Up at the house Florence was the only person who could not share in the general rejoicings. She was conscious of having lost a little of the morning’s enchantment. She could not be quite sure, now, that everything at the Karindehütte would invariably amuse her. The struggle over the dressing-case had been rather horrible in the light which it cast upon the more intimate history of Evelyn Churchill. Nor was there anything funny in the reflection that Evelyn’s children had grown up under the dominion of a foul-tongued harpy. It was no wonder that nice Mr Dodd felt anxious for them; she began to understand his assurance that ‘the household’ was not their fault.
But the harpy had now flapped her black wings and sailed away and the creatures of prey about the establishment were fewer by two, not counting Susan, who was obviously a harpy in embryo. The young Jew remained, but he was not really so bad, and was, moreover, quite genuine in his offer to pay for Sebastian’s education. It was determined, in a consultation among the elders that afternoon, that the four children should be removed immediately to England, and, in the Autumn, should be put to school. Robert could recommend very highly a small preparatory school for Sebastian, and Florence was all for sending the three girls to Cleeve Ladies’ College, where she had received her own education. Robert had his doubts about the wisdom of this, but, since his chief objection was that no reputable establishment would take them, he was overruled. Florence knew Cleeve; she vowed that, as nieces of Charles Churchill and daughters of a musician of dawning fame, they would be welcome at her old school. Cleeve, she said, would overlook a great many shortcomings in such a case and her father would use his influence. There seemed to be more real difficulty in the task of persuading the girls to go. They pulled very long faces when they were told of the arrangements which had been made for them.
‘But you will enjoy it,’ said Robert encouragingly. ‘You will make plenty of little friends and you will learn how to play games.’
This mystified them very much; it was the last thing they would have expected to hear of any school. They explained that they knew how to play games. He tried to convey to them some idea of the importance of games in an English school and they became very dismal indeed. Antonia stoutly declared that nothing would induce her to play games. Her sisters, being children, might submit, but she was grown up and would have everybody know it She was too old to go to school.
‘In England the big girls all play,’ Robert assured her. ‘My little daughter, Hilda, is older than you; she is seventeen. And she loves her school and doesn’t want to leave it She is captain of the school hockey.’
The four looked at each other, and though they were too courteous to say so they feared that their cousin Hilda must be a terrible simpleton. Sebastian said at last:
‘Well, thank you very much. We’ll think it over. I suppose it will do if we let you know by tomorrow?’
‘Let us know! What?’ asked Robert gaping.
‘If we want to come. Of course we see it’s most kind of you to think of it, don’t we girls? But we’d like a little time to consider it, you know.’
‘If you want to come! My dear boy! You’ll do what you are told, let me tell you. It’s no question for you to decide.’
‘I think it’s more important to us than to anybody else,’ argued Sebastian. ‘We may not like going to school.’
‘That will be excessively foolish of you, but I doubt if it will otherwise have any importance whatever.’
‘We don’t belong to you,’ stated Sebastian, still pleasantly reasonable. ‘I mean, there’s no law, is there, to give you power over us? Nobody made you our guardians, did they?’
‘Er … hmph … um!’ snorted Robert, who had no answer ready.
Florence stifled her laughter with a violent effort, for she knew that this question of legal guardianship was, to his cautious mind, a grievous problem. She made a sign to him and said:
‘Yes. Talk it over and we’ll discuss it again tomorrow.’
‘We’d like to consult our friends,’ explained Teresa.
‘Your friends!’ exploded Robert. ‘May I ask what friends are those? Mr Dodd! He has nothing whatever …’
Again Florence checked him.
‘I expect you’ll find Mr Dodd thinks it a very good plan,’ she said. ‘But do ask him.’
Later she said to her uncle:
‘It’s much better to avoid trouble if possible. They’d better think that they are going to school of their own choice; it will dispose them to try and adapt themselves. And it will do them no harm to talk it over among themselves.’
‘I don’t agree with you, Florence. It’s high time they learnt to do what they are told without cavil or question. They haven’t the slightest idea of discipline.’
‘They’ll learn all that at school, poor dears! They don’t recognise the shades of the prison house yet; they think they are their own masters. It will come by degrees. I don’t want any battles till we have got them all to England.’
‘I never saw more impudent, ill-mannered, disobedient young people in all my life. It’s not their fault of course. But their language, my dear Florence, is outrageous! And what morals can they have growing up in this place? ’Pon my word, I doubt if we are justified in turning them loose in decent schools. I wouldn’t have Hilda associate with that girl Antonia for the world.’
‘She struck me as no worse than the others. Now Teresa …’
‘She’s the eldest. And she’s spent her life in the society of depraved people. You heard what that woman said.’
‘That woman,’ said Florence with a shudder, ‘was a horrible, obscene creature. I don’t think you need quote her.’
‘It’s quite probable that she spoke the truth for all that. Look at the sort of people the poor child has knocked about with. This Dodd …’
‘I think better of that young man than you do,’ said Florence. ‘And I can tell you this. He’s most anxious that they should go to school. I’m sure he’ll advise them sensibly about that. He’s devoted to them.’
