‘And they shouldn’t ever be afraid of it.’
‘I suppose they shouldn’t,’ said Lucy.
‘So be simple, and when you want a thing just say so.’ Lucy said she would, and promised with many kisses to be simple, but she couldn’t help privately thinking it a difficult way of getting at a book.
‘Macaulay, Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, British Poets, English Men of Letters, Encyclopædia Britannica — I think there’s about everything,’ said Wemyss, going over the gilt names on the backs of the volumes with much satisfaction as he stood holding her in front of them. ‘Whiteley’s did it for me. I said I had room for so and so many of such and such sizes of the best modern writers in good bindings. I think they did it very well, don’t you little Love?’
‘Very well,’ said Lucy, eyeing the shelves doubtfully.
She was of those who don’t like the feel of prize books in their hands, and all Wemyss’s books might have been presented as prizes to deserving schoolboys. They were handsome; their edges — she couldn’t see them, but she was sure — were marbled. They wouldn’t open easily, and one’s thumbs would have to do a lot of tiring holding while one’s eyes tried to peep at the words tucked away towards the central crease. These were books with which one took no liberties. She couldn’t imagine idly turning their pages in some lazy position out on the grass. Besides, their pages wouldn’t be idly turned; they would be, she was sure, obstinate with expensiveness, stiff with the leather and gold of their covers.
Lucy stared at them, thinking all this so as not to think other things. What she wanted to shut out was the wind sobbing up and down that terrace behind her, and the consciousness of the fierce intermittent squalls of rain beating on its flags, and the certainty that upstairs.... Had Everard no imagination, she thought, with a sudden flare of rebellion, that he should expect her to use and to like using the very sitting-room where Vera ——
With a quick shiver she grabbed at her thoughts and caught them just in time.
‘Do you like Macaulay?’ she asked, lingering in front of the bookcase, for he was beginning to move her off towards the door.
‘I haven’t read him,’ said Wemyss, still moving her.
‘Which of all these do you like best?’ she asked, holding back.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Wemyss, pausing a moment, pleased by her evident interest in his books. ‘I haven’t much time for reading, you must remember. I’m a busy man. By the time I’ve finished my day’s work, I’m not inclined for much more than the evening paper and a game of bridge.’
‘But what will you do with me, who don’t play bridge?’
‘Lord, you don’t suppose I shall want to play bridge now that I’ve got you?’ he said. ‘All I shall want is just to sit and look at you.’
She turned red with swift pleasure, and laughed, and hugged the arm that was thrust through hers leading her to the door. How much she adored him; when he said dear, absurd, simple things like that, how much she adored him!
‘Come upstairs now and take off your hat,’ said Wemyss. ‘I want to see what my bobbed hair looks like in my home. Besides, aren’t you dying to see our bedroom?’
‘Dying,’ said Lucy, going up the oak staircase with a stout, determined heart.
The bedroom was over the library, and was the same size and with the same kind of window. Where the bookcase stood in the room below, stood the bed: a double, or even a treble, bed, so very big was it, facing the window past which Vera — it was no use, she couldn’t get away from Vera — having slept her appointed number of nights, fell and was finished. But she wasn’t finished. If only she had slipped away out of memory, out of imagination, thought Lucy ... but she hadn’t, she hadn’t — and this was her room, and that intelligent-eyed thin thing had slept in it for years and years, and for years and years the looking-glass had reflected her while she had dressed and undressed, dressed and undressed before it — regularly, day after day, year after year — oh, what a trouble — and her thin long hands had piled up her hair — Lucy could see her sitting there piling it on the top of her small head — sitting at the dressing-table in the window past which she was at last to drop like a stone — horribly — ignominiously — all anyhow — and everything in the room had been hers, every single thing in it had been Vera’s, including Ev ——
Lucy made a violent lunge after her thoughts and strangled them.
Meanwhile Wemyss had shut the door and was standing looking at her without moving.
‘Well?’ he said.
She turned to him nervously, her eyes still wide with the ridiculous things she had been thinking.
