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diff --git a/79006-h/79006-h.htm b/79006-h/79006-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27f3063 --- /dev/null +++ b/79006-h/79006-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13738 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> +<meta charset="UTF-8"> +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> +<title>The hotel | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <!-- TITLE="The hotel" --> + <!-- AUTHOR="Elizabeth Bowen" --> + <!-- LANGUAGE="en" --> + <!-- PUBLISHER="Dial, New York" --> + <!-- DATE="1928" --> + <!-- COVER="images/cover.jpg" --> + +<style> + +body { margin-left:15%; margin-right:15%; } + +div.frontmatter .halftitle { text-indent:0; text-align:center; padding-top:4em; } +div.frontmatter h1.title { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-bottom:1em; + margin-top:0; padding-top:2em; } +div.frontmatter .aut { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-bottom:2em; } +div.frontmatter .aut .line1{ font-style:italic; } +div.frontmatter .logo { margin-bottom:2em; } +div.frontmatter .pub { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-size:0.8em; } +div.frontmatter .cop { text-indent:0; text-align:center; padding-top:4em; + font-size:0.8em; } +div.frontmatter .cop .line2{ font-variant:small-caps; } +div.frontmatter .run { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:1em; + font-size:0.8em; font-style:italic; } +div.frontmatter .printer { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:4em; + font-size:0.8em; } + + +div.chapter{ page-break-before:always; } +h2 { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:1em; } +div.chapter h2 { margin-top:0; padding-top:4em; } + +p { margin:0; text-align:justify; text-indent:1em; } +p.first { text-indent:0; } +span.firstchar { clear:left; float:left; font-size:3em; line-height:0.85em; } +span.prefirstchar { } +span.postfirstchar { } +p.noindent { text-indent:0; } +p.tb { text-indent:0; text-align:center; margin:1em; } + +/* spans */ +.lang { font-style:italic; } +.underline { text-decoration:underline; } +.hidden { display:none; } + +/* poetry */ +div.poem-container { text-align:center; } +div.poem-container div.poem { display:inline-block; } +div.stanza { text-align:left; text-indent:0; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; + font-style:italic; } +.stanza .verse { text-align:left; text-indent:-2em; margin-left:2em; } +.stanza .verse1 { text-align:left; text-indent:-2em; margin-left:3em; } + +a:link { text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10%,30%,60%); } +a:visited { text-decoration: none; color: rgb(10%,30%,60%); } +a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } +a:active { text-decoration: underline; } + +/* Transcriber's note */ +.trnote { font-size:0.8em; line-height:1.2em; background-color: #ccc; + color: #000; border: black 1px dotted; margin: 2em; padding: 1em; + page-break-before:always; margin-top:3em; } +.trnote p { text-indent:0; margin-bottom:1em; } +.trnote ul { margin-left: 0; padding-left: 0; } +.trnote li { text-align: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 1em; } +.trnote ul li { list-style-type: square; } +.trnote .transnote { text-indent:0; text-align:center; font-weight:bold; } + +/* page numbers */ +a[title].pagenum { position: absolute; right: 1%; } +a[title].pagenum:after { content: attr(title); color: gray; background-color: inherit; + letter-spacing: 0; text-indent: 0; text-align: right; font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: x-small; + border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; + display: inline; } + +div.centerpic { text-align:center; text-indent:0; display:block; } +div.centerpic.logo img { max-width:6em; } + +body.x-ebookmaker { margin-left:0; margin-right:0; } + .x-ebookmaker div.poem-container div.poem { display:block; margin-left:2em; } + .x-ebookmaker span.firstchar { float:left; } + .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 79006 ***</div> + + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="halftitle"> +THE HOTEL +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<h1 class="title"> +THE HOTEL +</h1> + +<p class="aut"> +<span class="line1">By</span><br> +<span class="line2">ELIZABETH BOWEN</span> +</p> + +<div class="centerpic logo"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" alt=""></div> + +<p class="pub"> +NEW YORK<br> +LINCOLN MAC VEAGH · THE DIAL PRESS<br> +LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY<br> +TORONTO<br> +1928 +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="cop"> +<span class="line1">Copyright, 1928, by</span><br> +<span class="line2">The Dial Press, Inc.</span> +</p> + +<p class="run"> +First issue in America<br> +April, 1928 +</p> + +<p class="printer"> +MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA +BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="frontmatter chapter"> +<p class="halftitle"> +THE HOTEL +</p> + +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-1"> +<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a> +I +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">iss</span> Fitzgerald hurried out of the Hotel +into the road. Here she stood still, looking +purposelessly up and down in the blinding +sunshine and picking at the fingers of her gloves. She +was frightened by an interior quietness and by the +thought that she had for once in her life stopped thinking +and might never begin again. Ladies under discs of +coloured shade from their parasols came walking down +the middle of the road; they deflected their course to +pass her. Their faces conveyed nothing, but now and +then they would smile, and Miss Fitzgerald would feel +her throat and chin contract as custom wrenched from +her a small, stiff bow. She stood there helplessly, as +though she were waiting for a friend. +</p> + +<p> +That Miss Fitzgerald should, after so violent an exit, +simply continue to stand there had been beyond the +calculations of Miss Pym. <em>She</em>, after a short blank pause +of astonishment up in her room, had begun to creep +down the stairs warily. She listened, she clung to the +bannisters; taut for retreat at every turn of the staircase. +The lift shaft rose direct from the lounge and the +stairs bent round and round it; she stared down for a +long time through the wire-netting case of the shaft to +assure herself that the lounge was empty. It was. There +was not a soul down there, not a movement among the +shadows; it was eleven o’clock and everybody would +<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a> +have gone out to the shops or the library, up to the hills +or down to the tennis-courts. Not a shadow crossed the +veiled glass doors of the drawing-room to interrupt the +glitter from the sea. Not a sound came up from the +smoking-room. Miss Fitzgerald was not there. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym had been quite sure she <em>would</em> not be there, +but all the same she let out a sigh of relief. Miss Fitzgerald +had gone out: having discharged with such bitterness +of finality that last shot in her locker she must have +fled. At this crisis of ungovernable agitation Emily +(how well they knew each other!) would have taken to +the hills. Miss Pym could see plainly her figure stumbling +up in the glare towards the shade of the olive-trees, +breast to breast with the increasing slope. She must be +given a little longer to get away. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym, waiting about in the lounge, glanced back +diffidently at the last few minutes and then turned +round square and faced them. She was surprised to find +herself cool, explanatory and reasonable. Her wait prolonged +itself, the minutes seemed interminable; now and +then she glanced at the lounge clock. She read the announcements +pinned to the notice board, looked along +the letter-rack and read the names on the envelopes +stuck prominently on the concierge’s desk to await new +arrivals. These long-forecast shadows forever darkening +the threshold of the Hotel excited Miss Pym; for some +new arrival that never arrived she was storing up tenderness. +She found that they were to expect (quite soon +perhaps), a clergyman, a Rev. J. D. L. Milton—<em>John?</em> +Three letters for him and something that looked like a +bill (or perhaps a receipt) had been forwarded from +an address she knew quite well, a country house in +<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a> +Derbyshire. Gratifying how one’s intimate world contracted +itself, how one’s friends wove themselves in! +Society was fascinating, like a jigsaw puzzle! +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym heard somebody beginning to come downstairs +and moved quickly back to the notice board. Those +firm steps coming down unhurriedly in a light, continuous, +increasing ripple sounded like Mrs. Kerr’s: it +was Mrs. Kerr herself who appeared at the turn of the +staircase, drawing her loose white gauntlets over her +wrists. Without troubling to look down into the lounge, +she called “Sydney ... Sydney,” as though she did +not care to question or need to command but expected +Sydney to take form somehow out of a limbo to which +forgetfulness had consigned her, and be drawn up the +stairs to where her friend stood beautifully, balanced +either for advance or immobility. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Warren isn’t here,” said Miss Pym. “She’ll +have gone on down to the courts, I daresay: she went +past me in the corridor with her racquet quite a little +time ago.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr said “Thank you,” smiled and accepted +this. She did not seem really to care whether Miss +Warren were there or not, her “Sydney, Sydney” must +have been quite perfunctory. “Well, <em>I</em> shall go down to +the courts,” she said, and came on down to take her parasol +out of the rack. She was accustomed to leave her +nice parasol leaning up in the rack there quite casually, +for anybody to borrow, instead of taking it up +to her room with her. Miss Pym watched eagerly and +Mrs. Kerr must have felt a conjunction to be inevitable, +for having made a show of hesitation between three +parasols not at all like each other, and feeling Miss Pym +<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a> +still behind her she asked charmingly, hopefully: “And +are <em>you</em> going down?” +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym never went near the tennis-courts, but a +prospect of walking down there and appearing publicly +with Mrs. Kerr was delightful (poor Emily, scrambling +alone in the hills!) She abandoned a plan she had, still +embryonic, of going alone to the shops and wondered +whether their two names—her own and Mrs. Kerr’s—might +not henceforward begin to be coupled. She had a +queer little thrill and held open the swing-door with +gratitude, almost with reverence. Mrs. Kerr with a +vague inclination of the head passed out before her. +They crossed the gravel together under the hundred +windows of the Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +When they turned out of the gates, however, Miss +Pym flinched and felt giddy. For there stood Miss Fitzgerald, +twisting her fingers together and staring straight +at them. Had she been awaiting them there, malign +and patient; had they walked into an ambush? Then +she saw how drained-out, void of intention Emily was. +She seemed hardly to see them. She might have crept +out here to bleed—but her wounded presence still was +an outrage. Miss Pym looked away. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Miss Fitzgerald!” said Mrs. Kerr pleasantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh?—Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mustn’t she be waiting for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I....” +</p> + +<p> +“You mustn’t let me be selfish,” said Mrs. Kerr. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fitzgerald, who must gradually have brought +them into focus, wheeled round nervously and hurried +away. Everything that, abroad, an English lady takes +<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a> +out with her swung from her arm and bumped as she +fled; the coloured straw satchel, the native umbrella, +the golf jersey, the net bag supplementing the satchel. +There streamed from them, to Miss Pym’s perception, +a pitiful wraith. With all these, in shining readiness +for the day’s excursion, Emily had presented herself at +her friend’s door—less than an hour ago. +</p> + +<p> +“Going all by herself?” observed Mrs. Kerr. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” agreed Miss Pym, and after a moment cautiously +licked her lips. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr balancing her parasol on her shoulder +walked on, looking ahead serenely. She did not seem to +be wondering what on earth one of them was to say next; +she did not look as though it even remotely concerned +her. There were so many things that she might have +said just now that Miss Pym could have taken up +easily, but she did not say one of them, only exposed +with indifference her profile to the sidelong, zealous +research of Miss Pym. Her profile did not commit her, +it expressed an ironic indulgence to fashion in the line +of a hatbrim, the soft undulation of hair, an earring’s +pendulous twinkle, the melting suave lines of a scarf +round the throat. Mrs. Kerr took fashion in and subdued +it and remained herself. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym with a welling-up in the depths of her, +was moved to tell Mrs. Kerr everything and did not +know where to begin. She was a timid woman but had +for a moment the sufferer’s arrogance. She hesitated, +pondered, debated with herself and again with reluctance +looked back. +</p> + +<p> +It had been what she would have to describe as a quarrel. +It had been a Moment, not a succession of moments, +<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a> +not a gradual divergence of herself and Emily from +the path of loving forbearance. It had been a flare—or +a blotting-out, how could she better describe it?—like +the horrible blackness of spilt ink, suddenly everywhere, +that makes one crinkle one’s face up. They had +seen each other crudely illuminated, and they had seen +each other as <em>vulgar</em>. She could not remember how it began, +she could not remember anything leading up to it, +just that there had been something intolerable about +Emily from the moment she came to the door.... +That is the worst of anger, that terrible clarity. They +had had, at that moment when everything tottered, worse +than a sense of destruction; they had felt the whole +force of a doubt in that moment: had there ever been +<em>anything</em> there? Isolating doubt, which, coming upon +them suddenly, had sent Miss Fitzgerald blindly downstairs +and left Miss Pym, trembling, to put away the +sketching-blocks and newly-sharpened pencils and empty +the steaming coffee from the Thermos flask into the slop-pail.... +If Miss Pym were to tell Mrs. Kerr all this +she couldn’t imagine what Mrs. Kerr would be likely +to say. +</p> + +<p> +She realized that she had not made any remark for +a long time and wondered in agony what Mrs. Kerr +must be thinking of her. A slight turn of Mrs. Kerr’s +head, the ghost of a smile, the quickened shine of an +earring made her feel all at once she <em>could</em> not tell Mrs. +Kerr: she was afraid. +</p> + +<p> +“I think many people might maintain,” began Miss +Pym laboriously, “that this was an ideal place to pass +the winter.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a> +“I’m sure it is,” said Mrs. Kerr. +</p> + +<p> +“Except, of course, those <em>Spartans</em> who enjoy the sleet +and fogs, or say they do, because they maintain that +endurance, that is, endurance practised as an act in +itself, <em>constitutes</em> enjoyment.” +</p> + +<p> +She had pulled out a fine, full stop of sarcasm, but +Mrs. Kerr seemed to ignore it and said quite seriously: +“Oh, but does anybody think that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I, I suppose they must,” said Miss Pym, flustered. +“But I do think that to the Straightforward Person +who can be frank with themselves and admit that they +do like to escape the difficulties of Life and the unpleasantness—if +they can do so without depriving themselves +of Experience or evading Responsibilities, or +hurting Other People—<em>then</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +Where was she, what had she been going to say? This +was the way that she and Emily talked all day long, +climbing the hills or sitting among those warm rocks +that fringe the Mediterranean. They drew in each +other’s ideas and gave out their own by a gentle process, +like respiration. They had pinned down the most slippery +ethical subtleties for absorbing, tireless analysis. +Everything they said to each other was so <em>true</em>. Now +this was all becoming nonsense, futile in the ears of +Mrs. Kerr. Her waves came back bewildered, broken +against something. She could not endure the ordeal of +this gracious listening. Was Mrs. Kerr like this when +Sydney Warren talked? +</p> + +<p> +She drew a desperate breath and continued, “As I say, +to the Straightforward Person—and I think, you +know, that the more one is that, the more one is bound +<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a> +to admit to oneself that one is a Hedonist, and that it +is better not to fight or to drive oneself, but to lead and +develop——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes,” said Mrs. Kerr “I think you are so right. +One’s first duty is, I’m sure, to be warm. Other people +may pose about their reasons for not coming abroad, +but you and I are much wiser.” +</p> + +<p> +The road ran straight ahead of them, parallel with +the coast and planted with two regular lines of chestnut-trees. +To the right the hills rose up with climbing villas, +to the left the town with its gardens crowded down to +the sea. As Miss Pym walked on, distressed but concentrated, +confessing herself a Hedonist, Mrs. Kerr +touched her lightly on the arm and said, “No, look; +this way. We’re missing the turn to the tennis-club!” +She kept a hand on Miss Pym’s sleeve for a moment +longer and guided her gently. Their path struck off at a +right angle between high garden walls, a funnel of sunshine +so narrow that two could not walk abreast. Miss +Pym, elated, deprecating, plunged down it ahead of +her companion, who had to pause for a moment to disentangle +her parasol from a long spray of creeper that +swung down over a wall. Miss Pym felt the heat on +her thin back as she hurried crabwise, incoherently +talking, but she did not dare to put up her parasol because +parasols are so awkward when one is nervous, and +how should she feel if she poked Mrs. Kerr in the eye? +</p> + +<p> +She approached the tennis-courts and heard the cries, +the ping of the balls, and saw the shining, darting figures +and the shaded balconies of the pavilion. Miss Pym +felt behind her a drawing-away of Mrs. Kerr and knew +<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a> +that she was now to be abandoned. Mrs. Kerr was looking +through the wire netting, her eyes went from court +to court, then turned dissatisfied to question the pavilion, +then the benches underneath the wall where players +sat in groups or couples, waiting for their courts. She +watched these benches for some time, and Miss Pym +watched her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s been so nice ...” said Mrs. Kerr. Her +voice trailed off into a valedictory murmur. It had been +so nice ... Miss Pym could never have brought herself +near the tennis-courts, she was shy of all the people, +she would never have come alone. They wore blazing, +immaculate white and bright woolly wraps huddled +round them professionally. The quality of their hard +cool stare of indifference, yet so penetrating, was enhanced +for Miss Pym by the glare of the courts, the air +charged with sunshine, the treelessness, a kind of positiveness +everywhere. She had a sense, so acute from her +own ill-health as to become intolerable, of the stored-up, +schooled, directed energy in all these fine bodies. She +turned in a panic, abruptly, upon Mrs. Kerr. “I’ll be +going back,” she said. “I——” +</p> + +<p> +The other stood still by the turnstile. Her eyes now +rested in passivity, as after a home-coming, on a face +they had discovered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be going back....” Yes, it was Miss Warren +who, over there with a scarlet handkerchief bound +round her head, had been galvanized by awareness, half +risen, and remained staring towards them over the +courts. Miss Pym spoke again, louder, but Mrs. Kerr +who was passing through the turnstile gave no sign of +<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a> +attention. Only when Miss Pym was half way up the +path in retreat did Mrs. Kerr recollect her companion +and, turning, make some vague gesture, some unheard +sound of farewell. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-2"> +<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a> +II +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>B</span><span class="postfirstchar">ut</span> they told me you had come on down!” +cried Sydney Warren. Slipping along the +wall, at the edge of the courts, she gained the +pavilion and the back upper bench where Mrs. Kerr had +seated herself. Mrs. Kerr smiled and looked leisurely +round her. From these high seats one had an excellent +view of the courts and could hardly be seen from them, +sitting far back in the shadow. At one’s feet a <a id="corr-1"></a>packed +row of spectators leant forward into the sun. +</p> + +<p> +“I waited for nearly an hour,” said Sydney. “And +Colonel Duperrier <em>swore</em> he had seen you go down. I +couldn’t make it out, but I came. If I’d ever imagined——” +</p> + +<p> +“It never occurred to me you would wait. It would +have been dreadfully silly. And anyhow, it was nice to +walk down with Colonel Duperrier.” (Sydney repudiated +Colonel Duperrier with a grimace.) “I walked +down with Miss Pym,” Mrs. Kerr said contentedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I know—I was horrified. One of the pussies!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, is she? She seemed intelligent. She was telling +me she is a Hedonist.” +</p> + +<p> +“A <em>how</em>-much?” +</p> + +<p> +“A Hedonist.” +</p> + +<p> +“How Victorian!” Sydney said crossly, and hacked +at the toe of her shoe with her racquet. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a> +“Do you think so,” said Mrs. Kerr. “I suppose,” she +confessed, “one forgets: we <em>are</em> rather old pussies.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Don’t</em> be so——” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child, I’m her age. We do date when we +talk. She had quarrelled, I think, with her friend, the +other artistic one. I came on her down in the lounge +nearly crying and the other, still nearer it, was out in +the road. You know, women’s lives <em>are</em> sensational. +Aren’t you inclined to be intolerant with us all?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney seemed surprised at this quick little gush of +humanity. She stared at her friend, who was brilliantly +earnest, then turned away gloomily. “Oh, women’s +<em>lives</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose it’s inconsistent of me,” said Mrs. +Kerr. “I’m not a Feminist but I do like being a +woman.” +</p> + +<p> +Any approach to the personal seemed to be difficult. +Sydney said airily: “Oh, of course if one’s <em>one</em> kind of +woman——” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, so are you,” said Mrs. Kerr, looking abstractedly +at her young friend. Sydney was probably twenty-two +and had a clear pallor and regular features of +which the lines were now, as too often, strained and +broken up by an expression of over-eagerness. An exaggerated +attention to what was being said or suggested +would arch up the eyebrows tragically, harden the eyes +and draw in the mouth to a line that prefigured maturity’s. +The forehead was broad and lovely and could +have been bland. The scarlet handkerchief bound round +the head accentuated her darkness and pallor, it had in +common with other details of her dress and appearance +a faint kind of nervous swagger. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a> +“You could be charming,” said Mrs. Kerr. “But I +daresay an indifference to one’s company which doesn’t +comprehend the desire to please is really the safest.—Won’t +you go and play tennis?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m waiting for people in E Court to finish,” said +Sydney and got up slowly, not quite knowing whether +to resent this as a dismissal. Mrs. Kerr, with the air +of a return to solitude, a cheerfulness faintly suggestive +of release, leant forward and signalled to someone +below who had been looking up for a long time, trying +in vain to catch her eye. “Oh yes,” she replied, “do +go and play tennis. Surely it wasn’t wise to come +away from your partner when you were expecting a +court?” +</p> + +<p> +“But what are you going to do?” asked Sydney. Mrs. +Kerr did not answer. “I mean do you want me to go?” +she began again. She did not want to leave the pavilion, +this “girl of your age” tone which was being used to +her really did give her something to resent. She did not +want to go down to the courts again; she knew that if +Mrs. Kerr sat on here, watching her meditatively, her +play would all go to pieces. +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard so much of your service. To-day I am +really going to watch it.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is one of my off days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Sydney, whenever I come you tell me it’s +one of your off days.” Mrs. Kerr laughed. “I’m unlucky.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you notice that? From the moment you come +here I never hit anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth do you mean, my dear Sydney? How +terribly sinister! It had never <em>occurred</em> to me that my +<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a> +eyes might be evil. I meant something much more prosaic—that +I happen to miss things.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney felt foolish. How like her (Mrs. Kerr would +agree) to have drawn so far-fetched, so morbid an inference. +How unlike herself to have been betrayed into +so bald an assertion. +</p> + +<p> +“Luck’s funny,” she said. “I don’t think it’s constantly +good or bad, but it’s sun-y or moon-y, if you +know what I mean, and one’s born with one kind or the +other. Mine’s moon-y—I’d better go down.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I shouldn’t have kept you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney played so badly that Colonel Duperrier was +astonished. Now and then he permitted himself a “tut-tut”—by +implication a tribute—an <span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">Et tu, Brute</span> at +which she ironically chuckled. They crossed and recrossed +one another grimly. Along the margin of her +vision, distended by nervousness, shoulders were +shrugged and disappointed onlookers strolled away. At +a net that grew ever higher Colonel Duperrier’s opponent, +Chinesely grinning, crouched and sprang incredibly. +His partner a long way behind him nonchalantly +flipped at her balls. Away at the back of the +pavilion Mrs. Kerr remained sitting; the edge of her +skirt, the tip of her parasol came out into sunlight. +From out of the black shadow that hid the rest of her, +her scrutiny like a fine wire was incessantly tugging at +Sydney’s consciousness. +</p> + +<p> +The set was over, quickly over. Colonel Duperrier’s +play had been affected by the collapse of his partner; +now, as their opponents strolled off he laughed deprecatingly; +stooping to let the balls run up on to his racquet. +He had several pleasant remarks in reserve to brush +<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a> +away Sydney’s discomfiture, but some kind of apology +from her was needed to unlock them; he did not know +how to begin. She did not apologize and his embarrassment +grew. No one could have been sorrier than he for +the poor girl, a fine player subject to this deplorable +kind of paralysis. He thanked God that he had not yet +asked her to play with him in the tournament and resolved +never to do so, yet he was filled with a special, +protective benignancy for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Terrible glare,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“There generally is.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought, particularly bad to-day....” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t notice,” she said indifferently, wondering +where to go now. Anywhere she thought, but back to the +pavilion after all this. +</p> + +<p> +“We ought to move off,” he said, rousing her, “they +want the court. Well, I vote we take those two on +again and get some of our own back. Don’t we?” +</p> + +<p> +Though he continued to admire Miss Warren he +could be no longer surprised that she was not popular in +the Hotel. There was a certain dark stare of aloofness.... +He told himself that she was curiously +dammed-up; there was certainly something <em>in</em> the girl. +Generally speaking, he preferred people who came out +easily: she was not his type. He came up abreast with +her dutifully as they walked from the court, then his +face brightened, he knew he would soon be relieved of +her as Mrs. Kerr smiled and nodded down at them +from the shade of the pavilion. “Come on up!” he said +eagerly, and Sydney was forced to precede him. +</p> + +<p> +“We-ell?” said Mrs. Kerr, as though they had been +a pair of victors. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a> +“The glare is awful,” said Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +“I expect it is,” she agreed, and made room for them +both. Colonel Duperrier cheered up, soon: in a quiet +way that diffused itself across his features and attitude +and the expression with which he watched the players +below he became very cheerful indeed. When he had +left them Mrs. Kerr asked Sydney to walk with her to +the library. “Unless,” she said, “you are going to play +again.” +</p> + +<p> +To go to the library one turned to the left instead of +the right at the top of the footpath; the same procession +of chestnut-trees arched one over with their boughs. At +this hour the road was more frequented; lunch-time +had made perceptible its earliest magnetism. Visitors +strolled gravely hotelwards, and Villa Residents +(proudly distinguished by the possession of dogs). There +was no traffic and a long-legged English child in the +middle of the road was able to read as she walked, without +menace. +</p> + +<p> +“What a nice man, that Colonel Duperrier,” said +Mrs. Kerr. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Very patient.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>That</em> seems a curious quality to attract you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyone else would have killed me this morning. I +suppose he has learnt to be patient: that wife——” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be kinder if neurotics were to be chloroformed—did +you admire my service?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child, don’t be heroic! I don’t remember it +as anything terrible. I don’t know, of course, how well +you can play.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney was silent, stung by a sudden perception that +<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a> +Mrs. Kerr did not really believe in her tennis at all. If +she did not exist for Mrs. Kerr as a tennis-player, in +this most ordinary, popular of her aspects, had she +reason to feel she existed at all? It became no longer a +question of—what did Mrs. Kerr think of her? but +rather—did Mrs. Kerr <em>ever</em> think of her? The possibility +of not being kept in mind seemed to Sydney that +moment, a kind of extinction. Mrs. Kerr had many +friends; all these demi-gods would leap up at a reference +to one of the least of them, shadowy and menacing. +Men and women of supreme distinction and beauty, +they never appeared in person, were never described and +so were never allowed to diminish. The very fact that +Mrs. Kerr never praised them, seemed in fact rather +flatly to take them for granted, was fresh reason for +self-laceration. “A delightful woman ... rather a +charming person ... I thought, an amusing man....” +These haunted Sydney, aloofly inimical, these friends +of her friend. People one did not know remained on a +different plane, inaccessible to one’s criticism. Sydney +professed herself (to friends of her own age) a Realist, +and it was perhaps because of this that her imagination +which she dealt with austerely was able to revenge itself +obliquely upon her. +</p> + +<p> +After a pause she said, “Well, you know one thing +now about my play—if it interests you. You do know +how bad it can be. I think that was the depths.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear, oh dear,” her friend said benevolently. +“—Will you kindly choose me another book?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you finish that last?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr shook her head and looked sideways at +Sydney in a way of her own. She sighed, her eyelids +<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a> +delicately and sadly fluttered—she was a lovely thing. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Sydney, in a secret ecstasy, “you are incorrigible! +Then why do you go on asking me to choose +you books?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know there must be something in them.” The way +this was said might have stamped out of being, for Sydney, +forever the friends of her friend. “I know, you see, +there <em>has</em> to be something. I want so much to be able to +read them—I hope so much that I may.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall give up choosing you books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, don’t do that ... Sydney darling. I suppose +I <em>may</em> be incorrigible. I still seem to read for +amusement.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that was just it—I was so sure that man would +amuse you. He’s got a brilliant mind like—like what +would appeal to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he has. But you see he was much too clever +for me so he only seemed to me dull. And I do still like +books to be—what shall I say?—decent. Though I +know it isn’t the thing to admit: you all have such pure +minds.... I’m sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t look a bit penitent. Tell me—has Ronald +got a very pure mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alarmingly,” said Ronald’s mother, “but he’s learnt +to respect my limitations.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, who was herself at times conscious of these +limitations—remotely, as in a dream—smiled at the +thought of Ronald, a long-limbed, intense-looking adolescent +whom she was unlikely to meet. Ronald was a +long way away, in Germany. (She had put together her +Ronald from two photographs his mother possessed; a +blurred snapshot and a shadowy portrait-study.) One +<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a> +could smile over Ronald; or imagine him as not distressing; +he was not among the demi-gods. It was amusing to +see one’s own qualities in him pilloried by tender maternal +derision. Ronald was “young.” Yet all this might +not have counted so much in his favour if it had not +seemed certain that Ronald was to remain in Germany. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to meet Ronald,” Sydney said benevolently. +“And by the way,” she added, “I must bring +back Tessa another book. Anything that’s bright and +very loving, with a certain amount of illness in it will +do her beautifully, provided she doesn’t remember having +read it before—Now you’re not to say I’m horrid +about Tessa: she’s as much amused at her own taste in +books as I am. She hasn’t got much time for novels now—she’s +reading Baudouin.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would never do,” said Mrs. Kerr, “to bring back +Mrs. Bellamy one of your depressing books.” She slipped +an arm through Sydney’s for a moment as they turned +together up a flight of cold steps to the library. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-3"> +<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a> +III +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">essa</span> Bellamy did not feel so well again +to-day and lay wishing more than ever that +she knew what was the matter with her. Several +complaints had, it is true, been suggested to her by +her doctors before leaving England and she had come +abroad with a perfectly open mind as to the possibility +of most of them. Not one, however, had proved itself +entirely satisfactory. She wanted something that would +settle down with her, simple and unexigent like an old +family servant, so that they might get to know each +other and understand each other’s little ways. She was +distressed by any suggestion of impermanence; she was +a homely woman. One had to have Something in one’s +life. She lay on a velvet sofa in her bedroom with the +head pulled round away from the window and wished +that she were a religious woman and that it were time +for lunch and that Sydney would soon come in. +</p> + +<p> +Tessa had made a special arrangement with the management +about dieting, if it should be necessary. She +paid an extra 5% to have the menu for each meal +brought up in advance; but so far she had liked the +sound of everything so much and hated so much to give +trouble that she had not asked for anything to be +changed. She was not sure now whether she should continue +the arrangement; by which, of course, one did +deprive oneself of the pleasures of curiosity and suspense. +<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a> +On the other hand, the arrival of the menu gave +one something to think about during the morning. She +wished so much that she could make up her mind about +this, turned her head among the cushions and with a +sigh refolded her hands on her bosom. In Life one +seemed always to be making decisions. +</p> + +<p> +When Sydney came in she thought that Tessa, lying +with closed eyes in the thick green dusk of the closed +jalousies, must be asleep. She stood looking down for +a moment and pretended to herself (to heighten a sense +of her real security) that Tessa was dead. She was fond +of Tessa but imagination often divorces itself from feeling; +all that occurred to her now was that in such a +contingency she would have to leave Mrs. Kerr and the +sunshine and go back to London because Tessa, whose +guest she was here, would no longer be able to pay the +bills. Later, however, she produced a real pang of distress—how +her own irritability and coldness would glare +back at her when Tessa was gone! +</p> + +<p> +Tessa put a hand up and patted her front hair, then, +opening her eyes looked up at Sydney thoughtfully, +not as one who has just been awakened. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been thinking things over—” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” exclaimed Sydney with the geniality that +endeared her to Tessa. “If it’s the menu, you know, I +should keep that up. It’s an excellent principle and I’m +sure the manager respects you for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you think so?” said Tessa and looking up +with round eyes thought how untrue it was that intellectual +people did not make pleasant companions. “But +you know I do hate——” +</p> + +<p> +“Giving trouble? But that’s what they’re paid for.... +<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a> +How are you feeling?” Sydney looked down with +solicitude. To think one felt ill, to think only of that, +to be so netted-down must be terrible.... +</p> + +<p> +Tessa, drawing in her chin upon its many duplications, +lay still and considered a moment, then began to +tell Sydney exactly how she did feel. While she was +still talking the gong sounded; she got up and patted her +hair again, this time in front of the looking-glass. +Breaking off with a sigh she began to powder her nose. +Sydney meanwhile pushed open the jalousies, if she +did not do this Tessa would quite contentedly make up +her face in the half-light and go downstairs like a nice +little clown. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney’s relations had been delighted that she should +go abroad with her cousin Tessa. It had appeared an +inspired solution of the Sydney problem. The girl +passed too many of these examinations, was on the +verge of a breakdown, and railed so bitterly at the prospect +of a year’s enforced idleness that the breakdown +seemed nearer than ever. Now an ideal winter had offered +itself: sunshine, a pleasant social round. Sydney +could be out of doors all day long; she might distinguish +herself in tennis tournaments, she might get engaged. +And Tessa was so kind; she was forty, married, motherly; +she had no nerves, she had no children. Her inside +kept her happy and interested, she would be the +ideal companion for anybody inclined to be neurotic. +She admired Sydney, whom she maintained to be cheerful +and amusing; it would be good for Sydney to be +with somebody who refused to consider her as anything +but cheerful and amusing. Sydney seemed as a rule to +be so unfortunate in her choice of friends. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a> +Sydney untied the red handkerchief and combed back +the hair from her forehead. She frowned at her own +reflection: was this what all these people really saw +when they looked at her? She was accustomed to stare +at people as from a point of vantage, forgetting she too +had a face. They had thoughts too (with these she often +forgot to credit them). Did <em>they</em> also think as they +looked at oneself? The strangeness is that a cat can look +at a king and <em>see</em> him; we kings forget so often that +cats are more than objective. +</p> + +<p> +“—a lucky girl you are,” Tessa was remarking, “to +be able to walk about like that in the sun without burning +your face.—We’re to have an asparagus omelette, +Sydney: you know, <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à l’Asperge</span>! We might come on +down, if you’re ready: they bring in the omelettes at +once and it really isn’t fair to the waiters....” +</p> + +<p> +Very few people cared as much as this about being +fair to the waiters; the others came trickling into the +dining-room gradually, by twos and threes. The table +Tessa had secured for herself was in a good position, +near the door but not too far away from a window. By +turning her head a little Sydney could feel the cool air +on her face and see, under the awning, palm-fronds +rising up from the garden below, an orange tree in +fruit and the roofs of the town behind it, vivid against +the sea. Mrs. Kerr’s table was off to the right at such an +angle from where they sat that, without being too +much observed, Sydney was able to watch it. It was +generally empty the longest of all. Behind Tessa the +double doors were spread wide in a hospitable gesture, +like the hands of a maître d’hôtel. Beyond, down the +long prospective to the foot of the stairs one could see +<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a> +visitors take form with blank faces, then compose and +poise themselves for an entrance. Those who thought +punctuality rather suburban would gaze into the unfilled +immensity of the room for a moment then vanish repelled. +Others would advance swimmingly and talk +from table to table across the emptiness, familiarly, like +a party of pioneers. Men came in without their wives +and did not always look up when these entered. Women +appearing before their husbands remained alert, gazed +into an opposite space resentfully and ate with an air of +temporizing, off the tips of their forks. When the husbands +did come in it seemed a long time before there +was something to say. It seemed odder than ever to +Sydney, eyeing these couples, that men and women +should be expected to pair off for life. +</p> + +<p> +During intervals between the courses women reft +from intimate conversation looked across at each other’s +tables yearningly. Mrs. Hillier held out by the fringe +for a friend’s admiration a beautiful crêpe-de-chine +scarf she had bought in the shops. She had chosen it for +a wedding present but it was such a lovely green that +she could not resist wearing it, just till this evening, to +take out the creases. The three pretty daughters of a +London doctor at a table in one of the windows maintained +their high level of uproariousness. They were the +first to be interrupted by Mr. Lee-Mittison, who was +going a round of the tables with an open botany case. +He showed them the roots of a very uncommon anemone, +found in the hills. The three Lawrences turned their +shining heads to wrinkle up their noses at the botany +case, but Mr. Lee-Mittison was not to be discouraged. +<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a> +He dangled one of the roots at them; his teeth and his +glasses glittered benevolently. +</p> + +<p> +“My wife and I,” he said, “hope to make another +expedition to the hills to-morrow, taking with us provisions +for a picnic. We shall be delighted for you three +young ladies to accompany us.” He rested a hand on +Veronica Lawrence’s chair and beamed down on the +top of her head. The Lawrences made round eyes at +each other and tittered unabashedly. Their father, to +show that he was in no way responsible for them, leaned +back and looked out of the window. “There is a special +invitation,” continued their friend, “for Miss Veronica, +whom I know to be an excellent walker.” He clicked the +lid of the botany case, winked respectfully at Veronica +and passed on to another table. +</p> + +<p> +The Lawrences had appropriated for general use the +principal young man of the Hotel, young Mr. Ammering; +who having been unable to find a job since the War +was said to be suffering from nervous depression in +consequence and had come out here for a rest with his +father and mother. He seemed to be one of those young +men of thirty (Public School and University education, +active, keen sportsman, good general capacities) who +advertize their willingness to try anything in the personal +column of <em>The Times</em>. Enforced inactivity must +come very hard on poor Mr. Ammering, who played +tennis all day long with a set face and went out at +nights with the Lawrences to dances at other hotels, +where he talked to his partners most beautifully about +the War. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison after a moment’s pause—not diffident, +<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a> +only embarrassed by the richness of his acquaintanceship—veered +left towards the Ammerings’ table. +But Victor as he approached took up the local paper and +began to read the visitors’ list aloud to his parents, who +listened attentively. The nearer Mr. Lee-Mittison came +the louder Victor read and the more eagerly his parents +listened. Something about the group of them, rather too +exclusively domestic, offended Mr. Lee-Mittison’s social +sense vaguely: he turned away. The Ammerings should +not see his anemones. He paused for a word with Mrs. +Hillier who shook out the fringe of her scarf at him, +seeming delighted to talk, and decided to cut out a visit +to the Mellarshes who, quite newly married, were though +not talkative still solicitously watching one another eat. +</p> + +<p> +The Honourable Mrs. Pinkerton and her sister-in-law +the Honourable Miss Pinkerton had professed to be +interested in anemones: they had an extremely fine +garden at home which Mr. and Mrs. Lee-Mittison hoped +to visit. But though the two families were on excellent +terms, in fact becoming quite intimate, Mr. Lee-Mittison +still did not like to approach the good ladies at +meal-time. They seemed somehow enclosed as they sat +there, moated about by their patent honourableness. Distinction +drew a bright line round their woolly white +heads, detaching them from the panorama of faces, +distinction flowed down with their sleek satin draperies +into dark folds. Bowing towards their placid obliviousness, +Mr. Lee-Mittison passed on. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney’s eye went over Tessa’s shoulder, fixing the +doorway; Tessa’s little smiles at her withered unnoticed. +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t Mrs. Kerr come in yet?” said Tessa at last, +<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a> +her penetration innocently revenging the death of the +smiles. “How vague she is! I’m afraid she will miss +the omelette.” +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t like omelettes,” said Sydney, looking +solemnly at Tessa with her strained dark eyes. She +could have screamed when Mr. Lee-Mittison, coming up +unheard behind her, laid a hand on the back of her +chair. Putting down the case on the table he showed +them his roots. He liked Tessa to whom he had talked +a great deal, but it was to Sydney that his invitation was +to be addressed. “My wife and I—” he began, and +glanced again at Tessa, regretfully. She was not young +enough ... “—provisions for a picnic,” he concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“When?” said Sydney abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +He flipped the air with his hand to enjoin patience. +“I was about to say: we shall be glad if you will join +us to-morrow——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thank you, I can’t. I am sorry, I have an engagement.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>O-oh!</em>” said Tessa, who thought this would have +been nice for Sydney; while Mr. Lee-Mittison stared +incredulously. +</p> + +<p> +“Tut-<em>tut</em>!” he said. “Well, think it over....” Sydney’s +strangeness bothered him; the Lawrences had +seemed so <em>glad</em>. From behind a screen that hid the +service-lift the waiters with their steaming dishes debouched +suddenly and sped like bees to distribute themselves +among the tables. Excusing himself quickly Mr. +Lee-Mittison hurried back to his own table where his +wife who rejoiced in Herbert’s popularity had sat all this +time knitting. Now she leant sideways and pulled his +chair further out for him, tucked her knitting away in +<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a> +a bag and gave him all her attention. The return was in +the nature of a home-coming; she was the kind of wife +who can always create this atmosphere. “Well?” said +she. +</p> + +<p> +Behind Tessa the doorway still framed emptiness. +The meal clattered on. Nearly everybody here was English: +the air was allowed to come in pleasantly through +the open windows under green-striped awnings and feel +its way cool-fingered from flushing face to face. Nobody +was hurried or constrained, time put out no compulsion +and the afternoon might have stretched ahead, as it +seemed to stretch, brightly blank. Over it, however, +habit had spun her web of obligations; a web infinitely +fine and fragile from which it was yet impossible to +break without outrage. Beyond the dining-room along +the expanses of the lounge people risen early from their +tables were awaiting one another, meek beneath the rule +of precedent, to fulfil a hundred small engagements. +Leisure, so linked up with ennui, had been sedulously +barred away. Each armchair, each palm and bureau had +become a trysting place where couples met to hurry off +or groups were reunited. +</p> + +<p> +Meeting with an air of effort, that made her seem +to be breasting a current, the desultory trickle of the +exodus, Miss Pym came in, very late. She was scarlet-eyed, +the last tear must have been recently wiped away. +Something wobbled in her throat, round which she +twisted and untwisted an anæmic string of turquoise +beads. She seemed constrained to look at everybody, +then to look quickly away again. Sydney, leaning her +cheek on her hand turned from the door for a minute +or two to study Miss Pym. She had never seen what she +<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a> +still called to herself a “grown-up person” so visibly +ravaged by emotion. The emotional range of her elders +seemed to Sydney narrow and stereotyped; they reacted +without variation to stimuli from without. But Miss +Pym gave an impression, somehow, of having been attacked +from <em>within</em>. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Pym looked diffidently at the waiter. She had +cut herself off from the omelette so he shrugged his +shoulders and brought her up a plate of macaroni from +the servants’ lunch. This the bruised creature pitifully +but with evidence of hunger began to devour; the traditional +British struggle with macaroni brought her +sharply down from tragedy to farce. Sydney sighed impatiently +and turned away. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr, half way across the dining-room, looked +about her in surprise. Discounting her own lateness she +seemed to wonder if the other visitors had been dispersed +miraculously. Her eyebrows said “How odd!” +but did not seem to ponder over this. She sat down and +looked out at the orange tree; then took up her Tauchnitz +and without another glance at the room began to +read. +</p> + +<p> +Tessa and Sydney had been sitting on interminably; +they had watched from rise to fall of the curtain the +whole drama of lunch. The fact was, Tessa did not think +it was wise to hurry. She turned round and round pensively +their basket of fruit, took each orange up, pinched +it and put it back again. The nicest-looking were never +the softest: another of Life’s perplexities. +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” she said at last, “that I <em>will</em> take another +orange but I won’t eat it here. I shall take it up to my +room with me and eat it there. I’m quite sure, you know, +<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a> +that oranges are <em>good</em>.... But don’t let me keep you, +Sydney, if you want to go and talk to Mrs. Kerr.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I want to go and talk to Mrs. Kerr?” +asked Sydney in an unconcerned voice that echoed +round the big, deserted, crumby orange-scented dining-room. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-4"> +<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a> +IV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> Honourable Mrs. and Miss Pinkerton occupied +two wide-balconied rooms at the end +of the first-floor corridor. Five times across +the Hotel, each on a floor, these corridors ran, dark, +thickly carpeted, panelled with bedroom doors. The +front rooms looked over the town into dazzling spaciousness, +sky and sea; the back rooms were smaller, +never so bright, and looked over the road with its +chestnut-trees into the side of the hill. Into these the +north light came slanting; no sky was visible until one +leant far out, only the scrambling olives and scared +little faces of the villas. Eyes from the villas could have +peered down into the vacant eyes of newly-awakened +sleepers. At this side of the Hotel, screened by opaque +glass from the possibility of such observation, were the +bathrooms. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. and Miss Pinkerton were of course on the sunny +side, with their balconies from which the view could be +patronized. The view was their own; they were to enjoy +the spiritual, crude and half-repellent beauty of that +changing curtain, so featureless save for the occasional +passing of a ship. They barricaded themselves in from +the assault of noonday behind <a id="corr-7"></a>impassable jalousies. No +private suite with a bathroom was available; it was +possible, they brought themselves to comprehend dimly, +that in Hotels of this type none existed. They therefore +<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a> +had had reserved, at some expense, the bathroom +opposite to their doors for their own exclusive occupation. +One says “occupation” advisedly: here in white-tiled +sanctuary their bowls of soap, their loofahs, their +scented bath-salts could remain secure from outrage; +here too their maid could do their smaller washing and +hang the garments up to dry before the radiator. There +generally were garments drying there; the two distrusted +foreign laundresses, perhaps with reason. +</p> + +<p> +Other visitors on the first floor respected this arrangement +which had a certain beauty for them, the +accretion of prestige. They bathed at the other end of +the corridor; if that bathroom was full they went up +to the second floor where people could not afford to +have baths so often. James Milton, a clergyman, was +however unaware of this, and going upstairs directly +after his arrival locked himself into Miss Pinkerton’s +bathroom. Here he hoped to remove by steaming and by +prolonged immersion the grime, ingrained in one till +one is almost polished, of a transcontinental journey. +This was the bath that he had been promising himself +for the last thirty-six hours: it had come to shine before +his numbing intelligence as in itself the journey’s +bourne. He did not notice the bath-salts but unthinkingly +made full use of the loofah, which he was surprised +and pleased to find there. +</p> + +<p> +He had arrived late, having dined on the train, and +few people were at hand to witness the arrival: a big +man talking Italian above the folds of a muffler and +making abundant, baulked gestures at the boots and +concierge. He seemed unwilling to admit how well they +could speak English. The few onlookers, by hanging +<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a> +poised in their talk for an infinitesimal second’s observation, +bore in a sense of his squalor upon him +sharply. He was aware of the glow of clean faces, +the glaze of immaculate shirt-fronts. He felt them +avert their eyes considerately. Relegated, alien, blinking +like an owl after his long dark drive in the light’s +untempered scrutiny he stood for a moment, then +fled upstairs on the way to Mrs. Pinkerton’s bathroom. +</p> + +<p> +He took in enough of his No. 19, when the chambermaid +switched the lights up, to know that it faced out +the wrong side, offered no space for his baggage and +was so furnished as to confuse thought, distract contemplation +and impede the movements of the body. The +lace-veiled window was pallid against the dark; pushing +it open a little he let in some cold air and heard +the rustle of a palm-tree. Unwinding his muffler and +throwing off his great coat he waited only to take out +his sponge-bag and dressing-gown and sweep his towels +along with him; then made off down the corridor calling +back to the chambermaid in three languages that he +was going to have a bath. He was an independent man +with a bump of locality on which he had grown with +years increasingly reliant, and he brought himself without +difficulty to the door of a hospitable-looking bathroom. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Pinkerton and her sister-in-law never sat for +more than a minute or two in the drawing-room where +other ladies foregathered. They withdrew early to their +own rooms, where they would embroider, eat little pastries +and drink coffee. No one else had ever been invited +to join them there; such an invitation was hardly +<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a> +to be expected; though the Pinkertons had consented to +be present once or twice at Mrs. Lee-Mittison’s coffee parties. +They felt, perhaps, a little lonely these evenings, +the comfortable feeling of enclosedness would fall +away when there was nobody to be enclosed against. In +the high room, among marble-topped furniture, they sat +listening with well-bred attentiveness to one another’s +breathing. Through the thin walls every foot-step, every +shutting of a door should have been audible in the velvety +silence of the corridor. Yet the ladies had this evening +no inkling of what was to occur; no premonition +seems to have troubled them. +</p> + +<p> +The Honourable Edward Pinkerton had died before +his father, Lord Parke. Though he had not been young +when he died such a frustration of life’s high purpose +for him—he was an only son—had lent him the pathos +of youth. Had his widow been less substantial and less +palpably recent he might have passed, by the references +to him, as having died before his majority. He remained +“Poor Edward,” embalmed like a dead child in the +pity and patronage of the living. He was making a +third with them, this evening as ever, his mild, be-whiskered +face, with that expression of awe on it with +which fancy is wont to invest the pictured faces of the +dead, looked out from a vast scrolled frame that over-shadowed +the silver-stoppered bottles on the dressing-table. +A similar photograph commanded the bedroom +of Rosina, his sister to the exclusion of other relationships. +Rosina sat in an armchair pulled out under the +light with her work held up to her eyes, embroidering +diligently. She and her sister-in-law had grown very +like one another, coiffured and dressed by the same +<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a> +hands, worked upon from within by similar preoccupations. +They were more closely allied to one another in +the memory of Edward than they had either of them +been to Edward himself. Somehow, up to the moment +of death, Edward had eluded both of them; it was after +death they had closed in on him relentlessly. Cherished +little animosities reinforced their ties to one another; +Rosina maintained to herself implacably that if she had +been Edward’s wife she would have borne him children; +while Louisa was enough aware of this to be a little +markedly generous to Rosina, who was not in a position +to refuse anything that might be offered. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Pinkerton sat turning over the pages of the +<em>Tatler</em> and talking to Rosina while she embroidered. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” she said, “the Wyntons’ girl is to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” remarked Rosina, snipping with her gilt scissors. +“Who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“A <em>Barre</em>, apparently.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there Barres? I never heard of any. Where +does it say he comes from?” +</p> + +<p> +“It says here,” replied her sister-in-law, looking at +the paper closely, “Hampshire.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are no Barres in Hampshire,” said Rosina +definitely. +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is another of these marriages.” They both +sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Elissa Howard,” Mrs. Pinkerton went on more +cheerfully, “with a very pleasant, cheerful letter. She +is so considerate when one is abroad, or ill. She is a +woman that I always like to hear from. She is coming +out next month, to Nice, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a> +“It will be pleasant to have Elissa within reach. +One feels very isolated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sorry, Rosina, that you don’t <em>like</em> the Hotel.... +I cannot understand how anyone can go to Nice: +they say it is a kind of French Brighton.” +</p> + +<p> +“They say the Carnival is very pretty.... But I +daresay,” Rosina unguardedly added, “that it’s more expensive +than we——” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a question—” Mrs. Pinkerton was beginning. +“<em>Come</em> in!” she cried in an exasperated voice. +Lurgan, the maid, put her long wedge of a face round +the door. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, Madam, I’m sure,” she said, +“but I put the Shetlands to air an hour ago and now +I cannot get into the bathroom....” +</p> + +<p class="tb"> +* * * +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Three or four minutes after this announcement Tessa, +thoughtfully taking her hair down with Baudouin +propped up before her, was surprised by the entrance +of Sydney, unusually animated. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Pinkerton and Rosina,” said Sydney, “cannot +get into their bathroom. They simply can’t. I’ve been +watching. Both their doors are open and they take it +in turns to come and rattle incredulously at the bathroom +door. It is really funny; I wish you would peep +out and look. That determined little rat of a maid of +theirs is being the man of the party; she heaved her +shoulder against the door just now as though she +were going to force it and Rosina cried ‘No, don’t, I +forbid you—there may be somebody there!’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh poor things!” said Tessa. “How awkward for +them. Do you think they will send for the manager?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a> +Tessa with her fluffy hair falling down round the +innocent, interrogatory O of her face looked younger, +looked really rather—there was no other word for it—sweet. +She wrapped her kimono closer round her and +followed Sydney into the dusk of their end of the corridor, +from whence they expected to watch unobserved. +But a moment later Miss Pinkerton, down at the other +end, turned in their direction a wild face of appeal. +She hesitated, then something in the essential Tessa +brought her towards them. She ignored Tessa’s <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déshabille</span>. +“Oh, Mrs. Bellamy,” she began, “I wonder +if you.... It is rather embarrassing....” +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>know</em>. I am so sorry. Have you any idea?” +</p> + +<p> +“We cannot understand,” said Miss Pinkerton. “We +<em>cannot</em> believe——” +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be deliberate,” said Tessa consolingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why don’t you ring for the manager?” asked Sydney, +anxious to precipitate a crisis. +</p> + +<p> +“I think it would be better for us, under the circumstances, +to send for Madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it may be a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“It cannot be a <em>gentleman</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Pinkerton appeared at the door of her bedroom. +She looked expressionlessly out from under an +Olympic cloud of hair and seemed immense. She said: +“My sister may have told you of our difficulty?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve <em>no</em> idea?” Tessa said again, hopefully. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Pinkerton shook her head. “One doesn’t like to +be seen standing here,” she said, and, an invitation seeming +to be implicit, they followed her back into her +room. They must have been the first in the Hotel to +cross that threshold, it was a tribute to the humanity of +<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a> +Tessa. Keeping the door a little open they listened +and heard the uninterrupted crash of water from two +taps turned full on. Sydney covertly pulled the “<em>Tatler</em>” +towards her and glanced at its pages but the stricken air +of the two ladies pervaded the room and began to oppress +her. She realized that this must be something +worse for them than not, simply, getting what they +paid for. It went deeper than that. They were stupid but +not, she felt, vulgar; all this lace and leather, monograms +everywhere and massive encrustations of silver +meant less to them, probably, than to herself to whom +wealth and position would have been conveniences to be +made use of. They were part of the immense assumption +on which the Pinkertons based their lives. The +Pinkertons imposed themselves on the world by conviction. +The damage at which they now stood aghast +was not a personal affront and they were ennobled by +the absence of personal resentment. The poor old things +had, after all, ventured out into the world along a kind +of promontory. +</p> + +<p> +Lurgan came in and stood by the door. “You would +’ave thought,” said she, “that ’e would at least ’ave +noticed Madame’s Shetlands, ’anging by the radiator.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why you should assume that it’s——” +</p> + +<p> +“’Ark!” said Lurgan putting up a hand peremptorily. +</p> + +<p> +The taps had been turned off and a fine baritone +voice rose clear at the cessation of the water. “Hail, +gladdening Light,” ... it sang; an evening hymn. +</p> + +<p> +“Singing!” said Lurgan. It was inexpressible. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a lovely hymn,” Tessa said, propitiatory. Her +<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a> +face lighted up, and she looked round at them. “I expect,” +she said, “it’s the clergyman. There was that +Mr. Milton....” +</p> + +<p> +“One would have expected greater delicacy,” said +Mrs. Pinkerton and indeed on that score Tessa did feel +Milton to be indefensible. The testimony of the radiator.... +She looked helplessly at Sydney who, overcome +at the moment by a simultaneous desire to yawn +and to laugh, suggested that they should go back to their +rooms—since there seemed nothing at all to be done—and +leave the Pinkertons and Lurgan to their vigil. +</p> + +<p> +“One could take steps ...” Mrs. Pinkerton was +saying, frozen into an attitude of reflection. +</p> + +<p> +“Or would you wait till to-morrow to do so, and just +let him finish his hymn now and come out.” +</p> + +<p> +“There are situations in life,” said Mrs. Pinkerton, +“face to face with which one is powerless.” Though she +only meant that in the struggle for life one is sorely +handicapped by the obligations of nobility, Tessa and +Sydney gathered that Mrs. Pinkerton was prostrated. +After a blank little silence intended to express the inexpressible +they murmured a solicitous “Good-night” +and slipped through the door. +</p> + +<p> +James Milton met them coming out. The asceticism +of a life time in such matters had drawn him after ten +minutes out of his bath. He had stood and steamed in +the warm air, then scrubbed himself dry and got into +his dressing-gown sooner than he had expected. The +water now receding from a rich black rim along the +sides of the bath had done its work, he felt his own +man again, clear-brained and vigorous. He looked forward +to stretching out his limbs in a bed again—cramped +<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a> +by last night in the train—when once he had unpacked +and been able to come to terms with his ridiculous room. +He hoped to sleep till the palm-trees outside were +posed in blue air and white sunshine; when on opening +his eyes a first picture should spring to them brilliantly, +vivid, as he leaned from his window, with all the vividness +of ideality. He still had a childish pleasure in +arriving at places at night, as though he had been +brought there blindfold. Humming a Gregorian chant he +clicked back the bolt sharply and came face to face +with two ladies, one in a dressing-gown, emerging simultaneously +from an opposite room. +</p> + +<p> +Tessa, horrified, fled down the corridor, they heard +her door slam. Sydney stared. She did not see why she +should retreat, as she momentarily expected Milton to +do so, and she could not help being amused at his discomfiture. +Milton looked boiled, his face, neck and ears +were bright scarlet; his fine thin hair stood erect and +his damp moustache drooped at the ends like a sea-lion’s. +He clasped his clothes and towels against him +in an ungainly bundle. +</p> + +<p> +Milton also stared; it did not occur to him to retreat +and there seemed to be nowhere to go to. He felt quite +sure he had met Sydney before. Her dark eyebrows, +square forehead and arrogant chin seemed already familiar. +On this evening of strangeness and new impressions +she was out of place, stepping out as she did from among +his own recollections. Unaware of himself he bowed +gravely, while in the doorway behind her horrified faces +appeared for the moment, then vanished again. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-5"> +<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a> +V +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> party for Mr. Lee-Mittison’s expedition was +assembling as directed in the lounge, at the +foot of the stairs. They stood in a group, eyeing +one another a little blankly. Veronica Lawrence +came downstairs, twisting her scarf round her throat +nonchalantly and pulling down her felt hat over her +eyes. Mr. Lee-Mittison clicked the lid of his watch at +her playfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, sorry!” cried Veronica. “Am I keeping you all?” +</p> + +<p> +Victor Ammering heaved himself out of an armchair +and came sauntering up, hunched and indecisive-looking, +ruffled about the head like a young thrush. He +stood tugging at the flaps of his pockets, and Mrs. Lee-Mittison +hurrying to and fro in a last ecstasy of preparation +stumbled over his feet. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison, his Panama hat in his hand, was +counting heads, making quick calculations, and checking +over the parcels of lunch on the concierge’s desk. +He called to his wife, who was advising everybody to +take some kind of an alpenstock in case of difficult +walking, “Now, are we all complete? Is there anyone +else? I believe they’ve put out one too many packets +of lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better than one too few,” observed one of the girls, +and the rest laughed politely. +</p> + +<p> +“Three-five-six-eight—No, there is no one to come, +<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a> +they have made a mistake. Now, Herbert, the girls are +all ready, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then forward—march!” cried Mr. Lee-Mittison +and the five girls followed by Mr. and Mrs. Lee-Mittison +filed through the swing-door held back by +James Milton, who brought up the rear. Glancing back +through the glass he saw Victor, whose rather marked +exclusion from the picnic-party he was at a loss to account +for, pocket the remaining parcel of sandwiches. +This was done calmly and not with the air of a sudden +resolve. Mr. Milton puzzled, alert for experience, hurried +after the others. +</p> + +<p> +They went forward at a swinging pace, well spread +out across the middle of the road. Carriages jingled +past them and a motor rushed by containing Colonel and +Mrs. Duperrier and Mrs. Kerr who were driving over +the frontier to visit some friends. They all waved and +smiled at Mr. Lee-Mittison’s party. This was a moment +of keen pleasure for the Lee-Mittisons. <em>She</em> carried a +mackintosh over her arm in contempt of the sky, a bag +of knitting in case they should sit down for long and a +basket of delicacies, dates and chocolates, with which +Herbert liked her to supplement the lunch. Under her +hard hat she shone with happiness; she refused to allow +Mr. Milton to carry the basket. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, please,” she implored “it’s <em>our</em> picnic!” and +he saw that her day would be spoilt if she were not able +to be the Martha. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison was pleased with his wife, as with +everybody, and now and then patted affectionately the +folds of her mackintosh. The departure, always a fidgety +piece of organization, had gone off magnificently +<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a> +with never a hitch, and he looked with satisfaction at +the five girls with their short skirts and neat ankles +walking in front of him. No one could have been less of +a horrid old satyr than Mr. Lee-Mittison but he loved +to surround himself with bright faces and the faces of +young women are admittedly the brightest. +</p> + +<p> +He knew himself to be a success with young people: +he could spin yarns and imitate animals by the hour, +and tell graphically of life in the East, bearing his descriptions +out with photograph albums. He found that +he need never want for young society; girls seemed to +take to him naturally. He did not care for young married +women, while widows depressed him—poor little +souls. On this occasion, the capitulation of Sydney +Warren had been a particular triumph. She walked before +him with her characteristic quick step, a little out +of time with the others; her hands pushed deep down +into the pockets of her jersey. It was true that in the +glimpse he had had of her face she had not looked merry, +and that her back now did little to correct that impression. +But if so, Mr. Lee-Mittison thought, a jolly day in +the hills would be all the better for her. +</p> + +<p> +The five girls had been all rather silent, but suddenly +Eileen Lawrence burst into song: a chant in time +with their marching: +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="verse">“‘I had a good home that I lèft—lèft—lèft</p> + <p class="verse1">Now don’t you think I was rìght—rìght—rìght</p> + <p class="verse">Me father was drunk so I packed up me trunk</p> + <p class="verse1">And I lèft—lèft—lèft—’</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oh, get into step, Sydney!” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Eileen!” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison, smiling +<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a> +with gratification at this burst of high spirits but glancing +up at the villa windows under which they were still +passing. The Lawrences were such dear girls, Herbert +loved them so, but she did hope they were not going to +be too rowdy. +</p> + +<p> +“This feels like school again,” said Eileen, “left—left—left——” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think what one would do,” observed Veronica, +“if one’s father really were drunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctors daren’t——” +</p> + +<p> +Two other girls, a pair of pale Miss Bransomes, giggled +ecstatically. +</p> + +<p> +“Specially Dad,” continued Eileen. “But as far as +I know Dad’s never killed anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh <em>Eileen</em>!” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay,” said Veronica, “that if we pretended to +everybody here that Dad did drink everybody here +would believe us. They’re a cheery crowd.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a very <em>kind</em> joke, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +pink with diffidence. +</p> + +<p> +James Milton, in whose late parish most of the people +had been elderly, looked with interest at these modern +girls. Sydney, turning round suddenly, caught him +watching them all with pleased curiosity and felt as his +eye lingered hopefully on her that he was expecting a +further contribution, still more characteristic, from herself. +She was silent sardonically, partly to disappoint +him, partly because she never felt in tune with the +Lawrences and partly because she was self-conscious +and felt stiff and clumsy at this sort of ragging. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Milton had been introduced to them all in the +lounge by Mr. Lee-Mittison, who commended him to +<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a> +their good graces with a general wave of his hand. The +Lee-Mittisons always went out of their way to be pleasant +to strangers, making efforts to draw them as soon +as possible into the social life of the Hotel centering +round Mr. Lee-Mittison. They had been predisposed in +Milton’s favour by the fact that he had come downstairs +to breakfast and ordered an egg; this seemed to them +virile. Very few people came down to breakfast, a discouraging +meal to which the Lee-Mittisons by a punctual +appearance and bright nods round tried in vain to impart +an atmosphere. Accordingly they had button-holed +Milton and told him that he positively must join their +expedition this morning, they would take no denial. Milton +looked flattered and bothered. “As jolly a set of +girls as you’ll meet anywhere,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison, +winking chastely. +</p> + +<p> +Milton was a big man of about forty-three with the +clear, ruddy-and-white complexion of a wax model +from which the moustache and expressive mouse-coloured +eyebrows sprouted unconvincingly, looking +darker than they were. He was long-limbed and strongly +built but evidently out of training, for he began to pant +and be silent sooner than any of them when they took +the steep path up the side of the hill. He had intelligent, +bright eyes creased at the corners with humour and the +assured, affable, occasionally rather inane manner of +the innately shy and diffident man who has never had +to venture outside a society where he is secure and appreciated, +and who has brought himself to believe +in spite of a deep-down protest that such a society is +the world. One felt that it should be easy to impress, +affect or discompose Mr. Milton and yet that he had +<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a> +seldom been impressed, affected or discomposed. +</p> + +<p> +The path was cobbled, it went up glaring white beyond +the edge of one’s vision, relieved only here and +there by the shadow of an olive-tree. After some time +it intersected a road that ran high up along the ends +of the hill, and the party staggered a short way along +the road and sat breathlessly down on the parapet. James +Milton and the Lawrences took out their cigarette-cases +and Milton offered his round. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh you girls, you girls!” cried Mr. Lee-Mittison. +“You do it charmingly, but how I wish that you +wouldn’t!” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney merely bent forward to the flame of a match +that Milton was sheltering for her but the Bransomes, +a pair of pale cousins, turned paler still with dismay. +They had recently arrived and had been much gratified +by an invitation to the picnic; they did not care if +they smoked or not, having only wished to resemble +as closely as possible the Lawrences and the alarming +Miss Warren. They waved the cigarettes away and shook +their heads mulishly. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison ignored their sacrifice. He was +sitting astride on the parapet facing his protégées, and +he leant forward, extending and thumping his chest. +“Look at me!” he shouted. “Sixty-four and never +smoked, never touched a drop in my life. Sixty-four, I +tell you.” He stuck out his chest still further and invited +one of the Bransomes to thump it also, but she declined. +“Regular habits, the fear of God, and water +from the spring!” +</p> + +<p> +“—Perrier when we are abroad!” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +knitting. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a> +The olives below the parapet sighed and twinkled; +between the branches the party looked down at the miniature +roofs of the town and realized how far they had +come. Little distinct shadows from branches above their +heads shivered over their figures and faces. Veronica +moved closer up to Sydney confidentially. She thought +Sydney queer, rather interesting and wondered what she +could possibly be thinking so hard about all the time. +Sydney’s remoteness intrigued the fêted Veronica. She +supposed with sincere generosity that the sort of men +who did not admire herself might find Sydney very +attractive. The absence of such a man here seemed bad +luck on Sydney. But then, on the other hand, Sydney +had curious ties. +</p> + +<p> +“I never thought he’d get <em>you</em>,” said Veronica. “You +always seem to be doing something else.” She placed a +foot of her own beside a foot of Sydney’s and noted that +while Sydney’s was the better shaped her own must be +by half a size the smaller. “You seem to be wonderfully +busy,” she said with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney glanced into the irreverent, sentimental boy’s-eyes +of Veronica. There <em>was</em> something pleasantly hard +about her; at every contact one was conscious of the +blade in her, deep down, with an edge to it. +</p> + +<p> +“Constant dripping,” she said. “For twenty-four hours +I seemed to meet no one but Mr. Lee-Mittison and every +time we met he was so <em>sure</em>.—I wonder if <em>she</em>, or the +first wife, ever wanted to marry him, or whether they +<em>had</em> to....” +</p> + +<p> +“How <em>do</em> you mean?” said Veronica with a spurt of +laughter. She never waited to grope for one’s meaning, +which instinct generally prompted one to offer her on +<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a> +the flat of the palm like a lump of sugar to a pony. “I +can’t think,” she continued, “why he’s so determined +to have you. You don’t effervesce. You’re not breathlessly +modern—on his level!—every minute like we +are. You can’t think how tired we get. That’s why Joan +struck at coming this morning. She said she felt +<em>old</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney looked along at Mr. Lee-Mittison. “<em>Ape!</em>” +said she. Mr. Lee-Mittison was trumpeting like an elephant +and writhing an imaginary trunk at the delighted +Bransomes. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t know; the old blighter rather amuses +me,” said Veronica tolerantly, and squinted down at +the tip of her cigarette. “Joan’s off colour, as a matter +of fact,” she suddenly confided. “I believe she is keen +on Victor Ammering.” +</p> + +<p> +“But isn’t he——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he’s keen on me,” said Veronica indifferently. +“But you get used to that if you’ve three sisters more +or less the same age. Between us, we generally manage +to keep people in the family.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney pondered; she had no sisters and the ethics +of the situation were beyond her. “You mean,” she said, +“it would be more trying for Joan if <em>I</em> wanted +Victor Ammering?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>I</em> don’t want him, if that’s what you mean,” +said Veronica, with the crudeness of sincerity. “Anyone +can have him, as far as I am concerned.” She dangled +an imaginary Victor airily, as though he were a marionette. +“But I can’t imagine what you and poor old Victor +would find to say to each other,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a> +“He did once try and kiss me, ages ago, at a dance,” +Sydney said, reminiscently smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I know, he told me: he said you were rather annoyed.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know I was—I hate being messed about.” +</p> + +<p> +“I said to him at the time: ‘Victor, you are the limit: +you’ve no instinct.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have thought he had heaps.” +</p> + +<p> +Veronica looked at her sideways. “By the way,” she +said, “why didn’t you go for that drive with Mrs. Kerr? +They must have had heaps of room in the car and I +should have thought——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sick of motoring,” Sydney said, and threw +her cigarette away into the olive-trees. “Besides,” she +added sombrely, “I don’t know their friends over there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t she ask you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not exactly—no. Why should she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear girl, <em>I</em> don’t know why she should!” +Veronica shrugged her shoulders. A queer girl this, +Veronica thought, well turned-out, clever presumably, +with a complexion she might have done more with and +awfully jolly feet, to sit brooding cheerlessly on a parapet +because a middle-aged woman hadn’t asked her to +go for a drive. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, come on,” she said, “Moses is getting the tribes +together.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney thought this surprisingly witty: she chuckled. +“What do you think of our Aaron?” she asked, but +Veronica did not hear. Mr. Lee-Mittison had swung +his leg back over the parapet; his wife was putting her +knitting away. They all got up rather unwillingly and +<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a> +began to climb the next path which left the road only too +soon and was steeper than ever. +</p> + +<p> +They came up at last to the brow of the hill and found +themselves at the extremity of a long ridge that stretched +ahead of them, going down sheer at each side into a +valley. From where they stood the ground dipped away +again slightly then rose in a series of undulations to a +point of rock whereupon a pale-coloured village balanced +itself improbably. A mule-track which must have made +a more gradual ascent up the side of the hill looped +itself over a ridge a little ahead of them and vanished +again. Beyond the village more hills, a disheartening +infinity, rose blade-like, without shadow, against the +vapourless and metallic brilliance of the sky. From the +grass, among the twisted shadows of olives, flame-bright +anemones spurted; Mr. Lee-Mittison precipitated himself +upon them with a cry of pleasure and triumph. A +scent of thyme stung the nostrils, reinforcing the glare +with its pungency till two of the senses reeled. +</p> + +<p> +The picnic-party had not halted, doggedness had forbidden +them even to pause, since they had left the parapet +now immeasurably far below. Veronica Lawrence, +wildly exclaiming “The Promised Land!” stumbled forward +into the thyme and lay crucified. Eileen, incapable +of more than a gesture, knelt down and stared in dismay +at the hills which now promised no bounds to the activities +of Mr. Lee-Mittison. The Bransomes, half-obliterated +by the strain of the ascent, flopped sideways +and in self-conscious abandon stood hugging an olive-tree. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney found Mr. Milton beside her; his face was +glazed and dark and in spite of his ceaseless mopping +<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a> +the sweat streamed down so that he could hardly open +his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>You</em> don’t look hot at all,” he said reproachfully +and Sydney who was enduring the burning discomfort +of those who cannot perspire said snappily: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we can’t all express ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish,” he said ruefully, pushing a handkerchief +round the inside of his collar, “that my self-expression +were not quite so fluent.” +</p> + +<p> +She pushed back her hat and put her hand up to her +forehead: it felt hot as a pebble on an August beach. +They had straggled a little nearer the village so that +the brow of the hill rose behind them, cutting away +the horizon; and the sea, when they turned to look for it, +was only visible in a triangle at the mouth of the valley +below. She felt him waiting for her to speak and reluctantly +asked “Do you like the village?” nodding ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he said, after a pause which gave the unhappy +impression that he had sealed the village with his approval. +“It’s jolly. It’s out of some background—looked +at, you know, through an arch or the slit of a +window. Look at the track leading up to it—there’s even +a donkey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, some Flight into Egypt!” said Sydney. She +gathered from the lightness of his manner in making +the allusion that he was anxious not to appear unduly +conversant with the National Gallery or the Uffizi, +and wanted to ask him “Haven’t you lectured on the +Renaissance?” But she knew how inexorably the Hotel +would refuse to let him escape from all that he was, and +had pity on his innocent holiday taste for incognito, +foredoomed from its birth on the threshold of the Hotel. +<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a> +Everybody could see at once that he had lectured and +perhaps even taken people round the National Gallery. +She looked disparagingly at the village with its toppling +campanile. +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” she said, “that it’s rather too like a cruet.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may have inspired the cruet,” he gravely amended. +“Can you tell me why it is walled?” +</p> + +<p> +She glanced suspiciously at him, but his limpid gaze +held a real curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“Against the Saracens. They used to land along this +coast and ravage the valleys; so they built the villages +as high as possible and fortified them. I pity any Saracen +that ever got into them, for they’re perfect honey-combs +and the people I think are cruel—in a leisurely +sort of way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said he with an air of pleased receptivity. “It +would be interesting to get in touch with local records.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether there are any. Do you remember +the Decameron lady who bathed in the sea near +here and was carried off by a pirate whom she liked +from the first moment better than her husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Husbands’ shares were not good in those days,” he +said tolerantly. “I ought, by the way, to re-read my Decameron.” +</p> + +<p> +She wanted to ask him whether the Decameron had +indeed been dedicated to him by a friend. “Wouldn’t +it be nice,” she said, suddenly smiling, “if the Saracens +were to appear on the sky-line, land, and ravage the +Hotel? They all take for granted—down there—that +there aren’t any more Saracens, but for all we know +they may be only in abeyance. The whole Past, for a +matter of fact, may be one enormous abeyance. But +<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a> +I wonder,” she added while a cloud of depression crept +over her, “how many of us they would really care to +take away?” +</p> + +<p> +He did not know how she wished him to answer and +risked: “It would be an embarrassing choice.” +</p> + +<p> +She sighed flatly. The dust, panic and ecstasy with +which she had filled for a moment the corridors of the +Hotel subsided. Once more she saw her fellow-visitors +as they were to remain—undesired, secure and null. +“Not many,” she said, and turning away from him +seemed to be gazing down some distant, barred-away +perspective of feminine loveliness. “Women must have +deteriorated.” +</p> + +<p> +She half expected from Milton a flutter of protest, +then noticed that she must have lost his attention, he +was thinking about something else. He flushed and +looked hard at her suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he said. “Haven’t I met you before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only last night,” said she, and grinned at the recollection +more or less overtly. Then she wondered whether +he knew that by just such a question do young men—at +dances and elsewhere—strike for the first time the +personal note. It is asked leaning forward intensely +with the implication “Your ever-remembered face!” +He could not have said this to many young women; he +said it this time too awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes, last night,” said he. “But surely before?—It +occurred to me then.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think so. Unless you are the sort of person +who remembers faces he has sat opposite to in a bus.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah well,” said James Milton. “It may have been +that!” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-6"> +<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a> +VI +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">rs.</span> Lee-Mittison sat with the packets of +lunch piled up round her like some homely +goddess. She had spread out the mackintosh, +on which she hoped she might later persuade Herbert to +arrange himself (unobtrusively, for she did not wish to +humiliate him before these dear girls who, unlike the +girls of her own generation, seemed to be able to sit on +questionably dry grass without after-effects). She sat +with her hat tilted forward to shelter her eyes from the +glare, looking down at her work but not knitting, her +whole being in a state of happy suspension, a pause as +distant from life as a trance. The sun wooed her persistently +and at last, with a gesture for her almost dionysiac, +she undid and flung open the woolly jacket buttoned +across her chest. +</p> + +<p> +Herbert had taken the girls ahead with him further +along the way to the village; she could hear his voice +upraised in a sustained and happy monologue and now +and then a thin exclamation from one of the Bransomes. +They must be picking anemones. Surprised at +herself, she sat with bliss in her little oasis of solitude. +She looked down the slope beside her into the valley below +and saw a little house, with a blue door whose colour +delighted her, beside the bed of a river. Two lemon +trees were beside it, and this little house which she +seemed at once to inhabit gave her the most strange sensation +<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a> +of dignity and of peace. She saw herself go +climbing up the garden from terrace to terrace calling the +goat, and the goat, beautiful in its possessedness come +loping down to meet her, asking to be milked. At this +she paused in perplexity for she had never milked anything +and turned cold at the thought of touching the +udders of an animal. But in a moment this was over +and she carried the milk, frothing warm in the pottery +jug, inside into the dark interior of the house which +would not be dark from within. Here something turned +her back and she could not follow herself; she saddened, +feeling excluded from some very intimate experience. +The house was lonely, and in autumn when the river +was brimming the rushing-past of the water must be +terrifying; its echo would line with sound the upright +walls of the valley. On still spring nights the thud of +a falling lemon would be enough to awaken one in +terror. +</p> + +<p> +The villino suddenly dropped away from her eye as +though she had put down a telescope and as her life +sprang back into focus she must have been dizzy, for +she felt sick at the thought of their hotel bedrooms that +stretched, only interspersed with the spare-rooms of +friends, in unbroken succession before and behind her. +She felt sick at the thought of for how many mornings +more she would have to turn the washstand into an occasional-table +by putting away the basin and jug in the +cupboard and drape with Indian embroideries the +trunk in which they concealed their boots. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lee-Mittison saw that Sydney Warren and Mr. +Milton had wandered away by themselves and that +Veronica Lawrence, apparently unattached, was strolling +<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a> +among the olive-trees a little way down the slope. +This did not seem like Veronica, and it was not like +Veronica, either, to remain so persistently unaware of +the ascending Englishman in the grey flannel coat coming +so rapidly up towards her. Mrs. Lee-Mittison with +faint misgivings thought she recognized the set of those +shoulders and leaning forward a little saw from the +shape of the head that this was indeed Victor Ammering. +She quivered; the hill was too small, there were +too many other hills for her to believe that this could +be anything but a deliberate intrusion. Herbert particularly +had not wanted Mr. Ammering. He did not +care at all for the young man, who was unintelligent, +too talkative and did not bring at all a nice atmosphere +into a party. Herbert was quite sure the girls didn’t +like Mr. Ammering either and would not wish him to +be invited; that was the most delightful aspect of modern +girls, they all liked just being jolly together. +</p> + +<p> +“Veronica,” she called sharply, “here just a minute, +my dear!” She might have been calling back a paddling +child from under the menacing curve of a breaker. +</p> + +<p> +“What for?” Veronica looked up at her in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Ammering seems to be coming up the hill. I +think he must be making some mistake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it isn’t a private hill!” said Veronica. “I suppose +he’s simply going for a walk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you think we had better tell him,” said Mrs. +Lee-Mittison, “that his friends are not up here? It +would save him the climb.” She fidgeted and swayed +slightly; she was gathering Herbert’s happiness, all his +little plans for the day, for protection under her +<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a> +feathers, and she gave such an impression of being +ruffled-out, apprehensive and angry that she did actually +make Veronica think of a hen, with head a little on one +side and blinking bright eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“How odd,” said Veronica, sitting down on the grass +still a little below her, “that Victor should have hit on +this hill. I thought he was playing tennis. However, it’s +his walk, and I suppose it’s his hill as much as ours. I +can’t see that we can do anything about it, Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +except be rude.” She took off her hat and +shook back her fluffy cropped hair. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I shall not be <em>rude</em>,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison +with a quiver in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Victor, I thought you were playing tennis!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look as if I was playing tennis?” +</p> + +<p> +“Fool!—You can’t come here, it’s somebody else’s +picnic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose I can walk about on the hill!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fool—you do look hot! Go and walk about on one +of the other hills.” +</p> + +<p> +“It does not matter to <em>us</em>, Veronica,” called down Mrs. +Lee-Mittison, “Mr. Ammering’s plans for the day are +his own, of course. I think you had better come up here, +if you don’t mind and help me put out the lunch. Then +we will call back the others.” +</p> + +<p> +Veronica pulled three pieces of bark from an olive-tree +and threw them in Victor’s face, then she turned +her back on him and came scrambling up the hill. Mrs. +Lee-Mittison produced from her bag and spread out a +printed paper table-cloth; her smile of competency usual +to these occasions was a little dimmed by a still apprehensive +consciousness of Victor’s presence below. With +<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a> +Veronica’s assistance she arranged the eatables. Veronica +piled up the oranges in the middle of the cloth +and ringed them round with Mrs. Lee-Mittison’s little +biscuits and the chocolates wrapped in scarlet and +gold. “There: the young housewife!” she cried, sitting +back on her heels complacently. Mrs. Lee-Mittison +thought of the cottage below and had once more the +queer little pang. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney and James Milton returned by the loop of +the road, which they had followed, they said, for a short +distance in order to look into the further valley. She +conveyed by the manner of her walk and by an air of +serene inattentiveness that it was nothing to her that +he should choose to accompany her; it must be his mistake; +she had nothing to offer. Looking and feeling like +her friend Mrs. Kerr she sat down and turned her face +to the view. Mr. Milton was not still so hot, but he had +been bouncing half a dozen conversational balls assiduously, +and it was in evident relaxation that he lay +down on his back on the grass like a dog and smiled +up at the sky. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, we can’t all lie down, you know, it’s dinner!” +screamed Veronica. “Who do you think’s going to drop +the hard-boiled eggs into your mouth? <em>Gerrup!</em>” At +the indescribable sound she made he sat up astonished. +He had never been spoken to like this before and it +deeply gratified him. By the time the others had assembled +he was smiling and passing the food about and +chaffing Veronica, perhaps a shade laboriously. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, I’d no idea you were a parson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t I look like a parson?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no. I’m perfectly staggered. You may be a bishop +<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a> +or anything. Was I terribly disrespectful? Well, it’s not +fair, anyway, you ought to wear <em>that</em> kind of collar.” +</p> + +<p> +“The dog-collar? Dear me, you think I ought to advertise?” +He was elated to find himself so much at +ease, so disarmingly secular. “You spotted me, didn’t +you?” He turned to Mr. Lee-Mittison, hoping to be contradicted. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear fellow, that is neither here nor there. I +have always said that there is no reason why a parson +shouldn’t be a Sportsman?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what my father says,” contributed one of the +Bransomes. “I mean that there is no reason why a clergyman +shouldn’t be a <em>man</em>. A Man of the World, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth do you mean by ‘a Man of the +World’?” asked Eileen Lawrence scornfully. She had +no patience with other people’s vocabularies. The Bransome +coloured and seceded from the conversation. She +resolved that when she had returned to England she +would cultivate a manner like the Lawrences’. +</p> + +<p> +“Speaking as a Churchwoman—” tendered Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +busy with the sandwiches. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything at all, in fact,” said Sydney, “so long as +he is nothing of the priest?” +</p> + +<p> +“God forbid!” said Mr. Lee-Mittison seriously. He +was a Protestant. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s God’s affair——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there’s Victor!” shrieked Eileen, “I say, do +look, Veronica, there’s Victor down there in the trees—look, +he’s eating an orange. Hi, <em>coo-ee</em> Victor: come up!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, we don’t want Victor up here,” Veronica said, +“he’s a bore. Oh shut up, Eileen, leave him alone with +<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a> +his beastly orange. Messing it about all over his face, too, +like a kid in a train.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think as Mr. Ammering is evidently on his own, +Eileen, we ought not to interrupt his walk.” Mrs. Lee-Mittison +had spoken with authority but Eileen took no +notice and already the foundations of the picnic shook. +Everybody stopped eating, rolled over sideways on their +elbows and looked down. The Bransomes were intensely +interested—how pathetic! “Why not ask him up?” said +Sydney. James Milton suggested “Would you like me +to go down?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think we had better not disturb Mr. Ammering’s +walk,” repeated Mrs. Lee-Mittison despairingly. They +all pointed out to her that he was already sitting down. +She looked across at Herbert, the roof of her mouth +turned cold: Herbert seemed so very much put out. She +knew so much better than he did how often Herbert +was hurt. Now all that lovely circle in which he most +completely came alive had wavered, bulged and broken. +She began a little wildly to recruit for attention. She +tugged at Violet Bransome’s sleeve, she leaned sideways +and tugged at the cousin’s; she signalled lavishly +to Veronica and to Sydney. “I think Mr. Lee-Mittison +has a story to tell you. I think he is going to tell you all +a story now—Mr. Milton,” she whispered across, “do +ask Eileen Lawrence to stay quiet. And ask Herbert +(he’s so far away from me) ask him to begin....” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison began the story, which was about +Malay. He raised his voice, drew out his words and was +emphatic. One by one the girls returned their eyes to his +face reluctantly. The more suggestible among them +took their cues from Mrs. Lee-Mittison; and echoed her +<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a> +small exclamations. Herbert’s wife with tightly-folded +hands was leaning forward eagerly. It would not have +been thought possible that she had heard this story before +were it not for the glance around with which at the +approach of any salient point she would gather up the +attention of the circle, and the dissyllabic titter with +which she anticipated the humorous passages. Once +she gripped a Bransome’s hand convulsively—“Isn’t +it exciting?” After about ten minutes of this recital +Victor Ammering appeared on the outskirts of the +circle, stepped across the botany case and sat down. “I +say” he said, “—excuse me, sir!—have any of you got +a match?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we saw the native crawling out from the darkness +of the bushes, most impenetrable darkness, into a +patch of moonlight. He had a knife between his teeth. +It was a ticklish moment. My friend Murphy whispered, +‘Don’t fire!’ We prepared—” Hanging breathlessly +on his own words, Mr. Lee-Mittison looked intensely +round at them. Their attention had again been +dissipated. Only Violet Bransome, now uniquely faithful, +echoed: “You prepared—And then——?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will wait,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison staring straight +before him, “until the young ladies over there have finished +talking.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thanks most awfully,” Victor was exclaiming, +his voice heard bleakly in the silence. Sydney, saying +“Bounder!” in a soft aside, beneath her breath, had +handed him across the matches. “And oh, look here,” +Victor added, “do go on and all that. It sounds thrilling. +I didn’t mean to interrupt.” +</p> + +<p> +“A story interrupted half way through can hardly be +<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a> +of interest. Pray don’t let us keep you from your walk.” +Mr. Lee-Mittison glared; none of the party felt comfortable. +Victor, who was not really such a bad young +man and who had been simply dominated by the most +developed of his instincts, heaved himself off the ground +and declared himself ready to depart again. “As a matter +of fact,” he said, “I simply came to say that if any +of you wanted to wash your hands and faces after eating +oranges, I’ve found a tank down there among those +gardens, quite clean, not a bit slimy and with no frogs.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have handkerchiefs, Mr. Ammering,” said Mrs. +Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<p> +“Have I got orange on my face or anything?” asked +Veronica and she turned her face up to Victor suddenly, +away from the others, so that they could only +guess by his expression what he saw there. +</p> + +<p> +“You have,” said he. “You’ve got orange right up +round your ears. And you’ve got little bits of egg and +stuff along your mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have handkerchiefs,” repeated Mrs. Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll wash,” declared Veronica, and suddenly, incredibly, +outrageously she had gripped Victor’s hand, hoisted +herself up by it, and walked away with Victor down the +hill. She left a gap across which the others looked at +one another, and which they felt unable to draw up +and fill. Mrs. Lee-Mittison wished that they would all +go away now, for a moment, she wanted to move up +closer and sit next to Herbert. There was an uncertain +silence. Then James Milton, who had been subject all +his life to a kind of idiocy of nervousness, burst out +laughing. The horrid sound which he could not contain +<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a> +appalled him; till at last to cover it he said to Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +“Youth calls to youth, doesn’t it?” She replied, +“I’m afraid I do not understand you.” They all +stared, Sydney with such contempt that her face remained +imprinted burningly upon his memory. Presently, +intending no offence but entirely forgetting that +the story was to be continued, she also got up and strolled +round the hill. She wanted to enjoy her own thoughts +which seemed all day to have been ceaselessly interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +Veronica and Victor scrambled very companionably +down towards the tank. The descent was in places almost +precipitous, they had to lower themselves from +tuft to tuft of grass. Once, coming to an empty slope they +lay and rolled down it; at another point they sat and +slid. When trees interposed they swung themselves +joyously, like young apes, from trunk to trunk. Every +now and then they reappeared into sight of those above +who, never ceasing to be aware of them, watched with +covert but passionate interest. Their indifference, their +recklessness, stirred something in the beholders, either +envy or anger. At last almost simultaneously they leapt +with a dual cry just audible to their friends into the +soft tilled earth of a peasant’s garden. The little terrace +projected like a shelf, like an apron-stage, over the +depths of the valley. Here was Victor’s tank; round +which, forgetting to wash, they soon began a most delectable +water-battle. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” cried one of the Bransomes irrepressibly, +“they’re splashing each other with water!” The rest +remained perfectly blank; Mrs. Lee-Mittison knitted. +</p> + +<p> +Veronica paused, and did her reputation the credit of +<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a> +a long enquiring guarded upward glance, which the +steepness of the ground, the long grass and the closeness +of the trees at a point combined to baffle. One’s own visibility +is impossible to calculate. Then she scooped something +out of the tank and put it down Victor’s neck. He +seized her wrist and doubled it backwards. She writhed, +and with a voluminous and graceful movement kicked +him. As in a dance he whirled her round him suddenly +and kissed her ear and her cheek. She hesitated, balanced +against him, then appearing reconciled to his +change of tactics, flung her head back and allowed him +to continue. He must have kissed her lips then for the +first time; their stillness for some moments was profound. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney’s imagination had failed her, she found herself +disappointed in her own society and was coming +back slowly to rejoin the others. To her, looking down +unawares, the couple gesticulating soundlessly below +in the sunshine appeared as in some perfect piece of +cinema-acting, emotion represented without emotion. +Then she wondered by what words now unknown to her +she might arrive at this: to be seen swinging back +against a man’s shoulder in that abandon of Veronica’s. +She wondered whether at such a moment she would be +cut off from herself, as by her other emotions. She +watched the miniature unreal Veronica toss back her +hair and walk away. At Victor she forgot to look again: +she had not thought of him. +</p> + +<p> +She descended upon the others who seemed to be +stupefied by something and to be at the same time +scrutinizing one another and avoiding each other’s +scrutiny. Then with a burst of talking they all came +<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a> +alive again and began clearing up the lunch, collecting +pieces of paper which had strayed away and sweeping +up orange-peel and egg-shells from among the grass. +Eileen Lawrence whistled, Mr. Lee-Mittison sang. He +was singing angrily a song that nobody knew. His wife +was everywhere, she thanked the girls profusely as they +heaped the debris into her basket. James Milton offered +cigarettes about spasmodically, his cheeks burned. +He kept striking matches, burning his fingers with them +and throwing the matches away again with exclamations +of unnecessary violence. He had never seen a man and +woman kiss before and was battering in a kind of despair +against the glass wall that divided him from experience. +He was thankful, with a tinge of regret, that +Sydney had not been among them; then he turned and +saw her behind him, talking to Eileen Lawrence. He +could not tell how long she had been there. Sydney was +asking, “Do you mean to <em>tell</em> Veronica?” Eileen surprised +him by saying, “Not unless she asks me—what’s +the good?” +</p> + +<p> +To the Lee-Mittisons, married, of an older generation, +it was only possible for their guests to attribute one +opinion. “Shocked!” they all assured themselves and +instinctively moved away. James Milton found himself +between two of the girls and walked with them along +the side of the hill; the others distributed themselves +ahead of him. He realized that the party had been +divided against itself transversely into generations +rather than vertically into sexes, and he was flattered to +find himself accepted in this camp. They all moved off +together talking vaguely about anemones, the village and +the view. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a> +Mr. and Mrs. Lee-Mittison remained alone. She did +not look at her husband, as she was afraid she might +look at him stupidly, sympathetically, and knew that +this would annoy him. After a pause through which her +needles clicked she said: “Well, I think it’s going off +well, don’t you? They all seem to be happy.” +</p> + +<p> +He was walking restlessly round a small circle in +which he seemed to be enclosed. His thumbs were tucked +beneath the lapels of his coat and he stared round him +critically at the expanse of day to be seen from the top +of the hill. To left and right the sky sagged down to +lower horizons. +</p> + +<p> +“Happy? I daresay. I guaranteed to keep you thoroughly +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re dear girls. They’ll be coming back soon, +won’t they?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison, still unable to +catch sight of any of his party whom the hills seemed to +have demolished. “I had suggested their going off on +their own for a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I expected you must have. The lunch was nice, +wasn’t it—the little biscuits?” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nice to be alone a little. Oh Herbert, sit down +on the mackintosh—wait, I’ll bring it over to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“The hills are a bit lonely—I don’t quite like them +going away so far.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’ll be quite all right together—English girls. +What a lovely bright day! We are always lucky in our +weather.” +</p> + +<p> +They were sitting side by side on the grass like a +young couple and for a moment she thought he might +<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a> +be going to pat her hand. She stopped knitting and +waited, then, after a glance at his profile, quietly continued. +She was saying to herself, “Oh, my dear Herbert, +my poor Herbert!” and her mind grew dark with +resentment against the others. If one might only, in +intimation of what one felt, have pressed up ever so +gently against his arm. But he had always to be considered +successful; his head, though frequently bloody, +might never be admittedly bowed. “<em>Very</em> lucky,” she repeated, +“in our weather.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Halloo!</em>” he shouted all at once, his hands like a +triton’s making a cave round his mouth. “Halloo-alloo-alloo-alloo!” +They listened and heard only an echo at +the end of a valley. He shouted again; still nobody answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m a bit disappointed in Milton,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison. +“I didn’t take him for that sort of fellow. I +don’t think I’ll ask him to come with us again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps better not,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-7"> +<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a> +VII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> lift was out of order. Mrs. Hillier, who +was in a hurry, had for some time been pushing +the third floor button unavailingly: the +lift did not even tremble. She then pushed the second +and fourth floor buttons as an experiment, but to this +also there was no response. She slid back the iron gates +again and stepped out into the lounge so suddenly and +so angrily that Miss Fitzgerald who had been watching +sympathetically was quite frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“The lift is out of order,” she said tersely. “Where +can the concierge be?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is always out at this hour. They say he has a +wife in the town.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not see why we should be prevented from going +to our rooms because the concierge happens to be married.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow, he is no good with the lift. They ought to +keep a boy who thoroughly understands it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He would have an attachment too,” said Mrs. +Hillier, who was really a cheerful and humorous person. +With renewed determination she got back into the +lift, and Miss Fitzgerald, getting in also for company, +sat down beside her on the narrow seat. This was the +most comfortable, intimate and exclusive corner of the +hotel and Miss Fitzgerald dreamily desired it. It was +the kind of place in which one could have talked. They +<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a> +pushed each button successively and even struck chords +of two or three at a time. A wire twanged somewhere +above and a chain rattled but they did not move an +inch. +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate,” said Miss Fitzgerald, “it is better than +to be taken half way up and then stuck between two of +the floors. My friend told me she once saw that happen +to some ladies at a hotel in Switzerland. They were +there for more than half an hour with their feet just +visible below the ceiling of the lounge. The hotel was +full of foreigners and it was most unpleasant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dreadful,” said the Anglo-Indian lady. She at all +events could congratulate herself on her feet. “Oh,” she +cried, peering birdlike through the bars of the gate, +“can’t some of you help us?” +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Duperrier and a Mr. Miller had risen and +were approaching politely from different corners of the +lounge. The ladies got out of the lift and the gentlemen, +getting in, assured themselves that there was really +something very wrong indeed. +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>cannot</em> see,” said Mrs. Hillier mutinously, “why I +should have to do without my scissors.” Colonel Duperrier +felt very sorry for her, she seemed to be beating her +wings. “Couldn’t I—?” he began. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, thank you.” The scissors were in her bedroom, +as they both knew. One was drawn up from here +out of ken, feet last, into the region of intimacies. +</p> + +<p> +“And I cannot see why they should expect one to walk +up. <em>I</em> shan’t,” said Mrs. Hillier flinging her gauntlet, +to applause, in the face of the Management. “I can’t see +why they should,” agreed Miss Fitzgerald while Mr. +Miller, sighing over this insoluble enigma, returned +<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a> +slowly to his patience-board. Colonel Duperrier rang +twice for the Management, then looked into the dining-room +to see whether the head waiter were there and +could be asked to do anything. At three o’clock in the +afternoon the Management and the personnel seemed to +be equally inaccessible. They were perhaps asleep, like +many of the visitors. +</p> + +<p> +Sleep, the thin uneasy sleep of daylight, had to-day +been the refuge of many, for cold rain fell ceaselessly +past the windows. It was a transparent rain without +mist, like summer rain in England, through which trees +and buildings for a great distance could be seen distinctly +in a Japanese conventionality and flatness. +Leaves and long palm-fronds shone and trickled. Curtained +in this pale gloom, the Hotel seemed permeated +by a sense of the rain’s despairing persistency, against +which the reasonable conviction of visitors that the sun, +bound by contract with the locality, was soon to appear +again put up cold walls around an inward emptiness. In +many rooms the tick of travelling-clocks, the stutter of +rain along the balconies were being listened to attentively. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hillier snuggled up her woolly wrap round her +ears, nodded to Colonel Duperrier and went back into +the drawing-room. She seemed, from the desolation, +dusk and excludedness of the lounge to return at least +into <em>something</em>. As she opened and shut the glass doors +he heard a kind of gasp of feminine conversation and +saw his wife and many other ladies sitting round in a +semicircle with firelight on their knees. There was one +open fireplace in the Hotel and it was in the drawing-room. +<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a> +She must have told them at once that the lift was +out of order, for there arose staccato indignation which +the door shut off from him. The lounge with its grouped +furniture was of an isolating vastness. A man, unrecognizable +from here, sat leaning his back against one radiator; +Mr. Miller with his patience-board had drawn up +as close as possible to another. One longed for the disorder +of firelight among the orderly shadows. One +missed one’s dog. One missed the tug of association and +habit towards one chair: there were too many, groves of +chairs through which Colonel Duperrier wandered +sadly. He could not even remember where he had been +sitting before. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fitzgerald, standing on tiptoe, peeped over the +lace blind through the glass of the drawing-room doors, +sighed and shook her head. The room presented too unbroken +a front of matronhood. She was expressing her +feelings in dumb show for the benefit of nobody in particular, +as is the habit of lonely, self-conscious women. +She observed, still to nobody in particular, “Well, I +suppose if piggy <em>won’t</em> get over the stile, I’ll have to +walk.” +</p> + +<p> +“—I beg your pardon?” asked Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, nothing,” said Miss Fitzgerald, startled, and +began her painful ascent. Her room was on the highest +floor. She disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +A girl with fair hair proved on closer inspection to be +one of the Lawrences. She was hunched over one of the +writing-tables, trying to write a letter with a Hotel pen +that screeched and staggered. She leant on her elbows, +tilting her chair up. At an impatient movement from +<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a> +her, two or three sheets of letter-paper, thinly covered, +fluttered to the ground. “Oh <em>Lord</em>!” she exclaimed and +dived after them. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me!” said Colonel Duperrier, hurrying across +the lounge. “Got it, thanks,” replied Joan Lawrence, +once more arranging the sheets round her elbow so that +the slightest movement must again disturb them. Her +writing was enormous and watching her absently he +could not help seeing “the very limit” “macaroni” and +“torn it.” He looked quickly away. +</p> + +<p> +She twirled her pen and stared at the nib resignedly. +“Pen’s the limit.” +</p> + +<p> +“It looks it. You might find a better one in the +drawing-room.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay. Thanks very much, but I’m not going into +the drawing-room.” She was being friendly and pleasant +with him: they both laughed. When she laughed, the +sunburnt copper-pink of her cheeks deepened. She was +not so difficult, after all, to distinguish from her sisters. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come,” said he, “you’ve never turned your back +on don or devil! Go in and look for a pen. They won’t +eat you.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were a kind man, <em>you</em> would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, take my Onoto.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, thanks. Nothing but grief and bitterness +comes of borrowing other people’s Onotos. <em>Do</em> go and +get me that pen! I dare you....” She drew down her +upper lip and stared at him with solemnity. Both liking +each other better than ever, they laughed again. He was +a tall brown man with long legs, a little younger than +the Lawrences’ father. His fair hair was going white +round the temples; strictly speaking it was pepper-and-salt. +<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a> +He was one of their finest tennis-players and +waltzed beautifully in the old-fashioned manner, holding +one gingerly. His wife was the limit; she was one +of the drawing-room set. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, I dare you to!” repeated Joan. He stood a +moment longer tugging his short moustache, then braced +himself, magnificently squaring his shoulders. “Oh, very +well,” said he. He hesitated in front of the lace-hung +doors, whose appearance seemed to appall him. “Funk!” +called Joan excitedly, and he pushed the doors open and +went in. She heard wave after wave of exclamations +arising. The door, which had swung to after him, did not +open again; she could no longer see his shadow on the +glass. She began to wish she had not thrown her glove +into the lion’s den. Joan had a healthy contempt for +women like Miss Fitzgerald, but she was a little daunted +by the habituées of the drawing-room who played bridge +crushingly well, were impeccably manicured and had +a hardish eye that negatived one’s importance. She sat +watching the door anxiously. After all, he <em>belonged</em> to +those people, it was possible he might not reappear. +</p> + +<p> +But Colonel Duperrier respected these ladies too +deeply to wish to remain among them. He came out +again modestly but with an air of achievement. +</p> + +<p> +“Here you are! But I don’t know that it’s really +much better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll pretend it is, anyway. Did they mind your taking +it?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said he, uncommunicative. He drew up a chair +and sat not far away from her while she scribbled experimentally +with the new pen. It gave him a restful, +anchored feeling to sit beside somebody who was doing +<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a> +something. He looked at the back of Joan’s neck, from +which the cropped hair fell away, with uncovetous appreciation. +What he believed himself to be feeling was +that it would have been jolly to have had a daughter. If +Colonel Duperrier’s wife were to die he would marry +some girl of twenty-three who would be very much in +love with him and with whom he would be very happy. +Colonel Duperrier had never thought of this, but it +was evident to women. As she continued to draw profiles +on an envelope and showed no signs of going on with her +letter he enquired, “Have you any idea how long that +lift’s been out of order? I rather wish they’d let me overhaul +the thing. Of course I don’t profess to know anything +about mechanics, but I’ve always had a bent that +way. I can’t help feeling I——” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s been getting sicker and sicker since this morning. +I think the people going upstairs after lunch must +have finished it. You see, Veronica and Victor were +playing hide-and-seek with the Barry children and some +of them got into the lift and sent it up and down full +speed about four times without stopping.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very high-spirited of them,” said Colonel Duperrier. +“<em>Can’t</em> young Ammering get a job?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he can’t,” Joan said defensively. “It worries +him awfully. The War’s come very hard indeed on our +generation. I don’t think people understand a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps they don’t,” said Colonel Duperrier, who +had also fought. +</p> + +<p> +“We have to make allowances for ourselves,” continued +Joan. “You see, nobody makes them for us. I +know young people are always supposed to be fearfully +<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a> +idealistic and that sort of thing, but I suppose <em>we</em> can’t +help feeling that considering how hard things are on +us, we aren’t really so bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“But do people criticize you all?” marvelled Colonel +Duperrier who was slightly out of the movement. “I +personally can understand very well how hard this is +on Ammering—having nothing to do but rot about here +for the winter. At his age, it would have driven me clean +off my head.” +</p> + +<p> +“We think he takes it awfully well,” said Joan, a +little flushed. “Of course we all like him very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucky fellow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh well.... Of course, for anyone like you to be +out here must be awfully jolly. Everyone approves, and +your work’s over and nobody wants you to do anything +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I shan’t be wanted again,” agreed Colonel Duperrier +thoughtfully. “It’s a good thing I’m fond of +tennis. I suppose that’s why one feels strongly about +young fellows like Ammering; I mean, seeing them +done out of what really is their due.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose Victor would mind being you. I +shouldn’t wonder if he sometimes suffered from the +same awful feeling as I do, like being sleepy in the +morning and wishing it were bedtime. About lunch-time +one begins to buck up.” Joan rubbed her chin thoughtfully +with the end of her pen. She was more imaginative +than either of her sisters. “<em>You’re</em> just about at +tea-time, aren’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I am,” agreed Colonel Duperrier. “Five +o’clock tea.” He thought to himself that it was the kind +<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a> +of tea women sat over till it was time for dinner. At +this he began to yawn cavernously, shivered and apologized. +</p> + +<p> +“One does miss one’s tea out here,” said Joan. “The +tea-gardens are so breaking; we can’t afford to go there, +and the patisserie place is stuffy and full of Italians and +one does get sick of pigging it up in one’s room with a +spirit-lamp.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m too shy to go to the tea-gardens,” said Colonel +Duperrier, “but I should like to. I hear the tea there is +quite decent. Will you, sometime, come and have tea +with me there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks very much, I should like to,” said Joan, in +the business-like tone in which she accepted invitations +from the opposite sex. She wanted to go on talking about +Victor to somebody who did not at once suspect and +smile. So she said, “It must be very nice for you, having +no future to think of.” A moment ago she had seemed +to understand so well that he almost believed she had +said this to hurt him. “No <em>future</em>?” he repeated and +looked at her blankly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Joan, “you haven’t got to do anything +that matters. You’ve got nobody but yourself to please +and, of course, your wife. While a young man, like—well, +oh anyone—say Victor Ammering, has got the +whole beastly thing ahead of him. I suppose it won’t all +be beastly, I mean, he’ll fall in love and I suppose, +marry, and sooner or later his father’ll die and then +he’ll have some money of his own, but in the long run +it’s all rather an effort.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not ambitious?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” said Joan placidly, “he isn’t a bit that kind +<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a> +of man. Besides, what’s the good of being ambitious, +there may be another war. And even if there isn’t, disappointed +people are dreadful to live with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why are you so cynical?” asked Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +“But I’m not,” said Joan, and smiled at him with +troubled but naïve blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke three people in mackintoshes, two women +and a man, came rustling and dripping from the porch. +Their collars were turned up and over these they looked +repudiatingly at one another. They had not been for +their walks together, and they did not wish anybody to +think that they had. They had followed one another for +some kilometres along a streaming road, to close up unavoidably +on the Hotel doorstep. Among them was +James Milton, wondering why he had ever come abroad, +cold, weary, amazed by the weather. Dripping audibly +they all got into the lift and slammed the gates upon +their undesired contiguity. Here they remained for +some moments shut up in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it’s out of order,” shouted Colonel Duperrier +at the risk of appearing officious. Joan had +looked on with detachment. +</p> + +<p> +James Milton, only too glad to escape, let himself +out at once and walked upstairs, after a wistful, enquiring +glance in Joan’s direction. Numbed beyond the +point of geniality, not one of his fellow-visitors had +spoken to him during the day; he realized that this +was the third Lawrence whom he did not know and +that she was not going to speak to him either. Joan +watched him critically till he had disappeared round +the turn of the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a> +“That’s the parson,” said she. “He went with them +yesterday with the Lee-Mittisons’ picnic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, the Lee-Mittisons’ picnic. We saw them start +off. Wasn’t it rather a fiasco?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was. After lunch they were bored, so they all +went off on their own, and Veronica met Victor and +they went off too. When they came back, quite a short +time afterwards, the Lee-Mittisons had flitted—there +wasn’t so much as an egg-shell. So they all halloed for +a bit, and some of them lay down and went to sleep. +Veronica and Victor came home on their own, and the +others got tired of calling the Lee-Mittisons and came +home too, thinking nothing more of it. Eileen likes the +parson, so does Sydney; they say he is rather an ass but +wonderfully sporting. They expected to find the L.-M.’s +at home, but the L.-M.’s didn’t turn up till half way +through dinner, looking fearfully sick. Old L.-M. came +over to father between the soup and the fish, simply +snorting. He said to father, ‘I suppose you realize +what your daughter has been exposed to?’ We think old +L.-M. is quite mad. I was awfully glad I hadn’t gone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think you were,” said Colonel Duperrier +absently. He wanted to ask her—“Couldn’t we go off +some day for a walk in the hills?” He tried this over +and over in his head but it didn’t sound right somehow. +He supposed that the suggestion must be unsuitable: +and that at all events she would be bored with him. As +if to settle the matter once and for all, Joan said, with +an unhappy note in her voice as she thought of the +meeting of Veronica and Victor, “And anyway, I’m not +much of a walker. I don’t care for walking at all.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-8"> +<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a> +VIII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">A</span><span class="postfirstchar">fter</span> Colonel Duperrier had left the drawing-room +the ladies round the fire folded back their +skirts over their knees again to keep the stuff +from scorching, drew their chairs in closer and resumed +their discussion of Mrs. Kerr. Their backs were turned +in a kind of contempt to the tall windows through +which cold light from the sky and the sea poured in on +them gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot think,” said one, “what a woman of that +sort finds to do with herself.” She spoke with emphasis, +this remark had been throughout a recurring-point in +the conversation. “She has no interests. She hasn’t a +large correspondence, she does nothing at all for herself. +I personally find the day so very full here, it seems only +too short.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t say <em>too</em> short. But as days abroad go, one +seems to get through them quickly enough.” To this +there was a hum of agreement. +</p> + +<p> +“She sits on her balcony in the sun,” said Mrs. +Hillier, “a thing which I for one should never have +time to do. I suppose one has too much conscience. If +I ever do go out on my balcony for a minute and look +along, there she always is, and if I call out in a friendly +way ‘Whatever are you doing?’ she says ‘Nothing’ and +looks amused and rather superior.” +</p> + +<p> +“She doesn’t sketch, or one would understand her +<a id="page-86" class="pagenum" title="86"></a> +staring like that at the view. Of course, it is very beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“She may think,” said another of the ladies, looking +up from some <em>broderie anglaise</em> over which she had been +straining her eyes. She was of some prestige, her speech +was slow and weighted down with implications. “She +must think a good deal,” she decided; “nobody who was +not thinking could do absolutely nothing all day and +look so very superior about it, like a cat.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean that she has something on her mind?” +</p> + +<p> +The lady of the embroidery rubbed her sore eyes with +two fingers, revolving this slowly. She opened her eyes +again tentatively, blinked once or twice and shut them +again. “The light is very poor,” she said aggrievedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very. Won’t you take my place, Mrs. Hepworth, it +is nearer the window.—You mean to say that she has +something on her mind?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank you very much, I do not care to move +from this side of the fire.—I should rather say that she +had something <em>in</em> her mind all the time, at the back of +it. One is never comfortable in talking to her, though she +is, I am sure, brilliant. I have said to myself over and +over again, when I’ve been with her: ‘That woman has +something at the back of her mind.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder, what?” asked someone rashly. “That,” +said Mrs. Hepworth coldly, “would be quite impossible +to say.” +</p> + +<p> +There were about seven ladies present, all embroidering +something useless and therefore permissible, except +Mrs. Duperrier, who, poor soul, was too restless, and +another lady who with the aid of much gamboge and +vermilion was touching up a water-colour, a sunset. At +<a id="page-87" class="pagenum" title="87"></a> +four o’clock they would all retire for tea, after that they +would go downstairs to the basement into what was +called the smoking-room and play bridge with the intermission +only of dinner till it was time for bed. Though +keen players, the seven were not to be numbered among +the enthusiasts. Those, after a perfunctory glance at +the weather, had sat down to their tables soon after +eleven o’clock. Nobody who smoked but did not play +bridge dared enter the smoking-room. +</p> + +<p> +Out of deference to Mrs. Bellamy, who was among +them, nobody had so far touched on the aspect of Mrs. +Kerr which most profoundly intrigued them—her +friendship with Sydney. Tessa, however, now showed +herself lacking in that appreciation of their delicacy +with which it had pleased them to credit her. Stretching +out a plump pretty foot to the fire and looking down +at it thoughtfully she remarked, “She seems a very +kind woman. She’s been so kind to my cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah really, yes?” said someone innocently. “Your +cousin’s often with her, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, they are a lot together. Sydney is a very clever +girl,” said Tessa simply. “She is too clever for girls of +her own age, I sometimes think, though, she is so high-spirited +and cheerful and amusing that she is always +popular. I often forget when I am with her, how clever +she is. Do you know, she studied for years ... she has +passed....” Here she enumerated, not accurately, Sydney’s +academic distinctions which, while not conveying +much to her audience, vaguely depressed them. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah yes, it is nice for a girl to have a career. But I +shouldn’t,” said a lady with some restraint, tempering +her suggestion with a smile, “say that Miss Warren was +<a id="page-88" class="pagenum" title="88"></a> +high-spirited, exactly?” The others disagreed too forcibly +with Tessa’s opinion of her cousin and respected +Tessa too much to say anything at all. +</p> + +<p> +Tessa continued, “Sydney is very affectionate.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very much ... absorbed, isn’t she, by Mrs. +Kerr?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have known <em>other</em> cases,” said somebody else, looking +about vaguely for her scissors, “of these very violent +friendships. One didn’t feel <em>those others</em> were quite +healthy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should discourage any daughter of mine from a +friendship with an older woman. It is never the best +women who have these strong influences. I would far +rather she lost her head about a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney hasn’t lost her head,” said little Tessa with +dignity. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh but, Mrs. Bellamy—I was talking about <em>other</em> +cases.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how few men there are out here—can one wonder +the girls are eccentric? They say it’s the same at all +these places—not a man to be had. I can’t think why +people go on bringing their daughters out.” +</p> + +<p> +“One wonders, indeed, why some types of women ever +come out here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Kerr? Oh, do you think—?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mmm-mmm.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she may believe in the sun,” said Tessa. “Many +people believe in the sun. Of course it’s always been +known of, but quite recently a doctor at Baden——” +</p> + +<p> +“She is not a sick woman,” pronounced the lady of +the <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">broderie anglaise</span>. +</p> + +<p> +“N-no?” said Tessa, petering out. “But I’m sure,” +<a id="page-89" class="pagenum" title="89"></a> +she resumed, after a pause for consideration, “that she +has interests. I would say she was quite independent. +Sydney tells me she likes to be a great deal alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there now!” exclaimed a lady indignantly, +dropping her needlework into her lap and holding both +hands out. “Then why should she want to come out to a +Hotel? She certainly is striking-looking but I would +have every sympathy with her and make every effort to +be pleasant to her if she were lonely. One knows oneself +that is insupportable. As winter comes on with those +long evenings one begins to feel hardly human, sitting +evening after evening in an empty room. One can’t always +be going out or visiting people or inviting people +to come to one. If I shut my drawing-room door, I begin +to feel restless at once; it feels so unnatural shutting +oneself in with nobody. If I open it, one hears the servants +laughing, or something to worry one. I am fond of +reading but I always begin to feel that books are so bad; +then of course I realize, well: it’s not fair, is it, to expect +a book to take the place of human society? If the +telephone-bell rings, to hear a voice and then be cut off +simply unsettles one, and if it doesn’t ring the whole +evening one begins to worry and imagine things about +one’s friends. Once I sat with the door open and believe +me, I could hear four different clocks ticking, I counted +them, in different parts of the flat. It’s not of course that +I’m nervous but I really begin to feel—if you’ll understand +my saying anything so extraordinary—as if I +didn’t exist. If somebody does come to the door or the +telephone does ring I’m almost surprised to find I’m still +there. One would go mad if one were not able to get +abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-90" class="pagenum" title="90"></a> +She looked round with a shiver of retrospection at the +semicircle which was her pleasant asylum. The others +expressed their entire agreement. What they had all +escaped was terrible. “But Mrs. Kerr,” said one, “seems +to enjoy that—She’s a divorcée?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he died.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fancy! She doesn’t give one a bit that impression....” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t there a son?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she has a nearly grown-up son. I can’t think +why she doesn’t make a home for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if one does make a home for anybody one is still +very much alone. The best type of man is no companion.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Still, he is someone <em>there</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Besides, my dear, make a home...! Of course it’s +what one would love to do but it nearly kills one and it’s +so expensive; and when all’s said and done it’s still so +uncomfortable these days one can’t expect a man to stay +in it. Of course we don’t mind in the same way about +comfort, but really it is scarcely fit for oneself. So I +said to my husband— ... he agreed.... It is so +broadening to the mind, isn’t it? to travel and meet people; +we have been so fortunate in the hotels that were +recommended to us and we have been passed on from +introduction to introduction so that we have always got +to know people at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“—And as for the son,” put in another lady who had +been waiting with parted lips, “he really may not want +her. And I rather wonder about him, too. One of my +boys was at school with him and said he was not at all +popular. He won’t say why, of course, the Kerr boy +<a id="page-91" class="pagenum" title="91"></a> +wasn’t popular; you know what boys are, they are so +reserved. But one felt of course, that there was something. +Boys, you know, are rather wonderful; they have +a judgment that—well, a kind of instinct.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like dogs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear Mrs. Hepworth....” +</p> + +<p> +“I must say, if the girl were in <em>my</em> charge, were a +cousin of <em>mine</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +“Even then, though I wonder if one would be justified +in interfering?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be difficult. But I do feel strongly....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes ... <em>yes</em>?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I know of a case——” +</p> + +<p> +They all broke off as the door opened and Sydney +looked in nonchalantly as though she hardly expected +to find whoever she was looking for. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Tessa, there you are! I couldn’t think why you +weren’t on your bed. We have no stamps: I have been +looking for you in despair. Nobody I’ve met has a +stamp and the concierge must be asleep somewhere!” +</p> + +<p> +She was standing on the threshold holding the door +open so that the cold air from the lounge rushed in from +behind her. She did not look as though she had been out +all day; her heavy eyes and the way her hair had been +pushed away from her forehead suggested that she had +a headache. She was asked to come right in, if she did +not mind, and shut the door after her; and she complied +absently. She came and stood behind Tessa’s chair while +Tessa fumbled with her note-case; they all remarked her +air of not unhappy abstraction and how, like a shy, self-centred +child who has been sent down into company on a +message and wishes at once to escape, she remained indifferent +<a id="page-92" class="pagenum" title="92"></a> +to their presence and made no effort to speak +to them. Once she put her hand out and patted Tessa’s +head idly. “Do hurry, darling,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’ve been writing letters all day; dear me!” +said the lady of the <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">broderie anglaise</span>, looking over her +glasses. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing would persuade me to,” said Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s dull for you young people on a day like this. No +wonder the Miss Lawrences were romping.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were they? I didn’t notice.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, as you said ‘we’ I thought you had been with +Veronica.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t seen Veronica all day,” said Sydney and +while everybody listened intently she turned away from +Tessa’s chair and wandered over to the window. +“Doesn’t it rain; I like it!” she was moved to exclaim. +“If I were Manet and alive now I would paint this and +present the picture to the P. L. M. as a poster for the +Côte d’Azur.” She smiled out at the rain with an air of +complicity. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, what on earth <em>have</em> you been doing with yourself +all day?” asked Mrs. Hepworth, who was so motherly +looking that she could ask anybody anything point-blank. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney frowned for a moment as though she were +trying to remember. “Thinking,” she said at last, “with +great pleasure of the thousands of villas round the hundreds +of bays along these hundreds of miles of coast +where the couples are living—as one is told they are +living—for one another. Think what living for one +another at close quarters would be like to-day. Think +specially of what, before they became so rare, it would +<a id="page-93" class="pagenum" title="93"></a> +have been like to be living with a Russian. ‘It has been +raining for weeks, the hay is rotting and we are living +on allusions’—But perhaps you don’t read Russian +plays? Even in fine weather, I must say I think the importance +of the personal relations is very much overestimated. +Oh, thank you, Tessa; then I’ll owe you +three lire for the stamps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we’re very shockable in here,” said Mrs. Hillier +briskly, “as I expect you thought. Personally I +think the interest of these improper couples is, in all +weathers, very much overestimated, but for girls of your +age they have always a great fascination. I know they +had for me until I went to India. You and your young +friend must have been enjoying yourselves, chatting +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got a young friend,” said Sydney, and now +quite unable to refrain from laughing at herself she +guffawed at Mrs. Hillier with a keen appreciation of her +own ridiculousness but with unabated gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“Then won’t you stay down here and make up the +second four for bridge? You see there are only seven +of us; we’ll be going down directly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh thank you, no; I must be going up.” +</p> + +<p> +“—You know the lift is out of order?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it? I never use it. I put the kettle on for tea just +now and I must go and keep an eye on it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t Mrs. <em>Kerr</em> keep an eye on the kettle for you?” +Mrs. Hepworth called after her. +</p> + +<p> +“She forgets about it,” said Sydney, as she left the +drawing-room. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-9"> +<a id="page-94" class="pagenum" title="94"></a> +IX +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">hree</span> days afterwards the weather along that +coast was once more fulfilling the expectations +of visitors. Only a little wind remained to disturb +the sea, rustle dryly through the palm-trees out +on the promontory where the coast-road disappeared toward +Genoa, and rush to meet one round street-corners +with a disconcertingly ice-cold whistle. Against an +opaque, bright-blue sky the expressionless faces of the +buildings had again their advertised and almost aching +whiteness. The sounds like the shadows were exact and +clear-cut, no longer blunted by the rain. +</p> + +<p> +From end to end of the town the principal long street +ran like a funnel; as Sydney came out of the flower-shop +her side of the street was slate-grey in the shadow +of early afternoon. It was characteristic of her as an +intelligent young English lady that she should have +come to buy carnations during the hour of the siesta, +thus cutting for herself a caprice of her own direct +across the custom of the land. The carnations among +which, walking slowly, she now was burying her face +were scentless but gave one an acute pleasure by the +chilly contact of their petals. She had an armful of +two colours, sulphur with a ragged edge of pink and +ashy mauve with crimson at the centre, crimson-veined. +Carnations are not costly here before they reach the +flower-market, grown on terraces that stagger up the +hills and picked in the grey quiet of the morning to the +<a id="page-95" class="pagenum" title="95"></a> +accompaniment of singing and never-answered calls +that come dropping down forlornly from terrace to +terrace into the valleys. On account of their low cost, +their strangeness to the northern eye and the vehemence +of their colouring they have been made the vehicle of +much emotion. One cannot, however casually, present +these native carnations to a friend and remain entirely +unaffected, while the pleasure with which carnations +are received is intensified by some vague agitation. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney’s day had been so far as perfect as a bubble; +she felt careless of it, as though the bubble could not +burst. Happiness, she said to herself, is not to be solicited, +but coming, for however short a time, comes with +an appearance of finality, to be juggled with off-hand. +It seems to be some kind of balance, as in riding a bicycle, +attempted painfully a thousand times and achieved +at last without effort. Her senses were absorbed by the +carnations, she barely looked ahead, and she could be +conscious of the street only as a sharp distinction between +sun and shadow. Crossing over she walked in +the sun, where dogs stretched out their lengths in +abandon on the hot pavement. She must have been made +conspicuous by her abstraction or her yellow dress; people +turned to stare at her, and a tram, announced by a +hum of overhead wires, rushed past with a long smudge +of faces turned her way. She left the street but delayed +her return to the Hotel by following a series of bye-paths, +pausing now and then to stare idly through some +barred gate into a garden. She was mapping out for +herself a deep-down life in which emotions ceased their +clashing together and friends appeared only as painted +along the edge of one’s quietude. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-96" class="pagenum" title="96"></a> +At a turn of the footpath she met the Barry children +going down to the shore with their nurse. There were +several of them, very much alike; their number appalled +Sydney who stood back against the wall. Cordelia Barry, +the eldest, walked by herself a little ahead of the others, +ostentatiously carrying a book. +</p> + +<p> +“The <em>whole</em> family of us all again, you see!” she exclaimed +affectedly. “Oh, dear Miss Warren, what lovely +carnations! Oh, I do love them!” She was a child of +about eleven with thin legs and an eager tremolo. Sydney, +who considered that she had been demoralized by +over much grown-up attention, said “Do you?” unresponsively. +She did not intend to give any carnations to +Cordelia. +</p> + +<p> +“You <em>aren’t</em> going for a walk, I suppose?” said Cordelia +wistfully. “Mother said I might go with anybody +who would have me, but that I would have to go with +Nanny if everybody else fell through.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you. But I expect it +will be nice on the shore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hoo!” said Cordelia, pouncing on this note of falsity. +She tilted her head back to stare up at Sydney from +under the brim of her hat. “How stupid you’d be if you +really believed that! Nice on the shore!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Cordelia,” called back Nanny in the +flat voice of one who is employing the imperative continually +and without effect. +</p> + +<p> +Cordelia clutched at Sydney’s dress. “Lovely yellow +thing,” she said feverishly, “<em>Beautiful</em> Miss Warren, +won’t you take me for a walk?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, who was still near enough to her own childhood +to mistrust children profoundly, wondered what +<a id="page-97" class="pagenum" title="97"></a> +Cordelia could be getting at. “Not to-day,” she temporized, +“some day, perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come <em>on</em>, Cordelia!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, Cordelia: Nanny’s calling.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s no Nanny to me,” said Cordelia in bitter +repudiation. “Veronica Lawrence is very fond of children,” +she added rapidly. “She said she’d take me for +a walk any day. But I’m not so much interested in +Veronica Lawrence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re an ungrateful little wretch,” said Sydney. +“Run along!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you promise, <em>some day</em>?” said the child despairingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, I promise.” +</p> + +<p> +After another long stare that was at once ardent and +sardonic Cordelia with reluctant steps and backward +glances went after her family. Sydney heard her calling +Nanny a devil. But so long as Cordelia came on, Nanny, +who was a broken woman, cared for none of these +things. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, who knew that Mrs. Kerr was all this time +sitting on her balcony, never more accessible than to-day +in a coloured mood which the carnations were soon +to reflect, still delayed luxuriously. She heightened the +sweetness of exile by telling herself how soon the freshness +of her carnations would be over, and how at any +moment Mrs. Kerr might fall asleep for the afternoon, +or get up and go out with somebody else. She even +played with a regret at having packed off Cordelia with +whom she might have walked back still more slowly +through the town. +</p> + +<p> +When she did at last return to the Hotel the afternoon +<a id="page-98" class="pagenum" title="98"></a> +post had just come in and was spread out on the concierge’s +table. There was nothing for herself but a letter +for Mrs. Kerr in Ronald’s large untidy writing +caught her eye suddenly. She hesitated for a moment at +this, for she had not yet directly tried conclusions with +Ronald; then, very confident of her balance, took the letter +up with her and tapped lightly with the corner of +the envelope on Mrs. Kerr’s door. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney knew at once from her friend’s unconscious +air and rather marked immobility that she had been +suspected. The carnations, into which virtue seemed to +have gone out of herself, were at this anticipated moment +difficult to relinquish. She laid them down with +a degree of awkwardness across the end of the sofa. Mrs. +Kerr, who sat with her feet up, looking out at the +sea exclaimed: “Carnations!” incredulously as though +this were what she had been longing for, and with +an unprecedented movement held up her face to be +kissed. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you put them in water?” she said, having +looked at the flowers with wistful delight for a moment +or two, and Sydney with a feeling of surprise that she +could not explain to herself glanced round her, then began +to arrange the carnations. She chose for the purpose +a rather self-conscious-looking pottery mug that had +been a present from Miss Pym. She arranged the flowers +deliberately, and Mrs. Kerr looked on in expressive silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Pleased?” said Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“Very, very much. I had been feeling like that: it +was uncanny of you. Now they are perfect, Sydney; +leave them alone and don’t keep fussing round them.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-99" class="pagenum" title="99"></a> +“That was because I want them to look nice all round. +I’m not restless.” +</p> + +<p> +“No?” said Mrs. Kerr, revolving critically a possible +new version of her friend which she seemed slow to accept. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I am not. I have a capacity for being still that +left to myself I would never have doubted, but that no +one else, you specially, will ever let me believe in. +Look—” she knelt down where she stood, then sat back +and arranged herself, leaning her side and elbow against +the side of the sofa. “I could stay like this for the rest +of the afternoon,” said Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then stay still. Why should I disturb you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will, you are bound to—Just now: where did +you think I had gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was not allowed to think. I went out there and +looked over the balcony, and that clergyman, that Mr. +Milton, was walking about in the garden. He took off +his hat and waved it to attract my attention. Then he +began to talk for some time in the friendliest way.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really? That was excessive of him. What did he +say?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Kerr. “I couldn’t hear. +I just smiled and nodded. He is a cheerful, unselfconscious +person. I like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unselfconscious? He feels spikes everywhere and is +driven to impale himself. But I feel an interest in him; +he told Veronica Lawrence he admired me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very appealing of him. And so wise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wise—to tell?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—to admire. Have many people, Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney flashed round at her, startled into a brilliant +<a id="page-100" class="pagenum" title="100"></a> +flush. “I don’t know: I’ve never been sure of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind,” said Mrs. Kerr, staring out at her +friend from some profound reverie, “when you look +like that, the question answers itself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Sydney, after an instant’s reflection, +“that extraordinary people do. Cordelia Barry—or +did you only mean men?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I didn’t mean men. Don’t be so fearfully on the +defensive—or do you think I am likely to match-make?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry, that was horribly vulgar of me. It is so +much easier to be vulgar and so much less noticed. I +mean, you and I are supposed to assume, or to seem +everywhere to assume, that that man down in the garden +could be more to either of us than the other. Also, one +has had it so ground into one that admiration, any exercise +of the spirit is only valuable to its object, to drive +somebody’s mill.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exercise of the spirit ...” said Mrs. Kerr, while +Sydney listened like a stranger to this repetition of her +own words. “If you call it that you must agree that it +would be allowed some other value, even popularly: the +value of a gymnastic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Shaw’s Englishman and his moral gymnasium; +yes, I know,” said Sydney scornfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Now there you are, Sydney, you’ve moved and you’ll +say I disturbed you. Don’t be so out to suffer. Mr. Milton’s +not the only person who runs on to spikes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Out to suffer,” said Sydney, looking down at herself +as it were, from the height of her exaltation. “<em>Am</em> +I out to suffer?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel that you are,” said Mrs. Kerr, and pressing +her head further back into the cushions she looked at +<a id="page-101" class="pagenum" title="101"></a> +Sydney again in thoughtful silence. They could hear +footsteps, perhaps James Milton’s, crunching the +gravel below. +</p> + +<p> +“Well yes,” Mrs. Kerr said at last, “put it that way.—Sydney, +isn’t that a letter for me, over there by the +carnations? Isn’t it from Ronald?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is from Ronald. I brought it up with me +but I forgot to give it to you. Do you want it now?” Mrs. +Kerr was holding out her hand for the letter but Sydney +did not seem to notice. “It’s a very fat letter; I expect +it is his views on Germany. <em>Do</em> you want to read +it while I’m here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Kerr. “I think I ought to read it. +Mothers do.” +</p> + +<p> +“That you know best, of course.” Sydney, rising to +her knees, reached across the table for the letter, which +she handed to Ronald’s mother. Mrs. Kerr put on what +Sydney called “the Ronald expression” and began to +read while Sydney watched her. +</p> + +<p> +“My little boy,” she said at last, “is coming here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Coming here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, here. Coming to the Hotel.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, sitting quite still, remained blank for a +moment and did not say anything. Then she got up +and walked about the room which, crowded up with the +glare of the afternoon, now appeared to be much constricted. +She did not even wonder as usual whether +Mrs. Kerr were waiting for her to speak or if she had +forgotten her. She looked for some time at the ornaments +on Mrs. Kerr’s dressing-table which had at one time, +by their profusion, and meaningless and evident air of +being appreciated, “dated” her friend for her inevitably. +<a id="page-102" class="pagenum" title="102"></a> +She glanced for a moment, but only as if to assure +herself of its still being there, at the portrait of +Ronald. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald, for the delectation of some circle of friends +as to whose extent and nature she had never speculated, +had posed for one of those expensive photographers who +specialize in portraits of men. A disposition of the +prevalent shadows with one fierce escape of light on to +the jaw and temple combine with the Promethean glitter +of an eyeball to bring about an effect of fine ruggedness, +of an elemental something curbed. Each copy of this photograph, +a sepia matt, must have cost Ronald about a +guinea. Sydney turned away from it impatiently. “Why +on earth,” she asked, “isn’t Ronald up at Oxford now?” +</p> + +<p> +She had to wait for an answer until Mrs. Kerr having +glanced back to an earlier page of the letter and +smiled to herself over something, perhaps an inconsistency +she had detected, had folded up the thin sheets +casually and let them slide from the sofa to the floor. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say, Sydney? Ah yes, Oxford. He +thought it would be better to travel for a time, you see, +after leaving school. He wanted to expand again, he +said, and he wished particularly though I cannot think +why, to spend a year in Germany. He would have preferred +to go to Heidelberg, but his guardian wouldn’t +hear of it, unfortunately. So he is going up to Oxford +in the autumn, I believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he won’t mind being older than the people +in his year?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not,” said Mrs. Kerr. “I should have +thought it was a pity. However, I know very little about +boys of that age. He will be twenty soon.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-103" class="pagenum" title="103"></a> +“An impossible age,” said Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it really is,” agreed Mrs. Kerr. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney had by this time made up her mind that +their future must not be devastated by a descent upon +them of Ronald. She looked about her undecidedly, not +certain whether to say “This is very generous of him” +with irony, or, without irony, but with a display of +emotion sure to be distasteful, “Oh, this is lovely for +you; I am ever so glad,” or “It will be interesting to +see you together,” with an implication of detachment and +of relegating her friend to maternity. She could not +guess to which of these observations Mrs. Kerr would +be likely to react most desirably, and she felt herself +embarrassed by a lack of insight into her friend’s personality, +of which she had always been conscious, but +which had till now added charm to their intercourse. +Now that she might have to come to grips with the hypothetical +mother in Mrs. Kerr she realized that she was +powerless to estimate the force and scope of relationship +of being to being; from consideration of which, as of +something out of proportion with life as she saw it, she +had always withheld herself. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr, her hands behind her head, gazed delightedly +at the future. “How very nice,” she laughed, “how +very nice and amusing.... Oh no, don’t laugh like +that, Sydney; why should it seem funny to you? It’s +very natural, only it’s so funny that we—he and I—never +seem to have happened to be together in a place +where there was nothing to look at and no one to visit +and nowhere to go. So that I suppose one might almost +say we have never been together—It is absurd for me to +laugh,” she went on, in a glow of amused speculation, +<a id="page-104" class="pagenum" title="104"></a> +“but I’m so touched; it is so ridiculously touching of +him. Fancy him writing like that and wanting to come, +from <em>Dresden</em>.... I wonder where he will sleep: we +must find him somewhere to sleep—I think that will be +all right, don’t you, Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I been very dense?” asked Sydney, in a tone +strange to herself. “I do not even seem to have realized +you missed him, or thought of him much, or would be +glad if he came.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I suppose,” said Mrs. Kerr, looking back at +the past in surprise, “that I didn’t realize it either.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Has</em> it been lonely and dull? They all said it must be +lonely and dull for you, but I never——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Sydney dear. You’ve made such a difference.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have I?” Sydney said hungrily. Mrs. Kerr nodded; +she was enclosed in her thoughts but this gleam of affection +emboldened Sydney to ask, with a desperate directness, +“And do you want him now—you are fearfully +glad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney, you really are too clever sometimes to understand +me. Can’t I be glad?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney felt herself beaten back by something that in +spite of nature’s whole precedent she knew for a falsity; +an imposture which her immaturity sensed but could +not challenge. She knelt down again in bewildered, still +angry submission by the side of her friend. “Of course +I don’t mean that you shouldn’t be glad. On the other +hand you know that to me the conventions don’t seem +to fit you, and bar the conventions, why should I <em>assume</em> +that you are? You see, I’m not a mother and I don’t +know any mothers well.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-105" class="pagenum" title="105"></a> +She allowed herself to be reconquered as Mrs. Kerr, +putting a hand out and vaguely caressing her hair, said +thoughtfully, “No, you aren’t and you don’t; that’s +quite true. Well, won’t you be generous enough to take +me for granted?” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-10"> +<a id="page-106" class="pagenum" title="106"></a> +X +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">F</span><span class="postfirstchar">or</span> James Milton, after his first few days in +the Hotel, everybody with whom he had exchanged +a word or a glance or been brought even +indirectly into contact had already divided themselves +into his friends or enemies. Those who had not yet detached +themselves hung about the outskirts of his consciousness +as a kind of mist behind which threatening +possibilities were for ever stirring, could be glimpsed +for an instant, then subsided. He suffered, as he did at +last confess to himself, and began to wonder why he +had ever left his parish, where the crippling sensitiveness +of his childhood had at least been deadened by +the activity of every day, and where in the assured retreat +of office he had had no need to question what he +was. But the place was beautiful and completely satisfied +him once he had been able to reconcile what he saw +with what he had imagined and to recognize that while +an ultimate Riviera could only have existence in the +mind of God, this was as fair an imitation as it was +reasonable to expect. He walked for the allied pleasures +of coloured experience and of hardening his muscles, +he tried to talk Italian to natives, to be answered incomprehensibly +in patois or the local French; he played +tennis not so badly and was to be surprised, in consequence, +by the friendliness of the Lawrences, and he +admitted to some vague attractions which it entertained +him to discuss with himself. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-107" class="pagenum" title="107"></a> +He became friendly, comfortably and without attraction, +with Miss Fitzgerald and Miss Pym. These two +in spite of their experience of clergymen could not +“place” him. From his moustache, one would have been +inclined to take him for an Evangelical, on the other +hand, it is Anglicans who step with fewest scruples +into secular clothes. He had attended the conferences of +neither party and remained irresponsive to the shibboleths +of both. Miss Pym wrote, on an inspiration, to +ask particulars of him from that friend in Derbyshire +that he and she had early discovered to be mutual. But +the friend in Derbyshire was an Anglo-Catholic and did +not acknowledge the finer shades; she simply wrote back +that he was a delightful man, adding a string of messages +for him that gave no key. Colonel Duperrier also +liked Milton; they exchanged stories about fishing in +Donegal, discussed Europe and respected one another’s +reserve. The Lawrences made him an apple-pie bed +and used to send him suggestive Italian picture postcards +anonymously to see how much he would stand. +</p> + +<p> +But he was still avid for popularity. Though devoid +of the more odious kinds of vanity, he had been given +to understand that as an unattached, personable man he +would be <span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">persona grata</span> anywhere: and he was troubled +to find that this was not the case. He had avoided Sydney +since that day of the Lee-Mittisons’ picnic: for some +reason that he could not explain it was impossible to +think of her without embarrassment, though at times +she was nothing more to him than some curious picture +whose worth he could apprehend but felt unable to analyse. +It was with some unavowed idea of a circuitous +approach to Sydney that he sought out her friend Mrs. +<a id="page-108" class="pagenum" title="108"></a> +Kerr; preparing to find himself to a degree, but not beyond +that degree, disturbed by her. +</p> + +<p> +He was oppressed by some patent hostilities. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid,” he said to Miss Fitzgerald, as during +the half-hour before lunch they sat together in the Hotel +garden on iron chairs under an orange tree, “that +I have done something to offend Mrs. Pinkerton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t see how you could have. Anyhow, she’s +a fearful old snob,” said Miss Fitzgerald, who knew +all about the bathroom, but had neither the face nor +the heart to tell him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do you think so? She is the sort of old lady I +have so often been asked to lunch with that I cannot +help wondering why we do not get on.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is the patroness of a living——” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t want the woman’s living,” said Milton +indignantly. “Does she think I’m going to pick her +pocket for it?” +</p> + +<p> +“How ridiculous you are!” laughed Miss Fitzgerald, +who was exhilarated by violence. “You know, she would +make a splendid Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ye-es,” said Milton thoughtfully, wondering who +should be his Charlotte. He resumed, “Another person +I should like an explanation with is Mr. Lee-Mittison. +He took me up a mountain my first day here, lost me +and has been looking daggers at me ever since. He seems +to have forgiven the Lawrences and Miss Warren who +were equally his victims, and I cannot see why I am +singled out. After all, I was stranger to the hills than +any of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sorry for his wife,” said Miss Fitzgerald +sighing pleasurably. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-109" class="pagenum" title="109"></a> +“I don’t know. I think he’s her fault. She mayn’t +seem a very buoyant woman but I don’t suppose she’d +like to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very curious,” said Miss Fitzgerald, turning to +look at him, “most men, I have noticed are hardest on +men but with you it seems just the opposite. I don’t +know whether it’s personal prejudice—” she sweetened +the impertinence with a smile—“or the curious sombre +rigidity of some old school of thought; perhaps Pauline?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think,” Milton said vaguely. At this particular +hour of the morning he did not want to talk about +himself and was still less interested in St. Paul. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” she suggested, “you are brought too much +into contact with women, the tiresome type. A clergyman’s +life——” +</p> + +<p> +“It never really strikes me that there’s very much +difference. I mean there <em>are</em> a certain rather limited +<em>number</em> of ways in which people can be idiotic—or if +you like, wicked—and men and women seem to fall into +them indiscriminately. It always irritates me to see +anybody being bolstered up in their own particular +kind of insufferableness by the friend who ought to be +helping them, and I do think women (for their own +ends, which makes it unpardonable) are worse about +doing this than men. If that’s what you mean by my +being severer on women? Otherwise I can’t see that in +my department at any rate, men and women are noticeably +different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or in any department,” said Miss Fitzgerald earnestly +rallying to her standard. “And it interested me +to hear you use the word ‘friend’ in that context. Meaning +<a id="page-110" class="pagenum" title="110"></a> +that friend and husband—or wife, as the case may +be—should be synonymous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Practically,” said Milton, looking round and wondering +whether it would be possible to order an apéritif, +and wishing since he feared this was not possible, +that he had gone down to the town. “I suppose,” he continued +conscientiously though with a slight effort, “that +you think I am intolerant?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, not that: too, too acute.... One feels it a +disadvantage. I suppose one is oneself too much in the +habit of <em>generalizing</em>.” She broke off and reached up +suddenly in apparent confusion to pluck a small, still +rather sickly orange from a branch above her. This, +without looking at it again, she bit, right into the peel. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely that is rather bitter?” asked James Milton +looking on solicitously. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said she with a wry face, wiping her mouth, +“it was very bitter!” She turned crimson and began to +laugh awkwardly. “Such an extraordinary thing to do: +I <em>do</em> do extraordinary things sometimes ... without +thinking ... when I’m thinking hard.” +</p> + +<p> +James Milton, who did think this was an extraordinary +thing to have done, was silent. She glanced shamefacedly +at her tooth marks in the orange, then guiltily +up at the windows of the Hotel, then she wiped the +orange and tucked it quietly away behind her. +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” cried out James Milton considerately. +“There’s Mrs. Kerr again, out on her balcony.” +</p> + +<p> +“So she is—how nice she looks up there. You know, +my friend Miss Pym is so fond of her, she says she is +marvellously sympathetic. She is certainly an unusual +woman, but so very charming. She is very much criticized +<a id="page-111" class="pagenum" title="111"></a> +here by a certain set, but then I am afraid some +women have very small minds. Did you hear, her son is +coming out next week? We are so glad, it will be delightful +for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say, is he really? I’m glad.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are wondering,” continued Miss Fitzgerald, +“what he and Sydney Warren will say to each other?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really?” said James Milton, whose mind had leapt +at once to this. +</p> + +<p> +“Not of course that I mean anything ... well, you +know, sentimentally. The boy is hardly grown up. No, +I mean she has been so much in possession, really rather +monopolizing Mrs. Kerr, who of course is incapable of +not being nice to anybody and is so patient and sympathetic +and good.” Miss Fitzgerald sighed “She’s been +victimized....” +</p> + +<p> +Later on, when Milton had followed Miss Fitzgerald +into the dining-room, he stared with renewed curiosity +at the back of Miss Warren’s head across the dining-room, +as though he expected the shape and colour of her +to be somehow different, or expected her to disclose her +whole self to him in some gesture or attitude. He sat +at his lonely table crumbling his bread exaltedly and +wondering how soon Ronald could possibly arrive. He +promised himself that, if Ronald were not delayed, it +would be possible for him in a fortnight or even ten +days to know Sydney absolutely. Then he had to recollect +how unfriendly to him she had shown herself and +wonder whether being thrown back on his society would +tend to make her like him better. Tessa’s bright vague +eyes surprised him in their wandering, he smiled and +nodded. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-112" class="pagenum" title="112"></a> +“Mr. Milton keeps on looking at us,” whispered +Tessa to Sydney. “I do wonder what he wants.” +</p> + +<p> +Many people who admired Mrs. Kerr had already +congratulated her; others who had still to do so sought +her out as they streamed from the dining-room. A small +crowd gathered about her as she stood in the doorway, +like a tall bride, confused and elated. Many who did not +like her at all had also congratulated, as they were anxious +to see how she was taking it. “Splendid!” shouted +and smiled Mr. Milton over the intervening heads; his +long, rather pink face also towering. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s splendid, isn’t it?” agreed Sydney from +behind him. She was jostled against him all at once by +more people pushing out from the dining-room and he +said, putting out a hand to steady her: “I’m sure <em>you</em> +must be glad?” +</p> + +<p> +At the end of that afternoon’s tennis he waited for +Sydney and walked up with her from the club. “This +young man, this Ronald,” he asked, “do you know +him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I feel I do,” said Sydney. “Mrs. Kerr has shown +me his letters and she laughs at me occasionally and says +I am like him. And there is a photograph, anyway, +that one couldn’t help noticing. Altogether I feel he is +to be a kind of comic character.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Does his mother think he is funny?” said +James Milton, slightly jarred. +</p> + +<p> +“But young people are always funny: as we get more +sophisticated we can’t help realizing that ourselves—I +don’t know whether that makes us less funny or more +so.” +</p> + +<p> +The sun had dipped to the line of the hills, so that the +<a id="page-113" class="pagenum" title="113"></a> +sky had a kind of gold sparkle which reflected itself on +figures and faces. Even before the moment of sunset +the air was already tingling with cold; the dark keen +upstanding trees about them seemed slightly to shiver. +Sydney flung the folds of her white fleecy cloak across +her breast and holding them gathered against her paused +a moment, looking back towards the tennis-courts +with a wild Beatrice Cenci expression which did not +correspond with her thoughts and of which she was +wholly unconscious. Milton’s heart leapt to his mouth +for that moment, then he felt the chill of dusk lay an +ice-cold hand on him and he shuddered. He asked her +impatiently if she were waiting for anyone else. +</p> + +<p> +She said “No” in surprise, and walked beside him +up the path to the Hotel, treading noiselessly in her +rope-soled shoes. “It is an alarming idea,” said he, +unable to maintain a silence of whose peculiar quality +he became intolerably conscious, “that the young should +be getting progressively more and more sophisticated. +It is as bad as it is to be told, if one is a reader of adventure +stories, that no part of dark Africa remains undiscovered, +and that one-inch maps of all parts will +be available shortly.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it would be, if one ever seriously considered +youth romantic.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I never said <em>I</em> did. Romantic—I’m not that kind +of middle-aged man. When I compared it to Africa, I +didn’t mean I liked Africa; I dislike the thoughts of +the wilds intensely but they make me so appreciative +of the state of civilization in which I am living that I +should be sorry if they disappeared.