Chapter XII (1)

But at that moment in the street below a barrel-organ struck up. Josephine and Constantia sprang to their feet together.

“Run, Con,” said Josephine. “Run quickly. There’s sixpence on the—”

Then they remembered. It didn’t matter. They would never have to stop the organ-grinder again. Never again would she and Constantia be told to make that monkey take his noise somewhere else. Never would sound that loud, strange bellow when father thought they were not hurrying enough. The organ-grinder might play there all day and the stick would not thump.

It never will thump again,
It never will thump again,

played the barrel-organ.

What was Constantia thinking? She had such a strange smile; she looked different. She couldn’t be going to cry.

“Jug, Jug,” said Constantia softly, pressing her hands together. “Do you know what day it is? It’s Saturday. It’s a week to-day, a whole week.”

A week since father died,
A week since father died,

cried the barrel-organ. And Josephine, too, forgot to be practical and sensible; she smiled faintly, strangely. On the Indian carpet there fell a square of sunlight, pale red; it came and went and came—and stayed, deepened—until it shone almost golden.

“The sun’s out,” said Josephine, as though it really mattered.

A perfect fountain of bubbling notes shook from the barrel-organ, round, bright notes, carelessly scattered.

Constantia lifted her big, cold hands as if to catch them, and then her hands fell again. She walked over to the mantelpiece to her favourite Buddha. And the stone and gilt image, whose smile always gave her such a queer feeling, almost a pain and yet a pleasant pain, seemed to-day to be more than smiling. He knew something; he had a secret. “I know something that you don’t know,” said her Buddha. Oh, what was it, what could it be? And yet she had always felt there was... something.

The sunlight pressed through the windows, thieved its way in, flashed its light over the furniture and the photographs. Josephine watched it. When it came to mother’s photograph, the enlargement over the piano, it lingered as though puzzled to find so little remained of mother, except the earrings shaped like tiny pagodas and a black feather boa. Why did the photographs of dead people always fade so? wondered Josephine. As soon as a person was dead their photograph died too. But, of course, this one of mother was very old. It was thirty-five years old. Josephine remembered standing on a chair and pointing out that feather boa to Constantia and telling her that it was a snake that had killed their mother in Ceylon.... Would everything have been different if mother hadn’t died? She didn’t see why. Aunt Florence had lived with them until they had left school, and they had moved three times and had their yearly holiday and... and there’d been changes of servants, of course.

Some little sparrows, young sparrows they sounded, chirped on the window-ledge. _Yeep—eyeep—yeep._ But Josephine felt they were not sparrows, not on the window-ledge. It was inside her, that queer little crying noise. _Yeep—eyeep—yeep._ Ah, what was it crying, so weak and forlorn?

If mother had lived, might they have married? But there had been nobody for them to marry. There had been father’s Anglo-Indian friends before he quarrelled with them. But after that she and Constantia never met a single man except clergymen. How did one meet men? Or even if they’d met them, how could they have got to know men well enough to be more than strangers? One read of people having adventures, being followed, and so on. But nobody had ever followed Constantia and her. Oh yes, there had been one year at Eastbourne a mysterious man at their boarding-house who had put a note on the jug of hot water outside their bedroom door! But by the time Connie had found it the steam had made the writing too faint to read; they couldn’t even make out to which of them it was addressed. And he had left next day. And that was all. The rest had been looking after father, and at the same time keeping out of father’s way. But now? But now? The thieving sun touched Josephine gently. She lifted her face. She was drawn over to the window by gentle beams....

Until the barrel-organ stopped playing Constantia stayed before the Buddha, wondering, but not as usual, not vaguely. This time her wonder was like longing. She remembered the times she had come in here, crept out of bed in her nightgown when the moon was full, and lain on the floor with her arms outstretched, as though she was crucified. Why? The big, pale moon had made her do it. The horrible dancing figures on the carved screen had leered at her and she hadn’t minded. She remembered too how, whenever they were at the seaside, she had gone off by herself and got as close to the sea as she could, and sung something, something she had made up, while she gazed all over that restless water. There had been this other life, running out, bringing things home in bags, getting things on approval, discussing them with Jug, and taking them back to get more things on approval, and arranging father’s trays and trying not to annoy father. But it all seemed to have happened in a kind of tunnel. It wasn’t real. It was only when she came out of the tunnel into the moonlight or by the sea or into a thunderstorm that she really felt herself. What did it mean? What was it she was always wanting? What did it all lead to? Now? Now?

She turned away from the Buddha with one of her vague gestures. She went over to where Josephine was standing. She wanted to say something to Josephine, something frightfully important, about—about the future and what....

“Don’t you think perhaps—” she began.

But Josephine interrupted her. “I was wondering if now—” she murmured. They stopped; they waited for each other.

“Go on, Con,” said Josephine.

“No, no, Jug; after you,” said Constantia.

“No, say what you were going to say. You began,” said Josephine.

“I... I’d rather hear what you were going to say first,” said Constantia.

“Don’t be absurd, Con.”

“Really, Jug.”

“Connie!”

“Oh, _Jug_!”

A pause. Then Constantia said faintly, “I can’t say what I was going to say, Jug, because I’ve forgotten what it was... that I was going to say.”

