CHAPTER XXI
Towards noon Lilly awoke in a rapture of joy.
The formidable uncle had been won--the last obstacle cleared from her path--the future lay spread out at her feet like a land of milk and honey. The probation looked forward to with such anxiety and terror had turned out, after all, only a delightful spree. What a mountebank and buffoon that shrewd old man of the world was, who probably had ground women's hearts under his heel as indifferently as he crunched walnuts. When she tried, however, to review the events of the previous evening she felt a slight dismay at nothing emerging from her blurred memory but the sounds of song and uproarious laughter, just as it used to be in that other life when she had spent the night in mad revels with Richard and his friends.
As the mist lifted a little, she saw a deadly white face petrified by pained surprise, heard an exclamation that was half a sob and half a groan, and saw herself, sobbing too, kneeling before someone who pushed her away with his hands.
Had that happened, or had she dreamed it?
And she had danced and sung so beautifully! She had exhibited her art at its best. Could there have been anything displeasing in it? Had she, perhaps, gone a little too far in her high spirits?
Her anxiety grew. She sprang out of bed, and her one thought was that she must go to him instantly.
At twelve the bell rang.
That was Konrad; it must be Konrad. But, when she flew to the lobby door to throw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and relief, she found that she was standing face to face with his uncle, who stood twirling his hat in his horrid fingers, and looked at her with a significant smile that she did not like at all.
"Is it to come all over again--the probation," she thought, "or is it now only coming off for the first time?"
"How do you do?" died in her throat. She let him in without speaking. A sensation of faintness came over her, as if she were going to fall backwards through the wall into her room.
It was the old man who opened the door and walked in, with the air of an acquaintance who knew his way about.
"Where is Konrad?"
"Konrad?" he repeated, and scratched the silk band of his wig with his little finger. "I've something to say about Konrad."
He drew out his glittering watch, with its massive chain, and studied the hands.
"I make it just ten minutes past twelve. By now he will be on his way to the station--most probably he has started."
"Is he ... going away?" she stammered, while her breath began to fail her.
"Yes, yes. He is going away.... We settled that last night.... He needs a change."
"It's nonsense," she thought; "how can he go away for a change without me?"
But she put a restraint on herself and asked casually, "Where is he thinking of going so suddenly?"
"Oh! he's taking a little trip abroad hardly worth speaking about. It seemed a favourable opportunity. A double cabin was going begging on the steamer leaving--er--never mind where!... an outside cabin, you know; on the promenade deck; pleasantest position, you know; no splashing, and lots of air.... One wants plenty of air, especially during those four days in the Red Sea."
Then she was right. Her suspicions that the probation of her character and intentions was only to begin seriously now were being verified.
"What takes people to the Red Sea, uncle dear?" she asked, with her most ingenuous smile.
"Yes, what takes them to the Red Sea? Four thousand years ago the ancient Jews asked the same question, and everyone asks it to-day when he finds himself sweltering there. But still, if you want to go to India, you must pass through the Red Sea.... And I want to go to India once more. I've been quite long enough trotting about the pavements at home. And as our Konrad is overworked--you'll admit he is, child--I have talked him into coming to travel with me a bit. For in cases like this I believe change of scene is the best remedy. Do you see?"
Lilly felt a lump rise in her throat as if all the links of his gold watch-chain were choking her.
"This joke isn't in the best of taste," she thought; "and God knows what he means by it."
But whether she liked it or not, she had to play at the game. "Konrad might have had the grace to come and say goodbye to me prettily," she replied, pouting a little, as if a journey to Potsdam or Dresden was in question.
"Well, you see, child, that's what he wanted to do, of course. But I said to him, 'Look here, my boy, farewells are far too exciting and unnerving, and may bring on apoplexy.' He agreed, and left it to me to put matters straight with you."
"Well, by all means let us put matters straight," she answered, with the patronising smile that such a farce merited.
"I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "if he were not waiting outside in the cab for a signal to come in."
"Uncle" placed his smart panama hat beside him on the floor, leaned his short body back in Frau Laue's red plush arm-chair, and affected an expression of distress and sympathy.
What an old clown he was! It mystified her more than anything that he seemed so absolutely to have forgotten the alliance they had entered into on the previous evening. But perhaps this was only part of the probation farce.
"If it were only a question of me, my dear," he went on, "it wouldn't matter. I honestly confess I'm mad about you--'wrapped up,' as I said last night. I have met womenfolk in all parts of the globe, and it's as clear to me as palm-oil that you are made of the choicest materials it's possible to find. But there are people, you know, who take life seriously and cherish grand illusions.... people who have no notion that a human being must be a human being. They think they are something extra, and expect life to afford them extra titbits. And then come disappointments, of course ... reproaches, despair ... tearing of hair, wringing of hands. I'm blowed if he didn't try to thrash me last night!"
