Chapter VII: Book II: Nell (3)

Well, there was nothing for it. He must buckle to--and wait. The first misty enchantment of love was wearing off. It could be hell as well as heaven. He wanted Nell so badly--so badly.

He wrote to her:

Darling, there is nothing for it. We must be patient and wait. At
any rate we'll see each other often. Your mother was really very
decent about it--much more so than I thought she'd be. I do quite
see the force of all she said. It's only fair that you should be
free to see if you like anyone better than me. But you won't, will
you, darling? I know you won't. We're going to love each other for
ever and ever. And it won't matter how poor we are ... the tiniest
place with you....

chapter 6

Nell was relieved by her mother's attitude. She had feared recriminations, reproaches. Insensibly she always shrank from harsh words or any kind of scene. Sometimes she thought to herself bitterly: "I'm a coward. I can't stand up to things."

She was definitely afraid of her mother. She had been dominated by her always, from the first moment she could remember. Mrs. Vereker had the hard imperious character which can rule most weaker natures with whom it comes in contact. And Nell was the more easily subdued because she understood well enough that her mother loved her and that it was because of that love that she was so determined that Nell should have the happiness out of life that she herself had failed to get.

So Nell was immeasurably relieved when her mother uttered no reproaches, merely observed:

"If you're determined to be foolish, well, there it is. Most girls have some little love affair or other which comes to nothing in the end. I haven't much patience with this sentimental nonsense myself. The boy can't possibly afford to marry for years to come and you'll only make yourself very unhappy. But you must please yourself."

In spite of herself, Nell was influenced by this contemptuous attitude. She hoped against hope that Vernon's uncle might perhaps do something. Vernon's letter dashed her hopes.

They must wait--and perhaps wait a very long time.

_2_

In the meantime Mrs. Vereker had her own methods. One day she asked Nell to go and see an old friend--a girl who had married some few years ago. Amelie King had been a brilliant dashing creature whom Nell, as a schoolgirl, had admired enviously. She might have made a very good marriage, but to everyone's surprise she had married a struggling young man and had disappeared from her own particular gay world.

"It seems unkind to drop old friends," said Mrs. Vereker. "I'm sure Amelie would be pleased if you went to see her, and you're not doing anything this afternoon."

So Nell went off obediently to call on Mrs. Horton at 35 Glenster Gardens, Ealing.

It was a hot day. Nell took the District Railway and inquired her way from Ealing Broadway Station when she got there.

Glenster Gardens proved to be about a mile from the station--a long depressing road of little houses, all exactly alike. The door of No. 35 was opened by a frowsy-looking maid with a dirty apron and Nell was shown into a small drawing room. There were one or two nice old pieces of furniture in it and the cretonnes and curtains were of an attractive pattern though very faded, but the place was very untidy and littered with children's toys and odd bits of mending. A child's fretful wail rose from somewhere in the house as the door opened and Amelie came in.

"Nell, why how nice of you! I haven't seen you for years."

Nell had quite a shock on seeing her. Could this be the well-turned-out attractive Amelie? Her figure had got sloppy, her blouse was shapeless and evidently homemade, and her face was tired and worried, with all the old dash and sparkle gone out of it.

She sat down and they talked. Presently Nell was taken to see the two children, a boy and a girl, the younger a baby in a cot.

"I ought to take them out now," said Amelie, "but really I'm too tired this afternoon. You don't know how tired one can get pushing a perambulator all the way up from the shops as I did this morning."

The boy was an attractive child, the baby girl looked sickly and peevish.

"It's partly her teeth," said Amelie. "And then her digestion is weak, the doctor says. I do wish she wouldn't cry so at night. It's annoying for Jack, who needs his sleep after working all day."

"You don't have a nurse?"

"Can't afford it, my dear. We have the half-wit--that's what we call the girl who opened the door to you. She's a complete idiot, but she comes cheap and she really will set to and do some work, which is more than most of them will do. A general servant hates coming anywhere where there are children."

She called out: "Mary, bring some tea," and led the way back to the drawing room.

"Oh! dear, Nell, do you know I almost wish you hadn't come to see me. You look so smart and cool--you remind me of all the fun one used to have in the old days. Tennis and dancing and golf and parties."

Nell said timidly: "But you're happy...."

"Oh! of course. I'm only enjoying a grumble. Jack's a dear, and then there are the children, only sometimes--well, one is really too tired to care for anyone or anything. I feel I'd sell my nearest and dearest for a tiled bathroom and bath salts and a maid to brush my hair and lovely silken garments to slip into. And then you hear some rich idiot holding forth on how money doesn't bring happiness. Fools!"

