Chapter IV: Part 4

“Florence so——” began Mother, when the beautiful brass gong, that burned like a fallen sun in the shadows of the hall, began to throb. First it was a low muttering, then it swelled, it quickened, it burst into a clash of triumph under Marie’s sympathetic fingers. Never had they been treated to such a performance before. Mr. Prodger was all attention.

“That’s a very fine gong,” he remarked approvingly.

“We think it is so very Oriental,” said Mother. “It gives our little meals quite an Eastern flavour. Shall we....”

Their guest was at the door bowing.

“So many gentlemen and only one lady,” fluttered Mother. “What I mean is the boot is on the other shoe. That is to say—come, Milly, come, dear.” And she led the way to the dining-room.

Well, there they were. The cold, fresh napkins were shaken out of their charming shapes and Marie handed the omelette. Mr. Prodger sat on Mother’s right, facing Milly, and Miss Anderson had her back to the long windows. But after all—why should the fact of their having a man with them make such a difference? It did; it made all the difference. Why should they feel so stirred at the sight of that large hand outspread, moving among the wine glasses? Why should the sound of that loud, confident “Ah-hm!” change the very look of the dining-room? It was not a favourite room of theirs as a rule; it was overpowering. They bobbed uncertainly at the pale table with a curious feeling of exposure. They were like those meek guests who arrive unexpectedly at the fashionable hotel, and are served with whatever may be ready, while the real luncheon, the real guests lurk important and contemptuous in the background. And although it was impossible for Marie to be other than deft, nimble and silent, what heart could she have in ministering to that most uninspiring of spectacles—three ladies dining alone?

Now all was changed. Marie filled their glasses to the brim as if to reward them for some marvellous feat of courage. These timid English ladies had captured a live lion, a real one, smelling faintly of eau de cologne, and with a tip of handkerchief showing, white as a flake of snow.

“He is worthy of it,” decided Marie, eyeing her orchids and palms.

Mr. Prodger touched his hot plate with appreciative fingers.

“You’ll hardly believe it, Mrs. Fawcett,” he remarked, turning to Mother, “but this is the first hot plate I’ve happened on since I left the States. I had begun to believe there were two things that just weren’t to be had in Europe. One was a hot plate and the other was a glass of cold water. Well, the cold water one can do without; but a hot plate is more difficult. I’d got so discouraged with the cold wet ones I encountered everywhere that when I was arranging with Cook’s Agency about my room here I explained to them ‘I don’t care what the expense may be. But for mercy’s sake find me an hotel where I can get a hot plate by ringing for it.’”

Mother, though outwardly all sympathy, found this a little bewildering. She had a momentary vision of Mr. Prodger ringing for hot plates to be brought to him at all hours. Such strange things to want in any numbers.

“I have always heard the American hotels are so very well equipped,” said Miss Anderson. “Telephones in all the rooms and even tape machines.”

Milly could see Miss Anderson reading that tape machine.

“I should like to go to America awfully,” she cried, as Marie brought in the lamb and set it before Mother.

“There’s certainly nothing wrong with America,” said Mr. Prodger, soberly. “America’s a great country. What are they? Peas? Well, I’ll just take a few. I don’t eat peas as a rule. No, no salad, thank you. Not with the hot meat.”

“But what makes you want to go to America?” Miss Anderson ducked forward, smiling at Milly, and her eyeglasses fell into her plate, just escaping the gravy.

Because one wants to go everywhere, was the real answer. But Milly’s flower-blue gaze rested thoughtfully on Miss Anderson as she said, “The ice-cream. I adore ice-cream.”

“Do you?” said Mr. Prodger, and he put down his fork; he seemed moved. “So you’re fond of ice-cream, are you, Miss Fawcett?”

Milly transferred her dazzling gaze to him. It said she was.

“Well,” said Mr. Prodger quite playfully, and he began eating again, “I’d like to see you get it. I’m sorry we can’t manage to ship some across. I like to see young people have just what they want. It seems right, somehow.”

Kind man! Would he have any more lamb?

Lunch passed so pleasantly, so quickly, that the famous piece of gorgonzola was on the table in all its fatness and richness before there had been an awkward moment. The truth was that Mr. Prodger proved most easy to entertain, most ready to chat. As a rule men were not fond of chat as Mother understood it. They did not seem to understand that it does not matter very much what one says; the important thing is not to let the conversation drop. Strange! Even the best men ignored that simple rule. They refused to realize that conversation is like a dear little baby that is brought in to be handed round. You must rock it, nurse it, keep it on the move if you want it to keep smiling. What could be simpler? But even Father.... Mother winced away from memories that were not as sweet as memories ought to be.

All the same she could not help hoping that Father saw what a successful little lunch party it was. He did so love to see Milly happy, and the child looked more animated than she had done for weeks. She had lost that dreamy expression, which, though very sweet, did not seem natural at her age. Perhaps what she wanted was not so much Easton’s Syrup as taking out of herself.

“I have been very selfish,” thought Mother, blaming herself as usual. She put her hand on Milly’s arm; she pressed it gently as they rose from the table. And Marie held the door open for the white and grey figure; for Miss Anderson, who peered shortsightedly, as though looking for something; for Mr. Prodger who brought up the rear, walking stately, with the benign air of a Monsieur who had eaten well.

