Chapter V: Part 5

And now the silence put a spell upon them like solemn music. It was anguish—anguish for her to bear it and he would die—he’d die if it were broken. . . . And yet he longed to break it. Not by speech. At any rate not by their ordinary maddening chatter. There was another way for them to speak to each other, and in the new way he wanted to murmur: “Do you feel this too? Do you understand it at all?” . . .

Instead, to his horror, he heard himself say: “I must be off; I’m meeting Brand at six.”

What devil made him say that instead of the other? She jumped—simply jumped out of her chair, and he heard her crying: “You must rush, then. He’s so punctual. Why didn’t you say so before?”

“You’ve hurt me; you’ve hurt me! We’ve failed!” said her secret self while she handed him his hat and stick, smiling gaily. She wouldn’t give him a moment for another word, but ran along the passage and opened the big outer door.

Could they leave each other like this? How could they? He stood on the step and she just inside holding the door. It was not raining now.

“You’ve hurt me—hurt me,” said her heart. “Why don’t you go? No, don’t go. Stay. No—go!” And she looked out upon the night.

She saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering ivy, on the other side of the road the huge bare willows and above them the sky big and bright with stars. But of course he would see nothing of all this. He was superior to it all. He—with his wonderful “spiritual” vision!

She was right. He did see nothing at all. Misery! He’d missed it. It was too late to do anything now. Was it too late? Yes, it was. A cold snatch of hateful wind blew into the garden. Curse life! He heard her cry “au revoir” and the door slammed.

Running back into the studio she behaved so strangely. She ran up and down lifting her arms and crying: “Oh! Oh! How stupid! How imbecile! How stupid!” And then she flung herself down on the _sommier_ thinking of nothing—just lying there in her rage. All was over. What was over? Oh—something was. And she’d never see him again—never. After a long long time (or perhaps ten minutes) had passed in that black gulf her bell rang a sharp quick jingle. It was he, of course. And equally, of course, she oughtn’t to have paid the slightest attention to it but just let it go on ringing and ringing. She flew to answer.

On the doorstep there stood an elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who simply idolized her (heaven knows why) and had this habit of turning up and ringing the bell and then saying, when she opened the door: “My dear, send me away!” She never did. As a rule she asked her in and let her admire everything and accepted the bunch of slightly soiled looking flowers—more than graciously. But to-day . . .

“Oh, I am so sorry,” she cried. “But I’ve got someone with me. We are working on some woodcuts. I’m hopelessly busy all evening.”

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all, darling,” said the good friend. “I was just passing and I thought I’d leave you some violets.” She fumbled down among the ribs of a large old umbrella. “I put them down here. Such a good place to keep flowers out of the wind. Here they are,” she said, shaking out a little dead bunch.

For a moment she did not take the violets. But while she stood just inside, holding the door, a strange thing happened. . . . Again she saw the beautiful fall of the steps, the dark garden ringed with glittering ivy, the willows, the big bright sky. Again she felt the silence that was like a question. But this time she did not hesitate. She moved forward. Very softly and gently, as though fearful of making a ripple in that boundless pool of quiet she put her arms round her friend.

“My dear,” murmured her happy friend, quite overcome by this gratitude. “They are really nothing. Just the simplest little thrippenny bunch.”

But as she spoke she was enfolded—more tenderly, more beautifully embraced, held by such a sweet pressure and for so long that the poor dear’s mind positively reeled and she just had the strength to quaver: “Then you really don’t mind me too much?”

“Good night, my friend,” whispered the other. “Come again soon.”

“Oh, I will. I will.”

This time she walked back to the studio slowly, and standing in the middle of the room with half-shut eyes she felt so light, so rested, as if she had woken up out of a childish sleep. Even the act of breathing was a joy. . . .

The _sommier_ was very untidy. All the cushions “like furious mountains” as she said; she put them in order before going over to the writing-table.

“I have been thinking over our talk about the psychological novel,” she dashed off, “it really is intensely interesting.” . . . And so on and so on.

At the end she wrote: “Good night, my friend. Come again soon.”

Pictures

Eight o’clock in the morning. Miss Ada Moss lay in a black iron bedstead, staring up at the ceiling. Her room, a Bloomsbury top-floor back, smelled of soot and face powder and the paper of fried potatoes she brought in for supper the night before.

“Oh, dear,” thought Miss Moss, “I am cold. I wonder why it is that I always wake up so cold in the mornings now. My knees and feet and my back—especially my back; it’s like a sheet of ice. And I always was such a one for being warm in the old days. It’s not as if I was skinny—I’m just the same full figure that I used to be. No, it’s because I don’t have a good hot dinner in the evenings.”

A pageant of Good Hot Dinners passed across the ceiling, each of them accompanied by a bottle of Nourishing Stout. . . .

“Even if I were to get up now,” she thought, “and have a sensible substantial breakfast . . .” A pageant of Sensible Substantial Breakfasts followed the dinners across the ceiling, shepherded by an enormous, white, uncut ham. Miss Moss shuddered and disappeared under the bedclothes. Suddenly, in bounced the landlady.

“There’s a letter for you, Miss Moss.”

“Oh,” said Miss Moss, far too friendly, “thank you very much, Mrs. Pine. It’s very good of you, I’m sure, to take the trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” said the landlady. “I thought perhaps it was the letter you’d been expecting.”

