Chapter III: Part 3

And now she has carried the baby to bed. I hear her soft, deliberate steps moving between the dining-room and the kitchen, there and back again, to the tune of the clattering dishes. And now all is quiet. What is happening now? Oh, I know just as surely as if I’d gone to see—she is standing in the middle of the kitchen facing the rainy window. Her head is bent, with one finger she is tracing something—nothing—on the table. It is cold in the kitchen; the gas jumps; the tap drips; it’s a forlorn picture. And nobody is going to come behind her, to take her in his arms, to kiss her soft hair, to lead her to the fire and to rub her hands warm again. Nobody is going to call her or to wonder what she is doing out there. And she knows it. And yet, being a woman, deep down, deep down, she really does expect the miracle to happen; she really could embrace that dark, dark deceit, rather than live—like this.

§

To live like this.... I write those words, very carefully, very beautifully. For some reason I feel inclined to sign them, or to write underneath—Trying a New Pen. But seriously, isn’t it staggering to think what may be contained in one innocent-looking little phrase? It tempts me—it tempts me terribly. Scene. The supper-table. My wife has just handed me my tea. I stir it, lift the spoon, idly chase and then carefully capture a speck of tea-leaf, and having brought it ashore, I murmur, quite gently, “How long shall we continue to live—like—this?” And immediately there is that famous “blinding flash and deafening roar. Huge pieces of débris (I must say I like débris) are flung into the air ... and when the dark clouds of smoke have drifted away....” But this will never happen; I shall never know it. It will be found upon me “intact” as they say. “Open my heart and you will see....”

Why? Ah, there you have me! There is the most difficult question of all to answer. Why do people stay together? Putting aside “for the sake of the children,” and “the habit of years” and “economic reasons” as lawyers’ nonsense—it’s not much more—if one really does try to find out why it is that people don’t leave each other, one discovers a mystery. It is because they can’t; they are bound. And nobody on earth knows what are the bonds that bind them except those two. Am I being obscure? Well, the thing itself isn’t so frightfully crystal clear, is it? Let me put it like this. Supposing you are taken, absolutely, first into his confidence and then into hers. Supposing you know all there is to know about the situation. And having given it not only your deepest sympathy but your most honest impartial criticism, you declare, very calmly, (but not without the slightest suggestion of relish—for there is—I swear there is—in the very best of us—something that leaps up and cries “A-ahh!” for joy at the thought of destroying), “Well, my opinion is that you two people ought to part. You’ll do no earthly good together. Indeed, it seems to me, it’s the duty of either to set the other free.” What happens then? He—and she—agree. It is their conviction too. You are only saying what they have been thinking all last night. And away they go to act on your advice, immediately.... And the next time you hear of them they are still together. You see—you’ve reckoned without the unknown quantity—which is their secret relation to each other—and that they can’t disclose even if they want to. Thus far you may tell and no further. Oh, don’t misunderstand me! It need not necessarily have anything to do with their sleeping together.... But this brings me to a thought I’ve often half entertained. Which is that human beings, as we know them, don’t choose each other at all. It is the owner, the second self inhabiting them, who makes the choice for his own particular purposes, and—this may sound absurdly far-fetched—it’s the second self in the other which responds. Dimly—dimly—or so it has seemed to me—we realize this, at any rate to the extent that we realize the hopelessness of trying to escape. So that, what it all amounts to is—if the impermanent selves of my wife and me are happy—_tant mieux pour nous_—if miserable—_tant pis_.... But I don’t know, I don’t know. And it may be that it’s something entirely individual in me—this sensation (yes, it is even a sensation) of how extraordinarily _shell-like_ we are as we are—little creatures, peering out of the sentry-box at the gate, ogling through our glass case at the entry, wan little servants, who never can say for certain, even, if the master is out or in....

The door opens.... My wife. She says, “I am going to bed.”

And I look up vaguely, and vaguely say, “You are going to bed.”

“Yes.” A tiny pause. “Don’t forget—will you?—to turn out the gas in the hall.”

And again I repeat, “The gas in the hall.”

There was a time—the time before—when this habit of mine—it really has become a habit now—it wasn’t one then—was one of our sweetest jokes together. It began, of course, when on several occasions I really was deeply engaged and I didn’t hear. I emerged only to see her shaking her head and laughing at me, “You haven’t heard a word!”

“No. What did you say?”

Why should she think that so funny and charming? She did; it delighted her. “Oh, my darling, it’s so like you! It’s so—so—” And I knew she loved me for it. I knew she positively looked forward to coming in and disturbing me, and so—as one does—I played up. I was guaranteed to be wrapped away every evening at 10.30 p.m. But now? For some reason I feel it would be crude to stop my performance. It’s simplest to play on. But what is she waiting for to-night? Why doesn’t she go? Why prolong this? She is going. No, her hand on the door-knob, she turns round again, and she says in the most curious, small, breathless voice, “You’re not cold?”

Oh, it’s not fair to be as pathetic as that! That was simply damnable. I shuddered all over before I managed to bring out a slow “No-o!” while my left hand ruffles the reference pages.

