Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  But Colombe did, it appeared, adding something about years not being really necessary to a chaperon, which Doris thought quite unmeaning.

  When they had gone with fluttering of scarves and rustling of pretty skirts, taking Dons, the beautiful bigness of the room was left to Daphne for herself and her thoughts of him.

  And then Claud came — a new anxious, over-explanatory Claud.

  Why wasn’t she coming in the motor with the others? Was she sure she wouldn’t be dull? Wasn’t there anything he could do for her before he went? Get anything? Post any letters? Sure? Well, it was good-bye then — but ne did wish she’d come. Then he, too, was gone, with the sound of boots and a whistling of the Peer Gynt spring melody.

  And now indeed she could be alone with her beautiful happiness. No. More feet on the stairs —— a messenger boy. He brought a letter, and she heard his retreating boots as she read it. There was an organ outside playing, “Alice Where Art Thou?”

  The letter was from Him — of course. How dear of him to write again so soon. Ah, he did love her. She was sure of him now! She shut and fastened her trap-door; she kissed the letter; then she pulled out the other, and read it again. “You mustn’t think I don’t love you because I’ve got another one,” she told it. And kissed it also. Then she remembered that she had not said her prayers. Well, she would say them now, and as a penance she would not read the letter till she had said them. How ungrateful to forget one’s prayers on this the first morning of her new happiness, the “birthday of her life,” she called it to herself. And it was unlucky, too, to forget one’s prayers. She knelt by her bed, and tried to pray, with the unopened letter on the counterpane, between her planted elbows. But it called to her too sweetly, too insistently. All the taught prayers and thanksgivings lost themselves in a warm, sweet mist of joy, and she found herself, her arms stretched out and her head on them, saying over and over again: “Oh, God, thank you, thank you — oh, God, thank you!”

  Then she opened the letter, and read it. She read it standing by the window. The dusty ash-leaves rustled outside, and the sun shone. Inside, Daphne with hands that would not tremble, though joy plucked at them, opened her letter and read:

  “It is no use. I can’t do it. I can’t give up my work even for you. I was mad last night. I don’t want to see you again. Go into the country with the others. The picture is finished. She was quite right. It is the best thing I ever did. Thank you for that. Good-bye.

  “H.

  “Do not try to see me. It is no use. I have made up my mind.”

  As drowning men are said, in the moment before death, to see all their lives spread out like a scroll before their eyes, so now Daphne. Catching at the heart that seemed to have shrunk till it was too small for the empty space about it, came old dreams, old memories — the school life, the happy hopes of this new life in London — thoughts of Doris, of Cousin Jane, even of Aunt Emily’s fancy work, and Uncle Harold’s sal volatile. She had lived through all these things, and now — well, it felt like death.

  She sat down, holding both hands to her bosom, as though the agony could be stilled by their hard pressure. “Oh, what shall I do?” she asked herself. And again: “What shall I do?”

  It was a long time after, when for a long time she had sat very still, watching the shifting of the shadows of the window sash on the floor, that she stood up suddenly, caught her hat from where it lay, just as she had thrown it down last night in the carelessness of her new joy, thrust hat pins through it, and went out like a whirlwind. There did not seem to be time to walk. She must have a hansom. There was not one in Fitzroy Street — the delay seemed, unbearable. She went along the street at racing pace, feeling that while she was creeping along like this he would be going out. She should just miss him. No — it was impossible that Fate could serve her this last sorry trick. He would be at his studio. He would open the door — very angry he would be that she had disobeyed him, but she would tell him everything. Yes — she would tell him how much she loved him: she had never told him that — not fully, not thoroughly. When he understood that he was everything in the world to her, surely that would make a difference? And she would promise not to interfere with his work — she would efface herself, just be there when he wanted her, but otherwise not there.

  “Aren’t you too proud to go to him if he doesn’t want you? something asked her.

  And she answered as one who does not understand: “Proud?”