“Why,” said Miss Moss brightly, “yes, perhaps it is.” She put her head on one side and smiled vaguely at the letter. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

The landlady’s eyes popped. “Well, I should, Miss Moss,” said she, “and that’s how it is. And I’ll trouble you to open it, if you please. Many is the lady in my place as would have done it for you and have been within her rights. For things can’t go on like this, Miss Moss, no indeed they can’t. What with week in week out and first you’ve got it and then you haven’t, and then it’s another letter lost in the post or another manager down at Brighton but will be back on Tuesday for certain—I’m fair sick and tired and I won’t stand it no more. Why should I, Miss Moss, I ask you, at a time like this, with prices flying up in the air and my poor dear lad in France? My sister Eliza was only saying to me yesterday—‘Minnie,’ she says, ‘you’re too soft-hearted. You could have let that room time and time again,’ says she, ‘and if people won’t look after themselves in times like these, nobody else will,’ she says. ‘She may have had a College eddication and sung in West End concerts,’ says she, ‘but if your Lizzie says what’s true,’ she says, ‘and she’s washing her own wovens and drying them on the towel rail, it’s easy to see where the finger’s pointing. And it’s high time you had done with it,’ says she.”

Miss Moss gave no sign of having heard this. She sat up in bed, tore open her letter and read:

“Dear Madam,
Yours to hand. Am not producing at present, but have filed photo
for future ref.

Yours truly, BACKWASH FILM CO.”

This letter seemed to afford her peculiar satisfaction; she read it through twice before replying to the landlady.

“Well, Mrs. Pine, I think you’ll be sorry for what you said. This is from a manager, asking me to be there with evening dress at ten o’clock next Saturday morning.”

But the landlady was too quick for her. She pounced, secured the letter.

“Oh, is it! Is it indeed!” she cried.

“Give me back that letter. Give it back to me at once, you bad, wicked woman,” cried Miss Moss, who could not get out of bed because her nightdress was slit down the back. “Give me back my private letter.” The landlady began slowly backing out of the room, holding the letter to her buttoned bodice.

“So it’s come to this, has it?” said she. “Well, Miss Moss, if I don’t get my rent at eight o’clock to-night, we’ll see who’s a bad, wicked woman—that’s all.” Here she nodded, mysteriously. “And I’ll keep this letter.” Here her voice rose. “It will be a pretty little bit of evidence!” And here it fell, sepulchral, “_My lady._”

The door banged and Miss Moss was alone. She flung off the bed clothes, and sitting by the side of the bed, furious and shivering, she stared at her fat white legs with their great knots of greeny-blue veins.

“Cockroach! That’s what she is. She’s a cockroach!” said Miss Moss. “I could have her up for snatching my letter—I’m sure I could.” Still keeping on her nightdress she began to drag on her clothes.

“Oh, if I could only pay that woman, I’d give her a piece of my mind that she wouldn’t forget. I’d tell her off proper.” She went over to the chest of drawers for a safety-pin, and seeing herself in the glass she gave a vague smile and shook her head. “Well, old girl,” she murmured, “you’re up against it this time, and no mistake.” But the person in the glass made an ugly face at her.

“You silly thing,” scolded Miss Moss. “Now what’s the good of crying: you’ll only make your nose red. No, you get dressed and go out and try your luck—that’s what you’ve got to do.”

She unhooked her vanity bag from the bedpost, rooted in it, shook it, turned it inside out.

“I’ll have a nice cup of tea at an A B C to settle me before I go anywhere,” she decided. “I’ve got one and thrippence—yes, just one and three.”

Ten minutes later, a stout lady in blue serge, with a bunch of artificial “parmas” at her bosom, a black hat covered with purple pansies, white gloves, boots with white uppers, and a vanity bag containing one and three, sang in a low contralto voice:

Sweet-heart, remember when days are forlorn It al-ways is dar-kest before the dawn.

But the person in the glass made a face at her, and Miss Moss went out. There were grey crabs all the way down the street slopping water over grey stone steps. With his strange, hawking cry and the jangle of the cans the milk boy went his rounds. Outside Brittweiler’s Swiss House he made a splash, and an old brown cat without a tail appeared from nowhere, and began greedily and silently drinking up the spill. It gave Miss Moss a queer feeling to watch—a sinking—as you might say.

But when she came to the A B C she found the door propped open; a man went in and out carrying trays of rolls, and there was nobody inside except a waitress doing her hair and the cashier unlocking cash-boxes. She stood in the middle of the floor but neither of them saw her.

“My boy came home last night,” sang the waitress.

“Oh, I say—how topping for you!” gurgled the cashier.

“Yes, wasn’t it,” sang the waitress. “He brought me a sweet little brooch. Look, it’s got ‘Dieppe’ written on it.”

The cashier ran across to look and put her arm round the waitress’ neck.

“Oh, I say—how topping for you.”

“Yes, isn’t it,” said the waitress. “O-oh, he is brahn. ‘Hullo,’ I said, ‘hullo, old mahogany.’”

“Oh, I say,” gurgled the cashier, running back into her cage and nearly bumping into Miss Moss on the way. “You are a _treat!”_ Then the man with the rolls came in again, swerving past her.

“Can I have a cup of tea, Miss?” she asked.

But the waitress went on doing her hair. “Oh,” she sang, “we’re not _open_ yet.” She turned round and waved her comb at the cashier.

“_Are_ we, dear?”

“Oh, no,” said the cashier. Miss Moss went out.

“I’ll go to Charing Cross. Yes, that’s what I’ll do,” she decided. “But I won’t have a cup of tea. No, I’ll have a coffee. There’s more of a tonic in coffee. . . . Cheeky, those girls are! Her boy came home last night; he brought her a brooch with ‘Dieppe’ written on it.” She began to cross the road. . . .

“Look out, Fattie; don’t go to sleep!” yelled a taxi driver. She pretended not to hear.

