4
It was some weeks later. The day had been long and fruitless. She had idled through the hours, playing the piano, reading ‘Pecheurs d’Islande’ with voluptuous sorrow, doing nothing. A letter from her mother in Paris had arrived in the afternoon. They were not coming home just yet. Father had caught another of his colds and seemed so exhausted by it. He was in bed and she was nursing him, and it had meant cancelling his party, that party. Why should not Judith come out and join them, now that her examinations were over? It would amuse her; and Father would be glad to have her. They would expect her in a few days; she was old enough now to make the journey by herself.
Her heart was heavy. She could not leave the house, the spring garden, this delicious solitude, these torturing and exquisite hopes. How could she drag herself to Paris when she dared not even venture beyond the garden for fear of missing them if they came for her? If she went now, the great opportunity would be gone irrevocably; they would slip from her again just as life was beginning to tremble on the verge of revelation. She must devise an excuse; but it was difficult. She swallowed a few mouthfuls of supper and wandered back into the library.
The last of the sun lay in the great room like blond water, lightly clouded, still, mysterious. The brown and gold and red ranks of the dear books shone mellow through it, all round the room from the floor three quarters way to the ceiling; the Persian rugs, the Greek bronzes on the mantlepiece, the bronze lamps with their red shades, the tapestry curtains, the heavy oak chairs and tables, all the dim richnesses, were lit and caressed by it into a single harmony. The portrait of her father as a dark-eyed, dark-browed young man of romantic beauty was above the level of the sun, staring sombrely down at his possessions. She could sit in this room, especially now with hair brushed smooth and coiled low across the nape, defining the lines of head and neck and the clear curve of the jaw,—she could sit alone here in her wine-red frock and feel part of the room in darkness and richness and simplicity of line; decorating it so naturally that, if he saw, his uncommunicating eyes would surely dwell and approve.
She and the young man of the portrait recognised each other as of the same blood, springing with kindred thoughts and dreams from a common root of being, and with the same physical likeness at the source of their unlikeness which she had noticed in the cousins next-door. She was knit by a heart-pulling bond to the portrait; through it, she knew she loved the elderly man whose silent, occasional presence embarrassed her.
There was sadness in everything,—in the room, in the ringing bird-calls from the garden, in the lit, golden lawn beyond the window, with its single miraculous cherry-tree breaking in immaculate blossom and tossing long foamy sprays against the sky. She was sad to the verge of tears, and yet the sorrow was rich,—a suffocating joy.
The evening held Roddy clasped within its beauty and mystery: he was identified with its secret.
‘Oh, Roddy, I love you! I’ve always loved you.’
Oh, the torment of loving!
But soon the way would open without check and lead to the happy ending. Surely it had started to open already.
The pictures came before her.
Roddy playing tennis,—playing a characteristic twisty game that irritated his opponents, and made him laugh to himself as he ran and leapt. His eyes forgot to guard themselves and be secret: they were clear yellow-brown jewels. She was his partner, and with solemn fervour she had tried to play as she had never played before, for his sake, to win his admiration. But he was not the sort of partner who said: “Well played!” or “Hard lines.” He watched her strokes and looked amused, but was silent even when she earned him victory after victory.
Afterwards she said:
‘Oh, Roddy, I love tennis. Don’t you?’
He answered indifferently:
‘Sometimes,—when they let me do as I like; when I’m not expected to play what they call properly. One of my lady opponents once told me I played a most unsporting game. “My intelligence, however corrupt, is worth all your muscle”—was what I did not just then think of saying to her. She was in a temper, that lady.’
She smiled at him, thinking how she loved the feel of her own body moving obediently, the satisfaction of achieving a perfect stroke, the look of young bodies in play and in repose,—especially his; and she hazarded:
‘I love it just for the movement. I love movement,—the look of people in motion and the thought and feel of my own movements. I suppose I am too solemn over it. I want so much to do it as well as I can. I’m solemn because I’m excited. I sometimes think I would like above all things to be the best dancer in the world,—or the best acrobat; or failing that, to watch dancers and acrobats for ever.’
Looking back on their few but significant conversations, she decided that there was something about him which invited confidences while seeming to repel them. Though his response—if it came at all or came save in silent laughter—was uncoloured by enthusiasm and unsweetened by sympathy, he made her feel that he understood and even pondered in secret over her remarks.
‘There are some things I tell you, Roddy, that I tell no one else. They make themselves be told. Often I haven’t known they were inside me.’ She rehearsed this silently. One day she would say it aloud to him.
Then she had added:
‘Do you still caricature, Roddy?’
‘Now and then,—when I feel like it.’
‘It is funny how a caricature impresses a likeness on you far quicker and more lastingly than a good portrait. Do you remember you once did one of me when we were little and I cried?’
‘Do you see everybody with their imperfections exaggerated—always?’
‘Only with one eye. That’s my defence. The other has so frequently to be shut—or wounded. But there’s a great deal of æsthetic pleasure to be had from the contemplation of monsters.’
‘I suppose the temptation is to shut the normal one more and more until finally it ceases to work; especially if the other one has a greater facility. And it has, hasn’t it, Roddy?’
‘Perhaps. You must stay by me and counteract it.’
‘Which is it?’ she looked at him laughing.
He shut one eye.
‘I shut it entirely to look at you,’ he said.
Afterwards when she played again, a single with Martin, he lay on the bank, indolent after his burst of energy, watching her long after the others had lost interest and gone indoors. Passing him once, she had closed one eye and looked at him inquiringly; and all his face had broken up in warm delighted twinklings. He did welcome the most trivial jokes from her; and they were always trivial, and not nearly frequent enough.
Next time had been the time of Julian’s extremely bad temper. He had played tennis with malice and vicious cuts and nasty exclamations of triumph. Over Roddy’s face slid down the mask of deadly obstinacy which was his anger.
He came from the game and flung himself on the bank without a word, while Julian remained on the court, peevishly patting balls about.