  And when she had told him how she loved him, he would see that he was sacrificing her, as well as himself. Then he would laugh, in that way he had, as of one who seems suddenly to awaken from an angry dream, and take, her in his arms and never let her leave him any more. How much, she wondered, did a special licence cost. Yes — and hadn’t Seddon said that they two were made for each other, and that she wasn’t to let any pride or anything stand in the way? And the Russian — he too, and even Mrs. Delarue. Oh, it would be all right; it must be. How slow cabs were — but this was the Square — yes, and here was the door. The staircase with its scent of musk and paraffin, the glimpse of frowzy lady on the first floor — it was all as it had always been. He must be there.

  But he was not. His door was shut, locked inexorably. She waited, listening breathlessly. It seemed to her that something moved within. She knocked again. Nothing answered. Then she retreated, sat on the stairs to wait. He might come in at any moment. But the moments ran to an hour and he had not come. Then, walking heavily, with a step not her own, she went back to his door, which, perhaps, was shut only against her. She knocked a strange loud knock, not the little tap-tap natural to her hand. And only silence answered her.

  Again she sat on the stairs, gazing wretchedly at the brown leaves of the wretched musk-plant till the frowzy lady, now unspeakably ornate of costume lurched heavily up the stairs to offer her sympathy.

  “It ain’t no use, me dear,” she said; “‘e won’t be ‘ome to-day. Told me so. If I’d known you was here I’d a come up before. But ‘e’ll pay you all the same,” she added consolingly: “‘e often leaves ‘is models on the lurches, but ‘e always pays up like a gentleman.”

  “Thank you,” said Daphne, moving to go.

  “Got a ‘eadache, I lay, said the sympathizer.

  “‘Ave a drop of scent. No? I’d get it for you in less ‘n ‘arf a mo’. Scent’s so cheering, I always say. Gentlemen think a lot more of you if you’ve got a drop of nice scent on you, don’t they?’

  “I dare say,” said Daphne. “Thank you. Good morning.”

  “Why not leave a letter?” the frowzy one suggested, panting with the long climb and the tight high-breasted stays. “I’ll give you a sheet of paper and an ongvlope in a minute if you’ll come along down to my room.”

  Daphne, too crushed to resist, went “along down’ to a strange dark parlour out of which opened a stranger, darker bedroom. There the smell of musk was stronger even than on the stairs. On a dusty round table with artificial roses on its middle, Daphne, kneeling, wrote. The paper was pink, with violets in one comer.

  “Don’t decide without seeing me,” she wrote; “it’s not fair. You ought to see me. I will come again to-morrow. At eleven.

  “D. C”

  Something in her face as she wrote moved the woman to lay on her shoulder a fat hand with many cheap rings embedded in pink swellings of flesh.

  “Are we down-’earted?” she said. “No! Don’t you worry about ‘im, my dear. Take my word for it ‘e ain’t worth it — there ain’t no man is, ‘s far’s I can see.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Daphne.

  “Not that I’ve any call to talk,” said the frowzy one, laying her hand on her terraced chest—”and me at the mercy of any ‘an’some man. Always was.”

  Daphne ran up the stairs, pushed her pink letter under the door and got away.

  The interview with the impossible lady had somehow strengthened her. She would not lie down and cry all the afternoon — which had seemed, as she waited on the s
tairs, the inevitable sequel of her waiting. She had courage — she had always had courage — everyone had always said so. Well, she needed courage now. She would go on exactly as though nothing were wrong. She would go and see the Russian, and be nice to Cousin Jane, just as she had intended to do. To-morrow she would go — to sit for Him as usual. It he were there — ah, he must be there — then all would be well. Daphne felt that not in her presence could he renounce her.