Josephine was silent for a moment. She stared at a big cloud where the sun had been. Then she replied shortly, “I’ve forgotten too.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dove

Of course he knew—no man better—that he hadn’t a ghost of a chance, he hadn’t an earthly. The very idea of such a thing was preposterous. So preposterous that he’d perfectly understand it if her father—well, whatever her father chose to do he’d perfectly understand. In fact, nothing short of desperation, nothing short of the fact that this was positively his last day in England for God knows how long, would have screwed him up to it. And even now.... He chose a tie out of the chest of drawers, a blue and cream check tie, and sat on the side of his bed. Supposing she replied, “What impertinence!” would he be surprised? Not in the least, he decided, turning up his soft collar and turning it down over the tie. He expected her to say something like that. He didn’t see, if he looked at the affair dead soberly, what else she could say.

Here he was! And nervously he tied a bow in front of the mirror, jammed his hair down with both hands, pulled out the flaps of his jacket pockets. Making between £500 and £600 a year on a fruit farm in—of all places—Rhodesia. No capital. Not a penny coming to him. No chance of his income increasing for at least four years. As for looks and all that sort of thing, he was completely out of the running. He couldn’t even boast of top-hole health, for the East Africa business had knocked him out so thoroughly that he’d had to take six months’ leave. He was still fearfully pale—worse even than usual this afternoon, he thought, bending forward and peering into the mirror. Good heavens! What had happened? His hair looked almost bright green. Dash it all, he hadn’t green hair at all events. That was a bit too steep. And then the green light trembled in the glass; it was the shadow from the tree outside. Reggie turned away, took out his cigarette case, but remembering how the mater hated him to smoke in his bedroom, put it back again and drifted over to the chest of drawers. No, he was dashed if he could think of one blessed thing in his favour, while she.... Ah!... He stopped dead, folded his arms, and leaned hard against the chest of drawers.

And in spite of her position, her father’s wealth, the fact that she was an only child and far and away the most popular girl in the neighbourhood; in spite of her beauty and her cleverness—cleverness!—it was a great deal more than that, there was really nothing she couldn’t do; he fully believed, had it been necessary, she would have been a genius at anything—in spite of the fact that her parents adored her, and she them, and they’d as soon let her go all that way as.... In spite of every single thing you could think of, so terrific was his love that he couldn’t help hoping. Well, was it hope? Or was this queer, timid longing to have the chance of looking after her, of making it his job to see that she had everything she wanted, and that nothing came near her that wasn’t perfect—just love? How he loved her! He squeezed hard against the chest of drawers and murmured to it, “I love her, I love her!” And just for the moment he was with her on the way to Umtali. It was night. She sat in a corner asleep. Her soft chin was tucked into her soft collar, her gold-brown lashes lay on her cheeks. He doted on her delicate little nose, her perfect lips, her ear like a baby’s, and the gold-brown curl that half covered it. They were passing through the jungle. It was warm and dark and far away. Then she woke up and said, “Have I been asleep?” and he answered, “Yes. Are you all right? Here, let me—” And he leaned forward to.... He bent over her. This was such bliss that he could dream no further. But it gave him the courage to bound downstairs, to snatch his straw hat from the hall, and to say as he closed the front door, “Well, I can only try my luck, that’s all.”

But his luck gave him a nasty jar, to say the least, almost immediately. Promenading up and down the garden path with Chinny and Biddy, the ancient Pekes, was the mater. Of course Reginald was fond of the mater and all that. She—she meant well, she had no end of grit, and so on. But there was no denying it, she was rather a grim parent. And there had been moments, many of them, in Reggie’s life, before Uncle Alick died and left him the fruit farm, when he was convinced that to be a widow’s only son was about the worst punishment a chap could have. And what made it rougher than ever was that she was positively all that he had. She wasn’t only a combined parent, as it were, but she had quarrelled with all her own and the governor’s relations before Reggie had won his first trouser pockets. So that whenever Reggie was homesick out there, sitting on his dark veranda by starlight, while the gramophone cried, “Dear, what is Life but Love?” his only vision was of the mater, tall and stout, rustling down the garden path, with Chinny and Biddy at her heels....

The mater, with her scissors outspread to snap the head of a dead something or other, stopped at the sight of Reggie.

“You are not going out, Reginald?” she asked, seeing that he was.

“I’ll be back for tea, mater,” said Reggie weakly, plunging his hands into his jacket pockets.

Snip. Off came a head. Reggie almost jumped.

“I should have thought you could have spared your mother your last afternoon,” said she.

Silence. The Pekes stared. They understood every word of the mater’s. Biddy lay down with her tongue poked out; she was so fat and glossy she looked like a lump of half-melted toffee. But Chinny’s porcelain eyes gloomed at Reginald, and he sniffed faintly, as though the whole world were one unpleasant smell. Snip, went the scissors again. Poor little beggars; they were getting it!

“And where are you going, if your mother may ask?” asked the mater.