She laughed.

"Tell me some news, Nell. I'm so out of things nowadays. You can't keep up if you have no money. I never see any of the old crowd."

They gossiped a little. So and So was married, So and So had had a row with her husband, So and So had got a new baby, and about So and So there was the most terrible scandal.

Tea was brought, rather untidily, with smeary silver and thick bread and butter. As they were finishing, the front door was opened with a key and a man's voice sounded from the hall fretful and irritable.

"Amelie--I say, it is too bad. I only ask you to do one thing and you go and forget it. This parcel has never been taken down to Jones's. You said you would."

Amelie ran out to him in the hall. There was a quick interchange of whispers. She brought him into the drawing room where he greeted Nell. The child in the nursery began to wail again.

"I must go to her," said Amelie, and hurried away.

"What a life!" said Jack Horton. He was still very good-looking though his clothes were distinctly shabby and there were bad-tempered lines coming round his mouth. He laughed as though it were a great joke. "You've found us at sixes and sevens, Miss Vereker. We always are. Traveling to and fro in trains this weather is very trying--and no peace in the home when you get there!"

He laughed again and Nell laughed too, politely. Amelie came back holding the child in her arms. Nell rose to go. They came with her to the door. Amelie sent messages to Mrs. Vereker and waved her hand.

At the gate Nell looked back and caught the expression on Amelie's face. A hungry envious look.

In spite of herself Nell's heart sank. Was this the inevitable end? Did poverty kill love?

She reached the main road and was walking along it in the direction of the station when an unexpected voice made her start.

"Miss Nell, by all that's wonderful!"

A big Rolls-Royce had drawn up to the curb. George Chetwynd sat behind the wheel smiling at her.

"If this isn't too good to be true! I thought I saw a girl who was mighty like you--from the back view anyhow--so I slowed down to have a look at her face, and it was your very self. Are you going back to town? Because if so, step in."

Nell stepped in obediently and settled herself contentedly beside the driver. The car glided forward smoothly, gathering power. A heavenly sensation, Nell thought--effortless, delightful.

"And what are you doing in Ealing?"

"I've been to see some friends."

Moved by some obscure prompting, she described her visit. Chetwynd listened sympathetically, nodding his head from side to side, all the while driving the car with the perfection of a master.

"If that isn't too bad," he said sympathetically. "You know, I hate to think of that poor girl. Women ought to be taken care of--to have their lives made easy for them. They ought to be surrounded with everything they want."

He looked at Nell and said kindly: "It's upset you, I can see. You must have a very soft heart, Miss Nell."

Nell looked at him with a sudden warming of her heart. She did like George Chetwynd. There was something so kind and reliable and strong about him. She liked his rather wooden face, and the way his graying hair grew back from his temples. She liked the square upright way he sat and the firm precision of his hands on the wheel. He looked the kind of man who could deal with any emergency, a man on whom you could _depend_. The brunt of things would always be on his shoulders, not on yours. Oh! yes, she liked George. He was a nice person to meet when you were tired at the end of a bothering day.

"Is my tie crooked?" he asked suddenly without looking round.

Nell laughed.

"Was I staring? I'm afraid I was."

"I felt the glance. What were you doing--sizing me up?"

"I believe I was."

"And I suppose I've been found utterly wanting."

"No, very much the other way about."

"Don't say these nice things--which I'm sure you don't mean. You excited me so much that I nearly collided with a tram then."

"I never say things I don't mean."

"Don't you? I wonder now." His voice altered, "There's something I've wanted to say to you for a long time. This is a funny place to say it, but I'm going to take the plunge here and now. Will you marry me, Nell? I want you very badly."

"Oh!" Nell was startled. "Oh! no, I couldn't."

He shot a quick glance at her before returning to his task of steering through the traffic. He slowed down a little.

"Do you mean that, I wonder? I know I'm too old for you----"

"No--you're not--I mean, it's not that."

A little smile twisted his mouth.

"I must be twenty years older than you, Nell, at least. It's a lot, you know. But I do honestly believe that I could make you happy. Queerly enough, I'm sure of it."

Nell didn't answer for a minute or two. Then she said rather weakly: "Oh! but really, I couldn't."

"Splendid! You said it much less decidedly that time."

"But indeed----"

"I'm not going to bother you any more just now. We'll take it that you've said No this time. But you aren't always going to say No, Nell. I can afford to wait quite a long time for what I want to have. Some day you'll find yourself saying Yes."

