From habit he stooped and ran his eye up its gaiters.
All buttoned.
Stay — no; one buttonhole gaped.
He stooped closer and put out his hand to button it, and found the button gone. No button. Only an end of thread. How was that?
He straightened himself, and went to the fireplace and rang the bell. Then he waited, looking at his watch. Long ago he had timed the distances between the different rooms and the servants’ quarters, allowing for average walking and one minute’s margin for getting under way at the start, so that he knew exactly at what moment the parlourmaid ought to appear.
She appeared just as time was up and his finger was moving towards the bell again.
‘Look at that piano-leg,’ said Wemyss.
The parlourmaid, not knowing which leg, looked at all three so as to be safe.
‘What do you see?’ he asked.
The parlourmaid was reluctant to say. What she saw was piano-legs, but she felt that wasn’t the right answer.
‘What do you not see?’ Wemyss asked, louder.
This was much more difficult, because there were so many things she didn’t see; her parents, for instance.
‘Are you deaf, woman?’ he inquired.
She knew the answer to that, and said it quickly. ‘No sir,’ she said.
‘Look at that piano-leg, I say,’ said Wemyss, pointing with his pipe.
It was, so to speak, the off fore-leg at which he pointed, and the parlourmaid, relieved to be given a clue, fixed her eye on it earnestly.
‘What do you see?’ he asked. ‘Or, rather, what do you not see?’
The parlourmaid looked hard at what she saw, leaving what she didn’t see to take care of itself. It seemed unreasonable to be asked to look at what she didn’t see. But though she looked, she could see nothing to justify speech. Therefore she was silent.
‘Don’t you see there’s a button off?’
The parlourmaid, on looking closer, did see that, and said so.
‘Isn’t it your business to attend to this room?’
She admitted that it was.
‘Buttons don’t come off of themselves,’ Wemyss informed her.
The parlourmaid, this not being a question, said nothing.
‘Do they?’ he asked loudly.
‘No sir,’ said the parlourmaid; though she could have told him many a story of things buttons did do of themselves, coming off in your hand when you hadn’t so much as begun to touch them. Cups, too. The way cups would fall apart in one’s hand ——
She, however, merely said, ‘No sir.’
‘Only wear and tear makes them come off,’ Wemyss announced; and continuing judicially, emphasising his words with a raised forefinger, he said: ‘Now attend to me. This piano hasn’t been used for years. Do you hear that? Not for years. To my certain knowledge not for years. Therefore the cover cannot have been unbuttoned legitimately, it cannot have been unbuttoned by any one authorised to unbutton it. Therefore — —’
He pointed his finger straight at her and paused. ‘Do you follow me?’ he asked sternly.
The parlourmaid hastily reassembled her wandering thoughts. ‘Yes sir,’ she said.
‘Therefore some one unauthorised has unbuttoned the cover, and some one unauthorised has played on the piano. Do you understand?’
‘Yes sir,’ said the parlourmaid.
‘It is hardly credible,’ he went on, ‘but nevertheless the conclusion can’t be escaped, that some one has actually taken advantage of my absence to play on that piano. Some one in this house has actually dared — —’
‘There’s the tuner,’ said the parlourmaid tentatively, not sure if that would be an explanation, for Wemyss’s lucid sentences, almost of a legal lucidity, invariably confused her, but giving the suggestion for what it was worth. ‘I understood the orders was to let the tuner in once a quarter, sir. Yesterday was his day. He played for a hour. And ‘ad the baize and everything off, and the lid leaning against the wall.’
True. True. The tuner. Wemyss had forgotten the tuner. The tuner had standing instructions to come and tune. Well, why couldn’t the fool-woman have reminded him sooner? But the tuner having tuned didn’t excuse the parlourmaid’s not having sewn on the button the tuner had pulled off.
He told her so.
‘Yes sir,’ she said.
