Maurice Guest

by Henry Handel Richardson

  III.

  Shaking all disagreeable impressions from him, he sped through thefading light of the September afternoon.

  This was the time--it was six o'clock--at which he could rejoin Louisewith a free mind. It was the exception for him to go earlier, or atother hours; but, did he chance to go, no matter when, she met him inthe same way--sprang towards him from the window, where she had beensitting or standing, with her eyes on the street.

  "I believe you watch for me all day long," he said to her once.

  On this particular afternoon, when he had used much the same words toher, she put back her head and looked up at him, with a pale, unsmilingface.

  "Not quite," she answered slowly. "But I have a fancy, Maurice--afoolish, fancy--that once you will come early--in the morning--and weshall have the whole day together again. Perhaps even go away somewhere... before summer is quite over."

  "And I promise you, dearest, we will. Just let me get through the nextfortnight, and then I shall be freer. We'll take the train, and go backto Rochlitz, or anywhere you like. In the meantime, take more care ofyourself. You are far too pale. You will go out tomorrow, yes?--toplease me?"

  But this was a request he had often made, and generally in vain.

  Since the afternoon of their return, Louise had made no further attemptto stem or alter circumstance. She accepted Maurice's absences withoutdemur. But one result was, that her feelings were hoarded up for thefew hours he passed with her: these were then a working-off of emotion;and it seemed impossible to cram enough into them, to make good thestarved remainder of the day.

  Maurice was vaguely troubled. He was himself so busy at this time, andso full of revived energy, that he could not imagine her happy, livingas she did, entirely without occupation. At first he had tried topersuade her to take up her music again; but she would not evenconsider it. To all his arguments, she made the same reply.

  "I have no real talent. With me, it was only an excuse--to get awayfrom home."

  Nor could he induce her to renew her acquaintance with people she hadknown.

  "Do you know, I once thought you didn't care a jot what people said ofyou?" It was not a very kind thing to say; it slipped out unawares.

  But she did not take it amiss. "I used not to," she answered with herinvincible frankness. "But now--it seems--I do."

  "Why, dearest? Aren't you happy enough not to care?"

  For answer, she took his face between her hands, and looked at him withsuch an ill-suppressed fire in her eyes that all he could do was todraw her into his arms.

  His pains for her good came to nothing. He took her his favouritebooks, but--with the exception of an occasional novel--Louise was noreader. In those he brought her, she seldom advanced further than thefirst few pages; and she could sit for an hour without turning a leaf.He had never seen her with a piece of sewing or any such feminineemployment in her hands. Nor did she spend time on her person; as arule, he found her in her dressing-gown. He had to give up trying toinfluence her, and to become reconciled to the fact that she chose tolive only for him. But on this September day, after the unpleasantepisode with Schwarz, he had a fancy to go for a walk; Louise wasunwilling; and he felt anew how preposterous it was for her to spendthese fine autumn days, in this half-dark room.

  "You are burying yourself alive--just as you did last winter."

  She laid her hand on his lips. "No, no!--don't say that. Now I amhappy."

  "But are you really? Sometimes I'm not sure." He was tired himself thisevening, and found it difficult to be convinced. "It troubles me when Ithink how dull it must be for you. Dearest, are you--can you really behappy like this?"

  "I have you, Maurice."

  "But only for an hour or two in the twenty-four. Tell me, what do youthink of?"

  "Of you."

  "All that time? Of poor, plain, ordinary me?"

  "You are mine," she said with vehemence, and looked at him with what hecalled her "hungry-beast" eyes.

  "You would like to eat me, I think."

  "Yes. And I should begin here; this is the bit of you I love best"--andbefore he knew what she was going to do, she had stooped, and he felther teeth in the skin of his neck.

  "That's a strange way of showing your love," he said, and involuntarilyput his hand to the spot, where two bluish-red marks had appeared.

  "It's my way. I want you--I WANT you. I want to feel that you'remine--to make you more mine than you've ever been. I wish I had ahundred arms. I would hold you with them all, and never let you go."

  "But, dearest, one would think I wanted to go. Do you really believe ifI had my own way, I should be anywhere but here with you?"

  "No.--I don't know.--How should I know?"

  "Doubts?--beloved!"

  "No, no, not doubts. It's only--oh, I don't know what it is. If youcould always be with me, Maurice, they wouldn't come. For what I nevermeant to happen HAS happened. I have grown to care too much--far toomuch. I want you, I need you, at every moment of the day. I want younever to be out of my sight."

