larry was rolling in his chair in a paroxysm +of joy. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Heinrich, you unmatchable treasure! Your +virtue is beyond rubies,” he shouted. “<span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">So brauch’ ich +Gewalt. Gewalt!</span> Did you hear it, Gillian?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a> +“Yes,” said Gillian, a little dazed, “and I think, in a +way, he would—he could, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Larry, for all his mocking tongue, was very proud +of this odd, gifted, incalculable friend. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall be seen coming in by one of the old cats,” +she said, “and they’ll think you’ve come in too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian, “what a horrid thought. +But they couldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“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, +<em>who was never seen to leave</em>! +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a> +“What did Mrs. Barraclough do? Did she come up +and look in your cupboard for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he?” said Larry. +</p> + +<p> +“Did who, what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Larry, “if it means keeping Countesses +out of their beds till dawn, and you’re quite +sure——” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But V.V., you were quite pleased to see Larry, and, +please, he’s not particularly mine.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was irritated a little by V.V.’s chatter. It +was very late; she herself was really tired and it seemed +<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Biddles your dog?” She asked the question +to escape from the creeping disillusionment that sickened +beneath her fatigue. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was too tired to ask whether biting dogs +were cured or endured at Epping. +</p> + +<p> +They let themselves into the courtyard stealthily +<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s my flat,” Gillian had protested, “I ought to be +putting you to bed really.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-6-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Jane had called the place her studio when she first +<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a> +took it, but since she had begun to sell her figures she +had changed the name. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not Art, it’s Commerce that I woo behind these +portals,” she explained. “Besides! Look at it!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a> +hair gathered into a bag-like net at the back of the fine, +old head. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian. “It’s Mrs. Print.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” mocked Jane Bird, “how did you +know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Larry took me to tea there last Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Pirate! Mrs. Print’s mine. Larry had no +right to share her. I’d have taken you there myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s nothing of the kind. She’s a village landlady +who knows her business, but you make every-think +into a fairy-tale.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look at her! Look what you’ve done with +her! How did you get that black-velvet net effect on +her hair?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she’d got any.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane! what magnificent people you know! Larry +and Heinrich and Mrs. Print.” +</p> + +<p> +“Magnificent isn’t the right word for either Heinrich +or Mrs. Print. Larry, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +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 id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane, who is Mr. Quist? He doesn’t look like a +workman.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds like the Great Panjandrum! Did he +speak?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much. The bare minimum. We carry on +mostly in pregnant silences. I’m good at mute eloquence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know you are. But I shouldn’t have thought two +could have been eloquent enough that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we are. He’s gone to fetch the Larrys for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was Larry Browne in his wide green corduroys, +his blue, cloudy shirt open, his straight hair a little +<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Jane. “He doesn’t. Didn’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“But he does, I’ve seen him. I’m sitting to him. +And he has proper models. And there’s Heinrich.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Gillian. “I’ve often wondered why he +got it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a> +“Golly, what a name!” said Jane rudely. “Who is +it? Another?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s one of the Club members. He saw her in my +flat on Sunday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he taken her to Mrs. Print’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. He doesn’t seem to take many people there, +really, Jane. Only me and Miss Jerusalem.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane’s high colour ebbed away and her face looked +streaked and queer between the black bosses of her +hair. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a lovely name for a little girl!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“May I see the other figure—the one on the stand?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Quist removed the second veil with a flick which +might or might not be an expression of feeling. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a> +the kind, was forced to admit that this Larry was even +more accurately portrayed than the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Jane,” she cried, “what a horrid thing! Just like +one of those painted plaster figures they put in shop-windows.” +</p> + +<p> +Jane was angry. “How can you be such a philistine! +Look at the modelling! Look at the pose! It’s a +masterpiece.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like it,” Gillian persisted. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Has he seen it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. He shall before it goes home, though.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane! you’ve not sold it?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was puzzled. She had thought Jane and +Larry were friends. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you done Heinrich yet?” she asked, more to +change the difficult subject than because she thought +this possible. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo!” Larry swung round to look at the figure. +“I say, Jane, that’s pretty cruel,” he said. “What +made you do it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s sold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane, don’t be a fool! You can’t sell my portrait.