It was over at last, but Reggie did not slow down until he was out of sight of the house and half-way to Colonel Proctor’s. Then only he noticed what a top-hole afternoon it was. It had been raining all the morning, late summer rain, warm, heavy, quick, and now the sky was clear, except for a long tail of little clouds, like ducklings, sailing over the forest. There was just enough wind to shake the last drops off the trees; one warm star splashed on his hand. Ping!—another drummed on his hat. The empty road gleamed, the hedges smelled of briar, and how big and bright the hollyhocks glowed in the cottage gardens. And here was Colonel Proctor’s—here it was already. His hand was on the gate, his elbow jogged the syringa bushes, and petals and pollen scattered over his coat sleeve. But wait a bit. This was too quick altogether. He’d meant to think the whole thing out again. Here, steady. But he was walking up the path, with the huge rose bushes on either side. It can’t be done like this. But his hand had grasped the bell, given it a pull, and started it pealing wildly, as if he’d come to say the house was on fire. The housemaid must have been in the hall, too, for the front door flashed open, and Reggie was shut in the empty drawing-room before that confounded bell had stopped ringing. Strangely enough, when it did, the big room, shadowy, with some one’s parasol lying on top of the grand piano, bucked him up—or rather, excited him. It was so quiet, and yet in one moment the door would open, and his fate be decided. The feeling was not unlike that of being at the dentist’s; he was almost reckless. But at the same time, to his immense surprise, Reggie heard himself saying, “Lord, Thou knowest, Thou hast not done _much_ for me....” That pulled him up; that made him realize again how dead serious it was. Too late. The door handle turned. Anne came in, crossed the shadowy space between them, gave him her hand, and said, in her small, soft voice, “I’m so sorry, father is out. And mother is having a day in town, hat-hunting. There’s only me to entertain you, Reggie.”

Reggie gasped, pressed his own hat to his jacket buttons, and stammered out, “As a matter of fact, I’ve only come... to say good-bye.”

“Oh!” cried Anne softly—she stepped back from him and her grey eyes danced—“what a _very_ short visit!”

Then, watching him, her chin tilted, she laughed outright, a long, soft peal, and walked away from him over to the piano, and leaned against it, playing with the tassel of the parasol.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “to be laughing like this. I don’t know why I do. It’s just a bad ha-habit.” And suddenly she stamped her grey shoe, and took a pocket-handkerchief out of her white woolly jacket. “I really must conquer it, it’s too absurd,” said she.

“Good heavens, Anne,” cried Reggie, “I love to hear you laughing! I can’t imagine anything more—”

But the truth was, and they both knew it, she wasn’t always laughing; it wasn’t really a habit. Only ever since the day they’d met, ever since that very first moment, for some strange reason that Reggie wished to God he understood, Anne had laughed at him. Why? It didn’t matter where they were or what they were talking about. They might begin by being as serious as possible, dead serious—at any rate, as far as he was concerned—but then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, Anne would glance at him, and a little quick quiver passed over her face. Her lips parted, her eyes danced, and she began laughing.

Another queer thing about it was, Reggie had an idea she didn’t herself know why she laughed. He had seen her turn away, frown, suck in her cheeks, press her hands together. But it was no use. The long, soft peal sounded, even while she cried, “I don’t know why I’m laughing.” It was a mystery....

Now she tucked the handkerchief away.

“Do sit down,” said she. “And smoke, won’t you? There are cigarettes in that little box beside you. I’ll have one too.” He lighted a match for her, and as she bent forward he saw the tiny flame glow in the pearl ring she wore. “It is to-morrow that you’re going, isn’t it?” said Anne.

“Yes, to-morrow as ever was,” said Reggie, and he blew a little fan of smoke. Why on earth was he so nervous? Nervous wasn’t the word for it.

“It’s—it’s frightfully hard to believe,” he added.

“Yes—isn’t it?” said Anne softly, and she leaned forward and rolled the point of her cigarette round the green ash-tray. How beautiful she looked like that!—simply beautiful—and she was so small in that immense chair. Reginald’s heart swelled with tenderness, but it was her voice, her soft voice, that made him tremble. “I feel you’ve been here for years,” she said.

Reginald took a deep breath of his cigarette. “It’s ghastly, this idea of going back,” he said.

“_Coo-roo-coo-coo-coo_,” sounded from the quiet.

“But you’re fond of being out there, aren’t you?” said Anne. She hooked her finger through her pearl necklace. “Father was saying only the other night how lucky he thought you were to have a life of your own.” And she looked up at him. Reginald’s smile was rather wan. “I don’t feel fearfully lucky,” he said lightly.

“_Roo-coo-coo-coo_,” came again. And Anne murmured, “You mean it’s lonely.”

“Oh, it isn’t the loneliness I care about,” said Reginald, and he stumped his cigarette savagely on the green ash-tray. “I could stand any amount of it, used to like it even. It’s the idea of—” Suddenly, to his horror, he felt himself blushing.

“_Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!_”

Anne jumped up. “Come and say good-bye to my doves,” she said. “They’ve been moved to the side veranda. You do like doves, don’t you, Reggie?”

“Awfully,” said Reggie, so fervently that as he opened the French window for her and stood to one side, Anne ran forward and laughed at the doves instead.

To and fro, to and fro over the fine red sand on the floor of the dove house, walked the two doves. One was always in front of the other. One ran forward, uttering a little cry, and the other followed, solemnly bowing and bowing. “You see,” explained Anne, “the one in front, she’s Mrs. Dove. She looks at Mr. Dove and gives that little laugh and runs forward, and he follows her, bowing and bowing. And that makes her laugh again. Away she runs, and after her,” cried Anne, and she sat back on her heels, “comes poor Mr. Dove, bowing and bowing... and that’s their whole life. They never do anything else, you know.” She got up and took some yellow grains out of a bag on the roof of the dove house. “When you think of them, out in Rhodesia, Reggie, you can be sure that is what they will be doing....”

