Merrick Leonard
The Quaint Companions
CHAPTER XV
In June she went to Surrey for a month. She generally managed to make studies in the country during a few weeks in the year, and more often than not took Hilda with her, the Professor agreeing to their departure with as generous an air as if he were paying the expenses. Hilda went with her again this time. They had the luck to light on Godstone, where they found surprisingly attractive quarters, and – what was stranger still – a sufficiency of simple food, the typical village consisting chiefly of drawbacks and public-houses.
Godstone was quite exceptional. Although it was the very quintessence of the country – all cows, and clover, and quietude – the milk there was not watered with an audacity that would have startled a dairyman of the London slums. Fresh butter could actually be obtained without much difficulty, at a price only a little higher than it was sold at in the cities. Crowning marvel in the country, they were not bowed under a burden of obligation in securing green vegetables, though that was certainly because the Kemps grew such luxuries in the garden. Village tradesmen never "supply" what the customer orders – they occasionally "oblige him" with it. To foster a fine spirit of indifferentism there is nothing like the knowledge that your competitors are as bad as yourself. Laundresses and village tradesmen are the only truly independent classes in England.
Of course there were drawbacks even here. There were, for instance, a butcher's and a grocer's opposite Daisymead, and this meant flies and wasps investigating Daisymead in large numbers. The butcher threw the onus of the wasps on the grocer's sugar, and the grocer said, that wasps were harmless things if you hadn't no fear of 'em, and was bitter about the butcher's flies. Panics were frequent in the lodgers' parlour, and as the window faced the shops, it became a question whether it was better to be stifled or stung.
In the morning, while the artist worked, Hilda loitered under the apple-trees, and languished in basket-chairs and light frocks where the shade lay deepest in the landlord's field. One could see the railway from the field, and many a young fellow in the trains saw Hilda, and regretted that Godstone wasn't his destination. In the afternoon there was the tangle of the woods to wander through – so close that it was a constant temptation to get lost there. And there was the way that began with wild strawberry blossom, and rose to wooded heights, below which the county spread like a green tablecloth decked with a box of toys; and then, after avenues of giant firs where darkness fell, no matter how fierce the sun, there were the surprises of lichened glades where one tiptoed among the ferns in hope of fairies. With her easel, and her canvases, and her camera, Bee found the days all too short. She found the days too short, but there was a charm in the evenings too. The final saunter along the still white road before supper, just as far as the gate where the rabbits scampered, or the bridge by the water-mill where strange birds sometimes flashed among the boughs; the hush of the little lamplit room with a book afterwards; if one liked, a glimpse of the stars from the garden-path, a breath of the flowers – and then to bed.
She had written to David a few days after her arrival, and his first letter to Surrey came when she had been installed in Daisymead about a fortnight. She opened it by the little stack of hay which was all that the field had granted this year.
He wrote that her description of her surroundings made London still more loathsome to him, that he wished vainly he could escape from it. A somewhat laboured reference to his journalistic work followed – a plaint that though they had become such good friends, it seemed unlikely they would meet. A pucker crept between her brows as she read; she wondered why he said that, wondered why he found it necessary all at once to harp upon the difficulties of taking a short journey to see her. It was as if he were warning her not to expect him. Had he interpreted her enthusiasm for the place as a hint to him to come? She tried, discomfited, to remember what her words had been. After a minute she went on reading, and then she saw that all this had been the prelude to a request – a none too skilful prelude; but that she did not see. "So I have been summoning my courage to ask you – " She scanned the next lines rapidly, and the letter quivered in her hand. He asked her for her photograph.
She leant against the fence, dismayed. Her first thought – to explain that she hadn't a likeness of herself to send – forsook her under the fear of his thinking her ungracious if she did not promise to be photographed when she went home. Confused, she sought an excuse that would sound natural. Never had she exaggerated her disfigurement more morbidly, never had her face appeared uglier to her, her shoulders higher, her back more bent. To send him her photograph? She felt that it demanded the courage of a heroine.