‘You will have that button on in five minutes,’ he said, pulling out his watch. ‘In five minutes exactly from now that button will be on. I shall be staying in this room, so shall see for myself that you carry out my orders.’
‘Yes sir,’ said the parlourmaid.
He walked to the window and stood staring at the wild afternoon. She remained motionless where she was.
What a birthday he was having. And with what joy he had looked forward to it. It seemed to him very like the old birthdays with Vera, only so much more painful because he had expected so much. Vera had got him used to expecting very little; but it was Lucy, his adored Lucy, who was inflicting this cruel disappointment on him. Lucy! Incredible. And she to come down in that blanket, tempting him, very nearly getting him that way rather than by the only right and decent way of sincere and obvious penitence. Why, even Vera had never done a thing like that, not once in all the years.
‘Let’s be friends,’ says Lucy. Friends! Yes, she did say something about sorry, but what about that blanket? Sorrow with no clothes on couldn’t possibly be genuine. It didn’t go together with that kind of appeal. It was not the sort of combination one expected in a wife. Why couldn’t she come down and apologise properly dressed? God, her little shoulder sticking out — how he had wanted to seize and kiss it ... but then that would have been giving in, that would have meant her triumph. Her triumph, indeed — when it was she, and she only, who had begun the whole thing, running out of the room like that, not obeying him when he called, humiliating him before that damned Lizzie....
He thrust his hands into his pockets and turned away with a jerk from the window.
There, standing motionless, was the parlourmaid.
‘What? You still here?’ he exclaimed. ‘Why the devil don’t you go and fetch that button?’
‘I understood your orders was none of us is to leave rooms without your permission, sir.’
‘You’d better be quick then,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘I gave you five minutes, and three of them have gone.’
She disappeared; and in the servants’ sitting-room, while she was hastily searching for her thimble and a button that would approximately do, she told the others what they already knew but found satisfaction in repeating often, that if it weren’t that Wemyss was most of the week in London, not a day, not a minute, would she stay in the place.
‘There’s the wages,’ the cook reminded her.
Yes; they were good; higher than anywhere she had heard of. But what was the making of the place was the complete freedom from Monday morning every week to Friday tea-time. Almost anything could be put up with from Friday tea-time till Monday morning, seeing that the rest of the week they could do exactly as they chose, with the whole place as good as belonging to them; and she hurried away, and got back to the drawing-room thirty seconds over time.
Wemyss, however, wasn’t there with his watch. He was on his way upstairs to the top of the house, telling himself as he went that if Lucy chose to take possession of his library he would go and take possession of her sitting-room. It was only fair. But he knew she wasn’t now in the library. He knew she wouldn’t stay there all that time. He wanted an excuse to himself for going to where she was. She must beg his pardon properly. He could hold out — oh, he could hold out all right for any length of time, as she’d find out very soon if she tried the sulking game with him — but to-day it was their first day in his home; it was his birthday; and though nothing could be more monstrous than the way she had ruined everything, yet if she begged his pardon properly he would forgive her, he was ready to take her back the moment she showed real penitence. Never was
a woman loved as he loved Lucy. If only she would be penitent, if only she would properly and sincerely apologise, then he could kiss her again. He would kiss that little shoulder of hers, make her pull her blouse back so that he could see it as he saw it down in the library, sticking out of that damned blanket — God, how he loved her....
XXII
The first thing he saw when he opened the door of the room at the top of the house was the fire.
A fire. He hadn’t ordered a fire. He must look into that. That officious slattern Lizzie ——
Then, before he had recovered from this, he had another shock. Lucy was on the hearthrug, her head leaning against the sofa, sound asleep.
So that’s what she had been doing, — just going comfortably to sleep, while he ——
He shut the door and walked over to the fireplace and stood with his back to it looking down at her. Even his heavy tread didn’t wake her. He had shut the door in the way that was natural, and had walked across the room in the way that was natural, for he felt no impulse in the presence of sleep to go softly. Besides, why should she sleep in broad daylight? Wemyss was of opinion that the night was for that. No wonder she couldn’t steep at night if she did it in the daytime. There she was, sleeping soundly, completely indifferent to what he might be doing. Would a really loving woman be able to do that? Would a really devoted wife?