She is gone; she will not come back again to-night. It is not only I who recognize that; the room changes too. It relaxes, like an old actor. Slowly the mask is rubbed off; the look of strained attention changes to an air of heavy sullen brooding. Every line, every fold breathes fatigue. The mirror is quenched; the ash whitens; only my sly lamp burns on.... But what a cynical indifference to me it all shows! Or should I perhaps be flattered? No, we understand each other. You know those stories of little children who are suckled by wolves and accepted by the tribe, and how for ever after they move freely among their fleet, grey brothers? Something like that has happened to me. But wait! That about the wolves won’t do. Curious! Before I wrote it down, while it was still in my head, I was delighted with it. It seemed to express, and more, to suggest, just what I wanted to say. But written, I can smell the falseness immediately and the ... source of the smell is in that word fleet. Don’t you agree? Fleet, grey brothers! “Fleet.” A word I never use. When I wrote “wolves” it skimmed across my mind like a shadow and I couldn’t resist it. Tell me! Tell me! Why is it so difficult to write simply—and not only simply but _sotto voce_, if you know what I mean? That is how I long to write. No fine effects—no bravura. But just the plain truth, as only a liar can tell it.

§

I light a cigarette, lean back, inhale deeply—and find myself wondering if my wife is asleep. Or is she lying in her cold bed, staring into the dark, with those trustful, bewildered eyes? Her eyes are like the eyes of a cow that is being driven along a road. “Why am I being driven—what harm have I done?” But I really am not responsible for that look; it’s her natural expression. One day, when she was turning out a cupboard, she found a little old photograph of herself, taken when she was a girl at school. In her confirmation dress, she explained. And there were the eyes, even then. I remember saying to her, “Did you always look so sad?” Leaning over my shoulder, she laughed lightly, “Do I look sad? I think it’s just ... me.” And she waited for me to say something about it. But I was marvelling at her courage at having shown it to me at all. It was a hideous photograph! And I wondered again if she realized how plain she was, and comforted herself with the idea that people who loved each other didn’t criticize but accepted everything, or if she really rather liked her appearance and expected me to say something complimentary.

Oh, that was base of me! How could I have forgotten all the numberless times when I have known her to turn away to avoid the light, press her face into my shoulders. And, above all, how could I have forgotten the afternoon of our wedding day when we sat on the green bench in the Botanical Gardens and listened to the band, how, in an interval between two pieces, she suddenly turned to me and said in the voice in which one says, “Do you think the grass is damp?” or “Do you think it’s time for tea?” ... “Tell me, do you think physical beauty is so very important?” I don’t like to think how often she had rehearsed that question. And do you know what I answered? At that moment, as if at my command there came a great gush of hard, bright sound from the band, and I managed to shout above it cheerfully, “I didn’t hear what you said.” Devilish! Wasn’t it? Perhaps not wholly. She looked like the poor patient who hears the surgeon say, “It will certainly be necessary to perform the operation—but not now!”

§

But all this conveys the impression that my wife and I were never really happy together. Not true! Not true! We were marvellously, radiantly happy. We were a model couple. If you had seen us together, any time, any place, if you had followed us, tracked us down, spied, taken us off our guard, you still would have been forced to confess, “I have never seen a more ideally suited pair.” Until last autumn.

But really to explain what happened then I should have to go back and back, I should have to dwindle until my two hands clutched the banisters, the stair-rail was higher than my head, and I peered through to watch my father padding softly up and down. There were coloured windows on the landings. As he came up, first his bald head was scarlet; then it was yellow. How frightened I was! And when they put me to bed, it was to dream that we were living inside one of my father’s big coloured bottles. For he was a chemist. I was born nine years after my parents were married. I was an only child, and the effect to produce even me—small, withered bud I must have been—sapped all my mother’s strength. She never left the room again. Bed, sofa, window, she moved between the three. Well I can see her, on the window days, sitting, her cheek in her hand, staring out. Her room looked over the street. Opposite there was a wall plastered with advertisements for travelling shows and circuses and so on. I stand beside her, and we gaze at the slim lady in a red dress hitting a dark gentleman over the head with a parasol, or at the tiger peering through the jungle while the clown, close by, balances a bottle on his nose, or at a little golden-haired girl sitting on the knee of an old black man in a broad cotton hat.... She says nothing. On sofa days there is a flannel dressing gown that I loathe, and a cushion that keeps on slipping off the hard sofa. I pick it up. It has flowers and writing sewn on. I ask what the writing says, and she whispers, “Sweet Repose!” In bed her fingers plait, in tight little plaits, the fringe of the quilt, and her lips are thin. And that is all there is of my mother, except the last queer “episode” that comes later.

My father.... Curled up in the corner on the lid of a round box that held sponges, I stared at my father so long, it’s as though his image, cut off at the waist by the counter, has remained solid in my memory. Perfectly bald, polished head, shaped like a thin egg, creased, creamy cheeks, little bags under his eyes, large pale ears like handles. His manner was discreet, sly, faintly amused and tinged with impudence. Long before I could appreciate it, I knew the mixture.... I even used to copy him in my corner, bending forward, with a small reproduction of his faint sneer. In the evening his customers were, chiefly, young women; some of them came in every day for his famous five-penny pick-me-up. Their gaudy looks, their voices, their free ways, fascinated me. I longed to be my father, handing them across the counter the little glass of bluish stuff they tossed off so greedily. God knows what it was made of. Years after I drank some, just to see what it tasted like, and I felt as though someone had given me a terrific blow on the head; I felt stunned.