  Maurice held her at arm's length, and looked at her. "You can saythat--at last!" And drawing her to him: "Patience, darling. Just alittle patience. Some day you will never be alone again."

  "I do have patience, Maurice. But let me be patient in my own way. ForI'm not like you. I have no room in me now for other things. I can'tthink of anything else. If I had my way, we should shut ourselves upalone, and live only for each other. Not share it, not make it just apart of what we do."

  "But man can't live on nectar and honey alone. It wouldn't be life."

  "It wouldn't be life, no. It would be more than life."

  Some of the evening shadows seemed to invade her face. Her expressionwas childishly pathetic. He drew her to his knee.

  "I should like to see you happier, Louise--yes, yes, I know!--but Imean perfectly happy, as you were sometimes at Rochlitz. Since we cameback, it has never been just the right thing--say what you like."

  "If only we had never come back!"

  "If you still think so, darling, when I've finished here, we'll go awayat once. In the meantime, patience."

  "Oh, I don't mean to be unreasonable!" But her head was on hisshoulder, his arms were round her; and in this position, nothingmattered greatly to her.

  Patience?--yes, there was need for him to exhort her to patience. Itate already into her soul as iron bands eat into flesh. The greaterpart of her life was now spent in practising it. And for sheer loathingof it, she turned over, on waking, and kept her eyes closed, in anattempt to prolong the night. For the day stretched empty before her;the hours passed, one by one, like grey-veiled ghosts. Yet not for amoment had she harboured his idea of regular occupation; she knewherself too well for that. In the fever into which her blood had workeditself she could settle to nothing: her attention was centred wholly inherself; and all her senses were preternaturally acute. But shesuffered, too, under the stress of her feeling; it blunted her, andmade her, on the one hand, regardless of everything outside it, on theother, morbidly sensitive to trifles. She waited for him, hour afterhour, crouched in a corner of the sofa, or stretched at full length,with closed eyes.

  Long before it was time for him to come, she was stationed at thewindow. She learned to know the people who appeared in the streetbetween the hours of four and six so accurately that she could havedescribed them blindfold. There was the oldfaced little girl whodelivered milk; there was the postman who emptied into his canvasreceptacle, the blue letter-box affixed to the opposite wall; thestudent with the gashed face and red cap, who lived a couple of doorsfurther down, and always whistled the same tune; the big Newfoundlanddog that stalked majestically at his side, and answered to the name ofTasso--she knew them all. These two last hours were weighted with lead.He came, sometimes a poor half-hour too soon, but usually not till pastsix o'clock. Never, in her life, had she waited for anyone like this,and, towards the end of the time, a sense of injury, of more thanmortal endurance, would steal through her and dull her heart toward
shim, in a way that frightened her.

  When, at length, she saw him turn the corner, when she had caught andanswered his swift upward glance, she drew back into the shadow of theroom, and hid her face in her hands.

  Then she listened.

  He had the key of the little papered door in the wall. Between thesound of his step on the stair, and the turning of the key in the lock,there was time for her to undergo a moment of suspense that drove herhand to her throat. What if, after the tension of the afternoon, herheart, her nerves--parts of her over which she had no control--shouldnot take their customary bound towards him? What if her pulses shouldnot answer his? But before she could think her thought to the end, hewas there; and when she saw his kind eyes alight, his eager handsoutstretched, her nervous fears were vanquished. Maurice hardly gavehimself time to shut the door, before catching her to him in a longembrace. And yet, though she did not suspect it, he, too, had a twingeof uncertainty on entering. Her bodily presence still affected him witha sense of strangeness--it took him a moment to get used to her again,as it were--and he was forced to reassure himself that nothing hadchanged during his absence, that she was still all his own.

  When the agitation of these first, few, speechless minutes hadsubsided, a great tenderness seized Louise; freeing one hand, shesmoothed back his hair from his forehead, with movements each of whichwas a caress. As for him, his first impetuous rush of feeling wasinvariably followed by an almost morbid pity for her, which, in thisform, was a new note in their relation to each other, or a harking backto the oldest note of all. When he considered how dependent she was onhim, how her one desire was to have him with her, he felt that he couldnever repay her or do enough for her: and, whatever his own state ofmind previous to coming, when once he was there, he exerted himself tothe utmost, to cheer her. It was always she who needed consolation;and, by means of his endearments, she was petted back to happiness likea tired child.

