Chapter III

“Come for a walk with me—do!” The tone was half pleading, half commanding. Hester Cawthorn very slowly closed her book, and from the depths of her chair on the lawn, looked up at Antoinette’s eager face. She shook her head, and Antoinette repeated under her breath “Do....”

Hester’s sullen mouth curved into a smile. “Why should I?”

“Because I—I want you to.”

“You seem to consider that an adequate reason!”

“Well—isn’t it?”

The hotel visitors, grouped upon the lawn to laze away the hot after-lunch hour, were surprised at seeing Miss Cawthorn and Antoinette de Courcy stroll down the drive together. It was the first time that Miss Cawthorn had been known to set out in company.

“That child has such a way with her, she gets round everybody,” murmured Mrs. Blackwood, hoping that Dennis would take notice.

Hester and Antoinette walked in silence down the length of the shady drive. Antoinette was not so sure of herself now; wondered what would be the result of her daring. It had certainly needed daring to ask Hester to come out with her. There was about Hester a nimbus of unapproachability that was recognised by everyone in the hotel, and that had aroused, firstly, curiosity and secondly, interest in Antoinette. Also, she was strangely attracted by this woman with the sombre hooded eyes and down-curved mouth that seemed to speak of much bitterness and disillusion. During her stay at Amberhurst, Antoinette had become amazingly intimate with all the hotel visitors; most of them, at one time or another, had been moved to tell her “the story of my life”; for she was a good listener, and waited with rapt eagerness for the picturesque or the dramatic note that should stamp each story with individuality. Everybody confided in her, petted her, spoilt her. Hester alone had held aloof from her, as she had held aloof from the others. But Antoinette was resolved to make herself the exception to Hester’s rule.

“And now—what do you want?” Hester’s question, breaking the silence, was abrupt but not discourteous.

Antoinette laughed. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. ‘_Je ne sais pas ce que je veux, mais je le veux absolument._’”

“Well, then, believe me, you won’t get it.”

“How can you say that, when you don’t know—when I don’t even know—what it is I want?”

“I can only warn you that it’s useless to expect anything from me—I’ve nothing to give.” Hester’s voice was low and beautiful, despite its occasional harshness. Antoinette thrilled at the sound of it, and at the warning that had just been flung at her. Nothing to give—why, she must have worlds to give to one who knew how to claim her gifts. Or perhaps once already she had bestowed them, bestowed them royally upon one unworthy ... and was cautious now, distrustful of anyone attempting to approach the fortress-gates behind which was locked—herself. Antoinette would lay siege to the fortress with every weapon in her power, with daring and gentleness and subtlety, until the gates were opened to her. She felt confident of success, buoyantly happy as she strode along at Hester’s side, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her jersey, the noon-day sun beating down upon her bare head.

“You’ll catch sun-stroke, child.”

“Not I!”

“Haven’t you anything to put on your head?”

“I believe so, somewhere in my pocket,” Antoinette drew out a crumpled red silk cap and swung it in her hand.

“Put it on,” commanded Hester curtly. Antoinette obeyed, enjoying the sensation of being ordered about by Hester.

“Even if you do happen to be possessed of extraordinary vitality,” the latter continued, “there’s no need to squander it.”

“Am I squandering it?” Antoinette asked innocently. She was not introspective, but she was always interested when people told her things about herself.

“Are you squandering it, indeed...? Rushing along a dusty road at the rate of eight miles an hour, at the hottest time of the day——”

“I’m so sorry! Is it too hot for you? Shall we go back?”

“No, I’ve no objection to it. But then I’ve not been wearing myself out with emotional acting every night this week.”

“Oh, the acting ... it was such fun! Absolute rot, of course, poor dear Rosabel hasn’t the faintest notion how to write a play, but she’s written half a dozen different ones about Marie Antoinette. In fact, whenever I meet her, she seems to be in the thick of writing one, and she falls upon my neck with: ‘Antoinette darling, I’m writing a tragedy about _her_—it’s to be something exquisite ... six acts and nineteen scenes ... no, don’t ask me anything about it ... the first scene is in a sort of inn and people come in and talk ... no, I can’t tell you any more, you’d think me so stupid.... Another time, perhaps....’”