One of those evenings I remember vividly. It was cold; it must have been autumn, for the flaring gas was lighted after my tea. I sat in my corner and my father was mixing something; the shop was empty. Suddenly the bell jangled and a young woman rushed in, crying so loud, sobbing so hard, that it didn’t sound real. She wore a green cape trimmed with fur and a hat with cherries dangling. My father came from behind the screen. But she didn’t stop herself at first. She stood in the middle of the shop and wrung her hands and moaned; I’ve never heard such crying since. Presently she managed to gasp out, “Give me a pick-me-up!” Then she drew a long breath, trembled away from him and quavered, “I’ve had _bad news_!” And in the flaring gaslight I saw the whole side of her face was puffed up and purple; her lip was cut, and her eyelid looked as though it was gummed fast over the wet eye. My father pushed the glass across the counter, and she took the purse out of her stocking and paid him. But she couldn’t drink; clutching the glass, she stared in front of her as if she could not believe what she saw. Each time she put her head back the tears spurted out again. Finally she put the glass down. It was no use. Holding the cape with one hand, she ran in the same way out of the shop again. My father gave no sign. But long after she had gone I crouched in my corner, and when I think back it’s as though I felt my whole body vibrating—“So that’s what it is outside,” I thought. “That’s what it’s like out there.”

§

Do you remember your childhood? I am always coming across these marvellous accounts by writers who declare that they remember “everything.” I certainly don’t. The dark stretches, the blanks, are much bigger than the bright glimpses. I seem to have spent most of my time like a plant in a cupboard. Now and again, when the sun shone, a careless hand thrust me out on the window-sill, and a careless hand whipped me in again—and that was all. But what happened in the darkness—I wonder? Did one grow? pale stem ... timid leaves ... white reluctant bud. No wonder I was hated at school. Even the masters shrank from me. I somehow knew that my soft hesitating voice disgusted them. I knew, too, how they turned away from my shocked, staring eyes. I was small and thin, and I smelled of the shop; my nickname was Gregory Powder. School was a tin building, stuck on the raw hillside. There were dark red streaks like blood in the oozing clay banks of the playground. I hide in the dark passage, where the coats hang, and am discovered there by one of the masters. “What are you doing there in the dark?” His terrible voice kills me; I die before his eyes. I am standing in a ring of thrust-out heads; some are grinning, some look greedy, some are spitting. And it is always cold. Big crushed-up clouds press across the sky; the rusty water in the school tank is frozen; the bell sounds numb. One day they put a dead bird in my overcoat pocket. I found it just when I reached home. Oh, what a strange flutter there was at my heart when I drew out that terribly soft, cold little body, with the legs thin as pins and the claws wrung. I sat on the back door step in the yard and put the bird in my cap. The feathers round the neck looked wet, and there was a tiny tuft just above the closed eyes that stood up too. How tightly the beak was shut! I could not see the mark where it was divided. I stretched out one wing and touched the soft, secret down underneath; I tried to make the claws curl round my little finger. But I didn’t feel sorry for it—no! I wondered. The smoke from our kitchen chimney poured downwards, and flakes of soot floated—soft, light in the air. Through a big crack in the cement yard a poor-looking plant with dull, reddish flowers had pushed its way. I looked at the dead bird again.... And that is the first time that I remember singing—rather ... listening to a silent voice inside a little cage that was me.

§

But what has all this to do with my married happiness? How can all this affect my wife and me? Why—to tell what happened last autumn—do I run all this way back into the Past? The Past—what is the Past? I might say the star-shaped flake of soot on a leaf of the poor-looking plant, and the bird lying on the quilted lining of my cap, and my father’s pestle and my mother’s cushion belong to it. But that is not to say they are any less mine than they were when I looked upon them with my very eyes, and touched them with these fingers. No, they are more; they are a living part of me. Who am I, in fact, as I sit here at this table, but my own past? If I deny that, I am nothing. And if I were to try to divide my life into childhood, youth, early manhood and so on, it would be a kind of affectation; I should know I was doing it just because of the pleasantly important sensation it gives one to rule lines, and to use green ink for childhood, red for the next stage, and purple for the period of adolescence. For one thing I have learnt, one thing I do believe is, Nothing Happens Suddenly. Yes, that is my religion, I suppose.

My mother’s death, for instance. Is it more distant from me today than it was then? It is just as close, as strange, as puzzling, and in spite of all the countless times I have recalled the circumstances, I know no more now than I did then, whether I dreamed them, or whether they really occurred. It happened when I was thirteen and I slept in a little strip of a room on what was called the half-landing. One night I woke up with a start to see my mother, in her night-gown, without even the hated flannel dressing-gown, sitting on my bed. But the strange thing which frightened me was, she wasn’t looking at me. Her head was bent; the short, thin tail of hair lay between her shoulders; her hands were pressed between her knees, and my bed shook; she was shivering. It was the first time I had ever seen her out of her own room. I said, or I think I said, “Is that you, Mother?” And as she turned round, I saw in the moonlight how queer she looked. Her face looked small—quite different. She looked like one of the boys at the school baths, who sits on a step, shivering just like that, and wants to go in and yet is frightened.