And she was right, for he did advise them very sensibly. They had, however, no opportunity for consulting him until late in the evening, for he was away all day in the mountains trying to walk off his sleeplessness. When he came back he brought with him a little Persian kitten which he had bought at a farm as a peace offering to the girls for his recent ill-humours. They were in bed so he took it up and gave it to them.
‘Oh, Lewis,’ began Teresa at once, ‘wait a minute! We want your advice. Florence says we have to go to school in England.’
He sat down on the edge of the bed where Teresa, Paulina and the kitten lay curled up in a little heap.
‘I expect you’ll like that,’ he suggested.
‘Oh! Do you really think we shall? Tony! Do you hear that? Lewis thinks …’
‘Yes, I heard,’ mumbled Antonia from the other bed. ‘I don’t want to hear what Lewis thinks, or what you think, or what anybody thinks. I shall decide for myself.’
And she hid under the bedclothes.
‘I think it would be a very good thing,’ Lewis told them. ‘Perhaps you won’t like it at first. You may find that you are a little different from the other women, but you must try to get on with them! You must indeed. It’s a good thing, you know, to be like other people if you can manage it. It’s happier …’
Teresa thought this such a mighty odd thing for Lewis to say that she sat up and kissed him, murmuring:
‘Who’d have thought it!’
He sat a little longer, stroking her fair hair and feeling suddenly quite wretched at the idea of parting with her so soon. He had not thought of separation in his anxiety for their welfare. But perhaps he might come to England and pay them a visit. He suggested this and they brightened up: school as he described it did not sound so very bad after all. In another half minute he was meaning to go across to his room in the annexe and begin upon his arduous night’s toil. But he kept putting it off, though all the time, as he solaced himself with Teresa’s
company, his mind was circling round the labour to which lie must shortly address himself. To stay and stroke her hair was a little respite. He was still there, staving off the evil hour, when Florence came with a candle to bid her cousins good-night. She heard him say:
‘And then I expect they’ll teach you needlework. And you’ll make yourselves the most lovely dresses.’
‘Oh, Florence,’ cried Teresa. ‘Here’s Lewis says we must certainly go.’
Antonia poked up her head in order to see what was happening. She had a faint idea that Florence might not be pleased to find Lewis there, although he was giving them such good advice. But of this there was no sign; Florence opened her eyes for a second or two and then smiled at him very kindly. He, on the other hand, was visibly deranged. Antonia observed with amusement that he was staring at Miss Churchill as though he had never seen a young lady in her dressing-gown before.
And it was improbable that he had ever seen one quite like that. She was lovely. Her dark plaits, her mocassin slippers, the Paisley shawl flung round her blanket-wise, all gave her a boyish look, like a decorative, fairy tale Red Indian, scarcely older than Antonia. Lewis was positively frightened. He had thought her beautiful before, but he had thought it without emotion. Now he was aware of a most disturbing revolution in his system; it was as if the terrific energies scattered by the shock of Sanger’s death were again focussed upon a single object, as if the storms of the past weeks had been but the prelude of this significant event. The thing took him perfectly unawares. He jumped up, stammered a good-night to them all, and withdrew hastily before his confusion should be betrayed.
That night he did no work, though he flung up and down his room for hours, endeavouring to think of his lost Concerto and haunted instead by quite other visions. He wished that he had gone away before this cousin of Tessa’s had come to disturb him. He had told Kate that he was just ripe for folly; at no time in his life had he been overwise. But never, never had he fallen a victim to so inconvenient an obsession as this.
9
Florence woke every morning, rapturously, to the tune of cow bells. For a few minutes there was a great din all round the house as the beasts were driven up to pasture, and the shouts of the herd boys echoed across the clear dark air in the valleys. Then the scattered tinklings grew fainter as the cows strayed across the mountain.
She had dragged her bed close to the window, and from her pillow she could see the pale pink tops of the range opposite and the long shafts of light which the rising sun sent down their steep sides, spearing right down into the hidden mysterious night below. Day began at the Karindehütte a full hour before it visited the valley farms.
Never, since her childhood, had she lived so completely for the present, grudging every passing moment that brought her nearer to the inevitable return. It was an interval of utter contentment which seemed to have no relation to the rest of her life. She had a curious feeling as though this sensation of exquisite irrelevance was the result of living so high up; she was beautifully isolated on the top of her mountain. When she went back to England she supposed that she would take up again the threads of her real life, her elaborate interests and pursuits, just where she had dropped them. She could not hope to take back with her the inconsequent gaiety, the freedom of spirit, which had come to her as she sat by the lake at Weissau. They belonged to the place. Nor did she contemplate a return, another year and in other company; some joys can never be recaptured. She was so much aware of the impermanence of her pleasure that she was no sooner awake than a longing would seize her to jump up and run out into the mild warmth of the early sun. She was often dressed and ranging over the pass before Roberto, crying ‘Scusa!’ burst into her room with the enormous tea-pot which he believed Kate to have said that the English lady would require every morning at seven o’clock.