Hester was laughing outright by now; and thus encouraged, Antoinette went on: “We had an awful business with this particular masterpiece. Rosabel had left all the parts, except the Queen’s, quite sketchy; so we had to invent them at rehearsals, and make them fit together as well as we could. Rosabel is never quite successful with anything she attempts. There’s a certain blighted perkiness about her, that makes her rather like an early bird that hasn’t caught the worm—or perhaps she’s the early worm that always gets the bird....”

“You’re too brilliant, my young friend.”

“Am I? Why?”

Hester smiled inscrutably and was silent.

“Why am I too brilliant?” Antoinette was suddenly overwhelmed by the fear of disapproval. “I—I wasn’t trying to be.”

“No, I daresay you weren’t. I was only thinking of that old proverb that was dinned into one’s ears in the nursery: ‘Sing before breakfast—cry before night!’”

“Oh, do you mean that I shall—‘cry before night’?”

Hester looked down at the eager laughing face, the boyish curls surmounted carelessly by the red cap. “You won’t, at all events, cry before—to-night.”

“But you think I shall eventually? Can you tell the future, then?”

“Most people’s futures are written on their faces, aren’t they?”

“For those who are able to read them.... So that’s how you read mine! Well, I don’t care....” Antoinette flung her cap into the air and caught it again. “I assure you that if I do have to ‘cry before night,’ I shall ‘sing before breakfast’ quite a lot _en attendant_.”

“I’ve no doubt you will,” said Hester.

“I’m doing it now—simply having the time of my life.”

“And in what,” Hester’s tone was ironical, “in what, exactly, does the ‘time of your life’ consist?” Then before Antoinette could answer, she covered up the question with: “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to—I’ve no wish to force confidence.”

Antoinette smiled involuntarily at the notion that Hester should assume in her a reticence equal to her own. If she had told the truth, she would have answered: “I’m happy because there’s so much love in the world, and because so much of it comes to me, and mostly because I’m walking beside you now....”

But she only said, “It’s not that I’m really doing anything extraordinary, but this is the first time I’ve ever stayed away from my people—would you believe it, and I’m nearly twenty-two—but Grand’mère has quite obsolete ideas as to what a _jeune fille_ should do and shouldn’t do, even though she’s lived over here for twenty-five years.”

“Were you born in England, then?”

“Yes. And I feel quite English. The others—Grand’mère and Mother and Father are terribly French, though....” Antoinette gave a sigh, and then laughed again. “Being away is such fun, I love sitting down to breakfast in the morning with a different set of faces, don’t you?”

“I never sit down with a ‘set of faces’ at all.”

“Don’t you? Not ever? Not even at home?”

Hester was silent. Antoinette tried to imagine the family-circle from which she might have sprung, and gave it up as hopeless: she could not picture Hester in relation to a mother or father, sisters or brothers. She could only see her as an individual, detached from her surroundings, lonely and alone. Her whole heart went out in sympathy to this strange woman with the fierce reserve, and the sensitiveness that lay behind her brutally direct manner; in sympathy, and something that was more than sympathy.

After a while, Hester said with quiet bitterness: “I have no home....”

Impulsively Antoinette put out her hand to touch her arm. “I’m sorry—so dreadfully sorry—you must be lonely.”

Hester made no movement in response, but replied coldly, “You make a mistake: I am not lonely.”

Antoinette, baffled, dropped her hand and was silent. She had been tactless and deserved her rebuff; nevertheless it had hurt—rather. The conquest of Hester, impregnably immured in her fortress, was proving even more difficult than she had anticipated, and therefore ten times more desirable. Antoinette was accustomed to easy victories, victories so easy as scarcely to merit the name, and she was tired of them; but the prospect of difficulties only stimulated the fighting-instinct in her.

Hester, with an air of detached amusement, was watching her absorbed face. “I warned you, didn’t I...?”