"No, I shan't."

"Yes, you will, dear. There's no one else, is there? Ah! but I know there isn't."

Nell didn't answer. She told herself that she didn't know what to say. She had tacitly promised her mother that nothing should be said about her engagement.

And yet somewhere, deep down, she felt ashamed.

George Chetwynd began cheerfully to talk of various outside topics.

chapter 7

August was a difficult month for Vernon. Nell and her mother were in Dinard. He wrote to her and she to him, but her letters told him little or nothing of what he wanted to know. She was having a gay time, he gathered, and enjoying herself though longing for Vernon to be there.

Vernon's work was of the purely routine order. It required little intelligence. You needed to be careful and methodical, that was all. His mind, free from other distractions, swung back to its secret love, music.

He had formed the idea of writing an opera and had taken for his theme the half-forgotten fairy story of his youth. It was now bound up in his mind with Nell--the whole strength of his love for her flowed into this new channel.

He worked feverishly. Nell's words about his living comfortably with his mother had rankled, and he had insisted on having rooms of his own. The ones he had found were very cheap, but they gave him an unexpected sense of freedom. At Carey Lodge he would never have been able to concentrate. His mother would have been, he knew, forever fussing after him, urging him to come to bed. Here, in Arthur Street, he could, and often did, sit up till five in the morning if he liked.

He got very thin and haggard-looking. Myra worried about his health and urged patent restoratives upon him. He assured her curtly that he was all right. He told her nothing of what he was doing. Sometimes he would be full of despair over his work, at others a sudden sense of power would rush over him as he knew that some small infinitesimal fragment was good.

Occasionally he went to town and spent a week-end with Sebastian, and on two occasions Sebastian came down to Birmingham. Sebastian was Vernon's most valued stand-by at this time. His sympathy was real and not assumed and it had a twofold character. He was interested as a friend and also from his own professional standpoint. Vernon had an enormous respect for Sebastian's judgment in all things artistic. He would play excerpts on the piano he had hired, explaining as he did so the proper orchestration. Sebastian listened, nodding very quietly, speaking little. At the end he would say:

"It's going to be good, Vernon. Get on with it."

He never uttered a word of destructive criticism, for in his belief such a word might be fatal. Vernon needed encouragement and nothing but encouragement.

He said one day: "Is this what you meant to do at Cambridge?"

Vernon considered for a minute.

"No," he said at last. "At least, it's not what I meant originally. After that concert, you know. It's gone again--the thing I saw then. Perhaps it'll come back again sometime. This is, I suppose, the usual sort of thing, conventional--and all that. But here and there I've got what I mean into it."

"I see."

To Joe, Sebastian said plainly what he thought.

"Vernon calls this the 'usual sort of thing,' but as a matter of fact it isn't. It's entirely unusual. The whole orchestration is conducted on an unusual plan. What it is, though, is immature. Brilliant but immature."

"Have you told him so?"

"Good Lord, no. One disparaging word and he'd shrivel up and consign the whole thing to the waste-paper basket. I know these people. I'm spoon feeding him with praise at present. We'll have the pruning knife and the garden syringe later. I've mixed my metaphors, but you know what I mean."

In early September Sebastian gave a party to meet Herr Radmaager, the famous composer. Vernon and Joe were bidden to attend.

"Only about a dozen of us," said Sebastian. "Anita Quarll, whose dancing I'm interested in--she's a rotten little devil, though. Jane Harding--you'll like her. She's singing in this English Opera business. Wrong vocation--she's an actress, not a singer. You and Vernon--Radmaager--two or three others. Radmaager will be interested in Vernon--he's well disposed toward the younger generation."

Both Joe and Vernon were elated.

"Do you think I'll ever do anything, Joe? Really do anything, I mean."

Vernon sounded dispirited.

"Why not?" said Joe valiantly.

"I don't know. Everything I've done just lately is rotten. I started all right. But now I'm stale as stale. I'm tired before I start."

"I suppose that's because you work all day."

"I suppose it is."

He was silent for a minute or two and then said: "It'll be wonderful meeting Radmaager. He's one of the few men who writes what I call music. I wish I could talk to him about what I really think--but it would be such awful cheek."

The party was of an informal character. Sebastian had a large studio, empty save for a dais, a grand piano, and a large quantity of cushions thrown down at random about the floor. At one end was a hastily put trestle table and on this were piled viands of all descriptions.