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t a portrait. You didn’t sit for it. It’s a +fantasy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a simpering horror. You’re to destroy it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It isn’t mine to destroy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I will.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Larry watched him go and gave a short laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Quist looked at Gillian over the top of his +glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“Sublimation. Sublimation,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-6-5"> +<a id="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></a> +V +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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: +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“All my wants by thee supplied,</p> + <p class="verse">All my sins by thee forgiven,”</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></a> +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 +</p> + +<div class="excerpt"> +<p class="noindent"> +“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +meant, he had given her <em>Madame Bovary</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<div class="excerpt"> +<p class="noindent"> +“Love has no taste for anything which is impure but +a responsive delight in all that is genuine.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a id="page-196" class="pagenum" title="196"></a> +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.” ... +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-6-6"> +VI +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>h</em>our or +more, and none of us can’t get anywhere near ’im to +pacify of ’im.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear,” said Gillian, “but haven’t you my duplicate +key?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gillian, “he’s evidently perfectly well. +<a id="page-198" class="pagenum" title="198"></a> +Only cross. I’m so very sorry. I’ll go straight up and +scold him.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>very</em> peculiar. A little officious. Members +should <em>never</em> borrow the duplicate key.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></a> +of his home, that William’s voice was still most +devastatingly raised. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="noindent"> +“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.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, to her surprise, Larry knocked at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve come to tell you,” he said, pushing his hair +back from his eyes as he subsided into the chesterfield, +<a id="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></a> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t like that figure myself,” Gillian conceded, +“but Jane seemed to think you deserved it.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I do.” said Larry moodily. “I’m a rotter.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s silly,” said Gillian. “It was rather rotten +of Jane, you know, as well—to sell it, I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, one thing at a time is the only way if you’re +going to do anything great.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane believes in doing things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to know what Jane believes by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Larry, are you in love with Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Not now. That’s the trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think,” said Gillian slowly, “I don’t really +suppose that I quite understand about being in love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your state is the more gracious.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></a> +“Well. It’s supposed to bring happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the devil. It has the primal, eldest curse upon +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Larry—that was murder, not love.” +</p> + +<p> +“It wasn’t. You’re a shallow, superficial child, and +you’re talking like a parrot—like that William of +yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the King in <em>Hamlet</em> had killed his brother, +that’s what his offence was rank about.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.’ <em>Enmity</em>—‘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.” +</p> + +<p> +But she was quite sure that Larry had no notion of +what he was whistling, and she didn’t tell him. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7"> +<a id="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></a> +CHAPTER FIVE.<br> +ILLUSION +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-7-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +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, <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Zur Goldenen Rose</span>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +<a id="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></a> +Larry’s state of mind was in no sense Heinrich’s fault, +but Heinrich pined and wilted terribly after his departure. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p class="addr"> +“<span class="sc">My dear Gillian</span>, +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I enclose a small cheque to cover the necessary expenses, +and remain, +</p> + +<p class="sign"> +Yours, affectionately,<br> +<span class="sc">Winona Bottomley</span>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +P.S.—The car will meet you at Lewes.” +</p> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +<a id="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></a> +“Goodness!” said Gillian when she had read this +epistle through twice, “what ever <em>can</em> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very little,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Socially, I mean,” said Old Winona. +</p> + +<p> +This was difficult, but Gillian was able to gather that +what was required of her was information about architects +<a id="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Lilac——” Gillian began, intending to point +out that Lilac, though not yet of age, could swim quite +well. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll find V.V. otherwise engaged,” said Jane +darkly. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian. “Engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +“To the unfortunate being she will call Hinerik,” +said Jane. +</p> + +<p> +“But she must be years older.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is. Ten at least. She would be.” +</p> + +<p> +“What ever made them do it?” wondered Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Hadn’t you better ask them?” said Jane. “It might +be love, you know.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-7-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +<a id="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></a> +For ze last two, tree, four, five days she does eat +nozzing.