‘He annoys me,’ said Roddy after a bit, watching him under heavy lids. Presently he took a piece of paper from his pocket and worked in silence.
‘Roddy, may I see it?’
He made no reply; but after a few more minutes he flung it over to her.
It was a terrible success (Julian had always been the most successful subject); and it was devilish as well as funny.
‘Oh, Roddy!’ She began to giggle.
‘Sh! Lookout! He’s coming back.’
He snatched the paper from her and crushed it up.
‘Oh, let me keep it.’
‘Well, don’t let him see it. He hates it.’
He flung it hurriedly into her lap as Julian came up; and as she stuffed it into her pocket with studied carelessness, his lips suddenly relinquished the last of his obstinacy, and he flashed her a look suffused with laughter and the sense of shared guilt. Surely he had never looked at anyone before with such irresistible intimacy and appeal. The less assured face of the child Roddy peered for a moment in that look; but the dark and laughing fascination was new and belonged to the young man; and she melted inwardly at the remembrance of it.
Then there had been the time Martin and Roddy had come to tea—so exciting a little time that she still dwelt on it with beating heart.
She felt again her delighted astonishment at sight of the pair of them coming up the garden. She had washed her hair and was drying it in the sun when they appeared; it was spread in a mass round her shoulders and down to her waist, and she was brushing the last of the damp out of it.
‘Hullo!’ said Martin.
‘Hullo!’
They came smiling up to her.
‘Are you busy?’ said Martin.
‘No, only washing my hair. Please excuse it.’
‘We like it,’ said Roddy. He watched her brushing, combing it and shaking it back over her shoulders as if fascinated.
‘Are you doing anything this afternoon?’ said Martin.
‘Oh no!’—eagerly.
‘Shall we be in the way?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then may we come to tea?’
‘Julian has got some tiresome people we don’t like, so we escaped, and Roddy suggested coming to find you.’
Roddy raised his eyebrows, smiling faintly.
‘Well, we both suggested it,’ continued Martin with a blush. ‘May we really stay?’
Which, oh, which of them had suggested it?...
‘Will you wait here while I go and put my hair right?’
‘It’s not dry yet,’ said Roddy. ‘Let me brush it at the back for you.’
She stood still in embarrassed pleasure while he brushed and combed her hair.
‘You do it beautifully. You don’t pull a bit.’
‘I’m a good hairdresser. I brush my mother’s when her maid’s out.’
‘Has she got lovely hair?’
‘Goodish. Very long. Not such lumps of it as this though.’ He took up a handful and weighed it. ‘Extraordinary stuff.’
It was the first time that she had ever heard him mention his mother. Why, Roddy must have a home life, a whole background of influences and associations of which she knew nothing.... She felt startled and anxious; and the old ache at being left out, failing to possess, stirred in her.
She saw him brushing his mother’s hair with careful hands. His mother had long dark hair perfumed deliciously. She had a pale society face, and she sat before her brilliantly lit dressing table wearing a rich wrap and pearls, and put red on her lips, and made Roddy fetch and carry for her about the bedroom. They talked and laughed together. She had never heard of Judith.
Judith dismissed the picture.
Roddy went on brushing, while Martin stared and smiled at her. They made a most intimate-looking little group. She thought of herself for a moment as their sister. Roddy would often brush her hair for her if she was his sister, or if....
‘There!’ said Roddy. ‘Je vous félicite, Mademoiselle.’ He adjusted her tortoiseshell slide and bowed to her with the hairbrush over his heart.
‘I love your garden,’ said Martin.
She showed them the garden and then the house. They asked questions and admired the furniture and the rare books she picked out for them in the library.
‘When Daddy comes back you must meet him,’ she said. ‘He’d love to show you his books.’
She was sure he would like such appreciative young men.
‘I’d like to meet him awfully,’ said Martin. ‘I’ve often heard about him.’
She glowed.
‘No wonder you’re a bookworm, Judy,’ said Roddy, searching the shelves with absorbed eyes. ‘I’d be myself if I had this always round me.’
He could hardly tear himself away from browsing and gazing.
In the hall hung a water-color portrait of Judith at the age of six.
‘Ah!’ said Roddy. ‘I remember you like this.’
He looked from her to the portrait, and then at her again, as if remembering and comparing, and dwelling on the face she smilingly lifted to him until she had to drop her eyes.
They had tea in the drawing-room,—exquisite China tea in the precious Nankin cups which always appeared for visitors. Everything in the house was precious and exquisite: she had never realized it before; and she thought:
‘Now that they have seen me in my beautiful home, against my own background, the only daughter of such richness, they will think more of me.’
It certainly seemed so. Conversation flowed happily about nothing. She was, for the first time, completely at her ease; and they listened with interest,—even with a sort of deference, as if they thought her rather a special person.
After tea they went down to the river. The westering sun spread on the water as far as eye could see in a full embrace of shining light.
‘Let’s bathe,’ said Martin.
They ran next door for their bathing suits while she undressed in the boathouse. Then they returned and undressed behind the boathouse; and they all plunged into the water together.
Judith and Roddy stood on the raft, watching Martin diving sideways, and backwards and forwards, always perfectly, his magnificent muscle swelling and rippling as he moved. He swam and dived with a faultless ease of technique, as if he could never tire.
But Roddy would not exert himself. After two swift arrow-like dives he stood on the raft looking funny and boyish, with his hair plastered close over his head and his too-slender body shivering slightly. She noticed how delicately he was made in spite of his height. He had the look of a cat, graceful, narrow and lazy; and his skin was almost as smooth as her own.
When she dived he watched her body and all her movements closely; and she wondered whether his artist’s eye were detecting the faults and virtues of her form and if she compared at all favorably with his models in Paris.
She swam a little and talked to Martin, and came back to the raft.
‘Have you had enough, Roddy?’
‘Soon.’
‘Do you prefer watching?’
‘I always prefer watching.’
It was true. He would watch with deep concentration while others moved and took exercise, as if he were drawing them in his mind or getting them by heart; but his own impulses towards physical activity were rare and of brief duration.