Antoinette flashed out: “If you think I’m frightened of your prickliness——”

“Oh, you hot-headed little fool.... What’s all this for? If you think I’m going to make a friend or a confidante of you, you’re mistaken. Real friendship is, in my experience, a treasure impossible to find, and I’ve no use for people who want to know my family-history, and whence I came and whither I’m going.... What concern of theirs can it be? No, I have no friends and I want none. You’re only wasting your time with me.”

“I’m not—it isn’t waste!” cried Antoinette, “you’re so wonderful, and ever since I’ve been here I’ve wanted to talk to you, only I never quite dared till to-day, and then I simply couldn’t stop myself.... I noticed you the first evening I came—how could I help it? All the other people move about in lumps, three or four staying together, three or four at a table in the dining-room, three or four going out together—and only you were alone. That was remarkable to begin with.”

“I shall always be alone,” said Hester.

“Yes—and I know why!” Inspiration seemed suddenly to come to Antoinette. “Whereas the others want company, want to be together at any price, you only want what is really good enough for you. It’s—it’s as if it had to pass through fire before it could get to you.”

“You’re fantastic,” Hester smiled, but not unkindly, and then, without interrupting her, she let Antoinette have her say.

“I can understand your keeping the others out and hating them to ask questions—you know they’re only inquisitive, and not asking because it means a great deal to them. It means a great deal to me, I can’t tell you why, but it just does. Please won’t you let me come a little bit closer? You see, I’m not frightened of the prickles or the fire....” Quite unconsciously she was pleading as a very young boy might plead with his lady-love.

Hester shook her head. “Even if you do ‘come closer,’ as you say, you’ll only be disappointed. Go and fall in love with that nice Blackwood boy: it will be much more profitable than this sort of thing.”

“This sort of thing...?” Antoinette repeated with a puzzled frown.

Hester looked at her sharply for a moment, then gave a curt laugh. “Never mind.... Do as I say. Stick to young Blackwood.”

“To Clive?” Antoinette exclaimed contemptuously. “Why, he’s engaged, Doreen says, to a girl who studies economics and won’t powder her nose.”

“I didn’t mean Clive, I meant the one who arrived yesterday—Dennis. At any rate, I’m certain that he’s going to fall in love with you.”

Antoinette was not interested. Hester continued: “He’s quite a character-study. I should like to hear how the affair progresses.”

“Would you...?” cried Antoinette, overjoyed at the idea that anything connected with herself could be of interest to Hester. “I’d better cultivate him, then.”

“I’ll leave you my address,” said Hester.

“Your address? But you’re not going away yet, surely?”

“Going this very evening.”

Antoinette stood stock-still in the middle of the road, and gasped. “Not—really?” In the case of anyone but Hester, her plans would have been known by the whole hotel for days in advance. It was but another proof of Hester’s aloofness, that the time of her departure came to Antoinette as an absolute shock.

“Don’t look so bewildered: it can’t possibly matter to you.”

“But it does—more than anything else in the world—more than ever now. When I started out with you this afternoon, I was only enormously interested in you, and I admired you—your brains, and the gorgeous way you have of choking off people you don’t want. I’ve watched you do it—Oh, often—but you’re not going to choke me off like that, because now, I—I love you....” She had not intended to say those words; a few moments ago they would not have entered her mind; now she had not only said them: she meant them.

Hester looked at her gravely, without curiosity and without astonishment. “If that’s the case, I’ve no right to choke you off. But understand once and for all that you’re on a wild-goose chase. You’ll find none of the hidden depths in me that you seem to expect to find.”

“Whether that’s true or not, I’ll never expect any confidence or anything that you don’t give me of your own free will. But there’s nothing on earth that I wouldn’t do for you, if I thought it would make you happy.”

Hester said with that curious dignity that was hers: “Thank you....”

They walked back then. After some time, Antoinette ventured to ask, “Where is it you’re going to-night?”

The answer was: “To Bristol—if the gods are good to me!” and Antoinette saw that Hester’s dark eyes were illuminated by a gleam of light, and fixed straight ahead of her, as if in pursuance of some vision whence the light had come. Antoinette longed to know what was portended by that phrase: “If the gods are good to me ...” wondered what was drawing her to Bristol; if she lived there; if she ever came to London; why she had been staying at Amberhurst. But all these questions remained unasked. She would prove herself worthy of Hester by showing no curiosity, by accepting as a matter of course anything that she might do.