"Whom are you talking about?" asked Lilly, becoming every moment more uneasy.
"Just as if I had led you on into the little overshooting of the mark! No, no ... that's not my way. I don't lay man-traps. And so I told him ten times over. The misfortune is, that you and I understood each other too well. You and I are in the same line of business.... We two are like two old colleagues."
"We two ...? You and I?" gasped Lilly in frigid amazement.
"Yes, you and I, my dear child. Don't have a fit--you and I; you and I. It's true that you are a splendid beauty of twenty-five, and I am a damned old fool of sixty.... But life has tarred us with the same brush. How am I to explain it to you?... Have you ever hunted for diamonds? I don't mean at the jeweller's. I'll lay a wager you know that way of hunting them. Well, a diamond lies embedded in hard rock, in tunnels ... so-called blue ground. If you find a blue-ground tunnel, you may imagine what it is; you just sit in it. Once I went diamond-hunting with a party of twenty, day and night, week after week. The blue ground was there all right, but the diamonds had been washed out of it. Do you follow me? The fine ground is still in both of us; but what made it fine the devil has in the meantime walked off with."
"Why do you tell me all this?" Lilly asked. Tears of bewilderment sprang to her eyes, for this couldn't possibly have anything to do with the probation.
"Now, child, I'll tell you why.... There are people who when they have given their word think there is no going back on it. They must swallow whatever they've put in their mouths, even if it's a strychnine pill.... My opinion, on the contrary, is that no one ought deliberately to plunge into misfortune--neither he nor you. And since the quickest method is to wash the wool while it's on the sheep, I've come to you to make a little proposition. See, here's a cheque-book. You know what cheque-books are, I expect. On the right side are printed figures from five hundred upwards: All the figures that make the amount bigger than the sum inscribed on the cheque are cut off, in case a little swindler should take it into his head with one little stroke of the pen to cheat one out of a little hundred thousand. Well now, look here. This cheque is signed and dated; the figures alone want to be filled in. I should never permit myself to offer you a certain sum, but I should like you to say what you think would be a decent provision for your future."
He tore the cheque out and laid it on the table in front of her.
"Thank Heaven," thought Lilly, "I had nothing to be afraid of! My heart need not have misgiven me."
Who could be so blind as not to see through this clumsy trick whereby he intended to put to the test her unselfishness about money? So she did not send the old man about his business, as she might with justice have done, if such a proposal had been made to her seriously, but she took the cheque off the table, smiling, tore it carefully to atoms, and flipped them one after the other into his face.
He fidgeted about in his arm-chair.
"Allow me," he said; "please allow me ..."
"No! Such scurvy little jokes I certainly will not allow, dear uncle," she replied.
"But you are declining a fortune, my child. Think what you are doing. We've upset the tenor of your life. We have, as it were, cast you on the gutter. That you shan't perish there is our responsibility. And if you think you will lower yourself in his eyes by accepting, I can swear to you he knows nothing about it; and never will, I'll swear too."
She only smiled.
His small slits of eyes grew bright and hard. Suddenly they began to threaten her.
"Or ... is it your intention not to give up the good boy--to hang his promise like a halter about his neck?... Are you one of that kind, eh?"
"No. I am not one of that kind."
Her smile reached far beyond him. It flew to greet the beloved who soon, very soon now, would be ascending the stairs; for surely he couldn't have patience to wait there outside in the cab much longer.
"His promise is his own. He's never given it. And if he had wanted to I would never have let him. And even if what you said just now was true, he might go away if he liked, and come back again, and I would not write to him or meet him, or remind him in any way of what he is and always will be to me as long as I live. But I know that it is not true. He loves me, and I love him. And take care, uncle, not to play so low down with his future wife as to offer her blank cheques and such disgraceful proposals. If I were to tell him, you would find yourself all at once a lonely old man whose fortune might go to endow a home for lost dogs."
He was obliged to see at last what a blunder he had committed. He jumped from his seat, evidently annoyed at his mistake, and ejaculated an irritable "Bah!" as he began to pace the room, jingling the charms on his watch-chain. Once or twice he murmured something that sounded like "A hangman's job." But she couldn't have heard right.
