“Er—how long will your visit last, aunt?” quailed Percy.
“For four months, at any rate. If the place suits me I may stay for longer. I can see, my poor boy, that you need a woman’s care. I feel that I have a duty to you, and I have never yet been known to shirk my duty. I will now go and prepare for lunch.”
She swept out.
Percy turned to Felicity and mopped his brow again. “I—I am awake, aren’t I?” he said. “It—it isn’t a ghastly nightmare?”
“Yes, you’re awake,” said Felicity quite cheerfully; “it isn’t a nightmare, though it certainly is rather ghastly.”
He looked at her with sudden interest.
“I say,” he said, “you—you aren’t really her secretary, are you?”
“Why shouldn’t I be?” challenged Felicity.
‘‘You—you sort of don’t look like a secretary,” he said.
But the lunch bell rang, and with a, “Come along, she’ll be mad if we’re late,” Percy drew her to the dining-room.
Percy’s aunt was already in her place and Lulu was on the hearthrug.
‘‘Miss Lulu,” Percy’s aunt was saying to the butler, “has chicken for every meal, and do not bring her anything but breast, please, lightly roasted and very tender. She cannot eat any part of the bird but the breast.”
Lulu, asthmatic, corpulent, dyspeptic, and generally revolting-looking, turned her bleary eyes upon her mistress and emitted a nasal sound indicative of assent.
Percy’s aunt then turned again to the butler and pointed sternly to the bottle that stood by Percy’s glass.
“Remove that,” she said sternly, “only water is to be drunk in this house during my visit.” Percy made as if to protest, then met once more her gimlet eye and quailed beneath it. The butler hesitated, then, in his turn, met the gimlet eye and quailed beneath it. He removed the bottle. The gimlet eye had not finished with him. “Kindly bring me the key of the wine cellar directly after lunch. I am, as I think I said before, the secretary of a total abstinence society and, as such, I owe a duty to the community.”
Percy wore a look of abject despair, Felicity looked her demurest, Lulu was already eating her chicken greedily and with a great deal of noise on the hearthrug. Percy’s aunt continued: “During my stay here, Percy, I should like you and all the rest of the household to retire to bed at nine-thirty. I always retire to bed at that hour myself, and the slightest sound disturbs me, so that I find the only way of ensuring my night’s rest is to insist—insist on everyone else in the house retiring at the same hour as I retire myself.” Again Percy made as if to protest. Again he met the gimlet eye and relapsed into abjectness. She turned to the butler. “Give Miss Lulu a little more gravy, please. Don’t you see that she’s finished it?” The average funeral tea is far more cheerful than was the rest of that meal, but it came to an end at last, and Percy’s aunt swept Felicity with her into the drawing-room.
“I intend to make this room my working-room during my stay here, Harriet,” she said, “and you will use the smaller drawing-room, so that you will be within call.” The smaller drawing-room opened out from the larger drawing-room by an archway. A screen drawn across the archway in the larger drawing-room took the place of door or curtain.
“You will find a writing-table there,” went on Percy’s aunt. “You must be here by nine o’clock in the morning, ready to begin the morning’s work. Is that quite clear?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Felicity demurely.
Percy’s aunt sat down, at the bureau, opened her attache case, and took out four or five little stacks of letters.
“You will wait now,” she said, “while I make notes upon each as to the reply I wish sent and then you will take them into the other drawing-room and answer them. Meanwhile, please put Lulu on your knee. She prefers that to a cushion. Make her as comfortable as you can.” Felicity gathered the wheezing little bundle of fur on to her knee. She was thinking hard. She hadn’t forgotten the real object of her visit and she was still blindly trusting that fate would show her a way of obtaining it. The unspeakable Lulu was wobbling about on her knees trying to get comfortable, and Felicity was making her knees as bony as she could to prevent her. Suddenly Percy passed the open door on tip-toe. He was evidently going out for a walk, but did not wish to attract his aunt’s attention. As he passed the open door he directed a furious grimace at Lulu. The effect upon Lulu was amazing. She leapt up snarling and trembling with anger. Her mistress turned to her in concern. She had not seen Percy pass the open door. She had only seen Lulu, seated upon Felicity’s knee, display suddenly every symptom of apoplexy and hysteria.