Then he noticed that her face, the side of it he could see, was much swollen, and her nose was red. At least, he thought, she had had some contrition for what she had done before going to sleep. It was to be hoped she would wake up in a proper frame of mind. If so, even now some of the birthday might be saved.
He took out his pipe and filled it slowly, his eyes wandering constantly to the figure on the floor. Fancy that thing having the power to make or mar his happiness. He could pick that much up with one hand. It looked like twelve, with its long-stockinged relaxed legs, and its round, short-haired head, and its swollen face of a child in a scrape. Make or mar. He lit his pipe, repeating the phrase to himself, struck by it, struck by the way it illuminated his position of bondage to love.
All his life, he reflected, he had only asked to be allowed to lavish love, to make a wife happy. Look how he had loved Vera: with the utmost devotion till she had killed it, and nothing but trouble as a reward. Look how he loved that little thing on the floor. Passionately. And in return, the first thing she did on being brought into his home as his bride was to quarrel and ruin his birthday. She knew how keenly he had looked forward to his birthday, she knew how the arrangements of the whole honeymoon, how the very date of the wedding, had hinged on this one day; yet she had deliberately ruined it. And having ruined it, what did she care? Comes up here, if you please, and gets a book and goes comfortably to sleep over it in front of the fire.
His mouth hardened still more. He pulled the arm-chair up and sat down noisily in it, his eyes cold with resentment.
The book Lucy had been reading had dropped out of her hand when she fell asleep, and lay open on the floor at his feet. If she used books in such a way, Wemyss thought, he would be very careful how he let her have the key of his bookcase. This was one of Vera’s, — Vera hadn’t taken any care of her books either; she was always reading them. He slanted his head sideways to see the title, to see what it was Lucy had considered more worth her attention than her conduct that day towards her husband. Wuthering Heights. He hadn’t read it, but he fancied he had heard of it as a morbid story. She might have been better employed, on their first day at home, than in shutting herself away from him reading a morbid story.
It was while he was looking at her with these thoughts stonily in his eyes that Lucy, wakened by the smell of his pipe, opened hers. She saw Everard sitting close to her, and had one of those moments of instinctive happiness, of complete restoration to unshadowed contentment, which sometimes follow immediately on waking up, before there has been time to remember. It seems for a wonderful instant as though all in the world were well. Doubts have vanished. Pain is gone. And sometimes the moment continues even beyond remembrance.
It did so now with Lucy. When she opened her eyes and saw Everard, she smiled at him a smile of perfect confidence. She had forgotten everything. She woke up after a deep sleep and saw him, her dear love, sitting beside her. How natural to be happy. Then, the expression on his face bringing back remembrance, it seemed to her in that first serene sanity, that clear-visioned moment of spirit unfretted by body, that they had been extraordinarily silly, taking everything the other one said and did with a tragicness....
Only love filled Lucy after the deep, restoring sleep. ‘Dearest one,’ she murmured drowsily, smiling at him, without changing her position.
He said nothing to that; and presently, having woken up more, she got on to her knees and pulled herself across to him and curled up at his feet, her head against his knee.
He still said nothing. He waited. He would give her time. Her words had been familiar, but not penitent. They had hardly been the right beginning for an expression of contrition; but he would see what she said next.
What she said next was, ‘Haven’t we been silly,’ — and, more familiarity, she put one arm round his knees and held them close against her face.
‘We?’ said Wemyss. ‘Did you say we?’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy, her cheek against his knee. ‘We’ve been wasting time.’
Wemyss paused before he made his comment on this. ‘Really,’ he then said, ‘the way you include me shows very little appreciation of your conduct.’