Reggie gave no sign of having seen the doves or of having heard a word. For the moment he was conscious only of the immense effort it took to tear his secret out of himself and offer it to Anne. “Anne, do you think you could ever care for me?” It was done. It was over. And in the little pause that followed Reginald saw the garden open to the light, the blue quivering sky, the flutter of leaves on the veranda poles, and Anne turning over the grains of maize on her palm with one finger. Then slowly she shut her hand, and the new world faded as she murmured slowly, “No, never in that way.” But he had scarcely time to feel anything before she walked quickly away, and he followed her down the steps, along the garden path, under the pink rose arches, across the lawn. There, with the gay herbaceous border behind her, Anne faced Reginald. “It isn’t that I’m not awfully fond of you,” she said. “I am. But”—her eyes widened—“not in the way”—a quiver passed over her face—“one ought to be fond of—” Her lips parted, and she couldn’t stop herself. She began laughing. “There, you see, you see,” she cried, “it’s your check t-tie. Even at this moment, when one would think one really would be solemn, your tie reminds me fearfully of the bow-tie that cats wear in pictures! Oh, please forgive me for being so horrid, please!”

Reggie caught hold of her little warm hand. “There’s no question of forgiving you,” he said quickly. “How could there be? And I do believe I know why I make you laugh. It’s because you’re so far above me in every way that I am somehow ridiculous. I see that, Anne. But if I were to—”

“No, no.” Anne squeezed his hand hard. “It’s not that. That’s all wrong. I’m not far above you at all. You’re much better than I am. You’re marvellously unselfish and... and kind and simple. I’m none of those things. You don’t know me. I’m the most awful character,” said Anne. “Please don’t interrupt. And besides, that’s not the point. The point is”—she shook her head—“I couldn’t possibly marry a man I laughed at. Surely you see that. The man I marry—” breathed Anne softly. She broke off. She drew her hand away, and looking at Reggie she smiled strangely, dreamily. “The man I marry—”

And it seemed to Reggie that a tall, handsome, brilliant stranger stepped in front of him and took his place—the kind of man that Anne and he had seen often at the theatre, walking on to the stage from nowhere, without a word catching the heroine in his arms, and after one long, tremendous look, carrying her off to anywhere....

Reggie bowed to his vision. “Yes, I see,” he said huskily.

“Do you?” said Anne. “Oh, I do hope you do. Because I feel so horrid about it. It’s so hard to explain. You know I’ve never—” She stopped. Reggie looked at her. She was smiling. “Isn’t it funny?” she said. “I can say anything to you. I always have been able to from the very beginning.”

He tried to smile, to say “I’m glad.” She went on. “I’ve never known anyone I like as much as I like you. I’ve never felt so happy with anyone. But I’m sure it’s not what people and what books mean when they talk about love. Do you understand? Oh, if you only knew how horrid I feel. But we’d be like... like Mr. and Mrs. Dove.”

That did it. That seemed to Reginald final, and so terribly true that he could hardly bear it. “Don’t drive it home,” he said, and he turned away from Anne and looked across the lawn. There was the gardener’s cottage, with the dark ilex-tree beside it. A wet, blue thumb of transparent smoke hung above the chimney. It didn’t look real. How his throat ached! Could he speak? He had a shot. “I must be getting along home,” he croaked, and he began walking across the lawn. But Anne ran after him. “No, don’t. You can’t go yet,” she said imploringly. “You can’t possibly go away feeling like that.” And she stared up at him frowning, biting her lip.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Reggie, giving himself a shake. “I’ll... I’ll—” And he waved his hand as much to say “get over it.”

“But this is awful,” said Anne. She clasped her hands and stood in front of him. “Surely you do see how fatal it would be for us to marry, don’t you?”

“Oh, quite, quite,” said Reggie, looking at her with haggard eyes.

“How wrong, how wicked, feeling as I do. I mean, it’s all very well for Mr. and Mrs. Dove. But imagine that in real life—imagine it!”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Reggie, and he started to walk on. But again Anne stopped him. She tugged at his sleeve, and to his astonishment, this time, instead of laughing, she looked like a little girl who was going to cry.

“Then why, if you understand, are you so un-unhappy?” she wailed. “Why do you mind so fearfully? Why do you look so aw-awful?”

Reggie gulped, and again he waved something away. “I can’t help it,” he said, “I’ve had a blow. If I cut off now, I’ll be able to—”

“How can you talk of cutting off now?” said Anne scornfully. She stamped her foot at Reggie; she was crimson. “How can you be so cruel? I can’t let you go until I know for certain that you are just as happy as you were before you asked me to marry you. Surely you must see that, it’s so simple.”

But it did not seem at all simple to Reginald. It seemed impossibly difficult.

“Even if I can’t marry you, how can I know that you’re all that way away, with only that awful mother to write to, and that you’re miserable, and that it’s all my fault?”

“It’s not your fault. Don’t think that. It’s just fate.” Reggie took her hand off his sleeve and kissed it. “Don’t pity me, dear little Anne,” he said gently. And this time he nearly ran, under the pink arches, along the garden path.

“_Roo-coo-coo-coo! Roo-coo-coo-coo!_” sounded from the veranda. “Reggie, Reggie,” from the garden.

He stopped, he turned. But when she saw his timid, puzzled look, she gave a little laugh.

“Come back, Mr. Dove,” said Anne. And Reginald came slowly across the lawn.

