The evening was spent in the library reading Wemyss’s school reports, and looking at photographs of him in his various stages, — naked and crowing; with ringlets, in a frock; in knickerbockers, holding a hoop; a stout schoolboy; a tall and slender youth; thickening; still thickening; thick, — and they went to bed at ten o’clock.
Somewhere round midnight Lucy discovered that the distances of the treble bed softened sound; either that, or she was too tired to hear anything, for she dropped out of consciousness with the heaviness of a released stone.
Next day it was finer. There were gleams of sun; and though the wind still blew, the rain held off except for occasional spatterings. They got up very late — breakfast on Sundays at The Willows was not till eleven — and went and inspected the chickens. By the time they had done that, and walked round the garden, and stood on the edge of the river throwing sticks into it and watching the pace at which they were whirled away on its muddy and disturbed surface, it was luncheon time. After luncheon they walked along the towpath, one behind the other because it was narrow and the grass at the sides was wet. Wemyss walked slowly, and the wind was cold. Lucy kept close to his heels, seeking shelter under, as it were, his lee. Talk wasn’t possible because of the narrow path and the blustering wind, but every now and then Wemyss looked down over his shoulder at her. ‘Still there?’ he asked; and Lucy said she was.
They had tea punctually at half-past four up in Vera’s sitting-room, but without, this time, a fire — Wemyss had rectified Lizzie’s tendency to be officious — and after tea he took her out again to show her how his electricity was made, while the gardener who saw to the machinery, and the boy who saw to the gardener, stood by in attendance.
There was a cold sunset, — a narrow strip of gold below heavy clouds, like a sullen, half-open eye. The prudent cows dotted the fields motionlessly, lying on their dry bite of grass. The wind blew straight across from the sunset through Lucy’s coat, wrap herself in it as tightly as she might, while they loitered among outhouses and examined the durability of the railings. Her headache, in spite of her good night, hadn’t gone, and by dinner time her throat felt sore. She said nothing to Wemyss, because she was sure she would be well in the morning. Her colds never lasted. Besides she knew, for he had often told her, how much he was bored by the sick.
At dinner her cheeks were very red and her eyes very bright.
‘Who’s my pretty little girl,’ said Wemyss, struck by her.
Indeed he was altogether pleased with her. She had been his own Lucy throughout the day, so gentle and sweet, and hadn’t once said But, or tried to go out of rooms. Unquestioningly acquiescent she had been; and now so pretty, with the light full on her, showing up her lovely colouring.
‘Who’s my pretty little girl,’ he said again, laying his hand on hers, while Chesterton looked down her nose.
Then he noticed she had a knitted scarf round her shoulders, and he said, ‘Whatever have you got that thing on in here for?’
‘I’m cold,’ said Lucy.
‘Cold! Nonsense. You’re as warm as a toast. Feel my hand compared to yours.’
Then she did tell him she thought she had caught cold, and he said, withdrawing his hand and his face falling, ‘Well, if you have it’s only what you deserve when you recollect what you did yesterday.’
‘I suppose it is,’ agreed Lucy; and assured him her colds were all over in twenty-four hours.
Afterwards in the library when they were alone, she asked if she hadn’t better sleep by herself in case he caught her cold, but Wemyss wouldn’t hear of such a thing. Not only, he said, he never caught colds and didn’t believe any one else who was sensible ever did, but it would take more than a cold to separate him from his wife. Besides, though of course she richly deserved a cold after yesterday— ‘Who’s a shameless little baggage,’ he said, pinching her ear, ‘coming down with only a blanket on — —’ somehow, though he had been so angry at the time, the recollection of that pleased him — he could see no signs of her having got one. She didn’t sneeze, she didn’t blow her nose ——
Lucy agreed, and said she didn’t suppose it was anything really, and she was sure she would be all right in the morning.
‘Yes — and you know we catch the early train up,’ said Wemyss. ‘Leave here at nine sharp, mind.’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy. And presently, for she was feeling very uncomfortable and hot and cold in turns, and had a great longing to creep away and be alone for a little while, she said that perhaps, although she knew it was very early, she had better go to bed.
‘All right,’ said Wemyss, getting up briskly. ‘I’ll come too.’