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you got married while I was away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. It is to come. Now we food on love.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Unversed though she was in the ethics of finance, +<a id="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Does V.V. want to marry you?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very much.” +</p> + +<p> +In the dark of her mind Gillian felt a jealous pang. +V.V. then had forgotten her. +</p> + +<p> +“I go now to take her to dinner, in a restaurant: +proper dinner,” said Heinrich impressively, “wiz prrawns.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you darling,” she said in a hungry whisper, +“oh, you darling.” +</p> + +<p> +“V.V.! how did you get in? Gordon locked up hours +ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian struggled out of the straining clasp and sat +up, pulling the ends of her long plaits from under the +<a id="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></a> +sheet and shaking out the crumpled bows of blue ribbon +with which they were tied. +</p> + +<p> +“V.V., how thrilling!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian, putting one arm round +V.V.’s trembling shoulder. “Are you as happy as all +that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am, you darling, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, no! You can’t expect me to be quite as +excited as you are—or as Heinrich is.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian felt uncomfortable. She had not expected +this pudicity in V.V. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” she apologized, “I thought you knew +I knew. Heinrich told me. So did Jane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that,” said V.V., “that’s Hinerik’s funeral.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it was to be your wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +“P’r’aps. Some day. But we won’t bother about +silly old weddings now I’ve got you back again.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></a> +about your life, all in bits, and I can’t ever put them +quite together in any real plan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, mine’s not been a planny life,” said V.V., +dragging the chair and cushion close to the bedside. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know you had an allowance. I thought +you worked in Bond Street.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did Heinrich find out?” +</p> + +<p> +“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, +<a id="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></a> +I was unpacking some bath-salts and she seemed to +think I could have done without them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, V.V., that’s why you’re so thin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I was always bony, even”—V.V. did not intend +to be enigmatic—“even at Ostend.” +</p> + +<p> +And then she yawned and Gillian said she was sleepy +too, and V.V. kissed her and went over to her own flat. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-7-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“V.V.,” said Gillian, “I can’t make out why your +bedroom is so different from this room.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you mayn’t sublet flats in the Club, or be away +for more than three months at a time.” +</p> + +<p> +“We haven’t sublet. We live together. But it’s +mostly her furniture. Hers and Peter’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></a> +him that. He was in the same company on tour and he +never came to our flat.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>Daily Mail</em>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></a> +the buttons didn’t quite match and the strong cotton +was missing. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></a> +occasion must be marked in some way, and choosing +the telephone as its monument. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></a> +’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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” said Gillian, “if it’s eating so little or +washing so much that makes you so thin.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never quite,” replied V.V., “I walked on once in a +play Jackie was in, <em>The Notorious Mrs. Something</em> I +think it was, or else <em>When Knights Were Bold</em>, I’m not +<a id="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a kind creature,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +V.V. changed the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Gillian, put your horrid old stockings +away and I’ll do your hands for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait one minute. I must just put one more thread +through this darn to make it tight. It’s such a beauti<em>full</em> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></a> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-7-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></a> +flower’s life which gives its odour a rhythm and makes +it rise and fall by a law we do not know. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></a> +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 +<a id="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></a> +patent forcing compound that it bloomed and withered +in a fortnight. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></a> +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 +<a id="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></a> +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 +<a id="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></a> +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, +<a id="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who ever can that be?” said V.V. +</p> + +<p> +The knock was repeated and seemed to emerge from +a background of more complicated though muffled +noises. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! <em>Come</em> in!” shouted V.V. through a yawn. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, Miss Armstrong, Mrs. Barraclough says +it’s William again, and will you go over to your own +flat and see to him.” +</p> + +<p> +William’s voice certainly could be heard in the din; +<a id="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The Countess, her window wide to the afternoon, +was, in her turn and with enormous <em>brio</em>, rendering +Chopin with all the assurance of a compatriot and all +the calculated resonance of a powerful mistress of the +instrument. Neither in <em>tempo</em>, 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 +<a id="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>not</em> think +that William is to be blamed for this.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></a> +over his cage, hardly caring if she stifled William’s +self so long as his songs were stifled too. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +V.V. came up to dinner, with a muslin-covered +basin of ice in one hand and <em>Pharaoh’s Book of +Dreams</em> in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“All the old cats on my landing have written to +complain about the new member,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall you let him? Poor old cocky.