Chapter V: Part 5

Something’s happened to me—something bad. And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t see any way out for the life of me. The worst of it is, I can’t get this thing into focus—if you know what I mean. I just feel in a muddle—in the hell of a muddle. It ought to be plain to anyone that I’m not the kind of man to get mixed up in a thing like this. I’m not one of your actor Johnnies, or a chap in a book. I’m—well, I knew what I was all right until yesterday. But now—I feel helpless, yes, that’s the word, helpless. Here I sit, chucking stones at the sea like a child that’s missed its mother. And everybody else has cut along home hours ago and tea’s over and it’s getting on for time to light the lamp. I shall have to go home too, sooner or later. I see that, of course. In fact, would you believe it? at this very moment I wish I was there in spite of everything. What’s she doing? My wife, I mean. Has she cleared away? Or has she stayed there staring at the table with the plates pushed back? My God! when I think that I could howl like a dog—if you know what I mean....

I should have realized it was all U.P. this morning when she didn’t get up for breakfast. I did, in a way. But I couldn’t face it. I had the feeling that if I said nothing special and just treated it as one of her bad headache days and went off to the office, by the time I got back this evening the whole affair would have blown over somehow. No, that wasn’t it. I felt a bit like I do now, “helpless.” What was I to do? Just go on. That was all I could think of. So I took her up a cup of tea and a couple of slices of thin bread and butter as per usual on her headache days. The blind was still down. She was lying on her back. I think she had a wet handkerchief on her forehead. I’m not sure, for I couldn’t look at her. It was a beastly feeling. And she said in a weak kind of voice, “Put the jug on the table, will you?” I put it down. I said, “Can I do anything?” And she said, “No. I’ll be all right in half an hour.” But her voice, you know! It did for me. I barged out as quick as I could, snatched my hat and stick from the hall-stand and dashed off for the tram.

Here’s a queer thing—you needn’t believe me if you don’t want to—the moment I got out of the house I forgot that about my wife. It was a splendid morning, soft, with the sun making silver ducks on the sea. The kind of morning when you know it’s going to keep hot and fine all day. Even the tram bell sounded different, and the little school kids crammed between people’s knees had bunches of flowers. I don’t know—I can’t understand why—I just felt happy, but happy in a way I’d never been before, happy to beat the band! That wind that had been so strong the night before was still blowing a bit. It felt like her—the other—touching me. Yes, it did. Brought it back, every bit of it. If I told you how it took me, you’d say I was mad. I felt reckless—didn’t care if I was late for the office or not and I wanted to do every one a kindness. I helped the little kids out of the tram. One little chap dropped his cap, and when I picked it up for him and said, “Here, sonny!” ... well, it was all I could do not to make a fool of myself.

At the office it was just the same. It seemed to me I’d never known the fellows at the office before. When old Fisher came over to my desk and put down a couple of giant sweet peas as per usual with his “Beat ’em, old man, beat ’em”—I didn’t feel annoyed. I didn’t care that he was riddled with conceit about his garden. I just looked at them and I said quietly, “Yes, you’ve done it this time.” He didn’t know what to make of it. Came back in about five minutes and asked me if I had a headache.

And so it went on all day. In the evening I dashed home with the home-going crowd, pushed open the gate, saw the hall-door open as it always is and sat down on the little chair just inside to take off my boots. My slippers were there, of course. This seemed to me a good sign. I put my boots into the rack in the cupboard under the stairs, changed my office coat and made for the kitchen. I knew my wife was there. Wait a bit. The only thing I couldn’t manage was my whistling as per usual, “I often lie awake and think, What a dreadful thing is work....” I had a try, but nothing came of it. Well, I opened the kitchen-door and said, “Hullo! How’s everybody?” But as soon as I’d said that—even before—I knew the worst had happened. She was standing at the table beating the salad dressing. And when she looked up and gave a kind of smile and said “Hullo!” you could have knocked me down! My wife looked dreadful—there’s no other word for it. She must have been crying all day. She’d put some white flour stuff on her face to take away the marks—but it only made her look worse. She must have seen I spotted something, for she caught up the cup of cream and poured some into the salad bowl—like she always does, you know, so quick, so neat, in her own way—and began beating again. I said, “Is your head better?” But she didn’t seem to hear. She said, “Are you going to water the garden before or after supper?” What could I say? I said, “After,” and went off to the dining-room, opened the evening paper and sat by the open window—well, hiding behind that paper, I suppose.

I shall never forget sitting there. People passing by, going down the road, sounded so peaceful. And a man passed with some cows. I—I envied him. My wife came in and out. Then she called me to supper and we sat down. I suppose we ate some cold meat and salad. I don’t remember. We must have. But neither of us spoke. It’s like a dream now. Then she got up, changed the plates, and went to the larder for the pudding. Do you know what the pudding was? Well, of course, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. It was my favorite—the kind she only made me on special occasions—honey-comb cream....