“No, I won’t go to Charing Cross,” she decided. “I’ll go straight to Kig and Kadgit. They’re open at nine. If I get there early Mr. Kadgit may have something by the morning’s post. . . . I’m very glad you turned up so early, Miss Moss. I’ve just heard from a manager who wants a lady to play. . . . I think you’ll just suit him. I’ll give you a card to go and see him. It’s three pounds a week and all found. If I were you I’d hop round as fast as I could. Lucky you turned up so early . . .”

But there was nobody at Kig and Kadgit’s except the charwoman wiping over the “lino” in the passage.

“Nobody here yet, Miss,” said the char.

“Oh, isn’t Mr. Kadgit here?” said Miss Moss, trying to dodge the pail and brush. “Well, I’ll just wait a moment, if I may.”

“You can’t wait in the waiting-room, Miss. I ’aven’t done it yet. Mr. Kadgit’s never ’ere before ’leven-thirty Saturdays. Sometimes ’e don’t come at all.” And the char began crawling towards her.

“Dear me—how silly of me,” said Miss Moss. “I forgot it was Saturday.”

“Mind your feet, _please_, Miss,” said the char. And Miss Moss was outside again.

That was one thing about Beit and Bithems; it was lively. You walked into the waiting-room, into a great buzz of conversation, and there was everybody; you knew almost everybody. The early ones sat on chairs and the later ones sat on the early ones’ laps, while the gentlemen leaned negligently against the walls or preened themselves in front of the admiring ladies.

“Hello,” said Miss Moss, very gay. “Here we are again!”

And young Mr. Clayton, playing the banjo on his walking-stick, sang: “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.”

“Mr. Bithem here yet?” asked Miss Moss, taking out an old dead powder puff and powdering her nose mauve.

“Oh, yes, dear,” cried the chorus. “He’s been here for ages. We’ve all been waiting here for more than an hour.”

“Dear me!” said Miss Moss. “Anything doing, do you think?”

“Oh, a few jobs going for South Africa,” said young Mr. Clayton. “Hundred and fifty a week for two years, you know.”

“Oh!” cried the chorus. “You _are_ weird, Mr. Clayton. Isn’t he a _cure?_ Isn’t he a _scream_, dear? Oh, Mr. Clayton, you do make me laugh. Isn’t he a _comic?_”

A dark, mournful girl touched Miss Moss on the arm.

“I just missed a lovely job yesterday,” she said. “Six weeks in the provinces and then the West End. The manager said I would have got it for certain if only I’d been robust enough. He said if my figure had been fuller, the part was made for me.” She stared at Miss Moss, and the dirty dark red rose under the brim of her hat looked, somehow, as though it shared the blow with her, and was crushed, too.

“Oh, dear, that was hard lines,” said Miss Moss trying to appear indifferent. “What was it—if I may ask?”

But the dark, mournful girl saw through her and a gleam of spite came into her heavy eyes.

“Oh, no good to you, my dear,” said she. “He wanted someone young, you know—a dark Spanish type—my style, but more figure, that was all.”

The inner door opened and Mr. Bithem appeared in his shirt sleeves. He kept one hand on the door ready to whisk back again, and held up the other.

“Look here, ladies——” and then he paused, grinned his famous grin before he said—“_and bhoys._” The waiting-room laughed so loudly at this that he had to hold both hands up. “It’s no good waiting this morning. Come back Monday; I’m expecting several calls on Monday.”

Miss Moss made a desperate rush forward. “Mr. Bithem, I wonder if you’ve heard from . . .”

“Now let me see,” said Mr. Bithem slowly, staring; he had only seen Miss Moss four times a week for the past—how many weeks? “Now, who are you?”

“Miss Ada Moss.”

“Oh, yes, yes; of course, my dear. Not yet, my dear. Now I had a call for twenty-eight ladies to-day, but they had to be young and able to hop it a bit—see? And I had another call for sixteen—but they had to know something about sand-dancing. Look here, my dear, I’m up to the eyebrows this morning. Come back on Monday week; it’s no good coming before that.” He gave her a whole grin to herself and patted her fat back. “Hearts of oak, dear lady,” said Mr. Bithem, “hearts of oak!”

At the North-East Film Company the crowd was all the way up the stairs. Miss Moss found herself next to a fair little baby thing about thirty in a white lace hat with cherries round it.

“What a crowd!” said she. “Anything special on?”

“_Didn’t_ you know, dear?” said the baby, opening her immense pale eyes. “There was a call at nine-thirty for _attractive_ girls. We’ve all been waiting for _hours._ Have you played for this company before?” Miss Moss put her head on one side. “No, I don’t think I have.”

“They’re a lovely company to play for,” said the baby. “A friend of mine has a friend who gets thirty pounds a day. . . . Have you _arcted_ much for the _fil_-lums?”

“Well, I’m not an actress by profession,” confessed Miss Moss. “I’m a contralto singer. But things have been so bad lately that I’ve been doing a little.”

“It’s _like_ that, isn’t it, dear?” said the baby.

“I had a splendid education at the College of Music,” said Miss Moss, “and I got my silver medal for singing. I’ve often sung at West End concerts. But I thought, for a change, I’d try my luck . . .”

“Yes, it’s _like_ that, isn’t it, dear?” said the baby.

At that moment a beautiful typist appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Are you all waiting for the North-East call?”

“Yes!” cried the chorus.

“Well, it’s off. I’ve just had a phone through.”

“But look here! What about our expenses?” shouted a voice.

The typist looked down at them, and she couldn’t help laughing.

“Oh, you weren’t to have been _paid._ The North-East never _pay_ their crowds.”