§

Beyond the balcony, the garden, the palms and the sea lay bathed in quivering brightness. Not a leaf moved; the oranges were little worlds of burning light. There was the sound of grasshoppers ringing their tiny tambourines, and the hum of bees as they hovered, as though to taste their joy in advance, before burrowing close into the warm wide-open stocks and roses. The sound of the sea was like a breath, was like a sigh.

Did the little group on the balcony hear it? Mother’s fingers moved among the black and gold coffee-cups; Miss Anderson brought the most uncomfortable chair out of the salon and sat down. Mr. Prodger put his large hand on to the yellow stone ledge of the balcony and remarked gravely, “This balcony rail is just as hot as it can be.”

“They say,” said Mother, “that the greatest heat of the day is at about half-past two. We have certainly noticed it is very hot then.”

“Yes, it’s lovely then,” murmured Milly, and she stretched out her hand to the sun. “It’s simply baking!”

“Then you’re not afraid of the sunshine?” said Mr. Prodger, taking his coffee from Mother. “No, thank you. I won’t take any cream. Just one lump of sugar.” And he sat down balancing the little, chattering cup on his broad knee.

“No, I adore it,” answered Milly, and she began to nibble the lump of sugar....

SIX YEARS AFTER

It was not the afternoon to be on deck—on the contrary. It was exactly the afternoon when there is no snugger place than a warm cabin, a warm bunk. Tucked up with a rug, a hot-water bottle and a piping hot cup of tea she would not have minded the weather in the least. But he—hated cabins, hated to be inside anywhere more than was absolutely necessary. He had a passion for keeping, as he called it, above board, especially when he was travelling. And it wasn’t surprising, considering the enormous amount of time he spent cooped up in the office. So, when he rushed away from her as soon as they got on board and came back five minutes later to say he had secured two deck chairs on the lee side and the steward was undoing the rugs, her voice through the high sealskin collar murmured “Good”; and because he was looking at her, she smiled with bright eyes and blinked quickly, as if to say, “Yes, perfectly all right—absolutely,” and she meant it.

“Then we’d better——” said he, and he tucked her hand inside his arm and began to rush her off to where the two chairs stood. But she just had time to breathe, “Not so fast, Daddy, please,” when he remembered too and slowed down.

Strange! They had been married twenty-eight years, and it was still an effort to him, each time, to adapt his pace to hers.

“Not cold, are you?” he asked, glancing sideways at her. Her little nose, geranium pink above the dark fur, was answer enough. But she thrust her free hand into the velvet pocket of her jacket and murmured gaily, “I shall be glad of my rug.”

He pressed her tighter to his side—a quick, nervous pressure. He knew, of course, that she ought to be down in the cabin; he knew that it was no afternoon for her to be sitting on deck, in this cold and raw mist, lee side or no lee side, rugs or no rugs, and he realized how she must be hating it. But he had come to believe that it really was easier for her to make these sacrifices than it was for him. Take their present case, for instance. If he had gone down to the cabin with her, he would have been miserable the whole time, and he couldn’t have helped showing it. At any rate, she would have found him out. Whereas, having made up her mind to fall in with his ideas, he would have betted anybody she would even go so far as to enjoy the experience. Not because she was without personality of her own. Good Lord! She was absolutely brimming with it. But because ... but here his thoughts always stopped. Here they always felt the need of a cigar, as it were. And, looking at the cigar-tip, his fine blue eyes narrowed. It was a law of marriage, he supposed.... All the same, he always felt guilty when he asked these sacrifices of her. That was what the quick pressure meant. His being said to her being: “You do understand, don’t you?” and there was an answering tremor of her fingers, “I _understand_.”

Certainly, the steward—good little chap—had done all in his power to make them comfortable. He had put up their chairs in whatever warmth there was and out of the smell. She did hope he would be tipped adequately. It was on occasions like these (and her life seemed to be full of such occasions) that she wished it was the woman who controlled the purse.

“Thank you, steward. That will do beautifully.”

“Why are stewards so often delicate-looking?” she wondered, as her feet were tucked under. “This poor little chap looks as though he’d got a chest, and yet one would have thought ... the sea air....”

The button of the pigskin purse was undone. The tray was tilted. She saw sixpences, shillings, half-crowns.

“I should give him five shillings,” she decided, “and tell him to buy himself a good nourishing——”

He was given a shilling, and he touched his cap and seemed genuinely grateful.

Well, it might have been worse. It might have been sixpence. It might, indeed. For at that moment Father turned towards her and said, half-apologetically, stuffing the purse back, “I gave him a shilling. I think it was worth it, don’t you?”

“Oh, quite! Every bit!” said she.

It is extraordinary how peaceful it feels on a little steamer once the bustle of leaving port is over. In a quarter of an hour one might have been at sea for days. There is something almost touching, childish, in the way people submit themselves to the new conditions. They go to bed in the early afternoon, they shut their eyes and “it’s night” like little children who turn the table upside down and cover themselves with the table-cloth. And those who remain on deck—they seem to be always the same, those few hardened men travellers—pause, light their pipes, stamp softly, gaze out to sea, and their voices are subdued as they walk up and down. The long-legged little girl chases after the red-cheeked boy, but soon both are captured; and the old sailor, swinging an unlighted lantern, passes and disappears....