‘I like swimming,’ said Judith; careful not to say she adored it.
‘You do it very nicely.’
‘But this is dull compared with swimming at night.’
‘Have you ever done that?’
‘No, never.’
‘You don’t need to wear a bathing-suit then. It’s far more delicious with nothing on.’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘I do it quite often.’
Now she was going to tell him something she had never meant to tell him. She could not stop herself. As if he were expecting it, he turned his face to hers, and waited.
‘I saw you once when I was bathing. It was before we met again. You were in a canoe, alone, and I knew it was you. I watched you go past.’
‘I know you did.’
‘You——?’
‘I saw you,’ he said.
She was paralysed; and of the questions which flooded her mind not one could be spoken.
She lifted her eyes and saw his weighing on her, making her answer him, with something heavy and fixed, dazed almost, at the back of their clear shining. She gazed back; and in a moment was lost, sinking in timeless soundless darkness and clinging to his eyes while she drowned.
It was all over in the duration of two or three heavy heart beats: and then they were standing together aimlessly, shivering in wet bathing-suits and Martin came all streaming and fresh from the water and broke in upon them with cheerful upbraidings.
They parted from her with happy thanks and friendly looks, and Roddy said that some day he would come and spend a whole afternoon in the library if he might; and then instead of the casual: ‘See you again soon’ which she dreaded, they gave her a specific invitation to a picnic in two days’ time.
That had been the last time.
It was a day without sun. The muffled light fell all day across the countryside as if through faintly shining bluish glass; and beneath it the spring held itself withdrawn and still, as unchanging as a picture. Around the gentle green of the picnic meadow was the wild and ardent green of the little hedge; and here and there across the hedge, the blackthorn flung great scatters of frail-spun snow. Beyond the meadow the larch copse was lit all over with plumes of green fire; and upon its fringes, pure against the dim purple-brown of its tangled trunks, a stripling tree or so sprinkled its fresh leaves out upon the darkness like a swarm of green moths arrested in flight. Everywhere was the lavish, pouring green, smouldering and weighed-down with the ache of life, and quiet, quiet, turned inward upon itself and consuming its own heart. Everywhere the white blossom, as it rose, freed itself lightly from its roots in earth’s pangs of passion and contemplation, and, floating upon the air, kept but one secret, which was beauty, paid no heed, gave no sign.
Roddy lay with his head in the moss, sniffing at primroses, nibbling grasses, teasing Martin under his breath, watching them all with half-closed eyes.
Everyone was quiet and happy; all the peevishness was gone, all the tension smoothed out. The cigarette smoke curled in patterns into the still air; and now and again the Spring stirred, shook out a long breath of blossom and leaf and wet earth; and then was tranced again.
They made a wood fire and watched it sink to crumbling feathery ash round a glowing core; and they ate oranges and tomatoes and very young small lettuces stolen from the garden by Martin who was still, so Roddy said, a tiger for raw vegetables. But there were no onions: he declared he had given them up.
Nothing memorable was said or done, yet all seemed significant, and her happiness grew to such a poignant ecstasy that her lips trembled. She rolled over and hid her face in her hands for fear it should betray her by indecent radiance; but nobody noticed. Their eyes looked calm and dreaming: even Mariella’s had a less blind stare, a depth of meditation.
If only the moment could stay fixed, if their strange and thoughtful faces could enclose her safely for ever in their trance of contentment, if she could be able to want nothing from them beyond a share of their unimpassioned peace: if only these things could be, they would be best. For a moment they seemed possible; for a moment she achieved a summit and clung briefly to it, tasting the cool taste of no desire. But it would not do: it was the taste of being old and past wanting people,—past wanting Roddy who already tasted so sharply and sweetly that she must have more of him and more of him; and whose presence in the circle made collective indifference a pretence too bleak to strive for.
The sun flooded the meadow all at once in a tide of pallid light; and the earth ceased to struggle and brood in the dark coil of itself, and spread itself smiling and released. The spell within the clouded crystal of the afternoon broke; they stretched and stirred. Judith looked up at the big elm.
‘Who can climb this?’ she said.
‘Up with you,’ said Martin.
She climbed as she had not climbed since childhood, lifting herself lightly, unhesitatingly from branch to branch. At the top she looked down and saw them all small beneath her, looking up. Boldly from her eminence she called to the little creatures to come up; but not one of them would.
She descended again, feeling young and silly in the face of their lack of physical ambition. But they were all smiling upwards to receive her. Martin held his hands up to her and she took them and jumped from the bottom bough.
‘You haven’t forgotten your stuff,’ he said, and his eyes dwelt on her with their faithful brown look.
‘I wish I could do that,’ said Mariella. ‘I never could.’
‘And now,’ said Julian, ‘divert us with a hand spring or so,’—and his harsh face looked half-amused, half-clouded with an odd look,—almost like jealousy.
He had never been really pleased with the spectacle of other people’s successes: He found it too bitter not to be himself the one to excel. But he could not trouble her to-day or make her doubtful.
Roddy said nothing,—only looked at her out of glinting, twinkling eyes.
It was time to go home.
She parted from them gaily, taking her immense happiness with her unbroken, for once stepping clear out of the day into sleep with it wrapped round her.
But now, when she looked back for that day, it was a million miles behind her, floating unsubstantially like a wisp of shining mist: and all that returned to her out of it, clear and whole, were two detached impressions which, at the time, had barely brushed her consciousness: the look of young lilac-leaves with the sun on them, glittering above the garden-gate where she had bidden them good-bye; and the expression she had surprised on Mariella’s face some time in that day,—but when, she had forgotten.
Whatever had disturbed Mariella’s face then, it had not been happiness. The other faces, even Roddy’s, had unaccountably become blurred in the mist; but Mariella’s came back again and again, as if to stress the significance of its momentary defencelessness; as if, could it only be solved, there, in a flash, would be the whole clue to Mariella.