His petition darkened the day to her; it threatened her in the night; she woke to be harassed by it again. To send him her photograph – to show him what she was? Again and again she asked herself if her hold on him was strong enough to withstand the revelation. Momentarily she wished she were a man; it was woman's mission to be beautiful. And he, he shrank from ugliness, she could read it in his work. To him "woman" meant "beauty" —
"Beauty of worshipped form and face …
Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes,
sweet mouth,
Each singly wooed and won."
The lines of Rossetti's that had flouted her insignificance since she was a girl, jeered at her now. She found no comfort in the next: —
"Yet most with the sweet soul
Shall love's espousals then be knit."
Yes, "then" – after the rest was wooed! "Woman" meant features to inspire men, and a form to make them mad. In a transport of imagination she imagined almost with a man's desires, and hung before her glass, abased.
But, after all, how could confession rob her of her happiness? She had woven the tie between them of her thoughts, her spirit; it was her mind that pleased him – how could the knowledge that she was misshapen destroy his interest in her mind? She insisted that it could not – and deep in her heart was hurt to feel that his interest in her was this purely intellectual thing. He cared too little for her hand-clasp even to travel to see her. Then she was a fool to hesitate – she would write him the truth! Next, resentment scorched her that, caring so little, he had put this humiliation upon her. A whim, a spasm of curiosity, and he had made her suffer so. Her misery cried that he was not worth it, but tears sprang to her eyes at the same moment. She would write to him before her courage failed her. She would write as soon as Hilda was settled in the field for the morning; her folly should end to-day!
She was eager to write at once, fearful that if she waited long, her mood would change. When she saw the landlady's daughter in the passage, she asked her to come to the parlour before she went out and take a letter to the post. The girl said she wouldn't forget, and the arrangement, trivial though it was, gave to the woman a sense of something accomplished. She was dimly aware, too, that it would shorten her ordeal.
On the breakfast-table there was another letter for her, redirected by the Professor. Hilda called her attention to it.
"For you," she piped in her thin voice. "What hours you've been dressing! I began to think you were never coming down. Do pour the tea out, or it will be cold; it has been standing there ten minutes."
"You shouldn't have waited for me." She poured the tea, and picked up the letter absently. It was an invitation to exhibit "The Sun's Last Rays" in Liverpool, and at any other time the request would have excited her; now she was too preoccupied to find it interesting.
"Oh," she murmured.
"'Oh,' what?"
"They want 'The Sun's Last Rays' at the Walker Art Gallery when the Academy closes, that's all."
"Where's that? Pass me the salt, will you?"
"Liverpool."
"Shall you let them have it?"
"Oh yes," she said, "I suppose so. Why not?"
"The carriage will cost a lot, won't it?"
"No, it won't cost anything. They'll send for the picture, and return it to me free of charge, if it isn't sold." Her lips tightened, and she looked away through the window. Engrossed as she was, she noticed that her sister did not say "How jolly for you!" but "Won't the carriage cost a lot?" In the course of the summer Hilda would refer to the invitation casually as "That nice letter you had from Liverpool," quite unconscious that she had shown no perception of its being "nice" when it came.
"Why don't you eat your breakfast?" she asked now, having exhausted the subject of the picture.
"I don't want it," said Bee. "You can have this egg too, if you like."
When the table was cleared, and she was left alone, she sat down to her task. What should she say? Now that the pen was in her hand her eagerness deserted her, and the thought of dispelling his delusion made her tremble again. Her arguments of a while ago recurred to her vainly – she was as sure that he imagined her what she would like to be as she was sure that ugliness repelled him. She set her teeth, and dipped the pen in the ink.
She could find no words. Presently she addressed the envelope, but the notepaper was still blank. In the kitchen the mother and the girl were talking; she could hear them quite distinctly: "And don't forget to call in about the bread as you come back!" She glanced at the clock, and wrote desperately.
"I cannot do as you wish," she scrawled, "because I have never been photographed in my life. I have never been photographed because I am deformed, and – "
No! not like that, she couldn't say it like that. She sat motionless again, hearing the loud ticking of the clock, and hating herself. The clock struck insistently. She pushed the sheet of paper aside, and searched through the blotting-book for another. There was no other in it, so she went to the chiffonnier and opened the drawer. In the drawer there were several things besides the stationery: a sketch-book, some unmounted photographs that she had taken last week in Penshurst, some unmounted photographs that she had taken last week of Hilda. She picked one of them up mechanically, and stood looking at it; stood looking at the photograph of Hilda – a study in sunlight and shadow, dreaming in a garden chair under the boughs.