There was only a little round window at the Bitter Orange Company. No waiting-room—nobody at all except a girl, who came to the window when Miss Moss knocked, and said: “Well?”

“Can I see the producer, please?” said Miss Moss pleasantly. The girl leaned on the window-bar, half shut her eyes and seemed to go to sleep for a moment. Miss Moss smiled at her. The girl not only frowned; she seemed to smell something vaguely unpleasant; she sniffed. Suddenly she moved away, came back with a paper and thrust it at Miss Moss.

“Fill up the form!” said she. And banged the window down.

“Can you aviate—high-dive—drive a car—buck-jump—shoot?” read Miss Moss. She walked along the street asking herself those questions. There was a high, cold wind blowing; it tugged at her, slapped her face, jeered; it knew she could not answer them. In the Square Gardens she found a little wire basket to drop the form into. And then she sat down on one of the benches to powder her nose. But the person in the pocket mirror made a hideous face at her, and that was too much for Miss Moss; she had a good cry. It cheered her wonderfully.

“Well, that’s over,” she sighed. “It’s one comfort to be off my feet. And my nose will soon get cool in the air. . . . It’s very nice in here. Look at the sparrows. Cheep. Cheep. How close they come. I expect somebody feeds them. No, I’ve nothing for you, you cheeky little things. . . .” She looked away from them. What was the big building opposite—the Café de Madrid? My goodness, what a smack that little child came down! Poor little mite! Never mind—up again. . . . By eight o’clock to-night . . . Café de Madrid. “I could just go in and sit there and have a coffee, that’s all,” thought Miss Moss. “It’s such a place for artists too. I might just have a stroke of luck. . . . A dark handsome gentleman in a fur coat comes in with a friend, and sits at my table, perhaps. ‘No, old chap, I’ve searched London for a contralto and I can’t find a soul. You see, the music is difficult; have a look at it.’” And Miss Moss heard herself saying: “Excuse me, I happen to be a contralto, and I have sung that part many times. . . . Extraordinary! ‘Come back to my studio and I’ll try your voice now.’ . . . Ten pounds a week. . . . Why should I feel nervous? It’s not nervousness. Why shouldn’t I go to the Café de Madrid? I’m a respectable woman—I’m a contralto singer. And I’m only trembling because I’ve had nothing to eat to-day. . . . ‘A nice little piece of evidence, _my lady._’ . . . Very well, Mrs. Pine. Café de Madrid. They have concerts there in the evenings. . . . ‘Why don’t they begin?’ The contralto has not arrived. . . . ‘Excuse me, I happen to be a contralto; I have sung that music many times.’”

It was almost dark in the café. Men, palms, red plush seats, white marble tables, waiters in aprons, Miss Moss walked through them all. Hardly had she sat down when a very stout gentleman wearing a very small hat that floated on the top of his head like a little yacht flopped into the chair opposite hers.

“Good evening!” said he.

Miss Moss said, in her cheerful way: “Good evening!”

“Fine evening,” said the stout gentleman.

“Yes, very fine. Quite a treat, isn’t it?” said she.

He crooked a sausage finger at the waiter—“Bring me a large whisky”—and turned to Miss Moss. “What’s yours?”

“Well, I think I’ll take a brandy if it’s all the same.”

Five minutes later the stout gentleman leaned across the table and blew a puff of cigar smoke full in her face.

“That’s a tempting bit o’ ribbon!” said he.

Miss Moss blushed until a pulse at the top of her head that she never had felt before pounded away.

“I always was one for pink,” said she.

The stout gentleman considered her, drumming with her fingers on the table.

“I like ’em firm and well covered,” said he.

Miss Moss, to her surprise, gave a loud snigger.

Five minutes later the stout gentleman heaved himself up. “Well, am I goin’ your way, or are you comin’ mine?” he asked.

“I’ll come with you, if it’s all the same,” said Miss Moss. And she sailed after the little yacht out of the café.

The Man without a Temperament

He stood at the hall door turning the ring, turning the heavy signet ring upon his little finger while his glance travelled coolly, deliberately, over the round tables and basket chairs scattered about the glassed-in verandah. He pursed his lips—he might have been going to whistle—but he did not whistle—only turned the ring—turned the ring on his pink, freshly washed hands.

Over in the corner sat The Two Topknots, drinking a decoction they always drank at this hour—something whitish, greyish, in glasses, with little husks floating on the top—and rooting in a tin full of paper shavings for pieces of speckled biscuit, which they broke, dropped into the glasses and fished for with spoons. Their two coils of knitting, like two snakes, slumbered beside the tray.

The American Woman sat where she always sat against the glass wall, in the shadow of a great creeping thing with wide open purple eyes that pressed—that flattened itself against the glass, hungrily watching her. And she knoo it was there—she knoo it was looking at her just that way. She played up to it; she gave herself little airs. Sometimes she even pointed at it, crying: “Isn’t that the most terrible thing you’ve ever seen! Isn’t that ghoulish!” It was on the other side of the verandah, after all . . . and besides it couldn’t touch her, could it, Klaymongso? She was an American Woman, wasn’t she Klaymongso, and she’d just go right away to her Consul. Klaymongso, curled in her lap, with her torn antique brocade bag, a grubby handkerchief, and a pile of letters from home on top of him, sneezed for reply.

