Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  She heard of him, from Vorontzoff. The exhibition would be in October. Berners’s gallery was to be engaged. No — Henry did not come to Bow. He was busy. But he wrote, often — to Vorontzoff. It did not seem necessary to tell Cousin Jane that Doris was with the others in the country, and that Daphne was alone in Fitzroy Street.

  And now she began to haunt Bond Street, walking up and down it till the burning pavements scorched her feet. She thought of Hans Andersen’s little mermaid. Never for a moment did she waver in that faith of hers that if she could once see him for a moment all would be well. He would know how she loved him, and how such love was worth more than all the world.

  And one day she did see him.

  She was walking, as she so often walked now, from nowhere to nowhere, and the way led along Brooke Street. And as she turned the corner she saw him, on the other side of the way, civilized strangely, almost unrecognizably, but still Henry There was no hesitation — she followed him. Another man was with him, a man she did not know. This man waited outside the door at which Henry presently stopped and entered. Daphne did not wait outside. It was a picture-gallery. She had as good a right in a picture-gallery as anyone else. He had not seen her. In the gallery he would see her.

  But if he did he made no sign.

  She had followed him through a door between a jeweller’s and a bonnet shop, and down a longish passage past a turnstile where no shillings were paid. Also she followed him through the little door beside the turnstile. He had not seen her yet. Now surely he would see her. But if he did he made no sign.

  A little bald, well-groomed man came forward —— something like a very superior shop-walker; he actually rubbed his hands as he came. His frock coat was perfect, his trousers “like Mr. George Alexander’s” — Henry himself, on that day wore the uniform of the affluent caller in ducal circles.

  Daphne could not thrust herself between them. She turned and feigned absorption in the dark brown landscapes and large naked ladies that lined the walls of the ante-room. And she listened.

  “You don’t know me,” said Henry abruptly. “But pardon me, Mr. Henry,” said the other. “I know you very well. ‘You have passed through our hands more than once. Your work is a special market, Mr. Henry.”

  “I want,” said Henry, more abruptly still, “to give a show.”

  “Quite so,” said the other, “quite so,” and stopped at that.

  “A two-man show,” Henry went on; “the other man’s Vorontzoff.”

  The change in Mr. Berners’s attitude suggested almost audibly: “Now you’re talking!”

  “Mr. Vorontzoff has not exhibited at all in this country, I believe?”

  “No; but he’s going to now.”

  “Names,” said the tall man—”names. The public buys names.”

  “Well, his name’s good enough,” said Henry. “And yours, I’m sure, Mr. Henry; but it’s not a question of being good, but of being popular.”

  I want you,” said Henry, looking straight at the other, “to make me popular. It will be, I assure you, a paying business.’

  The other shrugged his shoulders.

  “Did you see my portrait of Mrs. Van Lup? They had a private show of it, before they took it to Chicago. I got four hundred pounds for that.”

  “Whatever price you get for your pictures we can get double,” said the dealer.

  “I suppose you get all sorts of people here.”

  “Ah, it’s not the picture, nor the people who come to look at it; it’s the man behind the picture.”

  “Of course,” said Henry.

  “Ah, not the artist,” he said, and Daphne suddenly perceived that this egregious person meant himself “Well,” said Henry, “I’m going to have the show — and Vorontzoff’s going to have the show. Would you like us to have it here?”

  “On terms, Mr. Henry, on terms. That wall, sir, is worth a hundred and fifty pounds — and 33 per cent. On those terms, of course, we should feel a certain pleasure in bringing forward the work of an artist who only needs to be known, Mr. Henry, believe me, to be appreciated. A picture on that wall is worth double the price it would fetch on any other wall in England.”

  “Look here,” said Henry, “this show of ours is going to be the success of the autumn season — Vorontzoff’s name, and my painting. It’s a chance of a life-time to any gallery.”