She got up and studied her hair in the mirror above the mantelpiece. While she stared there came a tap on the window behind her. She turned and there was Roddy peering through the pane and laughing at her. She ran to the window and opened it.
‘Roddy!’
It did not seem possible that he should have come when she wanted him so badly.
‘I’ve knocked twice. You were too busy to hear me.’
‘I’ve put my hair up.’
‘It’s ravishing. Will you please come in it to a fireworks party which Martin is giving in about an hour’s time?’
‘Fireworks! of all heavenly things! Hurrah for Martin!’
‘He only thought of it this afternoon, and he dashed into the town and bought up the whole stock. He sent me to fetch you. He says he must have you. Julian’s terrified of the big rocket and he wants you to persuade him to light it. And you’re to stay to supper afterwards. Mariella’s away for the night. Can you face it?’
‘Oh, how glorious!’
He gave her a hand and she jumped out of the window.
Roddy was in his best mood. He was friendly and talkative; his face was almost wide awake; his very hair looked alert, ruffled about his forehead; and he was sunburnt and clear-eyed, at his ease in grey flannels and yellow shirt and an ancient navy-blue coat.
The river had an enchanted beauty and stillness in the half-light. It was moon-coloured, with a dying flush in it; faint opal flickers lit the ripples that broke away on either side of the canoe.
‘It won’t be dark enough for a while, yet,’ said Roddy.
‘They’ll wonder where I am.’
‘Why? Didn’t you tell them?’
‘They didn’t know I’d slip off so soon.’
She blushed. It really looked as if Roddy had come early in order to have a little time alone with her. He would not say so; but he twinkled and smiled so gaily that she smiled back at him, as if giving him secret for delightful secret.
‘They’ll tease me,’ he declared.
‘No. Will they?’
‘Yes, I assure you——’
‘How silly!’
‘Isn’t it? Do you know, they’ll suspect us of the most desperate flirtation on this exquisite secluded river.’
‘Will they?’ She was troubled.
‘What common minds! As if a man couldn’t be alone with a girl without making love to her.’
‘Oh, I do agree, Roddy.’
He threw back his head and laughed silently: he had been laughing all the time. And it had seemed for a moment that Roddy was prepared for the first time in her memory to have a little serious conversation.
‘Oh, Roddy, how you do laugh at me!’
‘I can’t help it, Judy. You are so incredibly solemn. You don’t mind, do you? Please don’t mind. I adore people who make me laugh.’
It was that his laughter left her out, making her feel heavy and unhumorous. If only he would teach her to play with him, how quick and apt he would find her!
‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Only I do wish I could be ready for you.’
Being himself, was Roddy more likely or less likely to fall in love with a person he never took seriously?
‘You’d forgive anybody, however badly they treated you, wouldn’t you, Judy?’
‘Forgiving or not forgiving doesn’t mean much to me. I never could feel wronged. I might not be able to help feeling hurt, but forgiveness wouldn’t come into it.’
‘Hmm!’ said Roddy. ‘Are you sure you’re so civilized? Personally I never forgive anybody anything. I’m like God. I love my grievances, and want people to feel them.’
‘I know you’re laughing really. I know it isn’t true, what you say.’
He said quickly, quite seriously:
‘I never would forgive a person who made a fool of me.’
‘I wouldn’t like it; but if it only affected myself, it wouldn’t be important. A thing that happens to yourself alone doesn’t matter.’ She stopped and blushed painfully, thinking: ‘How he’ll mock.’ But instead he looked at her gravely and nodded, saying:
‘I dare say you’re right.’
It was beginning to get dark.
He steered the canoe under the willows into narrow shadinesses, lit a cigarette and lay back watching her.
‘And what will they teach you at college, Judy?’
No one but he knew how to say ‘Judy.’
‘I don’t know, Roddy. I’m rather frightened,—not about the reading,—about the girls, all the people. I don’t understand a bit how to live with lots of people. I never have. I shall make such mistakes. It oppresses me, such a weight of lives crammed together in one building, such a terrifying press of faces. I prefer living alone.’
‘Don’t get standardized, or I shan’t come and visit you.’
‘Will you come and visit me?’
‘If I ever find myself not too desperately busy,’ he said twinkling.
‘I shall look forward to that. Perhaps I’ll see Martin sometimes too. Perhaps it won’t be so bad.... Roddy, do you realize I’ve never known anyone of my own age except the gardener’s little girl and one or two local children—and all of you? After you left, when we were little, I was so lonely I.... You don’t know. Daddy would never let me be sent to school. Now you’re back, I expect every day to wake up and find you all vanished again.’
‘We shan’t vanish again.’
‘If only I were sure!’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Oh, you! You’re the most vanishing of all. You slip through my fingers.’
‘Not I. It’s you who do that.’
‘I?’
‘Yes. You elude....’ He made a gesture with his hand. ‘I don’t understand how you work. You’re an enigma. You intrigue me.’
‘I’m very glad.’
‘And I’m afraid of you.’
‘You’re not. You’re only amused at me.’
‘No. You’re wrong.’
He fell silent, smoking and watching her; all his attention fixed in his eyes. It was as if he could not look away. Her head swam, and she stammered:
‘What are you thinking?’
‘That it’s a good thing we—agree so—completely about the standards of conduct proper between the sexes; otherwise it might be a good thing you’re so exceptionally forgiving.’ His voice had an edge of question.
‘Roddy, what are you talking about?’
‘Nothing. A slight emotional conflict,—now resolved.’
He sat up suddenly, brushing some mood all in a minute from his mind and his eyes and his voice. He lit another cigarette and started paddling.
Supposing Roddy had been going to say: ‘Kiss me?’ ... Better not to think about it.
The stars were bright now: it must be dark enough for Martin’s fireworks. Things were happening next-door: Martin was preparing to celebrate in earnest. He had hung a row of fairy lanterns all along the eaves of the verandah, and the lights glowed rose, blue, green and white among the leaves of the vine. His shadowy figure was moving on the lawn, and another moved beside it: that was Tony Baring, Roddy explained, his friend and Martin’s, staying for the night. Julian was playing the piano; he was visible in profile against the window.