He lay back, the rug up to his chin and she saw he was breathing deeply. Sea air! If anyone believed in sea air, it was he. He had the strongest faith in its tonic qualities. But the great thing was, according to him, to fill the lungs with it the moment you came on board. Otherwise, the sheer strength of it was enough to give you a chill....

She gave a small chuckle, and he turned to her quickly. “What is it?”

“It’s your cap,” she said. “I never can get used to you in a cap. You look such a thorough burglar.”

“Well, what the deuce am I to wear?” He shot up one grey eyebrow and wrinkled his nose. “It’s a very good cap, too. Very fine specimen of its kind. It’s got a very rich white satin lining.” He paused. He declaimed, as he had hundreds of times before at this stage. “Rich and rare were the gems she wore.”

But she was thinking he really was childishly proud of the white satin lining. He would like to have taken off his cap and made her feel it. “Feel the quality!” How often had she rubbed between finger and thumb his coat, his shirt cuff, tie, sock, linen handkerchief, while he said that.

She slipped down more deeply into her chair.

And the little steamer pressed on, pitching gently, over the grey, unbroken, gently-moving water, that was veiled with slanting rain.

Far out, as though idly, listlessly, gulls were flying. Now they settled on the waves, now they beat up into the rainy air, and shone against the pale sky like the lights within a pearl. They looked cold and lonely. How lonely it will be when we have passed by, she thought. There will be nothing but the waves and those birds and rain falling.

She gazed through the rust-spotted railing along which big drops trembled, until suddenly she shut her lips. It was as if a warning voice inside her had said, “Don’t look!”

“No, I won’t,” she decided. “It’s too depressing, much too depressing.”

But immediately, she opened her eyes and looked again. Lonely birds, water lifting, white pale sky—how were they changed?

And it seemed to her there was a presence far out there, between the sky and the water; someone very desolate and longing watched them pass and cried as if to stop them—but cried to her alone.

“Mother!”

“Don’t leave me,” sounded the cry. “Don’t forget me! You are forgetting me, you know you are!” And it was as though from her own breast there came the sound of childish weeping.

“My son—my precious child—it isn’t true!”

_Sh!_ How was it possible that she was sitting there on that quiet steamer beside Father and at the same time she was hushing and holding a little slender boy—so pale—who had just waked out of a dreadful dream?

“I dreamed I was in a wood—somewhere far away from everybody,—and I was lying down and a great blackberry vine grew over me. And I called and called to you—and you wouldn’t come—you wouldn’t come—so I had to lie there for ever.”

What a terrible dream! He had always had terrible dreams. How often, years ago, when he was small, she had made some excuse and escaped from their friends in the dining-room or the drawing-room to come to the foot of the stairs and listen. “Mother!” And when he was asleep, his dream had journeyed with her back into the circle of lamplight; it had taken its place there like a ghost. And now——

Far more often—at all times—in all places—like now, for instance—she never settled down, she was never off her guard for a moment but she heard him. He wanted her. “I am coming as fast as I can! As fast as I can!” But the dark stairs have no ending, and the worst dream of all—the one that is always the same—goes for ever and ever uncomforted.

This is anguish! How is it to be borne? Still, it is not the idea of her suffering which is unbearable—it is his. Can one do nothing for the dead? And for a long time the answer had been—Nothing!

* * * * *

... But softly without a sound the dark curtain has rolled down. There is no more to come. That is the end of the play. But it can’t end like that—so suddenly. There must be more. No, it’s cold, it’s still. There is nothing to be gained by waiting.

But—did he go back again? Or, when the war was over, did he come home for good? Surely, he will marry—later on—not for several years. Surely, one day I shall remember his wedding and my first grandchild—a beautiful dark-haired boy born in the early morning—a lovely morning—spring!

“Oh, Mother, it’s not fair to me to put these ideas into my head! Stop, Mother, stop! When I think of all I have missed, I can’t bear it.”

* * * * *

“I can’t bear it!” She sits up breathing the words and tosses the dark rug away. It is colder than ever, and now the dusk is falling, falling like ash upon the pallid water.

And the little steamer, growing determined, throbbed on, pressed on, as if at the end of the journey there waited....

DAPHNE

I had been in Port Willin six months when I decided to give a one-man show. Not that I was particularly keen, but little Field, the picture-shop man, had just started a gallery and he wanted me—begged me, rather—to kick off for him. He was a decent little chap; I hadn’t the heart to refuse. And besides, as it happened, I had a good deal of stuff that I felt it would be rather fun to palm off on any one who was fool enough to buy it. So with these high aims I had the cards printed, the pictures framed in plain white frames, and God knows how many cups and saucers ordered for the Private View.

What was I doing in Port Willin? Oh well—why not? I’ll own it does sound an unlikely spot, but when you are an impermanent movable, as I am, it’s just those unlikely spots that have a trick of holding you. I arrived, intending to stay a week and go on to Fiji. But I had letters to one or two people, and the morning of my arrival, hanging over the side of the ship while we were waiting in the stream, with nothing on earth to do but stare, I took an extraordinary fancy to the shape—to the look of the place.

