Chapter VIII: Book III: Jane (1)

chapter 1

Jane Harding had a flat at the top of a block of mansions overlooking the river in Chelsea.

Here, on the evening following the party, came Sebastian Levinne.

"I've fixed it up, Jane," he said. "Radmaager is coming here to see you sometime to-morrow. He prefers to do that, it seems."

"'Come, tell me how you live, he cried,'" quoted Jane. "Well, I'm living very nicely and respectably, entirely alone! Do you want something to eat, Sebastian?"

"If there is anything?"

"There are scrambled eggs and mushrooms, anchovy toast and black coffee if you'll sit here peaceably while I get them."

She put the cigarette box and the matches beside him and left the room. In a quarter of an hour the meal was ready.

"I like coming to see you, Jane," said Sebastian. "You never treat me as a bloated young Jew to whom only the flesh pots of the Savoy would make appeal."

Jane smiled without speaking.

Presently she said: "I like your girl, Sebastian."

"Joe?"

"Yes, Joe."

Sebastian said gruffly: "What--what do you really think of her?"

Again Jane paused before answering.

"So young," she said at last. "So terribly young."

Sebastian chuckled.

"She'd be very angry if she heard you."

"Probably." After a minute she said: "You care for her very much, don't you, Sebastian?"

"Yes. It's odd, isn't it, Jane, how little all the things you've got matter? I've got practically all the things I want, except Joe, and Joe is all that matters. I can see what a fool I am, but it doesn't make a bit of difference! What's the difference between Joe and a hundred other girls? Very little. And yet she's the only thing in the world that matters to me just now."

"Partly because you can't get her."

"Perhaps. But I don't think that's so entirely."

"Neither do I."

"What do you think of Vernon?" asked Sebastian after a pause.

Jane changed her position, shading her face from the fire.

"He's interesting," she said slowly, "partly, I think, because he is so completely unambitious."

"Unambitious, do you think?"

"Yes. He wants things made easy."

"If so, he'll never do anything in music. You want driving power for that."

"Yes, you want driving power. But music will be the power that drives _him_!"

Sebastian looked up, his face alight and appreciative.

"Do you know, Jane," he said, "I believe you're right!"

She smiled but made no answer.

"I wish I knew what to make of the girl he's engaged to," said Sebastian.

"What is she like?"

"Pretty. Some people might call it lovely--but I'd call it pretty. She does the things that other people do, and does them very sweetly. She's not a cat. I'm afraid--yes, I am afraid now that she definitely cares for Vernon."

"You needn't be afraid. Your pet genius won't be turned aside or held down. That doesn't happen. I'm more than ever sure, every day I live, that that doesn't happen."

"Nothing would turn _you_ aside, Jane, but then you have got driving power."

"And yet, do you know, Sebastian, I believe I should be more easily 'turned aside,' as you call it, than your Vernon? I know what I want and go for it--he doesn't know what he wants, or rather doesn't want it, but _it_ goes for _him_.... And that _It_, whatever It is, _will_ be served--no matter at what cost."

"Cost to whom?"

"Ah! I wonder...."

Sebastian rose.

"I must go. Thanks for feeding me, Jane."

"Thank you for what you've done for me with Radmaager. You're a very good friend, Sebastian. And I don't think success will ever spoil you."

"Oh! success...." He held out his hand.

She laid both hands on his shoulders and kissed him.

"My dear, I hope you will get your Joe. But if not I am quite sure you will get everything else!"

_2_

Herr Radmaager did not come to see Jane Harding for nearly a fortnight. He arrived without warning of any kind at half-past ten in the morning. He stumped into the flat without a word of apology and looked around the walls of the sitting room.

"It is you who have furnished and papered this? Yes?"

"Yes."

"You live here alone?"

"Yes."

"But you have not always lived alone?"

"No."

Radmaager said unexpectedly: "That is good." Then he said commandingly: "Come here."

He took her by both arms, and drew her toward the window. There he looked her over from head to foot. He pinched the flesh of her arm between finger and thumb, opened her mouth and looked down her throat, and finally put a large hand on each side of her waist.

"Breathe in--good! Now out--sharply."

He took a tape measure out of his pocket, made her repeat the two movements, passing the tape measure round her each time. Finally he pocketed it and put it away. Neither he nor Jane seemed to see anything curious in the proceedings.

"It is well," said Radmaager. "Your chest is excellent, your throat is strong. You are intelligent--since you have not interrupted me. I can find many singers with a better voice than yours--your voice is very true, very beautiful, but it is not clear, a silver thread. If you force it, it will go--and where will you be then, I ask you? The music you sing now is absurd--if you were not pig-headed as the devil you would not sing those rôles. Yet I respect you because you are an artist."

He paused, then went on:

"Now listen to me. My music is beautiful and it will not hurt your voice. When Ibsen created Solveig he created the most wonderful woman character that has ever been created. My opera will stand and fall by its Solveig--and it is not sufficient to have a singer. There are Cavarossi, Mary Montner, Jeanne Dorta--all hope to sing Solveig. But I will not have it. What are they? Unintelligent animals with marvelous vocal chords. For my Solveig I must have a perfect instrument, an instrument with intelligence. You are a young singer--as yet unknown. You shall sing at Covent Garden next year in my _Peer Gynt_ if you satisfy me. Now listen...."

He sat down at Jane's piano and began to play--queer rhythmic monotonous notes.