“Are you awake?” she said. Her eyes opened; I think she smiled. She leaned towards me. “I’ve been poisoned,” she whispered. “Your father’s poisoned me.” And she nodded. Then, before I could say a word, she was gone; I thought I heard the door shut. I sat quite still, I couldn’t move, I think I expected something else to happen. For a long time I listened for something; there wasn’t a sound. The candle was by my bed, but I was too frightened to stretch out my hand for the matches. But even while I wondered what I ought to do, even while my heart thumped—everything became confused. I lay down and pulled the blankets round me. I fell asleep, and the next morning my mother was found dead of failure of the heart.

Did that visit happen? Was it a dream? Why did she come to tell me? Or why, if she came, did she go away so quickly? And her expression—so joyous under the frightened look—was that real? I believed it fully the afternoon of the funeral, when I saw my father dressed up for his part, hat and all. That tall hat so gleaming black and round was like a cork covered with black sealing-wax, and the rest of my father was awfully like a bottle, with his face for the label—_Deadly Poison_. It flashed into my mind as I stood opposite him in the hall. And Deadly Poison, or old D. P., was my private name for him from that day.

§

Late, it grows late. I love the night. I love to feel the tide of darkness rising, slowly and slowly washing, turning over and over, lifting, floating, all that lies strewn upon the dark beach, all that lies hid in rocky hollows. I love, I love this strange feeling of drifting—whither? After my mother’s death I hated to go to bed. I used to sit on the window-sill, folded up, and watch the sky. It seemed to me the moon moved much faster than the sun. And one big, bright green star I chose for my own. My star! But I never thought of it beckoning to me, or twinkling merrily for my sake. Cruel, indifferent, splendid—it burned in the airy night. No matter—it was mine! But, growing close up against the window, there was a creeper with small, bunched-up pink and purple flowers. These did know me. These, when I touched them at night, welcomed my fingers; the little tendrils, so weak, so delicate, knew I would not hurt them. When the wind moved the leaves I felt I understood their shaking. When I came to the window, it seemed to me the flowers said among themselves, “The boy is here.”

As the months passed, there was often a light in my father’s room below. And I heard voices and laughter. “He’s got some woman with him,” I thought. But it meant nothing to me. Then the gay voice, the sound of laughter, gave me the idea it was one of the girls who used to come to the shop in the evenings—and gradually I began to imagine which girl it was. It was the dark one in the red coat and skirt, who once had given me a penny. A merry face stooped over me—warm breath tickled my neck—there were little beads of black on her long lashes, and when she opened her arms to kiss me, there came a marvellous wave of scent! Yes, that was the one.

Time passed, and I forgot the moon and my green star and my shy creeper—I came to the window to wait for the light in my father’s window, to listen for the laughing voice, until one night I dozed and I dreamed she came again—again she drew me to her, something soft, scented, warm and merry hung over me like a cloud. But when I tried to see, her eyes only mocked me, her red lips opened and she hissed, “Little sneak! Little sneak!” But not as if she were angry,—as if she understood, and her smile somehow was like a rat—hateful!

The night after, I lighted the candle and sat down at the table instead. By and by, as the flame steadied, there was a small lake of liquid wax, surrounded by a white, smooth wall. I took a pin and made little holes in this wall and then sealed them up faster than the wax could escape. After a time I fancied the candle flame joined in the game; it leapt up, quivered, wagged; it even seemed to laugh. But while I played with the candle and smiled and broke off the tiny white peaks of wax that rose above the wall and floated them on my lake, a feeling of awful dreariness fastened on me—yes, that’s the word. It crept up from my knees to my thighs, into my arms; I ached all with misery. And I felt so strangely that I couldn’t move. Something bound me there by the table—I couldn’t even let the pin drop that I held between my finger and thumb. For a moment I came to a stop, as it were.

Then the shrivelled case of the bud split and fell, the plant in the cupboard came into flower. “Who am I?” I thought. “What is all this?” And I looked at my room, at the broken bust of the man called Hahnemann on top of the cupboard, at my little bed with the pillow like an envelope. I saw it all, but not as I had seen before.... Everything lived, everything. But that was not all. I was equally alive and—it’s the only way I can express it—the barriers were down between us—I had come into my own world!

§

The barriers were down. I had been all my life a little outcast; but until that moment no one had “accepted” me; I had lain in the cupboard—or the cave forlorn. But now I was taken, I was accepted, claimed. I did not consciously turn away from the world of human beings; I had never known it; but I from that night did beyond words consciously turn towards my silent brothers....

THE DOVES’ NEST

After lunch Milly and her mother were sitting as usual on the balcony beyond the salon, admiring for the five hundredth time the stocks, the roses, the small, bright grass beneath the palms, and the oranges against a wavy line of blue, when a card was brought them by Marie. Visitors at the Villa Martin were very rare. True, the English clergyman, Mr. Sandiman, had called, and he had come a second time with his wife to tea. But an awful thing had happened on that second occasion. Mother had made a mistake. She had said “More tea, Mr. Sandybags?” Oh, what a frightful thing to have happened! How could she have done it? Milly still flamed at the thought. And he had evidently not forgiven them; he’d never come again. So this card put them both into a flutter.

_Mr. Walter Prodger_, they read. And then an American address, so very much abbreviated that neither of them understood it. Walter Prodger? But they’d never heard of him. Mother looked from the card to Milly.

“Prodger, dear?” she asked mildly, as though helping Milly to a slice of a never-before-tasted pudding.

And Milly seemed to be holding her plate back in the way she answered “I—don’t—know, Mother.”

