frail flowered silk. Imagine it, that little lady! Perhaps in a
chic little boudoir cap of punto di Milano, and this slip of frail
flowered silk: and the man, perhaps, in his braces! Oh, merciful
heaven, save us from other people's indiscretions. No, let us be
sure it was in proper evening dress--twenty years ago--very low
cut, with a full skirt gathered behind and trailing a little, and a
little leather erection in her high-dressed hair, and all those
jewels: pearls of course: and he in a dinner-jacket and a white
waistcoat: probably in an hotel bedroom in Lugano or Biarritz. And
she? Was she standing with one small hand on his shoulder?--or was
she seated on the couch in the bedroom? Oh, dreadful thought! And
yet it was almost inevitable, that scene. Hannele had never been
married, but she had come quite near enough to the realization of
the event to know that such a scene WAS practically inevitable. An
indispensable part of any honeymoon. Him on his knees, with his
heels up!
And how black and tidy his hair must have been then! and no grey at
the temples at all. Such a good-looking bridegroom. Perhaps with
a white rose in his button-hole still. And she could see him
kneeling there, in his new black trousers and a wing collar. And
she could see his head bowed. And she could hear his plangent,
musical voice saying: 'With God's help, I will make your life
happy. I will live for that and for nothing else.' And then the
little lady must have had tears in her eyes, and she must have
said, rather superbly: 'Thank you, dear, I'm perfectly sure of
it.'
Ach! Ach! Husbands should be left to their own wives: and wives
should be left to their own husbands. And NO stranger should ever
be made a party to these terrible bits of connubial staging. Nay,
thought Hannele, that scene was really true. It actually took
place. And with the man of that scene I have been in love! With
the devoted husband of that little lady. Oh God, oh God, how was
it possible! Him on his knees, on his knees, with his heels up!
Am I a perfect fool? she thought to herself. Am I really just an
idiot, gaping with love for him? How COULD I? How could I? The
very way he says: 'Yes, dear!' to her! The way he does what she
tells him! The way he fidgets about the room with his hands in his
pockets! The way he goes off when she sends him away because she
wants to talk to me. And he knows she wants to talk to me. And he
knows what she MIGHT have to say to me. Yet he goes off on his
errand without a question, like a servant. 'I will do whatever you
wish, darling.' He must have said those words time after time to
the little lady. And fulfilled them, also. Performed all his
pledges and his promises.
Ach! Ach! Hannele wrung her hands to think of HERSELF being mixed
up with him. And he had seemed to her so manly. He seemed to have
so much silent male passion in him. And yet--the little lady! 'My
husband has ALWAYS been PERFECTLY SWEET to me.' Think of it! On
his knees too. And his 'Yes, dear! Certainly. Certainly.' Not
that he was afraid of the little lady. He was just committed to
her, as he might have been committed to gaol, or committed to
paradise.
Had she been dreaming, to be in love with him? Oh, she wished so
much she had never been. She WISHED she had never given herself
away. To him!--given herself away to him!--and so abjectly. Hung
upon his words and his motions, and looked up to him as if he were
Caesar. So he had seemed to her: like a mute Caesar. Like
Germanicus. Like--she did not know what.
How had it all happened? What had taken her in? Was it just his
good looks? No, not really. Because they were the kind of staring
good looks she didn't really care for. He must have had charm. He
must have charm. Yes, he HAD charm. When it worked.
His charm had not worked on her now for some time--never since that
evening after his wife's arrival. Since then he had seemed to her--
rather awful. Rather awful--stupid--an ass--a limited, rather
vulgar person. That was what he seemed to her when his charm
wouldn't work. A limited, rather inferior person. And in a world
of Schiebers and profiteers and vulgar, pretentious persons, this
was the worst thing possible. A limited, inferior, slightly
pretentious individual! The husband of the little lady! And oh
heaven, she was so deeply implicated with him! He had not,
however, spoken with her in private since his wife's arrival.
Probably he would never speak with her in private again. She hoped
to heaven, never again. The awful thing was the past, that which
had been between him and her. She shuddered when she thought of
it. The husband of the little lady!
But surely there was something to account for it! Charm, just
charm. He had a charm. And then, oh, heaven, when the charm left
off working! It had left off so completely at this moment, in
Hannele's case, that her very mouth tasted salt. What DID it all
amount to?
What was his charm, after all? How could it have affected her?
She began to think of him again, at his best: his presence, when
they were alone high up in that big, lonely attic near the stars.
His room!--the big white-washed walls, the first scent of tobacco,
the silence, the sense of the stars being near, the telescopes, the
cactus with fine scarlet flowers: and above all, the strange,
remote, insidious silence of his presence, that was so congenial to
her also. The curious way he had of turning his head to listen--to
listen to what?--as if he heard something in the stars. The
strange look, like destiny, in his wide-open, almost staring black
eyes. The beautiful lines of his brow, that seemed always to have
a certain cloud on it. The slow elegance of his straight,
beautiful legs as he walked, and the exquisiteness of his dark,
slender chest! Ah, she could feel the charm mounting over her
again. She could feel the snake biting her heart. She could feel
the arrows of desire rankling.