"It is the snow, you comprehend--the Northern snow. That is what your voice must be like--the snow. It is white like damask--and the pattern runs through it. But the pattern is in the music, not in your voice."

He went on playing. Endless monotony, endless repetition, and yet suddenly the something that was woven through it caught your ear--what he had called the pattern.

He stopped.

"Well?"

"It will be very difficult to sing."

"Quite right. But you have an excellent ear. You wish to sing Solveig--yes?"

"Naturally. It's the chance of a lifetime. If I can satisfy you."

"I think you can." He got up again, laid his hands on her shoulders. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-three."

"And you have been very unhappy--that is so?"

"Yes."

"How many men have you lived with?"

"One."

"And he was not a good man?"

Jane answered evenly: "He was a very bad one."

"I see. Yes, it is that which is written in your face. Now listen to me. All that you have suffered, all that you have enjoyed, you will put it into my music--not with abandon, not with unrestraint, but with controlled and disciplined force. You have intelligence and you have courage. Without courage nothing can ever be accomplished. Those without courage turn their backs on life. You will never turn your back on life. Whatever comes you will stand there facing it with your chin up and your eyes very steady.... But I hope, my child, that you will not be too much hurt."

He turned away.

"I will send on the score," he said over his shoulder. "And you will study it."

He stumped out of the room and the flat door banged.

Jane sat down by the table. She stared at the wall in front of her with unseeing eyes. Her chance had come.

She murmured very softly to herself: "I'm afraid."

_3_

For a whole week Vernon debated the question of whether he should or should not take Jane at her word. He could get up to town at the week-end--but then perhaps Jane would be away. He felt miserably self-conscious and shy. Perhaps by now she had forgotten that she had asked him.

He let the week-end go by. He felt that certainly by now she would have forgotten him. Then he got a letter from Joe in which she mentioned having seen Jane twice. That decided Vernon. At six o'clock on the following Saturday he rang the bell of Jane's flat.

Jane herself opened it. Her eyes opened a little wider when she saw who it was. Otherwise she displayed no surprise.

"Come in," she said. "I'm finishing my practising. But you won't mind."

He followed her into a long room whose windows overlooked the river. It was very empty. A grand piano, a divan, a couple of chairs and walls that were papered with a wild riot of bluebells and daffodils. One wall alone was papered in sober dark green and on it hung a single picture--a queer study of bare tree trunks. Something about it reminded Vernon of his early adventures in the Forest.

On the music stool was the little man like a white worm.

Jane pushed a cigarette box toward Vernon, said in her brutal commanding voice, "Now, Mr. Hill," and began to walk up and down the room.

Mr. Hill flung himself upon the piano. His hands twinkled up and down it with marvellous speed and dexterity. Jane sang. Most of the time _sotto voce_, almost under her breath. Occasionally she would take a phrase full pitch. Once or twice she stopped with an exclamation of what sounded like furious impatience, and Mr. Hill was made to repeat from several bars back.

She broke off quite suddenly by clapping her hands. She crossed to the fireplace, pushed the bell, and turning her head addressed Mr. Hill for the first time as a human being.

"You'll stay and have some tea, won't you, Mr. Hill?"

Mr. Hill was afraid he couldn't. He twisted his body apologetically several times and sidled out of the room. A maid brought in black coffee and hot buttered toast, which appeared to be Jane's conception of afternoon tea.

"What was that you were singing?"

"Electra--Richard Strauss."

"Oh! I liked it. It was like dogs fighting."

"Strauss would be flattered. All the same, I know what you mean. It is combative."

She pushed the toast toward him and added: "Your cousin's been here twice."

"I know. She wrote and told me."

He felt tongue-tied and uncomfortable. He had wanted so much to come, and now that he was here he didn't know what to say. Something about Jane made him uncomfortable. He blurted out at last:

"Tell me truthfully--would you advise me to chuck work altogether and stick to music?"

"How can I possibly tell? I don't know what you want to do."

"You spoke like that the other night. As though everyone can do just what they like."

"So they can. Not always, of course--but very nearly always. If you want to murder someone, there is really nothing to stop you. But you will be hanged afterwards--naturally."

"I don't want to murder anyone."

"No, you want your fairy story to end happily. Uncle dies and leaves you all his money. You marry your lady love and live at Abbots--whatever it's called--happily ever afterward."

Vernon said angrily: "I wish you wouldn't laugh at me."

Jane was silent a minute, then she said in a different voice: "I wasn't laughing at you. I was doing something I'd no business to do--trying to interfere."

"What do you mean, trying to interfere?"

"Trying to make you face reality, and forgetting that you are--what--about eight years younger than I am?--and that your time for that hasn't yet come."

He thought suddenly: "I could say anything to her--anything at all. She wouldn't always answer the way I wanted her to, though."

Aloud he said: "Please go on. I'm afraid it's very egotistical, my talking about myself like this, but I'm so worried and unhappy. I want to know what you meant when you said the other evening that of the four things I wanted, I could get any one of them but not all together."

Jane considered a minute.

"What did I mean exactly? Why, just this. To get what you want, you must usually pay a price or take a risk--sometimes both. For instance, I love music--a certain kind of music. My voice is suitable for a totally different kind of music. It's an unusually good concert voice--not an operatic one, except for very light opera. But I've sung in Wagner, in Strauss--in all the things I like. I haven't exactly paid a price--but I take an enormous risk. My voice may give out any minute. I know that. I've looked the fact in the face and I've decided that the game is worth the candle.

"Now, in your case, you mentioned four things. For the first, I suppose that if you remain in your uncle's business for a sufficient number of years you will grow rich without any further trouble. That's not very interesting. Secondly, you want to live at Abbots Puissants. You could do that to-morrow if you married a girl with money. Then the girl you're fond of, the girl you want to marry----"

"Can I get her to-morrow?" asked Vernon. He spoke with a kind of angry irony.

"I should say so--quite easily."

"How?"

"By selling Abbots Puissants. It is yours to sell, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I couldn't do that. I couldn't--I couldn't...." Jane leaned back in her chair and smiled.

"You prefer to go on believing that life is a fairy story?"

"There must be some other way."

"Yes, of course there is another. Probably the simplest. There's nothing to stop you both going out to the nearest Registry Office. You've both got the use of your limbs."

"You don't understand. There are hundreds of difficulties in the way. I couldn't ask Nell to face a life of poverty. She doesn't want to be poor."

"Perhaps she can't."

"What do you mean by 'can't'?"

"Just that. Can't. Some people can't be poor, you know."

Vernon got up, walked twice up and down the room. Then he came back, dropped on the hearth rug beside Jane's chair, and looked up at her.

"What about the fourth thing? Music? Do you think I could ever do that?"

"That I can't say. Wanting mayn't be any use there. But if it does happen, I expect it will swallow up all the rest. They'll all go--Abbots Puissants, money, the girl. My dear, I don't feel life's going to be easy for you. Ugh! A goose is walking over my grave. Now tell me something about this opera Sebastian Levinne says you are writing."

When he had finished telling her, it was nine o'clock. They both exclaimed and went out to a little restaurant together. As he said good-bye afterward his first diffidence returned.

"I think you are one of the--the nicest people I ever met. You will let me come again and talk, won't you? If I haven't bored you too frightfully."

"Any time you like. Good-night."

_4_

Myra wrote to Joe:

Dearest Josephine:

I am so worried about Vernon and this woman he is always going up
to town to see--some opera singer or other. Years older than he is.
It's so dreadful the way women like that get hold of boys. I am
terribly worried and don't know what to do about it. I have spoken
to your Uncle Sydney, but he was not very helpful about it and just
said that boys will be boys. But I don't want _my_ boy to be
like that. I was wondering, dear Joe, if it would be any good my
seeing this woman and begging her to leave my boy alone. Even a
_bad_ woman would listen to a mother, I think. Vernon is too
young to have his life ruined. I really don't know what to do. I
seem to have no influence over Vernon nowadays.

With much love,
Your affectionate
Aunt Myra.

Joe showed this letter to Sebastian.

"I suppose she means Jane," said Sebastian. "I'd rather like to see an interview between them. Frankly, I think Jane would be amused."

"It's too silly," said Joe hotly. "I wish to goodness Vernon _would_ fall in love with Jane. It would be a hundred times better for him than being in love with that silly stick of a Nell."

"You don't like Nell, do you, Joe?"

"You don't like her either."

"Oh! yes, I do, in a way. She doesn't interest me very much, but I can quite see the attraction. In her own way, she's quite lovely."

"Yes, in a chocolate-box way."

"She doesn't attract me, because to my mind there's nothing there to attract as yet. The real Nell hasn't happened. Perhaps she never will. I suppose to some people that is very attractive because it opens out all sorts of possibilities."

"Well, I think Jane is worth ten of Nell! The sooner Vernon gets over his silly calf love for Nell and falls in love with Jane instead, the better it will be."

Sebastian lit a cigarette and said slowly: "I'm not sure that I agree with you."

"Why?"

"Well, it's not very easy to explain. But, you see, Jane is a real person--very much so. To be in love with Jane might be a whole-time job. We're agreed, aren't we, that Vernon is very possibly a genius? Well, I don't think a genius wants to be married to a real person. He wants to be married to someone rather negligible--someone whose personality won't interfere. Now it may sound cynical, but that's what will probably happen if Vernon marries Nell. At the moment she represents--I don't quite know what to call it--what's that line? 'The apple tree, the singing and the gold....' Something like that. Once he's married to her, that will go. She'll just be a nice pretty sweet-tempered girl whom, naturally, he loves very much. But she won't _interfere_. She'll never get between him and his work--she hasn't got sufficient personality. Now Jane might. She wouldn't mean to, but she might. It isn't Jane's beauty that attracts you--it's herself. She might be absolutely fatal to Vernon."

"Well," said Joe, "I don't agree with you. I think Nell's a silly little ass and I should hate to see Vernon married to her. I hope it will all come to nothing."

"Which is much the likeliest thing to happen," said Sebastian.

chapter 2

Nell was back in London. Vernon came up to see her the day after her return. She noticed the change in him at once. He looked haggard, excited. He said abruptly:

"Nell, I'm going to chuck Birmingham."

"_What?_"

"Listen while I tell you...."

He talked eagerly, excitedly. His music--he'd got to give himself up to it. He told her of the opera.

"Listen, Nell. This is you--in your tower--with your golden hair hanging down and shining--shining in the sun."

He went to the piano, began to play, explaining as he did so. "Violins--you see--and this is all for harps ... and these are the round jewels...."

He played what seemed to Nell to be a series of rather ugly discords. She privately thought it all hideous. Perhaps it would sound differently played by an orchestra.

But she loved him--and because she loved him, everything he did must be right. She smiled and said:

"It's lovely, Vernon."

"Do you really like it, Nell? Oh! sweetheart--you are so wonderful. You always understand. You're so sweet about everything."

He came across to her, knelt down and buried his face on her lap.

"I love you so ... I love you so."

She stroked his dark head.

"Tell me the story of it."

"Shall I? Well, you see, there's a princess in a tower with golden hair, and kings and knights come from all over the world to try and get her to marry them. But she's too haughty to look at any of them--the real good old fairy-story touch. And at last one comes--a kind of gypsy fellow--very ragged, with a little green hat on his head and a kind of pipe he plays on. And he sings and says that he has the biggest kingdom of anyone because his kingdom is the whole world--and that there are no jewels like his jewels, which are dewdrops. And they say he's mad and throw him out. But that night when the princess is lying in bed she hears him playing his song in the castle garden and she listens.

"Then there's an old Jew pedlar man in the town and he offers the fellow gold and riches with which to win the princess, but the gypsy laughs and says, What could he give in exchange? And the old man says his green hat and the pipe he plays on, but the gypsy says he will never part with those.

"He plays in the palace garden every night. There's an old bard in the palace and he tells a tale of how a hundred years ago a prince of the royal house was bewitched by a gypsy maid and wandered forth and was never seen again. And the princess listens to it, and at last one night she gets up and comes to the window. And the gypsy tells her to leave all her robes and jewels behind and to come out in a simple white gown. But she thinks in her heart that it's as well to be on the safe side, so she puts a pearl in the hem of her skirt, and she comes out, and they go off in the moonlight while he sings. But the pearl in her dress weighs her down and she can't keep up. And he goes on, not realizing that she's left behind....

"I've told this very badly, like a story, but that's the end of the first act--his going off in the moonlight and her left behind weeping. There are three scenes. The castle hall, the market place, and the palace garden outside her window."

"Won't that be very expensive--in the way of scenery, I mean?" suggested Nell.

"I don't know--I hadn't thought--oh! it can be managed, I expect." Vernon was irritated by these prosaic details.

"Now the second act is near the market place. There is a girl there mending dolls--with black hair hanging down round her face. The gypsy comes along, and asks her what she's doing, and she says she's mending the children's toys--she's got the most wonderful needle and thread in the world. He tells her all about the princess and how he's lost her again, and he says he's going to the old Jew pedlar to sell his hat and his pipe, and she warns him not to--but he says he must.

"I wish I could tell things better. I'm just giving you the story now--not the way I've divided it up, because I'm not exactly sure myself yet about that. I've got the music--that's the great thing: the heavy empty palace music--and the noisy clattering market-place music--and the princess--like that line of poetry, 'a singing stream in a silent vale,' and the doll mender all trees and dark woods like the Forest used to sound at Abbots Puissants; you know, enchanted and mysterious and a little frightening ... I think you'll have to have some instruments specially tuned for it.... Well, I won't go into that, it wouldn't interest you--it's too technical.

"Where was I? Oh! yes, he turns up at the palace--as a great king this time--all clanking swords and horse trappings and blazing jewels, and the princess is overjoyed and they're going to be married and everything's all right. But he begins to get pale and weary, worse every day, and when anyone asks him what is the matter, he says, 'Nothing.'"

"Like you when you were a little boy at Abbots Puissants," said Nell smiling.

"Did I say that? I don't remember. Well, then the night before the wedding he can't bear it any more, and he steals away from the palace and down to the market and wakes up the old Jew and says he must have back his hat and his pipe. He'll give back everything he got in exchange. The old Jew laughs, and throws down the hat, torn across, and the pipe, broken, at the prince's feet.

"He's broken-hearted--the bottom knocked out of the world--and he wanders away with them in his hand, till he comes to where the doll mender is sitting with her feet tucked up under her, and he tells her what has happened and she tells him to lie down and sleep. And when he wakes in the morning there are his green hat and his pipe, mended so beautifully that no one could tell they had been mended.

"And then he laughs for joy, and she goes to a cupboard and pulls out a similar little green hat and a pipe, and they go out together through the forest, and just as the sun rises on the edge of the forest, he looks at her and remembers. He says, 'Why, a hundred years ago I left my palace and my throne for love of you.' And she says, 'Yes. But because you were afraid you hid a piece of gold in the lining of your doublet, and the gleam of it enchanted your eyes and we lost each other. But now the whole world is ours and we will wander through it together for ever and ever.'"

Vernon stopped. He turned an enthusiastic face upon Nell. "It ought to be lovely, the end ... so lovely. If I can get into the music what I see and hear: the two of them in their little green hats ... playing their pipes ... and the forest and the sun rising...."

His face grew dreamy and ecstatic. He seemed to have forgotten Nell.

Nell herself felt indescribable sensations sweep over her. She was afraid of this queer rapt Vernon. He had talked of music before to her, but never with this strange exalted passion. She knew that Sebastian Levinne thought Vernon might do wonderful things someday, but she remembered lives she had read of musical geniuses, and suddenly she wished with all her heart that Vernon might not have this marvellous gift. She wanted him as he had been heretofore, her eager boyish lover, the two of them wrapped in their common dream.

The wives of musicians were always unhappy: she had read that somewhere. She didn't want Vernon to be a great musician. She wanted him to make some money quickly and live with her at Abbots Puissants. She wanted a sweet sane normal everyday life. Love--and Vernon.

This thing--this kind of possession--was _dangerous_. She was sure it was dangerous.

But she couldn't damp Vernon's ardour. She loved him far too much for that. She said, trying to make her voice sound sympathetic and interested:

"What an unusual fairy story! Do you mean to say you've remembered it from ever since you were a child?"

"More or less. I thought of it again that morning on the river at Cambridge--just before I saw you standing under that tree. Darling, you were so lovely--so lovely.... You always will be lovely, won't you? I couldn't bear it if you weren't. What idiotic things I am saying! And then, after that night at Ranelagh, that wonderful night when I told you that I loved you, all the music came pouring into my mind. Only I couldn't remember the story clearly--only really the bit about the tower.

"But I've had marvellous luck. I've met a girl who is actually the niece of the hospital nurse who told me the story. And she remembered it perfectly and helped me to get it quite clearly again. Isn't it extraordinary the way things happen?"

"Who is she, this woman?"

"She's really rather a wonderful person, I think. Awfully nice and frightfully clever. She's a singer--Jane Harding. She sings Electra and Brunhild and Isolde with the new English Opera Company, and she may sing at Covent Garden next year. I met her at a party of Sebastian's. I want you to meet her. I'm sure you'd like her awfully."

"How old is she? Young?"

"Youngish--about thirty, I should think. She has an awfully queer effect on one. In a way you almost dislike her, and yet she makes you feel you can do things. She's been very good to me."

"I dare say."

Why did she say that? Why should she feel an unreasoning prejudice against this woman--this Jane Harding?

Vernon was staring at her with rather a puzzled expression.

"What's the matter, darling? You said that so queerly."

"I don't know." She tried to laugh. "A goose walking over my grave, perhaps."

"Funny," said Vernon frowning. "Somebody else said that just lately."

"Lots of people say it," said Nell laughing. She paused and then said: "I'd--I'd like to meet this friend of yours very much, Vernon."

"I know. I want her to meet you. I've talked a lot about you to her."

"I wish you wouldn't. Talk about me, I mean. After all, we promised Mother no one should know."

"Nobody outside--but Sebastian knows and Joe."

"That's different. You've known them all your life."

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. I didn't think. I didn't say we were engaged, or tell your name or anything. You're not cross, are you, Nell darling?"

"Of course not."

Even in her own ears her voice sounded hard. Why was life so horribly difficult? She was afraid of this music. Already it had made Vernon chuck up a good job. _Was_ it the music? Or was it Jane Harding?

She thought to herself desperately: "I wish I'd never met Vernon. I wish I'd never loved him. I wish--oh! I wish I didn't love so much. I'm afraid. I'm afraid...."

_2_

It was over! the plunge was taken! There was unpleasantness, of course. Uncle Sydney was furious; not, Vernon was forced to confess, without reason. There were scenes with his mother--tears--recriminations. A dozen times he was on the point of giving way, and yet, somehow or other, he didn't.

He had a curious sense of desolation all the time. He was alone in this thing. Nell, because she loved him, agreed to all he said, but he was uncomfortably conscious that his decision had grieved and disturbed her, and might even shake her faith in the future. Sebastian thought the move premature. For the time being, he would have advised making the best of two worlds. Not that he said so. Sebastian never gave advice to anybody. Even the staunch Joe was doubtful. She realized that for Vernon to sever his connection with the Bents was serious, and she had not the real faith in Vernon's musical future which would have made her heartily applaud the step.

So far in his life, Vernon had never had the courage to set himself definitely in opposition to everybody. When it was all over, and he was settled in the very cheap rooms which were all he could afford in London, he felt as one might who had overcome invincible odds. Then, and not till then, he went to see Jane Harding.

He had held boyish imaginary conversations with her in his mind.

"I have done what you told me."

"Splendid! I knew you had the courage really."

He was modest, she applauded. He was sustained and uplifted by her praise.

The reality, as always, fell out quite differently. His intercourse with Jane always did. He was always holding imaginary conversations with Jane in his mind, and the reality was always totally different.

In this case, when he announced, with due modesty, what he had done, she seemed to take it as a matter of course, with nothing particularly heroic about it. She said:

"Well, you must have wanted to do it or you wouldn't have done it."

He felt baffled, almost angry. A curious sense of constraint always came over him in Jane's presence. He could never be wholly natural with her. He had so much he wanted to say--but he found it difficult to say. He was tongue-tied--embarrassed. And then suddenly, for no reason, it seemed, the cloud would lift and he would be talking happily and easily, saying the things that came into his head.

He thought: "Why am I so embarrassed with her? _She's_ natural enough."

It worried him. From the first moment he had met her, he had felt disturbed--afraid. He resented the effect she had on him and yet he was unwilling to admit how strong that effect was.

An attempt to bring about a friendship between her and Nell failed. Vernon could feel that behind the outward cordiality that politeness dictates there was very little real feeling.

When he asked Nell what she thought of Jane, she answered: "I like her very much. I think she's most interesting."

He was more awkward approaching Jane, but she helped him.

"You want to know what I think of your Nell? She is lovely--and very sweet."

He said: "And you really think you'll be friends?"

"No, of course not. Why should we?"

"Well, but----"

He stammered, taken aback.

"Friendship is not a kind of equilateral triangle. If A likes B and loves C, then C and B _et cetera, et cetera_.... We've nothing in common, your Nell and I. She, too, expects life to be a fairy story, and is just beginning to be afraid, poor child, that it mayn't be, after all. She's a Sleeping Beauty waking in the forest. Love, to her, is something very wonderful and very beautiful."

"Isn't it that to you?"

He had to ask. He wanted to know so badly. So often, so often, he'd wondered about Boris Androv, about those five years.

She looked at him with a face from which all expression had died out.

"Some day--I'll tell you."

He wanted to say, "Tell me now," but he didn't. He said instead:

"Tell me, Jane, what is life to you?"

She paused a minute and then said: "A difficult, dangerous, but endlessly interesting adventure."

_3_

At last he was able to work. He began to appreciate to the full the joys of freedom. There was nothing to fray his nerves, nothing to dissipate his energy. It could flow, all in one steady stream, into his work. There were few distractions. At the moment, he had only just enough money to keep body and soul together. Abbots Puissants was still unlet....

The autumn passed and most of the winter. He saw Nell once or twice a week, stolen unsatisfactory meetings. They were both conscious of the loss of the first fine rapture. She questioned him closely about the progress of the opera. How was it going? When did he expect it would be finished? What chances were there of its being produced?

Vernon was vague as to all these practical aspects. He was concerned at the moment only with the creative side. The opera was getting itself born slowly, with innumerable pangs and difficulties, with a hundred setbacks owing to Vernon's own lack of experience and technique. His conversation was mostly of instrumental difficulties or possibilities. He went out with odd musicians who played in orchestras. Nell went to many concerts and was fond of music but it is doubtful if she could have told an oboe from a clarionet. She'd always imagined a horn and a French horn to be much the same thing. The technical knowledge needed in score writing appalled her, and Vernon's indifference to how and when the opera would be produced made her uneasy.

He hardly realized himself how much his uncertain answers depressed and alienated Nell. He was startled one day when she said to him--indeed, not so much said as wailed:

"Oh! Vernon, don't try me too hard. It's so difficult--so difficult. I must have some hope. You don't understand."

He looked at her astonished.

"But Nell, it's all right _really_. It's only a question of being patient."

"I know, Vernon. I shouldn't have said that, but you see----"

She paused.

"It makes it so much more difficult for me, darling," said Vernon, "if I feel that you're unhappy."

"Oh! I'm not--I won't be."

But underneath, choked down, that old feeling of resentment lifted its head again. Vernon didn't understand or care how difficult things were for her. He never had the faintest conception of her difficulties. He would, perhaps, have called them silly, or trivial. They were, in one sense, but in another they weren't--since the sum total of them went to make up her life. Vernon didn't see or realize that she was fighting a battle--fighting it all the time. She could never relax. If he could only realize that, give her a word of cheer, show her that he understood the difficult position in which she was placed. But he never would see.

A devastating sense of loneliness swept over Nell. Men were like that--they never understood or cared. Love--that seemed to solve everything. But really it didn't solve anything at all. She almost hated Vernon. Selfishly absorbed in his work, disliking her to be unhappy because it upset _him_....

She thought: "Any _woman_ would understand."

And, moved by some obscure impulse, she went of her own accord to see Jane Harding.

Jane was in, and if she was surprised to see Nell, she did not show it. They talked for some time of desultory things. Yet Nell had a feeling that Jane was waiting and watching, biding her time.

Why had she come? She didn't know. She feared and distrusted Jane--perhaps that was why! Jane was her enemy. Yes, but she had a fear that her enemy had a wisdom denied to her. Jane (she put it to herself) was clever. She was, very possibly, bad--yes, she was sure Jane was bad--but somehow or other one might learn from her.

She began rather blunderingly. Did Jane think that Vernon's music was likely to be successful--that is to say, successful _soon_? She tried in vain to keep a quaver out of her voice.

She felt Jane's cool green eyes upon her.

"Things getting difficult?"

"Yes, you see----"

It tumbled out, a great deal of it: the shifts, the difficulties, the unspoken force of her mother's silent pressure, a dimly veiled reference to Someone, name not given, Someone who understood and was kind and was rich.

How easy to say these things to a woman--even a woman like Jane, who couldn't know anything about them. Women understood--they didn't pooh pooh trifles and make everything out to be unimportant.

When she had finished, Jane said: "It's a little hard on you. When you first met Vernon you had no idea of this music business."

"I didn't think it would be like this," said Nell bitterly.

"Well, it's no good going back to what you didn't think, is it?"

"I suppose not." Nell felt vaguely annoyed at Jane's tone. "Oh!" she broke out. "You feel, of course, that everything ought to give way to his music--that he's a genius--that I ought to be glad to make any sacrifice."

"No, I don't," said Jane, "I don't think any of those things. I don't know what good geniuses are, or works of art either. Some people are born with a feeling that they matter more than anything else, and some people aren't. It's impossible to say who's right. The best thing for you would be to persuade Vernon to give up music, sell Abbots Puissants and settle down with you on the proceeds. But I do know this, that you haven't an earthly chance of getting him to give up music. These things, genius, art, whatever you like to call them, are much stronger than you are. You might just as well be King Canute on the seashore. You can't turn back Vernon from music."

"What can I do?" said Nell hopelessly.

"Well, you can either marry this other man you were talking of and be reasonably happy, or you can marry Vernon and be actively unhappy with periods of bliss."

Nell looked at her.

"What would you do?" she whispered.

"Oh! I should marry Vernon and be unhappy, but then some of us like taking our pleasures sadly."

Nell got up. She stood in the doorway looking back at Jane who had not moved. She was lying back against the wall, smoking a cigarette, her eyes half closed. She looked a little like a cat, or a Chinese idol. A sudden wave of fury came over Nell.

"I hate you," she cried. "You're taking Vernon away from me. Yes--_you_. You're bad--evil. I know it, I can feel it. You're a bad woman."

"You're jealous," said Jane quietly.

"You admit then, there's something to be jealous of? Not that Vernon loves you. He doesn't. He never would. It's you who want to get hold of him."

There was silence--a pulsating silence. Then, without moving, Jane laughed. Nell hurried out of the flat, hardly knowing what she was doing.

_4_

Sebastian came very often to see Jane. He usually came after dinner, ringing up first to find out if she would be at home. They both found a curious pleasure in each other's company. To Sebastian Jane recounted her struggles with the rôle of Solveig, the difficulties of the music, the difficulty of pleasing Radmaager, the still greater difficulty of pleasing herself. To Jane Sebastian imparted his ambitions, his present plans, his future vague ideals.

One evening, after they had both been silent after a long spell of talking, he said:

"I can talk to you better than anyone I know, Jane. I don't quite know why, either."

"Well, in a way, we're both the same kind of person, aren't we?"

"Are we?"

"I think so. Not superficially, perhaps, but fundamentally. We both like truth. I think, as far as one can say that of oneself, we both see things as they are."

"And you think most people don't?"

"Of course they don't. Nell Vereker, for instance. She sees things as they've been shown her, as she hopes they are."

"A slave of convention, you mean?"

"Yes, but it works both ways. Joe, for instance, prides herself on being unconventional, but that makes just as much for narrowness and prejudice."

"Yes, if you're 'agin' everything irrespective of what it is. Joe is like that. She _must_ be a rebel. She never really examines a thing on its merits. And that's what damns me so hopelessly in her eyes. I'm successful, and she admires failures. I'm rich, so she'd gain instead of lose if she married me. And being a Jew doesn't count against you much nowadays."

"It's even fashionable," said Jane laughing.

"And yet, do you know, Jane, I always have a queer feeling that Joe really likes me."

"Perhaps she does. She's the wrong age for you, Sebastian. That Swede at your party said something wonderfully true--about separation in time being worse than separation in space. If you're the wrong age for a person, nothing keeps you apart so hopelessly. You may be made for one another, but be born at the wrong time for each other. Does that sound nonsense? I believe when she's about thirty-five, Joe could love you--the real essential you--madly. It'll take a woman to love you, Sebastian, not a girl."

Sebastian was looking into the fire. It was a cold February day, and there were logs piled up on the coals. Jane hated gas fires.

"Have you ever wondered, Jane, why we don't fall in love with each other, you and I? Platonic friendship doesn't usually work. And you're very attractive. There's a lot of the siren about you--quite unconscious, but it's there."

"Perhaps we should under normal conditions."

"Aren't we under normal conditions? Oh! wait a minute--I know what you mean. You mean, the line's already engaged."

"Yes. If you didn't love Joe----"

"And if you----"

He stopped.

"Well?" said Jane. "You knew, didn't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so. You don't mind talking about it?"

"Not in the least. If a thing's there, what does it matter if you talk of it or not?"

"Are you one of the people, Jane, who believe that if you want a thing enough you can make it happen?"

Jane considered.

"No--I don't think I am. So many things happen to you naturally that it keeps you busy without--well, looking for things as well. When a thing's offered you, you've got to choose whether you'll accept it or refuse it. That's destiny. And when you've made your choice you must abide by it without looking back."

"That's the spirit of Greek tragedy. You've got Electra into your bones, Jane." He picked up a book from the table. "_Peer Gynt?_ You're steeping yourself in Solveig, I see."

"Yes. It's more her opera than Peer's. You know, Sebastian, Solveig is a wonderfully fascinating character--so impassive, so calm, and yet so utterly certain that her love for Peer is the only thing in heaven or earth. She knows that he wants and needs her though he never tells her so, she is abandoned and deserted by him, and manages to turn that desertion into a crowning proof of his love. By the way, that Whitsuntide music of Radmaager's is perfectly glorious. You know: 'Blessed is he who has made my life blessed!' To show that the love of a man can turn into a kind of impassioned nun is difficult but rather wonderful."

"Is Radmaager pleased with you?"

"Sometimes he is. Yesterday, on the other hand, he consigned my soul to hell and shook me till my teeth rattled. He was perfectly right, too. I sang it all wrong--like a melodramatic stage-struck girl. It's got to be sheer force of will--restraint. Solveig must be so soft and gentle but really so terribly strong. It's like Radmaager said the first day. Snow--smooth snow--with a wonderful clear design running through it."

She went on to talk of Vernon's work.

"It's almost finished, you know. I want him to show it to Radmaager."

"Will he?"

"I think so. Have you seen it?"

"Parts of it only."

"What do you think of it?"

"I'll hear what you think of it first, Jane. Your judgment's as good as mine any day where music is concerned."

"It's crude. There's too much in it--too much good stuff. He hasn't learned how to handle his material, but the material is there--masses and masses of it. Do you agree?"

Sebastian nodded.

"Absolutely. I'm more sure than ever that Vernon is going to--well, revolutionize things. But there's a nasty time coming. He'll have to face the fact that what he's written isn't, when all's said and done, a commercial proposition."

"You mean, it couldn't be produced?"

"That's what I mean."

"_You_ could produce it."

"You mean, out of friendship?"

"That's what I meant."

Sebastian got up and began to pace up and down.

"To my way of thinking, that's unethical," he said at last.

"And also you don't like losing money."

"Quite true."

"But you could afford to lose a certain amount without--well, noticing it?"

"I always notice losing money. It affects--well, my pride."

Jane nodded.

"I understand that. But I don't think, Sebastian, that you need lose money."

"My dear Jane----"

"Don't argue with me till you know what I'm arguing about. You're going to produce a certain amount of what the world calls 'highbrow' stuff at the little Holborn theatre, aren't you? Well, this summer--say the beginning of July--produce _The Princess in the Tower_ for--say--two weeks. Don't produce it from the point of view of an opera (don't tell Vernon this, by the way--but there, you wouldn't. You're not an idiot) but from the point of view of a musical spectacular play. Unusual scenery and weird lighting effects--you're keen on lighting, I know. The Russian ballet--that's what you've got to aim at; that's the--the _tone_ of it. Have good singers, but attractive ones to look at as well. And now, putting modesty in the background, I'll tell you this. I'll make a success of it for you."

"You--as the princess?"

"No, my dear child, as the doll mender. It's a weird character--a character that will attract and arrest. The music of the doll mender is the best thing Vernon has done. Sebastian, you've always said I could act. They're going to let me sing at Covent Garden this season because I can act. I shall make a hit. I know I can act--and acting counts for a lot in opera. I can--I can _sway_ people. I can make them _feel_. Vernon's opera will need licking into shape from the dramatic point of view. Leave that to me. From the musical side, you and Radmaager may be able to make suggestions--if he'll take them. Musicians are the devil to deal with, as we all know. The thing can be done, Sebastian."

She leaned forward, her face vivid and impressive. Sebastian's face grew more impassive, as it always did when he was thinking hard. He looked appraisingly at Jane, weighing her, not from the personal standpoint, but from the impersonal. He believed in Jane, in her dynamic force, inner magnetism, in her wonderful power of communicating emotion over the footlights.

"I'll think it over," he said quietly. "There's something in what you say."

Jane laughed suddenly,

"And you'll be able to get me very cheap, Sebastian," she said.

"I shall expect to," said Sebastian gravely. "My Jewish instincts must be appeased somehow. You're putting this thing over on me, Jane--don't imagine that I don't know it!"

chapter 3

At last "The Princess in the Tower" was finished. Vernon suffered from a tremendous wave of reaction. The whole thing was rotten--hopeless. Best to chuck it into the fire.

Nell's sweetness and encouragement were like manna to him at this time. She had that wonderful instinct for always saying the words he longed to hear. But for her, as he constantly told her, he would have given way to despair long ago.

He had seen less of Jane during the winter. She had been on tour with the English Opera Company part of the time. When she sang in _Electra_ in Birmingham, he went down for it. He was tremendously impressed--loved both the music and Jane's impersonation of Electra. That ruthless will, that determined: "Say naught but dance on!" She gave the impression of being more spirit than flesh. He was conscious that her voice was really too weak for the part, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. She _was_ Electra--that fanatical fiery spirit of relentless doom.

He stayed a few days with his mother--days which he found trying and difficult. He went to see his Uncle Sydney and was received coldly. Enid was engaged to be married to a solicitor, and Uncle Sydney was not too pleased about it.

Nell and her mother were away for Easter. On their return Vernon rang up and said he must see her immediately. He arrived with a white face and burning eyes.

"Nell, do you know what I've heard? Everyone has been saying that you are going to marry George Chetwynd. _George Chetwynd!_"

"Who said so?"

"Lots of people. They say you go round with him everywhere."

Nell looked frightened and unhappy.

"I wish you wouldn't believe things. And Vernon, don't look so--so accusing. It's perfectly true that he has asked me to marry him--twice, as a matter of fact."

"That old man?"

"Oh! Vernon, don't be ridiculous. He's only about forty-one or -two."

"Nearly double your age. Why, I thought he wanted to marry your mother, perhaps."

Nell laughed in spite of herself.

"Oh! dear, I wish he would. Mother's really awfully handsome still."

"That's what I thought that night at Ranelagh. I never guessed--I never dreamed--that it was _you_! Or hadn't it begun then?"

"Oh! yes, it had begun--as you call it. That was why Mother was so angry that night--at my going off alone with you."

"And I never guessed! Nell, you might have told me!"

"Told you what? There wasn't anything to tell--then!"

"No, I suppose not. I'm being an idiot. But I do know he's awfully rich. I get frightened sometimes. Oh! darling Nell, it was beastly of me to doubt you--even for a minute. As though you'd ever care how rich anyone was."

Nell said irritably: "Rich, rich, rich! You harp on that. He's awfully kind and awfully nice, too."

"Oh, I dare say."

"He is, Vernon. Really he is."

"It's nice of you to stick up for him, darling, but he must be an insensitive sort of brute to hang round after you've refused him twice."

Nell did not answer. She looked at him in a way he did not understand--something piteous and appealing and yet defiant in that strange limpid gaze. It was as though she looked at him from a world so far removed from his that they might be on different spheres.

He said: "I feel ashamed of myself, Nell. But you're so lovely, everyone must want you."

She broke down suddenly--began to cry. He was startled. She cried on, sobbed on his shoulder.

"I don't know what to do--I don't know what to do. I'm so unhappy. If I could only talk to you."

"But you can talk to me, darling. I'm here listening."