The Young Girl

In her blue dress, with her cheeks lightly flushed, her blue, blue eyes, and her gold curls pinned up as though for the first time—pinned up to be out of the way for her flight—Mrs. Raddick’s daughter might have just dropped from this radiant heaven. Mrs. Raddick’s timid, faintly astonished, but deeply admiring glance looked as if she believed it, too; but the daughter didn’t appear any too pleased—why should she?—to have alighted on the steps of the Casino. Indeed, she was bored—bored as though Heaven had been full of casinos with snuffy old saints for _croupiers_ and crowns to play with.

“You don’t mind taking Hennie?” said Mrs. Raddick. “Sure you don’t? There’s the car, and you’ll have tea and we’ll be back here on this step—right here—in an hour. You see, I want her to go in. She’s not been before, and it’s worth seeing. I feel it wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“Oh, shut up, mother,” said she wearily. “Come along. Don’t talk so much. And your bag’s open; you’ll be losing all your money again.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” said Mrs. Raddick.

“Oh, _do_ come in! I want to make money,” said the impatient voice. “It’s all jolly well for you—but I’m broke!”

“Here—take fifty francs, darling, take a hundred!” I saw Mrs. Raddick pressing notes into her hand as they passed through the swing doors.

Hennie and I stood on the steps a minute, watching the people. He had a very broad, delighted smile.

“I say,” he cried, “there’s an English bulldog. Are they allowed to take dogs in there?”

“No, they’re not.”

“He’s a ripping chap, isn’t he? I wish I had one. They’re such fun. They frighten people so, and they’re never fierce with their—the people they belong to.” Suddenly he squeezed my arm. “I say, _do_ look at that old woman. Who is she? Why does she look like that? Is she a gambler?”

The ancient, withered creature, wearing a green satin dress, a black velvet cloak and a white hat with purple feathers, jerked slowly, slowly up the steps as though she were being drawn up on wires. She stared in front of her, she was laughing and nodding and cackling to herself; her claws clutched round what looked like a dirty boot-bag.

But just at that moment there was Mrs. Raddick again with—_her_—and another lady hovering in the background. Mrs. Raddick rushed at me. She was brightly flushed, gay, a different creature. She was like a woman who is saying “good-bye” to her friends on the station platform, with not a minute to spare before the train starts.

“Oh, you’re here, still. Isn’t that lucky! You’ve not gone. Isn’t that fine! I’ve had the most dreadful time with—her,” and she waved to her daughter, who stood absolutely still, disdainful, looking down, twiddling her foot on the step, miles away. “They won’t let her in. I swore she was twenty-one. But they won’t believe me. I showed the man my purse; I didn’t dare to do more. But it was no use. He simply scoffed.... And now I’ve just met Mrs. MacEwen from New York, and she just won thirteen thousand in the _Salle Privée_—and she wants me to go back with her while the luck lasts. Of course I can’t leave—her. But if you’d—”

At that “she” looked up; she simply withered her mother. “Why can’t you leave me?” she said furiously. “What utter rot! How dare you make a scene like this? This is the last time I’ll come out with you. You really are too awful for words.” She looked her mother up and down. “Calm yourself,” she said superbly.

Mrs. Raddick was desperate, just desperate. She was “wild” to go back with Mrs. MacEwen, but at the same time....

I seized my courage. “Would you—do you care to come to tea with—us?”

“Yes, yes, she’ll be delighted. That’s just what I wanted, isn’t it, darling? Mrs. MacEwen... I’ll be back here in an hour... or less... I’ll—”

Mrs. R. dashed up the steps. I saw her bag was open again.

So we three were left. But really it wasn’t my fault. Hennie looked crushed to the earth, too. When the car was there she wrapped her dark coat round her—to escape contamination. Even her little feet looked as though they scorned to carry her down the steps to us.

“I am so awfully sorry,” I murmured as the car started.

“Oh, I don’t _mind_,” said she. “I don’t _want_ to look twenty-one. Who would—if they were seventeen! It’s”—and she gave a faint shudder—“the stupidity I loathe, and being stared at by old fat men. Beasts!”

Hennie gave her a quick look and then peered out of the window.

We drew up before an immense palace of pink-and-white marble with orange-trees outside the doors in gold-and-black tubs.

“Would you care to go in?” I suggested.

She hesitated, glanced, bit her lip, and resigned herself. “Oh well, there seems nowhere else,” said she. “Get out, Hennie.”

I went first—to find the table, of course—she followed. But the worst of it was having her little brother, who was only twelve, with us. That was the last, final straw—having that child, trailing at her heels.

There was one table. It had pink carnations and pink plates with little blue tea-napkins for sails.

“Shall we sit here?”

She put her hand wearily on the back of a white wicker chair.

“We may as well. Why not?” said she.

Hennie squeezed past her and wriggled on to a stool at the end. He felt awfully out of it. She didn’t even take her gloves off. She lowered her eyes and drummed on the table. When a faint violin sounded she winced and bit her lip again. Silence.

The waitress appeared. I hardly dared to ask her. “Tea—coffee? China tea—or iced tea with lemon?”

Really she didn’t mind. It was all the same to her. She didn’t really want anything. Hennie whispered, “Chocolate!”

But just as the waitress turned away she cried out carelessly, “Oh, you may as well bring me a chocolate, too.”

While we waited she took out a little, gold powder-box with a mirror in the lid, shook the poor little puff as though she loathed it, and dabbed her lovely nose.

“Hennie,” she said, “take those flowers away.” She pointed with her puff to the carnations, and I heard her murmur, “I can’t bear flowers on a table.” They had evidently been giving her intense pain, for she positively closed her eyes as I moved them away.