It’s a small town, you know, planted at the edge of a fine deep harbour like a lake. Behind it, on either side there are hills. The houses are built of light painted wood. They have iron roofs coloured red. And there are big dark plumy trees massed together, breaking up those light shapes, giving a depth—warmth—making a composition of it well worth looking at.... Well, we needn’t go into that— But it had me that fine morning. And the first days after my arrival, walking, or driving out in one of the big swinging, rocking cabs, I took an equal fancy to the people.

Not quite all of them. The men left me cold. Yes, I must say, colonial men are not the brightest specimens. But I never struck a place where the average of female attractiveness was so high. You can’t help noticing it, for a peculiarity of Port Willin is the number of its teashops and the vast quantity of tea absorbed by its inhabitants. Not tea only—sandwiches, cream cakes, ices, fruit salad with fresh pineapples. From eleven o’clock in the morning you meet with couples, and groups of girls and young married women hurrying off to their first tea. It was a real eleven o’clock function. Even the business men knocked off and went to a café. And the same thing happened in the afternoon. From four until half-past six the streets were gay as a garden. Which reminds me, it was early spring when I arrived and the town smelled of moist earth and the first flowers. In fact, wherever one went one got a strong whiff, like the whiff of violets in a wood, which was enough in itself to make one feel like lingering....

There was a theatre too, a big bare building plastered over with red and blue bills which gave it an oriental look in that blue air, and a touring company was playing “San Toy.” I went my first evening. I found it, for some reason, fearfully exciting. The inside smelled of gas, of glue and burnt paper. Whistling draughts cut along the corridors—a strong wind among the orchestra kept the palms trembling, and now and again the curtain blew out and there was a glimpse of a pair of large feet walking rapidly away. But what women! What girls in muslin dresses with velvet sashes and little caps edged with swansdown! In the intervals long ripples of laughter sounded from the stalls, from the dress-circle. And I leaned against a pillar that looked as though it was made of wedding-cake icing—and fell in love with whole rows at a time....

Then I presented my letters, I was asked out to dine, and I met these charmers in their own homes. That decided it. They were something I had never known before—so gay, so friendly, so impressed with the idea of one’s being an artist! It was rather like finding oneself in the playground of an extremely attractive girls’ school.

I painted the Premier’s daughter, a dark beauty, against a tree hung with long bell-like flowers, as white as wax. I painted a girl with a pig-tail curled up on a white sofa playing with a pale-red fan ... and a little blonde in a black jacket with pearl-grey gloves.... I painted like fury.

I’m fond of women. As a matter of fact I’m a great deal more at ease with women than I am with men. Because I’ve cultivated them, I suppose. You see, it’s like this with me. I’ve always had enough money to live on and the consequence is I have never had to mix with people more than I wished. And I’ve equally always had—well, I suppose you might call it a passion—for painting. Painting is far and away the most important thing in life—as I see it. But—my work’s my own affair. It’s the separate compartment which is me. No strangers allowed in. I haven’t the smallest desire to explain what it is I’m after—or to hear other men. If people like my work I’m pleased. If they don’t—well, if I was a shrugging person, I’d shrug. This sounds arrogant. It isn’t; I know my limitations. But the truth about oneself always sounds arrogant, as no doubt you’ve observed.

But women—well, I can only speak for myself—I find the presence of women, the consciousness of women, an absolute necessity. I know they are considered a distraction, that the very Big Pots seal themselves in their hives to keep away. All I can say is work without women would be to me like dancing without music or food without wine or a sailing boat without a breeze. They just give me that ... what is it? Stimulus is not enough; inspiration is far too much. That—well, if I knew what it is, I should have solved a bigger problem than my own! And problems aren’t in my line.

I expected a mob at my Private View, and I got it, too.... What I hadn’t reckoned on was that there would be no men. It was one thing to ask a painter fellow to knock you up something to the tune of fifty guineas or so, but it was quite another to make an ass of yourself staring. The Port Willin men would as soon have gazed into shops. True, when you came to Europe, you visited the galleries, but then you shop-gazed too. It didn’t matter what you did in Europe. You could walk about for a week without being recognized.

So there were little Field and I absolutely alone among all that loveliness; it frightened him out of his life, but I didn’t mind, I thought it rather fun, especially as the sightseers didn’t hesitate to find my pictures amusing. I’m by no means an out-and-out modern, as they say; people like violins and landscapes of telegraph poles leave me cold. But Port Willin is still trying to swallow Rossetti, and Hope by Watts is looked upon as very advanced. It was natural my pictures should surprise them. The fat old Lady Mayoress became quite hysterical. She drew me over to one drawing, she patted my arm with her fan.

“I don’t wonder you drew her slipping out,” she gurgled. “And how depressed she looks! The poor dear never could have sat down in it. It’s much too small. There ought to be a little cake of Pear’s Soap on the floor.” And overcome by her own joke, she flopped on the little double bench that ran down the middle of the room, and even her fan seemed to laugh.

At that moment two girls passed in front of us. One I knew, a big fair girl called May Pollock, pulled her companion by the sleeve. “Daphne!” she said. “Daphne!” And the other turned towards her, then towards us, smiled and was born, christened part of my world from that moment.