The other tables were empty. A glance passed between the American and the Topknots. She gave a foreign little shrug; they waved an understanding biscuit. But he saw nothing. Now he was still, now from his eyes you saw he listened. “Hoo-e-zip-zoo-oo!” sounded the lift. The iron cage clanged open. Light dragging steps sounded across the hall, coming towards him. A hand, like a leaf, fell on his shoulder. A soft voice said: “Let’s go and sit over there—where we can see the drive. The trees are so lovely.” And he moved forward with the hand still on his shoulder, and the light, dragging steps beside his. He pulled out a chair and she sank into it, slowly, leaning her head against the back, her arms falling along the sides.

“Won’t you bring the other up closer? It’s such miles away.” But he did not move.

“Where’s your shawl?” he asked.

“Oh!” She gave a little groan of dismay. “How silly I am, I’ve left it upstairs on the bed. Never mind. Please don’t go for it. I shan’t want it, I know I shan’t.”

“You’d better have it.” And he turned and swiftly crossed the verandah into the dim hall with its scarlet plush and gilt furniture—conjuror’s furniture—its Notice of Services at the English Church, its green baize board with the unclaimed letters climbing the black lattice, huge “Presentation” clock that struck the hours at the half-hours, bundles of sticks and umbrellas and sunshades in the clasp of a brown wooden bear, past the two crippled palms, two ancient beggars at the foot of the staircase, up the marble stairs three at a time, past the life-size group on the landing of two stout peasant children with their marble pinnies full of marble grapes, and along the corridor, with its piled-up wreckage of old tin boxes, leather trunks, canvas hold-alls, to their room.

The servant girl was in their room, singing loudly while she emptied soapy water into a pail. The windows were open wide, the shutters put back, and the light glared in. She had thrown the carpets and the big white pillows over the balcony rails; the nets were looped up from the beds; on the writing table there stood a pan of fluff and match-ends. When she saw him her small impudent eyes snapped and her singing changed to humming. But he gave no sign. His eyes searched the glaring room. Where the devil was the shawl!

“_Vous desirez, Monsieur?_” mocked the servant girl.

No answer. He had seen it. He strode across the room, grabbed the grey cobweb and went out, banging the door. The servant girl’s voice at its loudest and shrillest followed him along the corridor.

“Oh, there you are. What happened? What kept you? The tea’s here, you see. I’ve just sent Antonio off for the hot water. Isn’t it extraordinary? I must have told him about it sixty times at least, and still he doesn’t bring it. Thank you. That’s very nice. One does just feel the air when one bends forward.”

“Thanks.” He took his tea and sat down in the other chair. “No, nothing to eat.”

“Oh do! Just one, you had so little at lunch and it’s hours before dinner.”

Her shawl dropped off as she bent forward to hand him the biscuits. He took one and put it in his saucer.

“Oh, those trees along the drive,” she cried, “I could look at them for ever. They are like the most exquisite huge ferns. And you see that one with the grey-silver bark and the clusters of cream coloured flowers, I pulled down a head of them yesterday to smell and the scent”—she shut her eyes at the memory and her voice thinned away, faint, airy—“was like freshly ground nutmegs.” A little pause. She turned to him and smiled. “You do know what nutmegs smell like—do you, Robert?”

And he smiled back at her. “Now how am I going to prove to you that I do?”

Back came Antonio with not only the hot water—with letters on a salver and three rolls of paper.

“Oh, the post! Oh, how lovely! Oh, Robert, they mustn’t be all for you! Have they just come, Antonio?” Her thin hands flew up and hovered over the letters that Antonio offered her, bending forward.

“Just this moment, Signora,” grinned Antonio. “I took-a them from the postman myself. I made-a the postman give them for me.”

“Noble Antonio!” laughed she. “There—those are mine, Robert; the rest are yours.”

Antonio wheeled sharply, stiffened, the grin went out of his face. His striped linen jacket and his flat gleaming fringe made him look like a wooden doll.

Mr. Salesby put the letters into his pocket; the papers lay on the table. He turned the ring, turned the signet ring on his little finger and stared in front of him, blinking, vacant.

But she—with her teacup in one hand, the sheets of thin paper in the other, her head tilted back, her lips open, a brush of bright colour on her cheek-bones, sipped, sipped, drank . . . drank. . . .

“From Lottie,” came her soft murmur. “Poor dear . . . such trouble . . . left foot. She thought . . . neuritis . . . Doctor Blyth . . . flat foot . . . massage. So many robins this year . . . maid most satisfactory . . . Indian Colonel . . . every grain of rice separate . . . very heavy fall of snow.” And her wide lighted eyes looked up from the letter. “Snow, Robert! Think of it!” And she touched the little dark violets pinned on her thin bosom and went back to the letter.

. . . Snow. Snow in London. Millie with the early morning cup of tea. “There’s been a terrible fall of snow in the night, Sir.” “Oh, has there, Millie?” The curtains ring apart, letting in the pale, reluctant light. He raises himself in the bed; he catches a glimpse of the solid houses opposite framed in white, of their window boxes full of great sprays of white coral. . . . In the bathroom—overlooking the back garden. Snow—heavy snow over everything. The lawn is covered with a wavy pattern of cat’s paws; there is a thick, thick icing on the garden table; the withered pods of the laburnum tree are white tassels; only here and there in the ivy is a dark leaf showing. . . . Warming his back at the dining-room fire, the paper drying over a chair. Millie with the bacon. “Oh, if you please, Sir, there’s two little boys come as will do the steps and front for a shilling, shall I let them?” . . . And then flying lightly, lightly down the stairs—Jinnie. “Oh, Robert, isn’t it wonderful! Oh, what a pity it has to melt. Where’s the pussy-wee?” “I’ll get him from Millie” . . . “Millie, you might just hand me up the kitten if you’ve got him down there.” “Very good, Sir.” He feels the little beating heart under his hand. “Come on, old chap, your Missus wants you.” “Oh, Robert, do show him the snow—his first snow. Shall I open the window and give him a little piece on his paw to hold? . . .”