“These are the occasions,” said Mother, becoming a little flustered, “when one does so feel the need of our dear English servants. Now if I could just say, ‘What is he like, Annie?’ I should know whether to see him or not. But he may be some common man, selling something—one of those American inventions for peeling things, you know, dear. Or he may even be some kind of foreign sharper.” Mother winced at the hard, bright little word as though she had given herself a dig with her embroidery scissors.

But here Marie smiled at Milly and murmured “C’est un très beau Monsieur.”

“What does she say, dear?”

“She says he looks very nice, Mother.”

“Well, we’d better——” began Mother. “Where is he now I wonder.”

Marie answered “In the vestibule, Madame.”

In the hall! Mother jumped up, seriously alarmed. In the hall, with all those valuable little foreign things that didn’t belong to them scattered over the tables.

“Show him in, Marie. Come, Milly, come dear. We will see him in the salon. Oh, why isn’t Miss Anderson here?” almost wailed Mother.

But Miss Anderson, Mother’s new companion, never was on the spot when she was wanted. She had been engaged to be a comfort, a support to them both. Fond of travelling, a cheerful disposition, a good packer and so on. And then, when they had come all this way and taken the Villa Martin and moved in, she had turned out to be a Roman Catholic. Half her time, more than half, was spent wearing out the knees of her skirts in cold churches. It was really too....

The door opened. A middle-aged clean-shaven, very well dressed stranger stood bowing before them. His bow was stately. Milly saw it pleased Mother very much; she bowed her Queen Alexandra bow back. As for Milly, she never could bow. She smiled, feeling shy, but deeply interested.

“Have I the pleasure,” said the stranger very courteously, with a strong American accent, “of speaking with Mrs. Wyndham Fawcett?”

“I am Mrs. Fawcett,” said Mother, graciously, “and this is my daughter, Mildred.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Fawcett.” And the stranger shot a fresh, chill hand at Milly, who grasped it just in time before it was gone again.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Mother, and she waved faintly at all the gilt chairs.

“Thank you, I will,” said the stranger.

Down he sat, still solemn, crossing his legs, and, most surprisingly, his arms as well. His face looked at them over his dark arms as over a gate.

“Milly, sit down, dear.”

So Milly sat down, too, on the Madame Recamier couch, and traced a filet lace flower with her finger. There was a little pause. She saw the stranger swallow; Mother’s fan opened and shut.

Then he said “I took the liberty of calling, Mrs. Fawcett, because had the pleasure of your husband’s acquaintance in the States when he was lecturing there some years ago. I should like very much to renoo our—well—I venture to hope we might call it friendship. Is he with you at present? Are you expecting him out? I noticed his name was not mentioned in the local paper. But I put that down to a foreign custom, perhaps—giving precedence to the lady.”

And here the stranger looked as though he might be going to smile.

But as a matter of fact it was extremely awkward. Mother’s mouth shook. Milly squeezed her hands between her knees, but she watched hard from under her eyebrows. Good, noble little Mummy! How Milly admired her as she heard her say, gently and quite simply, “I am sorry to say my husband died two years ago.”

Mr. Prodger gave a great start. “Did he?” He thrust out his under lip, frowned, pondered. “I am truly sorry to hear that, Mrs. Fawcett. I hope you’ll believe me when I say I had no idea your husband had ... passed over.”

“Of course.” Mother softly stroked her skirt.

“I do trust,” said Mr. Prodger, more seriously still, “that my inquiry didn’t give you too much pain.”

“No, no. It’s quite all right,” said the gentle voice.

But Mr. Prodger insisted. “You’re sure? You’re positive?”

At that Mother raised her head and gave him one of her still, bright, exalted glances that Milly knew so well. “I’m not in the least hurt,” she said, as one might say it from the midst of the fiery furnace.

Mr. Prodger looked relieved. He changed his attitude and continued. “I hope this regrettable circumstance will not deprive me of your——”

“Oh, certainly not. We shall be delighted. We are always so pleased to know any one who——” Mother gave a little bound, a little flutter. She flew from her shadowy branch on to a sunny one. “Is this your first visit to the Riviera?”

“It is,” said Mr. Prodger. “The fact is I was in Florence until recently. But I took a heavy cold there——”

“Florence so damp,” cooed Mother.

“And the doctor recommended I should come here for the sunshine before I started for home.”

“The sun is so very lovely here,” agreed Mother, enthusiastically.

“Well, I don’t think we get too much of it,” said Mr. Prodger, dubiously, and two lines showed at his lips. “I seem to have been sitting around in my hotel more days than I care to count.”

“Ah, hotels are so very trying,” said Mother, and she drooped sympathetically at the thought of a lonely man in an hotel.... “You are alone here?” she asked, gently, just in case ... one never knew ... it was better to be on the safe, the tactful side.

But her fears were groundless.

“Oh, yes, I’m alone,” cried Mr. Prodger, more heartily than he had spoken yet, and he took a speck of thread off his immaculate trouser leg. Something in his voice puzzled Milly. What was it?

“Still, the scenery is so very beautiful,” said Mother, “that one really does not feel the need of friends. I was only saying to my daughter yesterday I could live here for years without going outside the garden gate. It is all so beautiful.”

“Is that so?” said Mr. Prodger, soberly. He added, “You have a very charming villa.” And he glanced round the salon. “Is all this antique furniture genuine, may I ask?”