  Mr. Berners looked sympathetic and said nothing. “You don’t believe me,” said Henry. “Well, I’ll make you a sporting offer. I’ll give you 50 per cent, on the sales, and you can throw the wall in.”

  “I imagined, sir, from what I have seen of your work,” said the dealer, “that you had a sense of humour.”

  “I imagined,” said Henry, “that you had a sense of business. That’s why I wanted the show here. Well, if it’s off, it’s off. Good morning.”

  “I will,” said the dealer, “refer to my brother. It is an unusual offer. You shall hear from me.”

  “Not later than to-morrow, please,” said Henry. “I’ve got to get the thing fixed up this week.”

  Then he went out. He had to pass close to Daphne, but he did not see her. She lingered a little between the bonnet shop and the jeweller’s and just in front of her was the frock-coated back of Henry. He stood a moment, speaking to his friend.

  “That counter-jumper,” he was saying, “would sell a bad copy for more than any other man would get for an original. That’s why one goes to him.

  “I wish you hadn’t to, though,” said his friend.

  “It’s not only my work, it’s Vorontzoff’s.”

  And Daphne perceived that Henry really imagined himself to have sacrificed his pride on the altar of friendship.

  “Did you get on all right with him?” the friend asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said impatiently. “Most likely I offended him for life. I cannot lick boots; I’ve had so little practice. We’ll hire a workshop and give the show there—”

  Then the friend hailed a hansom, and as Henry turned from the curbstone Daphne took two steps forward and stood in front of him, looking straight in his eyes. She would not speak. He should do that. That at least he owed to her. She would not make things too easy for him now. She had done enough. It was his turn.

  His eyes met hers without smile or light: he looked at her, indeed, but with eyes that aid not see, took one step back and another to the side, raised his hat and passed on. Courage — pride — anger. She had her choice of the epithet. The thing itself kept her motionless till he had hailed a hansom and been driven away in it.

  It was at that moment, when she was walking very slowly away from the place of her humiliation, that she met Mr. St. Hilary face to face.

  There was no pride left now, nor courage, to help her. She looked at him, and she held her hand out. But the limits of self-possession were reached. She literally could not speak.

  He hardly gave her a chance. He was gay and fluent. Congratulated himself on the meeting; he had meant to call. Yes, the summer camp was a great success. Doris was a darling — yes, of course she missed her sister — wanted her frightfully; and the lady with the green eyes — what was her name? — was so delightful with children, wasn’t she?

  Daphne, recovering the use of her senses slowly, did presently get back the power of speech sufficiently to say, almost as it seemed with resentment:

  “You seem very happy.”

  “It’s a beautiful world,” said he, “full of beautiful people. But London’s very hot, very dusty. One almost forgets how green a chestnut-tree can be in spring, doesn’t one?”

  “The trees are all brown now,” said Daphne, “Not in the country,” he said. “I wonder? Are you very, very busy to-day? If you aren’t I wish you’d come into the country with me — we’d have such a nice quiet play-time.”

  “I — I’m rather tired,” said Daphne. “I don’t think I want to play. All the others are better to play with than I am.”

  “Then we won’t play. Do come. I’m so lonely. The
others have gone for a picnic somewhere; and the man I came to London to see isn’t there, of course. Do come.”

  She thought of her too quiet room, the long silences broken only by the derisive exclamations of the cisterns. She glanced at him, tall and strong, well-dressed, his face tanned till the gray of his eyes showed almost blue. Yes — she was very tired. It would be nice to be taken care of.

  Yes, she would go. So she said:

  “I’m afraid I can’t. There are hundreds of things I ought to be doing. And, besides, it would be very dull for you — I have a wretched headache.”

  “Then you oughtn’t to do even one dozen out of the many hundreds. Ah, do come! I am feeling crushed by my failure to do what I came to town to do. Give me back my self-respect by letting me pretend that I’m taking care of you. Ah, do come,” he said.

  And she, wondering how his voice could ever have echoed in her ears and made music there, said: “Very well then. Only don’t blame me if you’re bored.”