A MAN AND HIS DOG

To look at Mr. Potts one would have thought that there at least went someone who had nothing to boast about. He was a little insignificant fellow with a crooked tie, a hat too small for him and a coat too large. The brown canvas portfolio that he carried to and from the Post Office every day was not like a business man’s portfolio. It was like a child’s school satchel; it did up even with a round-eyed button. One imagined there were crumbs and an apple core inside. And then there was something funny about his boots, wasn’t there? Through the laces his coloured socks peeped out. What the dickens had the chap done with the tongues? “Fried ’em,” suggested the wit of the Chesney bus. Poor old Potts! “More likely buried ’em in his garden.” Under his arm he clasped an umbrella. And in wet weather when he put it up, he disappeared completely. He was not. He was a walking umbrella—no more—the umbrella became his shell.

Mr. Potts lived in a little bungalow on Chesney Flat. The bulge of the water tank to one side gave it a mournful air, like a little bungalow with the toothache. There was no garden. A path had been cut in the paddock turf from the gate to the front door, and two beds, one round, one oblong, had been cut in what was going to be the front lawn. Down that path went Potts every morning at half-past eight and was picked up by the Chesney bus; up that path walked Potts every evening while the great kettle of a bus droned on. In the late evening, when he crept as far as the gate, eager to smoke a pipe—he wasn’t allowed to smoke any nearer to the house than that—so humble, so modest was his air, that the big, merrily-shining stars seemed to wink at each other, to laugh, to say, “Look at him! Let’s throw something!”

When Potts got out of the tram at the Fire Station to change into the Chesney bus he saw that something was up. The car was there all right, but the driver was off his perch; he was flat on his face half under the engine, and the conductor, his cap off, sat on a step rolling a cigarette and looking dreamy. A little group of business men and a woman clerk or two stood staring at the empty car; there was something mournful, pitiful about the way it leaned to one side and shivered faintly when the driver shook something. It was like someone who’d had an accident and tries to say: “Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me! Don’t hurt me!”

But all this was so familiar—the cars had only been running to Chesney the last few months—that nobody said anything, nobody asked anything. They just waited on the off chance. In fact, two or three decided to walk it as Potts came up. But Potts didn’t want to walk unless he had to. He was tired. He’d been up half the night rubbing his wife’s chest—she had one of her mysterious pains—and helping the sleepy servant girl heat compresses and hot-water bottles and make tea. The window was blue and the roosters had started crowing before he lay down finally with feet like ice. And all this was familiar, too.

Standing at the edge of the pavement and now and again changing his brown canvas portfolio from one hand to the other Potts began to live over the night before. But it was vague, shadowy. He saw himself moving like a crab, down the passage to the cold kitchen and back again. The two candles quivered on the dark chest of drawers, and as he bent over his wife her big eyes suddenly flashed and she cried:

“I get no sympathy—no sympathy. You only do it because you have to. Don’t contradict me. I can see you grudge doing it.”

Trying to soothe her only made matters worse. There had been an awful scene ending with her sitting up and saying solemnly with her hand raised: “Never mind, it will not be for long now.” But the sound of these words frightened her so terribly that she flung back on the pillow and sobbed, “Robert! Robert!” Robert was the name of the young man to whom she had been engaged years ago, before she met Potts. And Potts was very glad to hear him invoked. He had come to know that meant the crisis was over and she’d begin to quieten down....

By this time Potts had wheeled round; he had walked across the pavement to the paling fence that ran beside. A piece of light grass pushed through the fence and some slender silky daisies. Suddenly he saw a bee alight on one of the daisies and the flower leaned over, swayed, shook, while the little bee clung and rocked. And as it flew away the petals fluttered as if joyfully.... Just for an instant Potts dropped into the world where this happened. He brought from it the timid smile with which he walked back to the car. But now everybody had disappeared except one young girl who stood beside the empty car reading.

* * * * *

At the tail of the procession came Potts in a cassock so much too large for him that it looked like a night-shirt and you felt that he ought to be carrying not a hymn and a prayer book but a candle. His voice was a very light plaintive tenor. It surprised everybody. It seemed to surprise him, too. But it was so plaintive that when he cried “for the wings, for the wings of a dove” the ladies in the congregation wanted to club together and buy him a pair.

* * * * *

Lino’s nose quivered so pitifully, there was such a wistful, timid look in his eyes, that Potts’ heart was wrung. But of course he would not show it. “Well,” he said sternly, “I suppose you’d better come home.” And he got up off the bench. Lino got up, too, but stood still, holding up a paw.

“But there’s one thing,” said Potts, turning and facing him squarely, “that we’d better be clear about before you do come. And it’s this.” He pointed his finger at Lino who started as though he expected to be shot. But he kept his bewildered wistful eyes upon his master. “Stop this pretence of being a fighting dog,” said Potts more sternly than ever. “You’re not a fighting dog. You’re a watch dog. That’s what you are. Very well. Stick to it. But it’s this infernal boasting I can’t stand. It’s that that gets me.”

In the moment’s pause that followed while Lino and his master looked at each other it was curious how strong a resemblance was between them. Then Potts turned again and made for home.

And timidly, as though falling over his own paws, Lino followed after the humble little figure of his master....

SUCH A SWEET OLD LADY

Why did old Mrs. Travers wake so early nowadays? She would like to have slept for another three hours at least. But no, every morning at almost precisely the same time, at half-past four, she was wide awake. For—nowadays, again—she woke always in the same way, with a slight start, a small shock, lifting her head from the pillow with a quick glance as if she fancied someone had called her, or as if she were trying to remember for certain whether this was the same wallpaper, the same window she had seen last night before Warner switched off the light.... Then the small, silvery head pressed the white pillow again and just for a moment, before the agony of lying awake began, old Mrs. Travers was happy. Her heart quietened down, she breathed deeply, she even smiled. Yet once more the tide of darkness had risen, had floated her, had carried her away; and once more it had ebbed, it had withdrawn, casting her up where it had found her, shut in by the same wallpaper, stared at by the same window—still safe—still _there_!