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you feel civilized?” said Sydney, beginning to +<a id="page-114" class="pagenum" title="114"></a> +like him. Till now she had been discouraged by his facile +(what she called “professional”) manner and by +a middle-aged whimsicality reeking of the Barrie play. +</p> + +<p> +“Much more so,” said James Milton, cursing himself +for going on like this, and for that very manner and +habit of mind of his, of which no one else could have +been more contemptuously aware. +</p> + +<p> +“More than whom?” said Sydney idly, but he refused +to continue and she allowed him with unusual +complaisance to swing her with him into a new mood, +as though they had been a pair of dancers. The rocky +crest of a hill to the east, at a great height, had suddenly +been ribbed with scarlet. This vivid colour against the +profound and quickly darkening sky was to northern +eyes a challenge to credulity: and Sydney looking up +with admiration and hostility, said, “I should never +have believed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have always believed it,” said James Milton, “but +it is surprising to see.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll see a hundred others,” she told him: and +they hurried on, discussing in relation to this line of +coast the phenomena of sunset. When they had come +out into the road they walked more slowly between the +lines of chestnut-trees, watching the light fade from the +enormous faces of the hotels and retreat even from the +villas above, which though suffused in dusk still glimmered. +Night had arrived, as usual, with the catastrophic +suddenness which does not for a long time cease +to be alarming. They could hear forgotten windows being +slammed indignantly, while lights springing up +behind the curtains brought them out in hundreds in +their uniformity, with here and there a figure passing +<a id="page-115" class="pagenum" title="115"></a> +regularly as a pendulum to and fro across the screen +of lace. The hill smoked over with olives loomed, by +some <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trompe-l’oeil</span> of the twilight seemed to topple, above +the larger hotels; but their own in silhouette against the +sea stood out as they approached it in greater significance. +</p> + +<p> +She said, “I have often thought it would be interesting +if the front of any house, but of an hotel especially, +could be swung open on a hinge like the front of a +doll’s-house. Imagine the hundreds of rooms with their +walls lit up and the real-looking staircases and all the +people surprised doing appropriate things in appropriate +attitudes as though they had been put there to represent +something and had never moved in their lives. Like +the cook-doll that I always had propped up against the +kitchen stove and the father-doll propped against the +library book-shelves and the sitting-up doll in the bath +that was really a china ornament and had no other attitude, +and the limp dolls that wouldn’t do anything so +had to be kept in the spare room beds, which I always +think was an unconscious reflection on the ideal habits +for visitors.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said James Milton, for whom the Hotel was at +once in miniature. “If one could see people all at once +like that they wouldn’t matter so much.” Quite apart +from and yet somehow parallel with the intellectual +conception he had another idea of God, of which he +permitted himself to be conscious, as an enormous and +perpetually descending Finger and Thumb. What Sydney +had just said fitted in with this alarmingly. +</p> + +<p> +“If one could see them like that,” she continued, +“one could see them so clearly, as living under the compulsion +<a id="page-116" class="pagenum" title="116"></a> +of their furniture—or the furniture they happen +to have hired. It would seem very doubtful, I daresay, +whether man were not, after all, made for the +Sabbath—and worse, for beds and dinner-tables and +washstands, just to discharge the obligations all those +have created.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I should ever believe that,” said Milton +amused. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, even you,” she continued. “Though it may have +been an Idea in the first place that made churches to +be built, it was the churches already existing, with rows +of pews for people to sit in, and a pulpit and things all +ready that had to be filled, that made you into a parson.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t agree with you at all,” said he, +with a finality that impressed her. +</p> + +<p> +“It really isn’t worth disagreeing with: I was only +talking for the fun of the thing. Of course I don’t believe +that more than anything else.” They had been +walking under the windows of their own Hotel, and +she now paused in the gateway with the light from the +Hotel door streaming out on to her looking at him remotely, +as a gypsy might look over the garden-fence at a +householder mowing his lawn. “I daresay,” her look +seemed to say, “that in your encumbered kind of way +you are happy. I am not, in any way, and I don’t want +to be.” It was with this air at once complacent and +desolate that she seemed proposing to part from him, +for she glanced at her wrist-watch, murmured something +in the nature of a farewell and slipped on ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Milton helplessly, and +racked his brains for something further to say to her. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-117" class="pagenum" title="117"></a> +“What?” asked Sydney looking down from the steps +and with faint impatience swinging her racket. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you don’t think I was offended?” said he +wildly. +</p> + +<p> +“No. Why should you be?” +</p> + +<p> +“What you said about churches ... I was afraid +you might have thought——” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Sydney, “it’s no use trying not to offend +people so I don’t think I ever think much one way +or the other. I’ve given up listening agonizedly for the +possible reverberations of every remark—which, if you’ll +forgive my saying so, I think you do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry,” said he, with the humility of twenty +years’ seniority. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it doesn’t matter a bit. Good-night.” He had +pulled open the swing door for her and she passed +through it ahead of him, trailing her cloak which had +slipped away from her shoulders. He gathered up the +fringe of this from the floor and passed it to her. “Why +good-night?” said he, and several people sitting about +the lounge looked up in astonishment. “I mean, don’t +we see each other at dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh well, of course we see each other at dinner.” +Sydney glanced round the lounge, took note of the astonished +faces and, after another slight bow to Milton, +went upstairs slowly, humming a tune. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-11"> +<a id="page-118" class="pagenum" title="118"></a> +XI +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">O</span><span class="postfirstchar">n</span> the night of Ronald’s arrival a dance was +taking place in the Hotel dining-room. Chairs +and tables had been stacked away in one corner, +the floor polished and the walls festooned with +paper flags and specially illuminated. The music audible +in every part of the Hotel, though generally as a sustained +thin humming with the pianist’s undertone as an +irregular and tuneless pulse-beat, had drawn everybody; +lounge and drawing-room had been drained of their +usual occupants. Dances at the Hotel were not usual +and this was in the nature of a gala night. The concierge’s +face was wreathed in smiles but Ronald felt his +manner lacked <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">empressement</span>. It was irritating, when +one had enquired for one’s mother, to be told with an appearance +of indifference that she too would be also at +the ball. He had been sustained till now by the brilliant +certainty of being expected and waited for, but he was +tired after the journey and the lounge from which the +palms had all been taken away to decorate the dining-room +did now seem repellent, mean and artificial. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell my mother I have come,” he said to the concierge +and sat down in a wicker-chair while the dance +music throbbed at him. The concierge went away but +nobody came, though he waited; so at last he walked +over to the dining-room door and, unable to see anything +through the blind but twirling forms and wavering shadows, +<a id="page-119" class="pagenum" title="119"></a> +opened the door sharply and surveyed the scene +from the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +It must be admitted that the impressions he received +were coloured for him by a prejudice against the Riviera +which he had cultivated from his childhood and believed +to be innate. +</p> + +<p> +Veronica Lawrence was the first to remark and point +out to her partner that a young man, probably Ronald +Kerr, was standing in the doorway. She was wearing +a tight green dress like a sheath and every time she +passed she looked thoughtfully at Ronald over her partner’s +shoulder and once even smiled. Girls and young +men had been asked in from the other hotels and the +floor was crowded, while a close-packed row of onlookers +sat or stood along the walls, pressing up so +near to the band that the red-coated fiddlers began to +look desperate, having scarcely elbow-room. The sexes +were unequally represented, several couples of girls +were dancing together. Some of the elder ladies had also +taken the floor and were spinning round at a high velocity +in the arms of their usual bridge-partners whose +coat-tails whirled horizontally to the constant danger of +more modern dancers whose poised totterings, hesitations +and smooth forward rushes they perpetually interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s <em>rather</em> decorative,” said Veronica. She had at +last elicited a bow from Ronald, who felt convinced +that the girl must know him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh well,” said Victor coldly, “if you like ’em +floppy—” He set his jaw again and silent as ever they +flitted across a pool of floor that opened for them, light +as moths above their shadows. The Lawrences were remarkable +<a id="page-120" class="pagenum" title="120"></a> +everywhere with their burnished hair brushed +up into haloes; they trailed enormous feather fans +across their partners’ shoulders negligently, and refused +to waltz with elderly men, though they would make an +exception in favour of Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Duperrier sat against one of the walls, following +couple after couple round with her eyes. Now and +again she would smile metallically at a girl she knew +and ask her whether she were having a good time. +Though she never seemed to be watching Colonel Duperrier +she knew where he was all the time and could +have pointed him out immediately. She had trained +herself to remember distinctly whichever scene from +her past had at the moment most torturous significance +for her; now she could see herself at nineteen, admired +to satiation, waltzing with a Captain Duperrier at Darjeeling. +A French window stood open on to a balcony +whence steps led down into the black-dark garden; +couples dived in and out of the window perpetually and +presently Mrs. Duperrier who had been expecting this +the whole evening saw her husband disappear with one +of the Lawrences and waited in vain for him to come +back. Mr. Lee-Mittison, who had been working his way +round the room, bumped down beside her abruptly with +his hands on his parted knees. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you agree with me that our girls are doing +us credit? There isn’t a girl in the room that can hold +a candle to one of the Lawrences; Sydney Warren’s +looking very distinguished (—I can’t honestly tell you +I care for this thing they’re all dancing—) and even +the little Bransomes light up well. Mark my word——” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Duperrier suddenly felt she could not bear this, +<a id="page-121" class="pagenum" title="121"></a> +made a queer little sound and shot up from her place. +After one last look through the window she pushed her +way between the dancers and out of the dining-room. +She passed Ronald Kerr in the doorway and looked at +him in amazement, then rushed past him and shut herself +up in her room. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney wore a scarlet dress and danced as though +she had for once forgotten herself. A young Italian +whose name she did not know had attached himself to +her and she divided her dances between him and Colonel +Duperrier and a gingery Captain Somebody-or-other +from another hotel who thought her conversation smart +and giggled ecstatically. The Italian danced, as Veronica +afterwards said, “like a seraphim”: he taught +Sydney the tango as it is danced in Rome, and it was +while she was standing balanced against him to the slow +music that she looked sideways and saw or rather for the +first time apprehended Ronald: she realized that he +must have been there some time. +</p> + +<p> +Cold all over and for a moment lost to the tango she +thought: “Ronald!” then returned her eyes to her partner’s +dispassionate face and slid her long step sideways +across him; they both swung half round and balanced +again at the conclusion of the bar. The floor was emptier; +all but a few couples had been driven off it by the unnatural +music; the remaining few were visible from +every part of the room and were reflected in the twirling +mirror. Ronald was watching her, and before the +end of the dance she excused herself to her partner and +crossed the room to speak to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon—aren’t you Mr. Kerr?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said Ronald gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-122" class="pagenum" title="122"></a> +“Surely you have come early? Mrs. Kerr was not +expecting you——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh thanks, but I happen to know my mother <em>is</em> expecting +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“—not expecting you before half past eleven,” said +Sydney, finishing her sentence imperturbably. “The +Paris train——” +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me, but I didn’t come from Paris. I’ve come +from Genoa.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really? You see you never said how you were coming, +so we rather assumed——” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald’s long stare plainly enquired what right she +had had to have “rather assumed”; and more, what she +could know about his mother’s assumptions. It was diverted +from Sydney by the arrival of Mr. Lee-Mittison +who hurried towards them, skidding slightly in his +eagerness on the polished floor. “Can <em>I</em> do anything for +you, my boy?” said Mr. Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes,” said Ronald turning towards him. “I +am looking for Mrs. Kerr who happens to be my mother. +Perhaps you will be able to tell me where——” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Lee-Mittison will certainly be able to help +you,” said Sydney; she and Ronald bowed to one another +and she walked away. “To the knife,” she thought, surrendering +herself to her next partner, the gingery captain, +who had waited meanwhile in the offing. In the succession +of broken glimpses she had of him subsequently +she saw Ronald being led round the edge of the room by +Mr. Lee-Mittison, who had laid a hand on his shoulder, +with bowed head, but with every sign of complaisance +to being Mr. Lee-Mittison’s boy. After a few minutes’ +<a id="page-123" class="pagenum" title="123"></a> +conversation they left the lounge together. Their exit +was watched with an equal interest by James Milton, +who thought: “So that’s what Ronald is going to be +like.” +</p> + +<p> +Milton had spent the evening propped against the +empty fireplace wishing he could dance. The high mantelpiece +caught uncomfortably just between the shoulders, +giving him a slight stoop forward. He was dissatisfied, +but did not wish to take a seat along the walls +among the women and the very old gentlemen. The men +of his age were all dancing and his isolation irked him, +yet he could not tear himself away from the music and +the lit-up, hypnotizing circulation of the dancers. He +had noticed Ronald at once and wondered whether he +ought to go across and speak to him, but there was +something about Ronald at once remote and ominous +which forbade the hazards of so public an encounter. +He resembled, in the cool wide stare across which the +dancers were allowed to sweep while it never singled +out or followed any of them, in the backward tilt of +the head which sent the stare down over the modelled +protrusion of cheekbones, and in a droop down at the +corners of the mouth that lengthened the chin, a supercilious +young Florentine among the retinue of the Magi +who stands apart and Gallio-like on its fringe, staring +out of the picture. Ronald was, however, never at +any one moment entirely superb; he could achieve a +slouch in any attitude and the lock of hair tumbling +slantwise across his forehead towards one eyebrow +broke up the design of his features into something irregular +and rather baffled. There was a glitter about him +<a id="page-124" class="pagenum" title="124"></a> +which betrayed an embarrassing cropping-out of the +Shelley from behind the mask of Hellenic remoteness +so carefully worn. +</p> + +<p> +“Snubbed!” smiled James Milton, watching Sydney +with a swirl of the red skirts turn on her heel and return +to her partner. The only sentiments she did not at +present arouse in him were those of protectiveness and +pity. His own sensitiveness, however, made him turn +away from looking at her at this crisis of discomfiture, +and he caught instead the eye of Eileen Lawrence who, +disconcerted at finding herself without a partner, was +advancing towards him with the undulations of a Spanish +dancer. She looked in her bright black so very striking, +so very unlike the sort of young woman over whom +he had even permitted his imagination to linger, that he +was gratified at her coming up to strike an attitude before +him. She said with a glance which in spite of his +armour of subtlety did elate and disturb him: “Now +then, Mr. Milton, you’re very diffident: aren’t you going +to dance with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s nothing I should like better, but I <em>don’t</em>, +unfortunately.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, tut,” said Eileen. “But what a relief—I had +been afraid we weren’t beautiful enough for you. Very +well then, take me out for a stroll in the garden.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Rather</em>,” said Mr. Milton, coming forward with +alacrity. “But won’t you be cold?” Though he did not +mind this at all, he could not help noticing that she had +less on than he could have imagined possible. She did +not answer, only lashed her feather fan to and fro in a +contemptuous gesture; so he said no more and followed +her through the window. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-125" class="pagenum" title="125"></a> +The Hotel garden, though not large, had been so laid +out with screens of trees and with circuitous paths as to +afford visitors the maximum of variety and exercise. +It had taken on this evening from the insistent music +and from the light that splashed down on to the trees +a character so unusual, so vivid yet unearthly, that +James Milton could hardly recognize it for the place of +gravel and thin foliage where some days ago he had been +talking to Miss Fitzgerald on an iron chair. There was +no moon, but the sky was pale with starshine. “I suppose,” +said Eileen Lawrence after a few moments, sniffing, +“that this is what they’d call in books ‘a balmy and +languorous southern night.’” +</p> + +<p> +“It certainly smells good. Perhaps the lemon +trees....” +</p> + +<p> +“‘A night made for love,’ that’s what they’d call it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose they would ... I say, are you certain +you’re not cold?” +</p> + +<p> +She had shivered, but at this delightful thought: +“A night when men go out with guns and shoot themselves +on the Casino terrace—Heavens, if this were +Monte!” +</p> + +<p> +“But it certainly <em>is</em> the Riviera,” said James Milton, +and he thought of the whole band of white hotels like +palaces along the line of coast into which their own +seemed now to be knitted, hotels with light streaming +out of them towards the tideless sea that never advancing +on the shore or receding from it was like an inexorable +unfailing memory, not worked upon by thought or +changed by sleep. “The Church Militant,” he thought +ridiculously; then stared at a conviction which had +stared at him that there could be no closer One-ness +<a id="page-126" class="pagenum" title="126"></a> +than in this community of desire and emotion, and that +perhaps in this alone consisted.... +</p> + +<p> +Eileen Lawrence brushed against him as they turned +a corner. +</p> + +<p> +“What jolly arms you’ve got,” he, feeling still immeasurably +far from her, was moved to exclaim. +</p> + +<p> +They strolled together amicably, following the doublings +and twists of the path, meeting or overtaking +other couples and overhearing now and then some scrap +of conversation, some interchange of personalities from +behind a screen of trees or the depths of an occasional +arbour. Their cigarette ends glowing and fading preceded +them like a pair of luminous noses, and equidistant +spots of light advertised that pairs of other Dongs +were promenading solemnly. “How ridiculous!” laughed +James Milton at the music, in sudden elation. He had +not been to a dance for years, he had forsaken even +Christmas parties because they made him feel avuncular: +all this was new to him. Eileen, who thought this was +the dreariest dance she had ever been at, a travesty of +all that was highest in human enjoyment, was as near +depression as the Lawrences ever descended and replied: +“Yes, it’s pretty futile, isn’t it? I suppose the dowagers +are enjoying it. Shall we go in?” +</p> + +<p> +Milton who had been taking a keener pleasure than +she understood in her nearness, in the intimacy of the +darkness, actually laid a hand on her arm to detain her. +He entreated, “Not till the end of this dance!” +</p> + +<p> +His unwillingness to give her up was not decreased +by a sharp irritation that she with her white arms and +her attractiveness (which he was conscious of as something +as material as phosphorescence, in which he could +<a id="page-127" class="pagenum" title="127"></a> +have dipped a finger curiously) should have stopped +short at being Eileen Lawrence. He was convinced that +if she had been anybody else, say Sydney (now dancing, +indifferent, in the room above) the situation would +have had a key for him; and he chafed with an indignant +longing. “I say, Eileen—” he began and determined +to understand himself reached out a hand for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” challenged Eileen, and they stared at the +greyish blots of one another’s faces in the darkness. +After a moment her expectancy broke up into laughter. +“I really thought,” said she, “that you were going to +kiss me.” +</p> + +<p> +“So did I,” said James Milton and following her back +to the ball-room he tried in vain to decide whether she +and the mood to which she had given colour had been +base or very admirable. He gave her up to her next partner +and returned to the fireplace, but the dance became +meaningless; he could not see Sydney anywhere. Once +he thought she appeared beyond the window, half in the +darkness, but she was shut away from him by the spinning +barrier. He determined to find her, to allay the +restlessness which was beginning to sap his benignity +and make him look with contempt at the older people +and at the younger with resentment. If he did not find +her soon he would begin to believe that there was not +a place in the world for him—he started at a flash of +red in one of the mirrors but it was only the sweep of +Eileen’s crimson fan. He felt that he could no longer +endure the ball-room and that even if by going he were +to cut himself off for ever from all it contained he must +leave it to look for her. +</p> + +<p> +He went out into the lounge with his heart in his +<a id="page-128" class="pagenum" title="128"></a> +mouth but there was no one there but Mr. Lee-Mittison, +walking about and rubbing his hands, so happy that he +had had to expand here himself in solitude. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming boy, that,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison. “Really +an acquisition—charming boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” said Milton, who had forgotten Ronald. +</p> + +<p> +“Found his mother for him. Nice woman, very nice +woman. Pretty to see ’em together.” He beamed at Milton +as he had not beamed for days. +</p> + +<p> +“Was it?” said Milton. He stared again round the +emptiness of the lounge, went to the foot of the stairs +and looked up, listened, and with a last desperate inspiration +looked into the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +“Looking for anybody?” asked Mr. Lee-Mittison, observing +this. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Milton and nodding good-night to Mr. +Lee-Mittison he went down the basement stairs into +the smoking-room and out by a glass door into the garden +again. Here he walked to and fro, repelled by the darkness, +peering angrily into the arbours which were now +all empty and silent and quickening his steps at every +turn of a path. He looked at the great sheer façade +springing upright above him, where here and there a +light came out in a window, and thought, “Of course, +she is tired; she has gone up to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +“But she was not tired at all: she did not look as +though she would ever sleep again,” his memory told +him. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I must love her?—But I cannot, she is so +erratic and cold—” “It is because she’s erratic and cold +that you’ve been able to surprise your own feeling.” +“Oh, rats!” said James Milton, kicking a stone. A figure +<a id="page-129" class="pagenum" title="129"></a> +that had come out on to one of the balconies started +and peered down into the garden. +</p> + +<p> +The quick movement betrayed some high tension of +fear or expectancy. Mrs. Kerr, he thought in surprise, +as having counted the windows up from the ground and +then along from left to right he located the balcony. +Why should she still and in such wretchedness be waiting +for Ronald? He listened and watched; the room behind +her was empty. Then as the figure, still with its +arms stretched out, gripping the balcony, turned its head +sideways, he recognized Sydney. It was on the tip of +his tongue to call to her, as though she were a child for +whose conduct he was somehow responsible. She should +have left them alone to-night, he thought, and flamed +with disinterested anger. He took a few steps backward, +propped himself against a tree and remained looking up +at the balcony. She shivered; he shivered in sympathy. +How much (though how properly) Mrs. Kerr had found +to say to her son! It was long past midnight now and +very cold, the dance was over and the music silent some +time ago. All the other lights were out except one at the +very top left-hand corner where Ronald and his mother +must still be talking. +</p> + +<p> +“Damn Ronald!” thought James Milton. “She and I +will be catching our deaths.” A clock down in the town +struck the half-hour and a bell from a convent above +them answered it. Emboldened by the breach these made +in the silence he called, “Good-night, Miss Warren!” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney started violently and after one more fierce +glance on to the trees retreated from the balcony. He +saw her pause a moment under the light and look round +as though to take a farewell of her expectations, then the +<a id="page-130" class="pagenum" title="130"></a> +room was dashed from his sight by darkness. A panel +of fresh light shone for a moment as the door on to the +corridor opened and shut. Sighing, and with a sense of +half-accomplishment, he too went in to bed. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-12"> +<a id="page-131" class="pagenum" title="131"></a> +XII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>W</span><span class="postfirstchar">ell,”</span> Mrs. Kerr said expansively, meeting +Sydney on the stairs next morning, +“isn’t it <em>rather</em> a nice puppy?” +</p> + +<p> +She was dressed to go out, with a blue straw hat +pulled down over her eyes. She had paused with a hand +out to steady herself against the frame of the staircase +window, and the north light defined the smiling curve of +one cheek and drew prismatic colours out of an earring. +She was evidently very happy. +</p> + +<p> +“What puppy?” Sydney said blankly, looking up +from a few steps below her. +</p> + +<p> +“My Ronald. Isn’t it <em>rather</em> a nice——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh very, yes. I thought it seemed a rather severe +puppy last night but I daresay that was the journey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, severe?” said Mrs. Kerr delightedly. “Was he +really severe? Sydney, you must tell me; how fearfully +funny!” She narrowed her eyes for a moment as though +she were trying to picture the meeting of Sydney and +Ronald. “I don’t believe,” she admitted, “that he was +pleased at finding everyone dancing. It didn’t, somehow, +seem right. But I daresay he thought <em>you</em> severe; I must +ask him—you terrify me. He seemed rather dazed by +you all.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m glad his first day is so fine,” said Sydney and +felt as though by this she were somehow including herself +in the happiness of the Kerrs. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-132" class="pagenum" title="132"></a> +“Yes, I’m always lucky,” agreed Mrs. Kerr. “Now +we’re going out together. You can’t think what it is like +to be going out with a son. It is unbelievably nice—I’d +forgotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, good-bye,” said Sydney, standing back against +the wall for her friend to pass. “I don’t suppose we shall +see each other again to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, shan’t we? What a pity!” Mrs. Kerr said +vaguely. “There’s that unfortunate Ronald,” she cried +glancing out of the window, “marching up and down +out there—do look—in a Panama hat. How horrid of +me to dawdle!” She nodded to Sydney and went on +smoothly downstairs leaving besides her faint perfume +a sensible backwash of eagerness, expectancy and delight. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney stared out at the hill, crude in sunshine, then +went on upstairs. She thought how ironic it was that a +day made to order for two people’s triumphant occasion +must be at the same time dealt out as a background to +everyone else. She felt she had no energy and could +never get as far as her room, choose her gloves, find her +parasol and put on her hat. At the thought of anything +beyond this, her prospect for the day, she faltered. With +a sense of reprieve she let herself be waylaid by Cordelia +Barry, who was hanging about the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, Miss Warren, it’s Thursday.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t go to the Convent on Thursdays, I was wondering ... +I thought perhaps.... No, but of course +you wouldn’t, would you? I don’t suppose it would suit +you at all....” Cordelia, with an air of infinite calculation +looked sideways at Sydney under her lashes. Sydney, +<a id="page-133" class="pagenum" title="133"></a> +remembering the promise Cordelia had exacted, had +a pang of acute nostalgia for that afternoon of the +carnations, sundered from her by the eternity of a different +mood. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry, Cordelia: I’m going for a walk with Mr. +Milton.” +</p> + +<p> +“O-oh! That is a pity. I suppose I couldn’t come too? +Oh no, but of course you wouldn’t want me, would you? +But I don’t mind Mr. Milton if he doesn’t mind me, and +I don’t see really why I shouldn’t come.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither do I. I suppose—You can come along if +you want to,” said Sydney, denying a sense that this was +mischievous on her part and a shade dishonourable. At +all events to annoy somebody in her turn surely was +owed to her? “He pretends,” she thought, “he professes +to be fond of children. And it’s not as though we +had anything to say to one another. We talk and talk, +and cancel out each other’s ideas until it all comes down +to what it was before: that we do not agree. At the end +of it all it is as though nothing had been said. I do not +even understand myself any better at the end of it and +if that fails what is the use of conversation? Nothing +will ever crystallize out of our being together; not so +much as a notion.” +</p> + +<p> +She deliberated, however, for some moments over +her hats and scarves and returned more than once to +the looking-glass to review herself critically. +</p> + +<p> +Milton was waiting below in the lounge and his face +did fall perceptibly as Sydney, at last appearing at the +turn of the stairs, indicated Cordelia, less in tow than +towing, capering possessively about her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said he, and looking down at their two <a id="corr-14"></a>pairs +<a id="page-134" class="pagenum" title="134"></a> +of descending feet could think of nothing better to say. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney wondered if her face had looked like that to +Mrs. Kerr some moments ago: the comparison was distasteful. +“This is Cordelia Barry,” she said with bright +hardiness, “the eldest of three. She would like to come +with us; you don’t mind, do you?” To her surprise, +Milton turned away without a word to take his walking-stick +from the rack behind him. “You don’t mind, do +you?” echoed Cordelia shrilly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very pleased, of course, if Miss Warren has invited +you,” said Milton, holding open the door for them. +But as Cordelia passed out behind Sydney with the self-assurance +of a pet monkey he looked daggers at her +profile. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve just seen the Kerrs going off,” he said to Sydney +as he came abreast with her. “Ronald looks brighter +this morning: indeed decidedly pleased with himself.” +His pale-grey eyes encountered Sydney’s thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said, “it’s nice to see them together.” She +could tell by his tone that he was angry with her and +was vaguely brandishing a weapon which he understood +to be deadly but did not quite know how to use. He was +nice-looking and at the moment unapproachable; she felt +too spiritless to spar with him, and said, to propitiate, +“It is a lovely day for a walk; I haven’t been for a +walk for ages,” and looked at him gently. He noticed +that her eyes had dark circles round them which were +unbecoming and pitiful. +</p> + +<p> +Milton had woken up this morning with the determination +to take Sydney for a walk. Nothing in that +moment of lucidity had seemed simpler to arrange, and +nothing could actually have been simpler, as things had +<a id="page-135" class="pagenum" title="135"></a> +turned out. He knew as well as she did, and would have +been prepared to admit to her, that the time they had +spent together up to now had been profitless and left +them both sore. But he was convinced (the conviction +emerged with what now seemed inevitability from the +confusion and ill-spent emotion of last night) that a +need corresponding to his own must exist in her somewhere. +A need perhaps, less of each other exclusively +than of something only attainable jointly, of something +rooted in each. “But I do not know how to begin,” he +had complained to himself till this morning. Now he +felt a mastery of the situation to be possible. “If I could +only make her understand,” he thought, “there would +be time enough for her to care for me.” At any rate +here they were, walking together. The presence of this +confounded little girl he chose to discount. +</p> + +<p> +He turned, however, to talk to Cordelia kindly. They +had chosen a road above the town for the sake of the +view and meant to drop down through the fishermen’s +quarters and come home by the sea. Cordelia begged +that she might be allowed to visit the graveyard. Milton +observed conventionally that her taste seemed a +little morbid. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, Mr. Milton; you really ought to see the +graveyard here; it’s most uncommon and beautifully +decorated. I suppose as a clergyman you’ve had so much +experience of them that you get out of the way of noticing +but I am sure you’d be struck by the one here. It’s +<em>most</em> blood-curdling.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like that sort of thing,” said Milton in the +somewhat top-heavy manner in which he could not help +talking to children, “you should get your mother to take +<a id="page-136" class="pagenum" title="136"></a> +you to the Campo Santo at Pisa.” Cordelia evidently +suspected from his tone that he did not think her tastes +sufficiently elevated, while Sydney remarked parenthetically +that she did not see Mrs. Barry taking her children +to Pisa. +</p> + +<p> +“I might, of course,” suggested Cordelia, “be sent to +a convent there to be taught to speak whatever they do +speak. You see, my mother has got a perfect mania about +languages. She would like me to be able to speak ninety-nine +different ones even if I never learnt anything else. +Though what, I should like to know, is the use of speaking +ninety-nine languages if one has nothing to say? +Now I think the nuns have no idea of teaching; I’ve +never been so badly taught in my life. They flap about +and go on and on at one and half the time one can’t +understand what they’re saying and when one does it +doesn’t make sense. I don’t wonder they got turned out +of France—I’m not learning anything. However, the +nuns think nothing matters so long as they go on being +religious, and mother thinks nothing matters so long +as they go on being French, so there you are.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney agreed that this was all very difficult. Milton +who wondered what would become of this little girl +was silent and looked so much depressed that Cordelia +to cheer him up caught hold of his hand and swinging +herself along by it asked him whether he was fond of +reading. “I am,” said she. “My two favourite authors +are Rider Haggard and the Baroness von Hutten. Who +are yours?” +</p> + +<p> +Milton hesitated and Sydney and Cordelia looked at +him with curiosity. Conscious of Sydney’s attention, he +was still debating how to answer most fruitfully when +<a id="page-137" class="pagenum" title="137"></a> +she said to Cordelia across him: “I don’t think Mr. +Milton ever reads at all. I never see him with a book.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not fair,” said Milton. “I read too much as a +rule. I came out <em>here</em> for....” +</p> + +<p> +“For what?” said Sydney, looking about her expressively. +</p> + +<p> +“For people,” said Milton unwarily. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” they both exclaimed. “What an extraordinary +thing to come for!—To come <em>here</em> for,” Sydney added. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know any people? Do you like them so +much?” Cordelia enquired. “How funny! I only like +people in books who only exist when they matter. I think +it is being in danger or terribly in love or discovering +treasure or revenging yourself that is thrilling, and for +that you have to have people. But people in hotels, +hardly <em>alive</em>...!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you don’t know what may not be happening to +them,” Sydney emerging from her detachment felt it +necessary to point out instructively. The road, a favourite +promenade of the natives and visitors, rounded the +face of a high embankment; they could have been looked +down upon from the terraces of villas on one hand while +on the other they were level with the tree-tops: the roofs +of the town were below. Milton distractingly engaged in +conversation by Cordelia, and Sydney released but not +unfriendly looking ahead of her, they emerged on to +a kind of gravelled plateau overlooking the sea. Here +some benches had been placed, beneath umbrella-pines +forming a kind of pergola, to promote contemplation +of the bright panorama of coast. Beyond, the remoter +hills were still snow-capped; others ran down to the sea +in a succession of fine blue noses; headland behind +<a id="page-138" class="pagenum" title="138"></a> +headland fading towards France. The earth had this +brilliant morning a kind of independent luminousness; +there were still no shadows anywhere and the rocks, flat +clustered roofs and campanili seemed to shed light as +well as to receive it. For miles the bright-blue swelling +glassiness of the sea received the coast gracefully among +ripples that frayed continually into foam, slipped back +into themselves, and slid on again. When Sydney, Mr. +Milton and Cordelia had seated themselves on a bench, +the fleshy spears of some cacti fringing the plateau +darkly occupied the foreground of their vision. “Ah!” +said Milton taking a deep breath of the air which here +seemed to him stronger and fresher. Sydney was glad +of his enjoyment of the day which to herself still seemed +spilt out wastefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t everything look as though it was cut out and +painted,” exclaimed Cordelia, joyously swinging her +legs. “Cordelia!” said Milton, looking at her with an +air of inspiration, “do you like nuts?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very much. But I get plenty of them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or figs?” +</p> + +<p> +“The seeds are bad for my teeth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, dates?” +</p> + +<p> +“I adore dates. I’m not encouraged to eat them much +because they’re stickiest. But I do adore dates,” said +Cordelia thoughtfully. “I wonder if I shall ever eat a +date again?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may at any moment,” said Milton, and he told +her that there was a little fruit-shop that he knew of, +just below, where she could buy for the three lire he +proposed to give her enough dates for them all. “I +adore dates too,” he added. “The shop is on the left, by +<a id="page-139" class="pagenum" title="139"></a> +the tram-terminus, and they will talk any language you +like.” He gave the child a slight push that was unnecessary: +she was already sliding off the bench. After a +side-glance at Sydney who had opened her mouth to +protest she fled to some concrete steps and with a yelp +of excitement vanished down them. +</p> + +<p> +“But she isn’t allowed to run about the town by herself,” +said Sydney, vexed, “and she certainly isn’t allowed +to eat between meals—she’s very much be-Nannied. +Whatever made you do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s not the sort of child to get talked to, and I’m +sure she has an inside like an ostrich. If her people encourage +her to attach herself to strangers like that +they’ll have to take the consequences. I sent her off because +she’s been the most infernal nuisance all the +morning.” +</p> + +<p> +He was crimson. “You feel strongly about it,” said +Sydney laughing at him, bathed in sunshine and forgetful +of perils to Cordelia. “Moral indignation?” He +did not interrupt her but something in his silence, his +arresting consciousness of the gap Cordelia’s disappearance +left between them and the clear view they had of +each other, made her interrupt herself. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry she has bored you,” she said nervously. “I +really ought not to have brought her.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t think you ought. I asked you to come for +a walk; I didn’t ask you to collect an expedition.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really—” she began, then stopped again. +Their conspicuous if isolated situation, the matter-of-fact +sunshine and the sense that with all said and done +they were English Visitors, he and she, sitting appropriately +on a bench before a view designed for their admiration, +<a id="page-140" class="pagenum" title="140"></a> +had up to now kept her purely impersonal. +So objective did she feel that she imagined a delighted +Commune gazing down at the two of them, “English +Visitors.” In the expansion of the free air she had +laughed and felt that neither of them were realler than +the scenery. Now, at some tone in his voice she was surprised +by a feeling that some new mood, not of her own, +was coming down over them like a bell-glass. The bright +reality of the view, the consciousness of their unimportant, +safe little figures were shut away from her; +were always there but could no longer help. She felt +the bell-glass finally descend as he, after a glance round +at the other benches and over the edge of the plateau, +said quickly—“The thing is, Sydney, aren’t I ever to +know you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what you mean,” she said, suffocated by +his manner. “Like everybody else, we see each other +every day. Which was what, according to you, we are +here for.” +</p> + +<p> +Milton, losing touch with her, lost touch with himself +and was terrified. He had said, “Yes, but I was wondering +if you would marry me,” before he had had time +to think, on an instinct that he must get out <em>something</em> +at any price and have it there to stand by. She had +understood what he said before he did, and had answered: +“You are very good, but no: I’m afraid it’s impossible”; +so that he had proposed and been rejected +before he had entirely realized that they were not still +quarrelling about Cordelia. When this did dawn on him +he turned to her in dismay. “I’m afraid,” he said with +a return to his usual manner, “that that was terribly +awkward of me.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-141" class="pagenum" title="141"></a> +“Oh no, not at all,” said Sydney, smiling shakily. +“It’s supposed to be very gratifying.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not mean to have said that to-day, I need +hardly explain. It was unforgivable of me. But I suppose +while we are on the subject that there is no further +harm in my asking you, whether you can—as I think +they call it—give me any hope?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m afraid not,” said Sydney feeling she had +been asked something so preposterous that the answer +was a matter for her common sense alone and that +further enquiries need not be instituted. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,” said Milton and the bell-glass lifted, +though it hung above them. She felt as though this +image must have presented itself to him also, for he +drew, as though released from constriction, another deep +breath of air. After staring straight ahead at the hills +for a moment he said, “Thank you”: she did not know +for what, she supposed for her courtesy. This implied +(she felt) a dismissal, a “You may go now, I have +done with you!” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-13"> +<a id="page-142" class="pagenum" title="142"></a> +XIII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>B</span><span class="postfirstchar">ut</span> I thought he liked dates!” cried Cordelia. +Panting at the top of the steps she stood +clutching her package, appalled to see Milton +walk away rapidly in the direction from which they +had come. She had run both ways so as to waste as little +time as possible away from her friends and she couldn’t +help feeling that the escape of Milton in so short an +interval could not but be due to some mismanagement +on the part of Miss Warren; who now alone on the +bench sat staring before her, smiling uneasily. There +had seemed no risk in leaving him for a moment, he had +had every appearance of being rooted there, or better +perhaps, tethered. +</p> + +<p> +“But he <em>said</em> he liked dates,” she repeated, bringing +up reason to support her astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +The remark, which was not answered, seemed further +to contribute to a gloom that had taken the place of +the affable Mr. Milton and which momentarily, to both +their perceptions, darkened the sunshine. Miss Warren +now rose abruptly, shook out her pleated skirts and for +the first time unfurling her parasol tilted it from her +shoulder at an angle, with a concentration upon these +details of her own elegance which implied dismally to +Cordelia the exclusion of Mr. Milton even from memory. +With a renewed, more genuine smile to Cordelia she +suggested that they should continue their walk. Except +<a id="page-143" class="pagenum" title="143"></a> +for a few arcs and triangles in the gravel before the +bench the friendly clergyman might never have existed. +</p> + +<p> +They followed the loops of the road in their gradual +descent towards the cemetery. Sydney was talkative; +they discussed novels, the difficulties of arithmetic and +the superiority of cats over dogs. Once she turned and +looked back at the benches as though horrified by the +thought that they would still be there. Cordelia asked, +“Have you forgotten something?” and she answered, +“Oh no,” in confusion. It transpired that Mr. Milton +had been recalled by an engagement of some importance, +till then forgotten. Cordelia, who was able to estimate +the probable importance of any engagement locally, +said nothing. She suspected him to be a feeble walker, +and moreover a man of quick appetites as quickly forgotten. +She ate his dates and ceased to regret him; allowing +the stones to accumulate in one cheek and spitting +them out by half-dozens with great force. She +proceeded down hill beside Sydney with a hop-skip-and-a-jump, +kicking up the powdery white dust so that it +swirled round her feet and, settling, iced the top of her +shoes. She derived keen pleasure from this, also from +a sense of the enviableness of walking with this appearance +of intimacy with the distinguished Miss Warren. +She hoped in vain that they might meet some of +her friends. +</p> + +<p> +“I do think two’s better company,” she said at last, +“but I hope this hasn’t been a disappointment to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a pity, of course,” said Sydney who could not +help feeling it would have been more vigorous, more +admirable on Milton’s part to have continued the walk +with them. She believed herself able to recognize in +<a id="page-144" class="pagenum" title="144"></a> +what had occurred simply another of his nervous impulses, +there had been, she was convinced, no impetus of +emotion. In the unique encounter of eyes they had had, +as with raised hat he was turning away from her, he +had shown her nothing of what he felt but astonishment: +a profound astonishment, at which of them she could +not be sure. Those pale-grey eyes with their penetrating +blankness were still vivid to her, but though she now intensely +desired to reproach herself she could not wring +from her memories any sense of his emotion. She came +to doubt that she had witnessed anything more painful +than the momentary topple of a shy but very potent vanity +that had over-reached itself. A suspicion of having +been casually snatched at hardened her towards him. +He had not hurt her but he had set the pain of the +earlier morning free to renew itself; a nerve was insistently +throbbing. She became aware, with the knife-edge +of a first realization, of each implication of the +words, expression, gesture, with which Mrs. Kerr had +detached herself and in smiling expectation gone past +her downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +In such a mood she was not proof against the ordinary +reflections on mortality as she looked with Cordelia +through the cemetery gates. To see better, they pressed +up their faces against the cold bars. Cordelia for the +last ten minutes had been hurrying, her whole self narrowed +down; she had become silent with apprehension. +She was tortured by a fear that the cemetery with its +ornaments might have rolled itself up and vanished, or +worse, that it might fail in its pungent appeal, so that +she would not this time experience what she had learned +to describe as a “frisson” as she gazed through the gloom +<a id="page-145" class="pagenum" title="145"></a> +of the trees down that distracting prospective of monuments. +Also, she had made herself responsible for the +reaction of Miss Warren from the moment they turned +down the suggestive cul-de-sac away from the sea, +walled-in steeply and vanishing at a succession of angles +round the palm-tufted bases of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +The cemetery seemed quite deserted. Gashes of overcharged +daylight pressed in through the cypresses on to +the graves; a hard light bestowing no grace and exacting +each detail. In the shade of the pillared vaults round +the walls what already seemed the dusk of evening had +begun to thicken, but the rank and file of small crosses +staggered arms-wide in the arraignment of sunshine. In +spite of the brooding repose of the trees a hundred little +shrill draughts came between them and spurting across +the graves made the decorations beloved of Cordelia +creak and glitter. A wreath of black tin pansies swung +from the arm of a cross with a clatter of petals, trailing +colourless ribbons; a beaded garland had slipped down +slantwise across the foot of a grave. Candles for the peculiar +glory of the lately dead had been stuck in the +unhealed earth: here and there a flame in a glass shade +writhed, opaque in the sunshine. Above all this uneasy +rustle of remembrance, white angels poised forward to +admonish. The superlatives crowding each epitaph +hissed out their “<span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">issimi</span>” and “<span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">issime</span>” from under the +millinery of death. Everywhere, in ribbons, marbles, +porcelains, was euphuism, a suggestion of the salon, and +nowhere could the significance of death have been +brought forward more startlingly. +</p> + +<p> +“I must say,” remarked Cordelia, “I do like Italian +graves; they look so much more lived in.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-146" class="pagenum" title="146"></a> +“They would certainly be more difficult than others +to get clear of,” said Sydney, and quickly in unthinking +perturbation she pushed open the cemetery gates, as +though she were on a message to a friend’s house, and +hurried in. Once among the graves she stood with Cordelia +behind her, looking round again. She was oppressed +by the thought, less of death than of the treachery +of a future that must give one to this ultimately. She +was not accustomed to consider death as other than a +spontaneous fine gesture. Now it hinted itself as something +to be imposed on one, the last and most humiliating +of those deprivations she had begun to experience. +She thought, “It is all very well to escape to the future +and think it will always be there; but this is the end +of the future.” Looking up to watch a bird fly slowly +across the sky she realized that living as she had lived +she had been investing the future with more and more +of herself. The present, always slipping away, was +ghostly, every moment spent itself in apprehension of +the next and these apprehensions, these faded expectancies +cumbered her memory, crowded out her achievements +and promised to make the past barren enough +should she have to come back to it. +</p> + +<p> +James Milton’s attempt to come further into her life, +to regions by his acquaintance of them surely sufficiently +ice-bound, appeared in the light of present considerations +heroic: he had been staking his future. But his +future, she recollected, spun itself off into infinity. He +did not acknowledge finality anywhere; this made him +leisurely-seeming and easily generous. His impulses in +any direction were not intensified by her own sense of +urgency. In the light shed serenely down from that +<a id="page-147" class="pagenum" title="147"></a> +ultimate spaciousness he was covering life at an equable +pace. He presented himself an undriven, a comforting +figure. She saw him conducting a funeral; voluminous, +fluttering, milkwhite, leaning like one of these angels +over the yawn of a grave to scatter his handful of earth, +his tribute to mortality; with the expression, a submerged +beam, of this having in a cognizant Mind its +order. The word “death” used in his presence would +have a slow-dying ring to it, to which one would be able +to feel him subconsciously listening. She contemplated +with a faint inclination a life shared with someone for +whom events would have this overtone of significance. +</p> + +<p> +And to be wanted! She remembered in what a mood +she had climbed the stairs that morning, and looked +round her at the now forever undesired dead. She tried +to recall the feel of his handclasp and to imagine the +touch of his lips. With a sigh: “I am very ordinary!” +she tried over any terms of endearment which seemed +within the range of his manner, listening gravely for +a ring which, like the word death, she felt they would +have for him. +</p> + +<p> +Cordelia sat on the end of a grave among a little city +of glass domes, looking up intelligently. The child had +read so many novels that she might well have been expected +to know what there was to be known about the +affairs of the heart. Feeling the bright eyes of Cordelia +fixed for some moments upon her Sydney began to wonder +whether her lips had been moving just now and if +so, what Cordelia had thought; she feared that she +might have gone so far as what in Cordelia’s novels +would be called murmuring. Of this the child would approve +too readily. For the moment, however, her attention +<a id="page-148" class="pagenum" title="148"></a> +did not seem to have wandered from the graves +and she was determined not to allow Sydney’s to do so +either. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you know,” she began, “that it costs a great +deal of money to be buried permanently?” +</p> + +<p> +“It never occurred to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“A girl at the convent had a grandmother who died +and she told me that the grandmother’s last request was +to be buried permanently. If you aren’t—and it is fearfully +expensive—they come and dig you up again. Italians +never think of this; they are most improvident. +They spend a lot of money trimming up the graves—I +must say, they do do it very nicely—and then after all +their trouble the cemetery people come and dig their +relation up again, because the cemetery is too small and +people keep on dying and dying, and they have to go in +<em>somewhere</em>, if you see what I mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Sydney and glanced behind as though +she might expect to see the newly dead jostling one another +in the gate. She felt that it had been a mistake to +have come here at all, even to recover herself. This high-walled +place with its one gate might well be a trap for +her and she wondered what she should do if, instead of +the dead, Mrs. Kerr and Ronald were to come in suddenly, +talking and laughing (she could see them) as they +stepped over the graves. Why they should come to the +cemetery she could not imagine except that her dread +of them, even in thought, might well prove a magnet +to their unconsciousness. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, of course,” she said loudly, “people must +keep on dying. They should have made allowances for +that.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-149" class="pagenum" title="149"></a> +“There is a rubbish heap at the back of the +chapel.... If you’d come with me I could show +you....” +</p> + +<p> +“What a horrid little ghoul you are,” Sydney said +mechanically. She had found that in actually dealing +with children theories collapse and one must retreat on +the conventions. But when Cordelia in her reasonable +little voice objected “Why?” she could think of nothing +to answer. There seemed no reason, even conventionally, +why she should impose on Cordelia the adult +idea of “morbidity.” “People wouldn’t like you to talk +about being dug up,” she said at last weakly, “though +it seems to me a very practical arrangement. The Italians +are realists.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is a realist?” asked Cordelia, while, having +gathered up some china flowers lying about on the +ground she stuck these by their wire stalks into the +band of her hat. “Haven’t I made my hat smart? What +<em>are</em> realists?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ask Mr. Milton,” Sydney said promptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he—?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course not. But he will tell you what unenlightened +people they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a long-winded man,” said Cordelia, looking +at her friend sideways. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Sydney irritably. “And anyway, +what do you know about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh nothing, nothing at all. I don’t know what ‘long-winded’ +means, even.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you shouldn’t——” +</p> + +<p> +“It was a sporting risk, after all,” said Cordelia +gravely and Sydney, rebuked, wished that she could be +<a id="page-150" class="pagenum" title="150"></a> +so honest. “Where,” she asked, “do they put the English?” +</p> + +<p> +“Over there; we have a very nice corner reserved. +I’ll show you, shan’t I? There’s a little girl of just my +age—mustn’t the people in her hotel have been upset +about it? I often think—” she brooded. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I daresay you do. I often used to. But it +wouldn’t be much fun, really, dying to impress other +people, or to be picturesque or pitied.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose not, really. But I couldn’t help just imagining, +that day they were so stuffy with us ’cause +we broke the lift. I put my tongue out after Mrs. Hillier +when she had stopped and been sarcastic at me in +the passage, and I thought ‘Yah! if I liked you’d be +sobbing and sniffing to-morrow and putting flowers—carnations—on +my coffin and saying what a darling +little girl I’d been!’” +</p> + +<p> +They went on to look at the English end of the cemetery, +where more discreet memorials had been hewn into +shapes better suited to granite than to Carrara marble. +All round the cypresses waited. How complete the +Riviera was, thought Sydney, one could even die here. +Birds were rare; she started as one dipped from a tree +and flew zigzag with a shrill cry, skimming the gravestones. +Like an echo of the bird’s cry they heard the +creak of a hinge as the gate, hidden by trees, was pushed +open decorously. Sydney could feel her heart thump +as they listened and waited. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Miss Pinkerton appeared between the cypresses, +conscious even of the dead, her face composed +into an expression of nobility. She looked to left and +right of her through the graves and though she saw +<a id="page-151" class="pagenum" title="151"></a> +Cordelia and Sydney she did not seem at first to recognize +them. They might have been figures in a crowd. +Did they intrude?—She was carrying narcissi. She approached—the +path allowed her no alternative—but she +approached serenely; the encounter did not seem distasteful. +“Good-morning,” she returned in a low voice +when Sydney bowed. They turned to leave her. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a lovely spot,” remarked Miss Pinkerton, not +unwilling to detain them. +</p> + +<p> +“Lovely,” Sydney agreed. “So peaceful!” +</p> + +<p> +“A friend of mine,” said Miss Pinkerton looking at +them with her mild august eyes, “has a cousin here.” +She indicated the destination of the narcissi. Sydney +stooped to read the inscription. +</p> + +<p> +“He was an admiral,” said Miss Pinkerton and +sighed again. +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t he an admiral still?” exclaimed Cordelia, +whom Sydney, pulling by the hand abruptly began to +lead away. +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t have asked that, Cordelia.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why shouldn’t I—Oh, Miss Warren, don’t +hurry so! One would think you were running away +from the admiral—why shouldn’t I have asked that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Sydney after some reflection, “because +Miss Pinkerton doesn’t know.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-14"> +<a id="page-152" class="pagenum" title="152"></a> +XIV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">S</span><span class="postfirstchar">uddenly</span> the group round the doors had +dispersed and everybody was leaning over the +drawing-room balcony. Above all, all the way +up the front of the Hotel, faces blossomed out unexpectedly, +flinging away like veils the first oblivion of +siesta. One would have thought a note of music had +never been heard before or that the man into whose +deep mouth they were all gazing down were himself +Orpheus. +</p> + +<p> +He plucked from his mandoline shaking notes which +the tensity and blaze of noon and the gathered silence +of his audience did invest with a strangeness, and sang +while the whole of him quivered. He did not cease to +parade beneath the balcony while maintaining fountain-wise +the spout of song. The child with red skirts clutching +his coat-tails echoed, with the addition here and there +of skips or quaver, his strut and his song. Her face with +a smile’s general glitter across it was upturned to the +balcony, eyes closed as though she could feel the benevolence +of visitors descend upon the lids like rain. +</p> + +<p> +The airs were not classical. He sang “Funiculee-Funicula” +and “Sole Mio” and presently (encouraging +his little girl to dance for their English friends and +quickening the measure till her brief skirts spun out +into a disc) a song about the beauties of a doll. +</p> + +<p> +Ladies on either side of Ronald began pressing him +<a id="page-153" class="pagenum" title="153"></a> +closer, and more and more people came out through the +window behind and leaned across his shoulders. He +could hear, when he kept his head low, quite an orchestra +of excited breathing. +</p> + +<div class="poem-container"> + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it"> + <p class="verse">“Ah ch’è bella la bambola mia,</p> + <p class="verse">Quasi, quasi più bella di me</p> + <p class="verse">Un vestito di ràso celeste</p> + <p class="verse">Un cappello di——”</p> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Splendid!” somebody cried out and the wave of admiration +mounting behind Ronald broke into clapping of +hands and laughter. “This balcony,” he remarked to his +mother under cover of this, “is like a print of a public +execution.” He shone with an exhilaration induced by +the music in spite of himself, but preserved his expression +of disillusionment. “It will bust in a minute or +two, and serve them all right for watching anything so +beastly.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Ronald, <em>beastly</em>?” She turned to him in consternation, +innocent as never before of irony. +</p> + +<p> +“The little devil’s blind,” said Ronald, pointing +down and moving his shoulders angrily, for there were +two what he called great fat women leaning on his back. +</p> + +<p> +The word spread somehow and when the child’s eyes +again dropped open, then lazily shut, several people +were alert to notice that the eyes were china-white. The +minstrel, appreciative of the interest thus created, pulled +his companion forward and stopped in his song to advertise +her with a flourish. “<span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">Cieca! cieca!</span>” he exclaimed +and straddled shining up at them, all teeth. The +little girl, in the ecstasy of this, flung her arms out and +<a id="page-154" class="pagenum" title="154"></a> +began to dance again, whirling at such velocity that it +was as though she tore the music from the mandoline +to follow her. Ripples of “Shame” and “Cruel” crept +down the balcony but from the windows above the first +drops of a shower of nickel were spinning already. The +shower thickened and there was for a moment or two +in the air a continuous glitter. The little girl paused, +leaning against the wind of her movement, and seemed +to listen in ecstasy. She snatched up handfuls of air and +surrendered them laughingly, then flung herself with +cries of delight to and fro on the gravel and, groping, +gathered up her harvest. There followed some heavier +coins, the escape of a sigh and a faint burst of horrified +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“But she <em>is</em> happy,” maintained Sydney, standing +back against the frame of the window and a voice she +could not trace but believed to be Milton’s supported +her with, “Yes, yes, she must be.” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald wriggled beneath the weight of the two good +women but could not extricate himself in time to see +who, on either occasion, had spoken. He would have +given much to do so. All to-day there had been phrases, +broken-off, exclamatory, rising stark like this out of +a hush or a hum with a significance for him foreign to +their context, with startling relevance to something +in his mind. +</p> + +<p> +He pushed his way back into the drawing-room, now +quite vacant and in yellow shade from the awning. He +sat down on a sofa, leaned back, crossed his legs, and +waited for his mother to appear in the window, as she +almost immediately did, and after a moment’s blank +<a id="page-155" class="pagenum" title="155"></a> +stare through the dusk to perceive him and come over +royally. She did concede—and generously he could approve +the concession—a few words back over her +shoulder, perhaps to Miss Warren out there. Then she +sat beside him, most beautiful in the half-light, her +attitude settling into complete repose as silk settles into +its folds. She had still a little amusement, a faint perturbation, +but she was allowing these ripples to widen +and fade in her mind. It would be clear of them soon, +a smooth consciousness on to which he hoped to stream +like light. +</p> + +<p> +They were still after this life-long strangeness to +one another at a stage when the novelty of being together +made each seeking-out of one another unique. +A meeting was in the nature of a rendezvous and the +<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mise-en-scène</span> queerly important. The isolation of +rendezvous made indifferent such publicity as that of a +bench, a waiting-room, or this rigid sofa pasted square +to the wall of a drawing-room. So they sat here, Ronald +exalted. +</p> + +<p> +“And now?” his mother said, after some moments +in which the music having come to an end, the shoal +swept past from the balcony with a sympathetic aversion +of glances. A lust for spectacle which the little +blind girl had aroused was gratified by them passingly +and Ronald knew that many people had considered +them “touching.” The room empty once more, it was +as though Mrs. Kerr had had to expostulate with herself +for being too happy. “And now?” she resumed +with an air of obligation. +</p> + +<p> +“Why ‘now’?” said Ronald. “Can’t we stay here? +<a id="page-156" class="pagenum" title="156"></a> +I mean, unless you want to sleep. What is this room, +anyway?” He looked round at the armchairs all facing +one way with awful intelligence. +</p> + +<p> +“I think quite a number of women sit here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Obviously. But I’m not afraid of an atmosphere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Ronald, you seem to be thickening. I was always +alarmed and impressed by the idea that you <em>were</em> +afraid of an atmosphere: that they were dangerous.” +</p> + +<p> +<em>He</em> had been always alarmed and impressed by the +idea that she had not an inkling of his subtleties; or +rather, would not exert herself to perceive them. But +since his arrival at this Hotel he had been amazed by +the fineness of her perceptions, not only from moment +to moment but by a sudden vista of them along the +past, <a id="corr-16"></a>perceptions so delicate, appreciations so faultless +that it could only have been some lack of an equal +fineness that had made him suffer an infinite deprivation. +Now when she said that he was thickening he was +able to smile at her. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I must have amused my mother?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ronald, you were so subtle. I was inadequate.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> was inadequate. Shut up!” He shook her arm +gently. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t help laughing. Do you know, I, I respect +you? Why should I have to confess this instead of announcing +it? I do respect you,” she repeated, saying +the word diffidently and looking back on what she had +said with apparent misgiving. +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact,” said <a id="corr-18"></a>Ronald gravely, “I don’t +think <em>we</em> mind being respected. I think, Mother, if you +don’t mind my saying so, that it is a mistake ever to confuse +us with your <span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fin-de-siècle</span> contemporaries. Of +<a id="page-157" class="pagenum" title="157"></a> +course a remark like that would have a thousand satirical +reverberations in—say—a Wilde play. But really, +one is able to take it quite simply.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s where you all are so wonderful,” said Mrs. +Kerr, with the deep thoughtfulness she brought to bear +on his every remark. “Of course I do date hopelessly, +as Sydney says.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney? Oh, the girl, yes. Was she asked?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ronald, you’re unkind. Don’t say ‘gurl’ like that. +I thought you’d like her, she’s immensely clever.” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald was surprised to realize that the fact that +he did not like Sydney, of which he was himself only +now aware, must long have been obvious to his mother. +“If she were not a ‘gurl,’ she wouldn’t be here. Anyway, +isn’t she rather unnatural? The young Lawrences +have at least a certain crude attractiveness.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s been crude enough to care for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you couldn’t tolerate <span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">schwärmerei</span>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but that suggests the <span class="lang" lang="de" xml:lang="de">backfisch</span>. Could one be +ungenerous enough not to take what is offered one +finely? Don’t be tiresome to her; do justify yourself. +She’s prepared to find you <em>rather</em> tiresome.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was she asked?” +</p> + +<p> +“She thinks twenty is a tiresome age. She’s twenty-two, +you see. Anyway, don’t let’s bother about her now. +This ‘respect’ that I’ve just discovered and you’ve authorized +is so very comfortable to me. It does please me +so—you may have felt this but I haven’t put it into +words because these large admissions are embarrassing—that +you’ve come down to me from Germany, given +up Germany. I hope it didn’t cost a lot?” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald looked embarrassed. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-158" class="pagenum" title="158"></a> +“I meant in <em>development</em>. Pictures? Music?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, those, no. Anyway, Mother, as I should have +explained” (an irritated consciousness of having already +done so at great length brought a note into his +voice) “those were a purely secondary——” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course they were. How dense I’ve been again. I +<em>mean</em> the Rentenmark.” She laid a hand on his knee, +leaned back her head against the wall and, he believed, +even blushed her contrition; yet this was all said with +such a vivid disclosure, such a flash of her personality +that he was overwhelmed. In spite of a convinced +feminism which should have armoured him Ronald +never failed to be overwhelmed by sheer femininity. Not +since little boyhood did he remember such flashes from +her; she had seemed for those middle years rather withdrawn +and perverse, in her very elegance abstract. +</p> + +<p> +He stuttered his reasons for coming from Germany, +sadly abashed. He told her how she had distracted him +by a letter now and then or a memory from his regard +of the economic confusion upon which he had so admirably +concentrated himself. Her reprehensible undistress +had been a perpetual temptation. Also he had +not been able to see when else, in the press of the next +two years, he could be with her for long. Also, he admitted +scrupulously, it did happen to fit in very well +with his project of meeting the Byngs in Sicily. +</p> + +<p> +He did not however admit to a childish feeling of +homelessness or to having been lonely in Munich and +bored in Dresden, while several people had been rude +to him in Berlin. He did just glance for a moment tentatively +at his mother, then he gulped the admission +down; he drew in his feet and stared a little haggardly +<a id="page-159" class="pagenum" title="159"></a> +round the drawing-room. He may have guessed that they +were not likely to come nearer to each other than these +precipitate little plunges into intimacy, this succession +of rendezvous, would carry them. +</p> + +<p> +Round him stripes prevailed on the tight brocades +of the upholstery, on the mats methodically diamond-wise +on the polish; stripes were repeated innumerably +in the satiny wall-paper and the lace blinds over the +door. One had a sense of being caged into this crowded +emptiness. This seemed the strangest place to sit and +make demands on motherhood, the strangest place for +motherhood in answering to make itself palpable. He +felt half impelled to ask his mother some fantastic +question: “What do I mean to you?” or “What part do +I play in your life?” or even (a final outrage) “Do you +care for me?” (This he could not remember that she +had ever avowed.) Even were the putting of such questions +conceivable a direct reply from her here was not; +there must ensue some cataclysm, the stretched brocades +would rip audibly, the pot-bellied vases crack. His most +daring conception of an intimacy was a freedom to ask +or to answer such questions; though he also conceived +that in intimacy the reserves would have trebly their +value. +</p> + +<p> +“It will be dull for you here,” said his mother, interpreting +his vague scrutiny. “I do nothing at all all +day long, so I haven’t had time for a feeling of rootlessness; +but if I’d known you were coming out I’d have +taken a villino. Sydney found me the nicest little villino +stuck to the side of a rock and wanted to take it for both +of us, but it would have meant the dear muzzy cousin +with the inside coming too, and that Sydney wouldn’t +<a id="page-160" class="pagenum" title="160"></a> +consider, though she couldn’t for a moment, either, consider +leaving the cousin. So the idea dropped. A pity, +I think now,” Mrs. Kerr said reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +“A disappointment for Sydney.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid they seem inevitable. She is a very disappointable +girl. But it really is a pity from our point +of view, because she’d be moving out now and you would +be moving in. How long is it, I wonder, since you and I +have kept house? Perhaps I have deprived you of something—I +cannot feel that I have?” +</p> + +<p> +“The idea that you should what is called ‘live for me’ +is quite barbarous,” said Ronald reassuringly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yet I cannot disentangle myself from the idea that +it isn’t right for a woman not to be a little barbarous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Being rational,” Ronald considered, “should take +them as far. You see, they can ... they can <em>canal</em> the +natural forces——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! But I don’t feel as if I had got any natural +forces,” said Mrs. Kerr, alarmed. “And you know, Ronald, +you would hate me to be rational. It’s forbidding +and horrible in a woman, I think.” +</p> + +<p> +“But one does want them to understand themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you know you would not be attracted by a +woman who did.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do attractions really matter so much?” asked Ronald +in the strained voice of one in whom a whole torrent +of conviction banks itself up behind the narrow escape +of speech, impeding its own exit. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling.... Shall we have to be so very hygienic +and bald?” +</p> + +<p> +He could put nothing he felt into words. +</p> + +<p> +His mother took up one of his hands, turned it over +<a id="page-161" class="pagenum" title="161"></a> +thoughtfully, then laying it down on her knee pulled +each finger gently, spreading each out and feeling the +tip with her own. “Nice hands,” she said with a sigh. +“I do wish you hadn’t had to go to Germany.” +</p> + +<p> +That “hygienic” had stung Ronald. It was like getting +a splash in the eye from one’s own disinfectant. +“I suppose,” he said, as though he were speaking to her +in the dark and had to guess her position, “that you +think I don’t like things to be beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be chilly with me—I didn’t mean that. I’m +frivolous you see and I can’t express myself. I only do +mean that I think you and Sydney are a little inclined +to over-estimate the value of what you call ‘truth’ +(though I do agree it is very important) and that this +does tend to produce in your conversation rather an +atmosphere of white tiles.” +</p> + +<p> +“It must be depressing for you to have a son like +an operating theatre,” said Ronald with bitter mirth, +and amended, more fatally apt, “or a bathroom.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr leaned her head against the wall again +and shut her eyes; her lids remained closed as though +she already were sleeping and a faint and very mysterious +smile suggested to him for some seconds a profound +slumber. With an idea that it might be forbidden to +sleep in the drawing-room (could one have imagined it +possible to do so) he got protestingly up and stood over +her. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>May</em> I go to sleep?” she said without moving. “Even +for you, darling, I can’t do without my siesta.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me before you go quite away,” he exclaimed, +“if I’ve been boorish and horrible?” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been lovely,” breathed out Mrs. Kerr on a +<a id="page-162" class="pagenum" title="162"></a> +sigh, and behind the mask of her face she perceptibly +retreated from consciousness, in the attitude of the +Beata Beatrix. Looking down at her he went back +through his memory, past his admiration for Rossetti +to the day when at six years old he had called his +mother “My Beautiful.” As she did not stir and, the +Hotel being absolutely silent, there seemed no danger of +anybody coming in to disturb her, he sat down again +silently on a small chair. From here he could see to +the left of her sofa, the long strip of awning orange +against the sun and, beneath it, the blue line of sea, with +clotted geraniums swinging down from their boxes. +Across his panel of sea a fishing-boat made a slow progress; +this had vanished behind the window-frame and +another followed it before Mrs. Kerr opened her eyes +again or Ronald stirred from the profound meditation +into which, with folded legs and limply hanging arms, +he had relapsed. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-15"> +<a id="page-163" class="pagenum" title="163"></a> +XV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">V</span><span class="postfirstchar">eronica</span> was in despair. She slipped, after +a doubtful tap, round Sydney’s door, and professing +an acute desire for sympathy and consolation, +sank without further explanation into the +billows of plump eiderdown on Sydney’s bed, kicked +her white suède shoes across the room and flung her hat +after them. +</p> + +<p> +“The floor hasn’t been swept,” said Sydney, looking +up from her book. Notwithstanding the slight sense +of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon +she had been enjoying “Jude the Obscure.” She +did not mind Veronica coming in but wished she did +not have to talk to her. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care if I don’t put any of them on again,” +announced Veronica in the toneless accents of sincerity. +“They are abominable.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> think the clothes you wear are nice,” said Sydney. +“Have you got a pain?” +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact, I hate all my clothes. And I +don’t know what is to become of me. Does it ever occur +to you that being alive is a mistake?” She swung a +stockinged foot and sighed. “I do wish,” she said, “that +I had brought my knitting. I do think conversation when +one hasn’t got anything to do with one’s hands feels +fearfully awkward, don’t you? And I really should +like to talk, if you don’t mind. You’re not doing anything—I +mean, only reading?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-164" class="pagenum" title="164"></a> +“Why don’t you go out?” +</p> + +<p> +Veronica explained that she was sick of other people’s +faces and was certain, comfortably, that Sydney would +understand what she meant. Sitting here in Sydney’s +room, to which she had not yet been invited, among +Sydney’s possessions gave her a feeling of being listened +to which she would never have had on neutral ground. +Ordinarily, this would not have affected her one way or +the other; she herself never listened very attentively +to what other people were saying. The gist of a remark +was enough for her. This was a north room, the morning’s +glare was reflected back to it faintly from the face +of the hill. Veronica preferred her own room, and +thought that it was just like Sydney to be at the back +of the first floor instead of the front of the fourth with +a balcony and sunshine. She, Joan and Eileen shared +a room with sloping ceilings that resembled a rabbit-hutch. +This, she thought, looking round her, was rarefied +but rather depressing. +</p> + +<p> +“Does it seem to you,” she said weightily, “that this +world is entirely divided into rather stupid men and very +silly women? And that the stupid are all one will ever +have to hope for and that the silly are all one can ever +become?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, thoughtful over this, was certain that there +must be other variations. +</p> + +<p> +“There aren’t,” said Veronica definitely. “I think +you are usually fairly lucid and at present I am; I +have absolutely no illusions about anyone. Look at the +things people say to you and the things they expect you +to do and the ridiculous way people don’t know what +they want and the fuss they make when they can’t get it. +<a id="page-165" class="pagenum" title="165"></a> +Look at the sort of way people go on if you ask them +for any opinion about anything you’ve done.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never ask anybody else their opinion,” said Sydney +(she felt odiously). +</p> + +<p> +“One must have something to go by.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go by yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“As a matter of fact,” said Veronica, rolling sideways +on to her elbow to pluck a long white feather out +of the eiderdown, “I suppose I’m rather humble, really. +By the way,” she added after a pause in which two +more feathers had been extracted, “what is your absolutely +candid opinion of the man Victor?” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>How</em> absolutely candid?—I mean, would anything +hurt?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, thanks. Do I look it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, candidly, I do think he’s rather a dreary +young man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought you did,” said Veronica briskly. “Everybody +seems to. Of course, I know him fairly well.” +</p> + +<p> +“And isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not more than others.” Veronica slipped off +the bed and began to walk round the room thoughtfully. +Hands on hips she paused a moment to look at herself +in the wardrobe glass from every angle. “One might +be led to expect,” she said with obvious relevance, +“something better than all that, you know.” It did seem +that for all she had been designed for she was tragically +more than adequate. She remained staring at Sydney +with a fated air while Sydney said: “He seems attached +to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” said Veronica, matter-of-factly but without +complacency. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-166" class="pagenum" title="166"></a> +“Do you want to get rid of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—no. What would be the good? Everybody’s the +same and I must have somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, well,” said Sydney, withdrawing. A moment’s +rather fine light had played on Veronica, but now Sydney +felt, in revulsion, a mild contempt. Women, +she thought, are all tentacles: this last remark had +suggested a wide but horribly purposeful groping +about. +</p> + +<p> +“And if you come to think of it,” said Veronica, +“people who are fond of one may be damned dull and +absolutely monotonous but they are rather touching. I +hate pitying people, but I can’t help it. Fancy feeling +like that! I do think men are pathetic, don’t you? If +only they were more interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have said they were interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“You wouldn’t if you’d had as many as I have,” said +Veronica gloomily. “I do envy you being so fearfully +clever, Sydney, it’s kept you young for your age. I daresay +I thought men were interesting when I was about +seventeen. Now I can see they’re all exactly the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“If that’s the effect you produce on them,” said Sydney, +“I should let them be. And it would be fairer. After +all, as one was told when one wouldn’t finish up one’s +dinner, there are many poor girls——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I daresay. But what am <em>I</em> to do? I don’t want +to <em>be</em> anything. I’m not modern. I’d be perfectly happy +the way I am if only other people weren’t exactly like +they are. Sydney, you give me the creeps sitting there +like an idol. Do say something. Tell me what you think +will become of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you ask me? I’m the last person in the +<a id="page-167" class="pagenum" title="167"></a> +world to be able to understand you. It would be better, +even, to ask Victor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never talk to him. But you’re so <em>lucid</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who said that?” asked Sydney at once, pouncing +on an adjective which did not seem to have its place in +Veronica’s vocabulary. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Milton,” said Veronica unabashed. “We think +‘lucid’ is a good word; we’ve taken it up. You should +hear Eileen! <em>He’s</em> got a tremendous vocabulary, he said +you were ‘clear-cut.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! How amusing. Does he talk about me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he does; he’s fearfully keen on you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! How amusing....” +</p> + +<p> +Veronica laughed tolerantly. “‘In love,’ if you prefer +it,” she continued. “I suppose as he’s middle-aged that +that is rather more expressive.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, feeling as though she had caught Milton unawares, +felt rather ashamed of herself. The picture +that came as those awkward sounding words left Veronica’s +lips was as sudden as though that scene on the +plateau (which had disconnected itself from the rest +of her memories) had not occurred. She had so entirely +divested that all-staged proposal of all the traditional +trappings that she had come to account for it merely +as one of the more blatant of his occasional solecisms. +They had frequently met since then without awkwardness, +without the ghost of an echo. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney could never hear any mention of love without +an envious pang for its object and now, as though feeling +came quicker than thought, she had felt this pang +sharply before she had had time to say to herself “He +is in love with <em>me</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-168" class="pagenum" title="168"></a> +“I daresay he may propose, you know,” said Veronica +maternally, with an air of having their situation well +in hand. “That will be awful for you; he’s a darling +old thing—not so very old, either,” she amended politely—so +politely that Sydney realized she herself +must have transgressed an etiquette in depreciating +Victor. “He is one of the few men,” said Veronica +with a sigh, “who can talk intellectually to me +and make me talk intellectually without feeling a +fool.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney longed to overhear them. “He and I,” she +said, “can’t talk to one another. He keeps tripping up +and tripping me up like a bad dancer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>well</em>,” said Veronica, “under the circumstances +what can you expect?” and Sydney shrugged her impatience +at this conception. Veronica sitting down before +the dressing-table leant on her elbows, curling her feet +round the rungs of the chair. She amused herself for +some moments by squinting horribly at her own reflection, +then she took up Sydney’s puff and began +thoughtfully to powder her face. “Talking of types,” +said she, “none of us seem to be making much impression +on young Ronald, do we? Did you ever see such a +mummy’s-boy! Oh, I beg your pardon, Sydney, I was +forgetting Mrs. Kerr was a friend of yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“It doesn’t matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must say, I do think she’s odd about Ronald. She +doesn’t seem to have taken any notice of him for years +and now they go about all over the place like Romeo +and Juliet. Of course I daresay he makes a fearful +fuss over her. These selfish mothers get the best of it all +the way. I shall be a selfish mother.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-169" class="pagenum" title="169"></a> +“As a matter of fact, you won’t,” Sydney said with a +flash of insight. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I should never have the nerve to be as blatantly +selfish as she is. I think she’s treated you very +badly, too: that makes me furious—I say, Sydney, +your powder doesn’t suit my face! Look, it makes me +pale blue. You have got a skin, you lucky devil! <em>I</em> always +use basanée.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you think she has treated me badly?” asked +Sydney dispassionately. She waited for Veronica to +continue and her expectations of what was coming raced +ahead. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, she has so absolutely given you the go-by, hasn’t +she?” said Veronica, replacing the alabaster lid of the +powder-bowl then looking down to blow some powder +off her dress. “It was ‘Sydney this’ and ‘Sydney darling +that’ and ‘Where’s Sydney?’ and ‘Sydney and I are going +together,’ and now he’s come she simply doesn’t see +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, after an interval, leant sideways to push +the window further open. She seemed to have forgotten +Veronica, who energetically continued, “Of course I’m +sorry for you. Everybody’s sorry for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you <em>mind</em> the way she’s going on?” asked Veronica +curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“It hadn’t occurred to me that there was anything +to mind,” said Sydney with a high-pitched little laugh +and a sensation of pushing off something that was coming +down on her like the ceiling in one of her dreams. +It seemed incredible that the words Veronica had just +made use of should ever have been spoken. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-170" class="pagenum" title="170"></a> +“Well, it has occurred to everybody else, you know,” +said Veronica and picking up a string of amber she held +it against her dress and leant back to admire the reflection. +“Take a word of advice from one who knows, +my dear,” said Veronica sagely, “and never trust any +woman an inch. They’re all alike, cats every one of +them.” +</p> + +<p> +—“I thought there was something special you wanted +to talk about,” Sydney broke in eagerly, making a dart +for this way of escape from herself. For very nervousness +she could not stop talking, and Veronica’s affairs +now offered themselves gratefully as a kind of jungle +in which her own values could be obscured and forgotten. +“You were in despair, Veronica,” she insisted +more eagerly, “you said just now you were in despair.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Veronica willingly. “I did feel like +nothing on earth. But you’ve cheered me up immensely. +It’s queer how the most ridiculous little worry of somebody +else’s will often take one’s mind off one’s own. +But there really was something I wanted to ask you +about. I’m engaged to Victor—would you advise me +to be?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney could not help feeling that any matron in +the Hotel could have done as much for Veronica while +she pronounced wisely: “Not if you’re not happy, of +course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I feel in a kind of way happy,” said Veronica, +wriggling her shoulders. “You see, I do like Victor, and +we do seem to be rather involved—which comes, of +course, from having nothing else to do here. Oh, <a id="corr-19"></a>don’t +look so grim, Sydney, you look fearfully grim. I +<a id="page-171" class="pagenum" title="171"></a> +mean, you might say the usual sort of thing, even if +you don’t mean them; you give me the creeps.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear,” said Sydney more warmly, “you must +marry him if you care to. And I hope you’ll be fearfully +happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know I really don’t see why one shouldn’t be,” +said Veronica brightening, as though the possibility had +only now presented itself. “Of course he’s got no money +and no work and nothing <em>you’d</em> call ability; but that +makes me feel less of a mean pig.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Pig,’ Veronica?” +</p> + +<p> +“For not feeling more thrilled. And he and I’ve got +rather the same sense of humour. Of course there are +people at home I could marry, but there’s not really +much to choose between any of them. You see, I’ve got +absolutely no illusions. I do feel I might have been terribly +fond of somebody; I don’t think I’m really hard +or anything, do you? Do you think perhaps men aren’t +what they used to be?... It’s all very well to say +‘Don’t marry!’” cried Veronica, throwing both her +hands up to forbid interruption and raising her voice, +“but I must marry somebody. You see, I must have +some children.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you needn’t necessarily marry——” +</p> + +<p> +“My <em>dear</em> Sydney!” exclaimed Veronica, horrified +and scarlet. Her changes of mood, definite as the +slipping-along of lantern slides, expressed themselves +in changes of attitude, so that unconsciously she was +dramatic. Dejection once again drew out each line +as she recalled: “But I’ve <em>kicked</em> Victor: what is the +use of a man one can kick?” +</p> + +<p> +The problem seemed likely to be one which she would +<a id="page-172" class="pagenum" title="172"></a> +be called upon to consider in its length and breadth repeatedly; +she at once accepted the likelihood and turned +away from it with a nod of admirable philosophy. “God +knows!” sighed she, not irreverently. The problem would +be dismissed at its every reappearance with this undefeated +gracefulness. Sydney had a return of her earlier +admiration. Veronica had taken up a sound position midway +between defiance and resignation and seemed likely +to achieve serenity. +</p> + +<p> +“And what shall <em>you</em> do?” asked Veronica, as though +they had been talking over their plans for the day. “I +mean, when you get back to England?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney was blank for a moment—back to <em>where</em>? +“Oh, go on where I left off,” said she, “try and pass my +next exam!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh. Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I really——” +</p> + +<p> +“—I don’t suppose I should understand, should I? +Funny how well we know each other—I’ve never given +myself away like this before—and yet how little we +<em>know</em>.... In an ordinary way, in London, we should +run miles I daresay, rather than meet. Of course, I +should have met Victor anywhere. I say, I hope I haven’t +made your bed uncomfy, rolling about? I really can’t +sit on foreign armchairs; they’re so steep.” She picked +her hat up from the floor, brushed the dust off it tenderly +and put it on. “As you say, this is not such a bad +hat.” She heaved a deep sigh. “I feel ever so much +happier; you are wonderful. Have you got a shoe-horn? +These shoes are so tight, really that’s why I dislike +them. I say, will you come to tea with me and Victor at +the Patisserie and look at him again? He’s sensitive +<a id="page-173" class="pagenum" title="173"></a> +really; if you were nice to him he’d buck up tremendously, +you’d be surprised. We eat a tremendous amount +of patisserie, we adore it and it doesn’t seem worth +while beginning to economize until there is some remote +prospect of our getting married. And if we don’t +get married—I mean, to each other—there will always +be this to look back on. That’s what we feel.” +</p> + +<p> +Sighing and talking, vaguely she drifted towards the +door. There she turned back and brilliantly nodded. +</p> + +<p> +A suspicion that this mood of lucidity had after all +been induced by an over-indulgence in pastry cast a +slight shadow on Sydney’s farewell. “I should be careful,” +said she, “or you’ll both get most fearfully spotty. +Look at those little Italians! Can’t you try some other +narcotic?” +</p> + +<p> +“You should be thankful we don’t drink,” said Veronica +and shut the door after her; not satisfactorily for +it clicked open again and began to creak on its hinges +in the manner of hotel doors all over the world. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney heard her quickening footsteps retreat; she +listened forlornly, straining her ears for the last of +them. Then she got up and tidied the bed; smoothed out +the eiderdown, picked up the amber beads and hanging +them round her neck stood telling them off like a rosary. +Some premonition, such as that with which a recurring +physical pain announces itself, made her +snatch up “Jude the Obscure” quickly and stare at +the pages, but there she found nothing but print. She +looked up for a moment and—“She has so absolutely +given you the go-by,” the room repeated, catching her +unawares. The shapes of the furniture, everything that +she looked at, said it again. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-16"> +<a id="page-174" class="pagenum" title="174"></a> +XVI +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> Villa Tre Cipressi concealed itself to +the last, blotted out among the trees of its +hillside; a long lane with broken-down walls +led circuitously to its gates through olive-gardens. Since +the last date of the Villa’s habitation the surface of the +lane must have deteriorated; it was impossible now to +imagine the burnished, sleek rushing-down it of cars +or the thin-shod, delicate stepping of the Russian ladies. +Miss Fitzgerald’s party, going forward in the leisurely +and spread-out manner called in Ireland “streeling,” +had begun to feel a profound disbelief in the existence +of the Villa. Miss Fitzgerald had, however, in doing +them the honours of what had been a private experience, +constituted herself their hostess, and they hesitated to +suggest this disbelief to her otherwise than obliquely, by +a disposition to linger, sweep the hill with a glance +then gaze back through the olive-trees, or to seat themselves +at intervals, with some obvious thought of encampment, +along the smoother parts of the walls. In the +selection of them for a social bouquet there had been +nothing striking except in a last addition. Mr. Milton +went on nearly everybody’s picnics (it seemed a destiny +beyond his influence), Miss Pym, as half of a duality, +had been inevitable, Mrs. Hillier had been led to +tolerate these two good women who did not know India +and this parson who did not play bridge by her passion +<a id="page-175" class="pagenum" title="175"></a> +for villa gardens. It was Ronald who had been the +master-stroke; he redeemed the bunch of them and made +their grouping-together seem superbly conscious and +studied, suggesting depths of art behind its effect of +naïveté. So at least Mr. Milton felt that Ronald must be +thinking, and he did not doubt that Ronald was right. +</p> + +<p> +After a series of sharp turns the Villa gate stared +down on them, aware, one might have supposed by their +triumphant whorls and scrolls of painted ironwork, of +all they gained by presenting themselves so suddenly. A +mild ascent led up to them and the three cypresses, which +had an air of drawing together in council, dominated the +approach. They came up rather breathlessly and stood +behind Miss Fitzgerald in silence, as though they were +prepared to rush the opening, while she sent the great +key she had produced beforehand screeching round in +the lock. Then they pressed in behind her, looking to +left and right of them up at the palm-trees or between +the boles which had an exotic, rather horrible fatness. +The tangled gloom and the expanse of silence swallowed +up their cries of admiration. Miss Fitzgerald, after +checking off with nods of satisfaction all she still found +here, invited Ronald to tell her whether this was not all +he had hoped. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald had hoped nothing; he had not wished to accompany +her. They misunderstood one another (though +she did not suspect this); she had marked him down +from the first as being of that delightful age which expects +to be taken seriously and which to one’s ardent +gravity will make shy, delicious disclosures. Ronald +preferred in any encounter with women of a no longer +redeemable age that might be forced on him to retreat +<a id="page-176" class="pagenum" title="176"></a> +behind an impassible whimsicality which amounted to +archness. Thus there had been a conflict in their methods +of approach, the equal determination of each of them to +“take” the other rather than “be taken.” She had +plumped down beside him that morning with her invitation +at an instant of such crisis in his thoughts that he +could have murdered her for the interruption. In Germany +he had found he could not think, there had been too +much time, some element of condensation had been lacking; +here there had been nothing but a series of agonizing +ruptures; the very fact of sitting down alone on +bench or sofa seemed to be provocative and Ronald +could not think properly standing up. “Your mother,” +she had begun, “wanted me to ask you if you’d come +with us to the Russian Villa—I have been lent the +key. She is sure you will be delighted with it.” There +had been nothing left for Ronald to say. +</p> + +<p> +A number of disappearing pathways darted off from +the avenue; Corinthian pillars suggested themselves +through a net of undergrowth and the arch of a stone +bridge let one suppose water. The party hung fire, embarrassed +by this choice of attraction, then continued +to move slowly up the avenue in a close formation. This +was more than a Villa, it was a country house, with, +for the moment, nothing but the distinct shadows and +an irregular splash of water to give away its foreignness. +Then Miss Fitzgerald caught Ronald by the arm +and pulled him sideways, pointing excitedly as though +they were to surprise some living thing. “Look,” she +cried, “up there—the Villa!” They all had a glimpse +of it and were repelled; forty supercilious white windows, +blankly shuttered, a vacillating shabbiness across +<a id="page-177" class="pagenum" title="177"></a> +its grey face that was neither old nor new. It had a solidity +that was not local, an assured air of having been +finally answered for; but it was as disappointing as +one’s first princess. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it isn’t like a <span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">cinquecento</span> villa,” said +Miss Pym, anxious to make all allowances. +</p> + +<p> +“It is amusingly suggestive, isn’t it,” Ronald said to +Milton, “of the ‘Nuit de Portofino Kulm’?” and he was +made to feel himself utterly isolated by Milton’s kind +blank stare. “I’m afraid I haven’t read—” said Milton +(Ronald felt, with complacency) “<em>Oh</em> ...” said Ronald. +He would have liked to discuss also, in the light of +his own recent observations in Germany that mild baron +of Charlottenburg who kept snakes in his parlour behind +violet silk curtains. He sighed as though a door +had been slammed in front of him. Perished civilizations +interested Ronald, who had come too late to share +a mild distress at their demise. Soon he was thinking +fruitfully about Russia and was glad when Milton +again gave him another opening by saying to Mrs. Hillier: +“I often wonder whether the Russians weren’t after +all the only people with any real notion of aristocracy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Does that mean you did or didn’t like Russians?” +said Mrs. Hillier, looking at him cautiously, while +Ronald, almost simultaneously exclaimed, “So real it +was that this world was no place for them!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you at all mean to suggest,” asked Milton, giving +full attention to this last remark, “that they have simply +been translated? Because I think that’s very tenable. It +strikes me more and more as I live that this world’s no +place for anyone with any real notion of anything and +that its expulsion of them must be almost automatic.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-178" class="pagenum" title="178"></a> +“Their type was very refined,” said Mrs. Hillier. +“Lovely creatures—but one can never altogether like +them.” She looked about at the garden which, with its +profound and hidden hollows around them, seemed to be +waiting. “I must say,” she confessed, “this is delightful. +Shall we go over that bridge? The garden must go +on indefinitely—Look, there’s a seat with steps up to +it right on the hill!” She made for the bridge, appearing, +so abrupt was the turn of the path, to have plunged +waist-deep into the shiny dark leaves that flopped back +heavy as fishes from the sweep of her skirts. These +plants with their overpowering glossiness must have +sprung from wet soil. Milton and Miss Pym went after +her; Ronald and Miss Fitzgerald seemed to have been +delayed by a short argument; perhaps as to the nature of +aristocracy. The garden gave Milton a distinct feeling +of nervousness as though he were being scornfully +watched. To allow this was to underrate oneself, so he +asked abruptly, “If one comes to think of it, what was +the good of them?” There was a pause filled in by the +agitation of leaves, then Miss Pym upon whom an ever +deeper despondency must have been working, replied, +“If you come to think of it, what is the good of us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really ...” said Mrs. Hillier. +</p> + +<p> +“Us <em>three</em>?” asked Milton, in an attempt to evade the +issue. He could tell from the set of Mrs. Hillier’s back +that in another minute or two they might be at grips +with the problem of Empire. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Miss Pym still more wildly, “I mean +us all, our class....” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Hillier stared at her, then decided to laugh. “I +didn’t know you were a Socialist!” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-179" class="pagenum" title="179"></a> +“But must one be a Socialist,” went on Miss Pym +defiantly, “to wonder sometimes what is the good of us? +Because one can’t help it (without wishing to attach +oneself to any party) these days when so much is in +the melting-pot.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s hardly easy to talk about, is it?” said Mrs. Hillier +lightly with the well-bred instinct to cover this that +she had also when anybody tried to discuss religious +experiences (though at present, with the excuse of a +specialist, that would have been more permissible). “I +suppose,” she elected to say, “it’s a matter of example, +really, isn’t it? I mean: giving the others something to +go by. I mean, people do notice. Why, one feels it even +out here—Italians <em>notice</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you wonder if they don’t just think we’re +lazy?” Miss Pym exploded. “I do: when my friend and +I have been walking or reading and one feels them up +on those terraces looking down on one and working +away. Why, even in the Hotel, you know, one does +wonder if the waiters——” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re just getting acutely self-conscious, Miss +Pym, that’s what’s the matter with you!” laughed Mrs. +Hillier, bluntly and kindly. “The creatures are positively +parasites. If you’d lived out of England as long as +I have, and seen how——” +</p> + +<p> +“—I’ve lived all over the Continent——” +</p> + +<p> +“—Oh, but that is different. I mean, <em>that</em> just tends +to make one cosmopolitan.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but that’s just it,” cried Miss Pym, and then +subsided, thoroughly confused. +</p> + +<p> +This engagement left Milton’s attention free to escape +from them, which, while he walked decorously enough +<a id="page-180" class="pagenum" title="180"></a> +alongside and keeping back here and there a branch +with his walking-stick, it is to be feared that it did. The +path, by going up steeply for short distances and only +gradually coming down again, presented a clever effect +of being Alpine; one felt one must have climbed to a +great height. One was humoured in this by being railed +away solicitously from small precipices, and by being +made to walk dizzily over the arches of bridges from +which ravines with water seemed to drop away. Every +now and then an artful perspective would be offered, to +be veiled once more by trees. Once, in a Corinthian +arbour that seemed balanced on the top of a tree like a +ball upon a jet of water, he had a glimpse of Miss Fitzgerald +talking to Ronald.... “And I expect,” she +said, after a prolonged and breathless inspection of the +profile he vouchsafed her, “that you write poetry too, +don’t you?” Before his path dipped again he heard +Ronald reply in a very nearly extinguished voice, “Well, +as I said before, you see, my subject is economics.” Milton, +whose sympathies were all with Miss Fitzgerald, +ground his teeth. He considered Ronald definitely disobliging +in his refusal to give hostages anywhere. He +had been prepared for clever indolence or for a cool +kind of wantonness in Mrs. Kerr’s son, or for polite +nullity, or resentful dullness in the son of Mrs. Kerr’s +husband; he had begun to build, successively, on each of +these probabilities. But he had not foreseen this refusal +to emerge from behind a non-committal mannerliness, +or the long ray to be directed upon them that +showed them all up, even Sydney, in the maze of a +gnats’ dance, an aimless passionate jiggle apart and together. +It had not been in Ronald to precipitate a crisis +<a id="page-181" class="pagenum" title="181"></a> +on any plane: he was not, thought Milton, either vivid +or generous enough. He had come to stare, one could +only imagine, and Milton had a view of him lounging +along a row of cages. He wondered how much Ronald +had hurt Sydney, whether she had been able to make +him hurt her at all; though she had been so visibly +“out” from the earliest word of his coming, to make a +juggernaut of her friend’s son. Milton did not know +whether, except for that brief encounter in the ball-room, +they had exchanged a word. This reservation would be +enough to engage this perverse girl in still deeper designs +on Ronald and to make her, to merely a lover, more inaccessible +than before. +</p> + +<p> +They climbed up to the skeleton of a summer house; +the walls might have blown away or might simply have +rotted. Miss Pym began to search about diligently, looking +under the seat and into the corners and running the +point of her walking-stick along the cracks of the pavement. +She explained that “<em>they</em>” might have dropped +something. This, for a moment, seemed so probable that +Milton went just as eagerly down on one knee. “Think,” +said she, “if one were to find a little purse, or a bangle +that had slipped off, or even a button! I can’t believe +they wouldn’t have left something; they must have come +here day after day.” Milton laughed at her tolerantly, +getting up again and dusting his knee. She didn’t explain +why she should have concentrated her hopes on this +arbour, she perhaps left the arbour to do so, for, perched +out over the garden, it was as intimate as a nest. Mrs. +Hillier sitting down dreamily, said, “It would have +been a nice place for a proposal or something.” +</p> + +<p> +Another allusion to a technique he had disregarded! +<a id="page-182" class="pagenum" title="182"></a> +Milton said quickly, “But we wouldn’t understand—do +you realize?—a word that has ever been said here!” +</p> + +<p> +“But people in the better-class Russian stories always +seem to talk French or English.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t imagine anybody who wasn’t obliged to make +love in English.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Mrs. Hillier looking at him thoughtfully, +“that one only feels one’s own language a limitation +if one is not sufficiently carried away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Miss Pym, waving, “here is Eleanor +coming up!” Mrs. Hillier said she did hope that she +really were coming alone. “Though of course,” she +added, “I should be sorry if Ronald had actually fallen +into a tank or anything. Though one can’t say that it +might not be for the best. For I can’t think what is going +to become of him!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will go and look,” said Milton and, full of determination, +left the arbour. +</p> + +<p> +Descending, he called Ronald everywhere: the silence +that received his voice gave him back an infuriating +sensation, less of being unheard than of not being answered. +The boy might be round any corner listening +compassionately, telling himself that there went poor +old Milton hollering away. So he pressed on in a shut-down +kind of silence and was surprised and aggrieved +as at each turn the emptiness renewed itself down pergola, +lawn or glade. A flitting echo of Mrs. Hillier’s +remark sent him suddenly towards the gleam of water. +There was no path, he had to push his way out through +some bushes to the rim of a larger tank that had been +cut out, a square of vivid green water, under the jut of +a cliff. The tank had a curb of yellow marble and he saw +<a id="page-183" class="pagenum" title="183"></a> +looking across it, that the smooth streaked sides went +down for about three feet before they came to the water, +which might be lower than usual but gave some suggestion +by its unmuddied yet complete opaqueness of being +very deep. The water looked solid; if a body disappeared +through the surface it might leave a dint perhaps, +a gash which would slowly heal, but never a ripple. He +could not imagine the green line swelling up or fretted +for even a moment against the face of the marble. He +leant further over it, after a glance up of instinctive +watchfulness at the cliff which like a lid on a hinge +had seemed at that very moment to lean further over +him, and inwardly smiled at the picture he made, a +fanciful composition to which his attitude and manner +consciously lent themselves, that could be called “Temptation +to Murder.” He saw his own head and shoulders +reflected, and the cliff and sky (though none of these +impinged on the greenness) and presently, after some +recorded disturbances of branches, the figure of Ronald +which, coming out from under the cliff, stood on the +curb of the tank nonchalantly, then sat down, dangling +its legs. “He might say something,” Milton thought +resentfully, but after some seconds of silence whose duration +seemed insulting and ludicrous, he had to throw +a “Well, hullo!” across the water in impatient concession. +</p> + +<p> +“Hallo,” answered Ronald. “Exploring on your own?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—you too?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite,” said Ronald politely, “I’ve been exploring +with Miss Fitzgerald.” +</p> + +<p> +“Biggest tank I’ve seen,” said Milton, nodding down. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, isn’t it? More of a swimming bath.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-184" class="pagenum" title="184"></a> +“What an echo—it’s like talking to about ten people!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s this cliff.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can’t you come round?” said Milton impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Beg your pardon?” asked Ronald and when the invitation +had been repeated conveyed by his instant’s +pause some surprise at it. He looked round the tank +carefully but had to point out, with regret, that this +seemed quite impossible owing to the way the bushes +hung over. “But I daresay we’ll meet further on,” he +said, “these curly paths are wonderfully good for meeting +people. At least, so one would expect, but Miss Fitzgerald +and I didn’t meet anybody. Not a ghost, even, +though we were sure we would and were very anxious +to.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have you done with Miss Fitzgerald?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she went to find Miss Pym. I think perhaps +she was lonely. You don’t believe, I hope, that I’ve +dropped her into the tank?” +</p> + +<p> +“The way you haunt it does seem suspicious!” +</p> + +<p> +“But she’d have to come to the surface again: if I +<em>had</em>, you know, I shouldn’t have dared come back. No, I +came back for the tank itself—I like water.” Ronald, +gripping the edge of the tank, leaned forward to watch +with a smile the reflection of his dangling feet. Milton, +sitting down opposite him, took out his pipe and lit it. +He observed “You ought to have brought your mother—she +would have liked this.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s a bad walker—I don’t mean she’s got corns +or a heart or anything; she’s just lazy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or was not sorry, quite possibly, to get you off her +hands for the morning,” laughed Milton with the bluff +and stunning impertinence of which only the diffident +<a id="page-185" class="pagenum" title="185"></a> +are capable, and by which no one can be more appalled +than themselves. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay,” said Ronald. “One does get tired of +people.” He gazed across thoughtfully, not at Milton +but at Milton’s reflection, which he was able to watch +without raising his eyes while remaining as impenetrable +to his vis-à-vis as the water below him. “Such +an intelligent girl—” he remarked—“that Miss Warren.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you think so? Have you been talking?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Ronald. “She is one of the few people in +this caravanserai who have nothing to say to me. I +would not say, you know, that she was one of those casual +talkers. She would have, I imagine, her moments that +she saves herself up for.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s considered unfriendly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! But would you want her to be friendly?” +</p> + +<p> +“It scarcely affects me—I have known her some +time,” said Milton, making the slight reservation that +Hotel time was reckoned quite differently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, really?” said Ronald respectfully. “You see, +where I am concerned she doesn’t appeal as an enterprise. +She is already ‘in the family.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Like an illness or a ghost?” suggested Milton, with +a smile that must have been lost on Ronald since +his faint image did not reproduce it. +</p> + +<p> +“More like a ghost, I think. She is to be seen on the +stairs—still, I daresay, if my mother hasn’t already +gone out with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“A hotel, you know, is a great place for friendships.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mustn’t that be,” said Ronald, “what people come +out for?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-186" class="pagenum" title="186"></a> +“Perhaps some——” +</p> + +<p> +“But are there really people who would do that?” +asked Ronald sharply, in a tone of revulsion, as though +he had brought himself up more squarely than he had +anticipated to the edge of some kind of abyss. “You +mean women?