‘Well?’ he said again.
She supposed he meant her to praise the room, so she hastily began, saying what a good view there must be on a fine day, and how very comfortable it was, such a nice big looking-glass — she loved a big looking-glass — and such a nice sofa — she loved a nice sofa — and what a very big bed — and what a lovely carpet ——
‘Well?’ was all Wemyss said when her words came to an end.
‘What is it, Everard?’
‘I’m waiting,’ he said.
‘Waiting?’
‘For my kiss.’
She ran to him.
‘Yes,’ he said, when she had kissed him, looking down at her solemnly, ‘I don’t forget these things. I don’t forget that this is the first time my own wife and I have stood together in our very own bedroom.’
‘But Everard I didn’t forget — I only — —’
She cast about for something to say, her arms still round his neck, for the last thing she could have told him was what she had been thinking — oh, how he would have scolded her for being morbid, and oh, how right he would have been! — and she ended by saying as lamely and as unfortunately as she had said it in the château of Amboise— ‘I only didn’t remember.’
Luckily this time his attention had already wandered away from her. ‘Isn’t it a jolly room?’ he said. ‘Who’s got far and away the best bedroom in Strorley? And who’s got a sitting-room all for herself, just as jolly? And who spoils his little woman?’
Before she could answer, he loosened her hands from his neck and said, ‘Come and look at yourself in the glass. Come and see how small you are compared to the other things in the room.’ And with his arms round her shoulders he led her to the dressing-table.
‘The other things?’ laughed Lucy; but like a flame the thought was leaping in her brain, ‘Now what shall I do if when I look into this I don’t see myself but Vera? It’s accustomed to Vera....’
‘Why, she’s shutting her eyes. Open them, little Love,’ said Wemyss, standing with her before the glass and seeing in it that though he held her in front of it she wasn’t looking at the picture of wedded love he and she made, but had got her eyes tight shut.
With his free hand he took off her hat and threw it on to the sofa; then he laid his head on hers and said, ‘Now look.’
Lucy obeyed; and when she saw the sweet picture in the glass the face of the girl looking at her broke into its funny, charming smile, for Everard at that moment was at his dearest, Everard boyishly loving her, with his good-looking, unlined face so close to hers and his proud eyes gazing at her. He and she seemed to set each other off; they were becoming to each other.
Smiling at him in the glass, a smile tremulous with tenderness, she put up her hand and stroked his face. ‘Do you know who you’ve married?’ she asked, addressing the man in the glass.
‘Yes,’ said Wemyss, addressing the girl in the glass.
‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘But I’ll tell you. You’ve married the completest of fools.’
‘Now what has the little thing got into its head this time?’ he said, kissing her hair, and watching himself doing it.
‘Everard, you must help me,’ she murmured, holding his face tenderly against hers. ‘Please, my beloved, help me, teach me — —’
‘That, Mrs. Wemyss, is a very proper attitude in a wife,’ he said. And t
he four people laughed at each other, the two Lucys a little quiveringly.
‘Now come and I’ll introduce you to your sitting-room,’ he said, disengaging himself. ‘We’ll have tea up there. The view is really magnificent.’
XIX
The wind made more noise than ever at the top of the house, and when Wemyss tried to open the door to Vera’s sitting-room it blew back on him.
‘Well I’m damned,’ he said, giving it a great shove.
‘Why?’ asked Lucy nervously.
‘Come in, come in,’ he said impatiently, pressing the door open and pulling her through.
There was a great flapping of blinds and rattling of blind cords, a whirl of sheets of notepaper, an extra wild shriek of the wind, and then Wemyss, hanging on to the door, shut it and the room quieted down.
‘That slattern Lizzie!’ he exclaimed, striding across to the fireplace and putting his finger on the bell-button and keeping it there.
‘What has she done?’ asked Lucy, standing where he had left her just inside the door.
‘Done? Can’t you see?’
‘You mean’ — she could hardly get herself to mention the fatal thing— ‘you mean — the window?’