“I believe so,” said Mother. “I was certainly given to understand it was. Yes, we love our villa. But of course it is very large for two, that is to say three, ladies. My companion, Miss Anderson, is with us. But unfortunately she is a Roman Catholic, and so she is out most of the time.”

Mr. Prodger bowed as one who agreed that Roman Catholics were very seldom in.

“But I am so fond of space,” continued Mother, “and so is my daughter. We both love large rooms and plenty of them—don’t we, Milly?”

This time Mr. Prodger looked at Milly quite cordially and remarked, “Yes, young people like plenty of room to run about.”

He got up, put one hand behind his back, slapped the other upon it and went over to the balcony.

“You’ve a view of the sea from here,” he observed.

The ladies might well have noticed it; the whole Mediterranean swung before the windows.

“We are so fond of the sea,” said Mother, getting up, too.

Mr. Prodger looked towards Milly. “Do you see those yachts, Miss Fawcett?”

Milly saw them.

“Do you happen to know what they’re doing?” asked Mr. Prodger.

What they were doing? What a funny question! Milly stared and bit her lip.

“They’re racing!” said Mr. Prodger, and this time he did actually smile at her.

“Oh, yes, of course,” stammered Milly. “Of course they are.” She knew that.

“Well, they’re not always at it,” said Mr. Prodger, good-humouredly. And he turned to Mother and began to take a ceremonious farewell.

“I wonder,” hesitated Mother, folding her little hands and eyeing him, “if you would care to lunch with us—if you would not be too dull with two ladies. We should be so very pleased.”

Mr. Prodger became intensely serious again. He seemed to brace himself to meet the luncheon invitation. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Fawcett. I should be delighted.”

“That will be very nice,” said Mother, warmly. “Let me see. Today is Monday—isn’t it, Milly? Would Wednesday suit you?”

Mr. Prodger replied, “It would suit me excellently to lunch with you on Wednesday, Mrs. Fawcett. At _mee-dee_, I presume, as they call it here.”

“Oh, no! We keep our English times. At one o’clock,” said Mother.

And that being arranged, Mr. Prodger became more and more ceremonious and bowed himself out of the room.

Mother rang for Marie to look after him, and a moment later the big glass hall-door shut.

“Well!” said Mother. She was all smiles. Little smiles like butterflies, alighting on her lips and gone again. “That was an adventure, Milly, wasn’t it, dear? And I thought he was such a very charming man, didn’t you?”

Milly made a little face at Mother and rubbed her eye.

“Of course you did. You must have, dear. And his appearance was so satisfactory—wasn’t it?” Mother was obviously enraptured. “I mean he looked so very well kept. Did you notice his hands? Every nail shone like a diamond. I must say I do like to see....”

She broke off. She came over to Milly and patted her big collar straight.

“You do think it was right of me to ask him to lunch—don’t you, dear?” said Mother pathetically.

Mother made her feel so big, so tall. But she was tall. She could pick Mother up in her arms. Sometimes, rare moods came when she did. Swooped on Mother who squeaked like a mouse and even kicked. But not lately. Very seldom now....

“It was so strange,” said Mother. There was the still, bright, exalted glance again. “I suddenly seemed to hear Father say to me ‘Ask him to lunch.’ And then there was some—warning.... I think it was about the wine. But that I didn’t catch—very unfortunately,” she added, mournfully. She put her hand on her breast; she bowed her head. “Father is still so near,” she whispered.

Milly looked out of the window. She hated Mother going on like this. But of course she couldn’t say anything. Out of the window there was the sea and the sunlight silver on the palms, like water dripping from silver oars. Milly felt a yearning—what was it?—it was like a yearning to fly.

But Mother’s voice brought her back to the salon, to the gilt chairs, the gilt couches, sconces, cabinets, the tables with the heavy-sweet flowers, the faded brocade, the pink-spotted Chinese dragons on the mantelpiece and the two Turks’ heads in the fireplace that supported the broad logs.

“I think a leg of lamb would be nice, don’t you, dear?” said Mother. “The lamb is so very small and delicate just now. And men like nothing so much as plain roast meat. Yvonne prepares it so nicely, too, with that little frill of paper lace round the top of the leg. It always reminds me of something—I can’t think what. But it certainly makes it look very attractive indeed.”

§

Wednesday came. And the flutter that Mother and Milly had felt over the visiting card extended to the whole villa. Yes, it was not too much to say that the whole villa thrilled and fluttered at the idea of having a man to lunch. Old, flat-footed Yvonne came waddling back from market with a piece of gorgonzola in so perfect a condition that when she found Marie in the kitchen she flung down her great basket, snatched the morsel up and held it, rustling in its paper, to her quivering bosom.

“J’ai trouvé un morceau de gorgonzola,” she panted, rolling up her eyes as though she invited the heavens themselves to look down upon it. “J’ai un morceau de gorgonzola ici pour un prince, ma fille.” And hissing the word “prr-ince” like lightning, she thrust the morsel under Marie’s nose. Marie, who was a delicate creature, almost swooned at the shock.