“My poor darling,” she said, “what is it? What happened then, pet? Tell missis, what was it?” Then, in her sternest manner, “What has upset her, Harriet?”
Felicity replied that she had no idea.
“Most strange,” said Percy’s aunt. “Really most strange. Quite suddenly, and for no apparent reason . . . but, of course, there must be something. Something must have upset her. She’s so highly strung—so responsive to atmosphere. So sensitive to the atmosphere of both places and people. She seems to have taken to you, Harriet, I’m glad to say. The letters are ready now. Put her on the sofa. On a cushion, of course. Make her quite comfortable. Put another cushion behind her back. Now go and answer the letters.”
Felicity took the letters and went behind the screen through the archway and into the smaller drawing-room. She’d been much impressed by the effect of Percy’s grimace upon Lulu. Surely, she thought, something could be made of it. She sat at the writing-table, her face cupped in her hands, thinking deeply. Surely something could be made of it . . .
And suddenly she remembered her face.
The select young ladies of Miss Barlow’s very select school at Eastbourne frequently had unofficial face competitions, and the pupil who could produce the most horrible facial contortions won the prize. And Felicity always won it. Felicity’s was not merely a face. It was a Face. Just as much as Felicity’s normal natural face was the loveliest of all the normal natural faces at Minter House, so was her contortion of it the most hideous. Strong men blenched at the sight of Felicity’s Face. Babies screamed at it. And so quickly could Felicity produce it and dispose of it that it had all the appearance of a hallucination. Those who saw it thought that it could never really have happened, that some strange and fleeting, waking nightmare must have come to them and gone in the fraction of a second.
But Felicity had not even practised her Face since her return from Minter House. The performance of it would have lacked zest without the stimulus of competition. Perhaps, she thought despondently, she’d lost the knack of it. A mirror hung over the writing-table. She tried it. Her spirits rose. She hadn’t lost the knack of it. It was as perfect as ever. It was still the Face—unrivalled at Minter House throughout her whole career there.
She took up the letter on the top of the pile and glanced at the pencilled notes on it, then rose and went into the other room. Percy’s aunt turned round from her bureau at once, yet in that first fraction of a second, before Percy’s aunt’s gimlet eyes had rested on her, Felicity had found time to fling a lightning Face at the now somnolent Lulu. The effect upon Lulu was again instantaneous and dynamic. Her somnolence departed, she snarled and whined, and yelped, and panted, and lashed herself into a wheezing, rasping, canine fury.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” moaned Percy’s aunt, “whatever’s the matter? What is it, Lulu, my pet! There! There! What is it?”
“Perhaps my coming in suddenly disturbed her,” suggested Felicity innocently.
“No, no. Of course it couldn’t be that,” snapped Percy’s aunt irritably, “how could it be that? That couldn’t possibly disturb her to this extent . . . I’m afraid it’s the atmosphere. I told you before that she’s very sensitive to atmosphere. I’m afraid,” darkly, “that it’s something in the atmosphere of the house that’s upsetting her. Of course it may not be. It may be that, as you suggest, that she
was dozing off and you disturbed her, but I don’t think so. I’ve never known such a thing to affect her in that way, before . . . Are you better now, my pet?”
Her pet undoubtedly was. It was slobbering about on its cushion and settling itself again for slumber.
“What was it you wanted me for, Harriet?” said Percy’s aunt majestically.
“I can’t read this word,” said Felicity, holding out the letter.
“It’s perfectly plain,’’ said Percy’s aunt testily, writing it again more distinctly. “Do try not to bother me like this every other minute. Lulu must have absolute quiet.”
Lulu’s mistress was evidently feeling put out. She was losing her icy imperiousness and becoming snappy.