‘On a day like this!’
He continued to press the bell. It was a very loud bell, for it rang upstairs as well as down in order to be sure of catching Lizzie’s ear in whatever part of the house she might be endeavouring to evade it, and Lucy, as she listened to its strident, persistent summons of a Lizzie who didn’t appear, felt more and more on edge, felt at last that to listen and wait any longer was unbearable.
‘Won’t you wear it out?’ she asked, after some moments of nothing happening and Wemyss still ringing.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t look at her. His finger remained steadily on the button. His face was extraordinarily like the old man’s in the enlarged photograph downstairs. Lucy wished for only two things at that moment, one was that Lizzie shouldn’t come, and the other was that if she did she herself might be allowed to go and be somewhere else.
‘Hadn’t — hadn’t the window better be shut?’ she suggested timidly presently, while he still went on ringing and saying nothing— ‘else when Lizzie opens the door won’t all the things blow about again?’
He didn’t answer, and went on ringing.
Of all the objects in the world that she could think of, Lucy most dreaded and shrank from that window; nevertheless she began to feel that as Everard was engaged with the bell and apparently wouldn’t leave it, it behoved her to put into practice her resolution not to be a fool but to be direct and wholesome, and go and shut it herself. There it was, the fatal window, huge as the one in the bedroom below and the one in the library below that, yawning wide open above its murderous low sill, with the rain flying in on every fresh gust of wind and wetting the floor and the cushions of the sofa and even, as she could see, those sheets of notepaper off the writing-table that had flown in her face when she came in and were now lying scattered at her feet. Surely the right thing to do was to shut the window before Lizzie opened the door and caused a second convulsion? Everard couldn’t, because he was ringing the bell. She could and she would; yes, she would do the right thing, and at the same time be both simple and courageous.
‘I’ll shut it,’ she said, taking a step forward.
She was arrested by Wemyss’s voice. ‘Confound it!’ he cried. ‘Can’t you leave it alone?’
She stopped dead. He had never spoken to her like that before. She had never heard that voice before. It seemed to hit her straight on the heart.
‘Don’t interfere,’ he said, very loud.
She was frozen where she stood.
‘Tiresome woman,’ he said, still ringing.
She looked at him. He was looking at her.
‘Who?’ she breathed.
‘You.’
Her heart seemed to stop beating. She gave a little gasp, and turned her head to right and left like something trapped, something searching for escape. Everard — where was her Everard? Why didn’t he come and take care of her? Come and take her away — out of that room — out of that room ——
There were sounds of steps hurrying along the passage, and then there was a great scream of the wind and a great whirl of the notepaper and a great blowing up on end off her forehead of her short hair, and Lizzie was there panting on the threshold.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she panted, her hand on her chest, ‘I was changing my dress — —’
‘Shut the door, can’t you?’ cried Wemyss, about whose ears, too, notepaper was flying. ‘Hold on to it — don’t let it go, damn you!’
‘Oh — oh — —’ gasped Lucy, stretching out her hands as though to keep something off, ‘I think I — I think I’ll go downstairs — —’
And before Wemyss realised what she was doing, she had turned and slipped through the door Lizzie was struggling with and was gone.
‘Lucy!’ he shouted, ‘Lucy! Come back at once!’ But the wind was too much for Lizzie, and the door dragged itself out of her hands and crashed to.
As though the devil were after her Lucy ran along the passage. Down the stairs she flew, down past the bedroom landing, down past the gong landing, down into the hall and across it to the front door, and tried to pull it open, and found it was bolted, and tugged and tugged at the bolts, tugged frantically, getting them undone at last, and rushing out on to the steps.