“Do you think,” cried Yvonne, scornfully, “that I would ever buy such cheese _pour ces dames_? Never. Never. _Jamais de ma vie._” Her sausage finger wagged before her nose, and she minced in a dreadful imitation of Mother’s French, “We have none of us large appetites, Yvonne. We are very fond of boiled eggs and mashed potatoes and a nice, plain salad. Ah-Bah!” With a snort of contempt she flung away her shawl, rolled up her sleeves, and began unpacking the basket. At the bottom there was a flat bottle which, sighing, she laid aside.

“De quoi pour mes cors,” said she.

And Marie, seizing a bottle of Sauterne and bearing it off to the dining-room murmured, as she shut the kitchen door behind her, “Et voilà pour les cors de Monsieur!”

The dining-room was a large room panelled in dark wood. It had a massive mantelpiece and carved chairs covered in crimson damask. On the heavy, polished table stood an oval glass dish decorated with little gilt swags. This dish, which it was Marie’s duty to keep filled with fresh flowers, fascinated her. The sight of it gave her a _frisson_. It reminded her always, as it lay solitary on the dark expanse, of a little tomb. And one day, passing through the long windows on to the stone terrace and down the steps into the garden she had the happy thought of so arranging the flowers that they would be appropriate to one of the ladies on a future tragic occasion. Her first creation had been terrible. _Tomb of Mademoiselle Anderson_ in black pansies, lily-of-the-valley, and a frill of heliotrope. It gave her a most intense, curious pleasure to hand Miss Anderson the potatoes at lunch, and at the same time to gaze beyond her at her triumph. It was like (_O ciel!_), it was like handing potatoes to a corpse.

The _Tomb of Madame_ was on the contrary almost gay. Foolish little flowers, half yellow, half blue, hung over the edge, wisps of green trailed across, and in the middle there was a large scarlet rose. _Cœur saignant_, Marie had called it. But it did not look in the least like a _cœur saignant_. It looked flushed and cheerful, like Mother emerging from the luxury of a warm bath.

Milly’s, of course, was all white. White stocks, little white rose-buds, with a sprig or two of dark box edging. It was Mother’s favorite.

Poor innocent! Marie, at the sideboard, had to turn her back when she heard Mother exclaim, “Isn’t it pretty, Milly? Isn’t it sweetly pretty? Most artistic. So original.” And she had said to Marie, “C’est très joli, Marie. Très original.”

Marie’s smile was so remarkable that Milly, peeling a tangerine, remarked to Mother, “I don’t think she likes you to admire them. It makes her uncomfortable.”

But today—the glory of her opportunity made Marie feel quite faint as she seized her flower scissors. _Tombeau d’un beau Monsieur._ She was forbidden to cut the orchids that grew round the fountain basin. But what were orchids for if not for such an occasion? Her fingers trembled as the scissors snipped away. They were enough; Marie added two small sprays of palm. And back in the dining-room she had the happy idea of binding the palm together with a twist of gold thread deftly torn off the fringe of the dining-room curtains. The effect was superb. Marie almost seemed to see her _beau Monsieur_, very small, very small, at the bottom of the bowl, in full evening dress with a ribbon across his chest and his ears white as wax.

What surprised Milly, however, was that Miss Anderson should pay any attention to Mr. Prodger’s coming. She rustled to breakfast in her best black silk blouse, her Sunday blouse, with the large, painful-looking crucifix dangling over the front. Milly was alone when Miss Anderson entered the dining-room. This was unfortunate, for she always tried to avoid being left alone with Miss Anderson. She could not say exactly why; it was a feeling. She had the feeling that Miss Anderson might say something about God, or something fearfully intimate. Oh, she would sink through the floor if such a thing happened; she would expire. Supposing she were to say “Milly, do you believe in our Lord?” Heavens! It simply didn’t bear thinking about.

“Good-morning, my dear,” said Miss Anderson, and her fingers, cold, pale, like church candles, touched Milly’s cheeks.

“Good-morning, Miss Anderson. May I give you some coffee?” said Milly, trying to be natural.

“Thank you, dear child,” said Miss Anderson, and laughing her light, nervous laugh, she hooked on her eyeglasses and stared at the basket of rolls. “And is it today that you expect your guest?” she asked.

Now why did she ask that? Why pretend when she knew perfectly well? That was all part of her strangeness. Or was it because she wanted to be friendly? Miss Anderson was more than friendly; she was genial. But there was always this something. Was she spying? People said at school that Roman Catholics spied.... Miss Anderson rustled, rustled about the house like a dead leaf. Now she was on the stairs, now in the upstairs passage. Sometimes, at night, when Milly was feverish, she woke up and heard that rustle outside her door. Was Miss Anderson looking through the keyhole? And one night she actually had the idea that Miss Anderson had bored two holes in the wall above her head and was watching her from there. The feeling was so strong that next time she went into Miss Anderson’s room her eyes flew to the spot. To her horror a large picture hung there. Had it been there before?...

“Guest?” The crisp breakfast roll broke in half at the word.

“Yes, I think it is,” said Milly, vaguely, and her blue, flower-like eyes were raised to Miss Anderson in a vague stare.

“It will make quite a little change in our little party,” said the much-too-pleasant voice. “I confess I miss very much the society of men. I have had such a great deal of it in my life. I think that ladies by themselves are apt to get a little—h’m—h’m....” And helping herself to cherry jam, she spilt it on the cloth.

Milly took a large, childish bite out of her roll. There was nothing to reply to this. But how young Miss Anderson made her feel! She made her want to be naughty, to pour milk over her head or make a noise with a spoon.