  After that there was telephoning and a hansom cab; and then a motor’s smooth rush, broken continually by congested traffic, and ever taking up its swift course again like a mountain stream after the opposition of fallen tree or fallen boulder.

  And presently they were on a white road with green on both sides of it.

  “It is nice,” Daphne owned, and leaned back more luxuriously.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” was all he said; and no one would have known, to look at him, that he felt more than that — just that. It was “nice.”

  Daphne was grateful to him. He had talked when his talking only could have saved her from a speechless betrayal of her misery. Now, when she once more had herself in hand, he was kindly silent.

  And the silence and the swift movement — yes and the friend at one’s side, the friend who did not chatter or bother — these made rest. She sighed and closed her eyes.

  The telephone is our modern magic-worker, for when Daphne opened her eyes again it was a luncheon basket that St. Hilary was lifting off the front of the motor; and the motor itself was snorting and vibrating in face of a padlocked gate that barred “We’ll walk this little bit, if you don’t mind,” he said—”over this stile and along by the hedge.

  “Where are we?”

  “Chevening Park.”

  “Why, that’s where Claud and I meant to come for a picnic — only it turned into Bodiam because everybody else came and was so wealthy. Do you remember?”

  Curiously enough Mr. St. Hilary had not forgotten.

  “That,” said Daphne, feebly, “was quite a different picnic, wasn’t it?”

  And Mr. St. Hilary agreed that it had been indeed quite different.

  He had shouldered the basket and walked beside her through the meadow path that leads to the steep sloping woodway of the Park.

  That other picnic! There had been a sun in heaven then. A sudden keen pang of resentment against Green Eyes shot through Daphne — and, oddly enough, it came for the first time.

  “If she hadn’t come interfering that night,” she told herself. “I might have been here now — with Him.”

  She stole a glance at the man beside her who carried the basket. Oh, not brown hair it should have been, but black, that the gold sunshine lit on. And for eyes, what colour was there in the world but brown — smoked-topaz, she had called it? Why had she come away like this, to be bored all day by this other man?

  “You’re awfully tired, I know,” the other man was saving, “but it’s not much farther. There’s a jolly place at the end of this path and then to the right.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Chevening,” Daphne said, with tired politeness.

  “I don’t. Winston told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That it was a nice place to be quiet in.”

  “You meant to come here to-day, then? You meant to ask me?”

  “No — yes, of course I did if I only got half a chance! You and I were made to be mends, Miss Carmichael — you read my inmost thoughts with such unerring accuracy.”

  When you reach the bottom of that steep path you turn sharply to the right, climb a little, and then you are on a narrow chalk ridge among the roots of beech-trees with on one side a gully full of the beech’s brown drifted leaves, and on the other the steep grassy descent of the warren, where the short gray turf and the thyme and the harebells are, and where gray rabbits pop in and out of their holes and sit up and wash their furry faces with no care at all for your presence. It was on the edge of the ridge that he established her.

  “See how green everything is here,” he said—”and own that you are hungry.”

  She owned it, and was surprised to find it true. The rush through the clean air, the sense of kind companionship, the sudden inclusion of her loneliness in the circle of human tenderness — one or other or all had brought to her a renewed sense of physical well-being. She looked out over the valley to the close green of the woods beyond.

  “Oh,” she said, “I am glad I came.” And when the meal was over — it was a very pretty, very dainty meal, and contrasted sharply with the food in which she had, lately, taken do tepid an interest —— St. Hilary talked a little — made her talk, not too much — and there were silent moments. She lay back on the slope, her head on her arm, resting tired eyes with the green and the gray. The shadow of a leafy branch fell across her face, while all about them was good sunshine. When he turned to speak to her, after a silence longer than any yet, he found that she was asleep.