“Daphne!” Her quick beautiful smile answered....

* * * * *

Saturday morning was gloriously fine. When I woke up and saw the sun streaming over the polished floor I felt like a little boy who has been promised a picnic. It was all I could do not to telephone to Daphne. Was she feeling the same? It seemed somehow such a terrific lark that we should be going off together like this, just with a couple of rucksacks and our bathing suits. I thought of other week-ends, the preparation, the emotional tension, the amount of managing they’d needed. But I couldn’t really think of them; I couldn’t be bothered, they belonged to another life....

* * * * *

It seemed to me suddenly so preposterous that two people should be as happy as we were and not be happier. Here we were, alone, miles away from everybody, free as air, and in love with each other. I looked again at Daphne, at her slender shoulders, her throat, her bosom, and, passionately in love, I decided, with fervour: Wouldn’t it be rather absurd, then, to behave like a couple of children? Wouldn’t she even, in spite of all she had said, be disappointed if we did?...

* * * * *

And I went off at a tremendous pace, not because I thought she’d run after me, but I did think she might call, or I might look round....

* * * * *

It was one of those still, hushed days when the sea and the sky seem to melt into one another, and it is long before the moisture dries on the leaves and grasses. One of those days when the sea smells strong and there are gulls standing in a row on the sand. The smoke from our wood fire hung in the air and the smoke of my pipe mingled with it. I caught myself staring at nothing. I felt dull and angry. I couldn’t get over the ridiculous affair. You see, my _amour propre_ was wounded.

* * * * *

Monday morning was grey, cloudy, one of those mornings peculiar to the sea-side when everything, the sea most of all, seems exhausted and sullen. There had been a very high tide, the road was wet—on the beach there stood a long line of sickly-looking gulls....

When we got on board she sat down on one of the green benches and, muttering something about a pipe, I walked quickly away. It was intolerable that we should still be together after what had happened. It was indecent. I only asked—I only longed for one thing—to be free of this still, unsmiling and pitiful—that was the worst of it—creature who had been my playful Daphne.

* * * * *

For answer I telephoned her at once and asked if I might come and see her that evening. Her voice sounded grave, unlike the voice I remembered, and she seemed to deliberate. There was a long pause before she said, “Yes—perhaps that would be best.”

“Then I shall come at half-past six.”

“Very well.”

And we went into a room full of flowers and very large art photographs of the Harbour by Night, A Misty Day, Moonrise over the Water, and I know I wondered if she admired them.

“Why did you send me that letter?”

“Oh, but I had to,” said Daphne. “I meant every word of it. I only let you come to-night to.... No, I know I shall disappoint you. I’m wiser than you are for all your experience. I shan’t be able to live up to it. I’m not the person for you. Really I’m not!”...

FATHER AND THE GIRLS

At midday, Ernestine, who had come down from the mountains with her mother to work in the vineyards belonging to the hotel, heard the faint, far-away _chuff-chuff_ of the train from Italy. Trains were a novelty to Ernestine; they were fascinating, unknown, terrible. What were they like as they came tearing their way through the valley, plunging between the mountains as if not even the mountains could stop them? When she saw the dark, flat breast of the engine, so bare, so powerful, hurled as it were towards her, she felt a weakness; she could have sunk to the earth. And yet she must look. So she straightened up, stopped pulling at the blue-green leaves, tugging at the long, bright-green, curly suckers, and, with eyes like a bird, stared. The vines were very tall. There was nothing to be seen of Ernestine but her beautiful, youthful bosom buttoned into a blue cotton jacket and her small, dark head covered with a faded cherry-coloured handkerchief.

_Chiff-chuff-chaff._ _Chiff-chuff-chaff_, sounded the train. Now a wisp of white smoke shone and melted. Now there was another, and the monster itself came into sight and snorting horribly drew up at the little, toy-like station five minutes away. The railway ran at the bottom of the hotel garden which was perched high and surrounded by a stone wall. Steps cut in the stone led to the terraces where the vines were planted. Ernestine, looking out from the leaves like a bright bird, saw the terrible engine and looked beyond it at doors swinging open, at strangers stepping down. She would never know who they were or where they had come from. A moment ago they were not here; perhaps tomorrow they would be gone again. And looking like a bird herself, she remembered how, at home, in the late autumn, she had sometimes seen strange birds in the fir tree that were there one day and gone the next. Where from? Where to? She felt an ache in her bosom. Wings were tight-folded there. Why could she not stretch them out and fly away and away?...

§

From the first-class carriage tall, thin Emily alighted and gave her hand to Father whose brittle legs seemed to wave in the air as they felt for the iron step. Taller, thinner Edith followed, carrying Father’s light overcoat, his field-glasses on a strap, and his new Baedeker. The blond hotel porter came forward. Wasn’t that nice? He could speak as good English as you and me. So Edith had no trouble at all in explaining how, as they were going on by the morning train tomorrow, they would only need their suit-cases, and what was left in the compartment. Was there a carriage outside? Yes, a carriage was there. But if they cared to walk there was a private entrance through the hotel gardens.... No, they wouldn’t walk.

“You wouldn’t care to walk, would you, Father dear?”

“No, Edith, I won’t walk. Do you girls wanna walk?”