‘What a party, Roddy! And I the only lady. Please protect me.’
‘Oh yes, we all will. We’ll each protect you against all the others, so you’re fairly safe.’
A sudden light flared up in the garden.
‘Hey!’ said Martin’s voice. ‘Hi! Here everybody! My fireworks have started. Where the hell has Roddy got to? I wanted——’
‘Here we are!’ shouted Judith. ‘Hullo, Martin! Martin! We’re here, we’re watching. Hurrah for you, Martin!’
‘Oh good! Is that you, Judy? I’ve got some pretty hot stuff here. Watch!’
He spoke in the anxious excited voice of a small boy displaying the charms of his hobby to some indulgently attentive adult.
‘Oh, Martin, that’s splendid. Oooh, what a beauty! How I adore fireworks!’
It was essential that dear Martin should be made to feel his fireworks a success. They had behind them so eager a purpose of giving amusement to others that they deserved tremendous encouragement. You felt he had spent every penny of his pocket-money on them.
There was a shout of laughter and screams from Julian. He had left the piano and was joining the others on the lawn; and the Catherine wheel had broken loose and was after him, snapping and leaping at his heels.
A shower of golden sparks went up in a fountain and poured down over the tulips and wall-flowers. Another followed; but this time the shower was rainbow-coloured. The deep talk and laughter of Martin, Julian and Tony was a strange not quite human chorus in the moonless dark.
‘Oh, Roddy, isn’t it exciting?’
‘It is indeed.’
The fireworks became more and more splendid. Long crystal-white cascades broke and streamed down to the grass. Things went off in the air with a soft delicious explosion and blossomed in great blazing coloured drops that lingered downwards like a drift of slow petals.
‘Oh, Roddy, if only——! They’re so brief. I wish they were never quenched but went on falling and falling, so lovely for ever. Would you be content to burst into life and be a ten seconds’ marvel and then vanish?’
But Roddy only smiled. On his face was the mask behind which he guarded his personal pleasures and savoured them in secret.
Suddenly the willow-trees were revealed cloudily in a crude red light,—then an aching green one,—then one like the concentrated essence of a hundred moonlights. The three men on the lawn were outlined in its glare, motionless, with their heads up. She heard Martin cursing. Something was a complete failure: it spat twice, threw a thin spark or so and went out. Then the big rocket took wings with a swift warning hiss, left in its wake a thick firefly trail and broke at a great height with a velvety choke of fulfilment and relief, bloomed rapidly in perfect symmetry, a huge inverted gold lily,—then started dropping slowly, flower unfurling wide from the heart of coloured flower all the way down.
‘Roddy, look at that! Honestly, you feel anything so lovely must be made by enchantment and thrown into the air with no cause behind it except the—the stress of its own beauty. I can’t connect it with Bryant and May, can you?’
Then all was gone. There was a splash. A swan drifting near the canoe shook itself and swirled sharply, with puffed wings, into the shadows. Roddy picked a charred stick out of the water and held it up.
‘Signs and wonders!’ he said. ‘The swan had a revelation too. Here’s a remedy against fancy, Judy. Wouldn’t you like to keep it?’
‘Throw it away at once.’
He flipped it over his shoulder laughing.
The fireworks were over, and the three men were coming down towards the water’s edge.
Roddy whispered:
‘Shall we escape?’
‘Oh....’
It was too late.
‘Hullo! Hullo!’ called the cheerful voice of Martin. ‘Did you enjoy my fireworks?’
All at once there was much laughter and talk and greeting, and she was drawn out of their exquisite aloofness into the voluble every-day circle. Martin stretched an eager hand and out she stepped from the canoe among them all. Half-dazed, she saw shadows of men standing round, appearing and fading as in a dream, felt dream-like touches of men’s hands; heard unreal voices bidding good-evening to Judith; was conscious of dim confusion of movement towards the house. Did her own face rise so wanly against the darkness, deep-shadowed under the features, a firm-cut austere mask? Beneath the masks the hidden eyes held now and then a straying gleam from the fairy-lanterns. It was all so nearly a sleeper’s dream that to speak audibly seemed a vast effort.
Roddy strolled up from the river’s edge, having made fast the boat. He came close and stood behind her shoulder, just touching it; and at once the dream broke and every pulse was alert.
They went into the house for supper.
Tomato-sandwiches and cake, fruit-salad and bananas and cream, lemonade and cider-cup loaded the table. Martin had prepared the whole thing himself with a passion of judicious greed.
Tony Baring sat opposite and stared with liquid expressive blue eyes. He had a sensitive face, changing all the time, a wide mouth with beautiful sensuous lips, thick black hair and a broad white forehead with the eyebrows meeting above the nose, strongly marked and mobile. When he spoke he moved them, singly or together. His voice was soft and precious, and he had a slight lisp. He looked like a young poet. Suddenly she noticed his hands,—thin unmasculine hands,—queer hands—making nervous appealing ineffectual gestures that contradicted the nobility of his head. She heard him call Roddy ‘my dear’; and once ‘darling’; and had a passing shock.
There was a submerged excitement in the room. Mariella’s absence had noticeable effect: there was a lightness of wit, an ebullience of talk and laughter; gay quick voices answering each other.
The polished table was blotted over with pools of red candleshade, and pale pools from the white tulips picked in honour of the guest. The great mirror opposite reflected the table with all its muted colours; reflected too the back of Tony’s broad head and a bit of Roddy in curious profile, and her own face, lustrous-eyed, dark-lipped, long of neck and mysterious. When she looked at it she thought it was transfigured; and she knew who made the electric feeling.
It was time to go home.
But Roddy got up and started the gramophone; then caught her by the hand and led her out on the verandah.
‘One dance,’ he said.
‘And then I must go.’
‘You dance better than ever to-night.’
‘It’s because I’m so enjoying myself.’
He laughed and tightened his arm round her.