  In his efforts to take her out of herself, Maurice told her how he hadspent the day: where he had been, and whom he had met--every detailthat he thought might interest her. She listened, in grateful silence,but she never put a question. This at an end, he returned once more, ina kind of eternal circle, to the one subject of which she neverwearied. He might repeat, for the thousandth time, how dear she was tohim, without the least fear that the story would grow stale in thetelling.

  And once here, amidst the deep tenderness of his words, he felt herslowly come to life again, and unfold like a flower. After the long,dead day, Louise was consumed by a desire to drain such moments asthese to the dregs. She did not let a word of his pass unchallenged,and all that she herself said, was an attempt to discover some spasm ofmental ecstasy, which they had not yet experienced. Sometimes, thefeeling grew so strong that it forced her to give an outward sign.Slipping to her knees, she gazed at him with the eyes of a faithfulanimal. "What have I done to make you look at me like that?" askedMaurice, amazed.

  "What can I do to show you how I love you? Tell me what I can do."

  "Do?--what do you want to do? Be your own dear self--that's all, andmore than enough."

  But she continued to look beseechingly at him, waiting for the wordthat might be the word of her salvation.

  "Haven't you done enough already, in giving yourself to me?" he asked,seeing how she hung on his lips.

  But she repeated: "What can I do? Let me do something. Oh, I wish youwould hurt me, or be unkind to me!"

  He tried to make her understand that he wished for no such humbleadoration, that, indeed, he could not be happy under it. If either wasto serve the other, it was he; he asked nothing better than to put hishands under her feet. But he could neither coax her nor laugh her outof her absorption: she had the will to self-abasement; and she remainedunsatisfied, waiting for the word he would not speak.

  Once or twice, during these weeks, they went out in the evening, and,in the corner of some quiet restaurant, took a festive little meal.But, for the most part, she preferred to stay at home. She was notdressed, she said, or she was tired, or it was too hot, or it hadrained. And Maurice did not urge her; for, on the last occasion, theevening had been spoiled for him by the conduct of some people at aneighbouring table; they had stared at Louise, and whispered remarksabout her. At home, she herself prepared the supper, moving indolentlyabout the room, her dressing-gown dragging after her, from table tocupboard, and back again, often with a pause at his side, in which sheforgot what she had set out for. Maurice disputed each trifling servicewith her; he could only think of Louise as made to be waited on, slowto serve herself.

  "Let me do it, dearest."

  She had risen anew to fetch something. Now she stood beside him, andput her arms round his neck.

  "What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do," she said, and crushedhis head against her breast.

  He loosened her fingers, and drew her to his knee. "What do you want meto say, dear discontent? Do?--you were never meant to do anything inthis world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so!Look at them! Most white and most useless!"

  "There are things not made with hands," she answered obscurely. She lethim do what he liked; but she kept her face turned away; and over hereyes passed a faint shadow of resignation.

  But this mood also was a transient one; hours followed, when she nolonger sought and questioned, but when she gave, recklessly, in a wildendeavour to lose the sense of twofold being. And before theseoutbreaks, the young man was helpless. His past life, and suchexperience as he had gathered in it, grew fantastic and unreal, mightall have belonged to some one else: the sole reality in a world ofshadows was this soft human body that he held in his arms.

  Point by point, however, each of which wounded, consciousness foughtitself free again. Such violent extremes of emotion were, in truth,contrary to his nature. They made him unsure. And, as the pendulumswung back, something vital in him made protest.

  "Sometimes, it seems as if there were something else ... somethingthat's not love at all ... more like hate--yes, as if you hated me ...would like to kill me."

  Her whole body was moved by the sigh she drew.

  "If I only could! Then I should know that you were mine indeed."

  "Is it possible for me to be more yours than I am?"

  "Part of you would never be mine, though we spent all our livestogether."

  He roused himself from his lethargy. "How can you say that?--And yet Ithink I know what you mean. It's like a kind of rage that comes overone--Yes, I've felt it, too. Listen, darling!--there are things onecan't say in daylight. I, too, have felt ... sometimes ... that inspite of all my love for you--I mean our love for each other--yet therewas still something, a part of you, I had no power over. The real youis something--some one I don't really know in spite of all the kisses.Yes"--and the more he tried to find words for what he meant, the moreconvinced he grew of its truth. "Nothing keeps us apart; you love me,are here in my arms, and yet ...yet there's a bit of you I can'tinfluence--that is still strange to me. How often I have to ask you whyyou look at me in a certain way, or what you are thinking of! I neverknow your thoughts; I've never once been able to read them; you alwayskeep something back.--Why is it, dear? Is it my fault? If I could justonce get at your real self--if I knew that once, only once, in allthese weeks, you had been mine--every bit of you--then ... yes, then, Ibelieve I would be satisfied to ... to--I don't know what!"