At last he seemed to arrive at a decision. He stopped close in front of her, laid his repulsive hands on her shoulders and said, suddenly becoming affectionate and familiar again:
"Listen, sweetheart, girlie, pretty one. Something has to be done. We can't shirk the point. There must be a conclusion. If only I weren't such a damned mangy old hound and hadn't to consider the dear boy's feelings in the matter, things would be simple enough. I should merely say, 'Come along with me to the nearest registry-office. But hurry up; I haven't time to waste!' Don't stare! Yes--me. I'd ask you to marry me. You wouldn't have reason to regret it. But Konrad--you must see yourself it won't do--won't do. It would be a fatal mistake from beginning to end. He is a rising man. He wants to climb to the top; he is still blessed with faith, and you haven't any left. You fell too early into the great sausage-machine which minces us all sooner or later into average meat.... You wouldn't be happy with him long. You couldn't keep up to him. You'd drag on him like a dead weight, and would always be conscious of it. As for last night's revelation, which opened his eyes, I don't lay so much stress on that. It's not a question of what the coastline looks like--sand or palms, it's all the same--but it's the interior that counts. And there I see waste land, burnt-up scorched deserts; no birds flying across it; no ground in which confidence can strike root. Child, creep into any shelter life offers you, cling to those who have brought you to this pass; but let the boy go. He is not made for you. Be honest; haven't you long ago said so yourself?"
Ah, so this was what he meant! It was not a probation, but the end--the end!
She gazed into vacancy. She seemed to hear steps growing fainter; one after the other they slowly died away, like his footsteps when at break of day he had softly stolen downstairs.
But this was final. They had died away for ever.
A dull sense of disappointment gnawed at her heart. That was all. The worst would come later, as she knew by experience.
And then she saw a vision of herself dancing and yelling, laughing at foul jests, with her hat awry and her skirts held high--a drunken wanton! She, the "lofty-minded saint" with the "brow divine," a drunken wanton--nothing more and nothing less.
Now she knew why he had stood there with his face as white as the tablecloth--why that sobbing groan of pain had burst from his lips. And it was pity for him as much as shame of herself that made of this moment a boiling hell.
"How is he bearing it?" she asked, stammering.
"You can guess how," he replied, "but I believe I shall pull him through."
"Oh, uncle ... I ... didn't ... I didn't want to do it ..." she cried, sobbing.
"I know, child; I know. He told me all."
For an instant her wounded pride flamed up within her. She stooped, and gathering together a handful of the bits of torn paper, she held them out to him on her open palm.
"And you dared to offer me that?"
"What was I to do, my dear? And what am I to do with you now?"
"Pah!" and she struck at him with both hands, but the next moment she threw her arms round his neck and wept on his shoulder. Perhaps her cheek touched the very place which Konrad last night might have wetted with his tears!
He began to reason with her again. He made suggestions for her future. He would help her to begin a new life, and provide tier with the means to cultivate her brilliant histrionic talents; she should come out on the stage or the concert platform. But she shook her head.
"Too late, uncle.... Waste land--didn't you say so yourself?--ground where no confidence can take root. I might aspire to be a music-hall star, but honestly I don't think it would pay."
"Cursed hounds!" he growled.
"Who are cursed hounds?"
"You know well enough, my child."
She reflected a moment as to whom he could mean. Then she said:
"There was only one ... no, two, and then afterwards one more ... and then two more who didn't count."
"Well, that seems to me to be plenty, dear."
He patted her cheeks and smiled kindly, and somehow she did not find his fingers repulsive any more.
She felt that she must smile too, though she began crying again directly.
Konrad's uncle prepared to take his departure, and she clung on tightly to his shoulder. She couldn't bear to let him go. He was the last link with her vanished dream of happiness.
"What message shall I take him?" he asked.
She drew herself erect. Her eyes widened. She wanted to pour out the full flood of her grief. Her shattered and squandered love sought for winged words which should bear it to him, sanctified and hallowed anew. But no words came.
She looked wildly round the room, as if from some quarter of it help must come. The portraits of defunct actors smiled down on her; once so eloquent, they were dumb now dumb as her own frozen soul. The specimen lamp-shade in its frame greeted her, presaging a future to be passed at Frau Laue's side.
"I have nothing to say," she faltered. Then she thought of something after all. "Ask him ... ask him, please, why he didn't come himself to say good-bye. I know that he is not a coward."
Uncle made one of his queerest faces.
"As you have been so astoundingly sensible, little woman, I'll tell you the secret. He wanted to come and say good-bye--most dreadfully, of course. And I promised him that I'd try and bring you to the station."
In an instant she was making a dash for her straw hat.
"Stop!"
He had laid his hand on her arm. The short, squat figure seemed to grow taller.
"You won't go."
"What? Konni is expecting me, wants to speak to me? And I am not to go?"
"I say again, 'You won't go.' If you are the plucky girl I take you for, you will not spoil your work of sacrifice. For, depend upon it, if once he sees you again you'll hang on to each other for evermore."
The straw hat slipped from her hand.
"Then ... tell him ... I shall always love him, always and always, that he will be my last thought on earth.... And ... I don't know what else to say."
He silently made his way out of the room.
And then she broke down.