The waitress came back with the chocolate and the tea. She put the big, frothing cups before them and pushed across my clear glass. Hennie buried his nose, emerged, with, for one dreadful moment, a little trembling blob of cream on the tip. But he hastily wiped it off like a little gentleman. I wondered if I should dare draw her attention to her cup. She didn’t notice it—didn’t see it—until suddenly, quite by chance, she took a sip. I watched anxiously; she faintly shuddered.

“Dreadfully sweet!” said she.

A tiny boy with a head like a raisin and a chocolate body came round with a tray of pastries—row upon row of little freaks, little inspirations, little melting dreams. He offered them to her. “Oh, I’m not at all hungry. Take them away.”

He offered them to Hennie. Hennie gave me a swift look—it must have been satisfactory—for he took a chocolate cream, a coffee éclair, a meringue stuffed with chestnut and a tiny horn filled with fresh strawberries. She could hardly bear to watch him. But just as the boy swerved away she held up her plate.

“Oh well, give me _one_,” said she.

The silver tongs dropped one, two, three—and a cherry tartlet. “I don’t know why you’re giving me all these,” she said, and nearly smiled. “I shan’t eat them; I couldn’t!”

I felt much more comfortable. I sipped my tea, leaned back, and even asked if I might smoke. At that she paused, the fork in her hand, opened her eyes, and really did smile. “Of course,” said she. “I always expect people to.”

But at that moment a tragedy happened to Hennie. He speared his pastry horn too hard, and it flew in two, and one half spilled on the table. Ghastly affair! He turned crimson. Even his ears flared, and one ashamed hand crept across the table to take what was left of the body away.

“You _utter_ little beast!” said she.

Good heavens! I had to fly to the rescue. I cried hastily, “Will you be abroad long?”

But she had already forgotten Hennie. I was forgotten, too. She was trying to remember something.... She was miles away.

“I—don’t—know,” she said slowly, from that far place.

“I suppose you prefer it to London. It’s more—more—”

When I didn’t go on she came back and looked at me, very puzzled. “More—?”

“_Enfin_—gayer,” I cried, waving my cigarette.

But that took a whole cake to consider. Even then, “Oh well, that depends!” was all she could safely say.

Hennie had finished. He was still very warm.

I seized the butterfly list off the table. “I say—what about an ice, Hennie? What about tangerine and ginger? No, something cooler. What about a fresh pineapple cream?”

Hennie strongly approved. The waitress had her eye on us. The order was taken when she looked up from her crumbs.

“Did you say tangerine and ginger? I like ginger. You can bring me one.” And then quickly, “I wish that orchestra wouldn’t play things from the year One. We were dancing to that all last Christmas. It’s too sickening!”

But it was a charming air. Now that I noticed it, it warmed me.

“I think this is rather a nice place, don’t you, Hennie?” I said.

Hennie said: “Ripping!” He meant to say it very low, but it came out very high in a kind of squeak.

Nice? This place? Nice? For the first time she stared about her, trying to see what there was.... She blinked; her lovely eyes wondered. A very good-looking elderly man stared back at her through a monocle on a black ribbon. But him she simply couldn’t see. There was a hole in the air where he was. She looked through and through him.

Finally the little flat spoons lay still on the glass plates. Hennie looked rather exhausted, but she pulled on her white gloves again. She had some trouble with her diamond wrist-watch; it got in her way. She tugged at it—tried to break the stupid little thing—it wouldn’t break. Finally, she had to drag her glove over. I saw, after that, she couldn’t stand this place a moment longer, and, indeed, she jumped up and turned away while I went through the vulgar act of paying for the tea.

And then we were outside again. It had grown dusky. The sky was sprinkled with small stars; the big lamps glowed. While we waited for the car to come up she stood on the step, just as before, twiddling her foot, looking down.

Hennie bounded forward to open the door and she got in and sank back with—oh—such a sigh!

“Tell him,” she gasped, “to drive as fast as he can.”

Hennie grinned at his friend the chauffeur. “_Allie veet!_” said he. Then he composed himself and sat on the small seat facing us.

The gold powder-box came out again. Again the poor little puff was shaken; again there was that swift, deadly-secret glance between her and the mirror.

We tore through the black-and-gold town like a pair of scissors tearing through brocade. Hennie had great difficulty not to look as though he were hanging on to something.

And when we reached the Casino, of course Mrs. Raddick wasn’t there. There wasn’t a sign of her on the steps—not a sign.

“Will you stay in the car while I go and look?”

But no—she wouldn’t do that. Good heavens, no! Hennie could stay. She couldn’t bear sitting in a car. She’d wait on the steps.

“But I scarcely like to leave you,” I murmured. “I’d very much rather not leave you here.”

At that she threw back her coat; she turned and faced me; her lips parted. “Good heavens—why! I—I don’t mind it a bit. I—I like waiting.” And suddenly her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes grew dark—for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “L—let me, please,” she stammered, in a warm, eager voice. “I like it. I love waiting! Really—really I do! I’m always waiting—in all kinds of places....”

Her dark coat fell open, and her white throat—all her soft young body in the blue dress—was like a flower that is just emerging from its dark bud.

Life of Ma Parker

When the literary gentleman, whose flat old Ma Parker cleaned every Tuesday, opened the door to her that morning, he asked after her grandson. Ma Parker stood on the doormat inside the dark little hall, and she stretched out her hand to help her gentleman shut the door before she replied. “We buried ’im yesterday, sir,” she said quietly.