  He had spoken in an even, monotonous voice, almost more to himself thanto her. Now, however, he was forced to the opposite extreme of anxioussolicitude. "No, no, I didn't really mean it. Darling! ... hush!--don'tcry like that. I didn't know what I was saying; it isn't true, not aword of it."

  She had flung herself across him; her own elemental weeping shook herfrom head to foot. He realised, for the first time, the depth andstrength of it, now that it, as it were, went through him, too.Gathering her to him, he made wild and foolish promises. But nothingsoothed her: she wept on, until the dawn crept in, thinly grey, roundthe windows. But when it grew
so light that the objects in the roomwere recovering their form, she fell asleep, and he hardly dared tobreathe, for fear of disturbing her.

  By day, the sensations he had tried to express to her seemed thefigments of the night. He needed only to be absent from her to feel theold restlessness tug at his heart-strings. At such moments, it seemedto him ridiculous to torment himself about an infinitesimal flaw intheir love, and one which perhaps existed only in his imagination. Tobe with her again was his sole desire; and to feel her cheek on his, tobe free to run his hands through her exciting hair, belonged, when hewas separated from her, to that small category of things for which hewould have bartered his soul.

  One evening, towards the end of September, Louise watched for him atthe window. It had been a warm autumn day, rich in varying lights andshades. Now it was late, nearly half-past six, and still he had notcome: her eyes were tired with staring down the street.

  When at last he appeared, she saw that that he was carrying flowers.Her heart, which, at the sight of him, had set up a glad and violentbeating, settled down again at once, to its normal course. She knewwhat the flowers meant: in a spirit of candour, which had somethingdisarming in it, he invariably brought them when he could not stay longwith her; and she had learned to dread seeing them in his hand.

  In very truth, he was barely inside the room before he told her that hecould only stay for an hour. He was to play his trio the followingevening, and now, at the last moment, the 'cellist had been taken ill.He had spent the greater part of the afternoon looking for asubstitute, and having found one, had still to interview him again, tolet him know the time at which Schwarz had appointed an extra rehearsalfor the next day.

  Maurice had mentioned more than once the date of his playing; but ithad never seemed more to Louise than a disturbing outside fact, to beput out of mind or kissed away. She had forgotten all about it, and theknowledge of this overcame her disappointment; she tried to atone, bybeing reasonable. Maurice had steeled himself against pleadings anddespondency, and was grateful to her for making things easy. He wishedto outdo himself in tender encouragement; but she remained evasive: andsince, in spite of himself, he could not hinder his thoughts fromslipping forward to the coming evening, he, too, had moments ofpreoccupied silence.

  When the clock struck eight, he rose to go. In saying goodnight, heturned her face up, and asked her had she decided if she were coming tohear him play.

  It was on her direct lips to reply that she had not thought anythingabout it. A glance at his face checked her. He was waiting anxiouslyfor her answer: it was a matter of importance to him. Her previoussense of remissness was still with her, hampering her, making herunfree; and for a minute she did not know what to say.

  "Would you mind much if I asked you not to come?" he said as shehesitated.

  "No, of course not," she hastened to respond, glad to be relieved ofthe decision. "If you would rather I didn't."

  "It's a fancy of mine, dearest--foolish, I know--that I shall get onbetter if you're not there."

  "It's all right. I understand."

  When he had gone, she returned to her place at the window. It was afine night: there was no moon; but the stars glittered furiously in theinky-blue sky, a stretch of which was visible above the gardens. Thevastness of the night, the distance of sky and stars, made her shiver.Leaning her wrists on the cold, moist sill, she looked down into thestreet; it was not very far; but a jump from where she was, to thepavement, would suffice to put an end to every feeling. She was verylonely; no one wanted her. Here she might stand, at this forlorn post,for hours, for the whole night; no one would either know or care.--Andher feeling of error, of unfreedom and desolation grew so hard to bearthat, for fear she should actually throw herself down, she banged thewindow to, with a crash that resounded through the street.

  But there was something else at work in her to-night, which she couldnot understand. She struggled with it, as one struggles with aforgotten melody, which hovers behind the consciousness, and will notemerge.