Felicity returned to the smaller drawing-room. She noted, with satisfaction, that the windows were low and opened on to the drive. At the first sight or sound of the real secretary, Felicity intended to be out of these window and down the drive like an arrow from a bow.
She sat at her desk for a few seconds in silence. Then she rose, flitted lightly and silently across to the archway, peeped round the screen, flung a Face at the blinking Lulu, then, like a flash and in less than a second, was back again at her desk.
Immediately Lulu had another seizure even worse than the last. She snarled and yelped, and panted, in a paroxysm of rage.
Percy’s aunt wheeled round. She could just see, past the end of the screen, Felicity’s red-gold head bent meekly over her work in the other room.
“Harriet,” she called, “come at once, Lulu’s having another attack.”
Felicity came at once. They bent over the frantic Lulu and tried to soothe her.
“There, there then, pet,” said Percy’s aunt, “what is it, then? Tell missis.”
While Felicity rearranged the cushions under Percy’s aunt’s direction.
Roast chicken in unlimited quantities has an atrophying effect upon the brain and Lulu was very stupid, because she never connected Felicity’s face with Felicity’s Face. She boiled with fury and indignation at the memory of that Face round the screen and then gazed with maudlin self-pity at Felicity’s face hovering above her.
“It couldn’t have been you coming in this time,” said Percy’s aunt, distracted. “Oh, it couldn’t possibly, because you were at your desk writing the whole time, I saw you. I’m terribly, terribly afraid that it’s the atmosphere of this house . . . She’s calmer now. If we leave her she may sleep. She is very highly strung. She lives on her nerves. Simply lives on them. Well, you’d better go back to the correspondence, Harriet. Be as quiet as you can, of course. Lulu needs absolute quiet for her nerves. I fear they must be frayed to ribbons by these terrible, terrible attacks.”
Felicity returned to the small drawing-room and sat down at the writing-table. Percy’s aunt turned back to her bureau. Lulu lay on her cushion and panted asthmatically. Drowsiness overcame her. Her eyes blinked.
Then, suddenly—it came again.
The Face flashed round her side of the screen and as suddenly disappeared.
Her drowsiness vanished. She burst at once into a frenzy, howling, snarling, whining, and yapping, yelping and wheezing in an impotent transport of rage. Percy’s aunt had turned round almost immediately. Behind the screen, in the next room, she could see Felicity’s red-gold head still bent meekly over the writing-table. She was too far away, of course, to notice that Felicity looked a little breathless. She flew to the sofa side of her pet.
“What is it, then, Lulu darling?” she said again. “Tell missis.”
Lulu proceeded to tell missis. She told Felicity, too (who had approached more slowly), all about the Face. She cursed the Face. She defied the Face. She snarled and barked, and raged at the memory of the Face.
“You see,” said Percy’s aunt to Felicity, with a gesture of despair, “it’s an even worse attack than the previous one. It’s ruining her nervous system. Her suffering’s terrible to witness, isn’t it? I’m convinced that it’s the atmosphere of the house—the moral atmosphere, I mean. Dear Lulu’s always so sensitive to that. There wasn’t a sound to disturb her. Neither of us moved. It couldn’t be anything but just the atmosphere. It’s wearing her out. A day of this would kill her. I can’t bear to watch her suffering in this way. I’ve no right to expose her to Such suffering. I’ve a duty to Percy, but I’ve a still greater duty to Lulu. I should never forgive myself, never, if in my desire to fulfil my duty to Percy I put a greater strain upon Lulu’s nervous system than it can bear . . . No, I’ve made up my mind quite firmly. If Lulu has one more attack of this sort I leave this house for ever!”
And Lulu had one more attack of this sort. She had it before five minutes were out. It was even worse than the last. Percy’s aunt gathered her into her arms—snarls and growls and whines, and all—and turned dramatically to Felicity.
“Kindly summon my nephew,” she said.
“I think he’s gone out for a walk,” said Felicity.