Her offer to help Hester with her packing was declined; but she obtained permission to see her to the station.

“I may be late for dinner,” Antoinette flung over her shoulder to Rosabel, as, for the second time that day, she left the hotel in Hester’s company. Rosabel stared open-mouthed.... Hester laughed. “You see, even your friend is struck by the incongruity of seeing us together!”

“It isn’t incongruous really. At least I don’t think it is. I’m sure I should find much more in common with you, than with Rosabel.” Antoinette flushed, fearing that she had said too much; but Hester did not appear to think that she had been guilty of impertinence.

“Perhaps I’m only letting you imagine that you could....” Antoinette pondered on this; then: “No, if you were only acting, just to give me that impression, you’d be so clever that I’d have to adore you all the same. It’s no earthly good trying to put me off by pretending you aren’t what I know you are.”

“I don’t know that I am trying to put you off now.... I’m only trying to be honest and sincere with you, and to keep you from disappointment.”

“Honest and sincere—I should just think you are! I’d follow your lead blindly through anything, and feel that I could trust you.”

“Oh, child, child, don’t put all that trust in me. No one but a god could be worthy of so much. It’s too great a responsibility for a mere human being.”

“No trust and no faith could be too great for me to give you—and—and I’ll never let you feel the responsibility of me as a drag. I can look out for myself. I want to walk level with you, not hanging on.”

“You shall do as you wish,” said Hester.

In silence they paced the platform of the little country station. Antoinette’s exaltation was shadowed now with the dread of parting from Hester. But she allowed no word of regret to pass her lips. She would be true to her assertion that she would not “hang on” to Hester. Hester’s happiness, apparently, lay in going; so, with all her heart, Antoinette tried to want her to go, even though Amberhurst would seem a deserted wilderness without her. She regretted the wasted days that had gone before she had made up her mind to speak to her; the last few hours of joy had passed so swiftly; and now—and now——

Antoinette hastily shook back her curls and smiled, as the train came in. The door of the compartment was slammed between them.

“Well, good-bye,” said Antoinette lightly, enjoying the self-imposed necessity of acting up to Hester, “good luck to you.”

Hester leant out of the window, and, just as the train started, bent down and kissed her.

... In a very agitated frame of mind, Antoinette wandered back to the hotel. What had been the most wonderful adventure of her life was at an end—no, she would not believe that it was at an end, even though she had received no promise that Hester would write to her, and had no idea when or if she would ever see her again. The adventure had only just begun; there must be an equally wonderful continuation to it—some time. And in the meantime, she would rest secure in the memory of that last second before the train started.... She could have shouted aloud with the joy of being alive, and in love: if Hester would only allow herself to be loved, she would try to make up to her for all the bitterness and disappointment that might have been in her life. Antoinette was young enough and mad enough at the moment to believe that anything was possible.

The Faynes were half-way through dinner when she joined them at their table.

Mrs. Fayne said, “Why, you’ve been out with that Miss Cawthorn nearly all day? So morose and unsociable, I always think her.”

“She looks as if she had a secret sorrow,” Rosabel murmured soulfully, “did she tell you about it, Antoinette?”

Antoinette smiled. “No, she didn’t tell me about it....”

“Then whatever did you talk about, such a long time?”

“Oh—books ...” Antoinette replied at random.

Dinner was over, and most of the visitors were drinking coffee out on the lawn, glad of the breeze after the sweltering heat of the day. In couples or in groups they sauntered up and down the grounds, light dresses showing up against the sombre foliage of the trees; glowing cigarette-ends making pin-points of fire in the darkness. Antoinette looked at the couples and at the groups and thought of one who would have walked alone amongst them. There was certainly no pathos in Hester’s solitude, none of the pathos of the lonely woman of uncertain age, drifting from one hotel to another. Pathos would scarcely have appealed to Antoinette as did the compelling and magnetic dignity of Hester’s voluntary isolation.