‘Judy——’
‘Yes? Oh, Roddy, I do love it when you say “Judy.” Nobody else says it like you.’
He bent his face to look into her lifted one with a soft hidden smile.
‘What were you going to say?’ she asked.
‘I forget. When you look at me with your enormous eyes I forget everything I mean to say.’
The gramophone stopped abruptly, with a hideous snarl; and the form of Julian darted forth like a serpent upon them.
‘You’ve waked the boy with that damned noise,’ he said. ‘I knew you would.’
He was gone; and in the succeeding shock of quiet the wail of Peter floated down to them. Quick footsteps sounded in the room above; and suddenly there was silence.
‘Oh, Roddy, he was cross.’
‘Yes,’ said Roddy indifferently. ‘He’s fussier than twenty old Nannies. The brat’s nurse has gone to see her sister buried, so he’s looking after him.’
‘It’s funny how Julian seems to take charge of him, rather than Mariella.’
‘Oh, Julian’s always got to know best. I expect he told her she couldn’t be trusted with him. I believe they had words,—I don’t know. Anyway she went off to London this afternoon to a dog show or something, and left Julian triumphant.’ Roddy chuckled. ‘God, he’s a peculiar man.’
‘I never can believe that baby belongs to Mariella—and Charlie.’
But he gave her no response to that; although, as she spoke the name, with stars, lights, voices, music, his shadowed face, all that was lovely life around her, the pathos of that death struck her so wildly it seemed he must feel it too and draw closer to her.
How he watched her!
‘Roddy, what are you thinking about?’
She pleaded silently, suffocated with strange excitement: ‘Let us be frank. There’ll never be another night like this and soon we’ll be dead too. On such a night let us not miss one delight, let us speak the truth and not be afraid. Tell me you love me and I will tell you. You know it’s true to-night. Never mind to-morrow.’
But he shook his head slowly, smiling.
‘I never tell.’
She turned to go into the house.
‘Nor I. But I think one day I will,—tell somebody, one person, something—the truth, just once,—just to see how it feels.’
He followed her in silence into the house.
Martin and Tony were lying in arm-chairs, looking sleepy.
‘Poor things—longing to go to bed. It’s all right, I’m going now. I want to say good-night to Julian.’
On such a night Julian must not be left angry, alone. There must be no failure on her part at least.
‘He’s with Peter.’
‘In his old room?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She ran up the stairs. Dimmed light streamed through a door ajar in front of her. It was the room where Julian and Charlie had slept years ago. Softly she pushed the door open.
Julian sat by the window with the child on his knees. He had thrown a shawl over his head and out of its folds the pale face peeped, owl-like and still. In his little night-suit he looked absurd and touching.
Julian raised a face so haggard and suffering that she paused, half-ashamed, uncertain what to say or do.
‘Come in, Judith,’ he said.
‘Only for a minute.... Won’t he sleep?’
‘No. I think he’s feverish. He got a fright, waking up alone. He’s very nervous.’
He bent over the child, rocking him, patting his shoulder.
‘I expect he’s just playing up. You ought to put him back in his cot.’
‘No. He’d cry. I couldn’t endure it if he cried any more. I’ll keep him till he’s asleep.’
Solemn in his shawl, Peter bent his too-brilliant gaze upon her as she stooped to touch his cheek. He never smiled for her; but then neither did he greet her as he greeted most people with a clear: “Go ‘way.” He accepted her with grave politeness.
‘Do you like holding him?’
‘Yes,’ he said simply.
He was holding the child to comfort himself.
‘He’s very nice,’ she said. ‘What a different sort of childhood he’ll have from yours, with the others always round you! He’s likely to be the eldest of the next generation by a good deal, isn’t he?’
‘I should say so,’ he said bitterly. ‘I don’t mind betting not one of us provides a little cousin for him. I don’t see us breeding somehow. Unless possibly Martin....’
Not Roddy. No....
‘Well, you mustn’t let him be lonely.’
‘That’s her affair.’
‘Is it? She seems to let you take charge. Julian, does she love him?’
He was silent for a moment before answering: ‘I think she does.’ He put his hand to his head and said suddenly, very low: ‘O God, it’s awful! You know I quarreled with him—Charlie—over that marriage. I never saw him after it—we were never reconciled. But after the child was born, she wrote and told me he had said in his last letter to her that if anything happened to him he would like me to be the child’s guardian.... So I suppose he forgave me.’
‘Of course, of course, Julian,’ she said, half-weeping at the look of his bowed head.
Was this the canker that gnawed Julian,—interminable thought of Charlie dead like that, without a reconciling word?
‘I blame only myself,’ he said, still in the low voice. ‘She has been very good. Never a word of—anything. Always that sweet empty unresentful way,—like a child. Sometimes I think she never knew—or never understood, anyway. I think she can’t understand that sort of thing. It’s a sort of insensitiveness. She might hate me over Peter, but she doesn’t seem to. Why doesn’t she?’
The expression she had surprised on Mariella’s face came back to her, still undecipherable.
‘I almost wish she would,’ he went on. ‘I wish I was certain she was jealous or even critical of me. I haven’t the least idea where I am.’ He rubbed his eyes and forehead wearily. ‘It’s odd how her presence affects me. She gets on my nerves to a degree! Nothing but this sweet blank passivity.... You know I like people with spikes and facets, people who thrust back when I thrust, brilliant, quick glittering people. And I like people who are slow and deep and warm; and I think you’re one of that sort, Judy. But what is she? Sometimes I think she’s watching me intently but I don’t know where from, and it makes me irritable. She’s got quality, you know,—incredible physical and moral courage. I think that must have been what Charlie loved in her. But cold, cold and flat—to me.’
He sighed and shivered.
‘Oh, Julian, you’re very tired, aren’t you? There’s nothing to worry about. You’ve got things on your mind because you’re so tired. Does your head ache?’
‘Yes. No.... I’m in a bad mood, Judith. You’d better leave me.’ But he spoke gently and raised his face to smile at her. It was then she saw that he had been crying.