“Why no, Father, not without you, dear.”

And the blond hotel porter leading, they passed through the little knot of sturdy peasants at the station gate to where the carriage waited under a group of limes.

“Did you ever see anything as big as that horse, Edith!” cried Emily. She was always the first to exclaim about things.

“It is a very big horse,” sang Edith, more sober. “It’s a farm horse, from the look of it and it’s been working. See how hot it is.” Edith had so much observation. The big, brown horse, his sides streaked with dark sweat, tossed his head and the bells on his collar set up a loud jangling.

“Hu-yup!” called the young peasant driver warningly, from his seat on the high box.

Father, who was just about to get in, drew back, a little scared.

“You don’t think that horse will run away with us, do you, Edith?” he quavered.

“Why no, Father dear,” coaxed Edith. “That horse is just as tame as you or me.” So in they got, the three of them. And as the horse bounded forward his ears seemed to twitch in surprise at his friend the driver. Call that a load? Father and the girls weighed nothing. They might have been three bones, three broomsticks, three umbrellas bouncing up and down on the hard seats of the carriage. It was a mercy the hotel was so close. Father could never have stood that for more than a minute, especially at the end of a journey. Even as it was his face was quite green when Emily helped him out, straightened him, and gave him a little pull.

“It’s shaken you, dear, hasn’t it?” she said tenderly.

But he refused her arm into the hotel. That would create a wrong impression.

“No, no, Emily. I’m all right. All right,” said Father, as staggering a little he followed them through big glass doors into a hall as dim as a church and as chill and as deserted.

My! Wasn’t that hall cold! The cold seemed to come leaping at them from the floor. It clasped the peaked knees of Edith and Emily; it leapt high as the fluttering heart of Father. For a moment they hesitated, drew together, almost gasped. But then out from the Bureau a cheerful young person, her smiling face spotted with mosquito bites, ran to meet them, and welcomed them with such real enthusiasm (in English too) that the chill first moment was forgotten.

“Aw-yes. Aw-yes. I can let you ave very naice rooms on de firs floor wid a lif. Two rooms and bart and dressing-room for de chentleman. Beautiful rooms wid sun but nort too hot. Very naice. Till tomorrow. I taike you. If you please. It is dis way. You are tired wid the churney? Launch is at half-pas tvelf. Hort worter? Aw-yes. It is wid de bart. If you please.”

Father and the girls were drawn by her cheerful smiles and becks and nods along a cloister-like corridor, into the lift and up, until she flung open a heavy, dark door and stood aside for them to enter.

“It is a suite,” she explained. “Wid a hall and tree doors.” Quickly she opened them. “Now I gaw to see when your luggage is gum.”

And she went.

“Well!” cried Emily.

Edith stared.

Father craned his thin, old neck, looking, too.

“Did you—ever see the like, Edith?” cried Emily, in a little rush.

And Edith softly clasped her hands. Softly she sang “No, I never did, Emily. I’ve never seen anything just like this before.”

“Sims to me a nice room,” quavered Father, still hovering. “Do you girls wanna change it?”

Change it! “Why, Father dear, it’s just the loveliest thing we’ve ever set eyes on, isn’t it, Emily? Sit down, Father dear, sit down in the armchair.”

Father’s pale claws gripped the velvet arms. He lowered himself, he sank with an old man’s quick sigh.

Edith still stood, as if bewitched, at the door. But Emily ran over to the window and leaned out, quite girlish....

For a long time now—for how long?—for countless ages—Father and the girls had been on the wing. Nice, Montreux, Biarritz, Naples, Mentone, Lake Maggiore, they had seen them all and many, many more. And still they beat on, beat on, flying as if unwearied, never stopping anywhere for long. But the truth was—Oh, better not enquire what the truth was. Better not ask what it was that kept them going. Or why the only word that daunted Father was the word—home....

Home! To sit around, doing nothing, listening to the clock, counting up the years, thinking back ... thinking! To stay fixed in one place as if waiting for something or somebody. No! no! Better far to be blown over the earth like the husk, like the withered pod that the wind carries and drops and bears off again.

“Are you ready, girls?”

“Yes, Father dear.”

“Then we’d better be off if we’re to make that train.”

But oh, it was a weariness, it was an unspeakable weariness. Father made no secret of his age; he was eighty-four. As for Edith and Emily—well, he looked now like their elder brother. An old, old brother and two ancient sisters, so the lovely room might have summed them up. But its shaded brightness, its beauty, the flutter of leaves at the creamy stone windows seemed only to whisper “Rest! Stay!”

Edith looked at the pale, green-panelled walls, at the doors that had lozenges and squares of green picked out in gold. She made the amazing discovery that the floor had the same pattern in wood that was traced on the high, painted ceiling. But the colour of the shining floor was marvellous; it was like tortoiseshell. In one corner there was a huge, tilted stove, milky white and blue. The low wooden bed, with its cover of quilted yellow satin, had sheaves of corn carved on the bed posts. It looked to fanciful, tired Edith—yes,—that bed looked as if it were breathing, softly, gently breathing. Outside the narrow, deep-set windows, beyond their wreaths of green, she could see a whole, tiny landscape bright as a jewel in the summer heat.