‘Well, I’ve been silly then,’ she said, lifting her head and smiling up at him.
She simply couldn’t go on with indignations. Perhaps they were just ones. It didn’t matter if they were. Who wanted to be in the right in a dispute with one’s lover? Everybody, oh, but everybody who loved, would passionately want always to have been in the wrong, never, never to have been right. That one’s beloved should have been unkind, — who wanted that to be true? Who wouldn’t do anything sooner than have not been mistaken about it? Vividly she saw Everard as he was before their marriage; so dear, so boyish, such fun, her playmate. She could say anything to him then. She had been quite fearless. And vividly, too, she saw him as he was when first they met, both crushed by death, — how he had comforted her, how he had been everything that was wonderful and tender. All that had happened since, all that had happened on this particular and most unfortunate day, was only a sort of excess of boyishness: boyishness on its uncontrolled side, a wave, a fit of bad temper provoked by her not having held on to her impulses. That locking her out in the rain, — a schoolboy might have done that to another schoolboy. It meant nothing, except that he was angry. That about sexual allure —— oh, well.
‘I’ve been very silly,’ she said earnestly.
He looked down at her in silence. He wanted more than that. That wasn’t nearly enough. He wanted much more of humbleness before he could bring himself to lift her on to his knee, forgiven. And how much he wanted her on his knee.
‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘And I’m so sorry. Won’t we kiss and be friends?’
‘Not yet, thank you. I must be sure first that you understand how deliberately wicked you’ve been.’
‘Oh, but I haven’t been deliberately wicked!’ exclaimed Lucy, opening her eyes wide with astonishment. ‘Everard, how can you say such a thing?’
‘Ah, I see. You are still quite impenitent, and I am sorry I came up.’
He undid her arm from round his knees, put her on one side, and got out of the chair. Rage swept over him again.
‘Here I’ve been sitting watching you like a dog,’ he said, towering over her, ‘like a faithful dog while you slept, waiting patiently till you woke up and only wanting to forgive you, and you not only callously sleep after having behaved outrageously and allowed yourself to exhibit temper before the whole house on our very first day together in my home — well knowing, mind you, what day i
t is — but when I ask you for some sign, some word, some assurance that you are ashamed of yourself and will not repeat your conduct, you merely deny that you have done anything needing forgiveness.’
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, his face twitching with anger, and wished to God he could knock the opposition out of Lucy as easily.
She, on the floor, sat looking up at him, her mouth open. What could she do with Everard? She didn’t know. Love had no effect; saying she was sorry had no effect.
She pushed her hair nervously behind her ears with both hands. ‘I’m sick of quarrels,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ said Wemyss, going towards the door thrusting his pipe into his pocket. ‘You’ve only got yourself to thank for them.’
She didn’t protest. It seemed useless. She said, ‘Forgive me, Everard.’
‘Only if you apologise.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes what?’ He paused for her answer.
‘I do apologise.’
‘You admit you’ve been deliberately wicked?’
‘Oh yes.’
He continued towards the door.
She scrambled to her feet and ran after him. ‘Please don’t go,’ she begged, catching his arm. ‘You know I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it if we quarrel — —’
‘Then what do you mean by saying “Oh yes,” in that insolent manner?’
‘Did it seem insolent? I didn’t mean — oh, I’m so tired of this — —’
‘I daresay. You’ll be tireder still before you’ve done. I don’t get tired, let me tell you. You can go on as long as you choose, — it won’t affect me.’
‘Oh do, do let’s be friends. I don’t want to go on. I don’t want anything in the world except to be friends. Please kiss me, Everard, and say you forgive me — —’
He at least stood still and looked at her.
‘And do believe I’m so, so sorry — —’
He relented. He wanted, extraordinarily, to kiss her. ‘I’ll accept it if you assure me it is so,’ he said.
‘And do, do let’s be happy. It’s your birthday — —’
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 258
