Chapter VI: April's Looking-Glass

For April the term which brought Roland so much excitement was slow in passing. In spite of the disastrous evening at the ball, Roland's return to school left a void in her life. When she woke in the morning and stretched herself in bed before getting up she would ask herself what good thing she could expect that day to bring her. When she felt happy she would demand the reason of herself. "Over what are you happy?" she would ask herself. "In five minutes' time you will get up. You will put on your dressing-gown and hurry down the corridor to the bathroom. You will dress hurriedly, but come down all the same a little late for breakfast. You will find that your father has eaten, as is his wont, more than his share of toast, which will mean that you, being the last down, will have to go without it. You will rush down to school saying over to yourself the dates of your history lesson. You will hang your hat and coat on the fourth row of pegs and on the seventh peg from the right. From nine o'clock to ten you will be heard your history lesson. From ten o'clock till eleven you will take down notes on chemistry. From eleven to a quarter past there will be an interval, during which you will try to find a friend to help you with the Latin translation, of which you prepared only the first thirty lines last night. From a quarter-past eleven till a quarter-past twelve you will be heard that lesson. At a quarter-past twelve you will attend a lecture on English literature, which will last till one o'clock. You will then have lunch, and as to-day is Tuesday you know that your lunch will consist of boiled mutton and caper sauce, followed by apple dumpling. In the afternoon you will have gymnastics and a music lesson, after which there will be an hour of Mademoiselle's French conversation class. You will then come home. You will hurry your tea in the hope of being able to finish your preparation before your father comes back from the office at twenty minutes to seven, because when once he is back your mother will begin to talk, and when she begins to talk work becomes impossible. You will then dine with your parents at half-past seven. You will sit perfectly quiet at the table and not say a word, while your mother talks and talks and father listens and occasionally says, 'Yes, mother,' or 'No, mother.' After dinner you will read a book in the drawing-room till your mother reminds you that it is nine o'clock and time that you were in bed. You have, in fact, before you a day similar in every detail to yesterday, and similar in every detail to to-morrow. If you think anything different is going to happen to you then you are a little fool." And April would have to confess that this self-catechism was true. "Nothing happens," she would say. "One day is like another, and I am a little fool to wake up in the morning excited about nothing at all."

But all the same she was excited and she did feel, in spite of reason, that something was bound to happen soon. "Things cannot go on like this for ever," she told herself. And, looking into the future, she came gradually to look upon the day of Roland's return from school as the event which would alter, in a way she could not discern, the whole tenor of her life. It was not in these words that the idea was presented to her. "It may be different during the holidays when Roland is here." That was her first thought, from which the words "when Roland is here" detached themselves, starting another train of thought, that "Life when Roland is here is always different"; and she began to look forward to the holidays, counting the days till his return. "Things will be different then."

It was not love, it was not friendship; it was simply the belief that Roland's presence would be a key to that world other than this, of which shadowy intimations haunted her continually. Roland became the focus for her disquiet, her longing, her vague appreciation of the eternal essence made manifest for her in the passing phenomena of life.

"When Roland comes back ..." And though she marked on the calendar that hung in her bedroom April 2, the last day of her own term, with a big red cross, it was April 5 that she regarded as the real beginning of her holidays. And when she came down to breakfast and her father said to her, "Only seven more days now, April," she would answer gaily, "Yes, only a week. Isn't it lovely?" But to herself she would add, "Ten days, only ten days more!"

And so she missed altogether the usual last day excitement. She did not wake on that first morning happy with the delicious thought that she could lie in bed for an extra ten minutes if she liked. She had not yet begun her holidays.

But two days later she was in a fever of expectation. In twenty-four hours' time Roland would be home. How slowly the day passed. In the evening she said she was tired and went to bed before dinner, so that the next day might come quickly for her. But when she got to bed she found that she could not sleep, and though she repeated the word "abracadabra" many hundred times and counted innumerable sheep passing through innumerable gates, she lay awake till after midnight, hearing hour after hour strike. And when at last sleep came to her it was light and fitful and she woke often.

Next day she did not know what to do with herself. She tried to read and could not. She tried to sew and could not. She ran up and down stairs on trifling errands in order to pass the time. In vain she tried to calm herself. "What are you getting so excited about? What do you think is going to happen? What can happen? The most that can happen is that he will come round with his father in the evening, and you know well enough by now what that will mean. Your mother will talk and his father will say, 'Yes, Mrs Curtis,' and 'Really, Mrs Curtis,' and you and Roland will hardly exchange a word with one another. You are absurdly excited over nothing."

But logic was of no avail, and all the afternoon she fidgeted with impatience. By tea-time she was in a state of repressed hysteria. She sat in the window-seat looking down the road in the direction from which he would have to come. "I wonder if he will come without his father. It would be so dear of him if he would, but I don't suppose he will. No, of course he won't. It's silly of me to think of it. He'll have to wait for his father; he always does. That means he won't be here at the earliest till after six. And it's only ten minutes to five now."