“I can’t wait for his return. I can’t wait for his return. Every second is precious. Another attack may come on any second, and she has no reserve strength to resist it . . . I will pack again at once and leave by the next train. Kindly order me a taxi. You may return to the registry office and tell them that I did not need you after all. I shall certainly not pay you for the little work you have done. In fact, I can’t see that you have done any at all. You are slow and incompetent . . . if I am gone when my nephew returns from his walk tell him that I have left his roof because my innocent Lulu could not breathe its atmosphere. He may, or he may not, know why,” she ended darkly, as she swept from the room. Percy returned an hour later.
Felicity was in the hall.
“What an age you’ve been,” she said.
He still looked white and stricken. He glanced round fearfully and whispered.
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone away,” said Felicity, “for good.”
He was amazed and incredulous.
“No!” he gasped.
“Yes,” said Felicity calmly, “she’s gone because her innocent Lulu cannot breathe the atmosphere Of your roof. You may, or may not, know why.”
He sat down heavily on the neatest chair.
“She’s—she’s actually gone?”
“She’s actually gone.”
“It’s—too good to be true.”
“It is true.”
“B-but—w-why did she go?”
“She went because I made my Face at Lulu.”
“You made—–” he gasped, bewildered.
Felicity flung him a Face.
So fleeting was it that it seemed hardly to have disturbed the exquisite repose of her faultless features, and yet—the young man blenched.
“Yes,” said Felicity calmly, “that’s how Lulu felt about it. That’s why she went away.”
He became rather thoughtful, and then said:
“I wonder how old Lulu is. What’s the average life of a Pom? Do you know?”
“No, why?”
“I mean, I suppose I’m safe till Lulu dies and then she’ll come back.”
Felicity shook her head determinedly. “No, she won’t. Don’t you worry. She’ll never come back to the roof whose atmosphere caused her little Lulu such terrible nervous suffering. Never. She’ll owe that to Lulu’s memory.”
He grinned.
“I can hardly believe it, yet,” he said; “it seems too good to be true . . . I’ve spent all this afternoon wondering which form of suicide was least painful.”
“They’re all nasty,” said Felicity, “and they all just mightn’t come off, and then you’d feel such a fool.”
The postman appeared suddenly at the open front door. Percy went to him and absently took the post-card he held out.
“It’s to my aunt,” he said to Felicity. “I’d better forward it, but I don’t know where she’s gone . . . it’s from a registry office.”
“Let me look at it,” said Felicity, taking it from him, “I s
houldn’t bother to forward it. It’s only to tell her that they can’t send her a secretary.”
“Then you, then you aren’t a secretary,” he gasped.
“Of course not,” said Felicity. “I can’t spell for nuts and I always got four marks taken off for bad writing at Minter House. It generally left me none at all.”
“Then what—why—what did you come for?”
“I came about your vase.”
“My vase?”
“Yes, you’ve got an old Sevres vase, haven’t you?” He considered for a moment, then said dreamily:
“Yes, I have . . . It’s a very curious thing . . . This morning—it seems years and years and years ago—I’ve lived through so much since then—this morning I was as keen as nuts on that vase. I was thinking of nothing but how to get its fellow from a man who I know has got it. . . . Isn’t it funny what a lot of difference a day can make to one’s outlook on life. To-day I’ve looked on the—er—naked face of horror.”
“Do you mean my Face?” said Felicity with pride.
“No,” he said, “I mean my aunt’s and Lulu’s. I’ve come face to face with reality. I’ve seen the cup of life dashed from my lips and then miraculously raised to it again, and all that sort of thing. That vase seems to belong to a different world, in a different life. It seems amazing that this morning I was thinking of nothing else, but—but—but what did you come here for?”
“I came for the vase,” said Felicity simply. “ ‘I was going to offer you three pounds for it and five shillings out of my allowance for as long as you’d like.”
“But I’ll give it you,” said the young man eagerly, “I want to give it you. I’d like to give it you. You’ve saved me from—from—well, you’ve seen my aunt and Lulu. You know what you’ve saved me from. Take the vase and everything else you like. I’ll give you the whole bally house, if you like.”
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