She was preparing to begin the day with one of these early expeditions when Antonia knocked at the door and asked if she might come in and talk a little.
‘What lovely brushes!’ she said, inspecting the dressing-table. ‘You do keep your things nicely. Linda had gold ones, but she never washed them. Listen, Florence! I don’t mean to go to school. Why should I? I’m grown up.’
She was wearing a very short and ragged nightgown and looked anything but grown up, but Florence was too wise to say so. She agreed sympathetically that it would be more difficult for Antonia than for the others.
‘Lewis says we’ll like it. But what does he know about it? He’s never been to a girls’ school himself.’
‘What sort of people does he belong to?’ asked Florence, who could not resist an opportunity of finding out more about him.
‘Oh, I don’t know. He never speaks of them. I only heard him speak of his home once, and then he said they had boiled mutton and caper sauce every day there. I expect that wasn’t true.’
‘Still, even if they had it every other day, it might seem rather intolerable to a budding ascetic …’ mused Florence.
‘A budding …?’ began Antonia.
But she did not ask what an ascetic was, in case Florence should say she was ignorant and needed to go to school. Instead she cried appealingly:
‘You know … I should just hate to play hockey.’
‘Well, my dear, if you really hate it very much, we might arrange something else for you. But I think you must go somewhere to learn to earn your own living and be independent. It’s not easy for unqualified women to get posts.’
‘Why should I earn my own living?’ asked Antonia in great astonishment.
Florence, with considerable delicacy, brought her to understand her penniless and dependent situation. She became very thoughtful and then asked slowly:
‘But who will pay for us at school? That will cost a lot.’
‘Mr Trigorin and Mr Birnbaum have been very generous …’
‘Ike!’ She swung round in amazement. ‘He’s paying?’
‘Ike?’
‘Jacob Birnbaum. We call him Ike. You say he’s paying?’
‘Yes. For your brother … and for you, in part, as well.’
‘Christ! I won’t have it!’
‘My dear child! What do you mean?’
‘I won’t go to England if Ike pays. I won’t swallow any food that Ike pays for. I’ll starve. I’ll …’
‘What has he done?’
‘Done? It’s what he is! He’s a stupid beast. He’s cruel!’
‘Why, Antonia …’
‘I hate him. I wish he was dead.’
‘Has he … has he treated you badly in any way?’ asked Florence very gravely.
Antonia pulled herself up and said loftily:
‘Oh, no! He couldn’t. He’s too stupid. But I won’t have his money. He’s a dirty Jew.’
But why are you so indignant? He was your father’s friend.’
‘That’s nothing. So was Sanger a beast … often. And I’m not indignant. He’s beneath my notice. I never think of him at all. When I look at him I just laugh.’
‘Well! You’re a difficult girl to understand.’
‘He thinks I ought to go to school, does he?’ stormed Antonia. ‘He thinks I don’t know enough and ought to be taught some more? He thinks a deal too much. He’s a walking mountain of impudence, that man! He shall hear what I think about it before he’s an hour older. School!’
She made for the door, but Florence held her back, exclaiming:
‘My dear Tony! He’s probably asleep at this hour.’
‘Oh, no! He gets up early and helps Caryl and Lewis sort Sanger’s papers.’
‘Well then, do put on some more clothes, if you must go and insult him.’
‘Clothes? I’ve got a nightgown.’
‘That’s not enough. Really and truly, Antonia, you must be rather more decent in your language and deportment. He’ll only tell you that you are an ignorant little girl who needs to go to school because she doesn’t know how to behave.’
Antonia was struck by this view. She marched off to
the girls’ room and, to the astonishment of her sisters, made an elaborate toilet. She scrubbed her face and hands and combed her hair. Then she selected from the common wardrobe on the floor a passably clean frock and apron. Jacob, who was alone in Caryl’s room when she came to him, was as much surprised by her inordinate neatness as by her offering to address him. For some days past she had refused to answer when he spoke to her. She began, as carelessly as she could, balancing on the table and swinging her long legs:
‘Well, Ike! I hear you think I need to be sent to school. That’s lovely and generous of you, but as it happens I didn’t ask for your kind charity. You can keep your wonderful money, that you think such a lot about, for some other girl. And be careful how you go spending it, for it’s the only thing that makes anybody look at you.’
‘You will go to school if your uncles wish it,’ he said in a surly voice.
‘I tell you I’d sooner be dead than kept by your money, so there!’
‘And you shall tell this to the English uncle?’ he jeered.
‘I will.’
‘He will say, but why is that?’
‘I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him everything.’
‘Then he will send you away, as he sent Linda. He will throw you out of the house. Your lady cousin also …’
Antonia turned pale. She still, despite the warnings of experience, believed what was said to her. She said, a little uncertainly:
‘I’ll tell them it wasn’t my fault. I’ll say you made me so drunk I couldn’t help myself. You know you did.’
The Constant Nymph Page 12