“Won’t you come for a stroll?” Dennis Blackwood was beside her now, looking down upon her from his superior height.

“If you like....” She accepted the cigarette he offered her, and was ironically conscious of being quite in the picture now: two and two, smoking cigarettes, just like the others.

They walked to the end of the hotel-grounds, across some adjoining fields, and stood on a bridge that spanned a branch-line of the railway. The ridge of the hills was dim as a shadow; here and there showed the dull orange squares of cottage-windows, and on either side of the bridge, the railway-tracks stretched away into the greyness.

Antoinette did not speak. She waited with a certain curiosity for Dennis to do so. It was he who had borne her off much as she had borne Hester off that afternoon. Decidedly, it was for him to begin.... She wondered, still ironically, how his methods of attack would compare with her own. In all probability, he would try to kiss her. It “belonged” to the whole scene and setting that he should do so, but it would be a nuisance. She hoped he would be a trifle more original, so that she could give Hester an interesting description of the proceedings....

The complex scale passages of the Waldstein Sonata drifted out to them on the breeze.

Dennis laughed. “That’s Crispin. He’s purloined the key of the recreation-room, locked himself in, and is now playing to rows of empty chairs. I bet it’s the first time he’s feeling happy since we arrived.”

“Oh,” said Antoinette, “is he so very unhappy here, then?”

Dennis shrugged his shoulders. “Well, not exactly unhappy. Just out of place. A square peg in a round hole—like so many of us ...” he mused.

“So you, too, are a square peg?”

He looked at her intently with his clear brown eyes, that were large and curiously soft under their jutting brows. “Yes.” Then, at a venture: “Like yourself ...” and still his eyes held hers, as if seeking some response, some sign by which he might know that she knew the answer to his riddle.

She shook her head. “Oh, I’m not a square peg, I just fit in anywhere. It’s fun, trying to fit into different sorts of places; it must be beastly if you can’t. I’m sorry for your friend.”

“He’ll be all right to-morrow. We’re off, you know, to Devon.”

“Don’t I wish I were going too!” she breathed fervently.

“Do you—do you really?” he cried. “I wish you were. You’d enjoy our long tramps, and the quaint little inn-places where we have to put up. Do you know that part of the country?”

Her answer was not to the point. “I was thinking for the moment that Bristol was in Devon—my geography is shockingly hazy.”

He knew better than to comment upon her irrelevant remark. She stood with her hands on the stone parapet of the bridge, and looked out at the railway-tracks that gleamed faintly for a short distance, and then lost themselves in the mist. He had the sudden desire to stroke her head, just on top where the hair was quite smooth before it broke into the mass of short curls bunched over her ears and around the nape of her neck. He wanted gently to turn her face towards him, and to look again into her clear grey eyes, and share the dreams that must lurk in their depths. He felt by instinct that they were strange dreams, which for him, however, would hold no strangeness. Even though she had evaded his first attempt to prove the existence of a common meeting-ground, that very evasiveness showed his instinct to be correct.

She spoke then, rousing herself from her abstraction. “It seems so odd that we’ve never heard you play. Your mother has told me such a lot about your music—I’m really not trying to talk like Mr. Griggs—but it _is_ odd, knowing that you’re probably longing to play.”

“Yes, of course I am; but I can’t here.”

“Because of the people?”

“Yes. I can’t bear showing off; making an exhibition of myself.”

“Then why not do as your friend has done: lock the door?”

Dennis laughed. “Oh, Crispin is a real child of nature. If he wants to do a thing, he just does it, regardless. I’m afraid I lack that happy faculty.”

“You’ve got others instead, though. How I envy anyone who can compose—create—find an outlet for everything that’s bubbling and frothing inside their brain.”

“Your acting last night—that was a sort of safety-valve, wasn’t it?”

She gave him a quick, vivid smile in acknowledgment of his understanding. “Yes, but what’s the good of acting? Even if I did it properly, which I don’t. There’s nothing left of it to-day. You can’t compare it with being able to create something really lasting....” If only she could have borrowed Dennis’s creative powers to-night, just for to-night, Hester should have had some wondrous tribute to their few hours together!