“Oh, dear me! I’m sorry to hear that,” said the literary gentleman in a shocked tone. He was in the middle of his breakfast. He wore a very shabby dressing-gown and carried a crumpled newspaper in one hand. But he felt awkward. He could hardly go back to the warm sitting-room without saying something—something more. Then because these people set such store by funerals he said kindly, “I hope the funeral went off all right.”

“Beg parding, sir?” said old Ma Parker huskily.

Poor old bird! She did look dashed. “I hope the funeral was a—a—success,” said he. Ma Parker gave no answer. She bent her head and hobbled off to the kitchen, clasping the old fish bag that held her cleaning things and an apron and a pair of felt shoes. The literary gentleman raised his eyebrows and went back to his breakfast.

“Overcome, I suppose,” he said aloud, helping himself to the marmalade.

Ma Parker drew the two jetty spears out of her toque and hung it behind the door. She unhooked her worn jacket and hung that up too. Then she tied her apron and sat down to take off her boots. To take off her boots or to put them on was an agony to her, but it had been an agony for years. In fact, she was so accustomed to the pain that her face was drawn and screwed up ready for the twinge before she’d so much as untied the laces. That over, she sat back with a sigh and softly rubbed her knees....

“Gran! Gran!” Her little grandson stood on her lap in his button boots. He’d just come in from playing in the street.

“Look what a state you’ve made your gran’s skirt into—you wicked boy!”

But he put his arms round her neck and rubbed his cheek against hers.

“Gran, gi’ us a penny!” he coaxed.

“Be off with you; Gran ain’t got no pennies.”

“Yes, you ’ave.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Yes, you ’ave. Gi’ us one!”

Already she was feeling for the old, squashed, black leather purse.

“Well, what’ll you give your gran?”

He gave a shy little laugh and pressed closer. She felt his eyelid quivering against her cheek. “I ain’t got nothing,” he murmured....

The old woman sprang up, seized the iron kettle off the gas stove and took it over to the sink. The noise of the water drumming in the kettle deadened her pain, it seemed. She filled the pail, too, and the washing-up bowl.

It would take a whole book to describe the state of that kitchen. During the week the literary gentleman “did” for himself. That is to say, he emptied the tea leaves now and again into a jam jar set aside for that purpose, and if he ran out of clean forks he wiped over one or two on the roller towel. Otherwise, as he explained to his friends, his “system” was quite simple, and he couldn’t understand why people made all this fuss about housekeeping.

“You simply dirty everything you’ve got, get a hag in once a week to clean up, and the thing’s done.”

The result looked like a gigantic dustbin. Even the floor was littered with toast crusts, envelopes, cigarette ends. But Ma Parker bore him no grudge. She pitied the poor young gentleman for having no one to look after him. Out of the smudgy little window you could see an immense expanse of sad-looking sky, and whenever there were clouds they looked very worn, old clouds, frayed at the edges, with holes in them, or dark stains like tea.

While the water was heating, Ma Parker began sweeping the floor. “Yes,” she thought, as the broom knocked, “what with one thing and another I’ve had my share. I’ve had a hard life.”

Even the neighbours said that of her. Many a time, hobbling home with her fish bag she heard them, waiting at the corner, or leaning over the area railings, say among themselves, “She’s had a hard life, has Ma Parker.” And it was so true she wasn’t in the least proud of it. It was just as if you were to say she lived in the basement-back at Number 27. A hard life!...

At sixteen she’d left Stratford and come up to London as kitching-maid. Yes, she was born in Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare, sir? No, people were always arsking her about him. But she’d never heard his name until she saw it on the theatres.

Nothing remained of Stratford except that “sitting in the fire-place of a evening you could see the stars through the chimley,” and “Mother always ’ad ’er side of bacon, ’anging from the ceiling.” And there was something—a bush, there was—at the front door, that smelt ever so nice. But the bush was very vague. She’d only remembered it once or twice in the hospital, when she’d been taken bad.

That was a dreadful place—her first place. She was never allowed out. She never went upstairs except for prayers morning and evening. It was a fair cellar. And the cook was a cruel woman. She used to snatch away her letters from home before she’d read them, and throw them in the range because they made her dreamy.... And the beedles! Would you believe it?—until she came to London she’d never seen a black beedle. Here Ma always gave a little laugh, as though—not to have seen a black beedle! Well! It was as if to say you’d never seen your own feet.

When that family was sold up she went as “help” to a doctor’s house, and after two years there, on the run from morning till night, she married her husband. He was a baker.

“A baker, Mrs. Parker!” the literary gentleman would say. For occasionally he laid aside his tomes and lent an ear, at least, to this product called Life. “It must be rather nice to be married to a baker!”

Mrs. Parker didn’t look so sure.

“Such a clean trade,” said the gentleman.

Mrs. Parker didn’t look convinced.

“And didn’t you like handing the new loaves to the customers?”

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Parker, “I wasn’t in the shop above a great deal. We had thirteen little ones and buried seven of them. If it wasn’t the ’ospital it was the infirmary, you might say!”

“You might, _indeed_, Mrs. Parker!” said the gentleman, shuddering, and taking up his pen again.

Yes, seven had gone, and while the six were still small her husband was taken ill with consumption. It was flour on the lungs, the doctor told her at the time.... Her husband sat up in bed with his shirt pulled over his head, and the doctor’s finger drew a circle on his back.