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course not. I shall <em>take</em> him away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gillian—where?” +</p> + +<p> +“To wherever I go, of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t leave the Club!” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have to.” +</p> + +<p> +“And poor V.V. too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, in any case you’ll leave when you marry, +and besides, we don’t know yet that I’ll have to go.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>is</em> the last time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what, darling,” said V.V., her eyes +very bright in the cloud of cigarette smoke she blew +<a id="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></a> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, him,” said V.V. “He’s sent me a picture post-card, +such a funny one. Look!” +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>Pharaoh’s Dream +Book</em>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You must take off all metal and one garment before +you begin,” she explained. “We used to do it +at Ostend.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You baby,” said V.V. “I should like to eat you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></a> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8"> +<a id="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></a> +CHAPTER SIX.<br> +AUNT ELIZABETH +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-8-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +“It’s high time I came home again,” said Lilac. +“<em>Look</em> at your hat.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian took off her hat and looked at it. It was +an old one she had retrimmed herself. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Your clothes are past praying for, and you say +‘Goodness’ twice a day instead of once a week. You +<em>have</em> been left to yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Your hat’s a marvel,” said Gillian, “so neat and +<a id="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></a> +yet so gaudy. It looks expensive all over even though +it’s so plain. Paris, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>no</em>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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Just like that poem in <em>Georgian Poetry</em>,” said Gillian, +“and they’ll go most wonderfully with V.V.’s +flat.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“How lovely of Toby!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Lilac, “he seemed to think I should +want to wear them because they reminded him of +you. Men <em>are</em> the queerest creatures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Poor Toby! He wanted to be able to see +them every day, and now you’ve given them to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You can wear them when Toby takes you out +to dinner, and I hope he’ll be calm about it when you +<a id="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does Toby let you make nursery jokes?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“But how could I help it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry. But she’d bought the house before I +knew and she thought you’d like one near Glynde.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gillian, “Jane’s going to have it in +her show in Grafton Street. In the middle of the +<a id="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></a> +room with the portrait figures all round. It’s very +amusing, and awfully clever too. She’s not made a +mess of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really! Lilac——” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Lilac——” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>make</em> you dress properly and look at +things in an ordinary common-sense way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac darling, I’m perfectly happy as I am. And +quite ordinary enough to keep myself out of an +asylum.” +</p> + +<p> +“For the present. But look at the lunatics you go +about with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lilac!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></a> +“Oh, that was Heinrich. He plays in the Queen’s +Hall orchestra.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“N-no. Not since she came back from Matlock.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-241" class="pagenum" title="241"></a> +“I’ll think about William, and I’ll go to see Aunt +Elizabeth on Tuesday. It’s her birthday.” +</p> + +<p> +“So it is. I’d almost forgotten. We shall be in +Ireland. I must have some flowers sent up.” +</p> + +<p> +And Lilac gathered her sable coat about her and +cast a rather wistful look round the flat. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-8-2"> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-242" class="pagenum" title="242"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But it was not of herself, nor of Larry, that Jane +delivered opinions that morning. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about Heinrich, Gillian. Do you think that +painted mannequin of yours is behaving properly to +him?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-243" class="pagenum" title="243"></a> +“V.V.? Why, yes. Why shouldn’t she?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know he doesn’t. It gets on her nerves a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. She says the cat is enough now that +it has killed the canary which she <em>did</em> like. She’s very +tender-hearted.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very <em>what</em>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tender-hearted, Jane. You don’t know V.V. as I +do, and you are not fair to her or about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +<a id="page-244" class="pagenum" title="244"></a> +It’s not worth it—it’s not good enough. Not for you. +Larry doesn’t like it either.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was angry. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could,” said Gillian, “but I’ve got to go and +buy some chrysanthemums and get up to Highgate +before it’s black dark.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-245" class="pagenum" title="245"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-246" class="pagenum" title="246"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you anything to tell me, my girl?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +It was the consecrated phrase in which, ever since +Gillian and Lilac could remember, she had made open +confession easy for them. +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Elizabeth,” said Gillian, “did love make you +unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lord,” said Mrs. Mortimer, “dealt very +graciously with me and gave me the man of my +choice.” +</p> + +<p> +“But not for a great many years, Aunt Elizabeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“He was given to me in the first moment I met +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-247" class="pagenum" title="247"></a> +The old woman was silent. Her dim eyes fixed on +the glowing embers of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“By a bodily pang,” she said at last. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was startled. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-248" class="pagenum" title="248"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-249" class="pagenum" title="249"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-250" class="pagenum" title="250"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +“And was he the Methody student?” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But did you love God because of Uncle Evan?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought he went to America,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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, +<a id="page-251" class="pagenum" title="251"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you go to Africa with Uncle Evan?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness,” said Gillian, “it gets more and more +difficult. I thought love always made people want to +live together for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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, +<a id="page-252" class="pagenum" title="252"></a> +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, <em>The +Descent from the Cross</em>, hung between the two windows, +and a coloured print of Turner’s <em>Golden Bough</em> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-253" class="pagenum" title="253"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-254" class="pagenum" title="254"></a> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aunt Elizabeth. Do you know, you’ve made me +think of the Athanasian Creed?” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay, my girl,” said Aunt Elizabeth. But she +was sunk in a dream, and Gillian was not sure that +she had heard her. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-8-3"> +III +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-255" class="pagenum" title="255"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Yesterday’s threat of fog had established itself in +<a id="page-256" class="pagenum" title="256"></a> +suffocating fulfilment when Gillian woke next morning. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s there?” she called, and was a little frightened +at the note of fear in her own voice. +</p> + +<p> +A shadow detached itself from the gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“It is I,” said a reedy voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Heinrich. What are you doing without an overcoat +in this weather?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-257" class="pagenum" title="257"></a> +“I come for V.V.,” said the thin voice sternly. “You +will please give her up to me now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I thought she must be with you,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“You know she is here,” said Heinrich. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian lit two candles and put a match to the fire +in the outer sitting-room. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“V.V. is somewhere wiz you. She is not in her flat. +She has not been zere since before yesterday. She is +wiz you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be silly, Heinrich. I haven’t seen V.V. since +Sunday. Why—what <em>have</em> you got?” +</p> + +<p> +“A pistol—wiz bullets in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness! Is it yours? Can you work it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-258" class="pagenum" title="258"></a> +“I’ve told you V.V. isn’t here. I’ve not seen her +since Sunday. What makes you think she’s here?” +</p> + +<p> +“She tell me so herself. She said to me ‘whenever +you cannot find me I shall be wiz Gillian.’” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know she is not. She tell me she is wiz you.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian was cross. It was cold and foggy and she +wanted her tea and Heinrich was being very obstinate +and trying. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <em>were</em> odd, almost squinting, +with deep, dark hollows on each side of the nose so +that they seemed to have grown nearer together. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go over to the other house and look for her,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I will look first for her in the books-room please,” +said Heinrich. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said Gillian, “we shall find her in her own +room.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-259" class="pagenum" title="259"></a> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +But Mrs. Gordon had seen nothing of V.V. for some +days. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she leave her keys with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“’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?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. and Mrs. Gordon always spoke of the tenants +as warders are said to speak of the convicts in their +charge. +</p> + +<p> +“Bin away since Chewsdy,” boomed a voice from +below, “left no key downstairs neither.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, Mrs. Gordon. I dare say that’s what +has happened,” and Gillian closed the door although +<a id="page-260" class="pagenum" title="260"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“She told me she will always be wiz you,” persisted +Heinrich in the thin, high voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-261" class="pagenum" title="261"></a> +“I shall find a letter if I go back?” asked the voice +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I think so. Anyway, go and see. And get +an overcoat and a muffler if you come out again. And +a hat, Heinrich.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>Emma</em> till the last post +came. <em>Emma</em> 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 +<a id="page-262" class="pagenum" title="262"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +So Gillian settled down in the big basket-chair with +<em>Emma</em> and <em>Songs before Sunrise</em> 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. +</p> + +<p> +But there was no letter from V.V. by the last post +and when Mabel staggered into the room, wreathed in +<a id="page-263" class="pagenum" title="263"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Maybe,” said Mabel hopefully, “she’s met with a +haxident. Lots of people is run over in these ere fogs +you know, miss.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-8-4"> +IV +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-264" class="pagenum" title="264"></a> +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 <em>Emma</em> 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 +<a id="page-265" class="pagenum" title="265"></a> +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 +<a id="page-266" class="pagenum" title="266"></a> +getting too old to do it at all,” she said and put out her +hand to take her nightgown. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There was a sudden rush of cold air into the room +as the door opened and closed quickly again shutting +V.V. in. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian clutched at her nightgown and tried to slip +it on. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +V.V. sat down in the basket-chair, throwing <em>Emma</em> +on the floor beside her with no concern for the crumpling +pages. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you missed me?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No. Not since Monday. I had a quarrel with +him on Monday. I’ve kept away from both of you on +purpose since.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Heinrich has been here in a dreadful state of +anxiety this evening,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Has he? The little fool.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-267" class="pagenum" title="267"></a> +“Oh, V.V.! He was really distressed about you. +He thought you were with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“So I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, now, but this was between five and six.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he knows I’m with you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then you have seen him.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not yet. But I’m going to.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Gillian stumbled in her heavy swathing to V.V.’s +side. +</p> + +<p> +“Look there. Did you ever see such an idiot,” said +V.V. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“V.V., what are you doing?” said Gillian, her teeth +chattering with the sudden cold. +</p> + +<p> +“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——” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-268" class="pagenum" title="268"></a> +“But, V.V.——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we are. You know we are. Well, he didn’t +like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But of course he didn’t——” +</p> + +<p> +“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——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, V.V., how could you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s true—and it’s time Master Hinerik made +up his mind to it. And I said you knew it.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was a lie, V.V.” +</p> + +<p> +“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——” +</p> + +<p> +“V.V.! V.V.!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It don’t know what you <em>mean</em>, V.V. You can’t +feel the same about me as you did about Heinrich when +you were going to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know we’re not. It’s the first I’ve ever heard +of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it won’t be the last. I’ve been down to +<a id="page-269" class="pagenum" title="269"></a> +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.?” +</p> + +<p> +It was amazing, it was sickening, but V.V. was +clearly unable to realize how what she had told was +affecting Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“V.V., what brought Heinrich up here again to-night? +How did you know he’d be there?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“You shall come too,” said Gillian. “Sit down in +the basket-chair and wait for me.” +</p> + +<p> +Trembling and sick she dressed hastily, twisting her +<a id="page-270" class="pagenum" title="270"></a> +hair up anyhow and pulling a knitted cap over it to +keep it together. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” she said, when she had found the keys of the +outside door and gate, “are you ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m cold and hungry and tired,” whimpered V.V., +“and Hinerik will only be cross.” +</p> + +<p> +But Gillian had no pity for V.V.’s weariness. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll leave it unlocked in case we can’t get in again,” +she said, pulling it to gently. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The ragged wooden gate of the studio gardens was +<a id="page-271" class="pagenum" title="271"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s gone to bed,” said V.V. “I told you so.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall come down again first thing in the morning,” +said Gillian. “I believe he’s in there all the time.” +</p> + +<p> +“With that screaming cat,” said V.V., “just like +him.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But the next morning there was a telegram from +Maggie. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-272" class="pagenum" title="272"></a> +“Please come at once. The Mistress has been taken +seriously ill.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9"> +<a id="page-273" class="pagenum" title="273"></a> +CHAPTER SEVEN.<br> +THE FOURTH MOVEMENT +</h2> + +</div> + +<h3 class="section1" id="subchap-0-9-1"> +I +</h3> + +<p class="first"> +Queen’s Hall was three-parts full of the regular Saturday +Concert audience listening to a regular Saturday +Concert. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Larry had been waiting for her the night she had +<a id="page-274" class="pagenum" title="274"></a> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“All the mud will be splashed on Larry,” said Jane, +her face one set and constant glare. “V.V. will be his +broken-hearted <em>fiancée</em> who was away at the time, and +you—you won’t come into it at all.” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-275" class="pagenum" title="275"></a> +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.... +</p> + +<p> +“He must have done it just before we got there,” +said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“Or just after you had gone away; it doesn’t much +matter now,” said Larry. +</p> + +<p> +“Larry, did you know that he minded about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I knew. I minded myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t. I didn’t dream—why didn’t you +warn me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Jane did. I spoke to Jane about it. She wouldn’t +believe me at first. She said she’d ask you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She did, but only the day before—two days before—and +besides, I didn’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“You should have understood,” said Larry. “Everybody +else did. Are you going to live with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“With V.V.? No. I never was. She talked about +it a lot. But I thought it was only talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a good deal more than talk to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you know? Did he say anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I loved him, that’s how I knew. But that, again, +is something I don’t suppose you would understand.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-276" class="pagenum" title="276"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And then Jane had come and taken Larry away. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-277" class="pagenum" title="277"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-278" class="pagenum" title="278"></a> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Out past Westminster and up Whitehall she wandered. +She did not pause in Trafalgar Square to look +with derision at dead painters’ crucifixions and <em>pietàs</em>. +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. +<a id="page-279" class="pagenum" title="279"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-280" class="pagenum" title="280"></a> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“<span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Wir sollen nicht mehr auseinander gehen</span>”—the +phrase repeated itself, <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">nicht auseinander, nicht auseinander</span> +soared the violins, and the whole orchestra +repeated it like an oath, <span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Wir sollen nicht mehr auseinander +gehen</span>. 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—<span class="italic" lang="de" xml:lang="de">Nicht mehr auseinander +gehen</span>—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 +<a id="page-281" class="pagenum" title="281"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<a id="page-282" class="pagenum" title="282"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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—— +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall I take you?” said a strange, kind voice. +</p> + +<p> +“To Euston, to meet the Irish Mail,” said Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +And then she fainted. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-9-2"> +<a id="page-283" class="pagenum" title="283"></a> +II +</h3> + +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“When we get into Norfolk Street you shall have a +whole floor to yourself,” said Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +But Gillian had refused the installation saying she +<a id="page-284" class="pagenum" title="284"></a> +would rather go back to the Club if Mrs. Barraclough +would tolerate William there after all. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gillian, from her pillows, expressed her gratitude to +Jane, and when Lilac left them alone together Jane +said more. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I haven’t got a class,” protested Gillian. +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<a id="page-285" class="pagenum" title="285"></a> +Larry’s really in it. I think I shall keep him there. +We’re married, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Goodness!” said Gillian, “has this been going on +for long?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Jane!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you till vineyards,” said Gillian. +“Where are you and Larry going to live?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you do with the rest of your time?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gillian,” said Jane firmly, “we kiss each other.” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<a id="page-286" class="pagenum" title="286"></a> +on the day when the idea of their living together in the +same flat had first been suggested. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“She says you are angry with her,” said Lilac. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-287" class="pagenum" title="287"></a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And now that road was closed. +</p> + +<p class="end"> +THE END +</p> + +<p class="datel"> +OLD GUARD HOUSE<br> +NOVEMBER, 1925 +</p> + +<div class="ads chapter"> +<div class="centerpic portrait fl"> +<img src="images/dreiser.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="aut"> +<span class="line1">THEODORE</span><br> +<span class="line2">DREISER’S</span><br> +<span class="line3">FIRST NOVEL SINCE 1915</span> +</p> + +<p class="cb book"> +An American<br> +Tragedy +</p> + +<p> +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 <em>An American Tragedy</em>. 2 vols. boxed. +</p> + +<p class="price"> +$5.00 +</p> + +<div class="centerpic portrait fr"> +<img src="images/anderson.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="aut"> +<span class="line1">SHERWOOD</span><br> +<span class="line2">ANDERSON’S</span> +</p> + +<p class="book"> +Dark<br> +Laughter +</p> + +<p class="ed"> +[ FIFTH +EDITION ] +</p> + +<p> +“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, <em>N. Y. +Herald Tribune</em>. +</p> + +<p> +“Anderson has wrought a masterpiece.”—Laurence Stallings, +<em>N. Y. World</em>. +</p> + +<p> +“There is life in Sherwood Anderson’s work; life that +bubbles and surges—life and vigor and crude poetry.”—<em>New +York Eve. Post.</em> +</p> + +<p> +“This is the chosen or Godgiven field of Sherwood Anderson—the +revelation of human minds, of our own minds.”—Edwin +Bjorkman, <em>N. Y. Sun</em>. +</p> + +<p class="price"> +$2.50 +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="trnote chapter"> +<p class="transnote"> +Transcriber’s Notes +</p> + +<p> +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> + + + +<ul> + +<li> +... of your school, as I have taken due precaution ...<br> +... of your school, as I have taken due precaution <a href="#corr-3"><span class="underline">to</span></a> ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... was no reason, in Mrs. <span class="underline">Mordaunt’s</span> self-disciplining ...<br> +... was no reason, in Mrs. <a href="#corr-7"><span class="underline">Mortimer’s</span></a> self-disciplining ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... a woodland air. The face narrowed on either side a ...<br> +... a woodland air. The face narrowed on either side <a href="#corr-8"><span class="underline">of</span></a> a ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... raven in the aviary in the maze everything that was ...<br> +... raven in the aviary in the maze everything that was <a href="#corr-9"><span class="underline">left</span></a> ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... wore a hat a minute longer than she <span class="underline">need</span>, and not ...<br> +... wore a hat a minute longer than she <a href="#corr-11"><span class="underline">needed</span></a>, and not ...<br> +</li> +</ul> +</div> + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78428 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78428-h/images/anderson.jpg b/78428-h/images/anderson.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..97898e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-h/images/anderson.jpg diff --git a/78428-h/images/cover.jpg b/78428-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f93ce8 --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78428-h/images/dreiser.jpg b/78428-h/images/dreiser.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f93701 --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-h/images/dreiser.jpg diff --git a/78428-h/images/logo.jpg b/78428-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b82a25c --- /dev/null +++ b/78428-h/images/logo.jpg |