“Well, that’s very satisfactory on the whole—very. Poor Lottie! Darling Anne! How I only wish I could send them something of this,” she cried, waving her letters at the brilliant, dazzling garden. “More tea, Robert? Robert dear, more tea?”

“No, thanks, no. It was very good,” he drawled.

“Well mine wasn’t. Mine was just like chopped hay. Oh, here comes the Honeymoon Couple.”

Half striding, half running, carrying a basket between them and rods and lines, they came up the drive, up the shallow steps.

“My! have you been out fishing?” cried the American Woman.

They were out of breath, they panted: “Yes, yes, we have been out in a little boat all day. We have caught seven. Four are good to eat. But three we shall give away. To the children.”

Mrs. Salesby turned her chair to look; the Topknots laid the snakes down. They were a very dark young couple—black hair, olive skin, brilliant eyes and teeth. He was dressed “English fashion” in a flannel jacket, white trousers and shoes. Round his neck he wore a silk scarf; his head, with his hair brushed back, was bare. And he kept mopping his forehead, rubbing his hands with a brilliant handkerchief. Her white skirt had a patch of wet; her neck and throat were stained a deep pink. When she lifted her arms big half-hoops of perspiration showed under her arm-pits; her hair clung in wet curls to her cheeks. She looked as though her young husband had been dipping her in the sea, and fishing her out again to dry in the sun and then—in with her again—all day.

“Would Klaymongso like a fish?” they cried. Their laughing voices charged with excitement beat against the glassed-in verandah like birds, and a strange saltish smell came from the basket.

“You will sleep well to-night,” said a Topknot, picking her ear with a knitting needle while the other Topknot smiled and nodded.

The Honeymoon Couple looked at each other. A great wave seemed to go over them. They gasped, gulped, staggered a little and then came up laughing—laughing.

“We cannot go upstairs, we are too tired. We must have tea just as we are. Here—coffee. No—tea. No—coffee. Tea—coffee, Antonio!” Mrs. Salesby turned.

“Robert! Robert!” Where was he? He wasn’t there. Oh, there he was at the other end of the verandah, with his back turned, smoking a cigarette. “Robert, shall we go for our little turn?”

“Right.” He stumped the cigarette into an ash-tray and sauntered over, his eyes on the ground. “Will you be warm enough?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Sure?”

“Well,” she put her hand on his arm, “perhaps”—and gave his arm the faintest pressure—“it’s not upstairs, it’s only in the hall—perhaps you’d get me my cape. Hanging up.”

He came back with it and she bent her small head while he dropped it on her shoulders. Then, very stiff, he offered her his arm. She bowed sweetly to the people on the verandah while he just covered a yawn, and they went down the steps together.

“_Vous avez voo ça!_” said the American Woman.

“He is not a man,” said the Two Topknots, “he is an ox. I say to my sister in the morning and at night when we are in bed, I tell her—_No_ man is he, but an ox!”

Wheeling, tumbling, swooping, the laughter of the Honeymoon Couple dashed against the glass of the verandah.

The sun was still high. Every leaf, every flower in the garden lay open, motionless, as if exhausted, and a sweet, rich, rank smell filled the quivering air. Out of the thick, fleshy leaves of a cactus there rose an aloe stem loaded with pale flowers that looked as though they had been cut out of butter; light flashed upon the lifted spears of the palms; over a bed of scarlet waxen flowers some big black insects “zoom-zoomed”; a great, gaudy creeper, orange splashed with jet, sprawled against a wall.

“I don’t need my cape after all,” said she. “It’s really too warm.” So he took it off and carried it over his arm. “Let us go down this path here. I feel so well to-day—marvellously better. Good heavens—look at those children! And to think it’s November!”

In a corner of the garden there were two brimming tubs of water. Three little girls, having thoughtfully taken off their drawers and hung them on a bush, their skirts clasped to their waists, were standing in the tubs and tramping up and down. They screamed, their hair fell over their faces, they splashed one another. But suddenly, the smallest, who had a tub to herself, glanced up and saw who was looking. For a moment she seemed overcome with terror, then clumsily she struggled and strained out of her tub, and still holding her clothes above her waist. “The Englishman! The Englishman!” she shrieked and fled away to hide. Shrieking and screaming, the other two followed her. In a moment they were gone; in a moment there was nothing but the two brimming tubs and their little drawers on the bush.

“How—very—extraordinary!” said she. “What made them so frightened? Surely they were much too young to . . .” She looked up at him. She thought he looked pale—but wonderfully handsome with that great tropical tree behind him with its long, spiked thorns.

For a moment he did not answer. Then he met her glance, and smiling his slow smile, “_Très_ rum!” said he.

_Très_ rum! Oh, she felt quite faint. Oh, why should she love him so much just because he said a thing like that. _Très_ rum! That was Robert all over. Nobody else but Robert could ever say such a thing. To be so wonderful, so brilliant, so learned, and then to say in that queer, boyish voice. . . . She could have wept.

“You know you’re very absurd, sometimes,” said she.

“I am,” he answered. And they walked on.

But she was tired. She had had enough. She did not want to walk any more.

“Leave me here and go for a little constitutional, won’t you? I’ll be in one of these long chairs. What a good thing you’ve got my cape; you won’t have to go upstairs for a rug. Thank you, Robert, I shall look at that delicious heliotrope. . . . You won’t be gone long?”

“No—no. You don’t mind being left?”

“Silly! I want you to go. I can’t expect you to drag after your invalid wife every minute. . . . How long will you be?”