There was a knock at the door, and Miss Kemp came in.
"I'm just going, Miss," she said. "Have you got your letter ready?"
"What?" said Bee huskily, without turning.
"I'm just going. Is your letter ready?"
"Yes," muttered the woman. She ran back to the table, and thrust the photograph in the envelope, and put it in the girl's hand.
CHAPTER XVI
David sat hunched in a chair, the likeness on his knees. He had risen determinedly and put it from him twice – lodged it against one of the eyesores on the mantelpiece that were referred to as the "ornaments " – but after intervals of abstraction he had found that he was nursing it again. He had a lurking consciousness that if he put it from him half a dozen times, it would be back on his lap before five minutes had gone by.
It surpassed all his dream-pictures of her. The situation confused him; he could not realise it quite, with the photograph under his eyes. He had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. Though he had vaguely imagined her beautiful, the definite was bewildering; his letters seemed suddenly audacious to him – there was a breath of the incredible in the thought that he had written them to her. And hers! still more wonderful the thought of hers. His correspondent was this daughter of the gods, serene, imperial, proud – the girl who wrote to him was like this!
He had for a friend this young, this beautiful girl. For a "friend"? His manhood abjured the word. Was she not his by a subtler, stronger bond than friendship? If the community between them could be called friendship, what was love? She had yielded herself to him – her spiritual self – surrendered to his keeping thoughts more sacred than her body. He craved to go to her, and trembled with the dread of effacing by his personality the impression that he had made upon her by his art. To let his looks destroy the love his soul was waking in her? No, he could not go, he must be strong. But if he dared – if only it were possible! She lived – it was no vision conjured up by loneliness – she lived. She was smiling, speaking, thinking of him not thirty miles away. He was fevered by the idea of their meeting as it might have been – as it would have been if he had had a white skin. He found her here where she was sitting; the sunlight touched her just as now – "Your friend has come to you!" The eyes in the portrait shone to him, and he saw gladness in their gaze… The trees had darkened, and the stars were lit. How long a time had passed? In his fancy there was no calendar, but the photograph had magic powers. He was telling her he loved her. The eyes looked tenderer, the bosom swelled; the lips – Oh, madman! the thing was only paper after all. If the delusion had lasted a second longer!
Then a new idea possessed him. He might see her at least – he might see her without her knowing who he was. It must be easy to catch a glimpse of her in such a place as she had described, easier by far than it would be when she was at home. He would go to Godstone on the first fair morning and discover Daisymead, and linger in its neighbourhood till she came out… Perhaps when he arrived it would be wet? Then he must obtain a bedroom for the night. He might even stay a week; why shouldn't he? He might stay a week and see her every day. His thoughts spun exultantly. She and her sister themselves were in lodgings – there was nothing to prevent his seeking rooms in the same house. But his name? Well, he could assume a name for the week; he would go as "Tremlett." By no earthly chance could "Mr. Tremlett," looking as he looked, suggest David Lee to her mind. He might stroll round the field when she was in it, sit near her under the trees; he might even speak to her after a day or two. By degrees she would grow used to his appearance. In the circumstances, in the solitude, she might not disdain his company. One evening he might avow himself, talk to her of his work, tell her all that was in his heart for her – on an evening when the moon was hidden and she couldn't see his face. Elisha had once said to him: "When I was in love with your mother I used to sing to her – in the dusk." The dead man's words came back to him, and he shivered. He thought: "I am following in my father's way!"
Awe fell upon him. He heard his father's warnings again – was walking with him on the lawn. For an instant the past had swept so near that the present seemed unreal. The scent of the trite flower-beds, the scenes of jealousy, the taunts of the languid woman toying with her rings, the sound of her sneering laugh, even the rustle of her dress, all these things were close, close upon him. He thought of his childhood, and it ached in him anew. His own child would not escape! Wouldn't it be cruel, wouldn't it be monstrous, to bring a child into the world to suffer as he had suffered himself? Human nature pleaded that his own child would know a different kind of mother; and memory answered: "We always think a woman 'so different' before we've got her." But she was different! Yes, he affirmed it to the dead; his father would have owned that she was different… She was different, but the world was the same. The recollection of his schooldays, the consciousness of all his dull, empty, years of passionate rebellion, menaced him. It would be a cowardice, it would be a crime, to snatch a joy of which his child must pay the cost.