  Except for the light thrown by a small lamp, the room was in shadow.She went slowly back to the sofa. On the way she trod on the roses;they had been knocked down and forgotten. She picked them up, and laidthem on the cushioned seat beside her. They were dark crimson, and gaveout a strong scent: Maurice had seldom brought her such beautifulroses. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her hands closed andpressed to her cheeks, as though she could only think with her musclesat a strain. In memory, she went over what he had said, reflected onwhat his words meant, and strove, honestly, to project herself intothat part of his life, of which she knew nothing. But it was not easy;for one thing, the smell of the roses was too strong; it seemed tohinder her imagination. They had the scent that only deep red roseshave--one which seems to come from a distance, from the very heart ofcool, pure things--and more and more, she felt as if something withinher were trying to find vent in it, something that swelled up,subsided, and mounted again, with what was almost a physical effort. Ithad been the truth when she told him that she understood; but it hadtouched her strangely all the same: for it had let her see into anunsuspected corner of his nature. He, too, then, had a cranny in hisbrain, where such fancies lodged--such an eccentric, artist fancy, orwhim, or superstition--as that, out of several hundred people, a singleindividual could distract and disturb. He ... too!

  The little word had done it. Now she knew--knew what the roses had beentrying to tell her. And as if invisible hands had touched a spring inher brain, thereby opening some secret place, the memory of a certainhour returned to her, returned with such force that she fell on herknees, and pressed her face to the seat of the sofa. On the floorbeside her lay the roses. Why, oh why, had he needed to bring them toher, on this night of all others?

  On the day she remembered, they had been lavished over the room-oneJune evening, two years ago. And ever afterwards, the scent ofblood-red roses had been associated for her with one of the sweet,leading themes in Beethoven's violin concerto. There was a specialconcert that night at the Conservatorium; the hall was filled to thelast place. She waited with him in the green-room, until his turn cameto play. Then she went into the hall, and stood at the back, under thegallery. Once more, she was aware of the stir that ran through theaudience, as Schilsky walked down the platform. Hardly, however, had hedrawn his bow across the strings, when she felt a touch on her arm, anda Russian, who was an intimate friend of his, beckoned her outside.There, he told her that he had been sent to ask her to leave the hall;and they smiled at each other, in understanding of the whim.Afterwards, she learned how, just about to step on to the platform,Schilsky had had a presentiment that things would go wrong if sheremained inside. In his gratitude, and in the boyish exultation withwhich success filled him, he had collected all the roses, and wantonlypulled them to pieces. Red petals fell like flakes of red snow; and,crushed and bruised, the fragile leaves had yielded a scent, tenfoldincreased.

  While it lasted, the vision was painfully intense: on returning toherself, she was obliged to look round and think where she was. Thelamp burned steadily; the dull room was just as she had left it. With acry, she buried her face in the cushions again, and held her hands toher ears.

  More, more, and more again! She was as hungry for these memories as achild for dainties. She was starved for them. And now, dead to thepresent, she relived the past happy hours of triumph and excitement,not one of which had hung heavy, in each of which her craving forsensation had been stilled. She saw herself as she had then been,proud, secure, unspeakably content. Forgotten words rang in her ears,words of love and of anger, words that were like ointment and likeknives. Then, not a day had been empty or tedious; life was alwayshighly coloured, and there was neither pleasure nor pain that she hadnot tasted to the full. Even the suffering she had gone through, forhis sake, was no longer hateful to her. Anything--anything rather thanthis dead level of monotony on which she had fallen.

  When, finally, she raised her head, she might, for all she knew, havebeen absent for d
ays. Things had lost their familiar aspect; she hadonce more lived right through the great experience of her life. Puttingher hands to her forehead, she tried to force her thoughts back toreality. Then, stiffly, she rose from her knees. In doing so, shetouched the roses. With a gesture that was her real awakening, shecaught them up and pressed them to her face. It was a satisfaction toher that fingers and cheeks were pricked by their thorns. She wasconscious of wishing to hurt herself. With her lips on the cool buds,she stammered broken words: "Maurice--my poor Maurice!" and kissed theflowers, feeling as if, in some occult way, he would be aware of herkisses, of the love she was thus expending on him.

  For, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, she was sensible of a greatcompassion for him; and with each pressure of her lips to the roses,she implored his forgiveness for her unpremeditated desertion. Shecalled to mind his tenderness, his unceasing care of her, and, closingher eyes, stretched out her arms to him, in the empty room. Already shebegan to live for the following evening, when he would come again. Now,only to sleep through as many as she could of the hours that separatedthem! She would be to him the next night, what she had never yet been:his own rival in fondness. And as a beginning, she crossed the room,and put the fading roses in a pitcher of water.