Now the church clock sounded from outside, slow, languid, faint, as if it chimed the half hour in its sleep. She felt under the pillow for her watch; yes, it said the same. Half-past four. Three and a half hours before Warner came in with her tea. Oh dear, would she be able to stand it? She moved her legs restlessly. And, staring at the prim, severe face of the watch, it seemed to her that the hands—the minute hand especially—knew that she was watching them and held back—just a very little—on purpose.... Very strange, she had never got over the feeling that watch hated her. It had been Henry’s. Twenty years ago, when standing by poor Henry’s bed, she had taken it into her hands for the first time and wound it, it had felt cold and heavy. And two days later, when she undid a hook of her crape bodice and thrust it inside, it had lain in her bosom like a stone.... It had never felt at home there. Its place was—ticking, keeping perfect time, against Henry’s firm ribs. It had never trusted her, just as he had never trusted her in those ways. And on the rare occasions when she had forgotten to wind it, she had felt a pang of almost terror, and she had murmured as she fitted the little key: “Forgive me, Henry!”

Old Mrs. Travers sighed, and pushed the watch under the pillow again. It seemed to her that lately this feeling that it hated her had become more definite.... Perhaps that was because she looked at it so often, especially now that she was away from home. Foreign clocks never go. They are always stopped at twenty minutes to two. Twenty minutes to two! Such an unpleasant time, neither one thing nor the other. If one arrived anywhere lunch was over and it was too early to expect a cup of tea.... But she mustn’t begin thinking about tea. Old Mrs. Travers pulled herself up in the bed, and like a tired baby, she lifted her arms and let them fall on the eiderdown.

The room was gay with morning light. The big French window on to the balcony was open and the palm outside flung its quivering spider-like shadow over the bedroom walls. Although their hotel did not face the front, at this early hour you could smell the sea, you could hear it breathing, and flying high on golden wings sea-gulls skimmed past. How peaceful the sky looked, as though it was tenderly smiling! Far away—far away from this satin-stripe wallpaper, the glass-covered table, the yellow brocade sofa and chairs, and the mirrors that showed you your side view, your back view, your three-quarters view as well.

Ernestine had been enthusiastic about this room.

“It’s just the very room for you, Mother! So bright and attractive and non-depressing! With a balcony, too, so that on wet days you can still have your chair outside and look at those lovely palms. And Gladys can have the little room adjoining, which makes it so beautifully easy for Warner to keep her eye on you both.... You couldn’t have a nicer room, could you, Mother? I can’t get over that sweet balcony! So nice for Gladys! Cecil and I haven’t got one at all....”

But all the same, in spite of Ernestine, she never sat on that balcony. For some strange reason that she couldn’t explain she hated looking at palms. Nasty foreign things, she called them in her mind. When they were still they drooped, they looked draggled like immense untidy birds, and when they moved, they reminded her always of spiders. Why did they never look just natural and peaceful and shady like English trees? Why were they forever writhing and twisting or standing sullen? It tired her even to think of them, or in fact of anything foreign....

HONESTY

There was an expression Rupert Henderson was very fond of using. “If you want my _honest_ opinion....” He had an honest opinion on every subject under the sun, and nothing short of a passion for delivering it. But Archie Cullen’s pet phrase was “I cannot _honestly_ say....” Which meant that he had not really made up his mind. He had not really made up his mind on any subject whatsoever. Why? Because he could not. He was unlike other men. He was minus something—or was it plus? No matter. He was not in the least proud of the fact. It depressed him—one might go so far as to say—terribly at times.

Rupert and Archie lived together. That is to say, Archie lived in Rupert’s rooms. Oh, he paid his share, his half in everything; the arrangement was a purely, strictly business arrangement. But perhaps it was because Rupert had invited Archie that Archie remained always—his guest. They each had a bedroom, there was a common sitting-room, and a largeish bath-room which Rupert used as a dressing-room as well. The first morning after his arrival Archie had left his sponge in the bath-room, and a moment after there was a knock at his door and Rupert said, kindly but firmly, “Your sponge, I fancy.” The first evening Archie had brought his tobacco jar into the sitting room and placed it on a corner of the mantelpiece. Rupert was reading the newspaper. It was a round china jar, the surface painted and roughened to represent a sea-urchin. On the lid was a spray of china seaweed with two berries for a knob. Archie was excessively fond of it. But after dinner, when Rupert took out his pipe and pouch, he suddenly fixed his eyes on this object, blew through his moustaches, gasped, and said in a wondering, astonished voice, “I say! Is that yours or Mrs. Head’s?” Mrs. Head was their landlady.

“It’s mine,” said Archie, and he blushed and smiled just a trifle timidly.

“I _say_!” said Rupert again—this time very meaningly.

“Would you rather I....” said Archie, and he moved in his chair to get up.

“No, no! Certainly not! On no account!” answered Rupert, and he actually raised his hand. “But perhaps”—and here he smiled at Archie and gazed about him—“perhaps we might find some spot for it that was a trifle less conspicuous.”