He took out his watch. “It’s just after half-past four. I’ll be back at a quarter past five.”

“Back at a quarter past five,” she repeated, and she lay still in the long chair and folded her hands.

He turned away. Suddenly he was back again. “Look here, would you like my watch?” And he dangled it before her.

“Oh!” She caught her breath. “Very, very much.” And she clasped the watch, the warm watch, the darling watch in her fingers. “Now go quickly.”

The gates of the Pension Villa Excelsior were open wide, jammed open against some bold geraniums. Stooping a little, staring straight ahead, walking swiftly, he passed through them and began climbing the hill that wound behind the town like a great rope looping the villas together. The dust lay thick. A carriage came bowling along driving towards the Excelsior. In it sat the General and the Countess; they had been for his daily airing. Mr. Salesby stepped to one side but the dust beat up, thick, white, stifling like wool. The Countess just had time to nudge the General.

“There he goes,” she said spitefully.

But the General gave a loud caw and refused to look.

“It is the Englishman,” said the driver, turning round and smiling. And the Countess threw up her hands and nodded so amiably that he spat with satisfaction and gave the stumbling horse a cut.

On—on—past the finest villas in the town, magnificent palaces, palaces worth coming any distance to see, past the public gardens with the carved grottoes and statues and stone animals drinking at the fountain, into a poorer quarter. Here the road ran narrow and foul between high lean houses, the ground floors of which were scooped and hollowed into stables and carpenters’ shops. At a fountain ahead of him two old hags were beating linen. As he passed them they squatted back on their haunches, stared, and then their “A-hak-kak-kak!” with the slap, slap, of the stone on the linen sounded after him.

He reached the top of the hill; he turned a corner and the town was hidden. Down he looked into a deep valley with a dried up river bed at the bottom. This side and that was covered with small dilapidated houses that had broken stone verandahs where the fruit lay drying, tomato lanes in the garden, and from the gates to the doors a trellis of vines. The late sunlight, deep, golden, lay in the cup of the valley; there was a smell of charcoal in the air. In the gardens the men were cutting grapes. He watched a man standing in the greenish shade, raising up, holding a black cluster in one hand, taking the knife from his belt, cutting, laying the bunch in a flat boat-shaped basket. The man worked leisurely, silently, taking hundreds of years over the job. On the hedges on the other side of the road there were grapes small as berries, growing wild, growing among the stones. He leaned against a wall, filled his pipe, put a match to it. . . .

Leaned across a gate, turned up the collar of his mackintosh. It was going to rain. It didn’t matter, he was prepared for it. You didn’t expect anything else in November. He looked over the bare field. From the corner by the gate there came the smell of swedes, a great stack of them, wet, rank coloured. Two men passed walking towards the straggling village. “Good day!” “Good day!” By Jove! he had to hurry if he was going to catch that train home. Over the gate, across a field, over the stile, into the lane, swinging along in the drifting rain and dusk. . . . Just home in time for a bath and a change before supper. . . . In the drawing-room; Jinnie is sitting pretty nearly in the fire. “Oh, Robert, I didn’t hear you come in. Did you have a good time? How nice you smell! A present?” “Some bits of blackberry I picked for you. Pretty colour.” “Oh, lovely, Robert! Dennis and Beaty are coming to supper.” Supper—cold beef, potatoes in their jackets, claret, household bread. They are gay—everybody’s laughing. “Oh, we all know Robert,” says Dennis, breathing on his eyeglasses and polishing them. “By the way, Dennis, I picked up a very jolly little edition of . . .”

A clock struck. He wheeled sharply. What time was it. Five? A quarter past? Back, back the way he came. As he passed through the gates he saw her on the look-out. She got up, waved and slowly she came to meet him, dragging the heavy cape. In her hand she carried a spray of heliotrope.

“You’re late,” she cried gaily. “You’re three minutes late. Here’s your watch, it’s been very good while you were away. Did you have a nice time? Was it lovely? Tell me. Where did you go?”

“I say—put this _on_,” he said, taking the cape from her.

“Yes, I will. Yes, it’s getting chilly. Shall we go up to our room?”

When they reached the lift she was coughing. He frowned.

“It’s nothing. I haven’t been out too late. Don’t be cross.” She sat down on one of the red plush chairs while he rang and rang, and then, getting no answer, kept his finger on the bell.

“Oh, Robert, do you think you ought to?”

“Ought to what?”

The door of the _salon_ opened. “What is that? Who is making that noise?” sounded from within. Klaymongso began to yelp. “Caw! Caw! Caw!” came from the General. A Topknot darted out with one hand to her ear, opened the staff door, “Mr. Queet! Mr. Queet!” she bawled. That brought the manager up at a run.

“Is that you ringing the bell, Mr. Salesby? Do you want the lift? Very good, Sir. I’ll take you up myself. Antonio wouldn’t have been a minute, he was just taking off his apron——” And having ushered them in, the oily manager went to the door of the _salon._ “Very sorry you should have been troubled, ladies and gentlemen.” Salesby stood in the cage, sucking in his cheeks, staring at the ceiling and turning the ring, turning the signet ring on his little finger. . . .

Arrived in their room he went swiftly over to the washstand, shook the bottle, poured her out a dose and brought it across.

“Sit down. Drink it. And don’t talk.” And he stood over her while she obeyed. Then he took the glass, rinsed it and put it back in its case. “Would you like a cushion?”

“No, I’m quite all right. Come over here. Sit down by me just a minute, will you, Robert? Ah, that’s very nice.” She turned and thrust the piece of heliotrope in the lapel of his coat. “That,” she said, “is most becoming.” And then she leaned her head against his shoulder, and he put his arm round her.