But then--and she turned from her thoughts back to this last little
tea-party in the Vier Jahreszeiten. She thought of his voice:
'Yes, dear. Certainly. Certainly I will.' And she thought of the
stupid, inferior look on his face. And the something of a servant-
like way in which he went out to do his wife's bidding.
And then the charm was gone again, as the glow of sunset goes off a
burning city and leaves it a sordid industrial hole. So much for
charm!
So much for charm. She had better have stuck to her own sort of
men. Martin, for instance, who was a gentleman and a daring
soldier, and a queer soul and pleasant to talk to. Only he hadn't
any MAGIC. Magic? The very word made her writhe. Magic?
Swindle. Swindle, that was all it amounted to. Magic!
And yet--let us not be too hasty. If the magic had REALLY been
there, on those evenings in that great lofty attic. Had it? Ye
s.
Yes, she was bound to admit it. There had been magic. If there
had been magic in his presence and in his contact, the husband of
the little lady--But the distaste was in her mouth again.
So she started afresh, trying to keep a tight hold on the tail of
that all-too-evanescent magic of his. Dear, it slipped so quickly
into disillusion. Nevertheless. If it had existed it did exist.
And if it did exist, it was worth having. You could call it an
illusion if you liked. But an illusion which is a real experience
is worth having. Perhaps this disillusion was a greater illusion
than the illusion itself. Perhaps all this disillusion of the
little lady and the husband of the little lady was falser than the
illusion and magic of those few evenings. Perhaps the long
disillusion of life was falser than the brief moments of real
illusion. After all--the delicate darkness of his breast, the
mystery that seemed to come with him as he trod slowly across the
floor of his room, after changing his tunic--Nay, nay, if she could
keep the illusion of his charm, she would give all disillusion to
the devils. Nay, only let her be under the spell of his charm.
Only let the spell be upon her. It was all she yearned for. And
the thing she had to fight was the vulgarity of disillusion. The
vulgarity of the little lady, the vulgarity of the husband of the
little lady, the vulgarity of his insincerity, his 'Yes, dear.
Certainly! Certainly!'--this was what she had to fight. He WAS
vulgar and horrible, then. But also, the queer figure that sat
alone on the roof watching the stars! The wonderful red flower of
the cactus. The mystery that advanced with him as he came across
the room after changing his tunic. The glamour and sadness of him,
his silence, as he stooped unfastening his boots. And the strange
gargoyle smile, fixed, when he caressed her with his hand under the
chin! Life is all a choice. And if she chose the glamour, the
magic, the charm, the illusion, the spell! Better death than that
other, the husband of the little lady. When all was said and done,
was he as much the husband of the little lady as he was that queer,
delicate-breasted Caesar of her own knowledge? Which was he?
No, she was NOT going to send her the doll. The little lady should
never have the doll.
What a doll she would make herself! Heavens, what a wizened jewel!
VI
Captain Hepburn still called occasionally at the house for his
post. The maid always put his letters in a certain place in the
hall, so that he should not have to climb the stairs.
Among his letters--that is to say, along with another letter, for
his correspondence was very meagre--he one day found an envelope
with a crest. Inside this envelope two letters.
Dear Captain Hepburn,
I had the enclosed letter from Mrs Hepburn. I don't intend her to
have the doll which is your portrait, so I shall not answer this
note. Also I don't see why she should try to turn us out of the
town. She talked to me after tea that day, and it seems she
believes that Mitchka is your lover. I didn't say anything at all--
except that it wasn't true. But she needn't be afraid of me. I
don't want you to trouble yourself. But you may as well KNOW how
things are.
JOHANNA Z. R.
The other letter was on his wife's well-known heavy paper, and in
her well-known large, 'aristocratic' hand.
My dear Countess,
I wonder if there has been some mistake, or some misunderstanding.
Four days ago you said you would send round that DOLL we spoke of,
but I have seen no sign of it yet. I thought of calling at the
studio, but did not wish to disturb the Baroness. I should be very
much obliged if you could send the doll at once, as I do not feel
easy while it is out of my possession. You may rely on having a
cheque by return.
Our old family friend, Major-General Barlow, called on me
yesterday, and we had a most interesting conversation on our
Tommies, and the protection of their morals here. It seems we have
full power to send away any person or persons deemed undesirable,
with twenty-four hours' notice to leave. But of course all this is
done as quietly and with the intention of causing as little scandal
as possible.
Please let me have the doll by tomorrow, and perhaps some hint as
to your future intentions.
With very best wishes from one who only seeks to be your friend.
Yours very sincerely,
EVANGELINE HEPBURN.
VII
And then a dreadful thing happened: really a very dreadful thing.
Hannele read of it in the evening newspaper of the town--the
Abendblatt. Mitchka came rushing up with the paper at ten o'clock
at night, just when Hannele was going to bed.