XXVI
He found her, however, very trying that night, the way she would keep on turning round, and it reached such a pitch of discomfort to sleep with her, or rather endeavour to sleep with her, for as the night went on she paid less and less attention to his requests that she should keep still, that at about two o’clock, staggering with sleepiness, he got up and went into a spare room, trailing the quilt after him and carrying his pillows, and finished the night in peace.
When he woke at seven he couldn’t make out at first where he was, nor why, on stretching out his arm, he found no wife to be gathered in. Then he remembered, and he felt most injured that he should have been turned out of his own bed. If Lucy imagined she was going to be allowed to develop the same restlessness at night that was characteristic of her by day, she was mistaken; and he got up to go and tell her so.
He found her asleep in a very untidy position, the clothes all dragged over to her side of the bed and pulled up round her. He pulled them back again, and she woke up, and he got into bed and said, ‘Come here,’ stretching out his arm, and she didn’t come.
Then he looked at her more closely, and she, looking at him with heavy eyes, said something husky. It was evident she had a very tiresome cold.
‘What an untruth you told me,’ he exclaimed, ‘about not having a cold in the morning!’
She again said something husky. It was evident she had a very tiresome sore throat.
‘It’s getting on for half-past seven,’ said Wemyss. ‘We’ve got to leave the house at nine sharp, mind.’
Was it possible that she wouldn’t leave the house at nine sharp? The thought that she wouldn’t was too exasperating to consider. He go up to London alone? On this the first occasion of going up after his marriage? He be alone in Lancaster Gate, just as if he hadn’t a wife at all? What was the good of a wife if she didn’t go up to London with one? And all this to come upon him because of her conduct on his birthday.
‘Well,’ he said, sitting up in bed and looking down at her, ‘I hope you’re pleased with the result of your behaviour.’
But it was no use saying things to somebody who merely made husky noises.
He got out of bed and jerked up the blinds. ‘Such a beautiful day, too,’ he said indignantly.
When at a quarter to nine the station cab arrived, he went up to the bedroom hoping that he would find her after all dressed and sensible and ready to go, but there she was just as he had left her when he went to have his breakfast, dozing and inert in the tumbled bed.
‘You’d better follow me by the afternoon train,’ he said, after staring down at her in silence. ‘I’ll tell the cab. But in any case,’ he said, as she didn’t answer, ‘in any case, Lucy, I expect you to-morrow.’
She opened her eyes and looked at him languidly.
‘Do you hear?’ he said.
She made a husky noise.
‘Good-bye,’ he said shortly, stooping and giving the top of her head a brief, disgusted kiss. The way the consequences of folly fell always on somebody else and punished him.... Wemyss could hardly give his Times the proper attention in the train for thinking of it.
That day Miss Entwhistle, aware of the return from the honeymoon on the Friday, and of the week-end to be spent at The Willows, and of the coming up to Lancaster Gate early on the Monday morning for the inside of the w
eek, waited till twelve o’clock, so as to allow plenty of time for Wemyss no longer to be in the house, and then telephoned. Lucy and she were to lunch together. Lucy had written to say so, and Miss Entwhistle wanted to know if she wouldn’t soon be round. She longed extraordinarily to fold that darling little child in her arms again. It seemed an eternity since she saw her radiantly disappearing in the taxi; and the letters she had hoped to get during the honeymoon hadn’t been letters at all, but picture postcards.
A man’s voice answered her, — not Wemyss’s. It was, she recognised, the voice of the pale servant, who with his wife attended to the Lancaster Gate house. They inhabited the basement, and emerged from it up into the light only if they were obliged. Bells obliged them to emerge, and Wemyss’s bath and breakfast, and after his departure to his office the making of his bed; but then the shades gathered round them again till next morning, because for a long while now once he had left the house he hadn’t come back till after they were in bed. His re-marriage was going to disturb them, they were afraid, and the pale wife had forebodings about meals to be cooked; but at the worst the disturbance would only be for the three inside days of the week, and anything could be borne when one had from Friday to Monday to oneself; and as the morning went on, and no one arrived from Strorley, they began to take heart, and had almost quite taken it when the telephone bell rang.