  What passes for courage consists far less in the facing of dangers and difficulties than in the ignoring of them, in the thrusting of them back to some dark-curtained corner of the mind, some secret drawer of the heart. One turns one’s eyes from them resolutely; resolutely facing the rest of life. The clown — familiar example — jests and leaps, and delights a laughing crowd while his child lies at home under the chill linen and the death-money and the horrible white flowers. You talk to me at afternoon tea, delight me with anecdote, pique me with epigram, and all the time your heart is wrung, only you won’t look at its agonies, by the illness of the woman you love and have no right to love. I do my share of the tea-talk and will not look at my heart, desolated by the knowledge that my dearest has quarrelled with me about something that is not my fault, and certainly not hers, and that can never be explained except by giving away some one whom one can’t give away. And so we plume ourselves not unjustly, on our courage, while all the time, if we dared to look in the face of our sorrow, our own set face would break up in tears or curses, and we should throw our secret to the winds and put ashes on our heads.

  Quite definitely Daphne put her agony away, went back to the room where the cisterns giggled ironical applause, bathed her face, dressed her hair, and went off to Bow.

  The Russian and Cousin Jane were hand in hand. It seemed as though they must have remained hand in hand all the time since she had left them ever and ever so long ago — yesterday. The great studio was neat beyond belief. Vorontzoff, still in bed, could not see it. One could only conjecture what his feelings would be when he did see it.

  Daphne was careful to sit where he could not observe her face. She feared his sympathetic intuition, the sympathetic intuition of a dog — a child — a Russian.

  “You see me to-day convalescent,” he said. “The good Jane, she is a guard-ill altogether uncredible. She remains with me for always, is it not, my good Jane?’

  “He will keep on like that,” said Cousin Jane—”and of course I’ll stay till he 9s better. Is everything all right at home?’

  “Oh, yes — as right as it can be without you,” Daphne answered, her eye on the door and her ears in the yard outside. Courage is courage: but hope, too, is hope. Henry had not been to see his friend yesterday. To-day he might come. If he did! Hope cheated courage and stole a swift panoramic view of the Mile End Road and two lovers walking along it, explaining to each other how dear they both were.

  “No,” Daphne answered another question, “no, nothing has happened. Doris has gone for the day with Colombe and Madeleine.”

  “No,” another question, “no, I’m not sitting to-day.”

  “Yes, the portrait is nearly finished.”

  “It is amiable of your part to come again to-day to take of my news,” Vorontzoff said. “You English are so good, so good. Our Henry was here this morning at the little day. And they say he has no heart!

  “He is going away, isn’t he?” Daphne’s courage asked.

  “Not yet — first we arrange for the exposition that is to make the world know him as we do. For himself he would not give himself the pain; for me — it is another thing! And I — I nave my reputation — it is for him I do this exposition and he knows it not. Life, my little one, is all lies. You say to yourself: Some lies are kind and some are cruel,’ but if you do not guard yourself all your life is lies.”

  Daphne was in no mood to disagree with him.

  “So long as they are not cruel lies,” she said.

  “All lies are cruel,” the Russian said, raising himself on his unhurt elbow to emphasize his points with his eyes, “if not to others then to yourself. If Henry had the heart open as it is kind — if he were my friend without pride and the love of self between, I should embrace him — figure it to yourself — and say: “Behold, for you I make the exhibition, brother;” and he in return would embrace me, replying: “Brother, I accept your gift-of-love!” Daphne tried to figure it — failed, and laughed. “An, you laugh. But is it not as I say? Even with you, charming and good to the deep of the soul, even with you I dare not say all the truths. Only this dear Jane — to her I can say all things.”

  “He does,” said Cousin Jane, in an intense undertone.

  “And you don’t mind?” Daphne’s tone evened the other’s.

  “What’s the use? He’s like a child: you have to humour him.”

  “What is it — this humour?” Vorontzoff had caught the last words.

  “To be kind,” said Daphne hastily—”to try to understand the truth — and other people.”

  “Ah,” said the Russian, falling back on the pillow, “it is there all, all! To be kind, to try to understand each other.”

  “He does say very odd things,” said Cousin Jane, “but sometimes he’s right. I do think there’s something in that, don’t you, dear?”

  But to her world — and her world was now The One only — Daphne was not permitted to be kind. And to understand him — ah, that was difficult indeed.