Awe had fallen on him, and of awe was born an ardent wish to pin the thought to paper, to capture it for verse. It was a gruesome thought, that even his will was leagued against him; but while half his consciousness shrank from it appalled, the artist in him, allured by the thought's poetical promise, darted to it admiringly, tremulous with the fear that it might escape. With the verbal artificer whose servitude is complete it is always so, this instinctive, inevitable appraisement of the spirit. It is the penalty of his degrading craft. He has surrendered to a power which holds nothing sacred, not a son's remembrance, nor a father's love, nor a husband's agony – not death, nor devotion, nor despair, and the power is inexorable and remorseless. He may forget in hours and rejoice and suffer simply, like a free man, but the clash of his chains will jangle on the divinest melodies of his life, forcing him to scrutinise, and analyse, and define, when he were worthier merely to feel. He shall register the heart-beats of his passion, and whittle an aphorism with his head on the breast of his bride. His mind is for ever alert to estimate the literary value of his soul. When he fondles his child his idolatry cannot save him from seeking copy in his emotions, and when he sorrows by a grave his tears shall not blind him to the virtues of a lament that has not been written before.
The morrow was fine, but David did not go to Godstone. Just to ascertain how long it took to get there, however, he bought an "A B C," a fascinating book with the breeze of the moors, and the splash of the sea in it, and the suggestiveness of old townlets with quaint names. The toss of a Channel crossing, and the lights of the Boulevard are in it; and the luxury of ideal hotels in English gardens, and the aroma of after-dinner coffee under the trees. The reader may arrive in imagination at a thousand delightful places for sixpence.
And he did not go on the next day either, though he had half a mind to do so during the afternoon, and only stayed at home because he vacillated until it was too late to catch the train. He succumbed on the third day. An omnibus jolted him to Charing Cross with his bag behind his legs, and he bought a copy of a weekly journal with an essay by him in it, and was fortunate enough to secure a corner seat.
Exhilaration was in his veins as he saw the flag waved; he would even have forgotten his colour if a lady who had entered the compartment while he was reading his essay had not looked affronted when he displayed his face. The train loitered about the city in so exasperating a fashion that he began to think it would never get any further than London Bridge; but after about twenty minutes it dragged itself away, and puffed Surreyward with a hundred shrieks. At the shout of "Godstone" he threw the paper down, and made haste to disencumber himself of the bag. A spirit of adventure possessed him as he turned from the cloak-room and strode into the pebbled yard. He did not inquire for Daisymead at once; it was enough that he was here. He saw the receding train glide far along the line, watched the smoke trail across the distance and dissolve. The roar came to him more faintly – was not unpleasant, and was still. His eagerness melted into peace; he crossed the pebbles, and walked along the winding road. The perfume of honeysuckle was blown across his nostrils; the hedges were gemmed with the pink of bachelor's buttons, and the blue of bird's-eye; meadows sloped graciously. It was the country.
His soul gave thanks for that sweet and rare thing, silence. At first he thought it silence. Then as his hearing became attuned to the surroundings, he grew conscious that the air was indeed alive with sound – with a twittering and trilling, with the hum of bees, and the whisper of long grass running in silver wavelets before the wind. It must also be said that he was aware of the buzzing of a fly which accompanied him for nearly half a mile, and kept alighting on his neck.
He picked some wild-flowers that caught his glance, and stuck them in his coat; they were beautiful, and he wondered what they were. Presently he met a band of village children, and inquired the flowers' names. The youngest of the party perhaps was twelve: they stared and did not know. The notes of a storm-cock held him, calling in an elm; again he wondered. A woman came down the road with a basket on her arm, and he spoke to her, and asked, "What bird is that?" She was old and bent, and had lived here all her life: she stared and did not know.
"I've never took no heed o' birds," she answered. It was the country.
