Chapter Nineteen.
Adrift.
Mary spent a week in the London hotel, the longest week she had ever known. She rose late, and went to bed early, nevertheless the days stretched to an interminable length, and she was driven to extraordinary devices to get through the hours. One day, attracted by a line of flaring posters, she spent the morning in a Turkish bath; another afternoon she drifted into a barber’s shop and had her hair waved and coiffured, a process which so altered her appearance that she hurried to a similar establishment a few hundred yards away, and underwent a drastic shampoo. Another day, after lunching in the restaurant of a great store, she whiled away half an hour by having her nails manicured. From morning till night no one noticed her, no one spoke to her, she herself had no need to speak, yet all around was a babel of tongues, an endless, ever-passing stream of fellow-creatures. If she had felt herself superfluous in Chumley, the feeling was accentuated a thousand times in this metropolis of the world, wherein she walked as on a desert island. And yet, through all the desolation of soul pierced golden moments, when the sense of freedom filled her with joy. To be able to rest without comment or questioning; to rise in the morning, and retire to bed, according to preference, not rule; to choose her own food, to go out, or stay within, as fancy prompted,—such simple matters as these came as happy novelties to the woman of thirty-two.
Mary had despatched a post card announcing her arrival, and giving the address of her hotel but she received no message in reply. Mrs Mallison was on her dignity, and would wait until she had received an orthodox letter. The Major never wrote, and Teresa presumably was busy. For a week or more the silence caused Mary no trouble, but by that time the continued silence of her life awoke the exile longing for news from home. She despatched a colourless letter, filling with difficulty three sides of a sheet, and waited the result. It came, according to her happiest hopes, in the shape of a missive from Teresa.
“Dear old Mary,
“I hope you are enjoying your liberty as much as you expected, and having a real good time. It’s pretty strenuous here without you. I am running about all day long, and being instructed meantime to lie down, and take things easy! I never in my life felt so irritated and depressed. It’s borne in on me, old thing, that you have been a buffer between me, and—er—shall we say circumstances? and that I never appreciated you properly until you had gone!
“You don’t say much about your doings. Do you go to the theatres? I suppose you can go to matinées, if it isn’t proper to go alone at night. Have you bought any clothes? You might look out for an evening dress for me—white or pink—not blue this time, and not more than three or four pounds. The Raynors and Beverleys have taken a house together at the sea near good links. Dane is to join them for part of the time, and I am asked for a day or two at the end of his visit, so I need a new dress. The invitation came from Mrs Beverley. I haven’t once been asked to the Court since you left. Lady Cassandra is dropping me now that she has her beloved Grizel. Altogether I think her behaviour is rather queer. You would have thought, after Dane staying there over a week, and getting so intimate, as they must have done, that he would at least have been asked to tea since he left, but not once! I asked him straight out, so I know. He won’t acknowledge that he thinks it odd—you know how close men are.—but I can see he does from his manner. I shall go to Gled Bay for his sake. He would be so disappointed if I refused. He has given me a gold bangle, just the sort I like: a plain, flat band. He looks thin still. Mother thinks he worried a great deal while I was ill. Of course it was hard for him being tied by the leg (literally!), and not able to do a thing for me. Dane doesn’t say much, but his feelings are awfully deep.
“I wonder if it isn’t a mistake to conceal one’s feelings? I’m beginning to think that it is. We have been brought up to be undemonstrative, but if I have children, I’ll teach them quite differently. What’s the good of thinking nice things in your heart, if the person you care for doesn’t get the benefit? Mary! I’m sorry I haven’t been nicer to you. I’m sorry I was selfish, and let you do so much. If it’s any satisfaction to you to know it, I’m paying up now! I do hope Dane will want to be married soon. I don’t think I can last out much longer. I have thought so often of what you told me the night we were engaged, about your own love story, I mean. How could you bear it, and live quietly on at home? I couldn’t. If Dane treated me like that, I should—marry Mr Hunter! I’d like to see your face when you read that! But it’s true. Much more sensible, too, than the river, or growing sour at home!
“Good-bye. Write soon.
“Your affectionate sister,
“Teresa.”
Mary put the letter back in its envelope, and went out to look for Teresa’s evening dress. She paid for it out of her own money, and decided to offer it in the shape of an advance birthday present. In any case she would have to give something in October; it might just as well be bought now. She experienced a torpid satisfaction in the transaction, but it soon faded, and left her mind empty as before. Teresa’s appreciation and affection came too late. Five years ago they might have transformed her life, but they had not been given. Of what use to offer them now when their lives lay apart? Speculations as to Lady Cassandra Raynor, even as to Peignton himself, aroused no flicker of interest. They had been mummers in a play, and she had escaped into the open air. The only person of whom she had cared to hear was her father, and concerning him Teresa was mute.
Another week passed, and still another. Mary left the big hotel, and moved into a smaller one, of the glorified boarding-house type. Here, if she had chosen, she might have been less lonely, for there were half a dozen solitary women like herself, who would have been glad to include her in games of cards, or to exchange confidences over afternoon tea, but Mary had played a duty game of whist every week night for a dozen years, and had vowed never to touch another card. Moreover, she shrank from the furious curiosity of these women, who seemed capable of asking personal questions for hours at a time. She left the boarding-house and took furnished apartments, but the hot weather came on with a rush, and the rooms grew stuffy and breathless, so for the third time she was faced with the problem, of where to go next.
One afternoon she sat at tea at one of the little tables belonging to the outdoor restaurant near Victoria Gate, and essayed the difficult task of making up her own mind. In a limited sense the world was before her, but the very largeness of the choice made it the more difficult. If she could but think of something which interested... something for which she really cared! No answer came to the question, yet of a certainty she was happier under some conditions than others. Looking back over the blank stretch of days, there were hours which stood out from the rest, hours in which she had felt restful,—almost content. Mary lived those hours, trying to draw from them a conclusion. There were hours spent in the Park, not in the afternoon, but the morning, when it was comparatively empty. The rhododendrons were in full bloom in the beds near Rotten Row; she heard people say that they had never been finer than this year. There had been other hours in the Abbey, both during the services and after; there had been an afternoon on an excursion steamer plying up the river to Oxford; and a drive on the top of an omnibus on a misty night, when the lights twinkled in softened radiance, and the great buildings assumed a mysterious splendour. One by one, Mary recalled the hours, but the conclusion could not be found.
Then suddenly her ears were opened to a woman’s voice talking at the table next to her own.
“Switzerland,” she was saying. “Of course! As soon as I can run away. I am longing for the time to come. I have been there every summer for the last ten years, and if it rests with me, I shall go every year till I die. I’ve tried Norway, I’ve tried the Tyrol, but I’ve gone back to my old love, and I shall never wander again. Switzerland gives me what I need. I go there and feed upon it. It’s the tonic that braces me up for another year of hard, ugly life.”
There was a moment’s silence, then another voice asked:
“But what exactly do you feed on? What is the name of the tonic which helps you so much?”
“Beauty!” said the woman deeply.
The blood rushed to Mary’s cheeks. She had found her clue! That word showed her the secret of her heart. All her life she had fed on prose; now unconsciously she was craving the tonic of beauty. It had been beauty in one form or another, which had brought her few hours of content.
The next morning she packed her box, and took a ticket for Berne.