The spot was not decided on, however, and Archie nipped his sole personal possession into his bedroom as soon as Rupert was out of the way.

But it was chiefly at meals that the attitude of host and guest was most marked. For instance, on each separate occasion, even before they sat down Rupert said, “Would you mind cutting the bread, Archie?” Had he not made such a point of it, it is possible that Archie in a moment of abstractedness might have grasped the bread knife.... An unpleasant thought! Again, Archie was never allowed to serve. Even at breakfast, the hot dishes and the tea, both were dispensed by Rupert. True, he half apologized about the tea; he seemed to feel the necessity of some slight explanation, there.

“I’m rather a fad about my tea,” said he. “Some people, females especially, pour in the milk first. Fatal habit, for more reasons than one. In my opinion, the cup should be filled just _so_ and the tea then coloured. Sugar, Archie?”

“Oh, please,” said Archie, almost bowing over the table. Rupert was so very impressive.

“But I suppose,” said his friend, “you don’t notice any of these little things.”

And Archie answered vaguely, stirring, “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

Rupert sat down and unfolded his napkin.

“It would be very inconsistent with your character and disposition,” said he genially, “if you did! Kidneys and bacon? Scrambled eggs? Either? Both? Which?”

Poor Archie hated scrambled eggs, but, alas! he was practically certain that scrambled eggs were expected of him too. This ‘psychological awareness,’ as Rupert called it, which existed between them, might after a time make things a trifle difficult. He felt a little abject as he murmured, “Eggs, please.” And he saw by Rupert’s expression that he had chosen right. Rupert helped him to eggs largely.

§

Psychological awareness ... perhaps it was that which explained their intimacy. One might have been tempted to say it was a case of mutual fascination. But whereas Archie’s reply to the suggestion would have been a slow “Possibly!” Rupert would have flouted it at once.

“Fascination! The word’s preposterous in this connection. What on earth would there be in Cullen to fascinate me even if I was in the habit of being fascinated by my fellow-creatures; which I certainly am not. No, I’ll own I am deeply interested. I confess my belief is, I understand him better than anybody else. And if you want my honest opinion, I am certain that my—my—h’m—influence over—sympathy for—him—call it what you like, is all to the good. There is a psychological awareness.... Moreover, as a companion, instinctively I find him extremely agreeable. He stimulates some part of my mind which is less active without him. But fascination—wide of the mark, my dear—wide!”

But supposing one remained unconvinced? Supposing one still played with the idea. Wasn’t it possible to see Rupert and Archie as the python and the rabbit keeping house together? Rupert that handsome, well-fed python with his moustaches, his glare, his habit of uncoiling before the fire and swaying against the mantelpiece, pipe and pouch in hand. And Archie, soft, hunched, timid, sitting in the lesser armchair, there and not there, flicking back into the darkness at a word but emerging again at a look—with sudden wholly unexpected starts of playfulness (instantly suppressed by the python). Of course, there was no question of anything so crude and dreadful as the rabbit being eaten by his housemate. Nevertheless, it was a strange fact,—after a typical evening the one looked immensely swelled, benign and refreshed and the other, pale, small and exhausted.... And more often than not, Rupert’s final comment was—ominous this—as he doused his whisky with soda:

“This has been very absorbing, Archie.” And Archie gasped out, “Oh, _very_!”

§

Archie Cullen was a journalist and the son of a journalist. He had no private money, no influential connections, scarcely any friends. His father had been one of those weak, disappointed, unsuccessful men who see in their sons a weapon for themselves. He would get his own back on life through Archie. Archie would show them the stuff he—his father was made of. Just you wait till my son comes along! This, though highly consoling to Mr. Cullen _père_, was terribly poor fun for Archie. At two and a half his infant nose was put to the grindstone and even on Sundays it was not taken off. Then his father took him out walking and improved the occasion by making him spell the shop signs, count the yachts racing in the harbour, divide them by four and multiply the result by three.

But the experiment was an amazing success. Archie turned away from the distractions of life, shut his ears, folded his feet, sat over the table with his book and when the holidays came he didn’t like them; they made him uneasy; so he went on reading for himself. He was a model boy. On prize-giving days his father accompanied him to school, carried the great wad of stiff books home for him and, flinging them on the dining-room table, he surveyed them with an exultant smile. My prizes! The little sacrifice stared at them, too, through his spectacles, as other little boys stared at puddings. He ought, of course, at this juncture to have been rescued by a doting mother who, though cowed herself, rose on the....

SUSANNAH

Of course there would have been no question of their going to the exhibition if Father had not had the tickets given to him. Little girls cannot expect to be given treats that cost extra money when only to feed them, buy them clothes, pay for their lessons and the house they live in takes their kind generous Father all day and every day working hard from morning till night—“except Saturday afternoons and Sundays,” said Susannah.

“Susannah!” Mother was very shocked. “But do you know what would happen to your poor Father if he didn’t have a holiday on Saturday afternoons and Sundays?”

“No,” said Susannah. She looked interested. “What?”

“He would die,” said their mother impressively.

“Would he?” said Susannah, opening her eyes. She seemed astounded, and Sylvia and Phyllis, who were four and five years older than she, chimed in with, “Of course,” in a very superior tone. What a little silly-billy she was not to know that! They sounded so convinced and cheerful that their mother felt a little shaken and hastened to change the subject....