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I suppose so,” said Milton, smiling across at +the agitation of Ronald, very secure and avuncular. +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing now to prevent women being different,” +said Ronald despondently, “and yet they seem +to go on being just the same. What is the good of a new +world if nobody can be got to come and live in it?” +Sitting above his impassive and pale reflection, crumpled +forward on his folded arms he remained immobile +while the echoes of his last exclamation still seemed +to hang about under the slant of rock that roofed him +into a cave. The decay of the garden must have seemed +to him for a dark instant to have profited nothing. Such +a collapse at a mere glance at female frailty into the +most profound despair suggested, more than loss of +balance, a sharp assault from the rear by some malignant +power. Milton justified his own silence, his unwillingness +to go to the assistance of Ronald by a sense +that this collapse had an austere fitness and that the +garden had been after all fully entitled to revenge itself. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-17"> +<a id="page-187" class="pagenum" title="187"></a> +XVII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">he</span> Patisserie had a dozen little blue tin +tables dotted about under a happy-looking +striped awning. Hither many people gravitated +early in the day. Mrs. Kerr, who had insisted they +should visit the shops, had for the last half-hour’s slow +parade of the plate-glass given her companion about a +quarter of her attention and a little less than her quarter-face. +She had meanwhile chosen for Sydney and presented +charmingly a string of dull amethysts, saying it +seemed too good to be believable that they should be together +once more. When she saw the little tables and +the English people round them sitting sideways and +eating patisserie off the tips of their forks with an +amused air of concession, she exclaimed with pleasure +and her attention became entirely distracted. The scene +appeared to delight her and she concentrated her delight +into each of the smiling nods she sent across to acquaintances. +</p> + +<p> +“Do look, Sydney—how civilized!” +</p> + +<p> +“How greedy!” said Sydney, who was trying to direct +her friend to the older end of the town where she would +at least find nothing but fruit shops. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, that’s just what I mean—how civilized! Anybody +can eat at mealtimes. Come over—oh Sydney, we +must!” +</p> + +<p> +“But we’re not hungry!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, of course we’re not.” Mrs. Kerr propping up +<a id="page-188" class="pagenum" title="188"></a> +her parasol against a table positively beamed. The table +was as small as a mushroom between them; she looked +helplessly at her handbag, then passed it over to Sydney +to be disposed of and drawing off her gloves eagerly +looked round to see what other people were eating. “I’m +so seldom allowed to do this. Ronald is spending his own +sort of morning—a very genuine dead villa—the Riviera, +you see, is so tiny—” (she tapped the table) “so +why shouldn’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never knew this <em>was</em> your sort of morning. We +might often have come here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Mrs. Kerr, “that I hardly liked to +suggest it. I could never, of course, suggest it to Ronald.—Oh, +Vermouth? You are ascetic! I should like +some chocolate. Will you drink very slowly, then we +shan’t have to go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! But weren’t we——?” +</p> + +<p> +“But where is there to go? And I mean, why should +we? But of course, my dear, I will go anywhere. This +is really your morning. If I didn’t spoil you, you would +never come near me now. I don’t know what you’ve been +doing; I never see you—Oh, look, there’s Veronica +Lawrence with that dreadful young man. What unnatural +tastes she’s got: why doesn’t she run after Ronald?” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be very discouraging.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why it should be; Ronald’s rather susceptible.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr, her folded hands on the table, sat looking +sideways; absorbed. “He is looking at her with the +most awful expression, with cream on his chin. Isn’t +passion debasing? Tell me, Sydney, are that couple +engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-189" class="pagenum" title="189"></a> +“Oh, probably.” Sydney looked conscious. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, does she tell <em>you</em> these things?” asked Mrs. +Kerr curiously. “What a queer friendship! Does she +show how tremendously sorry she is for you or is she +too deep? What does she say about me? It would amuse +me to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why should we discuss you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think. But you must talk personalities, +surely.... Isn’t she really rather a common little +thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“She rather attracts me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if she only <em>attracts</em> you.... It matters much +more whom one likes. Will you look for a plate and +choose us both some patisserie—nothing too sweet?” +Sydney with a dazzled blank feeling got up indecisively. +“You know what I like—you’ve an instinct.” Mrs. +Kerr looking up for a moment let her general vague +smile quickly be personal, and gave Sydney a glimpse +of her old mood, fleetingly, yet so that to turn away +was an agony. “Do go, won’t you?” she urged, with such +a promise implicit that the coming back would be memorable +that Sydney left her forthwith, slipping between +the chairbacks to the shop door and the crowded +counter. +</p> + +<p> +Here, moving up and down thoughtfully, she found +herself elbow to elbow with Victor who, fork in one +hand and plate in the other, was also selecting and in +a practised manner spearing patisserie. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, hullo!” said he as she hesitated. “Can I help +you in any way? I know all these pretty well. Don’t +go for the coffee kind, they look first-rate but they’re +hollow. Do you mind if I take the last green one? +<a id="page-190" class="pagenum" title="190"></a> +Veronica’s fearfully keen on them. We come here a +lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“So Veronica told me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, by Jove, she did, didn’t she?” said Victor, remembering. +“I say, look here, don’t wish me the usual—I +feel perfectly rotten.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Sydney. Her sympathy necessarily +lacked direction, because Victor was the sort +of young man who continues to move about uneasily +while talking and to talk for a long time without looking +straight at one. +</p> + +<p> +“Still, one’s only young once,” remarked Victor, and +roamed away down the counter. Later on, she followed +him out through the door, which he blocked for her by +a moment’s misgiving as to the ultimate excellence of +his choice. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr had discovered herself back-to-back with +a friend and had turned to converse with her. The +friend was animated, Mrs. Kerr sympathetic. Sydney +stood a moment to watch them. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Delicious!</em>” exclaimed the friend, a dark, vivid lady +from another hotel whose party, a broken-up circle, sat +listening all at a loss and turned now and then a long +stare of timid resentment on the brilliant intruder. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Absolutely</em> delicious!” agreed Mrs. Kerr, then, +catching sight of Sydney, broke off still laughing and +faced round once more to her table. “You’ve been +ages, my darling,” she cried, “have you brought the +whole shop?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney put down her plate on the table, showed with +a gesture what exactly she had brought and silently began +<a id="page-191" class="pagenum" title="191"></a> +sipping her vermouth. “That ‘darling’ must have +been Ronald,” she thought. “What a habit of mind he +is!” “Do relations become a habit?” she asked. “I have +so few.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay they might,” said Mrs. Kerr very kind but +abstracted. “What a pity you’ve got so few”—she +sampled the patisserie. “I mean after all, home life—Why +don’t you marry, Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought we’d been into that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but it does worry me rather,” said Mrs. Kerr +and turned upon her friend’s downcast pallour a profound, +limpid and prettily conventional stare. +</p> + +<p> +A sharp movement of Sydney’s foot shook the table, +the china leaped on the tin. “Well, if you’ll keep Ronald +a year or two——” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney!” exclaimed Mrs. Kerr in a low voice, +paused for a moment and put down her fork. “Don’t +be so, so ugly! It’s like—I don’t know what it’s like: +it’s not like <em>you</em>. I wish you hadn’t made these common +friends; I wish there’d been more girls of your own +sort. When the very essence of you is delicacy and +fineness and, well, breeding, this horrible veneer that +you’ve affected lately seems so.... Well, it may be +what you’d call in ‘a grim kind of way funny,’ but——” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>This</em> seems in a grim kind of way funny,” said Sydney. +“It’s like being given tea by an aunt at the Zoo.” +</p> + +<p> +“I only wish you had been taken more to the Zoo! +It seems from the way you sometimes talk that your +friends must be common in the worst kind of way—exotic! +You’ve distressed even Ronald, though he is as a +rule neither observant nor critical; he said you were so +<a id="page-192" class="pagenum" title="192"></a> +unnatural, and though at the time I was angry with +him, I must say that when you talk in that tone I +should find you difficult to defend to anybody.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sorry Ronald can’t like me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I think that’s putting it too strongly,” Mrs. +Kerr said gently. “Perhaps I have put everything too +strongly—Sydney darling, don’t sit there in that queer +stiff way as though you had swallowed something: +people will notice.... You know how reprehensible +I am, how I do like my friends to be pleasant. I would +never <a id="corr-20"></a>have said anything if you hadn’t shown your teeth +at me; I wouldn’t for worlds have spoilt our morning. +But we won’t let it, will we?... Look, eat one of +those little flaky things you’ve brought, they look delicious.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, trying to get down a mouthful of pastry that +had become like sawdust, had a sense of being widely +yet concentratedly glared at, though whether she had +really attracted attention or this were merely the sun +striking down through the awning she did not dare to +determine. Certainly the conversations around had subsided +and the general turning away of eyes from their +table, the fixed stares, across the street or back into the +shop or down on to plates, of which with a glance round +she had assured herself, were elaborate enough to be +studied. Little staccato remarks here and there seemed +to prick up through a tensity. She suspected that Mrs. +Kerr, by her unusually bland expression of basking in +reverie, the unconcern of her movements and her solicitude +that Sydney should finish her pastry, must “be +passing off” something. Sydney in an effort to further +this continued to eat pastry quickly, in spite of a frightened +<a id="page-193" class="pagenum" title="193"></a> +feeling each time that she might not be able to +swallow. She could not help a shaken kind of exaltedness +such as a child feels when it has upset a table of +china. +</p> + +<p> +Presently she let herself fall back on an outside consciousness +of their both being well-dressed, distinguished-looking +and leisurely, and thought how plainly this +must appear from the other side of the street and how +if she were someone else she would stand on the pavement +and look across at them. She would admire their +graceful air of being friends, of being completed by one +another, and go away distracted by a memory of them +both sitting there in the temperate shade of the awning. +“I think,” she said conversationally, affected by the +thought of this admiration, “that this is a very good +way of filling up a morning abroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> think so.... Shall we look for some carnations? +Shall I buy some for you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I buy some for Ronald?” Sydney looked into +Mrs. Kerr’s face with a smile, but impersonally, as +though it were a picture. Mrs. Kerr seemed to meet +something hard in her eyes, for she raised an eyebrow +infinitesimally. +</p> + +<p> +“He would love that, it would be quite new to him. +I don’t think people like to give him things usually. +He doesn’t, I daresay, give the impression of being in +any sense very receptive. Poor Ronald, I wish he could +learn to be likable. I thought once that you might have +done something for him, but I don’t see now that you +very well can.” +</p> + +<p> +This little dead maternal design she laid out before +Sydney with naïveté and appeared to consider forlornly +<a id="page-194" class="pagenum" title="194"></a> +but with beautiful resignation. Sydney, startled +by its appearance, sat speechless and looked at her +friend whose unreproachableness quietly accused her. +“I know,” said Mrs. Kerr, apparently going off at a +tangent and looking down so that there was nothing but +the movement of her eyelids and the modulations of her +light voice to give point to what she was saying, “that +I haven’t professed to believe a word of all you have, +both of you, so expansively and delightfully told me +about life. I haven’t a grasp of abstractions, and life, +when you mean the theory of living, is an abstraction, +surely? You know I’ve been flippant and difficult but +at least I did try to be honest—I <em>didn’t</em> believe. But +my dear, I have so intensely wanted to: I could have +prayed (if ever one did) for either of you to justify +yourselves or, best of all, both of you. I’ve never professed +that anything could transcend the conventions; +you have. Well, you’ve insisted passionately that an +understanding is possible between a young man and +young woman, that you can remain quite un-bothered, +without electricity or diffidence. Ronald’s insisted too. +When I’ve said ‘Well then?’ at intervals, you’ve both +waved your arms and declared that you couldn’t produce, +at the moment, the right kind of person to demonstrate +with. Well, here you both are and I’m waiting. +Has it been too matter-of-fact of me? Possibilities +burgeoned and I’m here waiting for the most idyllic +relationship to spring into flower. Can you wonder I’m +disappointed and cynical—it’s been a poor kind of +triumph—at having had to watch you two resolving +yourselves into just such an ordinary state of suspicion +and watchfulness and elaborate antipathy as might +<a id="page-195" class="pagenum" title="195"></a> +precede the most normal attraction in which the heart of +a biologist could rejoice?” She laughed deprecatingly; +the whole idea of such attraction seemed to be distasteful +to her. “I’ve talked a long time,” she said, “rather +confusedly, and had to use several words that I rather +dislike. What I might have asked shortly—since it’s +all really that I wanted to know is: Why ever can’t you +and Ronald be friends?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr’s hand that lay with casually spread-out +fingers under Sydney’s eyes along the edge of the table, +had some vague connection with her personality but +neither seemed to have anything to do with what had +been said. The amazed Sydney could not reconcile them. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean what you’ve just been saying?” she +said doubtfully. “Do you really believe what you’ve +just said? Did much really stand or fall on our making +a success of things—I and Ronald?” +</p> + +<p> +“So it did seem to me,” said Mrs. Kerr also looking +slightly bewildered as though by all these questions +Sydney were confusing the issue. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you think you had helped us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only by ... valuing both of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Sydney, struck by this, “you do in +a kind of way value us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Mrs. Kerr, “and I’ve missed <em>you</em> very +much. When I had to throw away your carnations this +morning I was sorry: I didn’t a bit want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Only this morning? Carnations do last a long time,” +said Sydney and considered the phenomenon gravely. +“One didn’t want to intrude, you see,” she added. +</p> + +<p> +“Intrude?” said Mrs. Kerr, repeating the rather +middle-class word wonderingly. Her gentle, mystified air +<a id="page-196" class="pagenum" title="196"></a> +was not sympathetic. “I think,” she said slowly, as +though trying how best to express herself to an almost +strange young woman, the school friend, as it might be, +of a daughter, “that you’ve been a little ... over-important +about it perhaps, haven’t you? I mean, how +could your coming or not coming make any difference +between me and Ronald? He would have been pleased; +he was ready to be friendly; he knows just what you’ve +been to me, and in his own tied-up sort of way he is +ever so grateful. He likes me to have friends wherever +I am. I don’t think,” she concluded, with a smile of +pity for the girl’s inevitable uncomprehension, “that +anybody could put things wrong between me and +Ronald.” +</p> + +<p> +“In fact, one seems to have taken too much for +granted. Exaggerated of one! Funny!” said Sydney +and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Sydney dear, no. Why? Don’t be so bitter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why bitter? I see how tiresome a girl can be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never tiresome, you’ve been charming; more than +unselfish—giving up so much of your time to me, giving +me so much—I’ve accepted too much I’m afraid.” Mrs. +Kerr broke off with compunction. +</p> + +<p> +“Why reproach yourself: don’t you find all your +friends are the same?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr sighed and looked down at her hands, allowing +this to pass for an admission. With a smile of +particular ruefulness, that drew up the eyebrows tragically +and brought the face to its fullest profoundest expression +of all of her, she confessed: “But in your case +I’ve been specially guilty. I begin now to guess you’ve +expected much more of me and that I’ve been taking and +<a id="page-197" class="pagenum" title="197"></a> +taking without so much as a glance ahead or a single +suspicion of what you would want to have back. I’m +afraid we’ve gone wrong through your not quite understanding. +You see I’m so fond of you, but——” +</p> + +<p> +“But?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, simply but! I mean, there is nothing else +there. It has always seemed to me simple to like people +and right to be liked, but I never can feel that much +more is involved—is it? I have a horror, I think, of not +being, and of my friends not being, quite perfectly +balanced. I think moderation in everything—but perhaps +I am cold.... Will you take my purse now—if +you won’t eat any more?—and go in and pay for the +cakes?” +</p> + +<p> +To Sydney the cumulative effect of this succession +of touches (especially the last: herself brandishing with +commercial insistence a long bill that her bewildered +debtor felt unable to meet) was one of vulgarity. The +attribution to herself of an irritable sex-consciousness +vis-à-vis to Ronald did not hurt but sharply offended. +Mrs. Kerr, however, sitting there with her half-smile, +her evident deprecation of the interlude, her invincible +air of fastidiousness, had maintained her own plane +whereon “vulgarity” would be meaningless. Sydney +could only suppose that cruelty, as supremely disinterested +as art, had like art its own purity which could +transcend anything and consecrate the nearest material +to its uses. +</p> + +<p> +The friend sitting back to back with Mrs. Kerr had +gone away minutes ago; the little blue tables one by +one were deserted. The business of the Patisserie wilted +temporarily before the approach of lunch-time. Surprised +<a id="page-198" class="pagenum" title="198"></a> +by this isolation, as though the trees of a wood +had melted away from round them, the two left the shade +of the awning and stood dazzled for a moment looking +vaguely up and down the street. +</p> + +<p> +“Where now?” said Mrs. Kerr and laid a hand on +Sydney’s sleeve in her anxiety to be directed. Sydney +could make no suggestion, she remembered they were +on an edge of Europe and had an impulse in the still active +top of her mind to suggest Prague, the Hook, or +Rouen. The facility with which it would be possible for +her to cover larger distances and her present complete +inability to move from the kerbstone presented themselves +simultaneously. She could not command the few +words, the few movements which should take her away +from Mrs. Kerr; or imagine where, having escaped, she +would find a mood, room, place, even country to offer +her sanctuary. Her home environment, apart from which +the crisis of to-day, of these last weeks, had produced +itself, was seen very clearly at this distance away from +it but presented an impenetrable façade with no ingress. +She could see her life very plainly but there seemed no +way back into it, the whole thing might have been +painted on canvas with a clever enough but not convincing +appearance of reality. +</p> + +<p> +She thought, “So there is really nothing to go back +to,” and said, gently drawing her arm away from Mrs. +Kerr: “I think, if you don’t mind I’ll go back to the +Hotel.” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-18"> +<a id="page-199" class="pagenum" title="199"></a> +XVIII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">M</span><span class="postfirstchar">rs.</span> Lee-Mittison brought their <em>Continental +Daily Mail</em> down to the lounge with her and +sat on it. She did not wish to read it herself +and did not dare to put it down beside her because she +knew that someone would come up and ask just to +glance at it—people so soon lose their delicacy in these +little matters. They would rumple it up and take the +creases out; Mrs. Lee-Mittison knew so few people who +could look at a paper without rumpling it. Whenever +anybody strolled through the lounge with the air of +exhausted resources peculiar to this half-hour before +lunch-time, she knitted faster than ever and looked unconscious. +Life had developed in Mrs. Lee-Mittison a +fine set of jungle instincts; she could apprehend and +be rigid before, looking over her glasses, she had actually +discerned with her usual mildness the approach +of the predatory. +</p> + +<p> +“I do wonder if there is any news this morning,” +said somebody (one of the talkers) drifting about with +her wool-work and looking distastefully at each of the +chairs. “There seems to me to have been no news for +a long time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>do</em> wonder,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison truthfully. She +did not as much as glance at a headline before Herbert +had done so—Herbert was upstairs taking off his boots. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s very odd, nothing definite seems to happen at +<a id="page-200" class="pagenum" title="200"></a> +all—I mean, of course, there is always Politics but that +goes on and on and on so, one begins to lose interest. +Especially out here where one cannot see what effect +they are having, though one does doubt really whether +they do have any effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s been that pit disaster.” +</p> + +<p> +“Miners,” said the lady distastefully, “always seem +to be getting into trouble. One is so sorry, but it is difficult +to go on and on sympathizing, especially out here +where one gets on just as well without them—they burn +wood, you know, and do everything else by electricity.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lee-Mittison began to count her stitches audibly—“Do +excuse me,” she said, “but I am turning the +heel—Oh, good morning, Mr. Milton. Back from the +Villa?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Milton, looking nicer, more unconcerned than +when he had first come out and burnt to a pleasant +brick-colour, bowed and sat down at one of the writing-tables. +“Letters to write before lunch,” he explained +politely, unscrewing the top of his pen. It did not yet +seem to him courteous to ignore the ladies he found +in the lounge without making some excuse for himself; +life, however, had to be lived somewhere, so he had acquired +the trick of explaining parenthetically. “Chapter +to finish.” “Must keep up one’s philosophy....” +“Ever read Jacks?...” “Working out this beastly +acrostic ...” or (showing a bundle of letters) “Must +just see what my friends’ve got to say....” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment or two his pen worked slowly, conscious +of the formation of each letter as though the two +ladies had been leaning over his shoulder; then he settled +himself square on his elbows and his pen flew. He +<a id="page-201" class="pagenum" title="201"></a> +stuck out his long legs at either side of the writing-table +which was small and rickety, a rubber-shod heel tapped +the floor noiselessly; he gave both ladies the impression +of being a person of affairs. “I do wonder,” thought +Mrs. Lee-Mittison, “whether he will ever be a bishop.... +I do wish he would cut off his moustache; I’m +sure it gives people the wrong impression. If he were +a bishop he would have to. Perhaps if he were married +he would too. If I were married to him....” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lee-Mittison, who was not otherwise unmodest, +often married herself imaginatively to men she took an +interest in, then reviewed the possibilities of such a +union. “I would do something for his hair at the back,” +she thought. “I am certain that is accidental baldness, +not hereditary. If only it could be taken in time....” +The lady with the wool embroidery opened her mouth: +a torrent of conversation seemed to be coming. Mrs. +Lee-Mittison held up an admonitory knitting-needle. +“Hsssh,” said she, and the lady with the embroidery +moved off haughtily to the other end of the lounge. +Milton, towards whom she glanced solicitously made +no sign, he had missed this bye-play. He blotted one +sheet with such force that the writing-table trembled, +and began another. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Lee-Mittison came downstairs and sitting down +carefully reached out for the newspaper. Its folds were +by now so immaculate that it undid with the suddenness +of a pocket-map. Every time a door opened and shut he +looked over the top of the paper; he did not say anything +but always stared in the same way, quite impartially; +nobody was allowed to feel that their coming in and out +did not matter, he did not challenge what they were +<a id="page-202" class="pagenum" title="202"></a> +doing but liked to be sure that they had some good +reason for doing it and were not entirely irresponsible. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” he said to his wife, “is Miss Sydney. Good +morning, Miss Sydney.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, Miss Warren,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison, +who was at pains to waylay anybody in whom Herbert +might be interested. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning,” said Sydney, looking as though she +had expected to find the lounge quite crowded and to +push her way through it. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re in early, you know,” said Mr. Lee-Mittison, +“you must have miscalculated. It’s seven minutes past +twelve. What have you done with Mrs. Kerr and the +boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ronald has been with our party,” said Milton, “up +at the Villa.” Sydney, standing on the mat vaguely, +was looking towards him as though she had something to +ask. He had an instinct to go over to her, with an urgent +feeling that it lay with him to do something he could +not at the moment recall. The glass doors behind and +beside her flashing as they opened and shut, the staircase +going up and down and doubling off at angles into +oblivion and the way the lift came sliding down the +shaft to wait behind the latticed gates were all like so +much expressionist scenery, emphasizing the effect she +gave of being distracted, mechanical and at a standstill. +</p> + +<p> +He did not like the Lee-Mittisons to see her so much +at a loss and even hoped that he might distract their attention +by his own awkwardness, which he felt to be +palpable, as he towered, his hands on a chairback, over +the writing-table, not quite liking to sit down again. The +Lee-Mittisons were startled, obviously, by her so uncharacteristic +<a id="page-203" class="pagenum" title="203"></a> +willingness—it seemed eagerness—to +linger there and to bestow herself upon them; she was +known to proceed from point to point in her days with a +high impatience and without hesitancy. They repeated +that she had come back very early and asked her to sit +down with them. She came over, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Look,” she cried, “at my beautiful new beads! They +were a present this morning—Mrs. Kerr gave them +to me.” She took off the beads and passed them round +to her friends who held them up to the light and exclaimed +at the colour. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she repeated, +as though she could not yet be satisfied with +everybody’s praise. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful,” Milton said obediently, weighing the +beads in his hand and hating the amethysts. He gave +them back with an appearance of reluctance and +thought: she had been valued at so-much, just these were +what she was worth. He watched her slip them over her +head again and turn in a kind of glittering animation, +like a poplar in a gale, to Mrs. Lee-Mittison. “I have +always wanted amethysts—dreamed of them!” she declared, +and fingered the beads restlessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Very nice of your friend Mrs. Kerr,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison; +thinking nothing or everything, watching the +heel carefully, knitting away. Mr. Lee-Mittison who had +never given Sydney credit for being so good looking +decided to have a good look at her, turned half round in +his chair and crossed his legs comfortably in order to +do so. “Who’s a lucky girl!” said he and wagged a forefinger. +“Won’t this be a day to remember?” Her poise, +her air of being caught-up admitted this; she laughed +and looked over at Milton. “Don’t go!” said she as with +<a id="page-204" class="pagenum" title="204"></a> +a keen sense of humiliation on her behalf and an instinct +to escape from all this he was gathering up his papers. +“Stay and tell us about the Villa—do stay!” +</p> + +<p> +He was to be haunted—during an afternoon in which +he avoided her sedulously—by this ineffaceable new impression +of her making a free presentation of herself +to all comers. Heaven forbid, he thought, she should be +“charming!” Her lack of “charm” had from the first +been distinct to him; it was a quality more than negative, +she had a kind of starkness that enforced itself on +his judgment as “good,” like the starkness of Norman +architecture. It pleased him—he was frank enough to +admit this as vanity—to hear her spoken of as ungracious, +unforthcoming, frigid, even as repellent. He +was accustomed to let himself in alone, as it were, to +his large, dark, lofty conception of her with a strong +sense, to forbid a possible oppression, of his own singularity +as well as of hers. “I don’t want her like that,” he +thought angrily, as looking down from his window about +three o’clock he watched her noisy setting-out for the +tennis-courts with a party of the Lawrences and their +friends. “That’s not the girl who wouldn’t marry me,” +he thought and it was his sharpest criticism of her; for +it was that passage on the town bench high up in the +sunshine which had given him till now his pang of +pride in her, his clearest feeling of her being incomplete +and so beyond the doom of limitation. She had offered +herself as a break in what seemed, as he was growing +older, a general closing-down of horizons. “She mustn’t +be like this,” he said in his desperation and, to hide her, +clattered the shutters together and turned away. He felt +that most profound concern possible for another human +<a id="page-205" class="pagenum" title="205"></a> +being, when it becomes a question no longer of the extent +of one’s own possession of them, but, transcending +this, of what in their untouchable selves they <em>are</em>. +</p> + +<p> +He went for a walk up the hill to the back of the +villas, along the precarious terraces from which the +town looked small and the coast, in spite of its uniform +blueness, disordered and desolate. Having stared for +some time at all this, and at the unshadowed horizon +with never a boat, without any sense of having been enlarged +or inspirited he came down again hurriedly by +a steep direct way, slithering on the baked earth and +sending stone after stone from beneath him bounding +and crashing to what seemed the imminent peril of the +colony below. In such a manner he descended to the +tennis-courts and, exceedingly loath to go in, stood +staring through the wire-netting and dusting the earth +from his hands. To his relief and chagrin he could not +see Sydney anywhere, his day bade fair to have simplified +itself and he contemplated his future, over which an +afternoon still to be filled up seemed to stretch enormously, +with a proper sense of reprieve but without appetite. +One had to amuse oneself, but he did not see the +necessity. +</p> + +<p> +At a point in his reflections she must have come up +behind him inaudibly, for her voice said abruptly, “Do +you <em>never</em> play now-a-days?” He faced round guiltily +and saw her, buttoned to the chin in a blazer stridently +flame-colour, with hands deep in the pockets, less like +herself of the morning than a rather aggrieved little +boy. +</p> + +<p> +“I never see <em>you</em> here when I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“I used to play once,” said Sydney. “I could play—I +<a id="page-206" class="pagenum" title="206"></a> +can’t any more. Shall we walk somewhere?” With an +expression of being still, though with greater indifference, +at anybody’s disposal, she nodded backward indefinitely +in the direction of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +A silence, descending on them abruptly, protracted +itself from minute to minute as he followed her up the +path. She held herself taut upright, nervously, her +racket sticking out from under her arm. Her vivid +blazer hurt his eyes in the glare, he had always to be +looking away from her. She was not like the woman in +the swinging white cloak with whom he had come this +way in the advancing twilight on an evening when there +had been some kind of a shock, when he had been startled—perhaps +by a wild gash of light on some rocks. +He recalled his own shiver, the shiver about him in the +very dark trees; something must have been immanent. +The path, the trees, their very contiguity seemed to be +haunted; he wanted to catch up the girl ahead and put +out a hand to her for comfort at this crisis of regret and +nostalgia. +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall we go?” he asked and she cried without +turning round, without, clearly, a thought for him, +“Oh, anywhere, just down the road. Not far or I’ll die!” +</p> + +<p> +They went forward more hurriedly till, with a sense +of escape from a funnel, they came out into the road. +Here, pausing, she looked up and down; nothing beckoned +in either direction though she continued to stand +alert as though a paradisiacal perspective should have +opened up for them. It was the same road, not to be +changed for her, with its double rank of trees, its villa +gates somnolently ajar and its same air of stretching +<a id="page-207" class="pagenum" title="207"></a> +mildly ahead to be sauntered down. The chestnuts already +were budding; soon, sign that the visitors must be +gone, they would arch the road over with their interknit +fingery leaves. The air about them was gummy, smelling +faintly of spring. He caught his breath sharply—was +this moment also, like that other, slipping away to torment +him? +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be sorry,” he said, “when we’re gone. One +might easily be so happy here. It can’t, while one’s here, +be impossible. It will be fatal to go. The thought of those +leaves coming out has a kind of taint about it, like +autumn.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him doubtfully with a twitch of the +lips at the thought that might well have been scorn. +“Mr. Milton,” she asked, “do you still want to marry +me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s walk on,” he said quickly, “don’t let’s just—just +stand here.... Either way—this way then. +<em>Oughtn’t</em> we, don’t you think, to walk on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do please try and answer,” said she. “You embarrass +me fearfully.” An instinct made him catch at +her elbow and guide her, as they walked, as though +between puddles. He felt her elbow shake. +</p> + +<p> +“You know I love you,” he said, and was startled by +the ring of this avowal, the certainty. “Sydney, Sydney,” +he sighed and felt at the back of his closed eyes +her white face and dark eyes looking up. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her again and for a moment she was +nothing but a girl, talking. “I will marry you,” she was +saying then, “I do want to.” +</p> + +<p> +Why was she quick to assure him of this? He met her +<a id="page-208" class="pagenum" title="208"></a> +eyes square, searching up for him; eyes nearly black, +overcharged, impenetrable, crying out to be read. “You +don’t love me?” he said.—“I mean, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no.” She seemed appalled at the misapprehension, +but her elbow, rigid in his slackening grasp, asked +not to be relinquished. “But you know, I do want to,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Sydney....” Saying this, he turned to +look, instinctively, up and down the empty road. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you could kiss me here,” she said, “if there’s +nobody coming.” He stooped quickly and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“I think there <em>was</em> somebody,” she laughed a moment +afterwards, with embarrassment, “looking through the +gate of that villa. Shall we walk on looking rather ordinary?” +After a little of this “ordinary” walking on she +asked with anxiety, “You did <em>really</em> want to marry, +didn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“How can you ask me that; can’t you see?” he exclaimed +in torture. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow,” she said, “even if I couldn’t see, it +wouldn’t, would it—now I have accepted you—be really +a fair thing to ask?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Lee-Mittison, coming out cautiously through +the garden gate of the villa where she—(such a nice +introduction!—) had been returning a call, stood back +for some time between the gateposts, a corner of her +card-case pressed against her lips, to watch them down +the road. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a little slip of a thing ... I don’t think she +<em>understands</em>,” said Mrs. Lee-Mittison. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-19"> +<a id="page-209" class="pagenum" title="209"></a> +XIX +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">D</span><span class="postfirstchar">r.</span> Lawrence talked of taking his daughters +away from the Hotel. “I quite agree,” he had +said, looking at Victor disdainfully, “that +my daughter Veronica must marry somebody, but I fail +to see any reason why she should marry you.” This had +seemed an unnecessarily disagreeable way of putting +things. Dr. Lawrence wore yellow spectacles out-of-doors +where the interview had taken place; these gave him +the advantage of looking sinister. An abrupt man, Victor +thought, not at all the sort of person one would care +to consult if one needed to visit a heart specialist. In +spite of all the tennis and dancing Victor was beginning +to put on flesh out here; he felt that Dr. Lawrence +had noticed this; he had just borrowed twenty pounds +from his father and this he felt that Dr. Lawrence +knew. It had all been rather awkward. Veronica did +what she could; she admitted to Victor that her father +was a bit of a beast, and to her father that Victor was a +bit of an idiot, then retired to bed for two days announcing +that she had a headache. Dr. Lawrence entered +into correspondence with some hotels on the +French Riviera but they were full up: the affair hung +fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Our father,” Eileen Lawrence told Colonel Duperrier, +“has got a devastating way of taking the starch +out of things for us. We often fear that we shall die +unmarried.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-210" class="pagenum" title="210"></a> +“Oh ... surely?” Colonel Duperrier was much concerned. +“I thought,” he said, “that girls could do pretty +much what they wanted to now-a-days. I should have +thought any of <em>you</em> could.” He was entertaining Veronica’s +sisters, after tennis, at the English tea-gardens; +they sat together in a triangle round a small expectant +table under a lemon tree. The declining sun made the +girls’ arms and faces coral-pink and their dresses gold; +Colonel Duperrier regretted more than ever that he +had no nieces. +</p> + +<p> +“We could,” said Eileen, “if we ever really wanted to +do anything for long enough. But everything is undermined +by other people’s damned subtleties—especially +father’s. ‘Oh, of course, do it if you like, my dear,’ he +says and looks at one as though one were diseased. ‘If +you are so <em>very</em> keen to, if you really think it is worth +<em>while</em>.’ You see, one’s put at once in such an impossible +position, having to be ‘very keen.’ It makes one so inferior +to father, who is never keen on anything. Especially +when it is a question of any of us marrying any +of these young men—though it is the same thing with +any career any of us ever want to take up: we do feel +it must be an advantage to a girl to have some kind +of career though she might not want to stick to it. +And no young man, if one cares to look at it dispassionately, +is worth all the fuss father expects us to make +about him. Then father sighs and says, ‘Well, I’m +afraid if you don’t feel more strongly than <em>that</em> +about it—’ and one looks so feeble. Our father,” said +Eileen “is most fearfully subtle. No wonder he’s a specialist.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t think specialists need be subtle in <em>that</em> +<a id="page-211" class="pagenum" title="211"></a> +way,” said Joan with an eye on Colonel Duperrier, who +appeared surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“One is tempted to wish,” observed Eileen, “that, +for purposes of marriage at least, one hadn’t got a father +at all, like Sydney Warren. Though in her case, +anyway, it would be difficult to kick up a fuss. I must +say, if Sydney really did want to get married—and +she never gave me a bit that impression—it was very +business-like of her to pick out anybody as eligible as +dear old Milton. But then Sydney is a very precise sort +of business-like girl. She was going, you know, to be a +doctor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no idea,” said Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> think she’s cold-blooded,” said Joan, “she gives +me the creeps rather. And I don’t think she’s a bit +suitable for a clergyman’s wife: I can just see her +looking disdainfully at the churchwardens and people.” +</p> + +<p> +“She’ll make an excellent bishop’s wife,” said Colonel +Duperrier. “All the bishops’ wives I have met were +very disdainful. She’ll look very handsome, too, in kind +of black satiny garments, twenty or thirty years hence.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Honourable Mrs. Pinkerton would prevent his +ever being a bishop,” said Eileen. “How she does hate +him! She would bring it up against him just when he +was going to be elected that he had once taken somebody +else’s bath. It’s a pity, because Sydney would look +very well in black, rather hard satin when she’s about +forty-five, much more herself than she does now, here. +Isn’t it funny that for everybody there seems to be just +one age at which they are <em>really</em> themselves? I mean, +there are women you meet who are obviously born to be +twenty (and pretty at that) and who seem to have lost +<a id="page-212" class="pagenum" title="212"></a> +their way since, and men you do wish you’d known +when they were say, thirty, or twenty-four or feel sorry +you mayn’t come across them when they’re forty or +fifty-five, and children like that horrid little Cordelia +who are simply shaping up to be pale, sarcastic women +of twenty-nine and who won’t, once they’re that, ever +grow any older.” +</p> + +<p> +Joan Lawrence looked dreamy; when the tray was +set down and Colonel Duperrier asked her to pour out +tea and do hostess she blushed and looked very much +startled. She had had a glimpse of herself and Colonel +Duperrier having breakfast together on some verandah +out in the Tropics, face to face with one another over a +dish of some very large, futurist-looking fruit. She was +not sure of her tropical background, she did not travel or +read much, so it was sketched in vaguely; there was, as +here, a profusion of heliotrope that coloured the scene +and their silence, for they did not seem to be moving +or saying anything. She was being looked at ... he had +taken off his topee. She was wearing white muslin; embroidered, +be-ribboned, diaphanous; she did not think +she was wearing what was strictly speaking a frock.... +What a thing to imagine: what an unspeakable liberty +to have taken with Colonel Duperrier! She clattered +the lid of the tea-pot, poured boiling water over her fingers, +did not dare think any longer and did not know +where to look. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t like sugar, do you, Colonel Duperrier?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, no sugar, and I don’t like very much +milk.” +</p> + +<p> +She had guessed this, she had known <em>instinctively</em> +that he would not take very much milk. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-213" class="pagenum" title="213"></a> +“This Hotel,” said Eileen, “seems to be producing +brides in very large quantities. What a pity we have +used up all the men. Do you think any others are likely +to come out, Colonel Duperrier?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think.” He was wishing it were not impossible +to take the Lawrences out separately. This would +be all very well if he were simply taking out Eileen. +But Joan had withdrawn from the tea-party, she sat and +looked a long way away; he felt cheated of her. “I +must say,” he went on with an effort, smiling round +affably, “I think this would be an excellent <em>place</em> to +be in love, engaged and so on. It’s a pity we don’t most +of us come out here till we’re elderly.” The tea-garden +did for an instant flash on him a something half remembered +or never quite visualized, with its lit-up +lawns, its bulging gold lemons and oranges hanging +down in the sun. His companions smiled. “All this,” he +said, “would be ever so jolly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where were you in love?” asked Joan. “I mean, +what was the scenery?” Tilting back her head, her hands +clasped under her chin she gazed with a limpidity that +might well have been mischievous beyond him and into +the sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +“What a thing to ask!” Eileen cried saucily. “Colonel +Duperrier travelled a lot.” +</p> + +<p> +Colonel Duperrier at this moment of nervousness and +surprise did seem to himself to have travelled a long +way. His thoughts went back through the conversation +to look for something they had shied away from: what +had somebody said about women born to be twenty and +what they became? Somebody had lost themselves, been +lost to one, vanished.... He knew that all women +<a id="page-214" class="pagenum" title="214"></a> +were born to be twenty—twenty-two, twenty-five possibly: +the thing seemed obvious, looking at Joan. Something, +however, had become of a Miss Maclean he had +met at Darjeeling and of a subsequent lovely Mrs. +Duperrier of whom he had asked no more than all she +triumphantly promised, to be twenty at any age, he +would not have counted the years. Perhaps in spite of +herself, she had eluded him. Lost her way? She was +lying alone now up there, up in her room, waiting +angrily for the sun to go down and the light to go quite +out and the darkness to stifle her, lying with the window +open expectantly on to the void of sky, waiting to +shiver, tossing to and fro in her poor mind while her +body lay rigid, silent though she was so pent up, storing +up her cries for him: “Oh, <em>here</em> you are, Alec.... No, +I didn’t really expect you to come in. Why should you +have come in? I daresay you were happy down +there....” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr and a party of friends who must have been +having tea together further down the garden passed by +and went out talking and laughing and Ronald strayed +after them, looking slightly disoriented. His Panama +was folded under his arm, he glanced sidelong at each +of the tables under his lashes, prepared to swerve wide +of them if anyone hailed him or put out a hand. Colonel +Duperrier, though he did not take to the youth, was +vaguely sorry for him; he was not, like Master Ammering, +either plump, complacent, or noisy, and his +idleness might well be a phase and had (like Colonel +Duperrier’s own) the grace of dejection. He made, +therefore, an encouraging sound in his throat and +pulled back a chair from the table invitingly, while +<a id="page-215" class="pagenum" title="215"></a> +Eileen, who seemed to find Ronald’s manner of going +by them provocative, shouted “Hi, Ronald!” so sharply +that everyone jumped. +</p> + +<p> +Having effected their capture they all three smiled +at Ronald with the anxious benevolence, the slightly +embarrassed solicitude which it seemed a gift of his +own to inspire in all circles, and which had made, +for some reason, his company out here particularly +sought after. He was asked everywhere, to bridge, to dinner +at other hotels, to the Lee-Mittisons’ coffee parties, +and went, under some delicate indirect maternal compulsion, +with always the same air of being strung up +for martyrdom to the occasion as the young Sebastian +of painters is strung to a tree. He did not look at present +a happy boy as, leaning forward, slack wrists crossed +on a knee, he gazed with an unreserved attentiveness +which they found still further embarrassing from one +Lawrence’s face to the other. +</p> + +<p> +“It is neither of you, I think, that I am to congratulate +on an engagement to Mr. Ammering?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, thank Heaven!” said Eileen emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh?” said Ronald, surprised, “but <em>wouldn’t</em> you +like to marry him? I thought he seemed so popular out +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is an exceedingly lucky young man,” pronounced +Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” agreed Ronald politely. “I have just +congratulated Miss Warren too,” he added, “and Mr. +Milton, whom I met out walking together. They both +looked very much surprised and rather offended. Surely +I haven’t done the wrong thing, have I—they <em>are</em> engaged?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-216" class="pagenum" title="216"></a> +“Everyone knows,” said Eileen, “and I don’t suppose +Sydney likes that: it isn’t select. But <em>you</em> ought +to know something about it, anyway; she will have told +your mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she has,” said Ronald vaguely. “I’m +afraid not. I suppose my mother’s not the proper sort +of matron. She would hardly, I suppose, provide the +bosom that young women on these occasions are supposed +to require. I’m afraid she may perhaps feel, like +I do, that one’s friends, however various and delightful +they may be at other times, are least interesting—while +of course deserving all respect—at these moments when +they approximate most closely to the normal. What +people call life’s larger experiences,” said Ronald, “are +so very narrowing.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a vocabulary you’ve got, Kerr!” Colonel Duperrier +said, respectfully offering his cigarette case. +“I’ve never heard such a flow of language—Write?” +</p> + +<p> +“I try not to,” said Ronald, looking ruefully at a +cigarette as though he wished he had not taken it, and +inclining with a sigh to Colonel Duperrier’s lighted +match. It was another of these idyllic evenings, agonizingly +meaningless; the evening air brought out the +scent of the lemons. The Lawrences, shrugging up their +woollen wraps round their shoulders slid forward in +their chairs luxuriously and sank down into themselves +like cats into their fur. Their blue smoke drifted away +through the clearness. Joan said thoughtfully: “I don’t +suppose it matters—talking, I mean—so long as you +know exactly what you mean yourself. I don’t because +I never do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may think all the more,” said Colonel Duperrier, +<a id="page-217" class="pagenum" title="217"></a> +knocking the ash of his cigarette off, not quite +looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I do think a good deal,” said Joan, swinging +one foot and watching it, very mysterious. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really?” said Ronald with interest, coming +wide awake. “What do you think about?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, really ...” interposed Eileen, after a hard +stare—“Well, really, Ronald, you <em>are</em> cool!” +</p> + +<p> +To Colonel Duperrier’s amusement, Ronald reddened +and stuttered. Ronald was thinner-skinned than one +thought, he hated offending people and making them +angry. But he couldn’t imagine, obviously, what he had +done. “I, I’m most awfully sorry. But why...?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I <em>mean</em>,” said Eileen, “really, if a person’s +own thoughts aren’t their own ... I mean, if a person’s +going to be expected to say what they feel about +everything——” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say ‘feel,’ I said ‘think.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s the same thing,” said Eileen. They stared +at one another. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Ronald. “I’m very sorry. You see, what +<em>I</em> think is so public, if anyone’s interested.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it would be—you’re only a boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, look here, Eileen; don’t bullyrag Ronald——” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all right, thank you,” said Ronald, still rather +pink. “I am very much interested in your sister’s point +of view.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got a point of view,” said Eileen indignantly. +“I’m simply talking plain sense. Look here: if +you look at a bun you don’t just think about it’s being a +bun, do you: you wonder what you feel about it and +whether it would be nice to eat, and whether it is somebody +<a id="page-218" class="pagenum" title="218"></a> +else’s bun and there would be a row if you did. +And with a person, or anything else it’s the same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah well,” said Ronald, “if that’s what you call +thinking I daresay it may be private, very private indeed. +You see, I don’t know anybody else who thinks +like that: I had no idea——” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t suppose many people would take the +trouble to explain to you how they do think. They’d +just let you run on with your own ideas and nod and +smile and say ‘How lovely!’ and think about something +else all the time.” +</p> + +<p> +Joan, while the privacy of her thoughts was being +battled for, had remained, since her one intervention, +abstracted; her gold hair spread out corolla-wise over the +mounting folds of her scarf. “Feel my wrist, it’s like +ice,” she said suddenly. “It must be awfully cold?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! I don’t suppose it is cold really,” Joan felt as +though of her own accord she had dropped a crystal +and smashed it. “<em>Don’t</em> let’s go,” she begged with pathetic +eyes of Colonel Duperrier. “I don’t know why +I said that at all—it was only my wrist.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> don’t want to, I’m sure.” He looked around the +garden regretfully as though they were not to come +here again; it seemed a better garden than he had realized, +more friendly. “But we can’t have you frozen,” he +said and looked at Joan helplessly, because it would +be ultimately beyond his province whether she were +frozen or not. +</p> + +<p> +“Idiot!” cried her sister, “where are your gloves?” +</p> + +<p> +“These evenings,” explained Ronald, “come down +like the knife of a guillotine. I must be getting on anyway, +<a id="page-219" class="pagenum" title="219"></a> +after my mother.” He rose and looked down at +them thoughtfully: a queer (he seemed to think) and +never entirely satisfactory group. “Are you coming my +way?” he asked Eileen. Her mind leapt forward immediately +to telling Veronica that Ronald—“Yes, my +dear, I swear he did actually—” had asked her to come +for a walk. “One to me,” she reckoned, “there’s nothing +like being crisp with these slithery, day-after-to-morrow +people who only half see you. He’d eat out of +my hand, I’ll swear he would. I shall keep him out +for an hour, take him round by the town.” Smiling +she said to the others: “Do you mind, if Ronald and I +move along?” Her only doubt, as coming out of the +gate she turned the head of Ronald resolutely townwards, +was whether she could postpone for so long the +ecstasy of telling Veronica, who would be now, she +knew, curled up in her bed by the window reading a +magazine and eating peppermints and regretting more +and more as the interval of solitude prolonged itself +that the Affaire Victor should ever have occurred. +</p> + +<p> +The other two were left in a solitude which, quite unprecedented, +they felt to be exigent and a little singular. +“I expect,” Joan said with a little stiff movement +that did not do much for her, “that we had better +be getting along too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect we had,” said Colonel Duperrier. It was +half past five, he discovered; up there she would be +half insane with speculation. By this hour he had till +to-day, never failed to present himself. He looked about +him at the other tables, distant between the trees, where +couples in rather forced and conscious intimacy still +lingered, the evening before them, gazing a shade owlishly +<a id="page-220" class="pagenum" title="220"></a> +less at than around each other, oppressed by their +leisure. Odd, thought Colonel Duperrier; queer, following +his look, thought Joan. She propped her long chin +on her chilly hand and sighed a melancholy, unresentful +sigh. “Cheer up,” her friend said solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got such a cheerful disposition as you +have.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I have got rather a cheerful disposition,” +said Colonel Duperrier, glancing reluctantly at himself +and looking away again. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” she said in her matter-of-fact little voice, +“you are wonderful.” She leant back to grope behind her +chair for her racquet and repeated “Wonderful!” in +a tone of indignation, perhaps because the racquet +wasn’t there. “I expect,” she began again, “we ought +to be——” +</p> + +<p> +“I know. I really think we ought to be coming in. +If you catch cold, you know, I should never forgive +myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I promise I won’t catch cold,” poor Joan said faithfully, +and getting up looked round her distractedly +for the racquet propped against the side of her chair. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you very much,” she said, “for our nice tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has been a pleasure to me,” said Colonel Duperrier. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-20"> +<a id="page-221" class="pagenum" title="221"></a> +XX +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>D</span><span class="postfirstchar">ear</span> Mr. Milton,” exclaimed Mrs. Kerr, “is +this true? Because if so, it’s splendid!” +</p> + +<p> +He remained standing; she, propped reposefully +among cushions, sat looking up at him. “Yes, +you are charming,” he doubtfully thought, “you injurious +woman.” He tried to look straight, as though +dropping a plummet, into those profound brimming +eyes, but the light from the ceiling invaded them, raw, +hard-edged light as though cut out of tin-foil that, touching +them, softened, swam down through them, melted; +so that he could read nothing, looking however deep. +He had to surrender to her effect of mild brilliancy, of +being serious, eager, friendly. “Yes, it’s true,” he said. +“Didn’t you know?” +</p> + +<p> +After dinner, since Ronald’s arrival, she no longer +went straight to her room but would sit with him on a +sofa backed by a palm at the quieter end of the lounge. +Here they looked, thought James Milton, approaching, +like a fancy of Omar Khayyam’s, with a small tray +of coffee between them, a stack of serious periodicals +(presumably Ronald’s) and a basket of crystallized +fruit which Ronald would advance to their guests with +a deprecating liberality as though he did not really care +for this sort of thing himself. Their guest one did definitely +constitute oneself, Milton felt, by coming over +to them; her graceful reception of one confirmed this, +<a id="page-222" class="pagenum" title="222"></a> +also the punctilious uprising of Ronald, who would continue +to tower, prolonged by his shirt-front, indefinitely +tall; crumpling gradually till asked to sit down again. +Milton was not uninvited, he had insinuated himself +down the lounge between eager conversationalists and +touching chairbacks in response to a direct glance, a +concentration upon himself of her general smile round +as she looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald pulled a chair forward at right-angles; Milton +sat down with them. +</p> + +<p> +“Then of course,” Mrs. Kerr said, summing him up, +“you are happy.” +</p> + +<p> +One is not, at such moments, expected to show oneself +adequate; his smile and his gesture acknowledged becoming +inadequacy. She nodded her womanly comprehension. +“Quite,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent,” said Ronald with an air of seniority +to both of them. He recrossed his legs and bit into a +crystallized tangerine. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose,” said Mrs. Kerr thoughtfully, “I do +perhaps understand a little of what this means to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“She told you, of course.” Milton had presence of +mind enough to make a startled gesture into a statement. +</p> + +<p> +She nodded. “A little,” she said. “You know—well, +of <em>course</em> you know—she is a very quiet person. She +didn’t say much, but she shone. She has the strangest +possibilities of shining.” Mrs. Kerr seemed to have, as +she spoke, a glimpse of Sydney from which he was excluded. +“Of course,” she added in the perfunctory quiet +voice in which perfect taste demands the making of +certain statements, “<em>she</em> is very happy ... I have +<a id="page-223" class="pagenum" title="223"></a> +wanted so much for her and expected, really, so little +that seeing her so, so lit-up, so certain, has meant a +great deal to me. You’ve done—do you really understand?—a +great deal.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” Milton said helplessly. +</p> + +<p> +“There is no reason to thank <em>me</em>,” said Mrs. Kerr, +looking at him very straight with her wide-opened eyes. +“What is there to thank me for?” +</p> + +<p> +Milton, abashed by this parade of innocence, looked +at Ronald, wishing that he were not there. Mrs. Kerr, +however, seemed determined to keep him. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Ronald,” she said with amusement, laying +a hand on her son’s knee, looking down at it thoughtfully +and drawing it away again, “feels sorry for people +who are going to be married. He cannot believe (isn’t +it so?) in ‘any satisfactory <span class="lang" lang="la" xml:lang="la">modus vivendi</span> between two +people that is based on an attraction’!” +</p> + +<p> +“I remain perfectly open-minded,” said Ronald, biting +the stalk off a pear. +</p> + +<p> +“About love itself,” said Mrs. Kerr, looking respectfully +at her son, “he is profoundly sceptical. There is +a part of life, Mr. Milton, that I should be very glad if +you could explain to my poor Ronald.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s not a part of life,” said Ronald, “it may be a +streak in it. People talk as though it were a transverse +section.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see?” said his mother. “But Sydney used to +be a sceptic too, you know. I should rather like Ronald +to talk to her now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think Sydney would like that at all,” said +Milton, and was made at once to feel he had transgressed +some delicate code by this hint of the proprietary. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-224" class="pagenum" title="224"></a> +“I had an impression,” said Mrs. Kerr diffidently, +“that Sydney always liked talking about anything she +was perfectly sure of.” +</p> + +<p> +“In spite of being rather a quiet person?” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite compatibly with being rather a quiet person,” +said Mrs. Kerr, illuminating, showing-up his petty irritation +with her lovely smile. “I didn’t, you know, +propose that poor Sydney who has so very lately, as one +might say, graduated, should deliver to Ronald a kind +of extension-lecture. I just vaguely conceived that she +might make him feel what a silly, immature little gander +he still is.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish she would,” said Ronald, “it would be so <span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">cinquecento</span>; +a disquisition on Amor by an inspired young +woman.” He looked carefully at Milton trying, evidently, +to consider him in the rôle of an inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“You have picked up ‘<span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">cinquecento</span>’ from Miss Fitzgerald. +It becomes a rather silly expression, Ronald +dear, when it’s used so often and so indiscriminately. +But ‘an inspired young woman,’” she decided turning +to Milton, “is good. Don’t you find your inspired young +woman rather lovely?” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather lovely!” echoed Milton, as though learning +a lesson. +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney in love ...” mused Mrs. Kerr, and as +though stepping back from the brink of some profound +experience not her own, she said, “I envy you!” +</p> + +<p> +Milton encountered Ronald’s clear, rather curious +eye; they stared at one another narrowly. “One is fortunate,” +Milton said and a stabbing sense of this irony +made him shut his eyes sharply for a moment, as though +the light were too much. When he looked up again Mrs. +<a id="page-225" class="pagenum" title="225"></a> +Kerr’s son was still searching him, and put forward in +explanation of this: “Do excuse me, please, for staring +so awfully but I’ve never heard anyone point-blank profess +themselves happy before.” It was on the tip of the +clergyman’s tongue to protest that he hadn’t; however, +he merely said blandly: “Oh, indeed? If you care to, do +certainly look!” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought,” Ronald said, “to feel very responsible.” +</p> + +<p> +“—Ronald <em>darling</em>, you’re not Mr. Milton’s father.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I didn’t propose,” said her son, flushing hotly, +“to apply the remark to Miss Warren. I merely meant +he must feel very responsible for <em>himself</em>. A state of +mind——” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said Mrs. Kerr briskly and waved him +aside. She appeared to be rather oppressed by her Ronald; +the boy became pompous. She looked at his overcast +face in perplexity, puzzling herself again, it appeared, +over some ancient error. Far back in the faraway +history of Ronald—possibly in the espousal of +Ronald’s father—there had been a mistake. She looked +down the lounge. “Look, Ronald,” she cried with a glad +inspiration, “there is one of your Lawrences, one of +your curious girls. She is standing and looking too languishing +down by the door. She has seen you, and, +worse, she has seen you have something to eat. It would +be nice to go over and talk to her, if you don’t mind. I +don’t like to <em>look</em> selfish, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +She watched her son threading his way down the +lounge, however, with such wistfulness, such an air of +bereavement, and returned her attention to Milton with +so courageous a smile, and with eyes for an instant so +<a id="page-226" class="pagenum" title="226"></a> +vacant that he could not but believe that she had made a +real sacrifice in sending Ronald away. He reproached +himself for a suspicion of being closed in on; and of +their oasis of silence, light and solitude having become +for him a rather remote and dangerous island. Her +personality had a curious way of negativing her surroundings, +so that unless one made constant resort to +one’s senses the background faded and one conjured +up in one’s half-consciousness another that better expressed +her, that was half an exhalation from herself. +The crude and vivid glitter of the lounge, the hard light +striking with an impact almost audible on glazed stuffs, +noisy colours, reddened skins, the urgent hum of talk, +all these relaxed their grip on Milton’s consciousness, +subsided. A feeling was produced in him of tempered +lamp-light and clear gloom and of a window open on profoundly +dark and rather restless trees, as Mrs. Kerr +said thoughtfully: “Religion, I suppose, is an immense +outlet for gratitude.” +</p> + +<p> +“One would be sorry to make use of one’s religion +as an outlet for anything.” +</p> + +<p> +She retracted. “The psychologists have led one so +astray.” +</p> + +<p> +“The fallacy’s older than they are.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose so,” agreed Mrs. Kerr. She went on with +an effort, going against, obviously, all the fine instincts +she had for reserve. “You have felt, I daresay, that +force of ... of religion in Sydney. I’ve had to draw +back there, because I don’t, as you see, understand. One +never would hold her back, lacking that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see her ever as a person to be absolutely +held.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-227" class="pagenum" title="227"></a> +She was stirred by amazement, caught a breath as +though she must have misheard him and lifted her +eyebrows. “Not held? You forget,” she said, “I’ve been +her friend.” She reflected: “Does new power bring +with it, perhaps, its own disabilities? You are, aren’t +you, quite newly her lover? You mayn’t <em>see</em> yet, may +not admit intellectually, but you must surely <em>feel</em> +that....” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t think I quite understand what I’ve got?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think you can trust yourself yet to look down +very deep. But you ought—she is yours; absolutely. +We have all of us fallen away.” There was not a note in +her voice of anything but triumph: she smiled at him +like a priestess. +</p> + +<p> +“You feel I need to be told this?” he said and felt +his own smile twist his face awkwardly. +</p> + +<p> +“There is need,” she said with a penetrating, long +look. “You do know.” He felt again, through that window +behind her, that dark garden distressed by the +wind, around her those undisturbed shadows, that never-ebbing, +mild light. “Suppose,” he began uneasily, “suppose +I were less fortunate. Suppose—you see I am secure +enough to indulge myself in these curiosities—she +had simply caught at my hand, were gripping it +desperately, because she was frightened, or had been +misdirected, say, and lost her way—I would be right, +knowing that, to keep hold of her, for her protection?” +</p> + +<p> +“—A protection!” interposed Mrs. Kerr—“you think +that with most innocent cynicism she would be capable +of accepting? But go on, please, I won’t interrupt you.” +</p> + +<p> +“That was all.” He laughed. “Vague curiosity. +Should I be right?” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-228" class="pagenum" title="228"></a> +“If you cared to be just a convenience,” said Mrs. +Kerr thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be <em>wrong</em>. But can you +believe she’d ... make use of you? Would it be, in +the most ordinary woman, pretty or admirable? Could +you reconcile that with the only Sydney possible for +either of us? For our two Sydneys, I’m sure, are the +same.” +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s panic....” +</p> + +<p> +“Panic doesn’t last more than its moment. Of course, +there’s opportunism....” She caught Milton looking +at her haggardly. “You didn’t think,” she said gently, +“that I thought you meant <em>that</em>?” +</p> + +<p> +He gave, to express scorn, a rather ghastly little monosyllabic +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“It does sound silly,” agreed Mrs. Kerr. “It is silly, +I think, to let oneself play, just because of one’s sense +of absolute security with even the most far-fetched idea +of her doing anything so careful and mean. An idea,” +she said, shivering slightly, “has a curious power; it +preys on one. Oh, you must promise me that you won’t,” +she cried. “It frightens me—you could send yourself +mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nice of you to care,” said Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I don’t value <em>my</em> Sydney?” she exclaimed +and stared darkly at something, then brushed +it away with her hand and smiled with a return of +tranquillity. “One’s idea of a person,” she told him, +“refuses to take certain possibilities, like a material +refusing to take certain dyes. Don’t you feel so? For +instance: for anyone else, any woman, as angry and +hurt in her pride, and as disappointed as I’m afraid +Sydney’s been with me lately, to have taken you up, +<a id="page-229" class="pagenum" title="229"></a> +with the strong position you’ve given her, would have +been the inevitable, rather sordid perhaps but effective +complete little gesture. One would have looked for it, +wouldn’t one, and—taking the thing at its own valuation—rather +applauded. One can’t help applauding the +score-off, the adequate pat little retaliation, all the more +perhaps because oneself one could never achieve it. And +we both of us know,” said Mrs. Kerr radiantly, “that +for her it would never be possible either. And even +supposing we didn’t, that we weren’t so exclusive on her +behalf, hasn’t she given us proof?” +</p> + +<p> +“—If it were needed,” said Milton, and began chafing +his hands together as though they were cold. He +was silent a moment staring down at the edge of her +skirts, at the ground. He dragged himself back to consider +something. “What did you, by the way, mean by +a proof?” +</p> + +<p> +“But her loving you,” exclaimed Mrs. Kerr wide-eyed, +“her loving you absolutely! Mr. Milton, do try +and make her less hurt with me. Surely you can, can’t +you? Make her happy enough to come back.” Mrs. Kerr, +with her eyes and a gesture, gave herself away to him in +perfect humility. “I do miss the child so!” +</p> + +<p> +“But how’m I to know she’s still hurt?” the lover +said dully, looking at her in remote admiration in which +he had a quick sense of being identified with Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Kerr, recollecting Sydney’s +change of state, “she’s not. But I was impatient and +clumsy; I think she was hurt in her pride.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot believe, Mrs. Kerr,” said Milton in a tone +of such infinite irony that his voice sounded gentler +than ever, “I can’t really believe that you’ve ever been +<a id="page-230" class="pagenum" title="230"></a> +clumsy. I should say that your patience was infinite. +But she has this queer appetite for pain: it brings +with it its own ingenuity against which one can’t be +defended at all points.” +</p> + +<p> +With a sigh she allowed herself to accept this as +possible. “Thank you, you’re generous,” she said and +examined him. “<em>You</em>, if you like, would have infinite +patience. You two can’t, I think, fail to be happy together. +I’m so happy about you—” she looked round +with relief as though rising again to the surface and by +taking everything in with such eagerness re-admitted +the lounge to his consciousness—“and, as middle-aged +women do feel, quite important; as though I were standing +like your good Moses at some kind of vantage point +and seeing ahead of both of you plainer than you can. +It would be equally nice, I believe,” she concluded, +swimming back to the plane she had started from, kind +superficiality, “to be married to either of you.” +</p> + +<p> +He was dismissed; she appeared to have done with +him. The laughter and voices packed round them between +the four looking-glassed walls seemed to rise +to a climax, a positive shout. The lounge seemed for a +moment to mean something—he glanced for a hint of +the revelation at some of the faces but whatever it was +had escaped him; the faces were shut-up and blank. +</p> + +<p> +“If you will,” said Mrs. Kerr, “can you look out +for Ronald? I don’t want him disturbed if he’s happy—just +tell him I’m going to bed. It’s been so nice of +you to talk to me about this, Mr. Milton. I’ve always felt +that we knew each other and yet, do you realize, we’ve +not spoken for more than a moment before. If I’ve kept +<a id="page-231" class="pagenum" title="231"></a> +you from Sydney, forgive me. You must go now and find +her. Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone he sat down on the rather hard sofa +across which the cushions had, as she got up, tumbled +down in disorder. He felt the light slanting down on him +stupefyingly from the mirrors and ceiling a protection +from feeling, a barrier, like an orchestra above which +one could not, even if one had wanted to, make oneself +heard. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-21"> +<a id="page-232" class="pagenum" title="232"></a> +XXI +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">F</span><span class="postfirstchar">or</span> two days the sun had been cut away by an +opaque, pale-grey absolutely cloudless sky: this +made the shapes of hills and houses more important; +an ascent of the heights became arduous in the +cool, close air and one was loath to go far up any one of +the valleys because one felt it shutting on one like a +book. The disappearance of sunlight from the flowers +deadened the colours of them; from being like flames, +spontaneous, they became tawdry and adventitious; +bougainvillæas traced a heavy pattern on the walls, geraniums +were the flat stale pink of old confectionery, and +the mimosa blotched the faces of the hills as monotone +and pale as mustard. The distances were pellucid, one +could see for miles every detail of the coast, every ripple +of the light sea, and these became important and a +little ominous; one felt weighed down by them and half +uneasy. Ronald, going alone up a river-bed in one of +the valleys, found himself hurrying. +</p> + +<p> +The river had once been expansive and impetuous, +it had carried some of the hills along with it and flowed +widely; at some points it had taken up the whole floor +of the valley, leaping past the foot of the rocks hilariously +or, dividing, made a long string of lemon-shaped +islands. Now its wide bed lay parched, a petrified torrent +up which Ronald, taking some pleasure in the performance, +walked painfully with a sharp, continuous, +loudly-echoed clattering together of stones. The river +<a id="page-233" class="pagenum" title="233"></a> +was young no longer, it had made an end of its variations +and detours and had worn away for itself a very +deep channel down which it flowed swiftly, with a sinister +effect of purpose; steel-smooth, impenetrable to +the eye of Ronald, to whom it was no longer a companion. +They should have known one another centuries +before. +</p> + +<p> +The margins of land on either side, before the walls +of the valley went up, were under cultivation; they +were divided cross-ways and when Ronald scrambled +up out of the river-bed to sit down on a sagging lip of +turf and nurse a barked ankle or extract a stone from +his shoe it is more than probable that he was trespassing. +In such a country however one is bound to trespass +everywhere; much is forgiven if one be sufficiently +beautiful, have an innocent expression and do not seem +to understand Italian shouted from above. Ronald’s expression, +ingenuous and nervous as a foal’s, would have +disarmed the angriest proprietor, but for this there was +no occasion; the valley seemed to be quite empty. Since +he had left behind the three young women, the goats, +the staring men, there had been nobody. Perhaps, he +thought, the valley was to-day just <em>too</em> narrow, too +clothed in the echo of water, too deep beneath the tension +of the sky from hill to hill, and they had all turned +back instinctively. He wondered at himself for going +on. +</p> + +<p> +Three young women leaning over the parental gate +had admired Ronald loudly and in every detail. They +had spoken so very distinctly that he could only suppose +they meant him to understand; he had slowed +down in an effort not to seem to be trying to escape them; +<a id="page-234" class="pagenum" title="234"></a> +his ears changed colour, they remarked on this—it had +been quite appalling. Their eyes had licked him up and +down like the eyes of the American lady at Wurtemberg +who had compared him to a Donatello, and he could not +revenge himself on <em>them</em> by making out a kind of mental +chart of their repressions because one couldn’t well +suppose that girls who behaved in this way had any repressions. +Which of course, as Ronald told himself +without enthusiasm, was excellent. They gave him, +quite disinterestedly, all sorts of encouragement and +good advice. +</p> + +<p> +The man who stared also had shouted a word of encouragement, +the same mystifying reference to some +“bellissima.” Then the solitude had come slowly to +grips with him: there was nothing but the deserted +bed of the river, the vague, disorderly gardens—like +some half-memory and, now and then, a bird flying +slowly across the sky. Ronald had nothing but a little +lonely gleam of intellectual pride to sustain him; he +felt that it must be good for him to be here but he was +very much depressed. He felt trapped; if he turned to +run back down the valley there would be nothing but +valley to run to. “<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">O Solitude</span>,” he exclaimed in a thin +voice, “<span class="lang" lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ton sein vigoureux et morne déjà j’ai pu l’adorer</span>....” +He could not remember the rest of the paragraph, +and besides, had not Barrès lapsed from this to +all the excesses of nationalism? What unaccountable +lapses, thought Ronald, precede maturity, which they +are even believed to constitute! He suddenly gave up +clattering among the stones, did not speak any more +and hugging the side of the valley away from the river +walked on the turf quietly, because it appeared to him +<a id="page-235" class="pagenum" title="235"></a> +that one could best enforce oneself on this noisy solitude +not by more noise but by silence. So quite quietly +he rounded the turn of the valley and came in sight of +the rock where Sydney was sitting, looking up the valley +away from him. After gazing for some moments at her +apparent unconsciousness, he said slowly “Oh ... +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>you?</em>” she exclaimed, mystified but not startled. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I didn’t alarm you!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I heard you coming but I didn’t turn round because +I thought I knew who it was. Were you expecting +to find anybody in particular?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well no, not really anybody. They all told me to +hurry up because there was a <span class="lang" lang="it" xml:lang="it">bellissima Inglese</span>, but I +imagined that, you know, was just a general allusion to +‘that not impossible She’ and thought nothing more +of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“They?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some little girls at a gate and a man doing nothing +particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whenever anybody just says ‘they,’” said Sydney +who showed signs of being pleased to see him, “one +thinks of Lear, doesn’t one, and a perspective of long +noses. ‘They’ watched me, too, coming up here, but +they didn’t say anything. I am glad to know they were +impressed.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are impressionable,” said Ronald. “If it is +Mr. Milton you’re expecting, he won’t like those girls +a bit. They are a positive barrage. Their conversation +was very free.” +</p> + +<p> +“I expect they liked you,” said Sydney, glancing at +him with indifferent admiration. “Also, of course, they +<a id="page-236" class="pagenum" title="236"></a> +wouldn’t be able to imagine why you should want to +walk up a valley alone unless there were a woman at +the end of it. Unless, of course, you had carried a long +gun and wore tight green velvet knickerbockers and +showed every sign of going out to shoot linnets.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid,” said Ronald, “that’s very English of +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I don’t like these people at all. I cannot +see why they should ever have been born, or why, at +least, they should need to go on being born over and over +again so frequently.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay,” said Ronald, “they enrich the soil.” +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay,” said Sydney. She was sitting on a rock +that jutted up sharply out of the river-bed; it would +once have been a perilous, amusing place to sit. At +present it complicated his position rather; if he stayed +where he was they would have to talk in high-pitched +voices to be heard above the noise of the water that hurried +behind her, whereas if he came across the stones +and sat beside her he would be made to feel himself +rather tiresomely confidential and forthcoming. The +rock however was large enough for both of them and she +settled the question by saying matter-of-factly: “Here, +come and sit down,” and twisting round so that her legs, +which had been stretched out in front of her, could leave +more room for him by dangling over the edge. “What a +lot of energy is wasted,” she observed, “in replacing one +lot of people by another exactly the same.” +</p> + +<p> +She remarked this distantly, as though the indirectness +of the stream of things had been brought to her notice +passingly but did not concern her. Her attitude +seemed to Ronald deplorable; leaning back on his elbow +<a id="page-237" class="pagenum" title="237"></a> +he subjected her profile, covertly, to a perplexed and +grieved scrutiny. “And does this worry you at all?” he +asked in the hope that while preserving an equal detachment, +he might make her at least aware of her +strange anæsthesia. An intelligent person, Ronald +thought, should never be entirely unperturbed. She +turned to look at him with the dark attentiveness of +wandering thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Worry?</em>” she said slowly and tried to recall herself. +“Why should I worry? I can’t do anything about +it all, can I?” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother, you know, describes you as independent +and vigorous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had no idea,” said Sydney thoughtfully, and +longed to know exactly how his mother <em>had</em> described +her. Ronald might have been a key to a great deal; instead, +he had his own obscure preoccupations. Except +for his eyes and forehead and a few of her gestures and +mannerisms which cropped up now and then in his conversation, +out of tone with the rest of him, he in no way +resembled his mother. Mrs. Kerr, at least, had not +cared to replace herself. What qualities he had of hers +had been given over to him unreservedly; they did not +seem in any way to be shared or to bring the two into +closer community. He, like the rest, revolved round his +mother enquiringly, with a perhaps more intimate but +with the same exterior curiosity. He was at most two +or three steps higher up the base of the monument: +from here he said wisely to Sydney: “My mother, you +know, is intelligent. She understands, or she wouldn’t +admire.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose she wouldn’t,” said Sydney and let the +<a id="page-238" class="pagenum" title="238"></a> +thing drop. But though Mrs. Kerr’s son did not interest +her she felt drawn towards Ronald as though he were +a part of her youth and she asked, looking back for a +landmark to measure how far she had travelled, “And +<em>you</em> really do mean, I suppose, to make rather a difference?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, one can’t help hoping one may,” said Ronald +smiling at himself, very elderly and indulgent. “Usen’t +you, too?” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Usen’t?</em>” said Sydney, aggrieved at being so taken +up. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I suppose you still may; but you can’t overlook +Mr. Milton.” Saying this, he tried vainly to reconcile +the importance and solitariness in which she had +just now been discovered with his idea of her as the +engaged girl. She sat looking down, with a faint droop +(he thought he detected), a hint of contrition, an acquiescence +to being set aside of which she seemed to be +making a rather too sardonic and cool exhibition. She +felt this and said deferentially: +</p> + +<p> +“Of course <em>you’ve</em> got no patience with this sort of +thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I may be young,” said Ronald, “but I’m never so +grossly ingenuous as downright to commit myself.” +He began kicking the rock with his heel; and with pursed +mouth and a gleam of amusement she was not intended +to share, withheld his opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” she asked in surprise, “who said you were +young?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I understand you did. But of course,” he said +lightly, anxious that they should neither of them be +<a id="page-239" class="pagenum" title="239"></a> +embarrassed, “it seems an impression one’s bound to +create. Would <em>you</em> ever have minded—why should one?” +He looked serenely past her down the valley—a little, +she thought, too serenely. Evidently he did mind. If +he had not been likely to mind why should his mother +have told him? “Of course,” he vouchsafed, “it is in a +general way a mistake to involve oneself anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney felt wiser, but it is poor satisfaction to be +wise with the masses. She asked: “Do you never mean +to involve yourself?” Perhaps he never would, perhaps +it was not possible to—a chilly suspicion. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh I just mean to live in a rather simplified way +and not to leave off being reasonable. Now it’s a mistake, +I’m quite sure, to deny an attraction. One should +cultivate it and be amused at oneself. Then one would +be civilized.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what about other people?” said Sydney, “what +about your mother, for instance?” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother? She is very civilized.” Puckering their +lids up in the sunless glare his eyes gazed past her, pale +with a reflection of the sky. +</p> + +<p> +“I know, that is her great advantage. But don’t you +think wherever she was she’d be civilized <em>alone</em>? Do you +think she would promote your kind of civilization?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Ronald. “She is +not an <em>earnest</em> woman. I can’t imagine her ‘promoting’ +anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“She wouldn’t promote <em>that</em>, she wouldn’t want to. +She isn’t at all modern like you and me, you see. It +isn’t necessary for her.” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald remembered what his mother had said about +<a id="page-240" class="pagenum" title="240"></a> +“white tiles.” He felt annoyed with Sydney and +rounded on her: “I say, you don’t dislike my mother, +do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you know I don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wondered—people do, you know. Does Mr. Milton?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why ever should he? I, I’ve never asked him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He looks at her so—carefully.” Quite without malice +Ronald imitated Milton’s expression. “Of course, I +think he seems a most discriminating man,” he concluded +politely. He had been gathering together, while +he spoke, small pebbles and fragments which had accumulated +on the top of the rock, reaching out for them +negligently in all directions and heaping them up beside +him. Now suddenly he sat bolt upright and began to +hurl them one after another down the valley with a great +effect of muscularity and science. The pebbles skipped, +the fragments of rock rebounded on the boulders of +the river-bed with little sharp distinct sounds, pin-pricks +through the silence. The hills seemed to peer forward. +This little tempest of exertion on Ronald’s part, into +which he seemed to have been surprised in spite of himself +dishevelled the stillness of the valley which unstressed +by light or shadows and unstirred by wind had +hung gravely round them like a curtain. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh do look out!” cried Sydney angrily. “You may +hit James; he may be coming up.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he may,” admitted Ronald but could not +keep himself from sending off his last three stones. +“Then why doesn’t he come?” he said relapsing on to +his elbow again. “What is the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think. I cut out lunch and came up here this +<a id="page-241" class="pagenum" title="241"></a> +morning because I had a headache, and I left word +that I’d be here if he cared to come up afterwards. I +said the third valley to the right, behind the convent. +He may have miscounted. Or he may not want to +come.” +</p> + +<p> +“But he must want to. After all it would be only +reasonable.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean, consistently <em>un</em>reasonable?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, if I were in love at all I should expect to be with +you all day!” said Ronald masterfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, to be in love <em>at all’s</em> the initial mistake!” +</p> + +<p> +“More really a misapprehension.” +</p> + +<p> +While Ronald talked she often had a giddy sense of +watching all she had ever said being wound off from a +spool again, backwards. Now and then came a truth +that she had let slip away; she received this last one +back again ice-cold. It went too deep and she wasn’t +grateful to Ronald. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t you, my dear Ronald, ever misapprehend?” +</p> + +<p> +“And don’t you be maternal!” +</p> + +<p> +Catching some idea of a sound or a voice from one +another they began to listen, as though the very mention +of Milton’s name must have cast out a line to his consciousness +and be drawing him up the valley towards +them. For a moment or two they felt he was to appear +immediately. Sydney leant forward expectantly but +nobody came into sight at the turn of the valley. She felt +cold and bitterly reproached herself for not having +turned to smile sooner when she had been so sure she +heard him coming before, when it had only been Ronald. +She did not look at her watch but knew that she had +<a id="page-242" class="pagenum" title="242"></a> +reached that psychological moment, that turning-point +of any long wait when the likelihood of a friend’s arrival +instead of increasing with the advance of time +begins to diminish. She feared that through some intervention +of a too far-seeing Providence on Milton’s +behalf she might never see him again. She prayed that +this might not be so: she felt sure that she loved him. +Ronald, half aware of all this, felt a long way away +from her and began to wonder whether after all from +the first he had not intruded. +</p> + +<p> +He said (to observe the effect), “I’ll be going, I +think. I may meet him—I’ll hurry him on. Anyhow he +wouldn’t want to find me here.” +</p> + +<p> +The effect was a panic. “No, don’t, please don’t +go,” she exclaimed. “I can’t bear this valley alone: it’s +so empty.” +</p> + +<p> +“You might have noticed that before,” he observed +warming in spite of himself at this display of femininity. +“Nervy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, nervy,” she agreed with a little boy’s grin. +</p> + +<p> +He sat down beside her again with mixed feelings of +constraint and gratification, and began—while their +silence relaxed again, from an alert, constricting consciousness +of each other’s proximity into a benign and +restful indifference—to kick with swinging heels the +side of the rock. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-22"> +<a id="page-243" class="pagenum" title="243"></a> +XXII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">U</span><span class="postfirstchar">nwilling</span> to go further, distrustful of himself +and of the valley Milton leant against a +tree at the mouth of it and looked disparagingly +up the river-bed. He wished Sydney had not asked +him to meet her here. +</p> + +<p> +He had spent the morning writing to his brother and +sister to tell them about his engagement, and it worried +him that he had forgotten to post the letters and was +still carrying them round in his pocket. He knew them +to be lively and expressive and likely to do him credit +on their arrival in England, having just enough manly +glow about them and just enough boyish reticence. His +flair for a right note was a perpetual temptation to cynicism, +and his consciousness that these letters so bound +to strike a note of sincerity <em>were</em> in intention sincere +and had been written face to face with himself with a +zealous effort to avoid misrepresentation, did not make +him any better at ease about them. He wondered if anyone +ever tried to describe the experiences of love without +a bottomless suspicion of imposing upon themselves, of +falsity. Momentous letters should be posted white-hot; +they impinge too much on the memory, are weighed over +and over again by the conscience. He felt an indecorum +in going to meet Sydney with these in his pocket, these +meanly adequate little summings up of his position +vis-à-vis to herself, his praises of her already qualified +by a faint possessiveness. So at least he assured himself; +<a id="page-244" class="pagenum" title="244"></a> +it was a pretty enough scruple for a leisurely +lover, in this little world of suspended activity where +there was time for the finest of shades. But he pressed on +it rather too eagerly. Deeper than this, beyond the domain +of scruple, he was not at ease. +</p> + +<p> +Their meetings, since the night of his conversation +with Mrs. Kerr, had been of the type disturbed and +momentary, whose sum total is an effort of separation. +Was he apprehensive of meeting her again in this bare +narrow place, the stage for a crisis, where no side-issue +could offer itself to be grasped at and there would be nowhere +to escape to from Mrs. Kerr and all she had said? +Since their talk in the lounge Mrs. Kerr had been with +him unceasingly; his thoughts even in sleep were full +of anguished reasonings with her. He did not cease to +batter, crying “No, no, no!”, against the shut doors +of her eloquent reserve. The more clearly he remembered +how little Sydney’s infinitely loyal friend had actually +said the more did he despair of Sydney’s lover for having +understood so much. The thought of Sydney waiting +for him now (if she had not been impatient and gone +away) in all good faith at the top of the valley, of +the all-assuming confidence she had in him which +seemed the curiously simple and yet perfect flowering +of her strange nature, like flowers springing out on a +bare almond-tree, destroyed his confidence in himself. +</p> + +<p> +Next week Milton would go back to England. He +had written this to his brother, taking some pleasure in +committing himself definitely to the arrangement, but +the fate of the good resolution lay with the unposted +letters, still in his own control. He would go back, and +she a little later would follow him; or she might even +<a id="page-245" class="pagenum" title="245"></a> +prefer to come back with him now. Could she wish to +stay longer? Her tie with the Hotel (that still exerted, +he was aware, an agonizing restraint) had better be +broken off summarily, at the cost of he could not tell +how much damage to her integrity, without help from +himself, without a word from him that her confidence +did not invite. They had mentioned Mrs. Kerr frequently, +but there had never been more than a little +head of her stamped as it were for circulation on a +conversational coin. They had not talked of her, she had +not in person entered their field. +</p> + +<p> +In a week, perhaps, the coast and hills would have +vanished forever for both of them: he did not think +that either he or she would return. A year from now it +would need an effort of memory to bring the place to +life again for a moment; he would start at its name and +realize that it had been without them both, after all, +some shadowy continuity. If an earthquake were to ruin +the town or a landslide demolish the whole coast he +thought he would be left with hardly a pang once the +horror subsided. The place would persist unimpaired in +his memory, not much loved, scarcely thought of but +rarely complete if he happened to turn to it; as the +least loved, most rarely revisited plans often remain. +The momentary impacts of colour and smells and lights +on his senses that had built up the place for him would +be forgotten, only the sum of them that he might have +received in an idle half-day would remain. A thousand +hours superimposed on each other would melt into one; +a thousand that had in turn been unique, coloured differently +each from the others by mood or circumstance. +</p> + +<p> +“Will she ever,” he wondered, “be so complete to +<a id="page-246" class="pagenum" title="246"></a> +me; not a succession of moments but one? Will these +evenings, mornings, lights, memories, shadows, half-apprehensions, +glimpses ever fall away or run together +and be merged in the whole of her? Could I love her +so well if they were? Is there a human being any more +than a Godhead with which one could bear to be face +to face?” +</p> + +<p> +He left the tree and started at a good pace up the +valley. A stone which somebody might have thrown +came bounding down from the heights and struck the +river-bed; later on a couple of goats following one another +across an almost perpendicular piece of hill looked +down at him sardonically. “So much for you,” they intimated +and blinked their onyx eyes. Presently he met +Sydney and Ronald coming to meet him at a swinging +pace down the river-bed. They were so deep in conversation +and were making such a noise among the stones +that for a minute or two they neither heard nor noticed +him. Ronald was flushed and looked interested; the inequalities +of the ground shook his words, which came +at a great rate out of him and kept the lock of hair +flopping up and down on his forehead. His arms swung +loose and were flung out sideways occasionally to help +maintain, when a stone rolled sharply from under him, +a precarious balance. Milton noticed that the two were +like each other; they had the same build and the same +carriage and might have been brother and sister—to, +he believed, the advantage of both. He realized that +this was the first time he had ever seen them together. +It would be the last time, also, perhaps. They had been +foredoomed in the very nature of things to miss one +another. Biting his lip he looked back—had he been +<a id="page-247" class="pagenum" title="247"></a> +instrumental? There was pathos for him in this ghost +of a contact, well-timed in this drained-out colourless +ghost of a day. Angrily, with a sense of destruction he +put up his hands and shouted. +</p> + +<p> +Sydney started, her face turned vividly towards him +and she waved her walking-stick, then came hurrying +down the river-bed, springing for speed’s sake from +boulder to boulder clear of the loose stones. “Slacker!” +she exclaimed, “Rotter, James!” Her soft hatbrim +flapped back in the wind of her motion, the ends of her +bright scarf fled through the air behind her. She was +radiant and boisterous. Ronald, who had been making +a good point, remained in mid-stream behind her shutting +his mouth reluctantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been?” she cried breathlessly, “If +I’d the slightest grain of proper female pride I shouldn’t +look at you.... I told this Ronald hours ago that you’d +be coming any minute; that if you didn’t mountains +would have slid on you. And here we find you hardly +even hurrying!” She scrambled up the bank and took +his arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I had no idea—I didn’t mean to delay.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must have been thinking,” said Sydney; “it’s +really too bad of you.” With animation she waved +Ronald forward, and Ronald, coming up after her +made a benevolent third till they came to a point where +a parting of ways became possible. Here he nodded +good-bye and made off by a steep track that doubled +back up the side of the hill. Going up he whistled, turned +once or twice to stare out over their heads at the sea +and showed plainly that he had forgotten or at least was +no longer concerned with them. It was Milton, not +<a id="page-248" class="pagenum" title="248"></a> +Sydney, who kept looking after him rather uncertainly, +as though he had half a mind to call him back, until +Ronald disappeared into a fold of the hill. Too light-heartedly, +Ronald had shaken them off. +</p> + +<p> +“Do let’s not think about Ronald,” Sydney said, recalling +him with a sigh; “I should like us just to be together.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my dear....” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t we happy?” she rather fiercely exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +He nodded. “And you know,” he said and pressed +her arm gently, “that silences me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t see anything to be silent about,” said she and +smiled crookedly. “Kiss me!” +</p> + +<p> +“How horribly quiet it is,” she said still with a hand +on his arm as he let her go again. “Don’t remind me <em>I</em> +came here: I won’t ever again—an experiment’s failed. +James, I won’t let you be happy if you mean to surround +me with silences—sinister silences that bulge +like a bubble and never quite burst.” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed. “You don’t like the ineffable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing’s ineffable.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m not. I am not elemental and dumb. If you +like I’ll explain myself perfectly. Now be practical: +talk about plans. Have you written those letters?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wrote them this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is splendid. I do want to feel we’ve got some +sort of attachment outside this improbable place. I +wrote last night and slipped down last thing when the +lounge was quite empty to put them into the concierge’s +box. It was locked so I couldn’t take them out again +<a id="page-249" class="pagenum" title="249"></a> +and I went to bed hugging myself. When did you post +yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t posted them yet,” he said ruefully. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, why <em>didn’t</em> you?” she exclaimed, then recovered +herself confusedly. “I mean, doesn’t that make me seem +horribly eager? But I had to, I couldn’t resist it; I +couldn’t go on carrying this bomb about. They’ll all +say, at home, ‘Well, what <em>has</em> she done now?’ They’ll +be quite sure that there must be something wrong somewhere +because I somehow always just manage not to +do anything right. All the people I like are rotters. I +can’t pay my bills. If I don’t use my brains I get dissipated, +and if I do use my brains I get ill. I wonder +if you’ve any idea what I’m like—well, I don’t mean +that exactly, I’m sure you’ve got heaps of ideas about +me. But I don’t think you’re much good at outlines—you +see a kind of haze of possibilities with a very faint +nucleus. It’s a fatal combination, I’m sure, to be clever +and kind, you can never see clear: it’s a sort of a squint. +The stupidest person out here could describe me immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you one thing we have in common,” said Milton—“we +do both like running ourselves down. I shall +never tell you what I’ve thought about myself—I +couldn’t bear you to agree with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hate you to believe all I’ve said. You never +would, James, would you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not while you look with those eyes——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, yes, yes,” she said and sighing and shutting +her eyes leaned her head on his shoulder. “I do love +you.” With his arms round her he began to speak impetuously +<a id="page-250" class="pagenum" title="250"></a> +but she pressed a hand over his mouth to silence +him and kept it there while she went on—“There +is nobody else in the world now, nobody else in the world. +I’ve thought so much about you. I want to be with you +always. You’re so kind.” He felt the hand tremble and +drew it away to say—— +</p> + +<p> +“Kind?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, kind. Do you think that is ordinary? Do you +know, I thought you were never coming. I was so afraid, +up here this afternoon that you wouldn’t come at all. +I thought you’d been sent away from me. I thought +Someone knew better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who could know better?” he said with a cold feeling. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>I</em> don’t know,” she said, beginning to laugh. “I +am an idiot. Come on, let’s walk faster; it’s beginning to +be chilly. One loses one’s way in the day here when +there’s no sun.” +</p> + +<p> +They went quickly on in the direction of the convent, +anxious to be clear of the valley; discussing as they +walked their plans for the immediate future. Sydney +promised that if Tessa could spare her she would go +back with Milton to England; though if Tessa seemed +at all reluctant she should feel obliged to stay on another +three or four weeks. They agreed to be married +in June. “I do hope,” she said, smiling doubtfully, +“that I shan’t be utterly useless to you.” Before they +came out on to the road she stopped him again and said +she was hungry and wanted to eat some more nuts. She +took a handful of walnuts and almonds out of her pocket +and he cracked them by two for her, one against the +other, between the palms of his hands. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-251" class="pagenum" title="251"></a> +“I wonder why I can’t do that,” she exclaimed, “my +hands are really like iron!... I’ve been eating these +on and off all to-day, they are better than lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Extraordinary idea!” he exclaimed and threw <a id="corr-25"></a>up +his hands expressively. She replied that her day appeared +to her to have been spent intelligently and that +she was not yet incapable of planning out a day for +herself, though she could not answer for what might +become of her after marriage. +</p> + +<p> +He suggested that if she were not now too tired and +hungry they should, instead of returning tamely to the +Hotel by the road, strike out across the base of the next +two hills and drop down on the Hotel through the olive-trees. +The alacrity with which she jumped at this made +him suspect her of flagging inwardly but he did not +dare to withdraw his suggestion. Seen again from the +mouth of the valley the horizon, the suddenly revealed +expanse of sky, appeared beyond all memory to have +enlarged themselves. He could not have believed in such +clear air. The afternoon was yet more coldly grey, the +trees stood out from one another in the absolute distinctness +of this hour before they should begin to run together +into dusk. Under the opaque sky the sea was +white, glassy except where now and then a hundred +ripples gave the effect of a shiver. Here and there a cyprus +waited, dark among the olives. The evening had an +ache about it, a hush of timelessness, and Milton wondered +if he should forget this too. They walked in the +half-light of the olive-trees as though deep down under +water; Sydney’s face was pale and some deception of +shadow made it look melancholy but the colours of her +scarf burnt. “This is a wonderful thing,” he said and +<a id="page-252" class="pagenum" title="252"></a> +caught at the end of the scarf. “I love it. I like all the +colours you wear, especially white——” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not——” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is. It’s the clearest and brightest. Don’t ever +be frightened and muddled and dark, my dear, even +in clothes.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, James, for a clergyman’s wife—I can’t wear +scarlet and flame-colour. Your life——” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think of that as muddled and dark?” he +said, realizing how little they knew each other and how +difficult it would be for her ever to know him. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think of it, I think of you. I confess I don’t +half like the sound of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Sydney—” He glanced round a moment as +though Mrs. Kerr were behind him, smiling at Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“But we’re going to live it. Any life would look bad +from the brink; if we had to make the decision we’d +probably never be born. But most lives are the same, I’m +sure, once one’s in mid-stream. Ours will be lovely. But +you won’t see me often again in a Roman scarf.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t change, don’t be different,” he cried. “I love +you so much as you are.” She looked at him in reproach: +at that moment he loved her as sharply as though she +already were lost to him. He snatched at the moment +and, letting go of everything, asked to be carried away +by it; shutting his eyes to be nearer and holding her +close. They were both blotted out, himself and herself +were forgotten: he came to a brink. +</p> + +<p> +Time carried him on again after he could not say how +long a cessation of being. He knew that through all this +the hill had been waiting with their two figures upon it +framed in solitude. Coming back to her there in his +<a id="page-253" class="pagenum" title="253"></a> +arms at a sound or a movement she made he did not +dare to ask her where she had been. Eye to eye they +looked at each other questioningly as though trying to +learn from one another if they had been together, then +each looked away as though afraid to read they had +been forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m rather afraid,” she said, making a movement +to break away from him, and in answer to all his questions +kept repeating, “I <em>am</em> rather afraid.” He could +smile at this, feeling exalted; he let her go but later +drew an arm of hers through his own and made her walk +on again. Her air was irresolute, she seemed to be trying +to shape her thoughts into words. She said at last, having +looked again at him solemnly as though enjoining +him to understand this better than she could—“Haven’t +we—or I, at least, for my part—undertaken rather too +much?” +</p> + +<p> +He saw some shadow of what she meant but nothing +more than a shadow. He was inclined to take her +gesture as traditional, her mood as generic, she was a +young woman—very young as a woman. With compressed +lips she withdrew her arm. “Oh, no,” she said, +“why should I ask you? The difficulty is my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, look here, Sydney ... why should we be +afraid? It’s a way out for us both—can’t you see it so?—a +way out of ourselves. Don’t you remember the boy—Curdy—in +the fairy tale who opened a door straight +on to the sky and was told to walk through it? He didn’t +like it at all—naturally—there was just the sky there +and some of the stars were under him. However he went +forward and just found himself walking—he had no +idea how. If we go straight ahead——” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-254" class="pagenum" title="254"></a> +“I’d have gone back through the door. I’m not the +stuff for a fairy tale. I’ve no faculty of wonder, James. +Nothing is new to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He didn’t like to say, “Do I offer you nothing, then?” +He found himself guilty of having supposed that he did. +She was new to him in every aspect, in all that she was +and meant. He could not imagine a time when he would +not take a stranger’s pleasure in looking at her across a +room. He could not imagine a time when her movements +would be calculable to him, or when she would cease to +reappear just as he had not expected from behind the +veil of his thought. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you’re wrong there,” he said gently. “After +all, you haven’t lived so very long. You may be surprised——” +</p> + +<p> +She interrupted him here, not by saying anything but +by an odd silence. Her face had a strained kind of +stillness as though it might at any moment break up +into tears. She tramped beside doggedly, as though she +were really very tired, along the rough track, ducking +her head mechanically now and then to avoid the +branches. She seemed so drawn away from him that he +could not realize his arms had been round her a moment +ago. He cried, “Sydney, you’re not happy!” The +exclamation was torn from him, he would have given +much to recall it. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I am,” she said obstinately and coldly, “if +you’re happy, I’m happy.” She managed to make him +feel he had blustered at her and he said, with less +warmth, “Oh very well, my darling, I don’t want to +bully you.” He had never been in love before and he +had never quarrelled with anybody. This he supposed +<a id="page-255" class="pagenum" title="255"></a> +was now (or would soon be) a “lovers’ quarrel” coming +with a too-obliging promptness to link up for him the +two experiences. Was this then a glimpse of their composite +temper—irrational, touchy and vain? He longed +to ask her this—he believed her to be saner than he was. +His face, bright with an incommunicable glow of speculation, +suddenly angered her. +</p> + +<p> +“Anyhow—<em>happy</em>!” she cried, “what <em>is</em> happiness—what +comes out of it? Why must we always be feeling +each other’s pulses to see if we’re happy?” She flung +the word at him distastefully. It had evidently nothing +to do, where she was concerned, with the purest, most +exhausting kind of nervous exaltation and she could +make no use of it. He could have wept for her, and +longed to say, “Can’t you be more of a woman?” Instead +he smiled with an effect of tolerance and said, +“You are very impatient.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, really,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“You jump on your feelings and put a pistol up to +their heads to make the poor creatures explain themselves. +You don’t give them a chance. You don’t, honestly, +Sydney, give them a chance.” He spoke with +some energy. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, all right, all right,” said Sydney, “don’t shout +at me, James! the wood is quite quiet: I hear—I hear +you quite well.” +</p> + +<p> +She did not, after all, make him angry by this, he +looked round through the trees in surprise, seemed to +accept a reproof from the quiet line of the sea, and +agreed with her. “Yes, the wood is quiet. I’ve been making +a horrible noise. I’ll——” +</p> + +<p> +“Now <em>don’t</em> make a silence——” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-256" class="pagenum" title="256"></a> +“Yes, I’m going to—listen——” +</p> + +<p> +She clutched at his arm with elaborate manifestations +of terror. They listened. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t let you,” she cried, “you shan’t—it’s as bad +as the valley. How we ever sleep at the Hotel with all +this saving itself up behind us and that idiotic little +tame sea slipping up and down, up and down the beach, +I can’t think.” She stamped her foot and shouted again +and again; an echo woke up in the hills. “Now we’ve +got a noise again, now we’re at home, James, now we’re +perfectly at home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney—” Something had caught his attention, he +looked speechlessly at her, there was something he +wanted to ask. She went ahead of him, her bright scarf +flickered ahead like a flame through the olives. He took +some long strides to catch up with her. “Sydney”—he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“James?” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t mind coming home with me. You’ve <em>no</em> +qualms about leaving this place?” +</p> + +<p> +All her high spirits came back to her. “Never a +qualm,” she said loudly and cheerfully, and looked at +him with a bright eye. “Never a qualm....” +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-23"> +<a id="page-257" class="pagenum" title="257"></a> +XXIII +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">T</span><span class="postfirstchar">essa</span> was so happy about Sydney’s engagement. +She wrote long letters about it to +her husband Anthony out in Malay; she spent +less time upstairs with Baudouin, lying down on the +sofa, and more time sitting alertly in the drawing-room, +glowing at friends. She laid aside her air of a +devotee and put on all the dignity of matronhood: one +could never have guessed how well this would become +her. The effect on her digestion was extraordinary. She +smiled indefatigably and followed Sydney about with +her eyes, and remained on behalf of the abstracted +Milton and the less than ever approachable Sydney a +shining testimony to the efficacy for all ills of Love. +For the unconscious pair her confidence, had they taken +their stand on it, might have been as a rock among the +tangled undercurrents of criticism, of amusement, of +pity, of speculation as to “whether it would last.” The +thing was more than suitable; it was a coming together +for which Time itself might have laboured to shape the +couple; one could not look her in the face and deny the +possibility. Her friends sighed out that they at least +were glad <em>she</em> was glad. Mrs. Kerr remarked: “That +dear little woman looks positively bridal.” +</p> + +<p> +Everybody, Tessa thought, was being so nice to her +Sydney; charming things were said to the girl in her +presence, and many others she had happened to miss +<a id="page-258" class="pagenum" title="258"></a> +were reported. She glowed for her brilliant Sydney, +loved her better than ever and became speechlessly shy +of her. Of Milton she was not shy at all, she could talk +to him by the hour about Elective Affinities, and about +Health, which she said was very important. “You know +there is no need,” she would say looking at him reproachfully, +“for any of us to be ill at all,” and Milton +who had scarcely ever been ill in his life would nod +back at her wisely. He had a particular softness for +Sydney’s dear little cousin. She told him how wonderful +it would be to her to see Sydney in a home of her own +and with children, who would be, she was sure, the +supreme children. “And I’m sure,” she would add, +“that you’ll both be so wise and bring them up right, +quite right from the very beginning. Our health you +know, has to be built up from the very foundations. Our +health—” He began to recognize this as the recurring +decimal point in her conversation. +</p> + +<p> +Tessa thought that it would be so nice for James to +get to know Sydney’s great friend Mrs. Kerr really +well before they all went back to England, so she +planned a surprise on her own account, hired a car for +the afternoon and invited Mrs. Kerr and Milton to +drive with herself and Sydney up to a village high in +the hills, from which, she had heard, one could look +right over a ridge and see a quite unbelievable number +of other hills whose similarity to one another made one +surprised at the size of the world. There would be also +a church with a very dark, old-looking painting and a +Patisserie kept by a lady from Nice where they gave +you an excellent tea. The weather never let Tessa down; +the afternoon was delicious: Milton sat in front with +<a id="page-259" class="pagenum" title="259"></a> +the driver, Mrs. Kerr and Sydney behind; with Tessa, +protesting that this was ideally comfortable, wedged in +tightly between them. The aged Fiat rushed up the +valley with a rattling sound, screeched at a change of +gear and took the ascent laboriously. The hill leaned +forward over a void and the hundred hair-pin corners +they bumped round negligently made Tessa catch her +breath. “We would be killed at any moment,” said Mrs. +Kerr, “if Mrs. Bellamy were not too valuable.” When +they came to the top they got out painfully, looked +at the view at the other side, then walked out two by +two to the monastery followed by all the little boys of +the town. Tessa every now and then whispered to Sydney +that Mrs. Kerr and James seemed to be making +such friends, didn’t they, and getting on excellently. “I +was sure they would, they are both so clever. I think +we’ll keep a little further behind them, Sydney; they +may be wanting to talk about you.” +</p> + +<p> +The painting in the church was so dark that it might +have been anything; Tessa could not help wondering +why no connoisseur had already discovered it. The idea +of this possible beauty stored up in secrecy made her +quite dumb; she gripped Milton and Sydney each by an +arm and forced them to stand and look up at it. She +hoped that they might understand the picture better than +she did and say what she felt about it, but when after a +moment or two of attention they simply turned to smile +at one another across her she felt constrained to put +forward, “There’s something <em>about</em> that face.... I +know there’s something about the expression. If only it +could be cleaned a little without destroying the value.... +I should never feel the same, you know, about any +<a id="page-260" class="pagenum" title="260"></a> +picture in Florence; they are so <em>known</em>....” The air +of the church was stale with the incense of years, the +breath of long-dead congregations had not been disturbed; +it was cold with the exhalations of stone forever +in darkness. Mrs. Kerr wandered off by herself and stood +in abstraction in front of the altar; a shaft of light +from a window above her leant solid across the gloom. “I +expect,” thought Tessa, “she is really very religious,” +and she felt stirred again, as she had been by the picture. +She kept the others waiting about because she did +not like to interrupt Mrs. Kerr—she had always known +that there was something <em>in</em> Mrs. Kerr and at the moment +perhaps it was near them. “I can’t stand this air +any longer, I shall be sick,” exclaimed Sydney suddenly, +and after a last glance towards the altar pushed +aside the leather curtain over the door and went out +hurriedly. The church stood on the rim of hill between +the known and unknown landscapes, a melancholy outpost, +and it would be pleasanter for Sydney to wait outside, +though not, Milton seemed to think, to wait alone: +he went out after her. Tessa sat down by herself at the +end of the church and presently, after one or two uncertain +glances round her, knelt. +</p> + +<p> +Milton had managed to dispel the swarm of little boys +who having presented a bunch of flowers to Sydney with +a complimentary address had demanded to be paid for +them; the three now intimate friends of the happy +Tessa walked back with her to the village unaccompanied; +talking and laughing in the manner of excursionists +between the walls of blue air. The village, +heaped up high in its walls, achieved another of these +miracles of balance; it was the same as many other +<a id="page-261" class="pagenum" title="261"></a> +villages that they had explored, but as it was for the +afternoon Tessa’s they exclaimed at its charm and +oddity. Inside it was half-dark, noisome and complicated, +with whistles of cold air spouting at them through +archways, down staircases dark enough to be blind and +from cellar doors. They entered the Patisserie with +misgivings, but were let out unexpectedly from the +end of a passage on to a terrace that overhung the void +and let them see the extent of the further valley. They +crossed over to the railing, spread out their hands there +and sighed at the view. Milton turned aside to yawn +irrepressibly two or three times; this was the effect that +distances always produced on him. They stood in a row, +close together, Mrs. Kerr and Sydney were side by side. +</p> + +<p> +“Large world ...” said Mrs. Kerr, vaguely waving. +</p> + +<p> +“Very.