You collected what you wanted and then pitched your cushion. When Joe and Vernon arrived a girl was dancing--a small red-haired girl with a lithe sinewy body. Her dancing was ugly but alluring.

She finished to loud applause and leaped down from the dais.

"Bravo, Anita," said Sebastian. "Now then, Vernon and Joe, have you got what you want? That's right. You'd better sink down gracefully by Jane. This is Jane."

They sank down as bidden. Jane was a tall creature with a beautiful body and a mass of very dark brown hair coiled low on her neck. Her face was too broad for beauty and her chin too sharp. Her eyes were deep-set and green. She was about thirty, Vernon thought. He found her disconcerting, but attractive.

Joe began to talk to her eagerly. Her enthusiasm for sculpture had been waning of late. She had always had a high soprano voice and she was now coquetting with the idea of becoming an opera singer.

Jane Harding listened sympathetically enough, emitting a faintly amused monosyllable from time to time. Finally she said:

"If you like to come round to my flat, I'll try your voice, and I can tell you in two minutes just what your voice is good for."

"Would you really? That's awfully kind of you."

"Oh! not at all. You can trust me. You can't trust someone who makes their living by teaching to tell you the truth."

Sebastian came up and said: "What about it, Jane?"

She got up from the floor--rather a beautiful movement. Then, looking round, she said in the curt voice of command one would use to a dog:

"Mr. Hill."

A small man, rather like a white worm, bustled forward with an ingratiating twist of the body. He followed her up to the dais.

She sang a French song Vernon had never heard before.

"_J'ai perdu mon amie--elle est morte,
Tout s'en va cette fois à jamais,
A jamais, pour toujours elle emporte
Le dernier des amours que j'aimais._

"_Pauvre nous! Rien ne m'a crié l'heure
Où là-bas se nouait son linceul
On m'a dit, 'Elle est morte!' Et tout seul
Je répète, 'Elle est morte!' Et je pleure...._"

Like most people who heard Jane Harding sing, Vernon was quite unable to criticize the voice. She created an emotional atmosphere--the voice was only an instrument. The sense of overwhelming loss, of dazed grief, the final relief of tears.

There was applause. Sebastian murmured: "Enormous emotional power--that's it."

She sang again. This time it was a Norwegian song about falling snow. There was no emotion in her voice whatsoever--it was like the white flakes of the snow: monotonous, exquisitely clear, finally dying away to silence on the last line.

In response to applause she sang yet a third song. Vernon sat up, suddenly alert.

"_I saw a Fairy lady there
With long white hands and drowning hair
And oh! her face was wild and sweet,
Was sweet and wild and wild and strange and fair...._"

It was like a spell laid on the room--the sense of magic, of terrified enchantment. Jane's face was thrust forward. Her eyes looked out, past beyond--seeing--frightened yet fascinated.

There was a sigh as she finished. A stout burly man with white hair _en brosse_ pushed his way to Sebastian.

"Ah! my good Sebastian, I have arrived. I will talk to that young lady--at once, immediately."

Sebastian went with him across the room to Jane. Herr Radmaager took her by both hands. He looked at her earnestly,

"Yes," he said at last. "Your physique is good. I should say that both the digestion and the circulation were excellent. You will give me your address and I will come and see you. Is it not so?"

Vernon thought: "These people are mad."

But he noticed that Jane Harding seemed to take it as a matter of course. She wrote her address, talked to Radmaager for a few minutes longer, then came and rejoined Joe and Vernon.

"Sebastian is a good friend," she remarked. "He knows that Herr Radmaager is looking for a Solveig for his new opera, _Peer Gynt_. That is why he asked me here to-night."

Joe got up and went to talk to Sebastian. Vernon and Jane Harding were left alone.

"Tell me," said Vernon stammering a little. "That song you sang----"

"Frosted snow?"

"No, the last one. I--I heard it years ago--when I was a kid."

"How curious, I thought it was a family secret."

"A hospital nurse sang it to me when I broke my leg. I always loved it, but never thought I should hear it again."

Jane Harding said thoughtfully: "I wonder now. Could that have been my Aunt Frances?"

"Yes, that was her name. Nurse Frances. Was she your aunt? What's happened to her?"

"She died a good many years ago. Diphtheria, caught from a patient."

"Oh! I'm sorry." He paused, hesitated, then blundered on, "I've always remembered her. She was--she was a wonderful friend to me as a kid."

He caught Jane's green eyes looking at him, a steady kindly glance, and he knew at once of whom she had reminded him the first moment he saw her. She was like Nurse Frances.