And to make things worse, seldom had she found her mother more annoying.

"Now, why don't you go for a walk, April, dear?" she said. "It's such a lovely evening and you've been indoors nearly all day. It isn't good, and I was saying to your father only the other day, 'Father, dear, I'm sure April isn't up to the mark. She looks so pale nowadays.'"

"I'm all right, mother."

"No, but are you, dear? You're looking really pale. I'm sure I ought to ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you."

"But I'm all right--really, I'm all right, mother. I know when anything is wrong with me."

"But you don't, April, dear. That's just the point. Don't you remember that time when you insisted on going to the tennis party and assured us that you were quite well, and when you came back we found you had a temperature of 101° and that you were sickening for measles? I was saying to Dr Dunkin only this morning: 'Dr Dunkin, I'm really not satisfied about our little April. I think I shall have to ask you to give her a tonic'; and he said to me: 'Yes, that's right, Mrs Curtis; you bring me along to her and I'll set her straight.'"

April put her hands up to her head and tried not to listen, but her mother's voice flowed on:

"And now, dear, do go out for a walk--just a little one."

"But, mother, dear, I don't want to, really, and I'm feeling so tired."

"There, what did I say? You're feeling tired and you've done nothing all day. There must be something wrong with you. I shall certainly ask Dr Dunkin to come and see you to-morrow."

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, mother. I'll do anything you like to-morrow. If you'll only leave me alone to-night."

But Mrs Curtis went on talking, and April grew more and more exasperated, and the minutes went past and Roland did not come. Six struck and half-past six, and a few minutes later she heard her father's latch-key in the door. And then the whole question of her health was dragged out again.

"I was saying to you only yesterday, father, that our little April wasn't as well as she ought to be. She has overworked, I think. Last night she went to bed early and to-day she looks quite pale, and she says that she feels tired although she hasn't really done anything. I must send for Dr Dunkin to-morrow."

It seemed to April that the voice would never stop. It beat and beat upon her brain, like the ticking of the watch that reminded her of the flying moments. "He won't come now," she said; "he won't come now." Seven o'clock had struck, the lamps were lit, evening had descended upon the street. He had never come as late as this before. But she still sat at the window, gazing down the street towards the figures, that became distinct for a moment in the lamplight. "He will not come now," she said, and suddenly she felt limp, tired, incapable of resistance. She put her head upon her knees and began to sob.

In a moment her mother's arms were round her. "But, darling, what is it, April, dear?"

She could not speak. She shook her head, tried desperately to make a sign that she was all right, that she would rather be left alone; but it was no use. She felt too bitterly the need for human sympathy. She turned, flung her arms about her mother's neck, and began to sob and sob.

"Oh, mother, mother," she cried. "I'm so miserable. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

* * * * *

Next morning Dr Dunkin felt her pulse, prescribed a tonic and told her not to stay too much indoors.

"Now, you'll be all right, dear," her mother said. "Dr Dunkin's medicines are splendid."

April smiled quietly. "Yes, I expect that was what was wanted. I think I worked a little too hard last term."

"I'm sure you did, my dear. I shall write to Mrs Clarke about it. I can't have my little girl getting run down."

And that afternoon April met Roland in the High Street. It was the first time that she had seen him alone since the evening of the dance, and she found him awkward and embarrassed. They said a few things of no importance--about the holidays, the weather and their acquaintances. Then April said that she must be going home, and Roland made no effort to detain her--did not even make any suggestion about coming round to see her.

"So that is what you have been looking forward to for over a month," she said to herself, as he passed out of sight behind an angle of the road. "This is the date you wanted to mark upon your calendar with a red cross. Little fool. What did you think you were doing? And what has it turned out to be in the end? Five minutes' discussion of indifferent things. A fine event to make such a fuss about; and what else did you expect?"

She was not bitter. It was one of those mild days that in early spring surprise us with a promise of summer, on which the heart is stirred with the crowded glory of life and the sense of widening horizons. The long stretch of roofs and chimney stacks became beautiful in the subdued sunlight. It was an hour that in the strong might have quickened the hunger for adventure, but that to April brought a mood of chastened, quiet resignation. She appreciated, as she had not done before, the tether by which her scope was measured. For the last month she had made Roland's return a focus for the ambitions and desires and yearnings towards an intenser way of living, for which of herself she had been unable to find expression. This, in a confused manner, she understood. "I can do nothing by myself. I have to live in other people. And what I am now I shall be always. All my life I shall be dependent on someone else, or on some interest that is outside myself. And whether I am happy or unhappy depends upon some other person. That is my nature, and I cannot go beyond my nature." When she reached home she sat for a long time in the window-seat, her hands folded in her lap. "This will be my whole life," she said. "I am not of those who may go out in search of happiness." And she thought that if romance did not come to her, she would remain all her life sitting at a window. "Of myself I can do nothing."