“So that is why,” she said a little vaguely, “you must each thank Father separately before you go.”

“And then he will give us the money?” asked Phyllis.

“And then I shall ask him for whatever is necessary,” said their mother firmly. She sighed suddenly and got up. “Run along, children, and ask Miss Wade to dress you and get ready herself and then come down to the dining-room. And now, Susannah, you are not to let go Miss Wade’s hand from the moment you are through the gates until you are out again.”

“Well—what if I go on a horse?” inquired Susannah.

“Go on a horse—nonsense, child! You’re much too young for horses! Only big girls and boys can ride.”

“There’s roosters for small children,” said Susannah undaunted. “I know, because Irene Heywood went on one and when she got off she fell over.”

“All the more reason why you shouldn’t go on,” said her mother.

But Susannah looked as though falling over had no terrors for her. On the contrary.

About the exhibition, however, Sylvia and Phyllis knew as little as Susannah. It was the first that had ever come to their town. One morning, as Miss Wade, their lady help, rushed them along to the Heywoods’, whose governess they shared, they had seen carts piled with great long planks of wood, sacks, what looked like whole doors, and white flagstaffs, passing through the wide gate of the Recreation Ground. And by the time they were bowled home to their dinners, there were the beginnings of a high thin fence, dotted with flagstaffs, built all round the railings. From inside, came a tremendous noise of hammering, shouting, clanging; a little engine, hidden away, went _Chuff-chuff-chuff_. _Chuff!_ And round, woolly balls of smoke were tossed over the palings.

First it was the day after the day after tomorrow, then plain day after tomorrow, then tomorrow, and at last, the day itself. When Susannah woke up in the morning, there was a little gold spot of sunlight watching her from the wall; it looked as though it had been there for a long time, waiting to remind her: “It’s today—you’re going today—this afternoon. Here she is!”

(_Second Version_)

That afternoon they were allowed to cut jugs and basins out of a draper’s catalogue, and at tea-time they had real tea in the doll’s tea set on the table. This was a very nice treat, indeed, except that the doll’s tea-pot wouldn’t pour out even after you’d poked a pin down the spout and blown into it.

But the next afternoon, which was Saturday, Father came home in high feather. The front door banged so hard that the whole house shook, and he shouted to Mother from the hall.

“Oh, how more than good of you, darling!” cried Mother, “but how unnecessary too. Of course, they’ll simply love it. But to have spent all that money! You shouldn’t have done it, Daddy dear! They’ve totally forgotten all about it. And what is this! Half-a-crown?” cried Mother. “No! Two shillings, I see,” she corrected quickly, “to spend as well. Children! Children! Come down, downstairs!”

Down they came, Phyllis and Sylvia leading, Susannah holding on. “Do you know what Father’s done?” And Mother held up her hand. What was she holding? Three cherry tickets and a green one. “He’s bought you tickets. You’re to go to the circus, this very afternoon, all of you, with Miss Wade. What do you say to that?”

“Oh, Mummy! Lovely! Lovely!” cried Phyllis and Sylvia.

“Isn’t it?” said Mother. “Run upstairs. Run and ask Miss Wade to get you ready. Don’t dawdle. Up you go! All of you.”

Away flew Phyllis and Sylvia, but still Susannah stayed where she was at the bottom of the stairs, hanging her head.

“Go along,” said Mother. And Father said sharply, “What the devil’s the matter with the child?”

Susannah’s face quivered. “I don’t want to go,” she whispered.

“What! Don’t want to go to the Exhibition! After Father’s—— You naughty, ungrateful child! Either you go to the Exhibition, Susannah, or you will be packed off to bed at once.”

Susannah’s head bent low, lower still. All her little body bent forward. She looked as though she was going to bow down, to bow down to the ground, before her kind generous Father and beg for his forgiveness....

SECOND VIOLIN

A February morning, windy, cold, with chill-looking clouds hurrying over a pale sky and chill snowdrops for sale in the grey streets. People look small and shrunken as they flit by; they look scared as if they were trying to hide inside their coats from something big and brutal. The shop doors are closed, the awnings are furled, and the policemen at the crossings are lead policemen. Huge empty vans shake past with a hollow sound; and there is a smell of soot and wet stone staircases, a raw, grimy smell....

Flinging her small scarf over her shoulder again, clasping her violin, Miss Bray darts along to orchestra practice. She is conscious of her cold hands, her cold nose and her colder feet. She can’t feel her toes at all. Her feet are just little slabs of cold, all of a piece, like the feet of china dolls. Winter is a terrible time for thin people—terrible! Why should it hound them down, fasten on them, worry them so? Why not, for a change, take a nip, take a snap at the fat ones who wouldn’t notice? But no! It is sleek, warm, cat-like summer that makes the fat one’s life a misery. Winter is all for bones....

Threading her way, like a needle, in and out and along, went Miss Bray, and she thought of nothing but the cold. She had just come out of her kitchen, which was pleasantly snug in the morning, with her gas-fire going for her breakfast and the window closed. She had just drunk three large cups of really boiling tea. Surely, they ought to have warmed her. One always read in books of people going on their way warmed and invigorated by even one cup. And she had had three! How she loved her tea! She was getting fonder and fonder of it. Stirring the cup, Miss Bray looked down. A little fond smile parted her lips, and she breathed tenderly, “I love my tea.”