She said quietly: "You write music, don't you? Sebastian told me about you."

"Yes--at least, I try to."

He stopped, hesitated again. He thought: "She's terribly attractive. Do I like her? Why am I afraid of her?"

He felt suddenly excited and exalted. He could do things--he _knew_ he could do things....

"Vernon!"

Sebastian was calling him. He got up. Sebastian presented him to Radmaager. The great man was kindly and sympathetic.

"I am interested," he said, "in what I hear about your work from my young friend here." He laid his hand on Sebastian's shoulder. "He is very astute, my young friend. In spite of his youth, he is seldom wrong. We will arrange a meeting and you shall show me your work."

He moved on. Vernon was left quivering with excitement. Did he really mean it? He went back to Jane. She was smiling. Vernon sat down by her. A sudden wave of depression succeeded the exhilaration. What was the good of it all? He was tied, hand and foot, to Uncle Sydney and Birmingham. You couldn't write music unless you gave your whole time, your whole thoughts, your whole soul to it.

He felt injured--miserable--yearning for sympathy. If only Nell were here. Darling Nell who always understood.

He looked up and found Jane Harding watching him.

"What's the matter?" she said.

"I wish I were dead," said Vernon bitterly.

Jane raised her eyebrows slightly.

"Well," she said, "if you walk up to the top of this building and jump off, you can be."

It was hardly the answer that Vernon had expected. He looked up resentfully, but her cool kindly glance disarmed him.

"There's only one thing I care about in the whole world," he said passionately. "I want to write music. I _could_ write music. And instead of that I'm stuck in a beastly business that I hate. Grinding away day after day! It's too sickening."

"Why do you do it if you don't like it?"

"Because I have to."

"I expect you want to really--otherwise you wouldn't," said Jane indifferently.

"Haven't I told you that I want to write music more than anything else in the world?"

"Then why don't you do it?"

"Because I can't, I tell you."

He felt exasperated with her. She didn't seem to understand at all. Her view on life seemed to be that if you wanted to do anything, you just went and did it.

He began pouring out things. Abbots Puissants, the concert, his uncle's offer, and then--Nell.

When he had finished she said: "You do expect life to be rather a fairy story, don't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that. You want to be able to live in the house of your forefathers, and to marry the girl you love, and to grow immensely rich, and to be a great composer. I dare say you might manage to do one of those four things if you give your whole mind to it. But it's not likely that you'll have everything, you know. Life isn't like a penny novelette."

He hated her for the moment. And yet, even while he hated, he was attracted. He felt again the curious emotional atmosphere that she had created when singing. He thought to himself: "A magnetic field, that's what it is." And then again: "I don't like her. I'm afraid of her."

A long-haired young man came up and joined them. He was a Swede, but he spoke excellent English.

"Sebastian tells me that you will write the music of the future," he said to Vernon. "I have theories about the future. Time is only another dimension of space. You can move to and fro in time as you can move to and fro in space. Half your dreams are only confused memories of the future. And as you can be separated from your dear ones in space, so you can be separated from them in time, and that is the greatest tragedy there is or can be."

Since he was clearly mad, Vernon paid no attention. He was not interested in theories of space and time. But Jane Harding leaned forward.

"To be separated in time," she said. "I never thought of that."

Encouraged, the Swede went on. He talked of time, and of ultimate space, and of time one, and of time two. Whether Jane was interested or not, Vernon did not know. She looked straight in front of her and did not appear to be listening. The Swede went on to time three and Vernon escaped.

He joined Joe and Sebastian. Joe was being enthusiastic on the subject of Jane Harding.

"I think she's wonderful. Don't you, Vernon? She's asked me to go and see her. I wish I could sing like that."

"She's an actress, not a singer," said Sebastian. "A good sort, Jane. She's had rather a tragic life. For five years she lived with Boris Androv, the sculptor."

Joe glanced over in Jane's direction with enhanced interest. Vernon felt suddenly young and crude. He could still see those enigmatical slightly mocking green eyes. He heard that amused ironical voice. _You do expect life to be a fairy story, don't you?_ Hang it all, that hurt!

And yet he had an immense desire to see her again.

Should he ask her if he might?

No, he couldn't.

Besides, he was so seldom in town.

He heard her voice behind him--a singer's voice, slightly husky.

"Good-night, Sebastian. Thank you."

She moved toward the door, looked over her shoulder at Vernon.

"Come and see me some time," she said carelessly. "Your cousin has got my address."