‘I will leave you, Julian. I only came to say good-night. And to say I was sorry I made you angry. I wouldn’t have waked him for the world.’
‘It’s all right. I’m sorry I was angry. Don’t worry.’
‘Good-night, Julian.’
‘Good-night Judith.... You look so lovely——’
She thought: ‘I shall never see him like this again. I must remember....’
They looked at each other deeply, and when she turned silently away she had in imagination stooped and kissed his cheek.
As she opened the door, laughter and talk came suddenly to her from below,—a faint roar of male voices that struck her with strange alarm, and seemed to threaten her. She took a step back into the room again, listened and whispered:
‘Julian, who is that Tony?’
He shrugged.
‘I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to me. He writes verse I believe. He’s just bringing out a book. I gather from his conversation he is quite the thing at Cambridge—in certain circles.’
‘Is Roddy very fond of him?’
‘Oh, Roddy! Fond of him! I don’t know.’
‘He seems to be very fond of Roddy.’
‘Yes, it looks like it.’ He glanced at her sharply.
She knew then she had dreaded that he would answer in that way, give her just such a look. She remembered that Tony had been suddenly hostile; his eyes stony and watchful, had fastened on her when she came in from the verandah with Roddy.
The voices came up to her again, like a reiterated warning. ‘Keep away. You are not wanted here. We are all friends, men content together. We want no female to trouble us.’
Better not to go down among them all, safer to stay here in the quiet with Julian. She lingered, looking back in doubt and loneliness; but this time he did not tell her to stay. The muffled shining of the lamp filled the room, flowed over his form, his forehead bowed, drowsy and meditative, one great shoulder curving forward to support the white bundle lying against it. His pose suggested the something in him which it was hard to name,—a kind of beauty and nobility a little twisted. Close beside his narrow bed stood Peter’s cot, and Peter’s two plush animals lay upon the pillow.
Softly she closed the door upon that strange pair. If Mariella had seen them, would her face have changed?
Downstairs again.
It would not be Roddy who would offer to take her home. She saw in one glance that he had finished with her for to-night: he leaned against the mantelpiece, and Tony, beside him, had an arm about his shoulders; and Tony’s eyes, coldly upon her, said he was not for her. Something licked sickeningly at her heart: it was necessary to be jealous of the young poet Tony; for he was jealous of her. To her good-night Roddy replied with chilling mock-formal politeness, bowing his head, laughing at her. Martin put her cloak about her shoulders with reverent hands, and they went out.
The night was dark. All the blossoming things of earth were hidden, and the fragrances abroad seemed shaken from the stars that flowered and clustered profusely in the arching bows of the sky. They were back at her garden-gate. Above it rose a faint broken shadow where, by day, lilac and laburnum poured over in a wild maze to the lane. But when they came to the cherry-tree they found it still glimmering faintly,—a cloud, a ghost.
Judith stretched up a hand and picked a scrap of cherry and held it out to Martin.
‘That’s the secret of it all, I do think. Cherry blossom grows from the seeds of enchantment. Keep it and wish and you’ll have your heart’s desire. Wish, Martin.’
He snatched it and her hand with it. They waited. He held the spray and clutched her hand, sighed and said nothing. Their forms were shadows just outlined against the luminous tree.
‘What were you going to say?’ she whispered.
‘I—don’t know.’
‘No wishes?’
‘Too many.’
He was lost,—caught away, spell-bound, lost.
‘What a night! Isn’t it, Martin?’
‘It’s the very devil.’
‘I don’t feel a bit like myself, do you? There’s some sort of queerness about,—magic. Or is it just being young, do you think?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Don’t let’s ever be old. Could you bear it?’
‘I shouldn’t like it.’
‘Well wish that. Wish never to be old.’
Silence.
‘No,’ he said at last. He held her hand still and bent his head, twisting his bit of cherry. His voice came huskily: ‘I’ve wished something else.’
Gently she drew her hand away. She must run away quickly from whatever was happening: no emotional conflict with Martin must thrust across and confuse the path where all was prepared for one alone.
‘Don’t go in,’ implored Martin. ‘Can’t we walk?’
‘Oh, I must—I must go in.’
‘Oh, Judith!’
‘I must, Martin. Thank you for bringing me home, I must fly now. It’s so late——’ she said in panic.
‘When shall I see you again?’
‘Soon—soon.’
He was speechless. She called a soft good-night and left him and the darkness swallowed him up.
As she went towards the solitary light burning for her in the hall she thought with a sudden fear that he had implored her for assurance just as she mutely implored Roddy every time he left her; and she had answered—oh, not, surely not, as Roddy would have answered?
‘Oh, Roddy, come out of your dark maze and make me certain!’
She must warm herself with the remembrance of the first part of the evening, ignore the little chill of those few last minutes. What were his eyes telling her when he bade her good-night? Surely they were whispering: ‘Take no notice. We know what has passed between us, we know what must come. Though we must keep our secret before others, we do not deceive each other.’
Yes, that was it.
She started running; and wondered why; and ran as hard as she could.
As she opened the front door, she stopped, aghast. The telephone bell was screaming, screaming, screaming.
Telegram for Judith Earle. From Paris.
‘Father died this evening. Come to-morrow. Mother.’
As she hung up the receiver silence in a vast tide flowed in and drowned the house, his house, as if for ever.
He had been deep in the business of dying while she, his daughter—— No. She must not think that way; she must just think of him dead. What an extraordinary thing.... Last time she had seen him had he looked as if he were going to die? There came a doubtful indistinct picture of him—yes—going upstairs to bed, early, not later than ten o’clock. She had looked up the staircase and seen him near the top, mounting with a hand on the bannister: going to bed so early, looking—yes—a little feeble; the bowed back and slow yielding step, the slightly laborious stair-mounting of a man getting old—yes—a delicate elderly man, a little frightening, a little pathetic to see unexpectedly: for could youth then really depart? He had been young and he had come upon old age. Some day she too—she too ... yes, for a moment she had thought that. And now he was dead.