It didn’t do it very often, for Wemyss had his other addresses, at the office, at the club, so that Twite, wanting in practice, was not very good at dealing with it. Also the shrill bell vibrating through the empty house, so insistent, so living, never failed to agitate both Twites. It seemed to them uncanny; and Mrs. Twite, watching Twite being drawn up by it out of his shadows, like some quiet fish sucked irresistibly up to gasp on the surface, was each time thankful that she hadn’t been born a man.
She always went and listened at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, not knowing what mightn’t happen to Twite up there alone with that voice, and on this occasion she heard the following:
‘No, ma’am, not yet, ma’am.’
‘I couldn’t say, ma’am.’
‘No, no news, ma’am.’
‘Oh yes, ma’am, on Friday night.’
‘Yes, ma’am, first thing Saturday.’
‘Yes, it is, ma’am — very strange, ma’am.’
And then there was silence. He was writing, she knew, on the pad provided by Wemyss for the purpose.
This was the most trying part of Twite’s duties. Any message had to be written down and left on the hall table, complete with the time of its delivery, for Wemyss to see when he came in at night. Twite was not a facile writer. Words confused him. He was never sure how they were spelt. Also he found it very difficult to remember what had been said, for there was a hurry and an urgency about a voice on the telephone that excited him and prevented his giving the message his undivided attention. Besides, when was a message not a message? Wemyss’s orders were to write down messages. Suppose they weren’t messages, must he still write? Was this, for instance, a message?
He thought he had best be on the safe side, and laboriously wrote it down.
Miss Henwissel rang up sir to know if you was come and if so when you was coming and what orders we ad and said it was very strange 12.15.
He had only just put this on the table and was about to descend to his quiet shades when off the thing started again.
This time it was Wemyss.
‘Back to-night late as usual,’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ said Twite. ‘There’s just been a — —’
But he addressed emptiness.
Meanwhile Miss Entwhistle, after a period of reflection, was ringing up Strorley 19. The voice of Chesterton, composed and efficient, replied; and the effect of her replies was to make Miss Entwhistle countermand lunch and pack a small bag and go to Paddington.
Trains to Strorley at that hour were infrequent and slow, and it wasn’t till nearly five that she drove down the oozy lane in the station cab and, turning in at the white gate, arrived at The Willows. That sooner or later she would have to arrive at The Willows now that she was related to it by marriage was certain, and she had quite made up her mind, during her four weeks’ peace since the wedding, that she was going to dismiss all foolish prejudices against the place from her mind and arrive at it, when she did arrive, with a stout heart and an unclouded countenance. After all, there was much in that mot of her nephew’s: ‘Somebody has died everywhere.’ Yet, as the cab heaved her nearer to the place along the oozy lane, she did wish that it wasn’t in just this house that Lucy lay in bed. Also she had misgivings at being there uninvited. In a case of serious illness naturally such misgivings wouldn’t exist; but the maid’s voice on the telephone had only said Mrs. Wemyss had a cold and was staying in bed, and Mr. Wemyss had gone up to London by the usual train. It couldn’t be much that was wrong, or he wouldn’t have gone. Hadn’t she, she thought uneasily as she found herself uninvited within Wemyss’s gates, perhaps been a little impulsive? Yet the idea of that child alone in the sinister house ——
She peered out of the cab window. Not at all sinister, she said, correcting herself severely; all most neat. Perfect order. Shrubs as they should be. Strong railings. Nice cows.
The cab stopped. Chesterton came down the steps and opened its door. Nice parlourmaid. Most normal.
‘How is Mrs. Wemyss?’ asked Miss Entwhistle.
‘About the same I believe, ma’am,’ said Chesterton; and inquired if she should pay the man.
Miss Entwhistle paid the man, and then proceeded up the steps followed by Chesterton carrying her bag. Fine steps. Handsome house.
‘Does she know I’m coming?’
‘I believe the housemaid did mention it, ma’am.’
Nice roomy hall. With a fire it might be quite warm. Fine windows. Good staircase.
‘Do you wish for tea, ma’am?’
‘No thank you. I should like to go up at once, if I may.’
‘If you please, ma’am.’
At the turn of the stairs, where the gong was, Miss Entwhistle stood aside and let Chesterton precede her. ‘Perhaps you had better go and tell Mrs. Wemyss I am here,’ she said.