He trusted that information would be easier to acquire when he sought the house. A stile suggested a pipe, and, smoking, he noticed a hedge-gap, and found himself at the entrance to a wood. It must be the wood of which he had heard, the wood that she had pictured to him in her letters. He always thought of her as "She"; the formality of "Miss Sorrenford" as impossible in meditation, and he could hardly think of her as "H." She had said that she came here constantly; it might be that she would come while he lingered – it might be that the bushes hid her from him now! In the sadden fancy it appeared to him that the wood was the scene where he desired most fervidly to find her – that it was here that he must first behold her in order to complete the joy. He parted the brambles, and pushed eagerly into the depths.
He pressed into the labyrinth as ardently as if he could hope to speak to her if they met. How dark it was with the sky shut out! The foliage sighed a little overhead; the tangle was so low that often he had to stoop. His feet crushed the litter of dry dead leaves; the branches of the wild-rose clung to his clothes. He attained to light. Solitude engulfed him, and the bracken was as high as his knees; in the cool, moist hush he could hear a twig drop upon the moss. He stood reflecting that it was not a place for a girl to roam in unprotected – the nearest habitation might have been miles away. Near as it was, no scream could reach it, no cry for help was likely to penetrate even to the road. His mind was now less occupied with agreeable visions of discovering her than with solicitude for her safety every day. At this moment he was startled by a stealthy tread.
A rough figure was creeping cautiously between the trees. He did not see David; but for an instant David saw nothing but him, nothing but the cruel eyes, the avid face, the upraised arm. For an instant. In the next, he saw – trusting itself to earth a few yards off – a starling; and the lad stole towards it greedily, the only thought quickened in him by its loveliness, the idea of smashing it with a stone. It was the country.
The bird's plumage gleamed like satin; the little creature was so confident, so fragile, so happy that the hellishness of the thing turned the man's heart sick. He flung his pipe, and the starling flew upward, saved, a second before the stone was hurled. The lad was both aggrieved and contemptuous: viewed as a missile, the pipe argued the man a fool. Then David, who burned to thrash him, explained himself with heat; but the other showed such dull amazement at his indignation, such utter lack of understanding, that wrath gave place to misery in the poet. It even seemed to him, as he moved away, that he had been unjust. A little later in the year cultured men and graceful women would also murder birds for fun. One bird, or another, with a gun, or a stone – ? To the yokel, too, his shame was "sport." The difference in the barbarism was only a difference of class.
David had had enough of the wood. Having recovered his pipe among the ferns, he made his way out, and sauntered back along the high-road. Overtaking a large sack, slung across the shoulder of a small boy, who at close quarters revealed the peaked cap and uniform of a postman, he asked to be directed to Daisymead, and learnt that he had not far to go.
It was a low white house, with stiff white curtains hanging in the windows, and full white roses climbing on the walls. The sight of it disappointed him rather, and it seemed to him to be on the wrong side of the way, though he had never preconceived its situation consciously. A flight of steps led to a white gate and a patch of front-garden wonderfully abloom – a revel of pinks and canterbury-bells, and the velvet of sweetwilliam. He gave a knock, questioning a little how to account for his application, for he saw no card with the familiar London legend, "Furnished Apartments," over the door.
It was opened by a strapping woman, drying her hands on her apron. She was not a peasant – her eyes were alert, her face was mobile; and, though she had grey hair, she bore herself erect. Her gaze widened at him; there was even a tinge of apprehension in it.
"Good morning," he said; "I'm looking for rooms – or for one room if I can't get any more. Have you any to let?"
"Y-e-s," answered the woman, hesitatingly. "Can I see them?"
"Well, I'm not quite sure," she faltered. He understood that it was his appearance that made her doubtful. "I don't know whether – Might I ask 'oo it was that recommended you?"
He pointed airily. "The postman directed me here. I've just come down from town; my luggage is at the station."
"I'm not sure whether my husband 'd care to take in any more people this year. We've got two ladies staying with us already, and If you'll wait a minute I'll see what 'e says about it."
He waited in suspense. She returned after a consultation in the kitchen, her husband with her. Though the man came fully informed of what was wanted, David felt sure that it would be necessary to begin at the beginning again, and in this he wasn't mistaken. The couple stood contemplating him curiously, waiting for him to speak.