“Robert——” her voice like a sigh—like a breath.

“Yes——”

They sat there for a long while. The sky flamed, paled; the two white beds were like two ships. . . . At last he heard the servant girl running along the corridor with the hot water cans, and gently he released her and turned on the light.

“Oh, what time is it? Oh, what a heavenly evening. Oh, Robert, I was thinking while you were away this afternoon . . .”

They were the last couple to enter the dining-room. The Countess was there with her lorgnette and her fan, the General was there with his special chair and the air cushion and the small rug over his knees. The American Woman was there showing Klaymongso a copy of the _Saturday Evening Post._ . . . “We’re having a feast of reason and a flow of soul.” The Two Topknots were there feeling over the peaches and the pears in their dish of fruit, and putting aside all they considered unripe or overripe to show to the manager, and the Honeymoon Couple leaned across the table, whispering, trying not to burst out laughing.

Mr. Queet, in everyday clothes and white canvas shoes, served the soup, and Antonio, in full evening dress, handed it round.

“No,” said the American Woman, “take it away, Antonio. We can’t eat soup. We can’t eat anything mushy, can we, Klaymongso?”

“Take them back and fill them to the rim!” said the Topknots, and they turned and watched while Antonio delivered the message.

“What is it? Rice? Is it cooked?” The Countess peered through her lorgnette. “Mr. Queet, the General can have some of this soup if it is cooked.”

“Very good, Countess.”

The Honeymoon Couple had their fish instead.

“Give me that one. That’s the one I caught. No it’s not. Yes, it is. No it’s not. Well, it’s looking at me with its eye so it must be. Tee! Hee! Hee!” Their feet were locked together under the table.

“Robert, you’re not eating again. Is anything the matter?”

“No. Off food, that’s all.”

“Oh, what a bother. There are eggs and spinach coming. You don’t like spinach, do you. I must tell them in future . . .”

An egg and mashed potatoes for the General.

“Mr. Queet! Mr. Queet!”

“Yes, Countess.”

“The General’s egg’s too hard again.”

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

“Very sorry, Countess. Shall I have you another cooked, General?”

. . . They are the first to leave the dining-room. She rises, gathering her shawl and he stands aside, waiting for her to pass, turning the ring, turning the signet ring on his little finger. In the hall Mr. Queet hovers. “I thought you might not want to wait for the lift. Antonio’s just serving the finger bowls. And I’m sorry the bell won’t ring, it’s out of order. I can’t think what’s happened.”

“Oh, I do hope . . .” from her.

“Get in,” says he.

Mr. Queet steps after them and slams the door. . . .

. . . “Robert, do you mind if I go to bed very soon? Won’t you go down to the _salon_ or out into the garden? Or perhaps you might smoke a cigar on the balcony. It’s lovely out there. And I like cigar smoke. I always did. But if you’d rather . . .”

“No, I’ll sit here.”

He takes a chair and sits on the balcony. He hears her moving about in the room, lightly, lightly, moving and rustling. Then she comes over to him. “Good night, Robert.”

“Good night.” He takes her hand and kisses the palm. “Don’t catch cold.”

The sky is the colour of jade. There are a great many stars; an enormous white moon hangs over the garden. Far away lightning flutters—flutters like a wing—flutters like a broken bird that tries to fly and sinks again and again struggles.

The lights from the _salon_ shine across the garden path and there is the sound of a piano. And once the American Woman, opening the French window to let Klaymongso into the garden, cries: “Have you seen this moon?” But nobody answers.

He gets very cold sitting there, staring at the balcony rail. Finally he comes inside. The moon—the room is painted white with moonlight. The light trembles in the mirrors; the two beds seem to float. She is asleep. He sees her through the nets, half sitting, banked up with pillows, her white hands crossed on the sheet. Her white cheeks, her fair hair pressed against the pillow, are silvered over. He undresses quickly, stealthily and gets into bed. Lying there, his hands clasped behind his head. . . .

. . . In his study. Late summer. The Virginia creeper just on the turn. . . .

“Well, my dear chap, that’s the whole story. That’s the long and the short of it. If she can’t cut away for the next two years and give a decent climate a chance she don’t stand a dog’s—h’m—show. Better be frank about these things.” “Oh, certainly. . . .” “And hang it all, old man, what’s to prevent you going with her? It isn’t as though you’ve got a regular job like us wage earners. You can do what you do wherever you are——” “Two years.” “Yes, I should give it two years. You’ll have no trouble about letting this house you know. As a matter of fact . . .”

. . . He is with her. “Robert, the awful thing is—I suppose it’s my illness—I simply feel I could not go alone. You see—you’re everything. You’re bread and wine, Robert, bread and wine. Oh, my darling—what am I saying? Of course I could, of course I won’t take you away. . . .”

He hears her stirring. Does she want something?

“Boogles?”

Good Lord! She is talking in her sleep. They haven’t used that name for years.

“Boogles. Are you awake?”

“Yes, do you want anything?”

“Oh, I’m going to be a bother. I’m so sorry. Do you mind? There’s a wretched mosquito inside my net—I can hear him singing. Would you catch him? I don’t want to move because of my heart.”

“No, don’t move. Stay where you are.” He switches on the light, lifts the net. “Where is the little beggar? Have you spotted him?”

“Yes, there, over by the corner. Oh, I do feel such a fiend to have dragged you out of bed. Do you mind dreadfully?”

“No, of course not.” For a moment he hovers in his blue and white pyjamas. Then, “got him,” he said.

“Oh, good. Was he a juicy one?”