But all the same, in spite of the books, it didn’t keep her warm. Cold! Cold! And now as she turned the corner she took such a gulp of damp, cold air that her eyes filled. _Yi-yi-yi_, a little dog yelped; he looked as though he’d been hurt. She hadn’t time to look round, but that high, sharp yelping soothed her, was a comfort even. She could have made just that sound herself.

And here was the Academy. Miss Bray pressed with all her might against the stiff, sulky door, squeezed through into the vestibule hung with pallid notices and concert programmes, and stumbled up the dusty stairs and along the passage to the dressing-room. Through the open door there came such shrill loud laughter, such high, indifferent voices that it sounded like a play going on in there. It was hard to believe people were not laughing and talking like that ... on purpose. “Excuse me—pardon—sorry,” said Miss Bray, nudging her way in and looking quickly round the dingy little room. Her two friends had not yet come.

The First Violins were there; a dreamy, broad-faced girl leaned against her ’cello; two Violas sat on a bench, bent over a music book, and the Harp, a small grey little person, who only came occasionally, leaned against a bench and looked for her pocket in her underskirt....

* * * * *

“I’ve a run of three twice, ducky,” said Ma, “a pair of queens make eight, and one for his nob makes nine.”

With an awful hollow groan Alexander, curling his little finger high, pegged nine for Ma. And “Wait now, wait now,” said she, and her quick short little hands snatched at the other cards. “My crib, young man!” She spread them out, leaned back, twitched her shawl, put her head on one side. “H’m, not so bad! A flush of four and a pair!”

“Betrayed! Betrayed!” moaned Alexander, bowing his dark head over the cribbage board, “and by a woo-man.” He sighed deeply, shuffled the cards and said to Ma, “Cut for me, my love!”

Although of course he was only having his joke like all professional young gentlemen, something in the tone in which he said “my love!” gave Ma quite a turn. Her lips trembled as she cut the cards, she felt a sudden pang as she watched those long slim fingers dealing.

Ma and Alexander were playing cribbage in the basement kitchen of number 9 Bolton Street. It was late, it was on eleven, and Sunday night, too—shocking! They sat at the kitchen table that was covered with a worn art serge cloth spotted with candle grease. On one corner of it stood three glasses, three spoons, a saucer of sugar lumps and a bottle of gin. The stove was still alight, and the lid of the kettle had just begun to lift, cautiously, stealthily, as though there was someone inside who wanted to have a peep and pop back again. On the horse-hair sofa against the wall by the door, the owner of the third glass lay asleep, gently snoring. Perhaps because he had his back to them, perhaps because his feet poked out from the short overcoat covering him, he looked forlorn, pathetic, and the long fair hair covering his collar looked forlorn and pathetic, too.

“Well, well,” said Ma, sighing as she put out two cards and arranged the others in a fan, “such is life. I little thought when I saw the last of you this morning that we’d be playing a game together tonight.”

“The caprice of destiny,” murmured Alexander. But, as a matter of fact, it was no joking matter. By some infernal mischance that morning he and Rinaldo had missed the train that all the company travelled by. That was bad enough. But being Sunday, there was no other train until midnight, and as they had a full rehearsal at 10 o’clock on Monday it meant going by that, or getting what the company called the beetroot. But God! what a day it had been. They had left the luggage at the station and come back to Ma’s, back to Alexander’s frowsy bedroom with the bed unmade and water standing about. Rinaldo had spent the whole day sitting on the side of the bed swinging his leg, dropping ash on the floor and saying, “I wonder what made us lose that train. Strange we should have lost it. I bet the others are wondering what made us lose it, too.” And Alexander had stayed by the window gazing into the small garden that was so black with grime even the old lean cat who came and scraped seemed revolted by it, too. It was only after Ma had seen the last of her Sunday visitors....

MR. AND MRS. WILLIAMS

That winter Mr. and Mrs. Williams of The Rowans, Wickenham, Surrey, astonished their friends by announcing that they were going for a three weeks’ holiday to Switzerland. Switzerland! How very enterprising and exciting! There was quite a flutter in Wickenham households at the news. Husbands coming home from the city in the evening were greeted immediately with:

“My dear, have you heard the news about the Williams?”

“No! What’s up now?”

“They’re off to Switzerland.”

“Switzerland! What the dickens are they going there for?”

That, of course, was only the extravagance of the moment. One knew perfectly well why people went. But nobody in Wickenham ever plunged so far away from home at that time of year. It was not considered “necessary”—as golf, bridge, a summer holiday at the sea, an account at Harrods’ and a small car as soon as one could afford it, were considered necessary....

“Won’t you find the initial expenditure very heavy?” asked stout old Mrs. Prean, meeting Mrs. Williams quite by chance at their nice obliging grocer’s. And she brushed the crumbs of a sample cheese biscuit off her broad bosom.

“Oh, we shall get our kit over there,” said Mrs. Williams.