“Ladies by themselves,” went on Miss Anderson, who realized none of this, “are very apt to find their interests limited.”

“Why?” said Milly, goaded to reply. People always said that; it sounded most unfair.

“I think,” said Miss Anderson, taking off her eyeglasses and looking a little dim, “it is the absence of political discussion.”

“Oh, politics!” cried Milly, airily. “I hate politics. Father always said——” But here she pulled up short. She crimsoned. She didn’t want to talk about Father to Miss Anderson.

“Oh! Look! Look! A butterfly!” cried Miss Anderson, softly and hastily. “Look, what a darling!” Her own cheeks flushed a slow red at the sight of the darling butterfly fluttering so softly over the glittering table.

That was very nice of Miss Anderson—fearfully nice of her. She must have realized that Milly didn’t want to talk about Father and so she had mentioned the butterfly on purpose. Milly smiled at Miss Anderson as she never had smiled at her before. And she said in her warm, youthful voice, “He is a duck, isn’t he? I love butterflies. I think they are great lambs.”

§

The morning whisked away as foreign mornings do. Mother had half decided to wear her hat at lunch.

“What do you think, Milly? Do you think as head of the house it might be appropriate? On the other hand one does not want to do anything at all extreme.”

“Which do you mean, Mother? Your mushroom or the jampot?”

“Oh, not the jampot, dear.” Mother was quite used to Milly’s name for it. “I somehow don’t feel myself in a hat without a brim. And to tell you the truth I am still not quite certain whether I was wise in buying the jampot. I cannot help the feeling that if I were to meet Father in it he would be a little too surprised. More than once lately,” went on Mother quickly, “I have thought of taking off the trimming, turning in upside down, and making it into a nice little workbag. What do you think, dear? But we must not go into it now, Milly. This is not the moment for such schemes. Come on to the balcony. I have told Marie we shall have coffee there. What about bringing out that big chair with the nice, substantial legs for Mr. Prodger? Men are so fond of nice, substantial.... No, not by yourself, love! Let me help you.”

When the chair was carried out Milly thought it looked exactly like Mr. Prodger. It _was_ Mr. Prodger admiring the view.

“No, don’t sit down on it. You mustn’t,” she cried hastily, as Mother began to subside. She put her arm through Mother’s and drew her back into the salon.

Happily, at that moment there was a rustle and Miss Anderson was upon them. In excellent time, for once. She carried a copy of the _Morning Post_.

“I have been trying to find out from this,” said she, lightly tapping the newspaper with her eyeglasses, “whether Congress is sitting at present. But unfortunately, after reading my copy right through, I happened to glance at the heading and discovered it was five weeks’ old.”

Congress! Would Mr. Prodger expect them to talk about Congress? The idea terrified Mother. Congress! The American parliament, of course, composed of senators—grey-bearded old men in frock coats and turn-down collars, rather like missionaries. But she did not feel at all competent to discuss them.

“I think we had better not be too intellectual,” she suggested, timidly, fearful of disappointing Miss Anderson, but more fearful still of the alternative.

“Still, one likes to be prepared,” said Miss Anderson. And after a pause she added softly, “One never knows.”

Ah, how true that is! One never does. Miss Anderson and Mother seemed both to ponder this truth. They sat silent, with head bent, as though listening to the whisper of the words.

“One never knows,” said the pink-spotted dragons on the mantelpiece and the Turks’ heads pondered. Nothing is known—nothing. Everybody just waits for things to happen as they were waiting there for the stranger who came walking towards them through the sun and shadow under the budding plane trees, or driving, perhaps, in one of the small, cotton-covered cabs.... An angel passed over the Villa Martin. In that moment of hovering silence something beseeching seemed to lift, seemed to offer itself, as the flowers in the salon, uplifted, gave themselves to the light.

Then Mother said, “I hope Mr. Prodger will not find the scent of the mimosa too powerful. Men are not fond of flowers in a room as a rule. I have heard it causes actual hay-fever in some cases. What do you think, Milly? Ought we perhaps——” But there was no time to do anything. A long firm trill sounded from the hall door. It was a trill so calm and composed and unlike the tentative little push they gave the bell that it brought them back to the seriousness of the moment. They heard a man’s voice; the door clicked and shut again. He was inside. A stick rattled on the table. There was a pause, and then the door handle of the salon turned and Marie, in frilled muslin cuffs and an apron shaped like a heart, ushered in Mr. Prodger.

Only Mr. Prodger after all? But whom had Milly expected to see? The feeling was there and gone again that she would not have been surprised to see somebody quite different, before she realized this wasn’t quite the same Mr. Prodger as before. He was smarter than ever; all brushed, combed, shining. The ears that Marie had seen white as wax flashed as if they had been pink enamelled. Mother fluttered up in her pretty little way, so hoping he had not found the heat of the day too trying to be out in ... but happily it was a little early in the year for dust. Then Miss Anderson was introduced. Milly was ready this time for that fresh hand, but she almost gasped; it was so very chill. It was like a hand stretched out to you from the water. Then together they all sat down.

“Is this your first visit to the Riviera?” asked Miss Anderson, graciously, dropping her handkerchief.

“It is,” answered Mr. Prodger composedly, and he folded his arms as before. “I was in Florence until recently, but I caught a heavy cold——”