‘If you please, ma’am.’
Miss Entwhistle waited, gazing at the gong with the same benevolence she had brought to bear on everything else. Fine gong. She also gazed at the antlers on the wall, for the wall continued to bristle with antlers right up to the top of the house. Magnificent collection.
‘If you please, ma’am,’ said Chesterton, reappearing, tiptoeing gingerly to the head of the stairs.
Miss Entwhistle went up. Chesterton ushered her into the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her.
Miss Entwhistle knew Lucy was small, but not how small till she saw her in the treble bed. There really did appear to be nothing of her except a little round head. ‘Why, but you’ve shrunk!’ was her first exclamation.
Lucy, who was tucked up to her chin by Lizzie, besides having a wet bandage encased in flannel round her throat, could only move her eyes and smile. She was on the side of the bed farthest from the door, and Miss Entwhistle had to walk round it to reach her. She was still hoarse, but not as voiceless as when Wemyss left in the morning, for Lizzie had been diligently plying her with things like hot honey, and her face, as her eyes followed Miss Entwhistle’s approach, was one immense smile. It really seemed too wonderful to be with Aunt Dot again; and there was a peace about being ill, a relaxation from strain, that had made her quiet day, alone in bed, seem sheer bliss. It was so plain that she couldn’t move, that she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t get up and go in trains, that her conscience was at rest in regard to Everard; and she lay in the blessed silence after he left, not minding how much her limbs ached because of the delicious tranquillity of her mind. The window was open, and in the garden the birds were busy. The wind had dropped. Except for the birds there was no sound. Divine quiet. Divine peace. The luxury of it after the week-end, after the birthday
, after the honeymoon, was extraordinary. Just to be in bed by oneself seemed an amazingly felicitous condition.
‘Lovely of you to come,’ she said hoarsely, smiling broadly and looking so unmistakably contented that Miss Entwhistle, as she bent over her and kissed her hot forehead, thought, ‘It’s a success. He’s making her happy.’
‘You darling little thing,’ she said, smoothing back her hair. ‘Fancy seeing you again like this!’
‘Yes,’ said Lucy, heavy-eyed and smiling. ‘Lovely,’ she whispered, ‘to see you. Tea, Aunt Dot?’
It was evidently difficult for her to speak, and her forehead was extremely hot.
‘No, I don’t want tea.’
‘You’ll stay?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Entwhistle, sitting down by the pillow and continuing to smooth back her hair. ‘Of course I’ll stay. How did you manage to catch such a cold, I wonder?’
She was left to wonder, undisturbed by any explanations of Lucy’s. Indeed it was as much as Lucy could manage to bring out the most necessary words. She lay contentedly with her eyes shut, having her hair stroked back, and said as little as possible.
‘Everard—’ said Miss Entwhistle, stroking gently, ’is he coming back to-night?’
‘No,’ whispered Lucy contentedly.
Aunt Dot stroked in silence.
‘Has your temperature been taken?’ she asked presently.
‘No,’ whispered Lucy contentedly.
‘Oughtn’t you—’ after another pause ‘to see a doctor?’
‘No,’ whispered Lucy contentedly. Delicious, simply delicious, to lie like that having one’s hair stroked back by Aunt Dot, the dear, the kind, the comprehensible.
‘So sweet of you to come,’ she whispered again.
Well, thought Miss Entwhistle as she sat there softly stroking and watching Lucy’s face of complete content while she dozed off even after she was asleep the corners of her mouth still were tucked up in a smile — it was plain that Everard was making the child happy. In that case he certainly must be all that Lucy had assured her he was, and she, Miss Entwhistle, would no doubt very quickly now get fond of him. Of course she would. No doubt whatever. And what a comfort, what a relief, to find the child happy. Backgrounds didn’t matter where there was happiness. Houses, indeed. What did it matter if they weren’t the sort of houses you would, left to yourself, choose so long as in them dwelt happiness? What did it matter what their past had been so long as their present was illuminated by contentment? And as for furniture, why, that only became of interest, of importance, when life had nothing else in it. Loveless lives, empty lives, filled themselves in their despair with beautiful furniture. If you were really happy you had antlers.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 261