She crept to the library and switched on all the lights and stared at the portrait of a young man. That beautiful youth had lived, grown old and died. He had begotten a daughter who was looking at him and thinking these things. But the cold portraits of people held them bound for ever in unreality; they could not die: they had not lived.
She sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands, seeking for a memory that would make her know that he had lived and died.
She was very small and he, very kind and noble, was taking her to hear the child-genius play. Her excitement was too great to bear: she too would be a child-genius; and when the violin came it wrought on her so violently that she was sick where she sat. He had been deeply disappointed in her, his kindness and nobility turned to disgust.
At night, every night for a long time, with the night light burning, he had sat on her bed and sung softly to her. He sang ‘Uncle Tom Cobley.’
“All along out along down along lea....”
Oh, the haunting echo, the loneliness of that! Over and over he sang the names of the mysterious company of men, but so softly that the slipping syllables wove round her hazily and fled before she caught them.
Then he sang of a golden apple.
“Evoe, evoe, wonderful way
For subduing—subduing the hearts of men....”
Evoe, evoe.... The sound started a pang, a question, a stir of rich sadness that went aching on, through the twice-sung whisper of the sibilants, right on after the fall, the lingering soft pause and fall of the last words.
At the end he sang “Good-night ladies.” When he had finished she said “Again”; and he sang it again and yet again, always more low, till finally it was nothing but a plaintive sigh. She lay listening with eyes shut, weeping with sorrow and delight.
“Good-night, ladies, we’re going to leave you now—”
That was so sad, so sad!
“Merrily we’ll roll along, roll along, roll along,
Merrily we’ll roll along on the deep—blue—sea.”
She saw a dim swaying far-stretching line of lovely ladies all in white, waving good-bye upon a dark sea-shore. The great ship faded away over the waves, bearing further and further the deep-throated chorus of singers. The long line swayed, reached vainly forward. Their white hands glimmered. She saw them fade, alas! fade, vanish out of sight.
Oh, he had known how to stir mystery in a child. He had turned sound inside out for her, making undreamed-of music,—and pictures besides, and light and colour. He had seemed to forget her for weeks at a time, but when he had remembered, what a more than compensating richness had come into life! She had planned to grow so beautiful and accomplished that he would be proud of her and want her with him always. They were to have travelled together, famous father and not unworthy daughter, and they were to have discussed very intellectual topics and she was to have looked after him when the steps, going upstairs, started, really started, to have that feebleness.... He was to have lived to be very old and go upstairs on her arm, cherished by her.
No more lessons in Greek: no more hearing him softly open his door to listen to her playing,—(though he never praised her, what praise that had been!) No more talk—now and then, when he remembered her, when his eyes dwelt on her with interest—of books and pictures and music and famous people he knew. No second proud visit to Cambridge with him, no seeing him sigh, smile, dream from an old don’s window over Trinity Great Court in the sun, after the lunch-party. The three elderly bachelors had smiled at her, embarrassed by her presence, doubtful as regards the attentions due to a young lady. They had been shy with her, courteous, careful and elegant of speech, a little dusty altogether, but gentle like their rooms, like the old gold light falling outside on ancient buildings. She had listened to them all savouring and playing with words, quoting Greek, saying “Do you remember?” He had seemed so distinguished, so brilliant, a man ripe and calm with knowledge. And afterwards he had shown her the colleges and the Backs and promised to come often to see her when she came up. He had talked of his youth and for a moment they had trembled on the verge of shared emotions: no more of that, no hope of future rich Cambridge occasions.
No more watching his intent and noble profile in the lamplight, stooped hour after hour over his writing, opposite the bust of Homer. Once or twice he had looked up and smiled at her as though vaguely content to have her with him. His desk was empty for ever. That was pathetic; it would bring tears if dwelt on; it made him so human.
Did it hurt to die?
Now in a flash she remembered the question:
‘Daddy, does it hurt to die?’
Years ago. Grandmamma had just died. When he came to say good-night to her in bed, she had asked him that.
He had remained silent and brooding. His silence filled her with terror: her heart beat and, red and panic-stricken, she stared at him. He was going to tell her something dreadful, he knew something so terrible about Grandmamma, about death and the way it hurt that he could not speak.... He was going to die.... She was.... O God! O Jesus!
At last he had sighed and said:
‘No, no. It doesn’t hurt at all to die.’
She had flung herself weeping into his arms, and he had clasped her in silence; and from his quiet, pressing shoulder, comfort had poured in and in upon her.
It did not hurt at all to die, it was quite all right, he had said. He had just died.
She looked about her, at the brooding room. Nothing but loneliness, helplessness, appalling silence. She was cold too, shivering.
A little while ago she had been next door. Now the house would all be dark, shut to her. Supposing she were to run back to them with her tidings, surely they would help, advise, console: for they were her friends.
‘Roddy, Roddy, Daddy’s dead.’
He was standing with Tony’s arm around his shoulders, remote, indifferently smiling. He did not like grief, and Tony kept him from her. Her time was far away and long ago.
‘Julian, Daddy’s dead.’
He was bowed over the child; and he raised his head to listen, but made no answer. He had plenty of his own sorrows; and he feared she would wake the child.
But Martin might be told, Martin would listen and comfort with large and inarticulate tenderness. He would be standing under the cherry-tree, waiting, just as she had left him. She ran to the window.
There was nobody in the garden. A faint light was abroad,—it might be the small rising moon or the dawn—making the cherry-tree pale and clear. It seemed to float towards her, to swell and tower into the sky, a shining vision.
Then death, lovely death, lay at the heart of enchantment. It was the core of the mystery and beauty. To-morrow she would not know it, but to-night no knowledge was surer. And he whom they were to mourn was—in one minute she would know where he was,—one minute.
She leaned out of the window.
Now! Now!
But the cherry-tree was nothing but a small flowering cherry-tree. Before her straining eyes it had veiled itself and withheld the sign.