He said: “You needn’t envy me. I haven’t even started to compose properly yet. I’m still inarticulate. All that I really want to say, seems to lie beyond my reach, beyond mere terms of music; impossible to express, and impossible to set free.”

“Those songs of yours, and the pieces you’ve published—what about them?”

“Well, they were written, as you might say, with the top layer of my brain. But how did you know of them?”

“Your mother showed them to me. She’s got them with her.”

He smiled tenderly. “Poor darling ... fancy travelling my stuff around with her like that, and she doesn’t even know one note from another.”

“She just adores you, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. I could almost wish she didn’t.”

“Oh—but why...?”

He was silent for a moment. A train thundered under the bridge, sent up a shower of glowing red sparks, tore through the sleeping country, and, with a long-drawn shriek, vanished into a tunnel in the hills. Then the signals creaked and jerked into their places with a rattling sound; and all was still again.

“I’m so afraid of hurting her,” he mused, “you see, from her point of view, I’m not very satisfactory.”

“I don’t see that at all,” cried Antoinette, “she’s awfully proud of you, and quite convinced that you’re going to be famous.”

“And do you imagine that it’ll satisfy her even if I _am_ famous—just famous? She wants something more for me than fame.”

“And that is——?”

“Happiness....”

“Well, and why shouldn’t you have happiness too? I’m not foolish enough to imagine that it comes _through_ fame, but can’t you have it as well as fame?”

He looked at her again. She seemed unsubstantial, wraith-like in the dim light; eyes very big in her white face; the breeze softly stirring her dull fair curls. He said, very low: “That depends....”

Another train flew past, enveloping them for a moment in flame-lit billows of smoke; its tail-light was a slowly-diminishing point of red, till at last, like some animal seeking its burrow in the ground, it vanished into the tunnel. The earth seemed to quiver a little after its noisy passage; the wailing shriek of the engine was muted, by the distance, to a sound of unbearable yearning and beauty. Somewhere a church-clock struck ten. And somewhere in the world, there was—Hester. A sudden wave of feeling came over Antoinette; love so intense as to be almost pain....

“Impossible to express and impossible to set free——” In her thoughts she was unconsciously echoing Dennis’s words. Then, half-aloud: “Perhaps some day it will be set free!”

In the darkness she heard Dennis catch his breath, but already she had moved away from the bridge, was walking back towards the hotel. He followed in silence; drew level with her; and noticed, as her sleeve brushed against his, that the dew had soaked through the thin silk of her jersey. He would not risk destroying by the clumsy medium of speech, the fine web of affinity that was spun between them, and of the existence of which he was no longer in doubt.

Antoinette reflected that the conversation had been more interesting than she had anticipated; and after all, he had not attempted to kiss her: she scarcely knew whether she was relieved or disappointed....

The lawn was deserted now; they went straight into the lounge, and stood blinking in the sudden light.

Mrs. Blackwood looked up eagerly at their entrance, held out her hand to Antoinette, and telling Reggie to bring a chair for her, drew her into the family-circle. Dennis announced his intention of climbing through the window of the recreation-room to rout out Crispin; and Mrs. Blackwood said to Antoinette, “You’ve made quite a conquest of Dennis, my dear. He’s not a bit a lady’s man, really. I suppose he’s always thinking of his work, and so he enjoys a chat with someone who _thoroughly understands_ music. You must come and stay with us at Eastwold, when he comes back from Devonshire, and then you’ll be able to have some nice long talks together.”

“Thanks awfully, Mrs. Blackwood, I should love to come,” Antoinette replied with genuine enthusiasm. She was always thrilled by the prospect of new surroundings. Besides, Hester would doubtless be amused....

Doreen squeezed Antoinette’s arm affectionately, and Reggie exclaimed: “Good egg! If you practise your iron-shots, and remember to keep your head down, you’ll be able to play with Dad whenever I can’t. He often likes a game when he comes back from the City.”

Antoinette said hastily, “I’m afraid my golf will never be good enough for that, Reggie....”

But Reggie responded with mingled impatience and gallantry, “You don’t expect a fellow to swallow such tosh, do you?”