“Kit” was a word in high favour among the Wickenham ladies. It was left over from the war, of course, with “cheery,” “wash-out,” “Hun,” “Boche,” and “Bolshy.” As a matter of fact, Bolshy was post-war. But it belonged to the same mood. (“My dear, my housemaid is an absolute little Hun, and I’m afraid the cook is turning Bolshy....”) There was a fascination in those words. To use them was like opening one’s Red Cross cupboard again, and gazing at the remains of the bandages, body-belts, tins of anti-insectide and so on. One was stirred, one got a far-away thrill, like the thrill of hearing a distant band. It reminded you of those exciting, busy, of course anxious, but tremendous days when the whole of Wickenham was one united family. And, although one’s husband was away, one had for a substitute three large photographs of him in uniform. One in a silver frame on the table by the bed, one in the regimental colours on the piano, and one in leather to match the dining-room chairs.

“Cook strongly advised us to buy nothing here,” went on Mrs. Williams.

“_Cook!_” cried Mrs. Prean, greatly astounded. “What can——”

“Oh—_Thomas_ Cook, of course I mean,” said Mrs. Williams, smiling brightly. Mrs. Prean subsided.

“But you will surely not depend upon the resources of a little Swiss village for clothes?” she persisted, deeply interested, as usual, in other people’s affairs.

“Oh, no, certainly not.” Mrs. Williams was quite shocked. “We shall get all we need in the way of clothes from Harrods’.”

That was what Mrs. Prean had wished to hear. That was as it should be.

“The great secret my dear” (she always knew the great secret), “the great secret,”—and she put her hand on Mrs. Williams’ arm and spoke very distinctly—“is plenty of long-sleeved woven combies!”

“Thank you, m’m.”

Both ladies started. There at their side was Mr. Wick, the nice grocer, holding Mrs. Prean’s parcel by a loop of pink string. Dear me—how very awkward! He must have ... he couldn’t possibly not have.... In the emotion of the moment Mrs. Prean, thinking to gloss it over tactfully, nodded significantly at Mrs. Williams and said, accepting the parcel, “And that is what I always tell my dear son!” But this was too swift for Mrs. Williams to follow.

Her embarrassment continued, and ordering the sardines, she just stopped herself from saying “Three large pairs, Mr. Wick, please,” instead of “Three large tins.”

2

As a matter of fact it was Mrs. Williams’ Aunt Aggie’s happy release which had made their scheme possible. Happy release it was! After fifteen years in a wheel-chair passing in and out of the little house at Ealing she had, to use the nurse’s expression, “just glided away at the last.” Glided away ... it sounded as though Aunt Aggie had taken the wheel-chair with her. One saw her, in her absurd purple velvet, steering carefully among the stars and whimpering faintly, as was her terrestrial wont, when the wheel jolted over a particularly large one.

Aunt Aggie had left her dear niece Gwendolen two hundred and fifty pounds. Not a vast sum by any means, but quite a nice little windfall. Gwendolen, in that dashing mood that only women know, decided immediately to spend it—part of it on the house and the rest on a treat for Gerald. And the lawyer’s letter happening to come at tea-time together with a copy of the _Sphere_ full of the most fascinating, thrilling photographs of holiday-makers at Mürren and St. Moritz and Montana, the question of the treat was settled.

“You would like to go to Switzerland, wouldn’t you, Gerald?”

“Very much.”

“You’re—awfully good at skating and all that kind of thing—aren’t you?”

“Fairly.”

“You do feel it’s a thing to be done—don’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

But Gwendolen only laughed. That was so like Gerald. She knew, in his heart of hearts he was every bit as keen as she was. But he had this horror of showing his feelings like all men. Gwendolen understood it perfectly and wouldn’t have had him different for the world....

“I’ll write to Cook’s at once and tell them we don’t want to go to a very fashionable place, and we don’t want one of those big jazzy hotels! I’d much prefer a really small out-of-the-way place where we could really go in for the sports seriously.” This was quite untrue, but, like so many of Gwendolen’s statements, it was made to please Gerald. “Don’t you agree?”

Gerald lit his pipe for reply.

As you have gathered, the Christian names of Mr. and Mrs. Williams were Gwendolen and Gerald. How well they went together! They sounded married. Gwendolen-Gerald. Gwendolen wrote them, bracketed, on bits of blotting paper, on the backs of old envelopes, on the Stores’ catalogue. They looked married.

Gerald, when they were on their honeymoon, had made an awfully good joke about them. He had said one morning, “I say, has it ever struck you that both our names begin with _G_? Gwendolen-Gerald. You’re a _G_,” and he had pointed his razor at her—he was shaving—“and I’m a _G_. Two _Gs_. Gee-Gee. See?”

Oh, Gwendolen saw immediately. It was really most witty. Quite brilliant! And so—sweet and unexpected of him to have thought of it. Gee-Gee. Oh, _very_ good! She wished she could have told it to people. She had an idea that some people thought Gerald had not a very strong sense of humour. All the more precious for that reason, however.

“My dear, did you think of it at this moment? I mean—did you just make it up on the spot?”

Gerald, rubbing the lather with a finger, nodded. “Flashed into my mind while I was soaping my face,” he said seriously. “It’s a queer thing,”—and he dipped the razor into the pot of hot water—“I’ve noticed it before. Shaving gives me ideas.” It did, indeed, thought Gwendolen....