"Good morning," he said. "I'm looking for two rooms, or for one room if I can't get any more. Have you any to let?"
"Well, we 'ave got two rooms," admitted the man.
"Can I see them?"
The householder scratched his head. "Well, I don't know," he said slowly. "My wife 'ere she's not quite sure whether she could manage with anybody else this summer. Are you, Emma? There's two ladies staying 'ere now, and it makes a bit o' work for her. Don't it, Emma? You might get a room a bit lower down, very likely. What was it you were wanting?"
"Oh, anything would suit me!" exclaimed David, with an ingratiating smile, and suppressed rage. "I'm not particular at all – only I should have liked to go to a house where I could be sure of being comfortable. Yours looks so pretty, and so clean; it's the only place I've seen round here that I should care to pay much in." He had been struggling to recall their name – trying to see it mentally in one of Bee's letters – and it flashed upon him now. "Cold meat and cleanliness, Mrs. Kemp – It is 'Mrs. Kemp,' I think?" He made her a bow. "Cold meat and cleanliness are worth more than late dinners and – er – " The sentence would not round itself; he forced another smile for climax.
"You might eat off any floor in this 'ouse!" she declared, deciding he was human.
"I'm sure you might," he replied. "In London we don't often see a house like it, I can tell you!"
"You've not been in London long, I suppose?" she said. "You come from abroad, don't you?"
"No, I've lived in London all my life – my business is there. That's why I go to the country when I get a holiday."
"Ah," said Mr. Kemp reflectively, "it's a great place, London – room for all sorts in it!"
"Yes," said David. "What lovely roses you have, Mrs. Kemp, and how sweet the pinks smell! What flowers are those in the corner – the high, purple flowers against the wall?"
"Them?" she said. "Lor! I'm a poor one at flowers. What do you call 'em, John?"
"I dunno," said John.
"Well, I don't wonder you think twice about taking lodgers, but I" – he laughed feebly – "I'm a very honest person; I wouldn't steal so much as a leaf."
There was a pause. They all looked at one another.
"What do you say, John?" she murmured. "We might manage to take the young man in, perhaps, eh?"
"You won't find me any trouble if you do. You'll give me a first-rate character when I leave you!" cried David with geniality that exhausted him.
"About rent," said Mr. Kemp. "What did you think of paying?"
"What do you want?"
The couple exchanged anxious glances. Mr. Kemp breathed heavily.
"Well, we have had as much as a pound for those two rooms, for a lady and three children through the summer," he said.
"Of course," added the woman, "for only one person – "
"Call it a pound!" said David, whipping out his purse. "And I suppose it's fairest to pay in advance. My name is Tremlett. I'll just look round, and then I'll go to the station, and get my bag."
And so it was accomplished. The same roof sheltered him and Her! He smiled now naturally in savouring the fact. His little sitting-room was at the back, overlooking the cabbages and a red, rose-bordered path that led to the hennery and the field. Its old-fashioned shabbiness was not without a charm, and, having yielded consent, Mrs. Kemp adopted a solicitous manner with a strong flavour of wondering compassion in it. She still seemed to him in moments to be marvelling silently that he was able to talk her language. When he came in from the station he found that she had brightened his table with a bowl of poppies and elder-blossom. Gathering the poppies had robbed them of their sprightliness, and they hung shrivelled, like pricked airballs, but the delicacy of the elder-blossom was exquisite, and he liked the tone of what she called the old "crock." Because wild-flowers pleased him less in his coat than anywhere else, he put those that he was wearing into a mug preserved on the mantelshelf. On the front of the mug he saw a view described as "Rickmansworth Church from the East," and on the base he saw the inscription "Made in Germany."
His mind began to misgive him about the sister – perhaps she would prove a dragon, in the way? He half hoped that Mrs. Kemp would let fall some particulars when she brought in his chop. She said nothing to the point, however, nor did he hear any voice about the premises to wake sensations. When his dinner was eaten he went out to the path, and threw eager-glances round the field; but the two chairs under the trees were empty, and there was nobody in sight; so he came back and smoked a pipe on the sofa.