“Now, if we were to cut him open _here_, Mrs. Parker,” said the doctor, “you’d find his lungs chock-a-block with white powder. Breathe, my good fellow!” And Mrs. Parker never knew for certain whether she saw or whether she fancied she saw a great fan of white dust come out of her poor dead husband’s lips....

But the struggle she’d had to bring up those six little children and keep herself to herself. Terrible it had been! Then, just when they were old enough to go to school her husband’s sister came to stop with them to help things along, and she hadn’t been there more than two months when she fell down a flight of steps and hurt her spine. And for five years Ma Parker had another baby—and such a one for crying!—to look after. Then young Maudie went wrong and took her sister Alice with her; the two boys emigrated, and young Jim went to India with the army, and Ethel, the youngest, married a good-for-nothing little waiter who died of ulcers the year little Lennie was born. And now little Lennie—my grandson....

The piles of dirty cups, dirty dishes, were washed and dried. The ink-black knives were cleaned with a piece of potato and finished off with a piece of cork. The table was scrubbed, and the dresser and the sink that had sardine tails swimming in it....

He’d never been a strong child—never from the first. He’d been one of those fair babies that everybody took for a girl. Silvery fair curls he had, blue eyes, and a little freckle like a diamond on one side of his nose. The trouble she and Ethel had had to rear that child! The things out of the newspapers they tried him with! Every Sunday morning Ethel would read aloud while Ma Parker did her washing.

“Dear Sir,—Just a line to let you know my little Myrtil was laid out for dead.... After four bottils... gained 8 lbs. in 9 weeks, _and is still putting it on_.”

And then the egg-cup of ink would come off the dresser and the letter would be written, and Ma would buy a postal order on her way to work next morning. But it was no use. Nothing made little Lennie put it on. Taking him to the cemetery, even, never gave him a colour; a nice shake-up in the bus never improved his appetite.

But he was gran’s boy from the first....

“Whose boy are you?” said old Ma Parker, straightening up from the stove and going over to the smudgy window. And a little voice, so warm, so close, it half stifled her—it seemed to be in her breast under her heart—laughed out, and said, “I’m gran’s boy!”

At that moment there was a sound of steps, and the literary gentleman appeared, dressed for walking.

“Oh, Mrs. Parker, I’m going out.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And you’ll find your half-crown in the tray of the inkstand.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, by the way, Mrs. Parker,” said the literary gentleman quickly, “you didn’t throw away any cocoa last time you were here—did you?”

“No, sir.”

“_Very_ strange. I could have sworn I left a teaspoonful of cocoa in the tin.” He broke off. He said softly and firmly, “You’ll always tell me when you throw things away—won’t you, Mrs. Parker?” And he walked off very well pleased with himself, convinced, in fact, he’d shown Mrs. Parker that under his apparent carelessness he was as vigilant as a woman.

The door banged. She took her brushes and cloths into the bedroom. But when she began to make the bed, smoothing, tucking, patting, the thought of little Lennie was unbearable. Why did he have to suffer so? That’s what she couldn’t understand. Why should a little angel child have to arsk for his breath and fight for it? There was no sense in making a child suffer like that.

... From Lennie’s little box of a chest there came a sound as though something was boiling. There was a great lump of something bubbling in his chest that he couldn’t get rid of. When he coughed the sweat sprang out on his head; his eyes bulged, his hands waved, and the great lump bubbled as a potato knocks in a saucepan. But what was more awful than all was when he didn’t cough he sat against the pillow and never spoke or answered, or even made as if he heard. Only he looked offended.

“It’s not your poor old gran’s doing it, my lovey,” said old Ma Parker, patting back the damp hair from his little scarlet ears. But Lennie moved his head and edged away. Dreadfully offended with her he looked—and solemn. He bent his head and looked at her sideways as though he couldn’t have believed it of his gran.

But at the last... Ma Parker threw the counterpane over the bed. No, she simply couldn’t think about it. It was too much—she’d had too much in her life to bear. She’d borne it up till now, she’d kept herself to herself, and never once had she been seen to cry. Never by a living soul. Not even her own children had seen Ma break down. She’d kept a proud face always. But now! Lennie gone—what had she? She had nothing. He was all she’d got from life, and now he was took too. Why must it all have happened to me? she wondered. “What have I done?” said old Ma Parker. “What have I done?”

As she said those words she suddenly let fall her brush. She found herself in the kitchen. Her misery was so terrible that she pinned on her hat, put on her jacket and walked out of the flat like a person in a dream. She did not know what she was doing. She was like a person so dazed by the horror of what has happened that he walks away—anywhere, as though by walking away he could escape....

It was cold in the street. There was a wind like ice. People went flitting by, very fast; the men walked like scissors; the women trod like cats. And nobody knew—nobody cared. Even if she broke down, if at last, after all these years, she were to cry, she’d find herself in the lock-up as like as not.

But at the thought of crying it was as though little Lennie leapt in his gran’s arms. Ah, that’s what she wants to do, my dove. Gran wants to cry. If she could only cry now, cry for a long time, over everything, beginning with her first place and the cruel cook, going on to the doctor’s, and then the seven little ones, death of her husband, the children’s leaving her, and all the years of misery that led up to Lennie. But to have a proper cry over all these things would take a long time. All the same, the time for it had come. She must do it. She couldn’t put it off any longer; she couldn’t wait any more.... Where could she go?

“She’s had a hard life, has Ma Parker.” Yes, a hard life, indeed! Her chin began to tremble; there was no time to lose. But where? Where?