There an immense gust of rain caught her full in the face. Splash — bang — she was sobered. The rain splashed on her as though a bucket were being emptied at her, and the door had banged behind her shutting her out. Suddenly horrified at herself she turned quickly, as frantic to get in again as she had been to get out. What was she doing? Where was she running to? She must get in, get in — before Everard could come after her, before he could find her standing there like a drenched dog outside his front door. The wind whipped her wet hair across her eyes. Where was the handle? She couldn’t find it. Her hair wouldn’t keep out of her eyes; her thin serge skirt blew up like a balloon and got in the way of her trembling fingers searching along the door. She must get in — before he came — what had possessed her? Everard — he couldn’t have meant — he didn’t mean — what would he think — what would he think — oh, where was that handle?
Then she heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door, and Wemyss’s voice, still very loud, saying to somebody he had got with him, ‘Haven’t I given strict orders that this door is to be kept bolted?’ — and then the sound of bolts being shot.
‘Everard! Everard!’ Lucy cried, beating on the door with both hands, ‘I’m here — out here — let me in — Everard! Everard!’
But he evidently heard nothing, for his footsteps went away again.
Snatching her hair out of her eyes, she looked about for the bell and reached up to it and pulled it violently. What she had done was terrible. She must get in at once, face the parlourmaid’s astonishment, run to Everard. She couldn’t imagine his thoughts. Where did he suppose she was? He must be searching the house for her. He would be dreadfully upset. Why didn’t the parlourmaid come? Was she changing her dress too? No — she had waited at lunch all ready in her black afternoon clothes. Then why didn’t she come?
Lucy pulled the bell again and again, at last keeping it down, using up its electricity as squanderously as Wemyss had used it upstairs. She was wet to the skin by this time, and you wouldn’t have recognised her pretty hair, all dark now and sticking together in lank strands.
Everard — why, of course — Everard had only spoken like that out of fear — fear and love. The window — of course he would be terrified lest she too, trying to shut that fatal window, that great heavy fatal window, should slip.... Oh, of course, of course — how could she have misunderstood — in moments of danger, of dreadful anxiety for one’s heart’s beloved, one did speak sharply, one did rap out commands. It was because he loved her so much.... Oh, how lunatic of her to have misunderstood!
&
nbsp; At last she heard some one coming, and she let go of the bell and braced herself to meet the astonished gaze of the parlourmaid with as much dignity as was possible in one who only too well knew she must be looking like a drowning cat, but the footsteps grew heavy as they got nearer, and it was Wemyss who, after pulling back the bolts, opened the door.
‘Oh Everard!’ Lucy exclaimed, running in, pursued to the last by the pelting rain, ‘I’m so glad it’s you — oh I’m so sorry I — —’
Her voice died away; she had seen his face.
He stooped to bolt the lower bolt.
‘Don’t be angry, darling Everard,’ she whispered, laying her arm on his stooping shoulder.
Having finished with the bolt Wemyss straightened himself, and then, putting up his hand to the arm still round his shoulder, he removed it. ‘You’ll make my coat wet,’ he said; and walked away to the library door and went in and shut it.
For a moment she stood where he had left her, collecting her scattered senses; then she went after him. Wet or not wet, soaked and dripping as she was, ridiculous scarecrow with her clinging clothes, her lank hair, she must go after him, must instantly get the horror of misunderstanding straight, tell him how she had meant only to help over that window, tell him how she had thought he was saying dreadful things to her when he was really only afraid for her safety, tell him how silly she had been, silly, silly, not to have followed his thoughts quicker, tell him he must forgive her, be patient with her, help her, because she loved him so much and she knew — oh, she knew — how much he loved her....
Across the hall ran Lucy, the whole of her one welter of anxious penitence and longing and love, and when she got to the door and turned the handle it was locked.
He had locked her out.
XX
Her hand slid slowly off the knob. She stood quite still. How could he.... And she knew now that he had bolted the front door knowing she was out in the rain. How could he? Her body was motionless as she stood staring at the locked door, but her brain was a rushing confusion of questions. Why? Why? This couldn’t be Everard. Who was this man — pitiless, cruel? Not Everard. Not her lover. Where was he, her lover and husband? Why didn’t he come and take care of her, and not let her be frightened by this strange man....
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 256