  And now that her will was no longer awake, to hide them in smiles and bright looks, he could see on her face the lines drawn by pain. There were dark marks by the eyes, the brows were drawn sharply together, and the mouth drooped very sadly. Ana he looked at her, and loved her, and wondered for the thousandth time why she had never answered his letter. She slept very peacefully, and it occurred to him that of late her sleep had not been peaceful. He remembered the face of the girl in the chestnut tree, and he looked on this different face, and cursed That Man.

  “And I can do nothing — just nothing,” he said.

  The sun had moved the shadow of the bough away from her face, and laid his bright kiss on her eyelids. St. Hilary moved the luncheon basket so that its open lid should shelter her. The creaking of the wicker-work sounded through her sleep. She moved, reached out a hand. He did not mean to take it, but he found that he had taken it. It curled contentedly in his, and her face grew peaceful; the brow smoothed itself out; the mouth almost smiled. But every now and then, as she slept, her shoulders twitched; it was like the ghost of a sob that shook her from time to time. And his hand was glad of her hand — yet never, in all his life, had he felt so sad.

  He sat very still, resolved to withdraw his hand before she should wake, so that she should never know that he had had this glad sadness. But it always seemed that he need not move just yet. And so it happened, all in a minute, that, as she woke, her hand, stirring in his, felt itself strongly clasped. She smiled, still not awake, and reached out her arms — both arms — opened her eyes, and saw his face.

  “Oh,” she cried, and sat up, put her hands to her eyes and held them there. “Oh,” she said again, “I thought it was — I was dreaming. Oh.”

  Then she took her hands away and blinked at the sunshine and smiled and said she believed she must have been asleep. But the lip that smiled trembled too.

  Then he could not bear it any more, and he said:

  “Dear Daphne, dear little girl, don’t be unhappy all by yourself. Tell your friend that loves you,” and then wished he had bitten his tongue out before he had said it, for now she would be angry with him, and everything would be over.

  But she was not angry. She was too miserable and lonely. But she said:

  “Oh, there’s nothing to tell. Everything’s all right.”

  At that he grew very busy uprooting a tuft of dog violet leaves and said, looking at those leaves very earnestly:

  I wish you wouldn’t. I know you’re unhappy
. Can’t I help you? You’re very young, dear. Perhaps it’s all a mistake, and I could help to set it right.”

  “It’s not any mistake,” she said.

  “There’s always a mistake somewhere, when people quarrel,” he said, still earnest with the violet root — people who care for each other. Won’t you let me help you? Why have you quarrelled with him?”

  “With whom?” was her last defence. For when he said, ever so kind and friendly, “with the man you care for,” she broke down and a reckless torrent of words told him the truth, as she knew it.

  “And I know,” she ended. “I ought to be too proud to go on caring, and much, much too proud to tell anyone about it, but I’m so tired and everything’s so hateful — and I know if I saw him it would be all right. And I never shall see him. And that’s all and I wish I hadn’t told you.”

  She had not told him of the weary search for her lover, prolonged from day to day, of the constant agony of hope deferred. Her story stopped short at Henry’s letter of renunciation.

  “And now I’ve told you — and you’ll despise me,” she ended.

  He did not find it easy to answer her. He had known that there was another man; and male instinct had shown him unerringly, and at the first meeting, who that other man was. But he had not known that she cared like this.

  “You can despise me as much as you like,” she went on, desperately, “but it isn’t only that I want to be happy; I want him to be happy. And he won’t be. I should have helped him in his work —— I know I should. And I know he’ll be unhappy, and he’ll be too proud to say so, and I shall never see him again, and let’s go back now, shall we? I wish I hadn’t told you.”

  “Yes,” he said, “we’ll go back now, if you like. But don’t be sorry you told me. It’s the highest honour I’ve ever had in this world, or ever shall have, that you’ve trusted me like this. I am very, very grateful. Don’t be sorry. I was your friend before, always, but now I’m ten thousand times more your friend. We won’t talk about it — but this makes us friends for ever, doesn’t it?”