“Rest! Stay!” Was it the sound of the leaves outside? No, it was in the air; it was the room itself that whispered joyfully, shyly. Edith felt so strange that she could keep quiet no longer.

“This is a very old room, Emily,” she warbled softly. “I know what it is. This hotel has not always been a hotel. It’s been an old château. I feel as sure of that as that I’m standing here.” Perhaps she wanted to convince herself that she was standing there. “Do you see that stove?” She walked over to the stove. “It’s got figures on it. Emily,” she warbled faintly, “It’s 1623.”

“Isn’t that too wonderful!” cried Emily.

Even Father was deeply moved.

“1623? Nearly three hundred years old.” And suddenly, in spite of his tiredness, he gave a thin, airy, old man’s chuckle. “Makes yer feel quite a chicken, don’t it?” said Father.

Emily’s breathless little laugh answered him; it too was gay.

“I’m going to see what’s behind that door,” she cried. And half running to the door in the middle wall she lifted the slender steel catch. It led into a larger room, into Edith’s and her bedroom. But the walls were the same and the floor, and there were the same deep-set windows. Only two beds instead of one stood side by side with blue silk quilts instead of yellow. And what a beautiful old chest there was under the windows!

“Oh,” cried Emily, in rapture. “Isn’t it all too perfectly historical for words, Edith! It makes me feel——” She stopped, she looked at Edith who had followed her and whose thin shadow lay on the sunny floor. “Queer!” said Emily, trying to put all she felt into that one word. “I don’t know what it is.”

Perhaps if Edith, the discoverer, had had time, she might have satisfied Emily. But a knock sounded at the outer door; it was the luggage boy. And while he brought in their suitcases there came from downstairs the ringing of the luncheon bell. Father mustn’t be kept waiting. Once a bell had gone he liked to follow it up right then. So without even a glance at the mirror—they had reached the age when it is as natural to avoid mirrors as it is to peer into them when one is young—Edith and Emily were ready.

“Are you ready, girls?”

“Yes, Father dear.”

And off they went again, to the left, to the right, down a stone staircase with a broad, worn balustrade, to the left again, finding their way as if by instinct—Edith first, then Father, and Emily close behind.

But when they reached the _salle à manger_, which was as big as a ball-room, it was still empty. All gay, all glittering, the long French windows open on to the green and gold garden, the _salle à manger_ stretched before them. And the fifty little tables with the fifty pots of dahlias looked as if they might begin dancing with....

ALL SERENE

At breakfast that morning they were in wonderfully good spirits. Who was responsible—he or she? It was true she made a point of looking her best in the morning; she thought it part of her duty to him—to their love, even, to wear charming little caps, funny little coats, coloured mules at breakfast time, and to see that the table was perfect as he and she—fastidious pair!—understood the word. But he, too, so fresh, well-groomed and content, contributed his share.... She had been down first, sitting at her place when he came in. He leaned over the back of her chair, his hands on her shoulders; he bent down and lightly rubbed his cheek against hers, murmuring gently but with just enough pride of proprietorship to make her flush with delight, “Give me my tea, love.” And she lifted the silver teapot that had a silver pear modelled on the lid and gave him his tea.

“Thanks.... You know you look awfully well this morning!”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Do that again. Look at me again. It’s your eyes. They’re like a child’s. I’ve never known anyone have such shining eyes as you.”

“Oh, dear!” She sighed for joy. “I do love having sweet things said to me!”

“Yes, you do—spoilt child! Shall I give you some of this?”

“No, thank you.... Darling!” Her hand flew across the table and clasped his hand.

“Yes?”

But she said nothing, only “Darling!” again. There was the look on his face she loved—a kind of sweet jesting. He was pretending he didn’t know what she meant, and yet of course he did know. He was pretending to be feeling “Here she is—trust a woman—all ready for a passionate love scene over the breakfast table at nine o’clock in the morning.” But she wasn’t deceived. She knew he felt just the same as she did. That amused tolerance, that mock despair was part of the ways of men—no more.

“May I be allowed to _use_ this knife please, or to put it down?”

Really! Mona had never yet got accustomed to her husband’s smile. They had been married for three years. She was in love with him for countless reasons, but apart from them all, a special reason all to itself, was because of his smile. If it hadn’t sounded nonsense she would have said she fell in love at first sight over and over again when he smiled. Other people felt the charm of it, too. Other women, she was certain. Sometimes she thought that even the servants watched for it....

“Don’t forget we’re going to the theatre to-night.”

“Oh, good egg! I had forgotten. It’s ages since we went to a show.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I feel quite thrilled.”

“Don’t you think we might have a tiny small celebration at dinner?” (“Tiny small” was one of her expressions. But why did it sound so sweet when he used it?)

“Yes, let’s. You mean champagne?” And she looked into the distance, and said in a far-away voice: “Then I must revise the sweet.”

At that moment the maid came in with the letters. There were four for him, three for her. No, one of hers belonged to him, too, rather a grimy little envelope with a dab of sealing wax on the back.

“Why do you get all the letters?” she wailed, handing it across. “It’s awfully unfair. I love letters and I never get any.”

“Well, I do like that!” said he. “How can you sit there and tell such awful bangers? It’s the rarest thing on earth for me to get a letter in the morning. It’s always you who get those mysterious epistles from girls you were at college with or faded aunts. Here, have half my pear—it’s a beauty.” She held out her plate.

The Rutherfords never shared their letters. It was her idea that they should not. He had been violently opposed to it at first. She couldn’t help laughing; he had so absolutely misunderstood her reason.

“Good God! my dear. You’re perfectly welcome to open any letters of mine that come to the house—or to read any letters of mine that may be lying about. I think I can promise you....”

“Oh no, no, darling, that’s not what I mean. I don’t suspect you.” And she put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him quickly. He looked like an offended boy. “But so many of Mother’s old friends write to me—confide in me—don’t you know?—tell me things they wouldn’t for the world tell a man. I feel it wouldn’t be fair to them. Don’t you see?”

He gave way at last. But “I’m old fashioned,” he said, and his smile was a little rueful. “I like to feel my wife reads my letters.”

“My precious dear! I’ve made you unhappy.” She felt so repentant; she didn’t know quite about what. “Of course I’d love to read....”

“No, no! That’s all right. It’s understood. We’ll keep the bond.” And they had kept it.

He slit open the grimy envelope. He began to read. “Damn!” he said and thrust out his under lip.

“Why, what is it? Something horrid?”

“No—annoying. I shall be late this evening. A man wants to meet me at the office at six o’clock.”

“Was that a business letter?” She sounded surprised.

“Yes, why?”

“It looked so awfully unbusinesslike. The sealing-wax and the funny writing—much more like a woman’s than a man’s.”

He laughed. He folded the letter, put it in his pocket and picked up the envelope. “Yes,” he said, “it is queer, isn’t it. I shouldn’t have noticed. How quick you are! But it does look exactly like a woman’s hand. The capital R, for instance”—he flipped the envelope across to her.

“Yes, and that squiggle underneath. I should have said a rather uneducated female....”

“As a matter of fact,” said Hugh, “he’s a mining engineer.” And he got up, began to stretch and then stopped. “I say, what a glorious morning! Why do I have to go to the office instead of staying at home and playing with you?” And he came over to her and locked his arms round her neck. “Tell me that, little lovely one.”

“Oh,” she leaned against him, “I wish you could. Life’s arranged badly for people like you and me. And now you’re going to be late this evening.”

“Never mind,” said he. “All the rest of the time’s ours. Every single bit of it. We shan’t come back from the theatre to find——”

“Our porch black with mining engineers.” She laughed. Did other people—could other people—was it possible that any one before had ever loved as they loved? She squeezed her head against him—she heard his watch ticking—precious watch!

“What are those purple floppy flowers in my bedroom?” he murmured.

“Petunias.”

“You smell exactly like a petunia.”

And he raised her up. She drew towards him. “Kiss me,” said he.

* * * * *

It was her habit to sit on the bottom stair and watch his final preparations. Strange it should be so fascinating to see someone brush his hat, choose a pair of gloves, and give a last quick look in the round mirror. But it was the same when he was shaving. Then she loved to curl up on the hard little couch in his dressing room; she was as absorbed, as intent as he. How fantastic he looked, like a pierrot, like a mask, with those dark eyebrows, liquid eyes and the brush of flesh colour on his cheek-bones above the lather! But that was not her chief feeling. No, it was what she felt on the stairs, too. It was, “So this is my husband, so this is the man I’ve married, this is the stranger who walked across the lawn that afternoon swinging his tennis racket and bowed, rolling up his shirt-sleeves. This is not only my lover and my husband, but my brother, my dearest friend, my playmate, even at times a kind of very perfect father too. And here is where we live. Here is his room—and here is our hall.” She seemed to be showing their house and him to her other self, the self she had been before she had met him. Deeply admiring, almost awed by so much happiness, that other self looked on....

“Will I do?” He stood there smiling, stroking on his gloves. But although he wouldn’t like her to say the things she often longed to say about his appearance, she did think she detected that morning just the very faintest boyish showing off. Children who know they are admired look like that at their mother.

“Yes, you’ll do....” Perhaps at that moment she was proud of him as a mother is proud; she could have blessed him before he went his way. Instead she stood in the porch thinking, “There he goes. The man I’ve married. The stranger who came across the lawn.” The fact was never less wonderful....

It was never less wonderful, never. It was even more wonderful if anything and the reason was—Mona ran back into the house, into the drawing-room and sat down to the piano. Oh, why bother about reasons— She began to sing,

See, love, I bring thee flowers
To charm thy pain!

But joy—joy breathless and exulting thrilled in her voice, on the word “pain” her lips parted in such a happy—dreadfully unsympathetic smile that she felt quite ashamed. She stopped playing, she turned round on the piano stool facing the room. How different it looked in the morning, how severe and remote. The grey chairs with the fuchsia-coloured cushions, the black and gold carpet, the bright green silk curtains might have belonged to anybody. It was like a stage setting with the curtain still down. She had no right to be there, and as she thought that a queer little chill caught her; it seemed so extraordinary that anything, even a chair, should turn away from, should not respond to her happiness.

“I don’t like this room in the morning, I don’t like it at all,” she decided, and she ran upstairs to finish dressing. Ran into their big shadowy bedroom ... and leaned over the starry petunias....

A BAD IDEA