WEAK HEART

Although it sounded all the year round, although it rang out sometimes as early as half-past six in the morning, sometimes as late as half-past ten at night, it was in the spring, when Bengel’s violet patch just inside the gate was blue with flowers that that piano ... made the passers-by not only stop talking, but slow down, pause, look suddenly—if they were men—grave, even stern, and if they were women—dreamy, even sorrowful.

Tarana Street was beautiful in the spring; there was not a single house without its garden and trees and a plot of grass big enough to be called “the lawn.” Over the low painted fences, you could see, as you ran by, whose daffys were out, whose wild snowdrop border was over and who had the biggest hyacinths, so pink and white, the colour of cocoanut ice. But nobody had violets that grew, that smelled in the spring sun like Bengel’s. Did they really smell like that? Or did you shut your eyes and lean over the fence because of Edie Bengel’s piano?

A little wind ruffles among the leaves like a joyful hand looking for the finest flowers; and the piano sounds gay, tender, laughing. Now a cloud, like a swan, flies across the sun, the violets shine cold, like water, and a sudden questioning cry rings from Edie Bengel’s piano.

... Ah, if life must pass so quickly, why is the breath of these flowers so sweet? What is the meaning of this feeling of longing, of sweet trouble—of flying joy? Goodbye! Farewell! The young bees lie half awake on the slender dandelions, silver are the pink tipped arrowy petals of the daisies; the new grass shakes in the light. Everything is beginning again, marvellous as ever, heavenly fair. “Let me stay! Let me stay!” pleads Edie Bengel’s piano.

It is the afternoon, sunny and still. The blinds are down in the front to save the carpets, but upstairs the slats are open and in the golden light little Mrs. Bengel is feeling under her bed for the square bonnet box. She is flushed. She feels timid, excited, like a girl. And now the tissue paper is parted, her best bonnet, the one trimmed with a jet butterfly, which reposes on top, is lifted out and solemnly blown upon.

Dipping down to the glass she tries it with fingers that tremble. She twitches her dolman round her slender shoulders, clasps her purse and before leaving the bedroom kneels down a moment to ask God’s blessing on her “goings out.” And as she kneels there quivering, she is rather like a butterfly herself, fanning her wings before the Lord. When the door is open the sound of the piano coming up through the silent house is almost frightening, so bold, so defiant, so reckless it rolls under Edie’s fingers. And just for a moment the thought comes to Mrs. Bengel and is gone again, that there is a stranger with Edie in the drawing-room, but a fantastic person, out of a book, a—a—villain. It’s very absurd. She flits across the hall, turns the door handle and confronts her flushed daughter. Edie’s hands drop from the keys. She squeezes them between her knees, her head is bent, her curls are fallen forward. She gazes at her mother with brilliant eyes. There is something painful in that glance, something very strange. It is dusky in the drawing-room, the top of the piano is open. Edie has been playing from memory; it’s as though the air still tingles.

“I’m going, dear,” said Mrs. Bengel softly, so softly it is like a sigh.

“Yes, Mother,” came from Edie.

“I don’t expect I shall be long.”

Mrs. Bengel lingers. She would very much like just a word, of sympathy, of understanding, even from Edie, to cheer her on her way.

But Edie murmurs, “I’ll put the kettle on in half an hour.”

“Do, dear!” Mrs. Bengel grasped at that even. A nervous little smile touched her lips. “I expect I shall want my tea.”

But to that Edie makes no reply; she frowns, she stretches out a hand, quickly unscrews one of the piano candle-sticks, lifts off a pink china ring and screws all tight again. The ring has been rattling. As the front door bangs softly after her mother Edie and the piano seem to plunge together into deep dark water, into waves that flow over both, relentless. She plays on desperately until her nose is white and her heart beats. It is her way of getting over her nervousness and her way too of praying. Would they accept her? Would she be allowed to go? Was it possible that in a week’s time she would be one of Miss Farmer’s girls, wearing a red and blue hat band, running up the broad steps leading to the big grey painted house that buzzed, that hummed as you went by? Their pew in Church faced Miss Farmer’s boarders. Would she at last know the names of the girls she had looked at so often? The pretty pale one with red hair, the dark one with a fringe, the fair one who held Miss Farmer’s hand during the sermon?... But after all....

* * * * *

It was Edie’s fourteenth birthday. Her father gave her a silver brooch with a bar of music, two crotchets, two quavers and a minim headed by a very twisted treble clef. Her mother gave her blue satin gloves and two boxes for gloves and handkerchiefs, hand-painted the glove box with a sprig of gold roses tying up the capital G. and the handkerchief box with a marvellously lifelike butterfly quivering on the capital H. From the aunts in....

* * * * *

There was a tree at the corner of Tarana Street and May Street. It grew so close to the pavement that the heavy boughs stretched over, and on that part of the pavement there was always a fine sifting of minute twigs.

* * * * *

But in the dusk, lovers parading came into its shade as into a tent. There, however long they had been together, they greeted each other again with long kisses, with embraces that were sweet torture, agony to bear, agony to end.

* * * * *

Edie never knew that Roddie “loved” it, Roddie never knew that it meant anything to Edie.

* * * * *

Roddie, spruce, sleek with water, bumped his new bike down the wooden steps, through the gate. He was off for a spin, and looking at that tree, dark in the glow of evening, he felt the tree was watching him. He wanted to do marvels, to astonish, to shock, to amaze it.