  “I know he loves me,” she told herself again and again to the shining gliding rattle of the electric train. “I know he’ll be miserable, just as much as I am.” She twisted her hands in her lap till a tired work-girl stared at her. That he was as miserable as she — she would have given her little finger to be certain of it. But she had never been certain of him, or of anything about him, for more than half an hour at a time.

  Her room was full of Paris fashions and pleasant voices. The whole house-hunting party had seen Doris home.

  “And it’s the beautifullest house you ever, Daffy, my own; and you and me’s going to stay there and eat cream and honey all day long, and make castles in the new-laid hay.”

  Mr. Seddon was there, obsequious and adoring at the feet of the Botticelli Madeleine. Winston was there, vanquished but uneasy at the feet of — was it a pang that shot through Daphne at the sight? She aid not want Mr. Claud Winston. Why, men, should it hurt her to see that he was no longer hers? Could she grudge him to Colombe? Or Colombe to him? Of course not. Only one was so thoroughly out of everything. That was all.

  She was very nice to them all and made tea picturesquely. Stephen St. Hilary was there in the pocket, as it seemed, of Green Eyes. Why had Green Eyes come? But it didn’t matter. Let her have him! She hadn’t got Henry anyhow.

  “Nor have you,” her heart told her; but she would not listen. Instead, she talked to the long boy who leaned against walls. He also had happened. It didn’t matter how. Nothing mattered. She wondered whether anyone had ever loved him enough to want to push back that long lock that fell over his eyes. Henry’s hair now —

  “Yes, indeed,” she was saying, “I’m certain too that the exhibition will be a great success. As you say, Vorontzoff’s work and Mr. Henry’s.”

  Everyone wanted more tea. And the kettle was slow to boil. Doris was very wide awake and talked all the time she was being undressed.

  It had been a long day. And the rest of life would be made up of days just like it — unless — But courage thrust Daphne aside, pulled down the curtain across the stage where her dreams wanted to act the parts they knew by heart — and she read herself to sleep instead.

  CHAPTER XXII. BEFRIENDED

  TO BE the centre of an admiring circle, and in the intervals of friendly admiration to search blindly for one’s lost happiness — that was how Miss Carmichael put it to herself in the day time. At night something else put it to her otherwise. In the hours when there are so many clocks with so many different views about time it was made plain to her that she spent her days in trying
to get rid of her friends so that she might run after a man who did not care for her, and that, moreover, the running was in vain.

  Henry sent no answer to her letter. He was never at his studio in all the many, many times when she toiled up those horrible scented stairs, treading softly, that she might elude the sympathy of the scented lady. He was never at the East End studio whither every day went a distracted Daphne in a whirl of uncertainty as to whether she really went to visit the Russian in his affliction, to see after her cousin, so strangely adopted by that impulsive foreigner, or merely to look for her lover. Her eyes ached with scanning the faces of crowds; her head ached with the composition of letters to him, letters denouncing, imploring, explaining. Some of the letters were written but none were sent. At least she knew better than that. If he had not answered that first piteous pink note he would not answer any of these.

  Anxiety, thwarted longing, the persistent consciousness of unspeakable disaster, induced in the girl a continued physical nausea. She was driven to the craftiest expedients to hide from her friends how little she could eat, and how seldom. But she did hide it, hiding with it all the rest.

  And then after days — mercifully few though always afterward it seemed that they had been very many — the crowd that had been such pleasant friends when all was well, and such torturing involuntary spies when there was nothing but what was ill, all went away, taking Doris with them to the summer camp and the old Manor House near by. And Daphne was left alone, to set her life’s tragedy to the obligato of the dripping, gurgling, giggling cisterns.

  It was a relief. She told herself so, many times. But it was very lonely.

  After the duty visit to Cousin Jane — she had almost persuaded herself now that it was duty only that took her where perhaps some fortunate day she might meet him — after that there were the long hours in which if she spoke she spoke to herself, and if she heard others speak they did not speak to her. There were the organs and the street-cries far below, and the growl of London. There were letters from the others, in the pleasant country, imploring her to delay no more to come to them.