Mrs Hepburn had fallen out of her bedroom window, from the third
floor of the hotel, down on to the pavement below, and was killed.
She was dressing for dinner. And apparently she had in the morning
washed a certain little camisole, and put it on the window-sill to
dry. She must have stood on a chair, reaching for it when she fell
out of the window. Her husband, who was in the dressing-room,
heard a queer little noise, a sort of choking cry, and came into
her room to see what it was. And she wasn't there. The window was
open, and the chair by the window. He looked round, and thought
she had left the room for a moment, so returned to his shaving. He
was half-shaved when one of the maids rushed in. When he looked
out of the window down into the street he fainted, and would have
fallen too if the maid had not pulled him in in time.
The very next day the captain came back to his attic. Hannele did
not know, until quite late at night when he tapped on her door.
She knew his soft tap immediately.
'Won't you come over for a chat?' he said.
She paused for some moments before she answered. And then perhaps
surprise made her agree: surprise and curiosity.
'Yes, in a minute,' she said, closing her door in his face.
She found him sitting quite still, not even smoking, in his quiet
attic. He did not rise, but just glanced round with a faint smile.
And she thought his face seemed different, more flexible. But in
the half-light she could not tell. She sat at some little distance
from him.
'I suppose you've heard,' he said.
'Yes.'
After a long pause, he resumed:
'Yes. It seems an impossible thing to have happened. Yet it HAS
happened.'
Hannele's ears were sharp. But strain them as she might, she could
not catch the meaning of his voice.
'A terrible thing. A VERY terrible thing,' she said.
'Yes.'
'Do you think she fell quite accidentally?' she said.
'Must have done. The maid was in just a minute before, and she
seemed as happy as possible. I suppose reaching over that broad
window-ledge, her brain must suddenly have turned. I can't imagine
why
she didn't call me. She could never bear even to look out of a
high window. Turned her ill instantly if she saw a space below
her. She used to say she couldn't really look at the moon, it made
her feel as if she would fall down a dreadful height. She never
dared to more than glance at it. She always had the feeling, I
suppose, of the awful space beneath her, if she were on the moon.'
Hannele was not listening to his words, but to his voice. There
was something a little automatic in what he said. But then that is
always so when people have had a shock.
'It must have been terrible for you too,' she said.
'Ah, yes. At the time it was awful. Awful. I felt the smash
right inside me, you know.'
'Awful!' she repeated.
'But now,' he said, 'I feel very strangely happy about it. I feel
happy about it. I feel happy for her sake, if you can understand
that. I feel she has got out of some great tension. I feel she's
free now for the first time in her life. She was a gentle soul,
and an original soul, but she was like a fairy who is condemned to
live in houses and sit on furniture and all that, don't you know.
It was never her nature.'
'No?' said Hannele, herself sitting in blank amazement.
'I always felt she was born in the wrong period--or on the wrong
planet. Like some sort of delicate creature you take out of a
tropical forest the moment it is born, and from the first moment
teach it to perform tricks. You know what I mean. All her life
she performed the tricks of life, clever little monkey she was at
it too. Beat me into fits. But her own poor little soul, a sort
of fairy soul, those queer Irish creatures, was cooped up inside
her all her life, tombed in. There it was, tombed in, while she
went through all the tricks of life that you have to go through if
you are born today.'
'But,' stammered Hannele, 'what would she have done if she HAD been
free?'
'Why, don't you see, there IS nothing for her to do in the world
today. Take her language, for instance. She never ought to have
been speaking English. I don't know what language she ought to
have spoken. Because if you take the Irish language, they only
learn it back from English. They think in English, and just put
Irish words on top. But English was never her language. It
bubbled off her lips, so to speak. And she had no other language.
Like a starling that you've made talk from the very beginning, and
so it can only shout these talking noises, don't you know. It
can't whistle its own whistling to save its life. Couldn't do it.
It's lost it. All its own natural mode of expressing itself has
collapsed, and it can only be artificial.'
There was a long pause.
'Would she have been wonderful, then, if she had been able to talk
in some unknown language?' said Hannele jealously.
'I don't say she would have been wonderful. As a matter of fact,
we think a talking starling is much more wonderful than an ordinary
starling. I don't myself, but most people do. And she would have
been a sort of starling. And she would have had her own language
and her own ways. As it was, poor thing, she was always arranging
herself and fluttering and chattering inside a cage. And she never
knew she was in the cage, any more than we know we are inside our
own skins.'
'But,' said Hannele, with a touch of mockery, 'how do you know you
haven't made it all up--just to console yourself?'
'Oh, I've thought it long ago,' he said.
'Still,' she blurted, 'you may have invented it all--as a sort of
consolation for--for--for your life.'
'Yes, I may,' he said. 'But I don't think so. It was her eyes.
Did you ever notice her eyes? I often used to catch her eyes. And
she'd be talking away, all the language bubbling off her lips. And
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