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sydney will remember this when she goes back to +England,” said Tessa, who though she had travelled a +great deal always felt there was only <em>one</em> view. In her +memory one gave place to another kaleidoscopically: +there was only one at a time. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but don’t talk about Sydney going away,” said +Mrs. Kerr. “It will be terrible. But surely, Sydney, you +don’t think of going just yet?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, next week, we expect,” said Sydney. “We think +it will be better to get back before the rush begins.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>I</em> shall be the rush,” said Mrs. Kerr. “I am so +stupid, I never realize one’s come to the end of the season +anywhere until I find everybody going away at +once.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then,” suggested Milton, “you don’t get a place +in the train.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-262" class="pagenum" title="262"></a> +“I always seem to get a place in the train; it’s very +curious. But isn’t this a little too unselfish of you, Mrs. +Bellamy, letting him take Sydney away from you so +soon?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was my idea,” said Tessa at once. She had come +to believe this. +</p> + +<p> +“I wouldn’t for worlds—” began Milton. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t really,” smiled Mrs. +Kerr. “But one doesn’t have the chance of bringing a +Sydney back with one every day.” There was a pause in +which she looked thoughtfully down at Sydney’s hand +on the railing beside her, then laid her own over it. +“They are all going away,” she said to Tessa, “all the +young ones. Ronald’s going quite soon too—down to +Sicily.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh dear—oh dear,” sighed Tessa in placid deprecation +of the laws of change. A lump rose in her +throat as she too saw Mrs. Kerr’s hand lying in Sydney’s. +Partings were terrible. Ought she to move away +gently with Milton to the other end of the terrace? +</p> + +<p> +“But perhaps,” said Mrs. Kerr, “you two’ll come +back here together some day. I shall imagine you here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks,” said Milton and laughed uncertainly. +“Do!” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney took no notice of what was being said, she +did not seem as though she had heard. She stood between +Tessa and Mrs. Kerr as inanimate and objective as a +young girl in a story told by a man, incapable of a +thought or a feeling that was not attributed to her, +without a personality of her own outside their three +projections upon her: Milton’s fiancée, Tessa’s young +cousin, Mrs. Kerr’s protégée, lately her friend. +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-263" class="pagenum" title="263"></a> +“Sydney,” Milton asked her loudly, “<em>shall</em> we come +back here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes,” she said mechanically, “do let’s. Do let’s +come back here—I’m so fond of this place.” +</p> + +<p> +When they had finished tea they went back to the +piazza outside the village to look for the Fiat, and having +found the Fiat had to search further afield for +their driver, a brigandish individual in a check cap who +returned to them with reluctance. “Such a nice afternoon,” +Mrs. Kerr smiled retrospectively as they slid +away from the village, and as the keen air rushed forward +to meet them, she drew down her chin luxuriously +into the collar of her fur coat. The car swerved violently +at the first of the corners and Sydney who had +taken Tessa’s place in the middle was flung sideways +with her cheek against the fur. “I wish there were +not such a long way to go,” remarked Tessa, who after +one look down had drawn quickly back and shut her +eyes. “It’s not like motoring at all, it’s more like +<em>dropping</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps—” said Sydney and broke off because it +was not fair to Tessa. She sat back quietly and began to +concentrate her whole will and imagination. “If it +could be the next corner,” she thought, “we should go +over clean—there is that clear drop. Let it be the next +corner....” But the next corner was passed. The rush +of air and the movement had made her come alive again +and she seemed to herself to be reasoning very clearly +and accurately. There would be nobody really to suffer +except poor old Anthony, out in Malay. She did not suppose +James’s brother and sister would care very much; +she did not feel him to have been loved more than +<a id="page-264" class="pagenum" title="264"></a> +conventionally, to have ever so faintly quickened a passion +or coloured a life. “As for Ronald,” she thought, +very keen and exultant as though there were a sword +in her hand, “it would be better for Ronald.” She +fixed her eyes on the back of the driver’s head and +began to be perfectly sure of what was coming, perfectly +confident. +</p> + +<p> +“We mustn’t go over too quickly,” she thought, +“there must be time to say something.” Under the rug +her hand found out Mrs. Kerr’s sleeve and rested there +ever so lightly. She racked her brain for all there would +be to say, then relinquished the effort. At all events +there would be a moment to look at each other, just to +look at each other that would be best. “I don’t want to +look at James—there is always that question of the future. +I should be very much embarrassed.” Her mind +became quite quiet again and she went on saying: “The +next corner ... the <em>next</em> corner.” +</p> + +<p> +Round the next, barely round it, the brakes jarred, +the car swayed on locked wheels, and stopped dead. The +driver swore, peered ahead left and right, stood up in +his place to give vent to what he was saying and swore +more vehemently. Milton also rose in his place to see +better and their view from behind was obscured. They +had seen in a flash a long wagon of timber jammed cross-ways, +shouting men, backing, terrified horses. Milton, +after a moment, turned smiling to reassure them. “The +idiots,” he said, “have been making a mess of this +turn. They’re all right, but we may have some time to +wait till they’re clear. The end of the timber’s got +jammed against the rock, they must have been as +nearly as possible over.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-265" class="pagenum" title="265"></a> +“So, I suppose, were we?” Mrs. Kerr said, amused. +</p> + +<p> +Milton nodded, after a half-glance at Sydney. “Our +fellow <em>can</em> drive,” he said gratefully. “We’re here for +a bit—would you care to get out and have a look?” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney shook her head. With both hands clasped +on her lap she sat quite still, defeated. She could not look +at Milton, who helped out Mrs. Kerr and Tessa and +walked with them up to the wagon. In a minute or two +he was back. “I say, aren’t you coming?” She shook +her head again stonily. “Sydney ... has this given +you rather a shock?” +</p> + +<p> +She was plainly what people describe as “upset.” +“They’ve no right to bring those things up here,” he +angrily shouted. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they must build their houses, my dear.” It +was the tolerance of lassitude. She looked over the side +of the car down into the valley: a kind of farewell. It +was a long way below—the depth of it would never be +forgotten. +</p> + +<p> +“Funny we shouldn’t have seen it ahead of us,” said +Milton, thinking about the wagon, “or underneath us. +It’s the way the rocks stick out—pretty dangerous, I +must say.” +</p> + +<p> +She agreed. “Pretty dangerous. Look here, I will +come; but go on with the others. I’ll just stay here a +moment or two.” +</p> + +<p> +They were having—up here—a later view of the +sun than their friends down below; by now the tennis-courts +would be silent, the sea fading, the earliest lights +coming out pale and exotic in hotels whose walls still +had an afterglow. Here the sun was still full on the +village, level on peak behind peak; the gold only gave +<a id="page-266" class="pagenum" title="266"></a> +way reluctantly to a mild rose, that chilled and +abated and was transfused by shadows mounting up +like smoke out of the valley. This isolation above the +regular approach of night connected itself in her mind +with her present shocked sense of having been +flung back on to living. The depths of shadow from +which they were barred away would have been to her +infinitely grateful. Above, in this unnatural, endless +prolongation of the daylight she for the first time felt +life sharply, life as keen as death to bite upon the consciousness +pressed inexorably upon her, held to her +throat like a knife. Dazed by a realization of their import +she stared at her hands, at her body, at the hills +round her. +</p> + +<p> +Later she had scrambled from the car and was running +down the hill on her stiff legs unsteadily, calling +to James. +</p> + +<p> +Round the wagon a tumult was raging of admonition, +sympathy and abuse. Several young men had sprung out +of nowhere and were straining, shouting and heaving, +alternately propping stones under the wheels of the +wagon then trying to push the wagon forward over +the stones. Other young men and some women came +scrambling down in a state of happy excitement by a +precipitous path from the village that struck down direct +across the zig-zags of the road. Friends of the +wagoner kicked the horses in the chest to make them +back further, tugged them forward by the bridles and +almost incessantly beat them over the head. Sydney +saw Milton, scarlet and also shouting, trying to stop +this and being swept aside amicably as one who knew +nothing of the carting of timber or of the management +<a id="page-267" class="pagenum" title="267"></a> +of horses. Tessa, only too glad to be out of the Fiat, +was trotting up and down like a little bear in her fur +coat. No one, evidently, could have been sorrier for +the poor horses than Mrs. Kerr, but she was trying to +restrain Milton from further interference because he +ran a momentary danger of being elbowed over the +edge of the road. As Sydney approached, the situation +was further complicated by a short log working +loose from the pile, slipping down sideways and getting +locked between the far-apart spokes of the wheel. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all so damned silly!” cried Milton exasperatedly. +The crisis brought out in him at the expense of his +rationality all that was latently English. Mrs. Kerr +shrugged her shoulders and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“One of these horses is bleeding,” he added in helpless +disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Then come away,” said Mrs. Kerr. “After all, we’re +not asked to more than imagine what animals suffer. +We aren’t asked to be certain—it mayn’t be so bad. I +think I’ll go back to the car.” +</p> + +<p> +Milton only half understood what she said and did +not hear Sydney calling him. His attention was all for +the horses. “They ought at least,” he exclaimed later +on, “to have warned us up there in the village that this +was ahead.” He turned to find Sydney there pale at +his elbow and Mrs. Kerr gone. +</p> + +<p> +“Will they be long?” she said anxiously. He nodded +and she put a hand on his sleeve and guided him up the +road again, past the Fiat where Tessa and Mrs. Kerr +were sitting again, wrapped up in rugs. Sydney looked +at them vacantly, turned to Milton to say something +with the same air of vacancy, saw with alarm that +<a id="page-268" class="pagenum" title="268"></a> +the car was still close behind them and hurried him on +to get further out of earshot. “I’m afraid,” she said, +“that it’s quite impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +He understood by some odd intuition; but kept her +watching him for a moment or two while he listened intently +to the clamour below, the isolated exclamations, +the voices. “What’s quite impossible, Sydney? What +do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” he said quietly. “Oh!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how we could ever have thought of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid,” he said slowly, “I can’t see yet why it’s +not right.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked hopeless. “I suppose I can’t make you +see. But I do know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since when?” She seemed protected by some kind of +exaltation, so he let out his pain in sarcasm. “Recently, +Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just now. I suppose it was the shock of being alive—oh, +how can I explain to you? I had had no idea +we were as real as this. I’d never realized it mattered +so much.... Oh my dear, no, don’t touch +me. Come further—come round the bend of the +road.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wasn’t going to touch you,” he said, ashamed for +both of them, half aware that an instinctive movement +towards her must have been exaggerated by the effect of +distance she gave him. By some defect of focus he had +seen her as a long way away. They went up the hill +painfully, as though it were steeper and turned the next +corner which gave her back a kind of echo, a ghost of +that early idea of deliverance. Further up she sat down +<a id="page-269" class="pagenum" title="269"></a> +on a bank by the side of the road; because she looked +tired enough to fall sideways he sat down close to her, +put an arm round her and propped her up against a +brotherly shoulder. “Now tell me,” he said, “if you +feel you can tell me.” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Now</em> I understand—but it seems as if I ought to +tell you what I didn’t understand. I think we have +been asleep here; you know in a dream how quickly +and lightly shapes move, they have no weight, nothing +offers them any resistance. They are governed by some +funny law of convenience that seems to us perfectly +rational, they clash together without any noise and +come apart without injury.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think we’ve been ruled by this funny law of +convenience?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she said without hesitation, but putting a +hand out as though to propitiate him. “We have taken +nothing into account. You and me—how could we +ever have thought of it? It was just a dream. It seemed +simple.” +</p> + +<p> +“It never seemed simple to me. I was going to fight +every inch of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you’re not—” she began, broke off, and in a +manner at once intimate and very impersonal leaned +closer against his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“Not what?” he said, urging this out of her. +</p> + +<p> +“Not a fighter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a born fighter perhaps ... I thought we could +help each other.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never. You could never have thought that.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I am to let you go I shall have to learn to say +‘Never.’” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-270" class="pagenum" title="270"></a> +“Say it now—or shall I have to tell you everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would rather you did. But no; the laws of convenience. +I think I could guess what is coming ... +Sydney?” +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer. He saw her hand stealing up to +her face and discovered that tears were coming out +from under her eyelids and that she was trying to brush +them away with the tip of a finger. “I haven’t got a +handkerchief,” she said as she felt him detect this. “I +left it behind in the car.” He managed still with an arm +round her, shifting his position gently so as not to disturb +her, to extract a clean handkerchief that he had +pushed up his cuff. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” she said, crumpling up the handkerchief +and staring at it. “You are, you are comfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +“So they tell me,” said he and his mouth twisted in +momentary bitter repudiation of comfortableness. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d rather do this alone, if you don’t mind,” she +said, as the tears began to come faster. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well,—shall I walk up and down or will you?” +</p> + +<p> +As she did not answer and did not stir he got up and +left her. Patrolling their bit of road at absent speed +with his hands in his pockets he could still feel her +head heavy on his shoulder and the feeling of intimacy +and nearness remained with him. He remembered, looking +back with pity for them both, that questioning long +look in which they had been baffled by one another under +the olive-trees. At this moment of swinging apart he +was one with her and was able to say “She is right.” +Passing by her again and again where she sat he looked +or did not look; either seemed to be natural. He could +<a id="page-271" class="pagenum" title="271"></a> +feel rather than perceive her there sitting upright, her +hands on her knees, his handkerchief a dead-white blot +in the dark. The tide of shadow had risen at last and +engulfed them, drawing the hills together and making +the valley seem to float up to them, spreading a film of +silence in which the clamour from below was diffused. +The last of the pink light faded slowly from the hills, +the moon rose opaque and lustreless in the still lucent +sky. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t come till you’re ready,” he called as he saw +her getting up slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m ready now,” she said, coming towards him. His +admission was ready for her. +</p> + +<p> +“I do see what you mean,” he said. “I do understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is there anything queer about my eyes; would one +notice?” she asked, and turned her face up to his +anxiously. He had to peer close in the half-light before +he assured her. “No; nobody’d guess.” They turned and +walked silently back to the car. Tessa was sitting round +looking out eagerly for them over the back. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve had an idea,” she cried, “they’re going to +saw off that long bit of timber. The driver says it was +his idea. One of the men is fetching a saw.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then we can go on again,” said Mrs. Kerr, making +room for Sydney. “Why is it so much more tiring +to sit still in something that doesn’t move?” Sydney +climbed silently in and sat between them. By the time +they had been able to pass the wagon, now drawn back +further down into a bay of the road, she felt that the +evening was already over, that they had been home +for a long time, that all this had happened a year ago +<a id="page-272" class="pagenum" title="272"></a> +and only by some delay of the memory still seemed to +concern them. As they walked rather slowly up the +Hotel steps, weighed down with armfuls of wraps, and +the disconcertingly keen lights steamed out on to them, +Mrs. Kerr with an air of coming awake again remarked +that Sydney was tired. “If you’re not too tired,” she +said, “come in on your way up and say good-night to +me. We shan’t have you many nights more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” Sydney said, “but don’t wait up for +me. I’ll come early if I come at all.” After dinner she +went straight to her own room, sleep came up over her +like a wave as soon as she shut her eyes; a tall dark +wave that gathered itself and waited above her a moment +so that she was conscious of it before she was conscious +of nothing. Then all night long she was climbing up the +endless road again corner by corner to an empty town at +the top. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-24"> +<a id="page-273" class="pagenum" title="273"></a> +XXIV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar"><span class="prefirstchar">“</span>Y</span><span class="postfirstchar">et</span> I do think it would be nice of you to go +with him as far as Genoa,” Mrs. Kerr said +to Ronald, three evenings afterwards. At an +end of her gentle insistence she could do no more; she +left the appeal in the air to dissolve or solidify, sighed, +turned away from her son and took up her letters. The +appeal stretched out and closed upon Ronald’s unwillingness +tentacle after shadowy tentacle; he got up and +walked round Mrs. Kerr’s room uneasily moving his +shoulders, writhing mentally like the Laocoön and feeling +himself constricted at every point. +</p> + +<p> +“Well I am blowed,” he said petulantly. “I really +am blowed!” But Mrs. Kerr was reading a letter. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald could not understand why two people who +had come to this place unaware of each other, in perfect +integrity and without the intention of seeking +a mate, should not be allowed to remain here untroubled +now that a transitory notion of marrying one another +had been abandoned. Or if they were due to depart, why +had they to depart processionally in a long train of +Spirits Pitiful; regrets, remorses, condolences, noisy +emotions given the licence of carnival? Mrs. Bellamy +was “taking away” Sydney (who now had to be bundled +about like a lay-figure and spoken of like the unillustrious +dead) to a place on the French Riviera and +later to England. Milton was to move on to Florence, +even to Assisi; there seemed a vagueness as to whether +<a id="page-274" class="pagenum" title="274"></a> +he might not be trusted in proper abandon to walk over +the very edge of Italy into the sea. He had timed his +departure, unwittingly, for the same date, the same train +as Ronald’s. Ronald, appalled by the thought of a journey +with one for whom the web of a fatal attachment +would be with every moment attenuating and snapping +off strand by strand, had announced to his mother +that travel with Milton he would not; it could not be +done. He proposed to remain with her several days +more. +</p> + +<p> +“We’d see each other on the platform,” Ronald said, +“we should be bound to see each other on the platform +and we should feel such asses looking all round each +other and then getting into different carriages.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, don’t get into different carriages; talk to each +other.” +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t know how to. You see, he would be +bound to think I was embarrassed. I think he is the sort +of man who would rather expect one to be.” +</p> + +<p> +Many people were embarrassed by Milton, avoided +meeting him in the corridors, moved away when he +came into the lounge and when they caught his eye did +not know whether to look and hurried away to complain +of him. He had expected and hoped that nothing would +“come out” until he and Sydney had managed to slip +away quietly; but in this he had counted without her +directness—he had written a note on the matter to send +to her room but on reading it through had destroyed it +(it seemed to reek with the meanest solicitudes) and had +sat with his head in his hands unable to write her another. +Sydney had “told” Tessa; Tessa, through confidantes +fatally chosen and an air for the world of reserved +<a id="page-275" class="pagenum" title="275"></a> +desolation, let everyone know. He was offered +during the tête-à-têtes which circumstances or the conscientiousness +of a few friends forced on him all kinds +of silences and found them poor enough meat in his +hunger, his sudden ache for companionship; silences applied +tenderly like a swab to a wound, silences held up +like a shield, square and blank, silences poked across +at him gingerly; the silences of Miss Pym, of Colonel +Duperrier, of Eileen Lawrence. Sensitive to so abashing +his world he began to feel like a leper. His perturbation +as to whether he ought to be here, the increasingly sharp +little stings with which consciousness less of suffering +than of being a too-evidently suffering man was brought +home again and again to him, kept up such a din in his +mind that thought was impossible. He could not think +of Sydney or of what they had lost or gained. Now +and then he would brace himself and with cold exultation +look ahead to an ordeal in Florence. +</p> + +<p> +Veronica spoke to him; she gave him all her distracted +sympathy then took it all back again, in a breath; +“There are worse things,” she said, “than not being +engaged to be married. I would rather do anything on +earth than meet Victor just now—will you walk down +with me and look for a court?” That had been early one +morning; they had stolen down to the courts together +and played singles till other people began to assemble. +He gave her minus-fifteen and she won their three +sets. “You know, you mustn’t let yourself go to pieces,” +she said, shaking her head at him as they walked back +together. “You used to be good.” “But I’m <em>melting away</em> +in all this!” exclaimed Milton explosively. Later, as +they turned in at the Hotel gate she had an idea. “I say, +<a id="page-276" class="pagenum" title="276"></a> +you do marry people, don’t you—I mean, professionally? +It would be rather a joke if you were to marry us. +Rather a <em>grim</em> joke, I daresay,” she added with bent +brows, tighting her racquet-press. But that evening, as +with a feverish sense of exclusion from everywhere he +walked up and down on the gravel, she melted ahead +of him into the darkness, trailing the wraith of a shawl +from her shoulders, going down to the sea with her +Victor to look at the moonlight. She came into the +lounge again shining-eyed, mysterious from having been +kissed, and Milton felt that at least she was not unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +He was haunted by Ronald. Ronald, whenever they +met, paused momentarily, opened and shut his mouth, +seemed always just on the verge of an utterance which +was to clarify everything and banish confusion. An +oblique glance, penetrating, but addressed to one another’s +features rather than eye to eye, would pass between +them. Then, smiling regretfully as though he had +been urgently called away, Ronald would shake back the +piece of hair from his forehead and dart off. Milton had +the feeling each time of having been weighed and found +wanting. There must have been something about him +that brought Ronald up dead. He told himself this did +not matter, he would not see Ronald again, then the +thought of not seeing Ronald again would itself inexpressibly +sadden him. The thought of Ronald and Sydney +going away in different directions, and of the unlikelihood +of <em>their</em> ever meeting came to be even more +painful, the injury was personal, as though one or the +other or both of them had been part of himself. Every +time he met Ronald there was the embarrassment, not +<a id="page-277" class="pagenum" title="277"></a> +just of that one moment of failure sharp as the slam of +a door but of a dozen remembered others mounting up +behind it. +</p> + +<p> +“I <em>will</em> speak,” Milton said to himself at last and +Ronald must have come to the same decision, for the +next time they met they both began to talk at once, irrelevantly +and loudly. It was this, chiefly, which had +made Ronald so unwilling that they should travel together +to Genoa. Walking about the room he was trying +with great difficulty to explain this to his mother. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr, still with an eye on her letters but with +attention dutifully withdrawn from her own affairs, +raised herself among the cushions and turned a little +round on the sofa to consider her son’s difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to sacrifice you, my darling,” she said, +“but if you would do this you would really oblige me. +You see, Ronald, the poor man does like you. I thought +if you would try and be nice to him—make it all easier—just +for an hour or two in the train.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s an Italian train,” said Ronald gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“I know, I know,” said Mrs. Kerr and nodded in +helpless contrition. “I’m afraid,” she went on irrelevantly, +“he feels sore about this—He feels——” +</p> + +<p> +“<em>Sore?</em>” echoed Ronald. “Ridiculous! Sore?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think so, a little ... with me,” said Mrs. Kerr +and adjusted the shade of the reading-lamp. Her face +by that movement emerged from red dusk and was +shown to her son like a picture, lit up; a face lying +rather wearily back among the cushions, full of lucidity +and gentleness; less beautiful at the moment than +burning in on his consciousness its essential quality, +mental or spiritual, that he could not define. Ronald +<a id="page-278" class="pagenum" title="278"></a> +wondered again if this was what he would learn to call +love, or whether he would ever experience any other: +this feeling of being burnt in upon that left no room +for desire. “I half think,” Mrs. Kerr went on reluctantly, +as though she were reading aloud from the confused +blotted chart of poor Milton’s mind, “that <em>he</em> +half thinks I’ve meddled. Of course I have a kind of influence +over Sydney, but I should never have used it +to interfere in her love-affairs. I have always wanted +her to marry and seen that she wanted to marry and +though I was surprised just at first that she should be +able to think about <em>him</em> in that way, they both seemed so +pleasant with each other that I would have done a great +deal to help them on.” +</p> + +<p> +It was a strange and sudden relief to Ronald—he +could not have said why—to hear his mother say all this +in a matter-of-fact voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor old Milton,” he said once and could not help +laughing. Mrs. Kerr also smiled, less and less ruefully +as his laughter began to infect her. “Poor old chap,” +said Ronald again, noisily. He waited for what was to +come next, but his mother seemed to have done speaking. +“Of course,” he went on, at the same pitch of +jocularity, “if it’s a case of the family honour ... anything +<em>I</em> can do....” +</p> + +<p> +It did sound ridiculous, the way he put it, and Mrs. +Kerr smiled again. “I should feel happier,” she confessed, +“if the poor dear went off more or less happily. +You see, he does like you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, I daresay he does. I daresay he thinks I +have a beautiful expression and wishes I would come +and sing in his choir.” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-279" class="pagenum" title="279"></a> +“Something like that, I daresay. But people are not +put in choirs for their beautiful expressions—Seriously, +Ronald, I’m doing this because I want to do +anything I can for him. It means a lot to send you away +from me sooner than you have to go. You see, I’ll be +lonely,” said Mrs. Kerr, and glanced away from the +statement when it was made as though she saw it as ugly +and trivial. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh Mother....” +</p> + +<p> +He caught at her hand but she drew it away again. +“I don’t want you to stay and be kind to me. I hope +I shall be dead a long time before people are kind to +me.” She shivered—not, he thought, at death. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re lonely?” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes took him in, very tiny, and round him the +room and the world with its tiny people drawn by their +hundreds of tides. She nodded and her thought passed +ahead. “You see,” she said, “I who am what is called +an attractive person am going to be lonelier than other +people, the beautiful or the devoted. I shan’t be able to +crowd myself round for consolation and company with +hundreds of little photographs of loving or having been +loved.” +</p> + +<p> +“A large number of people seem to have loved you,” +said Ronald. Though shaken, he spoke definitely, very +dispassionately. It seemed important, so important that +his mouth went dry, that his mother should not be +allowed to go on looking through him and thinking beyond +him with that peculiar expression. “A large number +...” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no one, I think,” said Mrs. Kerr, after a pause +in which she tried to remember. While she spoke she +<a id="page-280" class="pagenum" title="280"></a> +began glancing through her letters abstractedly and with +an air of indifference. Then she smiled. “At any rate,” +she went on, having extracted an envelope that had already +been opened, “I don’t begin to be lonely just +yet—here’s such a charming letter, an invitation, from +those Emmerys in Paris.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <em>Margot</em> Emmery?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Margot. I am so fond of her. So you, my dear, +can run away to Sicily.” She tugged gently at a fold of +her tea-gown on which he happened to be sitting and +swept him away from her with a gesture as though he +were a little boy again and she were sending him off to +bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, at any rate,” said Ronald nodding, sitting +tight on the tea-gown and leaning forward to show her +he had scored a point, “Sydney is fond of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose she is,” Mrs. Kerr said reflectively. +</p> + +<p> +“Then <em>why</em> ...” began Ronald. “Why on earth....” +He stopped again and blinked his eyes, as though he +had suddenly seen everything as so complicated that he +could only believe in some defect in his vision. Mrs. +Kerr gently stirred on the sofa, the loud ticking of the +travelling clock at her elbow became suddenly audible. +Ronald looking round the room caught sight of his own +photograph—“Ronald”—and thought how odd it was +that Mrs. Kerr sitting on the sofa beside him should +have a son and how much odder it was that Ronald +should have a mother. He found himself arguing very +loudly, wisely, and dogmatically and was reminded of +the only two occasions when he had been drunk. “You’re +not fair to yourself,” he kept repeating. “You’re not, +Mother, you’re not really. You <em>ought</em> to be fair....” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-281" class="pagenum" title="281"></a> +She looked up at him once or twice from over Margot +Emmery’s letter and said presently, “Well, my dear +Ronald, I leave that to you—Hush!... Listen! +Come in!... Ronald, I’m sure I heard somebody. Do +go and see who it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Miss Warren,” said Ronald, having opened the +door grudgingly, and Sydney came in. +</p> + +<p> +She came in doubtfully, carrying a pile of books, with +a pair of long white leather gloves dangling over her +arm. She and Ronald stared at each other vaguely and +steadily over the reading-lamp, the only light in the +room. In the red dusk over the shade their faces were +blank to each other; their features were scarcely visible +and their expressions, if they had expressions, not visible +at all. As it was a spring night the window stood +open out on to the balcony and now and then the curtains +were sucked in and swelled out again by a breath +of mild air. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll be getting along,” said Ronald to Sydney. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, don’t go,” But the room seemed too small for +three people. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald, seeking for and failing to catch his mother’s +eye, looked round him rather confusedly and finally +stepped out between the curtains on to the balcony where +he lighted a cigarette and doubling his elbows under him +leaned forward to stare at the sea. The exit was not a +happy one, in the room behind he remained present yet +not present. Sydney put her pile of books carefully +down on the table and counted them over, then held +out the pair of gloves to Mrs. Kerr. “I think these are +all of your books that I had,” said she. “And I think +these are your gloves; I must have brought them upstairs +<a id="page-282" class="pagenum" title="282"></a> +with me after a walk. I found them among my +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“So they are!” said Mrs. Kerr and looked at the +gloves in pleased surprise. “How nice to have them +back—but I never missed them. But I do wish, my dear, +you hadn’t brought all those books back. Wouldn’t you +keep them? I shall never have room for them all in my +trunk.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t have room in my trunk either.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if I wrote your name in them all?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I still shouldn’t have room in my trunk,” +Sydney said and smiled conventionally. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I shall have to give them away to someone +else,” said Mrs. Kerr with a sigh. “Don’t just hover, +Sydney—must you go yet? Stay and sit down.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m going through my things +to-night and beginning to pack—I’d no idea I’d so +many. We go, you see, the day after to-morrow, and to-morrow +night I shall be going out with the Lawrences.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the Lawrences?... Well, I expect it will be +very nice for you all to spend your last evening together. +Are you really going the day after to-morrow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. So’s Ronald, isn’t he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is indeed,” sighed Ronald’s mother. “How time +does seem to have slipped away from us all.... Mr. +Milton and Ronald you know, are hoping to travel together.... +<em>Poor</em> Mr. Milton...!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Sydney, “I suppose he is a good deal +laughed at.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr glanced at her with raised eyebrows a +moment and bit her lips as though she had winced for +a moment inwardly. There seemed to be depths of crudeness +<a id="page-283" class="pagenum" title="283"></a> +here that she dared not fathom. “Not as far as I +know, my dear,” she said gently. “Unless, of course, +you feel able to laugh at him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not much amused really. Do I seem to be much +amused?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Kerr looked at her gently and critically. “No, I +don’t think you do. You do look older, my dear, yes, you +certainly have developed. I suppose there is nothing like +buying experience that somebody else pays for.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very sensitive to all this,” said Sydney, raising +her eyes for the first time. “What’s most beautiful +about you is your sensitiveness. If there’s one thing +one might hope to learn from you it would be to be +sickened and turned cold by cruelty and unfairness. I +hope that’s what other people have learnt from you. I +hope that’s what someone where you’re going next will +be able to learn too.” Finding that her voice was still +steady and clear and that she was able to go on she concluded, +“I am very grateful to you; you have done a +great deal for me.” +</p> + +<p> +After a moment’s pause Mrs. Kerr said, with a glance +through the curtains, “You do remember, don’t you, that +Ronald’s on the balcony?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I haven’t forgotten Ronald.... Good-night, +Mrs. Kerr. Good-night, Ronald!” +</p> + +<p> +She turned and went back to the door, not quite +directly, steering her way through the furniture as +though she were carefully following back a chalk line +drawn for her on the floor. While her hand was still on +the door Mrs. Kerr exclaimed, “Sydney!” incredulously, +then later, “Well, Sydney—what have I done?” Sydney +did pause on the threshold and look back uncertainly, +<a id="page-284" class="pagenum" title="284"></a> +Mrs. Kerr held out a hand, then she turned again +and went out, shutting the door behind her so quietly +that Mrs. Kerr and Ronald only heard the latch click. +Mrs. Kerr catching her breath at the sound of the latch, +began repeating her name again in such a tone of desolation +and loneliness that Ronald, driven out against something +intolerable, rushed through the curtains. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, <em>Mother</em>!” +</p> + +<p> +“Make her come back. Go after her, Ronald, and +make her come back—I have something to say to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see that I very well can.” +</p> + +<p> +She stared up, arrested. “Why not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t think she wants to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ronald....” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m awfully sorry.” But his mother had turned +away from him in contempt; her eyes were fixed on the +door as though under their long, strange, relentless compulsion +it must open again to deliver up Sydney. When +he came forward she warded him off with a hand. He +did not like to look at her and did not know where else +to look, so he stumbled back on to the balcony where +he found still alight a cigarette that he had taken out of +his mouth an age ago and balanced aslant on the rail. +He rolled it round between his fingers, considering it, +took two or three puffs and threw it into the darkness, +then remained standing still there, waiting to be called +back. After waiting for some time his tension began to +relax again, but looking round at the sky, the sea, the +tops of the trees he still saw everywhere his mother’s +head in the circle of light from the reading-lamp imprinted +on the darkness. +</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="chapter" id="chapter-0-25"> +<a id="page-285" class="pagenum" title="285"></a> +XXV +</h2> + +</div> + +<p class="first"> +<span class="firstchar">A</span> one-horse vehicle with a canvas hood +called by the English visitors a shandrydan +came round about three o’clock to drive Mr. +Milton and Ronald down to the Genoa train. It appeared +about half an hour before it had been ordered and the +limp horse in a bonnet, looking as if it had been propped +up on its legs precariously, waited on the gravel, indifferent +to the flies, long enough to advertise to the whole +Hotel that somebody was going away. Departures at this +time of the afternoon were unusual and people coming +downstairs after the siesta and people on their way out to +the tennis-courts stood about in the doorway (the double +door had been fixed back as for the passage of a grand +piano) or gathered round the foot of the steps to smile at +the inefficient way in which the concierge, the boots and +one of the younger waiters were stacking up the light +luggage in the box of the shandrydan. Antonio the boots +was very popular; every time he let Milton’s leather +hat-box or one of Ronald’s many dispatch cases glissade +past him and bounce on to the gravel there was laughter +and a cry of “Oh, <em>oh</em>, Antonio!” And Antonio, knowing +this to be part of a very amusing English song, would +smile woodenly. +</p> + +<p> +Nobody was quite sure how much of a “send-off,” +under the circumstances, Milton would appreciate; but +it was impossible to let pass such an excellent opportunity +of embarrassing Ronald. Ronald was better liked +<a id="page-286" class="pagenum" title="286"></a> +than anybody else in the Hotel had been for a long time; +it was always easy to be amusing about him, he roused +genuine interest and curiosity and, in the breasts of +those who disliked his mother, an active instinct to protect +and comfort. In twos and threes for mutual encouragement, +people were never tired of seeking him +out and baiting him, giving him articles in the <em>Morning +Post</em> to read, tripping him up over statistics or twitting +him on an attachment to one or other of the Lawrences. +He was the dearest boy, good humour itself, and one +could not doubt that he genuinely enjoyed all this. The +present prospect of seeing him shake hands all round, +reply to a dozen mock-tender addresses and blushingly +double his long legs under the low seat of the shandrydan +kept tennis-players from courts booked a week ago, wives +from buying their husbands’ tea and walkers down from +the hills. +</p> + +<p> +After the luggage had been arranged there was an +interval, then Milton took form in the gloom of the +lounge and appeared in the doorway, half drew back, +glanced at his watch and hesitated, smiling uncertainly. +In spite of a very secular grey squash hat he looked for +the first time true to type and several people realized +sharply that a Church of England clergyman had for +weeks been among them. The professional aspect +stamped out the lover, he was once more approachable, +showed up even as dedicated to approachability. There +was a movement towards him. Friends gained all in a +moment smiled for him up at the unflecked sky and congratulated +him on his weather, intimates taking him up +from before the dawn of that interlude regretted his +going away loudly and turned in anguish to one another +<a id="page-287" class="pagenum" title="287"></a> +with appeals to regret more. He nodded round +with successive, finished-off little smiles and once or +twice visibly swallowed. Miss Pym, standing down at +the foot of the steps, said to herself, “We salute thee who +are about to die.” +</p> + +<p> +People on the verge of departure always seemed to +her to be saying this; there was something about them +fated and sacrificial that made her feel self-conscious +on their behalf yet somehow rather exalted. Presently +Milton thought of something, murmured and turned +back into the lounge. The curtain having dropped for a +minute with the usual good effect of tightening them +up to further expectancy, they all turned to one another +again and said in low voices what a real pity it was that +he should be going away. All sorts of things that he +might have been to them appeared suddenly; with +things they might have brought to his hearing for sympathy, +taxed him with or asked him about. +</p> + +<p> +Ronald came running down the steps in too much of +a hurry to look at anybody. He flung his overcoats and +another dispatch case into the shandrydan, then went +round to the box and gravely tested the roping-on of the +luggage. The pile wobbled so menacingly that he was +discouraged, left it alone and ran in again. During another +interval he must have kissed and said good-bye +to his mother, perhaps in her room, perhaps on the +stairs. When they appeared in the doorway all that was +visibly over between them. She still had a hand on his +sleeve but it was a light and casual contact of which +neither of them seemed aware; she had already delivered +him up to futurity. Those who had felt constrained +to draw back from the scene of a parting began +<a id="page-288" class="pagenum" title="288"></a> +to return again. Ronald became their prey. Appalled +by a publicity as of the scaffold, he turned with +some desperately trumped-up remark to his mother, but +she was not behind him. Apart at the top of the steps, +bareheaded in the afternoon light, she was standing, a +little fatigued by all this, looking across at the hill that +rose over the road and the group of young palms at the +gate that seemed to be also serenely awaiting the exit. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, if Milton doesn’t come soon we shall run it +fine,” called Ronald in an unnaturally loud voice. Another +woman would have jumped at this excuse to +hurry back into the Hotel agitatedly calling, anything +rather than stand there, just stand there. But Mrs. Kerr +stood there, and women’s hearts hardened. “Oh no, +Ronald,” she said, “you have plenty of time.” +</p> + +<p> +Ronald, braced up with his back to the shandrydan, +frowned up the steps to search out the interior gloom. +A moment, his face lightened; Milton must be coming. +Milton <em>was</em> coming, he was half way down the steps +with his hat off, bowing and smiling to left and right, +and Ronald was half way into the shandrydan. Then a +voice—Mrs. Bellamy’s—called “Mr. Milton!” and Milton +turned back. It was strange, almost eerie to hear +Mrs. Bellamy’s voice because she and Sydney had +managed somehow to create an impression of having already +departed. Since lunch-time when they had said +their good-byes they must have been up in their rooms. +It was recalled with a shock that they were not to set +out on their shorter journey up the coast till just before +tea-time. Yet Tessa had been already translated, +she was an amiable ghost and her cousin a hard-sounding +name with a cold-sounding echo. It was as though Milton +<a id="page-289" class="pagenum" title="289"></a> +running back up the steps with his same formal +smile were going back into the shades. +</p> + +<p> +The shades came to meet him not far inside the door. +Tessa was breathless “—Were so worried!” she said—“<em>couldn’t</em> +find you this morning.” She shook his hand +between both of hers with more little broken-off sentences. +“Do so hope ... did so wish ... shall remember....” +</p> + +<p> +Sydney, looking unnatural and urban in a dark-coloured +travelling dress, stepped out from behind her. +“Well, good-bye,” she said, and she and Milton shook +hands awkwardly. “Well, good-bye,” said he, and after +a moment’s hesitation as though he did not like to seem +too abrupt ran down the steps and got into the shandrydan. +She came a little way after him and stood with a +hand on the concierge’s desk from which she picked +up an envelope and confusedly read the address, then +looked after him again. Her manner was strained and +unwomanly; the impulse that had brought her down +here (it could not have been Tessa’s) had been highly +unnatural. She did not wait to watch the departure but +turned and went upstairs again slowly, followed by +Tessa. +</p> + +<p> +Milton and Ronald looked up at the windows of the +Hotel vacantly; everybody looked at each other, everybody +waited. At last the driver climbed on to the box, +at last he gathered up the reins. Milton and Ronald sitting +up stiffly side by side, their legs, willy-nilly entwined +in the limited scope of the shandrydan, entangled in +rugs and overcoats, relaxed, were bumped violently +backward as the carriage moved on, let broad smiles +break over their faces. Their friends who had been drawing +<a id="page-290" class="pagenum" title="290"></a> +deep breaths for this moment released an enormous +“<em>Good</em>-by-ye!” A hundred jocularities there had not yet +been mood or occasion for were launched off bravely +after the never-returning couple. One could tell them +anything now, before it was too late, their memories +were from henceforward a limbo. The voices went up to +the sky, together or isolated. Ronald’s mother stood smiling +and waving her hand, all round her the handkerchiefs +fluttered.... “<em>Dear</em> old Ronald.... Steady, +Ronald.... <em>Sure</em> you know where you’re going, Ronald?” ... +and at the height of all this “Cheer up, +Milton!” +</p> + +<p> +Someone flung a bunch of flowers at Ronald and it +struck Milton on the side of the head and dropped just +under the wheel; the stalks were crushed and a slimy +smear appeared on the wheel and came round faster and +faster and faster as the driver took the gravel sweep +magnificently and turned off out the gate. Cordelia +Barry rushed out, picked up the flowers and flung them +again; but this time they fell quite short and everybody +laughed. +</p> + +<p> +Milton and Ronald, avoiding one another’s eye, leant +over the back of the carriage waving their hats and +shouting jocular nothings. The driver cracked his whip, +the rattling wheels fled faster and soon the travellers, +still waving and with big mouths open inaudibly, had +disappeared. The little company on the steps sighed in +immense desolation. +</p> + +<p> +Before the sigh had come to an end, Miss Fitzgerald +and Miss Pym had detached themselves and, complete +with their red parasols and swinging baskets, hurried +away. If they were still to make anything of the +<a id="page-291" class="pagenum" title="291"></a> +afternoon not a moment more must be wasted. They +were well down the road under the chestnut-trees +coming out into leaf before Miss Pym observed rather +breathlessly: “Strange how they still go on touching +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strange—so profoundly.” +</p> + +<p> +“These goings away.” She sighed over a diminishing +vista of hundreds. “Even when they’re simply spectacular, +not at all <em>partings</em>.... Emily, did you <em>say</em> anything?” +She added quickly, to hint that the answer +should be in the negative, “I didn’t feel that one +<em>could</em>....” +</p> + +<p> +“I must confess that I did. My wretched impulsiveness,” +said Miss Fitzgerald and put on that rather annoying +expression of self-deprecation. +</p> + +<p> +“Impulsiveness ... oh,” said Miss Pym and smiled +a discreet shade of pity. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose one must face one’s heredity. All the Fitzgeralds——” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Miss Pym rather sharply. They had +begun to climb the hill, the sun was full on them and +Miss Pym, pricking all over with her own particularly +uncomfortable kind of heat that went in instead of coming +out, was anxious not to hear about the Fitzgeralds. +She was anxious that Emily should not begin to rehearse +those unfortunate (but striking) examples of Fitzgerald +impulsiveness back through the ages. An inclination +to do this was Emily’s weakness, and it was always +when disappointment, anxiety or lassitude should have +drawn them together that they had to be most aware +of one another’s weaknesses. They had faced this out and +discussed it with one another simply and frankly. It was +<a id="page-292" class="pagenum" title="292"></a> +wonderful to have somebody, always there, with whom +one could discuss the most difficult phases of one’s relationship +(afterwards) simply and frankly. Whoever +might come or might go, there would always be that. +Friendship is such a wonderful basis in Life—or <em>has</em> +such a wonderful basis in Life; either, she thought was +true. Miss Pym thought of her friend Emily with tenderness +but wished that she would not pant in this exaggerated +way to show that she was being hurried too +fast up the hill. If she was being hurried too fast up the +hill why couldn’t she say so? “If we’re going too fast I +expect you to tell me,” she said at last in a controlled +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought we must be doing this for a bet,” said +Miss Fitzgerald and panted mirthfully. +</p> + +<p> +“Who did you think I had betted?” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it: ‘had bet’?” +</p> + +<p> +They were both silent and went up more slowly, wondering +what they would find to discuss when (quite +soon now) they came to the top. The terrace for which +they were making had been the scene of profound discussions; +there must be something about it, about the tilt +of the ground or the way the trees grew. It had not for +some time been revisited, in fact they only seemed to +have remembered about it to-day. Miss Pym now +thought that as they both sat down with their faces +towards the cool air and their backs against olive-trees +she would begin, “Life itself, I think, is very wonderful....” +But for this, she could not help asking, would +she find Emily <em>absolutely</em> in tune?... When at last +they had really arrived, had shut their umbrellas and +<a id="page-293" class="pagenum" title="293"></a> +flung down those baskets, Miss Pym was surprised, however, +to feel “<em>Poor</em> Mr. Milton!” torn out of her. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Fitzgerald stopped panting and cried, “Yes, I +<em>know</em>.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lee-Mittisons, among others, are so sorry. You +know they are getting up Progressive Games?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know,” said Miss Fitzgerald again and stared out +to sea rather absently, rather exclusively as one who +could not bring Progressive Games or people who talked +about them into focus. +</p> + +<p> +This was not fair of her. “Not that I see any reason +why they should have made use of <em>him</em>,” Miss Pym said +indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely he was capable of looking after himself?” +said Emily, still with the distant manner she wore when +anyone “talked about men.” Miss Pym did not believe +that he <em>was</em>, or that Emily <em>believed</em> he was, but she said +in a cold voice, “Obviously.” The word “obviously” has +always a pained and painful sound when used between +people who know each other too well. They both listened +to it with fear and foreboding and yet felt incapable of +making an overture. They wished that they had not +come back to the terrace, which under some subtle influence +seemed to have changed. +</p> + +<p> +Then an instinct, a touch of genius made Emily turn +her head and say, “Eleanor, do you remember the day +when we—so nearly lost one another?” +</p> + +<p> +Eleanor remembered walking down that road with +Mrs. Kerr, and the horrible macaroni they had given +her for lunch.... +</p> + +<p> +“Emily....” +</p> + +<p> +<a id="page-294" class="pagenum" title="294"></a> +The Hotel from up here was as small as a doll’s-house; +shoulder to shoulder they sat and looked down +on it. Hand in hand, reunited, in perfect security they +sat and remembered that day. +</p> + +<div class="trnote chapter"> +<p class="transnote"> +Transcriber’s Notes +</p> + +<p class="skip_in_txt"> +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. +</p> + +<p> +The original spelling was mostly preserved. +Obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. +The use of hyphenation and ellipses was carefully normalized. +All other changes are shown here (before/after): +</p> + + + +<ul> + +<li> +... sitting far back in the shadow. At one’s feet a <span class="underline">parked</span> ...<br> +... sitting far back in the shadow. At one’s feet a <a href="#corr-1"><span class="underline">packed</span></a> ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... the assault of noonday behind <span class="underline">impassible</span> jalousies. No ...<br> +... the assault of noonday behind <a href="#corr-7"><span class="underline">impassable</span></a> jalousies. No ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... “Oh!” said he, and looking down at their two <span class="underline">pair</span> ...<br> +... “Oh!” said he, and looking down at their two <a href="#corr-14"><span class="underline">pairs</span></a> ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... past, <span class="underline">preceptions</span> so delicate, appreciations so faultless ...<br> +... past, <a href="#corr-16"><span class="underline">perceptions</span></a> so delicate, appreciations so faultless ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... “As a matter of fact,” said <span class="underline">Roland</span> gravely, “I don’t ...<br> +... “As a matter of fact,” said <a href="#corr-18"><span class="underline">Ronald</span></a> gravely, “I don’t ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... course, from having nothing else to do here. Oh, <span class="underline">don’t don’t</span> ...<br> +... course, from having nothing else to do here. Oh, <a href="#corr-19"><span class="underline">don’t</span></a> ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... never <span class="underline">had</span> said anything if you hadn’t shown your teeth ...<br> +... never <a href="#corr-20"><span class="underline">have</span></a> said anything if you hadn’t shown your teeth ...<br> +</li> + +<li> +... “Extraordinary idea!” he exclaimed and threw <span class="underline">up up</span> ...<br> +... “Extraordinary idea!” he exclaimed and threw <a href="#corr-25"><span class="underline">up</span></a> ...<br> +</li> +</ul> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79006 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |