Chapter XVII

Nicholas Aubray had no idea that he made certain remarks at certain hours of every day, with almost clock-work regularity.

It was left to his wife to make this discovery and others; her critical faculty developing with every year, the years themselves still too few to prevent her from putting her discoveries into words.

"You mustn't be too sharp in your judgment of other people, my dear," Nicholas said to her from time to time, without any more direct reference to an increasing uneasiness in the atmosphere, that he would not, indeed, admit even to himself.

Lily, too, had her reticences.

The shibboleth declared any criticism of another to be uncharitable at best, disloyal at worst. Unthinkable, to criticize one's husband.

Lily sought valiantly to ignore that which certain perceptions in her registered almost automatically.

She loved Nicholas, therefore she must see Nicholas as perfect.

The effort, in the course of time, became considerable, and very wearying.

She lived in a constant searching of spirit, fond of Nicholas and grateful to him when he petted her, touched by his many thoughtfulnesses and frequent gifts, intensely desirous of believing that she loved him, and irritated almost--although never quite--to the point of protesting aloud when he sang out of tune.

Nicholas sang very often, from exuberance of spirits, and it was almost always out of tune.

He had a singular faculty for remembering the words of popular musical-comedy songs, and no ability at all to retain the simplest of airs correctly.

"I say, Lily, that was a catchy sort of thing we heard last night."

"Oh yes, I know."

Lily spoke hurriedly, trying to escape from the conviction that she was in dread lest Nicholas should attempt to reproduce the tune that he had liked.

"The one that girl sang in the second act--very fine girl, too!"

His tone was jocosely significant, and although such humorous allusions did not really amuse her in the least, Lily eagerly caught at this one.

"I saw you look at her, Nicholas! She's rather your type, isn't she?"

"What do you mean by my type, madam, I should like to know? How do you know I've got a type, eh?"

He began to laugh spasmodically, and Lily's lips mechanically took on the curves of the amusement that she did not share.

"My type, indeed! Ha, ha!"

Lily's meaningless laughter echoed his genuine mirth. Then he began to hum:

"In Lou-is-ville--I've left my little home,
The folk I used to know
In Lou-is-_ville_--where--something--something--roam.
Tra-la-la-la-_lah_
In Lou-is-_ville_."

"Catchy sort of tune, that."

"Oh yes. Would you like me to get the score?"

"Not unless you want it yourself. I thought that was pretty nearly the only good thing in it, didn't you? Besides, what do you want with a score when you've got a husband who can reproduce it note for note to you next morning? Ah--hum----!"

Nicholas cleared his throat and expanded his chest in facetious burlesquing of an operatic performance.

"In Louisville! I've left my little home."

He sang it through again, with mock dramatic emphasis and gesticulation, and Lily dug her nails into the palms of her hands and stretched her mouth into a fixed smile.

She was unspeakably disgusted at herself.

Why should she mind these things? And why, minding them, should not love for Nicholas make her minding of no account?

For she still maintained to herself that she loved Nicholas.

That which perplexed her perhaps most was her own increasing tendency to dwell upon a recollection that for several years now had been almost altogether obscured----Vonnie.

The memory of her childish championship of Vonnie, the sick despair of knowing herself to be better loved and cared for than was Vonnie, the pain that she had suffered through Vonnie's pain--all recurred to her with an odd sense of contrast.

How could one compare the two? The kindly derision of common-sense sounded in her imagination, insensibly clothing itself in the accents of that embodiment of common-sense, Monica Melody. "Childie, childie, think what you're saying. Why, how can you compare the two, Lily? The affection of a little child for another little child, and the love of a woman for her husband! Oh Lily, Lily!"

Miss Melody would certainly conclude with mellow, tolerant laughter.

And yet the comparison existed, and remained insistent.

She would never suffer for Nicholas as she had suffered for Vonnie.

"Perhaps I am better balanced now," Lily wistfully suggested to herself, but the suggestion carried no conviction.

She found the phrase that elucidated the question for her almost by chance:

_To the limit of capacity._

Quite involuntarily, the application leaped to her mind.

She had loved Vonnie to the limit of capacity. Her feeling for Nicholas did not extend even to the first outposts of that limit.

But she loved him, nevertheless. It was a question of degree.

Lily stifled the illuminating thought, accused herself of the extreme of disloyalty, and watched eagerly for signs in herself that she did love Nicholas. That he loved her, she could not doubt, and the thought filled her with remorseful gratitude. It still surprised and touched her that her husband, unlike her father, should so seldom find fault with her either directly or by implication, and that he should share and enjoy her enjoyment of almost every form of entertainment.

He listened, with obvious pleasure and interest, to everything she said, and no subject was too trivial for discussion. He seemed never to be _blasé_ or indifferent. Occasionally, only, he was out of temper or depressed, when his already long face would become indescribably elongated, and his conversation monosyllabic.

Lily found that if she asked him a direct question, on such occasions, he would gravely and curtly reply: "Why should anything be the matter?" after the manner of a sulky child that desires to draw attention to its sulks but is too proud to give a reason for them. If she said nothing, he either recovered himself quickly, or spoke, with a sort of remote, detached condemnation, of the circumstance that had annoyed him. He never admitted to a trivial disturbance of mind, but sometimes, with transparent self-satisfaction, he would lay claim to outbursts of stupendous fury.

"I'm afraid I lost my temper pretty thoroughly to-day. The fellow won't try that game on again. He got my monkey up, and I let him have it straight. Hit out straight from the shoulder. I told him exactly what I thought of him, and you should have seen his face, Lily--the poor little devil was _green_. I don't remember, word for word, exactly what I said, but I fancy I let him have it pretty straight. I don't mince matters when my blood's up. Mind you, Lily, a temper like mine's no joke. I've always been afraid of going too far, one of these days."

He looked at her as though for confirmation, and she said, knowing that it would please him:

"It's a fault on the right side, I suppose. A man who hasn't got a temper doesn't get very far, I imagine."

"You're right there, my dear. I shouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't been able to put the fear of God into those who work for me, from time to time."

Nicholas laughed.

"You've never seen me angry, my dear, and I hope you never will."

"Only over a collar-stud," observed Lily, with defective tact.

The mild joke was not at all a successful one.

Nicholas's hatchet face lengthened immediately and grew inordinately grave.

"I'm talking about necessary anger, my dear girl, the sort of wrath that's pretty nearly indispensable when you're dealing with men and women, if you want to get the best out of them. Weaklings have got to be made to feel that they're up against strength. If a man's strong, he's got to have a temper."

"Nobody could call you weak, Nicholas," said Lily, and the remark, as she had meant it to do, restored his complacency.

"Well, I've many faults, but there are two feelings for which I don't think I shall be held to account, I must say. I'm not a weak man, Lily--and I fancy I'm a pretty shrewd judge of human nature. I think I can sum up men and women fairly correctly, even at first sight."

Lily did not like Nicholas when he boasted. In the depths of her heart, uneasily conscious of arrogance the while, she disputed his statement that he was a judge of human nature, for his judgments seldom tallied with her own, especially where women were concerned.

"I don't suppose," said Nicholas, laughing, "that the fellow I told off this morning will come near me again for a fortnight. I imagine he was pretty thoroughly scared."

"I daresay," smiled Lily.

She went on smiling, and Nicholas went on laughing. His laughter had long ago got upon her nerves, but she did not own to herself that this was the case.

Even when her amusement was genuine, she never found it easy to prolong her laughter to the extent of his. Very often, her amusement was not genuine at all.

Nicholas had a fund of anecdotes, quotations, and good stories, some of which he retailed over-frequently. Many of the stories were witty; one or two, to the daughter of Philip Stellenthorpe, appeared to be merely coarse. It seemed to her that Nicholas was totally unable to distinguish between wit, even if admittedly "improper," and the form of rather gross vulgarity that claims to be funny merely on the grounds of its vulgarity.

Sometimes she despised herself for making the distinction, which with her was entirely instinctive. Nicholas, however, so far as she could see, did not discover that she made any distinction at all in her appreciation of his sallies.

His perceptions, acute in some directions, appeared to Lily to be astonishingly blunt in others. Whenever he perceived in her any sign of physical weakness or fatigue, it touched her sharply and always afresh, but it always surprised her. At times, when his simplicity and enthusiasm were most in evidence, she welcomed in herself a rush of tenderness for him.

His frequent demonstrations of affection she accepted with a sort of passive pleasure, as might an affectionate child, but she dwelt little on the subject of outer demonstrations in her own thoughts, aware that Nicholas, disappointed, had at first thought her unawakened, and then frigid.

There were many thoughts, indeed, upon which she lacked courage to dwell in her resolute suppression of the lurking consciousness of an irrevocable mistake.

She hoped that she might have a child, and then, forlornly, that repeated disappointment and anxiety might not alienate Nicholas's love for her, which she knew subconsciously, to be the thing in him that she cared for most.

Nearly four years after her marriage she had a long illness, and once more the hope of motherhood was taken from her.

"Poor child!" said Nicholas, much harassed.

He was very busy, and it distressed him to think of the many hours that he was out of the house.

"That nurse is no companion for you--stupid, uneducated woman. I wish we could get hold of a younger one. Or is there anyone whom you'd like to have, little girl? What about one of the Hardinges?"

"No, thank you," said Lily wearily. She did not want Janet or Sylvia with her. "I think I'd rather be alone. I'm so tired--and nurse is really very kind."

But Nicholas was not satisfied. To please him, Lily made pretence that she would like to invite Miss Stellenthorpe to stay with her, and was secretly relieved when Aunt Clo, in the minute handwriting described by herself as "scholarly," wrote and lamented that she could not leave Italy for another six weeks.

* * * * *

"Alas, _Bambina mia_, that I should not be able to fly to you! But there is one here who needs me--a sick, broken creature, whose bruised soul requires patience and tenderness. Yours, my Lily, is a sickness of the body. This other has been deeply, cruelly, wounded in the spirit. Can I, who have plumbed the very depths, refuse to give of my healing, such as it may be?

"But courage, little one! I will fly to you when once this frail craft has been piloted into safe harbour. Ah, these conflicting claims! Are they the penalty exacted of Strength, I ask myself? I smiled with a great tenderness, my Lily, at your enclosure, and the many words in which you wrapped the offering. These things matter so little! Nevertheless, you know that I have denuded myself of much, and I accept, with willing and gracious thanks, your so charming thought. It matters little to me how I travel to you, but an you will it to be in the luxury of a _wagon-lit_, so be it!

"In six weeks, then, my beloved child."

* * * * *

There was never any formal beginning to Aunt Clo's letters, and her signature, launched abruptly onto the page with no conventional valedictory phrase, was a complicated hieroglyphic of initials, understood to be characteristic.

"What a splendid person she is," Nicholas remarked, as he did with punctuality whenever Miss Stellenthorpe was mentioned, "always helping somebody. Helping lame dogs over stiles, eh?"

Lily did not answer, and he repeated: "Eh, Lily?"

It was one of the tiring things about Nicholas that he always required a reply to everything that he said, however obvious.

"Yes."

"But all the same, charity begins at home. Shall we write and tell her so, eh?"

"She'll come in six weeks," said Lily, smiling without any mirth, conscious only of overpowering fatigue.

"Six weeks! I should like to think of something for you before that, my dear."

Two days later, Nicholas came to her exultant. "The very thing! I've got the very thing for you--splendid!"

Lily tried not to look dismayed.

"Somehow, I thought I shouldn't be defeated. Once I set out to do something, it generally gets done, I fancy!" He paused to laugh.

"Do you remember old Dickenson, Lily? Nice old boy, with a long family. I met him yesterday and he was telling me about his eldest girl--quite a handsome girl too, I remember her as a flapper. It seems she went off and trained as a hospital nurse. Plucky of her, wasn't it? There were half a dozen of them at home, and no money, and this girl didn't get on particularly well with the rest of them, for some reason, so off she goes. Dickenson was telling me, they thought she'd never get through her training--they give them a very stiff time, I fancy, but she stuck it and came through splendidly. She's at home now, I don't quite know what happened, but she was going to be married, and then it was broken off. I didn't ask for details, naturally. But there she is, a handsome wench, and fully trained, and she must be a plucky girl, too. Dickenson says she's eager for a job. You'd like her, Lily, and she'd be more of a companion for you than old Stick-in-the-mud. What about having her here?"

"As a nurse?"

"The doctor's all for it. Stick-in-the-mud's time is up in about a week anyway, isn't it? and he says you don't really want very much done for you now--only someone at hand. No night-nursing. How'd it do to get Miss Dickenson here till your aunt comes? She'd stay with us as a sort of friend, you know."

The eagerness of Nicholas for his plan was very evident.

"Have you seen her, Nicholas?"

"Not since she was a flapper. I remember her as a very attractive child. I think she must be a plucky girl, too, to have gone off like that," said Nicholas, dwelling reflectively upon his catchword. "Plucky thing for a girl to do."

He reiterated the verdict again, with greater emphasis, after seeking an interview with Miss Dickenson.

"By George, Lily, you'll like that girl. She's a girl of spirit, quite good-looking, too. I know you'll get on together."

The complete conviction of his tone was almost infectious, especially as Lily thought it disloyal to let herself remember how frequently her estimate of other people had failed to coincide with that of her husband.

Nicholas rather elaborately urged his case.

"You mustn't think I want to force this idea of mine upon you, on any account. But it would ease my mind about you, when I have to be away all day. She's a lively sort of girl, full of spirit, and I don't fancy she has much of a time at home. They're shockingly badly off, too, and no doubt it would be a relief--however, that's not the point. But I think you'd like a girl of your own kind about the house, wouldn't you? Less professional than a regular nurse, and yet just as useful. She was most eager about doing anything for you--there'd be no nonsense about her."

"It would be more amusing for you in the evenings, after dinner," said Lily reflectively.

He looked vexed.

"That has nothing whatever to do with it, my dear. If you think I'm urging this idea with a view to my own----"

"No, no," cried Lily hastily.

In her weakness, she felt the tears rising to her throat at the mere apprehension of having offended him, or appeared to be ungrateful.

"I should really like it for my own sake, Nicholas. She sounds very nice indeed. Why shouldn't she come next week and stay till Aunt Clo comes?"

"That's entirely as you wish. It's for you to decide."

He still spoke with the ultra-gravity of tone that denoted that his curiously childish susceptibilities had been touched.

"It's a splendid idea," said Lily with a trembling lip. "I'd like to have her very much. It was very clever of you to think of it, Nicholas."

With disproportionate relief, she saw his expression relax.

"That's good, then. I'll arrange it to-morrow. I thought I'd find something for you, poor old girl! I generally hit on something when I've made up my mind to it, eh? You'll like Doris Dickenson, Lily, she's a plucky girl, and I don't fancy she's had too easy a time of it. I know pretty well whom you'll cotton to by this time, eh?"

"Yes, indeed," said Lily.

She was no more conscious of hypocrisy than if she had been humouring the boast that a child standing on a table, might make of being taller than a grown man.

The susceptibility of her husband to feminine beauty was to Lily so much of a commonplace that her first sight of the object of his new enthusiasm surprised her quite unexpectedly.

Doris Dickenson belonged to the type of woman whose unfailing attraction for men remains for ever incomprehensible to her own sex.

Lily did not think her colourless, freckled, and rather heavy face in the least good-looking, her blue-green eyes were almost without lashes, her plump hands, with fingers broad at the base and tapering sharply to a point, were over-manicured. She was both tall and heavily made, although she moved well, and the only claim to beauty that Lily could allow her was the flaming colour of her coarse, abundant red hair.

"It makes a difference having her, eh?" said Nicholas contentedly.

It made a great difference.

Lily wondered very much whether anyone had ever considered Doris Dickenson to be a good nurse. She had the typical faults of the professional, and but little of her conscientiousness and enthusiasm for her work.

Lily, more than ever deficient in self-confidence through physical weakness, wondered despairingly whether it was entirely her own fault that she sometimes found Miss Dickenson almost unbearable. Was she, as Nicholas often said, hypercritical?

Things unimportant in themselves assumed monstrous proportions and took possession of her mind. Amongst them were small characteristics of Doris Dickenson.

Her flow of incessant talk, concerned almost exclusively with herself, her experiences, her relations, and her love-affairs.

The recurrence in her conversation of the particular adverb or adjective that momentarily obsessed her, regardless of its applicability.

"How devastating!" she would drawl, of a broken wine-glass, a thunderstorm, a new novel. Even a bunch of flowers was "devastatingly pretty." But the following week, the events of the hour were all "preposterous," and the word was introduced into her conversation in every impossible connection, until a fresh adjective appeared to replace it.

She also possessed to perfection the trick of the meaningless tag--of all others perhaps the most characteristic of the second-rate mind.

"Here's your medicine. I say, why do you look like that?"

And, very frequently:

"Don't say it in such a tragic voice! What makes you say it like that?"

Lily at first made futile efforts to find a reasonable answer to the bewildering senselessness of such enquiries.

But she found that Doris never listened to an answer, never appeared to expect one.

Lily came to the conclusion that "Why do you look like that?" was merely meant as a concession to the conventionalities, a hasty passing assumption of an interest in her welfare, that could not even carry its pretence through to the end.

Lily grew more and more weary, and wondered why she lacked moral courage to tell Nicholas that his experiment was not proving successful. That he would never perceive it without being told, she took for granted.

Nicholas lacked neither generosity nor tenderness towards his wife, and she took herself bitterly to task for the involuntary disappointment that possessed her in her constant perception of his lack of intuition.